Driven to Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  “That was Flanigan. He’s over at that wedding chapel.”

  “That’s Amore? Why?”

  “Someone’s shooting at the cars driving up.”

  Chapter 59

  I had a vision of a bloody Dean Martin in a torn tuxedo waving a gun around, taking potshots at unsuspecting brides and grooms. Now that would make an interesting horror movie. Probably would be a blockbuster.

  “Is it Dan Franklin?” I asked. Maybe all the killing had finally gotten to him.

  “No one knows. The shots are coming from inside.”

  “How?”

  “Through the drive-up window.”

  “Has he hit anyone?”

  “Not so far, but Flanigan doesn’t want to waste time. He’s got the cavalry out there.”

  We made our way back down Charleston, past all the strip malls and the Terrible’s, and turned down Las Vegas Boulevard. The lights at Fremont Street, flashing every which way to entice late night revelers, were bright enough to warrant sunglasses.

  As we passed Murder Ink, I saw a light on.

  I grabbed Tim’s arm. “Stop,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Someone’s in Murder Ink. We know it’s not Jeff.”

  “We don’t really have time for this. Doesn’t he have a security service?”

  “I don’t know. But I feel like something’s wrong.”

  Tim gave a heavy sigh that indicated I was being a royal pain in his butt, but he eased the car over against the curb and cut the engine.

  “You stay here,” he instructed.

  “No way,” I said, opening my door at the same time he opened his. “This isn’t a place where I want to be alone at this hour.”

  He couldn’t argue with logic, so he agreed and I followed him across the street to Murder Ink. We peered into the front window and saw that the light was coming from the back room. Tim put his arm out and said, “Stay behind me.”

  We went around to the side alley and around the back. The smell from the Dumpster back here was overwhelming, and I put my hand up against my nose.

  “What are they dumping back here?” Tim muttered.

  “It’s the Chinese take-out place,” I said, indicating the screen door and the clanking of pots and pans inside.

  Murder Ink’s back door was ajar.

  Tim pushed the door in slowly. We could hear rustling, as if someone was going through papers, and then something fell with a thud.

  Tim’s hand was on his gun at his hip, ready to pull it out if necessary. I made sure I stayed behind him, but the curiosity was killing me. Who was in there?

  In a smooth move, Tim shoved the door open, and we both bounded inside.

  Sylvia looked up, frowning, as she held a box of baby wipes.

  “You’re not supposed to come through the back way,” she admonished, as if it were every day someone broke in through the back door.

  I took a deep breath, relieved it was her. “You’re okay,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t I be, dear?” she asked. “Except Jeff left this place a mess. Where is he, anyway? I thought he was with you.” She cocked her head toward Tim. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Where’s Bernie?” I asked, not answering her questions.

  Her mouth set in a firm line. “He brought me home, but I couldn’t just sit around. I’ve got insomnia, you know.”

  I didn’t know, and it didn’t seem relevant right now.

  She was still talking. “Bernie said the Gremlin was in the shop, but I found it in the carport like usual, but he’d covered it over with a tarp. I drove that over here.”

  I’d seen a car in the alley, but it hadn’t registered. Unusual, because it’s such an unusual-looking car.

  “Where’s Jeff? I thought he was with you,” Sylvia said, indicating me.

  Tim and I exchanged a look. She noticed.

  “What’s going on? Where’s my son?”

  I sighed. “He’s in the hospital. There was an accident.”

  All the color drained out of her face, and it was almost as if her tattoos went black and white for a second. She dropped down into the swivel chair next to her, all her defiance gone.

  “Is he okay?”

  I nodded. “He’s in surgery.”

  “What happened?”

  I couldn’t sugarcoat it. I told her what happened out in the desert.

  She took some deep breaths, then pushed herself out of the chair. “I need to go to the hospital.”

  I looked at Tim. “Why don’t you head over to That’s Amore, and I can take Sylvia to the hospital. We can take the Gremlin.”

  Tim mulled this proposal. “That sounds like a plan.”

  “That’s Amore?” Sylvia looked from me to Tim and back to me again.

  “Someone’s over there shooting at cars,” I said.

  “What on earth for?”

  “We have no idea,” I said. “Where did Bernie go?”

  “I have no idea,” she said, echoing me. “And I don’t care.” She stuck her chin out defiantly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You know,” Sylvia said cryptically.

  “No, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “You found the receipt.” She said it as if I was some sort of idiot for not knowing this by osmosis.

  Receipt? Oh, right. The bank receipt. “What about it?”

  “The man stole ten thousand dollars from me. I made him bring me home because I wouldn’t go home with him. I’m getting a divorce.”

  “Ten thousand dollars?” I asked.

  She made a face at me. “You knew about it,” she said accusingly. “You asked me about it when you came to Rosalie’s earlier. But I didn’t take that money out of the bank. Bernie did. I should never have gotten a joint account.”

  “Did you ask him about it?” Tim asked. He’d been in the background, but now he stepped forward, interested in what Sylvia was saying.

  “Sure, I did. He said he needed it for a new car or something. He wanted to surprise me. I didn’t want any new car. I’ve got my Gremlin. Although on the way over here, I realized it might need some fixing after all. There was an awful scraping sound.”

  A thought flashed through my brain.

  It couldn’t be.

  But maybe it was.

  I took a step toward the door.

  Tim was on the same wavelength. He was already outside.

  “What’s going on?” Sylvia called from behind us.

  Tim jogged up the alleyway. I discovered my body was really starting to rebel against any sort of movement whatsoever. A soak in a hot tub was what I needed about now, but the adrenaline was pushing me forward anyway.

  Tim was leaning down over the hood of the Gremlin. When I approached, he straightened up and said, “This car definitely hit something.”

  “Or someone?” I asked, remembering that the car that killed Lou Marino was blue. Or maybe an odd shade of purple.

  Chapter 60

  Sylvia stood with her hands on her hips. “Someone?” she asked. “Who did it hit?” And as it sunk in, she gave a little “Oh!” then asked, “You don’t think someone used this car to kill Lou?”

  Tim and I exchanged a look. I knew what he was thinking. The same thing I was. Bernie wanted to get rid of the car. Had he killed his son-in-law with it? He’d have had a good reason.

  “It was under a tarp, you said?” Tim asked.

  “That’s right.”

  Even though Sylvia said she was washing her hands of her new husband and that he’d stolen ten grand from her, I didn’t want to believe it. How could a cute little old deli owner do such things? Maybe we were wrong. I hoped we were wrong.

  He shook his head. “You can’t use this car. You both have to come with me. I’m going to send someone over here to check the car out. Impound it.”

  “Do I need to use Jeff’s car? I hate that thing,” Sylvia said.

  I didn’t really want to tell her that Jeff’s car was pretty much to
taled.

  “Come on,” Tim urged.

  Sylvia put on a fleece pullover and locked up the shop, and we went around the side of the building between Murder Ink and Goodfellas Bail Bonds. When we got to the Impala, Sylvia climbed in the back. I tried to argue with her, but she said she was little and not to worry.

  “Do you really think Jeff will be all right?” Sylvia asked when we were on the road.

  “He’ll be fine. I know he will.” I was trying to convince myself as much as Sylvia. She leaned forward and patted my shoulder, sending waves of pain through my neck. I tried not to wince. She was just trying to comfort me.

  The scene around the wedding chapel was crazy: flashing blue and red lights from the cruisers; spotlights sending pools of light across the white stucco, making it look less washed out somehow; cops scurrying about, most wearing bulletproof vests outside their shirts. I glanced over at Tim, bare chested underneath his button-down shirt. I’d already seen a friend shot tonight; I didn’t want to make another visit to the hospital because Tim got wounded.

  Tim parked the car behind a couple of cruisers near the sawhorses that had been set up along the entrance to the chapel’s driveway. The chapel looked deserted—dark and quiet—despite all the activity outside.

  “Stay here,” Tim instructed as he climbed out of the Impala.

  “Why do men think they can tell us what to do?” Sylvia asked.

  “Because they do,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t want to just sit here,” Sylvia said. “Let’s go.”

  I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to this time. Had something finally snapped? Had my curiosity been sated by everything that had happened? Had I finally become a normal person, who doesn’t stick her nose into things that are best left to the police?

  Sister Mary Eucharista was telling me I was having a breakthrough.

  Sylvia, on the other hand, was pushing open the back door and climbing out, slamming the door behind her. She took a few steps toward the chaos, then turned and beckoned me to follow. When I shook my head, she shrugged and continued on. I watched her through the windshield.

  Maybe this was what it was like on a movie set, except this was all real. I watched as Tim approached Flanigan, who held a bullhorn. They had a few words; then a uniform came up to Tim and handed him a vest. I sighed with relief. Good. Now at least Tim would be protected. Except, of course, if he got shot in the head or something awful like that.

  I kicked myself for even thinking that.

  Sylvia had approached Tim and Flanigan, who didn’t look happy she was there.

  My cell phone startled me. I reached inside my bag and pulled it out, not recognizing the number on the screen.

  “Yes?” I asked tentatively as I flipped it open and held it to my ear.

  “Brett? It’s Colin.”

  Bixby. My heart started to flutter, but not in a good way. Rather, in a nervous way. While I wanted him to call me about Jeff, I wanted good news. I wasn’t sure I could handle it if it wasn’t. I swallowed hard, then tried to make my voice sound normal as I asked, “Oh, hi. Do you have news about Jeff?”

  “He’s out of surgery, and everything went well.”

  I smiled involuntarily and took a deep breath. I blinked a couple of times to keep from crying. Seemed good news and bad would make me cry today.

  Bixby was still talking. “The bullet lodged itself in his neck, but they got it out, and they think he’ll have a full recovery. He’ll need some physical therapy for a while.”

  For the first time it dawned on me that he’d been shot in his right shoulder. He was right handed.

  “Do you think he’ll be able to tattoo?” I asked.

  Colin was quiet a second. “I’m not sure. That’ll be up to the physical therapist to see what sort of motion he’ll have at first.”

  “Is he awake now?”

  “No, he’s still in recovery. The anesthesia should wear off in a little while.”

  “I’ll be bringing his mother over there,” I said, glancing back up, but Sylvia was now nowhere in sight.

  “I thought you were going home,” he said. “You should be, you know. You got banged up pretty bad. You need to heal.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, was what I wanted to say, but it would have been way too sarcastic, and he wouldn’t have understood, since he had no idea what was going on, and I didn’t think this was the time to enlighten him.

  Flanigan was shouting something through the bullhorn, but I couldn’t make it out. It was facing the wrong direction, so the sound was distorted.

  “What’s that?” Bixby asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “TV.”

  “Awfully loud.”

  He was buying it.

  Flanigan was saying something else now.

  “Listen, Bixby, I’ve got to go,” I said. “Will you be around later, when I bring Sylvia over to see Jeff?”

  “I’m heading home, but I’ll call you in the morning. See how you’re doing.”

  “Mmm,” I said, not really paying attention. “See you, then,” I said, flipping the phone shut, my attention on what was going on beyond the windshield.

  Flanigan held the bullhorn at his side. The building stayed as quiet as it was when we first got here. I began to wonder whether anyone was inside at all. I hadn’t heard any gunshots.

  I leaned back in my seat, closing my eyes. I still held the cell phone; it was smooth like the rocks I used to skim across the river at home in Jersey. I felt myself dozing off, despite more shouting from outside my little cocoon. I didn’t have the energy to open my eyes to see what was going on.

  I felt the cold air sweep across my body as my door opened, but because I was half-asleep I thought it was just part of the dream I was having.

  But when I was yanked out of the car, an arm wrapped itself around my neck; my eyes snapped open, and I struggled to breathe.

  I felt the cold metal against the side of my head.

  “Come with me quietly. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

  Chapter 61

  I couldn’t move to see who it was. The voice was low, deep, not one I recognized.

  He dragged me backward a few feet, then shifted his arm a little. It gave me a chance to ask, “What do you want from me?”

  “Just a little insurance for now.”

  I was able to twist my head a little, not without a lot of pain, and I saw him. Will Parker.

  I must have looked surprised, because he chuckled and said, “You’re a nosy bitch. I knew you knew it was me all along.”

  He loosened his grip slightly, and I shifted. I could see the torn tuxedo. So it had been Parker out there shooting at us.

  “You did steal Joel’s clip cord, didn’t you?” I asked with a lot more bravado than I felt. But as I thought about how Ray Lucci was killed, it dawned on me that Rosalie had already told me Lou had done it. Two people couldn’t have killed one man.

  And then I realized what it had been about her story that didn’t jibe.

  She said she’d gone over to the wedding chapel when Bernie and Sylvia were getting married, to see the wedding. Lou had gotten angry, hit her, and Ray Lucci cut him up. It was then that Lou killed Ray, Rosalie said.

  But he couldn’t have. Ray wasn’t killed until later, because he’d stolen my car. His fingerprints were all over it.

  Rosalie had lied. Lou Marino hadn’t killed Ray Lucci. Will Parker had. Later in the day, and then he’d returned my car to the parking garage as if it had never been gone.

  “Rosalie’s protecting you,” I said. “She told me Lou killed Lucci. But it was you all along. It doesn’t matter now if she says Lou killed him because Lou’s dead.”

  “No thanks to Lucci,” he said bitterly.

  I started putting it all together. That ten thousand dollars in Lucci’s locker. The ten thousand dollars Bernie took from Sylvia. And something that Rosalie said: how Lucci had told Lou that cutting him wasn’t how he’d planned it.

  Maybe that part of Rosalie�
��s story was true. Everything except Lou killing Lucci.

  “Bernie paid Lucci to kill Lou, didn’t he?” I asked. “So what happened? How did you end up killing Lucci instead? Why?”

  His grip got tighter, and he lifted me up a little, until I was almost off my feet. “He cut him up, but he didn’t kill him. He had all that money, and he hadn’t done it yet. Lou kept hitting her, and Lucci was dragging his feet.” The anguish in his voice was palpable. It was clear how he felt about Rosalie.

  “So you took matters into your own hands? Anyway, why didn’t Bernie pay you instead to kill Lou? You were the one in love with her.”

  “That’s exactly why I couldn’t do it,” Parker said, taking the bait, his voice a low growl. The gun had moved from my temple down to my neck now. “Lucci was the ex-con. If he got caught, no biggie.”

  No biggie to him and Bernie, perhaps, but it was a biggie to Sylvia.

  “Why do you think I know all this already?” I asked.

  “You can’t keep your nose out of anything. When I surprised you at the chapel, I knew you’d been looking in the lockers. I knew you’d found it.”

  “Found what?”

  He sighed. “I’m so tired of you playing stupid. Pretending to buy the crap about how a girl got rough with me but telling me the whole time about how your brother, the cop, was there. I didn’t get why you hadn’t told him yet, except you were on a power trip. I knew it was only a matter of time, though.”

  This guy was living in his own little fantasy world. I didn’t want to let on that I’d just figured everything out. I’d have loved to know what it was I’d supposedly found in his locker. I hadn’t even gotten to his locker. I’d seen Dan Franklin’s university ID, and that was it.

  “That’s enough talking. We’ve got to go for a ride.”

  Parker spun me around and shoved me in front of him, his arm still wrapped tight around my chest, so my arms were pinned to my sides. The gun hovered somewhere near my ear. I wanted to scream, but he’d already shot Jeff, so he probably wouldn’t have any scruples about shooting me, too.

  He weaved me through a couple of cars. The Love Shack was across the street, and we were headed in that direction, away from the police and the lights in front of That’s Amore.