Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

She said, touching his arm, “That’s been your biggest problem, Mike. Deciding about having a life of your own, without him in the background of your mind, checking out everything you do.”

“You understand that, don’t you?” Mike said.

She nodded. “Part of the time I’d hate my father for what he put my mother and me through, all the trouble about his citizenship,” said Robin.

“You held his war record against him. Maybe I held my father’s war record against him too.”

“We both have our demons,” she said.

Halfway to Washington, their luck ran out. A Maryland State Police car pulled them over. Mike had planned a route north of Chesapeake Bay and then down through Washington to get to the rural area where the garden center was located. He had kept the speed down, so he knew the stop was not for speeding. He and Robin looked at each other.

Mike slowed the car. “He’ll have a picture of me, maybe of you too,” he said.

“We need a story to tell, Mike. Let’s get creative. Think vacations this time of year. Schools are out. Families going to Washington for the museums. The Fourth of July. We need a distraction.”

“You mean something besides this colorful car? The beaches are behind us that way,” Mike pointed to his left. He was slowing the car in the gravel strip to the side of the highway. The police car was three lengths behind, its headlights blinking fast and sending shivers of light through the little Volkswagen.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said, as she sat up and stripped off her blouse.

“What are you doing?” said Mike as he braked the car. The police car was coming closer.

“My father told me that a girl helped a soldier get through Canadian customs by doing this.” She stripped off her yellow jeans and then her underwear.

“Put on your dark glasses, Mike.”

The Volkswagen was fully stopped. The state trooper got out of his sedan.

“Well, we got to look a real lot less than museum people. Mike, pull down your shorts too. We want this State Policeman to be embarrassed.”

“You’re hoping he’s a nice polite country boy,” Mike said as he glanced at her nude body.

She smiled. “Here, shift over. I should be driving.”

Mike let her slide under him and he moved to her seat. As he did so, he grinned, “You’re doing pretty well if you want to get me excited.”

“This is one time I’m glad you have a one track mind.”

Mike was undressed including his own underwear. The policeman shone his light on the driver window of the Volkswagen.

Robin put down the dust covered window and leaned her head out. With her right hand she began to stroke Mike’s groin. The State Policeman was young, his uniform carefully fitted, his hat set at a jaunt.

“You got a real collector’s car here,” the officer smiled. He leaned down to look in at the two of them and his light flashed over their bare bodies.

“Yessir,” she said.

The trooper realized they had no clothes on. He stood up quickly, did not say anything for a moment, his eyes staring dully. He turned off his flashlight.

“Just married, Officer,” said Mike, from the other side of the car, fighting back an expression of pleasure as Robin rubbed him in a sensitive spot.

“Where are you two coming from?” the policeman said, trying not to look at Robin’s large breasts.

“Ocean City. We’ve been on our honeymoon,” said Mike, gasping the words.

“I see,” the officer said, staring directly at a point on Robin’s nose.

“Where are you going?” he finally asked.

“Returning to Washington, Officer.” said Robin, with a grin. Mike found himself barely able to speak.

The policeman rubbed his chin. “OK, you two can go. Drive carefully, you hear. We all want your new marriage to last for a while.”

Robin eased up on Mike’s groin and shifted the car into forward gear. Mike stole a glance in the rear view mirror as they left the officer. The man was holding his neck and shaking his head.

When they had traveled about five miles, Mike asked, “I wouldn’t mind finishing what we started back there.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” she grinned.

“We could pull off up ahead somewhere,” Mike said.

“You always were good at reading my mind,” she answered, slowing the car.

Chapter Ten

5:30 AM, July 2

Lower Marlboro, Maryland

Jesse’s mother ran a hardware and garden store on Route 132, located in the rural section of Maryland, south of Washington, DC. The sign for this side road, half covered in hedge and vines, was hard to see in the early daylight and Mike drove by the turn twice before he saw it. After he pulled off on the dirt single lane road, he had to keep to the center crown to avoid the corduroy ripples. He was worried that the Volkswagen, which continued to shudder, would fall apart on the ruts.

Robin was half asleep beside him. She had driven until they got through Washington and had just returned the car to him. Both of them were tired. The sun was coming up and the darkness would not protect them much longer. They wanted to get to the woman’s store, talk to her and then stay under cover until nightfall. If another policeman stopped them, Robin said she’d try the same trick again. Mike smiled, but he was afraid they would not be as lucky next time.

Mike said, talking to himself to keep alert, “Jesse said that she owned a garden supply store somewhere along this road.”

Robin stirred next to him. Her left hand, which rested on his knee, stroked his leg slightly. The car went onto a stretch of potholes and the wheels began to clatter badly. Mike slowed again, afraid the axle bearings would overheat and seize.

Ahead he saw a railroad water reservoir up on tall rusty girders. Around it several small houses peeked from the leafy trees along the road.

“Robin, you better wake up,” he said, gently.

“I’m awake,” she answered, opening her eyes.

“Jesse told me about this water tower near his mother’s shop,” Mike said. He saw a smaller road heading off to the right and turned. After a few hundred yards he came to an area without houses. Mike parked in a small woodland of loblolly pines. He had enough room to pull the little car under the trees so that it could not easily be seen.

“We’ll leave the car here,” he said. “This way if we get surprised again, we might be able to get back to it.”

Robin said, “We can walk the rest of the way.”

They climbed out of the car. In the daylight the car and its tires appeared decrepit, practically ready to collapse right there. Mike said he was surprised they had got this far.

He hugged Robin. “Awake?”

She nodded. “OK, let’s go.”

They walked for just over two miles, passing several gas stations. The road was wider here and had been covered with black top. They tried to keep away from the road, moving along the edge through thickets and brush. Finally Mike saw a small garden shop and pointed to it.

“This is the only garden place we’ve come across. It’s got to be the place,” he said.

Robin suggested they approach from the back of the store. Several piles of fertilizer bags and lumber provided a place where they could hide. The store was closed and they circled along the edge of the lot watching for cars going by.

“We’ll wait here and watch,” whispered Mike.

Robin found a spot big enough for both of them behind large wooden storage racks piled with bags of peat moss and fertilizer. They could see the parking lot clearly while remaining out of sight themselves.

An hour passed. A few cars and several farm trucks went by. Mike started to doze. Then Robin pressed on Mike’s arm to wake him up.

A car marked Lower Marlboro Police Department pulled into the parking lot behind the garden center and stopped only a few yards from where Mike and Robin were hiding. Mike and Robin moved further down behind the stacks of peat moss. The policeman got out of his car and walked to the back door of the shop. He shook the door and then stared inside. For a moment he scanned the yard. He looked intently in the direction of the storage area where Mike and Robin were hiding. Then the policeman reached inside his car for his microphone.

“I don’t see anyone here,” the officer reported. “Tell the chief this ain’t much of a lead for that guy. Tell him I’ll come by later on and talk to Loretta. Neither one, her nor Riley, ain’t come in yet.” Mike could hear the static of the radio as the policeman signed off. In a few minutes, the police car left, slowly pulling out of the parking lot, then squealing its tires to pick up speed as it went on to the blacktop.

“Riley must be Loretta’s new husband,” whispered Mike.

Another hour went by. The sun was up and the day grew hot.

Coming down the highway, they heard the coughing of an engine with a broken muffler.

Mike had started to doze again. Robin pulled at his arm.

Far down the road, was a rusty and dented pickup truck, the door on the left held closed by wire, with two large and leafy bushes set in its bed. The truck slowed and turned carefully into the nursery. The driver, a woman, looked around the yard and then stopped near the back door.

As she got out, Mike could see that she was an older woman, gray haired, short, in tee shirt and jeans. She walked around to the back of the truck and pulled out one of the bushes, a boxwood plant. She managed to put her arms around it and carried it towards the door of the store, talking to the plant. The bush with all its tiny leaves made her bend backward to handle the weight and size.

“You’re going to be just fine. You’ll see if I get you out of that hot sun for a few days. I’m not going to sell you either, you’ll see. You just get well,” she said.

“That’s got to be her. She’s just like Jesse described her,” said Mike. He stood up and called out, “Mrs. Spencer?”

The woman stopped, put down the plant and slowly turned around. She squinted her eyes first at Mike then at Robin.

“You’ll have to come closer. I can’t see too well,” she said.

“We need to ask you about something,” said Robin.

“Well, come on in the store, then.”

Inside she turned to them and said, “All right, what kind of plants you looking for this early in the morning?”

“Jesse said you’d talk to me,” said Mike.

She moved her head, and then, as if she suddenly understood who they were, nodded slightly. She looked at both of them carefully and said, “I see.” She motioned to a back office.

“The police were here just a few minutes ago,” said Robin. “They’re looking for us. We just need to talk to you and then we’ll go.”

“Don’t worry,” she smiled. “I can stand the risk of dealing with these cops around here.”

As they moved into the smaller room, she said, “You must be the fellow Jesse is working with about his grandfather.”

Mike nodded.

“I hear all this news talk on the television.” She winked at Robin. “You look better than the picture of you in the news.” She crossed the room, talking over her shoulder. “Jesse says the whole thing is bunk, that you’re not guilty of anything except trying to help him.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Spencer,” said Mike.

“Everybody calls me Loretta,” she said as she lifted two grass seed bags off the cane chairs in the room.

“Watch you don’t get the fertilizer dust all over you,” she said, speaking to Robin.

“Thanks,” said Robin.

Mike breathed in the comforting smell of the garden shop. It was pleasant, and he could understand why this woman had come here, why she had traveled away from the anger of River Sunday.

“You’re in big trouble,” she said. “People at Aviatrice will never let you go.”

Mike nodded.

“I know all about them,” she said as she sat back in her swivel chair. A green and red quilt hung off the back of it. To her side was a roll top desk, the top open like it had always been that way, and the flat writing area messy with oddly stacked magazines and vendor manuals.

The glass panes on the front door of the store rattled.

“Police,” said Loretta. “He always shakes that door so you think he’s tough. You two stay in here.”

Mike heard her go out into the shop, the floor boards creaking as she moved across the room to the front area. He listened as a tinkling bell announced the door was opening.

“Morning, Miz. Spenser.” Mike recognized the voice of the policeman who had been in the lot early.

“Hello, Sargeant.”

“Sheriff wants everybody to be looking out for them killers that have been on the news.”

“I didn’t get straight what all the fuss was about. What did they do?”

“Best I know the man was a trained boxer, and he beat two people, a man and a woman to death up in Philadelphia. Wrecked their place pretty good too.”

Mike could hear the policeman shuffle his feet. “We think he might come over here and try to talk to you.”

“Why?” she asked.

“We know he talked to your son, Jesse Lawson, over on the Eastern Shore. I’m going to be stopping by here every once in a while today to look out for your place, kind of watch it. I thought I might just inform you, us being friends and all. I don’t want you to worry none.”

She answered, “Well, we’ll call you right away if Riley or me sees anything.”

“I got to ask you,” said the policeman. “Have you been contacted by a Mr. Howard, says he’s from a museum in Wilmington, Delaware? He might be traveling with a female.”

“No,” she said, quickly.

“Like I say, I just carry out my orders. You let us know, will you?”

“I certainly will,” she said.

“I’ll be around,” said the officer, slowly, “Maybe sitting across the road looking out just in case. He’s supposed to be a pretty dangerous man.”

“I’ll tell Riley soon’s he comes in.”

“Yes Ma’am.” The officer chuckled. “Of course, he wouldn’t be nothing for me. I got some ring time myself. By the way, my wife wanted me to tell you she is real pleased with the box bushes. We got them going pretty good.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “That’s getting to be kind of our specialty.”

She reached beside her on a shelf near the door, picked up a small plastic tub containing white powder, and handed it to him. “You tell her to try some of this on the roots.”