Joseph's Kidnapping Read online

  JOSEPH’S KIDNAPPING

  by Randy Rawls

  Published by L&L Dreamspell

  London, Texas

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

  Copyright 2011 by Randy Rawls

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover and Interior Design by L & L Dreamspell

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in a review.

  This is a work of fiction, and is produced from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real people is a coincidence. Places and things mentioned in this novel are used in a fictional manner.

  ISBN- 978-1-60318-352-9

  Published by L & L Dreamspell

  Produced in the United States of America

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

  * * * *

  ONE

  It was three a.m. and I nestled in the arms of Terri Hart, the beautiful woman I fell in love with during my case in Cisco, the one I called Jake’s Burn. We lay exhausted from a night of lovemaking, with the emphasis on love. I smelled her perfume and the sexiness of her body. She was the missing link in my life, and my heart reminded me daily. Her head rested on my chest, and I stroked her red hair. “I love you.”

  “What’s that noise?”

  I wanted to answer, but the sound repeated. I knew it was a phone, not the kind I grew up with, but a modern one that makes an irritating electronic racket. I struggled to shut it out, caressing Terri’s head and rubbing my fingers over her whiskers.

  Whiskers? My eyes fluttered open, and my brain registered the situation. It was a dream, and it was my cat Striker on my chest, not Terri. That explained the whiskers. Before I could grab the telephone, it rang again and the answering machine kicked in.

  Hello, you’ve got Ace Edwards, Private Investigator, solver of the Cisco arson and murder case. No case too big or too small—

  Although I knew the cuteness of the recording would place it in the Top 10, I mumbled into the handset, “Hello, this is Ace. I’m live, not a recording.”

  “Arty, Chip here. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Chip who?” I asked, indignation flashing. I looked at the clock radio. “It’s three in the morning. Of course, you woke me.”

  That’s another thing I never understood. What do people think you’re doing in the middle of the night, other than sleeping? I must lead a boring life.

  “I’m sorry, Arty, but Jake said this is the best time to call. Said you’re home and wide awake, working on your cases.”

  Jake, my poor little rich buddy. He considered it great sport to wake me in the middle of the night. I assumed it was because he already owned everything in sight and used me as non-monetary entertainment. He must have cut this guy in on the joke. I wanted to hang up, but if I didn’t get a case soon, I’d be flipping burgers in a fast food joint—and I don’t care for burgers.

  “If this is a bad time, Arty—”

  “Hold it right there, Chip or Skip or whoever the hell you are. The name’s Ace, not Arty. The only person who calls me Arty is Jake Adams who probably put you up to this prank. And he pays dearly every time I take a case for him.”

  That was true up to a point. I’ve only done two cases for Jake, but he did pay well.

  “Uh, sorry, Ace. Jake said I should call you Arty. When we were in college, he always called you Arty.”

  Striker and his brother Sweeper, my two cats, sat on the bed, washing the sleepy from their eyes, appearing to listen to the conversation. The looks on their faces said I should conduct my business in an office, not their bedroom.

  “Okay, what do you want?” I asked. “You must have some reason for calling, and who are you? You said college. The only Chip I knew is Chip Jamison. I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “That’s right, Arty, uh, Ace. It’s Chip Jamison. Jake said you never forget anything. He said you’d remember me.”

  I remembered him all right. He was a lineman on the football team, big as a tree and mean as a snake. The Chip Jamison I knew went to the pros, but got hurt during training camp—twenty years ago. That was the last I’d heard of him.

  “Fine, Chip, I remember. What can I do for you?” I resigned myself to listening. I had to—my financial status, remember?

  “I need your help,” Chip said. “Jake says you’re the best. He told me you found the guy who torched his house, and you took him out. That’s the kind of help I need, somebody who’ll strike like a cobra and not worry about the results.”

  I should have told him Jake exaggerates. I solved the case in Cisco, but didn’t kill anyone. In fact, I’ve never killed anybody, even during my ten years on the Dallas police force, except one time when I had no choice. I decided to withhold that information until Chip told me what he wanted, and how much he’d pay.

  I heard Striker grumble deep in his throat as he gave me a look saying he disagreed with my lack of candor. Beside him, Sweeper cleaned his right front paw, showing no interest whatsoever. That meant he didn’t share Striker’s concern about my reticence. Integrity has never been Sweeper’s strong suit.

  “What’s your problem, and what can I do for you? Give me some details.”

  “Find Joseph. He’s been kidnapped, and I want him back.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “No, I’m afraid to. You know how kidnappers always say if you call the cops, something awful will happen. I want you to find him.” Chip’s voice seemed to waver with concern. “I’ll pay whatever they ask. I don’t care about the money, but we gotta save Joseph.”

  I pondered what he’d said, measuring my need for a paying case against my conscience. My conscience won. “The best advice I can give is call the authorities. After that, if you still want help, I’ll do what I can.” I waited, hoping he’d appreciate my lack of greed and say he wanted to hire me.

  “No, Arty, I won’t call the sheriff. I can’t take a chance those kidnapping bastards kill Joseph. This is a small community. Everybody knows everybody’s business so the word will get around fast. Jake said you can get Joseph back without the cops. He says you’re the best.”

  I made a mental note to send Jake a thank-you card. He apparently did great public relations work. However, it did bother me a bit he didn’t follow the truth-in-advertising law. Striker grumbled again.

  “Have you heard from the kidnappers?” I figured I’d better concentrate on getting myself hired. I could tolerate a few Artys.

  “No, not yet. But I’m sure they’ll contact me soon. Joseph disappeared last night.” Chip hesitated, then said with a hopeful tone in his voice. “Can you come today so you’ll be here when they call?”

  “Slow down, Chip. I don’t know where you are and Texas is a big state—if you’re still in Texas. Besides, you don’t know my fees.”

  “Yes, I do. Jake said you get a thou a day plus expenses for a minimum of two weeks. That’s fourteen thousand plus expenses. That’ll be a bargain if you get Joseph back.”

  Right brain kicked in and reminded me to speak with Jake about my fees. He’d paid fifteen hundred a day for Cisco. Guess he wanted to stay top dog. Since my usual fee for chasing errant husbands and wives is one to two hundred a day, I figured I could swallow my pride and accept a lousy thousand from Chip. My financial condition, remember? That didn’t mean I had to play easy to get, though. I had pride. An old saying, allegedly Biblical, popped into my mind. Pride goeth before the fall. I pushed it away and continued my game.

  “I don’t know about today, Chip, but I can try. Are you going to tell me where
you are, or do you expect me to call information in every town in Texas?”

  “Oh, sorry. I’m so torn up about Joseph. You don’t know how much he means to me. I live outside Canton. Ask anybody in town. They’ll direct you to my spread. Can you come in the morning?”

  Come in the morning—hell, my urge was to start right then, but I decided I’d better not appear too eager. “I’ll check to see if I can clear some time. Then I’ll find someone to take over my lesser cases. Give me your number, and I’ll call about mid-morning.” I had my fingers crossed.

  “Great, Arty, great. Jake said you’d play hard to get, but I could depend on you.”

  I let out a quiet sigh of relief while cursing Jake. He knew me too well and shared the information too often.

  Chip gave me his phone number and directions to Canton, and I replaced the handset in its cradle. Sweeper came over and licked me with his sandpaper tongue, his motor running full speed. Striker acted less happy, but curled in my lap.

  I lay down and stroked the cats along their backs, their silky fur rippling under my fingers. Life was good. I had a well-paying case, two loving cats, and memories of Terri.

  I drifted to sleep and my luck held. My dream picked up where it had been interrupted. When I told Terri how much I loved her, she said, “Who’s Joseph?”

  TWO

  I slept until seven, then rose and poured a cup of coffee. Automatic coffeepots are the most important invention of the second half of the twentieth century. How did people make it when they had to wait for coffee? With a load of fresh caffeine in hand, I opened the refrigerator in the hopes I’d find food. There was a half loaf of bread, but it was too stale for anything other than toast. So what, I’ve always liked stale-bread toast. At least I try to convince myself I do. Spread on enough jelly and you forget the bread was old. Of course, I didn’t have any, jelly that is. One twelve ounce can of V-8 hid in the rear behind something green. I wasn’t sure what the green thing was, but I believe in the Geneva Convention so I didn’t bother it. Germ warfare, you know. I suspected it once had a different color.

  I fed the boys and cleaned their litter boxes, one of the more unpleasant aspects of living with cats. At least I don’t have to adhere to their schedule for a walk like people with dogs.

  They glared at me and the cheap brand of cat food I put in their dishes. But when I reminded them of our current financial crises, they calmed down, or so I told myself.

  A twenty-minute shower later I was ready to call Chip. I practiced my best voice and reached for the phone. It rang, causing me to lose five years off my life. Ever have that happen to you? It never fails to make my hair stand.

  “Ace Edwards,” I answered. I always give my name. One of my pet peeves is people who don’t identify themselves when they pick up the phone. You spend your time figuring out what to say because you’re not sure who’s on the other end. I have a friend, a female PI in Dallas, who chides me about it. She says it could be a serial killer making sure he has the right victim. I ignore her and persevere.

  “Arty, it’s Chip—”

  “Oh, hi Chip, what—”

  That’s as far as I got before he unloaded an avalanche of words. When he’d finished, I knew he received a ransom call threatening bad things for Joseph unless Chip came through with ten thousand dollars.

  “How do we do it, Ace? What’s the best way to get the cash? They want it in used bills. You know a banker that’ll help us, don’t you?”

  “A banker? Hell Chip, if you’ve got the kind of change to pay me, you must have bankers.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t use one of them. If they didn’t think I’d flipped out and call a shrink, they’d yell for the sheriff. Nah, can’t use any of mine.”

  What could I say? Admit to him I don’t know any bankers that well, especially ones who produce used bills on demand? I shifted the perspective. “Slow down, Chip. This seems strange. Are you sure he said ten thou? That’s not much for a ransom.”

  “What do you mean, that’s not much? Sounds like enough to me. I’m a working rancher, not some movie star cowboy.” Chip appeared to be unhappy with my denigration of the amount.

  “No, don’t misunderstand me. Ten thousand may be enough, but kidnappers often ask for more. Do you want to pay it?”

  “Yeah, and if I have to, I’ll pay more. Joseph is important to the ranch. Without him, things wouldn’t run near as smooth. Shouldn’t I pay? They said they’d hurt him, maybe kill him.”

  “Did they give you a deadline? When are you supposed to deliver the money?” I had to get him off the killing thought. His whining was too much for me.

  “They didn’t say. Said they’d call again. Can you come now? I’ll go twelve hundred a day plus expenses. Hell, if you get Joseph back without paying the ransom, I’ll throw in half again as a bonus.” Chip sounded desperate. “Will you take the case?”

  Goal, hole-in-one, touchdown, home run. I wanted to scream all of them. If I could pull this off, my money worries would be over—for a few months.

  “Yeah, I cleared my calendar for the next couple of weeks.” See, I can be cool. “If I head out, I should be at your place in about two hours. Hang tight and don’t do anything. The cavalry’s on the way.” I smiled, thinking how reassuring I sounded.

  After he thanked me, I hung up reflecting on how I love my job. The investigation promised to pay my bills.

  Striker looked at me and questioned, “Meow?”

  “Meow?” echoed Sweeper.

  “Yeah, I forgot to ask. But whoever Joseph is, he’s worth a lot to us.”

  * * * *

  I packed for a couple of days, removing the boys from my overnight bag a dozen times. Have you packed with two cats around? No matter how many you take out, there are three or four waiting to jump in. I removed Sweeper, zipped the case, then unzipped it to extract Striker, re-zipped and headed out. I left enough food, water and kitty litter to last normal cats a couple of months—mine, a few days.

  I dropped the top on my Chrysler convertible. You remember the convertible, don’t you? A bad guy blew my older one away. Jake helped me get this one, and I love it. I never tire of watching the top retract with all the machinations of moving parts, whirring sounds, and the final click that says it’s ready.

  As I drove, I rehashed my association with Jake—one of my oldest friends, although friend might be too strong a word. We came from different neighborhoods in the same town—Cisco, Texas. You could say different sides of the tracks. Not that I grew up poor, but his family was so damned rich. We met in school, but became friends on the football field where he starred at quarterback, and I was a substitute running back. Glory washed over him while I collected bruises on the backup team in practice, and splinters during games.

  We attended the same college, but moved in different circles. The years blew by in a blur, ending too soon. After graduation, we kept in touch for a while as we started our lives. Jake returned to Cisco, accepted his inheritance, and launched a career turning his riches into more.

  I joined the Dallas Police Department. Janice, a sweet, spoiled, beautiful young woman I met in college, became my wife. It took her three years to tire of me. I wished her luck and waited for the divorce.

  I invested seven more years in the force before I got the cockeyed idea I could make more money as a private eye. After cashing in my small retirement fund, I started a one-man agency, and that’s where I’ve been for the past ten years.

  I bring in enough for the cats and me to live, nothing more. I keep hoping to hit one big case that will allow me to put money away for retirement, while sweating my mortgage each month.

  An SUV swerved into my lane, cutting me off and jerking my memory into the present. It sped away without a greeting. I crawled down Midway to LBJ, then headed toward I-20. I say crawled because the late-morning traffic was normal—heavy and slow, or on Tuesdays and Thursdays, slow and heavy. Someone said there are two kinds of traffic in Dallas. Yep, I don’t need to give you clues on
that one.

  There were no accidents on LBJ, so we moved at thirty to forty miles an hour. I searched the radio looking for a station that plays my kind of music, not noise making, whining or caterwauling. But I gave up—too noisy with all the eighteen wheelers, SUVs, SPUTs, working pickups, custom vans and MMVs on LBJ. SPUTs? Sport Pickup Trucks. You know, the type with the like-new, unscratched, plastic bed-liner, big wheels, and fancy paint jobs—the ones that are for show only.

  Oh, for you Yankees and others not familiar with Dallas, LBJ is Interstate 635 that loops the city. MMVs? That’s my name for those pesky vans you see everywhere—Mom-to-Market Vans.

  On Interstate 20, driving speed jumped. I refuse to go above seventy-five with the top down because the wind threatens to blow my hat off. That made me about the slowest vehicle headed east. An hour later, I turned onto State Road 64 and was soon in Canton. Chip had said his ranch lay south on Farm Road 1653. I plowed through Canton, following 64 and almost missed the turn. The tires squealed as I twisted the steering wheel to the right, glad I had no bumper-snugger behind me.

  I zipped along at sixty or so, enjoying the open countryside. I’ve always felt sorry for city-slickers. They never see the rolling plains of East Texas. They’re beautiful at any speed. My appreciation of the terrain shattered as I raced into a sharp curve to the right that dropped, then whipped me to the left and up a hill. As I congratulated myself on surviving, I saw it. I knew why Chip had laughed and said, “You’ll know it when you get here.”

  A paved drive turned off to my right under a big archway made of twin bands of curved stainless steel. Overhead, between the bands, I read, Chip’s Training Camp. At each end of the words a football, made from the same stainless steel, reflected the afternoon sun. I stopped to admire it then drove under the archway and headed toward what I hoped was his house. At this point, I couldn’t be sure. There were no buildings in sight.