Murder is Academic (30 page)

“Can you drive that?”

“No way. Can you?” I hoped he could not.

“No.”

I was so relieved.

“How far up the road?”

“Almost to the station,” I said.

He seemed to consider his alternatives, including going after my car, when we both heard the sound of a vehicle approaching the house.

“Inside.”

He pushed me ahead of him as we ran for the house. The car slowed down and turned into the driveway. I hoped it was Der, come to check on me. Donald held the knife to my throat as we hid around the corner of the kitchen in the living room. I realized he had the same thought; it might be the authorities.

“It’s me. Rise and shine. Time to make the coffee to go with the chocolate-filled donuts.”

It was Annie on her usual morning pastry run.

Chapter 27

I thought Donald would want me to keep quiet, but he whispered in my ear, “Tell her to come on in. What luck. We can use her car. And now I have yet another insurance policy.” I heard Donald chuckle under his breath.

I didn’t have to say a word to Annie. As usual, she simply pushed open the kitchen door and prepared to set the box of donuts on the table. Not taking his hand off my arm, Donald reached around the corner and grabbed Annie’s shoulder, spinning her around to face us. The donut box flew from her hands.

“What?” Annie’s face grew pale when she recognized Donald.

“Come join our little party.” Donald smirked.

“Laura. Are you all right?” Annie eyed me carefully, perhaps for wounds, but most likely because I must have looked a sight in my stuffed sweats and jeans.

“I thought you were dead,” she said to Donald.

I shook my head at Annie, trying to warn her against acting too defiant with Donald. She must have gotten my message, for she said nothing more.

“Now I have my ride and extra company.”

“What’s he mean?” she asked.

“He means he wants to use your car to get to the border.”

“And I need someone to drive. Let’s see…” Donald looked from one of us to the other.

“Look, why not just tie her up and leave her here? I’ll drive you. No need for you to have to handle more than one of us.” I had little hope Donald would go for it.

He didn’t.

“Eenie, meanie. I think Annie and I will sit in the back seat and get better acquainted while Dr. Murphy drives.” With the knife at my throat and his other arm around Annie, he shoved us toward the kitchen door and out into the driveway.

“Get in and don’t try anything.” He transferred the knife to Annie’s jugular and waved me into the driver’s seat. He and Annie got into the back of the car.

“And roll up those windows. I’m freezing.” I’ll bet he was. His clothes were still soaking wet.

“Which way?” I said.

“We’ll head down the lake and toward the interstate, then north.”

I gunned the car along the lake road, trying to come up with a clever plan to get Annie and me out of this. Soon the caffeine would kick in, and I’d be sharp as a tack, I hoped. As we approached the bridge construction site, I was barreling along at my usual reckless speed, when Donald grabbed the back of my neck.

“Slow it down a little or we’ll get picked up by the cops for speeding. Or was that your plan? You think I don’t know you’re trying to work out a way to maneuver out of this?”

Well, sure I was working on a plan, and it didn’t include slowing down, but I reduced my speed to accommodate Donald. It was best not to cross him.

“You know what’s funny, Annie?” I asked.

“Shut up and drive or your friend’s not going to be around for long.”

I ignored him.

“What’s really funny is that Donald here is a water resources expert, yet he can’t swim. Not a stroke. Not at all. So if he accidentally fell in the lake, like he did last night, he couldn’t get out.” I looked in the rear view mirror at Annie to see if she got my drift. She winked.

Suddenly I tromped down on the accelerator, jerked the wheel to the right so that we were off the road and speeding straight toward the water. The drop off to the lake was only several feet, but the car hit with a jarring crash. It continued its forward momentum for several seconds and then began to sink. I knew it wasn’t very deep at this point, but I hoped it was deep enough to cover the car sufficiently for Donald to panic.

To my delight, the knife appeared to have been knocked from Donald’s hand at impact. The car was now sinking fast. Donald did as I hoped he would. He lunged for the door handles and tried to open the doors, but they wouldn’t budge against the weight of the water. Water began to fill the passenger compartment of the car. Donald still pushed against the doors with all his strength, screaming obscenities at Annie and me.

I took a deep breath as the water rose to window level. I could see Annie do likewise. I rolled down my window. Donald was still too distracted in his efforts to get the doors open to see what we were doing.

I grabbed Annie’s hand, and we swam out the window and for the surface, which was now only at roof level. We broke free of the water with a whoosh.

“Donald.” Annie said.

“I have no intention of going back for him. Only one rescue per killer for this girl.”

Suddenly a hand reached out from below and grabbed my foot. Donald began climbing my body, grabbing at my jeans and moving up to my sweatshirt as he tried to use me to get above the water. I knew I could not make it to shore with Donald weighing me down. I’d read lifesaving courses recommended diving when a panicked rescue victim tried to pull you down into the water, but I never took a lifesaving course in my life, and I really didn’t like the option of diving into the water when my goal was to get myself to shore.

My feet touched bottom. Donald continued to hang onto my sweatshirt. I twisted and turned, attempting to work him free, managing to detach him from my back, but only moving him down to my leg. He clung there, refusing to let go. By this time I crawled up the beach and was out of the water.

“Help, help! I can’t swim.”

“You’re on dry land, you idiot. Let go.” I tried to jerk my leg out of his hold. Desperate to grab anything to help pull myself out of Donald’s grip, my hand closed around a tree limb lying on the shore. I picked it up and turned on Donald. I swung the branch toward his head, missed and hit his shoulder. He let go of my leg, but continued to struggle toward me. I turned and hit him again, this time connecting with the back of his head. He lay still on the shore.

“Did you kill him?” Annie leaned over Donald’s unconscious figure.

“I doubt it.” My voice was filled with disgust and only a little regret.

Annie and I were both shaking from the cold water. I was shaking harder, probably with the rage I still felt at Donald Hall. As soon as the adrenalin rush was over, I knew I’d have to deal with my feelings of a moment ago, the impulse to kill another human being, something I’d never experienced before.

“You could have killed us!” Annie said to me.

“What do you think he was going to do? Take us on a vacation to Montreal?”

“But my car.”

“Let’s go. We need a phone.”

“There’s my cell phone in the car.” Annie looked at the spot where the car went in.

“Good, you go get it. I’ll wait here.”

Annie shook her head and continued to stare at the lake’s surface. “Funny. You know, you could have warned me.”

“I did warn you and you let me know you caught on, too.”

“What did I do?”

“You winked at me.”

“I had dirt in my eye.”

“I thought you got the message I was going to run the car into the lake and Donald couldn’t swim. I mean, we executed the whole thing so smoothly. I rolled down the window, and we swam out.”

“You did. I was so scared, I was holding my breath. I had no idea what to do after that. Good thing you grabbed my hand.” Her lips were quavering.

Good God. I did almost kill my friend.
By this time, several of the crew from the bridge construction project, having seen the car go in the lake, came running over to help us out.

“Anyone got a phone I can borrow?” I asked.

One of the men handed me his cell phone. I called Der.

“Where are you? I just pulled into your drive. There’s a box of chocolate donuts on the floor and fresh coffee in the pot, but no you.”

I explained the events of the last several hours and told him where we were. “I don’t want to have to drown him or hit him again, so you’d better hurry.”

Der arrived on the scene in several minutes. He must have exceeded the speed limit.

Annie, Der and I walked to where I left Donald. He still wasn’t moving.

“Did you kill him?” Der asked.

“No, I did not. I just hit him. Real hard. And I’d do it again. Okay?” My voice shook with anger, my defense against tears.

“Okay, okay. Just asking. It would have been understandable if you did kill him, with what you’ve been through and all.”

“It would not have been okay, but I sure felt like it.” I whispered these words, not eager for anyone to hear me.

“What?” Der asked.

I just shook my head and turned away from Donald’s prone form. Annie continued to gaze at the lake’s surface.

“It’s not coming back up on its own.” I put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

Donald began to stir, and Der slapped handcuffs on him after searching him thoroughly. It appeared the night in the lake followed by this morning’s plunge and his encounter with the tree limb left old Donald somewhat weakened. He appeared to be dazed and unsteady on his feet.

“Hey, Laura,” Der said. “I’m calling an ambulance for Donald here. I think you and Annie could use some medical attention too. What do you say?”

“No thanks. We were offered a ride back to my house by one of the guys on the construction crew, and I think we’ll take him up on it. C’mon, Annie, I’ll buy you a donut.”

“It’s the least you can do.” Annie squinted up at me.

“You seem to have lost your glasses in the lake.”

“So that means you owe me a car and new glasses.”

“Don’t forget the donut.”

“I brought them.”

“I know, but they’re on my floor.”

Chapter 28

Guy left the hospital the day after I drove Annie’s car into the lake. I had a wrecker pull it out. Repairs on it were uncertain, as was the possibility of removing the smell of lake water from the upholstery. Regardless, I was committed to getting the car back into shape with or without the help of the insurance company. They were skeptical of the circumstances leading up to its positioning at the bottom of the lake although Annie and I both swore it was an accident brought on by the stress of having a murderer threaten our lives.

Although the summer was quickly winding to an end, I had little time to think what that meant for Guy and me because I was caught up in preparations for my son’s upcoming wedding. I hoped the autumn winds and cold rains would hold off until late September so the wedding could take full advantage of the fall foliage.

A few fallen leaves skittered ahead of us on the roadways as Guy and I took late afternoon rides. Although the weather was still unseasonably warm, the nights were growing colder so that we had to bundle up on our way back from our jaunts. Usually when we returned home, Guy built a fire in the wood burning stove in the living room, and we spent long hours gazing through the glass front into the blazing logs beyond.

We talked almost nonstop about Donald Hall and about the final hours before his capture and Annie’s and my role in apprehending him. I knew in my rational mind he was behind bars, but sometimes when I awoke in the night, I thought I could smell wet earth and fishy lake water in my room and see his shadowy form in my doorway. Only by rolling over and touching Guy could I chase the phantom of Donald from my mind.

I was aware Guy would leave sometime the end of August. The bridge construction was almost finished, and he would return to his position in Canada as a high school biology teacher. He was anxious to see his children again. Despite my understanding about his eagerness to be with them on a more regular basis, I was concerned what would happen to us. To avoid ruminating too extensively about our relationship, I turned to the wedding preparations to occupy my mind.

Separation seemed to be the theme of the month. Annie was cementing her relationship with Ron before she left on her sabbatical to Sicily. I was trying hard to ignore both Guy’s and Annie’s departures. One morning Der stopped by for his coffee and pastries and announced that Alicia was taking a position elsewhere and would not be returning to the college in September.

“Where’s she going?” I asked.

“She’s been offered a position as an executive director with the NAACP in Atlanta. It’s not teaching, but Atlanta is her hometown, and she has family there. I certainly can’t fault her for leaving, but it reduces the number of minorities in this community to all of ten or eleven. I definitely feel the isolation. If a promotion came through for me, I’d be off to Albany where there’s at least some semblance of an African-American community.”

I looked at Der in surprise. Sometimes I forgot about his Haitian roots, but apparently others did not and found his ancestry too unique not to mistrust him. His connections with his heritage were strong, and I could see that his friendship with me was hardly enough to hold him here for long. It was yet another loss I would have to face sometime in the future.