High Kicks, Hot Chocolate, and Homicides

by Mary McHugh

  I left some money on the table and walked out of the cafe. There was a small church a block away and I headed for it. It was a Presbyterian church, old and small, with a sign outside saying that the sermon on Sunday would be “Are You Leading the Life God Meant You to Lead?”

  I couldn’t help but think Oh, I hope not. Surely God didn’t mean for me to have a gun stuck in my side almost every day.

  The church was open. I walked into the quiet darkness that always gave me a feeling of serenity that was missing in the rest of the world. I went to the front of the church and sat down in one of the pews. The altar was a simple one, without the gold and glitter of some of the other sects.

  I bowed my head and said a silent thank you to God for saving my life, for George’s love, for my children who were good, kind people, for my Hoofer friends who were always there for me, and for Mike who loved me no matter what. All in all, I felt I led a good life, and I told God that.

  Then I felt somebody move into the pew beside me. Please let it be one of my friends, I thought, knowing it probably wasn’t. It was just intuition. Then I felt the all too familiar hard end of a gun against my ribs.

  I opened my eyes.

  “I almost drowned back there when you shoved me in the water, you rotten bitch,” Shelli said. “I can’t swim. Now you’re gonna get yours.”

  “Shelli,” I said. “Put the gun away. I’ll help you. There’s a boat leaving for Cuba. Marlowe is on it and she’ll take you with her. One of her relatives owns the ship.”

  “How do you know all that?” Shelli asked, suspicion in her voice and on her face.

  “She was going to take me with her, but I got away.”

  “I don’t want to go to Cuba,” Shelli said. “I want to get back to Ohio where my sister lives. She’ll take care of me. I need you as my hostage until I get there.”

  This was beginning to get a little repetitious. I could use a little help here, God, I said to him silently, hoping He was still listening to me. Shelli wasn’t all that bright. I knew I could persuade her to get on the boat going to Cuba. It would just take a little more lying.

  “You won’t be safe in Ohio, Shelli,” I said. “The police will find you there and arrest you. If you go to Cuba with Marlowe, you’ll have a good life, safe from American police, living near the beach with your friend.”

  She looked away from me, considering what I said. Her hand holding the gun moved away from my side and rested on the seat next to her. Easy now. Just a little more and you’ve got her.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “There’s an ATM machine down the block. I passed it before. I’ll take out some money for you. How about a thousand dollars? Then you’ll have plenty of money when you get to Cuba. I hear it’s a beautiful place.”

  She looked at me, wanting to believe that I was going to help her.

  “Well, maybe . . .” she said.

  I knocked the gun out of her hand. It fell to the ground and went off. The sound of a gunshot brought the minister out of his office in the back.

  “What’s going on here?” he shouted.

  Shelli ran toward the door and was out of the church before he could stop her.

  The minister came over to me, his face contorted and angry. He picked up the gun from the floor and said, “Is this your gun? Did you shoot that woman who ran out of here? “

  I explained the situation and flopped down in one of the pews again. I couldn’t move.

  “This is a church, not a war zone,” he said. “You’ll have to leave. I don’t want the police or that woman or anyone connected with all this in here. Leave.”

  He was tugging at my arm trying to make me get up and go. My legs wouldn’t work.

  “Just let me call someone to come and get me,” I said, speaking as calmly as I could. “I don’t mean to cause you any trouble. I just can’t walk at the moment. My friends will take me out of here, and you’ll never hear from me again. I promise.”

  It was the first time in my life a minister tried to get me to leave a church.

  He stopped pulling at my arm. “Well, hurry. Please. I can’t have this going on in my sanctuary.” He handed me the gun. “And take this with you. It doesn’t belong here.”

  I put the gun in my bag and pulled out my phone to call Tina.

  “Weezie!” she said. “Where are you? How come you didn’t show up for rehearsal this afternoon? We were worried about you. Peter’s going to drive us home.”

  “I’m . . .” I realized I had no idea where I was. I looked questioningly at the minister. “Where am I, Reverend?”

  “You’re at Sixth Avenue and Thirty-Fifth Street,” he said. “Tell them to hurry.”

  I told Tina where I was and what had happened. She said Peter would be there in a few minutes, and I should wait outside the church.

  I held onto the pew in front of me and pulled myself to my feet. I didn’t want to leave this safe place. Or at least I thought it was safe until Shelli turned up with a gun. Where was she? Maybe she was waiting for me outside the church.

  “Could I just stay inside the church, by the front door, to wait for my friends?” I asked.

  “I guess so,” the minister said. “But I don’t want any more trouble or gunshots in here.”

  I knew I should shut up but I couldn’t help saying to him, “Aren’t you supposed to help people in trouble? You know, like Jesus told us to do?”

  “There weren’t any guns in Jesus’s day,” he said. “Even he would want you out of this church.”

  He had a point. I opened the door of the church a crack so I could see Peter’s car when he drove up. There was no sign of Shelli out front, but I had a terrible feeling that I hadn’t seen the last of her.

  I was never so glad to see anybody as I was to see Peter’s handsome, worried face when his van pulled up to the church. I ran outside and jumped into the car and my friends gathered me up in a big hug. They could see how shaken I was. My purse fell open when I sat down and the gun fell on the floor.

  “Be careful,” I said. “It’s loaded.”

  “Give it to me,” Peter said. “You have to report guns in your possession to the police when you don’t have a license to carry one. The last thing we need is for you to be arrested for owning a gun. You can give this gun to Detective Carver when you see him tomorrow.”

  “Weezie,” Gini said, “for a housewife, you’re leading far too exciting a life. Where’d you get the gun?”

  “Didn’t Tina tell you?” I said, a couple of minutes later when I could talk again.

  “It was hard to understand you when you called,” Tina said. “I heard something about Shelli and a gun and that you were in a church. None of it made much sense, Weez. All I knew was that we had to come and get you—fast.”

  “Thank God you did,” I said. “She was going to kill me with that gun. I managed to knock it out of her hand and the minister came and she ran out of the church and now is I don’t know where . . .” I put my face in my hands and started to cry. It all caught up with me. I’m just not cut out for this stuff.

  Pat put her arms around me and held me while I cried. She rocked me back and forth.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” she said. “Let it all out. You have a right to cry.”

  Peter reached over the seat and touched my hair. “You’ll be home soon, Mary Louise,” he said. “You’re safe.”

  He started the van and pulled away from the curb and headed toward the tunnel. My friends all murmured comforting things to me. Finally, I stopped crying and wiped my eyes.

  “Sorry, guys,” I said. “I don’t mean to be such a wuss.”

  “You’re not a wuss, hon,” Tina said. “Your life was in danger.”

  “From now on, I’m staying home and cooking,” I said. “The worst thing that can happen is a little bacon grease spattering on my hand when I make my trout wrapped in bacon.”

  “I love that dish,” Gini said. “When are you going to make it again? Can I come? Okay if I bring Alex?”
r />   Talk about food always cheers me up.

  “I’m going to have a huge dinner party for all of us and our partners,” I said. “I’ll make the trout and all kinds of yummy things. From now on, I’m only dancing in my own living room.”

  “Riiiiiight,” Peter said.

  Mary Louise’s Cooking Tip: If someone is pointing a gun at you, don’t feel you have to offer them a snack.

  Chapter 15

  Could Somebody Please Get The Door?

  When I got home, I looked in the fridge to see what to cook for George. Cooking was such a normal thing to do. Much better than having a gun stuck in my side. And Shelli was still out there. I turned the handle of the back door. It was unlocked. I turned the lock and put the chain up. This was ridiculous. I was afraid in my own house. Where was George? It was past time for him to be home after his weekly squash game with one of the guys in his firm. And come to think of it, where was Tucker? He usually bounded out to greet me whenever I walked in the house. He must be asleep somewhere, I decided.

  I checked the fridge again. Some chopped beef. Some chicken breasts. Leftover swordfish and tomato sauce. That would be the easiest. I could make some spaghetti and heat up the sauce. A nice salad and we’d have a good dinner. I put the sauce out on the counter and stuck a large pot of water on the stove to bring to a boil for the spaghetti.

  I went back into the living room to read the paper until George got home. Where was he anyway? It was past seven. He was usually home by this time. I clicked his number on my phone. A few rings and then his voicemail. He must be driving home and couldn’t answer his phone. Yes, that was it. He’d be walking in that door any minute.

  I went back in the kitchen to make the salad dressing. I listened to the news on CNN while I worked. Mostly news about the election coming up. I only listened with half an ear because I’d heard all this before.

  The front door opened. Oh, thank God. George was home. I ran into the living room and clung to him before he could take off his coat.

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” I said. “You’re late. What happened to you?”

  He kissed me and held me close. “You know, honey, you’re getting to be a nervous wreck with this job.”

  I burrowed into his chest. “I know, I know,” I said. “But you have no idea what happened to me today, George. I don’t know how I’m still alive.”

  He took off his coat and led me gently to the couch.

  “What happened?” he said.

  When I told him about Marlowe threatening my life again, about Shelli in the church with a gun, about Shelli out there somewhere, he took my face in his hands and made himself speak calmly.

  “You can’t go on like this, Mary Louise,” he said. “How come you didn’t call me? I can’t believe you went through all that and didn’t call me.”

  I realized I had to tell him.

  “George, Mike came to get me. I called Mike.”

  “You called Mike instead of me?”

  “He’s in the city, George. I needed someone right away. He saved me from Marlowe.”

  His face changed. “I was in the city working on that case with the elevator shaft. You must have known that. You could have called my cell. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “It’s Saturday,” I said. “I didn’t know you were going into the city today. I just didn’t think, George. I was so scared.”

  He asked me the question that was torturing him.

  “Are you in love with him?” he said. “Tell me the truth. Are you?”

  “I thought I was,” I said. He winced. “But I know now that I really love you and I told him that today. He asked me if we could still be friends, and I said I’d find out how you felt about that.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t see him anymore,” he said. “That’s how I feel. I’d worry all the time that you’d decide you loved him instead of me. If you loved him once, you could love him again.” His voice broke. “I just don’t want to lose you.”

  “Then I won’t see him anymore,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “But tell me how he saved your life today.”

  I told him the whole story about Marlowe hiding in the ladies’ room at the Music Hall and taking me out of there at gunpoint. How she told me she was going to take me to Cuba, and Mike got there in time to rescue me, and then about the church and Shelli and the gun.

  “What are you in—some kind of horror movie?” he said. “You went through all that and then came home and fixed dinner?”

  I started to laugh. It wasn’t really funny, but when he put it like that, it did seem unreal. Somebody held a gun against my side twice in one day, and I still came home to make dinner. Why wasn’t I huddled in a corner in a mental institution somewhere?

  “I keep thinking Shelli is going to turn up again,” I said. “I know it’s crazy but every time I hear the door open I think it’s her. Even when you came in just now.”

  “She doesn’t even know where you live. Why don’t you quit this job, Mary Louise?” he said. “It’s not worth it.”

  “We were going to quit, but as I told you this morning, Tina asked us to help out Bianca, the new head of the Rockettes because she was really stuck with five of her best dancers gone. I thought I was safe.”

  “You’ve got to get Carver to assign a policeman to stay with you until they get Shelli. Please call him now.”

  I realized he was right. I couldn’t fool around with this anymore. I picked up the phone and called Detective Carver. I told him what had happened in the church with Shelli and that she had escaped. “It’s getting so I’m afraid to go out of the house,” I said to him. “George wanted me to call you to ask if I could have police protection.”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’ll have somebody report to you right away.”

  I thanked him and hung up. I told George what he said and he looked relieved.

  “Thank God,” he said. “I worry about you all the time. Is the police officer coming here to the house?”

  “I think so,” I said. “He didn’t really say, but that’s what I assume.”

  I went out to the kitchen to make the spaghetti with swordfish sauce. The water came to a boil and I had just plunked the pasta into the pot when there was a knock at the back door. I was relieved that Detective Carver had managed to get a policeman to our house that fast. I was constantly impressed with what that detective could achieve.

  I pulled back the chain, unlocked the door and opened it wide.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Shelli said. She was holding a gun. “Be very quiet, and you and your husband won’t get hurt. I need you to get me out of this country.”

  “I thought you were going to take that boat to Cuba with Marlowe,” I said, speaking loudly so George would hear me.

  “Very funny,” she said. “You knew Marlowe had been arrested and that there was no longer any boat waiting for her when you told me that lie in the church. I went there after I left you, and of course there was no boat and no Marlowe. I googled you and found out where you lived. You’re going to get me out of here.”

  “How do you think I’m going to—”

  The kitchen door swung open and George said, “Who are you?”

  He saw Shelli standing there with a gun. “Oh my God!”

  “Don’t move,” she said, “or I’ll shoot her. I’ve got to get out of here. You’re going to drive me to a place on the Jersey Shore where a friend of mine has a boat. He wants to get out of this country too. I’ll be holding a gun on your cute little wife here until I get on that boat. Understand?”

  I understand,” George said. “We’ll do whatever you say. Do you want to leave now?”

  “I need something to eat first. Anything. I haven’t eaten all day and I feel weak. You”—she pointed her gun at me—“give me something. Anything. And then we’ll go. It’s better to drive there at night.”

  “The spaghetti should be ready,” I said, putting on my potholder mitts to lift up the pot of boiling water fu
ll of cooked spaghetti. I started toward the sink to pour the spaghetti into the colander, but turned suddenly and threw the contents of the pot into Shelli’s face. She screamed, dropped the gun, and covered her face with her hands.

  George grabbed the gun from the floor and pointed it at Shelli who ran to the sink and splashed cold water on her face. The back door flew open and a police officer ran in, his gun out.

  “What’s happening?” he said, looking from George holding a gun, to Shelli crying and holding her face under the faucet, to me with an empty pot, and spaghetti all over the kitchen floor.

  The officer assumed that George was the bad guy and Shelli was the innocent victim crying and bent over the sink. I don’t know what he thought I was doing standing there in the middle of a pile of thin spaghetti.

  “Drop that gun,” the officer said to George, who immediately did so. The officer took out handcuffs and was going to put them on George when I yelled, “No, No, officer, he’s my husband. I’m Mary Louise Temple. Detective Carver called you to protect me. That woman came here to get us to drive her to the Jersey shore and—”

  The officer looked totally confused. “What was your husband doing with a gun? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Call Detective Carver,” I said. “He’ll explain the whole thing to you.”

  Shelli wiped the water out of her eyes and tried to get to the back door, but I wasn’t going to let her get away twice in one day. I took the heavy pot and hit her on the back of the head. She fell to the floor.

  The police officer took out his phone and clicked on a number.

  “Sir,” he said. “This is Officer Santiago. I’m at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Temple as you asked. But there seems to be some . . .” He listened for a minute and then said, “Well, sir, there’s a young woman here and I don’t know who . . .” His face changed as he listened to the detective on the other end, who must have explained the whole situation to him. “I’ll arrest her immediately, sir.”

  He clicked off the phone and leaned down to put handcuffs on Shelli when she brought her foot up and kicked him in the groin. He groaned. She was almost up and out the door when George tripped her and slammed the door shut. She fell down again and the police officer handcuffed her.