Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) (23 page)

- Twenty-Three -

But he didn’t. I babbled and babbled onto my own tape and Wayne’s voice never came on to interrupt me.

I left Becky’s in a hurry, hastily hugging her and wishing her luck in her new sobriety, while pleading a forgotten appointment as an excuse for my exit. Her fragile, battered-looking face registered surprise but no affront as I ran out the door. Maybe I hadn’t given her enough time.

Once I was in my Toyota on the main road again, I floored it, hoping to make the ten-minute drive in five. And hoping Wayne was all right. Where the hell was he? Why hadn’t he answered the phone as planned? I came up with plenty of answers. Maybe he was lost in the intricacies of computer land on his other phone. But would he have forgotten he was supposed to pick up my call in half an hour? He couldn’t miss hearing it from his position at his own phone. I shook my head and pressed the accelerator even harder, back wheels shimmying as I took a curve. Had he gone into the city to solve his computer problem on the spot? No, he would have called me. I was certain of that. Unless he couldn’t find Becky’s phone number. But it was listed in the phone book—

I wouldn’t think about Wayne until I got home, I told myself. I’d think about Natalie Nusser instead. Was Natalie the murderer? She’d acted stressed, even angry, most of the times I’d seen her. But that seemed to be her natural persona, even in high school. Sid had been working for Natalie though. That in itself suddenly seemed suspicious. But he probably really was a good salesman. Wayne had said that. Damn it, how could I have ignored the threat to Wayne’s life? What if—

Not now, I told myself. Back to Natalie. She had the mechanical ability. But, hell, Jack was just as good a suspect. He wasn’t just stressed, he was nuts. And mechanical. Then why hadn’t he rigged Sid’s pranks in high school?

Please, Wayne, I thought, if you’re in trouble, just hold on for a few more minutes. Then I grabbed my thoughts and dragged them back to Natalie. Where had she been standing when Sid had died? I tried to get a fix in my mind’s eye. And couldn’t. Had she been at the barbecue?

Oh, God, I hoped Wayne—

No. I wouldn’t think about Wayne. How about Becky? Was Becky necessarily telling the truth about Natalie engineering Sid’s tricks? Probably. Why would she lie? Unless she was the murderer. But I still couldn’t believe that.

Was anyone telling the truth for that matter? How could I tell?

Maybe Wayne had decided to come to Becky’s to meet me there, I decided suddenly. But he hadn’t called. I scanned the road frantically, but saw no Jaguars ahead of me or behind me.

Natalie, I reminded myself. I considered her tight face and jerking gait. And her unlikely reputation as a sexually active teenager. And her loyalty to her employees. Was there a motive in there anywhere?

Or should I look at the ones who really did have motive? Pam and Charlie. And D.V. And—

Wayne’s Jaguar was still in the driveway when I came skidding in. I flew out of my car, not even taking the time to shut the door. I was up the front stairs and had the front door unlocked and flung open in less than a breath.

“Wayne!” I shouted as I ran through the doorway into the entry hall.

No one answered.

But then 1 heard the light wheeze of a snore.

I jerked my head toward the living room and saw Wayne, facedown on the coffee table.

Relief drained the adrenaline down through my body and out through my toes, leaving me limp and shaking. Wayne was just asleep. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

But as quickly as that relief came, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. From the other side of the room. Someone or something was behind one of the pinball machines, behind Texan. Or had I just imagined that flash of movement? I walked toward the wood-railed machine carefully, centering myself as in tai chi practice. And as I walked, a memory flickered in my mind’s eye. Natalie Nusser, playing an old pinball machine in a pizza parlor years and years ago, her stiff body intent as she racked up another free game. Natalie Nusser who claimed she didn’t play pinball machines. But that could be true, I told myself even as the memory still flickered. She might have played them then and not now. And C.C. was probably the one lurking behind the pinball machine. But—

I looked back over my shoulder at Wayne. Why hadn’t he woken when I’d yelled? Adrenaline filled my body once more as fast as it’d drained from it. Faster.

“Wayne!” I shouted again, turning his way.

He didn’t move an eyebrow. But he wasn’t dead. I could hear the wheeze of his breath. Or could I? I took a step toward him and then stopped. I smelled something behind me, what was it? Something burning. Solder. That was it.

I turned slowly and cautiously toward the smell.

Natalie Nusser stood up from behind Texan and pointed a gun at me.

I stood stock-still. A gun. But this gun had a cord attached. And a smoldering red tip. It was a gun all right, a soldering gun.

“Wayne?” I said again, this time looking at Natalie.

Wayne’s business phone rang then, exploding the quiet of the room as Natalie stood stiff and erect, holding the soldering gun out in front of her.

“What’s wrong with Wayne?” I demanded, taking a step toward her as the answering machine kicked in. She was only a couple of yards away. I wondered how long the cord on her soldering gun was. Even if it wasn’t a real gun, it could burn. I’d learned that the hard way many years ago.

“He’s okay,” Natalie told me, her voice uncharacteristically soft.

My heart leapt gratefully, believing her. But my mind wasn’t so accepting.

“What did you do to him?” I asked, matching her soft tone as I stepped closer.

Natalie didn’t answer me. She just stared at me, the whites showing all around her irises, her face set in an intensity of expression I’d only seen on the faces of certain mental patients and a few paintings of saints. Fanatical saints.

A voice boomed out of the speaker of Wayne’s answering machine. “It’s Gary.” Wayne’s assistant manager at the restaurant. Well, he could wait. “Why didn’t you call me back? Where are you…”

I had to get that soldering gun out of Natalie’s hand. Then I’d find out what she’d done to Wayne and fix it. I’d probably need help. But he was still alive. He had to be. I resisted looking behind me. One thing at a time.

“Natalie, put down the soldering gun,” I said gently. I might have been talking to my cat for all the obedience I was getting. I kept walking in her direction, slowly. I stretched out my hand, palm up.

I was almost to her when she jerked the gun in my direction. I felt the sting as the red-hot tip glanced off the end of my middle finger. I yanked my hand away and back-stepped quickly. Even that brief burning touch had hurt, hurt badly.

I licked my stinging fingertip. It was time for a new strategy. I still didn’t know what Natalie had done to Wayne, and I couldn’t undo it until I got her under control. She was standing completely immobile now, soldering gun still outstretched.

I kept my eyes on her as I began stepping backwards toward the phone.

I was almost there when Natalie leapt in my direction, soldering gun first. I heard the cord pop out of the wall, but I knew the gun was still hot. In the second it took her to reach me, I sunk all of my weight into my left leg. Then I lifted my right knee and executed a lotus kick, sweeping my Reebok-clad foot in a circle that knocked the soldering gun from her hand. In that moment, I smelled burnt leather and couldn’t believe I’d actually done it. When the Master had envisioned the uses of that kick, I’m sure knocking a soldering gun out of the hand of a computer programmer wasn’t one of them.

I don’t think Natalie could believe it either. She just stared at the fallen gun for a moment and then looked back into my face, her irises still rimmed with white.

“What did you do to Wayne?” I screamed. Maybe it was the volume. She finally began talking.

“Nothing that will kill him, just a sedative in his juice,” she said quickly. Quickly and softly. But then her voice got louder. “Just to give me the time to rig the machine. It was hard enough to get him alone. I followed you and followed you, but you were always together.”

The hair prickled on my arms. Natalie Nusser was crazy.

There was no way I was turning my back on this woman. But I had to help Wayne.

“What were you going to do after you rigged the machine?” I asked, giving myself time to think.

Natalie looked down at her feet sullenly.

‘Tell me!” I shouted and advanced on her.

“I was going to do it to him too,” she answered triumphantly. A glitter of something even crazier lit up her round eyes. “Just like Sid. You don’t deserve Wayne. All your snooping. I told you to stop. I made you an offer. You refused it. Offer. Counteroffer.”

“And Elaine?” I demanded. “Did you kill her too?”

“Yes,” she answered, smiling lazily as if reliving the event.

My stomach was still processing that lazy smile when Natalie pulled the screwdriver out of her pocket. She raised it over her head and then jerked it back down, plunging it in the direction of my chest. In an instant, I turned to the side and the screwdriver sank into air. Then I lifted my arm and turned back, knocking the screwdriver out of her hand with the momentum of the turn.

This time I didn’t stop to congratulate myself on the move. Not until I’d grabbed her and bent her arm behind her in a hammerlock. I hadn’t learned the hammerlock move in tai chi. I learned it working in a mental hospital. But it worked. I used the leverage to push her facedown onto the ground and then straddled her, tying her arms behind her back with the cord of the soldering iron. Not easily. She was struggling with the strength of the mad. But I had the strength of a woman saving her sweetie’s life. Either of us might have been burned by the still-smoldering soldering gun as I looped the cord around her hands despite her twisting and kicking. But I didn’t care anymore.

“Wayne?” I called out as Natalie struggled underneath me.

I thought I heard a murmur from Wayne’s direction. But it was lost in the sound of Natalie’s muffled rage.

She began screaming as I dialed 911, turning her face from the floor.

“I killed the lying scum! I killed him. It was a fair deal. It wasn’t nearly as bad as what he did to me. Do you believe I had a crush on him once? But then he wanted to sleep with me and I wouldn’t…”

I shouted over her screams into the phone, hoping whoever was on the other end got the salient points. Ambulance and police. Possible drug overdose. And, oh yeah, the murderer of Sid Semling and Elaine Timmons.

Then I pulled Natalie up off the floor as gently as I could manage, all the while my mind shouting to hurt her—hurt her a lot—and tied her bound hands to the leg of Hayburners, the nearest pinball machine. It seemed right. She wouldn’t get loose there. And she could scream all she wanted.

She did.

And finally I ran to Wayne.

“…he blackmailed me,” Natalie continued to rage behind me. I was sure the “he” was Sid, not Wayne. “I was lonely and shy. I wanted friends. But he kept pressuring me to sleep with him. Cajoling, then threatening, then…”

I knelt next to Wayne where he was, his bottom still on the couch but his upper body slumped over the coffee table.

“Wayne, wake up,” I ordered, my eyes blurred by a sudden rush of tears.

“…I even did his pranks for him. But he wanted more. He said he’d convince everyone I was a whore if I wouldn’t sleep with him…”

“Kate?” Wayne said dreamily, his chin still on the coffee table. He was alive!

I shook the tears from my eyes as I pushed his shoulders gently back until he was in a sitting position on the couch. He was alive. And breathing. Warmth spread into my body again.

“You’ll be all right,” I told him, willing it so, and keeping one hand on his shoulder in case he slipped back. Should I keep him upright? Would he breathe better that way? Then I knelt on the couch next to him, keeping my hand against his shoulder.

“…I wouldn’t sleep with him. I couldn’t sleep with him. I was terrified of getting pregnant and losing my scholarship. Look at what a mess Pam made of her opportunities. So the lying scum did it, he told everyone I was a whore. And they believed it. You believed it, Kate! Everyone did. Black is white and white is black. Sid turned day into night—”

“What kind of sedative did you give Wayne?” I cut in, imagining my voice with the authority of a drill sergeant as I turned in her direction. “And how much?”

I watched as Natalie’s eyes slowly shrunk to nearly normal size.

“How much—” I began again, but she was already telling me.

“Ten or so sleeping pills, over-the-counter,” she replied brusquely, her voice the voice of the Natalie Nusser who owned and managed Nusser Networks once more. “Don’t worry, I didn’t give him enough to kill him.” Then her voice got dreamier. Her eyes began to widen again. “I brought him a bottle of his favorite apple juice, with a little sleepy-dust mixed in. I could tell he thought it tasted funny. But he’s so polite. He drank it down like a good little boy. You don’t deserve him, you know. You didn’t care enough about him to protect him—”

My mind cut her off. I didn’t want to hear any truth in her words. Coffee, I thought. Caffeine might counteract the pills. Maybe. But did I have any coffee in the house? I had herbal tea in twenty flavors, but coffee?