by Peg
But I digress—my point being that Abner Wilson’s gun was as big as Stanley’s gun was small and both weapons were pointed in my direction.
“Well, well, if it ain’t Miz Hastings and Miz England,” said the old handyman in a manner that belied the seriousness of the situation. “Fancy meetin’ you two ladies in a place like this. I see that you found what you was lookin’ for.”
“I guess you could say that, although I didn’t expect to find Mr. Salerno in here. I must say, you were very convincing when you thanked me at the luncheon for delivering your message to him, telling him to stay away. I never thought that you were holding him captive in the barn.”
“Surprised you, didn’t I. Just like I did when I walked throught that door.” Abner chuckled. “I bet you wish now that you went to the hospital like you said instead of snoopin’ around this here barn. You think I swallowed that baloney about you runnin’ up to the hospital to bring lunch to Mr. Hastings? Not me. After you left, I seen that young doctor fella walkin’ around in the yard. I asked him how your husband was doin’ and he tells me Charlie’s under some kind of quarantine. No visitors. That’s when I told Miz Birdwell I was feelin’ poorly and took my leave, picked up my grandnephew Stanley at the house, and hightailed it out here.”
Apparently, all that talk made Abner Wilson thirsty. Removing the flask from the back pocket of his overalls, he opened it and took a long drink. “With the profit we made on meth, me and Stanley are gonna live like a couple of kings south of the border.”
“Lay off the booze, old man,” ordered Stanley, “we got a lot of driving to do if we’re going to make it to Mexico before the cops are onto us.”
“Now don’t you go a worryin’ about the police. I talked to old Rollie Stevens after the funeral service,” said Abner, taking another drink from the flask. “If he’s onto anyone, it’s that doctor fella. The smartest thing I did, aside from sending that old gal up that exit ramp, was havin’ you swipe that heart listen’ thing from the doctor’s office while he was busy checkin’ my bum leg. The only two on the whole dang Seville police force worth worrying about are Cusak and Rosen. Accordin’ to Rollie Stevens they’re at some kinda profilin’ seminar being held up in Fort Wayne.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what they’re doing, I just want to get out of here and on our way before some of our customers either get caught by their parents for using meth or by the Springvale cops for fencin’ the stuff they stole. Got that? Now lay off the booze while I get the rope.” Stanley was halfway to the door when he turned around. “And stop talkin’ to the one in the dirty clothes. She’s got a big mouth and bad vibes.”
“The feeling’s mutual, chum,” I called after the fast-retreating figure. Stanley was bad news but so far, unlike his great-uncle, he hadn’t killed anyone.
With the blood of two people already on his hands, I knew that Abner Wilson was not about to set off to live like a king in Mexico with three witnesses for the prosecution merely tied up in the barn. No way, no how. The sunny side of the street was looking farther and farther away. If ever there was a time for plan B, this was it. Now all I had to do was think of something.
Apparently, Vincent Salerno was doing what I was doing but with more success. When Abner Wilson tipped the flask to his lips for another drink, the insurance investigator decided it was time to make his move. He rushed the old man and knocked him off his feet. Abner Wilson grabbed Salerno’s leg and soon the two were locked in a wrestling match. Shouting for Mary and me to make a run for it as the old handyman shoved his face into the dirt floor, Salerno didn’t see Abner reaching for the gun that had fallen out of his hand when the younger man knocked him down. Salerno also didn’t see the returning Stanley who, with gun drawn, blocked our exit from the barn. When the big gun hit him in the back of his head, Vincent Salerno didn’t see anything at all. He was unconscious.
Using the steel tip of his work shoe, the murderous Abner pushed the limp body of the investigator into the stable area, where it came to rest in front of an ancient, battered storage bin that was about the size of a large packing crate. My guess was that at one time the bin was used for animal feed but like everything else in the old barn, including the meth lab, it had outlived its usefulness.
“God damn,” said Abner Wilson to no one in particular, “that investigative fella smells worse than that old horse stall and that’s sayin’ somethin’. I swear that whole floor back in the stall area is ninety-nine percent horse manure and one percent dirt.”
“Yeah, I agree with you on that,” said Stanley, breaking into a sly grin and showing teeth almost as black as his stringy hair. Obviously, Stanley had been as hooked on meth as Abner was on making money from it. Neither activity requires a very high IQ. “I think that stall’s the perfect place for a couple of snoopy broads, especially the bigmouth one.”
“Well then, why don’t you herd them in there and tie them up tight while I go get that container of gasoline from the back of the truck?” the old man replied as he retrieved his flask from the top of a pile of trash.
Upon finding that all the liquor had trickled out, Abner Wilson limped over to where the insurance investigator lay pressed against the storage bin. Then he stopped short and turned away.
“He ain’t worth the bullet. The fire will take care of him along with everything else in this old barn,” he said as he began making his way toward the barn door.
“You mean you’re not fixing to take any of the lab stuff with us? Hell, there’s more than enough room in that investigator guy’s SUV. I say we take it with us,” said Stanley as he began pushing me and Mary into the stinking stall area.
“You know somethin’, Stanley, sometimes you’re as dumb as a stump. That’s all we need is to get caught haulin’ around that stuff. Use your head. When we get ready to set up another lab, we can replace all that equipment as easy as pie.”
“Even in Mexico?” replied the agitated Stanley, poking the small gun into Mary’s back in an effort to hurry her along.
“Yeah, sure. They got hardware stores, drugstores, and supermarkets same as us. And if they don’t, we’ll just cross the border back into the States and go to a Wal-Mart superstore. They got everything, like they say, including lower prices.”
“Okay then. You get the gasoline and I’ll get these two ready for toasting. See, Unc, you’re not the only one who can make a joke.” Stanley was immensely pleased with himself.
With Abner Wilson fetching the gasoline from the back of his battered pickup truck, Stanley ordered Mary and me to sit back-to-back on the floor with arms behind us and legs drawn up to our knees. We did as we were told, which led to the first of Stanley’s problems.
The twentysomething Stanley couldn’t manage to tie both of us up at the same time. He also couldn’t figure out how to tie even one of us up while keeping the other at bay without letting go of either the gun or the rope. It would have been funny except the spot we were in was no laughing matter.
My offer to hold the gun for him was met with a resounding no, but Mary reminded him that Abner was not going to be pleased with him should he return with the gasoline to find that Stanley had failed to do as he was told. Since Mary seemed to have a better rapport with Stanley than I did, I kept quiet and let her do the talking. He finally agreed to her suggestion that he hold the gun while she tied me up. Once that was done, he could then tie up Mary, who was, in her own words, a very trustworthy person.
“You know, Stanley, it hurts me to see the way your uncle talks down to you,” clucked Mary, keeping up a steady stream of motherly comments as she bound my ankles tightly before starting on my wrists, which were behind my back, “but I’m very proud of the way you hold your temper. It can’t be easy working for a man like Abner. For one thing, he’s so much older than you that he doesn’t seem to understand where you’re coming from. Do you know what I’m saying? I’ll bet he even complains about your music, something I know from having raised my own sons is terribly important.”
Mary th
en proceeded to rattle off names of recording artists that for the most part were unknown to me, except for the ones that had made headlines with behavior often described by the media as being lewd, obscene, or unlawful. I couldn’t have been more surprised if Mary had ripped open her blouse and revealed a tattoo of Herman’s Hermits on her ample bosom. But like I said, I kept my mouth shut except for a few loud shrieks of faux pain as Mary tied the ropes around my wrists.
By the time old man Wilson returned with the gasoline and a snootful of liquor, Mary and I sat back-to-back tied up and, as Stanley had so comically put it, ready for toasting.
With Stanley busy pouring gasoline around the outside perimeter of the barn, I took a last shot at asking the drunken Abner a couple of questions such as what had changed in his life that led to not one but two murders.
In words that were as slushy as they were slurred, Abner said that he made more money with the meth lab in six months than he did in six years of washing walls, painting fences, picking up trash, and repairing lawn mowers. He also said that after almost twenty years of mailing his rent check for the shed and barn to a woman he’d never met and who had never been out to the property, she notified him via mail that she was coming out to inspect the cottage and had plans to turn the place into a weekend retreat, something that would’ve put a definite crimp in his lucrative drug business.
“I thought by gettin’ rid of the old lady, I’d be back where I started, mailin’ my rent check to her next of kin, that Dona woman. Never thought she’d turn out to be nuttier than a fruitcake and have bigger plans for the property than the old biddy aunt had. I had no choice but to get rid of her, too. She was going to have me thrown off the property by the police. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Abner Wison paused and raised the refilled flask to his lips. He kept it there until it was empty once again. Totally inebriated, he struggled to continue and I struggled to make sense of what he was saying. What I gathered from his slurred speech was that thanks to Hilly Murrow’s newsy news reports he was aware of some trouble between Peter Parker and Dona Deville.
Donna called Abner at his house on Fourth Street Friday morning to inform him that she would be out to inspect the property after the book signing. Abner wasn’t home and she ended up speaking with Stanley. When asked by Dona to give Abner the message, Stanley told her in no uncertain terms to stay the hell away from the barn and shed.
When Dona heard that, she was furious and told Stanley to tell his uncle that if he didn’t meet her at the cottage by seven fifteen Saturday morning, all hell was going to break loose. Abner got the message and was ready and waiting for Dona, stethoscope in hand.
Chapter
thirty-one
It’s been said that in the moments before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. The only thing that flashed before my eyes was the sight of Dumb and Dumber, the pet names I’d secretly assigned to Abner Wilson and his nephew, Stanley, running out of the barn after a heated arguement between the two over where to light the fire. Stanley favored the inside of the barn. His logic was that that way they would be sure that we hadn’t gotten free and put the fire out. The drunken Abner argued for the outside and ultimately prevailed. The reason they raced out of the barn was to move the SUV from its hiding place against the barn’s outside rear wall.
Almost as soon as they locked the barn door on their way out, I’d freed myself and was busy untying Mary. It was when I was struggling with a particularly stubborn knot that we both heard the unmistakeable whoosh of gasoline igniting. Again the luck of the Irish was with us and the knot released just as the first signs of smoke began to seep into the barn, along with the heat from the now-growing fire.
Pulling my cotton half-slip down around my feet, I took it off and tore it into strips which we then used as face masks against the smoke. In the pile of trash where Abner’s liquor had landed I found a dirty but damp rag that smelled of whiskey. Dropping down to the floor, Mary and I crawled over to Vincent Salerno, who was in the process of regaining consciousness. I thrust the whiskey-soaked rag into his face and tied it to his nose and mouth area using a strip of my slip.
I was out of ideas and I knew from the heat and smoke that we were running out of time. Hoping for a miracle, I began to pray and was unaware that in my desperation, I’d raised my voice until Vincent Salerno added a solemn amen to my prayers. Expecting Mary to do the same, I was confused when her expected amen turned into a hello. My cell phone! Mary had my cell phone!
Snatching it from her hand, my own hand was shaking so badly that I dropped the phone on the floor. In the semidarkness, Stanley had dutifully shut the light off when he exited the barn, and hampered by the choking smoke, heat, and noise of the fire, I ran my hand over the area where I thought the phone might have landed.
“Oh God, please help me find the phone.” I wasn’t praying; I was shouting. When both my companions told me to shut my big mouth, I was so taken aback that I did just that. That’s when Vincent Salerno passed the phone to Mary and she in turn passed it to me.
“It’s for you, Gin, I think it’s JR,” Mary managed to gasp before almost being overcome by a coughing fit brought on by the increasing smoke.
“JR, we need help. Call nine-one-one and tell them fire. The old barn by the cottage. Railway Road. Save us,” I shouted into the phone or at least I thought I did until I listened to JR’s response.
“Mother, I gotta go. Kerry’s late for her ballet lesson,” said JR using a rapid-fire delivery, something she does when she is especially irritated with me. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying when you cough like that, Mother. You really ought to give up smoking. Check your phone messages. I left you one about the underground tunnel that runs from the barn to the railroad station. Catch you later.” And with that JR, supermom, was gone.
Handing the phone to Mary, I asked her to call 911 for help after making sure that she, unlike JR, understood. Then turning to Vincent Salerno, and in a voice that sounded more like Walter Cronkite than me, I asked him to help me find the tunnel. JR is her father’s daughter. She never fibs. If she said there was a tunnel, you can bet your life on it. And that is exactly what I was doing with not just one life but three.
Mary was still talking to the 911 operator, who insisted that Mary stay on the line ’til help arrived, when I looked into the bin and discovered the tunnel entrance hidden beneath a couple of layers of filth and debris along with not one but two false bottoms.
With me leading the way, Vincent Salerno in the middle, and Mary bringing up the rear, still talking to the 911 operator, we hunched over and made our way through the long and very dark tunnel. Along the way I suspected that we had company of the rodent variety with very long tails and sharp teeth, but I kept that information to myself. I wasn’t sure if my back or my nerves were going to give out first, but by the time we’d reached the trap door hidden beneath the floor of the railroad station’s baggage room, the three of us, surviors all, looked, smelled, and acted as if we’d just returned from an extended stay in the wilds of Borneo.
When Matt, accompanied by Sid Rosen, found us in a heap on the floor of the station’s waiting room, he smiled and said, “Jean Hastings, party of three, your table’s ready.”
“Smoking or nonsmoking?” I managed to ask before being whisked off to Garrison General Hospital along with Mary and Vincent Salerno. Incidentally, “Just call me Vinny” turned out to be a really nice guy. So much for first impressions.
Chapter
thirty-two
The following morning I awoke to a note that had been left on the bedside table in my hospital room. The note simply read: If you need me, just whistle. It was unsigned but like the notes I’d been leaving for Charlie, no signature was needed. I knew who’d sent it and understood the message.
Feeling like the drunk who sobers up in jail but then wonders when his freedom will be restored, I pressed the call button in hopes of getting the answer. Instead, all I got was a scolding from
the head nurse, who informed me that the button was only to be used to summon help.
Since my vital signs were in the normal range, she ordered me to get back under the covers, turned on her heel, and bustled out of the room. As far as when I could expect to be released, I was in the same spot as the drunk—I didn’t know.
After failing to glean any information regarding my status from the student nurse who took my temperature, the aide who delivered my breafast tray, the hospital chaplain who dropped by to say hello, and an intern who had me confused with another patient, I gave up. Whoever said that you can’t fight city hall must have been in the hospital at the time.
I later leaned from the cleaning lady that Peter Parker had been in to see me when I was asleep. She overheard him tell Charlie, who was present at the time, that I was scheduled to be released the following day.
The woman was a virtual fount of information. She said that Mary had been released the night before after receiving a clean bill of health. She even knew that Denny was with Mary the entire time Mary was in the emergency room and that Salerno was up on the third floor (I was on the second floor) in room 321, Charlie’s room. Because of the concussion he’d suffered, Salerno was going to be in for a while, doctor’s orders.
“But how can he share a room with Charlie? Doesn’t my husband have some kind of unidentified, deadly rash?”
“Listen, dearie, it was much to do about nothing. He had a bad case of prickly heat. Yesterday I brought him a bottle of calamine lotion from Finklestein’s and he’s as good as new,” said the cleaning lady as she headed for the door. “That hubby of yours is a real prince of a fella. He insisted on paying me five bucks for the lotion. See ya later.” And with that said, she was gone.
Without a clock or watch, I turned on the TV in an effort to keep track of the time. The soaps were on all the network channels so I knew I’d missed the noon news out of Indy.