For Whom the Limo Rolls

by Lorena McCourtney

  “They’ve got Tom Bolton,” I pointed out. “And if you found anything you should turn it over to the police, not play sleuth yourself.” Now where had I heard those words before? Oh, yeah, Detective Molino telling them to me.

  “I didn’t find anything,” Sloan said, his tone sullen.

  “Maybe you killed her,” India suggested. “Maybe you were looking for something in the house that incriminates you.”

  I was still digging in my purse. Sloan Delaney stepped toward me as if he were interested in the search, but it was apparently a ruse because he suddenly backed up, yanked the car door open, and slid inside. He revved the engine, and the headlights flared. A moment later, he careened into the bushes along the driveway. Plowed across them, fishtailed onto the lawn, then another bulldozer crash through the bushes on the far side of the pickup. The tires squealed on the asphalt as he roared down the driveway and into the street.

  We both stared after him, astonished.

  With a sudden jump toward the pickup door, India said, “Let’s follow him!”

  Her willingness to pull a movie-style chase was admirable, but I could see that her old pickup following a Corvette would be like a tired old donkey chasing a racehorse. She, apparently coming up with a similar picture, looked at me, then the pickup, and smiled ruefully.

  “I guess not.” She stepped over and inspected the crushed bushes and skid ruts in the lawn. “I wouldn’t have thought a Corvette could do that.”

  “Was that the action of an innocent man?” I asked.

  “Maybe I should have shot out his tires.”

  I looked at her motorcycle boot, realizing that back at the house we’d never settled the matter of the gun. “That’s your Glock strapped to your boot?”

  “No, this is just a little .32. It figured it was better than the bigger Glock for something like this.” A bit of information I decided I didn’t need to tuck away for future use, since I had no intention of ever strapping anything loaded with bullets to any part of my body.

  “Now what?” she added.

  “I wonder if he had something in the car he didn’t want the police to find? It seems unlikely he’d be sneaking around here just to pick up shaving cream or socks.”

  “Something about the investment scam? But wouldn’t the detectives already have found that? You said the neighbor said they’d been all through the house.”

  “They might not have recognized what it was, or its importance, since Detective Molino didn’t know before I told him that she’d been working the investment scheme on Tom. Or maybe, as you suggested, he was after something that incriminated him in the murder.” It was right after mention of his possible involvement in murder that he’d pulled his movie-chase-scene stunt. After a moment’s hesitation I made up my mind. The hour was late but this was important. “I’m going to call Detective Molino.”

  I punched in his private cell-phone number, and a moment later got a terse answer. “Molino.”

  “Detective Molino, this is Andi McConnell—”

  “Andi, what are you doing calling me now?” He managed to make a yelp out of a whisper. “We’re just closing in on . . . Hey, there he goes! Around the corner!” Noises. Squeals. A couple of shouts. Then, to me, with what sounded like a resigned sigh, “Never mind. What were you saying?”

  “You’re on a stakeout or chasing someone or something?”

  “Never mind,” he repeated.

  “If you’re busy, call me in the morning, okay?”

  “Just tell me now why you called,” he said in a let’s-get-this-over-with tone.

  “The guy in Mary Beth’s shower? His name is Sloan Delaney. He’s Mary Beth’s ex-husband. Short, stocky guy with dark hair and a mustache. He’s staying in a motel out on the other side of town.” Although that, I realized, could be in any one of several directions. “He drives a red ’78 Corvette with California plates.” After a moment’s thought I added. “It probably has some scratches on it.” Maybe some dangling shrubbery too. “You’d said you wanted to talk to him.”

  “Okay, I’m kind of busy right now, but I’ll check it out as soon as I can.”

  “I’m sorry I interrupted . . . whatever it is you’re doing.”

  He muttered something I couldn’t understand, but which I suspected was a reminder to himself not to give his cell-phone number to some amateur detective type person in possession of a magnet-for-murder limousine.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” he said, as if what I’d told him had just struck a cop nerve. “How did you find out all this stuff about this guy?”

  I clicked the off button.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I’m not exactly sleepy after all this,” I said when India and I were back in the pickup. “The espresso stand up by Wal-Mart is open late on Saturday nights. My treat if you’re interested.”

  “Sounds good.” India backed the pickup out of the driveway. At the drive-up window at the espresso stand she ordered a cappuccino and I asked for a mocha latte. After we got our drinks, she parked the old pickup under a light in the sparsely populated lot.

  “I’m glad you were with me tonight. I’d have hated to encounter Sloan Delaney alone,” I said.

  “You don’t mind my taking the gun along?”

  I was undecided about that, but I was certain of one thing. “Sloan was definitely impressed.”

  “Connor taught me how to shoot. I never got good enough for a shootout at high noon, but I could sure scare a tin can at fifty feet.” She laughed, but I heard a catch in her voice when she added, “He also taught me how to make burritos and dance on the sand in the moonlight and not be afraid of rattlesnakes.”

  An unlikely list of good points in a guy, but I gave a cautious nod.

  She took a sip of cappuccino, twisted the Styrofoam cup on her leg and gave me a sideways glance with a hint of challenge in it. “He also fixed us up with several different identities in case we ever needed them. He could do all kinds of things with a computer.”

  “India Beauregard is one of those identities?”

  She nodded. “It’s the last one I have. I’ve used the others. He did ‘India Beauregard’ as kind of a joke, but it’s the only one I had left to use. What worries me is what I’ll do the next time I need a new identity.”

  “Next time?” I asked mildly alarmed. “Why should there be a ‘next time’?”

  “I guess I should tell you more about . . . me,” she said. “I owe you that, don’t I? You’ve been good to me. Your renting me the duplex without references really helped.”

  “That was mostly a nudge from God. You don’t owe me anything, but I’m glad to listen, if there’s anything you want to tell me.”

  “It’s not a warm, fuzzy story with a happy ending,” she warned.

  Her first marriage had broken up a few months before she met Connor, she said. He’d just finished serving an 18-month prison term for embezzlement. I almost squeaked prison! and embezzlement when she said that, but I managed to take a gulp of latte and let her go on. She said a man he’d thought was a good friend at the big corporation where they were both accountants framed him for the embezzlement.

  Okay, I was skeptical right there. He’d been framed, or he’d just convinced India – or whatever her real name was – that he’d been framed? But I stayed silent while she went on.

  “His wife divorced him while he was in prison. His friends dropped him. And with a prison record, he couldn’t get another corporate accounting job, of course.”

  “This was why you needed a different identity?”

  “No, that came later.”

  I thought this was already a rather dismaying story, but a grimness in her voice told me it went downhill from there.

  Connor had finally gotten a job keeping books in a pawn shop, made some biker friends, and turned biker himself. They’d met when her car broke down on the highway, and he, on his motorcycle, stopped to help. Their relationship progressed into marriage and chasing all over the country with Connor�
��s biker friends, which she’d thought were just a bunch of good-time people having fun. Until she finally realized the truth, that they were really an organized gang heavy into the drug business. And Connor was their accountant.

  I was astonished. “Biker gangs have accountants?”

  “This one did. Connor kept track of drug transactions and who owed who what. He also invested the club money in legitimate businesses and real estate and the stock market. He was very good at it. That’s how he could teach me later.”

  “But?”

  “But the terrible reality of the drug business finally got to him, and we got out. Except that you don’t leave a drug-dealing-biker-gang like quitting a job at Burger King.”

  “They don’t take rejection well?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed wryly. “They were a real sensitive bunch.”

  So she and Connor slipped out in the middle of the night and hid out in Canada for over a year. When they finally came back to the States they continued to hide out in a rented shack in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico.

  “It was kind of a bare-bones existence. No electricity, no running water, no keeping in touch with anyone. We had a little income from a stock market account Connor had set up before we went into hiding. We didn’t need much. I thought we were safe. We hardly saw anyone. There was this rattlesnake that liked to sun himself on our back steps. Connor called him Rambo.” There was nostalgia in her voice as if they’d been good times in spite of the primitive existence.

  “But you weren’t safe. And it wasn’t because of rattlesnakes.”

  “Conner was on his bike, coming home from Albuquerque one evening. It was about a hundred mile trip. I’d stayed home because I had some kind of stomach flu thing. He went off the road and crashed into a deep ravine. He died on impact with a big rock. The official conclusion was that he fell asleep on his bike.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “No, I think the gang somehow located us, and they ran him off the road. Because he knew too much about the gang and their illegal activities.”

  “So now you think they may be after you, and you’re using one of the identities Connor created for you. Do you want to tell me your real name?”

  “I think it would be better for both of us if you don’t know.”

  I nodded. “You know, if you want to keep a low profile, a woman in motorcycle boots and muumuus is kind of . . . memorable.”

  “Connor always said they were so me.” Her voice wobbled and she swallowed. “But maybe it’s time to switch to jeans and Reeboks.”

  “Good idea.

  “So now you know the story of my life.”

  Not really. There were holes in there big enough to bury an entire biker gang and all their motorcycles. What about her life before that first marriage ended? Why did it end in divorce? How come she had leftover Manalo Blahniks and a Coach handbag? And what had caused her deep hostility toward God?

  And a scary thought: what if the gang came after her right here?

  Chapter Sixteen

  I was late getting to church next morning. Phreddie went out for his usual morning property inspection and chose this morning to climb one of the big cedars along the back line. I didn’t want to leave him outside while I was gone, but, when I called, he just looked down at me with that royal stare cats are so good at. He wasn’t stuck up there; he just wasn’t interested in coming down. I finally had to wave an open can of tuna under the tree to entice him. Even royalty can’t resist tuna.

  The service had already started when I slipped into a rear pew while everyone was singing the God is Love chorus. Everything seemed normal until, in the middle of his announcements about weekly doings, Pastor Ron said, “As many of you are already aware, our youth pastor’s position with the church has been terminated. We wish our young brother the best, of course, and we pray for him, but under the circumstances, this course of action seemed advisable.”

  I looked around. There was much whispering and head nodding, as if a lot of people understood what was going on. Which didn’t include me. It wasn’t until the service ended, and everyone was milling toward the door, that Janice Morgan, the woman ahead of me on the prayer chain, caught up with me.

  “I tried to call you several times yesterday, but all I ever got was the answering machine. I didn’t leave a message, just went on to the next name on the prayer chain.”

  “I’m sorry. Limo business keeps me on the move. Was the call about the youth pastor?”

  “Well, him and— You haven’t heard?”

  “No.”

  She pushed me over to the side, out of traffic, and lowered her voice. “Lori Crampton called home.”

  I remembered now that Detective Molino had mentioned that the case of the missing girl had taken a “different twist.” I felt my own stomach twist in sudden apprehension. “Is she okay?”

  “She called from Texas, can you believe that? They’d gotten all the way to Texas.”

  Another jolt of apprehension. “They?”

  “She and Jeff Coulter. The youth pastor. They ran off together. Turns out they’d been sneaking around seeing each other for weeks. Her parents are afraid of the worst, of course.”

  “The worst?”

  “That she’s pregnant.”

  I was shocked and dismayed. Here he was, this young man who could preach with such fire and enthusiasm. This young man who was entrusted with the youth of the church. This young man whom I’d thought of as an exemplary Christian. And the girl herself, who’d given such a beautiful testimony with her solo not long ago.

  “Her folks are on their way down there now to pick her up. I’m not sure what Jeff will be charged with, but it’ll surely be something devastating. He’s almost thirty, you know, almost twice as old as Lori.”

  “How very . . . unfortunate,” I said.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything more. You know, I hate to say it but—” She paused, peered around, and lowered her voice still further. “I’m really thinking about changing churches. What kind of church are we running here anyway, with people like this? And on top of everything, there’s the situation with the shortage in the missionary funds too.”

  A woman tapped me on the shoulder, and we exchanged hugs before I turned back to Janice. “I didn’t know anything about a problem with missionary funds.”

  “It’s been very hush-hush. I’m just not sure I want to contribute my money to this kind of organization any longer, and I think several other people feel the same way.” She patted my arm. “Think about it. Sometimes you have to vote with your feet.”

  I made my way outside, where a fall drizzle puddled low spots in the parking lot with dirty water. I’d always thought of Janice as a good-hearted woman. She’d bring a casserole if you were sick. She often chauffeured older ladies of the church around. She’d been an active leader with Vacation Bible School last summer. And yet I sensed a certain gleeful relish underneath her righteous indignation as she passed along today’s disturbing information.

  All this troubled me. A thirty-year-old youth pastor who runs off with a sixteen-year-old girl. The girl herself, sneaking around like that. Our illustrious elder who drank himself into an accident that killed two people besides himself. A shortage in missionary funds.

  These were the kind of people who worshipped God and called themselves Christians? And gossipy Janice, for all her good deeds, troubled me almost as much as the others.

  Sometimes I came back for services on Sunday evening, but I decided I’d skip tonight.

  I had one short limo run that afternoon, a middle-aged couple trying to make a gala occasion of moving the wife’s mother into an adult care center. I wasn’t sure Mom thought it was all that gala, but she smiled and tried to make the best of it.

  Back home, I’d just settled on the sofa with my Bible, wanting to find guidance in my confusion about the problems at church, when the phone rang.

  I gave it my usual, “Andi’s Limouzeen Service. Your chariot aw
aits. Andi speaking,” although the cheerfulness was a little strained.

  “This is Danielle Lawrence again. I saw vehicle lights over in the driveway last night. Now I see strange tracks across the shrubbery and ruts in the lawn. Did you do that after I called you?”

  “A friend and I went to Mary Beth’s house after you called me, but we didn’t do the yard damage. We had an encounter with the person who’d been in the house.”

  “Was it the relative who’s taking care of the estate?”

  “No, this was the red Corvette man, who turned out to be Mary Beth’s ex-husband. I’m not sure what he was doing in the house. He was rather evasive. And then when I was going to call the police, he took off across the bushes to get around the pickup.”

  I thought she might want Detective Molino called now, but she didn’t mention it, and I didn’t tell her I’d already talked to him.

  “Well, hopefully that’s the last of him, then,” she said briskly. “I’m going to call the owner of the house about getting that damage repaired. The yard can’t remain in that disgraceful condition. It brings down the whole neighborhood. I don’t suppose Fitz is back in town today?”

  I restrained myself from making a snippy remark about her interest in Fitz. Hopefully because I’m a better person than that, but maybe because something else she’d just said jumped out at me. “You know how to contact the owner of the house?”

  “I’ve never met him. He inherited the house from his mother, a lovely elderly woman, so gracious. She’d never have turned it into a rental. But yes, I have his name and phone number.”

  “Perhaps you could you tell me how I could reach him? It’s more of the ongoing private investigation Fitz and I are working on.”

  “I can do that. Hold on and I’ll get it for you.”

  Fitz, I suspected, was the magic word to enlist her cooperation. Ah, the charm of that man, even long distance.

  A poodle yapped somewhere near the phone. Was my doggie charm calling to him even across phone lines? “Be quiet,” I said sternly.