The Question of the Felonious Friend (25 page)

“Pretending?” Sandy gasped.

I did not react to her question, as I saw no reason to answer. She was beginning to understand the truth.

“Move over there,” Mr. Robinson reiterated, but no one in the room moved. “
Now
.” He was alternating his aim at Ms. Washburn and me. “The four of you.”

Sandy's mouth dropped open. “What do you mean, Raymond?” she sputtered. “You're going to shoot
me
too?”

“Of course he is,” Ms. Washburn informed her. “He can't afford to leave any witnesses alive.”

Ignoring the drama in the room and the frantic feelings of dread in my mind I forced myself to remain still, concentrating especially on my hands and head. I'm not sure my right foot did not begin to tap where I stood. “And things were going fairly well for a while,” I continued as if nothing had happened since I spoke the last time. “Sandy Clayton Webb provided Tyler, as well as a place to store some of the contraband merchandise you couldn't afford to leave in your monitored warehouses.”

Sandy looked stunned, blinking, not necessarily processing the situation as it happened. “I should have stuck with Match.com,” she said, presumably to herself.

“But you had a problem. Richard Handy, who knew what you were doing, was worried. He had been arrested once for selling contraband cigarettes and did not want to be involved in the new operation. And the bribes he was getting, even though they were on camera and could be used to blackmail Richard, were no longer working.”

“I could have gotten some of that cash, then,” Billy Martinez said. No one responded to him.

“You kept Richard at bay for a while with Tyler's daily ‘tips' of one hundred dollars, but he was getting nervous,” I said. The longer I spoke, the longer Mr. Robinson was not shooting. “You couldn't let him leave the business because he knew about your illegal activities and you couldn't persuade him to participate again, could you, Mr. Robinson?”

It might have been a mistake to say the man's name aloud; it seemed to wake him from the thoughts on which he'd been ruminating. Mr. Robinson looked up at me. And when he focused on me, the shotgun did the same.

“I said move over there,” he reminded me. Again there was the gesture with the shotgun.

“No,” Ms. Washburn said. “We're not moving. Your best choice is to let us go and take your chances with the police. We don't have a confession from you about the shooting and only have evidence about the black market stuff. Take the lesser sentence and consider yourself lucky.”

Mr. Robinson's face contorted with anger and he turned his attention toward Ms. Washburn, who actually started at his movement. “Shut up!” he shouted.

To draw his attention back to me, I added, “It makes no sense to shoot the four of us. The police will find four bodies where Richard Handy died and you will be the only logical suspect. You are condemning yourself to the same fate either way. When Richard threatened to go to the police, you shot him and almost managed to get Tyler implicated. How did you get him to stand there holding the gun?”

“He used me,” Sandy said in a small voice. “Raymond told Tyler I would have to go to jail because of the stuff we were selling and that he'd make it look like I shot Richard. But he wouldn't do that if Tyler played along.”

“How do you know?” Ms. Washburn asked her. “You weren't here when it happened.”

Sandy shook her head. “No, that's true. Tyler told me on the computer after it happened. I didn't know anybody was going to get shot. I was supposed to get Tyler here to give Richard a five-­thousand-dollar bribe, and Raymond said he wanted the cameras painted because that would be suspicious, so Tyler got Molly to do it.” She turned toward Mr. Robinson. “You killed Richard and you shoved the gun into Tyler's hand and threatened him with me. Then you slipped through that little door of yours and got out through the basement. But you never told me anybody was going to get killed.”

“Don't be a fool!” Mr. Robinson hissed at her. “They're both probably recording this for the police!”

“We are not recording the conversation,” I informed him.

But Mr. Robinson did not appear to have heard me. Apparently trying to avoid implicating himself in the imagined recording, he took on a more conversational tone. “I don't know anything about the shooting.” Then his eyes narrowed and his voice became hushed again. “Now. Move. Over there. All of you.”

“Wait.” We hadn't heard Billy Martinez speak for some time, so his voice was unexpected. Everyone turned. “You're gonna shoot me?”

Mr. Robinson did not answer him. He stepped out of the doorway just enough to maneuver without being easily seen by the street. “Get over by the milk,” he said.

I decided to continue ignoring him and concentrate on Sandy, who was the one giving out useful information at the moment. “You didn't know Tyler was to be used as the sacrifice to the police?”

“Of course not. I wouldn't put him in that position.” Sandy appeared offended even as she was being prepared for execution. “He was just supposed to go and do his usual thing, give Richard the tip and then get Molly to paint over the cameras. I thought they were going to fake a robbery or something and frame Richard. When he got shot I was horrified.”

Mr. Robinson was not one to be denied. We had stalled beyond his patience. He fired a blast from his shotgun into the ceiling. As everyone else's attention was riveted on the origin of the loud sound, I looked out the front window toward the street.

There was no movement. Apparently the Quik N EZ had better soundproofing than one would expect.

Still, Mr. Robinson's voice did not rise above the level of typical conversation in volume. “Walk over to the dairy case or I will shoot you where you stand,” he said.

I did not see the benefit to carrying out his orders. Being shot where Mr. Robinson was less likely to be caught did not have any particular advantage from the victim's standpoint over being shot in the open. It was more likely the police would catch our killer sooner if we did not move. The only possible upside to moving would be the extra few seconds of life that would afford, during which it could be theorized that a better plan might be formulated, but the statistical odds of that happening were not terribly attractive.

“I will not move,” I said. “Fire.” Mr. Robinson, the successful executive, must not have been accustomed to people he saw as subordinates disobeying his orders. His face registered anger and he turned toward me with one barrel of the shotgun smoking from the blast he had just fired. That meant one barrel was still full.

“No!” Even as Sandy and Billy, looking terrified, had taken two steps toward the dairy counter and now turned back, Ms. Washburn, standing her ground, shouted and distracted my intended murderer. “You can't do that! You can't just take his life because he's smarter than you!”

I did not see the logic behind that argument, but Mr. Robinson sneered at Ms. Washburn and aimed the shotgun carefully toward her midsection. “If you were smarter than me, you'd be the one holding the shotgun,” he said. Ms. Washburn's eyes widened in sudden fear and she looked at me.

Then Mr. Robinson pulled the trigger.

My grasp of emotional states is not always strong, especially at the intuitive level. Normally I require some context or explanation before I can determine exactly what feeling another person is expressing. That means it is rare that I can effectively analyze a situation and anticipate another person's actions—particularly a person I do not know well—before they occur. It usually presents something of a disadvantage to me.

However, when Mr. Robinson turned the shotgun on Ms. Washburn, I did not spend any time trying to remember renderings of facial expressions or recordings of vocal modulations. My training in social skills, which had been painstaking in my teens and twenties, has helped me to some degree in such matters, but was not now being accessed. That was probably for the best, as it would have taken up too much precious time to act.

Instead, I acted entirely on instinct. I don't actually remember considering the context or the logistics of the situation at all. I can't honestly say I recall making a decision. I saw Mr. Robinson about to fire the shotgun blast at Ms. Washburn and I acted without thought.

I dove.

In retrospect, there must have been some calculation on my part, because I chose not to dive toward Mr. Robinson, who was the obvious danger in need for neutralization. Instead I took the faster and closer path.

I launched myself at Ms. Washburn and took her down in a flying tackle.

As I did I felt something in my lower left leg, not exactly pain but more akin to heat. It was not a major impediment immediately. Ms. Washburn landed on the floor next to some boxes of chocolate cake mix. I had aimed for her midsection, where Mr. Robinson had trained the gun, to better protect her from injury but had not been accurate in my dive, catching her higher up and causing her to fall backward. I landed on top of her.

“Samuel,” she said.

I could not speak. My hands had inadvertently ended up in areas that are not considered appropriate when touching a woman, and I stammered. Finally I managed, “I am sorry,” but it took a long moment, during which Mr. Robinson cursed loudly and reached into his pocket for ammunition to reload the shotgun.

In that split second I wondered what he would have done if we had lined up to be shot, since he could not have fired four times without reloading. Now Mr. Robinson's plan seemed quite inefficient.

“Sorry?” Ms. Washburn looked astonished as I rolled from my present position to one next to her, which seemed considerably more like what a gentleman would do. “You saved my life.”

At that moment the glass in the entrance door to the Quik N EZ shattered from the force of a blow from outside and two uniformed police officers crashed their way in as Billy Martinez rushed Mr. Robinson. Billy pulled Mr. Robinson's arms back behind him, in the process forcing the weapon to the floor. And he held them there while the officers, followed by four others, wrapped the plastic ties they call “zip strips” around Mr. Robinson's wrists and ushered him out of the building, presumably to a waiting police cruiser. I did not hear a reading of the Miranda Rights, but I had no doubt Mr. Robinson would be receiving one very shortly.

“You tried to kill us!” Billy shouted as his boss was being taken out of the Quik N EZ.

“He tried to kill
me
,” Ms. Washburn said quietly, possibly to herself. I was the only other person who could have heard her.

I stood up and helped Ms. Washburn to her feet just as Detective Hessler was entering the store, surveying the activity as officers began taking statements from Sandy and Billy. That was when I noticed the continued sensation of heat in my left leg.

“Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said with a gasp, “you've been shot.”

“Yes.” I did my best not to look down. “That will require some attention.”

Sandy, standing very straight, folded her arms to communicate a certain lack of cooperation, while Billy, still explaining that Mr. Robinson had been trying to kill all of us, was telling as much of the story as he knew. He was explaining to the officer nearest him how he'd only been the person to store the contraband merchandise off the store's premises and that he'd never stolen anything when Hessler walked casually over to Ms. Washburn and myself.

“Well, you were right,” he told me as soon as he was close enough. “It was Robinson after all. I never would have figured it, a guy that rich. What did he need with selling black market guns? It'll get him twenty years easy.”

“Detective, Samuel needs medical attention,” she said, and pointed to my leg. I remained resolute in my determination not to look at the wound.

“Yeah, there'll be an ambulance outside in a minute,” Hessler said. “That doesn't look bad at all.” He turned back toward me. “So why'd he do it?”

“He is an entrepreneur and that is how he defines himself,” I answered. “If he wasn't starting a new business he felt stagnant. When he saw Richard Handy's small-time attempt at selling a few cartons of cigarettes, Mr. Robinson was intrigued and wanted to see if he could do his employee one better.”

Ms. Washburn stared at me. “Samuel, your leg … Wait. You knew it was Robinson?”

“I did not know. I suspected. After the interview we did with him and the statistics about the black market sales, it seemed logical he had some connection. What delayed my analysis was the participation of Sandy Clayton Webb. It wasn't until Mike saw her at Billy Martinez's house and then immediately calling someone on the phone that I considered the idea she was somehow connected to the only person we knew who could have gotten Billy involved in the contraband sales. That was Raymond Robinson.”

Ms. Washburn had not broken eye contact. “So you guessed.”

I shrugged. “An educated guess, perhaps. Certainly it was based on the facts we had available to us.”

“And you didn't tell me,” she continued. “You had answered the question and you didn't tell me.”

“I had not answered it,” I corrected her. “I had a theory. I needed to test it.”

“Well, your test turned out right,” Hessler interjected. “I think we'll find that Ms. Webb and Mr. Martinez will be happy to take some plea deals in exchange for information on the guy who shot Richard Handy.”

“Sandy has two children and is recently divorced,” Ms. Washburn told the detective. “You have to find a way to keep her out of jail if you can.”

Hessler cocked an eyebrow. “It's not up to me. It's up to the county prosecutor and maybe the FBI. The Feds don't like it when you sell guns, especially if any of the buyers were from out of state.”

“We don't know that Sandy actually sold any of the merchandise,” I pointed out. “All we know is she provided housing for some of the items Billy could not store under his parents' roof, and one hundred dollars a day, presumably to keep Richard Handy quiet.”