He ended the call and looked up at Tina. “Eddie Simpson escaped. I need to go to the station to see how I can help. Make sure all the doors are locked, and don’t let anyone in. Anyone, you got that?”
Tina nodded, her heart pounding. What if he came here?
“You have your gun?” Hank asked as he turned to leave.
“In my purse,” she managed to say.
“Get it out; keep it with you.” He looked at her, and seeing her stricken expression went to hold her. “I’m serious. But you’ll be okay. Last thing he’d do is come here.”
Tina clung to him. “Do you have to go?” She hated the way her voice sounded, whiney and needy.
“Yes. We need to find him. Now.”
Tina followed him to the front door where they embraced again. “Bolt it after I leave.”
“I will.” Another quick hug, and he was gone. In a daze, Tina bolted the door. Then she removed her gun from her purse and went to check every door. She was in the dining room checking the windows when the doorbell rang. She jerked, almost pulling the trigger on her gun. She laughed a little, softly. “Mom would love it if I shot her sideboard.”
Hands shaking, she walked to the front door. The bell rang again. She didn’t know what to do. Talk to whomever it was through the door? Ignore it, hoping they’d go away?
When the bell rang for the third time, she knew whoever is was wasn’t going away. She looked through the peephole, trying to be careful not to make a sound. The porch light showed the figure clearly. She clapped her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream.
CHAPTER 55
Tina turned around and ran. She hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. Never go up—that’s how you get cornered. But she couldn’t go outside. Too dangerous and scary. It was already dark out there. She dashed up the stairs, two at a time, then stopped when she reached the top because she heard a noise.
Glass breaking. Did he know she was alone? Had he seen her mother and uncle leave, then Hank? Heart pounding, she stood for a moment, irresolute.
The attic. She had to get to the attic. Quietly, so he’d have to take time to search for her while she hid.
She opened the attic door, hoping it wouldn’t squeak. It didn’t. Uncle Bob must keep it oiled. She crept up the uncarpeted wooden stairs. They groaned, and her heart beat even faster.
Gasping for breath, she entered the attic. It was one huge open space, not even a quarter-full of stuff, all neatly placed and stacked. She must have inherited her neat gene from her mother. It had four hidden doors along the front-to-back sides of the house under the eaves. Each side had a tunnel between the two doors. She used to love to come up and play when little. She hoped her mother hadn’t stored so much in the hidden closets that she couldn’t fit inside or get into the tunnel. It would be ideal if she could hide in the space between the closets.
Tina opened the nearest sliding door and was relieved to see in the dim moonlight shining through the big window that the space was practically empty. She stood for a moment, listening for any sound in the house. Nothing. She stepped into the closet and slid the door closed. It banged loudly, and she cringed. She gasped when she realized she was in complete darkness. Groping for her cell phone in her pocket to use the flashlight app, she was dismayed to realize she’d left it on her desk in the office. She suppressed a groan, and told herself to think. She was too tall to stand up in the space, so she got down on her hands and knees, careful not to accidently pull the trigger on the gun still grasped tightly in her fist. She tried to remember what she’d seen in her brief glance at the stuff in the space. There was a baby stroller. She groped for it, and dragging it behind her, headed for the passageway. After she pulled the stroller in place, she crawled to what she thought would be the middle of the tunnel and sat down to wait.
She forced herself to calm down, taking deep breaths. There was a chance he wouldn’t find her here. And even if he did, she still had the gun. He wouldn’t know that. She had every possibility of getting away unharmed. And Hank would be back soon, wouldn’t he? Her mother and uncle wouldn’t be for hours. Would they come looking for her if he had left? How would she know he left? Yes, they’d see the broken window and start searching. She’d hear them and come out.
What was that noise? Heavy steps on the stairs. Had he already searched the rest of the house? So quickly? How she wished she had her cell. She resolved to keep it with her at all times forever, even if it felt uncomfortable in her pocket.
“Tina. I know you have to be up here. You might as well show yourself. I won’t hurt you. I just need you to come with me so I can get away.”
She bit her lip so she wouldn’t cry out. He’d never find her in here. She heard him moving around, shoving boxes, looking for her. She felt like screaming, and pushed her hand over her mouth.
“Come on, Tina. I’ll find you eventually. I’ll be easier on you if you just come out. One of these closets is the only place you can be.”
Then she heard the door slide open, and she moaned. How did he know about it?
“We have closets with tunnels just like this in our attic. Houses must have had the same architect,” Mickey said. A light showed dimly at the opening of the tunnel. Again, she could hear him moving stuff around.
She sneezed and the noise stopped. “Okay, I know you’re back there, so you might as well come out. You don’t want me to have to pull you out. I won’t be gentle if I have to do that.”
Tina groaned. “Why, Mickey? Why did you kill Olivia? I’ll come out after you tell me that.” Her hand was slick with sweat, and she wondered if she’d be able to aim the gun. She realized she’d put herself in an awkward position, hunkered down in a tight space.
“I don’t have time for this, Tina. I’ll tell you everything once we’re out of here. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The old chant from the children’s game grated on her nerves. “Stop. I need time. Tell me why you did it.”
She heard him sigh. “I saw your cell on your desk, so I know you can’t have called anyone. I’ll tell you. It’s been so hard to keep it all in.”
It sounded as if he sat down on a box. She took a huge breath. “Go ahead. You know I’m a good listener.” She cursed herself again for not keeping her cell phone with her.
“She hated my motorcycle. I found that out when she came storming over to our house one evening after I got home. When she saw me up close, without my helmet, she stopped short with her yelling and stared at me. I realized she knew who I was. She promised not to tell if I just got rid of the motorcycle. She was one strange woman. Didn’t seem at all afraid of me.”
“Why should she have been afraid of you, Mickey?” Tina asked softly. Had Mrs. Blackwell suspected Mickey might harm her? Wasn’t it probable that he was the Gingerbread Man?
He didn’t say anything for a few moments. “Because she knew what I’d done.”
“You’d killed someone before.” A huge shiver went down Tina’s spine. She now realized she was in a lot more danger than she’d thought. All denial was gone in a flash, and despair washed through her.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
There was a pause. Tina held her breath.
“My parents.”
Tina suppressed a gasp. “Why?” she whispered.
In the stillness of the attic, he heard her. “They abused me.”
“Oh. So you weren’t prosecuted.”
“No. I spent three months in a psychiatric hospital being evaluated. Then they let me go.”
“How old were you, Mickey?”
“Eleven.”
Tina closed her eyes. She didn’t totally believe him. She didn’t know enough. She couldn’t see him to judge his expression and body language. But his tone of voice seemed true. And why would he lie to her now?
“Eleven,” she repeated. “So young. Have you forgiven yourself?”
She heard him inhale nosily. “How can you forgive yourself for murdering your own parents?”
“What would you say to another eleven-year-old child who was being abused who finally fought back? Would you understand, be compassionate?”
Silence.
“Mickey?”
She heard his deep sigh. “I know you’re right. But I loved my mom.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I know she was weak. I didn’t mean to kill her.” He sobbed, one loud, choked sound.
She felt sorry for the eleven-year-old child still inside of him, but reminded herself that he had, as an adult, killed another woman. He was probably filled with anger and remorse. But not necessarily remorse for Olivia Blackwell. Sorry for himself, instead.
She took a deep breath. “Olivia threatened to do something with what she knew about you.”
“I admit I wasn’t nice to her. Batty old woman. When she complained about my motorcycle, I laughed at her, asked her what she was going to do about it.”
Tina closed her eyes. She almost told him that wasn’t too smart, but clamped her lips shut and waited.
Finally he said, “She told me she’d go to the Chief, tell him to check my juvie records. They’d kick me off the force. That’s when I knew she knew who I was. I was so sure no one else knew. I don’t look at all like I did when I was eleven. My hair got darker. I wear colored contact lenses. The freckles have faded. I was put in foster care up in Woonsocket after my sentence. They adopted me, and I use their name now.”
So much explained, but what good would it do if she couldn’t get out of this alive? She realized she didn’t even know if he had his gun with him. She assumed so. She’d better assume so. But when she came out of her hidey-hole, could she come out shooting? Could she shoot someone in cold blood? Even worse was the question, should she? Maybe he really wouldn’t hurt her, as he said.
“You gave up the motorcycle. You told me so. But something else must have happened after that.”
She heard him shift around on whatever he was sitting on. “She got real interested in me. You could say obsessed.”
Tina remembered what her uncle had said about Olivia almost stalking Hank’s grandfather.
“She found out my cell phone number,” Mickey continued, “and she’d call me about once a week. She asked weird questions about what it had been like to kill my parents. She also wanted to know how the renovation was going on the house. It was really hard not to ask her why she wasn’t doing the same thing to hers. I could tell she wondered if Ryan and I were gay. Then she saw me going out with Valerie. Somehow she dug up a lot of details about Val. She didn’t have a computer, so one day I asked her how she knew so much. She said she knew people who had computers. I began to worry that she was telling people about me, about my past. Finally, I got up the courage to ask her, and she denied it, maybe too strongly. I didn’t believe her.”
He paused, and Tina wiped her forehead with her arm. How could she be sweating in this cold, unheated space? Her head was beginning to ache, too. The longer she sat, the harder it would be for her to move once she could get out.
“She was telling me that Valerie had had lots of men friends, all but her first husband younger than she was. She made fun of us, both separately and as a couple. She wondered out loud if I was using Valerie as a beard. You know what it means, right—a woman who helps a gay man hide his homosexuality by going out with him? I don’t know why she took such pleasure in tormenting me. She was a mean old bat. And finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Tina tried to make herself more comfortable, but it was impossible. “How did you get into her house, and her bedroom?” He must have planned it. This was nothing like killing his abusive parents while they were abusing him. Or was it? They had probably also tormented him emotionally. Which is exactly what Olivia was doing. Why? Had she had a death wish? Or just liked playing with fire? What difference did it make? She should be planning and plotting a way to get out of this mess. Could she crawl quietly to the other end of the tunnel and sneak out of the closet there? Why hadn’t she thought of that before? If the other closet was filled with stuff, no way she could get out of it quietly. She realized Mickey was speaking again
“I learned how to pick locks in high school. Lots of us did, just for fun, to see if we could do it. And Olivia’s were old, as old as the house. I went around back, got the door open in about a minute, and snuck upstairs. I knew her hearing wasn’t great—not as bad as your uncle’s, but if she was asleep, she probably wouldn’t hear me. Stupid old woman. No security, no alarms. She probably thought burglars wouldn’t try to get through her mazes of stuff. With a flashlight, I had no trouble getting upstairs. I figured she slept up there, and it was easy enough to find her because she snored. Loud.”
Tina put her hands behind herself and, scooting backwards, edged her way toward the other end of the tunnel, but stopped when Mickey stopped talking. She raised her voice a little so he wouldn’t realize she’d moved. “Did she wake up, Mickey? Did she know it was you and what you were going to do?”
She heard a muffled sigh. “Just as I raised the golf club. It was awful. I had to call in sick the next day. Ryan wanted to know what was wrong with me. He could tell it wasn’t just being sick, that something had happened. But of course I didn’t tell him. I’ve never told anyone.”
He stopped again. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe. “Now you have to come out, Tina. I need to get going.”
“Has it been you over there using a flashlight to look around? Was it you who crashed into me in the dark?”
“Yeah.”
“What were you looking for?”
“Anything Olivia might have written down about me. I was sure you and I would stumble onto something while we were going through the papers and was surprised when we didn’t. But then I thought maybe one of the desks had secret compartments, you know, like some old desks do. I decided I’d better look, but when I couldn’t find any, I started the fire. Should have burned the whole place down the night I killed the witch.”
What little sympathy Tina had been feeling for Mickey evaporated.
“Okay, Tina, time’s up. Come out or I’ll come in and get you.”
Tina froze. She couldn’t move, whether from just being stiff or fear, she didn’t know. Her mind scrambled for another way to stall. “How did you know I was alone?”
“I saw your mother and uncle leave. Then I let Eddie out of jail—”
Tina gasped. “What?”
“You heard me. I figured that would distract the police and Hank would rush off to help. Now, don’t make me come in there, Tina. No more stalling.”
Should she? He’d probably come in with flashlight shining, a perfect target. But would she be able to shoot him, like that? She realized if she went out on her own that she’d not be hunkered down when the face-to-face confrontation came.
“Give me a minute. I’m stiff.”
“I’ll give you ten seconds and better hear you moving.” Mickey began counting, but slowly.
“I’m coming.” She inched her way forward on her butt so she would be able to use the gun when she got there. Crawling would make it almost impossible. When she came to the opening, there was enough light from Mickey’s flashlight to make out the stroller. Slowly, she pushed it aside and looked toward where his voice had been coming from.
A shadow sat on a small box, hunched over. She couldn’t tell if he had a gun or any other weapon in his right hand. The flashlight shone steadily on her in his left. She stood up, but when her head brushed the slanted ceiling, she had to stay crouched.
When he saw her, he jumped up, yelling, “You’ve got a gun!” He hit his head on the eaves and groaned, and the light wavering as his hand became unsteady.
Tina’s gun hand held steadier than she expected. “Get out of here, or I’ll shoot. I swear I will, Mickey.”
She heard a loud report, and something whizzed past her ear. She screamed and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit something, making a sickening soft thump. The smell of blood assaulted her nose, and she k
new she’d hit him. He began to fall toward her and fired his gun again.
She tried to get out of his way, but in the small space, there was no room to maneuver. He fell, brushing against her, blocking the door. The flashlight hit the floor and went out.
Fear and hysteria rose in her throat, and she swallowed over and over again. She knew she should try to get his gun, but she couldn’t see it. With a great effort, she jumped over his sprawled body and ran to the stairs. She heard him cursing behind her, and then footsteps. Should she turn and fire again, or just keep running?
She kept running, taking the stairs two at a time, tripping at the bottom, but catching herself before she fell. She slammed the door shut behind her and continued running down to the office, to the phone. Maybe she should barricade herself in a bathroom, the only rooms with locks. But he could just shoot the lock out, couldn’t he? And she was desperate to call for help, so she continued past the bathrooms and down the main staircase to the office.
“Tina, you can’t get away. Please. I won’t hurt you. I just need you to help me leave town.” His voice sounded weak, and his footsteps slowed behind her. But he was still coming.
She entered the office and looked around desperately for something to barricade the door. All the furniture was too heavy for her to move, and the three desk chairs all had wheels. She rushed to her desk and picked up her cell phone.
She hit the button to bring up the screen, but nothing happened. She hit it again. And again. And realized the battery was dead. She looked at it in disbelief and put it down. Grabbed the cordless landline phone and dialed nine-one-one.
Before the dispatcher answered, the door to the office opened. Mickey stood there a moment, looking around. His left arm bled profusely near the shoulder, and the gun in his right hand jumped up and down as he aimed it at her.
She had never put her own gun down. It felt welded to her palm. She raised it, aimed for his chest, and fired.
CHAPTER 56
Mickey looked startled, unbelieving. His gun arm lowered, and he crumpled to the floor. A funny voice said something she couldn’t make out because of the roaring in her ears.
Buried Under Clutter (Tina Tales Mysteries Book 2) Page 24