THE DEEP END

by Mulhern, Julie

  Powers yelped. I looked up in time to see him slide several feet down the hill in his white pants.

  The slide ruined a nice pair of linen trousers and brought him that much closer to me.

  I gave up on the door and climbed over it. My left hand clutched my right side as if mere fingers could somehow hold ribs in place. My right hand clutched the gun.

  I freed myself from the car only to have my feet sink in mud. A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped me. It was a bad day for Italian leather. I abandoned my Ferragamos.

  Down the hill a rain-swollen creek looked ready to sweep me away. To my left was Powers. To my right, the embankment grew steeper. It wasn’t like I had much choice where to go. I scrabbled around the car then ran—barefoot—on rocky ground.

  Rain, mud, the screaming pain in my side and the damn rocks underfoot. Did every single one have a jagged edge? I wiped pink water from my face and added blood to my list of complaints. I tripped, caught a sob in my throat, then pushed myself to standing with my free hand. A sharp clap of thunder was followed by the explosion of bark from a tree a foot to my left. Not thunder. A shot.

  Thank God, Powers couldn’t hit the wide side of a barn under the best of circumstances. I clutched my gun more tightly and clambered over a large rock.

  “Ellison, stop! We’ll work this out.”

  I dared a peek over my shoulder.

  He was twenty-five feet away. How had he gotten so close? Powers might actually be able to hit a barn if he got close enough to it.

  I gave up on scrabbling through mud and rocks and starter oaks. Instead, I turned and raised my gun. “I’m listening.”

  Powers’ white pants weren’t white anymore, his mint green shirt was torn and his blond hair was plastered to his skull. He held a .45. It was pointed at me.

  “Tell me why.” My voice sounded strangled, as if I was fighting terror or tears. I wasn’t. Of course I wasn’t. The hand that held the gun shook and I loosed my hold on my ribs to steady it.

  “It was Madeline’s fault.”

  If I could keep him talking, someone might drive by and notice the hole in the fence, might peer over the edge and see my car in the creek, might send help. “Madeline?” I blinked away pink-tinged rain.

  He nodded. “She snooped in my files.”

  “So you killed her?”

  “She figured out I’d been selling forged Picassos. She wanted a cut.”

  Of course she did. She’d also told Henry and put us all on a road to misery. “Why sell forgeries?”

  “The money.”

  He didn’t say duh but the sentiment hung in the air like mist.

  “You have plenty of money.”

  “Not enough to open a gallery in New York.”

  The pink-tinged rain that clouded my sight seemed redder, as if the mix of blood to water had increased. “New York?”

  “I need to get away from here.”

  “Bitty Sue won’t give you the money?”

  The sound that escaped his lips was harsh, explosive, caustic.

  I flinched.

  “If I move to New York, Bitty Sue will cut me off.” Powers’ voice trembled. His hand trembled. A .45 is a heavy gun. Especially for a man whose heavy lifting usually consisted of martinis with four olives.

  “So you sold fakes.”

  “I was careful. There was no way men in Duluth and Provo and Akron would ever meet or compare collections. It was the perfect plan.”

  I allowed myself a quick glance up the hill. The damned road was still deserted. “Until Madeline discovered it.”

  “She wanted to expand. To sell more. She didn’t understand the more I sold the more likely I was to get caught.”

  I swallowed. “So you killed her.”

  “I told her to meet me at the gallery and we’d discuss it. I had a pitcher of martinis waiting.” His left hand covered his mouth, squeezed his cheeks, his gaze turned inward.

  I took a tiny step backward. A shade more distance between Powers’ gun and me.

  Then he laughed, cackled really. “She downed the first one and poured herself a second before I had time to find out if she’d told anyone.”

  She’d told Henry, my grasping, rapacious husband, who’d enjoyed having power over others.

  “She slurred out something about mailing insurance to Henry. Why do you think I kept going through your mail?”

  Because he was a snoop. “Why dump her in the swimming pool?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know she was dead. I thought if she drowned it would look like an accident.”

  “And Henry?”

  “I came back to your house to search for whatever Madeline sent Henry. He came home.”

  “You killed him.”

  “He wanted money to keep quiet about the paintings...and Madeline.”

  My stomach turned. I already knew Henry was willing to blackmail a murderer, but Madeline had been his...Apparently she really had meant nothing to him.

  “It was a stroke of luck that Roger and I confused our golf clubs the last time we played. After that, he looked so guilty. The cuckolded husband kills his wife and the man she’s been sleeping with. He’s overcome by guilt and kills himself.” He wiped the rain from his face. “God damn Madeline. Who doesn’t get their oven fixed? It would have been perfect if Roger had just died the way he was supposed to.”

  “What now?”

  For an instant, the man with the gun looked like the Powers I knew. “That depends on you.”

  “On me?”

  “They were bad people, Ellison. They deserved to die.” His spring green eyes blazed with certainty. “You stay quiet, and I get out of here. I go to New York and get out from under Bitty Sue’s thumb.”

  He wanted my silence. Bad enough that he’d forged paintings. He’d murdered three people. I shook my head. “I don’t think we get to decide who lives and dies. Besides, Roger wasn’t a bad person.”

  Powers shrugged. “He was a weak one. No one will miss him. So, you promise me you keep your mouth closed and we both walk away from this.”

  He didn’t mean it. I saw the lie in his eyes, I saw it in the way his nose twitched, and in the set of his mouth. If I lowered my gun, I was dead.

  “I can’t do that, Powers.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Oh?”

  “I never wanted to hurt you, Ellison.”

  I blinked my disbelief. He’d left a body in a pool where he knew I swam every morning. He’d hit me over the head with a fireplace poker. He’d murdered my husband then left the body in the driveway for me to run over. Now, he pointed a gun at me.

  “Powers, if you shoot that thing at me, chances are you’ll miss. We both know it.” I lifted my gun slightly. “I won’t miss.”

  He actually laughed. “You won’t shoot me, Ellison.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know. You’ve never stood up for anything but your art and Grace. You’re not going to start now.”

  He took a step closer and raised the .45.

  “You’re wrong.” I tried to sound menacing, as if I meant to shoot him, as if my insides hadn’t turned to gelatin, as if I could kill a man.

  He shook his head in disbelief. “I know you can’t do it.” He lifted the gun a bit higher. “I’m very sorry about this.”

  “I am too,” I murmured. Powers had been so busy killing people he hadn’t noticed the change in me. I pulled the trigger.

  Daddy once told me that if I pointed a gun at someone, I should shoot to kill. I watched red bloom bright on Powers’ green shirt. I watched as he looked down, surprise writ clearly on his face as he collapsed into the mud.

  For a moment, I didn’t move. I stared in horror at the ma
n lying on the ground. When my legs wouldn’t hold me any longer, I sank onto the large rock that extended from the embankment. Someone was screaming. I wished she’d stop. It was too loud. It threatened to disturb the stillness in my head.

  The first policeman to arrive slipped in the mud at the top of the hill and slid halfway down on his ass. The second one did the same. The third one to arrive held onto trees as he descended. He didn’t spoil his plaid pants.

  That one approached me slowly with his hands held in front of his body and a furrow between his brows. “Ellison.” His voice was so soft it sounded as if he was singing. “Ellison,” he crooned. “Put down the gun.”

  I looked at my hand and was surprised to see the .22 still clasped in my fingers. I couldn’t let it go. “Is he dead?” I asked.

  One of the policemen who’d slid down the hill looked up from Powers’ body. “He’s dead.”

  Slowly, with great care, I put the gun down on the rock then I closed my eyes on the mud, and the blood and the rain.

  An arm circled my shoulders and for an instant I allowed myself to relax into its comforting warmth. I hid my eyes against wet cotton and a muscled chest, and pretended the man who was stroking my wet hair was more than a policeman. When I looked up, Anarchy’s brown eyes searched my face. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I killed Powers.”

  His arm tightened around me. “What happened?”

  “He killed them then he ran me off the road.”

  “Mr. Foster killed Mr. and Mrs. Harper and your husband?”

  I nodded, suddenly too exhausted to speak. I rested my head against Anarchy’s shoulder.

  He held me there for a moment. Then his fingers explored my hair. He pulled them away. Blood covered them. I felt his swallow. “Ellison, you’ve hurt your head. We need to get you out of here.”

  The arm that circled my shoulders dropped to my waist. Before I could object, Anarchy lifted me off the rock. The pain in my ribs turned my sight as crimson as the blood on his fingers. I gasped for air, teetering on the edge of agony. Then I dove head first into blackness.

  Thirty-Two

  Everyone said the service for Henry was lovely. Unless a pallbearer trips and drops the casket, that’s what people always say. One of those polite lies that gets us through our lives. All brides are beautiful. No, darling, you can’t tell at all—you just look younger. Lovely service.

  Except, since Mother made all the plans, the service really was lovely. Lovely despite Kitty and Prudence’s sobbing near the back of the church.

  I sat numb in the first pew. Grace clutched my hand. The minister, faced with eulogizing a philandering blackmailer who flogged women in his spare time, made Henry sound like a pillar of the community.

  After the service, it seemed like the whole congregation came over to the house. There were pitchers of martinis and Tom Collinses. Endless bottles of wine. Canapés. Crudités with fresh dill dip. Tiny little ham sandwiches. Not made with the ham Bitty Sue gave me. Somehow, I couldn’t bear to serve that after killing her son.

  Not that she would have known.

  She didn’t come.

  I didn’t blame her.

  Daddy hovered.

  Grace withdrew to the comfort of her girl friends. They curled up in the corner of the family room to drink Tab, dip bits of French bread in cheese fondue, and talk.

  Mother, looking very much as if she was sucking lemons, offered me an olive branch. “Your new housekeeper is doing a nice job.”

  If she could extend the branch, the least I could do was reach out and take it. “Thank you. The service was lovely. I appreciate your planning it.”

  We stood, caught in an awkward pause, neither willing to reach any further. Mother opened her mouth as if she meant to say something then snapped it shut, a sure sign she was trying to find some way to criticize without sounding critical.

  Hunter’s approach saved us. His smile was enough to make her forget any unsolicited advice she might have thought to share about my attire, my hair, or the strength of the martinis. She beamed up at him. “Hunter, I don’t know what we would have done without you. Isn’t that right, Ellison?” Only the lack of a foot-covering table kept her from kicking me to make sure I came up with the right response.

  “Absolutely.” It was nothing less than the truth. Hunter and Aggie had opened all Henry’s envelopes—except one. He’d advised me as to what I should say to the police. He’d even put up with Mother’s transparent attempts at matchmaking. I smiled at him.

  He smiled back. “May I have a word?”

  “Look!” Mother pointed at someone across the room. “There’s Lorna. I must speak with her. Hunter, why don’t you keep Ellison company?” She was about as subtle as a fireplace poker to the skull. Undoubtedly she was rubbing her hands together with glee, under the mistaken impression that something was developing between Hunter and me.

  Hunter had enough sensitivity not to comment on Mother’s machinations. “What do you want to do about the files?”

  “I don’t know. Well, I don’t know except for Rand Hamilton. Can we send that one to the police? Anonymously?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “We can’t let a killer go free.”

  “Of course not.” Hunter cleared his throat. He stared across the room to where Mother was deep in conversation with Lorna. His tanned cheeks looked almost flushed. “Ellison, now that this is over…” He straightened his tie, a nice, conservative yellow and blue stripe. “Would you have dinner with me?”

  “A date?”

  My voice might have squeaked. A date? With Hunter? Mother would be giddy. Me? I wasn’t so sure. Not that Hunter wasn’t handsome. He was. He was also charming and sophisticated and a fabulous lawyer. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved again. Ever.

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot and jammed his hands in his pockets. “A date.”

  “I...um...I...That is to say...” I brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek. “I don’t think I’m ready to date.”

  “When you are?”

  I nodded. No need to tell him I’d never be ready. Men couldn’t be trusted. I had all the proof I needed. My husband had cheated and blackmailed and lied. My father did something bad enough to end up with his name on one of Henry’s damned envelopes. Powers murdered three people before trying to kill me. I was done with men. End of story.

  “I won’t rush you, Ellison. But I do want to know you better.”

  My skin tingled with the thought of knowing Hunter Tafft better.

  Barb Evans chose that moment to approach us, and Hunter, with a look that said quite clearly that we weren’t done talking, excused himself and melted into the crowd.

  “Are you holding up?” she asked.

  “When this is all over...” I waved a hand at the crowd of people. “I’m putting Grace on a plane and we’re going to Europe until school starts.”

  “Can’t say I blame—” Her hand closed on my arm. “Who is that?”

  I followed her gaze.

  “That’s the police officer who investigated the murders.”

  Anarchy was wearing a navy suit—wearing it well—and he was attracting attention. More than one woman watched him weave his way through the crowd.

  He stopped in front of me. “Mrs. Russell.”

  “The investigation is over, please call me Ellison.” Barb seemed to have grown roots. She wasn’t moving nor was she releasing my arm. “This is my friend, Barb Evans. Barb, this is Detective Jones.”

  He glanced at her for half a second. “Pleased to meet you.” His gaze returned to me. “I have a question for you, Ellison.”

  What questions could he have now? With Hunter’s help, I’d explained that Powers had sold fake Picassos and that Madeline had discovered h
is crime. Of course she’d told Henry. We’d posited that Powers killed them both to keep them quiet. He’d killed Roger in a botched frame up. There was no mention of blackmail. Grace’s father’s reputation was safe. Had Detective Jones discovered all that we’d omitted? My heart stuttered. “Of course, although I don’t know where we’ll find any privacy.”

  He nodded to Barb, grabbed my free arm, and led me through the crowd to the kitchen, past the caterers and onto the back patio.

  The late afternoon heat prickled on my skin. The air was almost too humid to breathe. It settled into my lungs like a soggy lump of dread. “What’s your question, Detective?”

  “Anarchy,” he corrected.

  “What’s your question, Anarchy?”

  He leaned forward as if he meant to whisper a secret in my ear. Except, he didn’t. Instead, his lips brushed against mine. My heart, which had been stuttering along, raced faster than the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

  “Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” He traced the edge of my jaw with the tip of his finger.

  I blinked, suddenly unable to remember the pathway by which words traveled from my brain to my mouth.

  “Will you?” he asked.

  It had to be some kind of record. How many women were asked out at the reception following their husband’s funeral?

  How many women were asked out twice?

  “I don’t think I’m ready to date.”

  His lips curled into a slow smile. “I’ll wait.”

  I used my hand to fan the heat. Who knew if all that warmth was a result of the sun beating on my shoulders or the flush of my cheeks?

  Anarchy Jones would be waiting a long, long time.

  It was hours before everyone was gone, then the caterer had to pack up and Aggie had to clean up.

  Grace, who looked positively gray with fatigue, trudged up the stairs.

  My daughter had the right idea. I went upstairs, kicked off my shoes, shucked off my dress, and unclasped the heavy rope of pearls at my neck. I tossed them on the bed and opened the safe.