The Final Arrangement

by Annie Adams

  “Alex?” My voice sounded foreign as it left my mouth.

  “Hey. There you are,” he said softly.

  “What…” I couldn’t finish the thought. I reached up to press on my forehead from where the ringing seemed to be emanating. “Ow.” I had touched my eyebrow, which sent a shock wave of pain through my skull and down my spine.

  “Careful, Quince. You took a pretty good shot to that eye.”

  I was still groggy but managed to look around. I was propped up against the La-Z-Boy recliner in Brad’s living room.

  “Where’s Brad?” I asked as I struggled to stand up.

  “Hold on there. Where are you going?” Alex asked.

  “I have to find Allie.”

  “Allie is fine. You need to just sit for a minute.”

  “How do you know she’s fine? Do you know where she is?”

  “She’s at your shop with your driver.”

  “She’s with Nick?”

  “Wow, you really did take one to the head, didn’t you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Allie is with the lady that’s your new driver. She’s the one that called me and told me you were here. When your mind gets clear we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  At this point I had come to enough to realize where I was, and what had happened, up until the part where I pushed Brad. I could pretty much guess what happened after that, even though I didn’t remember. But, I knew Alex was not going to appreciate the reason I ended up in this situation, no matter how noble my intentions.

  “Do you feel okay enough to walk out to my car?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I want to get out of this place.”

  Alex escorted me out of the house to his car. It felt wrongly comforting that he placed his arm on my back as we walked.

  As we approached the curb, angry yelling echoed throughout the neighborhood. I looked back to see an officer escorting a handcuffed Brad to a police car.

  “That bitch and her crazy friend break into my house and hit me with a weapon, and I’m being arrested? It was self-defense. I’m suing all of you into oblivion. Especially you.” Brad was staring directly at me. “I’d watch my back if I were you.” He said it in a way that made my flesh crawl.

  I sat in the passenger seat of the car Alex had directed me to. It wasn’t a black and white, but it wasn’t his Scout, either. It had a radio and computer in it just like the police cars I had ridden in before. My mind felt fizzy, like soda pop. I sat there for what seemed a long, long time, looking around at the inside of the car, and outside the window. The air conditioner was blowing full bore into my face, and I was alone. Alex had left me to go talk to the other officers. I was completely aware of my eye now. It felt like something had been drilled into my skull through the socket.

  Alex came back to the car and asked how I was doing.

  “How am I doing?”

  “Oh. Sounds like you’re not so foggy anymore,” he said timidly. “Quincy, I know what you’re probably going to say, and I don’t blame you for being upset with me.”

  “Upset? What is it I should be upset about, Alex? Besides my sister being kidnapped, I mean.”

  “Okay, now I know for sure that you’re mad. And I don’t blame you, but…”

  “Can I have a ride to my car please?”

  “Fine. I’ll give you a ride to your car.”

  Not a word passed between us on the ride to my store. When Alex pulled into the parking lot I pulled on the door handle, but nothing happened.

  “Could you unlock the door please?”

  “Nope.”

  “Alex, come on. I am in so much pain right now, and I’ve got a business that should be open.”

  “We’re not leaving until you hear what I have to say, Quincy.”

  I was trapped. It was a recurring theme in my life, being trapped with a dangerous man. And danger could present itself in different forms. I clenched my jaw, balled my fists on my lap and closed my eyes, prepared to endure one more wrenching of my heart.

  “First of all,” he said, “it was an extremely stupid thing you did going to Brad’s house.”

  “Someone had to do something.”

  “Yes, the police. You should have called the police.”

  “It hasn’t helped calling the police so far. In fact, any contact I’ve had with the police has been enough to put at the top of my list of the worst things that have ever happened to me. Including, and especially you.”

  Alex’s mouth dropped open then snapped shut and formed a straight line. His jaw worked as if he were chewing on his next sentence. He took a deep breath.

  “I know you’re mad at me, but don’t use that as justification for acting crazy. If something happens, you call the police.”

  “You know what, Alex? You’re right, I am mad at you. You come into my shop after disappearing on me the first time, you make up some story about a note, you manipulate me enough to get a few thrills for the road—I guess, and then you leave me again.”

  “Manipulate you?” he shouted.

  “Well, what would you call it?” I shouted back. My head felt like a bell in a church tower on Sunday. I couldn't help grimacing.

  “Okay, lets just calm down. Quincy, I’m so sorry I had to leave like that. I wasn’t manipulating you. I tried to tell you..." He sighed and gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white. He looked straight forward, through the windshield, "I'll be able to explain it all to you really soon.”

  “Explain all of what? You abandoned me. You made a fool out of me. It’s bad enough that I’ve got psychos chasing me and I just got punched in the face by another nut job, but you’ve hurt me more than all of those other things combined.”

  His eyes softened and the tension left his face. He let go of the steering wheel, and reached for my hand. My first instinct due to previous experience was to jerk away from him when he reached out, since we had been arguing. But he gently cradled my hand in his.

  “Quincy, when I left the other day—I shouldn’t be telling you this—I left because I got an emergency page about Arroyo.”

  “Arroyo? I thought you were dealing with gangs. Wait…you still have a pager?”

  “Yes I have a pager, in case my cell phone isn’t working. It’s a backup, which is a good thing, because like I told you, my phone was broken. I had to leave immediately. I can’t tell you any more. I told you I was on a special task force and that is it. You have to take my word for it.”

  “Take your word for it? You couldn’t have left a note, or stuck your head into the other room and said…anything?”

  “It was a code red. I was supposed to leave right away, but I did look into the front and saw you were dealing with Cindy. It looked like you were involved in something important and I didn’t think I had time to explain things to you. I didn’t want to interrupt what looked like an intense conversation between you and your employee.” He let go of my hand and softly brushed his thumb over my cheek just below the swollen part of my eye, then winced. He looked into my eyes and sighed. “I'm watching out for you, Quincy. I’m sorry I can’t give you any details now. I’ll be able to later, I promise. Until then I just need you to trust me.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry. Thanks for the ride, Alex. Goodbye.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I managed to go to work the next morning. My eye was puffy, swollen and looked as if it had been painted a lovely combination of chartreuse and lemon.

  “Oh Boss,” K.C. exclaimed, “you look like a sock-eyed salmon that didn’t make it upstream. You shouldn’t be here today!”

  “I agree, but someone’s gotta be here. It looks worse than it is anyway. I’ll be fine.”

  “You shouldn’t have refused treatment, Boss.”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Oops. A little bird told me. Anyway, don’t we have an early delivery today?”

  “Nice subject change. Actually, we do have one, I’ll hurry and make it and you can ta
ke it right away.”

  “Okey-dokey.”

  K.C. left with the delivery once the flowers were arranged. I refused to let myself think of anything having to do with Alex, and I didn't need to worry about Allie anymore, since she went and stayed with a trusted family friend. I needed something to occupy my thoughts, so I finally started the bookkeeping I had managed to get distracted from several times before.

  After almost an hour of bookwork, the phone rang. LaDonna Shaw’s voice was on the line. I shook my fist in the air at no one, having forgotten we were going to meet soon so I could show her all about how to use her new system. She had just barely wrapped her mind around the concept of email, and I didn’t want her to lose the momentum. We arranged to meet after work.

  The phone rang again. This time it was Linda.

  Phone wedged between my ear and shoulder, I divided my attention between the paperwork and her call.

  “What’s up? I’m surprised to hear from you so soon.”

  “I know, I told you I wouldn’t be talking about those guys again, but I just had to tell you this. I made a bunch of copies of documents on the computer at work before I left, just in case those jerks at the mortuary tried to accuse me of anything.”

  It seemed like a smart thing to do.

  “Anyways, I came across these plans for a cemetery that I’ve never seen before. They have a date from not too long ago, and no one ever said anything about this to me. I know you were asking about anything unusual going on around there so I thought I’d tell you about this.”

  Yeah, nothing else unusual was going on at the mortuary besides some plat maps Linda didn’t know about, I thought to myself. People having affairs on the embalming table wasn’t odd at all.

  I got the address of the property from Linda and thanked her for thinking of me.

  What a coincidence the two mysteries I was trying to solve just presented themselves to me in phone calls mere seconds apart. Coincidence or not, the two parts could possibly be related. First I had to figure out just what the relationship was between Irwin Shaw and Derrick Gibbons. Irwin had been so enraged about the farm investment. Who were the other intended investors? And where was the farm supposed to be located? Speaking of land, what was with the top-secret nature of the cemetery plans Linda found? I knew someone who might at least be able to help me learn a little more about the land.

  I called my mom’s first cousin Jack’s wife, Tammy. She worked at the county courthouse in the county Recorder’s office. I gave her the coordinates on the plat map so she could look up the address. A few minutes later, she called back.

  “Quincy, this really is kind of strange. Do you remember that farm land LaDell Williams sold to the National Nature Land Preservation Society?”

  “Not really. Did he own the land in the address I gave you?”

  “Well, he used to, but he sold it to the NNLP Society. His land was up in East Hillside. He’s a friend of your grandpa. Anyway, he sold to the Nature Preservation Society, because they supposedly buy up land from people like farmers and ranchers who need to sell, but don’t want to sell it to housing developers. The Society is supposed to keep the land in a sort of national public trust, so it can’t be developed. It’s part of the deal they make with the landowner they buy the property from. They might pay just a little bit less than the developer would, but it keeps the land natural.”

  “What does this have to do with the cemetery?”

  “The coordinates you gave me show the cemetery on the land LaDell Williams sold to the Nature Preservation Society. I’m no lawyer, but my dad was approached by the Society for the same kind of a deal, and they assured us that if we sold them our land, they had to keep it as natural habitat, and that it wouldn’t be sold for development of any kind. This map shows the new property owners as the Hansen Family Trust. I don’t know how this got recorded without someone knowing about it. Heck, not just knowing about it, but raising a stink about it. I don’t know, Quincy. It’s a mystery to me, I hope I helped.”

  “Absolutely, thank you so much.”

  “Hey before you go, I heard you were out drinking the other night at Skinny’s with some hot guy. What’s that all about?”

  I explained to Tammy she had been a victim of my mother’s political machine. I was surprised she hadn’t heard of my black eye yet. She wouldn’t have heard that one from my mother though. Allie and I agreed we would not be talking with our mother for a while about Brad, the police, K.C.’s bat or my black eye Maybe not ever.

  K.C. rumbled through the back door. I looked up at the clock and realized she had been gone a long time. Her down-turned mouth suggested someone had taken away her birthday. She dragged herself to the front counter, and put her delivery ticket into the wicker basket with a sigh.

  “K.C., did everything go okay on deliveries?”

  “Well,” she paused, “no.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Boss, I think I may have gotten myself fired.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was coming back from the delivery out to the Anderson’s and I thought I would take the old road out to the bottoms and cut across the West side, so I could miss the busy traffic up on Main Street.” She shuffled over to the design table and plopped down on a stool.

  “And?” I asked.

  “I was driving down the road, singing along with Old Blue Eyes, and I got so caught up in singing, I didn’t notice anyone following me.”

  I got a queasy feeling inside. “Don’t tell me. A red truck was following you.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I’m a psychic. Then what happened?”

  “At first I thought I would flip them the bird, but then I remembered I was in the company vehicle. So I kept driving. I tried to speed up some, but it’s a washboard road out there and I didn’t want to spin out. That little truck kept right on my tail and they were honking their horn and waving their arms out the windows and flashing the headlights. So I figured they must want me to pull over for some reason.”

  “Oh no, K.C. you didn’t.”

  “Well yes I did. I thought maybe some part was hanging off of the car or something dangerous like that. So I pulled over and I made sure my purse was handy and I rolled down the window. This young man came up to the side of the car. He had a beard and he was wearing a plaid shirt. He reminded me of a lumberjack. Anyway, he came up to the car yelling and screaming. He said ‘Are you Rosie?’ and I said who wants to know? And he said none of your business.”

  My stomach tightened. “And then what happened?” I said.

  “He said ‘My boss says you better watch out or you just might get yourself hurt.' So I said ‘Who is your boss? And what the heck are you talking about?' Then he yelled, ‘I’m the one in charge here, you just make sure you watch out because we have our eyes on you and you’re gonna end up wishing you had listened.’”

  “Did anything else happen?”

  She nodded. “I have never had a young person talk to me like that and live to tell about it. I asked him if that was a threat and he said ‘Yes.’ Now, Quincy, nobody threatens physical harm to Karma Clackerton even if they think I’m somebody named Rosie. I said to him ‘Young man, let me make sure I heard you right. Did you just threaten to harm me?’

  “And he said, ‘Well what do you think Grandma Genius?’”

  She pulled a taser out of her purse and held it up. “I reached into my purse just like that, and grabbed this thingy and gave him what he had coming"

  “You tased someone?” I thought my eyes would pop right out of their sockets. “You just happened to have a taser in your purse?”

  She smiled broadly. “Yes,” she said fondly, “it was a gift from my granddaughter, Emma.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “When he fell over, his buddy came out of the truck. He was blathering on about how I’d killed his cousin and how I must be a devil woman. He sounded like he was about to cry. So I got out of the truck and brought
the Enforcer out with me.”

  “You carry that thing around in the van?”

  “I do now. I’ve gotta be ready for anything.”

  “So what did he do?” At this point, I almost thought she was telling me a tall tale, except that she described the truck and the drivers perfectly.

  “I said ‘Young man stop your blubbering. I want to talk to you.’ And he just paced around his cousin’s body with his hands on his head, crying ‘What am I gonna do?’ over and over. I said ‘Young man’ again, and he ignored me. So I said ‘Listen up you little shit, if you know what’s good for ya.’ And I slammed the bat down on the ground so he could hear it real good. Well, that got his attention. I asked his name and he told me it was Rusty and then I asked his cousin’s name and he told me Dusty Stephens. I told him I didn’t believe him. I mean Rusty and Dusty? Come on. But he insisted that’s what their names were. I swung the bat up onto my shoulder and then I tapped it now and then, just to keep him on his toes.”

  “What was the other guy doing?”

  “He just laid there kinda twitching. I asked the kid who was still standing up who his boss was and he told me Mr. Powell. It didn’t register with me until later that Mr. Powell could be the same one we’ve been talking about. Anyway, I took the taser thingy and aimed it at Rusty or Dusty, whichever one it was and I marched him to the back of the little truck so I could keep an eye on him while I memorized the license plate number. Then I told him ‘I’m sorry but I’m gonna have to tase you too.’ And I tased him in the butt, cause it seemed the least harmful way to do it, then I got in the van and drove down the road until I was out of sight and called the police.”

  “You just left them there?”

  “Wuhl yeah, what else was I going to do with them? Drag them into the car? They’re fine. I made sure both of them were still breathing when I left. The first one was starting to come-to I think.”

  “K.C., I’m speechless.”

  “Oh good, I like to do that to people.”

  “What did the police say?”

  “Oh.” Her face changed from the animated storyteller to the bearer of bad news. “This is the reason I think I might be fired.”