Follow the Dotted Line (34 page)

“Wait a minute,” Tilda laughed. “Are you planning to shove the table on top of me?”

“Yes, I am!” roared Andy. “Because I know you killed all those men.”

It felt so liberating to tell the truth, so right to unleash her pent-up honesty, that Andy began to giggle as she pushed upward on the table. When the table barely moved, she giggled again.

“Oops,” smiled Tilda. “Give it another try.”

Andy did. With the same result. She looked down at her dysfunctional hands and addressed them in a whisper. “What’s wrong with you? We’re trying to get out of here.”

The hands didn’t answer. Andy looked up at Tilda, who was holding a small handgun. “Is that pink?” she asked, feeling both cloudy and confused.

“Raspberry pink. A .380 Ruger. Are you having problems?”

“What’s wrong with me? I’m very concerned about myself.”

“Really. And why is that?”

“I’m not sure. I think my body may be turning off. Is that possible?”

“Yes, it is, Andrea.”

“Why would it do that?”

“I put amobarbital in your coffee.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s my favorite barbiturate. It acts as a very versatile sedative in the proper dosage.”

“Oh.”

“That means you can’t control your muscles anymore.”

“I can’t?”

“No. And it dulls your mental defenses.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It makes your brain too lazy to lie.”

“I don’t like to lie.”

“But you have. On several occasions, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s all right. Your mind is swimming in truth serum now, and I think I’ve found out just about all I need to know.”

“That’s not good.”

“Except who’s following me.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like to tell me who’s following me?”

“Okay. Who?”

“I don’t know. But someone is. Did you tell the police about my husbands, Andrea?”

“No.”

“The Sheriff’s Department? The FBI? Anybody like that?”

“No. They won’t believe me yet. I have to get a paper trail.”

“That’s interesting. Tell me about the paper trail.”

“You know, the vacations, the drownings, the death certificates.”

“And you haven’t told the police about that yet?”

“I can’t. Or I’ll look stupid. You know?”

“Yes. Nobody wants to look stupid.”

Tilda pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “How do you feel?”

“Tired. Deeply, deeply tired,” Andy answered.

“Can you move?”

Andy tried to stand but couldn’t do it by herself.

“It’s okay,” Tilda said, putting the mini-firearm back in her handbag and setting the purse on the kitchen counter. Without removing her lambskin gloves, she picked up the coffee cups, washed them thoroughly, and placed them on a shelf in the cupboard.

“Am I going to die?” asked Andy.

“Not without your shoes on.” Tilda held up Andy’s cross trainers and a pair of socks and slipped them into her bag. “Okay, I’m going to help you get on your feet, Andrea. We need to go for a ride.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’re going hiking at Castaic Dam.”

“I like that place.”

“I know you do. It’s the closest water I could find.”

“Am I drowning, too?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re going to make it look like I had an accident while I was hiking.”

“Could be.”

Any resistance Andy had left in her was flagging fast. Her limbs were so cumbersome that Tilda had to pull her off the chair and propel her through the kitchen and into the garage where Andy’s Camry was parked.

“I don’t want to get into the car.”

“You don’t have to,” said Tilda. “You can lie down in the trunk.”

Andy halted, nearly toppling them both. “I shouldn’t get in the trunk,” she confided. “I saw that on Oprah once. Don’t get in cars or trunks with strangers.”

“Oprah has a lot of good advice,” Tilda said, amused.

“Oprah wouldn’t trust you, Tilda. She’d tell me to make a run for it.”

“Are you going to?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Just head towards the rear of the car as you do.”

No Time for Mulligans

Inside the trunk, Andy lay face down, as the anesthetic continued its slow, but relentless, invasion of her blood stream. Despite the weariness in her body, her unbridled mind roamed all over the place. She reminded herself how lucky she was to be in her Camry because the trunk was fully carpeted and offered more than 15 cubic feet of space. At the same time, her drugged brain clung to the notion that they were headed to the lake behind Castaic Dam, where she walked most weekends. Trailing right behind was the notion that Tilda was going to put her in that lake, and when she did, Andy wouldn’t be able to swim. Like Ernie. And Gus. And Mark. And the other one.

The ride wouldn’t take long, and no one would be on the trails yet. Too early. Probably not even light outside. Once Tilda pulled her out of the trunk, Andy would be helpless. Even if Andy refused to move, the younger woman could drag or carry her. With considerable effort, Andy tried to roll onto her back, inspired by the random thought that shifting positions would help her to focus. As she did, her nose violently collided with something metal. She knew instantly what it was: the head of her uncovered driver poking out of her golf bag. Involuntarily, Andy’s hands moved to her face, lumbering upward. The creeping numbness of the amobarbital dulled most of the pain in her septum, but her fingers were soon moist from the blood between her nostrils and upper lip. That’s when Andy realized she was lying next to an arsenal of weaponry designed by Ben Hogan.

She propelled herself onto her side, willing her right leg to flop over the left and her right arm to get her right hand somewhere near the top of the bag. The shafts stuck out like tree trunks, and she easily latched onto the neck of the driver. She yanked as hard as her atrophying muscles would allow in an attempt to pull the club out of the bag, but it hit the side of the car after only a few inches. There was no way to get any club out of the bag unless the trunk was open.

Andy let gravity pull her back onto her butt and closed her increasingly drowsy eyes. She forced them open. Concentrate, she told herself. Focus on the problem. Be creative. It’s the one thing you’re good at. Her mind was still all over the place and so was her mouth. She was saying everything she was thinking out loud, just as she had back in the kitchen. But Tilda wasn’t here, so what did it matter?

Think of it as a scene, you idiot. What do you do when you can’t get a scene to work? You come at it from the opposite direction. Okay, okay. If I can’t use a club that’s inside the bag, is there a club outside the bag?

Oh, my god, you’re a genius, she said. And do you know why? Because you took your 4-iron out when you bought the new rescue club. It’s behind the bag, you clever devil, and you’re going to use it to kill Tilda Trivette before she kills you.

Another push rotated her onto her side again, and another reach brought her leaden arm in contact with the object of her desire. Andy fished with outstretched fingers until she felt the grooves in the blade. She grabbed onto the shaft as tightly as she could, and this time when she yanked, she got exactly what she wanted. The force of the movement rolled her onto her back again so that she was laid out like a body in a casket, clutching a graphite posy.

The car was slowing now, moving away from Interstate 5 and winding toward the recreation area that surrounded Castaic Dam. It was impossible to know exactly where in the park Tilda was taking her because there were two different bodies of water, a lake and a lagoon. What Andy did know was that she would only have one opportunity to swing the club, and it would have to happen the minute Tilda opened the trunk. If she neglected to make good contact on the first try, everything was over. There’d be no time to take a mulligan.

The problem was clubhead speed. If she remained on her back, she would have to get her arms and the club over her head and then hope she would have enough of an arc to build momentum. On the other hand, if she rolled back onto her side so that her rear end faced Tilda when she opened the trunk, Andy could put her deadweight in motion, rotating her hips and shoulders and squaring the club face at impact. If she did it correctly, the club and target would meet with full force in exactly the correct place; it was what male golfers euphemistically called hitting the ‘sweet spot.’

At last the car stopped, and the engine went silent. In what now seemed like excruciatingly slow motion, Andy once again tried to roll onto her side. It took a few moments to discover she wasn’t actually going anywhere. She started to rock herself back and forth, moving as many muscles as were still taking direction from her addled brain. She heard herself grunting and winced in anticipation of Tilda popping the lid before she was in position. Time barreled on. She could hear movement outside. Muffled sounds. A car door shutting. At last Andy was at address, club pointed upward, a neutral interlocking grip, and torso wound like a spring. It was going to be a remarkably powerful swing, she told herself, except for the fact that, with her head facing backward, she wouldn’t actually be able to see her target. She heard a breathy, mechanical thump and felt the rush of cool air, as the trunk lid opened. Too late to change her stance now.

Giving it every ounce of venom she still commanded, Andy hurled her unwieldy body from one side to another and let the club snap in her hands like a wet towel. A deep, deafening wail cut through the morning stillness, as the 4-iron met flesh. Almost instantly, Andy’s eyes caught up with her accomplishment, as she watched a middle-aged man in a light brown suit reverberate from the blow, his head slicing slightly to the right, just before his entire body began falling backward toward the ground.

“Oh, my god!” she mumbled, wondering what the hell was going on. Completely drained of the necessary willpower to find out, she closed her eyes and gave in to unconsciousness.

Right Thing for the Wrong Reason

There is no good antidote for an overdose of most barbiturates. You either end up dead or in a coma. If you’re lucky, you wake up from the coma sooner rather than later. Andy opened her eyes thirty-three hours later in a hospital room. A nurse was checking her vitals.

“There you are!” said the young woman. “How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts,” Andy mumbled.

“To be expected. In general, you’re in very good shape.”

“Where am I?”

“Henry Mayo Hospital. Do you know where that is?”

“McBean Parkway?”

The nurse nodded. Andy liked her smile. She would have liked anyone’s smile right now.

“I live just down the street,” Andy said.

“Well, you appear to be functioning on all cylinders. The doctor will be around this afternoon to check you out.”

“Oh.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“No. Not really. What happened?”

“Don’t think I’m supposed to say.” Her kind grey eyes rolled toward the glass window between the room and the hallway. “You’ll have to talk to Officer Ortiz about that.”

The olive green and tan uniform of the man standing outside the door of the room was unmistakable. An LA County Sheriff’s Department deputy.

“Was I in a car accident?”

“I’m really not the right person to answer that,” said the nurse, apologetic but firm. “I need to let the doctor know you’re awake.” She turned to leave.

“Wait,” Andy pleaded. “Something happened. Right? It was Tilda. I remember her.”

Some kind of home invasion, she could remember that much. She recalled the image of Tilda standing in her bedroom door. “Did she get away?”

The nurse understood what a struggle it could be to piece together the events leading up to a coma. With some barbiturates, there were almost no memories to assemble. “Did who get away?” she asked, just to be polite.

“Tilda.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about anyone named Tilda.”

“But that’s an armed guard out there, right?” Andy asked. “The police are here to protect me, right?”

The woman in the blue scrubs looked uneasy. “I’m not sure.”

“What does that mean?”

“They don’t really tell us that much about these things.”

“What things?” Andy asked.

“Maybe you should ask your son, Ms. Bravos.”

“My son? Mitch has been here?”

“He left about an hour ago. I think he went to see a lawyer.”

Andy must have looked like a deer in headlights because the nurse rushed forward, as if Bambi’s mother was about to die on her shift.

“Ms. Bravos, please, don’t be upset.”

“Why won’t you tell me what’s happening?”

“I can’t. All I know is that you’re in police custody of some kind.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know. Really. But whatever went on before they brought you in to the ER has your son very worried.”

The woman’s beside manner wasn’t doing anything to quell Andy’s mounting anxiety.

“Worried. About what?”

The nurse finally gave it up. “That you’re about to be arrested.”

“Arrested?” The word tasted acidic. Andy tried it again. “Arrested?” It didn’t taste any better or sound any less frightening. She eyed the policemen outside her door. His gun and girth made her tremble. She hated cops; she hated fat cops more.

The nurse started to back away. Andy grabbed her arm and held it hostage.

“Don’t leave me.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. It was unprofessional.”

“What else do you know?”

“Nothing. Nothing, I swear.”

Andy looked from the nurse to the policemen and back again. “Am I hallucinating?”

“No, Ms. Bravos. You’re fully conscious, believe me.”

“Then why do the police want to arrest me?!”

The nurse was desperate to free her arm. She pulled one way, as Andy pulled the other. The tug of war was about to get nasty when a third arm entered the fray and put an end to it. “You’re about to be arrested because you beaned a federal agent, Andrea, and that’s very serious business.”

Andy looked up to see Lorna motioning the nurse toward freedom.