Matryoshka Blues (The Average Joe Mysteries Book 1) (9 page)

He looks to the door but doesn’t move, waiting for Tully’s and my approval. The two of us exchange glances, then nod at Sergeant in unison. He smiles that perfect smile and heads out the door with a two-fingered salute.

Something tells me this is not the last time Sergeant’s path will cross with mine. But now I know who I’m dealing with, and I’ll be better prepared. It is the Boy Scout motto, after all.

Not that I was a Boy Scout. I mean, fuck that merit badge shit. Just show me how to build a fire and hit on the Girl Scouts already.

“Now what?” Tully asks after Sergeant vanishes down the street.

I heft the bag, my arm screaming from the labor and calling me an asshole. “Now we meet up with Loretta Turnbill and tell her we have her box. And then we shove it up her boss-killing sphincter.”

That’s me, baby—smooth talker and master planner.

16

T
urns out the “private” airstrip where Turnbill’s private jet is landing is on some farmer’s back forty, surrounded by wheat fields and whatever else grows on farms and fucking looks like wheat. Never seen a runway before that wasn’t at an actual airport. This one’s hidden well enough to keep prying eyes looking elsewhere, and I can’t help but wonder what it’s normally used for.

Tully and I leave the Mustang on the side of a rutted dirt road in a cluster of half-dead trees about a half mile from the strip and hoof it in. I’d prefer we drive, but the car’s engine will give us away long before we reach wherever we’re heading. The road curves right and halfway into the turn we see the flat stretch of tarmac intersecting the road about twenty yards up.

Left, or right? I motion for Tully to hang back, then jog to the edge of the wheat field, poking enough of my head past the crop line to look like I’m crossing the street by myself for the first time.

Bingo. Got ‘em. I jog back to Tully and we step into the wheat field on our right.

We don’t talk the entire time—about the case, about Sergeant, about anything. All we do is move as quietly as we can, and listen.

The closer we get, the louder the voices become. One woman, two men. Tully shrugs to tell me she doesn’t recognize any of them, which doesn’t surprise me. She only worked with Sandecker, so she probably doesn’t even know Loretta Turnbill on sight. Guess she didn’t do the research like some of us.

“Sandecker should have called by now,” says one of the men. He’s taller than his associate, but not as tall as me; rail-thin, with dark hair on a pale noggin. He looks like a burnt matchstick.

I recognize Turnbill from her online photos. She’s even more beautiful in person.

“He was held up,” she tells the matchstick man. “He’ll call when he’s on his way.” She smiles at him. “Don’t worry; he has plenty of time.”

“And he’s bringing the box?” the man asks.

Monkey, meet wrench.

Even from this far back I see Turnbill blanch a little. But I also see why Sergeant questioned her intellect earlier. It’s an act—one she’s very good at. There’s a practiced nuance to her tics and mannerisms, a subtlety at play. To someone like Sergeant it would appear to be a lack of intelligence. But to people who’ve been around it marks her as a pro. A professional what, I don’t know. But this woman ain’t dumb, and to treat her that way will be everyone’s downfall.

Still, she’s temporarily at a loss for words. It looks as though Sandecker’s death was a private agenda on her part and not a mutual decision amongst the trio. That tells me she’s the one who killed him, and that she did it all on her own.

Sergeant said Turnbill sent him to Sandecker’s house. So if he showed up and saw the man dead, he’d have called to let her know as he bugged out. If she wasn’t Sandecker’s killer, she’d have told her associates just now. Or before we got here. The fact that she knows and refuses to inform these two tells me she’s making her own play here.

“The box will be here before we leave,” she says quickly.

A chill snakes down my spine like a corkscrew. Is she referring to me? Did she somehow figure out that Tully and I were coming here? Did Sergeant rat us out after all, that fucker? Or is Turnbill merely buying herself time?

The second man has been staring at his watch like it’s showing porn or something. He’s a round little Humpty Dumpty type, with dark blondish hair and goatee, wire-rimmed glasses perched high on his nose, and what appears to be impeccable taste in designer suits and footwear.

“Meloni and Ehrle will want a status report as soon as possible,” he says.

Turnbill and the matchstick man ignore him completely.

Side note: I totally want to name my garage band Turnbill & the Matchstick Men now. That, or Oedipus & the Mama’s Boys. Maybe Nero & the Pyromaniacs. Can’t decide.

Anyway, who the shit are Meloni and Ehrle? First it was Sandecker and Turnbill, now it’s a matchstick, an egg, Meloni, and fucking Ehrle. Who are these people, and why is this stupid little box retrieval case becoming such a pain in my ass?

“What’s the plan?” Tully whispers to me.

Fuck if I know
, my face tells her. Why am I always the one coming up with shit? This was her job! She should have to come up with something once in a while, damn it.

Between you and me, of course. No way I’m dumb enough to say that to her face.

The three conspirators are on the paved airstrip, less than ten feet from a dust-caked SUV, which is maybe twenty feet from the edge of the wheat field Tully and I are hiding in. Open ground covers the space between us, so there’s no chance of sneaking up on them, unless we move further down to keep the SUV angled between us and them. Of course, that doesn’t include the possibility of them moving and spotting us.

Shit. This was what I was afraid of, and it’s why I wanted my gym bag.

I unzip it and hand things to Tully, who sees Sandecker’s mystery puzzle box sitting at the bottom. I stuck it in there on the way over, figuring it’s the only thing keeping either of us alive for the time being.

“Are you sure about this plan of yours?” she asks.

“When in our long, sad history together have I ever been sure about anything? Besides, it’s not a plan. More like a vaguely interesting notion.”

“You were sure Jennie Whitlock was going to suck your dick after the homecoming game.”

Ah, yes—Jennie Whitlock. What a girl. Shitty game, but a great night. I wonder what she’s been up to all these years?

I sigh with a tiny pang of regret. “Yeah, well, you can thank Scotty for that. He decided to get his butt kicked by the Popped Collar Clique again that night. Had a decision to make.”

Tully raises an eyebrow. “
You
chose blood over a blowjob?”

She’s joking, and I know it.

“Every time, Tullinger.”

She smiles and squeezes my hand, then hefts the shotgun-like tube I’ve given her, eyeing it like I gave her a million dollars and diplomatic immunity. “You know, this would be much simpler if you believed in carrying guns.”

Damn, woman, it’s been nearly thirty years. Let it go already.

“How in the world does my refusal to carry firearms in any way impede your ability to bring one your damn self?” A thought hits me, and I look her up and down. “Where’s the one you took off Sergeant?”

Tully blushes with embarrassment and her eyes drop to the ground. “I left it in the back seat.”

Hang on—she what?

“You
what
?” You know, in case I didn’t actually say it out loud the first time.

“I forgot about it. Okay? You were in such a damn hurry to get here I forgot I tossed it back there.”

So much for my carefully constructed notion of vague interest. “And here I thought you were a professional, Tullinger.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not like you reminded me or anything, dumbass.” She makes a good point. “Jesus, you’re bitter when you get bested by a sign flipper with a gun.”

See? Told you I was never going to live that down.

“I’m bitter when I have to cold-cock a cop doing his job so I can escape a crime scene I had nothing to do with, even though I’ll sure as hell get blamed for it anyway.”

“To-may-to, to-mah-to.”

I sigh through clenched teeth. Can’t believe she left the fucking gun in the car.

No, that’s a lie. I can believe it. I can believe the shit out of it.

Our bickering is cut short by a loud noise swooping in from above. I look up to see a small plane circling around for a landing. The threesome on the runway watch it too, their backs to us now and their necks craned skyward.

Tully and I use the distraction to break from the wheat field for the near side of the SUV. I didn’t think about a driver when we started, and I’m glad to see no one inside the car as we duck out of sight.

“That was easy,” I whisper.

“Game face, dipshit. Act like you’ve done this before.” Tully tightens her grip on the shotgun-tube. “We doing this before or after the plane lands?”

I twist around to get a better look. The aircraft is still in the sky, and the Major Asshole Gang is still turned away from us.

As a rule, I prefer the element of surprise to the cliché of the Gunfight at the Hollywood Movie Corral. Things go much faster and much smoother when you can sneak up on somebody and take them out before they can say,
“Holy crap! How’d I get unconscious?”

“Now,” I tell Tully.

I loop around the back end of the SUV while Tully stands and aims the shotgun over the hood and fires. The tube is my own design, first built when I was thirteen, honed in range and capability through years of tinkering since then.

Think of it as a potato gun—with ‘splosions.

The fireworks-like explosives inside the tube launch, bursting upon impact in colorful patterns of flame and heat twenty feet to the right of Turnbill and her cohorts. This causes them to jump, scream, and—I hope—piss themselves from crotch to pinky toe.

That gives me time to come up on everyone from behind. I take out the egg-shaped guy with a skull-crunching blow to the temple, courtesy of the brass knuckles from my bag. Humpty Dumpty drops like a sack of potatoes while I spin and drop, punching Matchstick Man in the back of his knee. His leg kicks out and he leans back, off balance. As he falls, I rise and follow through with my other hand—the one holding the stun gun—and electrocute him in his gut.

Actually, that’s a lie. I aim for his gut, but he moves all funny and I’m kind of tired. So technically, I electrocute his nuts.

Mea culpa
, dude. Walk it off.

Turnbill has backed away in horror, her face a pale white slicked with beads of glistening sweat I’d love to lick with my tongue like ice cream from a hot, sweaty, naked cone.

Oh wow. Where did that come from? That was uncalled for and I apologize profusely. I may be what scholars and experts politely refer as a
horndog
, but that’s no excuse. It’s the adrenaline, I swear.

Seriously, fuck off. It’s not like I walk around with one hand on my constant erection.

Turnbill moves faster than I anticipated, reaching into her handbag and removing a snub-nosed revolver. My guess is it’s the gun she used to finish off Sandecker. She’s far enough away that I can’t rush her before she shoots me, but Tully is still out there somewhere, so at least I have one ace in the hole.

Speak of the devil. Tully pops up over the hood enough for me to know she’s still there, while staying in Turnbill’s blind spot. Using a complex series of hand movements, she’s either telling me that I should distract Turnbill, or that she’s joining a circus after saving a shit-ton of money by switching car insurance policies.

Seriously, I haven’t the slight clue what Tully’s attempting to signal. Partially because I’m keeping my gaze straight on Turnbill and her gun, but mostly because Tully doesn’t know what the fuck she’s doing.

She stands up, and I work the brass knuckles off and palm them. Turnbill notices and brings the gun up.

“What are you doing?” she barks. There a hardness in both her eyes and her tone, and I suddenly realize I’m standing not on tarmac, but on thin fucking ice.

“They chafe,” I tell her. “I have sensitive skin.”

For all intents and purposes, Tully does not exist in this dojo. If I give her away, Turnbill will shoot her without hesitation, and then me. Neither of those are acceptable.

And for the record—my skin is prone to dryness, so I wasn’t technically being a smartass. Just FYI.

“Throw them away,” Turnbill orders.

Believe it or not, throwing them is already part of the plan.

Tully bolts from her hiding spot, charging up on Turnbill’s left. The second she makes noise, Turnbill pivots on a sensible heel to shoot—and that’s when I throw the brass knuckles. I’m aiming for the side of Turnbill’s face, but my timing’s off and I can’t get a full major-league baseball pitch behind the throw. Instead, they sail past her nose with a foot or three to spare.

But it’s enough.

The gunshot is loud, even over the rumble of the plane overhead. It misses Tully by a country mile, and my heart pounds out three Hail Marys when she closes the distance before Turnbill can get another shot off. She knocks Turnbill’s gun hand away, then punches her in the stomach. Turnbill coughs and steps forward, seemingly to shoot, so I take three quick steps forward as if my fucking aura has enough kung fu to save the day.

Instead of firing, Turnbill T-bone’s the side of the gun hard into my friend’s face before swinging it back around to me. I stop dead, so to speak, watching Tully crumple to the ground in one smooth motion.

And my ace just got trumped. Beautimous.

Tully’s out cold, which isn’t good. But she’s breathing, and that’s all that matters. I’ve never killed anyone before, but you best believe I’ll end a bitch for murdering the only person I care about in this fucking world. At that point, what else is there to live for?

Some might say the Cubs winning the Series; others might say one more sunrise.