A Killer Closet (17 page)

“Untie them!” she said, moving closer to Andy with the gun still raised. Andy hesitated, but she shouted again. “I said untie them!”

Andy turned toward the sofa, but just as he approached the men, a voice in the doorway caused him to stop and turn around.

“Thank God the volice are here!” Adelle walked into the living room with Angel beside her. “Irene! What happened to you? All that blood, and you're naked.”

Irene turned around, too, and the distraction was just enough to cause her to lose her advantage. Andy grabbed her wrist, and in the same movement took the gun from her, then forced her in front of him as a shield while he pointed the gun at Adelle and Angel. Sagan tried to reach for the gun Irene had forced him to throw to the floor. In the process, he hit his wounded hand against the sofa and cried out in pain, once again holding his bleeding hand with his good hand. Webster was still trying to get up, but his wounded leg rendered him immobile.

“Put that thing down!” Adelle shouted at Andy. “How dare you voint a gun at ne.”

“Quiet, Adelle!” Angel was holding his hands above his head. “Can't you see he's got Irene?”

Andy repositioned the gun and pressed it into Irene's temple. “I'll kill her now if you don't do as I say. Both of you! Over here with the cowboys. Stand against the wall.”

“Don't you dare harn vy daughter,” Adelle screeched. “You'll have to kill ne first.” She lunged at Andy, but Angel stopped her and pulled her against the wall.

“Now you three!” Andy nodded at Rafael and his friends. “Stand up!” The three men struggled, trying to stand with their hands and feet bound. “You're going first, Irene,” Andy said. “Damn! I hate to kill you. I was beginning to enjoy your company.” He laughed. “But I saw how you can handle yourself the way you took care of those two idiots,” he said, nodding toward Webster and Sagan. The pistol clicked as he cocked the trigger. Irene closed her eyes. She felt a shove and fell against Rafael, who was standing in front of her, and then heard a voice.

“Run, Irene! I'll take care of this.” It was Adelle. She had pushed away. Andy fired, and Adelle fell to the ground. “Run, while there's tine.” Adelle's voice was weak. In the next moment her eyes closed and her body went limp.

“Mother!” Irene cried. She tried to go to her, but Andy pulled her back.

“Goddamned P.J.,” Andy murmured. “If he'd done his job we wouldn't have this mess. It's going to be hell for Maureen to clean up.” He cocked the gun again and pointed it at Irene.

“Maureen's not cleaning up any of this, you bastard!” Irene looked up to see Maureen standing in the doorway with a gun aimed at Andy. “I was such a fool to let you talk me into helping you with this.”

“Maureen…” Andy's voice was pleading.

“Drop the gun!” she said, raising her own gun higher.

“Maureen,” Andy said again.

Maureen fired. Andy dropped his gun to clutch his bleeding side with both hands, freeing Irene. She dropped to the floor and hovered over Adelle. Blood was coming from somewhere near her temple.

“Oh, you're a charmer. I can't deny that,” Maureen said, moving closer to Andy, while Irene tried to determine whether or not Adelle was breathing. Angel had come to her side as well and was holding Adelle's wrist, trying to find a pulse.

Maureen was still talking. “Showed up at my house and made
huevos rancheros
for me, sweet-talking me like nobody ever did before.” She laughed, a bitter sound. She looked at Irene and Angel, who was still bent over Adelle. “I just didn't know he was going to make me do all those things.” Her voice broke. “When he told me he was going to kill you, Angel, well, I couldn't let that happen. Nobody had ever been as nice to me as you were, except Andy, and he didn't mean it. Nobody ever told me I was beautiful before you said it.”

Angel stood, and with a gentle movement, he took the gun from her hands and put his arm around her shoulder. “You are beautiful,” he said. “The most beautiful woman I've ever met.”

Adelle opened her eyes and looked into Irene's face. “Is that you, Irene?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It's me.”

“And you're alive?”

“Yes, Mother. I'm alive. Thanks to you.”

“Get ne out of this place!”

Irene tried to assure Adelle that she would get her out as soon as possible, but she wasn't certain Adelle had heard her. Voices tangled in the room like colored yarn wrapping around words.

“Where'd you learn how to handle a gun?” Rafael asked Irene.

“Thank God she can,” Carlos said.

At the same time Jeraldo nodded toward Andy, who was still lying on the floor. “Look! That cop ain't dead!” Jeraldo said.

Harriet and George entered the room, startling Adelle. “Harriet! Your face is vloody. Who hit you?”

“Who hit
you
?” Harriet said, staring at Adelle. “Your lip is purple! And you're bleeding!”

George sat down on the nearest sofa. “Long walk,” he said, gasping.

“It was only a few yards,” Harriet said. “You're out of shape.”

Adelle was on her feet by now and was near tears. “Oh, Harriet! It was terrible. You'll never velieve what havened.”

“Where are you going, Irene?” someone asked. Irene wasn't certain who asked that, but she threw the answer over her shoulder.

“I've got to get P.J. to a doctor.”

“Untie us first!” Rafael shouted.

“George,” Irene commanded. “Untie those men.”

“He's breathing! Bullet knocked him down, grazed his side,” Jeraldo said, staring at Andy.

“The nonster hit ne in the face. It's a wonder I'n not dead,” Adelle said.

“Airbag inflated,” Harriet said.

“Not out of shape. It was all uphill. Untie what men?”

“Angel! Come back here,” Irene called, as Angel tried to lead Maureen out of the room. “I need you to come with me. You, too, Rafael. I'll need help getting P.J. to a car so we can…Who said that? Andy's still breathing? Harriet! See if you can help him.” She turned to Jeraldo. “Tie the chief's hands, just in case he's faking it.”

“I can't! My hands are still tied.”

“George!” Irene was still issuing commands when two burly men, each holding a badge in one hand and a gun in the other, rushed into the large living room. Both men aimed their pistols at Andy, who was still on the floor.

“FBI,” one of them said, stepping toward the chief. “You're under arrest.” The other man moved to Sagan and Webster and began reciting the Miranda warning before he turned to Maureen, who was crying and clinging to Angel. She cried even harder when she was told she was under arrest.

Irene was on her way out the door to find P.J. when the FBI men stopped her. “Stay where you are!”

At the same time she heard Adelle screech again.

“Get ne out of here, Irene!”

It was late afternoon the next day. The store was still open, but there were no customers. It was often slow during the dinner hour. Angel had gone home and was supposed to be writing a paper on the history of Impressionism. Irene, with a small bandage on the side of her face where the bullet had grazed her, was sitting at the desk in the back of the store, working on invoices and watching the six o'clock news on a small television.

Chief Andy Iglesias, who was recovering from a bullet wound that turned out to be much more serious than P.J.'s wound, was the focus of most of the footage. There were pictures of him being transported into the hospital, footage of the stolen paintings, interviews with gallery owners and artists, and with the curator of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. The news anchor was talking about the elaborate scheme the chief and others had been involved in to sell the paintings to wealthy buyers in Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Middle Eastern countries. Rob Sellers was the overseas contact, and Tomas Delgado had been involved before his illness.

There were clips of the chief from the past when he was looking clean-cut, handsome, and sharp in his uniform. There were also interviews with Irene and Angel about how they found the stash, and pictures of Harriet and George looking bloodied and disheveled. There was also a shot of Rob Sellers being arrested in Paris, where he had been trying to hide. There was an older shot of Tomas Delgado before he was ravaged by Alzheimer's disease. Even Adelle had allowed herself to be interviewed, in spite of her still-swollen lip.

“All of the credit goes to ny dear daughter, Irene Seligman,” Adelle said. “She saved all of us. She is incredidly snart. Used to be the District Attorney in Nanhattan, and…”

The rest of the quote was cut by the station's editors, but her mother's overly exuberant and exaggerated Manhattan D.A. statement made Irene tear up. Adelle had never before given her such elaborate praise, but that wasn't all that made Irene emotional. Adelle had actually risked her own life to save hers. When Irene tried to thank her and before she could warn her that she'd better not ever do that again, Adelle cut her off. “I've got to get ready for the TV canera,” she'd said. “I'n not sure I have enough concealer to cover this liv.”

It turned out she didn't have enough concealer to cover her swollen and blue lip or the raw wound where Andy's bullet had grazed her face, but she went on television nevertheless, eager, it seemed, to extol the virtues of her daughter. She sounded like a normal, typical, doting mother. Adelle had never been any of those things.

The blond anchorwoman continued her newscast. “Maureen Elliot, the alleged shooter of Chief Andy Iglesias, was also taken into custody.” A picture of Maureen appeared on the screen, and the anchorwoman added, “She is believed to have been responsible for the actual transportation of the guns. She is said to be cooperating with police and—”

“Hey! They got Maureen!”

Irene looked up to see P.J. entering her store and walking toward the back. His arm was in a sling, and he still looked a little pale.

“P.J.! What are you doing here? You just had surgery on your arm. You should be at home in bed.”

P.J. looked at his heavily bandaged arm. “Will I ever be able to play the violin?”

“I didn't know you played the violin.”

“I don't, but…”

Irene rolled her eyes at his corny joke. “You're going to be fine.”

“You saved my life.”

“Just returning the favor,” she said. “If I remember correctly, you saved my life as well as a couple of others.”

“Aw, shucks,” he said, pretending embarrassment.

“But you still have a lot of explaining to do.”

He sat down heavily in the other chair. “I knew this was coming. You want to know why I tried to run you off the road and why I got mixed up with that bunch to start with.”

“I imagine the police asked you the same thing.”

“First, I didn't try to run you off the road. That was Webster.”

“But why…”

P.J. held up his one good hand. “I'm getting to that. Andy Iglesias mentioned that you and I were getting too chummy. Warned me to stay away from you in case you got word of what he was up to. So Webster, genius that he is, took it upon himself to scare you off. Iglesias was mad as hell. That's one of the reasons he sent him out to the wilderness—-just to get his blundering ass out of the way, not thinking you would show up out there again. I guess he thought you'd obey him like a good little girl and stay in town waiting to hear about Adelle.”

“Why did he kidnap her? He couldn't have possibly thought she knew anything.”

“He couldn't be sure of that. He knew Loraine and Susana were on to what was going on, since both their husbands were part of the operation, Susana's husband is no threat since he's in an institution with Alzheimer's, and Loraine's husband was hiding out in some foreign country. But the wives. They were getting edgy about the scheme. Andy was afraid they were going to spill the beans, so he had them killed.

“By the way, Loraine was having an affair with Andy, and she tried to rent that building so he could stash some of his stolen paintings there. George knew nothing about any of it, but Andy and the others were suspicious of Harriet and Adelle, since they were good friends with Susana and Loraine. Harriet was supposed to be kidnapped with Adelle, but Webster the genius and Maureen messed that up.”

“Why didn't they kill them like they did Susana and Loraine?”

“I told them not to. Just like I said when we were at Mariposa, there were too many dead bodies, and we were going to get caught for sure if any more dead women showed up.”

“
We
were going to get caught? So you are part of the whole thing.”

“Well…”

“Why would they listen to you otherwise?”

“They listened to me because I'm a good lawyer. They
hired
me because I'm a good lawyer.”

Irene stared at him but didn't speak at first. Finally, she said, “You know you're going to jail.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you.”

“Oh, my God!” She turned away from him in disgust. “You're so full of clichés it's appalling, and besides that, you're worse than scum, you're…” She stopped speaking and looked at him again. “You're the reason the Feds showed up! You were working for them all along.”

“Damn!” he said. “I'm going to have to kill you.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Don't say it! Don't say it's because you'd have to kill me. I can't stand another cliché.”

“Okay, I won't say it. Let me just say I get hired often because I'm—”

“Because you're a good lawyer,” she said.

He nodded. “Exactly. The Feds knew I have what you might say is frequent contacts with what is commonly known as scum.”

Irene gave him a suspicious frown. “So? A lot of lawyers have frequent contacts with scum.”

“Of course,” he said. “I'm sure you've had your own interludes with a few seamy characters in your former job.”

“Like I said, a lot of us do. So why did the Feds hire you?”

P.J. shrugged. “It could be because they knew I was on to Iglesias.”

“How could you be on to him?” Irene's voice was full of skepticism. “No one else was. He was the golden boy for this entire town.”

“Let's just say that in my line of work, I have contact with a lot of cops as well as crooks. You hang around the police station enough, you learn things. You make friends with the right people, like Rafael. They help you put the pieces together.”

“Rafael?”

“Yeah,” P.J. said. “He thought there was something suspicious going on at Mariposa lodge. Saw a lot of traffic going up there. It didn't used to be so unusual when Tomas was in good enough health to have his hunting buddies up there, but when he became senile and had to be institutionalized, the traffic didn't slow down.”

“They were bringing the paintings up to hide them until they could ship them out,” Irene said. “How did Rafael know they were paintings?”

“He didn't. He just thought it was odd that there was so much coming and going. Especially odd when he recognized Iglesias as one of the drivers he saw. The pieces were beginning to fit together, but the Feds had to be sure. That's why they hired me. Rafael didn't know about the Feds' suspicions. He just thought he was helping me out.”

“But Susana's husband and Loraine's husband, they were mixed up in it too? And Andy Iglesias was afraid the women would rat on them? Even Loraine? His lover? They were afraid of Adelle and Harriet, too?” Irene shook her head. “This is crazy.”

“I know. Crazy and ugly. I'm sorry you had to get mixed up in it.”

Irene gave him a dazed look. She was sorry anyone was mixed up in it.

“Okay, it's your turn,” P.J. said. “How in hell did you figure out the chief was heading up the operation?”

“It was something he said when we were together,” Irene said. “Something about me not going down to the pantry. I hadn't mentioned a pantry or that a person had to go downstairs to get to it. I finally realized he knew more than he was admitting. I was guessing he might know what was in those boxes if he knew they were down there.”

“Smart woman,” P.J. said.

“Smart? I don't know about that, but I have Susana to thank for telling us all about the paintings and about Andy Iglesias.”

“She
told
you? And you didn't let anyone know.”

“It took me a while to figure out what she was saying. In fact, I didn't figure it out until you took us into the woods to shoot us—”

“I didn't take you into the woods to shoot you. I was just trying to—”

“Whatever. Anyway, Susana had told Adelle and Harriet a long time ago that if anything ever happened to her, they were to go to Mariposa. Both of them forgot about it until she died. That's when we all went up there to look for something I thought she wanted Adelle and Harriet to find.”

“And…”

“I found a note addressed to Adelle.” Irene pulled it out of a drawer and handed it to P.J.

He took it with his unbandaged hand and looked at it. “This doesn't make sense.”

“That's what I thought at first. Hand it to me, and I'll read it to you.” She took the note from him and read,
Look in place we don't use. Paintings. Call Feds. Don't call chief will kill.
The place she doesn't use is the kitchen. She didn't even know how to cook, but the paintings were there. And she was warning Adelle about Andy Igelsias.

“Give me a break,” P.J. said. “You made that up.”

“No, I didn't. Look at it.” She handed the paper back to him. “Harriet noticed right off the bat that there were no vowels in the entire thing.”

“So?”

“That's what I thought at first—so what? Then I finally remembered after it was almost too late that Susana had talked Adelle into taking a class with her at Santa Fe Community College.”

“Where are you going with this?” P.J. asked.

“It was a class in ancient Hebrew. Adelle hated it, but that's beside the point.”

“Are you ever going to tell me just what
is
the point?”

“Ancient Hebrew didn't have vowels. Susana wrote this so no one except Adelle could read it, but Adelle never got the chance. Not that she could have read it anyway. Susana obviously learned more than Adelle, but the point is, she wasn't sure who she could trust with what she knew, but she wanted someone to know if anything happened to her. So she wrote the note to Adelle, hoping she could read it and contact the Feds.”

“Let me see that again,” P.J. said and reached for the paper, looking at it for several seconds. He shook his head. “You were just guessing.”

“No I wasn't. I figured it out.”

“If you're really that smart, you should have figured out a long time ago that Andy Iglesias was a crook.”

“Really? How was I supposed to do that?”

“Just how often were you together?”

“Does it matter?”

P.J. was silent for several seconds. “Sorry. I'm being an asshole.”

Irene narrowed her eyes and nodded slowly.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I'll make it up to you. As soon as I can use my arm again, I'll cook you a fantastic meal.
Huevos rancheros.
I make a fantastic sauce. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”