Here Comes the Ride

by Lorena McCourtney

  “See?” I gurgled. “Nothing in there.”

  She turned the purse upside down and dumped the remainder of the contents at our feet. Charge cards, coin purse, two packets of Taco Bell sauce, nail file, checkbook, Band-Aids, used Kleenex. Under different circumstances I’d be embarrassed by the clutter, but at the moment my shortcomings in the area of purse management didn’t seem of vital importance. Also, dumping the purse had loosened the stranglehold across my throat.

  I tried again. “Mrs. Steffan, I don’t know—”

  “Of course you know. Michelle told you, didn’t she? So now you’re looking for it, so you can blackmail us too!”

  “I was Michelle’s limousine driver, not her confidante.”

  But the truth was roaring up on me like the tide sweeping up the inlet. Michelle had accused Stan Steffan of blackmail with his scheme to make her ante up a million dollars for a part in the movie. But there’d been more to that conversation Shirley had overheard, something that had slipped right by me until now. If that was the game he wanted to play, she could play it too, was what she’d said to him.

  Michelle had information with which to blackmail the Steffans. She’d used it to bargain for a part in the movie. One of them had killed her to keep her quiet. Killed Shirley too? Oh yes. Because Shirley had been digging around, and she had either found something incriminating, or the Steffans thought she had.

  And me? I didn’t know the details of all this, but I knew way too much. Enough to put me on Mrs. Steffan’s personal death list. Another glug, as that thought alone choked me.

  But Mrs. Steffan, in spite of these highly peculiar actions, hadn’t gone so far as to actually admit to murder, and if I could just convince her I was dumb as a pet rock. . .

  I twisted my head, trying to get away from the strap that was still a threat. “I thought—” No, no, rephrase that. “I think Uri and Cindy killed Michelle. I came out to look for something incriminating about them. I think that flier may be it.”

  “How could a page of scribbles mean anything?” she scoffed.

  “Because they’re a plan for using a big insurance payoff on Michelle’s life to pay off their debts. It’s a powerful motive for murder, and the proof’s all there!” Not quite true, but in the ballpark.

  “Really?” She picked up the flier again and studied it in the dim light. “We didn’t know about an insurance payoff, but Stan and I have thought from the beginning that one of them did it.”

  But she looked at me, her gaze as appraising as an antique expert eyeing a phony Ming vase, and my heart plummeted. She knew that I knew. Cindy and Uri may have greedy plans, but she or Stan had killed Michelle and Shirley. The strap was loose enough now that I surreptitiously slipped it over my head and dropped the purse at my feet while I tried to think how to convince her I wasn’t suspicious of her.

  “So I’m really sorry about this little misunderstanding,” I said brightly, as if I was all to blame.

  “Oh, I am too!” She reached over and dusted the dent the strap had left across my shoulder. “This is such an awkward situation. I got carried away there, I’m afraid. We all make misjudgments when we’re under stress, don’t you think?”

  “Well, then, I’ll just be running along. I can take these incriminating numbers about Uri and Cindy to Detective Molino.”

  “Perhaps we could talk for a moment first?”

  I figured I wasn’t fooling her. “Well, uh, okay.” Sure, let’s have a conversation. What da ya think about them Seahawks? Although I doubted that was what she had in mind.

  “I like you, Andi. I liked you from the very first day you brought us in from that silly little airport they have here. You’re smart and nice and so wonderfully unpretentious, unlike everyone else here. And very attractive too, in an, oh, marvelously inconspicuous kind of way.”

  Not the most memorable of compliments, but under the circumstances I’d take what I could get. “Thank you.”

  It also occurred to me that she was actually being shrewd, phrasing it that way, because she knew trying to make me believe I was a raving beauty would never work.

  She laughed gaily, as if this were indeed just a friendly little chat. “Don’t be upset. It can be a most useful asset in Hollywood. There are all kinds of character parts for an older, attractive but inconspicuous woman.”

  “You’re talking about me . . . and Hollywood?”

  “Oh, yes. There’s no need for you to spend your days chauffeuring people around in that limo. I can get you a part in Stan’s new movie, and with his help you can have a fantastic future in Hollywood. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “And I wouldn’t have to come up with a million bucks to invest to get the part?”

  She apparently missed the sarcasm. “No, of course not. You just come down to Hollywood and start a whole new life.”

  It wasn’t quite laid out like a road map, but the path was clear. Mrs. Steffan obviously believed anyone would do anything to be up there on the silver screen. All I had to do was forget the earlier part of this little confrontation, forget she or Stan had committed murder, and she’d make that new life in Hollywood come alive for me.

  Of course I might find myself dead before that ever happened, but I wasn’t supposed to suspect that.

  Not that it mattered. I wouldn’t ignore what the Steffans had done if she promised a full-body rejuvenation and a starring role as an overage vampire. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her what she could do with her offer, but on second thought I had a better plan. Mrs. Steffan thought a chance to be in the movies would make anyone pant and drool. Okay, I’d pant and drool for her.

  “Mrs. Steffan—”

  “Call me Alice.”

  Oh, we were really getting chummy now.

  “Alice, I don’t know what to say. This is just so generous of you. Perhaps your husband could come up with a movie—or a whole TV series!—about a woman with a limousine, and I could even be a star!”

  “Oh, yes, that’s a fantastic idea! Stan will love it.”

  “I think we can work something out, then, about this . . . awkward situation.”

  “Marvelous! You can clue that detective in on what you know about Uri and Cindy’s motives and show him those numbers. And it wouldn’t hurt to, oh, you know, dramatize things a bit. Perhaps you remember now that you saw Uri running away from the body, into the fog?”

  “Yes, I think I do remember that. Oh, this is so exciting! Me, in a movie!”

  “Movies,” Mrs. Steffan said, emphasizing the plural.

  “I do want to get Pam out of this unpleasant situation as quickly as possible,” I said as if it were an afterthought. “She shouldn’t be in jail.”

  “Of course! Such a sweet girl.”

  Yeah, right. A sweet girl who was under arrest because Alice here had planted that incriminating evidence in her room. But we were going to sweep that detail under the rug. I went for a little further distraction.

  “She’s long thought Michelle murdered her father, you know.”

  Mrs. Steffan’s eyebrows lifted. “No, I didn’t know that. But it’s quite possible. Exactly the kind of thing Michelle would do.” She nodded as if this cleared up something she’d wondered about. “I’ve long known Michelle killed Pam’s mother.”

  “Really? Oh, poor Pam. Michelle did it so she could grab Gerald?”

  “And his money, of course. There was never any actual proof, but it was obvious to anyone who knew the situation as well as I did.”

  I started to say You knew this but you never said a word to the authorities? But at the moment keeping that thought to myself seemed prudent. “You’re such an aware sort of person,” I gushed instead.

  “I always figured she got the idea from Stan’s . . . problem,” Mrs. Steffan added.

  I knew Pam’s mother had died in a hit-and-run situation. If Michelle had copied that from Stan, he must have been involved in one too. “His hit-and-run problem?” It was a guess, but I syruped it with all the sympathy I coul
d manage.

  “The situation was entirely different with Stan, of course. His was an unfortunate accident.”

  But he’d gotten away with it, and Michelle had figured if she could make Pam’s mother’s death look like an accident, she could get away with it too. Except that she’d kept some kind of record or proof of Stan Steffan’s “accident.” As Pam had said, Michelle hoarded things like that in case they’d come in handy someday. And this one had. Except it had also gotten her murdered.

  My mind galloped around the details I knew, leaping fences and hurtling tall buildings. I pounced on one detail.

  “I see such wonderful, ironic justice in Michelle being killed by one of her husband’s knives. Michelle killed him, and then one of his knives killed her! Did you do it that way for that reason?”

  She beamed as if I’d just aced a test. “I didn’t know when I found the knives in Michelle’s room that she’d killed him, but now that you’ve told me I’m so glad I did it that way. It is, as you say, wonderfully ironic justice.”

  “But wouldn’t there have been a problem if the stinky fog hadn’t offered you such a wonderful opportunity?”

  “I had a different plan originally, but the fog was a surprise blessing.”

  Blessing. I shuddered at Mrs. Steffan’s use of the word, but I managed to keep looking brightly interested. I was, after all, supposedly on my way to a career in the movies, so she’d expect me to be flying high.

  “But I’d have managed without it,” she added. “I planned to get Michelle to step out back of the tent with me for a minute, where she’d be found much later. But when the wonderful fog engulfed everyone I just . . . what’s that saying? . . . grabbed the bull by the horns and did it!”

  “So you were the one, not your husband?”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t think I could do it, did you?” She sounded almost coy.

  “No, I guess not.”

  She stepped back, then astonished me by bending her right arm and flexing the muscle into an impressive bulge. “See what working out on those exercise machines can do? I’m thinking I’ll see if Pam will sell me that machine down in the Fitness Room, the one Uri invented. It’s really a fantastic machine. All my friends back home will be green with envy, and with Uri, well, incapacitated, there won’t be any more available.”

  “You did this all for Stan? To keep anything from coming out about his . . . problem?”

  “I’ve been really upset about Shirley. I liked her. Such marvelous biscuits! But under the circumstances . . .” She lifted her broad shoulders in a that’s-the-way-it-is shrug.

  “The circumstances?”

  “She acted so strange when I asked for tea that night. I knew she’d been rummaging around in Michelle’s things and must have found what Michelle had kept about Stan’s accident.”

  “You saw what Michelle had?”

  “No, but that wicked woman had it all written down. Date. Time. Circumstances. Somehow she’d even sneaked over and taken a photo of the damage to Stan’s car before he got it fixed.”

  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I said, forcing the cheerfulness again. “I’ll do some more looking around in the house and get rid of anything that looks . . . troublesome. And that flier will nail Uri and Cindy. You did this all because of your love for Stan?” I repeated, injecting admiration into the question.

  “Love?” She sounded surprised.

  “You’ve been married a long time.”

  “Yes, we have. I’ve put up with a lot. Women, gambling, bad temper.” She suddenly sounded furious. “No way was I going to let his stupid accident drag us down and destroy everything.”

  “If Michelle came out with what she knew, it would do that?”

  “We’d sink like a cannonball in a duck pond. And no way could she be in that new movie, an aging has-been trying to play such a youthful part. We’d all be a laughingstock. I couldn’t let that happen. And it would, if she got away with her blackmail.”

  “But scandal never ruined anyone in Hollywood,” I protested. “I mean, scandal almost seems to be the name of the game.”

  “Not if you’re trying to raise money. It may up your visibility level and get you in the tabloids, which can sometimes be a good thing. But with some awful criminal charge hanging over him, Stan would never be able to raise the money for this next production. He might even have wound up in prison! You know how Hollywood is. They attack like barracudas if you’re down.”

  “And if Stan went down . . . you went down with him.”

  “I couldn’t let Michelle destroy my position as wife of one of Hollywood’s important producers. You can see that, can’t you?”

  She peered at me in the growing darkness. She sounded righteous and a bit anxious, as if it were important that I understand. I even saw her point. If her husband lost his powerful position, she had no Hollywood standing of her own. No getting by with umbrella-to-the-derriere pranks. No invitations to A-list parties. No making some Hollywood underling accept her eyelash in his drink. No access to designer daisy outfits. The prestige and power for herself were why she’d put up with the Stan Man’s infidelities over the years, why she’d protect him even if she had to murder twice to do it.

  Three times, if I weren’t careful. Lord, help me now. Get me out of here!

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I had Mrs. Steffan’s confidence, however. She thought she’d bought me with a movie career.

  “This accident of Stan’s, how did Michelle know about it?” I asked. I knew I was pressing my luck asking for more information, but I needed to know more, and I figured I could outrun her to my limo if I had to.

  “She was with him. Stan drank a bit in those days, which he was doing that night. Now he has ulcer problems and can’t touch liquor.” She sounded pleased, though whether it was because he had to stay away from liquor or simply because he had an ulcer, I wasn’t certain.

  “The person he hit was a stranger, someone standing along the road?”

  “No, she was one of those little hussy starlets, and it was near the studio where they were filming Big Storm Brewing.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, a year or so before Michelle married—” She broke off and eyed me suspiciously. “Why are you asking all these questions?”

  “Just curious about Michelle.” I tried to distance myself from the questions. “So, I’ll talk to you again later about my future in Hollywood. Thank you so much!” I took a step toward leaving.

  “But you aren’t asking about Michelle. You’re asking about Stan.”

  I couldn’t think of any quick response to that. She moved a step closer. “You have no intention of living up to our agreement, do you? You’re just pumping me for information so you can turn us both in! I don’t think I like you so much after all.”

  A low popularity rating with Mrs. Steffan had implications more dangerous than missing an A-list party.

  Okay, I reasoned to calm myself, she’s feeling murderous. But how can she do it? No knife or gun. Poison was too slow for the situation. I didn’t see any canned vegetables she could clobber me with. We were on the bottom step of the front stairs now. I wasn’t going to fall to my death if she pushed me. I’d just walk away. Run away.

  But I’d forgotten Fitz’s little axiom. A killer can always find a weapon. They make do.

  Mrs. Steffan made do. She grabbed my fallen purse and snapped the long leather strap between her hands, a deadly gleam in her eyes. I shoved, about as effective as shoving a flowered refrigerator, but it momentarily tipped her off balance. I jerked away, stumbled, and went to my knees on the concrete. She was right behind me. The leather strap hit my back as she tried to wrap it around my neck. I whammed my elbow backwards. I don’t know what I hit, but it felt fleshy, and she gave an oof.

  Lord, help me! I never had any ambitions toward being a lady wrestler!

  We weren’t even in the same weight class. If she got me down, I was a goner.

  Then
I spotted my means of escape. Pam’s skateboard, abandoned when she was arrested, still leaning against the curb just a few feet away! I lunged and snatched up the skateboard, flung it to the concrete, and shoved off.

  Away I went, hurtling down the sloped driveway. Yes! Beyond the gate, I’d hide in the heavy brush alongside the road. It was almost dark now. Mrs. Steffan would never find me.

  I gained speed as I swooped down the hill away from her. Pam would be proud of me. Faster than I’d ever gone before. Such speed! Such grace! I could do ollies or kickflips or jump the inlet if I had to. The skateboard and I were one!

  Not quite.

  My mistake was not following Pam’s instructions. I didn't keep my eyes to the front. I looked back to see where Mrs. Steffan was, if she was coming after me.

  And c-r-a-a-c-k! I rammed the curb at the edge of the concrete driveway. My speed and grace collided with concrete and gravity. The skateboard momentarily stopped. I didn’t. I hurtled over curb and grass. Flying, tumbling, seeing the world in a whirling kaleidoscope of grass and sky. Crashing! Skidding on damp grass, spinning, somersaulting, stopping only when I smashed into something hard and solid and unmoving. A final insult to my downfall from speed and grace came when I looked up just in time to see the skateboard following me like a guided missile and then—

  Clunk.

  I missed a few moments there, but a deluge of water brought me back. A cloudburst! A flood! I blinked and shook my head, dizzy and disoriented as I came up on my elbows. I had the peculiar feeling I’d been cheated, that I was entitled to at least a few minutes of unconsciousness here. Instead water rained down on me like a shower gone amok, a veritable tempest of it. I was already lying in a puddle.

  Which was the least of my troubles, I realized, even as I identified the fountain of water as coming from the pipe below the water faucet stand I’d crashed into and broken.

  Far bigger was the other problem. Which was Mrs. Steffan, roaring down the hill after me like a flowered tank.

  Okay, I was halfway to the gate. I’d just get to my feet—