Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 04 - With This Ring (26 page)

“Please don’t hurt us,” I begged. “I’m not his girlfriend. Remember? I’m just a county grief counselor who decided to loan him a little money so he could pay you the money he owes. That’s all. I swear.”

Rocky was not moved by my remarks. He grabbed the front of my jacket and shook me roughly. “Where is he? I know you know. Did he send you to do his dirty work and have you ask us for more time? If so, you made a grave mistake by agreeing! I really don’t think he’s planning to show.”

“No, Rocky, please trust me,” I said. “He’ll be here! He promised!”

“Rocky?” Sheila asked. “You two are on a first name basis? My, you’ve really come up in the world, haven’t you, Lexie?”

I knew she meant to be funny, because we both had a tendency to resort to humor when we were scared spitless. But no one was laughing. It was all I could do to keep from wetting myself. All the coffee I’d been drinking all morning picked a fine time to want out of my bladder.

“Listen, Rocky. Teddy is on the way. He has all but two hundred and fifty of the ten grand, and I have the rest. Here, let me get it for you,” I said to the two men, as I dug into my fanny pack for the wad of bills. Even when being threatened with my life I have a tendency to be polite. While digging for the cash, I came up with an open pack of Dentyne. “Gum anyone?”

Ignoring my offer, Spike asked, “What time did he tell you he’d be here? He told us to meet him here at noon.”

“He told us noon also, but he may have run into a traffic jam or something.”

“In Rockdale? A traffic jam here is when two cars are trying to pull into the post office at the same time. I told you I didn’t want to hear any more excuses for your boyfriend.”

“Please, trust me, he’ll be here any minute. And quit calling Teddy my boyfriend. I find it very insulting,” I said. I handed the money I’d taken out of my fanny pack to Rocky, who snatched it and shoved it into the front right pocket of his jeans. When he did so, I saw the glint of a large knife hanging from a sheath attached to his belt. I prayed he wasn’t planning on using the imposing weapon on Sheila and me. His next statement convinced me that he might.

“For your sake, he better be! He’s got about five more minutes before I get very angry, and you won’t like it very much when I’m angry!”

Sheila, who had yet to utter a word, opened up her purse. Spike leapt toward her, grabbing her arm in case she was searching for a weapon. She shook off his hand, and spoke. “My name’s Sheila. I’m glad to meet you, Rocky and Spike. Lexie’s my best friend, and has been for most of my life. You can take my word for it when I tell you she’s not Teddy’s girlfriend. In fact, I’m only here in Rockdale because my husband, Police Sergeant Randy Davidson, and I, have come to attend her wedding tomorrow—to a man named Stone, not Teddy. Her fiancé is a former cop too, by the way.”

I knew Sheila thought if she could keep chattering she might distract them long enough for Teddy to arrive. I knew she also hoped to make them think twice before harming us because her husband and my fiancé were former police officers. And if they injured us, or worse, Randy and Stone would surely track them down and either kill them or see them put them behind bars for life. It was an interesting strategy, but one I thought might have an adverse effect if they’d had a lot of run-ins with the law and had an ax to grind with cops. It might even give them more incentive to do away with us.

I think Sheila probably also thought if she were extremely pleasant and the two men felt like they knew us personally, it would be harder for them to kill us or hurt us in any way. I prayed her strategy would work, although I wasn’t betting on it. I watched her open up her billfold and extract all the bills it contained. “Here’s another hundred and thirty seven dollars to hold you until Teddy arrives. I would gladly give you more if I had it. I really would.”

Rocky reached out and took it and added it to the stash already in his pocket. I couldn’t believe Sheila thought a hundred and thirty seven bucks would impress these jerks enough to spare us our lives. Still, I couldn’t blame her for trying. If I had any more money on me, I’d be forking it over right about now too. But since the creation of debit cards, I rarely carried a lot of cash any more. I wondered if my Black Hills Gold engagement ring would carry any weight with these dudes. It wasn’t particularly valuable, even with the small diamond and rubies but I doubted either of these dudes had much experience in evaluating jewelry. I considered handing the ring over for a moment, but then changed my mind. They didn’t appear to me to be Black Hills Gold kind of guys. And damn it all, I was getting married tomorrow and was not going to show up without my engagement ring, assuming Sheila and I showed up at all.

I could feel my heart beating in double time, and I looked at Sheila who was white as the sheet cake she had recently carried into the inn. I felt terrible for getting her into a situation that might cost my best friend her life. I mouthed, “I’m sorry,” but she just waved my apology off, as if to remind me that it wasn’t over until it was over, and with any luck at all, we might somehow come out of this intact.

“One more minute and you’re going to be sorry you ever met Teddy,” Spike said, pushing the button to light up his watch again. “We’re going to take you and—”

“Hello?” I heard a deep voice call out. “Anybody here?”

I was never so happy to hear a voice in my life as I was to hear Teddy’s just then. If I wasn’t so pissed off at him, I’d have run up and kissed him. How could he ask us to meet him here at the exact same time he was due to meet these goons, and then have the gall to be a half hour late? I wanted to threaten him with his life, the way Sheila and I had just been threatened with ours.

“Where in the hell have you been?” I demanded to know. “You are thirty minutes late!”

“Well, I got to the warehouse on time,” he replied. “But when I saw the Dairy Queen across the street, I realized I hadn’t had a bite to eat all day, so I swung in for a pork tenderloin sandwich, fries, and a chocolate malt.”

“Why you worthless piece of—” I began.

“Sorry, Lexie. I didn’t think a few minutes could matter all that much.”

“We were being held as collateral until you showed up and threatened with great bodily harm. If you hadn’t finally shown up when you did, there’s no telling what these guys might have done to us!”

“Well, I’m here now, so relax,” Teddy said. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a large stack of bills, held together with a rubber band. “Assuming Lexie already gave you the other two-fifty, it’s all here. Paid in full, just as I said it would be.”

“Lucky for you, and also for your girlfriend and the other broad,” Rocky replied.

I glanced over at Sheila and could tell instantly she was as insulted at being called “the other broad” as I was being called Teddy’s girlfriend. I swallowed hard when she demanded the return of her hundred and thirty seven dollars, and was surprised when Rocky counted out that amount and handed it back to her.

We followed Teddy toward the back of the building and outside to the alley, as Rocky and Spike headed in the opposite direction. Teddy apologized again for being late and the fact we’d been threatened and were terrified by the thought of what might happen to us had he not appeared right in the nick of time. “I don’t really think they’d have hurt you two. They were all bark and no bite with you, I’m sure. It’s me they were after. You were in no real danger whatsoever.”

I wasn’t so sure myself, and I could tell Sheila wasn’t either. Those two didn’t get and keep the jobs they had by being all bark. I pulled an index card out of my back pocket that I’d written my name and address on. I handed it to Teddy, and he promised to mail me a check for two-fifty when he got paid the following Friday. He thanked me one more time and got into an older model white Monte Carlo, with t-tops, and red stripes down the sides, and a spoiler across the back bumper that was held together with duct tape. I knew it to be a 1987 model, because I’d once owned one nearly identical to it. If Teddy drove a car built in the eighties, he truly couldn’t afford to lose ten grand gambling. He was lucky his dad’s insurance policy stood to pay off in a big way.

Pulling out onto the street in the sports car, I slowed down as I watched Rocky and Spike leave through a broken window in front of the building. When Rocky walked up to the driver’s side door of a faded green Chevy van, I handed my phone to Sheila. “Get a photo of them getting in that van if you can.”

Fortunately, Sheila’s phone was very similar to mine and she wasted no time snapping a photo. After she studied the picture she’d just taken, she assured me it was in clear focus. Both men were recognizable, and she could read the number on the license tag of the van. I didn’t know if this photo would prove to be useful, but I knew it couldn’t hurt to have it available.

* * *

It took very little discussion between Sheila and me to decide it’d be better not to mention the day’s activities to Stone and Randy. We chose self-preservation over full disclosure, as I’ve been known to do in the past. By the time we were closing in on Cedar Street, we’d begun to calm down. “Would you like to see where Thurman Steiner lived?” I asked Sheila.

“Sure.”

As I drove slowly down the residential street, I pointed out the blond brick ranch house the pastor had lived in. A man walking at a rapid pace down the sidewalk turned to look at us as we drove past. With a start, I recognized Harold Bloomingfield and wondered at the exasperated expression on his face. I stopped the car and backed up until we were alongside the gentleman. “Is everything all right, Mr. Bloomingfield?”

“Oh, hello, Lexie,” he said wearily. He didn’t sound pleased to see me. “I can’t find Bonnie. She must have wandered off again while I was taking a shower. I’ve been looking for her for almost an hour. I’ve spoken with most of the neighbors and none of them have seen her.”

“Can we help you look?” I asked. I liked Bonnie and felt sorry for both her and her husband. I knew how sad and scary Alzheimer’s could be. I was concerned about the elderly woman’s welfare. “We can drive around the neighborhood and speak with anyone we see out and about. Maybe one of them has seen her walk by. It wouldn’t hurt to have a couple more pairs of eyes out looking for her.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Well, thank you. I would appreciate the help. This is the longest I’ve ever spent looking for her. She’s only wandered off twice before, and she didn’t leave the immediate area either time.”

We spent the next forty-five minutes driving up and down the adjoining streets, broadening our search as we went along. We saw relatively few residents outside their homes, and none of those claimed to have seen an older woman walking alone, appearing lost and confused. Finally, we went back to the Bloomingfields’ house to see if Harold had located her or she’d returned to the house on her own. No such luck.

As we stepped outside the car, I’d heard what sounded like the whimpering of a kitten. “Do you have any pets Harold?”

“No. Why?”

“Did you just hear a whimpering sound, Sheila?” I knew she was more apt to have heard the sound than Harold, who wore a hearing aid in his right ear.

“Well, I thought I did hear something, but I can’t put a finger on where it came from.”

“Me either. Let’s split up and do another thorough search around the house and the next-door neighbor’s yards,” I suggested.

We each headed off in a different direction. I found myself heading toward the Steiner home. Calling out Bonnie’s name, I stopped every few feet to listen for a response. As I approached the back patio of Thurman’s house I heard the whimpering sound again. I felt sure it had come from his back yard.

The only thing in the back yard, aside from a couple of large oak trees, was a small garden shed. Sure enough when I headed in that direction and called out Bonnie’s name, I heard a muffled reply. As I opened the door I saw Bonnie, squatting in the corner of the shed behind an ancient lawn mower that appeared to be on its last legs and an old-fashioned metal gas can. Glancing around, I saw a nearly empty bag of grass seed, a rusty rake, a spade with a wooden handle that was split down the center, and a few cans of old paint. That was the extent of the shed’s contents. I could understand why it was left unlocked and Thurman had apparently not been worried someone might break in and steal his stuff. There wasn’t anything in there worth stealing.

“It’s okay, Bonnie,” I said, as I crouched down beside her. She had a wild-eyed expression and looked at me as if she’d never seen me before in her life. I got back up and went to the door to shout out to Sheila and Harold, and they soon joined me.

Bonnie was incoherent and very befuddled. All we were able to make out of what she said was that she was looking for Pastor Steiner to see if he wanted any radishes from her garden. I glanced over at the Bloomingfield’s back yard and shrugged my shoulders. The back yard was well manicured and very lush, but no garden could be seen from my viewpoint.

“We haven’t had a vegetable garden in about thirty years,” Harold said sadly. “It became too much for us to take care of, so we started buying our produce at the farmer’s market that’s held at the old drive-in theater every weekend.”

The speakers and concession stand had been removed from the outdoor movie theater east of town and the site used for local flea and farmer’s markets for many years, he went on to tell us. I was consumed with sadness for Bonnie and Harold, but pleased to know there was somewhere I could buy locally grown fresh produce for use at the Alexandria Inn. I always strove to prepare healthy meals for our guests. Even though my cooking wasn’t always up to snuff, it was hard to screw up a tossed salad full of colorful veggies.