The Barrell, Bats and Bubble Gum

by N. L. Cameron

  I squared my shoulders. “This is Max’s wrench. You took it from the garage the night he was killed.”

  He took a step forward. Eliza and I had no choice but to step back. “And?”

  I gulped. “And…you…”

  He leveled his deep brown eyes at me. He didn’t shudder and fidget now. His hands didn’t shake, and he didn’t talk to himself or break down in tears. He was ice cold and deadly determined. “I killed him. Isn’t that what you’re trying to say?”

  I cast right and left for any way out of this, but I backed up into the desk. That stupid lump of wood pushed me toward the maniacal killer bearing down on us. I tried to wave the wrench, but I couldn’t get my arm to work.

  He walked right up to me and took the wrench out of my hand. “You know what will happen if you tell anybody about this, don’t you?”

  I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I couldn’t look at Eliza. She stood rigid at my side.

  He shook the wrench in my face. “The same thing will happen to you as happened to Winnie, and I won’t make the mistake of leaving you alive, either. You’ll never tell a living soul what you found out.”

  He turned to walk away. My heart crashed against my ribs. Was he going to let us go with that warning? Hurray! We were getting out of here. Once we breathed the pure night air again, we could figure out what to do about Marty.

  He crossed the doorway and glanced back. “On second thought, I’ll have to kill you. I can’t run the risk of you spilling your guts to the first person you meet.”

  He bent forward and grabbed the doorknob. He pulled it toward himself with a nod. “You two stay where you are. I’ll be right back.”

  He shut the door in our faces, and the lock clicked.

  Chapter 19

  Eliza and I whirled around to face each other. “What are we gonna do?” she cried. “We’ve got to get out of here. He’s gonna come back and kill us. How could you get me into this situation, Allie? I’m never playing Nancy Drew with you again.”

  I took a firm grip on myself, although she said out loud the same words running through my head. We were locked in an office behind the DoubleDown Diner with a cold-blooded killer after us, and not one person in this rotten town knew where we were.

  What a fool I was not to tell Levi where I was going! He might have said all sorts of unkind things about me and my crazy investigations, but at least I would know someone was coming to find me right about now.

  “Stay calm,” I stammered. “We have to think. He won’t leave us in here forever.”

  “He said he’d be right back,” Eliza wailed. “He could shoot us in here and we would never get a chance to escape. What are we gonna do? You have to get me out of here, Allie.”

  “Will you settle down?” I snapped. “I can’t think with you yammering like that. I have to think.”

  The door lock clicking again interrupted any thinking I could hope to do. The door swung open, and my worst nightmare came true when Marty appeared holding a pistol in one hand and a length of rope in the other.

  Eliza and I tried to back away and ran into the desk again. “What are you going to do with that?”

  He held up the rope. “I know a little place outside of town where no one will ever find you.”

  “How will you stop people from looking for us?” I asked. “When we disappear, people will track us to this diner. You’ll be found guilty of three murders instead of just one, not to mention assaulting Winnie.”

  “What’s another two murders on my conscience? If no one finds you or that wrench, no one will ever know I killed Max.” He waved his gun toward the door. “Now, march, and don’t even think about screaming for help if you don’t want a bullet in the back of the head.”

  I had no choice but to walk through that door. “Why did you do it?” I asked over my shoulder. “What possible reason could you have to kill him? Don’t tell me you did it so you could park your customers on his property and move your dumpster in front of his door.”

  He followed behind us. “Only an out-of-towner like you could ask that question. You want to know why I did it? I’ll tell you.” He pulled a small square of paper out of his pocket and held it out for me to see. “That’s why I did it.”

  I studied the paper in his hand. It was. It was an old black-and-white, yellowed with age, but unmistakable. It showed a beautiful girl in her late teens. Her golden curls bounced around her shining angelic face, and a gleeful smile lit up her features. That smile could brighten the darkest night, but I couldn’t fail to recognize the face. “Winnie!”

  He nodded and gazed down at the girl in the picture. “She was the most precious thing on this mountain back then. She was the light of my life, and he stole her from me. I never loved anyone the way I loved her, and he ruined her for life. He squashed the light out of her. He made her ugly and sour and rotten, just like himself. I made myself a solemn vow more than twenty years ago I would kill him one of these days, and I kept my promise.”

  “But you smashed Winnie’s head in,” I countered. “Why would you do that to the woman you loved?”

  He raised his smoldering eyes to my face. “She’s not the woman I loved—not anymore. She sold her soul to that devil and turned into something I hated. Then she started accusing everyone in sight of killing him and weeping and moaning about her lost love. I could have killed her for that alone, but I held back. I held back until she looked me right in the face and asked me why I did it.”

  “When did she do that?”

  “In the greenhouse, of course. I was about to leave the inn when I noticed she was up and walking around. I asked if she wanted to take a walk in the gardens—just for old times sake, you know. When we got to the greenhouse, she turned around and looked right at me. She said, ‘Why did you do it?’ I saw in her eyes she knew, so I had to stove her head in then and there. I thought I killed her, too, but I guess I missed my aim.”

  “She was drunk out of her mind,” I told him. “She had no idea what she was saying, and she had no memory of ever taking a walk with you. If you had let it go, no one would ever have known.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t do that, and now that you know, I have no choice but to kill you, too.”

  Eliza’s hand groped for mine, and she crushed my fingers in a death grip.

  Marty waved his gun toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  I stayed where I was. If I could only stall for time, some miracle might happen to get us out of here. “What about the towels from the garage? Why did you throw them in the dumpster?”

  Marty’s eyes widened. “That? I had to get rid of them. They had his face plastered all over them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I first walked into the shop, he was fiddling with the hood of that car. I saw my chance, so I picked up a wrench out of his tool box and snuck up behind him. I was all set to crack his skull open when, all of a sudden, he stood up and saw me. He inhaled so fast he choked on his gum.”

  “But he didn’t choke. The gum was still in his mouth.”

  “Oh, he was still breathing,” Marty replied, “but I lost the element of surprise, so I grabbed the bundle of towels. I shoved his face into them and suffocated him right there on the car. I had to dump them, so I threw them away when I came back to the diner. Now quit your blabbing and march.”

  My heart sank into my shoes, and Eliza and I stumbled along the hall and through the kitchen to the front register. Even then, I couldn’t stop mulling over the case. So, he dumped the towels to cover his tracks, and he had to take the wrench with him after he put his fingerprints on it. He hadn’t counted on Sheriff Mills leaving the whole scene untouched. If he’d left the wrench behind, he probably would have gotten away with murder.

  Marty pushed us into the main diner seating area. He woke me from my reverie by jabbing me in the ribs with the gun. “Move!”

  At that moment, a deafening crash startled us all out of our skins. Marty wheeled around to see a metal
trash can come flying through the glass front door. The pane shattered into a million pieces, and a booted foot kicked the shards out of the frame. Male voices shouted from every direction. “Go! Go! Go!”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes when Levi climbed through the opening. Dozens of State Troopers flooded the diner. They snatched the gun out of Marty’s hand, and Levi took hold of the wrench. “Max Nash, Automotive Technician, huh?”

  My hand flew to my heart. “Levi! How did you find us?”

  “Ron told me you came down here looking for Camille. I put two and two together.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. He came. He came after all, just when I thought all hope was gone. “You did? How did you do that?”

  His mouth twisted in a wry grin. “Do you think I didn’t hear everything you said about tracking down Max’s killer? You thought I wasn’t paying attention, but I was. You’re not the only one who can follow a trail of clues, you know.”

  I wanted so much to put my arms around him right then, but I didn’t dare with Eliza and all those State Troopers around. My hands shook, and my shoulders shuddered. “Thank you, Levi. Thank you so much for coming.”

  He draped one arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him. “Hey. It’s all right now. You’re okay.”

  My head sank onto his chest, and my arms slipped around his waist. “Everything’s all right, now that you’re here.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I was so worried when you didn’t come back to the inn. I thought I would never see you again.”

  Sheriff Mills and Deputy Leonard crunched through the broken glass toward us, and Levi let me go. Sheriff Mills cast his milky eyes around the diner. “So, you did it again, did you? Well, well, well. Marty Tucker. I never would have believed it.”

  “Maybe you’ll believe me from now on,” I suggested.

  He shrugged and pulled up his pants. “Maybe I will. Maybe I just will.”

  Chapter 20

  I sat on a rocky ledge by the lake shore three days later and watched the sun slip behind the mountains. The clouds formed a dappled roof overhead, and the departing rays cast them all in a solid ceiling of gold and porcelain blue. The lake water reflected the colors turning magenta and mauve and finally rose.

  I inhaled a deep breath of the wonderful mountain air. Already the night chill crept over the lake. The warm, comforting inn waited for me back up the hill, but for now, everything was peaceful and beautiful and serene.

  “I thought I might find you down here,” Levi said from behind me, interrupting my thoughts.

  I didn’t have to turn around. “Somehow, you always know where I am and what I’m up to.”

  Levi crunched through the gravel to stand next to the ledge. “You’ll report me for stalking next.”

  I had to smile. “I won’t report you. It’s very reassuring to know you’ll always be there when I need you. That’s what I love about you.”

  He slid along the ledge to sit next to me. “I meant what I said the other night. I get worried about you running off half cocked after who knows what. You should be more careful. I’d be devastated if anything happened to you.”

  I studied him in the fading light. “Is that why you don’t want me sleuthing? Because you’re worried about me?”

  “Of course. Why did you think I kept discouraging you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you think I’m too dim to solve the case.”

  He shook his head. “You know that’s not true. This is the second case you’ve solved without any help from me. Maybe it’s me who should be listening to you instead of the other way around.”

  “Do you think so?”

  He snorted with laughter. “No, silly.”

  I had to laugh, too. “Okay. I’ll try to listen to you more in the future.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders again and drew me into his embrace. I leaned against his protective bulk and rested my head on his chest. He felt so good and solid. That man wasn’t going anywhere. He anchored me.

  “I came down here to tell you,” he went on. “The State Troopers’ detective sat in on Eliza’s deposition this morning. She told the whole story, so you don’t have to worry about this case disappearing into Sheriff Mill’s round folder.”

  “That’s good. I really like Sheriff Mills. I only wish he was a little more of a sheriff.”

  “The Troopers took Marty to their lock-up down in Hunterville. He won’t be back here any time soon.”

  “What about the diner? This town took a hit when the gas station closed down, and now the diner is in trouble, too?”

  “Camille is keeping the diner open. I think she plans to buy it as soon as the case goes before a judge. She’ll be good for it.”

  I nodded. The clouds turned scarlet, and the sky bordering them darkened to deep indigo. Levi pressed his lips against my hair. “You okay? I thought you’d be happy about this. Everyone is calling you the next Sherlock Holmes.”

  I couldn’t be happy about that. “I keep thinking about Winnie. She had the undying love of two good men, and look what it came to. One of them murdered, one of them locked up for the rest of his life, and she’s a broken wreck. Is that what comes of love?”

  He didn’t say anything. He just listened.

  “I always thought I wanted an undying love like that, but maybe it’s not such a good idea after all. “

  “What are you saying? Are you saying you don’t want me to hold you like this anymore? Are you saying you don’t want to… whatever is going on between us anymore?”

  I jerked upright to face him. “No! I’m not saying that at all. What made you think that?”

  He studied my features at close range. He glanced down at my mouth. “I don’t want to stop doing it. I don’t want to stop… this.”

  I looked down. His lips twitched. “I don’t want to stop it, either.”

  A hint of a smile appeared around his eyes. “Good. That’s one thing we can agree on.”

  I started to smile back, but he eased in and kissed me. Those magical lips spread their warmth through me. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else or doing anything at that moment but enjoying the sacred beauty of kissing him in the most tranquil place in the world.

  He cupped my chin and tilted his head to one side. Our lips locked, and pure blissful serenity flooded my being. I could go on kissing him forever and never get tired of it.

  His lips trailed off my mouth in delightful softness, and we both smiled up into each other’s eyes. I sank back onto his chest, and the light faded out of the clouds to cast the lake in gun-metal gray. The evening star pierced the velvet blue behind us, and the wind rippled the waving water.

  Levi broke the silence. “Even if you’re not the next Sherlock Holmes, I know how you feel about these cases.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure. They can become addictive. I know that better than anybody.”

  “So, why don’t you want to solve them?”

  “I do, but I don’t. I don’t want to get involved in that stuff…” He almost said something else, but he stopped himself in time.

  I didn’t rise up to look at him. I didn’t ask what he meant or what he was about to say. I didn’t ask anything. I didn’t need to know about his past or those parts of himself he kept hidden. I didn’t need anything but what we had right at that moment.

  I could hold him and kiss him. That moment was so much more precious than twenty years of the kind of strife and resentment Winnie had. That moment was enough. It was more than enough. It was everything.

  About N.L. Cameron

  N.L. Cameron is as much of a mystery as she writes about in her books. Crossing over from having written romance novels for the last ten years, she’s now applying what she learned while obtaining her degree in criminal justice and binging on crime dramas.

  When she’s not in front of the glowing screen of her laptop she’s likely driving her kids around town from appointment to appointment, playing tennis, practicing
yoga or enjoying a fine craft beer.