A Deadly Draught (26 page)

“I’m not like him, and he’s not my father. He told me he wasn’t my father, and you told me he wasn’t.” Michael shouted the words at his mother, but the pistol didn’t waver. I didn’t understand any of this. My heart banged in my chest, my hands trembled. Despite my fear, I knew my life was forfeit unless I did something. I had to play on whatever tension existed between the two of them to take their focus off me.

I wanted to say something to confuse or annoy one or both of them. I used what I knew about Claudia’s propensity for lying, hoping that she hadn’t shared the truth or the lie about Ronald’s parentage with Michael.

“Wait a minute. I don’t get it. When Ronald talked with his father several days before the murder, Mr. Ramford told him that Ronald wasn’t his son. Neither one of your boys is a Ramford? You told Jake and me that you didn’t have an affair with my father. So who’s the father or fathers?” Claudia narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, then dismissed the issue.

“That’s not important now. Michael worried that he gave away more than he should have this morning at the fire and that you would try to entrap him into saying something incriminating and convince your police friend to pursue him. An accident. Your death has to look like an accident.”

Desperate, I tried another approach. “You know Michael set the fire this morning, don’t you? You and Ronald were meant to die when the house burned down.”

Claudia’s chin came up, and she took her eyes off me and stared at her son. The roar of the wind caught her next words and carried them out through the mangled walls of the hop house. “… you told me … Ronald …” She gestured with her pistol at the broken-down remains of the barn.

“Don’t listen to Hera, Mother. I’d never burn down my own house. It had to have been Ronald. Ronald always liked fires. He did it, set it somehow before you left for the sheriff’s office and timed it to go off when both of you were gone.”

The wind drove the rain through the large gaps in the walls, drenching the two of us. Only Claudia, snug in a corner of the barn, remained dry.

“Is that true, Dear, or have you lied to me yet again? Did you set that fire and try to kill Mummy? Lying again. Just like your father.”

“I’m not like him!” Michael yelled. Something heavy, probably a tree limb, hit the side wall, startling all of us. I took the opportunity to throw myself toward an opening in the back wall and take my chances in the howling storm. The ping of a pistol shot rang out behind me, splintering a wood beam as I ducked underneath. Then I was caught in the maelstrom of rain, wind, and lightning strikes. I ran for the woods ahead.

Once in the cover of the pines, I looked behind me, but it was impossible to see if anyone followed. I headed toward the only place where I knew I could hide, as well as find refuge in this storm, the old mill where Michael, Ronald, and I had played as children. I hoped Michael didn’t remember it. I wanted him to assume that I headed for home or went to find Jake.
Jake.
Once I got to the mill, I could find help for Jake, but for now, I had to be certain I wasn’t being pursued.

Twenty-Five

Water continued to flood down on me, but the wind had let up. I could pick my path through the woods toward my destination in the light breaking through the whirling clouds. The mill loomed out of the downfall up ahead, giving me the incentive to make a final dash for it.

The metal roof was intact, but the wooden walls were rotted, and sections on the second floor had fallen onto the first. As I approached the building from downstream, I could see the rain had swollen the creek. Brown, churning water buffeted the broken wheel, but it remained steady, its paddles covered with moss and wet decaying leaves. I threw myself through the door and banged it shut behind me. If anyone entered the building, I was certain to hear them when they tried to open the door on its rusted hinges, but I hadn’t counted on how clever and fast Michael could be. He stood in front of me and to one side of the window through which I could see the wheel rock back and forth as the water tried to entice it into action.

“Where’s Claudia?”

He smiled and opened his mouth, but if he said anything, I couldn’t hear it because of the noise of the driving rain on the roof. I made a dash for the open window. Michael moved as quickly as I, reached out and grabbed my leg as I ran by him. His fingers dug into my calf for several seconds. Then, because my leg was slick with water and his hand was wet, his hold on me slipped. I dove through the window and landed on the top paddle of the wheel, thinking that I could climb down the wheel. Then what? Throw myself into the swollen, turbulent stream?

Before I could think through my next move, Michael leaped onto the wheel, claiming the paddle below mine. But he didn’t count on his extra weight, the rotten boards, and the slippery surface of the paddles. The wheel broke beneath him, and he plunged toward the churning water. For a moment, his hand got hold of another paddle, and I thought he was safe. Without thinking of my own danger, I reached down to help him back up and into the mill. A puzzled look crossed his face, then his features were obliterated by a curtain of rain. I thought I saw him shake his head no before he plummeted into the roiling caldron below him. I wiped the rain from my eyes and blinked When I looked again, I could no longer see his head above the water. I pulled myself onto the ledge by the wheel and continued to scan the stream below, but I knew I’d never see him again.

I could do nothing more here, and my cold, wet clothing clung to my skin, making me shiver. I couldn’t think about that now. I needed to search for Jake and hope that I found him alive and could get help for him.

I backed through the window of the mill, almost too fatigued to get on my feet. There was a lull in the rain’s clattering on the roof, and I thought I heard breathing behind me. I whirled around, expecting to find that my nerves were playing tricks on me. I was mistaken.

“Where’s my son? Where is he?” Claudia stood inside the door to the mill, her clothes soaked through, her silvery, shining helmet of hair now hanging like limp seaweed around her face. She still carried the pistol in her hand, but it hung limply at her side.

I said nothing. With a shaking hand, I pointed out the window to the stream below. She approached the window and looked down.

“You killed him.”

“No, I tried to save him, but the paddle broke. He slipped and fell into the water.” Claudia turned toward me and leveled the pistol in my direction.

“No, you killed him, and now I’m going to kill you, just like I did your father.” With her free hand, she smoothed back the wet tendrils of hair from her face, then flipped her head in a gesture of carefree sexuality. “He rejected my advances when I needed him most. I wasn’t as young as when we had our fling, but I was still attractive, and Michael Senior was ignoring me, as he usually did. I went to your father for comfort. He said he didn’t want me.”

“So you shot him?”

“No, you fool, I got Michael Senior to do it for me. I told him the two of us were having an affair, that I wanted to end it, but that your father wouldn’t let me go. He took my gun and shot him, made it look like suicide.”

She came closer. I considered my options. Jumping into the stream wasn’t one of them. I saw what the water did to Michael, pulling him under and burying him. She seemed intent upon telling me her story, so I let her talk, hoping some opportunity would present itself soon.

“We had a few good years then, Michael Senior and I. Then he began to wander again. So I told him some more stories about your father. I told him Ronald was your father’s son. Then I told him Michael was your father’s son. The night he died, I told him I lied about everything. He didn’t know what to believe, and that was fine with me. As he lay dying on the barn floor, his last words to me were, ‘Tell me the truth.’ I just laughed.”

She was close enough that I could have reached out and touched the pistol with my fingertip.

“I always liked you, Hera. You had real gumption, and I thought you would have made Michael a good wife, shared his interests and put some backbone in the boy.”

I was shocked. “But that would have been …”

“Incest? Well, maybe, but who was to know, unless Michael Senior blabbed it all over? He told Ronald when they met days before the murder, and he told Michael. Michael was a funny one. He wanted to be his father’s son, yet he didn’t, and he hated the way his father treated him this last year. Senior was going to tell you he suspected his sons weren’t his, and I couldn’t have that. There was my reputation to consider. So I stopped him, with Michael’s help, of course.”

I didn’t want to believe Michael was responsible for killing his father. I shook my head no. I didn’t want to hear what Claudia was saying, but she rushed on with her story.

“Senior told me he was meeting you in the brew barn to tell you about Michael. That would have ruined my plan for you and Michael, and I couldn’t have that, so I sneaked into the barn and hit him from behind with the shovel. Hit him several times, you know. Michael saw me put him down, and he got me out of there and back to the house. Made me a nice cup of tea, too. Michael was a good boy. I’ll miss him.”

I held out my hand to her. “What’s the truth about the boys’ father?” I had to ask, not only for my sake but for that of Sally’s child.

“The truth isn’t important. It often isn’t, I’ve found. Sometimes you have to create the truth and then live with that. But you’re lucky, Hera. You won’t have to worry anymore about your father and me and whether Michael and Ronald might be your half-brothers. The truth is, I don’t need you anymore. You’re irrelevant now.”

The woman had to be demented. She didn’t seem to be able to discern lies from truth, nor seem to care. Right now, neither did I. I made one last feeble try at saving myself.

“I’m wired. Everything since we met in the old hop house has been recorded.” I pulled up my shirt and ripped the recorder off my waist. “It’s a remote feedback to the sheriff’s department. They heard everything, and they’ve got it all on tape. It won’t even do you any good to destroy it, but here.” I tossed the wire toward her. She wasn’t stupid enough to try and catch it, but when she ducked to one side, I kicked out and connected with her ankle. She went down but managed to keep hold of the pistol. Her shot went wide, and I was on the run again.

Twenty-Six

I was taking a chance not making a break for someplace safe, but Jake needed my help. I headed upstream to the millpond and around the south shore. Although the rain slowed, it continued to fall as if it intended to make up for its absence all spring and summer. Gusts of wind whipped my wet clothes against my body, and I was far colder than I had been in the shelter of the old mill.

The pond’s swampy and reedy southern edge provided good cover for someone lying on the ground. I assumed Michael wanted to make the assault look like an accident and had used his hands or a tree limb to attack Jake. There was hope he was still alive. I hoped I would find Jake in a dry spot where a blow wouldn’t have put him face down in the water. I searched the cattails and reeds, but it was slow going because the water and mud sucked at my shoes with every step I took. Rain continued to drip into my eyes, and I wiped it away with my damp sleeve, a useless endeavor.

I knew Jake had to have come this way to circle around behind the hop house. Now I was losing the light. Something in the reeds ahead caught my eye, and I waded out to it. A shoe. I picked it up to examine it, but it was old and slimy from months in the water. As I straightened up, something cold pressed against my neck.
Claudia’s gun barrel at my head.
But the object was removed, and I heard a familiar and welcome voice.

“What the hell are you doing here, caressing an old boot?”

“Jake.” I turned and threw my arms around him. “Are you all right?”

“It took me a minute to tell it was you. I’m fine, unless you count this knot on my head as a problem. I’m alive, and that’s something. Where the hell have you been? I tried to call your cell, and I got no answer.”

My cell.
I’d forgotten all about it. I patted my jeans pockets and then remembered. I’d placed it in the picnic basket, which I’d left on the hill when Michael pulled me into the hop house.

“I’ve got my men combing this area looking for you. Someone, probably Michael, ambushed me. I guess he didn’t have the heart to kill me, so he just hit me on the head.”

“He could have killed you. Are you sure you’re okay?” I reached out to touch the back of his head, but he ducked away.

“Fine, fine, but what about you? What happened? I heard some of the conversation between you and Claudia when I came to, but I didn’t know where you were. Where’s Michael?”

“Probably dead.” I explained to him about the incident at the hop house and then what happened in the mill.

“You were still wearing the wire, right? We got this on tape. Great.”

“Not quite. I threw the recorder at Claudia, and I don’t know where it landed. She may have picked it up and left the mill by now.”

Jake shook his head and rolled his eyes at me as if my intelligence equaled that of a one-celled organism. He flipped open his phone and told two of his men to meet us at the mill.

A search there produced no Claudia and no recorder. I pointed out the broken paddle boards to Jake. The fresh breaks of the old wood showed the only use of the mill house within the last several years.

“You believe me, don’t you? Claudia was here.”

“I believe you, but that means now I’ve got a killer on the loose, and she doesn’t have anywhere to run. Her house is gone. Think, Hera. Where would Claudia go?”

“Where’s Ronald?”

“At the Pines Motel in town. Okay. It’s worth a try.”

I turned to leave, but Jake held up his hand to stop me for a moment while he called for additional officers to check the motel and determine whether Ronald was safe.

“Thanks for having your officers check on him.”

“What do you think? Would she kill him?”

“I don’t know. She seems demented to me. I don’t know if she’s told the truth or nothing but lies. Maybe she doesn’t either.”