In the meantime, I lost precious seconds, and in those seconds, Nick closed in on me and I stepped back and bumped into the table. Before I had a chance to figure out which way to run, his hands had already closed around my neck.
“Give me that letter!” he said, his voice deadly serious. And even though I struggled to breathe at the same time I fought to loosen his hold, I recognized the important word there.
Deadly.
He was stronger than any IT geek had a right to be. He shook me like a ragdoll. “It’s mine. Give me the letter. Now.”
Never let it be said that Pepper Martin isn’t willing to oblige. I was getting nowhere trying to pry Nick’s hands away from my neck so I groped for the framed letter. Once I had a hand on it, I swung. Hard.
When the frame and the glass shattered on Nick’s head, the noise was as loud as a gunshot.
I guess that got Quinn and Scott’s attention. They untangled themselves from the doorway and scrambled over just as Nick’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he crumpled to the floor.
“Nick Klinker, you’re under arrest—”
They did it again. Started talking at the same time.
Quinn and Scott exchanged cutting looks. But maybe Scott is the smarter of the two. Or maybe he just knew that the case was officially Quinn’s and there was no way he was going to scoop it, anyway. He stepped back and Quinn cuffed Nick and called for the paramedics.
What did I do while all this was going on?
Well, I still had a hold of what was left of the frame, and I looked down at the letter, but I couldn’t really see it clearly. That’s because my hands were trembling.
“You OK, Pepper?” Scott asked. He put a hand on my arm.
“I’m fine,” I lied, but only because Quinn looked up, anxious to see how I was going to answer.
“I’ll just . . .” My knees were mushy, and I figured it would be more graceful to sit down in the office than to fall down on the floor, so I headed that way. “I’ll wait inside the office.”
This, too, was a good plan.
Or at least it would have been, if Nick Klinker hadn’t been telling the truth about Marjorie’s murder, and the real murderer wasn’t lying in wait for me.
I had already slumped down into the chair behind the desk when the office door swung shut, clicked, and locked. Too late, I realized someone had been standing behind it.
“Thank goodness for Nick causing all that commotion. I never could have gotten in here unnoticed if your two cops friends hadn’t been so busy trying to one-up each other.” Ted Studebaker stepped out from the shadows. Good old Ted, always the showman. He wasn’t content using the ol’ finger-in-the-pocket-like-a-gun trick. He really did have a gun, a small, silver pistol with a pearl handle. It was aimed right at me.
“Let’s get this over with as quickly as we can,” he said. He held out his left hand and jiggled his fingers, urging me to hand over the letter. “If I can get out of here fast, we can avoid any messy consequences.”
“If you shoot me, Scott and Quinn are going to come running.”
This sounded reasonable to me, but it wasn’t about to make Studebaker change his mind. “By the time they stop what they’re doing and figure out where the shot came from, I’ll be out of here. That’s the thing about surprise. It’s . . .” He grinned. “Surprising!”
“All this for a stupid letter?” What was left of the frame was on the desk and I looked down at the President’s fancy, curlicue script. “Come on, it can’t be worth that much.”
“It isn’t.” Studebaker stepped closer. “But what’s on the back of it . . .”
I hauled in a breath, and if I wasn’t so worried about living through the next couple minutes and about how if I didn’t, my body would be found with a big, ugly red mark on my forehead, I would have given myself a slap. “Of course, Jeremiah Stone said there wasn’t any blank paper in his portfolio. He went to get some, but the president couldn’t wait. He grabbed a piece of paper, anyway. And if there was no blank paper, that means something has to be written on the back of this one.”
Carefully avoiding both Studebaker’s confused “What are you talking about?” and the sharp bits of glass still left inside the frame, I took out the president’s letter and flipped it over. Even though the writing on the other side of the paper was stiff and old-fashioned and hard to read, I skimmed over the words and my breath caught.
I looked up at Studebaker in wonder. “This isn’t possible. You mean—”
“When word of this gets out . . .” He dangled the word to reflect the possibilities.
OK, so I’m not exactly a whiz when it comes to politics. Or world affairs. Or treaties and such. But even I knew the piece of paper in my hands would blow the lid off international relations.
“That’s why you were so anxious to get at this. It wasn’t because the letter from the president to Lucia is so valuable. It was for what was on the other side of it. And nobody knew about it but you. When I brought you that newspaper page I wanted to sell, you said you’d have to have an archivist look at it. That’s what you did with this. You took it out of the frame, and you saw what was on the back of the letter, and you . . .” There was nothing to be gained from not going for broke. “You killed Marjorie Klinker to get it.”
“It would have been easier to kill Nick.” Studebaker sniffed. “I was hoping he’d talk his aunt out of the letter and then I could simply eliminate him. I waited for him to leave the memorial with the letter in hand, but then I heard them arguing. She hadn’t even brought the letter with her, the stupid woman. After Nick left—”
“You moved in on Marjorie. And when she wouldn’t tell you where the letter was—”
“Things got out of hand. Yes. As they are about to get out of hand again.” With the barrel of the gun, he motioned me to stand. “I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that once a man has killed for the first time, the second time can’t possibly be hard. The letter, please. Now.”
I got to my feet, and just as I did, I heard the door handle jiggle.
“Pepper?” Scott was outside, and he tried the door again.
“Pepper, are you in there?” This question was from Quinn. “Is everything OK?”
“Tell them it is.” Studebaker mouthed the words.
Let’s face it, I never have been very good at taking direction. Especially not from a murderer.
I yelled something I vaguely remember as, “Watch out, it’s Studebaker and he’s the murderer,” and dropped to the floor, and just as I did, I heard the crash of the door getting kicked open, the sound of a single gunshot, and a muffled cry from Studebaker. I would like to be able to describe exactly how Scott and Quinn subdued him, but truth be told, I crawled under the desk, and stayed there the whole time.
21
“We’ve got a mountain of paperwork to fill out.” W Scott leaned over where I was sitting and looked me in the eye. “I hate to have to leave. You sure you’re going to be OK?”
“I’m fine. Honest.” I had my arms wrapped around myself to keep him from seeing that I was shaking like a leaf, but I did a pretty good job of sounding cool, calm, and collected. I had to. I’d already given my statement to the cops, but there was one more thing I had to do before I left the memorial that night, and I couldn’t do it with the FBI hanging around along with half the Cleveland Police Force and the paramedics who were tending to Studebaker’s gunshot wound. (I never did find out if Scott or Quinn was the hero.)
“Somebody’s got to lock up when you guys leave,” I told Scott, and Quinn, too, since he was standing right behind Scott glaring at me like nobody’s business.
“I can call Ella,” Quinn said. “She’ll come over here and—”
“You don’t have to.” I guess I wanted to prove to them both (and maybe to myself, too), that I could stand on my own two feet, so I hauled myself out of the chair. “I’m fine. Look.” I held my arms out at my sides. Yeah, my neck hurt from where Nick had tried to squeeze the life ou
t of me, but other than that, I really was none the worse for wear. Well, except for my slushy knees and my heartbeat racing a couple miles a minute.
“Go.” I shooed them both toward the door. “I’ll lock up and be right behind you.”
Neither one of them liked being told what to do, but it was a testament to how much paperwork they both had to file after all that had happened that night: both Scott and Quinn walked out. I watched them and all their safety forces buddies troop out the front door, then waited a few minutes for the quiet to settle. When it had, I stepped into the rotunda and onto the dais.
“Mr. President?” I wasn’t sure how he was going to take the news I was about to deliver, and my voice was small and tentative.
“Won’t do,” I told myself, and I raised my chin. “Mr. President,” I said, my voice louder this time. “We have a matter of national import to discuss.”
He shimmered into shape not three feet in front of me, and now that he thought all the excitement was over, I guess he was feeling a little more relaxed and a lot more jovial. His blue eyes sparkled. “National import? I swear, Miss Martin, you are sounding more like a politician every day. If you were not a woman, I would suggest you might consider running for office.”
I had the letter to Lucia in my hand and I held it up so he could see it. “There’s something you need to know,” I said. “About those last days before you died.”
Apparently he got the message. He saw how serious I was, and his brows dropped over his eyes. “You have told me already of the letter I wrote to Lucia. What else can possibly—”
I didn’t know how to explain so I didn’t even try. I flipped over the letter and held it up for him to read, carefully watching his face as he did. At first he was mildly interested. Then puzzled. Then horrified.
When he was done, he took a step back and blinked, like he was trying to process it all. “If you see fit to pull some sort of antic on me, young lady,” he said, “you should know that it is neither amusing nor suitable.”
“No, it’s not funny at all.”
Convinced I was serious and that his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, the president stepped forward, the better to see the paper in my hands. He read it over again, talking it through as he went. “It is a treaty. Between the United States of America and Federal Dominion of Canada, dated September 15, 1881. It sets forth to say that in exchange for the sum of fifteen million dollars in gold . . .” He paused, his head cocked. “That was a great deal of money in those days,” he commented before he went back to reading. “It says that in exchange for those fifteen million dollars, the United States would sign over to Canada all the lands of the Montana, Dakota, Idaho, and Wyoming territories. There is room there at the bottom where my signature is meant to go. Thank the good Lord . . .” His eyes bright, he looked up at me. “It is unsigned!”
“You got that right. And this . . .” I waved the paper, but carefully. After all, even I knew a document of historical significance when I saw one. “This is what Studebaker was really after, not your letter to Lucia.”
The president’s forehead was creased with thought. “But who could have done such a devilish thing?” he asked, and I didn’t need to supply the answer. I knew exactly when he figured it out. His eyes flew open. His face flushed. He threw back his shoulders and thundered into the darkness. “Jeremiah Stone! Your president needs you to attend him. Now!”
Oh yeah, Stone showed up, all right, and I don’t think I was imagining it: behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were troubled. But then, I bet he’d never seen anyone as pissed as the president was. James A. Garfield’s broad shoulders trembled. His jaw was so tight, I thought it might snap. His eyes flashed as he stood as straight as an arrow and listened to Stone.
“Mr. President.” Jeremiah Stone bowed slightly. The overhead light gleamed off the part in the center of his hair. “We are not scheduled for another cabinet meeting until tomorrow, sir. Yet you sound as if you need my help on a matter of some consequence. We shall certainly attend to it, sir. But first . . .” He was carrying his leather portfolio. Of course he was carrying his leather portfolio. This was one ghost on a mission, and he intended to carry it out. Even if it took him more than a hundred years. “There are some papers that require your signature, sir, and—”
“Papers!” President Garfield was a sight to behold! Remember how I once said that if I was casting a Biblical epic, I’d give him the starring role as God? Well, this was an Old Testament God, all right. Furious, and raging like Lake Erie when a sudden storm kicked up. He closed in on Stone, who by this time, was shaking in his boots. The president poked a finger at Stone’s chest. “You are the blackguard who engineered this infernal treaty with our Canadian friends to the north.” The President poked him again. Stone backed up another step.
“You are the one who sought to profit by it.” Another poke. Another step.
“You knew in those last days I was not thinking clearly. You fully intended me to sign the paper without knowing what it was I put my name on and I have no doubt you intended to profit from the perfidy.” He poked yet again, and by this time, Stone’s heels skirted the edge of the shadows that surrounded the dais. “Even after all these years, your diabolical deed haunts your wretched soul. That is why you still insist I put my signature on the treaty. You have sought, over and again, to make me a partner to your despicable deed. You, sir . . .” The president pulled himself up to his full height, and I swear, in the play of light and shadow, he looked bigger and more imposing than that statue of him nearby.
“You are a vile and pathetic devil, and I want you out of my sight.”
With a little yelp, Stone folded in on himself. “But sir, I thought . . . I thought . . .”
“I neither know nor care what you thought then or now, Stone. I know simply that you are a traitor to your president and to your country.” The president pointed into the darkness beyond the shadows. “Leave my sight. Now and forever. There is no more cowardly or mean-spirited creature upon the earth than a man who betrays his nation.”
“But Mr. President, I—”
“Be gone!” Like a lightning strike, the command shook the foundations of the memorial, and Stone had no choice but to obey it. He slunk off into the darkness, and just as he stepped into the shadows, I saw him pop into nothingness. I knew I’d never see him again.
The president must have known it, too. By the time he turned back to me, he looked like his old self again. He was worn out, but satisfied, too. A small smile played over his lips. “It seems that, after all, I did have unfinished business to attend to. I owe you my thanks, Miss Martin.”
“Does this mean you’ll go? I mean, over to the Other Side?”
The president looked around the memorial, from the high glittering dome above our heads to those stained glass windows, their colors muted by the nighttime sky outside. “I think I rather enjoy being president,” he said. “And without Stone’s infernal badgering . . .” His eyes twinkled and he allowed a full-fledged smile to break through his stony expression. “I will no doubt see you now and again,” he said. “Good night, Miss Martin.”
The light around him was phosphorescent when he shimmered away. I realized that I was smiling, too, when I said, “Good night, Mr. President.”
My work was done. One bully of an IT geek taken care of. One murderer caught. One low-down dirty aide to a president finally put in his place after more than a hundred years.
As evenings went, this was a productive one.
With a sigh of contentment and the promise of a nice hot shower, my jammies, and a glass of wine I figured I’d more than earned, I locked up the memorial, started across the wide veranda and toward the steps, and—
Ran right into Ball Cap Guy.
Startled, I jumped back and pressed a hand to my heart. “Oh!” It was hardly up there with clever or even productive things to say, but after all that had already happened that night, I was not thinking clearly. I swallowed my surprise and scr
ambled to gather the last shreds of a patience that had been long since worn thin by the events of the last few hours.
“Who are you?” I asked the man. “What do you want?”
When I jumped back, I’d left what was still a less-than-comfortable space between us. He shuffled toward me and closed it.
“Pepper.” His eyes were on me in a way that made a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck. I had my keys in my hand and I poked them through my fingers the way those defend-yourself articles in the ladies magazine always advise. I hoped Ball Cap Guy didn’t hear the keys clinking together when my hands shook.
“Pepper,” he said again, and his voice was soft and reminded me of the sound a too-ripe tomato makes when it gets squished. “Pepper, I want you.”
If it wasn’t so dark and I wasn’t so alone, I might have tried for a smile and tossed off some cute comment like, “That’s what all the boys say, but sorry, I’m booked solid.”
But it was dark. And I was alone. And I didn’t feel much like being cute.
I stepped to my left.
Ball Cap Guy stepped to his right. The security light glimmered against the blade of the knife in his hands.
Honestly, hadn’t I had enough excitement for one night? Choked, shot at, now stabbed? It was enough to make me laugh.
Except that it wasn’t the least little bit funny.
I swallowed. Or at least I tried. My mouth was dry and sandy. My smile was anemic, but hey, I had to try.
“That’s really nice,” I said, and I wondered if he could hear me over the noise my heart was making as it slammed against my ribs. “But I—”
“No buts. Not this time.” He took another step closer. I gauged the distance to the steps and from the steps to the wide lawn in front of the memorial, and from the lawn to my car. I braced myself and wondered how fast a doughy guy in sneakers could run. “You’re coming home with me,” he said, and shivers of panic raced up my spine. “I’m going to take care of you, Pepper. I’m going to show you how much I love you.”
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