The Main Corpse gbcm-6

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Behind us, there was a shot. The general had scooted’ over to his weapon, fired at Tony, and missed. Startled, Tony reached inside the red windbreaker and pulled out a small gun. He took aim at the general and fired: pop, pop, pop. Then he walked toward the general. Two more shots reverberated. I didn’t think. I ran toward Tony and brought the shovel down with all my might. He groaned and cried out. As his body buckled, his gun sailed from his hand and landed near the hangar door. I swung the shovel down on his head. This time, he went down and did not move. Relief and anxiety mixed in a wave through my bloodstream. I struggled to catch my breath.

  “My tellers will really miss their muffins,” said a calm, cold voice behind me. I turned.

  At the hangar door Eileen Tobey stood, holding Tony’s gun. Sunlight silhouetted her muscular frame. I dropped the shovel.

  “Don’t, Eileen,” I said. “You can’t… I thought you hated Tony.”

  “Shut up. I’m just a great actress.”

  She held the gun aimed at me, but to my surprise, she didn’t pull the trigger. I couldn’t see her eyes. I slid my hands in my pockets. “Get your hands out where they’re visible,” she said. . “I’m just looking for my keys,” I told her, fighting to keep despair from my voice. “Don’t you need them to get away?” I kept my hands in my pockets and started walking toward her. “The sheriff’s department is going to be looking for Albert’s Explorer. They know Tony killed Albert. If you take my Jeep, you’ll be able to get away, far from all this.”

  I was three feet away from her. I stopped, both hands in my pockets, as if awaiting her response. I assumed a puzzled look. She seemed to be struggling with what I was saying about the sheriff’s department and Albert’s Explorer.

  “So do you want the Jeep or not? Let me get medical help for General Farquhar, and you go – “

  “All right,” she said impatiently. She held out her left hand, and as she did so, the gun in her right hand dropped slightly. “Give me the damn keys.”

  Do it, I thought. I appeared to fumble in my pocket, then whipped out Jake’s leash, the leash I’d put in my pocket in the mine, and swung it at her hand holding the gun. The metal bit into her hand. Startled, she dropped the gun. I flung my whole body against her. We went down together, out the hangar door.

  Fury gave me an edge. I pulled Eileen’s hair and whaled away like a madwoman. As I pushed her face into the dirt I heard her curse. I pushed harder, grinding her face into the mud until she stopped flailing. If only Tom could see me now… .

  Tom said, “It’s over, Miss G.” His voice was angry, disappointed, relieved. “I shouldn’t believe this, but I do.”

  My husband stood ten feet away from me, his .45 raised. When I gasped in surprise, he lowered his gun and signaled to the cops behind him to come get the woman I was sitting on.

  Painfully, I stood up and allowed two policemen to cuff Eileen. To Tom, I said, “I’m sorry.”

  “I swear, you always say that.” Two uniformed policemen rushed past us. Tom pointed at Tony Royce, who was clutching his head and cursing. The policemen swiftly handcuffed him. Ignoring his howls of pain, they led him outside.

  Tom said to me, avoiding my eyes, “First we get a call saying Albert Lipscomb has been murdered and is up at the Eurydice Mine. The paramedics get there and radio back there’s been some kind of an explosion. Then I pick up your message. So we hightail it out here. Good thing.” ‘Tom scanned the hangar and groaned. “Oh, Christ.”

  The general lay motionless on the concrete floor. While Tom barked into his radio for an ambulance, I ran over and knelt at Bo’s side. Blood stained the bomber jacket and spurted to the floor. Tony had shot hin.

  “You can’t die,” I heard myself order General Bo Farquhar. My voice rang in my ears. “You can’t die. Oh, please – “

  The pale, pale blue eyes that I had known so well these past few years opened. “Goldy,” Bo murmured. . “Schulz … Marla didn’t…”

  “You did a great job,” Tom told him, kneeling beside me. “Marla will be cleared. Just hold on, sir.” I’d; never heard such respect in Tom’s voice.

  With enormous effort, Bo turned toward me. “I’m going to be with Adele… .” He raised his head feebly, then let it sink back to my lap. “I … you all … very much… .” And then he died.

  A rescue team from the Colorado School of Mines cleared the entrance to the Eurydice Gold Mine. They’ brought out the corpse of Albert Lipscomb. Tony Royce was charged with, among other things, the murders of his financial partner and the First of the Rockies teller. The investigation into the death of Victoria Lear was reopened. Eileen Tobey was charged with grand larceny and being an accessory to murder.

  Once Marla was cleared of wrongdoing, she called her lawyer to sue the sheriffs department for false arrest, harassment, and anything else the two of them could think of. The case against De Groot and Hersey looked very bad. At that point, the Furman County Sheriff, the boss of bosses and certainly the boss of Captain Shockley, invoked a long-standing Colorado statute, called “at pleasure.” Back in the old days, when a Colorado sheriff gathered a posse and went after a criminal, he would release the deputies from duty after they caught the perpetrator. The posse served at the sheriff’s pleasure, period. If he fired them, there was no appeal. There was no review. Three days after Tom apprehended Tony Royce, the Furman County Sheriff fired Investigators De Groot and Hersey. Rather than face the same fate, Captain Shockley promptly withdrew his newly recovered money from Prospect Financial Partners and took an early retirement.

  His face set grimly, Tom informed me that I probably would be charged with complicity in aiding an escape. But the female guard had actually fainted before General Farquhar hit her, just as Bo had maintained.

  She was fine, she told me repeatedly, and so glad to be rid of Shockley she could kiss me. So at least I wouldn’t be charged with assault.

  Two days later, with obvious reluctance, the District Attorney held a press conference. Because Bo, Arch, and I had helped clear up Albert Lipscomb’s murder and aided in the apprehension of Anthony Royce and Eileen Tobey, there would be no charges filed against us. Despite this vindication, Marla’s blood pressure went through the roof. Tony Royce, the man she loved, had deceived her, stolen her money and her heart, and killed people. And her loving brother-in-law had died trying to help her. Her cardiologist ordered her to spend a week in the hospital for tests. For once, too weary to protest, she allowed herself to be admitted, but talked her way into an early discharge so she could come with us to Bo’s memorial service.

  A week later, the five of us-Tom, Arch, Marla, Macguire, and I, took on the responsibility of scattering the general’s ashes. As his wife’s ashes were scattered by Bride’s Creek, we decided that would be an appropriate place for Bo’s. We would take a small picnic that would include Bo’s favorite food-chocolate.

  The bad weather had come to an end and summer had finally arrived in the high country. On a brilliantly sunny day, we piled into the newly repaired van. Of course, we took Jake, whom I now cherished like a human friend. After all, without Jake’s persistence, we would never have found Tony Royce and broken his chain of crimes. From the knowing, eager expression in the dog’s liquid eyes whenever he looked at me, I knew that he knew I’d had a change of heart toward him. By the creek, we ate liverwurst sandwiches and tomatoes vinaigrette and munched Chocoholic cookies, and talked about our wonderful and dangerous times with General Bo Farquhar.

  “He loved us all very much,” Marla said, raising her voice above the thunder of Bride’s Creek, when we’d finished our recollections. Lifting the urn above the water, she emptied the ashes into the raging water.

  I said a silent prayer. I’d never known anyone like Bo Farquhar. The world would seem an emptier, less colorful place without him. Even as I thought it, Tom’s fingers closed around mine.

  As we turned to go back to the van, Jake flung his head up and howled. Arch tugged on his leash, but the hound wouldn’t budge. Instead,
Jake pointed his body in the direction of the pines and howled again, heart-breakingly. Arch shook his head, then squinted at the trees.

  “Mom,” he said softly. “Everybody. Look.” We turned. Moving through the sunlit trees was a solitary wisp of vapor. It seemed to have a military bearing.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 62152181-76dd-41b7-adbc-55c8b066abf9

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 30.11.2012

  Created using: calibre 0.9.7, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software

  Document authors :

  Diane Mott Davidson

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