Alive After Friday (Sandy Reid Mystery Series)

by Rod Hoisington

  “Don’t lock it, Gail.”

  Gail was startled by the strange voice coming out of the shadows; she cried out and dropped the package and her keys.

  “You stole my money, Gail. I want it back—all of it.”

  Gail stood wide-eyed and speechless.

  “Get back in that cage and bring out the rest of the money.”

  Sandy could easily hear them and now had the vague feeling that the voice was familiar, yet she couldn’t place it.

  “Who the hell are you?” Gail finally was able to speak, “This money is mine. I earned it.”

  “You didn’t earn it. All you did was shoot Boyd and take it. I’m the one who planned it. And it wasn’t as easy as just shooting someone.”

  “Well, you shot Myra.”

  “She wasn’t in my plan. She was...collateral damage.” She stepped up to Gail with the pistol aimed right at her. “I’ll take that package, now get out the rest of the money.”

  Sandy suddenly realized she recognized the voice! Should have recognized it that night kneeling in the mud with the gun pressing on her neck, but it wasn’t a clear, normal tone as it was now. Sandy had it now—she knew who Jane was and everything was beginning to make sense.

  “I’ll split it with you.” Gail was saying. “You should be grateful it was me who followed Boyd up to Park Beach to pick up the money and not some greedy person you’d never be able to bargain with.”

  “If he’d kept his fool mouth shut and not told Myra about the money-drop, they’d both be alive right now and you could go on living. Just give me all the money,” the woman said.

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Then I shoot you.”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then I shoot you.”

  Gail was almost crying, “You don’t understand. I can’t give up all this money. I just can’t. I really need it. Let me keep half or else I’m going to tell the cops everything.”

  “But...you’ll be dead.”

  Gail couldn’t answer that.

  “Look, you’re wasting my time,” the woman kept on. “Now give me the money.”

  Gail put her hands to her cheeks and begged, “Okay, I’ll give you all the money. But you don’t need to kill me. I won’t tell anyone about you.”

  “You just said you’d tell the cops.”

  Sandy watched as the woman took the rest of the money from Gail, pushed her roughly into the cage, slammed the door shut and snapped the padlock.

  Sandy wasn’t certain how to save Gail. But when the woman came running out, Sandy would be ready. She reached down and yanked the safety pin out of the extinguisher’s trigger so she could discharge the pressurized foam.

  “Now move to the back of the cage. Stand back there behind those boxes.”

  Gail hurriedly pushed herself around some boxes and cringed against the back wall. With eyes tightly closed she pleaded, “Don’t...don’t, please don’t!”

  The woman held her arm straight out through the bars and aimed the gun.

  “You don’t have to kill me,” Gail was speaking rapidly trying to get in all the words before the gun went off. “Don’t you see? I shot Boyd and you know that I did. I won’t dare turn you in, because then you’d bring a murder rap down on me. You get all the money without killing someone. You don’t really want to murder me, do you?”

  The woman lowered the gun and sighed. “No, I don’t want to kill anyone. The way this started out, the money was there, and I could get it without hurting anyone. Then you came along and screwed it all up. If I get rid of you, then I don’t have to worry about you.”

  Sandy had to do something. She couldn’t just wait for the woman to come out. Gail was about to be shot, maybe she could save her. She loosened her grip on the fire extinguisher and let it slip loose. The extinguisher fell hard on the concrete sounding a loud clang that echoed in the large garage like a bell tower at one o’clock. She struggled to lift it back up and then stood still.

  The woman spun on her heels, aiming the gun at the door to the garage. She slowly started walking out with the package tucked under her arm. When she reached the storage room doorway, she stopped and peered cautiously into the garage.

  Sandy had a better idea than simply spraying foam on the woman. She didn’t hesitate. She swung the entire extinguisher as hard as she could. She caught the woman directly across the nose. The woman didn’t cry out. Didn’t make any sound. Just instantly folded and dropped to the floor like a wet rag and lay motionless.

  “Geez, I killed her.” Sandy kicked the gun away and leaned over to feel for a pulse. “No, you’re alive. But you’ve stopped running, haven’t you, Jane?”

  She found her phone, dialed 911 and started answering the emergency operator’s questions regarding location, injuries and such. “Need police and an ambulance. There are two nasty women here. One is already locked up in a cage. She used to live upstairs, but she’ll be changing her address again. The other woman ran into a fire extinguisher...yeah, that’s what I said, the damndest thing...ran right into it. She’s a lawyer. At least she was until she got greedy. And advise Detective Dominic immediately.”

  “Is it his case?” the operator asked.

  “Oh, absolutely. He deserves all the credit on this one.”

  She picked up the dropped packages. They were heavy. A good sign. Eagerly she unwrapped the money. She recognized the bundles of tightly bound currency she’d once carried in the gym bag. Perhaps some packets of money were missing, but it was still a whole world of money.

  She crouched down and spoke to the seemingly lifeless body, “You know, I hate myself for saying this, but I’m not sorry. I’ve been in a lousy mood lately, and I just don’t feel bad about you lying there hurting. I’m so glad I don’t have to put up with any of you bad guys for a while.” She turned the body over and grimaced at what she saw. “Geez, are you going to scream, when you see what happened to your face.”

  Sandy fumbled in her pocket, took out the card from FBI Agent Hastings and dialed the number handwritten on the back. When he answered, she said, “Sandy Reid here. How far are you from the Magnolia Palms on US-1 in West Palm?”

  “I live in West Palm. What do you need?”

  She briefly explained and gave him the address. “So, the kidnapping and extortion case is solved, Connie. You might want to hurry over here before the reporters arrive. I want my name in the paper for business reasons, but otherwise I’m just happy to have our money back. I’ll be telling the media how much I appreciated the FBI’s help. You can tell them whatever you want.”

  Gail was now crying out and banging on the cage at the rear of the storage room. Something about how it was all a misunderstanding and it really was her money. Sandy didn’t bother to answer, and Gail shut up when she heard the sounds of the sirens.

  She dialed Martin, and said. “Where are you?”

  “In a limo almost to our hotel.”

  “Tell the driver to turn around and get over to the Magnolia Palms. It’s all over. We have Jane and our money. This is fun and you’ll never guess who Jane is.”

  Sandy leaned against the doorway cradling the money in her arms like a long lost child. She breathed out a heavy sigh. The evil ones would now face justice. The innocent were safe from suffering. She was safe. Martin was safe. Everyone she loved was safe, with the exception of Chip. She’d gone almost all day without thinking about him. Almost.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Three days had passed. Prowling around West Palm Beach, chasing bad guys and retrieving their money seemed light years away. Sandy and Martin sat in their quiet law office in Park Beach. She at her desk and he in the classic overstuffed brown leather armchair in front of her. She said, “I can’t believe you’re in the office and not wearing a suit and tie.”

  “I can’t believe we’re in our office at all on a Sunday morning,” he said. “From the looks of things, we might need to start working seven days a week. Do you believe the phone calls the last two days? I sp
oke with the police beat reporter for the Palm Beach Post who was at the scene Thursday night. He wanted our names and business card and told me there would be a big spread in today’s paper. He made it sound as though we were living one of those buddy-movies together. He said the AP will certainly pick up the story and go national with it.”

  “Bring it on. It all started Friday night. And all those calls yesterday were just from word-of-mouth. One call was from a personal injury lawyer in Des Moines wanting to refer a case. Imagine what happens when we hit the national news.”

  “We’re going to need office help in here and perhaps more lawyers. I took the liberty of calling my friend at the Office Temp service. I told her we needed someone in here to handle the phones starting tomorrow. Was that okay?”

  “Fine, Martin. I went a step further. Do you remember Linda Call, used to be a local reporter? I phoned her late last night. Told her to get down here ASAP for an interview. I want you to meet her. If you like her, she’s a take-charge no-nonsense gal who would be good at managing our operation.” She made the thumbs up signal. “Do you think we can afford her?”

  “Last month we couldn’t. Next month we can. I’ve met Linda. Call her back and tell she has the job.”

  “Lean back and put your feet up on the desk like this.” The problems were gone. They had conquered the world.

  “Someone might come in.”

  “Just for a minute. I want to see you relaxed like this.”

  Reluctantly, he put his feet up on the desk.

  She clasped her hands behind her head. “Don’t we look like a couple of big shots? If you stuck a cigar in your mouth right now, you’d look ready to run for Mayor.” She took a deep breath. “I feel alive. I feel like shouting. That’s it, Martin, it’s all over but the shouting. Have you ever shouted in your entire life?”

  “I do feel relaxed.” He slowly took his feet back off her desk. “And nice to see you smiling. We should go celebrate. It’s a beautiful day. Have a picnic or something.”

  “We could go to the beach. Hey, how about that?” she suggested.

  “It’s been some time since I’ve actually been in the ocean...the pool at home, you know.”

  “I know but the ocean’s different, will you go with me?”

  He was slightly flustered and sat up quickly to cover it. Seeing her in a swimsuit? He enjoyed that thought. “Going to the beach would be nice. I know we have to go back down to West Palm to give depositions one of these days, when they get everything sorted out. But yes, we should take the day off while we still can.”

  “We should have caught on earlier who Jane was,” she said.

  “Talk about missing clues,” he recalled. “Looking back, I see that Jane must have been a local person, otherwise she wouldn’t have known about the Lover’s footbridge over a dry creek in Lagoon Park, or that Chip was your lover.”

  “True, but she was careful not to call him ‘Chip’, when I was abducted. She referred to him as ‘That Detective’. So, I didn’t think anything of it,” she explained. “Also I wondered why she didn’t come over and speak to me at the service for Chip. Now, I’m guessing she didn’t want me to hear her voice. In any case, the perfect timing was a big clue. Whoever was Jane had to know the exact period of time that money would available in my bank. Vicki Susane knew, because she had just handed you the big check in settlement of our lawsuit. Another day or so, I’d be writing checks right and left, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t have put my two hundred grand back together again in one place.”

  “She must have been desperate for money.”

  She nodded. “Mel told me she’d stolen around a third of a million from her clients’ escrow accounts and needed to replace the money, before it became known. She thought up the kidnap and extortion scheme thinking it would go off smoothly. She knew we had the money available from the lawsuit payoff and figured I’d pay up rather than risk Chip’s life. No one would get hurt. But she needed someone to strong-arm me. She remembered Cal Boyd, the unruly young guy she once cleared of an assault charge, knew that he’d moved to West Palm and offered him a ton of money to play Dick. She didn’t need to go half with him, probably offered him forty or fifty grand.”

  “I’m still shocked that she’d do such a thing,” he said, thinking back to the night with Vicki that began with martinis at The Club, on the barrier island in Park Beach.

  “You don’t know her well enough to be shocked.” She didn’t know why that statement caused him to frown. “At one time, I’d tagged either Myra or Tonya for Jane, but should have crossed them off the list much sooner. Both were in love with Boyd, which should have been a clue considering how Jane acted toward him. Back in the Everglades, when Boyd had me on my knees and was suggestively moving my head, Myra or Tonya would have reacted badly, if their boyfriend were touching another woman like that. Instead, Jane merely scolded him like a person with no romantic interest in him. A person such as Vicki.”

  “Looks as though you’ll be testifying at Gail Holman’s murder trial. I had a couple of drinks with her and spent half an evening in her apartment. I know she really wanted that condo and thought she deserved it. You think Myra told her Boyd was going for the money?”

  “Yes, although, Myra knew nothing about the abduction-extortion she told Gail that Boyd was bragging about getting paid big money in Park Beach. So, Gail gets the bright idea to follow him up there. She even asked Brad Powell to go with her. But people who don’t wear skirts don’t interest Brad.”

  “I guess she felt she couldn’t just rob him, otherwise she’d always be looking over her shoulder. You caught her red handed in the storage cage with the payoff money, but that doesn’t prove she shot him.”

  “Detective Dominic told me she’s a goner,” she said. “Remember the gun Myra found in the couch and Ryan put it in his office safe thinking it was Boyd’s—the gun they later determined was used to kill Boyd? Gail had to have planted that gun in Myra’s house to throw suspicion on Myra and get her in trouble for screwing up her brother’s life. Anyway, Dominic found Gail’s fingerprints, not on the gun, but on the bullet clip she touched when loading the gun.”

  He picked up on it, “So at that point, Boyd’s dead and Vicki is out the money. She knew that Boyd lived in West Palm and figured he had to have told someone about going up to Park Beach for the money-drop—most likely his girlfriend, Myra. So, it was Vicki who was searching the house, when Myra interrupted her. I can’t believe she’d just shoot Myra.”

  “You always believe the best about women. Could be Vicki searches but can’t find the money. She points the gun at Myra who is pleading for her life and screaming that she doesn’t know anything about any money. At some point, Myra remembers that she told Gail about Boyd going to Park Beach to get a bunch of money. So, she confesses to Vicki that Gail knew about the money-drop. They struggle and somehow, Myra gets shot. Then Vicki goes after Gail.”

  “So, Tonya and Myra were innocent in all this,” he added. “Except Myra had a mid-life crisis and embezzled money to keep Boyd interested in her.”

  “I’ll bet she’d have received nothing more than probation with zero jail time by simply promising to pay her employer back.”

  “What will become of Ryan?”

  “He phoned me. His business is saved and has really taken off. He landed a contract with a large southeastern bank that has eighteen branch offices. He’s going to do all new landscaping for them. Right now he’s busy hiring more workers.” She said. “You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

  “I gave his card to a friend. From then on it was up to Ryan.”

  “You just gave his card to a friend and rainbows suddenly filled the sky. Amazing.”

  He returned her smile. “The bank had to use someone for their landscaping. It might as well be him.”

  “So, everything seems to be taken care of and tied up with a lovely pink ribbon.” In the back of her mind a small concern remained, and she sa
id. “You know, I wondered why Vicki came after me for a lousy four hundred grand, when she could have picked on you for millions.”

  “Might be she needed the money fast. According to Mel, a few hundred thousand was all she needed to replace the missing escrow funds.”

  “So, you’re saying this wasn’t about greed. She just had to correct a slight misallocation of funds. Geez, she held a gun to my head!”

  “You were blindfolded. You’re not certain who was behind holding that gun to your head. Anyway, I don’t believe Vicki would pull the trigger on you.”

  “She pulled the trigger on Myra and was ready to shoot Gail dead.”

  “True, but Vicki’s original plan didn’t require anyone getting hurt. She pays off Boyd and they walk off into the night. Then her plan starts going terribly wrong, when Gail butts in and screws up everything. She shoots Boyd to get the money, brings the money back to West Palm thereby getting Myra fatally involved and shot.”

  “Stop making excuses for Vicki! She must have really made an impression on you, when you two got together for that drink.”

  Martin’s night with Vicki, which began with martinis in the lounge at The Club, was scorched into his memory. He thought of her long ash-blond hair and cool blue-green eyes. Her charming stoicism and good-natured cynicism, and her laughter at dinner later in the Blue Room. He remembered those cool blue-green eyes looking up at him, her long smooth legs wrapped tightly around his waist and her unhurried rocking movement tossing her ash-blond hair across the pillow.

  After a minute, he said, “Believe me I’m very disappointed in Vicki Susane. What she did was horribly wrong. She’s a murderer and should be punished.”

  “None of that answers the question that remains in my mind,” Sandy said. “Why did she target poor me for the four hundred grand instead of wealthy you for millions?”

  “Perhaps, she had other plans in mind for me,” he said.

  He seemed to be deep into that thought. She took her feet down off the desk and straightened in her chair. “And what are the possibilities in store for Martin Bronner, pray tell?”