Death of a Hot Chick

by Norma Huss

  “Then let’s find out.” Kaye grabbed her flashlight and ran for the parking lot.

  I knew exactly what Kaye would do. Watch for the guy to emerge from the water and drive away. And, she’d try to stop him—by herself.

  With a glance at Gregory, who nodded his agreement, I unfolded my legs and charged after her, nearly falling when I hit the gravel. My shoes were back inside Lizzie’s boat but I wouldn’t stop. Kaye was way ahead, and I heard her.

  “Stop,” she yelled. “Officer Yarnell, he’s over here.”

  The last had to be her attempt at scaring the killer, because Doug was nowhere in sight. I pumped my arms, bumped up my speed, although my feet complained.

  Then I heard a car zoom out of the parking lot.

  “Did you see him?” I yelled at Kaye.

  “A white car,” she said. “Some kind of hatch-back. Or maybe it was just light colored.”

  I reached Kaye. “Did you see him?” I repeated.

  Kaye punched numbers into her cell phone. “The killer just left the marina in a white car,” she said, probably before anyone answered, because she repeated that sentence three times. After the third time she hesitated before replying. “It could have been any very light color. Sort of a hatch-back, high-rounded rear end.” After another pause, she said, “I don’t even know what kind of car I drive.”

  I sat on the ground and started rubbing the bottoms of my feet. “Some detective,” I muttered. “Where are your famous powers of observation?”

  “But I got the first two numbers of his license plate. Eight-three.”

  That’s when we heard the siren.

  “He’s on his tail,” Kaye said, and I recognized her self-satisfied tone of voice.

  “Okay, super detective. What did you see?”

  “I didn’t really recognize him. Did you hear that? A crash.”

  The noise was loud enough. Had to be close. “Did the killer run down the police car? Or what?” Except, now I heard two sirens. One of them stopped, but behind me. Ambulance? The other still moved. “Somebody else’s accident. The cop car is still moving. Maybe one’s the ambulance.”

  Kaye said, “I don’t know what any of the suspects look like, except for Mr. Joline. I just got a glimpse, so it could have been he. Or Chester, or Brandon. Or somebody else. He was wearing a Speedo. Probably not Mr. Joline.”

  “Which means if he gets ahead enough to slip some clothes on, the police won’t know he’s all wet,” I said as I turned back.

  “There’s always hair. His hair has to be wet, but I mostly saw legs. Long, slim legs.”

  “Tall guy, then? Not a bit plump?” I asked as I tried to step around any sharp stones. “Not Chester or Mr. Joline. Brandon is tall.”

  “So is Rolf.”

  “Rolf?”

  Kaye jogged ahead, lighting the path. “Mr. Joline’s guy. You know, the shadow.” Mentally, I nodded as she continued. “Lucky you found Lizzie. How did you do it?”

  How had I found her? “Lucky the water’s only six feet deep.” Maybe less. She’d been on the bottom, and I sure wouldn’t have found her in twenty, or a hundred feet.

  We reached Lizzie’s dock. The ambulance, with its now stilled siren, had pulled up. The driver and his assistant hauled a gurney over close to her.

  “She’s breathing,” Gregory said.

  I leaned over her. “Are you awake? Did you see who it was?” I asked.

  Lizzie moved her hand, opened her eyes, then closed them.

  “Excuse me,” the attendant said as he elbowed me aside and placed an oxygen mask over Lizzie’s face.

  That’s when the police car pulled up and I realized the siren had been getting louder and closer, not farther away.

  “Doug, the killer got away,” I yelled. “Didn’t you see him leave the marina?”

  Suddenly a tall, thin apparition appeared out of the dark. “Hey, what’s all the commotion here?”

  “Dad?” I asked. “Why are you here?”

  But Dad, as usual, was doing the talking. “Don’t tell me they got the police after you. It’s not that much after midnight,” Dad said. He hesitated, almost long enough for me to slip a word in before he added, “There’s an ambulance here, too?”

  Kaye asked the question. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re watching after your sister. And I swear, isn’t that little Douglas Yarnell? Now, Doug, you should know better than try to arrest Cyd. She’ll have that boat out of the slip in no time.”

  I couldn’t help it. I collapsed with hysterical laughter, flopped on the ground and held my head in my hands.

  Kaye said, “Dad, you have misconstrued the entire situation. A killer just got away, and....how did you get here?”

  “Granny insisted on driving, but your mother is with her. The car’s okay, so they headed home.”

  “The car’s okay? Did I miss something?”

  “Just a little fender bender. You know how Granny drives. Probably her fault, but the other guy didn’t stop. Just as well. He was naked.”

  I looked at Kaye. She looked at me. As one, we said, “Not naked. Wearing a Speedo!”

  Chapter 27

  “Dad, he was the killer. He got away!”

  “Excuse me, coming through.” It was the ambulance crew with Lizzie on their gurney. Her eyes were closed. The third attendant held the oxygen mask in place. Lizzie must have been breathing.

  “Somebody better go with her,” Kaye said. “I’m dry, so....”

  “I’ll go,” Gregory said.

  “She knows me. We can’t let her wake up with a strange man staring at her.”

  Officer Doug said, “Kaye, you’re an eye witness. I need your testimony.”

  “Call me,” she said. “No, I’ll call you from the ambulance. Cyd, here are my keys. Go to my place. Take a nice, hot shower and change into dry clothes. I’ll make sure they keep a guard at Lizzie’s door.”

  “Good idea, but I’ll drive her,” Gregory said, which Kaye probably didn’t hear. She was gone.

  Doug Yarnell took over. With a voice that reeked of, “the old man won’t know a thing,” he said, “Mr. Landis, please tell me you know the color and make of the car.”

  “Well, you know, when you’re looking at a nude driving a car, you don’t pay much attention to anything else. I never saw the likes of that.”

  But the Dad I knew was ever-prepared and ready for anything. “You got the license plate number, didn’t you,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Wrote it right down on a piece of paper. Started with, let’s see. An eight and a three.”

  “That’s what Kaye said.”

  “Great, Mr. Landis. What is the complete number?”

  “On the paper, like I said.” He looked at Doug’s outstretched hand. “Well, now. I don’t have the paper. I left it in the car. Can’t be too careful. Somebody might have mugged me.”

  “Could you call Mrs. Landis and ask them to return?”

  From the look on his face, I knew that ever-prepared Dad was the only one ready to send, or especially, receive calls.

  “You have the only cell phone in your pocket, right?”

  Dad looked a bit sheepish. “I’ll leave a message. They’ll hear it when they get home.”

  “That will be twenty minutes.”

  “Well....”

  “Okay, Dad,” I said. “Why won’t they be there?”

  “They’ll go straight to the slip, turn the lights on...you know, get ready for us to motor in. And then they’ll wait, probably. Well, maybe Granny will hit the hay, but she won’t check for any telephone messages. You know Granny. Those answer machines are too complicated. She can’t figure out which button to push.”

  “So no one will get any message for hours?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t be more than two or three hours, I should think.”

  Doug closed his notebook and pocketed it. “Then, Mr. Landis, you and I will drive there in my police car with the siren on a
ll the way.”

  “Well now, is that really necessary?”

  “And you will answer my cell phone when your daughter calls, because I’ll be driving faster than the law allows. Come on.”

  Somehow, I didn’t care who did what. My feet hurt. I was all out of puff, like Granny would say. What would normal people say? Exhaustion. Yeah. Struggling under water with a killer will do that. I shivered. I looked at the keys in my hand. They were keys, but why?

  “Shower, remember?” Gregory said.

  “Right.” I shook my head. Crossed my arms and clapped my shoulders.

  “Kaye’s place? Or, how about mine?”

  Okay, I was back among the living. Alert. Almost. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew what I should do. But I had to do something else completely. “Neither. We go straight to the hospital.”

  ~ ~

  “Wake up. We’re here,” Gregory said.

  I wasn’t really sleeping. I was too keyed up. Too exhausted. At least I wasn’t too wet, except for my hair. I’d changed into my dry clothes inside Lizzie’s boat. I was ready to drop, but even with my eyes shut, my brain had raced overtime. “Yeah,” I said and opened the car door.

  The hospital entrance looked miles away. I sat, and instead of swinging my legs out of the car, I lowered my head into my hand.

  “You don’t have to go in. Kaye will take care of things. You’re too damn tired.”

  That wasn’t all, I realized in a flash. I hadn’t been thinking straight, or at all. I had to get out of the car. I swung my feet out, leaped to the sidewalk, and ran for the lights over the hospital door.

  Gregory caught up to me at the door. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “Leave me alone. Let me go.”

  He took me by the shoulders and shook. “You were asleep. You’re still dreaming—some nightmare. Snap out of it.”

  I was so close to the door. I didn’t see anyone inside, but they must know I was there. I asked, “Why were you at the marina tonight?”

  “Suddenly you think I’m the killer?”

  “No. I don’t know what to think. I.... Let me go inside.”

  “Finley. She told me you’d be at the marina. She told me all about the plan you kooks had to trap the killer.”

  “Oh.”

  He wrapped his arms around me just as my knees gave out. He murmured in my ear, “CeeCee, don’t give up on me.”

  I pulled away from Gregory and headed for the door. My head was a-jumble. I’d been ready to blame him. Until he said Finley told him. Was that true? How could I tell?

  “Forgot. You don’t like that nickname, do you?”

  I’d forgotten something else. The killer wouldn’t have saved Lizzie like Gregory did. “Sorry. So sorry,” I mumbled. I was completely useless. My brain was still under water. Nicole’s ghost might be happy, but the killer could kill again.

  ~ ~

  Kaye had claimed the mini-lobby closest to the emergency room. “Lizzie’s awake, but they’re doing tests,” she said.

  “Tests?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “They assured me it’s the usual evaluation when breathing has been assisted. They’ve got the whole team to check out her heart, her brain, her lungs, and maybe something else. They asked if she had insurance.”

  “Oh.” Who would know if Lizzie had insurance? Maybe Medicare. She was old.

  “I told anyone who would listen that they need to have a guard. I wanted to sit right beside her bed, but they kept telling me hospital security could handle it.”

  Inside the hospital, with the lights, the polished floors, an occasional nurse or doctor passing—it all looked so normal. So much like things were not dissolving. What had happened to me? Shock? Hysteria?

  I answered Kaye. “Hospital security. Yeah.”

  Gregory said, “We got into the hospital without any problem. Just how secure is that?”

  “Right now, with two doctors and three nurses and an orderly in there, at least the killer would not be among friends. I had to admit that it was unlikely anyone could kill her and get away, so that’s all we have got at the moment.”

  Finally, I contributed to a logical conversation. “Would that stop a determined killer?”

  “They didn’t listen to that argument either.”

  We heard a door somewhere slam and running feet, Gregory said, “Here come the police.”

  Except, it wasn’t. Teddy trotted into view, wearing a sports bra, bicycle shorts, and huge athletic shoes, her tape recorder in hand. “Who was it? Lizzie?” she asked. “Was it the killer? Who did it?”

  “Yes, yes, and don’t know,” Kaye answered.

  Gregory said, “What’s the get-up? You’re into all-night biking?”

  Teddy sat down beside us. “Hey, protective coloring for research on tomorrow’s Teddy Tonight.” She punched a button on her recorder and started talking. “I’m in Smith Harbor Hospital with Cyd Denlinger, Kaye Schroeder, and Gregory Norris. May I ask all of you a few questions?”

  “You remember my name, do you?” Gregory said. “So what were you researching for tomorrow?”

  “High school wasn’t that long ago,” she replied. “Was that a yes? Or a yes from all of you?”

  “Teddy, do you have to shove that thing in our faces right now?” I asked.

  “It’s news,” Kaye said. “How about a nice calm discussion?”

  I shrugged as Teddy glanced my way. Gregory said, “Why not?”

  “Nothing like cooperation among friends,” Teddy said. “I just heard the state patrol all-points bulletin describing a car of a person of interest in an attempted drowning at Smith Harbor Marina. I understand the alleged victim lives on a boat in the marina. Could you tell me more?” Then, after pushing a button on her mike, she said, “Hey, this recording gets archived. Can we be official here?”

  After she pushed the button again, I answered. “Her name is Lizzie, but you know that.”

  “And her last name is Howe, Elizabeth Howe, nicknamed Lizzie. Is that right?” Teddy asked.

  “You know her last name?” I asked. “Nobody knows Lizzie’s last name.”

  “Obviously you’ve done a bit of research since we last talked to you,” Kaye said, “I find that, let me say....”

  Kaye didn’t finish her sentence, but despite a feeling that my head didn’t belong to the rest of my body, years of sisterhood clued me in on her thought processes. Something like, “...just in case she gets killed, you’ll be prepared.”

  “How did Lizzie end up in the water?” Teddy asked.

  “Well, duh,” I said. “The killer dumped her in and held her under.”

  Kaye added, “Then Cyd jumped in and chased him away.”

  “Not before he tried to hold me under, too. You chased him away with your honking, and yelling, and lights.”

  Kaye turned to Teddy. “Then Cyd kept diving until she brought Lizzie to the surface. Gregory pulled her out and.... Why were you there Gregory?”

  “Finley told him we’d be there. At least, that’s what he said.”

  “Hey, I’m the good guy here. Right, Cyd?”

  Teddy didn’t give me a chance to respond. “So what happened after Gregory pulled Lizzie out of the water?”

  We told her more than she could possibly want to know, about chasing down a car, about the ambulance, the police, and Dad all showing up after Granny’s collision with the killer, and how Dad left with Doug to chase down a paper with the license number.

  Teddy said, “What is Lizzie’s outlook for recovery?”

  “They’re just doing routine checking to be sure she doesn’t have any problems. She needed help. Gregory....” Kaye paused. “What did you do, Gregory?”

  “Pulmonary assist.”

  “Got it.” Teddy started dictating story into her cell phone while the rest of us tried to be quiet. We didn’t have to try very hard. I was rather enjoying the fact that Gregory was holding my hand. He squeezed it a time or two and I might have smiled at him if
I’d had the energy. Teddy finished relaying all the facts to someone at the newspaper. “I’m staying here for a while,” she said. “There might be more to this story.”

  We’d been waiting almost another hour before a nurse came out. “You’re here for Elizabeth Howe?” she asked. “One of you may see the patient for five minutes.”

  Kaye stood. “Cyd, you go. Ask her....”

  “I know,” I said.

  When I entered the room, Lizzie lay on the bed, a thin blanket pulled up to her chin. “This ain’t half bad,” she said. “Lots comfier, especially after all those people left.” She wiggled her head on the pillows. “They don’t tell me nothing. Like, why am I here. Do you know?” she asked.

  “They thought it was best for you to be checked out for any problems. To be sure nothing was wrong, you know. To be sure your lungs were working and all that.”

  “I thought I was so damn healthy. What was it? Heart attack?”

  “No. You don’t remember? You were nearly drowned by the killer.”

  “What killer?”

  “Nicole’s killer. Remember, we thought he’d come Sunday night, but he didn’t.”

  “Well, sure. I was at your sister’s house. Now, she’s got a nice house and all, but she keeps it too hot.”

  “But last night,” I said. “I stayed with you and the killer came in and....”

  “The killer didn’t come. I was at your sister’s house.”

  “You don’t remember somebody dragging you out of your boat and throwing you in the water and holding your head under?”

  “If I don’t have a heart attack or something, why don’t they let me go? They don’t even have a TV in this room.”

  Was Lizzie being her usual, devious self? “If I tell everyone, the newspapers and the cops that you don’t remember, will you tell me?”

  “Who’s paying for this hospital room? I’m not rich, you know.”

  I figured I could be devious too. “If we find the killer, he’ll pay. He put you in here.”

  “Oh, hell. That means I’ll have to pay for myself.” Lizzie threw back the cover. “Tell them to bring my clothes. I’m going home.”

  “They want to observe you over night. Besides, your clothes are wet.”