Checkered Crime: A Laurel London Mystery Read online

  “Airport Hotel. Next stop.” I squinted as I pulled back out on River Road, in fear a lightning bolt was going to come down from the heavens and strike me because at some point all of my recent lies were going to catch up to me.

  His hard jaw tensed. His sharp, squinty eyes stared back at me in the rearview. He meant business. “Tell me about this little town of yours.”

  Obviously it was okay for him to ask questions about me, but I couldn’t ask questions about him. I rubbed the back of my neck. Suddenly it felt tense. In the back of my hypochondriac mind, I couldn’t help but think about my family health history.

  I could have some sort of crazy disease and not even know it. Lately, that was one thing I had been battling with. Where I came from. Over and over Trixie told me I didn’t come with papers, but there had to be a history somewhere.

  What if I needed a kidney or something? My stomach hurt just thinking about it.

  “I said,” the guy yelped, “tell me about your town.

  “There isn’t much to tell.” I stalled trying to keep my cool. I tried to keep my teeth from chattering.

  Neck hurting, chattering teeth. Was I nervous or was I getting the first symptoms of some disease?

  “Isn’t there an orphanage here?” he asked, getting my attention again.

  “Was,” I responded. “It’s closed down now.”

  “Really? Where did they put the kids?” he asked.

  “We grew up.” I shrugged and made idle chit-chat so I could quickly pass the time and get him and that firearm out of my life.

  “We?” he questioned. I could feel his foot tapping the floor behind my seat in sort of a nervous way. “You lived there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Man, I bet that was a bitch.” He frowned with disgust.

  “The orphanage wasn’t, but the foster families were. Gee.” The Old Girl was flying around the curves. “And that is a whole ’nother story.”

  “Slow down!” He gripped the handle on the door.

  “Sorry,” I murmured. “I guess you brought up some buried memories. How did you hear about the orphanage?”

  “A friend of a friend grew up there.”

  “Oh, who?” I asked.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t know him.”

  “Try me.” I dared him. “I was there from birth to eighteen. I bet I know him or heard of him.”

  I looked back in the mirror at him. He glared at me. His brows drew together in an angry frown.

  “You don’t,” he asserted. His lip cocked up to one side. His nostrils flared.

  I dropped the subject. It was apparent he was becoming agitated with me and I didn’t want that to happen.

  He looked out the window. I took the opportunity to slip my phone out of my pocket and predial 911.

  “Don’t even think about using it,” he warned and stuck his leather-gloved hand over the seat, gesturing for the phone.

  “I wasn’t going to use it.” I put it over my shoulder and slapped it in his glove.

  “That is why it has 911 typed on the screen?” He rolled down the window and threw the phone out.

  “Hey! That was my phone!” I screamed.

  “I gave you plenty of cash to get a new one. Besides,” he snarled, “that one was way out of date.”

  True. It was Trixie’s old flip phone. Morty wasn’t paying me enough to afford a new one and a place of my own. The plan I was on was so cheap that I was sure they didn’t have phone plans like that with fancy phones.

  “Here.” He threw a couple more hundreds over the seat. “That should be plenty for one of those fancy phones. Say, where is your taxi meter?”

  “Umm.” Shit! I didn’t think about the taxi meter thing. Think, think. I knew I had to come up with a good story or he was going to off me right then and there. “It was in my phone that you threw out the window on…on an app.”

  “That old thing had the ability to put apps on it?” he questioned. His voice was low and smooth.

  He wasn’t buying into my lie.

  Something told me there wasn’t anyone that crossed him and I couldn’t get him out of Walnut Grove fast enough. Though my sense of curiosity did make me wonder why he was in the country part of town.

  I looked in the rearview mirror about to ask him why he was in Walnut Grove, but when our eyes met a sudden chill crept up my spine. I shifted my eyes forward, focusing on the lines on the road.

  With my hands at two and ten on the wheel, I didn’t say another word until we reached the Airport Hotel.

  “Thanks so much,” I quipped, throwing the gear shift into park.

  I couldn’t get him out of my fake cab fast enough.

  “Now.” The big guy leaned forward placing his arms across the back of the front seat with his chin resting on them. Hot air darted in my ear when he whispered, “You be back here tomorrow morning at nine a.m. Sharp. I will pay you double what I paid you today. No questions asked.”

  Before I could protest, he was out of the car adjusting his clothes. He wasn’t fooling me. I knew he was rearranging his gun so it was out of sight.

  He turned around and motioned for me to roll down the window. “Remember, you’ve never seen me.”

  “One question.” I put my hands together in a begging, pleading way. “Are you going to hurt anyone in Walnut Grove?”

  This was a legit question.

  “You see, I’m not the most popular gal in town and I really want to get on the up-and-up,” I didn’t know why, but like a fool, I started to tell him my tale. “And if I’m going to kind of turn my life around, I don’t want to be known as the girl who helped you out. Whoever you are,” I mumbled.

  He stared at me and burst out laughing.

  “No. I’m not going to hurt anyone as long as anyone stays out of my business and I get what I want.” The laughter took a spiral downward as his lips tightened into a serious glare. “Tony. My name is Tony. See you tomorrow at nine a.m.”

  “Sharp.”

  “Yep, I think we are gonna get along just fine while I’m in town.” Tony looked at me intently before he turned around. He strode through the door of the hotel, never once turning back.

  Chapter Six

  “Walnut Grove.” Someone opened the back passenger side, opposite where Tony had sat, throwing a duffle bag to the other side and slammed the door.

  “Oh my God! You scared me!” My hands clasped over my heart. “Get out of my car!”

  I jerked around, gripped the back of my seat, and glared at the hazel eyes staring back at me.

  Okay, so he was hot. For a second, I wished I had looked at him before I told him to get out.

  “You aren’t working?” His chiseled jaw clenched, his bold eyes narrowed. “You off duty?” His leaned forward. His eyes darted around the taxi. “Where is your license?”

  License? Damn. Derek was going to have to repaint the Old Girl to anything but yellow after I got squared away with the big guy and his wad of cashola tomorrow.

  “What’s with all the questions?” I turned back around and readjusted my clothes, and then ran my hands down my hair. I reached over and dug deep in my bag to get my lip gloss. Quickly I added a little shine to my pout.

  “Well? License?” he asked again.

  “Yes. I’m on duty.” I might as well let him ride along since I was driving home and I could charge him anything I wanted. And he was easy to look at. “I just got the car back from the shop so my license hasn’t been hung up yet.”

  The lies just kept coming. Piling up, like they had done when I was younger. My stomach started to hurt, my head ached. What was wrong with me? Why did trouble always seem to follow me wherever I went?

  “Good. I need a lift to Walnut Grove.” He settled back into the seat and propped his elbow up on the window frame.

  I caught myself staring back at him a couple of times. There was no one—and I mean no one—that looked as good as him in Walnut Grove. Not even Johnny Delgato. Close, but not quite. I shook Johnny’s good lo
oks and bad boy image from my head. This was no time to think about him.

  The guy’s chest filled the navy button down, but not too much like the muscle guy before. His hair was black and silky straight with just the right amount of gel to give it a little spike in the front. He was well manicured and if I didn’t know better, it looked like his eyebrows could’ve been professionally waxed. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties.

  Sigh. A small amount of air rushed out of my lips. I pursed them shut and slid my eyes back to the road when I saw him looking back in the rearview at me.

  “Do you live in Louisville?” His eyes danced in amusement. I bet he was used to women staring at him.

  “No. I live in Walnut Grove.” Okay, idle chit-chat was good. Maybe he was single.

  “How long have you lived there?” He looked back out the window bringing his fingers to his chin and keeping his elbow in the window.

  “All my life.” Hearing those words escape my mouth left me sad. It was true. I’m not sure how I got to the orphanage but all of my memories were there, with Trixie.

  I glanced down at my watch. It was lunch time and I was sure Trixie was home watching “Judge Judy”. She loved trying to figure out what Judy was going to do before the gavel came down. The last thing I needed was for her to see me traipsing through town in a yellow car with a stranger—albeit hot stranger—in the back seat.

  “I bet your parents are proud that you stayed around in a small town like Walnut Grove,” he said.

  His voice had a hint of a northern accent. Definitely not a twang like mine.

  “Parents?” I bit my lip. “Um, yea, they are proud.”

  I tapped the wheel. I had had enough of his questions. I flipped on the old stereo and started to punch the little black buttons hoping the radio would magically work.

  “Have you been a taxi driver for long?”

  “Not really,” I replied and reached over to turn up the volume a little more before I hit the dash. Loud static filled the car.

  “Is this the most popular song around here?” he asked about the static and broke into a wide, open smile.

  It was high time I turned the questioning on him. I flipped the radio off.

  “We don’t have great reception on these roads.” I gestured to the curves ahead.

  He arched his brows.

  I took my hand and ran it over my brows. With the cash Tony gave me, I would be able to get them waxed. I made a mental note to stop by Shear Illusions to make an appointment with Kim Banta.

  “So, why are you in town Mr.…”

  “Jackson. Jax Jackson.” His eyes narrowed and the right corner of his lip slightly turned up.

  Jax Jackson. Man, did that sound like a movie star’s name. Definitely older than late twenties. There were smile lines on the outside of his eyes that formed as his smile deepened.

  “Are you here to look into Walnut Grove hosting the Underworld Music Festival?” I glanced back.

  He cleared his throat. “Umm, that.”

  “You are!” I nearly ran the car off the road before I cut to the left bringing us back on the pavement. “I knew you had an accent. Are you from New York City?”

  “I’m not the one with the accent,” he joked.

  My heart pounded a mile a minute. This was my big break. This was how I could redeem myself and save my job with Morty.

  “Are you here to see Porty Morty?” I asked.

  “Porty who?” He unzipped his duffle bag and took out a small spiral notepad.

  “Oh, Morty Shelton. We all call him Porty Morty because of the you know.” I waved one hand in the air.

  “No I don’t know.” He continued to write something in that little pad of his.

  “Porty Morty Port-A-Lets. His business.” I shrugged.

  “You said his last name is Shelton?” He glanced up, a serious look on his face.

  “Yes. Morty Shelton,” I repeated myself. “He is who I worked for before I got fired and I was the one who went to New York and left you the note. Only I didn’t know you, Jax Jackson, was who I needed to see. The contest didn’t give a name.” I smiled, feeling all warm and fuzzy. I was so excited that I couldn’t shut my own mouth up. “I’m just glad you got the note. Sorry about the bubble gum wrapper. It was all I could find.”

  “What note was that again?” he asked.

  I looked back at him as he scribbled away. He sure did ask a lot of questions.

  “I had found the contact information of the Underworld Music Festival on your contest ad in the Vogue magazine I had gotten down at the Food Town Grocery Store on Oak Street. I can’t afford the magazine on my budget, but I knew once you heard of our town that you’d come here to check it out. So I splurged and bought it. Granted, I had to put back the milk for Henrietta, but she likes water.” I reached over and grabbed my bag. I dug my hand deep down in the big hobo and pulled out the wrinkled contest ad I had kept in there and handed it to him over my shoulder. “Anyway, I worked at Porty Morty’s and my job was to go around to different events like family reunions, bass fishing tournaments, revivals, hog killings…”

  “Hog killings?” he asked. He put the ad on his thigh and used his hands to unwrinkle it.

  “Yeah, we have a lot of those around here. You know how it goes,” I kept my hands on ten and two and carefully took the last set of curves going into Walnut Grove, “the men kill the hog while the women get a big pot of boiling water ready to cook him. They got to have some place to pee. I mean go to the bathroom. Anyway, I knew if I could get the festival to come to Walnut Grove then we could turn a big profit at Porty Morty’s and I wouldn’t have to work so hard for a pay check.”

  I pinched my lips together. It was true. I was so tired of going to every single family in Walnut Grove and asking if they had any family functions coming up so we could rent to them a port-a-let. It wasn’t great money but it was money. The way I saw it, I would make a big commission on a festival. They would need hundreds of shitters.

  “Think about it,” I was going to sell Jax Jackson right here in this car. “Walnut Grove is a perfect place for your festival. It’s close to the airport and a big city. Well, big for Kentucky. And it’s near the river which makes a great backdrop for any band. Perfect if you ask me.”

  “Yeah, it’s perfect for all sorts of things,” he added in a lower, huskier tone.

  “So are you going to hire us?”

  “Us? I thought you said Porty Morty fired you.”

  “Yes, but if you sign on the dotted line, maybe I can get my job back. Maybe you can give Morty a good report about me.” My heart flipped. It seemed things were turning around.

  “We’ll see. I need to go to…,” he hesitated and flipped through his little notebook, “The Windmill Hotel.”

  I looked back down at my watch and noticed the time was now twenty minutes after twelve. “Nope. Can’t do that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t. Louie isn’t up yet.” I turned off Route 25 and down Grove Street. The row of small dotted houses lined the right side. They were beat up and broken down. They were still occupied but shouldn’t be.

  I watched Jax’s expression when we passed. His mouth was gaped open. I bet he had never seen such a thing, especially since he had come clear from New York City. Washing machines on the front porches, old couches with springs sticking out of them like a Jack-in-the-box, and tires lying all about.

  Making a quick right onto Oak Street and a fast left on Main Street brought us to the heart of Walnut Grove.

  “Who’s Louie?” he asked.

  “Louie Pelfrey. He’s the owner of the Windmill.” I guess I wasn’t good at driving a taxi or meeting strangers. I talked to Jax like he was from around here and knew everyone. Little did I realize I was going to have to explain the goings on around Walnut Grove. “You’ll know Louie when you see him. He is as big around as he is tall. Nice guy. He’s the Krispy Kreme delivery guy. It’s speculated whether people get all of the
Krispy Kremes they ordered when Louie delivers.”

  “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.