by Junie Coffey
“Although, as it turns out, Amber and I really hit it off when I stopped in to visit her on my way down here. In fact, she gave me the wine as a parting gift. Yes, we had a very nice chat over a couple of dusty old bottles of Italian red we found in your climate-controlled wine cellar.”
Philip squeaked again.
“Yes, it went down like a dream. Turns out we have a lot in common, me and Amber. A word to the wise. Don’t count on your keys working in the lock on your front door when you get back. But, of course, you won’t be needing them, anyway. I’ve decided. This is the end of the line for you, Philip. If you want to know, it’s that ridiculous seersucker suit that tipped the scale. A piece of fashion advice for the afterlife: just because they sell it doesn’t mean you have to buy it. Now. Time to pay the toll on the road to hell!”
She stopped and faced him directly. She raised the gun in front of her and held it with both hands. It was aimed straight at his chest.
“She’s going to shoot him!” hissed Nina. She, Pansy, and Danish all whipped their heads around, searching for the headlights of even one police car on the causeway. Nothing. Just the silent, darkened ponds.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” chanted Pansy, covering her face with her hands.
“We can’t wait for Blue,” said Nina frantically. “Suzanne is going to kill him any second! We’ve got to stall her, get the gun away from her. Something!”
“I’m on it,” said Danish, rising to his full height and striding over to the back door. He rang the bell repeatedly.
“Yoo-hoo! Suzanne. Can I talk to you for a second? It’ll only take a minute,” he sang out.
Startled, Suzanne almost dropped the gun. She recovered and stood staring at the solid aluminum door, unsure what to do. Nina hopped up and down silently.
“What are you doing, Danish? Want to let us in on the plan?” she hissed.
“Help!” yelled Philip. “She’s got a gun. She’s going to kill me! Do something!”
“Shut up!” screamed Suzanne. She motioned Philip to his feet with the gun. “Get up. We’re going for a boat ride. Don’t they say spontaneity is the key to keeping a relationship fresh?”
She marched him over to the patio doors.
“Open the door,” she ordered him.
“They’re going down to the beach!” said Pansy. She and Nina stood peering through the window at the scene unfolding in the living room. Danish was jiggling the doorknob, trying to get inside. It was locked.
“She must have a boat down there,” said Nina.
“I’ll go this way, you go that way!” said Danish, running away from them and around the corner of the porch toward the ocean. Nina and Pansy sprinted around the other side. They were too late to catch them on the deck. When Nina, Pansy, and Danish met on the other side of the house, Philip and Suzanne were already scrambling down a stony path to the beach. Suzanne followed Philip with the gun pointed at his back. Nina could see a dual-engine powerboat bobbing in the dark water close to shore.
“Run after them!” Nina shouted. “She’s got a boat!”
Philip and Suzanne were on the beach now, moving swiftly toward the boat. Philip stumbled through the sand, but Suzanne prodded him in the back with the gun. Nina, Pansy, and Danish ran down the rocky path, slipping and sliding on loose stones as they went. Danish was the first to reach the beach. He sprinted after Suzanne, bringing her down in a football tackle.
“Aahhh!” she yelped as Danish sat on her back, pinning her to the sand. Pansy ran swiftly up behind them and put her foot on Suzanne’s arm, then reached down and pried the gun out of her grip. She wound up and threw the gun as hard as she could into the sea. It disappeared with a splash about fifty feet offshore.
“Good arm, Pansy,” said Danish from his perch on Suzanne’s back as Nina reached them.
“You can still get fingerprints off a gun that’s been in the water, can’t you?” asked Pansy with concern.
“Philip, are you all right?” Nina jogged over to Philip, who was kneeling in the sand near the boat, his head down, breathing hard.
In that instant, Suzanne heaved Danish off her back and sprinted toward the boat. She splashed through the water and was halfway up the swim ladder when Danish pulled her off. They floundered around in the surf for a few seconds until Suzanne managed to free herself again.
“Aargh! She scratched me with her claws!” Danish yelled. His face was bleeding.
“Who are you people?” screamed Suzanne over her shoulder as she took off running down the beach.
“I don’t think so!” said Nina through gritted teeth, running after her. Nina stumbled, then scrambled to her feet again. She could hear Danish pounding across the wet sand beside her. Pansy was on her knees beside Philip, her arm around him. Suzanne glanced back over her shoulder again. Nina and Danish were gaining on her. She veered left toward the dunes, scrambling up and over and out of sight. Nina and Danish sprinted after her, reaching the top of the dune seconds after Suzanne. They scanned the vista in front of them for her. It was dark, and the only light on the salt ponds came from the moon and the stars. Everything was in shadow. The causeway and the stone ridges between the ponds were pale lines crisscrossing a grid of black squares. In the distance, Nina could make out huge mountains of what looked like snow. The salt mounds. The birds had fallen silent.
“There she is!” said Danish, pointing down at the watery grid. Suzanne was running along the causeway, heading in the direction of Pansy’s golf cart. They hurried down the slope after her. Suzanne looked back over her shoulder again, and suddenly she veered off onto one of the narrow stone ridges that separated the ponds, heading toward the looming, pale mountains and the dark bushland behind them.
“You take the causeway in case she doubles back. I’ll try to cut her off,” said Nina, turning off onto a narrow stone ridge between the ponds and trying to close the distance between herself and Suzanne. The footing was rough and loose, and she stubbed her toe on the coarse stones. Nina whimpered in pain as she tumbled off the ridge into the shallow, dark water. God only knew what creatures were lurking there. She scrambled to her feet and back up onto the ridge. Now she was soaking wet with a throbbing toe, but she kept moving after Suzanne’s dark figure, now silhouetted again the looming white mountains of salt. Nina guessed they were headed toward the storage facility Pansy had mentioned. She looked back over her shoulder. Danish was running along a ridge toward her.
When Nina reached the edge of the salt ponds, the footing underneath solidified into hard-packed sand. It was crisscrossed with the tire marks of heavy trucks. She was standing next to a giant mountain of salt several stories high. Two huge yellow bulldozers were parked a short distance away. Nina thought for a moment that Suzanne might have climbed into one, but the cabs were empty. No sign of Suzanne. Nina jogged around the base of the salt pile and saw Suzanne running through a valley between three or four similar colossal piles of salt. Suzanne looked back and saw Nina, then looked frantically from side to side. She had walked into a salt canyon. The only way out was back toward Nina or over a high salt ridge directly in front of her. To Nina’s surprise, Suzanne chose the ridge. She charged up its steep face, the salt breaking away beneath her feet and tumbling down the side of the pile. Nina sprinted after Suzanne, scrambling up the mountain of salt, grabbing for a handhold only to have it run through her fingers. She lost her balance and pitched headfirst into the white mass. The salt filled her sandals and got into the open cut on her toe; she sucked in her breath at the sting. The salt stuck to her wet skin and clothing.
Nina summited the salt mountain, her quad muscles throbbing from exertion. She was breathing hard. Suzanne was stumbling along the ridgeline of the salt massif, just out of Nina’s reach. Beyond her, Nina could see the vast grid of moonlit ponds, the darkened ocean, and the surrounding flat scrubland. Down below, a line of three police Jeeps screamed up the access road, sirens wailing and lights flashing.
Nina balanced herself in the salt and then st
epped carefully toward Suzanne.
Suzanne backed away from her. “Who are you? Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
“I’m sorry, Suzanne. I understand Philip was a lousy husband, totally unqualified for the job. I feel your pain for spending years with him, but killing him is a bit extreme, don’t you think? Do you really think it would make you feel any better?”
“Yes!” shouted Suzanne. Nina glanced down at the road. The police cars were still at least a few minutes away. Her best bet was to keep Suzanne talking until they arrived.
“OK, well, so did you try to kill him with a mini crab quiche the other day?” she asked conversationally. “That was clever. Everyone would have assumed it was an accident. Except that you wrote on his chest with a Sharpie.”
“I wanted everyone to know that someone had finally got the best of him. Me. Oh! I can’t believe he actually brought his EpiPen! He always left it to me to take care of those little details, and I really didn’t think his new tootsie roll had it in her to plan that far ahead. If she did, she wouldn’t have married him! Turns out there’s more to her than I thought.” Suzanne glanced over Nina’s shoulder. The sirens were growing louder.
“You called the police!” Suzanne said angrily. She lunged at Nina, and Nina jumped back.
“Suzanne! Suzanne, tell me about Philip,” said Nina, struggling to regain her balance. “What did he do to you to make you so angry?”
“Oh, the usual,” said Suzanne bitterly as she continued to swipe at Nina. They shuffled around an ungainly circle until they had shifted places. Nina could see the line of police cars advancing toward them. Suzanne had her back to them.
“I thought I was finally rid of him!” Suzanne was saying angrily. “But the shellfish didn’t do the trick, so I had to improvise. Plan B. The manchineel tree. I was pleased with myself for coming up with that. Nicely hideous and painful. He’s so vain. A good warm-up to the main event. Until you and your friends ruined it all!”
“You’re right. I’m sorry about that,” said Nina, raising her hands, hoping to placate Suzanne. “Philip’s awful, but why attack Sylvia?” She wondered if Suzanne was so delusional she’d confess to it all right there on the salt mountain.
“That was a mistake. I thought it was Philip’s shower. Why would I want to hurt Sylvia?” said Suzanne. “I never had anything against her. When Philip left her to move in with me, she was quite civilized about it. No hard feelings.”
“Hmm. And the golf cart. You thought it was Philip’s, too?” asked Nina casually.
“Yes, of course,” said Suzanne irritably. “I don’t even know you or that stoner guy. I didn’t come all the way down here to kill you!”
“Good point,” said Nina. The police cars had stopped about a hundred yards away, blocking the road. Two officers took up positions behind the open doors of their vehicles. Four others drew their weapons and fanned out, moving to surround the salt pile. They moved silently.
“Suzanne,” said Nina, “I think things would go a lot better for you if you were to turn yourself in to the police and tell them everything you just told me. You’d feel a lot better if you just got it off your chest.”
“Are you crazy?” said Suzanne, pulling a tiny gold pistol from her bra and pointing it at Nina. “I’m not going to jail for that jerk! Not while he gets to wake up and go snorkeling tomorrow morning! Or maybe have a pedicure. I didn’t tell you all of this because I want to confess. I told you because you’re never going to get the chance to tell anyone else! Someone should know how perfect this plan was, even if you won’t have the memory to cherish for very long. Sorry, but that’s what you get for butting in where you have no business.”
Suzanne’s face seemed to harden, and she cocked the gun. They were only about ten feet apart. Nina didn’t know much about guns, but she was pretty sure you could do some real harm to someone by shooting them at close range. Her mind whirred with possibilities, but she only came up with two: getting out of Suzanne’s way or getting the gun from her.
She stared at the gun and counted silently to five, then dove at Suzanne’s feet. She felt Suzanne fly through the air and sensed that she was trying to keep the little gun trained on her. Suzanne grabbed at Nina’s waist, but Nina caught her wrists and forced the hand gripping the gun over her head. Now they were both rolling down the salt slope. Nina and Suzanne tumbled, locked together, as Nina struggled to keep the gun pointed away from her while Suzanne tried to maneuver the muzzle toward her. Nina closed her eyes to keep the salt out, feeling increasingly dizzy, and they rolled over and over, gathering speed.
Nina shrieked with pain as she and Suzanne landed with a thud on the hard-packed sand at the foot of the salt pile and rolled to a stop inches from the toes of Blue Roker’s boots. The little gold gun skittered away across the sand and was quickly scooped up by a police officer.
Blue looked down at Nina and Suzanne in amazement.
“Nina!” shouted Pansy, running toward her. “Are you hurt? Are you shot?”
“It’s the salt! I shaved my legs this morning! It burns!” said Nina, scrambling to her feet in front of the police chief. She hopped from foot to foot, frantically trying to brush off the coarse grains of sea salt that coated her legs and arms.
Danish snickered. “You look like a life-size human pretzel,” he said.
“It’s her! She tried to kill Philip!” Nina pointed at Suzanne. Her clothes were still wet from splashing through the ponds, and her hair was full of salt.
“Mandy!” said Blue in a loud voice, still staring at Nina. An officer stepped forward.
“Cuff the one in the skirt,” said Blue. The officer moved swiftly toward Suzanne, and in one motion, lifted her to her feet and handcuffed her. He led her away to the police car.
Blue stood with his hands on his hips, looking from Nina to Danish to Pansy and back to Nina again. The radio at his hip crackled. Another officer stepped forward and whispered something in his ear; Blue waved him away.
He raised his eyebrows. “A loaded gun. No, two loaded guns. A dangerously mentally ill woman. A man’s life at stake. And you thought it was a good idea for you three to come out here alone because . . . ?” he asked them.
“We couldn’t wait,” said Danish. “We had a hunch, and—”
“Don’t. Say. Another. Word,” said Blue in a deadly quiet voice. He was pointing at Danish but looking at Nina and Pansy.
“I know this looks . . . bad, Blue,” said Nina. “However, I would like to point out that we did, in fact, inform the police as soon as we thought Suzanne might be involved. And if we hadn’t been here, Philip would likely be dead now.” She suddenly remembered Philip. “Philip! Where’s Philip?” she looked around frantically.
“I’m right here,” said Philip. He was sitting on the ground. His suit was stained and tattered, and his eyeglasses were bent. He cleared his throat and said, “In defense of these three brave individuals, I would like to say that if they hadn’t arrived, I would most surely be dead. I know Suzanne. She once flushed a live goldfish down the toilet without batting an eyelash. Nina, you can expect a letter of commendation to be appended to your employment file.”
Blue stared at all of them for a moment longer, then sighed and turned away.
“Let’s go, Mandy,” he called to his deputy. “The rest of you stay here and secure the scene. The house, too. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Dr. Putzel, Officer Mandel will escort you back to town, take a statement, and call a doctor to check you out, if you will come with us now, please.”
Philip scrambled to his feet and allowed himself to be bundled into a police Jeep by the deputy.
“Um, Blue,” said Pansy tentatively, “do you think you could give us a ride back to town? The solar batteries on my cart seem to have run down . . .”
Blue looked back at them, then gestured impatiently for them to get in his car. They drove in silence all the way back to Coconut Cove. When the convoy pulled up in front of the police station, Nina stepped stiffly
out onto the sidewalk. She ached all over.
With surprise, she noticed that there was a police van in front and several Defence Force officers walking briskly up the lane from the police dock wearing full gear.
I guess we weren’t the only ones to have an exciting night, thought Nina.
She got another surprise when she saw Sylvia and Nancy walking up the lane from the public dock, each carrying an enormous crayfish in her hands. They were giggling uncontrollably. It appeared they’d been out fishing and were perhaps three sheets to the wind.
They stopped and took in the scene. “Well, what have we here?” Nancy said, looking from Suzanne, who was handcuffed between Blue and another officer, to Philip, his clothes covered in mud and ketchup and his hair standing straight up, to Nina, who was still covered in white patches of coarse sea salt.
“Suzanne?” said Sylvia incredulously. “Is that you? What on earth is going on? Philip. You look insane.”
“I look insane?” shouted Philip. “That psychopath tried to kill me!” He pointed at Suzanne. “Not once, but four times! I’ll be leaving on the first flight tomorrow morning.”
Suzanne struggled to shake off the officer’s grip, her eyes blazing.
“You deserve it after what you did to me!” she spat. “He cheated and he lied and he used up the best years of my life. Then he dumped me for some student and had a baby with her. That’s criminal! When I heard he was headed to a fancy hotel on a tropical island for a weeklong ‘business’ trip, it was too much. He was getting away with it! All of it! Not if I could help it!”
Sylvia shook her head slowly. “Oh, honey,” she said sadly. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you? The best revenge is living well. He isn’t worth it.”
“I don’t recall anyone asking your opinion, Sylvia,” said Philip indignantly.
Sylvia shrugged.
“Come on, Philip. We’ll give you a ride back to the inn,” said Nancy. Philip looked at Blue.
