A Chili Death: A Classic Diner Mystery (23 page)

Repeated over and over again on his calendar had been figures of swans, and swans had chased me in my nightmares, along with those nasty flaming skulls.  It had taken me some time to put it all together, but I finally knew that I had him.  I doubted that it would be proof enough to convict him, or maybe even arrest him, but it was telling enough.  I pulled out my cell phone, but the storm was so bad at first that I couldn’t get any service from where I was sitting.  “Moose?  Are you there?  Can you hear me?”

“What… you… rain.”  I could barely hear my grandfather, and suddenly, we were completely cut off. 

Maybe it was just Moose’s phone, so I called Greg at the diner.  “Greg?”

“Victoria?  Where are you?”  There was static, but not nearly as bad as it had been with Moose.

“I’m on Briar Road,” I said.

“What?  I can’t hear you,” Greg said, and the coverage dropped off almost completely after that.

“Briar Road!” I shouted, but when I looked again, the phone was dead.  I wasn’t sure if lightning had hit a tower, or if the rain had ruined my reception, but I knew that I was on my own.

That meant that, storm or no storm, I was going to have to drive somewhere and tell the police why I suspected that Bob Chastain was a cold-blooded killer.

I started the truck engine and then began to pull out when I felt a crushing jolt from just behind me, ramming me into an oak tree.  Someone had hit Moose’s truck in the storm, and pinned me in the driver’s seat!

The seatbelt had locked with the impact from the other vehicle, and I pounded on the release latch trying to get it to open, but it wouldn’t even budge.  I looked around wildly for something to use as a weapon, but there wasn’t anything there except my cell phone and a handbag with nothing more lethal in it than breath spray.  Could I use that?  I held on tight as I looked through the rain and saw lightning flashing, cutting through the temporary darkness.  In that moment, I’d seen Bob walking toward me, a wicked smile on his face as he pressed on.  It was as though he didn’t even feel the onslaught of the weather all around him.  To anyone driving by, it would most likely look as though Bob was just being a Good Samaritan.

They would be wrong, but would anyone realize it in time to do me any good?

Bob tapped on my window, and I had no choice but to lower it.

One look at my face told him all that he needed to know.  As he grinned, the rain dripped down his face.  “You figured it out, didn’t you?  I don’t know how, but you always were the clever one.  Get out of the truck, Victoria.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Can’t, or won’t?” he asked.

“The seatbelt is jammed shut,” I said.

As he leaned over to try to free it himself, I shot him in the eyes with the mouth spray.  He reeled back, rubbing his eyes to ease the pain he had to be feeling, and I swung at him as hard as I could with my cell phone in my hand.

It glanced off him and fell into the mud at his feet.

As he tried to clear his eyes, I struggled again with the seatbelt.  Why wouldn’t it release?  If I sat there too long, I was going to die, and I knew it. 

Summoning up all the energy that I had, I pounded on it, and then, with the suddenness of a kick in the stomach, it released, and I was free.

I struggled to open the passenger side door as Bob roared in anger and frustration.  I was certain he was displeased with my failure to just sit there like a good little victim, but I had other plans.  Throwing open the door, I stumbled out into the storm, knowing that it was my only chance.

And then my feet hit a gulley, and sweeping water washed my legs out from under me.

As I struggled to get to my feet, I felt a pair of strong hands driving me back into the water and the mud.

He was too strong for me.

As I tried to get up again, Bob drove me back down.  He placed his knees on my chest, and I was helpless.  The only thing that I could do was try to stay alive long enough for help to arrive.

“There’s just one thing I need to know before we’re finished here,” Bob said.  “How did you figure it out?”

“I suspected it when you didn’t seem all that upset that your receipt had been stolen off the wall of your office, and it was too much of a coincidence when it suddenly reappeared, but I didn’t know for sure until I remembered what I’d seen on your calendar.”

Bob looked honestly surprised by that.  “You’re joking.  There was nothing incriminating there.  I wouldn’t be that stupid.”

I thought of a quick insult, but decided to keep it to myself.  The only question now was should I tell him the truth, or should I lie?  If I kept the knowledge from him, maybe the sheriff would be able to figure it out himself.

And then I realized that without my specialized knowledge of the case, no one would be able to put the two things together but Greg, and he wasn’t investigating the murder.

I was still mulling over my options when Bob’s knees forced me deeper into the rising water.  Was I going to drown in ten inches of water?  “You’d better hurry up, Victoria.  You’re running out of time,” he said.

“It was the swans,” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“No one knew that we were stowing an ice sculpture in our freezer the day you murdered Howard Lance.  Your drawings looked much more like the sculpture than actual swans, so I knew that you’d been in that freezer at the time of the murder.”

“Well, I’ll be.  I never even realized what I was doing,” he said.  “Don’t you worry, though.  I’ll take care of that as soon as I get back to my office.”

“I told you the truth,” I said as some water slipped into my mouth.  I choked on the brown filthy sludge, and spit most of it out.  “The least you can do is come clean with me.”

“I’m afraid your days of being clean are over,” he said, chuckling a little as he did.  Bob looked around, but evidently, no one else was out braving the elements in the middle of this storm, at least not on the shortcut I’d taken.

“It will have to be quick, but I’ll give you the highlights.  Howard Lance came to me first with his little extortion plot, and I immediately saw it for the opportunity it was.  He was a bit of a bungler, but I convinced him that I’d figure out a way to make us both rich.”

“Is the auto repair business that bad?” I asked him.

“It’s okay, but it’s never been enough, you know?  Anyway, Howard decided to get cute and double-cross me.  He stole my own receipt from my office, and told me I wouldn’t get it back until we finished our business arrangement.  Cynthia paid up, but everybody else was being a lot more stubborn than she was.  It was falling apart fast, so I figured out that the only person who could link me to the mess was Howard himself.  He had to go, and after I took care of him, I reclaimed what was rightfully mine.  The money was already gone, though.”  Bob seemed particularly unhappy about that development.

“But why kill him at our diner?” I asked.  Was that the sound of water rushing toward us?  I knew that gullies could fill up quickly during storms, and this was turning out to be a doozy.  Maybe it would be strong enough to sweep Bob away as well.  That was the only way I was going to have a fighting chance.

“I was going to kill him in the alley to make you all look guilty, but just before he got there for our little ‘meeting,’ I checked the back door on a whim and found that it was unlocked.  When Howard showed up, I told him that I’d found the real receipt for the diner inside, and that if we had that, we’d own you people.  He believed me, and when I peeked inside, the kitchen was deserted.  I lured him into the freezer, mostly so we’d be out of sight from the cursed window pass-through.  At first I was going to lock him in and be done with it, but who knows how long it would have taken him to freeze to death?  It was too risky, so when Howard leaned forward to look for your receipt, I took care of him.”

“That was an awfully big risk,” I said as the rushing water grew louder.

“Hey, I did what I had to do.  Anyway, that’s it.  I’m sorry to have to do this, Victoria.  I’ve always liked you, but this just can’t be helped.”

I fought him with the last bit of energy I had, but he had his full weight on me, and the positioning made it impossible for me to fight back.

It looked as though I was about to die.

I wasn’t just going to give up, though, no matter how hopeless the situation seemed to be.  With everything I had left, I struggled to hold my head above the water around me.  I wasn’t fighting Bob anymore.  I was struggling against the rising water.

Steadily, resolutely, almost as though it were all happening in slow motion, my head went lower and lower into the water.  My ears were under, and as it crept up my cheeks toward my nose and mouth, the sounds around me took on a surreal feel, as though the world was being muted.

And then, as suddenly as a lightning strike, Bob’s full weight was off me and I was able to raise my head again.  It was disorienting at first, but I finally managed to sit up when I heard Greg’s voice as he held my head against his chest.

“You’re going to be all right,” he said softly, rocking me against his chest.

“I got through on the phone after all?”

“It took me a few minutes to figure out that you were saying Briar Road,” Greg admitted.  “I called the sheriff’s office, and they patched me through to him and Moose.  We got here at nearly the same time.  Moose and the sheriff took care of Bob, so I could get to you.  Did he hurt you?”

I felt the bruising on my shoulders and chest where his knees had pinned me down, and the water still in my ears.  My back ached from the impact on the ground, and my stomach was strained from where the seatbelt had bitten into me. 

But I was still alive, and that was more than I had any right to expect.

“You know what?  I’ve never been better in my entire life,” I said as I hugged him fiercely.

“Let’s get you up and out of here,” Moose said.

“We’d better wait for the paramedics,” Sheriff Croft said as he put one hand on my shoulder.

“What do you think, Victoria?” Greg asked me softly.

“Better safe than sorry,” I said as I heard the sirens of the ambulance coming closer.  Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could even stand with the help of three strong men there.  “I don’t know what I would have done without you all,” I said.

“I’m just glad you didn’t have to find out,” Greg said, stroking my muddy hair.

The sheriff knelt down and said softly, “I owe you one, Victoria.  You managed to hang on until we got here, and you figured this entire mess out before I did.”

“That’s because you didn’t have all the clues that I did.”

“You weren’t holding back on me, were you?” he asked as he looked sternly at me.

I shook my head slightly, and that’s when I felt a major headache coming on.  “Let me ask you something, Sheriff.  Would you have known what drawings of swans meant?”

“Swans?  No, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.  Did you hit your head when you went down?”

Greg got it, though, and almost immediately.  “Bob was in the freezer.  That’s the only way he would have seen the ice sculpture, and that’s how you figured out that he had to be the killer.”

“I knew there was a reason I married you,” I said with a smile.

“You mean you love me for my mind and not my rugged good looks?” he asked, grinning down at me.

“Let’s just say that I went for the package deal,” I said.

“Victoria, I need to get a statement from you, the sooner the better,” the sheriff said as the EMTs approached.

“Can it wait until she gets checked out first?” Moose asked.

The sheriff looked at me, and then at my husband.  “That will be fine.  You coming with me, Moose?  There’s only going to be room for the two of them in the ambulance.”

“In a second,” he said, and then turned back to me.

“I’m so sorry about your truck,” I said. “How bad is it?”

“Oh, it’s completely totaled,” he said with a dismayingly broad grin.

“I thought you’d be upset,” I said.

“Victoria, you’re more important to me than a thousand trucks, and a hundred diners, all of them with my name on them.  I love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, too,” I said.

That was about all the time I had for conversation as the EMTs moved in and got me strapped to a stretcher.  I thought that it was a bit of overkill, but I wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse the attention.

I wasn’t sure which felt better, finishing the rigorous exam and finally being able to clean myself up, or being surrounded by my family.  Dad nearly cracked my ribs when he hugged me, and Martha wouldn’t stop crying, even after learning that I was safe.

Then, something occurred to me.  “If you’re all here, who’s running the diner?  Surely you didn’t leave it in Ellen and Jenny’s hands.”

“We shut the place down for the rest of the day,” Greg said.

I sat up on the examining room bed wearing the scrubs the hospital had loaned me and looked at my family.  “As much as I love you all being here, you’ve completely lost your minds.  Go back and open up.  I’m fine.”