Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance)

by McSparren, Carolyn

  “Bodies are put together from a bunch of different pieces of wood. They’re naturally hollow.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that the bodies of all wooden carousel animals are at least partially empty?”

  “Pretty much. Why?”

  “Thank you, Marcus, thank you very much.”

  Computer disks would fit easily into the hollow belly of a carousel animal.

  Twenty minutes later, Taylor stepped from her truck onto the dark loading dock of Rounders, held her penlight between her teeth, and went to work on the padlock that held the door to the back stairs. When and if Vollmer turned Nick loose, he’d see her truck parked in his spot in the alley and know that she was here. Just to be safe, she’d left word on his answering machine outlining her suspicions of Josh.

  She’d already left word on Mel’s. Wouldn’t it be nice if somebody occasionally answered a telephone?

  The lock clicked and she ran up the stairs, ignoring the eerie sound of her shoes against the metal treads. She pushed through the door to the storeroom and flicked on the overhead lights.

  She figured that Nick’s newly returned animals should be among those at the very back, closest to her. In ten, fifteen minutes max, she’d know whether the Eberhardts had stashed their records in the belly of one of Nick’s stolen animals.

  She tried to remember what the six animals she’d seen at the warehouse looked like, but she’d had eyes for nothing but Eugene and his gun. She’d have to start with the back row and try them all until she found the right one.

  She tried tapping. They all sounded hollow. She tried looking for hinges. None. She tried looking for seam lines.

  Finally she laid her satchel on the seat of one of the chariots and began to crawl around on her hands and knees. At this rate, it would take her not fifteen minutes, but several hours to test her theory.

  Clara must have been crazy or unbelievably greedy to leave the safety of The Peabody lobby to come bopping up here with the man who abandoned her in college.

  Suddenly the note slid into Taylor’s mind like an overhead being projected on a wall. It hadn’t said “Meet at PB...” but “meet pb...”—lower case.

  Maybe pb stood not for Peabody but for “prissy bitch.” Which prissy bitch? Estelle had referred to all the sorority sisters as prissy bitches. A name popped into Taylor’s mind. Margery Chessman! She’d been ex-president of the sorority.

  Margery could have stolen the gold pencil herself and hired Eugene. She knew Rounders as well as Josh did and was at Ole Miss at the same time as Clara. If Margery had been Helmut’s co-thief, Clara wouldn’t have been afraid of her. Certainly not if Margery offered to keep the scam going.

  And after Margery stuck a chisel into Clara, she could easily call Josh from her car phone and ask him when to put the lamb chops on. She’d know she had plenty of time to beat him home.

  Taylor ducked under an ostrich.

  “Two minds with but a single thought.”

  Taylor jumped, banged her head painfully on the ostrich’s belly, and lifted her head.

  Margery Chessman, impeccable as ever and wearing at least half a pound of antique gold around her neck, stood in the open doorway pointing a large black automatic at Taylor’s breastbone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “DAMN!” Margery snarled. “You are the most infuriating woman. I told you I have an important dinner engagement. I value punctuality.”

  Taylor cleared her throat. “The police are on their way.” She tried to keep her eyes on Margery’s face, rather than on the black hole at the end of that revolver. She could feel the sweat sliding down her spine.

  Margery laughed. “No, they’re not. Josh found out Nick fired you this morning. You’re on your own.”

  “I called the police on my car phone.”

  “To say what? I am off to meet a killer at Rounders?” Margery laughed.

  Taylor could see her satchel containing her Glock once again out of reach. If she got out of this alive she vowed to start wearing it in a holster and the heck with the fashion statement. At least this time the safety catch was off. If she could reach it before Margery shot her, she’d have a chance to shoot first.

  Margery waggled her own gun. “Go on, dear. You were doing fine. You’ve eliminated all but two of the animals Helmut stole. Let’s see, we’ve got Nick’s ostrich and the pig left to check.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Ostrich, I think.”

  Taylor turned to the ostrich. Margery’s deep voice stopped her.

  “On the other hand, the pig has a bigger belly.” She grinned. “It would hold more.”

  “Which?” Taylor spread her hands. Margery seemed amenable to keeping her alive so long as she was the one doing the crawling around on the floor.

  “The ostrich, I think. It’s higher off the ground. Helmut was too lazy to bend down when he could do a job standing up.”

  Taylor turned to the ostrich.

  “Ah-ah,” Margery said. “Don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll splatter you all over the room and find the records myself.”

  “And then what?” Taylor asked. “Everyone else has alibis. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “It will look like one of those random things.”

  “Sure it will.”

  Margery tapped her toe impatiently. “Find the records, then I’ll decide what to do with you. I will shoot you if I have to, but if you’re good, maybe there’s another way.”

  Of course there was. On Mars in a parallel universe. Taylor had to get to that satchel. She moved towards the ostrich’s midsection as slowly as she could. She tried to slide around the far side so that she could put the animal between her and Margery, but Margery stopped her with a gesture.

  The ostrich leaned against the wall just under the master electrical panel. The door to the panel hung wide open. The master electrical switch lay just to the right of Taylor’s shoulder.

  With luck she could throw the switch with her shoulder and plunge the room into darkness, then dive for her satchel before Margery could react.

  It wasn’t much, but it was worth a try. “Did Josh tell you that Nick had discovered Marley’s fake?”

  Margery rolled her eyes. “Josh tells me everything. Otherwise I’d never have dared leave you people messing up my house exchanging information the other night. After Nick called from Seattle, I put enough sleeping pills in Josh’s martini to knock him out, then I drove to Oxford to get rid of Eberhardt.” She snickered. “I toasted his cold feet for him.”

  Taylor gulped. “Why kill Clara?”

  Margery snorted. “Stupid woman wanted to dump the remaining animals on the market at one time and then see if there were any really extraordinary ones left here that we could steal. Even in college she had no sense of proportion. If she’d tried to pledge my sorority, I’d have blackballed her myself.”

  “With so much history, she wasn’t worried about coming down here with you?”

  “When I first sounded Helmut out about stealing the horses, I think she gloried in the discovery that I was not Miss Goody Two-shoes.” Margery laughed and shrugged. “I never was, of course. I just covered my little peccadilloes up better than she did.”

  “And when you came at her with a wood chisel?”

  “She never saw it. The velvet throw protected my clothes, although I’d had the good sense to wear my raincoat.” Margery sighed. “Very expensive, too. I dropped it in a Dumpster outside the theater arts building. It’s long buried in a landfill somewhere. Pity. I liked that coat.”

  Taylor began to feel along the ostrich’s belly.

  “Well?” Margery asked.

  Taylor felt a slit and dug her fingernails into it. She pushed harder. “Got to be a catch here somewhere.”

  “Be careful. Don’t break it.”

  As though it mattered. Taylor continued to press and pull against the feathers, the wings, the saddle pad. Nothing moved or clicked. She heard Margery shifting restlessly behind her and decided she’d better k
eep talking. “Okay, so you hired Eugene. Why’d you kill him?”

  “I blame you for that,” Margery said. “He couldn’t seem to kill you, and I knew if he got caught he’d talk. You and Nick have been an incredible nuisance. I merely wanted the animals and the records before you got them. I have been acting in self-defense from the start. People menaced me. I removed them. I don’t know why the police have to be called into what is essentially a private matter.”

  Taylor gaped at her.

  Margery continued reasonably. “All I wanted was money to entertain enough bigwigs to get Josh that job. These stupid toys...” Margery waved the gun at the animals, but not quite far enough from Taylor’s midsection to make diving for the light switch practicable. Not yet.

  Taylor remembered thinking they were “stupid toys.” Now they were the friendliest things in the room.

  “...were sitting here waiting for a museum that will never open,” Margery continued. “Might as well do me some good. When Nick discovered the fake at Marley’s and went ballistic, I had to protect myself. I have a reputation in this town.”

  “Three deaths to protect your reputation?”

  “Certainly. I do resent having to kill Eugene. We shared some very, very happy times together.”

  Taylor felt the skin on her arms begin to tingle and the hair along the nape of her neck stand to attention. She turned her head under the ostrich’s wing so that she could see Margery’s face.

  Her eyes held a faraway look that curdled Taylor’s blood.

  “Eugene had the brains of a newt, but the sexual stamina of a Brahma bull.” She grinned at Taylor kittenishly. “He told me what he had planned for you just before I shot him. I’m sorry for your sake you never experienced his prowess firsthand.”

  “I’m not.”

  Margery continued as though Taylor had not spoken. “I killed Eugene over your interference. I resent that.”

  “Gee, sorry,” Taylor said.

  Margery stole a quick glance at her slim gold wristwatch. “Either get that thing open or try the pig,” she said. “Josh and I have an informal dinner with the chairman of the department of arts and sciences in a little over an hour.”

  Taylor was about to move to the pig when she pulled on the final feather and heard a tinny click. Without warning, a panel opened in the ostrich’s belly and a gray box of computer disks fell to the floor.

  Taylor jumped, Margery jumped. Taylor reached up, threw the master switch and dove for the floor as far from Margery and as close to her satchel as she could.

  Taylor saw the spurt of flame from the barrel before the sound of Margery’s shot echoed off the brick walls.

  WHEN NICK COULDN’T reach Taylor from his truck, he’d dialed Mel.

  “How the hell do I know where she is?” Mel swore. “She said she knew where to find the evidence to prove Josh Chessman was a killer.”

  “Josh? That’s nuts. You didn’t try to stop her?”

  “It was a message, Kendall, on my answering machine. A message. I’ve been calling everybody I know since trying to locate her.”

  “Damn!”

  Nick saw Margery’s Cadillac parked by the front door. Margery never came near Rounders. How had she gotten in?

  Of course! Josh’s keys. With a sense of foreboding, Nick cut his engine and leapt for the front door.

  He saw a sliver of light under the door to the carving room. He went up softly and opened the door as the lights went out.

  A second later he heard the shot.

  TAYLOR SAW the door to the carving room start to open.

  “Taylor? Margery? What the hell’s going on?”

  Oh, God, it was Nick! In another second he’d be silhouetted against the moonlight from the windows. A perfect target.

  “No!” Taylor shoved the ostrich with all her might.

  Margery screamed and fell against the wall.

  Her second shot went high.

  Taylor grabbed her satchel and hit the master switch again.

  “Bitch!” Margery snarled, and blinked as the light came on. Taylor swung the satchel at Margery’s gun hand.

  The gun flew wide, and Taylor hit Margery as hard as she could with a solid right cross.

  She heard the crunch, saw Margery’s eyes cross, and felt a jolt of pain all the way to her shoulder. The room began to spin as waves of nausea washed over her.

  She saw Nick’s face, felt him swing her into his arms, smiled up at him blearily, and said, “Told you I could take care of myself.”

  TAYLOR WOKE TO FIND her right hand in a cast halfway up her forearm. Her hand throbbed with the urgent push-pull of a catgut bow on an untuned violin.

  “You’re awake,” someone said.

  “I’m thirsty,” Taylor croaked. Someone held her head while she sipped cold water. She looked up into Veda’s face

  “Do I live or what?” Taylor asked.

  Veda smiled and let her head fall back gently against the pillows. “You live in a cast for six weeks, then do therapy for a month. It will not be a picnic.”

  “That witch did break my hand. I could kill her!”

  “No, dear, you nearly broke her jaw. You only cracked three bones in your hand. Quite a punch.”

  “Nick?”

  “He’s been here all evening. I sent him home to bathe and shave. He smelled like a goat. He should be back momentarily.”

  “What happened to Margery?”

  “She’s upstairs screaming because she’s in the prison ward rather than a fancy private room in a private hospital.”

  “Poor Josh.”

  “Poor Josh, my foot. He swears he didn’t know what Margery was up to. I don’t buy it. He didn’t want to see is all.” Veda plumped up Taylor’s pillows. “Vollmer’s lurking outside. He’s very angry at you.”

  “Let him lurk.”

  “Mel’s outside as well. He’s even angrier than Danny.”

  “Are you angry?”

  “Not at you.”

  “Good. My throat hurts.” She swallowed. “How long have I been here?”

  “Four hours or so. They doped you up in the ambulance.”

  “Veda. I’m so hungry! I never get anything to eat anymore.”

  “Nick’s bringing burgers.”

  Taylor sat up suddenly, then yelped as pain shot up her left arm. “Oh, God, does my mother know?”

  “Ask Mel. I’ll get him.”

  A moment later Mel came in. Taylor caught a glimpse of Veda backing Danny Vollmer away from the door.

  Taylor took one look at the set of Mel’s jaw and burst into tears. He patted her good shoulder awkwardly.

  “I was so scared,” she sobbed.

  “You were so dumb.”

  “No, I wasn’t, either. I left you a message. I thought it was Josh, and I made sure he was occupied and wouldn’t walk in on me. I only figured out it was Margery a minute before she got there. I thought I was safe.”

  “At least you figured it out. Nobody else did.”

  “Have you called my mother?”

  “Well, about that, Taylor, I wanted to see how long you were going to be here...”

  “You haven’t! Thank God.” She tried to take his hand but winced. “Promise me you won’t tell her.”

  “Taylor, there’s Vollmer, and the newspapers—”

  “Lie! Say I had an accident. Anything. She must not find out.”

  “Taylor, you’re wearing a cast.”

  “I’ll make something up. Please. I couldn’t take it, and I sure couldn’t take Bradley bitching at me.”

  “Taylor, about your two weeks’ notice.”

  “Can I take it back?” She gave him her most appealing smile. “I know I can’t use the computer for a while, but there’s got to be something I can do.”

  “You still want to go on with this after what happened last night?”

  “Of course. It won’t happen again.”

  “Woman, get out of my way or I will remove you.” Danny Vollmer shoved the door open
and pushed past Veda. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I’m glad to see you too, Detective Vollmer,” Taylor muttered.

  “I need a statement from you.”

  “Did you find the computer disks?” Taylor asked. Now that the fog in her brain was lifting, she remembered the reason she went to Rounders in the first place.

  “Yeah. Eberhardt kept great records. Almost all inside jobs. A lot of people are going to be very unhappy when they get arrested for complicity in grand theft.”

  “Margery?” Taylor asked.

  “Josh called Cabrizzo, but he had a conflict of interest because he represents Nick. He got another hotshot lawyer off the fourteenth tee. When Margery told him to plead self-defense, I thought he’d have a coronary right there. She’s regaling everybody including the orderlies with how smart she is.”

  “She’s crazy.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  She lay back against the pillows. “Danny, I’m very tired and I hurt a lot. Can you come back tomorrow?”

  “Doctor says you can go home in the morning.”

  “Then come see me at the cabin tomorrow. With Margery in custody, there’s no rush, is there?”

  Vollmer grinned and shrugged. “Sure, kid.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad you’re alive and if you ever pull a stunt like this again, I’ll kill you myself. Clear?”

  She nodded. Even that effort made her head ache.

  “Come on, Mel, you talk to me,” Vollmer said. The two men left the room together.

  Veda sat in the visitor’s chair and cleared her throat. “Taylor, we have to talk.”

  “Not you too.”

  “Ever since I met you I’ve heard nothing but what an ordinary job you do. In one week you’ve been shot at twice, attacked twice and mauled once, faced down a killer, and broken your hand. That does not sound like the job description for a bank teller.”

  “It’s never happened before.”

  “You have also fallen madly in love with your client.”

  “I’ll get over it.”

  “You were down there looking for some way to clear this up to save Nick.”

  Taylor flushed. “I’m a professional.”