Death & the Redheaded Woman

by Loretta Ross

  “Why should I care if she’s willing or not? I have a gun and Ten Oeck has a knife and I’m stronger than she is. I can do anything to her I want.”

  “You can do anything to her,” Death said. “But if she cooperates, she can do things to you.”

  Fairchild thought about it. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Death looked the other man in the eye. “I’m telling you, my girl has talent. She can make you feel things you never even dreamed about.”

  There was a short silence and then Fairchild looked at her. “She can show me what she’s got and I’ll think about it,” he conceded. “That’s the best you’re going to get.”

  He walked away long enough to set his gun on a side table, then came back to her. He pulled out his pocket knife and cut the rope around her waist and the zip ties holding her ankles to the chair. He pulled her up, slid one hand inside her blouse and bent to continue sucking at her neck.

  She looked over at Death again and this time he met her eyes, giving her an intense stare.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” he said, “but you know how it is. He’s got the dick. He calls the shots.”

  She felt her eyes widen in sudden understanding and suddenly all the fear and apprehension melted away, dissolved on a rising, boiling lava pool of rage. Fury ran through her like white-hot plasma and she channeled it into action.

  Fairchild tipped back his head and sighed in anticipation as she unzipped his fly and reached for his family jewels.

  _____

  When Fairchild started groping Wren, Ten Oeck turned his back to them and came over to stand close to Death. Death ignored him, trying desperately to bargain with Fairchild. He hated the look on Wren’s face, hated every second that the bastard was touching her. His hands were free and he wanted more than anything to storm across the room and take Fairchild down, but he knew if he tried it his body would betray him.

  Just the rage he felt was weakening him, messing with his breathing, making him lightheaded.

  “He has the dick, he calls the shots,” he told Wren, and saw in her eyes the instant she understood. He couldn’t take them out alone. He needed her help.

  Ten Oeck was feeling Death’s bicep. He ran his hand over the Marine’s stomach, then up across his chest. He pulled out the neckline of Death’s tee shirt and looked down it.

  “You have marvelous musculature,” he breathed. He sounded turned on and Death so did not want to go there. “Abs, delts, pecs, glutes.” He squeezed Death’s ass and ran a hand down the inside of his thigh. “God, you’re like a smorgasbord. I don’t even know where to start.”

  He was in front of Death now, blocking his sight, but Death heard the sound of a zipper and Fairchild’s sighed, “oh, baby!” Then the screaming started.

  He had expected Ten Oeck to go to his cohort’s aid, but instead the other man just pointed and laughed. It wasn’t the distraction he was planning on, but it was distraction enough.

  Death reached back and closed his fingers around the loose riser that covered the secret compartment under the stair. He swung it around in an arc and smashed it into Ten Oeck’s head. It was a glancing blow and didn’t completely disable him, but it stunned him and it knocked him into the middle of the oil-slick of strawberry jam. Careful to avoid the jam himself, Death ran for the door into the hall. Fairchild’s screaming had subsided into a high-pitched, desperate squeal, but he could hear Ten Oeck stumbling along and cursing behind him.

  He was halfway across the hall when he felt Ten Oeck’s hand on his arm, dragging at him. Just the effort of swinging the stair riser and the short run had him seeing spots. He didn’t have stamina to spare for a real fight. He spun, lashing out with his right hand. He was still holding onto the P38 and the sharp edge gouged into Ten Oeck’s arm, drawing blood.

  Ten Oeck released him and stared down in disbelief.

  “You hurt me! You absolute bastard! You hurt me!”

  By the time he’d finished shouting, Death was at the door to the morning room. He crossed to the window seat with Ten Oeck closing the distance between them rapidly. He flipped up the seat, pulled out his gun and turned to draw a bead on the other man.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot! I mean it! Stop now!”

  Ten Oeck blind with rage just rushed at him. He was holding his butcher knife underhand, with his thumb closest to the blade, and away from his body. It was a position used by someone who knew what they were doing in a knife fight and Death knew he’d be deadly if he got close enough to strike.

  He centered the gun on Ten Oeck’s chest, took a steadying breath and squeezed the trigger on the exhale. He felt the jolt of the recoil run up along his arm at the same time Ten Oeck’s heart pumped out a stream of blood that shot across the room and covered him in gore.

  With a deep sigh born of a mixture of relief and regret, he lowered the gun and looked up as Wren’s footsteps crossed the hall and she appeared in the doorway.

  Her clothes were askew, her suddenly short hair wild around her head, her face red and her eyes glittering. She held her arms carefully to the side, like a surgeon who has scrubbed and doesn’t want to contaminate herself.

  “Are you okay?” she saw the blood. “Oh, God!”

  “It’s all right, baby. It isn’t mine.”

  She crossed the room, stepped around the body and came over to lean against him—a hug without hands.

  “Where’s Fairchild?”

  “Still in the Naked Dead Guy room. I think he says he wants his mommy. He sounds like he’s been breathing helium, so it’s kind of hard to tell.” She looked down at Ten Oeck. “We need to call 911.”

  Death picked up his cell. “I got that.”

  “Good. I want to go wash my hands. With bleach.” She started for the doorway, then stopped, turned back and read his face. “You didn’t have any choice, Death.”

  “Yeah, I know. And it’s not like I’ve never killed a man before. But I don’t like it. I’ve never liked it.”

  “That’s the difference between you and him.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He gave her a sad smile. “One more ghost for the Campbell house.”

  twenty-two

  “When you said this auction would be huge, you weren’t kidding!”

  Wren glanced around the crowded house and grounds of the Campbell house, trying to see it all through Death’s eyes. Heaven knew, it was better than seeing it through her own. She still had nightmares about the things that had happened here.

  Today the future museum was a madhouse. The auction had drawn in a huge crowd, with serious art and antique dealers and collectors and regular auction-goers supplemented by curiosity seekers. There were cars parked in the surrounding blocks with plates from as far away as Michigan, and Cameron had pointed out a photographer from the Associated Press.

  Death, arguably a story in his own right, had been keeping a low profile.

  The first thing he’d done, when he’d gotten the reward money for finding the stolen jewels, was buy Wren a big bouquet of roses from a pricey florist. She’d accepted them with false enthusiasm and poorly-concealed disappointment, and he’d laughed at her when she admitted that she preferred the flowers he picked for her himself.

  For the most part, though, he remained as frugal as he’d always been. He’d paid taxes on the reward, paid up his professional and vehicle insurance for a year, and signed a one-year lease on a combination office/studio apartment above an old department store in downtown East Bledsoe Ferry, and he still had just over $80,000 in the bank.

  At the moment all the action was outside. Roy’s loudspeaker-amplified voice followed them across the porch and into the hall.

  “And-a-seventy-and-a five-and-a eighty-and-a-five-do-I-gotta-five-and-a-one-that’s-a-eighty-one-and-a-two-and-a …”

  Wren dragged her feet on the threshold, still reluctant to enter, even though she’d been here a hundred times since That Day. The house was empty—walking in the entryway was like being trapped inside a drum. The sale items were spread o
ut on the lawn and in the back garden and the things the historical society meant to keep had been locked in the attics for their protection. Only some of the artwork remained, carefully hung around the walls, behind a podium one of the grandsons had dug up in an outbuilding. Grigsby, hired off-duty to work security for the auction, kept a watchful eye on two or three dozen well-dressed people who milled around studying the pieces on display.

  Death paused to watch them. “I’m still surprised you’re selling the artwork.”

  “They’re keeping some,” Wren said, “but the insurance alone would be outrageous if they kept it all.”

  “Yeah, I understand that. What surprises me is that you’re selling it. I thought you had to send artwork to some big, fancy auction house in New York or London or someplace.”

  Wren shrugged. “Merchandise is merchandise. We’re doing the art as a separate auction within an auction. And Doris is an expert appraiser. She’s advertised in all the right places. Actually, we might do better than a big city auction house. It’s not the auctioneer who sets the price, you know. It’s the bidders. And we’re apt to draw a lot of optimistic art enthusiasts who think they’re going to come out in the sticks and make a steal.”

  “Okay, but as I understood, some of this is pretty high-dollar stuff. Are you really set up to handle selling things for that much money?”

  “Death!” She sighed, exasperated. “We do vehicle and heavy equipment auctions. We sell real estate. Last Wednesday we sold a two-hundred-acre dairy farm for a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “Well, I guess that answers that,” he said, and went on into the office.

  The massive desk where Wren had found Obadiah’s love letters was the only piece of furniture still in the house, and Leona and Doris were set up there, where they could use the wall safe to protect the larger-than-average proceeds. At the moment, they were busy signing up a few stragglers and assigning them bid numbers.

  “Better give me a number, too,” Death said. “I could still use stuff for my office and apartment.”

  Doris and Leona exchanged a glance.

  “What do you think, Doris? Do we want to give this boy a number?”

  “Well, now, I don’t know. Does he have any identification on him? We wouldn’t want to give him a number and then find out he’s an imposter or anything.”

  Death grinned at their teasing and fished out his driver’s license.

  Doris handed Death a roughly square piece of poster board with his number on it.

  “Six-seventy-two?” Wren was shocked. “Really? There’s almost seven hundred people here?”

  “What can we say?” Leona shrugged. “Antiques and bloodstains make for a powerful draw.” She smiled at Death. “Honestly, unless there’s something specific you’re interested in, you’d be better off waiting for a less spectacular auction to get any furniture you need. Was there anything in particular that caught your fancy?”

  He shrugged. “I thought, since they’re selling them, maybe I could pick up one of old Obadiah’s political cartoons, just for a souvenir, you know?”

  Doris shook her head. “Oh, I wouldn’t get your hopes up there, honey. We’re selling the four of them as a lot and there’s a collector here from Chicago. Marlon Obermeier? Wealthy political junkie. Very deep pockets and a bit of a fanatic.”

  “Oh, well,” Death was philosophical. “Just my luck.”

  “Here,” she offered him a small booklet. “There’s a special catalog for the artwork. Take a look at it. Maybe you’ll see something else that strikes your fancy.”

  Death took the booklet, folded it and tucked it into his shirt pocket along with his number. Still more people were pouring into the room, some of them seeking numbers and some of them leaving early with their purchases. Death and Wren slipped out and went to explore the rest of the auction. As they went through the entry hall, they passed a group of middle-aged women standing in the parlor doorway and peering into the room.

  “I think this is where they found the naked dead guy,” one of them was saying.

  Wren groaned and slapped her own forehead with her palm and Death laughed, put an arm around her shoulder and led her outside.

  In order to get through the auction in one day, Sam and Roy were working on opposite sides of the old house, both calling at once. Death and Wren spent the morning going back and forth between them, helping set up merchandise, keeping track of bids and, in one instance, breaking up a screaming, hair-pulling match over who outbid whom for an antique butter churn. Wren took turns at the microphones, spelling each of the brothers, and Death had a quiet word with a would-be shoplifter, who subsequently emptied her pockets and slunk away.

  They got lunch from the food cart that was set up at the curb, filling the air with the scent of barbecue, and ate it sitting in a quiet corner of the garden and watching the chaos from a distance. When they ventured back inside, Sam had moved indoors and the art auction was under way.

  Doris came over to stand beside them. “They’re selling the Healey political cartoons now,” she told them. “It’s up to twenty-five thousand. That’s Mr. Obermeier there,” she pointed out a tall, thin man in his sixties. “I expect he’ll get a deal on them. As a collection they’re worth at least forty thousand, but he’ll be willing to go well over that and all the serious collectors here know it, so I doubt anyone will bother to bid him up that high.”

  “That much?” Death fished the art catalog out of his pocket and opened it, finding his place as the bidding climbed toward thirty thousand dollars. Wren grinned to herself as she heard him whisper softly, “holy crap!”

  “And I have thirty-one thousand, five hundred,” Sam said. This type of auction called for a less boisterous salesman, and he had slowed his speech to normal speeds. He turned his attention back to the woman who’d been bidding against Obermeier and Wren saw in her eyes when she decided to back down. She shook her head and Sam looked around the room. “Anyone else? That’s thirty-one, five, going once! Going twice! And—”

  “FIFTY THOUSAND!”

  It seemed everyone in the room jumped, Wren especially, at the deep, powerful voice that broke out beside her. In truth, Death looked a little startled himself, but he caught Sam’s eye and repeated his words. “I bid fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Death!” Wren squeaked. “Are you insane?”

  “Trust me,” he said. “I’ll explain later. Right now, just trust me.”

  Obermeier looked like he’d bitten a lemon. “If this is some kind of attempt by the auction house to bid the price up, you’re going to regret it.”

  Death looked him in the eye. “What I’m trying to do is outbid you. If you think it’s a trick then teach me a lesson. Drop out.”

  Obermeier considered it for a long moment, then turned back to the podium.

  “Fifty-five thousand.”

  “Fifty-six,” Death countered.

  “Fifty-six, five.”

  “Fifty-seven.”

  “Fifty-eight.”

  “Sixty.” Death spoke with no hesitation.

  Wren grabbed hold of the banister for support. The room was suddenly stifling, with a dearth of air and an electricity running through the crowd that made the hair stand up on her arms.

  Obermeier studied Death for a long minute, eyes narrowed.

  “Sixty-five.”

  “Sixty-five thousand,” Sam repeated. He looked helplessly at Death.

  Doris tugged at Death’s sleeve. “Honey, those pictures aren’t worth that much!”

  “Sixty-eight,” Death bid.

  “Seventy,” Obermeier said. There was an air of finality about it. Wren couldn’t say what it was, but instinct developed over the years of watching people bid at auctions told her the man was nearing his limit. Plain old arithmetic and a knowledge of Death’s finances told her that he was nearing his.

  Wren didn’t know what to hope for. Obviously Death had his heart set on getting those pictures, but if he did, he was going to be broke agai
n. There was just no way she could see this ending well.

  “Seventy-one,” Death said.

  “Seventy-one, five,” Obermeier countered.

  “Seventy-two.”

  Obermeier stood up straighter, put his hands in his pockets and turned to look Death straight in the eye. “Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  Death turned to Wren. “Do you trust me?” he asked, and what could she say.

  “I trust you with my life,” she told him. “How could I possibly not trust you with your own money?”

  He grinned and turned back to face Sam. “Seventy-six thousand dollars,” he said.

  “You’re insane.” The collector finally shook his head. “I’m out. If he wants them that badly, he can have them.”

  Death slumped in relief and drew in a deep breath.

  Sam paused, gavel raised, and gave Death a grave, concerned look.

  “Son, are you sure about this? Because, when I bring this gavel down, the sale will be final.”

  Death met his eye. “I’m sure.”

  Sam shrugged. “All right, then. That’s a collection of four political cartoons by the artist Obadiah Healey and it’s SOLD to number 672.”

  _____

  It took Death most of the rest of the afternoon to go to his bank and argue them into giving him a certified check for most of the money he had left in his account. By the time he got back to the Campbell house the auction was winding down and the last stragglers were packing up their loot and making their escape.

  The four cartoons were still hanging in their place on the wall. Death lifted them down, one by one, grinning like a maniac, and carried them into the office to pay for them. Wren was there, waiting for him, with the Keystone twins and their wives. He set the paintings down on the desk and pulled his number from his pocket.

  “Six seventy two?” he asked.

  “Well, let’s see.” Leona made a show of looking in her log books and digging out the file card with his information on it. “I have one purchase, four pictures, for seventy-six thousand dollars.”

  “Will you take a check?” He offered her the certified check and she took it and gave him a receipt.