Here Comes the Ride

by Lorena McCourtney

Except that my feet bones didn’t seem connected to my leg bones, and I floundered in the grass. I wiped wet hair out of my eyes and peered up the hill again.

  Mrs. Steffan was still coming, dragging my purse at the end of the now broken strap as if it were some recalcitrant pet.

  I belly-scrambled sideways frantically looking for something with which to defend myself. A killer can always find a weapon. . . .

  But I’m not a killer—

  I grabbed the only item available as she bore down on me. I staggered to my feet. My motion when she arrived was neither pretty nor speedy, and graceful it was not. But it was effective.

  The jolt shook my teeth and rattled my bones when the skateboard connected. But it did even more to Mrs. Steffan. She went down like a bag of bricks.

  I stumbled toward her. I didn’t want to kill her! “Mrs. Steffan? Mrs. Steffan, are you all right?” I shook her shoulder frantically, but she was rag-doll limp.

  No response, but my fingers on her throat found a pulse. Unconscious but not dead.

  Okay, this was a good situation.

  I ran back up the hill and found my cell phone where she’d dumped it on the steps. Then, afraid she’d regain consciousness and come after me again, I ran back to her. I straddled her back and dialed 911. The woman said they’d send someone right away. I asked, if it was possible, to send Detective Molino.

  “That isn’t how we usually handle things—”

  “Tell him I have a murderer for him.”

  But Mrs. Steffan was surely going to regain consciousness before anyone got here. What then? She’d buck me off like a rodeo bronc. Then she’d have a variety of weapons to choose from. The skateboard. The purse strap. Maybe just squashing me.

  I used my teeth to start a tear at the hem of my blouse, then ripped a strip free. I pulled her arms around behind her and tied her wrists. Then, for good measure, I reversed my straddled position, tore off more strips of blouse, and tied her ankles.

  She came to while I was doing that and started struggling. I felt as if she might buck me off even if she was hogtied. She paused, her body suddenly rigid.

  “Andi, is that you sitting on my back?”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m, uh, going to have to stay here until Detective Molino arrives.”

  Then, her voice a little muffled because she apparently had a mouthful of wet grass, she said, “This is all a terrible mistake.”

  My worse-for-wear purse lay near us. I grabbed it and put it under her head so her face wouldn’t be in wet grass and mud. The broken pipe had stopped making like a fountain, but it still burbled with incongruous merriness.

  “I don’t think it’s any mistake. It was you Michelle was afraid of all along, wasn’t it?”

  “Actually, I kind of . . . invented that afraid thing.”

  And I’d swallowed her whole diversionary tactic. “Your husband said you stayed on to help in the investigation. But it was really to try to find the evidence Michelle had against him, wasn’t it? Does he know you killed her?”

  “We never talked about it, but I suppose he does. At the beginning, he really thought Uri did it. Actually, we can still make that work, you know.”

  She sounded so calm, so rational, which in its way was just as scary as her earlier fury. Because it was in this calm, normal-appearing state that she had planned her murders.

  “The movie career thing? Thank you, no. I’m really quite happy driving my limo.”

  I stared disbelievingly as a furry figure peeked out from behind the remnant of the ice sculpture. Phreddie!

  “Here, kitty, kitty!” I called. He sat down by the ice blob and looked at me, only mildly interested. Okay, maybe some cats do know their names and don’t like the generic approach. “Here, Phreddie, Phreddie!”

  He trotted over and rubbed his head on my leg.

  “What’s happening?” Mrs. Steffan demanded. “Is it the cat? Oh, I’m glad. I was worried about him.”

  She’s willing to strangle me, but she’s worried about a missing cat. Psychotic? Unbalanced? Mental problems?

  Whatever it was, Mrs. Steffan was a dangerous woman.

  I scooped him up in my arms. “Pam has been so worried about you,” I scolded.

  Sirens blared in the distance. “Hold on, Phreddie.” I squeezed him tighter. “We’ll have Pam home shortly.”

  “I like the cat, but I wouldn’t count on Pam coming back to him anytime soon.”

  Something in Mrs. Steffan’s smug tone rattled my nerves. Someone who is flat on her belly and hogtied shouldn’t feel smug.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s your word against mine. I’ll deny whatever you say and point out that you’re just making a desperate, misguided attempt to make your little friend Pam look innocent. There’s not a smidgen of actual evidence anywhere against me.”

  I set Phreddie on the ground, dismayed with the probable truth of that statement. “But when I tell them what I know, they’ll find evidence.” That had a hollow ring, even to my own ears.

  “That detective will never believe you. And you know what? I’m remembering now that it was Pam that Michelle said she was afraid of. No need to involve Uri and Cindy. Pam will do just fine. You’ll wind up looking like a sentimental old lady making up ridiculous stories.”

  A police car barreled through the open gate. A deputy jumped out one side, Detective Molino the other.

  Mrs. Steffan beat me to the punch. “Thank heaven you’re here!” she called.

  Detective Molino and the deputy ran to us, then stopped short when I yelled, “Hey, you’re scaring Phreddie off again!”

  Phreddie took off for the woods in rocket mode.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with this insane woman!” Mrs. Steffan struggled with my knotted shreds of blouse. “Get her away from me! First she tried to kill me with a monstrous slab of something, and then she tied me up! And now she keeps talking about a cat.”

  “Don’t believe her. I hit her with the skateboard because she was trying to strangle me with my purse strap! She’s dangerous!”

  “Do I look dangerous?” Mrs. Steffan scoffed.

  I had to admit she had a point there. A hogtied, daisy-clad, not-young lady lacks the element of danger obvious in, say, a deranged killer brandishing a broken beer bottle.

  “That’s the problem!” I argued. “She doesn’t look dangerous. But she is. She killed Michelle and Shirley too—”

  “Andi, I know you’re trying to protect Pam, and I admire that. But it isn’t fair to try to blame me for what she did.” Even with her face in my purse, Mrs. Steffan managed to sound both coherent and reproachful. “You were going to kill me, and then blame the murders on me too.”

  Had Alice Steffan been an actress in her younger years? Because she was doing a great job here. “Look, would I have called you if I were trying to kill her?” I asked Detective Molino. “She killed Michelle and Shirley!”

  Detective Molino surveyed the scene as if he couldn’t quite believe what he had here, which was two old ladies . . . one with belly button exposed below ragged end of blouse . . . accusing each other of murder and assault.

  “Is anybody hurt here?” he finally asked.

  I eased off the middle of Mrs. Steffan’s back. “I guess I’m okay.” A little worse for wear, but ambulatory.

  “I’m not! I think I have a concussion where she hit me! My vision is going! I’m sick to my stomach!”

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Detective Molino said.

  He untied Mrs. Steffan while we waited for the ambulance. He tried to untie her, that is. But even with the aid of the powerful beam of a police flashlight, my knots proved impenetrable. The other deputy finally pulled out a pocketknife and slashed through the tangled strips of blouse.

  The ambulance came and removed Mrs. Steffan, who groaned convincingly. Although I had to admit I’d whacked her pretty hard. Detective Molino told the EMTs he’d be at the hospital shortly.

  “To arrest her?” I asked.


  “Arrest her!” Mrs. Steffan’s yelled in parting. “She tried to kill me. Now she’s trying to frame me!”

  The ambulance zoomed away, although this apparently wasn’t emergency enough to require siren or flashing lights.

  “She did kill both Michelle and Shirley,” I said, embarrassed that my voice sounded so quivery. “She admitted it to me.”

  “There’s evidence to back this up?”

  “No, but—” In a rush I explained about the Stan Man’s hit-and-run and how Michelle had tried to blackmail her way into his movie with this information, so Mrs. Steffan killed both her and Shirley. “And then Mrs. Steffan was so desperate she tried to use a movie career to bribe me into framing Uri!”

  “You didn’t believe her?”

  “Do I look like movie star material?”

  Detective Molino was gentleman enough not to state the obvious answer to that question.

  “And even if she could get me in the movies, I’d never have gone along with her. She’s a murderer.”

  Again he asked, “You have evidence of this?”

  “No, but somewhere Michelle has evidence about the hit-and-run that she intended to use to blackmail Stan Steffan. Which is why Mrs. Steffan killed Michelle.”

  His expression was unconvinced, but he said, “Maybe I’ll see if we can get another search warrant.”

  “Good. In the meantime, I’ll just go find Phreddie again.”

  “No, in the meantime, Ms. McConnell, I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

  “Arrest?”

  He nodded toward the skateboard. “For assault with a—“ He eyed the skateboard as if undecided what to call it, since it wouldn’t normally be described as a deadly weapon.

  “It was self-defense!”

  “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I wouldn’t recommend a night in jail. Hard bed, hard walls, hard floor. Bad smells, resident mouse, and anonymous snores from down the hall. But it had one thing going for it: plenty of time for prayer.

  Also, because the county has limited space for women, only two cells to be exact, I wound up bunking with Pam.

  “Andi!” she cried, when they put me in the cell. “They let you in to visit me? Did you find Phreddie?”

  “I found him for a minute. He ran off again, but he’s okay. We’ll find him again.”

  The jail deputy locked the door behind me, and it got through to Pam then that we were in these chic matching outfits. “They make you wear one of these jumpsuits just to visit?”

  “I’m here just like you. Incarcerated.”

  “They charged you with murder too?” she gasped.

  “No. Just assault.”

  “Who did you assault?” She sounded bewildered.

  “I didn’t assault anyone,” I said indignantly. “I was defending myself against Mrs. Steffan.”

  “What did she do? Attack you with a flowered earring?”

  “Whose side are you on here?”

  “Sorry.” She patted my shoulder guiltily. “She just doesn’t seem like the attacking type.”

  “She is. She’s also the killing type. She killed Michelle and Shirley, and she was going to strangle me with my own purse strap.”

  “Mrs. Steffan? But I thought Uri and Cindy—”

  “We were wrong.”

  “Mrs. Steffan confessed?”

  “She admitted to me she’d done it, but then she denied everything to Detective Molino. She’s in the hospital now.”

  “I feel as if I walked into the middle of a movie and can’t figure out what’s going on,” Pam grumbled. “A very bad movie,” she added.

  “Mrs. Steffan also offered me a chance at a movie career.”

  “So you assaulted her?”

  “I told you, it was self-defense!”

  “So what did you self-defend her with?”

  “Your skateboard.”

  “You were out joyriding on the skateboard and accidentally ran into her?”

  “No. She came after me, so I picked it up and clobbered her.”

  “But that’s a Zero American Punk board! The best one I’ve ever had! Is it okay?”

  “It survived.”

  Then she realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry. That was awful, wasn’t it? Asking about the board, instead of Mrs. Steffan. How is she?”

  “She claims I gave her a concussion and ruined her vision. Probably gave her dandruff and dented her personality too, although she hasn’t brought that up yet. I don’t think she’s really all that badly injured. Not from the way she was yelling when they hauled her away. She’s a tough old bird.”

  Then it was lights-out time, so I had to whisper in the semi-darkness to explain about Stan Steffan’s hit-and-run, Michelle’s blackmail scheme, Mrs. Steffan as a double murderer, and my short-lived chance at movie stardom.

  “You’d think, if Michelle had something incriminating about Stan Steffan, that it would have been in the safe,” I whispered.

  “But it wasn’t. Maybe she was bluffing and never really had anything.”

  “Mrs. Steffan was convinced she did.”

  Which didn’t necessarily mean it would ever turn up. Which then meant Pam might . . . no, I didn’t want to go there.

  “I’ve been using my prayer line to God,” Pam muttered. “Having you arrested was not what I was praying for.”

  Me, neither, come to think of it. All I could think of now was, “God works in mysterious ways.”

  “Which doesn’t really explain anything,” she said.

  “But also explains everything.”

  That took a moment to sink in. She finally smiled slightly. “Yeah, I guess it does. And we’re supposed to just keep praying, no matter what?”

  “No matter what, just keep praying.”

  So that’s what we did. Except sometimes we giggled too. Or shed a few tears. And sometimes did both at the same time.

  It’s a strange feeling, we who’ve been free all our lives, to realize that we are not free now, that we are actually locked up. Helpless. Once claustrophobia closed in on me. I felt the walls creeping in, the ceiling lowering and the floor rising to squash me between them. I felt rumbles of an earthquake trapping us under iron bars and crumbled concrete. I pictured a virus wiping out the population, sparing us, but leaving us here to molder alone and helpless.

  Then I squeezed my eyes shut and opened that prayer line to God again, and He was there. It was a time like when the baby was born in my limo. God was with me, real and powerful and comforting. In control. Not saying He’d get me out of this, just verifying the eternal promise that He’d never leave me or abandon me. Pushing the walls and ceiling back, shutting off a coming shriek of panic, calming my terror.

  I felt my soul floating free even if my body wasn’t.

  Thank You, Lord.

  He also worked in a mysterious way that night, because Pam woke me up around 4:00 a.m. and whispered, “Something you said made me think of something.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” I muttered groggily. “I’m sleeping. Or at least I was.”

  “It was what you said earlier,” Pam said. “That Michelle’s evidence against Stan Steffan should have been in the safe, but it wasn’t. I think there may be another safe.”

  ***

  Breakfast came early. Oatmeal or Superglue, I wasn’t sure which. Afterward, I expected to be arraigned or whatever the legal procedure was that came next, but about ten-thirty the jail keeper and Detective Molino showed up at the cell door.

  “You’re free to go,” Detective Molino said as the other deputy unlocked the door. “Mrs. Steffan says now that it was all a big misunderstanding. She says she realizes now that you weren’t assaulting her, that you really thought you needed to defend yourself because you mistakenly believed she was trying to strangle you. She apologizes. We decided to drop the assault charge.”

  I was both puzzled and amazed. Grateful too, but a bit wary. What made her change her mind?

  “
Sorry about the night in jail,” Detective Molino added.

  “It’s a strong deterrent, in case I was ever tempted to take up bank robbing or gun smuggling with the limo.”

  “Good.”

  “But what about Pam? Isn’t she free too?” I asked in dismay as the door clanged shut behind me.

  “The charges against Pam have nothing to do with Mrs. Steffan.”

  I looked back at Pam holding on to the iron bars of the cell. In the orange jail outfit, she looked fifteen again. Scared and abandoned.

  “Pam, I’m sorry. I—”

  “I’ll be okay. I’m using my special line to you-know-where.” She managed a smile, but she was also blinking back tears.

  “Should I bring the guests back to the house from the inn?”

  “Whatever you think best. You’re in charge.”

  Detective Molino took me back out to the house. The day was sunny and crisp. Boats zipped up and down the inlet. I wondered briefly if all those people appreciated their glorious freedom. I knew I’d never take mine for granted again. He pulled the cruiser up behind my limo at the house.

  The reason behind Mrs. Steffan’s generosity suddenly slammed me. “How long will Mrs. Steffan be in the hospital?”

  “She’ll be released later today.”

  “Not charged with anything?”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Steffan had figured out that if I was locked up in jail, she couldn’t get to me—and she had every intention of getting to me. Murder #3 was on the agenda. What creative weapon would she come up with this time?

  “Are you interested in the possibility Michelle was killed because she was trying to blackmail the Steffans?”

  “I might be.”

  I told him what Pam had said last night, that she remembered a safe and lock company van at the house one summer. She’d thought at the time they were doing something with the safe that was already in the office, but she thought now they may have been installing another one. Probably in Michelle’s room.

  “I can make a note of that when we get a search warrant.”

  “Pam put me in charge here. You heard her yourself. You don’t need a search warrant. I can give you permission to search.”

  He looked momentarily undecided about that, but then nodded. So together we searched, and we indeed found another safe, hidden in the floor under the boxes stacked in Michelle’s walk-in closet. A very securely locked safe, however, and no helpful Shirley to provide the combination.