Bake Me a Murder (25 page)

I left a message to call me ASAP and told him where I’d be and why.

All the way to the theater, I told myself I’d made the right decision. The truth about all these murders, starting with Coco’s, might never be known and Merle’s life would be ruined if I didn’t. Anyway, the mysterious person planned on meeting me inside, so there’d be others around. My gun was handy and loaded.

I repeated all this to myself so often it became like a mantra, playing over and over in my head. Since Corrigan hadn’t returned my call, though, I called Ed before leaving my car. Of course, he didn’t answer, so he got the same message as Corrigan. I added one more point to my mantra. One or both guys would be here when I needed them. Whether that would turn out to be true or not was anyone’s guess.

Monday, 8:00 p.m.

Daytime had turned to night when I parked across from the theater. Following the note’s instructions, I purchased a ticket to any one of the movies and took a seat in the darkened theater. A movie trailer had already begun, then another came on. I was still waiting when the feature started, twisting in my seat, looking for some unknown person to approach me. Nobody did. I crossed and uncrossed my legs, tapped lightly on the arm rest until I thought I’d tear my hair out. Fifteen minutes into the movie I walked out, but hung around the lobby in case someone showed. I waited there so long two different ushers asked if I needed help.

Enough was enough. This had been a joke or a way to throw me off the track. I left the theater at almost 9:00. Merle’s fate was as bleak as an Edgar Allen Poe story.    

I unlocked my car, threw my purse in first, then slid inside and debated what to do next. Still deep in thought, I absently fastened my seatbelt. My gun was poking me so I was about to undo the seatbelt to remove my weapon when something cold and hard jammed against the back of my head.

“Long time, no see.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

I
t was Trace Martinelli pushing the barrel of his gun against my head. I felt like somebody had removed all my bones and I had nothing to hold me up.

“Aren’t you happy to see me again?”

My voice had disappeared but I managed a nod.

“You were just about to take out your gun. So do it, real slow, and hand it to me.” He snatched it from my shaking hand. “Now drive.”

In a voice unrecognizable as my own, I asked, “Where’re we going?”

He jabbed the gun harder against my head. “You don’t need to know. Just do what I tell you. And take it easy on the brakes.” He snickered. “This gun’s got a hair trigger.”

Wild, useless thoughts flitted through my brain. I started the car and gripped the steering wheel hard, but my hands were so damp they didn’t want to stay on. “Why are you doing this?”

His laugh was ugly. “You played me, making me think you liked me, while somebody broke into my place. Who knows what you been telling the cops about me. You’re a loose end and I never leave loose ends, even one as fine-looking as you.” His voice grew thick. “Maybe I’ll take some of that before I kill you.”

The thought revolted me and my stomach felt like it would give up its contents.
Calm, stay calm.
“You’ve got me wrong. I swear on my mother’s grave.”

He snorted. “Shouldn’t tell lies on your mother’s grave, especially since you’ll be joining her real soon. Take the next right.”

I missed the turn on purpose. Why hurry to my gravesite?

“Stupid stunt, Claire. Almost as stupid as your pal, Allescio.”

If he was going to kill me anyway, I could at least know why Eric died. “What do you mean?”

“Coco flipped her phone on record, and he overheard me talking to her before I offed her.”

“How did you know he heard?”

“She musta told him where she was before I got to her. And like Sir Dumb-Assalot, he comes racing over, but we’re gone. She dropped her phone for him and he finds it. Too late for the lady, though.” Martinelli began to laugh. “Get it? Sir Dumb-Assalot instead of Lancelot. Anyway, instead of taking it to the cops, he calls me. Wants to make a deal.” He chortled. “Like I’m gonna be a bank to some nobody like him.”

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it’d break the seatbelt. “Why did you kill Coco?”

He tsked. “You’re one nosy bitch. But I like you and since you won’t be around to talk, I’ll tell you.” He shifted in his seat but the pressure of his gun at the back of my head didn’t let up. “Word was she flipped over on this Rico for a certain New Jersey businessman. Twice. Everything was sweet until the guy from New Jersey found out her former lover was now skimming the profits and lying about it. Business is business and he’s gotta keep his image. Uses her as an example. So I did what I was paid to do. End of story.”

“Why is Harold Goldfarb defending the man accused of killing Coco? He works for Bucanetti too.”

“Don’t know about that. This Goldfarb and me ain’t related.” He chuckled then flipped his mood to serious. “Turn at the next stop sign.”

My phone rang and it seemed endless moments until the call went into voice mail. I could’ve cried with frustration. Help was a call away. It might as well have been on another continent.

Once the ringing stopped, I realized that would be the last time I’d hear my phone.
The last time I’d eat anything Aunt Lena baked. The last—

Like a jolt of lightning, I recalled Aunt Lena putting the heavy marble rolling pin onto my hands. It lay under the passenger’s seat in my car. My mind zigged and zagged, trying to devise a way to get to it. Then I saw my chance, just ahead of us. A King Kong-sized pothole. Hitting it might jostle Martinelli’s hand enough so he’d kill me or it’d toss him around and I’d dive for the rolling pin.
Try or die.
I said a quick prayer, took a deep breath, and floored it. The car hit the pothole, and I ducked in my seat as Martinelli’s gun went off. The bullet burst frighteningly close to the top of my head. I froze, my mouth open until the ride ended with the right fender meeting with a telephone pole.

Martinelli fell back in his seat. “What the hell—” Metal crunching drowned his holler.

Wasting no time, I unclipped my seatbelt and dove sideways.

He recovered and grabbed for me, just as my hands encircled the rolling pin. I cried out and swung it with as much force as I could muster.

He was faster and took a shot. It hit the pin’s marble, ricocheted and pierced his thigh. His screams could have disturbed the saints and angels. My time for pitying him might come later, if I survived.

The bullet knocked the pin out of my hand but I grabbed it again and swung as hard as I could. It made contact with the side of his face and I heard the sickening sound of bones crunching. He let loose with a cry of agony, then pulled the trigger and another bullet whizzed past my shoulder.

Fighting back nausea, I had to keep going. With a rebel yell to drown him out, I shifted my weight and whacked his gun-holding arm with my newfound weapon. The gun fell from his hand, but, dazed as he was, he scrambled to pick it up with his other one.

My arms burned with the effort, but I went at his other arm before he could fire another shot.

He howled like a wild animal trapped in a net.

I blocked it out, grabbed his gun and held it on him while I called 911 with my other hand. The gun waivered, and my hand was so damp I was worried about dropping the gun.

After giving the 911 operator the vital information, half-formed sobs escaped from me. But I kept myself from descending into full hysteria.

I was still on the call when Corrigan, his siren screaming, swerved to avoid hitting my wreck of a car.

He jumped out and rushed over, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, both on Martinelli.

My stomach turned when I had the chance to see what the rolling pin had done to Martinelli’s face. It looked like a plastic mask someone had sat on.

Corrigan took in the scene. “You all right, Claire?”

“I am now.” My words were drowned out by the sound of more approaching sirens.

Chapter Twenty-Six

T
race Martinelli was charged with two counts of murder, one of attempted murder, Mirandized, and taken by ambulance to the hospital. Bob, my poor, disabled car was hauled away for evidence. Not that they needed it. A search of Martinelli’s apartment uncovered a shirt with tiny blood spatters at the bottom of his trash can. A cream-colored scarf which would be checked for Coco’s DNA hung in plain sight in his closet.

I’d refused to go to the hospital and now sat on the edge of the seat in Corrigan’s car, my feet on the pavement, a blanket around me to stop my shivering. It wasn’t the cold making me tremble. The adrenaline pumping through me during the rolling pin battle had dissipated. I felt like a butterfly’s abandoned cocoon; fragile and ready to fall apart at any minute.

Corrigan stood over me, not talking.

I closed my eyes to keep my tears at bay. “Okay, say it.”

“Say what?”

I blew out a shaky breath and my words were thick. “What I did was stupid. I should have waited for you.”

He squatted in front of me. “Yep. It was a dumb thing to do. You handled it, though. I’ll give you that.” He shrugged. “Maybe you’re tougher than I thought.”

My mind honed in on him admitting I did handle it. Granted, it wasn’t as smooth an operation as I would have liked. In fact, it almost got me killed. But this was the third murder case I’d solved and that was something to be proud of. Sparing Merle the agony of a trial on top of his sorrow over the death of a woman he loved was another reason to be glad. But I didn’t feel happy. Maybe it’d come later, when I wasn’t as afraid to allow any emotion to surface.

Corrigan put his arm around me. “I’ll take you home. If you want, I’ll stay with you for a while.”

I gave him a wavy smile. “Sounds really good.”

We didn’t speak much on the way to my apartment, but a few times Corrigan reached over and squeezed my hand.

We parked and I had my hand on the door handle when Corrigan’s earlier comment about Harold hit me. “What did you mean about Harold Goldfarb?”

Corrigan snorted. “The little guy came up to me after you left the station. He told me you had the wrong Harold Goldfarb. When you called the law firm, Goldfarb Senior and staff were gone. Someone forgot to have the answering service notified and Jr. picked up.”

I closed my eyes. “Junior isn’t even a lawyer? Oh, God!”

“He’s a lawyer all right, but does mostly go-fer stuff and pro bono. He swears he’s never had dealings with Bucanetti, but claims he doesn’t know about his dad. Anyway, he apologized for not telling you earlier. Said he was scared if you knew who he really was, he’d be fired.” Corrigan shrugged. “Maybe he hasn’t been completely straight with any of us, but he did tell me Martinelli wasn’t part of the organization and you were looking at him for the murders. Before he could say any more, I got called into a meeting. When I came out, he was gone.”

Corrigan shrugged. “Then you left that message about meeting you at the Capitol. I put it all together.” He tapped his temple. “It would’ve saved a lot of trouble if Goldfarb had just been straight about Martinelli and maybe himself.”

I gasped. All that time, I never suspected Harold of lying about who he was. I cringed, thinking how easy it had been for him to fool me. My face grew hot.
How dare Harold play that charade with Merle’s life in the balance?
Calming down, I realized, in the end, it didn’t matter what he’d done, since the charges against Merle had been dropped.

Dropping my head into my hands, I said, “Unbelievable. I suspected Harold of a number of things, but never his identity. My mind must have been going in too many directions.”

“All of them away from me.” He gave me a wry look.

I was too raw to spar with him. “Join me inside?”

He opened his door and sprinted around the car to help me.

He unlocked my apartment door since my hands still weren’t steady enough to insert the key. Once inside, he took total command. “Have a seat. I’ll make you some tea.”

I slouched on my sofa by myself and the whole experience came back to me. Tears rolled down my face. One local bad guy gone, but if I wanted to keep my father alive, I couldn’t implicate Bucanetti, the guy who gave the orders. At least not in this case. Martinelli was already denying everything, and if he wanted to live he wouldn’t roll on his contacts.

Corrigan returned with a cup of hot tea and a small box of chocolates. He set the cup down. “I bought these after you showed me the box of truffles.” A red blotch appeared on each of his cheeks.

I wiped the last lingering tear away with the back of my hand and touched his face with the tips of my fingers. Tonight’s horror was being washed away, first with tears, next with the tea. Biting into one of the chocolate pieces, I closed my eyes. “Yum.”

After a sip of tea, I started to ask when Merle would be released. But Corrigan’s phone rang and after seeing who the caller was, he took it.

While he was busy with his call, I checked my messages. Ed had returned my earlier call saying he was at work, but would get to the Capitol Theater as soon as he could.

The second message was from Alex. That surprised me. I’d assumed that last call was our final conversation together.

His message was short, almost curt. He hadn’t found anything out about Martinelli. No shock there. His next sentence surprised me. He asked that I call him.

I glanced over at Corrigan and our eyes met. He wore a hangdog expression. When he finished his call, he pounded his fist against the sofa’s arm “Rico didn’t make it. Now there’s no chance of getting the whole story.”

Speaking of the whole story, I ached to pour out everything I knew about this case and Bucanetti’s involvement. But as Gino, my old boss used to say, “Spilling your guts now could mean a knife in your gut later.” Plus, I still had my father and even Aunt Lena to protect.

Sitting on all that information made me uncomfortable. I shifted a bit and offered Corrigan a piece of chocolate. Trying to lift both our moods, I made a feeble joke. “Just don’t take my willingness to share chocolate for granted.”