Murder Mansion

by M K Scott

  “Where are you?”

  “Home.” Pretty much true, she thought as she drove into the driveway. The garage door came up, allowing her to pull in. Good thing she wasn’t working tomorrow. Life certainly threw her a curve ball today. Make that two curve balls and then ran her over with a steam roller.

  “How are you?”

  “Exhausted. I’m going straight to bed, but figured I’d call you because if you heard about the shooting you’d be mad I didn’t tell you.”

  Daniel cleared his throat. “You’re right,” he acknowledged gruffly. “What are your plans?”

  “Mark’s surgery is at seven in the morning. I’ll be at the hospital maybe earlier. I could not convince the police to put a security detail on one of their own. They insisted the hospital has security.” She couldn’t believe the force could be so negligent. She’d worked in a hospital long enough to know how well security worked.

  Stalkers, non-custodial parents with no-contact orders, even exes determined to see how bad off their former spouse was made it to a post-op floor with little trouble. She considered herself the last line of defense. Did her job well. Sent the people packing, but she couldn’t be at the hospital twenty-four/seven, but she could be by Mark’s side tomorrow.

  No canine frenzy of happiness greeted her when she opened the door. The foyer light she usually left on, wasn’t. Could be she forgot in her hectic leave-taking. The bulb could have burned out, too. Even though the package advertised it was a three-year bulb, they never meant used continuously. Her keys clattered to the floor as she missed the bowl. Should pick them up, but it seemed too much work. Besides, tomorrow she’d remember where they were.

  A pang of loneliness hit as sure as any hypodermic needle driven hard into her skin. A long sigh escaped her as she examined the mess from her sudden departure in the dim light thrown by the exterior security light. She’d deal with it tomorrow.

  The knee she fell on had stiffened up, making her walk more like a peg-leg pirate. If she didn’t ice it before bed, she probably wouldn’t be able to bend it the next day. Sleep, sweet dreamless sleep, beckoned more than holding a bag of frozen peas on her knee. The house felt wrong. Difficult to put her finger on it, but something wasn’t quite right. Excluding the mess she left and the absence of her dog, a cold breeze circled around her, touching her face before blowing a paper off the table. The sliding glass door was partially opened.

  Exhaustion tugged at her, dulling her senses. Did she close the door when she left? Of course, she did. Otherwise, she’d have an incredibly high heating bill. Did she lock it would be a better question. Probably not. Great. All she needed was a burglary to top things off.

  Her favorite cast-iron skillet sat on the counter. Obviously not a cooking ware savvy thief or he would have taken the skillet. Cast iron didn’t come cheap. A tiny sound pierced her lethargy. Something moving, maybe caused by the wind. She took a silent side step to the counter and wrapped her hand around the heavy skillet handle. The sweet smell of chloroform alerted her to the location of her visitor. Gripping the handle tightly, she spun, swinging the pan at chest level.

  Thump! A curse in the shadowy room, a stumble, but not a fall and the distinctive sound of a trigger pulled back. Donna dropped to the floor before the bullet shot through the air where she used to be.

  A groan came from the area near the fridge where the shadows were the deepest. Whoever it was had just felt the aftereffects of battering by quality cast iron. Donna’s body, flattened against the floor, made a smaller target, but eventually the shooter would investigate. No reason to lie there waiting for imminent death. Donna tried to get a visual of where she was and where the shooter lay.

  The rounded edge of the stove pressed into her calf, which meant she was only five feet from the back door. All she had to do was work her way back out of the house, jump in the car and leave.

  Oh yeah, the keys. Maybe she’d come across them as she backed out. Holding her breath, she wiggled back an inch. Her coat caught on the stove drawer, making the effort harder and not exactly silent.

  “Stop right there. No getting away, you know.” The raspy female voice sounded somewhat familiar. Not in the someone she knew way, but someone she had talked to at one time.

  Stopping didn’t seem like a great option, but the shooter knew where she was. Sweat beaded on her face as she considered her options. The ignominy of being killed in a home invasion was not how she wanted to go. Her right hand moved behind her, checking out the area when it encountered the hard handle of the skillet. It must have bounced when she dropped it.

  It served her once. It could serve her again. Taking a tiny breath, she visualized throwing the pan at the culprit who resided near her fridge. Good chance she’d hit the person or create the distraction she needed to get outside.

  “You’re hard to kill for such an old-school chick. Surprised me.” There was the sound of movement and a slap of an open hand against the fridge.

  The woman was attempting to stand, which would put Donna at a distinct disadvantage. Flat on the floor, she’d be little more than a cockroach. The woman continued to talk, demonstrating she didn’t know her exact hiding place. The light switch rested by the back door. If she had turned it on when she came in instead of wondering why the foyer light was out, she could have been dead already. The light would have illuminated her as an easy target, not that she wasn’t one right now. She had to get up and run. All she had was a skillet, which she could throw, but would more likely fly through the air and miss the woman. What else could serve as another weapon?

  If she were by the china cabinet, she had an arsenal of expensive porcelain frisbees to throw. Near the door, close to the stove, what was there?

  “Being an old chick, figured you’d stick to old-school ways.”

  Wasn’t it bad enough she was trying to kill Donna? Did she have to preface everything with the adjective old?

  Donna moved into a squatting position without a sound or an ominous creak of the knee. Who’s old now, she wanted to taunt but knew better. Definitely time to keep her thoughts to herself. Too bad no one told her own personal nemesis the same thing. The woman’s voice grew louder, indicating she was moving closer.

  “I know your name. Your brother introduced himself and told me your name too.

  Thanks, Daniel. It never paid giving out too much information. Act now! Her inner SWAT team persona screamed. In a flash, she remembered the knife block on her counter filled with precision blades that could cut through aluminum and a frozen roast.

  “If you would have left things alone, then I wouldn’t have to kill you. I figured the police would let the case go cold since no one cared about the dead man. No outraged rich family fueling the investigation. Just you. All I had to do was…”

  Donna jumped up, threw the pan that earned a curse, but no oomph of pain. A bullet went wide, just barely missing her arm by inches. The other woman still couldn’t see her or was a poor shot. Donna lunged for the counter where she knew the block was, picking up a handful of knives and throwing them at the backlit form conveniently standing in front of the window.

  “What the hell?” A knife clattered to the floor, indicating a miss.

  Inhaling, she held her breath as she took aim with the boning knife. It had the length and feel of the knives she used to throw as a kid. Before settling on nursing as a career choice, she had considered circus performer.

  The torso would be the widest target, but she didn’t want to kill her. Lower near the thigh would disable her, giving Donna the needed time to hotfoot it out of there. The knife rushed through the air as the ambient light caught the shine of the gun barrel. Both weapons gleamed together for a second until the knife pierced the woman’s gun hand. The weapon tumbled to the floor with a hollow thud. Sirens sounded in the background.

  Tires squealing outside along with the abrupt cessation of the siren announced the cavalry had arrived, but she wasn’t safe yet. The knife stick made her culprit even more bloodthir
sty. The black blob on the floor had to be the gun. Donna threw herself on it. The solid circular metal form pressed into her stomach. Too late, she’d realized she’d thrown herself onto one of Jasper’s dishes. He tended to push them around once they were empty, hoping to remind her of their unfilled state.

  Great. Where was the gun? A voice yelled outside the sliding glass door. “Police. Freeze.” The first one had a flashlight, but it didn’t stop him from stumbling over her prone body. At least he caught himself before he fell. The second one had enough sense to flick on the lights.

  Donna blinked at the sudden brightness, then looked at the woman with two grim-faced cops holding her arms. The light bounced off her black sequined shirt and shiny spandex pants. Donna’s eyes trailed down to the high-heeled sneakers. Ah yes, how a stripper dresses to commit crimes. She must have missed that fashion advice.

  The woman twisted in the officers’ hold. She managed to toss her long blond hair back before smiling at the officers. “It’s all a mistake. That woman,” she said, angling her head in Donna’s direction so there would be no question who she was referring to, “she’s crazy. Stabbed me with a knife and threw a skillet at me.”

  Words rushed to Donna’s lips but never left, as she stood transfixed by the woman’s elongated neck with just a tiny bulge of an Adam’s apple. That was usually the hardest thing to change in sexual reassignment surgery. They could shave it down some, which helped with the more pronounced ones.

  One officer held her potential neighbor as the other cop cuffed her. An idea was starting to form, but she chose not to share her deductions. She asked a question instead.

  “How come you know your way around my inn so well?”

  A smirk screwed up the killer’s face before she gave a short laugh. “Burns you, doesn’t it?” A medic stepped over to examine her hand, which resulted in her kicking out at him.

  “Not too serious,” the medic announced, backing out of kicking distance.

  Another police officer, wearing latex gloves, edged the gun out from under the table and into an evidence bag. No way she’d have located that gun in a timely fashion. As it was, she’d sport a dog bowl shaped bruise for a few weeks. Good thing the police showed up since it appeared that her limited knife skills wouldn’t have saved her.

  One officer, a little older than the rest, seemed to be barking out orders. Must be in charge, or people let him think he was. She sidled up to him and waited for a break in shouting. He glanced over at her, giving her the opening she needed.

  “Who called the police?” She suspected the retired music teacher across the street who kept a sharp eye on the neighborhood activities.

  “Taber asked us to drive by. You thought he’d be vulnerable in the hospital, but he considered you a much more likely target. When en route, a 911call came from your neighbor.”

  The words struck her like the anvil that Wiley Coyote was always trying to drop on Roadrunner’s head. “Why didn’t he tell me?” Her indignant exclamation right into his face was the definition of confrontational. She took a step back, cleared her throat and said in a much, softer, milder voice, “He didn’t tell me. It might have been hard since he was falling sleep.”

  The man nodded his head. “It’s the drugs the hospital shot him full of. Be thankful, he shook off the effects long enough to call for help.”

  The man saved her life.

  “What about me?” A whine entered the stripper’s voice. One of the officers read her the Miranda warning as they escorted her out of the house.

  Donna watched her go, still batting her eyes heavy with false eyelashes at the younger cop. Honestly, they couldn’t see it. Put an enormous amount of blond hair and a rack in a man’s face and he missed the obvious. Well, maybe not the obvious. She’d seen drag queens in her college days that made better women than this one.

  The police cars peeled off, causing the neighbors to wander back inside their houses. The captain nodded at her. “You going to be okay here?”

  “Yeah, sure, you got the killer.” Her words reassured her somewhat. No reason she couldn’t go to sleep in her own bed. The man was almost out the door when she finished her thought. “Unless there’s an accomplice.”

  As tired, battered and bruised as she was, the thought sent a thrill of fear up her spine. Great. The captain gave her questioning look as she scooped up her keys. “Wait until I lock up, I’m going to my brother’s house.”

  He not only waited for her but followed behind her in his squad car too, for which she was incredibly grateful. The policeman couldn’t see her lips or hear her chanting, which was just as well. “I’m strong. I refuse to fall apart. I can do this.”

  She felt like the little pig with the straw house and needed her brother with the brick house to let her in. Her closed fist hammered on the door while the police car idled in the distance. “Let me in, let me in,” she murmured as she knocked. Maria answered the door in a robe, her eyes barely open, indicating she had been asleep.

  “What’s up?”

  Not bothering to answer, Donna pushed inside, slammed the door, shot the deadbolt, then twisted the handle lock.

  Daniel padded in barefoot in a pair of pajamas she knew he hastily donned. Not that she wanted to know her brother’s sleeping habits, but a previous girlfriend felt everyone needed to know they were always nude. “What’s going on?”

  She ignored her brother’s question and sprinted for the overstuffed club chair. The one her father always used to sit in. The leather squeaked as she plopped down, then the shaking started. Her hands gripped her arms, trying to control the tremors.

  Maria’s voice sounded distant. “Daniel, she’s going into shock.”

  Her brother knelt by the chair and embraced her. “It’s okay, Donnie. Everything will work out.” He turned his head slightly and called out to his wife. “Get me a blanket and the brandy.”

  Two drinks later, her shaking had subsided enough to explain her sudden appearance. “They caught the killer.”

  “That’s good.” Her brother gave her a measuring look. “Why would that upset you?”

  “Caught her in my house, trying to kill me.” She shook her head, barely able to imagine minutes before she was fighting for her life.

  “Oh my God!” Maria yelped and scooted over to the chair to pet Donna’s shoulder as if she were a cat. People did odd things in the name of comfort. There were worse things.

  “Taber saved my life. He called the police from his hospital bed.” She shook her head, trying to imagine Mark swimming up from a drug-induced haze to call the cops. His sharp mind put together the killer’s most probable actions quicker than she did. Her mouth quirked as she recalled she almost walked into certain death tonight.

  Her trembling stopped, but a weariness overtook her as she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Daniel hovered over her as Maria spoke. “The poor dear, she’s been through so much. I wonder if this B and B idea should just be shelved.”

  “No!” She answered without opening her eyes. Her brother snorted before adding, “Sounds like she’s back to normal. C’mon, sis, you’ll want to go to bed, especially if you’re going to be at the hospital for Taber’s surgery.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “You’re right.” She stood and allowed Maria to herd her to the guest room even though she was familiar with its location.

  “I even got feather pillows for you.”

  “I appreciate it.” She smothered a yawn behind her hand as she opened the bedroom door. “See ya in the morning.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The bitter coffee gave off a slight burnt aroma that caused Donna to place it back on the table. “You’d think they could come up with a fresh pot as opposed to this stuff that must have sat on the back burner for two days distilling until it was an undrinkable sludge.”

  Daniel gulped the rest of his coffee before setting the empty cup down. “It’s okay. Besides, your nerves could do without any more caffeine.”

  Her brother
might be right but it didn’t mean she had to agree. Instead, she stood and paced around the small waiting room. A slight hint of cigarette smoke lingered despite all the NO SMOKING signs posted everywhere. Normally, she’d be going into a rant about the dangers of smoking, but for a moment she wondered if a cigarette could help ease her anxiety.

  Daniel looked up from the magazine he was flipping through. “As a nurse, you realize it’s a simple operation.”

  She pivoted and pinned her brother with a disbelieving expression. “Are you serious?”

  “What?” He shrugged his shoulders. “What did I say?”

  She took a few more steps, then turned and threw her hands up in the air. “People die everyday in simple operations. Last week, a woman expired during liposuction. Liposuction for Pete’s sake.”

  Daniel threw the magazine down and stepped over to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I know it’s hard, but…”

  A nurse appeared in the open doorway. “Are you Mark Taber’s sister?” She glanced at Donna.

  “Yes I am and this is his brother.”

  The nurse eyed Daniel longer than needed in Donna’s opinion, but she didn’t question her assertion. “Good news. Taber came out of the operation with flying colors. He’s in recovery now. We’re waiting for him to wake up, then we’ll take him to his room. Then you can see him.”

  Thirty minutes later, Daniel and Donna slipped into Taber’s room. The man, surrounded by pillows, smiled at the two of them.

  “My family keeps getting larger and larger. I always wanted a brother.”

  Donna maneuvered around her brother to check Taber’s monitor and chart.

  “Does it meet your specifications? Am I progressing as I should?”

  The man was chatty, but people reacted differently to anesthesia. Most just zoned out, but apparently not Taber. Even though he looked slightly awkward in his thin hospital gown, he still managed to look heroic.