Chopping Spree gbcm-11

by Diane Mott Davidson

  The glove compartment yielded the proof of insurance and manual, period. I slammed it shut, frustrated. Then, remembering a trick I’d seen in a movie, I turned the Saab key one click in the ignition, so as to run the accessories. Then I deftly punched the Eject button on both the CD and cassette players. They were empty.

  “Dammit!” I yelled, creating another big cloud of verbal steam. Barry had been so proud of this car. The perforated leather seats were ventilated with fans, the turbo kicked in with a blast of power, and he had shown me all its zippy bells and whistles when he’d taken me out for…

  Coffee. I smiled. Bells and whistles, indeed. Those inventive Swedes had designed a particularly cool gizmo for holding your coffee. Barry himself had pressed the button that brought down a vertical plastic cylinder that automatically turned ninety degrees to hold my … latte.

  Breathing another prayer, I pushed the button. It didn’t move. I cursed silently and pressed it again. The vertical panel squeaked out and opened sideways. Inside the empty circle where my latte had once sat was a key, stuck under plastic tape.

  With my frigid fingers barely able to move, I scraped and ripped at the tape until I’d pulled that sucker of a key out of the cup holder. As I stomped back to the house, key ring and new key in hand, I tried to stay calm.

  You think this is fun, Barry? my mind growled. Did you ever spend time in jail? Have any of your friends been stuck behind bars? Next time, leave typed instructions with your lawyer. It’ll be easier on both of us.

  I ransacked his office, looking for a file cabinet that needed a key. Nothing. Every drawer was unlocked.

  Dog File, Barry had written beside my name on the manila envelope. Maybe if I again spread out everything that was in that packet, I’d see a common element that would lead me to the dog file.

  I jammed all the keys into my pocket, slammed out the front door, and traipsed over the ice to my van. It was getting late. I was tired, frustrated, and upset. But it was unlikely Darlene, much less the cops, would ever let me into Barry’s house again to look for an imaginary disk. Not only that, but I was running out of time. At my van, I pulled out the manila envelope, then crunched through the packed ice back to Barry’s chalet.

  Packet in hand, I settled onto the scratchy, black braided rug in the living room. At eye level, I was surrounded by the mournful faces of needlepointed, painted, and lacquered basset hounds.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered to them. “How come your master had to make everything so difficult?”

  On the floor, I laid everything out: the compact, lipstick, and blush; the editorial decrying the mall addition; the article on Teddy; the paycheck to Lucas Holden that had been returned by the post office. Next to them, I placed the manila envelope itself, with its scrawled Goldy and Dog File notations written in different colored inks, probably penned at different times. My guess was that the Goldy reminder had come later, once Barry decided after the truck incident to send me on a wild-goose chase, in case he took a powder.

  I surveyed the stuff. Some people enjoy creating a tangle for others, so that only the most determined folks will try to figure out the solution. Clearly, Barry was that kind of person. On the day he died, he’d bequeathed his newly named basset hound to me; he’d also assembled some articles and stuffed them in a manila envelope labeled with my name and a reference to an enigmatic dog file. Less than an hour before he’d been murdered, he’d written me a note saying he had a “tip” for me. Since Barry had mentioned both a check and a tip in his note, I had to assume that that “tip” was verbal in nature, and would have explained everything.

  “But the risk, Barry,” I said aloud, thinking hard, “is that when you leave too many clues, no one, not even a caterer-turned-sleuth-with-a-friend-in-jail, no one will be able to figure out what the hell you were trying to say.”

  All around the room, the basset hounds looked sadder than ever. I ignored their canine countenances and picked up each item from the floor, examined it again, then set it down.

  Nothing.

  My back ached. I eased myself up to a chair, propped my feet up on an ottoman, and again surveyed the pattern of items. Still, no ideas popped. If I were an old-fashioned deductive English detective, I reflected, I’d have a nice glass of sherry and ponder. I surveyed the living room. Along one wall, the black lacquered cabinet—complete with a family of basset hounds painted on the front—held a silver tray of crystal sherry glasses and, bless me, a bottle of Dry Sack.

  I heaved myself up, crossed the room, uncorked the opened bottle, and poured myself a very small dose. I recorked the bottle and downed a lovely sip. Barry the showman undoubtedly would have preferred offering me a rare wine, and I probably should have checked to see if he had any, but I wasn’t choosy, I thought, as I took another sip. Besides, I thought as I peered downward, the liquor cabinet was… oh, God.

  Locked.

  I was so startled I turned too fast and sent the sherry bottle flying. I grabbed for it and missed. The bottle didn’t break, thank goodness, but rolled across the living room rug. In trying to catch the bottle, though, I did drop my glass, which crashed and shattered. Exhaling, I stepped over the splinters of glass and the puddle of sherry, tiptoed to Barry’s keys, and nabbed the one I’d extracted from the Saab cup holder. With my heart thundering, I inserted it into the cabinet keyhole.

  The heavy door opened easily. Inside were not the bottles of expensive wine I had expected, but a stack of files about three inches high. I grabbed them. Why had the cops not taken the cabinet? I wondered. I could hear what they would say. Because it was extremely heavy, because it was in the living room, because it was a liquor cabinet, because it was locked. As the ace investigator in the department, Tom would have taken it, of course, and broken into it. But he’d been off the case from the beginning.

  I danced back across the room and opened up the files.

  Inside the first file was a bulkily folded blueprint. I spread it out, stared at it, and finally figured out that the Existing Structure was Westside Mall. Numbers dotted the plan for the addition and lot, but what did that tell me? Not a thing. Someone—Barry?—had penned X’s in three different spots. Barry had been trained as an architect; he’d known what the diagram meant. For me, it might just as well have been in Swahili.

  Next in the pile was a banded packet of Polaroids and folded sketches. I laid the sketches—there were three of them—out in front of me like cards. The Polaroids were not of Pam or Ellie, but of concrete and dirt photographed from what appeared to be different angles. At the bottom of each photo were penned dates, all in February. The sketches were in Barry’s hand, and resembled a cross-section of an archeological dig. Where footings should be, he’d written, beside a set of lines. Where they are, he’d written to the left of another diagram, and then added: CHECK PHOTOS!

  O-kay. I took a thoughtful breath and plowed on. Next was a sheet: Siblings & Incomes, with two names typed and annotated.

  Lawrence. Criminal defense attorney; partner in firm. Annual income: 5 million ++++.

  Bachman. Orthopedic surgeon; operates on world-class athletes. Annual income: 3 million ++++.

  At the bottom was another Barry-scribbled note. Amount he’s borrowed to build custom home: $520,000. Approximate profit from sale of topsoil from this site: $1,600,000.

  And last, there were two more newspaper clippings. One was a piece on a new playground in Aspen Meadow, the other covered the rise in traffic stops for reckless driving. Mystified, I turned them over. Both of them, like the flipped clippings on the floor, included ads for topsoil from We Got Dirt.

  OK, so Barry had been on to something. But what? I went back to the Siblings & Incomes sheet. Did I know either Lawrence or Bachman? With a sinking feeling, I pulled out one of the cards that my—and now Julian’s—lawyer had handed me. Underneath Hulsey’s name was the listing of the firm’s partners.

  “Oh, Lord,” I breathed. I scurried over to a lacquered end table that held a phone and directory. Flipping
through the Aspen Meadow section, I looked for the name and address I’d seen right near the Stockhams’ gorgeous place. Brother Bachman, too, had done very well, moving into one of the ritziest areas of Aspen Meadow. And he’d dated Marla!

  This was just like Pam and Page, I thought, as I punched buttons. Like Kim and Teddy. One sibling can’t stand having less than the other. And then he or she just can’t stop competing for stuff, no matter what gets in the way. No matter what.

  Tom’s number had not connected before a large hand closed around my neck. In a split second, another hand wrenched the phone away, and pulled it so hard the cord snapped. The phone went flying. I twisted away from the choke hold with all the energy I could muster. The second hand closed around my throat. I gasped for breath and kicked backward instinctively with first one, then the other foot. Black clouds formed in front of my eyes as a distant voice reminded me, The abusive husband always tries to silence the wife, to make sure she has no voice….

  With a surge of furious energy, I simultaneously clamped my own hands onto the choker’s, turned my head, and bit as hard as I could into my attacker’s palm. The choker screeched with pain as blood spurted into my mouth. I yanked myself free and dived toward the front door. Two fists banged into my back, and I reeled onto the couch.

  Above me, Victor Wilson tried to hit me again, but I rolled away, scrambled to my feet, and screamed bloody murder as I raced the other way, toward the back door.

  “Hey!” he bellowed, sprinting after me. “Get back here!”

  I slammed into the back door and fumbled frantically for the doorknob. Victor crashed into me, grabbed hand-fuls of my hair, and jerked me so brutally that I almost passed out.

  “You aren’t going anywhere!” he snarled as he flung me down. I staggered sideways into the liquor cabinet and bounced off it onto the floor, the breath utterly knocked out of me.

  “Stay there! And shut up!” Victor yelled, as he kicked me viciously in the back.

  Again black spots spiraled in front of my eyes. I whimpered and panted for breath.

  “You’re a thief,” I gasped. Victor placed his booted foot on my thigh. He was pressing hard as he looked for something. Pain ratcheted into every cell of my body. “You followed me here!”

  “Shut up, you nosy bitch! Or I’ll smack you again!” He was groping, I realized dimly, through a filthy sack.

  Not for a knife, I prayed. Please, not for another knife.

  “You killed Lucas Holden! And Barry, too!” Talking might slow him down, might give time for Darlene to figure out that the racket she was hearing next door was not the noise from some TV show.

  “Shut up!”

  Squirming, I looked around desperately for something—anything—to distract him. His boot pressed down firmly, pinning me to the floor. Where in the hell was my cell phone?

  I wheezed, “And… and you were going to let our friend Julian, or Ellie McNeely, take the rap. Ellie never crashed her car into Barry’s, you did. What’d you do, pull her purse with the jewelry receipt and car keys out of the Dumpster where Teddy threw them? Ellie never pushed anyone into a ditch. She never killed anyone. What were you going to do after you trapped her in the toilet tank, kill her and dump her body under some cement at your construction site?”

  Victor, still rummaging for something, grunted, “Something like that. Now shut up before I choke you again!” He pushed down harder on my thigh. I winced. There was a lot more to say, but I knew now it wouldn’t help. They teach you in self-protection classes to talk to criminals if they attack you. You’re supposed to call them by name, you’re supposed to appeal to their soft side. Crap to that. Talking doesn’t change the mind of a greedy, vicious man.

  Victor finally found what he was looking for in the huge bag: a long coil of thick rope.

  “What’s that for?” I gasped.

  “I’m gonna bury you under the foundation for our last store,” he said matter-of-factly.

  My adrenaline soared and I desperately scanned the room. How could I get away from him? Applying more pressure to my leg, he leaned over me. Double crap.

  “Victor,” I screamed, “I know about your brothers! I know what you’re doing! And I brought you cookies, you bastard!”

  This took him back for a millisecond. And in that millisecond, I kicked away his boot with my free leg, and crab-scrambled a yard away. With an angry roar, he vaulted after me. But by that time I had something in my right hand. When he pounced around the corner of the couch, I hit him square in the face with the Dry Sack bottle.

  He squealed and reeled backward, his face a bloody mess of glass shards, liquor, and torn flesh. While he howled, I scooted over to Barry’s door and snatched up the doorstop with its needlepoint picture of a basset hound. Under the decoration, thank God, was a heavy brick. While Victor screamed, “You bitch! You bitch!” I slammed it into his stomach with all the strength I possessed. He wheeled forward, bellowing with pain, spun around, and landed hard on top of all the papers Barry had meticulously assembled to prove his excavator’s wrongdoing. Then, because I’d learned about this in self-defense and because I didn’t want to risk Victor waking up before I could get the cops here, I hit him once more, very, very hard. With the brick.

  Where it really hurts.

  CHAPTER 20

  It’s called overexcavating,” Tom informed me, as he broke eggs carefully into a bowl late the next morning. “Most of the builders in the Denver area are honest. But there are some crooks, and they love to brag. That’s probably how Victor Wilson heard about the way to do it.”

  It was Arch’s birthday. Tom had taken the day off, he said, so he could take care of me and bake Arch’s cake. After my violent struggle with Victor Wilson, I was definitely out of cooking for the next couple of days. Tom was happily taking over so I could recuperate. And I was determined to let myself rest and heal. I’d even handed my next client over to Liz Fury.

  Meanwhile, Arch—otherwise known as the Birthday Boy, which we of course could not call him to his face—was ecstatic that Elk Park had another in-service. My son was sleeping in.

  “Overexcavating?” I asked Tom, as I chased four ibuprofen with a double espresso. Every part of my body ached. I was determined to think about, to talk about, anything except how I was feeling.

  Tom measured sugar, then dumped it into the whirling mixer. “Works like this. Guy either is or is not in cahoots with the soil and building inspectors. Sometimes inspectors are just stupid, which is what we had with the Westside Mall addition.”

  “Oh, great.”

  Tom checked the bittersweet chocolate he was melting in the top of our double boiler. “Remember you told me about that lake of drainage water by the back entrance?” he asked.

  “You mean, the one that Victor was so helpful bringing my boxes across?”

  “The very one,” Tom replied with a grin. He lifted the pan with its pool of melted chocolate off the heat.

  “OK. So there’s a lake of drainage water by the mall’s back door. How is that so important?”

  “Drainage problems, which that project had in the worst way, often come from improper grading. With overexcavation, your crook is going to sell over a million dollars of extra dirt. The grading is never going to fix the problem. Lotta rain, lotta snow? That water’s gotta go somewhere. It can’t drain back into the earth, because the impervious surface of a parking lot won’t let it. So it just becomes a puddle, a pond, or one of the Great Lakes.”

  “How much had Victor overexcavated?”

  “’Bout six or eight inches. Over that huge expanse of land, you’re talking a lot of dirt. He sold it all through those little We Got Dirt ads, and he made about a million and a half. He had his crew helping him out, too, for cash.”

  “So… how do we reconstruct the whole thing?” I puzzled.

  Tom tilted his head and considered. “It’s complicated. Victor Wilson was not only very greedy, he was a very mean, very smart guy.”

  But he acted nice, my mind
automatically supplied. The creep.

  Tom went on: “Say Lucas No-toe Holden, the former construction manager, discovered the drainage problem and accused his excavator of overexcavating and selling off the dirt. Maybe Lucas wanted to alert Barry but Victor intercepted him. By the way, you want to hear about everybody’s favorite cadaver?”

  “Is this going to destroy my appetite?”

  “Hope not. We got back the drug screen. Holden had been injected with cocaine, and that, we think, caused the heart attack. Again, it was probably Victor, but I doubt we’ll ever be able to prove that. Our theory is that after Victor Wilson intercepted Lucas Holden and used the hypodermic on him, Victor quickly drove—through the night—to a motel where he could wear Lucas’s sweatshirt and ball cap to check in as Lucas. Then Victor set up a scene so that it looked as if Lucas died of natural causes, and left the body.”

  “And the coroner out there didn’t test for drugs because…”

  Tom stood to make me another espresso. Except for bruise marks around my neck, I was in pretty good shape. I liked being pampered, though. In fact, I loved it.

  “Because Lucas Holden was a diabetic with heart disease, Goldy,” Tom explained, as velvety dark coffee spiraled into a new English china espresso cup. Tom had bought it for me and hidden it until an appropriate occasion presented itself. He figured catching Victor Wilson qualified. “There was no obvious drug use,” he went on. “So they didn’t run a screen. That kind of case, the medical examiner probably wouldn’t get involved. Remember, a coroner can be a nurse whose husband is a rancher, say. Her only job is to determine the cause and manner of death. And with no foul play, no obvious drug use, the corpse in pretty good shape, then the coroner thinks, Bingo! Donation.”

  “But how did Ellie become involved?” I wondered aloud, as I gratefully accepted the crema-loaded espresso.

  “First you gotta look at what happened with Barry and Victor. Again, our theory is that Victor typed up a note, supposedly from Lucas Holden, saying ‘I quit! I’m going to Arizona. Send my check there.’ ‘Where in Arizona?’ Barry probably asked Victor, and Victor said ‘Prescott’ because it came into his head. While Barry was out at the site, though, he saw that something was wrong with the footings. They were even with the surface level of the dirt, instead of below it. Barry had an architecture degree, so—”