Hiding Gladys (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (18 page)

THIRTY-ONE

But it was too
late. Ivan—clearly the recipient of Nash’s arm-waving directions and boat-to-truck instructions as he followed me (God knows how) all this way over water—came waltzing right in the front door. With his four-wheel-drive truck, he had been able to overcome the rundown road. I grabbed Gladys’s arm and pulled her out on the porch only to meet Nash coming across the backyard, Smith and Wesson in hand. Jeez, I just couldn’t catch a break! I pulled Gladys close and said to Nash, “Nice boat. Yours?”

“No,” he said, “I borrowed it.” He looked at Gladys. “Well, well, well. I finally meet the object of my affection. Pleased to meet you, Gladys Walton.”

“Ivan,” Gladys said, turning as he approached. “What’s this all about?”

“You don’t need to worry about anything right now, Gladys,” Ivan said. “Everything’s going to be taken care of for you.” He turned to Nash “What now? You’re calling the shots.”

“You bring Cleo with you in her boat and follow me. I’ll take Gladys in mine. We’ll need one to get us back here because I know a place with a very useful old boom that I think Cleo might have an encounter with in hers. It sticks up out of the water, could lay open the bottom of a boat. Even cause its occupants to be thrown overboard.”

“Does that mean the together forever thing is off?”

Nash gave me a look that pretty much answered my question but just to be sure he added, “Thrown overboard with broken necks. Maybe even crushed skulls.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Ivan,” Gladys wailed. “Give me the damn Power of Attorney. I’ll sign it. I know I’ll end up in a nursing home or a nut house, but nothing’s worth this!”

“Too late for that now,” Ivan said, promptly shoving his mother-in-law at Nash. Then he grabbed me by the ponytail and dragged me to Henri’s boat. He held an eight-inch switchblade under my chin, letting the edge slide a little, just for fun. The agony of just a little cut was so intense that my knees buckled a few times. Feeling the slick, sticky warmth of what I knew was blood oozing down my chest didn’t help.

Ivan sent me flying headlong into Henri’s boat with a squarely planted kick to my derriere. I managed to break my fall with my arms and hands, but the jolt was still horrendous. I grabbed the gunwale, pulled myself into a sitting position on the deck and decided to stay put, biding my time.

I knew Nash’s destination, though frankly, I was surprised he knew anything about the history or particulars of the pit. But then, I’d clearly underestimated him from day one. The boom he’d referred to was an old electric dragline that had been stored in the first phased-out area of the pit and protected by a man-made berm. The berm had been breached during the flooding that followed Hurricane Floyd in 1999, and the enormous piece of equipment wound up pretty much submerged.

Still, what Nash didn’t know—being in sales now, no longer a practicing geologist up to date on regulations—was that the EPA would not allow the dragline to stay there, so the company had to remove it. They’d had to do it in pieces, a huge job, but they got it done.

I knew this because I was the geologist assigned to the job, unnecessarily, since it primarily required engineers and lots of horsepower. At least I knew this part of Nash’s plan would be a bust. Also, time spent looking for the boom on a dragline that no longer existed was time I’d have to think of some clever way out of this fine mess I’d gotten Gladys and myself into.

It didn’t take long to arrive at the spot where Nash thought he’d find the tip of the boom rising to the surface of the lake. As is usually the case in a saltwater lake that gets flushed by the tides twice a day, visibility was very good. I watched as he circled and circled, looking for it. Something was causing his Key West boat to lurch forward and sputter at idle. A sticky throttle? Loose cable? Maybe lack of experience? I strongly suspected the latter.

There was still plenty of light and from where I’d been commanded to sit—the bench seat in front of the center console—I could tell that Gladys was trying to train her attention on me with
out being obvious about it.

I knew she was waiting for me to signal her, but I still hadn’t come up with a plan or the guts to execute one. Our boats were about fifty feet apart since Ivan was hanging back to stay out of Nash’s way.

Time was running out. I couldn’t overpower Ivan—he was too big—but I did have a way to equalize the situation. The trick was that I needed to be up close and personal, just not close enough for Ivan to grab me.

He was squinting, watching Nash’s movements over the harsh glare the sun created on the water during its final descent into the west. Every few moments Ivan would look my way to let me know he hadn’t forgotten me. I waited until his next glance at me. I turned my face to the left so I could just see him from the corner of my eye.

Soon as he turned away, I pulled my Ruger from under my shirt, whipped around the console and shot him in the leg three times. Why three times? It was a very small-caliber gun. Pop. Pop. Pop. The sound, like a very loud firecracker, cracked across the water.

Ivan squalled like a wet cat, let go of the wheel and grabbed his thigh, a look of stunned amazement on his face. “You shot me!” he screamed as he sailed overboard, helped by a generous kick in the ass from me. One good turn deserves another, don’t you think?

Grabbing the controls in my sweaty hands, I swung the boat in Gladys’s direction. She had heard the shots, as had Nash, and though she hesitated for a moment, she managed to dodge his grab for her and dive overboard.
Atta girl!
I gunned the engine in her direction.

I needed to reach her before Nash ran over her. He made a clumsy half-circle to where she surfaced, but she dove to avoid his boat. I aimed for the broadside of Nash’s boat and T-boned him. Not a full-speed-ahead, damn-the-torpedoes kind of ram; more like a tugboat-captain-late-for-dinner kind of ram.

Nash was knocked backwards away from the console, caught the gunwale behind his knees, and went overboard. The top half of him, anyway. All I could see of him were his fingers wrapped around the gunwale and the bottom half of his legs. He was getting a spectacular dunking, so I kept up the push, hoping the water would pull him the rest of the way overboard.

“Come on, Gladys! Where are you? Come up!” I pleaded out loud, watching for her head to emerge and continuing to push the Key West sideways.

About that time, Nash managed to pull himself up and dig his Smith and Wesson from his waistband. Uh-oh. I threw the boat into reverse and ducked behind the console. Three shots struck the windshield and the console. A couple of feet lower and—well, that’s where the gas tank was located. I didn’t want to think about that.

Just then I heard a faint voice call out a few feet behind my boat. Still shielding myself, I backed toward it. Soon as Gladys’s head came level with the transom, I let go of the controls. Praying I wouldn’t feel a bullet sink into my back, I fished her out.

“Stay down!” I ordered as I gently laid her on the deck. Then I hit Nash again with another midship ram. A bone-jarring one this time. For the second time in little more than three hours, I heard Nash grunt like a hog before being pitched headlong overboard, gun and all.

The thing about “borrowing” boats? You need to know something about them. Me, I’d been on the water every summer since I was a kid. It also helps if you’re familiar with the territory you’re boating in, especially if you’re going to engage in a twilight chase. I decided to use my experience to our advantage as I motored away from Nash.

A few minutes later he had made it back on board, from the sound of the engine on the Key West. But I was ready.

Heading for a place Henri and Will used to call Shark Mountain when they were little, I was leading Nash onto my turf. The kids had named it that because back in the days when this was a working quarry, not a lake, I would bring them out after work to hunt for fossilized shark’s teeth in the spoil piles of limestone marl. Besides being the hottest spoil pile in the pit for finding the ebony-black teeth, it was the highest.

After the pit was flooded, the top of the pile still breached the surface at low tide. At high tide, it was submerged by about a foot. Henri’s boat, a flat-bottom bateau, drew five inches of water when on plane and hauling ass. The Key West, however, was a V-hull and would need at least fourteen inches of clearance at all times.

They say nine inches can be a girl’s best friend. I was about to test that theory.

Years of calculating reserves from every conceivable location along the lip of the quarry had given me the ability to know my exact location in the pit from the configuration of the quarry wall. I looked up at the silhouette of the tree line on the far wall of the quarry and smiled. I was right on course. I flipped on my running lights. “Come on, you slimy piece of crap,” I muttered. “Follow me.”

I pushed the throttle wide open on the Honda 150 and looked back. The Key West turned in my direction. With a Yamaha F-225 motor, it wouldn’t take long for Nash to overtake me.

“Gladys?” I called. She was huddled on the deck in the stern.

She scrambled to her feet and came to me.

“You okay?”

“Yes, but that horrid man is after us again,” she said, pointing back to the small red and green lights of the Key West as it gained on us.

“I want you to get down on the deck again. Go up front and hunker down in front of the console … You know, just in case … ”

She moved to the bow just as I heard gunfire behind us. Apparently a Smith and Wesson will still work after being dunked in water—twice. Go figure.

“Almost there, Nash, sweetie,” I said. “Just keep coming.”

The surface of the flooded pit was mirror calm. At full speed, I swept over Shark Mountain with Nash right in my wake.

It’s hard to describe the sound of nearly two thousand pounds of fiberglass and metal moving at fifty miles an hour makes when stopped abruptly by a large submerged pile of dirt. Suffice it to say that it’s harsh … very harsh, especially when combined with the high-pitched whine of an outboard engine about to burn out.

Zigzagging at breakneck speeds through the narrow channels, I didn’t stop until Gladys and I reached the Intracoastal Waterway. Then I pulled the boat into neutral and turned to Gladys. “You don’t happen to have your cell on you by any chance?”

“Sorry. It’s in my purse back at your fish camp.”

“I need to call some law-enforcement official in Craven County and report what happened.”

“You’ll have to wait until we get home.”

“Maybe I’ll get lucky and get pulled by a fish dick. Then I can tell him.”

We made better time on the way back to Eddie’s. The wind and tides were with us, there was almost no boat traffic at night, plus I didn’t have to make a gas stop so our trip back only took about four hours. But every ten minutes—all the way back—Gladys would hop up, touch me on the shoulder where I stood at the console, and say, “We’ve got to get to the house and find Shirley. We’ve got to go find Shirley.” Over and over.

Good thing I thought so much of Gladys or I would have told her she sounded like a parrot on crack cocaine. As it was, I just kept giving her the same response: “Okay, Gladys. Okay.”

We reached the dock at about eleven never having seen an officer of any kind. Figures. I did my best to quickly secure Henri’s boat with the ropes left on board. We still had an hour-long drive, back in the direction we just came, ahead of us. I wasn’t sure going back to Gladys’s house was a good idea, but let’s face it, Gladys had decided Shirley was nothing more than a spoiled child who wanted her cake before it was baked. I still hadn’t made up my mind about her.

As I hustled up the dock after her, I glanced back at the skiff, now sporting a big frowny face on its bow and a few bullet holes in the center console. I’d have to do a lot of explaining to Henri.

The marina office was closed, the interior lit only by the drink machine and a night-light. I was a little concerned about Tulip, but it was a safe bet Matthew had taken her home with him. If my original plan hadn’t been screwed up by Nash and Ivan, I’d have picked up Gladys and been back by nine o’ clock at the latest, well before their closing time at ten. The marina opened at six. I’d call then.

“Where’s your car?” Gladys asked when we reached the parking area. “Because we’ve got to get to the house and … ”

“ … and find Shirley. Yes, I know, Gladys. Come on, we’re over here,” I said, opening the door of the Ford Ranger for her

During the drive to the farm, in the quiet of the pickup, I told Gladys the complete, unabridged version of what my days had been like since I’d last seen her. Things I hadn’t been able to explain shouting over the wind in an open boat. Things we both needed to consider.

“So that was the last time you saw Shirley? After you two planned to rescue me from the cellar?” Gladys said.

I nodded and said, “Yes, but why do you think she told me you were being held down there if it wasn’t true? I mean, we need to think through other possibilities.”

“Why? Because they told her they had me in the cellar, of course. And … and it’s logical that they wouldn’t let her go down there if she wasn’t in on it. Don’t you see?”

Well, she did have a point there.

“Oh my poor little girl. At least we know who’s been behind all this now. I’m worried sick about her. I don’t know how I’m going to break the news … about Ivan, I mean. I never liked him from the day she brought him home. But she did. Liked him, I mean. Thought he hung the moon. Do you think he’s dead?”

“I don’t know … Maybe not, if he can swim and I didn’t hit an artery.”

THIRTY-TWO

It was after midnight
when we finally arrived at Gladys’s dark house. There was no sign of Shirley. One would think I would be bone-weary after the Sunday from hell, but instead I was amped. Gladys flipped on the lights. “She’s probably out looking for us,” she said immediately. “She’s bound to be back soon though, and while we wait, know what we need?”

“A time machine to blast us a couple of days into the future?” I offered.

“Well, that too. But I actually had a little liquor in mind.”

“A capital idea,” I said. “I’ll take care of that right after I call the sheriff.”

“I’m going to look around first,” Gladys said, heading up the stairs. “Maybe Shirley’s just scared and hiding. Booze is in the buffet, bottom shelf. You know where the phone is.”

I knew she was hoping she’d find Shirley huddled in fear under her bed or in a closet, but I wasn’t nearly so optimistic. I picked up the receiver of an old wall-mounted phone and started to dial the sheriff’s cell number—which I now knew by heart—but the door flying open, banging against the wall, interrupted me. Shirley, supporting an ashen-faced, limping Ivan, filled the space. Despite Ivan having his arm draped over her shoulder, he clenched an open switchblade in his free hand. He slumped into her side. I thought for a minute he was holding her hostage.

Nope.

“Well, well, well,” Shirley said, dumping Ivan in a chair and taking the knife from him. She pushed her smudged glasses up her nose, waved the blade menacingly at me. “Bitch, you better tell me where my mother is right now!”

I was too stunned to answer. I should have considered more seriously the possibility of Ivan making it back to shore. Apparently, he’d done it and called Shirley—maybe even from Gladys’s cell phone.

“Cat got your tongue?” Shirley hissed. “I’m talking to you, stupid. Hang that phone up. Now!”

I dropped the receiver back in its hook.

Shirley turned to Ivan. He was holding his thigh, his head laid back against the padded cushion of a chair. Then she turned back to me. “Look what you did to my husband,” she said. “I swear, you just keep causing us trouble. Though, I have to admit, part of this is my fault.”

“You think?” I said, my brain finally kicking into gear.

“Yeah … ” Shirley looked over at Ivan, who was gingerly assessing the damage under a makeshift bandage. “I should have never left something as important as getting rid of you and Mother to a couple of fuck-ups like Ivan and Nash.”

Ivan looked up and said soothingly, “Now, sugar, this plan can still be salvaged. There’s good in every setback.”

Shirley turned her icy stare back to him. “And that would be … ?”

I jumped in: “How about … it’s good because now you have time to change course. I don’t know the full measure of your involvement in all this insanity, Shirley, but you can still stop it.”

It was as if I didn’t exist. Ivan stood up, trying not to grimace, and said to Shirley, “We got one less share to divvy out. You know, no more Nash.”

“Oh,” Shirley said, “there’s that, I guess, but now what are we going to do? Nash’s plan, the one you told me about on the way home, was perfect. No one would have questioned a boating accident at night.”

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Ivan said. “We still have that plan. We just need to patch up these little pea-shooter holes in my leg, first. Then we take Cleo and your mother back to Cleo’s boat. I know what marina she keeps it at now—then take them back to the quarry and run them aground near where Nash bought it … Don’t you see? It’s even better now. It’ll look like Nash was after the two of them all along and they
all
got killed in a tragic nighttime chase. Perfect.”

“Hmm. I don’t like the part about, you know, breaking their necks.”

“That’s a relief!” I blurted.

For the first time, Ivan acknowledged me. “Shut up!” he shouted, then, more gently, to Shirley, “We don’t have to do that, sugar. We just knock them out, hold them under the water … they’ll die by themselves. Easy as pie.”

“I don’t know,” Shirley chewed a nail and pushed her glasses up again. “What if someone at the marina sees us?”

“Trust me. I’ve got it all figured out.” When Shirley looked at him blankly, he continued, “I’ll go get the boat. The marina’s closed. No one will see me. There’s a shopping center not far from the marina. You park the car there, herd them down to those vacant lots across the street on the sound side—you’ve got the knife to keep them in line—and I’ll pick them up. Then you go back to the car and drive to that old house where you picked me up. You can find your way back there, can’t you?”

“Of course I can,” Shirley snapped. “I’m just wondering how you’d control them, what with you being injured and all, pookie.”

Pookie? One minute he’s a fuck-up, the next he’s pookie. The woman clearly needed years of therapy.

“Of course,” Ivan said impatiently. “Just because I couldn’t drive my four-speed truck with a heavy-duty clutch, doesn’t mean I can’t steer a boat. Besides, once we get them in the boat, we wrap them in quilts, tie them up so they can’t move their arms or legs. The quilts will keep the ropes from leaving marks. Then when I get them where I want them on the water, I’ll use the crowbar from the car. It’ll look like injuries sustained during a boating accident. Then I unwrap them and drop them overboard.

“Now here’s the genius part: after I rip a hole in the boat with the crowbar, like it hit something submerged, I use one of those inner tubes in the garage to float the quilts and ropes—and help me keep afloat too—and paddle back to you. We can be back here by dawn or a little after, no sweat. Then there’s no one to share all that lovely money with. It’ll be just you and me, for the rest of our lives.”

Shirley’s eyes lit up. “Oh, Ivan!” she said, jumping up and down in girlish glee. “Maybe we can make this happen after all.”

“Listen,” I said, “when you two get through with your screwy plans—which happen to sound like something straight out of the loony bin, by the way—you might want to consider one tiny little thing.”

Both Ivan and Shirley turned their attention to me. “What?” they said in impatient unison.

I pulled the trusty little Ruger from my tummy holster, pointed it at them, and said, “A gun trumps a knife any day. Seriously, didn’t you two see
Raiders of the Lost Ark
?” Actually, I was too far from either one of them for an accurate shot, but they didn’t know that.

“Oh shit! Not again,” Ivan said, diving behind Shirley.

“Idiot!” shouted Shirley, knocking Ivan over and stepping on his leg in her haste to book it out of the house.

I stepped over a writhing Ivan and pointed the Ruger at his head. “Another taste of the peashooter?” I looked to my left and watched Shirley bound across the wide front porch to the stairs.

That was when I heard a thundering, scraping noise straight overhead.
What the hell?
I wondered. It sounded like something huge was sliding down the tin-covered porch roof. And it was. Just as Shirley hit the bottom step, an enormous load of laundry—wicker basket and all—hit Shirley and knocked her out, cold as a cod. Then, with my gun still pointed at Ivan, I jerked my head to the right at the sound of clattering footsteps down the stairs. A girl could get dizzy.

Gladys swept past me, out the front door, and down the steps. She kicked the laundry off Shirley, tied her “poor little girl’s” hands behind her back with a long-sleeved T-shirt, then sprayed her with the garden hose. Shirley sputtered to consciousness, looked up at her mother, then lay back down in the grass and started to weep, reverting to her former persona.

Gladys gave her another shot from the hose—just for good measure. Then she looked at me and with firm resolution said, “Tie that fool up tight and call the sheriff.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.