by Kitty Margo
“Not quite,” Irene reminded me. “Let’s not put the cart before the horse.”
By that time I had removed the rope from around my feet and was untying Irene. I paused long enough to glance back at Natalie’s head as we made our way up the stairs and she seemed to be following me with her eyes. I shuddered as bile rose in my throat.
Irene stopped, mesmerized by the sight as well. “Do you really think he would have killed us too, Irene?”
“Maggie, honey, he cut off Natalie’s head. I doubt slitting our throats would tug at his conscious overmuch.”
Fortunately, Patrick had left the door at the top of the stairs unlocked. He hadn’t expected two middle aged women to have the ingenuity to come up with a solution to our problem. Ha! Never underestimate Maggie and Irene.
“Hold on a minute. I have to pee.” I said, looking around for the bathroom. But Irene was not about to wait for me to take a tinkle break.
Jerking my hand, she headed for the door. “You can pee in the woods. We’re making a getaway while we can.”
If you have never seen two middle aged women hauling ass before, I have no doubt that we were a sight to behold. When we got about halfway down the hill Natalie appeared. “What happened? Where have you been? I was worried sick about you!”
“Irene will explain everything,” I called over my shoulders as I rushed into the woods and dropped my drawers. Hallelujah! The relief I felt was indescribable. Really, there are no words.
“Can we just go home now?” Natalie pleaded.
“Sure,” I said. “After a quick stop at police headquarters.”
Chapter Thirty Seven
Patrick
I was eating a strawberry pop tart while gazing with extreme loathing at the newspaper article before me concerning one Blakely Owens, president and CEO of Pine View Chemicals. According to the article, they were renaming a children’s wing of the hospital in honor of all the contributions he had made to help needy children in the area. Supposedly his main goal in life had been to insure that every child in North Carolina received excellent healthcare no matter their financial situation. He was also the bastard who had fired me just because I failed a stupid random drug test. Rest in peace, asshole.
Weed. Who in the hell doesn’t smoke weed nowadays. Name one person under forty?
I had been with Pine View Chemical for nineteen years. Nineteen, long, boring years, ever since the fall after graduating from college with a biology degree. Just ask anybody. I had been an exemplary employee. Oh, sure, I had missed an occasional Monday after partying hard the weekend before, but wasn’t that to be expected from practically everyone nowadays. In my opinion the world would be a much happier place if all citizens would loosen up and smoke a little pot after every meal.
I can still hear Blakely Owens talking down to me, trying to belittle me like I was beneath him as he sat in his lofty perch. I had been summoned to his majesty’s penthouse office a few minutes after clocking in on the morning I received my pink slip. “Patrick, we have a little problem,” he had informed me without hesitation, folding his hands over his massive stomach.
“What might that be, Mr. Owens?” I had questioned innocently.
Blakely had held up a sheet of paper and waved it in front of my face. “It would seem that you tested positive for cannabis last week. As you are aware, that is strictly forbidden for any employee of Pine View Chemicals.”
What I wouldn’t give for a joint right now. Apparently he could see that my mind was wandering, so he continued. “We can’t have anyone working with our hazardous agents who isn’t of sound mind and body, and I don’t believe that to be possible in a drug induced state.”
You old fool! If you only knew that I live 24/7, and have handled your precious chemicals for the last nineteen years, in a drug induced state. “Your drug test was inaccurate.” I looked him dead in the eyes. Most liars can’t make eye contact, but it has never bothered me. “I have never done any type of drugs in my entire life.”
Blakely looked at his paper again. “Funny, that was the same excuse you used six months ago, and I gave you the benefit of the doubt then. So, it saddens me to say that you have blown your second chance.” He almost had a smile on his lips when he said, “There will be no third chance. Pack your belongings and security will escort you from the premises.”
I shook my head, trying to bring myself back to the present. Hell, I only had one beer left, so I would need to make a beer run. I had promised to pick up some fast food for those two old ladies in the cellar last night and had forgotten all about it. Maybe they were dead already and I wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of killing them. They sure were quiet down there. Shit. I still had to figure out what to do with their bodies.
First I needed to smoke some reefer to clear my mind. There was a cool breeze blowing through the woods so a nap on the porch swing sounded like a good way to pass the morning.
I sat on the porch, gazing down the hill toward the pond. That made me think of Natalie Buchanan. Man, she was a pure fox, with an ass that could make a man fall in love for days. Offing her had been one of the hardest things I had ever done, but there was no getting around it. I couldn’t turn her loose to sing like a mockingbird.
All the drama of the last few days had been nothing more than a case of shitty luck. I shouldn’t have snorted cocaine that evening. I know this now. I should have kept my mind clear the day I blew Pine View Chemicals to smithereens. I had sat across the street and smiled as Blakely Owen’s precious company had burned to the ground with him in it. Good riddance I say!
Then again, if I hadn’t snorted coke until my brain was fried, I never would have dumped the leftover chemicals from the bomb into Nate Buchanan’s pond. At the time I just wanted to get rid of the evidence and that sounded like the perfect place.
God, how stupid can you be?
I had inherited my farmhouse and piece of property from my grandparents. Grandpa’s land adjoined the land of his best friend and neighbor, Nate Buchanan. The very next day, after the big boom, I had happened to step out on the front porch for a breath of fresh air and noticed movement down at the pond.
Grabbing my binoculars, I was shocked clear down to my toes to see Nate’s daughter Natalie picking up dead fish and putting them in a picnic basket. One glance around the pond assured me that all the marine life had been killed. Shit! Dead fish, frogs, turtles, and snakes were either floating belly up on top of the water or had been washed up on the edge of the pond.
What was she taking the fish for? To be tested? Oh, hell no! I wasn’t about to spend the rest of my life in prison. With that thought in mind, I flew down that hill like the hounds of hell were at my heels, for unless I got rid of that nosy bitch they would be.
Now, there are only two things my daddy ever gave me before he died. That was intelligence and above average good looks. Therefore, Natalie, like every other female I had ever met, was putty in my hands. Why can’t girls understand that us guys live for the chase? We don’t want you to hand it over to us on a silver platter. You would be wise, and keep our attention longer, if you made us work for it.
However, I will admit that it took more coaxing on Natalie’s part than your average girl. She refused point blank to go back to my house for a cool drink even though the temperature had hovered around 100 degrees that day. I had to take her out to a public restaurant and wine and dine her when I didn’t even have a job. Hell, an unemployment check only goes so far. But all that really matters is the fact that the $56.37 I had wasted on her that night would have been put to much better use buying a few goodies in the hollow.
It had worked itself out though. After slipping a roofie in Natalie’s drink she had suddenly become much more agreeable. I love it when they fight back and get my blood stirred up. Pity I had to cut her head off, but I couldn’t have them identifying her body.
I buried her in a place where she should have never been found. How in the hell was I supposed to know when I pulled off the h
ighway and drug the body through the woods that I had chosen the property of the nosiest woman in Pine View? But I looked on it as a learning experience. I would find a much more secluded burial ground for my next two victims.
I just can’t figure it out though. For some reason my life has gone to hell in a hand basket over the last year. Come to think of it, about the same time as I started going to the hollow. Weed no longer gives me the buzz I desire, but I can go down to the hollow and find a drug that does and socialize with folks who are down on their luck and dream of vengeance against the man like I do.
I hadn’t gotten home until 5:00am and here it was morning already. All I wanted to do was crawl in the bed and sleep, but I had a busy day ahead of me. I had to kill two old ladies, bury their bodies, dig a giant hole and hide the hazardous waste drum that was still in the cellar, and decide what I was going to do with Natalie’s head. At present, I was leaning toward keeping it on my bedside table to remember her by.
Shit! That was a lot of things to accomplish in one day. First I would run back down to the hollow and do a few more lines. Things always look better after that.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Natalie
Thanks to Maggie and Irene the FBI had obtained a search warrant to search Patrick Jackson’s property. I was hovering on top of the hill, since the smell of sage was stronger than ever. Patrick was down at the hollow stoned out of his mind. If you asked me, the cops needed to hurry up, because from the looks of him the man who murdered me was likely to overdose by the end of the day and I wanted to see justice served.
I still don’t have any memory of the day I died, but that’s probably for the best. That most likely wasn’t a time in my life that I would ever care to dwell on.
I had waited patiently as the FBI searched for more evidence. A few of them were milling around in the front yard when I heard Patrick’s grandpa’s old river truck come flying down the road. He slowed down, looked at the cops swarming in his yard with wild, crazy eyes, and then gunned the engine. He shot the cops the bird and then waved to them with a big smile, apparently planning to make a daring escape. Problem was, he didn’t see the huge truck filled with turkeys barreling down the road from Wallace Turkey Farms, until they collided head on.
It was chaos and destruction like I have never seen, but the driver of the turkey truck hopped out without a scratch. Turkeys were gobbling and scattering in all directions, so many feathers were flying that it looked like it was snowing, smoke was hissing out of the front of Patrick’s truck, and there was a very tall, very black shadow rising from the ground to stand beside the truck.
I gasped when I saw a kindred spirit step out of the mangled wreckage. Patrick glanced back at me and waved as if to say, Hey, I’m dead now too. Can we be friends? I just glared at him. Then, the black shadow took him by the arm and led him back into the truck seconds before it burst into flames.
Wow! That was… I’m not sure what that was. If I had to guess, I would say it was my first, and hopefully last, glimpse of the grim reaper.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Maggie
The empty drum in Patrick’s cellar tied in with the chemicals used to blow up the chemical plant. On a second and more thorough sweep of the house, Natalie’s teeth were discovered in a Mason jar under his bed. Had he kept them as some sort of morbid souvenir? That was enough to close the case. Patrick Jackson was charged with both Natalie Buchanan and Blakely Owens’ murder. The official report stated that Patrick had chosen to pull off on the side of the road on highway 211 and randomly pick a spot in the woods to bury his victim.
Now Natalie could cross over and go to the light, or through the tunnel, or wherever folks go. Whew! After she had told me about the tall black shadow hovering over Patrick Jackson, I didn’t have a desire to visit his hometown anytime soon.
Natalie had a few requests that I was to deliver to her mother. She wanted to be cremated. I cringed dreading even delivering this news to Alice. As expected, Alice was not fond of the idea in the least. “I need a gravesite to tend, with a beautiful tombstone so I can go sit and talk to her.” She looked at me with such pleading in her eyes. “Please ask my daughter to grant my last wish.”
Of course, Natalie was unable to tell her mother no. So her final resting place would be in Pine View Cemetery beside her maternal grandparents.
~*~
The funeral was a solemn affair. Natalie stood between Irene and me as we peered at the closed coffin. “Well, ladies. I suppose this closes the book on the headless ghost.”
“I guess it does,” I agreed. “Are you going to cross over now?”
“Not just yet. I thought I would hang around and see what you girls get in to next.”
“Lord, honey, there won’t be a next. We solved your case, now you need to go to the light and find your family. They are waiting for you on the other side, Natalie. Did you not hear that beautiful song your friends sang about the golden shores? You have a homecoming to attend.”
Unfortunately, Natalie looked far from convinced. “Maggie, whether I leave or not, I want you to persuade my parents that I have gone on. I want them to have closure and live the rest of their lives in peace.”
I didn’t like the sound of whether I leave or not. But I did as Natalie asked and convinced Alice that it was time for her daughter to leave. She broke down into sobs that ripped at our heartstrings and asked me to tell her daughter one last time that she loved her. I did. Then, as I gazed across the room at Natalie, listening in on every word the Baucom twins had to say, I lied once again and said, “Alice, your daughter has gone to the light.”
A pitiful sob escaped Alice as she sought comfort in her husband’s warm embrace and he led her out into the sunshine to sit in a swing hanging from the branch of an old oak tree.
~*~
I was exhausted by the time I got home from the funeral. We had gone out to eat supper at Golden Corral and I had made too many trips to the chocolate fountain. At home, I had made a pot of coffee and vegged out on the couch, looking forward to a few peaceful days without the intrusion of a single ghost.
So, I was on the couch watching Fred McMurray and Claudine Corbet in The Egg and I on DVD. I must have dozed off, because next thing I knew the movie had gone off and I woke to a blue screen.
I thought my dog Roxie wanted to go out. It was her habit to stand there and stare at me rather than bark to wake me up, but she wasn’t in the room. I looked over to the left of the TV and there stood Earl. He was wearing one of his favorite red shirts that had almost faded to pink. This time I got mad. Why was he doing this to me? “Earl Bernard Moore, you have scared me for the very last time! What’s wrong? Why can’t you cross over to the other side?”
He walked over to my piano just as pretty as you please and sat down. He flexed his fingers and I thought what on earth is he doing? That man has never played a piano in his life. However, to my great surprise, his fingers began dancing across the ivories like he was a concert pianist as the sweet strains of Rod Stewart’s Have I told you lately that I love you? drifted through the room.
I just sat there in shock and didn’t say a word. When I could finally open my mouth to speak, the song ended and he stood to his feet. I watched in silence as he winked at me and then walked through the front door. He had no more unfinished business. At that moment, I knew it was the last time I would ever see my sweet husband’s face on this earth.
Until we meet again, my love.
The End
Watch for book two in the A Maggie and Irene Cozy Mystery series. In the meantime, if you enjoy reading historical romance download the first book in my bestselling Tropical Paradise series, Lynna’s Rogue.
Lynna’s Rogue.
Lynna’s Beau
Lynna’s Promise
Lynna’s Destiny
A Pirate to Treasure
and
Clara’s Song
Clara’s Heart
Clara’s Desire
Coming fa
ll of 2015
Chapter 1
Paris, France 1850
Only a fool, or one dimwitted, would fail to recognize that the incredible amount of money displayed before Joshua Jordan would come with a great deal of risk and danger attached to the proposal. And he was no fool. Would he be asked to turn marauding pirate? Thieving highwayman? Bloodthirsty assassin?
The answer to all these questions stood before him in the form of one Nathan Rhodes. A man rumored to be the wealthiest in all of France, and one who appeared most eager to put an end to Joshua’s vivid speculations.
“It is quite simple really, Captain Jordan. You will be my daughter’s protector,” Nathan Rhodes stated as if it were the only pressing matter in the whole of the universe. “A physical protecting presence every moment of every day until she is safely delivered to my sister in America. Lynna must never be out of your sight, and on this point I would require your solemn oath as a gentleman, sir.”
“Why me?” Joshua wondered aloud. When had he gained the reputation as a highly touted babysitter.
“Because I have it on good authority that not only are you a man of your word, but that you are also fiercely loyal to those in your care. While I realize you have never even met my daughter and could therefore feel no such sentiment toward her, I also realize that with the proper amount of persuasion you could at least feel obligated to protect her as though she were your very own sister and see that no harm befalls her.”
Nathan paused to allow his words to sink in, knowing his offer would be nearly impossible to refuse. When no response was forthcoming he continued, undaunted, a man obviously accustomed to having his way in all matters. “Now Captain Jordan, if you will give me your word, as an officer and a gentleman, that you would be willing to forfeit your own life for the safety of my daughter’s, then all that I hold before you will be yours.”