The Rented Mule

by Bobby Cole

  Maynard looked at Jenny with hope in his eyes. “You got it.”

  “Don’t be holdin’ your breath there, Larry King,” Jenny said.

  “The kidnappin’ should start gettin’ some airtime in the next coupla days,” Clarence explained, with a grimace. “Oh yeah, if somethin’ goes wrong and we gotta blow outta here, everybody’s on their own. We’ll meet back up at the Pink Pony four days later, at noon. No communications between us until then. And while we’re here, be very, very careful what you say on your cell phones.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Cooper stood in the doorway of his bedroom, frozen, looking at the perfectly made bed. After a moment he swallowed hard. The condition of the bed was a dead giveaway that she had not been at home last night. In twelve years of marriage she had never made up the bed. A knot began to grow in his stomach, and his head began to spin. Maybe she jumped to conclusions about me and Brooke.

  He went downstairs to talk to Ben. “Mom wasn’t here when you got home this morning?”

  “No, sir,” he answered. “Well, I don’t think so. I yelled for her when I came in.”

  “What time was that?” he asked, staring at the clock.

  “I dunno… I’ve watched two cartoons, so an hour? I’m hungry.”

  “Okay…” Cooper said trying to think. “Uh… how about a waffle?” He was basically on automatic pilot.

  “Can you put ’em in the toaster?”

  “Sure,” Cooper answered as he began pacing the floor. He didn’t have any idea where Kelly could be. Church, maybe. Maybe something had happened to Piper. That thought compounded his worry. He raced to the kitchen portable phone and hurriedly dialed Kelly’s cell phone number. He placed the receiver to his ear and listened to it ring. The announcement stated that she had either turned off her phone or traveled outside of the service area.

  Cooper sat down, telling himself to remain calm, to think through potential scenarios. After a few moments of staring at the floor, he decided to call her sister. Maybe she would know Kelly’s whereabouts.

  Cooper reached for the phone book to look up the number. Donna was four years older than Kelly, and they were very close. She would know if Kelly had done anything crazy or if anything had happened to Piper. Cooper liked Donna, but she was in her third marriage and resented Cooper and Kelly’s affluence.

  “Hello?”

  “Donna, it’s Cooper,” he said, trying to stay calm.

  “Hey, Cooper,” she responded as she turned down the volume on the TV.

  “Do you happen to know where Kelly is?”

  “Nope. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of days. Last night, though, she left me a strange message saying that she was at the park waitin’ on me. Like we had plans or something. We didn’t make any plans,” she explained. “I tried to call her back but never got her.”

  “What park?”

  “I assume Vaughn Road; we walk there sometimes. What’s goin’ on? Is everythin’ all right?”

  “I don’t know. I spent the night at the huntin’ camp, and when I got home she wasn’t here. And I don’t think she slept in our bed last night.”

  “She hasn’t told me of a boyfriend, if that’s what’s going through your mind,” she said with a trace of sarcasm.

  “No, not at all. Why did you say that?”

  Ignoring the question, Donna asked, “What about Ben?” She furrowed her brow at the thought of Kelly not being at home last night. Sitting up, she clicked off the television.

  “He’s here; he spent the night at a friend’s house, and they just brought him home. Piper’s on a church trip, maybe something happened to her, and Kelly went to get her?”

  “She would’ve called you if something had happened to Piper… wouldn’t she?”

  “I’d hope so, I mean yeah, I’m sure she would have.”

  “Obviously, you’ve tried her cell phone?”

  “Yeah, no answer,” he replied, hanging his head.

  “What time’s Piper due back?”

  “I don’t know for sure… I could call the church or some of her friends’ parents,” he said, exhaling deeply. His lack of knowledge of his daughter’s activities was inexcusable. It hit him like a train. He had been so preoccupied thinking of Brooke, he hadn’t bothered to ask. He said, “Oh, God!”

  “Find out, and call me back.” Donna wrapped her robe around herself and headed to the bathroom. She continued, “I’m gonna get dressed in case you need me.”

  Cooper sat down at the kitchen table and with shaking hands flipped through the phone book, looking for their church’s number. He didn’t have a good feeling, and he certainly didn’t like the possibility of Kelly thinking he was cheating last night. How the hell did she even know about Brooke, he wondered and worried.

  CHAPTER 51

  Donna pulled into the Dixon driveway and sat in her car, trying to remember if she had ever been to their house when Kelly wasn’t home. She couldn’t recall one time. She left her keys in her car, walked to the front door, and without bothering to knock, walked inside. Cooper met her in the foyer.

  Ben ran up and hugged her, “Hey, Aunt Donna. Whaddaya doin’ here?”

  Before she could answer, Ben looked past her, through the open door, to see several of his buddies waiting on him outside, tossing a football around. The enticement was more than he could bear. He pulled away and dashed outside without another word.

  Donna could tell that Cooper was distraught. She hugged him out of genuine concern. Even though Donna harbored a misdirected resentment, she and Cooper had gotten along fairly well. She was the black sheep of her family and constantly at odds with them. Cooper considered her an adventurous free spirit. She perceived him to be the only man who could tolerate her sister. There was an unspoken mutual respect, at some level, for each other.

  “Thanks for comin’,” Cooper said in a low voice as he nervously ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Sure. So tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  Cooper leaned against the end of the couch and said, “She won’t answer her cell phone. She hasn’t been home since she dropped Ben off at the party… I did talk to her sometime yesterday afternoon, I don’t remember exactly when, but she was really pissed at me because her credit card was denied and she blamed me.”

  “Piper’s okay, right?”

  “Yeah, she’ll be here about four,” Cooper added, noting the time was 1:11 p.m. The last several times he had looked at a clock, the numbers had been all the same. “I can’t imagine where Kelly could be,” he continued. “I’m so relieved that Piper’s all right. But I can’t imagine what’s goin’ on with Kelly. Where she could be or that she’s still so pissed off at me that she won’t answer her phone?”

  “She coulda dropped Ben off, headed to Birmingham to do some shoppin’, spent the night at the Wynfrey, and is headed home now,” Donna said confidently.

  “But why won’t she answer her cell?”

  “Maybe her phone died… you know, the battery’s fried… or the service has been cut off. Did you pay the bill?”

  “She pays that bill, and that’s not it.” Cooper shook his head slowly, turning over the facts he knew, with what Donna was suggesting.

  “Okay. Let me try callin’ her again on my cell,” Donna suggested, reaching for her phone. As she dialed, she smiled at Cooper. “Maybe this’ll teach you to pay your credit card bill on time,” she said as she shook all her hair to the right side exposing her left ear. “It’s ringin’.”

  Watching his sister-in-law’s face, Cooper finally asked, “Is it still ringin’?” He had a hopeful tone to his voice.

  “No, it says she either has it turned off or has traveled outside the service area,” Donna said slowly, folding her phone and staring at Cooper.

  “My credit card was also denied yesterday when I tried to buy gas. I had to use my business card,” Cooper explained. Letting out a deep sigh, he rubbed his face with his hands. “She was pissed… I mean really pissed when she called me
yesterday.”

  “It seems that lately she’s always angry at you for somethin’.”

  Deep in his own thoughts, Cooper didn’t hear Donna’s remark. He stated, “If we haven’t heard from her by the time Piper gets here, I’m callin’ the police.”

  “Have y’all been fightin’?”

  “What? No. Not really. Not any more than usual.”

  “Are you tellin’ me everything? I know something’s up. Are you tellin’ me all you know?” she asked, squinting her eyes.

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “I talked to Kelly the other day, and she was pretty upset.”

  “Upset about what?”

  “This is really between y’all, and I don’t want to get in the middle of it.”

  “Well, you are now, so just tell me!” Cooper pleaded.

  “You’ve been talkin’ in your sleep. Enough to wake Kelly up.”

  “Talkin’ in my sleep?”

  “Yep, and you were talkin’ about another woman,” she answered with a disgusted look.

  Cooper was shocked and didn’t know what to say. “This isn’t what you’re thinkin’.”

  “Believe me, I know how it can be. But like I said, this is between y’all. You need to work it out with her.”

  “Good grief,” Cooper responded, burying his face in his hands.

  “So for the last week or so, if you’ve done anything stupid, she probably knows. I bet she hired a private detective. She was thinkin’ about it.”

  “Well, I haven’t done anything wrong, that I can think of,” Cooper instantly replied, thinking about his lunch with Brooke.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear it. You’re good for each other. I want y’all to work this out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll ride around and check on a few places she could be. I’ll be back shortly. It won’t take me an hour.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll write my cell phone number down and stick it on the refrigerator. Call me if she shows up,” Donna explained as she headed toward the kitchen.

  “You okay, Coop?” she asked, stopping to look closely at him.

  Cooper paused for a second before answering, “Yeah, I just don’t know what to do.”

  “You kinda got that deer-in-the-headlights look.”

  “I feel like it.”

  “Just stay here; she’ll call or just show up. Please call me if anything changes.”

  “I will. Thank you so much for everything. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”

  Donna left, and Cooper tried to imagine what he could have said in his sleep and then remembered the dreams he’d been having at work. “Shit!”

  He had to talk to Kelly. The edges of guilt were beginning to creep in. How in the world could she have known what I planned last night? Though, she did ask a lot of questions before I left, which was a first. Was she just fishin’? Would she have just run off?

  Cooper needed to know. He had been the good guy all his life, never even thinking of straying. His stomach lurched as the gamut of emotions and images coursed through him. This was a new, very unpleasant experience. He ran into the half bath under the staircase and vomited.

  CHAPTER 52

  Jesse Ray finished putting the last of his electronic fortress into place and then spun his hat around backward as he sat down to synchronize everything from his command center. His laptop glowed, awaiting action. He methodically clicked a few buttons and adjusted the contrast on the LED monitors. A state-of-the-art surveillance camera was trained on the sleeping woman. He had wireless, unattended ground sensors strategically placed around the house that would cue a camera to take a wide field-of-view image of intruders in all light conditions and immediately transmit the image to him. He also had constant-on video cameras covering the obvious entry points onto the property and into the house. Jesse Ray felt confident of his work and leaned back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest.

  “Hey, Cuz… uh… can I ask a question?” Maynard asked, popping the top on a cold beer.

  “Sure,” Jesse Ray replied as he carefully attached the phone line into his laptop.

  “What happens if the electricity goes out?” Maynard asked, scratching his head.

  Jesse Ray touched his chin with his index finger as if he were pondering the question. “We are screwed. We only got battery backup for about fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s what I thought, so I’ve been workin’ on some protections myself. They ain’t as high-tech as yours, but they work.”

  “No shit? So whatcha got, some strings with cans tied on the ends?”

  Maynard set his beer on the counter. He needed his hands to talk. In that respect, he was like a Southern preacher, handcuffing him would be the same as putting a gag in his mouth. “Well… I found some boards in the barn, and I drove a bunch of rusty nails through ’em, so they all stick out on one side, and I placed ’em under all the windows. Sharp side up.”

  “You thought of that?”

  “Seen it in a movie. Somebody sneaks up on us and tries to look in the windows… we’ll hear ’em scream… and we’ll find ’em stuck to a board.”

  “I hope we ain’t gotta jump out the windows.”

  “Iffin you gotta, jump as far as you can,” Maynard said flatly, after taking a big swallow of beer.

  “You better tell everyone about them boards, ’cause I don’t think Mad Dog has any tetanus shots in his medical kit,” Jesse Ray suggested as he watched Jenny bound through the back door. “Where you been, girl?”

  “I was lookin’ around in the barn. Somebody is visiting the place pretty regularly.”

  “Shit, I can’t imagine why? This freakin’ place is spooky.”

  “Well, there are fresh footprints around the barn, and they’re too small to be Maynard’s.”

  “I don’t like this place… I got bad vibes.” Jesse Ray shook his head.

  “Well, this gig will go to hell if somebody shows up. They might be making meth and that really ain’t good.” Jenny continued explaining, “Meth heads are bat-shit crazy. You can’t predict a thing about their behavior.”

  “I feel ya. I’ll go put up some cameras and ground sensors. Come on, Maynard. Grab my toolbox and that extension cord.”

  Maynard did as directed, and the two men started out the back door.

  As their voices slowly drifted away, the door to Clarence’s room eased opened. A moment later, he hobbled out wearing black boxers and a white T-shirt.

  “You look like hell,” Jenny said, reaching into the refrigerator for a bottle of water.

  Clarence strained to reply, “I feel like it.” He grimaced in pain and stretched to sit down in a chair in front of Maynard’s entertainment center. Jesse Ray had set up a satellite television dish that picked up every station except local channels. Maynard had found a black-and-white television in a closet upstairs and added aluminum foil to the rabbit ears, allowing the NBC and Fox affiliates from Montgomery to come in, albeit fuzzy.

  Jenny held the cold bottle to her forehead. The old plantation house was hot inside despite fans running in every room. The AC window unit in the den had not stopped running since they arrived—only suggesting the air was conditioned.

  Clarence groaned again and then said, “Jenny?”

  She knew he was serious about something. He rarely called her just plain Jenny. “Yeah?”

  “I think you need to take me to the hospital. I got a kidney stone.”

  “Oh shit. Are you serious?”

  “Yeah… I’m hurtin’… and I’ve been pukin’.”

  “Okay. There’s a hospital just two exits down from Vaughn Road Park.”

  “I hate it… but I’m really hurtin’. Tell the boys. We’ll sedate the girl again, and then you and I can go.”

  “You got insurance?” Jenny asked trying to think ahead.

  “Yeah, but I don’t wanna use it. I don’t want any record of me being up here. I got cash,” he ans
wered in a strained voice, “and even if I didn’t, they gotta help.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Piper came dancing into the house, white wires hanging from her ears. She had her iPod in one hand and a travel bag in the other. Cooper and Donna met her in the foyer. Cooper and Piper hugged briefly, and before Piper had a chance to say anything to her aunt, Cooper asked if she knew where her mother might be.

  Piper looked at him in a strange way, and then at Donna and shook her head. “What’s wrong?” she asked, dropping her designer bag.

  “We don’t know, babe. Nobody has seen her today. She wasn’t here when we got home.”

  Cooper and Donna glanced quickly at each other. A wave of fear shot through his body. He uncrossed his arms to rub his unshaven face. He needed to call the police. He dreaded it. It was acknowledgment of what was going on and what it might mean.

  “Go unpack your bags, and put away your clothes,” Cooper gently instructed. He needed to keep her busy while he called the police.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, recognizing the serious tone of his voice.

  Cooper watched her run up the stairs. He turned and made eye contact with Donna. He let out a deep breath.

  “You need to call, Coop. She may have been in an accident. Do you know anybody on the force?”

  “I met a policeman at the Lions Club a year ago… what was his name?” he replied, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t know. I’ll just call.”

  “Tell them what’s going on. They’ll know what to do.”

  Cooper nervously walked into the kitchen and picked up the telephone. He hesitated, almost dialing 911 before he realized what he was doing. He had never called the police before. Searching the phone book, he found the number.

  Donna sat down at the kitchen table, watching Cooper dial the number and wait for an answer.

  “Yes, ma’am. My name’s Cooper Dixon. I… uh… I live here in Montgomery, and my wife is missing.”

  “How long has she been missing, sir?”