by Becki Willis
“But… why would he ask me to meet him here?”
Collette flipped her hair over her shoulder. “How should I know? But while you’re here, would you like to see what’s left of Bobby Ray’s collection? I’ve sold most of it already, but there’s still plenty of junk left.”
She turned without waiting for an answer, expecting Madison and Derron to follow. Madison threw a skeptical look toward her friend, who answered with a curious expression on his face. He twirled his finger near his temple and pointed at Collette’s back, indicating he thought she was crazy. Madison couldn’t help but think he might be right, as she reluctantly followed the other woman further into the house.
“Are you moving?” Madison asked, noting barren spaces on the walls. It wasn’t just the walls, however. There were items obviously missing from all the rooms, including anything personal. The rooms appeared to have been picked over, and she wondered how much of that was loaded into the car outside.
“I told you, I sold most of Bobby Ray’s junk,” Collette answered. “He had it scattered all over the house. Insisted we decorate with it, even though it was never my style.”
“He must have had some of it outside, too. I noticed dead spots in your yard.”
“Oh no, that was where we buried the neighbors,” she quipped. She laughed when she saw Derron’s face turn white. “I’m kidding. Come on in. This is one of his rooms.”
As she said, there wasn’t a great deal left. Nothing, Madison imagined, compared to what once filled the room. An empty display case stood against one wall. Another wall had a few random pieces scattered along a bookshelf and three pedestal bases, now bare of their treasures. A few pieces of framed artwork hung on the walls, mostly photographs and certificates. Most likely, things that were important only to her late husband and had no value on the open market.
Derron stepped further into the room to examine some of the framed pieces, while Madison feigned interest in a leather scabbard.
“You see what I mean,” Colette said, motioning about the room. “Nothing but junk.”
“To each his own, they say,” Madison murmured.
Derron caught her eye and discreetly motioned her over.
Her assistant was acting strange, even for him. As nonchalantly as possible, Madison crossed the room. Collette concentrated on a small canvas bag she held.
Derron cocked his head toward the photograph behind him. Madison recognized Bobby Ray and several other members of the militia group, all dressed in their period costumes. Only Collette and one other woman wore normal clothing. Judging from the proud smile on Bobby Ray’s face as he accepted some sort of white looped rope, Madison imagined it was the promotion ceremony when he became captain.
“So?” she mouthed to Derron.
He tugged on his shirt, earning a deep scowl from his boss. His efforts grew more exaggerated, as he threw his eyes toward the picture on the wall. Finally understanding, Madison focused on Collette’s outfit in the photograph.
Bright chartreuse.
It doesn’t mean a thing, she told herself.
Still, a sense of unease crawled up Madison’s back. She cleared her throat and eased over to inspect one of the framed documents. It was a certificate of promotion awarded to the dedicated and honorable Captain Robert Raymond Erickson.
Bobby Ray.
Robert Raymond.
RR.
Madison drew in a deep, unsteady breath. Her eyes flew to Derron’s, and she gave the tiniest shake of her head, willing him not to ask questions. The two of them had been in tight situations before and managed just fine. This would be no different. They would make an excuse, followed by a hasty exit, and when they were far, far down the road, they would determine what it all meant.
She already knew what part of it meant. It meant that Collette had been in the crowd that day during the cannon demonstration, far longer than she originally admitted. That was the same chartreuse jacket in both photographs. And if Collette was there when her husband fell, why did she wait a good ten minutes to come rushing forward, pretending to have been across the park at the time of his death?
It meant something else, as well. Even though it could be a coincidence (there were hundreds of thousands of people with the initials RR), it meant that meeting RR78 here, at this address, was no accident. No misunderstanding. Most likely, her late husband—or Collette herself—was the person known as RR78.
But what either of those facts meant, Madison had no idea.
She willed her voice to sound normal when she said, “It looks like you’ve done a good job at selling most of his collection.”
“I suppose,” Collette agreed, still occupied with the bag. It was fat and round, like a small white pumpkin. Madison wondered what the fascination was. “I didn’t get nearly what he paid for all this junk in the first place, but I made a decent amount. Enough to help me start over before Jeannie’s inheritance kicks in.”
“That’s good. We’re really happy for you, aren’t we, Derron?” She threw a cautionary glance toward him and he nodded in silence. Wide-eyed and pale, her assistant was clearly as confused and uncomfortable as she was. “But there’s not a lot left to see, and obviously my meeting’s been canceled, so I think we’ll go now.”
“I still have so much to show you,” Collette insisted. “Let’s go in the other room.”
“Honestly, I need to get back. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“Geez,” Derron played along. “Would you look at the time?”
“You have time. After all, you were planning to meet RR78, weren’t you?” Collette moved into the hallway ahead of them, pointing the way with the canvas bag still in hand. “This way for the rest of the tour, please.” Her voice was playful as she acted the part of a tour guide.
Madison knew they should insist on leaving. Ask Collette to move aside so they could make their way to the door and out to the car. None of this made sense, particularly this gnawing sense of unease in her stomach.
She needed time to think. If she could put some distance between herself and the situation, she could rationalize that Collette was her friend (of sorts) and posed no danger to her, no matter what the hairs on the back of her neck claimed. She could come up with some explanation as to why Collette hadn’t come forward the moment her husband fell—shock, most likely—and why a stranger would give this address as a meeting place. She could convince herself it was a simple mistake. Spellcheck, perhaps (she, if anyone, knew the havoc wreaked by that malady!) or a mistyped street address.
If she only had the time and the space to think it through, she could rationalize that, while Collette was a strange person, prone to mood swings, she was in no way dangerous.
Look at her now. She was smiling, inviting them to see the rest of her late husband’s collection. Never mind that she almost seemed proud, despite having repeatedly professed to hate Bobby Ray’s hobby. Madison could chalk it up to another mood swing, or to the conflicting feelings of grief and resentment of a recent widow. Feelings she knew herself, all too well.
Continuing the tour wouldn’t give her time and distance, but maybe it would give her answers.
Resigned, Madison turned into the room on the right.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The room was dark, having some sort of stationary cover over the window. The air inside was stale and dry, and held a distinct acrid tang. Madison’s first thought was sulfur, reminding her of the black powder rifles fired at Washington-on-the-Brazos. The ones that so fascinated her son.
“This was his ammunition room,” Collette explained. “You’ll have to excuse the smell, but this is what I had to put up with. Bobby Ray and his toys!” Her voice turned irate as she glared at the items still in the room.
Wooden crates stacked against one wall, all labeled with “Explosive” and “Caution! Handle with Care” stamps. A table with a set of scales and several antique instruments sat against another, and in the very center of the room was a long, narrow table. A three-
foot cannon sat upon it, looking quite authentic despite its scaled-down size. Madison noticed that all the air vents were closed in the room, adding to the musky odor and the stifling stillness.
“Is—is that a real cannon?” Derron asked cautiously.
“Oh, yes. Bobby Ray made it himself. It was one of his most treasured pieces. The buyer offered a nice price for it, but let’s just say… I have different plans for this.”
“Very interesting,” was Madison’s only reply, as she hung near the door.
“Go on in. Take a look around,” Collette encouraged.
“Oh, that’s okay. We really do need to get back.”
“I insist.”
Madison had two choices. Refuse and make a scene, thereby exposing the crazy thoughts racing through her head and trampling through the hairs on the back of her neck. Or, she could go along with the request—the one spoken with just enough edge to make it more of a command than a request—and use it as an opportunity to ask questions.
When given a choice, Madison always preferred conversation to confrontation. She stepped forward toward the cannon.
“Are you familiar with how cannons work?” Collette wanted to know.
“Not really.”
“Neither was I. But when you’re married to a weaponry enthusiast, you learn. Here, let me show you some of the things I’ve picked up through the years.”
Madison made a last-ditch effort to leave. “That’s really not necessary,” she began. “We need—”
“But what if RR78 arrives? I’ll show you how this works while we wait for him to show up.” She motioned for them to gather around the table. “Come on, this will be fun. You can both help me.”
Derron threw Madison a sharp look, but he followed her lead and edged toward the narrow table.
“This bag,” she held up the canvas pouch as she spoke, “holds the black powder. It’s what makes the cannon go boom!” She said the word with such unexpected force, both of her guests jumped. She laughed gaily at their reaction. “Sorry. Bobby Ray loved to do that to unsuspecting bystanders. The blast was always his favorite part of the demonstration. Of course, he wasn’t too thrilled with that last explosion.”
Okay, Madison reasoned to herself. A bit crass when speaking of your late husband, but it gives me an opening.
She tried for a conversational tone. “I was thinking about that earlier. You weren’t there for the actual demonstration, isn’t that what you said?”
“That’s what I said.” Collette busied herself gathering items stored on the lower shelf of the table.
“So, if someone thought they saw you in the crowd that day by the cannons, they would be mistaken?”
“That’s right.”
Derron pitched in so that it sounded less like an inquisition. “I don’t blame you,” he commiserated with Collette. “I wouldn’t want to be that close to all the noise, either. Or all that smoke.”
“From what I understand,” Collette agreed, “that smoke can be deadly.”
Did Madison imagine it, or was there a coy smile playing around the edges of the woman’s mouth? Even though their marriage was all but over, surely she didn’t find humor in her husband’s death!
Continuing with the demonstration, Collette explained that swabbing the barrel with a wet sponge was the first step to firing the weapon. “Being that we’ve started with a cold cannon, we can skip that part today. But you can still be our vent man, Madison. Keep your thumb over this hole, so no draft can come in and spark an unwanted flame. This is how you load it. You put the charge all the way to the back, and gently tap it in. Here, Derron. You can do the honors.” She handed him a thick wooden dowel as she carefully placed the canvas bag into the barrel of the tabletop cannon. “Easy, now. You don’t want it to blow up in your face.”
“What’s in the bag?” Madison asked, still uneasy with Collette’s almost jovial attitude.
“The conventional answer is black powder, but Bobby Ray liked to experiment. If he was shooting the cannon at night, he would sometimes add things like salt or metal filings to add color and spark.”
It crossed Madison’s mind that the charge that day could have contained metal shavings. Had they somehow penetrated his skin and caused his death? But, no. There had been no blood.
But something set off Brash’s radar, she reasoned.
“Bobby Ray wasn’t allergic to black powder, was he?” she asked. Until now, the thought hadn’t occurred to her, but given his high sensitivity to so many other things, it seemed likely. “That day at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Bobby Ray was standing near the blast point,” she said. “If he was allergic to what was in the charge…”
“He wasn’t allergic to the black powder that was in the charge.” Collette emphasized the words ‘black powder’ as she waved her hand around the room. “Which is good, since this room is full of it. So, whatever you do, don’t light a match.” Her voice took on a teasing quality.
Derron’s face lost a bit more color. “Is that why the vents are closed and the window is sealed?”
“Yes. He harped on the importance of keeping the atmosphere as stable as possible when loading. He made all his own ammunition. Like everything else about his hobby, he was obsessed with authenticity.” She laughed, but the coarse rendition lacked humor. “If he were here, he would scold me for skipping the crucial step of swabbing the barrel. A five-minute lecture would follow on the importance of firing a clean, dry cannon.”
“Someone from the cannon crew that day recalled an odd odor,” Madison said, still grasping for a reasonable explanation as to why he had died. “He said it reminded him of crab legs. Do you have any idea what it could have been?”
“Long John Silver’s Crab Cake of the Day Special?” she quipped. Her voice had that cheerful, teasing quality again. “Shrimp shavings? A bit of seafood surprise, mixed in with the gunpowder?” Her lilting tone turned dramatic, and she clutched a hand to her chest. “Can you imagine how that might have affected someone increasingly allergic to seafood, like Bobby Ray? Coming out compressed and under pressure, so close to him? The air would have been saturated with all those allergens, right there in his face. He might not have been able to breathe!”
After that long and dramatic hypothesis, Collette did a complete turnabout. With a nonchalant shrug, she answered, “How would I know what was in the bag?”
Madison was certain her gulp echoed around the room. Edging closer to Derron, she struggled to stay calm. Surely, Collette hadn’t meant to suggest… The concept was too ludicrous to even entertain.
“His allergies were getting worse?” she questioned instead, impressed with how even her voice sounded. Not at all like her thudding heart, or her hitched breath.
“Yes. I had him on a strict diet, formulated for optimum results.” A contemplative expression crossed her face, but she shook it off. “I guess I miscalculated somehow. His sensitivity increased more rapidly than expected.”
Derron threw his boss a look of utter confusion, not understanding the other woman’s ramblings.
The sickening feeling in Madison’s stomach suggested she understood all too well.
Collette worked in medical sciences. She had knowledge of allergens. Of severe sensitivities that often proved fatal. Theoretically, she would know how to manipulate exposure for a specific result. That result, presumably, would be to keep the patient healthy and away from known irritants.
But what if, Madison’s sick stomach wondered, a person was trapped in a bad marriage and wanted a way out? Granny Bert told a story about a woman she knew who, over the course of several months, gradually poisoned her abusive husband. The individual dosage was too small to detect on its own but had debilitating results when compounded. Eventually, the man died but, according to her grandmother, the wife’s suspected involvement was never proved.
What if Collette tried something similar? What if she had exposed Bobby Ray to allergens in small but ever-increasing quantities? It could have been to build his
resistance.
Not with that look in her eye, her queasy stomach argued. She was building him up for ‘the big one.’
“Bobby Ray ate shrimp that day,” Madison blurted out. “He snitched a piece off Petey Vansant’s plate.”
Collette stopped what she was doing and stared at Madison in surprise. Her eyes batted once or twice as she digested the news. “Where did you hear that?” she snapped.
“His friends told me.”
The other woman nodded slowly. “It makes sense,” she rationalized in a clinical voice. “The blotchy skin and wheezing. Two tainted blasts, in close succession and in such close proximity to the subject, could have done it. Could have been the shrimp that broke the fisherman’s net, so to speak.” She used the modified analogy with a sly smile. With another shrug, she turned her attention back to the cannon. “Like I said, he died too soon.”
With another complete turnabout, her voice took on an instructional tone. “With the charge packed in tightly, and your thumb still on that vent hole, we put in our wad.” She held up the wad of rags before stuffing them down the barrel. “Derron, use the rammer to pack them in, nice and tight. Back in the day, the cannonballs weren’t a precise fit for the bore, and you want maximum velocity when they discharge.”
“To hate his hobby so much,” Derron observed, tapping the wad in with the charge, “you certainly know a lot about it.”
“Knowledge is freedom.”
With that cryptic comment, Collette dropped a crude black ball into the barrel. It looked old and rough, and slightly lumpy.
“What—What was that?” Derron asked.
Her tone was matter of fact. “The cannonball, obviously. What else would it be?”
“I—I assumed you would use a blank,” he stuttered. “There’s not really any black powder in that charge bag, is there? Just a little something for show?”
The way her eyes twinkled with laughter, it was difficult to take her seriously when she said, “Now, where’s the fun in that?” She retrieved something from the shelf below as she continued, “Derron, I need you to grab the barrel with both hands. Down on this end, near Madison. Yes, like that. Keep your thumb there in place, girlfriend. And use your other hand to cup around it, so that no draft gets in. You’re both doing great.”