by M. Z. Kelly
“I say we park up the road and circle around,” Amy said. “I don’t want anybody seeing us approaching the cottage.”
“That means we wade through the snow,” Max said, grimacing. “I’m not much of a snow person.”
“You can wait in the car, if you want,” I said. “We’ll call you when everything’s secured.”
Max agreed to our plan and drove up the roadway before finding a turnout, where the car was concealed.
Amy and I then began the trek to the small cabin. The going was slow as we found ourselves bogged down in the snowbanks. By the time we made it to the driveway and circled around the residence, we were both wet and exhausted.
“Let’s take a look in the window,” Amy said, as we huddled behind a small berm of snow. “But let’s be careful, he could be armed and think we’re with Angelo, or even his brother.”
Amy and I were less than ten yards from the cabin when a shot rang out from somewhere in the woods, barely missing us. We scrambled over to the porch, deciding that we had no choice but to enter the cabin.
The door was unlocked as we ducked inside, taking cover behind a sofa. That’s where we found Billy Cornelius also crouched down.
“It’s my brother,” he said. “He’s trying to kill me.”
“Tell us what’s going on,” Amy said, as another shot rang out, shattering a window.
Billy Cornelius was a handsome young man, with a shaved head and blue eyes. I had a thought that he could be a movie star if his life had taken a different turn.
“I know that he and his girlfriend were behind the Mendoza rip off,” Billy said. “They’re afraid I’m going to say something to Bobby.”
“Who is Mendoza?” I asked.
“He’s a drug dealer. He brought a load of heroin in from Afghanistan through Mexico City, then brought it up the coast. Suzanne and Cleo ripped him off and blamed Asia and me. They murdered Asia and also want me dead, so I can’t tell Bobby what really went on.”
There was another blast of gunfire, this time through the kitchen window. I had my service revolver out, but knew it was no match against a high powered assault rifle.
“Do you have any weapons?” I asked Billy.
“Just some knives in the kitchen.”
“Knives,” Amy said. “What kind of crook are you?”
“I’m not a crook. I told you…”
“We know you and Asia were running numbers for Bobby.”
“That’s true, but it’s a far cry from dealing heroin.”
Billy was going on, protesting his innocence, when we heard Max’s voice from somewhere outside the cabin. “Give yourselves up! The police are on the way!”
There was another hail of gunfire, before we heard someone scream. A few minutes later, Max called out to us. “It’s Dr. C! He’s down. I need help.”
Amy and I left the cottage and made our way into the woods, barely avoiding the continuing hail of gunfire. We found Billy’s brother huddled behind a tree, suffering from a gunshot wound to his leg.
“It’s Suzanne,” Cornelius said. “She’s behind everything.”
“Along with you,” Billy said from behind us. “You both tried to kill me.”
“You don’t understand,” Cleo said. “I’m on your side.”
“The hell you are,” Billy spat.
Overhead, we suddenly heard the sound of rotor blades. A couple minutes passed before a helicopter landed with several heavily armed officers, their jackets announcing they were with the DEA and FBI. One of the agents came over to me and removed his cap.
“What the hell?” I said, realizing it was Sam.
“It’s a long story,” Sam said. “I’ll explain everything later. For now, I need to know where Suzanne Angelo is.”
I pointed to the woods. “The shots came from over there. She’s got an assault rifle, so watch yourselves.”
Sam met up with the other agents, and, a couple minutes later, they all headed into the woods. Not ten minutes had passed when I heard them shouting, and someone yelling, “Drop the weapon!”
Suzanne Angelo came out of the woods in handcuffs a few minutes later, followed by the federal agents. They came over to us, where she confronted Cleo Cornelius, saying, “You bastard! You set me up.”
Cornelius levelled his dark eyes on her. “I’d say you got what was coming to you.”
She spat in his face before being led away.
Sam came over and handed him a handkerchief. “Nice work.”
“What’s going on here?” Amy demanded.
Cleo Cornelius fixed his dark eyes on us, then his brother. “I’m working undercover with the DEA.”
FIFTY-FIVE
“You need to explain what’s going on,” I told Sam, after Cleo and his brother had been taken away by the other federal agents. Amy, Max, and I were with Sam back in the cottage, where it was considerably warmer.
“When you mentioned trying to find Billy, I called someone I knew in drug enforcement,” Sam told us. “As it turned out, they’ve been after Bobby Angelo and his wife for some time. They got ahold of the DEA and learned about one of their informants, who happened to be Cleo Cornelius. He had done some work for them in the past by helping bring down a drug dealer who was dealing to his ER patients.
“Dr. Cornelius was already investigating the disappearance of his brother, who he knew was working for Angelo, along with his cousin, Asia. Things went south when Asia skimmed some money from Angelo’s numbers racket and ended up dead. Cornelius was worried about the same thing happening to his brother. That’s when he got you and your friends involved.”
“What about his wife?” I asked. “Christine Cornelius acted like her husband was cheating with her best friend.”
“Dr. Cornelius and his wife have been estranged for some time and weren’t even speaking to one another.”
“Probably because her husband was screwing her friend,” Amy said.
“I think there’s more to the story than that. I know that the doctor was using Suzanne to try and find his brother, but she had other plans. She wanted to take over her husband’s drug empire. Bobby Angelo was shot and killed last night. We think Suzanne murdered her husband.”
“And she also wanted Dr. C out of the way,” Max speculated.
Sam nodded. “We think the doctor talked to his estranged wife yesterday, who told him that she had talked to you and your friends. She also likely mentioned that she thought Billy might be hiding out in her family’s cottage. Suzanne followed Dr. Cornelius here and tried to kill him so he couldn’t talk about her plans to kill her husband and take over his business empire. She also, no doubt, planned to kill Billy.”
“What’s going to happen to Dr. C and his brother now?” Amy asked.
“We expect they’ll both testify, and the doctor and his brother will implicate Suzanne in Bobby Angelo’s murder. Depending on who else is involved, and the danger to them, they might both eventually end up in a witness protection program.”
I brushed a hand through my hair and released a breath in frustration. “To tell you the truth, I feel like I’ve been used, both by Cleo and you. Why didn’t someone tell us what was going on?”
Sam smiled, melting some of my anger. “I didn’t know any of this until I made some calls yesterday. The DEA decided you were getting closer to finding out what was going on and didn’t want to upset things.” His smile grew wider, and my frustration evaporated. “As it turns out, they were right. Nice work.”
We spent the better part of the afternoon being interviewed by both the FBI and DEA about everything we knew about the case.
After I’d finished talking to the agents, I asked Sam, “Do you think you can keep Max’s and my involvement in things discrete?”
“Why is that?”
“Let’s just say the department doesn’t look kindly on someone investigating a disappearance, even if it’s on her own time.”
He smiled. “I’ll see what I can do, but you and your friend helped bring do
wn a major drug dealer, and saved Billy Cornelius.”
I returned his smile. “I guess that will make us unknown heroes for the second time this month.”
Late in the day, Sam walked me to the car, where Amy and Max were waiting. “I appreciate everything you’ve done,” he said. “And I’d like to show my gratitude.”
We stopped a few yards from the car. “What did you have in mind?”
“I thought I could stop by your place again this weekend. We could try and locate that Thorndike character and maybe take a closer look at the cemetery grounds, see if there really is some kind of underground catacombs.”
I kicked myself for thinking he was going to ask me to dinner, and did my best not to show my disappointment. “That would be great. Just give me a call.” I turned and began walking to the car.
“Maybe we could also get something to eat.”
I stopped and looked back at him. “I’m sorry?”
“I know a little place, not too far from where you live. They have great food and drinks.”
I decided to play hard to get, because I still felt like I’d been used. “We’ll see how things go.”
I said my goodbyes and met up with my friends in the car.
“That looked real chummy,” Max said, after Amy started the car.
“You two gonna get together?” Amy asked.
I smiled at them. “We’re just going to rob a couple graves this weekend, nothing out of the ordinary.”
Max glanced over at Amy. “I just got me one of my vibes. I think Madison and Sam are gonna do a lot more than look for dead bodies.”
Amy glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “I got me a feeling things are on the upswing for you. You just might find your long lost mama and, at the same time, get a guy.”
I smiled, thinking how, even when you live in a graveyard, life can be full of new beginnings.
THE END
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Copyright © 2017 by MZ Kelly
Published by Kingston Roads Press, L.L.C.
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