Rock and Roll Queen of Bedlam

by Marilee Brothers

  Hunt flushes. “Sara was in pain. I helped her. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “What about your wife? Does she understand?”

  Hunt clamps his mouth shut.

  Venable jerks his head toward the kitchen. “Go see what’s taking her so long. Rope, duct tape, whatever. Just hurry it up.”

  Torn between defying Venable and protecting Sara, Hunt says, “This conversation isn’t over,” and leaves the room.

  “Massive cover-up, huh, Gordy? Since you’re planning on killing me, you might as well tell me how you did all of it.”

  I speak loudly, hoping whoever is on the porch does not condone murder.

  Venable smirks down at me. “It’s not rocket science, Ms. Thome. My friend in the kitchen …”

  “Roy Harris,” I say loudly.

  Venable shrugs. “Names aren’t important. It’s all a matter of perception. He’s a charming guy. People are drawn to him, important people who don’t like snippy little bitches causing him trouble.”

  “Important people like high-ranking police officials and city council members?”

  “Exactly.” He looks pleased at my astuteness.

  “But Joe Stepanek showed up and wanted a piece of the action.”

  Venable grimaces. “When Stepanek found out Roy was interested in his daughter, he went crazy. Barged into the church. The two of them had a hell of a brawl.”

  I remember the broken lamp in Hunt’s office. “Who shot him up with heroin?”

  When he doesn’t answer, I say, “What about Michael? The night we met him at the club for dinner, he got us all out of the house so somebody could break in.”

  Venable gives me a grim smile. “Your notes were extremely helpful.”

  He continues, “Some people just won’t cooperate, like your ex-boyfriend. It’s just a matter of finding out the right buttons to push. Michael has a certain standing in the community so …” He fumbles around in the breast pocket of his shirt and removes two photographs, placing them, face up, on the table beside me.

  I recoil in shock and close my eyes, but the images are burned into my retina. Michael. Naked and sprawled on a king-sized bed, his right arm around a young boy, his left around a barely pubescent girl. I open my eyes and look up at Venable. “Michael wouldn’t do this.”

  He shrugs. “The camera doesn’t lie.”

  Hunt and Sara come into the room. Hunt carries a length of clothesline rope. Sara is my only hope. Anguished in body and spirit and running out of time, I give it one last shot.

  “Sara, Robinson Hunt beats his wife. He hides behind religion to prey on young girls like you. You’re not the first. They killed your dad. They killed Peggy Mooney. They’ll probably kill you and, for sure, they’re going to kill me!”

  Sara screams and claps her hands over her ears.

  The front door flies open, and Heather Hunt bursts through, followed by Nick. In Heather’s hand is a small, silver revolver.

  Holy shit! The chicken house at the WWJD winery is turning into the O.K. Corral.

  “Nick!” I shout. “Get down.” If Venable doesn’t kill me, Nick’s mom will.

  The events that follow are like snippets of a movie. Heather kicking the door shut. Nick ducking behind the sofa. Hunt shouting his wife’s name. Venable’s gun drifting toward Heather, his face a ghastly shade of gray. Me, frozen in a half crouch.

  Heather strides toward her husband, her eyes wild and crazy. Hunt pushes Sara away and holds out a hand to Heather. “Heather, sweetheart, give me the gun.”

  She takes a step back. “I’ll just hang onto it for a while,” she says. “Until I hear what you have to say.”

  She glances over at Venable. “You want to shoot me, Gordy? Go ahead. My life’s not worth shit anyway. But I promise you I’ll get a shot in before I go down. It might be you instead of Rob.”

  I hear the raspy sound of Venable breathing. The heavy gun wavers in his hand.

  “Sit down, Allegra,” Heather orders. “You’ll want to hear this.”

  I plop down on the chair.

  “Remember your little speech about spousal abuse?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “It wasn’t Rob using me for a punching bag; it was good old Gordy. I asked too many questions. About missing girls. About Peggy Mooney. About a lot of things that didn’t add up.”

  She pauses, her chest heaving with emotion. “Rob didn’t hit me. He was too busy doing the Lord’s work. How many girls have you saved, Rob?”

  Sara begins to keen, the mournful sound too full of pain for one small room.

  Hunt’s eyes dart between his wife and Sara. “It’s not like that, Heather. Sara had an abortion. She wanted to be cleansed.”

  “Bullshit.” Heather pulls the trigger.

  Hunt crumples to the floor. I brace myself. Now Venable will surely kill us all.

  “Hey, Gordy! Over here!” Nick pops up from behind the sofa. He grabs a sofa pillow and starts racing around the small room like two-year-old on a sugar high.

  I scream, “Get out! Go get help!”

  Distracted by Nick’s actions, Venable looks wildly around the room. Heather, steely-eyed with determination, swings her gun around and takes careful aim at his chest. It occurs to me, and apparently to Venable, that Heather truly doesn’t care if she lives or dies.

  Like a manic moth to the flame, Nick darts between them, directly in the line of fire. Heather’s gun wavers. Venable makes a grab for him but misses. Nick throws the sofa pillow in Venable’s face and runs for the door. Off balance, Venable fires and hits the doorjamb, splintering the wood. Nick opens the door and vanishes into the night.

  Deafened by the gun blast, I’m vaguely aware of Sara screaming and Heather trying to get a bead on Venable, who lurches toward the door after Nick. Suddenly the doorway is filled by the massive body of Arnie Vasquez, Nick’s buddy and my classroom peacekeeper. Lifting a hand the size of a Virginia ham, Arnie swats Venable to the floor and kicks the gun away with a size 15 sneaker. Venable scrambles through the open doorway on all fours. Arnie smiles pleasantly and makes no move to stop him. I hear a thud and a groan.

  Arnie steps into the room. “Hi, Ms. Thome. How are you?”

  Shaky with relief and muddled of mind, I stand up and try to lift my arm in greeting. My bad arm. Sickening pain shoots through my shoulder and, for the first time in my life, I faint.

  I awake to a cacophony of sounds and blurred images. Sara softly sobbing. Hunt moaning. Venable, hog tied on the floor, cursing nonstop. Heather, rocking silently on the sofa. Approaching sirens. My throbbing head cradled on a pair of bony legs—Nick’s legs. Arnie peering down at me, his moon face crinkled with concern.

  Too tired to take in any more, I close my eyes.

  When next I open them, the room is crowded with people, some in uniforms and sporting badges, others wearing gray polo shirts embroidered with the words Vista Valley Emergency Services.

  I see Hunt being wheeled out on a gurney, which evokes memories of my passion-filled ride across the basement of Mystic Meadows. I begin to laugh hysterically.

  I hear Nick tell an EMT, “She hit her head on the table when she fainted. I think something’s wrong with her right arm, too.”

  I try to stop laughing long enough to tell my gurney story but can’t seem to get the words out. Gentle hands examine my shoulder, probe the lump on my head, and lift me onto yet another gurney. I giggle all the way out to the ambulance.

  Exhausted from all that laughing, I fall into a fitful sleep and dream of running on leaden feet through a darkened vineyard toward Red Ranger. The headlights are on, the motor’s running, and the doors are open. Before I can reach it, I’m brought up short by a grapevine, whose tendrils reach out and snake around my left arm, squeezing and hissing.

  I awaken, hooked to a blood pressure cuff. Dr. Myers, the elder, is frowning down at me. Various and sundry medical personnel hover nearby. Dr. Myers thrusts a hand in front of my face.

  “How many finger
s do you see?”

  “Why?” I say. “Are you missing some?”

  I snicker. Dr. Myers, however, is not amused. “Always with the smart mouth. Just answer the damn question, Allegra.”

  When I identify the correct number of digits, he bobs out of sight to consult with his colleagues.

  “Her pupils aren’t dilated. Vision’s okay. Her nephew said it was a glancing blow. But she seems disoriented.”

  Another voice responds. “No evidence of a concussion. She’s been through a hell of an ordeal. People react in different ways to trauma. Some laugh; some cry. She’s a laugher.”

  Doc Myers pops back into view. He pats my cheek. “You’re finer than frog’s hair, kid. See you in the morning.”

  I feel the prick of a needle. Before I succumb to the waves of bliss crashing over me, I giggle and say, “You’re funny, Dr. Myers.”

  Chapter 31

  I awaken to the smell of lavender and a soft hand stroking my cheek. Cotton-mouthed and hurting, I struggle to open my eyes. The room is dark and quiet. Grandma Sybil’s face is barely visible in the dim light spilling in through the open doorway. I try to smile but can only croak, “Water.”

  Grandma starts pushing buttons on the hospital bed’s remote control device. Down goes my head. Up go my feet. Then back down. I moan as the middle of the bed humps up under my butt.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” Grandma whispers.

  She turns on a light and studies the remote. After a couple of false starts, I’m in a semi-sitting position with a flexible drinking straw between my parched lips. Water never tasted so good; the act of drinking it, so exhausting.

  I manage to stay awake long enough to take inventory of my injuries. Both hands are bandaged. My right arm is bent at a 45-degree angle and held in place by a shoulder strap hooked to a contraption that loops around my chest. It’s a strange disconnect, like I’m outside my body looking down at a stranger.

  Grandma Sybil explains, “Dr. Myers said you had a partial dislocation of the shoulder. You have to wear a shoulder immobilizer for three weeks. Then therapy.”

  “Three weeks,” I repeat and close my eyes. In my present state, three weeks sounds like a lifetime. The very thought makes me tired, and I drift away.

  The smell of food and daylight streaming through the windows tugs me back into the world. Grandma is gone, having relinquished Allegra watch to Dodie, who is examining a tray of food, the corners of her mouth turned down in distaste.

  An adolescent voice says, “I think she’s awake.”

  Arnie Vasquez stands at the end of the bed, flanked by Nick and Jimmy Felthouse. Nick looks pale but happy. Arnie and Jimmy stare at me with the shell-shocked look kids get when they realize teachers don’t live in their classrooms.

  “You look like shi—Uh, I mean, you don’t look so hot.” Jimmy ducks his head in embarrassment.

  The memory of the previous night’s events returns slowly, my brain arranging and rearranging pieces of the puzzle. Venable. Heather Hunt shooting her husband. Nick’s heroic actions. Arnie’s surprise appearance.

  Some pieces don’t fit. Like why is Jimmy here? I struggle to clear away the cobwebs.

  Dodie raises the bed and fluffs my pillow. I stare wordlessly at the trio, trying to get my mind around the notion of Nick and Arnie with Heather Hunt.

  Arnie looks at Nick. “Tell her how we did it.”

  “Please,” I croak. “Enlighten me.”

  Jimmy puffs out his chest. “We had a three-part plan.”

  “We? You were there, Jimmy?”

  “Well, duh,” he says. “Who do you think clobbered the geek who was trying to run away?”

  Taking turns and frequently interrupting each other, the three boys fill in the blanks.

  Nick stopped by the house shortly after I left. When Dodie told him I was out with Marcy, he didn’t buy it. He went up to my apartment to find her cell number. When Marcy confirmed his suspicions, Nick was sure I’d gone back to the winery. He was mulling over options when my phone rang. Thinking it might be Sloan, Nick answered it. It was Heather Hunt, sounding distraught, insisting she needed to talk to me.

  Nick told her he believed Sara was at the winery. Heather went ballistic. She said Hunt was gone almost every night, not returning until late and lying about where he’d been. She offered to drive Nick to the winery to catch that “son of a bitch.”

  Not knowing what he’d encounter at the winery, Nick called Arnie and Jimmy.

  I remember the car driving up, the hushed voices and the silence that followed. “So that was you guys outside the gate. You didn’t see me fall out of the shed?”

  Nick shakes his head. “We were having a little disagreement.”

  “Yeah,” Jimmy adds. “Arnie and me wanted to go in first, you know, so I could use my ball bat and Arnie could beat the shit—oops—I mean persuade them to let Sara go. But Nick said, ‘No way.’“

  Arnie says, “That’s when we decided I’d guard the door and Jimmy would be backup. We didn’t know Ms. Hunt had a gun.”

  Nick picks up the story. “When we got to the door and saw Venable pointing the gun at you, we weren’t sure what to do. That’s when Heather took over.”

  “We did good, huh, Ms. Thome?” Jimmy’s freckled face glows with pride.

  I want to correct him but stop myself. “No question. You guys saved my life.” Without warning, tears well up and trickle down my cheeks.

  All three boys avert their gaze at this unseemly display.

  Damn! I’m either laughing or crying. This has to stop.

  Dodie hands me a tissue, and I mop my face clumsily with my bandaged left hand. After blowing my nose, I ask Nick, “Is Sara okay?”

  He bites his lip. “Psych unit. They won’t let me see her. Sloan said she needs an exit counselor. He knows a guy.”

  “Sloan’s back?” I ask.

  Nick purses his lips in disapproval. “Yeah, he is now.”

  “Okay, he wasn’t exactly in town, but I said I’d talk to him and I did. At least, I talked to his voice mail.”

  Dodie says, “He dropped by, but you were asleep. Said he’ll be back later to debrief you.”

  The word debrief evokes a flood of memories involving a panoramic view, a pizza, the business end of a hearse, and a mind-blowing orgasm. I gaze out the window and smile, happy to be alive.

  “Aunt Allegra?” Nick says. “Want to hear the rest?”

  I refocus. “What about Hunt? Is he dead?”

  “Naw, his wife just winged him,” Arnie says. “They patched him up, and the cops hauled him away.”

  “Is Heather in trouble for shooting him?”

  The boys exchange a look.

  “Well,” Nick says, “I didn’t see anything because I was behind the couch.”

  “We didn’t see nothing,” Jimmy adds.

  I can’t stand it. “Didn’t see anything.”

  Jimmy grins. “You neither? Guess she got away with it then.”

  The guys take off. A local television station is waiting to interview them.

  Sloan shows up in my hospital room late in the day.

  Dodie is gone, driven away, she claims, by my incessant whining. I want to go home, and one of her Doctors Myers can make it happen. Much to my dismay, she’s refused to interfere.

  Sloan leans against the wall. His eyes are red-rimmed with weariness, his demeanor all business. Stone-cold Sloan. “Shoulda locked you in your room when I left town.”

  “Had to do something. Nobody else would.”

  I stare out the window and bite my lower lip to stop it from trembling. Sloan stands silently for a moment then mutters, “Ah, shit.”

  He crosses to the end of the bed and pulls the covers loose. Big, warm hands close around my left foot, massaging it gently before moving to the right. It feels so good I can’t stay mad.

  After an involuntary groan of pleasure, I ask, “When did you get back?”

  “About the time all hell was breaking loose down at the winery
. I was up all night interviewing Hunt and Venable.”

  “And?”

  “They couldn’t wait to rat each other out, hoping for a plea bargain.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Did they get one?”

  “Hunt, probably. Venable, highly unlikely.”

  I feel a rush of anger. “But Hunt’s a damn pedophile, a sexual predator. Maybe even a murderer. You know he used to be Roy Harris?”

  Sloan grunts an affirmative and tucks the covers around my feet. He collapses in the chair next to the bed. “Yeah, your nephew gave me the floppy disk and the newspaper article. Smart kid. Wanna hear how it all went down?”

  I nod. “But first, let me tell you how I think it happened.”

  “Deal.” He scrubs a hand over his bristly jaw.

  “When Roy Harris gets out of Chino, he becomes Robinson Hunt, an itinerant man of the cloth with the canny ability to separate folks from their hard-earned cash. Am I right so far?”

  Sloan gives me a grudging smile. “You’re not just a pretty face, Al.”

  I continue. “He comes to Vista Valley and somehow gets noticed by Gordon Venable. Maybe Joe Stepanek mentions him to Venable.”

  I pause and look at Sloan. He nods.

  “I’m not sure of the timeline, but Venable must have needed a way to launder drug money. What better place to park a lot of cash than a church collection plate and a winery tasting room?”

  “Yeah,” Sloan says. “Venable had a sweet deal going with a bank official. After the Stepanek bust, his guy got antsy, took his hush money, and moved to the Bahamas. Venable definitely saw Harris’s potential.”

  “So Harris gets a makeover and a shiny, new church,” I add. “Was Ruth Willard a client of Venable’s?”

  “You got it.”

  “Here’s the part I can’t figure out. Some high-level cop stonewalled the investigation. Why? And what about Peggy Mooney?”

  Sloan says, “Venable micromanaged Hunt’s every move. They built the church with Willard’s money. It attracted the right kind of people, rich and powerful. Hunt learned to play golf and joined the country club, which gave him even more access. A captain in the police department is his buddy. Hunt convinced him you’re a hysterical broad trying to make trouble and that Sara ran away with her boyfriend.”