Santa Clawed (18 page)

Driving down the mountain, Rick immediately sent out a call to pick up Brother Morris and his cohorts. Clever though the opera singer might be, hiding that bulk could prove very difficult.

“Think we’ll get him?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know when.” Rick noticed how the water running over the rocks on the mountainside had turned to blue ice. “I hope we can get him to tell us exactly who they blackmailed. And mind you, Coop, this doesn’t solve the murders.”

Rick then called to have Bill Keelo and Alex Corbett picked up for questioning.

“They might be with Racquel,” Cooper suggested.

“We’ll swing by, then.”

P
eople continued to come and go at the Deedses’, food being devoured with each successive wave of visitors. Racquel seemed more level, less prone to outbursts, at least so far. People understood that a sudden death unnerves those close to the deceased. Everyone made allowances for her.

Rick instructed the officers he called in to form a barrier on both ends of the street. He also sent some on foot to the back of the house, in case Bill or Alex made a run for it.

He parked the squad car alongside another car immediately in front of the house. Cooper couldn’t get through on the Deedses’ phone or Harry’s cell, but she was right in thinking Bill and Alex were both there.

“Let’s see if we can’t do this calmly.”

Coop, seeing Harry’s truck as well as those of their friends, truly hoped this would be the case.

They knocked on the door, and Jean Keelo opened it. Initially, she wasn’t surprised to see them, assuming they’d come to pay their respects.

This changed when Rick whispered, “Do you think you can get your husband and Alex Corbett to the front door without arousing suspicion?”

Too late, for Biddy Doswell, not one to turn from any heightened emotion, squealed as she caught sight of Rick in the front hall. “Sheriff Shaw, how good of you to come.”

Harry, in the kitchen with Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, heard Biddy bray.

“Bother.” Harry sighed.

Cooper saw Bill in the dining room when she made her way through the people. She whispered to him, “Come with me.”

“Why?” A belligerent note crept in his voice.

“It’s better if you do. I’m sure you can give us the information we need. If you resist, I will arrest you. How will that look?”

Bill blanched. “I have a right to know what this is about.”

“The murders.”

“I have nothing to do with that.” He was really belligerent now.

“Well, you were sleeping with Christopher Hewitt and maybe Brother Speed, too.”

His face crumpled. He whispered, “I’ll go.”

“Do you know where Alex is?”

“With Racquel.”

He followed Cooper to the foyer, where she opened the door. Bill was surprised to see an officer standing outside.

“Take him in.” Cooper stepped back inside.

Racquel, ears perked up, cast her eyes upward as the two officers came into the room. She assumed, like everyone else, they were paying a social call.

Harry had left the kitchen, joining everyone in the living room. She observed Cooper’s face and realized this was not a social call.

Cooper walked over to Alex, who was standing behind Racquel. As she whispered to him, his face registered fear.

“Something’s up,”
Mrs. Murphy said, and her two friends felt it, too.

Rick leaned down. “Mrs. Deeds, could we have a moment of your time?”

“Now?” Her face registered suspicion while she tried to look a proper widow.

“We have some urgent questions. I’m very sorry, but it’s critical we talk to you now in private.” Rick’s voice stayed low.

Racquel shot up, pushing him away. To his extreme embarrassment—for he had never considered the possibility—she snatched his revolver right out of the holster and grabbed Harry, who had come up to stand next to her.

Putting the gun to Harry’s head with her right hand while wrapping her left arm around Harry’s throat, she said in a not-unpleasant voice, “Harry, I truly like you, but you’re my shield. Don’t be stupid. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

Harry, speechless because Racquel’s left arm pressed hard against her throat, backed up as Racquel walked backward.

“Mrs. Deeds, don’t make the situation worse than it is. Let her go,” Rick commanded.

“No.” Racquel kept backing up, looking over her shoulder. She shouted to her visitors, “Don’t try anything. All I want is to get out of here and get away. Keep your distance and no one will get hurt.” She looked at her two sons. “Boys, I can explain this later. Stay where you are. I don’t want you in the middle of this.”

They didn’t even twitch.

“We could rush her,”
Pewter suggested.

“Need a better spot with less people.”
Mrs. Murphy assessed the situation.

“I can get behind her and trip her,”
Tucker offered.
“Then you two can rip her face off while I turn her legs into hamburger.”

“Our best chance is the back door, when she has to reach back for it. If she turns around, then Harry will be in front of her. That won’t work for Racquel. She’ll have to open the door while still facing the people,”
Mrs. Murphy said.

Without further coordination, the three animals silently hurried to the back door.

As Racquel continued to carefully back up, she said in a normal conversational voice to Harry, “I don’t know how you accepted Fair as you did. In some ways I admire you for it. In other ways, I think you’re a fool. Once a player, always a player. But let me tell you, so at least one person knows why I did what I did: Bryson was despicable. Completely despicable.”

They reached the back door and, before getting her hand on the knob, Racquel slightly loosened her grip on Harry’s throat.

Hoping to distract her, to slow her down, Harry rasped, “You killed them, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Although I may have made a mistake with Christopher. Too late now.” Her voice was almost cheerful. Her heel struck Tucker, who was lying down. The corgi stood up and bit her calf.

As Racquel started to tumble backward, Mrs. Murphy leapt up toward her face, delivering a slashing blow, while Pewter sank two serious fangs into the flesh between Racquel’s thumb and forefinger.

Racquel still held the gun in her hand, which was pulled downward. She pressed the trigger without taking aim, shooting a hole in the floor.

Harry wrenched free. The cats now attacked Racquel’s face, and Tucker, with greater jaws and more pressure per square inch, clamped onto her gun hand, biting so hard she severed a tendon and ripped through other muscles. Her grip shredded, Racquel dropped the gun. The mighty little corgi grabbed it in triumph and gave it to Harry. Harry quickly turned it on Racquel, who was still trying to swat away the cats.

“Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, let her go,” Harry commanded.

“Oh, pooh,”
Pewter fussed, for her bloodlust was up.

Mrs. Murphy ripped out her claws. Pewter, knowing she had to as well, did, but not without the satisfaction of noticing some tiny bits of flesh dangling from them.

Rick and Cooper, who had followed from a distance so as not to provoke Racquel to harm Harry, now rushed forward.

Rick took back his gun.

Harry, wisely, said nothing.

Cooper had Racquel on her feet. The woman’s well-tended face was bleeding all over her and the floor, and her right hand shook with pain.

“Folks, after Sheriff Shaw puts Racquel in the squad car, best you all return home or to your hotels.” Miranda, now out of the kitchen, took charge.

Coop called out to Harry, “Go home. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Harry knelt down to thank her animal friends, then stood up to follow Cooper’s orders.

Jean seconded Alicia’s request. “People, none of us knows what’s going on. Please go. I’ll call you if I know anything.” She turned to Alicia. “I’ll stay with the boys until their grandparents get here. They said they’d be coming by at about five.”

Once out the door, Pewter puffed up.
“She didn’t have a chance.”

“Yes, Rocky.”
Mrs. Murphy smiled.

H
urrying home after his wife called and thankful that no equine emergencies had sprung up, Fair blew through the door. “Honey! Honey, where are you?”

“In the living room.”

He walked in to find Harry stretched out on the couch, two cats on her chest and one corgi on her feet. “Don’t get up. Tell me everything.”

“I will. Could you bring me something to drink? I’m a little shaky. I don’t have a scratch on me except for my head, but that doesn’t count.”

“I’ll bring you some hot tea with lemon and a tiny touch of something special.”

Harry rarely drank, but Fair thought a dollop of good whiskey wouldn’t be amiss. As he heated the water, Coop drove up.

Once in the house, Cooper closed the door and leaned against it.

“Harry, bless you.”

“Drink?” Fair was anxious to know what had happened.

“Beer. I want a big, fat, cold beer.”

He opened the refrigerator and handed her a St. Pauli Girl, her favorite.

Within minutes all were seated in the living room, Harry upright now, her feet on the coffee table.

Cooper first told them about visiting the monastery and the forlorn abandoned brothers who’d been locked into their rooms, except for Brother Luther, who’d been knocked out. “As it happens, the North Carolina state police picked up the perps as they headed for the coast. Brother Morris wanted the others to disperse, but no one trusted him to give them the money once they were safe. A falling-out among thieves.” She half-smiled, then took a sip. “And Brother Luther and Brother Howard were right: Brother Morris had a separate account; he was definitely blackmailing men. But he’s not a killer.”

“Good Lord,” Fair exclaimed.

“Where does Racquel come in?” Harry burst with curiosity.

“Bryson had had affairs at the hospital. The ones she initially pounced on over the years were with women. But as time went on, he couldn’t submerge his true nature. She sensed it. Over the last year and a half, his constant visits to the monastery for ‘medical reasons’ sent her red flags up. She started snooping. He really did think he was smarter than anyone else, didn’t take too many precautions. He assumed no one would dream he had fallen in love with Speed. Racquel found condoms, the occasional cryptic note in what seemed to be a man’s handwriting. Bryson made two fatal mistakes: he underestimated his wife, and he fell in love with Speed. At least that’s what Racquel says.

“Racquel initially thought he was in love with Christopher.” Cooper took a breath. “She was so humiliated that her husband was sleeping with a man that she lost it. She confronted him. He denied it.”

“Did she overpower them in some fashion?” Fair asked.

“No. Racquel is very attractive. She offered herself to them. Remember, both men like women, or liked them. All she had to do was slip behind them and slit their throats before they knew what hit them. Neither man dreamed he was in danger.”

“Didn’t their murders upset Bryson? If he was in love with Speed he would be devastated,” Fair said.

“He tried to hide it, but he was. His suppressed grief made her even angrier,” Cooper said.

“And Bryson didn’t suspect his wife?” Harry wondered how Bryson could be so obtuse.

“He was getting nervous, but he didn’t think Racquel was the killer. He thought he had her under his thumb. Apart from his inborn arrogance, he had a touch of smugness about women. He thought men were superior, or so Racquel says. He didn’t treat her badly, but she felt tremendous humiliation, and her desire for revenge overcame even her maternal affection for the boys. She never thought she’d be caught, though. She was so blinded by rage she didn’t think about being separated from her sons.”

“Those poor kids. Their mother killed their father. They love both parents.” Harry felt terrible for the boys. “Do you think Racquel would have killed me?” she asked Cooper.

“Probably. I don’t think she wanted to, but if it came down to your life versus her freedom, she would have shot you.”

“Lucky I have fast friends.” Harry dangled her arms over each kitty, now in her lap, and Tucker on the floor.

“No one messes with us,”
Pewter bragged.

“Here’s something: Brother Morris won’t confess to blackmail. Big surprise. He only says people gave as their hearts moved them.”

“That’s not what was moving,” Fair said laconically.

The two women laughed.

Harry then inquired, “He’s not saying where the money is, is he?”

“Hell, no. He’ll hire a great lawyer, serve his time, and come out to unearth the money. Here’s something else: he admitted that Bryson was generous and that Bill Keelo made a sizable Christmas donation.”

“Bill is currently in jail, since he was uncooperative.” Cooper liked the idea of the lawyer cooling his heels. “Alex swears he’s not involved, but he fits the description of the man who accompanied Racquel to the coin store.” She paused.

“He’s in love with her, of course.”

“Bill Keelo.” Harry was surprised.

“Hoping to draw attention from himself, all that homophobic rant.” Cooper smiled ruefully. “People can be pretty nasty. When they can’t face who and what they are, it’s a real cluster you-know-what.”

“Yep.” Harry liked the tang in her tea.

“I’m willing to bet that Racquel’s lawyer will use in her defense that she was frightened that Bryson would commit incest with their sons.” Cooper knew how legal things worked.

“Gross.” Harry wrinkled her nose.

“And it will be very effective.” Fair, too, had seen enough legal arguments to know some slick lawyer could get Sherman’s March to the Sea reduced to trespassing.

“So Bryson never went out for milk?”

“He did. But he thought he was going for an assignation at Barracks Road. Racquel had sent him a text message, name withheld, to meet for sex. The man was a fool for sex. She howled with laughter when she described walking up to the Tahoe. She’d parked behind the buildings, then walked out into the parking lot. She said if she sits in jail forever, she’ll cherish that moment when he realized the game was up and he wasn’t half as smart as he thought he was. She had a gun on him and marched him to the fountain. Then she put the gun to his temple, told him to hold still, and slit his throat. He didn’t expect that, either. She’s totally unrepentant.”

“And the boys will never admit their mother left the house on Christmas Eve. I expect they knew she’d left the house,” Harry said.

“Probably. What a burden they’ll carry.”

“What’s the significance of the obol?” Fair inquired.

“To throw us off. She won’t tell us who accompanied her when she stole them. She laughed again when we brought that up. She said they’ll all go to hell and she paid the fare. She’s gleeful.”

Suddenly Pewter shot off Harry’s lap, raced for the tree, and climbed to the top, where she batted the gold star.
“I’m the top of the top.”

“Demented.”
Tucker sighed.

“I saved the day! Me. Me. Me.”

“There’s no living with her.”
Tucker sighed.

“Can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
Mrs. Murphy leapt off the sofa and climbed the tree, hanging on the trunk across from Pewter.

The Christmas tree swung to and fro, the balls tinkling when they touched one another.

Harry got up and reached into the tree to steady it by grasping the trunk. Her reward was to be pricked by the sharp needles.

The cats hollered,
“We’re the tops, we’re the cat’s pajamas.”

It was just as well that Cole Porter had gone to his reward and that Harry had no idea what those two were shouting about.