Agnes and the Hitman Read online

  Frankie and I figured we’d come here, do some work for the Don on the side.

  “Then Frankie and I got a tip, this would be about twenty-five years ago now, that there was a freight car full of cigs on the rail line, ready to load to go overseas. We made most our money boosting freight cars when the port was still active. We kick up half the take to the Don in Jersey, split the rest twenty/twenty/ten with Charlie ‘Four Wheels’ Thibault getting the ten percent ‘cause all he does is drive. Took Frankie’s Caddy ‘cause it had the big trunk. Went down to the rail siding, bust in, but no cigs, just a safe, and it has this box on top, got a necklace in it, made of big hearts, junky-looking thing.”

  Joey shook his head. “I had a weird feeling about it. But the tip come from the Don, so we lift the safe out, and Frankie, he takes the necklace for Brenda because she’s on his case all the time, he says, ‘cause she thinks he’s cheating on her, which he is, but that’s Frankie for you. We throw the safe in the trunk of Frankie’s Caddy. Beat feet to Frankie’s place, where Agnes lives now. Park just over that damn bridge; it was in better shape then. Take the safe down to Frankie’s basement, open it up. Inside, no cigs. Five million dollars in nonsequential bills.”

  Shane raised his eyebrows.

  Joey nodded. “Yeah, too much money. Four Wheels, he’s scared shitless, he goes home. I go home. Frankie goes upstairs to Brenda. We figure we’ll lay low, work something out. Except the next day, Frankie’s gone, the safe’s gone, the necklace is gone, the five mil is gone. Nobody knows nothin’. Four Wheels moves out to the swamp and shoots anybody who comes close.”

  “Where’d Frankie go?”

  Joey shrugged. “Tahiti. Meet his maker. I dunno. Never seen or heard from again.”

  “Anybody come after you?”

  Joey rubbed the scar over his eye. “A couple of times.” He looked away.

  There’s more, Shane thought. “What’s this got to do with Agnes?”

  “This weekend, Agnes’s column is on cooking for dogs, so her picture is a special one with Rhett.” Joey held up the newspaper and gave it to Shane.

  Shane spread it open. Inside was a column with a headline that said, cranky agnes and a picture of Agnes, smiling, big glasses and curly dark hair, with her arm around Rhett. Cute as all hell, Shane thought. “So?”

  “Look at the dog’s collar.”

  Shane peered closer. Rhett had a collar on that looked like it was made out of big junky-looking glass hearts.

  Joey tapped the paper. “That’s the necklace Frankie showed us that night. No one’s seen it since that night, but there it is on Rhett. I think maybe the necklace and the five mil never left the house. And I think Four Wheels saw that picture and that’s what he thinks, too. And maybe Four Wheels told somebody that, like one of his dumb-shit grandsons.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Shane said. All of Keyes County could be coming for little Agnes if they thought she was sitting on five million bucks; that was why Joey had called in the heavy artillery. “You couldn’t have told me this from the beginning?”

  “I haven’t told anybody this in twenty-five years,” Joey said.

  “Great.” This, plus he’d killed the wrong guy in Savannah. Not a good week. And it was only Tuesday.

  Joey seemed a little more relaxed now that his secret was out. “Xavier was the responding deputy on the case. Hell, the entire police force of Keyes, all four of them, was on the case. Everyone except Xavier kinda gave up when Frankie’s Caddy was found abandoned at the Savannah Airport the next day and there was no sign of Frankie. But Xavier, he never gave up on it. It’s the one he never solved, and it was his biggest one and he thinks it kept him from becoming sheriff and marryin’ Evie Beale, Evie Keyes now. But Frankie wouldn’t have blown town without saying nothing to me. We was closer than brothers.”

  “So who killed him and look the money?”

  “No idea.” Joey nodded to the road. “This is about Agnes. We go talk to Four Wheels and find out if he sent that little bastard alter our girl and what the fuck he knows. Drive.”

  Shane pulled back out onto the road, trying to find the wedge into Joey’s story. Anybody could have killed Frankie for five million, but what that had to do with Agnes now-

  “Turn left on that dirt road,” Joey ordered.

  A large no trespassing sign was tacked to a tree. It was barely legible given that it had been riddled with buckshot.

  As soon as he turned, Shane reached down next to his seat and pulled out his Glock Model 20 and placed it on his lap. He wasn’t surprised when Joey pulled out his own pistol from his waistband and did the same. Shane recognized the make: a Colt Python revolver. Powerful and small. And the handle was wrapped with medical tape. Old dogs didn’t learn new tricks. Rhett must have sensed the mood change, because he was peering ahead, out the windshield.

  The road they were on barely deserved the moniker as it narrowed into a rutted track. The trees overhead linked branches to form a green tunnel.

  “I don’t like it,” Shane said.

  “Don’t worry,” Joey muttered. “Four Wheels ain’t got-” He didn’t get the rest of the sentence out, as there was a sharp snap and a hairline crack appeared in the windshield. “What the fuck?”

  Rhett let out a bark as Shane slammed on the brakes. There was a ping, and Shane threw the truck into reverse as he spotted two teenagers with caps on backward, firing away with rifles from behind a log about fifty yards up the road.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Joey demanded.

  “Couple of kids shooting at us,” Shane said as he gave the engine some gas and swiveled his head so he could negotiate the narrow track. Another ping, which he knew was a round hitting the armored front of the car. “More of the Thibault clan, I assume.”

  Joey reached forthe door handle, but Shane had already overridden both the windows and the locks and the old man fumbled with it for several moments before realizing that.

  “Open the fucking door, Shane.”

  “Nope.” Shane saw the end of the track and the main road approaching, and he slowed down. No more shots; he assumed they were out of range and/or sight of the hidden firers.

  “You just run away?” A vein was throbbing in Joey’s forehead.

  “When the odds aren’t good, yeah.” Shane spun the wheel and they were back on the county road.

  “They teach you that in the army?”

  “No.” Shane looked at his uncle. “You did.”

  Joey took several deep breaths, then he slowly began to nod, and a resigned smile crept across his face. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Always play the odds.”

  “This is the second time today I’ve been shot at,” Shane said. “What?”

  “First time was this morning in the woods near Agnes’s house.” Shane reached down and scratched Rhett’s head. He’d thought that the shooting had more to do with him than Agnes, given the message he’d decoded, but he was reevaluating that now. And the bomb was a wild card that he needed to factor in. He was fucking reevaluating everything. He loved his uncle, but the old man hadn’t put all his cards on the table yet, and that was troublesome. It looked like Agnes had bought more than just a lot of maintenance problems when she invested in that old mansion.

  Joey’s alarm was obvious. “The shooter. Was he a pro?”

  “Hard to tell,” Shane said.

  Joey was staring out at the landscape whipping by. “I got you out of here when I sent you to school. I should have kept you away.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Uncle Joey,” Shane said, thinking about Agnes in her kitchen. “I’ve been in a lot worse places.”

  “Maybe you better go,” Joey said.

  Shane shot him a glance. “Not until this is straightened out.”

  “Shane, there could be pros out there. The Don’s guys. They could be gunning for you now, too.”

  And there’s my last question. “Why would they be doing that?”

  Joey looked away. “Figuring you were with me. You know.�
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  Another lie, Shane thought, and began to wonder if there was anybody he could trust.

  “Maybe you better just stick close to Agnes,” Joey said.

  “That’s my plan,” Shane said.

  Agnes sat on the swing on the finished screened-in back porch with a bottle of wine, a splitting headache, her laptop, and a pad of paper, trying to finish her latest To Do List and write her column while the Chicks sang softly in the background. It was hard concentrating with all the distractions, not the least of which had been Robbie Hammond coming back to the house to ask, “Was that Maria Fortunato?” with an expression on his face that said that whatever happened that summer they’d dated had had a major impact on him. “Yes, and she’s getting married Saturday,” Agnes had said firmly, and he’d gone away, leaving Agnes feeling a little guilty, but not much. Back to work.

  The Chicks were singing “The Long Way Around,” which seemed appropriate since the To Do List was getting the house painted, getting the bridge reinforced, finding an air conditioner on sale somewhere that also had really lax credit terms, ordering the cake supplies, and hunting Maisie Shuttle down to make her cough up a thousand daisies. The column was about the life-or-death importance of a cake that could hold up pounds of fondant and still taste like heaven when the guests chowed down, and Agnes loathed every boring word of it. She was trying to shoehorn in some insightful facts about the history of wedding cakes, but they were even worse-

  “I can’t believe you bought this fuckin’ dump.”

  Agnes looked up and saw a vision of petite southern loveliness- Southern Jersey, in this case-standing in the porch doorway: glossy brown ringlets framing big brown eyes, sharp features, and a wide red mouth, over a body built for a tube top and capri pants.

  “LL?” Agnes felt tears spring to her eyes. “Oh, God, I’ve missed you!”

  She got up from the swing, letting her laptop slide onto the cushions, and threw her arms around her best friend, knocking her glasses sideways in the process. Lisa Livia said, “Oh, honey, I’ve missed you, too,” and hugged Agnes tight for a minute. Then she let go, shoved her own oversized sunglasses farther back on her head like a headband, looked up, and said, “Agnes, you dumbass, you are so screwed.”

  “Why?” Agnes straightened her glasses. “Did the bridge collapse?”

  Lisa Livia threw her huge white patent leather bag on the old metal table and sat down on the swing, shoving the laptop back over to Agnes’s side as she turned down the CD player. “No. What the hell is this doing out here?”

  “I’m writing my column. Did you know that the Romans used to break the wedding cake over the bride’s head?”

  “No, but I’m not surprised. Italian men are hell on women. Pay attention here, I’ve been on that tub, the Brenda Belle, going through my mother’s stuff.”

  “She’s been living there ever since she sold me Two Rivers.” Agnes sat next to her and poured her a glass of wine. “I don’t know why she hasn’t bought herself a nice condo. Iam so glad to see you. You missed the meeting with her and Evie Keyes.”

  “That was my plan.” Lisa Livia crossed her killer legs, took the wine and sipped it, nodded, and then drank a good slug of it. “I know why she hasn’t bought herself a condo; she thinks she’s coming back here, and she’s trying to screw up my kid’s wedding to do it.”

  “What?” Agnes said, looking at her over the wine bottle. “That’s crazy. Why would she come back here? Why would she hurt Maria’s wedding? That’s her big social coup, that’s her in!”

  “Because, as I have been telling you for years, she’s a fucking nutcase.” Lisa Livia settled into the swing. “Ever since Maria’s been down here, Brenda’s been at her about Palmer, how much he’s like his dad, who married pretty little Evie Beale when she was just eighteen and has spent the rest of his life drinking and screwing everything in sight.”

  Agnes blinked at her. “Palmer is like his father? That’s ridiculous, Palmer is Evie’s baby, Palmer wouldn’t say boo to a goose, let alone proposition one. I still don’t know how he got Maria into bed.” She hesitated for a minute. “Actually, I’m not sure he…”

  “Yeah, he did,” Lisa Livia said. “I asked because I didn’t want her marrying him because he was sweet and rich and then getting bored in the first week. She said the sex was great and I should stop making assumptions and she was very happy. Now she’s not so sure, because Brenda’s planted this idea that he’s going to turn out like his father.”

  “Why would she do that?” Agnes said, mystified.

  “Because she’s trying to stop the wedding. This morning when I got into town, I waited until Brenda left the yacht, and then I went aboard and starting going through her stuff to see what she was up to.” Lisa Livia looked at Agnes over her wineglass, her big brown eyes huge. “She’s swindling you.”

  “What?” Agnes frowned. “No. Not Brenda. I mean, I mean she’s being difficult, but I think that’s just because she’s having to deal with these people who have shut her out all these years. You should have seen her face when-”

  “She holds your mortgage,” Lisa Livia said. “Why didn’t you go through a bank, you dumbass?”

  “She gave us a better rate.” Agnes put her glass down. “Taylor had our lawyer look at the papers. They’re standard. I mean, they’re boilerplate. It’s the exact same contract that Evie gave Palmer and Maria for the house they’re buying next door to the Keyes place. The only clause Brenda added was that Maria hold her wedding here, and that’s not a problem, I want Maria’s wedding here, plus I get three months’ mortgage payments free if I do it. It’s a great deal.”

  “I know it’s standard, and I know it’s the same one Evie gave Palmer.” Lisa Livia rolled her eyes at Agnes’s obtuseness. “The difference is, Evie loves Palmer. It’s also the kind used by crooked lenders to rip off buyers all the time. You think the Real Estate King became King by playing fair and square? Brenda learned everything she knows about selling houses from him. She’s taking you, Ag.”

  This is ridiculous. Agnes pulled back a little. “LL, the contract just says I have to let Maria get married here, it doesn’t say she has to get married. I know you and your mother have your problems-”

  “She’s a vicious bitch,” Lisa Livia said, and finished off her wine.

  “-but she’s not a crook.”

  “She killed my father,” Lisa Livia said. “Real estate fraud is a step up for her.”

  Here we go again, Agnes thought. “Look, you’re the best friend a woman could possibly have until you get started on your mother-”

  “Okay, you think I’m crazy, but just listen to me.” Lisa Livia put her glass on the table and leaned forward, her tube top shifting in ways Agnes could not possibly appreciate and yet somehow was glad that Shane was not there to witness. “You know that clause that says that if you’re in default of your payments for three months, the lender gets the house back?”

  “Yes,” Agnes said patiently, “but that’s a standard clause, and we’re not in default.”

  “But you will be,” Lisa Livia said, just as patiently. “If Maria doesn’t have her wedding here, Saturday, by noon, you are in default.” She picked up her bag and pulled out a paper and handed it to Agnes. “Remember this?”

  Agnes looked at it. “Yes. It’s the wedding agreement. We’re having the wedding here in exchange for… the first three months’ mortgage payments.”

  Lisa Livia nodded. “Those three payments are past due if the wedding doesn’t happen here.”

  Agnes heard Brenda say, If we held it at the country club… “What?” Lisa Livia said, watching her face.

  Agnes swallowed. “Brenda’s trying to move it to the country club. She even had some insane idea about using the flowers there.”

  “What?” Lisa Livia said.

  “And Evie wants to have it at the country club, but not use their flowers.” Idon’t believe this. Brenda would not do this to me.

  “Jesus, 1 should hope not the country
club’s flowers.” Lisa Livia sat back. “But there you go. Anything that keeps the wedding from happening here by Saturday noon means you lose the house and Brenda gets it back and she keeps your down payment. I knew there was no way she’d let this house go. She’s been hanging on to it for twenty-five years, but she’s broke, she’s in debt up to her ears, big debt, Ag, and she’s desperate for cash.” Lisa Livia shook her head. “1 told you, she learned this crap from that shyster she married. Real Estate King, my ass. People used to come to the house and threaten to kill him.”

  “I don’t believe she’d do this,” Agnes said, looking at the paper. “It’s too far-fetched. I know you and she have your differences, LL, but she was good to me. She taught me to cook, for heaven’s sake. She’s like a mother to me.”

  “She is a mother to me,” Lisa Livia said. “And I’m telling you, she’s doing it.”

  “Lisa Livia, I have real problems.” Agnes poured herself another glass of wine. “A kid died in my basement last night after trying to kidnap my dog at gunpoint, and now I’ve got this wedding-”

  “Died? As in dead? And you’re still here?” Lisa Livia’s face changed, and she straightened. “Wait a minute. Brenda sent him.”

  “Oh, for the love of God, LL,” Agnes snapped. “Your mother is not responsible for everything.”

  “She’s trying to scare you out so you can’t do the wedding so you’ll have to forfeit and she’ll get the house back. I betcha. Don’t you leave this house.” She drank more wine.

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not staying here alone, are you? Get that worthless Taylor out here.”

  Agnes shook her head. “Joey got his nephew to come stay. Shane.” Lisa Livia choked on her wine. “Shane?” she said, wiping her mouth. “Little Shane?”

  Agnes thought of the guy filling up her kitchen that morning. “He’s grown.”

  “This I have to see,” Lisa Livia said. “But I am not kidding about my mother.”

  “You are overreacting,” Agnes said, and when Lisa Livia glared at her, she glared right back.