Vengeance is Mine - A Benjamin Tucker Mystery (28 page)

 “Well, I don’t care. She can glare her steely glare with her perfect steely posture all she wants to. I’ve had it! I’m drawing a line in the sand right here, right now! Fuck that damn money!” I walked toward my ball muttering, “Who the hell does she think she is?” I addressed my ball, then stopped, sighed, and looked slowly over at Marcus. “I don’t stand a chance, do I?”

Marcus shook his head. “Dead man walkin’.”

CHAPTER 37

Marcus and I finished our game a little before two. I managed to break two hundred—barely. It was the deep sand bunker on the sixteenth hole that gave me fits. After five attempts, I finally dragged the ball out with my putter. Marcus said it wasn’t legal because the ball “must be fairly struck at with the head of the club and must not be pushed, scraped or spooned.” I told him to fly a kite.

After we had a beer, and he roasted my game some more, I put my clubs in my trunk and drove to the Cary PD. As I waited for Lainie to come out of the building, Cox came out and handed me the key card to her apartment. I tried to read his face.

“Zilch,” he said. “I had the office at the complex make me a duplicate, so I don’t need that anymore.”

“They just made you a duplicate without some court order?”

“Yeah, they didn’t want to, but when I asked them if they could look up the number of the county inspector for me, they altered their opinion. We’ll try again tonight. Not sure how much more I can stand of Netter’s
colorful life
though. Maybe beer and pork rinds will help.”

“Careful not to shoot yourself in the foot.”

Lainie came out, hopped in the car, and we headed for the estate. I glanced uneasily at her a few times as we drove in awkward silence back to Holly Springs. We’d done a stellar job of avoiding the issue of what had happened last night. I tried to bring it up, but she cut me off.

Then she quickly changed the subject. “Do you have cookware in the guesthouse?” she asked. “I feel like cooking something. Would that be okay?”

“Sure do … sure is,” I said, jumping on the lightness of the subject. “It’s a small Williams-Sonoma satellite store.” I got a smile.

We stopped at the Harris Teeter supermarket in Holly Springs. We each took a basket, agreed to meet back at the checkout, and went in different directions. When we rendezvoused at the self-checkout, we looked in each other’s baskets. Lainie had the following in hers: a mango, lime, avocado, small red onion, bunches of green onions and cilantro, bag of shredded red cabbage, package of corn tortillas, small containers of mayonnaise and sour cream, Old Bay seasoning, and something wrapped in white butcher paper from the seafood section. I had two quarts of lemon sorbet, more Raisinets, just in case, and a box of Blue Dog Bakery peanut butter dog biscuits. She laughed when she saw mine.

“We can’t live on this,” I held up my basket, “but whatever you’ve got in yours looks pretty good. What’s it gonna be?”

“Fish tacos with lime cilantro crema and mango salsa.”

I bugged my eyes out and nodded approvingly.

We got back to the guesthouse about four o’clock, and Lainie disappeared cheerfully into the kitchen. I took Oscar out to relieve himself, no longer Superman. I had to smile when I took the ludicrous T-shirt off of him this morning. We both missed Julie.

Lainie had said dinner would be in an hour, so I took the opportunity to shower off the golf course grime. As I dressed in clean clothes, I could smell something wonderful. Oscar looked at me as if to say, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I like it.”

After sneaking the key card back into Lainie’s bag, Oscar and I entered the living area.

There were two places set at the small dining room table. I selected a bottle of sauvignon blanc, and began to uncork it. “Something smells fabulous in here,” I said. As she finished doing magical cooking things, Lainie watched what I was doing with concern.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten my promise. We have a deal.” Relieved, she turned back to put the finishing touches on the fish tacos with lime cilantro crema
con salsa de mango
. Thanks to Roberta, I am now bilingual.

I turned on the stereo. “Do you like jazz?” I asked.

“Yes, please,” she called from the kitchen.

A minute later, she emerged with a platter of soft corn tortillas filled with perfectly grilled and seasoned grouper fillets. They were smothered with crunchy purple coleslaw and dressed with a spectacular creamy avocado cilantro sauce. She served a bowl of refreshing mango salsa on the side and finished the very pretty picture with a small bowl of lime wedges to self-drizzle. She left and came back with two goblets of ice water and another small bowl while I poured the wine.

“Can I give this to Oscar?” She asked. “It’s a flaked grouper fillet with no seasoning on it. I shredded it with my hands to make sure there weren’t any bones.”

He had been sitting across the room on the sofa following us with laser eyes and perked up with excitement when he heard his name. “You betcha! Call him over, so you get the credit.”

She beamed. “Here Oscar, I have something for you.” She scratched his ears and put the bowl down beside him. “Where’s his Superman shirt?”

“I felt sorry for him and took it off this morning. Julie treats him like he’s a doll, bless her heart. Anyway, if he was going to wear a T-shirt today, he’d need a clean one. He’s a GQ kind of a dog, you know, all well-groomed and kinda studly.”

She laughed as we ate the splendid meal she’d prepared.

We finished almost everything on the table and sat back satisfied, sipping our wine, now comfortable with each other.

“Anything new with the task force?” I asked.

“It appears after reviewing the museum video that Plum is definitely having a little difficulty using his left arm. But it must be a very minor flesh wound.” She squeezed a lime wedge into her ice water and took a long drink.

“Plum is obsessed with you, and now we know why,” she continued. “You should really consider getting your hair cut. It would only be a temporary diversion, of course. He could always follow suit and cut his own hair.”

We cleared the table, rinsed the dishes, and put them in the dishwasher. I would turn it on later.

 After refilling our glasses, we went to the living area, me on the sofa, Lainie in the armchair, Oscar curled up at Lainie’s feet. She leaned over and picked up one of his green stuffed animals.

“What on earth is this?” she asked.

“C’mon, MacKenzie,” I said. “You’re a super-duper FBI agent. Don’t you know a stegosaurus when you see one?”

She laughed as she set it back down on the floor. “I guess not.” Something drew her attention to my scrapbook on the bottom shelf of the coffee table. She pulled it out and said, “May I?” I nodded ‘of course’ and she began to leaf through the articles slipped in the plastic sleeves.

“Jeez, you’ve had a lot of success as an investigative reporter. And am I right, that you haven’t had any formal training in criminology?”

“No, not really, but I firmly believe that any mystery can be solved by the application of experience-based common sense and logic. That’s what works for me.”

Lainie raised her eyebrows. “Any mystery? Okay, smartass, why did the chicken cross the road?”

I leaned back and smiled and thought for a minute. “Well, I suppose you, as a profiler, would look into the chicken’s past … see if there was any traumatic experience that would cause the chicken to cross that particular road, at that particular place, at that particular time. Netter and Cox would interview the family, friends, and colleagues of the chicken to see if it had a history of crossing the road. And I suppose the crime lab guys would perform a spectral analysis of objects on the other side of the road to see if light was being reflected in a particular wavelength that the chicken found irresistible.”

“Yes,” Lainie said, “but how would
you
answer the question?” She swirled her glass and took a mouthful of wine.

“It’s really quite simple,” I said. “If the chicken was a male, then a female chicken told him to cross the road. If the chicken was a female, then there’s a new department store on the other side with a forty percent off sale on shoes for chickens.”

She burst out laughing and choked on her wine. Oscar looked up to see what was going on and laid his head back down when he found out nothing interesting was happening. Lainie coughed a couple of times and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Damn,” she said. “I got wine up my nose and it burns. And you made me drip some on my blouse. FBI agents have a strict dress code you know.” She set her glass on the coffee table and headed to Julie’s bedroom. When she returned, she was wearing the Bulls T-shirt again and the balloon butt shorts.

I had to chuckle.

“Shut up, Tucker.”

She brought a paper towel from the kitchen and made sure the outside of her glass was dry. Then she folded it neatly in quarters and set her glass on it on the coffee table like it was a coaster.

Lainie settled back in the armchair and began twirling a lock of hair between her fingers as she read. She really was a very beautiful woman—the kind many men would give anything for.

My passion was haunting me, and I could feel a spark kindle in my body, yearning for her. But all I would do tonight would be haunt and yearn. I made myself and Lainie a promise—not to mention Maggie—and I intended to damn well keep it. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the music.

After a while, Lainie closed the scrapbook and returned it to the shelf. She yawned and said, “I’m heading to bed, Ben. I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.”

I looked at my watch. “It’s only a little after eight.”

“I know, but I didn’t sleep much last night after … you know.” She picked up her empty glass and took it to the kitchen. As she started toward her bedroom, she stopped and turned back. “Thanks for keeping your promise, Ben. It means a lot to me.”

I smiled. “I know. You’re safe here. I swear.”

As she closed the bedroom door, I went to the kitchen and started the dishwasher. I’d always found the rhythmic sound of the wash and rinse cycles soothing.

I got my pillow and a blanket from my bed and brought them back to the living area. After checking the doors one more time, I turned off the music and the lights and stretched out on the sofa. Oscar jumped up and lay down beside me as I tried not to think of Lainie in the next room. He snuggled tight, and we fell asleep to the second rinse cycle.

CHAPTER 38

It was Lainie shaking my shoulder that jolted me awake. “Ben? Ben? Wake up.”

“Yeah, I’m awake … kind of. What?” Her hand slowly came in to focus—holding her Glock. I was totally awake
then
.

“Someone pulled in the driveway and parked,” she whispered. “I saw the reflection of the headlights on the trees from my window. I think I heard a car door slam … maybe two.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Almost midnight.”

“Nobody would be stopping by at this hour. If it were Netter, he would’ve called.” I put my shoes on and grabbed Pure Reason. We stayed in the shadows and crept slowly to one side of the large front window. We both knelt down, scooted over, and peered out into the darkness.

“There!” Lainie whispered. “By the screened porch. Did you see that?”

“Yeah, somebody’s walkin’ around the back of the main house.” I looked at her in the dark. “So what’s the plan, Agent MacKenzie?”

“First, we call 911. You stay here, and I’ll go out the back door and work my way around and catch them by surprise.”

“Horse shit!” I said.

“I know what I’m doing, Tucker.” She dialed 911 and gave the dispatcher the details.

“You’re not going out
there
alone. And I don’t want to be in
here
alone. The two of us go out together.” I said. “You take the shotgun.”

I grabbed a flashlight from the duffle, and we moved to the kitchen. I put Oscar in his crate in the corner. “Sit tight, little guy.” We quietly unlocked the back door and slowly opened it. Lainie walked out first, and I followed, both of us with our weapons raised, ready to fire.

When we got around the corner of the guesthouse, we could see someone standing in the shrubbery looking in the large window of the main house great room. I was a tightly wound spring as we silently inched our way closer. Finally, Lainie nodded, and I hit the flashlight, blinding the figure in front of us.

“Federal Agent!” Lainie shouted. “Don’t move a muscle!”

The figure turned around. “What the hell? Take that damn light out of my face!”

I looked at him in astonishment and lowered my weapon. “Dad? What the hell are you doing here?” Lainie snapped her head toward me and then lowered her weapon as well.

Marshall Tucker turned to the left. “Ruth! I found him! We’re out in back.”

“What? Mom’s here too?” Ruth Tucker made her way around the corner of the main house.

“My god, it’s pitch dark back here,” she said. She worked her way over to me and gave me a brief kiss and a hug. “It’s so good to see you, Son.”

“We rang the bell, but nobody answered,” Dad said. “It seems like nobody’s in there. Where’s Margaret?”

“Maggie and the rest of the family went to the beach house. Lainie and I are staying in the guesthouse.”

“I see,” my father said. “The truth finally comes out.” He turned to my mother. “Margaret left him.” Then he eyed Lainie. “So you must be the new girl. Well, I’d be careful about what I was getting myself into” He looked at me. “I hope to hell she’s not pregnant.”

“Jesus Christ, Dad! This is Special Agent MacKenzie with the FBI.”

Mom looked at Lainie’s red hair sticking out like pins in a pincushion. “Oh, please,” she said.

“Show ‘em your badge, MacKenzie.”

Lainie looked at me, exasperated. “Does it look like I have my badge with me?”

“Why are you two half dressed?” Mom asked.

“Because it’s midnight, Mom. This is the way normal people dress at midnight when they’re asleep,” I said. “Now you two can’t be here. Not right now. Didn’t George tell you? We’ve got a situation here! All you’ve done is provide this lunatic with two more potential victims.” My mother ignored me and walked past us into the guesthouse and turned on the lights.