"Putting a bulb in the porch light."
Frank opened the back door. "If you're going with me, come on. I want to get to bed so I can get up in the morning."
"I'll stay till the cops get here. Maybe I'll just stay the night."
"Oh, no!" Sherry shot back. "I only have one bed and that's mine. You are not sleeping with me."
Mark followed his father back inside. "If the cop won't bring me home, I'll walk. I'll help Sherry hang up her clothes." He picked up the basket and carried it to the porch.
"They're not sorted," she said as she used a clothespin to fasten the plastic bag of pins to the line. "I just wanted to get out of there."
"Why?"
As she picked up a pair of jeans, she reiterated what had happened at the Laundromat. "I don't know why she is harassing me. There's nothing between us."
"There could be." He picked a pair of pink panties from the basket. "Ooh! Look at that--pink with lace. And a bra to match."
She grabbed her underwear from him. "Hang up something other than my uns."
"Go out with me, Sherry"
"Out where?"
"You know what I mean. Dinner and a movie on Friday night."
"I have to work Friday."
"What time do you get off?"
"Nine."
"I'll pick you up there."
"Oh, no! I'm not giving Elena any reason to believe that what she thinks might be true. You pick me up here after I drive home. And just for supper. Some place where she won't show up."
"I know just the place. A little family restaurant that Elena wouldn't be caught dead in."
Sherry was leery but she agreed. "I'll call you when I'm ready."
While they waited for the cops, she had Mark install the other light bulbs where she wanted them. "Outside the breezeway door, in the downstairs hallway and in the upstairs bathroom."
The state trooper who answered the call was one neither Sherry nor Mark knew. He had sandy-colored hair and a humorless look as if he were afraid his face would break if he smiled. "I hear there were shots fired here," he said as Sherry opened the door for him.
She held up one finger. "Just one. She shot through the garage door window. I heard the bullet go zinging past my head. I have never been so scared." While Sherry went with him to the garage to show him the bullet hole in her window, she again told the story about the Laundromat. "Officer Wade handled that. I'm charged with assault for defending myself. I have marks on my face where she dug her nails in."
He shone his flashlight on her face. "What were you fighting about?"
"I was just defending myself. I'm not quite sure what her problem is. She seems to think Mark and I are having an affair."
"Are you?'
"No. I just moved here from New Jersey. I haven't been here a week."
"Show me where you were standing when the shot occurred."
Sherry opened the door to the car and stood beside it. "Just as she shot I leaned in to get my clothes basket. If I hadn't I might be dead."
"What did you do then?"
Sherry dove into the car and hunkered down on the floorboard.
"Did you see her shoot?"
"No."
"Did you see her at all? By the way, who is 'she'?"
"Elena Bayshore. I could see her in her car when she pulled in the garage behind me."
"You're certain it was Miss Bayshore? Could you identify her without question?"
"Yes."
"But you can't actually put the gun in her hand?"
"No. She followed me home. Last night, too."
Mark spoke from the doorway. "I can't put the gun in her hand but I can put her car at the scene. When that car backed out of the driveway we could read the license: a vanity plate--ELENA."
"What kind of car does she drive?"
"2009 silver Lexus."
The trooper shone his flashlight on the bullet hole. "How tall is Miss Bayshore?"
"Five nine," Mark answered.
The trooper took a measuring tape from his jacket pocket to determine the height of the bullet hole from the garage floor. With his flashlight, he scoured the garage's back wall to find the missile. "Here it is." He took out a pocket knife and popped the chunk of lead into a small plastic bag, sealed it and put it in his pants pocket. He returned to Sherry and Mark. "Did she touch anything?"
"Not that I know," Sherry responded. "She didn't come inside."
"That's all," he said. "We'll run the ballistics on the bullet to find out if it came from Miss Bayshore's gun. If we can find the gun."
A call came for the officer to respond to a domestic dispute. "I must go."
"Will you take Mark home?" Sherry asked quickly.
"I'm staying the night," Mark insisted.
"Oh no! I only have one bed and you aren't going to be in it. Officer, will you please get this man out of my house?"
The trooper nodded toward the door. "You heard the lady."
"It's too dangerous for you to be alone," Mark argued with Sherry. "You don't even have curtains on the windows."
She pointed to the door. "Out."
Chapter 5
"Mr. Blakely, will you please come to the office?" The secretary's voice came over the intercom.
"Uh-oh," said Mike Delong, a senior. "You're in trouble now."
Mark pointed a finger at him. "You're in charge until I get back. Don't let it go to your head. The rest of you can continue with your projects." When Mark walked in the office, he found Chad Wertman talking to the principal.
"That fact that you're in uniform tells me you're on duty," Mark commented.
"That's right. Come along with me."
"Just don't get out those cuffs. Where are we going?"
"To the parking lot. I'd like you to unlock your truck."
"Why?"
"Because Elena claims she left her gun there after you two were shooting target back in August."
"She put it in the glove box but she took it out when I took her home. It wasn't there last night when I put Mom's blood pressure meds in there." Mark pushed the button on his key ring and the door to the Suburban unlocked with a toot of the horn.
Chad stepped ahead of Mark to open the door, leaning in to open the glove box. With a pen from his shirt pocket, he reached inside and brought out the .357 magnum revolver with the pen through the trigger guard.
Mark stared in disbelief. "I do not know how she got that in there. Chad, you've known me since we were kids. You know I wouldn't lie to you."
"Elena claims you and Sherry are conspiring to make her seem crazy. You tell me how she got this gun into your locked truck."
"I don't know. We don't need to make her seem crazy. She does that well enough herself. I swear to God, Chad, I do not know how she put that in there unless..."
"Unless what?"
Mark drew a deep breath. "Unless she got her hands on my spare set of keys. They hung up there in the kitchen. You know Dad never locks the doors when he's out working." He took his cell phone from his shirt pocket. "I'll call him."
"Don't!" Chad said sharply. "I'll go talk to him myself."
****
Sherry lay looking at the ceiling. Though she'd been awake at least a half hour, she was reluctant to leave her nice warm bed. There was no heat because the oil tank in the basement was empty
She thought back over all that had happened last night. Had Elena really meant to kill her or just trying to scare her? If she was trying to scare her, she succeeded. Sherry hadn't even been so scared the night that gang leader had tried to rape her or when five members of the gang came into the restaurant where she worked. Maybe it was because she expected that sort of thing in Newark. She didn't think it could happen there in rural Pennsylvania. But it did happen and she would have to deal with it.
A full bladder forced her from her bed. She was in the bathroom when she heard the buzzer to the breezeway door. As she crossed the kitchen, she could see Frank through the curtainless window with a travel mug in
each hand. He greeted her with a grin. "Take these. I'll be right back." He went to his truck and returned with a small iron skillet with a brown egg in it and a pint jar full of milk.
"Oh, thank you! Jan's going to smack you for stealing one of her pans," she warned.
"She won't hit me. She loves me." He set the pan and jar of milk on the counter before taking his mug of coffee and sitting at the table. "I came over to see how you're doing. What did you do or say to make Mark mad? I heard his shoes hit the wall last night."
"Does he always throw things when he's angry?"
"No. Only when he's really mad."
"I told him he couldn't stay overnight. When he argued I told the cop to get him out of my house. I like Mark. He's so handsome you'd think he'd be fighting women off with a stick. I just don't want him in my bed. I have enough problems with his ex. I don't want to complicate those problems with a relationship with Mark or any other man. I just want to get on with my life."
She flipped over her egg and continued, "Do you think I need a keeper that you come to see about me?"
He grinned. "I've been thinking about adopting you."
"Mom would never allow it."
He shrugged. "She's in New Jersey. What she don't know won't hurt her."
"She's here in Mifflin County. At Uncle Roy's. He told me when he brought the key to my house in. Now all the keys are accounted for." She scooped the egg from the frying pan and onto her yellow saucer.
"As far as we know."
"Sooner or later Mom's going to show up on my doorstep wanting me to take her in. I just don't want her to walk in when I'm not here. Once she's in I won't be able to get her out. And now she doesn't have a job and I'd have to support her. Let Uncle Roy keep her for a while."
Frank looked out the window when he heard a car. "Uh-oh. We got company. State police cruiser just pulled in the driveway."
"Anyone we know?" Sherry took a bite of bread dipped in egg yolk.
"Chad."
"You answer the door. I'm eating."
Frank leaned over the table and rapped on the window. When Chad looked his way, he motioned him in.
"I saw your truck and stopped," Chad began.
"Is this about last night?"
"It is. May I sit where you are so I can lay my tablet on the table?" Frank moved and Chad sat down.
"Tell me what happened."
"Are you talking to me or Sherry?"
"You. I want everything from the moment you knew Sherry had a problem until you crawled into bed."
"The first was just after I stepped out of the shower. Mark knocked on the bathroom door and said Sherry was in trouble, that Elena had followed her home and he'd heard a gunshot. That got my attention real quick."
"Then Mark was at home when the gunshot occurred? This is very important."
Frank leaned on the counter with his arms folded. "Why?"
"Elena claims that Mark and Sherry are trying to make her appear crazy..."
"She is crazy!" Sherry declared.
"She said she left her gun in Mark's glove compartment and that is where I found it. I am just trying to get a time line where everyone was and when."
"Mark was at home." Frank asserted.
"What I need to prove is that she had opportunity and motive to steal Mark's other set of keys to get into his truck."
"Let's go over and see if they're there." Frank started for the door.
As they went out the door Sherry heard Chad ask if the door was locked. Frank responded, "No. I never lock the door until it's time to go to bed. Unless I'm away."
Chad followed Frank through the mud room to where the key rack was in the kitchen. "Mark's keys are here." Frank frowned. "Something's missing. Those hooks all should be full but the one for my truck keys." He studied the key rack which hung full of the keys for various pieces of equipment. "The key to Sherry's house is missing."
"Could it have been misplaced?"
Frank shook his head. "Mark had it last night in case we needed to get in over at Sherry's. But she had the storm door locked. He gave it to me before I came home. I distinctly remember hanging it back on the rack."
"Did you notice if Mark's keys were there at that time?"
"No."
"That means Elena has a key to Sherry's house." Chad was plainly worried.
"She might get in the breezeway but she can't get into the main part of the house. I put bolts on the doors after that break-in. Maybe that's why Laddie was so restless last night."
****
"Show me how to program this thing." Sherry handed her new cell phone to Judy who made the call to have the phone activated. Then she put her cell phone number into it. "That's the number you call if you can't make it in to work."
"Can you put a few more numbers in? I'll watch how you do it."
"What numbers do you want in?"
"The local police."
Judy put that number in under Scotty. "That's Scott Wade's number. Even if he isn't on duty you can call him if you're in trouble." She put in the state police number under PSP. "What else?"
"I want to do it myself to make sure I know how." Sherry added the Blakelys' home number and the cell phone numbers for Mark, Jan and Frank. "Now I'm all set if Elena follows me home." She'd confided to Judy all that had occurred between her and Elena.
Sherry was almost home when a car pulled out behind her. When she took a corner too fast her purse slid to the far side of the seat next to the passenger door. She couldn't reach her cell phone because she needed both hands on the wheel.
When Elena pulled up beside her, Sherry hit the skids and whipped the wheel which sent her crossways on the road with her front end toward the soybean field beside her property. There wasn't much of a bank so she floored it and her car shot forward. Elena had stopped and was turning around. Sherry didn't have time to waste. She had to get to the house fast if it tore the whole exhaust system off her car.
She aimed the car at her backyard and gunned the engine to go bouncing across the field. Driving right beneath the roof over the patio, she grabbed her purse by the strap with her keys in her hand and bolted up the steps to the back door. With shaking hands she unlocked the door and ducked inside.
Through the breezeway window, she could see Elena getting out of her car right outside of the door. She darted to the kitchen door and unlocked it. Once inside, she locked the door and shot home the bolt.
Grabbing her hammer from the counter, she sprinted across the kitchen to the bathroom door and locked herself inside where she sat down on the floor and dug out her cell phone. With her heart pounding she hit the button for the Blakely's home phone. Jan answered.
"Elena's outside!" she cried. "She ran me off the road. Please send Frank and Mark over."
She could hear Elena in the breezeway trying to get in the kitchen door. She thanked God and Frank for the bolt that kept Elena out. And she was glad Frank told her about the key to the bathroom door that had hung on a little hook in the cupboard over the sink. "You used to lock yourself in the bathroom and your grandmother kept the key there so she could unlock the door," he told her. That key was now on Sherry's key ring.
Everything got quiet. She sat still, waiting, praying that Frank and Mark would get there soon. Then she heard Mark calling for her to unbolt the door.
She ran to unlock the kitchen door. Mark burst in and hugged her close. She couldn't stop shaking.
"This time you are going along home," he ordered. "You can sleep in the guest room."
"No. This is my home. She isn't going to scare me away."
"What good is that if you're dead?" he demanded.
She pulled away from him and gave him her keys. "Please go move my car to the garage."
After Mark went out Frank told her, "What Mark says makes sense. It won't be any problem."
Sherry didn't respond to his statement. Instead she took her flashlight to the pantry to find something to eat. She came away with a can of tomato soup and one of tuna. "At l
east we know what happened to the missing key to my house. She was in the breezeway trying to get in the kitchen door but it was bolted."
"I'll have Mark call Chad and tell him. Even if he isn't on duty he needs to know about this. Maybe they can find her and arrest her and charge her with stalking. Mark has Chad's number in his cell phone."
"By the way, I got a cell phone tonight. Judy programmed it for me. That's how I called."
"I need your number so I can put it in my phone."
After setting the tomato soup off the stove and turning off the gas, she dug in her purse for her cell to call up her number, just as Mark came in the door. He immediately put her number into his phone. "Why didn't you call as soon as she started following you?"
"I couldn't reach my purse and drive, too." She poured her soup in a bowl, set it on the table and began to make a tuna sandwich. "I'm okay now that it's over."
"Until the next time," Mark said. "You really need to come home with us."
"No. Go leave me alone so I can eat."
Mark and Frank went out to the breezeway to talk. Soon Sherry could hear them arguing loudly. She wasn't finished eating when they came back inside. Mark was visibly angry.
"You're going home with us if I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you out to the truck," Mark asserted.
She sprang to her feet. "If you do I'll have you charged with kidnapping and unlawful restraint."
Mark seized her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. "You hard-headed little..."
Frank intervened by stepping between them with his hands on Mark's chest. "Try 'independent'. Leave Sherry alone."
Sherry backed away to the bathroom door. "Get out of my house!"
"Sherry, listen to reason," Mark pleaded in a calmer tone.
"Just get out. Go!" She stepped back into the bathroom and slammed the door, locking it.
Mark tried to get past his father but Frank blocked him. "You heard her. Out."
Sherry was at the table finishing her supper when the phone rang. She was tempted not to answer it but after it rang six times she lifted the receiver.
It was Mark. "Please don't hang up. I'm sorry for being overbearing. I'm just trying to protect you. I have no clue why Elena is targeting you but it isn't your fault. I'm sorry you got mixed up in my mess."
No Plans for Love Page 5