Bubbles Ablaze (29 page)

He started to crawl in. I called after him, “How do you know McMullen shot Price?”

“Bud Price and I drove to the mine together. He had contacted me Wednesday evening at the Hole, swearing accusations
that I was in cahoots with McMullen. That's when I told him about the excavation under his Dead Zone and Price insisted I take him down that night and show him. So, a few hours later he arrived and we went down together through an access hole. Price was so pissed at the excavation, he wanted to get out right away and call McMullen.” Stinky sighed and continued. “He ran ahead of me and that's when I saw McMullen shoot Bud Price. I think he saw me, too, because he took a couple of shots as I hurried back up the ladder.”

Hence, the multiple shots in the mine. Hence, the reason why McMullen was so desperate to get hold of Stinky.

“I ran into the woods. I didn't even dare get into my car. McMullen knew my car. He'd bought it for me.”

The door at the top of the stairs opened and Roxanne screamed, “Bubbles. It's Donohue.”

“Wait,” I hissed, crawling even deeper into the dark and grabbing Stinky's sweater. “Why did you send me the fax?”

“What fax?”

“The fax you sent to the Passion Peak Wednesday night telling me that a businessman had been shot in the Number Nine mine.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Bubbles. How would I know that you were at the Passion Peak?” He shook off my hand. “Now let me go.”

A
s they say in the women's room at the Girls A-Go-Go strip club on Stefko Boulevard, when the going gets tough, the tender get naked. Unfortunately, this was the night I'd chosen a snakeskin bodysuit and getting naked was not a zip, slide and done deal like it usually is for me.

But I managed. I even tussled my hair.

“What the! . . .” Donohue's eyes popped out of their sockets as I crawled out of Stinky's den doing my Lady Godiva impersonation.

“Oh, Bubbles,” clucked Mama. “Not again.”

Roxanne winked. “See, Chief, I told you not to disturb her.”

“Do you mind,” I said, holding the little piece of bodysuit up to cover—barely—my strapless black Wonderbra and black thong. I had tossed the gored skirt onto the floor.

“Who do you got in there?” Donohue said, nodding to the door.

“What? Don't tell me it's a crime, Chief, to make a little hay at a hoedown.” I lowered the bodysuit as if to step back into it.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, cringing. “Don't do that.”

“You don't want me to get dressed? I don't understand.” I batted my eyes innocently. “You want me to stay naked?”

“No, uhm.” Donohue turned his back. “I won't peek.”

“You want me to stay naked and then you say you won't peek?” I protested. “I don't trust you. Go upstairs and come back.”

“This is ridiculous. I know Koolball's in there.”

“Jack Donohue,” cried Mama in mock indignation. “This is my daughter here. What will people think when I tell them that
the Chief of Police insisted on standing by while a naked woman got dressed?”

Donohue's neck reddened. “Five minutes,” he said gruffly, stomping up the stairs. “Five minutes and then I'm looking in that door below the stairs.”

“What are we going to do now?” Roxanne asked as soon as Donohue was out of earshot.

I shook out the bodysuit and stepped in. “Stinky says the tunnel lets out by the dugout in the softball field. Mama, find a man who's game to go down it. A man who won't ask why, just where.”

“Gotcha.” She scrambled up the stairs.

“And make him good-looking,” I called after her. “I got a reputation to uphold.”

“Will I ever see my Stinky again?” Roxanne asked, smearing away tears with her rhinestoned fingertips. “What will it take to get him back home?”

I snapped the crotch and picked up the skirt. “It'll take us finding whoever was behind Hugh McMullen. That's the guy Stinky fears most.”

Bang! Bang! Bang!
“You done yet?” Donohue hollered.

“I got a problem with the crotch!” I called back. “It's riding up my crack.”

There was a stunned silence. “Disgusting,” he replied.

Roxanne and I bit our cheeks to keep from giggling.

“How are we going to find the guy who was behind Hugh McMullen?” Roxanne whispered.

“Shouldn't be too hard.” I got a brush out of my purse and attempted to fix my hair without a mirror. “He's the same guy who hired Zeke Allen to tail me. He sent me the fax and Stiletto the e-mail. And now I think he's intercepted Stiletto. All of which means he wants me to hunt him out.”

“No way!” Roxanne's eyes were wide. “Sounds dangerous. I'll help you however I can if helping you means getting my Stinkster back.”

“Move aside, Chief,” Mama said. “I'll let you know if my daughter's decent.”

She trundled down the stairs.

“What happened to all that chemistry?” I said.

“Might say it fizzled. Donohue's too much a square for this hot mama.” She glanced at Stinky's door and then at me. “You decent?”

“Are you?”

“Decent as I'll ever be.” She leaned around the railing. “Okay, Chief, you can come down now.”

Donohue took the stairs slowly. “I know Koolball's in there, Bubbles.”

I put my hand to my chest in shock. “Are you suggesting that I slept with my cousin's husband?”

“Don't give me that.” He pulled out a ring of keys. “When I find him, I'm going to charge both of you with obstruction of justice.”

“It's unlocked, Chief,” I said. “No need for a key.”

“Doesn't mean you're not hiding him.” He pulled open the door and leaned in. “Carl? Carl Koolball? You in there?”

We waited a good ten minutes in silence. Roxanne was so dismayed that she rubbed her cheeks and got silver body spray all over her palms. I patted her back comfortingly. “Have no fear, Roxanne.”

“Pete Zidukis is here!” exclaimed Donohue.

“Evening, Chief.” Hunched over, crooked little Pete Zidukis crept out of the passageway. His knees were covered with dirt and there was a cobweb sticking to his plaid shirt. He put his hand behind his back and gave it a long crack.

Pete Zidukis? That was the best Mama could rustle up? That was my hoedown honey?

“Gosh, that felt good.”

“I'll bet it did,” said Donohue.

Pete narrowed his eyes. “I was talking about the stretch, Jack.”

“I wasn't.” Donohue bent down. “I hope you people have had fun with your joke. Now let me get in there.” He huffed and groaned as he crawled on hands and knees into the dark passageway.

“That was a killer,” Pete said to us, as Donohue inched his way
through the tunnel. “I didn't have no light, neither. I was lucky I met Koolball on my way out. He loaned me this.” He pulled the penlight out of his pocket and clicked it on.

“Thanks, Pete,” I said, planting a kiss on his forehead. “You showed gumption.”

“Gumption I got. Knees I don't.” He bent over stiffly and massaged his kneecaps.

“You sure Stinky is out?” Roxanne peered into the passageway where Donohue's rump made a shadow against his flashlight.

“Free and clear,” said Pete. “Told me to tell you not to worry. He said he was gonna get out of Dodge until this was resolved.” He turned to me. “What did he mean by that?”

“He means that we have to tie up a lot of loose ends.” I reflected on Stinky's use of the word “resolved” and all the pieces that needed to be put in the puzzle. There was one piece I hadn't asked about lately. Who were the men who had asked about me at Price Family Ford and then left their key chain on my kitchen counter? Who broke into Roxanne's dresser drawer?

Chief Donohue grunted as he backed out of the hole. “He's gone.” He dusted off his uniform. “But not forgotten. Koolball's still in town and he needs to come forward, Roxanne. It's not right for him to be running from the law.”

“Yes, sir,” Roxanne said, barely able to disguise her relief that Stinky had escaped.

“Incidentally, Bubbles,” Donohue said. “I'll be needing a phone number so I can contact that boyfriend of your daughter's.” Donohue took out a notepad. “Dispatch radioed me back. No law enforcement officer in this county, including the state police and sheriffs, picked up a seventeen-year-old girl today. I don't know what's happened to Price's stepdaughter, but I can tell you she didn't go off with no cop.”

“Now, what?” Roxanne said as we walked down the hallway toward the Hoagie Ho. “How are we going to get hold of Stinky?”

“Don't worry about Stinky,” I said, my mind on other, more important matters. “Stinky's in the Hole.”

“He is? But I thought Donohue couldn't find him there.”

The boom-bass band launched into “I Don't Want Her. You Can Have Her. She's Too Fat for Me.” Why don't they make a song, “I Don't Want Him. You Can Have Him. He Watches Too Much Football. Is A Lazy Slob For Me?”

“I'm talking about the Hole that's the bar next door,” I said. “That's where Bud Price reached Stinky on Wednesday night. But don't go over there yet.” I watched as Donohue helped himself to a huge slice of pie. “Stinky's safer there than anywhere else.”

Genevieve approached us, her giant arm wrenched affectionately around the neck of her beloved Pete. “How did my man do? Not bad, eh?”

“Not bad,” I said absently.

“You don't seem very appreciative, Bubbles,” Genevieve said with disappointment. “Pete's got two metal hips after working fifty-odd years as a mechanic. He can't bend and scooch like a kid. You should say ‘thank you.' ”

“She did, Genevieve,” Pete protested.

Mechanic? “Tell me, Pete,” I said, getting an idea. “You ever hear of an F1 Ford?” It was an F1 Ford that brought the Slagville men to Price Family Ford and Tallow said Chrissy had driven off in an antique pickup. I was betting those were the same trucks.

“A beaut of a pickup,” Pete said. “Made 'em in 1949.”

“Know anyone around here who drives one?”

Pete pursed his lips and thought about this. “Nowadays you don't see them 'cept in parades. And we got a lot of parades in Slagville. Let me ask Norbert. He put together the Fourth of July event this year.”

He hobbled over and spoke to Norbert, who thumbed his red suspenders and offered Pete a suggestion. Pete nodded and returned.

“There were two F1 pickups in the Fourth of July parade,” he
said. “One was owned by Geordie Hodgson, but he sold it to a yuppie couple from St. Louis. The other's still owned, as far as Norbert knows, by a Seamus O'Malley.”

“Who is Seamus O'Malley? Does he live in Slagville?”

“Go on, Bubbles. You've met him yourself,” Roxanne said. “He's Vilnia's husband.”

“I
knew they were up to something, those Sirens,” Mama said, after returning from the ladies' room. “Come on, Genevieve, let's go get 'em. And this time we're not backing down. I got my pastry pin oiled and ready to roll.”

Riled up like this, Mama reminded me of a Boston terrier who needed to lay off the dog chow. Fat, nasty and bug-eyed. Ready to nip the mailman on his heels.

“Hold on. How do you know the Sirens are involved?” I asked her. “Maybe Vilnia's husband took Chrissy Price on his own?”

“Get real. Vilnia's husband doesn't do anything on his own.”

The Hoagie Ho was winding down and folks were going home. I checked my watch. After ten already. Chief Donohue was surveying the crowd, hoping perhaps for a quick glimpse of a disguised Stinky.

“Shouldn't you be headed to Lehigh?” Donohue asked Mama and Genevieve. “As I recall, that was the deal.”

“Darn,” said Genevieve. “Just when things were getting good.”

Donohue cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Is something going on that I don't know about?”

“They're going to Lehigh,” I said, ignoring Mama's scowl. “Perhaps you'd like to escort them to the city limits. After all, the Hoagie Ho is over.”

“Bubbles!” Mama stomped her boot. “But, I—”

“That would suit me fine,” Donohue said, offering his arm. “Madame?”

Mama took it, although she stuck out her tongue at me when Donohue's head was turned.

“We'll let your friend enjoy her one last song,” he said. “And then you're out of here.”

Genevieve and Pete were in a slow dance. “Goodnight Irene” played on the accordion. Pete rested his head on Genevieve's bread loaf of a bosom as the two of them shuffled back and forth. In the spirit of reconciliation, Mama dragged Donohue onto the floor where they began an awkward box step.

“Let's go,” I murmured to Roxanne.

“Now can we get Stinky?” Roxanne said when we were outside. “Donohue will be driving your mother and Genevieve out of town.”

“Leave Stinky where he is,” I said, unlocking the Camaro. “We've got to save Chrissy Price.”

I unfolded my Columbia County street map, flicked on the interior light and tried to figure out the shortest way to Vilnia's using back roads, to reduce the chances of us being followed. Finally, I chose a meandering route that connected collieries.

“Why do you think the Slagville Sirens kidnapped Chrissy Price?” I asked Roxanne as we arrived in the patch.

“I don't know. My mother was a Slagville Siren, but I never was.”

“How come?”

Roxanne opened a bottle of Diet Pepsi she'd bought at the Hoagie Ho. “Mostly because I never married a miner. That's one of the requirements to be a Slagville Siren.”

“Oh.”

I tried to conceive why a collection of miners' wives would kidnap the widow of a murdered car salesman. Was it that they were opposed to casino gambling? Were they hard up for money and hoped to hold her for ransom? I prayed that if they had kidnapped Chrissy they hadn't hurt her or Sasha.

Vilnia's house was lit up like a Christmas season shopping mall. Cars were parked on the sidewalk out front in an interesting arrangement suggesting that the rules of parallel parking did not apply. I thought it best to leave the Camaro at the end of the patch.

Roxanne, still in her sapphire blue with the rhinestones, and I in the snakeskin, walked down the opposite side of the street. I was freezing and wished I had brought a coat.

“How are we going to get in there?” Roxanne asked when we came into view of Vilnia's house. “You gonna knock on the door and say, open up, we know you have Chrissy Price?”

“No. We're going to start in the garden.”

I decided that we needed to scope out the situation before we stormed the place. If there was a raucous party going on, then perhaps we could slip in undetected through the basement. Maybe Chrissy and Sasha were tied up down there. If all was quiet, then we'd have to create a disturbance outside, something to send the Sirens running into the street while one of us snuck inside and searched for the victims.

We pussyfooted down the alley and opened the squeaky gate to Vilnia's garden that was partially lit by her kitchen light. The tomato vines had been yanked, their stakes still in place for next season, and the ground had been mulched. It smelled of rotting leaves and damp earth. We stepped around carrots, spinach and a few pumpkins. Already a thick layer of frost was spreading across their orange flesh.

“What are they doing?” Roxanne crouched behind a rhododendron bush and peeked in the kitchen window. Vilnia was pacing, her hands behind her back, and dictating to a woman with her back to us who was working at a computer laptop, its screen blazing bright blue. Another woman was at the table, also typing on a laptop, except she was talking on the phone, too.

I tiptoed over to Roxanne for a closer look. It took me a few minutes to recognize them all.

“That's Tammy on the computer,” I said. “And look, isn't that the client you were working on who wanted to know all about Stiletto? I nicknamed her in my mind the human prune.” I pointed to a woman who was flipping through papers on a clipboard.

“Oh, you mean my Thursday at ten?”

“Who?”

Roxanne nodded to Mrs. Frazier, the woman who had been reading the
Cosmo
article and getting her hair washed earlier in the day. “Look. There's my Wednesday at six-thirty.”

“And Mrs. Wychesko!” Mrs. Wychesko came barreling through with a tray full of cups filled with coffee.

“Over there is my Saturday at eight.” Roxanne sighed. “Why, they're all my clients.”

We watched them rush around, calling, faxing, typing, drinking coffee like they were air traffic controllers at O'Hare.

“This is quite an operation, Roxanne. What are they up to?”

“Maybe they've kidnapped Chrissy Price to sell her on the white slave market and they're negotiating with an Arab sheik for more money?” my sometimes odd cousin suggested. “Or maybe they're with the CIA. I've heard the CIA likes to set up shop in small towns.”

“And you think your husband's paranoid.”

“Whatever it is, they sure are organized. I've never seen women work together so well,” she said. “You got six women there and they're not even stopping to gossip.”

It was the word gossip that pulled my mental light switch. “Roxanne. These women, they are all the ones that Stinky blackmailed.”

“You're right. Wow.”

“Except, we now know that Stinky didn't blackmail anyone and that the equipment in the basement was for fire extinguishers.”

“Uh-huh,” Roxanne agreed slowly. “And your point is?”

“If he wasn't listening in on their conversations and using the gossip in the salon to blackmail them, then who was?”

Roxanne sat on her haunches and thought a bit. “The same guy who pressured Hugh McMullen to lean on Stinky to hurry up with that fire extinguisher?”

“No.” I turned to her. “No one. No one blackmailed them.”

“Huh?”

I saw my chance. One of the Sirens was walking to the kitchen door. I hurried over and hid in the shadow of the eaves. She opened the screen door and stepped out. From her pocket she removed a packet of cigarettes, shook one out and lit it. She exhaled and I leaped, grabbing her as Stiletto had grabbed me at the inn, by putting one arm around her waist and my other hand over her mouth.

She kicked and attempted to scream, but I clenched her tighter. Roxanne rushed from the bushes and froze when we moved into the light from the kitchen.

“Jesus, Bubbles. Do you know who that is? I recognize her from her picture in the paper.”

The woman in my clutches was slender and wearing a deliciously smooth black silk blouse over her jeans. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail.

“Missy mice,” mumbled my captive.

“She's
Chrissy Price!
”

“Let her go!” Vilnia said. The icy barrel of a gun pressed against my spine. I was in no need of further convincing. I let Chrissy go.

“Now put up your hands. You, too, Roxanne.” Roxanne, her eyes the size of doughnuts, lifted her rhinestone fingertips.

“Run, Chrissy,” I screeched. “Get the neighbors. Call the cops.”

Chrissy, who was still holding her cigarette, took another drag and sneered as she exhaled. Her eyebrows were plucked to severe lines and those cheekbones were unreal. Implants. “Vilnia. Who is this tramp?”

“I came to save you, Chrissy,” I said. “Why aren't you running?”

“Oh, I know.” Chrissy wagged her finger. “She's that Bubbles Yablonsky. The hairdresser with the reporter complex.”

“Bingo.” Vilnia gripped the back of my neck and waved us in with her pistol. “Now let's go inside before the neighbors get interested. You, too, Roxanne.”

“Are you going to kill us?” Roxanne said, stepping past me into the kitchen. “Like you shot Mr. Price?”

“I didn't shoot Price,” Vilnia said, locking the kitchen door behind us and stuffing the pistol in her waistband. “McMullen did.”

“He did?” Roxanne's hands were still raised. “For certain?”

“You missed that part. You were upstairs at the Hoagie Ho when Stinky told me he saw the whole thing.” I dropped my hands and shook them. “I'm not doing that anymore. It hurts, like when we were in gym class.”

“Have a seat.” Roxanne and I sat. Vilnia addressed her crew. “Ladies, I doubt you need further introduction.”

Roxanne's clients waved casually. The sparkling white kitchen was a far cry from what it had been on my first visit. Manila folders were stacked on the burners of the cold stove. The chopping board was littered with newspaper clippings. Gone were the pots of potato soup and the bubbling apple crisp. In were Rolodexes and whirring printers. Even Vilnia looked different. She was wearing a two-piece Adidas black nylon running suit and sneakers.

It wasn't only the apple crisp that was missing, though. The woman whose back had been turned to us was gone, too. And she'd taken the laptop with her.

Chrissy Price strolled across the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of mineral water. Then she sauntered out to the living room with the air of a queen bee. Were these women working for her?

“Well, Bubbles,” Vilnia said, crossing her arms, “I'm just glad we caught you before you really screwed up everything.”

“What? What is this
thing
you've got going on?” I didn't know what to call it.

“We like to call it the Slagville Project,” Vilnia said. “But first, cake.” She went to the counter and sliced up two pieces of Entenmann's, the butt end of her gun sticking out beyond her Adidas jacket.

“Goody.” Roxanne clapped her hands. “Cake.”

I jabbed her in the ribs. “Be serious, Roxanne. Vilnia pointed a gun at us.”

“Oh, yeah.” She slouched. “Hope it's chocolate, though.”

Vilnia handed us our cake. “It's chocolate, all right,” she said. “The girls need the caffeine.”

Roxanne dug in, but I put mine aside. “This has to do with being miners' wives, right?”

“Not completely.” Vilnia addressed the group again. “Is it okay if I fill in Bubbles about the Slagville Project?”

The women unanimously said yes and went back to work.

Vilnia poured herself a cup of tea and sat down opposite us. “Thirty years ago, my son, a more loving boy you'd never meet, came home from Penn State for the first week of deer season. He went hunting in the woods with his friends not far from here and fell three hundred and fifty feet down an abandoned shaft owned—but not maintained, you see—by McMullen Coal.”

I gasped. Poor Vilnia!

“I remember that,” Roxanne said, swallowing a mouthful of cake. “That was awful, Vilnia.”

Vilnia tossed her head. “It was years ago, but you never get over losing a child. All these women in this room have either lost a father or a brother or, in my situation, a son, because of mining. Most of their men died on the job because of cave-ins or black lung. Many are like me, we lost men because the coal companies took from the earth what they wanted and never fixed the damage. No matter, though, McMullen Coal was at fault.”

“But the company was never held accountable,” I said. “So McMullen Coal never paid for the harm it caused. Is that why you had Hugh McMullen shot?”

Vilnia sipped her tea and put her cup down slowly. “Women don't respond to violence with violence. We know that for every person who dies there is a mother who grieves.” She put her fist to her chest. “We know that in our bones.”

“It's so true.” Roxanne was beginning to cry. Vilnia reached across the table and got her a tissue.