Driven to Murder

by Judith Skillings

  She didn’t, but she let the subject drop along with Ian’s arm.

  They walked back to the house discussing nothing more serious than the weather predictions for the weekend. Their steps echoed on the cement sidewalk. The street was eerily still, country dark. Rebecca started when a cat hissed at something invading its territory then darted into the underbrush. Ian laughed at her, but moved closer.

  She was glad of his proximity, which annoyed her. Her nerves were stretched too thin by the events of the past months. She’d hoped a few weeks away would allow her to regain equilibrium. That solitude might yield a better perspective, help staunch the slide into depression. Instead, her view was darkening as she was becoming more withdrawn.

  Breathing deeply, she tried to relax. Hey, sure it was dark, damp and too quiet, but at least there was no body of water to drown in.

  There was no reason to be jumpy. The stillness was easily explained. Many of the squat houses were empty, vacated by owners who’d fled town during race week. By Friday, they’d be overflowing with fans. If you didn’t follow racing but lived near the track, renting your house gave you enough cash to vacation away from the noise. Which was how Peyton landed their house. He’d intended it to accommodate Ian, Evans and Rebecca. The second night in town, at a country-western bar, Evans had found himself a more agreeable arrangement. So only Ian and Rebecca were in residence.

  That was another cause for whispers in pit lane. Totally unfounded. Ian held her hand lightly as they strolled, but there was no chemistry between them, just companionship. Maybe they were too similar: male/female versions of the same model. Ian was an inch taller, twenty pounds heavier. Although his hair was brighter red than hers, it too waved and glistened with highlights in the sun. Both had long lashes over light eyes. Ian’s were more gray than green.

  She wondered if he’d noticed her at the Grand Prix for the same reason Narcissus jumped into the river: too fond of his own reflection.

  They crossed through the beam of a street lamp about thirty yards from the house. In a falsetto whisper, Ian improvised a racing limerick. He was on the third line, struggling to find a rhyme for transaxle when he cut off abruptly. He jerked Rebecca to a halt and nodded toward their bungalow.

  It was dark. As dark as the empty neighbors to each side.

  There should have been a light.

  The porch light had burned out earlier in the week, so she’d switched on the lamp next to the front window before they left. Ian had parted the drapes to help them find the keyhole. Now the drapes were closed and the lamp was turned off.

  As she stared, the living room curtains fluttered. The filtered glow of the nightlight in the hall was visible briefly. Someone was inside. Evans? That was unlikely. He would have told them at dinner if he planned to move in. Besides, he left the restaurant the same time they did. He couldn’t have arrived ahead of them. Same for Peyton. He might be low enough to come snooping, but he’d do it when he wouldn’t get caught.

  The shooter? Having missed his target at the track, was he opting for hand-to-hand combat? If the shooter had come calling, did that make Ian the intended target? Or her?

  Ian pulled her forward, propelled her toward a sturdy elm. Flapped a hand indicating she should stay put. He scampered to the bushes beneath the picture window, cocked his head to listen. In the distance a car revved its engine. Nothing else.

  She watched him crab-walk toward the gate in the fence, each step announced by the rustle of fallen leaves. Halfway there, he froze, squatted in the dark, dwarfed by the shadows from the house.

  Could he hear someone inside, waiting in the dark, straining to hear him approach?

  In the silence, her pulse pounded in her ears, rapid and shallow. She ached to be closer, to help if Ian needed it, but she remained welded to the trunk, the bark cutting ridges in her palms.

  Suddenly, Ian jerked forward, inched along like a creeping shrub. A foot from the gate, he raised his arm toward the latch, teased the bar up with his fingertips. Once unlatched, he could access the patio. The sliding door into the kitchen would be unfastened. Neither of them ever locked that door—as the intruder had probably discovered.

  The bar had just cleared the hasp when the gate burst open.

  Ian toppled backwards.

  A pygmy clothed in black flitted around him and bolted across the lawn, running full tilt, hugging the tree line. The shadow darted within an arm’s reach, then skidded left into the street. Too startled to give chase, Rebecca spun, stared feebly at the intruder’s back.

  As the form passed under a street lamp, she glimpsed a dark ski mask obscuring the face, heard impossibly small feet slapping the road.

  Five

  “Son of a bit—”

  Mick Hagan cut short the profanity as he hit the ground on all fours. What the hell had tripped him? He pushed up, leapt to standing and sprinted across the lawn. The street was empty in both directions. Nothing but a weak moon and the grating of crickets. Nothing to indicate which way the midget had turned before disappearing into the night. Damn.

  Around seven, he’d arrived at the house where Moore supposedly was staying. No one answered the door. Since she wasn’t expecting him, he didn’t blame her for being absent. He would have faulted her for being dead in a back bedroom, so he entered through the kitchen and checked the place for bodies, warm or cold. Finding none, he liberated two beers from a puke green refrigerator. Drank one, trying to deciding if it would be prudent to leave his suitcase in the car until he talked with Moore.

  It was full dark, just an inch left in the second beer when he heard someone scurrying around on the patio off the kitchen. He called out. No answer. He opened the slider, looked out in time to see a shadow ease through the gate and blend with the dark. Too big for a cat. Too stealthy for a stray mutt hunting leftovers. Someone with opposable thumbs who’d left the gate ajar, maybe intentionally.

  Curiosity piqued, he’d shut off the interior lights, pulled the drapes, feigned going to bed. Then he’d stashed his gun in the windbreaker pocket and snuck onto the patio. With nothing else to do, he’d waited under a shedding tree with strained thoughts of Moore for company.

  An hour later, the intruder returned. Just as the bantam weight tiptoed within arm’s reach, some yahoo arrived and spoiled the nab.

  Mick wiped a bloody palm on his jeans, glared at the cut. The short stuff had scratched him, kicked him in the knee before bolting, but that wasn’t what rankled. Fingering the gun in his pocket he started toward the figure sprawled on the lawn. He hoped the guy who tripped him was a convicted felon on the run. He felt the urge to shoot somebody.

  Until he saw Moore.

  Bare arms and long legs, her skin was iridescent white against the bark of a tree. He couldn’t see her gray-green eyes, but he bet they were blazing. She didn’t like surprises. Especially his.

  She pushed off from the trunk and started toward him, mouth open, ready to let him have it. Then shook her head, changed her mind and direction. Brushing past him, she retrieved a sweater from the lawn and spoke to the lawn ornament who was picking twigs from his pressed khaki slacks.

  “Ian, the man who accosted you is Mick Hagan. A suspended Washington, DC, police officer who has no possible reason for being here.” That said she stormed to the front door and let herself in. Didn’t even scratch the lock inserting the key in the dark.

  Mick released his grip on the gun. Shooting her in the back would be hard to explain to strangers.

  The boy scout offered a weak apology for tripping him. Gave his name as Ian Browning. Moore had mentioned the race driver before. They’d met at a Grand Prix when she was trying to elude a shady nightclub owner. As he shook Browning’s hand, he noted that the driver’s wavy hair was thinning on top. Mick wondered how Moore was going to explain Browning’s presence in the house.

  Of closer concern, he wondered how he was going to explain his presence in Indianapolis, assuming he got inside before she bolted the door. He leapt up the steps, ca
ught his knuckles in the crack, pushed the door open smearing blood on the door frame. He leaned against it, sucked at his scratched hand. “Blame it on Delacroix.”

  Moore spun from switching on a lamp. “Jo suggested you rush to Indiana to protect me from night crawlers? I don’t believe it.”

  “He asked Zimmer if he knew a policeman in Indianapolis who could keep an eye on you. I overheard. Since he didn’t, and I have lots of free time, here I am. At your service.” He punctuated it with a mock bow.

  She returned a scowl. “Great. Teach me to confide in my lawyer. I’m not in any danger.”

  “Since when?”

  Browning had squirmed into the house. He stood to the side trying to decide what was going on and what his role was. He slipped over to Moore and placed a hand on her arm. She shook it off.

  “It’s all right, Ian. Hagan is here to protect me. From what, I haven’t a clue.”

  Browning blinked in his direction, unimpressed, but trying to be polite. “Shall I—”

  Moore didn’t let him finish. “Would you mind spending the night in the motor home? You need a good night’s sleep for tomorrow. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Without comment, Browning left to collect his gear. He exited by the front door.

  That was fine. More than fine. It was the first good news all night. One fewer complication to deal with. That left only Moore. She looked uncomfortable. Possibly guilty, or maybe just annoyed. He wasn’t sure which was preferable.

  At the moment, he regretted rushing to her rescue. It had seemed a quixotic thing to do at the time. As impulsive as a college kid, he’d thrown a handful of clothes in a bag, grabbed three Tom Rush CDs, caught a flight out of National, rented a piece of crap car and driven into the sunset over some of the flattest land he’d ever seen to come to her aid. Had he really expected her to be grateful?

  When she turned her back on him and headed for the kitchen, he followed. She rooted in the refrigerator and produced two cold Millers hidden in the vegetable drawer next to an oozing tomato, one place he hadn’t thought to look. Taking the beers, she exited the kitchen through the sliding door. Outside, the air was as cool as her demeanor, which if you combined the Old French and Middle English definitions, had to do with leading by governing yourself, as in keeping one’s temper under control. His own temper, however, was heating up.

  It had been an irritating day precipitated by Moore’s call to Delacroix about a sniper shooting up the pits. When he’d volunteered to keep her alive and out of trouble, the lawyer had nodded once, then slammed the door on his way out of the sheriff’s station. Clearly not happy, but mollified that someone who understood Moore and carried a gun would be on the scene. The sheriff had guffawed that it would take more than one slick city cop to keep her from attracting undesirable attention. “Beginning to understand how you got yourself suspended from the force, Hagan. Spend more time away from the job than doing it.”

  When the gum-snapping travel agent had insisted that there were no seats available on any flight going into Indianapolis, he’d settled for flying to Dayton, Ohio—a city he had never considered visiting. The Pollyanna had chirped that it would only take an hour longer to get to the track in Indy. Rates were way cheaper. Probably an easier drive than poking along in freeway traffic from the Indianapolis Airport.

  She’d exaggerated on all accounts. It had been a boring drive to an empty house and a cool reception.

  Moore stood by the open gate, scanning the empty front lawn. Above white legs, her body blended with the shadows. He sensed her tension. “You left the gate open.”

  She turned. “So?”

  “So? Moore, someone’s taking potshots at you. Yet, you leave the gate and the sliding door to your house unlocked. Is that smart?”

  “No.”

  “Are you trying to get killed?”

  “There are easier ways.”

  She set down her beer and left the patio. Left him standing in the dark wondering if she would return or if she’d turned in for the night. What would he say if she did return—offer to go to a motel, or back to Maryland? How long would it take to drive? Twelve, fourteen hours? He should have brought more CDs.

  Before he could decide on a course of action, Moore slipped through the gap in the slider, pulling a sweater on over her skimpy top. Pity, but at least she planned to talk to him long enough to get chilled. She sat at the warped redwood table lacking a center umbrella. He remained standing, waiting as she picked at the label on the beer, pulling off shreds of soggy foil. She wouldn’t look up. “I’m sorry Jo’s worried about me. I shouldn’t have called him. I overreacted.”

  “Speak into the microphone, please. We’d like that admission for the record.”

  Rolling wads of foil on the table, she ignored him. “I’m glad you cared enough to come.”

  He waited for the but. With Moore there was always a “but.”

  “But, I don’t want you here.”

  “Why not?” He sat.

  She pushed the bottle away. “I’m floundering. The race community is the ultimate good old boys’ club. Most of them don’t think women should exist outside the kitchen or the—”

  “I know what women are good for.”

  “You think you do.” She flicked a foil ball at him. “I enjoy the challenge of working on the car, Mick, just not the ancillary baggage. How will it look to the crew if I suddenly show up with my own police bodyguard?”

  “Like you’re smarter than the rest of them.” He reached for her beer. “They don’t have to know I’m a cop. Aren’t you allowed to have a male interest who doesn’t carry wrenches?”

  He thought he’d slipped that in pretty smoothly. Walking into the unlocked house had alarmed him on several levels. His search of the premises turned up too many male items to ignore: razor, splash-on cologne, silky men’s bikinis. The good news was that they weren’t intermingled with Moore’s lingerie or discarded under her bed. It looked like she and her driver had separate bedrooms and baths. But he’d like it spelled out.

  Moore continued to mutilate the label into confetti. “We were gone only a couple of hours. Out to eat. Even if I’d thought about the gate, I’d have left it unlocked.”

  “That’s asinine.” She didn’t snap back at him. She looked sheepish. He set down the beer. “You were expecting the intruder?”

  “Sort of.” Again she left him dangling. He heard a kitchen drawer slide open, shut. When she returned, she dropped a handful of glossy photographs on the table in front of him, standard 4" ×6" snaps developed at the local CVS. “You’re the detective. Give me your impressions.”

  They were long-distance shots of what he assumed was Moore’s pit area at the track. The top one showed a slender driver being helped into or out of the cockpit of the car. He focused on the curve of the driver’s rear where the race suit was pulled taut, willing to bet the person under the helmet was Moore. Next photo confirmed it; she was fluffing her hair after setting the helmet on the hood of the car. Grinning like a cat with feathers on its chin.

  “You know how to drive that thing?”

  The racer was sleek pod, red over white, with a pointed gold nose. It had a roll bar behind the driver’s head and four fat wheels attached by thin struts, i.e., it was one teensy step up from a go-cart.

  He shook his head. Cars were tools designed to carry you from point A to point B. Occasionally necessary for chasing bad guys, they required enough bodywork to sustain a crash, windshield to fend off rain, doors that locked to keep a perp inside. Why would a sane person scream around a track in a flimsy open car at unimaginable speeds just for the thrill of it?

  Moore grinned. “For my twenty-first birthday, Uncle Walt gave me lessons at Bertil Roos Race Driving School in the Poconos. It was a rush. Probably the most beneficial few days of my life.”

  She got positively dewy-eyed reliving her hours of training on the track. She described easing a skid car with a broken axle through a slalom course of cones; braking without spill
ing wine from the gimbal-mounted goblet; sliding out of a curve, fingernail-close to the wall. Talked about the importance of hitting the apex of a turn, not lifting in corners, relying on peripheral vision to focus as far down the track as possible.

  Wasn’t his idea of fun. It might not have been Moore’s either, if her uncle hadn’t instigated it. Mick had heard enough Uncle Walt stories to realize that Moore would have jumped off tall buildings without a chute to win his approval.

  The remaining pictures were close-ups of the exposed engine or parts of a car, like a detached steering wheel sitting on the hood, or a tire leaning against a low concrete wall. He flipped through them, raised an eyebrow at Moore. “Your intruder left these? Not the usual stalker shots.”

  She said nothing. Waited like this was a pop quiz and he was heading for an “F.”

  He went through them again, turning each one over to stack it in order. On the backsides were questions printed in fat crayon. On the one of the steering wheel were the words, Comes off—why? On the shot of Moore cradling a helmet was written, You race? The handwriting was loopy and childish, big open circle instead of a dot under the question marks.

  “Purple crayon?”

  She turned the pictures face up, one at a time. “He’s been leaving two sets of photos every day for over a week, one set with a caption. I arrive home from the track and the pictures are on the table, wedged under the pot with the dead geranium. Peanut shells scattered on the table. I reply to the questions and leave the second photograph for him to retrieve.”

  “Any idea who your fan is?”

  “A child who should be in school, not hanging around the racetrack. I was hoping to find out tonight. I’d written my name on the last one. He might have replied.”