Meadowlark (26 page)

Bianca didn't move.

"I said back off," Keith shouted. "Back off, or I slit Hrubek's
throat."

Bianca took a step to the side. I couldn't see her face, and
Hrubek's was blank with astonishment, but Keith snarled like a
cornered cougar.

"What the shit?" Del levered himself to his feet, hands on the
arms of his customary drinking chair.

"You, too, Del. I want you over by the fireplace. And
Marianne."

Nobody moved.

"I mean it." A note of hysteria shook Keith's voice. He
cleared his throat. "Dale has a warrant for my arrest, but he's not
going to take me."

Bianca said flatly, "I don't know what you're talking
about."

Del and Marianne edged toward the fireplace. At any other
time I would have found Del's popeyed expression funny.

Angie held out a hand. "You can't--"

"Don't tell me what I can't do, bitch." Keith dragged Hrubek
back a step. Hrubek blinked. The knife gleamed at the knot of his
necktie. "He's my hostage. Famous Frank. I'm taking him with
me."

I swallowed hard. "Where?"

"What's it to you? I'm not going to stick around waiting to be
arrested, that's for sure."

Bianca said, "You can't mean you killed Hugo."

I heard someone near me draw a sharp breath.

Keith gave a Jack Nicholson laugh. "You better believe it,
sweetheart. I killed once, and I don't mind doing it again." He
sounded as if he were playing a new role and hadn't quite got the
lines memorized.

"It's not like you, Keith. You wouldn't harm a fly." Bianca
sounded tearful. "Put the knife down, please. You'll hurt him."

Keith was panting a little. "I don't want to. But I will if I have
to. I called the hospital while Angie was clearing lunch away. Jason
regained consciousness this morning, and Dale interviewed
him."

"I don't understand," Bianca moaned.

"Dale put two and two together and got a warrant."

Hrubek cleared his throat.

The noise seemed to startle Keith. For a moment the knife
wobbled closer to Hrubek's neck. Then it steadied. Hrubek closed his
eyes. Bianca gave a sob.

At that moment my brain stirred to life. There was a knife at
Francis Hrubek's throat. Keith had destroyed one good man. He was
not going to destroy another, not if I could help it.

Bianca pleaded with her husband, pulling out all the stops.
He wasn't looking at her, but I thought he heard her. His blue gaze
roamed the room, and his eyes met mine.

No, I thought. No.

His gaze shifted.

I had to do something. But what? I am a physical person, an
athlete by training, impulsive and impatient by nature, as American
as cherry pie. Every squirt of adrenaline was demanding action. But I
knew better. I knew if I made a dive for the knife Keith would slit
Hrubek's throat without compunction.

My father's family background is Quaker. Not for the first
time in my life, I wished he had raised me in that tradition. What
Keith needed was friendly persuasion.

A car wheeled up, crunching gravel. All of us froze. I could
hear Angie breathing. Keith's hand trembled on the knife.

The doorbell chimed.

Silence.

"Tell them--" Keith's voice was tight.

"It's the
front
door." I cleared my throat and made
my voice softer. "Front door, Keith. Dale always uses the back."

"A fucking Jehovah's witness." Keith gave a wild laugh. "Go
answer it. Tell them to leave. If it's the cops--"

"I'll get rid of them." I eased past Angie and walked slowly to
the door. The bell chimed again.

My feet made no noise on the Berber carpet, but I was
walking so lightly I would have made no sound on polished parquet.
I eased the door open.

"Meadowlark Farm? You ordered flowers." The kid wore a
single earring and had dyed his hair Shinola black. He thrust a big
formal arrangement toward me. Daffodils and forced tulips, I
thought. The flowers were bright under the film of translucent green
paper. Wasn't Angie supposed to supply flowers for the reception? I
wondered, with monumental irrelevance, if the daffodils were
organic.

"Uh, thanks. I'll take them." I grabbed the box from him and
set it on the hall floor. I started to close the door.

"You gotta sign, lady." He took a pad from his jacket pocket
and handed me a ballpoint pen. I scrawled my name on the order
with shaking fingers.

"Okay. Have a nice day." He turned and slouched down off
the porch.

I closed the door with extreme care.

When I returned to the archway that led down to the living
room no one had moved. Outside, the florist's truck started up and
crunched away. The engine needed tuning.

"Who was it?" Bianca, her voice high with strain.

"Flowers for the reception," I said.

Keith gave a snort, half laugh, half sob. "All right. Now I'm
going to take Hrubek out to the Cherokee."

Bianca began to plead with him. Her technique sounded
automatic, as if she had used similar persuasion before in less
harrowing circumstances. The rest of us listened and gaped. Keith's
eyes kept shifting.

"How can you do this to me?" Bianca wailed at last. The
clincher.

"Bianca," I heard myself say, "shut up."

"But--"

"Hush. Be still."

There was a moment of silence. Then Keith laughed again, a
high cackle. He must have watched a lot of horror flicks. I could see
the knife trembling at Hrubek's throat. He was gray with fright. I
probably was, too.

I stepped down into the living room very slowly. As I moved,
Keith wheeled Hrubek to face me. "No farther. Stop right there."

"All right." I took three long slow breaths, in and out. The
room was large and well-lit and there were other people in it, but my
vision was so focused on Keith and Hrubek they might as well have
been spotlighted on a darkened stage. "I don't understand why you
need a hostage, Keith."

"I killed Hugo, you dumb cunt."

Angie drew a harsh breath.

Let it go, Angie,
I thought.
Let it go.
Maybe she
read my mind.

One of Jay's jobs when he was with the Los Angeles
department was hostage negotiation. Difficult work, but interesting,
he'd said. The hardest part was putting yourself into the
perpetrator's viewpoint. The second hardest was listening.

Keith was still cursing--laying into Hugo, Angie, me, Bianca. I
let the words roll past me.

When the torrent dried up, I said, very gentle, "You killed
Hugo, but you didn't murder him, did you?"

Keith gaped.

I met his eyes and forced a conciliatory smile. "It was just an
accident. The two of you quarreled, and he fought with you and hit
his head. You didn't mean to kill him."

"How did you know that?" The once-mellifluous baritone
rang hoarse.

"A guess," I admitted. We stared at each other. As I looked
into Keith McDonald's frightened blue eyes, I tried to think the way
he thought. "Hugo hit his head on something."

"The crates."

"And he didn't get up."

"I tried to wake him." Keith drew an uneven breath. "I
thought I'd just knocked him out, but he wasn't breathing and I
couldn't find a pulse. It was raining. I didn't know what to do."

You could have called an ambulance,
my analytical
self said sternly.
You could have tried CPR.
I shoved Reason
back into its cave.

"He was dead!" Keith sounded almost indignant. At least I
could imagine the shock he must have felt.

"What happened then?"

"It was time for lunch."

He lost me. I blinked, groping for words.

"Lunch!" Angie exploded. "You left Hugo's dead body in the
rain and came in for a little chicken fricassee? Christ, Keith, that's the
coldest thing I've ever heard."

Oh, please,
I thought.

Keith's voice took on a defensive whine. "I came back to the
house and ate. If I hadn't, Marianne would've sent out a goddamn
posse. I almost threw up at the table."

"Upsetting," I murmured.

He shot me a grateful look. "Afterwards, I said I was going
for a long walk, did anybody want to come. I didn't think they would.
It was raining, and the wind was blowing hard." The knife sagged. "I
went back to Hugo."

Angie made a disgusted noise but didn't say anything, thank
God.

"I hid the bike behind that stack of crates, and I used your
cart to wheel him to the ice house, Angie." Keith's voice choked.

I thought of Hugo's mutilated corpse and clenched my teeth.
I had to think like Keith. What did he want me to say? "It was clever
of you to use the ice bin." I didn't look at Angie. Marianne gasped and
began to sob.

Keith's eyes shifted. "I just... At first, I was stalling for time.
Then I remembered the harvest schedule. I knew it would be a while
before Bianca needed to use the ice house. I could move the body
later."

"But you didn't go back?"

"N-no. I couldn't make myself go out there." He drew
another ragged breath. "And what the hell does it matter? I'm getting
away from here, and Hrubek's going with me. It'll take Dale awhile to
drive out. We'll be long gone by the time he reaches the farm."

"You mean you've been planning your getaway?" Del
rumbled.

The right question.

"You're damned right I was. I had it all figured out. I was
going to slip away during the fucking reception." Keith sounded
proud of himself. His mouth tightened. "I figured nobody'd miss
me."

Poor baby. Bianca should have asked him to sing. I
swallowed my revulsion.

"I kept calling the hospital." Keith shifted the arm across
Hrubek's chest. Hrubek's eyes were closed. "When they said Jason
had developed pneumonia, I thought I'd have time to make a smooth
exit. He wasn't supposed to regain consciousness." He cursed
comprehensively.

I was thinking about the escape plan. The Cherokee had
four-wheel drive. An all-terrain vehicle. On the other hand, it was
bright red. Also, driving with one hand and holding a knife on an
unbound prisoner was not a very practical proposition. Of course,
Hrubek wasn't part of the original plan. He was, so to speak, a
bonus.

I said, "About the Cherokee, won't it be difficult--"

"There's a gun in the glove compartment." Keith's voice
hardened. "There's a rope. I know what I'm doing. I'll tie Hrubek up
in the back seat. I know a guy with a plane." There were half a dozen
small landing strips in the area. "If there's no pursuit, I'll leave
Hrubek in the car at the airfield. Otherwise--" He made the clicking
sound associated with a throat-cutting gesture. "Tell Dale--"

I said slowly, "It won't work, Keith. Maybe Dale will hold off
for now, but you can't count on it. My husband used to negotiate with
hostage takers, persuade them to surrender peacefully. The last time
he tried it, the lieutenant in charge called in the SWAT team while Jay
was still talking. The man who was holding the hostages was shot to
doll ribbons." And Jay was caught in the cross-fire.

What was likely to happen here was that Dale would pull in
as Keith was leaving, give chase, shoot out the tires or some damned
thing, and Keith would panic. He would kill Hrubek and be killed
himself. Everybody would lose.

"I don't think it will work," I repeated. "Look, they can't
charge you with first degree murder if you turn yourself in. It was
manslaughter, maybe even self defense. A fight that got out of
control. That happens. People will understand. Hugo provoked you,
didn't he?"

"He saw me with--" Keith glanced at his rigid wife. "He saw
something, and he misinterpreted. He was going to report it."

Mary. I hesitated, threw the dice. "There's something you
should know before you make any decisions. I found Mary Sadat
today. At the airport."

Bianca wheeled. Keith said something.

"She's alive?" Angie squeaked.

I nodded.

"Oh, thank God." Angie began to cry.

I kept my eyes on Keith. The knife in his right hand didn't
waver, but the left clenched on Hrubek's jacket. I stopped
breathing.

What I'd done was not very wise, because I didn't know for
sure how Keith had interpreted Mary's disappearance. I hoped he
hadn't been play-acting the day we searched the farm for her. He had
seemed genuinely distressed.

That Mary might have disappeared voluntarily had occurred
to no one, certainly not to me. The police had been looking for a
body, and the assumption was that whoever killed Hugo had also
done away with Mary. When Mary disappeared, Keith must have
been baffled, even terrified. Perhaps he even thought someone was
framing him.

Keith's silence lengthened.

I licked my dry lips. "Were you afraid the police would
charge you with Mary's abduction?" Or Mary's murder. I didn't want
to say that word.

The knife sagged again. Keith nodded and licked his lips, as
if they were dry too.

"Well, they won't now. All you have to contend with is a
manslaughter charge." I kept my voice smooth and soft. I was lying
madly, ignoring the small matter of Jason's wreck, the mutilation of
Hugo's body, and the other attempts to shift the blame to innocent
people. I hoped Keith wouldn't spot my omissions. The blue stare
held steady. So far so good.

"Mary will be a friendly witness, Keith. She likes you." I was
tolerably sure Mary had no idea Keith had killed Hugo. Mary had
been afraid of Bianca, not Keith. Understandable, given that Mary
was canoodling with Bianca's husband under Bianca's nose. I
thought of Mike Wallace's forlorn devotion and hoped Mary's
misadventure would cure her of her taste for older men.

"You talked to Mary?" Keith was almost whispering.

"Not really, not in any detail."

He let out a long, relieved breath. Maybe, I thought, his
misadventure would cure him of his taste for younger women. I
doubted it. It was a good thing I hadn't claimed to know more of his
relationship with Mary than I had.