Read He Huffed and He Puffed Online
Authors: Barbara Paul
Alarums and excursions! I know the world didn't actually stop rotating at that moment, but that's sure as hell what it felt like. It's not every day of your life that you hear someone say,
I'm a murderer
. She'd really done it, she had actually
done
itâand here she was admitting it! I found I was holding my breath and let it out. “Jesus, Jo, that's a hell of a thing. Why? Do you need money that badly?”
“I don't need money at all!” she snapped with a flash of her old fire. She took a deep breath and said in a low voice, “I killed them because they asked me to.”
It belatedly occurred to me that we were in a public place and here was this world-famous violinist admitting she'd killed her parents and who knew who might be listening? I did a quick look around, but all the other customers in that place were so wrapped up in their own confessions that they weren't paying any attention to us. “They asked you to,” I prompted.
“They were ill,” Richard guessed.
“Terminally,” she said. “It was only a matter of time before they both died without any help from me. But they were in painâsuch
incredible
pain. My father was suffering from emphysema, and he'd already had two coronaries. Just the simple act of breathing was torture for him. He wasn't allowed much in the way of painkillers because of other drugs he was takingâhe got at most a couple of hours' relief a day.” Her eyes turned inward, remembering. “Every day I'd go into his room, and he'd beg me to put an end to it. That big, strong man reduced to a lump in a bedâ
begging.”
Her eyes focused again, and she looked first at Richard and then at me. “Finally I did what he wanted,” she finished simply.
Hmm, yes. Ah-ha. It was a touching story, all right, all about a loving daughter risking her own freedom to bring her dying father relief from pain.
Real
touching. I might even believe it if she hadn't inherited a fortune.
I don't need money at all
, she'd said. What bullshit. Everybody always needs money.
“The mercenary?” Richard asked.
“Oh yesâOzzie. Ozzie Rogers is his name. I contacted him when I'd decided to go ahead with it, but that was a mistake. I couldn't
hire
someone to kill my father for me. I had to do it myself.”
Sensitive, too, with a nice sense of propriety. Or maybe she just got cold feet dealing with a hired killer? Naw, it couldn't be something as unwonderful as that; perish the thought. I put an arm around her shoulders. “Don't dwell on it,” I said. “It's over now.”
“Not completely,” Richard said. “Your motherâit was the same with her?”
“Oh ⦠Mother.” That inward gaze again. “It was nephritis in her case. Do you know what she said to me? She said, âYou did it for your fatherâwhy won't you do it for me?'” Jo looked at us both with pleading eyes. “How did she know I'd killed him?
How did she know?”
That
How did she know?
got me. I know something about acting, and I was willing to bet every one of my shares of House of Glass that Joanna Gillespie wasn't acting then. She really didn't know how her mother had found out. Dear me, could she be telling the truth about her two-time excursion into homicide and it really was euthanasia after all? More likely she'd just bumped off the old lady because she'd found out.
How did she know
.
“Your father must have told her what you were going to do,” Richard suggested.
“I'm pretty sure he didn't,” Jo said. “I don't think they were ever alone together toward the end. They were both bedridden and in separate rooms ⦠but aside from that, I don't think he
would
have told her. Not him. Well, it's not important now.” She lapsed into silence.
So there we sat, three little killers out on a limb. I was as sure as I was that God made little green apples that Richard Bruce had sent thirty-seven people to their deaths a hell of a lot more easily than I had sent four to theirs. Whether Jo Gillespie's murder of her folks was a family-sized mercy killing or not didn't make a hell of a lot of difference; Strode had her and she knew it. I took my arm from around Jo and used it to lift a near-empty glass. “A toast,” I said. “To Ozzie, Jo's mercenary, and to Billy, my pilot, and to ⦠what's your finger-pointing widow's first name, Richard?”
He had to think. “Estelle.”
“To Ozzie and Billy and Estelleâmay they all meet in hell.” It rhymed. Only Richard joined me in my toast; Jo sat staring at nothing, a million miles away. She'd given up; she'd told us about killing Mommie and Daddy because she was convinced she was going to be one of the weekend's two losers. Well, I was real sorry about that, but somebody had to lose. The waitress came up and asked if we were happy or did we want to do it again; it was time to leave.
Lo and behold it was starting to turn dark. We'd wasted the entire afternoon eating and drinking and telling lies. Then out of the blue something uncomfortably akin to panic hit me
bam
, like that. The sidewalks were crowded with people hurrying in a vain attempt to beat the rush-hour traffic and I suddenly felt disoriented. Like I didn't know where I
was
âChrist, that's scary. What if the other two hadn't been lying after all? What if Jo truly had killed her parents out of pain for their pain? And what if Richard honestly had been caught in the backwash of other men's cupidity? What if I was trying to convince myself of their guilt so I wouldn't feel so alone?
“Jack?” Jo's voice said from what seemed a great distance away. “What's the matter?”
I bumped into a bag lady who for some reason was holding a big pretzel against her ear. But my mini-anxiety attack passed; I muttered nothing's the matter, I'm all right, it's okay. Richard stepped into the street and flagged down a taxi. All of New York was trying to grab a cab at that hour and Richard got one, wouldn't you know. We piled in and Jo said, “I don't want to go back to that house.”
“I do,” I said, and gave the driver the address. “I want to go back and burn it down.”
“Or at least break a few things,” Jo agreed with a forced smile. She was looking for things to joke about, coming out of her funk.
“Where would you like to go, Joanna?” That was Richard the Protector, noble solicitousness personified. And dig that
Joanna
.
“Where? Boston. Berlin. Timbuktu, I don't know.” She sighed. “There's no place to run to. We might as well go back to Strode's.”
Sensible of her. But when the cab pulled up to Strode's place, I felt a stab of that same reluctance to go back inside there; I wanted to split in the worst way. But I fought down the urge and said in my best ringmaster manner, “Well, well, here we are again, lady and gentleman! Step right this way and behold the eighth wonder of the modern worldâthe house that greed built. Which is not all that wondrous, come to think of it, greed being as it is a class-A requirement for social acceptability nowadays. And what have we here? A guardian at the gate? Abandon hope ⦠good evening to you, sir. Don't tell meâwe have to sign in.”
The security guard was one of those people who've never smiled in their lives; a real Spanish sense of humor. “No sir, Mr. McKinstry, just go on in.”
Inside, we separated immediately; we all wanted a little time away from one another. I checked to make sure the cardboard was still covering the camera in my room and then lay on my bed for a while, seriously considering cutting out. But that wouldn't solve my problem, and it would just make things easier for Jo and Richard. I didn't want to make things easier for Jo and Richard.
After about half an hour I crossed the hall and knocked on Jo's door. When she let me in, I said, “Were you and Richard serious last night? When you were talking about killing Strode?”
She sighed. “I don't know whether we were or not. It doesn't matter, since we don't know where Strode is. We've been through all this.”
“And he doesn't have any children we could kidnap or whatever. What if we should start wrecking this expensive home of his?”
“Why do you suppose he hires security guards?”
“But my god, Jo, we're right here where he lives! We ought to be able to do
something
to him! Something to make him back down.”
“I'm open to suggestion,” she said dryly.
“Are you? I thought you'd given up.”
She thought about it. “I guess I haven'tânot completely, anyway.” She shot me a look I didn't understand. “Of course, if we all do get out of this ⦠I'll still have you two to worry about, won't I?”
“What do you mean?” I stalled.
“You know what I mean. You and Richard. You'll both be in a position to blackmail me.”
I was saved from having to answer by a knock on the door; it was Richard, wanting to know if we'd thought of something. “Jo has,” I said in a hurt tone of voice. “She thinks you and I are going to blackmail her.”
They exchanged a long look. Richard said in that soft voice of his, “How can we, Joanna? We have no more on you than you have on us.”
“You have my true confession,” she said poker-faced.
“Worth about as much as all the rest of the creative bullshit that's been flying around here lately,” he said.
“But my confession was uttered in a dark moment of self-flagellation and soul-wringing despair. I should think that would be worth something.”
“I'll give you a dollar for it.”
“I'll take it. But I did admit to murder. To two murders. I placed myself at your mercy.”
I didn't get it; Richard was laughing. “Thus convincing us that you are the weak member of this trio? The one we don't have to watch because she's no threat? It didn't work, Joanna. I'm more afraid of you now than I was before.”
Afraid? Of Jo? Richard Bruce was afraid of Joanna Gillespie? And now she was laughing, tooâquietly, as if sharing a joke. What the
hell?
“Hey, remember me?” I said. “How about letting me in on it? Jo, was any of that stuff you told us this afternoon true?”
“Oh yes,” she smiled. “Almost all of it.”
And it was up to me to guess which part wasn't. I flopped down on Jo's bed, trying (for Richard's benefit) to look as if I'd been there before. “Isn't this jolly?” I said with a big smile. “Here we've known one another for less than twenty-four hours and we've already got a dandy Three Stooges act going. Oh, I'm really enjoying myself. Aren't you enjoying yourselves?”
Richard pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and sat, staring down at me. “Cards on the table, Jack. We're all three killers, and A. J. Strode has found us out. All we've got is one another. We've spent too much time lying and not enough planning.”
“I'm
not a killer!” I sputtered, sitting up. “Speak for yourself! Those people who died in the helicopter were my friends!”
“I'll bet at least one of them wasn't. You caused that crash, Jack, just as surely as I arranged for the
Burly Girl
to be scuttled. Just as surely as Joanna killed her parents.”
Jo was slouched in the window seat, disassociating herself. I looked at Richard. “What are you up to? What do you want?”
“I want to survive,” he said quietly.
It was a trick; it had to be a trick. They both confess to crimes they didn't commit so I'll be a good old boy and confess too. Then once they're sure I'm a real killer, they just forget about me and work out the Strode thing between them. Well, I didn't care much for that script. “We all want to survive,” I said carefully. “But I'm not sure how much chance I've got up against two admitted killers.”
“Make it three and join the club.”
I glanced over at Jo, who was staring moodily out the window; no help there. “Why is it so important,” I asked Richard, “for me to say I'm a killer?”
“Because,” he answered slowly, “I have to know how far you are willing to go.”
That brought Jo back to life. “You have a plan,” she said.
“Just the beginnings,” Richard told us. “But I know already it won't work if there are any faint hearts among us. I'm sure of myself, and I'm almost as sure of you, Joanna.” He looked at me without saying anything.
I swallowed. “I'll do anything,” I assured them both. “Anything anyone can think of to get us out of this, I'll do.”
“Even kill?” Jo asked, damn her.
“I've never killed anyone before,” I said in my sincerest voice, “but I think I could, if I had to.”
Jo made that
tsuh
sound that means both amusement and contempt with the emphasis on the latter. Richard said, “I don't think it'll come to that, but we ought to be prepared to. Before I can figure out details, I'll have to know more about the layout here. I need to know every door and window in this place that's lockedâlook, you two have been in the private wing and I haven't. Can you draw me a floor plan?”
Jo rummaged through drawers looking for paper. Richard wouldn't explain what he had in mind; he said only that we had to find a way to get back in here once the guards thought we had left. Crack Strode's security system, in other words. A diversion, I suggested. He acknowledged the possibility and bent over the drawing Jo was making of Strode's private quarters. “You said you left one of these doors unlocked?” he asked. “Which one?”
“The door to the library,” she answered, pointing to the drawing. “From the library you can go through Strode's dressing room to the bedroom and on to the other dressing room, currently unoccupied.”
“Bathroom?”
“One off each dressing room.” She sketched them in.
Richard nodded. “All right, let's map the rest of this place.”
We split up. I got the exterior of the house. I went around trying every door and window I could find; everything was locked. The security guard at the front gate came up and wanted to know what I was looking for. I told him secret passages. He blinked and went back to the gate. I worked my way around back and found another gate, for deliveries. It was electronically controlled. I wrote it all down and made a little sketch.