One glance at Sarabelle let Lindsay know exactly what form that persuasion took. “Is that what happened to Lydia Sikes? You couldn’t persuade her?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. That dumb junkie was a liability. I caught her fixin’ to trade that Smith and Wesson to her dealer for more pills. Say what you will about Sarabelle, but at least she knew the value of a buck and when to keep her mouth shut. If I hadn’t’a shut her up, Lydia woulda gone blabbing my business all over New Albany.” He removed a packet of cigarettes from his back pocket and lit up a smoke. With a casual ease, he took off his leather jacket and laid it on top of the duffle bag. “Lydia was a fine piece of ass, but you can’t never trust a junkie.” He blew two thin streams of smoke out of his nostrils.
Now that Lindsay had come face to face with Swoopes, she had a better understanding of his ability to control people, especially women like her mother who had few material or emotional reservoirs to tap into. What might she herself do to buy a few more minutes of time? To try to convince him to spare her? Had Lydia Sikes begged for her life? Had she struggled against him while he pressed the gun to her closed lips? Or had she just quietly resigned herself to her fate, robotically following his orders to the very end?
“How did you convince Sarabelle to help you sell the gun?” Lindsay asked. Swoopes seemed to be enjoying the chance to detail his exploits. Although their dialogue was buying her time to come up with a plan, it also sent a shiver up her spine. If he was revealing all of this to her, clearly he didn’t intend for her to be alive long enough to pass on the information that he imparted.
He withdrew the cigarette from his mouth with a snap of his wrist. “How do you know about that?” he asked.
“Everyone knows,” Lindsay answered, looking him square in the eye. “The police know. They’re closing in on you. Did you really think that you’d get away? We’re on an island! The police are everywhere. Just before you grabbed me, I was talking to my boyfriend about it. You remember my boyfriend, the policeman? I told him that I’d seen a light on here.” Lindsay could see instantly that her ploy had backfired. Swoopes conversational mood had passed. And, instead of looking nervous in response to her threats about the police, Swoopes stared at her coldly.
“You didn’t see no light. Ain’t nobody driven past here all evening. But if you have been talking to your boyfriend, you’d better hurry up and give me the combination to that safe,” Swoopes said.
Lindsay pursed her lips and twisted her body away from him.
“You really wanna know how I got your mama to help me sell the gun?” he asked. He knelt down and pulled up the sleeve of Lindsay’s jacket, revealing her bare forearm. He withdrew the cigarette from between his lips and pressed the lit end to her delicate white skin. Lindsay managed not to scream, although she almost blacked out from the pain. Although Lindsay’s arms were bound behind her, if she contorted her body, she could glimpse the angry, red welt that rose on her forearm. In the center of the wound was a ring of white and gray ashes. Ashes. The word swam to the surface of her consciousness. Warren had said that the box containing Nancy Mix’s ashes was all that was left in the safe now, and in a moment Swoopes would know it.
Swoopes looked at Lindsay, and said in a tone of mock consolation. “That’s right. Big girls don’t cry. You just tell Daddy the combination and this will all be over.” His voice switched to a menacing growl. “Or do you want to see how many tries it takes me to make daylight shine through this old lady’s head?” He withdrew his gun from the shoulder holster and held it to Simmy’s temple.
“Okay. I’ll tell you,” Lindsay said weakly. The seed of an idea was beginning to germinate in her brain. Actually, it was more of a Hail Mary pass than an idea, but it was all she had left. She opened her eyes wide, hoping to project an image of a helpless, naïve Southern Belle. “But you have to promise to leave us all alone after that. If you don’t hurt us anymore, no one even needs to know that you were here. You can just take what’s in the safe and leave.” She knew that he had no intention of keeping any of them alive, no matter what he agreed to do.
“Scout’s honor,” he replied, eying her warily. She could see that he was gauging whether she was trying to trick him.
“How do I know I can trust you?” she demanded. She needed him to believe that she thought she was engaged in a real negotiation. She needed him to believe that she was telling the truth.
He seemed amused. He leaned down to remove the angel pin from Sarabelle’s outstretched palm. “How about I give this back to you? You know, as a token of my good intentions.” He bent down and pinned it to the front of Lindsay’s jacket.
“How did you get this?” Lindsay asked. “And why did Sarabelle have it in her hand?”
“Funny thing,” he said. “Sometimes a dog gets so used to gettin’ kicked, that she don’t even feel the kicks no more.” He glanced pointedly at Sarabelle. “You need to think of new ways to train it to do what you want.”
Lindsay’s thoughts about her mother’s motivations underwent another seismic shift. Could it be that her mother had been telling the truth about trying to protect her? That the only reason she’d helped Swoopes was to keep Lindsay from harm?
“Well?” Swoopes demanded.
“Fine. But remember, God punishes you extra hard if you lie to a minister. I have your word. The combination is 04-27-03-27-04-25.” She had to hope that the numbers were far enough off of the true combination that the safe wouldn’t open when Swoopes tried them, but close enough that she could have a chance to complete her Hail Mary.
Swoopes immediately began to spin the dials of the lock, still keeping a weather eye on Lindsay. When he reached the last of the six numbers, he wrenched the large steel handle. It didn’t budge. He tried again with more force, but still he handle didn’t yield an inch. “Say those numbers again,” he demanded. Lindsay repeated the series of incorrect numbers. When his second attempt also failed to open the safe, he sprang down to the floor in front of Lindsay like a pouncing tiger. “Liar!” he growled.
“It’s temperamental,” Lindsay replied evenly. “It’s very old, and it takes a little while to get the hang of it. You have to jiggle it a little after each rotation to get the pins to click into place. If you help me stand up, I’ll watch you and tell you when to jiggle. Now, you’ve gotta move it up and down on the odd spins and a little bit side to side on the even spins. Except on the last spin. Definitely don’t jiggle it then or you’ll have to start all over. You’ll be able to feel it in your fingertips when the pins click.” She nodded reassuringly. She hoped that her explanation sounded convincing…and sufficiently convoluted.
He glared at her and went to the kitchen. He returned a moment later wielding a heavy butcher’s knife. Lindsay gasped when she saw it, but her anxiety was misplaced. Swoopes used the knife to slit open the tape that bound her wrists. “You do it,” he commanded. Lindsay began to struggle to her feet, clawing her way unsteadily up the wall. In truth, despite her injuries and the binding on her ankles, she could have risen easily and would’ve had no trouble standing unassisted. Good balance was one of the benefits of being very short. However, she needed him to do what he did next—cut the tape on her ankles. Phase one of Operation Hail Mary had been successful.
He drew out his handgun and trained it on her. “Open it.”
Lindsay stepped in front of the safe and whispered a silent prayer. God, help me to trust that you have given me all the tools I need to live through this. With a shaky breath, she began spinning the dials. Swoopes watched her carefully, making sure that she entered the numbers she’d given him and jiggled the dial at the appropriate intervals. After the first two correct numbers were entered under Swoopes’s close supervision, Lindsay said, “How did you get hold of my angel pin? I thought I dropped it in the hospital garden.” Although she did genuinely want to know the answer, the question was timed to distract his attention momentarily. She couldn’t let him see that she’d tricked him by giving h
im the wrong combination. Sure enough, when Swoopes opened his mouth to speak, his eye twitched away from the dial for a split second—long enough for her to move the dial from the 03 to the 04 position and quickly spin it onto the next number.
“It wasn’t your pin I was after,” Swoopes said. “If that little friend of yours hadn’t’a come along, I would’a been able to get hold of a real angel.” He stroked Lindsay’s hair and ran his hand down the back of her neck, causing every muscle in her body to seize in terror. “But it turned out for the best. The pin was enough to convince Sarabelle that I meant business, and I didn’t have to worry about what to do with you after I finished with you.”
Lindsay stepped back abruptly as the final pin clicked into place. “There,” she said. Now all you have to do it open it.”
Chapter 25
“Remember,” Lindsay said, feigning sincerity. “You promised that if I helped you, you’d let us go.”
Swoopes pushed her roughly aside and took hold of the handle. He cranked it sideways and the thick, heavy door creaked open. All the guns were gone, as Lindsay knew they would be. In the bottom of the safe lay a few neatly-folded cloths and cleaning tools. The shelves at the top of the safe housed empty ammunition boxes and the dented metal cashier’s box containing Nancy Mix’s ashes.
“What the hell?” Swoopes roared. He opened the door wider, as if in the hope that somewhere, hidden in the back, the safe contained a secret Aladdin’s cave full of treasures. He set the gun down on top of the safe as he did what Lindsay had prayed that he would do. She held her breath, watching him pull down the cashier’s box containing her grandmother’s remains. The small key had been left in the top of the box. He twisted it and pulled open the lid.
Lindsay sprang forward and pushed up as hard as she could on the bottom of the box, throwing several pounds of gray ash into Swoopes’s face. The box clattered to the floor as Swoopes spat and coughed, trying to clear his eyes with his balled fists. With ashes clinging to his face, clothes, and hair, and his face twisted into a grimace of rage, he looked like a horror-movie zombie. Lindsay shoved him backwards with all her might and reached up for the gun. His reflexes were quicker than Lindsay had anticipated, though. He sprang forward and groped blindly for the gun. Lindsay only had time to bat it away with her hand and send it skittering across the room. Swoopes lurched towards it, but he tripped over one of the overturned dining chairs. As he tried to scramble to his feet, Lindsay panicked. There was no way she could reach the gun before he did, and even if she somehow miraculously managed to, Swoopes would overpower her before she could fire a shot.
Her earlier, whispered prayer flashed into her mind. God, help me to trust that you have given me all the tools I need to live through this. And then—miraculously—she realized that God had given her all the tools she needed. She reached into her jacket pocket, her hand closing around the flathead screwdriver that she’d been using to start her car. Without a moment’s hesitation, she raised it and then plunged it into Swoopes’s lower back. The ease with which it sank into his flesh almost made her physically sick.
Swoopes let out a yowl of pain, arching backwards and reaching for the screwdriver. Lindsay yanked it out as he rolled over onto his back. She stabbed it downwards again, this time connecting with the soft flesh of his belly. His hands closed over the top over hers and she realized that, despite his wounds, he would easily manage to wrest it from her grip. She took a step back and kicked him as hard as she could in his groin. He dropped the screwdriver and instantly curled up like a pork rind in hot grease. Lindsay dashed across the room and seized the gun.
By the time Swoopes rose from the ground still clutching his stomach, he found his own gun trained on him. Lindsay held it out in front of her with shaking hands. “Don’t move,” she commanded.
“Why don’t you put that big gun down, honey?” he soothed. “You know you ain’t gonna shoot nobody. Betchya never even held a gun before.”
Although Lindsay had learned at a young age how to fire the hunting rifle Aunt Harding had given her, it was true that she had never before held a handgun. All the times she had seen Aunt Harding clean the guns in her collection, and she had never once been allowed to handle them.
Her eyes darted from Swoopes’s face to the weapon in her hands, trying to figure out how it worked. Swoopes took a step toward her with his hands raised as if he meant no harm. The look of pure malice in his eyes belied the white flag gesture. She could see the blood beginning to soak through his shirt, but the injuries didn’t seem to have done enough damage to stop his advance. She frantically felt along the side of the gun for some kind of safety switch—that much she had learned from her duck hunting days. She found the small mechanism, and slid it to the off position. As Swoopes continued to advance toward her, she inhaled deeply and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She slid the safety back and forth, pulling the trigger. Again and again, nothing happened.
Swoopes smiled and began to move ahead with renewed confidence. None of Aunt Harding’s guns had looked remotely like this one. They were all older weapons, and with a few exceptions, they were hunting rifles or shotguns. Her mind pored over every recollection of a gunfight that she’d seen on TV or in a movie. She remembered cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, John Wayne pulling down on the lever of a revolver to cock the gun. This gun had no such lever—just a slick silver barrel. Why could every single Hollywood actor who ever lived do this with such ease, while she, whose very life depended on it, couldn’t get the damn thing to fire?! Swoopes was now directly in front of her. Another five steps and her life would be over.
Suddenly, she remembered the terrible movie she had seen on last summer’s double date with Tanner and Gibb. The beefy ex-pro-wrestler who starred in it had used this same kind of slick-looking gun. She could envision him as he launched himself acrobatically from an exploding car, all the while pulling back on the gun’s top, releasing spent cartridges while new bullets rose into the chamber. She moved her hand to the top of the gun and closed it around the slide. She pulled back, heard the bullet click up into the chamber, closed her eyes, pulled the trigger, and fired. She fired again and again until the only thing sound the gun made when she pulled the trigger was a dull clicking. Five shots in total.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that although she had finally managed to fire the gun, she hadn’t managed to aim it. She had been shooting from nearly point blank range, but only two bullets had connected with Swoopes’s body; the others had whizzed harmlessly into the wall behind him. Swoopes held his left hand to his wounded right arm and shoulder. Though the wounds didn’t appear to be likely to be fatal, the shock and pain were enough to send him crashing to his knees.
Lindsay raced to the kitchen phone. A new wave of horror swept over her—Swoopes had ripped the receiver and outlet from the wall. Bare wires now dangled from the space the outlet box used to occupy. It was the only phone in Aunt Harding’s house.
Her mind teemed with muddled thoughts. She had a head start, and despite her injuries, she was in far better shape than Swoopes. She knew that she could make it to safety. But what about Simmy and Sarabelle? Would she find help for them in time? Could she risk leaving them in the same room as a killer who had nothing left to lose? She crept back into the dining room, keeping the gun in front of her like a talisman. Swoopes lay moaning on the floor. Sarabelle was still motionless under the table. Simmy slumped next to the open safe, mumbling dazedly to herself.
Lindsay stepped back into the kitchen and inspected the weapon she was holding. She clicked a heretofore unnoticed button and released the magazine from the gun. Shaking it, she peered inside. Empty. As she pocketed the now-useless gun, she paced the kitchen and tried to organize her thoughts. She mentally lined up her choices. One: flee and hope that Swoopes was too incapacitated to harm Sarabelle or Simmy before she could summon help. Two: try to escape with Sarabelle and Simmy. Three: kill Swoopes.
She immediately dismissed option three. Defending he
rself against an onrushing attacker was one thing, but the idea of walking over and trying to kill Swoopes with a knife or her bare hands while he lay bleeding on the floor was too terrible to contemplate. Even with a fairly broad interpretation of the Bible’s core message, she was pretty sure that God would take a dim view of a chaplain committing a calculated murder. She realized that option one wasn’t a real alternative either. She could no more leave Sarabelle and Simmy in danger than she could sprout wings and fly through the ceiling. It was simply not in her nature.
Swoopes’s jacket was still lying on the dining room table, so Lindsay quickly rifled through his pockets until she found the keys to his truck. She knelt down next to Simmy. “Simmy?” she whispered. “Simmy, can you hear me? We’ve gotta move.”
Simmy’s eyelids fluttered open and she smiled like a dreaming child. Lindsay grabbed the butcher’s knife from the dining table and cut the tape that bound Simmy’s hands and feet. She set the knife on the floor and hooked Simmy’s arm around her shoulder, hoisting the old woman to her feet. Simmy was able to stagger along beside Lindsay until they reached Swoopes’s truck. Lindsay heaved Simmy into the passenger’s seat and returned to the house. Sarabelle was much more difficult to manage. She had always seemed impossibly petite to Lindsay—even more elfin in figure than Lindsay herself. Now, however, she was out cold and had all the maneuverability of a beached orca.
With great difficulty, Lindsay managed to drag Sarabelle out of the house and down the back steps. As she pulled her mother across the sand toward the truck, she kept one eye trained on the back door of the house. All was quiet. Lindsay continued to slowly, painfully drag Sarabelle across the sand, stopping frequently to catch her breath. Any kind of deep inhalation was excruciating, and the hunching and pulling motion only made the torture more extreme. Several times, Lindsay’s vision swam and she had to will herself not to pass out from the pain. When they finally reached the truck, Lindsay found Simmy still hunched over in the front seat. “Simmy,” she called, patting her gently on the cheek. “Try to stay awake, okay? I think you have a concussion.”
A Death in Duck: Lindsay Harding Cozy Mystery Series (Reverend Lindsay Harding Mystery Book 2) Page 24
