The End of The Road (24 page)

The doors were still shut and locked, the curtains carefully drawn closed over locked windows.

Several questions filled my mind.

“Who are you?” I asked first.

She smiled—a nasty, self-satisfied, taunting sort of smile that I thought went rather well with her nasty little gun.

“All in good time,” she told me. “First you will sit down in that chair at the table where you two hatched your worthless plan. Do it!” she snapped when I didn’t move immediately, and gestured with the gun.

I moved slowly to a place at the table that faced her and the room and sat, setting the half cup of coffee in front of me.

“Pull the chair close to the table, put both your hands on it, and don’t even think about moving,” she told me. “I’m going to get rid of this useless item,” she said, lifting the shotgun a few inches to show me, “that your trooper so carefully reloaded.”

How could she possibly have known that?

Keeping me in sight by moving sideways, she went across to the door that opened onto the deck, and pushed aside the covering curtain. To move the dead bolt that would unlock the door, she had to move the shotgun and hold it under the other arm. After doing that, she turned her attention momentarily from me to what she was doing, allowing me those few seconds unobserved, in which I took the risk of slipping a quick hand into the pocket of my slacks and pressing the button on the cell phone that would open the connection with Trooper Nelson. By the time she turned back I once again had both hands on top of the table.

She slid the door open and tossed the shotgun out without looking after it. I heard it hit the deck hard before she closed and locked the door again, pulled the curtains, and moved back into the room.

Stretch growled again, on his feet now, not moving from the rug in front of the fireplace, but ready.

She gave him a glance.

“Make him stop that, or I will,” she told me, and pointed the handgun in his direction. “Do it!”

“Can I call him over here, please?”

“No. What you will do is get up slowly, take him into your office there, leave him inside and close the door so he can’t get out. Now! Move!”

I did what she told me, though Stretch—who’s no dummy—had already concluded by her tone in speaking to me that she was some kind of threat, and wasn’t happy at all about being shut out behind a door he had no way of opening. It deprived him of his assumed right as protector, but gave me a hint of relief that he wouldn’t be hurt or killed in whatever happened next.

I could hear him scratching at the door and whining.

“Now what?” I asked her, firmly checking again to be sure the door was tightly closed. “And who are you, by the way? I know you’re not Amy Fletcher. And why kill her?”

“What makes you think I did?”

“Pretty obvious, isn’t it? But first, who are you anyway?”

If I could keep her talking long enough, I knew Alan Nelson would show up somehow. But he wouldn’t be able to get in, would he? All the doors were locked.

“How did you get in here?” I asked before she could answer, if she intended to.

She didn’t. Instead, she once again gave me that self-satisfied smile—a crocodile smile, I thought, and out of nowhere remembered Lewis Carroll.

TWENTY-FOUR

“GO UP THE STAIRS,” SHE TOLD ME with a twitch of the gun barrel in that direction.

“Why?”

“For me to know and you to find out,” she said angrily. “Go. Just remember that I’ll be right behind you.”

Slowly I went up until I reached the landing at the top, with its hallway that led past three bedrooms and the bath, to the far end.

There I hesitated, wondering if I could turn fast enough to catch her off guard and push her back down the stairs without getting shot.

Glancing back, I saw that she was not in reach behind me, but three steps down—waiting.

“Go on to the end of the hall.”

I did and stood before the door to the attic.

“What now?”

“Open the door and go up,” she said.

As I opened it and stared ahead into the dark, narrow stairwell that led to the attic, I thought of the body found earlier in the day rolled into the carpet and cast into a corner. There were a couple more old carpets there. Perhaps . . .

My breathing changed and for the first time real fear flooded in with adrenaline. I could feel my heart beating hard and fast in my chest.

I knew—did not guess, but knew—that this woman meant to kill and leave me, as she had left the real Amy Fletcher, in my own attic.

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because I said to. Go.”

With no choice left but to die either there in the hallway or up in the attic, I chose the latter. It might at least give Trooper Nelson time to catch up with us, and maybe . . .

I went up slowly and came out in the dark at the top of the stairs.

I expected her to direct me over into that corner where she had left Amy’s body wrapped in its rug, but she didn’t. Instead, she forced me to climb the ladder that led upward to the widow’s walk, the very highest part of my house.

At the top of the ladder was a trapdoor that was weather sealed, hinged, and opened out. It had no lock, for who would need one at that three-story height, with no access from outside, only from inside after two flights of stairs and a ladder?

“Open it and climb out,” her voice demanded from halfway down the ladder behind me.

Then I knew I had a chance—slim perhaps, but still a chance.

Having lived in the house for so long that I could have found my way anywhere inside blindfolded, I did not have to feel for the flat boards placed on edge to form rungs for that particular ladder. Over the years I had climbed it often just to reach that high point and take in the magnificent view of the Kenai Mountains across the bay.

I also knew that the hinges on that trapdoor were strong and that one-handed there was no way to get easy leverage from the ladder under it, as the other hand must be used to hold a climber to the ladder.

So I lifted and threw back the trapdoor, scrambled out as quickly as I could, and, before she could reach the top of the ladder behind me, heaved the trapdoor back over the opening. Then I sat down on its unhinged edge, making it impossible to be lifted by anyone under it.

I heard her shriek of anger from below, but faintly, and soon, when she couldn’t lift it, she was pounding on the underside of the obstruction she had not anticipated that I had placed in her way.

Then, for maybe a minute, there was silence before I heard the sound of a shot as a bullet punched its way through the top of the trapdoor.

How it missed me I have no idea, but it did. I didn’t, however, make the mistake of retaining my seat there like an idiot to await the second one, which punched another hole near the first. Instead I moved to stand on the hinged side of the trapdoor, so I could push it down if she attempted to move it and climb out, also so that I had what little protection was available and could remain mostly unseen, especially in the dark.

She did not try again for the next few minutes, long enough to make me wonder what she would try next, for I did not believe she would give up so easily. So I waited, silent and unmoving, for I thought that if she listened carefully she might be able to hear where I was by my footsteps and aim another shot through the roof in that direction.

The night was still and motionless. Everything seemed to hold its breath, waiting.

Then, with a screech of tires, a police car swung into my drive from East End Road. From where I was I could see two policemen get hurriedly out and come trotting up the drive to vanish from my sight before they reached my door. Then I could hear them pounding on it and calling my name and Trooper Nelson’s.

His car was not in the drive, but he must be around somewhere if they were shouting for him, I thought, wondering if he had heard my assailant’s voice as well as my own on his cell phone. I hoped so, for then he would have known she was inside my house and would have taken precautions in entering and in finding her.

The answer came very soon.

Below me, on the ladder that led to the widow’s walk, there was suddenly a knocking on the underside of the trapdoor.

“Maxie?” his voice called out. “Maxie, it’s me, Alan Nelson. Are you up there? Are you okay?”

When I threw back the trapdoor his face rose into view as he climbed up and out to stand beside me.

“Thanks be,” he said. “I was afraid she’d—”

“Came close. Tried there at the last, but didn’t,” I interrupted. “Where is she? Did you find her? I was afraid that when she couldn’t reach me she’d find a way to lurk and shoot you. She was in the house, you know.”

“I do now, but how were we to know that she was listening to everything we planned? I’m really sorry, Maxie.”

“No need. But you’ve got her now, right?”

“Yes. They’ve got her—see? They’re taking her back to the station for interrogation. The courts will get her on attempted murder in your case—probably murder in the two others.”

He waved a hand toward the drive, and when I turned I could see her, a scowl on her face, hands cuffed behind her back, as they put her into the backseat of the squad car.

“Besides,” he continued, “on the cell phone I heard just about everything she said—and everything that you said, of course. So I knew where she was taking you as you climbed the stairs. At least that much of our plan worked.”

“Who
is
she?”

“We don’t know yet, but we’ll be finding out and I’ll let you know. All her identification is falsely in Amy Fletcher’s name, of course. But she must have come from New York and been good at tracking both John and his sister, considering that she wound up here in Alaska at the same time. It’s her killing them that doesn’t make sense. It’ll come clear sometime soon, I hope, so like I said, I’ll keep you posted. Let’s go down. It’s downright cold out here.”

I knew his word was good—and that he was as good as his word and I would know soon everything I needed to know about the three people, good and bad, who had interrupted and threatened my life. How lucky for me that I got to know him and that he believed and cared about all of what had happened.

I went downstairs to find Stretch still shut in the office, so I immediately opened the door to find him lying directly next to it on the cold wood floor.

“Come on out, buddy,” I told him. “All the excitement’s over and you’ve not got to defend me anymore, okay? Come out and I’ll give you a treat or two and some water.”

He gave me a baleful glance as he came out of the office and headed for his food and water dishes. It was a look that pretty much said that he didn’t understand how I could have done without his assistance in vanquishing the woman and her threats, but his tail wagged without his admitting it, and he licked my hand as I gave him a dog bone treat to chew on. That told me I was forgiven, but for a day or two he would watch closely to make sure I didn’t get myself into more unnecessary trouble, without him to get me out of it.

Thank you, Daniel, for leaving me such a treasure as Stretch
. He is certainly not really a bitser—which means mongrel to an Aussie—but calling him one periodically doesn’t seem to hurt his feelings, so I guess he thinks it’s high praise. He’s never been a wanker—which is what they call a complainer. And thanks to Daniel’s good sense in picking a dog, Stretch is dinkum—the genuine article.

A couple of days later Trooper Nelson was back knocking at my door late one afternoon on a cold and cloudy day that threatened more snow in the offing.