Yew to a Kill

by Kim Smith

Jason’s face was turned toward me. His eyes were open, but I was afraid they didn’t see anything anymore. Until he blinked.

  “Don’t give me away,” they begged.

  I sat up on my knees again, determined to get both of us out of this mess.

  Keep them talking, Wallace.

  “What happened, Theo? You get found out? Did Bubba discover you hauling drugs in your caskets and you had to get rid of him?”

  He took two teabags out of a box on Jason’s desk; some fancy affair that I’d seen as a gift set at Cracker Barrel. Maybe Jason’s wife had given it to him as a present.

  “Lemon? Wonderful. Ah, now you think since you are about to die that I should tell all? I suppose it shouldn’t matter, should it? No secrets between executioner and condemned, okay?”

  I glared at him.

  “Do not look so misunderstood, Miss Wallace. You have done your homework very well. I took pains to keep the information you have uncovered hidden. You are a better detective than most who are paid for that job.”

  “So before you off me with your special blend of herbal toxins over there, what the hell happened? I mean, I got the drugs-in-the-casket deal. Unlike a normal distributor, you had to go the grandstand route and use something to hide them in and try to scoot them out from under the eyes of the cops. I also got the way you did in Bubba, the poison, because he rolled up on you in the middle of something illegal. But how does Rafe fit in?”

  Ninjaman interrupted whatever he was about to say. “Dumb shit. He worked for us. When his boyfriend got wise and threatened the boss here with blackmail, it all went to hell. Rafe tried to keep the stupid flower-boy quiet, but he was determined to get his nose stuck in where it didn’t belong. Then he dragged the inventory clerk into the middle of it.”

  “Quite the spectacle,” Theo agreed with a nod. “So many deaths. Needless, really. If they had all just forgotten about it, they’d be with us today.” He sounded genuinely sorry as he picked a piece of greenery out of the mug. “Ivan, take this to the microwave in the kitchen and heat it for our guest.”

  Ivan, aka Ninjaman, strolled over to take the mug and teabags from Theo.

  He wore gloves and I wondered how toxic that tea really was, but he exited before I could ask him.

  With the odds a little better, I lifted a silent prayer to God for Dwayne and Sal to hurry the hell up. When I was a child I used to watch cartoons where the bad guys were just about to win but the good guys would rush in at the end and save the hero. If my bum luck ran true, I wouldn’t get such a deal.

  Theo reseated himself at the desk, and I wondered what condition Jason was in. If he was on the verge of death, he would be unable to aid me. I wished he could throw his hands around Theo’s neck and choke him, or in some way make an opening for me to get things going our way.

  Knowing that might well be impossible, I dug my toes into the carpet, and inching forward, forced my feet under my knees. Then, with supreme effort, stood—an old trick I had played with kids in the neighborhood called Indian Uprising.

  You are seated with your legs crossed and stand straight up without falling over. I had mastered it long ago. This situation was not much different, except once on my feet, I had nowhere to go and would have to hop to get there anyway.

  “Well, that was a good exercise. What do you intend on doing now?” Theo asked.

  I hopped carefully toward him, struggling to remain upright. He sat there, like a Mafia hit-man, awaiting orders, watching me, amazed.

  I inched closer and closer, until I stood at the edge of the desk corner. Before I could beg Theo to spare our lives, Jason rose from the dead and stabbed the druglord with one of the shuriken he’d prized so highly as a gift.

  Blood spurted across the white of Theo’s starched shirt and stained the black suit coat even darker. His surprise was quickly overtaken by his pain. His nails scraped at the offending object, but he couldn’t dislodge it and soon his feet kicked out in great large jerks and I knew he was done for.

  Poor Jason slid back behind the desk and I feared what he’d suffered in the process of giving that last ditch effort to kill Theo. No time to check on him, though. Ivan would be back soon and he was armed. I needed to find something sharp, fast.

  When Ivan came in a few moments later, toting the hot mug of poison, I sat in the chair, arms tucked behind me, working the knots as furiously as I could. He was shocked when Theo wasn’t where he’d left him.

  “Hey, where’s the boss?”

  I smiled sweetly and shrugged.

  He held the mug higher like he was toasting me. “We don’t need him anyway. I can still get enough of this tea in your cake-hole to do you in, and me and him’ll be out of here, free, unknown, and untouched. About damn time.”

  That was when I felt a cold hand shove a colder piece of sharp metal into my hand.

  I grasped it with my fingers and felt Jason’s hands as he finished untying the rope.

  While Ivan strolled toward me, I prayed that all the karate movies I’d ever watched were honestly researched. I aimed for his heart and threw the star with all my might, praying it would be hard enough to impale him.

  It struck his shoulder with a dull thud of metal against bone and fell away.

  Oops.

  He dropped the mug, howling in surprise and pain. Even though the star hadn’t penetrated, I imagine the heavy metal had hit with enough force to hurt some.

  Shucking off the rest of the ties, I threw myself across the desk, sliding over the highly polished wood like a dust rag. As I flew into the bookcase, I managed to grab my gun on the way down and felt my arm go crunch as I hit the floor with it beneath me in a strange position.

  “Fuck!” I screamed in pain. I one-handed myself into a crouch and aimed the business end of the gun at Ivan, who had now done likewise.

  We were, for all intents and purposes, at check in this crazy game of life chess. He had the drop on me, but I was armed, and he was my target.

  “Drop it, Ninjaface,” I managed to bark. My whole shoulder and arm were on fire with pain, and I knew I had damaged something seriously. I struggled to see through a haze of tears that sprang to my eyes.

  “No way. No frigging way.”

  He pulled a gun out of his inside coat pocket. “You better shoot me now, or—”

  A shot rang out, but it wasn’t mine, and an explosion ripped through his leg. He fell, writhing and moaning in pain.

  Dwayne rushed in, shoving his gun in Ivan’s face. “Don’t move, asshole. I’d love to finish this right now.”

  The boys in blue arrived close on his heels, guns drawn, radios chattering loudly. Ivan gave up the effort, convinced he was outnumbered.

  Sal appeared at last, broad shoulders pushing through the throng. He pulled on a paramedic’s arm and gestured wildly to where I lay, crying in pain. “Broken, oh my God, something’s broken,” was all I could manage before losing consciousness.

  I came to as they were about to roll me into an ambulance. Sal leaned down from one side and planted a huge sloppy one right on my lips. “Damn you, Shannon Wallace,” he whispered in my ear as the stretcher was lifted into the waiting ride.

  Jason took the ride with me, and I remembered telling him he was great and he’d be okay, but I don’t know if the words ever left my mouth. All my focus was on the noise of the sirens and the pain in my shoulder as we flew toward Baptist.

  The next day, after they put my shoulder back in place, I was feeling much better with drugs and food and no scary bad guys after me. My head was as hard as my aunts always told me it was and no ugly concussion had gotten hold of me.

  Dwayne came to the room, loaded with flowers (none poisonous, he assured me) and news of the day. He filled vases and puttered around the room while he talked.

  “Jason is fine, girl. The gut shot he took was only through a fatty part of his side, nothin’ vital, other than a loss of blood. You know a drop of your own blood looks like a gallon, and someone else’s looks like two, but I did
n’t venture a glance under the desk to see how much he lost, I just took the paramedic’s word for it.”

  “How about the other guy? The one who helped me get this,” I pointed at my arm.

  “Oh, he’s under guard, nursin’ a leg wound. For some odd reason, this mean-ass nurse I met one time was on duty. I told her about his shit, and she promised to give him the bidness. That guy deserves her best.”

  I smiled, remembering the nurse and her bottle of Betadine

  He sidled close to the bed and stood looking at me for a moment; a look like that meant something was afoot and when it was on Dwayne’s face, even more so.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You remember tellin’ me I should have gone on with those detective classes?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I think you’re right. I’m lookin’ into it. What if Video Angels became a surveillance and detection company?”

  I know my eyes were as big as dinner plates. “I don’t know what to say, Dee. I mean, geez, how could we afford to…?”

  He patted my head. “Let me worry about all that, girl. Didn’t I tell you I’m the man?”

  The door to the room opened and Sal came in, a bouquet of roses in his hands. His face relaxed into a smile once he saw me awake and sitting up.

  “Hello, friends,” he said, handing the flowers to me to sniff and coo over. “Glad to see you doing so well, Miss Wallace. Thought I would come and bring tidings about the case.”

  “Oh wow. They’re beautiful, Sal, thank you.” I smiled and handed them off to Dwayne who found a spot for them on my nightstand. “News of the case, huh? Did you get your man?”

  He nodded. “Dead. Name of Theo Makamushi, aka King Thor. Drug lord extraordinaire in Asia. He had moles in a few of the florist shops regionally. They all kept the lines going between funeral homes where caskets came and went, and flower shops where the money came and went. And Ivan Stone, the man who suffered the drumstick shot from you,” he indicated Dwayne with his pointer finger. “Was next in line after Theo cleared the area this weekend. He was just about finished and out of the country. Thought he’d left things covered with Ivan. Good shot, by the way.”

  Dwayne bowed slightly. “I aimed low.”

  “Now that that’s all over, I guess you have free time? So are you going with us to the big unveiling?” I asked Sal.

  “Come again?”

  “The casket contest. Carrie Thames invited all of us to come and cheer her on.”

  “Oh no. I’m on duty.” He rubbed the side of his nose and looked away.

  Liar.

  Dwayne, cued into the fact that silence had just descended and Sal had not committed, snapped his fingers and said, “Well, now that your boys got the lowdown on the drug deal and how all that played into the florists in the area and how they got it all cleaned up and legal, somebody’s gonna win a shit-ton of money on this body-box spread. You should check it out, dude.”

  I figured he wanted Carrie to win, now that it looked like Bubba’s murder was solved. I sort of subscribed to that way of thinking myself. “Yeah, Sal. Come on. You were instrumental in solving Bubba’s case. The least you can do is support his sister.”

  “Maybe I will. If not, then you guys call and tell me all about it. Right now, I’m going to pay a visit on Jason Scott and take his statement.” He leaned over to pat my hand. “I’ll call on you later to get yours. It might even match Scott’s, yes?”

  I nodded, getting his meaning. He was on the job now, but there would be time later to turn my side of things into something legal, and he would help out.

  A warm feeling stole over me. “Maybe we can go out for sushi,” I said, giving in to it.

  “I’d like that,” he said with a smile. He turned to go and bumped Dwayne’s shoulder, all friendly-like, on his way out. Just before exiting the room, he gave us one final bit of info. “Herbert, over at the paper, turned out to be a handy helper in all this, by the way. Tell your aunt, he’s a keeper.”

  After he was gone, Dwayne patted the side of the bed to get my attention. “Okay now, Miss Thang, you owe me an explanation.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  He held up three fingers. “What the fuck happened to scout’s honor? You know; no snoopin’?”

  The edges of my mouth creased a little. “Now, Dee, you know good and well I was never a Girl Scout.”

  He blew out a breath and thrust a hand onto his hip. I knew that was his way of saying, “Damn you, Shannon Wallace.”

  Somehow it felt really good to be in trouble with the two men I cared most about in the world. The future looked impossibly bright.

  The End

  Thank you for reading Yew to a Kill. I would love it if you would help others enjoy this book, too. Please recommend to others and leave a review. Read on for an excerpt of the next book in the series, Schooled in Murder, another wild romp with Shannon.

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  Bonus! Excerpt from the third book in the Shannon Wallace Mysteries.

  Schooled in Murder

  Chapter One

  Poverty, or the fear of it, sat on me like a screaming black cat digging its claws into my guts and making me take great big gulps of air. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

  I was a college graduate. I had a degree in English.

  I should have been a teacher with a retirement account slowly building itself into the future. But God has a sense of humor and none of that had happened. If a boatload of green didn’t arrive on the horizon pretty soon, none of my meager accomplishments would be of any consequence. I would be living back at home with my aunties. And thanks to the current economy, employment with McDonald’s didn’t look very promising.

  Said aunties, Tillie and Nancy, had been giving me money and food ever since my boyfriend and boss had been murdered a couple years ago. Might be they felt sorry for me but more likely they just loved me and wanted me to eat, drink, and be merry. Problem was, I kept getting myself into situations where dead bodies turned up and people close to me were affected. I need a life, seriously.

  My lawyer, James Adams, and I were seated at the House of Q consuming unhealthy portions of hot pit barbeque slathered in coleslaw and Tabasco while plotting a possible job for Video Angels and thereby, for me.

  At least, he was plotting. I was too unnerved to say much.

  “It’s just to cement their testimony, and won’t take very long,” Jimmy said. “I finally got the court to agree to a filmed copy of the contents of their house, and I know you’re into that stuff these days, so that’s why I called you.”

  “Well, yeah, but dang, Jimmy, it’s Miss Lunsford. She taught me in high school. It’d be like rummaging through her desk to snoop for the grade book.”

  He licked sauce off his fingertips. “It’s actually Mrs. Denaldo since she got married, hence why I need your services. They’re getting divorced. I need some way to exhibit all of their stuff before one of them ditches something of value. My thought was to tape the contents of the house.”

  I wiped at drops of baked bean juice in front of my plate and thought about it. “Don’t they have to fill out forms or something declaring their ownership of stuff so the court can decide who gets what?”

  “Are you talking about interrogatories? Sure. But if a form paints a thousand words, a video’ll paint a million, right?”

  “Now I know why Dwayne handed the phone to me when you called. This wouldn’t be a job for him. He can’t stand seeing other people’s stuff all jumbled up and mismatched. If you
were to let him inside someone’s closet he’d be spouting tidbits from one of those fashion shows he watches, and believe me, it wouldn’t be pretty. I guess that means the old bat’s dilemma lies at my door.”

  I didn’t mean for it to sound so hard, but my issues with Mrs. Thelma Lunsford Denaldo surfaced like a smelly, dead fish. She never liked me much while I was in school and since leaving those hallowed halls, I’d returned the favor. She ranked at the top of my least liked list.

  “Hey! Don’t be disrespectful. She’s been a teacher in this community for at least twenty years,” he said.

  “And she remembers each one of us, and all our youthful mistakes from every year she’s taught. In tenth grade, she caught me passing notes to Katie Henderson, my best friend, and made me answer for it by forcing me to read it aloud in front of the entire class.”

  He made a face like he had swallowed vinegar.

  I continued. “My reputation as Shannon Wallace, last known high school virgin, had been somewhat sullied after that incident. She even reminded me of my shortcomings two years later as I walked across the stage in the gym to accept my diploma.”

  “I see,” he said, with a shrug. “Well, it’s a thought. If you want to make some quick money—”

  “Just why are they divorcing?” I interrupted. “Seems to me a pillar of society like her would be an unlikely candidate for irreconcilable differences. Cruelty, maybe.”

  “No, not irreconcilable differences. Not cruelty either. Try adultery.”

  “What? You’re kidding!”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Something about making a video that ended up in her husband’s possession. But other than that, I can’t tell you anymore. Let your imagination run the gamut, you’d be right in the end.”

  “Welcome to the digital age, huh?” I tapped my front tooth with my index finger and thought about what he’d said. Had she kept a hidden camera going while she played stuff the sausage with her lover? More than likely, her husband was a better snoop than she thought. He might have had hidden cameras and she never knew she played into his plan.