In Harm's Way

by E J Kindred

  Mo was teary-eyed, too. “Wow,” she whispered, and I agreed with her.

  The decibel level in the house increased when Mo and I went inside.

  “Annie! Mo!”

  I doubted that Mo had ever been hugged so many times, and I know I hadn’t. After the initial rush, we were shown to seats of honor and plied with cold drinks. We sat together and tried to take it all in.

  Decorations covered every square inch of the house. Grandma Natalie had made good on her promise. There must have been forty helium balloons bobbing about at the ceiling. Crepe paper streamers hung everywhere. Signs saying “Welcome Home” and “We’re Proud of You” were taped to every wall.

  In the kitchen, I found a staggering display of food. Beef roast, fried chicken, and mashed potatoes sat alongside casserole dishes of enchiladas and macaroni and cheese. On another table sat bowls of roasted vegetables and more kinds of salad than I knew existed. To top it all off, the kitchen counter held three pies and an enormous cake.

  “Grandma,” I said. “there’s enough food here for a small country. Are you supporting every caterer in Portland?” I was amazed by the almost unbelievable bounty awaiting us, and then I spotted something that gave it all away. “Hey, Freddy did this, didn’t she?”

  “How did you know?” Grandma Natalie looked puzzled.

  “See this?”

  In the center of the table, holding pride of place, sat a plate piled high with a food I was almost obsessed with.

  “I’d recognize this pastrami anywhere. Where is she?”

  “Right here.”

  “Freddy!” I gave her a hug. “This is amazing.”

  She waved a nonchalant hand. “It’s nothing,” she said, but then she laughed. “My kitchen staff worked their butts off to get this done. I owe them big. Including, by the way, your friend, Lupe.”

  “Is she here?” In the wave of celebratory greetings we’d been hit with when we first arrived, I hadn’t gotten a full reckoning of who was in attendance.

  “She’s here somewhere,” Freddy said. “You know, that girl can cook. I offered her a job waiting tables so she could quit cleaning for the dragon lady of Wentworth house, and then I found out that she makes the most amazing tamales. She’s even made improvements to other parts of my menu. You’ve been keeping secrets from me again.”

  “I didn’t know. But I’m glad you helped her get out of there.”

  “The least I could do, especially since you found me a master baker, all-around excellent chef, and my new partner.”

  “New partner?”

  “That would be me,” Mo said, appearing beside me.

  I looked back and forth between them a couple of times. “I can’t believe neither of you told me.”

  “I’m not getting any younger,” Freddy said. “I started working at the diner when I was a teenager, washing dishes and cleaning tables. Since I bought it, I’ve worked almost every day.”

  “And your food is amazing,” I said.

  “Thanks, but I still can’t bake a cake to save my soul. I’m getting tired of so much hard work, and I’d like to see a little of this world before I leave it. When you brought me that carrot cake, you thought you were finding me a source for good desserts, which was great, since the bakery went belly up.”

  Mo was doing her best imitation of a Cheshire cat, minus the disappearing act. I narrowed my eyes at her and prompted her. “And?”

  “And without knowing it, you planted another idea. If I had a partner, someone who could cook and bake, I could cut back on work before I keel over. I had a lot of fun teasing you about who baked that fantastic cake, but I already had a pretty good idea. After all, the only people in town who had a chef were the Wentworths, and I knew you worked for them. Even I can put two and two together.”

  “And I’d decided long before you turned up in the barn that if I lived, I was never going back to the Wentworth house,” Mo said. “I’ll live in a cardboard box under the Burnside bridge before I step foot on that property again. Don’t get me wrong, the doc treated me well, better sometimes than I deserved, but I’ve long since had my fill of that little diva he married. And we know what kind of a monster his son is.” For a moment she looked sad and angry, but her face cleared. “And then Freddy showed up in my room at the hospital, so here we are.”

  I was speechless for a moment, and I hugged them both. “This is amazing. I’m so happy for you.” I paused and turned to Freddy. “Wait a sec, does this mean she gets your pastrami recipe?” I tried to give her my best stern glare, but I must have failed, because she laughed.

  “Nice try.”

  I spent the next hour or so making sure to visit with everyone who had come to celebrate with us. Sally and Rachel were there, of course, and there was no way to avoid seeing Patrick hovering near Rachel most of the time, while trying to seem as if he wasn’t. I let him know his secret was out, and he blushed, which made me laugh. I found Ada and Hal sitting with Grandma Natalie, poring over Harley Davidson flyers while Liz looked on. My irrepressible grandmother was sharing her obsession again.

  Sharon had come in from Charbonneau long enough to give me a hug and a gift. Her husband, she said, was babysitting, a turn of phrase that always made her grimace. “They’re his kids, too, damn it,” Sharon said. She hadn’t wanted to miss the celebration, but she couldn’t stay.

  Lupe came to the party with Sharon, so she had to leave early, too, but not before telling me how happy she was to work at the diner.

  As I’d suspected since we’d arrived, Dean was also in attendance. The car Mo pointed out was indeed his. I was a little surprised he’d come to the party, but not at all surprised to find him talking with Detective Beth O’Brien. Her presence explained the Portland police car.

  “Hey, Dean,” I said. “Hi, Beth. How are you doing?”

  “Glad you and Mo are okay,” Dean said.

  Beth said, “That was quite a risk you took, Annie.”

  To Beth, Dean said, “I thought she’d agreed to back off. Let’s you and me arrest her for obstruction.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, smirking. “You had to know better. You must have realized I wasn’t giving up on my friend.”

  “Good thing you didn’t,” he said with good humor. “But don’t tell anyone I said that, or I’ll deny it.”

  I turned to Beth. “I want to thank you for working so hard on Nicky’s case. I understand why you have to consider me a suspect, but I promise you I didn’t kill her. More than anyone, I want to know who did.”

  She paused before speaking. “Thanks, I appreciate that. As you know, the investigation is ongoing. We’re not stopping until we run out of leads to follow and evidence to examine, and probably not even then.” She squeezed my hand reassuringly, but then she said “just try to stay out of the way, okay?”

  We chatted for another few minutes before they, too, had to depart.

  Beth slipped quickly out the door, but Dean paused and said, “When the dust settles a little, give me a call. Both Beth and I want to ask a few follow-up questions about your statement. I also have something to show you.”

  “You said that before. What is it?”

  “You’ll see. You’ll like it, part of it, anyway.”

  After Dean and Beth left, I went back to the kitchen in search of another bite of Freddy’s pastrami. Mo was there, eating macaroni and cheese from a small bowl cupped in her hands.

  “Who’s the babe?” She tilted her head toward the front door.

  “The babe, as you so crudely put it, is Detective Beth O’Brien. She’s with the Portland Police Bureau.”

  She gave me a sly look from the corner of her eye. “She can handcuff me any day she likes.”

  I laughed loud enough to draw the attention of a few party-goers. “You’re incorrigible. And besides,” I lowered my voice, “I’d have thought you had enough of chains to last a lifetime.”

  “Depends on who’s on the other end,” she said in a playful voice, but then she grew ser
ious. “Wait a sec. Why do you know a Portland detective? Isn’t the Charbonneau police department managing the doc’s case?”

  I hesitated long enough that she prompted me.

  “Annie? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Look,” I finally said, “this isn’t the time to get into details, but my partner was murdered last year. Beth is the lead investigator.”

  Mo was silent for a moment as she digested that information, and then her eyes widened. She whispered, “Don’t tell me she thinks you did it.”

  “Nicky started the fire where my dad died.” I felt tears start to form. “It’s logical.”

  She set aside the bowl she held and wrapped me in a fierce hug. “Of course you didn’t.” She let me go and stood back a step. “Maybe it’s a good sign that she came to your party.”

  “Our party, you dumbass,” I said, laughing with relief.

  Over the next couple of hours, the number of party-goers slowly dwindled. Mo had long since tired, so Grandma Natalie ushered her into her room and made her lie down under a blanket. By ones and twos, our friends left for home and other pursuits. We sent food with almost everyone, but when Freddy and I packed up the leftovers, we quickly discovered that our refrigerator was far too small.

  I said, “Time to get out the big cooler. We won’t have to buy groceries any time soon, that’s for sure.”

  After everyone had gone, Grandma Natalie and I sat in the living room and contemplated the decorations.

  “How long did it take to put all of that up?”

  “Too long,” she said. “And I don’t have a scrap of energy left to take it down.”

  “Christmas is coming in a few months. We could leave it up and pretend. Cut down on the holiday decorating, right?”

  “Sounds like a good plan.”

  I pulled my lap blanket up to my shoulders and sighed with contentment. “I’m never going outside ever again.”

  “No need to. We have enough food to sustain us for years.”

  With that in mind, I drifted off to sleep.

  “What are you doing in here?” Dean stood in the doorway, looking puzzled. “Why didn’t you go down to my office?”

  I held up the book I’d brought along, in case he was busy. A murder mystery seemed appropriate for the occasion.

  “This is the library, isn’t it?” I asked.

  He shook his head as if to say “What am I supposed to do with you?” Instead he said, “Okay, hold on. I’ll be right back.”

  In a few moments, he returned with a laptop computer and two bottles of water. He handed one bottle to me before sitting down across the table. He opened the laptop, which started to hum.

  “Okay, let’s talk about what happened when you sent me the photo of Elise and Carl at the Finley Hotel.”

  As he took notes onto the computer, I recounted how I’d seen them together at the hotel a couple of times after I’d texted him the photo.

  “I was going one last time,” I said, and he rolled his eyes. “No, seriously. I figured they were having an affair, but you were right, that in itself didn’t point to who killed Doctor Wentworth or where Mo could be. I was wasting my time. And I didn’t want to admit it, but I thought Mo had to be dead.”

  He said, “I thought so, too.”

  “You said she’d most likely left town, especially after her car turned up at the airport. What changed your mind?”

  “We’ll get to that. Let’s finish this first.”

  I quelled my curiosity while I told him about waking up in the barn, chained to the bed frame, not knowing where I was.

  “Discovering Mo was a total shock. I thought for sure he was going to kill me, and when I found Mo alive, nothing made sense. She said she saw Carl arguing with the doc, that the doc was bleeding badly. Carl had a knife in his hand. We couldn’t figure out why he would keep a witness alive. He had a routine of coming in every two or three days, giving us food and water. His schedule matched up with what I saw of him meeting Elise downtown.”

  I recounted Mo’s insistence that I check the leg of my bed.

  “Smart,” he murmured.

  I had to agree, and then I told him about freeing the leg, using it to try to loosen the door latch and failing.

  “Wait a minute, so you decided to see how angry you could make him? You are good at making grown men furious. I’ll give you that.”

  “Very funny. No, a couple of days earlier, he’d been agitated for some reason, and when he left, he neglected to close the outside door of the barn. I thought if he was mad enough, he might make another mistake.”

  “Or kill you outright.”

  “Or that, but we were going to die there anyway¸ weren’t we? You saw what kind of shape Mo was in. Do you think she had much longer? I don’t.”

  “But your plan worked.”

  “Yeah, well, except when he belted me on the side of the head.” I rubbed my face, remembering the pain and dizziness I’d felt, but couldn’t show to the enraged killer. “He screamed and yelled and smashed a two-by-four. But otherwise, he didn’t hurt either of us, and when he left, he forgot to lock the stall door.”

  “He made the mistake you’d hoped for.”

  “Exactly. I couldn’t get Mo’s door open, so I ran for it. The rest you know.” I thought for a moment. “Except that I’d love to know why Jesús Alvarado ran after me. I’d expect a driver to just keep going, but he saved me. He saved both of us.”

  Dean finished typing and pushed the computer away. He sat back in his chair, took a drink of water, and stared at the far wall for a long moment.

  “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

  “My grandmother says I inherited my stubbornness from her.”

  “Is she the one with the Harley Davidson fixation?”

  “Yep.”

  “That explains it.” He sat forward again. “Here’s the thing. If you hadn’t done everything I told you not to do, we might never have caught him or found Mo.” At my grin, he held up a hand. “Don’t get too happy here. It’s a wonder you’re not dead, and by all rights, you should be. Carl Wentworth killed his own father. I still don’t understand why he left you and Mo alive, but here you are.”

  He opened the laptop again and pressed a few keys. He turned it so I could see the screen.

  “Remember I said I had something to show you?”

  “Sure.”

  “You did something else that changed the investigation. You pointed out a security camera nobody else checked on.”

  I almost couldn’t breathe. “The one by the back door.”

  “We got lucky. Since it was motion activated, it hadn’t recorded much except an occasional raccoon.”

  “Is this what I’ll like part of?” A feeling of dread was settling on me. Was I about to see the doctor’s murder?

  “Yes,” he said in a low tone. “Are you sure you can stand to watch it?”

  I couldn’t answer right away, but then I said “go ahead.” He pressed a button on the keyboard and a video started to play. I was immediately grateful there was no sound.

  The first thing the camera recorded was the screen door being pushed open a few inches and then slamming closed. Since it recorded at night, the lights and darks were reversed, which made the scene eerie.

  After a few seconds, the screen door swung open sharply, ricocheting off the wall. Doctor Wentworth stumbled out and fell down the steps, as if he’d been shoved. He stood and took a tentative step or two, holding his hands to his abdomen. Light-colored streaks showed on his hands. He was followed by a larger shape, a man whose face wasn’t visible on the screen, but whose form was well known to me. Carl the Third leaped down the stairs and pushed his father to the ground. He straddled the doctor’s legs, and his right arm rose and fell. He got to his feet and went back up the steps, and this time, his face was clear on the video.

  Moments later, the door opened again, and Carl emerged. He wasn’t alone. He pushed a struggling form in front of him, down
the steps and out of the frame.

  “He killed his father and took Mo,” I said. “I mean, we already knew that, but wow, here’s proof.”

  “Yes. When you accused me of thinking Mo had flown off to Zanzibar, I already knew better. I did think she was probably dead, but I knew she hadn’t hurt the doctor. I couldn’t tell you about this, and I’m not sure showing it to you now is the right thing to do, but I wanted you to know that, after everything, I believed you.”

  I took a deep breath, willing myself not to think about what the video revealed.

  “You made me do something else, too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I had to find out where the hell Zanzibar is. You really are a pain in the ass.”

  Over the next several weeks, we did our best to recover from our ordeal.

  My wounds healed fastest, of course, and almost before I knew it, the cast was off. I had to submit to the not-so-tender mercies of a physical therapist twice a week, but my ankle was healing quickly.

  Mo’s recovery was far more difficult. Even after two months, she was still thinner than I’d known her to be, but her color was back and her hair had grown in. She grew stronger by the day. Her sense of humor combined with my irrepressible grandmother meant that my life was occasionally a touch too eventful. More than once, I threatened to separate them, like mischievous children, just to get some peace and quiet.

  On the other hand, she had constant nightmares, followed by panic attacks. After yet another fast trip to the emergency room in the middle of the night, she realized she needed help.

  “Know a good shrink, Annie?” She said it with humor, but she sounded worried. “I can’t keep doing this.”

  If there’s any good news found in associating with police detectives, it’s that they have resources. Beth O’Brien gave Mo the names of half a dozen therapists she said were worth talking with. After a few days of research, Mo chose one and scheduled regular visits. Between therapy sessions and medications, she started to improve, if more slowly than she’d have liked.

  Grandma Natalie, on the other hand, developed an obsession with hovering over both of us as if we might disappear again. She waited on us and made sure we were comfortable. We tried to wave her off sometimes, but I knew I liked being cosseted, and I suspected Mo did, too.