No way out

Chapter Five

Roni was too weak to protest when I pulled the guns from her belt and helped her to another table. LC swabbed the floor where she had thrown up, handing me a damp dishrag to wipe the blood off her hands. He gave her a Seven Up to calm her stomach and gave me a carryout bag for the guns. His was a Bersa Thunder 380, and hers was a Beretta 8000 9-millimeter, both guns ideal for concealed carry and personal protection.

Her eyes were glassy, her movement slow, shock dulling her senses, staving off the whirlwind of emotions that sweep through people in the aftermath of violence. The coolness with which she’d confronted Frank was a good sign that she would be able to handle the replays that would haunt her sleep in an endless loop. Her color improved from green to pale as she watched Lucy tend to Frank. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow.

“Is he going to die?” she asked.

“Eventually,” Lucy said, “but not today.”

Roni nodded, saying “Bless the day,” and took a sip from her Seven Up, the fog lifting as she focused on me.

The internal pressure that erupts into my shakes and spasms burst loose, fibrillating my torso as my neck arched and stiffened, aiming my chin at the ceiling. I grunted like I’d been kicked in the gut, letting out a long breath when the spasm passed.

“What’s the matter with you?” Roni asked.

“I’ve got a movement disorder.”

She nodded, lips pursed, swirling her drink. “Ever wonder why you?”

“Why not me?”

She wiped her mouth and nodded. “I don’t know you well enough to say. You do that all the time?”

“Just enough to keep life interesting, especially when I get caught in the middle of a shoot-out. Who are they?” I asked, pointing at the floor.

“Frank and Marie Crenshaw.”

“Frank and Marie always get along that well?”

“Actually, they were real good together until the last year or so.”

“What happened?”

“The same thing that’s happened to a lot of people since the economy went south. Seems like everyone has either lost their job or their business or they go to sleep every night scared to death of getting out of bed in the morning because it might be their turn. I don’t think Frank has slept in a month.”

“What’s your relationship to them?”

She took a sip of her Seven Up, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes for a moment, opening them when she answered.

“We have a history.”

“What kind of history? Are you related to them?”

She sat up, studying me, her eyes narrow and cautious. “They’ve got a scrap business off of Independence Avenue in Sheffield. I keep their books.”

“So, you work for them.”

“Not like that. I’ve got my own business. Chase Bookkeeping. They’re one of my clients.”

“You don’t look the bookkeeper type.”

She smiled. “It’s really my mom’s business, but she had a stroke last year. I’d just gotten my accounting degree at Park University so I kind of took over. First thing I learned: when you’re the boss, no one can tell you what you’re supposed to look like.”

She fished in her purse for a business card and handed it to me.

“You also don’t look like the type who carries a gun and knows how to use it.”

“That was my Grandma Lilly’s rule. She said the women in our family had to know how to take care of ourselves.”

“Why?” I asked.

She gave me another smile, this one with her mouth closed. “You might say we’ve got a history too.”

“Grandma Lilly ever shoot anyone?”

“Not in a long time, but she says it’s never too late. She’s sixty-five and still goes to the shooting range.”

“I can’t wait to meet her. Where’s she live?”

“With me and my mother in Pendleton Heights.”

“Where’s that?”

She squinted, giving me a microscopic look as if I was from a foreign country. “It’s a neighborhood in the northeast part of town. West of Sheffield.”

I’d lived in Kansas City long enough to know the east side from the west, the Country Club Plaza from the mega malls and strip centers in Johnson County, and where the state line divided Missouri and Kansas. I knew that Northeast KC was bounded by The Paseo on the west, Interstate 435 on the east, Gladstone Boulevard to the north, and Truman Road to the south; that Independence Avenue ran east and west from downtown to the Interstate, bisecting Northeast into northern and southern hemispheres.

Though I didn’t know the names of its neighborhoods, I knew that Northeast had a history of mansions on Gladstone Boulevard, hookers on Independence Avenue, and gangs south of the Avenue. And I knew one other thing. It was where Peggy and Jimmy Martin and their two kids lived, a coincidence that shrunk my Sunday afternoon world to claustrophobic dimensions.

“It’s Sunday. What are you doing working?” I asked her.

“We had some things to go over. It was the only time we could meet.”

“What kind of things?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “What are you? A cop?”

“Retired. FBI.”

“If you’re retired, why are you asking me all these questions?”

“Old habits die hard. Frank killed Marie, and you shot Frank. Anybody would want to know why.”

“Like I said, I keep Frank’s books. His scrap business is underwater, too deep to keep the doors open. He’s known for a while, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Marie. He asked me to do it. Frank said she loves LC’s Bar-B-Q. He thought it would go down better if we did it here.”

She finished her Seven Up and turned in her chair to take another look at Frank. His color had gone from sheet white to gray, his breathing from shallow to feathery.

“You sure he’s not going to die?” she asked Lucy.

Lucy didn’t answer, craning her head, searching out the windows for an ambulance.

“The police will be here in a minute,” I said. “They’ll read you your rights. Bottom line, you don’t have to say a word until you’ve talked to a lawyer.”

“You saw what happened. Frank was going to kill the rest of us. He took a shot at me so I shot him back. It’s all pretty simple.”

I shook my head. “The police will ask you a lot of questions about who you are and what you were doing here, where you’ve been and where you were going. They’ll run all three of you through the computer to check for prior convictions and outstanding arrest warrants. They’ll want to see the permit for your gun if you have one, and they’ll want to know where you got it if you don’t. They’ll search your purse and Marie’s and Frank’s wallet and the car you were driving. They’ll want to know everything the three of you talked about since you got up this morning. And down the road, Frank’s lawyer will tell him that keeping him off death row may depend on how many people he can offer up in return for his life. So, trust me. Simple is the last thing this is going to be.”

A shiver ran through her, remnants of adrenaline or newborn fear. I couldn’t tell which it was, but the cloud that came over her eyes as she took another look at Frank said it was more likely fear. She hugged herself, her face rounding back into a normal hue.

“If you used to be an FBI agent, how come you’re trying to help me?”

I could have told her, but this wasn’t the time or place for my history. She smiled, the expression lighting her face and brightening her eyes, making her young again.

“I know why,” she said. “It’s because I saved your life. You and your wife.”

“She’s not my wife.”

She glanced at my left hand. “No ring. Girlfriend?”

“Friend.”

Three patrol cars skidded to a stop in the parking lot, a pair of ambulances trailing them, the restaurant filling with people in uniforms, ending our conversation. A paramedic took Lucy’s place with Frank. I handed one of the cops the bag with the guns and gave them a quick and dirty rundown, telling them who everyone was. They put each of us at separate tables, two of them keeping an eye on us while the other two secured the perimeter of the parking lot with yellow crime-scene tape.

Quincy Carter arrived in time to hold the door for the paramedics wheeling in gurneys for Frank and Marie. Carter was a homicide detective, tall and broad-shouldered; his black head shaved and glistening from the rain. He was a solid cop who knew the book well enough not to go by it all the time. One thing he didn’t like was people meddling in his cases, especially people that didn’t go by any book at all. People like Lucy and me.