by Vicki Delany
“That wasn’t much of a threat,” I said. “Jimmy McKenzie wouldn’t cross the street to pick me out of the gutter if I had anything less than a hundred dollar bill lying underneath me. You must have heard what they say about us around here, Kyle. Why do you think I haven’t set foot in this town in more years than you’ve been alive?”
He had enough sense to look confused. No doubt he had heard all about my family history. From the sound of things, his dad, the bastard, would have been happy to educate him.
“Then I’ll kill her, the wife, next.”
“You’re running low on hostages. The cops will be in here at the sound of a shot. You don’t think the police in this town care much what happens to the McKenzie family, do you? Probably be glad to get rid of us all.”
“Aunt Rebecca, you’re wrong,” Jason squealed. “My dad’s friend, Mr. LeBlanc, is a police officer. He’ll help us.”
How could I not smile?
The phone rang again. Kyle knocked it out of the cradle.
“You have to stop and think, Kyle,” Kimmy said. She had regained her composure and her voice sounded soft yet strong, with the considerable authority of motherhood behind it. “Of what you want to happen now. The police are outside. I don’t know where Jim is; they might not be able to find him. He might have run away.” Aileen and I exchanged glances. “You decide what you want to do, Kyle, and I’ll help you.”
“What about Sampson?” Jason cried. “She’s bleeding again. You have to help Sampson.”
“What harm can it do?” Kimmy said. “Let the dog go. The phone’s still working. Tell them I’ll carry her out. And then I’ll come back.”
I stared at her.
“You won’t come back,” Kyle said.
“I will. I promise. I’ll take her to the bottom of the steps and then I’ll come back to the house. I promise. Can I make the call?”
She didn’t wait for his reply, but picked up the phone. There was no need to dial. They were listening.
“We have a dog in here,” Kimmy said, not bothering to identify herself. “Seriously wounded. I’m bringing her out. She’s big so I might have trouble carrying her. Please don’t interfere. I’ll put her at the bottom of the steps and then come back into the house. You can send one officer to get her. I’ve given my word on this.”
Kyle slammed his hand down onto the cradle.
Kimmy handed me the receiver and crossed the room. “Help me pick her up, Jason,” she said. “Sampson seems to trust you.”
Sampson was unconscious again. She twitched as the fat woman and the boy struggled to lift her. I moved to help them, but with a growl Kyle told me to remain where I was. Kimmy staggered under the weight. Bright red blood had soaked into the hardwood floor. So much blood. How much could the dog have left inside her? Aileen slipped an arm around my shoulders. Jason held the door open and stepped back. Kimmy staggered under the weight of her burden. I could see what was happening; Kyle’d left the curtains open. The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, and the mist thinned enough so that we could see cruisers lining the road, black hats and rifle barrels poking up from behind cars. One officer broke away from the rest and moved forward. LeBlanc. He was dressed in a flak jacket and his hand rested on his gun belt. From where I sat I momentarily couldn’t see Kimmy for the porch supports.
LeBlanc broke into a run, although his movements were more of a lope. He crossed the lawn like a wolf that has caught the scent of the hunt, his body bent low, his head moving from side to side.
Kimmy slipped back into the house, true to her word. As instructed, Jason slammed the door behind her. She was breathing heavily and gripped a bookcase for support. Her stockings were torn, she’d lost one shoe, and the front of her dress was stained red from the collar to the hem. I looked back outside. LeBlanc staggered under the weight of a bundle wrapped in yellow towels. He reached a patrol car and slipped into the back. The driver waited with the engine running, and they pulled away under full lights and sirens.
I burst into tears. Aileen gathered me into her arms and murmured words of comfort. I sobbed for Sampson as I had cried for Ray. I imagined them reuniting in the afterlife, together, happy, not needing me, and wept buckets of self-pity.
The phone rang. Kyle snatched it up. His hand shook badly and the copious sweating had resumed. To my considerable surprise he had let the dog go, but I wouldn’t assume that he would be as compassionate to the humans he held under his thumb.
“Twenty minutes,” he said, and hung up. He looked at Aileen. “Get me another beer.”
She complied.
“Time to think things through, Kyle.” I blew my nose on a scrap of tissue I’d found in my pocket and wiped the tears from my face. I wanted to sound calm and reasonable, although I was sweating as heavily inside as Kyle was on the outside. Until now we had been in more danger of being hit by a wild, frightened shot than a deliberate attempt to wound. Or kill. But the boy was changing. He could see out the big front window as well as the rest of us. With the arrival of the police the game had shifted. They were sure to be coming around the back of the house as well as waiting out front. All of them well-armed and well-trained. Fear, indecision, determination, and sheer pigheadedness traveled across Kyle’s wide-open face like a one-man silent performance of all the plays of Shakespeare. He simply didn’t know what to do.
“They won’t let Jimmy through, you know, even if he does come. The cops like to handle things like this themselves.”
A mistake. Rage contorted his ugly face, and Kyle pounded his fist into the wall so hard he smashed through the drywall. Too bad it wasn’t solid brick. Aileen froze in the doorway, the can of beer clenched in her hand. He crossed the room in two giant steps, grabbed the drink, and hit Aileen full across the face. She fell to the hardwood floor with a cry.
Kimmy and I half rose, but the gun had already swung back around toward us.
“Sit down,” Kyle said.
We sat.
Aileen staggered to her feet, holding her hand to her face. She took it away and looked at her blood-spotted fingers. He’d split her lip.
“I’m in charge here,” he screamed. “You understand that, you bitches?” His eyes bulged and saliva dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. Jason scurried across the room heading for Kimmy’s wide, comfortable lap. Kyle grabbed him by the collar and almost yanked him off his feet. “You sit back down there on the floor, kid, and don’t move again.” He shoved Jason with enough force to propel the boy halfway across the room. Jason crumpled onto the floor and began to cry.
“That make you feel like a big strong man?”
Aileen gasped. “No, Rebecca. Don’t make him angry.”
“Why do you want to speak to Jim McKenzie anyway?” Kimmy asked. I was gaining a new respect for Kimmy with every minute that passed. She was one amazingly strong woman under pressure. Whereas if I didn’t keep my mouth under control I might well get us all killed.
“People in town think he killed Jennifer. I planted a handful of her hair in his truck. I’ve seen on TV that the cops can find most anything these days. Strands of hair, drops of blood, and then they call tell whose it is. So I put some of her hair in the truck.”
“That was clever,” Kimmy said.
He smiled at her and puffed up his chest. “Yeah. But I guess they ain’t as smart here as the cops in the States. Where they look for blood and hair and stuff. So then I thought I’d put this.” He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a single mitten. “In the garbage out back. Then I’d call the cops with a fake voice and say that I saw Jim taking out the trash and looking all suspicious like. They were bound to find it.”
“Is that one of Jennifer’s?”
“Yeah.”
Aileen turned to me. “I saw him, out the kitchen window, sneaking around in the shed.”
Kyle shook his head. “Fuckin’ bitch. You had to interfere.”
What a mess. Jimmy was already in jail and Kyle too stupid to realize that even in Hope River t
he police don’t broadcast their every movement to the public. His chances of getting away were now absolutely nil and our chances of being killed were rising like the take at Casino Niagara on the Friday night of a long weekend.
The phone rang. This time we all jumped. Kyle grabbed it and started screaming before Eriksson had a chance to so much as draw breath.
He was making wild demands, a helicopter, a flight to Cuba. Money. Jim McKenzie.
Unexpectedly he handed the phone to me.
“Hello?”
“Inspector Eriksson here, Ms. McKenzie. Are you people all right?”
“For the time being.”
Kyle snatched the phone out of my hands and threw it across the room. “Don’t want to talk to her no more, anyway.”
“But how will they tell you when your helicopter arrives?” Jason asked, his voice so small Kyle didn’t even hear the question.
“The cop said my father’s out there,” Kyle said. “Do you see my dad?”
I looked. “No.”
Kyle sat back down again. He checked his watch.
“Do you see your brother?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Do you see your brother?” A scream.
“No.”
“Then it’s time. Who wants to go first?” He pointed the gun at each of us in turn. Three terrified middle-aged women huddling together on the couch in a century-old farmhouse.
“No mister, don’t,” Jason cried out, his sweet little face convulsed with horror. He leapt to his feet and started across the room. Kyle turned his head at the sound, his gun arm followed automatically. Kimmy was closest and with a speed that mocked her considerable bulk, she flew across the room and shoved Jason to the floor.
A shot rang out. The air burned and our ears screamed in protest.
Kimmy’s eyes opened wide. She looked down to watch a red stain spreading across her chest, the fresh blood mingling with that of my dog, already drying.
Aileen screamed and pulled the knife out from under her sweater. She charged Kyle like the mad woman she no doubt was at that moment. He was still sitting down, as stunned by the shooting as the rest of us. Aileen leapt on him and the chair fell backward, taking Kyle, Aileen, and the flashing knife with it.
“Run, Jason,” I screamed. “Run. Don’t look back.” The struggling bodies lay between me and the fireplace. No chance to reach the poker. I scooped an ornate iron candelabrum off the side table without a thought. I heard the door opening, feet pounding on the wooden deck, Jason yelling, men shouting. Aileen and Kyle were spread across the floor, a tumble of twisting bodies amid the scraps of the broken chair. Aileen lay across his legs, her knife buried into his fleshy side. Painful but not likely to keep him immobilized. Her fists beat into his face, every blow echoing her relentless screams as she pounded her terror and rage and anger into his ugly mug. But he still clutched the gun, struggling to get his arm out from under Aileen and into firing position.
I lifted my arms high overhead, gathered all the strength of which I was capable, and brought the candelabrum down on his head. Kyle’s face was twisted with hate, battered by the force of Aileen’s rage, his nose pouring blood, the delicate skin around the right eye already swelling, but he still managed to release a stream of profanities at me. His right arm came free, the gun swung upward. I hit him again. He lay still. I held the candelabrum high overhead, waiting for another movement, convinced it was a trick.
Strong arms pulled Aileen off the limp body; a black uniform crouched beside me. “You can put that down, Ms. McKenzie. We’ll take it from here.” Rigoloni. I handed her the candelabrum.
My legs wouldn’t work. I crawled across the room on my hands and knees. By the time I reached Kimmy the paramedics were there.
“Is she okay?” I whispered.
“We’ll get her to the hospital right away, ma’am,” a shiny-faced young man told me. His partner crouched over Kimmy, her competent fingers opening a big bag at her side.
“Come, Rebecca. Let them do their work.” Rigoloni lifted me to my feet. “Let’s get out of their way.”
My legs buckled, and the constable supported me. The room was suddenly full, and in all the confusion I couldn’t quite make out what was happening. Police officers were piling into the room, some carrying guns and rifles; people shouted code words into radios; paramedics worked hard over Kimmy’s still body. They looked so young that I hoped they knew how to do their jobs. Eriksson and Reynolds brushed past us, shouting orders.
Rigoloni led me outside. The rain had stopped and a weak spring sun was trying to come out. I turned my face up to feel the caress of its gentle rays.
“Jason? Where’s Jason?”
“He’s fine. Look over there, to your right. See, there he is.”
I couldn’t quite see Jason, but it was easy to figure out where he was. His parents formed a tight circle around him, while Shirley and Al made a second circle around them. Everyone was crying, sobbing uncontrollably.
Jimmy stepped in front of me. Chrissie from Aileen’s store gripped his arm so tightly that her fingers were turning white. Without much thought Aileen had invited her assistant to come for lunch. But she arrived late—lucky Chrissie, luckier than Kimmy, who arrived on time for a simple lunch date, the offer extended grudgingly.
“Becky, where’s Aileen?” Jimmy’s voice brimmed with panic; his gaze darted back and forth. Then, like the sun coming out after a month of Vancouver rain, they cleared, and I looked behind me. Two men were supporting Aileen, half-carrying her out of the house. Streaks of red blood covered her dress; her hair had fallen out of its pins to tumble around her shoulders like an abandoned bird’s nest after a winter storm. Jimmy rushed forward and gathered her into his arms. The police stepped back. Chrissie burst into tears.
“Thank God.” My father stood beside me. “Thank God. You gave us a few bad minutes there, my girl.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, Dad. Let’s find out where they’ve taken Sampson and then I need to lie down.”
“Not quite yet, Ms. McKenzie,” Rigoloni said with an apologetic smile. A hostage-taking, charging the culprit, guiding the victims to safety. Yet her hair remained immaculate. Not a strand escaped from the long French braid. “They’re waiting for you at the hospital.”
“I’m fine, thank you. I need to go and find my dog now.”
“The doctors would like to check you out first. You’ve had quite a shock.”
Another smiling young man in a blue paramedic’s uniform stepped up and lightly touched my arm. “Come this way please, ma’am.”
I pulled back. “No. I want my dog.”
“You go to the hospital, Becky,” Dad said. “I’ll check on Sampson.”
“I’ll help your father, Rebecca,” Chrissie said. “We’ll make sure she’s looked after. You go along now.”
“Okay.” It was easier to agree than to argue. I allowed the young man to lead me to an ambulance. I wanted to sit in the front, I wasn’t hurt, no need to go in the back. But, as he explained with a shrug of his shoulders, those were the rules. He opened the doors and I started to clamber up.
The atmosphere around me changed, nothing definite, nothing I could put my finger on, but everyone shifted, their attention diverted. We watched as a stretcher was carried out of the farmhouse, a paramedic and a police officer at either end. A body lay on it, perfectly still. The female paramedic walked beside, holding an IV line high. They moved quickly, their movements smooth and efficient, not wasting a second. The stretcher was loaded into the back of another ambulance. The paramedic with the IV clambered in, and the doors slammed shut. The police officer pounded on the side and the ambulance pulled away, lights flashing, sirens blaring. A police car preceded it, cutting a path through the crowds of the hard-working and the merely curious.
“Is that Kimmy?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Will she be okay?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. They’ll
tell you more at the hospital.”
“I hate it when people call me ma’am.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Chapter 49
They said that this was the biggest funeral held in Hope River in living memory. People came from all over the district and some a great deal further than that. They packed the tiny church to the rafters and beyond. Outside, there was standing room only on the neatly trimmed emerald green lawn, in the warm spring sunshine, among the blooming crocuses and white and yellow daffodils and the emerging tulips. My family sat close to the front, directly behind the family. All except for me. I had a special place right at the back. Sampson had been invited on the condition that she be taken outside immediately if she presented a problem. She wouldn’t. She looked rather odd, shaved all down one hip, exposing the jagged scar that ran across her right haunch to disappear under her belly. Her head was wrapped in a giant plastic cone to stop her from ripping out the stitches. I sat by the aisle and she sat beside me, her soft, warm body a solid, comforting presence against my leg.
Everyone was seated, and the minister stood at the lectern. But before he could open his mouth a murmur started outside and spread up the aisle, like an ice-choked river cracking apart at break-up. Wrapped in heavy black, a remnant of another age, Mrs. Taylor walked down the aisle, her head held high and her son at her side. Ryan gripped his mother’s arm, but his own head drooped self-consciously. His suit hung in loose folds on his lean frame; clearly it belonged to someone else. The packed crowd of mourners murmured their approval and shifted in their seats. Two more places were found.
My father sat at the front, his only son and eldest daughter on either side of him and then their spouses, children and grandchildren. Jason’s shoulders, confined in the funeral suit that had recently seen too much wear, shook with steady sobs. The rip in the trousers had been hastily repaired. His grandmother, my sister, wrapped an arm around him and held him close.
The minister took his place. “Friends,” he said, his voice as deep and solemn as his office, and the occasion, warranted. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Kimberly Wright Michaels.”
