From the tree line, we watched her drive away. I felt shy, self-conscious about last night. George must have felt the same because he had his eyes planted on the ground at his feet.
“Do you want to go back to being friends?” I asked.
“We never stopped.” The snake on George’s cowboy hat watched me.
“You know what I mean?” What if he regretted our hot, passionate night together? If this new twist on our relationship didn’t work, could we go back to our easy friendship of yesterday? Somehow I doubted it.
George’s gaze lifted to me. “I had a wonderful time last night,” he said. “I’m in for the long haul. How about you?”
I nodded, hiding my relief. The long haul for us could end any time, if Dickey spotted me. George wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me close. “Cora Mae’s home,” he said.
I squealed. “She’s sprung? What happened?”
“I called an attorney in Escanaba, and he worked out her release. Cora Mae’s never been in trouble before, so they didn’t consider her a flight risk.”
“What about Blaze?”
“They’re holding him in Escanaba. I stopped in at the jail. He’s doing okay.”
“And Kitty?”
“She isn’t doing so well. The doctors discovered internal bleeding and had to take her back into surgery through the night. She’s starting all over again in ICU with the same prognosis-wait and see.”
I fought back tears. While George and I had been experimenting with a new beginning, Kitty was fighting against the end.
“There’s more,” George said while we drove in his truck to pick up mine.
I sighed, feeling tired. “What else?”
“When I drove past the gas station on the outskirts of Stonely, I spotted a carload of guys at the pumps. The one pumping gas had on orange shoes.”
“The Orange Gang,” I said. “What are they doing in Stonely? That’s a long way from home.”
“Why don’t you go back to my place,” George said. “I’ll snoop around and see what I can come up with.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t be happy with my next move, if he found out. That’s the thing with men. They like you the way you are, until you commit to them. Then they want to change you. They like control.
George drove off.
I headed for Gladstone to confront Shirley.
Chapter 32
NO ONE WAS HOME AT Laura’s house. I looked in all the windows. Nothing. Then I drove to the Dairy Flo, ordered a giant pop and a vanilla cone, and planted myself in front of the house on Dakota Avenue to wait.
Idling away the time gave me space to think.
Shirley had played a starring role since the moment the robbery went down. She’d been behind the counter and sounded the alarm. After that something happened to scare her into abandoning her home. She told me Tony was after her. But my mini tape recorder proved she was having an affair with him. Had they been in it together? Had one of them double crossed the other?
I went over the robbery step by step, replaying the scene in my head. But I wasn’t as young as I used to be. Keep at it, I said to myself. What did the robber do? What had he said?
He had threatened the line of customers, warning us that his partner was outside. Once he realized he was trapped, he swore and clunked Shirley, who was masquerading as Angie, on the head, knocking her out cold.
Why did he hit her? She’d already ruined his plan.
Light bulbs lit up in my head. I’d missed an important clue that had been right in front of my nose from the very beginning. During the robber, I thought Kent Miller had been swearing. Well, he had. He’d said, crap. But then he said, Shi… But he hadn’t been starting a new cuss word. He was going to say the name of one of the members of his team. But he caught himself in time. Kent Miller was going to call out to Shirley once he realized that she had double-crossed him by sending out for help.
Yes! I had my first direct tie-in between Shirley and the robbery, and I was excited.
Shirley had been part of the robbery! He knew who she really was, not Angie but Shirley.
I licked a circle around my ice cream cone, which was melting from lack of attention.
Okay, Kent, Shirley, and Bob were in it together. Shirley already had the money.
Wait. That wouldn’t work. If Shirley had the money, why rob the bank? And why rob fake money? And why sound the alarm?
The only thing for certain was that Shirley had alerted the sheriff. She wanted the authorities to apprehend the robbers. That would lead to an investigation of the credit union’s cash and the missing money would be discovered. A teller would know the sequence of events after any kind of robbery.
So Shirley wanted that to happen. Maybe she was setting up the entire gang to take the fall while she scooted off with the cash. What a feat! Was she really smart enough to point fingers at the two robbers and the inside thief, and walk away with the money?
I wiped ice cream from the front of my shirt with a paper napkin.
The inside thief. That’s where Tony came into her plan.
I knew this was all speculation, but I’d had a lot of days on the run to figure it out. For now I didn’t have to take care of Grandma or Blaze or cook meals or clean my house. The laundry didn’t need doing because I didn’t have any clothes to wash and I couldn’t work my Trouble Buster business for obvious reasons. That left plenty of time on my hands to play with different scenarios.
Tony was having an affair with Shirley. He also had been at the hospital, asking the Orange Shoe guy for some kind of information, and he’d practically admitted the robbery and killing to me. He knew I was following him, so using my Glock to kill Bob Goodyear would have taken me out of the picture.
It sort of had.
I’d never heard of so many bad eggs in the same carton before. Bob, Kent, Shirley, and Tony, all smelling like rotten eggs. Mr. Tony Lento, pillar of Stonely society, had let lust and greed destroy his comfortable rural life.
Tony and Shirley had been cozy in the woods, but something had happened to make Shirley run and hide. She claimed Tony was after her, trying to set her up. Maybe he wanted his share of the money. Maybe the orange shoes Shirley threw in the lake were hers. What if she had the money all along? Where would she hide it? And why was she still hanging around this neck of the woods?
I had so many more questions to answer, but the pop from the Dairy Flo was…well…flowing through me. I needed a bathroom quick. And Laura DeLand needed a better security system, because her back door lock sprung free on my first try. I put the fingernail file back in my purse and let myself in.
The house even sounded empty, if that’s possible. After tackling my bladder problem, I wandered down a short hallway and found Shirley’s room. Since she was in transition, there wasn’t much to see. A few things hanging in the closet. A top dresser drawer with articles of clothing. It didn’t take long to learn that she didn’t have a hundred thousand dollars lying around inside Laura’s spare bedroom.
When I peered through the front window to make sure the coast was clear, an old Cadillac with a bad muffler drove slowly past. Four punk types stared at the house through open car windows. I could see piercings and tattoos and ball caps flipped backwards. The car eased down the street and turned left.
I ran and jumped into my truck, thinking they might come around again. If they stopped out front, I didn’t want to be anywhere nearby. Too late, I heard the big car coming up behind Walter’s truck. I slunk down, one eye peeled to the rearview mirror. They parked right behind me.
The two guys in the front got out. I flattened into the seat, grateful to be small. They walked past my side of the truck. I held my breath and made like a seat cushion.