In Plain Sight

by Barbara Block

  “It’s Brandon Funk,” I hissed as he stepped out.

  But George didn’t answer. I put my hand through the space I’d left open and gently shook him. There was no response. He must have passed out. I had to get him to a hospital soon. While I was wondering how I was going to do that Brandon Funk cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled my name. When I didn’t answer he came around the car and walked onto the grass. He’d taken another couple of steps when I heard gravel crunching again. Another set of lights broke the darkness. Funk turned to look. I could see his body growing rigid. He reminded me of a deer caught in the glare of the headlights. A moment later the new car pulled up behind Funk’s. As the driver killed the engine Funk spun around and started running toward the farmhouse. I heard a pop and saw a pinpoint of light. A moment later Garriques got out of his car. He was still holding in his right hand the gun he’d used to shoot Funk.

  “Robin,” he cried, looking into the dark for me. “Are you all right?”

  My throat felt dry. The word “yes” came out in a croak. I should have been relieved. But I wasn’t. I was confused. What I’d just seen didn’t make any sense. Something told me it would be better not to mention George.

  “Funk was going to kill you,” Garriques explained, even though I hadn’t asked. I suppressed a shudder.

  At first I’d thought so to. But now I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t seen a gun. Funk hadn’t drawn one. But if he hadn’t come to kill me, why else was he here?

  “Come on,” Garriques said. His voice had taken on a cajoling quality. “Let’s get out of the rain. I’ll explain everything in the car.”

  I took another look at Funk. There was no gun in his hand and none lying on the muddy ground nearby. Then I heard him moaning. He was still alive, but I had a feeling that like George, he wouldn’t be unless he got to a hospital pretty soon. He moaned again. Garriques didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he hadn’t heard.

  I swallowed before I spoke. “We’d better call an ambulance,” I said.

  “Of course,” Garriques replied, hesitating a second too long before speaking. This did not give me confidence. I wanted desperately to believe he was telling the truth, but I didn’t think he was.

  The bad feeling I was getting grew. Things weren’t fitting together. The way Garriques had acted didn’t make sense. Unless ... unless he’d shot Funk to keep him from talking.

  “I’m waiting,” Garriques said. He sounded impatient. I realized he hadn’t lowered his gun.

  I could hear my heart pounding. It was keeping time with the falling rain. “You make the call,” I suggested. “I’ll stay here and take care of Funk till you get back.” I was surprised at how confident I sounded.

  “I don’t think so.” I watched Garriques take a step in my direction. He had an ugly expression on his face. The more I thought about the way things were going, the less I liked them.

  I raised the twenty-two and considered firing. There were only three problems: I was a lousy shot, I had three bullets left, and unless I hit Garriques in exactly the right spot the odds were the wound wouldn’t stop him.

  “Robin, you’re being ridiculous,” Garriques said. The rain had plastered his shirt to his chest.

  “Am I?” I crept away from the Taurus to the harvester. I wanted to put as much distance between George and myself as possible.

  “Yes, you are.” Garriques’s voice had turned querulous. “Now stop this nonsense and get in the car.”

  “Go call for an ambulance,” I repeated. “I’m going to stay here.” I moved my hands and feet to try and restore circulation. The rain had numbed them. I realized I was shivering from the cold.

  This time Garriques didn’t reply. Instead he raised his gun slightly and took another step onto the grass. I moved around the harvester. Maybe if I could get him to come close enough I could get a good shot.

  “You know Enid’s not going to like what you did to her brother,” I told him in the ensuing silence.

  Garriques didn’t say anything.

  And then my stomach clenched as the knowledge I’d been trying to deny rose up and hit me. “She’s not going to know, is she?”

  “No, she’s not,” Garriques agreed.

  “Because I’m going to be dead, too, aren’t I?” I said, hoping against hope that Garriques would say no. But he didn’t. I guess the time for charades was over. “You’ve got a lot of bodies you’re going to have to get rid of.”

  “Oh, I’ll figure something out.” Garriques’s voice was flat. “I was kind of thinking that maybe I’ll work it out so it looks like you killed Funk. Then I killed you when you tried to get away.”

  “Very inventive.”

  “I think so. And then, of course, I’ve got the woods to bury Samson in.”

  I looked at the twenty-two I was holding and wished I had something like a .357 Magnum. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that Garriques didn’t know I had the twenty-two. That should balance the equation a little.

  “My dear brother-in-law always did have a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Garriques mused as he took another step toward me. “He’s been a thorn in my side ever since Enid and I married. I told Enid he’d be better off in the army, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She even made me get him a job at Wellington. I had to see the moron every day.”

  I crept to the other side of the harvester. I’d be less visible there. “There never were any jewels, were there?”

  “None at all.” Garriques had stopped moving. He was trying to pinpoint my voice. I decided to oblige him.

  “You just wanted me to find Estrella so you could kill her,” I told him.

  Garriques smiled. I could tell he thought he had me. “She’d seen me kill Marsha at the reservoir. There was nothing else I could do.”

  “I guess you’re just a victim of circumstances.”

  “You can put it that way if you want.” He took another step. This time he ended up behind a tree. The man wasn’t taking any chances.

  “How did Marsha find out?” I asked to keep Garriques talking. I wanted to distract him because I’d have just one opportunity to shoot him. If I missed, George and I would both be dead.

  “About Porter? Simple. Funk told her. The moron. I guess she saw it as her chance out.” Garriques’s voice rose. “Pennington was a gambler, no matter what she said, she wasn’t going to reform. Sooner or later the itch would return and she’d come back and see me. She’d bleed me dry. I couldn’t have that.”

  “You could have turned yourself in.”

  “For killing Porter?” The distain in Garriques’s voice was palpable. “He was an animal. Sleeping in the barn. Never changing his clothes. He stole things, you know. I told him to stay away from my stuff, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Is that why you killed him? Because he stole from you?”

  “I found him in my room going through my drawers looking for money. The week before he’d taken eighty bucks. This time it was my camera. I’d told him then he’d better keep away, but he thought he was entitled. He thought I should work my ass off and he could just come in and take whatever he wanted.”

  “Did he offer to put it back?”

  “No. He started to run, but I caught him. ‘This time,’ I told him, ‘I’m going to teach you a lesson. This time I’m going to teach you to stay out of my stuff.’ “

  “So what did you do? Shoot him?”

  “I punched him in the face—hard. The funny thing is I always had trouble with my right hook in the ring.” Garriques paused for a minute. “I guess I must have rammed his cartilage up into his brain. He just dropped dead.”

  I thought about his wife. “What did Enid think?”

  “She didn’t think anything because she didn’t know. She wasn’t here.”

  “If it was an accident, why didn’t you call the police—your friends on the force would have hushed it up.”

  “I didn’t have that many friends.” Garriques paused for a few seconds. �
��I thought about it, though. But it seemed simpler to just bury the body. I figured everyone would think Porter had just wandered off like he usually did. And that way I wouldn’t get Enid’s family involved. I wasn’t exactly on their good side right then.”

  “How come?” I asked as I crouched down.

  Garriques shrugged. “I’d roughed up one of Fast Eddie’s boys. I mean, I didn’t know who the asshole was. I told him to move and he gave me some lip. What was I supposed to do? You don’t know what it’s like out there. You ain’t got respect, you ain’t got nothing. Fast Eddie should have understood that.”

  “It’s a good thing you were family,” I observed.

  Garriques gave a dry little laugh. “Yeah, wasn’t it, though?”

  “So what about Brandon? How did he find out about Porter?”

  “He saw me bury him.”

  “Why didn’t he go to the police? Porter was his best friend.”

  “The same reasons I didn’t. The family. He didn’t want any problems either. And anyway, I told him I’d make sure that everyone thought he’d done it.”

  “And he believed you?”

  “I guess you’ve noticed that intelligence isn’t his greatest asset.”

  “Why did he tell Marsha?”

  Garriques shrugged again. “He said it just slipped out one night. Who was it that said, ‘Love makes idiots of us all’?”

  “Does that apply to you, too?”

  “No. I knew who Enid’s family was. I knew what I was getting into,” Garriques replied as he stepped out from behind the tree trunk.

  “Tell me, were you going to add George to the other graveyard inhabitants?”

  But Garriques didn’t answer. He was trotting toward me, using my voice as a guide. Evidently he’d decided the time for conversation was over. I flattened myself against the muddy ground and waited. For some reason I kept thinking about the time my grandmother had spanked me for playing in the mud. I wonder what she’d say if she could see me now. Finally when Garriques was about fifteen feet away I raised the twenty-two and fired.

  Garriques shrieked and clutched his right shoulder. I waited for him to fall, but he didn’t. He stayed on his feet. I fired again. Nothing happened. I’d missed. Garriques kept coming.

  “You and your friend are dead,” Garriques said. He tried to raise his gun and groaned. “Fuck,” he cursed as he switched hands.

  I figured it was now or never and started running.

  I headed for the barn. As I ran I could hear the crack of Garriques’s bullets whenever one of them hit something. By the time I reached the barn my breath was coming out in short, hoarse bursts and I had a stitch in my side. I’d gone a couple of feet when I tripped over a bale of hay and went sprawling on the floor. I’d just crawled around to its far side when Garriques sidled through the doorway. He wasn’t going to make himself an easy target.

  “If you come out, I promise I’ll make it quick for you and Sampson,” he said.

  What a guy. I didn’t say anything. Instead I waited for him to come closer. I had one bullet left and I wanted to make it count. Garriques took another step and another. When he took his third one I fired my last shot. Garriques let out a shriek and went down on the floor face first. His body twitched for a few seconds and he lay still. I waited for a minute, and then I waited for another minute before I went over. I felt as if I was moving in slow motion. I could hear the rain rattling on the roof and each one of my footsteps as it hit the floorboard. Garriques wasn’t moving at all. He wasn’t making any sounds. I’d just about convinced myself that I’d killed him when he rolled over and lifted up his gun. I kicked at his hand. The gun wavered. I kicked again and the gun went flying and disappeared in the dark. Now we were both out of weapons.

  “I guess I’ll have to do this the hard way,” Garriques said and grabbed for me again.

  As I twisted away it occurred to me I’d fallen for an old trick: I hadn’t hit him. He’d been faking.

  I ran for the ladder. I could hear Garriques behind me. I had my foot on the second rung when he pulled me down.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” he said.

  I turned and jabbed my fingers into where I thought his eyes would be. I hit something soft, and he groaned and his grip loosened. I started back up. Then I heard a loud crack. I could feel my footing go. The rung under me was giving way. I managed to hang on and pull myself to the next one. Then I heard another sound. Garriques was climbing again.

  I climbed faster.

  I was almost at the top when I heard a series of high, shrill squeaks. The shrieks got louder and louder till the sounds seemed to fill the space around me.

  Something brushed against my cheek.

  Something else brushed against the other one.

  Suddenly the air was swirling with small, frantic shapes.

  I closed my eyes and kept climbing through the bats.

  “They won’t hurt you,” I repeated to myself as I kept going. “They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

  Bat wings touched against my forehead as I reached the loft. The books were wrong, I thought. They do collide into you after all. Then I felt a pull on my leg. Garriques. I grabbed hold of the ladder railing and stomped on his head. I heard a grunt, felt a slight loosening. I stomped harder. Garriques groaned and let go. I pulled myself up onto the loft. The air was thick with bats. Their noise filled my ears. Their smell filled my nostrils. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cover my head with my hands. But I couldn’t, not with Garriques right behind me. Instead I reached out and grabbed a bat. Its body felt soft and lumpy under my fingers. I shivered and suppressing the urge to drop it turned toward the ladder. Garriques’s forehead appeared. In another minute he’d be in the loft with me, and I couldn’t have that. Even wounded he was stronger than I was. I waited till I could see his mouth. Then I shoved the bat in his face.

  He screamed and clawed at it with both his hands.

  I reached over and pushed.

  Garriques tottered and fell.

  I heard a thud as he hit the floor.

  I looked down and caught a glimpse of him through the swirling bats.

  This time he wasn’t moving.

  Chapter 36

  George grinned when I walked into his hospital room. “Did you bring the beer?” he asked.

  I patted my backpack. “In here.”

  George’s “roommate” made a disapproving noise as I went by. Harold Root had been brought in half an hour after George had come up from the ICU, and all I’d seen him do the past couple of days was watch TV and complain to the nurses about having to share a room. I didn’t know what he’d been admitted for and frankly I wasn’t interested enough to ask.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said when I reached George’s bedside.

  “Trust me,” George replied. “It is.”

  “I hope so.” I brought out the first bottle of Sam Adams, uncapped it, and handed it to him.

  George took a long swallow. He groaned with pleasure. “Ah. There is a God after all.”

  “Then I’d say you owe him some prayers. You should be dead.”

  “Listen,” George told me, “why do you think my last name is Sampson? It’ll take more than being shot in the shoulder and stuffed in a trunk to kill me.”

  Root coughed. George and I turned toward him. “Do you mind?” he snapped. “I’m trying to watch TV.”

  “Sorry,” I murmured. I pointed to the beer. “You want some?”

  Root sniffed. “Alcohol’s not allowed in here. This is a hospital not a bar.” He had a long, pinched face and looked as if he hadn’t enjoyed his life and wanted to make sure no one else enjoyed theirs either. “I shouldn’t have to deal with the likes of you in the state I’m in.”

  “You’re right, you shouldn’t.” I got up and drew the curtain around George’s bed. Suddenly we were cocooned in white.

  “Do you think it’s a race thing?” George whispered.

  “No. I think it’
s an idiot thing,” I whispered back.

  Root raised his voice. “I’m calling the nurse and demanding my own room right now.”

  “You do that,” I told him. Then George and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  “Sssh.” George put his finger to his lips.

  “I’m trying.” And I went off into another fit of giggling. When I’d gotten myself back under control I moved the IV pole and perched on the edge of George’s bed.

  “Did you bring any more of this stuff?” George asked hopefully, indicating the beer with a tilt of his head.

  “Three. Wait until you see what else I brought you.” I dove into my backpack and came out with a joint.

  “You’re going to get us arrested,” he hissed.

  “Then you don’t want me to light it?” I didn’t think that George was as straight as he pretended to be, but maybe I was wrong.

  He hesitated.

  I offered to put it away.

  “No, don’t,” he said after another couple seconds of hesitation. “What the hell.” He moved over and patted the space he’d just vacated. “Come on. There’s room.”

  I lay down next to him and lit up.

  “I haven’t done this since Murphy died,” George said as we passed the joint back and forth.

  “Me either. He was definitely a bad influence.”

  “That’s for sure,” George agreed.

  “How come you’re so much more uptight with me than you were with him?”

  “I don’t know.” George was about to say something else when Root started talking.

  “What’s that I smell?” he demanded. His voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. “Are you smoking in there?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him. “There are rules against that kind of thing.”

  “We’d better put it out,” George whispered.

  “It would probably be a good idea,” I agreed.

  “I guess I really was lucky,” George reflected as he snuffed the joint out with his fingers and handed it to me.

  “I’d say so.” I put the joint back in my pocket and took a sip of beer. “I still don’t understand how you knew it was Garriques. What put you on to him?”