Blessed Is the Busybody (27 page)

Something else I couldn’t think about. How close my husband had come to being a victim himself. “So you told her?”

“She didn’t take it well. So I didn’t really have a choice. This time she wasn’t going to listen to anybody, so I had to dispense with her.”

“Did she threaten you? The gun probably went off when you struggled, and that’s self-defense. And Sax isn’t talking. You can walk out of this with a short sentence. Don’t screw this up now.”

He actually looked sorry. “You’ve been a friend, Aggie, just like Ed. The church came to mean something to me. Nobody there tried to change me. Nobody thought twice about who I was. I don’t like doing this.”

“Then don’t.”

“I’m left with no choice. I’ve got to protect Frankie. That’s why I’m telling you the whole thing. I want you to understand. I don’t want you to think it’s personal.”

“It’s pretty darned personal. My girls are going to take it personally, and so is my husband.”

“There’s no other way. You’re the only one who knows the connection between Frankie and Gelsey.”

“If they find me dead in this house, they’ll know I opened the door to somebody, and they’ll figure it must have been somebody I knew. And you left the meeting early, so you won’t have an alibi.”

He shook his head. “Who would suspect me?”

“Because Gelsey had a photo of you and another man together. From the days when she planned to blackmail you, I bet. That’s how I finally recognized you. And she kept a book with information about a lot of men who used her services. She called you Tarzan. I broke the code today. Somebody else will break it once I’m dead.”

He gave a low whistle. “You’ve really been doing your homework.”

“Point is, I’ve hidden that stuff, but it will come to light after I die. Detective Roussos knows about it, and tonight I called him and told him about Carlisle being Jennifer’s father. He’ll go after Carlisle right away. Roussos has seen everything. He’ll show it around with enthusiasm and somebody will recognize you.”

He chewed his lip. “You want to tell me where the stuff is hidden?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“It won’t be hard for me to get into the parsonage again and have another look around. I’ll take a casserole and a sympathy card. Maybe your girls will help.”

“If you kill me, Ed’s going to be suspicious of everybody. You won’t get past the front porch. And besides, what makes you think the photo’s in the house? That’s the first place anybody would check. I’m not stupid.”

“No? You don’t think it was stupid to poke your nose where it didn’t belong?”

“In hindsight, I’d do things differently.”

His heart wasn’t in our exchange. He was thinking, and I knew about what. I had edged farther around the table, and my fingers were only inches from the punch bowl. I knew he was armed, but he hadn’t yet drawn his gun. He was overly confident about how defenseless I was, and maybe just as reluctant about what he had to do.

“I can’t kill you here,” he said.

“Tie me up then, and leave me. That will give you a chance to get out of town ahead of the cops. And it’s one less murder, in case you don’t make it.”

“Not enough of a head start.”

“Then leave me somewhere else, someplace they won’t find me so quickly.” I was just buying time. I didn’t expect him to like my suggestion.

“I know a place like that,” he said, surprising me. “A place nobody will look.”

While he debated with himself he was as off guard as he was going to be. I lunged and grabbed the punch bowl, knocking over everything else in the center of the table. The spring social committee wasn’t going to like this. The bowl is lead crystal. It holds gallons of punch, and it weighs a ton. I swung it for all I was worth and hit Harry squarely in the midriff.

The bowl shattered. Harry went down, and I didn’t stay to see the destruction. I turned and bolted for the kitchen door.

I jiggled the key and twisted the knob for all I was worth, putting all my weight against the door. Just as the lock gave way, the world went black.

19

Through the years I’ve awakened from nightmares into the reassuring familiarity of my own bedroom. But rarely have I awakened in
to
a nightmare. Unfortunately, this one was a real doozy. My head felt like someone had used it for batting practice. My hands were bound behind my back and something was stuffed in my mouth, making it impossible to speak and not that easy to breathe.

I couldn’t tell where I was, although I could open my eyes, so I knew I wasn’t blindfolded. I tried to stretch my legs, but there was no room. I told myself not to panic, to keep breathing, while I tried to figure out what had happened.

Little by little the scene at Gelsey’s house unfolded. Harry Grey. Tarzan. Reasons why Harry thought I might need to personally evaluate afterlife theories sooner than later.

But Harry hadn’t killed me. I was here, wherever “here” was, and unless eternal life smelled like tires and car exhaust, I was still alive.

Once the memories returned I realized I had to be in the trunk of a car. I could feel the movement now, the not so gentle sway beneath me. I was curled around a spare tire. The metal digging into my back was probably a jack. I had no idea how long I had been here or how long I would be. It was entirely possible Harry intended to kill me when we arrived at our destination. If the headache didn’t kill me first.

I flexed my ankles and found they weren’t tied. Harry had hit me so hard he’d probably figured I’d be out for the count. And I was sure he’d wanted to get me out of Gelsey’s house as quickly as possible, in case Ed or Roussos arrived. So he had tied my wrists, just in case, then chucked me in here like a sack of groceries.

I could kick the trunk and alert somebody I was inside, but not until we stopped. And once we did, what were the chances we would be smack dab in the middle of a busy parking lot? We were heading to a place where no one would hear a thing. Harry wouldn’t shoot me while I was still in the trunk. Too hard to remove all that nasty evidence. If he was planning to kill me, he would do it wherever he hoped to leave my lifeless body. He’d made a serious mistake by not tying my feet. But now I could only pray he didn’t think to rectify that the moment he opened the trunk.

I said that prayer and others.

I made myself breathe slowly. I told myself not to panic. It was possible Harry had taken my words to heart and planned to leave me someplace where I wouldn’t be found for a while. He knew there was evidence that could lead straight to him and no matter what, he had to get out of town.

He didn’t know that Ed had never flipped a mattress in his life and probably wouldn’t use my disappearance as an excuse to start. Gelsey’s bundle of goodies would snuggle between mattress and box springs until Ed married again.

Maybe it was that last thought, or maybe just general circumstances, but by the time the car slowed, I was as furious as I was frightened.

The rumble stopped and the car was no longer moving. I heard a door open, then shut. I closed my eyes and went limp. Harry had to get me out of the trunk and take me somewhere. I was going to make that as difficult as possible.

I heard a screech, then felt a whoosh of air. Rain splattered against my cheek. I was surprised that as angry as I was, the drops didn’t immediately turn to steam. Instinctively I fed on the anger, thinking of Jennifer and the way her sad life had been cut short, of Gelsey, who, at the end, wanted to do the right thing for her daughter. Of my own daughters and how they would feel if I died before they had the chance to reject me in adolescence.

I could feel Harry’s breath against my face as he leaned over. His finger grazed my throat, but I told myself not to react. He probed, then his fingertip settled just under my chin. He was checking my pulse, wondering, I thought, if his work was already done.

Satisfied or “un,” he abandoned my throat. I felt his arms dig their way under me, felt myself being lifted. I heard his grunt, and I was glad I hadn’t joined Lucy while she spent the month of July on the South Beach Diet. I was glad for every single pound and my healthy body image.

Harry isn’t a large man. He has a gaunt frame and small bones. Neither were serving him well. I remained limp and felt him stagger as he carried me. He shifted my weight in his arms and my head rolled to rest against his side, or at least that’s how it felt to me. My eyes flew open and adjusted quickly. We were in a lightly wooded area. Clouds obscured whatever moon was there, and rain fell steadily, making it hard to see more than a few yards.

I heard an oath at the same moment Harry stumbled. He nearly dropped me but managed to right himself. My head bobbed face up again and I closed my eyes. But not before I’d gotten my first clue. As we had dipped together, I had seen a lone light shining on a triangular metal structure. My brain was not working as quickly or skillfully as normal, but I kept that snapshot in my mind as we stumbled along.

A playground. A swing set. I had a vision of Teddy on the same structure. But where?

The service center.

We were at the new service center, which wasn’t due to be occupied until next week. Harry would know the place inside and out, since his partner had designed the entire layout and all the buildings for the city.

I doubted this boded well for me. The site might be deserted now, but it housed a public playground, a jogging and exercise trail, empty buildings that wouldn’t stay empty long. Workmen would probably arrive tomorrow to attend to last-minute details. Moving companies would be arriving this week with furniture and equipment. If Harry only needed a brief head start, this site might work. But why limit himself to hours instead of days?

Unless he planned to make sure nobody was going to find me for a very long time. And when they did, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

He had access to every key in the place through Greg. This was not a good thing.

My anger bloomed. Harry was going to kill me where my children had played, where my husband had given the dedication prayer, where Roussos had razzed me about my dimple.

I didn’t have many chances to get out of this, and all of them would depend on one thing. At my father’s knee I learned reasons for adrenaline and, even more, its uses. I learned how women are taught not to give in to anger and how men depend on that. As Harry staggered along I worked myself into a fury, visualizing exactly what I would like to do to our church secretary and how many times. I felt no guilt. This was a vision of sorts, albeit an unorthodox one. After all, God had said, “Thou shalt not kill.” I was going to protect Harry from himself.

Ray would have been proud. I wasn’t so sure about Moses.

Harry slowed, then stopped. He lowered me to the ground, and I heard gravel crunch as he stepped away from me. I opened my eyes just enough to see that his back was turned. The tepee-shaped dome where road salt was stored for winter maintenance, salt that probably came from Bob Knowles’s family mines, loomed in front of him, and I suddenly understood what he intended. Entombment in a pillar of salt.

I rolled over and got to my feet, pushing off the ground with my elbows. I was clumsy and for a moment disoriented. I was also noisy.

Harry whirled, key to the door of the dome in hand. The key dropped as he lunged for me. I found my balance, pivoted on my left foot, raised my right knee, and the moment he was in striking range and with the precision my father had drilled into me, I slammed the side of my ankle boot just below Harry’s knee.

He fell forward, but not before I slammed my foot lower and finally, stomped with all my strength right where the shin stopped and the foot began.

He howled with pain and grabbed for his foot. It was all I needed. I spun and began to run. At first I was off balance, my head throbbing so hard that the spaces between rain-drops were the color of blood. Even when I recovered my balance I was disoriented and sluggish. I wasn’t sure where we had come from or where I should go. I just knew I needed cover.

Lightning flashed, and I saw that the new buildings were off to my right, not far from the work yard and the dome itself. Maybe Harry thought I could find eternal rest buried under a thousand tons of salt. Maybe he hoped that someday when the salt trucks scooped deep into the pile, my desiccated body would be loaded along with salt particles, chewed up by the augers of the truck and distributed forever on the streets of Emerald Springs.

But Harry was wrong. If I died, I was going to do it right here in the open air, with the rain on my face, fighting for my life.

I heard a familiar zinging noise. I learned to shoot a pistol the year I was eleven. That summer my friends went to Camp Hiawatha and made lanyards and popsicle stick baskets. I learned to clean and load a 9 mm Glock at Camp Vigilance.

I zigged and zagged to make hitting me harder. A bullet passed entirely too close to my head. I zagged and zigged, crouching as low as I could without throwing myself off balance. Harry wouldn’t be following close behind. I was fairly sure I’d broken a bone or two of the more than twenty in his foot. He would be limping and cursing and trying, through his pain, to take aim. I was going to make that as difficult as possible.

I reached the service center garage. Hugging the outside wall I followed it to the end and around the back. There was no place to hide where he wouldn’t find me immediately. A set of dumpsters I couldn’t climb without using my hands, a couple of portable johns that hadn’t yet been hauled away, a stand of young trees that looked out of place, since they were the only trees for some distance. Harry had carried me through the only “forest” in the area. Someday the land behind me would be a rec center and swimming pool, but now it was pasture, knee-deep in dried weeds with no place to hide.

I stopped and listened. I was sure I would hear Harry coming, stumbling, because no matter how tough he was, putting weight on that foot had to be excruciating. My best bet was to circle the building away from whatever direction he chose, then, if I was lucky, make a break for the road that ran past the center. There had to be houses and people in reach. I had a chance, if I could only make it that far. And the only way to know when I could make the break was to listen.

The problem, of course, was that Harry could listen, too.

The rain was falling harder now, pinging against the metal johns, splatting against the gravel that rimmed the garage. I flattened myself against the wall and waited.

Just as I was starting to panic, I heard something scraping along the side from which I had just come. I could almost hear Harry’s mental debate.
Follow her trail, or go the other way. Which would she expect?

I skirted the building, moving as quietly as I could. As a little girl I’d had the requisite ballet lessons in some town or other. Junie had quickly determined I had no talent, but now I pulled myself high and walked on tiptoe, telling myself I was as light as a butterfly, as weightless as a moonbeam. I tried desperately to float.

Near the front, again I debated whether to flee or make another circle. If Harry was behind the building I had a few moments head start. I could dodge through the playground, cross the jogging trail, make my way out to the road. I couldn’t remember exactly what was there, but surely there would be shelter somewhere. Trees or ditches or even cars to flag.

I fled.

I heard one last bullet streaking past my right ear before every floodlight on the grounds switched on. I was bathed in light, a target now with no place to hide. Then I heard a voice magnified through a bullhorn.

“Surrender your weapon. You are surrounded.”

My knees began to knock. I stumbled. I saw a man with a shotgun coming toward me, another with nothing in his hands running ahead of him. I heard sirens in the distance.

I fell into Ed’s arms, then all the way down as he jerked me to the ground. Roussos streaked by us, and I heard one final blast before I passed out.