Then there was Brent Lindsay. Why was he still on the list? Just because he broke off the conversation in mid stride? That’s not enough. Some people were like that—not knowing how to make a polite exit. It bordered on rude, but it didn’t make him a killer. I wouldn’t cross him off, but I’d move him to the bottom of the list. My gut feeling was that it wasn’t him—although I didn’t have enough confidence to eliminate him from the suspect list.
Russ Tabor was probably my number one suspect right now. His being elevated to the town manager was proof he had something to gain. He had gained it. And now with Martha taking time off and possibly never going back meant that his nefarious scheme had worked. The town manager was a prestigious job. Rutledge may be a small town, but still, being the town manager was something. And being the town clerk was just another job. Russ’s paycheck hadn’t just gone up, his prestige and standing in the community had gone up, too. What do I call that? I call that motive. A strong motive.
And then I thought about the story Billy had told me regarding the gunshot residue. Everybody on the council had it on them, even the mayor who was not a suspect. He had been standing right in front of me when Fenton was shot. But Martha and Russ Tabor did not have it on them. Nothing about the whole scenario made any sense at all.
Then I remembered Elizabeth and Christa crying and hugging everyone. If it was one of them, the whole hugging and weeping scene could have been cover or trying to implicate everyone else. Perhaps I was too hasty taking Elizabeth off my list. Were they both crying? Both of them were doing the hugging. But who stood up first and started it? Was it Christa or Elizabeth?
Russ Tabor wasn’t involved, so it couldn’t have been him. That blows that theory. Was it one of the other men—supposedly to comfort the women? Brent Lindsay? As I pondered this, suddenly we were off the dirt road and on High Street, just a minute from home. My old home, that is. We had just left my new home.
As soon as Mason pulled into the driveway and turned off the truck, he jumped out. Bingo looked at him go, barked one quick bark, and stood up on my leg looking up into my face as if to say, “What are we waiting for?” I scooped him up and followed Mason into the house. He had unlocked the house with Billy’s keys.
Mason was already in the office with the remaining boxes, but I was parched. “Mason, how about a cold drink before we continue? Come on, what d’ya say? I’m really thirsty.”
“Lorry, I just want to get this over with.” He carried out a box, saw me with my hands pressed together in front of my chest begging him, and he put the box down on the couch. “Oh, all right. What do you have?”
“Cola, lemonade, and iced tea.” He had come up behind me, so I grabbed an iced tea and stepped away from the refrigerator. “Take your pick.” As Mason pondered over the contents of the refrigerator, I heard a car door slam and a shout. I couldn’t make out the words, so I walked over to the front window to look out and see what was going on. And that’s when the proverbial poop hit the fan.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
IT WAS CHRISTA, and I wondered why she was at the house. I didn’t even know she knew where we lived. After popping the top of the tea and taking a quick sip, I made my way to the door to open it and listen to what she was saying. My hand was on the handle, and I had pulled it open an inch when suddenly the door slammed shut, and Mason knocked me to the ground and was lying on top of me. “Mason!” I said. “It’s Christa.”
Then a gunshot went through the door just over Mason’s back. At least I hoped it went over his back. He didn’t yell or anything. “Oh no, it’s Christa!” That’s when I figured it out. Christa’s pumping me for information about the bullets and ballistics. Christa was the one who stood up first and started hugging. Now I knew that was to rub the gunshot residue off herself and onto everyone else. It was a smart move.
Mason reached up and locked the door, crawled off me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me so I was no longer in front of the door. “Quick! Where’s your PPC purse?”
“CCP,” I automatically corrected. “It’s in the—” And I realized I had left it in the truck. “Oops.”
“You don’t have it? Oh, Lorry!”
Another bullet came sailing into the door and through it. “Wait! There’s another gun in the bedroom. I don’t know how to load the gun, but Billy said it had a magazine and was easy.”
“Let’s go!” Mason slithered on his belly toward the hallway and bedroom. “Come on! You can’t stay there. Keep your head down!”
Following him down the hallway, I thought this was as good a time as any to tell him. “I don’t know how to shoot it, Mason. Billy hasn’t showed me yet.”
“Just point it and pull the trigger. I’ll do it. It’s like a camera. Point and shoot.”
“Yeah, right, Mason. You’re going to be a doctor! Do no harm, and all that.” Another bullet came through the door and lodged itself in the wall. My first thought as a sheriff’s wife was Billy could easily retrieve that one for ballistics. As if it mattered at this point. Bingo was right behind me, crawling along like the rest of us.
Mason was already in the bedroom and now he turned around and spat out, “Lorry, Petra lost her virginity.”
Still on my belly, I put my hands to my ears. “Mason, this is an awkward time to tell me about your sex life.” Honestly, I thought in the stress of the situation he was losing it.
“Where’s the purse?” he asked.
“The closet.”
He stood up and in one fluid movement opened the sliding door of the closet, spotted the other CCP purse, pulled it down, and returned to the floor. Then he looked at me with fury in his eyes. “It wasn’t my sex life!”
“Then who? Zack?” I asked in disbelief.
“No, of course not Zack! He’s her friend!” He pulled the gun from the zippered pocket of the purse, looked at the magazine that Billy had already loaded, and slid it into the gun.
“Who else could it possibly—” And then I put it together: Petra coming in to work with her clothes askew. Petra staying at the bed and breakfast and not wanting to return to her house. Oh, no. Poor Petra. “That’s probably why her father killed himself. He felt guilty about it.”
“Oh, Lorry. Don’t be so naïve,” Mason said, clearly frustrated with me. He started creeping down the hallway toward the front.
A bullet shattered the front window glass. “Oh, no,” I said. “Now she can crawl into the house through the window.”
“I’ll stop her.” Mason moved from his stomach to his hands and knees toward the front window.
“Don’t kill her! You won’t be able to live with yourself.” I told Bingo to stay and followed Mason out the door, skimming the floor with my big belly. Although I knew I’d be safer in the bedroom—more walls between me and the bullets—I needed to know the whole story. This time, curiosity could kill not the cat, but the Lorry, although I hoped not. It sounds stupid, but I couldn’t help myself from following him out to the front room.
Without turning around to look at me, he said, “If I killed her, she wouldn’t be the first, Lorry.” Then he aimed the gun out the window and pulled the trigger. “Why do you think I spent most of yesterday in the bathroom? What I did made me sick to my stomach, but I don’t regret it for a second.” He looked down and shook his head, and I thought I might have seen a tear fall. “My Petra. Poor Petra.”
That’s when I understood what he meant by not being naïve. “Why didn’t Petra call the authorities? They would have stopped him! Justice would have been served. You didn’t have to kill him!”
After firing another bullet out the window, he turned to me with that horrible anger still covering his face. “Oh, really? Justice would be served? Like it was for Petra’s brother? Like that, Lorry?”
That confused me. “But Petra’s brother—”
“Committed suicide? Yes, that’s right, Lorry. Same as her father.” Mason said as another bullet came through the open window. Mason fired back without looking out the window, as he had d
one before.
“But you said—” And then I realized what he meant. Someone had killed Petra’s brother and made it look like suicide, just as Mason had done with Petra’s father. “But who would—”
“The same person who just committed suicide.”
“But Billy would never—” Then I calculated back to when Petra’s brother died and realized it was before Billy became sheriff. “I can’t imagine Wichita not figuring that out.”
“It wasn’t Billy or Wichita. It was that other sheriff.”
Ah, yes, he meant the sheriff who was killed while on vacation in Chicago. “Oh,” was all I said. It wasn’t original, but it was all I could think of. Then something else occurred to me. “What a convenient coincidence that Petra’s mother traveled out of town. You couldn’t have done it if she was at home.” I was putting everything together now, but I wanted to confirm that I was correct.
“Lorry, it wasn’t a coincidence. That was the easy part. The bus ticket didn’t cost me much and neither did the taxi ride to the airport.”
Another bullet sailed over our heads. Christa, who had stopped yelling when she started shooting, began to speak. Since the window had no glass, we could hear her clearly.
“Lorry!” She yelled and paused like she was waiting for a response.
“Um, yes?” I said, hesitantly.
“You’re probably wondering why I killed Christopher Fenton when I don’t give a rat’s patootie about the historical society building.” She fired another shot into the door and then continued. “Chris,” she spat out, “was my intended. We were to get married. I was pregnant. Then he up and drops the engagement. Turns out that the miserable jerk had gotten two women pregnant at the same time. He chose her over me. I’ve hated him ever since. And that’s why I shot at his son. He should have been my son. But I didn’t want to kill him, so I didn’t. But I could have! Oh, yes. Make no mistake. I could have.”
The whole thing shocked the stuffing out of me. I didn’t know what to say but was glad Mason had the gun in case she tried to rush the house. Christa’s voice sounded like she was still closer to the street than the house. Not that I felt at ease with a crazy woman shooting bullets into my house, but still—. Then I heard a siren. If Billy was coming to rescue me, he was almost too late. I was grateful he had made me buy a gun and even more grateful I had two.
“I did, though,” Christa continued, “try to kill your husband, ole Billy Boy. It distressed me very much when I missed him. The uproar that would have ensued after his death would have been a perfect cover for me to get away with it. So, since I missed him, I figured I’d do the next best thing—kill you!” Just when I was beginning to relax, well, at least before she said she wanted to kill me, another bullet sailed into the open window.
“Do something, Mason! She wants to kill me!”
Then I heard Billy’s patrol car pull to a stop outside. Mason poked his head above the bottom of the window. “Ah, oh.”
“What? Billy’s here. Everything will be okay.”
“No. She’s pointing the gun at Billy.”
“Do something, Mason!” I yelled.
Mason’s gun blasted, Christa screamed, and that was the last bullet fired.
“I’m sorry you had to kill her, Mason,” I said, feeling bad for him, regardless of what he had confessed to me.
He grinned at me for the first time. “Lucky shot,” he said. “I hit her in the gun arm and she dropped it.” He stood up and pulled me by the hand to help me up. “See, Billy’s got her handcuffed now. All is well. We’re safe.” He exhaled deeply. “And Petra’s safe.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
BILLY PUT CHRISTA in the back of his patrol car, and before he drove away, he blew me a kiss. Mason left, and I was alone with Bingo. Alone, shivering from head to foot. It took Bingo’s wags and kisses thirty minutes before I calmed down. And all the while wind blew through the open window reminding me of the traumatic experience I had just experienced.
And the glass on the floor! Instead of cleaning up the mess, I sat there hugging Bingo and trying to forget what Christa had said about wanting to kill Billy. How many other perpetrators would want to kill Billy? What did I get myself into by marrying a sheriff? I sighed. There was nothing I could do. I was in love with him and would stay by his side no matter how many people shot at him. But I had to admit if Christa were the last one, I wouldn’t mind at all. Instead of focusing on the fear and the horror of people shooting at Billy, I would focus on the gratitude I felt that he was such a good husband to me and a good father to Aiden. And I would leave it at that.
Time passed with me gulping deep breaths trying to come to terms with what had happened. The gunshots. My new gun. Mason shooting at Christa. Mason’s confession. The discovery of why Petra had been acting so unlike herself. All of it unsettled me. I don’t know how long I sat there pondering before the glass fix-it guys knocked on the door. Billy must have called them. They measured how big a piece of glass they needed to fix the window, and then they boarded it up with plywood, saying they would bring the glass on Monday.
When they left, it prompted me into action. I walked to the kitchen, called Bryan, and told him the new project I needed done. Then I realized I had promised Mason pizza, but hadn’t come through with it. So I ordered the pizza and asked how long it would be before they delivered it to the bed and breakfast. And since I figured we were done moving for the day, I changed out of the jeans and tennis shoes and put on a long blue skirt, matching blue top, and my brand new high-heeled cowboy boots. I needed to break them in so I wouldn’t get a blister. Today was as good a day as any. And I loaded Bingo into the car and drove over to Martha’s bed and breakfast.
I arrived at the same time as the pizza, paid them the money, added a big tip for delivering it still steaming hot, and carried it inside with Bingo following. My CCP purse was over my arm—I wouldn’t leave that sucker behind again—I had learned my lesson.
Mason was the first one to spot me from the top of the stairs. “You came through! I thought you were too upset over what happened to even remember! What a gal, Lorry, what a gal! Petra! Pizza!” Then he came bounding down the stairs, licking his lips. Maybe he wasn’t licking his lips, but it sounded good.
Although I had bought enough pizza for the English guests who were staying there, Mason informed me they had already left, so we set the table in the small kitchen instead of in the dining room. Petra arrived in the kitchen as we opened the pizza box and started divvying it up.
“Just in time, Petra! Dig in!”
“Lorry! Did you hear?” It was the most animated I had seen her all week.
“Hear? What are you talking about, Petra? I was there! Mason must have told you!”
Petra put her hand in front of her stuffed mouth and waved what I said away. “No, no. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the historical society! It got sold! But it was to somebody else, not Fenton. Somebody paid big bucks for it, and even Fenton couldn’t match it.”
I said, “Hmmm,” and kept chewing.
“So I don’t know if we should worry about our jobs or not. Maybe that person is planning on tearing it down like Fenton was.”
“Tear it down? I thought they were going to make it into an indoor mall or something.”
“That was the rumor they spread before they put in to buy it. They were going to raze it.”
“The thought of that makes me sick to my stomach,” I said and meant it.
“I know. So I’m hoping they won’t do that. But I am concerned about my job. Now that my dad is gone, I need to keep working.”
“I thought you and your mom were going to stay here and run the place.”
“We are. My mom will get paid, but for me, it will just be a place to live. And I don’t think we’ll make enough money on the sale of the house for any savings at all. My father kept taking second and third mortgages on it.”
And not to mention he let the place get run down into the ground. They would hav
e to sell it as a fixer-upper. Petra was right. They probably wouldn’t make any money on it at all. They may even end up owing money, depending on the financial state her father had left them in. I doubted her father had any life insurance, and I wasn’t going to ask. Instead, I said, “I’m sure everything will work out fine, Petra.”
Petra wanted to know what happened, even though Mason had already told her the whole story. So I described everything, and it matched Mason’s account. He kept looking at me while I talked, probably wondering if I would tell Petra his confession about her father. If Petra was to know about that, he would have to be the one to tell her. When I finished the story, Mason looked relieved. The pizza was almost gone, and it was time for me and Bingo to return home.
Billy got home late afternoon looking exhausted. He had worked a ton of hours this week. But at least he got the killer before she killed one of us. When I heard him pull up with his patrol car, I met him as he came inside the house. I’m not sure which one of us was holding the other tighter, me or him. We had both been in danger of getting killed on this one. It took a long time of tight hugging before we released each other.
“I love you so much, and I’m so glad you’re safe,” he said.
Looking up at him, all I could think to say was, “Ditto.” And then I started sobbing. After Billy calmed me down, I asked, “How did you know it was Christa?”
“Russ Tabor admitted he didn’t see her coming out of the restroom. He lied because he was sneaking in from smoking outside and didn’t want his wife to find out. That blew Christa’s alibi. And the weird results for the gunshot residue kept preying on my mind. When I questioned Elizabeth again, she remembered that Christa was the one who started the hugging. That clinched it. And when I heard the gunshots coming from the direction of home, I figured you were in the middle of it yet again.”
Secrets for Sale Page 18