Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly (23 page)

By the time I evaded Gene by
riding with Charlie in the tiny elevator that went down to the basement and
joined the chattering crowd, I was completely at peace.

The choir director urged Charlie
to attend rehearsals on Wednesday.  He looked so happy, and I was glad I’d
allowed my feelings to guide me to invite him to church.  “You’re going to be
terrific,” I said, and left him talking with one of the tenors.  I walked to
the refreshment table, where friends of Mother’s invited me to brunch.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” I spoke
loudly, “after I run an errand, I have to stay by the phone.”  I turned away,
nearly bumping into Alisz.

I thanked her for coming and
walked up the stairs with her.  We met Meg, Bunny, and Jared coming down.

“You bring your dog into church?”
Alisz demanded.

Meg looked down at Bunny.  “I
didn’t mean to,” she said.  She didn’t look at me while Jared told us they’d
decided to go climbing.  I was about to nix that idea when I remembered that Gene
had said Jared was in the clear.

“We’ll be back in time for dinner
with the Vico’s,” Jared said to his mother.

“All right.  Be careful.”  She was
meeting some business associates for brunch at the Quay and hurried up the
steps.

“Are you through socializing?” Meg
asked stiffly.

“Yes,” I replied as neutrally as
possible.

We were halfway home before Meg
stopped and faced me.  “Aunt Liz, I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate
everything you’ve done for me.”

A host of remarks fluttered
through my mind, but I held my tongue.

She glanced down at the sidewalk,
then at me.  “Actually, I’ve been thinking about school.  I don’t like falling
behind.”

“So you’ll go back to—”

“No.  I don’t want to be where I
might see Benjamin, at least not now.”

Jared shifted restlessly.

Meg continued, “But I could pick
up some credits at WSU.”

“Or you could go to school with
me—” Jared began.

Meg shook her head impatiently. 
“I just want to explore for awhile.”  Her big brown eyes gazed straight into
mine, “Would that be okay?”

“I think it’s a great idea.”

“Yeah?”  Meg’s eyes lit up.  She
picked up Bunny and whirled around so fast his ears flew out behind him.

“But, Meg,” I said, “this doesn’t
change my mind about the other—”

“I know, I know, we can talk about
that later.”

Jared looked from Meg to me and
back as though he wanted to ask questions, but he settled for, “Can we get
going?”

I glanced up at the grey clouds
blowing over.  “Doesn’t look like such good weather for climbing,” I said.

“It should hold off awhile,” he
said.  “If it doesn’t, we’ll go up to Stevenson and see the new exhibit at the Interpretive Center.”

“You’ve never been interested in
museums,” Meg said.

“Well, now I am.”

Meg said, “If a certain aunt were
in a magnanimous mood, we could even have lunch at Skamania Lodge.”

Glad to have Meg safely out of the
way, I made a donation to the lunch fund and made them promise they’d call me
before they started back.

After they’d gone, I called the
hospital and was lucky enough to catch Mother’s doctor at her bedside.  Dr. Cox
had known me all my life, so he didn’t take me for a raving lunatic when I explained
what had been happening and insisted he get Mother a private nurse until he
could arrange for a transfer to a convalescent hospital.

“Okay!” I said, banging down the
phone.  Now all I had to do was make sure Gene didn’t interfere.  After I
changed into jeans and an ancient sweatshirt, I got his gun from the bedside
table.

He wanted it back, but I wasn’t
going to give it to him.  Much as I hated guns, I needed one now.  I shoved it
into the waistband of my jeans, shivering as the smooth, cool barrel slid
against my skin.  I looked in the mirror.  It showed if you were looking for
it, but who’d ever suspect me of carrying a gun?

I ran downstairs, grabbed the bag
that held Gene’s junk, and pulled open the door to the porch.  I stopped dead. 
What if?  What if Gene is the one?  Feeling melodramatic but sensible at the
same time, I turned back to leave a note.  I picked up a pencil and rummaged
through the tower of junk mail to find a blank envelope to write on.  The whole
pile tilted and slid onto the floor.

I plucked a blank envelope out of
the mess and threw it onto the table, then scooped up a handful of catalogues,
flyers, and ads.  My eyes focused on the glossy page of a cosmetics catalogue. 
The ad featured a new line of ultra-moist lipsticks in faux-carved ivory cases.

I closed the booklet.  Stamped on
the back were Alisz’ address and phone number.  “Call me with your order” had
been penned in underneath.

“My God, my God, my God, what have
I done?” I whispered, the slick pages vibrating to my heartbeat.

I’d sent Meg off with Jared. 
Jared who would have had such easy access to his mother’s wares.  Jared, who
like Meg, considered Annamaria’s house his second home—how easy to filch a
string of sequins from the costume she made for Meg.

I’d believed Gene’s assessment
that Jared was safe.  How could I have ignored Jared’s impatience to get Meg
away?  Rock climbing in the rain?  An eagerness to see a museum Meg said he
wasn’t interested in?  Why hadn’t I paid better attention?

I ran to the phone and punched out
9-1-1.  A woman’s voice said, “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

I hung up.  If I said I’d sent my
niece off with the murderer and the reason I knew his rage was directed at me
was because he was obsessed with Meg and I hadn’t let them get married—they’d
think I was crazy.  I’d waste time trying to convince them.

Meg was out on a sheer rock face
with Jared—but there was no time to lose in explaining to strangers.

I punched out Alisz’s number. 
She’d always had a lot of influence over him.  Weren’t sociopaths the products
of overbearing mothers?  Just the answering machine at her house.  I remembered
Alisz saying she was going to brunch.  But wait—the same evidence could mean
Alisz was the killer.  No.  I’d known her all my life.  But—

I stamped my foot in frustration. 
Meg.  I had to get to Meg.  “Oh, God.”  It came out a sob.  What could I do?  I
needed Gene.  He could get people moving, get the Sheriff’s department covering
the roads looking for Jared’s truck.

As I ran out of the house, the
phone rang.  The only person who could help me was Gene, anyone else was a
waste of time.  I kept on going and jumped in my car.  The gun gouged me.  I drew
it out and set it on the seat beside me.  The tires screeched as I sped out of
the driveway.  I tore down Main Street, Sunday noon quiet, ran the red light by
the library.  Two Warfield cop cars roared the other way, but Gene wasn’t in
them.

I skidded to a stop in front of
the police/fire complex, bouncing off the curb.  As I jumped out of the car,
Gene’s gun caught my eye.  Great—all I needed was some eagle-eyed cop to
notice it.  I bent over, stuffed it into my purse, and threw it onto the floor
of the car.

I ran to the door.  Locked.  A
small sign I’d never noticed before said the complex was closed on Sundays and
gave a number to call for emergencies.  I pounded on the door with both fists. 
I was just turning away when a fireman in a dark blue t-shirt opened the door.

“Help you?” he asked.

“Gene Cudworthy.  Is he here?”

“None of ‘em are, they just
responded to a call.”

“Was Gene with them?”

“Nope.  Haven’t seen him.  Want to
leave a message?”

My fists clenched in
exasperation.  There was no time to explain.  I turned and ran.

I slammed the car door, cursing
myself.  Gene must have gone straight to the old scout hut near the lake to
wait for me to return his things.

I headed north, flashing past
trees, houses, stop signs and Sunday drivers.

I slowed as I neared the lake. 
It’d been years since I’d visited the scout hut.  I took a wrong turn and ended
up in someone’s building site, got back on the road.

I almost missed the overgrown
driveway, but at the last second realized the two piles of stones were the
remains of the gateposts.  I hit a deep pothole and sucked in my breath.  The
last thing I needed was a broken axle.

I crept along the rutted driveway,
berries and branches scraping the car.  I could hardly see through the
windshield and rubbed at my eyes before I realized it was rain coating the
window.  I flipped on the wipers.

I didn’t remember the road to the
hut being so long.  Just as I was about to give up and start backing toward the
highway, I spotted Gene’s old green truck.  What used to be a large clearing in
front of the hut was now mostly overgrown by blackberry vines, young alders,
and ferns.

Except for its boarded windows and
the overgrowth outside, the scout hut looked much as it always had; a
well-built log cabin with a steep roof and a deep covered porch with stone
steps leading up to it.

I blew my car’s horn, rolled down
the window and yelled, “Gene!”  He didn’t appear.  I pressed the horn again,
and it blared through the woods.  “Damn you,” I said.  He was mad at me so he
was going to make me come to him.

“Gene!” I yelled again.  The door
of the hut remained closed.  Was there anyone more stubborn than Gene
Cudworthy?

I ran through the rain, up the
stone steps and across the yielding, slippery floor of the porch to the door. 
I turned the knob.  The door opened, and cold, musty air washed over me as I
poked my head inside.  The cabin, with its boarded-up windows, was nearly
dark.  I felt for the light switch.  Even as I flicked it up, I realized that
the electricity had been cut off long ago.

“Gene?” I called again, but softly
this time, the hair prickling on the back of my neck.  Too impatient to wait
for my eyes to adjust, I took a cautious step forward, avoiding an old kitchen
chair which lay on its back right inside the door.  “Gene, I need your help,” I
said.

He was getting his own back by
playing a sadistic game of hide-and-seek.

“Gene, please, I need you.”

I stopped.  The gloomy room
appeared empty except for the relics left by the scouts.  I made out the hunched
shape of a couch against the side wall and the outline of the fieldstone
fireplace opposite the door.  In the middle of the floor lay a rucked-up rug or
sleeping bag, and beside it a small, discarded log.

I stopped, hugging myself in the
mouse-scented air.

Was he off in the woods
exploring?  Surely he’d have heard my car’s horn?  I couldn’t afford to play
his games, I had to get help.  I’d drive back to the first house along the
highway and use the phone to call 9-1-1.  Then I’d go out to Stevenson myself.

But in the moments I’d stood there
thinking, my eyes had studied the shape lying in the middle of the floor, and
my hands had begun to tremble as I realized it was neither an abandoned rug nor
a sleeping bag.  I wanted to run from the nightmare of finding yet another
body.

I forced myself forward in baby
steps and knelt beside those broad shoulders.  “Gene?”  I touched his neck
where it wasn’t bloody.  His skin was cool and damp.  “Oh, dear God.”  My hand
came to rest on his back as I squeezed my eyes tightly to hold back tears.

My knees hurt.

He’d used bad language in church. 
Please forgive him.

He’d been so mad at me!

Now I’d never have a chance to
say—

I heard a scrape on the steps at
the same moment I realized I was feeling a slight up-and-down movement under my
hand.

As my rescuer crossed the porch, I
felt the vibration through my knees.  I turned, trying to force words past my
constricted throat.

A dark silhouette appeared,
blocking the dim light that filtered in through the open doorway.  I cleared my
throat, but the person at the door spoke first, whispering, “How does it feel?”

Standing between me and the light,
the killer’s bow-legged form made the cabin even darker.  All the better to
hide any clues that Gene was still alive.

I started to rise, but she said,
“No.  Stay there.  I like you there.”

“How could you do it, Alisz?”  My
voice sounded flat and loud.  “Why?”

“Even now you don’t understand?”

“No.  How could I?”

“Always so interested in
yourself,” she said, shaking her head, “you never see.”

“What am I supposed to see?”  My
tone was exasperated, and I reminded myself I must not provoke her.  If I
hadn’t made her angry this morning, this wouldn’t have happened.  “Why don’t
you tell me,” I added, thinking that if she kept talking, if I edged away from
Gene so her attention was on me, if I could somehow get past her—

She clicked her tongue and her
hand lifted from her side.  Her fingers flickered in the diffused light.

Was it my imagination, or had
Gene’s body shifted ever so slightly?  He couldn’t gain consciousness now, his
safety depended on her thinking he was dead.  At the thought, my eyes went to
the piece of wood lying nearby.  It was about two inches in diameter and over
two feet long.

“He has a hard head, Gene,” Alisz
said, “I had to hit him twice.”

“Why’d you bother with him at
all?”

“I promised I would get your loved
ones, and I will get them.  Every one.”

My heart stuttered.  “Is Jared
going to hurt—”

“No!  He would never—he has a
soft heart.  He will make a fine doctor.”  Her fingers flickered again, making
a faint, strange squeaking sound.  Surgical gloves?  “But when he and Meg
return, I will be waiting.  Not you.  You gave him so much pain when you
thought he was not good enough for your niece.”

“That wasn’t it!  They were too
young.  Surely—”

“He will never guess who has set
him free when I deal with her.  He will mourn Meg, but he will recover and go
on with his life, not stay in one rut, not—”  Her hands made fists as she
searched for the word.

“Stagnate?”

“Yes.  Stagnate as his father
did.”

“You did all this because Jared’s
in love with Meg?  Alisz, he’ll get over it—”

“Hah!” she barked, her head
thrusting forward.  “Like Hugh, that stupid, foolish man?  He never stopped wanting,
not one day in his life—”

Gene groaned.

She stiffened.  “Such a hard
head,” she said.  She bent and stretched her hand toward the small log.

I threw myself past Gene and
grabbed the wood in both hands.  My momentum sent me sliding toward the wall. 
I scrabbled to my feet, the branch clutched tightly and cocked like a bat, but
now she was closest to Gene.

I took a step toward her, saying,
“Get away from him,” but she didn’t back up.  She drew back her foot and kicked
Gene’s shoulder.  He moaned.

I rushed at her.  I swung the wood
at her head, my stomach knotting, expecting a horrible crunching noise, but the
next thing I knew, she had grabbed my arm and sent me cartwheeling through the
air till I crashed to the floor, the wood flying from my hand.

I tried to get up but I couldn’t
even breathe and I saw her leg go back.  I wriggled away, twisting, so that her
foot connected with the outside of my arm.  Oh, God, it hurt.  She pulled her
foot back again.  I rolled away.  She laughed.

I used the wall to pull myself
up.  I turned to face her.

She’d gotten the branch and was
standing over Gene, a big grin on her face.  “So, you see, all the time Hugh
left me alone I put to excellent use to learn self-defense.”

If only I hadn’t left my purse in
my car.  How could I get it before she hit Gene again?

“You certainly surprised me,” I
said.

She laughed.  “You have always
been funny, Liz.”

“Is that why you hate me?”

She frowned.  “Perhaps.  A little
bit.”  She shrugged and started to raise the wood.

“You said Hugh left you alone, but
it wasn’t because of me, Alisz, he never—”

“It did not matter who he was
with, he was always thinking of you.  From the day we married.  For twenty
years, every minute.”

“No, Alisz, we never saw each
other—”

“Last summer we came out of
Safeway.  You drove by in the parking lot.  His eyes followed you, hungry.” 
She sighed.  “I could never be you, and so he could never love me.”

“He married you, not me.”

“Because you would not.  Nothing
was ever good enough.  Oh, he didn’t say it, did not say he would not love
Jared because he wasn’t your son instead of mine, did not say he hated our
house because it was ours not yours, but he was always restless, wanting to be
somewhere else, relieved when a patient called and he could go.”  Her jaw
clenched.  Her head shook.  “In this day, to take patient calls himself!”

I had to get to the gun.  Clearly
I couldn’t out-fight her.  I slid the tiniest bit toward the door.

“No!”  She raised the club.  “You
think I am stupid, Liz.”

“No, I’ve never thought that.”

“Yes.  You did not laugh with the
other children, you did not call me those names, but I knew.  How sly you
were.  Always knowing the correct word.  Always the pretty clothes to
hand-me-down.  Always the best friends, the most handsome boys.  The best of
everything.”  She smiled, her lips tight over her teeth, her eyes so full of
hatred they shone.  “Not any more, Liz.  No more.  How does it feel?”

I said nothing.

She laughed softly.  “You make me
so happy to be here like this.”  She tapped the log against the toe of her
hiking boot.  “So many times I watched you walk down the sidewalk to your house
on the street that bears your name.  I saw you laugh with your friends and knew
you would go drink Coke and listen to records and do your homework together
like the girls on TV, while I went home to care for Vencel, Jozsua, and Rezi.

“I cleaned the house and dressed
my mother and sat her in a chair so Papa would not yell when he came home from
his janitor work in his brown clothes, shout of how it was before he left his
country, our country, where my mother laughed and played cards with her friends. 
And every day it hurt.

“I went to work and planned how to
escape this terrible town, but I could not leave my parents.  Then Hugh came, and
I was in love, but he wanted you.  When you threw him away and I thought, now,
now is my chance, we will marry and move away and forget all the past.  But he
would not move, he would not forget, and it was Vencel, Jozsua, and Rezi who
left and I who stayed and watched my husband watch you.”

“I’m sorry, Alisz,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry.  Do not ever be
sorry for me.  It is I who am sorry for you, for your pain when you are alone
and you look at a ruined life.”

My mind caught on her words.  How
could she expect to leave me alive to suffer my losses?  She wasn’t making any
sense.  A bubble of hysteria rose in me—I expected her to make sense?  What
could I say?  What should I do?  My hand pressed so hard against my mouth that
my lips ground against my teeth.

She raised the club.

I forced a laugh, a brittle, ugly
sound, but it stopped her.  “You’re right, I do think you’re stupid.  You
threaten to kill my loved ones and then you go after Gene.  How dumb can you
get?”

She came at me so quickly I barely
had time to whirl away, and I was so startled, I turned in the wrong direction,
away from the door.  The club crashed into the wall.  I leaped across Gene, but
the club caught my left shoulder and drove me to the floor.  I lay there,
gasping with pain, tears blurring my vision, hunched, expecting another blow,
but none came.

“You are too obvious,” she said,
“you try to make me forget my plan, but you cannot.”

I pushed myself up with my right
arm.  I steadied myself, biting my lip so I wouldn’t make a sound, pushed
myself to my knees.

“No,” she said, “stay there.”

“What’re you going to do, hit
me?”  I forced myself to my feet, staggered, caught my balance and turned to
face her.  I was a little closer to the door, but she was next to Gene.

“Alisz, what about Jared?  You
can’t get away with this.  What will become of him?”

“I am getting away with this.” 
She wriggled her gloved hands.  “No evidence.  Once you and your family are
gone and Jared has finished medical school, he will settle back here in his
father’s practice.  I will have grandchildren.  I will buy your house and live
there, and they will come visit their dear Grandmama.”

“I thought you wanted to get away
from Warfield.”

“Yes, until I realized it was you
who spoiled everything.”

I sighed.  I couldn’t help it. 
“You must realize you’re running out of time.  No matter how careful you are,
you’re bound to make a mistake.”

She frowned.

“Anybody would.  There must be an
awful lot for you to remember, little details where anyone might slip up.  So
for Jared’s sake, so he’ll never know, why don’t you just take me away and get
it over with?  Let it end there.”

She looked down at Gene.

“You don’t have to finish him
off.  He never saw you, did he?”

“I hid on the chair behind the
door.  He never suspected.  He walked in whistling.”

“So leave him.  He’s a cop.  If
you kill him, they’ll look harder—you know how they always emphasize that on
TV.”

“But you were naked with him last
night.”

“I bet Jill Ferguson told you
that, didn’t she?  You know how she exaggerates, how she tries to get
attention.  Why would you believe her?”

Her eyes narrowed.  “But he has
always been in love with you.”

“Give me a break!  The guy’s been
married three times!”

“And divorced, also.”  She looked
at me, her eyes roving up and down.  She shook her head.  “I don’t see what is
so special about you, how you can make these men want you, never be happy
without you.”  She stared at me intently.  “You will not have them, but you
will not let them go.”

I felt my face flush.  “That is
ridiculous.”

“I saw you Thursday night.  You
traced Gene’s shoulders with your eyes, you watched him walk, you wanted him.”

“I did not!”

“I don’t sit high in a castle and
ignore the world,” she said.  “I am not like you.  I pay attention.  I listen, I
look, I plan.  I’m like a general, Annamaria always says—”  Alisz stopped,
drew in breath, her cheeks growing round with air before she allowed it to
escape through her teeth with a hiss.  “Ah, Annamaria.  Of all the things you
have done to me, that was the worst.”

I shook my head.  “What are you
talking about?”

“If not for you, she would not be
dead.”

“Don’t tell me you killed her
too?  Your best friend?  How could you?”

“It wasn’t me,” Alisz shrieked. 
“It was you.”  She rubbed her free hand across the back of the one that gripped
the club.  “She was only supposed to have a stomachache, just enough to keep
her home one night so you would see your niece taken away for murdering your
lover.”

“You poisoned her?”

“No!  The chicken—I left the
package out in the sun, then cooked it spicy.  She had not told me about her
heart.”  Tears glittered in her eyes.  “And then at her house I saw you and
Fran laughing.  You laughed!”

“We didn’t mean any disrespect,” I
said, then wondered why, under the circumstances, I was apologizing.  Mother’s
training paying off, I suppose.

“See, you smile now!  You are
heartless,” Alisz said.

“Heartless!  You think I’m
heartless?”  A little voice of caution said I’d better be quiet, better
concentrate on a way out of here, but the words poured out.  “You hit Andre so
hard his brains came out of his head!  You killed him only because he was part
of your plan.  And what about this so-called plan?  It didn’t work, did it?”

“It was a good plan, but the
police were stupid.  How could the sequins be under his body if not from a
struggle with Meg?  What about her lipstick?  How could they let Meg go?”  She
made a dismissive gesture with her hand.  “But it was for the best.  I realized
to make you suffer they all must die one by one.”

“Did you poison Fran?”

“Of course.  Remember what you
said to me?  That you could only imagine how bad I must feel that my best
friend is dead?  I had to bite my lip, knowing you would find out soon.  That
Fran.  Always searching for cosmetics to make her beautiful, to stop aging. 
And so I filled capsules with penicillin and put in the mint to cover the odor
and put them in little bottles, one red and one green, and gave her such
specific instructions.  I told her to take them at bedtime, unhook the phone,
make sure she could not be disturbed or they would not work.  I called it—”

“Beauty sleep,” I whispered.

She smiled.  “Yes, and she was so
happy to pay for them.  She hugged me and laughed—”

I screamed and sprang at her, arms
outstretched, fingers clawing for her face.  I flew across the soundless room
in slow motion, seeing her club come up, not feeling scared, only caring that I
get my hands on her flesh.  Then her mouth stretched in astonishment, and her
arms flailed for balance.  As I crashed into her falling body, Gene’s voice
yelled, “Run, Liz.”

I leaped to my feet, turning,
seeing Gene grabbing Alisz, rolling onto her like a sea lion.  She screamed and
struggled, her fingers hooking the club that she’d dropped.  I lunged for it
too, but Gene’s weak voice said, “Godammit, Liz, run.”

Sobbing, I ran for the door, my
ears straining for the sound of the log connecting with Gene’s head.  I
splashed through the puddles to my car, wrenched open the door and dove in,
grabbing my purse, running back, hearing Alisz shrieking.  I struggled with the
purse’s zipper, skidded on the slick boards of the porch, caromed off the door
frame, and suddenly stood inside the room again, gun outstretched in shaking
hands, in the dim light seeing a figure once more on her feet raising a club.