Monkey Wrench (10 page)

This was the wall shared with the next office. I tiptoed over there.

I heard the door open. “Good afternoon, ladies,” the doctor said. His voice was smooth and confident but low. I strained to hear him. “Where’s it hurting?”

“Where doesn’t it hurt?” Ina said gruffly.

“I understand,” he said. His voice faded.

Ina said, “I don’t think you do. I’m a quilter. My back hurts from
stooping over my machine. I ran a needle through my finger and cut my toe when I dropped the rotary cutter. I have a sore elbow from cutting and my knees are killing me.”

I stifled a giggle. But I couldn’t hear the doctor’s reply.

I had to get up higher. I stepped on the desk chair, before I noticed it was on wheels. The seat went skittering out from under me. I landed painfully on the outside of my foot and sat down hard on the floor. I stretched out and steadied the chair right before it crashed to the floor.

I held my breath. I waited for Dr. Aldana to come racing in to see what the noise was.

Nothing. I breathed out. I pulled myself up slowly and put my ear to the partition.

The doctor was murmuring something comforting.

“You want to talk pain,” Ina/Harriet said. “Try twenty-four hours
a day, seven days a week. Shingles are the worst.”

I heard what sounded like acquiescence. The doctor was apparently wrapping things up. After two minutes.

Pearl’s voice came through. “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be sure to send all my friends to you. I know plenty of folks who could use your help.”

He’d be in here next. I wanted to get out of here before the doctor or Jessie discovered me. I opened the door and checked the hall. I dashed into the waiting room as Ross and Ashleigh came back, bringing with them a cloud of noxious fumes.

I sniffed the air. Had they been smoking funny cigarettes?

Ross pealed off from Ashleigh and greeted me.

“Your charges should be here any moment.” I lowered my voice. “Did you get what you needed?”

He nodded, watching Ashleigh take her place behind the desk again.

“You’ve got two of my favorite people in the world with you.” I grabbed his skinny tie. His eyes suddenly locked with mine, his cheeks turning bright pink.

I gave his tie a yank. “You’d better make sure nothing happens to them.”

_____

When I got back to the store the tile guys were nearly finished with the floor. Ursula said customers had been scarce.

No UPS. Lark’s books were not here yet.

All I wanted to do was go home and have a repeat of last night. Bath, Bubbles, Buster. Rinse and repeat. Buster would be up for it, I knew.

I was admiring the slate tiles I’d picked out for the bathroom when Buster came in the back door.

The scowl on his face didn’t bode well for another bath night. I left the tile
guys to the grouting. Buster followed me into my office. He took Vangie’s chair, filling it in a way she never did.

“What’s up? Where’ve you been?”

“Work,” he said.

“Not going well?” I asked. He was too quiet. “Everyone from the drug bust make bail or something?

“No.” He picked up a pen and tossed it.

I grabbed the pen in mid-air. “Buster, what is it?”

I pulled his chair around so we were sitting knee-to-knee. “Tell me.”

“The medical examiner found a needle mark in Wyatt Pederson’s back.”

“His back?”

Buster nodded grimly, patting a spot near his shoulder. “He was given a fatal overdose. Murdered.”

I sat back in my chair. Wyatt had been killed. Vangie would be a suspect. Crap, crap, crap.

Buster nodded. “Freakin’ Zorn. He wants a piece of the Task Force glory. The way he sees it, if he can tie Wyatt to the drug dealing, if somehow we missed this big kingpin—“

“He could look like the big cheese.”

Buster nodded forlornly. He balled his hands into fists. “Damn that guy. He’s the only cop I know who wants the FBI hanging around. He’s really sucking up to them.”

“But if Wyatt was murdered … how does that fit in?”

“It has to be drug related, right? Wyatt gets killed because he pissed off some other dealer. Or someone wants his territory. Someone who got pinched by the bust. The bust is making a lot of people nervous.”

“What about Vangie?”

Buster hung his head. “Zorn’s not letting that angle go. He wants to talk to her again. He’ll hound her. He’s sure she knows something.”

I let that sink in. Vangie was not going to be free from this until the real killer was found.

“What does he think? That
she’s
some kind of drug kingpin?”

Buster didn’t answer.

“Buster?” I said, a knot tying itself in my stomach.

Buster rubbed my knees. “She’s not, right? She’ll be okay. It was genius that you got Larry Romanski to be her lawyer. He’s the most hated defense lawyer in the house. How did you swing that?”

I hesitated. Buster caught that and looked up.

“What?”

“He’s Freddy’s brother,” I confessed.

Buster threw his hands up. “Of course he is. No wonder I couldn’t
stand Freddy. I knew there was something familiar about him.”

I pushed my chair back. “So you disliked Freddy because his brother is a defense attorney?”

Buster stood and shrugged. “Must have been subliminal. Remember that case I had last year? We’d had that dirtbag locked up for the hairdresser’s murder in Los Gatos. Remember? Larry the Lip was the one who got him out of jail. Next thing we know the hairdresser’s husband shoots the suspect and then kills himself in the movie theater parking lot. Horrible outcome.”

I googled Larry Romanski while Buster was talking. I knew the case he was talking about. He’d been really upset when it happened. I got to Larry’s website and found a picture of him.

“Huh … they do look alike,” I said, turning the computer around.
“So all this time you’ve been looking at Freddy and being reminded of his brother?”

“Doesn’t mean Freddy’s not a jerk,” Buster said.

I laughed. “You don’t give up, do you Healy?”

My phone rang. I answered it while Buster gave me more lame reasons why he didn’t like Freddy.

“He’s pushy, and never shuts up.”

I mimed a duck’s beak. “Quack, quack.”

“Hello?”

“Dewey Pellicano?”

“Yes,” I said. How did a telemarketer get this number? I thought cell phones were exempt.

“This is Rita Estrada. Vangie’s mom?”

My heart skidded to a stop. I’d met Vangie’s mother over the years, but she’d never called me before. Never. I gulped in a breath, and grabbed Buster’s hand. Zorn must have arrested her.

“Vangie’s mom,” I whispered to him. He squeezed my hand. His face was creased with concern. I knew mine was too.

“Vangie was mugged. Someone hit her over the head and took her backpack.”

I held onto Buster’s fingers. I held the phone away so he could hear. “Is she okay?”

“She will be. She’ll be in the hospital overnight.”

“Which one? I’ll be right over.”

Rita said, “You won’t be able to see her yet. They’ve taken her for an MRI.”

My throat closed up at the thought of Vangie lying in a hospital bed, hurt.

“When did this happen? She was here this morning,” I said.

“About an hour ago. She was walking to school from her parking spot.”

“In broad daylight?”

“Yes, she said if it wasn’t for a bunch of students who walked by, she might have been hurt more.”

Rita’s voice caught and I felt my own voice falter. “I’m glad she’s okay,” I managed to squeak out. Buster stroked my face and I kissed his palm.

“Please give her a hug and a kiss from me. Call me if there’s anything I can do.”

Buster moved in, enveloping me as I hung up the phone. He held me. I let myself feel the horror of the random violence. His touch did his magic. I felt my heart slow down and the pit lodged in my throat dissolve.

“She’ll be okay,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

I pulled back from him. “That girl can’t get a break.” My tears spilled over.

Buster tilted his head. “You know there is an upside. Zorn will have to leave her alone, at least for now. If she has a concussion, he’ll have to wait until she’s more alert to question her. Her doctors—and Larry the Lip—will never allow it.”

“In that case, I hope she stays in the hospital for a week.”

_____

A nurse looked up from distributing pills into tiny cups when I got off the elevator at Vangie’s floor the next morning. I dodged a breakfast cart and found her room. Her grandmother was in the chair under the window, her head bowed, lips moving, a rosary traveling between her fingers. Her mom fussed, straightening the blankets, tucking in the sides, something Vangie would never tolerate if she’d been awake.

Her mother saw me first. “Dewey, come in.”

I walked through the room and embraced her. She let out a
little sob. Vangie’s grandmother only nodded, her fingers flying. Vangie was racking up plenty of prayers. If Hail Marys healed, Vangie would be better by noon.

“How is she?” I touched the blanket by her knee gingerly. I didn’t have much experience with hospital visits. My family was healthy and my mother had died before she reached the hospital.

Vangie’s chest rose and fell with regularity but her eyes were closed and she was very, very still. I couldn’t remember seeing her so unmoving. Vangie was always a bundle of energy. “Is she unconscious?”

“Whatever they gave her knocked her out,” her mother said, swiping a hair from her daughter’s cheek. “She needs rest, according to the doctor. They’re worried about her brain swelling.”

That sounded awful. My throat tightened.

The room smelled like overly starched linens. The other bed in the room was empty with blankets and sheets piled on the end. A whiteboard on the wall at the end of her bed had Vangie’s name and today’s date on it. Her nurse this shift was Concheta.

“Have you two been here all night?” I asked.

Rita nodded. “I tried to get Mama to go home, but she refused. We wouldn’t have slept at home anyhow.”

I put my arm around Rita. The circles under her eyes were dark and deep. “Why don’t you go take a walk? Get some breakfast? Better yet, go home. Change your clothes. I can stay with her until you get back.”

Rita gnawed at her cuticle. Like mother, like daughter. “I did want to get Vangie some of her own pajamas and the hand cream she likes. Her skin is getting dry.”

She rubbed Vangie’s arms. Vangie stirred but didn’t wake up. “We won’t be long,” Rita said in a lilting tone to her daughter. “I just washed your favorite pajamas. I’ll bring them right back.”

“Thank you,” she said to me. “I know Vangie will be glad you’re here. She was asking for you last night.”

The pair left, although Grandma didn’t let go of her rosary, her lips moving as she walked.

I took in a deep breath. I walked to the window and looked out over the parking lot. Beyond, I could see the hills in the distance, brown with waving grass. In another month, when the winter rains began, the hillsides would start to turn green.

Vangie was in trouble. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that she’d been mugged the day before. Something was going on.

She’d been hanging around Wyatt and he’d been murdered. The police were looking at him as someone involved with drugs. My heart ached at the idea that Vangie might somehow be involved, too.

Behind me, I heard a groan.

“Vangie?” I rushed to her side. “Are you in pain?”

“I’m okay,” she said hoarsely. I grabbed the water glass and pressed the straw near her mouth. She turned her head away.

She opened her mouth again. Nothing came out but a croak. She reached up and touched the big bandage that covered her head. Vangie’s eyes widened in fear.

“You’re okay,” I said, pulling her hand away and rubbing it. “Your mother and grandmother were here. They went home for a few things.”

She blinked. “Friday,” she began. Her voice was weak. Her throat must be rubbed raw
from some tube or another.

I held the straw steady and this time she drank.

“Wyatt—” she stopped and turned her head away from me. A tear trickled down her cheek. I wiped it away. She clawed at me.

“Vang … save your strength. We can talk later.”

“Listen. Drugs.”

Each word was a struggle. She was getting agitated, and noises came off her machines like annoyed birds.

“Lay back, Vang. Please. I know about Wyatt and his drugs.”

Vangie sank against the pillows. Concheta, the nurse, came in. She was a tall blonde.

She said, “Someone is awake, is she? It’s about time.” She set to work on the things Vangie was connected to, moving them to a mobile tether. “Okay, darling. Now that you’re up, we have plans for you. Tests and more tests. I know, nothing but fun around here.”

She moved quickly with authority. There was no room for debate. I stepped away as she came to my side of the bed.

She said to me. “You’re welcome to wait, of course, but she will be awhile.”

I was able to get in a quick squeeze of Vangie’s hand. I smiled at her, stretching it out. “I’ve got to get to work, but I’ll be back tonight.”

Vangie’s face was crumpled. “I’m sorry, Dewey. Sorry.”

The nurse hoisted her up into a wheelchair and the two of them went out of the room.

Why did I feel abandoned?

Nine

Freddy was as good
as his word. He arrived at my QP right at nine. “Tell me the Lark Gordon books arrived.”

I shook my head. “UPS never came last night,” I said.

He frowned. “What have you got?”

I led him into the classroom. “Felix Scissors Company sent me a batch of special fabric snips. They’ve got blue plaid handles and are as cute as a button. What every quilter needs next to her sewing machine.”

I knew I was overselling, but I needed to believe we had good prizes.

Freddy said, “I’ve got twelve baskets in the car that contain threads and tape measures. That’s not going to cut it.”

“I stopped at Costco and bought some pens and sketch books. And dark chocolate Dove Hearts. That’ll fill the baskets up.”

Freddy glanced at his complicated watch. I was pretty sure he could predict earthquakes with one of those dials. “We need to get on the road.”

We loaded Freddy’s car with the scissors and Costco stuff. “Jim, my UPS guy, will be here soon,” I said, collapsing into the passenger seat. “He’s never later than 9:15. Then we can get moving.”

Freddy stood outside his car, tapping his fingers on the roof.

“I didn’t tell you what happened to Vangie last night,” I said. “She got mugged.”

“That’s horrible. Where was she? At school?”

“On her way to a class.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“She has a concussion. They’re worried about her brain swelling.”

“I heard they have good drugs for that. Vangie will be okay,” Freddy said. He was as anxious as I’d ever seen him. He couldn’t stop looking at his watch.He was making me nervous. We did have a lot of ground to cover.

“Get in,” I said. “If UPS won’t come to us, we’ll have to go to UPS.”

I directed Freddy to make a U-turn. I looked up and down the Alameda and didn’t see the brown truck. I sighed. We needed Lark’s books. They were the best prize we had.

“Turn here,” I said, directing Freddy down Naglee. I looked down the streets at the stately homes. Nothing. We drove past the junior high and the library. At Bascom, I told him to turn back.

Why did Jim change his route? Today of all days. We cut over on Race and got lucky.

“There!” I pointed behind a Mexican restaurant. I had my door opened before Freddy pulled into the parking lot, the Jag scraping the bumpy driveway.

Jim was surprised to see me, but gave up the shipment. I ripped open a box while Freddy rearranged his trunk to accommodate the new stuff.

“Score!” I yelled.

“Let’s go,” Freddy said. “Where’s the nearest freeway ramp?
We’ll go to the farthest-away shop first and work our way back
. Give me the address. I’ll feed it into my nav.”

I pulled out the cheery map and read off the street and the numbers. The nav went to work. According to it, our drive to Pacific Grove would take an hour and a half, meaning we’d get there around 11:00.

I studied the map. Now I was getting nervous. “We’ll never make it back to Half Moon Bay,” I said. That was miles north of here and we were heading south.

“I told you we had to get on the road earlier.”

“We must get to Barbara the Damp’s in Fremont. She’s up first thing tomorrow for the Twitter. And we’d better get to Barbara V’s before five. She’s already called twice.”

Freddy snorted. He checked his mirrors and changed lanes. “I say we leave Barb V to last. She’s pissing me off. Let her stew all day.”

His car hugged the guardrail. The Lexington Reservoir was low. I could see grass and the concrete remnants of the old road that had been abandoned when the reservoir was built.

“Are you sure we should be leaving her books until last?” I didn’t
want to tangle with Barb V.

“She needs to be taught she doesn’t rule the world. We promised she’d have her Twitter basket in time for the Crawl. And she will.”

I leaned back in my seat. We were heading up into the Santa Cruz Mountains now, and the trees were getting denser and taller. Older. The treetops whizzed past. I let the fancy leather upholstery envelop me.

If we weren’t in such a time crunch, I could have enjoyed this break in routine. Freddy’s hands rested lightly on the wheel confidently. His eyes flitted from the side mirror to the rear view. He eased in and out of the lanes, slotting his Jag behind whoever was moving the fastest.

Route 17 was ten miles of climbing roadway with switchbacks and dangerous curves. It was the quickest way to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and the Pacific Ocean. I hadn’t been allowed to drive this road until I turned eighteen.

“When it’s my turn for the Twitter promotion, I’m going to cause a riot,” Freddy said, raising his voice over the roar of the engine as he downshifted. I’d never been in a car that rode so close to the ground and went this fast. Freddy’s driving was making me slightly giddy.

“Excuse me?” I said, trying to catch my breath as he steered through the treacherous Big Moody Curve. I was starting to understand the race car driver’s love of speed. I felt like I’d left the astral plain. Worries about QP, the Crawl, even Vangie, darling Vangie, were lifted off my shoulders and snatched by the wind.

I fought the urge to giggle as Freddy gave the gas pedal a goose. I leaned into the curve of the roadway.

“I’ve downloaded this software that allows me to send out a tweet every sixty seconds. I’m going to blast my followers with notices about the special prize basket.”

“You can’t reveal that you’re the shop until the hour starts.”

“I know, I know. I promise not to do anything until the clock strikes the top of the hour. It’ll be like Easter morning, waiting for the okay to start looking for eggs. No early birds allowed.”

We were on the downslope of the mountain. The road widened
and straightened. My heart rate returned to normal. I wanted to go
back to San Jose and do it again.

“I’m not going to be happy until there are two hundred people in my shop.”

Every available inch of floor space in Freddy’s store was taken up with merchandise. “Two hundred? Twenty people would be crowded in your place.”

“I figured that out, too,” he said. “You know I’ve got a big parking lot out front. I’m going to rope it off and keep the folks contained. My buddy is coming to make balloon animals and Inez will play the accordion.”

I had to laugh. “Party at Freddy’s,” I said. The man knew how to make a spectacle.

“You got it,” he said. “Too bad you’re going to miss it.”

“Yes, well, I do have my own shop to tend to.”

Freddy turned south on Route 1 and set the cruise control at 80 mph. The nav adjusted our estimated time to 10:45. Freddy was doing the impossible, making time fly.

I caught my breath when the Pacific Ocean came into view as we hurtled down Highway One. The clouds thinned out and the blue sky lost its intensity, diluted by wisps of fog. The air coming in was cold and wet but felt restorative. I breathed deep.

Forty-five minutes later, the nav told us we were arriving at our destination.
On right. On right.

“Hustle,” Freddy said. “Hustle.”

I grabbed a basket and a book. “All right,” I said. “I’ll run in and drop these off.”

I ran inside, but was quickly stymied. The sole employee was with a customer and wouldn’t let me interrupt. She ignored my attempts to break into their conversation. I unloaded my burden on the long counter near the cash register.

I looked for a piece of paper. I’d leave a note for the owner.

I grabbed a pen from a mug and a yellow flyer and turned it over to the blank side.

“Twitter promotion basket,” I wrote. “Thx.” I added “XXXOOO”
to help mitigate the abruptness.

Freddy had turned the car around and was entering the info for the next place, in Monterey, ten minutes away. I flung open the door.

He threw the car in first and roared away from the curb. I was thrown back against the seat and scrambled for my seat belt.

We arrived at the second shop seven minutes later.

“Ha!” Freddy said. “Take that, nav. You’re not as smart as you think. Beat you by two minutes.”

The handoff went smoother that time, with the owner being not only present but grateful. I got back into Freddy’s car. This time I got my seat belt connected before he took off. Cookie’s shop was forty minutes away, heading north again.

“Yikes. I forgot to call Lark to let her know the books got here in time,” I said.

Freddy turned off his satellite radio. “Use my phone and put her on speaker.” He leaned into his dash. “Call Lark,” he yelled.

“Hey Lark,” I said when she answered. “It’s Dewey and Freddy, flying down the highway.”

Lark laughed. “That’s a bad road movie waiting to be made. Pellicano and Roman on the Road to Mandalay.”

“Technically, we’re on the road from Monterey,” Freddy said.

I talked to the display. “Actually, it’s more like Bonnie and Clyde. If you ever want to rob a bank, I can recommend Freddy. He drives a mean getaway car.”

“I would say I’d like to be with you two, but I remember how that movie ends. Try not to get shot,” Lark said.

“As long as Barb V is unarmed, we’re safe,” I said.

I told Lark that the books had arrived and thanked her for saving my life. When I disconnected by yelling, “Hang up” six times, Freddy was quiet.

“What’s up? Lark say something?”

“You had to bring up Barb V. That bitch …”

“That’s not news.”

“Wait till I tell you the latest,” he said. “I got a call from my shop when you were inside.”

Freddy’s eyes were slits as he avoided a minivan that pulled from a fruit stand onto the highway without looking. The Jaguar seemed to slide around the bulky van onto the shoulder and back into traffic before I had a chance to notice.

“I don’t care if Barb V doesn’t like me personally. That doesn’t give her the right to go after my business.”

“What is she doing?”

“Remember the trouble I had with those bad CDs a couple of years ago?”

Did I remember? I’d thought Freddy had committed murder over those embroidery discs. He had purchased a huge amount of CDs used in high-end sewing machines. Turned out the foreign discs were cheap for a reason, and wouldn’t work in American machines. Freddy had spent thousands on useless bootlegs.

“She’s telling everyone that the CDs I sell now are knockoffs. That my CDs are no good. Rebekah said a customer came in, complaining that her eight-thousand-dollar machine would be ruined if she used a design disc she bought at my place.”

“That’s terrible.” Reputation was key to any business, but a sewing machine store didn’t have much else. The machines were the same wherever you bought them. My mother had always told her customers that you bought the dealer, not the machine.

If Barb V managed to trash Freddy’s rep, he’d be out of business.

“How do you know it’s her?” I asked. Even Barb V deserved a fair trial.

“One of the machine company representatives told me. They nearly believed her. The company was getting ready to pull their brand from my store. When I grilled her, she said she heard it from Barb V.”

We turned off onto the Aptos exit and entered the darling downtown that sat on the cusp of the forest and the ocean. Freddy slotted the car neatly into a parking spot right in front of the store. Even the good parking karma didn’t improve his mood.

Before I got out of the car, I said, “We’ve got to stop her.”

“Believe me, I will make sure of that,” Freddy said.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at Quilts Up, in Santa Cruz, our fourth stop in less than two hours. Summer greeted us as she bounded out of the shop, her braids bouncing on her chest and her long skirt nearly tripping her.

“Dudes!” she said.

She hugged me around the neck. “You’re the best. This is going to be so much fun. I can hardly wait until tomorrow.”

Summer’s enthusiasm was infectious. Freddy and I both cheered up. It looked like we might make it to all the shops before they closed.

Barb the Damp’s shop in Fremont was next to last on our list. We pulled up into the parking lot as two women were pulling the front door shut. The shorter of the two had her keys in her hand when I raced up with the basket in hand.

“Excuse me, I’m with the Quilters Crawl. This is your basket for tomorrow. Can you put it inside?”

The two women looked at each other.

“Where’s Barb?” I asked. I looked into the store. The lights were out. “Is she working tonight?”

“No, she didn’t come in today,” the woman with the key said. “She’s under the weather.”

The other woman raspberried her lips. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

The key woman shot her a look and grabbed the basket from me. She opened the door and turned on a light. She marched into the depths.

“Thanks,” I said. I was happy to get away from that atmosphere.

I got back into the car. Freddy was fiddling with his radio. “Last but not least, Barb V.”