Tried & True (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 5)

by Jerusha Jones

This phone belonged to Matt. He hadn’t purchased it—it was my original phone, which I’d had before my marriage—but he owned it in the sense that it was completely tapped with all the tricky methods the FBI had up their collective sleeves. It had a GPS tracker, and all the calls to and from it were being recorded and listened to live by an agent in a dark room somewhere. That agent also had the ability to use the phone as a microphone and listen in on ambient conversations. All of these privacy-invading features worked even when the phone was turned off. So my phone and I were currently a big blip on about a dozen computer screens in the Seattle office—all with my permission. Because if Felix Ochoa did decide to contact me, we all wanted to hear it.

  Matt still didn’t know the specifics about all of my varied attempts to motivate the physically untouchable Ochoa through the criminal network, so his official position on this scheme had been that it was a long shot. He’d stuck up for me most admirably in front of Judge Trane, though.

  If Ochoa knew all that double-crosser, Blandings, knew…combined with the rumor seeds I’d planted through Lutsenko and Zimmermann, if those reprobates could be trusted to follow through…and if the hazing by Ebersole’s Mongrels chapter proved to be additionally motivating…along with the juicy nugget Robbie had delivered…

  It was a gigantic muddle—a case of storming the castle walls of Casa Ochoa while slinging a ripe mixture of information and misinformation. The question was, what would he do about it?

  So I was still waiting.

  But I wouldn’t stand for any calls interrupting Tarq’s memorial service. He—we all—deserved an hour of peace and fond reminiscing.

  CHAPTER 20

  Under normal circumstances, I would have trotted straight across the parking lot and into the church because the ubiquitous Pacific Northwest drizzle was soaking into my clothing rather rapidly. And like all the true Washingtonians around me, I hadn’t brought an umbrella.

  But there were so many people to greet in the parking lot, to hug and console, and slosh though puddles together. For many of the boys, it was their first time to attend such a formal, serious gathering. They also needed words of encouragement, an arm around their shoulders, and a little spit-and-finger-daub to get cowlicks under control, which they tolerated remarkably well.

  The turnout was incredible. We were allotted the first two pews on both sides of the aisle—front and center—and shuffled in quietly. It also may have been the first time many of the county residents had seen all the boys at once, a chance for them to realize the size of the camp at Mayfield and what a neat bunch of boys we had. There was a lot of whispering and subtle gesturing as we streamed down the center aisle of the packed auditorium. It was sort of like a coming-out party, albeit a really somber one.

  I recognized several members of my FBI surveillance detail scattered at the edges of the crowd. Once again, Special Agent Violet Burns was sufficiently incongruous as compared to the local population that she was glaringly obvious. She stood at the back of the auditorium in all her fake mourning glory—a trim black pantsuit and high-heeled black leather boots, black raincoat, black sunglasses (where was the sun?) perched on top of her tightly French-twisted blonde hair. I thought she should have gone for black lipstick too and completed the black widow ensemble.

  Maybe my surveillance detail had become fond of my crusty old lawyer through their frequent, if rather contentious, interactions. I almost chuckled aloud at the preposterousness of the idea.

  It was a lovely service. Even though I did cry softly through the whole thing. Emmie and I were sandwiched between Clarice and Walt, and they held us up. Clarice had come prepared with gobs of tissues in her purse, and she handed them out liberally. Walt just wrapped his arm around me and stroked my shoulder.

  Des spoke. Bob and Etherea—actually Bob, who held Etherea snugged to his side while she sniffled valiantly through her tears and propped up their notepaper so he could read from it. Maeve Berends, who’d worked closely with Tarq at both the courthouse and within the tightly-knit support of the Alcoholic Anonymous group. Gus offered sweet insight and a beautiful farewell—who knew he was a poet? A couple fellow lawyers, a judge, old cronies, younger protégés. I lost track of how many people had a humorous anecdote or a story illustrating one of Tarq’s better qualities to share. He might have considered himself a recluse and a curmudgeon, but this day proved otherwise.

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to. Given the series of problems around which my relationship with Tarq had developed, Loretta and I had decided it was best for me to be a spectator only. But Loretta said a few words on behalf of all of us at Mayfield, and they were so poignant and made me weep even more. I meant everything she said with my whole heart. I had lost a true and selfless friend.

  When the service was over, we filed out. My eyes ached. I was in such a daze that I stumbled into someone on the steps. Only Walt’s quick counterbalancing move prevented a chain-reaction tumble down the stairs.

  I thought maybe I saw Matt in the parking lot. The back of a dark blue trench coat, tall, broad-shouldered, close-cropped dark blond hair. But just for a moment. For all I knew, he was still in Seattle, trying to convince his bosses that he hadn’t made a career-ending mistake by tussling with the San Francisco office over my case.

  oOo

  The idea had been that we would eat a large meal when we returned from the memorial service. That didn’t happen. No one was hungry.

  I think everyone was completely wrung out. Walt and the boys went to hibernate in the bunkhouse and converted garage. Both Loretta and Clarice opted for naps. Emmie also retreated to her room with paper and crayons.

  I stood in the doorway for a few minutes, watching her make a suitable nest on the bed. She gave me a faint smile and selected a brown crayon.

  “You okay, kiddo?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Do you want to talk about Tarq?”

  She shook her head.

  The drawing was already taking shape, and I stepped closer to see it better. With a few more strokes, I recognized Tarq’s profile. It was uncanny.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “I don’t want to forget,” she whispered back.

  I bent over her and kissed the top of her head. And then I left her, because she probably didn’t want me crying on her artwork.

  I slipped down the hall to my room and quickly changed into hiking clothes. I rummaged through the closet until I found a jacket with a hood. I knew I was emotionally drained, because my little bedroom smelled of Skip. A scent I associated with bay rum aftershave and shoe polish—although it probably wasn’t caused by only those things—with a new addition, a sort of woodsy humus scent. Which was just crazy. I’d given away all of Skip’s clothing, mostly to Bodie when he’d come to us and was detoxing.

  But I did still have Skip’s robe, which hung on the back of the door. I stuck my nose in the fuzzy terrycloth, but it smelled more like me now that it did him. That wafting scent was a figment of my overwrought imagination. Tears welled up, unbidden, and I ground my teeth in frustration. I desperately needed fresh air.

  Frankly, I was amazed I could still cry. I seemed to have a bottomless well of tears. But they dried quickly after I shrugged on the jacket and hit the cold drizzle outside.

  I skirted around the old mansion and along the track toward the burned spot where the calving shed had been. Tiny signs of spring abounded, if you knew where to look. They were the most dramatic at the very tips of the evergreen branches where the new growth was a shocking shade of chartreuse. Ivy and blackberry vines were already starting to creep onto the charred remains of the shed. I kicked pinecones and veered onto a narrow trail, heading toward the ravine where Bodie had found Chet’s family hiding.

  Mayfield was such a treasure trove of memories. Good and difficult. I wouldn’t call any of them bad, at least not yet. Some challenging and scary, sure. But that’s what constitutes a life—the whole of the parts, and how you fi
nish at the end.

  Philosophical ruminations. I missed Tarq. And I was feeling sorry for myself because I was missing him. Loretta’s previous admonition about the effectiveness of pity parties bounced, not unpleasantly, through my mind.

  Water drops blopped on my hood, branches crackled, birds chirped here and there. Some small, unseen animal scuttled through the brush. Life went on. Footsteps.

  I froze, breathing hard, listening, trying to peek around the edges of my hood without moving. But the muffled thudding was my own heartbeat echoing in my ears within the confines of the hood. Peaceful sounds. Of course they were. If a little rapid.

  And that’s when I heard the engine.

  Engines, plural. The noise of several motors roaring to life and rumbling down the hillside sent spasms through my body, unspun an involuntary terror in my gut.

  There’s a split moment of frozenness that an adrenaline spike causes, then the hormone opens up the senses for a flood of hyper, but very narrowly focused, awareness. I’d experienced it often enough lately to recognize it for what it was. It’s actually a really helpful thing.

  By the time I saw the first set of headlights dodging through the mist and the trees, I’d concluded that running wasn’t my best option. Mainly because my jacket was red. But in the rough terrain, even if I shed the jacket, I wouldn’t escape the guys on four wheels, and the effort of trying to would put me at an even more serious disadvantage.

  Because these were dark green ATVs—three of them—ridden by men in camouflage and knit hats, gloves and boots. They’d come prepared, and they weren’t the FBI.

  I knew who they were.

  I hadn’t known how tenaciously Ochoa would cling to his spot at the top of the criminal food chain. If he would let anyone else get too close, in terms of income generation or influence. The answer was converging down the hill toward me.

  I couldn’t let them see that I was disconcerted by the fact that they’d stolen a play from Numero Tres’s book—using ATVs to navigate Mayfield’s forested land. It was also a common-sense tactic, which wasn’t the proprietary domain of only Numero Tres.

  So I forced myself to stand there calmly, facing them as they approached, watching them navigating down the slippery slope and between the trees. They were pretty skilled for desk jockeys.

  My FBI surveillance detail was a skeleton force at best, especially given the amount of territory they were presumably supposed to cover. And with so many agents at the memorial service earlier, we’d given my visitors a good chance to set up their approach without being discovered.

  So I was on my own, for the moment, with the protection of my well-connected phone. It would have to be sufficient until Violet and her team figured out we had intruders.

  But I didn’t want to raise an alarm just yet. Granted, Ochoa’s people weren’t supposed to be here. They had no need to seek me out on my own turf. I’d expected to receive a quiet inquiry through his lawyers, quite possibly from Freddy Blandings who might try to leverage his position as de facto lawyer for both sides into an expeditious agreement.

  As the ATVs rallied into a loose semicircle and the riders killed the engines, I supposed I should be delighted that Ochoa wanted to take immediate action. It meant all my efforts had been successful. Of course, he wouldn’t have instructed his people to knock on the kitchen door of the mansion. Because no matter how legitimate the business transaction was going to appear on paper, both parties knew it wasn’t.

  Signing quickly and privately was really a good idea, perhaps even a courtesy on Ochoa’s part. Or so I told myself as I watched the men slide off the ATVs.

  “Ms. Ingram-Sheldon,” said one of them, stepping close. He had a thin face and a neatly-trimmed dark beard that was graying near his sideburns and directly below his lower lip. He slowly pulled his leather driving gloves off, loosening one finger at a time.

  They were the wrong kind of gloves—too thin and wimpy, not waterproof or insulated. They were not the sort of thing an experienced ATV rider would wear in the cold, rainy Pacific Northwest.

  A prickle started behind my ears and zinged across my scalp. Something was wrong—more wrong than Ochoa’s lawyers riding ATVs on Mayfield property.

  “I hope you brought an extra pen, since I don’t have one on me.” Could I possibly sound more inane? But it was the first thing that came to mind, and I had to present nonchalance. I needed to keep him talking until I figured out just what was going on.

  The man chuckled as though I’d issued the punch line of a perfect joke. “Is that what you think? You are correct that I want your company, but I don’t need you to get it. Theo Gandy is drafting an excellent proposal from Turbo-Tidy’s franchisees. They want to buy out the parent company and are willing to make a very generous offer. Who better to run the business than those who already know how it operates, eh? All we have to do is wait until the judge gets tired of your antics.” He leaned in with a half-wink, his lips twitching in his beard. “Good thing I convinced those franchisees to join my organization as soon as we knew your darling hubby was on the run.”

  He wrapped his fingers around my bicep. Even through the jacket, his grip was sharp and tight, and I winced. “And I can be very convincing,” he murmured in my ear. “No, this is about something else. This is about keeping a promise I made to your husband.”

  “Nice to see you out and about, Felix,” said a voice behind me.

  CHAPTER 21

  A voice I would know anywhere. I whirled around, forgetting Felix Ochoa and wrenching my arm out of his grasp.

  Skip didn’t look anything like the man I’d married.

  I recognized him, of course. But he was gaunt, his jeans and sweatshirt hanging on his lean body. A few days’ beard growth on his cheeks and a closely shaved head. Maybe—there was something different about his eyes, their shape and the tautness of the skin around them—maybe surgery? I didn’t think his weight loss could account for the difference.

  But the voice and the lightness in the golden-brown eyes when he looked at me—those belonged to my Skip.

  My first semi-coherent thought, however, was that I was glad Loretta wasn’t present to see him like this. He looked homeless.

  But he had a gun, and he was holding it level, pointed at Ochoa’s gut. It became the only thing I could look at.

  It was my gun, from the top shelf of the closet in my bedroom. I presumed he’d found the ammunition too, which I’d stuffed amid my unworn tank tops and shorts in a dresser drawer.

  There was movement in my peripheral vision, and then there were a lot of guns. Ochoa’s companions had brought their own, as had Felix. Their pistols were extra long—silencers had been screwed onto the barrels. Which seemed weird to me, since they’d arrived on ATVs—not exactly the quietest form of transportation. It was one of those randomly incongruous things a brain hyped on adrenaline notices the nanosecond before all hell breaks loose.

  There was no diplomacy, no gentlemanly warnings. I had no idea who fired first. I didn’t really care. It was deafening. Ear-splitting shots from Skip and the whistling pops of bullets fired through silencers. There was yelling and tumbling and rolling through the brush.

  At least, that’s what I was doing. I’d been yanked or shoved, or maybe my legs had collapsed. I came to rest at the base of a tree, pine needles in my mouth, saltiness stinging my eyes, shadowy echoes still ringing in my ears.

  More shots—short bursts and I couldn’t keep track of the number of bullets. But it was my gun—the loud one. At least, I thought so.

  I shoved the hood back off my head and hinged my arms under my torso. By jamming my elbows into the ground, I dragged my body toward the trail. My boots felt like dead weights at the ends of my legs.

  There was only one person in my field of view, and he was wearing camouflage. He was lying on his back beside the farthest ATV, moaning and rocking his hips from side to side, his gun on the ground near his shoulder.

  It wasn’t the most rational thing to do, but I didn
’t worry about that until much later. I got to my feet and ran to the injured man, bent so low my knees bumped my chest. No one shot at me.

  I landed on my knees beside him, grabbed the gun and shoved it behind me. I leaned over him. It wasn’t Ochoa. “Where’d they go?”

  But he was absorbed in his own pain.

  “Where’d they go?” I shouted and punched his shoulder.

  “Woods,” he forced out.

  Big help.

  Then more shots from farther down the trail, toward the ravine.

  I swiped water from my brow with my sleeve, picked up the gun and ran with it. It wasn’t quite like running with scissors, but close. With the silencer, the thing was long and awkward and clunky, and the thought that tripping while I held it in my hand probably wasn’t a good idea zipped through my mind.

  “Nora! Stop.” Skip barked the command.

  I obeyed, so fast I teetered and almost did fall. He’d seen me.

  Oh yeah, the red jacket, dodo.

  Where was he? I spun around, looking wildly, but his jeans and dark sweatshirt blended in.

  Which I didn’t—I was wearing a target. I set the gun on the ground, unzipped the jacket, ripped it off. But my garment underneath was a cream-colored raglan sweater—a gift from Loretta. She’d been practicing cables, and the simple chain of a six-stitch, right-twisting rope cable encircled the cuffs. And underneath the sweater, I was aware that my skin was awfully white—an anemic shade of winter pallor. I wasn’t making progress.

  Why couldn’t I make my brain focus on what mattered?

  “Skip?” I stumbled forward, veering toward where his voice had been.

  He was only about fifteen feet away, but I didn’t see him until I almost bumped into him. Could have been because I was watching my feet, trying so hard to get the messages from my brain down there to my muscles and tendons so they would do what I wanted them to. I was shaking beyond control.

  The green mound on the ground at Skip’s feet turned out to be Ochoa. Skip had spread Ochoa’s camouflage coat open, revealing a black vest strapped over his torso. He kicked Ochoa in the ribs and got no response.