Upstate Uproar (32 page)

The girls and Pierre said goodbye and headed
to the nurse’s station. Before Vivian could ask where April’s room
was, Jeremy walked out of a room down the hall and closed the door
behind him.

She tugged on Kate and Lucy’s sleeves.
“Quick! Y’all take Pierre and go talk to Jeremy, take him down to
the cafeteria.”

“Talk to him about what?” Lucy asked. “And
why?”

“I have an idea. Y’all need to keep him
distracted,” Vivian answered. “Wendy and I are going to go break
into his van, see what we can see.”

“We’re gonna do WHAT?” Wendy asked.

“Just trust me!”

K
ate looked at Lucy
and Pierre. “We can talk to him about his movie script, say we’ve
written one and does he have any advice, that kind of thing.”

“That’s good,” Pierre said. “It’ll keep him
talking, but what’s our movie about in case he asks?”

Kate smiled. “A pregnant lady who gets run
off a bridge at night into a cold lake and the whoop-ass she brings
to the guy who did it to her.”

They walked toward Jeremy, who had just hit
the down button on the elevator. Lucy gave him a big smile.

He recognized them and nodded as they all got
on the elevator. “You aren’t locked out of your car again, are
you?”

The elevator doors closed.

Wendy turned to Vivian. “What’s our plan? I
don’t know how to break into cars.”

“We need a supply room, STAT.” Vivian grabbed
Wendy’s arm and pulled her down the hall. She read the cards on
each room listing patients by last name. When they came to one that
wasn’t marked, Vivian tried the handle and it popped open. She
stuck her head inside.

“Grandma?” She saw shelves of supplies.
“Jackpot! Come on! Don’t turn on the light.”

Wendy looked both ways in the hall, then
tucked herself into the room and closed the door. “Now what?”

“Remember how Jeremy had that blow-up thing
that he put between the window and the door frame? I was thinking
we could try and copy that with an IV bag and tubing.”

“And why are we doing that?”

“Just to see what we find. You never
know.”

Vivian clicked on her flashlight app and
began searching the shelves. Bedpans, pillows, boxes of latex
gloves, hospital gowns and bandages lined the shelves directly in
front of her.

Wendy stood on the bottom shelf, trying to
pull down a large box. She stretched up and inched it to the right.
Then she slipped, shoving the box off the shelf and into an IV
pole, sending it crashing into the wall.

Both girls froze and held their breath for
several seconds. Vivian didn’t hear any footsteps running their way
and no one opened the door to see what happened, so she kept up the
search.

Wendy opened the box and pulled out a couple
of empty 250-milliliter IV bags. “Score! But now we need the
lines.” She flung that box back and opened another. “We’re in
business. Let’s get out of here!” Wendy stuffed the goods into her
purse.

“We need a wire coat hanger to grab the
lock,” Vivian said, opening the door. “Coast is clear.”

She and Wendy walked out, trying to look
innocent.

A hospital bed emerged from a doorway down
the hall carrying a fragile-looking older man. A transportation
tech pushed him toward the elevator. “Here we go, Mr. Weaver.” the
tech said.

“I’ll check in here,” Vivian said and snuck
into the room. In a small closet near the bathroom she found a
white plastic bag that said “Patient Belongings.” A single white,
wire hanger hung from the foot-long rod. Vivian grabbed it and
scurried out.

Wendy gave her a thumbs up, then they
casually walked to the stairwell and hurried down to the first
floor and made their way outside. They scanned the parking lot,
which was full.

Wendy pointed off to the right. “That’s it, I
think.”

They hustled down the closest row of cars,
then cut over several rows before crouching beside Jeremy’s
locksmith van.

“You ready?” Vivian said.

“I guess.” Wendy got the IV bag and tubing
from her purse and connected them. She handed the open tubing end
to Vivian. “Finally, a good use for all that hot air! Your idea,
you blow. I’ll pop the lock.”

Vivian laughed and unrolled the tubing. Wendy
did another look around and, not seeing anyone, shoved the coat
hanger between the glass and molding on the passenger side door.
She took the bag and slid it through the crack.

“Time to huff and puff and blow that bag up!”
Wendy smiled at Vivian, then went back to looking around.

Vivian blew. It was easy at first but got
more difficult as the bag filled.

“More!” Wendy encouraged.

Vivian kept at it, covering the end of the
tube between breaths so as not to lose the air already inside.

“Almost there!” Wendy said, peering down at
the lock. “I just need a little more leeway!”

Vivian gave it all her might and the window
pulled apart enough for Wendy to hook the coat hanger on the
lock.

“This is going to be tricky,” Wendy said as
she slid the hanger toward the lock. She got the curved end of the
wire on the far side of the lock and pulled, but the hanger slipped
off. She tried several times before the lock moved even a
little.

“Geez, its 55 degrees outside and I’m
sweating.” She took a break to wipe her brow and make sure no one
was watching before concentrating again on the lock. It took two
more tries, but it finally flipped the other direction.

Vivian and Wendy both let out a breath they’d
been holding and Wendy pulled on the door handle. Vivian was ready
to run off, but no alarm sounded.

“He’s a locksmith and he doesn’t even have an
alarm on this thing?” Wendy said. “That’s just silly.” She climbed
in over a pile of trash in the front seat and moved to the back.
“Look at all the stuff back here.”

Vivian had to step over mounds of junk in the
floorboard but managed to get in and shut the passenger door. The
back of the van’s left side had three rows of shelves containing
blue bins filled with a variety of boxes. Four black toolboxes sat
on the floor under the bottom shelf.

On the right side, a large, red toolbox had
been bolted to the floor, and a thick piece of plywood was attached
to the top. It acted as a work surface, and a gray key cutting
machine sat on it. The tidiness and organization of the back was in
stark contrast to the disaster in the front where years’ worth of
receipts, fast food wrappers, coffee cups and gloves, you name it,
now lived.

“I probably should’ve asked before we broke
in here,” Wendy said. “But what exactly are we looking for?”

Vivian rifled through the blue bins and
boxes. “Anything to do with getting Nicole sick or starting April’s
fire. Accelerants, perhaps, or a petri dish where he’s growing E.
coli. Or lock picking tools. I think April was attacked and either
knew her attacker and let him in or someone was able to unlock her
door.”

Wendy looked at her like she was crazy.
“Petri dish? You kidding?”

“I don’t know! Kind of. But we’re here so
start searching.”

Wendy pulled open the top drawer on the red
toolbox. “I don’t think people just carry around batches of E.
coli. However, there could definitely be something growing in all
that crap on the floorboard.”

“It doesn’t look like he’s big on using a
trash can,” Vivian said, looking through one of the black toolboxes
on the floor.

“Why would a locksmith need Goo Gone?” Wendy
started reading the back label of a nearly empty bottle.

Vivian closed the lid on the toolbox and
shoved it back into place. “I have no idea. Maybe lock picking gets
sticky and he needs to get gunk off his hands.”

“This stuff will start a fire. The label says
it contains petroleum distillates and to avoid use around heat,
sparks or flames. This bottle isn’t all that big. April might not
have noticed if Jeremy had it in his pocket.”

“You’d probably need more than one bottle to
get a good fire going.” Vivian looked around the back of the van.
The edge of the carpet in front of the left back door was tucked
underneath itself. Vivian pulled the corner of the carpeting toward
her and it lifted, revealing a rectangular piece of plywood. She
pried it up and found a black leather pouch crammed in the space.
“Check this out.”

Wendy handed her a roll of blue shop towels.
“I don’t know if you should touch that with your bare hands. We’ve
left fingerprints all over the van, but it would probably be best
not to leave any on that.”

Vivian used two of the blue paper towels to
unzip the case. Tucked into pouches were flat, long-handled,
stainless steel tools, all with different shapes on the end. One
looked like a mini-saw, another had three waves, another had a
sharp curved tip, and yet another had a more gradual curved
tip.

“I think I know a lock picking set when I see
it,” Vivian said. “Let’s take it! We can get into Brandon’s garage,
see what he doesn’t want us to see.”

Wendy put back the shop towels and Goo Gone.
“I’d love to get into that garage, but I don’t think we should take
anything from this van, especially that. We don’t know Jeremy’s
involvement yet. What if he’s the one who set April’s house on fire
and he used those? We need the sheriff to find them.”

Vivian sighed and zipped the pouch back up.
“Have you looked through everything in there?” She nodded toward
the red toolbox.

“Yes, so I guess I’ll risk my health and wade
through the cesspool up front to check out the glove box.”

Vivian opened the pouch, snapped a picture of
the toolset with her phone, then put everything back into place as
Wendy maneuvered up front. “Anything interesting up there?”

“I’d say so.” Wendy moved aside so Vivian
could see what she was pointing at.

A handgun.

D
on’t touch it!”
Vivian squealed to Wendy as they crouched in Jeremy’s locksmith
van, staring at a gun.

“I’m not going to touch it!” Wendy said.
“I’ve been on enough vacations to know what I should and should not
touch!”

“I know, I know.”

“None of our ladies were killed with a gun,
so this doesn’t mean he’s our guy,” Wendy said. “But it is an
interesting find. Other than that I’ve found a Nickelback CD and a
roach.”

“Ewww!”

“A marijuana roach, not the flying insects we
grew up with in Pasadena. I also found a roll of quarters and a
pair of dirty underwear.”

“Gross.”

“Tell me about it. I started to reach into
the glove box and then thought better of it. Glad I found a pencil
in the console and poked around with it.” She used the pencil to
move items on the passenger’s seat. “I bet his house is just as
disgusting, and if so, there’s no telling what Nicole came into
contact with there.”

Vivian turned to look at the disaster, but
she saw four familiar figures walking their way and panicked. “Time
to go!” She shuffled to the back, unlocked the door, cracked it
open just enough to squeeze through and jumped out while Wendy
crouched down and locked the passenger door, then locked the back
door and hopped out, too.

They ran behind a big truck parked beside the
van, then squatted low and ran up the row toward the hospital.
Vivian stopped to catch her breath beside a minivan.

“Oh my god, I just knew he was going to see
us. He was looking right at us.”

Wendy peeked around the back glass. “He’s
standing beside his van with Pierre, Lucy and Kate. They must have
done a good job keeping him distracted. I don’t think he saw us.”
She turned to face Vivian. “What’s that in your hand?”

Vivian looked down at a stainless steel
pocketknife. “I don’t know.”

“You little thief.” Wendy took it from her
and pulled open one of the blades, except it wasn’t a blade. “Oh
my, it’s a — ”

“Lock picker thingy!” Vivian said and
clapped, then snatched it back from Wendy. “It was an
accident.”

“Accident, my ass.” Wendy smiled at her.

After Jeremy drove off, they walked out from
behind the minivan. “Yoo-hoo!” Vivian called to Lucy, Pierre and
Kate. “Way to keep him busy!”

“That guy loves to talk about himself,”
Pierre said as the group met. “He could have gone on for hours if
he hadn’t gotten a call.”

“He’s got an interesting story,” Kate said.
“We asked him about Mary Beth, and he seemed to really love and
respect her.”

“I thought he was going to cry,” Lucy said,
shaking her head. “His affection seemed legit.”

“He could still be a killer,” Wendy said,
“but after seeing his van, I don’t want to see inside his
house.”

“Y’all find anything?” Lucy asked.

Wendy shook her head. “Not really, but he had
a gun in the glove box.”

“I’d say that’s something,” Pierre said. “But
I can see why he carries one. There’s no telling who or what he
comes across in his business.”

Vivian turned toward the hospital. “I picked
up a little something.” She showed them her lifted lock pick.
“Let’s go see April.”

The girls and Pierre went inside and up to
April’s room. Kate knocked and slightly opened the door. “Hello,”
she called softly.

Mike Grimm pulled the door open all the way
and walked into the hallway. His black turtleneck and black slacks
were rumpled but didn’t smell of smoke. The large cup of coffee in
hand and circles under his eyes told the story of a sleepless
night.

“April is finally resting a bit,” he said.
“They kept her up all night because of the concussion.” He pulled
an imaginary piece of lint off his shirt. “She made me go home to
shower and change, said the smell of my clothes was too much.”

“How’s she doing otherwise?” Lucy asked.
“Will she get out today?”