Pushed to the Limit (an Emma Cassidy Mystery Book 2) (15 page)

“Oh, no. Not
again!” Emma groaned as she was woken up for the third time that night. This
time, the furtive scrabbling sounds were coming from the back door. Grabbing
her phone and skillet, she marched into the kitchen. She was sick and tired of Alvin
skulking about the house. Seriously, what was wrong with the guy?

She dialed the number for the Greenville
police station, and when the dispatcher answered, she said in a loud, carrying
voice, “Yes, I’d like to report an attempted break-in at Faye Seymour’s house.”
She gave the address, even though she was positive the police department knew
it. “Hurry, please. I think the perp is still outside the back door.”

The dispatcher told her to stay inside
until the police arrived, but Emma was weary and ornery and had lost all
patience. Why had Alvin chosen this night to freak out? Firming her grip on the
skillet, she flung open the back door.

“Alvin, why on earth—”

She stopped short. Instead of Alvin’s
familiar figure, Kenneth Bischoff loomed over her, a scowl intensifying his
dark and menacing looks.

“Out of my way.” He pushed past her,
leaving behind a whiff of whiskey and tobacco.

“Hey!” Caught off guard, Emma stumbled
back.

Bischoff ignored her as he paused to scan the
kitchen. In his navy suit, white dress shirt, and narrow leather shoes, he
didn’t look like your typical burglar. He stalked out of the kitchen and down
the hallway.

“You can’t come barging in here!” Emma
protested as she caught up with him in the living room.

Bischoff walked over to the bookcase and
ran his fingers across the book spines. Then he moved into the adjoining dining
room and scanned the sideboard, barely pausing at the bird cage. Indignation
began to pound in Emma.

“I’ve called the police, you know.”

Bischoff finally turned and looked at her,
his black eyes hard as agate, burning with a deep hatred. The heavy skillet
slipped a little in her damp hand.

“Where is it?” he snarled at her.

She tried to swallow but her mouth seemed too
dry to function. “Where is what?”

He closed in on her, and it took all her
spunk not to shrink back. “Don’t mess with me, girl. You’re staying in this
house. You know what I’m talking about.”

The whiff of alcohol and stale tobacco was
much stronger now he was only inches away and breathing down on her. Up close,
she could see that his suit was rumpled, and his eyes bloodshot. So Bischoff
had been drinking and smoking, getting more and more wound up about Faye until
his common sense had deserted him and he’d come bursting in here. His face,
ugly with drunkenness and rage, repelled her, but she refused to be cowed by
him.

Without a word she brushed past him and
went to the study. She found the printout of the photo that Faye had taken of
Bischoff and his mistress, and held it out to him. He snatched it, scowled, and
smashed it into a crumpled ball.

“I want the God damned phone!”

His scream made her jump, raising the hairs
on the back of her neck. For the first time she was genuinely afraid. Whiskey
had stripped away Bischoff’s veneer of civility. He was furious, reckless, and unpredictable.
And she was standing in his way.

“I don’t have the phone,” she said steadily
while her heart pounded in her ears. How long before the police got here? God,
how long?

“Liar!” He shoved the balled up photo into
his pocket and cracked his knuckles. “Where’s the phone? The other photos?
Don’t you mess with me, girl, or you’ll live to regret it.” He pushed a hand
inside his jacket, drawing her attention to something concealed in the inner
pocket. By the hard outline, it looked like a gun.

Nausea rolled through her, weakening her
knees. She shrank away until her back hit the edge of the desk. “Get out.” She
tried to raise her voice but it only trembled more. “You—you heard me calling
the police. They’ll be here any minute.”

Bischoff paused in his tracks and lifted
his head. A vehicle could be heard pulling up outside. He swore under his
breath and ran from the office. Emma sagged against the desk in relief. Moments
later, she heard someone rapping loudly on the front door.

“Police! Open up!”

Emma pulled herself upright and dashed to
the door.

***

Sherilee sat
opposite Emma at the kitchen table, her notebook open in front of her. “Just to
be clear,” the officer said. “You opened the back door—” using her pen she pointed
at the kitchen door which was now firmly shut “—and allowed Bischoff to come
inside.”

“I didn’t
allow
him.” Emma massaged
her aching temples. “He barged in. I couldn’t stop him.”

“Why didn’t you keep the door shut when you
had just reported a possible intruder to the dispatcher?” The disapproval in
Sherilee’s voice was too obvious to miss.

“Because...”
Because I thought it was
someone else
, she was going to say. But then she’d have to explain about Alvin
Tucker sitting on the front porch earlier, and though she was annoyed and
mystified by Alvin’s behavior, she didn’t want to get him into trouble if he
had a reasonable explanation. He had enough worry on his plate as it was.

She became aware of Sherilee eyeing her
with a jaded expression, and she groaned inwardly. Bad enough having someone
like Sherilee see her all shaken up and frightened, but worse to have her
thinking she was too stupid to live. Not that she cared about Sherilee’s
opinion—she definitely didn’t—but it irked being caught in a moment of weakness
by her nemesis. Again.

“Because I don’t like being a victim,” she
said lamely.

Sherilee heaved a sigh and returned to her
notes. “Did Bischoff say why he’d come here?”

Emma squirmed again. If she told Sherilee
about the photo, would she get into trouble for not saying anything earlier?
Maybe. Sherilee was no fan of hers; she might take any excuse to make life
difficult for her.

“No. He just said he wanted ‘the phone.’ I
didn’t know what he meant.”

Sherilee tapped her pen against the table,
not speaking.
Tap-tap-tap
. The beat quickly wore on Emma’s nerves.

“Are you involved with Kenneth Bischoff?”
Sherilee suddenly asked.

“What?” Emma’s mouth fell open. “Are you
insane?”

“Okay.” Sherilee held up a hand as Emma reddened
and threatened to burst into flames. “I had to ask, seeing as he was here in
the early hours of the morning and you’re dressed like that.” She nodded at
Emma’s skimpy shorts and T-shirt.

“I was sleeping!” Emma raked her fingers
through her mussed up hair as frustration beat inside her chest. “For crying
out loud, you honestly think I’d let a jerk like Bischoff touch me?”

“Sorry, I’m just trying to cover all bases
here.”

“You don’t look very sorry,” Emma retorted.
She jumped up and walked over to the sink to splash cold water over her face.
She took her time patting herself dry with a cloth before returning to the
table.

“Feeling better now?” Sherilee asked.

Only if the stupid questions are over
. Emma tamped down the churlish retort and decided to change the
subject.

“He had a gun.”

Sherilee’s jaw dropped. “Why didn’t you say
so before? He threatened you with a gun?”

“We-ell, he put his hand in his jacket, and
I could see he had a gun there.”

“You
saw
the gun?”

“Uh, no, I didn’t actually see it, but the
bulge in his pocket had to be a gun.”

Sherilee sighed. “Right. So Kenneth
Bischoff never pulled a gun on you, you just thought he had one.”

“I’m sure he had one,” Emma protested.

“The police have to deal with facts, not
speculation.”

“He was threatening and desperate; that’s a
fact. He could be a prime suspect for pushing Faye down the stairs.”

Instead of being bowled over by Emma’s
brilliance, Sherilee merely pressed her lips together. “Hmm, maybe,” she said,
looking unconvinced.

Emma rested her elbows on the table and
leaned forward. “Come on, it’s more than a maybe. If he’s crazy enough to break
into the house, he’s capable of anything, including pushing innocent old women
down the stairs.”

“We-ell, I’ll look into it.”

“Why are you so skeptical? Are you trying
to protect the councilman? Do you owe him a favor?”

Sherilee flushed with annoyance. “I don’t
owe anyone any favors,” she snapped.

“Then why don’t you think he’s a suspect?”

The policewoman sighed and rubbed her eyes.
“Because I managed to talk to Tom Kovacs next door about Saturday afternoon. It
was hard going, but I managed to get something out of him. He did see someone
running away from Faye’s house around about the same time as you called for an
ambulance.”

Emma sat up. “Oh yeah? Who did he see?”

“He didn’t know who it was. He could only
give me a description. Female. Five-seven or eight. Slim build. Wearing jeans.”

Sherilee was looking at her with close
attention, and a wave of indignation hit Emma. “You think
I’m
a
suspect?”

“Well, you do fit the description.”

“So would thousands of women around here.”

“Thousands? I doubt that.”

Heat climbed in Emma’s cheeks. Why did she
let Sherilee get under her skin? “Of course I was here. I found Faye and called
the ambulance. But I didn’t run away. That Tom doesn’t know what he’s talking
about.”

“Hey, I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“Really?” Emma glared at her tormentor.
“Could have fooled me. You just enjoy toying with me, then?”

A look of discomfort passed over Sherilee’s
face. She shifted in her chair and cleared her throat. “All I’m saying is that
Bischoff doesn’t match the description of an eye witness, but of course that
doesn’t mean he’s innocent. I’ll look into it; see where he was on Saturday
afternoon. And I’ll tell him to keep away from this house.”

Good luck with that
, Emma thought. Maybe Sherilee would do better, being a police
officer, but Kenneth Bischoff didn’t seem the type to be cowed by someone just
because he or she had a badge and a gun. Not when he had a gun himself—she was
convinced of the weapon, even if Sherilee didn’t believe her.

Sherilee rose to her feet and tucked the
notebook into her shirt pocket. The first pink blush of dawn was filtering
through the kitchen windows. After an eventful night of broken sleep, Emma felt
like something she’d scraped off her shoe—flat and sticky.

“I’m going to talk to Faye again,” Sherilee
said as she took her leave. “She must know something about these attempted
break-ins.”

When Sherilee had left, Emma dragged
herself back to the guest room and flopped face first onto the bed. Break-ins
or not, she was going to get a few more hours’ sleep.

***

A couple of hours
later, Emma dragged herself out of bed, pulled on clothes and slapped on makeup
with eyes half-closed, then fed Pepper while stifling some earth-shattering
yawns. Finally she was ready to go to work. As she walked to her car in the
driveway, she noticed a white pickup truck with the Greenville town logo parked
outside Tom Kovacs’ house. A bearded man dressed in neatly pressed khakis and
beige shirt holding a clipboard stood outside, surveying the jungle that was
the front yard next door.

Emma immediately recognized him. “Hi, Greg.”
She walked toward him, waving.

Greg smiled back. “Hey, Emma.” He glanced
past her at her car. “So you’re looking after Faye’s house while she’s in
hospital?”

“Yup. I guess you know Faye, then?”

Greg gave her a wry grin. “I don’t think
there’s anyone in the council who doesn’t know Faye Seymour. I’m here to follow
up on one of her numerous complaints about her neighbor. You seen much of Tom
Kovacs while you’ve been here?”

“I haven’t formally met this Tom Kovacs,
but I assume he’s the slightly wild-looking character I’ve seen around the
place. He stares a lot but doesn’t like to talk.”

“That’s him.”

“I caught him peeping at me through the
window the other day. He ran away before I could talk to him.”

“Hmm. Not very pleasant for you, but I
doubt you were in any danger. Tom’s an eccentric, but he’s harmless.”

“You know him?”

“Well, I don’t think anyone around here
knows Tom very well. I met him at the VA clinic a couple years back. I
volunteer there a few hours a week.”

“You’re ex-army, then?” She wasn’t
surprised when he nodded.

Greg continued, “Tom moved here to
Greenville seven or eight years ago when he inherited this property. He didn’t
talk much at the clinic, but then I started seeing him a few times when I was
out hiking. Once, I helped him when his dog fell into a crevice and got stuck. He
started talking a bit, and we seemed to get along. When people at work heard I
was sort of friendly with him, they began to hand the complaints about him to
me. Even though it’s not really my department, I try to see what I can do for
him. It’s not easy for a guy like Tom living in today’s world.”