He’d leaned to the side as he lifted, so shots meant for his chest hit closer to his shoulder. He stumbled back with a howl, lost his balance and fell. He wasn’t out of commission. He made a grab for my ankle as I scrambled out.
If he noticed the rope around my foot he would grab for that next, and catching it would be easier. Aware of precious seconds sacrificed, I hopped on the other foot and kicked free. Hawkins was already on his knees, surging up. He lunged. I turned and ran.
“What’s—? Stop her, you fool!”
Two weeks had passed since Easter. The moon was near its darkest phase. What light the sky above shared came mostly from stars, and as my eyes picked out shapes I recognized where I was — and that I was running in the absolute worst direction.
We were at Rachel’s building project. In my disorientation I had headed toward the back of the lot, which was barricaded by a high wire fence. Immediately to my left was the gravel pile. In the other direction was the loathsome front loader with its dangling bucket. If I veered harder right, I’d be trapped by the building going up and the now diminished pile of lumber where the kids with candy wrappers had hidden.
“I’ll cut her off this way!” Clark’s voice was low and intense. The sound of a bullet whined behind me.
With no bullets to waste, I couldn’t shoot blindly behind me. If I looked back long enough to pinpoint Clark, I would become a stationary target myself, or Hawkins would pounce.
I zigzagged. Something caught at my blouse, jerked me back. Hawkins. Using all my weight, I threw myself forward. Cloth ripped and I managed two steps. He caught me again. This time he had me by the wrist, squeezing it in his viselike grip as he tried to force the .38 from my hand.
“Get out of the way, Doug! Doug! Get out of the way!”
But Hawkins was as enraged as a bull with an arrow lodged in its shoulder. His left arm hung useless, glistening with blood from the damage I had inflicted. Intent on nothing but evening scores, he swung me back against the waist-high gravel pile. Resorting to playground tactics I flung a handful of gravel in his face.
He yelped and jerked back. I rolled. The sideways motion, or maybe sheer luck, pulled my hand from his startled grip.
The Goliath aimed a kick at me as I hit the ground. I managed to dodge, but his toe connected enough to send the Smith & Wesson spinning out of my hand. Drifting clouds blotted out stars. The sudden disappearance of shapes worked for me as well as against me. On my knees, I sucked in oxygen and held it. Hawkins’ furious breathing told me where he was. I had no sense at all of Clark’s location.
As quickly as they’d interfered, the clouds parted, but only long enough for me to glimpse two things: the underbelly of the bucket loader I’d taken refuge behind, and beneath it a glint which might be my gun.
Dark again. As silently as possible I scrambled around to the other side of the loader.
Where was Clark?
Starlight returned, this time to stay. I saw Hawkins’ legs on the other side of the loader. And yes, my gun. Flattening myself, I crawled under and stretched my arm until I could pull the .38 to me.
As I backed out and knelt, a shot pinged into the dirt beside me. It came from high in the skeleton of the structure that was going up there. Clark, who had started in the lowliest jobs in construction and worked his way up, Clark who could walk a beam with the best of them, stood silhouetted and steady on framing for the building’s second floor. Another shot slammed down as I flattened myself against the side of the loader.
The next sound I heard curled the hairs on the back of my neck. The metal monster next to me rumbled to life.
“I’ve got her!” Hawkins yelled exultantly. “I’ve got her!”
The machine lurched and its heavy, merciless jaws began to swing in my direction.
I tried to flee, nearly lost my footing on a scrap of construction debris, then stopped. I’d played this game before. I wasn’t going to play it again.
Turning toward the machine, I ran forward the few yards separating us. With momentum propelling me now, I leaped. Grabbing a fistful of Hawkins’ shirt, I hauled myself up.
I was on the side with his injured arm. It flailed at me ineffectually. I hooked my leg over his shoulders and straddled him, riding piggyback for my life. He started to grab at me with his good hand, but as it left the controls, the loader jerked and he gripped them again. I rammed the .38 against his head.
“Turn it off.”
“You want a ride, girlie? I’ll give you one!”
The machine beneath us started to vibrate with a force that rattled my bones.
“Turn it off!”
He laughed.
I pointed the gun toward the back of his good hand and fired. With a muffled howl he started to call me every name in the book, hugging his hand against him. The loader sputtered and stalled.
“Drop the gun and come down, Clark,” I yelled with my .38 once more pressed to his cousin’s head.
His answer was a shot that showered sparks as it skittered along a piece of metal inches from me.
Then another shot split the night, this one a loud crack. Clark’s shape, outlined by the starlight, stood motionless before it pitched earthward in an almost graceful fall.
The noise of the loader engine had stopped. For thirty seconds or better I sat too drained to move. Then I slung my leg over Hawkins’ pain curled shoulders and dropped to the ground. The big man was keening softly.
A thin, erect figure strode into view, her rifle lowered but ready. It was Willa Lee Cottle. Judging by the nightgown billowing under her raincoat, she’d been roused from sleep, just as she’d been on the night Foster’s body was dumped here.
She detoured to nudge Clark’s shape with her toe, then came toward me. Her jaw was squared.
“I heard shots over here. Saw your car.” She gave a single, satisfied nod. “Guess those policemen who talked to me last time may decide there’s nothing wrong with my hearing, or my eyes either.”
FIFTY
“You haven’t asked me what was in the envelope.”
Rachel and I were walking up Patterson toward my office after lunch together. Though we’d passed each other in hallways, and managed a word here and there, the past four days had been a blur of talking to the police, snatching sleep, being called back to answer more questions, then going through it all again with Joel. Today was the first time since our night as captives that we’d had a chance to really see each other and talk.
Hawkins, now under guard in the hospital, had claimed he was at the construction site hunting his lost wallet. The fact the arriving cops had found Rachel still trussed up in the trunk of a car belonging to a dead man on the other side of town gave his story the credibility of a fairytale. It also, when added to evidence that came to light in various places, removed all suspicion that Rachel had known anything about Foster’s murder.
“I figured if you wanted me to know what was in it, you would have told me,” I said.
“It was poems. Love poems, mostly.”
She smiled, a sad, sweet smile unlike any I’d ever seen from her.
“I was twenty. I wanted to be an architect. My father wouldn’t hear of college and sent me to Paris with cousins I’d never met instead. They were shocked to find I wasn’t content to traipse around in a group to predictable tourist sites. I scampered off on my own and met Andrew. He was studying law. We were going to change the world together.
“He came from New York, a very progressive family, he said. Not quite as progressive as he thought, it turned out. When we got back and told our families about ... us ... it quickly became clear we’d have to choose between them and being together. For two years we exchanged letters, biding our time, believing they’d change.”
“But they didn’t?”
“One day I got a letter from a friend of Andrew’s saying a gas line had exploded where he was working and he’d been killed. About the same time, an uncle of mine was headed for prison. His weasel of a son had gotten Unc
le Hy’s construction company mixed up in something crooked. Rather than testify against his own blood, Uncle Hy went to prison too. He was desperate to sell to provide for his wife. I had a small inheritance. I bought him out — and hired Pearlie, to help me convince my cousin’s old pals I wasn’t open to backroom deals.”
I was silent. It explained the lingering rumors Rachel’s business was shady.
“Have you heard from Pearlie?”
“Briefly. He said he’d call me at the office this afternoon if he could get to a phone. I’m headed there now.”
We’d reached my building. Rachel reached for my hand and gave it a wordless squeeze. I watched her bustle off back toward her car. Her rose pink suit was a welcome sight after the drab hues she’d worn when she was a suspect and penitent.
That afternoon’s mail brought an envelope whose return address was an army post in Kentucky. Intrigued, I opened it and unfolded the sheet of paper inside. A photograph fluttered out.
It was Pearlie. In an army uniform.
I expect you wondered why I took off right when Rachel could have used me around. I figured I owed something to my country just like everyone else, so I signed up. They’d told me to report right before that mess happened, and the army doesn’t take it too well if you don’t show up like you should.
That new .38 work okay for you? Sounds like it did. Rachel will have my address. If you want to write or anything.
Pearlie
I folded a clean piece of paper around the picture and put it in a drawer until I could buy a frame. For the rest of the afternoon I lost myself in paperwork. When it came time to head to Finn’s, though, I walked to the river instead.
I hadn’t been to Finn’s since my wild ride at the construction site, and I hadn’t been back to Connelly’s. I wasn’t ready to say the words I needed to say. Sitting on a bench with a warm breeze stroking my face, I wondered how I could still find pleasure in watching the river dance past, bejeweled with sunlight. I’d been terrified out in its dark waters. It wasn’t the river that had tried to drown me, though. It was men.
I felt a presence and looked around as he spoke.
“I thought I might find you here.” Connelly slid into place beside me. He had a shadow of beard. He was newly off duty. “You haven’t been up.”
“I needed time by myself.”
“When you don’t, I’ll be waiting.”
I shook my head slowly, wearily.
“It won’t work, Mick. Us.”
“It did. It will again. We can make it work.”
“No. We can’t. The other night, when I thought those yahoos were going to kill me, the hardest part was thinking how much you’d grieve.”
“And I would. But it’s a risk you take when you care—”
“I can’t do it, Mick! I can’t bear knowing I matter that much to someone.”
“But you will matter that much, regardless of what you do. You can’t change that.”
I caught the hand he touched to my cheek.
“No, but you can. You have to. Please, Mick. Those nights we had together — I cherish them. I always will. But if you truly care for me, for what we’ve had, accept what I’m saying. I want you to move on. I want you to find someone else.”
A tear I couldn’t explain slid down my cheek. His thumb, ever gentle, wiped it away. He kissed the top of my head.
“I love you, Maggie.”
“I know.”
He was silent, waiting for words I couldn’t say. If I told him I loved him, gave voice to it, that would make it true.
“If I could change myself ... if I could be the way I want to be ... I would. For you. But I can’t, Mick. And I want you to be happy. I want you to have a home and family like you came from. Like you miss. Like you deserve.”
More tears I didn’t want to shed blurred my vision. After a moment his hand found mine. Our fingers intertwined; gripping hard because we knew when we let go this time it would be forever.
Our words were all used up. Only the ache in our hearts remained. We sat in silence, watching the river twist and flow. Watching our lives.
The End
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Also by M. Ruth Myers
Maggie Sullivan mysteries
No Game for a Dame
Tough Cookie
Don't Dare a Dame
Shamus in a Skirt
Maximum Moxie
Dames Fight Harder
Standalone
A Touch of Magic
The Whiskey Tide
Watch for more at M. Ruth Myers’s site.
About the Author
M. Ruth Myers received a Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America for Don’t Dare a Dame, the third book in her Maggie Sullivan mysteries series. The series follows a woman P.I. in Dayton, OH, from the end of the Great Depression through the end of WW2.
Other novels by Myers, in various genres, have been translated, optioned for film and condensed for magazine publication. Some were written under the name Mary Ruth Myers. She has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri J-School. Prior to becoming a novelist, she worked on daily papers in Wyoming, Michigan and Ohio. She also spent five years working as a ventriloquist.
The author and her husband live in Ohio. When not writing, she plays Irish traditional tunes on the concertina with more enthusiasm than skill. (Then again, how many people do you know who even play the concertina?)
Read more at M. Ruth Myers’s site.
Dames Fight Harder Page 24