Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (25 page)

The car
barreled to the top of the street, but before Sam could escape from the neighborhood, high beams from another car’s headlights filled her rearview mirror. She squinted, gripped the steering wheel, ignored the stop sign, and swung a sharp right off Chester Street. As she did she saw the black shiny sedan from the corner of her eye. “Damn it! Damn it!” Sam shouted into the interior, pounding her fists hard against the steering wheel. “How the hell did they get out here so fast?!”

Sam pushed the gas pedal to the floor and the car lunged forward. She looked straight ahead, having no idea where she was. She clicked on her high beams and the light rose and fell with the road. She took another right. The farther she went, the more rural the area became. Her thoughts were spinning.
Where to go? What to do? Help me! Help me! Help me!

She looked in the rearview mirror. The sedan was gaining. She glanced down at the speedometer, the thin red line showed she was
going almost 60 miles an hour. The headlights from the black sedan nearly filled her mirror, making it almost impossible for Sam to see the road ahead. The moon had disappeared behind clouds.

Another right turn. Sam had turned onto a gravel road. Loose rocks flew up pinging off the body of the car. A mistake. But it was too late to turn back now. The sedan followed, inching closer. She checked her speed: 65 miles an hour. She couldn’t see a thing in front of her.

As Sam reached up to adjust the mirror away from the high beams, the black sedan rammed the back of the Accord. She lurched forward, almost hitting her head on the steering wheel. Sam screamed as she began to lose control of the car on the loose, rocky surface. She turned the wheel and the car began to fishtail. Overcorrecting, right, then left, then right, then left.

The shiny black sedan hit the Accord again, this time clipping it on the left back bumper and forcing it off the road. The car careened into an open field, where it flipped, once, twice, then a third time before coming to rest on its top. The only movement came from the wheels spinning round and round and round. The thin red line, frozen in time like an epitaph, showed 75 miles an hour.

When David walked into his apartment at ten minutes after nine o’clock, he dropped his satchel at the door and walked directly to his answering machine. He saw the red light flashing one time and closed his eyes in relief. He knew Samantha Church well enough that he expected her to ignore his plea. He did not want her to put her life in danger, but he did not expect her to be reasonable at a time like this. Not with everything at stake.

He hit the play button. He removed his jacket as the woman’s mechanical voice on the recorder said, ‘you have one new message and no saved messages.’ There was a brief moment of silence before the woman started to speak again, ‘First message came today at 8:52 p.m.’

David’s sense of relief disappeared like a magic trick when the voice that filled his living room did not belong to Samantha Church, but a friend inviting him to a Denver Nugget’s basketball game Friday night. He frowned, trying not to feel his disappointment that Sam had not called. He stood in the center of the room, hands stuffed in his pant pockets looking down at the answering machine, wondering just what Sam was doing at that moment. He glanced at his watch. Nearly a quarter past the hour. He would give her until nine-thirty, ten o’clock at the latest before he called.

He changed into sweats and a Colorado Rockies T-shirt. He sat on the floor, flipped on the TV and ate a bowl of cereal watching the early edition of the news, then switched to a sports channel on one of the cable stations. His cordless phone was an easy reach on the floor beside him.

At five minutes before ten, he picked up the phone and dialed Sam’s number, trying not to let his frustration get the better of him. The phone rang once, twice, three times before Sam’s answering machine picked the call up on the end of the fourth ring. David was not going to leave a message, but changed his mind. He waited for her greeting to play through.“Sam? Sam? It’s David. Hello? Are you there?” He waited a moment, giving her time to get to the phone. Seconds passed. Nothing
.
He spoke again. “Sam? It’s David. It’s a little before ten. Hey, remember you were supposed to call me tonight around nine so that we could check in. Just wanted to see how you were doin’. Give me a call okay?”

David hung up the phone, deciding to give her twenty minutes to call back. If she didn’t call, he’d drive to her place. Time ticked
by and at fifteen minutes before eleven, David put on a sweat top, his tennis shoes, got in his SUV and drove to Sam’s apartment.

He scanned the parking lot for the Accord when he pulled into the complex. He didn’t see it on his initial sweep so he made a second. Obviously, she wasn’t home. David parked his SUV in front of Sam’s building. He looked up at the windows on the third floor. They were dark. His frustration was turning to anger.
“Sam, what did you go and do?”

He got out of the truck and walked slowly up the stairs. The other night when they unwrapped the mannequin hands in the office, Sam had reached into her purse and pulled out a set of keys. It was an extra set, she told David she kept in her purse, just in case she was locked out of her car or apartment. She had handed him the one to her apartment and said she’d have another one made.

He knocked firmly twice. He waited. Wind circulated through the entryway, the chill made him shiver. He knocked again and crossed his arms against the biting cold. He waited, bouncing on the balls of his feet for Sam to come to the door. No answer. David used her spare key.

“Sam?”

Nothing. The house was silent and dark. He called again. He waited only a moment for her reply. He stepped inside the apartment and listened. The room was silent, save for the tick-tick of a clock, a light sound off somewhere in the darkness. He took several deep breaths, wondering if remnant smells of dinner might still be lingering in the air. The place smelled only lightly of eucalyptus. He was certain now that she had been gone all evening.

David flipped the light switch by the door and a lamp by the couch came to life, brightening the living room. He quickly scanned the room. With the exception of Morrison who had been asleep in the big chair by the living room window, nothing seemed out of place. The cat looked up, tem
porarily disturbed from his nap. He studied David a moment, then cautiously stalked off to the bedroom. Relief flooded David as he made a fast sweep through the rest of the house and saw that it had not been ransacked.

He stood in the middle of the living room, his hands resting on
top his head, thinking. He could not wait until tomorrow morning. He checked Morrison’s food and water bowl. Satisfied they both were full, David left Sam’s apartment. He drove back to his place, angry with himself. He should have known better than to take Sam at her word. Wilson had been kidnapped and her daughter had been taken. What had he expected her to do? Sit passively by while people terrorized her life? He understood that she felt compelled to do something. He would have done the same were it his daughter.

He entered his apartment thinking of the meth house. The thought stopped him in his tracks.
That’s where she’s gone.

David hoped that Sam had information about the meth house in her desk at work. He changed to a pair of Levis. He would head to the Perspective, and he would find Sam. But not alone. This was more than he could handle solo. He picked up the phone and punched in the number. He glanced at his sport watch as he dialed, knowing that it was too late to call, but let the phone ring anyway.

“Hello?”

David was relieved that the man’s voice didn’t sound irritated that someone was calling so late. He could hear the sounds of the television playing in the background.
“Hello, Mr. Skinner?”

“Yes, this is Howard Skinner. Who’s this?”

“You don’t know me, but my name’s David Best, I work with your granddaughter…” David’s voice trailed off as he really didn’t know how Sam and Howard were related. “Ah, sir, I work with Sam Church at the Grandview Perspective newspaper.”

“Yes, young man, I know who you are,” Howard said. “Samantha’s mentioned your name a time or two. She’s told me you’ve always been nice to her.”

“Yes, well, thank you, Mr. Skinner. I’m sorry to call you so late, but I think I’m going to need your help. And this can’t wait ’til tomorrow. I think Sam could be in a lot of trouble and you’re the only person I know I can call.”

David told Howard what had happened and where he thought Sam might be.

David ended by saying, “I don’t know for sure, Mr. Skinner, but I don’t like the way I feel about this. I think something really bad has happened.”

A troubled silence.

“Where can I meet you, David?” Howard asked.

“Sir, can you meet me at the Perspective office?”

“I’m driving in from the ranch. I should be there in about a half hour, forty-five minutes at the very most,” Howard said without hesitation.

Howard hung up the phone, staring down
at hands the size of baseball mitts. He made them into tight fists and raised them to eye level. The tighter he squeezed his fists, the more the muscles in his forearms flexed. He had been doing a slow burn since the day he waited for Sam to wake up in the hospital. When Howard Skinner learned that April had been abducted and how much danger she was in, there was no longer any use in working to keep his anger at bay—and when Howard Skinner got angry it was something to behold.

He vowed that their captors would never survive the experience alive.

It was just minutes before midnight when Howard started the drive from the ranch to the Grandview Perspective.

Frances Marino stood on the long front porch, her arms settled in a soft fold across her stomach, her thick robe pulled around her to protect her from the cold. He watched her watching him as he headed for the main road. He kept an eye on her in the rearview until her figure had been swallowed up by the darkness. He drove to the outer gate, keepi
ng close to his bosom her words…

“Bring them home.”

In the rearview mirror, the ranch house had been reduced to the size of a breadbox. The lights were on, cozy boxes of soft, golden light that reminded him of warmth and safety, and brought a smile of hope to his face.

His mind was spinning, filled with thoughts of Sam and April and the times they had been part of his life, here at the ranch. His life had always been full and he was as happy as a man could be who had spent most of his younger life away at sea
, first in the Navy, then as a Merchant Marine. After he retired from military duty, he found that he didn’t like being in one place all the time, so he became a long-distance driver hauling doublewide mobile homes. He never thought much about settling down permanently, and he had loved only one woman, taken from him not long after they had started college. She had been killed in a car accident in a blinding snowstorm returning to school the winter break of their sophomore year. Howard finished the semester, but never went back. Instead he joined the Navy that summer. He loved the sea so much that he became a Merchant Marine when his career in the Navy was over.

He retired a Merchant Marine and moved back to Indiana, the place of his birth. There he spent a decade
trucking
all over the country and had gone through Colorado on interstates 25 and 70 any number of times and liked the feeling he had every time and in every season that he passed through the Centennial State. He had always thought that when he retired he would live in a city on the West Coast. He had been stationed in Washington at Bremerton, where he used to like seeing the big gray Navy ships floating in Dyes Inlet at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and thought he would go there after he retired. But it rained a little more than he liked and, when the sun was out, he wanted it to be warm and dry on his skin. He wanted the hot, strong sun that shone in the Colorado sky, not the meek, soft sun that filled the skies of the Pacific Northwest.

When the time came, he retired from the trucking company, took everything he owned and moved from Indiana to Denver. He drove into the state much the same way he had when he hauled houses, along Interstate 70 over the Kansas border. On the way to Denver, the landscape changed from the high plains to the Front Range. He wasn’t in Denver long when he saw an ad in the local newspaper that Frances Marino was looking for a hand to help her run the ranch. The thought appealed to him instantly. He called and liked the sound of her voice the
instant she said hello. As he listened to her explain some of the duties that the hired hand would be responsible for, he felt the way he often did whenever he heard distant church bells chiming at noon. Settled and at peace.

He interviewed with Frances Marino a few days later over coffee at her kitchen table. She had a large pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the kitchen stove and homemade bread in the oven, making the kitchen rich and warm. Howard remembered that she wore a pale blue housedress with a simple striped pattern. A white apron, stained with flour and yeast, covered her dress.

She fed him homemade minestrone soup and bread fresh from the oven and a small juice glass filled with red wine.
Grappa
. He would learn it was called in Italian. When they finished lunch, Frances Marino gave Howard the keys to the International Scout, an old light blue, four-wheel drive she kept on the property, and they drove over her land with him telling her that, yes, he could this, and, yes, he could do that. When they returned to the house, they got out of the truck and met in front of the engine. It was a cold day that May and he remembered feeling the last of the heat on his jeans as it emanated from the truck’s motor. In that instant, a sense of home and security emerged and settled over him, downy and soft like a baby blanket, a sense of place aching to be fulfilled. An empty feeling closed.

Frances Marino offered Howard Skinner the job. He accepted. He moved into an 800-square-foot cottage with a wood-burning stove that Frances had built near the main ranch house especially so that a caretaker could live on the property. From the cottage window over the kitchen sink, Howard could see Frances moving about in her own kitchen. He often stood there watching her when she was cooking. The place in his heart for love widening a little each time.
 

Howard drove off the ranch that day and closed the outer gate, with dust kicking up under the wheels of his old brown station wagon, knowing, sure, of one thing, he had found a home. It did not take long for Frances Marino’s extended family to become his own. When April was born, something inside of him melted at the first fragile sight of her and he wanted nothing more than to protect and to love her.

Robin was gone now and, with her passing, a piece of him was gone, too. The mere thought of losing Sam and April was simply intolerable. That, he determined, would never happen.

David Best was already at the Grandview Perspective, waiting in his SUV for Howard to arrive. He had the car heater on
, keeping the interior warm. When he saw Howard pull into the parking lot in his big two-tone brown Chrysler station wagon, David got out of his truck and stood in front of the empty stall where Howard would park.

He waited with his
hands stuffed deep in his pant pockets for Howard to get out of his car. He had never met Howard, but knew from what Sam had told him that all he had to do was think of the old “Mr. Clean” commercials and, that for the most part, was the image of Howard Skinner. Unlike Mr. Clean, Howard wore glasses.

Sam was right about Howard’s perfectly round bald head. It was the first thing David noticed about him as he got out of the wagon. Howard was taller than David expected. Even at his six-feet, Howard easily stood five inches over him and showed little signs of age in his bulky frame. There was something abou
t Howard’s demeanor that made him seem even bigger. Howard wore work boots and Levis and David could see his white T-shirt beneath his dark blue and green flannel shirt. They met in front of the wagon and shook hands. Howard’s folded easily around David’s. “Thanks for coming, Mr. Skinner.”

“You don’t h
ave to call me Mr. Skinner, son. Howard will do just fine.”

David’s smile was shy as he motioned for Howard to follow him to the front door. Howard was taken in immediately by David’s youth and boyish charm, and took an instant liking to the young man. They entered the building and Howard watched as David punched in the code to dismantle the burglar alarm.

“Ever been here before?” David asked as they headed down the stairs into the newsroom.

“Only once,” Howard said, “but only in the lobby upstairs. I came to see Samantha, but she had already left by the time I got here, so I never got the nickel tour.”

They walked the length of the newsroom with David pointing out the respective offices and desks. “This is Sam’s,” David said as they reached it.

David watched as Howard made a quick inventory of Sam’s desk, crowded and stuffed with stacks of newspapers, papers and other assorted files and several coffee cups. Howard arched an eyebrow in David’s direction.
David smiled and shrugged. “Sam says she knows where everything is.”

Howard nodded, rubbing a stocky index finger over his lips. When he did David noticed that the middle finger on his right hand was permanently bent inward at the top knuckle. Arthritis he guessed.
“Think we’re ever going to find that address among all this?” He asked, still surveying Sam’s desk.

David moved around to the back of the desk, pulled Sam’s chair out and sat down. He studied the desktop, and then pushed some newspapers aside with his elbows so he could rest them on the desk. The police scanner squelched and Howard looked over his shoulder in the direction of the noise.

“It’s just the police scanner,” David said.

The men listened, waiting for the scanner to bark a request or a command, but after several seconds nothing happened.

“It burps like that sometimes for no apparent reason,” David said looking at Howard.

Howard nodded and the men turned their attention back to Sam’s desk. “She’s got to have an address around here, in one of these files anyway,” David said shifting more files around on her desk. He searched a few minutes when he saw the name Sam had scribbled in her familiar script in one of the day squares on her desk calendar.

Sgt. B. King.

“Look what we have here,” David said and tapped the name written in blue ink several times with his index finger.

Howard leaned over the top of Sam’s desk for a better look.
“B. King?”

“Bud King,” David said. “Remember the police officer who got killed last month? The one that Sam was working with on that drug smuggling story.”

Howard confirmed, nodding slightly. “Yes, the young one with the two little girls.”

“Yeah,” David said without looking up. “Well, King is, or was, his partner.”

The scanner belched again breaking a moment of silence. Howard was still surveying Sam’s calendar, when a yellow sticky note on the floor near his boot caught his attention. He picked it up. Something about the words written on it joggled his memory. He stood up, trying to recall what it was, his eyebrows drifting up over his glasses as he thought.

“What is it?” David asked.

“An address,” Howard said and pointed to it. “Somewhere on Chester Street.”

Their eyes locked and their faces went smooth in recognition.

“It has to be the meth lab,” David said. “She probably called King for the address.”

“Do you know where it is?” Howard asked.

Both men felt adrenaline begin to surge through their veins.

“Follow me,” David said and jumped up out of Sam’s chair and headed for a map of the city tacked on a back wall.

They reached the map and studied it for a time in silence.

“I just know it’s north of here,” David said, his voice distant as he studied the map.

Howard nodded in agreement. “It gets pretty rural the further north you go in Truman County.”

“Right,” David said, tracing the area with his finger. “There,” he said and tapped the area as he found Chester Street. “It’s right there.”

Howard leaned in, hoping silently that if April had been taken there, at least she was with Sam and Wilson and wasn’t in a cold, dark room somewhere alone. He hoped she also had food and was warm. He could feel the blood rushing through the veins in his neck as the image of her innocence stood before him. He simply could not stand knowing that any harm could come to that little girl. The one who sat patiently next to him whenever he worked in his workshop, making windmills and birdhouses or fixing one of the cars, handing him a nail here and there, or a screwdriver, hammer or a wrench.

He had missed her terribly since she had gone to live with her grandmother. The thought of never seeing her again made the big man feel like he was about to crumble. There had never been much that made Howard Skinner cry. But the day he found that April’s father had sent her to live with his mother, he got in the old Scout and drove to the furthest western corner of the ranch and cried.

Howard folded his arms over his chest and looked at the area in and around Chester Street through narrowed eyes. His breathing was slow and deep. Then he lowered his hands to his sides and folded them tightly into fists, feeling his forearms flex with strength. He had never threatened any one in his seventy-plus years. Now he was certain it was in him to kill someone.

“Howard? You okay?”

Howard stepped back from the map and adjusted his glasses. “Yes, son, I’m fine. Let’s go find them.”

Howard and David left the newsroom and headed up the stairs. David reset the alarm and the two men headed out into the darkness, hit by cold air heavy with moisture. They walked in front of Howard’s station wagon.

“Let’s take the Chrysler,” Howard said, putting an arm on David to stop him. “This old thing will be a lot less conspicuous than that SUV you’re driving.”

David nodded at the idea and headed toward the passenger’s side. He waited for Howard to unlock the door. Then he slid inside and the two men drove in silence from the parking lot.

It was just after one a.m. when Howard steered the station wagon onto Chester Street.

“It’ll be somewhere on the left hand side of the street,” David said, glancing at the address.

Howard nodded to confirm David’s direction. The car rolled along in silence both men looking intently on the numbers affixed either to mailboxes or near the front doors.

“Should be the next one,” David said and pointed at the single-story vinyl-sided house to his left.

Howard slowed the station wagon to a crawl until it passed in front of the house.

“Look, there’s still police tape wrapped around that tree,” David said. “But it doesn’t
look like there’s been any other kind of activity here tonight.”