Flo Charts Page 6

  “Why ever not?”

  “Think about it, Flo. Who could have gotten their hands on a random tank?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was stolen from Atterbury or something.” Camp Atterbury was a military and civilian training base under the auspices of the Indiana National Guard. Among other things, the base had a pretty impressive military museum that included a lot of tanks and aircraft displays.

  “We would have heard about that if it had happened.”

  “Maybe not.”

  Agnes slanted Flo a look. “Flo, the newspaper is so desperate for news they wrote about Sydney Felz’ rocket trough and a beat-up knife.”

  “You’re right. We would have heard.” She thought about it for a minute. “But why do you think the police might be involved?”

  “Because, every once in a while, you hear about the government selling local police departments military arms and equipment. They keep it on the down low as much as possible because it tends to make the natives twitchy when they realize their police are arming up with that kind of firepower.”

  Agnes was right. That was exactly what they did. “You think somebody at the police department stole that tank and sold it?”

  “I think it’s the only thing that makes sense right now.”

  “But what if the tank was purchased by a private citizen and Carey’s Truck ‘n’ Store was just delivering it?”

  “Then why the secrecy? Bickel didn’t seem to know anything about it and a tank’s a pretty big item to miss in your own warehouse.”

  “True.”

  “Plus, don’t you think it’s a pretty big coincidence that Betty was working on inventory and then ended up murdered?”

  Flo rubbed her head. “Okay, let’s assume this tank was waylaid from a delivery to the Silver City Police Department. How in the world do we figure out who might have been responsible for stealing it?”

  Agnes sat back in her chair, frowning. “That, I don’t know.”

  Flo nodded. “I think I do. We need to talk to Detective Peters.”

  Agnes started to argue but Flo held up a finger. “Agnes, we need to trust somebody and he’d know who in the department was responsible for accepting and signing off on the deliveries. Besides, he’s a detective. Detectives go out and detect. They don’t manage equipment acquisitions. He’s the safest option we have for getting to the bottom of this.”

  Agnes finally agreed. Though she was clearly not happy about it. So, Flo made the call.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Detective Peters stood at the window overlooking the parking lot at Silver City Regional Hospital. He’d been mostly silent during Flo and Agnes’ story about stolen goods and murder. He’d asked about why they thought Betty Marlowe had been murdered by the same person who’d possibly stolen that tank.

  Flo had told him what she should have told the police from the very beginning. “When we went to visit Betty, she said she’d brought some work home from the office. I noticed a folder on her bedside table at the time. But when we found her...later...that folder was gone and there were signs it had been taken.”

  “What signs?” he’d asked.

  “Well, for one thing there’d been a box of crackers on her nightstand. It was sitting on the manila folder of her work. When we found her, the crackers were on the floor and the box was crushed.”

  Peters frowned. “I understand she had seizures before she died. She probably knocked it off the table flailing around.”

  Flo grimaced at the visual his words created. “Yes. She knocked the crackers, her water glass, and possibly the folder to the ground. But the crackers were crushed as if the box had been stepped on. Betty never got out of bed. She couldn’t have crushed them.”

  “Which means only her killer could have done it,” Agnes added, just in case Peters didn’t get the gist of what Flo was telling him.

  He skimmed her a dark look. “Okay, I’ll admit you have a point. And there was no folder found at the scene.” Peters scrubbed at his square, bristled chin and turned away, staring out the window for several minutes. Flo could only assume he was trying to make sense of the whole thing.

  Finally, she got tired of waiting for him to speak. “Betty told us after she left the office the day Carey was killed someone ran her off the road.”

  He turned, his gaze narrowing. “She told you that someone deliberately ran her off the road?”

  “Not exactly, no. I think she said it was a careless driver. But she did end up crashing so the outcome is the same.”

  “Then, it could have been an accident like she assumed.”

  Flo lifted an eyebrow. “Come on, Detective. You don’t really believe in coincidences this big, do you?”

  Peters frowned. He crossed his arms over his chest. “The vehicle that struck you didn’t stick around. I’ll admit that fits with what you’re telling me.”

  “I hope you’re looking for that truck now?” Agnes asked angrily.

  Peters glared in her direction. “Amazingly, Miss Willard, I am capable of doing my job without your help.”

  Agnes shrugged.

  “Okay. I’ll admit some of this sounds strange. I’ll visit Carey’s Truck ‘n’ Store and see what I can find,” he told Flo.

  “And ask around about the tank at the police station?”

  Peters’ jaw tightened but he gave her a quick nod. “Take care of yourself, Mrs. Bee.”

  Flo didn’t like the sound of that. It was way too much like a dismissal. “You’re going to tell us what you find out, right?”

  He hesitated with his hand on the doorframe. “This is a police matter.”

  Flo bit back a surge of anger. “This is why we didn’t want to tell you, Detective. We knew you’d cut us out of it.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not a member of the Silver City Police, Mrs. Bee. You’re a private citizen. This is not something you should get mixed up in.”

  “And yet here I am. In a hospital bed. Attacked by the same person who killed Carey and Betty.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “On the contrary, Detective. I do know that. In fact, you’re the only one in this room who apparently doesn’t realize it.”

  Peters glanced at Agnes and she nodded. “She’s right. I believe she’s in danger. You owe her the courtesy of a response.”

  Peters threw up his hands. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I find out. But you’re to stay as far away from this as possible, ladies. You’ve already endangered yourselves and all the other cars on the street near you today.”

  Flo sputtered her rage as the cop strode from her room. “Like that crash was my fault?” She thumped her thighs with her fists. “Oh, that man!”

  Agnes took a step toward the door. “You want me to go pound on him for you?”

  Her suggestion was just outrageous enough to surprise Flo into laughing. “No. But thanks for the offer.”

  “Are you sure? I’m strong. I used to do competitive weight lifting.”

  Flo felt her eyes go wide. “Really? I’ve never met a female weight lifter before.” She frowned. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever met a weight lifter before, male or female. Tell me about it.”

  Agnes sat down in her uncomfortable chair and started regaling Flo with entertaining stories of her days as one of the first competitive female lifters in a male dominated sport. Flo was fascinated, and she soon forgot her anger at Detective Peters.

  In fact, she soon forgot everything and relaxed, eventually falling into a deep, restless asleep.

  She woke sometime later and, judging by the height of the sun beyond the window, realized she’d slept for a couple of hours. Agnes wasn’t in her chair and Flo hoped that meant her friend had finally headed home to get some real rest.

  Moving carefully, she raised the head of the bed and pushed herself into a more comfortable sitting position. There was a glass of water on the table beside the bed, alongside her cell phone.

  She was taking a long drink of the water
when her phone rang. Flo grabbed it up. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Bee?”

  “Yes. Detective. What did you find out?”

  “Well, I stopped by the warehouse and tried to speak to Mr. Bickel as you suggested.”

  “Tried?”

  “He wasn’t there. I called and stopped by his home too but there’s no sign of him.”

  Flo didn’t like the sound of that. “That’s strange?”

  “It gets stranger. While I was at Carey’s I decided to go take a look in the warehouse.”

  “Okay...”

  “I checked those numbers on the sheets you gave me against the items in the warehouse and found enough matches to make me think it’s just a regular old inventory list. There’s nothing unexpected on the list at all.”

  Flo frowned. “Well, that’s disappointing. Why do you suppose he hid it under the desk then? And what about the money?”

  “Who knows. People do strange things. But as far as I can see there’s nothing illegal going on here.”

  Silence pulsed between them for a moment before Flo realized what he was actually telling her. “But what about the tank?”

  “What tank? There was no tank in that warehouse, Mrs. Bee. Nothing except paper plates and deodorant.”

  ~SC~

  TC was sitting at the curb when they brought Flo down in a wheelchair the next day. She jumped out and hurried over to hold the door for the male nurse who helped her into the car.

  Flo turned around and patted the young man’s hand. “Thanks, hun. I hope your little girl’s feeling better soon.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bee. You feel better too.”

  TC closed the door and hurried around the car, slipping behind the wheel and looking at Flo. “Ready to go home?”

  “More than ready. Thanks for picking me up.”

  “My pleasure. I’m just glad you’re going to be okay. You scared us half to death. Poor Agnes has nearly been off her feed.”

  Flo laughed. “Not likely.”

  “No really, all she had for breakfast was a double order of pancakes, six strips of bacon and biscuits and gravy.” TC grinned broadly.

  “I see what you mean, she’s practically anorexic.”

  TC started the car and pulled away from the curb. Her efficient little economy car accelerated slowly and puttered toward the street. “Seriously though, she’s been a mess. She was sure somebody was trying to kill you.”

  “I don’t know why she thought it was only me. She was in the car too.”

  “She told me she figured you were more vulnerable...” TC bit her lip and Flo soon realized why as she gave up and broke into a grin. “She thinks you’re delicate.”

  Flo bristled. “Me? I’m only ten years older than she is. It’s not like I’m ninety.” Flo felt only mildly guilty for lying about her age. After all a woman was expected to lie about that.

  TC nodded. “She doesn’t know you like I do. Besides, she’s convinced she’s impervious to danger.”

  Flo started to shake her head, but a jolt of pain reminded her that wasn’t a good idea. She grimaced, reaching up to adjust the neck brace. “She might have a point right now. I’m not exactly feeling spry.”

  “Does your neck still hurt?”

  “A little. I’ll be glad to get this thing off.”

  TC nodded and they drove in silence for several moments. Finally, she turned to Flo. “You really think whoever murdered Betty tried to kill you and Agnes?”

  “I do.”

  “But why?”

  “Well, aside from the vast improbability of a coincidence as big as both Betty and I getting run off the road after visiting Carey’s...I don’t know. I just have this feeling.”

  “Agnes told me about the tank.”

  Flo frowned. “The detective says it’s gone. He doesn’t believe it was ever there.”

  “I’m sure he believes you, Flo. But he has to deal in facts and evidence. If the evidence is gone he can’t do much.”

  Flo tapped her fingers on her thigh for a moment, her mind racing. She was forming the germ of an idea when they pulled into the Silver Hills lot. On an impulse she turned to TC. “I want to go back to the warehouse.”

  TC pulled up to the front entrance. “Flo, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I’m going, TC. I need to. But I need a ride and Agnes doesn’t have a car. Will you give me a ride out there?”

  TC stared straight ahead for a minute, her long fingers clutching the steering wheel. Finally she sighed, nodding. “But only if we take Agnes. She might not be impervious to danger but she’s certainly big and determined.”

  “Agreed.” Flo smiled. “That was going to be my next request.”

  TC opened her door. “Request. Right.” She climbed out and was still shaking her head when she yanked open the glass doors to Silver Hills.

  ~SC~

  Carey’s was eerily quiet when they arrived. A quick visit to Bickel’s office verified what Detective Peters had told them.

  Bickel was nowhere to be found.

  “I hope the killer hasn’t gotten to him too,” Flo told her friends.

  Agnes skimmed a glance around the manager’s office. “He’s much neater than Carey,” She said with a happy nod.

  “I’m sure Detective Peters already searched the place but let’s give it a look,” Flo told TC and Agnes. “Just in case he missed something.”

  TC frowned. “What if he comes back while we’re searching?”

  “He thinks we work with Peters,” Flo said. “We’ll just tell him we were worried that the killer got him.”

  Agnes opened a metal cabinet and peered inside at the array of tidy piles. She saw something inside and reached for it, pulling out what looked like one of those dog balls that can be filled with treats and a leash. “I guess Bickel has a dog.”

  “Nothing strange about that,” Flo said on a frown. “Do you see anything about tanks in there?”

  Agnes rooted around in the cabinet for a few minutes and then shook her head, closing the door. “Vitamins, pads of paper and bunches of pens rubber banded together...a bunch of empty binders.”

  “This guy’s almost too organized,” TC told them as she opened the big center drawer of his metal desk. Flo glanced into the drawer and was amazed. “He’s even organized his paperclips by size and color.”

  “Anal much?” Agnes asked.

  Flo glanced around and spotted a pair of boots in the corner. They were sitting on a plastic placemat and they were crusted with some kind of mud. She reached down and plucked one of the boots up, grimacing. “Not about everything apparently.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything here,” TC said. “Shall we go take a look in the warehouse?”

  Her friend’s pretty green eyes were sparkling with anticipation and Flo grinned. “Watch out, Trisha Colombo, you might be enjoying this too much.”

  TC shrugged but a grin tugged at her lips. “You know I like mysteries.”

  Flo did know that. In fact, she’d recently learned that TC had written a couple of cozy mysteries set in a place similar to Silver Hills. “I do. And I’m not going to take no for an answer on my book club request. You need to read one of your cozies for our next meeting.”

  TC flushed with a mix of embarrassment and pleasure. “You’d probably hate them.”

  Agnes looked up from the file cabinet she was skimming through. “You write books, TC?”

  “I dabble.”

  “Fun! They have lots of S-E-X in them, I hope?”

  TC grimaced. “Not a chance! My mother reads them.”

  Agnes laughed. “Chicken.” She slammed the cabinet closed with her usual light touch. “There’s nothing here. This guy has worse OCD than I do.”

  Flo slid the boots a look. “Mostly. Okay, ladies, let’s go see if we can find ourselves a tank.”

  Nobody hailed them as they crossed the parking lot to the warehouse. Except for a dilapidated old van that looked as if it wouldn’t even start, no t
rucks were in the lot. No drivers were there to give them the side-eye, wondering what they were doing there. The place was empty. And it was way too quiet.

  “I’m getting a weird feeling about this,” Flo told her friends.

  “Yeah, me too,” Agnes agreed.

  “Maybe it’s because I wasn’t here with you before, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that they’d shut down for the day. They have two company funerals to attend.”

  “True.” An unhappy thought occurred to Flo. “What if the warehouse is locked up?”

  TC shook her head. “No worries. I researched picking locks for one of my books.”

  “Why Trisha Colombo. You vixen you.”

  TC flushed again. “It was strictly for professional purposes.”

  “Mm, hm,” Flo said on a grin.

  Fortunately for them, the building wasn’t locked. But unfortunately, Flo was keenly aware it should have been. “Not very secure. If I were a client I’d be very unhappy that they were so cavalier with my stuff.”

  “Me too,” TC agreed.

  Despite the insecure nature of the building, everything seemed to be in much the same condition as the previous time they’d been there. TC wandered over to take a look at a long, cluttered tool bench. Flo walked down the aisles and looked at the tidy piles of boxes ranged along the metal shelves. When she got to the spot where the tank had been hidden, things were less tidy. The irregularly-shaped chain saw packages were tumbled about the floor, a few of them looking like something had rolled over them. The tarp that had been covering the tank was flung to one side, its plastic sopping up a puddle of black oil on the floor.

  “Peters wasn’t wrong. The tank is gone.”

  Agnes stared at the big spot and the crushed trail of saws arrayed along the wall side. “Those saws were crushed by something really big.” She walked past the toppled tarp and stepped carefully around the crushed chain saws, heading for a door Flo hadn’t noticed before.

  It was the size of a garage door, though not as tall as the doors for the delivery trucks in the front wall. The door was dented, covered in rust, and had long, horizontal scratches in it. A large set of shelves was shoved to one side and empty.

  “This shelving might have been hiding the door,” Agnes speculated.