Follow the Dotted Line

by Nancy Hersage

  “Again. You are not easing my mind.”

  “Do you want to come and stay with me?”

  “Not really. I like my own bed.”

  “Do you have a gun?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “Then we need to get the authorities involved as soon as possible. Set your alarm and make those calls early. I’m not kidding. Now hang up and check out newspaper sites for the Canary Islands.”

  Andy did as she was told. For the remainder of the afternoon and evening she searched through all of the English language newspapers she could find on Tenerife and the other islands. Most of them had search functions, but few had an archive that went back as far as she needed. In the end, there were only two sites she could use. First, she looked for news items about drownings during the two weeks following the date of the passport stamp from the Canaries in Tilda’s passport. Later, she tried searching for ‘John Levin,’ ‘tourist death,’ ‘missing person,’ and ‘American tourist.’ Nothing produced a result that was helpful. By eleven o’clock, Andy couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. The U.S. Consulate General in Las Palmas opened at 10:00 a.m. local time, which would mean she could try staying awake until 2:00 a.m. California time and make the call first thing. But Andy knew that was never going to happen. Better to set her alarm for 5:00 a.m. and make the call after she’d had a few hours’ sleep.

  Like most women who live alone, Andy went through the ritual of locking her doors each night with the thoroughness of a pilot checking the plane’s navigation equipment. There was nothing like running through a checklist to create an illusion of safety, unless it was running through it twice. Or even thrice. Which she did tonight. Having battened all her hatches, she made a fourth and final tour of the house, turning on one light in every room and leaving the TV tuned to an old movie channel. She was comatose ten minutes after her head hit the pillow.

  Chapter 30

  Cloudy and Confused

  The sound track was from Sleepless in Seattle, the scene where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are trying to find each other on top of the Empire State Building. She recognized it within seconds of waking up. Andy had always hated the movie, but it felt comforting to hear familiar voices inhabiting the downstairs. She closed her eyes for a moment and wondered how much longer she had until her phone alarm went off. After a few minutes, she gave in and looked at her watch. Six-thirty!

  “Damn it!” She jolted upright, wondering if her cell phone battery had died. What the hell happened to the alarm? She looked at her watch and addressed a question she could actually answer: what time was it now in the Canary Islands? Eight hours’ difference. Two-thirty in the afternoon. She would have to call right now if she hoped to find out anything before the close of business.

  She rolled over and reached for her cell on the bedside table. It wasn’t there. Was that why she missed the alarm? But it was always there. She closed her eyes in an effort to visualize the last time she had used the phone. Last night. Sitting on the bed. Setting the alarm. Suddenly, something unsettling slipped into her consciousness through her nostrils. The smell of brewing coffee.

  “I waited as long as I could,” said an apparition standing in the bedroom doorframe. “Only old people sleep that soundly. Coffee, Andrea?”

  Andy gaped at the flamboyant profile, dressed in a silky, multi-colored poncho that rippled over textured leggings and brushed the tops of cuffed riding boots. Except for the Prada shoulder bag and tinted aviator glasses, she could have been auditioning for a Disney gypsy princess. For the second time in days, Andy inhaled the ominous sweetness of the palm reader’s perfume.

  “What are you doing in my house?” Andy bristled, with surprising forcefulness.

  “Pretty much the same thing you were doing in my house,” came the answer.

  “How’d you get in?”

  “I found your hidden key. In the planter. Hide one once, you’ll probably do it again.”

  It was true. Andy always hid a key because, up until this moment, she’d been more frightened of getting locked out than of anyone getting in.

  “I mean it, what do you want, Tilda?”

  “I’d like to talk.”

  Inexplicably, Andy sat staring at the woman’s brown leather gloves.

  “They’re made from imported lambskin,” Tilda explained. “Now get up and get yourself dressed, Andrea. I’d like to do this over coffee. But I don’t have much time. I have a plane to catch.”

  Under direct supervision, Andy slipped into her jogging shorts and shirt, trying to concentrate on what seemed to be the good news thus far: Tilda wanted to talk, and she was going to leave on a plane. Taken at face value, this could mean the palm reader had violated the sanctity of Andy’s townhouse simply to clarify her threat. All Andy had to do was avoid provoking her.

  They descended the stairs, Andy first and Tilda following. On the kitchen table two red coffee mugs billowed steam. A carton of half-and-half and a container of whipped cream, which Andy couldn’t live without, stood at the ready beside them.

  “I know how you like your dairy fat,” Tilda said.

  How does she know that, Andy wondered, unwilling to risk any unnecessary conversation to find out.

  Tilda picked up her mug and drank. Andy wasn’t interested in coffee. She wanted to hear what the intruder had to say. Tilda said nothing. Instead, her eyes wandered through the patio window in what felt like a snub. Apparently, she expected Andy to show some manners before deigning to speak. Andy grabbed the half-and-half and dumped more than necessary into her cup. Then she let loose with the whipped cream.

  “What’s your cholesterol?” Tilda asked.

  “No idea,” Andy admitted.

  “Using all that cream is nasty.”

  It was tough not to engage, but Andy kept to the plan. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said. Just to be annoying, she lifted up the cup and took a careless swig, the kind that left a white moustache along her upper lip line. She turned to look directly at Tilda, as she licked it off with her tongue.

  “Oh, my god,” said the thirty-something. “You really are disgusting.”

  The satisfaction would be fleeting, no doubt, but Andy enjoyed it anyway.

  Tilda still wasn’t speaking, but her eyes were on the prize now. Andy couldn’t stand the stare.

  “Look, I really am sorry about going into the cabin,” she said, wondering how much Tilda knew about the reasons and hoping it was next to nothing. “I just wanted to find my—”

  “Cut the bullshit.” The voice was silken, but the intensity of the command was terrifying. “I want to know what you’re after.”

  It didn’t take a genius to realize that the less Tilda learned about what Andy knew, including the fact she’d had three other husbands besides Mark, the better. Keep calm and say as little as possible, she warned herself. “Nothing. I swear.”

  Tilda took another sip of coffee and leaned in suffocatingly close. “Then why are you harassing me?”

  “Harassing you?” Is that what Tilda thinks I’m doing, Andy mused. Harassment was a helluva lot more benign than the truth about what Andy and company had actually been doing. “How am I harassing you?”

  “You went to Texas to talk to a lawyer.”

  “How do you know I went to Texas?”

  “A teller at the bank called. Nice, elderly gentleman. Didn’t I tell you people to stay away from me?”

  “Well, it’s just that, you didn’t even tell us how Mark died.”

  “What do you care? He certainly didn’t care about any of you. Did he?”

  That tidbit of truth pricked through Andy’s defenses. Her cheeks reddened with embarrassment.

  “You know what I think?” Tilda posited, “I think you’re after me because of Mark’s money.”

  Andy almost laughed; Tilda’s primary motivation was money, so she assumed it had to be Andy’s. “When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” she said, before she could stop herself.

  “Wh
at?”

  Shit, thought Andy. Big mistake. Or maybe not. Money was a motivation Tilda could grasp. Maybe Andy should go with it.

  “Is that why you’re here?” Andy tested. “You think I want Mark’s money?”

  “Don’t you?”

  This might be her opportunity to talk Tilda out of her kitchen and out of her life. Andy picked up the red mug again and took a long drink, as she considered how to frame what she was about to say. “Well, I did want his money. I mean, I thought I did. Until now.” She calculated that humility and fear were her most convincing allies against this particular enemy. “I admit I should have listened to you the first time. I shouldn’t have gone to Texas. And, well, now that I’ve met you, you scare the shit out of me. Okay? I get the message.”

  The psychic’s expression remained unchanged, but her ‘aura’ oozed satisfaction. Andy felt she was on the right track. “Let’s just say I’m through wanting Mark’s money. As of this very moment. I’ll never bother you again. I guarantee.”

  Still no overt response from her audience. Andy pressed forward. “So unless you have anything else to talk about . . .”

  The eyes under the glittered lids hardened. The room grew colder.

  “Oh, but I do,” said Tilda, laying her hands palms down on the glass tabletop and splaying her fingers across the surface. “I want to talk about my passport.”

  Andy’s throat began to constrict. “Sorry?”

  “After you left, I found it wedged in the desk drawer. I want to know why you looked at it.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh, but you did.” Tilda raised an accusatory finger and circled it slowly. Andy couldn’t take her eyes off the small diamond lacquered in the center of the nail. With the other hand, she produced the cell phone that had disappeared from Andy’s night table. “And you photographed the pages.”

  It was like being tricked into the truth by an illusionist.

  “Explain yourself, Andrea.”

  Andy didn’t dare. Tilda’s ignorance of what she knew was the only thing keeping the conversation and, by logical extension, Andy alive. She needed to find a way out of the house.

  Andy began to spool through the possibilities. The most direct route was from the dining room to the patio and out the back gate. The only impediment was the sticky latch on the sliding glass door. It would definitely slow her down. The alternative would require elbowing her way past Tilda’s chair and into the living room, where it would be two steps up to the entryway and a yank of the front door. This route was faster, but it required a physical encounter with the younger, stronger woman.

  Maybe she could create some kind of impediment for Tilda.

  “I said, explain yourself, Andrea.”

  “Okay.” The pressures building inside Andy were making it hard to think straight. “I took pictures of your passport.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. I thought maybe it would tell me something about how or where Mark had died.” She needed to find a way to disable Tilda. A clear idea. But her thoughts were clumping up like wads of wet cotton.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Um. Well, there was no record of a death certificate in Texas,” she said. “So I wondered if maybe he died while out of the country.”

  Andy knew she was telling the witch too much, but she didn’t have time to censor herself. She needed to focus on finding that idea. The one for stopping Tilda. The one for getting out of there.

  “Why would you think Mark died while out of the country?” Tilda asked.

  Below the glass table, Andy could see her adversary’s hand reach for the Prada bag. There was the answer. Somewhere below the table. Andy sensed it. But she couldn’t grab onto it. She stared dumbly downward, as Tilda put the purse in her lap and slipped a hand inside.

  “I know!” she suddenly announced.

  “Know what, Andrea?”

  “How to stop you.”

  She could tell it was another foolish thing to say, but Andy didn’t have time to think about that. Instead, she slipped her fingers under the wicker rim of the table and prepared to push upward.

  “Wait a minute,” Tilda laughed. “Are you planning to shove the table on top of me?”

  “Yes, I am!” roared Andy. “Because I know you killed all those men.”

  It felt so liberating to tell the truth, so right to unleash her pent-up honesty, that Andy began to giggle as she pushed upward on the table. When the table barely moved, she giggled again.

  “Oops,” smiled Tilda. “Give it another try.”

  Andy did. With the same result. She looked down at her dysfunctional hands and addressed them in a whisper. “What’s wrong with you? We’re trying to get out of here.”

  The hands didn’t answer. Andy looked up at Tilda, who was holding a small handgun. “Is that pink?” she asked, feeling both cloudy and confused.

  “Raspberry pink. A .380 Ruger. Are you having problems?”

  “What’s wrong with me? I’m very concerned about myself.”

  “Really. And why is that?”

  “I’m not sure. I think my body may be turning off. Is that possible?”

  “Yes, it is, Andrea.”

  “Why would it do that?”

  “I put amobarbital in your coffee.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s my favorite barbiturate. It acts as a very versatile sedative in the proper dosage.”

  “Oh.”

  “That means you can’t control your muscles anymore.”

  “I can’t?”

  “No. And it dulls your mental defenses.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It makes your brain too lazy to lie.”

  “I don’t like to lie.”

  “But you have. On several occasions, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s all right. Your mind is swimming in truth serum now, and I think I’ve found out just about all I need to know.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Except who’s following me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Would you like to tell me who’s following me?”

  “Okay. Who?”

  “I don’t know. But someone is. Did you tell the police about my husbands, Andrea?”

  “No.”

  “The Sheriff’s Department? The FBI? Anybody like that?”

  “No. They won’t believe me yet. I have to get a paper trail.”

  “That’s interesting. Tell me about the paper trail.”

  “You know, the vacations, the drownings, the death certificates.”

  “And you haven’t told the police about that yet?”

  “I can’t. Or I’ll look stupid. You know?”

  “Yes. Nobody wants to look stupid.”

  Tilda pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “How do you feel?”

  “Tired. Deeply, deeply tired,” Andy answered.

  “Can you move?”

  Andy tried to stand but couldn’t do it by herself.

  “It’s okay,” Tilda said, putting the mini-firearm back in her handbag and setting the purse on the kitchen counter. Without removing her lambskin gloves, she picked up the coffee cups, washed them thoroughly, and placed them on a shelf in the cupboard.

  “Am I going to die?” asked Andy.

  “Not without your shoes on.” Tilda held up Andy’s cross trainers and a pair of socks and slipped them into her bag. “Okay, I’m going to help you get on your feet, Andrea. We need to go for a ride.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re going hiking at Castaic Dam.”

  “I like that place.”

  “I know you do. It’s the closest water I could find.”

  “Am I drowning, too?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re going to make it look like I had an accident while I was hiking.”

  “Could be.”

  An
y resistance Andy had left in her was flagging fast. Her limbs were so cumbersome that Tilda had to pull her off the chair and propel her through the kitchen and into the garage where Andy’s Camry was parked.

  “I don’t want to get into the car.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Tilda. “You can lie down in the trunk.”

  Andy halted, nearly toppling them both. “I shouldn’t get in the trunk,” she confided. “I saw that on Oprah once. Don’t get in cars or trunks with strangers.”

  “Oprah has a lot of good advice,” Tilda said, amused.

  “Oprah wouldn’t trust you, Tilda. She’d tell me to make a run for it.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Just head towards the rear of the car as you do.”

  Chapter 31

  No Time for Mulligans

  Inside the trunk, Andy lay face down, as the anesthetic continued its slow, but relentless, invasion of her blood stream. Despite the weariness in her body, her unbridled mind roamed all over the place. She reminded herself how lucky she was to be in her Camry because the trunk was fully carpeted and offered more than 15 cubic feet of space. At the same time, her drugged brain clung to the notion that they were headed to the lake behind Castaic Dam, where she walked most weekends. Trailing right behind was the notion that Tilda was going to put her in that lake, and when she did, Andy wouldn’t be able to swim. Like Ernie. And Gus. And Mark. And the other one.

  The ride wouldn’t take long, and no one would be on the trails yet. Too early. Probably not even light outside. Once Tilda pulled her out of the trunk, Andy would be helpless. Even if Andy refused to move, the younger woman could drag or carry her. With considerable effort, Andy tried to roll onto her back, inspired by the random thought that shifting positions would help her to focus. As she did, her nose violently collided with something metal. She knew instantly what it was: the head of her uncovered driver poking out of her golf bag. Involuntarily, Andy’s hands moved to her face, lumbering upward. The creeping numbness of the amobarbital dulled most of the pain in her septum, but her fingers were soon moist from the blood between her nostrils and upper lip. That’s when Andy realized she was lying next to an arsenal of weaponry designed by Ben Hogan.