Thugs and Kisses (26 page)

The older woman was definitely in charge. In a comforting tone, she was trying to calm Tim down, telling him not to worry, that she would take care of everything.

“Don’t you get it, old woman?” Tim said in a tone of angry frustration. “I don’t want you to take care of anything. I want you to let him go.”

Let him go?
I stifled a sigh of relief. Steele must still be alive.

“Now, now, where are your manners? You don’t come into my place of business shooting off your mouth and making demands.” The woman’s tone was still soothing even as she chastised him. “Do I come down to that fancy office of yours and tell you how to be a lawyer?”

“You’ve been paid for a full thirty days,” Tim said. “You can keep the money, just let him go now. You can still make it look like he went on a bender or got in an accident and ended up with amnesia—whatever, just don’t kill him. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Damn right we’re keeping the money,” I heard another female voice say. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it straight off.

“Calm down now,” Mother chimed in. “The man is just upset because things got out of his control, and he doesn’t like losing control. He’s not used to it.”

“Well, it’s his fault we’re in this mess,” the other woman said. “And yours.”

“
My
fault?” For the first time, I noticed anger in Mother’s voice. “If you’ll recall, young lady, it wasn’t my idea to do this job. Kidnapping isn’t what we do. We kill and we kill clean, no loose ends. This job has as many loose ends as a fringed shawl.” There was another pause, and I heard the sound of wood scraping on wood, followed by someone walking.

“I wasn’t the one swayed by this man’s money and promise of an easy job,” I heard Mother say from a different direction. “No, it was the rest of you. I told you not to diversify. We had a good thing going. Built up a solid business with more than enough money coming in for all of us. It’ll all be over if we don’t do some mighty fast damage control.”

“It was an easy job,” Tim said. “All you had to do was grab Mike and hold him for four weeks, then release him without his knowing what happened and who did it. How did it get so screwed up?”

“You be still, Mr. Lawyer. Holding people against their will isn’t easy, no matter how much money you throw at the problem.” I could picture Mother scolding Tim Weber. “We only did it because a friend of yours is a good client and referred you. Now I’m regretting that decision every day.”

There was more walking and more scraping on wood; must be a chair moving across the floor. I wanted to stretch up on my tiptoes and see if I could peek over the window ledge, but I didn’t dare.

When Mother spoke again, it was from the other direction. “We should never have taken this job, especially on top of the other one. Now we’re cleaning up our own mess instead of cleaning up other people’s problems.”

“The other job has nothing to do with me or Karen,” I heard Tim say.

“Like hell it doesn’t,” Mother said. “If we hadn’t snagged your annoying friend, the other job would have been done clean and simple, and we would have been back to normal, with a lot of quick cash and time to spend on our other clients.” Mother made some unintelligible sounds of disgust. “We only took your job because your friend asked us to help out. He was so disappointed when someone else beat him to the punch on the Oliver hit, I couldn’t bear to say no. Last time I’ll have a soft heart, I’ll tell you that.”

“Bledsoe is not my friend,” Tim said, almost spitting out the words. “I’ve never even met the guy.”

Bledsoe! Tom Bledsoe had ordered a hit on Donny? Someone else had beat him to the punch? And it was Tommy who had referred Tim to Mother for the kidnapping? But who ordered the misfired hit on Cindy? Was Johnette still my top suspect in the Oliver matter? My mind was spinning faster than a Tilt-A-Whirl.

“Don’t forget, Mother,” the young woman said. “We were also promised a lot more work in the future. That’s really why you agreed to go along with us on this.”

There followed a long patch of silence.

Who was ordering the future work? Tom Bledsoe? Was he the good client Mother referred to? Had he ordered more killings than just possibly his wife’s? He’d told me on the phone that he would consider a hit on Donny to be money well spent. What other “investments” did he plan on making—or had he made—and how did Karen figure into the mix? Question marks were floating around in my head like a moveable wallpaper pattern.

Finally Mother spoke. “Yes, that’s true. We were promised a lot more work in return for the favor—enough work to keep us in business a long time.”

There was another pause. I was going nuts under the window. I wanted Mother and the others to just spit it out, to tell me everything and hurry up about it.

“But now I’m thinking this Steele guy has to go. Too much heat coming down on everyone because of him. Too many people interested in finding him, like that damn Olivia or Ophelia or something.”

“Odelia,” the other woman corrected. “Her name is Odelia Grey.”

“Whatever her name is, she isn’t going to give up until she finds him. She already knows that Let Mother Do It is linked somehow to this guy, and someone in the shadows has been asking questions about us. We hear she’s connected on both sides of the law.”

At first surprised that she knew about Willie’s inquiries, I quickly realized that if he had his informants in the criminal world, Mother would, too. It would be part of the day-to-day survival.

“And she’s smart,” the younger woman added. “Very smart and determined.”

Hiding under the window, I didn’t know whether to feel complimented or not, but I certainly felt frightened right down to my toenails, especially since the younger woman spoke like she knew me.

“Why don’t we simply take her out?” another female voice asked. She had a slight accent—East Coast maybe. “It’d be easy enough. Just like the Poppin woman.”

“You mean the Poppin woman’s botched job.” It was the young woman again, her voice laced with accusation.

“Hey, she turned at the last minute, and I didn’t get a chance to pop her again.”

“The Poppin woman?” It was Tim. “You were behind the shooting of that elderly woman last night?”

Mother laughed. “That elderly woman was a client, just like you, Mr. Weber. And just like you, she was having a bad case of buyer’s remorse. Killing her was part of that damage control I was talking about—or should I say
trying
to kill her.”

The third woman spoke up, anger in her voice. “I told you I’d take care of it. Trust me, the old gal won’t ever come out of that coma.”

Oh my gawd!
Carolyn Poppin was the money behind the hit on Donny. Cindy Oliver’s own sweet, kind mother. Suddenly I felt dizzy and chilled. Carolyn Poppin should have been baking brownies for her granddaughters, not looking for contract killers, no matter how mean and ugly her son-in-law was.

Then another horrible thought hit me, and if it hadn’t hit Tim by now, it should have. Mother was doing damage control, taking care of clients with buyer’s remorse. She said it herself. Something told me that Tim Weber’s life expectancy now could be measured in minutes, not years, months, or even days.

“I say we kill both lawyers and this Odelia woman.” It was the screw-up killer. “That should clean up this mess once and for all.”

I’m pretty sure from my past studies of Shakespeare that when the Bard penned the words
kill all the lawyers
, he didn’t include paralegals.

But then, it could have been in a footnote.

While I tried my best not to retch from nerves, Tim Weber got his exercise doing a lot of backpedaling.

“There’s no need to take that attitude,” I heard him say. “I came down here to try to resolve these issues.”

“Which we wouldn’t have if you hadn’t asked us to kidnap your friend,” Mother reminded him. “If we had been hired to kill him outright, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. You’d be a satisfied customer and we wouldn’t be trying to cover our tracks.”

“I was wrong, okay? I should never have done it. I just wanted him out of the way for a while, not dead.” There was a pause. When Tim continued, his voice cracked with emotion. “Mike has always been there for me. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“My, my, what have we here, a lawyer with a conscience?” Mother’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “Not something you see every day.”

“Please, release him. Do it tonight. Let me take him with me. I promise you: whatever consequences I face, I won’t involve you.”

“You bet your ass you won’t.” It was the kill-happy woman again.

With the sun down, the night was getting cooler by the minute. My body was chilled and my nose was running like a man trying to catch a bus. I pulled my sweater tighter around me and wondered if instead of more listening I should be inspecting the garage and outbuildings for Steele. After all, I now knew who was behind Donny’s murder and Steele’s kidnapping. The next order of business was to find Steele. With a big stroke of luck, I might be able to spring him and get down to the car without much fuss.

I didn’t really believe that, but I had to at least make an effort to convince myself to take some action. Something told me that no matter how much Tim begged, he was never leaving here tonight with Mike Steele. And if that one crazy broad had her way, none of us would be leaving unless it was in the back of a hearse.

Now I was really worried. Sally and Greg, and possibly Dev, were all heading this way. I didn’t want any more people in the line of fire. Dev at least was a professional, but Sally and Greg had no idea how to defend themselves against killers. I wondered if I should steal back to my car and wait for them, flag them down, and stop them from coming in closer contact with these nuts. But what about Steele? I couldn’t just let them kill him off as collateral damage without taking some preventative action.

The people inside the house were still talking, each considering the pros and cons of doing away with the three of us. Like a true legal beagle, Tim continued to argue his case, his voice growing more desperate with each sentence. My nose at this point was now running a marathon. I dug into the pockets of my trousers, hoping to find some tissue, but only came up with the keys to my car and the cell phone. I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and tried to sniffle quietly while I poked in a message to send, but I was all thumbs. Hitting redial, I tried to call Greg, but the call kept failing. Frustrated, I jammed the phone back into my pocket and went back to trying to figure out what to do next.

A few seconds later, I knew the shit, or rather the snot, was about to hit the fan.

A sneeze started building deep inside my head. It rolled and rolled and rolled around in my sinus cavity, gathering strength like a pressure cooker about to explode. I desperately tried to quell it; I was willing to blow an eardrum, if necessary, rather than get caught spying on Mother and her gun-happy companions.

Pressing my fingers against both sides of my nose, I managed to let out a tiny poof of a sneeze without blowing the lid off my hiding spot. I bent down, hoping to stifle what little noise I was making, thankful the breeze was causing the trees in the yard to rustle. Looking down the driveway, I wondered if I could get far enough away to not be heard but knew any fast departure would make too much noise for even the trees to cover. Again I bent down in an effort to stifle smaller sneezes, hoping they would take some of the pressure out of my sinuses. Finally, I felt in the clear. The pressure subsided, and I was able to breathe with relief.

I straightened up and turned back, ready to start my inspection of the outbuildings. Instead, I found myself nose-to-nose with the muzzle of a gun. For a brief moment, I was sure I’d black out from raw fear. In all my worry about sneezing, I hadn’t heard anyone sneak up on me. The weapon was at the end of an arm owned by a petite but sturdy woman wearing jeans, black Doc Martens, and a plain black sweatshirt. On her head was a black cap with the Raiders logo. In the shadow of the house, I couldn’t see her face under the cap. Waving the gun in the direction of the back of the house, she told me to get moving. From the voice, I determined it was the woman who wanted to kill me and everyone else on the planet.

And that’s when the sneeze from hell broke loose, and the sneeze, and everything repulsive about it, hit her dead center in the chest.

I had to hand it to her, she never lost her concentration for an instant. Cool as a cucumber, she remained steady, and the gun remained trained on me. I, on the other hand, would have yelled
that’s disgusting!
and done a dance of revulsion.

Again she waved the gun toward the back of the house. This time I obeyed and started walking ahead of her. At the back of the house was a short flight of concrete steps. On her instructions, I mounted them and entered a screened-in porch. Beyond that was an open door leading into the kitchen.

“Odelia!” Tim shouted with great surprise as soon as I entered the kitchen.

But the real surprise was mine. Seated at the table, doing her best to avoid my barefaced stare, was Rachel Keyo; no doubt the owner of the familiar voice I couldn’t place. It also didn’t take me long to notice that in the two weeks since she’d disappeared from her temp position at the firm, her swollen belly had become flat and trim.

“You!” I pointed at her. “You’re part of this?”

Rachel scowled at me, then turned away, saying nothing.

“Well, well, look what Lisa dragged in.” The comment came from a stocky older woman with short, gray hair standing at the stove. She was a few inches taller than me and a few pounds lighter, and she wore polyester pants and a sweater that said
Bingo Baby
on the front in rhinestones. She stirred something in a large pot as she spoke. “So you’re Odelia Grey. I’m Mother. I believe we spoke on the phone.”

I ignored her, keeping my attention on Rachel. “You must’ve been the one who referred Let Mother Do It to Steele.” I hesitated. “But who planted you?” I was digging through my brain for that answer when the gun dug into my back. Then it came to me. Fran Evans had referred Rachel to our office. Fran had said a friend of hers highly recommended Rachel as a temp. It was all coming together.

“You’re the one who changed the documents, aren’t you?” I said to Rachel, making a guess that I knew I could defend. Rachel had the skills to expertly change the documents, and, as Steele’s secretary, she had unlimited access to them. “You and Fran Evans changed the Silhouette documents, then helped Tim set up Steele’s disappearance so he’d take the fall.”

“Enough,” Lisa barked, poking me harder with the gun. “Sit your fat ass down.” As soon as I obeyed, she handed the gun to Rachel. “Keep an eye on her,” she ordered, then made her way to the sink, where she took off her cap and proceeded to wash off the front of her sweatshirt.

Outside, I would have guessed Lisa to be about the same age as Rachel. But here in the kitchen, under the glare of the overhead light and with her cap off, I could see that her short, dark hair was laced with gray, and her makeup-free face bore fine lines around her mouth and eyes. The new age estimate was late thirties or early forties.

Saddled with the duty of holding the gun, Rachel now had to look at me.

“What did Mike Steele or I ever do to you?” I asked her.

She briefly cast her eyes down, then back up to meet mine. They were hard and sad at the same time, like an apology delivered with a backhand. “This isn’t personal, this is business.”

Why do people always say that just before they shaft you?

I slowly ran my eyes over Rachel’s svelte body. “Did the baby come early?”

“There was no baby, you fool.” She spit the words out.

Mother approached the table, wooden spoon in her hand. She was grinning. “After what we were told about that Mr. Steele, we couldn’t take the chance of Rachel being side-tracked by charm. We didn’t think he’d go after a pregnant lady, and we were right.”

I stared up at Mother. “But why go through the ruse of the cleaning company if you had a plant in the office?”

“Who said the cleaning company isn’t real?” Mother chuckled, and I remembered what Willie had said about a legitimate business covering for illegal business. “We had hoped to nab him at his home, but that didn’t work out. He was never around when the cleaning crew was there. Would have made things much easier for us.”

Tim sat there staring at me, his mouth open. Finally, he found his tongue. “How in the hell did you get here?”

Mother rapped him on the head with the spoon. “How do you think, lame brain? She followed you.” She looked at Lisa. “Which means that you never noticed her when you were following him.”

“Told you she was smart,” chimed in Rachel.

Mother put the spoon down and wiped her hands on a nearby dishtowel. “Maybe you should come to work for me, Odelia, seeing as you’re so sharp.”

Oh boy,
I thought,
I am being recruited by a professional killer
.

“Pay’s great and the hours are flexible,” she continued as if talking to a bunch of kids on career day.

Lisa approached the table, the front of her sweatshirt wet. “A minute ago we were discussing killing her, and now you’re offering this dolt a job?”

“If there’s a dolt at this table, it’s not Odelia, it’s this fool here.” She indicated Tim, and everyone, including me, turned our eyes on him. He sat there, no longer huffing and puffing and intimidating as he had been in his office a few hours ago. Now he appeared shrunken and lost. His eyes, darting between each woman in the room, had the look of a rabbit trapped by a pack of hungry wolves. Finally, they settled on me.

“Tell them, Odelia, tell them to let Mike go. We’ll take him home and never mention this to anyone, right?”

I turned to Mother. “Is Steele okay?”

“He’s more than okay, he’s a royal pain in the ass.” Mother took the spoon and went back to her pot. “Humph, there were days I wanted to shoot him just on principle alone.”

“Trust me, I know what you mean.”

Mother chuckled and studied me. “Sure you don’t want to work for me? We do a lot of good in this world.”

“Good? Killing people is good?”

“Now, now, don’t go getting all high and mighty with me. Some people are just too mean, greedy, and nasty to live, bringing more pain and suffering to this world than good. Take that Oliver guy, for instance. People merely pay us to clean up the two-legged vermin in their lives, just as they would pay a pest exterminator to get rid of the other kind.” Mother stopped stirring and faced me, smiling. “I like to think we’re doing our bit to clean up the world we live in—our own Keep America Beautiful program. We may kill people, but we have our standards. If we didn’t, you wouldn’t still be alive.”

I swallowed hard and thought it best to move the conversation away from the topic of death, especially mine. Besides, if I could keep people talking, maybe I’d find out more about Steele’s whereabouts and give Dev and the others time to find this place.

“Why?” I said to Tim. Again, everyone’s eyes turned to him, this time in expectation. “Why would you have a close friend kidnapped and risk disbarment and jail, all for a partnership in a law firm? If that was why you did it.”

Tim Weber looked only at me when he spoke. “I’m so sorry, Odelia. I was desperate. My wife left me, said I was a loser. It’s tough being married to money.”

“Yeah, right,” Rachel scoffed.

Tim looked at all of us. “It is, especially for a man. I kept trying to make my own fortune, but the only thing I made was a mess. Got involved in a lot of deals that went sour. Ended up owing a lot of people money. People who’d think nothing of harming me or discrediting my wife and her family to make a point.” He swallowed hard. “Finally, Roxanne said enough. She wasn’t going to bail me out anymore. She paid off the last bunch of thugs and kicked me out.”

“What about Goldberg-Rawlings?” I asked. “Rumor is you’re on probation at the firm. Is that tied in to your bad business deals, too?”