Hide and Snake Murder

by Jessie Chandler

  “I’m—” I struggled to sit up, but she was in the way. “Okay.”

  She climbed off but remained kneeling in the gravel next to my stretched-out form.

  “Oh.” My stomach nearly rebelled and my head swum. I sucked in a couple of desperate breaths and forced them out, trying to calm the queasiness.

  The bright moonlight hurt my eyes. I squinted and looked slowly around. The van was upside-down in a low ditch. I was near the edge of the road about ten feet away. The scent of burned rubber and spilled automotive fluids filled the air.

  I passed a hand over my forehead and my fingers came away sticky. The bony ridge above my right eye hurt like hell.

  Then I realized my arms were no longer bound behind me. “What? How?”

  “That Agnes is a 108-year-old Gumby. She managed bend herself into a pretzel, get her hands in front of her, and pull out a fingernail clipper that was in her pocket. Didn’t take long to cut everyone loose after that,” Eddy said as she rubbed my back.

  As I blissfully overindulged in the simple process of breathing, my brain and stomach slowed their spinning. Coop and Baz came scrambling around the far side of the upturned van, followed by Agnes and Rocky, all of whom appeared to have survived the crash in one piece.

  Coop skidded to a stop at my feet. “Is she okay?” he asked in a tight voice.

  Eddy said, “Ask her your own self.”

  “I’m right here, and I’m fine.” I felt something trickle down my cheek.

  “Hey,” Baz said. “You’re bleeding.”

  Rocky crouched down on my other side. “Here, Shay. You must put pressure on a wound for it to stop bleeding. If it doesn’t stop after twenty minutes of firm, direct pressure, we must seek medical attention.” He whipped off his battered hat and slapped it to my forehead.

  If I didn’t die from my head wound, the germs on Rocky’s beloved hat were probably going to do me in. But I didn’t have the heart to make him take it away.

  “Where’re Hunk and Donny?” I asked, trying to peer around one of the earflaps that blocked my line of sight.

  Agnes said, “We pulled them out of the van and dragged them over there.” She pointed in the general direction of the upside-down vehicle. “Then we tied them to the tree.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  Baz startled me by chortling. “Between bullets, broken glass, and—”

  “My fist.” Coop’s voice held a note of wonder as he flexed his hand and winced.

  “And Coop’s fist,” Baz agreed. “We didn’t have any problem.”

  “How long have I been out?”

  Eddy looked at her wristwatch. “Ten minutes, maybe.”

  Holy crap. I hope I didn’t have brain damage. I tried to place events in order, but my mind wasn’t cooperating. “What exactly happened?”

  Rocky said, “You and Nick Coop were like an action movie!” He wriggled excitedly. “Nick Coop jumped on Hunk. You … ” He trailed off with a frown. “I am not sure what you did. But then there were explosions.” He mimicked the gunshots. “And the van went this way,” he leaned to the right, “and that way,” he leaned to the left. “Then you tipped over and Hunk screamed. Everything was upside down. It was amazing!” He nodded. “That was almost as fun as riding the Wild Thing roller coaster at Valley Fair. It is 207 feet tall and reaches a top speed of 74 miles per hour. It is also green, like my Doodlebug.”

  “Yeah,” Coop said. “I’m not sure ‘amazing’ covers it. I can’t believe no one got seriously hurt. I’m sure we’ll feel it tomorrow though. Anyway, when you took Hunk’s knee out, I don’t know if he meant to pull the trigger, but he blasted a hole in the windshield, a hole in the passenger seat, and nicked Donny.”

  My eyebrows lifted.

  Rocky bounced on his knees next to me. “A bullet went right through the top of his ear!”

  “Yeouch.” I cringed.

  I got my feet under me and stood, not-so-accidentally dislodging Rocky’s hat from my forehead. “Okay, now what?” I asked as I dusted my hands off. A wave of dizziness spread through me. Through a nauseated haze, I heard Eddy say, “I think we should start walking the way we came.” She pointed down the dark road. “If any cars come, we can flag them down.”

  “Wait a minute,” Agnes said. “We might want to see if we think the car is being driven by someone nice.”

  “Wise,” Coop said.

  That’s how, forty-five minutes later, we wound up in the back of a pickup truck full of stinky sheep, driven by a farmer kind enough to detour into New Orleans proper on his way to an early morning livestock auction in Baton Rouge.

  EIGHT

  WE ARRIVED AT THE Jardin Royal well after three in the morning. On the way to the hotel, we all agreed it would be suicide to stay in the room from which Hunk and company had hauled us.

  Eau de sheep followed us through the entrance. The front desk guy struggled not to wrinkle his nose at the stench and was all too happy to get us out of his lobby. The hotel had one suite left that slept six, and Agnes paid cash for it, slipped the clerk a fifty, and gave a fake name. The man hastily handed Agnes a key and directed us to the third floor.

  On the way up, we made a pit stop in the original room and cleared it out. Thankfully, we were able to retrieve Eddy, Agnes, and Rocky’s luggage and the bags Coop and I brought along as well as Baz’s, so we could all change into something a little less aromatic.

  The bucket with the cell phones had disappeared, though. I couldn’t even take my waterlogged iPhone in for repairs.

  After some heated discussion, we decided not to bring our incident to the attention of the local police. Who knew who was on the take and who resided in whose pockets? As soon as we were functioning in the morning, I was going to call and make airline reservations to get us out of the Big Easy.

  I showered, and Eddy cleaned out the cut on my eyebrow and proclaimed it “just a scratch, quit your yelpin’. ”

  Once we’d all settled down to sleep, the silence was punctuated by Baz’s steady snore. I tossed one way, and then another, thankful I was alone on a rollaway. My brain kept replaying scenes from that fatal accident so many years ago that claimed the lives of Eddy’s only boy and my mother. Every time I was about to drop off, a flashback flickered in front of my closed eyelids. Thankfully, the darkness and exhaustion finally won out, and I dropped into unconsciousness.

  The eight a.m. wakeup call from the front desk came entirely too soon. I rolled out of bed and hit the bathroom before anyone else had a chance to move. I showered again, hoping to rid myself of the last vestiges of ewe. By 8:18 I was out of the bathroom and on the in-room phone with April McNichi, who, after being appropriately dismayed at our latest brush with trouble, tried like a madwoman to arrange return tickets for everyone and get us all on the same flight out. I assured her we’d pay her back as soon as we were able. Our luck seemed to be rolling with the punches, and April managed to get us six seats on an evening flight back to Minneapolis. We gratefully spent a few more hours sleeping before we had to head to the airport again.

  It dawned on me all the contact information I had for JT was lost with my cell. Thank goodness I’d jotted her numbers down at home. The woman was probably fit to be cuffed because she hadn’t heard from me for two days. Not much I could do at this point, I unhappily decided. Besides, how would I explain New Orleans, the kidnapping, the coffin factory, the car-wreck, and the rescue via sheep-truck?

  At 7:45 that evening, we landed safely on the tarmac at MSP.

  A half-hour later, after a bathroom break and some over-priced snacks, we headed out into the parking ramp and crammed into my truck. Agnes called shotgun, leaving Rocky and Eddy squashed like sardines in the back. Baz and Coop crawled into the truck bed along with all of our luggage. Eddy slid the small rear window open for them.

  “You know they’re going to keep coming after us,” I said. “We escaped becoming alligator chow once, but who knows what’ll happen if they get their hooks into us again.”


  “You’re right,” Eddy said. “Maybe we should talk to the boys in blue here in Minneapolis.”

  Silence filled the truck.

  Then Agnes said, “We sure are in a pickle. If whoever is behind this had at least some of the New Orleans police department on their payroll, don’t you think there are going to be some police officers on it here, too? After all, Hunk and Donny said they were up here in Minneapolis before they were in New Orleans.”

  “True.” Coop’s face was framed by the open window. “Cops are corrupt pigs.”

  “Hey.” I twisted around in my seat to shoot a look at Coop. “JT’s not a pig, and she’s not corrupt.”

  He held up a hand. “She’s the exception.”

  “What about Doyle?” I asked. Doyle Malloy worked MPD homicide, and we’d grown up in the same neighborhood together. I’d call him, but I knew he was up north right now working some big case.

  Coop mumbled, “Doyle’s a dumbass dork.”

  “Nicholas Cooper,” Eddy said. “I’m going to rinse your mouth out with soap, young man.”

  “That I’d pay to see,” Baz said as he nudged Coop out of the way, his face filling the rear window.

  “Sorry, Eddy,” Coop said, shoving Baz to the side and reclaiming the opening. “But it’s true.”

  Doyle was Doyle, and he took some getting used to. Maybe it would be best to feel things out a bit more before we approached him.

  This was an appropriate time for a change of subject. “Agnes, we could drop you off up at our cabin until this mess gets straightened out if you’d like.”

  “Are you kidding me? This is the most excitement I’ve had since Eddy hauled the Knitters to Canterbury and one of them jockeys lost his race and got shot at by the owner. No way are you guys leaving me behind. Besides, someone needs to keep an eye on that nephew of mine.”

  “No one shot at anyone, Agnes,” Eddy said. “That was the starter’s gun.”

  “There is no starter’s gun. It’s a bell.”

  “Bell, my wrinkled behind!”

  “It was!”

  Oh my. “Enough, both of you.” I gave them each a look in the dim light.

  “What do you mean, someone needs to keep an eye on me?” Baz grumbled.

  “If someone had kept an eye on you,” Eddy said, “We wouldn’t be in this mess. And stop pushing at each other back there. One of you are gonna fall right out onto your head.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We need to figure out just who’s after us.”

  Eddy said, “We have to find out who Basil took the snake from. Start at the start. That’s how they do it on Criminal Minds.” She clapped her hands once and rubbed them together. It was something she did when she was about to immerse herself in trouble of some kind.

  Coop said, “Baz, we need the location of the house you stole the snake from, and hopefully the owner’s name.”

  “That information will be at the office.”

  “Then we have to pull a Bingo Barge on Basil’s office,” Eddy said.

  “No way.” I tried to look back at Eddy, but she was hidden in shadow behind my seat. Last fall, among other illegal acts, we’d broken into a floating bingo barge on the Mississippi trying to prove Coop innocent of murdering his boss. I wasn’t itching to repeat the experience.

  “We go on in and check things out.” She was only warming up. “We need to do some investigating, here,” Eddy said. “Got to get the address and then check out the joint. If we do a little poking around that house, we might find some clues as to why this is all happening. Where do you work again, Basil?”

  “At Ducky Ducts in Crystal.”

  I have no idea how Baz kept a straight face telling people the name of his employer.

  “Where in Crystal?” Eddy asked.

  “Small office in the back of a strip mall between West Broadway and Becker Park.”

  Coop said. “I can’t believe we’re thinking about breaking into another business. I have enough problems with the law without sh—, uh, stuff like this.” He sighed heavily. “How late are people in the office?”

  Baz said, “Usually the receptionist, the accountant slash secretary, and Rich, the boss, hang around until five. Sometimes one of the other ducklings are there picking up jobs or dropping off paperwork ’til after seven. But it’s past eight-thirty. Everyone should have cleared out by now.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Ducklings?”

  “That’s what Rich calls us duct service people.” Baz’s voice held a note of contempt.

  Coop said, “Man, how low do you have to go to actually consider employment with these people? Ducklings?”

  I caught Baz’s shoulder lift in the rearview mirror. He said defensively, “It’s a paycheck.”

  Agnes said. “It’s high time we run the show instead of the show running us.” She waved her hand. “Let’s go.”

  I backed out of the parking space and began the long spiral to the bottom of the ramp. We were off to Ducky Ducts, on a date with destiny. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the kind of destiny that involved a jail cell. Or winding up horizontal in one of those Louisiana coffins.

  NINE

  I PULLED INTO THE Ducky parking lot shortly after nine.

  Eight bright yellow vans sat patiently waiting for morning and their “ducklings” to come and take them to the next appointment. Emblazoned across the back doors of the vans was the Ducky Ducts clever tag line: WE CLEAN YOUR PIPES SLICK AS A WHISTLE, GUARANTEED.

  How embarrassing to drive around with that on your figurative ass.

  “All of the vans are in,” Baz said. “Rich’s car and the secretary’s minivan are gone.”

  “Whoever’s coming, come on.” I opened the door.

  Agnes thrust a wizened, veiny hand at me. “Give me the keys. I’ll be the get-away driver. Rocky’s my second-in-command.” As I dropped the keys in the palm of Agnes’s hand, I wondered if her driving skills were any better than Eddy’s.

  Rocky hopped into the passenger seat, beaming as if the gift of a lifetime had dropped from the sky. “I will be a very good second-in-command, Agnes. There are lots of famous second-in-commands like Spock and Clone Captain Rex.”

  “Right,” Agnes said, clearly having no idea who they were.

  The cool night air slid down the back of my neck. I shivered, glad to have my sweatshirt on, even it if the front was still decorated with powdered sugar.

  “I’ll hang out at the door,” Eddy announced as I gave her a hand out of the back of the truck. “Let you know if anyone we don’t want to see shows up.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Agnes asked.

  “I’ll scream.”

  I smiled wryly to myself.

  “Baz,” Coop said as he looked at the entrance door, “Is there any problem with you going into the office after hours?”

  “No, I don’t think so. We come in late when we’re stuck at a job longer than we were supposed to be to drop paperwork off. It’s never been a problem.”

  Last fall’s leaves and rocks from crumbling asphalt crunched under our feet as Coop, Eddy, and I trailed after Baz toward the office door. Baz stuck his hand in his front pocket and rooted around in there long enough I wondered if he was playing with himself. Then he pulled out a ring of keys and opened the door.

  Coop and I followed him inside while Eddy planted herself in the doorway. Baz flipped on the lights. The office was windowless and small. It appeared tidy. An oak-veneer-covered reception desk with a flat screen monitor and keyboard was the focal point at the front of the twenty-by-forty-foot space. Three smaller IKEA-style desks sat behind reception. Stainless steel shelving units five levels high filled an entire wall from floor to ceiling. They were loaded with cardboard storage boxes.

  Another room was connected to the office by an arched doorway. From the light spilling out, it appeared to hold whatever supplies were needed to accomplish the cleaning of one’s pipes slick as a whistle, guaranteed.

  The sound of an automated
air freshener doing its thing made me jump. Then a pleasant scent settled over us—a cross between cut grass and sunshine. “What is that, Baz?” I asked.

  “Midsummer Morning. The boss wanted a smell that associated the company with being clean and fresh. He thinks it keeps customers coming back.”

  If the name of the place wasn’t Ducky Ducts, the scent alone might indeed sway me to use their services. Interesting psychology.

  Baz walked over to the middle desk. The top was covered by three large file trays, each with a label: JOBS TO DO, JOBS COMPLETED, AND JOBS TO REDO. The to-do bin was a couple inches high. The completed files spilled out of their slot and towered precariously eight inches over the top edges. Someone needed to get to work on their filing. I was impressed to see the re-do file tray was empty. Maybe Ducky Ducts actually did a decent job the first time out.

  Baz grabbed a mound of paperwork and started sifting through it. If either Coop or I knew what we were looking for, we’d have helped. As it stood, we were forced to twiddle our fingers while Baz discarded one file after another beside the wire container.

  I gazed idly around the office. A huge yellow rubber duck with a bright orange bill was painted on the wall behind the desks. “Come on Baz, hurry up.”

  “I am hurrying,” Baz said, his head bent as he shuffled through the papers. He set the last one down and picked up another handful.

  “Here it is!” Baz opened the top of a manila folder. Coop and I crowded around him as he ran a stubby finger along the page. The finger paused below an address in Minnetonka. The name above the address sent my mind reeling. Coop actually backed up a step and said, “Oh, crap.”

  Baz looked from one to the other of us, confusion evident on his chubby face. “What?”

  I looked at him, now positive he was from a galaxy far, far, away. “Don’t even tell me you haven’t heard of Fletcher Sharpe.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve heard of him. He has a lot of dough, right?”

  “Jeez, Baz,” Coop ran a long-fingered hand across his stubbly jaw. “You’ve heard of the Hands On Toy Company, right?”