“Someone might have seen me go inside with you,” Marla said. “How do you know a neighbor wasn’t watching?”
“The people across the street had gone to work. I didn’t see anyone else.”
Angela kept her attention focused solely on Marla, who wished she knew more about weaponry. That gun looked small enough to tuck inside a purse, and yet she had no doubt it would be deadly when fired at close range.
“Your daughter takes the school bus during the week,” Angela continued with a sneer. “Your husband drives to work. You take the dogs for a walk. It’s the same routine every day.” She clucked her tongue. “As the wife of a police detective, you should know better.”
Marla’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Stalled at a red light, she pressed her foot on the brake pedal. Angela lowered the gun and pointed it at her belly until traffic moved ahead. When Angela indicated she should head west, Marla got an inkling of her plan.
Her gut clenched, and ice water sluiced through her veins. Angela intended to take a side road off Alligator Alley, shoot her dead and dump her body in the Everglades.
Familiar exits whizzed by as she sped down the highway. Dalton had warned her and Brianna never to get in a stranger’s car. If they did, their lives could be over. The only way out would be to crash the vehicle and pray the air bags cushioned the blow.
She began looking for light poles, emergency call boxes, or mile markers where she could veer to the right. She’d have to hit the car on Angela’s side hard enough to disable her. If she went too slow and they were both just stunned, Angela could still shoot. And yet, what would be her own chances of survival if she hit a pole at sixty miles per hour?
Her face popped out in a cold sweat, and her hands grew slippery on the wheel.
“I should have figured it out a long time ago,” she said, her voice raspy. “You’re the one who sent me the cupcakes at my salon, aren’t you? I should have remembered you were in charge of the baked goods at our rummage sale.”
“I’d hoped you would eat them at work and fall asleep on the drive home. It would have served as a warning to you.”
“Another stylist sampled them and had to be taken to the hospital. You must have dosed them pretty high. Is that how you disabled Alan Krabber before tying the noose around his neck and pushing him off his second-story balcony?”
Angela chuckled, an evil sound. “Alan had learned about my bingo addiction. He accused me of cheating him out of his share of our money. I said we should talk about it and brought over some of my cupcakes. He had a sweet tooth and loved them.”
“When was this?” Marla risked a glance in her direction.
“That Sunday after the annual HOA meeting. He’d told me about the fence going in the next day, and I thought it was a sign of approval from above. I knew your husband wouldn’t be happy that Alan hadn’t done a survey.”
“So you set your plan in motion?”
“That’s right. I told Alan he could eat the blue frosted cupcakes on Sunday. They had a secret treat inside. He loved surprises, and I’d put chocolate kisses in the middle. But he couldn’t eat the cupcakes with red frosting until after dinner on Monday.” She winked. “They had cherry pie filling, his favorite.”
A chill raced up Marla’s spine. The woman talked about Alan as though she were fond of him. “Why did it matter when he ate them?”
“I’d laced the red ones with sedatives. Once he got drowsy, I’d only have a short window in which to do my work. I called him around seven on Monday, and he told me he’d just finished dinner. He’d loved the cupcakes and had eaten three of the red ones. Everyone loves my baking,” she boasted.
“And then?” Marla prompted, her gaze darting to the side of the road. Across the canal stretched a river of sawgrass. That wouldn’t help her. Where did Angela plan to cut off the highway? There were boat ramps but not many side roads.
Her stomach clenched at the notion of plowing into a pole. Angela’s Lexus was a newer model, so she had faith in the airbags. But dare she take the risk? What alternative was there?
Tears pricked her eyes. She didn’t want things to end this way, and certainly not from her own stupidity. Had she listened to her instincts, she would never have set foot inside Angela’s house.
“How did you get in Alan’s house if he was unconscious?” she asked to soothe her nerves while her mind sought alternatives.
Angela seemed in a talkative mood. Or else she knew Marla wouldn’t repeat anything she said. The woman’s gaze held steady, and so did the weapon in her hand.
“I let myself in the front door with a spare key he’d given me. I’d waited until the neighborhood quieted and it was dark outside. Alan had gone to bed, which made things easier. I took the desk chair, heaved him onto it, and wheeled it to the balcony. It wasn’t hard to loop a computer cable into a noose and knot the other end of the line to a post.”
“So you put the cable around his neck and shoved him over the railing?”
“Yep. The man was so heavy, I was afraid the post would break, but it held. He didn’t wake up once.”
“How could you know your method would work? What if his neck was too thick?”
“I’d printed out instructions from the Internet. I stayed until his face turned blue and his chest stopped moving.”
Angela had planned everything out in detail, just like she had lured Marla into her house. Marla’s breathing, coming in short pants, seemed to squeeze from her chest.
“How did you get his signature on a suicide note?”
“You’re slowing down, Marla. Either speed up or shut up.”
Marla pressed her lips together and accelerated. From the corner of her eye, she spied Angela’s disdainful smile.
“I had Alan sign a bunch of papers for our business. I’d slipped a few blank pages in there in case I needed them someday. He was so blinded by the money coming in that he didn’t see past his nose.”
“And what business was that?”
Angela laughed, a harsh sound in the air-conditioned interior. “I can’t believe you haven’t guessed by now. After all, you delivered that item of mail to me. That was a dead giveaway.”
“The envelope addressed to Alfred Godwin? Who is he?”
“Alfred Godwin runs the StayTrue Ministries. You’re looking at him.”
“What? That’s you?” Different pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
“All of the signs indicate the end is near. Deliverance is almost upon us. Sinners are so afraid of being left behind that our sales of survival gear have gone through the roof.”
“Oh. My. Gosh.” Alan hadn’t been collecting hurricane supplies. His deliveries and pickups had to do with their ministry business. He and Angela must have been partners who sold those goods to gullible followers. “What was Alan’s role? He managed the retail sales?”
Angela snorted. “Alan did all the computer stuff, while I wrote the scripts. We even had podcasts online and a radio talk show. There’s still time to save your soul, Marla. Give yourself to the Lord, and your death will take you to a higher plane.”
I don’t think so. She sensed from Angela’s alert posture that they were nearing their exit. She’d have to make her move soon. Her gaze scanned the unending stretch of road ahead. Where was a pole when she needed one? She resisted the urge to test her seatbelt. Angela might guess what she had in mind.
“Alan thought you were using the profits from your business to play bingo?”
“He threatened to expose me as a fraud despite what it would do to the ministry,” Angela said, her voice dripping with venom.
“I couldn’t let him destroy the church we’d built. It would devastate our followers.”
Not to mention ending your lucrative empire. “Why did you kill Cherry Hunter?”
“Alan stupidly wrapped the bones he’d given Cherry to authenticate in one of our mockup ads. I’d scribbled some notes on the sides. Cherry figured out our connection and suspected that I might have bee
n involved in his death. The woman was dumb enough to ask me about it.”
“So you attacked her one night and bashed her on the head? With what? The same tool you hit me with outside Alan’s garage?”
“My hoe. Handy implement, eh? I couldn’t let Cherry give me away to the cops. Then you went snooping next door. I was inside Alan’s house, making sure I hadn’t left any evidence that would lead back to me.”
“Why didn’t you finish me off?”
“The gas fumes were supposed to do that. I didn’t think you’d wake up in time to save yourself.”
Marla cringed at her matter-of-fact tone. “Was that you digging in Alan’s backyard to search for more bones? Did you throw Spooks in that pit?”
“No. I could care less about those bones. It wasn’t me.”
“And Philip Byrd . . . did you intend to kill him?”
“Hell, no. After he changed the locks on Alan’s door, I needed to get inside again. I didn’t want to smash a window in case he’d installed an alarm system. I had to retrieve our stock. We had orders to fill, and I didn’t want to disappoint our customers. I’d planned to get them the day you interrupted me, but I had to leave fast after putting you inside the garage.”
“So that’s why you took his hurricane supplies. We’d thought he was just afraid of natural disasters.”
“Your husband found some clue that led him to me, didn’t he? That’s why he wants me to come in, but I’m not planning to oblige. I’ll keep driving once I take care of you. Whatever I need is packed in the trunk.”
Angela had planned this finale all along, and Marla had played her tune. Would she live to make amends for her actions? She could bear Dalton’s anger if only she survived.
Her heart thumped so wildly she thought she’d faint. Bile rose in her throat. Did she have it in her to take the risk that might save her life?
Angela’s voice hardened. “After the rest stop, there’s a turn off to a fishing camp. I want you to take it. I’ll make it a quick kill, I promise. Then you can join Satan with the other nonbelievers.”
“You’d better pray to your god first.” Marla wrenched the steering wheel to her right.
At sixty miles per hour, the car careened toward the side of the road. A series of light poles stood by the exit just ahead. Marla headed for the nearest one. A final thought of regret and sorrow for her loved ones flashed into her mind.
“No!” Angela screamed, throwing up an arm.
Marla gritted her teeth, bracing for impact. The pole loomed in her vision.
A jarring crash drove her body forward against the seatbelt.
An explosion and pressure to her chest.
And then nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
* * *
Marla shifted on her cushioned chair at the Passover table, while her brother Michael led the last of the service before the meal. Battered and bruised, she’d at least suffered no life-threatening injuries in the car crash that had saved her life.
The same couldn’t be said for Angela, whose body lay in the morgue until her next of kin could be notified. Funny how no one knew if she even had any relatives. She’d been single, never married, presumably without any siblings. It must have been a lonely life, but maybe she preferred it that way. Or was that why Angela had turned to religion, to fill the emptiness in her soul? She seemed to have truly believed in the gospel she preached.
“We can eat!” Michael exclaimed, closing his Haggadah until later.
His kids fidgeted and giggled next to Arnie’s children. Marla glanced around the table at her family and friends, a glow of warmth lighting her from the inside out and penetrating the drug haze that held her upright. Her spine hurt something terrible. The doctor in the emergency room had said the hairline fracture would heal on its own. There wasn’t much else she could do about it except rest.
Everyone had pitched in to help prepare dinner. Thank goodness she’d done all the food shopping and had set the table ahead of time. She just wanted to enjoy everyone’s company. Her only regret was missing Luis’s going-away party. Dalton had driven her to the salon earlier that day so she could say goodbye.
Seated next to her, he shot her a concerned glance. She took his hand and squeezed, sorry for the anxiety she’d caused him. He’d nearly gone ballistic when he received a call from her in the E.R.
Roger got up and waddled into the kitchen to help Anita serve the first course. While Marla could barely tolerate the heavy-set man and didn’t care for the way he treated her mother, she was grateful for his assistance. Maybe he was just eager to eat.
Dalton’s mom regarded her from across the table with a frown of puzzlement. “So Marla, this woman who wanted to shoot you was posing as a religious minister?”
She nodded, her shoulders stiffening at the pain that slight movement caused to her neck. Physical therapy would help down the road, but first she had to give her body time to heal.
“That’s right. The murders had nothing to do with the bones Alan found in his backyard. They had everything to do with the lucrative Rapture scam Alan ran along with Angela.” Marla took a gulp of water. She couldn’t fulfill the ritual of drinking four glasses of wine during the service and had taken tiny sips instead. Her pain medication already left her feeling woozy.
“You’ve heard of the Rapture, I presume?” Marla asked her Christian mother-in-law. At Kate’s nod, she continued. “Angela wrote all of their material and managed their finances. Alan handled their computer sites and retail sales. He also served as their voice, doing podcasts and radio talk shows as Alfred Godwin, the fictional minister.”
Dalton jabbed a finger at Kate, participating in her first Seder along with her husband, John. “My partner and I suspected Angela, but we were waiting for one final piece of information. Kat was tracing a source of income in Krabber’s account. We’d determined it came from StayTrue Ministries. Since that was a business account, we needed to know who’d signed the original documents.”
“I looked up their website on the Internet,” Marla said. “It gets thousands of hits.”
“The bank manager told us someone named Alfred Godwin had established the account. I remembered Marla mentioning his name, and things started to come together. Angela was a co-owner on the account. And she’d set up the post office box. She was supposed to stop by for questioning on Friday. We would have nailed her then.”
Brianna spoke from her place next to Dalton. “So this all started when Mr. Krabber found out that Angela played bingo? Why would he think she was cheating on his payments?”
“He didn’t trust women, not after his fiancée had betrayed him,” Dalton replied. “So he threatened to expose Angela as a fraud. I guess he didn’t care if he’d be implicated in the scam. He had enough money from all the donations people had sent in and from their sales of survival gear. But monetary gain hadn’t motivated him to get involved in the first place. Nor was he a believer like Angela.”
“I get it,” Marla said. “Being rejected by his fiancée turned him against her kind. He was motivated by bigotry.”
“Angela wanted the money though, didn’t she, Dad?”
Dalton smiled proudly at his daughter as Anita and Roger placed plates of gefilte fish at each person’s setting. “Yep, and they were making millions. Their income provided more money than they could possibly spend before the end of the world. StayTrue Ministries grossed over one point five million dollars last year.”
“Yet they both kept modest homes and didn’t appear to be high spenders,” John said, eyeing the gefilte fish as though it might jump off the plate.
“Don’t forget Angela’s bingo habit,” Marla remarked. “She had a pretty nice car before I totaled it, too. Apparently, Alan saved his money into a generous nest egg.”
Dalton lifted his fork. “Rapture profiteers are nothing new, but they’re using technology to their advantage now. Besides various apps, you can buy cloud storage for information you want to preserve for left-behind relat
ives. Books and movies on the subject are hugely popular. There’s even insurance for your pets, so they can be placed with atheists after you ascend.”
“That’s a bit extreme, wouldn’t you say?” Kate arched her eyebrows.
Marla was fortunate to have such tolerant in-laws. Thank goodness Roger had controlled his usually boisterous manner. His loud voice had led the singing during the service, though.
“Most Rapture schemes are run by folks who hope there is no ascension,” Dalton said with a thoughtful frown. “They’re making tons of money. The better ones don’t give any dates for this great event and purposefully remain vague. Believers can be very suggestible. Who else would buy this crap?”
“Exactly.” Marla scooped up a bit of beet horseradish on her fork with a piece of gefilte fish and put it in her mouth. Chewing and swallowing, she regarded him with a jaded eye. “How could devout followers be suckered into investing money for these items? Supposedly they’re going to Heaven. What good are survival kits and freeze-dried foods for them?”
“They’re buying these items for family members who won’t be so lucky. Or maybe they’re sinners, afraid they won’t be allowed into a celestial afterlife.” Dalton stuffed a forkful of fish into his mouth. He’d learned to appreciate the ritual food.
“At least we know why UPS stopped so often at Alan’s house,” Marla said, sniffing the mouth-watering aroma of chicken soup. “The deliveries were from his manufacturers and the pickups were the ministry’s logo gear going to buyers.”
“Would you believe there’s a genre of literature called Rapture erotica?” Arnie’s wife, Jill, said. At her husband’s surprised glance, she added, “No, I don’t read it, but I’ve seen it advertised. Those folks spend their time before disaster hits by having wild sex. I suppose you can justify any type of weirdness by saying the end of the world is near.”
11 Hanging by a Hair Page 25
