Killing Time

by Suzanne Trauth

  “Nice of you to join us.” A hand grasped my arm and forced me to my feet. Mr. Chicago.

  I was right. He was no protector, and the Villariases were in deep trouble. “I know about you,” I said as he dragged me into the kitchen.

  “You do? What do you know?”

  The room was brightly lit, the kitchen a mess. Cupboard doors open, packaged food piled on the counters. Carlos sat at the wooden table, the pots of herbs and vials I’d seen the last time I was in the house replaced with pots and pans. Someone had been rummaging around. “Carlos! You’re in danger!” I twisted to see Mr. Chicago’s face, struggling in his arms. “He’s not here to protect you. He’s going to kill you and take the flash drive!”

  “Dodie, why don’t you sit down?” Carlos said in his deep, rich, soothing baritone.

  What was the matter with the man? How could he sit there so calmly when his life was at risk? “Did you hear me?” I shrieked.

  “Simmer down.” Mr. Chicago thrust me into a chair and clamped a hand on my shoulder to keep me seated.

  A far cry from the genial plumbing parts salesman who ate sliders at the Windjammer. For that matter, Carlos’s attire was unusually rough and ready: work boots and a quilted vest over a hooded sweater. So unlike the previously dapper gentleman routine. I glanced around the kitchen again. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, a greasy skillet on the stove. When I’d been in the kitchen looking for Carlos yesterday, the place had been spotless. Now the messiness cried out for a good cleaning. A horrifying foreboding inched up my spine.

  “Where’s Bella?” I asked. The tension in my chest like a fist that kept squeezing more and more tightly.

  “Never mind about Bella,” Mr. Chicago growled.

  “She’s fine.” Again, the smooth-talking Carlos.

  As if I was rotating a kaleidoscope from my childhood, the pieces of the Carlos-Mr. Chicago relationship changed position, and a new pattern emerged. How could I have been so blind? Carlos wasn’t in any danger from his “protector”…because the two of them were somehow working together. The flash drive? The murder? Where did that leave Bella? I had gotten pretty good at talking my way into and out of things in the past, but this time? Carlos studied my expression and smiled slowly.

  “You finally sorted it out.” He laughed warmly. “Ah yes. I knew you would. Especially after I heard about your detection skills. I warned them all you were very bright. Bella, Gabriel, even John here. No one took you as seriously as I did.” He drummed his fingers on the surface of the table. “Maybe it’s my theatrical background. Pretense and all. I can spot a counterfeit persona a mile away.”

  Despite the jeopardy confronting me, I couldn’t help myself. “Counterfeit? What’re you talking about?”

  “You’re a phony, Dodie O’Dell. You pretend to be a small-town restaurant manager when all the time you are a shrewd detective.”

  I was astounded. Despite my investigative capers during the past four years, no one had ever declared that I was a better detective than a manager. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. I opted for the latter. “You’re kind of a counterfeit yourself, aren’t you? Not much of an actor. Dracula is all you can play. I’ve seen the playbills from Chicago. You’re probably a better accountant than you are an actor.”

  For a split second, his nostrils flared, the only visible sign that I might have gotten to him.

  “I know about the witness protection program. And the aconite.” I was swinging for the fences. Spilling everything I knew, hoping for a response that gave me insight into Bella’s whereabouts. At a minimum, I could stall for time. Bill or Suki had to get my SOS soon. “I even know what’s on the flash drive.”

  “Told you,” Carlos sang out, laughing, delighted that he had been right about me and that everyone else had been much too slow to appreciate my expertise.

  A clatter of footsteps interrupted his laughter and Bella appeared at the door of the kitchen. “What is she doing here?” she asked, low and intense.

  I gawked at Carlos’s wife, dressed in jeans and a down vest, her hair tied back in a tight bun. She carried a piece of luggage. “Bella? Are you all right?”

  She was frantic. “Why couldn’t you have stayed out of this?” she said to me, hanging her head. “Now you’re in as much danger as…” She sent a fleeting look to Mr. Chicago.

  “Bella dear, trust me. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “Trust you?” Her voice climbed an octave. “You? Who said we only needed to make him sick long enough for us to get away. To be free—”

  “Daryl suffered from heart disease.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” she screeched.

  “You assured me the aconite would leave no trace in his body,” Carlos said tightly. “If he hadn’t died, Daryl would have found us. No matter where we went.”

  Whoa. “The two of you…murdered the hitman?” I gasped. Daryl. He and Carlos were on a first-name basis. Of course. The mob’s accountant might be familiar with the boss’s associates.

  “Shut up,” Mr. Chicago growled.

  Bella, exploding, eyes blazing, ignored him. “It was stupid to insist on meeting him in the cemetery. But oh no, you had to play the big-shot actor, running around in a costume because it fit your sense of theater. Demanding that Daryl dress up as that ridiculous Grim Reaper.”

  “That’s what we called him in Chicago,” Carlos interjected.

  “‘I know Daryl,’ you said. ‘We can negotiate our way through this.’ And then, when we couldn’t ‘negotiate’—”

  “You were tired of running.”

  “We should have left town after he overdosed. You said ‘no, it would look suspicious.’ And you had to finish the production!”

  This was not the graceful, unruffled woman who read palms and dealt tarot.

  “You wanted to be near Gabriel,” he reminded her.

  Bella’s outrage disintegrated, leaving her deflated. She shrunk into herself. “You should have told me about him,” she said bitterly, jerking her head at Mr. Chicago.

  “Knock it off. I’m getting tired of you two,” the mob guy snarled.

  And then it hit me. The mob sent a guy and the crime unit sent a guy. Problem was, they turned out to be the same guy. “Whoa,” I said aloud.

  As if all three had forgotten about me, they swiveled their heads in unison.

  Mr. Chicago dragged me to my feet, yanking my arms behind my back and securing them with a length of rope. He pulled and pushed me toward the hallway that led from the kitchen to the front rooms of the house. I was not going to go easily. Wherever he was taking me. I kicked him in the shins. He howled and slammed me against the wall, one hand squeezing my neck. Bella screamed. He might have completed the job had Carlos not intervened.

  “There’s no point in violence,” the actor said, shoving my attacker aside. “We’re not going to hurt you, Dodie. We need to tuck you out of the way until we can make our exit stage right. You’re a bit too curious for our safety.”

  I coughed, gasping for breath. Was he crazy? “No violence? After you poisoned Daryl Wolf? Seems pretty violent to me.”

  A buzzing from my back pocket interrupted the exchange. Mr. Chicago reached inside and withdrew my cell phone. He got a glimpse of the text. “Who’s Bill?”

  Oh no.

  Carlos smiled smoothly. “Etonville’s esteemed police chief. And our Dodie’s love interest.”

  Would this guy never stop? His debonair act was getting tiresome.

  “He knows I’m here,” I said with a touch of desperation.

  Mr. Chicago extended the phone to Carlos. “He thinks you’re in danger. Keys.”

  It wasn’t a request. I dug them out of my pocket.

  “Get rid of her car. It’s down the road. And when the cop shows up, you better put on the acting job of a lifetime.”

&nbs
p; “Careful. We don’t want anything permanent to happen to her,” Carlos said.

  “Dodie…I’m so sorry…” Bella thrust herself in my direction, as if to rescue me.

  Mr. Chicago slapped her arm away. “Get going,” he said.

  Carlos guided a distraught Bella out of the kitchen and into the foyer. “Stay up there until I call you.” She hesitated, then ran up the stairs.

  Mr. Chicago shoved me forward, opening the door that led to the basement. I knew this staircase.

  “So you’re the one who shoved me down the stairs?” I said shakily, twisting my hands in the rope. Even if I freed myself from the restraint, what could I do? Running would get me nowhere with my captor holding on to me more viciously than before and Carlos up top, waiting for Bill. I had no cell phone.

  The basement smelled of dampness and mildew, the air clammy. My eyes adjusted to the dark—I could only make out hulking shapes that gave me the creeps. On the bottom step, Mr. Chicago paused and flicked on his cell phone flashlight. The shapes materialized as old furniture stacked in a corner: a table, some chairs, a shabby sofa. On the opposite wall was a tall wardrobe, with two doors that opened outward. He forced me toward the wardrobe, flinging me to the ground. I looked sideways. I could swear something moved on the bottom of the closet. Spiders? My heart plummeted. Who would find me in here? I was on my own.

  “You won’t get away with this. The whole Etonville police department will be on your trail.”

  “By the time somebody looks in here, we’ll be long gone and you’ll be managing the big restaurant in the sky.” He stuffed a gag into my mouth, wrapped a cord around my ankles, and removed a syringe from his pocket. Totally ignoring Carlos’s request that I not be “permanently” damaged. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

  He removed the cap of the syringe, tapped the needle a few times, and lowered the syringe to my arm. “You know something about what this baby can do.”

  Aconite. One shot. Depending on the strength of the poison, I could be gone in minutes. My mind raced, my heart in my throat.

  He hesitated. Upstairs, we heard someone moving down the hallway. Then two voices. Both male. One brusque and crisp, the other deep and slow. Bill and Carlos. What line of bull was the actor handing the police chief?

  “Mmm!” I made as much noise as I could, shaking my shoulders from side to side, lifting my legs and punching the floor with them. Mr. Chicago dropped the syringe, throwing himself on top of me, covering my head and torso. Sweat and stale cologne assaulted my nose. The gag already made it difficult to breathe; his weight made it nearly impossible. I pushed at his body with every bit of strength I had. It was no use. He was just too heavy.

  The footsteps sounded again. More this time. Bill and Carlos moving around the first floor of the house. I squirmed until I managed to raise my knees a few inches. Mr. Chicago reached for the syringe, which had rolled a couple of feet from the wardrobe, keeping his other arm squarely planted across my chest. I closed my eyes to concentrate, counted to three, then kicked my legs upward as swiftly as possible. Bingo! He groaned, grabbed himself, the syringe forgotten for the moment, and, muttering curses, toppled over onto his side. Unfortunately for him, it was to my right side; to my left was the back pocket where I’d stashed the pepper spray.

  My hands secured behind my back, I rocked to my left, stretching my right arm nearly out of its socket to reach into my pocket. Upstairs, there was silence. Downstairs, Mr. Chicago was recovering from my attack and turning his attention back to me. My fingertips touched the canister and I eased it out of my pocket, feeling for the release button. He sat up, once more grasping the syringe. It was now or never.

  I yanked my arms to the right, pulled my legs into a fetal position, and aimed the canister upward as far as I could stretch, shutting my eyes good and tight, praying the stream would get closer to his face than my own. I depressed the lever and squirted. Some of the spray found its mark: He yowled in pain and fell backward. My own eyes were stinging; I dared not open them yet. I jerked and thrust my legs, hammering Mr. Chicago, who rubbed his eyes, scrambling for me. I rolled over, onto the cold cement floor, scooting away from the wardrobe. He was blinded for the moment, but I didn’t trust that the effects of the pepper spray would last forever.

  Even in the dark, with my eyes closed, I knew that the staircase to the first floor was to my right. Like a fish out of water flapping its tail, I bounced across the basement floor to the steps. I was gambling that no sounds from upstairs meant Carlos was out of the house. I reached the first step, hopped up, pulled my legs after me, started for the second step.

  A hand clamped my foot. “You’ll pay for this,” Mr. Chicago snarled.

  In my hurry to climb the stairs, I hadn’t heard him behind me. I pumped my legs, slashing them from side to side. He hung on. I had no choice. I whipped the canister around my side again and sprayed. He screamed, tumbling backward. I scrambled up the steps, kicked the basement door, and hopped to the kitchen sink. Once my head was under the faucet, I risked opening my eyes a bit. The burning had lessened. I fumbled along the counter next to the sink. I’d seen a set of kitchen knives in a rack there. Squinting, I lifted my arms to counter level, knocked over the rack, and pulled out a paring knife. Wedging it between my wrists, I sawed gently until the rope snapped. I tore the gag from my mouth, letting sharp, deep breaths fill my lungs. In another minute, I had the cord off my ankles. Downstairs, I could hear thumping. Mr. Chicago was on his way to this floor. I ran to the front door.

  “Once again, we underestimated you.”

  I froze. The deep baritone had an impatient edge to it. “Carlos,” I said, spinning around to face him. He’d come in the back door and now held a gun trained on me. “You don’t want to do this. Killing a hitman from the Chicago mob is one thing. It might have been a mistake or self-defense. Killing me could get you life in prison,” I said in a rush. I’d placed the pepper spray in my front pocket. Though how I could distract Carlos long enough to retrieve it and hit the button was beyond me. Yet, I knew, when in doubt, keep ’em talking.

  He gestured with the gun in the direction of the basement.

  “What about Gabriel? Your son! He’s going to jail and he was only trying to help!”

  “My son. Ah yes. Bella’s son, actually. No love lost between us.”

  That explained a few things. “He wanted the flash drive to… what? Protect Bella? Your landlady in Lennox said your son visited often. I never thought it was Gabriel. Did you move here to be closer to Bernridge? That must have been Bella’s idea.”

  Carlos stared at me, then burst out laughing. “You’ve missed your calling entirely. You’re better at this than the Chicago OCU.”

  “Guess the witness protection program didn’t work out?”

  “Back downstairs.” He prodded me with the muzzle of the weapon. “I’m afraid you’ve left me little choice this time. We can’t afford to have you snitching on us.”

  My heart pounded, my pulse in the danger zone. Where was my backup? Bill? Suki? I dragged my heels down the hall, only a few more steps to go until we reached the door to the basement. “I thought Mr. Chicago was here to protect you. Turns out he was an accomplice,” I said, my back to Carlos.

  “That’s what happens when one goes rogue.” He shoved me toward the door.

  “He’d been a member of the Chicago organized crime unit, right? I guess it was more lucrative to defect to the mob.”

  Carlos ignored me, sticking his weapon in my back again.

  “Tell me something,” I said, easing my hand into my pants pocket. “Who got you the position at Speedwell Auto Parts? Was it him?” I peeked over my shoulder.

  His silence was my answer.

  “You think he can negotiate with the mob for you? You’d better hang on to that flash drive. Because the minute he has it, you’re dead.”

  Carlos looked startled
for a second, long enough for me to grip the pepper spray, swing the basement door open, and get behind it. Before he could get off a shot, Mr. Chicago staggered up the stairs like a blind, drunken sailor, waving his gun wildly. I jumped from behind the door, aimed the canister at Carlos, and yelled his name. As he turned to face me, a thunder of footsteps bounded down the hall behind me. Bill was shouting for Carlos to drop his gun, while Suki and another officer smashed through the front door.

  I collapsed to the floor.

  * * * *

  “Thanks,” I said to the EMT who rinsed my eyes as I sat at the kitchen table. “Much better.” In the yard of the old Hanratty house, once again the blue and red lights of police cruisers flashed and an ambulance was parked in the driveway.

  Down the hallway that led to the front door, I could see Suki bundling Carlos and Bella out of the house, while another EMT worked on Mr. Chicago. Bill conferred with a plainclothes cop from the county prosecutor’s office, then shook hands and motioned to Ralph to keep the crowd that had gathered outside under control. Ralph’s specialty. Then he looked up and joined me in the kitchen.

  “I know what you’re going to say.” I ran a dish towel through my wet hair.

  “You do?” Bill asked.

  “I should have kept my nose out of the murder case. And out of Carlos’s identity, and Lennox, and the Chicago newspaper, and digging into John Doe, and—”

  Bill gawked. “You did all that?”

  “—and Speedwell Auto Parts…go ahead and say it.”

  The left side of his mouth ticked upward. “I was going to say I thought you’d done enough pepper spray for one day.”

  “That too. I might have gotten carried away.”

  Bill turned serious. “Good thing. But if Suki and I hadn’t shown up when we did, you’d have done all right. And Carlos would be getting his eyes rinsed out too.”