A Bird in the Hand

by Dane McCaslin

  "I am really amazed at your tenacity—"

  That was as far as he got before the front door burst open, and a wild haired Natalie Greenburg stormed down the porch steps and over to our car. Instinctively I hit the automatic lock button, which was rendered completely useless by the wide-open window.

  "What are you doing here again, you nosy witch? And who the hell is this old man?" From the look on her face and the fierceness in her eyes, I fully expected to see her begin to scrape her feet over the ground, preparatory to charging at us much as a bull would do. The girl looked and acted like a full-blown specimen from a nut house.

  A quick glance at my dear husband had me rethinking this entire escapade. His countenance was as thunderous as Tally Greenberg's, and they both seemed to have forgotten my very existence. To categorize him as geriatric will raise his blood pressure and hackles guaranteed, and from the mottled color his face now sported, Miss Greenberg had made a huge mistake.

  "We've actually come by to call on Helena, Natalie," I said briskly, "and that will be quite enough of your incendiary words." I reached over and patted my husband's arm. "Gregory, let us disembark."

  Climbing out of the driver's seat—a trifle more difficult to accomplish than usual due to the precarious angle of the curb—I marched around to the sidewalk, back straight and eyes narrowed. From the looks that both my spouse and the girl were giving me, I knew that I had either stunned them into an awed silence with my elegant verbiage or I had uncovered myself as a bona fide Looney Tunes. I was in no mood to figure out which it was. I needed to prepare myself for the assault ahead—and I prayed it would be figurative, not literal. My poor body could not take much more battering.

  Since Greg had not shown any sign of movement, continuing instead to divide glares between two females whose mental stability could be called into question, I marched over to his side of the car, wrenched open the door with a flourish, and indicated that he should join me on the sidewalk. True to my expectations, he did. If nothing else, my spouse knows when he is outnumbered and acts accordingly. What he might have to say later—well, that was also to be expected.

  I left him and Tally trailing me as I mounted the steps of the porch and rapped sharply on the screen door. With a snort of disgust, she reached around me and pushed the front door open, leaving Greg and me in her wake. Without a glance at him, I followed her into the dim interior, craning my neck to look up at the second floor as if I'd see Helena Wentworth standing there. Instead, I saw no one, not even Tally, which I found slightly disconcerting. However, the absence of the homeowner—or dweller—has never before stopped me from satisfying my curiosity when something is on my mind, so I began climbing the stairs toward the bedrooms, hoping that Helena wouldn't come unglued when I poked my head around her door.

  There was no need to worry. Helena, one hand flung out as to intercept me, lay prone beside her bed, a halo of blood surrounding her head and a bullet lying nearby. In spite of my queasiness at the sight of so much blood, I knelt down beside her and placed two fingers on her neck. To my relief, I felt a faint pulse. I looked around the room and spotted a tee shirt on the floor; I grabbed it and pressed it to the side of her head. The now-familiar nausea set in posthaste, and when Greg walked in, I was happy to relinquish my place beside Helena.

  My various exposures to police procedures and research for my books should have served to set my mind at ease whenever I encountered a situation such as this one, but it hadn't. Thankfully, my dependable husband had the matter in hand. After calmly dialing for emergency services and the police, Greg sent me to make tea—or something stronger—for us as he sat by Helena and waited for emergency services to respond. I was certainly tempted to look for "stronger."

  That's where I found Natalie Greenberg. She was seated at the kitchen table, chin propped in hands and eyes fixed on something only she could see. It was creepy, to say the least. I decided that I needed to get something into her—preferably something liberally laced with sugar, my go-to remedy. In the meantime, I needed to get as much information from Natalie as I could before the police arrived and shut me down. The sound of approaching sirens was my cue to hurry.

  "Do you know who hurt Helena, Natalie?" I asked gently, taking a seat in the chair next to her, my own malaise pushed to the side. I debated giving her a hug but restrained myself. Even kittens, when unnerved, will lash out at an unfamiliar touch. Conscious of my newly healed nose, I stayed where I was, waiting for a response. When she did not answer but instead began softly crying, I felt like a heel. Apparently I needed a crash course in how to question a victim. I was still debating my next move when I heard the front door open. The paramedics and two of SMPD had arrived, along with one person I could have done without.

  "What a delightful surprise this is." The voice was gruff, familiar, and I turned my head to see the bulky outline of Richard "Call Me Dick" Beaton standing just inside the kitchen door, beefy hands clasped together at his waist. I groaned inwardly. This man was the last person on Earth I wanted to see. Thank the powers that be I'd coerced my dear spouse into joining me on this jaunt. I'd let him deal with dear old Dick.

  I rose to my feet in my best imitation of the queen, head high and back straight. "Natalie," I said regally, "I need to step out for a moment but I'll return as soon as possible. Just drink your tea and don't let anyone bother you," I added for good measure, giving Richard Beaton a glare down my uplifted nose. A huge grin on the detective's face was his response.

  Ignoring him, I sailed through the doorway and halted, unsure of where to look for Gregory. Knowing my husband, he would not be content to sit and ruminate. He was more than likely searching the residence for some indication of what had taken place.

  A noise from the front room where Helena and I had visited (was it really only a day ago?) made me turn there first, and I beheld my better half striding up and down in front of the bank of French doors, hands shoved into pants pockets and lips pursed in thought.

  "Gregory," I hissed from between clinched teeth. "That cretin is here! And I'm certain he is not here because we called 9-1-1." As far as I knew, Beaton was employed privately as a gumshoe, or whatever it was private investigators were called these days. I paused in the middle of my rant. Perhaps he was referring to his employment with that "Dick" routine, as in Sam Spade? Shaking my head, I resumed my tirade. "And right now, at this very moment, he's in the kitchen with that poor girl! Gregory! Are you even listening to me?" He had stopped his incessant promenading and now stood staring out of the windows as if admiring the riotous blooms just the other side of the glass. I was tempted to throw something at him.

  Just as my eyes lit upon a small decorative bolster, considering its ease of heft and ability to sail across the room, my husband swung around, a small smile playing at the edges of his mouth. (This is the same mouth that fascinated me so during the early days of our acquaintance, and to tell the truth, it still has some effect on me.) I guiltily dropped my hand mid-grab for the pillow and gave him my own version of innocence, slightly widened eyes and a quizzical frown creasing my forehead—but not too much. At my age, I am ever concerned with creating permanent lines across my noble brow. It worked as well as it always did, Gregory's eyes rolling almost to the back of his head and a slight shake of the head.

  "Caro, don't even think it." He cut off my feeble protestations, instead crossing the room with long strides in order to grab both my arms in his and deliver a brief—but pleasurable—kiss on my upturned lips. In addition to being quite nice, it had also effectively silenced me. Greg's lips traveled from my own tingling mouth to my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. Instead of further, ah, administrations though, he whispered into my ear. "Our mutual friend," this caused me to stiffen in his grasp, "seems to have invited himself to the party." A distant sound of sirens underscored his words.

  "I know!" I managed to wrench myself free and glared up at him. "That's what I came in here to tell you."

  From where we stood, I could see a v
eritable flotilla of vehicles through the windows: two police cruisers, an ambulance, and a car that looked like something straight out of a television drama had just arrived. Husband or no husband, I was not going to be left on the sidelines of this party.

  Dashing into the entryway, I was just in time to see the back door close as Call-Me-Dick took his leave. No surprise there, I thought grimly. That man was a menace in a cheap suit. A quick glance at Natalie showed her in the same position as she'd been when I left her, so I doubted she had even registered the detective's presence. That, at least, was a blessing. Whatever it was he'd tried to get out of her probably hadn't worked out well.

  A sharp rap on the front door made me jump. Gregory, having moved into the hall behind me, answered the door with a calm smile. From the set of his well-shaped shoulders to the air of self-assurance, he might have been ushering inside an invited guest—something they all were, I suppose, in a macabre manner—instead of standing aside to let in Avery Stanton, he of the HOA and our fair town's vice mayor.

  And right behind him, arms pumping like a locomotive and chin lifted high in triumph, came the missus—Louise Stanton, in the flesh. And a considerable amount of flesh it was indeed.

  I groaned aloud, and one of the officers, a young man who looked young enough to be in high school, shot me an inquisitive look. I smiled back at him weakly, making a show of clutching at my stomach and miming illness. He stepped around me quickly and joined his fellow officer in the kitchen, and I felt indignation rising. What if I'd truly been a damsel in distress, a woman in need of comfort? Whatever were they being taught at the academy these days? Certainly not chivalry.

  I caught the slight sound of a chuckle behind me and swung around, a scowl across my face, ready to lambaste my spouse for not running to my rescue. It was a look of innocence though that he presented to me, causing my scowl to morph into a full-blown frown. Gregory reached out and drew me into his arms. I was tempted to break away but I—well, let's leave it there. Suffice it to say that I stayed put for the moment.

  "You know, Caro, your face will freeze like that one of these days."

  He managed to skip out of range of a well-placed kick toward his shins, winking at me as he strolled into the kitchen to join the discussion. And I? Tempted as I was to slam out of the house and leave him to find his own way back home—preferably in the back seat of a police cruiser—I was more interested in what was being said. Sighing, I followed him, tucking away a promise for a more satisfying payback when time permitted.

  I skirted around the wall of uniforms blocking my view of Natalie Greenberg, nearly tripping over one set of solid shoes as I did so. I was intent on finding out what business the Stantons had here in Helena's house, and I didn't notice my husband's frantically waving hand above the heads of the officers as they stood talking earnestly, faces close together over the piece of paper one held in his hand.

  Natalie still sat quietly, not moving, eyes fixed on a point somewhere else but the kitchen. I slid into the chair nearest her and cautiously put one hand on her shoulder. When she didn't budge, not even to shake me off, I scooted closer to her and placed my arm firmly across her shoulders. I was just gathering up the courage to whisper promises of aid into her ear when I caught sight of my husband's face, almost contorted with the effort of flagging me down. With a quick squeeze, I slipped from the chair and out of the kitchen, Greg's gesticulations indicating that we needed to leave.

  "Let's go," he whispered, grabbing my elbow and propelling me out the front door. In spite of the fact that I wanted to stay, his actions intrigued me. In my experience, my beloved spouse does nothing without cause. I could hardly wait to hear what he had to say.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I drove away from the house as quietly as possible, eager to put distance between us and the drama before I found a place to pull over. Shifting into park, I turned to Greg, eager to hear what great plan he had concocted. "Caro, what in the world are you doing?" The cross tone was not an act. Greg was truly annoyed at me and impatient to drive on. If body language could talk, his would be using some fairly salty lingo and quite loudly at that.

  "I'm waiting to hear why you wanted to leave so quickly." I sounded a trifle haughty, but that's what he did to me when he acted this way. "I assumed by the way you nearly dragged me out of there that something was on your mind." "Caro," he began, his tone carefully modulated, and his countenance wiped clean of all commentary. "We had no business there." I began sputtering, and he reached across the seat to grab my hands in his. "We have a bigger fish to fry, Caro, a much bigger fish."

  Ah. It was beginning to dawn on me, my husband's reasoning for our quick exit. I sat back in my seat, squared my shoulders, and put the car back into gear. "Where to, Holmes?" I gave him one of my sunniest smiles. I'd gone from irate to ready to rock and roll as quickly as it took to say the words "private investigator."

  Gregory, ever one to play along with my literary allusions, replied, "Onward to the bakery, Dr. Watson. I feel a need for sweets and information coming on."

  I grinned, gunning the accelerator, giving the tires a little extra spin. The game, as they say, was definitely afoot.

  The bakery was busy, of course, with Candy and the other employees dashing back and forth between the kitchen and the counter, balancing armloads of cookies, sweet breads, and other equally delicious concoctions. I managed to snag a small table near the front door—all the better to people watch, my dear—and sat waiting for Greg's return with our goodies. A slight pinching at my waistband required a surreptitious adjustment, and I decided that I'd begin my workout regimen tomorrow. Or the next day. Until then…

  We had just begun on the slices—slabs really—of piping hot pumpkin bread, replete with a drizzle of icing, when I caught sight of a familiar car across the street. I could have sworn it had not been there when we'd arrived, nor had it been there when I'd sat down, so I could only think that Richard Beaton had arrived in the past few moments as we ate. I waggled my fork at Gregory, telegraphing the man's presence and trying to convey through extra-sensory perception that our prey was in view. My dear spouse, of course, just frowned at me and flicked off a stray crumb that had sailed from my utensil to the front of his shirt. I sighed deeply, albeit dramatically, I must confess. Leaning across the table, I whispered, "Beaton is across the street." More crumbs accompanied this pronouncement, making it Greg's turn to sigh.

  Casually pushing my chair back with my knees and rising—and rather gracefully, it must be noted—I looked at my partner in crime and announced, "I will be back anon. One of us must take the bull by the horns."

  Gregory snorted in amusement. "'Anon?' Pray thee, oh writer, to explain from whence this absolute verbal nonsense is coming." He stood as well, brushing his hands over his plate. "Let's get this over with, Caro. But I'm warning you," he added sternly, "I will be taking the lead on this one."

  Crumb-laden or not, I stuck out my tongue. In spite of my success in the literary realm, I am still a bit touchy whenever someone—particularly my dear husband—casts aspersions my way. And sometimes I just need to channel my inner child.

  Just as we stepped out of the doorway, loud noise, almost like the backfiring of a car, caused us both to start. Apparently it had startled the occupant of the car as well. A howl erupted from its interior, and we began to run.

  Beaton's car was slotted between an elegant sedan and an eclectically decorated Volkswagen Beetle. I looked into the near car window, noticing the various fast food bags scattered about the backseat and floorboard. Wrinkling my nose at the aroma of stale fries, I stepped closer to the driver's door where Beaton sat moaning in pain, one beefy hand clamped firmly on his left shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers in a slower river of red.

  I screamed, of course.

  I was asked the same series of questions over and over by detectives, patrol officers, and someone who acted suspiciously journalistic in manner. At that moment, though, I was not feeling too discriminate and
just kept repeating the same answers almost mechanically. No, I hadn't seen anyone approach Mr. Beaton's car. Yes, we had been sitting just across the street in the bakery near the window. Yes, I knew who he was, and yes, I had seen him earlier. Where? At another crime scene, just an hour or so before.

  That last answer got the most response. After a brief confab between all of the officers, two of the detectives broke away from the group and hopped into their car, unmarked but still blaring "here comes the law" as surely as if it had a neon sign above it.

  Thankfully, Greg was now back at my side, one arm lying protectively across my shoulders. My knees were trembling, and I was certain that if I did not sit down soon, I would fall over and concuss myself yet again.

  "I need to find a place to park it," I murmured into my husband's shirtfront. I could feel a few of the errant crumb missiles that had attached themselves rather moistly to the material, but I didn't move. If I couldn't sit, at least I could lean on the one person whose presence always calmed me and made me feel safe. I hoped that Natalie had the same…

  That emerging thought snapped my head upright, so quickly that I felt the world beginning to spin. Clutching at Greg's chest, I gasped, "Natalie! Someone needs to stay with her!" I had had a sudden, almost irrational, fear that she was in danger.

  "We're already on it, Mrs. Browning."

  I looked over to see young Officer Scott standing with feet planted wide apart, hands clasped behind him in what I thought of as "non-threatening officer stance." I felt a bubble of hysteria rising in my throat. Maybe there was a class for various poses in the academy, something akin to yoga or Pilates. I folded my lips together tightly in order to stifle any insane sound that might try to escape. I really had no time for a trip to the local loony bin. And from the added pressure of Greg's arm, I knew that he'd sensed it as well.