by R J Fournier
“Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
She opened a fresh document, ready to write, but she didn’t know where to begin. Journalism 101 said to start with the most important news. That would be the taking hostage of Karen and Jerzy Dudda and the attempted murder of them and Ben. And, if Helen’s theory were correct, the capture of Ajnabee’s murderer. A murder solved; a murder prevented. What could be simpler? Except that would turn Josh into a subordinate clause, an appurtenance to the main events. Josh should be the main story. She recalled him rushing up, taking control, facing danger without hesitation, and the same thrill and fear rushed through her. Detective Josh Griffin confronted an armed murderer threatening to kill a Sullyton family, she typed. Ugh!
She heard the babble of the others in the kitchen. Helen was saying, “I don’t understand how Ben had a gun in his hand.”
“I heard Jerzy say it was loaded with blanks,” Sam said.
“He still could have shot her,” Howard said. “I read what’s-his-name, the handsome actor, you know who I mean.”
“There’re lots of handsome actors,” Sam said.
“Yes, but this guy killed himself with a gun loaded with blanks.”
“But he’d have to hold it close to her temple,” Helen said. “And you said she had a gun pointed at his head.”
Delyth was surprised by their calm after what they’d just been through, discussing the details as if it all happened to someone else, yet she understood it. She longed to be with them, reliving the evening as a group, letting talk relieve tension. She took a sip of scotch, holding it in her mouth until her tongue tingled, and tried to concentrate on her work. Perhaps if she wrote down events as they happened, the proper hook would reveal itself. Should she tell it first-person or third-person or that weird, reportorial third-person, this reporter… she…” It didn’t matter. She should just get down what she remembered.
“Delyth,” Howard called from the kitchen. “We’re going to have some pasta. You want any?”
It was past her usual dinnertime, but she wasn’t aware of being hungry. The agitation in her stomach suggested food wouldn’t sit well. Still, she needed to eat. Perhaps it would help her think. “Sure,” she called back.
She focused on the screen in front of her and wrote the dry facts, eschewing her own emotions, a camera impartially recording people and actions. Yet, despite herself, the facts started to gain momentum, to build to a climax, to anticipate Josh’s rushing in. She took a deep breath.
From the other room, Helen exclaimed, “Oh my God, Josh! Are you all right?”
Delyth didn’t wait to hear more. She rushed into the kitchen to see Josh standing just inside the door, his hands, forearms and the front of his shirt spattered with blood. Her immediate thought was that he’d been shot, but he was standing, so it couldn’t be that. What’s he doing here? She ran and flung her arms around him.
“Careful,” he said, stepping back from her onslaught. “I’m a mess. You don’t want to get covered with…” He looked down at his hands. “Yeah… Well… I was putting pressure on Foley’s wound.”
Delyth took hold of his hands sticky with blood.
He gave them a quick squeeze then let go. “I was hoping I could clean up here and maybe borrow a clean shirt.”
Sam was the first to respond. “Of course. Would you like something to eat? We’re just about ready to have some pasta.”
“No thanks. I have to get back. I should be there now, but when the little girl saw me she screamed bloody murder—oh, bad choice of words. Anyway, I left the mother and father trying to console her. I figured it’d help if I didn’t look like the chainsaw murderer.”
“How is Keir?” Helen asked.
“The EMTs said his wound wasn’t as bad as it looked. He should be okay.”
“Why did she shoot him?” Howard asked.
“It was an accident,” Josh said. “She was aiming at Sam when—”
“She what?” Howard exclaimed. “She was trying to shoot Sam?”
“I don’t think she meant to pull the trigger.” Sam looked around for support in downplaying the danger. “But it went off when Jerzy hit her arm.”
“You said you were all hiding outside.”
“We were, but… I’ll explain it all later. Right now, we have guests.”
Howard’s whole body seemed to expand as if he’d burst if he didn’t bluster for a while more, but then he looked at Josh. The effort to calm himself was visible in his face and shoulders. After a moment, he said, “You need a shower.”
“I wish I could but, like I said, I have to get right back.”
“No, I mean it. You need a shower. If you have any open cuts or scratches. Don’t they issue you rubber gloves for this sort of thing?”
“Well, maybe, a quick one.”
“You know where the bathroom is,” Sam said, his voice telegraphing his relief at being off the hook, at least for the moment. “I’ll get you a towel. What size shirt do you take?”
Helen nodded toward Delyth. “You’ll need a little scrub up yourself.”
Delyth looked at the red stains on her hands. Her blouse had a few streaks, but she could ignore those. “I’ll use the bathroom after Josh. Don’t want to contaminate the food by using the kitchen sink.”
“I think we’ll be safe,” Howard said. “Just don’t splash. Paper towels are over there.”
Sam came back from finding Josh a towel. “I talked Josh into a quick bowl of pasta. Will it be ready soon?”
“It can be in nine minutes,” Howard answered. “I had a little pancetta in the fridge,” he told Delyth as he weighed out the spaghetti. “And some sauce I canned last summer. Do you think that will be enough?”
She guessed the real question was whether it would be enough for Josh. Usually she’d bridle at the assumption of their couple-hood, but this time she smiled. “It sounds great.”
“I’ll set the table,” Sam said.
“Do you want me to move my computer?”
“There’s plenty of room on the end. You could help with the plates.”
“Helen, there’s a baguette in that bag by the coffeemaker,” Howard said. “Would you mind popping it in the toaster oven?”
She sliced the bread in half and put one half into the toaster. “I’ll put the second half in when we sit down.” She studied the toaster oven, turned a knob and pressed a button.
Josh walked in, blood free and rolling up the sleeves of a white dress shirt a size too large for him.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” Howard reassured him.
“Thanks for this.”
“Make way,” Howard warned. “I’m coming through with a hot pot. Delyth, could you put the colander in the sink for me?”
It was a simple meal, thrown together from what they had on hand. Josh wolfed down his food without a word. The other three ate more slowly but didn’t try to make conversation, as if they too were eating merely for sustenance.
Delyth, however, had questions. How did Emily get them tied up acting alone? Where was Kyla? Why did Ben have a gun? Did Emily kill Ajnabee? But she didn’t want to interrupt Josh’s meal. Besides, he wouldn’t answer her in any case.
When he was done, Josh said, “I’ll send someone over to interview you all. You’ll still have to come into the office tomorrow to give a formal statement.”
“I had a question about that,” Helen said. “How should we explain why we were here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Admitting we had a theory that Keir Foley was the murderer and might threaten Howard, I don’t know, it could bring up some questions that would be complicated to answer.”
Josh finished wiping his mouth. “I don’t mind if you take credit for solving the case.”
“But I do mind. I’d prefer avoiding all the attention. Couldn’t we say we were going to say goodbye to Ben?”
Josh stood. “Just describe what happened and don’t worry about it.”
“Why bring it up at a
ll?” Sam asked. “We could say we were getting out of the car and we heard the gunshots.”
“But what if they ask why—”
“No one’s going to ask,” Josh assured her as he walked to the door. “And if they do, tell them the truth. I’ve got to go. Thanks, again.”
Delyth knew then how she should write the story. “Would you mind if I go someplace to write? I really want to get the story in tonight.”
As she expected, no one objected as they returned to their meals. On the sofa in the living room, her laptop resting on her legs, she started by describing two pairs of bloody hands, one murderous, the other life-saving.
Late May
TWENTY-TWO
Frank invited the Duddas for the unveiling of his tree root sculpture. He even paid for Ben’s flight up from LA. He also invited Howard and Sam, although he refused to explain why. “You’ll find out when everyone else does,” he told Helen.
It would be the first time they’d all be together since the night of the attack, so Helen added Delyth and Josh to the guest list to complete the reunion. She was concerned how these particular guests would get along. She doubted Howard had exchanged more than five words with Karen since he became her neighbor. Could something as traumatic as Emily Foley’s attack have reversed decades of bad feeling?
Helen hadn’t planned on serving food—the get-together was set for early afternoon, after lunch and well before dinner—until Karen asked what she could bring. In the end, Helen decided on pinwheel sandwiches, cheese, crackers, and fresh fruit. “Just something to keep their hands occupied,” she told Frank. “And wine, of course.”
For the past month, Frank had been working feverishly on the sculpture, staying in the garage until midnight and returning by seven the next morning. He wouldn’t let anyone see it, not even Helen, saying he needed the space to develop an idea, although he referred to it with a more artistic word: vision.
Karen arrived with a dozen deviled eggs resting on an egg-yolk yellow platter with a porcelain chicken nesting in the middle. “It’s my grandmother’s recipe and plate. I thought it would be appropriate.”
The Duddas kept close to each other, Jerzy in a green plaid shirt and Karen in a frilly white blouse, Kyla clinging to her leg. Ben, dressed in his usual black but with a buttoned shirt that suggested a nod toward party attire, stood close but far enough apart to stake a claim to independence. His hair, rigid with product, was buzzed close on the sides but left long on top like some small, furry animal sitting on his head. He may have intended it to make him appear taller, but to Helen he mainly looked startled.
“Thank you for the airplane ticket,” he said.
“Oh, you’ll have to thank my husband. It was his idea.”
“Is he here?”
“In the garage, making the final touches for the big reveal.”
Howard and Sam brought fig and chevre bruschetta. “Howard made the fig jam himself,” Sam confided. “The figs are from our garden.”
Delyth and Josh arrived in separate cars; Helen didn’t ask why. Delyth was all apologies when she and Josh came with only a bottle of wine. Helen leaned close so the others wouldn’t hear. “I didn’t expect people to bring anything. I intended to keep it light so people wouldn’t ruin their dinners.”
Josh laughed. “You mean so they’d be hungry, and want to leave early to get to some real food.”
With an expression that belied her words, Helen answered, “I’m genetically incapable of being that devious.”
Delyth and Josh joined Howard and Sam who had opened a bottle of wine and were pouring themselves each a glass.
“By the way, congratulations on your articles about the murder,” Howard said to Delyth.
“Thanks. I’m glad my editor is letting me cover the trial as well.”
From the other side of the table, Helen said, “It almost caused a civil war at the paper.”
“It wasn’t that bad. Vickie’s nose was bent out of shape for a while, but it’s pretty much blown over. Although she’s even more territorial than ever about any future crime stories.”
“Delyth got a promotion out of it,” Helen added, sounding like a proud mother.
“Congratulations,” Howard and Sam said in unison.
“Not so much a promotion as just a new title: Features Staff Reporter. Longer articles but I still have to do my share of the mundane stuff. Luckily, the paper hired a new person, so I’m no longer low woman”
The Duddas were clustered at the other end of the table in front of the food without eating any of it or participating in the conversation. Helen was about to say something to them when Ben walked up to Sam.
“Thank you for distracting”—he hesitated, then finally said—“her. You saved my life.”
“I understand I have to thank you for saving my life. If your father hadn’t been able to get free and grab her arm, she’d have shot me.”
“You know about that?”
“Your father told us.”
“I was scared shitless. She was holding the gun on us, and threatened she’d kill Kyla if we didn’t do what she said. When she told me to tie up my dad and Karen, I wanted to do something so he could still undo the knot, but she was standing right there. ‘Pull it tighter,’ she told me. Lucky my dad was able to grab a loop of the rope and hold it in his fist. It took him so long to work his hands free. I thought I’d tightened them too tight.”
“So we both owe him our lives.”
“I guess.”
Sam motioned Jerzy over. “We were just talking about how we owe you our lives.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jerzy said as he came over and shook hands. “If you hadn’t appeared like that… it took a real set of…” He glanced at Karen. “It was a really brave thing to do.”
“Foolhardy, more like it.”
As soon as Jerzy left them, Kyla began pulling on her mother’s sleeve. “Mommy. Mommy.”
“Shssh, Kyla. The grownups are talking.”
“But, Mommy.”
Karen looked to Helen. “She’s been really needy since… you know.”
“I understand. It must have been traumatic.” Helen smiled at Kyla. “And grownup parties are kind of boring, aren’t they?”
The girl stared at her.
Helen’s attention was split listening to the other guests.
“Some wine?” Josh asked, holding an open bottle toward Jerzy.
“I’m more of a beer man.”
“I’m sure we have some in the fridge,” Helen offered, sorry she hadn’t thought of bringing it out to begin with.
“Don’t bother. Wine’ll be good.”
“No bother.” Turning to Kyla, Helen said, “Would you like to go out and see our two dogs?”
The girl nodded.
“I’ll go with her,” Karen said.
“Probably best,” Helen said. “Just out back, through the sliding doors. The dogs won’t let you miss them.” Then turning to Jerzy, she said, “I’ll be right back with your beer.”
When she returned from the kitchen with a couple of bottles of beer, Josh said, “Helen, here, is the one we all should be thanking. If it weren’t for her, none of us would have been there, and Emily might have succeeded.”
“I don’t know about that,” Helen demurred. “I was completely wrong about a lot of it. I thought it was Keir and that he was going to go after Howard.”
“Not completely wrong,” Delyth said. “You guessed at Emily’s weird scheme to shoot one neighbor and frame another.”
“Even that I got wrong. I thought the motive was greed, that Keir wanted to develop the land around his house. You know, a rich man wanting to get richer.”
“Indirectly it was,” Delyth said. “I interviewed Emily that one time, and the one thing that stood out was her twisted obsession to take care of him. I suspect she felt he was too good for her; the one thing she offered was to shield him from all annoyances, from arranging his closet to getting rid of a few, inconvenient neigh
bors. When he was upset because no one would accept his offer to buy their land, she decided to do something about it.”
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Helen put in.
“Why did you suspect she would go after Howard and not Ben?” Sam asked.
“I thought Ben would be easier to frame. I don’t know. Maybe they’d attribute it to homophobia. Maybe leave some antigay graffiti on the wall. I didn’t suspect she’d be willing to kill a whole family, and try to make it look like a murder-suicide.”
“That’s right,” Ben said. “She locked Kyla in the bedroom, then gave me a gun, and told me to shoot my dad and Karen or she’d kill her. Kyla, that is. Of course I tried shooting her instead. I mean shooting the Foley woman. She laughed when nothing happened. The gun was loaded with blanks.”
“Those must have been the three shots we heard,” Sam said. “But why did she give Ben a gun loaded with blanks?”
“The only thing that makes sense,” Helen answered, “is that Emily wanted to make it look like Ben committed suicide after shooting his father and Karen. There’d have to be GSR.” Josh and Delyth smiled, but the others looked puzzled. After a beat, Helen explained, “Gun Shot Residue. Don’t you watch television?”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just shoot him,” Howard asked, obviously ignoring her petulance. “And then hold the gun in his hand when she shot the other two?”
“My guess is that she was afraid there would have been a telltale in the GSR pattern.” Helen looked to Josh for confirmation, but he returned a cryptic smile. She knew he was treading carefully, not wanting to reveal information beyond what the preliminary hearing had already made public knowledge. “Besides,” she went on, “Emily Foley preferred devious plots. Think of how they murdered his partner.”
The reaction of Howard, Sam and the two Duddas still in the room let her know it wasn’t common knowledge. “Someone—a Mr. McNabb—told Delyth that when Foley’s business partner was kidnapped and killed, Foley might have been behind the whole thing.”
“Except now it seems Emily was probably the killer that time as well,” Delyth said.
“We’ll never know,” Josh said. “I did find out she flew to Puerto Vallarta the same week as the kidnapping, but the local police aren’t interested in reopening the case and incurring more headlines that might scare away tourists. I can’t say I blame them. All we have is the word of an anonymous informant who admits to being a petty criminal.”