Smoke and Mirrors wm-4

by John Ramsey Miller

  Winter snapped the phone closed.

  “You think he knew anything about it?” Brad asked.

  “I doubt the old bastard is going to get any sleep tonight.”

  “Did you notice that there were none of Klein’s security men at the meeting tonight?” Brad asked.

  “Why would Mr. Klein need security people?” Leigh asked.

  “He might need to hire some new ones,” Winter said.

  “Well, it’s too late to eat,” Leigh said.

  “You have to be tired,” Brad said.

  “Not too tired to cook you fellows a nice thick steak. Let’s stop at the grocery and pick up a few, and we’ll go to the house. I bet your deputies could eat a hot meal about now.”

  114

  Styer put a knee in Cynthia’s back and taped her mouth shut. Then he removed the explosives belt she had been wearing and laid it aside. “Remember the bomb downstairs, Cynthia,” he whispered tenderly as he secured her hands and lashed her ankles with tape.

  He surveyed the blood rapidly pooling under Alexa’s head and listened for any sounds of people coming to investigate the noise made by bodies hitting the floor. After a few seconds, with only the sound of the grandfather clock ticking, he heard something in the back of the house-a motor perhaps. Moving slowly down the hall he went into the kitchen, which was filled with the smell of coffee. On the table he spotted a copy of a tabloid lying open, a cup of coffee beside it. It was still hot and freshly poured.

  He moved to the closed door of the utility room and realized the sound was a clothes dryer running. Someone was doing the laundry. He heard the lid of a washing machine close, the unmistakable sound of the dial being twisted and pulled, and the water running into the tub.

  Crossing the hall, Styer moved back into the kitchen and sat down at the table to wait, placing the gun in his lap.

  The door opened and the maid came out and turned into the kitchen, her arms holding a basket filled with folded towels. When she saw Styer, she smiled, glad to see him. Most of the locals knew the physician. “You pour you some coffee, Doc, and let me go fold these towels up. Been a busy and tragic time around here lately. I’m way behind. I didn’t know you was coming out. Take your hat and that wet coat off and stay awhile.”

  “I’ll be here just a little while,” he said.

  The maid’s expression changed slowly, and she tilted her head. He knew he had been pressed to make a quick study of this subject. His disguise depended on people not knowing the man more than superficially or getting a good look, and it hadn’t fooled that chief deputy either. The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly and Styer saw that despite the wide-brimmed hat pulled low, the accent and pitch of the voice, and the resemblance, she knew.

  When the gun came up, she just stood wide-eyed-the proverbial deer frozen in the headlights.

  “If you want to live,” he said in his own voice, “tell me where the boy is.”

  “Gone,” she said, turning her eyes to the counter, where the block held a selection of knives. He knew she was trying to decide if she could get to them before he could shoot her.

  “I don’t want to hurt him,” he said. “Word of honor.”

  The big woman hurled the basket at him. For her size, she was amazingly agile, but of course she couldn’t out run a bullet.

  115

  The sleet had become a chilled rain that coated the tree limbs, roads, and wires with ice. Brad said that if it stopped soon, like the forecasters said it would, the damage wouldn’t amount to much more than a few snapped limbs and fender benders.

  Winter used the few minutes Leigh was spending inside the grocery store to search the interior of the Jeep. He found an audio transmitter the size of a coat button attached to the backside of the rearview mirror, rolled down the window, and tossed it out across the parking lot, certain that the listeners were busy figuring what to do about their dead team members.

  While they waited, Winter shared his theory about what had happened at the barn. “Styer was probably in charge of getting White to do a taped confession and the cutouts figured out who Styer was and followed him there. I expect the explosives were set off during the shoot-out.”

  “Could Styer have been disguised well enough to be one of Klein’s guys?”

  “A cakewalk for him.”

  “It’s just hard to imagine,” Brad said. “At least they let Cyn go beforehand. Sure solved your problem.”

  He dialed Alexa, got her voicemail, and left the message. “Lex, we’re heading to the Gardner house. See you when you get there.” He closed the phone. “I know she’s there. She probably can’t hear it ringing through her purse.”

  Through the window Winter saw Leigh checking out and chattering happily with the young cashier.

  “She’s something,” Brad said.

  “Yep,” Winter agreed. He thought it was amazing that, after all she’d been through, she could be thinking about feeding a bunch of people. She was something, all right. Delta women were a breed apart.

  “You know, don’t you?” Brad asked him meaningfully.

  “Yeah.”

  “I think everything is going to work out now. She’s the girl I fell in love with. I hate that she went through all this grief, but I think it’s going to be Brad and Leigh again, like it should have been.”

  “Does Cynthia have any idea?”

  Brad stared at Winter. “All this just happened.”

  “Well,” Winter started, “it’s none of my business, but I have eyes. Somebody else must have noticed. It’s fairly obvious.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Cynthia’s got your eyes and your smile. I understand why you and Leigh didn’t want to tell her, but doesn’t you guys being patched up mean you can tell her now? Or will she keep thinking Jacob is her father?” He saw Brad’s eyes change and his face slacken, and only then did he realize that the poor guy had had no clue about his daughter. Winter felt that old hollow, what-the-hell-have-I-done feeling, and he knew he couldn’t make it right. “Listen, Brad, maybe…”

  Staring out at Leigh, Brad opened the door to the Jeep and strode to the store without seeming to notice the icy rain. He stood outside and waited for Leigh to approach. Her smile vanished when she stepped out and he started talking to her. He saw her chin drop before rising again, and she nodded. Winter didn’t have to hear what they were saying to understand that Leigh had just confirmed what Winter had assumed Brad knew all along. He knew that Cynthia was why Leigh had married Jacob Gardner so suddenly after she turned her back on Brad.

  Winter cursed himself for screwing with something he had no business getting involved with.

  116

  Alexa’s head throbbed where Styer had pistol-whipped her unconscious. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on her stomach on the polished wooden floor of Hamp’s bedroom. In the dim light from a TV set with the sound turned off, she could see the figures of Hamp and Cyn lying on two beds whose heads met at a corner desk, a flat L-shaped piece of furniture with a writing surface and bookshelves that rose to the ceiling. The Gardner children faced her with their hands behind them and ankles secured. Hamp’s were tied with thin cord. Like her, their mouths were taped shut. At least Styer hadn’t killed them, but why had he not finished her off?

  Hamp lifted his head, and his eyes opened wider in alarm. Alexa nodded at him, and he lowered his head. Alexa saw that Cyn was crying, tears glistening on the bridge of her nose, her body shaking. When Alexa tried bringing her cuffed hands under her body, the pressure on her neck made her realize that Styer had looped a cord around her neck and tied the other end to the cuff chain. Her ankles were bound with thin nylon cord, probably cut from the Venetian blinds in the room.

  She pressed her face against the polished oak floorboards. If she could catch the sticky edge of the tape on the floor, she could use pressure and movement to peel it off her cheek. That way she could at least comfort the children.

  She knew Winter, Leigh, and Brad would walk in soon a
nd Styer would have the drop on them. She had seen him shoot two men with no more effort or hesitation than a horse flicked his tail to shoo a fly. She knew she was no match for Styer, but she had to become one, no matter what. She concentrated her energy on the tape. The headache slowly drifted away as she told herself, Don’t rush and don’t make noise.

  117

  When Brad and Leigh finished talking outside the grocery store, they hugged for a long time, and Winter saw Leigh wipe tears from her eyes. The sleet was coating the windshield, being cleared by the wipers. If the sight of the sheriff and the plantation owner embracing outside the grocery was shocking, you couldn’t tell from the woman who walked past them and nonchalantly said hello. They returned the greeting while they were still hugging each other, and Leigh laughed after the woman went inside. After Brad took the grocery bags, they ran to the Jeep and jumped inside.

  “I guess I should be mad at you,” Leigh said to Winter. “I thought I was the only one who knew how much Cyn resembled Brad.”

  “I’ve got a daughter,” Brad said wonderingly, smiling at Leigh in the backseat. They clasped hands momentarily.

  “I was sitting here thinking I’d screwed up,” Winter said.

  “It’s fine,” Leigh said. “Better than fine.”

  “Better than fine,” Brad repeated.

  “I’ve always wondered if I would ever be able to tell Brad,” she said. “Now, I just have to tell Cyn. I’ve had some strange conversations with my daughter, but this one is going to take the cake.”

  “How do you think she’ll react?” Brad asked almost sheepishly.

  “I think she’ll be pleased after it sinks in. She’s always liked you.”

  With a wave of panic, something occurred to Winter that should have hit him much earlier. The deputy said Alexa was with Dr. Barnett and Cynthia. He didn’t know how they all three had ended up together at the plantation. Thinking about it now, he realized how odd that was.

  118

  Styer felt the doctor’s cell phone in his pocket vibrating, and took it out and read the display. He decided he had to answer it, because this time it was the sheriff. He tested his voice, decided it was right, and pressed the green button.

  “What?” he answered.

  “I’m with Leigh and Winter,” Brad said. “We’re heading out to Leigh’s. Daddy, I didn’t ask before, but how did Alexa wind up with you and Cynthia?”

  “Right after I talked to you, Alexa, who was heading out here, saw us getting into my car at the Blue amp; White and she stopped. She offered to drive Cyn home. I hitched a ride, thinking I should stay with Cynthia. Like I said, Cyn was upset and…”

  “Winter wants to talk to Alexa. She close by?”

  “She’s upstairs with Cynthia. I think Cyn’s taking a bath.”

  “We’re still a few minutes out. Leigh picked up some steaks. You hungry?”

  “I could eat,” Styer said.

  “By the way, do you know if Woody let Ruger out?”

  “Yes,” Styer said. “Woody told me he was going by to ‘walk him.’”

  Styer hung up and smiled. The rain was really coming down now. He inclined his head and listened for any sound from the boy’s bedroom directly above the kitchen. He wondered if Alexa was still out cold. He had thumped her pretty good. He hadn’t needed to kill her, but she would die anyway in short order. While he’d been talking to Barnett, he’d heard Gardner and Massey talking in the background. Leigh Gardner and Winter Massey. Styer smiled. Life was good. Life was very, very good to those who deserved it.

  All he had to do was add the explosive from Cyn’s belt to the bomb that he had placed in the basement and, after Massey and the sheriff and the woman were down, he’d get clear and set it off. The explosion would bring the deputy from the road, but Styer would deal with him and be long gone before anybody suspected it was a bomb and not a natural gas explosion.

  Afterward, he would change into the benign salesman he had ID for and fly to New York, and from there he’d make his way to his apartment in Paris for a well-deserved rest.

  After no more than a minute in the basement, Styer went back up into the kitchen, set down his Ruger, covered it with the maid’s tabloid, and took off the doctor’s wide-brimmed Stetson.

  Opening his valise, Styer lifted out the cell-phone remote trigger and slipped it into the left pocket of his cardigan. He also removed the other tools he would need when Massey showed up.

  Walking to the front, Styer looked out the open shades of a window and saw the cruiser at the base of the driveway.

  He thought he heard the creaking of floorboards and listened, trying to get the direction of the sound.

  119

  Alexa worked to free her mouth, realizing that if Styer’s disguised voice was carrying through the floor that her cheek was pressed against, then he would hear any loud movement from the room above. He was talking to someone, but since nobody had come in, she was pretty sure he was on the telephone.

  She looked up at the children and saw that Cyn had stopped crying and was watching her. Hamp continued to wriggle and she shook her head, hoping that he would understand that she wanted him to be still. If he fell off the bed, Styer would come up and see the tape, which was beginning to roll toward her mouth.

  She saw Hamp stop moving and look at her. Moving faster, she felt the tape stick fast and she pressed her cheek against the floor and pressed down hard as she moved her head. The tape stuck fast to the floor and remained there as she moved her face as far as she could move without rolling.

  “Guys,” she whispered. “Hamp, be still. He can hear us.”

  Hamp shook his head and started wriggling again.

  While she was trying to figure out the next step, Hamp sat up and brought his hands around from behind him. Loose cord hung from his left wrist until he pulled it off and removed the duct tape from his face. As soon as it came free, he smiled at Alexa.

  “The Great Mephisto,” he mouthed, taking a bow.

  Alexa smiled.

  Cyn nodded. Hamp tore off the tape that was binding his sister.

  Okay, Alexa thought, as she watched Hamp in his pajamas and magician’s cape slip from the bed, cross the floor carefully, kneel behind her, and start untying the cord knots on the cuffs. Seconds later, she brought her hands through and looked gleefully at the cuffs as she untied her ankles. Hamp reached to the lowest shelf, put something in the pocket of his pajama shirt, and released his sister. She slowly sat up.

  Alexa managed to untie the cord around her ankles and stood. Hamp reached out, touched her wrists, took a bent paper clip from his pocket, and in three or four seconds, opened her handcuffs. He bowed again and tossed the impromptu key onto the bed.

  Alexa motioned to the children to stay in their places and moved to the window. She heard a door close downstairs and looked out the window, which she unlocked and slowly opened. Looking out through the sleet, she saw headlights approaching from about half a mile away. She knew she had to move fast. The porch roof angled gently away from the house, and she decided that it hadn’t yet collected enough ice to prevent an escape down the trellis, which she believed would support their weight. She turned to the children and beckoned them to move toward her. She turned back, slipped out of the window, and found herself face-to-face with a dark figure standing on the porch roof. A firm, wet hand covered her mouth to keep her from screaming.

  “It’s okay, Lex,” Winter whispered.

  She saw the headlights of the Jeep that was stopped beside the cruiser.

  Alexa climbed outside and Winter handed her his coat. As he climbed carefully and silently into the room, gun in hand, Alexa saw the aluminum bat in Hamp’s hands. When he realized there was no danger, he lowered it from a striking position and set it on the bed. He handed his sister a parka that had been hung on his bedpost by its hood.

  She whispered to Winter, “Styer killed Roy and the other deputy. And he said there’s a remotely triggered bomb planted downstairs in the basement.�
�� The children climbed out carefully to join her in the freezing rain.

  Winter grabbed the bat and told her, “Be careful, it’s slippery. Get the kids down the road to the cruiser. Tell Leigh not to stop until she gets them to Brad’s office. Help’s on the way out. I’ll throw the bat downstairs when I find Styer.”

  “He’s disguised as Dr. Barnett.”

  “We know,” Winter said. “Brad figured his father knew Ruger is a she.”

  120

  After Winter made sure Alexa and the Gardner children were on the ground, he slipped rapidly down the rear service steps and peered into the kitchen, where the tip of a silencer was visible under an open tabloid on the table. He saw what appeared to be a wide blood smear leading to a utility room, but he couldn’t take time to look further. Roy Bishop and the other deputy were dead, and most likely Estelle was too.

  With the cocked Reeder.45 in hand, safety off and armed with hollow-points, Winter looked down the hallway and moved back out of sight behind the door to the den. By looking at the mirror on a coat tree, Winter could see down the hallway to Styer standing near the front door. Although he knew Styer’s gun was in the kitchen, he figured the professional was armed and that the smaller gun was a backup.

  Winter took his cell phone out and waited to press SEND until he was ready. Brad had given him his cell phone with the doctor’s number already keyed in as a way to talk to Styer if it became necessary.