by Hannah Reed
I thought it best to point out that fact.
“Effie Anderson is right over there,” I said to him, glancing in her direction. “So mind your manners.”
Johnny Jay turned his head and made note.
Effie wiped her brow, which reminded me just how hot it was out in the sun, without the benefit of the shade I was enjoying. Then she dug the pitchfork into the earth same as last time and headed for the carriage house.
Something about the rose garden and spiders started taking root in my brain, sprouting a little web of new ideas. Not what it seems played in my head again.
“I’m going to hook everybody up to a lie detector,” Johnny said to me. “You included. I’m here to escort you to the station.” He pulled out those same stupid handcuffs he always threatens me with. “You can come along quietly or . . .”
I sighed. “Let me put these things away first. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
While Johnny waited near his car, I picked up the crumpled pile of notes and the empty cans, took everything inside, and dumped them in the garbage. I also discarded my dream of an afternoon in the sun with Hunter.
Soon, Johnny would know everything I knew, every single last connection between all these people, including the one between Effie’s past employer and Nova’s ex-husband. I’d leave him to sort through the convoluted mess. I couldn’t do any more than I already had.
Then out of nowhere, I remembered several comments about the night the flavorists had arrived. At the time, it had seemed insignificant, but now that I had more information regarding Effie’s past, it made some sense. Nova had rubbed Holly the wrong way, but she’d also had a run-in with Effie the night before her death. I tried to remember back.
Holly and I at her outdoor table, me meeting Nova for the first time, Holly saying that Effie had had a strong reaction to Nova the night before. And Camilla right before she left for the airport, dissing Effie. Something about even self-absorbed Nova seeing through the housekeeper.
I walked out of the house, actually looking forward to the upcoming interrogation with Johnny Jay. Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and some of us had more explaining to do.
That’s when I saw Effie coming at me with . . . Oh My God . . . was that a Taser?
Forty-three
Giant bolts of electricity hurtled toward me. The pain was excruciating, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I heard a scream far away then realized it came from me. My muscles went rigid, and I keeled over.
Later I learned that the agony inflicted by a Taser only lasts about five seconds, but that was the longest five seconds of my entire life. When it finally ended, I struggled to sit up.
“Get up, or I’ll use it again,” she said.
“Where did you get a Taser?” was all I could think to ask. Was I slurring?
“The police chief is a generous guy,” Effie said. “Get up.”
I wobbled to my feet, unsteady, and spotted my cell phone on the ground where it must have fallen from my hand. Effie kicked it away, motioning me toward the squad car. I stumbled over. Johnny Jay sat slumped in the backseat, looking like I felt, an indication that he’d had the same treatment. Effie opened the back door. “Get in,” she told me, then to Johnny, “Don’t try anything funny, or I’ll Taser you again.”
Both of us complied. I would have done anything to stay clear of more of that torture.
I’ve been in Johnny’s backseat before, but this was the first time I’d seen Johnny Jay in the rear of his own vehicle. It has standard vinyl seats, bulletproof glass—which doesn’t matter because Johnny was minus his weapon—steel plating on the back of the front seats to discourage stabbing attempts, and a tough plastic screen between front and back. Did I mention the doors can’t be unlocked from the inside?
We sat next to each other gathering our wits. My body felt weak and feeble, but my mouth had plenty of energy. I said to Johnny, “Let me get this straight. Effie Anderson Tasered us with your own stun gun? Then she helped herself to the weapon in your holster, and now we are locked in the back of your squad car?”
“Shut up, Fischer.”
“What’s your plan?” I wanted to know, opening and closing my hands, my fingers tingling. “How are you going to regain control of the situation?”
“I can’t think while you’re yapping.”
Just then, Effie got into the driver’s seat, and turned her head to smile at us through the plastic partition. “Comfy?” she said.
“Not really,” I said back. “Does all this mean you’re the one who killed Nova Campbell?”
Johnny Jay groaned. “Nice hostage tactic, Fischer. If you don’t mind, I’ll handle things from here.”
“Be my guest,” I told him. “You’ve done such a great job of handling things so far.”
Effie started up the car.
“You even left the keys in the ignition?” I said to Johnny, stating the obvious. “You really mucked it up this time.”
Effie drove over to the outbuilding while I tried to think of a way out of this situation. Let me see. I’d told Effie I was hiding out, so she was well aware that nobody other than the chief knew where I was. She’d seen my notes, heard my questions, and had probably decided I was getting too close. Then Johnny had showed up, and for all she knew I’d called him over to convince him to arrest her for the murder of Nova Campbell.
No wonder she’d gone on the attack. We were both going to get a bullet to the brain.
“You can blame this on her, Chief,” Effie said, apparently meaning me. She drove inside the building and parking next to the ATVs. “Her and her twenty questions. Wanting to know where Chance went, mentioning my Chicago connection, calling you, plotting against me.” Effie gave me a hateful glare.
“Where is Chance, anyway?” I still wanted to know and finally had a chance to find out.
But Effie ignored me completely. “I had to kill Nova Campbell,” she said to Johnny. “I couldn’t believe it when she walked into the house that night. Then later she came to the carriage house and threatened to expose me to the Paines, and tell Harry where I was.”
So Effie had lied when she said she didn’t know Nova.
Then I remember Holly telling me that Nova had gone upstairs early claiming a headache when in fact, she snuck out to hassle Effie.
“Does Chance know about this?” I asked.
Effie kept right on talking, directing her remarks to the chief. “I’d taken some money from Harry’s business, a little at a time. Why not? He had so much and I had so little. Then one day an auditor showed up to go through the books. I had to get out of town. That’s why I married Chance, for a new name and a new home. Harry never would have found me if his ex-wife hadn’t shown up.”
I doubt that, I thought, since I figured Harry could’ve easily found Effie if he’d wanted to, just like he’d found Patti. But this wasn’t the time to bring that up.
“Maybe we can cut a deal,” Johnny told her. “It’ll go easier on you if you surrender and make a full confession.”
“I’m confessing right now,” Effie said with crazy eyes. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed them before. “She promised she’d give me a little time to make it right with Harry on my own. That bought me a little time to plan on how to get rid of her. I knew about the water hemlock, so I poisoned the carrot juice. But she’d lied to me and called Harry that same night. There he was, right at the door demanding his money back, threatening to torture my husband, make me watch. A very bad man.”
“What happened to Chance?” I inserted again.
“Harry was threatening to hurt my husband, so I had to tell Chance who Harry was. I told him to get away while he could, before Harry came back with the truck. Instead, he asked all kinds of questions, until Harry pulled in and Chance finally got it through his head and took off.”
“Where did he go?”
“He drove the ATV clear to the other side of the county and holed up with his uncle. I’ll have to leave him behin
d.”
“You need to let us out of this vehicle,” Johnny said.
“Killing a cop doesn’t bother me,” Effie said.
I had some serious hyperventilating going on after that remark. Here I was, about to lose my life, and with Johnny Jay of all people!
“Do something,” I mouthed at him. He shrugged back, at least three shades paler than normal. So much for his usual bluster, the buffoon.
Effie got out of the squad car, leaving the motor running, slammed the door behind her, and walked out of view.
“I told you to back off my family,” I said to Johnny. “If you hadn’t been so obsessed with bringing down one of us, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“I’ll think of something,” he said, without a trace of confidence.
“You better make it quick.”
Effie pushed a button and the overhead door descended. Then she was back, leaning in the driver’s door. She didn’t have Johnny’s gun in her hand. A good sign. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with your bodies yet,” she said. “But I’m very resourceful. By the time they find them, I’ll be long gone.”
“You aren’t going to shoot us?” I asked.
“I hate the sight of blood,” she replied. “I’m giving you a break. Carbon dioxide is supposed to be painless.” She ducked out and was gone, leaving the driver’s door wide open and the car pouring out emissions.
I pounded on the plastic separating us from freedom.
Now, or very soon, would be a very good time for nosy Patti to show up. Or Max and Holly. Hunter would be around later, looking for me. But he would be too late.
Johnny just sat there like a big slug.
“Kick out the window,” I advised him.
“Bulletproof,” he said.
I looked over at him, saw the defeat in his eyes. We were doomed.
Forty-four
Regarding Johnny Jay’s complete meltdown: I was good friends with a nurse once who worked in a hospital. She handled blood and guts every day. But when I accidentally almost whacked off a finger with a cleaver while she and I were in the kitchen together, she fell apart, became more than useless in the emergency. Later she explained, “I’m used to it in a clinical setting, not in my personal life.”
So that must explain the cop I was trapped with. I’ve seen Johnny Jay in full control of a dangerous situation more than once, and he can be formidable. Now that he’d been forced to give up that control, he’d reduced down to a big, fat quitter.
Surprisingly, although my muscles felt sore, I was back in control of them.
I yanked on my seat back, hoping it would fold down so we could get into the trunk, maybe find a tool that could help us. No such luck. It wouldn’t budge. The smell of exhaust fumes wafted my way.
“Where’s your baton?” I said to him, eyeing up the plastic barrier keeping me from the front seat. “We can bash our way out.”
I glanced over. Johnny hadn’t moved or looked up.
I said, “Let me guess. You gave that to her, too.”
“I never liked you, Fischer,” Johnny said.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I threw my shoulder at the door. And only hurt my shoulder. “Do you mind helping out here?”
“It’s useless,” he said. “Give it up. You know why I never liked you?”
I slumped down next to him.
“Because you were so mean.” This was Johnny talking to me?
“You’re kidding, right?” I said, in disbelief. “I’m not the one who picked on weaker kids!”
“I needed a friend back then, and I reached out to you. You pushed me away every time, mocked me in front of our classmates. You were a mean girl.”
I have to admit, looking back, I wasn’t always kind and considerate to others. But still! “So this really doesn’t have anything to do with me turning you down for prom?” That’s what most of my friends and family thought. If I had accepted his offer way back then we’d be friends now.
“You know how long it took to work up the courage to ask you?” he said. Okay, it did have something to do with prom.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“I didn’t go to prom. Six rejects. Can you imagine what that did to my ego?”
Johnny Jay has a crushed ego? Yeah, right. “I didn’t reject you six times,” I told him, getting down on the floor and peering under the seat.
“Not just you, six different girls rejected me, but yours hurt the most.”
What was this? Deathbed confession time? “I’ve said I was sorry. Can you give me a hand down here? See if you can loosen these bolts holding the seat back in place. If we can just get into the trunk maybe we can find a way out.”
Johnny Jay squished down beside me and reached way down and toward the back. He grunted so I knew he’d put some effort into it. “I can’t get a grip,” he said. “My fingers keep slipping.”
I pulled off my T-shirt and handed it to him. “Wrap that around it.”
It seemed like forever, but must have only been a minute or two, when he finally rose up with bolts in his hand and his eyes on my bra. I grabbed my top and whipped it back on.
Johnny put some muscle into the back of the seat. By some miracle, it pulled away, exposing a pathway to the trunk. He slumped after that.
“Are you feeling dizzy?” he said to me.
“Not yet,” I said, light-headed now that he’d mentioned it. “And quit talking. You’re using up our air.”
I scooted through the opening, since Johnny was too big for the job.
“Where’s the tool kit?” I yelled to him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said back.
“I’m sick and tired of your quitter attitude,” I said, getting extra anxious over having to deal with Johnny and what was fast turning into the hopeless situation he’d predicted.
With the squad car running in the closed up building, how long would it be before we succumbed to the toxic fumes?
“Johnny!” I said loudly.
No answer.
I twisted around and poked my head out. Johnny was lying back with his eyes closed.
So I slapped him. Hard.
His eyes flew open.
“I don’t know what to do next,” I said, close to tears. I didn’t want to die yet, and I especially didn’t want the chief’s face to be my last image of life. “I don’t want to give up, too.”
“It doesn’t . . . matter,” Johnny said again, all dramatic.
“Shut up, Johnny,” I said, using his line.
Then I thought of something Hunter had told me in case I was ever trapped in a trunk.
At the time, I thought it was a big joke. Like I’d ever be trapped in a trunk. Right? But Hunter was always giving me trivial pointers.
Here’s what he said: Some of the newer model cars have an emergency trunk release inside. Don’t ask me why that stuck, but it did.
And Johnny’s car was pretty new. Where would a release like that be?
The trunk was dark. I fumbled around in a panic, finally found something that felt like a latch, pulled on it . . . and watched the trunk swing open from inside.
I scrambled out and made for the garage door.
As if we hadn’t been through enough, the overhead door was locked. So was the side door.
Nothing can be easy. I raced back and opened the door on Johnny Jay’s side. He flopped out onto the floor. Geez. The guy had a lot of weight on me. Why was he the first to go down?
We were out of the car, but obviously not out of the woods yet.
I turned off the squad car, found a crowbar in the trunk, and actually managed to pry open the side door. It’s amazing what a person can do under pressure.
I pulled and prodded and slapped at Johnny until finally, with a little help on his part, I got him outside, where we crawled onto the other side of a thick bush, fell side by side, facing the sky, and sucked up fresh air.
If Effie had been watch
ing, she would easily have caught us coming out, and we would have been goners.
Instead, she’d obviously been too confident, too sure that she had us trapped, because she was a no-show, thank God. Because I didn’t have any more tricks up my sleeve.
Except we still didn’t have any means of contacting the outside world for help. I’d dropped my cell phone, and Johnny had surrendered his equipment. Not only that, Effie had an arsenal of weapons at her disposal.
“Can you swim?” I said to Johnny.
“Better than you, Fischer,” he said, not too far gone to challenge me.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
And that’s how we made our escape, slinking through the yard, staying in the shadows, wading into the lake, and pushing off for the next house down the line. And in this neighborhood, that was quite a swim.
Forty-five
Thankfully they were home, didn’t flip out and shoot us when we rose from the lake like monsters from the depths, and did a bang-up job of calling for police backup and wrapping our shivering bodies in blankets.
Later, I found out why Johnny had been overcome with the fumes first. He was in worse shape than I was, and I don’t mean just aerobically. Thanks to Effie’s efforts to kill us, and Johnny’s subsequent visit to the ER in the back of an ambulance, the doctors discovered that his ticker needed a little maintenance.
So you might say I had a hand in saving his life more than once. Even so the ingrate threatened to arrest me for assaulting a police chief. Hopefully, he’ll forget about those slaps over time. Ha, not likely.
But that came later. After our phone call for police backup, Effie put up quite a fight.
The Critical Incident Team handles the big stuff, not the local police, and Effie sure did qualify for special treatment after attempting to murder a cop (I counted, too, but not nearly as much). Since Hunter is part of that team, he, several others, and K-9 superhero Ben went in for the takedown, leaving me at the other end of the driveway, biting my fingernails.