Tried & True (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 5)

by Jerusha Jones

  The Mongrels weren’t known for pithy understatements. This could get ugly—in a hurry. “Too many people,” I murmured. “Maybe I can call it off.” I unzipped my pocket and palmed my phone.

  “No.” Josh stayed my hand. “Too late. The Mongrels won’t be intimidated by a bunch of people in their dress-up clothes, and you shouldn’t give them the idea that you are either.”

  Josh was probably right, but that didn’t keep me from shivering inside my leather jacket. When Skip had returned his wedding ring, he’d also written a short, business-like note telling me that he had, for some time, suspected Freddy Blandings was working both sides of the fence. Isn’t that a nice, romantic bit of information to include with an object of such emotional significance? The only thing I could hope was that Skip had written it when he was under pressure, and that he’d been forced to put niceties aside at that particular moment.

  Except, what kind of wish was that? And what did it say about me? I didn’t want to think about the answers to those questions.

  And now we were about to find out for sure where Blandings’ loyalties lay. Maybe.

  The valets had completed their job with remarkable dispatch, and they were clustered around one of the open gates, smoking and telling raucous jokes, if the volume of the laughter that drifted up to us was an indicator. All the glamorous guests were safely ensconced inside the gleaming pseudo-mansion. Faint strains of string music also wafted on the cold air. If Blandings had hired a string quartet, then he was really pulling out all the stops. I wondered what the special occasion was.

  Josh kept checking his watch. “Not the most punctual bunch, are they?”

  “They were what—six, eight?—beers deep when I mentioned the particulars. Maybe it was too much to expect them to remember the time frame.” I almost chuckled, and then another thought struck me sober. “I hope they get the address right.” I leaned against the pine tree trunk, but it was too knotty to be comfortable.

  Fog was rolling in, creeping up the hillside, giving a diffuse vaporous glow to the lights below. The damp set my teeth to chattering in a way the cold alone hadn’t been able to.

  But there was something about the moisture in the air that allowed noise to travel farther. Either that or the noise was insanely loud at the point of origin.

  Harley exhaust pipes, gearing down for the uphill climb. I’d spent enough time with Gus to immediately recognize the sound. But this was the battle roar of a whole bunch of bikes. Poorly maintained bikes designed to instill fear in the hearts of those they passed. I knew it before I saw them.

  And then everything happened incredibly fast. Mongrels massed in a thunderous display of unhygienic thuggery—three, four wide in the street. They blew by the frozen clump of valets and wheeled into the semicircular driveway. Even at my distance, the reverberations pulsed through my chest cavity and limbs.

  The Mongrels didn’t confine themselves to the intricately patterned brick driveway. Riders peeled off and rode their bikes through the landscaping, cutting ruts in the flower beds and crunching through low shrubs, getting slogged down in the over-irrigated grass and flinging dirt clods with their rear tires.

  There must have been guests out on a rear patio because, when several Mongrels disappeared behind the house, screams erupted in short order—women’s screams of the high, piercing, running-in-stilettos variety.

  Mongrels were racing, mob-style, below me, but my thoughts slowed to the speed of a barely dripping faucet. Blinking, licking my lips, swallowing—all those things were beyond my ability. I couldn’t hear the violins anymore.

  And that’s when I saw one guy standing on the porch, illuminated so thoroughly that I could tell that the greenish color on his head was not a helmet but rather tattoos, so densely inscribed that they covered his bald head. He was whirling a chain thingy with a heavy blob at the end. He broke one of the lanterns flanking Blandings’ front door with the makeshift flail, creating a shower of glass.

  Another burly Mongrel on the lawn waved, arm extended overhead with something in his hand, and gunshots popped through the night.

  I instinctively ducked, but the gaunt branches of the pine tree would never suffice for cover. Josh muttered words that came out sounding like a growl and hunched beside me.

  I’d specifically instructed that there were to be no weapons present, let alone brandished. I should have known Ebersole would suck at taking orders, that he would add his signature arrant violence to the evening. I should have realized just how out of character it would have been for his gang to operate with restraint—or intelligence, or an awareness of consequences.

  The tattooed man now had a knife in his right hand. He must have been a walking junkyard of metal implements. His broad back blocked most of his movements, but he appeared to be carving a memento into Blandings’ front door.

  Sirens rallied below us. Pulsing wails joining together in urgency, but still a long way off. I became aware that the dog who lived in the dark house next to our hiding place was howling its head off.

  Josh tugged on my arm, but I was rooted to the spot. Horror, guilt, shock—a whole slew of terribleness was roiling in the pit of my stomach.

  Through all the racket, the Mongrels noticed the sirens too. The one who seemed to be the leader emitted a piercing whistle accompanied by a slicing motion of his hand across his throat. The guys who were still on their motley choppers made a ragged and untidy, but very speedy, exit. The ones who’d decided they could wreak more havoc on foot hurried to reclaim their machines and join their retreating comrades.

  “Come on,” Josh hissed. “We’ll catch them at the bottom.” He pulled me along.

  Somehow, I strapped on my helmet, mounted the bike, and ended up with my arms clamped around Josh’s waist as we hurtled farther up the hill and then down the other side, avoiding the route we’d taken into the neighborhood.

  He was right about catching up with the Mongrels. It was just a matter of listening for their distinctive roar. And of staying far enough back that we wouldn’t be considered part of the pack.

  Because the Mongrels were either too stupid or too blatantly arrogant to split up. They roared en masse through quiet streets until they hit the freeway. And from there, it was a straight shot to Emeryville. None of the sirens I’d heard materialized into a pursuing police cruiser.

  We had no need to follow them, but we were. Maybe Josh had gotten caught up in the thrill of the chase. I’d rather leave that to the local police, should they eventually get the memo, or to Blandings’ FBI surveillance team. We’d just get in the way and inspire Judge Trane to new heights of ire if she found out about my extracurricular activities.

  Technically, I’d obeyed her directive to not meet with any of my Numeros. To me, meeting implies talking. And I’d only observed. But if she thought meeting was suggested by proximity, then I could be in trouble.

  I thumped Josh’s back to get his attention, but he gunned the motorcycle, changed lanes, and shortened our distance from the Mongrels pack, forcing me to use both of my hands as well as my knees and toes to maintain my precarious seat. In the bustle and anonymity of the freeway, we wouldn’t be associated with the outlaw bikers. There’s a world of difference between a large group of pieced-together Harleys riding in formation and a shiny Kawasaki running alone, so that wasn’t a concern.

  But still. I gritted my teeth inside the protective bubble of my helmet and willed myself to ignore the cramps in my fingers in order to keep a grip. Because I had the distinct impression that my evening was just beginning.

  CHAPTER 16

  I’d trusted Josh with my life more than once. I wished I hadn’t questioned his judgment this time either. Good thing I hadn’t been able to object out loud while we were trailing the Mongrels because now I got to share in his satisfaction.

  “I knew it.” Josh thumped the gas tank with his fist, his whisper fierce but excited. “I knew they’d have to unload.”

  We were parked beside a sturdy mail box unit at
the edge of an unlit road—the kind of mail box with a dozen individually lockable compartments that is installed by the post office to consolidate the delivery location for a bunch of addresses in order to make life easier for rural mail carriers. The box was posted at the base of a private road that wound deep in the chaparral. We were in one of the hollers that still occasionally exist in the midst of the Bay Area’s urban sprawl, a valley probably originally settled by ranching families who had held their ground all these years.

  It was easy to tell which house and barn belonged to the bullied acquaintance of a patched Mongrel—just follow the line of single red taillights.

  “I knew it,” Josh murmured again. “With such short notice, Ebersole had to use the local chapter to run this mission. And while they all have a few screws loose, they do have the sense not to carry their full armory around when they’re finished. They also have the sense not to keep their weapons—aside from maybe a knife and a single handgun—in their own homes. Probably because most of them are felons. You know, felon in possession…it adds time to any new prison sentence.”

  He twisted on the seat to look at me through the gap created by his open visor. “They had to stash their stuff somewhere. So they’re dropping off their weapons, then they’ll report to Ebersole or maybe Butch, and then they’ll party. I wonder if the ATF knows about this place. How would you feel about getting one more three-letter federal agency in on the fun? Because ATF is maniacal about gun crimes. I’m sure they’d find something in that barn to get all riled up about.” It was too dark to really see his expression, but his gleeful tone told me everything I needed to know.

  I chuckled softly. “Your call—all yours. But I can definitely see the possibilities. Oh—wait! Wait.” So much for advance planning. There was no way I would have ever heard my phone ring or felt it vibrate. And this was the first placid moment we’d had since the Mongrels had introduced themselves to Freddy Blandings. I frantically patted my pocket, found the zipper pull, and check my phone.

  No messages, no missed calls. I wondered if Judge Trane was waging mental battle over my case or enjoying a delicious, candlelit dinner with her husband.

  “Nothing.” I shook my head at Josh.

  “Good. ‘Cause we’re about to have company. Hang on.” Josh fired up the bike.

  I cast a quick glance up the winding road and saw a line of white headlights aiming our direction. I decided on the spot that stealth is a feature I’d gladly pay premium for in a motorcycle. Pity no manufacturer has thought to offer it yet. Hopefully, the Mongrels wouldn’t notice us due to the roar of their own exhaust pipes in their ears.

  But, boy, that Kawasaki could fly.

  oOo

  My night wasn’t over yet. I have a pretty good navigational sense of the Bay Area, but I had no idea where we were. Of course, things look very different in the dark. Plus, we’d been technically off-road for the past couple miles, traversing a rutted, hard-packed dirt track.

  Josh cut the engine, motioned for me to hop off, and rocked the bike up on its kickstand. There were a few city lights on the horizon, the edge of one of the suburbs. Then a gap of darkness which was likely terrain too rough to build houses on or, possibly, privately owned. But the capstone of the view was a brilliantly lit fortress on a hillock.

  Even from our distance, I could see that it was surrounded by several layers of barriers—an inner decorative stone wall, a thicket of shrubbery then a razor-topped fence, then a graded dirt road with the occasional headlights of a patrolling vehicle, then another, lower fence of posts strung with barbed wire which looked similar to what you’d see surrounding ranch land—all particularly well-illuminated. It looked like a prison in a third-world country. The kind you’re allowed to leave only in a body bag.

  I had to remind myself I was still in the United States, not on a trip to visit an orphanage in some remote Central American region that enjoyed a fragile stability due only to the benevolence of the local drug lord. I’d seen several such orphanages in my tenure as the director of Skip’s charitable foundation, and I’d always had to fight the futile urge to smuggle all the children out and flee in the night.

  Because we most certainly would have been caught, and I would have made the plight of those children even worse. I had to hope the criminals who were trying to burnish their images in their home territory with do-goodism would continue holding to that particular course if they got a little support from us. I was a stickler for making sure any money from Skip’s foundation did actually reach the children in the form of nutritious food, clean water, new bedrolls, educational materials, etc. But I never enjoyed the negotiation process.

  It’s amazing how convoluted the unseen connections underlying nonprofits and charities can be, even (maybe especially) in democratic countries—how political and ultimately motivated by selfish gain those ties are, at their roots. Duplicity and hypocrisy hidden under a thick veneer of faux altruism.

  That same swirl of uneasiness passed through me as I viewed the isolated mansion and all its trappings of paranoia.

  Josh tapped on my helmet, and I pulled it off. “This is Felix Ochoa’s compound,” he whispered near my ear. “We’re on a Forest Service road, and believe me, tomorrow morning his security chief will be researching all Kawasaki Ninjas registered within a hundred-mile radius based on the tire tracks we’ve left up here.”

  “That’s a lot of effort for a little privacy,” I muttered.

  “No one really knows the last time Ochoa left his compound. There are rumors that he hires body doubles, sometimes sending out two at the same time, in opposite directions, to test the responses from his enemies and possibly from law enforcement.” Josh shrugged, bumping my arm. “But none of those doubles has ever been identified, let alone questioned, nor has anyone volunteered information about the practice as a confidential informant. It’s all speculation of the kind that escalates and expands further from the realm of truth with every retelling.”

  I just nodded, knowing, yet again, that we couldn’t afford to linger. I took one long, final look—trying to memorize my Numero Uno’s outer shell, letting this repulsive reality settle into my gut—and climbed back on the bike.

  oOo

  Saturday was a long day. Good but interminable at the same time. Because it was consumed with waiting.

  The good part was that I got to spend much of that waiting time with my dad. Not that he ever really registered my presence. I chose to hover on the periphery instead of dogging him as I had done the day before. He still made the rounds, but he seemed less agitated. It was like watching a wild creature pacing in a zoo enclosure—circling, prowling for any breaks in the boundary so he could make a run for it. Dad provided a stark contrast with Felix Ochoa who voluntarily chose to confine himself under similar conditions. Frankly, they were both delusional.

  Which made me wonder if my tactics were going to work on Ochoa. Could I reasonably expect to motivate him, either by preying upon his own fears or through greed? Would a combination of the two be potent enough to elicit action? But worrying about it didn’t make it so—either way.

  I shared a cup of coffee and a long chat with Arleta, who was back on duty. She did a lot to set my mind at ease about Dad. She’d seen the full spectrum of Alzheimer’s progression in her many patients over the years, and she knew where he was headed. It wasn’t a pretty prospect, but I’ll take the hard truth over euphemism any day.

  “Send him pictures,” Arleta urged. “Tangible images he can hold in his hands and tack up in his room. He won’t remember your name, or even your face, but the residents here often still have the sense that they know something, even if they can’t locate the word associated with that knowledge anymore. That sense of familiarity is reassuring to them. He’ll enjoy being able to look at the pictures on his own schedule, when he’s ready.”

  Special Agent Antonio Hackett had also drawn weekend duty, and he popped his shaved head into the nurses’ station. His dark eyes lit up at the sight of Arl
eta, but then he saw me and that dampened any enthusiasm that might have been brewing on his part. He gave me a stiff nod and backed out of the room.

  Arleta flashed her brilliant smile and shook her head. There was a general pinkening of her dusky cheeks, but she continued as though the minor interruption hadn’t occurred. “I know it sounds juvenile, but you could also try sending your dad a few stuffed animals. They’re great companions and listeners, and sometimes the residents just need something soft and fuzzy to cuddle with.”

  I could definitely relate to that form of comfort. And isn’t that what Walt—and I, with my recent addition of miniature donkeys—had done for the boys? Give them something to take care of—creatures absolutely dependent on the boys’ responsible actions and kindness for their wellbeing? We all need to be needed.

  But Arleta wasn’t masking her distraction very well. I grinned and leaned forward on my elbows. “So are you going to marry him?” I’m really good at asking the impertinent questions.

  “We’ve only known each other a few weeks, Nora!” She tried to sound offended, but the flush was back in earnest.

  I pulled one of Clarice’s tricks out of my arsenal and pitched my eyebrows at her, a knowing half-glare in my gaze. I felt the expression work its magic on her, and I hadn’t even practiced it in the mirror.

  Arleta chewed her lip, trilled her fingernails on the desktop for two seconds, and admitted, “Well, if he asks me.” A look of panicked terror streaked across her face, followed by a wide smile, and she blinked as though surprised. “I guess.” Maybe the knowledge was as much a revelation to her as it was to me.

  I grinned into my coffee cup. “He will.”

  May all my prophecies come true.

  oOo

  Sunday was much the same as Saturday, and I thought I would go crazy. Waiting is not my forte. And I was homesick in the worst fashion.