Just as clear as the shiny antique gun in her hand.
I swallowed hard.
"Lottie? What are you doing?"
She sighed again. "Only what needs to be done, dear."
Panic surged through me as she took a step toward me. "You sold Carrington antiques." I said, almost more of a statement than a question.
Lottie nodded slowly.
"Ones that he told you were reproductions. And bought off you cheap."
She nodded again.
"And you killed him over it?"
"He killed first!" Lottie shouted, her voice suddenly filling the space. "He killed my Louis."
"Wait—Carrington killed Louis?" I asked.
"When Louis realized that Carrington had duped him, it broke his heart. He couldn't believe he'd been taken in by such a charlatan…that he'd given away his collection for nothing when it was worth so much more." She sniffed, her eyes going watery again. "Louis had a heart attack three weeks later. And it was all his fault."
"So this was about revenge?" I asked, my eyes on the gun. Honestly, at this point, I didn't care what it was about. All I cared about was that gun trained on me. And while I knew it was old, I also had a sneaking feeling it still fired well—well enough to ping my car and shatter my back windows. I didn't want to know what it would do to me.
"It was about justice," Lottie said vehemently. "It was about Carrington getting what he deserved."
"Look, let's just put the gun down and talk. Dana's going to walk back in here any second, and when she does, she's going to call the police and…" I trailed off as I watched Lottie's expression go from anger to amusement.
And reality hit me.
"Dana's not coming back in here, is she?"
Lottie shook her head back and forth, a wicked smile laughing at me.
"What did you do to her?" I asked, panic surging through me anew. I'd never be able to live with myself if anything happened to her.
"Don't worry about your friend. She's taking a little nap in my bathtub right now."
"Nap?" I squeaked out, hoping that wasn't code for something more sinister.
"It was a bad idea bringing her here," Lottie scolded me.
One of my worst.
"But you'll both be in a happier place soon."
I swallowed hard. I had a sneaking suspicion she didn't mean Disneyland. "You can let us go," I tried. "We won't tell anyone."
"Now, Maddie, we both know that's a lie. I can't let you live now," Lottie said, matter-of-factly, as if she were telling me she couldn't let me wear white after Labor Day. "You know too much, dear."
The irony was that up until she'd pulled out her gun, I'd known zilch. If she'd just left it alone, chances were she'd have gotten off scot-free.
Then again, if she had her way, there was still that possibility.
I tamped down another surge of panic mixed this time with a healthy dose of desperation as I tried to keep her talking. If she was talking, she wasn't shooting. And anything that was not shooting sounded great right about then.
"How did Louis find out Carrington had given him false appraisals for his antiques?" I asked her, eyes scanning the room for anything I could use as a weapon. Porcelain figures, small toys, framed paintings. Everything felt delicate and light.
"That was Allison's mistake," Lottie informed me. "Louis overheard her bragging to Mina about how much Carrington had gotten at a recent auction for a Tiffany lamp."
"And Louis had sold the lamp to Carrington?"
She nodded. "Carrington had told him it was worthless. Mass produced junk!" She spat the words out, anger rising again. "Louis was disappointed to hear the lamp wasn't real, but he trusted Carrington. We both did."
"What did Louis do?"
"Nothing," Lottie said, her eyes misting again. "When he realized he'd been conned, he was too devastated, too humiliated. Do you know how many pieces he sold to Carrington?"
I shook my head, eyes darting around the room for an escape route. A window stood to my right, but even if it hadn't been sealed with a rusted screen on the outside, it was too high to jump through. Lottie stood directly in front of the doorway. I could try to rush her, but with a gun in her hand, I didn't like my odds.
"My husband sold Carrington dozens of items," Lottie went on. "A good portion of them deemed 'junk' by that crook Carrington. That man had made a killing off my poor Louis's good nature."
"And then Louis died," I said quietly.
She nodded. "But I couldn't let him get away with it," Lottie said, menace clear in her voice.
"What did you do?" I asked.
"I waited," she said. "I brought antiques to his shop, went to auctions he worked. I wanted to see him for myself, lying, cheating, duping good people."
"And you were waiting for an opportunity to kill him," I finished for her.
She nodded. "When I saw him try to pull his same act on your mother, I knew he had to go. He was so smug. So above everyone else. The way he dismissed your mother with a lie. I had no doubt he'd planned to find her later and offer to take that hatpin off her hands. It was only his bad luck that she stood up to him."
"And you saw your opportunity."
"I did." She paused. "I'm sorry your mother had to be involved, but her argument with Carrington was just too perfect."
As far as apologies went, that one was pretty lame. But, considering she had me at gunpoint, I let it slide, instead trying to keep her talking. "You followed my mom to the food court."
"I did. At first, I honestly followed her just to tell her the hatpin was probably real. To have it appraised somewhere else. But when she got up and left her purse sitting there, that sharp little pin right on the top…well, as you said, I saw an opportunity and took it."
I licked my suddenly dry lips. "And you went after Carrington?" I asked, thinking of the false eyewitness report that someone had seen my mom with Carrington right before his death. I realized now it must have been only half false…they hadn't seen my mom, but they had seen an older woman with Carrington—Lottie.
She confirmed my suspicions by nodding. "I found him in the back room. I said I needed to speak to him about a piece of jewelry I'd brought in. The second he leaned over to examined it…" She trailed off, and I could well imagine the scene.
"You killed him."
"He deserved it," she spit out. "He killed my Louis, and he deserved to die."
"And Allison?" I asked. "Did she deserve to die too?"
Lottie scoffed. "All Allison cared about was the bottom line. She turned a blind eye to what he was doing because he was making profits for the business hand over fist."
"That day I met you at the shop. The day after Carrington was killed. You were there to see Allison," I said, the timeline becoming clear.
Lottie nodded. "I had no intention of selling her the Dilama sculpture—it was just a way to get in the door. To see how much she really knew about what her business partner had been doing for years."
"You confronted her at Yesterday's Treasures?"
"I did." Lottie straightened her spine, pulling herself up to her full height.
"What did she say?" I asked.
"She laughed," Lottie said, her eyes narrowing. "Can you believe it? That chit had the nerve to laugh at me. She said Carrington hadn't done anything illegal—that I could prove. He'd done—what did she call it?—shrewd bargaining. She said it wasn't her fault if old fools believed him. Fools. How dare she call my Louis a fool!"
I could see Lottie's color rising as the monologue went on, could see her reliving the scene in her head. I wasn't sure whether that was good or bad for my current situation, but I instinctively took a small step backward, coming up against a bookcase.
I felt around with my fingers behind me for anything sharp or heavy enough to use as weapon but came up empty.
"Allison was just as bad as Carrington was," Lottie said, continuing her tirade. "It was clear she knew what had been going on, and didn't care."
"So you
killed her too?"
"It wasn't hard. I sweet talked Mina into giving me Allison's address, and I showed up at her house later that evening. She was surprised to see me, of course, but she let me in."
"I'm guessing the gun persuaded her?" I asked, eyes on the weapon. It certainly had a way of making me pay attention.
Lottie laughed, her smoker's hack making it come out in a throaty, menacing tone. "Yes, she wasn't expecting that, was she?"
"Why did you move her body to the park?" I asked, shifting to my right to feel along the top of a smaller bookcase. I felt my hopes surge as my hands encountered something small and metal. Though, as my fingers surreptitiously explored the object, it was not, as I'd hoped, a letter opener or small pocketknife but instead a spoon. Dull. Round. Totally useless against a gun.
"I had to make sure the police stayed focused on your mother," she stated simply. "If Allison was found too quickly, I knew it would be easier to pinpoint exactly when she'd died. And it would be more likely your mom could provide a viable alibi. But the longer the body sat, the harder it would be for the police to narrow down the time of death."
I frowned. That was actually pretty clever. "How did you know that?"
She blinked at me. "Well, I read crime novels of course. Doesn't everyone know that?"
Mental forehead thunk. "So you put her body in your car?"
"Yes, that was difficult," Lottie said, nodding. "For a small woman, Allison was surprisingly heavy. I supposed that's why they call it dead weight, huh?" She grinned at her own joke. "But, once I rolled her onto a bedsheet, she was easier to drag out the side door to the driveway. And after I backed my car up to the door, it was just a matter of hauling her up into the trunk."
"And you dumped her in the park?"
She nodded. "I thought about driving farther…up into the hills or someplace, you know. But, well, it's just not safe in places like that after dark for a woman alone these days."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the murderer who was afraid of being out alone after dark.
"It was you on the road today too, wasn't it? In the gray sedan and the ski mask."
Lottie clicked her tongue. "It was frightfully hard to see out of that thing. I was lucky I didn't crash!"
"Gee, lucky you," I mumbled.
"What was that, dear?"
"Nothing," I quickly covered.
"Hmm." She narrowed her eyes at me again for a beat before continuing. "Anyway, it was all working splendidly, the way those police officers were looking at your mom. I heard she was even arrested."
She had a pleased look in her eyes that caused anger to mix in with my fear and panic. This woman had killed two people, sent my mother to jail, shot at me on the road, and now done who-knew-what horrible thing to Dana. My patience was wearing thin with her.
And, I realized as she took a step toward me, my time was running out.
Lottie shifted her stance, holding the antique gun straight armed in front of her. "I am sorry it's come to this," she told me. "But it's time for you and your nosey friend to disappear."
"Don't you think the police will come looking for us?" I asked. Desperation was a physical sensation now, churning in my belly in nauseating waves.
"Oh, I'm sure they will." Lottie smiled, lined red lips stretching over her yellow teeth in a predatory grin. "But no one will think to look for you here."
Unfortunately, she was right. I hadn't told Ramirez where I was going for fear of the wrath of Bad Cop. But right then, all I wanted was for Bad Cop to show up. Preferably before she shot at me.
But I realized as she took a threatening step forward, no Bad Cop was coming to my rescue. No Marco, no Mom, no Faux Dad. No posse from the L.A. Informer. I was on my own.
And I was not ending this way.
I took a deep breath, shoving fear down as far as I could and doing the only thing I could think of to throw her off balance.
I screamed.
I let out the loudest, sharpest, most ear piercing scream I could muster, channeling my twins when they didn't get their way with just about anything.
And it had much the same effect on Lottie as they did on me—sensory overload that resulted in just a second of confusion.
But a second was all I needed.
I grabbed behind me for anything I could get my hands on and threw it toward Lottie's head. The spoon sailed through the air, not doing much damage as it pinged off Lottie's side. I grabbed and tossed again, firing a string of small porcelain bunnies toward her head.
"Ow! Stop it!" She pulled the trigger as she ducked, a shot ringing through the room before embedding itself in the ceiling.
I dove to the right, throwing myself behind one of the love seats. I heard the crack of the gun go off again, and a tuft of fabric flew into the air.
"No!" she cried. "Look what you've made me do. That was an eighteen hundreds William Morris print!"
I didn't wait for her to regain her aim, shoving my shoulder into the back of the love seat and lurching it forward. It caught Lottie in the shins, sending her reeling backward into the coffee table, where iced tea and cookies splattered on the floor.
Before she could get her balance, I threw myself forward at her in a tackle.
The gun waved my direction, and I landed on top of Lottie just in time to change its direction a half inch as it went off again, taking out a chunk of plaster from the opposite wall.
I grabbed her arm, trying to pry the gun from her hands. But anger and adrenaline had made her freakishly strong. Her white knuckles had the gun in a death grip.
"Let go of me!" she yelled. She lifted her head toward our arm wrestling match, and before I could register what was happening, sunk her teeth into my hand.
I cried out, instinctively pulling back.
Which gave her the upper hand with the gun, as she struggled to a sitting position to aim at me again.
With my injured hand, I lunged forward, trying to grasp at anything I could. My fingers connected with her hair, and I yanked with all my might.
Only as she scrambled away from me, the hair came right off, and I realized I was holding a wig.
"My hair!" she cried, her free hand going to the fine wisps of gray hair that were matted to her head. "How dare you!" she screamed.
She'd been able to not only scoot away from my grasp but also regain her footing. She pointed the gun at me as I sat on the floor in a puddle of iced tea and cookie crumbs, holding her hair in one hand.
"You wicked, wicked, girl," she seethed, breathing heavily through her teeth. Her nostrils flared, her chest rose and fell in her paisley polyester shirt, and lipstick was smeared across one cheek in a grotesquely crazed look. She narrowed her eyes at me, held the gun out in front of her, and aimed straight at me.
Time stopped. All sound disappeared, all thoughts emptied from my head, and I swore I even felt my heart cease beating for that one terrifying second.
I steeled myself for the force of the bullet as I heard the gun cock.
But instead of the crack of a bullet, I heard the sound of a thud, then a grunt, and Lottie fell unceremoniously forward, crashing into the coffee table again.
All the air rushed out of my lungs as I looked up to find Dana standing in the doorway, a large Bracington blob of a statue held in one hand as a weapon.
I guess modern art was good for something after all.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I sat outside on Lottie's front porch, giving my statement to a young officer with a buzz cut who'd had the unfortunate luck of being the first one on the scene. After I'd liberated the gun from Lottie's hand and Dana had made sure she was still breathing, we'd called 9-1-1, who'd promptly sent Officer Buzz Cut to us, along with EMTs who were currently trying to revive Lottie while Buzz Cut's partner read her rights. Buzz Cut had ushered Dana and me out to the porch to take our statements, but I wasn't sure either of us had been able to give him a clear version of the events yet.
Apparently as soon as Lottie had "accidentall
y" spilled the iced tea on Dana, she'd led her into the bathroom, where she'd hit her over the back of the head with a bathroom scale then tied her up with duct tape and left her in the bathtub. It had only been when Dana had heard the first gunshot that she'd come to and realized Lottie was nuts. She managed to pry the tape off her ankles and wrists by the time she'd heard the last shot, and she'd crept into the room unseen and grabbed one of the sculptures to knock Lottie out from behind.
For which I would be forever grateful.
I was just detailing again for Buzz Cut the confession Lottie had made to the murders of Carrington and Cash, when a familiar black SUV screeched to a halt at the curb, parking crookedly. As soon as the engine went off, the driver's side door flew open, and Ramirez jogged toward me.
As much as I thought of myself as a strong woman, I dissolved into tears the moment his comforting arms were around me. All of the fear, panic, and desperation I'd held in while confronting Lottie came surging out in a flood of hot, salty tears that I couldn't stop if I wanted to. I was in full blown hiccup sobs by the time he pulled back and let his dark eyes rove my body in an assessing sweep.
"Are you okay?" he asked slowly, as if trying to break through my hysteria.
I hiccupped and sniffed loudly. "I think so."
He ran a hand over my hair in a tender gesture. "Liar," he whispered.
One more sob escaped me, but I forced a smile along with it. "Physically, I'm fine. Bruised hand," I said, holding it up.
He frowned. "Did she have a dog?"
I shook my head. "No. She bit me."
He shook his head, his expression dark. If Lottie wasn't already in handcuffs, I might have feared for her life in that moment.
"I'll live," I assured him.
"You'll need antibiotics," he decided.
"But I'll live," I repeated, focusing on the positive. Those three little words hadn't seemed so likely a few short minutes ago.
Ramirez must have realized the importance behind them too, as he hugged me fiercely again before calling one of the EMTs over to look at my hand.
Over the course of the next hour, more officers showed up, more EMTs, some guys in CSI jackets, and trailing along behind them all, Laurel and Hardy. I credit the type of man my husband is that he didn't even gloat once as he filled them in on how his wife had elicited a confession for them. As they hung their proverbial heads in shame, Ramirez also made sure they would drop all charges against my mom ASAP.
10 Suspect in High Heels Page 17
