A Candidate For Murder (Old Maids of Mercer Island Mysteries Book 2) (27 page)

Blair was forced to drive slowly off the island. Traffic lights swung back and forth, and broken branches flew through the air and rolled across the street as we headed for the freeway. We picked up southbound I–405 and passed patches of lit neighborhoods along the way. But once we left the freeway in Renton, a completely dark environment forced us to slow down even more.

Headlights from a surprising number of cars cut through the darkness as their drivers carefully navigated the streets, stopping cautiously at intersections. Given our destination and what lay ahead, it was frustrating. We didn’t have time to waste.

We wound our way up NE 4th and crested the big hill again. The darkened Renton Technical College campus appeared on our left. This time we turned at the McDonald’s Restaurant at the corner of Monroe Street, where a few patrons lingered in front of the fast food place, perhaps waiting to see if the lights would come back on. Greenwood Memorial Park Cemetery, where the famous rock star was buried, sat across the street on the corner.

There were two entrances to the cemetery. The first entrance led to the chapel, but that was now blocked by a large tree branch that had come down. The grounds were surrounded by a fence, which was lined with bushes and trees. This made it difficult to see into the cemetery grounds. Blair cruised slowly down the street and paused when we reached the second entrance.

The Hendrix memorial sat 100 feet inside the entrance in the middle of a circular lawn, clearly visible from the street, even with the power out. A tall marble pagoda with a domed top was surrounded by slabs of marble that seemed to glow in the dark. I had been there only once when Graham wanted to visit the memorial. As I remembered, all four panels of the pagoda had been etched on the inside with images of the famous musician, his signature head band tied around his forehead.

Blair had turned off the car’s headlights. If, in fact, Tony had brought Dana here, we didn’t want to alert him. The wind had begun to subside, but now snow fell in soft flakes. While Blair concentrated on driving, the rest of us peered through the break in the trees along the street side of the cemetery.

“Back there,” Rudy called. “That’s got to be him.”

Blair slammed on the brakes. A tiny light flickered at the back of the property.

“Okay, if that’s him, how will we get to him without him knowing?” Doe asked.

There was a pause, and then Rudy said, “Blair, drive to the end of the road and turn left. The city’s maintenance yard is down there.”

I swung my head in her direction. “How in the world do you know that?”

“I did an article on the Hendrix memorial back in 2000, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death. This place was packed. I had to drive around looking for somewhere to park. I finally found a place down there and came in through the back.”

“Got it,” Blair said.

She passed the entrance and then flipped on the lights again. At the end of Monroe Avenue, she turned left. The line of trees continued all along the perimeter of the property, essentially blocking our view.
A good thing
, I thought.

“We can park at the end of the street up here and walk in through the maintenance yard.” Rudy said.

“We’ll need to be quiet, though,” I warned everyone. “If he hears us, he could take off.”

“Or kill her first,” Doe said solemnly from the back seat. “If he hasn’t already.”

Blair pulled to the end of the street and parked at the curb. She killed the engine. “You guys do realize it’s freezing cold out there?” she said. “And it’s beginning to snow.”

“Do we have a choice?” I asked.

Blair glanced through the driver’s side window. “Damn, I never thought I’d do something so heroic for Dana Finkle.”

“I doubt any of us did,” I said. “I guess this is what it means to be a Mercer Island Hero.”

“Funny,” she said. “But I left my medallion at home. Let’s get this over with.” She started to open the door when Rudy stopped her.

“Wait a minute. We need a plan. He’s liable to have a weapon.”

“What if we spread out and distract him?” Doe asked.

“And then what?” Rudy countered.

I sat back and unlatched my seat belt, a leaden feeling in my stomach.  “No,” I said. “I say I go in there alone.”

“What? That’s not safe,” Doe said.

“None of this is safe. But if he thinks I’m alone, maybe I can stall him until the police get here. I told April to send someone down to the station.”

“But that could take a while,” Rudy said. “Where’s that baseball bat?”

I pulled it off the floor. “Right here.”

She took it from me. “Okay. It’s the only weapon we have.”

“What if he doesn’t buy that Julia is alone?” Doe asked “We’re pretty well known for going everywhere together.”

“If he doesn’t buy it, then Julia calls the two of you out,” Rudy replied.

“But not you,” Doe said.

“No. I’ll hang back,” Rudy said. “I could be out of town or something.” Rudy turned to me. “You can do this, Julia. Tony is your friend. Play off that. Just keep him talking.”

“What will you do?” Doe asked.

We all turned to Rudy, who was staring out the window at the sliver of light, barely visible from this angle. She handed the bat to Doe.

“I have an idea,” she said. “One of you should take the bat, and give me that recorder. Then, just look for my signal.”

“Which will be what?” Blair snapped.

“Don’t worry, you’ll know it,” she replied.

Everyone paused and looked out the window towards the solitary light that we believed marked Dana’s forthcoming grave.

“C’mon, let’s do this,” Rudy prodded. “We’ll cut through the maintenance yard. Then, Julia, you go first. Doe, you cut around to the left and Blair to the right. You guys take the baseball bat. Maybe between the four of us, we can stop him, stall him, or do enough damage to hurt him.”

“I like the sound of that,” Blair murmured.

It didn’t really seem like much of a plan, but we didn’t have time for a better one. We climbed out into the cold and assembled on the driver’s side of the Mercedes. The wind had finally dissipated, replaced by light snowflakes. Somewhere a dog barked, and in the background, the sound of traffic on NE 4
th
Street was dulled, making it feel as if we were on another planet.

I looked gravely at my fellow heroes in the dark, my nerves on alert. “You guys are the best friends a girl ever had.”

“Oh, shut up!” Rudy snapped. “We’re all going to be fine. Use your flashlight only until you get onto the cemetery grounds. Keep it focused right at your feet, so he’s less likely to see it. Once you’re through the maintenance yard, you’ll have to turn it off.”

I nodded and flicked on the small flashlight. We moved up the street to where a locked gate extended across the road. “Now what?” I said, reaching out and fingering a chain and padlock.

“Hold on,” Rudy said. She moved to the end of the gate, where it butted up against a tall row of bushes. “Over here,” she whispered. “We’ll have to slip through.” She pushed the bush back, giving us about a foot and a half.

“Are you kidding?” I said in a hoarse whisper. “I’m not that thin.”

“Suck it in,” Blair said. “You can do it.”

I stood up straight, pulled in my stomach and crammed into the narrow space. I got stuck. Rudy pushed, and I popped out the other side, leaving my wool coat a little worse for wear. One by one, the others followed.

Rudy nodded for me to move ahead, so I began moving slowly up a dirt road that led into the maintenance yard, feeling very much alone and vulnerable. I left the hood on my coat down so that I could see and hear better, but my ears quickly started to go numb. The flashlight gave me enough light to avoid killing myself, but it wasn’t easy going. The ground was uneven, and I had to be careful I didn’t trip – not my strong point.

Blair and Doe followed at a good distance. When I hit a break in the fence, where the paved cemetery road came into the maintenance yard, they held back. I extinguished my small light and walked through, keeping to the edge of the drive.

Tony’s light flickered some thirty yards in front of me, partially hidden by a bank of bushes. On the far side was a towering line of trees, now flecked with white. The area was eerily quiet, as the snow picked up and began to blanket the ground.

I took a calming breath and crossed an intersecting road, stopping at the curb on the other side. I turned and glanced behind me. Two shadows followed me through the opening and then split up. I could just barely make out a third shadow in the background, waiting.

My body was humming with adrenalin. This seemed crazy, but what else could we do? At least we all wore dark clothes, and except for Blair, sensible shoes. Perhaps we could at least surprise Tony. But what then?

I turned back to where the light now flickered a short distance in front of me. The bulky outline of the skip loader sat off to the right, like some monster waiting in the dark. Through breaks in the bushes, I could see someone bending over and then straightening up.

Tony was shoveling dirt.

My heart sank, and I swallowed a ball of spit at the thought that this was really happening. Someone I trusted and cared for was a ruthless killer. This had happened before – after Martha was murdered. How could I keep misjudging people so badly? But then the realization that Tony might already be shoveling dirt back
into
the hole made my chest muscles clench.

I had to hurry.

I stepped up onto the curb and almost met with disaster. My foot twisted into a hole, making me bite off a cry of pain. I stopped, my heart beating wildly. I took a breath and tried it again, stepping up onto the grass. All was okay, and I continued forward.

My feet whispered through the growing layer of snow. I snuck forward until I was standing behind the bank of bushes. I flexed my fingers, feeling the cold through my leather gloves. I leaned over and peered through the branches, hoping to see Tony. There was a pile of dirt, now covered in white, and the small light that sat on the ground. But no Tony.

I tip-toed to the south end of the bushes and then stopped to listen. I was going to have to get up the nerve to step out and reveal myself, but the thought nearly short-circuited my breathing. I closed my eyes a moment to gather strength, and then offered a silent prayer to keep us all safe. But a shiver ran the length of my spine, as if in warning. When I opened my eyes, I noticed a car parked on the far side of where I stood. My brows clenched in question.

It was a Saab.

“Well, what do we have here?”

I spun around with a gasp. A small figure draped in shadow stood behind me, holding something in his right hand.

“Step around into the light, Julia,” he said. “I have a gun.”

He gestured with the hand that held the gun. My heart rate went into overdrive, but I turned my back on him and walked into a small clearing surrounded by trees and more bushes.

A hooded camp lantern sat on the ground next to a deep, oblong hole, surrounded by piles of dirt and mud. A large marble monument sat at the corner of the clearing. On the other side of the hole, Dana laid on her stomach, trussed up like a turkey, snow layering the back of her coat. A piece of duct tape kept her mouth shut, but she saw me and started squirming. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I turned to the man with the gun.

“Why are you doing this, Clay?”

“What do you care?” he snarled. “You hate her almost as much as I do.”

“You
hate
Dana?”

“Oh, God, yes,” he replied. He came up to my left side. “She’s the most awful person I know. But, I suppose after I bury her alive,
I’ll
be the most awful person I know.” He chuckled as Dana whimpered and squirmed frantically.

“But why bury her alive?”

“Because she was going to divorce me and leave me penniless,” he roared. He leaned into me, and in the dark, his eyes gleamed with a seething hatred. He took a breath to calm himself down and a leering grin spread across his face. “Don’t you see? This way, I’ll have revenge
and
her money.”

I glanced at Dana and finally felt sorry for her.

“That’s what this is all about? Money. Where’s Tony?”

“Tony? Oh, the message. That was a ruse. But first things first. I know you’re not alone. So where are the others?”

“I
am
alone,” I said unconvincingly. “It’s just me.”

“No,” he snapped, pointing the gun at my chest. “It’s never just you. You always have your little entourage with you. So where are they?” He stepped back and glanced around, keeping the gun pointed at me. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he sang.

There was a long pause as the silence of the falling snow seemed to engulf us. Nothing happened.

“Honestly, I came alone. They’re all back at the Inn.”

“You’re lying. Come out,” he shouted. “Or I’ll kill Julia now and bury her with Dana.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long cylinder and screwed it onto the tip of his gun. “See? I even brought a silencer, just in case.”