Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom (12 page)

Chapter Nine --

“Oh!” An involuntary
gasp escaped my lips as I realized that I was not alone. Retreating
into the shadows of the upper hallway, I counted to twenty and
stepped forward again.
This is
the real deal, Miz Scarlet, not some apparition conjured up in an
episode of sleepwalking after a marathon horror film festival.
There really is someone down there.
I felt my pulse quicken as I stared at the scene below me.
What did I see? It looked suspiciously like the silhouette of a man
who was up to no good.

Dressed all in black,
he nearly blended into the darkness, but in the faint moonlight, I
could see he was doing something by the front door. What was it? I
couldn’t tell. With my cell phone in hand, I ducked around the
corner and quickly typed a text to Kenny.
Man in foyer. Hurry!

I moved forward again,
mesmerized by the drama unfolding downstairs. In less a minute, I
sensed a presence on my left flank and Kenny was suddenly, silently
beside me, studying the action over my shoulder. He used his own
phone to text my brother before he slipped away, heading down the
back staircase.

Three minutes later, my
cell phone unexpectedly pinged softly. The unexpected noise
startled me and I nearly dropped the plastic case as I scrambled to
recover. Glancing down, I saw Kenny had sent me a text.
Turn on all the hall lights at once and stay
upstairs.

Feeling my way along
the wall with trembling fingers, I searched for the light switch.
When I finally found it, I took a deep breath and hit both toggles
at the same time.

As the chandelier
burned brightly with an impressive number of electric candles, the
man in black was suddenly exposed. It took him a moment to realize
he was no longer concealed, but by that time, it was too late. My
brother stood only a few feet away from the intruder, and with a
two-handed grip on his favorite wooden Louisville Slugger, Bur was
ready to play ball.

“Stay right where you
are!” Bur commanded him, but then his tone unexpectedly changed.
“What the hell?”

To whom was Bur
talking? I couldn’t see the face, but my brother seemed shocked --
so shocked that when the intruder gave him a hard shove, Bur
offered no resistance. He wobbled to and fro before he fell over
backwards, going down hard. I heard a loud
thwack
as
Bur’s body made contact with the wood floor and several more as his
grip on the wooden club broke. I watched that prized Louisville
Slugger bounce and roll about ten feet before finally coming to a
stop by the antique grandfather clock. The clamor in the vestibule
was deafening.

Horrified, I scrambled
down the stairs, my feet barely touching each step as I rushed to
Bur’s rescue. My heart was pounding so hard, I thought it would pop
out of my chest. I stopped just long enough to scoop up the bat.
With my fingers firmly wrapped around the handle, I drew it back
against my right shoulder, all set to swing. “Stay right where you
are, you bastard!”

The man dressed in
black pulled desperately at the front door in his futile bid to
escape the raving lunatic wielding the wooden club. He managed to
yank it open, only to find there was something, or rather, someone
blocking his exit.

“Going somewhere, Mr.
Wilkie?”

“Ah....” Dave obviously
wasn’t expecting to see Kenny on the other side of the
door.

“Don’t even think about
it, pal.” Unfortunately, the man did; what choice did Kenny have
but to grab him?

I could hear the sound
of sirens in the distance. It was the second police visit in less
than twenty four hours. The Four Acorns Inn was certainly not going
to win fans among the neighbors if this kept up.

Hammerhead, eyes still
heavy with sleep, stumbled down the stairs. The disturbing sight of
Bur sprawled on his back and Kenny wrestling with another man
seemed to halt the teenager in his tracks. “What’s going
on?”

“Let go of him, you
brute!” Diana Wilkie appeared at the top of the stairs. “Leave him
alone!”

Racing down the stairs
like a deranged demon, she pushed Hammerhead out of her path and
made a beeline for Kenny, but I was already moving forward to
intercept her.

“Try it, lady,” I
warned her, baseball bat at the ready, “and I’ll knock your sorry
ass right out of this ball park!”

“Whoa! Hold on there,
ladies!” said a booming male voice. I looked up in time to see a
man in a green golf shirt and brown slacks, shiny badge clipped to
his hip, enter the inn. His right hand was poised to reach for the
weapon in his shoulder holster. “Let’s not get carried
away!”

“You think I’m getting
carried away? First, we had a break-in, then the tires on the car
were punctured, and now this!” I sputtered. “I think I’m showing a
great deal of restraint under the circumstances!”

“Scarlet, take a
breath,” Kenny told me, his voice calm, but serious. “We’ve got
this.”

Two uniformed officers
gingerly stepped over the threshold, careful not to disturb Kenny’s
efforts to subdue Dave Wilkie with the help of the plain clothes
cop. The first took hold of the belligerent Mrs. Wilkie as she
writhed madly, arms and legs flailing in every direction. The
second insisted I surrender the Louisville Slugger. Reluctantly I
acquiesced, but only after I was sure Dave and Diana had been
cuffed. I wasn’t willing to take a chance they might get
away.

“Fine! You can have the
bat, but don’t let go of those two creeps! They’re a menace to
society!”

“Are you hurt, buddy?”
The second cop carefully placed the bat on the hall table, gave me
a warning glance, and made his way over to my brother, who was
still lying on the floor, more than a little dazed and confused.
“Just take it easy till you get your bearings.”

“Bur!” I rushed to my
brother’s aid. “Can you sit up?”

We carefully propped
him up. Bur grimaced as he shifted his body into a seated
position.

“Ouch!”

“How’s your head?” the
cop asked, studying my brother’s pupils. I spotted his name tag
just above the breast pocket: Parker. “Do you have any dizziness or
nausea...any double vision?”

“No. The only real
damage is to my pride and my backside. I landed on my
tailbone.”

“Let’s get him into the
chair,” I suggested. Parker gently pulled him to his feet and
steadied him. I tucked my arm under Bur’s right elbow and the cop
took the left. Together, we guided him to a chair, as a worried
Lacey joined us.

“Goodness gracious, is
he okay?” she queried, her concern obvious. “I think he needs
medical attention.”

“I’m fine,” the injured
man insisted, even as his fingers explored the back of his head for
signs of trauma. “Just give me a minute.”

Hammerhead, his courage
rising now that there was a heavy police presence in the foyer,
decided he was interested in the black box Dave Wilkie left by the
door.

“Holy mackerel!” he
uttered in disbelief, moving forward to examine the gizmo. “Is that
what I think it is?”

“What do you think it
is, kid?” A new arrival in the foyer demanded, peering over the
teen’s shoulder.

“It looks like some
kind of an incendiary device. See?” Shark Boy leaned over, pointing
to the plain box. “It’s made of balsa wood. That would go up in
flames quickly. See those firecrackers? They’d all probably go off
at the same time. There’s even a wick.”

“Those aren’t
firecrackers,” said another uniformed officer, examining the
contents of the wooden box more thoroughly. “They’re M-80
quarter-sticks of dynamite, and with that many tied together, more
than capable of blowing right through that front
door.”

“Whoa!” That got
Michael’s attention. “That can’t be good!”

“Wilkie wanted to blow
up our front door?” My brother was nearly speechless at the
thought. But now the budding engineer was fascinated by the
prospect.

“Well, not
necessarily,” Shark Boy replied, considering the possibilities. He
invited us to follow the trail of the wick. Looped around the box
twice, the remainder of the woven cord was tied to the inside knob
of the front door, a long length of cord hanging down. “It sure
would make a huge racket. There’d be lots of damage from the
explosion, which would probably cause a fire.”

“Dave Wilkie wanted to
start a fire?” I shook my head in dismay. “Why would he want to do
that?”

“To get rid of the
evidence,” Kenny replied. He pointed to a small bottle now lying on
its side near the wall. “It looks like he brought his own
accelerant. Dave must have planned to place the box of
quarter-sticks on the front porch just before soaking the long end
of the wick in the flammable liquid. He probably planned to leave
the door open a crack, giving himself enough time to hide somewhere
nearby, before the explosion occurred. That way, it would look like
the attack was done by an outsider.”

“What in heaven’s name
is going on down there?” my mother called out, leaning over the
railing of the upper hallway. Her face contorted in fear when she
saw Bur. “Is my son hurt?”

“Listen up, people.
Nobody is to touch that thing. I’ve got to call the bomb squad,”
said the cop in the green golf shirt. He was already dialing.
“Yeah, Valboa here. I’ve got an improvised explosive device out on
White Oak Hill.”

He shooed the group
away from the evidence and stepped out onto the porch to finish his
conversation as my mother and Thaddeus emerged from the small
elevator. She had to maneuver her wheelchair through the expanding
maze of people, her frustration clear. “Excuse me. Excuse me,
please. Excuse me....”

“Say what?” Bur was
still rubbing the back of his head, wincing. I leaned in and felt a
lump rising on his skull. “Did you say bomb squad?”

“You should have Dr.
Van Zandt examine that,” I told my brother. “You might have a
concussion.”

“I’m fine,” he groaned.
I disagreed vehemently. Lacey gave him the once-over
too.

“You are
not.”

“Am too,” he
moaned.

“Scarlet’s right. You
should let the doctor take a look at you, Bur.”

“He’ll have to do it
outside,” Valboa told us. “We’ll have to evacuate the premises
immediately. We’re not allowed to dismantle something that entails
this much risk; it’s a matter of department
policy.”

“Great,” I groaned.
“When the neighbors hear that we had a bomb planted on our front
step, we’ll get closed down! Son of a....”

“At the moment, that’s
the least of our concerns,” the detective replied firmly. “Have we
accounted for all the residents of the inn?”

“No, Jenny isn’t with
us. And we’ve got to get the pets,” my mother pointed out. “We
can’t leave them behind.”

“I’ve got Scrub Oak,”
Lacey called out a moment later, returning from the living room
with the feline dangling from her arms. She plunked the cat on my
mother’s lap for the ride outside.

“Let’s head to the
carriage house to wait this out. We can set up some patio chairs,”
Bur suggested. He was still unsteady on his feet, leaning on Lacey
and Dr. Van Zandt.

“Jenny’s still
upstairs, and so are the dogs.” I crossed the hallway and hurried
up the stairs to fetch them, Kenny on my heels. “We’ll meet you
outside.”

“Mozzie, Jen!” I called
out as we climbed to the top of the second floor landing. I pulled
open the door to the third floor staircase. “Get up! It’s an
emergency!”

“What? What time is it?
Am I late for work?” she answered groggily, dressed in an oversized
tee shirt. “I’m so-so-sorry!”

“No. There was a little
incident downstairs. Come on. Grab your robe. We’ve got to step
outside for a little while. And bring Mozzie with
you.”

By the time we exited
the building, there were police barricades at the entrance to the
driveway of the Four Acorns Inn, where a small army of first
responders milled around and a couple of neighbors peppered a pair
of uniformed officers with questions. On the street, a fire engine
and six volunteer firefighters were at the ready, on the off-chance
things went south. When the volunteer ambulance crew showed up,
running their emergency lights, it was the icing on the cake for
me. How were we supposed to handle the bad mojo on this, especially
after the trouble up the road at Wallace’s house with Karin
Frenlind? We might have to have a “pretty please, forgive us” party
for the neighbors. Maybe we could generate some goodwill by
grilling up burgers and doling out hot dogs.