“Why me?”
“Because people like you. Marti likes you. Alienate Marlene from you and whose side do you think everyone else will pick? I mean, geez, Marlene had two friends—one tried to drive her crazy so she could steal her husband, and the other murdered her.”
“My goodness, it was Gretchen who introduced Carly to Marlene. And to—”
“Anderson,” Stax says. “If this were a Shonda Rhimes show, Gretchen would be my favorite character. But as a real-world person, she totally sucks.”
Ruby sips her tea. “She wanted to ruin Marlene’s life, one person at a time. I believe the objective was to drive her out of her mind.”
A thought occurs to me. “Do you think she put the idea in Carly’s mind to do what she did with the scissors?”
“I don’t believe so. Gretchen’s strength is in not allowing anyone to see beneath her veneer. Carly is too much of a—how do you say?—loose cannon. No, no, far too risky.”
“So, Carly stalking Marlene as Gretchen set her sights on murdering her was just a coincidence?”
“I’m not a big believer in coincidences. Not where murder is concerned. I believe killing Marlene was always to be Gretchen’s final play, but I suspect Carly’s stalking provided Gretchen with the inspiration to undertake the deed sooner rather than later. Working side by side with Marlene, she’d have been privy to her terror each time a new pair of scissors was discovered. Gretchen didn’t know who was behind it, but she expected that if Marlene was murdered and the police tracked down the stalker, that person would be arrested for the murder as well. That is, if Gretchen could devise a method of murder so diabolical as to appear almost magical. She could worry about framing a person later if the police hadn’t done as much for her. So long as the evidence didn’t lead back to her.”
I glance over at Stax who is looking at me with that knowing smile. She nods in Ruby’s direction. I know what she means.
“No, you ask.”
“Huh uh. She likes you better.”
“Does not.”
“Does so.”
“Not. Now ask.”
“Nope.”
“Chicken.”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
Ruby’s tea saucer hits the table with a rattle. “What are you two on about?”
Something about Ruby’s face makes me spit it out. I ask the question that has been poking at my brain for days. However, Stax blurts out at the same time and the result of our combined enthusiasm is something akin to a banshee scream.
“Goodness, I see why you two cling to me so. You need an adult guardian.”
“What we want to know,” I say, “what we’ve been dying to know, is how did Gretchen make Marlene disappear from Chicken Hill?”
Ruby makes us wait as she peddles off to the kitchen to fetch more tea. I suspect she is torturing us. But once she settles herself back into her chair with a warm cup, she gives us the goods.
When Marlene started finding Carly’s scissors, Ruby pointed out, Gretchen would have realized she’d been presented with both a great opportunity to murder her nemesis and the perfect fall guy in whoever was harassing her. So, Gretchen purchased her own scissors (unwittingly, the wrong size and model) and waited for her opportunity.
While stalking Marlene along the trails of Chicken Hill, she sees her boss is not merely training for a run but preparing to cheat in order to beat the times of her younger, stronger employee. This would further enrage an already vengeful Gretchen who decides Marlene’s lonely trek across the wooded area would be the perfect place to strike. After all, Marlene herself would see to it she wasn’t witnessed, and nobody would look for her there right away.
However, they would soon look for her, and when they did, Gretchen had to make sure they couldn’t see her.
But first, the murder.
Ruby reminds me of the tiny sliver of paper she found embedded in a hole in the big tree just off Marlene’s secret path. She also references the missing branch, the odd piece of jute material, and the deep impression in the grass running back towards the path in a different direction. This is the sum total of evidence that served to tell Ruby how the murder had been committed.
By following Marlene, Gretchen knew the spot in the run where Marlene would deviate into the woods to cut her run short and finish with a faster time. The night before the run, Gretchen went to this trail and followed Marlene’s footsteps along the path. The big tree stood out as being perfect for her trap. And a trap it was! At this point, Ruby produced some literature emblazoned with the familiar logo of The Survival List. Apparently, Gretchen’s side business is combining the skills of construction she picked up from her adoptive father with her love of sewing and stitching to create items specifically for that colorful group who believes either the world is coming to an end or coming after them.
Ruby draws our attention to an item in Gretchen’s pamphlet titled the ‘Dead Fall’. It’s quite different from the more well-known trap of the same name where a large hole is dug in the ground and floored with spikes or spears. The description says this Dead Fall is based on traps early settlers would set to catch larger game, but thanks to The Survival List, the modern frontiersman doesn’t need to collect wood or pound a hammer to develop such a trap. All he needs is his credit card.
The illustration shows a contraption both intricate and simplistic. A large wood mallet is positioned on a strong branch in a tall tree and, using a system of camouflaged ropes and pullies, it attaches to a hunk of meat on the ground. When the animal takes the meat in its mouth, it pulls a string that activates a lever that shifts the weight to the heavy mallet, causing it to fall with speed and precision, killing or stunning the animal. The hunter can then move in and finish the job.
It is gruesome to imagine such a trap used on wild game. I don’t have to imagine what it can do to a person. I’ve seen it myself, on display in the little gravel alleyway in the old neighborhood behind Main Street.
Ruby explains how Gretchen drew Marlene into her trap. The tiny folded piece of paper gave the trick away. Gretchen left a paper note stuck to the tree with a pair of scissors, probably with Marlene’s own name emblazoned on the outside. The paper was folded with the message (Marlene would presume) inside, so she had to remove the scissors to read the note. Distracted by the note, she failed to notice the string attached to the scissors, or the mechanisms overhead. It was over before she knew it.
Meanwhile, Gretchen remained in sight of the other runners, and after being an early finisher, she stayed in the open so that every moment of her time could be accounted for. She knew it was only a matter of time before Carly or someone noticed Marlene hadn’t made it through and then only a short wait until someone got the idea for an impromptu search party. Failing that, she could always present the idea herself. Once the search party was suggested, she volunteered and made sure she maneuvered herself into the area of the big tree. She allotted herself a limited amount of time to make Marlene and the crime scene disappear.
Ruby reminds me how the missing branch had been sawed only halfway through. What remained had been torn or ripped free. Gretchen must have cut the branch to a depth where it could maintain the weight of the mallet, but little else, so upon returning to the scene, she had only to climb to it and hang off, using her weight to break it free from the tree. She tossed the branch with the pullies and ropes onto Marlene’s body, along with the note and scissors. From a secret place nearby, she retrieved the length of ghillie she’d created for this purpose.
The ghillie so resembled the surrounding terrain that, once placed over Marlene and the evidence, it would essentially make it disappear. If someone didn’t physically walk across the ghillie, they’d have no idea of what was under it. Gretchen would have completed this entire exercise in one or two minutes and rejoined her search party before her wanderings became obvious.
Gretchen knew that with a missing person she’d have at least twenty-four hours before the police searched in earnest. So, late
that night, she returned to Chicken Hill under cloak of darkness, with—according to Ruby—a pick-up truck and a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow is evinced by the deep line embedded in the grass leading away from the big tree and back towards the path. The truck was inferred by the presence of the wheelbarrow. Gretchen is strong enough to move Marlene’s body by herself, so an accomplice wouldn’t be assumed, but she must have borrowed the truck and barrow from someone. Almost certainly her father.
Gretchen must have stored Marlene someplace prior to dumping her in the alley, believing we’d find her there with Carly leading the run. The scissors left imbedded in the light pole, Ruby noted, were an afterthought on Gretchen’s part, probably conceived the day we all witnessed the scissors lodged in Carly’s tire.
As for the note left on my door that drew me into her trap, it was indeed in Marti’s handwriting, but she says it was one she’d left for Marlene at her office the previous year when she couldn’t find her at home. Gretchen most likely discovered it in or on Marlene’s cluttered desk.
Ruby’s detailed description of the murder of Marlene Petrick checks all the boxes. I am convinced. But I know a theory alone does not convict, so I ask where her evidence is for all this. Ruby said science would put the nail in Gretchen’s coffin: There were three paper samples she was certain would match in a comparison—the paper sliver from the tree, the loose paper left at my house, and the invoice Ruby received when she ordered (under an assumed name) the ghillie material from Gretchen’s business.
Her own commissioned scientist confirmed the material found by Marti in the woods matched Gretchen’s ghillie suit, and more advanced tests by the police should confirm the two are one and the same, to say nothing of the hand-stitching used.
Then there’s the matter of what the warrants would turn up; her father’s truck, wheelbarrow, and the abandoned garage under her apartment should turn up enough DNA to force a confession or win a conviction.
“Oh dear, we’re out of tea,” complains Ruby, as though such a travesty is on par with the devilish doings we’d been discussing. “I could make more, if you’d like.”
“Forget that,” Stax says as she stands. “Let’s go get tacos. On me.”
“I’ve never seen tacos on Larry’s menu,” I observe, recalling how the menu of the little bookstore deli could fit on a postcard.
Stax feigns offense. “I’m not chained to my store, you know. I do venture out for cuisine from time to time.”
“But you hate Mexican!”
Stax purses her lips and taps the arm of her glasses as though deep in thought. I hope I haven’t talked her out of tacos, because they sound pretty amazing right now. “Can you really call tacos Mexican food? I like to think of them more as crunch burgers.”
“You win,” I say. I’d have agreed with anything she said if it ended in me eating tacos. “What about you, Ruby?”
Ruby grabs her purse. “Your treat, you say? Then make mine a double-decker.”
EPILOGUE
Marti and Chase were convinced their days as running store proprietors were over, but Carly and Gretchen became the focus of the news stories and any connection to Run For It faded into the background. Within a few weeks, the running groups were back to near capacity and the Reynoldses are once again discussing the possibility of a much-needed vacation.
I agreed to remain run leader for our group. I initially didn’t think I was up to snuff, but in time I came to enjoy the people and the freedom the position allows. I can mix up our run routes and adjust our pace according to the needs of the group members. In the course of helping others do their best, I’m not too humble to brag, I set not one, but two, personal records.
I remained dateless throughout the summer but life was good. I enjoyed time helping Stax out at the bookstore, grabbing tacos (of the regular and chocolate variety) during our downtime, and late evening talks with Ruby surrounded by her past treasures.
With the case coming to an end, I didn’t see much of Detective Bentley. I thought about dropping by the station to say hi to him, but I decided that was a bit too forward and it was best to just wait for a chance meeting at the grocery store, or something. I’m still waiting.
From the press we learned everything Ruby had surmised was proved true in the investigation. Gretchen confessed to everything. The police were keen to indict her father as an accessory, but Gretchen swore up and down it had been all her from start to finish.
Anderson Petrick cleaned up on the life insurance policy he held on Marlene (I know this because the Leffertys had sold him the policy and I answered the phone when he called to collect) and left town. Nobody asked where he was going. Nobody cared. It turned out he had inadvertently provided Carly with information about the Kayleigh Cook murder by way of late night talks which led to him showing her some documents hidden away at the office. Over time she borrowed these and made copies.
Carly fared far better than did Gretchen in court. She hadn’t committed any acts of violence and her primary complainant was dead. I agreed not to press charges for vandalism if she agreed to seek psychiatric help. I wish her the best, but it’s not likely we’ll see her around Run For It again, and for that I’m not the least bit sorry.
What had easily been one of the most eventful summers of my life tapered off into a warm, leafy fall and then a snowless Christmas; the first Christmas with my new extended Cedar Mill family.
It was a wonderful time. And then came February and Valentine’s Day. Not the best time of year when you’re single.
Or if you want to stay alive.
Love can kill? You bet it can.
Why do you think Cupid is always armed?
THE END
COMING JANUARY 2019
Running from Arrows
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My sincere thanks to Heather Swartz for introducing me to (and, for a time, immersing me in) the world of running. Without her influence and early support this book would not have happened. And to Bronwen Llewellyn for her indispensable skills in proofreading and copyediting. Any errors (real or perceived) remaining in the text are mine alone.
Table of Contents
Also by T.C. Wescott
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
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