Thrown Off: A Cozy Mystery (Brenna Battle Book 3) (20 page)

“Somebody, help! Over here!” I let go of Marvin with one hand and pulled the glow necklace out of my pocket and waved it in the air. “Help! Someone’s been shot!”

The fireworks were still going off, and the crowd, a hundred yards away from me, was mesmerized. Apparently, the couple I’d interrupted had moved on. I stuffed my phone in my pocket. I could force Marvin to come with me, but it would be slow going, to say the least. The shooting victim was probably dying. Marvin might get away if I released him, but I knew who he was, and so did the police. He’d thrown his weapon away where it would be difficult to retrieve, and he didn’t have another one on him, or he would’ve used it on me. I hated to let him go, but I shoved Marvin back and I took off running, back in the direction of the crowd.

32

I found the camping chair and got out my phone to shine a light on it. I half expected my call to Will to still be on, but it looked like I’d hung up on him. I shone my phone light on the slumped figure. What was he doing back here, all by himself?
 

In the light it was clear—perfectly cut and styled salt-and-pepper hair, neatly trimmed beard—it was Gunter Hatton, and he’d been shot in the stomach. I waved the light over his body, searching for other wounds. “Gunter? Can you hear me?”

Slowly, his eyelids lifted. Alive! He was still alive! “I’m going to get you some help and—”

A shadow barreled toward us. Marvin was headed our way. To finish Gunter off? To get rid of both of us? I couldn’t let him get at Gunter; he was barely hanging on. I darted toward Marvin, forcing him away from Gunter. I ran and yelled, “Police!” like a madwoman.

What kind of crazy creep-o was I dealing with here? Couldn’t he disappear into the shadows like a normal killer? Instead, he was running straight toward the crowd, along the split-rail fence. My shin hit something, hard, and I stumbled. It was the same wagon handle I’d tripped on earlier. Marvin pushed me as I fell, and I landed right inside the wagon, rear end first. As I scrambled to get out, he gave it a shove, right toward the fence.

“Brenna?” Blythe called, her voice strained with alarm. Overhead, fireworks continued to burst.

“Blythe! Get him! He’s the killer!” I pushed myself up and out of the moving wagon.

A bag of chips crunched under my feet as I ran. Blythe lunged and scooped Marvin’s ankle, pulling it clear up in the air. Marvin face-planted onto a patchwork quilt. Before I could stop them, Sammi, Katie, and Anthony came running with an unzipped sleeping bag spread between them. With a war cry that would’ve put blue-faced Braveheart warriors to shame, they threw the sleeping bag over Marvin and pounced on him.

“Kids! No! Gary, that way!” Jill shouted to her husband.

“Hey! We’re trying to watch the show!” people yelled around us.

“Anthony! Sammi! Move!” Blythe cried.

But they didn’t listen. Marvin struggled under the sleeping bag like the enraged killer he was, and Blythe tried to subdue him, but he shot up, and the kids went flying—Katie right into Blythe, Sammi into Gary Rowe. I pushed into high gear and hurdled over the pile of kids, my sister, Gary, and blankets. I grabbed Marvin’s shirt, but it tore in my hands.

Holden came at Marvin from the other side, waving a glow-sword like a ninja. I saw Marvin’s backhand coming at Holden as if it were in slow motion. I wrapped my arms around Holden and rolled him to the ground. Just in that instant I heard the distinctive crack of a fist against a face. Marvin wobbled and fell right on top of me and Holden, unconscious.

I looked up at Will, standing over us, fist still clenched.
Crack-crack-crack-boom!
Bursts of color filled the sky above him. The kind of awe-inspiring blasts that make your heart pound with every new explosion of light.

The grand finale. First it was purple and green, then came the red hearts and blue stars, then what seemed like dozens of whistling smoke trails shooting higher than ever. They lit up the sky with every color of the rainbow, and more fireworks burst beneath and in front of them, creating an incredible depth to the whole picture.

“It’s so beautiful! It’s glorious!”
Never-Seen-Fireworks
Lady rose and gave the show a standing ovation, completely, unabashedly delighted.

The crowd burst into applause and whistles. Strangers hugged her. Heck, I wanted to hug her, too.

Will knelt down. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I pushed Marvin off of us and pulled Holden up with me. I regarded Will. “I didn’t know you had a knock-out punch.”

“Neither did I.” Will quickly began to cuff Marvin.
 

“Not exactly judo, but it got the job done.”

“Thanks.” He flashed me a dimpled smile.

I said, “I found the shooting victim. It’s Gunter Hatton. He’s at the back of the crowd on the fence side, in a red camping chair. Gunshot wound to the stomach.”

Will maneuvered Marvin onto his stomach, face down in the grass, and radioed in the details. Jessie Pakowski grabbed Holden. Her husband was struggling to keep Allen under control, out of the fray.

Blythe reached my side. “Brenna, let’s go help Gunter. He must’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Wait!” A bunch of police-speak came over Will’s radio. “They found him,” Will told us. “Adams and Pfeiffer found Gunter Hatton. He’s still alive.”

Police swarmed into the park, flashlights on. The crowd rose, looking bewildered at the unusual police presence right in the thick of the spectators. An ambulance blared its way through the street above, and right onto the lawn.

“This way, folks.” An officer guided the crowd away from the ambulance, clearing a path to Gunter.

“Someone must’ve gotten hurt,” and, “I heard there was a fight,” people began to speculate.

A light glared in my face, almost as bright as the fake, gleaming smile right next to it. I knew that tanned, creased face and that perfectly coiffed, dark blond hair.

“Dan Deering here, with Seattle Channel Three, reporting from Pioneer Park in Bonney Bay, the scene of what appears to be another possible murder, once again involving the Battle sisters!”

I almost swore. Right there, in front of my Battlers. On camera.

“A short time ago, we received an anonymous tip that police were searching for a possible gunman on the loose in Bonney Bay. Someone who might be connected with a death several days ago—which has now been ruled a murder! We rushed here from Seattle, only to find out the police have caught a gunman, and that, sadly, there is allegedly another victim! Brenna Battle, what can you tell us about this crime? How are you involved?”

Blythe poked me, her poke that meant,
Brenna! You have that crazy frozen smile on your face again!

I couldn’t help it. It was my default reaction to the media, left over from my years of dealing with them as an Olympic athlete, having a microphone shoved in my face during the worst moments of my life. I let my face melt into a much more sincere frown. “I discovered a man who’d just fired a shot near the back of the crowd that had gathered to watch the fireworks.” Instead of running from the slime-ball reporter, I decided to seize the moment for Carlos’s sake. “He seriously wounded a man. A man who was in love with his wife, a woman who just died in a troubling incident. An innocent man is taking the blame for her death.”

“Ms. Battle, our sources tell us a man named Carlos Vargas is already in custody in connection with the alleged murder of Millie Brown. Did he escape?”

Tony and his leaks! I glanced around, looking for Will. He was busy half-dragging Marvin toward a police car parked on the street. I pointed at Marvin. If they were going to make Carlos’s name public, I was going to spill it all. “That’s the man responsible for shooting a man tonight. I have good reason to believe he killed his wife and he tried to make it look like a Cherry Bowl Grocery Store employee did it. Carlos Vargas, that Cherry Bowl employee, is innocent!”

Parents hefted sleeping kids over their shoulders and arranged little ones in strollers and wagons, stuffing blankets around them. A rag-tag, glowing parade of fireworks refugees trekked into the darkness, in search of their cars. But a growing crowd gathered around me and the news camera.

“Carlos Vargas was framed! You heard it from Channel Three first, folks!” Deering said.

Yes, Carlos had been framed, even though he had no motive. And it had almost worked.

Deering ran after Marvin. “Mr. Brown! Mr. Brown, why did you do it? Did you kill your wife for the insurance money? Was she having an affair?”

Marvin yanked against Will’s grip. He couldn’t break free, but he jerked his head around and said viciously, “You know nothing about me and my Millie! She would never cheat on me! And money! You think I care about money?”

“Why, then?” I shouted. I couldn’t help it. “Why would you kill someone like Millie?”

“I have dreams, that’s why! She said she wasn’t going to do it anymore. She wasn’t going to support my store. She wanted to build her own business, painting murals! I wanted to teach her a lesson. To scare her, for her own good. To get her to give it up. So I stole a uniform and when she wasn’t looking, I shoved the ladder she was on. She was so busy painting, she didn’t notice me. She never noticed me when she was painting. She never saw me coming. And then—” Marvin’s voice cracked. “I knew she was dead. I knew she was dead and gone, and I had to save what was left—my store.”

“What about Gunter?” Blythe said. “You shot Gunter Hatton tonight.”

“That’s right! And I hope he dies! He cost me everything. He put those ideas in her head. He cost me my Millie.”

Those words sent a chill down my back. The look in his eyes shook me to the core. I’d grappled with evil tonight. Pure, selfish evil.

33

The tulip tree cast a nice arc of shade over the picnic table—the same table where I’d met Lourdes and Carlos for lunch, my favorite green salsa, and a heartfelt request that I find Millie’s killer—and keep my investigation a secret.

This time, Carlos and Lourdes were here with a homemade taco bar for lunch, and salsa verde too. But there were no secrets. Blythe sat on my right and Will on my left. Sammi and Katie and a bunch of our other Battlers had come to celebrate, along with Amy and Roberta and half the Cherry Bowl employees.

Gunter Hatton sat across from me. He pointed with a chip. “Free haircuts for life,” he said. “I mean it. I owe you mine.”

I smiled and tossed my hair. “I don’t know. Ken did a pretty good job.”

“Free haircuts from me or Ken, I don’t care.” He shook his head at himself. “I can’t believe I was that stupid. I should’ve never agreed to meet Marvin.” Gunter lowered his voice. “He said he’d found a message for me from Millie.” The sadness, the ache, the regret, was palpable. “‘Just wait for me behind the crowd in the red chair,’ he said. And I found that chair and sat in it.”

“I’m so sorry, Gunter,” I said. It was wrong, terribly wrong, Gunter’s obsession with Millie. I didn’t think I’d ever feel completely comfortable with him for that reason. But he was a hurting man.

It was two Saturdays after we celebrated our very first Fourth of July in Bonney Bay, and it was time for another celebration. Carlos had gotten his scholarship and Gunter had been released from the hospital. Lizzie and Hayley had nothing to do with Millie’s murder, other than being glad someone had done the job. And Marvin was indeed the stilt-walker who’d threatened me during the parade. Turned out he’d been one of the stilt-walkers in the parade ten years ago, before George’s time. Millie had made that puppet for him and gotten him to participate.

I still railed against the truth, that Marvin had killed his own wife, sweet Millie. Nothing was more important to him than his trains, than getting what he wanted. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. I, of all people, had known plenty of people who put their ambitions, their passion for a dream, above family. It was an easy trap to fall into for an Olympic hopeful. It just didn’t typically lead to murder.

“More Tres Leches?” Lourdes asked me.

“Please!” I held out my plate, and she scooped a big, creamy piece of cake for me.

“Officer Riggins?”

Will held his stomach and shook his head no. “It was delicious, but I’m done.”

“Tapping out already, Will?” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“Not everything is a competition, Brenna,” Blythe chided me.

I rolled my eyes and took a bite of cake. “You’re no fun.”

“I know.” Blythe smiled sweetly. “That’s why you keep me around.”

I laughed and hugged my sister. We had a good thing going here, in Bonney Bay. So far we’d kept all our Battlers, except the Pakowski brothers, and there was a special bond among our team, forged in the heat of the dojo and then in the chaotic scramble to catch a killer during the grand finale on the Fourth of July.

Lizzie Meyers was going to be tried for reckless endangerment. The sentence would probably be light, since no one was hurt. And Marvin Brown had made a full, official confession to the murder of Millie Brown and the attempted murder of Gunter Hatton. Not to mention numerous charges associated with breaking into Carlos’s house, stealing his clothes, and framing him.

It hadn’t been his intention initially, to frame Carlos. He just wanted to disguise himself from Millie and anyone else who might see him. To make it look like a work dispute, just in case he was seen. That was why he didn’t plant the clothes back in Carlos’s house right away. After Millie died and he realized how serious the situation was, he panicked and resorted to framing Carlos.

When I was done with my cake, Will took my hand and led me through the kids, who were running around and shrieking and chasing Chloe.
 

“She’s a happy girl today,” I said.

“Yes, she is. Lots of attention.”

We walked together across the park, hand in hand, all the way to the corner with the big, white deck. I leaned on the railing and looked out at the clouds floating over the water. At the islands in the distance, wrapped in a shawl of mist. Will’s arm slipped around my waist. He pulled me close, and his chin rested on my shoulder. We stood there for a while, quiet, just being together.

“You’re not going anywhere, are you, Brenna?” Will said softly.