Chapter 10

The middle aged man ran across the parking lot, glancing fearfully over his shoulder for signs of pursuit. He tripped over a concrete parking lot divider, flying face first towards the pavement. While attempting to catch his fall, he let loose of his briefcase. It skittered across the pavement. Ignoring his cuts and scrapes, he scrambled forward to catch his briefcase. His suit was torn and dirty as a result of his fall.

Betsy had detoured from her parkour run across the roof of the building. She had jumped to ground, using the roof of a truck that was parked near the building as a stepping stone. She had been running one of her parkour routes and witnessed the man’s flight and subsequent spill. Her foot stopped the briefcase. He grabbed at the briefcase only then noticing that it was under her foot.

“Help me,” he said. “I need a place to hide.”

“Who is chasing you?”

“Two men. I don’t know who they are. I saw them kill my boss and now they’re after me,” the man said while looking around fearfully.

“Go hide between the two cars over there,” Betsy said pointing to some cars parked nearby. He looked at her, and she barked, “Hide! Now!”

As soon as the man was hidden, two men ran into the parking lot. They paused, looked around, and then headed for Betsy.

One of them reached out to grab her arm. She redirected his movement so that he hit himself in the face with his palm. He stepped back and shook his head like he was trying to see if something had come loose, inside.

“God damn it,” he said upon discovering he had a bloody nose.

The other man asked, “Did you see a man come running through here?”

The man with the bloody nose fiddled around, and pulled out a handkerchief. He dabbed it at his nose, slowly turning it red with blood.

“It doesn’t matter if I did or not,” Betsy answered.

“Why?” the questioner asked surprised by her answer.

“I’m not going to tell you what I did or didn’t see. It’s not polite for a strange man to try to grab a young woman in the middle of a parking lot. I don’t talk to rude men,” Betsy said primly with a vacuous expression on her face

The man who had tried to grab her said, “Listen, bitch. You’re going to tell us which way he went or you’ll live to regret it.”

“I’ve had remarkably few regrets in my life. I suppose now is a good time to get another,” Betsy said with a smile.

“I ought to smack you into next week.”

The other man had been looking around for any sign of their prey. Not finding any, he said, “Forget her. He’s gone.”

The man who had tried to grab her, said, “One day you and I will have a long talk. You won’t like it.”

“I guess that means you’re a boring conversationalist, too. Rude and boring, what a lousy combination. No wonder you’re grumpy,” Betsy said.

The man looked like he was ready to hit her. Betsy smiled, and gave him the finger.

“Forget the bitch. We’ve got a bigger problem to worry about,” the one man said grabbing the other man by the arm.

She watched the two men leave with the one man pulling the other away. They kept turning around to look at her. She waited until they were out of sight.

“Stay there,” Betsy said. “I’ve got some calls to make. I know people who can help you.”

“Okay,” the man said.

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number. When the other party answered, Betsy said, “Hello, Detective Roberts.”

“Don’t tell me you mangled, maimed, or killed another Russian.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you that,” Betsy said smiling.

There was a low groan. “Did you mangle, maim, or kill another Russian?”

“No.”

“What do you want?”

“I need to talk with you,” Betsy said.

“I can’t. I’m rather busy,” he said.

“I take it you’re on your way to investigate a murder?”

There was a moment of silence while he considered her statement. She knew someone had been murdered. There were only three explanations. From his perspective, none of them were any good. Knowing his luck, she had killed the man.

He picked the most likely one and asked, “Did you kill him?”

“No.”

Deciding that she had witnessed it, he said, “I’m on my way to the crime scene. I’ll talk to you when I’m done with that.”

Betsy said, “Okay. You go play Mr. Important Detective while I will play poor little scared college girl. You go look at a dead body, and I’ll hide the witness to the murder you’re investigating.”

“You’re hiding a witness to the murder,” Detector Roberts said in a voice that was half disbelief and half acceptance.

“Ah. You figured it out. You really are a remarkable detective, Mr. Clouseau,” Betsy said.

“Where are you?”

Betsy rubbed the torc on her arm and then answered, “I’ll meet you at the Bloated Shark in two hours.”

She ended the call. She looked around the parking lot.

She called over to where the man was hiding, “Stay where you are. I’m sure they’re still looking for you. They’ve probably gone off to get a car and will drive around hoping to spot you running.”

“Okay,” the man said.

A dark sedan drove past the parking lot at a slow speed. She could see four men in it looking around in search of someone. Two of them were the men who had bothered her in the parking lot. She couldn’t see the license plate on the car.

“Sometimes people are so damned predictable,” Betsy muttered.

Betsy opened her cell phone and made a speed-dial call.

“Candice, this is Betsy. Get the special room ready.”

Seeing her on the telephone, the man driving floored it and the car sped off. She put away the cell phone and then walked over to the cars parked nearby.

“You can get up now. We’ll go in the building behind me, cut through it to the engineering building, and visit with a friend of mine for a bit. A detective will meet up with us later and you can tell him what happened,” Betsy said.

“Are you sure it is safe?”

Betsy rubbed the torque on her arm before she answered, “Quite sure.”

While they made their way into the building, she said, “I’m Betsy. Who are you?”

“Tony Thomas.”

“Nice to meet you Tony.”

“I’m sorry to have gotten you mixed up in this,” Tony said.

Betsy said, “Don’t worry about it. This is something I’m supposed to be doing.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Betsy said dismissively.

Betsy led Tony through the labyrinth that was the engineering building. Some people recognized her, and moved out of her way. Others stared at the man because of his torn suit. She stopped in front of an office.

“Here we are.”

“There’s no sign on the door.”

“The man inside doesn’t want to be disturbed,” Betsy said. “If he has a visitor, then he might have to rouse himself enough to engage in a conversation.”

“What?” Tony asked.

Henry rolled his head and opened an eye, to look at the couple as they entered his office.

He said, “I think I liked it better when you were full of energy.”

“You just fantasized about me doing native dances, topless,” Betsy said.

“Nah. I appreciated the contrast. You made feel even lazier,” Henry replied.

“That makes sense in a lazy crazy sort of way,” Betsy said with a half grin.

“Who’s the guy in the mangled suit?”

“Tony, this is Henry. Henry, this is Tony.”

“Why are you here?”

“I need a place to hide him for a couple of hours,” Betsy said.

“So you thought of me.”

Betsy replied, “Knowing how many visitors you get, I knew that no one would disturb us.”

Henry’s fingers flew over the keyboard. The coffeemaker started brewing a cup of coffee.

“How’s the sandwich maker working out?” Betsy asked.

“It sucks. It broke after the third grilled cheese sandwich. It’s easier to send Paul out to bring back real meals,” Henry said.

“Are you paralyzed?” Tony asked.

“No. Just lazy.”

“I know who you are. You’re Henry Thibodeaux.”

“That’s right.”

“We hired you to work on the FG gun.”

“Oh, you’re Tony Thomas?”

“That’s right,” Tony said.

“How’s the project going?” Henry asked.

“One of the mechanical engineers solved the silencer problem last week. Basically, it’s done.”

“How’d you suppress that much noise?” Henry asked with a raise eyebrow.

Tony got very excited and said, “It was actually a lot easier than I thought possible. The whole barrel was made into a silencer.”

Betsy rolled her eyes and said, “While you two are comparing the sizes of your oscilloscopes, I’m going to finish my run.”

“Have fun,” Henry said. “Work up a sweat so that I can say that I’ve seen my share of exercise for the day.”

“Very funny,” Betsy said.

Two hours later, a yellow checkered taxi pulled up by the dock next to the Bloated Shark. Betsy paid the fare before they got out of it.

Tony had taken one look at the back of the tug and said, “I hate to say this, but the name of this boat is really disgusting. ‘Bloated Shark’ makes me think of a dead and stinking shark, rotting under a hot sun.”

“It’s a big slow boat that moves through the water like a bloated shark,” Betsy said.

“I’d change the name if I were you.”

“I like the name.”

Tony followed her to the second deck where they entered the crew entertainment room. There was a large screen television attached to one wall, with chairs facing it. There was also a table with bench seats at the end of the room opposite the television.

“They’re making progress,” Betsy said ignoring the two men who were waiting for her.

“Hello, Miss Carter.”

“Hi, Detective Roberts. You don’t look happy to see me.”

“It just seems that injured, maimed, and dead people show up whenever I’m around you.”

“I don’t start things, I just end them,” Betsy said.

“Hello, Betsy.”

“Hi, David. How are things in the FBI?”

“Lots of bad guys to chase down,” David answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I take you’re here on Druid business,” Betsy said.

Detective Roberts had been aware that the man with him was FBI, but he hadn’t known he was a Druid. He looked over at David knowing that this case just got a thousand times more complicated. Druids weren’t exactly popular among the rich and powerful on the island at the moment. Things would get very excited around the station if a Druid showed up.

He swore, “Oh, shit!”

“The lead engineer on the FG gun project was murdered this afternoon,” David said.

“So what’s so important about that, that it brings an FBI agent in?” Detective Roberts asked.

“It’s a highly classified project. When you have a lead on a project of that importance get murdered, you tend to think of espionage.”

“You’re a little quick to jump to conclusions. We won’t know a motive until we get more information about the circumstances of murder,” Detective Roberts said.

“He was there,” Betsy said pointing a thumb at Tony.

Tony held up the briefcase he was carrying and said, “I’ve got Taylor’s briefcase.”

“Let’s see what’s inside,” David said.

While David went through the contents of the briefcase, Detective Roberts interviewed Betsy and Tony to get details about the murder, including descriptions of the individuals involved. It was a relatively simple story. Taylor and Tony had gone to lunch. Taylor had excused himself from the table to talk to a man. He came back to the table upset about something. After they finished their meal, they left the restaurant. For some reason, Taylor had given Tony his briefcase to carry. On reaching Taylor’s car they were confronted by two men. When guns were pulled, Tony backed away. When they shot Taylor, Tony took off. Several blocks later, he ran into Betsy in the parking lot.

Detective Roberts, upon hearing the details of Betsy’s involvement, said, “You were just hoping he’d take a swing at you, weren’t you?”

“Not really,” Betsy said. Nodding in David’s direction, Betsy said, “Taking care of those men is his job. Mine is to hide Tony until this mess is over.”

David perked up and glanced at the torc on her arm. He asked, “Are you supposed to be a guardian angel?”

“I guess,”Betsy said. “I haven’t gotten much guidance from you know who.”

“Interesting.”

Detective Roberts said, “So what happens now?”

David said, “We do our jobs. You’ll work on the murder case. I’ll work on the espionage case. Betsy will hide our witness.”