The first thing he found inside was cash. Lots of cash. Stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in rubber bands.
“My God,” Takai gasped, piling them onto the desk. “That crazy old man must have a hundred thousand bucks in there.”
“You didn’t know about it?”
“Are you kidding me? If I had, I would have told him to put it in the damned bank.”
Deeper inside the safe, Mitch found a metal strongbox. It was unlocked. He found a fistful of stock certificates and legal papers inside. But it was the folded legal brief right on top that was of greatest interest, the one proclaiming itself “The Last Will and Testament of Wendell Frye.”
It was not an old document. It was on crisp new paper that still smelled of fresh ink. In fact, it was dated only three days ago, Mitch noticed. “He must have changed his will,” he mused aloud. “Sure, that must be what he meant.”
“Here, let me see that…” Takai snatched it away from him, her eyes scanning it quickly. And growing narrower and narrower as she began to comprehend the details. “Oh, that bastard!” she hissed. “He will never get away with this!”
“Oh, yes, I will, princess,” a heavy voice spoke up from the front hallway.
It was Hangtown, standing there in the doorway with the huge. 50-caliber Barrett propped against his shoulder. It looked something Rambo might have used to shoot a chopper out of the sky. As for the aged artist, he seemed exhausted and disheveled, but calm.
Eerily calm.
“I took you out of my will and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it,” he said, his voice low and menacing. Now he propped the Barrett on a table, the weight of its long barrel steadied by its own built-in stand, and pointed it directly at his younger daughter. “Care to know why I did it, Big Mitch?”
“Whatever you say, Hangtown,” Mitch replied, his eyes never leaving that big gun.
“He’ll kill us both, Mitch!” Takai cried. “He’s out of his mind.”
“I’ve never been more sane in my life,” Hangtown said. “That evil woman’s trying to trick you, Mitch. It wasn’t me who shot Moose. It was she. She killed Colin’s secretary. And she killed that cop at the gate, too. She wanted you to think I did it so you’d come running to her rescue. She was hoping you’d shoot me down like a rabid dog.”
“I could never do that to you,” Mitch insisted. “Not in a million years.”
“Then she would have done it herself,” Hangtown told him. “With you serving as her sympathetic witness. But I stopped her. And now it’s all over.”
“Put down that gun, Father,” Takai pleaded, her voice quavering. “You’re sick. You need help.”
Hangtown ignored her, staring down at the gun in his hands. “When I gave you that tour of my wine cellar the other night,” he told Mitch, “I discovered that somebody had been using my secret hooch cupboard. Hiding something in there. Something wrapped up in a rug or a blanket.”
“I noticed the outline in the dust,” Mitch recalled. “I remember that you seemed bothered.”
“Damned straight I was. Because there were only three other people on the face of the earth who knew that cupboard existed-Takai, Moose and Big Jim. And because I had no idea what was going on. None. Not until it was too late. Too damned-” He broke off, his voice choking, before he turned his penetrating blue-eyed gaze on his daughter.
Takai had begun to back slowly up against the fireplace, her own eyes wide with fear. She was trapped and she knew it.
“After you murdered your own sister with this thing,” Hangtown said to her, “you stashed it back in the hooch cupboard, knowing the police would never find it there. But I found it in there. That’s when I knew you’d done it, you evil bitch. But I kept quiet-I didn’t want the law to have you. I wanted to take care of you myself, just as soon as the two of us were alone. I wanted the satisfaction of telling you that you were too late. I wanted to see the look on your lovely, twisted face when you realized that you killed Moose for nothing.” He stood there grinning at her crookedly. “It may not be much, but it’s the only satisfaction this old soul has left. That and seeing you die before I do.”
“You bastard,” she snarled at him, the skin stretching tight across the bones of her face. “You mean, sick bastard.”
“Go on and tell him, princess,” Hangtown thundered at her. “Tell Mitch how you killed your own sister.”
“Screw you!”
He fired the Barrett, a colossal, deafening boom that took out a fist-sized hole over the mantel less than a foot from her head.
She shrank back against the fireplace, her teeth chattering.
Mitch stood there frozen, his ears ringing, realizing that there was only one way this could possibly turn out. Takai was going to die-right here, right now. There was no way he could stop it. The only question that remained unanswered was whether he himself was about to die, too.
If only Des knew he was here. If only he’d called her. If only
…
“It’s all about this farm,” Hangtown explained to him, his gnarled, misshapen hands loosely cradling the huge gun. “That’s why she killed her. My old will left it to both of them after I was gone. And my Moose would never, ever sell out her heritage to any pillager like Bruce Leanse. Her I raised right. So Takai took her out, ensuring that she’d come into the whole thing when it’s time for me to take my own dirt nap-or so she thought. I was one step ahead of her, Big Mitch. The more involved she got with Leanse, the more positive I became that she’d try to destroy this place after I’m gone. And I couldn’t let that happen. Not on my watch. I’m responsible for our land. So I’ve taken care of it. Left it to the art academy. They’ll maintain it as a place where young artists will always be able to live and work. The Nature Conservancy will see to the wetlands. And you, my dear sweet princess, get nothing. Not one acre. Not one cent.” The old man’s finger tightened on the trigger once again. “Tell him, girl,” he commanded her. “Tell Mitch how you killed your own sister. Tell him or I’ll put this one right between your treacherous eyes!”
“Fine!” Takai spat at him defiantly. “I’m happy to tell him. I’m proud of what I did. I started planning it when I went out to Southern California this summer to visit the grave of my mother, a sweet, beautiful woman who you tormented until she killed herself, you sadistic bastard. I wanted to blow your head to pieces. I wanted the biggest gun money can buy. I wanted that gun. I bought it at a gun show in Gardena with a fake ID. I bought my Porsche out there, too. That’s how I got the damned gun home. I drove back with it cross-country. Got in some target practice in the Mojave Desert, too, so I’d be good and ready. I bought it with the express purpose of killing you,” Takai said to her father with cold, quiet savagery. “Until, slowly, it began to dawn on me that I’d be letting you off the hook that way-if you were dead, you wouldn’t feel any pain. I wanted you to feel the pain, every day and every night. I wanted you to suffer like I had suffered. There was only one person on the face of the earth who you gave a damn about-Moose. So I killed her.”
Now Mitch understood. Now he knew what Hangtown had meant when he said the past had killed Moose. Payback. It was payback.
“I killed her knowing that you’d spend the last days of your cruel, miserable life in torment,” Takai went on, her eyes feverish. “I killed her knowing that when you did finally die I’d be your sole heir-and could do what I wished with this run-down, weedy old junkyard
… I waited for the right opening. She handed it right to me when she started sneaking out every night to bang Colin. All I had to do was pull the ignition coil on her Land Rover.” Now Takai let out a shrill, mocking laugh. “You taught us all about cars when we were little, remember, Father?”
“And how to hunt,” Hangtown affirmed miserably. “I remember.”
“I knew she wouldn’t want to bother with jumper cables at that time of night. All of that raising and lowering of hoods might wake you or Jim up. Plus she was anxious to be with Colin. And m
y bedroom light was on. So she asked if she could borrow my car. I gave her my keys and reconnected her coil as soon as she took off. Easy. When the trooper tested it the next day, and it kicked right over, I passed it off as nothing more than quirky Lucas wiring. Totally believable.”
“Just as it was totally believable that someone in Dorset would try to kill you,” Mitch spoke up, the pieces beginning to fall into horrible place now. “You were the one with all the enemies. You were the one noted for her night moves. It was your car. Everyone assumed that you were the intended victim-and that poor Moose simply got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that wasn’t it at all. She was the target all along. Very clever.”
“Not clever,” Hangtown argued. “Evil-through and through.”
Takai didn’t respond, just stood there smirking at her father in ugly triumph.
“Yet you cried for Moose in my arms,” Mitch said to her. “Genuine tears. How were you able to do that?”
“I was crying for my mother,” she answered bitingly. “I’ve cried for her each and every night. But I got even. It took me years, but I got even.”
“And you found yourself a fall guy in Jim Bolan,” Mitch said.
“That part was even easier,” she said, nodding. “Since he’d been a sniper in ’Nam, I chose a sniper’s roost. And planted one of Jim’s cigarette butts there that I stole from an ashtray. With three pairs of heavy socks on, I was able to wear his mudroom boots up there. By carrying the Barrett, my weight even approximated his. If they wanted to build a case against him, and they did, the shoe prints were his. I knew what time she’d be getting home. I waited for her there at the crossroads. When she came to a stop, I let her have it. It was perfect. And I would have gotten away with it, too, if that damned pig Melanie hadn’t wrecked everything. She wanted twenty thousand to keep quiet. Twenty thousand or she’d talk. Damn that woman!”
“She found out?” Mitch asked.
“Not about this,” Takai snapped contemptuously. “About the other thing.”
Mitch shook his head at her, confused. “What other thing?”
“That I was Cutter,” Takai explained. “Colin’s male cyber lover. Or at least he thought I was male. It was a scam that Melanie and Babette cooked up. I agreed to help them out-because the new school is vital to my future, and because I know what men want. I know how to hook you, and how to keep you hooked. You are so easy… I created an online identity for myself and I went after Colin and I hooked him, but good. It worked like a charm-until Melanie got greedy. I was afraid she might wreck my whole plan. I just couldn’t chance that. So I had her meet me upriver at the Millington Ferry parking lot late at night. Supposedly to pay her the money she wanted. Instead, I shot her with my Ladysmith. Then I dumped her body in the river and made it look like she’d left town.”
“What you didn’t plan on,” Mitch said, “was her body washing up right away on Big Sister, correct?”
“I thought the river current would float it way out to sea,” Takai admitted. “Maybe it would wash up on the north shore of Long Island in a month. I was wrong. But the law has nothing on me. I bought that gun with a fake ID, too. It’s at the bottom of the river now. They’ll never find it. They can’t prove I killed her. They can’t prove I killed anyone.”
“They won’t have to,” Hangtown said ominously, his finger still on the Barrett’s trigger. “You’ll already be dead.”
Takai said nothing to that, just glared at her father defiantly.
“You say the new school’s vital to your future,” Mitch said. “How so?”
“The Aerie,” she replied. “Without the new school, it’ll never happen. And without this farm, it’ll never happen. Bruce promised me a future with his company if I can deliver it for him. The Aerie will make me. This is my one chance to put myself on the map. I need this to happen.”
“Why?” Mitch asked her.
“What do you mean, why? Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me,” Mitch responded, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine any personal goal that would enable me to justify murdering three human beings, one of them my own sister. No, I’m afraid not. No.”
Takai gaped at him in amazement, as if she’d just discovered he was way beyond stupid. “Father understands why,” she said, her eyes flicking back to Hangtown. “He told me so. I’m a Frye. I have this intense desire to create. It’s in my blood. But I have zero talent. I can’t draw. I can’t paint. I can’t do anything. And yet, I need to create.”
“So do lots of people who don’t commit murder,” Mitch said coldly.
“Not people who are the great Wendell Frye’s daughter. Do you have any idea how hard that is? I am supposed to be somebody. Instead, I spend my days and nights peddling ugly, overpriced houses to rich assholes with no taste. It’s not fair, damn it!”
Mitch was aware of this happening to the children of film stars. The burden of carrying around a famous name brought many of them to their knees. Drug and alcohol abuse were common. Instead of trying to destroy herself, Takai had turned her anger outward. “Life isn’t fair,” he said to her. “You can’t use that as an excuse. It doesn’t justify what you did.”
“Evil,” Hangtown repeated, his voice barely more than a whisper now. “She was always evil.”
“And Moose was always good,” she jeered at him. “And look where it got her, Father. She’s in a body bag at the morgue. And look where it got Mother-a lonely grave in Laguna Beach. Because of you. All because of you. You killed them both, you bastard. And now you’re feeling the pain I felt. I want you to feel it. I hope you feel it for a long, long time. I hope you live for goddamned ever!” Takai broke off, glancing sidelong at Mitch. “My shoulder bag’s right there on the sofa next to you,” she murmured, her eyes flicking back at the Barrett.
“What about it?” Mitch’s own eyes were on the Barrett, too.
“I have another gun. It’s in there. He wouldn’t let me near it before, but-”
“Don’t try it, Big Mitch,” warned Hangtown. “I genuinely don’t want to hurt you.”
“He’ll never shoot you,” Takai said, urging Mitch on. “He likes you. And so do I. We could build something together, Mitch. We could be terrific.”
“Thanks, Takai, but somehow I don’t think it would work out.”
“I can’t tell you how I felt when you came to my rescue just now,” she went on, her voice getting throaty and seductive. “Everything fell right into place, Mitch. There’s nothing I won’t do to make you happy. And, believe me, I can do things to you that no one else has ever dreamed of-for sure not that uptight black girl. Get me that gun and I’ll show you, Mitch. Get it for me, It’s right there…”
“Don’t try it, Big Mitch.”
“I won’t,” Mitch promised, although he was thinking that if he had Takai’s gun he might be able to persuade Hang-town to drop his. Maybe this could be settled without bloodshed. It was at least worth a try. Slowly, he inched a bit closer to the sofa, his arm beginning to reach out… out…
And Hangtown fired at him-blowing out the window right next to his head.
Mitch instantly froze, his ears ringing all over again. “Okay, okay, I’m not moving! But listen to me. Just listen… If Takai did do these things, don’t you want her to suffer?”
“No, I want her to die,” Hangtown said, turning the gun back on her. “And now she’s going to.”
Takai cowered against the wall in her torn clothing, her eyes darting wildly around the room for a means of escape, a shield, something, anything. There was nothing. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
“But you’ll be letting her off the hook,” Mitch argued, his voice rising in desperation. “If you kill her, she won’t suffer. She wins. But jail, that’s something else. Think about it, Hangtown. She’ll have to live in a cage for years and years. She’ll get fat and ugly. Now that’s the ultimate revenge-not killing her.”
Hangtown considered this for a moment, his finger easing slightly off of t
he trigger. “You make a good point,” he conceded. The old master remained amazingly calm. “But she killed my Moose. And now I’m going to kill her.”
“You can’t kill your own daughter.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m the only one in the world who has that right.”
“How do you figure?” Mitch asked.
“Because I gave her life,” Hangtown answered simply. “I gave it to her, and now I’m going to take it away.”
“I thought only God had the right to do that,” Mitch said.
Hangtown let out a great big laugh. “Haven’t you heard the news-there is no God.” Then his creased face fell and he gazed at his daughter with nothing but profound sadness. “Good-bye, princess,” he said huskily, his finger tightening on the trigger.
“No, Father. No…!”
“Drop your weapon, Hangtown!” a booming voice abruptly commanded him. “Drop it now.” It was Des, blessed Des, standing there in the doorway with her Sig-Sauer aimed at Hangtown and every muscle in her body tensed.
Mitch had never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life. “Good evening, Trooper Mitry. We were just hashing out a family dispute here.”
“So I see,” she said, edging closer into the room, rain glistening on her slicker and big hat. “Drop your weapon, Hangtown.”
“Drop your own weapon, Desiree,” he growled. “This is a private matter. We have no need for any law.”
“It was Takai who murdered Moose and Melanie,” Mitch told Des. “And the trooper down at the gate.”
“We just found Trooper Olsen. Soave’s phoning it in.” Des glared at Takai and said, “That man had a wife and two young children. But I don’t suppose that matters to you very much.”
“Of course it matters,” Takai said indignantly. “Do you think I’m some kind of a psychopath?”
“I really don’t know what you are, Miss Frye. I’m just here to arrest you.”
A sudden sob of relief came from Takai’s chest. “Well, thank you for that.”
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