by Jeff Abbott
Miss Twyla stood, her fists clenched, and Nina motioned for her to resume her seat, the smoking end of the gun waving gently. Miss Twyla sat, but her anger was a physical presence in the room. “Why, Nina? Why?”
“He’s the most dangerous person here, Miss Twyla. I mean, after you.” She laughed mirthlessly. “And Tiny’s done his part for me.”
Lorna had gone and knelt beside Tiny’s slowly stirring form. “He’s still alive,” she moaned.
“He’ll die soon enough, bitch,” Nina snapped. “You’ll be past worrying about him.”
I took a long breath. “Let me guess. As Doreen Miller, you planted those files that made Lorna look as if she knew about Greg’s land fraud. She’s your fall guy.”
“Unfortunately now, she has to be a dead fall guy.”
“You betrayed me.” Miss Twyla’s voice was low, the voice that only outraged old Southern ladies can muster. It could frighten a tyrant. “I brought you into my home to fight for a cause I believed in, and you lied to me. You stole from me and then used me to kill another human being.”
“Miss Twyla,” I said, watching the gun that still aimed in my direction. “I think I know the story now. Nina’s real name is Doreen Miller—or at least, that’s the name that Greg knew her as. The land resale to the chemical waste company is just a fraud, a cover. Greg and Nina are scam artists. They come to a town, they create a crisis. Greg threatens development that could ruin the river; Nina heads up the opposition, rallying folks and their finances against what Greg proposes. They specifically target towns where both development is needed and environmental concerns could run high; that’s what Greg had Lorna looking for when he hired her. After they’ve squeezed money out of both sides, they vanish, taking the money with them. Then they set up office somewhere else and start again. Maybe they set up a fall guy to take the blame; that’s what happened here.”
I pointed at Nina. “You faked the files on Greg’s laptop that said he was going to resell the land to the chemical waste company, and you faked the same files on the computers up in Boston to let Lorna take the blame. No matter how much that waste company denied that they’d ever heard of Intraglobal, folks wouldn’t believe them. So you sail free with all the money Miss Twyla and Eula Mae raised, vanishing off into the night, and Lorna looks like the fool and the criminal.”
“She is a criminal.” Nina smiled. “There are more files up there she doesn’t even know about that will make her guilty of land fraud. Posthumously, of course.”
“Why did you kill Greg?” Lorna demanded. Her fright had evaporated, at least on the surface, and in her face, I saw the anger of a cornered animal that is tired of being toyed with and wants the fight.
“Profit margin, sweetie. Greg was getting greedy and I just didn’t want to share the pots anymore. Don’t feel bad about him—he was all for you being the patsy when we blew town. I took that nice little length of barbed wire I got from Dee Loudermilk’s property and ended my partnership with him.”
“And left Lorna alive so you could have your blame fall squarely on her shoulders.” I said. “But what about Freddy?”
“Freddy got nosy, and Freddy got greedy. Since he was already stupid, he got dead.” Nina said icily. “He made the mistake of overhearing a phone conversation between Greg and me and trying to get money out of me. He was too idiotic to see that if I’d killed Greg ‘cause I was tired of sharing, I wasn’t about to split the pot with him.” She shrugged. “I conned him. I told him he needed to plant more evidence in Lorna’s room, in a suitcase, that would make Lorna look like the solely guilty party and make it easier for him and me to take the money. All it took was a timer, and Freddy was history. I just borrowed one of Miss Twyla’s contraptions.”
I shook my head, remembering Linda Hillard’s talk about Freddy getting rich. “Too many people now, Nina. You act like you intend on killing us all. This many people, there’ll be an awful lot of questions.”
“I can handle that, Jordy. I’m used to vanishing. And for all the money I’m getting out of the Intraglobal accounts and that dingbat Eula Mae, trust me, your lives are worth it.” She straightened her shoulders as Tiny stirred and groaned. “We’ll have to make this look good for when the fire investigators get here. Obviously Tiny and Miss Twyla were unhinged; her little pranks just got more destructive, and you and Lorna bravely tried to stop them. Everyone knows what a nosy snot you are, so no one will be very surprised. I think maybe one bullet in you, Jordy, will be enough—” She wasn’t prepared, taunting me, for Miss Twyla to throw herself at her gun arm. One bullet smashed into the concrete flooring as the old woman tried to grab the pistol away from Nina.
Lorna and I, from different corners of the room, launched ourselves at Nina. I saw Miss Twyla fly off, shoved hard against the shelving by the spitting con artist, and then the gun whirled toward me. There was a flash and I felt agony in my leg, far worse than any I felt before—like a sharp, hot stab with a needle that’d been sitting in fire, turning molten. I screamed and fell to the floor, holding my thigh. Blood seeped over my fingers.
I heard shrieks and I managed to get my head up to look, half making my peace with God in case a bullet slammed into my head or detonated one of Miss Twyla’s playthings. Lorna and Nina fought for the gun, Lorna with an obvious height and size advantage. The gun spurted fire once, striking the ceiling. Lorna shoved hard and the gun broke from Nina’s grip, skidding toward Miss Twyla. I pulled myself painfully toward it.
I heard Lorna scream “Goddamn you!” and glanced back. My former ladylove belted Nina with a strong right hook, wincing as she did so. “I’ll kill you for what you’ve done to us! You shot Jordan, you bitch!” Nina fell to her knees.
“Lorna! Lorna!” Miss Twyla barked out. I glanced over my shoulder. Miss Twyla had the gun in her hand, aimed steadily at Nina. I nearly collapsed with relief.
“Move away from Nina now, dear,” Miss Twyla ordered. Lorna took a reluctant step back. I could see that her face was scratched and her hands flexed into fists. Nina stared at Miss Twyla, hate in her eyes. “Don’t move, Nina. I will shoot you.”
I breathed a huge sigh, wincing at the burning pain in my leg. This whole nightmare was over.
“Y’all go on. Go ahead and get out.” Miss Twyla’s voice was preternaturally calm, after the echoing hell of gunshots in the enclosed space.
“Lorna.” I found my voice. “Go call the cops. Get an ambulance for me and Tiny.” I tried to stand but fell into a crouch. Lorna was at my side instantly.
“Both of you go,” Miss Twyla ordered again. “Don’t wait for an ambulance. And take poor Tiny with you.” Through my haze of pain, even that request sounded odd.
“I don’t think we should try to move Tiny, Miss Twyla.” And as I said it I looked up at her. She still had the gun leveled at Nina with one hand, but in the other she pulled two wires from a box, keeping the ends of the wires separated with two fingers.
“You’ll have to, dear. Neither Nina nor I will be leaving.” Miss Twyla’s voice was firm, the same one she’d used on us in that long-ago chemistry class when we got too boisterous.
I didn’t comprehend at first, the pain blocking my thoughts, but Lorna did. She stood. “Oh, Miss Twyla, no. Let the police and the judges do their job. You don’t have to do this—”
“But I do, dear,” Miss Twyla insisted. She nodded toward Nina, who had begun crying and shaking. “She killed Freddy using one of my projects. That’s my fault. Don’t you see that I must pay for that? And I’m not going to take a chance on a jury letting her go. It’s so much better this way, don’t you see?”
“Go, Lorna,” I said. “See if you can get Tiny up the stairs and go.”
“No! I won’t!”
“You crazy bitch,” Nina managed to whisper. She sat huddled on the concrete, her eyes wide and staring at Miss Twyla.
“Hurry, dear.” Miss Twyla sounded almost sad. “My hand is getting tired, and when these wires touch, that’s it.”
“Lo
rna, go. Trust me.” My voice didn’t sound like my own, but it was. “Please. I’ll be okay.”
She stumbled over to Tiny, talking to him, trying to pull him to his feet. Suddenly she sobbed and let go of his arm. “He’s dead. He’s dead.”
“Oh, how awful,” Miss Twyla murmured. “Poor misguided thing. Then go, dear. You help Jordy—”
“No.” I shook my head and spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m not leaving without you, Miss Twyla. You just get that into your head.” I turned to Lorna. “Just go and call Junebug.”
Indecision played on her face. I motioned toward the door. She turned and ran.
I turned back to Miss Twyla, her gun still steady on Nina. “Miss Twyla, now you just listen to me. The police will be here in a minute. Nina’s not going anywhere, not with you holding that gun on her, so you just put those wires away.”
“Oh, no, Jordy. Don’t you see how much better it is this way, now that I’ve been found out?” Her tone indicated I’d made a perfectly stupid suggestion. “I just couldn’t abide all the talk I’d have to hear about how crazy I was. I never wanted anyone to get hurt and I was so careful. But then you were injured.… I just started my little projects as a game, because I did get so bored and to show little old ladies could do so much more than attend quilting bees and bake sales. We’re all so underestimated, don’t you think, Nina?”
Nina pulled her tear-streaked face from her hands, staring at the gun and then turning to me. “Talk her out of it, for God’s sake! She’s crazy!”
“Miss Twyla, Please, please, just put the wires down and come with me. You’re not well, you don’t want to do this. You’re not thinking straight because Nina hit you.” I attempted to hobble toward her.
“Jordy, you’re always so optimistic, never seeing the ugly side of life.” Miss Twyla smiled gently at me. “But this is going to happen. I’m not going to some crazy farm, and Nina has to pay for what she did. So you get going. You have a whole life to live. Now go.”
“I’m not leaving until you promise you won’t put those wires together. Promise me!” A sob escaped me and I leaned down, clutching my leg. My jeans were blood-soaked and I felt dizzy.
“You don’t want to bleed to death like poor Tiny,” Miss Twyla advised. She sighed. “Very well, if that’s how it must be. I promise. So get going.”
She made her promise. And God, I wanted to live. As if of their own accord, my feet turned and began a slow hobble toward the door. My breathing shuffled along with my feet.
“Don’t leave me!” Nina screamed. “Don’t leave me here with this fucking crazy woman!” Her screams turned into a sobbing wail of hysteria. I didn’t stop.
I glanced back at Miss Twyla when I reached the door. Both her hands were still steady and she smiled kindly at me.
“If something should happen … think of me often, Jordy, and be nice to my memory. I do like daisies, so maybe if you’d remember to put them on my grave, I’d be most appreciative.” I saw with mounting horror that reason had left those eyes. I mouthed the words you promised at her, and she nodded silently. I stumbled past the doorway, pulling myself up the stairs in agony.
A shriek of sirens sounded above, in the real world where men and women loved and fought and ate and lived. I felt like Orpheus crawling from some dank hell, except I had no Eurydice to bring home with me. Behind me, I could hear Nina’s inchoate scream, words that could haunt a man for a lifetime:
“Jordy! Jordy! Please, please don’t leave me here—”
Rain kissed my face as I pulled myself out of the shelter. It was pouring, and hard. Behind the shimmer of water I could see the flash of Junebug’s police sedan. I screamed his name, Lorna’s name, and ignoring the pain in my leg, tried my best to run.
Arms found me, pulled me ahead. Lorna, Junebug. “Oh, God!” I screamed. “Please, Miss Twyla’s down there and she’s lost—”
And then the world exploded.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
YOU’D THINK THEY’D PUT INTERESTING Pictures on hospital ceilings. Or at least mount the televisions so a soul can lie on his back and watch the baseball games unfold between the tiles. Not that it would have made much difference. I didn’t want to look at pictures or watch the Austin news play by, talking about all the goings-on in the formerly tranquil town of Mirabeau. I had enough pictures in my mind to make a film, one I could spend my life watching again and again and again; no sequel needed.
On the back of my eyelids, I could still see Junebug and Lorna hurrying me away from the backyard shelter, which exploded in an unholy blast, quickly followed by a second, more violent detonation, as though demons were breaking through the mantel to wreak havoc on Mirabeau. The force’d thrown the three of us to the shuddering earth, and I’d seen the tornado-shelter doors cartwheel free from the opening, disintegrating into flaming splinters. Lorna’s arm had closed around me, pulling me ahead, my leg in fresh agony, and then I’d fainted. Not to ruin my manly image, but see how you hold up after a night like that.
I’d become dimly aware of Candace and Lorna both in the ambulance with me, one of my hands in each one of theirs. They were arguing about me, I could tell from their tone of voice. That didn’t really make me happy. I passed out again.
The next day blurred image after image. I was in a bed, I was aware of my sister’s crying (I’d know her sobs anywhere, having made her cry a fair amount as a child), and there was a voice telling her that my surgery was successful and I was going to be okay. She was told that she needn’t carry on so; as soon as the shock wore off, I’d be just pert near perfect again. I slept some more.
Once I was sure Miss Twyla was in the room with me. If she was, I was probably dead, which was confusing, since I was still in the hospital. I suppose there’s not a great demand for hospitals in heaven. I called for her, reached out for her, begging her not to do this foolish thing, but she vanished before my eyes, a gentle, forgiving smile on her face. I called for her again and Candace’s kisses were on my cheek, the fragrance of her perfume in my nose, the gentle spill of her hair across my eyes. So I kept my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see Nina if I opened them, begging me for her life.
I never did see her. But one night, a dream of Tiny fought through the painkillers, a shocked and disappointed look on his face as the woman he’d loved emptied his life for him. I woke, a sob in my throat. I had never liked him—hell, part of me had abominated him—but I could have wept for him then. He didn’t deserve the cruelty he’d been given.
The days passed. I didn’t talk much, not to Candace, not to Lorna, not to Sister, not to Bob Don, not to Eula Mae. They all tried to smother me with love, which I pushed away like an irritating blanket. Clo visited at least once, double-checking me everywhere, not trusting the nurses on duty to do their job right. Apparently she ran off a sheepish Billy Ray Bummel when he made an attempt to see me. I gave my statement to Junebug and signed it. His friend from the Austin Bomb Squad, Teresa Garza, was there, and I remember her squeezing my hand when I had to describe my final words with Miss Twyla. I could only imagine what Miss Twyla had thought when the bomb at the Mirabeau B. had gone off, and she’d sat, numb, with Nina and Tiny in his pickup truck, watching the town deal with the disaster. Did she try to delude herself at first that perhaps it was a gas explosion? Or did she know from the beginning that someone had taken one of her little projects and used it to murder someone? Why hadn’t she come forward? Pride? Shame? Or, considering recent events, a need to extract her own revenge? I asked Junebug those same questions and went back to sleep. Only later did Sister tell me that after I’d slumbered, my old friend sat by my bed, quietly watching me for the longest damn time.
The doctors came and went as well, saying my leg was healing well from the surgery, and it was too bad I’d broken it when I’d tumbled to the ground, coming down on it at a bad angle. I’m not sure they believed me when I told them my black eye and gashed arm didn’t result from the explosion at Miss Twyla’s. Maybe that’s when they sent the psychi
atrist in.
I’d just as soon not talk about that part. It was painful to me, and like most men I don’t believe in sharing every thought and feeling that I have. The psychiatrist was a pleasant young fellow with a mightily suppressed drawl who was bound and determined to make sure I didn’t feel guilty about leaving Miss Twyla and Nina. I met with him a few times and let him think he was making progress. I heard hospital gossip that he was also treating Parker Loudermilk for his tendencies to resort to violence when angry. I thought Parker would make a prize project for him, far more interesting than me.
Sister told me Jenny had recovered from her suicide attempt. I closed my eyes; that girl must have been in hell. Sister said everyone said Jenny was doing so much better now that she knew her daddy wasn’t a killer. I tried to take some pleasure in that, but it was fleeting; she still had Parker for a dad, which I felt was not an optimal situation. Dee visited me once, bringing flowers in a pot she’d made herself. I was glad to see this pot had no barbed wire. Candace told me that Parker had admitted to finding Greg dead; apparently Nina must have killed Greg shortly before the Loudermilks arrived. According to Junebug, Parker said he’d gone over there with a gun; that’s what Becca had seen him stuffing back in his pocket when he fled the scene. I didn’t want to think about him anymore; I suspected the voters of Mirabeau would soon give me a new boss.
So I sat in this introspective stupor for the days that I was in the hospital, not talking much, nodding, smiling, closing my eyes, letting myself be fussed over by the women in my life. I was glad when I got to go home and finally get some rest.
Everything else of interest happened one Saturday afternoon when I’d gotten back. Weary of my own bed, I’d used my crutches to get down to the couch, where I’d built my empire of tattered paperbacks and bowls of popcorn, watching old movies on cable. Out of harmless-style spite, I picked up a little silver bell that sat on the coffee table and rang it.
It was no lovely French chambermaid who answered my call, but rather a frowning Clo, heavy arms crossed over her barrel chest. “What do you want now? Your damned old pillows been fluffed enough.”