Blind dates can be murde.., p.27
Blind Dates Can Be Murder, page 27
“It’s very different. I like it. A lot. We won’t know the true color till it’s dry, of course, but I think it’ll be gorgeous.”
She reached for a blow-dryer, but Lettie interrupted her before she turned it on.
“I want you to cut it first,” Lettie said. “Real short. Like, to the top of my neck.”
Marie shook her head.
“I don’t know anything about that. You’d look like a hatchet job. Listen, if you can’t afford a nice salon, you could at least try one of those walk-in places over by the discount store. I think haircuts are all of twelve dollars.”
“I want it cut now,” Lettie said. “If you won’t do it, I will. I know how. Do you have any scissors?”
Marie swallowed hard.
“It’s no big deal,” Lettie added. “I’ve been cutting my own hair my whole life.”
Marie seemed almost saddened by that fact. “I tell you what,” she replied. “I have a friend, Lola, who lives in the next building over. She’s a hairdresser. Why don’t I give her a call and see if she could come over and do it?”
“It’s like ten thirty, isn’t it?”
“She’s a night owl. Ten thirty’s nothing to her.”
Without any further discussion on the subject, Marie left the room and went to the kitchen phone. Lettie could hear her talking in the distance, so she seized the opportunity to case the bedroom.
It wasn’t hard.
At the dresser, the top left drawer was slightly open, and inside Lettie could see a brown manila envelope. She had a feeling that would be the cookie money.
Marie’s voice faded, and Lettie tiptoed closer to the doorway to listen, to make sure she was still talking.
“…so sweet, bless her heart, and I have a feeling she hasn’t got a penny to her name…”
So Marie was pitching her as a charity case? Didn’t matter. As long as she got what she needed, she’d be all right. Steeling her nerve, Lettie slid open Marie’s drawer and used a finger to lift the end of the envelope. She couldn’t tell how much was there, but she definitely saw the green of dollar bills.
Quickly, she pushed the drawer back the way she found it and returned to her seat in the bathroom.
“You didn’t peek, did you?” Marie asked, bustling in.
Lettie thought for a moment she was talking about the money, but then she realized that Marie meant the mirror.
“Nope,” Lettie replied honestly. “I haven’t seen a thing.”
The chief’s house was dated but cozy, with roses on the wallpaper and a large shiny grandfather clock in the corner. He had a big dog pen in the backyard, so Chewie was content to run around out there, rolling in all of the smells.
While Jo sat at the kitchen table and pulled all of the addresses from her Rolodex that were also in her address book, the chief spoke at length on the phone with the director of the bomb unit. They seemed to be mapping out a plan, and Jo was glad she had come. It had been the right decision.
“Jo, I wasn’t in your address book, was I?” the chief paused to ask her, one hand over the receiver.
“No, sir. Just the phone number for the station.”
“All right,” he said into the phone. “We’ll make my house the home base. Send your men in unmarked cars.”
He spoke for a while longer, and by the time he got off the phone and joined Jo at the table, his expression was grim. He explained to her the plan, which boiled down to a two-part operation. They would attempt to identify the target and seize and detonate the explosives. If that wasn’t possible, they would have to proceed with their second choice: Jo would have to receive the phone call and go through with an exchange, after which the man would be arrested.
“But what can I give him? I don’t have a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills—or whatever he thinks it’s supposed to be.”
“They’ll provide something. Hopefully, we won’t have to take it that far.”
Jo looked down at the stack of Rolodex cards.
“What are we going to do, Chief? I’ve got to make some phone calls. There are some people I have no choice but to warn.”
Chief Cooper shook his head slowly.
“That’s up to you, Jo, but it may backfire. I say you should only contact those people who would know how to get out of their homes without being obvious. Otherwise, he might be lying in wait with a detonator and take them out just as soon as they open their door.”
Jo closed her eyes as images of her friends, relatives, loved ones, and acquaintances flashed through her mind.
“We can apply some logic here,” the chief said. “He’d probably start by choosing someone named Tulip, hoping to hit a relative.”
“That’d be my mom and dad in New York—”
“Anyone local named Tulip?”
“I’m the only one.”
“Okay, then he’d probably branch out from there to the names of women who live alone. That’d be a lot easier than trying to get around a husband and wife and kids. Any single gals in there?”
“What do you think, Chief? That’s probably half the names.”
“Okay, after that, he’d look for homes that are a bit isolated, maybe hidden from view by overgrown shrubbery and trees.”
“How do we know it’s a home? Couldn’t it be a car?”
“What were his exact words again?”
“He said, ‘Right now, someone in this book, someone you love, is living on top of twenty pounds of Semtex and doesn’t even know it.’ Living on top of. Yeah, that sounds like a house.”
“Most likely, a house with a crawlspace,” the chief added.
“That still leaves a lot of people.”
“At least the bomb unit guys know how to search out potential targets. I assume they’ll narrow down your stack there and then go out and do some recon. They may find this guy’s little gift package before sunrise.”
Jo wasn’t very optimistic. There were a lot of names there.
“There are a few people I simply have to call,” Jo said.
Sighing tiredly, the chief handed her the phone. Jo dialed Danny first. It was late, but Jo could hear a television in the background.
“Danny, I have to talk to you,” she said quickly.
“Hold on,” he told her and then the background noise went silent. “Jo, listen, about earlier—”
“There’s no time to talk about that now. We have an emergency, Danny. I have to tell you something, and I want you to listen very carefully.”
26
Jo left it to Danny whether he would tell his sisters and their husbands or not, since they were all in her address book. She explained the potential danger, but of course Danny thought they’d be safer knowing than not knowing. He actually seemed more upset about Jo having been accosted and tied up by a stranger than he was about being a potential bombing target. He made her promise that she wouldn’t be alone again until this was over and that she wouldn’t go back into her house unless the police were with her. He said his family would probably all get out of their homes and reconvene at his aunt and uncle’s house, which was plenty big and located about ten miles out of town.
After hanging up with Danny, Jo called her friend Anna, who was levelheaded and would evacuate appropriately to her parents’ house; then her pastor and his wife, who lived in the parsonage near the church. They said they could stay with their son. Fortunately, Jo didn’t need to call Marie, since she had recently moved into an apartment and Jo was waiting for the change-of-address card before she updated her listing.
By the time she had finished going through the pile and calling everyone who she felt could handle the news, the director of the bomb squad had arrived.
The next thirty minutes passed by in a blur. There were men in special suits, lots of questions, and a map of Mulberry Glen spread out over the kitchen table. Jo helped to pinpoint each of the addresses, and once that was finished, they told her that if she had a place to stay she should get some sleep, that there was nothing else for her to do. She would have protested, but just the idea of a soft bed and a pillow was nearly overwhelming. She was exhausted.
After she had decided to go to Marie’s, the chief kindly offered to let Chewie stay at his house.
“I’ve got some old cans of dog food around and a big water bowl and all of that,” he said. “He’ll be fine. My dad can even come over and take care of him tomorrow, if necessary.”
Jo promised to be back at the chief’s by eight, and the chief promised to call her on her cell phone if anything of consequence happened before that. She dialed Marie’s number as she was pulling out of the driveway, but the line was busy. She hung up and kept going.
At 11:10 on a Monday night, the streets were dark and deserted. Jo kept checking her rearview mirror, but no one was following her. Finally, she relaxed just a little and focused her attention on the road in front of her.
As she drove, she thought of the mess she was in, and of the parents who should have been there for her and were not. If she were to call home, Jo knew, her mother would express a passing interest, heave a heavy sigh, and then change the subject.
Sometimes Jo felt so small, so insignificant, so alone.
Then she thought of the “family” she had made in Mulberry Glen, of Danny and Marie and her church friends and her girlfriends, and she knew that she had more love in her life than some folks ever did. She also had a God who filled those empty spots and soothed those aching places. His love was more than enough to make up for every other shortfall she encountered.
“Jesus, I sure need You now,” she prayed aloud as she drove. “I’m in a mess, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
She continued to pray as she drove, asking for wisdom and peace and energy and resourcefulness and answers.
Above all else, she needed answers.
By the time she finished her prayer, she was pulling into the well-lit parking lot of Marie’s apartment. She would have just walked up and knocked on the door, but she didn’t want to scare Marie by showing up so late. Instead, as she climbed from the car she pressed redial, and this time the line wasn’t busy.
“Hello?” Marie said, sounding wide awake.
“Hey, it’s Jo. I’m in your parking lot. Can I come up?”
“Of course. Are you okay?”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on when I get there.”
Jo disconnected the call and then walked into the building, her mind swirling but her heart, at least, at peace.
Lettie closed the door to the bedroom and, just for good measure, locked it. Lola and Marie were out in the living room, waiting for the grand unveiling. Lettie’s hair was finished, her makeup had gotten its final touches, and all that remained was for her to change into the outfit that Marie had laid out for her. Though Marie and Lola had both been wearing big smiles for the last fifteen minutes, Lettie had not yet looked in the mirror. At this point, she was actually getting curious.
But first things first. Silently, she padded to the dresser and opened the drawer. Sure enough, the envelope was filled with a lot of cash—mostly ones, but plenty of tens and twenties as well.
She had to know how much was there. Quickly, she pulled out the bills and counted them, amazed to find six hundred and twenty four dollars. Her hunch had been correct. The cookie sales were going to save her!
Lettie rolled up the bills into a wad and shoved them in the bottom of her purse. Then she put the envelope back in the drawer and slid it shut. She didn’t even want to picture Marie’s face when she realized what had happened. The moment would be heartbreaking, for sure.
Quickly, Lettie turned her attention to the clothes on the bed. Pulling on the slacks and then the top, she realized that it was, indeed, loose through the chest, but otherwise very comfortable. Once she had adjusted the waistline and smoothed out the sleeves, she stepped over to the full-length mirror in the corner, closed her eyes, tilted up her head, and looked.
At first, she simply stared.
Who was that girl in the mirror?
She was a sassy-looking redhead, with a short, smart hairstyle, shiny lips and big, beautiful eyes. Her skin was pale, but with the dark eyes and lips, the effect was like a China doll. The outfit was incredibly flattering too. With creased pants and a tailored shirt, she looked like a grown-up—an elegant, professional grown-up.
Lettie took a step back and turned, trying to understand why she’d never bothered to fix herself up before. She wasn’t ugly. She wasn’t plain.
She was beautiful, on the outside at least.
On the inside, she knew, it was a different story.
How ironic that the moment she looked her very best was also the moment she felt her very worst. What had she become? Was the woman in the mirror really her? How about the woman who lied and cheated and stole money from a kind person who was only trying to be her friend? Did the end justify the means?
She didn’t know what to think. As her thoughts tumbled, she told herself she just needed to be done with this, she just needed to show off the new look, change back into her clothes, and hit the road. It was a three-hour drive to the Philly airport, and then she’d be on her way. She would find Melissa. Together, they would begin again.
Surely, that was worth whatever it took to get there.
Jo knocked on Marie’s door. As it swung open, she was surprised to see not Marie, but Lola.
“Hey,” Jo said. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
Lola swept her into the room and launched into an elaborate tale about the fabulous makeover they had just done and now they were waiting for the unveiling. Marie was in the kitchen, and she came out with a pitcher of diet lemonade and four paper cups.
“You can tell me why you’re here in a minute,” Marie said. “Right now, we’re about to toast the new beauty. Lettie, are you coming out?”
After a pause, the bedroom door opened and a woman stepped out. Shyly, she walked into the living room, where she was met with squeals of delight. Jo thought this was the same girl she had briefly met after church on Sunday morning—but what a transformation! Before, she had been completely plain, with big glasses and stringy hair and a dowdy outfit. Now, however, she was adorable, all big eyes and neat hair and a surprisingly cute figure. Who’d have known that she had all of this potential? Her makeover was even more drastic than Danny’s had been.
The girl seemed pleased but embarrassed by all of the attention, and Jo didn’t blame her. It had to be a little disconcerting to go from dud to bombshell in one fell swoop. Finally, Marie passed out the cups and poured the lemonade and made a toast to the new and improved Lettie.
“Hear, hear!” Lola said, downing her drink. “Now I’ve got to run. George is waiting up for me.”
After Lettie and Marie thanked her effusively for the haircut, Lola waved their words away and made her exit, pulling the door shut behind her.
“I’ll change back to my clothes and then be on my way too,” Lettie said.
“There’s no rush,” Marie told her. “In fact, I hung two other outfits on the closet door in case you want to try them on. I thought they’d show a better range of what can work for you.”
“Um, okay.”
Lettie padded down the hall to the bedroom and shut the door.
“So what’s up?” Marie asked.
Jo gestured toward the seating area, where they both got comfortable.
“You’re not going to believe it when I tell you,” Jo said, shaking her head. “It started when I stopped by my house to drop off Chewie earlier tonight.”
Lettie didn’t want to try on the other outfits, but she thought it might look suspicious if she didn’t. Quickly, she donned the first one, a pink dress that fit nicely but that didn’t work well with the new hair color. Still, she knew Marie would want to see it. She came out of the bedroom and walked down the hall.
“Semtex,” Jo was saying softly. “It’s a form of plastic explosives.”
“And they really think this nut has planted a bomb somewhere in town?” Marie asked, her face white.
Lettie’s heart skipped a beat. Semtex was the product Chuck had used for the explosion that sent him to prison.
“W-what’s going on?” Lettie asked.
Both girls seemed startled by her presence, as if they had been so wrapped up in Jo’s tale that they had forgotten she was there.
“It’s a long story,” Jo said, glancing at Marie. She seemed to consider whether to bring Lettie into the loop as well. Finally, she spoke. “I was threatened tonight by a man who said he had put a bomb inside the home of someone I know.”
“Why?” Lettie whispered.
“Because he thinks I have some money that I don’t have. It’s all a big mess, but we only have until noon tomorrow to figure out what’s going on.”
Jo repeated the entire story in detail. As she spoke, Lettie knew there was no question; the man with the bomb was Chuck. He was trying to get Frankie’s money.
In a daze, Lettie excused herself and returned to the bedroom. When she had urged Chuck to find the money so she would get back together with him, she had never expected him to do something like this! Now Chuck would be back in prison and someone was going to be killed—all because of her lie.
Standing in front of the mirror, Lettie forced herself to look into her own eyes. She may be beautiful, but she had become a monster.
Blindly, she pulled on her own dress, ready to run away and never come back. She was putting on her shoes when the phone rang from her purse. She answered it, knowing it was Chuck.
“What?” she said softly.
“Looks like it’s gonna happen,” he slurred. No surprise that he was as high as a kite.
“What’s gonna happen?”
“I’m gonna get the money and get you back. You better get ready, Lettie. Hey, that rhymes. Ready, Lettie.”
“What have you done?” she whispered, not needing the answer. She already knew the answer.
“I’m taking care of business,” he slurred. “But after this is all over and we’re back together, you know you gotta be punished. You’ve been very, very bad, Lettie. You hurt me. You will pay for this.”
