Checkered Past (A Laurel London Mystery Book 2)

by Kappes, Tonya

  Regardless, The Gorilla, the affectionate name the mob had given my grandfather, had put me in the orphanage to keep me safe. He believed I would be safe tucked away in the small town in Kentucky.

  Anyway, I was on a mission to find out all I could about my family history. In between clients, I spent a lot of time at the library or on the Internet looking for any clues I could. I even had Donna Marple, the town librarian, doing some research.

  “Works for the FBI. Catching up on old times,” Gia whispered after she made her way back over to me. She tapped her pen on the pad of paper like she was taking my order even though she knew darn well I was ordering the BLT. She spun my notebook around and took a look at it.

  “I don’t buy it.” She slid her eyes down to Gilbert. He was devouring the pie. “He has shifty eyes. He might be with the FBI, but something is going down.” Her brows lifted. She pointed to my notebook. “What is all this about?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head and dragged it closer to me before slipping it back in my bag.

  No one knew I was the granddaughter of The Gorilla. Well, two someones did. Trixie and Ben Bassman, the attorney for The Gorilla. I was advised to keep it a secret until Ben figured out if there were any mob families or relatives of mob families who might be seeking revenge for all my grandfather’s wrong doings. Again. . . blood money and I wasn’t touching it.

  “I am not going to do it!” someone screamed from behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder at the lunch crowd to see who was yelling. My attention focused on the bank duo, Pepper Spivy and Sally Bent.

  “I’m not.” Pepper shook her dirty dishwater brown bob back and forth protesting whatever it was Sally asked her to do. Pepper brushed down the arms of her pantsuit jacket (her normal attire) and sat up a little straighter.

  Ever since Sally got her job as a teller at Walnut Grove Savings Bank, she prettied herself up. She kept her long black hair slicked back into a bun that was perfectly secured on the back of her head and kept a weekly nail appointment at Shear Illusions.

  “Is everything all right?” Louie Pelfrey asked. He made a quick stop at his sister’s table on his way out of the diner.

  “Everything is fine.” Sally’s words were to the point. She gripped a copy of the Walnut Grove Journal in her fist. “I’m fine.” Her words softened.

  Her eyes lowered and glided my way. Our eyes locked, sending chills up my freshly shaved legs.

  “Willie Ray Bowman escaped,” she mouthed to me, stopping my heart.

  I gripped the counter and sucked in some much needed air. I looked back over to Sally. Her brother Louie moseyed over to assess the situation. Her eyes darted over her shoulder. Her lips pursed.

  “I wonder what’s going on over there.” Gia’s head craned over the lunch crowd who had taken interest in what was going on with the bank tellers.

  I took notice of the journal Sally had put back on their table and watched her use her hand to flatten it out. The Hub was written in bold black ink at the top.

  “Hey, Gia.” I grabbed her before she made her way back down the counter with a full pitcher of tea in one hand and a fresh pot of coffee in the other.

  “Yep?”

  “Do you have a copy of today’s Journal?” I asked.

  She flung her head back, gesturing to Sally and Pepper, only their table had been abandoned and the Journal was gone with them.

  Chapter Two

  I’ve had a hard-on for Sally Bent every since she got adopted by the Pelfrey’s. Not that I cared she was adopted—maybe a little envious—but someone had to pick up her chores of cleaning the bathrooms and that someone was me.

  “Just some advice.” Gilbert slid his butt to the edge of the back seat after we had finished eating. He folded his elbows across the front seat, something dangling from his finger. He dropped it on my seat. “Clean your taxi.”

  I pulled into The Windmill Hotel before I looked down to see what he was talking about.

  Gilbert jumped out and tapped the trunk; only I didn’t hear it the first time. The trash he’d dropped wasn’t trash. It was a message sent in the form of a leather tobacco pouch belonging to one Willie Ray Bowman.

  “Bags!” Gilbert pounded his fist on the trunk, getting my attention.

  “Oh.” I waved my hand in the air. I grabbed my keys out of the ignition and got out. “Sorry.” I unlocked the trunk. “Say, why are you here to see Jax?”

  “I don’t think that’s your business.” He heaved the heavy bag out of the back and rolled it up to the window where Big Louie had taken his spot for the day.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I muttered and watched him slip his credit card through the hole in the glass for Louie to take as payment. I slammed the trunk shut. “I have the evidence Willie Ray Bowman is back in town and I bet you are here to get him.”

  I glanced both ways down the street before I hopped back into the car. Sally Bent knew something. And I was going to try to figure out what she knew or what she saw in the Journal.

  I turned the cab down Main Street and turned right on Second Street where the Walnut Grove Savings Bank was located. I drove around the lot and saw Sally and Pepper in the drive through teller window working with customers.

  I pulled the Old Girl into a spot, put the leather pouch under the seat and got out. Willie Ray was around here somewhere, but where? I scanned the parking lot and the surrounding areas to see if I could get a glimpse of him. Even if I did, I doubt he looked the same. Or maybe he’d be in the big orange jumpsuit the state penitentiary provided for him because I knew he wasn’t set to get out of the Castle on the Cumberland, the beloved nickname for Eddyville, Kentucky’s state penitentiary, ever.

  “Here goes nothing.” I prepared myself before I stepped through the threshold of the bank lobby.

  “Stay right there.” Pepper put her hand out and grabbed the phone. “You aren’t allowed to come in here. I’m calling the cops.”

  “Derek? I have him on speed dial. I can call him for you.” I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and held it up. Pepper ducked behind the counter and a loud bell dinged all over the bank.

  “Damn it!” I spat. “You sounded the alarm?” I stood with my hands in the air. “Where is Sally? I need to talk to Sally.”

  “Shut up and wait for Derek,” Pepper warned.

  Derek Smitherman would be here anytime. Yes. I was trespassing. Walnut Grove Savings Bank was one block from the police station.

  No sooner did I think Derek could run over faster than jump in his police cruiser to get here did he run in the door with his elbows locked and gun pointed straight at me.

  “Shit!” He surveyed the situation before he snapped his gun back in his holster. His steel-blue eyes looked annoyed behind his large black-rimmed glasses. His dark hair had that freshly shaved look. Even his face didn’t have the five o’clock shadow. “When I saw that car, I knew you were the one in here creating some sort of issue.”

  “She is trespassing and I want her arrested!” Pepper Spivy screamed from behind the counter.

  “I’m not.” I shook my head and put my hands down.

  “You are!” she yelled back.

  I turned toward Derek. “I’m not.” I continued to shake my head. I pointed to the threshold of the bank’s front doors. “Really, not by much. Maybe an inch.” I held my finger and thumb about an inch apart.

  “Arrest her!”

  “Shut up!” I screamed back and started toward the door.

  “Hold it right there, London.” Derek was trying to pull some big Billy Bad Ass act on me.

  “Oh come on.” My voice escalated. I slowly turned back around to face the bank lobby. The Walnut Grove Journal was sticking up out of the garbage can underneath the island in the middle of the bank where the extra deposit tickets and withdrawal slips were placed. I would put money on it that the tellers came back from their lunch and threw it away. I eased myself up to the island and stuck my elbows on top. Gently I rested my hands in my head.
“I have to open an account somewhere now that I have my new company.”

  Total lie. My money wasn’t going anywhere. It was my money. No way was I going to let nosy Pepper Spivy look into my business like she did every other person in Walnut Grove.

  True fact.

  Pepper Spivy hired me when I was in high school, on a favor from Trixie, to clean the bank. I hated cleaning, but I was good at it. Mind you I wasn’t as good as Sally Bent, but I could dust with the best of them. Anyway, Walnut Grove Savings Bank was such a small bank, when you came in to open an account; they had the machine to give you an automatic teller machine (ATM) card right there on the spot.

  The orphans complained day in and day out about the old stale bread Trixie got from the Wonder Bread Outlet on the outskirts of Louisville and I got tired of hearing about it. One night, while I was cleaning, I got a hankering for pizza. Not the kind of pizza Trixie made by slapping some generic pasta sauce on a piece of bread and a slice of commodity cheese before she broiled it in the toaster oven. I mean a real slice of pizza from Pizza Hut.

  The more I scrubbed the toilets in the bank bathrooms, the more my mouth watered thinking about the hot slice of dripping cheese. I even imagined the string clinging on to my chin.

  I tried and tried to put the pizza in the back of my head, and then the ATM encoder was staring me in the face. I ran the duster over it a couple of times. I hoped by knocking the dust off, it would knock the idea right out of my mind. It didn’t.

  It really wasn’t hard. I got into the bank computer system and looked up different accounts, Porty Morty’s being one of them. I called in a delivery of pizzas to the orphanage, and used the various accounts to pay for five-hundred dollars worth of the delicious pizza.

  Needless to say, a few days later I did get caught. But it was worth it! The orphans loved it.

  “Laurel London, haven’t you learned your lesson?” Sheriff Jimbo Warren asked.

  “You might be good at hacking stuff, but you ain’t good at being a criminal. You get caught every time.” Trixie pleaded with me to stop pulling the shenanigans even though every single crime I did commit was for the orphans. “You have a heart of gold. But you have got to stop.”

  Ahem. Derek cleared his throat bringing me out of my stroll down memory lane.

  “Most of the citizens of Walnut Grove have forgiven me!” I shouted and flailed about before I bent down and picked up the paper out of the trash. I tucked the paper under my arm. “Why can’t you?”

  In a huff, I stormed out the bank building hoping to make a clean getaway. Just as I got my hand on the handle of the Old Girl, Derek yelled my name.

  “Not so fast.”

  I snapped my fingers, my face contorted. “Damn.” I looked at him. My childhood best friend and fellow orphan had gone and grown up on me. “And to think that I almost got away this one time.”

  “And to think you are still acting like a teenager.” He kicked a small pebble with the toe of his cop shoe. We both watched it until it hit the curb. “I’m supposed to arrest you for trespassing.”

  The reflection from the sun darted off his glasses, blinding me momentarily. When I looked back up, his jaw tensed making his dimples deepen.

  “You aren’t laughing.” I snickered hoping to get some sort of response out of him. “And you aren’t cuffing me.” I put my wrists out in front of me and tapped them together.

  “This isn’t funny. You know I have taken over for Sheriff Warren since he retired and I can’t be doing any favors.” Derek was in a predicament and I could see it written all over that cute face of his.

  “Well,” I said, and for a brief moment thought I could cut and run. Only the big gun on his hip along with the uniform intimidated me a tad bit. “I guess we can come up with something. I was only in there to. . .”

  “To what, Laurel?” He ran his fingers through his short brown hair. His biceps were much larger than I had remembered them being.

  As a matter of fact, Derek had grown from a scrawny kid with zits to a hunk with muscles.

  “I was . . .” I stalled for more time. “Going to open an account.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the real reason I was there. It wasn’t like it was police business. It was small town gossip and I was ashamed to admit I had nothing better to do. And I would’ve sworn on my life that she mouthed Willie Ray Bowman when she was in The Cracked Egg. Her eyes haunted me. Willie Ray Bowman haunted me.

  The honking horn and screeching wheels of Clyde Yap’s old Chevy came around the building. Trixie hung out the window like a pet dog. Even her eyes were bugged out. The truck came to an abrupt halt.

  “I heard on the police scanner that Laurel was down here robbin’ the bank.” Trixie jumped out like a grasshopper.

  Trixie Turner was short in stature but tall on attitude. Her long grey hair was pulled up so tight into a high ponytail she looked as though she’d had a facelift. Her shirt had a big ninety printed on the front and the ends of it looked like a paper shredder had gotten ahold of it. She had on cropped acid-washed jeans and an old pair of red Converse high-tops that looked entirely too big.

  “You don’t need the money.” She grabbed my arm. Her nails dug into the flabby part of my arm. I bent down in pain. She whispered, “You have got plenty of money.”

  “You don’t need to dress like that.” I jerked away from her and inspected my arm. “You know I’m not spending any of that money. So get it out of your head.”

  There were four red lines where her nails dragged and then dug. I rubbed out the pain, but the scratches still remained.

  “Don’t worry, Trixie.” Derek gave her a big hug. All because of Trixie, Derek turned out the way he did. “Laurel was only trying to open an account.”

  She gave me the stink eye. No one was going to pull a fast one over on Trixie Turner, not even me.

  “Is that right, Laurel?” Clyde Yap asked as if he was my daddy.

  “Clyde, what business, if any, is this of yours?” I put my hands on my hips and tapped my boot.

  “None I suppose. But Trixie called me down at the Gas-N-Go to get her right away.” Clyde dug his hands in his overalls. “I had to leave work and I’m not getting paid.”

  Clyde worked on the other end of town, not far from where the orphanage used to be, at the Gas-N-Go. Baxter Thacker was the owner of the only gas station in town and I was sure he was making a racket charging high prices for gas.

  Baxter was a bastard. No one crossed him. Not even in my rowdy days did I ever think about knocking off the gas station.

  “No. It’s not true. I was trying to open an account just like Derek said.” I gave one good nod of the head. “Now, can we leave?”

  “Not until we settle a little matter of trespassing.” Derek just wasn’t going to let it go. “Besides, Pepper Spivy wouldn’t let it drop for nothing.”

  Pepper and Sally’s noses were plastered to the glass doors. The one shoving the other to get a better view of what was happening.

  I flipped them the bird. And just because I felt like a two-for-one deal, I flipped them the other one.

  “That’s not going to help.” Derek rolled his eyes and took out his little notebook. “I’m going to ticket you for trespassing; the fee is five hundred dollars.”

  I gasped.

  He put up his hand to shush me.

  “I know five hundred dollars is steep and it’s going to hurt your pockets, but you have got to learn.” He ripped the piece of paper off the pad and handed it to me. “I also will recommend giving you community service.”

  “Community service?” I freaked.

  The five hundred dollars wasn’t going to be easy to get with my Drive Me app. There was no way I was going to dip into the blood money to pay the fine. Ben Bassman had talked me into keeping a hundred thousand dollars at hand. I couldn’t stand the thought of it, so I pulled up one of the hardwood planks in Trixie’s old office at the orphanage and stuck it under there. I nailed it down and I couldn’t tel
l you which plank the cash was under.

  “That’s fair.” Trixie put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot.

  “No it’s not if you want to remodel the rooms in the orphanage.” I cocked a brow, giving her a glare.

  Trixie had taken real good care of me and “retired” on my eighteenth, though she was barely at retirement age. That was the deal she had made with The Gorilla. When I became of legal age and moved out of the orphanage, she was to close it down. Fortunately for us, my grandfather left the orphanage and land to me and in my name. Recently Trixie and I moved back in and were trying to make it our home. I’d used a little of the blood money for some furniture.

  “Yeah, community service is perfect.” He used his pen to jab the bottom of the paper. “There are the instructions. Be there.”

  Derek put his hat back on his head and moseyed on back to his police cruiser. It took everything in my power not to flip him the two-for-one special.

  Chapter Three

  Trixie didn’t bother getting back into Clyde’s truck. She hopped right in the front seat of the Old Girl in her normal lecturing position with her arms crossed, which told me I was about to get a talking to.

  I was right. The whole way home Trixie pitched a fit about how I had been fired from Porty Morty’s and it was a good job—not to mention she’d stuck her neck out for me. And if I kept going around actin’ all high-falutin, people would wonder where the money was coming from and my heritage had to be kept a secret. Apparently, my grandfather had pissed off a lot of people, not to mention killed a lot, and if anyone found out who I was . . .I’d be a goner.

  “He was losing money.” I reminded her why Morty had to let me go. “Let’s face it. There aren’t enough funerals, weddings, graduations, and family gatherings that are in dire need for port-a-potties. Besides, I have my Drive Me app now.”

  I had taken River Road to avoid Main Street. Not that it was heavy with traffic, it would be heavy with people walking around and Trixie would be hooting and hollering out the window greeting them. I’d have to stop to let her chat and there was no time for that. I wanted to see what The Hub had to say and go see Jax.