“Liz? What can I do for you?” he asked, shutting the front door against the cold wind.
“I’m Vicki.” I shivered, glad to be out of the biting wind. “Did you hear that my sister was arrested?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Liz is in jail?”
I nodded.
“You’re kidding. What are the police thinking?”
“They’re thinking Liz was angry enough to kill him, either on her own or perhaps by paying that young kid, the father of that teenager’s baby.”
“You mean that wasn’t Gene’s baby?”
“No.”
He blew out a breath. “That must be a relief to Liz.”
“It would be more of a relief if she wasn’t in jail as we speak.”
He sobered. “You’re right. Come on into the living room.” He led the way into the high-ceilinged room. His house was even bigger than Grandma’s and that was saying quite a bit. An impressive rock fireplace rose up the far wall and a gas fire danced inside. A sumptuous couch and two armchairs lined with colorful cushions were arranged invitingly before the fire, with a piano at one corner and a Christmas tree in another. A little premature for me, but some people liked to set them up this early. Thanksgiving wasn’t until next Thursday. With Liz in jail, however, I felt I had nothing to be thankful for.
“Can I get anything for you to drink?”
“No, thank you. I just need your help.”
“Anything. You name it,” he said.
“Thank you. I just heard a rumor about Gene and I want you to tell me what you know about it.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Did a casino call Gene about a gambling debt?”
He grew quiet and looked away, his face pained. “I tried to get him to stop.”
“So he really was gambling?”
He nodded and looked back at me. “Large amounts of money. He won big in Vegas one time, and that triggered something in him. Something obsessive.”
“Why didn’t Liz know about it?”
“Gene begged me not to say anything to Liz. He said she’d kill him if she knew.”
His eyes widened as he realized what he just said. “I didn’t mean it like that. He just knew she’d be upset, that’s all. He was afraid she’d leave him.”
“I just can’t see him as a gambler.”
“It was worse than anyone suspected,” Lamont said, leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees, as he looked down at the carpet sadly.
“Do you think the casinos are mob-controlled? Do you think he could have been killed for his debt?”
Lamont looked up and shrugged. “I just don’t know. I’m sorry I’m not more help, but none of this makes sense.”
I had to agree with him there.
I pulled out my phone and passed it to him with the picture of the Big Winner highlighted. “Did you know about this?”
He studied it. “I went down with Gene that time. He won a big jackpot. I think that’s when he got hooked.” He paused. “Jeff went down with us a couple of times. Before he got so mad at Gene.”
“I just can’t figure out why someone would have killed Gene.”
Lamont shrugged and handed back my phone. “Money is a great motive for murder. Gene won big, but Liz didn’t know about it. Who needed money desperately enough to kill for it?”
“Jeff’s business was facing bankruptcy,” I mused.
“I hate to think my own cousin would kill his brother.”
I was foolish to come here. Lamont didn’t know anything more than I did already. He certainly didn’t know the identity of the murderer, and he couldn’t help me bust Liz out of jail.
We talked for awhile, putting forth ideas, but not arriving at any conclusions. Finally, we landed on chit chat. He told me his wife was still away visiting her mother and he hoped she’d be coming home soon.
Lamont said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said. About Jeff’s bankruptcy. Could he really have been so desperate that he might consider killing his own brother?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. He has an alibi.”
“Alibis can be faked,” he said.
“I’m going to talk with my brother about Jeff. Maybe there’s something to that.”
“Good idea,” he said.
“Thanks for your help, Lamont. I’ll get out of your hair now and let you get back to whatever you were doing. Before I leave, may I use your restroom?”
“Sure.” He motioned down the hall. “Guest bathroom is the second door on the left.”
I walked down the wide hall. After making use of the beautiful facilities and realizing I just used the last piece of toilet paper, I washed and dried my hands. I opened one of the bottom cabinet doors, looking for a replacement roll of toilet paper.
There were rolls stacked neatly, with one fallen over toward the back. I grabbed that roll, and went to slide it on the open-ended rod. As I did, something popped out of the roll and fell on the floor.
I lifted it up. It was a box of brown contacts. Hidden in the toilet paper?
I held the box for a second, and the something that was pushing at my subconscious for days pushed harder.
Lamont’s eyes were blue.
Gene’s were brown.
Brown contacts would make Lamont look more like Gene.
With shaking hands, I stuffed the contact box back in the toilet paper roll and replaced it where I found it. Then I put another roll on the holder.
I set the box back in the cupboard and closed the door carefully before pulling out my cell phone. I looked at the picture one last time. I thought it was Gene because of the brown eyes and the Dockers, but now that I saw past that, I knew it wasn’t Gene. The nose was not quite like Gene’s. It was Lamont’s nose.
Lamont was the Big Winner. Although I didn’t know what that meant, I knew it wasn’t good for me.
I texted Paul, Grandma, David and Lonny: I think Lamont is the murderer and I’m trapped in his house. Send help now. Save me.
Suddenly, things fell into place for me. What if the call from the casino was for Lamont instead of Gene? The secretary who told them about the call heard about it from Lamont, because the secretary who would have taken the actual call was no longer working at the office and it was just Lamont’s word.
But what if Lamont was the murderer?
And I was in his house. And no one knew I was in his house. Cielo thought I’d gone to Paul’s for dinner.
Holy crap!
How was I going to get out of here without giving away that I knew?
I forced myself to draw in some slow yoga breaths to try to calm down.
Then I drew in a deep breath and opened the door. Lamont stood there with an ugly smile.
Chapter Sixteen
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, VICKI?” Lamont asked.
My heart pounding, I said, “Oh, you scared me! Yes. Thanks.”
I stepped out into the hallway and walked toward the living room where I left my coat. He stepped into the bathroom.
“Thanks again for your help,” I called out, grabbing my coat and purse. “I’ve got to get to my brother’s house to pick up my son.”
Lamont came into the living room holding the box of contacts.
Holy crap. I looked at him as innocently as I could. “Thanks for being so helpful.”
I stepped toward the front door, but he moved in front of me.
“You saw this,” he said matter-of-factly.
“What?” I looked more closely. “Contacts? I wear them, too. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
It was a lie, but I’d say whatever it took to get out of there.
His creepy, little, psycho smile sent panicky shivers throughout my body. “I’m really sorry, Vicki. But you know too much.”
“About what?” I said, trying to play innocent while my heart pounded a rhythm of HE KNOWS, HE KNOWS, HE KNOWS.
“Sit.” He motioned to the couch.
“I really need to pick up my son,
Lamont. Perhaps some other time.”
Then he won the argument. He pulled out a gun.
I sat.
“I don’t know anything, Lamont.”
“Shut up.”
I shut up and tried to think. How could I get out of his house? Alive and unharmed?
I once read that if someone holds a gun on you, you should try to run because most people can’t hit a moving target.
Lamont looked like the kind of guy who knew how to aim. So I stayed sitting, but didn’t rule out running as a survival tactic.
“I should have replaced that roll after washing up the blood. But I was a little preoccupied. And no one has been in the house since my wife left so I haven’t had to worry about it.”
“What have you done?” I finally asked, stunned. “Did you kill Gene?”
“I had to do it.”
“What did he do?” My mouth was dry with fear, and the words came out like cotton, but as long as he kept talking, he wasn’t shooting. I had to keep him talking.
He paced back and forth. “The casino call was for me. Of course. I’m the one who was gambling. I’m the one who won big one time and kept trying to recreate that win, but I kept losing. Gene helped me the first time the casino called.”
“And that’s the picture that has Gene’s name? No, that doesn’t work.”
“My big win wasn’t photographed. The picture with Gene’s name was my second big win. And that’s the time Gene helped me.”
“By taking money out of his mother’s estate,” I said.
“Yes. And I thought he’d help again. But just in case, I got smarter. I stole his wallet a year ago.”
I remembered Liz telling about what a hassle it was replacing everything. “So then you had his ID and credit cards.”
“His credit cards were turned off. I wanted his license for ID.”
“But why?”
“For the casinos. I made sure that if I lost money again, the casinos would think it was Gene who owed them money. We looked enough alike that, with his license and the brown contacts, I could pass for him. The first time, Gene repaid the money to his mother’s trust. The second time, he bailed me out again, but told me that was the last time. He thought he was so much better than anyone else because he was so rich. I set him up.”
“And dressed up like him when you gambled.”
“Exactly.” He frowned. “I’m really going to hate killing you, Vicki. You have such a keen mind.”
Suddenly, an ugly suspicion popped into my keen mind. “So what happened to Norma? Did she really retire?”
“She knew too much,” he said simply. “She had to go.”
“And your wife?” I asked with a sick feeling. “Did she leave you?”
He nodded. “And she’s never coming back.”
He said it in such a way that I knew.
“Why?” I asked. “Why kill them all?”
“Gene had an affair with my wife. A year ago. She left me for a month, but I enticed her back. I needed to punish her. And I have.” Lamont spit out the words. “He didn’t care about her. I was addicted to gambling and he was addicted to women. Your sister should be glad to be rid of him.”
I was stunned into silence.
He didn’t seem to notice. He’d gone into the villainous monologue mode. “After he ruined my wife, she had to be punished. And his punishment was the destruction of his business.”
I found my voice. “But it was your business, too.”
“Not after I suggested we split up and each have a separate business and our own real estate offices. He liked the idea.”
“But why did you kill him with Herbert’s gun? That doesn’t make sense.”
He shrugged. “I thought it was Gene’s gun. It was in his credenza at home. But apparently, he’d just taken it from the old fool earlier that day.”
“So you typed up a suicide letter on your office letterhead. How’d you get him to sign it? Or did you have something he signed already and just printed it on that?”
“See how smart you are? If you were dumber, I could probably let you live.”
“Maybe you can fix all this. The police will want to help you.”
He laughed, harshly. “I’m going to fix it. You’re going away.”
I decided to stroke his ego, as it might be the only thing that could keep me alive. “But I still don’t understand everything. Tell me how you pulled it off.”
“I used Gene’s ID in Vegas and the company credit card to buy chips. At your parents’ anniversary party, I heard Gene say he would meet Liz at the cemetery, so when that stupid kid, Colton, came to the office looking for Gene, I told him that Gene would be at the cemetery. I was hoping that if the suicide thing fell through, the police would blame him. Apparently, Colton found the body and, like an idiot, touched the gun, then got scared and took off. Exactly as I planned.”
I looked at this man, who truly was a cold-blooded killer. What chance did I have in escaping? I hoped my texts had gone through, because otherwise no one would even know I was here.
I didn’t want to die. I needed to live for my son.
“Okay, Vicki. Enough talk. It’s time to take care of the little problem of…you.”
The doorbell rang and I jumped.
So did Lamont, so much so that I feared he was going to pull the trigger, but he didn’t.
He looked at me. “Be quiet.”
It rang again.
A third time, this time longer. I kept quiet.
“Vicki!” my grandmother’s voice called out.
It was Grandma Ross! She saw my text!
Loud knocking. “Let me in. I know Vicki is in there.”
Lamont swore and moved closer to the door.
I couldn’t let him hurt Grandma, so I yelled, as loudly as I could, “Grandma, get out of here. Lamont’s got a gun.”
“You stupid cow,” Lamont hissed. “You just signed her death warrant.”
He opened the door, grabbed Grandma and pulled her inside.
With Grandma in danger, I jumped to my feet and threw myself forward, tackling Lamont. He tossed me aside. I jumped up onto his back as he went to close the door—but a flood of old women came in, surprising both Lamont and me. At least fifteen women in their sixties, seventies, and eighties marched in! Even the woman with the walker was there!
“Watch out!” I yelled. “He’s a killer. He killed Gene.”
“What the—” Lamont began, but three of the little, old ladies started hitting him with…an orange pumpkin-carving knife, a big purse, and a cane!
Grandma’s karate yell made Lamont and me both jump, and some of the women gasped in surprise. Then Grandma kicked him.
He flailed around, just in time to catch a punch to his solar plexus that apparently knocked the wind out of him.
I didn’t know karate, but I still aimed a kick at the gun and sent it skittering across the floor.
When he went down, Grandma kicked him in a place no man ever wants to be kicked.
I grabbed the gun and my phone and called 9-1-1 while Grandma picked up his gun and pointed it at his head.
All the fight went out of him.
“Tie him up, ladies.”
Five seniors approached him with a roll of duct tape, and began to wrap it around his ankles and wrists.
Grandma pointed to the walker and asked the little old lady owner, “May I borrow this?”
The woman nodded.
Grandma set it on top of Lamont, and sat on it. “There. That ought to take care of him.”
Just a few moments later, Detective Shannon arrived, with backup, and arrested Lamont. Only then did Grandma relinquish her ringside seat. And only then could I cry with relief at having nothing bad happen to my grandmother or me.
And Liz would be released from jail!
Life was good again.
Chapter Seventeen
Monday, November 21
GRANDMA ALWAYS TOLD ME IF I had a problem to just sleep on it because every
thing looked better after a night of sleep.
She was right.
By the next day when my family and close friends made a belated trek to the cemetery to place flowers, Lamont had taken Liz’s place in jail.
We were going so I could place the flowers on Robert’s grave that had never made it there and to talk with Zach, and also to support Liz as she placed flowers on Gene’s grave and tried to reach some sort of closure on the unsavory and untimely ending of their marriage.
Grandma was regaling the others with the story of how she got my SOS text and realized her party was just a street or two away, and how she enlisted the help of all the senior partiers, who grabbed whatever weapons they could find before heading out to save me. She even called Paul as she raced up the street. He’d already alerted the authorities, who sent some squad cars. I smiled at her. She saved my bacon, she and her unlikely band of elderly cohorts along with her karate yells and indomitable spirit.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t use her own gun from her purse because Paul had already confiscated it. She glared at Paul as she spoke.
He smiled innocently at her. “Yes, and then I had to take Lamont’s gun away from Grandma because she was trying to stuff it into her purse.”
“Well, I need another gun since you took mine.”
“It was evidence, Grandma.”
Zach and I stood with the others while Liz laid flowers where not even two weeks before Gene had been lowered into the ground. The fancy headstone wouldn’t be done for a few more weeks.
Grandma put her hand on Liz’s shoulder as Liz sniffled.
Zach pulled free and ran over to where David was standing. Somehow he ended up here with the family. Perhaps it was because he brought dinner over to my house just as we were leaving. Perhaps one of his many reliable sources informed him we were going.
Lonny saw us pull onto Main Street as he was heading home from church, and followed us here.
Grandma said, “At least Gene was trying to help Misty.”
“I guess,” Liz said.
Grandma continued softly, “Misty is your stepdaughter, you know.”
Liz choked on laughter. “Oh, please, I so don’t want to go there.”
I didn’t blame her and changed the subject. “Colton is out of jail now.”
Inn the Doghouse Page 21