Clause & Effect

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  Back to plan A, I thought. Get into the house, even if I have to break a window, and phone the cops.

  At the front of the garage, I felt my way along the closed and locked overhead door. When I got to the corner where the garage met the side of my front porch, I stopped, swaying a little, to catch my breath. The steps cut into the terrace were few in number, but there was no railing. The sidewalk at the top led to more stairs, the ones going up onto my porch. At the mere thought of climbing them, my thighs cried out for mercy. So did my knees, calves, ankles, and feet. My hips had stopped speaking to me entirely. My right arm was mercifully numb . . . except when I tried to move it. And my head? I didn’t think I’d struck it on anything, but my mind no longer seemed capable of convincing my battered body to keep moving.

  It was the sound of an approaching car that snapped me out of this dangerous inaction. I pressed myself deeper into the shadows, expecting to see headlights. There were none. There was a car. Its shape was dimly visible in the glow of the nearest streetlight, but I couldn’t make out any details.

  The vehicle slowed as if the driver was searching for a specific address. I swallowed hard when he pulled in at the curb across from my house and killed the engine. When the door opened, a shadowy figure emerged. He started to cross the street, headed straight for me.

  His honor the mayor had come looking for me.

  Welby carried a flashlight in one hand, but he hadn’t yet turned it on. He couldn’t see me cowering in my dark corner, but it would be only a matter of seconds before he spotted me. Retreat was as impossible as running up the steps. To attempt either course of action would reveal my presence, but there was another alternative.

  I had to move fast and pray he didn’t turn on that flashlight. Reaching out with both trembling hands, I fumbled for the catches that held one section of the porch’s latticework skirting in place. Lifting up the hinged section sent daggers stabbing into my injured arm and made sweat break out on my forehead, but somehow I managed it and scrambled under it and into the safe haven beneath the porch. The latticework settled back into place with a dull thump.

  I held my breath.

  Welby’s shoes crunched on loose stones in the driveway as he walked toward me. Either he was making too much noise to hear my movements, or he was so confident that I could not have arrived at the house ahead of him that he discounted any small sound that reached his ears. When he turned on the flashlight to navigate the steps. I shrank back, terrified he would direct the beam my way, but he never once turned it in my direction. I heard him continue on up the steps to the porch and then, after a moment, the creak of the wicker sofa above my head as he sat down.

  He was waiting for me to come home so he could kill me.

  Chapter 44

  I have no idea how much time passed before I dared shift my position. Crouched in the dirt and cobwebs, I flexed my cramped and aching muscles one by one. Not every body part cooperated, but I was relieved to find I still had some mobility left.

  That scene on the ship in the first Indiana Jones movie suddenly made a lot more sense to me. The only place that didn’t hurt was the tip of my nose, and I wasn’t entirely sure that it hadn’t sustained some minor damage, too.

  As long as Tony Welby continued to sit on my porch, I didn’t dare leave my hiding place. I couldn’t risk much movement, either, for fear he would hear me. I shifted my position often enough to keep my legs from cramping and considered whether or not it would be prudent to crawl farther under the porch. As a kid, I hadn’t minded spiders, snakes, or rodents, but I had no great desire to come face-to-face with any of them as an adult, especially not under these circumstances. Besides, in common with the terrace, the ground under the porch rose at an angle, leaving less and less headroom. If I tried to squeeze in under the upper end I might be better concealed, but odds were good I’d also get stuck. I stayed put and turned up my hearing aids to better monitor the mayor’s every twitch.

  After a while, I heard Welby get up and move around. He paced back and forth only inches above my head, sending dust drifting down on me with every heavy footfall.

  A sneeze caught me by surprise. I had only a split second to muffle the sound against my sleeve.

  The pacing stopped. Had he heard me? Was he coming to investigate? After an endless moment, a familiar creak reassured me. He’d resumed his seat on the wicker sofa.

  Every once in a while, he shifted his weight, making me hope he’d lose patience and go away. Then all I’d have to do was wait for Cindy and her family to come home from their night out and holler for help. I could see their front lawn through the slats in the skirting.

  Simple, right?

  Wrong.

  Welby was still there, invisible to my happily oblivious neighbors, when they returned a short time later. Two of the boys were loudly debating which superhero was more powerful, Iron Man or the Hulk, while their parents appeared to be completely wrapped up in a conversation of their own. Only the youngest child sent so much as a glance in my direction. He was six years old and failed to notice anything out of place. I tried to tell myself that was a good thing. It would be very bad for me if it was easy to spot a difference in one section of latticework.

  Above my head, Tony Welby tapped his fingers on the arm of the sofa. After a bit, he cleared his throat. He shifted his weight again, making the wicker groan ominously.

  Please, please, please get tired of waiting and go away.

  He stood up.

  Yes!

  He walked as far as the top of the porch steps and stopped. Although I stretched my ears, I heard no footsteps descending, but another noise did reach me, the faint squeak as he opened my screen door. This was followed by a scratching sound.

  It took me a moment to realize what was causing it. Welby had my keys. He must have grabbed them from my car, along with the blanket.

  The mayor was letting himself into my house. No doubt he planned to make himself comfortable inside while he waited for me to show up.

  I listened harder. The door opened. He went through it. As soon as he closed it, I meant to crawl out of my hidey-hole and go to Cindy’s for help . . . if I could get my wobbly legs to cooperate. It didn’t occur to me that there was an obvious flaw in Welby’s plan until the alarms began to blare.

  I sagged with relief. I’d forgotten about my security system. Welby didn’t know the code to punch in. In a few more seconds, if I didn’t answer my landline in person and tell them this was a false alarm, a phone call from the security company would summon the police.

  Footsteps pounded down the porch steps and past my hiding place. A moment later, a car engine came to life. Welby pulled away from the curb, tires squealing.

  I dissolved into breathless laughter. It hurt when I laughed, but not enough to make me stop. I was whooping helplessly, tears running unchecked down my cheeks, by the time Cindy’s husband emerged from their house and headed my way.

  A police cruiser was just pulling up in front of the house when I shoved aside the latticework and crawled out of hiding. I must have looked like a cross between the witch from Into the Woods and the creature from the black lagoon. I staggered a few steps, lost my balance, and sat down hard in the middle of the driveway.

  A young policewoman I’d met the previous year approached with gun drawn. Her eyes widened when she recognized me.

  I had two important things to say to her.

  The first was, “Don’t let the cat out.”

  The second was, “You need to go arrest the mayor.”

  She holstered her weapon, but clearly thought I was either delirious or intoxicated. It wasn’t until I was being loaded into an ambulance, about to be whisked away to the hospital to have the damage to my arm and elsewhere looked at, and perhaps be confined to a padded room, that Detective Hazlett arrived on the scene. I grabbed him by the sleeve and wouldn’t let go until I was sure I had his full attention.

  “Check my porch for fingerprints. I was hiding because Tony Welby w
as waiting for me to come home. He was going to kill me. He did kill Gilbert Baxter. And Grace.”

  Hazlett’s response was a curt nod. “I’ll take care of it.”

  I hoped he wasn’t just humoring me. I didn’t have the strength to keep hold of him any longer. Before I could add any details to back up my claims, the ambulance attendant shut the doors between us.

  I closed my eyes.

  It’s possible I felt asleep from sheer exhaustion.

  Chapter 45

  Four days later, the amphitheater was three-quarters full for the one and only performance of the quasquibicentennial pageant. Since no one booed or walked out, I considered the production a rousing success. Afterward, the younger cast and crew members headed for the local pizza place to celebrate. We old fogeys adjourned to my house. Calpurnia, outraged by the invasion, initially hid out in my office. Later she crept downstairs to investigate and ended up sitting on my lap.

  Since everyone seemed to be having a good time, I stayed put on the loveseat and let the sound of a dozen cheerful conversations wash over me. The last time the house had been this crowded with people I’d been thirteen and celebrating my birthday with an assortment of classmates. It had been my one and only teenage party to include both girls and boys.

  Two of the attendees on that occasion were again present—Darlene and Ronnie. To my delight, Darlene was chatting amiably with her sister. I’d spotted Judy at the start of the pageant, sitting in the audience with her sister and brother-in-law, and invited her to join us. She’d been reluctant at first, but I’d pointed out that she already knew most of the other guests.

  The remaining members of the board of directors of the historical society—all but the one currently in jail—were present and accounted for, along with their spouses. Even Diego had come. He and I made a good pair with his leg in a cast and my arm in a sling.

  The mayor had been caught two days after he tried to kill me, attempting to board a flight out of Stewart Airport. He was charged with kidnapping and attempted murder and denied bail. My claims, wild as they’d sounded, had been backed up by the fingerprints he’d left behind on my front porch.

  Someone sat down on the other end of the loveseat, and I looked over to see John Chen smiling at me. He nodded his head toward the wall across from us. “The old fireplace was there, yes? I looked it up in my files. If you want to open it up again, the job shouldn’t be too complicated. You’ll probably want to have the chimney lined, though.”

  “I remember pretty green tiles,” I said. “Do you suppose you could find some like the originals?”

  “I imagine I could.” He reached over to stroke Calpurnia’s head.

  “She’ll enjoy a nice fire on a winter’s night,” I said.

  After he left to browse the hors d’oeuvres, I contemplated the wall in question, imagining it as it would be in a few months’ time. It was a pleasant fantasy—a fragrant applewood fire burning in the hearth, myself curled up on the loveseat with a cozy mystery novel. There would be an afghan over my knees and a cat at my feet.

  When the doorbell rang for the umpteenth time, I didn’t get up. Someone else could let in the latecomer. It wasn’t until a sudden silence fell over the wrap party that I turned my head and saw Detective Hazlett standing in the archway between my living room and the hallway.

  “Trouble, officer?” Ronnie asked in her grande-dame voice. “I’m quite sure no one filed a noise complaint.”

  So was I. I’d taken the precaution of inviting all my neighbors to the party.

  Hazlett spoke directly to me. “A moment of your time?”

  “Is this something you don’t want the others to hear?” I continued to stroke Calpurnia’s fur, hoping to level out the spike of anxiety Hazlett’s sudden appearance had caused. The only thing I could read in his facial expression and body language was a vague disquiet, but for one awful moment, I was afraid he’d come to tell me that the case had fallen apart and Welby was about to be released from jail.

  “Perhaps you could step out onto the porch?”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Excuse me, folks.”

  I stood, moving slowly and stiffly. At my age, it takes a while to recover from bumps and bruises. I took my drink with me.

  The level of noise rose to its former volume as soon as we left the room, but I doubted that would prevent Darlene and Ronnie from trying to eavesdrop.

  “How’s the arm?” Hazlett asked.

  “I’ll live.”

  I hadn’t broken anything, but I had pulled several muscles. Temporarily soothed by a generous infusion of rum and cola, the worst of my aches and pains were in abeyance. I made myself as comfortable as possible on the cushions of the wicker sofa while the detective settled into one of the matching chairs.

  Since the pageant had been performed at midafternoon, it was still early evening. Our celebration was more happy-hour cocktail party than a late-into-the-night affair. By eight, everyone would have gone their own way, off to have a late supper if they weren’t too full of finger food. I rather thought Darlene, Ronnie, and Shirley might linger after the rest had gone. Depending upon what Hazlett had to say, I hoped I’d be able to satisfy their curiosity.

  He cleared his throat. “It looks like your theory about Welby’s relationship with Grace Yarrow was right on the money.”

  “He confessed?”

  “No, but the evidence is mounting against him. He’ll be charged with her murder and that of Gilbert Baxter. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “No chance of him getting out, then?”

  Hazlett shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  I half expected him to leave once he’d delivered this news. When he didn’t, I was emboldened to ask for details.

  “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.” Hazlett’s voice was gruff.

  I smiled to myself. “If anyone complains, you can tell them I beat it out of you.”

  His bark of laughter sounded sweet to my ears.

  “So he seduced Grace when she was in high school? He was what—in his thirties?” I took a long swallow of my drink.

  “There’s some question as to who seduced who. Whom?”

  I waved off the question. At this precise moment, correct grammar was the least of my concerns. “Did someone confirm it?”

  “Yes. Welby’s wife.”

  “She knew?”

  Hearing the disgust in my voice, he grimaced. “You’ve never met Mrs. Welby, have you? Let’s just say that back when this all started, she shared her husband’s ambition. She was willing to turn a blind eye to his affair so long as no one else knew anything about it. According to her, it continued, on and off, from the time Grace was a junior in high school until shortly before she allegedly left town. Mrs. Welby claims she never suspected that Grace had been murdered, and that she was glad when she heard the news of her departure. When the body was found, she still wasn’t suspicious of her husband. She thought she was living with a philanderer, not a killer. And before you ask, she also claims she never confronted him about his extramarital activities. According to her, he didn’t know she was aware of his relationship with Grace Yarrow.”

  “Grace was a minor. Mrs. Welby was living with a sexual predator.”

  “Some people are good at justifying what they want to believe. My guess is that she’ll now play the deceived spouse to the hilt.”

  I pondered that for a moment. “I’m surprised she talked to you at all. When everything you’ve just told me becomes public knowledge, she won’t be seen as a sympathetic figure.”

  “It was finding out that Baxter was killed to keep him quiet about the birthmark that pushed her into talking to me.” A faint smile made the corners of his mouth twitch.

  “Baxter said it was . . . distinctive.”

  “You could say that. Apparently, it resembles a question mark when the location is in a, er, resting state, but when it’s, um, erect, it turns into an exclamation point.”

  It was a
good thing I hadn’t yet taken another sip of my drink. As it was, I choked on a laugh.

  “It’s not in a place where just anyone might see it,” Hazlett continued, avoiding my eyes, “but since Baxter was planning to report everything he knew to me, Welby was desperate to stop him before anyone else heard the description and put two and two together. It’s possible his wife isn’t the only woman who would have recognized the birthmark, but she was probably the one he was most worried about.”

  “Talk about overreacting! The affair took place decades ago. Why would he assume his wife would leap to the conclusion that he murdered his lover?”

  “Mrs. Mayor wasn’t the job she signed on for. That’s no secret. Welby’s political career wasn’t supposed to bring him back to the same small puddle he started out in. He couldn’t trust her to stick by him if there was any kind of scandal.”

  “So he killed Gilbert Baxter and then came after me.” I’d been puzzling over that ever since. “He must have read something into the expression on my face after I talked to Adam Ziskin. I suppose he remembered that Adam was on the stage crew for the bicentennial. If he knew Adam was involved with Grace, he must have thought he knew the same thing Baxter did, and that Adam had shared that information with me. Talk about paranoid! Do you suppose he meant to kill Adam, too, just to be on the safe side?”

  I could imagine it all too vividly. Footsteps in the dark. A length of pipe swung at an unprotected head. I’d been lucky. If Welby’s first attempt to dispose of me had succeeded, he’d have cracked open my skull. Had he intended to leave my body where it fell, in the hope that people would think I’d been the victim of a mugger?

  “We may never know the whole story,” Hazlett said. “Welby has lawyered up and isn’t admitting to anything. It’s only thanks to you that all his crimes are finally catching up with him.” His lips twitched. “You’ll remember that we found several partial fingerprints on that scrap of paper caught under Grace’s typewriter. One of them is Welby’s.”