Claws of Action

by Linda Reilly

  Shaking off the notion, Lara looped her tote over the back of a chair and gazed around. The print was still there on the wall—“Krahe.”

  She wanted so badly to remove it from the wall. She wanted to study it more closely.

  Something about the painting drew her to it, like a moth to an open flame.

  The crow itself fascinated her, with its feathers drawn up around its neck like a cape, its feet clad in a pair of witchy-looking boots. Most haunting was the crow’s wide-eyed, almost mesmerizing stare—the small eyes that seemed to blaze into the depths of the human soul.

  Okay. She couldn’t stand it anymore. Tim had texted that he wanted her help, right? That he trusted her judgment?

  Lara reached up and with both hands removed the print from the wall. The ornate gold frame gave it some weight, so she carried it carefully. She pulled out a dining-room chair, sat down, and rested the painting on her knees.

  Oh, if only I could paint like this, she thought with a twinge of envy.

  Lara reminded herself why she was there. In the moments before Evonda was murdered, she’d texted three letters to her son: K-R-A.

  If Lara was right, there was something special about this print. Something that Evonda wanted Tim to figure out. What was it?

  Then it struck her. The children’s story—Cary the Crow and the Hidden Spoon. In the book, the crow had used his nest as a hiding place for his treasures. Had Evonda done the same with her favorite crow? Used it as a hiding place?

  On a hunch, Lara ran her hand along the back. Her fingers slid under the wire hanger, and she felt something crackle.

  She flipped over the print and rested it facedown in her lap. A pocket made from brown wrapping paper had been affixed to the back. Bulging slightly, it was held in place by masking tape on all four sides.

  Heart thumping, Lara slowly peeled back the top strip. With two fingers, she reached into the gap and pulled out the contents. She found herself staring at a small stack of professional-quality photos.

  The first snapshot was of a low, rectangular building with a flat roof. Beneath each of its two windows were wooden boxes, painted white, dotted with newly planted petunia plants. A sign flashing from its roof identified the building as The Roundup Tavern.

  In the next pic, Jenny Fray was emerging from the driver’s seat of a dark-gray sedan. The photo had been taken in a parking lot, presumably behind The Roundup.

  The next photo captured the image of a man standing beside a pickup, the door of which was half-closed. In the next shot, the man was approaching Jenny, a grin stretched across his features. The pictures were crisp and clear, taken from a distance with a zoom lens.

  No. Please. It can’t be…

  One by one, Lara flipped through the pics, her stomach growing sicker with each image.

  The next several photos were of Jenny and her lover, locked in various stages of an intimate embrace. The pictures had been taken in the daytime, so there was no mistaking their identities.

  “Oh!” A noise from the back porch made Lara jump. Was that the door closing?

  “Lara?” a man’s voice called out.

  Her heart weighted with sadness, she cleared her throat and said, “In here, Tim.” She shoved the photos back inside the makeshift hiding place. No way she could hide them now. Like it or not, she’d have to show them to Tim.

  His footsteps grew closer as he came through the kitchen. Hands on his hips, he grinned at Lara from the doorway to the dining room. “Hey, you got here pretty quick. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Lara felt her face drain of color. “Ch–Charlie. What are you doing here?”

  Charlie Backstrom’s brown eyes hardened. “I’m here to see you, Lara. I have a feeling you found the secret treasure.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Lara forced a smile. She wiped her hand discreetly over her pocket to be sure her cell was still there. “What do you mean? There’s no treasure here. How did you even get in?”

  Charlie pulled out a dining-room chair, straddled a corner, and sat down hard. The legs creaked under his weight. Ignoring Lara’s question, he circled his gaze all around the dining room. “Man, that woman was batcrap crazy, wasn’t she? First time I ever walked in here and saw all these freakin’ crows, I thought, cripes, I’m in a Hitchcock movie. You know the one I mean, right?”

  Lara nodded, afraid to take her eyes off him.

  “I should’ve known you’d unlock the secret code,” he said with a wink. “In school, you were one of the smart ones. Not the smartest, but you were up there.”

  School?

  “What are you talking about, Charlie? We were never in school together.”

  He shook his head, disgust flaring in his eyes—eyes she couldn’t believe she’d once found attractive. “That day, when I first showed up at your place to go over the construction specs, I figured you’d say, ‘Hey, Chuck L., I remember you from middle school! How ya doing?’ But you didn’t.”

  Lara shook her head, but then, slowly, it all came back.

  In middle school, there were two Chucks in her class—Chuck L. and Chuck M. That was how the teachers kept their names straight.

  She thought back to the photo, the one her aunt had found of Lara’s sixth-grade class.

  Oh God…

  Chuck L. The skinny, closed-mouth boy standing in front of the blackboard, a crutch propped up behind him. He’d broken his leg and it hadn’t healed properly. Jenny Fray—Jenny Cooper, then—felt sorry for him and insisted on helping him to class. Small and shy, she carried his books for him, every day, for weeks. The two became almost inseparable.

  “Come on, Charlie,” Lara said, again forcing a smile, “you don’t look anything like you did then. Look at you now! Handsome, strong—”

  “Stop the bullcrap, Lara. Whatever you were trying to hide before I came in, hand it over.”

  Lara looked down at the print, still resting on her knees. She pulled the photos out of the hidden pocket and gave them to Charlie.

  He flipped through them quickly, his face reddening with anger. “Evonda showed me these, but then she hid them. I never had a chance to look for them. She was always hovering over me, ragging on me, telling me I was doing everything wrong. Jenny looked for them, too, but she never found them. And all this time, they were right there. If only I’d known.”

  It wouldn’t have mattered, Lara knew. Evonda had been a photographer. She could have made new prints.

  Glaring at her, Charlie shoved the photos into his shirt pocket and looked around at the walls. “I built all these shelves, you know. I painted them three different times before that witch was satisfied. And those front steps? Did you notice them?” He lifted his chin toward the front entrance.

  “I did,” Lara said. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Should’ve been a one-day job. Took me three before the evil queen was satisfied.”

  “Well, they—” Lara stopped short, choking on her own words, and in the next instant she got it. “Evonda was blackmailing you, wasn’t she, Charlie? She found out you and Jenny were having a fling. She took pictures and threatened to expose both of you.”

  “Blackmail?” Charlie’s laugh was harsh. “Yeah, I guess you could call it that. Evonda had a different term for it. She called it an ‘exchange of services.’” He put air quotes around the words. “Said it was purely a business deal.”

  “And her service was keeping her mouth shut.”

  It was all starting to make sense, now. That day when Nina said she couldn’t locate Charlie. He was at Evonda’s—doing work for her under the threat of her exposing his affair with Jenny.

  “Who paid for the materials, Charlie?”

  “She did. No way I could, not with Nina watching the books like a hawk. I’d pick them up at the supply store real early in the morning, then drive them to her hous
e and unload them. I told her I couldn’t risk my truck being seen there all day, so she’d follow me back to the supply store and I’d park my pickup in the corner of the lot. After she decided I’d done enough work for the day, she’d drive me back to my truck.” He swallowed, and Lara saw the shame in his eyes. “Nina knew something was up, but she didn’t know what. I had to lie and tell her I was doing charity work for people.”

  Lara shook her head. “Evonda used you, Charlie. What I don’t understand is why. Why you had a fling with Jenny when you have a wonderful wife who adores you.”

  His eyes turned glassy. “Used to adore me. Things started to change between us. Her family never accepted me. After a while, Nina started to wonder if they were right. I could see her drifting away from me.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Lara said, trying to sound soothing. “I’ve seen you two together.”

  “What you saw was a lie,” he said. “Funny thing is, for a smart gal, you were one of the easiest ones to fool.”

  “Where did you first run into Jenny?” Lara asked him. “At the Roundup?”

  His eyes flashed, then his body slumped. “I started going there more and more, drinking with my buddies. Then this one night, Jenny came in with a girlfriend of hers. It was unreal. Even after all those years, she recognized me.” He hung his head. “We sort of…got reacquainted. We started to rendezvous there during the daytime. That was Jenny’s favorite word—rendezvous. She said I’ve always been her hero, that she’s loved me since we were kids.”

  Outside, in the driveway, a car door slammed.

  Tim. Thank God.

  “Charlie,” Lara said, light suddenly dawning, “how did you know I was coming here?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “You texted Tim, right? Well, a little bird intercepted the text while her hubby was in the shower. Lucky thing, huh? I guess that’s why they say timing is everything.”

  The sound of light footsteps drifted from the kitchen. Then a pale, unsmiling face appeared in the doorway. Dressed in short shorts and a frilly halter top, she looked almost too young to drive.

  “Hi, Lara,” Jenny Fray said. “By the way, Tim won’t be getting your text. I deleted it from his phone. I also let the air out of both his front tires, so he won’t be stopping by any time soon.”

  Lara felt every cell in her body morph into pudding.

  That’s it. That’s what was bugging her.

  Tim’s text yesterday was written in full sentences. But his responses today were in textspeak. Lara should have caught it sooner.

  His unflinching gaze still fixed on Lara, Charlie pulled the photos out of his pocket and handed them over his shoulder to Jenny. “She found them.”

  With each photo she viewed, Jenny’s white face turned grayer. “My God,” she said. “These are close-ups.” Her eyes flitted to the Krahe print resting on Lara’s knees. “So all this time, they were right there…” She moved closer to Charlie and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  He shook her off. “Get away from me. I told you, it’s over. It ends now, today.”

  Jenny shook her head. Tears blossomed in her eyes. “No! You don’t mean that, Charlie. We were meant to be together—”

  “No, we were not,” he spat out. “I love Nina. You were there for me when I was hurting, but I’m past that now. I want things to be the way they were with my wife, before you ever walked into that place. I want my life back!”

  Jenny sobbed and shook her head. “Don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”

  “You let the air out of my tires. Out of both our tires!”

  “I–I was only trying to get your attention,” Jenny blubbered. “I hadn’t heard from you in a couple of weeks. You were ignoring me!”

  He shook his head. “Geezum, you still don’t get it, do you?”

  “And yesterday,” Lara said, “you tailed me. Didn’t you, Jenny?”

  Jenny pouted. “I came over here to see how Tim was doing—I was afraid he might stumble on those photos while he was packing—and I saw your car pull away. I wasn’t sure who it was, so I followed you. Big deal.”

  A knot formed in Lara’s abdomen. Tiny, jagged pieces of a murderous puzzle began falling into place.

  Nina holding Pearl, then petting Snowball.

  Charlie picking lint off Nina’s pink jersey.

  No, not lint. Cat hair.

  Lara pulled the Krahe print closer to her waist and then slipped her hand inside her pocket. She took in a quiet breath. “But you can’t get your life back, can you, Charlie? Because you took the straps from the box our door came in, and you used one of them to kill Evonda.”

  Jenny’s eyes widened in horror. She backed up against the sideboard, jostling it with such force that the wooden crows rocked. “You’re insane. Charlie wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  Charlie’s face went slack, and he spoke in a monotone. “I heard that witch’s voice that day, that awful cackle, coming from your living room. She didn’t know I was there because we’d taken Nina’s car, remember, Lara?”

  Lara nodded. It all came back.

  His eyes glazed over. “It hit me then, how I could get rid of her and plant phony evidence. While you were still talking to her, I took those bands from the box, rolled them up, and stuck them in my pocket. Nina didn’t even notice. She thought I was setting the box outside to get it out of your way.”

  “And when you were leaving, you picked a wad of stray cat hairs off Nina’s jersey. You must’ve stuck that in your pocket, too, didn’t you, Charlie? It was the perfect way to throw off the cops—leaving the cat hair in Evonda’s car. Making me and my aunt look guilty.”

  He laughed, a demented sound that chilled Lara’s veins. “Know what the best part was? Stuffing that ugly sneaker in her mouth. Shutting her up for good. I had work gloves on, so I didn’t leave prints.”

  Lara’s fingers curled around her cell phone. “Right now, an innocent man is sitting in jail, Charlie, taking the heat for your crime. What did you do? Go over to Downing’s apartment and drop one of those plastic bands next to his SUV?”

  Charlie shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it? It wasn’t hard to figure out who the cops were homing in on, and where he lived. Small-town gossip—you know how it is. After I planted that plastic band near his car, I called in an anonymous tip and sent the cops chasing another wild goose. Don’t worry. All he needs is a good lawyer and he’ll beat the rap.”

  Releasing a high-pitched squeal that nearly pierced Lara’s ears, Jenny slid to the floor and collapsed. She curled into a ball, burying her face in her hands. Harsh sobs racked her small frame.

  Lara knew her time was running out. She slid her cell out of her pocket, then located Gideon’s most recent text and tapped the response box. She managed to tap out Code BL before Charlie tore it out of her grasp.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” He stared at the phone, panic filling his eyes. He jabbed frantically at it with his finger. “How do you turn this thing off?”

  Charlie cursed violently, then threw Lara’s phone across the room. It bounced off the wall and clunked to the floor.

  Lara flung the Krahe print off her lap and flew off her chair, making a desperate dash for the front door. Charlie tackled her, knocking her to her knees with a thud. She cried out, and Charlie grabbed her hair.

  “Let go of me, Charlie!” She reached behind her and raked his hand, but it was like clawing hardened steel.

  In the next instant, there was a loud crash and the sound of shattering glass. Startled, Charlie swung around, momentarily releasing his grip.

  Lara turned toward the sound. Above the sideboard, a flash of cream-colored fur careened across the top shelf, sending porcelain crows of every size sailing off the edge. The lower shelf had already been decimated.

  Blue wasn’t finished. From floor level, she leaped onto the shelf on the adjacent wal
l, batting every crow off the edge as if she were enjoying a pleasant game of ping-pong.

  Only Lara could see Blue, which elevated Charlie’s horror. He stared at the carnage, his face whiter than salt. He dropped to his knees and started to cry, just as Jenny went deathly still. “Go away, Evonda! Leave me alone,” he wept, rolling onto his side.

  Lara left him whimpering on the floor and raced outside toward her car. Her tote and her phone were still in the house. The Saturn was locked.

  She looked around frantically. Save for the buzz of a lawn mower, the neighborhood was as silent as a cemetery.

  Across the street and down a short distance, a man wearing headphones was mowing his lawn. Lara ran over and waved her arms at him. “Please! I need help.”

  The man, his belly straining his white T-shirt over a pair of plaid shorts, paused the mower and lifted the headphone off his right ear. “Sorry?”

  “Please call the police,” Lara said, raising her voice over the mower’s engine. “The man who killed Evonda Fray is in her home right now.”

  The words had no sooner left her mouth when the screech of tires tore her attention back to Evonda’s. Charlie Backstrom was backing his truck out of the driveway at approximately the speed of sound. He roared off, leaving a trail of gray exhaust spewing behind him. Lara prayed to God he hadn’t hurt Jenny.

  The man shut off his engine. He jerked a cell phone out of the pocket of his shorts and called 9-1-1.

  “Thank you,” Lara said, her voice shaking hard. “I have to go back to be sure Jenny’s okay.”

  “Not alone, you’re not.”

  They both dashed across the street and hurried inside Evonda’s. Jenny was sitting up, leaning against the wall, tears streaming down her face. One thin ankle rested on a shard of black porcelain, a stream of blood oozing from it.

  Lara gasped out a breath of relief and dropped to the floor beside her. Shards of porcelain crunched under her legs, while Jenny sobbed into her shoulder. “Oh, God, how could he do that?” she choked out. “I loved him. How could he kill someone?”

  The neighbor ran into the kitchen and returned with a heap of dish towels. His hands shaking, he gently lifted Jenny’s ankles and rested her legs on the towels. “I–I’m sorry,” he stuttered out. “I’m not so good with blood.”