by Sharon Dunn
He leaned inside and clicked on a light, revealing metal shelves stacked with boxes reaching to the ceiling.
Wheeler pushed her inside. “Are you waiting for an invitation?”
“Are you coming with me?” Not that she wanted to pick out curtains with him or anything.
He pressed the tip of the knife into her upper back. The nerve endings in her neck flared. “Go on, hurry.” As if he couldn’t cause her more pain, he pressed the knife harder. Not enough to break the skin, just enough to remind her who had the upper hand. “What’s the holdup? Are you having a hot flash or something?”
In addition to being a criminal, Mr. Wheeler was rude. No manners at all. “I am only a few years older than you, so I suggest you quit making insulting references to my age.” Rude, rude, rude.
“All you got to do is tell me where that confession is, and you can go.” He lowered his voice. “I have to deal with this problem Jackson has created.”
He led her past the tall metal shelves. One of the boxes was labeled “basketballs,” and a kayak sat on a lower shelf. This had to be the storage room for the sporting goods store. That’s where she had heard the name. The Stenengarter who owned this store must have been the other city commissioner. So they had both gotten a piece of the mall. Wheeler just got a bigger piece.
He pushed her through the storage room until they came to a door that said Big Sky Sporting Goods. This time he swiped the key card himself and shoved Ginger into the well-lit store.
Mr. Suave, Jeffrey Stenengarter, leaned against the checkout counter. His white hair looked less than perfect, flatter. Sallowness had permeated his sixtysomething skin.
“Just got back to the shop. I had to have a little—” he coughed and cleared his throat—“talk with my son.”
“Jackson has gone and done it again.” Wheeler’s voice was low and smoldering, like a rottweiler’s growl.
Stenengarter picked up a nail file and proceeded to clean and buff his nails. “Why should I be surprised? He was jumpy from the beginning.” A crooked smile crossed the older man’s face. “He didn’t know what he was dealing with when he came to us.”
Wheeler pushed Ginger toward Stenengarter. She still clutched her purse to her chest, which was a good place for it. Her heart was thudding so intensely that the pulsations were probably visible through her shirt.
“Keep an eye on her. I’m sure she’ll feel like talking when I get back.”
Stenengarter swung an arm around to the inside of the checkout counter. His actions caused the jail bar sliding door that led out to the rest of the mall to open. Wheeler stepped through. Stenengarter repeated the same action. The door eased across a railing and clicked shut.
Stenengarter smiled a politician’s plastic smile. “That door is locked.” He strode across the linoleum. “And I’m about to lock the door you just came through. You might as well get comfortable because you are not going anywhere.”
From the booth in the coffee shop where she sat, Tammy heard the voice behind her. Bradley Deaver’s words beat on her back like a hard rain.
“They’re on to you.”
On a piece of scratch paper she’d pulled from her purse, she’d written the names Jeffrey Stenengarter, Paul Stenengarter, Keith Wheeler, and Evan Jackson. Then on the opposite side of the paper, she’d written mall dev. and drawn a line from those words to all four of the names. The older Stenengarter had been a city commissioner. The captain had to be protecting his father, covering up something.
Tammy closed her eyes and leaned her head against the booth. Deaver had a habit of sneaking up on people that was almost creepy. Only a few patrons mingled around the coffee shop this time of night. And yet she hadn’t heard his footsteps.
“How on to me? And how did you find me?”
“They’ve seen you with those other women since you went back to patrol. Stenengarter got a visit from his father about an hour ago.” Deaver slid into the opposite side of the booth. “And to answer your second question, I called your home. Your mom said you go here when you need to think.”
She did need to think. Like Ginger had said, she needed to put the puzzle pieces together. How had Bradley been alerted to what was going on with Stenengarter? If he knew the conversation was sensitive, the captain would have closed the door to his office. “How do you know what they said?”
“I have my ways.”
Tammy couldn’t imagine what sort of elaborate eavesdropping devices Deaver had rigged up, electronic or otherwise.
As if Bradley had read her mind, he added. “He left his office door open. I don’t think he realized they were going to raise their voices or that anyone was close to the office. Anyway, Stenengarter Junior was quite upset.” Deaver imitated Stenengarter’s wispy low voice. “‘Everything is out of control, Dad. This has gone too far.’” He watched her with a steady gaze as if gauging her reaction. “Then Junior said he wasn’t going to do it anymore.”
“By ‘do it,’ he probably meant threaten me and lose evidence.” Tammy crossed her arms. Interesting. Sounded like something was about to explode, or had already.
“Then Senior blamed everything on that ‘stupid woman cop.’”
“Guess that would be me.”
Deaver wore a T-shirt that made reference to a comic book convention. His bald head glistened beneath the lights. “Considering there are no other women in the department, you get to play the part of stupid woman cop.”
Tammy laced her hands together. “What I can’t figure out is what they are so worried about. What one or all of them might have killed that Parker woman over.” She summarized the link to the city commission of 1986 for Bradley.
He touched his bald spot. “I don’t know if this helps, but out of curiosity, I looked up the records of David McQuire’s death to see if there were any leads.”
“And?” For all his eccentricities, Deaver had good instincts. Tammy had only casually mentioned that Arleta was a widow and had had her house broken into.
“He died in a single-car accident. But I didn’t find that out from the police report. There was no autopsy, only a death certificate. No paper trail, not even an accident report. I found that out from the July 23, 1991, newspaper. No, I don’t have that issue at’ my house. But it’s amazing what you can find at your local library.”
“Thanks for the public service announcement.” Tammy tapped her nearly empty paper cup on the table. “You think there was something suspicious about his death?”
“Do you have any idea how weird police departments are about paper trails in the age of lawsuits? There is nothing on this guy.”
“But why would they need to kill him? The vote was three to two in favor of the mall development, and he died five years after the vote. Sometimes an accident is just an accident.”
“Maybe so. Maybe so. In light of the department having a bead on you, what are you going to do?”
Tammy took the last sip of her Chai. “Act natural, but be superalert.” She held up the piece of paper she’d been writing on. “Destroy all evidence.”
“I can shred that for you if you like. Shredding documents is fun.”
Everybody needed a hobby. Deaver’s was shredding paper. “In the meantime, I’m going to head out to Ginger’s because I have to pick up my son. I can ask Ginger if she knows anything.” She flipped the paper over before handing it to Bradley. It was the list of archery club members. Remington Shaw’s name was underlined. “Is this the only archery club in town?” She glanced over the list. No Wheeler. No Jackson. No Stenengarter.
“There might be other clubs. What are you thinking?”
“Some archers don’t belong to clubs. The weirdest thing about this case is that she died in a place she had no reason to be in and she was killed with an odd murder weapon.”
Deaver nodded, eyebrows arching, and shook a finger at her. “Unless you were an archer and had those weapons in your car. Not premeditated. It was convenient to kill her that way. The weapon was at hand.”
“People tend to gravitate toward places they are familiar with. I bet you anything that either Mr. Jackson, Mr. Wheeler, or Stenengarter Senior has a home out there.”
“Or one of the real estate agents listed a house out there.” He dragged her piece of paper across the table. “I can find out for you.”
“Call me as soon as you find out anything. And act natural.” Deaver was putting substantial effort into concealing the contents of the scratch paper by holding it against his chest. Acting natural was kind of a tall order for Bradley Deaver.
She scooted to the edge of the booth and stepped out. “In the meantime, I gotta go get my kid.”
Stenengarter leaned his back against the counter, crossed his legs at the ankle, and continued with his manicure. The swishing grind of the file across his nails was oppressive.
This was a sporting goods store. Certainly there was something she could use to escape. She took a few steps then gauged Stenengarter’s reaction. He brought his curled fingers to his lips and blew on them.
She stopped at the archery display.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Her back was to the main corridor of the mall. She touched one of the arrows. “Did you kill my friend with one of these?”
He only chuckled. Rage smoldered through Ginger’s body. How could he laugh about her friend’s death? She kept her voice even. “The bribery was twenty years ago. You wouldn’t go to jail for that.”
Again he chuckled. “I am a politician. I can’t have skeletons in my closet.”
“So you helped kill my friend.” She spun around, ready to stomp toward him, but movement in her peripheral vision stopped her in her tracks. What she saw on the far side of the mall corridor caused all the air to leave her lungs.
Her heart stopped. Kindra and Arleta, heads hanging, shoulders slumped, trudged forward. Mr. Jackson waddled after them holding a small pistol. Wheeler strode behind. The stiffness of his stride suggested extreme irritation. This had to have been what the phone call was about.
Her own breathing surrounded her, the rhythm of her inhale and exhale, like a dirge. Kindra and Arleta slipped around a corner, leaving Ginger’s field of vision. She took a few steps toward the jail bar doors.
“Not a step farther,” Stenengarter barked.
Ginger stared out into the dimly lit mall corridor. Empty, the mall was empty. And her friends were being taken…somewhere. But why? She was the one who had what they wanted. Jackson must have gotten impatient and gone after Kindra and Arleta. What had Wheeler said in the phone conversation? That they couldn’t let them go. Her breath caught in her throat. They were going to kill her friends.
She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the pictures that entered her mind. No. She wouldn’t think of the bad things that might be happening to her friends. The images would only cause panic. And panic caused stress, which triggered a migraine. She had to keep control if she was going to help them.
She studied the room without turning her head. What weapon was available? The light switch five feet from her caught her eye. A moment of darkness would buy her time enough to grab a weapon. Most of the knives were under a glass display case except for a set of collector knives on the counter not far from the light switch. She could make it there before Stenengarter fumbled toward the light switch.
Could she actually slice something other than a tomato? And then she thought of Arleta and Kindra. All she needed to do was threaten him with it and get him to open the jail bar door.
Ginger took a breath filled with prayer and dashed toward the light. The store went black. Stenengarter cursed. She stumbled in the direction of the knives. She slammed into something. She stretched her hands out in front of her, expecting to touch glass. Nothing. Oh no. The darkness had disoriented her.
She wasn’t surprised when she heard footsteps on the linoleum, but it still made her heart beat faster. A sliding sound and curses replaced the footsteps. Something rolled across the floor. Whatever she had run into had spilled across the floor and caused Stenengarter to stumble.
The delay bought her some time. Ginger crouched on the floor swinging her hand out in front of her. She worked her way toward what she thought was the far wall hoping it would hide her…temporarily.
All she had to do when the lights went on was get to the switch behind the counter, open the jail bar door, and race out to save her friends. Provided she became Wonder Woman in the next twenty seconds, that would be easy.
“Mom, that guy is tailing us.”
Tammy checked her rearview mirror. Through the smear created by pelting rain, a set of headlights glared at her. “I see him, but let’s not jump to conclusions.” The comment was meant to calm Trevor. In light of hearing Ginger’s message when she got out to Earl’s, there was good reason to jump to conclusions. In the dark, she couldn’t make out the model of the vehicle. The headlights were up high enough to suggest it was a larger car.
In her rearview mirror, Tammy could see Trevor rub his hands together. “You might have to drive like they taught you in cop school, huh?” His voice had just a smidgen too much glee in it.
From the passenger seat, Earl craned his neck. “It does seem like he’s been behind us for a long time.” Judging from the way Earl had his hand braced against the front dash, he was one of those people who didn’t like riding in a car unless he was driving.
Tammy hit her turn signal and pulled out onto the road that led back into town. Earl had nothing to worry about; she had been driving since she was fifteen and had never had an accident. “Let’s just focus on getting to the mall and finding your wife first.”
Earl’s jaw slackened. His face drooped. “That message scared me. Even Ginger can’t shop this long. The mall closed two hours ago.”
“He turned when we turned.” Trevor reported from the backseat. “He’s following us.”
Again, she glanced in her rearview mirror. “Thanks for the update.” Tammy sped down the two-lane. The increasing tension between her shoulder blades signaled that her attempt at nonchalance wasn’t working. She hit her blinker again.
Trevor leaned forward. “What are you doing?”
Drops of rain pinged on the metal of her car. Her wipers cleared a quarter-circle view for her.
Tammy turned onto a dirt road that dead-ended at the back side of the city dump. “Settling this once and for all. I am not a multitasker. I need to focus on finding Ginger.”
Trevor slid back on the seat and glued his face to the back window. “No lights.”
“I didn’t see any lights whiz by either,” said Earl.
Tammy slowed the car. Gravel crunched beneath her tires.
“There, a car just went by.” Trevor wiggled in his seat.
“Trev, I can’t see anything in my mirror with your head in the way.”
Her son groaned with the drama only a teenager could manufacture. The noise suggested inconvenience of the highest level. “I’m looking for you.”
“Shouldn’t we get turned around and find my wife?” Earl’s hand lifted from the dashboard with a jerk. His arm was ramrod straight, muscles tensed and hard.
She swallowed, hoping to wash down the comment to Trevor about how his paranoia had cost them time. Constantly placing blame on your child was at the top of the to-do list for bad parenting. She’d managed to suppress the observation, but it had flicked across her brain. “Sorry, Mr. Salinski. I know you’re worried. So am I. There’s a place at the edge of the chain-link fence where we can get turned around.”
Trevor slammed his body against the backseat and crossed his arms. “Sorry, Mr. Salinski.”
Tammy caught a glimpse of her son, his head turned sideways. She smiled. It had been a long time since he had apologized without being prompted and prodded into it. “Sorry I snapped at you, too.”
“It’s all right.” Trev shifted in his seat so the reflection of his sweet face was visible in the mirror.
Tammy turned her attention to the windshield a
nd the smeared view in front of her. “Oh, no.” She braked. “My wipers stopped working. I can’t see anything.” She shifted the car into neutral.
“I can get it,” said Earl.
Tammy opened her door. “That’s all right. It does this all the time.” Rain jabbed her skin the second she stepped out onto the gravel. Her cotton T-shirt soaked up the moisture like a sponge. She could have taken two seconds to grab her Windbreaker off the headrest of the driver’s seat. But no. Sometimes being in a hurry cost more time than it saved. She shivered. It certainly lowered your core body temp. Droplets trailed down her face. Rain fell hard and fast enough for her to wonder if it wasn’t being poured from buckets. God was draining the pool. Her mother used to tell her that.
She leaned across the windshield, cupped the wiper, and flattened the rubbery thing that had wound up into a ball. She had to get that thing fixed the next time she went in for an oil change. She only thought about it when it was raining. That was the problem.
Her cell phone rang. Maybe, hopefully, it was Ginger. “Hello.”
“Tammy.” Deaver’s nasally voice vibrated across the line.
“This better be good. I’m standing in the rain.”
“Wheeler was on his college archery team, and Stenengarter Senior was his coach. And get this, Wheeler has a home not too far from the range.”
“That was worth getting soaking wet for.”
“One more thing. When I traced back Jackson to his college days, he was never on the archery team, but he did work as a car mechanic. I got that little tidbit from an aunt of his. People will tell you anything if you’re nice enough.”
“You’re the best, Bradley. I owe you.” Tammy stood in the light created by her headlights, conical intersecting bands of illumination.
“Like a millions bucks, right?”
“Or at least a cup of coffee.”
“It’s a deal.” He chuckled. “So are you glad I believe in conspiracies?”
“More than you know.” They hung up at the same time.