All the pain from running in my new sandals came rushing back as Alex talked into his radio to the station. “Officer in pursuit of suspect going west on Crimson Drive. Suspect is with another man in a black sedan. Request backup.”
Alex took a corner off Crimson onto Terrace Road nearly on two wheels while I rubbed the soles of my feet and hoped I didn’t die on this case. I’d never seen him so focused and driving so fast. Every instinct inside me said I was in danger, but I trusted him, even if I didn’t like racing through the residential areas of Sunset Ridge at seventy miles an hour.
“Where are they going?” he asked like he couldn’t understand their desire to run from the police.
As the black car crested a hill and disappeared, I said, “I’m guessing anywhere we aren’t so they don’t get caught killing one man and trying to kill a second. What I don’t understand is why try to kill Gerald Engels?”
We nearly soared over the hill a few seconds later, so fast that I held on afraid we might go airborne. Alex’s hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel as the car hit eighty, making me think I might have to say something about how safe all this was.
I focused on the stretch of road ahead and saw no sight of a car anywhere in front of us. Confused, I squinted, thinking I was seeing things. Or not, for that matter. But there was no one in front of us now.
“Where did they go?” I asked as Alex kept his focus straight ahead.
We sailed past a thicket of trees and continued racing toward the northern side of town, but then Alex looked up for a moment to check his rearview mirror and that’s when he saw them.
“They’re behind us turning onto that side street!” he yelled just as he jammed his foot on the brake and spun the car around one hundred and eighty degrees so we were facing the opposite way we’d been going just a second earlier.
My heart slammed against my chest as my life passed before my eyes. Never in all the time we’d worked on cases together had I experienced a high speed chase like this. Sunset Ridge was a sleep little hamlet. I wasn’t even sure high speed chases had ever happened before in town.
As Alex floored the gas again after turning onto the side street, I grabbed hold of the door and said, “Hey, maybe we don’t need to go Mach two, okay? We’ll catch up to them, but people live around here, Alex. We don’t want anyone to get hurt, especially us, right?”
My words seemed to reach him even as he looked almost lost in the pursuit he’d described on the radio a few minutes earlier. Easing his foot off the gas, he looked over at me for a split second and nodded.
“Right. I forgot where I was there for a second or two. I think I know where they’re going, though.”
I saw a street sign on the corner ahead and understood too. Sycamore Street. But why were they going to Gerald Engels’ house?
Chapter Twenty
Angela Touring and Frank Mitchell practically leaped out of the car in front of Gerald Engels’ house and tore up the sidewalk to the front door. Alex stopped the car a moment later and jumped out to flash his badge.
As I followed him, he yelled, “Stop! Sunset Ridge police! Stop!”
Neither of them paid attention to his order, so Alex ran after Frank to keep him from entering the house. Catching up to him on the front lawn, he tackled him to the ground. The two men hit the grass hard, and when Frank had the chance, he took a shot at Alex, landing a punch square on his jaw.
Alex answered with a punch that knocked Frank out cold and yelled to me, “Don’t let her get inside!”
I looked up at the porch and saw Angela opening the front door, so I ran toward her as the adrenaline once again tore through me and caught her just as she got inside the house. Angela may have been skilled in fist fighting, but the last time I’d hit anyone had been in grade school when Derek’s brother Dominick teased me too much one day.
So I did the next best thing. I grabbed her purse strap and yanked hard, taking her down to the floor in one fell swoop. My attack stunned her, or maybe it was how hard she hit her head on the hardwood floor when she fell, but she didn’t move when she landed flat on her back.
Staring down in shock at how I’d actually stopped her, I panicked when she began to try to sit up. “Alex! I need you in here!”
I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t leave or she might get up and run away, but I needed something to keep her there. My mind raced with what I could use for handcuffs until Alex arrived. Was it even legal for me to restrain her?
There was no time for that now. Quickly, I scanned the room for something to use and saw the plastic rings from a six-pack sitting on top of a table in the corner of the dining room. They wouldn’t hold her for long, but hopefully they didn’t need to.
I ran over and grabbed it before returning to her just as she sat up. Still dazed, she didn’t put up much of a fight as I slid her hands through the rings and then doubled up on each wrist.
“What the…?” she asked as she tried to extract her hands from the plastic rings, clearly confused about my unique method of keeping her put.
“Alex! Now would be a great time to help!” I yelled, afraid she’d rip them off her at any second.
I turned to see him escorting Frank in handcuffs through the front door and smiled in relief. His eyes immediately settled on my solution holding Angela’s hands in place, and his mouth dropped open in amazement.
“Don’t say a thing. You weren’t here and I had to do something,” I said in my defense as he sat Frank down in a chair in the next room.
He returned to where I stood over Angela and chuckled. “I wasn’t going to say a word, Poppy. Thank God you suggested this so I could use them since I didn’t have a second pair of handcuffs on me. Good thinking.”
I stared in disbelief as he took credit for my fantastic idea. “Huh? What do you mean thank God I suggested this so you could use them?”
Alex said nothing but gave me the furrowed brow look that said I needed to drop my protest immediately. In the flush of success, I didn’t understand at first, but then it dawned on me. He was trying to protect me by taking the responsibility for those plastic makeshift cuffs.
He lifted her up off the floor and sat her down in a chair next to Frank in the living room. She cursed at him as she tugged at those plastic rings but couldn’t get out of them.
“Enough!” he barked. “I want some answers and I want them now.”
Both Angela and Frank sat stony-faced refusing to speak. I’d expected that from him, but from her it surprised me. I really had been duped by her whole poor me act.
“I know what’s been going on with you. I need to know where Gerald is. He’s sick and needs medical assistance,” Alex said, glaring at the two of them.
In turn, they both denied knowing anything about Gerald Engels or where he might be. Frustrated with their lying, I asked, “Then why did you come to this house then?”
When they didn’t answer, I continued. “Were you just making sure you finished him off this time?”
They just shook their heads, but from behind them a pile of knickknacks fell over and there stood Gerald Engels with a gun pointed at us, sweat pouring down his face and his hands trembling. He looked even worse than Dr. Carter said he would, and I doubted he would last much longer without medical care.
“Mr. Engels, we’ve been looking for you,” Alex said calmly. “You look ill. Maybe you should sit down.”
He inhaled a deep breath and shook his head. “No. I want you to hear the truth before I go,” he said, panting as he spoke.
“Okay, okay. Maybe if you just sat down, though, you might feel better.”
Gerald shook his head sadly. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Angela and Frank looked almost giddy at the possibility that Gerald might die at any moment. I knew Alex saw it too when he turned to them and said, “You two will be up for murder when he dies. Right now, it’s just attempted murder, unless one of you tells me the other one did it.”
The two of them stared straight ahead, their faces emotionless after what Alex said. I knew what they intended on doing. They planned to wait it out until Gerald died and then they’d stick together and likely make it next to impossible to convict either of them.
But I wasn’t going to let poor Gerald die over this twisted Romeo and Juliet act these two had going. Alex and I had saved his life, and I wasn’t going to let them ruin that.
I looked over at Gerald as he leaned heavily against the table, barely strong enough to hang on. “Gerald, let us call an ambulance. We can get you to the hospital so Dr. Carter can take care of you. Remember the last time we helped you? We got you to the ER in time and you were getting better. What happened to make you want to leave the hospital? Who was the woman who came to visit you yesterday?”
He looked over at Angela and then Frank before he let out a rush of air from his lungs and fell to the floor. Alex raced over to help him and tossed me his cell phone. “Call 911! He needs to get to the hospital now!”
I called and gave the operator the address as Alex tried unsuccessfully to keep him alert. He stood from Gerald’s side and waved me over to him. “Keep him comfortable. The paramedics will be here in a few minutes.”
Looking over toward Angela and Frank, he said, “As for you two, this is your last chance. Whoever wants to save their skin should start talking right now.”
Angela set her jaw defiantly and stared straight ahead. Whatever her part in all of this, she intended on seeing it through to the end.
But for the first time since I’d met him that day in the Millville Motors garage, Frank Mitchell looked scared. His eyes darted back and forth between a nearly dead Gerald and Alex, and more than once he opened his mouth to speak but then immediately pressed his lips closed like he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
Alex pointed to where I sat comforting Gerald and barked, “He’s dying! Are neither one of you going to tell the truth? Not even now?”
His eyes flashed the anger I knew he harbored for this case and all we’d gone through because of these people, and now when they had the chance to finally do something good, even if it was to save themselves, they still chose to stay quiet. I knew how he felt. I wanted to hit someone for what they’d done to my father, to us, to Marcus and Gerald.
And for what? Why had they committed this horrible crime that by the end of that day might leave two men dead?
Frank once again opened his mouth to say something, but Angela quickly snapped at him. “Just keep your mouth shut and they won’t be able to do a thing to us, baby. Not a thing.”
Alex got in his face and shook his head. “She’s wrong there, Frankie boy. You keeping quiet doesn’t help you as much as it helps her, I suspect, so if you have something to say, now’s the time.”
He pointed at Gerald lying on the floor and continued “As I said, right now, this is attempted murder, and maybe not even that for you, depending on your part in all of this. If he dies, it’s murder and premeditated at that. Now we may not have the death penalty here in Maryland anymore, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to pay and pay dearly, like to the tune of the rest of your life if you’re found guilty of first degree murder.”
That was enough to loosen Frank’s tongue. With one last glance over at his partner in crime, he began talking. “Gerald and I were just shooting the breeze. That’s all. We were at the Sunset Lounge last month and we got to talking about things and one thing led to another and we both realized we hated Marcus for different reasons. But we never would have killed him if it wasn’t for Angela. She’s the one who wanted him dead. We just wanted revenge.”
“For what?” Alex asked, listening intently.
Before partner in crime could answer, Angela ordered him to stop talking. “Frank, don’t say another word. They have nothing on us, baby.”
Her thin lips all but disappeared as she put on a fake smile for him, and even a giant clown like Frank knew she had it all wrong.
Alex repeated his question. “What did you two want revenge for?”
“I wanted revenge on Marcus for stealing Angela away, and I think Gerald wanted to get his revenge for some antiquing thing that Marcus did to him. It was all just talk, I tell you. We were just two guys getting drunk and blowing off steam.”
“Why now?” I asked, directing his attention to me and Gerald. “It had been months since Angela cheated on you. Why do this now?”
Frank pointed at her and nodded his head. “That was all her! I swear. I hated the guy, but I would have gotten over what he did after a while. But Angela couldn’t. She stewed and stewed about how he insulted her by dumping her, and after a few months, it’s all she could talk about. That was one reason why I was at the Lounge drinking that night when I first started talking to Gerald. I couldn’t take her bitching about Marcus anymore.”
“I find it hard to believe she and you didn’t know Gerald. He and Marcus had been friends for a while, so she would have known him from when she dated him,” Alex said, apparently poking a hole in Frank’s story.
“I don’t know what she knew, but I didn’t know the guy until last month. I came home and told her I met some guy who hated Marcus like we did, and that’s when she told me we could kill him and she knew of some treasure he had that we could all share if he was gone.”
As the sound of the ambulance siren coming closer filtered into the house, I quickly asked, “What was this treasure?”
Frank looked over at Angela, who turned away and shook her head. “I never did find out exactly what it was, but these guys have tons of junk between them. She said he told her about it when they were dating.”
“Probably the reason why she was so upset when he dumped her,” Alex said as he walked to the front door to direct the paramedics inside to where Gerald and I sat.
The man and woman hurried inside and began working on him, but he needed more help than they could give him, so they quickly loaded him onto a stretcher and took him out to the ambulance. Alex returned with Derek in tow and his handcuffs, just in case Angela wriggled out of the plastic soda holder ones I’d used to improvise.
Looking down at the two suspects, he asked, “So these are the two responsible for Marcus Tyne’s murder?”
Alex looked at both of them and nodded. “That’s what it sounds like.”
“No!” Frank exclaimed, looking like he would begin to cry at any moment. “It was her and Gerald more than me! I only got the antifreeze. Gerald made sure it ended up in his drink, and Angela was supposed to make sure we all split the treasure.”
“Then how did Gerald Engels get poisoned by the antifreeze?” Alex asked, clearly not believing Frank’s version of the story.
For his part, Frank seemed a bit hazy on that. “I don’t know. He knew he had to put the stuff in Tyne’s drink. The antifreeze was in a flask that Gerald had in his coat pocket Monday night. He’d arranged to meet Marcus that night at McGuire’s for a drink to patch things up over some fight he said they’d had.”
“Why did you two go to McGuire’s instead of the Sunset Lounge?” I asked, desperate to know if revenge on my father had played any part in their grand plan.
“Because we didn’t want to go back to the Lounge where people had seen us together. Gerald suggested the other bar because he’d been there a few times and said the guy who runs it leaves the bar unmanned a lot if he’s alone.”
So much for small town values and kindness. At least my father hadn’t been an intentional target of theirs. For that, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Derek looked over toward Angela, but she simply stared straight ahead like she was looking right through him. “Let me guess. If Gerald lives, he’s going to tell us this one promised him it would be just the two of them sharing that treasure if he put the antifreeze in Marcus Tyne’s drink. Am I close, Miss Touring?”
His accusation received no response from her, except for a glare she shot him before looking away.
Frank appeared stunned by it, thoug
h, and turned to look at her like he couldn’t believe she’d betray him like that. “Is that true? Did you tell him it would be just you two sharing the booty? What were you planning to do about me? Was I the next one to get the antifreeze treatment?”
When she didn’t answer him, he looked over at Alex and said, “Check her computer. That’s where she found out about the antifreeze being a good poison because you could put it in someone’s drink and they’d never know. She told me about it. Check her computer and you’ll see this was all her idea.”
“Oh, I plan on it, but we still don’t have an explanation how Gerald Engels got poisoned, and even though you looked surprised when you heard what my chief had to say, you’re still the prime suspect in his poisoning. You better hope he lives to prove us wrong.”
“I never gave him anything! I swear! I couldn’t have. I worked all day that day. You saw my time card.”
Alex shook his head and grimaced at Frank’s lame alibi. “Yeah, we know all about you working for your brother. Something tells me he isn’t exactly going to hold up under cross examination at trial.”
Frank sputtered for a moment, clearly grasping at whatever could prove he wasn’t the one who poisoned Gerald, and then his eyes opened wide. Eagerly, he offered another alibi option. “The camera! My brother had a security camera installed three weeks ago after someone spray painted one of the cars out back. I had to go out into the lot at least a dozen times that day, so check the security tape. You’ll see I’m on it all day.”
Then I remembered Gerald hadn’t poisoned on Monday. “It doesn’t matter what the tape says about that day because Gerald Engels ingested the antifreeze on Tuesday. Looks like your alibi just went up in smoke.”
For a moment, I thought Frank Mitchell might break down in tears, but then he shook his head wildly. “No, no! What time on Tuesday?”
Happy Hour Page 20