Starke Naked Dead

by Conda V. Douglas

  I hated that answer. I scuttled toward Lester. Without turning around again, he gestured for me to get away.

  I kept going. A piece of glass sliced through my jeans into my knee. I ignored the pain and crawled. Miles to the sanctuary of the table.

  “Dora, get out of here,” Lester hissed as I reached him.

  “I told you Godiva was the killer.” I couldn’t resist.

  Lester gave me a nudge with his elbow. “Go on, go get help.”

  “I am help.”

  I gathered my courage and popped my head around the far edge of the table. I froze. Godiva held Nance as a shield.

  At my workbench, my tools and wax patterns lay scattered. The one of Dog Face that Nance had tweaked for me lay on the floor, flattened by a footprint. Ruined.

  I swallowed, hard. What did that matter now?

  Nance’s face showed one black eye almost swollen closed and a split lip that bled down her chin onto her neck. Godiva fared little better with her long blonde hair snarled into a witch’s nest around her face, and a huge bloody scrape on one cheek.

  Godiva’s hand that trapped Nance in an unloving embrace also held the source of all our misery—the Noira necklace. Godiva’s other hand held a .357 magnum that dwarfed her tiny plump hand. She waved the revolver around. Her eyes showed all the white as her gaze followed her wavering gun.

  If I ever doubted she killed before and would kill again, I didn’t doubt it now.

  Nance also grasped the Noira. In horror I watched her tug at the necklace.

  “Nance, let it go,” I screamed.

  Godiva focused on me. “This is all your fault!” She fired.

  The shot plowed into the four-inch-thick oak tabletop. I ducked back. My ears rang louder.

  “Goddammit!” Lester yelled loud enough for me to hear him over the ringing.

  I fumbled in my pocket for my gun.

  “Enough!” Lester jumped up.

  I followed. I couldn’t let him be killed because of my stupid plan.

  Godiva swung her gun back and forth between the two of us. Dear Buddha, she held a big honking thing, not a .22, so it couldn’t be the gun that killed her brother. Why, when I was about to die, did I worry about what gun would kill me?

  Lester fired. The shot went wide and slammed into my workbench.

  I squeaked as if it struck me. Never fire at anyone unless you shoot to kill. Lester’s words echoed in my mind.

  Godiva ducked. She released her hold on Nance. Nance slumped to her knees. She didn’t relinquish her hold on the necklace.

  “Let it go,” I yelled.

  She obeyed, for once. She let go of the necklace. She fell to the floor.

  Lester had a clear shot at Godiva. He took aim and fired again. The bullet ricocheted off the far wall, then burrowed into the floor inches away. He missed? Again?

  Lester grimaced. The pain from his arm must have destroyed his aim.

  Godiva raced toward the tunnel.

  “Shoot her.” Who yelled that? Ohm, it was me.

  She dove down the ladder. Lester ran after her. I followed.

  “Dora,” Nance said as I passed her.

  Something in the way she said my name stopped me. I crouched down beside my injured friend. “It’s okay.”

  Nance struggled to get upright. She grimaced. “I think that crazy bitch broke a rib.”

  “Stay down,” I said.

  Nance pressed her hand hard against her side. “She has the Noira.”

  “Good.”

  “No, no, it’s mine.” She pulled a knee underneath her, giving me a view of lacy purple underwear.

  “Stay down.” I wanted to smack Nance. I settled for a gentle hand on her shoulder. “The Noira’s not worth dying for.”

  Tears rolled down Nance’s face. “Yes, it is.”

  “No, Nance. Let Godiva have the cursed monstrosity.”

  “She doesn’t have it all,” Nance said. She opened her hand. The black water pearl clattered onto the floor.

  I stopped breathing. …broken jewelry…missing pearl. The pearl fell off the necklace after Rupert had hidden it in the ash trap. How could Lester know it was missing?

  Why hadn’t Lester yelled at Godiva to drop her weapon in standard police-speak? Why hadn’t he shot her, since she held a gun that she’d fired? Why had he, a crack shot, missed?

  “Forgive me, Dora.” Nance twisted her body to reach out and snatch the pearl.

  My mind spun. I needed to make it right. I had to stop Lester.

  “Drop it,” I said to Nance.

  She whimpered.

  I slapped the pearl out of her hand.

  She gasped.

  “Where’s your cell phone?” I asked.

  “My what?

  “Cell phone. Where is it?”

  “What do you want—I don’t know. I don’t have it.” Nance’s voice possessed a passel of panic.

  I made an annoyed noise deep in my throat. “Scream until somebody comes.” I ran to the tunnel. “Tell them to call Mallard.”

  “Mallard?” Nance asked. “Call a duck?”

  I swung onto the ladder. “He’s a police officer.”

  I climbed down the tunnel ladder to the accompaniment of Nance hollering. I yanked my flashlight out of my pocket and shone it on the ground, searching for an indication of where Lester and Godiva ran. At the front of the left branch of the tunnel a tiny wet spot reflected. I stepped closer and touched the spot. It came away red.

  Far off down the tunnel came a faint sound of someone yelling in a high voice. Godiva.

  “The Castle,” I yelled to Nance. “They’re headed to the Castle.”

  “The Castle? What Castle?” Nance’s voice trailed after me as I ran down the tunnel.

  My heart pounded. Lester must have interrupted Derek beating Rupert up and killed him. Maybe an accident, but Lester killed him. Lester blackmailed my father. Why? A memory of the computer updated photo of his grandson came to me and Lester’s insistence that he would find the hit-and-run driver. For that, he needed money.

  I ran. My flashlight beam bounced off dirt walls. My breath came in gasps. I reached the ladder to the Castle. Below the ladder lay a gun. Godiva’s gun. I shone my light up the ladder. Smoke curled in the beam.

  “Fire. Fire. Fire in the Castle,” I sobbed. I turned to race back down the tunnel for help. I stopped as I heard my father cry out.

  “Oh, God. You killed her, Lester.” His voice came from inside the Castle. With the fire. With Lester, a killer.

  “I’ll kill you,” Rupert yelled. The sound of running footsteps followed.

  ”Rupert, wait, no.” I climbed. “No, no.”

  I reached the top. In the darkness, heat and smoke roared over me. I coughed. I clambered out and stumbled on something soft and wet. I flung out my hands to brace myself. My flashlight clanged as it hit the floor. Sudden darkness as it died.

  I struck the floor, the wind knocked out of me. I needed air, any air, even hot smoky air. I gulped and hacked, then pushed myself up. Scrabbled for the flashlight.

  Found it and turned it on. I played the light over my wet hand. Blood.

  I shrieked.

  I clamped my lips closed. I shone the light on the thing that tripped me.

  In the beam, Godiva lay dead beside the tunnel entrance. A wound above her generous breasts bled. Blood spread from the wound down her snow white front. Blood-matted hair haloed around her head.

  I screamed.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Into the silence, something squeaked. Too shaken to scream again, I squeaked too, and cast the flashlight around, frantic to find the source. Two pinpricks of red flashed in the smoky darkness.

  The red eyes crept into the light. Fat Freddy.

  Freddy sat on his haunches next to Godiva. He held his little rodent arms in from of him. His paws pressed together as if in prayer.

  I giggled. The giggle turned into a sobbing cough. I hiccupped.

  Freddy squeaked again.


  I sniffled. “Mama Chin is worried about you.”

  The fat rat tipped his head at mention of Mama Chin.

  I made a shooing motion with my hand. “You go on home.”

  Freddy ducked his head up and down as if he nodded in agreement. Then he scurried off down the tunnel ladder, perhaps headed for home.

  I smiled at his anthropomorphic antics. The spell of my terror broken, I turned my attention back to the dead woman. Smoke wreathed her body. Oh Buddha, no. Lester must have missed in the store on purpose. He didn’t want to kill her in front of witnesses. I didn’t want to believe my unbidden thoughts.

  Godiva’s hand twitched.

  I yelped. “You’re alive,” I breathed.

  Godiva tilted her head in a tiny motion toward me. “I’m so cold.”

  I touched her icy hand, a frightening contrast to the blazing heat. “Hold on, help’s coming.”

  Under my touch, her hand trembled, a trapped dying bird.

  “What happened?” I asked in the gentlest yet most insistent voice I owned.

  “Please. Start a fire. I need a fire. So warm, so lovely.” With her dying breath, with fire all around us, still she wanted more. “Like my Noira…” A thick cloud of smoke obscured her face. Her hand stilled.

  Silence.

  “Godiva? Mary Jane?” I shined the light into her face and into her open, unblinking eyes.

  I stood. I took several steps and then started choking until I doubled over. I fell to all fours. I peered with tearing eyes but couldn’t see twelve inches in front of me through the smoke. Where was the tunnel entrance?

  I fought not to panic. Buddha, please help me find a path now.

  A cold, clean wind cut a swath in the smoke. I used it as a guide and wheezing, stumbled on all fours toward its source. My cut knee throbbed as I crawled.

  The smoke thinned a little. I felt flagstones under my hands. I must be in the Castle’s lobby. I crept on, breathing shallow. Heat made my skin prickle. I prayed I didn’t walk into flames.

  At last, through streaming eyes, I perceived the vague outline of the front door. It stood open and inviting. Air. Safety. Freedom. The wind blew in and with it floated enormous snowflakes.

  I tried to run and stumbled on the stone steps. The cut knee cracked against an edge. My lungs burning, I staggered up the rest of the steps and outside.

  I gulped the glorious air. And gasped. The rotund Castle tower blazed.

  I stumbled off the porch and slipped into a skiff of snow. Icy cold stung my cheeks. Great snowflakes swirled around me, gusted by the wind. I turned my face skyward. My mouth open I took deep breaths while the blessed cooling flakes chilled my hot skin.

  On my knees, I gazed up at the tower.

  Flames from the huge tower, now a torch, flared high into the storm. What remained of the dead fir tree, now an enormous blackened match, leaned against the tower’s base.

  An ash burned against my face. A snowflake caressed my cheek. Hot and cold.

  Past the Castle, beside the fir tree next to the tower, the dancing flames flickered over two figures. They stood several feet apart. Lester. Rupert.

  I clambered to a stand. I slipped and slithered over the snowy lawn toward them. “No,” I croaked.

  Lester stood ramrod straight next to the fir tree, his face lit by firelight. One hand held a gun pointed at Rupert, the other the Noira. Blood from his wound dripped onto the necklace.

  The falling snow almost screened my father. He huddled in the stand of fir trees that led to the mountains. He held a gun in one hand, his other arm by his side.

  “No,” I shouted, loud and harsh. The wind drew out my denial into a scream.

  Rupert turned toward me.

  Without taking his eyes off Rupert, Lester yelled, “Dora, get the hell outta here.” In a wild gesture, he threw out his wounded arm to shoo me away. The Noira flew from his hand.

  My father and I followed the arc of its flight through the falling snow. Snowflakes puffed as the Noira vanished into a drift. Lester never wavered from his focus on my father.

  Lester raised his damaged arm and grasped his gun two-handed cop style. Firelight flashed over his face, creating a demonic mask.

  Rupert took a step toward where the necklace landed. He paused. “The necklace doesn’t matter anymore.” He turned back. He brought his gun up and pointed it at Lester. “You shot my love, my Godiva, my beautiful lady.”

  Lester steadied his point on Rupert. “She deserved to die,” Lester’s words roared louder than the fire, raw with rage.

  Rupert cringed.

  “Oh, Lester, no.” I put every ounce of watching Godiva die into my voice.

  “Dora, she burned her uncle alive,” he yelled. “And Rupert’s as guilty as that bitch.”

  Rupert drew back into the fir trees. Lester tracked him with his gun. I pulled Great-grandpa’s gun out of my pocket.

  “Rupert never killed anyone,” I called to Lester. “He won’t shoot you. You know that.”

  “There’s no justice, there’s only the dead,” Lester yelled.

  He tipped his head in an old familiar way. He had drawn down a sight on the gun barrel. On my father.

  “Don’t kill him.” I brought my gun up into a two-handed hold, like Lester taught me. Never aim to wound, only to kill. “Lester, stop the killing.” My voice squeaked on the last word. “Please,” I sobbed.

  He glanced at me for the briefest of seconds. The firelight illuminated his face full of the old Lester. Shadowed with grief and love.

  He fired.

  “No!” I fired.

  In an instant that lasted a lifetime, Lester dropped his left arm as he fired. His right arm flew upward with the recoil. He twisted his body toward me.

  My hands bucked back after I fired. My feet flew out from under me. I fell on my butt. The gun tumbled from my numb hands.

  A plume of blood sprouted from Lester’s chest as he collapsed backward.

  I screeched.

  Rupert screamed, his voice higher. He still cowered in the fir trees. Unhurt.

  Lester had missed. He must have fired wide. Of course he had.

  I scrambled to my feet, and ran, sliding on the new snow. I dropped to my knees beside Lester. Blood shone in the firelight on his coat front. He gasped and a raw sucking sound came from his wound.

  I tore off my apron and bundled it as best I could. I pressed it into the wound. The wet sound lessened, but only a little.

  “Let it be, Dora,” Lester coughed.

  “Hold on,” I said.

  I looked over at my father. He still stood frozen in the same spot. “Help me.”

  He took a step toward us.

  A siren sounded in Starke.

  Rupert and I looked in the direction of the cacophony. The snow screened the truck. Yet I could see the red lights wavering back and forth as the fire truck swerved on the snow-coated road.

  Rupert looked back at me. “I’m sorry, Dora.” He turned toward the forest.

  “Don’t run. For once, don’t run.”

  He gave me one last look over his shoulder.

  “You’ll die out there,” I cried.

  Rupert didn’t hesitate. He ran into the woods. He ran in the thick falling snow. His leather coat flapped in the cruel wind. He flitted, a ghost. Not a man. Not my father. A ghost.

  “Dora,” Lester whispered.

  I looked down at the man who had always been a father to me. In the red light, his face glowed ruddy, as if in health. The flecks of blood on his lips gave lie to the glow.

  “Don’t talk, help’s coming.”

  “I never wanted the Noira. I needed money to find Joey’s killer,” Lester said, his voice threaded high and too thin.

  “I know. I understand. It’s okay.”

  “I never wanted to kill anybody.”

  “Shh.”

  “I wanted justice.” A snowflake fluttered onto his eyelid and Lester blinked.

  I wiped the damp away. “Hold on.” I glanced up
to see if help came, but the fire engine lights still seemed years away.

  Lester coughed. Blood sprayed from his mouth.

  “Please stay, please,” I begged him.

  Lester gasped, his breath ragged. “Forgive me.”

  “Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

  “Dora,” Lester gasped.

  I stared into his eyes.

  He looked back and with his gaze asked again. He waited for me to say three words. And let him go.

  I smiled at him. “I forgive you.”

  He smiled back. “Forgive yourself too,” he whispered.

  I nodded. I lied.

  He stared upward at the falling snowflakes. The wet sound ceased. In the red firelight on his face, snowflakes fell upon his open eyes.

  In the still of the falling snow, I crouched over him. To protect my old friend from the bitter snow. Flakes fell past me, for the wet showed on his face. Or perhaps that was only my tears.

  FORTY

  The snow fell.

  Forever, I protected Lester until Mallard pulled me away. Forever, the old fir tree toppled in a red shower of sparks. Forever, a spark seared onto my frozen face. Forever, the Castle tower tumbled after the fir tree. Forever, I watched the burning of Lester’s funeral pyre.

  The snow fell.

  I sat in Mallard’s police car. My teeth clattered. Even after Mallard gave me his heavily lined and fur hooded winter coat. The firemen, Jeff and James, won the battle. Doc Byrne came. Lester left in the ambulance. The ambulance arrived without sirens, without lights, without need.

  I sat in my same chair in the sheriff’s office and answered Mallard’s question after question after question. I clutched a hot cup of coffee. And shivered. I’d never be warm again.

  The snow fell.

  I spent the little remainder of the night at the old homestead. I’d begged Mallard to let the Widows Brigade keep Aunt Maddie. I lay in my comfy old bed for the first time in days. I didn’t sleep. When I closed my eyes I saw images—a burning tower, my father fleeing to a cold death, Lester’s blood splashed on white snow. I shivered.

  At last, I sat at my bedroom window and watched the snow falling thick through the long night. At dawn, the snow died. The sun cast rosy light onto the pristine snow. The color of blood in snow melt.