Missouri Loves Company (Rip Lane Book 1) Page 3

  CHAPTER 11

  A WOMAN AT the bus station was wearing pink sweatpants with the word JUICY printed in big white letters on her butt. I took the better part of a minute to study each and every letter. You never know where you might find a clue.

  I looked around the station for other possible clues, but none of the other women had writing on their backsides.

  On my way to the coffee vending machine I spotted a security camera mounted on the ceiling. It was positioned to provide an overview of the entire bus station, including the waiting area, lockers, and ticket counter.

  I knocked on the door to the security office. When there was no answer I went to the ticket counter. The woman with big teeth was still there. She looked at me.

  “You again?”

  “Is the head of security in?”

  “She’s on her dinner break.”

  “Due back soon?”

  “Just left a minute ago.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  It was a good thing I had already eaten dinner, because otherwise I would not have been able to wait for the head of security to return. I function best when I eat several small meals throughout the day. Eating small meals means I have to eat something every three hours or so. Otherwise my blood sugar level drops like Icarus.

  Half an hour passed.

  Forty-five minutes.

  An hour.

  Finally the head of security returned from her dinner break. She was built like a polar bear, with a barrel chest and squat legs. Her thick body was hunched over. Her head hung down. No words were printed on her butt, though the entire text of Moby-Dick could have fit back there.

  “Got a minute?” I said to her.

  She dipped her head and looked at me as if she had just come out of hibernation. Then she made a noise that sounded like a snort.

  “You lose your wallet or something?” she said.

  “I noticed your security camera over there . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “. . . and I was just wondering if your DVR recorded something yesterday.”

  “Of course it recorded something—it’s not broken.”

  “I meant something in particular.”

  “Like what?”

  “Yesterday I was here with a young woman. We sat on that bench over there. She bought a ticket to Topeka, but never got on the bus. The last time I saw her . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “. . . she was going to the ladies’ room. After that I never saw her again. She just disappeared.”

  “Sounds like you got dumped.”

  “I probably was.”

  “And you want to watch it happening again in high definition?”

  “There were two suspicious-looking guys watching us. I want to get another look at them.”

  “Just because they were watching you?”

  “Because I think they broke into my motor home this morning.”

  The head of security eyed me with suspicion.

  “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Rip Lane.”

  “Mr. Lane, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “No need to be afraid.”

  It made her smile.

  “What are you,” she said, “a comedian?”

  “Retired deputy U.S. marshal.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? Come on into my office.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “YOU’RE A BIG guy,” the head of security told me when we were seated in her office.

  “No bigger than the Incredible Hulk,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “I promise not turn green.”

  “Not even on Saint Patrick’s Day?”

  I held up my hand.

  “Okay,” I said. “Maybe that one exception.”

  She smiled at me.

  “I’m Olga. Here’s my business card.”

  Her full name was Olga Regina Smirnov. Her job title was Head of Security. Her phone number was listed on the card too. I had no immediate plans to add it to my speed dial.

  “I can’t believe a U.S. marshal is actually sitting in my office.”

  “Would you prefer I stand?”

  “No, what I mean is . . .”

  “I know what you mean. And thank you for the kind words.”

  “You deserve it. Marshals track down and arrest—what, like a hundred thousand fugitives each year?”

  “More than that.”

  “Wow.”

  I shrugged modestly.

  “How long have you been retired, Rip?”

  “Retired last year.”

  “Did you use to draw your gun a lot?”

  “Six times . . . before breakfast.”

  “What’d you carry?”

  “Glock Twenty-two.”

  “Caliber?”

  “Forty.”

  “Belt holster? Shoulder holster?”

  “Belt.”

  “Did you carry a BUG?”

  BUG is an acronym for Back-Up Gun.

  “Always,” I said.

  Olga raised her eyebrows.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Glock Twenty-seven. Forty caliber. Ankle holster.”

  “Forty caliber for your primary gun and your backup gun?”

  “Makes sense, you think about it.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Sure. You don’t have to carry two different kinds of cartridges. And you don’t need to bother with different magazines. You can run Glock Twenty-two magazines in the Glock Twenty-seven. It accepts the same magazines.”

  “Can you do the reverse, run Glock Twenty-seven magazines in the Glock Twenty-two?”

  “Not really. Large magazines can go into the smaller guns, but small magazines won’t reach up into the grip of larger guns.”

  Olga seemed impressed. We were bonding. Which was a good thing, as long as she didn’t try to give me a bear hug.

  “Now that you’re retired,” Olga said, “do you still carry?”

  “Not often.”

  “So you still own guns.”

  “Of course I do. The same two guns.”

  “Are you carrying now?”

  I could see where this was going—she wanted to frisk me. It was fortunate that I was not carrying a gun, because I would have been tempted to shoot my way out of that office.

  “I left my guns at home.”

  “Too bad,” Olga said. “I would have liked to have seen them.”

  We were quiet for a moment.

  “So . . . ,” Olga said finally. “You wanted to see the security video from yesterday.”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s get started then.”

  CHAPTER 13

  “THIS IS A state-of-the-art video security system,” Olga told me. “HD video. You can zoom into details. Here, let me show you.”

  She hit the REWIND button on the DVR remote.

  I watched as the images on the big monitor skittered backward across the screen.

  “Here’s some video from earlier today,” Olga said, and hit the PLAY button.

  The image of the bus station filled the screen. You could see the waiting area and the lockers and the ticket counter. Everything was in high definition.

  We started to watch the video.

  On the screen we saw people lined up at the ticket counter, people seated on benches, people walking around the station.

  A minute later I appeared on the screen.

  “Hey—there’s you,” Olga said, pointing to the monitor.

  “Yeah,” I said, “I was looking around the station earlier today.”

  Olga stared at the monitor. Her eyes blinked once. Then she turned to look at me.

  “You were checking out that woman’s butt,” Olga said, pointing to my image on the screen.

  “Huh?”

  “Look at the monitor. Your eyes were glued to her ass.”

  “No they weren’t.”

 
“Yes they were.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Olga hit the PAUSE button.

  “See that?” she said. “Look at your eyes there.”

  “I was staring at the floor.”

  Olga shook her head emphatically.

  “Oh no you weren’t.”

  She used the DVR remote to zoom in close on my face.

  Now the image of my face filled the screen. It was huge. I realized I should have trimmed my nose hairs. I would have if I had known I was going to be on Candid Camera.

  “Look at your eyes now,” Olga said.

  “Can we just move on?”

  Olga snickered.

  “You old dog you, Rip.”

  “Woof.”

  “Okay, let’s access the video from yesterday.”

  “Let’s.”

  “What time were you and your, ah, lady friend here yesterday?”

  “A little after six p.m.”

  Olga started to hit buttons on the DVR remote. She stopped when the screen showed the image of Anna and I at the bus station.

  “There you are,” Olga said, nodding toward the monitor.

  “That’s Anna sitting next to me on the bench,” I said.

  Olga nodded.

  Then we watched the video.

  On the screen Anna and I are talking. I’m drinking coffee. After a while Anna gets up from the bench to walk over to the ticket counter. She waits in line for several minutes. Then she buys a bus ticket. After that she resumes her seat on the bench beside me. We talk for a time. I spot two guys who keep looking covertly at Anna. They are dressed in expensive Armani suits. One guy has a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. They look like two goons, despite the nice threads. Anna does not appear to notice them.

  “Those are the guys,” I told Olga. “The ones broke into my motor home this morning. At least I think they did.”

  “They look like career criminals,” Olga said.

  “No doubt.”

  We watched the video some more.

  On the screen Anna and I are still sitting on the bench. We’re talking about something. She laughs and crosses her legs. Then she seems to notice the two guys staring at her. She stands up right away. She says something to me, and then walks away, taking her duffel bag with her.

  “Next part should be interesting,” I said to Olga. “Because from where I was sitting I couldn’t see what Anna did next.”

  “Let’s watch,” Olga said.

  We did.

  On the screen Anna is walking up to a bank of lockers. She opens a locker door, places her duffel bag inside, closes the locker door, drops in some coins, removes the orange key, and then thrusts the key into her pocket. After that she opens a different locker door, peers into the empty locker, closes the locker door, drops in some coins, removes the orange key, and then closes her fist around the key.

  “Well look at that,” I said to Olga. “Anna used two lockers. She must have given me the key to the empty locker, while she kept the key to the other locker, the one that held her duffel bag.”

  “Why would she have done that?” Olga said.

  “So she could set me up for the fall.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “YOU THINK ANNA set you up?”

  “It’s looking that way, Olga.”

  “How’d she do that?”

  “By making those two goons think I had the locker key.”

  “You mean the key for the locker with her duffel bag in it.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean. Dammit, how could I be so stupid.”

  “How’d she make them think you had the key?”

  “You’ll see on the video, come on, let’s watch the rest.”

  Olga hit the PLAY button on the DVR remote.

  We watched the next part of the video.

  On the screen Anna is walking toward me. Her hands are empty. The duffel bag is nowhere in sight. Anna resumes her seat on the bench beside me. We talk. Then she holds up an orange locker key. She holds it up high enough for everybody in the bus station to see.

  “Right there,” I said to Olga as I waggled my finger at the monitor. “That’s when Anna set me up. She wanted those two goons to see that key in her hand. And she wanted them to see me taking it from her.”

  “Why would she want that?” Olga said, and hit the PAUSE button.

  “Because if I’m the one holding the key, those two guys’ll come after me instead of her. I’m guessing they know Anna, and they know what’s in the duffel bag, and they want whatever it is. I think Anna recognized them at the bus station. I think she knew what they wanted. I think she got scared, and decided to set me up.”

  “What’d you ever do to her?”

  “I did her a favor. Let that be a lesson.”

  We watched more of the video.

  On the screen I take the key from Anna’s hand. I put it in my pocket. The two guys in Armani suits start to eye me. I sip my coffee and talk to Anna. I sip my coffee again while Anna casually glances at the two thugs. Then she and I talk some more. After a while Anna rises from the bench to go to the ladies’ room. While she is gone I keep an eye on the two goons. One of them is watching the door to the ladies’ room, and the other one is watching me. Anna is gone a long time. Finally I get up from the bench, walk to the ladies’ room, and knock on the door. When nobody answers I ask a woman to check on Anna. The woman checks the ladies’ room. Anna is not in there. Nobody is. So I enter the ladies’ room to search for clues.

  “The window in there was open,” I told Olga.

  She nodded, and we continued to watch the video.

  On the screen I come out of the ladies’ room. I look around the bus station for a moment. Then I exit through a glass door. Outside I get on the bus to Topeka, which is parked close to the glass door, close enough to be seen by the security camera. A minute or so passes before I get off the bus. When the bus drives away I take an orange locker key from my pocket. I walk quickly to the lockers. I open one. Empty. No duffel bag. I close the locker door and leave the key in the lock. I scan the bus station for the two goons, but I don’t see them anywhere. I exit through a glass door into the parking lot. The goons come out from behind a pillar, exit through the same glass door, and follow me into the parking lot.

  “They must have followed me back to the campground last night,” I said to Olga.

  “And broke into your motor home this morning,” she said.

  I didn’t say anything. I was thinking.

  Olga didn’t say anything either. Maybe she was thinking too.

  I rubbed my chin with a thumb.

  “Olga,” I said finally, “fast forward the video.”

  “How far?”

  “Not sure. I’ll let you know when to stop.”

  We watched the images skitter rapidly across the screen. Less than a minute later I told Olga to stop the video. I had spotted Anna on the screen. She had returned to the bus station hours after I had left.

  “Now hit PLAY,” I told Olga.

  She did.

  “Look at that,” I said. “Anna’s opening the locker. . . . She’s taking out the duffel bag. . . . And now she’s exiting the bus station with the bag slung over her shoulder.”

  “I wonder what’s in that bag,” Olga said.

  “Me too.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “ONE MORE THING I need your help with, Olga.”

  “Only one?” she said with what was meant to be a seductive smile.

  I managed to smile back. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, though I didn’t want to lead her on either. It was a fine line to walk.

  “What I need your help with, can you print out enlarged images from the DVR?”

  “Images of . . . ?”

  “Faces.”

  “The two guys in the Armani suits?”

  I nodded.

  “And Anna?”

  I nodded again.

  “These are great, Olga,” I said as she handed me the pictures a few minutes later
.

  I took a moment to look at the pictures. There were three of them. One showed Anna smiling. One showed a scowling thug. And one showed a toothpick-sucking thug.

  When I looked up from the pictures I saw Olga unbuttoning her shirt. Her stubby fingers were working very hastily. She was starting to move in my direction. The jumbo-sized bra showed more of its fleshy contents than it should have.

  I rose from my chair, thanked Olga for her help, and headed for the door. I walked. I did not sprint.

  Outside the bus station I swung a leg over my motorcycle, fired up the engine, peeled out of the parking lot. The streets were dark. The roar of the engine was loud. I was hungry.

  I figured I would eat a frozen dinner at home. Chicken in peanut sauce sounded pretty good. It was between that and roasted turkey breast. I had plenty of time to make up my mind, because S’mores and Snores Campground was fifteen minutes down the road.

  I planned on getting to bed early that night. Then, in the morning, I could wake up refreshed. With a refreshed mind I could begin to figure this thing out. And it would take some figuring out.

  All I knew for sure was that Anna was running from something dangerous.

  She had escaped from the bus station by climbing out the window in the ladies’ room. I was certain of that now, because the video had shown that she never exited through the door.

  What was she running from? Why were two goons watching her? Who were they? What was in the duffel bag? How the hell did I become involved?

  I didn’t want to be involved. Not with Anna’s problems. Not with anybody’s problems. Including my own.

  Problems were supposed to be a thing of my past. After all, I was retired. Which meant enjoying life. Traveling the country. Writing novels. Taking it easy.

  At least that was how I had always pictured my retirement. The picture never included problems.

  One option was for me to just walk away from this new problem. Forget it ever happened. Forget that Anna had set me up for the fall. Forget that the thugs had broken into my motor home.

  Forgetting about what had happened seemed like a good option.

  I took some time to consider it . . .

  And realized it was not an option. Not really. Not for me.

  Because I knew that I could not forget. Would not forget. This thing would always be in the back of my mind. It would piss me off whenever I thought about it. I would always resent having been used by Anna—and letting her get away with it. I would always resent having been burglarized by the two goons—and letting them get away with it.