by Ken Douglas
“ Why?”
“ I don’t like being lied to.” Lila crossed the room, picked up the dart gun.
“ But aren’t you his stepdaughter?”
“ Not really, though he did kind of raise me, but I still don’t like being lied to,” Lila said. “Besides, he’s not really like a father figure, never has been. He’s a user, but then I guess I am too. I suppose we use each other.”
“ That’s kinda sad.”
“ It is what it is.” This time her smile did look friendly. “And something more, maybe I’m walking away because the girl back there has a Grand Palais. I’d like to meet her someday, maybe share a few recipes.” Lila Booth nodded her head, went for the stairs. “I’m out of this now. You’ve got nothing to fear from me.” Then she took the stairs to the living room, threw back the bolt on the front door, went through it and was gone.
Izzy pushed herself to her feet, heard the Beemer turn over, then roar away. She shook her head, muttered, “What in the world is a Grand Palais?”
Chapter Nine
“ A Grand Palais.” Lila Booth shook her head as she piloted the Beemer around the corner onto College. “I let them go because of a stove?” She laughed. She’d never walked away from a job before. Never cared for anybody before, so how come she’d let them go because of a little lesbian who had good taste?
And now she was headed over to Isadora Eisenhower’s, because even though she’d let the women go, she couldn’t tell Mansfield that. Theirs was a strained relationship. She pushed him, but never too far. He pushed back. But she wouldn’t kid herself. The last person she wanted on her bad side was Mansfield Wayne. So she had to go through the motions. Fortunately, she hadn’t told him about the GPS in Amy’s car, so going to Eisenhower’s house would be a natural thing to do.
She’d go there, break in, snoop a bit, report to Mansfield and tell him the woman had flown the coup. But when she turned onto Putnam, she knew it wasn’t going to be so easy. The street was packed with cops. Seven Reno PD vehicles, a crowd of gawkers and a body on Isadora Eisenhower’s front porch.
What happened here?
She parked, took her phone from her backpack, called Mansfield.
“ Good news, Lila?” He’d answered on the first ring.
“ I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m parked across the street from Dr. Eisenhower’s. The street is full of cops and there appears to be a dead body on the doorstep.”
“ What?”
“ Gotta go, I’ve attracted the interest of local law enforcement. A cop’s motioning for me to roll down my window. Later.” She ended the call.
By the time Izzy caught her breath, Lila Booth was gone, leaving her in a quandary. A few actually. What to do with Alicia? Bring her or leave her behind? And should she flee with her Raider or take Lila Booth’s big car? And was she safe here or should she be on the road ASAP? And if she took to the road, where could she go?
Action, she told herself. She had to move.
She got up off the floor, went to the bedroom, having decided to bring Alicia along to wherever she was going. She hoped Mansfield Wayne, or anybody else who was after her for the secret, wouldn’t want to be bothered with the girls, once they knew she was well and truly gone, but she couldn’t count on it.
In the bedroom, Izzy scooped her arms under Alicia and was surprised to find out how light the girl was. She had no problem lifting her and carrying her down the stairs and out into the garage, where she laid her in the trunk next to Amy. Riding back there in their condition wouldn’t do them any harm and Izzy reasoned it was better than having them passed out in the car for others to see and maybe wonder about.
She loved her Raider, but she was going to have to leave it. She hoped Lila Booth was being truthful, because taking her big Ford was the only sensible thing to do. She closed the trunk, pushed the button to raise the garage door, got in the car, pulled out onto the driveway, was about to hit the gas when her lights caught Hunter’s odd eyes. She reached over, pushed open the passenger door.
“ Get in.”
The dog did and they drove off into the night; to where, she didn’t know.
Lila rolled down the window, looked up at a cop, who looked too young to grow facial hair.
“ I’m Officer Marshall. Can I help you, ma’am?” the kid cop said.
“ I hate it when people call me ma’am,” Lila said. “It sounds so old.”
“ Do you have a reason for being here? Do you live around here?”
“ No. I do a blog,” Lila lied. “I saw all the police and thought there might be a story.”
“ I’m not sure you should be here,” the cop said.
“ Is that a body?” Lila pointed toward the porch.
“ Yeah.” Marshall puffed up.
“ Do they know who he is?”
“ I don’t think so.”
“ Jeez, was he murdered?” Lila was trying for wide eyed and impressionable.
“ Don’t know, but the others were.”
“ Others?”
“ You didn’t hear it from me.”
“ No.” She ran her thumb and forefinger across her lips, as if she were sealing them.
“ There’s two others in the house. Both shot up.”
“ Really?” He was bursting with the urge to tell and Lila knew there was no stopping him now. This was probably the most exciting thing to happen to him since he’d become a policeman and from the sound of it, the most exciting of his whole life. “Bullets were flying all over the place in there.”
“ A shoot out?” Lila said, but she needn’t have prodded him, because he was itching to tell her.
“ Major, a major gun battle, like you wouldn’t believe. It’s like something out of a movie and you know what really makes it seem like a movie?”
“ What?”
“ There’s a girl involved. Young and beautiful according to the woman next door. She took off with a big dog, went into the park. And that’s not all.”
“ There’s more?”
“ There’s two cops missing.”
“ Where’d they go?”
“ They’re gone, nobody knows.”
“ What are you doing, Marshall?” An older black cop said.
“ Nothing, Harper.”
“ Ma’am,” Officer Harper said, “unless you got business here, you need to move on. This is an active investigation.”
“ She’s with the press,” Marshall said.
“ No she’s not,” Harper said. “Not with a car like that.” He turned his attention away from Marshall. “Who are you ma’am?”
“ A woman with a blog who wants to know what’s going on here.”
“ Move on,” Harper said.
“ I’m a citizen, I’ve a right to know.”
“ Lady, we’re taking the wacko next door in for questioning, we could just as easily take you in as well.”
“ I take your point.” Lila started the car, backed up, turned and went back the way she’d come, passing an unmarked Crown Vic on her way.
“ Nice car,” Mouledoux said as a red BMW sports car passed them by. “Pretty girl, too.
“ Didn’t get a look at her,” Peeps said.
Mouledoux parked, got out of the Crown Vic, started for the house, decided to have a look at the abandoned ride.
“ They’re gone,” a uniform said. “I’m Marshall.”
“ Where?”
“ Craziest thing, the neighbor, who’s been drinking, but not that much, says she saw them disappear right before his eyes.”
“ Say what?” Mouledoux blinked.
“ That’s right,” Marshall said. “One minute they’ve got this woman covered, they’re yelling at her to drop her gun and get on the ground, then poof, they’re gone.”
“ Gone, like they were vaporized, turned to nothing with a ray gun?” Peeps said.
“ More like they got beamed up,” Marshall said. “That’s the neighbor talking, not me.”
“ The one who
’s been drinking?” Peeps shook his head, walked away, heading toward the grey house and the dead man on the front porch.
“ That’s the one,” Marshall said to Mouledoux. “Nuts, I know, but they’re gone.”
“ So find ’em.”
“ Yeah, right away, sir,” Marshall said, sarcasm dripping off the words.
“ Or not.” Mouledoux smiled. He liked people who talked back to authority.
“ Bobby.” Peeps was calling to him from over to where the victim was. “You have to see this.”
“ What?” He started toward Peeps and the vic.
“ Look who it is,” Peeps said when he got there.
“ Now that’s very interesting.”
Izzy felt a chill ripple up her spine as she turned onto 395, heading north, like someone had just walked over her grave. Someone was thinking about her and they weren’t thinking good thoughts.
The sun would be up in an hour or so and she wanted miles behind her when it got light. She hoped they wouldn’t find out about Johnny till she’d been and gone. As far as anybody in Reno knew, Johnny wasn’t in the picture, because years ago, when Amy was only seven, the two of them decided it would be better to tell her school, and anybody else who asked, that Johnny, her son and Amy’s father, was dead. So they’d killed him off in the First Gulf war, right after Amy had been born. Sadly, he’d died without ever seeing his daughter. Her mother, they’d killed in childbirth.
In reality, Amy’s mother died with a needle in her arm with Johnny passed out in the next room. Junkies both of them. Johnny stayed addicted for years, wanting nothing to do with his daughter. Then he met a woman with a heart black as death, but she’d gotten him clean, married him and made three kids, who Izzy had never seen. Roxanne thought she had married into money. After all, Izzy was this famous heart surgeon, but when Izzy didn’t lavish gifts on the couple, they turned vicious, trying to get Amy in a custody battle.
But Izzy had money and lawyers and had raised the girl since infancy, so she’d won and in retaliation her son and daughter-in-law shut her and Amy out of their lives. Now Johnny was the warden of California’s High Desert State Prison outside of Susanville. Izzy didn’t know, nor did she care, about Roxanne. Any woman who would keep a grandmother from seeing her grandchildren, wasn’t worth thinking about.
Her plan: check into a motel, get the girls out of the trunk and into a bed and wait till they came to. Then she’d call Johnny and tell him it was time he stepped up to the plate. His daughter needed him now. He was going to have to take in the two girls and keep them safe. She hoped he’d do it, that he still had some feelings for Amy.
Maybe he’d changed. It was possible, she thought. If Lila Booth could change in a flash of a second, then perhaps the passage of so many years had softened her son. Izzy could only hope.
Lila Booth pulled over and lowered the top. What’s the point of a convertible if you can’t ride with the top down on such a clear night? It was chilly, but not too cold. She decided to pick up a sweatshirt at the Circus Circus gift shop, then take a long drive.
Back on the road again, she thought about Izzy Eisenhower. She had a new respect for the woman. She’d killed three people and was still functioning like a champ when they’d had their encounter. Not many people could do that.
She turned into the Circus Circus parking lot. From here she could see the Silver Legacy and the parking garage from which she’d shot Eisenhower. The woman hadn’t stayed dead. What kind of miracle was that? Plus, she’d shed half a century. That really was miraculous. This was a woman Lila didn’t want to hunt down, because the odds were better than even that the hunter could become the hunted and for the first time in her career, Lila wasn’t sure who would be the victor.
She was about to get out of the car, when she saw a late night couple leave the Circus Circus. They were coming toward the parking lot. Lila couldn’t help but smile. He was wearing a loud, red Hawaiian shirt and she was wearing a matching dress. Their last vacation must have been in Waikiki or maybe Maui. She hoped Maui. She liked it better.
She’d forgotten the car was bright red, the same color as the man’s shirt. She was sticking out like a black bear in the snow. For a second she chided herself, but then she let it go. So what if she was in a bright car on a clear night? She wasn’t on a job. In fact, she never would be again. She was going to retire. She’d just decided. She had enough money. It was time to enjoy it.
The vacationing couple strolled in front of the car, saw her and waved.
“ I just won two thousand dollars,” the man said.
“ Gotta love Reno,” the woman said. They looked like they were in their sixties, aging vacationers who’d hit it lucky. Now they’d go home and spread the news about how they’d struck it rich in Reno.
“ Coming back next year?” Lila said.
“ You bet, this is way better than Hawaii.”
“ Ah, Hawaii.” She’d been right about that. “Waikiki or Maui?”
“ Both,” the man said. “But this is better.”
“ Not if you lose,” Lila said.
“ You’re probably right about that.” The man waived. They got in a new Chevy Cruze, a rental, and drove off. Lucky people, she thought. And she was lucky, too. She’d been in a high risk job for a decade and she’d made it out alive. Now to get that sweatshirt, maybe drive to Virginia City, have a little fun, maybe even do a little gambling herself.
She raised the top, was about to get out of the car, when her cell rang. She checked the display.
“ Hello, Mansfield.”
“ I just got off the phone with one of the cops on the scene.” Mansfield sounded like a horny eighteen year old with a hard on trying to bust his zipper. “She killed three people. What are you going to do about it?”
“ Who killed three people? Amy, the kid who goes to UNR, or her mysterious brown-eyed cousin?” She sighed into the phone. “It doesn’t matter. This is too high profile for me. I’m out of it.”
“ We had a deal.”
“ You know, Mansfield, I’m getting the impression you’re keeping something from me.”
“ Lila-”
“ Think carefully, Mansfield. Because if you lie to me now, you’ll never see me again.” She smiled. “Oh heck, go ahead and lie, you’re never going to see me again anyway.”
“ You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Lila.”
“ Hanging up now.”
“ I’ll give you five million dollars.”
“ Whoa!” That was a shocker. “You’ve got my attention.”
“ Bring me the girl and the money’s yours.” No beating around the bush now. “I’ll transfer it to whatever bank you want.”
“ Just alive, not drugged?”
“ You know, don’t you?”
“ I do.”
“ It’s like a death glitch,” Mansfield said.
“ Say again.”
“ You know, like when your computer screws up, you call it a computer glitch. I’m calling this a death glitch, because it looks like Mr. Death screwed up with Dr. Eisenhower.”
“ Okay, I don’t need to know anymore.” She closed her eyes, fisted a hand on the wheel, gripped it tight. She was going back to work. That had to be the shortest retirement on record. “What about Amy?”
“ Forget about Amy. I could give a shit. Just get me Isadora Eisenhower. Can you find her?”
“ I think so.”
“ You wouldn’t double cross me, would you? That wouldn’t be good.”
“ Mansfield, I’m a behind the scenes girl, not the sell to the highest bidder kind. I’ll get you your girl, you have my word and you know once I give it, I don’t break it.”
“ I knew I could count on you.”
“ I’ll get back to you when I have her.” She clicked her phone closed and sighed, because it wasn’t exactly true what she’d told him about keeping her word. She’d given it to Isadora Eisenhower, promised her she’d leave her be and now she’d just broken that
promise. She’d just sold the one bit of integrity she’d allowed herself, but she’d done it for a whole lot of money.
“ Sorry, Dr. Eisenhower.” She had to go home now and get her laptop, because the GPS tracker she’d put on Amy Eisenhower’s car wasn’t the only one she had. She kept one on both her cars, in case they got stolen. And that was unfortunate for Isadora Eisenhower.
Although the dead in the house, who had been identified as Eric Ackerman and Niles Lundgren, security guards at St. Catherine’s, had been shot to death, Dr. Shaffer didn’t have a mark on him. The whack job neighbor said a dog had attacked him and Shaffer’s coat had been ripped, but the dog hadn’t broken skin. Heart attack was what first came to mind.
Mouledoux had no doubt about who’d killed these men. Dr. Isadora Eisenhower, but how could he go to the chief with that? He’d need a copy of that DVD and he’d need Doctors Romero and Jordan to back him up. That sleazeball Drake, too. The chief was a lawyer himself, he’d believe Drake. Hell, maybe he wouldn’t. Mouledoux was having a hard time believing it himself.
Back at the station, he logged onto his desktop, found Simon Drake listed in the white pages; convenient. Romero and Jordan were as well; very convenient. He didn’t want to wake the doctors before the sun came up, but he might enjoy getting that Drake character out of bed.
He looked around for Peeps. But the man had gone home. Couldn’t blame him, they’d been on the job for seventeen straight. Peeps had a wife and kids who needed to see him at the breakfast table on occasion. Mouledoux didn’t need his partner for this. Besides, Peeps was a go by the book, don’t rock the boat kind of cop. He wouldn’t enjoy rousting Drake like Mississippi Bob Mouledoux would. Truth be told, Peeps would argue against it.
Mouledoux grabbed his coat and ten minutes later he was ringing the lawyer’s bell, but the man didn’t answer. Either he wasn’t home or he was deaf. He was about to leave when his spine felt like an icicle was sliding up it.
Shaffer was dead.
The icicle got colder.
Mouledoux went to the front window, peeked in, saw nothing untoward. He went around to the side of the house, busted a pane in one of the dining room windows, unlocked it and climbed through. If he was wrong about this, they’d have his badge, but the coppery smell of blood coming from the kitchen told him he wasn’t wrong.