“She didn’t say anything. Now shut up and let me think.” Lorne stepped around Lorena’s coffin, studying its measurements as if it had grown since they brought it into the house. He opened his mouth to speak when the phone rang. Panicked, he lurched into the kitchen before Landon could answer it and yanked it from the wall, leaving a square of peeled paint in its place.
“Hey!” Landon choked on a bite of sandwich.
Lorne tossed the phone into the living room where it landed in the corner with a stale ring. Shrinking away like it was cursed, he dashed into his room. “Pack a bag,” he ordered of his brother.
Landon remained in the kitchen, licking a thin trail of mustard from his fingers, confused with his brother’s sudden change in behavior. “Why? Why’d you do that to the phone? When are we gonna get the money?”
“Will you just shut the hell up and pack a bag?” Lorne was screaming now. “That was her on the phone, you idiot! She found us out! We need to get the hell out of here.”
That was enough to jump start Landon. He dropped the sandwich and flapped open a paper grocery bag and the kitchen cabinet that held his clothes. He managed to stuff three changes of underwear, a pair of jeans and his favorite Rusty Wallace T-shirt inside without tearing the bottom of the bag. Other essentials, like toothbrush and soap, could be replaced along the way to wherever they were going.
Lew emerged from his room with a bulging duffel bag and his hunting rifle. Landon unloaded the refrigerator of their last six-pack and set it next to his makeshift luggage. “What about the girl?” he asked, nodding downward.
“We have to take it with us,” Lorne said soberly. “That’s our ticket out of here.” He slung the duffel over his shoulder and started outside. “I’ll see if the coast’s clear, so we can get it in the truck. Go wrap the tarp back around it.”
Landon instead followed his brother outside and tossed his clothes and the beer in the open passenger window. “Hey, if they found us out, how’re we gonna get the money without getting nicked in the exchange?”
“I’ll think of something, don’t worry about it. Let’s just get out of here.”
Quickly they hoisted the coffin into the back of the truck, securing the tarp and fastening it into the truck bed with rope. Fortunately the coffin was short and there was no need to leave the tailgate down; the only worry would come if a corner of the tarp flew away and exposed the casket’s rusted handles.
“Why’re you wrinkling your nose? You fart?” Lorne scowled at his brother.
“No, it’s that flowery smell again. It’s coming from the coffin.”
“You’re insane.”
Minutes later they were rumbling down the dirt road leading out of their trailer park toward the main road, shifting glances in search of strobe lights. Lorne steered the truck south toward the closest on-ramp to Interstate 95 while Landon fiddled with the radio.
“We going to Jax?” Landon asked.
“Yeah. We’ll call Gary when we get there. Lay low, do the Nugent gig for petty cash, and regroup.”
“Can we go to that Hooters at the Landing for lunch?”
“Why not?” Lorne shrugged. “If we pull this off, I’ll buy the freakin’ Hooters at the Landing.”
Landon folded his arms and stared at the passing scenery. “We should’ve just left her behind,” he said. “If the cops did come, they could just give her back to her family.”
“Oh, right, Lan. The cops find a dead body at our house. Who do you think they’re gonna suspect? Use your head, man!”
“Well,” Landon stammered, “I don’t like taking her with us. Why don’t we just give ‘em the girl back and maybe the family won’t press charges. Hey,” he brightened, “if they ask we’ll give up the guy who hired us to get her in the first place. We’ll get off the hook.”
“Or,” Lorne posed, “we could stick to our original plan. Don’t you want the money?”
“I’d rather keep my freedom.”
Lorne spotted the gas gauge ticking towards empty and leaned into an exit to refill the tank. “If we keep our cool we can have both, alright? Now, go get us some Cokes or something and try not to wig out.” He handed Landon a few crumpled bills and literally pushed him out of the cab as the truck slowed next to the diesel tank of a Shell station.
Landon returned with two large fountain drinks and the morning paper. “We need to get rid of her now,” he seethed once they were on the interstate again.
“What do you mean? Nobody said a thing back there at the gas station.”
“I’m talking about this.” Landon fumbled with the morning paper and folded back a small article explaining that leads still had not been found in Lorena Alger’s disappearance. “It’s been all over the paper this weekend, Lorne. I told you we should have been keeping up with this. Those people in the quick mart were talking about it. It’s only a matter of time before they find us.”
“Nobody is going to find us,” Lorne nearly shouted. “So shut up about it, alright?”
“That ain’t all.” Landon folded the paper the other way to reveal Paul Dix’s lengthy obituary. “That guy’s dead, Lorne.”
“What guy?” Lorne turned away from the road briefly to meet the smiling photo of the deceased cemetery caretaker. Instantly his face fell in horror. “Aw, hell.”
He faced the road again in time to swerve away from the fast approaching back end of a minivan. The coffin jostled in its restraints and Landon grasped the back of the seat for support, watching nervously through the back window as the box rattled and the flimsy tarp flapped loudly in the wind.
“What?” Lorne squealed. “How could that son of a bitch die?”
“I dunno. Paper doesn’t say. Maybe he had a heart attack or something,” Landon muttered.
“Well, thank you very much, Mr. Asshole, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting a heart attack and upping the stakes to murder one.” Lorne bore down on the gas pedal to pass the minivan; suddenly Jacksonville did not seem far enough away anymore.
“Okay.” He tapped Landon on the shoulder to pay attention. “No problem. We’ll just have to alter the plan a bit, is all. For now we’ll just go to Gary’s and hide out.”
“But—”
“I don’t know what we’re going to say about the box, dumbass, but we got an hour to think of something, don’t we? So start thinking.”
He gripped the wheel and stared straight down at the Florida interstate. “Start thinking, Lorne,” he told himself. “Start thinking.”
Chapter Twelve
When the mystery caller hung up and ignored Ronnie’s attempt at Call Return, she hit refresh and dialed Lew’s pager. They agreed to meet for lunch at Loni’s to discuss the latest developments.
She arrived first and ordered a tuna sandwich and iced tea for herself and a Coke for Lew. Loni Humphrey had just set down two paper coasters and the drinks when Lew walked in fanning himself with his hat. “Better get my refill up, too, Loni, while you’re at it,” he called pleasantly. “I need all I can get, it’s a scorcher today.”
“You got it.” Loni winked and disappeared into the kitchen to fix Lew his regular lunch of ham and cheese on natural rye, no tomatoes.
Ronnie handed Lew a list of phone numbers. “The first one is that second call which I got by using Star 69. The second one is my voice mail and password so you can hear the first call. I couldn’t trace it because the other call came in too soon.”
“No problem then,” Lew said. “We’ll just have the phone records pulled for today and have you go over the numbers, though if the first guy was smart he probably used a pay phone.”
Ronnie waited for Loni to set down silverware and leave before speaking again. “I can tell you those other clowns were at home. I heard the television in the background.”
“Probably kids playing a prank,” Lew chuckled. “I’ll get their address and have Dwayne go down there and put the fear of God in them. Meanwhile, I thought you might be interested in a few things
I learned about Paul Dix.”
Ronnie was put off by the sudden shift in Lew’s voice. What he had to say did not sound pleasant. “Oh, no,” she groaned. “Don’t tell me he was fooling around on his wife.”
“Don’t know for sure,” Lew shrugged. “I do know through interviews with Dix’s lodge buddies that he was a no-show at the last few meetings.”
“Why is that so odd? His wife is sick, maybe he skipped a few to take care of her.”
“Not so.” Lew shook his head. “I made a follow-up call to Mrs. Dix to let her know when she could claim her husband’s body, and she said Paul had not missed but one meeting since joining the lodge. That was that really bad winter about five years ago when the roads were closed for the ice.”
Ronnie remembered that winter. She and Jim huddled in a large, ancient quilt and toasted marshmallows over canned heat in the light of a faint flashlight. They had been without power for four days and never felt cozier. It certainly did not feel like a regular Florida winter.
“Ron?”
“Hm?” The memory dissolved instantly, and Ronnie was back at the deli staring into the tuna sandwich plate Loni had just set down before her. “Sorry, I was just thinking...” she began, averting her eyes from Lew’s curious stare, “uh, of some other reason Paul Dix would skip out on his wife. I find it odd nobody from the lodge called Mrs. Dix to check on him.”
Lew shrugged. “Everybody knows she’s sick, maybe they just assumed what you thought. Either that, or Mrs. Dix knew her husband was having an affair and just didn’t want to say anything. Now that he’s dead, maybe she doesn’t want to put him in a bad light for their children’s sake.”
“If that’s the case, Mrs. Dix deserves to be canonized alongside Lorena. Imagine having to put up with that kind of behavior when you’re ill,” Ronnie muttered. She did not want to believe the caretaker whose photos around the Dix home portrayed a grizzled yet kind-faced man perpetually smiling around loving relatives and friends, would be unfaithful to his ailing wife. She did not know the Dixes as well as others did—actually she had not been formally introduced to Mrs. Dix until that fateful day, and she certainly did not want to think ill will of him in death.
“What about this?” Ronnie snapped her fingers. “What if Paul Dix had a second job he didn’t want anyone to know about? They surely needed extra money because he didn’t want her to worry about finances.”
“It’s possible,” Lew mused. “What kind of night job could a cemetery caretaker get in a town that shuts down for the most part at nine? He’d have to commute to Jacksonville, and surely his wife would have caught on at least.”
“There’s a Waffle Hut just off the interstate ten miles from here, and they’re open twenty-four hours.” Ronnie stabbed a forkful of pasta salad. “You don’t need a college degree to flip burgers. Why don’t you check with them?”
“Because it doesn’t make sense to me,” Lew said, slightly irritated. “It doesn’t make sense that Paul Dix would work a second job only one night a week when he was supposed to be carousing with his Elk buddies. It doesn’t make sense that his family is hurting for money yet he owned an expensive watch.”
“He could have had that watch for years, Lew. Why do you keep going back there? You talk as though the watch was a bribe, and Paul Dix was in on the grave robbing.”
When Lew did not answer immediately, Ronnie looked up to clearly see in the sheriff’s eyes that he was thinking just that. “What?” she gasped. “What motive could he possibly have—”
“Money, you said so yourself,” Lew interrupted her. “Maybe the bills were getting too high, and somebody gets the idea of bribing Paul to help him grab Lorena for ransom. Teases him with a fancy watch with the promise to pay off his wife’s medical bills.”
“Instead, for his trouble, Dix gets a shovel to the noggin so he won’t squeal later in a fit of guilt,” Ronnie finished the thought before finishing her sandwich. She caught Lew eyeing the untouched pickle spear on her plate and gestured for him to have at it. “That is what killed him, right?”
“Pretty much. Two blows to the skull, though the coroner reports Dix probably suffocated in the empty grave when he fell in, or was tossed in, we’re still not sure.” Lew tapped his fist lightly on the table in a restrained gesture. “That just pisses me off to think he could have survived the attack and was left for dead.”
Ronnie nodded in understanding. “A seriously injured witness is more valuable than a dead victim, huh?” She paused. “Hold on now, maybe whoever hit him didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Lew angrily slammed down his now empty glass. Loni lingered behind the counter with his refill, apparently waiting for him to calm down before delivering it. “The man’s dead, who cares what the killer’s intent was? Those intentions won’t keep the killer out of prison for rest of his life. Whoever did this should be lucky he hasn’t been caught yet. When I get my hands on him he’ll be wishing he was sent straight to the chair instead.”
Ronnie held her head in her hands. Yes, that was fortunate for the killer. Of course, were the killer to be sentenced to death Ronnie was certain Nana Julie and Father Joel would petition for clemency. No doubt they would charter a bus to Starke to picket in front of “Ol’ Sparky.” The Pope himself probably would lobby for a life sentence as well.
Lew rose and held up Ronnie’s yellow Post-It note. “That the killer would think to leave a ransom message afterward is absurd. If we’re lucky and he’s not too bright, maybe we can get the trace down from your number—”
“Maybe the killer doesn’t realize Paul Dix is dead,” Ronnie called after him to no avail. For all they knew, the killer took Lorena, left the state with her, and had not kept up with the news.
Idly she stirred the melting ice in her glass, mulling over this theory, finally shaking her head. Couldn’t happen, she thought. Surely the perpetrator had to be keeping track of what was happening here. Thanks to Chet Hoskins’s crack reporting, news of Lorena’s disappearance was likely already circulating the national wires and the Internet. She made a mental note to check the next time she fired up her connection.
Lunch was cleared away when Lew returned to the deli and grabbed hold of his refill. “I called the phone company but I didn’t get to your voice mail because you have a new message waiting for you.”
“Probably Gina wanting to know what’s going on,” Ronnie said as she fished in her purse for her cell phone. She dialed her number and password and handed the phone to Lew during the ransom message. She took the phone back in time to hear the second message in its entirety, a plea from Nana to call back so they could discuss setting up a reward fund for Lorena’s safe return.
“Is the church going to cover that?” Lew asked as she hung up the phone. “I thought the canonization committee was barely making ends meet as it was with all their expenses.”
“Knowing my grandmother, this will be coming out of her pocket,” Ronnie said, her attention diverted only for a few seconds as her gaze followed a slice of French silk pie from the counter to another customer’s table. Loni made all desserts from scratch, using enough butter and cream to stop an elephant’s heart, and Ronnie could feel her teeth dissolving in her mouth just watching the customer eat.
“My grandfather often spoke highly of his family, and even though he was only distantly related to a would-be saint he always felt blessed, so Nana tells us,” she continued. “I imagine it’s a matter of personal pride, this reward. She’d rather have Lorena resting peacefully in her grave more than anything, more so than the canonization. I mean, imagine if somebody exhumed your dead mother and held her for ransom. You’d want her back, even if no more harm could come to her.”
Lew nodded. “For one, my mother’s still alive. You know that.” He cracked a smile as Ronnie blushed. “Second, your grandmother should know pride is a deadly sin.”
“So is murder, and greed.”
“No, I got this.” Lew waved Ronnie to put away her share o
f the bill. He laid a ten-dollar bill underneath his glass and stood. “It’s very generous what Miss Julie wants to do, but she may be setting herself up for more headaches, not to mention a whole lot of crank calls.”
Ronnie had considered that. Those same kids who bothered her earlier this morning would probably have Nana’s number on speed dial if she posted a reward notice, she figured.
“You headed back to work, Ron?”
“Yeah.” Ronnie waved goodbye to Loni and one other diner she recognized and joined Lew outside. The early afternoon sun bore down upon them, working overtime to make up for the drizzling, gray winter Ash Lake endured six months prior. Ronnie automatically slipped on her sunglasses and scanned the breadth of the town’s heart—across the street she noticed the remnants of yellow crime tape wrapped around the cemetery gates, flapping upward in a slight breeze.
Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial) Page 10