Deception in Strange Places (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery)

by Judy Alter

  Sheila nodded, still in shock, while Ms. Lorna fidgeted impatiently in her chair, even going so far as to drum her fingers on the arm rests. Hearing the doctor’s words, though, she drew her attention to Sheila and demanded, “What’s wrong with her? Is she all right?”

  “You’re going to be a grandmother,” Sheila said in her soft voice.

  Sherry Goodwin looked like she shared my fear that Ms. Lorna would faint at the news. Her face turned white and she gripped the armrests tightly. “No!”

  Sheila looked alarmed. “Yes. Please take it as good news.”

  “It’s the last thing in the world I ever expected. I didn’t really expect to find you, let alone be a grandmother. I’m having a hard time…well, understanding. I know nothing about babies, never did.”

  “You’ll learn,” the doctor laughed. “Now let’s talk about you. Ladies, I have permission to share this information with you. Lorna McDavid, your mother”—she nodded at Sheila—”will be eighty next year, which means like you she was older when she gave birth and the risk was much higher than it is now. She wanted you to be healthy, from what I understand, and she took good care of herself.”

  Ms. Lorna beamed, and I thought she was enjoying the attention and praise.

  “For a woman her age, your mom is in good health. She has some occasional cardiac irregularities, which can be medicated and are at this point nothing dangerous. I explained to her that I’m not guaranteeing she won’t walk out of this office and have a heart attack crossing the parking lot, but I think it’s unlikely. I am giving her a sheet with suggestions for improving her diet and recommendations that she start some form of exercise. Given your diagnosis, Sheila, I think it would be ideal if the two of you started walking together….”

  “No!” I interrupted much more loudly than I intended. “Uh, they can’t do that.” Now my tone was apologetic. “It isn’t safe for them right now, doctor. I…I can’t explain more, but I know Mike would not approve it.”

  Not much disconcerts Sherry Goodwin, and she said quickly, “How about an exercise club where you can walk on a track?”

  I racked up another chauffeur errand in my mind and mentally assigned it to Keisha, even as I said, “Let me check with Mike.”

  Sherry gave me an odd look and then said fine. “I think you both know what I want you to do. Sheila, I’ll see you in a month. Ms. McDavid, I want you back in three months with a change in lifestyle.” She looked at us, “I think Ms. McDavid needs to get out in the world more, so perhaps a gym is a good idea. And you two can take her to lunch or dinner sometimes, can’t you?”

  Our sporadic potluck suppers weren’t enough, and I could see that. We agreed—more social life for Ms. Lorna.

  On the way out, the ladies made their next appointments, and Sheila expressed a hope that she could drive by then. We were not exactly lighthearted—Lorna’s news was good, Sheila’s would take an adjustment in thinking on everyone’s part. Still it had been a useful morning, and I suggested we start Ms. Lorna’s social life with lunch at Lili’s. My treat.

  “My treat,” Sheila insisted, and we were laughingly arguing about it when I heard the gunshot and then the sound of a bullet whizzing close to us, so close it grazed Sheila’s head, tearing out a bit of hair and leaving a red streak. I could not grasp the enormity of it—how close the bullet had come to killing her, and how incredibly lucky she was. And we all were. Whoever shot was a good marksman.

  My heart pounding in fear and the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears, I acted on instinct and pushed both women to the ground. Ms. Lorna tore her pants and cursed softly, while Sheila whimpered, and then Lorna moved to comfort her. I pushed Lorna down again and kept my own head down. A car gunned its motor and roared away. Lying on the ground, trying to protect the other two women, I couldn’t even see the car, let alone a license plate. Somewhere in the dim fog of memory I saw a black SUV across the street from the clinic as we entered. We’re being followed. Of all days for Bruce Hollister to raise his head again! Slowly my breathing returned to normal, and I wasn’t so aware of my heart racing. But when I tried to stand, my legs were too shaky.

  “Stay where you are,” I said to them. “Someone will come get us.” What seemed an eternity was probably only one minute, and it didn’t take much longer than that for help to come.

  Dr. Goodwin and her receptionist came running across the parking lot. I’d have shooed them away, but I was fairly certain I’d heard our assailant drive away. They helped Lorna up first, and Dr. Goodwin said wryly, “I didn’t guarantee no gunshots either, but I guess now I know you really can’t walk in your neighborhood.”

  As we all headed back inside, I heard the sirens coming. Dr. Goodwin checked all three of us and said we were fine, might be sore in the morning. She looked at Sheila’s scalp wound and whistled. “My God, woman, you came within an eighth of an inch of death.”

  That just made Sheila shake more with fear. Sherry asked if she’d landed on her broken shoulder, something I hadn’t even thought of when I pushed her. Nor had I thought of the fragile life she was carrying.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Sheila said, moving her hand and elbow just a bit. “It doesn’t feel any different.”

  The doctor gave her some sort of pill to calm her nerves, and I wanted to hold out my hand and say, Me, too. Me, too.

  A policeman I didn’t recognize introduced himself as Officer Keith Davis. He began questioning us, and Dr. Goodwin offered him an empty conference room. I could have told him Mike would shortly arrive and take over, and that was just what happened.

  I rose to meet him when Mike walked into the room, and he enveloped me in a warm, tight hug, whispering, “Thank God, you’re all right.” Then he reached down to hug Sheila and patted Ms. Lorna on the shoulder—he knew better than to push his boundaries with her. After that he was all business and might as well have been questioning strangers off the street. By the time he finished with us, it was nearly two o’clock.

  Mike walked us to the car, saw us safely tucked in, and then went to talk to the crew working the crime scene. I’d find out later what kind of bullet and all that, but meantime I was exhausted.

  “Kelly, I’d like to go home with my mother for a while. Would that be all right? We need to talk.”

  Of course they did. As far as I knew she’d never told her mother the full story about Bruce Hollister, and the woman must have been frantic with worry at this point. I dropped them off and watched them go inside, noticing Sheila kept one hand inside her purse where, no doubt, it rested on her handgun. She seemed so practiced at it that for a moment I wondered if maybe we’d all bought a trumped-up story and she wasn’t who she said she was. If so, why was someone shooting at us? I shook my head to bring myself back to reality and went home to grab a sandwich before I had to pick up the girls.

  My phone had rung several times when Mike was questioning us, but I’d put it on vibrate and ignored it. Now, munching a peanut butter sandwich, I checked, and as I suspected it was Keisha. I called her back.

  “You ate lunch where without me?” she asked archly.

  “I’m eating a peanut butter sandwich right now,” I mumbled, my mouth full. A big swallow, and I said, “You won’t believe what happened.”

  “Try me.”

  So I spilled out the story, only to hear, “You stay there. Take a quick nap. I’ll get the girls and bring them home. Then we’ll talk.”

  Gratefully I did just as she said and sank into the bed, asleep almost at once only to awake with a start when I heard, “Mom? Mom? Where are you?”

  “In here. I’ll be right out.” I stumbled into the living room to see Keisha standing behind the girls, shaking her head negatively. She hadn’t told them, though I had no idea what she did tell them to explain why I was home and napping.

  Keisha took Em and I took Maggie, and we got the homework done in record time. Then Keisha bustled about in the kitchen, got out the hamburger I’d defrosted, and made a catch-as-can version of st
roganoff—at least I had sour cream—which she served over noodles, with a green salad and homemade creamy blue cheese dressing. Mike came home bringing Sheila with him, Keisha stayed for dinner, and I was impressed by how far Keisha had made the hamburger go.

  We had no chance to talk serious things until the girls went to bed. By nine o’clock, I was ready to forget the day and go to bed myself, but both Sheila and Mike insisted we talk. Keisha stayed to listen.

  “I have to tell you,” Sheila said. “You must know the truth. I moved into one of the guest bedrooms almost a year ago. It infuriated Bruce. He yelled, he threatened, he banged on the locked door. About three months ago, when we were home alone, he caught me in the kitchen….” She put her head in her hands. “He raped me on the kitchen floor. He’d always used protection because he didn’t trust me to use it, but this time, in his rage, he forgot about it. That’s when I got a gun. I was already a good shot, and he knew it—we used to target practice together in the early days of our marriage. He never touched me again.”

  I’d heard part of this story before but still I rushed to hug her. Keisha beat me to it. Mike simply said, “Nice guy. He gets better and better.”

  “Sheila,” I said, “you didn’t have to tell us that. I know it’s humiliating for you.”

  “It should be humiliating for him,” Keisha said.

  “I wanted you to know. You couldn’t help but wonder how I turned up pregnant. I didn’t want you to think I was presenting myself as something I’m not.”

  “I knew…you mentioned it before, but briefly,” I said softly.

  Once again, I wondered why it took a woman so long to get out of an abusive relationship, and then I remembered my own first marriage. I had to give Sheila credit for having left at all.

  Mike asked, “Bruce doesn’t know about the pregnancy?”

  “How could he?” She replied. “I didn’t know myself until this morning.”

  “So that means the attack this morning was unrelated to your pregnancy. But seeing you come from a doctor’s clinic may make him suspicious. Maybe he’ll think you were taking your mother. You haven’t been in touch with him at all?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, ladies. I think we have to assume a couple of things. Bruce is out to get Sheila, possibly also Lorna, but he doesn’t care about Kelly, Keisha, or me, except as we get in his way—and we do that. But today’s attack, from what we can tell and from what you told us, seems aimed at Sheila.”

  She shuddered, and I reached out and took her hand.

  “We can also assume,” Mike went on, “that whoever has replaced Ralphie has a plan. He doesn’t intend to attack at night.” Now he addressed Sheila, “You’re never a hundred percent safe, but you’re relatively safe here at night. Bruce’s guy, whoever he is, intends to get you from a distance, out in the open, in the daylight when you feel safe because there are people around you. He doesn’t care who he hits along with you. The bullet they dug out of the parking lot was a 30-06, so that means he had a high-powered rifle, probably capable of firing five bullets without reloading. And he can be hidden pretty far away. You literally have a hit man after you.” He laid out some pretty strict rules that included sending Keisha to the next gun safety class and getting her a license to carry and a gun.

  Keisha was visibly pleased. “Oh, good,” she said with a broad smile. “I was beginning to resent Kelly’s advanced privileges over me.”

  “Keisha,” Mike warned, “this is no game.”

  “I know that, Mike, and I’ll take it seriously.”

  And she would. New rules went into effect immediately. Mike called José and asked him to be on the watch for a strange vehicle, probably a black SUV, anywhere near our house, like within two blocks in any direction. He cautioned Sheila to keep her blinds drawn at all times and asked if she was sure she didn’t want to sleep in the house with us.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to live my life in fear. I’ll be alert and careful.”

  With that, he said he’d walk her out. She turned and hugged Keisha and then me, clinging to me fiercely as though clinging to a lifeline. Normally I would have said, “Sweet dreams,” but I kept quiet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Next morning I took Sheila to Lorna’s house, my gun handy in my jacket pocket. She had her gun in her purse, but it would do her precious little good against a man with a rifle. I had driven around the two-block radius before going to Ms. Lorna’s house and didn’t see any vehicle that alarmed me. As I watched Sheila walk up the steps, I felt a bit ridiculous about this cat-and-mouse game. Were we making too much of it? Then I remembered the bullet that almost hit Sheila in the head and Mike’s words about a hit man.

  Keisha was in the office, coffee made, busily working at her computer. Later, I found out she was registering online for the concealed weapons course. Talk about being overeager.

  Within minutes, I wished that phrase hadn’t even entered my mind. Elisabeth Smedley walked in, apparently fully recovered from whatever fright Bruce Hollister had given her. She wore crisply starched and creased jeans, fashionably torn at the right places, and a starched white shirt with a shawl thrown casually over it. The casual cowgirl look. And once again she carried her leather case.

  Without my moving, she threw herself in my visitor’s chair and said, “I read about it in the paper.”

  No need to ask what, but I literally clapped my hand to my head. The newspaper! I hadn’t thought about the shooting making the paper, but of course it did. I hadn’t even had time to open the paper this morning.

  “I’m calling it up online,” Keisha said, and I went to look over her shoulder. It was just a short piece in the Area Briefs section of local news, but it identified me and said I was with two unidentified women. No motive for the shooting was known, and the shooter hadn’t been found. Straight from the police blotter. Whoever wrote that piece didn’t know to call Mike, which was probably just as good. Mike would have blistered his eardrums.

  I walked back to my desk and shrugged. “There’s not much more to it than what’s in the paper. Nobody knows what or why.”

  Smedley didn’t give up easily, as I already knew. “You were with Sheila Hollister and her mother, weren’t you? And Bruce Hollister was behind this. Do you think he actually did the shooting himself? I wouldn’t be surprised. Don’t worry, I won’t write about it, not now that I know what he’s like.”

  I thought perhaps she’d never stop talking, and I wouldn’t have to answer, but she wound down and looked at me expectantly.

  Choosing my words carefully, I said, “No, I don’t think Bruce Hollister actually fired the rifle. Yes, I think he was behind it. But we can’t say that publicly.”

  “Of course not,” she said cheerfully, “but it works great for my novel. What’s the next step? Oh, and why were you in a clinic parking lot.”

  What was the next step? I didn’t know. I wasn’t going to tell her about Sheila’s pregnancy or Ms. Lorna’s conviction that she was going to die. She’d left me a little wiggle room. “We realized that Ms. Lorna hasn’t been to a doctor in several years, and we thought it would be wise to have a check-up, given her age. She’s just fine.”

  “How old is she?”

  Resisting the temptation to say Not as old as you think, I merely told her I didn’t think that was public information.

  “Can I go see her, you know, interview her?”

  “She doesn’t accept visitors. You know that.”

  Sighing, she put down her ever-present legal pad. “I know, but I just think there’s so much more to this story that no one is telling me.”

  I had no idea what to say to her, so I sat silent, shaking my head to say “No.” Of course there was more to the story, but she was better off not knowing it. And we were safer without her writing or talking about it.

  Smedley finally left with a discouraged, “Call me if anything happens.”

  Keisha favored her with a big smile, but the minute the doo
r closed behind her, she said, “Not likely.”

  I whizzed through the newspaper, drank my now-cold coffee, returned a couple of phone calls, and announced I had an offer to deliver to a seller and two street appraisals to do and would be back before lunch.

  “Want me to ride shotgun?” Keisha asked.

  “No, thanks.” I tried to laugh, but the idea of company was appealing. “I have my phone and my gun, and I’ll be watchful.”

  I was more than watchful. I was darn tense, hands gripping the wheel, eyes darting everywhere, watching every car behind me to be sure it wasn’t following. The sight of a black SUV was enough to trigger a slight bit of panic. Stop it, Kelly. You cannot live your life this way. Remember Sheila’s vow not to live in fear. The other half of my brain countered, She doesn’t have two wonderful daughters and the perfect husband. Then I thought that was unfair. She had a new life inside her to anticipate.

  The seller asked me to wait while he read the bid. An accountant who worked from home, he had left a bit of leeway in his asking price and was pleased to know a young couple, who wanted to raise their expected child in the neighborhood, had made the bid. “Are they financially able?”

  “I think so, from what I’ve learned. That’s the title company’s responsibility, of course, and I’ll recommend the best title person I know.”

  “Let me take a day to look it over and think about it. It’s not quite what I hoped for, but we may be able to negotiate.”

  I thanked him and left. That little bit of human contact had quelled my nerves and stopped the shaking in my hands and knees. With more confidence, I drove to check out the area around Ms. Lorna’s before doing my street appraisals. All was well until I drove down the street directly behind her house and saw a black SUV parked there. No one was inside. I scanned the street quickly but saw no one. Two blocks away, I stopped and called Sheila, telling her to keep the shades pulled and stay inside. Then I called Mike, who promised to check it out. He called back five minutes later as I sat outside a nondescript frame house that suffered from deferred maintenance and crossed it off my renovate list. I’d sell it “as is” if the owner wanted, which I thought he probably would. He obviously wasn’t interested in upkeep or redoing anything…and neither was I. He’d let it go too long.