J. Jance - Cruel Intent

That was true. For Bob and Edie, a day without a verbal skirmish was like a day without sun.

“What about this time?” Ali asked.

“Your mother’s Taser,” Jan returned.

Ali was aghast. “My mother’s what?”

“Her Taser,” Jan repeated. “FedEx delivered it a little while ago. She went out into the kitchen to load and authorize it, and your father started pitching a fit. Are you here for lunch?” she added, pulling out her order pad. “It’s early, but what can I get you?”

“You’re telling me my mother has a Taser, like on COPS ?”

“Not exactly like on COPS, ” Jan said. “Theirs are black. Edie’s is that pretty metallic pink. She got one that matches her cell phone.”

Pink? Ali marveled.

“And what happens when you hit some poor little old guy with a pacemaker and he flops over dead?” Bob’s tirade continued. “What happens then?”

“You need to watch the video,” Edie said patiently. “It goes into all those details. The amount of charge in the Taser doesn’t do anything at all to pacemakers. Besides, how many crooks that are robbing banks or doing carjackings already have pacemakers?”

“And how many carjackings have you been involved in?” Bob demanded.

“None so far,” Edie replied. “But if I ever am, the guy doing it will be in for a big surprise.”

Walking around the end of the counter, Ali stepped into the kitchen. Her father stood leaning against the kitchen sink with his arms folded belligerently across his chest. Edie, frowning in concentration, was holding and manipulating a metal object of some kind in one hand while consulting a piece of paper in her other hand. The pink metallic object was about the same size and shape as an ordinary office stapler, and the color did indeed match Edie’s hot-pink cell phone.

Intent on their argument, neither Bob nor Edie registered Ali’s arrival on the scene. Since bickering was a way of life for her parents, Ali didn’t hesitate before stepping into the melee. “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

“Your mother’s gone off the deep end this time,” Bob replied. “Bought herself one of those Taser outfits from that Frieda Rains woman. With her packing that thing around, God help me if she ever goes on the warpath.”

None of this made much sense, but Ali plucked a familiar name out of her father’s diatribe: Frieda Rains was a local woman somewhere in her mid-to late seventies who had been left virtually penniless by her husband’s long bout with numerous health issues, including his eventual death from complications related to Alzheimer’s. In order to keep a roof over her head, Frieda had taken over as manager of a trailer park somewhere farther up Oak Creek Canyon. In addition to that, she eked out a meager living by doing other various odd jobs, including working as a food demonstrator and selling Tupperware.

“What’s Frieda doing with Tasers?” Ali asked.

“Selling them,” Edie Larson answered. “She can make a lot more money selling Tasers at a party than she can make selling plastic dishware.”

“My point exactly,” Bob said. “Once she sells them to everyone she knows, we’ll all be at risk. No one in town will be safe.”

“You should be grateful,” Edie said. “With the women in town prepared to defend themselves, you’ll be a whole lot safer than you were before.”

“You’re saying Frieda Rains is an authorized dealer, then?” Ali asked.

“Yes,” Edie answered. “She’s a fully authorized dealer. I went to one of her first parties here in town last week. Your father knew at the time that I was going. I told him well in advance.”

“Yes,” Bob grumbled. “But when you came home, you neglected to mention that you actually bought one. You seem to have left out that important detail.”

“Because I knew you’d pitch a fit five ways to Sunday when you found out,” Edie shot back. “Which is what you’re doing right this minute, in case you haven’t noticed. Since I knew having this argument was inevitable, I decided to postpone it until my C2 actually got here and it came time to activate it. Which I’ve done, by the way, by putting in the authorization code.”

“You’re saying that now it’s loaded?” Bob asked warily. “Are you telling me all you have to do is shoot the damn thing? Shouldn’t there be some kind of training program before you’re allowed to go around with it in your hand?”

“It isn’t a lethal weapon,” Edie returned. “And I’ve already done the training. Frieda gave me a copy of the video. I’ve watched it several times. Running this thing is as easy as pie.”

“What about a license? Shouldn’t you have one of those?”

“A license isn’t required,” Edie said. “I brought the computer over from the house so I could answer the questions on the felony check. Obviously, there weren’t any of those. Now that it’s activated, I’m good to go.”

“How about if you go out of my kitchen, then,” Bob suggested. “And take that blasted thing with you. What if it goes off accidentally and messes up my microwave?”

“It doesn’t go off unless you move back the cover and push the red button,” Edie said. “And it’s not going to hurt your microwave.”

“I don’t care,” Bob said. “I want it out of here!”

With a glare in her husband’s direction, Edie stuffed the Taser in the pocket of her apron and headed for the dining room. Bob turned on his daughter. “As for you,” he said, “if you’re looking for lunch, we don’t start serving for another five minutes. No exceptions, not even for you.”

Ali followed Edie back into the dining room. “Can I see it?” she asked. “Please?”

Edie sighed. “As long as you don’t give me any grief about it. See? This is how it works.” She held out the sleek little instrument and pulled back the plastic cover that served as a trigger guard. As soon as she did that, a bright red laser light appeared on the opposite wall.

“A lot of the time, just having that light aimed at his chest is enough to get a crook to back off. If he doesn’t, you press this button, the one with the lightning on it. You’ve got to keep the Taser vertical. The darts shoot out about fifteen feet, and they say you should always aim for the chest. The second dart hits about a foot lower than the first one. If he still doesn’t go down, you can use this as a stun gun in close physical combat, but that’s a lot harder.”

“You seem to know a lot about this,” Ali said.

“You bet,” Edie replied with a grin. “Like I said, I’ve watched the video.”

The bell rang over the door, signaling arriving customers. Without another word, Edie stowed her Taser in the locked compartment under the cash wrap next to her purse. While Jan went to seat the new arrivals, Edie busied herself with brewing a new pot of coffee. “I swear,” she said, “I think your father would be happier living in the twentieth century-the early twentieth century. The moment something new comes along, he digs in his heels. That’s why he’s still driving that old wreck of his.”

Bob Larson’s 1972 Bronco was his pride and joy. It was also his sole means of transportation. Refurbished after being stolen and stripped sometime earlier, it now sported a brand-new coat of paint and newly acquired copper-plated antique-vehicle license plates.

Ali wasn’t about to be deflected from the subject at hand. “But why a Taser?” she asked.

“Why not?” Edie returned. “Not everybody has what it takes to be a martial-arts expert, and we can’t all be like you and carry a loaded Glock around.”

Both of Ali’s parents had objected to her having a gun and a concealed-weapon permit, although the criticism had pretty much gone away after an almost fatal shoot-out in a Phoenix-area hospital waiting room. On that occasion, the presence of Ali’s weapon had played an important part in saving countless lives.