Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly (19 page)

Arms and legs windmilling, I
thumped to the ground so hard all the air rushed out of my mouth with a loud
“Oomph.”  As soon as I could breathe, I pushed myself into a sitting position
and looked around.  I saw the road, some fields, and a distant farm house. 
There were no witnesses to my ridiculous flight, thank heavens.

I’d landed where new weeds were
poking up through previous years’ accumulations.  I tried to stand but couldn’t
make it.  I sank back into my soggy nest.

I didn’t feel much like moving,
anyway.

Squeaky reared up out of the
culvert near the juncture of the old road and the highway.

I heard a car approaching.  I
ducked down, hoping not to be noticed in the heavy rain.

Water began to stream off the road
and into the culvert I’d flown over.

I sat there, my left leg bent, my
crossed arms on my knee pillowing my head, the rain pelting my neck, my
shoulders, my back.  If Fran were here, we’d be laughing.  We always found
things to laugh about.  No matter what she’d done, she’d been my good friend,
my best friend, warm, loving, supportive, vibrant with life.  Perhaps she’d had
things to atone for, but she hadn’t deserved to die.

I sat there, eyes closed,
listening to the occasional swish of passing cars, the sound that’s so cozy
when you’re inside a warm room looking out.

I got cold, then colder.  When the
shivering grew irritating, I opened my eyes to the dark afternoon.  The culvert
now had a lot of water in it.

A vehicle approached through the
gloom, and I was about to hail it when I realized it was Gene’s battered old
truck.  Of all the trucks in all the world, why this one?

He got out wearing a dark poncho
with the hood pulled up.  He bore a marked resemblance to Death.  All he needed
was a scythe.  Perhaps he thought his gun would do.

I stood, numb and shivering, as he
jumped the culvert.

The rain splatted against his
poncho.  “Jeez, Liz, you look like shit.  How long’ve you been out here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hicks said you were sitting here
like some dumb duck.”

“He’s not too much into the
protect and serve bit, is he?”

“He’s okay.  He just doesn’t like
you.”

“It’s going around these days,” I
said.

“Yeah.”  He nodded toward the
hill.  “I got a call from our senate hopeful.  She doesn’t think you should be
out questioning people.  I agree.”

I’d have shrugged, but it seemed
like too much trouble.

“Come on, I’ll give you a ride
home.”  He raised an eyebrow and said, “You can tell me what you’ve learned
with your sleuthing.”

“Leave me alone,” I said, starting
to turn away, but my balance was off, and I began to fall.  I grabbed his
poncho, my fingers slipping on its slick, wet surface.  He tried to get me but
missed, and I plunked back down into my nest of weeds.

“Quit being stubborn, Liz.  You
need help.  I’m here.  If it makes you feel better, pretend I’m somebody else,
somebody from one of your books, maybe.”

“You jerk,” I said, my tongue
thick.

He reached for me, and I
flinched.  He felt my forehead, then my neck.  “You’re freezing.  Come on.”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”  He glared
down at me, then crouched next to me.  His voice soft, he said, “Liz, I’d never
hurt you.  Don’t you know that?”

He waited for a response, but with
the shivering and teeth chattering and the sleepiness that was pulling me down,
it was all I could do to focus on his face and see, but not understand, the
expression in his eyes.

The next thing I knew, I was slung
over his hard shoulder, looking down past his behind at the ground as it moved
beneath us.  Cursing, he splashed down into the ditch, then up.  His truck door
shrieked as he pried it open.  He flung me in and slammed the door.

Seconds later I heard a crash from
the truck bed.  He’d thrown Squeaky, good faithful Squeaky.  A stray tear made
a warm track down my cheek.

He started the truck.

I closed my eyes as the world
blurred by.

We stopped.  I heard him open the
passenger door.  He sighed.  “Godammit, Liz.”  He slung me over his shoulder
again, and lugged me past the Cabriolet’s back bumper, then up the steps and
through the back porch.

I heard water running.  He pushed
me into a small, white space.  I realized I was in the downstairs shower under
hot water going full blast, Gene holding me upright.  “Can you stand by
yourself?” he asked.

I nodded.

He let go, and I slid down the
wall and sat under the hot water spray.  I couldn’t stop shivering.

After awhile, he reached in and
pulled me around so the top of me was out of the stream of water.  He put a mug
to my lips.  “Drink,” he said.

I took a sip of hot coffee loaded
with sugar and cream.  “I hate sugar in my coffee,” I said.

“Drink the damn stuff,” he
growled, pushing the mug into my hands.  “Why the hell didn’t I leave you out
there?”  He sank onto the green bath mat.  He pulled a pink towel off the rack
above him and began rubbing his sodden hair.

The coffee steadied my brain, and
I realized just how weird I’d been feeling.  “Gene, I think Jennifer Ward fed
me brownies with drugs in them.”

“Did you have a good trip?”

“I’m sure there were drugs in
those brownies.  You should go arrest her.”

“Not tonight, Liz.”

“Gene, it’s your duty—”

“Lay off.”

“You hate me, don’t you?”

“No.”

“You think I’m a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Gene, I really am. 
The trouble is, I don’t know what to say and all this stuff starts coming out
of my mouth, and—”

“Don’t get weepy on me, Liz.  I
hate weepy drunks.”

“You’ve done your St. Bernard
trick,” I snapped.  “Go home.”

“I’d love to.  Unfortunately,
there’s no one here to watch out for you.”

“I don’t need a keeper!”

He snorted.  “The hell you don’t.”

“Will you quit swearing?”

He covered his face with the towel
and groaned.  His blue shirt and his jeans were soaked, his boots dark with
moisture, probably ruined by stepping into the water in the culvert.  He sneezed.

“Gene, don’t you think you should
go home?”

“When I know you’re not going to
die of hypothermia.”

I drank more coffee.  It felt good
running down my inside while the shower ran down my outside.  I was hardly
shivering any more.  I needed a nap.  My eyelids were just nicely fitted
together when I dropped the mug, jerked upright, and snatched away Gene’s
towel.  “What do you mean there’s no one home?”

“There’s no one here, not even the
poodle.”

“Mother and Kirk and Meg should be
here.  Oh, my God!  Kirk’s killed them!  I thought the two of them together
would be safe!”  I struggled to get up, couldn’t quite manage it, so I tried to
crawl out of the shower stall.

Gene shoved me back in.  “Calm
down.  I looked around while the coffee was brewing.  There’s no one here.”

“But their bodies could be hidden
behind a piece of furniture.”

“Godammit, I’m a cop,” he yelled. 
“Don’t you think if there was a dead body here I’d have seen it?  What the hell
is wrong with you?”

“There’s a killer loose, you
moron!” I screamed back.

His blue eyes glittered.  “Liz, I’m
about to shake you till your eyes rattle.  You want to calm down on your own?”

My mind was a cyclone of fear,
urging action, not knowing what to do.  I took a deep breath, then another,
feeling my head growing clearer.  I said, “Let me get up now.”

He withdrew his hands.  “Okay, but
you’re not going anywhere till you take off those wet clothes.  I’ll go get
something dry.”

“No!”  I grabbed his wet shirt as
he turned away.  “I’ll go up and get clothes.  You look through the
house—carefully this time.”

After he strode off, I stripped
off the wet clothes, then wrapped one towel around my hair and another around
my body.  I hauled myself up the stairs.

Gene was just coming out of Meg’s
room.  “I’ve been through everything, there’s no sign of them.”  He paused in
the doorway to my room.  “We’ve got to keep this in perspective.  They must
have gone off together—a killer wouldn’t bother to take the dog.”

I was only half listening.  I
opened a drawer and pulled out underwear at random and threw them on the bed
and opened another drawer.

“No sign of a struggle, either,”
he said.

“What now?”

He didn’t answer.

I grabbed jeans and a sweater and
turned.

His eyes had grown very dark.

I crossed my arms over the
clothing I held.

He looked at me with such a
strange expression, his eyes wide open, but almost unfocused as they stared at
me, his mouth compressed to a tight, thin line.  It was possible he was about
to laugh or to cry.  Possible he had gone beyond his usual range of anger to
something I’d never seen before.

My skin pulled tight.  I was aware
of my nakedness under the towel.  Of the soft, fuzzy wool of the sweater I
clutched.  I said, “Gene?” in a voice that belonged to a little girl waking up
in the dark, seeing a shadow in her room, hoping it’s someone safe and
familiar, afraid it’s the bogeyman.  “Gene?”

He sighed.  His eyes focused on my
face.  He was Gene again.  He scrubbed at his damp hair with his hand.  “Out
there,” he gestured toward the window and beyond, “you were afraid of me. 
Why?”

Could I tell him about the
pictures?  After all, if he’d wanted to harm me, he’d already had the
opportunity.  I just didn’t know.  As if from a long distance away, I heard my
scratchy voice say, “Three people have died since Thursday.  Doesn’t it make
sense to be afraid?”

“Not of me.”  He shook his head. 
“How could you think it was me?”

“You suspected me.”

“No.  I had to question you, see
if you knew something that might be significant, but I never thought you did
it.  Never.  If I know that about you, why don’t you know it about me?”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He shook his head again.  “Get
dressed,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

The phone rang.  It had to be
Mother or Meg.  I leaped onto the bed and stretched my arm out to grab the
receiver and said, “Where are you?”

Silence.

It was the caller.  I knew it.  My
heart stuttered, then galloped.  No fear, I couldn’t show fear.  “What do you
want?”  My voice rasped.

A muffled giggle.  Was it a man or
a woman’s laugh?  It was in between, could be either.  I was afraid to guess,
afraid to be wrong about something so vital.  After that one, short sound,
silence.

A noise behind me.  I pushed up
onto my knees and twisted.

Gene walked softly across the
room.  He mouthed, “Who?”

“The killer,” I mouthed back.  I
said loudly into the phone, “Why are you calling me?”

Gene tiptoed closer and bent so
his head was level with mine.  I tilted the phone so we could both hear.  Not
even the sound of breathing came through the phone.

“Who is this?” I demanded.

The caller whispered, “How does it
feel?”

Ice raced through me.

“What have you done?” I screamed.

Gene’s dank shirt brushed my side
as he stretched across the bed.  He hit the memo button.  The phone beeped, but
the sound was lost as the caller asked, “Who do you love most?”

Not a good question to answer. 
Did the caller have Meg and Mother and Kirk?  I shivered.

Gene studied the digital readout
on the phone, then made a gesture with his hands as if he were pulling taffy. 
He mouthed something at me, but I didn’t know what.  He tiptoed from the room.

“You have so much,” the caller
said.  “You will find out how it feels to lose everything.”

“Stop it!  Don’t hurt them.  If
you hate me so much, come after me.”

“You will cry.”  A moment’s
silence, then a click as the phone was disengaged.

I dropped the receiver and ran
down the stairs yelling for Gene.

I rushed to the kitchen, nearly colliding
with him.

He pushed me out of his way and
raced for the back door.  “Stay here, keep the doors locked, don’t let anyone
but me back in,” he yelled over his shoulder.

I caught up with him on the porch
steps and grabbed his shirt.  “Where are you going?”

He pulled away from me.  “Lock the
door.”

“Gene!”

“No time,” he yelled, clambering
into his truck.  “Get back inside.”  The engine roared, and his tires threw up
big rooster tails of water as he raced away.

As I turned to go back into the
house, I thought I saw someone move on the Ferguson’s porch.  Great!  If Jill
had seen us, rumors of Gene and me in wild debauchery were sure to be flying
around Warfield in the next fifteen minutes.

I pulled my towel more firmly
about me and went inside.  Where had Gene gone?  What clue had he gotten?  The
phone number on the phone’s display panel.  I locked the door behind me and
hurried upstairs.

The number was still on the
phone.  I called the main library and had them check it in the crisscross
directory.  They had no listing.

Shivering, I pulled on clothes.

I called the rectory just in
case.  Answering machine.  Where could they be?  I remembered Alisz and Jared
saying they would come for Meg.  What had I been thinking?  Alisz and/or Jared
could be the murderer, and I’d given them the go-ahead?

“Oh, my God,” I moaned.  There was
no one I could trust.  I called Alisz’ number.  Answering machine.  Didn’t
anyone stay home?

Downstairs, I put the kettle on. 
Music books lay scattered on the table with three cups and saucers holding cold
tea.  A sheet of binder paper held only music titles and page numbers in Meg’s
loopy handwriting.

I dialed Jill Ferguson’s number. 
At last, an answer.  She’d seen Alisz’s car come by, then she’d been out doing
errands, but she’d returned in time to witness my arrival.  “He looked like a
caveman with you over his shoulder!  I couldn’t call the police—he’s the
chief!  What happened?”

I ignored her question.  “You’re
sure you didn’t see Mother and Meg leave?”

“Do you think I spend my life
watching Macrae comings and goings?”

“No, of course not,” I
lied before hanging up.  I made a mug of Lapsang Souchong and ended up in the
living room staring out the bay window, listening to the rain.

If the caller was the killer, Gene
could not be the killer.  I still didn’t know about Sibyl.  She hadn’t acted
guilty about anything except the smell of marijuana clinging to her when she’d
gotten out of her van.

I was sure Jennifer’s brownies had
been filled with marijuana as well.  Their strange texture, the way things were
funny, then freaky, after I’d eaten them.

Was there a connection between
Sibyl smoking it and Jennifer baking it and what I’d found in Andre’s car?

I shook my head.

If the killer had my errant
threesome, why hadn’t he or she said something specific?  Was I supposed to
worry myself to death?

I wandered upstairs to my study. 
The decoy pages still sat on my desk.  I wondered if Gene had read them when
he’d searched the house for my family.  Suddenly it seemed a shabby trick to
have played.

I stabbed out Alisz’s number. 
Again, the answering machine.

I peered out the window.  Though
it was not quite five, the heavy rain made it nearly dark.  There were no
lights on at the rectory, not even the porch light.

“Okay,” I said in the quiet of my
study, “I’ll wait for half an hour for Gene to come back, but after that, I’m
going to find them.”

How to keep from going crazy in
the meantime?  Food.   Downstairs again, I started the heavy pot heating and
cut a round steak into chunks.  I dredged the meat in flour mixed with herbs
and set them to sizzling in hot oil.  I glanced at my watch—how could time
pass so slowly?  I got out onions, potatoes, and carrots.

What could have gotten Mother out
of the house?  I cudgeled my brain as I chopped carrots and cried over the
onions, but it was no use.

I needed a list.  Out of habit, I
headed for the recycling pile on the counter near the phone.  I pushed aside
some glossy cosmetics brochures and found an envelope.  I wrote Alisz and
Jared’s names.  I tried them again.  No luck.  Who else could I call?

“Max!” I said.  Why did I keep
forgetting he had a part in all this?  I looked him up and punched his number.

He answered.

As soon as I identified myself, he
said, “Terrible thing about Fran.  It’s awful.  She was a great person to work
for.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” I
said.

“I guess it’s especially hard on
you, being her best friend and all.”

I was wondering how to bring up
the pictures when he said, “Did she leave anything with you?”

My pulse hammering in my throat I
said, “Left something?”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“Like a package?” I prodded.

“Yes!  So she did leave it with
you?”

“No, I was just trying to figure
out what you meant.  What would be in this package?”

“Look, don’t try to play games,”
he said, his voice grating.  “You’ll find yourself way over your head.”  He
breathed heavily for a moment then continued, his voice conciliatory, “Sorry. 
I’m looking for some photos Fran and I had collected for a story.  It was
important to her; printing it could be like a memorial to her, you know?”

Outraged, I snapped, “Those
pictures aren’t a fit memorial for a dog!”

“So you do have them!”

Darn.  The state department would
never recruit me for undercover work.

Max said, “They’re mine.  I’m
coming over for them.”

“No!” I squealed.  “Gene’s here.”

“Then you’ll have to get away and
bring them to me.”

“Why do you really want them?”

“I told you, we were working on a
story—”

“Those aren’t for any story a
decent newspaper would print.  What do you plan—”

“None of your damn business, but
I’m telling you, if you don’t give them to me—”

“Did you kill Fran?”

He laughed.  “Kill the golden
goose?  Nah.  But now that she’s gone, I want them.”  His voice turned silken,
“She’d want you to give them to me.”

“Okay,” I said, crossing my middle
finger over my index finger, “I guess she would.  Just tell me one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Did she sneak out to get these
pictures the night Andre was killed?”

“Yes.”

“Where were they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, I don’t have to give you
these pictures.  Answer my question, or—”

“All right!” he shouted, then more
quietly, “All right, I don’t know where they were.  Probably at Andre’s.  She
was going to help him out, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, just
tell me where to meet you and you won’t have to worry about them any more.”

Without thinking, I’d been
swirling the contents of the stew pot around and around.  Now I knocked the
spoon against the pot and said to Max, “I have no intention of giving those
photographs to anyone, least of all to—”

“You fucking bitch!  I want those
pictures, and you’d better give them to me—”

I hung up the phone.  My knees
were shaking again, so I sat at the littered table, realizing with Max this mad
at me, I was unwise to stay here alone like Hick’s dumb duck.

I turned the heat under the stew
low, put a lid on the pot, grabbed a jacket and a pair of sneakers.  I ran out
to the station wagon.

When I whipped around the corner
of our lot, I was surprised to see a cop car.  I’d no sooner noticed it than
the lights on top of it began to flash.  I pulled over.

Lofty came to my door.  He bent
down to peer in at me.  “Chief Cudworthy wanted you to stay inside your house,
Ms. Macrae,” he said.

“My family’s missing, I’ve got to
go find them.”

“Gene’ll be along any minute,” he
said, “you’d best go back inside.”  He opened the car door.

As I got out of my car, Jill
called from her porch, “Everything all right, Liz?”

“Oh, yeah, everything’s just
fine,” I said.  If total confusion is fine.  If not knowing where your family
is is fine.  If having a rodenty little reporter really, really mad at you is
fine.

We heard the pounding and yelling
at the back door before I even got the key in the front door.  “You’re right,
Gene’s come right along,” I said.

Lofty hurried ahead of me to let
Gene in through the kitchen door.

As soon as the door opened, Gene
said, “I told you not to leave.”

“I have to find them,” I
whispered, my lips trembling.

His arms wrapped tightly around
me.  “They’re okay, Liz, we found them.”

I clutched him and craned my head
back to see his face.  “You’ve got them?”

“They’ll be here any minute.  I
wanted to be the one to tell you—”

I pulled away, feeling my face
getting hot.  “Do you know how worried I’ve been?  Did you ever hear of the
phone?”

“This isn’t something you’d want
to hear over the phone,” he said, his voice deep and gentle.  “I know you’re
mad because you don’t like being scared, but listen to me now, Liz.  You
listening?”

“What’s happened?” I whispered.

“Cousin Claire’s all right, but
she’s in the hospital.”

“Meg?” I gasped.

“Meg’s fine.  So’s Kirk,” he said,
opening and shutting cupboards.  “Where’s that damn brandy?”

“We drank it all the other night.”

“Lofty, go get some brandy,” he
barked at the hovering policeman.

“What’s wrong with Mother?” I
asked, leaning against the counter.

“Her heart was bothering her.”

Guilt washed over me.

He hurried on, “She’s going to be
all right.  They’re just keeping her for observation.”

“When’s Meg going to come home? 
Why didn’t she leave me a note?”  My voice was rising, “We always leave notes
so no one will worry.  How could she—”

“Liz,” he said, then louder,
“Liz!”  His fingers gently raised my chin so I had to look at him.  “Now listen
to me.”

I raised a hand to push his arm
away, but he shook his head.  His blue eyes searched mine.  “A long time ago in
Scotland, all this temper and stubbornness kept our ancestors alive, but
nowadays, it’s just a pain in the ass to everyone, especially the ones who live
with us.”

Gently, he pushed my hair back
from my forehead.  “When you’re uncertain or scared, that old temper comes
roaring out of its cave and starts whacking at anything in its path.  Tonight
you need to lock it up.  Meg’s really shook.  She needs your soft side, Liz.”

He grinned at me the way he used
to when we were kids on the same team plotting strategy, “You do have one,
don’t you?”

I couldn’t help smiling back.  “I think
there’s one around here somewhere.”

Footsteps crossed the front porch.

“Thanks, Gene,” I said, pushing
past him.

“Yeah.”

I turned back, stood on my tiptoes
and aimed a kiss for his cheek.  He was so much taller, it landed on his neck. 
Oh, well.

I hurried down the hall to meet
Meg and Kirk.