Frances Marino offered Howard Skinner the job. He accepted. He moved into an 800-square-foot cottage with a wood-burning stove that Frances had built near the main ranch house especially so that a caretaker could live on the property. From the cottage window over the kitchen sink, Howard could see Frances moving about in her own kitchen. He often stood there watching her when she was cooking. The place in his heart for love widening a little each time.
Howard drove off the ranch that day and closed the outer gate, with dust kicking up under the wheels of his old brown station wagon, knowing, sure, of one thing, he had found a home. It did not take long for Frances Marino’s extended family to become his own. When April was born, something inside of him melted at the first fragile sight of her and he wanted nothing more than to protect and to love her.
Robin was gone now and, with her passing, a piece of him was gone, too. The mere thought of losing Sam and April was simply intolerable. That, he determined, would never happen.
David Best was already at the Grandview Perspective, waiting in his SUV for Howard to arrive. He had the car heater on, keeping the interior warm. When he saw Howard pull into the parking lot in his big two-tone brown Chrysler station wagon, David got out of his truck and stood in front of the empty stall where Howard would park.
He waited with his hands stuffed deep in his pant pockets for Howard to get out of his car. He had never met Howard, but knew from what Sam had told him that all he had to do was think of the old “Mr. Clean” commercials and, that for the most part, was the image of Howard Skinner. Unlike Mr. Clean, Howard wore glasses.
Sam was right about Howard’s perfectly round bald head. It was the first thing David noticed about him as he got out of the wagon. Howard was taller than David expected. Even at his six-feet, Howard easily stood five inches over him and showed little signs of age in his bulky frame. There was something about Howard’s demeanor that made him seem even bigger. Howard wore work boots and Levis and David could see his white T-shirt beneath his dark blue and green flannel shirt. They met in front of the wagon and shook hands. Howard’s folded easily around David’s. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Skinner.”
“You don’t have to call me Mr. Skinner, son. Howard will do just fine.”
David’s smile was shy as he motioned for Howard to follow him to the front door. Howard was taken in immediately by David’s youth and boyish charm, and took an instant liking to the young man. They entered the building and Howard watched as David punched in the code to dismantle the burglar alarm.
“Ever been here before?” David asked as they headed down the stairs into the newsroom.
“Only once,” Howard said, “but only in the lobby upstairs. I came to see Samantha, but she had already left by the time I got here, so I never got the nickel tour.”
They walked the length of the newsroom with David pointing out the respective offices and desks. “This is Sam’s,” David said as they reached it.
David watched as Howard made a quick inventory of Sam’s desk, crowded and stuffed with stacks of newspapers, papers and other assorted files and several coffee cups. Howard arched an eyebrow in David’s direction. David smiled and shrugged. “Sam says she knows where everything is.”
Howard nodded, rubbing a stocky index finger over his lips. When he did David noticed that the middle finger on his right hand was permanently bent inward at the top knuckle. Arthritis he guessed. “Think we’re ever going to find that address among all this?” He asked, still surveying Sam’s desk.
David moved around to the back of the desk, pulled Sam’s chair out and sat down. He studied the desktop, and then pushed some newspapers aside with his elbows so he could rest them on the desk. The police scanner squelched and Howard looked over his shoulder in the direction of the noise.
“It’s just the police scanner,” David said.
The men listened, waiting for the scanner to bark a request or a command, but after several seconds nothing happened.
“It burps like that sometimes for no apparent reason,” David said looking at Howard.
Howard nodded and the men turned their attention back to Sam’s desk. “She’s got to have an address around here, in one of these files anyway,” David said shifting more files around on her desk. He searched a few minutes when he saw the name Sam had scribbled in her familiar script in one of the day squares on her desk calendar.
Sgt. B. King.
“Look what we have here,” David said and tapped the name written in blue ink several times with his index finger.
Howard leaned over the top of Sam’s desk for a better look. “B. King?”
“Bud King,” David said. “Remember the police officer who got killed last month? The one that Sam was working with on that drug smuggling story.”
Howard confirmed, nodding slightly. “Yes, the young one with the two little girls.”
“Yeah,” David said without looking up. “Well, King is, or was, his partner.”
The scanner belched again breaking a moment of silence. Howard was still surveying Sam’s calendar, when a yellow sticky note on the floor near his boot caught his attention. He picked it up. Something about the words written on it joggled his memory. He stood up, trying to recall what it was, his eyebrows drifting up over his glasses as he thought.
“What is it?” David asked.
“An address,” Howard said and pointed to it. “Somewhere on Chester Street.”
Their eyes locked and their faces went smooth in recognition.
“It has to be the meth lab,” David said. “She probably called King for the address.”
“Do you know where it is?” Howard asked.
Both men felt adrenaline begin to surge through their veins.
“Follow me,” David said and jumped up out of Sam’s chair and headed for a map of the city tacked on a back wall.
They reached the map and studied it for a time in silence.
“I just know it’s north of here,” David said, his voice distant as he studied the map.
Howard nodded in agreement. “It gets pretty rural the further north you go in Truman County.”
“Right,” David said, tracing the area with his finger. “There,” he said and tapped the area as he found Chester Street. “It’s right there.”
Howard leaned in, hoping silently that if April had been taken there, at least she was with Sam and Wilson and wasn’t in a cold, dark room somewhere alone. He hoped she also had food and was warm. He could feel the blood rushing through the veins in his neck as the image of her innocence stood before him. He simply could not stand knowing that any harm could come to that little girl. The one who sat patiently next to him whenever he worked in his workshop, making windmills and birdhouses or fixing one of the cars, handing him a nail here and there, or a screwdriver, hammer or a wrench.
He had missed her terribly since she had gone to live with her grandmother. The thought of never seeing her again made the big man feel like he was about to crumble. There had never been much that made Howard Skinner cry. But the day he found that April’s father had sent her to live with his mother, he got in the old Scout and drove to the furthest western corner of the ranch and cried.
Howard folded his arms over his chest and looked at the area in and around Chester Street through narrowed eyes. His breathing was slow and deep. Then he lowered his hands to his sides and folded them tightly into fists, feeling his forearms flex with strength. He had never threatened any one in his seventy-plus years. Now he was certain it was in him to kill someone.
“Howard? You okay?”
Howard stepped back from the map and adjusted his glasses. “Yes, son, I’m fine. Let’s go find them.”
Howard and David left the newsroom and headed up the stairs. David reset the alarm and the two men headed out into the darkness, hit by cold air heavy with moisture. They walked in front of Howard’s station wagon.
“Let’s take the Chrysler,” Howard said, putting an arm on David to stop him. “This old thin
g will be a lot less conspicuous than that SUV you’re driving.”
David nodded at the idea and headed toward the passenger’s side. He waited for Howard to unlock the door. Then he slid inside and the two men drove in silence from the parking lot.
It was just after one a.m. when Howard steered the station wagon onto Chester Street.
“It’ll be somewhere on the left hand side of the street,” David said, glancing at the address.
Howard nodded to confirm David’s direction. The car rolled along in silence both men looking intently on the numbers affixed either to mailboxes or near the front doors.
“Should be the next one,” David said and pointed at the single-story vinyl-sided house to his left.
Howard slowed the station wagon to a crawl until it passed in front of the house.
“Look, there’s still police tape wrapped around that tree,” David said. “But it doesn’t look like there’s been any other kind of activity here tonight.”
Howard was silent as he drove to the end of the street and turned around. He parked the wagon in the same spot where the Accord had been only hours before. “We’ll stop here and walk back to the house,” Howard said. He killed the engine and pointed toward the glove box. “There’s a flashlight in there.”
David pushed the button with his thumb, the compartment door popped open and he retrieved the flashlight.
“I want to get something out of the back before we go,” Howard said and opened the car door and began to lift his big frame out of the wagon.
David got out of the car and walked with Howard and watched as he opened the back door. He stepped back as the mouth of the car opened wide and Howard leaned inside and rummaged a moment before he came out holding a tire iron and another flashlight. He stuffed the flashlight in his back pocket. He looked at David as a slight smile spread over his face. He arched his right eyebrow high over the top of his glasses and tapped the iron hard several times in the palm of his hand. David was smiling, too as he reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a semi-automatic pistol. He pulled the magazine from his back pocket and shoved it in the handle of the weapon with a loud smack. He held it up for Howard to see. “A Glock 45,” Howard said and nodded.
“Let’s go,” David said.
Howard closed the back door quietly and the two men headed for the meth house. The night was still, the sound of Howard’s boots hitting the ground echoed lightly as they made their way across the street. The waxing moon had set, leaving them surrounded by light from a pair of street lamps at opposite corners of Chester Street. Howard saw it even before they reached the beginning of the yard. He stopped and pointed. “Look,” he said almost whispering.
David stood his ground and looked where Howard was pointing, unsure what had captured his attention. “What?” David said, squinting.
“There,” Howard said. He stepped on the grass and began to walk toward the object. Brown, dried and frozen, the grass crackled and crunched under the weight of his work boots. He walked to the tree trunk, where he bent down and picked up the ax handle. He ran his hand along the smooth finish, clearing off bits of grass and debris. He turned to show David. The yellow police tape began to flicker brought on by a sudden gust of wind. Howard nodded. “Sam’s been here,” he said holding the ax handle out for David to inspect. “Wouldn’t keep a gun with bullets in her house and that was okay with me, so I made this for her a year or so ago. She kept it by her bed.”
David looked toward the house and swallowed hard. “She must’ve been planning to come here all along tonight and brought it for protection.”
Howard snorted. “A lot of good it did her.” He handed the ax handle to David. “It’s yours to hold onto now.”
The men walked in unison toward the front door. When they reached it, they noticed it was ajar. David turned on his flashlight and held it next to his weapon the way a police officer would. Howard pushed the door open and stepped inside, looking right, then left. He stepped on something and looked down at his feet. He bent down to pick it up. “Sam’s hat,” Howard said, holding it up in David’s direction.
Howard dropped the hat and stepped aside as David entered the living room. The room was empty save for the stereo speakers on the floor. David directed his beam toward the kitchen, the light reflecting brightly off the white refrigerator. David tapped Howard’s shoulder and pointed. Howard followed his beam of light. They saw the dining room chair in the kitchen, overturned.
Howard turned on his flashlight and began to scan it along the floor in the living room. He stopped when the light fell on a pool of blood the size of a salad plate. The puddle of blood showed up easily on the light colored carpet. Howard clenched his jaw, the muscles along the sides of his face flexing. “David, look.”
David looked down and followed Howard’s light. He bent down and touched the area with the tips of two fingers. Howard scanned his flashlight along the rest of the carpet looking for more blood. “That’s all there is,” Howard said, panning his beam of light back to the original spot. “Could be that someone had fallen here and bled for a while until they were taken away.”
“That’s probably what happened. The blood’s fresh,” David said, rubbing his fingers together. “Someone’s been hurt.”
“Let’s hope it’s not Sam.” Howard said.
They continued their police-style approach and searched the rest of the house from bedrooms to the small, hidden room down the stairs, but found nothing to indicate that Sam or anyone else had been there.
It was just after two a.m. when they left the meth house and started back toward Howard’s wagon, feeling defeated and uncertain about what to do next. Howard had his flashlight in hand just as they reached the vehicle. He pushed the button and the flashlight flickered to life. He shone it along the ground and stopped it just before he reached the headlights. He bent down to study the ground more closely.
“Look, David.”
David lowered himself to Howard’s level and he saw what he did. Tire marks.
“Could be from Sam’s car?” David said and looked at Howard hopefully. His heart began to pound a little harder in his chest.
“Could be,” Howard said and shrugged indifference. “But could be they’ve been here for a long time too.”
They studied the marks a moment under the strong beam of Howard’s flashlight and what they could see of each other from the light offered by the corner streetlamps. Both were in agreement about the tracks. “I say the tracks are fresh,” David said.
Howard looked from the ground blackened by the tires to David and nodded in agreement. “I say you’re right. Let’s go.”
They got in the wagon, drove to the top of the street. The car came to a rest at the stop sign. David glanced over to Howard as if to say ‘what now?’ Howard looked left and then right. A heavy silence fell in the car as he thought.
“That way,” Howard said, nodding right and turning the wheel in that direction. In the distance Howard could see that another right turn would take them onto a gravel road. “That way,” he said and took his right hand off the two o’clock position on the steering wheel to point. David looked in the direction that Howard pointed and nodded. Within seconds the wagon was on the gravel road, loose rocks and dirt kicking up beneath the tires, dust clouding the rearview mirror. Howard illuminated the high beams and they could see that open fields lay on both sides of them. Howard slowed the wagon. Both men looked to their left, then right. David rolled down his window and stuck his right arm out and let it hang over the edge. Cold air blew his hair about his face.
David was the first to spot the car resting on its top about a hundred yards from the dirt road. “Howard! Look! That’s gotta be Sam’s car!” David was pointing to his right.
Howard pulled the wagon to the side of the road. They got out and headed toward the car, walking side by side carrying flashlights. The cloud cover had broken, revealing a vast black blanket netted with stars. From a short distance David directed hi
s beam toward the back of the car, light reflected off the license plate.
It read Page 68.
“It’s Wilson’s Accord,” David said. “That’s his vanity plate.”
Howard read the plate. “What does Page 68 stand for?”
David shrugged. “Beats me.”
They reached the tail end of the car and saw the extent of damage. “Someone hit her from behind,” Howard said, examining the area closer. “Probably more than once and they were going pretty fast. She probably lost control of the car when they hit her. She had to turn over at least twice.”
They walked toward the driver side door. “The window’s busted,” David said.
Howard nodded, his chest tight in anticipation. Both men dropped to their haunches. “Sam?” Howard called, knowing the interior was empty. He waited a moment, then shook his head, the tightness in his chest giving way to anger. “She’s gone. Whoever hit her, has taken her.”
Howard stuck the flashlight in the window, saw something, carefully reached inside and pulled out one of Sam’s gloves that had been covering the dome light. He showed David. He swallowed hard and stuffed the glove in the back pocket of his Levis. They rose to their feet, defeated, walked back to the car in silence, beneath a ribbon of expanding light that was the Milky Way.
Thirty-two
“Look! A ladybug landed on me!” April pointed to the red bug with black spots that had landed on her knee.
“Let it stay there and if it flies away on its own, then it means good luck,” Wilson said, eyeing the little bug along with April.
“Really?” April was curious now, circling the ladybug with her index finger. “How’d a ladybug get in here?”
Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery, Book 2) Page 25