by Rose, Kristi
“Where’s the money, Sean?” Shannon tapped the tip of the bat on the gravel.
His tarp deflated and fell, crumbled on the truck bed. “Uh, what money?” He shifted uncomfortably.
Shannon picked up the bat and walked toward the front of his truck. “This is a pretty new vehicle. You know my minivan needs brakes.” She tapped the bat to his front driver’s headlight.
I moved to the side of the truck, staying between them. “Listen, you two, I bet we can come to some sort of agreement without breaking anything.”
“After I bust up your truck, I’m gonna crack open your head like a watermelon,” Shannon said and did a couple practice swings toward the truck.
“Don’t be crazy,” Sean said. He had a hand out, as if that would stop her.
“Me? You don’t want me to be crazy? You’re about to blow out of town with two million dollars and leave me here with our debt. Never mind your children. What about them? Don’t you care about them?” Shannon was clearly disgusted. “You know what? Never mind. You deserve everything this bat has to dish out.” She stepped back and took a high swing position and came in fast, smashing one headlight in a deafening sound of crumbling glass and plastic.
“Jesus, Shannon, stop!” Sean screamed and ran to stand between her and the truck. “It’s brand new!”
Shannon stared at him with a crazy-eyed look that scared me. I flipped the switch on my stun gun to turn it on and kept my finger there ready to unleash volts.
“It’ll be a piece of shit just like you when I get done.” She raised the bat, and Sean bum-rushed her.
They slammed to the ground with a grunt and swear words, rolling and clubbing at each other. I dashed in, trying to decide who to send electricity through. Maybe both.
“There has to be a better solution,” I yelled down at both of them. Leo’s cruiser pulled into the area. “Cops are here,” I shouted, hoping they’d come to their senses.
Using the bat, Shannon bonked Sean in the head with a loud clunk.
“Ow,” he screamed.
“You’re an awful turd of a man,” Shannon hollered and tried to bean him again. An opening presented itself. Sean had rolled away, giving Shannon a moment to collect herself and raise the bat for a good hard swing.
I jumped in between and blocked him with my body. “Stop!” I said and sparked up the stun gun. It emitted a loud crack, much like lightning does when it strikes. “Or I’ll take you down. This has gone on long enough.”
Shannon tossed the bat from hand to hand. “Get out of my way, Sam. I’m going to end this today.”
I tried to reason with her. “Shannon, take a moment to think about what you’re doing.”
“He’s going to leave me high and dry. Well, I’m tired of being a doormat. Get out my way. You work for me. You have to do what I say.”
I shook my head. “Not when you’re going to do something crazy.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Sean said behind me. “I appreciate you going to bat for me. No pun intended.”
I spun on him. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Shannon.”
“Come on, though. You kinda understand where I’m coming from, don’t you? If you had a sudden windfall of money, wouldn’t you split town and leave your husband’s creditors high and dry?” He gave me a pleading look, but there was something behind it that showed his insincerity.
“Actually, I don’t understand. And in fact, this is how I feel about it.” I put the stun gun to his gut and pressed the button. Nine million volts ran through him, and he dropped to the ground like the bag of dirt he was.
27
Wednesday
Leo came to stand next to me. My hand trembled, my thumb still on the trigger.
“Did you have to stun him?” Leo asked.
I did a one-shoulder shrug. “Goofy loop. All I could think about was making him shut up. I couldn’t break the cycle of thoughts. That’s my defense.”
Leo chuckled. “That’s not exactly how goofy loop works, not that you need a defense. What you did instantly defused the situation. Maybe not how I would have done it, but it works.”
“Would you have pistol-whipped him?” I asked. “Because next time I’ll wait for that.”
Leo gave me an odd look. “That knock on the head has made you bloodthirsty.”
“Being a victim did that,” I said and clicked off the stun gun. Sean was twitching on the ground, coming around.
“You’ll make a good PI,” Leo said.
I startled, looking up at him, mouth agape. “Huh?”
“What?” he said, feigning confusion, then pointed to Shannon. “Put the bat down, Shannon.” There was no way I was going to get that compliment again.
“Is he dead?” she asked. “Or at the very least, did he wet himself?”
“She tried to kill him,” Orville yelled and pointed to Shannon. “And then she electrocuted him.” He pointed to me.
“He’s fine. He’s just had some sense knocked into him.” Leo told Orville then turned to Shannon. “Now, you want to tell me what’s going on here?” Leo stepped forward and took the bat from her hands. The story spilled from Shannon with some small interjections from me for clarity. Sean roused and struggled to sit up. I offered him a hand. He looked at it warily, so I waved Orville over to help his friend up.
After Shannon was done, Leo gestured to Sean. “Now your turn.”
When he’d finished interviewing everyone, Leo stuck his thumbs over his service belt and sighed heavily. “What we have here is a domestic dispute and, typically, I arrest someone.”
Shannon started to cry. “I have two kids at after-school care I have to pick up.”
“You should have thought of that before you came out here to attack me,” Sean said with contempt.
“You should have thought about that just once, and maybe I wouldn’t have come out here,” she retorted and lunged for the bat.
Leo moved it out of her way, and I moved closer to her. Leo held up a hand. “You both have a choice. How are we going to solve this without me taking someone to jail? If I take someone to jail, then I have to fill out paperwork. Sam has to fill out paperwork. Orville has to fill out paperwork. You both have to—”
“We get it,” Shannon said. “Because I’m the bigger person here—”
Sean snorted. I made my stun gun crackle, and he shut right up.
“As I was saying, I’ll be the adult. Sean doesn’t want me or the kids. That’s clear. All I want is some of the money. Enough to set us up a little so we don’t have to struggle so much.” Her lower lip quivered. “That’s not a lot to ask for. My son is really good with soccer, and I’d like to be able to keep him in that.”
Sean nodded. “He is really good,” he mumbled quietly.
A tear fell down Shannon’s face. “If Sean were to give us some of the money, then I’d happily do the paperwork to get a divorce. All he’ll have to do is sign the papers.”
Sean gave us a disgusted look. “There isn’t any more money. I spent every dime.”
Shannon gasped. “You spent two-million dollars?”
His body shifted so he could turn his back to her. “I had to pay taxes, you know,” he mumbled.
My gut said he was lying. No, it fairly screamed it at me. Sean was the epitome of stingy. Not even providing for his kids. I found it hard to believe he’d spent it all. A lot of it? Yes. But not all.
“What did you spend it on? Has to be more than this truck.” I stood over him and showed him my stun gun.
“Well, I have a gambling problem, you know. So I lost a lot of it back to the casino.” His attention was on the ground.
He was lying. Lisa said he hadn’t been in the casino since he won.
“And The Chief has a card room so…”
“So you dumped how much into cards? One thousand? Ten thousand?” I asked, incredulous.
He scoffed. “Don’t be stupid. Of course not.” His eyes widened at his mistake. Sean hadn’t gambled the money away.
I shook my head in disbelief. A car pulled into the drive leading to the cabins, and Lisa Harper got out. Precious and I made eye contact, an unspoken message passing between us. She waylaid Lisa.
Then it hit me. Lisa had said she’d hook up with a married man if she loved him. Lisa with her tan. Sean’s talk about fishing boats. “She’s hooked you up with doing fishing excursions, hasn’t she? New truck, big enough to tow a large boat. Leaving town. It adds up.”
Sean flushed. “Yeah, so what if she did? I’m out of this stupid town and away from my nagging wife and demanding father. Orville and I are going to live large in the sun, drinking beer, and taking dumb tourists out to catch giant fish.” He raised his voice and directed his next words to Shannon. “And that’s why there’s no more money left.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said. “Have you forgotten how seasick you got when we went on that whale watching excursion? I hope you barf your brains out every single stinking day.” She waved her hand dismissively and said to Leo, “I’m done with him. Can I go?”
He held up one finger. “Sean, I’m going to escort you and Orville out of town, right to the Oregon border. And then I’m going to have another cop friend escort you to the next district and so on until you and Orville are states away. You want out of here, let us show you the door. You leave now or you go to jail.”
Sean climbed to his feet, dusting off his seat. “Okay, but I gotta go into town first.”
Leo stood firm. “Nope, you leave now or you go to jail. It might take me some time to figure out how I want to charge you, so you’ll sit in jail long enough for Shannon to go tell your pops what you’re up to.”
Sean kicked the rocks before looking from Lisa to Orville then back at Leo. “Come on, man. We played ball together in high school. Don’t bring my dad into this. You know what a tyrant he is.”
Leo gave a gallant shrug. “That would mean something if you were trying to do the right thing. Make your choice.” He tapped his watch.
Sean huffed and sighed, but no one capitulated. We waited him out.
He faced Orville. “We packed up in there?”
Orville nodded. “Only our bags are left.”
Sean waved at him in annoyance. “Well, bring ’em out. I guess we’re leaving town now.” Orville shuffled into the cabin and came out seconds later with two large duffle bags.
Sean said to Leo, “I really need to swing by downtown.”
“For what?”
Sean hemmed and hawed, then said. “Well, to go to the bank.”
Leo wasn’t buying it. “You have a debit card?” When Sean nodded, he said, “Then use it when you get to where you’re going. You fellas ready? Load up. Let’s go.” He pointed a finger at Sean. “If you so much as pull any kind of funny business, I will shoot out your tires and arrest you on the spot. Your broken headlight gives me cause. You understand me?”
Sean nodded. He took the long way around the truck, passing in front of Shannon, who was by the passenger side. He stopped to tie down the tarp, but before he moved around the tail end of the truck, he said something to her in a lowered voice and ended it by shooting her the bird.
She lunged at him, but Leo was quick to intercept her. “Why don’t you three get out of here. Tell his friend there that she should scram, too, unless she wants to be pulled into this mess and possibly arrested.” He said the last part so Lisa could hear it. She said something to Precious then got into her car and backed out. I escorted Shannon to Precious’s SUV and helped her into the back seat. I slid in next to her, unwilling to leave her in the back by herself.
“Hey,” I said. “I know you’re in shock, but do you have another account that he can’t access that you can move your money into?”
Shannon was momentarily puzzled, then realization dawned. “You think he’ll take from our joint account?”
“Totally,” Precious said, climbing into the front seat. “He doesn’t care about taking care of you or the kids.”
Shannon pulled out her phone and worked her banking apps. “You know what’s odd. He kept saying he needed to go downtown, but we don’t bank at the one downtown.”
Precious said, “Maybe he opened an account down there.”
“He wouldn’t know how to do it,” she said bitterly.
I asked, “What did he say to you before he flipped you off?”
Shannon scoffed. “He said that there’s still some money left, but he’ll never give it to me and I’ll never find it. He’s a piece of crap and a liar. How could he spend all that money?” She gave a bitter laugh. “Though if anyone could, it would be Sean.”
My brain was stuck, trying to catch a thread of something. A point I was missing. As we drove in front of The Chief where Graycloud was outside working on his planters, it struck me.
“What if he does still have some? What if he hid it?” I asked.
Shannon rolled her eyes. “He would totally hide it. He’s so afraid of people trying to steal from him. Ironic, right?”
“Precious, drive to downtown Wind River. To Riverfront Park.” That’s where I’d seen Sean redoing the pot. “What we have to do would be better done at night, but who cares? We can ask for forgiveness later,” I said more to myself.
I explained to them my theory. When we got downtown, I loped across the street to the hardware store and bought two buckets. All this activity was making my body ache.
At the park, there were a few moms with little kids around, but we ignored them and proceeded with our plan.
“Look,” I said pointing to the two larger pot. “Doesn’t it stick out like a middle finger?”
“Sean’s favorite form of communication,” Shannon said. “We have to make this fast. I have to get the kids from after-school care.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks. “What will I tell them about their dad?”
Both Precious and I were at a loss for words. “Maybe your parents can help. Or his parents,” I offered finally.
We took the plants from the pot and placed them gently in the bucket in the same arrangement they’d been in the pot. Then we dumped the dirt into the other bucket. Sure enough, at the bottom of the pot was a large dark cloth, much like cheesecloth, sitting on a pile of rocks.
Shannon pointed to it. “That’s nothing. That’s just a barrier,” she said with disappointment.
The cloth was wrapped around something small, shoebox-sized. Because it was wedged between more dirt and rocks, I tore open the cloth. I spread the gap wide, and the three of us gasp.
Wrapped in plastic were packages of hundred-dollar bills. I pointed to one. “This is called a brick. It’s my understanding that one of these is a hundred grand.” I took pictures of the money and the people in the park as some sort of proof.
“How many are in there?” Shannon asked in awe.
“Looks like three,” I said and opened the purse on her shoulder. I put the bricks in her bag.
Shannon sat on the wall in shock while Precious and I repotted all the plants to the best of our ability.
“How do I deposit it?” Shannon asked, still stunned.
“I’ll help you get a paper trail so you can show it’s legit,” I said, thinking I was going to owe Toby even more money after he helped me figure out how to do what I just promised.
We repeated our actions with the second planter and found two more bricks.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you home so you can put that somewhere safe.”
She stood and faced me, tears running down her face. “Thank you, Sam. Thank you so very very much. You have saved my life.”
I hugged her. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I’m glad I could help.”
Precious was right. A win did go a long way to making me feel good.
28
Thursday
A plan was a good thing to have. I really should get one.
My body was desperate for a rest, and I a firm plan of action, but time didn’t seem to be on my side. I had the advantage of knowing the s
ecret account, but for how long?
To add to the time pressure was Marni’s case. I had nothing solid on Lason, and she’d been putting him off for nearly two weeks.
I was working again today and hoped Lason would be on the schedule. Too bad there was no gadget to detect bad men, including the con, the wimp, the liar, the momma’s boy, the couch potato, the player, and the cheapskate. To name a few. I was half tempted to just flat-out ask him.
While dressing, I was struck with the simple fact that there was no way I could fully tease out Lason’s intentions. Only he knew those. At some point, Marni would have to take a chance or not. I could, however, give her as much info as possible.
A PI’s job wasn’t always so black and white as I originally thought. The job was more than snooping into people’s business. It was answering hard questions and making even harder decisions. But whatever I discovered or uncovered had enough weight to it that my client would have to carry it with them always.
Just as I would carry Carson’s choices and actions. I pondered what Toby had told me about deep web searches into Lockett. A trip to Seattle was inevitable. My gut told me this trip would provide the answers I sought.
But decision-making was on hold until I had what was in the account at Key Financial. One goal per day was my limit. Okay, maybe two for today, but that was max.
My shift at Ralph’s started at noon, and even though dressing casual for the job was allowed, I wore a black flowy knee-length skirt with cropped leggings underneath and a white peasant shirt with pink and light green threads running through it. I kept my shoes simple and chose ballet flats. I blew out my hair to come toward my face, mostly to hide the ugly purple bruises on my temple. Nothing, not even good concealer, could hide the ring of black under my eye. Outside, it was currently overcast but sun was predicted. Until then, the weather would be cooler so I grabbed a gray cardigan. I’d reverted back to using my old backpack since Leo had Carson’s and the fake was with Mad Dog.