Knockdown: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (20 page)

“Listen, I need a little help.”

Harold blinked in surprise; that was a new one. Not money, the car, or—please, God, not again—a lawyer.

Harold swiveled his desk chair to face his son. “Yeah? With what?” he asked, but he never could have expected the answer he got.

“I want another job.” Jerry squinted as if just saying the words hurt him. “I mean … the thing is, I’ve been thinking.”

Another surprise. Jerry had quit the job at the gas station after a week. Harold tried to cover his astonishment by nodding ponderously. “A new job, huh? Well, son …”

Jerry broke in. “Yeah. It hit me, like, what a waste I’ve been. Like, doing nothing. Being a parasite.”

Harold blinked; where the heck was this coming from? But then enlightenment dawned. That girlfriend the boy had, Candy, her name was, Harold thought; love was at last civilizing the kid.

Harold’s own mood brightened. His last hope for his boy had been that romance might do what he himself had been unable to.

“You don’t say,” he responded. “Well, that’s good news. I’m proud of you.”

Jerry grimaced, writhing. With the unaccustomed praise, Harold
thought, and felt a twinge of shame:
I didn’t praise him enough
. Not that there’d been much to praise for, but …

“Tell you what, next week you and I can sit down with the paper, have a look at the—”
Want ads
, he’d been about to say.

But Jerry was already shaking his head impatiently. “No, you don’t get it. I need a job
now.
”

Harold’s heart sank. That was always the kicker, wasn’t it? All his life, what Jerry wanted to have, do, or be, he always wanted it
now
.

And never mind what anyone else wanted. Still, a job would be a good thing for him.
Let’s not take the bloom off the rose
.

He spoke carefully. “So what did you have in mind?”

Still leaning in the doorway, Jerry relaxed slightly. “Well. I mean, just to get me started, you know? Like, ease into it.”

Backpedaling on the
now
part, softening it. Oh, the kid was slick, you had to give that much to him.

Jerry’s throat moved as he swallowed. “So I was thinking it should be just, you know, plain old work. Lifting things, moving things.”

His eyes met Harold’s. “Like that truck on the breakwater now. Unloading it. Maybe they need help doing that,” he said.

Which was when Harold’s bullshit detector went off, so loud they could probably hear it across the bay on Campobello.

At the same time, the little burst of hope he’d been feeling fizzled and died. “Yeah, huh?”

Thinking
Kid wants a job like I want a hernia. All he wants is to get close to that truck
.

Him and his pals. To do something to it, maybe. Or … no. To steal something from it. But they wouldn’t be able to, because …

Because it was the fireworks truck, sent by the company, and a guy from the company was watching it 24/7.

A big, burly guy. As head of the holiday committee, Harold had been made aware of the company’s security arrangements.

Recalling this, he felt a slow smile spreading across his face and his head begin nodding as if he were just now realizing the goodness of Jerry’s idea. The
smartness
of it.

“Yeah,” he said again, watching contempt flicker briefly in his son’s gray eyes.
He thinks I’m buying it
.

Thinks I’m stupid
. But whatever Jerry had in mind, it would not get far—the fireworks themselves were nailed into wooden crates, untamperable—and neither would Jerry and his buddies, once they’d tried it.

Then we’ll see who’s stupid
, he thought. “Sure,” he said, turning to pick up the phone on his desk.

As it happened, they were a man short on the unloading team. Wade Sorenson had volunteered for the job, but he’d had to drop out.

“Jerry,” Harold said, thinking again of the fireworks truck’s big driver and of the guy riding shotgun with him, even bigger.

“Jerry, you’re in luck. I think we can get you the job you want, right away. I’ll do it right this minute.”

“Thanks,” Jerry said, but he didn’t sound very grateful.

Not that Harold had expected him to.

AS A HANDGUN MEANT PRIMARILY FOR SELF-DEFENSE, THE
Smith & Wesson .342 Titanium Special had one big advantage: no hammer spur. This meant nothing stuck out from the top of the gun, so it didn’t get caught on a pocket thread or on some other part of the user’s clothing just when speed was critical.

Jake pulled the lockbox out from behind the loose brick in the cellar wall, slipped the key into the lock, and opened it. Inside lay the handgun and boxes of bullets.

She didn’t like needing them, but she’d already given back the little popgun her dad had left with her the previous night. And if there’d ever been a time when a backup plan was a good idea, this was it.

“Mom?” Sam called down the cellar stairs.

“Just a sec. I’ll be right with you.” She relocked the box, stuck it back into its hiding place, and stuck the brick back in, then slipped the weapon and ammo box into her sweater pocket.

With luck, she’d never need them; by late tonight she could come
back down here and tuck them away again. The operative word being
luck
 …

“What’re you doing?” Sam called.

“Nothing.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact. But it wasn’t easy when you were loading yourself up with enough firepower to stun a moose.

Well, maybe not a moose—at least not on the first shot. But the handgun still had plenty of stopping power, and it was light and easy to fire, even with the powerful ammunition she’d chosen for it.

Fairly light, anyway; at nearly two-thirds of a pound, it made her pocket sag, especially with the ammo in there with it. She put the box in the other pocket so at least she was balanced.

Then with a sigh she climbed the stairs; other than on the shooting range, being armed at all still made her feel as if she were carrying a rocket launcher around.

At least the gun had an internal locking system, which she hadn’t yet unlocked; not being a habitual deadly weapon carrier, she felt a lot safer with the trigger-blocking key in the “no-fire” position.

For now. Later would be a different story; then she might end up wanting a rocket launcher.

Or two. But there was no sense in anyone else knowing how nervous she was about all this, and especially not Wade. He was already plenty iffy about a plan that made her into the bait.

Which she would be; to be any more vulnerable, she’d have to be wiggling around on a fishhook.

But as it turned out, she needn’t have worried, or at least not about that. “Bad news,” Sam said when she reached the kitchen, where he’d been waiting for her.

Bella was busy scrubbing the wooden knobs on the beadboard cabinet doors. If she rubbed them any harder, Jake thought, they might burst into flames.

Her dad sat at the kitchen table, his long gray ponytail tied back today with a rubber band; he kept the leather thong for dressier occasions.

He didn’t look happy, either. Less happy, even, than when she’d told him and Bella about her plan.

“What?” Jake asked, and in answer he angled his head at the kitchen windows, where the fading sky made blackish cutouts of the pointed firs at the edge of it.

“Oh, no,” she breathed. The fog bank that had been sitting low and motionless to the south all day now stood halfway up the sky, like some dark giant peering over the horizon line. But that didn’t mean it was getting taller.

Instead, it was getting
nearer
. And the fireworks scheduled for tonight wouldn’t begin until dusk, which in Eastport in early July meant eight or a little after.

By then, visibility would be about five feet. It might even be raining. Bad weather for fireworks, and
that
meant—

“It’s starting to look like everything is off for tonight,” said Bella. “I heard it just now from one of the committee men.”

Each year, the Fourth of July committee put the celebration together and ran it with the kind of precision usually reserved for moon landings, and what they said about it was what happened.

“They haven’t quite canceled,” said Jake’s dad. Turning, he looked out to where the clouds loomed like a big gray hand, ready to flatten the fun.

Not to mention her trap-springing plans. “But the weather’s starting to look pretty foul, and if they want to do it tomorrow night, they’ve got to start making arrangements now, figuring out where to store the fireworks, and putting ’em there,” he added.

Which meant canceling tonight for her, too. Jake sank into a chair across from him. She wasn’t sure if she felt more relieved or disappointed.

Even-steven, really, she thought. “I understand.”

Because fireworks were temperamental items. Once a certain humidity level was reached, you couldn’t light them, and even if you could, no one would be able to see them.

There’d just be a damp fizzle … also like her plan.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “Sorry about that, Mom. But you know,” he added, brightening, “tomorrow night’s better for me, anyway.”

Sam was, of course, part of the contingent of onlookers she’d been counting on. To be fair, though, she hadn’t exactly made a point of letting him know just how serious this all was.

Partly, she knew, she was simply in the habit of sheltering him. But it was also because she disliked so much reminding him of those days, back when this mess began.

Or recalling them herself.

He spread his hands placatingly now. “I mean, if you were still doing it tonight, I would totally be there. But since you’re not …”

He looked embarrassed. “There’s this girl I met. Staying at the Motel East, with her folks.”

His late father’s adventurousness with women had not been a part of Sam’s inheritance—the opposite, in fact. So when he met a girl, it was an event.

“She’s really nice. You’d like her,” he said earnestly.

Jake rolled her eyes at her son; since when was that the point?

“Well, I like her,” he amended with a shy laugh. “I could go see her tonight, too, if there’s nothing else going on. See, she and her parents are leaving first thing in the morning,” he added in sudden appeal, “and—”

“Okay,” she gave in, not that he really needed her blessing. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. With no fireworks, which means no crowds, there’s no reason for any of us to go, is there?”

Garner wouldn’t try grabbing her or Sam, or doing whatever other bad deed he had planned, on an empty street. He’d need crowds for cover. And Sam was a grown man after all, even though she still thought of him as a kid. At her assent, he brightened eagerly.

“Hey, I knew you’d understand. Tomorrow we’ll do it, though, right?”

He was already pulling on his jacket and plopping his ball cap on his head. “Uh, don’t wait up for me,” he added.

“I thought you said her parents were with her,” Bella said, turning
from the cabinets, where she’d left off cleaning knobs and was now polishing the doors themselves to an incandescent glow.

“Well, yeah,” he replied, a little grin spreading across his face. “They are. But, you know, not in the same room.”

He hurried out before Bella could think of any more details to question him about. Jake’s dad got up as well.

“Well, old girl,” he said to Bella. “Time for us to mosey.”

“You’re abandoning me, too?” Jake protested as Bella put on her sweater and found her purse.

“I’m out of bleach,” she replied, “and oil soap and Brillo pads.” She generally bought the economy-sized versions of these in the nearest market town, thirty miles distant. “And as long as I’m going, your father thought we’d …”

Since their marriage, the two hadn’t had much time alone together; living with Jake and Wade in the house on Key Street was pleasant and convenient for all concerned, but not very private. And the St. Andrews Hotel, in the Canadian bayside town of the same name, was luxurious, and right across the border.

So it had become a favorite with them; besides, they knew Jake and Wade didn’t get a lot of time alone together, either. “We’ll be back home tomorrow afternoon,” her father told Jake reassuringly. “If you still had plans, of course we wouldn’t go, but …”

But now she didn’t. “Of course,” she told them firmly, shooing them out.

Which was when Wade finally came down from his workshop with a look on his face. Not a terrible look, not even a very serious one.

But a look nonetheless. “What?” Jake demanded. “Don’t tell me you have to go somewhere now, too?”

Because one thing about everyone else leaving the house was that it left her and Wade alone. And apparently the same thought had occurred to him; he wrapped his arms around her. What he said next, though, dashed her hopes.

“Listen, is there any chance that you could go and stay with Ellie and George tonight?”

While everyone else had been abandoning ship, she’d heard the phone ring. But he’d answered it from upstairs.

She wiggled from his embrace. “Wade. What’s happened?”

It couldn’t be a ship coming into the terminal, needing a harbor pilot. None were scheduled, not on the Fourth.

Or there hadn’t been until now. “Turns out a crew member on a boat bound for Canada has a diplomatic problem,” he said.

She blinked. “What do you mean? That he can’t get into the country?”

Wade nodded. “So they have to come here. Some immigration problem the guy has. Strictly a paperwork problem, but …”

He shrugged helplessly. “But they’re being hard cases about it at Canadian immigration. They wanted to know could I help out, but I already told them no, I had a situation here of my own. So forget it.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding. Not that she’d have had any problem staying alone; the dogs would be here, and there was no likelihood of anyone getting past Prill.

But her next emotion was guilt, mingled with the knowledge that George and Ellie had a spare room no one was using. And her own plan was postponed, anyway, so …

Her look said as much: that really, there was no reason he couldn’t go.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I figured when I looked out the window that we’re off for tonight. But that doesn’t matter; as long as your pal’s around, I’m a constant presence around here.”