Hide & Find (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 3) (17 page)

CHAPTER 18

The Six Shooter Storage Solutions gated entrance looked as though a battalion had moved through. Slushy tire tracks crisscrossed the short driveway and small parking lot in front of the office. And more tracks led to and from all the major arteries between the long rows of storage units.

“It’s supposed to be quiet,” Clarice muttered.

We’d hoped that Lutsenko would agree to a mid-week, mid-day meeting, assuming that most people moved or checked on their excess household goods on the weekends. Apparently hoarding was also popular on Thursdays. Not good.

I aimed Lentil down Wild Bill Hickok Way and noted the single set of tire tracks that pulled straight into unit 231. Josh materialized at my window, and I cranked it down.

“We’re clear. Give me your keys. Can’t count on it snowing hard enough in the next hour to fill in all these tracks. You bring enough cash?” He whipped the words out in a rapid staccato, deadly serious — operations mode.

“I hope so.” I patted the bulging wads in my coat pockets and shivered as reality sank in. This was not a game. And no matter how many mental run-throughs I’d done, hiccups were bound to occur.

Clarice and I piled out of the truck, grabbed the suitcase out of the back, and trotted after Josh to unit 231. The door rolled up for us, revealing two sets of legs, and we ducked under.

Like us, Tarq and Loretta were also swaddled in heavy cold-weather gear. Tarq’s pickup with the homemade plywood canopy was nosed as far back in the unit as it could go, right up against the small pile of gold-filled crates, leaving a little clearance for us to shuffle around each other. Josh dropped the tailgate and pulled out two black carrying cases. He popped one open and handed me a pistol.

It was heavy for its size, and I almost dropped it. “It’s not a .22,” I said. The only gun I’d ever fired in my life had been a .22 junker, and it had felt like a toy compared to what I now held.

The briefest wisp of humor flitted across Josh’s face as he handed an identical pistol to Clarice. “9mm Glocks. No safeties, so be careful. But you’ll have to pull the trigger hard — five pounds of pressure — to fire them. Okay?”

“Yep,” Clarice grunted, clearly enthralled with the weapon in her hands.

“Use it if you need to. Be careful what you aim at,” Josh said.

I’d been hoping for a little more detailed instruction, and my expression must have said as much. Granted, the idea of actually using the guns was only in Plan Z and only for self-defense, but since we didn’t have Plans B through Y, I was feeling at a loss holding the potentially lethal hunk of metal in my hand.

Josh shrugged. “No time.”

“We have two and a half hours.”

“Lutsenko will show up early, guaranteed. And the snow’s a problem,” Josh said. “We need to get into position, stat.”

I rearranged the contents of my pockets and stuffed the pistol into the biggest, easiest-to-reach patch pocket on my right side. Clarice made similar adjustments for herself while Josh pulled a rifle out from under the pickup canopy.

“Got your hand warmers?” he asked Loretta.

She nodded and pointed to her own pockets and accepted the rifle from him with remarkable nonchalance.

Again, my face must have been something to behold, because Josh grinned at me. “She’s a crack shot.”

“We’ve been practicing,” Loretta piped, a pleased smile on her face. “When I was a kid, I used to shoot starlings in my dad’s orchard.”

“We don’t shoot for money anymore because she beats me every time.” Tarq’s chuckle was tinged with pride. “A regular Annie Oakley.”

“Apropos, considering our environs,” Clarice muttered.

“Speaking of environs,” Josh touched Loretta’s shoulder, “let’s get you on the roof. Wait for my sign that your path’s clear.” He rolled the door up all the way, exposing our little powwow to anyone who might happen to drive by. He gave us a short nod. “See you on the other side.” Then he dodged around the corner and was gone.

In our lumpy coats, jeans and boots, we probably looked like everyone else in town, but I couldn’t help feeling as though I had the words ‘glaring undercover novice’ stamped on my forehead.

Loretta stuffed her hair under a gray knit hat and gave me a quick squeeze. “This is so worth it, darling. We’re going to nail that bastard.” Then she spotted the signal she was waiting for from across the aisle and disappeared into the white curtain of snow.

I glanced at Clarice and then at Tarq. We shared grim nods and set off on our respective tasks.

My responsibility was to clear innocent bystanders and staff out of the compound. Hence the cash. Who wouldn’t want to pad their wallets a little by taking an unexpected break? Surely they could all find more convenient things to do for the next few hours.

The negotiations would be risky. Hugely so, because everybody knows just about everybody else around here, and word was bound to get out. In fact, word was sure to reach the attentive ears of my favorite sheriff eventually, and I didn’t want to have to answer his heated questions until they were a moot point.

There was also the chance that, if given too much advance notice, people might have time to tell their friends that a crazy woman was offering a bounty to hightail it off the property and that might actually draw more witnesses to the scene hoping to earn a payoff themselves.

A couple scruffy fellows in their equally scruffy pickup with a load of dinged-up gym equipment were amenable to vanishing for fifty dollars each. They mentioned starting happy hour an hour early. Fifty bucks can buy a lot of beer.

A man in the middle of a contentious divorce with a moving van full of bachelor-quality furniture took more convincing because he’d have to pay the rental fee on the van for another day. Two Franklins cheered him up considerably, although I hadn’t been prepared for the accompanying life story. Poor guy just needed to talk.

Then, on Jesse James Lane, I spotted a familiar dented green Buick, and my heartbeat quickened. I jogged to the open unit and found Selma, Mindy, and a painfully thin, wasted looking girl who had to be Laney, Selma’s daughter and Mindy’s mother.

Selma did a double-take, delight quickly overtaking the surprise on her face. “Nora!”

I beckoned. “Please. Can I talk to you?”

Selma skirted around a couple gnawed barstools and a rolled-up rug to come closer. I was keenly aware of Laney and Mindy staring at me — Mindy with frank curiosity and Laney with bitter boredom.

“Outside,” I whispered.

Selma pulled her hood up and hugged her arms across her chest, but she complied.

Snowflakes landed on my nose and eyelashes and cheeks while I talked quickly and quietly. “I can’t explain, but you must leave. Don’t come back here until tomorrow at the earliest.” I held a couple folded bills out to her. “Take Mindy and Laney for a nice dinner somewhere.”

Selma’s congeniality dissolved into an irritated scowl. “I was happy to do you and your husband a favor, but don’t you go waving more cash at me. I was hoping we could be friends later — in a while — you know.” She squinted away, toward the snow accumulating in the Buick’s open trunk.

“I’m trying to get to the later,” I hissed. “But I’m sorry. I won’t pull the money angle again.” I stuffed the bills back in my pocket. “For your own safety, you must not be here for the next several hours. I can’t tell you why.”

Selma’s big brown eyes returned to me, widening, evaluating. “But Laney finally got a decent job,” she said hesitantly. “She needs some things to get started with in her new apartment.”

“Can you be out in five minutes if I help you load?”

Now Selma looked worried. “Are you in trouble?”

I tried to smile. “Par for the course. Let’s hurry.”

I saw Selma off, the women crammed inside the car with a bunch of boxes, and the trunk lid tied down over a chair and the bottom half of a computer desk.

Lentil came roaring down the lane and skidded to a stop next to me. I jumped out of the way, but not before I got splattered from the knees down.

“Rest of the place is empty,” Josh called through the open window. “Just the clerk in the office is left.”

“I’m on it,” I hollered back.

He nodded and popped the old girl into gear, laying down tracks and flinging rooster tails of slush. Josh was apparently applying the philosophy that if you can’t hide them, you should join them — or multiply them, or whatever.

I jogged to the front of the property.

I paid for the clerk’s family’s groceries for the next two weeks and flipped the sign in the window to ‘Closed’ while she locked up. At my request, she left the rolling chain-link gate open just wide enough for a single car. I promised to padlock it when we were finished.

From her ready acquiescence, I wondered if I wasn’t the first person to grease her palms. And that made me wonder just what was in all the storage units. It was clearly a busy place, very near a major interstate freeway. Maybe that’s why the occupancy rate was so high. Maybe half the units were full of contraband. Maybe, months from now when my coast was clear, I should offer a friendly suggestion to Des that he walk a drug-sniffing dog through this joint.

I was giving the entrance one last perusal when Josh brought Lentil sliding through the small parking lot. He cut several nice donuts — Lentil’s bald tires being especially conducive to such maneuvers.

I held my arms out in a what-on-earth-are-you-doing gesture. Behind the fogged-up windshield, Josh’s face was clamped in a grim expression. He fishtailed the back end, then rumbled down Wyatt Earp Drive and whipped around the corner at the far end.

Good grief. I hoped he was just blowing off steam while churning up tracks, wiping out all breadcrumbs that might be useful to Lutsenko. I’d become fond of Lentil and was just getting comfortable with her quirks. And while another dent or two wouldn’t make much difference, I had hoped to continue driving the pickup for a good, long time. I didn’t need a reckless former FBI agent wrecking my ride.

But if Josh had finished dealing with the snow glitch and had gone to tuck Lentil into her hiding spot, then we were ready — as ready as we’d ever be, at any rate. Which meant I had to get out of sight too.

My prearranged lookout spot was situated inside one of the cinderblock enclosures spaced at the end of every other aisle for the dumpsters. Each one held a large trash receptacle and a recycling bin. Why the facility’s developers thought dumpsters had to be protected from vandals, thieves or just plain old bad drivers, I had no idea, but they made good shelters and observation posts.

I kept to one of the tire trails Josh had left through the slush so my footprints wouldn’t give me away and staked out my turf. The space was full of jumbled cardboard boxes that people hadn’t bothered to flatten, and I stacked them strategically, but apparently haphazardly, so I could peep out without being obvious.

It brought back childhood memories of assembling a little house out of boxes from a washer and dryer set my parents had bought. My dad cut windows and doors and taped the boxes end to end to expand the square footage. I’d lived in that container for a week, played hostess with tea parties and sleepovers for my stuffed animals. Dad would knock on my door when he got home from work, and I’d invite him in, even if he did take up three-quarters of the space with his knees and elbows. Of course, the boxes had been in my parents’ living room, so I wasn’t as exposed to the elements as I was now. This was not nearly so cozy or fun.

My feet were cold. And my fingers. And my ears. In spite of the layers of clothing I had on. Actually, I couldn’t identify any part of me that wasn’t frigid. I shivered as quietly as I could, but the sound of my teeth clattering still rattled in my head. I hoped that I wasn’t creating a steam cloud overhead, marking my presence.

The snow slowed to drier, smaller flakes that swirled lazily on the way down. Visibility improved, which was both a blessing and a complication.

There were a couple near misses — where vehicles slowed and the drivers thought about pulling into Six Shooter’s partially obstructed driveway then changed their minds. That would have been my biggest risk — having to approach and warn off a hapless visitor not knowing whether or not the car also contained Lutsenko.

But when a sleek silver Mercedes signaled, turned, and purred through the opening without hesitation, a whole new set of worries rose to the forefront of my mind.

CHAPTER 19

I pulled my gloves off and shoved them into my already bulging pockets. Now I knew why the SWAT team had pockets and loops and clips all over their clothing to hold their gear.

This was no time to have fat, clumsy fingers. Nimbleness was the name of the game. In every respect.

I sucked in my breath and pressed against the rough cinderblock wall as the Mercedes’ quiet engine and wet, splashy tires came near and angled just on the other side of the wall, heading down Black Bart Bowles Boulevard, right on cue in every way except the time. He was twenty minutes early, as Josh had predicted.

I wedged a toehold on the side of the nearest dumpster and pulled up until I could just peek over the top of the wall, the boxes and piled trash acting as a safety screen. I felt like a hunter sitting in a duck blind. I should have bought myself a pair of camouflage ear muffs when I’d had the chance.

The Mercedes rolled slowly down the lane and slowed, the brake lights flashing bright red in the cloudy gloom. Slowly, both front doors swung open. From my angle, I had a clear view of the driver’s side but only a sliver of a view of the passenger’s side.

We’d all be operating partially blind except Loretta with her bird’s-eye vantage point. She’d have to scrabble over the slippery roofs to keep her scope on the two mobsters, though, and do it silently. Once again, I was struck, deep in the pit of my stomach, with just how foolhardy we all were. Except Josh. But even so, working with a bunch of novices like us increased his vulnerability, besides the fact that he had to be rusty from being out of action for so long.

Josh had intentionally given Lutsenko the number of a unit on the next lane over from where the paintings were stashed. We wanted Lutsenko and Ziggy Beltran on foot so they couldn’t use the vehicle as a weapon if the situation deteriorated.

According to the script, Lutsenko made the next move, which surprised me tremendously. If I’d been him, I’d have been messing with the sequence or pacing already, just to see what my adversaries were up to. Either he wasn’t a conniving fellow, which I highly doubted, or he was so arrogantly confident he didn’t feel the need to further test the plan.

Lutsenko pulled a lever, popping open the trunk, then planted a sturdy foot on the ground and slowly rose out of the driver’s seat. He placed his hands on the roof of the car and ran his gaze down the long row of storage units. Beltran, looking just like his photos on Google but shakier and whiter of face, did the same a second later.

And then I realized maybe, just maybe, the dynamics between the two had forced Lutsenko to appear nonchalant. Josh was brilliant — absolutely brilliant — to put Lutsenko on the spot in two ways. He had to appear in command for us, who were holding his paintings hostage, and to impress his underling with his power and authority. A very tight spot, indeed. Respect from both sides was at stake.

Lutsenko looked the epitome of a television weatherman. Large, broad-shouldered in a perfectly tailored overcoat, with a jowly, orange face that spread into a gleaming, insincerely white smile when Josh and Tarq stepped into view. I could have sworn his teeth were slicked with Vaseline. He seemed like the sort who would love to have his mug in all the newspapers even if it was because he won the crooked businessman of the year award. He probably belonged to the chamber of commerce for just such recognition and accolades.

No words were exchanged. Two back-country, woodsy types in their jeans and bulging all-weather gear facing two city slickers. All hands clearly visible. No obvious weapons. My lungs burned. I’d forgotten to breathe, but it just wasn’t convenient right now.

Josh tipped his head, indicating Lutsenko and Ziggy should follow him, and disappeared back into the alley from whence he’d come. In the long rows of storage units, there were narrow alleys — large enough for two skinny people to walk side-by-side, but definitely not wide enough for a car — between every block of five units. Maybe the gaps were designed to satisfy fire code or just for easy passage between the lanes. Regardless, they suited our purposes perfectly.

Lutsenko didn’t falter. Perhaps he trusted Josh because of his reputation as a turncoat and his having been fired from the FBI as a result. Lutsenko strode after Josh with a swagger that befit our pseudo-Western location. Ziggy trailed in his wake, and Tarq took up the rear. As soon as they were all out of sight, I flew into action.

Actually, I slipped off the dumpster and banged my knee hard on its metal side with a dull but reverberating thud. My toes had cramped, and the pain extended into a charley horse. I hopped around, biting my tongue to suppress my groans.

I limp-shuffled down the lane in one of Josh’s premade tracks, checking each alleyway before crossing it, just in case Lutsenko or Ziggy had moved into view on the other side. Josh was going to draw the exchange out as long as possible, but I certainly didn’t have time for dilly-dallying.

First stop, the Mercedes’ open trunk. I pried up the carpet and checked for surprises. No spare tire. Only the best for Lutsenko — he was probably using run-flat tires on his spiffy sedan. The other compartments held the usual accoutrements that so rarely get used — first-aid kit, flashlight, cargo net. It sure didn’t appear as if he’d even taken the car for a grocery run. I sniffed. It still smelled new.

The Mercedes was one big, solid hunk of metal. Of course, it didn’t have molded plastic bumpers.

Josh had coached me through this. Check the trunk, but my best bet would be inside the vehicle, near a window. Too much surrounding metal  and even sometimes the material used for glass tinting can disrupt a GPS signal. Lutsenko’s onboard navigation program was probably run off an embedded antenna, so I couldn’t count on that alone to guarantee reception for my additions.

I pulled my sleeve down over my fingers and used it like a paw to pull open the rear door on the passenger side. I dug the crumpled ball of aluminum foil from my pocket and began the tedious process of unwrapping my little goodies. But my dexterity was shot — my fingertips were beyond numb from the cold.

I ended up sitting sideways on the seat with my legs still outside just so I could have some lap space to work on. I fumbled madly and finally freed one of the trackers. I wedged it between the headrest and the top of the seat where the soft leather folded around it and almost concealed it. Just the narrowest black slit was visible — a minor anomaly that would require eagle eyes to identify. I hoped.

Too much time. The clock in my head had expired eons ago.

I bumped the rear door closed with my hip. The resulting click was mercifully quiet, thanks to expensive German engineering. I bent next to the already open front door and the seat Ziggy had occupied.

Sleek. The whole interior was so sleek there just weren’t handy crevices in which to hide the gadget. 

“Psssewww. Psssewww.” The sound soared over my head, slightly muffled, unusual. I’d never heard a bird call like that before. But this was no time for nature-watching.

I crinkled open the rest of the foil and leaned in to pound on an air vent in the dash with my fist.

Bingo. Plastic. Fancy plastic, but plastic nonetheless.

“Psssewww.” Okay, now the bird was becoming annoying.

A couple more hard thumps and I’d dislodged the vent nozzle. I slid the tracker down into the channel.

And then I bumped my head.

Or rather, something hard collided with the back of my head.

“Caught you,” a rough voice muttered in my ear. His breath was hot, sending rigid shivers down my spine.

The hard, cold, steely thing ground into the little hollow in my skull directly behind and below my ear.

“Psssewww,” called the crazy bird again.

“Hands,” the voice said, and I raised mine quickly, albeit awkwardly, since I was semi-ducked inside the car.

I still held the louvered nozzle in my right hand. Not exactly a self-defense device, but my mind was racing through how I might be able use a blob of molded plastic in a deflective maneuver when a heavy but squashy weight slammed against my backside, propelling me across the seat and hinging me over the center console.

“Hah.” A voice I love dearly grunted with satisfaction. “I always wanted to do that.”

“Clarice?” I rasped, suddenly short on air.

I wriggled until I could peek behind me from under my arm. And I got the best view of an upside down sourpuss, wrinkled face and squinty eyes behind a set of stylishly burgundy cat’s eye glasses. She held the Glock backwards, like a hammer.

“Get him off me,” I wheezed. “You’re out of position.”

Clarice grabbed Ziggy around the thighs and unceremoniously yanked him off my legs and out of the car. He made a sickening thud when he hit the ground.

“Are you really going to complain about that now?” Clarice asked.

I crawled out of the Mercedes, stopping briefly to pop the nozzle back into place. At this point, I probably didn’t need to concern myself with wiping off my fingerprints since there were far too many. With Ziggy’s bash-induced tackle, my DNA had been splattered all over the glossy cockpit anyway.

“Absolutely not,” I replied.

Up close, Ziggy didn’t look too good. Blood was slowly oozing from a bump so large it made his short brown hair stick straight out from the side of his head.

“Loretta was signaling you like crazy. Didn’t you hear her?” Clarice hissed.

I stared at Clarice, then glanced up to the top of the storage unit section that separated us from the next lane over and the negotiations going on in unit 236. Loretta was sprawled on her stomach on the flat roof, just her head and the tip of her rifle hanging over the gutter, her face pasty white and eyes huge.

I gave her an apologetic wave.

Her cheeks puffed as she blew out a big breath, then she scootched out of sight, returning to her primary assignment — the safety of Josh and Tarq.

Good grief. Talk about a glitch.

“Do you think Lutsenko’s going to notice that his roadie’s been clobbered?” I whispered.

“I expect he’s smarter than he looks and that he planned his sidekick’s little backtracking surprise for us.” Clarice stubbed her toe against Ziggy’s midsection with absolutely no reaction from the prone man. “No harm now in letting him know that we know. And that his trickery wasn’t successful.”

“We gotta move,” I said.

Clarice bent and picked up Ziggy’s gun. She hauled up the hem of her coat and stuffed the pistol inside her already snug waistband. What’s one more bulge? Her pockets were as jam-packed as mine were.

I went for Ziggy’s knees while Clarice grabbed fistfuls of his coat at his shoulders. For a stocky, medium-height guy, he sure weighed a lot. Like three tons. I think he had bricks in his pants. Needless to say, he bottomed out repeatedly as we slogged him through the slush to the back of the car.

By the time we rested him on the ground near the bumper in preparation for our final, herculean effort, he was groaning piteously. I didn’t feel sorry for him one bit.

“Lever action,” Clarice huffed. “If we can balance some part of him on the lip of the trunk, we can use that as a pivot point.”

“Fulcrum,” I panted. “But he’s too saggy.”

Indeed, Ziggy was as cooperative as a sack of lead gelatin dressed in Brooks Brothers’ finest wool and cashmere blend. Clarice and I got the workout to end all workouts — bicep curls! deadlifts! — and we were gasping like expired Lamaze instructors when we finished.

Ziggy was a semi-conscious, dripping heap on the pristine carpet in the trunk. There were also several glorious new scratches in the shiny silver paint on the Mercedes’ bumper.

“Psssewww.”

My head popped up and I shot Clarice a startled glance. She grabbed my elbow and propelled me, hopping and skipping, across Josh’s slushy tire tracks and into the alley on the far side where she’d been stationed behind a couple discarded wood pallets.

We were both puffing so loudly I was sure the racket was echoing down the narrow corridor and straight to Lutsenko’s ears. But when he appeared from the opposite alley, he was intent upon the contents of the Mercedes’ trunk. He had the four rolled paintings tucked under his arm and a deep scowl on his spray-on-tanned face.

He approached and prodded the soaked mass that was Ziggy Beltran with a gloved finger. Then he threw back his head and belted out a loud, obnoxious guffaw.

“Nora Ingram,” he shouted. “It’s been distinctly unpleasant doing business with you. If we ever meet again, you will owe me more than one traitor. Of that I can assure you.” He slammed the trunk lid down, walked calmly around to the passenger side and tossed the paintings onto the seat. Then he rounded the car, slid behind the wheel, and took off, in reverse, wheels squealing as he sped backward out of the lane and whipped the car around.

I closed my eyes, concentrating, and could not hold back a grin when his muffler scraped on the curb on the way out.