He gave the tire a therapeutic kick and started for the trunk, only to remember the spare was already in use. His only option was a call for roadside assistance and the hope that a cash payment, a tip, not big enough to be memorable, and his false ID would keep the transaction anonymous. While he waited for help to arrive, he paced the parking lot, muttered about poorly maintained roads, and vowed never to return to Sugarloaf County, Oklahoma.
By the time he had two new tires, the county courthouse was open for business and a line had formed in the Tax Assessor’s Office. He eavesdropped on the conversations around him about topics he didn’t understand. A portly man and a scrawny hawk-nosed woman in front of him debated a recent Sunday sermon. Behind him, a petite woman with chic gray hair, and a weathered woman who looked like she wrestled steers, discussed the merits of critter cams.
Ten minutes and thirty dollars later, Rocco left the courthouse with a spiral-bound book of maps that showed the ownership of every parcel of land in the county. On his way back to his car, he whistled a jaunty tune to celebrate his new plan to kill Abigail Hawkins. But the closer he got to his car, the more he questioned two flats in two days. When he noticed the Sooner State Farmer’s Co-op across from the parking lot, he detoured to test his theory. He wandered through the store, looking at items he never knew existed and couldn’t imagine needing, until he found his way to the sales counter. He flashed a grin at the young clerk. “My brother-in-law’s birthday is coming up. I’d like to get him a critter cam.”
She returned his smile with a mouthful of metal. “We don’t stock the cameras, but lots of places sell them online.”
He leaned in for long chat. “Do they really work?”
She gushed HD, LCD, SD, motion-activated, trigger interval, no glow, infrared flash, wireless-compatible techno-babble. The more she talked and shared what she knew, the calmer Rocco grew. With a logical explanation for the events of the last twenty-four hours, he left the store whistling another lively tune.
Back at his car, he found all four tires in working order and gave a silent cheer that he could return to his plan to take out Hawkins. But his outlook wavered when he found his car door unlocked. On the driver’s seat was a burlap sack tied shut with a rope. Rocco surveyed the parking lot and relaxed. Most of the cars looked like his anonymous sedan. He forgot that he didn’t believe in coincidences and reached for the bag. His fingers brushed against the rough fabric and the sack moved. He took a step back. It moved again.
“You okay there?”
Rocco’s scalp tingled. He turned, forced a smile at the barrel-chested sheriff’s deputy in front of him, and gestured at his front seat. “Hi, officer. Someone made a mistake. That’s my car, but that sack isn’t mine.”
“You know what’s in it, sir?” The deputy rested his hand on his holster and studied the bag.
“No, it was here when I came back from the courthouse.”
“Sir, take a step back.” After the deputy keyed his shoulder radio and asked George to respond to the courthouse parking lot, he gave Rocco a long look. “You aren’t from around here, are you?”
Before Rocco could reply, the two women who stood behind him in the tax office line walked up. The deputy doffed his hat. “Miz Gail, Miz Rita.”
They returned the greeting and eyed Rocco with frank curiosity but the arrival of a service truck emblazoned with the county logo stopped them from asking awkward questions and they continued on their way. The deputy greeted George and the two men stood a healthy distance from Rocco’s car while they discussed the sack.
The longer the men talked, the uneasier Rocco grew. He was about to demand an explanation when a large black pickup drove up. A tinted window slid down to reveal the driver was the small gray-haired woman the deputy addressed as Miz Gail. She smiled at Rocco and waved the deputy over.
“Dub, I clean forgot to ask about your Aunt Lily. I heard she’s in the hospital in Tulsa. Please tell your momma I’m thinking about y’all.” She turned to Rocco. “I hope Dub gets you all fixed up. This is a nice town, and we don’t like it when people have problems.” She gave Rocco a wink and drove off at a speed that sent a spray of gravel shooting behind her.
“That Miz Gail, always thinking about others,” Deputy Dub said. “You’d never know she’s the richest woman in the county and tough as nails. She once walked right up to a rabid coyote and shot it between the eyes before it could attack one of her calves. She’s got the best aim in the county, man or woman, and nerves of steel.” The deputy returned to George’s side and the two men continued their discussion.
Finally, George ambled back to his truck and retrieved a pole with a hook. With a determined look, he transferred the sack from the car to a tall plastic container, maneuvered the rope off, and tipped out the contents. The deputy and George peered into the bucket.
George looked up at Rocco and narrowed his eyes. “So, Mister, who’s out to get you?”
Rocco eased up to the container and looked in. At the bottom was a large brown and tan snake, its tail raised and vibrating.
“Been a long time since I’ve seen one that big,” Deputy Dub said.
“Well-fed,” George agreed. He shifted his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “That is one big copperhead.”
The deputy shook his head and gave Rocco a sad look. “It’s a good thing Miz Gail isn’t here. She’d be sorely disappointed that you’ve got all this trouble.”
“Yessirree Bob,” George said. “That snake would surely upset Miz Abigail Hawkins.”
Memory of the woman’s wink flooded back and Rocco felt his blood pressure spike. “The woman who just left was Abigail Hawkins?”
Deputy Dub cocked his head. “You know about her, do you?”
Rocco tamped down the rage he felt over her taunt. “My brother-in-law told me about the Hawkins Ranch. He and my sister plan to retire around here.” He held up the book of maps and land descriptions. “They asked me to buy this on my way through town so they can match up online real estate listings with the location in the county.”
He’d barely finished the explanation when the deputy and George began to pelt him with questions about why someone would put a venomous snake in his car. But he stuck to his story about being a stranger in town. Finally George clamped a lid on the container, put it in the back of his truck and left, followed shortly by the deputy.
Rocco gave his car one last check and drove to Hawkins’ ranch. The whole time he plotted his revenge with new enthusiasm and didn’t notice the bright blue sky dissolve into a muddy gray. The first thing he saw when he arrived was a black F150 pickup in the driveway. That was all the motivation he needed to implement his carefully calibrated new plan, Operation Double Down. On the county road in front of her house, he gunned his car engine three times and crawled past her property at a pace that demanded attention.
At the quarter mile mark, he executed a three-point turn and returned to his starting point. He repeated the maneuver two more times. On each pass, he eyed a string of outbuildings of various ages, styles, and sizes that fronted the road. The most interesting, a modern hanger-shaped metal structure, looked large enough to house an airplane. His curiosity piqued, he parked and went to inspect it.
Intrigued by the elaborate lock that secured the tall sliding doors, he leaned in for a closer look when the left front tire on his car exploded. He drew, turned, and dropped to a knee. The back tire blew. In disbelief, he watched a third shot shatter his windshield. Now he knew why someone wanted the Hawkins woman dead.
Sure that she was positioned high in the building behind him, he waited for her next shot to take out his gas tank, but the explosion never came. In the unexpected silence, he heard a persistent low-pitched hum. Above, just out of reach, was a bouncing shadow.
Thanks to his new friend at the Co-op, Rocco knew the drone was likely recording his every move. Before he could blast it out of the sky, it lurched around the corner. He followed and watched it hover briefly along the edge of the
metal roof before it darted behind the building.
Before he could follow, a sharp clap of thunder broke his concentration and stopped him in his tracks. The gray sky shifted and turned an ominous shade of green. In the distance, a black wall of roiling clouds soared up. With the image of exploding electrical lines still fresh in his mind, he assessed the wisdom of standing next to a metal structure during a storm and returned to the front of the building where he found the big sliding doors open. Thunder crashed and his hair crackled seconds before multiple flashes of lightning lit up the sky. An extended blast of thunder masked the sound of a massive tractor roll out of the building. The large bucket on the front of the twelve-foot tall machine loomed above and blocked his view of the driver.
Confidant he was more nimble than the machine and could outwit the driver, Rocco stepped to one side. The tractor followed. At each turn, he responded more tightly until he was backed against the building, the tractor advancing. With the machine a scant three feet away, he ducked, shot past at an angle, and ran flat-out.
To his left was the edge of the bluff, steep enough the tractor might tip over if it followed him down. He could circle back to the hanger-like building and use it for shelter, but it could also trap him. The Hawkins house was in front of him. He ran for it, past a brick patio bordered by a curved pergola to the far corner. Through still-bare tree branches he watched the tractor roll up the drive and park behind the black pickup. He drew and braced for a shot. The machine stopped, the engine went off, but the cab door in front of him remained closed.
When light flashed in the cab’s interior, Rocco knew he’d made a mistake. Hawkins exited through a second door, one on the far side of the cab, and was on the move. He kicked the side of the house next to a row of narrow foundation-level windows and almost missed hearing a hinge squeak and a door slam. He edged around the house for a better look, but a wide front porch blocked his view. Sure that she would burst out the back door shooting, Rocco looked for a better place to regroup.
The sky lit up and illuminated his choices. If he went down the bluff he would be forced to cross open pasture and risk a lightning hit or sniper shot from above. He could go halfway down and run the length. Lightning would still be a risk, but he was confident that Hawkins wouldn’t follow and risk her eighty-year-old hips.
The wind shifted as he began his descent. Rain blew directly into his face, slicing at his skin like shards of glass and obscuring his visibility in the muddy slosh down. He felt rather than saw the ground level out. To his left was a notch in the bluff. A wide rock projected out to offer protection from the rain and lightning. He backed into the hollowed-out area and felt a wood doorframe built into the dirt wall behind him. From a crouch, he pulled open the door and counted to ten. When nothing happened, he stood up and stepped into darkness.
In front of him, lightning backlit a row of high narrow windows. Thunder crashed and the space went dark. Rocco balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to bolt when white light exploded in his face. It went out and was replaced by a pinpoint red beam. The dot moved from right to left and he imagined it crawl across his forehead before it paused in what he thought was a spot between his eyes. Then the red light dropped and stopped over his heart.
“You’ve got a choice,” a woman’s voice said. “You stay in my storm cellar, and we both know how this will end. You take your chances outside with the tornado, and you might survive so you can go back where you came from.”
Rocco changed the plan again. He decided uncertainty was better than a sure thing.
Rosemary McCracken
Rosemary McCracken writes the Pat Tierney mystery series: Safe Harbor, which was a finalist for Britain’s Debut Dagger, Black Water, and Raven Lake. Her short fiction has appeared in various collections and magazines. “The Sweetheart Scamster” was shortlisted for a Derringer award in 2014. Rosemary is a member of Sisters in Crime National and Toronto, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, Crime Writers of Canada, and the Mesdames of Mayhem. She lives in Toronto and teaches novel writing at George Brown College. Find her at rosemarymccracken.com.
The Sweetheart Scamster
Rosemary McCracken
“Mrs. Sullivan is here for her appointment,” Rose Sisto, my administrative assistant, announced at my office door.
I looked up from the papers I was studying as Trudy Sullivan slipped into the chair across from my desk.
“Good morning, Pat,” she said.
I smiled at my client. Trudy’s silver hair had been cut in an attractive new style. She was wearing more makeup than usual, and it accentuated her high cheekbones and deep blue eyes. She was also sporting a smart fall suit. New hairdo, new makeup, new clothes. She looked fabulous—and far younger than her seventy-four years.
“A new man in your life, Trudy?” But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to bite them back. Trudy had been mourning her husband’s death for the past three years. I wasn’t sure how she’d take my flip question.
“As a matter of fact, there is. I’m seeing a nice gentleman.”
I realized then how lonely Trudy had been. She was Ernie’s second wife, and from what he’d told me, they’d had a happy marriage. She became my client after his accident, and I’d been meeting with her every four months. She was a reserved woman, not given to joining clubs and social groups, and I had the impression that she had few friends. Her two daughters lived in other cities, and Ernie’s sons seemed to have dropped her after their father’s death. Yes, she had been lonely, but now she had someone in her life.
And that made me sit up straight in my chair. As a financial advisor, I’m well aware there are complexities to grey romance that are seldom present in youthful relationships. Ernie had been a heavy gambler, so Trudy had to be careful with her money. But she had his big home in Toronto’s Beaches neighbourhood and enough investment income to stay there as long as her good health continued. I wanted to know more about this friend of hers. A lonely woman can be an easy mark for fortune hunters.
“What’s your gentleman’s name?” I asked.
“Jim.” She didn’t give his surname.
“I take it Jim’s retired.”
“Oh, yes.”
“You see him on weekends? Saturday night dates?”
“Not just on weekends.” She lowered her eyes again. “You might say we’ve become very close.”
This romance had got off to a galloping start.
“We’re not living together,” she said, “but who knows...?”
I needed to ask some hard questions about Jim. What he did during his working years, where he lived, if he had a family. But I wasn’t sure how to begin.
“Let’s go over your investment portfolio.” I hoped an opening would present itself there.
My mind was clicking away as I showed her the changes I’d made to her investments and explained why.
“Does Jim work with a financial advisor?” I asked when I’d finished.
“I don’t know. He’s never brought it up and I’ve never asked him.”
Of course not. Trudy’s generation of women considers it crass to talk about money.
Then she surprised me by asking for some.
“I need a bit extra this month, Pat. Ten thousand dollars.”
Ten thousand dollars. I was about to launch into my spiel about living within her budget, but she beat me to it.
“You’re going to say I mustn’t run through my money if I want to stay in the house. Well, I may sell it.”
I nearly fell out of my chair. Trudy had been adamant about remaining in her home even though she would have had more money to live on if she’d downsized. Was Jim pressuring her to sell the house?
“It’s something I’m considering,” she continued, “but for now I need ten thousand dollars. Cash me out of some bonds.”
It was her money, of course, but I wanted to know why she needed it. “You’re planning something nice?” I asked.
She looked me in the eye. “A surpris
e for Jim.”
I swallowed hard, and thought of contacting her daughters. But I quickly dismissed that idea. It would be a breach of client confidentiality.
I looked at the woman seated across from me. Trudy was a competent adult with every right to form a new relationship and do whatever she wanted with her money.
I told her the ten grand would be in her bank account in a few days. But I had grave misgivings as I watched her leave my office.
“You look worried,” my business partner Stéphane Pratt said when he sat down in the client’s chair five minutes later.
I told him about Trudy’s new beau, and that she planned to surprise him with a lavish gift.
“You think he’s one of those sweetheart scamsters?” Stéphane asked.
“Is that what they’re called?”
“I watched a television program on sweetheart fraud,” he said. “The scamster tries to win the affection of a lonely person, then takes over his or her financial affairs. When the money is gone, the sweetheart leaves the victim.”
“Trudy was very astute when we went over Ernie’s financial statements, and now she wants updates on all her holdings. I can’t see her falling prey to one of those crooks.” But I couldn’t shake the idea that she’d been taken in by a con man who would leave her destitute and heartbroken.
Stéphane gave me a tight smile. “When people fall in love, common sense flies out the window.”
A week later, Trudy reached me on my cell phone. As soon as I heard her voice, I braced myself for a request for more money.
“I thought I’d let you know that Jim and I are getting married,” she said. “I’m changing my will. My lawyer will send you a copy.”
The Best Laid Plans Page 20