Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder

by Jessie Chandler

  “What do you take me for?” Eddy said. “Of course. I disinfected it and ran it through the dishwasher at the Hole.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was okay with that or not. But in the end, the poop-catcher was clean, so what the hell. I grabbed a few midgees too.

  Coop’s face was a mask of horror. “That’s disgusting on so many levels. The fact that you’re eating nothing but a bunch of chemicals is bad enough, but eating them out of a bed pan?”

  I unwrapped a roll and stuck it in my mouth, chewed for a while, and swallowed. “Tastes okay to me.”

  Coop tossed the magazine he’d been reading at me. With a delighted howl, I fired off the Tootsie Rolls that were in my hand, catching him center mass.

  “Oh, you’re in trouble now.” Coop snagged the Kleenex box from the side table by the bed and flung it Frisbee-style at my head. The door swung open just as I ducked. The box narrowly missed the doorjamb, and bounced off the shoulder of a man dressed neatly in a suit and tie.

  My laughter choked in my throat when I realized the victim of the flyaway box of tissues was Roy Larson, Greg’s dad.

  “That’s some welcome.” The surprised look on his face smoothly morphed into concern. Roy stepped into the room and the door swung shut behind him. “Pete. I wanted to stop by and see how you’re doing.”

  Coop said somberly, “Sorry about the Kleenex attack.”

  “Hey. If you can’t have a good time in a hospital … ” Roy trailed off with a shrug and refocused on my dad. “Really, Pete, how are you?”

  “Doc says I’ll mend.” I could tell from my dad’s tentative tone he was wondering how to handle Roy.

  What was appropriate to say to the father of a probable murderer?

  “Oh. Good. That’s good. Wanted to stop by, apologize. For my son. He’s been under stress. A lot of stress. Lately.”

  Like stress was a reason to shoot my father?

  My dad waved off the words. “Politics are a dirty business. Pressure. Strain. Not a good combination.”

  “No, it’s not,” Roy agreed. “There’s a lot of dirty business. Too much dirty business.” His shoulders drooped, and it was like he deflated, folded into himself. “Dirty, dirty business.”

  I glanced at JT, and she was watching Roy with a look of concern. She said, “You okay, Mr. Larson?”

  Roy’s gaze slid off my dad and his eyes landed somewhere between the mattress and the floor. “Oh, yes. I’m fine. Just fine. Couldn’t be finer. No.”

  Eddy cocked her head as she studied Roy. “You having a stroke or something?”

  “No, ma’am. Not yet, anyway.” Roy pushed his hands into his pants pockets.

  “Roy,” my dad said, “I told you, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “Okay,” Roy said, his voice sounding weak. “Not okay. It’s not okay.” Suddenly his head snapped back up. “It’s not at all okay, Pete.”

  “I know it’s got to be hard to deal with—with your son in the clink, and … ” My father trailed off, leaving the obvious unspoken.

  “It’s not okay, Pete.” Roy was stuck on repeat. Maybe he was having a stroke. I glanced around the bed for the nurse call button.

  Roy’s face flushed a deep maroon. His ears turned red and his neck became suffused with blood. He muttered, “Nothing is ever going to be okay again. If nothing is going to be okay for me, it’s not going to be okay for you either.”

  “What—” my dad said, but Roy cut him off.

  “No, nothing will be okay.”

  Roy pivoted to face me. In one motion, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and raised it to chest level. My chest level. It took me a second to realize there was something in his hand. And it was pointed at me.

  That something was a black, palm-sized handgun.

  My arms flew up. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Just wait a second.”

  “Roy,” my father barked. “What in the sam hell are you doing?”

  JT stiffened, eased away from me.

  “You took my son away from me, Pete. So I’m going to take away something you care about.”

  Roy’s gun hand was remarkably steady. “You,” he said to me, “over there, by your father.”

  I didn’t argue. I shifted to stand next to the head of the bed.

  “You two.” Roy looked at Coop and Eddy. “Over there.” He motioned with his gunless hand at the space next to the window. “You too, police girl.”

  Eddy and Coop shuffled over to the window. JT slowly backed up, her hands at shoulder level. “Take it easy, Roy.”

  Roy glared at JT. “You know I’m the king of kitty litter, right?”

  JT frowned, but she nodded with gusto. “I sure do.” I could imagine her saying that whatever the madman wants, the madman gets. Maybe psychotic breaks run in the family.

  Roy said, “Do you think I wanted to be the king of kitty litter?”

  JT said, “I don’t think I can answer that.”

  “No!” The volume of Roy’s voice caused a group jerk reaction. “I was supposed to be governor! But that didn’t work out so well, did it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “No it didn’t. Everything fell apart when Greg … ”

  “When Greg what?” I asked, keeping my hands by my ears.

  “Boys will be boys, you know. Things get a little carried away. Happens all the time.” This was turning into a like son, like father fiasco.

  I finally saw that the remote with the nurse call button had slid down between the side rails.

  Suddenly Roy growled, “You look at me, Shay.”

  I snapped my head up and met his eyes. They were eerily similar to his son’s in a loony bin sort of way.

  He said, “You have no idea what it’s like to have to protect your offspring. The lengths you’ll go, even if it means sacrificing everything. Everything you’ve worked your entire life for.”

  Roy shifted to better see my father and me. The hand holding the gun was now trembling. A lot.

  “If only,” Roy’s tone was wistful, “if only Greg hadn’t started seeing that girl, none of this would ever have happened. I wouldn’t have had to take care of her. I wouldn’t have had to jackhammer concrete in the middle of the night and hope no one noticed. I wouldn’t have had to lay new cement. We would’ve been home free. And we were, until the goddamn sewer line broke.”

  Oh my god.

  Roy’s voice hardened. He glared at my father. “If only you’d sold the Leprechaun when Schuler came knocking, we wouldn’t be here.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eddy reach toward the bedpan and then jerk her hand back. How could she be hungry at a time like this?

  “When you refused to sell, Pete, I had to take matters into my own hands. Again. I had to make this pesky little problem go away. Again.”

  The Protector starting revving up and my core vibrated.

  Hoarsely my father parroted, “Pesky little problem?”

  “It was the perfect setup, you know. Your gun was so easy to take. And that damn Hanssen. He actually came though. Found someone to dispatch Schuler. Do you know how to freeze a body in a block of ice? A chest freezer works amazingly well. We even remembered to drop your gun in there with him. Oh yes.” He laughed harshly. “Do you have any idea how heavy a block of ice that size is? We actually had to cut the freezer away from it in pieces! Took Greg and I forever. After that it was easy. Pushed that monstrosity right out of the back end of Greg’s truck and dumped it next to the other ice blocks in Rice Park. It was rather artistic, if I do say so myself.”

  The man was certifiable. Shouldn’t the nurse be coming in any time? I couldn’t remember how long it had been since she was in last.

  “We smeared his blood all over you. Your clothes. Inside your car. Even had someone mess you up. All the proof was there.”

  Roy took two quick steps forward and pressed the
barrel of the gun against my dad’s head. “You’re stubborn, Pete. Too stubborn for your own good. You were supposed to die. Everyone knows you’re a drunk. On the wagon, off the wagon, no one would have questioned anything. No heat, the cold. You were catatonic when we left. You were supposed to be unconscious long enough that you’d die of hypothermia. That’s what the man said. The stuff was strong, he said. A couple drops would take care of it. If only I’d put a few more into your scotch, Pete. It wouldn’t have hurt. Freezing to death.” His eyes were wide now, the whites showing. “Why won’t that bitch fucking leave me alone?” Spittle flew from his mouth and his lips trembled.

  Talk about a cluster of a confession. Holy shit on a shingle. If we lived through this, my dad was home free.

  My father said, “You’ve had my back all these years, Roy. We were there for each other. How could you do this?”

  “You betrayed me. You were supposed to die. Greg was so close! So close to my dream. I did everything I could to make his career happen. I made his mistakes disappear. Do you know how much that’s cost me? Do you? And now it’s all washed down the goddamn sewer.”

  It felt like the hot end of the betrayal poker had been shoved down my own throat. Everything I had understood about Roy’s role in my past was being reframed. Right here, right now. And I didn’t like it one bit.

  While Roy’s attention was on my father and me, JT had slowly shifted, trying to ease around the end of the bed. I glanced furtively, trying to gauge her progress without being obvious. Her face was weirdly scrunched up, and her chest jerked once and then again.

  Oh shit. She was trying not to sneeze. I held my breath. Come on babe, hold it back.

  She explosively lost the battle.

  Roy whipped around, his gun stopping directly in front of JT’s drippy nose. “Don’t even think about it, lady cop. You move again and I’ll do it. I’ll shoot her.” He jerked his head at me.

  “Easy,” JT said. “I’m not moving, see?” She held her arms up higher. For a second I was afraid her jacket would ride up enough to expose the gun in the holster at her side. If Roy saw that, all bets would be off.

  Thankfully Roy turned his attention and his weapon back to my dad and me. “You two are nothing but a huge pain in my butt. It’s time to get rid of that pain.”

  The door opened. Roy spun around as Lisa Vecoli stepped in. The smile on her lips rapidly faded as she saw what was pointed at her.

  With Roy distracted, Eddy scrambled on top of the bed with surprising agility and grabbed the bedpan. Tootsie Rolls flew as she hefted it over her head and leaped off the bed, aiming for Roy. The pan nailed him square in the back. Eddy’s momentum knocked him off balance and they both landed in a heap at Lisa’s feet.

  JT and I pounced on Roy like hungry cheetahs after a dry spell. I held him down and JT slammed cuffs on his wrists.

  Coop pulled Eddy to her feet and she looked derisively down her nose at Roy. “Teach you to mess with my family.”

  Astonishment and confusion battled for dominance on Lisa’s face. She said, “Sorry to crash your S&M party.”

  Visit number four from the cops included a drop-in by St. Paul’s Sergeant DeSilvero, who was almost apologetic. He informed us that he’d keep us abreast of the progress on the case, and he actually told my father he wished him a speedy recovery. DeSilvero might have been an asshole on the outside, but I suspected inside might be another story entirely.

  This time one uniform was left behind, standing guard outside my dad’s door, just in case. It was too little too late by then, but I suppose they felt they needed to cover their butts. It had taken almost two hours to get everyone’s statements after Roy was led away mumbling about Tootsie Rolls and broken dreams.

  It was sad.

  We reconvened in my dad’s room, excited chatter flowing freely. I hopped back onto the foot of my dad’s bed, and JT leaned against the window ledge, looking exhausted. Coop had given up the recliner for Eddy. He sat on a padded folding chair, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Lisa propped herself up against the wall next to the door, mostly being quiet, taking in what was being said.

  I hoped after all this she’d come clean. In fact, maybe it was time to force the issue. “So, Lisa,” I said, and she glanced my way. “Which department do you work for?”

  The blank look on her face didn’t fade.

  I said, “You have to know by now my dad didn’t have anything to do with Schuler.”

  Now she frowned. “Of course I know that.”

  “So cough it up. You’re with St. Paul, right?”

  “St. Paul? Shay, what are you talking about?”

  “Come on.” I laughed incredulously. “I was onto you by Monday. I know you were hoping to find my father by getting close to me. You’re smooth. I’ll give you that.”

  “What? No. I was trying to help.” Now Lisa was starting to get agitated. Her eyes flashed and the muscles in her jaw clenched.

  My father, Coop, JT, and Eddy warily watched our exchange.

  “You’re a cop Lisa, just fess up.”

  “I am not a cop. Where on earth did you get that idea?”

  “You can’t believe I’d fall for a stupid story like your mom died and left you instructions to find my dad and give him a stupid coin. What do you take me for?”

  Now Lisa was really getting revved up. She stepped close, leaned into my face. Bring it on, baby. Maybe it was time to duke it out. My fists were itching to do some damage to something.

  “I do a good deed and this is the thanks I get?”

  “If you weren’t a liar,” I shot back and poked her in shoulder.

  She poked me right back, raised her voice. “I’m not a liar and you’re nuts.”

  Steam started pouring from my ears. I slid off the bed to my feet and gave her a shove.

  She gave me a withering glare and shoved back.

  I grabbed her leather jacket in one hand and cocked my other arm back, about to pop her when my dad bellowed, “Girls! Knock it off. Now!”

  After a few long seconds I let go of her jacket.

  Emotion flickered across Lisa’s face, the anger melting away, replaced with an almost perplexed expression. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, her wide eyes locked on mine. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  I held my hands out, palms up, and took a step back. “I’m sorry too.” And I was. I felt like I’d been taken over by an alien.

  “Lisa,” my dad said, “what’s this about a coin?”

  She said, “It’s an old nickel.” Lisa broke our gaze and rummaged around her pants pocket. She handed the item in question over to my dad.

  He flipped it over in his palm and stared at it for a few long heartbeats. “Where … where did you get this?” He wrapped his fingers slowly around the nickel.

  Lisa took a shuddery breath. “It was my mom’s. She recently passed away. She told me to find Pete O’Hanlon—you, maybe—and give it to him. I don’t even know if you’re the right person.”

  JT, Coop, Eddy, and I silently watched the interchange.

  My dad asked softly, “What was your mom’s name?”

  “Connie Vecoli.”

  “She have a maiden name?”

  “Yeah. Rockwell.”

  “When did she get married?”

  “When did she—” Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know. My dad bailed when I was little. She never talked much about it. I don’t remember a whole lot about him. I kind of got the feeling they hooked up because he got her pregnant.”

  My dad stared at Lisa for a long moment. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “I think,” my dad said, his face more serious than I’d ever seen it, “we might have a situation.”

  All of us stared at him, waiting for the punch line.

  “Lisa,” he said in a gentle t
one, the same tone he used when he needed to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. “I think … I think you might be my daughter.”

  It felt like all the air was sucked out of the room in one whoosh.

  I stared at Lisa with my mouth hanging open, my eyebrows buried in my hairline. I surveyed her face, her eyes.

  She had blond hair, I had black.

  She was taller than I was, but just as angular.

  She had a temper. A serious temper.

  A temper much like mine?

  Holy crap on a cracker. I had a sister.

  The End

  About the Author

  Photo © April McGuire

  Jessie Chandler is a board member-at-large of the Midwest chapter of Mystery Writers of America and a member of Sisters in Crime. In her spare time, Chandler sells unique, artsy T-shirts and other assorted trinkets to unsuspecting conference and festival goers. She is a former police officer and resides in Minneapolis. Visit her online at JessieChandler.com.