Vanessa Gray Bartal - Lacy Steele 07 - Icy Grip of Murder (7 page)

“Lumber companies plant trees?”
Lacy said.

“They have to, it’s the law,”
Michael said. “Guys like Larva can make enough to live on all year, if they
work fast and live cheap.”

“Mooching off your grandma probably
helps stretch the budget a lot,” Jason said.

“Yes, it does,”
Lacy
said, jabbing him in the side to remind him that she lived with her
grandmother.

Jason put his arm around her. “When
you have enough money to buy the lumber mill, you’re not exactly a moocher.”

“I don’t have enough for a mill.
Maybe a few acres,” she said.

“I stand corrected,” he said. They
were acting normally, but there was a silent thrum of tension between them. It
had started with the ring. What began as a joke took on a different context and
now both of them were spooked and trying not to
be.

“There’s one more thing you need to
know about Larva,” Michael said.

“What’s that?” Lacy asked as dread
filled her stomach again. Not another foot thing; she couldn’t take it.

“He impersonates Bob Ross.”

“Who?”

“Bob Ross, the painter.
The ‘happy little trees’ guy.
When we were growing up, PBS
was the only station allowed on TV. We watched a lot of Bob Ross. Larva sort of
formed an unhealthy attachment to him.”

“Are you joking?” Jason asked.

“You’ll see,” Michael said.

Larva’s grandmother’s house was an
unassuming brick bungalow. Larva greeted them outside. Despite the below
freezing temperatures, he was attempting to paint on a canvas, and he was
clearly nervous.

“I don’t know anything,” he
announced, almost before they could depart the car.

“I just want to talk,” Michael
said. “Who told you we were coming?”

Larva paused in his painting and
looked momentarily baffled by the question. Lacy used the time to observe the
man. He was Nordic, like almost everyone else they had met, but his blond hair
had somehow formed into a large
afro
. The only way
Lacy could imagine he maneuvered it was to get a tight perm and tease it into
its current dome-like shape.

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“Why are you so nervous?” Michael
asked.

“I’m not.” He stopped painting and set
down the brush, clutching his fingers behind his back. As they drew closer,
Lacy caught a look at his painting. It was horrible. Not in the sense that the
content was disturbing, but more in the sense that the guy had no talent. He
was attempting a landscape of the backyard, or so she assumed. She saw a
cylindrical blob that may have been the trashcan. An ugly red rectangle represented
the house, and some green triangles passed for pine trees. She also understood
why this one was called Larva. Either he had a baby face or he was younger than
the others. Judging by the dullness of his expression, he wasn’t the scholar of
the group, either. But since his hair was his dominating feature, no one
probably paid much attention to his face.

“So, Larva, I was wondering if
you’ve seen Jenny,” Michael said.

“Jenny’s dead,” Larva said.

“But she’s not, is she? Come on,
Larva. This is me you’re talking to. I know you don’t want me to go to prison
for something I didn’t do, and we both know I didn’t kill Jenny.”

Larva’s eyes searched the landscape
for a rescue or inspiration. Then he burst into tears. “She killed my dog.”

“What?” Michael said.

“Before she disappeared, she got
mad at me for something and killed my dog.”

“Why was she mad at you?” Michael
asked.

“I don’t know. Does it matter? She
killed my dog. Who does that? She’s insane.”

“Is that the reason you don’t want
to talk to me? Because you’re afraid of Jenny?” Michael said.

In lieu of an answer, Larva swiped
his hand under his nose, leaving a trail of clear liquid.

“For Jenny to retaliate against
you, she would have to show herself. She would have to prove she’s not dead.
She’s not going to risk that,” Michael said.

“You don’t know that. You don’t
know her. She’s crazy.”

“I do know her, and she is crazy,
but she’s not as smart as you think she is or as she thinks she is,” Michael
said.

“Huh?” Larva said.

“Nothing. But if you see Jenny,
tell her I want to meet.”

Larva nodded. “But I don’t know
where she is. And even if I did, I wouldn’t see her. You shouldn’t either.
She’s scary. She’s bad news. Jenny is better off dead.”

“I can’t disagree with you there,
but unfortunately I need her alive,” Michael said. He said goodbye to Larva and
they drove away.

They picked up pizza on the way
back to the motel. Lacy thought three larges was too much. “Trust me,” Michael
said, and he turned out to be right. Though she only ate a piece and a half,
somehow all of the pizza disappeared. For dessert, they raided the snacks from
her suitcase, although those had grown suspiciously slim somehow, too.

“What did we actually learn today?”
Jason asked, a
Twizzler
hanging out one side of his
mouth like a limp cigarette.

“I can’t look at you when you do
that,” Michael said.

Jason ate the candy, drawing it
into his mouth a bite at a time.

“Much better,” Michael said
sarcastically. “It’s not what we’ve learned so much as what I’ve surmised.”

“Which is,” Lacy prompted.

“First of all, my suspicion that
Jenny is alive was confirmed. Second, at least one or maybe
all
of the
group is working with her. There’s no way she could survive up
here without help, and there’s no one else I can think of who would help her.
Third, she’s working on something big. Louse was right; a haul of money is the
only thing that would keep her out of action this long.”

“So it sounds like we need to
figure out who is helping her and what she’s working on,” Jason said.

“Right,” Michael agreed.

“How do we do that?” Lacy asked.

They were silent a minute as they
tried to come up with a plan. “My brain hurts. I need to stop thinking about
everything for a while,” Michael said. “I need a distraction. I need
entertainment.”

“Want to watch TV?” Lacy asked.

“No, I need something better than
TV, something psychologically gripping. Something that will make me weep and
laugh,” Michael said.

“We are not reading Pearl’s play,”
Lacy said.

“C’mon, Lacy, I know you want to.
Besides, she’s going to keep bugging you until you do.”

Lacy looked at her phone and saw he
was correct. Though she had turned it off, she had four missed calls. All of
them were from Pearl. “All right, but it never leaves this room. I don’t want
it to get around that we were making fun of her.”

“Promise,” Michael said. He eagerly
picked up the manila envelope and pulled out the manuscript.

“What are you guys talking about?”
Jason asked.

“Pearl wrote a screenplay,” Lacy
explained.

“I don’t want to read that,” Jason
said.

“You should. You’re the star,”
Michael said. He held up the title page.

“
Officer Canticle and the Lion’s Den,
” Jason read aloud. “That can’t
be what I think it is, can it? Pearl wouldn’t actually write a dramatized
version of her arrest and ensuing case, would she?”

“There’s one way to find out,”
Michael said. He crossed his legs, set the play in his lap, and began to read.

“‘Scene one, take one,’” he paused
and looked at Jason and Lacy. “She actually wrote ‘take one,’ here, as if she’s
the director. I don’t think she knows the proper format for a screenplay, which
makes this even more enticing.” He cleared his throat and returned his
attention to the play.

“‘The scene opens on a small town.
Our heroine, Dolly McGee, sits at her desk typing the pastor’s sermon,
inserting words to make it more colorful.’”

“Maybe that explains why Tosh said
prostate instead of prostrate three times last Sunday,” Lacy said.

“‘Suddenly, a cop enters—he’s
a handsome man with bulging muscles, wearing a shirt unbuttoned down to the
chest hairs.’”

“It does not say that,” Lacy said.
Michael showed her the page. “Oh, Pearl,” she muttered.

“You’re blushing,” Michael accused
Jason.

“No, I’m trying not to throw up,”
Jason said. “Tell me this isn’t about me.”

“Let’s see what other clues we can
find.” His index finger scanned the page. “Skim, skim, skim. Here we go. ‘Officer
Jesse Canticle, a twenty-something former football star, was being heavily
pursued by the red-haired harlot, Lucy Stone.’”

“Aw, Babe, you made the cut, too,”
Jason said.

“I feel all warm inside, and also a
little frightened for our safety,” Lacy said.

They read for another hour, until
Jason put his hands over his ears and proclaimed he couldn’t take anymore. “We
were just getting to the good part,” Michael said.

“Which good part?” Jason asked.
“The part where Jesse Canticle and Dolly McGee made out in her jail cell or the
part where he broke her out of confinement and gave her a gun so they could
hunt the murderer and the lion together?”

“All of it. It’s brilliant,”
Michael said. “Lacy, I know you do work as an investor now. I’m going to need
to borrow enough to buy the movie rights to this play. This is Oscar material.”

“Oscar the Grouch, maybe,” Jason
said.

“Someone’s cranky. Could it be from
the two pizzas and pound of candy?” Michael said.

“No, it’s from trying not to
picture myself in a kissing scene with Pearl,” Jason said.

“That wasn’t you, that was Jesse
Canticle, a hand sanitizing cop who says ‘geez’ a lot,” Michael said.

“I’m taking a shower. If I don’t
come out for a while, it’s because I’m trying to find a way to scrub my brain,”
Jason said.

“If you keep wearing that hat, I
think it’ll do the job for you,” Michael said.

“Do not knock the hat. It’s the
only thing keeping me warm in this frozen wasteland,” Jason said.

“Ouch for your girlfriend,” Michael
said.

“Shut it,” Jason said as he went
into the bathroom and slammed the door. Michael turned to Lacy.

“How much pizza did you eat?”

“A piece and a half,” she said.

“I had two pieces.” They stared at
the empty boxes that had once contained thirty pieces.

“I’ve never seen him eat more than
three pieces before,” Lacy said.

“I’ve never seen you eat fewer than
four,” Michael said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she
asked.

“I think I finally understand
what’s going on here. For whatever reason, you’re functioning at a higher
than
normal average and Jason’s barely functioning at all,”
Michael said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Lacy said.

“Is it? Everything is covered with
ice and snow out there. How many times have you fallen?”

“None,” she said.

“You haven’t eaten dessert all
day,” he said.

“I haven’t?” she asked.

“No, I’ve been watching. And yet you
don’t have sugar-deprived crazy eyes. Meanwhile
Jobba
the Hut in there has mowed down everything in his path and is still in danger
of gnawing us in our sleep.”

“But that’s ridiculous. Why would
that happen?”

“I don’t know. Change of scenery,
change of climate,
change
of altitude or temperature.
Whatever the reason, we need to keep an eye on him because I don’t think he
realizes how fragile he is right now.”

“Is that what I’m like normally?”
she asked.

“Yeah, but on you it’s more
endearing. You’re smaller and easier to pick up with you stumble or get stuck
in things. We’d have to call the fire department for him.”

“Thanks, I feel so much better
now,” she said.

“Sorry. I guess I’m distracted by
this pesky murder charge,” he said.

“It’s really going to be okay.
We’re going to get this figured out,” she said.

“I don’t know. I purposely baited
Jenny by telling the guys she thinks she’s smarter than she is, but what if she
actually is the smarter one? What if this is all part of her master plan?”

“Maybe, but there are two things
she didn’t count on, two things she couldn’t have planned for,” Lacy said.

“What’s that?”

“Me and Jason. With my tenacity and
his cop skills, we’re going to get this settled, once and for all,” Lacy said.

Just then the bathroom door rattled
and Jason knocked from the inside. “Uh, guys, the door seems to be stuck
somehow. A little help here?”

“I feel so comforted,” Michael said
and spent the next hour freeing Jason from his bathroom prison.

After they freed Jason, Lacy took
her turn in the bathroom and went to bed. Sleep was elusive, however. Somehow
things felt unsettled with Jason. Since they were constantly with Michael, it
was impossible to talk about anything personal.

“Are you awake?” Jason whispered
close to her ear. In the next bed, Michael snored softly.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Today was weird,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“We’re not ready yet,” he said.

“No,” she agreed.

He reached for her hand, twining
their fingers together. They stared up at the ceiling in silence
a few beats
before he spoke again. “Someday, though, we’ll
get there. And we should also get new knives. Those knives were really sharp.”

Lacy didn’t reply. Not only did she
not want to ruin the moment,
but
she realized that his
words were more a statement of intent than a question needing agreement. She
squeezed his hand. He squeezed back. She drifted off to sleep and the world
shattered into chaos.

She had barely started to
comprehend the fact that the shattering noise was the window when Jason sat up,
turned on the light, and threw her off the bed. She sat up on the floor,
disoriented, and watched as he grabbed Michael and dragged him out of his bed
and to the floor beside Lacy. When they were all on the floor behind the bed,
he pulled the mattress on top of them.

“Um, what?” Michael said, still
sounding half asleep.

“Someone busted out the window and
threw in a MacGyver bomb,” Jason explained.

“Couldn’t we have left the room?”
Michael asked.

“There’s no predicting when it will
go off. It’s not like they have a timer,” Jason said.

They were quiet, waiting. Lacy’s
heart thundered and she was sweating, either from being sandwiched between the
two men or buried beneath a mattress.

“What if it never goes off?”
Michael asked.

“It has to go off eventually,”
Jason said.

They were quiet
again,
so quiet that Lacy could hear the minutes tick on Jason’s watch.

“We’ve passed the point of awkward
and are now firmly in unable-to-make-eye-contact-tomorrow territory,” Michael
said. He sounded grumpy.

“It’s not my idea of paradise, either,”
Jason said.

“Remind me to never vacation with
you two again,” Michael said.

Jason’s reply was
drowned by the explosion
, which wasn’t very loud. And then it sounded as
if it were hailing in the room.

“Shrapnel,” Jason said, drawing
Lacy closer and wrapping her tightly. When the noise stopped, they dug their
way from beneath the mattress and surveyed the damage. The bottle bomb had left
a black crater on the carpet and pieces of the wallpaper had melted where the
acid hit.
By far the worst damage had been done by the
shrapnel stuffed into the bomb
. Nails and tacks littered the room, many
of them jutting from the mattress the trio had used as protection. It probably
wouldn’t have been enough to kill them, but it would have hurt, if not for
Jason and his quick action.
 

“The motel’s not going to be happy
about this,” Lacy said.

“It could have been worse,” Jason
said.

“You mean like a Molotov cocktail
tossed through the window?” Michael said as another device was lobbed through
the broken window.

“Yep,” Jason said, and they dove
for the mattress again. This time the explosion came sooner and had less impact
than the first, but when they again dug out, the area surrounding the device
was already on fire and spreading quickly.

Michael took charge, grabbing
Lacy’s hand and dragging her toward the door. On the way, he swept his clothes
into his arms. Lacy grabbed her coat, purse and Jason’s wallet because they
were in easy reach. Jason grabbed something and brought up the rear. They
dashed outside. The sound of screeching tires told them their attackers were
already getting away, but until she heard the sound, Lacy hadn’t thought about
who might be waiting outside. She had only noticed flames and been concerned with
getting out.

Lacy struggled to find her phone in
her purse and dial 911 while Michael shoved his clothes on. The night was
bone-rattling cold. Lacy wished she’d had the foresight to grab her clothes.
The coat helped, but her legs were freezing. As she was thinking it, Jason
handed her a pair of jeans. She turned to him, noticing for the first time that
he was holding her suitcase.

“Jason, you brought my suitcase,”
she said stupidly. Meanwhile, he was shivering in his long underwear and hat.
“Why didn’t you get your clothes?”

“I grabbed the first thing I
thought of,” Jason said.

“He grabbed the thing with all the
food,” Michael said.

“Come on, let’s get in the car and
get warm. We’ll probably have to move it for the fire department anyway,” Lacy
said. She dug the keys from her purse.

“I don’t think this car is going
anywhere,” Michael said. All four tires had been slashed flat.

“We can still get warm,” Lacy said,
herding Jason toward the car. He was barefoot and becoming in danger of
frostbite.

They piled into the car and she
cranked it. It had just started to put out an anemic amount of warmth when the
fire department and patrol cars showed up. The fire was put out in a matter of
minutes. It took much longer to try and explain everything to the questioningly
dubious officers.

“You’re trying to tell us that
someone tossed a bomb through the window, followed by a firebomb, and none of
you three were injured.”

“I think the evidence proves our
story,” Jason said. He was the elected spokesperson to deal with law
enforcement because of Michael’s history and Lacy’s temper.

“We’ll see about that. Who do you
suppose would do such a thing?” He directed the question to Michael.