by Jessica Beck
It felt as though the next two hours were several weeks long. I must have glanced at my phone a thousand times, willing it to ring, though always in vain. When it finally rang just after we locked the doors for the night, Moose and I both dove for it.
I was closer, but I still barely beat my grandfather to it.
"Hello?" I asked. "Did you catch Dave trying to kill Ron?"
"No," the sheriff answered. "We never saw him."
I was disappointed to hear the news. "I could have sworn he was the one."
"Don’t sound so sad," the sheriff said a little joyfully. "We did manage to catch someone. Jan Bain came by the room, and she was nearly to the bed by the time I caught her."
I turned to Moose. "It was Jan."
He shook his head in wonder, and I got back to the phone. "Did she actually try to kill him?"
"She might as well have. She was holding a knitting needle in her hand as she rushed to the bed, and I’m willing to bet that the woman was ten seconds away from plunging it into the dummy’s back."
"Wow. Did she confess to killing her brother?"
The sheriff sighed. "No, she won’t even admit what she was trying to do to the dummy. Jan claims she just came by to say goodbye to her part-time handyman on her way out of town, but she’s not very convincing. Don’t worry. We’ll crack her now that we know it was her."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"It’s just a matter of time now," the sheriff said. "I have a hunch we’ll have a full confession to everything by morning."
"That’s not what I meant. How can you be sure that she’s the killer?"
The sheriff sighed again. It seemed that I wasn’t making his life any easier. "Victoria, I thought you’d be happier than you clearly are that someone took the bait. She tried to say that the knitting needle in her hand was a coincidence, but if you saw how quickly she approached that body, there wouldn’t be any doubt in your mind."
"Sheriff, she closes in on everyone as though she’s in full attack mode. I’m not so sure that she’s the one we’ve been looking for."
"You’re just having doubts because you weren’t here to see it with your own eyes," the sheriff said. "Believe me, we’ve got our killer. You can rest easy. I’ve got a lot to do, but I wanted to call you and let you know what happened. You deserved that much."
After he ended the call, I shook my head as I told Moose, "He thinks he’s got the killer."
"You don’t, though, do you?" my grandfather asked.
"I suppose in a way that it all makes sense, but I was sure it was one of the others," I said.
"We can’t be choosy beggars," Moose said. "We wanted someone to fall for our trap. We can’t help it if it wasn’t who we were expecting."
"I suppose you’re right," I said. The whole thing was credible, if I looked at it that way. After all, I’d had a great deal invested in our plan since it had been mine, and to my amazement, it had actually yielded results. "I just can’t believe that Jan actually killed her brother."
"In hindsight, we probably should have focused more on her in the first place, when you think about it," Moose said. "After all, she had the most to gain financially from his death, and a lot of times, that’s the motive that counts."
"For what it’s worth," I said, "it turned out that she was getting a lot less after the house burned down. Why would she do that, anyway? Doesn’t it make sense that whoever killed Wally and attacked Ron set that fire, as well? By lighting that match, it turned out to be the worst thing that could have happened, as far as she was concerned."
"Maybe this time it really was just a coincidence," Moose said.
"I don’t believe in them; you know that," I said.
"Well, I refuse to consider the possibility that it was Abel Link. Who knows? Maybe Jan did it after all. We’ve both heard her on more than one occasion say how much she hates Jasper Fork. It could be that it was the only way she could put it behind her, once and forever."
"That I can believe," I said.
Greg came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. "I just finished cleaning the grill. How’s it going out here?" He looked around and saw that we hadn’t done a single thing we needed to do to clean up the front. "You two haven’t even gotten started."
"We just got a phone call from the sheriff," I said. "He caught Jan Bain in Ron’s room with a knitting needle in her hand."
"That’s good news, right?"
"I guess it is," I said, trying to feel the smile I was showing. "Honestly, we’re just still in shock. Don’t worry. I’ll have the front cleaned up in no time."
"We’ll pitch in, too, right, Moose?" Greg asked.
"Absolutely. Victoria, you take the register, and your husband and I will tackle the grunt work cleaning."
"That’s not fair," I said. "What if the register balances the first time?"
"Martha was working the cash register most of the day," Moose said, "and as much as I love my wife, detail work is not her strong suit these days. She may have done okay yesterday, but I’m willing to bet that it’s not going to happen two days in a row." After he said it, my grandfather added, "And if either one of you whispers a word of that to my wife, you’re both out of my will."
"We promise," Greg and I said in unison.
I ran the report, and as Moose had expected, it was off by six dollars and ninety two cents. I just hope that amount was spread out over the day, and that one poor customer didn’t lose it all.
I made a phantom entry, attributed it to "cashier errors," and finished up.
"How much was it off?" Moose asked.
"I’m not saying," I replied.
"Is it over ten dollars, or under?" Greg asked.
I studied them both, and then asked, "Why are you both so suddenly interested in this? You don’t have a bet going, do you?"
They both glanced down at the floor for an instant, and I knew that I’d picked a winner.
"You should both be ashamed of yourselves," I said.
"It was just a little harmless fun," Greg said.
"We didn’t mean anything by it," Moose added.
I shook my head, and then I looked at both of them. "There’s quite a bit of work left here cleaning up, so I suggest you both get to it."
"Where are you going to be?" Greg asked.
I started for the front door and said, "After I drop this off at the bank’s night deposit, I’m going home."
"I guess that’s fair enough," Greg said.
"Speak for yourself," Moose answered.
I turned to my grandfather and said, "If this place isn’t perfect when I get here in the morning, I’m telling on you."
"You wouldn’t dare," Moose said.
"Do you want to try me?" I asked with a grin.
Greg handed the mop in his hand to Moose. "Why take the chance? You get the floor, and I’ll start on the tables."
I left the diner, laughing as I did.
But I wasn’t laughing for long when someone stuck a gun in my face.
Evidently my hunch had been on the money.
The sheriff hadn’t found the real killer.
Not that I could claim to have done it myself.
It turned out that the killer had found me.
Chapter 16
"Sally, what are you doing?" I asked as the steel barrel of the handgun brushed against my cheek.
"Don’t play stupid with me," Sally said. "Let’s go. We’re going for a little ride."
I knew that my only chance was signaling my husband and my grandfather, but she must have known I would think of that. "If you call them right now, you’ll all die. Victoria, you’ll be dead in a second, and all they’ll hear is a muffled shot. When they come out to investigate, I’ll shoot them before they get through the door, and the beauty of it is, neither one of them will ever see it coming."
"Don’t kill them," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Clearly she’d thought this out.
"Then listen to me," she said. "If you come with me now, at least t
hey’ll both have a fighting chance when I come back for them later."
"I’ll go without a fight," I said. I wouldn’t allow myself to be responsible for their deaths in even the remotest way. I’d give up my own life if it meant giving the two of them a chance.
"That’s the spirit," she said. "Now, move."
I led the way to her truck, and for some odd and erratic reason I found myself wishing that I’d brought a heavier jacket, and as I got into the passenger seat, I thought about lunging over and blowing her horn. It could be the only way I could give the men in my life a chance to respond to my kidnapping without stepping directly into an ambush. At least we were far enough away from the front door that they’d have a fighting chance.
But I knew that neither man was armed, and a baseball bat didn’t stand a chance against a gun in a fight.
I decided to wait for an opportunity to get away that didn’t involve jeopardizing the life of either man I loved so dearly.
As we drove, I didn’t even have to ask where we were going. Sally was set on a straight course to her farm, and why wouldn’t she take care of me there? After all, she was familiar with the territory, she could hide my body if she had to, and no one would be the wiser.
I had to do something, but with that gun pointing across her body directly at me while she drove, it wasn’t time just yet.
Maybe I could distract her long enough by getting her to talk so I could come up with something that might save my life.
Otherwise, I didn’t stand a chance.
"Would you mind telling me why you’ve done all of this?" I asked her. "It’s pretty clear that I’m not going to live long enough to tell anyone else."
Sally smiled over at me, as though I’d just complimented her on her dress. Had the woman completely lost her mind? "Why not? I must say, though, I thought you were smarter than you turned out to be. You really don’t have a clue, do you?"
"I’m not afraid to admit it. You outsmarted us all at every turn," I said. If I could get her to keep underestimating me, maybe I could use it to my advantage when it counted.
She chuckled. "Don’t feel bad. I’ve been fooling the cops for years."
"Why did you get rid of Wally?"
"He stumbled onto my operation, so I didn’t have much choice," she said. "You see, I can’t make a living as a farmer, at least not with the crops I’m allowed by the government to grow and sell on my land."
"You’ve got a marijuana field somewhere on your land," I said, suddenly remembering the sheriff’s complaint about the increase of pot sales in our area when he’d first told me about Wally Bain’s murder.
"It’s just a little one," she said. I kept it hidden within other crops, and I’ve been doing pretty well with it over the years, adding a little more to it during each planting season. Then one day Wally was out walking his land and accidently wandered over onto mine. He found the pot, and decided that a little extortion was in order. He told me that if I paid him every month, he’d keep his mouth shut. I didn’t have much choice at first, and Wally’s bite was small enough to handle, though it was most likely quite a lot for him, but then the man got greedy. I had to stop it, so I offered him a huge payout, and I decided to end the extortion once and for all instead."
"So, that explains why he quit caring so much about the produce he supplied the diner and the grocery store. He suddenly didn’t need our money, anymore."
"I told him not to get sloppy, but he wouldn’t listen to me. You don’t see me parading my wealth around town, do you?"
"What do you do with all that money?" I asked, honestly curious about it.
"Mostly I spend it on travel. I tell folks I’m going to farming conventions, but I head for my place in Paris, instead. I’ve got the cutest little apartment over there."
"I had no idea," I admitted, which was true enough. "Just how lucrative is your business?"
"More than you can imagine," she said.
"It was a pretty dramatic way to end the arrangement, stabbing him in the chest with his own pitchfork," I said. My cell phone was in my pocket, but I couldn’t get to it without Sally seeing what I was doing.
"The poor sap never even suspected what was coming. I left through the back door of the barn, and nobody had a clue what I’d done."
"You were in the clear, though. Why did you bring Ron into it?"
"Ron. I’m glad you brought him up. I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t show up at the hospital tonight, aren’t you?"
"The thought crossed my mind," I said.
"I have a friend who works there. She checked around, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out that it was nothing more than a trap. But that told me something, too. You knew enough to make sure I heard about Ron, so that meant that I was a suspect in your mind. It’s funny, but I thought you had it figured out when you and Moose first tried to come in the back way to my farm. That used to be how I moved the product in and out. It’s lucky for me that I blocked the access lane after Ron started sniffing around. He had an inkling that I was up to something illegal, so I hired him to help out on the place to keep him around. What is it they say, keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer? Well, that was exactly what I decided to do. I was going to see that he had an accident on my farm, but the fool ended up doing it for me."
"So, he didn’t know what you were up to?"
"I don’t think so, and if I’m lucky, we’ll never find out."
"I wonder what he meant when he said that his hands were dirty," I said.
"He was always washing his hands. He has some kind of disorder, if you ask me. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, you know? Anyway, it was an accident, just a happy little accident."
We were still quite a ways from where Sally’s farm stood, but she suddenly took a turn that I had grown all too familiar with lately. We were heading down the back way to her place, and past Abel’s house. I would have loved some help from the quirky old man, but as far as I knew, he was long gone.
I was on my own.
"One last thing," I said as she neared the cutoff to her land. "Why did you bother setting the house on fire?"
"Jan was being unreasonable about the price, despite our friendship a long time ago. I think she resents me wrecking her car back then to this day. I figured that if I burned the place down, she’d come down in her demands."
"But you’ve got more money than you know what to do with," I said. "Wasn’t it a foolish risk to take doing that?"
"What’s life without taking a chance now and then?" she asked. "That’s what I do every day. One more risk wasn’t going to kill me."
Sally pulled into her access path and stopped just before the tree that was still blocking the way. Putting her truck in Park, she said, "Here’s where we get out."
I thought about making a run for it then and there, hoping to get lost in the woods and the darkness.
She kept the gun pointed at my head, though, so I never got the chance. "Don’t get any ideas, Victoria."
I waited for her to get out on her side, but she surprised me by sliding over on the seat toward me. It was dark out, with just the whisper of moonlight shining, and I wondered if we’d both be stumbling around in the shadows.
As I opened the truck’s passenger door, Sally finally made a mistake as she got just a little too close to me. I slammed the truck’s door, hoping to catch her hand in it, but instead, I caught the gun. It exploded, and I felt the bullet tug at my shirt, though as far as I could tell, it didn’t hit me.
Sally dropped the weapon after it fired, and I dove for it, but she was on top of me before I knew what was happening. I worked in a diner, and the most strenuous thing I did most days was haul around a tub of dirty dishes. Sally, on the other hand, worked as hard as any man. She had well-developed muscles that were just too much for me.
It was a battle I lost all too easily.
Once she had the gun again, she got up, rubbed her wrist, and smiled. "I should thank you for doing that. I was having a little
trouble with the idea of shooting you down in cold blood, but you just gave me a reason."
"You don’t have to kill anyone else," I said. "We can work something out."
"I doubt that. Anyway, why should I listen to you? Once I take care of you, I’ll pick off Moose and Greg without too much trouble. I know. I’ll tell them that you’re in trouble. Both men will come running."
"You said that you’d leave them alone if I went with you!" I shouted.
"So I lied. Yell all you want to, Victoria. There’s no one out here to here but the two of us, and all of nature. Stop just ahead. We’re here."
I glanced down and saw three dark openings in the earth, and a backhoe sitting nearby.
It took me a second to realize that they were graves, and that one of them was meant for me.
I was done making it easy on her. If I was going to die, it wasn’t going to be without a good fight. Looking around frantically, I searched in the faded moonlight for anything I could use as a weapon. There was a loose chain near the backhoe, and I wondered if I could get to it before she could shoot me. The only other thing I saw was a dead branch on the ground a few feet away. Maybe I could use it, if only I could get it in time.
I pretended to stumble as I walked forward, grabbing at the branch and swinging it in her direction.
The gun fired again, and the branch shattered in my grip. I didn’t doubt for an instant that the shot had been meant for me, and if I hadn’t moved at the last second, she would have nailed me. As it was, my hands were numb from the impact of the bullet hitting the branch.
I knew that I’d taken my last chance to get out of this alive, but at least I’d tried.
And then I heard the welcome sound of a friendly voice behind us both.
"Drop it, Sally. I’ve got you covered."
Evidently Abel hadn’t wandered off that far after all.
As I stood back up, Sally shouted, "Stay right where you are."
"I’ll shoot you if I have to," Abel said, his voice shaking a little as he pointed the shotgun at her middle. "I’ve been watching you and your crops for years with a blind eye, but these killings have crossed the line. Somebody’s got to stop you."
