What was he talking about? Mark hadn’t followed Junior to the Murdstone house. He’d kidnapped her. And Junior hadn’t planted that still. The man was laying down lies in layers, like Richard’s lasagna. Surely Jake didn’t believe him, not after what I’d told him.
“I can’t go through with this, Mark,” he said. “There’s got to be another way.”
“I’m telling you, this is the only thing that’s going to save us. Not to mention your brother. Isn’t David worth more to you than her?”
“What about Laurie Anne?” Jake said. I tensed, afraid he was about to tell Mark that he’d left me in the truck. But all he said was, “She’ll never believe this, even if everybody else does.”
“Then we’ll take care of her, too,” Mark said, sounding pleased at the idea.
“Mark, the woman’s carrying an innocent baby.”
“So what? What’s one Burnette brat more or less?” Then he must have realized that hadn’t been the best thing to say to a man who’d recently lost his son. “We probably won’t have to worry about her anyway,” he added quickly. “She and her husband will be back in Boston in another week or two.”
“But Junior—”
“Forget Junior!” Mark boomed. “It’s her or us. With her gone I’ll be police chief, just like I should have been all along, and I’ll make sure the record shows she accidentally ignited the still she was setting up and burned to death. Nothing could be simpler. We won’t even have to fake the evidence this time.”
Mark went to fiddle with the still, so he didn’t see the look on Jake’s face. If he had, he would never have turned his back on the man.
“Mark,” Jake said softly, “did you know Daddy lied about where Barnaby got hurt?”
“Of course not,” Mark said, still not realizing his slip of the tongue. “I told you that.”
“You say a lot of things, Mark, but I’m not sure I believe you anymore. What did you mean, ‘this time’?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You said we won’t have to fake the evidence this time. Did you fake it before? Was it you who made it look like Barnaby hurt himself here, instead of at the still?”
Mark finally turned to face the other man. “You know I wouldn’t have done that, Jake. It was Seth.”
“That’s what I thought, but when did he have a chance? Daddy was wrong to take Barnaby out to the still, and wrong to lie about it, but at least he got Barnaby up to the hospital as fast as he could. He stayed there with him until I got there, and then he stayed with me. When did he have time to burn that hole in the playroom floor?”
Mark’s eyes widened for a second, then I could almost see what he’d decided to do. “The pressure is really getting to you,” he said. “Tell you what, Junior’s not going anywhere. Let’s go to the house and work this out. Okay, buddy?”
Jake nodded, and this time he was the one to turn his back on the wrong man. Mark yanked his nightstick from his belt and whacked Jake across the back of his head. Jake dropped like a rock.
Mark looked down at the man as he replaced the nightstick, not looking apologetic or sorry, just irritated. Then he went back to messing with the still and the camp stove underneath.
Every muscle in my body was screaming for me to do something—anything—to save Junior and Jake, but I couldn’t think of what I should do. Maybe I could make it to the phone in the house without Mark catching me, but what then? Nobody would be able to get there in time to do any good. The only one who could do anything to help was me, and I’d never felt so helpless in my life.
Mark had pulled out a jug and was splashing the contents around the workshop, taking particular care to slosh some on both Junior and Jake. Next he pulled a gun that had to be Junior’s out of his waistband and placed it in her holster. Presumably he knew it would look suspicious for her body to be found without it. Then he glanced around the room, with the same expression Richard always had when blocking an act on stage. Clearly, he was making sure the scene was set properly. Then he picked up an open can of Sterno from the camp stove, walked toward the door, and pulled a lighter from his pocket.
Without really thinking, I ran toward the workshop door, carrying my rock-filled pocketbook. Mark must have seen the movement out of the corner of his eye, because he started to turn my way, but I’d already swung the bag, and it hit him across the shoulder blades. The breath rushed out of his mouth, and he stumbled forward, dropping the Sterno and his lighter.
Unfortunately, he was still standing, and he fumbled at his holster. I hefted the pocketbook to take another swing, but he drew his gun first, and I froze as he aimed the barrel right at my midsection.
“I should have known,” he gasped. “The bitch lied to me, and—”
I never found out what he was going to say or do next, because Jake erupted out of the workshop and slammed into Mark. The gun fired, but the shot went wild as the men rolled around on the ground. Mark still had the gun, but Jake had a grip on his wrist, keeping him from aiming it.
I headed toward them, ready to use my pocketbook again. I knew I had just as good a chance of hitting Jake as Mark, but I didn’t care if I had to knock both of them out to make sure Mark was out of commission.
Then I smelled something burning. I saw flames erupting from the workshop, and I realized that Mark’s stray gunshot must have gone inside and set the fire he’d intended all along. I dropped the pocketbook, raced into the workshop to where Junior was, and wasted precious seconds trying to rouse her. As the air grew hotter, I gave up and grabbed her under her arms to drag her from the building. I didn’t know what was going on outside, but anywhere had to be safer than in that firetrap.
Junior started coughing as we went, but though I had to pat out a burning cinder that landed on her side, we made it out all right. Between the coughing and the cold air hitting her, she started to come to.
Jake and Mark were still grappling, but it looked like Mark was winning. Jake must have been weakened from the blow to the head, and my pocketbook hadn’t done nearly as much damage to Mark as I’d wanted it to. Once I was sure Junior was safe for the moment, I looked around for another weapon.
But then Junior croaked, “Laurie Anne, get out of the way!”
She had her gun in her hand—I’d forgotten Mark had given it back to her. I obeyed instantly, and Junior fired into the air above Mark’s and Jake’s heads.
They both jerked, and Jake’s grip on Mark’s arm slipped. Mark pushed him off and twisted around toward Junior. A shot cut through the night, but for an endless second I didn’t know who’d been shot. Then Mark fell to the dirt while Junior stood motionless.
My knees gave way and I sank to the ground, my arms wrapped around my belly. Junior waited until she was sure Mark was no longer moving. Then she walked toward him, not letting her aim waver as she kicked the gun away from his hand. Only when she’d reached down to pick it up did she look back at me.
“Laurie Anne, are you hurt?”
“No, just—I’m fine.”
“Is the baby all right?”
“Kicking up a storm.”
She nodded and turned her attention toward Jake. “Are you all right?” she said.
“Junior, I didn’t mean for—” he said. “I didn’t know what Mark had—”
“Jake, I don’t know what all happened in there or what’s been going on between you and Mark. With him gone, I might never find out for sure. What happens next is up to you.”
She and he looked at each other for a long moment, their faces transformed into angles and shadows by the light of the burning building behind us.
Finally Jake spoke. “I always told my boy to tell the truth, and now it’s time for me to act the way I taught him to.”
She held up one finger, and said, “Let me say something first. Jake Murdstone, you have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right …” She went through the rest of the Miranda warning. “Now go ahead, if you still want to.”
He took
a deep breath. “Chief Norton, I’d like to confess to the murder of my father, Seth Murdstone.”
Chapter 37
If anybody had been watching the Murdstone house from above that night, it would have looked like nothing so much as an ant hill that’s been stirred up with a stick. Junior held off on arresting Jake until he could take a hose to the still burning workshop while she used her cell phone to call the fire department. Then she called her brother Trey, and since it would have been awkward for either of them to be in charge of the crime scene, he brought along the county police.
Meanwhile, I went inside to use the phone to call Richard at the recreation center, where dress rehearsal had just ended. He hightailed it over to the house, pushed past the county police, who were trying their best to secure the scene, and grabbed hold of me. He kept asking if I was all right, if the baby was all right, and though I insisted that we were, he said he wanted a doctor to look at me immediately.
Dr. Connelly, the medical examiner, had just arrived, so he postponed examining Mark Pope’s body in order to check me out. Since Dr. Connelly had a general practice in addition to his duties as medical examiner, it wasn’t as grim as it sounded. He confirmed what I’d told Richard, though he sternly ordered me to eat a hot dinner and get a good night’s sleep, and suggested that I avoid attacking armed men with my pocketbook.
I guess the rumors started when Richard tore out of the recreation center, because it wasn’t long before David and Florence showed up. I wasn’t there when David found out what really happened to his father. Nobody was, other than David and Jake. Junior put them into a room alone and let them work it out for themselves. Whatever was said, when they came out, David had his arm around his little brother’s shoulders, as if to protect him from the world. Florence took one look and announced that she would be representing her brother-in-law.
One of the county officers took my statement, and once that was done, Junior came over long enough to give me the abandoned contents of my pocketbook, and to tell Richard and me to leave. I wanted to hug her, but I figured she wouldn’t want anybody to see. Darned if she didn’t hug me instead.
Richard and I drove slowly out of the Murdstone’s driveway, partly because of all the police cars and such parked along it, and partly because Richard wanted to hold my hand. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have noticed the man sitting in a car in the back of the line.
We pulled up alongside, and I rolled down my window while the driver of the other car did the same.
“Tim? Is that you?”
“Laurie Anne, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“I heard somebody was shot.”
“Mark Pope. He’s dead.”
“Jake?”
“He’s fine.” I hesitated, but knew it was better for him to know. “Jake killed your father, Tim.” I quickly explained what I knew. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. I just wish … I guess it doesn’t matter now. Thanks for telling me.”
“You take care,” I said.
We left him sitting there alone.
I talked Richard into going through the drive-through at Hardee’s on the way back to Aunt Maggie’s, which was silly. Half the Burnette family was waiting for us, and of course Aunt Nora had brought more food than even I could eat. She plucked the Hardee’s bag out of my hand and made me sit down to a real meal.
Richard wanted to put me to bed as soon as I’d swallowed the last bite of apple pie, but I stayed awake long enough to tell everybody what had happened. Then I went to sleep, knowing that they’d spread the word to any family members who weren’t there—not to mention the rest of the town.
Richard wanted me to stay in bed the next day and even volunteered to stay with me, but I promised to take it easy and shooed him off so he could go to the recreation center. Otherwise, he probably would have exploded. He was so excited, he was nearly vibrating. Though there was no rehearsal, he had plenty of things to do to get ready.
To Richard’s immense relief, David and Florence were still going to play their roles, and everybody pitched in to take over Jake’s job. Though Oliver tried not to show it, he was clearly delighted that he was going to get to say the charity collector’s lines.
Come curtain time, I’d expected Richard to stay backstage where he could issue last-minute instructions, but instead he was sitting next to me in the front row. Admittedly, he was holding my hand a little too tightly for the first few minutes, but eventually he relaxed, and I think he honestly enjoyed the show. I know I did, and I cried at the end when the audience gave a standing ovation. Richard nearly cried, too, when the cast and crew presented him with a copy of The Annotated Christmas Carol, inscribed by everybody.
The play was a huge success. There were so many curtain calls over the three-night run that, assuming one night out a week, Aunt Maggie was going to be eating dinners with Big Bill Walters for the next two months.
Vasti was ecstatic, both because of adding another feather to her cap and because Sally’s Holiday Follies turned out to be all too appropriately named. Apparently, Sally had caught Bitsy’s cold the day she came over to torment Vasti, and had managed to give it to half the people in her show, meaning that she had to cancel some of the best acts at the last minute. Dorcas Walters caught it, too, but refused to stay home, and her voice gave out in the middle of her dramatic reading of A Visit from St. Nicholas. She blamed Sally for the humiliation, which was hardly fair, but Vasti didn’t mind.
Especially when it came out that Sally really had been playing practical jokes. Not the dangerous ones, but she had set up the merely annoying pranks, and she’d been the one to leave the boxes of costumes outside the recreation center after all. When she saw Mark Pope as she was driving away, she thought he’d seen her, but since nothing ever happened, she decided she’d gotten lucky. Still, it had scared her enough to make her stop playing pranks.
It turned out that Mark had seen her. He told Jake he was going to start playing jokes himself, and that was when they turned nasty. He’d gotten a skeleton key for the building and set up some of the pranks at night, and arranged others while supposedly investigating Seth’s murder. As Vasti had suspected, the tricks really were intended to stop the show or, failing that, to distract Junior and me.
But Vasti wouldn’t cancel the show, and Junior and I wouldn’t stop investigating. Mark was afraid we were getting close, which was why he’d followed us to the mall that day. Then he realized that I might have seen him when he rigged the scenery flat to fall. He’d been afraid all along that Junior was suspicious, so he decided the only way to protect himself was to kill Jake. At some point in his dealings with Seth, he’d gotten a key to their house, and he knew that Jake had been drinking heavily since his father’s death. All he had to do was wait for Jake to pass out, and then sneak in to turn the gas on.
When that didn’t work, he planned to booby-trap the Murdstone still, but he ran into Junior on his way there. It wasn’t until a week or so later that his car was found nearby, hidden in some bushes. Scrooge’s cane, the one Jake used to kill Seth, was in the trunk. Junior might never have found it had it not been for an anonymous phone call. I guessed Clara Todger was practicing her peculiar brand of civic-mindedness again.
At any rate, it’s hard to know exactly what Mark meant to do that night at the Murdstone house. Junior, who’d still been conscious at the time, said he’d been mighty surprised when Jake arrived, so he’d probably planned to set a trap that would kill both of them. Thinking on his feet, he’d convinced Jake that Junior was his only target, but when Jake balked, he went back to the original plan. At least, until my pocketbook and I interfered.
As Vasti had hoped, Tim Topper invited the cast to Pigwick’s for a party following the last performance. After I happily ate a heaping plate of pulled pork and hush puppies, Richard and I called Tim over to talk.
First, of course, Richard and Tim had to congratulate themselves.
“Richard, I don’t think I’ve eve
r had as much fun in my life as doing that play. I don’t mean to downplay the bad parts, but as soon as that curtain went up, all of that went away.”
“You did a terrific job,” Richard said.
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“No, you had the part down cold, and the stage presence is yours alone.”
“Thanks, but you—”
“You were both great,” I interjected. “Awesome, wonderful, incredible, amazing, whatever adjectives y’all want to use.”
“Sorry,” Richard said. “ ‘He that is proud eats up himself; pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle.’ ”
“Great Expectations?” Tim asked.
“Troilus and Cressida. Act Two, Scene Three.” With the play over, Richard had happily gone back to his usual source of quotes.
“I wouldn’t mind trying out some Shakespeare, too, if you’ll come back to direct,” Tim said. “Maybe Othello. I think I’ve got greasepaint in my blood.”
Before they could start patting each other on the back again, I said, “Actually, it’s your blood I wanted to ask about. Have you told the Murdstones yet?”
“I didn’t think it was the right time, Laurie Anne—not with Jake’s situation and all the talk about Seth. The last thing they need is to have an illegitimate brother showing up.”
“Then again,” I said, “it might do them good to have more family around right about now. You can’t have too many shoulders to lean on.”
“You think?”
“Yes, I do. Besides,” I said with a grin, “at this point, you’re the white sheep in the family.”
Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 07 - Mad as the Dickens Page 25
