Stiff Penalty (A Mattie Winston Mystery)

by Annelise Ryan

  I slide myself down into the tub. I try the breathing techniques I learned in the birthing class. I tell myself not to push, not yet, not here. But the urge is too strong. Finally I can’t take it any longer. I rip the washcloth from my mouth, bear down, and push as hard as I can while letting out a mighty yell.

  There is a thundering crash just beyond the tub that makes the floor beneath me shake, and the bathroom door flies open. I wonder if I’m about to die, and for one desperate, insane moment I hope I am because it would make this god-awful pain go away.

  Someone appears next to the tub, and I turn to face this person who has haunted and hunted me for the past four months, this person who wants me dead. But the face I see is Hurley’s.

  “Shots?” I manage through clenched teeth.

  “We got him. It’s okay,” Hurley says. “Is the baby coming?”

  Through my clenched teeth, I hiss a yes, and then suddenly the urge to push abates. The pain is still intense, however, and I start panting, trying to get through it.

  Hurley yells out, “Brenda, call an ambulance.” Then he looks back at me. “What can I do?”

  Between pants, I say, “Wash your hands. More towels.”

  Another urge to push starts to build, and I try to breathe through it. But it’s too strong, and before I know it I’m pushing. I grunt and groan as my body strains to expel the child within me, but after a minute or so the urge subsides.

  “I think I saw the head,” Hurley says, staring between my legs as he dries his hands. “Lots of hair. But it’s bloody and really wet. It’s kind of gross. Is it supposed to look like that?”

  “What did you expect, Hurley?” I snarl. The pain has stolen any last vestige of politeness or patience I had in me. “Did you think this was going to be all magic, and fairy dust, and rainbows?”

  I thought Hurley might look wounded, or snap back at me, but instead he smiles and says, “Hell, yes. And unicorns, too.”

  I shake my head. “Leave it to you to get a phallic symbol in there somewhere.”

  Someone else comes through the bathroom door, and when I look past Hurley, I’m surprised to see Izzy.

  “The security alarm went off, so the company called me,” he says. “They called Dom, too.” Then he looks down at me and says, “Ah, I see we are about to have a baby.”

  Hurley steps aside and waves Izzy closer to the tub. “Here, you’re a doctor. You do this.”

  Izzy hollers out to the living room, “Dom, get my scene kit from the car, please.” Then he turns to the sink and starts washing his hands.

  “What do you need your scene kit for?” Hurley asks, looking worried. “Is something wrong with the baby? Is something wrong with Mattie?”

  Izzy takes a towel to dry his hands and says, “I want it because there are gloves in it and other things I can use.”

  Hurley moves to the top of the tub by my head and takes hold of my hand. I’m sure he’s about to regret it because another urge to push comes and I lean forward, pull my legs back, and bear down as hard as I can. In the process I squeeze Hurley’s hand into pulp. After pushing as long as I can, I snatch a breath and push again.

  When I’m done, I fall against the back of the tub, hot, sweaty, and exhausted.

  Dom appears and hands Izzy his scene kit. Then he looks at me with a huge smile on his face. “It’s finally coming,” he says, clapping his hands together with giddy excitement. Then he glances down at my nether parts. Seconds later there is another crash as Dom passes out cold.

  “Bob! Brenda!” Izzy yells as he’s donning his gloves. “I need some help in here with Dom.”

  Bob Richmond enters the bathroom, stepping his way around Dom’s prostrate body. He bends down and grabs Dom beneath both arms to lift him, but then he glances over into the tub and freezes. He is staring at my crotch, and I could care less. Everyone in the room is staring at my crotch, and I could care less. I just ... want ... this ... kid ... out!

  I feel another urge to push start to build, and I brace myself and give it all I have. I feel something pop and hear Izzy say, “Atta girl, there’s the head. Now give me one more good push. Give it all you got.”

  I suck in another breath and give it what I have left, which is enough. Seconds later the pressure and pain is gone, and I feel a warm gush of fluid along my thighs and butt.

  Izzy smiles and says, “It’s a boy.”

  The next thing I hear is the sweetest sound I could possibly imagine, the first cry of my newborn son.

  Richmond says, “Holy cow! That was amazing!” Izzy ties off the umbilical cord with dental floss from my sink and then cuts the cord in two. He wraps my son in a towel, wipes the goo off his head, and hands him to me. Holding that tiny life in my arms is the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. His face is exquisitely perfect.

  I look over at Hurley and see tears coursing down his face. I give my son a kiss on the forehead and then hand him over to Hurley, who takes the tiny bundle as if it’s the most precious, fragile thing in the world.

  “Wow,” he says, looking down at that tiny face. “Hello, Matthew Izthak Hurley. Nice to meet you. I’m your dad.”

  I’m smiling so big my face hurts, and for a few seconds nothing else in the world, nothing else in my screwed-up life matters except this moment, these people, and this wonderful new life that has come from me. I can’t imagine ever feeling more joy.

  And then I’m proven wrong when Hurley leans over, kisses me on the forehead, and says, “I love you, Mattie Winston.”

  Chapter 41

  The EMTs arrive in time to bundle us up and take us to the hospital. Both Matthew and I check out fine, but we are asked to stay an obligatory twenty-four hours just to make sure. A parade of visitors wades through my room throughout the evening, and even my mother manages a visit, though she arrives wearing a mask and gloves. Dribs and drabs of what went down at the cottage are revealed to me as the night progresses—we arrested the shooter, it looks like he’s been stalking you for a while, he has a phone that matches up with the last weird call you got, we found receipts in his car for other burner phones—but it’s not until the next morning that I get the full story. Richmond, Hurley, Junior Feller, Brenda, and Izzy all enter my room just after eight.

  “Little Matthew is sleeping like the proverbial baby,” Izzy tells me. “We just came from the nursery. He’s adorable.”

  “Yes, he is,” I say, smiling. I had told the nurses last evening that I wanted Matthew in the room with me, and they complied. I spent the night nursing him— or at least trying to—and waking up every hour to stand next to his bassinette and just stare at him. It was only when I went to shower this morning that they finally took him back to the nursery. I had hoped Hurley might be able to spend the night, but Emily, upon hearing that the baby had arrived, predictably created a crisis by calling Hurley and threatening to run off with her new boyfriend. Hurley wanted to ignore her, knowing it was most likely an empty threat, but I finally convinced him to go, to reassure her that she was still important to him. I also made it clear to him that we were going to get her some counseling, even if we had to hog-tie her to do it. This time he didn’t balk or argue with me.

  “How’s Dom doing?” I ask Izzy.

  “He’ll be fine,” Izzy says with a smile and a shake of his head. “They checked him out in the ER last night. He has a small cut on his head that took two stitches, but other than that he seems to be okay. He’s home resting so he can come over and help with little Matthew as soon as you come home. He’s so excited you’d think he had the kid.”

  “I’ll be happy to have the help,” I tell him. Then I turn to Richmond. “Any more news on this shooter?”

  Richmond nods. “We know who he is.”

  “And it’s someone you know,” Hurley adds.

  I’m sure they’re going to say it’s my father, and I brace myself for the news. But I’m wrong.

  “It’s Luke Nelson,” Hurley says.

  It takes me a moment to place the n
ame, and then it all comes back to me. “You mean that raping shrink who came to town last fall?”

  “One and the same,” Hurley says. “He’s been on the run and hiding out ever since you busted his little sex scam, and he blames you for everything that’s happened to him. He knew Schneider because the two of them spent several years together in the same foster home in Florida with parents who abused them. Because of that they bonded and stayed in touch over the years. So when Schneider got out of prison, Nelson offered him money to kill you. When he found out that Schneider failed and you killed him, Nelson became focused on revenge. He’s been spying on you for months, just waiting for a chance to catch you exposed and vulnerable. If it hadn’t been for the security detail we had on you, I suspect he would have tried something, and likely succeeded, months ago.”

  “So he’s the one who’s been making all the phone calls?”

  Richmond nods again. “We were able to trace the phone he had on him to the last call you got, and when they followed up on the receipts for the other phones, they coincided with other calls you received.”

  “I remember Nelson saying he was from Florida,” I say. “I should have made that connection, but it’s been almost a year since all that happened. He wasn’t on my radar.”

  “He wasn’t on anyone’s radar,” Hurley says. “We’re lucky we caught him when we did.”

  I’m relieved that the mystery is solved, and even more relieved to know that it wasn’t my father hunting me down and trying to kill me. But I’m also a little disappointed to know that it wasn’t him who was calling me. Despite that, it still seems certain that he was the one peering through my cottage windows that night. Luke Nelson is blond, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned, whereas my father is dark-haired, brown-eyed, and ruddy in complexion. So perhaps he is still in the picture.

  Junior, Brenda, and Izzy all congratulate me and then depart for their respective jobs, leaving me with Hurley and Richmond. The two men exchange a look, and then I see Richmond nod at Hurley. Then Hurley looks back at me and says, “There’s something else we should tell you.”

  “What now?” I ask. I don’t like the look on his face or Richmond’s.

  “Luke Nelson was shot as he was trying to break into your cottage. By the time the cops arrived, he was already down.”

  “So?” I say, confused as to why this is important.

  “So, none of us shot him,” Hurley says.

  I contemplate this for a second. “Who did then?”

  Hurley shrugs. “We don’t know. Apparently you have a guardian angel. At first, we thought maybe David or someone from his place had come over through the woods when they heard the shots, but David and Patty were both in Chicago for the day. Brenda was inside with you. We ran ballistics on the bullets that hit Nelson, and they aren’t a match for any of our guns.”

  “Bullets? Plural?” I say.

  Hurley nods. “He was hit twice, once in the arm and once in the groin.”

  I can’t help but feel that the shot in the groin is poetic justice, knowing what I do about Nelson.

  Richmond adds, “The arm shot was a through-and-through, and we found the bullet embedded in your door frame. Based on Nelson’s injury and where he told us he was standing at the time, we calculated a trajectory for the shots and determined they came from the woods.”

  “You didn’t find anyone in the woods?”

  Hurley shakes his head. “According to Nelson it was a bear in the woods who shot him.”

  This makes me smile. I have a strong suspicion who the bear was, but I decide to keep it to myself.

  “What’s going to happen to Nelson?” I ask.

  “He won’t see the light of day for years to come, if ever,” Richmond says. “When they’re done filing charges against him here, he’s wanted for a host of them in Florida. In fact, they suspect he was Schneider’s partner in the liquor store robbery. Not sure if they’ll be able to prove it, but they have enough other stuff on him to put him away for a long, long time.”

  Richmond excuses himself after that, and moments later the nurse brings Matthew back into the room. I watch Hurley pick him up from the isolette and stare down into his face as he holds him in his hands. Hurley has the sweetest, gentlest smile I’ve ever seen on him, and I know he is going to make a great father.

  As if he has read my mind, Hurley glances over at me and says, “We’ll make this work somehow, Winston. With time, we’ll make it work.”

  I nod and smile at him, hoping he is right, though I have a feeling the forks aren’t done messing with me yet.

  But for now, for at least this moment in time, life is perfect.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

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  Copyright © 2015 by Beth Amos

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  ISBN: 978-1-6177-3408-3

  First Kensington Mass Market Edition: March 2015

  eISBN-13: 978-1-61773-409-0

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  First Kensington Electronic Edition: March 2015