Chapter 16d
I hadn’t seen Neuhouser arrive, but I saw Tucker eyeing him when he stood nearby, and I couldn’t tell whether Tucker still considered him a threat or not. Suddenly, Bo saw someone he needed to speak with and excused himself; but since I needed to focus on Tucker anyway, I hadn’t complained. Unfortunately, a stream of people wanted to meet me because of the gossip column, and it grew more difficult to separate everything that I was hearing. I had my right ear picking up Tucker’s conversation with someone about his few nights in the slammer (as far as they knew), I had my left ear engaged in the conversation with whoever next wanted to see my cock (I told them all to join in The Bare as You Dare Day events), and then I had to filter out the incessant drone of the background noise. The whole thing was giving me a headache.
Guests stopped arriving at about 6:45, and at 7:00 p.m. on the dot, Winter emerged at the top of the stairs with Max at her side. Her dress positively glittered with a pattern of gold teardrops upon its white background. She wore a gold tiara and a simple gold chain from which hung a single diamond teardrop. She looked like a queen, and between Max’s muscular physique, clothing, and golden fur, my Honey Bear made great arm candy.
I stared at him for a moment and thought, “Damn, he is so handsome.” I couldn’t believe I had the privilege of having him in my arms every night, his love in my life, and his permission to pound his bubble on the regular, as Tucker would say. I saw his eyes find me in the crowd, and I smiled at him. However, I couldn’t allow him to distract me too much.
When enough people caught sight of them, everyone went quiet, and the crowd shifted away from the staircase, so they could see. And when that happened, I lost Tucker in the crowd. I pulled out my micro-transmitter, gripped it in my fist, and whispered into it while covering my mouth like I would cough.
“I lost Tucker when the crowd moved,” I said.
“I can’t see him either,” said Wade.
“Neither can I,” said Albert.
“Shit,” I heard Wade say.
Once on the landing, Winter spoke and thanked everyone for coming, making the usual hostess oration. She then spoke of the story of the chimney hook and its importance and tradition. Apparently, the lead worker who helped rebuild and restore the fireplaces and chimneys had the honor of hanging the hook inside the living room’s fireplace, finalizing the completion of the mansion’s structure, after which the caterers would serve dinner.
As for Tucker, our hands were tied. We couldn’t work our way through the crowd to find him, that would look suspicious, and his microphone remained silent except for the faint sound of Winter’s oration. When she finished, she and Max descended to the first floor, and everyone turned to enter the living area. It would be a little tight in there, but with no furniture to get in the way, they would fit. As the crowd huddled together to make their way, I began to hear a popping sound through my earpiece, a series of three fast pops, three slow pops, and three fast pops repeated over and over. We were hearing SOS in Morse code. I tried to squeeze into the crowd to make a search, but I couldn’t find him.
The code tapped into our earpieces made hearing one another difficult, but then the code stopped, at which point we heard two voices. One was somewhat indistinct, but I heard Tucker’s clearly.
I met up with Albert and Wade, who said no one could go upstairs, so they must be on the ground floor somewhere, and decided that he and Albert should split up to search.
“What do you want from me?” we heard Tucker ask, then came a reply that I could hardly make out.
“You brought me up here for that?” asked Tucker.
They’d gone up the secret passage. Wade came around the corner from the opposite end of the room and bounded up the staircase, telling Albert, “Stay here and keep everyone calm.” I ran to the wood paneling of the staircase’s skirting and searched for the lever. I could have run up the staircase too, but I figured it would be better if we entered the room at different locations.
“You don’t need that gun,” said Tucker’s voice, “you can have the ring.”
I found the lever, and in my ear, I heard a shot fired and a bit of scuffling. I tripped up the uneven stone staircase in the darkness. I pulled my weapon from the holster, and in my ear, I heard a loud thud, some yelling, and the screams of a man. By the time I reached the room, Wade found the room too from its main door. With a hand on his abdomen, Tucker stood over a man I never expected to see, screaming in pain, lying face down onto the floor. It was Bo Pecker. I pulled the earpiece from my ear.
“What the fuck!” said Wade, who rushed to Tucker. “Are you shot?”
The front of his vest had some damage to the cloth, but the Kevlar had not allowed the bullet to penetrate him. “I think I’m okay, but that bullet hurt.” He saw me staring at Bo, who kept screaming in pain. “Don’t worry about him; he’s not going anywhere. Oh, shut-up, Pecker! You shot me, you fucking dickhead, and you don’t hear me wailing about it.”
“What have you done to him?” asked Wade.
“I incapacitated him by hyperextending his knees and dislocating his shoulders,” he said. “He’s pretty strong. I worried I couldn’t do it.”
The arrest had to happen in an orderly manner and by the book. The detective took out his card. “Bo Pecker, you have the right to remain silent…,” said the detective, who continued to read him the Miranda warning.
I squatted and tipped my head, so I could look him in the face. “Why, Bo? Max and I really liked you. I don’t understand; I thought you were a good man.”
His eyes wet and red, he said, “I’m sorry. I tried when I moved to Franklin, but I found being good all the time exhausting.”
Wade called the police department and requested two ambulances. When he ended the call, he hugged Tucker.
“What do we need the second ambulance for?” I asked.
“I want them to check Tucker over for internal injuries.” He looked Tucker in the face. “What, no argument?”
“I’ve never been shot before,” he said, “I would like to make sure that I see at least a few more tomorrows with you.” He kissed Wade.
Many guests heard the gunshot, but they couldn’t know for sure what it was or where it came from. By the time the police and ambulance arrived, Albert had corralled the guests into the dining room and ballroom for dinner, including the guests who needed to pee. The ambulance crew gave Pecker an injection for the pain, and they made his quick removal on the gurney with as little noise and as much discretion as possible. For the most part, the evening had minimal disruption to the festivities, and that would please Winter enormously.
A police officer brought the detective an evidence bag, and he placed Pecker’s Beretta Pico into it from where Tucker had kicked it. The hospital would keep him for a while, and Wade coordinated officers to guard him during his stay.
In due course of time, Pecker confessed everything. Apparently, he and Crows had planned robberies together. She helped to hide the documents about transfers of any storage to various warehouses of the items they found inside homes requiring removals, like the motherload from the Thornbrier Estate. They circulated the storage from one warehouse to another until, in the confusion, they could manage to have their items-of-choice moved into warehouse 232 near the docks. They used the peons in removals to relocate the items in question, who unwittingly assisted with the thefts. Alliance’s rapid turnover of the peons working in removals helped to hide what happened to the items they unknowingly stole; they all thought someone else took care of it. Naturally, none of them would be charged.
During this, the ring was found by Tommy at warehouse 232, when it fell from a piece of furniture when he shifted it. He took a photo of it on his phone and then showed the ring to Chadwell, who easily convinced him to let him hand it over to their supervisor because he had worked for Alliance longer than Tommy. However, Chadwell dragging his feet about handing it in strained their friendship.
Tommy had become chummy with the office staff. That’s why Neuhouser, one of several managers, began calling him Tommy-Boy, and why Tommy told Delilah Crows about the ring, and where he found it, just before he called Neuhouser to leave the message. Crows also knew about his date with James Malor. As things had begun to unravel in Pecker’s absence, she panicked and irrationally decided to kill Tommy before he could talk to Neuhouser the next day, fearing any attention drawn to warehouse 232.
She waited for Malor to leave Tommy’s house. She arrived, she plied Tommy with a few more drinks and got him drunk enough to give her no problems when she killed him. She initiated her plan to blame James by starting an evidence trail using a finger trap that she created that day, duplicating one made by James in Seattle. She figured that Chadwell would have to go too, and she would leave the trap that should have James’s prints at the scene of Chadwell’s death, implicating him for both murders.
She told Pecker of her actions to protect their secret. He never wanted to kill anyone, but it forced him to return early from Greece to clean up her mess. They confronted Chadwell, and he revealed what he knew about the warehouse, and he tried to blackmail them. Chadwell returns home at 2:30 that night, seen by the neighbor with the elderly labradoodle. Pecker wanted the ring to go with all the rest of the jewelry found in the home, so he had gone to Chadwell’s to get the ring and kill him to stop the blackmail, but Chadwell refused to give him the ring as he had already swallowed it. Pecker murders Chadwell, using two finger traps made by Crows, leaving the remainder at the scene to further implicate James. He attached the top portion of a note from Chadwell’s work file (It originally contained an apology and reasons he arrived a few hours late for work a few months prior). He ransacks the house, searching for the ring but finds nothing and straightens it back up in a hurry.
Crows wanted the police to think James did it, but as far as Pecker was concerned, it would suit him fine no matter how the police looked at it, so long as Chadwell couldn’t blackmail them and no one else knew about the warehouse. If he had decided to give up on the ring at that point, they might have gotten away with it, but he got greedy. Pecker had no clue the police had the ring. When he saw it on James’s hand in the paper, Crows confirmed that the ring looked identical to the photo that Tommy showed her. It was Crows’s idea to ransack James’s home and then burn it. Pecker decided at the last minute to rid himself of Crows in the fire.
Pecker held the gun on James but hadn’t intended to use it, thinking he could just push him down the darkened stone staircase in the secret passage. However, James attacked him, so he fired the gun. He underestimated James’s fighting skills and quickly regretted the whole situation, with the pain of two injured knees and both of his shoulders dislocated.
Bo Pecker remained in the custody of the on-duty police at the hospital. Before Wade had accompanied Tucker in the ambulance, he gave Albert the rest of the night off. He needed to prepare for the arrival of Master Brice at midnight. So, of our group, only Max and I remained at the estate. At the end of their meal, I pulled Max and Winter aside, informing them of what had occurred. She was pleased by the outcome and our discretion, so a few days later, she paid us a rather large sum, significantly more than the $2000 that I quoted. I decided to keep the money and help Tucker with most of it since a major portion of the outcome came from his bravery, and I would use some of it as a down payment on the vehicle we thought to buy for the business.
The television crew left immediately after the hanging of the chimney hook, and they were oblivious to any of the goings on. Mr. Santiago, however, not only stayed but figured something was happening when Albert wouldn’t allow him to go to the bathroom. He waited in the dining room and thoughtfully had the caterers keep a plate warm for me, so I could eat, and he could interview me. As I was starving, I gratefully agreed to it.
Once the gathering had ended, the guests departed, except those who would stay for Tommy’s memorial. Winter said we had given them closure, so we had done enough, and that Tommy would understand when we decided to go.
“So, have you given Winter any definitive answer?” I asked him as he texted for a cab to pick us up.
“No,” he said, “I need to think it through. I’m leaning toward ‘yes,’ but I don’t know yet.”
As we reached the door, we met Glenn, who wore his usual cabbie attire, and Sister Foustina dressed in black, whom he brought with him.
“Mr. Millstone, Mr. Roche,” she said in a breathy, somber voice, “it’s good to see you again.”
“Yes, indeed,” I said. “So that you know, we have good news. We caught the killer.”
“You caught him?” she asked. “That’s wonderful news. The sisters will be pleased.”
“I’m glad you got him,” said Glenn.
I put my hand on Glenn’s shoulder. “I’m hoping that knowing the killer is off the streets will help you find your smile a little sooner.”
We told them Goodnight, and when the door shut behind us, Max began removing his clothing. “Ugh…I’m so glad to get out of this.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I had too many people tell me that I looked like a genie in it.”
As the cab pulled into the pea gravel drive, I wrapped my arms around my naked man, and I kissed him, “No, you’re not the genie; you’re my every wish granted.”
“Oh, that sounds far too sappy for you,” he said.
The cab stopped before us, and I opened the door to let him go first.
He pulled me to him by my jacket, and he kissed me. “Let’s just go home, so you can pound me half the night,” he said.
“As you wish.” I climbed in and closed the door. “Cabbie, to the Minotaur and make it snappy. My Golden Bear needs his Stallion.”
The End.
