Chapter Thirty-Four
“That is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard,” Summer said as the trio walked down the hallway to her office. They had left Irving to contemplate the betrayal of his former friend.
Inside the office was a computer system that would be the envy of any government agency or computer geek. Summer dropped into her chair.
“We have to find Albert,” Jess said. She had a feeling the case was heading toward a hard landing. Olive had upped her game. They had to find her and Albert, and fast. “Detective?”
Sam checked his texts. “So far, no news from the nursing facilities. There are no new residents that match both his age and description. I’ll send out the photo and see if that shakes anything out.”
“Summer?”
Summer handed over a three-sheet stapled printout of everything she had on Albert and his granddaughter. “Albert worked as an accountant for forty years. He had a modest home and an ordinary life. His wife died fifteen years ago from heart disease. Olive went to college on a rugby scholarship. She dropped out after the spring semester two years ago and has worked odd jobs since. There is no sign of trouble with the law and she was doing well in college.”
There was a lot more of nothing unusual about the pair on the pages. They were like any other Midwest family. Apparently, that wasn’t enough for Albert.
“I read some of Olive’s diary and it’s pretty standard. Does he like me, he doesn’t like me, am I too plain, what should I wear to school, stuff like that.” Jess found most of it tame. “It’s only about two years ago that she started hanging out with grandpa at the home. He had to be the trigger that set her off. She stopped talking about boys and clothes and more about the injustices in the world.”
“Did she mention Irving directly?” Sam said.
“No. She complained about stuff she’d seen on the news or read online. None of it was personal.”
“She took her cues from him,” Sam added. “Could be that he didn’t start indoctrinating her with tales of revenge until recently. Something set him off.”
“Over checkers and Antiques Roadshow, he must have fed her stories about Irving,” Summer said. “From his warped perspective, he saw Irving as living in the shiny tower on the hill, the king who stole his castle.”
“With another new and successful business, Irving was living large,” Sam agreed. “Eileen aside, Albert wanted out of construction and made the wrong choice there. That was his bad decision. But why recruit Olive?”
“He turned her to the dark side for selfish reasons and was too old to act on the plot by himself,” Sam said. “Maybe he wanted someone to sympathize with him? Maybe what started off as a meeting of the minds turned into a revenge plot? She could have Stockholm Syndrome.”
It could take a lot less than a twisted grandfather to turn an impressionable girl to do his bidding.
“If she wasn’t such a danger to herself and others, I could almost feel sorry for her,” Jess said.
“If Albert wanted Irving dead, why have none of the shootings been fatal? She clearly knows how to shoot straight.” Jess rubbed the back of her neck where the latest pellets hit her. “Olive seems more interested in ticking me off than actually hurting me.”
“Why come after you, anyway?” Summer leaned her chin on her open palm. “You weren’t even born when the feud started.”
That remained the big unanswered question. “To hurt Irving? She has to know we’re family to him.”
Summer pressed on. “Then why not me and Taryn?”
Jess had no answers. “We’ll add that to the list of interrogation questions when I put the thumb screws to Olive after we catch her.”
They discussed all the possibilities for the non-lethal attacks and didn’t come up with anything solid. How could they when Olive was all over the board with her strategy.
Jess and Sam left Brash and headed for the PD.
Now that their suspect had been confirmed, it was time to put out an updated APB for Olive the Menace. Afterward, they checked out a couple more gun shops, a pair of motels, and a nursing home with a recent patient about Albert’s age.
Nothing. Wherever Olive and Albert were hiding, they were off the radar.
“I’d like to make a trip to my storage unit,” Jess said and gave him the address. “Since the case is taking longer than I thought, I’ll need a few things before I start wearing your clothes and undies. Your house isn’t exactly female friendly.”
He groaned. “Sam, welcome to the land of throw pillows.”
She laughed despite a huge effort not to. “Oh my God. You are such a… I don’t know how to describe it. If I didn’t know that you liked women, I’d swear you’re president of the He-man Woman Haters Club, from The Little Rascals.”
“Tell me that you don’t have at least one throw pillow in your storage locker?” He waited for a denial. It never came. “What is it with women and throw pillows? You just kick them on the floor when you go to bed.”
“What’s with men and sterile environments?” She challenged back. “If left to a man, your houses would look like units at a prison.”
“You think my house is sterile?” He actually appeared insulted.
“Not in the least,” she admitted. The house was beautiful. “But it would look nice with a couple of mossy green pillows to cover up the hole in the couch.”
Sam inhaled deeply through his nose and out through his mouth. “That couch was perfectly fine before Spike ate it. It didn’t need a ‘mossy’ anything.”
By then, Jess was shaking on the seat with laughter. “See, even Spike knew the living room needed a change. Pretty pillows are fun and add character.”
With the most exaggerated eye roll known in the history of mankind, Sam lost the battle. His mouth twitched. “Given another week with you two living under my roof, my house will look like the Grimes cabin but with fancy pillows. Spike will have eaten most of everything else.”
* * *
The storage facility was shaped like a U and tucked back off the main street. The units were not big, about ten by ten. Jess claimed to have sold off most of her belongings when she took to the road with the Lansing Mighty Muskrats.
“Why did I need a houseful of furniture when I’d spend most of my time traveling?” She pulled out her keys and walked down the aisle to the right. “Taryn, Summer, and I lived together with another friend, Lisa, in a small house in Lansing until Willard fired us. We didn’t have much, so moving to Ann Arbor to work for Irving was a breeze.”
The orange door went up easily on oiled tracks when Jess pushed it up. She reached over to the left side and flicked on the light.
Shoot! How could she have forgotten?
Her head spun in his direction but it was too late.
Sam froze when hundreds of beady black eyes stared out from the dim and cluttered compartment.