by Mary Marks
I tried to sprint to the back door to let him in, but she quickly stepped in front of me and pointed the knife. I threw up my hands in surrender and hastily backed up until my back hit the island. Then I slowly sidled toward the open space between the kitchen and the living area. My mind ricocheted between blind panic and reason.
If Dixie was the one who broke in to my house, then Godwin’s alibi for that night could be solid after all. Acid burned the back of my throat. I reached the end of the island and put my hand on the counter to steady myself as the horrible truth exploded behind my eyes.
“Oh my God!” I clutched the edge of the counter. “Godwin didn’t kill Claire—you did.”
Dixie’s mouth twisted open. “Godwin always got what he wanted, but he made a huge mistake with Claire. When she canceled her big donation, he panicked. Told me to call to see if I could change her mind. After I read the baby quilt, I knew I could never change her mind. She was determined to expose Godwin, even if the exposure destroyed BCA. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you and Claire were friends. You said so yourself.”
Dixie scoffed. “Life is so simple for people like you and Claire. You don’t have to work like the rest of us. You just do your little bit for charity, pat yourself on the back, and move on. You don’t care about those of us who can’t just move on.”
Now wasn’t the time to point out to Dixie the only reason I wasn’t still working as an administrator at UCLA was because of my disability, not because I was a member of the idle rich—which I wasn’t. “Are you talking about the blind children who come to you? Surely there are other places where they can go for help, places where you could work if worse came to worst and BCA shut down.”
“If a scandal shut down BCA, no one would want to hire me. I’d be tainted for life. There are few jobs for the visually impaired, even in an agency like mine. Besides, disabled people have no value in our society. It’s a form of abuse that never gets talked about.”
Dixie wasn’t wrong. The same thing happened to aging women.
“I help the parents respect their kids, to really see them and listen to them. They learn to value my expertise because I’ve been there. They admire me and depend on me to rescue their children.”
“And all of the admiration would stop if BCA folded?”
“Are you serious? I already told you nobody wants to hire a woman who’s legally blind. Without my glasses, I can’t read, I can’t drive, I can’t even cook. You can’t begin to know what it’s like, you with all your leisure time and your stupid quilting.” Her eyes started to blink again. “I’m sick and tired of people like you and Claire—idle, useless people.”
Arthur continued to bark and snarl at the door behind Dixie, but there was no way I could get to the door without getting sliced by the Henckels.
Shaking inside, I held up my hands again in an effort to keep her talking and buy some time. I needed to get to the gun in my bedroom. I started inching backward out of the kitchen toward the bedroom. Dixie came around the island and matched me step for step down the hallway.
“How did you get Claire to take all those drugs? I doubt she would have taken them voluntarily because, as you found out, she was pregnant.”
Dixie smirked. “I went to her house to go over some details of the charity auction. I brought her a ‘healthy treat’ of hand-squeezed grapefruit juice from the trees in my yard. I figured the bitterness of the juice would disguise the flavor of the drugs dissolved in it.”
As she spoke, I looked for some evidence of remorse, but Dixie’s eyes glittered with some mad logic known only to her.
“Did it work?” I still inched backward.
“Not completely. She realized something was wrong when she started to get dizzy. She got scared and tried to get to the phone to call for help, but I was too strong for her. I forced the rest of the drugged juice down her throat until she passed out. Then I waited for her to stop breathing.”
I never stopped moving, but my progress was slow. Every muscle in my body screamed for me to turn and flee, but I knew I’d never get to the bedroom if I made any sudden or rapid movements. Dixie was too close. I tried to stay calm and focused. “What was the blood on her hands from?”
Dixie pulled up one long sleeve, revealing healing scabs where something sharp had recently grated down her arm. “While I was shoving the drugs down her throat, the little whore scratched me with those hard acrylic fingernails she was so proud of.”
“Are you secretly in love with Godwin? Is that it? You must love him an awful lot if you’d kill for him.”
Dixie’s eyes bulged behind her lenses and she thrust the knife once through the air for emphasis. “You don’t know jack. I was in love with Claire, but I couldn’t let her know. She wasn’t into women. Godwin I despise. I am the one who built BCA up from nothing. It’s my life’s work, my great achievement. I did all the hard work but Godwin took all the credit.”
“How did you let that happen?”
“Unfortunately, I needed someone like him. He was the handsome, attractive face of the organization. He was the one who could pull in large donations. I didn’t care who he slept with to get money. And believe me, he was always sleeping with somebody.”
My backward progress was painfully slow. I estimated my bedroom was another twenty feet, at the far end of the hallway. I had to keep her talking. “I thought Claire was really devoted to BCA. Why would she want to destroy it?”
“Claire was naive enough to believe Godwin’s lies. I guess when she found out what he was really like, she wanted to get even. I wouldn’t have cared, but if she disgraced Godwin, BCA wouldn’t survive. I wouldn’t survive. In the end, it came down to choosing between Claire and my life’s work. Claire lost.”
I was now just about fifteen feet from my bedroom and the gun in the drawer. “I can imagine how you feel, Dixie. Men have been exploiting women throughout history. I’m surprised you let him manipulate you. You seem so smart and independent.”
“Nice try, Martha.” She took one large step forward. Another large step and she’d be close enough to kill me. I turned and ran down the hall toward my bedroom. I had to get to the gun, or I was dead.
Dixie was right on my heels. She grabbed a handful of curls from behind and my head jerked back, knocking me off balance. I twisted my body and rolled toward her, shoving with all my might at her shins. The blade of the knife slashed the air just inches from my face as the two of us went down.
Dixie fell backward and landed on her butt, the knife skittering out of her hand. While she fumbled around for the Henckels, I scrambled to my feet and ran for my life.
Time seemed to stop and the air felt heavy and viscous as I ran in what seemed like slow motion to my bedroom. My heart boomed in my ears, each beat sounding deep and urgent. Dixie cursed as she got up off the floor. “You’re dead!” she screamed.
I whipped through the doorway into my bedroom, diving toward the table beside my bed for the gun.
Dixie was only a few steps behind in the hallway screaming, “I’ll kill you!”
I picked up my grandmother’s blue and yellow Ohio Star quilt off the top of my bed. With a snap I unfurled it and threw it over Dixie’s head just as she came through the bedroom door.
Her arms flailed inside the quilt. The knife slashed through the fabric of the precious eighty-year-old quilt as Dixie struggled to untangle herself.
Meanwhile, I yanked open the drawer, pulled out the gun, and fumbled to release the safety. Then I pulled back the slide to put a round in the chamber just the way Joey taught me.
Dixie threw the quilt on the ground and growled, “You’re dead now, you bitch. . . .” She stopped and frowned when she saw the gun I pointed at her.
My tongue peeled off the dry roof of my mouth. “Drop the knife, Dixie, or I swear I’ll shoot you dead.” I wished the gun would stop shaking.
Dixie was only five feet in front of me, within easy striking distance. She
smiled slowly at my jittering hands. “You’re too scared to use that thing. You probably don’t even know how.”
Suddenly she raised the knife and took a step forward.
I shut my eyes and squeezed the trigger of the Browning semiautomatic .22 caliber pistol.
CHAPTER 35
A fine mist of warm blood sprayed on my face and arms. When I opened my eyes, Dixie was on the ground clutching her bloody right shoulder and moaning. The quilt lay next to her. The blue and yellow patches were turning scarlet, soaked through by Dixie’s blood.
The knife clattered to the ground beside her. I stuck out my foot and vigorously kicked it under the bed, beyond her reach. Then I bent down and snatched off her glasses and put them in my pocket.
She moved her head from side to side, moaning, “Help me.”
Still holding the gun in one hand, I bent down and shoved the quilt against her shoulder with my free hand. I hated to do that to my grandmother’s lovely quilt, but it was already ruined. Even if I could repair the slashes from the knife, there wasn’t enough spit in the world to dissolve all the blood that had stained it. “Don’t move.” I tried to staunch her bleeding. “I’m calling for help.”
I stepped around her and ran to the back door to let the dog inside. My hand left bloody smears on the doorknob. Arthur looked at me as if I were a total idiot and hurried around me to the bedroom where he stood over Dixie. One thing Beavers hadn’t included in the instruction manual for Arthur was the command for “Don’t let her get up.” I needn’t have worried. Every time Dixie moved, Arthur growled and bared his fangs.
“Good boy.” I wiped my bloody hands on my shirt. I ran back to the kitchen, put the gun on the counter, and grabbed the phone. My hands were shaking so badly I had to punch in Beavers’s number twice before I got it right.
“I just shot the killer.”
“You what? Where are you?”
“I’m home. She needs an ambulance. Arthur is guarding her right now.”
“Her?”
“Dixie Barcelona. From the Blind Children’s Association. She told me she killed Claire and then she chased me with a knife. She’s crazy. I was forced to shoot her or she would have killed me, too.”
“You shot her? With what?”
“Ray’s gun.”
“I thought I—”
“So sue me!” I was yelling now. “I need help!”
“Have you called nine-one-one?”
“You are nine-one-one!”
“Okay, okay. I’ll take care of it. Stay put. I’m on my way.”
“Please hurry.”
Three minutes later I heard the blaring sirens coming closer and closer. A red EMT truck from the LAFD and two squad cars screeched to a halt in front of my house. I opened my door and the medics put down their gear when they saw the blood on me.
“You need to sit down, ma’am. Where have you been hurt?”
“Not me.” I pointed them toward the bedroom. “Down there.”
Two officers with their guns drawn looked down the hall and saw Arthur. “Call off your dog, ma’am.”
“He’s a trained police dog. He won’t hurt you. Come here, Arthur. Everything’s okay now.” To my surprise he got up and trotted toward me.
“Be careful. I kicked her knife under the bed.”
The policemen came back from the bedroom holstering their guns. “All clear.” Then they motioned for the paramedics to go to Dixie.
Another cop sat me down in the kitchen, took out a metal clipboard, and inserted a blank report. “What happened here?”
I pointed to the Browning on the counter next to the phone. “I shot her with that.”
“Start from the beginning.”
After about ten minutes, the medics wheeled Dixie out on a collapsible gurney. They’d cut away her clothing and draped a white sheet to cover her breasts. Her shoulder wound was wrapped with a thick pad of gauze that was already turning bright red. An oxygen mask covered her face and an IV line hung on a short pole above her head.
I stood and walked toward the medics. “Wait a minute.” I pulled Dixie’s glasses out of my pocket. “She’ll need these.”
Beavers walked in the front door as Dixie was wheeled outside. He took one look at me and his face turned ashen. “Are you hurt?”
At first I was confused, then I remembered the blood on my face, shirt, and hands. “No, no. I’m fine.”
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” He took my elbow and gently guided me over to the kitchen sink. He grabbed the dish towel hanging there and turned on the hot water.
I took off my glasses and pressed the steaming wet towel to my face, welcoming the warmth. Then I dissolved into tears.
Without a word, Beavers wrapped his arms around me and held me while I leaned into him and sobbed. “It’s all over.” He stroked my head. “But this is your last crime scene, Martha Rose. From now on, you’re grounded.”
In spite of myself, I started laughing hysterically.
MONDAY
CHAPTER 36
I waited until the next morning to call Quincy because I wanted to be sure I was calm and confident when I told her about Claire’s story and shooting Dixie. She wanted to fly back to LA, but I was able to convince her I was just fine. Then I drove over the hill to visit Uncle Isaac.
I arrived at our old house in the Pico-Robertson area of West Los Angeles around ten. Built before World War II, the unassuming little stucco bungalow with a red tile roof sat up from the sidewalk on a modest grassy knoll. I walked up the narrow cement walk and let myself in the front door. My uncle was in the kitchen making a pot of freshly ground coffee to go with a cinnamon babka he pulled straight from the oven—my bubbie’s recipe. He stood about five feet six and kept his white curly hair cut short. When he saw me, his smile folded his face into delighted wrinkles, and his hazel eyes crinkled. He grabbed my face in his hands and kissed my forehead. “The little bird has flown back to the nest.”
I sat down at the familiar kitchen table with a gray Formica top and chrome legs. This was where, as a little girl, I’d eaten my Rice Krispies, cut out paper dolls, and painted with a child’s watercolor paint box purchased at Ralph’s Five and Ten Cent Store.
Across the room, toward the back door, the pantry doors stood open. The shelves still sagged under the weight of the old Lodge cast iron pans. Time stood still in my bubbie’s kitchen. Uncle Isaac cut a generous piece of babka hot from the pan. It filled the house with the aroma of yeast, cinnamon, butter, and caramelized sugar. I was silent for the first few bites, just enjoying the way the pastry filled my mouth with such good and powerful memories. When I was finally able to speak, I sipped at the steaming coffee and described to him the drama that occurred over the past couple of weeks.
Every once in a while he gasped, “Oy! What were you thinking?”
“I’m all right, Uncle. I want to be sure you know that. I wasn’t hurt except for my pride when I spent a night in that nasty jail.”
He bumped his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘This is what I sent you to college for? This is how you use that brain of yours? Tracking down killers and thieves? Traipsing around like a meshuggenah, getting thrown in jail and almost getting killed, God forbid?”
“I started out just wanting to help an old woman whose daughter died. I had no clue things would get so complicated and dangerous. I guess it’s like playing poker. I got dealt some pretty interesting cards and wanted to stay in the game to see where those cards took me. The longer I stayed in, the more chips were at stake. In the end it was too late to pull out.”
Uncle Isaac got out of his chair and kissed the top of my head. “Thank God you’re all right. And, by the way, you’d make a terrible poker player.”
I shifted in my seat and took a deep breath. “There was something else I came to discuss.”
“What?”
I was hoping this conversation wouldn’t end like all the others before it when I’d been lied to or manipulated into dropping the subject
. I took another deep breath. “I want to have a serious conversation about my parents.”
Uncle Isaac walked over to the kitchen sink, picked up a sponge, and wiped the counter in slow, tight circles. “What’s to discuss?”
Here we go again. “Uncle, I’m not a child. I know you’ve been lying to me all these years. I don’t think my parents were ever married, and I’m pretty certain the story of my father dying in a train wreck before I was born is a lie.”
He pressed down harder on the sponge. “How did you decide that?”
“For one thing, I’ve never seen a marriage certificate.”
“I told you a hundred times, it got lost when we moved to California.”
“So why do I have the same last name as you, Bubbie, and everyone else? Why wasn’t I given my father’s last name?”
He refused to look at me. “You know why. Without your dead father to take care of you, it was easier to give you our family name.”
“I know what you’ve told me, and I’ve always chosen to keep my doubts to myself. Not anymore. Now I want to know the truth.”
“What’s changed? What’s the big deal after all these years?”
“During the last couple of weeks, while I was involved in solving the mystery of the quilts, I met a young man who inspired me to find out the truth about my parents—no matter how painful it might turn out to be.”
The sponge stopped moving. He raised his head to look at me, and red crept up his cheeks. “I never wanted you to get hurt.”
“And I never wanted to hurt you by calling you a liar, but it’s time to be honest with each other. You can stop protecting me. I’m not leaving today until I have some answers.”
He slowly turned from the sink to face me, shoulders drooping in resignation. “Believe me, there’s not much to tell. You have to understand that because of her condition, we always sheltered your mama.”
“What condition?”
“You know how she was, may she rest in peace. Her head was always in the clouds. I don’t know how else to describe it. From the time she was a little girl, she lived in another world. She was . . . childish.”