The Bogus Biker (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

In the Sit-n-Swill lot, Penelope parked her six-year-old SUV in the farthest available space.             

“Afraid somebody might see us and be scandalized?” Jake asked.

“Everybody in town knows my car.”

“Everybody in town knows you aren’t a bar-hopper.”

“Really, Daddy!”

“Plenty of respectable people come here,” Jake said.

“And plenty of the other kind, too.”

“So, do you have a plan?” Jake paused with his hand on the door and looked at his daughter.

“A plan?”

“Every good Dick has a plan.”

Penelope stifled a giggle. “Detective, Daddy. I’m not a blessed detective.”

Jake chuckled. “Well, we’ll case the joint while we have our
Reubens.”

This time Penelope did laugh. “You read too many who-
dunits.”

“I learn a lot. Let’s see what’s going on.” Jake slid out of the car, slamming the door behind him.

A bulb was dark in the marquee lights spelling out
Sit-n-Swill
across the front of a stucco building the color of spicy mustard. “Roger needs to get that fixed,” Jake observed.

“I’m sure you’ll tell him about it.” Penelope stood back and let her father pull out the single gun-metal gray door. Cool air from an ancient swamp cooler mounted outside the back wall bathed her face, bringing with it the smell of cigarette smoke and beer. She stepped inside, waiting until her eyes adjusted to the dimness before she
moved further. Patsy Cline’s
Sweet Dreams
blared from the jukebox near the front.

Roger
Sitton materialized from behind the wooden bar he’d recently painted a garish red, something between overripe tomatoes and a fire engine.
Bloodshot eye red,
Jake called it. “Hey there, Mr. Kelley, Penelope.” He wore tight jeans and a western-style shirt, open at the neck, with its sleeves rolled to his elbows, and hand-tooled boots from some place in Texas.

“You got a bulb burned out,” Jake said.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll fix it.” Rogers lifted short thick fingers to smooth his thinning red hair tied back in a ponytail that fell just below his collar, and cleared his throat, which did nothing to improve the reedy tenor tone he’d developed in the past dozen years. “What can I do you for tonight?”

“A couple of
Reubens,” Jake said. “And a beer for me. Bottled.” He edged Penelope toward a table against the back wall.

“It’s too noisy here,” Penelope protested.

“Good cover,” Jake mouthed, glancing up at what was probably the last swamp cooler in existence in three counties. He pulled out a chair for his daughter and took the once across from her, facing the room. “See anybody you know?” he asked.

“Not from this angle.” Penelope twisted her h
ead to glance around and squinted through the haze of humidity generated through the metal louvers above her head. Mixed with the smoke, it made the room appear enveloped in a gauzy curtain. “No, none of the regulars. That’s odd.”

“How do you know who’s a regular here?”

“I have my sources.” Penelope used her foot to pull an empty chair farther under the table and tucked her purse in the seat.

Jake extracted a cigar from his shirt pocket and lit up.

“That’s not good for you, Daddy.”

“Smelling it, smoking it, all the same.”

Penelope sighed.

“At my age, a man deserves to enjoy life.”

“I guess.”

“I know.”
             

Roger brought their sandwiches in plastic baskets lined with waxed paper. “You want anything to drink?” he asked Penelope as he set a bottle of beer on the scarred wood table in front of Jake.

“Just water.”

“Be right back.”

Jake peeled back the paper and took a bite of the sandwich, savoring it for a long moment before he swallowed. “Good stuff.”

“I don’t know a single soul in here,” Penelope said. “Something doesn’t feel right about that.”

“Eat your Reuben while it’s hot.”

She picked up the sandwich but stopped with it half-way to her mouth. “Listen.” Outside, a muffled roar swelled before it died.
“Uh-oh. Bikers.”

“They got to eat, too.” Jake sipped his beer.

“They don’t come here to eat, Daddy. They come here to drink and raise hell.”

“Nellie, Nellie.
Raise Cain
, not the other.”

“Same thing.”

Her sandwich remained poised in mid-air as she watched the door fly open. It hit the jukebox and Glen Campbell’s
Rhinestone Cowboy
skipped two measures. Four leather-clad bikers strode in, flexing their tattooed knuckles in greeting—or threat. “Maybe we ought to leave,” Penelope whispered.

“Not ‘til I finish my Reuben. They can’t get drunk by then.” Jake took another bite and chewed slowly.

The four men straddled barstools at the red counter. Roger flipped the tops off four bottles of beer and set them down. “What else, gentlemen?”

None of them answered, just swept up the bottles and swiveled to face the room. The man on the far end fixed his gaze on Penelope. Realizing she’d been staring, she dropped her eyes and nibbled her sandwich, but her
appetite had disappeared. A sudden strong odor of sweat made her aware the biker had left the bar to stand beside her. She kept her eyes down.

“
Evenin’,” she heard Jake say.

“
Evenin’, old timer.”

Jake chuckled.
“Haven’t heard that one in a while.”

“Who’s your date?”

“No date. My daughter. The apple of my eye.”

Penelope looked up at her father. Was there a warning in his words?

The man let loose with a belly laugh, spewing droplets of warm beer in the air. Penelope covered her sandwich with her hand. “Baby girl got a name?”

Penelope tried to signal Jake with her eyes, but he said, “Nellie.”

“Nellie.” The biker jerked back the fourth chair and straddled it. “Hi-ya, Nellie.”

She wrinkled her nose at the odor and
turned her face away when she noticed he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt under his vest.

“She’s shy,” Jake said. Penelope could hear the sarcasm in his voice, but it appeared lost on her erstwhile admirer.

A beefy hand circled her upper arm. “Well, we got to do somethin’ about that, don’t we?”

Penelope tried without success to pull away, but his fingers dug into her flesh. “You’re hurting me,” she said.

Across the table, Jake shifted in his chair. “Easy, son.”

The biker grinned but didn’t let go. “Sorry about that.”

“Please let go of my arm.”

“Pretty-please,” he taunted.

“Pretty-please,” she said with ice surrounding each word.

He laughed and tightened his grip.
“With sugar on it.”

She put her lips together and shook her head, making her earrings dance. Across the table Jake swigged down the last of his beer. “Finish your sandwich, Nellie.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

The biker looked at Jake. “She’s not hungry.”

“Then wrap it up, and let’s go.”

Penelope complied and tried to stand up, but her backside hit the chair again, courtesy of the biker’s grip. “I want to go,” she said.

“She wants to go,” the man parroted.

“That’s what she said.” Jake leaned across the table. “Thought you fellows had a code of conduct where ladies and old-timers are concerned.”

Something flickered in the man’s eyes. His fingers flew open, releasing Penelope’s arm, and he stood up so quickly the chair overturned. She watched his eyes dart around the room and wondered what—or who—he was looking for.  From the jukebox, Kenny Rogers pleaded with someone not to take their guns to town. Almost as if on cue, a single gunshot shattered the air and sent bodies scrambling for cover.

CHAPTER THREE

Penelope tried without success to see her father, but the biker’s weight crushed her against the splintery wooden floor. Arms and legs spread-eagled like a turtle pinned under a rock, she thought she could feel her eyes bulging.
“Daddy?”

“He’s all right.” The biker’s voice, no hint of its former twang, came out clipped and correct. “Be still, and be quiet.”

Yankee
, she thought with automatic contempt. “You’re squashing me.”

He lifted his body slightly but kept his fingers around her wrists, rendering her arms immobile.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Not sure. Be quiet.”

“Shut up, Nellie, “Jake hissed from somewhere.

She heard chairs crashing around her. The jukebox went silent as the front door flew open against it. Feet stampeded in that direction. The cooler above them groaned and sputtered, sending droplets of water spattering down. Suddenly, the biker heaved his body upwards. She rolled over in time to see him disappear toward the back. Then the wail of police sirens displaced the eerie silence left behind by the exodus of patrons.

“Daddy?”

Jake stood over her, his posture reminiscent of the soldier he had been a long time ago. “For heaven’s sake, get up off the floor, Nellie. Brad’s going to come walking through that door any minute, and he’s
gonna be shocked enough seeing you here, much less with your skirt hiked up to your drawers.”

Penelope fumbled with her turquoise,
red, and yellow broomstick skirt and scrambled to her feet. “Out the back,” she said. “Hurry.”

With Jake at her heels, she headed down the short hall, past the restrooms that never smelled exactly clean, toward what Roger euphemistically called the ‘fire door’,
and flung it open. Officer Rosabel Deane, the police department’s newest recruit, smiled. “Going somewhere, Mrs. Pembroke?”

“I guess not,” Penelope said, tugging at the yellow knit pullover that had edged its way above her waistband. “Office Deane, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. You want to just step back inside?”

“Do I have a choice?”

The young officer’s dark eyes danced with mirth. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid you don’t.”

Penelope sighed and turned around. Jake, already on his way back in the main area, motioned her to the table they’d vacated. Her unfinished Reuben lay wet and limp beside the overturned water glass. She pushed it away.

Jake’s eyes focused on the front door. In a few minutes his grandson, newly-minted Detective Sergeant Bradley Pembroke, strode in with one hand resting on the butt of his undrawn nine millimeter Glock. “How-do, Brad,” he said, touching his forehead in a mock salute.

“Pawpaw!
What in the…Mother!” His generous mouth, inherited like his mother’s from the Irish Kelleys, opened in a perfect ‘O’. Penelope resisted the urge to reach up and close it for him.             

Bradley moved closer to the table and leaned down. “What are you two doing here?”

“Having a Reuben and a beer,” Jake said. “At least, I’m having a beer. Your mother’s drinking water.”

Bradley closed his eyes briefly. “Why tonight? Do you know…
”  He straightened up and tried to rearrange his face to look like the hardboiled cop he aspired to appear. “Just sit there, and don’t move. I’ll get back to you two later.”

Penelope looked around for Roger and saw him leaning against the far end of the bar. She’d heard her ex-husband say that raids, while not the norm, never bothered Roger
Sitton. “He likes the excitement,” Travis said once.

The four bikers, along with everyone else who had been in the Sit-n-Swill, had effected a get-away.
Everyone,
Penelope thought,
except Daddy and me, thanks to that sleazy biker character.
She glanced across the table at her father and rolled her eyes. He winked.

“Was that a gunshot we heard?” she whispered.

“Reckon it was. Check out the mirror behind the bar.” He nodded toward Officer Parnell Garrett who was examining a thin web of cracks that ran out from a single hole. “What kind?” Penelope asked.

“I’d say a thirty-eight. At least it didn’t hit anybody.”

“Do you think it was meant to, or was it just a random shot? Somebody raising he…Cain.”

“Neither, if you ask me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I saw one of those biker fellows take something out of his vest pocket.
Could’ve been a gun.”

“They hadn’t had time to drink enough to get mean.”

Jake shook his head. “Diversion. Cover.”

“Cover for what?”

“The shipment maybe.”

Penelope digested that. “Those four bikers got out of here in a hurry.”

“Three,” Jake said.

Penelope tried not to smile. “Oh, you heard him, too?”

“Yankee. Some fancy school back east. Had a lot of them in the army during the war. Couldn’t understand most of what they said.” Jake chuckled. “Always hated it when one of ‘em started yelling at us through a megaphone when we were training. We didn’t know what the Sam Hill he wanted us to do.”

“So the biker rig was a disguise?
Interesting.”

Jake lowered his voice.
“What about those fellows who stayed last night—the ones who got your curiosity going?”

“Come to think of it, they talked like that, too.
Yankees.”

Jake nodded.

Bradley skirted overturned chairs as he crossed the floor. “You two see anything?”

“Bikers,” Jake said. “I think one of ‘
em might’ve fired the shot.”

“You saw him do it?”

“No, just saw him take something out of his pocket. Couldn’t swear to what it was.”

“So who was in here?” Bradley asked.

“None of the regulars,” Penelope spoke up.

“I hope you don’t consider yourself a regular here.” Bradley’s well-shaped eyebrows came together at the bridge of his nose. “If you want a Reuben, you can get one at the Daisy Café.”

“They close at five-thirty,” Jake said. “Besides, Roger’s are better. And I can get a beer. Ben’s never bothered to get a liquor license at the Daisy. ‘Course, there might be a reason he can’t…”

Bradley huffed and waved a dismissive hand. “What else did you see? Anybody you haven’t seen before?”

“Just the bikers,” Penelope said. “Four.”

“One took quite a shine to your mamma,” Jake said.

“Not now, Daddy.”

“One of them was hitting on you?” Bradley’s face turned red.

“Nothing so dire,” Penelope said. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“Tonight of all nights,” Bradley muttered.

“Why do you say that?” his mother asked. “Something going on?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“I think you just did. The entire police force—all five of you, minus Chief Malone, naturally, didn’t show up for nothing. Besides, you got here before anybody had time to call.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the phone is in the back, and Roger was behind the bar when the shot was fired and still in the exact same spot when I got up off the floor. So you had to know in advance that…”

“Go home, Mother,” Bradley said, narrowing his eyes in what Penelope supposed he thought was a menacing expression but had always reminded her of the way he looked during pollen season when he had allergies as a child. “Just be glad you didn’t get arrested.”

“For what? Besides, you wouldn’t arrest me.  Who’d give the guests at the B&B breakfast tomorrow morning? Who’d feed Abijah?”

“That devil cat can starve to death as far as I’m concerned.”

Jake snorted.

“Just go home, both of you. And get your
Reubens somewhere else from now on.” He whirled around, almost tripping over his size eleven feet, and stalked out.

Jake unfolded himself from the chair. “Let’s go home, Nellie. Why don’t you take the road around Pine Branch Creek?”

“What? That’s at least five miles out of our way, Daddy. Besides, that’s where all the bikers…” She let the sentence die. “You’re right. It’s a nice night for a drive. We’ll go through Burger Barn on the way out of town and pick up a couple of milkshakes. I’m beginning to feel empty.”

“Goodnight, Mrs. Pembroke, Mr. Kelley,”
Rosabel Deane said as they passed her picking up a beer bottle with gloved hands and dropping it into a bag.

“Goodnight, Officer Deane,” Penelope said. “Good luck.”

Rosabel smiled slightly. “Uh-huh.”