by Judith Mehl
“Yep, going to give up bingo and start a new life.”
Nick knew of Rita Mae’s gambling success at the race track, but perpetrated the bingo myth along with the rest of them. He offered Kat a quick hug and asked, “Would you like me to go in with you and wait?”
Kat bounced away after a swift response. “No, I think we can manage. The only danger would be me walking into a wall in the dark. We’ll see you back home after we drop off the frog lady.”
Agatha unlocked the front door and moved immediately to check on the lemon verbena, columnea and calendula hanging in the main window, a tantalizing welcome to the herbal delights within. Kat and Rita Mae followed more slowly.
Then Kat halted, thinking she smelled smoke. Strange that she could sense anything over the strong herbal scents permeating the shop. “Must be my imagination.”
She shook her head as if to clear her mind when Agatha joined them. As co-owner she unerringly found the switch in the dark and turned on the lights. A swift, dark shape hurtled from the back room around the counter and past them. Rita Mae shouted. Kat swept into a karate stance with speed and agility and kicked the figure in the solar plexus as it leapt past. Stunned by her friend’s attack, Agatha barely managed to trip the person as the body twisted from the first blow. The figure was up and out before either woman could follow through. Rita Mae dug her cell phone from her purse and sprinted towards the front door.
“Blasted towers. Never get a signal when you need one,” she mumbled as she finally struck three bars and dialed 911. The call went through as she was flattened by the fleeing figure. Kat helped her up. Rita Mae, undaunted, completed the call. Meanwhile, the suspect stumbled away, quickly gaining speed. Agatha sprinted down the street in pursuit. Kat tore off after, hoping to stop her before she was harmed. Her right foot, however, didn’t join the race and she almost fell. She wiggled her ankle, painfully, and found it functional.
Agatha surprised her as she stopped and squinted. “Quick, write down, ‘V433’. Darn, that’s all I could see.”
Kat pulled out a pen and scribbled the number on a wrinkled receipt from her pocket. They both returned to Rita Mae in the store, breathless but curious, to see if they could find what the prowler had been doing. Kat learned that she could walk with careful placement of each foot and sat when she entered the store. No point in drawing attention to myself right now.
A man rushed in the front door. Before he got two steps inside, spotlights flared, sirens howled, and he heard, “Stop, or we’ll shoot.”
Nick ceased all movement, then slowly raised his hands. Hearing the commotion, Kat and the others hurried towards the front from the office where they headed to see what the intruder had disturbed. Kat knew Nick’s years with the Defense Intelligence Agency prepared him for most anything. Right now, she was most grateful he knew when to stand still.
The trio of women hadn’t proceeded too far before the police arrived and cornered Kat’s husband. All three simultaneously shouted, “Oh no, not Nick!” startling the officer with the gun. Fortunately he’d passed rookie status when Kat was in diapers and knew not to shoot in surprise.
Detective Hill arrived seconds later and saw Nick’s arms raised.
Nick forced a sheepish, “Hi, Fulton.”
“Nick, for God’s sake, what’s going on here? Put your arms down.”
Kat raced up to her husband. “Nick, what are you doing here? We thought you left.”
“I did. But I heard the report of the break-in on the police scanner. I hightailed it back here.”
Hill explained who Nick was to Officer Bartello. That didn’t stop Detective Hill from raising an eyebrow at seeing Kat and asking for particulars on the emergency call. With the imminent danger past, the woman calmly provided details of the trespasser in the store.
Agatha rattled off the section of license plate numbers and shrugged her shoulders in apology. “Sorry, whoever it was drove away from the streetlight.”
Officer Bartello looked agog at the women’s agility and quick thinking. Meanwhile, Agatha took over bragging rights for Kat, who hadn’t even mentioned her swift kick to the person’s solar plexus. At this point, Kat mentioned her hesitation at the door, at the smell of smoke. “Not like the place was on fire, just like cigarette smoke. Maybe it was on the trespasser’ clothes as he came forward.”
It surprised all of them, however, that no one could provide a definitive answer to the intruder’s gender. The person resembled a reed, a birch tree, or a maypole, depending on who you asked, but they all agreed the dark hooded sweatshirt hid any identifying features.
The group spent some time trying to determine how anyone had entered. The ca-chunk of the lock opening had registered with all three women when they’d arrived earlier. The back door remained locked. No windows were unlatched or disturbed. Officer Bartello noted that the trespasser could have entered with a key and locked it from the inside while ruffling through the back office. No one could find anything missing. They all pondered the ramifications of these points but mustered no answers, deciding finally to move ahead with their plans for now.
The officer left to file his report after checking the shop one more time. Fulton and Nick stayed to supervise the lesson in Cash Register 101. They alternately purchased zany items from the shelves to give Rita Mae some experience.
Once Rita Mae mastered the basics, Agatha left her and roamed the aisles. Nick watched her readjust a couple of displays. “Everything looks to be running fine without my helping hand,” she told him. “I wish I could readjust my life as easily,” she added with a wistful sigh. “I know it will never fall back into place. My friends’ deaths altered the puzzle picture. My place in that picture ultimately shifted, for now, to an unknown location.”
Kat watched her explore from her spot by the counter. She gave her some space to reconcile her new position in life. She wandered back towards the front, then jerked to a stop. She bumped a bottle of shampoo off the shelf. The loud sound in the empty store created a flurry of activity as Fulton and Nick quickly drew their guns and chased down the aisle.
Chapter 11
Power, endurance, and determination can be revealed in straight lines on the down strokes of letters such as ‘g’, ‘y’, and ‘q’.
“Margaret’s keys!”
Everyone looked at Agatha strangely as she calmly replaced the unbroken bottle she’d knocked off the shelf in her excitement, but Kat caught on quickly to what she meant.
“The prowler used Margaret’s keys.”
Agatha nodded agreement. “Yes, that’s what I meant. I never found them after she died. Her whole key ring was missing, but since they speculated she’d died of heart failure no one pursued it.”
“The coroner’s office hasn’t yet ruled on the case but there was no mention in the report regarding her keys,” Detective Fulton said. He added, “Margaret was found on the floor in her own dining room with no apparent wounds, so it made sense that no one looked for them. This key information opens up more questions. It could lead us somewhere.” He made notes and circled it for immediate investigation.
“Why did the person who killed Margaret, assuming that is who stole her keys, want to search the herb shop?” Nick wondered out loud. “What could the women have been involved in that would cause their deaths?”
Almost forgotten in the melee, Agatha stumbled in reaction. Detective Hill seated her, and then took charge. “If the person was looking for a trail to Agatha, we can’t take the chance and let that person follow her home to Kat and Nick’s house.”
Nick proposed his idea, something that started when he drove Agatha to the shop earlier, and they discussed his souped up Mercedes. She’d wanted a ride, he explained. He promised a ride later; now he could offer her more—a safe haven. It took some explaining because only Kat knew the details of his investigation, but he suggested housing Agatha at the hotel in the suite of rooms reserved for “Pete” and company.
Agatha seemed intrigued; at least it d
istracted her from her danger. “So, what’s with this job? Is there anything I can do while I’m there?”
Nick thought for a moment and said, “At least it would provide a lived-in appearance to the room. The other room will have one of my men in it most of the time so you will be safe. It will help us to have the rooms look occupied.”
“Why? Will they be checking?” Kat asked.
“I honestly don’t think so, but you never know. This guy is anxious for everything to go well, and he’s in a hurry. He wants a lot of money fast. I’m sure his men would never actually try to get in; though they might hang around trying to catch me. This way they won’t think the room is deserted when we aren’t in the work area.”
Detective Hill said he liked the idea and devised a scheme to deliver Agatha without anyone seeing her. They assigned occupants to the three cars and formed a caravan, one that took them out at different times in different directions. Eventually they would end up at headquarters, where Burrows waited for them. Hill took Agatha; Kat followed, and Nick brought up the rear with Rita Mae. Once in the underground police garage they could meet upstairs and then sneak Agatha out.
First they confronted Burrows in his office. Despite the late hour, he’d remained at the station, hoping to clean up mounting paperwork in the quiet of the evening. Even though he knew they were coming he couldn’t help his abrupt reaction when he saw Kat and Agatha enter his domain, followed by his own officer, Nick, and a bandy-legged old woman. He cursed, then shouted, “What now? Kat, what have you done?”
“Why do you always assume it’s me?” she said as she sidled into the corner chair, leaving the hot spot for one of the others.
Hill edged in the door and closed it as Agatha took the chair in front of the detective’s overflowing desk. Nick settled in a protective stance behind his wife. Kat hoped it was a sign of solidarity, and not just a place for him to keep out of the line of fire. The chief shifted the largest pile to provide a clear line of sight to them all, beetled his brows and waited.
The responding officer came to their rescue, explaining the break-in at the shop, the women’s presence there, and the theory regarding Margaret’s keys.
“If the whole key ring went missing, then that person also has access to Margaret’s home. We can be pretty sure he’s already searched it, despite the farm workers coming in and out of the place.”
He firmed his jaw as he made his decision. “By now it’s probably useless, but we’re going to look anyway. I’ll also bring in a locksmith and request new locks for your shop first thing in the morning, Miss Hartman, if that’s okay with you?”
He immediately sent Hill to guard the store until the locksmith came in the morning. “Pick up Miss Endicott first and take her with you. Maybe she can tell if anything’s missing.”
While Kat pondered the logistics of informing all staff of the key change, the others studied the ramifications of the new knowledge and started a list of areas to consider:
Did whoever break in take the keys from Margaret after killing her?
What was the person with the keys looking for tonight?
Is the connection Agatha? The herb farm? The shop?
Did they scare the intruder into racing off without finding what he/she was looking for?
Burrows let them speculate and hypothesize for a while, even adding a thought here and there. They all agreed it could have been the killer who took Margaret’s keys from her home, and thus was the same one who they flushed from the shop.
“The police will follow up on the issues listed.” He pointed to Kat the whole time, then finally switched his eyes to Agatha.
Kat spoke up in a deferential voice. She even raised her hand. “Will you be able to trace the license plate from the partial Agatha gave you?”
Burrows answered politely, turning to Agatha as he spoke. “Ma’am, I have one of my men working on it now. I doubt we’ll be able to find the owner, if, indeed, your suspect owned the vehicle.”
Agatha apologized. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get more. It was so dark.”
“Oh ma’am, don’t misunderstand. That was not a criticism. You women were amazing. You kept your heads about you. You even went on the offensive. When something comes flying out at you from the dark that’s not always easy to do.”
She nodded and smiled her thanks at his acknowledgement of their efforts.
He chuckled and looked out the large window in his office where he could view the few men who were on the job at this early hour.
“Some of my men probably couldn’t do any better.”
Kat raised her hand.
“What, Katharine?”
“I know this may not be my place to ask, still, has anyone looked at Margaret’s will? Could the ownership of the herb farm, or her part ownership in the shop be the triggering factor here?”
“You’re right. Katharine, it’s not your business. But we’re on it. Trust us for some things, okay?’
Agatha Hartman’s arm popped up this time, and he gave up forever his image of her as a little old lady who crocheted antimacassars for her living room chairs. She obviously was pretty sharp considering it was 3 a.m. and he was the only one yawning.
“A question, Miss Hartman?”
“I have no idea if the herb farm ownership is related to what has been happening. I’m concerned. I know when George Kinney died, he rewrote his will to give equal ownership to Margaret and me. He was so kind, and didn’t want her left alone with the burden. I was happy to share it with her.”
Burrows perked up. He stopped yawning and gave her a nod to continue.
Kat wondered if this was the answer they’d been searching for. She noticed how Agatha suddenly looked her age.
“Margaret and I never discussed the will after that. I have no idea if she rewrote it. Even if I own half a share, she may have done any number of things with her half. Though I don’t know of any living relatives. I have a vague memory of a young boy who hung around—maybe a distant nephew or something on George’s side.”
“Well, ma’am. We’re waiting for George’s lawyer to get back from vacation. He’s an elderly man with no practice left to speak of, but he still might be able to find the latest paperwork. We didn’t find a will in the house, so that part is on hold.”
He tossed a few papers around on his desk till he found a coffee-stained business card. One paper flew to the floor and in the guise of helping Kat picked it up, frowning at it until he motioned for her to put it back on the desk. Noticing her frown, he asked, “What?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever analyzed your handwriting.”
“Don’t even think it!”
“I bet it has lots of these straight strokes on the lower end of your ‘g’s and ‘y’s.”
The killing look glanced off her and he focused on the others.
“If you remember anything, or think of anything, that might connect you and Margaret, or your enterprises to a killer, contact Detective Hill here immediately. If you can’t reach him, call me directly.”
He ignored Kat and handed Agatha the card where he’d penciled in some numbers beneath the office number.
They discussed the incident at the shop again. They questioned whether the killer had come looking for Agatha. Nick surmised that the possibility was weak, considering no one could have known Agatha would be there at that particular time. He did, however, explain his plan to hide Agatha. They would sequester her in the hotel suite being used by the Petingill and Donnelly Security Agency for a client. Burrows didn’t ask for any more information. He agreed that the break-in wasn’t necessarily a direct link to the woman, yet expressed relief that Agatha would be moved to a secure location that night.
The long night bled into day as the group assessed the tasks. They dispersed one by one. Nick gave Agatha his key to the hotel room and called Lewis, who didn’t even grumble at the ungodly hour to serve as her chauffeur.
Nick’s partner in the investigation agency, G. L. Petingill the III, dropp
ed off Lewis at the hotel where he picked up Nick’s fancy car. Lewis delivered Agatha to the hotel room via the underground garage, and was collected by an officer who’d driven Rita Mae home.
Nick and Kat laughed on the way home despite their fatigue. They felt part of a Keystone Cops episode and weren’t sure exactly where everyone would end up. If anyone had been following them, or Agatha, they would certainly get lost.
They lay in bed, letting the fatigue drain, and Kat thanked Nick again for his help and for taking care of Agatha. Removing that one worry left room for several others to flow in. For now, she rolled over to him before he nodded off.
“Nick, you understand why I’m involved again, right?”
No answer.
“Nick?”
He mumbled something like, “It’s okay, hon.” The tight hug said it all. And he was out cold. Strengthened by his support, she held off mentioning her sore ankle to him. She cooled it with compresses and felt the relief as soon as she propped it up in bed. If there was a problem she would deal with it later.
That resolution didn’t convert to a deep sleep, however. Images of crazy killers running around in circles and turning back and chasing each other in the opposite direction disrupted her more than once. A large capital K, as big as a skyscraper, fell over on three of the Keystones. She could still see their feet kicking up and down from underneath the toppled building as she awakened. An omen?
Chapter 12
Loops that reach into the upper zone can indicate unhappiness with one’s self. Combined with small middle zones, these extended upper loops can stand for compensation reactions—bursts of self-assertion offsetting moments of self devaluation.
Detective Fulton Hill thrived on activity, but two days work with very little sleep took a toll. He’d escorted Fanny to the store in the dawn light following the break-in. She absorbed the information without panic. There remained inherent danger in the shop until they could discover who’d been there and why. Fanny didn’t hesitate.