Melody whisper-shouted again. “Hey baby, don’t you know I love you?”
As soon as I heard her voice again, my eyes watched the air nearby. Bingo. From behind a tree far to my right, I saw the condensation of her breath as the words spilled out. Still though, Colt was at large.
“Colty...” she continued with more edge in her voice. “The police are after us and you’re starting to-”
As I moved one leg to get a better footing, a twig snapped under my foot, interrupting Melody’s psycho-attempt at wooing. She moved from behind the tree and began treading in my direction.
“Colty? Is that you? This is getting serious.” The deranged and irritable tone in her voice rose sharply.
I had to admit, I was becoming irritable as well, unable to locate Colt and wondering where Howard and those police were with their weapons. Knowing I had to get out of Melody’s way fast, I planted myself stomach down on the ground and began wiggling backwards toward the steep slope that led away from the houses and down to the path. Something sent Melody moving in the opposite direction, so I struggled to get on my hands and knees to better look for Colt, only gravity kept pulling me down the slope. I reached for a twiggy baby tree with my left hand, straining with all of my might and had just managed to brush it with my fingertips when something cold and wet landed on my pasta spoon hand. My scream was instinctual and, unfortunately, I couldn’t take it back.
Melody was heading my way again, faster now, louder, with more confidence.
“Curly,” croaked a voice.
The something that had grabbed my hand was Colt. As I furiously brushed leaves away from the lump next to me, more and more of him appeared. He was pale, drained, and dirt-covered, but he was alive. He must have crawled to the spot and covered himself with leaves to hide from Melody.
“You found me,” he whispered.
I smiled and gave a nod.
He coughed quietly. “Took you long enough.”
“She’s coming this way,” I whispered in his ear. “Can you move?”
“Pretty...sure.” His breath was raspy.
I peered behind us, down the long, steep slope. Finally, the sound of approaching sirens told me more help was on the way. The police could be just seconds from finding Melody and thwarting her, but I couldn’t take any chances. I certainly couldn’t scream to gain their attention, or she might shoot. If, however, Colt and I were able to make our way safely to the walking path, a bridge lay just around a bend. I remembered that it was still well-covered on both sides by heavy brush and a shallow creek ran underneath. I’d move us in that direction thinking it could provide us necessary concealment.
“Slide backwards, hang on to me.”
He didn’t say anything, but weakly raised his thumb to indicate he was on board. Down we slid, over leaves and sticker vines and fallen branches both large and small. The ride was filled with bumps and jolts that irritated the burn in my ribcage. Colt grunted the whole way down, so I suspected he was in a great deal of pain as well. Once we reached level ground near the path, I prayed a jogger bearing a concealed weapon for safety would appear, but such was not our luck. Rest would have been nice, but there was no time. A quick peek up the hill told me Melody was hot on our trail.
“Can you walk?” I whispered.
He winced. “My ankle.” His voice had gained a hint of strength.
“Which one?”
He patted his right leg.
I pointed down the path. “Lean on me, we’re going that way.”
Together we struggled, lifting here, pushing there, pulling arms around, until I had as good a grip on him as possible and we could begin hobbling with great effort toward the bridge. I stayed just off the path in the brush to camouflage our images from Melody. Colt bit his lip hard with each step.
I wondered why the police hadn’t come to our rescue yet. And where was Howard? Certainly Mama Marr had delivered my message by now.
Every couple of steps I looked back, hoping for signs of Melody or—better yet—rescuers. Neither were in sight, and as we drew closer to the bridge, I began to have hope that Melody might have finally been apprehended.
“Colt,” I said quietly. “We’re almost there.”
“Where is she?” he moaned.
“I don’t hear or see her. Maybe she’s caught.”
Voices rang in the distance. Men’s voices, hollering. Help was on the way. I sighed in relief and we turned instinctively toward the sound of our saviors.
“Hey! We’re here! Down here!” I yelled.
“So, you are,” said a voice rising from the shallow stream bed. Melody had snookered us. She might have been a fruitcake, but she was a crafty fruitcake. The way she’d gotten down to that creek bed without being spotted was just too creepy. We began inching sideways toward the bridge as she climbed up the gentle embankment, the gun dangled from her hand that hung at her side. A long abrasion on the right left side of her face oozed blood. Her bouncy pony-tail, I noted, remained intact. “Hey, Barb, whatcha doin’ with my man?” she asked, once on flatter ground, the gun still dangling.
“In case you didn’t notice,” grunted Colt, “she has issues.”
Melody sneered.
With the deadly firearm in her possession temporarily off duty, I decided now was the time to bring out the pasta spoon and catch her off guard. See, the pasta spoon had been broken for years. The spoon part of it kept coming off the metal spiked arm, and we had discovered long ago that, if whipped just right, the thing could fling off clear across the room and possibly put an eye out. I was praying now would be one of those times. “Melody,” I said, readying the utensil, “he’s not my man...” I raised that pasta spoon high in the air, bit back the urge to scream from the resulting pain in my side, and flicked the kitchen utensil hard like a whip. As it always did, the spoon portion sailed through the air. “And he’s not yours either!”
Before the word ‘either’ was out of my mouth, the pronged end had already buzzed past her head, missing her and both of her eyes by several inches. I regretted not choosing the steak knife.
Colt was kind in his assessment. “Nice try, anyway.”
Melody laughed, which I didn’t begrudge her, since it was a laughable move, then raised her gun.
“Barb, if you don’t give him to me, I’ll make sure he’ll never be anybody’s man.”
Colt and I started inching around, back toward the bridge. He was heavier than me, and I was finally beginning to buckle under his weight, afraid I might collapse altogether.
The hollering voices had gotten louder, but there was still no one in sight.
Melody, seeming aware that pursuers were closing in, aimed her gun square at Colt’s chest. “Why don’t you love me the way I love you? It could have been so wonderful. But now you’ve gone and made it, just like all of the rest.”
She swiveled the gun toward me. “And you. You don’t deserve him.”
By now, Colt and I were backing our way onto the bridge and Melody was on the path. Her eyes were wild like a caged animal, but they never strayed. She was focused on us entirely.
I wanted to shout out, giving the police a beacon to locate us, but the risk was too great.
Finally, I heard the sweet sound of crunching leaves. Several figures were making their way toward us from the left. Howard was the first to arrive slowly and cautiously, followed by Erik and another uniformed man. They maintained a safe distance, but Erik and the cop raised their guns on Melody.
“Put the weapon down,” Erik said. “Melody, lower it slowly to the ground.”
She didn’t bat an eye, didn’t flinch a muscle. Her gun just kept jumping from target to target. She was going to shoot one of us, it was just a matter of which one.
“Men,” Howard said slowly, calmly. “Stay back. Don’t shoot.�
��
“That’s right, men,” she answered, staring us down. “Don’t shoot, because if you do, I’m not going down alone. I’ll take one of them with me. Will it be,” she aimed the gun at my head. “Her?” then at Colt. “Or will it be the womanizer?”
I’d been so busy dividing my attention between Melody’s gun and Howard and his crew that I hadn’t noticed that my mother, of all people, had somehow made her way to the path. She ran toward us now and honestly, the only thing that went through my mind was, “What the hell?”
For a very large and aging lady, she managed to sprint as quietly as a mouse. Melody never heard her coming. “You want to shoot someone you slimy, weak-minded, runt?” she said, stopping and planting a firm High-Noon, western sheriff’s stance. “You shoot me.”
“Weak-minded?” shouted Melody. She swung around, full of fury, searching to aim at the woman who challenged her.
And if my mother’s appearance wasn’t enough of a surprise, what happened next was even more shocking, and certainly deserving of a title in the record books.
As soon as Melody had turned to face my mom, an iron skillet whizzed past from the side of the bridge, flying high through the air, spiraling handle over pan over handle, and finally landing squarely in the middle of Melody Penobscott’s back.
She fell in a heap on the ground.
“That’s what you get,” said my mother, “for trying to hurt my daughter.”
When I turned to see who had wielded the killer skillet, I saw Mama Marr grab the bridge for support. A wide smile graced her chubby face and she raised her fist in the air like a miniature Rocky. “That’ll show her never to mess with no skillet-throwing champion. We got her good, eh, Diane? We make the good team!”
Mama Marr proved she was far better with an iron skillet than I was with a wonky pasta spoon.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mama Marr saved the day, but her frying pan only maimed Melody Penobscott. Emergency responders rushed the psycho killer to Fairfax General under police escort while Colt and I were transported to Rustic Woods Hospital just around the corner. Howard wanted to ride with me in the ambulance, but I insisted he stay with the girls to keep them calm and let them know everything would be just fine. He held my hand and rubbed it gently while the EMTs positioned Colt.
“Hey,” I asked him. “You think they offer a frequent customer discount at the hospital?”
He smiled.
“You know—three visits to the ER, get the next one free? They should consider it.”
“You sure I shouldn’t come with you?”
I shook my head adamantly. “No. The girls need you right now. I have, what? A cracked rib, maybe, and a fever. They’ll release me in a few hours, but the girls will be worried sick.” I pointed my head toward a huddle of policemen interrogating my mother and his. “And it looks like Cagney and Lacey there will be tied up for a while.”
His sexy, droopy Italian eyes were even droopier from strain and the lack of sleep. He ran grimy fingers through his dark-but-graying hair and rolled his eyes at my comment. “What is it with the women in this family?”
“We get things done.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
Three paramedics descended upon me and my gurney. One addressed Howard. “We need to ready her for transport, sir.”
He nodded and kissed my hand. “Be with you soon.”
I frowned slightly. “Anything you’d like to add to that?” They were hoisting me into the ambulance, opposite Colt.
He smiled again. “I love you?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I love you.”
“That’s better. I love you too.”
He waved, and soon he was out of my sight.
“Always the happy lovebirds,” Colt slurred as I was jostled into place. “You lucky dogs. Me, I get the lady from Misery.”
“How are you feeling?”
His lips curled barely, his eyes lids fluttered. “Feeling nothing now that Mr. Blue is here.”
For a minute I thought he was hallucinating until one of the medical technicians saw my confusion and explained. “We gave him morphine for the pain.” A slight jolt was followed by the wail of a siren.
“You wanna hear my sad story?” Colt asked on route.
“If you feel up for it.”
“You know me,” he said, a thin smile on his lips, “I’m always up for anything.”
The trip to Rustic Woods Hospital was fast, but Colt relayed a good portion of his story with surprising coherence.
Colt had been having one of those days. First his cell phone died while tailing Rita Ash, then his car wouldn’t start. “My buddy, Chunks, gave me a ride to your place.”
“Chunks?”
“Nickname. Long story involving alcohol and pizza rolls.”
That was a story I didn’t need to hear. “He’s a cop, right?”
He nodded. Colt went on to explain that just after he was dropped off at the end of our driveway, Melody Penobscott, who he’d just bequeathed the new nickname, “Maniacal,” jumped on him like a honey bee to a sunflower. “She asked me to help her unscrew a bolt from a chair she was refinishing. I said, ‘sure’ ‘cuz that’s just the kind of guy I am. Help a damsel in distress and all that...you know...manly stuff.”
“You’re very manly,” I agreed.
“Tell me something I don’t know. Anyway, she repaid me with a conk to the head instead of a simple ‘Thank you.’”
He licked his lips, waited a beat, then recounted the events after regaining consciousness from her attack. He came to on a mattress in a cramped dark room with his right hand handcuffed to a pipe above his head. A tiny reading lamp had been placed on a table with a small glass of water. From the tight and musty confines, he deduced that he was being held captive in a crawlspace under the house.
Melody had found his cell phone but must have determined it was dead since she left it on the ground. It was barely out of his reach, but not entirely. He was able drag it with a foot and charge the battery by placing it under his armpit for the heat, just the way Guy had deduced. The charge was enough to get short messages out, but not enough to make calls. Each time, he’d have to recharge. After the last text, she caught him putting the phone back in place so she punished him by taking away the water and light.
Colt decided the only way to escape was to play into her fantasy and woo her. He was eventually able to convince her to lay down with him. When she fell asleep, he slowly wiggled a single bobby pin out of her hair and waited. When she woke up she decided he deserved a big homemade breakfast for being such a loving hostage. She was just covering the entrance to the crawlspace with a bookshelf when Colt heard a man’s voice.
Hoping it was help on the way, Colt hollered while unlocking his handcuff with the bobby pin. Once his hand was free he pushed on the back of the bookshelf that separated him from freedom. Hollering and pushing, he eventually toppled the shelf and crawled out into the dank basement. Not seeing a door out, he tore up the stairs and through a door onto the Penobscotts’s main floor where he found Melody aiming a gun at her own husband.
Colt was thinking of making a run for it until Melody shot two holes in the floor to show how seriously demented she was. I figured those must have been the shots my mother heard. A crazed Melody ordered them both into the basement while she “decided what to do next.”
I did a quick mental calculation. “It had to have been at least ten minutes, maybe more, between those first two shots that my mom heard, and the second one we heard. What was she doing all that time?”
“Sewing a dress for the lunatics’ prom maybe. Who knows?” His eyes started to droop. “We heard a lot of stomping and door banging until the doorbell rang.”
“That’s when you made y
our escape?”
“Not right away, but that’s...the general idea.” The morphine was really kicking in and he was fading fast. “We were supposed to divide and conquer. Things went a little screwy, as you can see. That chick is strong for being so skinny—lifted a steel statue from her mantle like it was a piece of paper.” His eyes drooped more while he paused. “Didn’t feel like paper when it landed on my ankle.”
“You’re safe now at least.”
“I’m not the first.” Colt coughed and closed his eyes. “There was blood on that mattress, and it wasn’t mine.”
I didn’t bother to tell Colt, just then, about the body parts Puddles and I had found in the woods. But it didn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out where they’d come from or that Melody liked to chop more than fish for making sushi.
As Colt was hoisted from the ambulance, it occurred to me that dream-Frankie’s advice not to show the pain probably saved Colt’s life. If I had gone to the hospital earlier, I wouldn’t have been there to rescue him from the deadly grip of Maniacal Melody Penobscott. Thank goodness for wacky hallucinations.
As it turned out, my visit to the hospital was longer than just a few hours. Just waiting for x-rays seemed to take half the day. A dose of acetaminophen and a fluid drip brought my fever right down. My ribcage would be bandaged for support to heal the one broken rib I’d incurred. Howard came over with the girls who were allowed to sit with me while he checked in on Colt and a very relieved Clarence. When he returned, he gave me Colt’s medical update: his right ankle was in bad shape and his left tibia had sustained a hairline fracture. His doctor was amazed that he even managed to put any weight on the left leg at all without crumbling in agony. The ankle was repairable with surgery and they would have to set the left leg. He’d have to remain off his feet for several weeks.
Saturday Night Cleaver (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4) Page 17