Stella, Get Your Gun

by Nancy Bartholomew

  “Dog, what are you doing?”

  At the sound of my voice, Lloyd opened one eye, noted my presence and resumed his nap.

  “Fine,” I said. “Be that way!”

  I inspected the room carefully, taking time to do a thorough search, looking for a sign that Aunt Lucy had returned or perhaps planned to disappear. Aunt Lucy and Uncle Benny hadn’t seemed to care much for change. The same white chenille bedspread I’d known as a child still covered their bed. The dressing table held a jewelry box I remembered from years ago. The stool was covered in now-faded cabbage-rose chintz. The only change was a TV, hooked to a cable box, and sitting on the ancient walnut dresser.

  I lifted the mattress and ran my hands over the sheets, feeling for lumps. I felt the backs and bottoms of dresser drawers, looked behind the pictures mounted on the wall, methodically searching in an attempt to find any overlooked clue.

  I stepped into the adjoining bath and snooped further, opening the medicine cabinet and lifting out bottle after bottle. Suddenly life got more interesting. Instead of the usual and customary jars of aftershave and mouthwash, I found an assortment of containers all labeled in my aunt’s precise handwriting.

  Arthritis Salve, read one, followed by what appeared to be a formula. Miracle Grow Hair Restorative, read another. No formula on that one, just a number. A spray bottle rested by the foot of the tub. Lucy’s All Purpose Total Cleanup. Again, no formula, just a number.

  I smiled to myself. Aunt Lucy hadn’t been able to give up her day job to become a “normal” parent. She’d always mixed up her own concoctions, favoring her formulas over those found on the grocery store shelves. I’d wondered about her sometimes, about how she’d been able to walk away from such a successful career as a chemist to become my surrogate mother.

  I left the bathroom and moved to the walk-in closet Uncle Benny had built at one end of their bedroom. I fumbled for the light switch, tripped over a pair of shoes and fell headlong into a rack of dresses that covered the back of the closet. The more I tried to catch myself, the worse it became. I spun past something furry, was enveloped by mothball-scented wool and landed in a heap on the floor.

  “Shit!”

  I sat, trying to untangle the mass of clothing that had jumped to ensnare me and feeling distinctly sorry for myself. What kind of detective gets herself arrested, is overcome and subdued by winter clothing and loses not only the witnesses to a murder case, but the chief suspect, as well?

  I inhaled, this time catching a whiff of Uncle Benny’s aftershave. A wave of nostalgia and loneliness swept over me. I felt tears burn the back of my eyelids and suddenly missed every one I’d ever lost, Mom, Dad, Uncle Benny, Pete, Jake and the series of pets and people who’d moved in and out of my childhood. When I reached my second-grade teacher, I stopped.

  “Damn,” I muttered. “This is pathetic!” I yawned. “I must be way too tired.” In the outer room, Lloyd snored rhythmically. I started to pull myself up, reaching out to steady myself against a row of narrow shelving and was rewarded by a rain of my aunt’s accessories that fell as the shelf gave way.

  “No!” I cried, trying to catch the purses, hats and belts. “This is so not my day!” I bent down and began picking up the mess. In the midst of the pile, torn shreds of paper poked out of an empty pocketbook. Uncle Benny’s agreement with Jake lay scattered among my aunt’s accessories.

  I sat on the floor, piecing the papers back together, then reading the document over and over again, trying to figure out what my uncle and Jake had been up to, and why it was now torn and hidden in one of my aunt’s old purses. Had Aunt Lucy been the one to take the papers and tear them up like this? She must have, but why? Had she known about the arrangement all along? I stayed there, thinking and reading, until my joints began to stiffen from my cramped position.

  Lloyd’s low growling broke my concentration. He jumped down off the bed and trotted to the closet door, the hackles rising on the back of his neck.

  “What is it, boy?” I asked him. Lloyd growled again, low and menacing. I looked at my watch, trying to focus on the glow-in-the-dark numbers. I’d been in my aunt’s bedroom for well over an hour.

  Then I heard what Lloyd heard, voices, low, muffled and angry.

  “I will not give it to you, not ever!”

  I leaned closer to the floor and realized the sounds were coming from the basement.

  “Bingo!” I cried softly. “I gotcha this time!”

  When a woman screamed, my stomach flipped over. My heart began to race and I moved, running through the darkened house toward the basement. This time when I reached for my gun it was right where it belonged.

  I slipped down the basement stairs, trying to run silently. I stopped for a second at the base of the staircase, searching the darkness for signs of life and once again finding none. I moved deeper into the dank room, heading for the laundry room. I felt the wall by the doorway, both sides, and found no switch. I flung my arm out into the air above me, feeling for a cord, anything, but came away empty-handed.

  “Okay, okay,” I instructed myself. “Go slow. Feel the back wall.”

  I inched toward an eerie glow that seemed to radiate out from behind the clothes rack bolted to the back wall. My fingers searched every inch of the wall until I found the crack between the clothes rod and the wall where light escaped. I examined every detail of the smooth-surfaced wall above and below it. There was no door, only a crack in the foundation that let the tiny bit of light out.

  Behind the wall the voices started up again. There were two voices, one an angry, male voice I didn’t recognize and the other frightened but insistent, my Aunt Lucy. I grabbed the rod and started to tug on it. There had to be a way into the room beyond. As I pulled, the crack in the wall began to give, silently opening outward to reveal a narrow passageway.

  I hesitated but when I heard a moan, followed by a gasp of pain, I moved. Someone was hurting Aunt Lucy.

  “Tell me where he put it,” the man demanded. “Give it to me!”

  I edged my way down the narrow steps, my stomach tightening into a knot as I envisioned the scene unfolding below me.

  “All right,” the man continued, “I could’ve made it easy on you, but you won’t cooperate.” He laughed. It was a short, cruel bark that echoed against the thick concrete walls. “Actually, I don’t mind how you die, old fool. It could’ve been quick. Now it’ll take days. Either way the results will be the same. I’ll know where he hid it before I leave and you’ll be dead.”

  I stopped thinking and reacted. All I felt, breathed or knew was that Aunt Lucy needed me. I had no objectivity. Years of training flew out the window as I tore toward my aunt and ran headlong into a brilliant white light.

  For an instant, I was blinded. I heard a gun explode, felt the bullet whistle past my head and slam into the wall behind me. I hit the ground, rolling and seeking cover as I moved. Aunt Lucy screamed. I came up into a crouch, half-hidden behind a long metal table. I was in a lab, a room I’d never seen before deep in the basement of my uncle’s home.

  Across from me, I saw Aunt Lucy, tied to a straight-backed metal chair. Blood oozed from a cut at the side of her mouth.

  I heard a sound coming from behind me. Before I could turn, a black-and-white blur flew past. Lloyd, teeth bared, launched himself at a target. The gun exploded again. Lloyd yelped, fell to the ground and lay still, blood quickly matting his thick fur.

  I followed the sound of the gun and found myself staring into the small, dark eyes of Ron the mechanic. He was holding a cannon, slowly taking aim and preparing to blow my head off.

  I jumped sideways, rolled and landed this time behind a narrow rack of test tubes nestled in a stainless-steel carrier. I made an easy target and as I met the killer’s gaze, I saw we both realized it.

  I saw his finger tighten on the trigger, saw a tiny jaw muscle tighten and held my breath. The world slowed down into still-action shots. The muzzle flashed. I flattened myself against the wall and felt the bu
llet whisper past my head. Ron’s face registered surprise as a red hole blossomed in the center of his forehead.

  The force of the bullet exploded, blowing him backward against the wall. He slid down the white plaster surface, leaving a trail of brain matter and blood behind him.

  The second gunman stepped from his hiding space, gun drawn and still pointed at the dead man. The acrid smell of smoke and blood filled the space between us. I held my breath, waiting for him to turn and recognize me. But when our eyes met, I realized he’d seen me long before he’d killed his wife’s lover.

  Chapter 14

  Aunt Lucy moaned, galvanizing the two of us into action. I crossed the room, knelt by her side and began struggling to free her from the silver duct tape that bound her arms behind the metal chair.

  Jake brushed past me, moving behind Aunt Lucy’s chair and sliding a thick serrated knife blade between her wrists. With a practiced slash he sliced the tape away. As the pressure gave, she slid forward. I caught her, pushing her back against the chair and cradling her in my arms at the same time.

  “Oh, honey,” I breathed. “Are you all right?”

  “Benny!” she cried. “He shot my Benny!”

  Jake moved, limping the short distance to the spot where Lloyd had fallen. He knelt by the injured dog’s side, his face contorting briefly with pain as he bent his bandaged left leg. I watched as he carefully inspected Lloyd’s wound.

  Jake bent forward, putting his head close to Lloyd’s chest. He sat back and pried Lloyd’s jaws open. He turned the dog’s head, extending his neck, and closed the jaws again, this time pinching Lloyd’s nose shut. Jake Carpenter was about to give Lloyd canine CPR.

  Aunt Lucy shoved me in Jake’s direction. “Help him!” she cried. “Do the compressions! Quickly!”

  I did as she said, even though I was thinking, I’m in an underground laboratory, with a dead man on the floor not ten feet away, and my aunt wants me to do CPR on a dog whom she believes to be her reincarnated husband. Now what is wrong with this picture?

  I reached Jake Carpenter’s side, noting the SIG-Sauer by his left foot. I watched as he carefully blew air into Lloyd’s unresponsive body.

  “Okay,” he said, looking up at me. “You know CPR?”

  “On people, yeah.”

  Jake didn’t waste time. “The ratio is one breath, three compressions. Count up from the sternum to the fifth rib. You know the drill. Let’s go!”

  He blew. I counted ribs, intertwined my fingers, and quickly pushed three times on Lloyd’s left side. We worked on him for a full minute before Jake stopped and pulled up one of Lloyd’s eyelids.

  “Good. Pupils are constricting. That means we haven’t lost him yet.”

  I felt Aunt Lucy come up behind us. She knelt by Lloyd, tears streaming down her cheeks, and felt with trembling fingers for the source of the bleeding.

  “I’m here, honey,” she said. “Don’t worry, Benito. I’ve got you.”

  Lloyd’s tail twitched slightly, and his lungs filled as he took his first unassisted breath.

  “Damn!” I whispered.

  Aunt Lucy stuck a gauze pad on Lloyd’s right haunch and looked up at Jake. “Apply pressure. I’m hoping it’s not the femoral artery, but given the blood loss, it may be. I just don’t know with canines.”

  “We need to get him to a vet,” Jake murmured.

  Aunt Lucy worked on fashioning a bandage while Jake applied pressure to Lloyd’s injured leg. Neither one of them so much as looked at the dead man, but I did. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at the lifeless body.

  There was no doubt that he had died immediately. I stared at Ron and wondered what brought him to my aunt’s house, what he could’ve been looking for and how valuable it must’ve been to make him take such risks. I thought of the woman who’d come to see Jake, insisting that my uncle had something for her. Were the two things connected?

  I let my examination drift away from the body for a moment as I surveyed our surroundings. How long had this secret room been a part of my uncle’s and aunt’s lives? Why hadn’t they told me? How did Jake know about it? What was he doing here? Who’d bandaged his leg?

  “Stella!” Aunt Lucy’s voice brought me back with a start.

  “What?”

  “I said I’m calling 911. We have to get your uncle upstairs!”

  “You called 911 for Lloyd? What about him?” I cried. “There’s a body on the floor behind you. Aren’t you going to see if you can do something for him?”

  Aunt Lucy and Jake exchanged glances. Neither one seemed inclined to look at the mechanic.

  “It’s too late for that,” Jake muttered. “I’ll take care of him later.”

  I frowned and shot him a skeptical glance. He wasn’t going to get off that easy. “Yeah? Well, just what are you going to do?” I said, nodding toward Ron.

  Jake shrugged. “Bury him, I guess.”

  “You need to call the police!”

  Jake looked at me with cold, dead eyes. “We can’t, Stella. The police can’t ever know about this.”

  “But you killed a man,” I said. “It was self-defense. Aunt Lucy and I will tell them so.”

  “No,” Jake answered. “You don’t understand.”

  “All right, then, help me understand.”

  Aunt Lucy intervened. “Stella, we can explain all this later. Right now we must take care of your uncle! Stella, you have to trust me. Wait for the ambulance upstairs, please!”

  Aunt Lucy was no longer the woman I’d risked my life to save. She was not rattled or shaken or even uncertain. She was a smooth operator, my aunt. Gone was the ditzy-old-lady act and in its place was a levelheaded commandant. What in the hell was going on here?

  Lloyd whined, his tail wagged briefly and I felt my heart clutch. Aunt Lucy was right. Ron was past our help, but loyal Lloyd, who’d put himself between Ron’s gun and my aunt, needed us.

  “Let’s move it!” I snapped.

  Jake and I knelt by Lloyd’s side. I stroked the fur on his muzzle and looked into his buttery-soft, dark brown eyes.

  “Easy,” I soothed as Jake slipped one arm under the dog’s back and I applied pressure to his wound. “We’re trying not to hurt you, baby,” I soothed.

  Lloyd whimpered and my heart broke.

  Aunt Lucy walked ahead of us, hit a button in the wall and as I watched it slid open. We stepped from the bright light of the lab and into the dingy, half-lit laundry area behind Uncle Benny’s workshop.

  “Take him out through the cellar door,” Aunt Lucy directed. “That’s the quickest way. We can put him on the back seat of the Buick until the ambulance gets here.”

  I couldn’t believe what was happening, or that I was participating in the cover-up of a shooting, but I did as my aunt instructed. After all, who else did Lloyd have to care for him? Hadn’t he just saved my aunt’s life? Pete didn’t want Lloyd, not really. And if Pete’s ex-wife, Tracy, had cared anything about her dog, she would’ve come back for him long ago.

  I shuddered and looked down at Lloyd. “I got you, boy,” I whispered. “I won’t let them hurt you and I won’t let you die.”

  He smiled softly and passed out.

  Jake and I gently lowered Lloyd onto the back seat of the Buick. Nina, Spike and Uncle Benny’s ancient Cadillac were long gone. Aunt Lucy was putting the finishing touches on a pressure bandage while Jake waited beside me, his face pinched and white from exertion and pain.

  “How’re you going to take care of the body in your condition?” I asked. “Your leg looks like it hurts.”

  “I’ll manage,” Jake said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  The wail of the ambulance prevented any further discussion. It rounded the corner and swung up into the driveway, lights flashing a strobe across the three of us as we waited.

  Paint Bucket hopped out of the vehicle and walked toward us.

  “Mrs. Valocchi, did you call in a gunshot wound?” he asked. He looked from one to the other of us, his eyebrows
raised into a disbelieving question. “It don’t look like anybody’s been shot to me.”

  Weasel hadn’t wasted time with questions. He’d wandered over to the open car door and was staring into the back seat, his mouth dropping into a surprised O as he leaned in closer.

  “Bucket! Knock off the chatter,” he called softly. “Looks like we’ve got a customer.”

  “Listen,” I said, “I’ve gotta get Lloyd to the emergency vet. I can drive him. I know you can’t…”

  Weasel cut me off. “Bucket, get the kit. I’m getting very shallow and rapid here. Call Louie on the cell. Let’s give him the vitals and see if he wants to start a line.”

  I felt my throat close tight on unshed tears. Weasel and Paint Bucket were no longer in la-la land. They were moving and talking like real EMTs, only I knew they’d spent most of their youth in a vast wasteland of ether, pot and gasoline fumes. What in the hell was with the idiot-savant act? And who was Louie?

  “Guys,” I said, finding my voice. “Aunt Lucy only thinks he’s my uncle. In real life, Lloyd here is a dog. He’s dying. I’ve got to get him to the emergency clinic in Malvern!”

  Weasel poked his head up briefly over the car roof as Paint Bucket handed him a stethoscope and opened up a huge red metal box full of equipment.

  “Stella, this dog won’t make it to Malvern. He don’t have time. We’re taking him to Louie.”

  Paint Bucket was on the cell phone, stripping square packets open and pulling wires out of the metal box.

  “Uncle Louie,” I heard him say. “I’m guessing forty pounds. Gunshot to the left rear haunch. No exit wound. You want me to hook him up?”

  Weasel had slipped on a pair of latex gloves. As he worked, a marked police car pulled up and a woman in uniform stepped out. My heart began pounding harder in my throat, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the questions started flying.

  “Whatcha got, Bucket?” she asked.

  Weasel looked up. “We’re transporting to Louie’s on Sheeler. You wanna escort?”

  The cop looked down, saw Lloyd and wasn’t fazed.