Ruff Way to Go (33 page)

Edith’s
voice, still above me but louder now, called, “What’s the matter? You can’t
possibly be more than ten stories above the ground. And the wind is hardly even
making that ladder sway.”

With rage
seeping into me, I cried, “What do you hope to gain by this, Edith?”

“It’s
simple, really. You rescue your dog, or the dog dies. At least I’m giving you a
chance to get your dog back. It’s more than you gave me with Shogun. You climb
up here, and you humiliate yourself as much as you humiliated me. I want you to
suffer, the same way you made me suffer!”

I forced
myself to look up, sweat running down my face, my hands now so wet that I was
at risk of losing my grasp. I was perhaps halfway there, but the distance might
as well have been a mile. “I can’t do it, Edith. You win. I can’t climb any
farther.”

“Then say
goodbye to your dog.”

Doppler
yelped, and she held him over the railing so that he’d drop just beyond my
reach.

“No! I’ll
come up.”

Every step
was more agonizing than the last. It felt as though I were crawling into a
Tilt-A-Whirl at an amusement park. My hands were clammy, dripping with sweat,
but I couldn’t chance letting go with one hand long enough to wipe it. My
stomach was so nauseated there was no way I could keep from vomiting, and Edith
laughed with unabashed glee.

My anger
gave me some strength to keep going. I now knew how horribly sick Edith really
was, to take such venomous delight in humiliating me this way. “You killed
Cassandra. Why? Was she going to report your labeling scam to the police?”

There was a
pause. Then she let out a low, humorless laugh. “So you did figure that out,
after all. That’s what I was afraid of. And the real reason I dragged you up
here. She rec
ognized my sewing, insisted she could even tell that the labels
were sewn on her former partner’s machine.”

Damn it! She
wanted to push me off this tower!

Edith
continued, “Cassie said that, out of friendship, she felt she had to tell me
first, rather than go straight to the police. Then she refused my efforts to
pay her off. She didn’t believe me when I said I’d never do it again. I had to
stop her. That store was all I had that was truly mine! We argued, and in a
moment of rage, I hit her in the head with a rock.”

“You didn’t
plan to kill her. You can stop this now. Turn yourself in to the police. Killing
Cassandra in the heat of passion won’t carry the same consequences as if you
push me off this tower.”

“You know
what, Allie? We should come up here more often. I like it up here. It’s
peaceful. You can see for miles.”

“Why are you
doing this, Edith?” I asked again, stalling, hoping I could force myself to
keep up a patter of conversation and keep from focusing on my climb. “You can’t
escape. It’s too late. Besides, I left a note identifying you as the killer.
You’re going to be caught, no matter what.”

She ignored
me and said incongruously, “There was this fox-like black dog in my yard. I
tried to chase him away, but he just barked at me.” Edith’s disembodied voice
sounded dispassionate, as if she were almost in a trance-like state. “Shogun
ran off instead. I had to get out of there before you saw me. As I was driving
away, I realized that my note was still on the door, and that the police would
know it was my handwriting, my fingerprints, so I doubled back and took the
note. I figured the police might think you killed her. Then I went back to my
boutique, washed up, and put on a new pair of white pants and jacket.”

I was eye level
with the top rung, but I was now immobilized with fear. This was even more frightening
to me than climbing the ladder. It felt as though I were climbing over the edge
of a cliff.

Doppler was
whining, trying to get to me, but I couldn’t even look in his direction for
fear of losing my precarious balance. I got my hands on the posts to either
side of the
ladder and climbed one mote rung. These posts, like all of the
others in the guardrail that circled the outer edge of the walkway, were spaced
some three or four feet apart. Not nearly close enough to provide me with any
security.

Suddenly
Edith loomed right in front of me, blocking me. “Goodbye, Allie. Your trip down
won’t take long at all.”

She kicked
me. I ducked as best I could, the blow landing flush on my forehead. I managed,
somehow, to keep my grip.

Edith
chuckled. “Come now. Give up, Allida. How long do you think you can prolong the
inevitable?” She walked back toward my dog. “If you don’t go first, I’ll just
have to see to it that Doppler does.”

“No!”

I made my
way toward them. I had no choice except to crawl, but the flooring of the
walkway was a thick grate. I could see through each rounded-diamond shape to
the ground, a distant blur below.

Finally I
risked a quick glance toward Edith to check on my dog. Doppler’s leash was
loosely tied to a post of the guardrail. He was still struggling against the
leash to get to me. If he slipped off the edge in the process, he’d be
strangled.

I retched. I
had to shut my eyes and try to hold steady on all fours, though my brain was
still telling me that I was spinning, moving toward the edge. My eyes still
closed tight, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You did all of
this— killed Cassandra, framed me, stole my dog—just because you
wanted to get away with sales fraud?”

She laughed
at me. “Look at yourself. You look like a sick dog. You’re pathetic. But to
answer your question, yes, I did it to get out of going to jail. By the way,
you stopped your list too early. You left out your own imminent free fall off
this tower, my dear.”

I looked at
her. “As soon as the police get my note, they’ll put all of this together.”

She shrugged
and faced me, but it felt as though she were staring past me, not really seeing
me. “I’ll take my chances. Explain that you set me up. I’m selling off my cheap
mer
chandise at the store and replacing it with the real thing. That
evidence will soon be gone. I just need to get rid of you to...”—she
paused and smiled—”tie up the loose ends. I’ll tell the police I ran up
here to escape from you, Cassandra’s killer, because I knew about your phobia.
Only you were so determined, you followed me anyway. Tragically, though, you
lost your balance.”

“And what
about Susan Nelson? Cassandra’s former partner, who sold you that sewing
machine. The woman who owns that little black dog who burrowed under your fence
that day.”

Edith shook
her head. “She doesn’t know anything.”

I managed to
stand up by pressing my shoulder against the wall of the water tank, as far
from the edge as possible. “Yes, she does. And my mother also knows. I’ve been
keeping her informed of everything. She knows about the label, too. She bought
me the blouse. Are you going to kill both of them, too?”

“If I have to.”

“And how
will you explain that? Edith, for God’s sake, think! It’s over. Killing me or
my dog will only make matters worse for you. You’ll be facing murder-one
charges and spend the rest of your life in jail.”

She set her
lips into a thin white line and shook her head. “The police won’t believe a
thing your mother tells them. They’ll know she’s just trying to protect you.
And Cassie told me that Susan is a drug addict. No one’s going to believe her,
either. The only person with anything to worry about now is you, Allie.
You
have
to worry about how you’re going to feel when your body hits the ground.”

She charged
at me. I tried to run, but got only a few steps before she caught up to me.

Edith
tackled me from behind, then grabbed my ankle and started pulling me toward the
edge.

I clutched
at the metal walkway, but couldn’t get a grip. Only my fingertips were able to
fit through the grating. Edith grabbed hold of my belt and, in one motion,
pulled my entire body forward so that my legs dangled over the edge.
I managed to
wrap one arm around both of her legs. If I was going to fall, she was going
with me. At least then Doppler would survive. I nearly pulled her legs out from
under her, but I also managed to get my free hand around one railing post.

“Let go!”
she cried, trying to pry herself loose. I got a knee back onto the walkway. In
spite of my vertigo, the instinct to survive had taken charge now.

I got my
second knee up, and Edith lost her balance, falling harmlessly backward onto
the walkway. She let out a groan with the impact. Her features were set in a
horrid, wild animal grimace. She kicked. I tried to move out of the way. Her
foot caught me on the side of my face just below the temple.

Still on her
back, from a crab-walk position, Edith braced herself, then released an
enormous thrust of her legs and knocked me sideways. My leg bashed against one
of the posts in the railing. I got hold of a second post with both hands.

Now Edith
was pounding me mercilessly, kicking me in the side, trying to force my legs
over the edge again. I fought to keep myself from curling up in pain, to keep
my legs out straight so that she couldn’t shove me between the posts.

The metallic
taste of blood was in my mouth, and I realized my nose was bleeding. From the
dim recesses of my mind, I could hear Doppler barking relentlessly. He was
unable to help me now, nor I him.
If I fell, what would happen to him?

“Allida! Hang
on!” a male voice from below called.

At the sound
of help arriving, Edith gasped and stopped kicking me. That she was running out
of time only egged her on. She grabbed my ankle and started lifting it to force
me to bend at the knee. I yanked it free and blindly kicked at her.

Edith let
out a scream of fright. I tried to rise and scramble away from her, but looked
back in time to see her topple over the railing.

I lunged in
her direction, trying to grab her, but it was too late. She fell, her scream
echoing against the metal tower.

I covered my
ears and closed my eyes and lay on my
stomach on the walkway, retching
helplessly. Though I’d lost all sense of time, eventually Russell was beside
me. He pulled me onto his lap and held me while I cried.

“I found the
note on your mailbox,” he said when I was finally in control enough to listen. “It’s
all right. It’s over now.”

“Doppler,” I
muttered, struggling to find my voice despite my anguish.

“He’s fine.”

“Edith. Is
she...?”

“She’s dead.
She...landed near the ladder just as I was climbing up. We have to call the
police.”

I managed to
force myself to sit up, but my vertigo was once again at full tilt and I felt
myself spinning in agony. I wanted just to stop the motion. “Russell. Listen.
Bring my dog down. Get me drugs. Anything to knock me out I’ll never get down
otherwise.”

“Yes, you
can. We’ll climb down together.” He got up and grabbed my arm, trying to lift
me to my feet. “Let’s go.”

“No!” I
shook my head “Doppler first.”

Russell left
and I stayed seated, knees to my chest, my back plastered against the water
tank, waiting, too distraught even to try to get to Doppler to pet him. He was
whining and struggling to get out of Russell’s arms. Poor Russell was trying to
keep his face as far away from the dog as possible.

“Doppler,
no!” I said with as much authority as I could muster.

My dog
obeyed well enough that Russell managed to carry him past me, under one arm and
out of my view down the ladder. The thought of Russell’s having to carry
Doppler down that long ladder with only one free hand made me dizzy. I could
only hope that they would make it safely to the ground.

An eternity
later, Russell returned and all but dragged me to the edge of the ladder,
making himself a human shield so that even in my half-crazed state, I could see
that it would be impossible for me to fall. Still, the descent was torturous
for
me. Russell calmly talked me through it, coaxing me each step of
the way.

We made it down together. My knees buckled the
moment my feet hit the ground, but Russell held me in his arms. He shielded me
from the sight of Edith’s broken body as we made our way to his car. Doppler
was inside, safe and sound, his front paws pressed to the glass, his black nose
squeezed into the narrow window opening.

I realized then, finally, that it
was truly over. A jumble of emotions surged through me. I hugged Russell and
whispered, “Thank you,” while Doppler’s happy barks punctuated the air.

***

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