“I saw you at St. Celine’s today,” I said softly.
She widened her dark eyes and didn’t speak.
“What happened?” I asked again. “How did you get mixed up with this?”
I didn’t think she’d answer, but after a few seconds she started talking in a low monotone.
“I didn’t want to help her. I just happened to be there that night. I was coming downstairs to get some construction paper. She didn’t know I was here.”
“Jillian?”
She nodded.
“She killed Nora,” I prompted, wanting to keep her talking.
Dolores nodded again.
“But why?”
“Her husband,” Dolores whispered, then glanced furtively up the concrete stairs. We could hear low voices from behind the closed doors. I contemplated screaming, but I remembered the pistol. Where did Jillian hide it? I couldn’t imagine her talking casually to a library employee while brandishing a handgun. And I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.
I shook my head slightly, trying to get it to stop feeling so fuzzy. It only made it worse. “Because of Roy?”
“No.” Dolores shook her head furiously. “Not Nora’s husband. Jillian’s. She poisoned him ’cause he cheated on her all the time. He’s buried under the patio off her office. Before they poured it.”
“The patio?” I repeated. This was getting more bizarre by the moment. I flashed back to the party she’d given when the patio and patrons’ garden were finished. Jillian had been drinking champagne and eating shrimp puffs while standing on her husband’s grave.
Dolores nodded dumbly. “I heard Nora tell Jillian that she’d found out and that she was going to print it in the Tattler column. They started fighting, and somehow Jillian got a rope that we’d used in a ranching display and choked Nora. I saw it all from the stairs. I was too scared to move or do anything. I thought they’d stop. I didn’t think anyone would get killed.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
Tears streamed down her face. “Jillian took me to her office and kept talking to me. I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe. She kept saying that Nora deserved it, that she was an evil woman. And she said that Nora was going to write things about my parents’ restaurant that would close it down—about how we buy black-market beef and how my oldest brother, Felipe, was dealing cocaine to keep the restaurant going. I don’t know how she found out about that stuff. My parents didn’t even know. My father was still getting over his kidney operation, and there was no money and—” She broke down and started sobbing. “Benni, she said if I helped her she’d make sure that my family was taken care of, and she kept her promise. I didn’t kill Nora. All I did was help take her to the lake.”
Guilt, a little voice reminded me. You don’t have much time. Think. “Dolores, you can’t help her kill me. That would be . . .” I thought hard for a moment, trying to remember what little Catholic doctrine I knew—venial sin? No, that was for the ones that weren’t so bad. The ones you could be forgiven for. Death—mortality—mortal. That was it. “A mortal sin,” I finished. “You’ll go to hell. Murder is a mortal sin.”
She looked up, her tears halted, her black eyes wide with shock. “No . . . I . . .”
“Yes,” I insisted. “Helping her after she killed Nora was one thing. But you know God could never, ever forgive you helping her kill someone else. You know that.”
Lord, I prayed, I don’t believe that’s true, and forgive me for messing with Your theology, but I’m in real trouble here.
“You’ll be a murderer. You’ll go to hell,” I repeated, and hoped that the Catholic guilt that Gabe and I talked about would kick in.
“No,” she moaned. “I’m not a murderer. I’m not.” She started praying softly in Spanish—Santa Maria, Llena de gracia. . . .
“You’re not yet,” I said. “Please help me, Dolores. Don’t let Jillian make you be a murderer.”
She opened her eyes. “What should I do?”
“I don’t know yet, but I have to know I can count on you. If I tell you to do something, then do it, no questions. Can you manage that?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice determined. “I can do that.”
The door to the basement opened, and in the dim light Jillian started down the stairs. I concentrated on trying to think of a way to get the ropes untied.
“What do you think we should do?” Jillian asked. “Her being the police chief’s wife makes it more difficult—”
I peered up at her through the pale light. Was she asking me? I couldn’t believe she’d be consulting Dolores; it was obvious Jillian was the ringleader here.
“Get rid of her,” a man said bluntly, and my heart jumped into my throat.
“Ash?” I stammered, shaking my head. This all had to be a bad dream. Three of them? Geez, it was like one of those tiny Volkswagens at the circus where clowns keep tumbling out. Would the whole storytelling committee be showing up eventually? Would they have to take a vote on how to get rid of me? I felt a hysterical giggle rumble in my chest. Then my hopes plummeted. Me and Dolores against Jillian was one thing. Ash in the picture made my prognosis look very grim.
“Just makes it more of a challenge, darlin’ ,” Ash answered Jillian. “We’ll put our clever heads together and think of something.”
“You were in on Nora’s murder, too?” I asked. “Why?”
“I imagine you can guess,” he said. “She knew a little too much about my background and was a little too willing to use it. I didn’t kill her, but I’d gladly have held one end of the rope.”
I glanced over at Jillian. “How did he find out about . . . what you did?”
She shrugged. “I accidentally told him one night after we’d drank too much. No big deal. I’m worth more to him out of prison than in.”
He gave me a cocky grin. “And the side benefits aren’t bad either. Breaking the law and getting away with it can be quite the aphrodisiac.”
No wonder Gabe and his detectives had a hard time figuring this one out. It seemed too fantastic that three of the suspects would be in on it together and that one of them hadn’t broken under questioning. Then again, I thought about what Gabe said last night—that he was close to charging someone. Which one? That certainly seemed irrelevant to me right now. There was one last puzzle piece, though. If I was going to die, I wanted to know the whole story.
“How did Nora find out?” I asked Jillian. I couldn’t imagine her murdering her philandering husband being something she would casually talk about over drinks.
Her carmine-red mouth pulled back in an irritated scowl. “It’s so ridiculous I hate admitting it. Then again, you’ll never tell anyone, will you? Plain and simple, she saw me. Apparently she liked wandering Central Park late at night. I’d timed it so that I’d avoid the regular police patrol, but I didn’t count on our little Nora skulking through the woods that late at night like a crazy woman. She didn’t even tell me at first. I guess knowing people’s secrets made her feel powerful. She told me she was just waiting for the right time and she decided the storyteller festival was it. Now, enough of this. We have to get this taken care of so I can go home. I’m exhausted.”
I glanced over at Dolores. Her face was frozen in fear. Please, I communicated to her mentally, don’t let me down.
“Untie her legs, Dolores,” Ash said. “I’m not carrying her deadweight up those stairs. I pulled my back out playing squash last week and I don’t plan on aggravating it more.”
Dolores stooped down and undid my legs. An idea started to form. “Go ahead of me,” I whispered. She gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Quit talking,” Jillian snapped. “Now get up.”
I struggled up, my knees popping, barely able to stand because of the numbness in my feet. “I don’t know if I can make it up the stairs,” I said.
“Shut up and start walking,” Ash said.
Dolores scooted ahead of me. “I have to use the bathroom,” she said. “I�
��m going to be sick.”
Good going, I thought.
I saw Ash give Jillian a significant glance that told me something I had guessed in the last few minutes. Dolores wasn’t going to come out of this alive either. I would bet they’d try to make it look like she had killed Nora, then me, and then committed suicide. It was a plot straight out of a soap opera. And it was corny enough to work. I hoped Dolores realized it was her life she was fighting for, too.
Ash pushed me ahead of him, and Jillian followed behind us, still holding the gun. My opportunity came when I reached the top step. I dragged my toe across the top of the step and purposely stumbled. Ash grabbed my upper arm, squeezing it painfully. “Watch it,” he snapped.
“Sorry,” I said, catching onto the wall with my bound hands. “Numb feet.”
Then, taking a deep breath, I turned and with the flat of my foot shoved him in the crotch. Thrown off balance, he yelped in surprise and, arms flailing, fell backward against Jillian. Her scream merged with his as they tumbled down the long, concrete stairs. I reached over, flipped off the light, and slammed the basement door shut.
“What should I do?” Dolores cried.
“Does this door lock?”
“Only from the inside.”
I glanced quickly around and spotted a tall file cabinet next to the door.
“Help me,” I told her. We rocked the full cabinet until it fell in front of the door. It would keep them down there temporarily anyway.
“What now?” she asked.
I pointed to the bright red fire alarm on the wall. “Pull it,” I said. After she did, I said with a deep sigh, “Now we go outside and wait.”
With her helping me, we stumbled our way around to the front of the building. By the time we got to the front of the library, and she had managed to untie my wrists, the first fire truck arrived. The siren cut through my aching head like a freshly sharpened knife, but it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.
“What’s going on?” a firefighter, looking about the age of Sam, asked as he jumped off the truck. A nonsensical thought passed through the smoke rapidly clouding my head. Why are firemen always so darn good-looking? Is it, like, a rule or something? In the background, a police siren screamed, and I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude and relief. I looked up into the endless universe and whispered, “Thanks.”
“Tell him,” I said to Dolores.
Then I passed out.
16
“YOUR WIFE MAY experience some memory loss, Chief Ortiz,” the doctor said, studying my chart. He had spiky black hair and wore ostrich cowboy boots. “Dizziness, nausea, headache, confusion. What she’s got is a plain old concussion, if a concussion can be called plain. It appears pretty minor, but she’ll need to rest a bit. And someone should keep an eye on her for the next few weeks, for any lingering symptoms.”
“No problem,” Gabe said. “I’m going to handcuff her to our bed.”
The doctor looked over his round steel-colored glasses and smiled. “Lucky for you I’m not a gossip. The Tattler would probably pay me a mint for that little gem.”
Gabe and I looked at each other soberly. The doctor had no idea how ironic his statement was.
“Did you call Dove?” I asked when we were alone. I struggled up in the hard hospital bed. My head spun with vertigo, and I carefully eased back against the pillows.
“Yes,” Gabe said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Lie still. You heard the doctor. You need to stay quiet.”
“What did she say? She’s going to kill me.”
“She was ready to come down and storm the barricades, but we talked her out of it. Told her you were fine and that I’d bring you home tomorrow.”
“We?”
“Me, Ben, and Garnet.”
“Aunt Garnet? Are they speaking again?”
He brushed a strand of hair out of my black eye. “Apparently the library wasn’t the only place that saw some action tonight.”
I gave a weak laugh. “Who gave in first?”
“According to Dove, it was a mutual decision brought about, believe it or not, by your infamous cousin Skeeter.”
“Skeeter’s here?”
“He showed up on our doorstep earlier this evening, lovesick as an old hound. Dove’s words. He was telling her his side of the story when Rita sashayed in and started getting ready for a date with Ash. She made certain Skeeter knew exactly who she was putting the leather miniskirt on for and why. To make an extremely long story short, Skeeter threatened to find Ash and relieve him of some of his more important personal body parts, and Rita naturally protested. Actually what Dove said was she pitched a hissy fit. Then Rita locked herself in our guest bedroom and threatened to kill herself by eating a box of Dexatrim.”
I gave him a doubtful look. “Is that possible?”
He scratched his dark cheek stubble and grinned. “I have no idea, but it scared Dove enough to call Garnet and tell her to get over there and talk some sense into her loony granddaughter. Oh, and just a warning. Dove’s a bit upset at you.”
“I wasn’t even there!”
“She apparently really rubbed Garnet’s nose in the fact that all the nutty genes had leached down the family stream into her granddaughter’s pool. That was before she heard what crazy thing you were doing at the time.”
“Don’t you dare compare me to Rita. What she did was crazy, what I did was—”
“Crazy,” he finished. “Irresponsible. Impetuous. Immature.” He paused.
“You can stop there,” I said, slapping his hand. “Before I get mad.”
He raised his eyebrows. “We won’t talk mad until your concussion is completely healed. Anyway, to continue with the story, Ben drove Garnet down from the ranch, and they all eventually talked Rita out of the bedroom. By this time I’d called Dove to tell her about you. I told her to tell Skeeter that Ash wasn’t going to be a problem for a very long time.”
“What about Dove and Garnet?”
“Ben says the whole Bible verse/domino incident appears to have run its course. They were talking a mile a minute about how irresponsible young people are today, how we don’t know what we want, how all we think about is having a good time. They were packing up Dove’s things as they talked.”
“Hallelujah,” I said. “But what about Uncle W.W.?”
“That problem hasn’t been resolved yet, but with Dove and Garnet playing on the same team now, I’d safely bet that poor man doesn’t have a snowball’s chance.”
“I’d say you called that one right, Friday.” I gave him a big smile. “That means we’re two down, one to go.”
“Make that three down,” Sam said from the doorway of the hospital room. He was followed by Dove, Garnet, and Daddy. I should have known she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she saw me with her own two eyes. We went through the obligatory hugs, exclamations, and explanations before I could ask Sam what he meant.
“He means he’s found somewhere else to crash,” Dove said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dove,” Garnet said, her thin lips pursed in disapproval. Her short, bubble-teased hair was tinted the same Band-Aid beige as her prim linen dress. A matching handbag hung off her milky arm. “Must you insist on talking like a hooligan?”
Dove’s blue eyes gave a vexed roll. “Hooligan? Sister, no one’s used that word for fifty years. Get with it and watch a little MTV.”
“I will not!” Garnet said, pulling her leather purse closer to her body, her eyes blinking rapidly. “Dove Ramsey, I swear California’s turned you into a heathen.” I looked at Gabe in dismay. The reconciliation between Garnet and Uncle W.W. better happen soon, or we’d all be back at square one.
“So where are you staying?” I asked Sam.
“With my new gramma,” he said, slipping an arm around Dove. “Out at the ranch.” Dove’s face glowed with a loving but devious expression. I almost laughed out loud. Sam had no idea what his future held.
“I’m letting him stay in the bunkhouse,” she
said. “It’s empty now that all our hands are day workers. We’re going to be castrating and tagging next month. We’ll see if we can teach this young man a thing or two.”
“I’m keeping my job in town, though, or I’ll find another one if Eudora’s closes down,” he said, still looking at me and avoiding his father’s eyes. “I might even sign up at Cal Poly next semester.”
Dove beamed. “We’ll make a rancher out of this boy yet.”
I glanced at Gabe. His expression was as emotionless as a brick wall.
“It’s so cool,” Sam said. “The bunkhouse has a TV and stereo and six beds. I could sleep in a different one every night.”
“Not with me doing the laundry you won’t,” Dove said.
“What happened to Rita and Skeeter?” I couldn’t resist asking.
Dove cackled. Garnet set her lips in a straight line. Daddy just looked bemused as he did most of the time when Dove and Garnet were together.
“They’re down at the Best Western motel,” Dove said with a big wink. “Gonna work on their problems, Skeeter said.”
I laughed. “Yeah, and they might eventually talk, too.”
A nurse walked in and clapped her hands sharply as if we were a bunch of rowdy children. “Except for Chief Ortiz, you’ll all have to leave. It’s late, and Ms. Harper needs her rest.”
Dove shook a finger at me, her face stern. “I’ll save my lecture for when you’re feeling better, missy. You could’ve been killed. Why, I still get chicken skin just thinking about it. You’d best be thanking the Good Lord tonight before you go to sleep.”
“Believe me, I already have,” I said.
She leaned close and gave me one last hug. “Don’t you be worrying about Constance now,” she whispered.
I looked at her, tears stinging my eyes. How did she always know exactly what I was thinking? “I’m sorry it had to be Jillian. I’d give anything for it not to have been.”
Goose in the Pond Page 29