Let Loose (20 page)

The phone rang again. Figuring it was Daniel
calling back, I hit answer and end in quick succession.

Before I’d even lowered the phone to my side,
it rang again.

Fine.

I answered with a gruff hello, but it wasn’t
Daniel on the other end of the line. It was Carol, and she was
whispering.

“We need you to come over.”

“We?”

“I’m at Ethel’s.”

I grimaced. I loved the two of them, but I
really wasn’t in the mood to provide taxi service anywhere.

“You need to hurry.”

“I’m sure it’s important, but I had a bit of
an emergency here yesterday—”

Carol apparently wasn’t into listening to my
woes.

“It’s your boyfriend. He’s here and he won’t
take no for an answer.”

I was pretty sure she couldn’t mean that the
way it sounded.

“Peter?”

“Yes. Just get here as fast as you can.” She
hung up.

I relayed the short and somewhat disturbing
conversation to Rhonda. I looked at her and she looked at me. Then
we pulled on our coats and headed into town.

o0o

Peter was, in fact, at Ethel’s, as were at
least two other officers, based on the two police cars in the
residential home’s parking lot.

Rhonda and I hurried inside, past a group of
gawking seniors who had gathered around the fireplace to gossip,
about Ethel no doubt, and a second group of employees standing
outside the laundry for the same purpose.

I gave both groups a haughty, disapproving
stare and stomped on.

The twins, Molly and Milly, were standing in
front of the door to Ethel’s apartment, their hands fluttering and
their voices cracking as they explained to Peter and company why it
would be impossible for them to visit Ethel at this time.

“She just got out of the bath. You can’t
expect her to let you in. She’s naked,” Molly tittered.

“She’s been in her bath for half an hour,”
Peter replied. His voice was polite, but strained.

“She does like a good soak,” Milly
responded.

“She soaks much longer, and she’ll slip down
the drain,” Peter said, so dryly it was hard to tell if there was
humor in his statement. He lowered his head, like a bull lowering
its horns right before a charge.

The motion wasn’t lost on the twins. Molly
stepped forward and lowered her voice. “All right. I didn’t want to
say anything because it’s a bit embarrassing for Ethel, but she’s
having some... digestion issues today.” She pressed her lips
together and shook her head. “We’d barely dealt the first hand and
she was headed to the... lavatory.” She emphasized the last word as
if she was sharing a state secret.

Peter crossed his arms over his chest and
leaned back. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew the look he had to
be giving her: strained patience.

He was raised right and as polite as it came,
especially to older women, but he had his breaking point, and my
guess was that the twins were about to hit it.

I moved in like a border collie cutting a
wolf off from its sheep. Except I was smiling. That intense border
collie stare didn’t really work for me.

“Peter! What are you doing here?”

He turned a little too slowly and raised one
brow.

The twins, however, lit up like Coleman
lanterns.

Milly took the lead. “Lucy! How nice. Did you
come to visit Ethel? I’m afraid, as we were telling Detective
Blake, she isn’t feeling very well. Maybe you could come back
tomorrow?”

I made the required sad face. Rhonda, who had
come up behind me, followed suit.

“That’s too bad. I’d told Rhonda about your
games and she was really looking forward to joining in. But if
Ethel isn’t feeling well...” I tilted my head in a
what’s-a-girl-going-to-do kind of way.

Again, Rhonda followed my lead.

Peter, however, didn’t. He also did not look
amused or concerned or in any way happy. In fact, my appearance
seemed to accomplish what Milly and Molly’s stalling hadn’t.

He broke.

“Open the door.” His tone was as no-nonsense
as a pair of support hose.

Milly and Molly, eyes wide and filled with
stress, turned to me.

Like I had any power in this situation. But
then, that false assumption was why they had called me.

I sighed and threw myself in the line of
fire.

Actually, I sighed and crept forward like a
mouse approaching a lion.

“Maybe if you—”

The lion shifted his gaze to the mouse.

I stepped back and held up my hands.

Ten minutes later, Carol, Rose, Susan, and
Ethel... who seemed to be feeling fine... had joined Rhonda, the
twins, and me in the hall while Peter and one officer went
inside.

We gathered together in a huddle, whispering
so the police officer who had drawn the short straw to watch us
couldn’t hear.

“What did he say?” asked Milly.

“He has a search warrant,” Carol
explained.

Ethel tapped a finger against the head of her
cane.

“What for?” Molly asked.

Carol rose on her toes to check on the police
officer. “To search. They don’t have to tell us why.” She frowned
and looked at me. “Do they?”

Like I knew. I shrugged. “Peter is very
exact.”

The group frowned.

After that, the discussion broke down.
Actually, the ladies clammed up. I asked more questions, but got
grunts and looks for answers. The only one who didn’t seem to be
cutting me out was Ethel. She took me by the hand and led me a few
feet away. Rhonda followed.

“Don’t you worry. I’m sure this is nothing.
And don’t worry about them either.” She shifted her gaze to her
friends. “They’re just protective.”

Protective I understood, but I couldn’t help
but be hurt that they didn’t seem to want to talk in front of me,
especially after Carol had called me, frantic, asking for me to
come in.

I started to say as much to Ethel, but Peter
interrupted by coming to the apartment door and calling Ethel
inside.

The ladies and I made a move to follow, but
the officer who’d been assigned to us cut us off.

He stood in the doorway, blocking our
entrance, but not our view. At least not when we crouched or rose
up on our toes, depending on our own personal height
restrictions.

I, of course, chose the squat. My quads were
just beginning to ache when I caught a glimpse of Peter turning
Ethel around and putting handcuffs on her. Again.

The other women saw it too and, as one, they
turned on me.

Under the pressure of their angry stares, I
fell back onto my butt. I was still there, warding off their
disapproval with nothing more than a guilty flush, when Peter and
Ethel walked out of the apartment.

Ethel’s eyes widened. “Lucy! What are you
doing? Carol, Rose, help her up.”

Even cuffed, Ethel had a presence and power.
The flush I’d worn flowed to her friends, and the two closest,
Susan and Rose, reached down to pull me to my feet.

“Carol, can you water my violets? Not too
much, of course. And Susan, I’m afraid I won’t be able to meet with
that woman from the Coalition tomorrow. Maybe next week?”

Ethel continued rearranging her schedule and
talking to her friends as if the metal cuffs around her wrists
meant nothing more than a short unplanned vacation.

I, however, was done playing. I stepped in
front of Peter. “What are you doing with her?”

His look back was a bored stay-out-of-it gaze
that I had no intention of honoring. “You—”

Ethel cut me off. “Lucy, there’s been a
misunderstanding. That’s all. Detective Blake seems to have found
something in my apartment that most certainly doesn’t belong to
me.”

All the women, Rhonda and I included, looked
at Peter. His expression didn’t change, but I could sense a
discomfort in him. The corner of his mouth tightened.

Interesting.

“What was that?” I asked, directing my
question to Ethel. I already knew Peter wouldn’t answer, but the
fact that he wasn’t telling me or Ethel or any of the ladies to
hush or move on meant something. That he didn’t feel 100% about
what he was doing either, I guessed.

It was practically like he was begging me to
question this. So, of course, I did. I’m good that way.

“A gun,” Ethel replied. “A pistol. Had to be
over two pounds loaded. A Glockner. As if I’d carry something like
that.” She looked at her crew. They shook their heads as if the
idea was outrageous.

Which I would have done too, but I was set a
little off balance by Ethel’s obvious knowledge of guns.

“Everyone knows Jones and West have a much
better hand feel and a much lighter weight,” Molly replied.

“And a revolver just has so much more style,”
Milly added.

Rhonda looked at me, as obviously confused as
I was.

“Soooo,” I said, desperate to change the
topic to something that wouldn’t show these ladies knew more about
firearms than your average Navy Seal. “You’re being arrested
for...”

I was hoping she’d say the gun wasn’t
registered or it was stolen or...

“Murder,” she replied, perky as ever. “They
think I killed Red Benson.”

I didn’t follow Ethel to the station this
time. It wasn’t that I didn’t support her, but I was feeling a
bit... confused.

Instead, Rhonda and I drove to our shops. I
parked in the back and immediately went into Cuppa Joe’s. I needed
nourishment in the form of caffeine, sugar, and fat. There was, in
my experience, very little a 400 calorie coffee couldn’t fix.

Rhonda was already in line when I got there.
We took our drinks and sat in the front by the windows, which was a
tad chilly but gave us a view of the street and everyone walking
by.

Call me paranoid, but I felt like I needed
that vantage point right now.

“So,” Rhonda said.

“So,” I replied. I really wasn’t sure what
else to say.

“They were very... knowledgeable about guns,”
Rhonda offered.

“Handguns,” I added.

“Yes.”

We stirred our respective drinks with little
plastic straws that weren’t actually meant for drinking.

I looked up first. “Do you think that’s
unusual?”

“Well, maybe, but they are a bit
unorthodox.”

That was certainly true.

“And plenty of women own guns.”

This was true too, but it wasn’t just that
they might own handguns of their own; it was that they seemed to
know so much about them. I was suddenly realizing that there was
probably much more about Ethel and her crew that I didn’t know than
what I did.

“Do you think—” Rhonda started.

I shook my head. “No. There’s no way Ethel
murdered Red. How would she have even gotten to the campground? And
there was two feet of snow on the ground.”

Rhonda nodded, but I could see that she was
still thinking. “There was the snowmobile thing too.”

“But we already discussed that. Neither of us
believes Ethel could ride a snowmobile.”

“But Rose could.”

I sat the plastic straw onto the table.
Rhonda was right. The rodeo princess was younger and quite fit for
her age. I had no doubt she still rode horses, which meant she
should certainly be able to manage a snowmobile.

“You think it’s a... gang?” I hated using the
term, but I couldn’t think of anything else to describe what we
seemed to be suggesting the group did.

Rhonda met my gaze. “Maybe.”

Ethel, Carol, and the others in a gang. I’d
laughed at the idea before, but now my image of them had changed a
bit.

“So… what? You think Red found out they were
stealing snowmobiles? And one of them killed him?” I said one
because I could not believe that Ethel had done the deed. Now
Susan...

“Maybe. It is a coincidence, the snowmobile
thefts and Red’s murder. That’s a lot of crime at one time
here.”

“And Craig Ryan had two sleds stolen just two
nights before Red was killed.” Only a couple of miles from the
campground.

Rhonda raised her brows. “Red must have seen
something.”

“But there was a day in between the theft and
Red’s murder. Plus Red was at the fund-raiser that night.”

“The snowmobiles could have been stolen after
the fund-raiser.”

“True, but if Red saw something that night,
why wouldn’t he have reported it the next day?”

“Maybe he didn’t know what he’d seen, or
maybe he did report something. It isn’t like the police would be
telling us.”

As soon as the words left Rhonda’s mouth, my
heart sank. “And Peter did arrest Ethel.” He must have had a
reason.

“He did,” Rhonda agreed.

We sat for a moment, somber.

“So, a gang...” I picked the straw up and
tapped it against my cup slow, thinking. “But Peter has only
arrested Ethel.” At Rhonda’s look, I clarified. “For the thefts...
Red would have had to name her and not anyone else. And I can’t
believe she stole Craig’s snowmobiles by herself.”

Rhonda took a sip of her tea. “Maybe Red
caught the thief and the thief named Ethel.”

I shook my head. “Why wouldn’t Red name the
thief? Even if Ethel was involved too in some way, why only name
her?”

“Blackmail?” Rhonda suggested.

I waved my hand. We were getting too far out
there. “What about Carol’s husband? His snowmobile was stolen too.
And Carol and Ethel are best friends.”

Rhonda’s eyes sparked. “Maybe Carol is in on
it too. Maybe the snowmobiles were worth more gone.”

I slapped my hand onto the table.
“Insurance!”

For a moment we grinned at each other like
two antique Jolly Chimp toys.

When we were done banging our cymbals, I
sobered. “But I talked to Molly and Milly’s nephew. He had a
snowmobile stolen too and he said the insurance wouldn’t pay.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t the plan.”

That was true. Heaven knew most of my plans
didn’t work out like I thought they would, and Ethel and her
friends being behind the snowmobile thefts fit with the connection
I’d found between the crimes and members of her group.