Gretchen grinned. “I founded an environmentalist group. I’m very concerned about suburban sprawl and the damage it’s doing to untouched tracts of land. So I founded an organization to fight the developers.”
“People for the Preservation of the Planet?”
Gretchen’s grin widened. “They’re a feisty little army. Or perhaps I should say we’re a feisty army—except that I remain back in headquarters, never at the front line.” She gestured toward her cluttered dining room table. “Running an organization is demanding work. Especially when half the members of the organization are head cases.”
“You know the People for the Preservation of the Planet targeted Cavanagh Homes, don’t you?”
She understood how silly her question was when Gretchen hooted a laugh. “Who do you think orchestrates their protests? It was great fun while it lasted. There are other developers tearing down trees and trampling natural habitats to build subdivisions, and we’ve gone after them, as well. But going after Art was always a special joy. Going after Patty, too. The kids had such fun dumping fake blood on her Range Rover. That was a proud day for the organization.”
“Even though they were arrested for vandalism?”
“Some people actually enjoy getting arrested. It validates them. I don’t think I’d care for it myself, so I just stay in the background, handling the finances and directing strategy.”
“If I ever get my life back,” Lainie said, “I’ll send you a donation. I wouldn’t mind saving some trees.”
“I’ll be sure to put you on our mailing list,” Gretchen promised. “Now go get your life back.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
SHE ALMOST DIDN’T see the skateboard parked in shrubs beside the driveway, half-hidden by her blossoming azaleas. Anyone else probably would have missed it. But she was a teacher, trained in picking up clues, skilled at solving those “what’s different in this picture?” puzzles with her pupils.
She wondered why Sean had stowed his board in the bushes rather than leaving it lying on the driveway. Maybe he wanted to surprise her. She’d already had a day of surprises. One more wouldn’t faze her.
Coasting up the driveway, she surveyed the front yard, searching for him. Maybe he was in the bushes, too. She’d done some recent skulking in his bushes, so she was in no position to criticize him if that was what he was doing. Of course, she’d had a good reason for sneaking around his house. He’d better have a good reason for sneaking around hers.
Once the garage door slid open she drove in, listening. All she heard was the echo of her car’s motor against the concrete walls and floor. Karen’s bay was empty. She wouldn’t be home from the bank for another hour at least.
Lainie turned off the engine, and the silence unnerved her. She thought she’d gotten over her paranoia, especially once she’d learned that she had been followed on those occasions when she’d felt most paranoid about being followed. She had no reason to feel paranoid now, though. She’d accomplished so much today, enough to exonerate her and Stavik. Enough to storm the Rockford Police Department and fling her photos and revelations at Knapp, and then call Frank Bruno and demand her job back. And then call the Blumenthals and tell Hayden it was safe to start talking again.
And then call Stavik. And maybe start calling him Bill.
The stillness in the garage struck her as eerie, though, for no reason she could pinpoint. The silence, and the skateboard tucked under the dense branches of her azaleas. Where the hell was Sean? Was he all right? Had he done something foolish out of desperation? Become suicidal, God forbid? She’d tried so hard to convince him that nothing would happen to him just because he’d filched his dad’s BlackBerry and stashed it in her purse. All he had to do was tell Detective Knapp the truth.
But a fourteen-year-old whose father had been recently murdered could be easily spooked. Perhaps she’d been too stern with him the last time she’d seen him. This time—if he ever showed his face—she’d be gentler and more reassuring.
She lifted her purse from the passenger seat, got out of the car, and shut the door. As she neared the rear bumper of her car, Sean finally made his presence known. He must have sneaked around from the side of the house. His eyes looked worried, his hair spiky. He was aiming a small black pistol at her.
Her first thought was, Oh, for God’s sake. Her second thought was, Oh, shit. Sean was going to shoot her. Sean Cavanagh. Who’d told her she was his favorite teacher. All because of his son-of-a-bitch father’s BlackBerry.
“Sean,” she said in her most soothing voice. “Please put that down.”
He shook his head. “Give me your keys.”
She entertained the absurd hope that he’d come here to do nothing more than steal her car. But when she tossed him his keys, he pocketed them. Now she couldn’t jump back into her car and drive away, or even cause a ruckus by activating the car alarm.
“Where did you get that thing?” she asked, gesturing toward the gun.
“It’s my dad’s.”
“Do you know how to use it?”
“You pull the trigger and a bullet comes out.”
That sounded about right to her. “You don’t want to shoot me,” she said, managing to keep her tone calm and quiet even as her heart was beating at warp speed. She wished it would slow down. If he shot her while her heart was pumping so hard, she might bleed to death faster.
He looked momentarily ambivalent, as if she’d guessed correctly and he truly didn’t want to shoot her. Then his eyes grew harder, an angry man’s eyes in a little boy’s face. “I’m not going to let you turn me in,” he said.
“Turn you in? For what, hiding a gadget in my purse? That’s nothing, Sean. You aren’t in any trouble. If you shoot me, though, you’re going to be in huge trouble.”
“Yeah. Maybe I’ll get sent to the principal’s office. They’ll give me detention.” His upper lip curled in a sneer.
“You didn’t do anything, Sean. You’re innocent. You can’t get in trouble if you’re innocent.” Sure, she thought. Her own recent experience proved how untrue that was. But she’d gotten pretty good at lying lately. Lying to save her life was definitely permitted.
Where were her neighbors? Why was the street so damned quiet? Why was everyone but her at work right now? Would she have to use the heel of her palm to drive Sean’s nose into his brain? He was just a kid, for crying out loud.
A kid with a gun.
“Sean,” she said, taking a baby step closer to him. He jerked the gun toward her face, causing her to halt where she was. “You didn’t kill your father. The police know that.”
“You think my mother killed him. If you tell them about the BlackBerry, they’re going to go after us. Me and my mother both.”
Lainie’s brain hit overdrive. Should she tell him the truth? Of course not. “I don’t think your mother killed him.”
“Yeah, you do. If the police go after me, they’ll go after my mom. And she didn’t kill him. I don’t care what you think. I know she didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
His eyes glistened, but he rapidly blinked them dry. “Lots of people hated him. That guy who worked for him, his foreman. The tree huggers. They all hated him.”
“Your mother hated him, too,” Lainie let slip.
Was that more truth than Sean could handle? He jutted his narrow chin and cocked the gun. “She didn’t hate him,” he said in a wavering voice. “And anyway, he was an asshole.”
“I’m sure the police will take that into account.”
“The police don’t know shit. They’ll think my mother killed him. You think she did, too. I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t her. I’m not going to let the police go after her. You tell them I had the BlackBerry, and they’ll suspect me. And her.”
“No they won’t. You have to allow them to do their
jobs, Sean.” Even if they were totally incompetent.
“But they’ll figure she killed him. And she didn’t. She couldn’t have.”
“How can you be so sure?” Lainie asked. Her gaze darted left and right. Was there any way to get past him and out into the driveway? Any way to reach her garden spade, the long-handled broom, the snow shovel that still stood handily in the corner, just in case Rockford experienced a freak blizzard in May? One swing of that shovel could send Sean flying. Of course, a flying Sean could still pull the trigger and make a bullet come out.
“You think my mother would use a nail gun?”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“Are you kidding? She hates using a stapler. A nail gun? Any kind of tool like that—she would never touch it. It might ruin her manicure.”
Lainie opened her mouth to refute him, then realized with a shock that he was right. Patty might yearn to murder someone, but would she risk her perfect fingernails to do the deed? No. If she’d wanted to kill Arthur, she could have used the gun in Sean’s fisted hand right now. Or she could have paid someone to kill him. She wouldn’t have done it herself.
She’d wanted to divorce him and not wind up poor. That wasn’t the same thing as killing him. And it certainly wasn’t in the same category as breaking a fingernail.
“If your mother didn’t kill him,” Lainie argued, “then she won’t get in trouble. And you won’t get in trouble if you put the gun away.”
“I’m already in trouble,” he argued. “My dad is dead, and you’re gonna convince the cops to arrest my mom, and what happens to me? If I shoot you, I’m just a troubled kid. They’ll give me a few years of therapy, and I’ll wind up at Harvard.”
Lainie wasn’t sure he’d wind up at Harvard, with or without a murder on his conscience. His homework had been just a little too close to perfect when he’d been in her class. Patty had probably been doing it for him.
“Even if you shoot me,” she said, “that won’t change anything. The cops will still think your mom killed your dad. But if you let me live, I can tell the cops that your mom didn’t do it.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I really think I could convince them.” Her brain charged ahead and her mouth struggled to keep up. “You’re absolutely right about your mother’s manicure. She would never jeopardize it by using a nail gun. I would back up your story, Sean. Someone else killed your father. You’re smart. You’re smart enough to get into Harvard—but if you shoot me, Harvard will think you’re stupid.”
“They’ll just think I’m messed up.”
“That, too.”
He shook his head. “Okay, look, let’s just do this. We’re going in the house, okay?”
“You have my keys,” she reminded him.
He dug the keys out of his pocket and motioned toward the mudroom door with his head. Lainie really, really didn’t want to go into the house with him—not as long as he had that gun in his hand.
But the gun was pointed at her chest and the hand that held it was awfully steady. She took a step toward the door, and another, moving sideways because she didn’t want to turn her back on him.
He closed in on her, the gun’s barrel now within point-blank range. She could see sweat mingling with the fuzzy hairs on Sean’s upper lip. She could see the motion of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.
A sudden commotion outside caught her attention. Across the street, a deer sprang through her neighbor’s hedge and into the road. An adult doe, large but lacking antlers. The beast froze in the middle of the street, tawny gray and graceful, gazing about as if unsure where she was or where she should go. This street wasn’t where she belonged—but where she belonged might no longer exist. The forest that was once her home might have been torn down to make room for a Cavanagh Homes subdivision.
“Look,” Lainie murmured. “There’s a deer in the middle of the road.”
Sean turned.
Lainie grabbed her chance. She swung her foot up and aimed a strong kick to the back of his knee. Decades of soccer had honed her kicking ability. She could balance, she could aim, and she could kick hard.
She balanced, aimed, and kicked. Hard.
He howled as his leg buckled, and she plowed into him with her entire body. They were the same height, but she had at least ten pounds on him, and her extra weight was mostly muscle. His herring physique couldn’t withstand the tackle.
He went down, still clinging to the gun, twisting to point it at her. She dove on top of him and shoved his hand back down. He must have pulled the trigger, because a bullet fired out just as he’d predicted, shrieking past her head and hitting the wall behind her.
Oh, God, she thought, then realized that if she could still think, she probably hadn’t been shot. She rolled over him until she was sitting on his right shoulder, forcing his hand to the floor. She pressed her feet down against his forearm. “Let go, Sean. Let go of the gun.”
He growled something incoherent, and she ground the sole of her shoe into his wrist. His fingers unfurled and she kicked the gun free. It landed somewhere in the driveway. The deer galloped away.
Sean moaned. Had Lainie hurt him? She honestly hoped she hadn’t, even though he’d tried to kill her. He made another sound that resembled a sob. She realized she’d hurt his pride, and maybe his wrist, but his tears were caused by shattered emotions, not shattered bones.
“All right,” she said as her heart finally settled back into a steady pulse. “All right.” She supposed a kid could be upset to find himself pinned to a cold, hard garage door by his favorite teacher. How many times in her career had Lainie wished she could have sat on an obstreperous student? If only teachers were permitted to subdue the maniacal kids with a nice, strong soccer kick.
Her purse had gone flying when she’d knocked Sean down. Without getting off him, she stretched until she could reach the strap and dragged it toward her. A couple of photos fell out, right in front of Sean’s face.
“Hey,” he said, raising his head a few inches, all she would allow him. He squinted at the photos. “That’s my dad.”
“Yes.” Lainie dug through her purse for her cell phone.
“Who’s that lady with him?”
She punched 9-1-1 into the phone and held it to her ear. Her gaze came to rest on the photo of Arthur Cavanagh and Bree Daniel standing outside the half-built house at Emerson Village Estates.
“That lady is the person who murdered your father,” Lainie said.
LAINIE WAS SPARED the interrogation room with the two-way mirror. Sean, his mother, and their attorney wound up in there, while Lainie and Peter received superior accommodations—two chairs next to Howard Knapp’s desk in the squad room. The squad room was relatively empty and quiet; the biggest activity entailed Knapp’s huffing and puffing as he shuttled back and forth between the interrogation room and his desk.
Two patrol officers had responded quickly to Lainie’s 911 call. One of them had taken a weeping Sean away in the squad car, while the other had remained with Lainie, having her reenact the encounter and collecting what little evidence existed: the photos of Arthur Cavanagh and Bree Daniels, the gun, and the bullet, which had lodged in the Sheetrock wall beside the mudroom door.
“The kid just missed your car,” the patrolman had remarked as he studied the angle of the bullet’s trajectory. “If he’d hit your gas tank, it could have been bad.”
It also could have been bad if he’d hit Lainie’s head. Remembering the whistling sound of the bullet as it flew past her, Lainie had felt her stomach heave. Fortunately, the only thing she’d consumed in the past several hours was the cup of herbal tea Gretchen Donner had given her, and she’d managed to keep that down.
The cop had radioed for a patrol car to pick them up and bring them to the station. En route, Lainie had asked if she could call her lawyer. “He mad
e me promise not to talk to the police unless he was with me,” she’d said.
“I don’t think you’re in trouble anymore,” the cop had assured her.
“A promise is a promise.”
“Wait ’til we get to the station,” he’d said.
At the station house, she’d been ushered to Knapp’s desk and given access to his phone. “I’m at the Rockford Police Station, but I’m not in trouble,” she’d told Peter once her call was put through to him. “I was shot at but I wasn’t hit. And I figured out who killed Arthur Cavanagh.”
“You’ve been busy,” Peter had said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“No. I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” She’d laughed giddily. “Do you want to be here while I’m debriefed?”
“Absolutely. Keep your mouth shut. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Don’t break any speed limits,” she’d chided, but he’d already hung up.
Twenty-two minutes later, the crabby clerk who guarded the front door had ushered him into the squad room. By that time, Lainie had calmed down considerably. Her hands no longer shook when she sipped from the plastic cup of water Knapp had brought her. Her digestive system no longer threatened to expel its contents. Her pulse rate would earn her a gold star from her doctor, and her thoughts were no longer jumping around like klutzy acrobats. And she hadn’t said anything to Knapp, even when he questioned her about the photos.
“I’ll talk once my attorney is here,” she’d said.
Now her attorney was there. He took his seat next to her, arched his arm around her and hugged her. “You’re the color of library paste,” he said. “What happened?”
“Am I that pale? Someone should send me to Aruba to recover.” She grinned and savored Peter’s familiarity, the soft summer-weight wool of his blazer and the minty scent of his cologne. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really.”
Knapp cleared his throat and smiled. Lainie couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen him smile before. Even stretched into a smile his mouth looked tiny, overwhelmed by his pudgy cheeks and double chin. He was dressed in civilian clothes again. His detective rank must be legitimate, Lainie acknowledged. “The photos we picked up at your house,” Knapp began, his voice practically trembling with obsequiousness. “I understand they were taken by a private investigator?”
Dead Ball Page 29
