Sleuthing at Sweet Springs (The Sleuth Sisters Mysteries Book 4) (21 page)

“My job?” Gager interrupted, raising his voice. “You call pouring drinks and cleaning up vomit in the bathrooms a job?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You should be in law enforcement.” Her tone was disdainful. “You got all jacked out of shape because Neuencamp didn’t pick you for the good guys’ team. It was kind of fun giving him a hard time, but now we have to stop. How hard is that to figure out?”

“You don’t get it. Everything you do on the internet leaves a mark, and with the resources the FBI’s got, they’ll find me.” He paused, apparently aware his problems didn’t move her. “The same with phone calls. They’ve probably got your voice stored digitally. If they dig into who I’ve been with, they’ll get to you sooner or later.”

“Oh.” Disdain left her voice. “What do we do?”

“I told you. I go someplace else.”

“What about me?”

“You can come if you want.”

She thought about that. “My mom’s here, and all my friends.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t care much one way or the other.

“Sir, could you step out of the car, please?”

Three of the four of us made noises of surprise. April let out a little squeak, Gager said the word you’d expect a sleaze like him to say in such a situation, and I gasped like a landed flounder. Listening closely, I hadn’t seen Lars leave his hiding place and approach the driver’s side window.

Without giving Gager time to think about what to do next Lars ordered, “Step out of the car, now.”

Gager started to obey, moving slowly as if petrified with fear. I stood, craning my neck to see what was happening at the front of the car. Lars unlatched the door and took a step back. Gager put one foot on the ground, still moving in extreme slo-mo. When the dome light came on, I saw something under the steering column that didn’t belong there. Gager’s right hand moved toward it.

“Gun, Lars!”

As I spoke, Gager pulled the pistol out of its holster, at the same time pushing the car door toward Lars in an attempt to knock him off balance. Raising the pistol with his right hand, Gager tried to launch himself out of the car.

In one smooth movement, Lars reached in and took the gun as easily as if he were relieving a toddler of a lollipop. At the same time, he smashed the car door onto Gager’s leg, making him roar with pain. Before I was quite sure what had happened, Lars held the gun loosely in one hand as Gager groaned, “My leg! My leg!”

“Amateurs want to go around armed,” Lars said calmly, “but they don’t put in the work it takes to learn how to handle guns.”

April had started crying the moment she saw the pistol, but I put a hand on her arm. “Shut up,” I ordered. “You’re in a lot of trouble, so do what Agent Johannsen says.”

In order to avoid residents who might have heard the noise we’d made, Lars ordered Gager and April to precede us to his rental car. If anyone in the apartments looked out a window, he’d merely have seen two couples crossing the parking area. When we reached the car, April and I took the back seat and Lars and Gager got in front.

It took a while to get the story out of them. There was a lot of blaming each other, but we got the basics. Gager blamed Rory for not giving him a job with the Allport PD. April had been angry with him since her arrest in August. They’d met through their jobs at the Ugly, discovered each other’s secret desire to punish the chief, and cooked up the scheme, believing they wouldn’t get caught because they’d been so clever about it.

“I can’t believe you’d do this, April,” I scolded.

“He treated me like I was fourteen,” she insisted. “He said really mean things to me with Cramer standing right there!”

“If you didn’t act like a child, maybe he wouldn’t have treated you like one,” I responded. Lars shot me a glance, indicating he’d handle the situation.

“Here’s what can happen,” he told Gager in a business-like tone. “I can arrest you for cyber-crimes and assaulting a federal officer with what’s probably an illegal weapon, along with whatever else I think of on the way to the police station. You’ll go to jail tonight, and I doubt you’ll see the outside of a cell for a decade or so.”

Gager started to protest, but Lars gave him a smack on the shoulder with the heel of his hand. “Listen to me, jerk-face! You can go to jail, like I said,
or
, you can leave Allport—in fact, leave the state of Michigan. I’m willing to give you one chance. Get a new start somewhere, and don’t break any laws.” He held the gun up, by the trigger guard. “No more toys. I intend to put your name into our national database. If you get anything worse than a parking ticket, you will suffer the full penalty for what you’ve done here
plus
whatever you’re guilty of somewhere else.”

“That ain’t right—” Gager began, but Lars interrupted.

“What’s not right, dirt-bag, is trying to ruin the name of a decent man who did nothing to you.”

Gager shut up then, which showed at least an iota of common sense.

As April listened to Gager’s choices, fear showed on her face. She was a pretty girl—woman—but her attractiveness was fading fast. Too many days of too much alcohol made her face look bloated. She looked hard-eyed and cold-hearted, the opposite of what an adult woman wants unless she’s the villainess in a Bond movie.

April’s gaze turned to me. She knew who I was, and I guessed she was trying to figure out how to turn the situation to her advantage.

The method she chose was laughable. “Aunt Retta—”

“Don’t go there,” I ordered. “You lost any respect I might have had for you the first time you ditched your husband to become the life of some drunken loser’s party.”

Her lip trembled, but I didn’t believe it for a minute. “What are we going to do with this one, Agent Johannsen?”

“Same deal, you think?”

Whimpering, April put out a pleading hand. “I’m not like Harold. I can’t spend my life moving from place to place.”

“No, just from man to man,” I commented.

“All right,” Lars said. “I’ll offer you a different deal. You stay in town, but you call the city offices and the state police post tomorrow and explain that this whole thing was a bad joke. Apologize and promise it will never happen again.”

As she thought about it, her jaw jutted stubbornly. Lars went on. “It’s time you grew up and stopped blaming other people for your problems.” He glanced at me, and I thought humor glinted in his eye, though it was too dark to tell. “Ms. Stilson here will let me know when you’ve done as ordered. When I hear from her, I’ll move your file to the FBI’s inactive section.”

“You can do that?”

“Ma’am, we’re the FBI. We do whatever we want.” Now there was definitely humor in the glance he shot at me, but his tone and that manly jaw of his were firm.

They agreed to Lars’ terms, Gager angrily, April with a flirty smile that said she hoped to make him like her a little. Without reacting to either, Lars dismissed them. April walked away from Gager as if she’d never met him, hurrying across the windy parking lot to her apartment. Gager started his noisy vehicle one more time and sped away with a defiant squeal of tires. When they were out of sight, I climbed out of the back seat and got in front. Putting the car into gear, Lars started for my house.

“Do you think they’ll do as you said?” I asked.

“Mostly, yeah,” he replied. “Gager will always be a small-time hood, so I will enter him in the database. Most geeks, your nephew, for example, hack because they can, not because they want to hurt anybody. The fact that Gager used the computer to attack Rory and his habit of carrying a gun make him more dangerous. If his name comes up again, we’ll know he’s a bad apple. As for the girl, we might have scared her straight, but as selfish as she is, it’s hard to predict how she’ll view herself in the morning.” He looked at me. “I guess you know her pretty well?”

I sighed. “Once upon a time, April was Cramer’s wife.”

When I told Lars their history, he whistled softly. “Why do decent men pick losers then keep making excuses for them?”

“It isn’t only men.” I chewed on my lip for a second. “I have to tell Cramer about this, and since I’m flying to Madison tomorrow, it has to be soon. She might call him with some made-up story.”

“He told me he’s a night owl. Why don’t you call now?”

I did as he suggested, though I dreaded doing it. As I waited for him to answer, Cramer’s remark about wishing he weren’t so good with computers came to mind. Maybe he’d suspected it was April all along.

The phone rang so early Monday morning I was surprised, and it was even more of a shock when I saw the caller I.D.

“Cramer, you’re up early—or is it the opposite?”

“I had some things on my mind, so I couldn’t sleep.”

“What’s up, hon?”

He told me the story of the night’s activities. Retta had acted quickly, but Lars’ presence was a golden opportunity to end the harassment Rory had been suffering. When Cramer said Retta wanted me to tell Barb the situation had been handled, I pictured her casually dropping it in at the end of their conversation. Retta knew Barb would be angry about her interference, so I got to be in the middle, as usual.

I had to hand it to her for solving the problem, though. “You’re sure Lars scared them into giving up?”

“Yeah, he did. Gager is leaving Allport completely.”

“That’s good. What about the woman?”

“That’s why I didn’t sleep last night. The woman is April.”

“Oh, no, honey. I’m so sorry.”

He blew out a breath, and my hand tightened on the phone in sympathy. “Aunt Retta thinks April will behave herself knowing the FBI is paying attention. She’s supposed to call the city offices today and apologize.”

“Anonymously, I assume.”

“Right. She thinks Lars and Retta are the only ones who know it was her. Retta thought I should know, and I—” He gave a dry chuckle. “—I wanted to talk it over with my mom.”

There wasn’t much I could say. Mothers cannot criticize spouses, even ex-spouses, without creating trouble. If we agree that a woman is worthless and cruel, our sons might conclude we think they’re poor judges of character. And too many times, the cleft in the relationship is mended at some point in the future. Then you’re the mom who said terrible things about the woman your son loves.

I said the only thing I could say, though it was repetitious. “I’m so sorry, hon.”

“The funny thing is that I knew—at least I sorta knew. When I was researching Gager and found out he worked at the Ugly Bar, I thought, ‘April works there.’ I didn’t let myself go on from there, at least consciously, but I think I knew right then.” His voice sounded strained as he went on. “You think you know the person you married, you know?”

Recalling Dale’s belief he’d ruined my chances at a good life, I said, “Sometimes you don’t, even after decades of marriage.”

“People always say I’m a nice guy.” Cramer made it sound like a curse. “That’s what some women look for, I guess, a nice guy with a steady paycheck—until they find one they like better.”

“If it helps, you aren’t the first man to be taken in by a pretty face, and you certainly won’t be the last.”

His answering murmur indicated intellectual understanding, but it had to be tough to comprehend with his heart. “I’ll feel better when she admits to everyone that the stuff they said about Chief Neuencamp isn’t true. I’d appreciate a call when you hear, so I know April did the right thing.”

“I’ll text you. Now go get some sleep.”

“Thanks, Mom—Oh, one more thing. Aunt Barb told me about the case you’re working on out at Sweet Springs.”

I wondered briefly where he’d seen Barb. Apparently Cramer had had more conversation with his aunts in the last few days than he’d had in a year.

“She mentioned that Stan Wozniak out at WOZ Industries might be involved, so I did a little checking. Someone out there has been emailing the Clear-Cold Water Company. I didn’t read the emails,” he said as if to reassure me. “I just looked at their sent list.” After a pause he added, “I can open them if you want me to.”

My mind was making connections all over the place. Someone at WOZ Industries could be Stan Wozniak, could be Enright Landon. One of them was trying to connect Sweet Springs with a bottler. And my son was snooping into WOZ emails, which was undoubtedly illegal. I sat down in my chair with a plop, trying to think.

After a moment I said, “We should do this the legal way if at all possible. Then what we uncover, if anything, can be used against whoever the criminals are out there.”

“I don’t get the whole water thing. Why’s the water at Sweet Springs so important?”

“I have a theory. Now that bottlers have sold most of America on bottled water, they’re taking the next step and marketing lines of “better” water. Spring water is supposed to be healthier, so they can charge more for it.”

“I see.” He didn’t see, but then Cramer had probably never paid for water in his life.

“You’ve been helpful, and Barb and I will get on this right away.” I wanted to add, “Don’t do it again,” but I bit my tongue.

“I tried to call Aunt Barb all day Saturday, but the phone kept going to voicemail. Then I tried you and Aunt Retta. Same thing.”

“We were in Canada, the three of us,” I told him.

“That’s cool. Was it a good trip?”

I wiped a film of perspiration off from my upper lip with a tissue. “It’s really too soon to tell.”

“I should have told Aunt Retta last night, but I kind of forgot about it when she called and said we were going to sting the people who were harassing the chief.” He’d begun to sound less stressed. I guess talking things over with your mom can be helpful, even if the things you tell her make her shiver. “It was kind of fun helping Agent Johannsen, even if—” He’d reminded himself of his ex-wife’s low standards.

“I’m sorry April did what she did, but she got what she deserved. It can’t be fun to face Lars Johannsen when you’re guilty and he knows it.”

Cramer’s sense of humor returned. “Don’t forget Aunt Retta. I bet she didn’t cut April any slack, either.”