Angel Sleuth (29 page)

Her hands worked to get a firmer grip. She turned her head around to watch Hiram as his arm lifted the axe and swung it toward the rope rail she was hanging onto. The axe head began its final descent, but the blow came with less impact than she expected. She could see the handle of the axe connect with the rope, but its head flew off into the abyss of the gorge, then plunged into the waters below.

Hiram let out a scream at the jarring impact of the handle on the rope. The rest of his words were lost in a blast of wind from upstream, but she could see him holding his hand and arm and glaring at her across the chasm.

Finally another wind gust carried his words across to her. “Damn you, Kaitlin, let go. Just let go. Let go.”

Her arms were aching with the effort to prevent herself from falling into the chasm. There was only one chance, and she took it. She reached out along the rope and pulled herself closer to the cliff, swung her feet backward, then pitched her body toward the wall and…dropped.

A path along the gorge’s wall rushed up to meet her, breaking her fall. Kaitlin lay on the path.
Am I dead?

She remained there a few minutes, sprawled on her back staring up into the blue sky and then into soft brown eyes.

“It’s me.”
I must be in heaven. Lucky me.
She was certain she’d do time somewhere farther south. But that was an angel’s voice. “Is that you, Mary Jane? Thanks for coming. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s Bethany. Are you all right? Can you move everything?”

“Bethany?” Kaitlin swallowed, lifted her head, and realized she was alive. No body parts were missing, and most of them were in working order. She would pay for these acrobatics tomorrow. “How did you get here?”

“It was simply a way to get you here. I don’t think he had any intention of hurting me. Once we saw you arrive he told me to call to you, and I did. Then he just got out of the car, and I ran up river for the highway bridge that crosses the Kinderkill about a quarter mile north of here.”

Kaitlin groaned and reached out for Bethany’s hand. “Can you help me get up?” Bethany pulled while Kaitlin used a nearby boulder for leverage. She realized she didn’t want to stand yet and took a seat on the boulder.

“I’m not so sure he wouldn’t have hurt you. He was just too focused on me to worry about you at the time,” Kaitlin said. She brushed dirt and leaves off her clothes.

“What did you do to him to make him so furious at you? We would be long gone by now if it weren’t for his obsessive need to get even with you.”

“Too much below the belt contact, I’d guess. Hiram is a real sportsman, and that’s definitely against the rules.” She was okay. Her sense of humor and her loathing for Hiram were back.

“He wasn’t going to marry me and take me away to the Caribbean, was he?” She didn’t seem too upset about losing Hiram.

Kaitlin was learning that teenagers were amazingly resilient when it came to love gone wrong. “It’s time you paid a visit to the local authorities. Investigator Wallace told me they were going to make a move on ARC today. I suspect that’s been done already. Your input will help them in their arrests.”

Bethany closed her eyes and shook her head. Her feet shuffled about in a nervous jig. It appeared she wasn’t eager to talk with Jim or anyone else associated with the police.

“I don’t want to,” she said.

Kaitlin couldn’t stand the whining note in her voice, and she’d had it with her excuses for not talking to the cops. She decided the best way to deal with her, since she surely couldn’t chase her down in her condition, was to be parental, dictatorial parental.

“I don’t care. You have to.” She grabbed Bethany’s arm and they walked, well, Bethany walked and Kaitlin limped, toward the parking area and the road.

“Do you think the cops will find Hiram?” Bethany asked.

“I’m sure of it. Jim Wallace has been on his tail since last night.”

Bethany seemed to be surprised when she saw no car in the gorge pull-off.

“We’ll just have to get back into town the way I got out here. Hitch,” she said in response to Bethany’s unspoken question.

* * *

Kaitlin had the driver of their ride drop them on the block behind the house. She didn’t want Mac to see them. Not yet, at least. If he came in, she’d have to think of some excuse for why Bethany was there, or hide her, or, better yet, get her out of the house and talking to the authorities. But first Kaitlin needed to contact Bethany’s parents. And Kaitlin needed a real big drink. With real booze in it.

They sneaked in the kitchen door, and Kaitlin pointed out the phone to Bethany. Meanwhile she rummaged around in the cupboards for the bottle of bourbon she’d stashed there for special occasions like when an ex-boyfriend tries to kill you. The bottle was there, but it was empty.
Damn.
She looked out the front window. Mac’s car was still in position. She could see the top of his burred head against the seat back, an unlit cigarette, his usual prop on stake-outs, hanging out of his mouth.

“Did you get your parents?”

“No answer. I’ll keep calling.”

“Bethany, would you feel safe staying here while I ran a little errand? It’ll only take me a few minutes. I’d like to pop down to the liquor store and grab a bottle. It’s the one down two blocks and around the corner.”

“Sure. I’ll keep calling Mom and Dad.”

“Don’t go out of the house or let anyone in unless it’s Investigator Wallace or Mac. Oh, and, feel free to raid the fridge while I’m gone. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Kaitlin grabbed her wallet out of her backpack and ran out the back door, making certain Bethany locked it behind her.

Her once mundane life had become complicated enough for her to turn to drink.

* * *

Larry established his liquor store down the block long before zoning made it illegal for commercial establishments in this residential neighborhood, but no one minded his being here. He catered mostly to the wine crowd, at prices higher than those of the discount liquor store in the local mall. But Larry was a neighbor and a good one. He discouraged rowdies from hanging around the place and consuming their cheap wine or smoking cigarettes in the small parking area in front of the store.

An old fashioned brass bell gave a tinkle when Kaitlin pushed open the door.

“Kaitlin, long time, no see. How are you? And how’s the new job going?” Larry asked.

They exchanged chatter about the newspaper column and the weather, then the conversation turned to Leda.

“Leda used to come in here every month or so to get Muscatel wine for her friend, Ms. Hatfield, up at ARC. Now both of them are gone. I hear Leda’s death may not have been accidental.”

Kaitlin wasn’t in the mood to gossip about murder, so she merely nodded and changed the subject. “Muscatel wine? I never heard of it.”

“Well, I don’t think they make it any more, but I had a few bottles over there on my bottom shelf. Kept it just for Ms. Hatfield. She liked that sweet syrupy stuff. Yep, Leda’d come in and say ‘I guess you know what I’m here for, Larry. Got some of that Kool-Aid wine left for Hats?’”

“‘Hats’?”

“Yep, that was what Leda always called her. Hats. You know, for Hatfield. They were real close. Well, you probably know that, being up at ARC now and all. Always said to me, ‘Larry, can’t you move that wine up onto a higher shelf? Do you have to keep it down here with your cheap liquor? This bending over gets my sciatica.’”

Kaitlin looked in the direction Larry was pointing. There was no Muscatel on that shelf, but the less costly liquor brands remained positioned to the right of the wines.

“So it was right next to…?”

“Yep, right there.”

“I’ll be back, Larry.” She pushed through the door and into the fading light of the early summer evening.

Kaitlin heard Larry’s voice following her onto the dusky street, but she ignored it and raced home anxious to call Jim. She had discovered the identity of Leda’s murderer on the shelves of the liquor store.

Once Kaitlin closed the back door, the stillness of the house covered her like a dark wave of cold sea water. She leaned against the door, and heard Jeremy’s hamster set her wheel whirring in the kitchen. The twin lovebirds’ cooing drifted down the stairway, reminding her she ought to clean their cage. Where was Bethany?

A note on a torn shred of napkin rested against the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen counter:

Got a hold of Mom and Dad. They’re picking me up at the corner. I’ll go out the back so Mac won’t know. Bethany

Kaitlin told herself everything was going to be all right now because she knew who killed Leda.
Just call Jim. Tell him, and he would take it from there.
But could he convince Mary Jane and Jeremy it was safe to return here?

It really wasn’t quite that simple. Jim might not believe her. Proof that Hiram was the murderer could hardly be found in the mutterings of a woman lying at the bottom of her staircase whispering the words, “Hats” and “Walk,” even though those words made perfect sense to Kaitlin.

The dying Leda had named her killer by calling forth her nickname for Freddie Hatfield, Hats. Her next word connected the name with the liquor that rested on the shelf next to her favorite wine. It was Hiram Walker brand—Hiram the Walker, Hiram her killer.

Kaitlin wandered around the kitchen considering the issue of evidence, absentmindedly grabbing the pool cue from where it was propped against the wall and unscrewing the sections, then screwing them back together. She repeated the unscrewing and screwing while she pondered her options. The cue felt a bit awkward in her hands as she placed an orange from the fruit bowl on the counter, an apple at the far end of the counter, and called the shot.

“Two in the corner pocket.” She missed hitting the orange altogether. She needed more practice, more lessons.

She decided Jim would think her crazy with the liquor store story. She needed proof Hiram was a murderer. Baldo had told her he didn’t kill Leda, but he arrived at her house soon after she fell down the stairs. Or did he? Maybe he was there earlier and saw Hiram push her.

Something shoved at the back of her mind. A shadowy figure in the house with Baldo the night she raced by on her bicycle. He was at Leda’s with someone else.

She leaned the pool cue against the counter and set out again for Baldo’s, and once more she left from the rear door so that she wouldn’t alert Mac to this recent escapade.

The streetlights came on as night settled in, and she quickened her pace, running now. A night hawk called in the distance as she hurried toward the river. If Baldo did as she’d asked him to do, he was probably not home, but already behind bars. Somehow, she guessed he took the more cowardly action, and if he weren’t home, he had caught his escape flight. But she had to try.

She halted at the gate to his yard. No light shone from his windows. She’d missed him. Should she head for police headquarters or back home? She should call Jim. She couldn’t imagine telling the local authorities about Baldo and Hiram, about her so-called proof in the liquor store.

Maybe Baldo was there, sitting in the dark contemplating his craven existence. The door stood ajar, and she tapped lightly. It swung inward. The smell of cigarette smoked assailed her nostrils, and in the shadows of the room she left earlier, she could see a figure behind the desk.

“Dr. Baldo?” There was no answer. She called again. “Dr. Baldo, was Hiram there with you at Leda’s the night she died?” Silence. “Okay, don’t rat out the guy. Just answer this. Did Hiram ever wear a gold cross?”

The figure remained motionless. She walked across the carpet and leaned over to switch on the desk lamp.

Baldo lay slumped back in his chair. On the desk beside his hand lay a hypodermic needle, the syringe empty. Baldo’s sleeve was rolled up. She walked around the desk and laid her hand on his throat. No pulse. The man was dead.

She backed out of the room. Time for that phone call to Jim, but not from here. Without her backpack, she didn’t have her cell. She ran toward home.

Her hand on the doorknob of the back door shook as she turned the knob. She was anxious to be in her own house, but she wished she wasn’t alone.

Once inside, she rushed upstairs and into her bedroom. She felt vulnerable sitting downstairs where the rooms felt cold and seemed too large for one person. It was tempting once she was in the bedroom to dive into the bed, pull the covers up over her head, and have a good long cry. She sank onto the bed and reached for the phone.

Before she could dial, she caught the sound of the front door opening, and she ran to the landing.

“Mac, is that you?” She swung around the newel post and hopped down the first couple of steps, then froze in her race to get to the first floor. The voice coming out of the shadows at the foot of the stairs was the one person she hoped never to see again unless he was behind bars.

“It’s me, sweetie. Get your butt down here. Now. Or I’ll come up and drag you down.”

“Are you certain there’s no one else here?” Her gaze caught another figure behind the first.

“They’re gone. I scared them away. Come on down, you crazy broad!”

She had choices. Die upstairs as she tried to hide or escape, or meet him face-to-face, not running away in her own house.

Hiram stood at the bottom of the stairs with Toliver hovering behind his broad frame. What worried her most was the ugly object Hiram held in his hand—a pistol.

She smiled at him with the knowledge that any minute Mac would come pounding through the front door and make mincemeat out of the two of them. Hiram was as dumb as criminals are reputed to be, she thought, to have missed Mac baby sitting in the car out front.

“So, I suppose you like these odds better. No weapon in my hand. Of course I never did see a florist pin as a weapon. I’m surprised at you. Why make me come downstairs when you could have come up and push me down like you did Leda.” She spoke with confidence. She was about to be rescued.

“So you figured that one out, did you? Or did Baldo tell you? Oh, yeah, I know you were there today visiting the old curmudgeon. He didn’t exactly see Leda take her fall, but he arrived soon after, and he suspected. But, of course, he wouldn’t tell a soul cuz he was up to his stethoscope in the whole thing.”