by Susan Calder
Damn. Damn. Damn. If she’d been faster, together they might have tackled Johnny. Damn. Turpentine oozed over her sandals and toes. The fluid puddled on the cement floor.
“You’re Johnny Becker,” Garner said.
“Raaawwwttt,” Johnny drawled.
“Let her go. Whatever your problem is with me, it doesn’t concern her.”
“She’s my insurance. You’re too old to care enough for your pathetic life.”
“You’re the pathetic one.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“What have you accomplished in your forty-plus years?” Garner glared. “Name one positive in your whole useless life, and now you throw it away with this.”
“Think of Florence, your mother,” Paula said. “She wouldn’t want you to—”
The gun burrowed into her flesh. Appealing to reason or fuelling Johnny’s anger wouldn’t get them out of this garage safely.
“Some of us are born to play the clown,” Johnny said.
“For Paula’s sake, if not your own, be serious,” Garner said. “You’ll be charged for this.”
“Paula knows how serious I can be. She saw me use this gun at the parade.”
Paula swivelled toward Johnny. The gun slid to her stomach. His cowboy hat brim and the near dark hid his expression. Was he mocking her? This gun looked real. But so had the gun at the parade, and it had sounded equally real. If this was a toy gun, why would Johnny reveal this to her? To bring her over to his side, make her choose to be his partner? He was taking a huge chance. She could take one, too; march out of here and into Garner’s house to call the police.
“Garner,” she said. “This gun—”
“You stole from my uncle, who trusted you.” Johnny looked at Garner, keeping the gun on Paula’s stomach.
“That’s a lie to deflect attention from yourself or one of your family members. Your mother.” Garner backed into the shelves along the side wall. Tools, cleaners and cans rattled. He stopped beside a barbecue.
What if Johnny’s accusation was correct? Could the police gather sufficient evidence to make a case against Garner? She eyed the bulge under Johnny’s black shirt. A recording could help and might be essential. Had Johnny really strapped a device on his chest? Was the gun fake? A strange glint in Johnny’s eyes seemed to say: we’ve come this far; let’s go for it. The cops didn’t completely include her. So why couldn’t she leave them out?
“What stealing?” Garner said. “I don’t understand.”
“You lifted the jewellery my uncle bought at garage sales and replaced it with worthless crap.”
“How would I have done that under Caspar’s nose?”
“It’s not hard to find a jeweller to make copies and fence the originals, maybe with you both splitting the profits. All the cops will have to do is talk to your jeweller contacts.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police about the holograph will?” Paula asked.
Garner started. “Wha…you? That, that criminal has a gun to your back.”
“Caspar told you he was revising his will due to the thefts he’d discovered,” Paula said. “He believed the culprit was his nephew Brendan.”
“I told you, he didn’t give me his reason for changing his will.”
“Of course he did. You were his confidant and friend. That night of the fire, did you sneak into his apartment while he was asleep?”
“No.”
“Or argue with him when he confronted you?”
“Why are you taking Johnny’s side? Don’t you see he’s—”
“During your fight, Caspar stormed toward the interior staircase, slipped and fell. Before he could get up, you knocked him unconscious with a hammer.” She was winging it but could almost picture it happening. “The blow would look like it was caused by falling objects. You used them to block his exit to the interior door. You set the fire—”
“The two of you are making this up.” Garner looked through his dirty lenses from Paula to Johnny. “I thought a professional woman like you had better taste than this scum.”
A theory occurred to Paula. “If Caspar had been arguing with Florence, Johnny or Brendan about the thefts, why would he head toward the interior staircase, the direction of their apartments? He was arguing with you. When you confirmed his suspicions, he stormed toward Florence for her help in bringing in the police.”
“That’s good,” Johnny told her. “I didn’t think of that.”
Had the police missed it, too?
“Cynthia,” Garner said. “If Caspar discovered it was her, he’d tell her mother before taking action. Johnny knows. I bet Cynthia confessed to him. He’s doing this to keep his sister out of jail.”
Paula’s knees wobbled. Cynthia had lured her to Caspar’s garage, where Johnny was waiting. His gun felt so real. In the distance a siren shrilled. It was too much to hope the police were on their way.
Garner leaned into the barbecue. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Cynthia and Johnny stole from their uncle together. Caspar confronted Cynthia because she’s the leader; the stronger and smarter one.”
“Ha,” Johnny said.
Don’t provoke him. “Johnny discovered proof it was you,” Paula said.
“What proof? Him?” Garner’s sweet face curled into a snarl. “He’s useless, as useless as his uncle. Caspar collected thousands of finds and never did anything with them, for himself or for his niece and nephews, who didn’t care if he lived or died. What proof did Johnny discover?”
Paula stared, willing her lie to be true.
“Even supposing I stole,” Garner said. “Why would I kill my friend?”
“To protect your image,” Paula said. “You couldn’t bear to have your children learn you weren’t the loving dad who—”
“You’re bluffing.” Garner’s face turned red. “I don’t believe this useless shit found anything.”
Someone pounded the double garage door. “Police; open the door,” a man shouted.
Garner looked over Paula’s shoulder. She had to keep him talking to get his confession.
“You’d no longer be the wonderful man who does everything for his kids and grandchildren.”
“I did do everything.” Garner’s voice pitch rose higher. “All four of them and their children are set for life.” He glanced wildly at the clusters of furniture, toys and machines and stepped closer to the barbecue.
Johnny whisked the gun from Paula’s back. He aimed it at Garner. “One more inch and I’ll put a bullet through you.”
Would the cop force the garage door open? Paula strained to hear sounds from behind it. Nothing. Garner gripped the barbecue’s side shelf.
“How much did you get for my uncle’s jewellery?” Johnny asked. “Mom harped about a brooch that was worth millions.”
“Not for me. The jeweller—” Garner bit his lip.
“He took the biggest cut,” Paula said. “But it was nice gravy for you. Bought you a renovated kitchen and home extension.”
“Anyone could have walked into that house and stolen the jewellery,” Garner said. “Caspar didn’t lock his door half the time.”
“Anyone didn’t,” Paula said. “You did.”
Garner’s hand slid across the barbecue shelf. “Caspar’s life was a waste.” He looked at Johnny. “The uncle you’re going to jail for loved his stuff more than he cared about any of you.”
“He cared in his way,” Johnny said.
“That’s your fantasy.”
Garner fumbled for something on the barbecue shelf. From the corner of her eye, Paula saw Johnny raise his gun. Where was that cop?
Garner held a long narrow object. A barbecue lighter? He flicked the cylinder. Fire flared from the end.
“What are you doing?” Paula yelled.
Gunshot noise ricocheted through the garage. Johnny fired again. Paula skidded sideways on oil. Turpentine. Flammable. Garner charged toward them with the barbecue lighter.
“He’s going to blow us all up.” She grabbed a chai
r and threw it at him.
Garner ducked, dropped to his knees and flicked the lighter at a pool of oil. Johnny leaped past her and scooped the lighter from Garner’s hand. Johnny howled, an animal cry of pain.
Behind her, the garage door rolled open.
“Freeze.” An officer trained his gun at them. He scanned the garage.
Johnny staggered toward the bench Caspar had been refinishing.
“He’s injured.” Paula slipped over oil, the officer’s gun trailing her to Johnny. “Not us.” She pointed at Garner, who sat rigid on the floor. “He tried to kill us all by blowing up the garage with the lighter and oil.”
“He shot at me.” Garner looked at Johnny. “That’s his gun by the turpentine can.”
A female officer ran into the garage. She put on gloves and picked up the gun. Paula prayed it was a toy, for Johnny’s sake.
“Cuff all three of them until we sort this out,” the first officer said.
Welts mushroomed on the palm of Johnny’s right hand.
“Don’t touch it. I’ll call EMS.” The female officer cuffed Johnny’s other hand to Paula’s.
“You are so wrong about this,” Paula said. “That man on the floor killed Caspar Becker.”
“He did.” Garner pointed at Johnny.
The female officer took the lighter from Garner’s hands and snapped cuffs on his wrists. Paula eased Johnny to the bench.
“Don’t move.” The male officer focused the gun on her.
“For God’s sake, he’s been hurt.”
The door to the yard shot open. Rosalie ran in.
“Ma’am,” the female officer shouted. “We told you to stay inside.”
Rosalie knelt beside Garner. She wrapped her arms around he husband’s chest. “I’m so glad you’re alive. I heard shots. I thought it was just a car backfiring, then people were banging on the front door. They asked for you. I sent them around to the lane.” She looked at Paula and Johnny on the bench. “You?” she said. “What’s going on?”
“They came here to frame me.” Garner stared up at the officers. “It’s proof he murdered his uncle, Caspar Becker. Arrest them. She’s his moll.”
“Moll?” Johnny snorted. “Give the woman credit. She’s my partner.”
“He seduced her,” Garner said. “Convinced her to come here. Held the gun to my head to try and force a false confession.”
“That I recorded.” Johnny touched his chest. His whole body spasmed in pain.
Garner’s mouth dropped. “I didn’t admit anything.”
“Oh, Garner.” Rosalie’s arms fell to her sides. “I can’t lie anymore. We both can’t. Not when someone else will get in trouble.”
“Stop it, Rosalie.” Garner elbowed her.
Rosalie rocked back on her heels. Her gaze flitted from the officers to Johnny and Paula. “Caspar was angry at him, so boiling mad. He said he’d report Garner to the police.”
“Rosalie, shut up,” Garner said.
“Garner couldn’t return the brooch,” she said.” It was gone. He got nowhere near its worth.”
Garner shoved her.
Rosalie’s feet rolled but held firm. “He didn’t mean to push Casper into the stack of video players. When one knocked Caspar out—”
“Shut the hell up.” Garner raised his cuffed arms.
“It seemed so easy,” Rosalie said. “So convenient. Leaving Caspar and setting the fire was an impulse, a spur-of-the-moment—”
Garner knocked her sideways. She tumbled to her hip. The male officer caught her head before it hit the cement floor.
Mike Vincelli appeared in the garage door frame. Paula bolted from the bench.
The female officer shifted the gun to her. “No one’s going anywhere until we get to the root of this.”
Paula stopped, her gaze fixed on the gun.
Mike’s gaze swept the garage. “Keep your weapons on those three on the bench and floor,” he said and nodded at Paula. “Her, whatever wild thing she’s done, she’s with us.”
Chapter Thirty-three
A second squad car stopped in front of the garage. Mike hustled everyone into the yard so the new officers could secure the crime scene. Paula led them through Garner’s mud room to the family room. Surrounded by smiling portraits of Garner’s family, Mike removed the handcuffs linking Paula to Johnny.
“What about him?” Rosalie touched the metal around her husband’s wrists. “He’s not a criminal.”
“Aside from killing his friend and trying to blow up Johnny and me,” Paula said. “And stealing.”
Behind her glasses, Rosalie’s eyes watered. “It shows you how desperate he felt, that he’d kill himself before getting caught. I’m so glad you didn’t, Garner.” She squeezed his arm. “I’d rather visit you in jail than—”
“Put a lid on it, Rosalie.” Garner shrugged off her hands. “Don’t say one more word until we talk to a lawyer.”
Mike left to let in the paramedics. He made phone calls from the kitchen while they attended to Johnny’s hand. All they could do, the paramedics said, was ease the pain with ice in a Ziploc bag until they got him to hospital.
“Will I lose my shooting ability?” Johnny asked. His jaw quivered, more from fear of the loss than from the pain, Paula guessed.
“I can’t say at this point,” a paramedic told him. “The doctors will know more.”
Johnny patted his chest with his left hand. “I can’t wait to get rid of this wire.”
“That was true?” Garner said.
“Who recorded it at the other end?” Paula asked.
“My buddy.”
“The one from the parade?”
“He’s always game for fun.”
“Fun?” Paula said. “Is that why you abducted me instead of bringing your real partner, Cynthia, along?”
“Garner would have let me shoot her.” Johnny looked at Mike. “I deserve the whole blame for this. Not my buddy or Cynthia. She knew nothing until last night, when I called her for help with a glitch in my plan, namely how to convince Paula to participate.”
“Your horse anesthetic was very convincing,” Paula said.
“I doubt any brain damage is permanent.” Johnny chuckled and winced in pain. “Seriously, the vet assured me it was safe.”
“What’s the name of that vet?” Mike asked.
“I don’t rat,” Johnny said. “Cynthia’s only role was to trick Paula down to Uncle Caspar’s garage to get the camping shower.”
“She’s an accomplice,” Paula said.
“I doubted she’d go through with it,” Johnny said. “Seems a bit of the old Cynthia came back, always up for a lark.”
Paula crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you nab Rosalie and point your toy gun at her? She is Garner’s wife, after all.”
“Toy?” Garner said.
“Most married fellows I know would say: go ahead and shoot.”
“Ha,” Paula said. “You just found it more fun to drag me along.”
“That, too.”
More police officers entered the house. After conferring with Mike, two of them took Garner and Rosalie to the police station. The paramedics left with Johnny and the female officer, who would stay with Johnny at the hospital and then deliver him to the police when he was released. One officer volunteered to round up Cynthia.
“They deserve to be charged,” Paula said. “Although the plan worked in the end.”
“Dumb luck.” Mike frowned.
“And considerable athletic skill. You should have seen Johnny leap at Garner to stop him from igniting the turpentine.”
“A situation Johnny created by taking the law in his hands. It was pure vanity.”
“You still don’t like him?”
“Don’t tell me you do, after he kidnapped you and held you at gunpoint?”
“With a toy.” Savoury aromas lingering from Garner’s dinner reminded Paula that she hadn’t eaten since noon. “Sam. I’m supposed to be in Edmonton.”
“It
was Sam’s phone call that got us here in the nick—well, the almost nick—of time,” Mike said.
“Sam phoned you?”
“I called Isabelle just now and told her to let him know you’re alive and well.”
Settled on the family room furniture Garner had rescued and restored, Mike explained Isabelle had been surprised when Cynthia showed up with the camping shower stall and no Paula. Cynthia claimed she’d got a neighbour to help her lug up the box because Paula had to leave for a family emergency. When Isabelle asked if someone had been in an accident, Cynthia shrugged and went into the house.
“My car would have been parked on the street,” Paula told Mike.
“Isabelle didn’t think to check for it until after she’d called your daughters, your mother, Sam, your ex-husband, your boss, and your neighbour. This involved all of them phoning other people and reporting back they weren’t aware of any crisis, nor had anyone heard from you.”
“It must have made them frantic, especially my mother. I have to call her.”
“Isabelle’s taking care of that,” Mike said. “By the time she thought to look for your car, it was gone. Cynthia had the keys from your purse and had moved the car a few blocks.”
“That’s where my purse went. She’d better return it with all my credit cards.”
“Sam told Isabelle to drag the truth out of Cynthia.” Mike said Isabelle coaxed Cynthia into admitting that Johnny had taken Paula to confront Garner. Cynthia was worried. She hadn’t heard from Johnny in hours. Isabelle phoned the police station, but they brushed her off. Sam called them and insisted on talking to Mike, who dispatched the closest officers to Garner’s house. Mike beat it here as fast to he could.
“You all came through for me,” Paula said. “I have to talk to Sam.”
“Our inefficiency might have got you killed.”
“Did homicide suspect Garner?”
“Not strongly enough.”
“If you’d shared your suspicions with me, I’d have focused on him and might have found a missing piece that made the difference.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t share certain details with civilians. That doesn’t mean we don’t value your work. We do. A lot.”