Hide and Snake Murder (11 page)

“Yeah. I can do that.” Baz seated himself on the top step.

By the time I turned back around, Eddy was gone and Coop was disappearing through the right-hand door. I hustled after him. Luckily, the windows on this level allowed enough light in to give a sense of trippable objects in our way.

I couldn't believe we were in a stranger's house, and that stranger happened to be one of the most well-known and well-liked executives in the city. If we got busted, we were going to be in some serious crap.

Eddy called quietly, “Agnes? Aggie? You in here?”

A gigantic, U-shaped couch sat in front of an equally humongous flat-screened TV. Hundreds of DVDs occupied a built-in shelving unit along one wall. Everything was very neat, and the room lacked the clutter of everyday life.

No Agnes.

The urgency of the situation pressed down on me. When would Fletcher Sharpe come home? I doubted he'd find any humor in discovering us in his house. And I didn't believe for a minute Baz would stick around to warn us of anyone incoming. He'd be too busy hauling his well-padded hiney back down the hill to the safety of the pickup.

“Go!” I whispered loudly. “Next room already.”

Another door on the far end of the room was closed, and Eddy reached out to open it.

“Wait!” Coop yelped.

Eddy jerked her hand away. “What?”

Coop, in a slightly calmer tone, said, “You don't want to leave fingerprints, do you?”

“Oh yeah. Should've thought of that. Grissom would be disappointed.” Eddy pulled her sleeve over her hand and opened the door. She stuck her head inside for a moment. The light flashed on, then off, and she reported, “Bathroom. With two more doors. A place with this many doors would confuse a person.”

We followed her into a half-bath. I guessed one door opened to the hall behind the stairway, and light glowed through the other portal. Probably the study we'd peeped in through the window. A thought popped into my mind. What would the cops charge us with for peeping? Then I realized it really wouldn't matter. We were in way over our peeping heads.

Eddy left the bathroom and entered the study. Coop and I followed.

The view was pretty much what we'd seen on the outside. Now that we were inside, I could better see the toys lying on the coffee table. Two stuffed snakes similar to Rocky's, three fuzzy teddy bears, and a mean-looking gorilla rested on its glass-covered top.

Coop walked over and picked up one of the snakes. “Looks like the one Baz swiped.” He squeezed it. “I don't know if there's anything but stuffing in here or not, but it feels oddly crunchy.”

“You don't think … ” Eddy sidled up next to Coop and scooped up a bear. She turned it this way and that, examining it and squeezing it between her hands. “It's sure a hard thing for a fancy toy.” She stowed the bear under her arm and went back to calling Agnes's name.

Coop dropped the snake and pivoted to follow Eddy out the other doorway. “She's right. This place has more passageways than a mausoleum.”

Nice descriptor.

We paused outside the study. We were in an area that opened up to the back half of the main hall. Another stairway heading downstairs was behind the upstairs set. I'd love to see this house in the daylight. Or with the lights on. Or even in the beam of a flashlight. Moonlight was overrated.

Hardwood floors turned into ceramic tile as we slunk single-file into the kitchen. A newspaper was spread open on a six-foot-long, butcher block-topped center island. An L-shaped counter took up two walls, and a stainless-steel gas stove and refrigerator spanned another. A closed door was directly to our right.

“Agnes,” Coop hissed loudly. The only sound was our muted breathing and the tick of a clock somewhere. Agnes didn't answer.

Eddy sighed. “Jeez, she's not that fast. Where is she?”

“I—” A loud thump came from behind the closed door. We all jumped in unison.

“What the—” Coop muttered under his breath.

Another bang issued from behind the door.

“All right, that's it,” Eddy said through gritted teeth. She strode right to the door and yanked it open faster than I could think. Another clang issued from the space. Coop and I, frozen in place, watched in horror as Eddy flipped the light on.

There, on the floor, sat Agnes. The neck of a liquor bottle was clenched in one hand, and can of peas in the other. A few other tins of vegetables rolled around the floor near her.

“Missed the chair, I did.” Agnes hiccupped and took another healthy glug. “Good stuff. Want some?” She held the bottle toward us.

I found my tongue and croaked, “Holy shit, is she drunk?” I had trouble imagining how she got schnockered in a measly ten minutes.

“Agnes,” Eddy boomed. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay off the potato hooch? You know what moonshine does to you after one swallow.”

She must have had a bit more than one swallow to get herself in this condition.

Agnes's only answer to Eddy was a belch. Her eyes were glassy, and her features appeared crooked on her face.

“Where,” Coop asked, “did you find that bottle?”

A gnarled hand pointed up above her head. Indeed, on one of the white wire shelves attached to the wall, between canned vegetables, about two dozen Progresso Sirloin and Vegetable soups, boxes of Uncle Ben's rice, and various pastas were a stash of five additional bottles of Grey Goose vodka. Fletch apparently liked his booze top shelf. Literally.

The scowl on Eddy's face was enough to send a shiver down my own spine, and I wasn't the one in trouble. She said sternly, “Aggie, get your wrinkly fanny off that floor. Nicholas, come over here and help me.”

Eddy and Coop hauled Agnes to her feet. She towered unsteadily over Eddy. Coop kept a hand under her arm in case she decided to attempt to visit the floor face-first.

“You old fool,” Eddy scolded as she tried to pry the bottle from Agnes's hand.

“Not a fool. I'm the one who found … ” Agnes's voice trailed off as she tipped the bottle and swallowed down another gallon or so.

I said, “Let's get her out of here before we—”

“GIVE me that, Aggie!” Eddy had her hand above Agnes's on the neck of the bottle. The stuffed bear she'd tucked under her arm fell to the floor as she wrestled with Agnes for possession.

“No!” Agnes shouted. “Mine!”

“Give. Me. That. Jug.” Eddy punctuated each word with a yank.

“Leggo, old hag. I foun' it.”

I picked the toy up off the floor and wiggled it in Agnes's face. “Look, Agnes, a teddy bear, just for you.”

“Oh. Cute.” She swiped at him with her free hand, nearly upending herself. Without Coop's assistance, she'd have gone down.

“Aggie!” Eddy wrenched on the bottle. It flew out of Agnes's hand, through Eddy's, clobbered my forehead right above the same eyebrow that had been banged up in New Orleans, and bounced onto the shelf behind me. I saw stars. Again. Then what felt like a river of wetness began to flow down the side of my face. Again.

“Oh no!” Coop let go of Agnes and lunged at me. He grabbed the bear from my hands and slammed it against my forehead. Déjà vu, with the substitution of a bear for Rocky's aviator hat. Out of the eye not covered by teddy bear fur, I saw Agnes pitch forward. Eddy caught her and staggered under her weight but somehow managed to keep them both upright.

Coop wrapped his arm around my head, and if there had been a pimple at the top of my noggin, it would have popped.

“Hey,” I squawked. “Get off!” I tried to push Coop's wiry body away from me, but it was like trying to move Mount Rushmore.

“Shay,” he said. “Stay still. You're bleeding.”

“I'm fine, for Pete's sake. Let go.”

“Nicholas,” Eddy said urgently. “Scoot. We have to get out. Too many complications.”

“I am
not
a complication,” I ground out furiously from very near Coop's armpit.

Someone flicked off the light. I wondered how much of a mess the open bottle of booze was making, and whether or not I was leaving a trail of blood behind. Great. Now they had my DNA.

The four of us staggered out of the kitchen and into the hall. We were about to round the foot of the stairs and make a beeline for the exit when the sound of jingling keys echoed outside the door. Which was now closed.

Our impromptu train stopped short right behind the staircase, and we bumped into one another accordion-style.

The door had been open when we'd left Baz standing guard. Now the door was closed. I had a very bad feeling that Baz was not the one jingling his keys on the stoop outside.

The four of us backpedaled and ducked down behind the stairway to the second floor. My head was pounding. I inanely wondered if the increase in blood pressure was making the gash in my head leak more than it already was. I couldn't see with Coop's iron grip on my noodle, but I managed to twist enough that I got a glimpse of the foyer.

The sound of a key sliding into the lock sounded like an explosion to my partially covered ears. Then the door swung open.

A man stood in the doorframe, backlit by moonlight. Something behind him caught his attention and he turned away for a moment and spoke. I couldn't make out the words, but even if I hadn't been able to see him, the tone of his voice clued me in to his identity. Instantaneously, horrified chills suffused my back and goosebumps sprang up on my arms. The man wasn't Baz. It was Tommy Tormenta, and he wasn't alone.

Twelve

“Oh shit.” Coop's chest
tightened against the side of my head as he spoke. “Downstairs,” he whispered.

We tried to move quietly. Not easy to do when one very short old lady was staggering under the weight of a plastered senior citizen and another person was hauling me around by my head like a football he didn't want to fumble.

Coop whipped me about-face and half-dragged, half-carried me down the stairs into the basement. On the edge of panic, I wriggled enough to see that Eddy was doing an admirable job guiding Agnes down the steps in front of us.

At the bottom of the stairs, I was yanked to the right and hustled down a hall. I barely made out the fact we'd entered a spacious room, and then Coop was wrestling me down to the floor.

“Where are—” I began. Coop slapped his big hand across my mouth. He still held the teddy bear squashed against my head with his other hand. If the blood dried while the bear was being imbedded in my skin thanks to Vise Grip Boy, I'd never be able to pull the thing off. Footsteps echoed overhead and the faint sound of voices became louder.

My heart thundered in my ears. We were going to be dead in a matter of moments, and I wasn't even going to be able to see it coming.

The voices grew louder. I stopped breathing, squeezed my eyes shut. Waited for the impact of a bullet.

“ … and that's what happened to ‘one-legged' Hunk here.” Tommy's accented voice grew louder.

I pressed myself against Coop, awaiting the final blow.

Someone turned a lamp on a distance from our hiding spot, casting a very dim glow around the object directly in front of us. I had no idea how they could miss four people huddled like shaking sheep awaiting the big bad wolf.

Tommy continued, “Donny's supposed to be on his way here tomorrow. Minus a piece of his ear, but that shouldn't slow him down too much.”

The sound of something opening came from very near. I cringed further.

A voice I didn't recognize said, “Beer?”

Hunk said, “Yeah.”

“Tomás?”

“No,
gracias.
Water, if you have it.”

“I do.”

Water began to run from a tap that sounded way too close. Then there was the unmistakable crack of an aluminum can being popped open.

How come they didn't see us?

“Thanks,” came Hunk's gruff voice after a moment.

Coop's arm relaxed slightly and he removed his hand from my mouth while keeping the pressure on my forehead. Directly in front us was a free-standing, knotty-wood cabinet. It had to be a wet bar. I managed to see that Eddy and Agnes were on the floor next to us. Eddy's hand was over Agnes's mouth, and Agnes had a startled, deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face.

“The people you were supposed to dispatch to the depths of some bayou swamp have disappeared. They know what you look like.” The voice hardened. “And they've seen the money in the snake. Zorra's not going to like this at all.”

“Hey,” Hunk said. “It's not like we just let them go. The bitch almost broke my knee.”

That was some consolation.

“Zorra will deal with you when she arrives Tuesday. In the meantime, you both had better have these loose ends taken care of before the next shipment comes up. Hunk, I'll need all your resources for this one.”

“I've got it covered.” Hunk burped loudly.

“Hey, find some manners or I will cut off your avocados,
pendejo
,” Tommy said flatly.

“Sorry, boss.”

“There's too much at stake to make any more stupid fuck-ups,” the man said. I wondered if he was Fletcher Sharpe.

“Tomás, your Juárez connection is complete?”

“
Sí
. The tunnel is done. Product is being transferred. The factory is prepared for the increased exchange.”

Tunnels? Juárez? Sounded like smuggling. I recalled the money that exploded out of the snake during the tug-of-war between Baz and Rocky. This wasn't good. Not good at all. And Zorra. I'd have laughed at the ridiculousness of the clichéd name if I weren't so terrified.

“Well,” the man said through a yawn, “let's get some sleep, and in the morning you two can figure out what you're going to do to clear up our little problem. Pick one of the bedrooms upstairs to use.”

The light clicked off. Footsteps muted by the carpet passed and faded. We stayed still another two minutes. Creaking came from the floor above as the men moved around.

“Let's go out the sliding-glass door,” Eddy whispered.

Coop still had me in a headlock.

“Okay.” Coop tightened the grip on my head.

“Hey,” I whispered indignantly as I attempted again to shove him away. “Let me go already.”

“Nope.”

I struggled to bat him in the stomach but the angle prevented me from making full contact.

“Stop it, Shay. I'm not letting go.” From the tone of his whisper, there was no arguing. I gave up and let him drag me to the patio door. Eddy already had a dazed Agnes propped against the wall and was working the latch. Then the big glass door slid quietly open, and so did the screen. Agnes lurched out the door with Eddy on her heels.

Coop and I followed, stopping only long enough to shut the door behind us. I struggled to keep up with Coop's long legs as we hobbled across the lawn, no easy feat since I was unable to see. Coop had to loosen his hold on my head, but he didn't let go. I waited for a gunshot to ring out, but we hit the tree line and descended the slope without incident. Agnes and Eddy had reached the bottom and were just about to the truck.

Baz, only his forehead and eyes visible, peered cautiously from of the back end of the truck.

“What happened?” he asked as we approached.

“I could ask you the same,” I growled.

Coop squeezed my head and said, “Give me the keys.”

I dug them from my pocket and slapped them in Coop's hand. He pressed the unlock button. Eddy braced Agnes against the side of the truck with one hand and wrenched the door open with her other.

“What's wrong with Agnes?” Baz asked as he scrambled out of the bed.

“Don't ask,” I told him as Coop pulled me around to the driver's side. I thought for a minute he was going to let me drive when he hurriedly yanked opened the door. Instead he popped the smaller rear one and crammed me onto the narrow bench seat. He grabbed my hand and pressed it to the bear. “Hold it on there,” he said gruffly. I was certain the stuffed animal was now permanently attached.

Eddy nudged Agnes next to me and climbed in beside her. Baz practically leaped into the passenger seat. Coop fired up the engine and made tracks out of there.