Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial)

by Leigh Ellwood

  “Relax, it’s all taken care of.” Lew nodded to her tense grip, which loosened slightly. “Dwayne and Chuck are on watch tonight, and they know what to do. If they happen to catch our boys, I figure I’ll let them stew overnight in the holding cell. They may be more willing to talk.”

  The cruiser took a sharp turn at the Adams Street exit and Ronnie jerked to the left, wincing as her right armpit caught the full impact of her grip. “Watch it!”

  Lew laughed. “I said to relax. Maybe if you’d let go it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  “If I had let go I’d have fallen right into your lap.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  Lew looked right at her, as if expecting an answer. Instead, a surprised Ronnie faced the road ahead of them, let go of the handle, and intertwined her fingers on her lap. The rest of the ride through downtown Jacksonville in search of a parking space was deathly quiet.

  ~ * ~

  “Isn’t that cute? Doesn’t seem like a very popular opinion to hold around here, huh?”

  Lew pointed at a strip of protesters lining the sidewalk across the street from the Florida Theater. Lew and Ronnie waited admittance with a motley collection of Ted Nugent fans. They read aloud to each other the activists’ signs and placards, all of which decried the singer’s pro-hunting and pro-gun ownership views.

  “I wonder how many of them traveled to picket the show,” Ronnie pondered aloud. A fan in passing overheard and loudly suggested collecting funds for bus tickets back to wherever they came.

  “I dunno, they could be local, though I must admit I have never met a vegetarian,” Lew said, then scratched his chin in deep thought. “Of course, I suppose Miss Julie counts, during Lent anyway.”

  The main doors opened to receive the influx of concertgoers. Ronnie shuffled along behind a large bearded man in a black T-shirt, Lew in tow, and was almost to the door to surrender her ticket when a rogue protester broke the ranks to approach the venue.

  “You realize those tickets were paid for with a defenseless animal’s blood?” hollered the thin, blond woman to nobody in particular, though Ronnie sensed the girls’ eyes burning into her.

  “Actually, I paid cash,” smarted off a man behind Lew.

  Ronnie did not miss a beat either. “What’s your stance on abortion?”

  “What?” The girl flustered slightly.

  “What is your stance on abortion?” Ronnie sounded out each word as if addressing a child.

  The girl recovered with a noble shake of the head. “Well, I believe a woman has the right to choose what happens to her body, but that’s not—”

  “I see,” Ronnie interrupted. “So it’s not okay for a man to feed a chicken to his family to ensure their survival, but it’s okay for a woman to murder her unborn child for the sake of choice?”

  The line to enter stilled suddenly and voices faded into silence. All eyes were on Ronnie and the girl.

  “Well,” the girl faltered, taking a step backward, “it’s not really a baby until it’s born.”

  Ronnie smiled. Oh, if only Gina were here. “An egg isn’t really a chicken until it’s hatched, either, but I bet if I were to crack one right here on the sidewalk you and your bean-eating friends would have a collective fit, wouldn’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, Ronnie surrendered her ticket to the doorman and marched inside to applause.

  Lew rejoined her by a T-shirt kiosk and clapped her on the back. “That was rather impressive.”

  Ronnie said nothing at first, but instead admired the rather expensive selection of concert T-shirts and other memorabilia for sale. Confrontations were not new to her; she had spent much of her life defending and explaining her faith. As far as issues of animal rights were concerned she was noncommittal. If a person wanted to go veggie, Ronnie was not bothered by it. Now she wondered if perhaps she should consider cutting down on burgers and Philly cheesesteaks in order to preserve the cow population and her waistline. To respect life meant all life, did it not?

  Finally she turned to Lew and smiled. “I could use a beer. There’s no meat in beer, right?”

  ~ * ~

  The concert was, as Ronnie had expected, unapologetically loud and unapologetically Ted. She and Lew remained in their seats after the final chord of the encore dissolved into the piercing feedback ringing in their ears. The house lights illuminated shortly afterward. “Let’s let the crowd thin out a bit,” Lew hollered.

  “What?” Ronnie shouted back over the din of retreating Nugent fans, then broke into a wide grin to show Lew she was kidding him.

  Concertgoers several rows ahead of them chorused their approval of the show as they flooded the aisles on the way to the various exits. Ronnie propped up her feet on the seat ahead of her and watched with fascination as the stagehands descended upon the stage to break down the setup and pack the lighting and instruments in large black cases. The sooner the boxes were loaded into their respective trucks, the sooner everybody could turn in for the night until the next show, she guessed, thankful her own job did not require heavy lifting.

  Her head fell to one side and she watched Lew watch the action onstage. Hell, she thought, no sense in prolonging the suspense. “Is this a date?” she asked.

  Lew’s eyes met her in a sideways glance. “What?”

  “I think the feedback’s died down now, Lew. You don’t have to shout.”

  “I wasn’t shouting,” he insisted as he shifted his body to face her better. “You just caught me off guard is all. What makes you think you’re on a date?”

  “You bought the ticket, you picked me up...” Ronnie’s voice trailed away into uncertainty, and she felt suddenly uncomfortable under Lew’s bemused stare. What if Gina was wrong, what if the outing was nothing more than a night for two friends to take in a concert? Surely she would feel like an idiot for reading more into Lew’s generous gesture of a free ticket.

  Then again, Ronnie thought, what if Lew thought this was a date? Would he be embarrassed by her cavalier attitude? Would the ride home be even more strained?

  “Well, you didn’t offer to drive,” was Lew’s retort. “I’d have been more than happy to have you do so. Save my gas for another day.”

  Ronnie nudged him playfully. “Oh, you can always fill up later and expense it.”

  “Yeah, I could—” Lew stopped suddenly as his gaze swept the stage again, his brow creasing into a frown.

  Ronnie searched for whatever it was that had Lew’s attention. “What? What is it?” If there was anything suspicious about the way the stage was being dismantled, Ronnie could not see it.

  “Take a look at that pair by the drums.” Lew nodded toward the stage, and Ronnie followed his gaze to two young men on the highest riser carefully placing the drums in their proper cylindrical cases. She saw nothing unusual in the way they worked; they looked like typical roadies in torn blue jeans and sleeveless T-shirts. Baseball caps covered their hair and blocked bands of sweat from trickling down their foreheads.

  “Look closer,” Lew urged. “Wait for them to stand straight so we can see their faces better.”

  “Okay.”

  Eventually one of the lanky roadies arched his back and removed his cap to wipe away the evidence of his handiwork. Ronnie felt the air catch in her throat. “You don’t think?”

  “I think.” Lew stood and reached into his back pocket for his badge. “What say we beg the pardon of that officer standing guard over there,” he added, stepping over Ronnie to the aisle. Ronnie followed him to the left corner of the stage.

  Officer Larry Murphy listened to Lew’s explanation and nodded. “Yeah, we were told to keep an eye out for them,” he said. “Hang on a sec.” The young man turned away to speak into his erupting two-way radio.

  Ronnie leaned forward slightly to decipher the words scratching through the receiver. Instead the officer satisfied her curiosity by opening the access door and inviting Lew backstage. She moved to follow but was halted by a stern look from Officer Murphy.
r />   “She’s with me,” Lew assured him. “It’s her relative who’s in the coffin.”

  “Oh.” The reaction on the cop’s face was a mixture of interest and disbelief. “I see. You’ll probably need to identify her then.”

  “Yes.” Ronnie kept her mouth a straight line, tempted to ask the officer how many other reports of missing 150-year-old corpses had been reported in Florida.

  “You don’t need to worry about Mrs. Lord,” Lew added. “She’s aware of the situation and won’t be a distraction.”

  Officer Murphy gave her a look that implied she was very much a distraction as it was standing still and saying nothing. However, he allowed her to pass, and Ronnie quick-stepped into the backstage area. She followed a few paces behind Lew and Murphy as they marched down a dim corridor to a large open area where the packed stage equipment and instruments were being loaded into a large moving van. The three scanned the activity before them but saw no sign of Landon or Lorne Dennis.

  “There.” Lew pointed suddenly at the van’s back door, where Landon Dennis’s head poked outside to guide the other roadies in carrying a large black box up a wooden ramp. He nodded to the officer, who muttered something to his fellow officers that Ronnie could not hear. She remained at the mouth of the stage surrounded by packed remains of the stage setup as several cops surrounded the truck and approached the two men lurking inside.

  ~ * ~

  “Aw, hell.”

  Landon looked up from securing a stack of boxes against the left wall of the truck to see the reason for his brother’s cursing. Four uniforms approached at different angles, serious and purposeful, accompanied by one man in jeans and a black T-shirt whom he recognized from back home. How he knew him he could not quite figure out.

  “It’s Sheriff Caperton, you dumbass!” Lorne hissed in his brother’s ear. The two quickly turned their backs to the approaching fleet and huddled as far as they could go in the van.

  “Man, we are toast! If they find the truck, we are so screwed.”

  Landon shook his head. “I think we’ll be okay. Just stay cool.”

  “Stay cool? How the hell can I stay cool with these pigs charging us?” Lorne panicked. He kept his eyes glued to the van wall, as if choosing not to see the police would negate their existence. “This ain’t like the other jobs we pulled. They gotta know we tried to ransom the body, why else would they be here. They’ll pin that guy’s death on us, too!”

  “They can’t pin anything on us if we don’t have the body, Lorne.”

  Before Lorne could ask what Landon was talking about a booming voice called out for him. “Which one of you is Lorne Dennis?”

  There were three other roadies congregated around the truck. All activity ceased and one of them looked directly at Lorne, who cursed under his breath at being silently identified.

  Officer Murphy leaned against the open entranceway of the truck. “Lorne Dennis?”

  Lorne reluctantly nodded and stepped out of the truck, looking back to see his brother’s calm expression. Encouraged, he smiled. “Something wrong?”

  “We were wondering if we could take a look at your pickup truck. That is your ‘93 Dodge diesel out there on the curb, right?” He nodded toward the open service doors in the back of the venue, where a large tour bus idled along the curb with other vehicles.

  “It is,” Lorne said. “If it’s parked illegally I can move it.”

  Lew stepped forward and flashed his badge. “Sheriff Caperton, Ash Lake Police,” he introduced himself. “We have a witness who puts a truck matching that description at the scene of a crime. With your permission, we just want to have a look. If we don’t find what we’re looking for, you’re free to go about your business.”

  Lorne opened his mouth to speak but Landon got in his words first. “Go ahead, it’s partly my truck, too. We’ve been here all day and it hasn’t moved much.”

  The officers and Lew thanked Landon and drifted toward the outside. Lorne waited until they were well out of earshot before charging back into the van and punching Landon’s shoulder.

  “Why the hell don’t you sign our death warrants while you’re at it?”

  “She’s not in the truck, that’s what I was trying to tell you earlier,” Landon said calmly. “I had her moved.”

  “Moved?” Lorne felt the floor of the truck wobble underfoot as another load was pushed inside. They hopped out and let the other roadies finish the work. “Where?”

  They loped toward the service entrance and watched the police inspect the bed of the truck. Landon had not bothered to surrender the keys as he was certain there was no interest in the garbage filling up the cab. “When you were in the bathroom I had one of the guys help me move it to a safe place. Told him it was surplus equipment they didn’t need.”

  “In a coffin?”

  Landon shrugged. “I told him it was a prop for the show, like the kind Alice Cooper uses.”

  “Well, you might have saved our asses by doing that, but you still should have kept your mouth shut,” Lorne told him. “We should have at least waited for the police to get a warrant or something. Anyway, Caperton’s got to be out of his district, right?”

  “I don’t care anymore, Lorne,” Landon exploded. “I just want this to be over with. As far as I’m concerned, that girl is nothing but trouble, and God ain’t gonna rest until she’s back where she belongs. I ain’t going to Hell because of her, either.” With that he stalked back into the theater, telling his brother that an anonymous phone call would alert the police to the coffin’s whereabouts. “Forget about the money, too. I don’t want it anymore.”

  Lorne watched a police officer point to a patch of mud clumped in one corner of the truck’s bed. “Brother, if we go to Hell, it ain’t gonna be because of that dead girl.”

  ~ * ~

  Ronnie passed Landon Dennis heading toward the police and caught a glimpse of his long, gaunt face and sulking brow. Jeanette was right, she thought, the boy was handsome in a backwards kind of way. He did not acknowledge her as he returned to work, nor did Ronnie expect him to do so. She fought the urge to confront him as she did not want to scare him away, yet she wondered how he would react were she to casually call out to him and ask why he never picked up the phone when she called back after their failed extortion attempt.

  Lew met her at the tailgate. “We got some soil samples from the bed,” he said. “We’ll see if we can’t match them to the dirt in the cemetery. If they had her, she’s not here now.”

  “You will bring them in for questioning, though,” Ronnie said. It was not a question. “Get them before they disappear again.”

  Lew gestured to Officer Murphy, who was talking to a worried Lorne and guiding him to a police cruiser. “No doubt. What was all that noise back there?”

  “Oh, Ted came out of the dressing room and was signing autographs.” Ronnie craned her neck back to the theater then turned to the tour bus waiting nearby. “I think he’s on the bus now.”

  Ronnie stepped closer to the bus, admiring the airbrushed mountain and wildlife scenery decorating one side. She bent down slightly and gaped at all that luggage crammed into storage.

  “Man, Ted sure doesn’t travel light, eh?”

  Two men came along to shut the luggage compartment doors, and as the back one slammed down Ronnie felt a gasp catch in her throat. Sandwiched in between instrument cases and suitcases she caught a glimpse of mud-crusted wood.

  “Lew!”

  She turned around; Lew was gone. Frantically she scanned the back parking lot but did not see him, so she rushed back inside the theater. After weaving past a number of equipment-laden roadies and theater staff coming in the opposite direction, she found Lew conversing with some of the officers he knew personally. Lew caught her eye and his face fell slack.

  “I found her,” Ronnie gasped for breath, pointing outside. “I found her.”

  Lew did not wait for Ronnie to elaborate, and together they hurried outside to find a wide slab of concrete dar
kened by a large oil stain. Faded tread marks curving toward Main Street were the only other indication that a tour bus had been parked there.

  “What? What happened?” Ronnie grabbed the first person who brushed past, a gangly youth with long blond hair and a prominent overbite. “Where’s the bus? It was just here, how could it have taken off so quickly?” she demanded.

  Ronnie’s answer was a combination grunt and shrug. Frustrated, she released her grip on the boy’s shirt and stared helplessly out into the night, wondering where in Jacksonville was the tour bus which carried a rock star and the body of Blessed Lorena Alger.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Seeing as how nothing constructive could be done until the state police tracked down the tour bus, Lew suggested a bite to eat. He bundled Ron back into his car and started back on the interstate toward Ash Lake.