Checkered Crime: A Laurel London Mystery Read online

  Morty’s five-foot frame stood firm as if he was holding his ground. He was not in his usual sweat suit attire. He was actually dressed in a nice suit I was sure had come from K-Mart since it was the only store in Walnut Grove that sold clothes of any kind. Morty never left Walnut Grove. Not even for clothes.

  Damn. Morty didn’t fall in.

  The man was already in the speed boat and turned the motor over giving it a little vroom. Morty greeted Pastor Wilson who was at the top of the gang plank of the dock and craning his neck to get a look at the boat. He and Morty shook hands as Morty grabbed Pastor Wilson by the elbow and jerked him around toward the building like he didn’t want the pastor looking at the boat.

  Morty picked up one of the coolers and stuck it in Pastor Wilson’s arms. Morty took the other one and they disappeared into the old building.

  The roaring sound of the speed boat caught my attention, though I found it strange that Pastor Wilson had paid Morty a visit. The revival wasn’t until the fall and that was months away. In the years I had worked there, Pastor Wilson never came by. Morty always went to him for the revival details since the pastor avoided me at all costs.

  “Good 2 Go,” I read the name on the stern of the boat just before it rounded the corner from where it had come.

  Beep, beep.

  I jumped around. There was a big yellow car that had pulled up and parked behind me. Derek jumped out.

  “Here.” He threw the keys toward me and held out his other hand where the yellow bag from the Dollar Store dangled from his grip.

  “What is that?” I squinted and realized it was the rusty old black-and-white Belvedere that was now a rusty old yellow Belvedere. “I mean…” I swallowed hard. “You couldn’t cover up the taxi sign?” I pointed to the door and thanked my lucky stars he had given me the old cab.

  “The sign kept bleeding through.” He seemed disappointed by my hesitation of no excitement. “What did you expect for free, Laurel?”

  True. He did have a point. I had to keep reminding myself this set of wheels was only temporary. Only temporary.

  “It’s great. It really is.” I wiggled my brows.

  Trying to be cool, I threw the keys up in the air. They slipped through my fingers and landed on the ground. Epic fail. I reached down and grabbed them. Derek didn’t seem amused.

  “And it’s going to help me get a job!” Damn Morty. I glanced toward the worn-down warehouse.

  “Where are you going to apply first?” Derek did his best football punt on the stray walnut on the ground. Walnuts were everywhere, hence the name Walnut Grove.

  “I was thinking about going to Quick Copy.” I took the help wanted ads from under my armpit. “They are hiring sales reps.”

  For the first time, I felt my nerves bubbling up. I never had my own car and I never had to actually go find a job.

  I gripped the keys tighter. “This is mine, right?” I had to clarify he was giving me the car and not taking my fifteen hundred dollars.

  “Yes. Thanks for taking the junker off my hands.” Derek smiled. “So you know how to sell copiers, service copiers and all the products?”

  What? Was this an interrogation?

  “Do you doubt my abilities after all these years?” I jabbed him in the bicep. “I can learn anything. Besides annual bonuses, there is even a car that goes with the job.”

  “You have a car.” We both looked back at the big yellow rusty hunk. “The world is your oyster.”

  “One problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t like oysters.”

  Chapter Four

  “Fill ‘er up!” I yelled to Clyde Yap out the Belvedere window—once I figured out how to roll them down—when I pulled up to the gas pumps at the Gas-N-Go.

  There weren’t a lot of bells and whistles to the Old Girl, that was what I had named her, the Old Girl. She was worth every single penny I paid. Free.

  The Gas-N-Go was the only filling station in town that filled your tank and cleaned your windshield.

  “Laurel London?” Clyde thrust his head into the driver’s side window. A little too far, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin. “Where did you get this car?”

  His highly starched shirt barely moved when he planted his elbows on the window frame waiting for my answer to his question. His beady eyes gave me the stare down.

  “I—” I was interrupted by Baxter Thacker, owner of Gas-N-Go, when he cleared his throat.

  He stood in the doorway of the gas station, his arms crossed over his large barreled chest. His eyes beat down on me. Baxter was not one I would want to meet in a dark alley at night. He was also one I never tried to cross when I was growing up at the orphanage. He made it very clear when Derek worked here while we were in high school that I was to come nowhere near the joint. Besides, the headless bald eagle tattoo on his forearm always gave me the creeps. He was a bad ass to the bone. No one crossed Baxter Thacker. Not even me.

  “You better get on out of here before Baxter pulls out a gun or something.” Clyde tapped the top of my hood. Clyde had been working for Baxter for as long as I could remember. He and Trixie were friends. We used Clyde’s Moose membership to get into the Moose lodge sometimes.

  “I’m a paying customer. I have the right to be here!” My voice escalated as I looked over at Baxter. His eyes narrowed. “I need gas.” I plucked a twenty out of my purse that was sitting on the passenger seat and dangled it up in the air so Baxter could get a good look.

  I should’ve only gotten ten dollars of gas and left the twenty to get some groceries. But I was probably going to need all twenty dollars worth since I was going to have to drive to Louisville and submit some applications if the Quick Copy idea didn’t pan out.

  Louisville was the closest “big” city to Walnut Grove and most Walnut Grove citizens worked in Louisville. Property taxes were much cheaper here, and the drive was only twenty minutes, thirty if you got behind a tractor.

  Cough, Cough. Baxter did some sort of pretend cough to get my attention, his feet firmly on the ground, body now square and arms to his sides.

  He let out another sound. I wasn’t sure if it was a grunt or a burp. Either way, he turned around and went back into the station to do whatever it was that Baxter did.

  “Fine.” Clyde took the money with his dirty hands, black underneath his nails, and took the nozzle off the pump before trying to figure out where the gas tank was.

  “You want to tell me what you are up to?” he asked. The baseball cap was a good cover up for his balding head. He picked at the dirt around the base of his nails. “Or am I going to have to hear all about this from Trixie?”

  Clyde had taken a fondness to Trixie. But in true Trixie fashion, she claimed she never wanted or needed a man, though she spent a lot of time with Clyde. I was sure she had a little tender spot in her heart for him although she’d never admit it.

  Countless times when Clyde would visit the orphanage for what Trixie called “meetings,” she would put a note on the office door. We knew exactly what their “meeting” was about when we heard grunting coming from behind the office door.

  “Morty has the old car in the shop,” I lied and picked at the torn leather on the seat between my legs. In the rearview mirror I noticed Pepper Spivy walking on the sidewalk away from her parked car. When she noticed it was me in the car, she rushed to the other side of the street. “Derek gave me this old thing.”

  There was no way, no how I was going to tell Clyde that I had been fired. He’d tell Trixie. And if I told him before I told Trixie, she’d be in an uproar. It was best to keep my tale from everyone until I did find a job.

  “What’s it with her?” I pointed over to Pepper.

  She stood across the street in her black pin-striped pant suit, her dishwater brown hair neatly cut into a bob that hit a tiny bit below her cheek line. She waved something in the air.

  “Hold on.” Clyde held up his finger before he ran across the street, almost getting hit by an
oncoming car. He and Pepper exchanged a few words between a couple glances my way before she handed him a piece of paper.

  While he ran back over, I gave her a little spirit finger wave, but she turned her nose up at me.

  “What’s that?” I poked my head out of the window to see if I could get a look at the paper Pepper had given him.

  “Walnut Grove Savings Bank is hiring for a new teller and Baxter told her she could post a flyer in the window. When she saw you, she wanted to stay away from you. Far away as possible.” Clyde tapped the nozzle on the edge of the gas tank before he stuck it back in the pump.

  “Seriously?” My mouth dropped. I craned my neck to see if I could give Pepper a death stare, but she was already walking back to her car. “People in this town need to realize I have grown up.”

  I gave Pepper the death glare when her car zoomed by. She gave me the bird. I would make sure to sit at her table when I went to The Cracked Egg. Sometimes she worked there as a fill-in when Gia’s dad needed her. It was good side money.

  “It’s hard to ask the good citizens of Walnut Grove to forget how you terrorized the community for years. After all Pepper did give you a cleaning job at the bank and you took advantage of her and the city by using all those debit cards from the bank customers to charge over five hundred dollars worth of pizzas to be delivered to the orphanage.” Clyde grabbed the squeegee and flung it to the ground getting all the excess fluid off before he ran it across the Belvedere’s windshield.

  “Good gravy. It. Was. Pizza. Have you ever eaten fried bologna seven days in a row?

  “I can’t say I have.” He shook his head.

  “Well, we orphans did and pizza sounded good.” I rolled my eyes and turned the ignition on. “When is this po-dunk town ever going to give me a second chance?”

  “They did. Third chances too. More chances than a cat gets in lives.” He slammed the squeegee in the dirty bucket of windshield wiper fluid sitting next to the pump.

  The Gas-N-Go bell dinged when another car pulled up on the other side of the pump. He put both hands on my windowsill.

  He leaned in and whispered, “I don’t know what is going on with you, but you better make good by Trixie. She’s done a lot for you, young lady.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I asked.

  “Hold on.” Clyde rushed inside the gas station only to come right back out holding something up for me to see. He jabbed his hand in my window. “Here. Air freshener on the house.”

  “Thanks, Clyde!” I took the hot pink fuzzy dice of the package. It smelled just like fresh cotton linens. “That is so nice.” I hung the dice from the rearview mirror.

  “I believe in you.” He smiled, tapping the car door.

  With a full tank of gas, I threw the old Belvedere in drive. Even though I should go put in some applications, I wanted to see just how well the Old Girl could handle the back road curves of Walnut Grove.

  Chapter Five

  Somehow I was going to show this town that I, Laurel London, was going to make something of myself. And was going to do it on the up-and-up. Granted I did hack a few accounts to order pizzas or charged Christmas gifts on the good ole Pastor’s credit card, but it was all done in the spirit of giving and with a good heart and good intentions. Well…the good intentions part might be a little bit of a stretch, but the good heart thing was all true.

  Growing up an orphan was hard. Everyone always stared and pointed when they saw Trixie and the gang or even just a few of us walking to the Dollar Store or even the Gas-N-Go for a Slurpee, which was a real treat.

  Their sad eyes would always drop in a way that made me feel ashamed. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me and that was probably why I set out to prove them wrong.

  I was bound and determined to get out of Walnut Grove and find my path. Unfortunately, with no money, I had no other place to go. My grades in school didn’t offer me the skills I needed to go to college or get a big paying job and I’d needed Trixie’s help to pull strings to get me the job at Porty Morty’s.

  Without realizing my speed and the curves on River Road, I got lost in thought and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel trying to come up with a way to prove to everyone that I had changed.

  “Oh shit!” I swerved the Old Girl into the ditch, avoiding the shadow that had jumped out in front of me.

  My heart pounded a mile a minute. I threw the gear shift in park before I hopped out to see if I missed it or not. The only thing that big, jumping out of the woods, would have been a deer. Deer could do serious damage to a car.

  I rubbed the bumper of the car, happy to see there was no damage and I could just pull right back onto the road. I rubbed my forehead. I swore my mind was playing tricks on me.

  “Where the hell you going?” someone asked through a cough that was so loud it would rattle windows. “You almost hit me!”

  I turned toward the man who was definitely not a deer. His muscular arms were wedged into a black t-shirt. He pushed himself up from the ground. His five-foot-ten frame looked like it was built for action. Hurting someone kind of action. Not to mention he had on a pair of black leather gloves.

  “Oh my God!” I rushed over to him hoping to beg for his forgiveness because if I didn’t, it looked like he was going to do me in. “You aren’t a deer? Are you okay?”

  “Deer? Are you blind?” His hands could easily cover the top of a table. He swiped them down his jeans to get the dirt off of them.

  “I’m so sorry. I was in deep thought.” I put my hands out as I got closer to him. “It’s been a bad day. Bad week,” I murmured.

  His dark eyes glared at me. There wasn’t a hint of letting me off the hook anywhere on his stern face.

  “You shouldn’t be driving! I want to talk to your boss.” He jabbed his finger toward the Old Girl.

  “I…,” I stammered. “Boss?”

  He interrupted, “The least you can do is give me a ride to Louisville.” He passed me, walking toward the car.

  “That’s like thirty minutes away. And that’s on a good day if there aren’t any tractors on the road, and then it could take like an hour.”

  If he thought I was driving him to Louisville he was crazy, though it would give me the motivation to get some of those applications out.

  He stopped, his back to me. His upper body went up and down as he took a deep breath and released it. Still turned, he lifted up the hem of his black t-shirt over the waistband of his dark jeans and exposed the butt of a gun.

  “Do I need to say more?” He didn’t wait for an answer; he just kept walking toward the car.

  “Nope. No more.” I bit my lip and looked around. Give them what they want, I repeated what I had heard on cop television shows over and over in my head.

  A swift kick in his you-know-what with my foot and a hand chop to the head was probably not going to take this big guy down.

  I was about to be killed. I wasn’t going to be able to show Walnut Grove how I was going to turn my life around. No one was going to show up at my funeral. I could hear them now, “She tried to con the wrong person this time. She deserved what she got.”

  “Do I need to show you my little friend again?” he asked, obviously trying to get me to hurry along.

  His question hung in the distance between us, unmasked, unanswered. He got into the back seat of the Old Girl and shut the door.

  My legs didn’t want to move. No matter how much I tried. I was paralyzed in fear.

  The thought of bolting off into the woods crossed my mind, but I knew the river was just on the other side. I could jump in and swim toward town, but the man’s gun was a lot faster than I could dog paddle.

  He had rolled down the window and stuck his head out. He tapped his fancy big gold watch on his wrist with a gloved finger. “I don’t have all day.” With his other hand, he waved his gun in the air.

  Lickety split, I rushed back to the car and got in.

  “Airport Hotel.” He rolled the window back up and laid
his metal friend on the seat next to him. He patted the gun. “Just to make sure you don’t do any funny business.”

  I gulped. “You know what?” I asked and turned around in my seat. “I don’t know who you are or what you want with me, but I am not comfortable with that thing pointing directly at me. So you need to put it away right now.”

  He looked up, our eyes met for the first time. His lips drew into a tight smile. “You are feisty. I think you and I are going to get along just fine.” He took the gun off the seat and put it back into his waistband.

  I watched to make sure the gun was out of sight. He took a wad of cash out of his pocket and reached over the front seat. My insides danced with excitement. There were a lot of things I could do with that money.

  “This should cover the cost of the taxi fee and your memory loss of ever seeing me.” His voice threatened. He let the money fall on the seat next to me.

  There were at least six hundred-dollar bills lying there.

  “Airport Hotel.” I clicked my tongue before I threw the gear shift in drive and slowly pulled out of the ditch heading back toward the airport. “You staying long? What were you doing in the woods?”

  “You ask a lot of questions for a taxi cab driver.” He crossed his massive arms across his chest. “I’m mainly paying you for memory loss. Got it?”

  I glanced back in the rearview, he was staring out the window. There was a deep scar from his temple to his ear lobe and he had his arm propped up on the door with his hand dangling down, the other clasped it.

  “Taxi cab driver?” I slanted him the question before it dawned on me that he thought that because the Old Girl’s door had a faded taxi sign on it. The money. I needed the money. “Yes. I do like to pass the time with my passengers.”

  If he thought I was a taxi and it meant I was going to let him out without getting killed and have a few hundred dollars in my pocket, I could lie like a rug.