Megan assured her she would try her cell again later as it wasn’t anything critical or anything requiring an immediate response. She thanked her mom then hung up. Megan decided she better try the cell now as Mimi’s mom may call and alert her about the call she had received.
It was a younger girl that picked up this time so Megan assumed it was Mimi.
“Hey Mimi, this is Megan and I was wondering if you were doing anything and if you would like to have lunch, I’m buying?”
“Who is this?” Mimi said.
“Its Megan, this is Mimi, right? Hey girl, don’t tell me you don’t remember me. I’m not that forgettable, well, my other friends tell me I’m not.”
“Yeah this is Mimi. Lunch, yeah lunch would be good. You have a place in mind?”
“Pete’s Brewhouse and Pizza Restaurant right on 12th Street. Is that to far from you, if it is we can do something closer?”
“No, no, Pete’s is good, just a block away.”
“I’ll meet you there in about an hour if that is ok with you?” Megan asked.
“In an hour then, I’m really curious to see you again.” Mimi said and Megan knew the girl had no clue as to who she was.
Megan called the office together and told them about her lunch with Mimi. She wanted Christine to join them in the restaurant after Mimi and her were seated. She wanted JJ nearby so he could tail her back to where she was staying just in case things went astray and she wasn’t cooperative. Christine was the dilution to the meeting and that dilution should make things less intimidating when she comes on as Megan’s friend also.
“To really throw her off balance I want you, when you join us in the restaurant, to say hi to me and then make it a point to say hi to Mimi as if you also knew her as well as me,” Megan told Christine.
“Your going to make her think she has some type of amnesia with this stunt, you think it might work?” JJ asked.
“Don’t have a clue but I would like to have the upper hand and who knows, she may just recognize me as the lady who fell down the fire escape. That, of course, would make the whole plan void and she would see right through the theatrics we’re attempting. Everyone on board, lets get hands in here for a one two three break,” they all placed there hands together as if they were a high school team ready to face the opposition. Then they broke and headed to their planed positions.
She must have lived close because Megan spotted her as she walked up to the crosswalk and waited for the light to change so she could cross. Megan looked at Christine and quickly pointed at the girl crossing the street. Christine nodded her head signifying that she had seen her. Megan looked at JJ out on the street and he quickly pointed at Mimi as she headed into the restaurant where Megan waited.
Megan got up and went and met Mimi as she came in the door. With this closer look at her Megan realized that she was the frizzy haired cartoon lady that she had seen while she dangled from that fire escape. She looked somewhat like the comic book Orphan Annie. The auburn hair was kind of puffed around her head and her eyes seemed to be bigger than normal. Even with that in mind, Megan noticed that she was really pretty and maybe the way she did her hair was intentionally done to take away some of her prettiness. Megan also noticed that she looked a little unkempt and she suspected that she might be on the street and a little hungry.
“Hey Mimi, glad you could make it, I’m sitting right back here,” Megan said as she took Mimi’s hand and led her back to the table she had indicated.
Appearing as if by magic, “What would you like to drink?” the hostess said as soon as they sat down.
“I’ll take some iced tea, lots of ice, please,” Megan quickly replied.
“I want a coke,” Mimi told the young girl.
“Your server will be with you shortly, I’ll get your drinks,” the hostess said disappearing as quickly as she had appeared.
“Hey Megan, oh, and hi Mimi. Megan why aren’t you at work?” Christine asked as she approached.
“Took a little time off to meet a friend. How about you, I hear your boss is a slave driver so I wonder how you got free to take a break?”
“You wouldn’t believe the things she has me doing, I’m on a job right now if you can believe that,” Christine said as she pulled out a chair and sat down.
“I’m sorry, this may sound crazy but I don’t know you two or I don’t remember knowing you two. I may be losing my mind,” Mimi said as she shook her head.
“Well to tell you the truth, Christine here recognizes you from your drivers license photo. Maybe you might recognize me easier if I were dangling from a fire escape landing in front of your apartment window,” Megan said as she simulated that scene by bending over and moving from left to right.
“Oh my God, that was you, you’re that PI. Oh no, I got to go, I got to go,” Mimi stood and was ready to flee.
“Running won’t do you any good. If you leave I will just have the police pick you up and they can do the questioning instead of me.”
“How did you find me?”
“That isn’t important. Now, please sit back down and have some lunch so we can talk, you really have no other choice.”
Mimi sat back down and quietly waited for the server to take their order before she spoke.
“I had nothing to do with your fall, I want you to know that up front.” Before Megan could say something Mimi continued. “Ok, I was a witness, an innocent witness and as soon as I realized your fall was not an accident I literally ran from that situation. I’m sorry about your fall but I thought you were dead. I’ve been hiding out with no money and no place to live since then. I didn’t want those two jerks to find me. I’m so hungry and that’s why I agreed to meet you, just to get something to eat.”
“Good, this is a start. Just relax for a little and please have some lunch, I’m still buying. I didn’t think you were involved from the way you acted when you saw me dangling there.”
Well Mimi stayed and had lunch and she ate like she had been missing some meals as Megan suspected. She even let Megan order her a desert after she had wiped out the large all meat pizza they had ordered. She also drank about a half gallon of soda as she got refill after refill to wash down the pizza.
The information Megan and Christine got was little more than what they already had. Mimi didn’t know either of the two apartment mate’s last names, she knew them by Clyde and John only. She did know they were doing some electrical work but didn’t have a clue about them doing it on the roof or their involvement with that Mr. Logan’s death. She wasn’t in the apartment when he died and the TV reported it as a suicide. She had no clue on who reported the old man as depressed or suicidal. Megan gave Mimi her business card and asked her to call if she thinks of something else or feels like she might be threatened or in danger. She also asked her to call if she just wanted to talk or needed anything.
Chapter Twenty
OMG, Bugs in my Car
“Better sit down for this,” Clyde Salworth said as soon as John Strong came in. When he was seated Clyde said, “You probably won’t believe this but that pesky PI was having lunch with our little friend Mimi down on 12th at Pete’s Pizza place.”
“You serious, when was this?”
“Earlier today around noon. I’m still tailing that nosy PI, you know, and I feel she is getting too damn close. We have to take action now!”
“Ok, ok. We need to do this somewhere back close to that apartment we lived in so no one connects this area to that one. We need to find out when she is going to visit there and we will arrange a little something permanent for her with one of our three, ready to go, units.”
“Hey, we got that PI’s office address, why don’t we send a message asking her to a meeting with someone who has some info about her accident. We can set the time and date for her to come alone,” Clyde put in.
“That’s actually a clever idea, let’s do it. I suggest you do that from a pay phone near our old apartment. Oh yeah, by the way, did you find out where our littl
e Mimi is hiding out? We need to deal with her too.”
“I think she is on the street but I couldn’t tail the PI and her at the same time, sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it, we can always get her later if necessary. You know you got to be careful tailing that PI, she’s not blind you know?”
“I’m being very careful and keeping my distance.”
Back at the office and after a quick lunch break Megan and crew gathered in the conference room. Nothing really vital had come up in the lunch with Mimi except Megan was almost positive that she was no more than an innocent bystander. JJ had indeed tailed her and found that she was living on the street. She had gone back to an alley that is a known lair for some of the homeless in their fair city.
“I don’t know if you guys have noticed but, here lately, I have been just a little paranoid, looking over my shoulder you know?” Megan said.
“Can’t fault you for that, after all, someone tried to introduce you to the “Grim Reaper”,” JJ used two fingers on each hand to put the quotes on Grim Reaper.
“I know, I know. Thing is, I have seen this unusually ordinary white van at too many locations to be a coincidence. I don’t believe the driver knows I’ve noticed him as I’ve been using all these subliminal ways to view my surroundings. I used shop window reflections, the rearview mirrors in my car and my peripheral vision to track any movement that might corresponds to my movements. I saw a white van again today when I was watching out the window for Mimi. I can’t swear that it was the same van but something about it rang a large bell in my head. Another thing that’s been bothering me, sometimes a white van catches my eye as it shows up after I’ve been at a particular location for some time already. It seems that this van moves and follows me shortly after I pull out from a parking place, its happened too many times.” Megan wrote a short note about the white van then pinned it on the murder board, “now JJ, I need you to refute this or confirm it somehow.”
“You got it boss. You go about your routine as normal and I’ll find a way to validate or disprove your suspicions.” JJ started to leave then turned back around, “on second thought I’m going to make sure I’m not in the limelight. I will leave by the back way and stay on the clandestine side of things, invisible to who might be watching, but first, I’m going to go over your vehicle to make sure there hasn’t been some type of GPS bug riding with you. I want you to take your ride in for an oil change, you know the place. Go for coffee while it’s being done.”
JJ was temporarily one of the uniformed mechanics at Lube and Things. He would be doing the oil change on Megan’s vehicle. JJ stayed inside the garage area while the manager, Jack Coggins, met Megan out front and took her keys and instructions on what she wanted done to her car.
As soon as Megan walked in the door Christine was out of her chair and met her while waving a note she had written down. “Somebody called, said he had info on your accident. He said, wait, I’ll play it back for you even though I jotted it down here,” Christine said as she handed Megan the note.
There were street noises behind the voice as if the phone was mobile or maybe a street pay phone. “You the one that got hurt on that fire escape? If you are, I have some info for you. You meet me alone tomorrow, you come walking up so I know you’re alone. Let’s say 10 am, out on the street near the apartment where that happened and I’ll give you the info. You got to bring some change for me, the info I got ain’t cheap so you don’t be cheap.”
It wasn’t easy to find but it was there and it was a very expensive long range electronic transmitting device. It was being used by and confirmed later by the FBI who wanted to know how JJ knew about this piece of equipment. He, of course lied, said he had seen it in a trade magazine. JJ wasn’t sure that the FBI believed him or not but he had the info he needed. He had taken close up pictures and wrote down serial and part numbers before he left the device in place so as not to alert the device users.
JJ came in and they replayed the recording for him. He thought it was a set up and said so to Megan.
“Set up or not, we have to see it through. This just might be the break we need to tie this down.”
“If you insist. I know what I’m going to do right now. I’m going to find an observation point where I can be hidden but still watch the area you will be in tomorrow. I’ll take supplies with me for the night, I want to be ahead of the game if possible.”
“Ok, tomorrow just before 10 am. I will park not to far from the apartment and I will proceed up the sidewalk on foot on the side of the street where the apartment is. It should be quiet and deserted at that time of the morning and I should be safe.”
Chapter Twenty One
The Robot and the Green Monster
She parked at 9:50 and she figured it was a 9 or 10 minute walk to the apartment. The streets were actually void of traffic and there was no one on the sidewalk but her. It was kind of eerie in a way. She did expect foot and vehicular traffic to be sparse but this was probably unprecedented in its sparseness. She kept a peripheral sweep of the area going and she strained to hear anything unexpected. All she heard was the sound of her medium heeled shoes as they struck the sidewalk. There was a white van parked about 100 yards up the street but it appeared to be unoccupied, the van she had seen before so many times was not anywhere in the vicinity as far as she could tell. The buildings along here pushed up against the sidewalk leaving no room for grass or lawn that would have to be mowed. Most of the buildings entries had strong looking security screen doors that would prevent unwanted nonresidential entrance.
Megan was about 20 yards from the alley that held her favorite fire escape when she heard that previously unoccupied white van start up. She still didn’t see anyone inside but the van pulled out and headed down the street in her direction. A moment later it sounded like the accelerator had been floored and the vans rear tires were now spinning and some smoke was coming from the rear tires.
She thought that it was some idiot who was late for an appointment until the vehicle veered and headed straight in her direction. She looked for a place to go to be safe but nothing was there, no out cropping, no doorways, nothing but a blank wall with windows to high to jump through. She started running toward the alley and if she could make it there, she might be safe from the speeding vehicle.
From his position across the street, JJ heard the tires squealing and saw that the vehicle was headed for Megan but there was nothing he could do. He did what he could do and that was to at least get a video of this. He just hoped that it was only an attempt to scare her not to hurt her again. JJ could tell that she wasn’t going to make it to the alley unless something changed.
Just before that speeding vehicle could run Megan down, a large green waste management vehicle came out of the alley, out far enough to see both ways so it could enter the street avoiding any traffic. The large truck appeared too late for the driver of the van to take any defensive action and that made the collision unavoidable. The large vehicle was sticking out across the sidewalk, inherently protecting Megan, and the racing van struck the front corner and bumper of that almost immovable object.
The force of that blow spun the van and it slid sideways into a speed bump that ran across the street. When those wheels contacted the speed bump, with the vehicle sliding sideways, it was enough to cause that vehicle to bounce into the air and flip sideways landing on its top and then cart wheeling over and over on its side like a barrel rolling down the street. The centrifugal force of the spin pulled both front doors open and they were ripped off as the vehicle rolled. The engine of the van was still at full throttle and the rear wheels were churning the air as it rolled and when they touched pavement they squealed and puffs of smoke came up in two grayish black plumes.
Megan had frozen at the last moment preparing to shake hands with Saint Peter when the large green truck blocked her view of the speeding van, that is, until it flew by in the air. She stood in awe and looked up as the van passed in front of her, she could see that
no one was on board and this confused her.
Megan was frozen, with her back against the wall, for only a few moments then she turned toward the alley and the big green vehicle that had saved her life. She ran to that large truck and grabbed the driver as he squeezed out between the corner of the building and the truck’s door. His vehicle had been slammed across into the side of the alley, barely leaving him room to get out. She threw her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. “You are my super hero, you’re my super hero,” she kept repeating as she hugged him and cried, the tears running down her face unhampered.
JJ shot across the street to where Megan was. He grabbed the drivers hand, pumping it up and down, thanking him over and over adding to the driver’s confusion.
“That fool in that van broke my truck, what the hell’s wrong with him?” George Wilson said then continued, “say, how come you hugging me and thanking me, I didn’t do nothing. I was just down here in the alley picking up the people’s garbage.”
“Didn’t do anything, how about saving a ladies life? I would say that was something, it was really something. Damn, I’m glad you were here, I thought I had lost my friend and my partner,” JJ told George.
The noise of that white van suddenly catching on fire was loud enough to suggest an explosion but maybe it was only the gas leaking out that had suddenly ignited.
JJ helped Megan stand back and free George from her clinging embrace. She was shaking like a leaf. JJ was afraid that this attempt on her life had really taken a toll. He called 911 for the fire department and an ambulance for Megan. While he waited, not leaving Megan’s side, he got all the particulars from George and gave him his business card with the promise that if he ever needed a PI it wouldn’t cost him a dime.
Waiting to Heal Page 8