by Curry, Edna
Through his open window, he heard horns blowing and echoing behind him. Glancing into his rear-view mirror, he saw her car smashed against the rocks at the park entrance and other cars stopping every which way on the four lane highway. Good. He must have hit her. He continued on out of sight.
***
Chance was only a few minutes down the road on his way to Minneapolis when his radio blared about an accident at the intersection in Landers. Flipping on his siren, he pulled off, waited for a tiny break in traffic, made a U-turn and raced back toward the scene. Had a pedestrian been hit? People were always walking across that highway to Interstate Park in spite of signs saying not to, and to use the walkway under the bridge. Or was it a vehicle accident?
As he rounded the curve above the river and came down the hill, he saw traffic stopped at the intersection. Another police car had beat him to the scene and a cop was directing traffic around a stopped white van at the park entrance. Large rocks along one side of the entrance had evidently stopped the van.
His heart slammed tight in his chest as he saw Cassie’s name on the side of it. My God, it’s Cassie.
Swinging in behind her van, he cut the siren, jumped from his car and ran to the driver’s side, where another officer was attending her. He pushed the other man aside to see Cassie, lying against the steering wheel. “Cassie, what happened? Can you hear me?”
But she didn’t answer or move and panic raced through him. He swallowed and pressed his fingers to her neck, relieved to feel a pulse. A bright red stream of blood ran down one side of her face.
“She’s breathing and her pulse is strong,” the officer beside him said. “Here are the medics.”
An ambulance screamed to a stop beside him and two men jumped out. Chance backed away to allow the medics to check her. In a few minutes, they put her onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.
Chance stood back and watched, frustration making his pulse pound and his fists clench. He paced to the front of her van, checking the amount of damage. Looked like a total mess.
Striding back to the ambulance he grabbed her hand as she was lifted inside, relieved that she gripped his hand back to show him she knew he was there.
Leaving the other officers to take charge of the accident scene, Chance got back into his car and followed the ambulance to the hospital, luckily only a mile away. At the emergency room, he paced and drank coffee while they took care of her. Thank goodness this was a small town hospital where there was seldom a wait for attention at the ER.
Finally, a nurse told him he could go in, now. Cassie lay on a high, white padded table. He was relieved to see her awake, but very pale. She reached out a hand to him and gave him a little smile. “Sorry to be a bother. I see you didn’t get far on your trip to the cities.”
“No problem, I can do that later. How are you feeling?”
“Woozy,” Cassie said. “How’s my van?”
“It looked a little smashed against those rocks. We’ll know more later. I’m sure they’ll tow it to the repair shop.”
“She’s damned lucky, Officer,” the doctor put in, coming back into the cubicle. He frowned at Cassie. “Another inch and that bullet would have done you in.”
“Bullet?” Chance and Cassie said in chorus. “What bullet?”
“Yes, a bullet. What did you do to tick someone off this time, Missy?” Her doctor scowled at her, obviously familiar with Cassie’s past history of injuries.
Chance swallowed. He always forgot that everyone knew everyone and all of their business here.
“I have no idea,” Cassie said. “I stopped at the light, heading to my next job, minding my own business. Maybe somebody thought I was someone else.”
“Humph. Luckily, it only grazed the side of your head enough to knock you out. You should be fine in a few days, but you’ll have a wicked headache for a while.”
The doctor handed her some pills and a glass of water. “Take these for the pain. I’ll write you a prescription for more. See your regular doctor in a few days.”
“So, I can go home?”
“Yes, but take it easy for a couple of days. No driving.”
“I’ll take her home, doctor,” Chance said, relieved that she was being released.
Chance helped her into the passenger seat of his car and got behind the wheel. He turned to her. “So what the hell happened?”
“I know,” Cassie said. She shrugged and rubbed a hand over her face. “I got in my van and pulled up to the stoplight at the intersection. I was looking ahead, watching the light, waiting for it to change when my passenger window exploded. I felt a sharp pain, and blacked out. That’s all I remember, Chance.”
“So someone had to have pulled into the right turn lane beside you and shot from their car?”
She shrugged. “I suppose. Or they could have been standing at the gas station on my right.”
“Yeah, or even sitting in a car at one of the gas station pumps,” Chance said. “I’ll tell the other guys to ask the people there if they saw anything. But why would anyone shoot at you?”
She closed her eyes against the pain and frustration and heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. I have a horrible headache. I can’t think about it now.”
Chance reached over and patted her hand. “Sorry. We’ll figure it out later. Now, let’s get your meds and get you home.” He drove to the drugstore and took her prescription inside. Another advantage of a small town, he and Cassie both knew the pharmacist personally, so she only had to call him and tell him to give Chance her prescription.
While they waited for him to fill it, Chance went back to the car and phoned the other officers, telling them which auto shop Cassie preferred. He learned someone at one of the gas pumps had seen an old blue sedan pull up in the right turn lane just before the accident. The witness said he’d heard two pops, then as the light changed, Cassie’s van had shot across the intersection and crashed into the rocks beside the entrance to the Interstate Park.
“Did he get the license number or any other details?” Chance asked.
“No, but he was quite sure there was only one person in the sedan.”
Chance hung up and told Cassie, “They towed your car to your repair shop. A guy at one of the gas pumps saw an old blue sedan pull up beside you and heard two shots.”
Cassie paled even more. “Oh, my God. Remember, there was someone in an old blue sedan watching me at that house where I found the body.”
“What? You didn’t tell me that.”
Cassie wrinkled her nose, thinking. “Didn’t I? I thought I did.”
“Can you remember any more details?”
“Only that he stared at me. Or she. I couldn’t be sure. It could have been a woman. He was wearing a John Deere cap pulled down over his face and had long blond or light brown hair down to his shoulders.”
“And the vehicle?”
She shrugged. “You know I’m terrible at identifying cars. A blue beater, 4 door, that’s about all I can tell you.”
“Okay, honey, don’t worry about it. Just rest for now. I’ll get your pain pills and take you home.”
Cassie’s cell phone rang. She looked at the screen and groaned, then glanced at Chance. “Darcy has heard about the accident.”
She opened the phone and said, “I’m okay, Darcy. I went to the ER and the doctor released me. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be right over to see you. I don’t trust you to take care of yourself. I’ll stay with you at least until I have to go to work at the hospital tonight.”
Cassie sighed and sent Chance a long suffering look. “Okay, Darcy. I’ll see you later then.”
“Darcy’s coming over?”
“Yes. My overprotective, personal RN, who has to work tonight and should be asleep.” Cassie gave him a little apologetic smile.
“Good,” Chance said. “Then I’ll feel better about having to go back to work. I’ll be back tonight and I’ll bring supper for all of us, then she can go to work whil
e I stay with you.”
Cassie nodded in resignation and lay back against the seat.
***
After taking Cassie home and settling her onto her couch, Chance drove to Minneapolis and questioned people near Kendra’s home. But none of the neighbors there seemed to pay any attention to their neighbors’ comings and goings. Or at least said they didn’t. Chance got the definite impression they wouldn’t want to help him if they did know anything.
Chance found Harold’s house, a two story, fairly neat white frame house with a large garage attached and a well-kept yard. Harold wasn’t home, so Chance talked to his neighbors, but he got nowhere talking to them either. They claimed to know nothing about him, other than occasionally saying hello to him in passing.
Then Harold drove into his driveway in a new silver Cadillac, and Chance followed him to his door. Harold was older than Kendra, maybe mid-fifties, with a beer belly and salt and pepper, thinning hair. He wore casual slacks and sweater and had a resigned expression on his face.
Chance showed his badge and Harold, obviously expecting him, invited him inside. “Kendra said you’d probably be around to talk to me.”
So, they’d talked and gotten their alibis coordinated, Chance thought, as he stepped inside. Harold’s house was a typical bachelor’s quarters, with a paper strewn worn sofa and a Lazy-boy chair facing a large, flat-screen TV. In one corner, a computer and printer sat on a table with a four drawer file cabinet beside it. It looked like a working office, with a telephone and various three-ring notebooks on a shelf.
Upon Chance’s questioning, Harold verified what Kendra had said about their whereabouts on the night Alfred was killed and agreed they had no way of proving it. But Harold seemed reasonably polite and not exactly a man with a bad temper, so Chance found no real reason to suspect him, either.
“What do you do for a living, Harold?” he asked.
“I’m self-employed. Sell various things on the internet.”
“What kind of things?” Chance asked suspiciously.
“All kinds of things. I hit a lot of estate sales and look for nice antiques. Jewelry and coins and stuff like that. Lots of times it goes really cheap, if there isn’t a good crowd, or if people don’t really know their antiques, see? So, if I know what it goes for on line and I can buy it for less, I grab it and list it.”
“Don’t you have to pay a lot for shipping it to the customer that way?”
“No, the buyer pays for shipping. Or if it’s a large piece, like furniture, I tell them where it is and only sell to someone who lives here and can pick it up.”
“I see.” This was getting him nowhere. With a sigh, Chance left.
***
Chance talked to a couple of his former co-workers on the Minneapolis Homicide squad. One of their contacts asked around at several companies they knew were hiring and found Lester Kallus as a new hire at a factory. Chance went to talk to him. He was shown to the break room and told to help himself to coffee while someone went to fetch Lester.
Lester wasn’t happy to be called away from the machine he was just learning to operate. A company supervisor escorted him to the break room where Chance was waiting for him. “This is Lester Kallus. You have just fifteen minutes,” the supervisor said, and left.
Lester was a tall, thin man, dressed in jeans. He poured himself a cup of hot java from the coffee machine. He sat on a plastic chair, eying Chance and running a calloused hand through sandy hair. “Who are you and what do you want with me?”
“I’m Detective Chance Martin, from Canton. I’m with the Sheriff’s Department,” Chance said.
“Canton? The Sheriff’s Department? Is this about my overdue rent there? Hey, I just got a good job, here. I’ll get caught up on bills as soon as I can. But I had to have money to move and to pay a deposit and rent on a new apartment here. Louise just got a new job, too, so we’ll have money soon. I promise.”
“No, it’s not about the overdue rent. It’s about the dead body in your garage in Canton.”
Lester paled, staring at Chance. “Dead body? What dead body? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m afraid not. You never noticed the horrible smell in the garage?”
“No. I never even went near that garage. I just parked my car on the street in front of the house.”
“You’re sure? You didn’t leave because you found the body?”
“Of course not. We left because I lost the job I had and couldn’t find any other work there. We were so behind on bills, we decided to start fresh somewhere else. So I came down here to the city, found a job and apartment and came back and got Louise. We moved that night. The next morning she brought me here to work and then took our car and went looking for a job herself. Luckily, she found one the second day she looked.”
“You left in kind of a hurry.” Chance watched Lester’s face over the rim of his coffee cup.
Lester shrugged. “Yeah, well, we couldn’t afford a moving van, so we just took what we could get in our car and left the rest. We were going to come back this weekend and get some more stuff and clean the place up a bit.”
“You’re sure you didn’t know about the body?”
“No. Who was it? What was a body doing in the garage?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Lester shrugged again. “When did you find it, anyway? We moved out of there almost three weeks ago, now.”
Chance thought about that. Maybe George had been killed after the Kallus’ had moved out? That was possible. George might have noticed them moving out and then taken over the empty house. “What about that antique china cabinet? That was kind of an expensive thing to leave behind, wasn’t it?”
“I told you, we couldn’t get any more stuff in our car. We were coming back with a trailer to get more later when we got some money to rent one. Have to work a couple of weeks before I get paid here. Can we still pick it up? Louise is going to have a fit if we can’t.”
Chance shrugged and rose. “You’ll have to take that up with the Johnson’s Realty Company. Where did you get that cabinet?”
“My wife got some money when her dad died. She found it on the internet about a year ago and said it looked a lot like one her grandmother had, and she wanted it. It was for sale in Minneapolis, so we drove down there and bought it.”
“Do you know who you got it from?”
“No, I don’t, except that it was a big garage in a residential area on the east side. Maybe she’ll remember more, but I doubt it.”
“Did she buy it on a site like E-bay?” Chance asked. If she had, they’d have a record of the sale. He could get it from them.
“I think so. Maybe.”
“Here’s my card. If she does know or you think of anything else, give me a call.”
“Sure.” Lester said, rising to his feet and tucking the card in his blue chambray shirt pocket.
So much for that, Chance thought as he drove back to Canton. Still, it was another connection to antiques. Everyone in these two murder cases seemed to have an interest in antiques. More coincidence? No way.
Chapter 8
Buddy slept in his camper. After waking from another nightmare of a gun battle with their rival gang in Chicago, he knew he’d never get back to sleep.
Earlier, he’d found where Jonesy and ‘her’ bodyguards had gone. Now, they’d be asleep. It was as good a time as any to take them out.
He parked several houses away. He shut off the motor and waited quietly, to see if anyone had noticed him stopping there. When no lights appeared, he eased open the car door and slipped out, closing the door and sneaking down the street to the house he’d seen ‘Jonesy’ and his two bodyguards go into earlier. The Mercedes they’d been driving sat in the driveway and the house was dark.
Buddy slipped around to the glass patio doors, stepping softly on the wooden deck so he wouldn’t be heard. Using his picking tools, he opened the lock, then slid it open and moved quietly inside. With only a powerful pen light to guide
him, he saw that the downstairs consisted of a bar and lounge area. He checked the back rooms, but found only a furnace room and laundry area. The bedrooms must all be upstairs. Hopefully, he’d find Jonsey and her bodyguards asleep. That would make taking them all out easy. He’d made sure he had a silencer for his gun.
Carefully, he made his way up the spiral staircase.
***
Earlier, in their expensive home on Deer Lake, Jane and Maynard Carson sat in their basement recreation room with Maynard’s brother, Joe, watching the sunset. They drank beer and told each other the latest dental jokes they’d heard. The two men were successful Minneapolis dentists and it had become a game with them over the years, to see who could find the most new jokes. They each spent time searching the internet as well as emailing other dentists to collect them.
Tonight, Joe had won the contest, so Maynard had to buy dinner at a nice restaurant the next evening. That was always the loser’s obligation, and they agreed to it good-naturedly. It was well after midnight when they all went up the spiral staircase to bed.
They turned out the lights as they went to their rooms, but Joe had a hard time getting to sleep. He never slept well in a strange bed, and he hadn’t been out here to visit his brother in years. So, he tossed and turned, only dozing when he heard a muffled noise downstairs.
He could hear Maynard’s snore coming from their bedroom, so knew he hadn’t gone back downstairs. Joe slipped out of his bed, opened the bedside table drawer and found the gun he’d always kept there since his house had been robbed in Minneapolis, and stepped beside the door, waiting for whoever it was to come up the stairs.
He leaned forward to try to see, but ducked back quickly when a faint light flickered on the floor near the stairs. Someone was indeed coming up them.
As the person stepped inside his room, Joe kicked out at him and the man grunted and went down. Joe flipped on the light and yelled, “Maynard! Call the police!”