Hanging by a Thread (24 page)

Authors: MONICA FERRIS

BOOK: Hanging by a Thread

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“It was just what everyone thought it was when they heard Paul was dead,” said Betsy. “A murder-suicide. Paul shot Angela and then himself. But he decided to play one last vicious practical joke by framing someone else for both deaths.”

“Oh, are you
sure?”
asked Martha in a terrible voice.

“Yes,” said both Betsy and Jill together.

“Oh, but ... Oh, that’s terrible, because ...” She bit her underlip and fell silent.

Betsy continued, “I think Paul first intended the police to think Angela was killed in a robbery, but when he shot her, the bullet went out through the front window, drawing immediate attention, so he fled down the stairs, pausing only long enough to drive a wood screw into the nail hole on the pet store side, so when Mike went down there, the gate was fastened shut. If Paul had taken time to break the lock on the back door, the notion of a robbery gone wrong might still have been a logical theory. But the back door is all the way at the back, and the stairs to the basement are behind the checkout counter, right where he was standing, and people were running toward the store.

“So Mike was left assuming Angela let someone in, which meant she was shot by someone she knew. The logical suspect was the husband, Paul. But Paul had a bone-dry alibi—which would hold only until Mike figured out the business with the screws. Paul was sure Mike would figure it out and come to arrest him. And he
deserved
to be arrested, he’d murdered the one woman he’d loved in all his life. His solution to his dilemma was to take his own life and frame someone he hated for both deaths.”

“But the murder weapon disappeared—” began Martha.

“It’s been found,” said Jill. “But let her tell the story in her own way.”

Betsy said, “Now to Paul, the real cause of Angela’s murder was her adultery with the man who’d made a fool of him, the man who had stolen the love of his life: Foster Johns.

“Another obsessed man might have simply gone over and shot Foster before going home to shoot himself. But Paul was different. Once before, he’d caught a man kissing his wife. Just a consoling kiss, on the occasion of his mother-in-law’s funeral. But Paul couldn’t handle even that slight threat to his possessive pride. And while this perhaps wasn’t a killing offense, the man needed to be taught a lesson.”

“God knows what he did to Angela for it,” remarked Foster, speaking for the first time.

“Yes,” said Betsy, and there was a small, dark pause. Then she continued, “Paul began telling the man lies about his father’s offer to bring the man and his brother into his business. He told the father lies, he told the brothers lies, egging each on. When the quarrels started, he suggested to the father and brother what to say in explanation, and then told the man what lies of explanation would be told. When the man was totally estranged from his brother and father, he began to play the same game with the man and his wife. Paul was murdered before the man and his wife divorced, and things started coming around right for him. The man talked to his wife and began to understand what a filthy trick had been played on him—and by whom. He told me he would never cease being grateful to the person who murdered Paul. The man, who was by nature a loyal person, watched his whole life wrench apart in a series of betrayals, and had actually begun to feel he was going insane.”

“Who was the man?” asked Martha.

“It’s not important, he had nothing to do with Paul’s death.”

“Does he live here in Excelsior?” asked Shelly.

“Not anymore.”

Alice sighed and looked away. “Is there no end to the pain he caused?” she murmured.

Martha said, “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“I don’t think so,” said Betsy.

Shelly said, “Go on, Betsy, tell us the rest.”

“There are four things about Paul that helped me figure this out. First, he had an unusual capacity for pain. Gretchen Tallman stomped hard on his instep when he put unwelcome hands on her, and it didn’t deter him, the way it would any normally-wired man. And back when he was in middle school, he broke his arm and detoured from the nurse’s office to frighten his teacher by waving the injury under her nose.”

“Why would he do that?” asked Shelly.

“For the pleasure of seeing her shocked face. He knew the arm looked horrible, but it didn’t hurt enough to make him hurry to get it taken care of.”

“Ick,” said Shelly.

“Second,” continued Betsy, “he was very fond of true crime stories. Third, he loved cruel practical jokes. And fourth, he was clever at laying the blame for his misdoings at the feet of others.”

Jill said, “The first explains how he came to be so beat up, right? Most people couldn’t endure hurting themselves enough to cause bruises, at least after the first one.”

“But he was shot more than once,” Martha pointed out. “I understand being shot is extraordinarily painful.”

“He was very angry,” said Betsy, “very determined.”

“Okay, what’s the true crime angle?” asked Alice.

Betsy said, with an air of confession, “I read a lot of true crime stories myself when I was in high school, and I don’t think I’ve ever lost my taste for them.”

“So I guess I’m not the only person here who loves the forensics shows on the Learning Channel,” said Martha.

“Hush,” said Godwin. “She’s getting to the good part now, I bet.”

Betsy continued, “Last night I went out to dinner with Morrie and somehow we got to talking about a very old-fashioned prank involving a wallet and a length of button thread. And when I went to bed, I kept dreaming of a wallet that jumped out of my hands whenever I tried to pick it up. And that finally reminded me of one of those old true crime stories. There was a man who was determined to commit suicide, but he’d recently taken out a large life insurance policy that had a suicide clause. So he bought a long and thick elastic band and fastened one end up a chimney and the other end to his gun. After he shot himself, the gun was pulled from his hand up the chimney. It wasn’t until the house was torn down years later that the gun was found, and the truth discovered.”

Godwin said, “Is that what Paul did?”

Betsy nodded. “He used a bungee cord. The gun broke a chunk of brick off the hearth as it rushed by on its way up the chimney. The fireplace had been converted to gas, but there was still enough heat to eventually rot the cord. But the gun fell onto a ledge. Morrie found it there a few hours ago. The police are satisfied with my explanation, and will mark Angela’s and Paul’s deaths as a murder-suicide and close the case.”

Foster said, very quietly, “Thank you, Ms. Devonshire.” The thumb had come off to find the beer cool and calm.

Betsy said, “When Morrie crawled up inside that chimney, we all held our breath. He was there long enough that I thought he couldn’t find anything. He came out covered in soot with a piece of crumbly bungee cord and a rusty old gun.”

Jill said, “It was a .45 semi-automatic. The serial number on it matches the number on the gun registration made by Paul Schmitt.”

Godwin jumped to his feet and spread his arms wide. “I have said it before, and I say it again, you are the very
cleverest
person I know! I wish we had a rare wine in the place, but we don’t. May I bring you a cup of tea instead, my lady?” He executed an elaborate bow.

“Yes, please,” said Betsy, suddenly aware her throat was parched.

Alice said, “We will have to do something extremely nice for you, Mr. Johns. We have to make sure everyone knows you are innocent of the murders of Angela and Paul Schmitt.”

“How about we start right now,” said Martha. “Alice, Shelly, let’s go have a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the Waterfront Café. My treat. We can talk over what we just heard, nice and loud.”

Jill yawned hugely and said she had to go home to bed.

Foster said he had work to do. He wrung Betsy’s hand for a time longer than courtesy demanded, then left without another word.

Betsy, smiling, watched him go. Excelsior was a gossipy town, and Gossip Central was the Waterfront Café. Before the sun went down, the word would have spread all over town. Foster Johns’s long nightmare was over.