Shotgun, Wedding, Bells

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “I saw the two of you jump the shooter.”

  “Huh. You saw her jump the shooter while I brought up the rear. It was scary-fast. She had his arm twisted up behind his back in nothing flat. That man was totally immobilized before he knew what hit him.”

  I stared at the passing scenery. Most of the houses were dark. Several had electric candles in the windows, beckoning the Christ Child to visit their homes. That got me thinking. Was it possible? Could Erik have really been the target?

  It didn't make sense.

  “What did Peevey and Lucerne have to say when all this went down?”

  “First off, we were all standing around slack-jawed watching you dance. Golly, girl, you had it going on!”

  I blushed in the dark. “Little Chuckie showed up. I had to dance or Susan would lose her job.”

  “I figured something like that had happened. He came out of the back room looking very pleased with himself. I'd love to give that creep a good pounding. I was torn between watching you and keeping an eye on the crowd. Then you yelled. Before I could peel myself off the wall, Brawny was on top of the gunman. Lucerne and Peevey were stunned. She was so fast, she moved like a blur. Peevey asked her later if she taught classes. She told them she'd meet with them on her day off and show them a few moves.”

  I gawped at him. “You have to be kidding.”

  “No, I'm not,” he said, quietly. “Point being, if she thinks you're safe, you are.”

  That wasn't what I wanted to hear. “I can't believe that someone would hire thugs to kill my son. That just doesn't make a bit of sense. What sort of animal wants to bump off a five-year-old kid?”

  “I dunno,” said Johnny, drumming his fingers on his steering wheel. “But you can rest assured that the man who hired that thug is going to be roadkill before long.”

  CHAPTER 75

  Johnny helped me as I trudged through the mounting snow and made my way to the hospital entrance.

  The security guard gave me the once over.

  “You got a problem?” I lifted my chin defiantly.

  “Uh, no ma'am.” His baby face flushed with embarrassment. I doubted he was much of a threat to any wrongdoer, and that ticked me off all over again.

  “Boo!” I shouted. To my immense satisfaction, he jumped.

  Johnny nearly wet himself laughing. He gave me a quick peck on the cheek, turned around, and chuckled his way into the night.

  “Great, just great.” I punched the elevator buttons so hard my knuckle cracked.

  By the time I made it to Detweiler's floor, I was literally seeing red. The emotional roller coaster that had begun with my wedding plans had chugged up to a precarious peak and then plummeted into a valley.

  They had dimmed the lights in the hospital hallway. Elva barely glanced at me as she looked up from her ever-present clipboard. “Your husband is awake. I just took his vitals. If you'd like to sleep in the recliner in his room, why don't you?”

  I stepped under a buzzing florescent light—and her eyes snapped open wide. I opened my mouth to explain all the makeup I was wearing, but I couldn't summon up the energy. Instead, I gave her a nod and tiptoed down the hall to Detweiler's room.

  “Kiki?”

  “I'm here, my love,” I said, leaning down to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Wow. You smell like perfume. Cigarettes. What's with that? You okay?” He sounded groggy. Dark circles ringed his eyes. His hair stuck out in a bad imitation of a bottle brush. I could see that his lips were cracked and chapped. I reached over for the small container of Vaseline. With my fingertip, I painted his mouth and then kissed him.

  If Brawny was to be believed, Detweiler was safe. So was Erik. And Anya. Everyone who mattered to me. The shooter wouldn't be coming back.

  “Never better. Scoot over.” I cuddled up next to him. My eyes adjusted to the nightlight by his bed.

  “Good.” His smile came slowly. I relished every second of seeing it emerge, as I took his hand in mine and felt the warmth of his flesh. Leaning over, I tried to plant another kiss on his forehead. But what I saw on his pillow stopped me.

  “Detweiler? Stay perfectly still. Don’t move. There’s a huge spider right next to you.”

  “Get it off of me!”

  He's not afraid of snakes, or creeps, or bats, but Detweiler hates spiders. They absolutely terrify him.

  I went looking for a weapon. Moving swiftly, I grabbed a copy of Chicagoland Scrapbooker that I'd left behind in the recliner. The magazine rolled up easily in my hand.

  “Get that spider!” Detweiler rolled away from his pillow. I swatted the bug. Once, twice, three times. My efforts did nothing to crumple it up.

  Elva threw open the door. She skidded to a stop when she saw me, holding the magazine like a club. “Stop it! Stop! What are you doing? Have you lost your mind? You can’t whack at him. He’s got stitches.”

  “Spider!” I pointed at the bedclothes.

  “Get it off me!” Detweiler howled.

  I hit the spider and it jumped.

  “That’s the biggest—” And then with two fingers, Elva delicately plucked up the hairy beast. “That’s the biggest false eyelash I’ve ever seen.”

  “Oh, my gosh,” I put a hand to my eye. “Must be one of mine.”

  “Yours?” Detweiler squinted up at me. “Since when did you start wearing false eyelashes?”

  “Uh, since tonight. At the strip club.”

  “Strip club?” Detweiler and Elva repeated in chorus.

  “Long story. Sorry, Elva. It was, um, work related. One of my scrapbookers. She needed my help.”

  But Elva had quit listening. She was clinging to the side of the bed, laughing so hard she could barely stand. “Strip club? False eyelashes? And you with a belly bump?”

  Wiping her eyes, she continued, “Well, you beat that spider to death. You really did. That's a first.”

  “Yeah, I'm tough like that.”

  Detweiler shivered. “I hate spiders.”

  “Oh-kay. I'll leave you two alone. Try to keep it down in here.”

  I stuffed the eyelash in my pocket, but I didn't take off my cape. Not yet. I was happy to be wearing a lot of clothes.

  “Well, that was exciting.” Detweiler chuckled.

  “Yup.” I muttered, “You don't know the half of it.”

  “How are the kids?” He mumbled sleepily.

  “Just fine,” I said. “Everything and everyone is fine. We can talk about it in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 76

  I woke up to the sound of the nurse, making her rounds and checking on Detweiler. Soon after, the breakfast cart came rattling its way down the hall. The scent of bacon proved irresistible.

  I told my husband, “I'm going to run downstairs to the cafeteria. Your food has arrived.”

  “We need to talk when you get back.”

  “Right. We sure do.”

  All the exercise I'd gotten last night was causing me to feel extra-hungry. Detweiler wouldn't be happy to hear I'd gone snooping around while he was flat on his back. But the results would please him and put his mind at ease. Before I explained my nocturnal adventure, I wanted to pin down Brawny, but my cell phone was dead. I'd forgotten to plug it into the charger last night.

  “Drat.” My stomach growled. I decided to deal with the phone after I'd had my breakfast. Six pieces of bacon later, Hadcho showed up, moving gingerly and carrying a cup of coffee. “Is this seat taken?”

  “Nope. Take a load off.”

  “Brawny text-messaged me to say that we can call off the armed guard,” he said, easing into the plastic chair opposite of mine. A wince confirmed that he was still hurting. “You caught up with the second shooter.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “What does that mean?” His coffee cup froze on the way to his lips.

  “I identified him. Brawny and Johnny took him down. Supposedly, Brawny had a talk with him, but I have no idea what she learned. She turned him loose! Can you believe it? I woul
d have choked that dude to death with my bare hands, but she lets him go. When I tried to find out why, she and I went around and around in circles. I couldn't get a straight answer from her. Some nonsense about Lorraine having to talk to me. What a load of bunk. Believe me, I am not a happy bunny.”

  Gulping the coffee and setting the empty cup to one side, Hadcho scowled. “Do you mean to tell me you don't believe her?”

  “Oh, I believe her. She is totally convinced that we're not in any danger. All along this was a 'whydunnit,' and not a 'whodunnit.' From the get-go, I haven't been able to figure out why someone used us as target practice on my wedding day. Worse luck, I'm dealing with a so-called bodyguard who won't come clean on the details. All she kept saying was that she's got it taken care of. Terrific, huh?” I threw up my hands.

  “And she didn't offer any explanation?”

  “Only that the shooter was hired to take out Erik. Have you ever heard such nonsense? That is just plain silly. Who gets hired to kill a five-year-old boy? How dumb does she think I am?”

  Hadcho's eyes are such a dark brown that you can barely tell where the pupil meets the iris. In the right light, they look like two dark lumps of coal. Now he stared at me, a muscle in his jaw twitching, as he asked, “Could she be right? Might they have been aiming at Erik?”

  “How should I know? She wasn't exactly forthcoming about the details. If there's a Scottish version of the Sphinx, her name is Bronwyn.” I was pouting as I picked at my seventh piece of bacon. I had three pieces left on my plate and I intended to eat every one of them. Maybe I'd even go back for more.

  “Help me out here,” said Hadcho. “I'm trying to remember the trajectory of the bullets.”

  After removing a paper napkin from the metal dispenser in the middle of the table, he fished for a pen from his pocket. He drew an octagon to represent the gazebo. Marking a series of Xs, he created a row down the middle from left to right. “This is Anya, Erik, you, and Detweiler. Second row would be Lorraine and Brawny.”

  “You forgot Leighton. He wound up sort of behind Lorraine, helping her with the prayer book, remember? “

  “Okay.” Hadcho squeezed in an additional X. “Can you remember exactly what Erik was doing when we heard the first gunshot?”

  I closed my eyes. I could see Detweiler's love-struck grin, Leighton's serious smile, and Hadcho's expression of concentration as we listened to Lorraine officiate the service. Letting myself relive the moment, I recalled how Anya had stepped back, and I reached down because Erik was—

  “Jumping up and down, trying to catch snowflakes on his tongue.”

  “Right. I'd forgotten.” Hadcho nodded enthusiastically. “Detweiler said something to me about this being Erik's first experience with snow. As soon as we walked outside, the kid started packing it with his bare hands. He asked where the flakes came from. Detweiler launched into this long-winded explanation of moist air versus cold air versus, and I don't know what else.”

  I picked up the thread. “When we got to the gazebo, Erik opened his mouth—”

  “And started jumping—” Hadcho continued. His pen tip was touching the paper, allowing a black blob to grow at an alarming rate. But that didn't matter. We were onto something. Something big.

  “I was worried about him toppling off the gazebo. I made a grab for Erik. He jumped up. I leaned down. The bullet went right through the hood of the cape I was wearing,” I said. “Brawny's big on capes and hoods. She made mine bigger than my head, so it could be folded back on itself in layers. I was looking down at our hands, Detweiler's and mine. The fabric sort of blocked my view left and right. The way horse blinders would.”

  I hesitated and closed my eyes to help me dredge up more memories. “But out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Erik jumping up and down. We could feel it, remember? He shook the wooden floor of the gazebo. Because he was concentrating on the snowflakes, he didn't realize he was moving so close to the edge. Originally he was behind me, but after all that hopping up and down, he wound up slightly in front of me.”

  “That first shot went right through your helmet.”

  “Hood.”

  “Whatever.” Hadcho capped his pen and took one of my pieces of bacon off the plate. He munched it thoughtfully. “I remember hearing the crack of the gunshot. I knew right away we were being shot at.”

  “Detweiler did, too. I felt him pull away from me.”

  “I must have been shot immediately. You don't always feel a gunshot wound. It cauterizes the flesh as it goes in. The adrenaline blocks the pain at first. I remember turning toward the noise. There was a shout when one of the creeps realized we were drawing our guns. It surprised them that we were carrying.”

  “They couldn't have guessed that Brawny was wearing a knife. Or that she'd throw a blade with such accuracy. Who invites a professional bodyguard to a backyard wedding?”

  “Nobody,” agreed Hadcho. “That's how come she was able to take out one of the scumbags.”

  I picked up the paper napkin. The black blot had grown to the size of an olive. A shiver swept through me. “Then Brawny had it right. Their target was Erik. That guy we found last night, he was really, really lucky.”

  “How so?”

  “Brawny let him go. If it had been left up to me, I would have strangled him with my bare hands.”

  CHAPTER 77

  Detweiler was asleep by the time we got back to his room. I didn't want to wake him, and Hadcho agreed.

  “Look, I'll run over to the Webster Groves Police Department. They need to be filled in on what we've learned.”

  “Like they even care,” I muttered darkly.

  Jamming his hands in his pockets, Hadcho nodded. “Actually the Webster Groves guys have been working on this. I've been fielding phone calls. They're a good bunch. It's just that they don't want to tick off Prescott. It could look like they're doing an end run, see?”

  Reluctantly, I admitted he had a point. Mainly, I was mad at the world. Sure, I was being unfair, but didn't I have a right to feel mistreated? Nothing that I'd learned made any sense. “Shouldn't you have a talk with Brawny? Get her to come clean?”

  His smile was wan. “I tried. She stonewalled me like she stonewalled you. Kept going back to Lorraine Lauber. Something about this being Lorraine's call.”

  “Great.”

  We parted ways, and I slipped into Detweiler's room. There I hunkered down in the recliner, turning everything over and over in my head. My anger kept me awake for a while, but not for long. I woke up to Dr. Fizzio's voice. She was bent over Detweiler with her stethoscope on his belly. I waited impatiently for a report on my husband's prognosis.

  “Your incisions are coming along,” she said, with a smile for Detweiler.

  She must have gotten a good night's rest, because she looked years younger than she had the night we'd first met. They always say stress ages you, and the proof was standing in front of me.

  Her fingers moved rapidly over Detweiler's body, taking his pulse, kneading his belly, and feeling his lymph nodes.

  At long last, she pulled the stethoscope out of her ears and stepped back to study him carefully. “You are a lucky man, Detective Detweiler. Obviously, you were in excellent health when you got shot. You're recovering nicely. I think I'll send you home today.”

  A little cry of happiness escaped me.

  “Provided, of course,” she added with a stern glance my way, “that you promise to stay quiet. Can you do that?”

  “I can,” said Detweiler solemnly.

  That brightened my mood considerably. After the doctor left, I called his parents with his cell phone. Thelma answered on the first ring. When I told her the news, she let out her own hurrah of happiness. “Louis is out in the barn. He'll be so tickled to hear this.”

  Then she paused. “But will he be safe, Kiki?”

  “We tracked down the shooter yesterday. I have it on good authority that none of us will be bothered by him again,” I said, as I hiked myself up so I could sit
on the edge of his bed. “Here. Want to tell your little boy hi?”

  After Detweiler finished his call, I phoned Brawny with the good news. “I'll come pick you up,” she said. “Laurel and Joe will gladly watch the kids. Lorraine wants to speak to you.”

  “Yeah, well, I want to talk to her, too.” When I finished, Detweiler patted the side of his bed. “Tell me all about it. How did you track down the second shooter?”

  I explained about the matchbook. Although Detweiler scowled when he heard I'd gone to the strip joint, he didn't interrupt me. I recounted the kindness of Lucerne and Peevey. That brought a reluctant smile to his face. He had met Susan, aka “Sassy,” and he wasn't surprised to hear she was one of my scrapbookers. Then I took a deep breath and told him about Little Chuckie's threat. That led to a summary of my brief career as a dancer at the Badda Bing Gentleman's Club.

  He shook his head and smothered a laugh at the description of me strutting up and down the stage with my big belly sticking out. I explained how Candi's top-drop had taken me by surprise. “Believe it or not, when you're up on the stage, it can be hard to see out into the audience.”

  “Really?”

  “I had to improvise when I did my pole dance.” I got up and gave him a small demonstration. That got him laughing. But his stitches hurt when he did. He clamped his mouth shut rather than give in to the giggles.

  “Unbelievable,” he said. “I'm out of commission for a few days, and my wife is moonlighting at a strip joint.”

  “A gentleman's club,” I corrected him. “By the way, I made tons of cash.”

  “Really? Show me the money.” He demanded in a perfectly deadpan voice.

  “I gave it all to the girls. They needed it, and they deserved it because they were so kind to me.”

  “They were nice to you because you were nice to them,” he said. “Can I see your costume?”

  I pulled it out of the plastic bag in my purse. In the bright light of day, it looked amazingly insignificant. Once again, Detweiler started to chuckle. I laughed, too. “Hey, buster. This is a customized outfit I have here. You'll never find one of these in your average maternity shop.”