Cinco De Murder

by Rebecca Adler

  Most likely, the killer panicked and then hit the chili cook on the head for good measure. I could sense the answer close at hand, but I was missing the one little piece to the puzzle that would prove to Lightfoot and Ellis that I was correct. No matter what they said, someone tinkered with Lucky’s pacemaker. Dani O’Neal.

  All I had to do was prove my theory.

  Lenny whimpered and wriggled in my arms.

  “Shh. It’s okay. I won’t be but just a minute.” I set Lenny down just inside the van.

  I wanted to feel the weight of the stun gun in my hand. Sure, I’d seen them on television and in the movies, but never held one. With extreme care, I picked one up. It had weight and heft while still being deceptively light, like a can opener. Part of my brain was saying Put it back, you’re trespassing. The other part of my brain, the crime reporter side, could’ve no sooner let it go than I could bypass honey with a warm sopapilla.

  What a rush! And then goose bumps began to rise on my arms. “Why does he have these?” I murmured.

  Lenny whined again.

  “Hm . . . you may be right.” What would Frank, a fireworks guy, be doing with stun guns? Fireworks and stun guns—somehow it didn’t seem like such a reach for him to have an interest in both. And sleeping out here under the stars, he would need some type of protection.

  “Meow.” Frank’s cat was glaring at us, her head sticking out from the gap in the curtain.

  “Whoa, kitty.” She took a step forward. “Stop.” She stared, back raised, waiting to see what we would do next.

  A nagging thought caught hold. These could be the stun guns that had been stolen from Pinyon Pawn. Old Frank could support himself with a bit of burglary on the side. Was it mere coincidence there were three in Fillmore’s van? There was only one way to find out.

  “Lenny, stay.” I pulled his leash through the rear door handle and knotted the end. “This way you and the feline won’t get into a tussle, and she won’t escape only to be found by the coyotes.” I closed the door, careful not to slam it completely shut in case Lenny needed me.

  “Watch out, cat. Here I come.” With Lenny conveniently outside, I waved my arms like a crazy person until the cat escaped through the curtain and into the front seat. I felt only a twinge of nervousness and guilt at invading Fillmore’s private lair. Frank would be preparing to launch his fireworks display, and once the show started, he’d be occupied for at least the next thirty minutes.

  Carefully, I shoved boxes and crates to one side, the better to read the stun guns’ serial numbers while keeping an eye out for an angry feline. The inside cabin light was off, but the flash from the camera on my cell did the trick. My fingers turned into thumbs as I hurried to forward the images to Lightfoot. Only when I hit send did I notice my cell phone reception was at zero bars.

  The photos would be enough unless Fillmore ditched the evidence. I’d changed my clothes for the fireworks. Against my better judgment, I grabbed a stun gun loosely with two fingers, wormed it into the oversized side pocket of my cargo shorts, and covered it with my shirt. It wasn’t exactly hidden, but if anyone looked closely, they might think I was carrying a bottle of beer in my pocket. Darkness should mask my covert operation until I could pass the weapon on to Lightfoot.

  “Okay, Lenster. Let’s go.” Gingerly I lifted the box and placed it on top of the crate with the remaining two stun guns inside—exactly the way I’d found them. I pushed against the rear van doors, but they had closed. With my Maglite, it was only the work of a moment to find the handles, but the doors refused to budge. Ugh. Did cargo vans have child locks? Were the cat and I locked inside for our safety?

  Great. I’d simply crawl around the boxes and crates, and whatever else was back here stabbing into my knees, and escape out of one of the other doors.

  “Lenny, I’ll be right out.”

  Suddenly a fist appeared and began knocking on the rear window. “What are you doing in there?” I couldn’t make out the voice, but it definitely belonged to a man. This was going to be extremely embarrassing if Deputy Barnes or, God help me, Lightfoot was on the other side of that door with their gun drawn. I’d be too embarrassed to walk down Main Street for at least a month.

  And how was I going to explain myself? I’d start with the truth about finding the missile and then wing the rest. I rose up on my knees so whoever he was could see me through the window.

  It was Frank, the fireworks guy. He carried a lamp made to resemble an old-fashioned kerosene lantern. He’d raised it up high, close to his face. No need to guess his reaction to finding me inside his van; I could read his disapproval and outrage in his suspicious glare and clenched jaw. Or maybe it was the way he stood with his legs far apart in a defensive stance.

  “Hi, Frank.” I gave him a wave and a smile. “Mrs. Mayor, uh, I mean Mrs. Cogburn, sent me out here to see what time you thought, uh, you’d start the fireworks show.”

  “When it’s dark.”

  “Uh, right. I think she was hoping for a specific time.” My knees ached and I felt like a fool yelling through the window.

  “I’ll decide when it’s dark enough. That’s my job, not hers.”

  Taking a deep breath, my lungs working like a bellows, I forced a laugh. “Dark enough. What would that look like?” I made a show of craning my neck to peer at the oily black sky.

  “When it’s black as pitch,” he said.

  “I think you’ve hit it square on the head.” I was going for friendly. Anything that would encourage him to forgive my trespassing and open the door, sooner rather than later.

  “You think so?” He frowned.

  I found myself nodding like a bobblehead. My nerves were stretched tighter than a barbed wire fence, partly because I was in his van—Good Samaritan or no—partly because one of his stun guns was hiding in my pocket.

  His brow furrowed and he checked his watch.

  I inched my fingers beneath the tail of my shirt. I’d done a fine job of wedging the thing in the pocket of my cargo shorts. Too fine. My hands were icy cold, my fingers refusing to work.

  He lifted his lantern high so its bright light shone in my face. I dropped my hand, praying he hadn’t seen me reach for my pocket. I wasn’t entirely convinced the stun guns in his van had been stolen from Pinyon Pawn. And, honestly, the idea was ludicrous. But someone had stolen them and flung one into Lucky’s chili. I had to get the evidence to Lightfoot so he could compare the serial numbers and scratch Fillmore from the list of suspects in my brain.

  “Hey, Frank, I’m locked in.” I tried the handles several times; but his attention was riveted on the night sky.

  “Was she complaining about my work?” he asked.

  “No. Mrs. Cogburn’s excited to see your fireworks. We all are.”

  Once again lifting his lantern high, he began to inspect the seal on the rear doors, first running his finger along the crack where the doors met and then removing something from the edge of one door—a pebble that he held up to his lantern for a closer look.

  “How did you get in my van, Miss Callahan?” He’d dropped his angry mask. Now he appeared to be bewildered by my presence.

  For all I knew, Lucky had bought the stun gun on his own—which wouldn’t surprise me—and had pulled it out for protection when an intruder entered his tent. Either way, I was as nervous as a calf in a calf roping, watching with dread as the young cowpoke practices swinging his rope.

  “I found one of your missiles on the ground.”

  “My what?”

  I grabbed the red plastic firework and held it up in front of the window for him to see. “Rocket? Missile? I’m not sure. But you must have dropped it on the ground.”

  “Nah, that’s not true. I wouldn’t have dropped a missile where someone could trip and break one. Plus, all the missiles I brought with me are included in tonight’s fireworks display.”

 
I was getting fed up with raising my voice to be heard. “Hey, Frank, could you please open the door and let me out of here?”

  He bent over, his face disappearing for a moment, and my whole body relaxed. The nutjob was finally going to release me. He reappeared just as quickly with a familiar face I adored held next to his own.

  “Yip, yip, yip,” Lenny said, his body trembling with indignation.

  “Hey, Lenster.” I smiled, hoping to give him comfort.

  “Miss Callahan, go on. You were saying, or should I say, spinning some yarn about my missile.”

  “Honestly, Frank. I found it on the ground. I wanted to put it back inside your van so no one would get hurt. I didn’t break in. The doors were open. I don’t think they closed properly.”

  He nodded and a smile played around his lips. Then Lenny licked his ear, which unfortunately drove the smile away.

  “I swear,” I muttered under my breath. I was losing my patience. If he didn’t open the door immediately, I was going to crawl to the passenger door, knees or no knees.

  Again he nodded, but this time he turned the door handle. Nothing happened. “It’s locked.” He gave Lenny a smile. “Guess I’ll have to find the key.” He lowered my canine sidekick to the ground and removed a large set of keys from his belt.

  “I bet you’re wondering how I came to be inside your van?”

  He was holding his lantern with one hand and sorting through keys with the other. “I figure that you were killing time until I came back.”

  I smiled in relief. “That’s right. Lenny and I were just about to inspect the fireworks setup you’ve got going over there.” I waved at the platform of explosives. “Nah, we were going to check for you over there next.”

  He lowered the lantern so that the bony planes of his face were highlighted like a ghostly apparition.

  I forced a chuckle. “That gives me the creeps.”

  “I’m a what?” He leaned in closer to the window.

  “The way your light is casting shadows over your face is creepy.” I enunciated each word very carefully.

  “What?”

  I raised my voice. “When you hold your lantern that way, you look like a ghost.”

  He made a silly face. “Is that so?” And then he did that belly laugh thing that was so infectious, and I immediately felt my nervousness lift.

  “Now you look like a ghost from the ’50s, complete with crew cut.”

  “Find anything interesting while you were digging around in my personal belongings?” he asked, a key in his hand.

  Slowly I lowered my Maglite to the floor of the van. If I ever got out of here I was going to use it to knock another hole in Frank’s head. I placed my hands on the window to reinforce the sincerity of my plea. “I didn’t dig into anything, I promise. I’ve only been in here a couple of minutes.” I bumped my nose against the window so that he could see my face more clearly. “Frank, please open the door. I’ll show you the rockets and mine cakes I found.”

  He watched me closely, but the key remained in midair.

  I pressed against the window with my hands. “They have names like Phantom, Black Cat, and Planet. I thought they were magic kits.”

  He was definitely giving me the willies, standing out there in the dark with his lantern like a character in The Blair Witch Project. My eyes were beginning to play tricks on me, seeing all kinds of indefinable, crazy things in my peripheral vision.

  Frank lifted Lenny into his arms.

  “Please be gentle with him. He doesn’t really like it when strangers pick him up.” I raised my voice. “He could jump out of your arms or fall and hurt himself.”

  “I’ll put him down when you tell me what you’re up to.” He held my sweet Lenny in the crook of his arm, his big hand wrapped around his muzzle to keep him from barking. He’d shoved him into the crook of his arm and against his side so tightly that, try as he might, my Lenny’s little legs couldn’t kick or scratch the nasty man.

  “We came to see what you were up to because your fireworks show is late. If you want a good review, punctuality counts. Now give him back.” Forget being creeped out by this guy. And forget feeling sorry for the fatheaded, crew cut–wearing dope. His refusal to let me out was on my last nerve.

  With a stupid grin on his face, he lifted Lenny higher while bending down to put their faces at the same level. “She’s not telling the truth, is she, little poochy?”

  With a burst of anger, I grabbed my flashlight, scooted backwards away from the window, scrubbing my knees on the unfinished cargo van’s floor, brushing into boxes, and catching my shirt on tools and the points of rockets and the hard corners of heavy launching pads. What an imbecile! Why had I waited so long to get out? I yanked the handle of the van’s side door, but it wouldn’t budge. Fudge! I launched myself across the van, knocked over two crates, landed with my knee in Frank’s skillet, and yanked at the other side door with all my body weight. Nothing. Crudsicles!

  My gaze darted from door to door. I hurdled a large ice chest to reach the passenger side, stuck my hand through the curtain divider, and fought to find the lever on the back of the seat to no avail.

  I was vaguely aware of the light from his lantern illuminating the interior of the van around me. Finally, I knocked down the curtain with my Maglite and threw the whole flimsy rod, curtain and all, behind me.

  “Meow.” Frank’s cat lifted her head from the driver’s seat without further comment.

  “Oh, shut up.”

  I found the lever and flipped the seat forward. With a final burst of energy, I reached for the lock mechanism. “Come on!” I couldn’t get the mechanism between my fingers. I flung my body over the edge of the seat, forcing the stun gun into my thigh, and reached for the unlock button.

  Nothing.

  “Locks don’t work.” Startled, I looked up and found Frank and Lenny staring at me through the passenger window.

  Immediately, I backed up and wedged myself onto the console. “Move it!” The cat jumped gingerly into the floorboard with a great show of indifference. Having learned my lesson, I went straight for the unlock button on the driver’s side. Nothing. The whole freaking thing refused to cooperate.

  Frank, with Lenny in his arms, meandered from the passenger side, across the front of the van, and over to the driver’s side window. “Life sucks, right?”

  Some folks might panic in a crisis—like when you realize that the guy you thought was just a loner is actually a dangerous, unhinged creeper. But this lunatic was going to give me back my dog or lose his left kneecap when I slammed it with one of his mortar rockets. I turned away from the window and pulled out my phone. I’d waited to use it because once I saw I had zero bars I’d forgotten all about it. Plus, I didn’t want Frank to see me with it and take it away. Now that I knew his first priority wasn’t to hurt my dog, I was willing to try our spotty cell service. Lenny, my canine friend, would thank me. I unlocked the screen and dialed 911.

  Chapter 18

  From Bad to Worse

  “Turn it off.” He stroked Lenny’s head. “Or I’ll silence your dog.” Frank Fillmore didn’t raise his voice, but still it reverberated through my brain.

  I lowered my phone, careful not to disconnect. Even though coverage was spotty out of the city limits, it might connect any second.

  “Yip,” Lenny cried.

  My heart was suddenly in my throat. “Don’t hurt him. Please.”

  “Disconnect the phone, Josie.”

  My screen was dark. I could leave the phone on, hoping he wouldn’t notice if and when the call went through or I could roll the dice. But could I live with myself if Lenny came to harm? My options flashed before my eyes. I’d lost my parents to an oncoming car. I’d lost my fiancé to the Great Barrier Reef. I’d lost my dream job at the Gazette to a bunch of greedy losers and a thing they called the housing crisis and the grea
t recession.

  My choice was clear. I lifted the phone so Fillmore could see it and pushed the power button.

  “Remove the battery.” With his left hand, he continued to squeeze Lenny’s small muzzle closed. Slowly he placed his right hand at Lenny’s neck.

  “Okay, okay!” I removed the battery and held it up to the driver’s window. As I did, I dropped my flashlight between the seat and the console and said a prayer it would stay on.

  “Now turn around and throw both parts of it as hard as you can against the rear doors.”

  I swallowed hard. This had to look convincing if I wanted him to think I was complying. I took a deep breath, drew back my arm, and aimed for the box just inside the rear doors—the same place I’d stowed the missile earlier.

  “Let him go!” I yanked violently on the driver’s side door handle. “I did what you asked.” I took a shaky breath and changed tactics. “What’s this all about, Frank?” I needed to convey genuine concern. If I could just get him talking, I could think of a way out. I might be able to appease an angry Tex-Mex customer, but this was life or death. “How can I help?”

  “I tried replacing the fuses for the electric locks, but that dang near broke me.” He removed his hand from Lenny’s neck, answering my question as if he hadn’t dognapped my closest companion and trapped me inside his van. “Eventually I was replacing them every other day.”

  “Don’t you have the key?” I smiled. “Let me out so I can tell the mayor and Mrs. Cogburn that the fireworks are about to start.” Probably not the smartest suggestion.

  Lenny started wriggling in an attempt to get down. “Look,” I said. “So you don’t like dogs. Please let me hold him, and we’ll walk away without mentioning this to anyone. I’ll even talk to Mrs. Cogburn about increasing your fee.”