She stopped abruptly and knelt beside me. “Oh, no! Tori, you're the best friend I have in the whole world.” She seized my hand and rubbed her face with it. “I wouldn't really have hurt your cat. It was just that you were asking so many questions, and I knew it was only a matter of time before you remembered me serving cider to Bernice. And once you'd read Oretta's play, I was sure you'd figure the whole thing out. I only wanted to scare you so you'd go back to New York.”
Ginnie got to her feet and walked over to the fireplace. With her back to me, she said, “I need to go home for about half an hour. Put some things in order. Then I promise I'll go to the police station and turn myself in. Will you give me that time?”
I no longer feared her. I believed her when she said I was her best friend. But I was grappling with a new worry, Raymond Zook's safety. According to what I read, he had nearly as much to do with Eddie's death as Oretta. If I let Ginnie go off alone and she killed him, it would be my fault.
“I can't let you go,” I said.
As if she could read my mind, Ginnie said, “I'm through killing, Tori. I'll never hurt anyone again.”
I shook my head. “I'm sorry.”
She spun around, and I had only a brief moment to notice the light reflecting off the poker in her hand before she swung it at my head. It connected with my skull with a horrible crack I'll never forget, and I collapsed in a blur of pain. I might have lost consciousness for a minute or two.
A red haze covered my eyes. Blood! I swiped at it. Tried to wipe it away. I was afraid I'd bleed to death before I could get help. I pulled the quilted tea cozy off the teapot and pressed it against my head as hard as I could to try and stop the flow.
The front door slammed. “Ginnie,” I called weakly. “You'll never get away.” I knew she couldn't hear me. Not through the door. Not over the storm. I struggled to my feet. By the time I staggered to the front hall, what I'd dreaded for weeks came to pass. The front-porch roof caved in with a splintering crash. I pulled the door open, only to find my way completely blocked by the fallen roof.
A car engine roared to life out front. Ginnie drove a four-wheel-drive vehicle, like most of the people I knew in Lickin Creek, so she'd have little trouble getting through the snow. Was she going home? Or was she, after all, going to kill Raymond Zook? Whatever she had planned, I knew I had to follow her.
In the kitchen, I checked my wound in the mirror on the hall tree. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared, and I recalled someone telling me that even small head wounds bleed profusely. The pressure from the tea cozy had stopped the worst of the bleeding. I rinsed some of the blood off my face, put on my heaviest parka, and went out into the stormy night.
The truck engine leaped to life when I turned the key. God bless that battery manufacturer! I drove around to the front of the house, where the tire tracks left by Gin-nie's car in the snow were easily visible.
Just as I feared, the tracks didn't lead to Ginnie's driveway, but continued to the highway. She wasn't going home. At the Moon Lake gate, I could tell she'd skidded a little as she pulled out onto the main road. I did, too. Because it had been cleared at least once, the snow wasn't as deep as it had been on the development's roads, but under the several inches of fresh snow there was now a solid sheet of ice.
The windshield wiper strived valiantly to remove the heavy snow, but it fought a losing battle. I was left with only a small hole to peer through, and I worried about losing the trail Ginnie left. Several times, the truck slid sideways. If I went off the road, I'd probably freeze to death before anyone found me. I gripped the wheel tightly and tried to remember what I'd heard about driving in snow. What came into my head was “stay off the roads.” Too late for that now, I thought.
After driving for a very long time, I realized we weren't heading toward town, because even at five miles an hour we should have been there already. I had no idea where I was. All I could see through the front window was a small area of snow-white road illuminated by my headlights. The rest of the world was black.
The snow hitting the windshield had a hypnotic effect. It seemed as though the truck were no longer on the road but was flying through space. I was completely alone in the world. Maybe even out of this world, somewhere in another dimension. I plowed on, until I suddenly realized the tire marks I had been following had vanished.
I managed to get the truck turned around, even though I twice backed into a snowdrift that tried to hold me captive.
After a few minutes, I picked up the tracks again, although by now they were nearly obliterated by the driven snow. Ginnie had turned onto a nearly invisible side road.
Gritting my teeth, I said a little prayer—there must be a patron saint for fools—and drove in the ruts Ginnie's car had created. It was barely more than a trail, but the driving wasn't too bad because there was less snow than I would have expected. I realized the trees that nearly met overhead must have sheltered the road from the worst of the storm.
Ginnie's car was stopped up ahead with the lights still on and the driver's side door open. I pulled up behind it and wondered what I should do next. I'd only followed her to prevent her from killing Raymond Zook. I hadn't thought about being trapped in the woods with her. My painful head wound was evidence that she was dangerous.
I slowly realized her car was empty, that there were footprints leading away from it. Where was she going? Where were we? In the back, I found a long metal tool I suspected was useful when changing a tire. It wasn't much, but it could be some protection if Ginnie tried to attack me again.
I followed the footprints deep into the woods. Just when I thought I was lost forever, the forest disappeared, and I stood on the edge of a vast white field. A lightning strike nearby illuminated the area long enough for me to see a hill on the far side of the field and realize I'd been here before. Beyond that hill was the quarry where Eddie Douglas's body had been found.
Sheet lightning, accompanied by nonstop rumbling, lit the night sky as brightly as if it were high noon. One flash came quickly after another. The eerie light allowed me to see a trail in the snow, leading across the field and up the side of the hill, and I knew Ginnie had gone that way. As the lightning once again illuminated the area, I saw a black figure silhouetted against the sky at the top of the hill.
“Ginnie,” I cried. “Come back. It's too dangerous …” My words were swept away in the howling wind.
When the lightning flared again, she was gone.
CHAPTER 24
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
THROUGH THE KNEE-HIGH SNOW I PUSHED, following the tracks Ginnie had left in the snow, until I reached the edge of the quarry. There, the trail ended.
I called her name a few times, although I knew it was useless. Ginnie had chosen to die, like her brother, in the dark, cold waters of the quarry.
I struggled back to the truck, got it turned around, and drove as fast as I dared to the highway. As I attempted to pull onto the main road, the truck skidded on the ice. I gripped the wheel helplessly as I slid sideways across the road and down an embankment on the other side. Thanks to the seat belt, I wasn't hurt, but Garnet's truck groaned pitifully once and died.
The damn door was stuck. I couldn't get out. I'd probably freeze to death in an hour. I vented my frustration by pounding on the window with my fist. It hurt me a lot more than it hurt the truck. The door suddenly flew open, and I nearly tumbled out.
“Whoa, miss,” a man said. “You okay?”
“I am now,” I gasped to the man who had caught me.
“Geez, lady, you're hurt bad.” He was gazing at my wounded forehead.
“It's just a flesh wound.” I grabbed the tea cozy and applied pressure.
“What in God's name were you doing driving on a night like this?” he asked.
“It's a long story. What are you doing on the road?”
“I'm a trucker. Trying to get home to West Virginia for Christmas. Thought I could beat the storm. Can I take you to a hospital?”
I sho
ok my head, a motion that caused so much pain I resolved not to do it again for a long time. “Just drop me off in Lickin Creek, please.”
“It's right on my way. Come on.” He gave me a boost into the cab of his eighteen-wheeler.
The truck barreled down the highway as if there were neither snow nor ice outside. High up in the cab, protected from the storm, I fully understood the meaning of the song “King of the Road.”
He dropped me off at the small brick ranch house Luscious Miller shared with his widowed mother. “Merry Christmas,” he called, after making sure someone was there to let me in.
Luscious, in blue flannel pajamas decorated with red fire engines, opened the door. As I passed by him, I sniffed discreetly and was relieved not to smell alcohol on his breath. We sat in his small living room, and he listened carefully as I told him what had happened. “Give me two minutes to get dressed,” he said and disappeared down the hall.
In a minute and a half, he was back. Since the phone lines were down, the only way we could round up a search-and-rescue team was to physically go after them. We started at the Lickin Creek volunteer fire department, where we interrupted a poker game. The officer in charge sent one of his men to get the dive team. The EMTs were ready to go immediately. Not one person complained about having to go out in the “storm of the century.”
Luscious led the procession to the quarry in his own four-wheel-drive vehicle. Bringing up the rear was Henry Hoopengartner, the coroner. It took the divers only a few minutes to find Ginnie's body.
It was daylight when Luscious drove me home. The storm had passed, leaving massive devastation in its wake. Barns had collapsed, trees were down, and roofs were ripped off. The manger scene in the square had been completely destroyed, but instead of looking upset the people cleaning up the mess looked as cheerful as if they were at a block party. There's nothing like a natural disaster to pull people together!
I was relieved to find my house still standing, minus the front porch, of course. “Come in and have some coffee,” I suggested.
“I'd like that,” he said.
The house was like an ice box. “My cats! I hope they're all right.”
“They've got fur coats on.” Luscious laughed.
They came running in to greet us when they heard our voices. Luscious endeared himself to me forever by picking up Fred and saying, “What a nice big boy he is.”
I found an old-fashioned coffee pot and managed to get it working. While I was occupied with that task, Luscious disappeared.
“Luscious, where are you?” I called.
“In the living room.”
He was on his knees before the fireplace. “Thought I'd take the chill off for you,” he said. “Good thing you thought to bring in all this wood.”
His knobby spine strained against his shirt. I hadn't realized he was so skinny. “I'll fix us something to eat,” I said.
“Thanks. I could use something.”
In New York I would have run down to the deli on the corner, but that was impossible in Lickin Creek. With what I'd learned from watching Praxythea in the kitchen, I managed to put together a rather good-looking breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast. I even sliced some of the “world's best fruitcake,” laid it on a plate, and added some of Praxythea's crescent cookies.
I piled everything on an enormous silver tray commemorating Queen Elizabeth's coronation and carried it out to the living room. We pulled chairs in front of the fire and ate ravenously.
When I came back with fresh coffee, I found Luscious holding the package Ginnie had left for me. “It says ‘To My Best Friend, Tori, from Ginnie.’”
“Go ahead and open it.”
He stripped off the plastic wrapper and opened the box. “It looks like a manuscript. And there's an envelope on top with your name on it.”
“It's a copy of Oretta's play.” I took it from Luscious. “Hard to believe this innocuous pile of paper caused three deaths.” I opened the envelope and through tears that nearly blinded me read Ginnie's letter out loud.
Dear Tori,
By the time you read this, I will have joined Eddie. I should never have let him go off by himself that day. At least now he won't be alone anymore. I am glad, glad, glad that Oretta's dead. She deserved whatever she got. But Bernice didn't, and I'm sorry about that. I was afraid to try poison again after that horrible mix-up. That's why I “borrowed” a gun from that old lech Cletus. When it nearly blew her head off, I knew I couldn't go on with my plan to kill Raymond Zook. He'll never know how lucky he was.
You have been a good friend, Tori, and I would never hurt you. Please remember me with kindness.
Eugenia (Ginnie) Welburn.
The knot on my head throbbed, evidence that she would have and did hurt me. But I still wanted to believe she struck me in desperation, to give her time to get to the quarry, and not because she meant to harm me.
Luscious handed me his handkerchief, which I used without even checking to see if it was clean.
“It looks like she intended to drown herself in the quarry from the beginning,” he said.
I nodded.
“When did you realize she was the killer?” he asked.
“Last night, at Greta's Christmas Eve party when Uncle Zeke drank out of Greta's glass by mistake, it reminded me that at the first rehearsal Oretta had absent-mindedly drunk from the goblet. Bernice complained to Oretta, and they agreed Bernice would drink from the Goblet of Life at the next rehearsal, just as she was supposed to. As I thought about everything that went on, I recalled Ginnie had been passing out cookies and cider at both rehearsals. It would have been easy for her to place a cup of poisoned cider on the pedestal without anyone noticing. But I still didn't suspect her because she didn't seem to have any reason to kill Bernice. She hardly even knew her.
“But as I came to realize that Bernice wasn't the intended victim, I knew the answer had to lie with Oretta. When I read Death in the Afternoon, I discovered the motive. The names of the children who had been involved in Eddie's death were changed ever so slightly, but still recognizable. Oretta became Loretta Klinger.”
Luscious said, “Her maiden name was Singer.”
“And Raymond Zook was Richard Shook. What she didn't bother to change was the name of the victim, Eddie Douglas, or the name of his twin sister, Eugenia, better known to the other kids as Ginnie. I remembered Ginnie commiserating with me when I said I got upset about people calling me Victoria because that isn't my name. She said she hated it when people called her Virginia. That was because Ginnie's nickname wasn't short for Virginia, but Eugenia.”
Luscious interrupted. “I thought your name was Victoria.”
“It's Tori. I was named for the gateway to a Shinto shrine on Okinawa where my mother went to pray for a baby. It should have ended with a double i, but Mother was never any good at spelling.”
“Interesting. Sorry. Go on.”
“After reading the play, I realized Ginnie had a motive—and it was revenge for the death of her twin brother, or retribution, if you want to call it that, on the woman who was responsible. It must have come as a terrible shock when she read that play. She'd been made to feel such guilt by her mother. When she learned the circumstances of his death—that the children could have saved him, or at least told where he was so his body could have been recovered—she snapped.”
“I don't understand why she burned Oretta's house down. She must have known it wouldn't cover her crime.”
“The fire wasn't meant to cover anything. She wanted to destroy Oretta's computer and all copies of the play.
She realized if anyone else read it, they'd start looking at her as a suspect. Just as I did.”
“Were there other reasons you suspected her—before you read the play?”
“There were. Three days ago, I visited Cletus Wilson.” I couldn't help laughing at Luscious's expression. “It wasn't a date. I went over to ask him some questions. He took me downstairs to his shooting range and showed me h
ow to use a gun similar to the one used to kill Oretta. Cletus said he took all his ‘girlfriends’ shooting. Ginnie had mentioned she'd gone over to his house for a drink and had barely escaped with her ‘girlish virtue’ intact. That, and the fact that she lived in the neighborhood and knew about the location of the hidden door in the basement, started me thinking about her. I guess she must have decided to steal a gun rather than buy one and risk being identified.”
“Do you think she broke into your house, too?”
“I'm sure of it. She came in the same way through the basement. She suspected Oretta had brought over a copy of her play the day she brought me the iguana to take care of. But she didn't find it, because Oretta had hidden it under Icky's terrarium, in hopes that when I found it my curiosity would get the better of me and I'd read it.”
“And the bean-bag kitty?”
“She wanted to scare me. She feared with all the investigating I was doing that I was getting close.” I felt tears on my cheeks. “Damn,” I muttered into Luscious's handkerchief. “I wish I'd had a chance to tell her I understood. I wish I could have helped her.”
“Remember what she did, Tori. Murder is the most horrible of all crimes.”
What I did remember was the disintegration of my own family after my brother's death. And the guilt I'd carried ever since. How would I feel if I suddenly learned someone else had been responsible and had let me take the blame? And if my parents had killed each other over it instead of dissolving their marriage, I knew I'd feel even more remorse. Even worse things had happened to Ginnie as a child as the result of her brother's death. Although I couldn't justify what she did, I could understand it.
“I should have read the play as soon as Oretta described it as being ‘like The Bad Seed, only better,’” I said. “I might have stopped this from happening.”
“What's The Bad Seed?”
“It was a play written in the fifties by Maxwell Anderson, about a charming little child murderess. In the play, she got away with her evil deeds, but in the 1956 film version I saw on TV, the kid got hit by lightning at the end. A neat Hollywood way of resolving the problem of how to punish an adorable eight-year-old killer.
Death, Snow, and Mistletoe Page 26
