by Paula Boyd
I fired once in her general direction then dove forward into Nathan’s side. As I rammed into him, his gun went off and everything went into slow motion reality.
We fell, me on top.
Nathan rolled around beneath me, trying to get to his feet. He wasn’t screaming like he’d been shot either--and neither was I--but that wasn’t a clear indicator of anything.
Then, Pollock crumpled to the floor beside the sofa. Had the stray bullet hit him?
Where was Nadine and the baseball bat?
My pistol still in hand, I tried to untangle myself from Nathan, who was groping around on the carpet, searching frantically for his own gun.
A shadow flickered across the carpet and I looked up in time to see Nadine pull a large black pistol from her skirt pocket and point it at my head. 9 mm was a safe bet.
I shoved away from Nathan, rolled onto my back and fired up at her, five quick rounds at her chest.
She jerked a little, but kept moving forward toward me. Another shot rang out from somewhere to my left.
Nadine stopped and her eyes locked onto Pollock. "Willard?"
The gun fell from her hands, thumping into the carpet only inches from my head.
She tipped her chin down and stared at the holes in her dress and the stain spreading across her chest. She touched both fingers to the dampness then looked at Pollock. "Why, Willard," she said in quiet awe. "I do believe this the worst thing you’ve ever done to me."
"Mother!" Nathan screamed, lunging toward her as she slid to the floor.
I grabbed the 9 mm then scrambled over to Pollock, who’d slumped back down as well. "Take it," he said, shoving Nathan’s pistol toward me. "Get us out of here."
I holstered my own gun, put Nadine’s on safety and shoved it in the front of my pants. I kept Nathan’s gun in my hand as I crawled to where he knelt, hugging his mother to him.
"Call an ambulance," he choked out, fighting back sobs. "Please."
I stumbled to my feet and ran to the kitchen in search of a phone. It took me a few seconds of unseeing panic before I made myself stop and breathe. I scanned the kitchen again. A phone hung on the wall over a built-in desk at the back of the room. I ran over, keeping Nathan’s pistol in my hand as I grabbed the receiver off the hook. I was ready to punch in the nine when I heard steps behind me. I turned.
Nathan stood with a gun held loosely in each hand. Jerry and Rick’s weapons. "You forgot about these."
I thanked my panicked stars that I hadn’t set his gun down when I started to dial. I didn’t move, just held the phone and gun steady and watched him for a twitch of any kind. "I don’t want you to shoot me, Nathan, and I don’t want to have to shoot you. Let me make the call."
"My thoughts exactly." He set the guns on the counter and wiped at his eyes. "Tell them we need four ambulances, but only three need to be in a hurry."
I jabbed at the three magic numbers, thanking God--and whatever monopolistic Baby Bell company inhabited these regions--that 9-1-1 worked in Redwater Falls.
Nathan gave me the street address before he went back to the living room, but the rest of the words were all mine. I don’t remember which ones I used specifically, but odds are good that I uttered an expletive here and there to encourage them to hurry. But with two officers involved I suspected somebody would be here within scant minutes.
I was not wrong. I’d barely had time to make sure Jerry and Rick were still breathing when I heard the sirens. Nathan had covered his mother’s body with a lacy blanket and was trying to turn Pollock to get him more comfortable.
I ran to the door, flung open both sides and raced into the yard to flag them down just in case they missed the two cop cars in the driveway.
Chapter 23
The emergency room at Redwater Falls General looked pretty much as it had when I’d made my frequent treks here as a youth. The most memorable of these always-entertaining visits was when I dislocated my knee during a basketball game. For three hours my kneecap bulged from the side of my leg instead of sitting nicely in the joint on top where it belonged. It took about thirty minutes to get me off the court and into town to the hospital. The additional two and a half hours were spent waiting for the hospital staff to find someone who knew how to relocate a knee joint. No, I’m not kidding. The episode left me with not only a permanently screwed-up leg, but a healthy distrust of medical care in these parts.
But, I had to admit that things had improved in the last twenty-five years. The doctors here had fixed up the bullet hole in my arm pretty well and I only suffered occasional twitches--aftershocks, prophetic warnings or physical déjà vu moments, take your pick.
It seemed that Jerry and Rick were getting good care now too. The doctor who'd come out to talk with me said it was fortunate that Nathan had steered the officers to the bottles--yes, plural--of morphine his mother had stashed. Nathan hadn’t known it was morphine, or why she kept it, but he knew she sometimes gave herself injections. I figured the coroner would find an explanation for it, and I also figured it wasn’t going to be something anyone wanted to know about--especially Nathan.
As best I could tell, Nathan hadn’t been involved in the murders, and in truth, he’d helped save Jerry and Rick’s lives by knowing about the morphine. That had speeded up the process considerably, and both Jerry and Rick had been given Narcan to counteract it. They weren’t going to feel real good, but they would live.
Determining how much damage the baseball bat had done to their skulls was going to be a little more involved, so I still had a while to wait to see if Jerry would be kept overnight or released.
One uniformed officer had been by to ask a few more questions about what had happened, but I didn’t have any additions to the obvious. Naturally, he didn’t volunteer any details to me either.
I’d had some time to think about Nadine and what she’d done. I could make sense of some things, but reasons for others might have only worked in Nadine's twisted mind. The short of it seemed to be that she’d spent her life trying to get revenge on Pollock by first adopting his son and then twisting the poor kid into knots. But, it seemed like she really loved Nathan, too, because when Pollock stirred the pot with his letters, she knew it was only a matter of time before the boy found out she wasn’t his biological mother. But, was that for his benefit or hers? Maybe that was the crux of things--her inability to have a child herself.
In fairness, I couldn’t ever imagine what she’d gone through. Being married to Pollock was no doubt bad enough, but knowing that her slime-ball husband had impregnated God knows how many women--but not her--must have been awful. A little justifiable homicide back then would have saved us all a lot of grief now. Besides, if her point was to kill anyone who might have known about Pollock’s indiscretions, it was not a short list. Would have been simpler to move to Iowa or something.
"Jolene!"
I jumped, processed the shriek, determined it was a well-known assailant and unglazed my eyes in time to see my mother charging across the waiting room toward where I lurked in a corner.
"Are you all right?" Lucille said, zipping herself into the chair next to me.
About the time she did, I realized that Fritz Harper had been following her as well. I nodded to him then turned to Mother. "I’m fine. Jerry and Rick are going to be okay too."
She slung her black purse off her shoulder and flopped it down on the floor. "I heard that nasty kidnapper shot his wife, is that true?"
Technically speaking, it was true. It was also true that I’d put up to six slugs in her myself, but I didn’t like thinking about it. The reality of that whole trauma would hit me soon enough and I surely wasn’t going to speed the process along by discussing it with my mother.
"And that Davenport girl getting pregnant by that old goat," Lucille continued. "Can you imagine?"
No, I really couldn’t. And it turned my stomach to try.
"This is just the strangest thing I’ve ever heard of," she continued. "And that old doper Russell Clem
ents thinking he had himself a rich older woman to take care of him. Well, I guess he found out differently. And him getting those drugs for her." She leaned forward and whispered, "I bet she had cancer. That’s what they give for cancer, you know, morphine. I’ll just bet that’s why she hooked up with him in the first place. And who knows what all she was taking."
I pressed my fingers to my temples and rubbed. "It’s probably going to take a while to sort everything out," I said, taking the generic approach. "We won’t know much until after the autopsy."
Lucille did a little tsk-tsking. "Well, it was just downright low to use the ol’ doper to get what she wanted, then turn right around and stab him in the back. Why, the whole thing is just pitiful."
"Pitiful," I agreed.
And no, I did not even raise an eyebrow to hear my mother voice these juicy little tidbits. She was now apparently joined at the hip with a deputy sheriff and privy to the inside scoop. My connections with the top dog of the department hadn’t netted me any secrets that I could recall, but I’m not my mother, now am I?
Mother leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. "Do you think she stuck ol’ Russell because he wouldn’t keep dumping her trash in the falls? He’s not real smart, you know, but he ought to have been smarter than that. Just can’t find out a single thing about how the ol’ doper fits into this."
As Lucille Jackson paused to take a thoughtful breath, her very polite companion leaned over and patted her shoulder. "Lucille, honey, Jolene probably knows all these things anyway, and we really shouldn’t talk about this out in public."
No kidding. Lucky for him that the emergency room was quiet and I was tucked off in a corner away from the three other people waiting for something or someone.
"Thanks for watching out after Mother, Mr. Harper," I said sincerely, as we all know Lucille could use an army to watch out after her. "I’m sure she won’t mention this information to anyone else." I gave her a pointed look, but she pointedly looked elsewhere.
"Is there anything I can do to help, Jolene?" Deputy Fritz asked. "We figured you might need a ride out to the house."
Ride. Yes, indeed I needed a ride. Mine. "Actually, Mr. Harper, I don’t know how these things work, but if there was any way you could get my Tahoe out of the Redwater impound lot, I would be forever grateful."
"Oh, sure, that’s no problem at all. Lucille and I will run over right now and get it. I know everybody over there. No problem at all. Glad to do it. Just a few blocks anyway."
He did seem happy to help and I expressed my appreciation repeatedly. Mother seemed glad to have a mission as well.
Only after they had raced out the door did it occur to me that my mother would likely be driving my car. She didn’t hold the affection for the monster truck that I did. Then again, maybe she’d take Fritz’s car and he’d do the honors. That was, of course, the scenario I hoped for.
With nothing to do but wait, I checked my watch, then moseyed over to the ER desk and asked yet again how long it would be before I could see Jerry and find out what they planned to do with him. At least an hour was the latest nurse’s estimation so I figured I had time to sashay through and see if Clements, Addleman or Pollock had any burning news to impart. Mother wasn’t the only one with an inside track--maybe.
I already knew that Pollock had been diagnosed with a mild heart attack and admitted. He hadn’t warranted the cardiac care unit, but he was on line for additional tests and monitoring. He also had a bad case of bronchitis that complicated matters some, but he did not have congestive heart failure, and he was not, I was assured, on the verge of death, the lying son of a bitch. Okay, maybe I didn’t need to check on him.
My first stop was Russell Clements’ room, but that only got me a chat with a guard who said I wouldn’t be saying word one with the prisoner. I didn’t bother asking why Russell had been downgraded from stabbing victim to arrestee, since I knew the guard wouldn’t tell me. I did find out that Russell was out of the medical woods, so to speak.
Something told me that Russell wasn’t directly involved--at least initially--and he didn’t want to be. But, as Mother had said, he wasn’t real smart. If he’d stumbled on to what Nadine was doing, she could have threatened to turn him in for drugs if he said anything. Maybe he was trying to find a way out when he showed up at the hotel. It made some sense.
How and why he wound up stabbed was another matter. A flimsy attempt to frame Pollock was all I could come up with, and maybe that was as good as it would get. It was entirely possible that Nadine had done the whole thing herself--with the help of her trusty lawn tractor with the loader bucket. That one had come to me out of the blue, sitting here in the dark, replaying every word Russell had said. Some of the things he said about her son made sense also, but how much he knew about all the gory details was open for debate. Maybe Russell had the answers to all the questions, maybe he didn’t, but my curiosity had been appeased on that front. Not so in a couple of other areas.
My next stop was Sharon Addleman’s room. There was no particular reason for me to pay her a visit since we’d already said everything we needed to at the grocery store. But she had taken a gun with her to meet Pollock, and I kind of wanted to know if she really planned to shoot him.
After a light knock and an answering "Come in," I slipped into the room and smiled. "Hi. Figured you’d really appreciate a visit from your favorite former student."
Sharon chuckled once then gasped. "I have four broken ribs and a punctured lung. Don’t make me laugh."
"Sorry."
"I guess you heard."
I shrugged, not sure what she was referring to. "We were at the school with Pollock when we heard about your accident."
"It happened on my way to meet him," she said, a grimace of pain crossing her face. "I had no way of letting him know about the wreck." She sighed and shook her head. "I am still so stupid about him. I was half dead, but I still convinced a guy to drive me by the school so I could tell Willard I wouldn’t be able to meet him. How stupid is that?"
I laughed. "I have a similar problem where Jerry Don Parker is concerned so it makes perfect sense to me."
"Luckily it didn’t to the guy in the truck. He hauled me straight to the hospital instead. Told them I was delirious. He was right about that, but it had nothing to do with the accident."
Pollock had decided belatedly she was the love of his life too, but it wasn’t my business to relay that news. They could work that out themselves. I didn't need to play cupid. "I am curious about the gun."
"I don’t know why I brought that with me. His letter did set me off. Thrilled me too. It’s always been that way. One minute I want to shoot him, and the next, I’m ready to fall at his feet."
Being in love with Willard Pollock had to be hell on earth. "He saw the baby book. Shanna’s his daughter, right?"
"Of course." She sighed and slumped back against the pillow. "I fancied myself in love with him. One among many, I’m afraid." She shook her head sadly. "He was quite the ladies’ man, wasn’t he?"
Oh, please. He was an idiot and a jerk who would screw anything he could catch. "He still thinks he is."
She smiled. "What does he look like?"
"Older. The same. Actually, he’s here in the hospital too. Had a mild heart attack."
Her eyes widened in instant terror. "Is he--"
"He’s fine. Probably hitting on some twenty-year-old nurse as we speak."
"I wouldn’t doubt it," she said, a definite edge to her voice. "I always suspected he was sleeping with one of the girls at the school." She looked at me and frowned. "No, not you. I did wonder about a couple of the other cheerleaders, and then that Davenport girl leaving before graduation, well, I really did have some suspicions about her. She was up in his office more than you were."
Technically, I hadn’t spent my time in Pollock’s office, I was in the superintendent’s--trying to convince him to fire the principal. Rhonda was a different story, one I wasn’t getting into.
S
haron took a couple of quick shallow breaths. "Do you think he was sleeping with her?"
Yes, and they produced a son, but she wasn’t going to hear it from me. Pollock’s women didn’t seem to take these sorts of things very well, and I’d had enough mayhem and lunacy for one day. "You better ask him," I said wisely. "I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut every once in a while. This would be one of those whiles."
Her eyes narrowed and you could almost see the gears grinding in her mind. The more she thought, the harder she frowned, and it was a good bet that the memories she was rehashing wouldn’t bode well for Pollock. "That sorry pervert," she hissed. "I was almost young enough to be his daughter, but he wanted himself a virgin or two, I just know it. Did he get one of them pregnant?"
I did not answer Sharon Addleman’s question as she already looked like she could rip him apart with her teeth, which would have been just fine if he’d been around to be ripped. Unfortunately, I was the only one handy to take the heat. "Should be interesting to hear what he has to say about things."
"I don’t care about interesting, I want the truth. He has plenty to answer for. Sterile," she spat. "The idiot swore to me that he was sterile. So there I was, pregnant by a lying high school principal with the morals of a rabbit. How stupid!"
"But he knew," I said, trying to remember old and new details, neither of which were very clear at the moment. "He knew you were pregnant, didn’t he?"
"Yes, but I was married, remember? I wasn’t sleeping with my husband, but Willard didn’t know that. My husband, on the other hand, knew it quite well. He also knew about Willard. In the end, he was even pretty decent about everything." She sighed again. "He was a slick one, wasn’t he?"
She’d flipped back to talking about Pollock and I had no trouble following. "Yeah."
"I tried to find him later, to tell him about his daughter. I suppose I harbored some foolish hope that he’d beg me to marry him. Now, I don’t want him to ever see her. All I have for him is three words: back child support. With interest, of course."
