One Fool At Least (The Madeline Mann Mysteries)

by Julia Buckley

  “So about the pizza?” I said.

  Olaf shrugged, still looking at me. “I suppose we could do that. You’d have to keep quiet when the delivery guy came. We’ll have to see that you’re out of the room.”

  “Sure. Thanks,” I said.

  Olaf disappeared into the kitchen again, and once more I heard his voice on the phone. When he returned, he said, “Forty minutes. Oh, do you believe that fumble? They pay those guys a million billion fuckin dollars to do crap like that.”

  I tried to summon up some football knowledge to get in good with the guys. Nothing happened. My brain must have been addled by the caffeine and pain-killer combo. All I could think of was the name Knute Rockne, and I didn’t know if he was even a football player. I just thought it was a cool name.

  I had a vague, hazy sort of plan. If I could be near the door when the pizza man came, I could plead with him to call the police. Or maybe I could be near the back door. I hadn’t seen it, but I knew there was one, because Olaf had opened it noisily to get a six pack of beer from what must have been the back porch. What if I went out the back door while they paid the pizza man, then slipped around and got in the pizza man’s car?

  I then listed the problems with that idea. One, it wouldn’t take both of them to pay the pizza man. Two, I had a broken foot, and couldn’t “slip around” anywhere. Three, Olaf had a gun. Four, Sven might have a gun. Five, I didn’t like guns, having once been shot by one. I sighed loudly and adjusted myself in my chair, consulting my watch. About half an hour had gone by since Olaf had made the call.

  “Randy,” I said. “Nature calls again.”

  Randy rolled his eyes. “You’ve got little kidneys, lady,” he said. “But I can relate.” In a weird way he seemed to enjoy it, the chatting with me, and the long limping walks. I wondered if he were lonely.

  Olaf called, “I’m going to grab some wood for the fire. It’s getting cold in here.”

  It was getting cold. In the bathroom, even the toilet seat was cold. Apparently in Montana they hadn’t heard that summer should be hot. I washed my hands, then opened the door and looked both ways. Front door to my right, back door to my left. Just then Sven appeared. “Gotta pass some beer, lady, so move yourself out of there.” He slipped into the room and shut the door.

  The doorbell rang. Fate was on my side. Sven was trapped; from what I could hear, a veritable river of urine had just started to flow, and there was no stopping it now. I limped to the door as fast as I could, grimacing with pain. I opened it; a giant man stood there, holding a pizza and smiling amiably.

  “Oh, they’ve got the money,” I said. “They’ll be with you in a moment.” And then I lunged past him into what had now become darkness, first hopping on one foot and then trying to walk with both of them. That didn’t go so well. I’d planned to walk into the woods and then flag the pizza guy down on his way out, but I didn’t know how far I could make it. In desperation, I got on my hands and knees and crawled.

  I’d only gotten about ten feet when the pizza guy called, “What are you doing?”

  “Shhh!” I hissed. “They’ll hear you. I’m escaping, if you must know, but my foot is broken.”

  I couldn’t see his face, just his huge body in silhouette. “In the car,” he said.

  “They’ll look there.” I was still on my knees like a doggie.

  “I’ll be sure they don’t.”

  He spoke with such authority that I crawled to his car, which was blessedly near. I opened the back door and climbed onto the floor. I shut the door as quietly as I could, then heard all hell break loose.

  “Where the hell is she?” I heard Jim/Olaf yell.

  Sven tried to be calm. “She’s got a fuckin’ broken ankle, she can’t be far. Did a girl come out here?” He must have been talking to the pizza man. “Thing is, she’s our granddaughter, and we just got her out of the psychiatric ward. If she gets away, she’ll do herself some damage.”

  The pizza man, who I’d come to think of as my savior, said, “Didn’t see anyone. That’s ten ninety-five.”

  I heard Olaf swear and rustle around in his pockets for the money. “We need to look in your car before you go,” he said.

  The pizza man said something low and authoritative. Then Olaf said, “Hell, you need to just butt out.”

  Oh God, I thought. He’s pulling his gun. He’s going to kill the pizza man and find me. I waited, and heard nothing at all. Then the sound of what seemed to be the quiet closing of a door.

  Suddenly the driver’s door opened, and the big guy got in, whistling.

  “What happened?” I whispered from the floor behind him. “Did he pull a gun on you?”

  “He wouldn’t dare. Sort of showed it to me,” he said, and resumed whistling.

  “Then what?” I demanded.

  “My gun was bigger. I persuaded them to go sit in their living room. But we’d better make tracks. They can’t do much without drawing attention; there are other houses dotted in among these trees.” The car suddenly lurched, and we veered away.

  My teeth began to chatter. “You have a gun?” I said. “To deliver pizzas?”

  He was unperturbed. “Hey, I’ve got a license. Besides, some creepy people order pizzas. A guy has to protect himself. So what did Randy and Jim want with you? I take it you’re not their granddaughter?”

  “How do you know their names?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Don’t worry. Everyone knows Randy and Jim. I shopped at their place all through my childhood. Bruder Brothers Supply. It’s just up the road a ways, but now it’s Wilde Emporium.”

  “They kidnapped me,” I said. “I don’t know exactly why. It has to do with a boy named Slider. Can I sit up now?” I began to do so and caught him regarding me with surprise in the rearview. The whole car smelled like pizza, and I was starving. “Can I eat one of those pizzas?” I asked.

  “None left. That was the last delivery on my shift. It’s the smell that lingers. But I’ll take you down to the bar and you can order some food there.”

  “Okay.” I pulled out my cell phone and pressed redial. Nothing happened. “Shit!” I said.

  “Problem?”

  “Other than being kidnapped and having a broken foot, you mean?” I was near tears again.

  “Yeah.” He was amused. I thought it was rude to be amused about a kidnapping, and I told him so, sprinkling my impassioned speech with lots of swear words I hadn’t tried out since high school. “Sorry,” he said, still looking amused. “So what’s the problem? Your phone not working?”

  “No. Is there a phone at this bar? I think my battery’s dead.”

  “Yup. I’ll have you there in no time. Who do you need to call?”

  “My husband. He’s going to come rescue me. Or the police—they’ve been looking for me for hours. This is my honeymoon.”

  He laughed right out loud. “Don’t tell me! Then a troop of aliens will land on the earth and avenge your kidnapping by eating the brains of everyone in Montana.”

  I stared at the back of his head, my mouth hanging open. He didn’t believe me.

  Anger surged into me in a giant red wave. “Why the hell did you help me if you thought I was a lunatic?” I yelled.

  “Seemed fun at the time,” he said. “Everyone likes pimping Jim and Randy, so that’s nothing new.”

  “Pimping?”

  “You know. Practical jokes. I figured I wanted in on this one.”

  “For God’s sake, it’s not a joke. They said they wanted Slider, and that they wouldn’t return me until they got him.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Slider, huh? The Cardini kid? How’d you break your foot, anyway?”

  “I fell off a plane.”

  More hooting from the front seat. “From what, like twenty-thousand feet? Or was it flying low, and that’s how you managed to survive?”

  I shook my head. Unbelievable. My big rescuer and his big gun turned out to be nothing but a fool who refused to see logic. “Listen, I don’t care i
f you believe me or not. I need to get to this bar and use this phone, and get myself happily installed at the Shea residence, where my honeymoon will commence and Jim, Randy, Sven, Olaf, and especially you will seem like a bad dream.”

  That wiped the smile off his face. “Did you say the Sheas?”

  “Yes. My new family. The Sheas.”

  He whistled, long and low. We were pulling into a parking lot of a place lit up by an orange neon sign that read “The Bar at the Foot of the Hill.” He turned to face me. “Are you Madeline?”

  That one almost knocked me off the seat onto which I had just managed to climb. Was this the twilight zone? I wondered as I stared at his grizzled face. He seemed suddenly contrite. “How do you know my name?” I said warily.

  “Oh, God. You’re Madeline, the girl on the paper. Oh, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  At the time I thought he meant that I worked for a newspaper. I didn’t think to wonder how he knew, especially when he said, suddenly concerned, “Good Lord, girl, what the hell kind of honeymoon is this?”

  He believed me. He no longer thought I was crazy. He was sympathetic. All of those things dawned on me in an instant, and I started to cry. Loud, lusty and long would describe the way I cried, helplessly racked by sobs, all under the watchful and pitying eye of the pizza delivery man. He finally got out, got in the back seat with me, and took me in his arms. He smelled nice, not like pizza at all, but more like after shave and, surprisingly, limes.

  I sat in his clumsy embrace until the tears stopped. He was warm, and I felt like going to sleep. “How do you know my name?” I asked.

  He looked suddenly grim. “I saw it recently, I’d rather not say where just now. I had heard, through the rumor mill, that the Shea family was expecting a guest. I just didn’t know—”

  “That the lunatic crawling on her hands and knees was Jack’s new bride?” I asked. Now I was on the verge of laughter.

  “Listen,” he said, sensing my hysteria. “We need to get some booze in you. I’m Ardmore, by the way.”

  “Ardmore,” I repeated, trying out the name. “First or last name?

  “Just Ardmore.” He took a cell phone out of his own pocket. “What’s your hubby’s number?”

  I told him, and he bellowed into the phone. “Jack Shea? I just rescued your wife, and I’m taking her to The Bar at the Foot of the Hill. You know it? Great. Want to talk to her?”

  The phone was placed in my hand, and I heard Jack saying, “Maddy? Maddy?” I was near tears again.

  “Jack, just come and get me, please.” I couldn’t talk any more. I handed the phone back to Ardmore. He reiterated our location, then hung up and turned to me.

  “They reckon they’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. That’s enough time to warm your little heart with some whiskey.”

  And then he was carrying me. He did an effortless job, due to his huge mountain-man frame. He might have been lugging a bag of salt. “So, Madeline, how did you and Jack meet?” he asked me.

  “I lied to get his attention,” I murmured against his T-shirt.

  “See? I knew you were a liar,” he said calmly, setting me down on a barstool and motioning to a tall woman behind the bar. “Shelby, we need a whiskey here. This girl’s had the day from hell, and we’ve got to revive her spirits with spirits.” He laughed at his joke, as did the attractive Shelby. Soon a glass of amber liquid was pressed into my hand, and I took a gulp. The burning sensation brought water to my eyes and a path of fire from my esophagus to my stomach.

  “Wow,” I said, taking another gulp.

  Ardmore laughed. He was like the Brawny paper towel man, big and hearty and handsome in a bearded way. His black T-shirt was tucked neatly into some tight blue jeans, and over it he wore a black and blue flannel shirt. His beard and mustache were brownish red, and his teeth were white and almost perfectly straight. His eyes were brown and friendly. A little too friendly, I thought, as I caught his gaze flitting over my chest. “I’m married,” I told him.

  “You’re also drunk from about one finger of J and B.”

  “It was your idea.” If a person can feel her eyes becoming bloodshot, I was feeling that now, as well as a sort of pleasant dizziness that made me sway in my seat. The effect on my brain was happening in slow motion, a couple of beats behind the whiskey. I shrugged and took another slug. I liked it because it made me feel brave.

  Ardmore admired me some more, taking slow pulls at a giant beer. “You’re some girl,” he said. “This Jack’s a lucky guy.”

  “I’m sure I look just gorgeous.”

  “So prickly. Do you know how many swear words you used on me?”

  “You deserved them all. You—” A guitar blared in my ear; someone had popped a quarter in the jukebox and now Tim McGraw was telling me, at about twenty decibels, how a real bad boy could be a real good man.

  Ardmore stuck his face near mine and smiled. “What’s that?”

  “Does everyone listen to country music up here?”

  He shrugged, reaching out to put a lock of my hair behind my right ear. “Sure, why not?” He was giving me what seemed, in my drunkenness, to be adoring glances, apparently smitten in the way that someone tends to be with a very tiny kitten.

  I hopped off my stool, one-footed. “I’m going to wait for Jack outside.”

  “Whoa, there, watch it, you’re going to fall!” he yelled, catching me as I lost my balance. He held on to me, and I wiggled to get away.

  I turned toward the door and saw the most beautiful sight of my life: Jack Shea, rumpled and pale with worry, raking the bar with his eyes until he caught sight of me. His relief was palpable; I could feel his love from across the room. Pat stood at his side, looking almost as exhausted as Jack did. Through the window I could see the strobe effect of police lights, a comforting red and blue.

  “Jack!” I called, and he was there, and I was in his arms. He felt somehow insubstantial, thin even, after the giant Ardmore, but he felt warm and familiar. I buried my face in his shoulder. “Ardmore got me drunk,” I said. Then, to be fair, I added, “But he also rescued me.”

  Jack shook hands with Ardmore, and then Pat did. The brothers looked weary and drained. “Those men, Maddy,” Jack said.

  “Their names are Jim and Randy Bruder,” I told him promptly. Pat and Jack exchanged a stupefied glance. Like Ardmore, they seemed to recognize the names. Pat went to the door, where two armed officers were standing, and began to speak to them.

  “The Bruders,” Ardmore said almost genially, slapping Jack on the shoulder. “I thought it was a fucking joke. I thought she was playing a trick on them, you know? Crawling out of the house on her hands and knees? I mean, it seemed hilarious.”

  Jack paled even further at this image. He looked almost ready to throw up. “Maddy, I’m so sorry. Pat is beside himself about this. He said this is all their fault, although they have no idea what it’s all about.” He was talking loudly in my ear, to be heard over the music. “God, you feel good,” he said brokenly, squeezing me hard. I’d been clutching him since he arrived, and I didn’t loosen my grip.

  “I want to go now. I want to go home,” I said.

  Jack shook his head. “Sorry, babe. We’ve got to get you to a hospital. You can’t have done anything good for that foot with them dragging you all over Montana, in and out of cars, and—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. Ardmore was still grinning at me, as though we’d all shared a day at the carnival.

  Jack looked briefly at the giant man. I don’t think he really saw him. His eyes seemed unfocused. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Ardmore clamped a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “She’s a great girl. I’m glad I could help to get her back to you.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be in touch,” Jack said, shaking Ardmore’s hand again.

  We began to walk out of the bar; for some reason I turned back, and it was then that I saw Ardmore’s grin had turned to a worried frown. What did he know? I wondered. Wher
e had he heard my name?

  I didn’t care. Jack talked to the police, asking them to hold off until I had been to the hospital. By the time we got to the car, I was happy to be bundled up against Jack’s side. I put my arms around him. I breathed in the smell of him. I fell asleep.

  Chapter Six

  When I woke, Jack was gently stroking my face and telling me it was time to see the doctor. I don’t remember much about the hospital; I know the police talked with me in the emergency room. Did your abductors do this to you? asked a detective, apparently wanting it to be so. I assured him that I’d done it to myself in a moment of clumsiness. He asked a few more things, said his men were even now closing in on Jim and Randy, who had no longer been present at the house, and that they would be in touch.

  Then a woman in white with soothing hands touched my swollen ankle, gave me medicine, and sent me off to X-ray. Someone told me to lie just so, protected me with chain mail, and clicked a shot of my poor, much abused foot.

  Back in the office, the soothing woman spoke to me rather like a Latin teacher: Fibula, tibia, talus. Subtalar, calcaneus, lateral malleolus. It sounded vaguely like a Catholic blessing, when in fact she was telling me that my ankle was broken. “It’s stable, that’s the good news,” she said as she touched my foot carefully. “We may not have to cast it. I’ll start you with a brace; if it’s mending well when you come back, we’ll leave it at that. All right, Madeline? And I have some lovely pain pills for you, after that shot wears off.”

  I nodded, clinging to Jack’s hand like a six-year-old. They were still like a dream, all the events in this strange new scenery. Pat came in to see us, to ask how I was, and Jack told him that I had fractured my medial malleolus. It sounded like a spell that Harry Potter would put on Malfoy. For some reason this made me laugh. Pat looked at me worriedly, then took out his cell phone and went back to the waiting room to fill in Libby and the children, who presumably would pass it on through the entire Shea phone tree.

  The doctor looked at me with compassion. “I understand you’ve had quite a day.”