Stranded

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Did Chris make a fortune on the oil stocks?”

  “Unfortunately, he’d received some bad information, and the stock tanked. But he’d have put the money back eventually anyway.”

  So, when Hiram wanted his money and couldn’t get it, Chris had hastily made up that phony story about a bank scam, which hadn’t satisfied Hiram for long. “And Hiram intended to expose what Chris had done, so you had to kill him.”

  “It would have destroyed Chris’s life! I couldn’t let that happen. Could you, if it were your son?”

  I’d have figured out an alternative to murder, that’s for sure. “You set the fire at the house too?”

  She frowned. “No, that was Chris’s idea. I really didn’t approve. But he didn’t plan to kill you and Abilene, you know. He’s … squeamish that way. He figured you’d get out. He just wanted to destroy the house. He really thought there might be a secret room where Hiram had hidden the letters.”

  “But Chris wasn’t squeamish about letting you commit murder for him,” I pointed out.

  “He didn’t know about it until after Hiram was dead.” Ever the protective mother.

  “How did you get Hiram up there to the third floor?”

  “I knew he was thinking about selling the house after he and Lucinda were married.” She was still breathing hard from the exertion of dragging me, and she paused, hand on her chest, to take in a deep breath. Probably she wouldn’t be carrying on this conversation if she hadn’t needed a rest from the hard labor of dragging me. All work and no play, if you’re a murderess. “I told him I’d like to list it and asked if I could see the view from the third floor so I could use that in promoting the sale.”

  “Did you try to talk him out of revealing what Chris had done?”

  “He’d already made plain to Chris that his mind was made up. He didn’t even know I knew about the missing money.”

  “And you hit him with … ?”

  “A salami.” She smiled, seeming quite pleased to share this bit of creativity with me. “My idiot ‘secret sister’ in the Historical Society gave it to me last year. The ugly thing must have been a foot and a half long. As if I’d ever eat garbage like that! So I froze it, and it came in quite handy.”

  Yes, several pounds of frozen salami might indeed make a formidable weapon. And it had been easily concealed in Charlotte’s oversized purse, of course.

  “Afterward I just let it thaw out and put it through the garbage disposal.” She still sounded pleased with herself, but she suddenly jabbed me with the baseball bat. “Get up. We’re wasting time. I didn’t think you’d regain consciousness so soon. But since you did, you can walk the rest of the way.”

  Walk to the elevator shaft, where she intended to shove me to my death in a fall to the basement level. She was on a roll with this hit-and-shove murder system. No need to change tactics now. Her breathing was almost back to normal.

  Lord, I need some help here!

  As with so many times in my life, I was totally dependent on him. Would he send a contingent of angels to whisk me off to safety? Probably not. But he wouldn’t abandon me, of that I was certain.

  So what now, Lord? A nice verse from Psalms surfaced: “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” Okay, Lord, I’m afraid, but I’m trusting in you.

  Delay. Stall. Procrastinate.

  I blinked. Really? Not the words you expect to hear from an all-powerful Lord, but, as the old saying goes, the Lord works in mysterious ways. I put on my best chatty demeanor. “You and I were alone up here during last night’s performance. Why didn’t you do this then?”

  “A dead body here in the hotel would have ruined tonight’s show.” She sounded shocked that I’d even consider such a thing. “I didn’t want that to happen.”

  Right. The show must go on. I’d thought that too, and now here I was, facing a murderer with a baseball bat.

  “Tonight it won’t matter,” she added. “The show will be over before the body is found. Everything will work out fine. In fact, with luck, the body may not be found for days.”

  The body. Hey, we’re talking about me here. And I might add that her definition of “fine” differed considerably from mine.

  “Maybe the fall won’t kill me. I’ll be lying down there groaning and moaning, and everyone will hear me.”

  “I doubt that. The fall should do it. But if not, the crowd going out is always so noisy they’ll never hear a thing.” But she frowned, apparently not as certain of that as she’d like to be. She picked the bat up and examined it as if checking to see if it would fit an LOL. “I don’t want to use this, but I will if I have to.”

  Great. I’d just convinced her she’d better bash me with the baseball bat after all.

  “Women don’t kill people with baseball bats,” I protested. “Haven’t you read enough mysteries to know that? Women use more … ladylike methods.” Although I had to admit that probably didn’t apply to a woman who’d already used a salami.

  No response to that. I tried another approach. “Don’t you think the authorities are going to wonder what I was doing way down at the far end of the hall?” I added. “And how I happened to fall into the shaft?”

  “Everyone knows how nosy you are. And everyone knows, too, how older people get addled and lose their sense of direction and balance. Especially after you knocked that chest of drawers over on yourself.”

  Epitaph: Here lies Ivy Malone. She had a bad sense of direction.

  New tactic. “Maybe I’ve already told someone about the letters.”

  “No, you wouldn’t do that without the letters in hand to prove it. And you don’t have them, I do.” She sounded smugly victorious, quite sure of herself. She gave me another jab with the bat to hurry me along. “C’mon, get up.”

  “I can’t walk,” I muttered. I wasn’t certain of that, but I was certainly feeling shaky enough, with all this talk about my imminent demise. I also didn’t feel obliged to make some big effort just to simplify things for her. I kept my thong-clad bottom obstinately planted on the carpet.

  The thought occurred to me that surely carpet fibers would show up on my slacks when my body was found. “You can’t get away with this, you know,” I warned.

  “We’ll see.”

  “Hey, Ivy, you up here?”

  Charlotte and I both jumped at the sound of Mac’s voice from the head of the stairs. Charlotte dropped the bat. It rolled down the uneven hallway. For a moment I thought that meant she realized she was caught and was ready to surrender. I was mistaken. The well-equipped murderer always has a backup weapon, a weapon far more deadly than a bat, and she was no exception. A gun, suddenly pulled from a pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. No doubt brought to the performance in that carry-everything purse.

  Mac’s head appeared at the far end of the hall. Charlotte lifted the gun, desperation on her face. I could read her thoughts: Okay, two bodies down the elevator shaft! So what if it was obviously murder … Worry about that later!

  Any ideas, Lord?

  Advice from the Lord, perhaps filtered through a TV ad: just do it.

  I braced my hands on the hall carpet, lifted my legs, and swung, spinning on my bottom. I caught her in the shins, the blow ricocheting through my own legs up to my already battered head. She oofed and went down, face first. The gun flew out of reach down the hallway. Thank you, Lord!

  “Mac!” I screamed.

  I could go after the bat …

  No, she’d surely beat me to it. And she surely wouldn’t hesitate to use it on Mac as well as me. I scrambled on my hands and knees and went after Charlotte instead. I plopped in the middle of her back. She oofed again. I really am putting on weight. But I wasn’t heavy enough to keep her down, and her back rose under me like a bucking bronc. I hung on with one fist and pounded the top of her head with the other.

  Footsteps thundered to a halt a few feet in front of the two of us. “Ivy, what’s going on?” Mac asked, his tone aghast. “What are you doing?”

  “She
killed Hiram. She was trying to kill me! Grab the baseball bat.”

  Mac, bless him, didn’t ask for confirming details. He grabbed the bat. I slid off Charlotte’s back.

  Charlotte swung around to a sitting position. I retrieved my lost shoe, then stood up a little unsteadily and used a tissue to pick up the gun. Mac held out his hand, and I gave it to him. In a minimum of words I told him about embezzlement, murder, and attempted murder.

  Charlotte started to get up, but Mac’s gesture with the bat changed her mind. “This is all a terrible misunderstanding,” she said.

  “We’ll see what the police think. Ivy, perhaps you could go call them?”

  I headed for the stairs. Behind me I heard Charlotte say, “You wouldn’t really use that bat on me. You’re surely too much of a gentleman for that.”

  “Try me,” Mac returned cheerfully. “And I now have a gun too.”

  Downstairs, Stella was onstage in the beaded black dress, purse in hand, belting out “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue.” I doubted now that Stella had ever been missing a purse. That was just another of Charlotte’s “minor deceptions” to get me up to the third floor.

  I’d have to find someone with a cell phone because there wasn’t a regular phone in the old hotel. I knew there were probably deputies right here in the audience, but I didn’t know any of them. Then, remembering who I’d spotted earlier, I scooted down the aisle and tapped Fire Chief Burman on the shoulder.

  “Emergency,” I whispered. He followed me up to the lobby, where I gave him a quick rundown on the situation. He went back into the audience and collected two out-of-uniform deputies. We all trooped upstairs as the chorus line swung into their final number. A few members of the audience were obviously curious, but there was no big uproar.

  And, as I spelled out the details, the police didn’t seem to think this was all just a terrible misunderstanding.

  29

  “Are you going to be okay with this?” I asked.

  Kelli draped a tablecloth over the card table pushed up against the dining table. With seven for dinner, we needed more space. This farewell get-together for Magnolia and Geoff had been Kelli’s idea, but I wasn’t so sure we should have gone ahead with it.

  “I’m fine.”

  Kelli didn’t look fine. The revelations about both Chris and Charlotte had hit her like a world collapsing around her. Shadows smudged her eyes, and her jeans hung loose at the waist. She wasn’t acknowledging yet that she believed them guilty, perhaps because memory of the town’s hasty jump to conclusions about her was still fresh in her mind. Or perhaps because of the straightforward loyalty of her character and her strong belief in “innocent until proven guilty.”

  But neither, I knew, could she disbelieve my account of what Charlotte had said and what she’d tried to do to me, an account underlined by a body rife with scrapes and bruises from the overturned chest of drawers, plus carpet burns on my slacks. (To say nothing of carpet burns underneath my slacks, thanks to that now-discarded thong.) Nor could she disregard the fact that a police search of Charlotte’s house had turned up the incriminating letters from the bank. I was surprised that she hadn’t already burned them, but criminals make mistakes.

  “Did you go down to Hayward today?” I asked. That was where Chris and Charlotte were being held. So far neither had been released on bail. I opened the oven and basted the ham again. Kelli started putting plates on the table. Abilene had gotten home late from work and was still in the shower.

  “I saw Chris. Charlotte refused to see me. Chris said their lawyers are going for plea bargains, which would mean an agreed-upon sentence without going to trial.” She swallowed. “He admitted to me today he was the one who broke into the house shortly after Hiram was killed. He was looking for those letters. He had a key, but he broke in so it would look like an outsider did it.” Another rough swallow. “He used the key when he went in to set the fire.”

  “What do you think about the plea bargains?”

  “They’ll both get prison sentences, a much longer one for Charlotte. But, I think, under the circumstances, it’s probably the best course of action. They can probably do better with plea bargains than with a jury.” She spoke in a neutral, lawyerly tone as she gave a neutral, lawyerly opinion. But she blinked, cutting off tears, and briskly changed the subject. “I went by the house today. The workmen have the back side all boarded up now.”

  “Have you decided to rebuild the addition?” I checked the scalloped potatoes. I’d sprinkle grated cheese on top a few minutes before they came out of the oven.

  “No, I’m going to let it go. I’m going to donate the antiques and the carousel horses to the Historical Society and let them do whatever they want with them. Then I’ll put the house up for sale in the spring.” She gave me the ghost of one of her mischievous smiles. “Want to buy it? I’m willing to let it go at a bargain price, with excellent terms.”

  She wasn’t asking the question seriously, and the idea of my buying the place was surely out of the question. And yet …

  A knock sounded at the door, and I went to open it. I was expecting Mac and the Margollins, or Dr. Sugarman, so I stared in surprise at Lucinda.

  “Am I interrupting something?” she asked. Over my shoulder she could undoubtedly see the table set for dinner.

  “No! We’re having a little farewell doings for my friends from Arizona, but no one’s here yet. Come on in.” I didn’t like the way that came out, as if, if anyone had been here, she wouldn’t be welcome. I pulled her inside and closed the door behind her. “We’d love to have you stay for dinner. There’s plenty of food. And raspberry cheesecake for dessert.”

  “That sounds lovely, but thanks, no. I’m on my way to the health club to get going on my karate lessons again. I missed them when we were working so hard on the Revue. What I came for …” She pulled out what she’d been holding behind her. “I was down at the hotel gathering things up backstage and came across Mac’s rope. I wanted to give it back to him. I thought he might be leaving before long.”

  “The rope! I guess in all the, um, excitement we forgot all about it.” I certainly had, and apparently Mac had too. “Actually, it’s Dr. Sugarman’s rope. He’ll be here later, and we’ll give it to him.”

  “Okay. Good. And tell Mac again how much I appreciate his wonderful performance. Maybe he’ll come back again next year?”

  “Will there be a Revue next year?”

  “Yes,” she said with surprising conviction. “I figure I’m good for another show or two after all. We may have to move it to some location other than the hotel, but I’ll start working on that right away. And we’ll need a good props person too.”

  “I’m glad to hear the show will go on.” I wondered if she knew about KaySue. I guess I’ll never know for certain. I’m certainly not going to tell her.

  “Ivy, I also want to say how much I admire how you handled such a dangerous situation. If I’d had any idea that Charlotte …” She shook her head as if she still couldn’t quite believe what Charlotte had done to Hiram or to me.

  “I asked the Lord for help, and he gave it.”

  She nodded. “I figured that. Well, I’ll be going.”

  I touched her arm. “Stay. Please do. We’d love to have you.”

  Again she shook her head. “No, but I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  Sunday. I tried to remember. Had we some leftover details to finish up at the hotel?

  She smiled. “You’ll be in church, won’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So I’ll see you then. I’ve been thinking about you … and everything … and decided I was a bit premature in giving up on God and prayer. He never gave up on me, and I finally realized it’s harder to believe prayer doesn’t change things than to believe that it does.”

  Right. I gave her a hug. “See you Sunday.”

  Mac and the Margollins arrived just as Lucinda was pulling out of the driveway. Dr. Sugarman came a few minutes later, and then our farewell
celebration got into high gear. Kelli was reserved, of course, and once I caught a farewell sadness in her eyes that I suspected had nothing to do with Magnolia and Geoff, but she was careful not to put a damper on anyone else’s fun.

  With sparkling apple juice, she even managed a toast to them. “To Magnolia and Geoff, new friends of some of us, old friends to others. Come back to us soon.”

  “How about you, Mac?” Magnolia said after Kelli sat down. “What are your plans now?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  Magnolia isn’t easily detoured. “About what?”

  “Oh, I might head for warmer country and do a couple of Arizona articles my editors want. I might head for Montana and play with my grandkids in the snow. Or I’m also thinking Hello might not be a bad place to settle down. I could go out and do some gold panning with ol’ Norman.” He gave me a sideways glance. “Like I said, I’m thinking.”

  Magnolia turned to me. “And the two of you?”

  “Our motor home should have the new engine installed within the next couple of days. I talked to Nick today, and he said he’d gotten the okay to take it out of the wrecked motor home.”

  “Actually, Abilene won’t be leaving Hello,” Dr. Sugarman said.

  I looked at her. She didn’t say anything, but she was blushing and glowing all at the same time.

  “I guess this is as good a time as any to announce our plans. We’re getting married at Mountain Community Church next month.” He smiled. “And I think it’s going to work. She’s finally calling me Mike instead of Dr. Sugarman.”

  Then we were all congratulating both of them, and Magnolia was saying maybe they’d be coming back from Missouri about the time of the wedding, but finally the question got back to me. Magnolia asked it. “So, with the motor home engine fixed, what are you going to do now?”