The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (Charley's Ghost)

by Sally Berneathy

  Two uniformed officers got out of the patrol car, guns drawn and aimed at her.

  "Stop right there!" the taller one ordered.

  She stopped.

  "Who are you?" the shorter one demanded.

  Amanda opened her mouth to tell them her name, but discovered it was so dry, she couldn't speak.

  "Put your hands behind your back," the second officer ordered, holstering his gun and approaching her with a pair of handcuffs.

  Amanda lowered her arms, and the man slapped the cuffs onto her wrists. They were heavy and cold. Though only her hands were trapped, she felt as if the metal encased her entire body, making it impossible to move, hard to breathe.

  The front door of Kimball's house opened, and the mayor himself stepped out onto the wide porch. "Well, well," Kimball said. "I do believe that's Charley Randolph's widow come to visit." He walked down the steps toward her.

  "You know her?" the officer standing beside the car, his gun still drawn, asked.

  "I met her at the funeral yesterday. Charley Randolph's funeral. You remember Charley, don't you?" Damned man looked even more evil in his casual slacks and knit shirt, every hair in place, his eyes darker and more threatening than the night she'd just been hiding in.

  "I remember," the officer said. "Always in some kind of trouble. Left town a couple of years ago. Wasn’t surprised somebody finally killed him. Probably a jealous husband. Beg pardon, ma'am."

  "He hasn't got any room to talk," Charley protested. "Smoked my first joint with that guy back in the seventh grade. I could tell you some things about him!"

  Amanda would have told him to shut up if her throat hadn't been constricted from fear.

  "What are you doing at the mayor's house in the middle of the night?" demanded the cop standing beside her, the one who'd so eagerly slapped the handcuffs on her.

  "Tell them you were taking a walk," Charley ordered.

  "What?" she gasped. Great. The first word she was able to speak would make her sound like an idiot, talking to someone who wasn't there.

  "The officer asked what you were doing at my house in the middle of the night," Kimball said. His expression as he approached her told her he had a pretty good idea what she was doing there.

  "Taking a walk," she blurted.

  He lifted both eyebrows in disbelief.

  "Is that your motorcycle parked just outside the gate?" asked that same officer.

  So much for the taking a walk story. For an accomplished liar, Charley wasn't coming up with a very credible tale to keep her out of jail. She'd have bet he'd do a lot better if it was his butt on the line. "Yes," she choked out. "My motorcycle."

  "You were riding in the moonlight and saw the gate. The open gate," Charley continued easily.

  "I was riding in the moonlight and saw the gate, the open gate," she parroted. It wasn't a great story, but it was better than anything she could come up with at the moment.

  "You wanted to see where the driveway led."

  "I wanted to see where the driveway led."

  "Then you saw the house."

  "Then you saw…I saw the house."

  "So you stopped to spy on me?" Kimball asked.

  "You twisted your ankle," Charley said, "and you were resting for a few minutes. Stepped in a hole. He'd better be careful you don’t sue him." Charley was getting better, more fluent with his story. Maybe he couldn't tell lies anymore, but apparently there was nothing to stop him from making up lies for someone else to tell.

  "I…stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle. I was just resting for a few minutes."

  Kimball studied her, his sinister gaze raking her from perspiration-covered brow to uninjured ankles safely encased in motorcycle boots. He smiled, and his smile, full of control and power and absolutely no scruples, was the scariest thing she'd seen all night. "Your ankle seems to have healed quite nicely."

  "Yes," she said. "It's better. Much better."

  "It's okay, officers," he said, never taking his eyes off her. "You can remove the handcuffs. Mrs. Randolph was obviously out for a stroll to try to escape the depression of losing her husband. I'm not going to press charges. Thank you for coming out."

  "You sure, Mayor?" the officer with the gun asked. "Maybe we ought to take her down to the station." He sounded disappointed, cheated out of what was probably the only arrest he'd had a chance at all week. Maybe all year.

  "I'm sure, Ted. Mrs. Randolph, why don't you come inside, and my wife will get you something for your ankle."

  Even as Amanda felt the steel shackles fall away from her wrists, she felt tighter, heavier, invisible ones wrap around her chest. Go inside his house? Let his wife get something for her ankle? A knife, maybe? Or a chainsaw? Hiding in the dark had been scary enough; she wasn't about to go inside that house.

  "All right, Mayor. But if you have any more problems, just give us a call. Be sure and close that gate behind us. You don't want any more trespassers tonight."

  The officers got back into their car and continued around the circle drive, eventually heading away from the house.

  Amanda shivered. Suddenly she wanted to call them back. She'd be better off going to jail than stuck here alone with this man.

  "Now, Mrs. Randolph," he said, any pretense of a smile disappearing from his shadowed face, "let's talk about what really happened tonight. So you say the gate was already open when you happened by?"

  She nodded, the movement jerky and uncertain.

  "That's very interesting. The alarm on that gate went off about ten minutes ago, and when I looked at the video from the gate camera, I saw you walking through."

  "Damn!" Charley exclaimed. "An alarm and a video camera! I should have thought of that."

  "Yes, you should have," she muttered.

  "What?" Kimball asked, taken aback at her response.

  Amanda shook her head.

  "You're confused. The pain," Charley suggested. "The pain of that twisted ankle is awful. It's making you crazy, and it was his hole you stepped in. This could be a lawsuit. Tell him that!"

  Amanda ignored him. "Sorry I bothered you. Bye." She turned to leave, but Kimball placed a hand on her shoulder. Amanda halted in mid-step. His hand felt as heavy and metallic as those cuffs had a few minutes ago. Was she going to be murdered here in the mayor's front yard? Or would he haul her inside and let his wife help him? A bonding activity for their marriage.

  "You're leaving so soon?" he asked, his voice low, sleek and scary. "But you just got here. Oh, that's right, you were standing around outside for about ten minutes, weren't you? Still, that's not long. And you couldn't have seen anything because I pulled the drapes as soon as the alarm went off. So why don't you stay awhile and let's have that talk you asked for this morning."

  "Run, Amanda!" Charley ordered. Great advice. If only Kimball's hand on her shoulder wasn't holding her firmly in place.

  Slowly she turned toward him, and he dropped his hand. He was smiling again, aware he was in control and she was terrified.

  "What—" The word came out a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. "What do you want to talk about?"

  "You're the one who wanted to meet with me and talk. You're the one who approached me at the courthouse and then came to my house. Why don't you tell me what you want to talk about?"

  The tall front door of his house opened a few inches. "Is everything all right, Roland?" came a quiet female voice. In the moonlight Amanda could see a small, blonde woman.

  "Everything's fine, Catherine. Charley Randolph's widow was out walking and got lost. I'll be inside in a few minutes."

  The woman disappeared back into the house, closing the door behind her. It seemed Kimball had his wife under control, too.

  At least it appeared Amanda wasn't going to be expected to go in that house. And surely he wasn't going to murder her if he had told his wife she was there. Maybe she had a chance to make it out of this alive.

  "It's been great, having this little chat with you," she said. "But I
've really got to go. The Randolphs are expecting me back soon." That was good. Let him know there were people out there who'd be suspicious if she didn't come back. "They'll probably be looking for me by now."

  "Then I guess we'll have to cut our little chat short. Amanda…may I call you Amanda since we know each other so well that you would pay me an unexpected visit in the middle of the night?"

  Amanda didn't want to hear her name come out of his oily mouth, didn't want the closeness a first-name basis implied. On the other hand, she didn't want to hear anybody call her Mrs. Randolph. For a moment, she debated. "Of course you can call me Amanda, Roland." There. She hoped she'd been able to put her feeling of complete disgust into his name.

  "Very good, Amanda. Since it's getting late and you need to go, let me just cut straight to the heart of the matter and say that I have nothing you would be interested in. If I once had the object of your interest, it's long gone now."

  Amanda's heart sagged in total despair. "You threw away the gun you took from my apartment." The words escaped from her lips in little more than a whisper. Even though she'd known that was a possibility, had told Charley it was, actually hearing it from Kimball was like a cold slap in the face. This man, in a misguided attempt to save his own skin had destroyed her only hope of vindication.

  "I hope you don't intend to tell anyone that outrageous story your husband told you. You'd only be making a fool of yourself and risking a lawsuit for slander since you have no proof."

  "That gun—"

  "Let's get out of here, Amanda," Charley said, interrupting her.

  She moved her gaze from Kimball to Charley and back again. The two men whose crimes had put her in danger of losing her freedom. She'd married Charley, and he'd brought Kimball into her life. At least Charley looked somewhat abashed, but Kimball looked complacent, in control, certain he'd won. Damn them! Damn both of them, but especially that smug, arrogant jerk looking so self-satisfied and pleased with himself, so sure he'd beaten her.

  She took a step toward him. "That gun you stole from my apartment and disposed of, it wasn't your gun. It was mine. Charley gave me that gun when we got married."

  Kimball's arrogant smile widened. "I have no idea what gun you're talking about, Amanda, but if Charley gave it to you, you can bet it was stolen. Our discussion is over. It's getting late. I think you should leave before I call Ted and his partner to come back and take you to jail." Kimball turned and started up the steps to his house.

  "Hey!" Charley protested. "I didn't steal that gun! I bought it for you because I was afraid this jerk would find me after I took his money and ran. I was trying to take care of you, Amanda."

  "Good job," Amanda snapped, her hands clenching into fists as she watched Kimball's back moving up the steps, walking away from his crimes, returning to his world of wealth and power where he always got his way.

  "You made a mistake, Roland," she shouted after him, but he kept going. "That gun you stole from me was not the one you used to kill Dianne."

  He paused, but then continued, turning the knob and opening his front door.

  Damn him! She had to do something. She couldn’t let him get away with messing up her life so easily. "I wouldn't leave valuable evidence like that lying around the house. The gun you used to kill Dianne is hidden away, somewhere that’s safe from you."

  He didn’t go inside his house. Slowly he closed the door and turned back to her. He was still wearing the arrogant, confident expression, but she had his attention.

  "It's in a safe deposit box," she improvised, trying to come up with the most secure place she could think of. "And also in that safe deposit box, there's a paper with the whole story of how Charley saw you throw that gun into the trash behind that bar, how you had blood on your shirt and how he fished it out of the garbage. And it's all written in Charley's handwriting." She hoped Kimball wouldn't know that Charley's handwriting was completely illegible.

  Kimball did a pretty good job of maintaining a stoic expression, but she thought his face paled a little, enough to notice even in the moonlight.

  "My dad—" she continued, emboldened by his lack of reaction and her own rising anger, "he's a judge, you know—he has a key to the safe deposit box, and if anything happens to me, he'll open it and they'll match the bullet to the one that killed Dianne, and, poof!" She threw her hands into the air. "No more Governor of Texas."

  "You go, girl!" Charley encouraged. "Tell him you know the details of how he killed me."

  "Shut up!" Amanda snapped at Charley, then returned her attention to Kimball. "You killed Dianne, and you killed Charley. You wore motorcycle gear so you wouldn't be recognized going into his apartment, and then you made him call me, asking for the gun you used to kill Dianne, the one he used to blackmail you, but I'm not stupid. I didn't bring it. You hid behind the door, and when I left, you killed him, and you thought you'd killed me, too, so you just strolled through my apartment and took the first gun you found—the wrong gun."

  Kimball glared at her, and even in the low light, she could see storms roiling in the midnight depths of his eyes. Apparently he hadn't noticed that Charley's duplicate gun wasn't the one he'd tossed into the garbage after killing Dianne. "I advise you not to go around town telling lies like that." Kimball still spoke with authority, but his voice had lost some of its self-assurance.

  Amanda moved closer to the porch, putting one foot on the bottom step as if she might go after him. "You tampered with my bike and caused it to be destroyed, and you're going to pay for that. I loved that bike."

  "It's not a good idea to threaten people, Amanda, especially people with a lot more power than you have.”

  She jutted her chin forward defiantly. “You think you have power? You have no idea the power I have. I need that gun you stole from me to prove I didn’t use it to kill Charley. Whatever you did with it, you need to find it and return it to me. If you don’t—” she moved back from the steps and leveled her gaze on him—“I’ll have to take Charley’s story to the cops along with Dianne's murder weapon.”

  She spun around and stomped back down Roland Kimball's driveway before he could recover his arrogance, call her bluff and kill her on his porch, in front of God, his wife, Charley and all the creatures hiding in the trees and bushes.

  “You need to be careful, Amanda.” He spoke softly, but the words were heavy and dark and carried well on the still night air.

  Amanda glanced back, trying to put a smug smirk on her face. “No, Roland, you need to be careful.”

  "That was awesome," Charley declared, strolling happily beside her. "I couldn't have done better myself."

  "Go away." The adrenalin of righteous anger was leaving Amanda's brain, and fear was returning.

  "I’m so proud of you, the way you stood up to him! Stroke of genius, telling him we had his gun hidden away in a safe place."

  "Are you insane? Well, yes, you are. And so am I, going along with a madman's…a mad ghost's plan. Almost getting arrested. What would your mother think if she had to come bail me out of jail? And then on top of that, I stand there like a crazy woman, baiting a murderer!"

  "So you finally believe me, that Kimball's a murderer, that he killed Dianne and he killed me?"

  Amanda turned back to see the murderer in question still standing on his porch, watching them. In the moonlight his tall silhouette seemed to glow with an unholy light. "Yes, I believe you." She increased her pace toward the end of the driveway. "I believe he's an egotistical, self-centered monster who thinks he has the right to take the lives of commoners, and I believe I just tweaked his tail. I never should have listened to you!"

  "But we had to do something. We can't let him get away with killing me."

  Amanda whirled to face him. "Yes, we can! If he could do away with your ghost, too, I'd give him a medal. All I wanted to do was find evidence to prove I didn't kill you, but I think all we accomplished tonight was to set me up as his next victim."

  “Nah. You warned him that your dad would
get that gun and my story if anything happened to you.”

  Amanda snorted. “Even if he believed me, what would it all prove? He studied law. He knows we can’t connect the gun to him without your eye witness testimony…and you’re dead. He’ll probably feel a lot better when I’m dead, too.”

  Charley was quiet for a few moments as if considering that possibility. "He already tried to kill you once, and that didn't work."

  Amanda walked through the gate which closed quietly behind her. Creepy. Obviously the jerk was watching her on video. She tried to shake off the feeling that he'd be watching her no matter where she went or what she did. "What if he succeeds this time?"

  Again Charley was quiet, looking thoughtful.