Death in Daytime (24 page)

I ducked down as soon as I got out of the car and scooted along the side of the garage. My advantage was twofold--it was dark, and I was on my home ground.

"Come on, Alex," Murray called out. "This won't help. You're only prolonging the inevitable. The end is already preordained."

Murray's phony philosophy seemed to be made up of bits and pieces he stole from many other spiritual practices and teachings. He burned incense; he talked of chakra and chi and things being preordained. I'd heard him speak of Allah and in the next breath mention God. Sometimes I thought he just said the first thing that came into his crazy head.

All of that went through my head in a flash. I think it was my way of trying to keep calm. Murray was still out there. He was bigger and stronger than me, and he had a gun. My heart was pounding as I worked my way behind the building. Unlike most garages, mine didn't have a lot of junk inside or around it. What I wouldn't have given for a stray two-by-four, or a piece of pipe. I thought about using my surfboard, but that just didn't seem practical.

I could have tried to get into my house and maybe grab a knife from the kitchen, but one, could I make it, and two, could I stab somebody, even to save my life?

I decided to go down where my mother's house was, right on the canal, and knock on a neighbor's door. The houses were really close together, and everyone had a communal feeling about the neighborhood. Sure, a neighbor would help me.

It was dark, and the footing could be slippery down there, especially at night, but I saw it as my only chance--unless police cars came blazing down the street any minute--but this was real life. As I moved away from the garage and crossed the yard, I was glad I hadn't gotten around to stringing those motion sensor lights I'd been thinking about. I could hear Murray moving around noisily, trying to find his way along the side of the garage. I knew it would only be a matter of time before his eyes adjusted to the dark. Also, there was about a threequarter moon, which at the moment was behind some clouds. But they were bound to move away soon. I had to get to the canals before that happened. I started running across the yard, keeping off the concrete part and staying on the grass. As I approached my mother's small house, the grass changed to dirt, so I didn't have to worry about him hearing my footsteps.

"Alex!" Murray called out. "Running to the water won't help."

I was halfway to the water, so I wasn't about to take his word for that.

I quickly went to one of my neighbor's houses and knocked on the door. I didn't yell because I didn't want Murray to hear me. I knocked again, but there must have been no one home. I tried to turn the doorknob, but the door was locked. I figured I had time to try one more house. I ran to it and knocked on the door. I swore I saw a light inside, but it went off as soon as I knocked. So much for a communal feeling. Okay, maybe that wasn't fair. Who wants to buy into somebody else's trouble? Or maybe it was kids home alone, and they'd been told not to open the door for anyone.

That was it. I had no time to try other houses. I was on my own. No one was going to help me. I had to run for the canals.

Behind the homes along the canals were wooden decks. By keeping to them I'd be able to make my way to one of the bridges.

Right at that moment the clouds moved and the yard was bathed in moonlight. I turned and saw Murray running toward me. With his loud shirt he looked like a beach ball with legs, but he had a gun, so it wasn't very funny.

"Alex! Don't make me shoot!"

"If you shoot me down out here it won't look like a suicide," I called back.

He stopped running and pointed the gun at me. I could hear him panting from the effort, sweat dripping from his face.

"You're not giving me a choice," he said. We were still thirty feet apart.

"I don't think you can hit me from there," I said, "and too many shots will attract attention."

I hoped I was right and that he wouldn't want to risk having to take more than one shot. He'd want to get a lot closer.

I was betting my life on it.

Suddenly, from the distance, I could hear the sound of police sirens. There was no way of knowing if they were heading for us, but it was sweet music to my ears, anyway. "Here come the police, Murray," I said. "I guess they figured out where we are."

"Those are fire engines," Murray said, dismissing the sound.

"You can't get away, Alex," he said triumphantly.

"There're no police coming, and I don't see any of your neighbors coming out to help you. It's over. Why not just stop and let karma take its course?"

I turned and ran for the water.

I'm very comfortable in high heels, I really am. I guess that's why I didn't think to take them off before I started running. But I'm not used to running for my life. The last time I ran in heels it was for a cab. Running from a madman with a gun is different, and I'm sure I wasn't thinking straight.

I made it down to the deck behind my mother's house, then started moving along to the next one. I was going to have to cross several of them before I got to the closest bridge. Right at that moment, though, my heel got caught between two boards and caught me short because there was a strap around my ankle. I turned, frantically pulling at the heel. Just get the damn thing off, I thought, but before I could, Murray was there, pointing his little gun at me. Funny, but that was the moment I first noticed that it was such a tiny silver-plated automatic, but deadly despite the size.

"Wait, Murray," I said. "I still don't get why you had to kill Henry."

"It started with coffee . . . ," he said, then shook his head. "Ah, I should've known better. I thought we were getting close. . . . I thought I could really help him. I went to his house that day; told him what I'd done for him. Do you know what he said to me, the silly bastard? He still loved Marcy. Still had hope of getting her back. Can you believe that? He loved that bitch."

"I guess everybody's got somebody who loves them, Murray."

"That a dig, Alex? Because I don't?"

"No, Murray--"

"I'd say I'm sorry, Alex," he said, then added, "But I'm not."

I tensed.

"Hey, hey, hold it there," someone shouted. We both turned our heads and I saw Paul standing just off the deck, waving his arms. I could see him clearly because the moonlight was still illuminating everything. And that meant Murray could see him, too.

"Who is that?" Murray demanded.

"What does it matter, Murray?" I asked. "He's a witness. You can't shoot me in front of a witness and call it suicide."

"Put the gun down!" Paul shouted.

"Get away from here!" Murray shouted.

"Just put the gun down," Paul said again, moving a little closer.

"No, Paul," I shouted, "stay back."

"I can still do this," Murray said, as much to himself as to me. "All I have to do is get rid of him first."

"Paul--"

Murray turned the gun on Paul, who stopped short and put his hands up in front of himself. Murray fired and Paul fell back.

"Stop right there!" another voice shouted. Detective Frank Jakes pointed his gun at Murray, who didn't know what to do, so he made the mistake of pointing his weapon at Jakes, who fired first. I actually saw the bullet strike Murray high on the right shoulder. His little gun fell from his nerveless fingers and he staggered back, falling into the canal. I ran to the edge as he splashed around, yelling,

"Help, help . . . I can't swim. . . ."

I knew those canals were only three to four feet deep, but Murray was in a panic, splashing around.

"Just stand up!" I shouted. "It's only four feet deep."

It was as if he didn't hear me. He continued to struggle and yell. I knew he was shot, and while I hadn't seen him hit his head, he had a gash on his forehead.

"Damn it, Murray." I reached for him, but he was beyond my reach and wasn't doing anything to cut the distance down.

I felt I had no choice. I stepped off the deck into the canal. I also knew the bottom had to be littered with all kinds of junk. Something sucked at my feet and I felt one of my heels go.

I waded over to Murray, who was splashing wildly, and reached for his hand. I grabbed him and tried to pull him to his feet, but he had apparently gotten hooked on something at the bottom and I wasn't strong enough to pull him free. He hit me in the chest, completely by accident, but the impact knocked me over and I went down. By the time I got to my feet, sputtering and trying to get my wet hair out of my eyes, he was gone.

"Alex . . ."

I felt strong hands grab me from behind and pull me out of the water. At the same time I saw Detective Davis go into the canal and wade over to where Murray had sunk from sight.

"Are you all right?" Jakes asked.

"Yes," I said, feeling dazed, "yes, I'm fine. But I--I don't understand. The water's only four feet deep. How could he--"

I looked past him and saw Paul standing with one hand clasped over the other arm. There was blood coming from between his fingers.

"Paul," I yelled, and went to him. "Are you all right?"

"I'm okay, Alex," he said.

"That was stupid," I said. "You had no weapon."

"I had to do something," Paul said. "I couldn't just stand there and watch him shoot you, could I?"

"No, and I'm glad you couldn't."

We both looked over at the canal, where Jakes had gone into the water to help his partner find Murray. We waited inside the house while they tried to locate Murray. A crew came to drag the canal, and they erected enough lights to make it seem like daytime. Jakes had found a blanket and wrapped it around me, almost tenderly.

An ambulance came and treated Paul's wound, which was in the left bicep. It would hurt for a while, but it was a small-caliber bullet and there wouldn't be any lasting damage.

People started to arrive after that--George and Wayne, with my mother, Sarah and Julia.

"Can I sleep in my bed, Mommy?" Sarah asked me, sleepily.

"Of course you can, darling."

"I'll take her," Julia said. She paused a moment, then asked me, "Did you get him, Alex?"

"We got him, hon."

She hesitated a moment, then nodded, picked up Sarah and carried her to her room.

"By the way, your manager, Connie? She's been trying to reach you all day. She said this time it's a really good one."

"I'm certainly not in the mood for any of that," I told Julia as I started to walk away.

I found out that the transvestite I had seen in the Abbey was, indeed, my producer, Thomas. That was the big secret that Marcy had somehow found out. She must have told him--as she had told Andy--that she'd written it in a memo; otherwise why would he have been searching her home office?

"He came over and told us that Murray had taken you out the back door," George explained.

"We didn't know what to do, so I called nine-oneone and George called Paul."

"How did you have Paul's number?" I asked George.

"Hello?" he said. "Four-one-one?"

"You remembered his last name?"

"I remember everything you tell me, doll."

Paul came over, his arm in a sling, and said, "They want to take me to the hospital, just to be sure."

I reached my hand up to take his good one and squeezed it.

"I still need to do some things here," I told him. "If they keep you overnight I'll come by and see you in the morning."

"I'll call you and let you know what happens," he promised. He leaned over and kissed me, and then went off with the ambulance crew.

Slowly the crowd started to dwindle. Paul was gone; George and Wayne left; Sarah and Julia were in bed. My mother wanted to go to her own bed, but couldn't while all those lights were on by the canal, so she went to the sofa.

I walked out the back to watch as they dragged the canal. It wasn't that deep or that wide, so I figured they'd have to come up with the body sooner or later. Then I noticed some commotion and heard yelling; Jakes came walking up to me while his partner stayed down by the action.

"Did they find him?"

"They found him," Jakes said. "They had to untangle him from some crap at the bottom."

"So it's really over?" I said. "He killed Marcy and Henry?"

"Apparently," Jakes said, "although you're the only one who talked to him tonight. What did he have to say?"

I told him about the memo Marcy might have written about Andy, and how that would have killed Murray's meal ticket.

"And do you think Marcy really wrote that memo?" he asked.

"She was mean enough to have made the whole thing up," I said.

"Which means two people died for nothing. Although . . ."

"Although what?"

"Well, from everything we learned about Marcy Blanchard," he said, "she was mean enough that someone probably would have killed her sooner or later."

"I suppose. . . ."

"Well," he said, turning to look out at the canal, where they were bringing up Murray's body, "he was real high on our list once we found out his real name."

"All I ever knew him as was Murray the Life Coach."

"Well, Murray the Life Coach had tried this dodge on different people under different names. He was a con artist named Willie Bendix. He'd latch on to somebody with money, shmooze them with a bunch of religious or metaphysical crap and take them for a ride. When the money was gone, so was he."

"I figured he was a phony from the start," I said. "I tried to warn Andy."

"I guess he figured to ride a soap star like Andy McIntyre for a while."

"And Marcy threatened that."

"It didn't figure he'd turn to murder," Jakes said.

"Who knew?"

"So if he was high on your list, why weren't you watching him?"

"We were," he said. "He got away from us tonight. How did he find you?"

"Murray had been at the studio earlier in the day, as I had. He must have overheard George yelling to me in the parking lot about meeting at the Abbey," I said.

"Well, either that or he followed you. Either way, he found you. What did he tell you about Henry Roswell?"