Hiding Gladys (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (14 page)

TWENTY-THREE

The house was enveloped
in darkness thanks to a fingernail moon. But within, like a lightning bug in a jar, a small glow moved from room to room.

Bud cut off the truck’s engine and we sat for a moment and watched it. I lowered my window and immediately had to swat a mosquito that found my jugular.

I’d opened the window hoping to hear any noises from the house that might let me know if the person with the flashlight was, as I suspected, Gladys. I don’t know what kind of noise I expected, but I was listening carefully anyway.

I felt Bud’s eyes on me in the darkness, “Tell me again why you think Gladys is hiding in there?” he asked.

“Think about it. Who else needs a place to hide and would know Irene’s house was empty? It would be a quiet place to mourn Robert Earle and take care of his arrangements.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Bud said, swatting mosquitoes too. They were fierce. “I got to know Gladys a little back at Seahaven, she seems like a genuine person. Sharp as a tack. Loaded with common sense and skills learned from a lifetime of hard work. The kind of person we’d all want as grandma or mom. It’s unbelievable that at a time like this she’s actually having to hide here in fear of being manipulated by her own family … or worse.”

“At first I wasn’t sure that Shirley was as deeply involved as Robert Earle apparently was, but maybe I need to rethink that. There’s got to be a good reason Gladys isn’t going home.”

“Whatever. It’s just a damn shame is all,” Bud said.

“Let’s go see if I’m right,” I said as I reached for the door. I felt Bud’s hand on my arm.

“Wait,” he said. “Cleo, I want to finish what I started to say back at the Sanitary. I’m really proud of you.”

I stared at Bud’s silhouette. I’d been waiting for over twenty years to hear those words.

He looked out the windshield and said in a voice that was almost incredulous, “This is a very complicated deal with lots of components to it, not just the discovery, but the finances and legalities as well, and you’ve taken charge of every aspect. I’ve never known this side of you, Cleo, or appreciated the woman that you are—that you’ve always been.”

Whether it was the intimacy of the closed truck or pent-up anxiety, my chin begin to tremble. I was thankful for the dark night as I felt Bud wrap his arm around my shoulder and pull me to him.

“Ouch,” I said, when the console bumped my hip.

“Oh, your ass isn’t that big,” Bud said in a husky voice as he dragged me into his lap and gave me a kiss that curled my toes.

I came up for air and squiggled back across the console, saying, “Look, no flashlight in the front room now. What do you say we go around to the back door and let her know we’re here?”

“Umm, okay,” Bud said, clearly disappointed we weren’t going to finish what he started.

The back door was ajar. Now, in the movies, this is never a good sign. I should have known there and then to go back to the truck but hell, once I found Gladys everything would be fine.

I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and the appliances were so old that no glowing dials or digital clocks shone forth. “Gladys?” I called softly. There was no answer. But from the front of the house I heard a slight scraping noise. Like someone had bumped a table.

I started to call out again, but Bud said, “Shhhh!” and held up his hand. You know, the kind of hand signal you give a dog. Stay. Sit. I’m the man. You’re the pet. I’m in charge.

So much for my being a savvy, competent woman.
I watched Bud move to my left toward the living room. I waited until the darkness swallowed him up, then moved to the right down the hall toward the bedrooms.

I was feeling along the wall in the hallway when a floral scent and an open door let me know I’d found a bathroom. Ever since I was a kid, being anxious made me have to pee. Now was no different. I suppressed the urge.

Blinking in the darkness, I moved farther down the hall to the bedroom at the end, then called Gladys’s name again, softly. Nothing. I felt my way back up the other side of the hallway of the small house to the spot where Bud and I had separated. Then, with arms outstretched in front of me, I baby-stepped my way into what I figured was the living room and stopped.

Something was different here. Something in the air. A slight musky scent, like cologne. I’d smelled it before. I thought back. One thing I knew: Bud does not wear cologne. I whispered his name.

He didn’t answer. No one was answering me.

“Bud,” I whispered again, more pointedly this time. “Damn it, where are you?”

I took a step forward and cracked my shin on a table. “Shit!” I snapped, grabbing my leg. This was ridiculous. I was tired of this game, not to mention scared. Obviously Gladys wasn’t here and even if she was and was hiding because she didn’t know it was me, wouldn’t it make sense to let her know I was here?

I focused on a lamp barely silhouetted in a large picture window and moved to turn it on. At that instant my ears seemed to crawl back on my skull and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. All that in the nanosecond right before someone clamped a damp, smelly rag over my mouth.

An innate, primitive reaction to danger passed down to us from caveman days was enough to make me close my mouth, constrict my airways and execute a stomp to the arch of my attacker’s foot that would have made a Clydesdale proud. I felt the muscles in the arm around my neck give a little, so I grabbed the arm and pulled forward with all my might.

I was pretty sure I was dealing with a man, so I wasn’t really expecting to throw him over my shoulder. My mind was telling me to swing him into position so I could get the business end of my foot into his groin. Operating totally on adrenaline, my right foot shot out as if I actually knew what I was doing. Imagine my surprise when he grunted and let go.

Cries of what must have been excruciating pain were accompanied by crashing about in the darkness. I backed up, groping for a weapon of some sort.

Just then, my heels met a large object on the floor that sent me sprawling backwards. My butt hit the floor at the same time my head and shoulders hit a wall.

You know that old saying about seeing stars when you get hit on the head? It’s true.

“Cleo,” Bud moaned. “Are you okay?”

Jeez. I’d tripped over my ex-husband. I shook the static from my buzzing brain, felt in the darkness for him and found his face. It was sticky with blood.

“Somebody hit me from behind,” he mumbled as he struggled up to lean on me.

“Shhhh!” I clamped my hand over his mouth. I felt his face again. Lips, nose, eyebrows, gash. Huge gash. Warm blood flowing freely.

The stumbling and groaning at the other side of the room had mostly stopped, reduced to a scuffle now and then, like someone trying to regain his footing. I felt lightheaded and realized I’d been holding my breath. I slipped my hand into the pocket of my white linen slacks in hopes of finding a hanky to stem the blood flow. Finding none, I reached back to the gash.

I felt Bud wince under my touch but I had no choice, I wrapped my palm around the wound and put as much pressure on it as I could. We sat like that for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds. Then, I heard another shift on the other side of the room. Heard hands sliding along a wall. Feeling their way to our location? Looking for the light switch? I stiffened knowing I’d have to do something to fight back or we’d both die right here, right now.

Bud started to squirm under my hands. He turned his face to my ear and whispered, “Gun in my belt.”

Amazing how those four little words gave me an instant feeling of power and hope. I reached under his shirttail, and sure enough, there was his 9mm Glock.

I slipped it from his waistband after quickly wiping my bloody hand off on his shirt, then released the clip and smacked it back into place with a loud crack to let the enemy know I meant business. Then I clicked off the safety to let myself know I meant business.

The Glock rested hard in my two-handed grip. My trigger finger was at the ready, just as it had been many times on the firing range when Bud and I used to target practice for fun.

One sound
, I prayed.
Just give me one sound so I can hone in on you, you creepy son of a bitch
. Then I heard it. Soft and to my left. He was moving to attack me from a different side this time.

Held straight out in a V that ended with the Glock, my arms moved with my upper body, tracking the sound like a turret-mounted tank gun. Another soft bump. Too close this time. Way too close. I fired. The sound was deafening.

I saw fire spurt from the end of the Glock. Heard a muffled thud and a suppressed exclamation. “Holy shit!” Bud said. Since we’d been sitting side by side like Siamese twins, the recoil through me had knocked him over. I’d never fired a gun inside an enclosed space before. And without ear protection? Holy cow, what a blast!

“Bud?” I called to him in the dark. I dared not move the gun from my last known target. I held it steady.

“I’m okay,” he answered. “Stay down!”

I could see a little light from the direction I’d fired. Maybe light from an interior doorway to the kitchen area? I squinted in the darkness, trying to see something, anything, to let me know what to do next. I needed to help Bud, but I dared not drop my guard. Had I shot and killed or just wounded whoever it was?

I held my aim and waited. Then another sound from the kitchen area. I fired again.

“Jesus!” Bud exclaimed this time.

I held my position. A few seconds ticked past. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening at the back of the house. I waited for a few more seconds before I gave the most enormous sigh. I really hadn’t wanted to kill anyone tonight.

“Wait!” Bud said pulling me back down.

Crouching, I heard a car engine in the backyard. I scrambled to the picture window just in time to see the taillights of a vehicle as it sped away on the drive. Now, for sure, I was going to have to switch the lamp on.

When I did, I saw tables, lamps, and a wooden chair overturned. Bud was sitting with his back against the wall, holding his head, blood seeping between his fingers. I grabbed a doily from the arm of a wing chair and applied pressure to the wound right above his left eyebrow.

“Looks to me like someone hit you straight on, Bud, not from behind.”

He grimaced. “No. I got whacked on the back of the noggin. I must have fallen forward and hit my head on that table over there.”

“Whatever,” I said. “In any case, I’ve got to get you to an emergency room or a doc-in-a-box ASAP.” I peeked under the now-crimson doily. “It’s bad, Bud. Going to leave a mark for sure.”

“Aww. And spoil my rakish good looks?”

Just as I got Bud upright and made sure he could stay that way, headlights swept across the picture window, reflecting a car pulling into the drive. It screeched to a stop. I heard a car door slam and the sound of footsteps coming our way. Whoever it was, he was in a hurry.

TWENTY-FOUR

I never thought I’d
be so glad to see this guy. With one arm supporting Bud, I towed him to the door.

“Hello, Sheriff,” I said. “We were just leaving.”

“The hell you are,” he said. “Not until you explain why you’re here in the house of a murder victim. And who is this man and what happened to him?”

“Bud Cooper. Her husband.” Bud tried to hold out his hand.

“Ex-husband,” I said, sagging under Bud’s weight. “We rode by to see if maybe Gladys had holed up here, saw someone with a flashlight moving from room to room and thought it might be her. Why are you here?”

“I’ll ask the questions. But for your information, I was on my way home and thinking along the same lines as you. Seemed logical she might be here. Then I saw the lights on and thought for sure it was her.” He looked around the room, “Obviously, it’s not.”

“Whoever was here beaned Bud on the head and tried to knock me out with chloroform—” I looked placatingly at the sheriff.

He sniffed the air. “Cordite. Do I smell cordite?”

Silence.

“Did someone discharge a firearm in here? Was someone shooting at you, Miz Cooper?”

“No. I was shooting at someone,” I said. I tipped my head and looked into Bud’s face. He was getting that ashen look people get right before they pass out. I turned back to Sheriff Evans, who was a lot less important than Bud.

“Look. It’s obvious that whoever was here tried to do us bodily harm, so yes, I shot at him. But that’s not my concern right now,” I held up a bloody hand to emphasize my point. “I’ve got to get Bud some help. We can discuss all this later.”

“I’ll call for an ambulance … ”

“No!” Bud croaked. “Cleo’s taking me to a doc-in-a-box. I just need a few stitches and some aspirin. I’ll be fine.”

“Get going then.” The sheriff pointed at me. “You call me when you’re done,” he said and headed for his patrol car.

After several hours, thirteen stitches, and serial Lidocaine injections—which Bud insisted were much worse than getting beat about the head by a maniac in a pitch-black house of horrors—we were back at the Morning Glory Inn.

I sat down to explain some things to the law.

“We’re back,” I told Sheriff Evans on the phone. “If you want to drop by, you can. Or else we can meet tomorrow.”

“I want to wrap this up tonight. We’re about done here. Dug your two slugs from the walls and dusted for prints—again. I’ll see you in a few.”

“Alrighty then,” I said. “Room 8, the Morning Glory.”

I turned back to Will, who was just starting to calm down from helping me get Bud settled. He still looked worried, though. Tulip, sitting at his feet, looked worried too.

“Feel better, now?” I asked him. “You can even stay in here with your father, if you’d like. I would never want to get between a boy and his wounded dad. I can take Tulip to your room.”

“No,” Will said, looking at Bud. “It’d be best if you stayed with him. He’ll take orders from you.”

“You’re probably right. I can use the sofa, it turns into a sleeper. And take Tulip with you.” I said, ushering the two of them out and wondering if I had time for a Jack Black—my own version of Lidocaine—before Sheriff Evans arrived. I tiptoed over to the open pocket door between the sleeping quarters and the sitting area of my room to look in on Bud. He was asleep. I gently closed the door.

I was just setting the whiskey bottle on top of the mini-fridge next to a bucket of ice when Evans knocked at the door. Politely removing his ball cap, he hooked it over the wing of a chair and plopped down with a whump.

Just as politely, I asked, “Can I get you something to drink, Sheriff? Coke? Sprite? Perrier?”

“If Perrier has alcohol in it, that’d be nice. I’m off-duty now and this late hour calls for something stronger.”

“Uh, Perrier probably isn’t for you, then. How about a Jack Daniel’s on ice? I was just about to pour myself one.”

“That’ll work. Then you can tell me again why you were at Irene’s.”

I dropped ice into our glasses. “Like I said before, I was looking for Gladys. I know you think the case is all wrapped up, that Robert Earle did everything. But I believe Gladys is still in serious danger
—and here’s why.” I ran through all my new revelations about Nash Finley and how I was certain they were true.

Sheriff Evans sipped his drink pensively and listened with little response except an occasional nod. When I’d said my piece, I could see the tendons in his jaw tightening. Clearly he had something to say.

“The fact that you haven’t shared any of this with me until now is of grave concern to me, Miz Cooper. But let’s consider that all the things you just relayed are true. That this Finley character is in business with Shirley Walton’s new husband, this Ivan Thorpe guy, that only Finley would have had the knowledge of drilling operations to steal the data necessary to file for a loan so he could take over your claim … ” Here he paused to see if I was following his line of thought.

“Yes, Sheriff. I’m on the same page with you so far.”

“And,” he continued, “that only he knew you’d taken Gladys to your husband’s beach house … ”

“Yep.”

He downed the rest of his drink, smacked the glass on the table and said, “Combine that with the fact that someone—someone clearly looking for Gladys—tried to either kill you or kidnap you tonight.”

“Yep.”

The sheriff stood, stuck his cap back on his head and walked to the door. “All those things, Miz Cooper, leave me no choice but to order you to go home. Now.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me. Get out of my county and let me do my work.”

I could only gape at him.

“You have all you need to get your loan and execute your option, right?”

“Except Gladys! If someone finds her … kills her … ”

“Quiet!” he boomed. “That’s where you’re going to have to rely on me. Look, I’m in total sympathy with you, Miz Cooper. Meaning, I’m on your side. I will find Gladys Walton and I will bring Ivan Thorpe and Nash Finley in for questioning. Trust me.

“But I can’t do my job while I’m worried about you getting kidnapped or killed on my watch. Now go home to Raleigh and stay out of trouble until I find Gladys and call you.”

With that, he opened the door, taking a few steps through it before he turned and pointed at me. “I’m serious as an open grave, Miz Cooper. I don’t want you running around here right now. Go home. If I have to, I’ll throw you in jail until I figure out what’s going on.”