Grab & Go (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 2) (12 page)

I tried to choke back a surprised chuckle, but still a grunt escaped. This was as mushy as Clarice ever got. But I’d never seen her worn this thin. “I’m sorry for including you in my mess.”

Clarice turned to me, her eyes steely. “Everyone I care about, everyone I truly love in this world — they’re here.” She whipped the wooden spoon, dripping eggs, through the air, gesturing to the far reaches of the kitchen. “Right here. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Through many dangers, toils and snares—” wafted, in an operatic, bellowing blast, down the hall and into the kitchen. Dwayne had kicked the volume up yet another notch.

“Even him,” Clarice muttered.

I grinned. “Me too.”

I returned to my place at the table and picked up a grapefruit from the large wicker basket centerpiece, its waxed skin one shade shy of a painful sunburn. A big foil sticker announcing it was a Texas Ruby glared gaudily in Christmas red and green. “What are these?”

“Walt brought it back from the store. Etherea accepted it on your behalf from another lost delivery driver.” Clarice stopped stirring and stared at me, the meaning of her words sinking into both of us at the same time.

The last, and only, time I’d received a delivery out here in the boonies, it had been a monstrously large bouquet of red roses from Skip. Who else would send such an extravagant gift?

“Was there a card?” I breathed.

“Hello, ladies.”

I spun around to see Matt Jarvis, my dedicated FBI special agent. He had just pushed open the kitchen door, his silhouette framed against a backdrop of sheeting water that poured off the little overhang over the cracked concrete patio.

CHAPTER 14

I would say that Matt was raised in a pig sty because he has never learned how to knock, except I liked our resident pot-bellied pigs, Wilbur and Orville, too much to compare them to such a nosy and unprepossessing special agent. He had a way of showing up, uninvited, at the worst possible times.

And when I really needed him, like when I’d found a disembodied finger in a plastic bag attached to the kitchen door handle, where was he? Exactly.

Actually, I guess the finger was my first delivery. Then the roses. Now  grapefruit. Just what a girl needs — a bushel of grapefruit.

I guessed Matt wasn’t accustomed to stunned silence greeting his entrances, because he flushed a little and almost looked apologetic.

I held my breath and hoped upon hope that Dwayne would keep a lid on his vocal aspirations. Clarice plunked a plate of runny scrambled eggs in front of me and jerked the grapefruit out of my limp hand.

“Little late for breakfast, isn’t it?” Matt shook water droplets off his sleeves, ran a hand through his short dark blond hair and flopped into the chair at the end of the table.

“I didn’t know my dietary habits were a concern of yours,” I muttered around a mouthful. “Where’ve you been?”

“Believe it or not, I have other cases.” His hazel eyes narrowed, and I knew my rudeness had removed whatever traces of a pleasant mood he might have been in when he entered.

Clarice thumped a mug of coffee in front of him so hard some sloshed on the tabletop.

“I see you’re still using my French press.” Matt anchored his forearms on the table on either side of the mug and dipped his head, puffing a few breaths across the steaming surface of the liquid.

“Thank you.” I nodded and tried on a conciliatory smile for size. “As you can see, we’re boring around here these days. I’m sure your surveillance crew has better things to do as well. Like you said, there are other cases. Besides, it’s almost Christmas. Don’t they want time with their families?”

“You’re sick of being babysat?” Matt smirked and plucked a grapefruit out of the basket.

“Something like that. It’s starting to feel creepy.”

Matt launched a game of one-handed catch with the grapefruit, tossing it gently in the air and palming it on the way down. “They don’t like it any more than you do. But what if your friends from the drug cartel come for another visit?”

“They know I don’t have their money.” I scowled, watching the grapefruit make silent arcs.

Clarice leaned over the table, quietly piling grapefruit into a cradle she’d made with her arm crooked across the front of her ruffled apron. She dumped the armload on the counter and began hacking each grapefruit in half with a serrated bread knife, flicking the seeds into the sink.

Matt aimed a toss higher in the air but caught the fruit with his other hand this time. “That’s the feeling at headquarters too. I’ve been sent to negotiate a withdrawal of the troops.” He lifted an eyebrow in my direction. “But you know revenge is motive enough for these guys, Nora. Beheadings, execution-style murders — it’s all over the news. That stuff doesn’t just happen in Mexico. It happens here too. They do it to save face in their own circles and to make a statement to everyone else. So you don’t have any objections?”

“None,” I said firmly.

Matt slammed the grapefruit on the table and snorted softly. “I have objections on your behalf. But my supervisor wants to pull in our resources.”

“It’s all right.” I patted his arm.

Clarice snatched the grapefruit from in front of Matt, then finished emptying the basket with another nearly toppling armload. I stared at her broad back bent over the cutting board, trying to figure out her sudden urgency to dissect fruit.

I felt warmth against my side and turned to find Emmie standing close, peeking at Matt from around my shoulder. She was incredibly proficient at creeping silently — probably had learned from difficult experience that it was better not to disturb the adults in her life.

But CeCe was fairly bursting with importance and nowhere near as quiet. She pushed an empty chair back from the table, scooted her bottom up onto it, then rose on her knees for a better vantage point. Fixing her bright gaze on the newcomer, she announced, “Mr. Walt said we did a good job. I want to be a nurse when I grow up.” She adopted a tone of worldly-wise responsibility and seriousness. “My daddy will need a nurse when he comes home.”

Which was probably true. I sat stunned for a second, realizing this child had put together several ideas that hadn’t even occurred to me yet.

But Clarice was light years ahead of me. She whipped around and, before CeCe had a chance to reveal the identities of the patients currently in our makeshift infirmary, dispatched her on a task of made-up urgency that would take a long time for such a little girl. Clarice flashed a scowl at me and turned back to her cutting board.

Right. I was falling down on the job.

Then I realized Matt was staring at Emmie, and I could almost see the questions that were bouncing around behind his hazel eyes.

I wrapped an arm around her and made room on my lap. There was no hiding her now, and I didn’t want to anyway. I helped her up and pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

I should have been doing this so much earlier. I’d brought her home with me and then left her alone while chasing my problems — and other people’s. She sat sideways and curled into me, her head under my chin. Her stiff body relaxed in slow increments under my caresses.

“We had a conversation with the sheriff about that — about what happened to CeCe’s daddy,” Matt said. “But he’s convinced it’s a local issue. Said he’s had trouble with those boys before. Said they’re a known quantity. Their records backed him up — petty stuff. So we decided not to interfere with the locals.”

“He told me.” I pressed my lips together to hide my thoughts. Good. Because I needed all the leeway I could get to interfere with the locals myself.

“I thought it was a boys’ camp — on the property.” Matt ran his finger around the rim of his mug, frowning. His brows were bunched together, and he kept scrutinizing Emmie and me from under his thick lashes.

“Foster kids mostly,” I said, trying to make my tone light. “Maybe you can satisfy my curiosity about something — the mechanics of Skip’s money laundering operation. Couriers. How did that work, exactly?”

His eyes widened. He seemed surprised by my ignorance, which was what I’d wanted. Ignorance as diversion. I hugged Emmie even closer. She might already have firsthand experience with what he was about to explain.

“Money laundering is basically a way of dealing with cash. All these, uh, businesses are strictly on a cash basis — wads and wads of twenties, fifties, hundreds, smaller stuff.” Matt hunched over his mug again. He still hadn’t taken a sip. “These guys don’t declare their income, at least not most of it, and they have no desire to support the government with taxes. But the cash is bulky and hard to move around, so the goal is to convert it into another type of asset, maybe several times over, before it’s recovered again either as cash that appears legit or something the original businessman wants instead like real estate or a boat or another business stacked up in his money-making coffers or a trip to Jamaica. Your husband performed this service and charged a hefty commission for his work.”

“Allegedly.” I lifted a finger in the air, reminding him of that very important point. “But I want specifics. He couldn’t have done this by himself.”

Clarice jammed a grapefruit half onto a glass juicer she must have found in one of the cupboards and ground it down on the ridged cone, squirting juice everywhere. Her face was flushed, her lips and brows perfectly parallel in fierce lines.

“No,” Matt admitted. “It probably took a small army. We know he was using the company-owned carwash locations as collection points for his couriers. Some of his franchisees might have been in on it too.”

There it was — couriers. I chewed the inside of my cheek.

Clarice finished twisting the mangled rind, slapped it on the counter and reached for another half. Bam, squeeze, squeeze, grunt, thump. Repeat.

“A delivery service — like mules — but for cash instead of drugs.” Matt cast a frowning glance at Clarice and her sticky mess. “A rough business. You can understand what kinds of motivation were used to keep the couriers from absconding with their packages.” He tipped his head toward Emmie. He wasn’t going to go into the gory details in front of the child.

I nodded. So Emmie’s mother had been one of the foot soldiers in Skip’s enterprise. I could see how it would seem easy, at first — a few pick-ups and drop-offs around the city on a daily or weekly basis. The perfect job for a college student with a flexible schedule or someone working several part-time jobs and still trying to make ends meet. You’d just need a car or a bike and an innocent looking face. But these kinds of arrangements usually came out of desperation. And once the couriers figured out what they were delivering, they were trapped.

“Wretch like me,” warbled from the remote bedroom. “Loshht — mMMmm…HhmmhMm — found,” Dwayne slurred, way past remembering all the words.

I only heard the faint refrain because I was waiting for it. I clutched Emmie and held my breath, scanning Matt for signs of recognition. I didn’t know if liquor production without a license was a federal offense, but I suspected Dwayne had other reasons, perhaps even more serious, for generally avoiding contact with law enforcement.

Thump, bang, squeeze. Clarice dumped the accumulated liquid into a pitcher and slammed the juicer back on the counter.

The skin around Matt’s eyes tightened, but he finally took a gulp of coffee. He looked as though he was starting to get a headache. “Skip had a myriad of accounts — you know that. I still can’t believe you emptied them. He did the shuffling, buying, selling, moving the money around so it was next to impossible to trace, then he’d park it wherever his client wanted him to — in a bank in the Caymans, for the deed to a thousand-acre ranch in the Utah desert, gold bars, cargo containers full of electronics, whatever.”

Which would make a freight terminal business very handy, indeed. What if the goods he bought with his clients’ money had been stolen in the first place, or counterfeit, or tampered with as Hank suspected? A good way to make profit on both ends of the deal. The spokes of the spider web crisscrossed in my mind.

“We’re tracking that next level now, with our own army of lawyers. Aside from Skip’s kidnapping and your short abduction, the reaction from his client list has been pretty placid. We think they’re hunkering down, waiting for this to blow over. But they will want their money back eventually. They’re not the generous sort.”

“Tricky,” I muttered. “Following the money. Are you a lawyer?”

“Nope.” Matt barked a short laugh.

I couldn’t tell if he was offended I had thought so or if he was relieved not to be in that category — or both.

“Although lots of FBI agents are,” he continued. “Everything we do has to stand up in court, which is a real pain in the—” he darted another glance at Emmie, “—backside. They accepted me even though I majored in chemistry. I double as a bomb tech.”

“Ahh.” I almost winked at him. “I’ll let you know if I receive one of those.”

Matt’s jaw tightened as his expression turned instantly, and severely, serious. “You might. Which is why I want the surveillance team to stay out there.” He jerked his thumb toward the main gate and the county road.

I shook my head. “Your supervisor’s right. Let them go home. They’re not from around here, are they? Your office isn’t that big.”

“They’re assigned out of the regional office in Seattle.”

“And they hate it here.”

“Kinda.” Matt chuckled reluctantly. “You have to admit there isn’t much to do unless you like shivering in the pouring rain and eating granola bars.”

I shuffled Emmie to her feet, laid my hand on her head for a moment of reassurance, and showed Matt to the door. Not that he couldn’t find all eight steps of the way by himself, but I wanted him to know the impromptu interview was over. “Thanks for your concern,” I said.

“So I guess I’ll wait to hear from you.” Matt paused at the door.

“No news is good news.” I didn’t actually believe that, but I had to say something.

He seemed a little forlorn, and I had a fleeting thought that while he might have other cases, they probably weren’t as exciting as mine. I grimaced inside. I’d gladly trade with any of the people who were lower on his priority list.

I watched him slowly back off the patio as though he was hoping that if he hung around a bit longer I’d change my mind. Then I latched the door firmly and lunged over to the window. I stood just to the side, barely peeking through a sliver of space between the curtain and the edge of the window frame.

Matt took one more long look at the kitchen door, then he darted around Clarice’s Subaru and bent over near the rear bumper so I could no longer see his head and shoulders. I thought so. He was taking additional electronic precautions — which I would have to remove, later.