Checkered Crime: A Laurel London Mystery (6 page)

“Why wouldn’t he be at the hotel?” Jax tugged on the sleeve of his button down and caused it to expose a big black industrial looking watch. The Iron Man kind. “It’s after noon.”

“He has to get up awfully early to make his deliveries so he likes to go back to bed until at least one thirty,” I said and pulled up in front of The Cracked Egg Café.

Gia pressed her face up against the large bay window and looked out at the street directly at me and Jax.

“We can grab a coffee at The Cracked Egg while you wait. You hungry?” I asked and stuck my hand out, “Oh, and you owe me one hundred dollars for the ride.”

“One hundred dollars?” Jax let out a heavy sigh. He didn’t try to hide the fact he was a little unhappy with the taxi fare and the sudden change in his plans. “I could have rented a car for cheaper than that.”

“Well, you didn’t. And you needed to a ride. I was your only way. Plus, if you made a reservation with Louie, he should’ve told you.” I turned the car off and felt around for my phone. “Bastard,” I whispered under my breath when I remembered my last passenger had thrown my phone out of the window.

“Excuse me?” Jax leaned forward, tossing a Ben Franklin my way. “Did you call me a bastard?”

“Not you.” I shook my head trying to erase what I had said.

“Louie?” There he went with the questions again.

“Um.” I had to think about that one because I probably would’ve called Louie a bastard. Not today. “The guy I just dropped off before you got in.”

“Friend of yours?” He lingered with his hand on the door handle.

“Far from it,” I quipped, grabbed my big hobo bag and jumped out of the car. “Come on, Gia is dying in there.” I stuck the one hundred dollars in my bag.

The Cracked Egg did a hell of a business because the town square was the heart of Walnut Grove with the courthouse and Friendship Baptist Church in the center.

Two things Southerners loved: small town politics and their church.

The Cracked Egg was always busy at lunch. There were café tables dotted in the middle of the diner and booths that outlined the perimeter. The diner was a million years old, well, not a million but old. The booths still had the old time music players on the tables that didn’t work. Gia’s dad claimed it added to the authenticity of the diner.

“Just pick a seat and sit,” I told him and pointed to the counter. “I’m going to grab a seat up there. Let me know when you are ready.”

Every since Gia and I met in Kindergarten, I had been coming to the diner and sitting in the exact same spot. The stools were so much fun. Gia and I would twirl for hours. Mr. Chiconi, Gia’s dad, stopped yelling at us to stop after we continually didn’t listen.

“Who’s the hottie?” Gia chomped on her gum and slightly tilted her head toward Jax who was in ear shot.

Before I could reply, he thrust out his hand.

“Jax Jackson.” His hand hung over my shoulder for Gia to shake. “I’m here on business and I have to say you have a very nice taxi service here in Walnut Grove. Much better than New York City.”

“Taxi?” Gia snorted and pulled the pen out of her up-do. She hated how her dad made her put her hair up on top of her head. She had so much curly black hair that she had to use two ponytail holders and several bobby pins just to keep it in place. She always claimed she had to get up an hour early just to fix her hair. She looked at me. “We got a taxi in town?”

Me,
I mouthed and with the slip of my finger, I pointed to myself. Only I wasn’t sly enough. Jax saw me.

“You aren’t a taxi?” Jax’s mouth dropped wide open. “I want my money back.”

“Hey,” I put my hands in the air. “I never said, nor did my car say I was a taxi. You are the one who jumped in.”

“What about the guy you dropped off before me?” he asked.

“What about him?” I asked. “What it is to you? He’s a client.”

“What client? I thought you got fired?” Gia put her two cents in.

“I’ll take a coffee with two creamers and three sugars,” I told Gia. “The free coffee,” I reminded her of her offer from this morning.

“You gonna give me part of that hundred?” she asked with a shit-eating grin on her face. She flipped the white coffee cup over and placed it back in the matching saucer before she reached behind her and got the freshly brewed pot of coffee. She poured. “You can buy us a round of drinks tonight.”

“Tonight!” I gasped. I hit the palm of my hand on my head. “I forgot all about tonight.”

“Don’t you dare.” Gia shook her head. “It took a lot for Carmine to get Antonio to come down here from Cincinnati to go on a date with you.”

“It’s bowling. Not a date. And this was all your idea.” I reminded her that it was her idea, not mine. “Remember that
you
said that we needed to add a bowler to the team. I’ll be there.”

“So Jax Jackson, you in town for business?” Gia didn’t care about personal space. She was always up in everyone’s craw.

“What makes you think its business?” Jax was good at dodging questions by answering back with his own in his questions. “Maybe I’m just passing through.”

“First off,” Gia snapped, “passing through is generally at night and here for supper. Secondly, you hopped into Laurel’s fake taxi to get a ride here.”

“And you are staying at the Windmill.” I added my two cents before I lifted the lid off of the pie dish and helped myself to a piece of the best apple pie this side of the Mississippi.

“So tell me Jax Jackson, why are you in Walnut Grove?” There was a deep-set suspicion in her eyes.

“He’s with the Underworld Music Festival,” I blurted out before I stuck a fork full of pie in my mouth.

“You are?” Gia pulled back. Her eyes narrowed. “I told you Carmine said they’d have it all worked out in three weeks. But Carmine didn’t say anything about someone coming today.”

“And Carmine tells you everything.” There was something that wasn’t adding up here. I knew Carmine never kept anything from Gia. “He didn’t tell you about Morty firing me either,” I reminded her.

“Something’s fishy.” Gia smacked her hand on the counter and rushed over to where the cash register sat. She grabbed the phone off the wall and pulled the phone cord up over her head so the server could go under it. “Carmine!” I heard Gia scream into the phone.

“Oh no. Someone is getting into trouble.” Jax laughed. “Who’s Carmine and what did she mean by three weeks?”

“Mind your own business,” Gia yelled over her shoulder at Jax.

“So what’s good here?” Jax picked up the laminated menu and gave it the once over.

“Everything,” I said and picked up my cup of coffee. Out of my peripheral vision I could see Jax Jackson was staring at me.

Chapter Seven

“Don’t forget about your date!” Gia yelled over the lunch crowd as she hustled her butt to get people their lunches.

After she gave Carmine the business, she didn’t have time to chit-chat with Jax and me. He ordered the bacon, lettuce and tomato double decker and so did I. Oh, and extra fries.

“That was good.” Jax patted his belly. He checked his watch as we stepped outside. “Do you think Louie is up yet?”

“He should be.” Walking to the car, I retrieved the Benjamin from the bottom of my hobo and handed it to him. “I can’t take your money. I’ll take you to the Windmill.”

I held on to the corner of the bill while he tugged on the other end.

“Are you going to let go?” He jerked a little harder. “I guess I owe you something for bringing me here. What did the other guy give you?”

“Why are you so curious about the other guy in my taxi?” I would understand if Derek or Gia asked me these questions but not this guy. This stranger.

“Taxi? Aren’t you using the term loosely?” His smart ass comment made me laugh.

“Get in.” I opened the door and plopped down. “Louie should be there by now.”

Jax and I didn’t say another word until we got to the Windmill, which was only less than a half mile down Main Street.

“This is it?” Jax looked frightened.

There was a broken down windmill in front of the hotel with a half lit sign attached to it. A couple of the blades were missing, a few were dangling. The slightest bit of wind made the old thing creak and groan. It was a perfect site for one of those creepy thriller movies.

“The one and only.” I pulled the old Belvedere into the lot and stopped right in front of the glass window where big Louie was happily sitting.

“I see what you mean by big Louie.” Jax moved his head back and forth as though he was surveying the place.

“It might not look like much from the outside, but it’s super clean on the inside. Sally Bent cleans all the rooms. She’s a freak.” I took a deep breath and corrected what I had said about Sally. “Neat freak.”

Sally Bent was another girl in the orphanage. Louie’s parents wanted a girl so they came and adopted Sally. It was a real shame. Not to her, but to me. Sally Bent cleaned a toilet better than anyone I had ever seen. She loved doing all the chores, but when she left, Trixie said I had to do it. I didn’t want to do Sally Bent’s chores and mine.

You need to learn how to cook and clean so you can get married one day
, Trixie would say
.
Little did we realize no one wanted to date me, let alone marry me.

No one in Walnut Grove. Given my background, I could hardly blame them. But I was on the upswing. I could feel it. Plus I had been on my best behavior over the last five or so years.

Damn
. Wasn’t that long enough to prove I was good?

“Sally Bent, huh?” Jax hesitated before he opened the door. “Well, Laurel, it was a pleasure.”

“All mine.” I smiled and watched him walk up to the window. His backside was just as nice as the front. “Yep, pleasure is all
mine,
”
I said under my breath before I took off toward Cow’s Lick Creamery.

I was in the mood for some of their homemade raspberry chocolate chunk ice cream. I still had a few hours to kill before I could officially go back home. Even though I lived alone, Trixie somehow knew if I was home early or late.

“Dang.” I hit the wheel when the only light in town turned red.

The door opened and someone jumped in.

“I need to go to Porty Morty’s.” The woman slammed the door and adjusted her cutoff jeans before she tried to pull down the cowl neck crop top that was so popular in the 90’s. Her long grey hair was covered in a tin foil hat. “Laurel London? Is that you?”

“Trixie!” I was just as shocked to see her as she was to see me. “What in the hell is on your head?”

I wasn’t about to ask about the clothes. I already knew where those had come from…the orphanage. It wasn’t a big secret and everyone around town knew Trixie didn’t buy her own clothes. She just wore all the orphans’ hand-me-downs.

To this day she still refused to buy clothes that were not only in the current trend, but that were to fit her age of seventy years old.

“Watch your language! Who the hell’s car is this? Laurel, please don’t tell me you stole it.” She jumped out of the back of the car, ran around it, and then hopped in the front seat with me. It was sort of like playing the Chinese fire drill game but with a slightly crazy old lady.  “I got a phone call from Mr. Chiconi.” She did the sign of the cross.

“Why do you do that? He’s not dead and we aren’t Catholic.” I rolled my eyes.

“His father is dead. Bless his soul. He was a good man.” She tsked. “By the looks of things, he’s right and I wasn’t so sure about Sally Bent’s claim of you being a woman of the night, but now I’m starting to believe her too. It’s those aliens, I’m telling you.”

Trixie dipped her head, shot her eyes to the sky and looked out of the front windshield.

“Lady of the night? As in prostitute? Aliens?” I questioned. Who was she calling lady of the night? She was the one in the skimpy outfit. “Are you drinking in the middle of the day?” I asked.

I’m going to get that Sally Bent for good this time.
I made a mental note.

“Mr. Chiconi said you were driving some big yellow car and a man was in the car. A
stranger
.” Her eyes were big and blue. Her skin was fair and with very few wrinkles. I was sure it was from all the sunscreen she used and doused the orphans with. When they came up with the slogan, big things come in small packages, I believe they had Trixie in mind. She was a spitfire. “Where is he?” She pulled a knife out of her hot pink handbag
—
that I was positive came from the Salvation Army drop box
—
and slashed it through the air.

There were many times we’d stake out the drop-off site of the Salvation Army donation dumpster. Not only was Sally Bent a good bathroom cleaner, she was tiny and would fit right in the dumpster. Trixie would send Sally sailing over the top and into the pile of donated stuff.

Sally always came out with all sorts of great items that we’d take back to the orphanage and wear.

“Whoa. Where’s who?” I continued past the creamery. My sudden appetite for the raspberry chocolate chunk went south. I had to tell Trixie about my bad fortune of being fired.

“The stranger.” Trixie jabbed her pointy finger on my shoulder. I grimaced in pain. “I’ll chop off his penis!”

“Listen, I’m not doing anything illegal.” It was time to come clean. I didn’t want anyone’s body parts being chopped off. “Shouldn’t you be home watching ‘Judge Judy’?” I asked buying time.

I pulled over into the Dollar Store parking lot. I knew when I told her about me losing my job, she was not going to be happy.

“Don’t change the subject.” She looked out the window, craning her neck to see where we were. “I don’t need laundry powder. Why are we at the Dollar Store?”

Growing up with Trixie and in the orphanage, you quickly learned how to get the best deals and how to stretch your dollar. The Dollar Store on Fifth Street had the best prices on laundry powder. Fiddle and Sons Meats had the best meat and potato salad. Dealing with them was an adventure I could do without.

Fiddle and Sons was next to Porty Morty’s. They served lunch and it was convenient when I was at work. On most days, Morty would send me over to get him a hot ham and cheese for lunch. The sons of Fiddle and Sons were twins, Adam and Alex, and they are my age. Gia and I aptly named them Fiddle Dee and Fiddle Dum. They were on my bowling team so I had the
pleasure
of seeing them on a weekly basis.