Turkey Ranch Road Rage (25 page)

I raised my head slowly and looked at him. “Oh, I was asleep alright.”

“Jolene…”

“You could’ve called back, Jerry.” Fears, tears and anger formed a big ball in my throat. “Or come over when you got finished.” Oh, the doubts and insecurities, fueled by fear, sleep deprivation and a couple of near-death experiences pushed me right over the edge. “I was kidnapped, Jerry. They taped me up like a bag of trash and gassed me. Twice. I somehow manage to live through that only to get to stare death in the face again from my half-blind mother driving a hundred miles an hour in the dark with a lunatic chasing us. And you didn’t even check on me!”

Lucille slammed her hand on the table. “I most certainly am not blind, Missy! Half or otherwise. I got you here alive, didn’t I? Didn’t I? If that lunatic had caught us it would have been your fault, not mine. If you’d let me have the gun I would have got him stopped on the first try. And you very well know that my car only goes ninety-seven.”

“Jolene…”

Lieutenant Daniel Perez pulled off his glasses, tossed them on the table and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s start over. And this time, could I get the version that doesn’t sound like Mister Magoo starring in The Dukes of Hazard.”

“I’ll explain later, okay?” Jerry said, squeezing my leg under the table.

No, it really wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. I was close to cracking and Jerry knew it. He squeezed one more time then lifted his arm and slipped it around my shoulders, pulling me over toward him. I scooted my chair closer to him and relaxed a little.

Jerry started telling Perez the basics of why I was in Texas in the first place. Mother and I jumped in when necessary, and by the time we were through explaining about the RV park, the weasel Saide, the quartet from AAC, SPASI and, of course, my daughter the undercover mole, Lieutenant Daniel Perez’s was just sort of staring, shaking his head from side-to-side. I feared we hadn’t cleared things up for him as he’d hoped.

After a few heavy sighs and an exasperated ruffling of his hair, he said, “Jerry, I’ve known you for what, seven, eight years? I’ve always found you to be a good man, a fine officer and strictly by the book.” He glanced at me then back at the sheriff. “What the hell’s happened to you?”

Lucille jumped up from her chair, slapped her hand on the table yet again and leaned forward to waggle a long purple nail at the detective. “Don’t you be badmouthing Jerry Don or blaming my Jolene for anything. Why, Jerry Don Parker’s the finest law officer in the entire county, maybe even the whole state. He hasn’t done one thing wrong and neither have we. He always does the right thing, which is why we’re all here right now, doing the right thing and all. Why, he’s even had to arrest me twice, bless his heart. Locked me right up in the jailhouse like a common criminal, even though he just hated doing it. He had to, of course, because I’d broken the law. I had to do what I had to do, of course, and he did what he had to do, and you better be apologizing to him right this min—” She snapped around toward Jerry, realization widening her eyes. “Oh, my Lord. You knew it was Sarah all along, not just right now, didn’t you? You knew on Monday at the courthouse, and this morning at Bob’s place. Why…why…you….”

“Little slow on the uptake there, Mother,” I muttered then realized she wasn’t the only one riding the short bus. “Wait a minute!” The courthouse? Sarah had come in on Sunday so it seems like I knew she was supposed to be at the rally, but… No, surely not. “She was at the rally, but surely not… My mouth fell open and I glared at my mother. “You put your own granddaughter in a cage!”

“She wasn’t really naked, Jolene, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was a body suit. Agnes got it, painted it all up and made the foam horns and tail and such. It was real cute.”

I looked between my mother and Jerry. “I expect this sort of thing from her, but not you. This isn’t like you, Jerry.”

“No, it isn’t and I am very sorry I got myself into it. I knew exactly why Sarah was in town and I should have told you. Big mistake.” He turned to stare directly at Lucille. “Won’t happen again. Ever.”

Lucille’s eyes darted from Jerry to me, back to Jerry, and then, in a flash she flipped her switch from “butter him up” to “rip him to shreds.” “Now that is just plain dishonest, Mister. You let me go on thinking you didn’t know anything at all about Sarah when you very well knew she was my granddaughter. Just let me go on having to act like we didn’t know each other to keep up appearances. Why, the very nerve. I know your mamma taught you better than to lie to your elders. Why, leading us all on like that is just a plain outrage. It’s a crime!”

“Lucille,” Jerry said, although he’d never called her by her first name that I could remember. “Did you actually hear what you just said?”

Her eyes darted this way and that, indicating that it was perhaps sinking in. “I know what I said. And I meant it.” More eye darting and a little scowling. “You better just be truthful with my Jolene, that’s all I’ve got to say. You go lying to her and you’ll have to answer to me. I won’t have it, I tell you. She deserves better.”

It wasn’t a great effort, but considering the time of day, the circumstances and the exhaustion I knew I felt, I’d give her a B+ on it. She hadn’t exactly saved face but she never admitted anything either. Admit nothing, deny everything and counterattack. It’s an art form with her. She just wears you down so that you’d rather hit yourself in the head with a hammer than ask her another question and then have to listen to whatever lies she makes up.

“I can’t take any more of this.” I looked at Jerry. “I’m mad at you, but I don’t have the energy to get the full list on why and I do not want to deal with it right now. I will, but not now.”

“It’s not as bad as you think,” he said. “It’s going to be okay, Jo, it really is.”

He did not say “trust me,” which was smart on his part because I would have probably come completely unhinged. “I want a bath.”

Perez looked at Jerry with what could only be called pity. “I’ll send somebody out to the Jackson house, but they can’t go back there until we have our people go through it.”

Meaning they didn’t want to deal with us anymore tonight. “Sounds good to me. I’ll be at the Hilton. Mother can go with me. Separate rooms. Hers needs a padlock.”

“Actually…” Jerry nodded to Lucille. “Deputy Harper is waiting outside for you.”

“Well, you can just forget that,” Lucille snapped. “I’m not going anywhere with that tobacco spitting fool Larry Harper. If that boy had a brain he’d have it out playing with it. And I’m not going with Leroy either, even if he does take good pictures. I’m not going anywhere with either one of them and that is final.”

“Fritz is waiting in the car,” Jerry said, much more calmly than I would have. “He’s offered to take you back to his house until we have the situation under control. It’s up to you, of course. I believe there’s a free semi-private cell here.”

Lucille’s eyes narrowed in fury then lit up like big hazel sparklers. “Fritz is out there waiting? For me? Now, isn’t that just the sweetest thing you ever heard of? He’s just so thoughtful and he is just crazy about me.” She fairly purred. “And if Fritz thinks it’s best that I go with him then I suppose I’d better, him being a deputy and all. He just takes such good care of me.”

Sheriff Parker didn’t roll his eyes, but he sure looked like he wanted to. “He’s parked right outside the front door where you came in. He’s in your car. His personal car, a dark blue Chevy sedan, was hit by something from another car a few hours ago when he was driving from Kickapoo to Redwater. He drove the car on in, but the headlight is out. It could have other damage as well so he’d prefer not to drive it until he checks that out.”

Oh, God. “Fritz?” I croaked.

Jerry nodded.

Oh, this was just dandy. Our hundred-mile-an-hour race for our lives down a dark two-lane road with a half-blind geriatric behind the wheel was not to escape a deranged killer, but to elude mother’s deputy sheriff boyfriend. Oh, how I wished he were kidding. “We were running from Fritz, really?”

“He wasn’t hurt.” Jerry shot me a sideways glance. “We were all lucky on that one.”

Yeah, damned lucky. I turned toward my mother. “You’d just been out with the man not five minutes before and he’d been driving that very same car,” I said, my voice escalating in pitch and decibel level. “Didn’t it ring a bell?”

Lucille squirmed in her seat, but Jerry answered for her. “Fritz said he generally sees Lucille safely inside, but Jolene was there, so he just walked her to the door. Since it was so late, he parked down the street to wait until she turned off all the lights, just to be sure everything was okay.”

“Oh,” Lucille sighed, putting a hand to her chest. “Wasn’t that sweet of him?”

Oh, this was far from sweet. “So when we came screeching past him like the Hounds of Hell were on our tail, he rightly assumed that something was wrong and followed.” I groaned and rubbed my hands across my forehead for another countless time. “We could have killed him.”

“I doubt that. It’s a thousand wonders you even hit a headlight,” Lucille said, completely ignoring the real issue. “Obviously she’s not much of a shot or she’d have at least hit the radiator, and with a laser sight even,” she said as if I weren’t even in the room. “Of course, I was outrunning him so it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Jolene gets scared though.” Lucille batted her eyelids and sighed dreamily. “But wasn’t that just the sweetest thing? Fritz kept right up with us, even with Jolene shooting at him. He’s just crazy about me.”

I sputtered and stuttered, but Jerry gave me a “don’t bother” look. Oh, I was going to bother. “Mother—”

“Fritz is just glad you’re all right, Miz Jackson,” Jerry said, interrupting what could have been a long and lovely rebuttal. Then to the detective, “I think we’ve done about all we can do here.” And had all any of us could take. “I’ll walk Lucille out to the car then I’ll take Jolene over to the hotel.”

Daniel Perez nodded, grabbed his glasses and papers, and stood. His gaze went from me to my mother and back to me. He held up his hand with his index finger and thumb about a half inch apart. “I came this close to winning that pot. If you two had just waited three more days, I would’ve had myself a nice down payment on a new Harley, been out on paid leave and some other poor slob would be in my shoes right now wishing he wasn’t.” He paused for what he seemed to think was dramatic effect. After his dreams rode off into the sunset, he nodded to Jerry. “Wouldn’t trade places with you, Sheriff, for all the tea in China.”

Yes, I gave him a dirty look, but I kept my mouth shut. Because, unfortunately, he had a point.

Chapter
Sixteen

It was somewhere between three and four in the morning, I think, when I flopped onto the bed in the hotel room. Jerry had gotten me a toothbrush, toothpaste and other essentials when we checked in—and I’d already availed myself of them—and I was not long for the conscious world.

“You know,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling off his boots. “We can’t keep counting on your mother to get into trouble so we can see each other.”

“There are other ways?” It didn’t have my usual sarcastic inflection because I really was tired, but he smiled anyway.

He pulled off his shirt and undershirt and tossed them aside. “Clayton was nice, but not nearly long enough.”

Okay, I might have neglected to mention that Jerry and I had snuck away for a weekend last month and met in Clayton, New Mexico, which is about halfway. And no, we did not go there to see the dinosaur tracks or have our pictures made with the plaster dinosaurs that alert you to the ancient nature of the area. It was better than not seeing each other at all, but it had really just made us realize that our long distance romance wasn’t going to cut it for much longer.

When he’d finished undressing, he stretched out beside me and pulled me to him. “You’ve been awfully cavalier about everything that happened. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I snuggled my face against his shoulder. “I have never been so scared in my entire life. It was worse than facing a gun and being shot, Jerry, and I’ve been shot.”

He stroked my hair. “I know.”

Hot tears welled up in my eyes. “They tied me up. I couldn’t do anything. Nothing.”

He kissed the top of my head and hugged me closer.

I was a single sob away from breaking down completely, but the more I thought over the events, the more my mind began to shift my emotions into anger. “They could have done anything they wanted to me, Jerry. Rape, torture, murder, all of the above and there was not one damn thing I could do about it. Not one. I couldn’t even spit in their faces. They didn’t rape me, I know that for sure, but I just bet the stinky one copped a feel or two, the slimy bastard. He slung me around like I was a sack of...” I felt myself shaking. “And you know what pisses me off the most? I think they were after my mother. My mother, for godsakes. What they did to me would have killed her!”

He hugged me again and rubbed his hands up over me as if trying to warm me up or maybe build a cocoon around me. “It’s okay now. You’re safe.”

“Well, they’re not. When I find the sorry bastards who did this, I’m going to kill them. You need to know that, Jerry. They are dead men. Dead. And I don’t need the gun you bought me to get the job done. That would be entirely too easy.”

He pressed tiny kisses to the top of my head again. “The police will find them, Jo. You’re okay now.”