by Sharon Sala
“What happened?” she cried.
“That woman knocked him out with a shovel,” someone said, and then laughed.
“Oh lord, oh lord!” Mandi cried, as she ran to Cat. “You saved my life.”
“I called 911,” someone said.
When they heard the man stirring, Mandi jumped back and screamed again. “He’s coming to.”
“No he’s not,” Cat said, and swung the shovel again, aiming for the crown of his head like a golfer putting against a strong wind. The blade hit Clyde’s head with a solid clang. Blood began to ooze from a cut on his head, but he was no longer moving.
Dorothy was still on the floor on her belly, staring up at Cat as if she’d never seen her before.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she whispered, then slowly got to her feet.
Cat frowned. “Sorry, but I couldn’t just stand there and let him pull the trigger, now could I?”
Dorothy eyed the grip Cat had on the shovel handle and the fire in her eyes, and shook her head quickly.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
“Are you all right?” Cat asked. “I didn’t mean to push you so hard, but I was afraid he’d start shooting up the place, and I didn’t want you to get hit.”
“Right,” Dorothy mumbled, and then put her fingers to her lips, wondering if they were as numb as they felt.
“Look, the police are here,” Mandi said.
A half dozen police cruisers had pulled up to the front of the building. Cat counted at least eight uniformed officers coming through the door with guns drawn.
“Here we go,” she murmured, as they began to shout.
“Hands up! Everyone on the floor!”
Dorothy shook her head in disgust. “Oh, for the good lord’s sake. The only one who had a gun is already on the floor.”
She pointed at the gunman and the gun Cat had kicked loose from his fingers.
One of officers grabbed the gun, while another turned the guy over.
“There are no bullet wounds,” he said, as he handed the gun off to his partner, then rolled the unconscious man back over on his belly, yanked his hands behind his back and cuffed him.
Clyde, still unconscious, was as limp as a rag doll.
Dorothy put her arm protectively around Cat’s shoulders. “That’s because my girl downed him with a shovel.”
“She’s a hero,” Mandi said, as she pointed to the man on the floor. “That’s my ex-husband, Clyde Bridges. I have an order of protection against him, but a fat lot of good it would have done if it hadn’t been for her. He came into the store with that gun in his hand and was ready to shoot me dead. She stopped him. She hit him with that shovel just as he pulled the trigger. I hit the floor, and the bullet hit the wall up by the ceiling.”
Cat’s chin jutted in a defensive gesture. “Well, I couldn’t just—”
Then one of the bystanders suddenly spoke up. “Hey, I know who you are! You’re the woman they found out in that pasture after the tornado, aren’t you? You’re that bounty hunter, Cat Dupree.”
The policemen stepped back, eyeing Cat with more than a little curiosity.
“Is this true, ma’am? Are you Cat Dupree?” one of them asked.
Cat shrugged. “My name is Cat McKay now, and there’s nothing I can tell you about this man other than that he came in the door with a gun, threatening to kill her. I hit him with this.”
She handed the officer the shovel. “If you need to talk to us again, call my cell.” She rattled off the number. “I just want to go home.” She looked at Dorothy for support. “I think we’ve had enough of shopping for one day.”
“Amen to that, honey,” Dorothy said, and took her by the hand. They walked away from their full shopping cart without a backward glance.
“Thank you again,” Mandi said, as Cat walked past her.
Cat nodded and kept on walking. They got to the car, but when Cat hit the remote to unlock the doors, she realized her hands were shaking. She shuddered, then took a slow breath and handed the keys to Dorothy.
“I think you’d better drive.”
“Are you all right?” Dorothy asked, eyeing her nervously.
“I will be,” Cat said.
Dorothy slid behind the wheel, and they were soon on their way home.
“That was weird,” Cat said.
Dorothy glanced at the strained expression on her daughter-in-law’s face, then started to giggle.
“Honey, that’s the understatement of the day.”
Her giggle broke the ice.
Cat started to relax. Then she remembered Wilson. “I don’t even want to think about what Wilson is going to say,” she muttered, then looked at Dorothy. “Maybe we just won’t tell him?”
Dorothy rolled her eyes. “All I’m saying is, it will be better coming from you than him hearing about it on the evening news.”
“The news? Oh, no. Do you think they’ll mention it?”
“Are you serious? I saw half a dozen people with their cell phones out, getting the whole thing on video. You put down a would-be killer in Hardware Heaven with a shovel. You’ll be on one of those crazy Web sites by tomorrow, you mark my words.”
Cat sighed. “Wilson is going to blow a fuse. Not that it matters, because I don’t intend to explain myself every time I leave the house.”
Dorothy shook her head in quiet amazement. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m just beginning to understand what you two faced just trying to do your jobs. It’s not as simple as I first believed, is it? I mean…you don’t exactly knock on doors and pick up people who don’t show up for court, do you?”
Cat stifled a laugh. Obviously Wilson had been feeding his mother quite a line.
“It’s not always that simple, no.”
“It’s dangerous, isn’t it? I remember how beat up you were when you first came to us. Did one of your bail jumpers do that to you?”
Solomon Tutuola’s burned and tattooed face slithered through her mind, then out again.
“In a manner of speaking,” she said.
“Lord, lord, and all these years Wilson assured me it was no big deal.”
“Well, we’re out of the business now, so don’t worry, okay?”
Dorothy’s frown deepened. “When I think of all those years I slept in peaceful bliss, thinking my children were just fine in their chosen professions with this Jimmy Franks mess and now this, Wilson just flat-out lied to me. I may have to wring his neck on general principle. In fact…you just leave him to me. If he gives you trouble about all this, he’s mine.”
Cat laughed out loud. “It’s a deal.”
A delivery truck from Blaine’s Lumber Yard had just delivered a load of two-by-fours to the old home place and was on the way back to the highway when Wilson’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, then frowned. Channel Four was calling, which begged the question: Why?
“Hello?”
“Hello, may I speak to Wilson McKay?”
“I’m Wilson McKay. How can I help you?”
“Mr. McKay, I’m Joanie Eckert from Channel Four. Is your wife the former Cat Dupree, from Dallas?”
Wilson’s stomach knotted. “Yes. Why?”
“Is she home yet?”
“No, and why, may I ask, do you even know she’s gone? What’s going on?”
“We’d like to send out a film crew to get some footage to run with the sound bite we’ll be running on the evening news.”
Wilson was immediately defensive. Just thinking of seeing Cat back on the news was like sending up flares, letting Jimmy Franks know exactly where to look to finish the job.
“What the hell for?”
“For the shooting at Hardware Heaven of course.”
“There was a shooting at Hardware Heaven?”
Ms. Eckert should have been alerted by the odd tone of Wilson’s voice. “Yes, only a short while ago. If—”
Wilson disconnected the call, then immediately dialed Cat’s number.
She answer
ed on the second ring.
“Hi, honey,” she said.
“Don’t ‘hi, honey’ me,” Wilson muttered, then he heard Cat say, “He already knows.”
“No thanks to you. I had to hear about it from some damn reporter from Channel Four. The first thing I want to know is, are you and Mom all right?”
He thought he was still talking to Cat when he heard his mother’s voice answer instead.
“It’s only thanks to Catherine that we’re fine, so you take that tone right out of your voice, mister. She not only saved our lives, but she saved the life of a woman at Hardware Heaven, as well.”
“God, Mom…what happened?”
“I will let you talk to Catherine, but you do not raise your voice to her. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dorothy obviously handed the phone back to Cat, because the next voice he heard belonged to his wife.
“It’s me.”
“Cat…honey? What happened?”
“So it’s honey now?”
He sighed. “Yes. Talk to me…Please.”
“Your mom and I were ready to check out when this crazy man comes running in waving a gun. He was screaming at a woman, who turned out to be his ex. She had an order of protection against him, but you know what they’re worth.”
“Yeah, less than the paper they’re printed on.”
“Right. So, anyway, we were all bunched up together, and I figured once he shot her, he was probably going to empty his gun into the crowd. I grabbed a shovel from a floor display and whacked him with it. Dropped him like a sack of potatoes.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Wilson? Are you still there?”
He just managed to say, “Uh-huh.”
“We’re almost home. We’ll tell you all about it when we get there, and your mom says don’t scare Carter when you tell him.”
“Fine. I won’t scare Dad any more than that journalist just scared me.”
“I’m sorry,” Cat said. “But I didn’t want to tell you over the phone. For God’s sake, how was I to know those vultures would already be after their bit of fresh meat for the six o’clock news?”
“Okay, I get it,” Wilson said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to tell you over the phone, either.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry. I love you.”
Cat sighed. “Love you, too. See you soon.”
Jimmy Franks was sitting in the back of the dining hall at the downtown Salvation Army shelter, waiting for the free meal of the day to be served. He’d undergone a transformation so drastic that neither Houston nor his mother would have recognized him. He’d shaved his face smooth, pushed his hair back with a pink plastic headband, and was wearing eye makeup and lipstick of a shade that would have staggered a whore. Instead of his usual clothes, he’d gotten a pair of women’s slacks and a loose silky blouse from a secondhand store, and was decked out like a trannie. The cops would never spot him in drag. Now, if he could just find a patsy to use for a body double before some homophobe decided to beat the hell out of him on general principles, he would be good to go.
Several men walked past him, eyeing him nervously, as if what he had might be catching. A pair of teenage boys pointed at him and laughed. But when another man sidled up to him and actually started to flirt, Jimmy pitched a fit.
“Get away, you fuckin’ pervert,” he snarled.
Confused by the mixed messages, the man ducked and quickly slunk away.
Someone rang the bell that meant dinner was served.
Jimmy stood up. He waited until the chaplain blessed the food and then took his place in line, all the while scanning the crowd for another small, skinny man with sharp features and dishwater-blond hair.
He got through the line, carried his plate to a nearby table and quickly began to eat, while continuing to watch the people coming and going.
Thinking this was going to be a bust, he dumped his empty plate and cup into the trash and walked out. He was standing on the curb, waiting for the light to change, when he sensed someone behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, and his heart skipped a beat.
Holy crap! Talk about an “Ask, and ye shall receive” moment…Jimmy looked more like the guy behind him than he did his real brother, and even better, the guy was a stoner. He could tell by the way he was acting that he was in bad need of a fix.
“Hey,” Jimmy whispered. “I’ve got something you want.”
The guy blinked twice before he managed to focus on Jimmy’s face.
“Naw, I don’t swing that way,” he mumbled, and started across the street as the light changed.
Jimmy jumped off the curb and hurried after him.
“No, no. I wasn’t talking about sex. I’ve got prime smack. Let’s talk price and then we can party.”
By the time they reached the other side of the street, the stoner was all but holding Jimmy’s hand to get what was in his pocket.
“So what’s your name?” Jimmy asked.
“James Martin.”
Jimmy laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?” James asked.
“My name is Jimmy.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right. That’s a real coincidence. So where’s the party?”
Jimmy put his hand on James Martin’s shoulder.
“Just follow me. I’ve got a room over at a motel that’s nice and cozy.”
“Whatever,” James mumbled, and stumbled along beside Jimmy, unaware he’d taken up with a killer.
James Martin was dead.
Jimmy stepped back to eye his handiwork. It was pretty much finished, and it had been easier than he’d imagined.
First, he’d gotten him high, then he’d made him strip down.
James Martin had been too wasted to argue and figured the hit was worth whatever came next. He’d figured wrong. As soon as he’d gotten naked, Jimmy had told him to get dressed again, only this time in clothes other than his own.
He didn’t give a fuck what he was wearing. He just wanted to lie down and ride out the high. As soon as he’d dressed, he passed out on the bed.
Jimmy had been planning this for the better part of two days and was well prepared for the next step.
He took off his costume and laid it on a chair on the far side of the room, then put his wallet in James Martin’s pocket. He scattered some drug paraphernalia and a handful of girlie magazines around the bed, making sure that his fingerprints were on everything.
The next step was erasing this man’s identity and substituting his own.
Yesterday, as Jimmy had been passing a construction site, he’d picked up a discarded piece of rebar about four feet long and brought it back to the motel. Now he pulled it out from beneath the bed, hefted it firmly, then raised it over his head, bringing it down squarely in the middle of James Martin’s face.
Martin’s body bucked from the impact as his face split like a ripe melon. He never knew what hit him.
Now that the first blow had been struck, Jimmy got down to business. He hammered the dead man’s face so many times that it no longer looked human, and when he was through with that, he started on James Martin’s hands. He didn’t intend to leave anything to chance. No facial recognition. No fingerprints.
It was a brutal execution, and when he was done, he was covered in blood and brain matter.
He wiped the rebar clean of prints and tossed it on the bed beside the dead man, then calmly walked into the bathroom and showered off every drop of blood and gore from his body.
Afterward, he redonned his transvestite gear, pocketed all his cash and James’s, and left without a backward glance, well aware that the maid would discover the body sometime tomorrow.
It would be soon enough.
Now he had all the time he needed to put the last part of his plan into action. He needed another ride, some ammunition for his recently acquired gun and directions to the McKay property.
There was no need to rush. Not once t
he police discovered poor Jimmy Franks beaten to death, at least.
His fingerprints were all over the room. They would assume they belonged to the body as well. If they felt the need to run a DNA test, he knew it would take weeks, if not months, to get back a report. By then he would be long gone and Wilson McKay would finally be right where he belonged: six feet under.
Thirteen
It was nearing sunset, and Cat and Wilson had been at the old homestead all day, working with the contractors as the remodeling continued. The workers had gone home a few minutes ago, and Cat had wandered through the rooms in progress, then out onto the back porch.
As she sat on the steps, she became caught up in an unfolding drama taking place in the sky. She was watching a bevy of small birds dive-bombing a red-tailed hawk that had made the mistake of flying through their airspace. The hawk was flying fast and low, trying to escape the smaller birds’ beaks and claws. Cat watched until they flew into the sun and she lost sight of the chase.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Wilson asked, as he came outside, wiping the paint off his hands with an old rag. He tossed it aside, then sat down on the steps beside her.
“I think I was watching the ferocity of parenthood in action.”
“There’s plenty of it in nature,” Wilson said. “Dad always said that Mom was meaner than an old mama bear when someone messed with her kids.”
“I think I’ll be like that,” Cat said.
“Oh, honey, I know what you’ll be like,” he said, and then kissed the backside of her ear as he wrapped his arms around her.
She sighed, then moaned as she leaned into his embrace.
“What will I be like?” she asked.
“An absolute angel until crossed. After that, it’s shovel time.”
She laughed.
She was still being teased by the family for taking out the gunman with a shovel. Charlie and Delia had come over the night after it had happened, bearing Cat and Wilson’s first housewarming gift.
When Cat saw the shovel with the big red bow, she knew she was in. Teasing was a major part of this family’s dynamic, and she’d just been roasted.
