My breath caught as I recalled something else Dean had shown me about this trunk. The interior escape cord. It was federal law now and had been for some time. All car trunks had to be manufactured with a way for someone to escape. He’d joked about it at the time, standing there in the used-car lot, smoking and treating me to a tediously exhaustive explanation of my vehicle’s every feature, no matter how minor.
That escape cord didn’t seem so minor to me now. I recalled him pointing out the gizmo in a small opening above the latch and telling me it glowed in the dark. I’d been in this trunk for who knew how long, facing that exact spot, and I didn’t see anything glowing in the dark. There was nothing glowing in the damn dark!
The fact that this might be due to the heaps of My Stuff crammed in front of my face did not immediately occur to my overwrought brain. Then it did and I employed said face to shove and tamp down My Stuff, and what do you know, there it was. That square, glowing doodad was the Emerald City, dominating my field of vision, yet even more distant and unreachable.
Dean had known about the escape cord, of course, which is why he’d thoroughly immobilized me. He probably got a charge out of taunting my bound and gagged self with that bright little beacon.
Think. Think! If there was no sharp object in this trunk, then maybe there was an object that could be made sharp. Things could be made sharp by breaking, which I knew all too well from having flung myself through that broken window to save Porter. I was certain there were no glass objects in the trunk. But what else…?
I was moving before the thought had fully formed. One of the items I’d felt earlier was a gift bag from my friend Suze, a skilled potter. She’d presented me with a nested set of three serving bowls as a housewarming present this past April when I’d inherited Irene’s house. They were beautifully shaped one-of-a-kind pieces that she’d finished with the distinctive Shino glaze she favored, an organic blend of cream and muted orange, flecked with charcoal-gray spots of carbon.
And no, you are not allowed to ask why this exquisite, lovingly hand-crafted gift was still in the trunk of my car several months after I’d received it. On the plus side, I was no longer in denial. There was no question I needed a serious intervention for my trunk-junk habit.
I dug behind me for the gift-bag handles I’d felt earlier, managing to drag the heavy bag closer once I’d located it. I burrowed past the carefully tucked tissue paper to the bowls themselves, each one meticulously swathed in bubble wrap and secured with packing tape. Of course. I found myself developing a profound aversion to tape in all its various forms.
My fingers were so sweaty I could barely grasp the tape on the largest bowl. It took several attempts, but I was motivated, and eventually, despite the bound wrists, I snagged it and peeled enough of it off the bubble wrap to allow me to free the bowl, which felt slick and heavy under my fingers. I repeated the procedure with the next largest bowl.
I was already exhausted. How could I deal with whatever came next?
By not thinking about it. Don’t think about it, I commanded my inner wuss. Just do it.
Feeling behind me, I got a good grasp on one of the bowls, lifted it to the measly extent possible, and brought it down against the other one. Nothing. I had no leverage, no room to move. Meanwhile the rough terrain under the wheels was getting rougher all the time, tossing me around and making me lose my grip.
I wiped my palms on my jeans and repositioned the bottom bowl, exposing the delicate rim and bringing the heavy bottom of the other bowl down hard on it—or trying to. At the precise moment of impact, the car hit a rock or something and it slipped from my fingers.
I muttered a string of bad words behind the tape as I shoved the bottom bowl against my butt to hold it steady and lifted the other higher and higher until my shoulders screamed with pain. Gathering my strength, I slammed it with force against the side of the other bowl and was rewarded with the sound of shattering pottery. Without wasting a second, I turned the broken bowl, exposing the jagged edge to my taped wrists.
Every bump in the dirt road played havoc with my attempt to slice through the layers of reinforced tape. I ignored the blood dripping from the inevitable cuts. I barely felt them. This was a high-stakes endeavor—they didn’t come much higher. I’d probably end up as dead as Ernie, but I refused to make it easy for my killer.
When I felt the tape begin to separate, I went at it with renewed vigor, sawing ferociously until I’d sliced all the way through. I twisted my wrists, pulling free of the tape. Reaching down, I found the end of the tape binding my ankles and started unwinding it.
The car stopped. I froze for a long moment, then yanked the rest of the tape off my ankles and reached behind me for the biggest, sharpest pottery shard I could find. I heard the driver’s door open, felt the car rock as Dean exited, followed by the solid thunk of the driver’s door closing.
I pictured him walking to the back of the car. I pictured his finger poised on the key fob, ready to pop the trunk. The instant he did, I’d be on him like a cobra, courtesy of our old friend adrenaline, prepared to launch a surprise attack on the first tender part of him to come within arm’s reach.
I waited. I waited some more. The trunk did not pop. Layers of tape still circled my head. Cautiously I began to peel it until a big old hank of hair tore free from my scalp. Fortunately there was all this tape covering my mouth, so Dean didn’t hear the earsplitting scream that reverberated through my skull.
So. Might be best to wait on that.
Where the heck was he? What could he be doing? Perhaps he’d thought ahead and left a shovel at this location and was even now digging my grave.
Somehow I doubted his mind was that organized. Then again, what did I know? The guy had managed to get away with murder for thirty-two years.
For all I knew, he could be silently standing over the trunk at that very moment, poised to shoot. In fact, he probably was. Nevertheless, I reached for the glow-in-the-dark doohickey, held my breath, and pulled.
The trunk lid released with a soft clunk. Fresh air rushed in through the gap, bringing the scent of green growing things. I squinted into the strip of daylight and saw an overgrown dirt road. I pushed the lid a little higher until trees came into view. I listened hard but heard only the thunderous whooshing of my own pulse.
I wiped my bloody fingers on my T-shirt, grabbed hold of the pottery shard, and eased the trunk lid all the way up. Silently I climbed out, my head swiveling like an owl’s, eyes wide and unblinking. I latched the trunk and took stock of my surroundings. Thick woods as far as I could see, with a sun-spangled lake in the distance.
I glanced at the front seat, hoping to spy my purse, which held my cell phone. No purse. No gun. No keys. No Dean either, but I did notice that the bakery sack had been crumpled and tossed to the floor.
The bastard finished my croissants!
The Jane responsible for self-preservation seized the Jane now gaping in slack-jawed outrage and hauled her into a dense stand of trees several yards behind the car. The breeze shifted, bringing with it the scent of tobacco smoke. I squinted through the concealing foliage and finally spotted Dean standing about fifty yards away at the edge of the lake, smoking. His back was to me. He had my purse. As I watched, he withdrew my wallet and pocketed it. He removed the battery and SIM card from my cell phone, then hurled it and my purse far into the lake.
Great. Just when I’d finally joined the twenty-first century and gotten a smartphone. He stared for a moment as they sank, then produced a steel flask from his windbreaker and tilted it to his lips.
It struck me then. He was building up his courage. He hadn’t killed in over three decades, not that I knew of anyway. He was working himself up to pop the car’s trunk, put his gun to my head, and pull the trigger.
I recalled our first meeting at Sophie’s house when she’d told him to take his complaint of police harassment to Teddy Waterfield, the person making the accusations. His wimpy response had been entertaining at the time. Ha
ha, afraid of an old lady.
Never underestimate a wimp.
As much as I was tempted to take off running, I knew it would gain me nothing but a bullet in the back. I hadn’t a clue where I was or how to get out of there without retracing the car’s path along the miles-long dirt road.
Automatically I looked around for a weapon, something more effective than a chunk of broken pottery. A big rock, perhaps. My gaze landed on a fallen limb, larger than the softball bats I’d been accustomed to back in high school, but not so massive as to be unwieldy. I hefted it, weighed it in my hands. It would do.
Heavy footfalls and snapping brush alerted me to Dean’s return. Peering from my hiding place, I noticed he looked a tad pale, but his hands remained steady as he produced his gun and the key fob. I got a firm, two-fisted grip on the limb as he approached the car trunk. I had a clear view of the back of his head, all those hair plugs laid out in orderly rows on his crown, and wondered giddily whether he used hairspray or a crop duster.
There were several buttons on the key fob, one of which unlocked the trunk. I waited for Dean to press it. His back expanded with a calming breath. His finger caressed the trigger. Then I heard it. The slow double beep of the trunk-release button and the distinctive clunk as the latch disengaged.
I sprang from behind the trees, closing the distance between us as the trunk lid swung up. If there was one thing I’d learned during my trophy-winning softball days, it was how to keep my eye on the ball. Or in this case, on the uncultivated back forty of Dean’s noggin.
He thrust his gun hand into the trunk, then stiffened. “What the—!”
He never got to finish the thought, but he did get a nice, long nap, snoring and drooling on top of My Stuff. Which turned out to be just the intervention I needed to finally throw it all away.
19
Dingos Ate My Drapes
I’d never paid attention to the unassuming door next to Murray’s Pub, but now I found myself pressing the little doorbell button and waiting a few seconds to be buzzed in. The smell of fresh latex paint permeated the stairwell as I ascended the steps.
The door to the apartment stood open. Strolling inside, I saw paint cans and supplies scattered on a tarp covering the floor. Overhead, a ceiling fan turned lazily. The bare windows were wide open, except for the one housing a geriatric air conditioner, currently off.
Martin stood on a stepladder, painting the ceiling molding. He’d already done the ceiling itself—it was a snowy white. He wore jeans and a white undershirt, both paint-spattered. He’d tied a black bandana on his head, do-rag style.
“Grab a roller,” he said, ignoring the fact that I was wearing a pretty linen sundress and chic platform sandals. “You can start on the walls.”
“Sorry, I’m on my way somewhere,” I said. “Where can I put these?” I lifted the grocery sacks I’d carried up the stairs.
“What’s in them?” he asked.
“Your housewarming gift.” I tugged down the edge of a sack, revealing a box of Fruity Pebbles. “You got hooked on them staying at my place. Wouldn’t want you to go through withdrawal.”
That earned a grin. “How many of those did you buy?”
I shrugged. “Seven. At the rate you were eating mine, I figure these should last you about a week. Maybe less.”
“Kitchen’s through there.” He pointed.
It was a worn time capsule of a kitchen, barely large enough to turn around in, but scrubbed clean. I deposited the bags on the Formica countertop. Out of curiosity, I opened the door of the fridge, a relic at least twenty years old but spotless. Inside were two six-packs and a porterhouse. “The last people left this place really clean,” I called as I slid the cereal boxes into a cabinet.
He snorted at that. “It was a pigsty. The oven alone took me two hours and about a gallon of scary chemicals.”
The image refused to form: Martin on his knees, scrubbing the scarred linoleum. I gave myself the grand tour, which took all of twenty seconds. One dinky bathroom. One sun-washed bedroom, where a king-size mattress lay on the wooden floor, covered with taupe-on-taupe striped sheets. “Hey!” I said. “Those are my sheets.”
“They’re not your sheets, they’re Irene’s sheets.”
“Not since I inherited them.” I stalked back into the living room. “You have some nerve.”
“How can you be sure they’re yours?” he asked. “Maybe you should crawl in there and give them a good feel, make sure they’re the right thread count and everything. If you want—and I wouldn’t make this offer to just anyone—I’d even let you strip down first so you could get a really good feel.” He pressed his palm to his heart. “That's how much I admire and respect you.”
I gave him a flat stare. “Are you finished?”
There was that impish grin again. “You want me to be finished?”
If I thought his words were more than goofy teasing, I’d...
Well, I don’t know what I’d do, okay? So there. And anyway, he was just teasing. I’m kind of almost certain.
I asked, “What else did you steal from my house?”
“Towels, flatware, spices, cleaning supplies, canned soups and pasta, some pots and pans…” He paused, thinking. “And toilet paper. I like that expensive toilet paper you buy. Nice and soft but not linty. You want a beer?”
My crabby expression was answer enough. He shrugged and ambled into the kitchen. If I’d been at the house when he’d moved, I could have forestalled the pilfering, but he and Dom had cleared out at the same time two days earlier, when I was at the police department giving another statement to Detective Hernandez. It had been nine days since I’d beaned Dean with that tree limb and rifled his pockets to find his cell phone and call for help—a feat I’d accomplished only after managing to saw through the tape covering my mouth. My abductor was currently cooling his heels behind bars, having been denied bail.
“Admit it,” he said, returning with a frosty bottle. “You never even missed the stuff I took.”
Which said more about my powers of observation than his right to make off with said stuff, but I let it drop. “I’m surprised you didn’t move closer to your job,” I said. “This is even farther from Southampton than your mom’s house.”
“I’m working at Murray’s now, starting tonight,” he said. “Maxine rented me this place. You can’t get much closer to your job than a short walk upstairs.”
I thought of all those pretty padre groupies who were drawn to Martin like salt to a margarita glass, and wondered how often one of them would make the short trek upstairs with him. That thought left me a tad grumpy, so I cast about for a safer conversational topic. “Won’t you miss the huge tips from those rich Southampton summer people?”
“I’ll get by.” He swigged from the beer bottle.
But why Crystal Harbor? I wondered. What was the attraction for him here? Most people, given their druthers, would choose to live and work near family or good buddies. His mom was on the South Shore and his daughter, Lexie, and her husband lived in Manhattan. He wasn’t close to anyone in Crystal Harbor that I knew of. My face began to heat as I considered the obvious. Was that what he and I were? Good buddies? With the potential for… what?
I turned to hide my blush and scan the work in progress that was his living room. “So. What are you going to do for window treatments?”
“Why, are they sick?”
“You have to put something up on them. You can’t just leave them bare. And I’m warning you right now, if I come home someday to find my drapes missing, you’ll be in deep doo-doo.”
“Relax,” he said. “I have zero interest in drapes. That’s one of those women’s things.”
“Spare me.”
“Have you ever noticed that women are obsessed with things that start with D?” He ticked them off on his fingers. “There’s diets, that’s a big one. Drapes, of course. Divorce. Depression.”
“I get depressed just thinking about diets and divorce.”
“An
d diamonds.” He leaned against the radiator and took a long pull on his beer. “Don’t tell me you get depressed thinking about those?”
Well, yes, I do, if the diamond in question is a particular four-karat specimen, one I’d spied two days earlier on Bonnie Hernandez’s dainty left ring finger. It was the same rock Dom had placed there last December and which she’d stopped wearing in April. Now here it was nearly August and that big old thing was once more on display, blindingly bright, Bonnie’s own personal lighthouse beacon. I’d been struck dumb, unable to conceal my hurt, acutely aware of the smug triumph lurking beneath the detective’s serene features.
A few weeks. Some time to think about Dom and me and the prospect of saying I do for the second time. That’s what I’d asked for. That’s what he’d agreed to.
Yet a mere seven days after that conversation, Bonnie was flaunting his ring. No wonder he’d slipped out of my house quietly, without so much as a text. Like a thief. Of course, the padre had done the same thing, but at least he was a thief. I think.
Martin’s expression was too knowing. “The guy’s a coward, Jane.”
It was my turn to shrug. “Whatever.”
“He should’ve talked to you first.”
Dom and I had yet to speak since he’d moved out. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. “Dirtbag exes,” I said. “There’s another D-word for you.”
“Dingos,” Martin said.
“Dingos?” I smirked. “Women talk about dingoes?”
“When they eat their babies, they do.”
He had me there. “Dangerous dudes,” I offered. I was thinking along the lines of sexy bad boys, don’t ask me why, but my words had a sobering effect on Martin.
Uprooting Ernie (Jane Delaney Mysteries Book 2) Page 23