Mick Sinatra 4: If You Don't Know Me by Now (23 page)

Then a
thought occurred to Roz.
 
A horrible
thought.
 
She looked at her husband.
 
“Mick,” she said.
 
“What if he meant Bernadette?
 
What if the guy who said somebody named
Beverly set Gloria up, was misremembering the name?”

Mick
nodded.
 
“I’ve reached that conclusion
too.
 
She’s a judge, she has reach.
 
Maybe some crook she promised to give
probation to if he did her a favor.
 
Maybe somebody else owed her and were willing to kidnap my
daughter.
 
Maybe she’s not as sick as
she’s making out to be.”

“But that
would mean she knows something about Gloria’s whereabouts.”

“She may,”
Mick said.

“Then why
are we leaving Belt Buckle?
 
We need to
get back there and question her!”

“I’m going
to handle that,” Mick said.
 
“But I’m
getting you on our plane back to Philadelphia first.”

“Alone?” Roz
asked.
 
“Mick, you can’t do that to
me!
 
It’s my mother we’re talking
about.
 
I have to be there too!”

But Mick
wouldn’t hear of it.
 
She was going back
to Philly and would remain under heavy guard until he returned.
 
If the answer was to be in Tennessee, Mick
and Mick alone was going to find that answer.

But just as
he was going down yet another long, country road that led to the interstate;
just as they were passing yet another dirt road intersection, a red, white, and
blue pickup truck came charging out of nowhere, and bullets began to fly.

“Get down!”
Mick yelled as he pushed Roz’s head down with one hand, and steered the wheel
with his other hand.

He couldn’t
fire back, but he was able to deftly dodge the hail of bullets until the shots
were no longer ringing out.
 
But if those
bastards thought Mick the Tick was going to take their onslaught and just run
away, they were mistaken.

As soon as
the firing ceased, Mick swerved the Chrysler around in the direction of the
pickup.
 
When he saw that the truck was
already turning tail and taking off, he gave chase.
 
“Hold on,” he said to his wife.
 
“Keep your head down, and hold on!
 
No asshole alive is going to ambush us and
get away with it!”

Roz could
hardly believe what was happening.
 
It
felt as if she was in a dream.
 
Her
mother might be involved with her stepdaughter’s disappearance?
 
Her mother might have ordered this ambush? Her
mother might want her
dead
?
 
Roz closed her eyes.
 
She could hardly believe it.

Mick drove
as fast and recklessly as their pursuers had driven, and chased them through
the streets of Belt Buckle without any regard for public norms.
 
Mick never got close enough to get a license
plate.
 
Nor did he get close enough to
see who were in that truck, but he kept pursuing.
 
It would be several miles of backroads and
backwoods before the truck was completely out of sight.
 
They knew those roads far better than Mick
ever could, and proved it.
 
Mick lost
them.

He pulled
over to the side of the road and looked around, to ensure there was no backdoor
ambush upcoming.
 
When he was assured
there wasn’t, he looked at Rosalind.
 
She
looked mortified.
 
He hated that she had
to keep going through this shit.

Roz sat back
up on the seat.
 
But if he thought she
was going to be cowered and afraid, he was wrong.
 
She was angry.
 
“What the hell is going on here?” she
asked.
 
“Who is behind all of this,
Mick?”

Mick’s cell
phone began ringing.
 
“I’ll find out,
babe,” he said.
 
“Don’t you worry about
that.
 
I will fucking
find out.”
 
He looked at his Caller ID,
saw who it was, and answered quickly.
 
He
placed the call on Speaker.
 
“What you
got for me?” he asked.

“A couple
things on the mother.”

Mick and Roz
exchanged a glance.
 
“Tell me,” Mick
said.

“The mother
has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and she’s been having some complications
from her illness.
 
That’s one thing.”

“And the
other thing?”

“She
recently took out a life insurance policy on her daughter.
 
On Mrs. Sinatra.”

Roz frowned.
“A life insurance policy?” she asked.

“For how
much?” Mick asked.

“For two
million dollars, boss,” Mick’s man responded.

Mick was
floored.
 
So was Roz.
 
“
Two
million dollars
?” she asked.

“Yes,
ma’am.
 
And according to the paperwork,
you signed for it, giving your approval.”

Now Roz was
beyond shocked.
 
“I knew nothing about
it,” she said to Mick, and Mick nodded.
 
He already knew that.
 
“Okay,
Johnny,” he said into the phone.
 
“I’ll
be in touch.”
 
And he ended the call.

“Take me to
her house, Mick,” Roz ordered.
 
“You
already tried to get me out of town and that didn’t work.
 
I want to see my mother.
 
I want to look her in the eye and get her to
explain to me why she would do such a thing.
 
And why,” Roz added, “she would involve Gloria.
 
I want you to do everything in your power to
get her to tell you what happened to Gloria.”

Mick had
never seen Roz so hurt, so angry, and so determined in all the time he’d known
her.
 
It was her mother.
 
It was her life.
 
Mick headed back to the home of Judge
Bernadette Graham, with Roz at his side.
 

“
What the hell
?” Cecil Graham asked in a
low voice when he saw the bullet-ridden Chrysler pull back up into the
driveway.
 
He stood up from the front
porch terrified that something had happened to Roz.
 
But when she and Mick got out of the car,
seemingly unscathed, he relaxed.
 
But he
was still concerned.
 
“What happened?” he
asked as the couple walked back onto the porch.

“Where’s
Mom?” Roz asked.

“Still in
her bedroom.
 
Why?”

Roz didn’t
answer him.
 
She and Mick hurried into
the house, down the corridor that led to the master bedroom, and into her
mother’s room.
  
Cecil hurried behind
them.

Bernadette
seemed shocked to see them again.
 
It
wasn’t lost on either one of them just how shocked she seemed.
 
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a
frantic voice.
 
“I thought I told you to
leave and leave at once!”

“You don’t
dictate my steps,” Roz said.

“I don’t
like your tone,” Bernadette said.

“Who gives a
shit?” Mick asked.

Bernadette
tightened her mouth.
 
She was still a
very beautiful woman, tall and bosomy.
 
But she was a bitch deluxe.
 
“What
do you want?” she asked.

“You took
out a two million dollar policy on my life,” Roz said.
 
“Then proceeded to destroy it.”

“What?”
Cecil asked, dumbstruck.
 
Then he looked
at his ex-wife.
 
“What’s this about,
Bernie?”

Bernadette
was too busy staring at Roz to respond to her ex-husband.
 
But it wasn’t a stare of incredulity or
outrage.
 
It was just a stare.
 
“That’s nonsense,” she said.

“Don’t deny
it, Mother,” Roz made clear.
 
“You can’t
deny it any longer.”
 
Roz wanted to know
why desperately.
 
Her entire face was
anguished with that need.
 
But Gloria came
first.
 
“What happened to my
stepdaughter?” Roz asked.
 
“What happened
to Gloria?”

“Child, if
you don’t get out of my face with this nonsense, you’d better.”

“Or what?”
Roz asked.

“I don’t
know anything about any Gloria, or anybody else,” Bernadette said.
 
“And I don’t appreciate these accusations.”

Mick would
have normally told her how he felt about what she didn’t appreciate, but he was
too busy looking around, checking things out, determined to find some tangible evidence
that Bernadette could no longer deny.

Roz was
determined too.
 
“Mother, I’m going to
ask you again.
 
I would strongly suggest
you answer me, rather than have to answer to Mick.
 
Where is his daughter?
 
What happened to her?”

Cecil looked
at Bernadette.
 
“Bernie, what is Roz
talking about?”

“Why are you
asking me such a question? I have no idea what she’s talking about.
 
She’s talking foolishness, that’s what she’s
talking about!
 
She always has!”

“Where does
this door lead?” Mick asked.

Bernadette looked
at him with a sudden flash of agony.
 
It
was subtle, but Roz saw it.

“It leads to
the basement,” Roz said, and began heading toward that door.

“Don’t you
dare go down
there!
” Bernadette decried.
 
“Roz!
 
Rosalind!
 
Don’t you
dare!
”

But Roz was
already opening the door and heading down.
 
Mick, pulling out his loaded gun, hurried behind her.

“What’s this
about, Bernie?” Cecil asked again.

“Help me
up,” Bernadette said.

“What is
this about?”

“Just shut
the fuck up,” Bernadette yelled, “and help me!”

But downstairs,
Mick and Roz needed no help when they saw, to their shock and joy, Gloria
Sinatra sitting in a chair in the middle of the cold, damp space.
 
She was rope tied, her mouth was covered with
duct tape, and her eyes were darkened by a blindfold.
 
But it was her.
 
And she was alive.

“Praise
God!” Roz cried as they ran down the stairs toward her.
 
When Gloria heard Roz’s voice she began
moving from side to side, trying to break free even still, as Roz and Mick ran
down those stairs.

But
something caught Mick’s peripheral vision, and he pulled Roz back.
 
Roz, stunned, looked at him.
 
He pointed toward the basement window.
 
Roz looked too.
 
They saw the same pickup truck that had
ambushed them.
 
It had that same red,
white, and blue color.
 
The same oversized
tires.

He held Roz
back.
 
He wanted to get to his daughter
too, but they had to be cautious.
 
Gloria
couldn’t tell them anything.
 
She was
blindfold and her mouth was covered.
 
But
all he knew was that the person Bernadette hired to take them out was at this
home.
 
And possibly in this very
basement.
 
He left Roz standing at the
foot of the stairs, and made his way toward his daughter, his gun drawn, with
his every instinct on high alert.

But he was
not alert enough.
 
Because just as Mick
walked away from Roz, somebody came from a nook on the side of the stairs, and
placed a gun to Roz’s head.

Roz didn’t
move a muscle, but Mick sensed the danger, and quickly turned around.
  
What he saw stunned him.

“Drop it, or
she’s dead.”

Roz knew the
voice.
 
She’d known it all her life.
 
She turned too, and was so stunned by the
view that she nearly passed out.
 
“Tyson?” she asked.

Tyson Graham
was her big brother.
 
Mick had met him
once, when he and Roz came to Belt Buckle just after their engagement.
 
He was the brother that had wanted Roz to
return to Belt Buckle years ago, and work with him in his restaurant.
 
Not in a million years would either one of
them had suspected Ty.

“Drop the
gun, Mick, or she’s dead.”

“Tyson,”
Mick started.

But Tyson
cocked his weapon.
 
“Drop it now!” he
yelled.
 
“I’m not playing with y’all!”

Tyson had
Roz in a position that did not allow Mick to take a shot.
 
He couldn’t risk killing Roz.
 
For that reason, and for the first time in a
long time, Mick disarmed.
 
He dropped his
weapon.

For the
first time in her life, Roz was so thrown by events that she could hardly think
straight. Tyson was her brother.
 
They
used to be so close!
 
“What are you
doing?” she asked him.

“What I
should have done a long time ago,” he said.
 
“You’re living large in Philadelphia.
 
Dad’s traveling the world doing his thing.
 
Mom’s too busy worrying about herself to ever
worry about me.
 
And I’m dying.
 
I’m dying inside and I’m drowning in
debt.
 
I lost Tyson’s Surf and Turf.
 
I lost my restaurant.
 
And nobody offered to help me.”

“I didn’t
know,” Roz said.
 
“I would have helped if
I had known.”

“Quit
lying!” Tyson blared.
 
“You wouldn’t have
given me a dime, and you know it!
 
You
didn’t know and you didn’t care to ask either.
 
You came through here with your rich white man after being away for
fifteen years, left again, and never looked back.
 
You don’t give a damn about me either!”

Roz couldn’t
believe how wrong he was.
 
And she did
ask.
 
She phoned him every week and asked
how everything was going with him.
 
And
every week he said everything was fine.
 
She could have come around and saw about him.
 
She was willing to take the blame for
that.
 
But he never came around and saw
about her either.
 
It was the nature of
their family.
 
And he knew it

“So we did
what we had to do,” Tyson said.
 
“My wife
and I did what we had to do.
 
We tracked
down everybody who hated you, put a second mortgage on our house, and paid them
to participate in the crime.
 
It was easy
for all of them.
 
Especially Carmelo
Rodriquez.
 
After Mick’s treatment of
him, he was a very willing participant.
 
He was the one who came up with the kidnapping plot. He was the one who
hired those other people, Hamilton Sturgess and Betsy Gable and all the rest of
them.
 
He was going to kidnap Roz and ask
for ransom.
 
Once he received the money,
he was going to take Roz out.
 
And then I
would cash in on that insurance policy.
 
And it would be no connection to me whatsoever.
 
Because I’m smart.
 
I know how to get things done.
 
But it could never come back on us.
 
No evidence could ever point to me or my
wife.
 
But when Mick killed Carmelo, and
decapitated him, everything changed.
 
Our
whole strategy had to change.”

“And that’s
when you took Gloria?”

“I had
to.
 
It was the backup plan.
 
And it was going to work like a charm.
 
Until that stupid cow bitch of my wife went
and told that fool Devin Terranz her first name.
 
We picked out a fake name for her to use when
she met with him in Philadelphia, but she went and used her own name!
 
I knew I had to get rid of her then.”

A strange
look came over Tyson’s face.
 
“And I
did,” he continued.
 
“I got rid of my
wife.
 
Told everybody she left because of
my hard times, and I buried her in my backyard.
 
Nobody cares about us.
 
She run
off, according to me, and everybody believed it.
 
Nobody bothered to investigate.
 
Nobody cares about us.”

“What do you
want from Rosalind?” Mick asked.
 
“What
do you want from my daughter?”

“I had to
use your daughter to put suspicion on Roz.
 
That’s why, when she turns up dead, there will be questions about her
death.
 
I figured once your daughter’s
body was found dead, and that was going to take place today before my stupid
father called and asked Roz to come and see about my stupid mother.
 
But once Gloria’s body was found dead, and
that tape that put the blame on Roz was found, I figured you, Mick, was going
to do the honors for me.
 
You, Mick, was
going to kill Roz for me for killing your daughter.
 
I would wait until after you were arrested
for her crime, of course.
 
And then I was
going to cash in that policy and live happily ever after.”’

“But that
insurance policy isn’t in your name,” Mick said, studying his foe.
 
“It’s in your mother’s name.”

“But I made
myself the contingent beneficiary,” Tyson said.
 
“If my mother dies before Roz did, I get the money.
 
I was going to see to that.
 
It was easy.
 
I forged Roz’s name.
 
I forged my
mother’s name.
 
It was easy.”

But when he
saw a look of disgust on Mick’s face, he frowned.
 
“You think I care about my mother?
 
The way she’s treated me all my life?
 
I don’t give a damn about her, and she
doesn’t give a damn about me.
 
And if she
doesn’t croak before Roz does, then yes, I’ll have to take her out.
 
And then, when all of this is over, I’m going
to take that money and run.
 
And live my
life too.
 
Free.
 
Free as a bird.”

Roz’s heart
dropped.
 
“For money, Tyson?
 
You were willing to do all of this damage, to
see me dead, to see your own mother dead, to see an innocent girl dead, for
money
?”