Blindfold (24 page)

"Then let's not tell him."

"Have to," Whit said grimly. "He might have seen something, heard something ... we have to know who did this, Maggie. And why."

"He said I was bad," she said quietly. "He had this funny, tinny, high falsetto voice, not his real voice, of course, and he told me he was doing it because I was bad."

"Did he say anything else?" Helen asked from the backseat of Scout's Jeep.

"Yes," Maggie answered after thinking for a minute. "He said he had to leave. To split, and that I was keeping him from doing that."

"You were keeping him from leaving the courthouse by not dying?" Scout asked angrily.

"I don't think that's what he meant. I think he meant leaving somewhere else. Like . . . leaving here. Felicity. That he wanted to leave Felicity, but he couldn't until I was dead."

the sheriff was standing there, saying he had a few follow-up questions to ask her.

He also had a few things to tell her. Things she really didn't want to hear.

"It turns out," he said, "that Dante Guardino was murdered."

Maggie gasped. "Murdered? I heard he fell and hit his head."

"Oh, he hit his head, alright. Truth is, someone hit it for him. With a blunt object. Don't know exactly what. Then buried him in that coal bin."

"And no one ever knew?" Maggie found that incredible. Four years, and no one ever knew?

"Nope. And I know what you're thinkin'. But it was February when it happened. Pretty darn close to freezing in that unheated coal bin. Didn't really warm up much that year until the end of July. By that time, it didn't matter much."

Maggie sank back against the couch. Murdered? Dante Guardino had been murdered? "Do you know who did it?" she asked, her voice husky with shock.

"I got an idea. Seems to me the boy was innocent all along. Only thing that makes sense. I feel real bad about that. Too late now, though. He was innocent, and maybe the real killer had an attack of conscience -- we figure it had to be a Mend of his and the girl's -- and came that night to get Guardino out of jail. And did, that's clear enough. But something went wrong at the last minute, seems to me. Maybe Guardino, once he was free, said he was gonna tell. At any rate, he ended up in the coal bin,

his skull fractured just like the girl's. And the killer got off scot-free. Till now, anyway."

Maggie couldn't think straight. Dante hadn't murdered anyone, but he had been murdered? By a friend?

"Well, the jig's up now," the sheriff continued. "And our killer knows it. You findin' Guardino's remains, that's probably what he'd been afraid of all along, and why he tried to stop the restoration project. He wanted that building gone"

"You think this ... person ... caused the cave-in, and the explosion, and sawed through the cover of the well?"

"You betcha. Tryin' to make everyone think that building was a real hazard, and the grounds, too. By the way," he added casually, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his breast pocket, "I guess you already know a lot of your friends knew the dead girl?"

Maggie had been thinking of Dante, and was taken aback by the switch. "What dead girl?"

"Christy Miller. Turns out you know a lot of her friends."

"No, I don't."

"Yeah, you do." He unfolded the paper and began reading off names. "Paul Batcheler, Mary Linda Myers, Helen Morgan ..."

Paul and Mindy were on the peer jury. And Helen had already admitted to Maggie that she knew Dante and Christy better than she'd let anyone think. No big deal.

"Tanya Frye, Lane Bridgewater, Benita Sawyer... "

Tanya and Bennie? They'd never said anything. Neither had Lane, not really. But then, like Helen said, who wanted to admit they'd been Mends with either the victim or the killer?

"Lucas Broom, Alex Goodman, Tyler Smith."

Maggie didn't know Lucas Broom or Tyler Smith. But she knew Alex.

"Scout Redfern, Timothy Dwyer, Alice Ann Beckwith." The sheriff refolded the piece of paper and stuck it back in his shirt pocket.

Didn't know Timothy what's-his-name, either. And Chantilly, that was no surprise. She'd lived out that way. If she hadn't already been in the hospital, Maggie would have been certain it was Chantilly who had attacked her in the law library. She hadn't been in 4-H. But she still could have known Christy. "Not Scout," she said firmly. "Scout didn't know that girl."

"His mother said he did."

His mother. His mother hardly knew what day it was anymore. "Well, he didn't." Scout had said very clearly that he hadn't known Christy. "/ never met her/' he'd said.

"But they all went to different schools," she protested. "And lived in different communities."

'They don't go to school in the summer. They get together, out there in the country. I know, 'cause I lived all my life out there in Nestegg. Don't matter which little spot they live in. They meet at swimming holes, at the Dairy Queen, at fairs and carnivals, community picnics. So how come you didn't know your friends knew that girl?"

"Nobody wants to talk about it," she said, using Helen's excuse. "And I don't blame them. I wouldn't talk about it, either. It's too creepy." Then, hoping she'd misunderstood, Maggie pressed, "Are you saying that these are the people who knew Christy? Or who knew Dante? Because I already knew Scout and Alex knew Dante. Helen and Lane, too. Through 4-H."

The sheriff shook his head. "Nope. Not talking about Dante. Just the girl. These are people who knew the girl... some better than others. And, by the way, Whittier's boy came by my office and said he knew them, too. And that his car was scratched up the other night when he pulled those two out of that ditch. Told me like he thought he might be a suspect. Tell the truth, he is."

"So you're saying that girl and Dante were both killed by the same person?"

"Looks that way." The sheriff glanced around the room. "Your mom or dad home?"

"No. And you haven't caught that person?"

"Well, now, we can't very well apprehend someone when we don't know who to apprehend, can we? That's what we're tryin' to find out now. And," looking at Maggie again, "what I want to know is, can you tell me anything about the person in the law library? 'Cause I would guess that's our guilty party. And he's bound to be real mad at you, Maggie. You spoiled it all for him. That building was about to be torn down, cemented over, and a new building put on top of what was left. Hadn't been for you, nobody would ever have known Guardino

was in there, and our boy would have committed the perfect crime. You ruined all that. I imagine he's just about as mad at you as a person can get."

"Well, it wasn't my fault. It was because of James and Chantilly ..." Maggie's voice faded, and her face drained of color. "Oh, god. That's why they were sent into that ditch, isn't it? He was mad at them, too. Because they chased me into that bin. He must have heard it on the news, the whole story. And then he went after them, shoved their car into that culvert!" She fixed apprehensive eyes on the sheriff.

"Listen, you told me he said something about splitting. And you didn't think he meant the law library?"

"No, he didn't. He meant Felicity, I'm positive. Like ... like he wanted to leave here, but he couldn't until I was ... until he punished me." She let that sink in, then added slowly, fearfully, "So I guess that means he's in a hurry, right?"

"Oh, he's in a hurry, all right," the sheriff said, standing up. "He knows his days are numbered. He could give up and just leave, right now, but I really don't want him doin' that. He's got a lot to answer for, this one." The sheriff sighed. "And me, I got a lot to make up for. Some I can't, but some I can. But first, I gotta get my hands on this bad number."

As he was leaving, he warned, "If I were you, I'd stay put for a day or two. Let you know as soon as we've got him. But like I said, it's you he's mad at. No point in makin' it easy for him."

The minute he was out the door, Maggie swiftly

closed and locked it. Like the sheriff said, no point in making things easy for a killer.

At first, she huddled on the couch, under an afghan, trying to digest everything the sheriff had said. Killer... Chantilly and James in that ditch ... would have died if it hadn't been for Whit. . . not much time ... mad at her for ruining things ... not much time ...

But slowly, very slowly, the terror began to ebb, and the more she thought about the position she seemed to be in, the angrier she got. "The sheriff said to stay put," she said aloud to the empty room. "Why do / have to stay put?"

Because someone wants to kill you, dummy, her inner voice answered.

'That doesn't mean that he can," Maggie's voice rose. "If that creep thinks," she said aloud, "that he's going to make me a prisoner in my own home, he can just think again! / haven't done anything wrong."

Sure you have. You screwed things up for him. He's really pissed, Maggie, and may I just remind you that he's already killed twice? And he did his best to kill James and Chantilly. What's one more corpse to him?

Maggie's jaw tightened. "I am not going to be locked up like those prisoners in the basement cells!" she shouted. "I'm not giving anyone that much power over me. I can take care of myself."

Oh, yeah, like you did on the ladder?

"I held on, didn't I? I am going to school tomorrow, and I am going to the peer jury hearings in the

morning ... only," her voice weakening slightly, "I don't think 111 be helping with the moving tomorrow. There's brave, and then there's stupid. Going anywhere near the old courthouse would be truly stupid. Fll be safe at school."

That plan, of course, would only work if her parents didn't find out what was going on. If they did, her mother would lock her in her room and hire a twenty-four-hour security guard to make sure she stayed put. But they were both so busy ... unless the sheriff talked to them, they might not find out about the ladder incident, or that Dante had been murdered, or that someone wanted their daughter dead.

They didn't, at least not by the following morning, when Maggie got up and dressed in a denim miniskirt and a red sweater, her hands not shaking in the least as she zipped the skirt or pulled on her boots or picked at her hair and fastened it back with combs, and went downstairs where she pretended to eat breakfast.

They did talk about Dante, but they believed his death had been accidental. "That poor Mrs. Guardino, this must be awful for her," and, "Hard to believe no one knew anything for four whole years."

Oh, but someone did, Maggie thought, pretending to swallow a bite of toast. Someone knew everything. Only they weren't telling.

She had one really bad moment when she opened the front door and realized that out there, somewhere, in spite of the warm breeze and the bright

sunshine, someone wanted to take her life away from her ... and as soon as possible.

I am crazy, she told herself as she climbed into the van and started the engine. I've lost it. Maybe being terrified on that ladder unhinged me. I could stay home today. I could hide in my room with all the doors and windows locked, and Fd be safe. I could stay there until the doorbell rings and it's the sheriff and he's smiling and he says, "Well, Maggie, you can relax now! We caught our guy and he's safely behind bars."

But if I did that, she thought, backing down the driveway, / might as well be behind bars. That would be so unfair. And so spineless.

Besides, she already knew that the sheriff was wrong about her friends. They shouldn't be on that list of suspects. Not even Whit, whom she really hadn't known that long. It had to be someone else, maybe that Timothy Dwyer person, or Lucas-somebody. The only reason Scout and Alex, Lane and Helen hadn't told her how well they knew that girl, Christy Miller, was what Helen had said: They didn't want to talk about it. They weren't guilty of anything except, like Whit, keeping a little, tiny secret. And that was not a crime.

She would be safe at school.

Santini. Everything was ready for the trial.

Maggie couldn't concentrate. She found herself picturing the faces of all of her best friends and wondering, though she didn't want to, if any one of them could have grabbed hold of that ladder and sent her flying along the wall, slamming into the corner shelves. Who had been in the building when that happened? Besides her, Helen, and Alex?

Lane, Scout, and Whit had been transporting bins of books to the new courthouse. Or so they'd said.

That thought shocked Maggie, and when she took her seat, her face felt hot. What was the matter with her? Of course they'd been out of the building.

The sheriff's talk yesterday was getting to her.

If any one of them had attacked her yesterday, wanted to kill her now, they wouldn't have called her last night, every single one of them, to see how she was. She'd talked to Whit the longest, but she'd talked to Helen and Lane a long time, too. And to Scout, who had seemed really worried about her, asking her if she was sure she was all right, and didn't she think she should see a doctor?

She hadn't told any of them except Helen what the sheriff had said. She'd told Helen because Helen was the only one who had admitted that she had known Christy Miller and Dante Guardino. That kind of honesty deserved more honesty. So she'd told Helen.

Who had been predictably shocked. And who had promptly warned her best friend to stay home until the killer had been caught. When Maggie had

argued for her independence, Helen had cried in anguish, "Maggie, you're my best friend! If anything happened to you, I don't know what I'd do!"

As much as her concern had touched Maggie, she'd decided, after she'd thought it over, that she couldn't let Helen make her decisions for her. Maybe Helen would stay home if she were threatened. And that was fine. For Helen. But not for Maggie Keene.

"You are so arrogant!" Helen had shouted into the telephone. "Anyone else would be sensible. But you just can't stand having anyone tell you what to do, can you?"

"I can't stand having a criminal tell me what to do," Maggie had said then.

Helen had sighed and given up. And Maggie had made her promise not to tell the others what the sheriff had said. Some of it, they would already have heard. The part about Dante being innocent, and about him being murdered. But maybe not the part about the killer being furious with Maggie Keene, and in a hurry to do something about that fury, because he had to leave town quickly.