Dial Marr for Murder

by Karen Cantwell

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Peggy asked.

  My head throbbed. “That the truck is filled with fertilizer?”

  “You three make one tiny, itsy bitsy move,” Regina threatened. “This place is gone.”

  “That would erase you from the equation too, Regina,” I said.

  “I’m ninety-three years old, with about three weeks to live.” The corners of her wrinkled mouth turned down. “Not so scared.”

  The old bat turned to the camera and spoke. “To whom it may concern: Free Viviana Buttaro from prison and free her now, or so help me God, I will blow this place to smithereens.” Regina raised a fist to the air. “Hashtag Free Viviana!”

  With the town center turned silent from fear of another explosion, Regina’s voice rang out loudly for everyone to hear.

  The cameraman coughed a little. Timidly, he spoke. “Um, the camera wasn’t rolling yet. I’m having technical difficulties.”

  Regina’s lips pulled back baring yellow brown-stained teeth.. “I have an agenda and a timeline here fella.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can, ma’am,” he told her. Producer Janice jumped in to help the man.

  “This is crazy,” I scoffed. “Do you really think you can get away with this?”

  “Hashtag Free Viviana!” Jordan shouted over the loudspeaker. Another explosion blew out a street lamp a few yards away scaring a few brave shoppers back to the ground for cover.

  “They’re lunatics,” Peggy whispered, cowering beside me.

  “Oh, my God,” wheezed Roz who was beginning to hyperventilate. “This is it. We’re really going to die this time.”

  “Regina,” I pleaded. “Even if they release Viviana, she’ll just end up back in prison the minute this ends. Whether we all end up dead or not. You won’t have gained anything.”

  “There yous go again,” Regina replied, “doubtin’ my intelligence and my connections.”

  She was right about intelligence. She and Jordan had planned it well. I had to assume they set off the explosion around the edges of the county to distract rescue services and drain emergency resources. Regina had obviously been plotting her revenge for a while, forging an online relationship with Peggy, but her plan went awry when Peggy became sick. She and the nephew idled their time by scaring me with the newspaper stunt. She was probably even smart enough to throw us off the scent by allowing his arrest. So now I just seemed like a fever-induced crazy lady when they continued their mental torture of me that day at Callie’s university. They’d been stalking me, watching my every move.

  A helicopter circled overhead. Not a blue and white county police issue, so I was guessing news had a man in the air now as well. “Guy, is that one of yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When the technical difficulties are resolved, will your feed be live?”

  “Yeah.”

  Janice breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re up and running. Feed is live,” she shouted.

  “You have to kill it. Kill the feed.”

  “What?” Guy flashed me a look of shock. “Are you crazy? I like my life.”

  Did I know what I was doing? Not exactly. I was flying by the seat of my wet pants. Was I scared? More scared than a fat turkey in November, but somehow, giving Regina what she wanted, just didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

  “Kill the feed, Guy,” I repeated through my teeth.

  Guy tapped his umbrella nervously on the ground.

  Regina cackled. “He’s a coward like the lot of yous.”

  She raised her fist in the air again, but this time I knew what she had planned so I intercepted, throwing myself between her and the camera. I shouted the first thing that came to my mind. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day!”

  Thankfully, my recitation was loud enough to drown out Regina’s words.

  “What’s she doing?” screamed Peggy.

  “I think she’s quoting from Macbeth,” said Roz.

  “You won’t get away with this,” hollered Regina as she tried to push me away.

  Luckily, she wasn’t very strong. She was in her nineties after all. I continued. “To the last syllable of recorded time.” I interjected a plea to Guy and Producer Janice. “Cut the feed! We can’t give in to this terrorist tactic.”

  Kaboom! Another bomb went off.

  I perservered, shouting at the top of my lungs. “And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death!” Wow, was this irony or what? I wondered if Bethany would be proud of my delivery. Or, dare I ponder possibly Meryl Streep would see my performance. “Out, out brief candle!”

  Kaboom!

  I heard sirens in the distance. Help was on the way.

  “Life’s but a…” uh-oh. I’d forgotten the next line. “Life’s but a…”

  Kaboom!

  Roz came to my aid, knocking Regina back again and stepping beside me. “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his life upon the stage.” Roz could be loud when she really tried. “What if that lunatic blows the truck?” She shouted at me.

  “He won’t,” I shouted back. “If they really wanted us dead, they would have done it by now. She’s been following me all week long.” My throat was starting to hurt. “Come on, Guy, cut the feed.”

  “Are you kidding me? This is the best live television going. Hashtag That Barbara Marr!”

  Purple Rain Man’s voice blared over the speakers again. “I don’t like the way you’re treating my auntie down there, folks. Things are about to get real.”

  Kaboom! A street lamp exploded above us. Kaboom! There went another one. The sound of showering glass and terrified screams reverberated throughout the outdoor mall.

  “And now,” Purple Rain Man’s voice blasted through the loud speakers, “for the big…”

  A loud crash and thwap interrupted his announcement.

  We waited for more, but instead, another voice blared over the speakers. “Hi ya, Barb! How ya doin’ down there?”

  “That sounds like your friend, Moses,” Peggy said.

  Regina spun around, casting her gaze just above the clock in the Clock Tower Building. Aha. I’d been right. She gave away Purple Rain Man’s location—he had been watching us live. Then I remembered Moyle’s whispered words in my ears. I’ll be on the ninth floor.

  “Moyle!” I shouted, trying to locate a glimpse of him in one of the windows.

  “Hey ya, Barb,” he said through the loudspeaker. “If you can hear me, this is Moyle. There was a rat in here blowin’ stuff up, but he’s, uh, not gonna hurt anyone anymore. And a big guy showed up—he helped me out. Says he knows you. What was your name again?”

  “Boris.” It was the voice of Callie’s British bodyguard, Rupert Boris. “Howard says to tell you that he’s on his way, Barb.”

  Peggy, meanwhile, held true to her promise. With Regina distracted with a possible takeover in blowout-central, Peggy executed an attack move that made Jack Reacher look like Jack Frost. In the blink of an eye, she’d mowed Regina down, wrestled her to the ground, and pinned her. Sitting on the woman, she sneered. “How’s that for a nutty nitwit?”

  Two security guards appeared in record time.

  Exhausted, I made my way to the fountain’s edge and sat. Roz joined me.

  Guy didn’t miss a beat. He adjusted his fedora and lifted his microphone. “This is Guy Mertz, live at Rustic Woods Town Center, where two terrorists have been apprehended by civilians in what I can only report as the most horrifying experience I have ever endured. Mayhem and Macbeth. And you, Channel Ten viewers, witnessed the entire ordeal live.”

  Howard arrived with the FBI, ATF, and three quarters of Fairfax County Police force.

  “Howard, Moyle is up there in the Clock Tower Building with Boris,” I said. “They took down Purple Rain Man.”

  “Who is Boris?”

  “The bodyguard you hired for Callie.”

  “Rupert.” Howard nodded, lookin
g pleased. “I texted him when the Code Red came in. I’ve had him on standby for a while now.”

  “I guess that was a good idea.”

  “You think?” Howard gave me a slow wink.

  He took off in search of Moyle and Boris, but only came back with the bodyguard.

  “Where’s Moyle?” I asked Rupert Boris.

  He shrugged. “I turned around and he was gone. Is he a bit odd?”

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Monday morning after getting the girls off to school, Howard and I sat at our kitchen table and sipped from large coffee mugs. It was nice to enjoy a moment alone with him before he had to leave for work. He had made the decision, with my blessing, to honor the contract for the corporate job, but then he would sign over his share of the private investigation company to Colt and apply to the Fairfax County Police Academy. I wanted him safe, but I also wanted him happy.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  I set my mug down and gave a listen, but didn’t hear a thing. “What should I be hearing?”

  “Construction next door. They usually start at dawn.”

  “Strange, huh?” I sipped from my mug, keeping Sharon Forrest’s secret to myself. She said she’d still be back after delivering the ladies and Moyle to their safe haven. “They’re probably just taking a few days off.”

  Howard looked at his watch. “Gotta go.” He gave me a kiss. “Try to stay out of trouble today.”

  I followed him out and waved goodbye from the porch. A cold front had moved in overnight making me shiver. When Howard drove off, I ran back into the house and pulled on a pair of jeans. Olga had asked me to come by her house before the Nature Center opened. She had something to show me.

  As I dressed, I worried about the people in my life. Howard joining the police force, Callie away at college, Bethany growing into a woman and navigating the world of boys and dating, and Moyle. Poor Moyle. How he knew to be there on the ninth floor of The Clock Tower Building, I did not know. And I wanted to keep it that way.

  Pulling into Olga’s driveway, I hurried to her door and knocked. She needed to get to work soon. She gestured me in with a smile. “Good. You make it in time.” She motioned me to follow her. “Come, we walk and talk. What I have to show you is in guest house. Did you say our Moyle was a hero yesterday?”

  “Yup. Can you believe it? Then he disappeared—again.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That is spooky.” She pushed the guest house door open so I could enter. “The bathroom,” she said. “He left a message for you.” I poked my head in the small bathroom. Words were scrawled with permanent marker on the mirror above the sink. #ThatBarbaraMarr. You’ve been a good friend. I will miss you.

  I stared at the words with a pang of loss. “You didn’t see him come or go when he left this?” I asked her.

  “I had my eyes peeled like eagle on the lookout for that man. He moves in the shadows, I am thinking.”

  I sighed knowing I couldn’t reveal what little I knew about his past. “He’s a kook, but he’s a loveable kook.”

  “He was efficient gardener,” Olga said. “And all around nice guy. But he didn’t leave me goodbye message, so I have a few words for him if I see him again. You were good friend, but what is this guest house, chopped liver?”

  Olga and I hugged with promises to stay friends and keep that date for stroganoff. She went to work, and I went to the grocery store. With all of the illness and adventure, our cupboards at home were bare.

  While signing an autograph for a man in the dog food aisle, a text came in from Vikki. She and Colt had good news, could I come by for lunch?

  “Gladly.” My face broke into a huge smile. I was pretty sure I knew what the good news would be. Colt must have gotten that ring all on his own.

  Two hours later, when Vikki opened her front door, I launched into an immediate congratulatory speech. “I’m so happy…” at the same time, I searched for the ring on her finger and, not finding a sign of engagement, had to change my tune on a dime. “… you invited me for lunch. That was so nice of you.”

  Vikki laughed. “I didn’t cook, Colt did.” She showed me to the great room where Colt set a platter of taco shells on the kitchen island.

  “Hi, Curly. How are you feeling today?”

  “A little tired. We were at the Town Center for a long time yesterday. My ears are still ringing from the pyrotechnic show.” I gave him an expectant look. “What’s the good news?”

  Vikki piped up. “I’d rather show you than tell you. They’re out back.” She motioned me to the sliding glass door. We crossed her back lawn toward the dock and the bank of Lake Muir. I stood beside Vikki on the dock. “Who are we looking for?”

  “Call Vito Corleone.”

  Vito. I suddenly realized that he hadn’t made his daily flight to my house in recent days. “Vito!” I called across the water. “Vito Coreleone!”

  A quack replied. Vito’s happy quack.

  “Hey, Vito,” I called again, hoping to bring him out of hiding.

  He quacked back, but this time, another quack followed. A different quack. Then, out of the brambles growing on the lake’s edge, swam Vito followed by a smaller duck. My heart overflowed with joy. “Vito has a girlfriend?”

  “She showed up two days ago,” Vikki said with a smile. “They’ve been together ever since.”

  Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for Vito, but my eyes watered from a touch of bittersweet sadness. “They’re all leaving me. Callie, Moyle, Vito.”

  Vikki squeezed my arm, her eyes lighting up. “Speaking of Moyle, I have something else to show you.”

  “Hey, Red!” Colt called to Vikki from across the lawn, making his way down to the lake. “Your editor is on the phone.”

  She cringed, and started back up to the house. “I have to take this first.”

  “You didn’t propose yet?” I scolded Colt when Vikki was out of earshot.

  “No. The time wasn’t right.” Colt stuffed his hands in his pockets. “She hasn't turned her manuscript in yet.”

  “It was due days ago.”

  “That’s why her editor is calling. Vikki and I got a little side-tracked with research. Come in the house. We have something very interesting to show you. Found it this morning on an ancestry site.”

  He guided me back to Vikki’s writing office. A treadmill with a tall writing desk stood in one corner, and another large oak desk sat in front of a wide bay window that looked out over the lake. He pointed to one of two chairs at the oak desk. “You’ll want to be sitting for this. Plus, it’s easier to see the computer.”

  Colt sat in the other chair and began pecking away at the computer keyboard just as Vikki joined us. He looked up. “Everything okay?”

  “Mary is cool. She was firm though. She wants it by this Friday.”

  “Mary is your editor?” I asked Vikki.

  Vikki nodded, while scooting to stand between the two chairs. “She’s excited that I have the bones of my next book, so she’s been pretty understanding.” She squeezed Colt’s shoulder. “Did you tell her yet?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Colt pecked some more at the keys. “I was going to show her instead.” A moment later, a photo appeared on the screen. “Does he look familiar?”

  I squinted at the black and white image. The scanned photograph had been tattered and creased, but the man’s face was fairly easy to make out. “Is that Ed Sigmund?”

  Vikki smiled. “That’s the name we found on the ancestry site.”

  Ed’s attire in the photo was dated. He wore straw hat and vest under an oddly cut suit coat. “What year was this taken?”

  “Nineteen ten,” Colt said.

  The hair on my arms stood on end. “But he looks the same age as now.”

  Vikki nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “So we called Eric,” Colt said.

  Now the hair on the back of my neck danced. “No. Don’t tell me.”

 
“Vanished from his cell yesterday afternoon.” Colt whistled the Twilight Zone theme music for added effect.

  I jumped when an incoming text chirped on my phone.

  Guy Mertz had a request. Do one more interview with me.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I agreed to the interview, but only after Guy agreed never to ask for another. He’d go easy on me, no hard-hitting questions. I explained to him that under no circumstances whatsoever would I discuss Pickle’s murder or the circumstances leading to Ed Sigmund’s confession. That was off the table. “OFF the table, Guy. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said on the phone. “I understand. You have my word.”

  The next day I arrived in the cold studio where Guy’s producer treated me like a queen. They offered me coffee and cookies and sparkling water and a Channel Ten Guy Mertz umbrella. A makeup person made sure I wasn’t too shiny under the lights when the cameras rolled before I was stowed away in a green room to wait.

  I twiddled my fingers while looking at the wall which were blue, not green. I picked up a magazine and thumbed through the recipes.

  Finally, an assistant arrived. “We’re ready for you now, Ms. Marr.” She guided me to the small set. Instantly I noticed there were four chairs, not two. I narrowed my eyes. “Who else is he interviewing?” I asked the assistant.

  Guy interrupted her, arriving on the set, adjusting his microphone to his lapel. “Not to worry, Barb. You will be pleased.”

  “I’d be pleased if you’d tell me who’s going to be sitting in those chairs.”

  “Someone who wants to make an apology,” he answered. Apparently spotting someone behind me, Guy raised a hand. “Hello. Welcome. Come over.”

  I couldn’t turn because the assistant was rigging me for sound.

  A woman sounded very excited to see my back. “Is this Barbara Marr?” I didn’t recognize her voice.

  “Guy?” I urged. Finally the assistant completed her task and turned me around.

  “Barb,” Guy said, “I’d like you to meet Mrs. Vaneshia Goings.”