The Rented Mule

by Bobby Cole

“Well, I don’t really know… I just realized it this morning, but something could of happened last night.”

  “Sir, normally we can’t do anything until twenty-four hours has passed. Would it be safe to say that she has been missing that long?” the officer asked.

  “I really don’t know… I was also wondering if maybe there was a way to check with the hospitals and see… if maybe… you know, she was in an accident.”

  “Yes, sir, we can do that. Let me get some information from you, and I will dispatch a unit to your house to gather additional details.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “No problem, sir,” she responded professionally. “Now, let me ask you a few questions.”

  Cooper sat down at the table across from Donna and answered the police officer’s questions.

  CHAPTER 54

  Clarence rode in the front passenger’s seat of his Escalade, with the seat fully reclined. In his hands was a plastic trash bag in case he needed to throw up again. The big man writhed in pain and grunted in agony each time Jenny hit a bump.

  Jenny asked, “So how many of these stone things have you had?”

  As she drove, she blindly searched her purse for a cigarette.

  “Too many… three for sure. My pops had ’em too. It runs in the family. Damn girl! Are you trying to hit every pothole in the road? ’Cause I think you missed one back there.”

  Jenny ignored his sarcasm. “Are you worried about giving the hospital your name? Establishing that we were here?”

  “I’m not. I’m gonna give ’em a fake name and address and say that I don’t have any ID because I lost my wallet at the Auburn game. I’ll pay with cash.”

  “I dunno.”

  Jenny cracked her window and then lit a cigarette.

  “Everythin’ gonna be fine. I’m positive. When did ya start smokin’?”

  “I only do it when I get nervous,” she said through tight lips, taking a drag. “Do you think you’ll have to spend the night?” She blew smoke out the window and then reached over to adjust the radio to find a local news broadcast.

  “Did you hear if State won yesterday?” Clarence asked.

  “Yep, they did. Gates was pissed ’cause he bet against ’em.”

  “That’s my boys.”

  Clarence tried to vomit but couldn’t. Jenny lowered the air-conditioning thermostat and turned the blower to high. She sped up just perceptibly and blew another stream of smoke toward the cracked window.

  “I shouldn’t have to spend the night. I just need some heavy-duty-no-shit painkillers, and I’ll be okay. Don’t worry, everything’s gonna be fine… once they drug my big ass,” he groaned. “I just gotta get some relief… quick.”

  Jenny didn’t believe that a simple prescription was going to solve his problems. He looked horrible and was obviously in a great deal of pain. Jesse Ray and Maynard being left unsupervised added to her stress level. Nothin’ about this job’s goin’ smoothly, she thought.

  They drove in silence the rest of the way to Jackson Hospital’s Emergency Room, right off I-85 at the second exit. A wiry black orderly spotted Jenny trying to get Clarence to his feet and rushed a wheelchair out to them.

  “Thanks, man,” Clarence mumbled as he placed his feet on the footrests.

  As the electric doors opened, a heavyset, older black nurse, who appeared to be in charge, glanced up to assess the new arrival. There were dozens of patients awaiting treatment.

  “Well, shugga, either you’re having a heart attack or a kidney stone… which is it?”

  “Stones, he thinks,” Jenny replied politely.

  The nurse looked at Jenny for a long moment. “Let me get you some forms to fill out… your wife can do it while I take you on back.”

  Jenny almost shot back that she wasn’t his wife but realized things might go smoother if she played along. She had to get Clarence in and out with as little commotion as possible. “Yes, ma’am. Just tell me what I need to do,” she offered.

  The nurse handed Jenny a clipboard thick with papers. Pointing at another nurse behind the desk, she instructed Jenny to ask her for any help if she needed it.

  A buzzer sounded, and the orderly rolled Clarence through a door. Jenny knew she could not completely fill out all the information, so she took an open seat and then looked around the waiting room. There was a kid with a fresh cast on his arm; his parents and a doctor were talking. An older man read a newspaper. There were several sick kids with parents. A shirtless guy had a hand wrapped in a blood-soaked T-shirt, trying to fill out paperwork. An ambulance slowly backed into the unloading area, its red lights flashing. A white female orderly anxiously waited. I hate hospitals, thought Jenny. I wonder how long we’ll be here. She felt exposed and trapped.

  When the patient from the ambulance distracted everyone, Jenny slipped through the previously locked internal door to search for Clarence. The only treatment room she couldn’t see in was divided into two areas, separated by a curtain. “Clarence? Where are you? Are you decent?”

  “Yeah… come on in. I can’t get comfortable,” he groaned.

  “I need to ask you some questions to get these forms filled out,” she said quietly as she pushed back the curtain. “That gown looks… well, let’s just say there’s more you than there’s gown.”

  “I don’t care. I’m hurtin’,” he said, rolling onto his side, trying to get comfortable.

  Jenny spent the next few minutes asking Clarence questions and filling in his responses. When she finally had as much completed as she could, she left to turn in the paperwork.

  “He’s really hurtin’,” she said, handing the paperwork to the head nurse.

  “We’ll get to him shortly. A gunshot victim just arrived.”

  Nodding as if she totally understood, Jenny left the forms and walked outside to have a smoke. I guess a gunshot wound did trump a kidney stone, she thought.

  Her lighter glowed briefly as she took a long, deep drag, lighting her cigarette. I sure as hell hope this doesn’t get us caught!

  They were way off script. She thought about everything from Gates to Maynard to how bad she needed the money from this job. Between drags she unconsciously folded her arms tightly across her chest. A few minutes later, invigorated by the nicotine, she snuffed out the cigarette in the grass and walked back inside.

  She slipped into the exam room area again, and as she turned the corner heading for Clarence’s room, she saw him leaning against the nurses’ station counter, his gown hanging at an oblique angle from around his neck, the only part of his body actually covered by the gown. The nurses didn’t seem to notice that he was bare-ass naked. When the waiting room door opened, the people there could clearly see Clarence’s entire backside. For those who hadn’t just witnessed a head-on collision, their facial expressions looked as though they had.

  “Clarence! Clarence!” Jenny called under her breath as she scrambled to cover him.

  “I ain’t movin’, and I don’t care what anybody sees,” he mumbled. “This is the first time in days that I ain’t been hurtin’.”

  “Honey, if he’s comfortable, let him stay, we’ve seen it all. We don’t care,” an older nurse said absently.

  Jenny looked at Clarence’s big butt sticking out in the hallway, aimed straight at the waiting room and sheepishly asked, “Well, can we at least get a bedsheet to cover him?”

  The nurse looked up over her bifocals at Jenny and then past her out into the waiting room, where she saw several people staring straight at Clarence’s ass. She chuckled and then said, “Yeah… sure thing, sweetie.”

  CHAPTER 55

  MONDAY—DAY 2

  Cooper didn’t sleep a wink all Sunday night. He paced the house and watched the driveway, hoping Kelly would pull up. By six on Monday morning he was a total wreck. As seven approached, he realized that he had to put on a brave face for the kids. The police promised to have an officer over first thing that morning to open up a full-scale investigation. He welcomed the idea o
f the kids being at school instead of having them listen to his conversation with the police. At least at this point the kids didn’t know enough to be upset.

  He wondered what he needed to do to get Piper and Ben ready. Kelly always took care of the school details. When they came downstairs, each bombarded him with questions that he tried to answer, but really couldn’t. However it happened, they seemed satisfied with his explanations. The carpool had them out of the house by 7:40 a.m. He hoped they had everything they were supposed to have. He had given them each a wad of cash with instructions to buy whatever they needed.

  At eight, Cooper called the office to inform them that he wouldn’t be in today. As expected, that opened up a round of questions that he diverted. He tried to end his conversation with Mrs. Riley by saying, “I’ll check in periodically, and please tell Gates to call me when he gets in.”

  Mrs. Riley shocked him with the news that Gates was already locked in his office, presumably working since he was on the phone. Cooper told her to give him a message to call.

  Cooper was on the phone, glancing out the window when he saw an unmarked police car park in front of his house. A plainclothes officer got out and walked to the front door. Cooper didn’t wait for him to ring the bell and quickly opened the door.

  There stood Henry Obermeyer, a detective who at six foot two and 225 pounds was a big man—except he wasn’t muscular, he was just big. He had been on the force for fifteen years and was fixated with doing everything exactly, painstakingly, by the book. No deviations and no exceptions. The other officers loved making fun of him; consequently, he was the butt of countless jokes. He suffered from a spastic colon, was lactose-intolerant, and whenever he got too nervous or excited, he always had to run to the nearest restroom. Because of his condition, he had missed participating in several key dynamic entry arrests, and this was very troubling to him.

  His colleagues jokingly called him Dirty Henry because he idolized the fictional detective Harry Callahan of the Dirty Harry movie series. Ironically, in fifteen years of service, Detective Obermeyer had never discharged his firearm in the line of duty, but he practiced shooting religiously, at least once a week. No one could beat his range scores or his command of shoot/don’t shoot scenarios. No one was more prepared.

  Obermeyer’s peculiar behavior and odd mannerisms created a major problem on the police force in that he could not keep a partner. The big detective’s odd ways drove several to tender resignations if they were not reassigned another partner. Detective Obermeyer was so successful at solving crimes, however, that the top brass gave up, allowing him to work solo.

  Obermeyer, a major case investigator, had been assigned this mundane “missing wife” incident because things were slow and the officer responsible for case assignments didn’t like him or Dirty Harry movies. Obermeyer had lost the argument with his immediate superior officer that this case was a waste of his skills and abilities.

  Detective Obermeyer, without introducing himself, calmly shook Cooper’s hand as he quickly scanned the surrounding area. His first words to Cooper were, “Stand by, please.” He then slowly stared around the entry hall, but mostly at Cooper.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Stand by. I’m absorbing, it’s part of what I do.” After a moment he said, “I’m Detective Obermeyer.”

  At Cooper’s offering, they walked into the kitchen and sat at the table. Cooper figured this guy to be some kind of nut job but went ahead and explained all he could while he watched the officer make notes on his BlackBerry. He paused to allow the policeman to catch up.

  “I e-mail these notes to myself and make folders at night with all the documents,” the detective explained, knowing the question was coming.

  “Kinda like Jim Rockford on the Rockford Files,” Cooper responded.

  Obermeyer was surprised and felt an instant connection with Cooper. Nobody had ever understood what he did.

  “Exactly… only he mailed his notes… this, of course, is much more efficient,” the detective proudly proclaimed. “So the last time you or anyone actually talked to your wife was Saturday afternoon sometime?” the detective asked.

  “Yes, about two o’clock I think; it coulda been later though—I really wasn’t checking my watch.”

  “Surely you have a point of reference in which to relate the time.”

  Cooper tried to think back. “I’m sorry, but I don’t. Maybe two o’clock.” Cooper hesitated, adding, “I kinda mentally checked out Saturday.”

  Obermeyer noted Cooper’s pause. “Checked out?”

  “I needed to get away and do some thinkin’.” Cooper then explained where he was and what he was doing. He watched the detective’s thumbs type the details.

  “I see. An exact time would be helpful,” he explained, thinking they were probably in the middle of an argument. Obermeyer quickly typed in the information on the tiny keypad.

  When Cooper didn’t say anything, the detective asked, “And to your knowledge, she hadn’t planned to visit any relatives… or anything that would take her out of town for a few days?”

  Most disappearances like this were the results of a marital spat or an affair. Affairs were universal, and it wasn’t uncommon, just less obvious with the upper class. A few cases were simple communication breakdowns—where one spouse fails to tell the other where they are going, or most often, the other fails to listen. These cases bored Detective Obermeyer.

  “No,” Cooper responded nervously.

  “Had any recent issues?”

  “No. Well. Not really… maybe,” Cooper said as he dropped his face into his hands. “We argue all the time lately.”

  “And you had a confrontation Saturday?” Detective Obermeyer asked without looking up.

  “Yeah, but confrontation doesn’t, well yeah, I guess it does. Evidently her credit card didn’t work, I mean it was declined while she was shopping, and she blamed me,” he explained and then drew a deep breath.

  “Do you know the exact location the transaction was being attempted?” Detective Obermeyer asked, knowing that he had just gotten a good lead.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Stand by.”

  Cooper watched him stare off into space and wondered what this odd guy was thinking.

  “Do you have a list of her credit cards? I need to run it, and then we can piece together where she was Saturday and begin putting together a historical trail. We might find something simple like a plane ticket to Cozumel,” the officer stated flatly, in a tone that conveyed situations like this happened every day.

  “No, she wouldn’t have done that, but I’ll get you a list of cards,” Cooper said as he opened a drawer that was home to all of their bills.

  Detective Obermeyer silently seethed that his task for the day was chasing down a pissed-off housewife who probably escaped for a day from her boring life. He checked his cell phone to make certain he hadn’t missed any calls.

  “Look, is there any way you can check the hospitals around Birmingham? She loves to shop there. I called the ones here already,” Cooper asked as he stood and began pacing. He couldn’t sit still any longer.

  “Yes, sir, that’s already been done. It’s standard procedure. I need to gather some additional information. This won’t take too long. What kind of vehicle does she drive?”

  “A red Volvo sedan… it’s two years old.”

  The questions continued for a full fifteen minutes as Obermeyer followed the official script. The process exhausted Cooper and made him more anxious. His mind raced with thoughts of Kelly, the office, the kids, and what needed to be done. All this is my fault. All of it, he thought.

  Obermeyer spotted the coffeepot. He stared at it until Cooper offered him a cup. While he stirred cream into his coffee, he asked if there were any signs of a break-in or anything missing or out of place in the house or garage. Not expecting a positive answer, he glanced around the kitchen, noticing nothing out of the ordinary, except some strange-looking Coke bottles.

  �
��No, everything’s here, including her suitcases. I checked.”

  “Does she have an attorney?”

  “An attorney? What do you mean?”

  “A lawyer. Worst case… just thinking worst case: she could be planning a divorce. I see it a lot.”

  “Your worst case and my worst case are worlds apart. I’m thinking she’s been in an accident. Sure we argue or have confrontations, as you put it, but I don’t think she wants a divorce,” Cooper explained. As the words hung in the air he wondered about her calling Gates and asking about Brooke. That could have made her leave. He needed to talk to her to explain.

  “You okay, sir?” the detective asked, noting Cooper’s sudden disengagement.

  “Yeah, I was just thinking about what you said. It kind of shocked me, I guess.”

  “Okay. This should get me started.”

  Cooper nodded his agreement, somewhat in a trance, running his fingers through his hair. He managed to ask, “So whadda I do?”

  “Call any of her friends you can think of. If you find her, please call me. Here’s my card, it’s got all my numbers on it.” The detective slowly rose from the table. “I need to get this info into our system. I’ll be in touch. If you think of anything or hear something, please call me.”

  Cooper nodded his understanding and buried his face in his hands.

  Walking toward the door the hulking detective stopped, stared a second, and walked back into the kitchen. “I’ll ask your neighbors if they’ve noticed anything unusual. Something may turn up.”

  Cooper sighed deeply and answered, “Please, whatever you need to do, just find my wife.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Jenny had decided that Clarence would be more comfortable recovering at the hotel rather than at the hideout. The hospital had gladly accepted cash for the services, without asking any potentially compromising questions. Any other time, the gang’s protocols would dictate that they abandon the job and vanish without a trace. Clarence’s medical condition, however, necessitated that they not travel.