by Joan Rylen
Kate groaned and called the rental car company. The operator told her the new SUV should be there within the hour. “We need to get cleaned up, then let’s go sit on the porch while we wait. And I may grab a snack for later.”
Vivian smiled at her. “And by snack, you mean bacon.”
Kate stretched and stood. “I’ll put it on a biscuit at least.”
They all laughed and took turns getting ready and threw on their usual brisk weather wear: jeans and sweaters.
Finally ready for the day, the girls joined Pierre on the back porch. Lucy quietly filled him in on what they’d learned about April and Nicole. Just as she was finishing, Brandon walked up, hammer in hand.
“I heard about your car. That’s unbelievable.”
Vivian didn’t feel right telling him their plans, so she said, “Our car will be here shortly and we thought we’d go for a drive, maybe to Saranac Lake or to Lake George, see a little more of the Adirondacks.”
He opened the back door. “Nice day for a drive. Steer clear of any bodies of water or fireballs.” He went inside the house but popped his head out the door a minute later. “Your new car is here.”
The girls and Pierre met the rental car employee in the driveway. He handed Kate the keys and a clipboard. “I need you to sign the new rental agreement and check whether you’d like additional insurance.”
“That’s a big, fat affirmative,” Kate said, signing the form. She handed him the pen and clipboard. “We’ll try not to destroy it.”
47
Kate got behind the wheel of the bright red SUV and everyone else piled in. “Viv, why don’t you call Nicole, just to make sure she’s not home yet.” She took off down the drive of Turlington Farms.
Nicole answered her cellphone on the fourth ring with a weak, “Hi, Vivian.”
“Hey, Nicole, you okay? We’re going to come see you.”
“I’m getting better, but I’m still in the hospital.”
“We’ll pop in. We may check on someone else while we’re there — April Robinson.”
“What’s she doing in here?”
“That’s a whopper of a story,” Vivian said and filled her in, then said, “We’re almost there, see you in a few minutes.”
Kate pulled into a CVS so Wendy could buy a get-well card for April and the gift card. She got back into the car and pulled out a card with the cartoon image of a newspaper headline that read, Get over it already! “I thought we ought to take Nicole a card, too.”
Kate pulled into a parking space at the hospital shortly thereafter. She looked at the two-story building. “We’ve been here way too much on this trip.”
They made their way to Nicole’s room. Kandace, Nicole’s sister, let them in. “Good to see you all.”
“You, too, though we wish it was under different circumstances,” Vivian said and handed Nicole her get-well card. Dark bags hung from Nicole’s eyes and her skin seemed to have aged overnight. New wrinkles lined her laugh lines. “So what’s the plan? When are you getting out of here?”
Nicole looked at Kandace, then back to Vivian. “I probably would have gone home yesterday — I’m basically over the E. coli poisoning, they’ve been pumping me full of fluids —but I went into anaphylactic shock yesterday afternoon. It was bad.”
Kandace huffed from her chair in the corner. “She almost died.”
Nicole dismissed Kandace’s comment with a wave. “You were quick to call the nurse. I was already in the hospital so the chances of me actually dying were slim.”
Vivian leaned against the windowsill. “What happened?”
“Tracy came to see me, said she felt bad I’d been at her house and got sick. I think she was trying to feel me out, see if I thought her hot tea was what made me ill. I don’t know what I had that was contaminated. I’m going to throw out all of the food at home.”
“Your food has already been tossed,” Kandace said. “Mom and Charbra did it. But it’s that woman’s fault you almost died, I’m telling you.”
“Kan—.” Nicole started to answer but Kandace cut in.
“That bitch ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right before she came to visit. Wasn’t that nice?”
Kate snapped her fingers. “Didn’t you say you were allergic to peanuts?”
“That girl waited around while they got Nicole’s reaction under control and then told the nurses that she hadn’t even thought about it,” Kandace said.
“You don’t believe her?” Wendy asked.
Kandace looked at Nicole. “I can see where if you’re not allergic to nuts, you wouldn’t think about it. But…”
“You didn’t like her from the start,” Nicole said.
“I sure as heck don’t like her now.”
Nicole sighed. “I know, and she’s not exactly my favorite person, either.”
“She seems all right to us,” Lucy said. “We’ve determined that Tracy might not be in the best marriage. We think Brandon’s mean to her, maybe a bit rough, too.”
“Great, now I feel bad for talking about an abused woman,” Nicole said.
Vivian looked at her. “Don’t feel bad, you need to feel better. Let us tell you about our last couple of crazy days.”
The girls filled her in on their adventure on, in and around the lake two days ago and the house fire the night before.
“I’m never traveling with you girls,” Kandace said, shaking her head.
“I’m glad to see you are all in one piece.” Nicole tapped on the bedside railing. “I’ve heard rumors Brandon and Shawna had a little something something going on. I was in the bar at Lake Placid Brewery a couple of weeks ago and he was there flirting with her. She gave him a hug when he left that lingered a little too long. Did she say when she started seeing Dale?”
“It sounded like it was new,” Wendy said. “But Brandon might not’ve liked it just the same.”
Nicole laughed, but sounded weak. “You can’t call it cheating when you’re married and your girlfriend goes out with someone else.”
Vivian gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “We’ll go so you can rest. If we don’t see you before we leave tomorrow, let us know if you ever get to the bottom of Mary Beth’s and Rebecca’s deaths.”
“You got it. Take care. Enjoy your last day of vacation.”
The girls and Pierre said goodbye and headed to the nurse’s station. Before Vivian could ask where April’s room was, Jeremy walked out of a room down the hall and closed the door behind him.
She tugged on Kate and Lucy’s sleeves. “Quick! Y’all take Pierre and go talk to Jeremy, take him down to the cafeteria.”
“Talk to him about what?” Lucy asked. “And why?”
“I have an idea. Y’all need to keep him distracted,” Vivian answered. “Wendy and I are going to go break into his van, see what we can see.”
“We’re gonna do WHAT?” Wendy asked.
“Just trust me!”
48
Kate looked at Lucy and Pierre. “We can talk to him about his movie script, say we’ve written one and does he have any advice, that kind of thing.”
“That’s good,” Pierre said. “It’ll keep him talking, but what’s our movie about in case he asks?”
Kate smiled. “A pregnant lady who gets run off a bridge at night into a cold lake and the whoop-ass she brings to the guy who did it to her.”
They walked toward Jeremy, who had just hit the down button on the elevator. Lucy gave him a big smile.
He recognized them and nodded as they all got on the elevator. “You aren’t locked out of your car again, are you?”
The elevator doors closed.
Wendy turned to Vivian. “What’s our plan? I don’t know how to break into cars.”
“We need a supply room, STAT.” Vivian grabbed Wendy’s arm and pulled her down the hall. She read the cards on each room listing patients by last name. When they came to one that wasn’t marked, Vivian tried the handle and it popped open. She stuck her head inside.
“Grandma?” She saw shelves of supplies. “Jackpot! Come on! Don’t turn on the light.”
Wendy looked both ways in the hall, then tucked herself into the room and closed the door. “Now what?”
“Remember how Jeremy had that blow-up thing that he put between the window and the door frame? I was thinking we could try and copy that with an IV bag and tubing.”
“And why are we doing that?”
“Just to see what we find. You never know.”
Vivian clicked on her flashlight app and began searching the shelves. Bedpans, pillows, boxes of latex gloves, hospital gowns and bandages lined the shelves directly in front of her.
Wendy stood on the bottom shelf, trying to pull down a large box. She stretched up and inched it to the right. Then she slipped, shoving the box off the shelf and into an IV pole, sending it crashing into the wall.
Both girls froze and held their breath for several seconds. Vivian didn’t hear any footsteps running their way and no one opened the door to see what happened, so she kept up the search.
Wendy opened the box and pulled out a couple of empty 250-milliliter IV bags. “Score! But now we need the lines.” She flung that box back and opened another. “We’re in business. Let’s get out of here!” Wendy stuffed the goods into her purse.
“We need a wire coat hanger to grab the lock,” Vivian said, opening the door. “Coast is clear.”
She and Wendy walked out, trying to look innocent.
A hospital bed emerged from a doorway down the hall carrying a fragile-looking older man. A transportation tech pushed him toward the elevator. “Here we go, Mr. Weaver.” the tech said.
“I’ll check in here,” Vivian said and snuck into the room. In a small closet near the bathroom she found a white plastic bag that said “Patient Belongings.” A single white, wire hanger hung from the foot-long rod. Vivian grabbed it and scurried out.
Wendy gave her a thumbs up, then they casually walked to the stairwell and hurried down to the first floor and made their way outside. They scanned the parking lot, which was full.
Wendy pointed off to the right. “That’s it, I think.”
They hustled down the closest row of cars, then cut over several rows before crouching beside Jeremy’s locksmith van.
“You ready?” Vivian said.
“I guess.” Wendy got the IV bag and tubing from her purse and connected them. She handed the open tubing end to Vivian. “Finally, a good use for all that hot air! Your idea, you blow. I’ll pop the lock.”
Vivian laughed and unrolled the tubing. Wendy did another look around and, not seeing anyone, shoved the coat hanger between the glass and molding on the passenger side door. She took the bag and slid it through the crack.
“Time to huff and puff and blow that bag up!” Wendy smiled at Vivian, then went back to looking around.
Vivian blew. It was easy at first but got more difficult as the bag filled.
“More!” Wendy encouraged.
Vivian kept at it, covering the end of the tube between breaths so as not to lose the air already inside.
“Almost there!” Wendy said, peering down at the lock. “I just need a little more leeway!”
Vivian gave it all her might and the window pulled apart enough for Wendy to hook the coat hanger on the lock.
“This is going to be tricky,” Wendy said as she slid the hanger toward the lock. She got the curved end of the wire on the far side of the lock and pulled, but the hanger slipped off. She tried several times before the lock moved even a little.
“Geez, its 55 degrees outside and I’m sweating.” She took a break to wipe her brow and make sure no one was watching before concentrating again on the lock. It took two more tries, but it finally flipped the other direction.
Vivian and Wendy both let out a breath they’d been holding and Wendy pulled on the door handle. Vivian was ready to run off, but no alarm sounded.
“He’s a locksmith and he doesn’t even have an alarm on this thing?” Wendy said. “That’s just silly.” She climbed in over a pile of trash in the front seat and moved to the back. “Look at all the stuff back here.”
Vivian had to step over mounds of junk in the floorboard but managed to get in and shut the passenger door. The back of the van’s left side had three rows of shelves containing blue bins filled with a variety of boxes. Four black toolboxes sat on the floor under the bottom shelf.
On the right side, a large, red toolbox had been bolted to the floor, and a thick piece of plywood was attached to the top. It acted as a work surface, and a gray key cutting machine sat on it. The tidiness and organization of the back was in stark contrast to the disaster in the front where years’ worth of receipts, fast food wrappers, coffee cups and gloves, you name it, now lived.
“I probably should’ve asked before we broke in here,” Wendy said. “But what exactly are we looking for?”
Vivian rifled through the blue bins and boxes. “Anything to do with getting Nicole sick or starting April’s fire. Accelerants, perhaps, or a petri dish where he’s growing E. coli. Or lock picking tools. I think April was attacked and either knew her attacker and let him in or someone was able to unlock her door.”
Wendy looked at her like she was crazy. “Petri dish? You kidding?”
“I don’t know! Kind of. But we’re here so start searching.”
Wendy pulled open the top drawer on the red toolbox. “I don’t think people just carry around batches of E. coli. However, there could definitely be something growing in all that crap on the floorboard.”
“It doesn’t look like he’s big on using a trash can,” Vivian said, looking through one of the black toolboxes on the floor.
“Why would a locksmith need Goo Gone?” Wendy started reading the back label of a nearly empty bottle.
Vivian closed the lid on the toolbox and shoved it back into place. “I have no idea. Maybe lock picking gets sticky and he needs to get gunk off his hands.”
“This stuff will start a fire. The label says it contains petroleum distillates and to avoid use around heat, sparks or flames. This bottle isn’t all that big. April might not have noticed if Jeremy had it in his pocket.”
“You’d probably need more than one bottle to get a good fire going.” Vivian looked around the back of the van. The edge of the carpet in front of the left back door was tucked underneath itself. Vivian pulled the corner of the carpeting toward her and it lifted, revealing a rectangular piece of plywood. She pried it up and found a black leather pouch crammed in the space. “Check this out.”
Wendy handed her a roll of blue shop towels. “I don’t know if you should touch that with your bare hands. We’ve left fingerprints all over the van, but it would probably be best not to leave any on that.”
Vivian used two of the blue paper towels to unzip the case. Tucked into pouches were flat, long-handled, stainless steel tools, all with different shapes on the end. One looked like a mini-saw, another had three waves, another had a sharp curved tip, and yet another had a more gradual curved tip.
“I think I know a lock picking set when I see it,” Vivian said. “Let’s take it! We can get into Brandon’s garage, see what he doesn’t want us to see.”
Wendy put back the shop towels and Goo Gone. “I’d love to get into that garage, but I don’t think we should take anything from this van, especially that. We don’t know Jeremy’s involvement yet. What if he’s the one who set April’s house on fire and he used those? We need the sheriff to find them.”
Vivian sighed and zipped the pouch back up. “Have you looked through everything in there?” She nodded toward the red toolbox.
“Yes, so I guess I’ll risk my health and wade through the cesspool up front to check out the glove box.”
Vivian opened the pouch, snapped a picture of the toolset with her phone, then put everything back into place as Wendy maneuvered up front. “Anything interesting up there?”
“I’d say so.” Wendy moved aside so Vivian could see what she was point
ing at.
A handgun.
49
Don’t touch it!” Vivian squealed to Wendy as they crouched in Jeremy’s locksmith van, staring at a gun.
“I’m not going to touch it!” Wendy said. “I’ve been on enough vacations to know what I should and should not touch!”
“I know, I know.”
“None of our ladies were killed with a gun, so this doesn’t mean he’s our guy,” Wendy said. “But it is an interesting find. Other than that I’ve found a Nickelback CD and a roach.”
“Ewww!”
“A marijuana roach, not the flying insects we grew up with in Pasadena. I also found a roll of quarters and a pair of dirty underwear.”
“Gross.”
“Tell me about it. I started to reach into the glove box and then thought better of it. Glad I found a pencil in the console and poked around with it.” She used the pencil to move items on the passenger’s seat. “I bet his house is just as disgusting, and if so, there’s no telling what Nicole came into contact with there.”
Vivian turned to look at the disaster, but she saw four familiar figures walking their way and panicked. “Time to go!” She shuffled to the back, unlocked the door, cracked it open just enough to squeeze through and jumped out while Wendy crouched down and locked the passenger door, then locked the back door and hopped out, too.
They ran behind a big truck parked beside the van, then squatted low and ran up the row toward the hospital. Vivian stopped to catch her breath beside a minivan.
“Oh my god, I just knew he was going to see us. He was looking right at us.”
Wendy peeked around the back glass. “He’s standing beside his van with Pierre, Lucy and Kate. They must have done a good job keeping him distracted. I don’t think he saw us.” She turned to face Vivian. “What’s that in your hand?”
Vivian looked down at a stainless steel pocketknife. “I don’t know.”
“You little thief.” Wendy took it from her and pulled open one of the blades, except it wasn’t a blade. “Oh my, it’s a — ”