by Alexie Aaron
"You go with him?”
"Nope, band practice."
"And then..." he led.
"Home." I looked closely at him as I handed him the buttered toast.
"You got another home in Palm Beach?" he asked before taking a bite.
"You had me followed?"
"Yep."
"So how long have you been following me?"
"Since I heard your old man left town. And we both know how much trouble you can get into while the ex is away."
I didn't say anything because he was, well, right.
"Are you going to tell me what you were doing in Palm Beach?"
"Nope."
"I'm not leaving till you do."
"You’re going to have to pay rent if you stay. You'll have to share a bath with Harry, and he’s a neat freak."
"I'm not a freak, just particular," Harry said, coming down the hall into the kitchen. "Hey, what's up, Buslowski?" he asked patting his back. Harry winked at me, telling me he would handle this.
"Just asking questions,” he turned around to look at Harry. “Do you know why Cin was in Palm Beach last night?"
Harry's eyes opened wide. "No." He looked over at me. "I thought you had band practice?"
"I was at practice."
"How'd it go?"
"C minus on my part."
"Mind wasn't in it?"
"Yes and..."
"Will you two just shut up!" Buslowski stood up. "I know you went to the Williams's condo. The same Williams you and Harry found at the sugar mill."
Harry squinted his eyes at me accusingly.
"I was paying my respects."
"At ten a night?" Buslowski spat out.
"I had band practice." I threw up my hands and cleared up the counter. "Harry, you better get a move on, we’re leaving in, oh, about twenty minutes," I said, looking at the clock. Harry left, leaving us with another phlegmy aria.
"Where are you going?" Buslowski asked pouring himself another cup of coffee.
"Jump school."
"You?" His face broke into a smile, and he started to laugh.
"Nope, Harry and a friend of ours. I'm just going along for the ride."
"Can I come too?"
Oh great, I’m sure Buslowski was going to stick out like a sore thumb. He had all but a neon sign over his head flashing, I'm a cop! "Nope."
"Why not?"
"Because I want to have a fun, peaceful day without guns and suspicions."
"Make you a deal. You tell me why you were in Palm Beach last night, and I will go away," he said as he put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes.
"I returned the diamonds." I met his eyes.
"All of them?" His gaze intensified.
"All the diamonds," my voice cracked.
"You kept something?" He lowered his hands and stepped back.
"How do you do it? I mean, how can you tell if I'm lying?" I dug in my pocket and pulled out the cat's eye and dropped it in his palm.
"Good choice. Me, I would have gone for the steely." He rolled it around. "I also know that you may be going to the jump school, but it's not just to see old Harry pee himself. But I get the idea that me being there isn't a good idea."
"And so..."
"So, I guess I'll head home and cut the lawn." He drained his cup and put it in the sink. "Call me when you're ready to have a real conversation."
I walked him out to his truck, trying not to be too obvious that I was also looking for our flying priest. "Dave, I’ve a question. Now answer me truthfully."
"Sure, go ahead."
"Do you think Harry's ever going to move out?"
"Harry?" he said laughing. " Oh Cin, Harry's here to stay. You would have a better chance of getting rid of Harry if you moved out in the middle of the night, but, no, he would find you."
I blew air out of my mouth. "Alex has a lot to answer for. If he didn't insist on Harry taking care of me…"
"Alex? Oh no, you’ve a lot to answer for." He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. "Life is too exciting around you, Cin. Harry's no fool."
~
Harry and I were ready and waiting as Father David pulled into the driveway. Harry called shotgun, and I climbed into the back of the rental car. This shotgun stuff was getting on my nerves. I felt like “the wife” in the back of all vehicles lately. We updated Father David on our little visit from Sergeant Buslowski. I didn't update him on my visit to Michael, and Harry didn't either. Harry and I would no doubt discuss it later, but right now we kept our heads on the activities of the day.
"I feel bad lying to the police. After all, this is their job," I said, more for my benefit than theirs.
"It's not like we’re working against the authorities, but I think we should gather as much information as we can before presenting them with it. I don't want them barging in and just getting the foot soldiers when we can get the head of this cell. There may be nothing more to this than smuggling in workers. If it is, then I guess INS will have to get involved," Father David reasoned.
"Either way we go from spies to squealers," stated Harry. "I don't like the idea."
"We can't break the laws, son. Sometimes we work around them until we can change them. I have two sets of laws, the laws of the military and the laws of the church. Sometimes it takes a toll on my soul," Father David confessed.
"So, we find ourselves between the popular rock and a hard place. Since we got into this my paranoid meter has been spiking. I thought that a band member was threatening me last night, but in the light of day it seems silly."
"Who?" Harry asked.
"Dwayne, the head of the toy drive."
"He's the one who sent you, Harry and Michael out to the Pahokee School?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He was interested in why Harry and I went over to the mill. He wanted to know where Michael was. He said he wanted to send a card or something. And then he told me to be careful or I may become a ghost."
"Ghost? Why would he say that?"
"Well, I told him Harry and I like to look into haunted buildings, so that's why we went over there when the little boy told us about a man praying. But it was only a lame excuse, and he knew it."
"How well do you know this Dwayne?"
"Not that well, he's been in the band longer than I have."
"Maybe we should look into him. I'll have one of the others tail him awhile," Father David said as he pulled out his cell phone.
"Don't bother calling, Father."
"Why?" he asked as he pulled into the airport parking lot.
I pointed to a rental truck over by the back hanger. There was Dwayne and several of the landscape crew carrying crates into the back of the truck. "That's him loading boxes."
"Has he... ah yes, he has seen you."
Dwayne smiled and waved his hand.
"Well, I better be sociable. You may want to tag along to get a better look at what he's loading. Harry, you better go on with our charade and check in with the jump school," I said before getting out of the car.
Father David and I walked over to the truck, and I introduced him to Dwayne as my brother-in-law. They shook hands, and David offered to help Dwayne with the boxes. The men that were helping him had seemed to disappear.
"Sure, if you don't mind. Don't tell me this is a haunted airport?" Dwayne teased.
"I hope not. Harry is going to make his first jump today!"
"Oh, I thought the kid look familiar. He used to work at the theater. Isn't he living with you now?"
"My, my, the gossips certainly have kept everyone apprised of my home life," I mumbled.
"When you're famous you just have to get used to the attention."
"Famous?"
"Well, you were involved with catching the band serial killers, and you did get some press in England," Dwayne said as he led the way back into the storage building. "Wasn't there a picture of you and that violin player? He was quite young, so I assumed that..."
"Not really sure. Bill told me that if I helped clean out some of this stuff that I could store this year’s toys here. It would make it easier to sort them with all this space. Using my office is a real nightmare."
"Oh. Well, I’ll leave you two strong men to it. I better go find out how Harry's getting along." I thought it was better to play dumb. Father David would get a firsthand view of what was in the building, and I could find out where those landscapers went.
My search for the missing men was in vain. They must have either left the airport area or possibly were always two steps ahead of me. I located Harry. He was standing with a group of people. They were discussing the procedures, and since I didn't want to end up in the plane with them, I went looking for a shaded place to sit and watch from a safe distance. I found a bench and sat down. I wasn't really surprised when Dave Buslowski sat down next to me, not really. Annoyed, yes, but not surprised.
"What took you so long?"
"Stopped for some refreshments." He handed me a soft drink. "Thought you might need some moral support with Harry jumping today."
"So kind of you to think of me, but I do have a friend to share my anxieties." I motioned over to where I had left Father David and Dwayne.
"The priest or the baritone player?"
"Priest. My, my, you’ve been busy," I said, trying to act cool.
"It's my county, I don't like being shut out," he said evenly. Dave turned towards the tarmac and watched Harry walk towards the jump plane. "I want to know what the hell’s going down."
"Going down? Isn't that Hollywood cop talk?" I said and took a drink of the soda. "Well, since I think our cover is all blown now, thanks to your attentiveness, I'll tell you what I know, and the rest you will have to get from the priest."
I filled him in on what he didn't know. He crumpled the soda can up in his fist in anger. It would have been better had it been empty. I watched as the soda bubbled out over his hand and onto the hot pavement.
"So this leaves us with a problem. Obviously someone has to tail Dwayne to find out where he's taking the boxes. But Father David and I were made by Dwayne and the landscapers."
"So you think you can dangle this carrot out in front of me and I’ll bite?"
The temptation to tell him to "bite me" was great, but I restrained myself. "Or you could wait for Harry, and I will borrow your truck and tail him myself."
"The priest?"
"He's looking for weapons of mass destruction and whatnot. You see, bonehead, we wanted to have a strong case to bring to you so that you would take all of this seriously."
"I could just call this into Homeland Security and..."
"It's your county, Buslowski, you do what you think is right. Frankly, I'm glad to be out of it." I stood up to leave.
"Wait. Why is Harry jumping out of an airplane?"
Damn, I thought he wasn't going to pick up on that. "Because we think that they’re going to use this airport somehow. I think that they’re going to replace jumpers at the air show, so Harry is doing some spy work for me."
Dave started laughing. "You almost had me there. You expect me to believe that terrorists are going to jump out of airplanes and do what?"
"I don't know." I picked up the ruined soda can and delivered it to the trashcan beside the office door. By the time I turned around he was gone. I heard the rental van start up and Dwayne was driving away. A few moments later I saw Buslowski's pickup leave the parking lot. I looked around and had a glimpse of Father David heading for the outbuildings. I sat down and waited for Harry's jump.
It wasn't long before I heard the plane fly overhead, and then I saw the tandem jumpers. I held my breath until each Para-Wing opened, and the group floated down to land in the grass area just south of the landing strip. It took them longer to disassemble and pack up than I thought it would. By that time, Father David had returned from his scouting mission. I had fallen asleep on the bench.
"Interesting way of keeping an eye on things," he said as he nudged me over.
I made room for him to sit down. "I guess you saw that we had a visitor."
"The cop."
"Yep. Sent him to follow Dwayne."
"Not a bad idea, although he may run into Father Thomas."
"I hope he doesn't shoot him," I said dryly.
"Father Thomas or the cop?"
"Cop's name is Buslowski, and I hope Father Thomas doesn't shoot him because I’ve dibs," I said smiling.
"What he do to you?"
"This morning he ate my breakfast, and yesterday he had me cuffed."
"Oh, he's the one. I suggest buckshot. Not much damage, but it'll hurt."
"I'll keep that in mind. Here comes Harry."
I got up and congratulated him on not fainting or puking. Father David shook his hand, and we were contemplating where to go to eat when the sound of an explosion ripped through the countryside. I quickly scanned the airport and found that all was well there.
I started running to the car. "Buslowski!"
Father David and Harry caught up. The priest got behind the wheel. "Which way did they go?"
"South."
He tore out of the parking lot and headed south until we came to a crossroad.
"What are we looking for?" shouted Harry.
"Rental van and Buslowski's truck."
"I saw the van turn east. I was watching it while we were descending. The blue truck also turned east."
Father David turned and accelerated. The road was a straight shot east. As soon as we climbed out of the lowland we could see the smoke ahead of us. Harry was calling 911 on his cell phone as we arrived on the scene.
The van was burning in pieces in a crater in what was left of the road. The cane on either side of the road had been flattened in the blast. But where was Buslowski? Where was his truck? Father David pulled over, and I jumped out. How far back was he? I traced the blast pattern as I ran back down the road. I was choking on the smoke that had turned with the easterly wind when I saw something large and blue in the canal.
"Harry! David! His truck's in the canal!" I yelled, running over to the slippery edge.
The blast must have flipped the truck off the road and into the deep drainage canal. It was upside down with the cab barely above the water. I plunged in and got to the driver's door and opened it. Buslowski was unconscious but alive. The airbag had inflated and pinned him to the seat. The seatbelt's shoulder strap kept the unconscious cop’s head above the water. But the water was coming in, and I had to get him out of there. I pushed between the bag and him and found the seatbelt release. He fell onto me, and both of us fell out of the vehicle.
Father David and Harry were there to take the heavy man from me. They carried him up the bank, and I watched over him as they tried to see if anything could be done to save Dwayne. Harry told me later that they couldn't find Dwayne, not even a piece. The blast must have incinerated him.
The emergency vehicles arrived, and I opted to ride to the hospital with Dave and let Father David and Harry explain things to the deputies. I called Dave's wife and told her what had happened and to meet us at the hospital. She had thought Dave was outside mowing the lawn. She seemed more put out that he had neglected the lawn than that he almost got himself blown up. She asked who I was, and I told her. She just said, "It figures," and hung up.
Chapter Twenty-three
"You can't walk around here like that," the senior volunteer said, barring my way in the emergency room.
"Why?" I said in a daze. "Is it because I'm damp? I just pulled that man over there out of the canal."
"No, it's because you’re barefoot. You have on one muddy sneaker and the other one’s bare," he explained. "You'll have to leave."
"Wait, can't you find me a slipper or something?" I pleaded. "Or those baggy things you pull over your shoes in maternity?"
"No
, you'll have to leave," he said firmly.
"What's the problem here?" Another senior volunteer came over. This one was female. "Howard?" she asked meekly.
"She doesn't have a shoe on, and she won't leave," he stated primly.
"I just want to stay."
She held up her hand to cut me off. "Howard, get this young lady some slippers."
Howard left, and I thanked her. "No problem, Howard is a bit stiff with the rules. Thinks he runs the place. Ah, here he is with the slippers. Thank you, Howard.” She handed the footwear to me. “You better put them on and throw that shoe in here." She handed me a plastic bag.
"Thank you!" I sat down and took off my ruined cross training shoe and put on the sterile slippers. I noticed that they were way too big. Howard had gotten his revenge after all.
~
"Cin," Dave Buslowski said as I flopped over to his bedside.
"Have a nice nap?"
"Things are a bit fuzzy. I had this dream you were feeling me up in the truck."
"In your fantasy maybe. I had to get you out of the seatbelt. It was hard to, difficult to find," I said reddening.
"I guess I found the explosives," he said weakly.
"Guess so. How do you feel?"
"Violated." He grinned feebly.
"Well, sorry about that. Um, I better let you rest up. Your wife is on her way, and I want to be clear before she gets here."
"We'll talk later."
"I expect so. I'm going home to get free of this canal water. I'm starting to stink." I leaned over and grasped his hand. “Thank you for not dying on me.” I ignored the returned pressure on my hand and let it go. "Later, Buslowski," I said quietly and left.
Fortunately, Harry and Father David were waiting for me in the lobby. I flopped my way over to them. Harry started to say something about my footwear but stopped himself. There were also several deputies in the lobby. I looked over at them.
"Do I have to make a statement?" I asked the group, hoping for a leader to emerge.
Deputy Cutter took charge and said, "You can come in later. We'll call and set something up."
"Thanks, I'm just going to go home now and get cleaned up." I followed the guys out to the car. They were pretty grimy themselves. "How'd things go at the scene?"