Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) (9 page)

I charged the few steps back into the living room and loomed over Chuck. “Where’s the meth?”

He wiggled his skinny bottom deeper in the chair and tried to straighten his back. I was standing inches from his knees, so he couldn’t rise without pushing me out of the way.

“Have you been cooking meth in here?” I growled.

And then I saw what he’d been wriggling for. He held a black shaft, about four inches long, in his right hand alongside his thigh. With a quick press, a nasty-looking, serrated blade flicked open, and he smiled up at me. His eyes were no longer as vacant as they had been.

I have an old, resentful memory of my first grade teacher. She had fingers like claws, worn and knobby from the rigorous task of making red marks across her students’ worksheets. Her name was Mrs. Lechtner, and she gave the Wicked Witch of the West a run for her money. I learned to read in a hurry precisely so that I wouldn’t draw her ire.

Once, and only once, I received corporal punishment from Mrs. Lechtner—because I had been whispering quietly with a friend during the class rest time. Rest time meant Mrs. Lechtner locked us in the classroom and went to the ladies’ to fix her lipstick and then get a Styrofoam cup of scalding coffee in the teachers’ lounge. The little break never improved her mood, though.

She’d crept back into the room without my hearing her and applied a vicious pinch to my upper shoulder that set my little suede lace-up shoes churning several inches off the floor. I don’t know how legal her reign of terror was, but it certainly achieved her objectives.

I’d looked up the anatomical basis behind her method later, probably when I was in the sixth or seventh grade, because the memory had still jangled me. There’s a spinal accessory nerve embedded in the sternocleidomastoid muscle that stretches along the side of the neck and then into the trapezius muscle that curves up from the top of the shoulder to the neck. Generally a soft and unsuspecting spot.

And I pinched Chuck’s with a vice grip fueled by fury.

Chuck yelped and levitated in a most satisfactory manner while simultaneously scrunching his shoulder up to try to limit his exposure. I was ready for that maneuver, however, because I’d made a similar, albeit ineffectual, move under Mrs. Lechtner’s application.

I’m a left shoulder tote bag carrier, probably common in right-handed women. Which meant my bag was perfectly positioned for a good whack at Chuck’s knife hand.

The switchblade flipped out of his grasp and punctured one of Laney’s sofa cushions.

I propelled Chuck to the door, swung it open, and gave him a healthy shove. He missed a bunch of steps on the way down, but he was still mostly on his feet at the bottom. He cast one anxious glance at me over his shoulder before he tottered off.

I closed the door and twisted the flimsy deadbolt lever. I retrieved Chuck’s knife from the sofa and managed to close it without cutting off any of my fingers. I dropped it into my tote bag and took a momentary breather.

Okay, maybe it was five minutes. Or five years. Even then, adrenaline was still thudding through my system and making weird swooshing sounds in my head. I executed a long, controlled exhale and pressed my tote bag down on my lap to keep my knees from bouncing.

The indentations in the refrigerator’s plastic bottom could have been made by a previous renter. I suspected that at a place like this the tenant turnover was through the roof. No doubt, the owner only replaced appliances after they’d suffered catastrophic failure and not for cosmetic reasons like melted dimples.

Aesthetics are the least of the worries with a meth lab, though. The cooking process produces caustic fumes and residue that no self-respecting slumlord is going to pay to clean up. A little paint, new cheap carpet and voilà—don’t bother disclosing anything to the next tenant, and never, ever actually do any contaminant testing.

Laney had exhibited some sense and had remained out of sight during my commando confrontation with Chuck. When I felt like I could stand up again, I stuck my head into the hallway and saw her huddled in front of a closed door, which I took as a positive, if vague, maternal instinct.

Laney looked scared, but she didn’t look high. And I really, really hoped Mindy was behind that closed door.

CHAPTER 11

Laney was the one who was shivering. I guess that’s what happens when you run around in a bra and shorts in February, even if you are inside a dismal apartment. I told her to get dressed and quietly opened the door she’d been guarding.

A small lump was under the blankets on the child-sized bed. A few strands of dark hair fanned on the pillow. Squinting in the faint light streaming in from the hallway, I crept closer and eased down the edge of a blanket to confirm that it really was Mindy tucked in for the night.

She was curled into a tight ball, her face squashed into the pillow. Not a peaceful sleep. But she was breathing. I brushed her hair back and pressed on the pillow to clear a little more space for her nose. I wondered if this room was Mindy’s safe place, where she could retreat from Laney’s friends, maybe even from Laney herself.

Laney was seated in the tiny dining nook with an open can of Pepsi on the table in front of her. She was gaunt enough that it was possible she subsisted solely on Pepsi and maybe a few other chemical compounds.

And then something I should have noticed before settled on me. Laney wasn’t going to win the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but she was trying. The kitchen countertops were bare except for a coffee maker, and they were clean. The living room carpet still had vacuum cleaner streaks in the corners where no one had walked. Mindy was sleeping in an actual bed appropriate to her size, between matching sheets.

Laney was poor, and she was keeping bad company, but she wasn’t grossly neglecting her child or living in a pig sty.

I pulled out the carafe and sloshed around the half inch or so of brown sludgy liquid in the bottom.

“It’s just coffee.” Laney’s voice reflected a bone-deep weariness. “I heard what you said to Chuck. Yeah, somebody made meth in here before, but it wasn’t me, or him.”

“He uses meth, though.” I dropped into the chair opposite her and clunked my bag on the table.

“Sometimes.” Laney picked at the tab on her Pepsi can.

“Do you?”

“No way. I’ve tried some of the other options, as I’m sure my mom told you.” Laney rolled her eyes and let out a soft snort. “But never meth. That stuff scares me.”

“Is Chuck Mindy’s father?”

“What?” Laney’s head popped up, and she became the most animated I’d ever seen her. “No. Ugh.” She made gagging sounds. “No. My ex-boyfriend, Mindy’s dad, is fishing in Alaska now. He calls sometimes—when he’s drunk.”

A whole lot of misery. No wonder Laney was wallowing in it. I sucked in a breath and brought us back to the pressing issue. “Does Chuck have a key to the apartment?”

Laney’s eyes dropped, and she shifted in her seat.

“You’re kidding me,” I muttered.

“He was my supplier—before. I feel like I owe him.”

I’d never felt so much like uttering a string of searing, incredulous profanities in my life. I would have had to make most of the words up, but they would have released some of the steam in my head. Instead I bit my lips and probably turned bright red.

“He also helped me get the job at Ace when nobody else would hire me because I flunked a couple drug tests.” Laney shrugged.

“Here’s the deal,” I growled. “And you do not have veto power. You’re going to tell me everything you know about Ace Trailer Repair, then I’m going to take you and Mindy to your mom’s house. You will not come back to this apartment to pick up the rest of your things until you have another, trusted adult with you. And you will do that in daylight only.”

“Is it that bad?” Laney whimpered, but it was a submissive whimper. Her crusty I-don’t-care façade had fizzled into a desperate clinginess.

I didn’t have patience for either extreme. “You know it, don’t you?”

She nodded reluctantly.

oOo

I rolled down the window and let the frigid air whip across my face. Frankly, I stank, and not in an honest, hard-working way. Three hours in Laney’s marijuana-infused apartment had left me pretty ripe. My eyes burned every time I blinked, and my sinuses were working overtime trying to return my respiratory system to health.

I fished Chuck’s baggy out of my tote bag, pulled it open with a couple free fingers while still grasping the steering wheel, then dangled my arm out the window. The marijuana buds splattered in the slipstream. Then, for the first time during my residence in the gorgeous Evergreen State, I littered. The baggy swirled through the red taillight glow and was gone.

I had enough residue on my person. There was no way I was going to take drug paraphernalia, even if it was only a plastic bag, into my house.

Laney had loosened up, not quite to the point of chattiness, but close. I suspected it was one of the few times in her life when someone had paid that kind of attention to her, sat across from her and listened for long spells without interrupting, and actually took notes on what she had to say.

Laney didn’t know it, but she was smart. And she was a gold mine for me.

She confirmed what Sal Pica had told me earlier—that Ace Trailer Repair did very little trailer repair. She described it more as a scrap metal business. The boss, Bigelow, and his right-hand man, Kliever—the two men we’d surprised with cinnamon rolls—bought metal from along the entire length of the I-5 corridor, shredded or not, arranged to have it shredded, and then transported it to Longview, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco ports for shipment to Southeast Asia.

And much of the time,
bought
wasn’t quite an accurate term for how they acquired the metal remnants. Laney had become proficient, in her short time at the company, in producing fake invoices, the blanks filled in with whatever customer details and dollar amounts Bigelow gave her. As far as she knew, there wasn’t a set of books that reflected the business’s actual transactions, but she maintained a well-documented set of phony records.

Laney understood, to some degree, that what she was doing was wrong. But she was stuck between complying with her boss’s instructions so she wouldn’t be fired and knowing that her job prospects outside of Ace were slim to none because of her previous drug use and the fact that she was on the union blacklist for twice failing employer-required drug tests.

I drew my own conclusions. Ace Trailer Repair was part of a much larger relay system in the transportation corridor, converting and then moving illicit goods from chop shops and junkyards and possibly at the behest of corrupt businessmen or union leaders. Like the paper mill’s missing equipment that Sal had mentioned.

Hot goods are easier to move if they don’t look like the original. Cut them in tiny pieces and stuff them in sea containers, then convert them into cash for the value of their recyclable metals. Pretty slick.

But it would require connections to turn much of a profit. From what Laney said, I gathered that Shane Bigelow was very well connected. This kind of thing didn’t happen in a vacuum. The whole operation reeked of organized crime—something I had learned a great deal about in the past few months.

You’d think such a rural county wouldn’t be infected with this type of sleaze. But location was the key. I had no idea how many thousands of semitrucks and trailers streamed through May County on I-5 on a daily basis, but it was a lot. There was a major rail line, plus easy access to a couple container-capable seaports within a few hours. And in such a backwater place, it was safe to assume a fair amount of illegal activity could be carried out in relative seclusion.

I also thought it was a creative touch that Bigelow seemed to hire people—particularly for the
in
group Sal had mentioned—who had priors, who were compromised in some way like having a criminal record or drug abuse problems, which would make those employees very reluctant to report their suspicions to law enforcement. These people also had the benefit of being considered unreliable witnesses by prosecuting attorneys.

Bigelow had a good thing going. No wonder he didn’t want to press charges or enter a lengthy insurance negotiation with me regarding the near collision. What’s the price of a new semitruck and trailer compared to blowing the comfortable obscurity of his operation?

Lentil made so much noise gunning over the ruts on Mayfield’s long driveway that Clarice had the kitchen door open and was standing there silhouetted against the warm glow from inside, hands on her hips. I was confident the FBI could now trace wherever I was driving with a decibel monitor.

However, it was safe to assume they still hadn’t put a GPS tracking device on Lentil, because if they had, they would have freaked out about where I’d been tonight and probably yanked me out of the apartment as soon as Chuck had staggered down the stairs and into the parking lot.

“You’re going to wake the dead, girl,” Clarice barked.

“Technically, he was exhumed, not resurrected,” I retorted. “This is Gus’s idea of a low profile.”

She was about to make a snappy comment—I could tell by the look on her face—but then she got a whiff of me and reeled backward. “Good heavens, girl,” she wheezed. “You’re potent enough to make a buzzard pass out. You are going to report on your evening, but not until you’re de-scented.” She pointed a commanding arm in the direction of the stairs to our living quarters and the pink-tiled bathroom.

oOo

I spent the next couple days rattling around the mansion feeling at odds with myself. I hate waiting. There wasn’t much I could do until Matt came through with the FBI files—if he did. And my usual partner in mischief was in school, much to her great delight.

I did go visit Tarq and helped Loretta get him settled in a recliner with a cozy knit blanket tucked over his lap. He dozed a lot, but he’d pick up the conversation where we’d left it when he awoke. His mind was as sharp as ever, and he wanted all the details of my research into Squeaky (aka Simon Ramos) and Zimmermann and the information from Sal and Laney. I could see him turning the facts over in his mind, and it was reassuring to me, in the same way having a computer backup is reassuring. Yet another set of eyes and gray cells crunching the numbers, so to speak.

I also joined Walt while he met with the county building inspector and a couple of the contractors for the final permit inspection of the renovated mechanics’ garage. We passed.

I wanted to whoop for joy, but the guys just solemnly shook hands and exchanged paperwork. Phooey on dignity, but I kept my cool.

After they left, though, I peppered Walt with questions. “How soon can the boys move in?”

Light danced behind his blue eyes, and he chuckled. “There’s still finish work that needs to be done. The carpentry crew will be here for the next few days, and they’ll finish the job faster if they aren’t hampered by a bunch of boys following them around. So I’d say this weekend, if all goes well. Besides, I don’t want to interrupt their studies.”

“Boring common sense,” I pouted.

“Tell you what—” Walt stretched an arm out toward me then quickly pulled it back in again. He cleared his throat. “Well, how about if we have a party on moving day? I bet Clarice would love to break in all the fancy kitchen equipment she selected for us. The boys love to eat—you know that.”

I beamed up at him. “Perfect.”

Walt was suddenly serious. “This means the world to me, Nora. Thank you.”

I wanted to hug him, but there was a little bit of awkwardness between us. Maybe Walt was remembering where my money came from—the money I’d used to pay for the renovations. Skip’s ghost showed up in the form of greenbacks.

So I just nodded acknowledgment and trudged back to the mansion with my hands in my pockets.

oOo

On Wednesday, shortly before noon, Matt showed up. In his usual fashion—without warning—and dumped a stack of files on the kitchen table.

“You got approval. All the way from the top. Happy reading,” he said.

“Haven’t you guys joined the digital age?” I asked. “I was hoping for electronic files. You know, the kind that are easily sortable and searchable?”

Matt shrugged. “You got approval, but not for everything. This was the fastest way to redact what you aren’t allowed to see.”

“Boy howdy,” Clarice murmured as she fanned the files out. “Where to start?”

“You could start by giving the courier a cup of coffee.” Matt seemed to be enjoying our consternation.

Clarice shot him a puckered frown. But she’s taken to keeping water simmering on the stove all day because we just never know when people will stop by. She plunked Matt’s French press on the counter and painstakingly measured coffee into it.

“Do you have suggestions then? What should I look at first?” I asked.

Matt pulled out a chair and sat in it with a heavy sigh. “You might be onto something about Zimmermann’s mistress—Angelica Temple.”