Shay O'Hanlon Caper 03 - Pickle in the Middle Murder

by Jessie Chandler

  I wished it were a crazy fun night with JT that had me dragging.

  “It was … ” I squinted, trying to think of a succinct way of giving her the rundown. “Interesting.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, it was kind of cool, actually, until we got to the part where I found a dead man in one of the privies.”

  Kate eyes widened and she gasped. Literally. “Oh no. You’re kidding.”

  “Dead serious—no pun intended. And it gets worse.”

  “Anna!” Kate barked.

  Anna popped over to the register. “What’s up?”

  Kate fumbled to untie her apron. “I have to talk to Shay a minute. Can you—”

  “Get outta here,” Anna told Kate and passed me a large hazelnut latte and a plate bearing my sweet roll fix. A fork protruded from the sticky mess.

  I trailed Kate into the kitchen.

  She whirled on me as soon as I crossed the threshold. “What on earth happened?”

  I stabbed a hunk of roll and popped it in my mouth. My taste buds did a happy dance despite the circumstances. “They arrested JT for murder,” I said as I chewed.

  “No fucking way.” Kate’s eyebrows rose so quickly they almost flew off her forehead.

  “Fucking way.” I picked up my cup and slurped the foam from the top of my latte. “She’s down at the Scott County Jail.”

  “Oh my god. Oh. My. God.” At one time, Kate had designs on JT, before JT and I got together. She’d been a good sport, though, and now she and JT had become pretty good friends.

  “It was so strange. Horrible. The cop that arrested her … ” I trailed off and stuffed my face some more.

  Kate widened her eyes at me.

  “Sorry,” I said after I swallowed. “He and JT were oil and water. I’ve never seen her like that. With another cop, no less.”

  “Well, how would you react if you were getting arrested for murder? Why did they think she did it?”

  I related the rest of the story, ending just as I drained the last of my cooled latte into my mouth.

  “How is it that you always manage to attract the strangest shit ever?”

  That was the question of the decade.

  I said, “I haven’t been able to get a hold of Coop. I wonder if he’s in the pokey again.”

  “No, not this time. He’s back, without any jail time, you’ll be happy to hear. He came in last night and was back in really early this morning to help Rocky out with his phone books.”

  “Phone books?”

  “You really haven’t been paying attention lately, have you, Shay?”

  I shrugged, feeling more than a little lost. It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying attention so much as I was just absorbed in … what? Okay. Evidently, I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have to what was going on around me.

  “Coop hatched a plan to help Rocky earn more money for his Tulip trip.”

  “Does Rocky need a raise?”

  “No, I don’t think a raise is necessary. He just wants extra money to add to his savings for his Tulip trip. Delivering the phone books was Coop’s bright idea, so I had no qualms about calling him bright and early to get over here and help.”

  Tulip was Rocky in girl form. She was a street vendor who hawked balloons she twisted into animal shapes near Jackson Square in New Orleans, entertaining kids and their parents for five bucks a pop. Rocky met Tulip the previous spring when Eddy and family friend Agnes took him to Louisiana on his very first vacation. And was it a doozy! Between a stolen toy snake, drug money, and hit men, the Big Easy wasn’t for the queasy. Once we’d made it back to Minnesota in one piece—well, except for the toy snake—we had to deal with a ruthless Mexican cartel. I was happy to report we all made it through the fireworks okay.

  Thanks to Kate, Rocky and Tulip had begun “dating” through Facebook. Rocky was beside himself, dying to return to the land of zydeco and beignets to visit his Tulip. To that end, Eddy had established a Travel To Tulip fund, and we all pitched in a few bucks here and there for the cause. At last count I think he was up to almost three hundred bucks.

  Kate said, “You should go into the backyard and check it out.”

  “Check out what?”

  “The phone books, knucklehead.”

  I eyeballed the mountain of undelivered phone books stacked haphazardly against the house within the fenced-in backyard. I was sure they hadn’t been there last night. Of course, it was dark, and I was wound up, so was it possible I hadn’t noticed? I looked again at the bulk of plastic-encased paper. I doubted it.

  Eddy was in her kitchen when I went back inside. She looked up from a cookbook that was open on the counter as the screen slammed shut behind me. “Hey girl. I was just looking up the recipe for Kitty Litter Cake. How are you doing this morning?”

  “I’d be a lot better if I was still asleep, and did you really just say Kitty Litter Cake?”

  “Sure did. It’s almost Halloween. Gotta make something that fits the holiday.” Eddy patted me on the cheek and then pulled me down into a hug. I loved this woman with every fiber of my being, Kitty Litter Cake or not.

  She said in my ear, “It’s going to all work out. Have you heard anything from JT?”

  I squeezed Eddy hard, then released her and stepped back. “No. Tyrell’s working on it. I called the jail, but they won’t let me see her or even talk to her.”

  Eddy rolled her eyes. “Figures. You decide to follow my advice yet?”

  “You give a lot of advice. Which advice?” I knew exactly what she meant, but it was fun to stir the pot every so often.

  “When are you gonna start listening to this old lady, child? I told you last night you needed to find out who else might be in the market for a dead Krasski. Tyrell had a file that I just know is plum ripe for picking names that would fit—”

  “I’m way ahead of you. Want to come with?”

  Eddy slammed the cookbook shut. “You bet your bottom twenty dollars, sweet cheeks. Now where’d I put my breaking-the-law shoes?”

  Five minutes later we were cruising up Hennepin Avenue.

  Eddy said, “Maybe we should invite Coop along for this escapade. It’s always good to have a little extra backup.”

  “Good idea. Do you know where Coop and Rocky are delivering those phone books?”

  “Of course. When are you going to learn I know all? They’re over in Lyn-Lake, by that teeny weeny little bookstore on 26th and Lyndale near the French Meadow Bakery.” The teeny weeny little place was a mystery bookstore called Once Upon a Crime. Gary and Pat, the husband and wife proprietors, along with their wonder dog Shamus, were cool—often helping me find CSI-type forensic mysteries that Eddy chewed up and spit out faster than I could keep up. Too bad one of them couldn’t help us solve this whodunit.

  I cruised slowly down Bryant, cut over on 26th, and headed up Colfax. Plenty of cars lined both sides of the street, but I didn’t see Coop, Rocky, or Eddy’s rusty yellow truck that she said was serving as phone book home base. We circled a couple more blocks before finding it. The truck was parked between a red Honda Civic and of all things, an old rusty 1960-something Ford Galaxie that was dwarfed by a huge, expensive boat on the shiny silver trailer hitched to its rear end. It was hard to believe the car was still running in this day and age, much less pulling that behemoth. It was a strange world.

  The back end of Eddy’s pickup hovered inches above the asphalt under the weight of the books, and the front was practically lifting off the ground.

  I parallel parked a few cars away and we scanned the area for the phone book boys. It was still overcast. A downright chilly breeze prickled my skin as we exited my truck. What a difference from yesterday. But then, that was weather in Minnesota. You might be wearing short sleeves in January and shoveling snow in May.

  Curled brown and orange leaves crunched unde
rfoot as we stroll-

  ed toward the phone book pile. A few of the trees that lined the street stubbornly hung onto the last of their leaves, refusing to give in to the inevitable pull of the season.

  Eddy said, “They’ll be along shortly, I’m sure.”

  “I hope so.” I shivered and jammed my hands in my pockets.

  “Hey, Shay! Eddy!” Coop’s voice echoed behind us.

  “Hurry your butt over here,” Eddy hollered at him.

  Coop closed in, dragging a noisy Radio Flyer wagon behind him. Time for another load. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. He kept trying to quit but hadn’t yet managed to conquer

  his addiction. He was wearing a Green Beans for Peace and Preservation hoodie with blue hockey-skate laces at the neck and faded jeans honestly worn at the knees. He had to stoop to reach the wagon’s handle. I didn’t envy him the backache he was going to have after this.

  He said, “I knew you’d hear my psychic plea for help. I’m going to kill whoever gave Rocky the idea to deliver phone books for cash.” Coop tossed shaggy, ash-blond hair out of his bloodshot eyes. He looked exhausted. “Oh, wait,” he grumbled. “That was me. Go ahead and shoot me now.”

  I propped my hands on my hips and scanned the uneven mound of various-sized telephone books that nearly spilled over the sides of the truck onto the street. “Where did you come up with this looney idea?”

  “Back in the day, I did this to make my rent payment when it was phone book delivery season.” For a long time—years in fact—Coop had struggled to keep a job and pay his bills. He didn’t starve to death because both Eddy (through cooking) and I (through a donation of lunch money) helped supply him with grub when he needed it. Between his fight for peace, preservation, and environmental activism as a member of the Green Beans—and an equal if not even more powerful craving to spend his days in computer game oblivion—holding down a steady source of income was something of a challenge. Things changed in a big way about a year and a half ago.

  Coop had been a supervisor on an old bingo boat on the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and St. Paul. The giant rust bucket, better known as Pig’s Eye Bingo, had recently been sold down the river for scrap. Its rather piggish owner, Stanley “Kinky” Anderson—Coop’s former boss—had been murdered onboard, and there wasn’t a soul around who wanted to deal with a poltergeist of that magnitude.

  One good thing came of the fiasco. During his time as a bingo slave, Coop had honed his computer systems programming techniques, both legal and illegal. Since then, he’d moved on to designing customer rewards programs for gaming establishments, and he frequently worked with Eddy’s Mad Knitters and their friends on their computer skills. They were generous with their pocketbooks when they finally grasped what he was trying to teach them.

  The Mad Knitters, a group of between three and fifteen or so gals, regularly met at the Rabbit Hole to work on their latest knitting projects. However, they usually wound up in Eddy’s apartment playing Texas Hold ’Em, Mexican Train dominos, or lately, Mahjongg. I’d tried a couple of times to learn how to play myself but gave up. I had no idea how the ladies did it. The strangest terms came out of their mouths, and they’d do fancy moves and other things with the tiles as they shuffled them out and played them. Too much brainpower for me.

  Now Coop was making enough moolah off his reward programs and the crazy knitting crew that he no longer had to worry about where his next buck was coming from. It was a nice but still-unreal change.

  Coop rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin and frowned as he considered my words. “I don’t think back in my phone-book-jockeying days that there were four different books for each address. Kind of puts a kink in my fast and easy money-making plan.” He shrugged. “Oh well. If it helps out Rocky, I guess it’s worth the pain in the back. He told me he feels bad that we’re all giving him dollars when he thinks he should be earning it. Although if I ever try a stunt like this again, do whatever you need to do to put me out of my misery immediately. Please.”

  Eddy said, “We’ll have to shoot you later. Shay needs to borrow you for a little while before I pull the trigger.”

  Ten minutes and an abbreviated regurgitation of my tale of trauma later, Coop shook his head. “How on earth do you do it?” He stared at me incredulously. “You’re a badass magnet for trouble. Poor JT.” He stubbed his cigarette out and carefully tucked the filter back in the box. I had to hand it to him; if he had to do the deed, at least he was a responsible puffer who refused to litter the ground with his butts.

  Eddy and I then outlined the task at hand. “So,” I finished, “are you up for the job?”

  “Hell yeah—”

  “SHAY O’HANLON!” Two arms flung themselves around my midsection from behind and squeezed hard. “Shay O’Hanlon! I am so happy to see you! I have missed you!”

  The pure delight in Rocky’s voice never failed to warm the cockles of my heart.

  He let go of me and latched onto Eddy. “Eddy! Oh Eddy! Did you know I am bringing great volumes of information to every household? There are two thousand fourteen pages of knowledge in that yellow book,” he pulled one arm free and pointed at a four-inch-thick tome on the tailgate of the truck, “One thousand four hundred thirty-five pages in the white pages,” he paused to take a breath, “One thousand thirty-three pages in the Dex, and then a miniscule four hundred thirty-five pages in the Century Link book.”

  Rocky finally relinquished his grip on Eddy and tottered around to face us. He was round and stocky, with a smile just waiting to burst across his face. A rarely removed teal aviator cap sat at a jaunty angle on top of his head, and he was encased in an oversized Twins parka that would keep him warm at twenty below.

  He said, “Nick Coop agreed to help me make one hundred sixty-three dollars and seventy-two cents to add to the three hundred twenty-four dollars and forty-seven cents I have already saved up so I can go to New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States of America, to see my Tulip.” At the mention of Tulip’s name, Rocky’s face brightened even more. “That is exactly one thousand two hundred twenty-five point three three miles from here.”

  six

  Rocky decided he wanted to come with us. I didn’t think we’d be gone too long, so we locked up Eddy’s jalopy and hopped in my truck. I know Coop was praying for someone to come along and steal all the phone books, but I was sure most people would stay as far away from them as they could get.

  The city streets were quiet; folks were probably inside getting ready to watch the Vikings lose another one. With luck the cop shop would be empty, too.

  Only half a dozen cars were parked in the precinct lot when we pulled in. Eddy decided to wait in the pickup. If she couldn’t be in the thick of things, getaway driver was her next favorite option. Rocky, Coop, and I trundled through the imposing iron and glass doors.

  Inside, a teen of indeterminate age sprawled on one of the benches in the lobby. The hood of a frayed black sweat jacket covered the top of his head, and his hands were stuffed in his armpits. He tried to appear insolent, but the constant bouncing of his knee told the real tale. I wondered what his story was.

  I hoped the same officer I’d talked to yesterday would be on duty again. No one was behind the window, so Coop leaned on the buzzer.

  About three minutes later, to my relief, C. Chevalier appeared at the window. I stared at her nameplate as she sat down, and something clicked in my brain. Chandra. Her first name was Chandra.

  She keyed the mic with a friendly smile. “Shay, right?”

  I nodded and crossed imaginary fingers. “Yeah, right. Hey, Chandra, when I was here last night I think I left my wallet on Tyrell’s desk.”

  Her smile faded. “He’s not in—”

  “I know,” I said quickly. “He told me to come on down and check.” A small lie for the greater good, right? Hopefully this wouldn’t get back to Tyrell.


  Chandra’s gaze slid to Coop and Rocky, who were crowded in right behind me. “Well, I can see who’s in to escort you up, but your two friends will have to wait here.”

  “I don’t need an escort, I’ll just dash in and right back out.”

  Her lips pursed a moment. “No one’s supposed to come into any secured area without an escort.”

  Before I could say anything else, Chandra scooped up the phone and dialed a number. And waited. After what had to be a full minute of ringing, she said, “No one’s picking up in the squad room. I—”

  “Hey,” Coop interjected, “You can guard Rocky and me here while Shay just runs up quick to see if her wallet’s there or not. If she doesn’t come back, you can arrest us.” He gave her a dazzling, irresistible grin.

  “Well, I really shouldn’t …”

  She was weakening. I added, “I know the way, and it’d be just a second. I won’t get lost, promise.” I flashed her my own pandering smile and leaned conspiratorially toward her until my forehead touched the glass. I lowered my voice. “Chandra, I really need my wallet. Without it it’s hard to buy, you know, items for my monthly …

  feminine needs. No cash. I’m in a bit of a pinch here, and I don’t really want to explain that to these goof balls.” I jerked my thumb toward Coop and Rocky.

  A knowing look crossed Chandra’s face. Items for monthly feminine needs were something she could relate to. There was definitely something to be said for the sisterhood of the travelling pads. Or tampons.

  She gave me an exaggerated nod of understanding, bit her bottom lip. Then she said, “All right. But be quick, okay?”

  “Like a gazelle,” I assured her and headed for the door Tyrell had propelled me through the night before. A muffled buzz sounded, and I pulled the handle. The door popped open, so I squirted through it. I caught a fragment of Rocky saying, “Chandra Chevalier, did you know that the Minneapolis phone book has exactly two thousand fourteen—” before his words were cut off as the door clicked shut.