Cheddar Off Dead

by Julia Buckley

  My phone buzzed in my pocket; confused, I took it out and saw Mark’s response. Yeah, I hope U don’t mind. I told Cleo all about UR TV spot and how excited my mom was.

  I looked up again, an instant too late to see Cleo, her thrashings ended, sliding the gun out of Wendy’s holster, turning it on Wendy, and pulling the trigger. “No!” Wendy yelled, and then she was dragging herself behind the blue car, leaving a bloodstain in her wake.

  Cleo was standing now, holding the gun on three frightened women. “You saw the phone, right? You figured it out there in the driveway. But of course you might have known it was me, anyway. I know I saw you that day, with your long blonde braid and your narrowed eyes. I knew you were suspicious.”

  “The sun was in my eyes. But I certainly know now, Cleo. You shot a cop. You shot your husband. You’re going to jail forever.”

  “What?” my mother cried. “You killed your own husband? Oh, Cleo.” Her disappointment was more evident than her shock, and Cleo heard it. Remarkably she wanted to defend herself. My mother had that effect on people.

  “He cheated on me. With Isabel! She’s everything that I’m not—smart, sophisticated, talented, beautiful. There was no way I was going to win him back from her.”

  “He wasn’t going to her,” I said. My voice sounded weary, something separate from myself.

  “How do you know?” Cleo looked vulnerable again, but the gun was steady in her hands. She had killed Brad with one shot. This recollection made me tremble.

  “Because Isabel said so. She said he wanted to be alone. To make some decisions about his life.”

  Two tears ran down Cleo’s face, but her gun hand didn’t move.

  Betsy and my mother were making distressed sounds behind me, and Betsy was calling, “Wendy? Wen? Are you okay?”

  There was no response from Wendy, but behind Cleo I could see her legs moving, slowly, changing position. Perhaps Betsy could, too, because she went silent.

  I pointed at my pocket. “Did you see that I just had my phone out? I texted Detective Jay Parker of the Pine Haven Police. He’s on his way.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Cleo said with a curl of her lip. “That’s a bunch of BS. Why would you have his number handy on your phone?”

  “Because he’s my boyfriend,” I said.

  “Oh, Lilah!” said my mother with what seemed like delight. A gun pointed at us both, and she was probably already making mental wedding plans.

  Cleo looked slightly uncertain. “In any case, we’re not going to be here even if that’s true. We’re leaving right now, you and me.” She gestured toward my mother and Betsy. “You two go over there, by the cop.”

  She pointed with the hand that didn’t hold the gun. They moved slowly, carefully, and then Betsy flew toward Wendy and knelt down behind the car, out of my sight line. My mother went, too, and stood there, her lips in a thin, disapproving line. “I don’t know what you think you’ll achieve,” she said, a hint of distress in her voice. “Where can you possibly go that the police won’t find you?”

  “I have an idea,” said Cleo with an unpleasant smile. I wondered now why I had never noticed that her eyes had a strange, unfocused quality.

  She turned to me. “Go out the door and back to your friend’s car. She left the keys in there, I saw. Do it!”

  I turned and went back into the cold. I didn’t have much desire to argue with an unbalanced woman holding a gun. My mother said, “Don’t worry, Lilah. He’ll be here soon.”

  I sighed. If only I had actually texted Parker. I doubted I could get away with grabbing my phone now. But surely Wendy, if she were still conscious, would have contacted someone? We walked out into the driveway, and I had a brief hope that Cleo would hit the same ice patch that had us all in stitches a few innocent moments earlier.

  Instead she walked on the crunchy grass and sent me across the same route. We remained upright, and Cleo ordered me behind the wheel of Wendy’s car. “Get in and drive. I don’t want to shoot you—I’d rather have you as a hostage—but if you want to be dead, that’s your choice.”

  I did not want to be dead. I got behind the steering wheel and started the car. “Head to the city,” she said. “Take the Lake Shore Drive exit. My uncle has a boat, and we’re going to spend some time on it. My cousin Marco should be taking care of everything.”

  A boat? None of the boats were left on the water; it was December, for goodness’ sake. The boats were in winter storage. Perhaps, though, Cleo’s apparent ignorance could work to my advantage. “Great. Sounds like a nice place to spend the holiday,” I said through chattering teeth as I backed out and started driving down Mainland. The woods across the way seemed sinister now rather than beautiful. I glanced into the rearview, hoping to see red and blue lights, but I saw only darkness. Surely Wendy had called it in by now? Was Wendy even okay?

  “Faster,” Cleo said. “Good. Now we’ll just stick to the back roads until you get to the expressway.”

  “Sure.” For a while there was silence. Perhaps if she relaxed, she’d set down the gun, and then—what? Would I have the courage to crash the car or slam hard on the brakes in an attempt to set off the air bags? And what if that didn’t work? Then I’d just have an angry murderer with a loaded gun.

  The car moved in silence through the cold night. Cleo pointed at an expressway ramp, and I got on, heading for the city. Random images bounced in my mind, jumbled by fear. Parker’s blue eyes. My mother, hanging stockings. Wendy, dripping blood on the garage floor. Betsy and her jingling bells. Serafina and her red purse. Mick’s wise, nodding head. My father, drinking hot chocolate. My brother, a brand-new husband, in love with his wife. Brother. Brothers.

  “Hey. Why did your brother shoot a hole in my window?” My voice shook slightly, but my mind said, Keep her talking.

  Cleo snorted. “He found the gun. I guess he figured things out. He thought if he could leave the weapon somewhere, have witnesses connect it to some anonymous gunman, then no one would suspect me. I told him it was stupid.”

  “Why me?”

  “I told him you were there, when Brad died. I recognized you, but you didn’t seem to recognize me at the restaurant. But I wasn’t sure—you seemed to be everywhere I was. Like the police planted you there or something. He thought it might intimidate you into keeping quiet.”

  My phone rang. Shoot. Cleo raised her eyebrows and then reached across to my jacket pocket. She took the phone and glanced at the caller. “So you weren’t lying. Some cop is really calling you. Dammit.” Then she looked closer. “I recognize this picture. This is the guy from the Christmas party. What was he doing there?”

  “We were there together. On a date.”

  “Why? Do you teach at the school where Brad was Santa?”

  “No. Friend of a friend.”

  She clicked on my phone. “This is Cleo. You cops need to stay away from me or you’ll be putting your girlfriend in danger.”

  I heard Parker’s voice, loud, angry, but I couldn’t make out words.

  Cleo giggled. Despite everything, it wasn’t until then that I realized there was something wrong inside her. “Just stay away, and everything will be fine.” She clicked off the phone and then looked at me. “Your boyfriend just threatened me. He threatened to shoot me.”

  “He did not.”

  “I swear. He didn’t sound very professional at all. I think his feelings are getting in the way.” She rolled down her window and threw my phone onto the expressway. “They can trace that. I left mine back at the house. Now hopefully they’ll have no way of finding us.”

  Except for Wendy’s license plate. But I kept that thought to myself.

  We drove some more; it was about seven o’clock now, and there was still plenty of traffic on the road, but I didn’t know how to signal someone without alerting Cleo, who still held the gun perilously close to my side.


  “The funny thing is,” I said, “you seemed so sad. Like someone else really took your husband away. Not like you lured him out of a building so you could shoot him yourself.”

  “I am sad! I did that in anger; I didn’t think it through, obviously. Because now I’m stuck here with you and I’m going to have to make arrangements to leave the country. But that’s fine. I’m sick of Chicago winters. I want to go somewhere warm.” She pointed at the Lake Shore Drive sign, and I got into the exit lane.

  “Who exactly is going to make those arrangements for you?”

  “That’s none of your business. Just get me to the lake.” She had pulled something out of her purse and was texting on it one-handed while somehow keeping her weird eyes on me.

  “I thought you left your phone behind,” I said. I couldn’t seem to keep my mouth closed, despite my fear.

  “I did. This is my iPod. They probably don’t know about this, right? Or they won’t think to check until later.”

  “Are you going to kill your cousin, too? The one we’re meeting?”

  She pouted. “No, but I might kill you if you don’t stop criticizing me. I loved my husband. That’s why I was so angry when I heard that the tickets were for her. How could he do that to me?” Her jaw thrust out aggressively, and she leaned closer with her gun. I tried to keep my eyes on the traffic even as they kept darting toward her, gauging my level of danger. It was an absurd situation all around—an ill-fated, chance meeting with a Santa Claus who just happened to have a homicidal wife, then a few surreal days with a bodyguard who now lay bleeding even as a murderer forced me to drive into the darkness toward an unknown destination and a boat that couldn’t possibly be there when we arrived.

  On our right, the lake glimmered in the dark. A seagull who hadn’t been told his bedtime sat on a wood piling and stared at me for a moment before we sped past. He, too, was alone and palely loitering. . . .

  “Ah!” I said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was just trying to remember a poem earlier, when I saw you, and now I remember it—‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci.’ John Keats. I read it in college.”

  “So?”

  “So it means I knew it was you, unconsciously, before I figured it out.”

  “Why? What does that title mean?”

  “It means ‘The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy.’”

  Cleo stared at me, her eyes weirdly pleased. “You think I’m beautiful?”

  Her device buzzed in her hand, saving me from having to respond. She clicked it on and read something.

  There was silence while Cleo read and typed a brief one-handed response.

  “Okay,” Cleo said. “We’re almost there.” She said something under her breath in Italian.

  I struggled to remember any Italian words that Fina had taught me, but it didn’t help. I had no idea what Cleo had said. Poor Fina and Cam. Did they know what was happening? Were they worried about me? I knew my mother must be, although she was convinced that Parker would ride up on a white horse and save me. I let my mind play with the image of blue-eyed Parker astride a horse. It calmed me slightly.

  “Here,” said Cleo. “Take the Belmont exit.”

  I did as she said. I was numb, and not from the cold. “How about if I let you out and then I drive away?” I said.

  “I still need you. I need you until I’m on my boat and headed out of here. I might even have to take you to my next destination. No one’s going to shoot when there’s a hostage, right?”

  “Cleo. You’d be better off going in, saying it was an accident. You don’t want anything else that they can charge you with. You’re already at murder and abduction.”

  She instructed me to turn right into a little wooded parking area. I stopped there, the only car in an otherwise empty lot. Prompted by Cleo, I got out of the car and began walking with her toward the Lakefront Trail and Belmont Harbor. It was dark now, and a few harbor lights twinkled on the black water. The city, to our left, looked festive with Christmas decor and bustling people. I felt jealous as I thought of what might await those little rushing figures: warm meals, smiling families, Christmas trees, hot chocolate. My eyes burned, and I wiped at them so Cleo wouldn’t see my tears and interpret them as weakness.

  We were still walking; this was where the boats normally sat, gently rocking, their hulks covered with tarps. I felt weirdly detached from my body as we walked, and I barely felt my feet as they touched the ground. I wondered vaguely if I was in shock or if it so was cold that I was frozen. I waited, nervous, for Cleo to notice that the boats were missing.

  It took her a while, distracted as she was, but she finally stopped and stared dumbly at the black water. “Where the hell are the boats? I told Marco to meet me here; we’re going to leave in the dark, and no one will realize we’re not on land anymore.”

  “Not even when they find Wendy’s car at Belmont Harbor?”

  She waved this thought away. “They won’t find it for a long time. Why would they? They’re not going to be looking here.”

  “Doesn’t your cousin know that boats are in winter storage?”

  “He doesn’t usually get to drive the boat. It’s my uncle’s, like I said. He doesn’t trust Marco with it.”

  I wondered which uncle this was. Her uncle Enrico? Or another Donato brother that Parker knew nothing about? Certainly Donatos seemed to have a way of multiplying. In any case, cousin Marco sounded about as bright as Cleo was. Perhaps he was driving up from some suburb and unfamiliar with the city boating policies. If that were the case, though, then could he be trusted to pilot a boat? None of this made sense; I wanted to be gone.

  “How about if I leave you here, Cleo?”

  She flicked her red hair over her shoulder with her free hand, then looked at her watch. “You’re going where I tell you.”

  “Find your cousin and go. You’re running out of time.” Police sirens wailed distantly. I wondered if they could be for me.

  Cleo focused in on me. Her eyes shimmered resentfully in the dark. “Don’t threaten me!”

  “I’m not threatening you; I’m trying to help you.”

  “No you’re not. This is because of you,” she said. She raised her gun and pointed it at my chest. “This is all because of you!”

  I fought to find words in my own defense, but my body was frozen with terror. Was this really how I would die, at an empty boat harbor in the dark, with Christmas lights shining all around me? Had Brad Whitefield believed he would die in a Santa suit?

  “Don’t, Cleo,” I managed.

  “Why not? Give me one good reason why not?”

  My mind, dulled with fear, supplied me with only one answer. “Brad said I deserved a second chance.”

  Her eyes grew huge. “He said that? When you two were there in the parking lot?”

  “Yes. We were talking about life. He said some beautiful things.”

  She scowled at me; this had clearly not been the right thing to say. I was about to die.

  The gun seemed to tremble in her hands. Then her eyes widened, her body stiffened, and she crumpled to the ground. Behind her stood a man with some type of weapon in his hand.

  “Hello, Miss Drake,” he said.

  It was Enrico Donato. Even in the dark I saw that he was still wearing his slippers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I stared at him, my mouth open and ready to scream. “Did you kill her? Did you kill your niece?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “As I assured you long ago, Miss Drake, I am not in the habit of killing people. This is a Taser, and I regret that I had to use it, but Cleopatra had become unstable. She always was a difficult child.”

  “Cleopatra? My God, this family,” I said, staring down at Cleo, who looked like a cement statue of herself.

  A suspicion entered my mind, and my head whipped up so that I could st
udy Enrico Donato, who held very still with his Taser in his gloved hand. “How did you know we would be here? You couldn’t possibly have known unless she told you.”

  He shook his head. “Or unless Frank told me, which he did. Frank is loyal to me, and for the last few days that meant he was loyal to you.”

  “Then why didn’t he report the shooting of my house? He must have seen it?”

  Donato shrugged. “He recognized my nephew. We weren’t sure what he was up to, but we were confident that Eduardo had not committed the crime, since he was with us at the time. I told Frank to watch things more closely. That is how we found out that my niece had betrayed us all and killed a good man.”

  He shook his head and slid the Taser into his pocket. “I owe you an apology, Miss Drake. I assured you that no one in my family had hurt Brad Whitefield; now I find out that is not true. I can promise you I did not believe at the time—”

  “I understand,” I said. There was genuine grief in Donato’s voice, and despite everything—my fear, my anger, my almost overwhelming relief—I felt sorry for him. “But you do know we have to call the police, right?”

  “I have already called them. This is a matter of family honor, and we will do the right thing.”

  The sirens had grown louder; they had been for me after all.

  I shoved my hands into my pockets. “If you’re here and Frank came with you, then who was going to drive the boat? The supposed boat, I mean,” I asked, pointing at the empty harbor.

  Donato sighed again. “I fear it is one of my less than intelligent nephews. Cleo likely lured him with talk of Brad’s sizable life insurance policy.” He met my eyes with his arresting gray ones. “But I do not believe murderers can collect on those contracts.”

  “No—I don’t believe they can.”