Tragic Toppings

by Jessica Beck

  She shook her head at that remark, but I could swear I saw the chief smile for the briefest moment.

  Once they were gone, I settled in on the couch with a bag of popcorn fresh from the microwave and a mystery movie on DVD that I’d been waiting for the right moment to watch.

  Ten minutes in, when the heroine was in danger from an unseen stranger, I decided maybe a movie wasn’t the best idea after all. I remembered Jake’s card, so I pulled it from my back pocket and unfolded it.

  Instead of a greeting, there was thirty seconds of his voice recorded on it. “Suzanne,” he said. “You mean more to me than I could ever express. Never doubt how I feel about you, and that we belong together.”

  It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.

  I moved out onto the porch as dusk started to creep up into the day, swinging on the swing as I replayed the message again and again. On the back of the card was a button you had to press to record a message, but I knew I’d never tape over what he’d said to me. Finally I tucked it into my T-shirt so I could have it next to my heart, where it belonged.

  As I sat there, I thought about all that had happened. The more I considered it, the more certain I was that Betsy hadn’t killed herself. She’d been frightened when I’d last seen her, not despondent. When she’d told me we’d needed to talk, it wasn’t to clear her conscience; I just knew it.

  She was planning to share something about the case with me.

  And someone had stopped her before she could tell me what she so urgently had wanted to say.

  Against my better judgment, I decided to walk back over to the Patriot’s Tree to see if something there could give me some idea about what had really happened to her. There was police tape covering the area, but I ducked under it without a second thought. Breaking that particular warning didn’t bother me a bit, but as I’d knelt down to go under the tape, something jabbed me in the ankle. It wasn’t a snake, or even a mosquito. Apparently I’d picked something up in the cuff of my blue jeans when I’d stumbled right after discovering Betsy’s body. I brushed at the cuff, but couldn’t find what was sticking into me.

  I thought it was fine, until it happened again.

  Reaching down, I unrolled the cuff, and felt a small stick that had poked me.

  At least I’d thought it was a small stick.

  Upon closer examination, it turned out to be a half-chewed toothpick.

  The second it hit my hand, I knew who must have killed Tim Leander, and followed up with getting rid of Betsy Hanks.

  It had to mean one thing.

  Orson Blaine was a murderer.

  CHAPTER 18

  “I see you found it for me,” a voice said behind me.

  I clenched the toothpick in my hand as I turned around. “Found what?”

  Orson was standing ten feet away with a knife in his hand, and he appeared to have no trouble pointing it straight at my heart.

  “Give it up, Suzanne. I caught a glimpse of it just now when you were looking at it. I knew I dropped it earlier when I was here, but it’s been driving me crazy thinking that the police had that toothpick, along with my DNA. I was about to leave town for good, but I decided to hang back in the shadows when I saw you come out here. It’s my lucky day, isn’t it?”

  “Luckier for you than for me,” I said, looking around for some kind of weapon I could use on him. Maybe if I could distract him long enough, someone would come along and find us. “You’re the one who stole my recipe book. I didn’t even notice you in the shop the day it disappeared.”

  “The place was so full of customers on your Take-a-Chance Tuesday, I had a feeling you hadn’t seen me. I wanted to check you out, and I saw the book on the counter by the register as I waited in line, so when you looked away, I grabbed it and left.”

  “Why bother stealing it in the first place?”

  “Suzanne, the second Betsy told me about what you said the night before your big sale, I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep from digging into what happened. Do you think folks all around the county don’t know what a snoop you are?”

  “But I hadn’t even spoken to her when you stole my recipes,” I said.

  “You didn’t have to. Betsy was sitting behind you at the Boxcar Grill with a friend, and she heard you talking about investigating Tim’s murder. It didn’t take much to figure out what you were up to. I decided to check you out myself the next day, and I was hoping it would stop your meddling when I took your recipes,” he said in clear disgust.

  Something suddenly made sense that had puzzled me. “You stole my trash that same day, didn’t you?”

  He nodded. “I thought there might be something in there that would tell me how much you knew about what I’d been doing.” Orson looked at me in distaste. “It was just rubbish, though.” He took a deep breath, and then added, “When you didn’t quit digging into Tim’s murder, I decided to burn the recipe book on your porch as a second warning. It’s a shame the whole house didn’t go up in flames. That might have stopped you.”

  I shuddered to think what might have happened. I wasn’t sure I could bear losing the cottage where my mother and I lived. It was our haven, our safe harbor from a world gone mad.

  And now if I didn’t do something, and do it fast, this was not going to end well for me. I had to find a way to fight back, but there wasn’t a thing I could use as a weapon in sight.

  “I know you had a problem with Tim, but how could you hate him enough to kill him?”

  Orson shook his head. “Are you kidding me? He didn’t leave me any choice. I know how fake he was, how folks just seemed to love him for no good reason that I could see, but he pushed me the wrong way one too many times. A man can only take so much. Every time I wanted something, it seemed like Tim got it. I got so sick of coming in second place to him that it reached the point where the sound of his voice was enough to set me off. Every time he walked into Go Eats, I wanted to kill him. It became some kind of obsession for me.”

  “You could have gone someplace else to eat,” I said, wondering how a petty rivalry could develop such deep-seated feelings of hate.

  Orson looked at me as though I was insane. “And let him run me off? There was no way that was going to happen. I knew deep in my heart that if I could just get rid of him, my life would turn around. When he took Betsy from me”—he paused and ran a hand across his forehead—“that was the last push I was ever going to take. The second I found out about it, I knew I had to set things right. He had to pay, and I don’t regret doing it.”

  It was clear Orson wasn’t going to tell me anything more substantial than that. I had to wonder if he even knew just how sick he was. The man was trying to justify murdering a man based on reasons that would seem less than rational for most folks.

  “But why kill Betsy?” I asked as I kept looking for something to use against him.

  “I didn’t know it before, but I found out that she was weak,” he said as he slowly started walking toward me. I backed up instinctively, but he followed at the same pace, the knife point never wavering from my chest. “I knew that Tim would never meet me here at the Traitor’s Tree, so I used her.”

  It was no time to correct him, but I hated hearing the Patriot Tree’s name changed.

  “So you got her to lure him here so you could kill him. How did you do that?”

  Orson grinned at me. “I told Betsy that Tim had proposed to Angelica, and that she’d said yes.”

  “But they weren’t going to get married,” I protested, backing up another step.

  “We both know that, but Betsy didn’t. I told her if she could get Tim here, I’d humiliate him so he’d pay for making her look like a fool, but I didn’t tell her I was planning to kill him. She would have never gone for that. She wanted revenge, but she was too soft for what I knew had to be done.”

  “So she lured him here for you and you killed him,” I said, backing up yet another step. Maybe if I could get closer to the woods, I’d be able to elude him. I pretended to st
umble a little into a smaller tree at that moment, but I did it to hide another action entirely.

  “You should have seen her face when I choked Tim with that rope. Betsy fought me, can you believe it? What did he ever do to earn her loyalty? She should have helped me instead of try to stop me.”

  “Did she help you string him up after he was dead?”

  Orson shook his head with disgust. “She lay there on the grass whimpering like a lost child the entire time. I told her if she breathed a word of what we’d done, I’d see her dead before I’d let her testify against me. She was an accessory, whether she liked it or not.”

  “Maybe the law wouldn’t have seen it that way,” I said. I backed up one more step, and felt my back hit the bark of the tree. I’d suddenly run out of room, and Orson was still closing in.

  “Trust me, I can be very convincing.”

  “That was smart, offering free drinks to your friends so they could cause a diversion and you could slip out of the bar. It almost worked, too.”

  Orson shook his head. “It did work. From what I’ve heard, that woman bartender confirmed my story, so I just have one last loose end to take care of. Now, are you going to hand that toothpick to me, or am I going to have to pry it out of your dead fingers?” It was amazing how calm his voice sounded, especially since he had to be barking mad to do what he’d done up until now.

  “You can have it,” I said as I threw it at him.

  I planned to run away as he searched for it in the tall grass, but his gaze barely left mine as it flew through the air.

  “Now you’re just trying to tick me off,” he said.

  “You’ll never find that toothpick now. Jake knows you did it, and so does the police chief.” That was a lie, but he didn’t know that. At least I hoped he didn’t.

  “Your boyfriend is in Greensboro by now, and the police chief is so smitten by your mother, he doesn’t know much of anything. I like my chances.”

  “Think about this before you do something stupid. No one is going to believe that three murders aren’t related. Or do you think you can make my death look like a suicide, too?”

  “No, you’ll be the victim of a random mugging in the park. I’m afraid it’s not going to be very pleasant for you.”

  “Then don’t do it,” I said, trying to figure out the best direction to run in.

  “Sorry, I can’t do that. Tim ruined my life by stealing my wife, and Betsy threatened my freedom with her promise to go to the police. I can’t leave you free. You’re the last thing on my list, and then I’m in the clear. Good-bye, Suzanne.”

  He was close enough now so that I could smell the onions on his breath. If I timed it right, I had one last chance.

  I saw the knife come back, and then he thrust it forward with lightning speed. I barely managed to get out of its way as I tried to knock his arm aside. I missed completely, but by sheer dumb luck, the blade of the knife sunk into the tree bark and not my chest.

  As Orson fought to pull it free, I took the one chance I had left and planned to make the most of it.

  I raced off into the woods, not caring about where I was going. I needed to get away from him. That was the only thing that mattered. I could try to run to the Boxcar Grill, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it across open land.

  That left the woods of the park.

  I had an advantage, since I’d grown up here, and as far as I knew, Orson hadn’t spent much time in the park at all.

  I cut right, moved past a pair of red oaks, and then started for an old maple I’d played near as a kid. If I could get there, I could use one of the lower limbs and climb up onto it. After I did that, there was a place where it touched a hickory tree that I could transfer over to. It was impossible to see from the ground, and it wasn’t all that easy to spot from the air. I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance of escaping him, not great odds on my best day, but it was a chance I had to take.

  Too soon, I heard the brush crashing behind me. Somehow, Orson had managed to extricate the knife quicker than I’d expected.

  “Come on, Suzanne, the longer you run, the worse it’s going to be.”

  I thought about yelling something back at him, but I wanted to save my breath.

  The tree I was targeting was just ahead, and if I timed it right, I might be able to jump onto it before he could reach me.

  I launched myself in the air, and just as my hands reached the branch, I thought I was home free.

  That’s when I felt him grab my leg.

  He’d jumped as well, but not for the branch.

  As he hit me, I heard the branch in my hands crack under our combined weights, and it snapped as suddenly as a broken shoelace, putting us both on the ground.

  I waited a split second to die, but then I realized that in the fall, Orson must have dropped the knife. Scanning the ground around us, I stood and searched frantically in the fading light for the blade.

  In retrospect, that might have been a mistake.

  Orson’s hands went around my throat, and I saw that he’d decided to change murder weapons. Abandoning the knife hunt, he was now trying to crush the breath right out of me.

  I fell to my knees under his weight and pressure, and the world started to go dark.

  As I braced myself on the ground for my last breath, I felt something touch my hand.

  It was the knife.

  Groping for it as I started to lose consciousness, I finally managed to pick it up and drive it blindly backward.

  I’d been hoping to hit his heart, but it buried itself into his leg instead.

  The howl of pain from him was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard in my life.

  The pressure suddenly eased, but I wasn’t sure how long it would last. Forcing myself to my feet, I decided it was time to run again.

  Maybe this time he wouldn’t be able to follow.

  How I wished I was right.

  I’d given up all pretense of ambush or confrontation now. All I could do was run, and hope that he couldn’t follow with a wounded leg.

  When I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw that Orson was on his feet as well, tugging at the knife still stuck in his leg as he ran after me. Where was this lunatic getting his strength?

  I was nearly back where we’d first started when I felt a hand grab my shoulder, dragging me back down to the ground. He was on top of me, and I did the only thing I could think to do. I hit him as hard as I could squarely on the nose.

  That brought another scream, but he didn’t move as blood dripped down his nose onto my T-shirt.

  It appeared that I’d fought hard, but not hard enough.

  * * *

  “You’re going to pay for that,” he snarled at me, his words hitting me like hardened fists. I groped on the ground for something else that I could use as a weapon, but all I could scrape up was some loose dirt. I took a handful and threw it into his face, and as he screamed and put his hands to his eyes, the knife dropped harmlessly to the ground. He rolled off me, writhing in pain, and I grabbed the knife before he could retrieve it. I wasn’t sure if I’d blinded him for life, and at the moment, I couldn’t say one way or the other if I cared.

  “Get up,” I said, not recognizing my own voice as I said it.

  “You ruined my eyes.”

  “You don’t need to see to stand up. If you don’t move in ten seconds, I’ll give you a reason to. I’ve got the knife, now, remember?”

  He stood a little unsteadily, and I got behind him and shoved him in the direction of the house. Orson stumbled a little as we moved, but I had no mercy on him.

  We were almost to the house when I saw the first police car approach.

  It was Officer Grant, and from the odd look on his face, I wasn’t sure he even recognized me.

  “What happened here?” he asked as he pulled out his weapon. “Someone saw you two fighting and called it in.”

  I screamed, “He killed Tim, and then he got rid of Betsy when she threatened to expose him. He confessed everyth
ing to me.”

  “She’s lying,” Orson said, his voice suddenly calm. “This lunatic lured me out here, and then she attacked me with that knife. Look at my leg. I’m bleeding.”

  The police officer looked at me again, and I said, “It all started when I found one of his toothpicks near the crime scene.” It was true. That was where it had been when it had managed to get lodged in my pant cuff, at any rate.

  “I dropped it when she cut me,” he protested.

  “What happened to your eyes?” Officer Grant asked Orson.

  “When I broke away from her, she tried to blind me.”

  “After he attacked me first,” I said.

  Orson wasn’t going to let it go at that. “She’s lying.”

  “I have proof,” I said calmly.

  Orson looked worried for a split second, but he knew that he’d seen me throw that toothpick away. “Let’s see it. You’re bluffing.”

  I pulled the card from under my T-shirt and opened it. I’d waited to hit the button at the precise moment he confessed so they would find some kind of proof that he’d done it if he managed to kill me.

  Instead, it was going to help put him away for two murders.

  I didn’t get Jake’s lovely message when I opened the card this time. Instead, I got Orson’s voice, muffled but still recognizable, saying, “You should have seen her face when I choked Tim with the rope. Betsy fought me, can you believe it? What did he do to earn her loyalty? She should have helped me—”

  It cut off abruptly, but I knew that I’d gotten enough.

  “Let’s go,” Officer Grant said as he slapped his cuffs on Orson, and I finally let the knife slip out of my hand and into the grass.

  Chief Martin and Momma pulled up as Officer Grant was putting Orson in the back of his squad car. “What happened? Didn’t the date go well?” I asked as I rubbed a little dirt off my chin from where I’d fallen.

  “It was wonderful,” Momma said, “but we heard the sirens and came running. Suzanne, are you okay?”

  “Not yet, but I will be,” I said, though I was sore in a few places where I’d hit the ground, and I could barely speak from the pressure Orson had used trying to choke the life out of me. I knew a long soak would take care of most of that, and I’d be good as new soon enough.