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

by Jessie Chandler

  Understanding dawned and I was instantly nauseous. “That’s dis-

  gusting.”

  “Just sayin’.” Neilson leered at me as he grabbed the greenbacks. “Geller’s in thirteen. Guess it’s not a lucky number for him, is it?” He guffawed at his own joke, and it finally occurred to me who he reminded me of. Barney. Barney Rubble, Fred’s best friend in The Flintstones. But I didn’t think I’d call Neilson anything close to a member of the modern stone-age family. He was stuck at cave man.

  “It’s been a pleasure. Don’t let the door smack you in the ass,” Neilson cheerily called to our rapidly retreating backsides.

  We gathered in front of my truck. My heart was thumping madly in my chest. I glanced down the length of the building, but it was too dark to make out the room numbers.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” Yes, Shay? What exactly are we going to do? I racked my brain. It had frozen up, like the inside of a too-small air conditioner on a hotter than the devil’s own home day.

  After a couple of seconds, Eddy said, “Well?”

  The clock ticked on. I tried. I really did.

  Coop said, “Shay?”

  Ack. What the hell. “We find room thirteen and knock on the door.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Eddy was off again. Coop and I hurried to catch up.

  The farther away we got from what little light the dirty office windows cast outside, the darker it got. Two unlit lampposts stood at cockeyed angles in the middle of the mostly gravel lot, like maybe someone’s bumper had gotten a little too close. Repeatedly.

  I counted the shadowy hulks of parked cars as we trooped along the sidewalk. Five vehicles, make that six with ours, occupied the lot. Most of the rides looked old.

  A large window was situated to one side of the door to each room. All the windows we passed were covered by heavy drapes. In a few of the rooms, light bled around the gaps where the cloth didn’t fully cover the glass. The muffled sounds of television sets at varying volumes trickled out of gaps in warped doors. Some of the sounds that filtered through the cracks were of the X-rated kind. Was this a short-stay motel—a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of place—on top of being just plain trashy? Did Minnesota motels even charge by the hour?

  Eddy stopped in front of the door marked 13. The window was blacked out, but a thin line of light snuck through at the top. She raised her fist. I caught it just as it was descending toward the pitted wood surface.

  She yanked her hand from mine and whispered, “What now, for goodness sake?”

  “Plan,” I whispered hoarsely. “We need a damn plan. We can’t just go pound on his door. What was I thinking?” Someone, please tell me why we never thought anything through. Carefully. “We can’t just trounce in there and ask him if he offed Krasski. He’ll kill us.”

  Coop murmured, “Maybe we should tackle him when he opens the door. Ask questions later.” It was hard getting used to such a change from my peaceful protester pal.

  Eddy waved her Whacker. “Let me at him—”

  In a blink, two things happened almost simultaneously. The first was that the end of the Whacker met the surface of the door with a loud bang. The second was that the door was abruptly yanked open.

  thirteen

  Bright light from inside the room temporarily blinded me. I blinked hard. A man stood in silhouette, filling the doorway. A wife beater covered his heavyset, hairy chest, and baggy blue-and-white-striped boxers covered his lower half. Thin chicken legs poked out below the boxers, and no-longer-white socks drooped around his ankles. Wisps of what hair he had left on the top of his head floated every which way above his pasty pate. His eyes flashed.

  He roared, “Whaddya want?”

  Eddy’s arm was still outstretched, the Whacker wobbling in her fist.

  His eyes dropped to the mini bat. “What the—” He grabbed for it, and before I knew what happened, he and Eddy were playing tug of war.

  Eddy kicked at him.

  He sidestepped, then gave the Whacker a great yank.

  The force pulled Eddy off her feet and launched her in the air. She smashed into the man’s flab with a soft splat. That was enough, combined with his own backward momentum, for him to lose his footing. He crashed to the ground, flat on his back. The back of his head hit the carpet-covered cement floor with a resounding thud. Eddy landed square on top of him, knocking the breath from his lungs in an audible woosh.

  For a brief moment, Coop and I stood transfixed. Eddy squeaked. She flailed atop the downed man, her Whacker accidentally bonking him hard on the forehead.

  Coop and I each grabbed one of Eddy’s arms and hauled her to her feet. Somehow, she’d managed to hang onto the Whacker through the entire incident. In the background, I heard someone repeating over and over, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

  “Shut up, Nicholas,” Eddy hissed and jerked her arms out of our grasp. “Help me get him all the way inside. You don’t think I killed him, do you?”

  My heart hammered in my ears. I couldn’t breathe. Then, all of a sudden, my brain kicked back in. The scene became crystal clear.

  “Come on, Coop.” I grunted as I plucked up one of the man’s limp arms. Coop snatched the other, and we dragged him all the way into the room, his heels bouncing across the doorjamb.

  Eddy stepped inside and shut the door. “Didn’t see no neighbors sticking their heads outside, so hopefully nobody saw me and the goon going at it.” Eddy stepped closer and bent over the downed man. “Is he dead? I really didn’t mean to kill him.”

  Coop said, “You have a mirror? If you hold it under his nose and it fogs up, he’s breathing.”

  “Do I have a mirror? Nicholas, do you see my handbag with me?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  The guy moaned.

  Both Coop and Eddy scrambled backward.

  We needed to ask him questions. Somehow I didn’t think he’d play nice and cough up the answers without a little persuasion. I glanced around. It was evident he’d been living in here for a while. A pile of dirty clothes filled one corner, personal effects were scattered across a rickety table, and beer cans and pizza boxes were tossed in another corner.

  The motel room smelled like a bar. Spilled booze, body odor, and cigarette smoke mixed with the lingering tang of old pizza. Reminded me of the inside of my father’s bar, but without that comforting homey feeling.

  Rumpled bedding was strewn across the top of the mattress. More out of instinct than intent, I formulated a plan. We were going to get some answers from El Stinko if I had to take him apart piece by piece to do it. Time was of the essence.

  “Help me. Hurry.” I yanked the top sheet off the bed and attemp-ted to tear it.

  Both Coop and Eddy scrambled over the prone figure, who was starting to twitch.

  Between Eddy’s pocketknife and our tugging, we managed to rip the sheet into narrow strips.

  “Roll him over,” I barked.

  Coop grabbed one of the man’s arms and pulled. “Crap. He weighs a ton.”

  Eddy knelt down and started pushing while Coop yanked. If I wasn’t on the edge of complete hysteria, I would’ve laughed and taken a picture of this ridiculousness for posterity. However, a photo like that would’ve helped us score prison sentences of our own. Why did bad guys take pictures and videos of their crimes, anyway? Dumbasses. Nothing like helping the cops make their case against you.

  I shook off my rambling thoughts and rapidly gathered up the strips of cloth.

  Eddy stood and dramatically dusted her hands off. “My work here is done. Tie this man up.”

  I handed Coop a piece of the sheet. He took it and muttered, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  “Could be worse. He could be flatlined.” I wrapped a strip around his wrists and tied it tight as Coop bound his ankles. “Look at it this wa
y. We’ve either got a murderer tied up, or we’ve just made a really big mistake.”

  “If that’s the case,” Eddy said, “Better blindfold him so he can’t recognize us. It was pretty dark in the doorway. I doubt he got much of a look at us before I knocked his sorry keister out.”

  In record time we had the man hog-tied and blindfolded. Coop and I wrestled him into a sitting position. Then we propped him up against the edge of the bed. His moaning was getting louder. We were going to have to literally stuff a sock in it if he didn’t quiet down.

  Eddy pulled up the only chair in the room, a spindly-legged, creaky affair, and settled next to our now-secure suspect. “Too bad I don’t have smelling salts.” She poked one of his thin, pale legs with her foot. “Wake up.”

  He grumbled something, then fell back to moaning.

  I stood and headed for the bathroom. As soon as I walked in, I was completely ooged out. The little room was filthy. The sink was coated with toothpaste spit and whisker shavings. The toilet seat was up, and it was obvious the ding-dong out there either had a crooked ding-a-ling or didn’t know how to aim. Stashed on the tile floor between the sink and the tub was a long-necked bottle of Jack Daniels. That should do the trick. I grabbed it and scooted back out to the prisoner.

  “This might help.” I unscrewed the cap and waved the bottle under his schnoz.

  The pungent aroma hit his nostrils. They twitched. He inhaled and then snorted. Raised his head. I let him take one more sniff of the alcohol, then recapped it.

  Eddy elbowed me. “Give it here.”

  I handed it over.

  “Whaaa ’appened?” His speech was slurred. From the sound of it, he’d already been hitting the bottle hard.

  Then a thought occurred me. What if he’d sustained a concussion from the fall? Concussions were a big problem in sports nowadays. If a player had been knocked out, they often appeared drunk when they came to. If this dude wasn’t dead, which he obviously wasn’t, but had his bell rung a little too hard, we could be in serious trouble. Good thing Eddy told us to blindfold him.

  “Shawn Geller?” I asked. My hands trembled either in terror or from the adrenaline hit.

  “Whaaa …”

  Oh boy.

  Eddy uncapped the booze and gave him another snootful.

  “Who the hell are you?” This time he managed to cough up an entire sentence.

  I repeated, “Are you Shawn Geller?” Best to know for absolutely sure if the person we were about to torture was actually the right bad boy.

  “Yeah. Who the fuck are you? Old biddy from hell.” At least his memory was working to some degree.

  “No,” I said. “She’s the little old biddy from hell. I’m your worst nightmare.”

  Coop stood with his arms crossed, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “Hey,” I whispered to Coop. “It sounded good.”

  He just shook his head.

  I refocused and nudged the dude’s calf with my toes. “Focus. Are you Shawn Geller or not?”

  “Yes, for Chrissake. What the fuck you want?”

  There was something to this power game thing. I felt a rush go through me at the realization that, at least to start with, our man was cooperating. Maybe this was why some cops fell for the seduction of power that a badge can provide. “Where were you yesterday about five?”

  “I was right here, in this stinking hole.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Can I prove it? Who the hell are you people? You’re not the fucking cops.”

  “No.” I bent in close to his ear. “You’ll only wish we were. Did you kill Russell Krasski?” That sounded pretty good, if I did say so myself.

  “What? Kill Krasski? What are you talking about? He’s not dead. You’re a crazy fucking broad.”

  Eddy said, “Were you at the Renaissance Festival yesterday eve-

  ning?”

  “No, I said.” Exasperation tinted his words. “I was right here.”

  Coop said, “Prove it.”

  Geller was silent long enough that I wondered if he needed another sniff of the hard stuff.

  Eddy, however, had plans of her own. She raised her Whacker and gave Geller a smart rap on the forehead.

  “OW!”

  “You,” Eddy said, “were asked a question. Can you prove you were here or not?”

  “I ordered in pizza about seven. Jesus.”

  Eddy whacked him again.

  “OWW! What the fuck was that for?”

  “Stop taking the Lord’s name in vain, young man.”

  I said, “If you ordered pizza about seven, that would still give you enough time to do Krasski and get back here. You could’ve even called the order in from your car.”

  I pictured JT in that conference room just before Detective Roberts manhandled her away, yelling at me to tell Tyrell about Geller and Handy Randy. If she thought one of them might have killed Krasski, there had to be a reason. We just needed to find out what that reason was.

  “Hey,” I poked Geller in the shoulder. He jerked back in reaction to the unexpected prod. “What was your relationship with Krasski?”

  “What is this? I didn’t have a fucking relationship with him. Are you calling me a fag?”

  Eddy popped him in the noggin again.

  “OW!”

  She said, “Don’t be calling anyone ‘fag.’ That’s hurtful. Got it?” She whapped him another one.

  “Ouch! Yeah. Yeah. Crap. Stop with the forehead thing already. I got a bad enough headache.”

  I almost felt sorry for him.

  Eddy told him, “You’re the one who tried to steal my Whacker.”

  “Steal your what? You tried to hit me with that little fucking bat.”

  “I did not. You startled me when you opened the door so fast—”

  “Stop!” I tried hard to keep my voice low. “Let’s get back on track. Geller, did you have a problem with Russell Krasski?”

  “Krasski? He got off while the rest of us went down for his shit. But no. I don’t hold that against him. Why would I? Just cause I spent years in the can while he was out? Free to do whatever the hell he wanted?”

  He was obviously lucid enough to effect sarcasm. There it was: motive.

  Then Geller asked, “Is he really dead?” The pure delight in his voice twisted my insides.

  I said, “Yes.”

  He was either a good liar or was actually telling the truth. But the bad guys always lied. How were you supposed to tell? Maybe police work wasn’t for me after all.

  Geller said, “If that bitch cop hadn’t lost her mind and beat the shit out of him, I mighta walked. Instead, after she fucked everything up, they came after all the rest of us. We were just doing a job—”

  At the mention of JT, my brain momentarily seized. The red haze flared. The desire to sock Geller in the nose made my hands tremble. Before I had a chance to allow the Protector free rein, Eddy took care of it for me.

  She struck like a snake, hard and fast. Really gave Geller a crack.

  He yelped.

  She said in a deadly voice, one I hated to have directed at me, “You leave ‘that cop’ out of this. Selling one human being to another isn’t a job.” Wham. “Doing what you did to those innocent kids.” Bam. “You are the lowest of low. You should be locked up forever. Or maybe dead would be better.” Whack.

  A huge part of me was gleefully cheering Eddy on. However, I grabbed Eddy’s hand before she could bash him again.

  “Listen. Please.” Geller’s tone had changed from aggression to full-fledged whine. “Please. Don’t hit me anymore. I know what we did was wrong. I said I was sorry. I did my goddamned time. What more do you want?”

  Crack! “I told you not to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  Geller cringed, leaning as far bac
k as he could, which wasn’t too far at all. His head bumped the mattress.

  Pathetic, Geller was. Killer of Russell Krasski? No. My gut told me he didn’t cram a pickle down Krasski’s throat or shoot him in the head. Damn. It would have been so much easier if it had been him. But maybe there was one more thing we could wring out of the perv. I asked him, “Who’s Handy Randy?”

  Geller slowly rocked his head back and forth, as if hoping the action would realign the sprockets so he could follow the change in conversation. “Handy Randy? Big Mike.”

  “Big Mike?” I asked.

  “Mike Handler. Why?” Geller’s voice was filled with a cross between suspicion and curiosity.

  I looked at Coop. His arms were crossed, his expression grim. He nodded. At least now we had someone else to check out.

  I straightened up with a groan. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of this pit.”

  “Wait. What about me? You can’t fucking leave me tied up like this. I can’t see a guh—uh—damned thing.” Geller said, his voice a number of octaves higher and tinged with panic.

  Coop said, “The hell we can’t. You just relax and work on those knots. You’ll probably get them undone soon.” He looked around the filthy room. “Unless the rats get to you first. But don’t worry, you won’t see it coming.”

  Holy shit. Coop had a gentle soul. But when someone got to him—really got to him—he was becoming much better about expressing it.

  We filed outside, and I gently pulled the door to room 13 shut. S. Neilson was right: thirteen was certainly not Geller’s lucky number.

  I had to be in a lucid dream. We’d just tied up someone and Eddy’d used his head for batting practice. Amazingly, I didn’t feel one bit bad about it. A certain degree of sadness crept under my skin. I was a good person. So why didn’t I care that we’d just left another human being bound and blindfolded? Geller was no better than Krasski. Considering what he’d done, he deserved whatever came his way.

  The darkness seemed even more absolute as we rapidly retraced our steps to the truck. The office was completely blacked out. “Uncle Steve” was probably enjoying his DVD. I shuddered at the thought.