Murder Makes it Mine (Masters & McLain Mystery Book 1)

by Christina Strong

  She sighed. “She should have just died when I hit her with the car I stole. Then it wouldn’t have mattered. After I killed Olivia, there was no one else left who really remembered Benny Stoddard except Jasmine.” She stirred restlessly. “But oh, no. You had to promise yourself you’d get Benny over to visit Jasmine. And you told me so at lunch, remember?”

  Yes, Samantha did remember. Oh. Why did she have to talk so much!

  Janet glanced at her watch. “Well, it’s still a while until the girls in the downstairs apartments leave for work. They’re young sailors’s wives, you know, and they work as waitresses in the evenings while their husbands are out at sea. One of them has a cat. Do you like cats?”

  “I have a dog, but I like cats, too.” I have a dog. Rags. I’m never going to see Rags again. What will he feel when I never come home? Who’ll take care of him?

  “I have to wait to burn the house down until the girls are gone and I can let Tom out. That’s Lucille’s cat. Tom. I couldn’t bear to kill Tom.”

  Samantha wanted to shout at her, Well you don’t seem to be having any trouble with the thought of killing me! But she said instead, “Janet. One of the women downstairs opened her door as we started upstairs here. If you know her well enough to know what she does for her job and that she has a cat named Tom, don’t you realize that she might have recognized you?”

  “Of course. That’s why I took Brenda’s car and raincoat. That’s why I didn’t put my hood back until she had seen us and closed her door. I knew she’d look. She’s a terrible snoop. She feels it’s her responsibility to look out for the girl across the hall from her. Mary’s even younger, you see, and it’s her first time away from home. So Lucille—that’s the snoop—promised she’d keep her eyes open. Now she’ll think I was Brenda because Brenda has shown the house in the rain before Olivia bought it and she’ll remember the red raincoat, and Brenda will be blamed for killing you.” She smiled brightly. “Aren’t I clever?”

  Samantha didn’t answer. There seemed to be no end to the lives this woman was willing to ruin—or to take.

  When Samantha refused to answer, Janet lost her patience. “You want to be quiet instead of answering me? Then be quiet!” With that, she slapped a piece of duct tape over Samantha’s mouth.

  She stood a moment regaining her composure, then glanced at her watch. “Since I have a little while before I can set the fire, I think I’ll go get a cup of coffee somewhere and come back around five-thirty. The girls leave about five-fifteen.” She rose quickly, and the hem of Brenda’s red raincoat caught on the brass trim of the trunk. With a rip, it bent the brass away from the corner of the trunk.

  Janet turned on Samantha savagely. “Now look what you’ve done! As if it isn’t bad enough I have to leave it in here to be destroyed this time, now it’s hurt! You’ve made me hurt the trunk my daddy made me! For that you can just sit here in the dark until you burn!” She flicked off the light and slammed the door behind her.

  Samantha was left in total darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  With McLain driving, they reached Stockley Gardens in less time than Laura had thought possible. He dived out of the car and ran into the handsome old brick building that housed Olivia’s spacious apartment before she could even frame a protest, much less voice one.

  The rain slacked off as he disappeared into the doorway. It remained light enough for those waiting for him to make out his form as he ran back toward them a few minutes later.

  Then, just as he reached the vehicle where Laura, Frank and Rags waited, lightning forked from the sky. Thunder rolled in its wake as McLain ducked into the Suburban and the heavens reopened.

  With renewed vigor, the rain drummed down on the metal roof of the SUV. McLain raised his voice to be heard over it. “Not here. They’re not here, and the neighbor on that floor says nobody’s been here for a coupla days.”

  “You had to check. We’ll have to go on down to Ocean View.” Laura’s voice was as tense as the hands she clasped in her lap. She jumped when Rags yapped agreement from the seat in back of her.

  McLain glanced at the dash clock. “Damn. It’s almost five. We’ll be lucky to get out of town, much less get to Ocean View.”

  Laura thought hard. “Let’s try to go the slow way. If we’re lucky, we can cut out a lot of the traffic.”

  “The slow way, huh? Well, you’ll have to guide me. I’m not that familiar with the area yet.”

  “Turn left here,” Laura peered out at the broad meridian-like park of Stockley Gardens. The boxwoods could hardly be seen through the sweeping curtains of rain. “Left again here.” They passed the corner on which the private girls’ school she’d attended had stood. Even the rhododendrons that had been the head mistress’s pride and joy were gone, she’d been told, but in this rain today she couldn’t see well enough to verify it. “Go left on Colonial. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “Nothing.” Laura had been going to say ‘hurry’, but there wasn’t any need. McLain was flying down the street. In the big Suburban, and with cars parked on both sides, what had originally been thought a broad thoroughfare seemed more narrow than a lane.

  When Laura braced her feet so hard that her bottom came up out of the seat, he told her, “Relax, Laurie. I’m not gonna hit anybody.”

  “That’s nice,” Laura gasped and took a firmer hold on the grab bar over her door for an instant. Then she realized that her arm would block his view of any cars coming from her side. She transferred her grip to the arm rest, trying not to puncture the leather with her fingernails.

  “God, Laura, don’t go all white-knuckled on me.”

  “I’m not!” she lied. She was thinking hard, trying to decide if she should take him over to Monticello where there was an underpass. If there wasn’t a train in the way, that detour would waste two minutes, and she was driven by a terrible sense of urgency. If there were a train, Colonial, as well as Llewellyn, would be blocked.

  She opted for the safest course. “Go right here.” She had almost taken too long to decide. They were on top of the intersection. The big vehicle took the corner on two wheels, slewing out of its lane as it did. A car approaching in the oncoming lane swerved. Its horn blared wildly.

  McLain cursed under his breath as he wrestled the behemoth back where it belonged, slamming the rear right wheel on the curb as he did. “Damn thing corners like a baseball bat,” he muttered. Aloud he said, “Thanks a lot for the lead time, Laurie.”

  “I’m sorry!” she yelled at him as he shot through two more traffic lights, one of them still mercifully green. They had used up almost all of Twenty-first Street before she could shout, “Left! Left next!”

  They shot past Doumar’s. Its canopied parking spaces were nearly deserted in the drenching downpour. On their right, the Coca-Cola bottling plant went past in a blur. They were in and out of the overpass in one rain-spewing plunge, hit the merge point of Monticello and Granby at sixty-five and streaked down past the old Jewish cemetery and the City Park.

  Over the Granby Street Bridge they flew with Laura breathing a prayer of thanks that the light at its foot was green and there was nobody trying to get out of Willowwood for them to kill!

  On past Cromwell Place, Thole Street and Granby High School, where Samantha’s cousins had gone, they sped. As they passed Pamlico, they could see the cars bumper to bumper parked on the elevated freeway over to their right, and she could finally sigh with relief. She’d been right to take them the slow way.

  McLain shot her a grin. “Looks like you done good, Laurie. Ya’ done good.”

  The clock on the dashboard said five-nineteen.

  ***

  Awake, Samantha lay and hated the dark! Though she might love it for sleeping, any time she was awake, she craved light. That was why she had so many windows in her house, and why the first thing she did every morning when fully clothed and in her right mind was to pull open every drapery and let in the sunlight.

  But there wa
s no way she could let in the light here in this cramped, windowless little room and never had she craved it more. The darkness was impenetrable. It had weight, a weight that was almost suffocating. It made her skin crawl.

  Suddenly, downstairs, she heard a murmur of light feminine voices. Then the outer door to the house closed. Frantically, she rubbed her cheek against her shoulder, trying to dislodge the duct tape Janet had put over her mouth. Then a car engine started, and she knew it was too late to scream for help.

  Tears trickled down her cheeks. For a long moment, she slumped against the wall where Janet had left her. Then she reared up and scrubbed the duct tape against the shoulder of her raincoat with greater determination.

  She had no intention of dying quietly here just to please Janet Wilson! She was going to get free and get out of here if it was the last thing she ever did!

  She refused to give any consideration to the way she had phrased that thought.

  But, oh, how she wished she could see.

  Finally the tape came off and she told herself aloud, “Well lying here complaining that you can’t flick the light switch isn’t going to get you anywhere, Samantha Eugenie Swann Masters!”

  Ignoring the slight tremor in her voice that threatened to defeat her, she said with more firmness, “Think. Prioritize. You’re supposed to be so blasted good at prioritizing. Do it!”

  She lay still for a moment, hoping for inspiration. A picture of Rags’s dear little face was all that came to mind. Who would take care of him if she died here in this tiny, dark room? Who would put up with him? Maybe . . .

  “Stop that!” she said so loudly that it bounced back at her. She gave herself a shake, literally. Her bonds pulled at her wrists and ankles. The ropes were certainly tight.

  “Well, at least you learned something useful. They don’t feel like ropes. I think they’re drapery cords. Drapery cords should be easier to get out of than real ropes. Heaven knows Rags chewed through them quickly enough when he was a puppy.”

  But even if she’d had his sharp little teeth, she couldn’t chew cords that bound her hands behind her back. How to cut through them? She thought a minute. “Of, course! That piece of brass that Janet caught Brenda’s raincoat on!”

  She slithered and squirmed over to the doll trunk. With a little manipulation, she got the cords that bound her wrists up against the piece of twisted brass trim. Triumphantly, she began sawing them back and forth across the sharp edge of the displaced ornamental brass piece.

  ***

  “There! I think it’s there! Didn’t Brenda say it was a great big square building on a large lot?”

  “Yeah. She did. Is it the right number?”

  “Oh, John. I can’t see any number in this rain!”

  “Well, let’s hope your woman’s intuition is operating full swing, then, Laurie. Damned if I can see, either.”

  Frank Takamoto spoke quietly from behind them. “This is it.”

  “Howdaya know?” McLain growled the question even as he sent the Suburban skidding into the narrow driveway.

  “Because Rags is at attention like a pointer. He says Mrs. Masters is in that house.”

  They all flinched as Rags’s agonized howl assailed their ears.

  That’s when they saw the flames.

  ***

  Inside, in the dark little room, Samantha had freed her wrists and was working on the knots that held her ankles. Bent double and fumbling in the dark, she finally worked the cords free. Leaping to her feet, she threw herself at the door. Grasping the knob, she paused. Somewhere below, she thought she heard the crackle of flames.

  She had to get out! This old wooden beach house would burn quickly. Out of the first room, she threw herself at the door of the storage room beyond it. Frantically she twisted the knob.

  The door was locked!

  ***

  McLain hurtled out of the SUV and rushed toward the house, Rags at his heels. Over his shoulder he yelled, “Call the fire department!”

  Frank Takamoto gestured with the cell phone to signify compliance even as he sucked at the wounded finger Rags had bitten in his determined bid for freedom.

  Laura shot out of the vehicle to scoop up a cat that was about to run back into the house. As she caught up the cat, the rain whirled away in the wind, and she saw Janet Wilson running toward Brenda Talley’s Lexus hidden in a stand of live oaks. “Frank,” she shrieked, pointing.

  Takamoto was out of the car in a flash, dashing to cut off Janet’s escape.

  ***

  Samantha slammed her shoulder into the door with all her might. She hoped to splinter one of the old panels and somehow reach through and unlock the door. She knew she wasn’t strong or heavy enough to burst the lock or thrust through the whole door, especially since she remembered it opened inward. Hopelessness began to take hold of her as she admitted the door was too sturdy.

  And now she could smell smoke.

  Praying frantically, she renewed her assault on the door.

  ***

  Storming across the broad porch, McLain wrenched at the knob and threw open the door to the building in which fire burned. “Sam! Sam! Where are you?” This damned house was so big. What if he didn’t find her in time?

  Then he felt the tiny teeth savaging his ankle. Rags! The mutt had known she was here! The mutt was trying to get him to follow him!

  God bless the little fellow, Rags knew where Samantha was. “Thank God!” He turned and raced after the dog.

  Smoke was worse as he climbed the stairs three at a time. Rags still remained ahead of him, his little claws beating a frantic tattoo on the old pine floor boards of the hall. The dog threw himself at a door, and McLain kicked it in. No time to try the knob to see if it was locked. Smoke was billowing up the stairwell, and he could hear the flames roaring now.

  Rags tore across a spacious living room and darted down a hall. McLain was right behind the terrier as he slewed into a room, claws scrabbling on bare wood.

  McLain had no time to wonder if he was right. He grabbed the knob of the door at which Rags jumped and jumped again. “Sam! Sam!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. “Are you in there?”

  “Oh, yes! Yes! Get me out! Please!”

  “Stand away from the door.” McLain rammed his shoulder into it. The door splintered and what was left of it slammed back against the wall inside the room.

  Samantha dashed out. “We’ve got to get out! The house is on fire!”

  McLain was all but struck dumb. “No shit, Sherlock,” he muttered, and rushed after her.

  Rags lost the rhythm of the run as they plunged down the stairs and tumbled to the bottom in a heap. He didn’t even yip. Samantha turned back to go to his tiny motionless body.

  McLain shoved her unceremoniously out the door into the scream of fire engine sirens. Doubling back, he scooped up the little dog. Carrying him like a football, he surged out of the burning house.

  Samantha met him as he reached the distance the firemen had insisted she retreat to. “Oh, John. Is he all right?”

  McLain cradled the tiny animal in his arms and felt over his limp form carefully. “No broken bones. I think he just knocked himself cold in that fall down the stairs.”

  Samantha reached out for him, and McLain placed Rags in her arms. “Oh, Rags, please be all right. Please wake up.”

  “Merff.”

  Samantha smiled radiantly. “Oh, see, John. He’s talking to us.”

  “God, Sam. Don’t go all goofy on me. It’s bad enough you give that dust mop house room without letting him make you sappy.”

  Rags raised his head and glared at McLain.

  Samantha said, “So I won’t get sappy. But what do you think your chances of finding me in time would have been without him?”

  McLain surrendered. “Okay, mutt. You’re a hero. Again. Good dog. Let’s leave it at that.”

  A moment later, out of the chaos of idling fire engines, shouting firemen and webs of hoses snaking across the sand, Frank Takamoto a
ppeared with a struggling Janet Wilson held firmly by the arm.

  Caught red handed and incapable of fighting loose, Janet then stood calmly and watched as men risked life and limb to stop the flaming damage she had set in motion from progressing any further.

  McLain looked from the slender girl in the red raincoat to his disheveled neighbor. “Now, how the hell did you let her sandbag you, Sam?”

  Samantha let the ‘Sam’ go again. She didn’t feel she had the right to carp just now. “I know. I was stupid. I had it so fixed in my mind that Janet loved Olivia as much as Olivia loved her that I didn’t see it coming. And I should have.

  “When Janet told me she had made sure the doll trunk her father had made for her was safely out of it before the fire destroyed her parents’ house in Charleston, I should have wondered how she knew there was going to be a fire. I knew her parents perished in it. I should have wondered why she didn’t get them out as well! Then, I’d have registered that she deliberately hadn’t. That she was every kind of a monster! And I most certainly wouldn’t have sat there feeling sorry for her with my back to her!”

  “Yeah.” He bit back the great comment about hind sight that rose to his lips. Sam had had a bad time, he could be generous just this once.

  Chapter Thirty

  Except for Janet Wilson’s tuneless humming, they were all silent as McLain drove them to Norfolk to the police station.

  By the time they arrived the rain had let up, and there was only a light mist in the air. Street lamps wore hazy halos, and the streets themselves still gleamed like black mirrors in the twin beams of the Suburban’s headlights. The punishing rain that had made getting to Ocean View to rescue Samantha such a harrowing trip was a thing of the past.

  At the station, the men walked on either side of Janet, an arm grasped firmly by each. Samantha and Laura walked behind them, Rags in Samantha’s arms.