Whiskey Straight Up

by Nina Wright

  I didn’t recognize the land we were flying over now. It continued to be mostly tree-covered and rolling. Deely stayed on the winding service road; there was no other traffic.

  “Nobody lives around here,” Todd commented.

  I was about to agree when I spotted a small, peak-roofed structure tucked in among the trees ahead of Deely. “Except over there,” I said, pointing.

  “That’s just a hunting cabin,” Todd said. “A retreat off the grid. Deserted this time of year.”

  Except it wasn’t. A thread of smoke curled from the chimney. And that wasn’t the only sign of habitation. Near the cabin stood a circle of pines. Through the dark green boughs, I detected something bright white. Something the size and shape of a car. A white Jaguar? I had barely processed the thought when Deely turned off the service road and began zigzagging between trees on a diagonal route toward the cabin.

  Todd announced, “I’m patching your police chief through.”

  “How’s Avery?” I asked Jenx.

  “A little better. She’s been sedated. Peg Goh is staying with her till you get back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. Peg’s the saint. Can you see Deely?”

  I told Jenx what the Coast Guard nanny was doing down below.

  “She must have found the landmark,” Jenx replied. “Her instructions were to turn left off the service road when she came to a broken tree. Can you see where she’s headed?”

  I filled Jenx in on the cabin and the possible white Jag, which were still ahead of Deely.

  “As this unfolds, I’m going to need you to have a panoramic view,” Jenx said. On cue, Todd pulled us up and back, distancing us from whatever was about to occur.

  “Wait,” I said. “I see something else!”

  I immediately regretted that announcement, for the “something else” I’d noticed was Roy Vickers. Technically, what I’d seen was Jeb’s Van Wagon parked just off the service road to our north. Although I was in the sky, and the car was in the trees, I was sure that no other vehicle still running in Lanagan County was quite that shade of rust.

  “What do you see?” Jenx demanded.

  “Uh—nothing. Sorry. My mistake.”

  “I left Vestige when Deely did,” Jenx said. “The State boys are right behind me. We’re in cars, though, not snowmobiles, so we’re still at least eight minutes away. The Fibbies’ll probably show up, too.”

  “Smith and Jones?”

  “Yup. They can’t stand to be all dressed up with nowhere to go.”

  On the ground, Deely Smarr was slowing. She must have sighted the cabin.

  “So there’s nobody else around?” Jenx asked.

  “No sign of anybody,” I lied.

  Jenx reminded Todd to keep the radio clear for her calls. Then she turned on her siren and signed off the air.

  Roy Vickers was approaching the cabin on foot, still too far off through the trees for Deely—or whoever was inside—to see him. But those of us in the sky had a clear view.

  “Hey! There’s a guy down there! We need to tell Jenx.” My pilot reached for the radio switch. I clamped my hand over his.

  “Todd, this is complicated.”

  During the long moment while he stared into my eyes, I expected Mr. WWJD to flick my hand aside. He was reading my expression—or what lay behind it. I couldn’t tell what he found there, but finally Todd withdrew his hand from the radio.

  “Okay,” he said. “You’re the boss.”

  “And you’ve still got my credit card. . . .”

  Deely had stopped the snowmobile and was proceeding on foot with Prince Harry in the doggie backpack and Abra on a leash.

  “She’s waving to whoever’s inside,” Todd observed.

  Both Deely’s hands were raised in salute, probably to show she was unarmed.

  “Can we get a better angle on this?” I asked.

  “Not if Jenx wants us to hang back,” my pilot replied. After a beat he added, “Are we still doing what Jenx wants?”

  Good question, I thought, watching Deely and the dogs vanish into the cabin.

  What happened next gave us our answer. Spry septuagenarian Roy Vickers emerged from his woodsy cover at a run. He was closing in on the cabin from the northeast, the side opposite Deely’s entrance, when his body spasmed in mid-air: We saw his arms flex sideways, his head tilt back toward the sky. Roy seemed to dangle, electrified, before folding onto the snow, where a red pool encircled him.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  “Take me down! Now!” I screamed at Todd.

  “Where?” he asked, sounding plain stupid.

  “Just down!” I roared. Focusing on Roy’s crumpled form, I couldn’t comprehend much else. Such as the fact that a copter may be convenient, but it still needs a clear and level spot to land.

  “Okay, but we’re calling Jenx,” Todd said calmly. As he lowered the craft toward the service road, a wall of trees replaced our view of the drama.

  Jenx’s voice was in my ears. “Whiskey, what the hell’s going on?”

  “Roy Vickers just got shot!” I blurted. “He was running toward the cabin, and somebody inside must have shot him!”

  The full horror of the situation seized me. “Oh my god, Jenx, the babies are in there! So’s Deely. And the dogs!”

  “I’m four minutes away, tops, with back-up right behind me,” Jenx said. “Do not panic. And do not do anything stupid, which is more likely in your case.”

  “It looks like Roy’s hurt bad,” I said. “He’s losing a lot of blood. I know first aid, Jenx. I’ve got to help him.”

  “So you can get shot, too? What did I just say about not doing anything stupid?”

  “Maybe I could help—by creating a distraction.” That was Todd talking. “While Whiskey approaches Roy, I can buzz the cabin. Most folks stop what they’re doing when a helicopter’s overhead. It makes ’em nervous.”

  “Nervous enough to shoot more people,” Jenx snapped.

  I said, “If you’re four minutes away, you’ll be here by the time I reach Roy. So I’ll be covered, no matter what.”

  “Since when do you know first aid?” Jenx said.

  “Since . . . high school.”

  “Yeah? When was your latest certification?”

  “Come on, Jenx,” I groaned. “I remember stuff!”

  “I’m certified in first aid, CPR, and AED,” Todd interjected. “I’ll coach her. I won’t let her do damage—not even to herself.”

  Jenx didn’t give us her blessing, but she didn’t outright order me to stay inside the helicopter, either. As soon as she clicked off, I asked Todd what AED stood for.

  “Automated external defibrillation. You are out of date.” He went on, talking fast, “If Roy has a chest wound, there’s not much you can do—except apply pressure and try to keep him talking if he’s still alert. The bullet might have gone right through him. If it did, he has entrance and exit wounds. The bottom line is watch him closely. Be sure nothing you do makes it harder for him to breathe. If he has a sucking chest wound—”

  “Oh god, what’s that?”

  “Never mind,” Todd said. “Just don’t do anything stupid. And keep your head down.”

  Todd and I synchronized watches. This time I remembered to remove the flotation device before I left the helicopter. Todd gave me the thumb’s up sign and then pointed me in the direction I needed to go. Good thing he did. I was completely turned around.

  The cabin was too far away to see clearly through the trees, but now that I knew where to look, I could just discern it. My plan, if you could call it that, was to follow the service road until I reached the far side of the house. Then I’d cut in toward Roy. If I was lucky, there would be enough tree cover to disguise me until I got close. Fortunately, I was wearing my khaki jacket and not my crimson parka. My Higher Fashion Power had helped me today.

  I checked my watch. In less than two minutes, Todd would be heading back up to make his contribution. If we timed this rig
ht, the roar from the helicopter should claim the complete attention of whoever was inside the cabin while I helped Roy.

  Now that I was off the road, picking my way through the snow-covered woods, I felt a pinch of panic. This was slower going than I had anticipated, not only because the terrain was uneven and slippery, but also because I was headed straight into the slanting late-afternoon light. The low-angled glare sliced through the latticework of bare limbs and ricocheted off the snow, blinding me at intervals. I still couldn’t see Roy.

  Then I spotted his blood: a large scarlet blot on the snow, maybe ten yards ahead of me. But no Roy. When I squinted, I made out red droplets trailing into the woods—a darker, more alarming version of the tangerine peels Deely had left in the snow at Vestige. So Roy could walk. And we would have cover.

  I heard the helicopter’s approaching whine.

  “Roy!” I shouted. “Roy Vickers! It’s Whiskey Mattimoe! I know you’re hurt. Let me help you!”

  There was a crash nearby, the sound of imploding snow, ice, and broken branches. I jumped. Roy loomed before me, the yellow-white sun a halo around his head and shoulders. He appeared to be wearing part of a tree. I needed a moment to process the scene: a snow-laden branch hung around Roy’s neck like a yoke.

  “Whiskey,” he moaned and collapsed near my feet.

  I dropped to my knees next to him. A jagged, three-foot-long piece of a tree had snagged him. With both hands, I carefully removed it. Roy moaned. His right cheek was in the snow; the only eye I could see was closed tight.

  “How bad are you hurt?” I said.

  A new stream of red was seeping into the white stuff by my knees. I shuddered. Roy lifted his head enough to speak.

  “Upper chest, near the shoulder. She got me.” I assumed he didn’t mean the tree.

  By now the helicopter’s engine was deafening. Despite the trees and the glare, I could see the craft, hovering above the cabin. Todd would know by now that Roy had moved, but I didn’t know if he could see us.

  Jenx and back-up should be less than a minute away. I hadn’t done a thing to staunch Roy’s bleeding and didn’t know whether I could. Or should.

  With a leonine roar—the sound of a wild animal psyching for battle—Roy pushed himself into sitting position. His bloodshot blue eyes met mine.

  “I’m okay,” he panted. “I can do this.”

  Do what? The blood on Roy’s jacket—on what had once, ironically, been Leo Mattimoe’s jacket—suggested he was in no shape to do anything.

  “I’m going in there,” Roy grunted, gathering his energies to stand.

  “No, you’re not—” I began, as another voice cut through the stutter of the helicopter.

  A woman was shouting. Roy and I turned simultaneously in the direction of the cabin. At first, I couldn’t make out her words. Then I realized that she was repeating a sing-song refrain, a childish taunt:

  “Roy-Boy, oh Roy-Boy! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Try to save Leo Mattimoe’s family like you never saved your own!”

  Chapter Thrity-seven

  Crouched on the snow-covered ground next to Roy, I peered through the brush toward the origin of the voice. But I couldn’t see the cabin for the trees.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Roy, over the mechanical chop-chop of Todd’s helicopter.

  The wounded ex-con was still sitting in the snow. Whatever reserves of strength he had drawn were spent. Closing his eyes, he said, “That . . . is my past talking.”

  “Your ex-wife is in that cabin?” I asked, stunned.

  “No. I lost my wife because I got involved with that woman.”

  Roy leaned forward, supporting himself with his good arm.

  “How are you feeling?” I said anxiously.

  “A little dizzy.”

  Roy ran his tongue over his chapped lips, and I remembered what I’d learned in that long-ago first-aid class: Blood loss makes you thirsty. How much blood had Roy lost? How long till Jenx and the paramedics found us?

  “Who’s the woman?” I said, desperate to keep Roy alert.

  “I’m tired,” he moaned. His eyelids fluttered, and he slumped forward as if in prayer.

  “Who’s the woman, Roy?” I insisted.

  “Baby” was his reply. Or what I thought I heard. I repeated it back to him as a question.

  Weakly he shook his head. “Bibi.”

  “Bibi?” The white Jag. “You mean Mrs. Gribble the Third?”

  Roy whispered, “She was Bibi Bosworth then. We were both married to other people . . . when she had my baby.”

  “You and Mrs. Gribble—I mean Bibi—had a kid together?” Suddenly I recalled how Roy had turned pale upon seeing my prospective client in the lobby at Mattimoe Realty.

  Roy nodded ever so slightly, his head still down.

  “I didn’t know . . . till almost twenty years later. She sent a copy of a birth certificate—“Mother: Bibi Bosworth; Father: Unknown”—and pictures of a girl from childhood through her teen years. The numbers were right, and the kid looked a little like me.”

  “What did Bibi want?” I asked. “Back child-support?”

  “Emotional blackmail. She said she didn’t need money, just satisfaction. If I didn’t tell my wife I had a grown daughter, Bibi would tell her for me.”

  “What was the point?” I asked. “After all those years?”

  Roy hesitated. “I think she was striking out at me from a place of pain. Her own life had become so miserable, she wanted to hurt anyone who had ever done her harm.”

  “Did you tell your wife you were a father?”

  “No. I was drunk all the time in those days and couldn’t figure out where to begin. So Bibi told her. And my wife left me. A few days later, I stabbed Leo Mattimoe.”

  I pressed my palms to my ears, mostly to shut out the din of the helicopter but also to block the pain in Roy’s words. His lips moved again, but I couldn’t decipher what he was saying. Then our soundscape changed. Todd’s helicopter suddenly withdrew, pulling its thunder with it. A gun fired, terrifyingly close by. A woman shrieked, and I jerked Roy flat to the ground with me. Someone was crashing through the brush.

  “Magnet Springs Police!” Jenx yelled.

  I sat up. Roy didn’t. He moaned, but I couldn’t rouse him.

  “Whiskey Mattimoe!” I shouted. “Over here!”

  Jenx was threading her way through the woods toward me, moving as fast as she could with a rifle in one hand, a walkie-talkie in the other.

  “Roy took a bullet in the upper chest,” I called out.

  “EMTs on the way,” Jenx replied. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes—except for a runaway heart rate! Who just got shot?”

  “Nobody, thanks to my excellent marksmanship.”

  Jogging up to me, Jenx said, “I saved Mrs. Gribble’s life. She was about to turn her gun on herself, but I shot it out of her hands.”

  “Where are Leah and Leo?”

  “The crew from the first ambulance is examining them. Cover your ears!”

  The police chief checked overhead, then raised and fired her rifle into the air.

  “That’s so the second EMT crew can find us,” she explained. “They had to leave the ambulance on the service road and proceed on foot.”

  Jenx knelt by the wounded ex-con. Feeling for his pulse, she said, “Roy Vickers, can you hear me?”

  He stirred faintly.

  “You’re doing good, Roy. Hang in there.”

  “Are Leah and Leo all right?” I asked.

  “They’re fine,” Jenx confirmed. “So are Deely and the dogs. While Mrs. Gribble was calling for Roy, Deely got everybody out the other side of the house.”

  “Talk about damage control. . . .” I sighed.

  “No way you’re paying that woman enough.”

  When the paramedics came into view, I knew my work here was done. I squeezed Roy’s hand, and he squeezed back although he didn’t open his eyes.

  “You helped save Leo’s family,” I whi
spered. “We’ll talk about your family later.”

  Stiff from the cold and anxious to see Leah and Leo, I worked my way back out to the service road. Deserted when Todd and I had landed, the scene was now Command Central. No wonder the helicopter had sounded so loud: there were two of them.

  Todd was helping Deely board his. She had Leah and Leo in her arms and Prince Harry in her backpack. Near the second copter—a bright white machine emblazoned with the letters FBI—stood identically dressed agents Smith and Jones. They watched as a Michigan State police officer led my client toward them in handcuffs. An unleashed Abra lunged menacingly at Mrs. Gribble the Third until Officers Swancott and Roscoe succeeded in luring her away. Mrs. Gribble wasn’t wearing her chinchilla coat.

  From the first helicopter Todd and Deely were waving at me. I hurried over.

  “I’m taking your nanny and your family home!” Todd said over the din of two helicopter engines.

  “Let me see those babies,” I said, stepping aboard. Deely handed me Leo and then Leah. Both looked as flawless as they had before their misadventure.

  I thanked Deely for her service and looked around for Abra.

  “Where did my dog go?” I asked. Damn. I used the possessive pronoun again.

  “Deputy Abra’s assisting Officer Roscoe, ma’am. Over there.” Deely pointed. Roscoe and his human counterpart Brady appeared to be checking out the perimeter of the cabin. Abra appeared to be checking out Roscoe’s private parts.

  “You call that ‘assisting’?” I asked.

  Deely shrugged. “It keeps him moving.”

  As I watched in disgust, Abra broke into her by-now familiar “sighting” pattern. It vaguely reminded me of a cat about to stalk a bird: her stately head erect, her glossy body tensed, Abra focused on something in the distance. Then she bounded after it in full running glory.

  Roscoe barked, probably the equivalent of “Hey, get back here and keep doing that thing you were doing that felt so good.”

  But she was gone.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Deely said. “Trust The System. My daddy knew what he was doing.”