Hide & Find (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Jerusha Jones

  Either the detector was broken or Matt hadn’t bugged my pickup yet. Maybe he’d gotten tired of my co-opting his equipment. But I wouldn’t put it past him to have done something even sneakier.

  So I had to roll around on the ground for a visual inspection. Joy and peaches.

  The snow had accumulated higher than Lentil’s rims, which meant it funneled down my coat collar as I scootched underneath and aimed a flashlight up into the pickup’s wheel wells and other nether regions I didn’t know the names of.

  I’d been zipping along the county roads, stocking up on groceries and running errands in Woodland all week. I’d made a particular point of being busy and out and about in addition to my construction support efforts — all part of my normal routine and not activities I needed to hide from the FBI. Today, although we’d be going to some of those same places, I especially did not want my nosy babysitter to show up. At any point in the plan, the presence of federal agents — who are notoriously lacking in a sense of humor let alone an appreciation of precarious and imaginative antics — would be disastrous. Hence the precautions.

  All those miles resulted in Lentil’s underside looking as though it had been spray blasted by a fire hose filled with mud. Nothing new and shiny or even dull black drew my attention. Plenty of lumps and bumps in a bland, ubiquitous brown. Short of driving her through a rushing mountain stream to wash her clean, I wasn’t going to find a bug if the detector didn’t.

  I crawled out from underneath Lentil and staggered to my feet, trying to shake the snow from between my layers. I popped the hood and again looked for anything newer than the majority in the engine compartment. It all appeared old and on the verge of exhaustion.

  One more check. This time I started the engine and backed up, executing a lovely nine-point turn until the pickup bed was as close to the kitchen door as I could get without actually parking on the patio and bashing either of the support posts for the roof overhang. If a bug was going to broadcast Lentil’s location, it would have.

  But the detector registered nothing. I would have to live with that result and kick the nagging worry out of my head.

  “You finished squirreling around?” Clarice bellowed when I finally came in from the cold. “Eat.” She jabbed a finger at a paper plate nestled among our supplies. It was laden with cold cuts and cheese slices — protein and fat — per Josh’s orders.

  I grimaced but obeyed. I may have also whined for the allowance of another mug of coffee to wash it all down with and was summarily indulged.

  “Just don’t tell me you have to pee at a crucial juncture,” Clarice grumbled. But I noticed she consumed an extra dose of caffeine too.

  She tossed our lunch leftovers in the trash. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  I examined Lentil’s cab for any sign of castaways of the adolescent foster boy variety — it would be equally treacherous to have a stray child show up, as had happened in the past, as it would to have a fully armed and menacing federal agent appear at an inopportune moment — while Clarice bundled our supplies into one of her rolling suitcases and heaved it into the pickup’s bed.

  She climbed onto the seat and slammed her door closed. Then she swung her left arm around, her hand bunched into a fist.

  I almost ducked.

  “Fist bump,” Clarice growled. “For luck.”

  “How commando of you.” I provided the obligatory knuckle tap.

  “Gotta start somewhere,” she muttered.

  But I was pretty sure there was a note of unmitigated glee in her raspy voice, and I considered whether or not I might have unleashed a monster. Because if there’s anybody you don’t want to be on the bad side of — bad guys included — it’s Clarice.

  Almost immediately, the weather conditions took my mind off Clarice’s disturbing enthusiasm. In the few minutes it had taken us to scarf down our lunch, the snow had started up again, falling flurry-style in big, slappy wet clumps. Lentil’s windshield wipers barely kept up, and a couple times the tires spun in particularly deep, snow-filled potholes before gaining lurching traction. And that was just in the driveway.

  Once we were on the county road, the wheels revolved with that high-pitched noise distinctive to slush, and the view through the windows became more white blur than green trees even though I was driving well below the speed limit.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Six Shooter Storage Solutions gated entrance looked as though a battalion had moved through. Slushy tire tracks crisscrossed the short driveway and small parking lot in front of the office. And more tracks led to and from all the major arteries between the long rows of storage units.

  “It’s supposed to be quiet,” Clarice muttered.

  We’d hoped that Lutsenko would agree to a mid-week, mid-day meeting, assuming that most people moved or checked on their excess household goods on the weekends. Apparently hoarding was also popular on Thursdays. Not good.

  I aimed Lentil down Wild Bill Hickok Way and noted the single set of tire tracks that pulled straight into unit 231. Josh materialized at my window, and I cranked it down.

  “We’re clear. Give me your keys. Can’t count on it snowing hard enough in the next hour to fill in all these tracks. You bring enough cash?” He whipped the words out in a rapid staccato, deadly serious — operations mode.

  “I hope so.” I patted the bulging wads in my coat pockets and shivered as reality sank in. This was not a game. And no matter how many mental run-throughs I’d done, hiccups were bound to occur.

  Clarice and I piled out of the truck, grabbed the suitcase out of the back, and trotted after Josh to unit 231. The door rolled up for us, revealing two sets of legs, and we ducked under.

  Like us, Tarq and Loretta were also swaddled in heavy cold-weather gear. Tarq’s pickup with the homemade plywood canopy was nosed as far back in the unit as it could go, right up against the small pile of gold-filled crates, leaving a little clearance for us to shuffle around each other. Josh dropped the tailgate and pulled out two black carrying cases. He popped one open and handed me a pistol.

  It was heavy for its size, and I almost dropped it. “It’s not a .22,” I said. The only gun I’d ever fired in my life had been a .22 junker, and it had felt like a toy compared to what I now held.

  The briefest wisp of humor flitted across Josh’s face as he handed an identical pistol to Clarice. “9mm Glocks. No safeties, so be careful. But you’ll have to pull the trigger hard — five pounds of pressure — to fire them. Okay?”

  “Yep,” Clarice grunted, clearly enthralled with the weapon in her hands.

  “Use it if you need to. Be careful what you aim at,” Josh said.

  I’d been hoping for a little more detailed instruction, and my expression must have said as much. Granted, the idea of actually using the guns was only in Plan Z and only for self-defense, but since we didn’t have Plans B through Y, I was feeling at a loss holding the potentially lethal hunk of metal in my hand.

  Josh shrugged. “No time.”

  “We have two and a half hours.”

  “Lutsenko will show up early, guaranteed. And the snow’s a problem,” Josh said. “We need to get into position, stat.”

  I rearranged the contents of my pockets and stuffed the pistol into the biggest, easiest-to-reach patch pocket on my right side. Clarice made similar adjustments for herself while Josh pulled a rifle out from under the pickup canopy.

  “Got your hand warmers?” he asked Loretta.

  She nodded and pointed to her own pockets and accepted the rifle from him with remarkable nonchalance.

  Again, my face must have been something to behold, because Josh grinned at me. “She’s a crack shot.”

  “We’ve been practicing,” Loretta piped, a pleased smile on her face. “When I was a kid, I used to shoot starlings in my dad’s orchard.”

  “We don’t shoot for money anymore because she beats me every time.” Tarq’s chuckle was tinged with pride. “A regular Annie Oakley.”

  “Apropos,
considering our environs,” Clarice muttered.

  “Speaking of environs,” Josh touched Loretta’s shoulder, “let’s get you on the roof. Wait for my sign that your path’s clear.” He rolled the door up all the way, exposing our little powwow to anyone who might happen to drive by. He gave us a short nod. “See you on the other side.” Then he dodged around the corner and was gone.

  In our lumpy coats, jeans and boots, we probably looked like everyone else in town, but I couldn’t help feeling as though I had the words ‘glaring undercover novice’ stamped on my forehead.

  Loretta stuffed her hair under a gray knit hat and gave me a quick squeeze. “This is so worth it, darling. We’re going to nail that bastard.” Then she spotted the signal she was waiting for from across the aisle and disappeared into the white curtain of snow.

  I glanced at Clarice and then at Tarq. We shared grim nods and set off on our respective tasks.

  My responsibility was to clear innocent bystanders and staff out of the compound. Hence the cash. Who wouldn’t want to pad their wallets a little by taking an unexpected break? Surely they could all find more convenient things to do for the next few hours.

  The negotiations would be risky. Hugely so, because everybody knows just about everybody else around here, and word was bound to get out. In fact, word was sure to reach the attentive ears of my favorite sheriff eventually, and I didn’t want to have to answer his heated questions until they were a moot point.

  There was also the chance that, if given too much advance notice, people might have time to tell their friends that a crazy woman was offering a bounty to hightail it off the property and that might actually draw more witnesses to the scene hoping to earn a payoff themselves.

  A couple scruffy fellows in their equally scruffy pickup with a load of dinged-up gym equipment were amenable to vanishing for fifty dollars each. They mentioned starting happy hour an hour early. Fifty bucks can buy a lot of beer.

  A man in the middle of a contentious divorce with a moving van full of bachelor-quality furniture took more convincing because he’d have to pay the rental fee on the van for another day. Two Franklins cheered him up considerably, although I hadn’t been prepared for the accompanying life story. Poor guy just needed to talk.

  Then, on Jesse James Lane, I spotted a familiar dented green Buick, and my heartbeat quickened. I jogged to the open unit and found Selma, Mindy, and a painfully thin, wasted looking girl who had to be Laney, Selma’s daughter and Mindy’s mother.

  Selma did a double-take, delight quickly overtaking the surprise on her face. “Nora!”

  I beckoned. “Please. Can I talk to you?”

  Selma skirted around a couple gnawed barstools and a rolled-up rug to come closer. I was keenly aware of Laney and Mindy staring at me — Mindy with frank curiosity and Laney with bitter boredom.

  “Outside,” I whispered.

  Selma pulled her hood up and hugged her arms across her chest, but she complied.

  Snowflakes landed on my nose and eyelashes and cheeks while I talked quickly and quietly. “I can’t explain, but you must leave. Don’t come back here until tomorrow at the earliest.” I held a couple folded bills out to her. “Take Mindy and Laney for a nice dinner somewhere.”

  Selma’s congeniality dissolved into an irritated scowl. “I was happy to do you and your husband a favor, but don’t you go waving more cash at me. I was hoping we could be friends later — in a while — you know.” She squinted away, toward the snow accumulating in the Buick’s open trunk.

  “I’m trying to get to the later,” I hissed. “But I’m sorry. I won’t pull the money angle again.” I stuffed the bills back in my pocket. “For your own safety, you must not be here for the next several hours. I can’t tell you why.”

  Selma’s big brown eyes returned to me, widening, evaluating. “But Laney finally got a decent job,” she said hesitantly. “She needs some things to get started with in her new apartment.”

  “Can you be out in five minutes if I help you load?”

  Now Selma looked worried. “Are you in trouble?”

  I tried to smile. “Par for the course. Let’s hurry.”

  I saw Selma off, the women crammed inside the car with a bunch of boxes, and the trunk lid tied down over a chair and the bottom half of a computer desk.

  Lentil came roaring down the lane and skidded to a stop next to me. I jumped out of the way, but not before I got splattered from the knees down.

  “Rest of the place is empty,” Josh called through the open window. “Just the clerk in the office is left.”

  “I’m on it,” I hollered back.

  He nodded and popped the old girl into gear, laying down tracks and flinging rooster tails of slush. Josh was apparently applying the philosophy that if you can’t hide them, you should join them — or multiply them, or whatever.

  I jogged to the front of the property.

  I paid for the clerk’s family’s groceries for the next two weeks and flipped the sign in the window to ‘Closed’ while she locked up. At my request, she left the rolling chain-link gate open just wide enough for a single car. I promised to padlock it when we were finished.

  From her ready acquiescence, I wondered if I wasn’t the first person to grease her palms. And that made me wonder just what was in all the storage units. It was clearly a busy place, very near a major interstate freeway. Maybe that’s why the occupancy rate was so high. Maybe half the units were full of contraband. Maybe, months from now when my coast was clear, I should offer a friendly suggestion to Des that he walk a drug-sniffing dog through this joint.

  I was giving the entrance one last perusal when Josh brought Lentil sliding through the small parking lot. He cut several nice donuts — Lentil’s bald tires being especially conducive to such maneuvers.

  I held my arms out in a what-on-earth-are-you-doing gesture. Behind the fogged-up windshield, Josh’s face was clamped in a grim expression. He fishtailed the back end, then rumbled down Wyatt Earp Drive and whipped around the corner at the far end.

  Good grief. I hoped he was just blowing off steam while churning up tracks, wiping out all breadcrumbs that might be useful to Lutsenko. I’d become fond of Lentil and was just getting comfortable with her quirks. And while another dent or two wouldn’t make much difference, I had hoped to continue driving the pickup for a good, long time. I didn’t need a reckless former FBI agent wrecking my ride.

  But if Josh had finished dealing with the snow glitch and had gone to tuck Lentil into her hiding spot, then we were ready — as ready as we’d ever be, at any rate. Which meant I had to get out of sight too.

  My prearranged lookout spot was situated inside one of the cinderblock enclosures spaced at the end of every other aisle for the dumpsters. Each one held a large trash receptacle and a recycling bin. Why the facility’s developers thought dumpsters had to be protected from vandals, thieves or just plain old bad drivers, I had no idea, but they made good shelters and observation posts.

  I kept to one of the tire trails Josh had left through the slush so my footprints wouldn’t give me away and staked out my turf. The space was full of jumbled cardboard boxes that people hadn’t bothered to flatten, and I stacked them strategically, but apparently haphazardly, so I could peep out without being obvious.

  It brought back childhood memories of assembling a little house out of boxes from a washer and dryer set my parents had bought. My dad cut windows and doors and taped the boxes end to end to expand the square footage. I’d lived in that container for a week, played hostess with tea parties and sleepovers for my stuffed animals. Dad would knock on my door when he got home from work, and I’d invite him in, even if he did take up three-quarters of the space with his knees and elbows. Of course, the boxes had been in my parents’ living room, so I wasn’t as exposed to the elements as I was now. This was not nearly so cozy or fun.

  My feet were cold. And my fingers. And my ears. In spite of the layers of clothing I had on. Actually, I couldn’t identify any p
art of me that wasn’t frigid. I shivered as quietly as I could, but the sound of my teeth clattering still rattled in my head. I hoped that I wasn’t creating a steam cloud overhead, marking my presence.

  The snow slowed to drier, smaller flakes that swirled lazily on the way down. Visibility improved, which was both a blessing and a complication.

  There were a couple near misses — where vehicles slowed and the drivers thought about pulling into Six Shooter’s partially obstructed driveway then changed their minds. That would have been my biggest risk — having to approach and warn off a hapless visitor not knowing whether or not the car also contained Lutsenko.

  But when a sleek silver Mercedes signaled, turned, and purred through the opening without hesitation, a whole new set of worries rose to the forefront of my mind.

  CHAPTER 19

  I pulled my gloves off and shoved them into my already bulging pockets. Now I knew why the SWAT team had pockets and loops and clips all over their clothing to hold their gear.

  This was no time to have fat, clumsy fingers. Nimbleness was the name of the game. In every respect.

  I sucked in my breath and pressed against the rough cinderblock wall as the Mercedes’ quiet engine and wet, splashy tires came near and angled just on the other side of the wall, heading down Black Bart Bowles Boulevard, right on cue in every way except the time. He was twenty minutes early, as Josh had predicted.

  I wedged a toehold on the side of the nearest dumpster and pulled up until I could just peek over the top of the wall, the boxes and piled trash acting as a safety screen. I felt like a hunter sitting in a duck blind. I should have bought myself a pair of camouflage ear muffs when I’d had the chance.

  The Mercedes rolled slowly down the lane and slowed, the brake lights flashing bright red in the cloudy gloom. Slowly, both front doors swung open. From my angle, I had a clear view of the driver’s side but only a sliver of a view of the passenger’s side.