Murder Take Two (30 page)

Stephanie stuck a cupped hand over the porch railing and caught drops of rain. “She came—the one with the funny clothes and white makeup—while I was there. And I forgot to give it to him. When I left, she came back down for the magazines in her car, so I thought—as long as she was going back up, she might as well take it.”

Ah, Susan thought. Stephanie had a crush on Yancy and felt jealous when Ms. Jones trotted up to see him.

“Let me make sure I've got this right,” she said. “A cop gave you two notes. One for Laura Edwards, one for Yancy. You gave Ms. Edwards's note to her driver and Yancy's to Ms. Jones? Is that right?”

Stephanie nodded.

Like the emperor said to Mozart, Susan thought, there are too many notes. She asked Stephanie to come in at some time and have her fingerprints taken.

“Cool.”

25

Yancy was thinking he shouldn't have been so eager about telling the chief he was great, rarin' to get back to movie duty. He felt stiff as day-old toast, and trying to shower without getting bandages wet was a joke. A good hard run was what he needed, work the kinks out. No running, no workouts, until the rib knit.

Stepping into uniform pants, he buttoned and zipped, buttoned up his shirt and buckled on his belt with the unfamiliar gun. Nothing better happen to this one or he'd never hear the end of it.

Stephanie, at four
P.M.
, was sitting on the bottom porch step looking woebegone. “Hi,” she said. The air was sticky hot with the worst of the day's heat.

“Hi, Steph. Anything wrong?”

She shook her head. “How come you're going to work when you're sick?”

“I'm not sick.”

She scowled just like Serena used to when she was a kid. “You should be staying home.”

“I can't do that. I'll see you later.” From the Cherokee, he gave her a wave as he backed out the driveway. Adolescents, who knew what went on in their minds. Even themselves.

At the department, he picked up a radio, got a squad car, and set out for the mansion. As usual people stood around watching even when they should have been home eating their suppers. He got a call sheet from Clem Jones and ran his eye over SET/DESCR.

EXT. TREES BEHIND BARN

Billy fires at Sara.

Billy, of course, was the hit man hired by the bad guys, and Sara was Laura, the heroine who stumbled across the information that the bad guys had killed her father because he was going to turn them in for using banned pesticides.

COVER SET:

INT. JEFF'S OFFICE

Jeff was the hero cop.

Yancy didn't like this “Billy fires at Sara” stuff. He hied himself over to the prop truck in search of Robin McCormack.

“I told you,” Robin said. “All firearms are kept locked in the safe.”

“Bullets.”

“IN THE SAFE.” Robin sighed. “Look, this isn't the first shoot I've been on, no pun intended, and I've got nothing but blanks.”

“Let me see them.”

“Oh, man, I've got things to do.”

“I can shut you down, which will give you lots of time. Now, open up that safe and show me everything you've got in there.”

“This is really stupid, man. You think I don't know what I'm doing? You think everything isn't checked and rechecked before it's used? What's got in your soup?”

Robin dialed the safe's combination number, 5-7-3. Yancy, standing beside him, had no trouble seeing what he was doing. If this was how careful Robin was, no telling who had the combination.

“This is what he's going to use.” Robin handed him a scope-mounted rifle. “And this is what he's going to be firing.” Robin handed over the shells. “If you worried this much about who killed Kay maybe you'd have the bastard by now.”

Yancy examined the stock, the trigger, the hand guard, and looked through the scope. He looked at each bullet, definitely blanks.

The Starbucks coffee he'd picked up from the caterer sent fully alerted nerves zinging to attention throughout his body. He moved around and got in everybody's way.

Billy, the villain, was getting some last-minute instructions from the director. Robin handed him the rifle. A black armed condor (metal structure painted black) stood taller than the barn with the light on top blazing. Yancy judged it could be seen four miles in all directions. Probably like the light God had used to shine down on Adam when He asked where the apple came from.

Yancy kept reminding himself Billy had a blank, he probably didn't know shit about rifles, and couldn't hit what he was aiming at in any case.

That went up in smoke when Billy took the rifle and handled it like he'd gone deer hunting all his life. Yancy's adrenaline level kept rising.

Sara/Laura, in a filmy white thing that Yancy assumed was a nightgown, stood by a tree waiting for the director's word. When he gave it, she ran. A path had been semicleared, at least enough so she could run among the trees. If it hadn't been, the chase would have ended about three steps after it began. There was too much in the way, fallen branches, dead leaves, and new growth covering the ground.

Sara/Laura, following the path marked out for her, crept down a rise, darting from tree to tree. Billy, the villain, stalked. As fetching a sight as the heroine was in her nightgown, or whatever it was—peignoir?—Yancy kept his eyes on the rifle. Occasionally it glinted in the beam of light. Otherwise, it was simply a menacing shadow. Periodically, Billy brought it to his shoulder and looked through the scope.

Jeff/Nick, automatic in hand, was creeping after the bad guy trying to off him before he could put a round smack in the middle of the heroine's beautiful back. Standard movie stuff.

Every time Billy brought the rifle to his shoulder, Yancy's teeth clenched. He'd need a trip to the dentist if this went on much longer. Billy curled a finger around the trigger.

Yancy held his breath.

Billy brought the rifle down and stalked on.

The whole routine again. Stalking, sighting, finger around trigger. Finger tightening.

Yancy discovered it was impossible to take a deep breath with your ribs strapped.

Billy fired.

No recoil on the rifle. Yancy relaxed. Billy had fired a blank.

That didn't mean that the rest of them wouldn't be live.

Two more shots. Blanks.

This bit of rifle to shoulder, fire, was repeated over and over. Yancy assumed bullets gouging chunks from trees, boulders, and the very ground beside the heroine would be added at some time, along with close-up views through crosshairs.

Right. They're making a movie here. All make-believe. Nobody's getting shot.

Sara/Laura, face frozen in fear, kept just one step ahead of the bullets. Billy, the villain, expression of a job to be done, relentlessly followed.

Jeff/Nick, the hero, expression of worry, was just a bit too far behind to be of any use. Bit by bit, he was gaining. Finally he fired his automatic. He wasn't close enough to hit anybody and he wasn't aiming, but hey, he was firing like all good heroes.

Fifer kept shooting the scene, even after the pink light of dawn bled into the clouds. Yancy paid close attention to the villain's rifle and the hero's handgun. Sara/Laura shivered realistically with cold and fear, and maybe for real. Early morning chill hung in the air, but wouldn't go on much longer. With yesterday's rain feeding the humidity, it would be humid in spades when the sun got going.

Coffee in hand, Yancy moved around, getting dirty looks from the crew.

“Hey!”

A shot. Two more in rapid succession.

Yancy was a split second slow in responding. He was still in fantasyland.

Oh, Christ!

He tossed the coffee cup and ran.

The spectators scattered. People screamed. Mac, trying to shield Laura Edwards, hustled her toward her town car. People ducked, crouched, darted. Or just looked around in confusion as though they were uninformed of this change in script.

Like a Keystone Kop, Yancy waded into the middle of it, gun in hand. A guy with a handgun was aiming at Laura.

“No!”

The guy fired.

Like a movie scene, Mac looked at his arm in surprise, clapped a hand around it, and watched blood seep through his fingers.

“Put the gun down! NOW!”

Sun, tipping over the rise, spilled golden light into the hollow. Looking directly into it, Yancy saw little more than a silhouette.

“NOW!”

The sniper ran.

Yancy chased. “Police! Stop!”

The gunman ran straight into the sunlight. Yancy stumbled over the rocky, uneven ground.

The guy tried to run uphill, slipped on wet grass, and almost fell. He recovered and dashed left.

With no breath to yell, Yancy kept after him. The sniper ran flat out. Not a smart thing to do on this terrain: holes, rocks, and pockets of rainwater waited to trip up the unsuspecting.

Yancy slowed, fighting for air.

The gunman stumbled, sprawled on the ground.

Yancy sprinted. “Don't move! Stay right where you are!”

One knee on the back of the guy's neck, Yancy grabbed the gun. “One … twitch…” he panted, “you're … dead…”

Yancy's lungs felt on fire.

“You're hurting me.”

Yancy holstered his gun and fumbled for cuffs, got one wrist cuffed, and thought he'd expire before he got the other. Finally, he managed to bring the other arm around.

Head hanging like a spent horse, Yancy worked on getting air without breathing deeply.

“Could you get off now?”

Wondering how he was going to get himself upright, Yancy eased pressure from the guy's neck.

“How am I going to get up?”

“Well, pal, you're on your own.” Yancy could almost breathe again, but fire still locked his chest. “At least till I know whether I'm going to die.”

“The grass is wet.”

This was true. Yancy could feel it through the knee of his pants. “Roll over and sit up.”

“I can't.”

“Hold on.” Yancy pulled out his radio and spoke to the dispatcher.

“Okay, pal, let's go.” Yancy flipped the gunman over. It was the weird history teacher from the hotel. Delmar Cayliff.

With a little help, Cayliff managed to sit. Cracked rib protesting, Yancy got him to his feet.

The gun was his, Yancy was glad to see, but after this, no telling how long before he'd get it back. They went down the rise a whole lot slower than they'd gone up.

Everybody watched, spectators, crew, actors, directors, and probably the squirrels in the trees.

Fifer said quietly, “Cut.”

Everybody clapped. Yancy felt like a complete ass.

26

“Were you trying to be a hero?” What was it about cops? Like teenagers, they thought they were invincible.

Yancy stood more or less at attention in front of her desk. He wasn't ramrod stiff, she thought, only because of pain. At least he wasn't turning pale from hemorrhage caused by a rib puncturing a lung.

“No, ma'am.”

She thought he was more embarrassed than anything, but that didn't mean he wouldn't do the same thing again.

“Get yourself over to the hospital and have Dr. Sheffield take a look at you?” She sat down in her chair and made a shooing motion. “And, Yancy—?”

He turned.

“Good work, but if you've done any damage to yourself…” She let it hang.

“I don't think I would have been so stupid…”

The expression on her face stopped him and he put a lid on it. After she called the hospital to check on Laura Edwards's driver, alerted them Yancy was coming, and went down the hallway.

Delmar Cayliff waited, sitting in a molded plastic chair in the interview room. Parkhurst stood outside looking through the glass. “He hasn't moved.”

“He ask for an attorney?”

“He refuses one. He's going to be his own attorney. He's more intelligent, according to him, than any attorney he could hire.”

“Oh, boy.” Why couldn't the guy just make it easy on everybody and agree to an attorney? He was a lunatic who should be locked away but care had to be taken so they didn't trample on any civil rights. It might be claimed he wasn't able to make this decision for himself. If they didn't get this one put away, he'd kill somebody.

When she opened the door, Delmar Cayliff looked up and smiled. “I've been here two hours, forty-five minutes, and sixteen seconds,” he said. Not angry, not threatening, simply matter-of-fact as though she'd asked and he wanted to be accurate.

“Do you know where you are, Mr. Cayliff?” She went around the table and sat down across from him.

Parkhurst, arms loose at his sides, stood behind.

Delmar gave her a superior smile. “The Hampstead Police Department. Hampstead, Kansas. Two miles from the Sante Fe Trail.”

She turned on the cassette recorder, stated her name, the date and time, mentioned Parkhurst was in the room, and stated Cayliff's name and read him his constitutional rights. “Do you understand these rights?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you know why you're here, Mr. Cayliff?”

“I'm not stupid, Ms.—excuse me,
Chief
—Wren. You don't have to talk to me in words of one syllable. I'm educated and I'm intelligent. I have a doctorate in American history. So many people—Americans—don't know anything about their own country. The Sante Fe Trail runs not five miles from where we're sitting. How many people know? How many people even know what it was for? Do you know?”

His eyes stared down at the table or gazed past her shoulder.

“Why did you come to Hampstead?”

“Laura my beloved, of course. The princess of heaven in my heart and the desire of my dreams. Our love in the spring holds enchanting visions of our walking together through the gardens of magnificent palaces.”

“You assaulted a police officer.”