by Sandra Balzo
‘It’s over,’ a voice said.
I’d just gotten the upper hand on the gun, so I wasn’t buying. Besides, in the last year or so, I’d become a huge proponent of the ‘act quickly, apologize later’ school of thought.
Wrenching the gun out of Emma’s hand, I pointed it.
Chapter Nineteen
Rachel Slattery Thorsen shook her head at me. ‘I really wanted to like you.’ She, too, had a gun. Hers was bigger than mine.
And, despite what we tell men, size matters.
I stood up, still keeping my gun trained on her. ‘You liked me so much that you stole my husband and, when you tired of him, framed him for your murder?’
‘Please. It’s not that simple,’ Rachel said. ‘Now, put down your gun.’
‘Why? You have one and I have one. You put yours down.’ I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
‘Good try. But I’m willing to bet you’ve never shot a gun. I have.’ Rachel moved sideways so she was behind Ted and tipped the gun toward him. ‘Put the gun down or I’ll demonstrate.’
I set the gun down on the floor. Ted’s eyeballs went back into their sockets.
Rachel smiled and kicked the gun toward the kitchen. She was wearing athletic gray sweats and tennies. Judging by the mud on her shoes, she’d been digging.
‘Where are those great boots you had on the other day, Rachel?’ I said. ‘Oh, wait. You needed to put those on a homeless woman, beat her to death in my dumpster corral and dispose of her body at the Hamilton.’
I smiled sweetly at her. ‘I forgot.’
‘We did not kill her,’ Emma said. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’ She’d gotten up and was now cowering behind Rachel. ‘I found her dead. We only hit her in the face so no one could identify the body.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So why was there so much blood on the box spring? You had to rip it off and dispose of it. What did you use to hit her? The paint cans?’
Emma turned to Rachel. ‘Wait a second. She wasn’t dead when you hit her?’
‘You’re the doctor,’ Rachel said, stepping away from her. ‘You said she died in your office, probably a cerebral hemorrhage after her boyfriend beat her up. You’re the one who said we weren’t hurting anyone.’
‘I didn’t hit her. You did.’ Emma came around Rachel so she could confront her directly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the blood?’
‘You might want to ask her about the whole pregnancy thing while you’re at it,’ I suggested mildly from the sidelines. Ted made an ‘ummph’ noise, so I nudged him gently with my toe. He shut up.
‘Did you drink wine?’ Emma asked Rachel indignantly. ‘How could you do that to our baby?’
‘First of all,’ Rachel said, ‘I pretended to take a sip. I did not drink. Second of all, it’s not your baby.’
Rachel pointed the gun down at Ted. ‘It’s his.’
Ted cringed. At this point, I had little sympathy for him. Duct-taped or not, he wasn’t being much help here. Even ChiChi had been more valuable. In fact, even the rat had been more useful.
Nonetheless, Ted was the father of my child.
‘Why did you come up here to the cabin?’ I asked Rachel to divert her. I was biding my time, hoping that Pavlik’s cavalry would arrive.
‘Ted had told me about this place. I thought it would be a good place to hide. Then he –’ she nodded toward Ted – ‘showed up.’
‘Inconsiderate of him not to have called first,’ I observed. ‘It is his cabin, though.’
‘His mother’s cabin, you mean.’
‘Just like everything you have is controlled by your mother,’ Ted piped up indignantly from the floor. ‘You have a lot of nerve talking about living off your family.’
‘I worked,’ Rachel said. ‘I was a dental hygienist, for God’s sake. You know how many hours we spend on our feet. You know how many of us get carpal tunnel.’
‘There’s a difference between getting carpal tunnel because you need to and carpal tunnel because you want to,’ I said. ‘There’s also a difference between earning a good, honest wage to live your life and doing the same to prove . . .’ I stopped.
‘To prove what?’ Rachel demanded waving the gun.
I could see the growing fear in Ted’s eyes and even ChiChi had stopped playing with the tennis ball. He was looking back and forth between Rachel and me.
‘To prove what?’ I said, echoing Rachel. ‘That you’re not your mother.’ I waited three beats. ‘Or is it your father that you don’t want to be like?’
‘Neither,’ she snarled, advancing. Apparently I’d hit a nerve. ‘My mother is a bitch and my father is a wimp. I am neither.’ Each of the last three words was annunciated clearly, like she was affirming it to herself.
‘And yet,’ I said, fighting the urge to back up, ‘you can’t escape from either.’
‘I can,’ she screamed. ‘I have.’
‘But even now, not on your own dime. No, you escape from your mother by stealing my husband.’ I could see Ted using his duct-taped hands and feet to propel himself slowly toward the door.
‘Then you go and get pregnant,’ I said, trying to keep Rachel’s attention on me and off of Ted. ‘That was the last thing you wanted, wasn’t it?’
Her eyes were huge now. ‘If I had a child, my mother would never let go of either of us. She would always have “a right” to my baby. I couldn’t let that happen.’
A hostage to the Slattery fortune.
‘You can’t contemplate adoption or abortion, of course.’ I lowered my voice and made it sing-song. ‘After all, what would mommy say―’
‘He wouldn’t have let me anyway.’ She gestured with the gun toward Ted, who froze. ‘You were married to him. He loves Eric. Do you honestly think he’d let me abort his baby?’ She sounded ticked that Ted would even have a say in it.
‘Why did you marry me?’ Ted asked from the floor. ‘If you love her –’ he tipped his head toward Emma – ‘why weren’t you with her? Things could have stayed the same,’ he said, almost to himself.
I knew he meant for us – him and me and Eric. And they could have. But maybe that wouldn’t have been for the best.
I didn’t say that, though. What I said instead, was: ‘Rachel move in with another woman? Whatever would Mother say?’
‘Shut up.’ Rachel was moving toward me.
‘Rachel isn’t like that,’ Emma protested.
‘Really? You two have been lovers for years, right? Probably since Rachel worked for you.’
Emma nodded.
‘So did she ever take you home? Introduce you to Mom and Dad?’
‘No, but I understood that. She hasn’t come out and neither have I. She couldn’t―’
‘And whose idea was it to stay . . .’ I was searching for an alternative to the clichéd ‘in the closet’.
‘In the closet,’ Ted suggested.
At least I’d been saved from saying it myself.
‘We agreed,’ Rachel said firmly. ‘Both of us.’
‘OK, so you weren’t going to admit you were lovers. But you’ve known each other for years. Did you ever introduce her to your parents as your boss? Or your friend?’
‘No, of course not,’ Rachel said. ‘There was never an opportun―’
‘That’s not true,’ Emma interrupted. ‘There were plenty of opportunities, but you always made me leave. Or hide.’ She looked at Rachel, seeming genuinely puzzled. ‘Why would you do that? They wouldn’t know―’
‘But they would,’ I said. ‘At least Rachel thought so. Right, Rachel?’ I turned to her. ‘You are so intimidated by your mother that you thought she would know Emma was gay just by looking at her.’
Emma laughed. ‘That’s ridiculous.’ She turned to the other woman. ‘Tell her.’
But Rachel didn’t say anything.
Emma looked stunned. ‘Tell her,’ she said again.
Rachel flushed and shook her head.
‘Is that what you think?’ Emma asked. �
�That she has superpowers? Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I just give off lesbian-vibes, huh?’
‘That’s not true,’ Rachel protested, laying a hand on her arm. ‘But my mother would have hated you. She would have known you make me happy and she would have destroyed it.’
Quick thinking on Rachel’s part and it worked. Emma softened.
Time to try another tack.
‘So suddenly you have the courage to leave,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘The baby.’ Emma was back in the role of lover. ‘We both wanted this baby, our baby –’ she looked at Rachel, who this time didn’t contradict her – ‘to be free of the Slatterys.’
‘How noble of you. But what about him?’ I gestured at Ted, who had pretty much given up wiggling and was now watching us from his modified fetal position. ‘First you take his child, then you steal his money,’
‘My money,’ Rachel interjected.
I ignored her. ‘And, finally, you use Stephen to frame Ted for your “murder”.’
I raised my hand for a high five. ‘Now that’s the kind of stand-up gals you are.’
Neither high-fived me back.
‘Ted was cheating on me,’ Rachel said. ‘Stephen cared enough about me to warn me.’
‘That gave you a great excuse to dump Ted, not to mention frame him. No one, not even Emma –’ I nodded at her – ‘who seems to have a conscience, could blame you.’
No response from Emma. I’d lost her.
‘Did you think to ask Stephen who Ted was supposedly cheating with?’ I asked Rachel. ‘Because if you had, he’d have told you it was Emma.’
This time it was Rachel who turned on Emma. ‘You had sex with Ted?’
‘We were just friends,’ Emma protested. ‘We had sex once and that was way back when I still thought I was straight. In fact, he was engaged to . . .’ She looked at me and slapped her mouth closed.
Then all three of us looked at Ted, helpless on the floor.
‘You have got to be shitting me,’ I said.
Ted said, ‘Ummph,’ and then shut his mouth.
Good move.
Still, I couldn’t afford to lose my focus here. I needed to keep them talking. With any luck, the police would arrive. Or Sarah would toss another tennis ball in.
‘So Stephen tells you he saw Ted and Emma together and you, knowing their past dalliance –’ I threw Ted a dark look – ‘purposely turned an innocent molehill into a sleazy mountain.’
Rachel didn’t respond.
‘Poor Stephen,’ I continued. ‘He didn't realize you were using him, any more than I did when you asked for my calendars so I would support your story. You and Emma just planned on disappearing, leaving Ted a suspect and Stephen and me with loads of questions, but no answers. But then Emma called on your cell while we were in Stephen's office and suggested the perfect way to tie up all the loose ends. This “dead body” had just dropped into her hands. You blew off your appointment with Roger Karsten and went to help her.’
I turned to Emma. ‘It was perfect. Rachel had started seeing you, both personally and professionally, when she worked for you. That meant that both she and the homeless woman were your patients. You could switch the dental X-rays and, presto, the dead woman is Rachel.
‘After your call, Rachel stops at home to pick up some things – probably that lovely sweatsuit and a few more key cards – and then the two of you go to dispose of the body at the Hamilton, where it would eventually be found and believed to be Rachel. Only problem is, your dead body . . . does she have a name?’
‘Gretchen,’ Emma said quietly. ‘Her name was Gretchen.’
‘Yes, Gretchen. Well, Gretchen isn’t dead. Rachel finds this out when she goes to smash in her face and Gretchen bleeds all over the place. She cleans up the box spring the best she can, stripping the bloody fabric and disposing of it. But she never bothered to tell you, did she?’
Emma shook her head.
‘The pink parka was your mistake, you know.’
‘Parka?’ Emma echoed.
‘Gretchen was wearing the parka when I saw her go into your office Saturday afternoon. When Sarah and I were at the Hamilton today, I saw the coat along with the brocade drapes you must have wrapped the body in. That’s when I realized Emma was involved.’ I cocked my head. ‘Hear that siren? The police are here.’
In truth, I didn’t hear a siren, but I did hear something else fast approaching. And it sounded familiar.
Crash.
The front end of the minivan joined us in the living room, coming to rest a foot from Ted’s head.
I jumped Rachel, the greater of the two evils. As she and I fell to the floor, I saw Eric storming in from the kitchen.
Distracted, I let Rachel get the upper hand, pinning me down, my back to the ground. She straddled me and raised her weapon.
‘I’ve got the other gun!’ Eric yelled. ‘You hurt my mom and I’ll kill you.’
I had no doubt that my son would die to protect me. It went both ways.
As Rachel turned her gun toward Eric, I smacked her on the side of the head and did a stomach crunch that would have made any Brookhills Barbie proud. Lifting a little up and a lot sidewise, I managed to tip Rachel off me. Then I scrambled on to my knees, shoving my knuckles against her larynx, like I’d seen on TV.
‘Drop the gun,’ I said, ‘or I will crush your windpipe.’
‘My baby,’ she cried, trying to bring her gun up at me.
‘My baby.’ I jerked my head toward Eric, 6'2" and with a gun in his hand.
Rachel dropped her gun.
Chapter Twenty
Sarah climbed out of the minivan and surveyed the scene. Rachel was still on the ground. I had her gun and Eric was holding his on Emma. Sarah shook her head.
‘You just can’t stand it when I make new friends, can you?’
‘You choose badly,’ I said.
‘Put down your weapons,’ a voice boomed out. Suddenly we were surrounded by police officers.
I looked at Eric. ‘Slowly set it down on the floor so it doesn’t go off accidentally,’ I told him.
He nodded and we both raised our hands over our heads. ‘We’re the good guys,’ I protested.
They ignored me. One officer was busy cutting Ted free of the tape around his feet and wrists.
‘Are you Tor Thorsen?’ the cop asked, as he helped Ted to his feet.
‘Yes,’ Ted said, wiping the blood off his lips. ‘Thank God you’re here. I―’
The cop slapped cuffs on him.
Ted’s jaw dropped.
‘You are officially a murder suspect,’ I reminded him. ‘It might take a while to sort out the fact the victim is still alive.’
‘Who’s Maggy Thorsen?’ another voice boomed out.
I pointed to Sarah.
‘Liar,’ Sarah snapped.
‘Fine.’ I waved my hand, still held high. ‘I’m Maggy Thorsen.’
Instead of his handcuffs, he pulled out his cellphone to call Pavlik. I almost asked for the cuffs.
Pavlik met us at the Lake Verde police station.
He talked to the police officers. He talked to Ted. He talked to Sarah. He even talked to Eric. Then he got to me.
‘You didn’t stay out of the cabin.’
‘I heard Ted cry out. I knew he was in trouble and I had to help. Just like I’d help you or Eric. And just like Sarah and Eric helped me.’
‘They did that. I don’t think your minivan is going to make it.’
‘I can stand that loss, though Eric might not agree. He’s going to have to take the train or bus back to the Twin Cities.’
‘I heard Ted say he was going to take him back up. Sounded like he wanted some father/son bonding time.’
‘Ted’s a good father. Maybe not a good husband those last couple of years, but a good father.’
‘He’ll have it to do all over again,’ Pavlik said. ‘Rachel Slattery and Emma Byrne are on their way back to Milwaukee with my deputies. Most likely Rachel will spend a
good amount of time in prison.’
‘The baby,’ I said. ‘It could be born in prison.’ I wondered how that was going to go over with Mother Slattery. Happily, the baby had Ted to fight for him or her. And then there was Stephen. I had a hunch Rachel's brother would gladly take on their mother in order to protect his niece or nephew.
Ted stuck his head in. His swollen lips preceded him. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to let you know that Eric is riding back with me.’
‘You’re not going to take him back to school tonight, are you?’
Ted shook his head. ‘No, he’s going to stay with me in Brookhills and I’ll drive him up on Sunday. It’ll be good to have the company this weekend.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Hey!’ Yet another head around the corner. This one was Sarah’s. ‘Are you coming with me?’
I looked at Pavlik. ‘We done?’
He sighed. ‘Us? Not by a long shot, I fear. But yes, go home with Sarah for now. And I’ll call you tomorrow, too.’
He stood up and gave me a quick kiss on the top of the head.
By the time we reached Brookhills, it was seven a.m. It had been my morning to open Uncommon Grounds, but I’d called Caron and explained, so she took my shift.
‘I’m too wired to go home and sleep,’ I said to Sarah as we came off the freeway ramp.
‘Because you took down a couple of killers or because Pavlik said he was going to call you?’
‘Both,’ I admitted. ‘Want to stop for coffee?’
‘Sure.’ Sarah turned on to Brookhill Road. ‘I guess I won’t be playing tennis today.’
‘I’m sorry about Emma,’ I said. ‘I know she’s your friend.’
‘I liked her,’ Sarah admitted. ‘But did you see how she changed around Rachel? She was a strong woman and she let that little bitch lead her right into murder.’
‘Rachel fooled a lot of people,’ I said as we pulled into the parking lot. ‘She was trying so hard to get away from her mother, that she became her mother.’
‘There’s probably something very Zen in that, but I’m too tired to think of it,’ Sarah said, getting out of the car. ‘Let’s get that coffee.’
Sophie was up out of her chair the moment we entered. ‘Is it true that frickin’ Slattery girl is alive?’