Framed For Murder (An Anna Nolan Mystery)

by Spencer, Cathy

  I looked down at the hand-knitted socks and sandals on Frieda’s feet and laughed. “Tremaine wouldn’t be caught dead in Birkenstocks. He favours black Oxfords.”

  “Charlie,” Frieda said.

  “Charles,” I replied, taking a bite of cake fragrant with chocolate and nuts. Really, was I the most up-tight person in the world, or were all the middle-aged women I knew horny?

  Okay, maybe I was a little overly-cautious in the romance department, but I had just cause after Jack. Besides, I was not about to play the fool by throwing myself at a younger man. Tremaine was probably used to nice, firm, twenty-somethings. And wouldn’t I look stupid if I made cow-eyes at him and he ended up charging me with Jack’s murder. Charles Tremaine was not a path that I was going down.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Since it had been a few weeks since the last snow, I devoted the rest of the weekend to my annual outdoor spring clean-up. As I sat on the deck after work on Monday surveying my tidily raked lawn, trimmed bushes, and spruced-up flower beds, I was pleased with the results. Wendy lay on the grass in front of me gnawing on a stick propped between her paws while I lounged on my recliner. Supper was over, the kitchen was clean, and I was enjoying a glass of sparkling cranberry juice on ice while watching the sun set. It was a really pretty sunset with wispy pink and purple clouds trailing across a golden sky.

  I heard the phone ring and checked my watch. It was 8:35PM. I sighed. Who was interrupting my well-deserved peace? But then it occurred to me that it might be Tremaine, and I ran into the kitchen with a little thrill of anticipation. “Hello?” I said, snatching up the phone.

  A husky voice whispered, “If you ever want to see Charles Tremaine alive again, be at the O’Cleary barn in twenty-five minutes.”

  Horrified, I tightened my hold on the phone. “Who is this?” I asked.

  “And Anna, come alone. I’ve got the police radio turned up in Tremaine’s car. If I hear the slightest hint that you’ve called for help, I swear you’ll be finding his dead body when you get here.”

  “Alright, I’ll come alone. Please don’t hurt him,” I begged, but the phone had gone dead.

  I stared out the screen door at the backyard, feeling like I was suddenly in a nightmare. Wendy was still lying on the grass chewing her stick as if nothing had happened. But something very bad had happened. If I didn’t get moving, Tremaine would be just as dead as Jack in twenty-five minutes. The thought galvanized me into action.

  “Wendy, come!” I shouted. She ran into the kitchen still carrying her stick. I wrenched it from her mouth and threw it outside, slamming the door shut. She stared after it while I ran to the bedroom to grab my keys.

  “What about a weapon?” I thought. “What can I bring?” I rushed into the kitchen and looked at the handles protruding from the knife block, but a knife would be too dangerous if the killer took it from me. Then I remembered the baseball bat under my bed. I raced back to my room, grabbed the bat, and ran for the front door. Wendy yipped and bounded after me.

  “No, girl, you have to stay,” I said, leaning down to give her a quick hug before letting myself out. No way I was going to endanger her, too. I ran to the car in the driveway as Jeff and Betty came strolling down the street toward me.

  “Hi Anna,” Betty called with a friendly wave. Ignoring her, I tossed the baseball bat into the passenger’s seat, jumped in, and reversed out of the driveway. I saw them staring after me in my rear view mirror as I barrelled out Wistler Road headed for Longview. I glanced at my watch. I had twenty-one minutes to make it to the O’Cleary ranch.

  Normally this road was deserted at night, but a shiny blue tractor turned left in front of me and clattered down the middle of the road. I knew the tractor – it belonged to Clive. Hard on his tail, I honked at him repeatedly to get out of the way. I’m not sure if he heard me over the roar of his engine, but he pulled onto the shoulder and waved his left arm lazily out of the window. I careened past him and was back in my lane just in time for the stop sign at the intersection. I turned onto the range road, tires squealing, and rushed on.

  Five minutes later, I was on the Cowboy Trail headed south the short distance to Longview. It was getting dark, so I turned on my high beams, searching the road ahead of me for animals or traffic. Fortunately, the road was clear. I flew into Longview without raising my foot off the gas pedal. There were a couple of cars meandering along ahead of me, and I swerved around them without slowing. I hit the turn onto 182 too fast and almost veered into the ditch, but righted myself just in time and sped on. I had only three minutes left. I squealed into the bend on 181A, a rear tire lifting off the pavement, and floored it. My poor little Honda skidded down the road, but I saw the O’Cleary ranch up ahead.

  The place looked deserted, but as I pounded and bounced down the rutted drive leading past the boarded-up house, I thought I could hear shouting. Rounding the house, I spotted Tremaine’s car parked close to the barn, the driver’s door hanging open. I skidded to a stop beside it with my engine still running. His police radio was making a lot of noise. Explosions of static hurt my ears. I glanced around the yard. To my left was an overgrown corral, the top rail hanging on the ground. To my right was the weathered barn with a big pumpkin of a moon shining behind it. The front side of the barn was enshrouded in shadow so thick that it looked like an open maw.

  My heart thumping in my chest, I grabbed a flashlight out of my glove box, picked up the baseball bat, and got out of the car, slamming the door shut behind me. I wanted the caller to know that I was there, but the radio was so loud that I doubted anyone could hear me. I trotted across the packed earth toward the barn with every cell in my brain screaming at me to get back in the car. But I couldn’t. I had to help Tremaine.

  The barn door was sagging open. I shone my flashlight into the shadowy entrance. Inside, I saw a foyer and an empty corridor until my light was swallowed up by darkness. The shrieking police radio was driving me insane, so I ducked into the barn and banged the door shut behind me. The smell of rotting hay and cold assaulted my nostrils, but at least the radio was muted.

  “Hello?” I called, my voice cracking with nerves. “It’s Anna. Where are you?”

  “Just in time, Anna. Come on over and join us,” a female voice shouted back.

  Shining the flashlight ahead of me, I followed the corridor until it opened into a stable area with four stalls on either side of an aisle. A lantern hanging on a hook beside a stall door cast a wan light. I couldn’t see anyone, but I was sure that the voice had come from that direction. I dropped the flashlight and inched ahead, the bat raised in my hands.

  “Tremaine?” I called. I stopped beside the lantern and peered warily inside the stall. He was on his back on the dirt floor, his arms lying straight beside his body. He was unconscious, or at least I prayed that he was.

  Lowering the bat, I ran into the stall and dropped onto my knees beside him. I felt for the pulse at the base of his throat; it beat steadily beneath my fingers. He was wearing a suit, the tie still correctly knotted. There was no sign of blood or injury. I lay the bat on the ground and cupped his head in my hands. His eyes remained closed, and he didn’t move.

  “Tremaine,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder, “wake up.” He didn’t stir, and then something hard and cold pressed into the back of my skull.

  “Get up, Anna, and leave the bat where it is,” the woman said. I got up very slowly, the weapon still pressed against my head.

  “Let’s go into the corridor where there’s a little more room, shall we?” she said. The pressure was removed, and I turned to face my enemy.

  “Jessie Wick,” I said, looking down a gun barrel pointed straight at my chest. She smiled and indicated that I should walk ahead of her into the corridor. I did, and then turned to face her. She was wearing a brown leather jacket and blue jeans with an old fashioned gun-belt slung around her hips. A second gun was tucked into the front of the belt.

  “Well, we meet again, Anna,” she said. “For t
he last time, I’m afraid. It’s too bad things didn’t go according to plan, or we could have spared Tremaine tonight’s little drama. But that’s just the way things are. Pity. It would have saved us all a lot of trouble if Jack had married me back then like he promised. But you just couldn’t count on that man, now, could you?”

  I half-listened, my eyes darting around the barn for a way out. “Pay attention, Anna!” she shouted. My head whipped around and I gasped, spotting my grandfather’s diamond and ruby ring glittering on her gun hand. She grinned and held it up for me to admire.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it? You recognize it, don’t you Anna?”

  I nodded. “Jack’s ring.”

  “Yes. I was going to plant it in Ben’s car as evidence, but I just couldn’t give it up. It’s too pretty.”

  I gulped, thinking about Ben and how he would feel if I didn’t make it out of the barn alive. I shoved the thought out of my head. I had to focus on what was happening. Out loud I said, “What did you do to Tremaine?”

  Jessie’s eyes strayed towards him before skipping back to me. “Just a dose of Temazepam in his coffee. It’s a prescription I keep around the house in case I need help falling asleep at night. Daddy first heard about it during the Korean War. They used to give it to pilots who couldn’t sleep before a raid. Crazy, huh – drugging their men the night before they went out on a mission.”

  “When did you and Tremaine have coffee?”

  “Just after supper when he came over to my brother’s ranch. Tremaine called, wanting to set up a meeting. My brother and his family were at my niece’s ballet recital. Wasn’t that handy? Normally, I don’t miss a performance, but it sounded like the sergeant was finally on the right track, so I invited him over.”

  “What did Tremaine want to know?” I asked.

  “Well, aren’t you a nosy old thing? Still, I guess it doesn’t do any harm telling you. It’s not like you can do anything about it now.” She backed over to an old hay bale pushed up against the wall and sank down on top of it, the gun never wavering in her hand.

  “Let’s see, where do I start?” she said, crossing her legs. “You already know that Jack and I were lovers four years ago. After we broke up, I stayed in touch with him. We used to meet up whenever he was out this way. Jack was a very talented lover, and I wasn’t going to let a little broken romance get in the way of having a good time.”

  “Then, about two years ago, I decided that it was time to get out of stunt work. It’s hard on the body, and I started having trouble with my knees. None of us is getting any younger, you know.” She gave me a pointed look. “Especially not you, Anna.”

  “I didn’t want to stop acting, so I developed an idea for a television show for Jack and me. It was going to be a crime show with him playing a police detective and me a forensics doctor. We pitched the show to one of the networks this past winter, and things were going great. That was, until I found out that Jack had double-crossed me. That bastard met with the producer and the network reps behind my back and told them that I was too old to play the doctor. He wanted them to use this young girl he had met filming a commercial. Probably another filly out of his stable. I didn’t find out about it until the weekend before Crossed Trails started shooting. Fortunately, I was sleeping with the producer, and he told me what Jack was up to. My friend told me not to worry, though. He said that they would still cast me in a re-occurring role. Can you believe it? I was the one who came up with the idea, and they were going to hang me out to dry.”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to let that rat-bastard Jack get away with it, was I? So I arranged a rendezvous with him for 6 PM out here in the barn, just like old times. We used to get it on in one of the stalls. Crazy, eh? But doing it here gave it a little thrill. Jack didn’t know that my producer friend had told me about the double-cross, so he agreed to it. Thought he’d get all he could out of me before I found out. What a low-life. When I turned up thirty minutes late, he was waiting in the lounge. I brought Daddy’s M1911 – it’s a beauty, isn’t it? Daddy brought it back from Korea. I stood in the doorway to the lounge and shot Jack before he could even get out of his chair. You should have seen the look on his face. It was priceless.”

  “But he called me at home at 7 PM,” I said.

  “No he didn’t, dummy. That was me, using his cell phone. I wanted your number in his call history as evidence. If you had answered, I would have pretended that it was a wrong number. Only, you weren’t home. Where were you, by the way?”

  “At a book club meeting.”

  “A book club meeting? Aren’t you just too precious. You know, I watched you the entire week before I shot Jack, but you never changed your routine. Good old reliable you – always walking the same way, night after night. I was so bored, but you were just too handy to pin the murder on. I used to laugh thinking about how neat that was – the discarded wife finally taking her revenge. And let’s not forget about the insurance money.”

  “I called in an anonymous tip to the police so that they would find you with Jack’s body. But when Tremaine still hadn’t arrested you after two weeks, I told him that I’d spotted Ben’s car outside the O’Cleary ranch. I even tried to talk you into running the other night. That would have incriminated you and Ben for sure.”

  “But how did Tremaine clue into what you were doing?” I asked.

  Jessie gestured toward him with the gun. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that his eyes were still closed.

  “He flew out to Toronto to see Jack’s agent. Tremaine wanted to know what kind of business deals Jack had been involved with before his death. Good old Tim – Jack’s agent – he let the cat out of the bag about the TV series, but not about how Jack was going to screw me over. Tremaine flew back this morning, and Tim called to warn me about how much Tremaine knew. Tim was always fond of little old me. At first I thought that everything would be alright. If anything, wanting to make a TV show with Jack gave me a motive for keeping him alive. But then I got worried that Tremaine might have dug deeper, and there were too many people at the network who knew Jack wanted to replace me. So, when Tremaine called to set up the meeting tonight, I was happy to oblige. Ever the good hostess, I served him coffee and kept him talking until he passed out. I’m very strong, so it was no trouble hiding him in the trunk of his car and carrying him into the barn. It seemed only fitting to end it here, what with all the history this place had for Jack and me. And now I’m going to kill you both.” Jessie stood up.

  “Wait a minute. I don’t get it,” I said, stalling. “If you shoot Tremaine and me with the same gun that killed Jack, the police will know there was a third person involved. What happened to trying to pin this on me?”

  Jessie laughed. “That’s the beauty of it. The police were never able to find Jack’s murder weapon – I hid it at my cottage. Naughty, naughty you, snooping out there, by the way. Too bad you and Tremaine didn’t both drown in the river. The police will think that you hid the murder weapon here at the barn, and that you were coming back to get it when Tremaine followed you. I’m going to shoot you with Tremaine’s gun, and then I’m going to shoot him with Daddy’s gun. It will look like the two of you had a shoot out. There’s no record to tie the gun to me – Daddy liberated it as a war souvenir. It’s an elegant plan, isn’t it? And now, it’s time for you to die.” Jessie raised the M1911 and pointed it at me.

  “Wait a minute, you idiot, that’s the wrong gun!” I shouted.

  “What?” she said, turning it in her hand for a better look.

  That was it, my only chance. I dove into her legs and knocked her down. The gun flew out of her hand and discharged into the ceiling, landing in the stall behind me. I jumped on top of her and tried to hit her. She ducked away from my fist and punched me in the nose. I fell over, and she rolled on top of me. With tears blurring my vision, I tried to scratch her eyes out, but she punched me in the nose again. I lay there seeing little lights dancing in front of my eyes while she sat back on her heels and aimed Tremaine�
�s gun at my head.

  “Anna Nolan, you are a pitiful excuse for a woman. Did you think that you could beat me in a fist fight? You’re too weak and pathetic. Do you know what I would have done if Jack had cheated on me? I would have shot one of his balls off. No, that’s wrong, because Jack would never have cheated on me in the first place. I was all the woman he’d ever have wanted, night after night, and year after year. You, on the other hand, were the boring wife and mommy, and Jack was sick of you. We used to laugh about what a clueless wimp you were. Well, I’m finished wasting my time on you. Say goodbye to your worthless, miserable life.”

  I flung up my arms just as the gun went off. Suddenly, Jessie was gone. I looked up, and saw that Tremaine had her in a choke hold. They were struggling for the gun. I scrambled off the floor, trying to get out of the way. They swayed together until Jessie nailed him in the face with a head butt. He fell over and she toppled on top of him, knocking the wind out of him. She twisted out of his hold, still holding the gun. He wouldn’t let go of it, so she punched him in the face and grabbed his throat with her free hand. I dropped down in the dirt beside them, taking hold of her gun hand with both of my own. Tremaine let go of the gun and concentrated on breaking her hold on his throat. I spared him a quick glance. He was still woozy from the drug. I tried pounding her wrist on the floor, but it was packed earth and too soft, so I bit her. She shrieked and dropped the gun.

  Jessie rolled off Tremaine, focussing her attention on me. As she got up, I clasped my hands together like a volleyball serve and clipped her under the chin. She fell backwards and rolled into the stall. I grabbed the gun off the floor and looked up just as Jessie came at me with my baseball bat. I screamed and fired, but missed. She swung the bat at me, but I dove out of the way. Tremaine grabbed her ankle as she went past, and Jessie pitched onto the floor. The bat rolled out of her hand, and I tossed the gun into the stall behind me and snatched up the bat. She jumped to her feet and leapt at me just as I clobbered her in the ribs. She staggered, and came at me again. I swung the bat with everything I had and bashed her in the knee. She screamed and fell onto the floor, writhing in pain. I stood over her, panting. I was absolutely livid.