She leaned back.
She looked very tired, emotionally drained. "Why don't you tell me what you think happened."
I slowly turned the cassette over in my fingers. "You knew he had a large gun collection and you knew where he lived. I think you managed to get inside his place and steal a gun. You figured it would take at least four shots to make your plan work--what'd you do, shoot off a couple rounds in the woods ahead of time? And how'd you get him to come inside?"
When she only stared at me, I shrugged and went on. "However it happened, you got him inside and then you shot him at very close range. You wait a few minutes, call 911, scream out 'he's going to kill me' as you wrap his fingers around the gun and fire. The second gunshot is heard. That's the slug that enters the door frame. All the while you had the tape running and now there are two gun reports recorded on a cassette all ready to play back on that rather fine stereo with the Dolby sound. Did they test your hands for powder residue?"
"No."
"No reason to, actually."
She scratched at the back of her hand and continued to stare at me, calmly, coolly, as though I were merely relating the plot of a movie I'd seen.
"Let's see if I got this right," I said. "Cole is dead on the floor. The cops have surrounded the place. You start the tape, break the window and jump out at the exact moment the first shot on the tape is heard. Then several minutes later--six to be precise--while paramedics tend to your wounds, the final shot is heard. The house is surrounded. Cole was the only person left in the house so it had to be him who fired the last shot." I offered a thin smile. "I'm sitting with you in the ambulance when your tormentor puts a bullet in his own head. Me, the cops and half the neighborhood, we're all right there. You got yourself one helluv'n alibi.
"Luck was with you. A few more seconds and tear gas would have been used, which, nasty stuff that it is, would have showed up during the postmortem exam. Tear gas residue on Cole and his clothes, but, oddly enough, not in his air passages or lungs since he was already dead. Yeah, luck was finally with you, Trudy."
She was crying now. Softly. "He wasn't ever going to leave me alone. Ever," she spoke quietly. "He called and I told him I was ready...ready to die. Told him he'd ruined my life so there was nothing for me to live for. He came right over. I could see by the craziness in his eyes that he wanted it to happen. He could hardly wait. It was no game, not to him. He was smiling that...that creepy smile of his. The gun--"
"Well, it's over, Trudy," I said, cutting her off. I squeezed her hand, stood. "It's all over." I placed the cassette in her hands and closed her fingers around it. "Give Karen a hug for me. Have a good trip. Have a good life."
I turned and walked out.
*****
This short story is featured in my trilogy of mystery shorts, BROKEN JUSTICE: When Justice Fails.
Night Hunter Page 40