by Lora Roberts
“Well—because.” She hesitated. “You’re mentally unbalanced. You hated Pigpen because he was a bum, and you hated poor Vivien because she had a house and you didn’t.”
“Not very good reasons.” I noticed that she’d called Pigpen by his nickname. In the news reports he’d been Gordon Murphy. “Why did you kill them?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. “Do you have a tape recorder on?” Leaning through the side door, she reached up and switched on the dome light. “Of course you don’t— you don’t have anything. I can tell you, I guess, since you’re so curious. That’s funny,” she remarked. “I wouldn’t think a person on the verge of death would be curious.”
“It doesn’t seem fair to die without knowing why.” I didn’t voice the thought that the others had died that way. In the dim light, Delores’s face looked much the same—self-absorbed, self-important.
“It was Eunice’s fault, really,” Delores said, shifting the blame. “She asked me about reverse mortgages, if our institution had them. And we didn’t. But I thought I could help her out, put some of my capital into her place, just like a reverse mortgage but private, you see.” She sighed. “She had that oversized lot—the possibilities were endless. So after I saw her with those sample cereals on her counter, I got the idea, and I just couldn’t wait any longer. Vivien had already approached me about a reverse for her house, and I knew with those two big parcels I could do quite a deal.”
“So you killed Eunice. To get your hands on her property. Did she make you her heir?”
“Of course not.” Delores sounded shocked. “That would have been improper, and besides, it might have made me look suspicious. I have a lien on her house, and I’ll just sell it to myself to pay off the costs.”
“Convenient.” I felt choked by the lump in my throat—of tears, of rage, of fear.
“It was fair,” Delores protested. “She got the money, after all.”
“But not time to spend it.” I didn’t mean to say the words. They just slipped out. A wave of crimson washed over Delores’s face.
“She was a sick old woman whose life was a burden to her,” she spat. “Now type.”
I added another sentence. “She killed Eunice and Vivien—those reverse mortgages are phony.” Now that the light was on, I could see that I’d misspelled “holding”—it read “hilding.” But since Drake would likely never see it, the spelling didn’t matter.
I had to buy more time. Swallowing my fear, I forced a casual tone. “Sounds like you planned their killings pretty well,” I said. “What was it—yew seeds in the granola sample?”
“I wanted it to look like a normal death,” she explained. “Or an accident or something. The seeds were hardly noticeable mixed into the cereal—and those old people don’t see so well, after all. The yews grow wild on the vacant lot next to our house; I saw some program on TV about how poisonous the seeds were, so I picked the berries last summer before Daddy died.” She sounded proud of her enterprise. “I mashed them through a strainer and got lots of seeds and made some tea with some of them. Daddy likes his tea with honey; he never even noticed.”
“So you saved the rest of the seeds?” I needed a reality check. It was hardly believable that goody-goody Delores would say such things.
She heard my disbelief as praise for her forethought, and nodded. “I got Pigpen to collect cereal samples—told him everyone on the block had donated their samples to the Food Closet downtown. That was clever, wasn’t it? He was too stupid to see through it, anyway.” She looked at me, and I tried to look sympathetic. I glanced at the gun again. She was holding it in a looser grip; I wondered if I could snatch it away without horrible consequences.
“So you really fooled Pigpen.” I couldn’t think of anything more constructive to do than getting her to talk.
“At first.” She scowled. “After Eunice died, Pigpen figured out that I was doing something illegal with the cereal samples. He tried to blackmail me!” Her voice was incredulous. “Of course I had to kill him. I gave him some tea made from the yew seeds, just like I did Daddy, just like I’m going to give you. Then I said I would drive him to the liquor store. I was going to push him into the creek, but when I saw your van parked there I knew that was better. He’d told me how you treated him. I stopped right there, whacked him on the head with my sock filled with rocks, and pushed him out. I had to get out and roll him with my foot.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “At first I thought the smell in my car was a dead giveaway—he was so foul! I vacuumed and vacuumed, but I could still smell him until after the Beamer’s weekly appointment at the Auto Laundry.”
I could figure out the rest of it myself Alonso had taken Pigpen’s place, but Delores had found a real keen way of removing anyone who might connect her with cereal samples. And then Vivien, who frugally collected the free samples, quite proud of her thrift. For a moment great sadness washed the fear out of me, and then anger flooded in.
“Aren’t you done yet?” Delores nudged me with the gun. “Let me see what you typed.”
I gave her the paper, and reached for the gorilla head that sat on the seat beside me. Delores glanced at the first words.
“You idiot! This isn’t what I asked for!” She crumpled the paper, but for a few moments it had distracted her attention.
“Neither is this.” I rammed the gorilla head on backward over her head and ducked, just before she shot at me. Fire seared through my left shoulder. Before she could aim again, I managed to grab her arm above the hand that held the gun and bang it against the door frame as hard as I could. She was strong, but those little bones are delicate. The gun dropped into the grass at her feet, accompanied by her anguished cry. Then I kicked her in the stomach.
The gorilla suit provided some protection, I guess. She lurched backward, but she wasn’t down. The sound of the shot should have had Claudia calling for reinforcements. I couldn’t feel anything in my left shoulder except a warm trickling that was somehow reassuring. I scooted out of the bus, to where Delores was doubled up, and twisted her injured wrist as hard as I could. She screamed, and I shoved her forward. “I’ve got the gun now,” I lied. “Just keep going straight ahead, or I’ll put a bullet in you.” My shoulder began to burn again; walking jarred it agonizingly. If she realized that I could barely stagger, I might yet be done for.
She cradled her wrist, whimpering. “You broke it,” she whined through the gorilla head. “I can’t see anything! I’m suffocating.”
“Good.” My anger at her was the only thing that kept me on my feet. I wanted to tear out her hair, get into a prison-quality fight with her, knock her head against the garage wall, cause her the kind of pain she’d caused Eunice and Vivien and her other victims. I wanted her to die, for a few red-eyed seconds.
The porch light over the back door hadn’t gone on; I began to worry that Claudia might not have heard the shot. With her uninjured hand, Delores was trying to pull off the gorilla head. I pushed her again, and she stumbled against the garage. “Stop shoving!” She sounded really peeved at my bad manners.
“Keep going!” I wanted her far enough in front of me to be no danger, and not so far that I couldn’t tackle her if need be. Not that I relished the idea of tackling. I brushed against the coil of clothesline that hung on the garage wall, and grabbed it. Delores staggered in front of me, still one-handedly pawing at her head. Closing the gap between us, I dropped the loop of clothesline over her head. It wouldn’t go past her shoulders, and she began whacking behind her with her good arm, succeeding in landing a punch on my injured shoulder.
We careened past the garage and into the backyard, Delores’s costume liberally festooned with blackberry vines that had seized her fur with their thorns. I was still trying to get the rope around her to pin her arms to her sides; she was still trying to pull off the gorilla head.
Finally I remembered that I was supposed to be armed. “If you don’t stand still,” I ordered, “I’ll just shoot you. In the other wrist.”
&nb
sp; She stood still, and I pushed the coil of rope down on one shoulder. The costume had incredibly wide shoulders—it was like dealing with a football player’s uniform. And I was handicapped by the bullet wound.
Before I could shove the rope over the other shoulder, Delores tore away from me, using both her hands to wrench at the gorilla head. She was cursing and moaning with pain, and I wanted to join her in that occupation, but I had run out of adrenaline. I couldn’t even move. My anger drained away, allowing the throbbing in my arm to fill me; I didn’t know how to cope with the situation any longer. Delores would get the gorilla head off and see that I was unarmed and wounded, and then she’d either walk away or strangle me and walk away, and that would be that.
The gorilla head bounced on the grass, and Delores whirled wildly, catching sight of me. I had just enough fortitude left to put my hand in my pocket, pointing my finger like we used to do when playing cops and robbers. It wouldn’t have fooled a sharp ten-year-old, but Delores swallowed it. She took a few steps back. “Go ahead and shoot me if you dare,” she shrieked. “No one will ever believe that I killed them all. They’ll think you did it and just finished up by killing me. You’ll go to jail!” I winced, and she noticed that. Her voice got triumphant. “They’ll probably send you to the gas chamber.”
“I wouldn’t shoot to kill you,” I said, wiggling my finger to make my gun more convincing. “Just maim you for life.”
There was a loud report, like another gunshot. A stentorian voice roared out suddenly, “Put down your weapons. The police are surrounding the house!” and there was Claudia on the back porch steps, her daughter’s old cheerleading megaphone at her lips, the remains of a popped balloon dangling from her fingers.
That and the gunshot would go over big with the neighbors.
“Yeah, sure.” Delores turned her head back and forth between us. “You can’t stop me from leaving.” She glared at Claudia. “You—you old hag!”
“So rude.” The voice was Drake’s. Incredibly, there he was, standing in the driveway. An officer in uniform pushed past him and then halted, puzzled, looking from me with my fake gun to Delores in her gorilla outfit, to Claudia, perched like an aging cheerleader on the back steps.
“Who do we arrest?” He was joined by another uniform, and they both looked at me—smelling the old, faint stench of my criminal record, probably.
Seeing this, Delores pointed at me. “Arrest her,” she screeched. “She killed those other people, and she’s threatening me with a gun. She hurt my wrist!” She held it up, and sure enough it dangled limply. “I think it’s broken!”
The officers started toward me, although they were still darting glances at the gorilla suit. Drake didn’t order them to back off. He did speak, however.
“Where did the gun come from?” He sounded idle, like it was just a routine question, but the uniforms halted.
“I don’t—what do you mean?” Delores scowled at him. “How should I know? She probably has a whole arsenal in that junk heap of hers.”
“How did she kill the others? With the same gun?”
Delores shook her head, the pretty, shiny hair swirling around her face. “She poisoned them. She gave them yew seeds and they died.” Her scowl transferred itself to Claudia. “Probably got them from that woman there— there’re yews on both sides of her front door.”
I just stood, feeling nothing but the pain in my shoulder. The officers rushed over when I took my hand out of my pocket, surrounding me and patting me down. I didn’t say anything. Who would believe me? But when they jarred my shoulder, I had to whimper.
Drake moved. “Liz. You’re hurt?”
I nodded dully. “Shot—shoulder.” Claudia exclaimed, and started down the stairs.
Drake stopped her. “Call the ambulance,” he said curtly.
“It’s on the way—should be here now.” Claudia stayed on the steps, though. She must have thought the backyard looked a little crowded.
Drake came over to me, gesturing to the uniforms. They backed off until they stood on either side of Delores.
“Where’s the gun?” Drake’s hands moved gently over my shoulder. I wanted to be a stoic, but it was too much. I would begin crying any time. I had to breathe deeply before I could answer.
“It’s somewhere back by the bus. Dropped near the side door.” One of the uniforms went the direction Drake pointed. I swayed, and he put his arm around my waist, marching me over to the steps. Claudia received me, patting my back and murmuring when I sank down. A distant siren cut through the stillness.
“See, she admits it. She broke my wrist,” Delores said triumphantly.
Drake nodded to the other policeman, who grasped one of Delores’s hairy arms. “Like to take you in for questioning, Miss Mitchell,” he said, the words polite but his voice ice-cold.
“I insist on medical care,” Delores said shrilly. “I want to call my lawyer. I’ll sue you for false arrest—”
“I didn’t say anything about arrest yet,” Drake said. “But perhaps you’d like to remove your costume? I don’t want the clerk to think I’ve busted the circus.”
Reluctantly, Delores accepted the uniformed cop’s help unzipping the gorilla suit. The other uniform, whom I recognized as the blond surfer boy from Pigpen’s death—so many eons ago—came back from behind the garage. He held a plastic bag with the gun in it, and a couple of crumpled pieces of paper. The siren was getting closer.
“Found these, too, Detective Drake.” He glanced at me curiously.
“Thanks, Rucker.” Drake took the paper, and with a glance at Delores’s surgical gloves, smoothed it out. He looked up at me. “She’s holding you at gunpoint?” A very small smile flickered over his face.
“Everybody’s a critic,” I said wearily. The ambulance pulled up. The bustle they created almost drowned out Delores’s outraged demands for an instant doctor. The paramedics pronounced her wrist probably broken, and Rucker scratched his head over how to handcuff her.
“You can’t arrest me,” she yelled. “I’m going to a Halloween party. It’s all her fault—she did it. You’ll look like a fool when the truth comes out.”
“I don’t think so.” Drake spoke over his shoulder, from where he stood, hovering over me with flattering attentiveness. “You see, I’d already found out about the mortgages.”
Delores shut up, like a teakettle suddenly turned off.
“What mortgages?” Claudia lost a little of her anxious look
“Later,” Drake said. “I’m taking Liz to the hospital now.”
“Two visits in two days,” I mumbled idiotically when he guided me to my feet. “A record.”
“Just don’t try to top it.” He paused, looking back at Claudia. “Thanks for calling us.”
“No thanks required,” she said graciously. “But be sure to bring Liz back and stay to explain it all.”
She stood with the megaphone at her feet, and I saw her over my shoulder as I climbed into the ambulance, where Delores sat sullenly, attended by the police. Luckily it wouldn’t be a long ride.
Chapter 33
“She picked on those two old women,” Drake said, stretching his legs out under Claudia’s kitchen table, “because they didn’t have family to complicate things. She wanted their property, and figured she could get it dirt cheap because she had a lien on it. In effect, she’d sell it to herself to pay off her loan.”
“I still don’t understand.” Claudia was stirring a pot of cocoa at the stove; the aroma of warm milk made me sleepier than I already was. I was ensconced in the rocking chair, with plenty of pillows, but I was still uncomfortable. My shoulder was stiff with bandages and my bloodstream full of painkillers. But at least I wasn’t in custody. I could almost feel sorry for Delores—what lay before her was like nothing she’d ever imagined in her life.
“I mean,” Claudia continued, ladling cocoa into mugs, “how could she get away with that? What about Vivien’s will? Does Liz still inherit the house?”
I t
ook the mug she handed me and waited, in a placid, drug-induced state, for Drake’s answers. I was vaguely interested in them; they concerned someone I knew well.
“She could get away with it as long as there was no scrutiny,” Drake said, blowing on his cocoa. It was very hot; I’d nearly scalded my tongue with my first sip. “Eunice left her property to the Senior Center, and I suppose Delores meant to give them a little money and say that was all that was left after the lien was paid off. It actually suited her to have Vivien leave her house to Liz; that made Liz look guiltier than ever. But as soon as we started looking into the finances, it all fell apart. When I spoke to Ted at the pool he was cagey, but he admitted that he’d been offered development rights to both properties since Vivien’s death. He wouldn’t say who offered them, but I’m sure he will now.”
“So does Liz get the house?”
“Probably.” Drake smiled at me, for once without that wariness I was used to seeing in him. “If she can afford to keep it.”
“What does that mean?” I roused myself enough to ask the question, though my tongue felt thick and woolly.
“He means,” Claudia said, pouring a little more cocoa into her mug, “that upkeep and property taxes aren’t cheap around these parts. You might want to butter up Ted Ramsey.”
Drake cleared his throat. “Late breaking news,” he said unhappily. “The neighbors have gotten wind of Ted’s project and started a major petition thing. The whole development will probably die a natural death. You could sell the house to a builder for the lot, but you don’t get much for a tear-down.”
“Oh well, easy come, easy go.” I yawned, suddenly and hugely. “I wouldn’t want to see more condos sprout up around there myself.”
“There’s a rental cottage behind the house, isn’t there?” Claudia stirred her cocoa. “You could get some income out of it that way.”
My eyes were just on the brink of closing. Drake’s voice came from far away. “We can discuss this another time. Liz needs to get some rest.”
