2 Death Makes the Cut, page 24
“Yes,” he agreed, blue eyes glinting in the spotlight. He pointed the knife toward Nancy again, a decided improvement as far as McKenzie was concerned.
“She started it all. Her and her temper. Bet you didn’t know she’s been attending anger-management classes.”
“They don’t seem to be working very well,” I said, which was the first thing I’d said to him that I’d really meant.
He laughed at that, too loudly. McKenzie quaked under his hand. “No, they sure aren’t. She’s the one who killed that idiot Coach Fred. Entirely by accident. He was in her office demanding something or other and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She hauled off and hit him. I was standing right outside her office. Saw the whole thing through the glass. The old guy spun around and cracked his head on her desk. Dead before he hit the ground.” He laughed at the memory.
My jaw hung open slightly, mouth dry as sand. Waves of horror washed over me as my fingers itched to slap his face. Keep him talking, I reminded myself.
“What did you do?” I managed to grate out, unable to maintain the admiring tone I’d been trying to use. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Oh, it was perfect for me. I saw that right away. The stupid bitch should have called for help right away, but she panicked. I helped her hide him until it was dark, then we rolled him out to the shed on one of the AV carts.” He grinned at the memory. “Old guy was heavy.”
“But why? Why move him?”
He looked at me with contempt. “You really are stupid, too, aren’t you?”
Apparently, since I had absolutely no idea where this was going. I simply waited.
“She was terrified that she’d be found out. Which meant,” he added as though explaining something to a particularly slow three-year-old, “that she had to do whatever I wanted.”
Blackmail. A few things clicked into place. “The show,” I said without thinking.
He nodded with satisfaction. “Now you understand. She just couldn’t understand that we had to have the show ready while Michael Dupre was here. It was my chance. I knew that once he saw me perform, he’d want me for his movies, especially when he found out I’d written the script myself, too. Actor, writer, singer. I’d be on my way to Hollywood at last.”
“And so you got her to agree to move the show up to September and to buy the professional costumes. And the set,” I added, looking at the extravagant props, the gem-encrusted elephant towering sightlessly behind him.
“Anything I wanted,” he crowed. “She could hardly refuse me, now could she? And what I wanted wasn’t unreasonable, not really. She should have wanted all those things for the department anyway.”
“It was very clever. A production that will never be forgotten. You will be a star.” I tried to sound enthusiastic and admiring. It wasn’t easy. I drew a breath and said in a bright tone, “So, look, Roland, why don’t you let McKenzie come with me? I’ll run her home before her parents start getting worried, and then you can tell Larry in the morning that the show is back on.”
For a moment, I thought he considered it, but then he shook his head a little sadly. “No, that’s just not going to work.”
“But why? You’ve got everything under control. Michael Dupre will be here tomorrow, the show will go on, and he’ll see you. Everything will be perfect.”
“You’re not only stupid, you think I’m stupid, too,” he said, sounding more regretful than outraged. “I know the three of you would never let that happen.”
Something in his tone made my hands break out in a cold sweat. I swallowed, trying desperately to think of anything to say that would sound convincing.
At that moment the phone in my pocket rang, its cheerful little ringtone slicing through the strained silence.
Roland brought the knife back to McKenzie’s throat in one swift motion. “Answer it and I’ll kill her,” he shouted at me.
I kept my hands where he could see them. “It’s my boyfriend in Dallas,” I said quickly. “He’s worried because I haven’t checked in with him, and he’ll call the cops if he can’t get hold of me. Just let me tell him I’m all right.”
Roland hesitated, while the ringtone continued. Then he gave a sharp nod. “Tell him you’re safe at home. If you say anything else…” He gave McKenzie’s shoulder a painful squeeze, and the girl gave a pitiful cry.
“I won’t!” I snapped open the phone. “Alan, hi,” I said, hoping to God it wasn’t really Alan.
Colin’s voice sounded both hurt and annoyed. “It’s Colin,” he said.
I could feel Roland’s eyes on me, could see the terror in McKenzie’s face. I struggled to control my voice.
“No, I’m fine,” I went on, trying desperately to sound natural. “At home, doing homework. Sorry I didn’t call.”
“What the … Are you in trouble?”
His quick comprehension filled me with gratitude.
“That’s right,” I said with a nod and a smile. Or as much of a smile as I could manage with frozen lips. “Look, I’m completely swamped here. Can I call you tomorrow? Okay. No, love you, too. Bye sweetie.”
I closed the phone and looked at Roland. He seemed to be considering, then gave a curt nod. “That was good. Now toss it here. I don’t want you trying anything.”
From my position in the aisle, I was five feet below stage level and some fifteen feet back. I swung underhand and let the phone fly, intending to have it land somewhere near Roland’s feet. Instead, it left my hand late and flew high and wide, whizzing past Roland’s ear and landing with a thump on Nancy Wales’s inert form. Specifically, in the right eye, which would have been painful if she could feel anything. And to my enormous relief, it seemed she could. Against all expectation, she stirred and gave a shuddering moan.
She was still alive.
Roland half turned, distracted by this new threat. He took a step toward Nancy, dragging McKenzie with him. I didn’t know what he had in mind, but it couldn’t be good. I prayed Colin would hurry, and that he would have the sense not to come with sirens blaring. In the meantime, I had to do something to distract Roland.
I took several steps closer to the stage and called his name.
He stopped. “Stay right there,” he said sharply.
I stopped, holding out my hands desperately. “So Roland, how about it? Why don’t you let us go home? We can sort out the play tomorrow. In fact, I’ll come help you talk to Larry.”
The look he gave me was colder than anything I’d ever seen before. I saw his eyes flash from me to Nancy, from Nancy to the top of McKenzie’s golden head. He was considering his options. I had to distract him before he realized he had none.
Desperately, I said, “So what happened with Laura, Roland? How did you get Pat Carver involved? Or was that something entirely different?”
For a moment, I didn’t think he’d heard me. Then he gave a bark of laughter and turned back to me, Nancy now forgotten. I prayed if she was conscious she would have the sense to hold still.
“Pat Carver. What a godsend.”
“So why’d she kill Laura?” I asked. “Did it have something to do with the money for the show?”
He gave me a scathing look. “Do you really think Pat, Fat Pat, killed anybody? She wouldn’t have the balls for it. Or the strength. It wasn’t easy, you know.”
A tear slid down my cheek. “No, I guess not.”
“But as long as the police think she did it, everything is just fine.”
“Did it have to be in the toilet, Roland?” I asked, not to keep him talking but because I needed to know.
“She walked in here and told me she was going to make sure I didn’t perform. That the part of Christian should go to a student, as though a student could handle a part like that. She said it was pathetic that I should have a part in a high school play. Pathetic. Me.” His voice quivered with rage. “I was perfect in the role. And Michael Dupre would have seen that.”
“But Roland, Laura couldn’t do anything. Nancy wouldn’t have let her stop you,” I said.
“Nancy wasn’t here. She’d gone home with a headache.”
“That doesn’t matter. Laura might even have tried to talk to Larry, but she couldn’t have done anything. Not really.”
“She called me pathetic,” he said sullenly. “She said I was a terrible actor, and she walked away from me. Like I was nothing.”
His words hung heavy in the air, like a faint echo of a bad dream. I thought of how Laura and I had giggled together about Roland’s ridiculous performance, of our scathing comments, of our outrage that this grown man had usurped a part in a high school theater production. Unlike me, Laura had possessed the courage to repeat those comments to his face, and now Laura was dead. Behind my paralyzing fear and sorrow, a slow rage began filling my veins.
“So you followed her out of here? And then what? Dragged her into the ladies’ room? She was half your size, Roland.”
For a moment he looked confused, then his face hardened. “Enough of this. Get up here on the stage. Now.”
The knife pressed again into McKenzie’s throat. I could see the skin turning whiter under the pressure of the long blade. Where was Colin? What if he hadn’t understood me after all? Or what if he couldn’t figure out where I was?
I moved as slowly as I dared, walking in front of the stage, then up the stairs on the right. Kyla’s bag slipped from my shoulder and fell heavily, the strap catching in the crook of my arm. Automatically, I lifted it back into position, a gesture every woman wearing a shoulder bag performs half a dozen times a day. As I slowly mounted the stairs, I slipped my hand into the hidden pouch that Kyla had bragged about. Sure enough, the gun was held upright in a deep pocket, heavy and cold against my flesh. I slid my fingers around the grip, searching for the safety catch with my thumb.
Roland looked from me to Nancy Wales. “I think we’re about to have a tragedy in three parts. Here, you come over here,” he gestured at me with the knife, keeping a death grip on McKenzie.
I moved as slowly as I dared, trying to catch the girl’s eye as I did so. If I could just get her to move, even to fall to the floor and give me a clear target. Unfortunately, she seemed dazed, her eyes unfocused and blank.
“Let’s see, should Nancy attack you first? No, maybe you should attack. You see Nancy bending over this kid’s body and you strike her. She stabs you, but you’re able to wrench it out and kill her. Then you both die together before help can arrive.”
I stared at him. “That’s insane.”
“Don’t call me that!” he shouted, his voice rising suddenly to a high-pitched scream.
“No one will believe that story, Roland. You’ll have to do better.”
“They’ll believe it. Now get over here.”
I took one step closer to appease him, then stopped again. “Seriously, Roland. Why would Nancy stab one of her students? The police will arrest you and then you’ll never get to audition for Michael Dupre. You need a better story.”
He hesitated, the dramatist in him considering the possibilities.
I stared again at McKenzie, willing her to read my mind. Her glazed eyes slid past my face, then suddenly returned. At last, she seemed to realize I was trying to tell her something.
I went on. “You have to let us go. This has just gone too far.”
Roland blinked, then his handsome face crumpled like a child’s. “It has gone too far. I’ll never get to audition now. The play is canceled. There’s nothing I can do.”
Was he going to see reason? Maybe this thing was going to end without any further violence. Where was Colin?
His face hardened again, now with a hopeless despair, as though he had nothing left to lose. “You come over this way now,” he said quietly. “You’re going to sit in that chair.”
I didn’t like that. Looking into his eyes, I knew that he was going to kill us all.
“Let me take McKenzie home,” I pleaded again.
“No. You sit down.”
The hand holding the knife had stopped shaking. He’d reached a decision, and he was not going to be deterred by any words of mine.
I kept talking anyway. “Let the girl go.”
“Do what I say, or I’ll kill her right now,” he countered.
I flashed McKenzie one frantic look. From her position on the stage floor, Nancy Wales let out a loud snorting groan that made us all jump. For an instant, the blade of the knife wavered, and McKenzie acted at last. Striking his arm away from her throat, she dropped to the floor, her sudden dead weight wrenching her loose from the hand that gripped her shoulder. Roland staggered, caught off balance.
I raised Kyla’s purse and shot him in the chest.
Chapter 21
RECOUPING AND REGROUPING
Roland Wilding died on the stage he’d loved. He was dead before he hit the boards, the neat little round from the Glock stopping his heart on its way through, leaving only an expression of startled wonder in his blue eyes before the light went out of them forever. He even managed to collapse gracefully, the long wicked knife dropping from his fingers to clatter harmlessly to the floor. In all it was not the worst ending he might have expected, and if he could have done it in front of Michael Dupre, he might almost have been content.
The cavalry arrived only moments too late, Colin bursting in just ahead of a SWAT team and followed closely by a platoon of patrol officers, emergency technicians, and firemen. He’d been wonderful and wonderfully efficient, but I didn’t have more than two words with him before official forces swept us apart, leaving him to handle the new unattended death and me to somehow answer for it.
The next few days passed in a mind-numbing blur of bureaucratic procedure; I probably would have spent them rotting in jail if it hadn’t been for the tireless efforts of two unexpected advocates. McKenzie Mills’s mother turned out to be one of the top divorce attorneys in the state. After she heard what had happened on the stage, she used every connection she had to obtain the services of a top-notch criminal defense lawyer for me. And, though it burned worse than a fat man’s hemorrhoids to admit it, my ex-husband Mike Karawski came through for me and swooped in like a weasel-faced avenging angel to turn the avalanche of media coverage in my favor. I didn’t even mind knowing that he did it only to protect his own reputation and to advance his tough-on-crime political platform. I spent the next two weeks on some kind of unofficial administrative suspension, at first hiding at Kyla’s place to avoid the constant phone calls and media visitors, and then when the worst was past, eventually moving back home.
My own role preyed on my mind less than I feared. If I awoke crying in the middle of the night, I let my tears spill unheeded into the short black curls of my sleepy and bewildered poodle and never told another soul. In the end Roland had left me no choice at all. For McKenzie Mills, for Nancy Wales, and for myself, I’d done the best and only thing I could have done. I had to content myself with that.
The tennis kids came to visit me a week later. McKenzie Mills, bearing a huge armful of flowers, Brittany Smith carrying a box of Godiva chocolates, and Dillon Andrews and Eric Richards both looking shy and uncertain as though they’d never seen me before. I was glad to see them and told them so.
“So how is practice going?” I asked, realizing to my shame that I hadn’t given a thought to what they were doing in my absence.
Dillon rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to come back soon, Coach J. They’ve let Mr. Jones loose on us.”
So Ed Jones had finally got his heart’s desire, I thought, surprised at feeling an unwarranted pang of jealousy at the thought of him trying to take over my team.
“Yeah,” said Eric with the expression of someone catching a whiff of dog poo. “He tried to get me to change my grip, my stance, and my racquet. He had me so messed up for a few days I couldn’t hit a backhand to save my life.”
Brittany chimed in, “And he’s so grumpy. He’s always yelling at us. We weren’t even allowed to talk on the courts for the first week. You have to come back.”
I was outraged on their behalf. “Have you complained to anyone about him? Maybe Principal Gonzales?”
“Eric did better than that,” said Dillon with a grin, bumping Eric with his elbow.
Eric reddened and grinned at me sheepishly. “I told my dad.”
“It was awesome, Coach J,” said McKenzie, looking at Eric with adoring eyes, which boded well for his chances of having a date for homecoming. “Eric’s dad made Mr. Jones cry.”
I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did.
Eric said, “The best part is that my dad went to Principal Gonzales and told him to get you back.”
I was astonished. “He did?”
Four heads nodded in unison.
“He thinks you have guts,” said Eric.
Dillon added, “And after that, all our parents e-mailed or called. We want you back.”
I was pleased and deeply moved. “Well, I want to come back, so as soon as everything is settled, I will.”
If the administration would let me, I thought glumly. I had no idea whether I would be allowed to keep my job, much less the coaching position.
Trying to shake off that thought, I asked, “So what else is going on?”
“We have a new theater teacher,” said McKenzie. “She’s really young and pretty, and she has a ton of new ideas. But Moulin Rouge was canceled. Ms. Clark says that Mr. Wilding didn’t have the right to turn the movie into a play. We could actually have been in big legal trouble for performing it.”
“Well, that’s a shame in a way, but it’s probably for the best.”
“Definitely,” said McKenzie with a shudder. “I don’t ever want to think about that story again as long as I live.”
I looked at her with concern. “I hope you won’t let this sour you permanently on theater. You really do have an amazing voice, McKenzie.”
She glanced down shyly, turning pink. “I didn’t know you’d ever heard me.”
I smiled. “I popped my head in once during a rehearsal,” I said, recalling the way poor Laura had crowed with delight at the scene. “You have a serious talent. The worst thing you could do is let something like this get in your way.”
