Hide and Snake Murder

by Jessie Chandler

  My own heart was thumping alarmingly hard.

  “Come on, Shay.”

  I followed Eddy up the other slope and around the corner. Coop and Baz were standing next to the house, sniping at each other. Eddy and I hustled over.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  Coop turned on me, his eyes burning even in the dark. “This idiot,” he said, poking Baz in the sternum, “let Agnes disappear.”

  “I did not just let her disappear, donkhead. You guys got around the corner before I did and when I caught up, she was gone. It’s your fault.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Eddy glared at Baz and then turned her double barrels on Coop.

  A pained expression settled on Coop’s narrow face. “Agnes is gone.”

  Eddy’s lips thinned. “What do you mean?”

  A sinking sensation enveloped me. Why did things seem to get worse when they were already in the shitter?

  “We left you and circled around toward the front of the place,” Baz explained. “I stopped for a minute to try to get a look in one of the basement windows. They kept on going around the house.”

  “If you would have kept up with us this would have never happened.” Even in the darkness, I could see the big vein on the side of Coop’s neck pop out. I thought for a minute he night grab Baz by the throat.

  “Then what happened?” I prompted.

  “Just like that,” Coop snapped his fingers, “poof, she’s gone.”

  “The woman didn’t disappear into thin air,” Eddy said. “She’s got to be around here somewhere.”

  “Come on.” I started toward the front. There really was nowhere for an old woman to hide. The driveway was empty, there were no vehicles she could’ve ducked behind. The garage jutted out from the house, and past that, a small porch with a black metal swing led to the front door. It appeared the only entrances to the house itself were through the garage, the front door, or in the back through the sliding glass door on the deck and at ground level. Not a lot of options.

  We regrouped in front of the porch.

  “See,” Baz said. “There’s nowhere for her to have gone.”

  I looked at the front door. “You don’t think … ”

  Three more sets of eyes locked on the doorknob.

  “She would never … ” Baz said.

  “Oh yes she would,” Eddy told him.

  I met Coop’s gaze. “Oh oh.”

  “Uh huh.” He nodded grimly.

  “Go try it, Coop,” I said.

  “Not on your life.”

  “Baz?”

  He squinted his squinty eyes at me. “Forget it.”

  “Chicken shits.” I slunk up to the front door and pulled my hand inside the sleeve of my sweatshirt. The handle twisted easily. To my surprise and horror, the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

  After a startled moment, Eddy said, “Time’s a-wastin’. Come on.” She swept past me into the dark interior. I sucked in a breath, and followed her inside.

  The front door opened to a sizeable foyer right out of Fletcher Sharpe’s toy store. As my eyes adjusted, I made out huge stuffed animals lining the entryway on one side. A giant giraffe, taller than I was, stood at attention closest to the door. Behind the giraffe, a life-size black bear reared up on its hind legs, trying to appear menacing but only looking huggable. Three pudgy cubs trailed along after her. On the opposite side, four antique carousel horses in various stages of preservation made me want to climb aboard for a ride. Farther down, a doorway led to the right and another opened to the left. Occupying the right half of the hall just past the doors, a staircase led to the second floor. To the left of the stairs, the passage continued out of my line of sight.

  “I sure wish I had a flashlight,” Eddy said in a stage whisper. Coop laid his hand on my shoulder, more to orient me to his whereabouts than anything. One look beyond him and I realized Baz was hovering at the doorjamb.

  “Oh come on, ya big baby,” I said. “Hurry up.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re not looking at two to ten in the slammer for a probation violation. And busting into someone’s house on top of that.”

  I didn’t bother to mention he was an accessory to our crimes whether he came inside or not.

  Eddy said, “Basil, you keep watch out there and warn us if we need to skedaddle. Okay?”

  “Yeah. I can do that.” Baz seated himself on the top step.

  By the time I turned back around, Eddy was gone and Coop was disappearing through the right-hand door. I hustled after him. Luckily, the windows on this level allowed enough light in to give a sense of trippable objects in our way.

  I couldn’t believe we were in a stranger’s house, and that stranger happened to be one of the most well-known and well-liked executives in the city. If we got busted, we were going to be in some serious crap.

  Eddy called quietly, “Agnes? Aggie? You in here?”

  A gigantic, U-shaped couch sat in front of an equally humongous flat-screened TV. Hundreds of DVDs occupied a built-in shelving unit along one wall. Everything was very neat, and the room lacked the clutter of everyday life.

  No Agnes.

  The urgency of the situation pressed down on me. When would Fletcher Sharpe come home? I doubted he’d find any humor in discovering us in his house. And I didn’t believe for a minute Baz would stick around to warn us of anyone incoming. He’d be too busy hauling his well-padded hiney back down the hill to the safety of the pickup.

  “Go!” I whispered loudly. “Next room already.”

  Another door on the far end of the room was closed, and Eddy reached out to open it.

  “Wait!” Coop yelped.

  Eddy jerked her hand away. “What?”

  Coop, in a slightly calmer tone, said, “You don’t want to leave fingerprints, do you?”

  “Oh yeah. Should’ve thought of that. Grissom would be disappointed.” Eddy pulled her sleeve over her hand and opened the door. She stuck her head inside for a moment. The light flashed on, then off, and she reported, “Bathroom. With two more doors. A place with this many doors would confuse a person.”

  We followed her into a half-bath. I guessed one door opened to the hall behind the stairway, and light glowed through the other portal. Probably the study we’d peeped in through the window. A thought popped into my mind. What would the cops charge us with for peeping? Then I realized it really wouldn’t matter. We were in way over our peeping heads.

  Eddy left the bathroom and entered the study. Coop and I followed.

  The view was pretty much what we’d seen on the outside. Now that we were inside, I could better see the toys lying on the coffee table. Two stuffed snakes similar to Rocky’s, three fuzzy teddy bears, and a mean-looking gorilla rested on its glass-covered top.

  Coop walked over and picked up one of the snakes. “Looks like the one Baz swiped.” He squeezed it. “I don’t know if there’s anything but stuffing in here or not, but it feels oddly crunchy.”

  “You don’t think … ” Eddy sidled up next to Coop and scooped up a bear. She turned it this way and that, examining it and squeezing it between her hands. “It’s sure a hard thing for a fancy toy.” She stowed the bear under her arm and went back to calling Agnes’s name.

  Coop dropped the snake and pivoted to follow Eddy out the other doorway. “She’s right. This place has more passageways than a mausoleum.”

  Nice descriptor.

  We paused outside the study. We were in an area that opened up to the back half of the main hall. Another stairway heading downstairs was behind the upstairs set. I’d love to see this house in the daylight. Or with the lights on. Or even in the beam of a flashlight. Moonlight was overrated.

  Hardwood floors turned into ceramic tile as we slunk single-file into the kitchen. A newspaper was spread open on a six-foot-long, butcher block-topped center island. An L-shaped counter took up two walls, and a stainless-steel gas stove and refrigerator spanned another. A closed door was directly to our rig
ht.

  “Agnes,” Coop hissed loudly. The only sound was our muted breathing and the tick of a clock somewhere. Agnes didn’t answer.

  Eddy sighed. “Jeez, she’s not that fast. Where is she?”

  “I—” A loud thump came from behind the closed door. We all jumped in unison.

  “What the—” Coop muttered under his breath.

  Another bang issued from behind the door.

  “All right, that’s it,” Eddy said through gritted teeth. She strode right to the door and yanked it open faster than I could think. Another clang issued from the space. Coop and I, frozen in place, watched in horror as Eddy flipped the light on.

  There, on the floor, sat Agnes. The neck of a liquor bottle was clenched in one hand, and can of peas in the other. A few other tins of vegetables rolled around the floor near her.

  “Missed the chair, I did.” Agnes hiccupped and took another healthy glug. “Good stuff. Want some?” She held the bottle toward us.

  I found my tongue and croaked, “Holy shit, is she drunk?” I had trouble imagining how she got schnockered in a measly ten minutes.

  “Agnes,” Eddy boomed. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay off the potato hooch? You know what moonshine does to you after one swallow.”

  She must have had a bit more than one swallow to get herself in this condition.

  Agnes’s only answer to Eddy was a belch. Her eyes were glassy, and her features appeared crooked on her face.

  “Where,” Coop asked, “did you find that bottle?”

  A gnarled hand pointed up above her head. Indeed, on one of the white wire shelves attached to the wall, between canned vegetables, about two dozen Progresso Sirloin and Vegetable soups, boxes of Uncle Ben’s rice, and various pastas were a stash of five additional bottles of Grey Goose vodka. Fletch apparently liked his booze top shelf. Literally.

  The scowl on Eddy’s face was enough to send a shiver down my own spine, and I wasn’t the one in trouble. She said sternly, “Aggie, get your wrinkly fanny off that floor. Nicholas, come over here and help me.”

  Eddy and Coop hauled Agnes to her feet. She towered unsteadily over Eddy. Coop kept a hand under her arm in case she decided to attempt to visit the floor face-first.

  “You old fool,” Eddy scolded as she tried to pry the bottle from Agnes’s hand.

  “Not a fool. I’m the one who found … ” Agnes’s voice trailed off as she tipped the bottle and swallowed down another gallon or so.

  I said, “Let’s get her out of here before we—”

  “GIVE me that, Aggie!” Eddy had her hand above Agnes’s on the neck of the bottle. The stuffed bear she’d tucked under her arm fell to the floor as she wrestled with Agnes for possession.

  “No!” Agnes shouted. “Mine!”

  “Give. Me. That. Jug.” Eddy punctuated each word with a yank.

  “Leggo, old hag. I foun’ it.”

  I picked the toy up off the floor and wiggled it in Agnes’s face. “Look, Agnes, a teddy bear, just for you.”

  “Oh. Cute.” She swiped at him with her free hand, nearly upending herself. Without Coop’s assistance, she’d have gone down.

  “Aggie!” Eddy wrenched on the bottle. It flew out of Agnes’s hand, through Eddy’s, clobbered my forehead right above the same eyebrow that had been banged up in New Orleans, and bounced onto the shelf behind me. I saw stars. Again. Then what felt like a river of wetness began to flow down the side of my face. Again.

  “Oh no!” Coop let go of Agnes and lunged at me. He grabbed the bear from my hands and slammed it against my forehead. Déjà vu, with the substitution of a bear for Rocky’s aviator hat. Out of the eye not covered by teddy bear fur, I saw Agnes pitch forward. Eddy caught her and staggered under her weight but somehow managed to keep them both upright.

  Coop wrapped his arm around my head, and if there had been a pimple at the top of my noggin, it would have popped.

  “Hey,” I squawked. “Get off!” I tried to push Coop’s wiry body away from me, but it was like trying to move Mount Rushmore.

  “Shay,” he said. “Stay still. You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m fine, for Pete’s sake. Let go.”

  “Nicholas,” Eddy said urgently. “Scoot. We have to get out. Too many complications.”

  “I am not a complication,” I ground out furiously from very near Coop’s armpit.

  Someone flicked off the light. I wondered how much of a mess the open bottle of booze was making, and whether or not I was leaving a trail of blood behind. Great. Now they had my DNA.

  The four of us staggered out of the kitchen and into the hall. We were about to round the foot of the stairs and make a beeline for the exit when the sound of jingling keys echoed outside the door. Which was now closed.

  Our impromptu train stopped short right behind the staircase, and we bumped into one another accordion-style.

  The door had been open when we’d left Baz standing guard. Now the door was closed. I had a very bad feeling that Baz was not the one jingling his keys on the stoop outside.

  The four of us backpedaled and ducked down behind the stairway to the second floor. My head was pounding. I inanely wondered if the increase in blood pressure was making the gash in my head leak more than it already was. I couldn’t see with Coop’s iron grip on my noodle, but I managed to twist enough that I got a glimpse of the foyer.

  The sound of a key sliding into the lock sounded like an explosion to my partially covered ears. Then the door swung open.

  A man stood in the doorframe, backlit by moonlight. Something behind him caught his attention and he turned away for a moment and spoke. I couldn’t make out the words, but even if I hadn’t been able to see him, the tone of his voice clued me in to his identity. Instantaneously, horrified chills suffused my back and goosebumps sprang up on my arms. The man wasn’t Baz. It was Tommy Tormenta, and he wasn’t alone.

  TWELVE

  “OH SHIT.” COOP’S CHEST tightened against the side of my head as he spoke. “Downstairs,” he whispered.

  We tried to move quietly. Not easy to do when one very short old lady was staggering under the weight of a plastered senior citizen and another person was hauling me around by my head like a football he didn’t want to fumble.

  Coop whipped me about-face and half-dragged, half-carried me down the stairs into the basement. On the edge of panic, I wriggled enough to see that Eddy was doing an admirable job guiding Agnes down the steps in front of us.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I was yanked to the right and hustled down a hall. I barely made out the fact we’d entered a spacious room, and then Coop was wrestling me down to the floor.

  “Where are—” I began. Coop slapped his big hand across my mouth. He still held the teddy bear squashed against my head with his other hand. If the blood dried while the bear was being imbedded in my skin thanks to Vise Grip Boy, I’d never be able to pull the thing off. Footsteps echoed overhead and the faint sound of voices became louder.

  My heart thundered in my ears. We were going to be dead in a matter of moments, and I wasn’t even going to be able to see it coming.

  The voices grew louder. I stopped breathing, squeezed my eyes shut. Waited for the impact of a bullet.

  “ … and that’s what happened to ‘one-legged’ Hunk here.” Tommy’s accented voice grew louder.

  I pressed myself against Coop, awaiting the final blow.

  Someone turned a lamp on a distance from our hiding spot, casting a very dim glow around the object directly in front of us. I had no idea how they could miss four people huddled like shaking sheep awaiting the big bad wolf.

  Tommy continued, “Donny’s supposed to be on his way here tomorrow. Minus a piece of his ear, but that shouldn’t slow him down too much.”

  The sound of something opening came from very near. I cringed further.

  A voice I didn’t recognize said, “Beer?”

  Hunk said, “Yeah.”

  “Tomás?”

  “No, grac
ias. Water, if you have it.”

  “I do.”

  Water began to run from a tap that sounded way too close. Then there was the unmistakable crack of an aluminum can being popped open.

  How come they didn’t see us?

  “Thanks,” came Hunk’s gruff voice after a moment.

  Coop’s arm relaxed slightly and he removed his hand from my mouth while keeping the pressure on my forehead. Directly in front us was a free-standing, knotty-wood cabinet. It had to be a wet bar. I managed to see that Eddy and Agnes were on the floor next to us. Eddy’s hand was over Agnes’s mouth, and Agnes had a startled, deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face.

  “The people you were supposed to dispatch to the depths of some bayou swamp have disappeared. They know what you look like.” The voice hardened. “And they’ve seen the money in the snake. Zorra’s not going to like this at all.”

  “Hey,” Hunk said. “It’s not like we just let them go. The bitch almost broke my knee.”

  That was some consolation.

  “Zorra will deal with you when she arrives Tuesday. In the meantime, you both had better have these loose ends taken care of before the next shipment comes up. Hunk, I’ll need all your resources for this one.”

  “I’ve got it covered.” Hunk burped loudly.

  “Hey, find some manners or I will cut off your avocados, pendejo,” Tommy said flatly.

  “Sorry, boss.”

  “There’s too much at stake to make any more stupid fuck-ups,” the man said. I wondered if he was Fletcher Sharpe.

  “Tomás, your Juárez connection is complete?”

  “Sí. The tunnel is done. Product is being transferred. The factory is prepared for the increased exchange.”

  Tunnels? Juárez? Sounded like smuggling. I recalled the money that exploded out of the snake during the tug-of-war between Baz and Rocky. This wasn’t good. Not good at all. And Zorra. I’d have laughed at the ridiculousness of the clichéd name if I weren’t so terrified.

  “Well,” the man said through a yawn, “let’s get some sleep, and in the morning you two can figure out what you’re going to do to clear up our little problem. Pick one of the bedrooms upstairs to use.”