Make, Take, Murder (30 page)

Wednesday, December 23
7th Night of Hanukkah

I woke up to
the delicious scent of cheese and onions. Ben served me quiche for breakfast. “I knew you’d want to check on the dogs,” he added, “so I didn’t let you sleep late.” He stepped over to his Expobar—a machine with handles and knobs galore—and made me the best latté I’ve ever had. Of course, he used Kaldi’s espresso, so what could I expect but perfection?

Actually, I
expected
to feel embarrassed or awkward, but I didn’t. My makeup smeared slightly, but whatever I’d lost on the sheets, I’d gained by a new inner glow. I decided I didn’t want to spoil the mood or the day with a long dissection of the evening’s Olympic marathon event. Instead, I decided just to enjoy the new sensation of being well-loved. If I had a tiny whisker-burn on my cheeks, well, who needed rouge?

Ben drove me to my house and kissed me soundly at the threshold before leaving for his work. I opened my door with new eyes. By comparison to his loft, my place reeked of shabby and not-so-chic. Yet Ben had never complained or belittled my lack of funds. He’d never acted uncomfortable about my thrift shop furniture. Maybe that was because he respected recycling, although he practiced it on a much grander scale.

I let the dogs out quickly. They all ran to the far side of the fenced yard and barked like hooligans on holiday at some unseen critter. I called for them, and they milled around but didn’t come.

I guess it was their way of protesting my staying out all night.

“Whatever!” I pulled on my coat, picked up leashes, and brought them in two at a time. As I did, I realized that Ben never once griped about having to work our visits around them. Or around my daughter. He knew what he was getting into before we dated. He’d never shown the slightest regret that by taking me on, he’d also be instant parent to a hormonal teenage girl.

These were aspects of our relationship I’d never considered before.

I had pushed him away. I had accepted his marriage proposal once and then broken up with him hours later, and he kept coming back for more.

I stared at the card Ben gave me. “You complete me.” How curious. Here was a man who had everything—money, status, family, looks, and poise. But he pledged to me that he had nothing unless he had me. What was it I brought to his life?

I had asked that during one of the lulls in the action.

He pulled me close and whispered, “You are life, itself. There’s this impossible energy and creativity and chaos swirling around you.”

“But I’m not perfect!”

“You might not be perfect, but you are perfection. Never doubt that. I know you have your demons. Maybe I see in you a chance to chase those demons away? A chance to be a white knight? Who knows. All I can tell you is that my world is simpler, quieter, and a lot more boring without you.”

Treating the card like a talisman, I tucked it into the pocket of my new coat and set out across the yard for Monroe’s shed. A few feathers of snow drifted down around me. The forecast had been for an accumulation of six inches. With the cold maintaining the sprinkling from a couple days ago, we could count on a white Christmas.

A Christmas that might include Ben. He had offered to come stay at my house, even if that meant sleeping on the sofa for propriety’s sake.

Either the man was a glutton for punishment, or he was sincerely, deeply in love with me. Or both. It sure wasn’t because he lacked for other prospects. I’d noticed the keen interest Laurel showed in him. Clancy mentioned repeatedly what a gorgeous guy he was. Even Mert liked him.

Of course, there was Sheila, my mother-in-law, with her ringing endorsement.

Ben’s parents liked me, too.

I opened the human door to Monroe’s shed and stared out toward the paddock. Leighton was supposed to get back from a book tour the day before, but I hadn’t heard from him. Our agreement was that I’d continue to care for Monroe and Petunia until I knew my landlord was safe at home. The way travel plans could change, this seemed like a prudent course. I called to the donkey and he didn’t come in from his tiny paddock. I called again, more insistently. Monroe walked up to the donkey door of the shed and stopped. He wickered at something. His eyes rolled to show their whites and his eyes were set back against his head.

“Don’t worry, Monroe. Your daddy will be home soon. I have an apple for you,” I held up the shiny red globe. Monroe loved his apples. He stared at the doorway, at me, back at the doorway, and then he reluctantly trotted forward.

A bit of old feed stuck to the bottom of his food bucket. I didn’t like that. I wasn’t sure if donkeys could founder like horses did, and I wasn’t sure that old feed was a problem, but I wasn’t willing to take chances. Pulling off my gloves and shoving them in my left pocket, I reached in the bucket and tried to jam the edge of the scoop under the frozen mass. The container wasn’t that deep, but I’m short so I had to rise up on my tippy toes and stick my head down low to get leverage. My butt was up in the air, and my back was to the opening from the paddock to the shed.

A hand grabbed the back of my coat and jerked me hard.

“You witch! You sicced
the cops on me!” Ross Gambrowski shook me like a dog does a rat.

“Let me go!”

“Let you go? I’ve been waiting to teach you a lesson all night. You little slut. I saw you! I sat outside your fancy john’s condo. I know what you are!” Ross lifted me so high my feet were off the ground. The light from outside silhouetted him, his beefy face and his angry scowl. What a fool I’d been. The dogs had tried to warn me. So had Monroe, until his love of apples got the better of him. Ross Gambrowski had been waiting just outside the shed while I fiddled around with the frozen matter at the bottom of the food bucket.

I batted at the big man with the scoop, but I couldn’t reach far enough behind me to do damage. “Let go! Help!”

“Stop that!” he squeezed my fingers. The metal scoop made a muffled clatter as it fell through the straw and banged against the concrete floor.

“Leave me alone!” I kicked his shins, but my rubbery soles couldn’t have done much damage.

If he’d let go of me, I could race out the gate and lock it behind me. That would mean Ross would have to climb over the fencing to catch up with me. With any luck, I could be inside my house and calling the cops. Surely fear of the dogs would keep Ross at bay.

Yeah, right. Like Fluffy and Izzy were going to scare him.

But Gracie might.

Ross started to drag me backward through the shed. Monroe stood beyond us, neighing and nickering nervously. I flailed at the big man, my hands sliding off his leather trench coat. His grip on my collar kept me off balance. I had no weapons. No way to save myself.

He stopped in the middle of the paddock. “Good a place as any to show you who’s boss!” He brought up his left hand to join his right. With both hands around my throat, he began to squeeze. The scent of his cologne on his palms rose up and into my nostrils.

He countered this by bending over my face. I could feel drops of spittle on my skin.

“No one ever taught you to behave, did they? Huh? You need a lesson, and I’m the teacher!”

I saw his lips moving, his day’s growth of beard close-up, and watched his Adam’s apple bounce up and down.

“I tried to teach Cindy. She was so stubborn. I tried because I love her! I didn’t kill her! I just loved her!” he wailed as his fingers dug into my flesh.

“Thanks to you, the cops are talking to all my friends. They’re cracking under the pressure, one by one. They’re saying things they shouldn’t! Talking bad about my Cindy and me. It’s all your fault!”

At first, it was the pressure on my throat that hurt. I coughed and screamed and tried to wrestle free. Then, there was the mounting sense of suffocation. My lungs ached for air! The edges of my world blackened.

I pressed my feet against the ground hard and pushed back.

Temporarily, he lost his grip.

But only for a second. Clearly, Ross Gambrowski had practice at grabbing women by the throat. He knew exactly what he was doing.

He planned to kill me.

I had to save myself, and I had to do it fast.

Ross was stronger.

My vision was blurred, but the gulp of oxygen gave me another chance. I twisted and turned, thrashing against him. My body slid against the slick surface of his coat, but his fingers continued to dig into my throat.

I had no weapons.

In the periphery of my vision, I saw Monroe’s tail. His head must be facing us.

I heard him whinny. He was clearly distressed, clearly unsettled by the man in his paddock.

The edge of my hand touched Ben’s card. His white card in the white envelope.

Clumsily, I pulled it from my pocket. I waved it around. I could feel the air woosh past my hand. I waved the card some more.

If nothing else, Ben would find it. He would know I thought of him.

But what about Anya?

Who would raise her?

I pressed against the frozen ground. This time, I got lucky. I managed to stomp on the insole of Ross Gambrowski’s right foot. But he was wearing those heavy wingtips that men favor, and I weighed about a third of what he did. Although he yelped and lost his hold for a second, the crushing squeeze began anew.

I wondered if he’d snap my neck before I died of asphyxiation.

I kept waving the card behind Ross Gambrowski’s back.

What a pitiful excuse it was for a real weapon. A silly greeting card.

Stars swam in front of my eyes. I knew I was nearly gone.

All of a sudden, a force rammed us, Ross and me.

The big man stumbled to one side. I dropped the card.

It fluttered toward my captor.

Monroe head-butted Ross again.

Omph!

He tripped over his own feet, but the card sailed after him. Monroe dipped his head and brought it up under Ross’s jaw. Hard.

“That no good—” and Ross began to yell and curse. He reared back and struck Monroe in the nose.

The donkey responded with a scream of his own. A sort of “eeyore” with more emphasis on the “eee.”

I remembered belatedly that Ross had hurt Monroe the last time he stopped by to hector me.

Monroe remembered that, too. And he was not happy. Not at all.

The donkey reared away from his attacker, then dropped his head, and ran forward. I watched in slo-mo as Monroe’s forehead came up squarely under Ross Gambrowski’s jaw. I heard the crack of bones. I saw a piece of pink tongue fall off the man’s face.

I watched blood gush down the front of Ross Gambrowski’s silk tie.

I crouched on the ground, one hand on the stiff blades of grass.

I knew I had to run. My body wouldn’t obey me.

My breath came in quick little gasps.

I bounced to my feet. I raced toward the fencing.

Ross screamed in pain.

From beyond him came a figure carrying a shovel.

Leighton Haversham took aim at Ross Gambrowski and smacked the man so hard up the side of the head, making a “gong” sound so loud, you’d have thought the Liberty Bell was tolling right there in Webster Groves.

And it was. I was free.

No way was I going to spend any time at a hospital. Not after that last close call with Brenda Detweiler. I declined the EMTs offer of a ride to the emergency room.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Leighton and I stood side-by-side and stared after the ambulance taking Gambrowski away. “I met him years ago and detested the man. We were at the country club, and he was drunk as the proverbial skunk. Ross reached over and pinched Cindy’s arm hard. He laughed at her reaction. Everyone else at the table snickered out of politeness. I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I kept my mouth shut, too. I’ve hated myself for that ever after.”

“What could you have done?”

“I could have gone up to Cindy privately later and asked if there was any help I could offer. I could have called the police to try to file a complaint. I could have said, ‘It’s not okay for him to treat you like that. Even if people laugh along politely, we all know it’s wrong.’” He shook his head.

“What good would that have done?”

“See these trees?”

I stared up at the empty limbs on the huge maples that surrounded us. They had to have been thirty years old at least.

“Every one of these trees started as a seedling, yay-big,” he separated his thumb and forefinger to indicate a narrow width. “I could have planted a seed that day. A seed that one day could have germinated. When the time came, Mrs. Gambrowski would have known I would help her. She would have known what she was suffering was unacceptable. She would have known she had a friend in this big wide world.”

_____

Even with all that commotion, I walked into the store only an hour late. For this final push on the eve of Christmas Eve, Dodie and I had decided to open our doors at eight for any last-minute traffic. It embarrassed me that I’d personally weighed in for the early hour, yet here I was strolling in at nearly nine.

“Where on earth have you been?” Clancy rushed up to me. “We’ve been worried sick!”

“That must have been some date you had yesterday with Ben Novak.” Dodie raised an eyebrow at me. “Of course, we’ll expect a full recounting. There are flowers for you on the front counter.”

I pushed past my co-workers and rushed to the front of the store. A dozen long-stem red roses filled a huge crystal vase. My fingers snatched the card and quickly ripped it open. “You complete me,” it said. Nothing more.

I smiled.

“Gee, gorgeous, rich, and romantic?” Laurel grinned at me. “You hit the trifecta—Whoa! What happened to your neck?”

I yanked up my turtleneck.

“Hey, that’s not a hickey. What did he do to you?”

Clancy scurried to my side and pried my fingers away. “I’m calling the cops. Nobody gets away with treating you this way. No one!”

“Wait! It wasn’t Ben!” I patted down the air. “Ross Gambrowski visited my house this morning. He tried to kill me.”

“From the looks of your neck, he darn near succeeded. I hope you called the cops,” Dodie said.

I told my friends all about my morning. I also explained that I’d been checked by an emergency medical technician, and I’d chosen not to go to a hospital. I didn’t explain why, other than to say, “I hate hospitals and I’m fine. Please respect my decision.”

“You didn’t have to come in,” said Dodie. “You could have called.”

I sighed. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be. Trust me.”