Rehearsal for Murder (Maggie Ryan) (27 page)

“I’ve been leaving the ransom,” he said, desperately attempting to cover up. Damn, now he’d have to call back in a minute, in his high-pitched voice, to tell her where Muffin was.

But Elaine was bubbling, unaccountably delighted. “I know you have! Steve, she’s back! We just walked in the door!”

“What?”

“She’s fine! She’s not hurt. Keeps hugging my skirt, but I keep hugging her too.”

“Muffin’s back?”

“Yes! Listen, maybe this is a clue. I haven’t had a chance to call the police yet. The man who called had an English accent. Called himself Merrypebble or something. Said he had the money and told me where to find her.”

“Where to find her?”

“Oh, honey, you can’t believe it, can you? Here, Muffin, say hi to Daddy.”

And the unmistakable voice piped, “Dad-dee!”

“Hi, Muffin.” Steve had never felt so numb.

Muffin home.

That meant the police would not wait, they’d follow Maggie immediately, even arrest her, as soon as they heard the news. He had to get the money. Now. Instantly. Before Lugano heard. He replaced the receiver and sprinted to the door of the bar, ready to go for the bear as soon as Maggie started for the cafe.

But Maggie had gone berserk. Not only was she wearing that wig, but she was taking the wrong pajama bag! Horrified, Steve saw her wave the one-eyed bear at the vendor and smile radiantly at his nod.

And then she didn’t head across the street to the cafe! Instead she glanced back at the woman who had come with her, her smile suddenly fading. Steve looked too. The droopy woman had pulled something from her head, the little lacy cap, and now was looking around distractedly, slapping at her own hips as though looking for a bag. She had no bag, he realized. She wheeled away suddenly and raced back the way she had come, with amazing speed for someone who had so recently seemed half asleep.

And Maggie, damn her, darted after her, around the corner toward the cast-iron buildings!

Steve leaped from his shelter in a black fury. He didn’t know what she was doing or why. But of one thing he was certain: she was winging away with his new life tucked under her arm. The life he had sacrificed wife, child, and reputation to gain. What would jaguars do for such high stakes? whispered Santos.

Steve charged.

Nick lunged for the door, ready to run out to find the police, to warn Maggie, to gallop to the rescue, when he heard the downstairs door bang and a clatter of footsteps on the stairs. He braked and peeked out. Jaymie was rounding the corner of the landing. Clutching Sarah against him, he dove back to take cover behind the piano.

Ramona’s little derringer was in Jaymie’s hand.

Crouching behind the sturdy upright, Jaymie’s tote bag in one hand, Sarah’s supplies and his own gym bag slung over his other arm, Nick huddled protectively over his daughter. Maybe Jaymie was merely looking for Daphne again. Maybe she’d leave as soon as she saw the loft was empty. He heard her pause at the door, then stride straight to the window. A terrible question knifed through him: Where was Maggie? But he pushed it away. He had to watch Jaymie. From low in the shadows behind the piano he could see her squinting along the wall. “Damn,” she muttered, and turned to survey the loft. Frowning, she approached the costume box.

Looking for her tote bag, Nick knew.

The bag with the ski mask in it.

The bag he was holding.

Better rearrange things, get some distance. He eased the bag onto the floor at one end of the piano, then crept silently all the way to the other end. Jaymie stirred around in the costume box for a second, her dark hair swinging about her lowered face.

Nick looked longingly at the door. Too far. The window was closer, but still not near enough to escape without—

Sarah sneezed.

Jaymie whirled into an Annie Oakley stance, the little gun ready, her eyes sliding wildly around the big room. “Who’s there?” she shrieked.

A clammy sweat soaked Nick’s shirt. Come on, old man, get on stage. He swallowed, hummed a bar of Lehzen’s lullaby, broke off, and said, “Hmm?”

“Who’s there? Nick?” Her voice was strained. She was racked on her interior agonies, nerves stretched to snapping.

“Yeah. Just me changing Sarah,” said Nick soothingly. He pushed his gym bag onto the top of the piano, and when she didn’t shoot, straightened just enough to look over it at Jaymie. “How was your walk?”

“Nick.” Disappointment in her voice, and suspicion. The gun still trembled in her clenched hand. Her knuckles were white. “Why are you behind the piano?”

“That’s where the diaper bag was.” Smoothly he pulled his head down again, desperately hoping his improvisation would work.

“Bag,” repeated Jaymie. He wished he could see her. “Where’s my bag?”

“I don’t know. Where did you leave it?”

“You’ve got it!” There was that hysteric note in her voice again.

Nick said hastily, “Maybe it’s under the piano. Here, I’ll move it over a little so you can look.” He grabbed the upright posts of the rear frame, and trying not to bump Sarah in the carrier across his chest, he heaved the massive instrument nearer the window, angling it for better protection. He heard Jaymie scurry for the tote bag and sneaked a glance back to see if she was distracted enough for him to slip out the window. He had to find out what had happened to Maggie.

But she was not looking at the bag; she had clutched it under her left arm and now said accusingly, “You looked at it!”

“No, no,” soothed Nick mendaciously. “Maybe I pushed it over by mistake when I got Sarah’s diaper, that’s all.”

Alone, he might have risked a dive across the sill and onto the flat roof a couple of feet below the window. But with Sarah he couldn’t. He’d have to go through, trunk upright. Sit on the sill, then lift his feet over and out, before he could crouch below the sill and scramble out of danger. They couldn’t afford to be targets that long. Try to soothe her, then. He began to hum the lullaby. “No,” said Jaymie, hitting at her temple with the heel of one hand, “not the music. I have to think—”

“And you have to take care of your cuddly bear!” came a new, melodious voice. Maggie! Awash with relief and concern, Nick peeked around the piano and saw her coming through the door, proudly extending the ugly purple pajama bag at Jaymie.

Jaymie half-turned and stared at it, bewildered. Nick barreled over the windowsill and dropped to the relative safety of the tarred roof. Sarah cooed in delight.

He peeked back through the corner of the window. Jaymie was shaking her head as Maggie approached her. “No, no, I’m not Vickelchen!”

“Of course not. You’re an actor. You’re very good. Here, take your little bear!”

But Jaymie shook her head.

Maggie tossed the bear into her hands and dove behind the piano. “Vickelchen,” she said, managing somehow to keep her voice calm and soothing, “let’s sing to the bear. Okay? … Vickelchen, nap in your wee elfin cap.”

Jaymie still shook her head, but she was clutching the bear, confused. Then her eyes snapped up and she stared at the door.

Maggie continued to hum softly, but in another second Nick too heard what Jaymie had noticed.

The drum of running footsteps on the stairs.

XVII

Friday, 5:25 PM

March 9, 1973

Steve pounded up the steps, panting, furious. A ruddy fire-eater. Everyone had betrayed him. Maggie was running away with his money; Lugano had set police to watching; even little Muffin had somehow gotten herself prematurely home.

And yet there was something purifying in his rage, a sort of elation, a sense that finally he was at liberty to act, to reach, to test himself. Like Avery Busby, he was free. Angry, of course; and angriest at Maggie. She’d taken the wrong bear and run in the wrong direction. Some Samaritan! Well, Steve would get it back. Snatch the bear, dive into the subway, let Lugano pick up the pieces. Enough was enough. These obstacles only whetted his appetite. He was more keen than ever, riding the wings of his anger, precipitated into pure happy action.

There was a door at the top of the steps, cracked open. He could see the blond wig on the floor. What was she up to? He slipped his hand around the gun in his pocket and edged up to the door, cool and fearless. He that dies this year is quit for the next. Damned fine.

But when he looked in, his rage bubbled over. He could see Maggie silhouetted against the window, hugging the bear, crooning to it. Her voice cried, “Steve! Look out! There’s a gun!” She was threatening him! And in her hand, yes, a stubby gun.

José Santos didn’t have to think. In one smooth action he aimed, fired once, twice, and bounded in to rip the bear from Maggie’s collapsing body and—

It wasn’t Maggie.

A flood of cold surged numbingly through Steve. His unfeeling fingers let loose the bear and the gun, then crept as though in slow motion to his mouth, tried to stop the gagging moan. His eyes refused to unglue themselves from the young woman on the floor: trench coat, yes, but straight hair. And a shattered eye socket. Blood welled up, flowing through the dark hair and onto the dusty floor.

Real blood.

Steve staggered toward the open window but didn’t make it. The world contracted to a throbbing agony of nausea. His stomach heaved, again and again.

After a while—short or long, he couldn’t tell—he became aware of a voice, cursing. Was the woman alive? He dragged his eyes back to look again. No, she still lay crumpled on the floor, the blood still pooling about her head. But someone was kneeling over her, holding her wrist and swearing in a soft, hopeless voice. Through the tides of shock and nausea he recognized Maggie.

In a moment she laid the wrist down gently and stood up, her head still bowed toward the still form on the floor. Then she seemed to feel his eyes on her and looked up. “You shit-brained idiot,” she said dully. He saw that her face was streaked with tears.

“I didn’t mean—it just happened,” said Steve miserably. He felt naked, stripped of the armor Santos had provided.

“Yeah, sure it did.” Scorn animated her voice. “It’s not enough to kidnap your own kid, torture your own wife, steal from your own family! You’ve got to get yourself a gun too. Go rampaging through the world like your goddamn father-in-law! Was that it, Steve? You wanted to prove you had balls, like the old geezer?”

“No!” Her words stung like a splash of acid. He shook his reeling head. “It was Susan—”

“Ah. Another woman. Clean break, right? Muffin would never see you again? Well, Buzz old pal, I’ve got news for you. Even without this murder your illustrious daddy-in-law would have tracked you down like a wounded trophy animal. Anywhere in the country.”

“Not in South America!”

“South America. I see.” She looked down at the crumpled young woman again. “What a nice little script. Steve Bradford, intrepid he-man, blasts his way to adventure, wealth, and romance, slaying dragons as he goes. Or had you maybe cast her as a herd of rhinos?”

“I didn’t mean to! I didn’t know!”

She sighed. “Well, this kid had a gun too. Accidentally killed someone, just like you. The second time—oh, God, I don’t know. Once I thought I knew what justice was. This one needed help, not justice.” The fire-blue eyes locked on Steve again. “She had a hell of a lot of problems. One of them—maybe important, maybe not—was that her dad abandoned her without a backward glance. I won’t let you do that to Muffin, Steve.”

“But—” Images swirled in his head: Susan, Busby, Elaine, jaguars, Muffin, Lugano. The dead woman. He covered his face with one hand. His mind wouldn’t work.

“Listen, Steve!” Maggie was next to him, shaking his shoulder roughly. “Pay attention! I don’t give a damn what you work out with your wife. She’s adult. But don’t hurt Muffin!”

“But—”

“We don’t have time to argue. The police will be here any minute. Here’s your story: You chased her because you thought she kidnapped Muffin. She was standing there with the bear and a gun. You shot in self-defense. Got it?”

Steve’s mind was beginning to work, a little. He turned over her plan, tried for alternatives. He just wanted out. Suppose he cleaned things up, wiped the fingerprints from his gun—where was his gun? Oh, yes, across the room by the door, where he’d dropped it. He could run out again, into the subways—

But then he heard the door open, far below.

Police.

He looked wildly at Maggie. “It really was self-defense! Wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. In a way. I can tell them so if they ask me.” She had lowered her voice. “See, no one will much blame a father who tries to shoot his daughter’s kidnapper.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s right!” he whispered gratefully.

“You may even be a hero.” The blue eyes on him were ice cold, magnetic. “Muffin will admire you. Elaine will admire you. Old trigger-happy Busby will admire you. Unless, of course, they figure out that you were the kidnapper.”

A lurch of fear. “Maggie! You won’t tell!”

“I won’t if you won’t,” she agreed briskly with a glance at the door. “It’ll be better for Elaine and Muffin if they never know. Do you have your ticket to South America on you?”