The Gun Also Rises

by Sherry Harris

  “Will Chef Sal be upset if I ask for the tiramisu to go?”

  Miss Belle leaned forward. “He’ll be insulted. He thinks there’s only one way to serve and eat tiramisu and that’s in the moment.” She took a big bite, then looked over her shoulder to the kitchen. She put her fingers to her lips and kissed them. The woman had a hearty appetite for someone so fit. “Sip some coffee to stall. And pray he doesn’t send out any of his famous gelato after this.”

  I sipped my coffee. “I wish Roger had shown up.”

  “Me too. Although it seems unlikely now.”

  “We’ll drive by his house on the way home to see if there are any lights on.”

  “Do you mind if we make one other stop?”

  “Where?”

  Miss Belle sighed. “My mother-in-law’s house. She doesn’t live too far from Roger.”

  Her mother-in-law was still alive? I did a quick calculation in my head. She had to be in her midnineties.

  Miss Belle leaned in. “She’s ninety-five and going strong, except for some memory problems. I think she’ll outlive me. And if she heard what happened today at my house, she’ll be angry.”

  “Is she one of those people who comes off as angry when she’s really worried about you?” CJ had been like that. Sometimes breaking bad news over the phone had worked better than telling him in person.

  “No. She’ll be angry if the family name is besmirched by some kind of scandal.”

  “It’s hardly a scandal. A woman stole something and was killed.”

  “It’s a scandal to her. Her memory problems are making her reactions worse. One minute she’s fine and the next some strange, unrelated thing will come out of her mouth. It’s gotten worse since my father-in-law died last year. She keeps threatening to send me away. As if she could.”

  I took a big bite of my tiramisu to try to cover any expression of horror that could creep across my face. My family and I had had our differences, but we always supported one another. Even when I married CJ at nineteen, my mom hadn’t been thrilled, but she hadn’t tried to cut me out of the family. “Okay. We can go. Let me check my phone to see what’s on the news so we’ll have an idea of what she might have heard.” I scrolled through a couple of news sites for Ellington. “All it says is there was a suspicious death in Ellington. No names or circumstances mentioned.”

  “Yet,” Miss Belle said.

  “You’re right; it will come out. Are you going to tell her about the contents of the suitcase?”

  “Not tonight. She’ll probably think I stole them somehow.”

  The police might think that too. I took another bite of my tiramisu. “This is delicious,” I said. “Not soggy, not too much coffee flavor.”

  Miss Belle nodded, and we ate our desserts in silence. Thankfully, it wasn’t a gigantic piece.

  As we finished our last bite, Chef Sal came over. He kissed Miss Belle on both cheeks and held her hands.

  “How was it?” he asked.

  “The best meal I’ve ever had,” she said. “Italian or otherwise.”

  I thought that was a bit over the top, but I knew from my experiences with Angelo DiNapoli that chefs’ egos could be large and fragile. They both looked at me expectantly.

  “This is my new favorite restaurant. I’d need a thesaurus to find enough words to describe this meal.” Apparently, that did the trick, because soon I was being introduced, kissed on the cheeks, and invited back. A table would always be open for me. I wondered how many people had heard that line.

  “Have you seen our dear Roger tonight?” Miss Belle asked. “I was so hoping to catch up with him.”

  “Don’t speak his name in front of me,” Chef Sal said.

  “Whyever not?” asked Miss Belle.

  “The staff told me he had a reservation. For six, and he didn’t show up.”

  “For six people or for six o’clock?” I asked.

  “Six o’clock for two. I heard he sounded very pleased with himself when he called. I thought he was bringing someone special.”

  “Any idea whom?” Miss Belle asked. “Wouldn’t it be charming if he’d finally fallen in love after all these years?”

  The chef hmpfed. “I suppose it would. But he didn’t say who.” There was a clatter from the kitchen. “Excuse me, ladies.”

  “I don’t like it,” Miss Belle said to me. “Roger is very responsible. If he says he’s going to be somewhere, he is.” Two lines formed between Miss Belle’s brow.

  We left soon after with well wishes from the host and our waitress.

  Chapter Twelve

  Thirty minutes later, we sat across from a stiff-looking woman, Miss Belle’s mother-in-law. Her back was ramrod stiff, her hair coiffed to a silver helmet, a large diamond sparkled on one hand, an emerald on the other. No one would ever guess her age from her appearance. I sat on the edge of the chair I’d been pointed to with my back straighter than normal. Miss Belle had a fake smile plastered on her face as she introduced me to Mrs. Winthrop Granville II.

  She only gave me a quick glance before what seemed like a dismissal. “I assume you’re here about something important given the late hour.”

  It was just past nine thirty and probably not the best time to call. But it was the way she spoke, barely opening her mouth as if her jaw had been wired shut, that gave away her status as a Boston Brahmin. One of the elite families of the city. The room was expensively furnished but cold. Its only saving grace a scattering of books here and there, mostly expensive, leather-bound classics. They looked worn, which softened my attitude toward Mrs. Winthrop Granville.

  “Mother, there’s been an incident at my home in Ellington.”

  Never had the word mother sounded so strained.

  “It’s not surprising. I’ve been asking you to live with me since Sebastian died. Missing silver?”

  Miss Belle shook her head.

  “Not Edward’s painting?” She turned to me. “Edward was my dear husband. We had the painting of him commissioned so our son wouldn’t forget his roots out there in the west.”

  The west? West of the 95 maybe, by a couple of miles, but it was hardly Wyoming. But I knew people who thought any place west of the 95 might as well be Siberia.

  “It hangs over the fireplace in Sebastian’s study,” Mrs. Winthrop Granville said.

  I thought about the study. I remembered seeing a lovely landscape hanging there. But I had the good sense not to look at Miss Belle. I nodded politely.

  “The painting is fine,” Miss Belle said. “The maid stole something very valuable.”

  Mrs. Winthrop Granville sat even straighter if possible. “What? Not the sterling tea set we gave you for your wedding. It’s been in the family forever.”

  “No, Mother. But that’s not the worst of it. The maid has died under suspicious circumstances, and what she took is gone.”

  “I insist you tell me what she took.”

  If Mrs. Winthrop Granville had a cane I’m sure she’d be pounding it on the ground.

  “Some short stories, Mother. By Hemingway.”

  “I’ve always loved Cracker Jacks.” The angry Mrs. Winthrop Granville had been replaced by a past version of herself. Her voice changed, became lighter, younger. “They have a prize in them. Who doesn’t love a prize?”

  “I love prizes and Cracker Jacks too,” I said. Now I saw what Miss Belle had been talking about at the restaurant, about her mother-in-law losing focus.

  Miss Belle leaned toward me. “I’ll go get Ruth. Stay with her?”

  I nodded. Ruth Stewart had been the woman who’d let us in. Miss Belle had introduced her as the housekeeper /companion. She hadn’t worn a maid’s uniform, just a simple black dress and sensible-looking shoes.

  “You can call me Winnie,” she told me. “It’s what all my friends call me.”

  I couldn’t imagine addressing this imposing woman as Winnie. But it made me realize she must be the original owner of the Bobbsey Twin books in Miss Belle’s attic. The ones with “Winnie�
�� written in them.

  “You like to read?” I asked, trying to think of something we had in common, some topic that wouldn’t be upsetting, while Miss Belle was off finding Ruth. I figured she wasn’t a big fan of garage sales.

  “I do,” she said. “Did you ever go to a fair? People steal things there. I wasn’t allowed to go.” She smiled. “But my beau would sneak Cracker Jacks to me.”

  “I’ve gone to a fair. You have to be careful, though.” I hoped I was saying the right things because I didn’t want to upset her. Miss Belle and Ruth returned a few moments later.

  Ruth walked calmly over to Mrs. Winthrop Granville. “Winnie, I just noticed the time. Let’s head upstairs.”

  Mrs. Winthrop Granville nodded and stood. She clung to Ruth’s arm as they headed toward the staircase.

  Mrs. Winthrop Granville paused. “Thank you for coming by, Belle.”

  “We’ll let ourselves out,” Miss Belle told them.

  * * *

  The outside air was heavy with humidity. I felt its weight on my soul. It had been a long and tumultuous day. “I’ll drive by Roger’s house one more time on the way home,” I said as I pulled onto the street. I looked up at the beautiful brownstone as we left and thought of Winnie. Even money couldn’t stop the ravages of time.

  Two blocks later, I slowed in front of Roger’s house. There wasn’t much traffic, so I pulled to the side and stopped. The house was dark.

  “I’ll just check the door and ring the bell. Maybe he’s home now and just in the back,” Miss Belle said.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. If anything was amiss, I was probably better equipped to handle it. I trotted up the steps and tried the door. It was still locked. Then I rang the bell. After waiting a minute or so, I went back to the car. “Maybe he’s sound asleep.”

  “Could we just swing by his store too?” Miss Belle asked.

  “Sure.” I had this odd combination of exhaustion and antsiness going through my body. I had to take a left and circle around a one-way before we came to the block his store was on. Halfway down the street, I noticed there was unusual activity: lots of lights and police cars.

  “Oh, no,” Miss Belle said as I slowed to a stop. She climbed out of the car as a police officer impatiently flagged me to go around. I found a parking space half a block ahead and jogged back toward the store. I’d done more running today than I had all year. I had to cross the street and back again to get to where I could see Miss Belle. She was talking to a Boston police officer.

  “Is Roger okay?” I asked when I reached them.

  “Sarah Winston,” Miss Belle said to the police officer. “The woman I was telling you about.” She turned to me. “There’s no sign of Roger. It was an attempted break-in.”

  I was relieved Roger wasn’t in there dead. “Was anyone hurt?” I looked at Miss Belle, trying to access what, if any, information she’d given them about Roger, who seemingly had gone missing. I think she shook her head, but it could have been the lights from the nearby police car that continued to bounce around.

  “No,” the officer said. “The store was closed. Alarms went off. When we got here, the door was open. There’s an employee on the way to take a look around. From what we could tell, nothing was disturbed.”

  “Okay, then. We’ll be on our way.” I gripped Miss Belle’s arm before she could say anything further. If we mentioned our concerns about Roger, we’d be here all night. But if we didn’t, we might be accused of obstructing something. Although as far as I knew, leaving a door ajar and a half-packed suitcase didn’t constitute a crime. On the other hand, Roger hadn’t been at the places he’d said he would. I shook my head. Being tired was getting the best of me.

  I took one step before the officer stopped me.

  “Why were you driving by here?” the police officer asked.

  Rats. He must have noticed my head shake. “We’d been visiting Miss Belle’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Winthrop Granville the Second, and we’re heading back to Ellington.” I hoped name-dropping would stop any more questions.

  The officer cocked his head to one side. “Where does she live?”

  I gave him the address.

  “That seems to be in the opposite direction of the store.”

  “I always manage to get lost in Boston. Not a local.” I shrugged apologetically. But from the look on his face, he wasn’t buying the load I was trying to sell him.

  He turned to Belle. “But you must be familiar.”

  “I explained how to get out of here, but made the mistake of closing my eyes.”

  “If only I’d listened to her.” I smiled.

  “Let me just take down your contact information,” he said.

  I repressed a sigh and gave it to him. “Is it all right if we take off now?”

  The officer took Miss Belle’s information too before he nodded.

  * * *

  It was eleven thirty when we pulled up to Miss Belle’s house. The house was dark as the inside of a bat cave. “I’ll come in with you,” I said. I realized she was used to having someone else in the house with her. Kay had lived upstairs.

  “Thank you. Would you mind just spending the night?” Miss Belle’s voice faltered. “It’s been an exhausting day. And now being back here, knowing Kay is dead . . .”

  “Of course.” It really didn’t matter where I slept. No one would know the difference anyway. We went through the front. Miss Belle looked so pale, I walked her to her room. “You can stay in the room to the left at the end of the hall. It’s all made up.”

  “I’ll just make sure everything’s locked up before I go to bed.”

  “There’s a nice bottle of cabernet sauvignon on the kitchen counter if you’d like a drink.” She opened the door to her room. “Thank you, dear. For everything today.”

  I nodded. She closed the door to her room and I headed downstairs, flipping on lights as I went. After, I made sure all the doors and windows were closed. I circled back to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine. I drank a bit sitting down at the kitchen table that looked over the lawn and down into the woods. The pitch-black woods made me shiver, so I carried the glass upstairs. I’d left a few lights on downstairs to keep the boogeyman away.

  I hurried past Miss Belle’s door on the thick Oriental carpeting. The lighting in the hall was dim. I almost made it to my room when a figure stepped out of the room opposite mine.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I turned to run.

  “Wait.”

  It was Roger.

  I stopped but didn’t get any closer. I was sure I could outrun him if need be. “What are you doing here? Where have you been?” I stuck my hand in my pocket and searched for my phone, ready to call for help if I needed to.

  He made a gulping noise. Roger stayed right by the door, his shoulder against the frame as if he was glued there. Only he wasn’t, but I didn’t realize that until he was pushed to the center of the hall by a figure wearing a ghost mask like you see in the stores at Halloween. I got a glimpse of broad shoulders and a round torso before he stepped behind Roger. That’s when I saw he held a gun to Roger’s head. Now I wished I’d turned and run when I had the chance. Wished I’d never responded to Miss Belle’s invitation to spend the night. Wished I was home in my own bed. With my hand still in my pocket, I used my thumb to try to open my phone. Maybe I could blindly speed-dial Pellner.

  “Take your hand out of your pocket,” the man holding Roger said.

  His voice was muffled by the mask, but I understood what he said. So I did as he asked, well, commanded. In my other hand, I still clung to the glass of wine. I was almost surprised I hadn’t snapped the delicate stem in half. “What do you want?” My voice was surprisingly calm.

  “The book.”

  “What book? There are tons of books in this house.”

  “That’s what I told him,” Roger said. But he shut up when the man grounded the gun into his temple.

  “Tell her which book,” the masked ghost man said, “because s
he claims not to know anything about it.”

  The man shook Roger. Roger whimpered. “He’s looking for one by Hemingway.”

  I heard a ratcheting sound behind me and glanced over my shoulder. Miss Belle stood down the hall in a long white nightgown and bare feet holding a shotgun that was almost as big as her. The man started to swing the gun toward me. I tossed the wine at him, then the glass. Roger swung an elbow into the man’s ribs.

  “Duck,” Miss Belle yelled.

  I dived, grabbed Roger by the sweater, and took him down with me. I covered my head as I heard a shot. Bits of splintered wood and plaster rained down. My ears rang from the blast of the shot. I waited in shock for a couple of seconds before I looked up. The man was gone. But how? Then I remembered the back stairs were at this end of the hall. Miss Belle had pointed them out yesterday. Had that only been yesterday?

  I leaped up and whirled around to Miss Belle. She was flat on her back on the floor, so I ran toward her. My footsteps deadened by the thick carpet. Which made me worry the masked man’s would be too. I pulled out my phone. I hadn’t managed to dial Pellner or anyone earlier. My fingers fumbled before I pressed the correct numbers to call 911. I gave a dispatcher the address and told him to send an ambulance.

  Miss Belle sat up, then. “I don’t need an ambulance. But this”—she held up the shotgun—“has a hell of a kick.”

  Roger moaned.

  “Stay there, Miss Belle. But be ready in case that man shows back up.”

  She stood while I ran back to Roger. Miss Belle flipped on another light and I saw a stain spreading out from under Roger.

  “Roger. I think he’s hit.” I yelled it into the phone.

  Roger moaned again and then rolled over. I didn’t see any wounds. But even with more light on, it was still dim down at this end of the hall.

  I knelt beside him. “Roger, are you with me?”

  He snorted out a breath of air. “I’m fine. Don’t start yammering on like they do in the movies that everything’s going to be okay and to keep my eyes open.”