Malice in Mexico

by Gayle Wigglesworth

  Steve went after the other man. The gun had fallen from his hand while he was clutching his head with both hands as if to hold it on.

  Claire was dancing around the three men struggling on the floor in front of her, the tire iron at ready, looking for a clear shot at Graves.

  Jack using both hands managed to pound Graves’ gun hand on the floor causing him to lose his grip on it, so the gun skidded across the floor and under one of the benches. Jack let go of Graves to dive after the gun. Just at that moment, Graves, with a mighty heave lashed out and kicked Jeff in the crotch with his foot. He followed that heave by leaping to his feet while Jack was scrabbling for the gun.

  Claire held the tire iron, ready to attack, but the malevolence in Graves’ eyes froze her in her tracks. And then he was gone. Jack leaped up and ran after him. Jeff was still doubled over on the floor, gasping for breath. Steve and Kaye held the other gun on the man half collapsed on the floor, moaning piteously.

  “Claire, are you all right?” Kaye said sharply, having gotten no response to her other inquiries.

  Claire nodded, chilled to the bone by that look of pure evil Graves had leveled at her.

  “Can you help Jeff?” Kaye’s request finally penetrated so she hurried over to Jeff. She was helping Jeff sit up when Jack returned.

  “He took off in his car. I’ll call for help.” He left to find a phone. When he returned Jeff was sitting up, sweating profusely, his dark skin grayish.

  Steve was tying up the other man with some rope Kaye had found in the shipping room. “This way we won’t have to hold a gun on him all the time,” Steve explained. “Although I don’t think he’s in any shape to escape. Kaye really whacked him. Good use of that Billy, dear.” He looked at her approvingly.

  Jack returned. “Okay, the authorities will be here soon. Obviously Graves is a man of hidden depths. I sure would like to know a little more about him as he seemed to think he knew me from somewhere. Kaye, you wouldn’t happen to have taken a picture of him somewhere along the way, would you?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t think so.”

  “Teddy did,” Jeff muttered.

  “Teddy did?” Jack perked up. “Do you have access to it, Jeff?”

  “Sure, it’s on the computer at home. He was taking a bunch of pictures with a new camera he got one night when Graves was over at the house. I’m pretty sure I saw him in the pictures.” Jeff was doing better, but he was obviously still in pain and he hadn’t tried to stand up yet.

  “I need that picture to send to some people I know. They can scan it and compare it to their files to see if they can identify Graves. I suspect he has a rather interesting history, and it may be critical in capturing him. Steve, how about me taking your Land Rover and Jeff to get that picture, while you and Kaye wait here for the authorities to come? Is that all right with you?”

  Steve looked at Jack oddly, and then nodded. “Just don’t forget us. We’ll need some way to get home eventually.”

  “Jack, I’m going with you,” Claire said decisively.

  “Of course, I need you to help with Jeff. Jeff, do you think you can stand?” He took one arm and Claire took the other as they helped a groaning Jeff to his feet.

  Jeff swayed a moment and then seemed to find a reserve of strength to call upon. They moved toward the door as best they could.

  “Wait, I’ll go get the car and bring it up to the door.” Steve shoved the gun into Kaye’s hand and sprinted out of the building ahead of the trio, moving pretty fast for an old retired guy.

  After Steve returned with the car, and helped Jack get Jeff into the backseat, he discretely handed Jack his bunch of lock picks. “Don’t think I want to have these in my pocket while I’m being interviewed by the police, you know? Put them somewhere safe at Jeff’s place will ya’? And remember, when we got to the pottery the doors weren’t locked.”

  Jack nodded and slipped them into his pocket and then with Jeff belted into the backseat and Claire sitting in the shotgun seat, he floored the accelerator on the road back to San Miguel.

  Jeff said suddenly, “Why did Graves call you Jack Hanford? I thought your name was Rallins.”

  Claire and Jack’s eyes met in the dim light reflected from the dash. Claire nodded. “I heard that too, Jack. What do you think it means? Do you know Graves? Have we met him before?”

  “The only conclusion I can make of it Claire, is that Graves is somehow connected to that tour of England we took; the one where we met Guiness. In fact, I’m guessing Graves is connected to Guiness.”

  Claire’s sharp intake of breath sounded loud in the night.

  CHAPTER 15

  The little Mexican made Volkswagen ate up the miles as Kathleen headed for the Mexico City airport. She didn’t know exactly what was happening back at the pottery, but her uncle’s instructions were clear. She should waste no time getting out and she should cover her trail. She had planned to drive to Leon and fly directly to Houston. Now she was going out of Mexico City, and she would use an alias to fly to either Miami or Los Angeles, then change airlines and identities to fly into Houston. She knew it was better to be safe than sorry. She calculated quickly and figured she would probably arrive in Houston just about the time the truck was arriving at their factory in Humble.

  She allowed herself the satisfaction of congratulating herself for getting the truck out of San Miguel in time. Her instincts were good, spot on, as they say. But she was furious that they would have to move their operation from San Miguel, even though that was part of their contingency plan. Still, she told herself, they were making progress even with this setback. She had established a relationship with Manny in Houston so they had a distribution system established. And once she made sure the factory was operating smoothly and the delivery process was working, she was going to move on to the second phase of the plan. She would go to California where they planned to set up their second factory in the San Diego area.

  And all this trouble was because that nosy couple, Jack and Claire, somehow bought one of their frogs.

  And somehow, they blabbed to Jeff. Jeff would have never known she had picked up one of his frogs from his studio. She admitted it was impulsive, but as soon as she saw them she knew they would be perfect for their coca negra. It looked like a piece of art and so who would question a shipment of copies?

  She glanced at her watch and realized it would be after six when she arrived at the airport. By the time she parked the car, freshened up and bought her ticket, she wouldn’t be airborne until at least eight. Then she would hunker down and sleep until she arrived at her destination. Until then she couldn’t afford to give in to her exhaustion.

  She still didn’t understand how she could she have missed hitting them with the truck? It was spooky how they were right in front of her and then suddenly they were gone, and instead of a satisfying splat, she hit that wall. That was a shock.

  She told her uncle she would take care of them. She had been totally confident, and now she was very embarrassed by her failure. Her uncle wouldn’t let that slide, she knew him. She would hear about this miss for the rest of her life. And she would have to control her rage at the teasing knowing if she was anyone but Stu’s protégé and niece she would have paid for her blunder with her life.

  And then she had been so determined to make up for her failure once and for all. She chose this car out of the several in her uncle’s garages because no one would give it a second glance. Everyone had one; it was part of the landscape here. She had parked close to the wall surrounding the Pruitts’ patio, and then in deep shadows far from the streetlight mounted over the door, she climbed on top of the car, threw a rug she brought over the jagged glass set in the cement on the top of the wall, and climbed over with relative ease. And all the time she took extreme care to move noiselessly. She crept through the house with her silenced gun ready, burst into the bedroom ready to spray bullets everywhere only to find no one was there.

  That really was spooky. It was as
if someone had hit her in the stomach. After she calmed down, she carefully searched the entire house and then she called her uncle.

  If she had a sense of humor she might have thought it was funny to find while she was stalking them, they were conducting their own search of the pottery. And somehow they had recruited the Carters and Jeff to join them. Now the entire community was going to be up in arms when they found the bodies, or even if there were no bodies, just to find three of their group were missing would be enough to enrage the community.

  Eliminating Jack and Claire would never have caused such a commotion.

  No, now that she thought about it, she decided that she was right; they should have eliminated Jack and Claire that first day when they showed up. For once her uncle was wrong. But she didn’t think she’d tell him that, especially since she missed killing them with the truck and now missed them at the house.

  But, she remembered with a cold smile, she left a little calling card. If by any chance they escaped her uncle’s wrath, they would get their just reward when they left for home. That thought made her feel much better.

  Now she turned her thought to rehearsing what she would do when she arrived in Humble to finalize the Houston operations. Planning was always one of her strong points.

  * * *

  “Are you saying that you think Graves is Guiness?” Claire said slowly, looking at Jack’s profile, the surprise apparent in her tone.

  He nodded, concentrating on the dark, winding road. “Who else could have connected me to that time in London? That is the only time I used that name.”

  “What are you two talking about? Do you know Graves from London?” Jeff’s voice came from the backseat.

  “Maybe,” Jack answered.

  Claire was very quiet because she was thinking about that fateful trip she took to England. That trip where she first met Jack.

  Guiness was the elusive leader of an Irish terrorist group, who had splintered off from the IRA many years ago. For years the authorities in England and the United States had heard rumors of his existence and his connection to a series of extremely violent terrorist attacks, which had never been resolved. But he had never been identified. They had no idea who he was, or really, if he even existed. So naturally when some of their listeners picked up references to his involvement with the Springer Untour they had acted quickly to investigate.

  Gulliver’s Travel Bookshop was bringing in steady profits by that time so Claire was pleased to co-sponsor her friend’s, Lucy Springer, trip planned to test her newest travel book’s itinerary. And she agreed to join the tour itself. It was to be her first trip abroad as it would be for the other members of the tour, all novice travelers.

  It had been extremely unfortunate when Lucy broke her leg just before they were scheduled to leave. Claire wanted to scrap the whole tour, but the others insisted they go on. Claire reluctantly agreed to assume the leadership of the expedition, but only because the company providing the bus was also providing a tour director. That tour director was Jack Rallins or Jack Hanford as he called himself then. The tour proved to be both delightful and disastrous. There was a whole series of incidents marring what should have been a wonderful fourteen days exploring Great Britain. She had often wondered since that time how she had the nerve to insist something was wrong, which ultimately led to the identification of Guiness. At that time she had never even heard of Guiness, but since then she had come to realize how absolute terror can enable a person to do things not possible at other times.

  All that happened a couple of years ago and while the authorities didn’t capture Guiness, they ended up with fingerprints, photos and even DNA of Guiness, which proved without a doubt that he existed. Later that same year, when Claire visited Washington D.C. to accept an award for her heroic act and was subsequently attacked on the Washington Mall, it was that worry of Guiness being out there and engineering this attack which kept her in Washington instead of just returning home after that scary episode. She agreed she would stay long enough for the authorities to determine it had only been a random act of violence before returning to the safety of her bookstore and life in California. And again Jack Rallins was on the scene. This time he was in the role of hero. He saved her life that first night and he led the search to uncover the reason her life seemed to be in jeopardy even though they found in the end that Guiness wasn’t responsible for that particular incident.

  So now, trying to fit Graves’ face with her memory of Guiness she wasn’t convinced it was the same person. However, she remembered when she met Graves she felt she knew him even though Jack pointed out Graves looked a lot like Yul Brenner. Now she just felt confused. Fortunately she was distracted from her dilemma when they pulled into the driveway of Teddy and Jeff’s place.

  Jeff insisted on getting out and opening the gates so Jack could park inside by the garages. He was feeling better, he was on his feet, but he still couldn’t stand up straight.

  They went immediately to the computer set up in a room off the family room.

  “You might think about an ice pack, Jeff,” Jack said as he sat down at the computer.

  “No, I’m going to get a pain pill. I have some codeine somewhere. I’ll be right back and I’ll help you go through those.”

  Jack was clicking through the hundreds of photos they had stored in the hard drive while Claire watched over his shoulder.

  It took only twenty minutes after Jeff came back and took control of the mouse to pull up the series of photos he had in mind. “This was right after Teddy got his new digital camera and we had this party. See he was snapping pictures everywhere. I put them on the computer for him, so I remembered. Here. Here’s one, and here is another.”

  Jack looked closely at the screen. “Can you zero in on his face in this one, Jeff?”

  Jeff did it with a click of the mouse, and Graves face filled the screen. They all examined the familiar face with the sardonic smile, looking for signs to reveal what they now knew about him.

  “Can you make that into a separate picture?” Jack nodded, saying grimly, “That’s it. We just need to send this. Are you connected to email?”

  Jeff opened an email and typed in the address Jack gave him. He attached the photo and hit send.

  “Okay, let’s make some copies for the police and then we can head back to the pottery to see what’s happening.

  “Jeff, are you coming with us, taking your own car, or going to bed?”

  “I’m coming. I’ll go with you. I don’t know that I should be driving on top of those pills,” Jeff said getting up slowly. But this time he stood erect. The pain pills were obviously working.

  “Pills, how many did you take?” Claire asked, worry lines marring her forehead.

  “Three,” Jeff admitted sheepishly. “Well, I thought two would do it, but the pain was so bad I took one more just in case.”

  Claire shook her head. “I guess we can expect you to pass out any time now. We’d better get you in the car so we don’t have to carry you. Jack I’ll close the gates after you drive out.”

  * * *

  Things looked very different when they arrived back at the pottery. Jack had a long conversation in Spanish with the police, who had cordoned off the little road leading from the highway, before they were allowed to proceed. Now, threading through the officially marked vehicles in the dirt lot behind the pottery, they saw the lights on in the houses up and down the street and the outline of curious faces pressed against the windows. And most noticeable was the dark silhouette of the large helicopter against the graying sky in the field behind the parking lot.

  “I guess my call got their attention,” was Jack’s comment as he parked the Land Rover. A uniformed police officer waited for them to alight and then turned to escort them into the covered patio area.

  When they entered the shipping room Claire spied Kaye sitting on a chair in the corner and headed for her.

  “You’re back. Did you find what you wanted? How’s Jeff? He looks a little b
etter.”

  Claire nodded, and then whispered, “He took three pain pills. I don’t think he feels anything right now. I keep waiting for him to fall over.”

  “He’s a big man, so three might be the right number. I felt sorry for him. That Graves, what a bastard he turned out to be.” Kaye’s contempt was almost physical. “What about the picture?”

  “We found a good one and Jeff made copies. Jack has them. What’s been happening here?”

  Kaye opened her mouth to tell all, but was interrupted by an officer who came to fetch Claire.

  Claire followed the man into the glazing room, which now was being used for other purposes. Over on the far side Jack was engrossed in a conversation with two men, while another man was taking notes. She was led to one of the tables nearer the door where two more men sat.

  She sat where they indicated she should and waited for the questions she knew would be coming. Luckily for her, one of the men spoke excellent English and the other seemed to understand English, but spoke it with a thick accent. They listened to her story, occasionally asking for more details, once or twice pausing to speak rapidly to each other in Spanish. “And how did you get into the building?” they asked.

  “We came in the back door, the one which led to the covered patio.” They waited, and when she didn’t say anything more, they asked, “And how did you get in?”

  “The door was unlocked; we just opened it and came in.”

  They looked at each other, and then the one in charge asked carefully, “How did the men get in?”

  “I don’t know,” she told them truthfully, and repeated, “When we got to the door it was open. We followed Graves and the other man; I didn’t see how they came in. And the door to the inside room was unlocked and open, we could see right in from the packing room.”