"Why, yes," Artie ignored her rude slip of the tongue and reached under the counter for a heavy cardboard box that—according to its faded printing—had once held Budweiser beer. "Anything that gets turned in usually ends up in this old beer case. You’re welcome to look through it. Oh damn, there’s the phone again!"
Dianne pulled open the flaps and tore through a mess of sunglasses, cheap cigarette lighters, dusty baseball caps, pillboxes, and empty wallets. "Aha! Here they are! Now I can get out of this godforsaken town. If that woman you all thought was my mother shows up, tell her goodbye for me, please."
"I know!" Tim had an idea. "If Nick’s grandmother was here and she said she’d return, she must be investigating that house out in back. I’ll bet Aunt Ruth is looking for Bartholomew again and that’s the last place he was hiding, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Aunt Ruth ran into Mrs. Musgrove and they’re probably…"
"You mean that mangy old cat of hers?" Dianne asked.
"Oh, Dianne… I’d better go with you," Tim said. "You’ll never find it. We can cut through the back door. It’ll be closer that way to go out through the kitchen and down the driveway past the dumpsters. Oh, wait a minute. Now I’ve got a phone call. This might be Nick."
"Nevermind!" Dianne looked at her watch. "I still have an hour to kill. You take your phone call. I’ll go and I’ll find her and I’ll say my own good-byes."
Dianne dropped the car keys into her shoulder bag and disappeared through the swinging back doors toward the kitchen. Tim and Artie heard the back door of the building slam shut a moment later, just as Patrick came in through the front door from Castro Street.
Chapter 23
uth felt as if she’d been hypnotized by the gun in her face, a standard police-issue .40-caliber Beretta. She’d R never seen a gun up so close before and she found it rather pretty, actually. Ruth couldn’t have known it was the same gun that had been reported missing a couple of months ago when an anti-war rally at the Civic Center got out of hand.
"Poor Captain O’Sullivan," she thought to herself, "what an unhappy life he must have led to have reached this point."
She didn’t make a sound, of course, not even a whimper. She just stared at the gun, so black and sleek and functional. It said
"Beretta" right there on the side, as well as "USA" and a bunch of numbers Ruth could almost make out without her reading glasses because it was so close to her face. It was a work of art, really… a piece of sculpture.
Time stood still in Ruth’s dazed condition. She thought back to when Tim’s father bought him a toy gun one Christmas when he was a little boy. She didn’t like her brother-in-law encouraging Tim to play with guns, even though it was only a toy. It looked nothing like this one. Ruth was happy when Tim showed no interest in it. Ruth and Dan bought him a telescope that year, which he loved. He spent as much time spying on the neighbors as he did stargazing, though.
"Get in there!" Captain O’Sullivan’s shout nudged Ruth back to the present, but only briefly. Had she always reacted to danger by going numb? She thought back to a summer night when she was a girl. A tornado ripped through their neighborhood in Minneapolis. Ruth remembered it like yesterday, the family huddled in the cellar—Ruth and her sister Betty and their parents—until it arrived with the roar and clatter of a freight train lumbering through the attic. After the monster was gone, they fell asleep on a pile of old blankets. When they emerged into the crisp light of morning, the garage was gone and so was their father’s car. All that was left was a clean slab of concrete, as if it had always been so.
"Now!" He poked the gun barrel at her ribs through her thin blue cotton blouse, forcing Ruth to step inside the darkened bedroom to get away from the cold steel. The door slammed shut, blocking out any light from the hallway. Tattered curtains draped the windows, but even without them the light would have been dim. The building next door was less than a foot away. Ruth’s eyes adjusted enough to make out a sagging mattress and box spring in one corner. Half a dozen oak chairs matched the dining room set she had passed in the other room.
Ruth saw a figure seated in one of the chairs. "Amanda!"
Ruth made out the nose, eyes and forehead of the old woman.
Her black scarf was wound around her head to gag her mouth and it was tied in knots in the back, but she was alive.
Dianne walked around the dumpsters behind Arts in shoes that were much too dressy for her surroundings. Whoever hauled out the trash must have lousy aim. Otherwise, someone ought to write a pointed letter to the garbage company that made this mess when they collected on this route. There was no excuse not to take pride in your job, no matter how menial.
That’s what Dianne always told the people who did her dirty work.
The single door in the back of the building was locked, so she headed down the driveway toward the front. A religious tract had been used to keep the gate open. Dianne bent down to admire the picture of Jesus and the sheep, but it was too dirty to pick it up. The place was being renovated, judging from the old appliances on the sidewalk and sawdust footprints everywhere.
None of the doorbells had names in the spaces beside them, so she didn’t bother trying to ring any of them.
Dianne couldn’t imagine why Ruth would be looking for her cat back here. If the building wasn’t occupied, there wouldn’t be anyone feeding him or even any food scraps for him to eat. She also couldn’t imagine why any living creature would want to catch its own food when it could relax in a sunny window and get three square meals a day—catered—but if ever a cat was stupid enough, Bartholomew would be the one.
"Mother?" Dianne yelled without thinking. She’d used the word "mother" for years, out of habit, but it was one she would soon break. As she started up the stairs, she yelled at the top of her lungs, "Hello! Anybody home?"
Ruth cocked her head at the sound of Dianne’s voice and tried to move, but her gag only tightened when she did. Captain O’Sullivan stood across from his captives and laughed. "Now it looks like we’ve got three nosy women to dispose of. Some people just don’t know when to mind their own business. I warned that boy with the ring in his nose to stay away from here too, but he didn’t listen. Now he’s spread out in pieces all over town. Maybe I didn’t give him as clear a message as I did you, Miss Taylor, when I dropped off his nose at your place."
O’Sullivan took a few steps toward the door and turned the knob, letting it swing part way open. "We might as well make the little lady feel welcome."
Bartholomew screamed a loud "Meow!" from his hiding place under the table and ran toward the open door, but O’Sullivan caught the cat with his foot and kicked. Bartholomew flew in an arc across the room and landed in the closet with a loud screech. O’Sullivan slammed the closet door shut and snarled, "I hope she’s a cat-lover."
"What’s going on?" Dianne yelled from the top of the stairs. She stepped through the bedroom’s open doorway, whipped the sunglasses off her face and let them dangle on her fingertips a moment til they fell to the floor.
"We’ve been waiting for you, sweetheart. Now, you just drop that purse the same way you dropped those sunglasses and then you can have a seat right over here. I’ve got this chair all warmed up for you. Come on… nice and easy, now." He rubbed his crotch. "When Al and Eddie get back there’ll be one lady for each of us. I’ll pick you for myself, honey, and those other two can draw straws for the old broad or the nosy gold-digging bitch."
Dianne moved the fingertips of her left hand to the straps of her purse on her right shoulder. She had already slipped her right hand inside while the light from the hallway blinded the three of them who’d been waiting in the dark.
"That’s it, lady. Drop the purse right there on the floor.
You just do what you’re told and then you and me will have a real nice time before we’re through. What have you got in that big old purse, the kitchen sink? That’s the biggest damned purse I ever…"
When Dianne’s shoulder bag fell to the floor the rest of them caught th
e glint of a dainty silver revolver. Its ivory handle rested in the palm of her hand as she squeezed the trigger and shot Captain O’Sullivan straight through his filthy mouth. When he landed at her feet she shot him twice more, once through each eyeball.
"So, Artie… when do you need me to come back to work?" Patrick asked. "I could use some shifts here at the restaurant, I guess. I’m pretty broke these days. It’s really nice of you guys to want me to come back and it would be a—" He and Tim were sitting together at the bar when Patrick’s rambling was punctuated by the distant sound of three distinct shots coming from the direction of Hartford Street.
"What was that?" Tim interrupted.
"It sounded like a car backfiring to me," Patrick said. "I used to have a car that did that all the time. I got rid of it. It was in the shop more than it was on the street and I couldn’t afford to keep putting money into it. How’s Jason’s old red Thunderbird running these days? That was always a great car."
Arturo heard the shots too. "We can talk about the schedule later, when everyone’s here, but I don’t think that was a car backfiring. Those sounded like gunshots to me."
Tim could only imagine that those three shots meant three victims—his Aunt Ruth, Nick’s grandmother and Dianne, that nasty woman he’d grown up believing was his cousin. "I’m gonna go see what’s going on out back. If Dianne found Aunt Ruth and the cat, they should have come back by now. If Bartholomew is hiding back there, Dianne will only scare him away again."
"Wait, Tim," Patrick said, "I’m coming with you."
Tim didn’t wait for Patrick, but headed toward the swinging kitchen doors to go out the back way. "Artie, if we’re not back in ten minutes or if you hear any more gunshots, call the police… right away!"
Dianne picked her purse up off the floor and blew on her gun, just as gently as if she were blowing out a single candle on a birthday cake. "I’ll let this little baby cool down on the drive to the airport. And then she’ll go back in my big pink suitcase before I check my bags. She always travels in her own special hiding place, my trusty little girl." Dianne brought the barrel of the gun to her lips and gave it a kiss before she dropped it back inside her purse. "I don’t want any of those security retards they hire to work the x-ray machine manhandling me. I can tell they always want to."
Ruth tried to speak from behind her gag and Dianne started to loosen it, but changed her mind. "I know you ladies might find this hard to understand, but I just realized you’re gonna have to wait for someone else to untie you. I just can’t do it yet."
Dianne scowled. "Yuck, will you look at that! Now I’ll have to change again before I go to the airport. That fool’s brains are spattered all over my new shoes. Augh! There’s some on my skirt, too."
Ruth tried to bite through her gag and scream, but all she could do was rock back and forth in the chair on the warped wooden floor of this old room. Dianne said, "The sound of those gunshots should bring you some help in no time, but I need a little head start before anyone gets here. If the cops come first and find out I’ve killed one of their cronies, they’ll want to ask all sorts of stupid questions. He was a scumbag and he deserved what he got. Sorry, ladies, but I can’t bear to spend one more night in this horrible city. It’s worse than Sodom and Gomorrah rolled into one. If I ever come to California again it’ll be too soon."
Dianne glanced at her watch. "If I hurry, I can turn in the car at the airport and be on the next flight to Houston. I’ll be in the air before they even finish grilling you two. Then I’ll see my own doctor and fly on to Boston eventually to look up the Jews.
By the way, Mother… I mean Ruth… I found that piece of paper with their phone numbers on it. Now I can just hope and pray that one of them will be a match and can give me a new kidney."
Dianne picked up a torn pillowcase from the bed and tried to wipe the bloody viscera from her shoes, but it was no use. "Darn it! I don’t know if this will ever come out. These are suede, too. Anyway… Ruth—I can’t call you ‘Mother’ anymore after you lied to me all these years—I suppose you did the best you could, but it was still a lie! Now that I’ve saved your life and killed this stupid turkey before he could rape me and shoot the both of you, I hope we can consider ourselves even-Steven, okay?"
Dianne picked up her purse and sunglasses and stepped out into the hallway, but stuck her head back in the room for a moment. "Just one more thing… you should consider going to church more often than at Christmas and Easter, if you bother to go at all. You can pray for my eternal soul and for my kidneys at the same time. And you can give thanks that us Texas gals carry guns and vote for politicians that never stand in the way of the NRA. B-bye, now…"
Chapter 24
can’t get Mrs. Musgrove’s gag untied!" Patrick yelled at Tim. "He must have wrapped it around her head ten times I and tied it off with a separate knot each time."
"I’m nearly finished here and then I can help you. There!
Are you okay, Aunt Ruth?"
"I think so, now that I can breathe again. You and Patrick get Amanda freed and then see if you can open a window for some fresh air. I can smell that nasty dead man and his cheap cologne. I’ll feel better when we’re out of here and I can get my circulation going again."
Tim helped Patrick with Mrs. Musgrove’s gag until it unwound from her face. "It’s coming apart now, but he tied your hands and feet with clothes line. Patrick, go in the kitchen and see if you can find a sharp knife in one of the drawers."
"No!" Ruth shouted so loudly that everyone jumped.
"There’s nothing in the kitchen, Patrick. Don’t go in there. It’s empty. I already checked it out earlier." She didn’t want Patrick anywhere near the kitchen. He might find Darryl’s severed head in the refrigerator "Run back to the restaurant and ask Arturo for a couple of sharp knives. And call the police while you’re there.
We don’t need to worry about this scoundrel on the floor, but they have to get here before the Molino brothers come back so they can arrest them."
Patrick flew down the stairs two steps at a time while Tim loosened Amanda Musgrove’s scarf from her mouth enough that she could speak, but her words came out in a whisper. "Thank you, Tim."
"Are you going to be all right, Mrs. Musgrove?"
"Perhaps, as your aunt suggested, you could open a window, dear boy. And a glass of water would be nice, as well."
Tim forced both bedroom windows open as far as he could and then ran down the hallway to the kitchen. The double sinks were piled high with pots and pans, stained coffee cups and mismatched flatware covered in caked-on food and dust.
Tim found a stack of Styrofoam cups in a cupboard and turned on the cold water tap. It ran brackish at first, but turned clear by the time Tim had searched the drawers and found a serrated steak knife. He carried it with two cups of cold water to the room where his aunt and Nick’s grandmother waited.
"Why did you send Patrick to the restaurant, Aunt Ruth?" Tim asked. "I found a steak knife in the kitchen and there were others." He gave each of the women a few sips of water and then started sawing at the ropes that held Mrs. Musgrove’s wrists.
"I didn’t want to take a chance on him opening the freezer. If he found his friend Darryl’s head in there, he might never get the image out of his mind. I only saw photographs of it—not to mention the frozen nose and the eyeball that were in that box in my kitchen—and I’m sure I’ll have nightmares. It’s bad enough that we all have to see O’Sullivan like this."
Tim stopped what he was doing long enough to open the closet and find an old sheet to spread over the policeman’s eyeless face and upper body. Bartholomew leapt out of the darkness, howled and jumped up into Ruth’s lap. "There you are, my bad runaway boy," Ruth said. "I can’t pet you until my hands are untied, but when we get home I’ll make it up to you.
And you’ll have your front room back. You can spend sunny afternoons in your favorite window without Dianne there to bother you."
"Where is Dianne?" Tim asked. "When w
e heard three shots, I was sure one of them was meant for her."
"Dianne was the one who fired those shots, young man,"
Amanda said. "She fired all three shots into our captor here."
"How did he capture you, Amanda?" Ruth asked. "I didn’t even know you were in town, but I suspected something when I saw the Watchtower stuck in the gate. Why didn’t you call me before you came over here all by yourself?"
"I tried calling you from downtown, but I couldn’t get through. When I tried again you didn’t answer. Then I looked for you at the restaurant and they told me you hadn’t been in today. I thought I’d just come back here and have a look around.
I saw your cat out in front of this building and followed him in from the street all the way to that room in back where we found him hiding last time. That was where those three men got me cornered."
"O’Sullivan and the Molino brothers?" Tim asked.
"Exactly! It took all three of them to drag me kicking and screaming up to the top floor. They stopped on the stairs to gag me with my own scarf before anyone could hear. After they tied me to the chair, the brothers left me alone with this so-called policeman until Ruth came along and then Dianne."
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