Stiff Penalty (A Mattie Winston Mystery)

by Annelise Ryan

  I flipped it open and quickly dialed 911, listening as I did so for the sound of someone approaching. All I could hear was my own ragged breathing and Hoover’s frantic barks inside. I crab-walked to the front passenger door and had a hold on the handle when the 911 operator answered.

  “This is Mattie Winston. I’m at my house, and someone is shooting at me! I need help. Please hurry!” I rattled off the address and listened as the operator quickly dispatched the police. Then she came back and asked me if I knew who it was. “No, I can’t see anyone. They shot at me when I was unloading the back of my hearse, and it shattered the window. I think the shot came from the woods to the south.”

  “I’ve dispatched the officers, and they should be there momentarily.”

  Just then another shot hit the rear fender. I felt trapped squatting beside my car, but the door of my cottage was too exposed and too far away to make a run for it. I got down on my hands and knees and peered underneath the hearse. I saw the lower half of a human shape emerge from the woods about twenty-five feet behind the car, someone wearing jeans and bright white running shoes. After some quick thought, I reached up and opened the passenger-side door, uttering a silent thank you to the shooter for doing in my overhead interior light. I wormed my way onto and across the front seat, keeping my body low so I wasn’t visible through the windows. My hands were shaking horribly, and it took me several tries before I was able to slide my key into the ignition. I started the engine, shifted the car into reverse, pulled my feet up so that I was in a fetal position, and pushed on the gas pedal with my hand.

  My parking space was a straight shot from the driveway, and I did my best to keep the wheels straight as the car roared backward and headed down the drive. Another shot fired, and I shielded my head with my arm as more glass came flying in on top of me. Then there was a loud thud, and the car jumped and bumped over something. At first I thought I’d gone off the pavement and into the dirt alongside the driveway, but the car was still moving. It seemed like an eternity until everything came to a body-jarring halt amid the screech and squeal of crunching metal and another rainfall of broken glass. The passenger-side front door, which I had left open, banged closed as my body slammed into the back of the front seat.

  I lay there for a few seconds, trying to figure out if I should slink back out of the car, sit up, or just stay where I was. That’s when I heard the sirens closing in. I breathed a sigh of relief and remained on my side, lying on the seat and waiting.

  Moments later I heard the squeal of braking tires. The interior of the hearse was lit up with flashes of blue and red light. I heard a man yell, “Don’t move!” and nearly smiled with relief when I recognized the voice as Junior Feller’s.

  “It’s me . . . Mattie,” I yelled, waving one arm up so it could be seen through what was left of my windows. “I’m here in the hearse.” I didn’t know if I was the one Junior was yelling at, so I figured it was smart to play it safe. I heard another male voice yell, “We’re clear!” and then the passenger-side door at my feet was wrenched open. I rose up to see who it was, half afraid I’d see that shadowy figure standing there, aiming a gun at my head. What I saw instead shocked me nearly as much.

  “Mattie? Jesus, are you okay?”

  “Hurley? Oh my God, Hurley!” I wriggled myself out of the car and threw myself at him. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see him. He wrapped his arms around me, held me close, and I instantly felt safe, secure, and happy. “What are you doing here?” I asked, the words a bit garbled from having my face squished against his neck.

  “I got home early. I dropped Emily off at the house and was on my way here to surprise you when I heard the radio call go out for shots fired at your address. What the hell is going on?”

  Reluctantly, I pulled back from the warmth and security of his hold and looked up at his face. Lord, I adored this man. The mere sight of him filled me with a mix of longing, lust, and dare I say it . . . love.

  “I don’t know exactly,” I told him. “When I got home and started unloading stuff from the hearse, I dropped my keys. Good thing I did because the first shot came when I bent down to pick them up. Had I stayed standing, I probably would have been hit.”

  “Why is someone shooting at you?”

  “How would I know?” I shot back, sounding as frustrated and frightened as I felt. “I’ve been getting these strange calls lately, calls where no one says anything. And there’s a car that I think might have been following me. But I don’t know if those things are related.”

  “Someone made threatening phone calls to you?”

  “Not threatening exactly. Just calls where I can tell someone is on the line but they never say anything. After several seconds they hang up.”

  Bob Richmond had arrived along with a swarm of officers, and they were all milling about: putting up roadblocks, congregating in my driveway, and examining the hearse. I looked around and realized that my car had gone all the way down the driveway and into the street below, crossing it and hitting a telephone pole.

  Junior Feller emerged from the crowd and approached us, a grim look on his face. “Welcome back, Hurley,” he said.

  “Thanks. I wasn’t planning on getting back into things quite this way, but . . .” He shrugged. “Did you guys get whoever was shooting at Mattie?”

  “Um, no, not exactly,” Junior said, rubbing his chin. “It looks like Mattie did.”

  “What?” I said, thinking I must have misheard him. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a dead man in your driveway. A few feet away from him is a gun that smells like it was recently fired.”

  “He’s dead?” I said, aghast. Then I recalled the thud followed by the bump-jump of the hearse as it was barreling down the driveway.

  “It looks like you ran him over with that behemoth you drive,” Junior said, verifying my suspicion.

  I let out a hysterical little laugh triggered by my appreciation for the irony as well as my relief. Then I remembered that at one time I had thought the person making the phone calls might have been my father. Was the person following me the same person? And was that my shooter? Or were they all different people? That didn’t make sense to me; it was too coincidental. But if it had been my father who was both calling and following me, was there a reason why he would shoot at me? Was he disturbed, or mean, or crazy and my mother just never told me? Was that why she would never talk about him? Had I just killed my own father?

  “I need to see him,” I said.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Junior countered.

  “I don’t care. I have to see him. Please.”

  Junior looked at Hurley. So did I, giving him my best pleading look. “Hurley, remember the night Emily was here and there was someone peeking in the windows of my cottage?”

  He nodded, and then a look dawned over his face. “You said your mother thought the drawing Emily did of that man looked like your father,” he said, and I nodded.

  “The weird phone calls started days after that.”

  “What weird phone calls?” Junior asked.

  It didn’t take Hurley long to make the connection. “You think your father’s been calling you?”

  I ignored Junior and answered Hurley instead. “I do, or at least I did. I thought it might have been him who was following me, too.”

  “Wait, someone has been following you?” Junior said, sounding exasperated. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” I told him. “And even if someone was following me, I didn’t think it was anyone dangerous. I thought . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence; my horror at the obvious conclusion struck me momentarily dumb.

  “You think you might have just killed your father,” Hurley finished for me.

  I nodded, still unable to speak.

  “Oh, geez,” Junior said, raking a hand through his hair.

  I pushed myself away from Hurley and tried to peer through the crowd of cops standing near the top of the
driveway. I could make out the vague outline of someone lying on the ground clad in jeans and bright white running shoes. I started walking in that direction.

  Hurley stayed beside me and wrapped an arm over my shoulders, pulling me close. Together we climbed the incline of the driveway, and when we reached the crowd near the top, they parted and let us have a look.

  “Oh, my,” I said.

  I didn’t need any pictures to know that the dead man wasn’t my father. The man on the ground was thin, blond, and didn’t look much older than me. No way was he my father, nor did he bear any resemblance to the man in the drawing Emily had done. “It’s not him,” I said, sighing with relief.

  “Then who is it?” Junior asked.

  I stared at the face, searching my memory banks for any hint of familiarity. Finally I shrugged. “I have no idea.” I shuddered, and Hurley pulled me a little closer.

  One of the uniformed cops came traipsing out of the woods that separated my house from David’s. “There’s a car parked over at the next house,” he said. “An older model, black Volvo sedan. We ran the plates, and they came back as stolen. I’m guessing it was what this guy was driving.”

  Hurley looked over at Richmond. “You want to take it?”

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. He grabbed two of the other uniformed cops, and they disappeared into the woods.

  Junior said, “Where’s Izzy?”

  “He’s out of town. Dom’s father died. He arranged for someone to cover for him, a Dr. Gary Henderson. He’s supposed to be staying at the Sorenson Motel. I have his number in my phone, which I think is on the floor of my car. I dropped it when I hit the pole.”

  “I’ll get it,” Junior said, and he jogged back down the driveway. That left me and Hurley alone . . . if you didn’t count the dead man.

  “Bob looks good,” Hurley said.

  “Yeah, he does,” I agreed. “He’s been working really hard at it.”

  “You look really good, too,” he said, switching his gaze to me. “I’ve missed you, Winston.”

  “I missed you, too.” I slid out from beneath his arm. “But we still need to keep things low key. And we have to talk. In private. I need to tell you some things.”

  Hurley smiled and looked at me with a curious expression. “Private sounds good to me,” he said.

  I almost let myself slip into romantic mode, but the sound of Hoover’s desperate barks brought me back to my senses . . . that and the dead man at our feet. I looked at him again. “He had to have been the one who was following me. I wonder if he was the one behind the phone calls, too. I really thought it was my father trying to reconnect with me but not knowing how.” I couldn’t hide the disappointment I felt . . . or the fear.

  “What did the car that was following you look like?” Hurley asked.

  “It was hard to tell because it was always nighttime when I saw it. It was either dark blue or black, and it was some kind of boxy sedan. Other than that, I don’t have a clue. I can’t even tell you for sure who was driving it. Maybe I was just being paranoid. Maybe there was no one following me.”

  “Well, your description of the car you thought might be following you fits the one the guys found next door. So I’d say your paranoia was justified because someone was definitely out to get you.” Hurley looked at me with a soft smile and a worried bend in his brows. “Are you sure you’re okay? Does your stomach hurt? Maybe we should take you to the hospital to get checked out.”

  I realized I was rubbing a hand over my tummy and stopped doing it, dropping my hand to my side. “Just a few lingering butterflies,” I said, looking off into the woods. I didn’t trust myself at that moment to look Hurley in the eye. “I’m sure it’s just some leftover adrenaline. I’m fine. I was lying down on the front seat, and I didn’t hit anything in the car when it stopped. I promise you, I’m okay.”

  From behind us a female voice said, “Oh, my, what happened here?”

  I whirled around, recognizing the voice immediately. “Alison, what are you doing here?”

  “Covering a story, of course,” she said. Then in a chastising tone she added, “Though I have to say I was hoping you’d be a source for my stories rather than the subject.” She shifted her gaze to Hurley and gave him a warm smile. “Nice to have you back in town, Detective Hurley.”

  “Thanks.” Hurley didn’t look any happier than I did to see Alison.

  “Can you guys tell me what’s going on here?” Alison asked, looking over at the dead man in my driveway. “I heard a call go out on my scanner for shots fired. I would have been here sooner, but I had to get my neighbor to stay with my mom first.”

  I had momentarily forgotten about Alison’s mother and her illness. “How is she doing?” I asked.

  Alison shrugged. “Okay, I guess. She has good days and bad days. Today was one of her bad days.”

  Given my prior history with Alison, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was exaggerating the truth to garner sympathy from me. If she was, it was working. “I’m sorry,” I said. Then I looked over at Hurley. “Alison’s mother was recently diagnosed with ALS.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Alison,” he said. “I’ve heard it’s an unpleasant disease.”

  Alison nodded grimly. “That it is,” she said. “Anyway, are you guys going to give me anything here?”

  “I’ll tell you what we know so far,” I said. “That man over there,” I nodded toward the dead man, “shot at me. The only reason I’m alive is because I ran over him with my hearse. Any chance he looks familiar to you?”

  Alison walked over closer to the dead man and stared at him for several seconds. Then she shook her head. “I have no clue,” she said. “Are you saying you don’t know who he is?”

  “I have no clue,” I told her. “I don’t know who he is, or why he was shooting at me.”

  Hurley said, “Look, Alison, we might need to spin this story a little bit in order to sort it out. Can we count on your cooperation?”

  “Sure, if you promise to keep me in the loop.”

  “We can do that,” Hurley said, “but you have to promise that you won’t publish anything unless we approve it first.”

  “I can do that,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure if we could believe her, but she seemed sincere.

  Junior was approaching us. He had fetched my phone from the car as well as the bags that I’d had stashed in the back. He was hauling them up the driveway toward us and started talking when he was still a few feet away. “Since we’re probably going to have to tow the hearse in as evidence, I got all the stuff you had in the car,” he said as he approached. He held out my shopping bags. “These fell out of the back when you hit the pole, but it doesn’t look like anything was damaged.” He set them on the ground at my feet, and I swear the words The Mother Hood glowed in the light from the various police cars.

  Alison’s face suddenly lit up. “You have a lot of clothes here,” she said, peering into one of the bags. “Who’s pregnant?”

  I bit my lip and tried to come up with a lie, but I was too rattled to think of anything that made sense. This wasn’t how I wanted this to go down. Alison was staring at me with an expression that resembled one of my cats when they are watching me open a can of cat food. I knew then that she knew, and that meant the jig was up. I looked Hurley dead in the eye, braced myself, and spat it out.

  “I am.”

  Chapter 17

  “You’re pregnant?” Hurley said, clearly aghast.

  He stared at me, his mouth hanging open like the perfect flytrap.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “Four months already,” I added with what I hoped looked like genuine enthusiasm.

  “Oh my,” Alison said, with a sly grin. She looked over at Hurley. “You didn’t know?”

  Junior became a nervous ball of tics, shuffling his feet, wringing his hands, looking anywhere but at me or Hurley. After what seemed an interminable amount of time, Hurley took me by the arm and said, “Let’s go inside and reassu
re your dog. You really shouldn’t be involved in this investigation anyway since you’re the one who killed the guy.”

  I winced at the harshness of his words, however true, and bent down to gather up the bags Junior had set on the ground. As soon as I had them in hand, Hurley started hauling me toward my door, where we were forced to stop. I saw that Alison was right on our heels.

  “The door is locked, and my keys are still in the hearse,” I said to Hurley, speaking through tension so thick it was like a wall between us.

  Hurley cussed and said, “Stay right here.” He then stormed off down the driveway.

  “Who is the father?” Alison asked, as soon as Hurley was gone.

  “That’s really none of your business,” I said irritably.

  “Oh, come on, Mattie,” Alison pleaded. “I’m asking as a friend, not as a reporter.”

  “It’s still none of your business,” I said. “It’s personal.”

  “Okay,” she said with a resigned sigh. “But I hope it’s Hurley. It’s obvious that the two of you are gaga for one another.”

  Hurley returned with my house key in hand, and Alison, thankfully, turned and headed down the driveway toward the cops who were standing around my car. As soon as Hurley unlocked and opened the door, Hoover came bounding out, wagging his tail furiously, whining and licking my hand. After a few seconds of this he turned and did the same thing to Hurley.

  “Hey, boy,” Hurley said, cupping Hoover’s face in his hands. “Good to see you.” Hurley then rose, looked at me, and swept his arm toward the door. “After you.”

  I tried to read the expression on his face, but it was all shadows. So I called to Hoover and headed inside, flipping on the light as I went. I half expected Hurley to slam the door closed behind me, but it closed with slow silence, which was actually a little scarier. I went into my bedroom to deposit my bags, knowing that both cats were likely to be there and thinking I might need to use them as my defense. Hurley is deathly afraid of cats.