Strangled by Simile, page 19
Emma felt the clean mountain air hit her temple, right above where the powerful fingers gripped her face. Her black flats tripped across what she thought were paving stones laid in a pathway from the house to the pool, but she wasn’t sure because she couldn’t see the ground under a patina of snow. Flakes flurried around her feet as she struggled for purchase, and she heard a muffled groan and grunt, repeated with every movement, until she realized it was her own voice locked in her throat and trapped by this hulking idiot and his bear-claw hand. She was getting mad. Where is Hunter? Where is Leslie? For Pete’s sake, hasn’t anybody missed me yet? Fine, fine, fine. I can do this myself. You teach those kids how to fake combat, Emma Rose—figure out how to do it for real. Right now.
“I bet it’s gonna be cold in the water.” The man grabbed Emma by the shoulders as they arrived at the edge. “Brrr. Maybe you’ll be unconscious before you hit the surface, and you won’t even notice. This’ll teach you to keep screwing around with other people’s money!”
As he snarled in her ear, Emma became aware of the difference in the grips on her shoulders. His left hand clutched tightly, fingers digging into her skin, but the right hand still held the gun. Grasping both her and the weapon seemed tougher than when he’d just poked the gun menacingly into her spine.
As she gauged the different grip strengths, Emma thought of Hannah, her best friend growing up in Holly Hill. The two girls used to go to a swimming hole at the crossroads of Target Swamp and Old State Road, and they’d play their own Robin Hood games, finding the best ways to duel each other and throw their opponent farthest into the water. They’d played for hours, practicing the best holds and positions, and as Emma looked over the pool and felt the altered grasp of her assailant, she knew what to do.
“I think there’s something you should know,” Emma said sweetly, “before you continue with your plan to ‘choke me out,’ as you so delicately put it, and drown me in the pool.” She tensed the muscles in her stomach and tried to breathe evenly at the same time. The visualization flooded through her like a lightning bolt. Right hand under his gun shoulder, head through the gap, step on his foot, avoid the gun on the other side. Come on, Emma. Just do the series of movements before he realizes what you’re doing. Avoid the gun. Stay out of the water.
She cranked her body to the right, grabbing his arm and knocking the gun hand away with her elbow. Shoving his elbow upward, she stuck her head under his shoulder then twisted around and lifted her foot quicker than grass through a goose. Emma felt the adrenaline exploding from her body. The man’s shoulders tensed, and he brought the other hand up, but he was too late.
“It’ll be tougher than you think,” she grunted out as her Mary Jane flat came down on his foot as hard as she could stomp. At the same time, she curled her body behind his back and shoved him forward.
Then a grunt flew from his mouth as his brain worked to process her unexpected change of status. She’d gone from compliant and shivering in front of him to halfway to his side and suddenly behind him, shoving at his back and shoulder with all her might. His gun arm windmilled through the air, and Emma shoved him again, sticking out her behind and spreading her legs, trying hard to keep her balance.
The potential killer tried to keep his own balance, but the second shove was too much. His flailing arms did nothing to halt his journey into the pool, and when he realized he was going in, he tucked his head as if to turn his belly flop into a dive. His head hit the surface with a crack instead of a splash.
Oh my goodness, the pool is frozen. Swimming pools don’t freeze—they have filters or floaters or whatever that keeps the water moving all the time. Don’t they?
Instead of two hundred plus pounds of criminal swan diving into the water and splashing around in the pool cover, madder than a wet hen and ready to kill Emma twice, the two hundred pounds of murdering fury lay on top of the slab of ice and a twisted pool cover. His head tilted at an unnatural angle, his dark hair standing out against the light-blue pool cover and the white snow. From where Emma stood, the killer looked to be wearing a dark-gray suit, and she could tell, even from a distance, he’d been broad-shouldered.
She knew from his presence behind her that he’d been tall, because she’d sensed him hunching low to hiss threats in her ear. Emma thought about diving in and checking his pulse, but she could tell from poolside he was dead. Besides, she didn’t want to. “I’m sorry, mister, but this has been a crazy week for all of us, and you were just makin’ it crazier. My daddy had a saying about karma. ‘He falls into the pit who leads another to it,’ and I think that applies to this situation. I just—” She sniffed. “I just want everyone to feel okay, and I want—”
Emma shivered. Even with adrenaline coursing through her body, she was cold. It was cold out there.
Voices called from the front of the house. “Emma!” It sounded like Hunter.
Of course they had no reason to think she would be freezing her fanny off in the backyard. Better late than never, I guess. She looked at the body on the pool. Is this the man who killed Charlie? I mean. I guess it has to be, but what was all that talk about money? Nobody’s stealing any money. Lord knows I’ve never seen that guy before. He sounded like a gangster or a tough guy for sure. Maybe Charlie was stealing money from the wrong people, and that’s what got him killed.
“Miss Lovett!”
The sliding glass door, left open by the gun-wielding maniac who’d pulled her outside, was shaded by three figures, two of them fighting to squeeze their shoulders through at the same time—Carl Niome and Billy Foreman, followed by William.
“Everyone at the party thinks you’ve been kidnapped, and they’re all running around the house, shouting your name. Can’t you hear them? The DJ shut off the music, and—” Niome’s eyes rested on the body. “What the hell happened here?”
William turned toward the door to yell into the house, “We found her!”
But Billy walked slowly toward the pool, staring at the dead guy, mouth hanging open. “That guy is dead. He’s not moving at all, is he?” He shook his head, trying to twist it in the same way. “His head’s all funny. Good thing he’s dead, ’cause that water is cold this month. Did he go swimming? It’s a weird time to want to go swimming.”
Emma stood next to Billy. “I guess the pool got frozen, and he fell on the ice, Billy. He was a bad man—maybe the bad man who killed your brother.”
“But why would it be frozen?” he asked. “We have a really cool floaty filter thing. You oughta see it. It’s shaped like a football. Oh!” Billy grinned sheepishly. “I took it out last week and put it in my room to check out how it worked. Oops. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Billy. You most likely saved my life!”
“I did?” Billy’s eyebrows rose. “That’s so cool!”
“Billy, are you all right?” asked William. “Don’t worry about the floater—your mom and I forgot too.”
Chief Detective Niome joined them, fists at his sides as he surveyed the scene. “Miz Lovett, am I to assume you found this man’s body in the pool, since you seem to be Pinewood’s official finder of bodies for all of Western Colorado? And beyond, I guess, because we’re steadily moving east.” Niome wore a formal police uniform, in place of a tuxedo, Emma supposed. He’d removed his hat, and his round belly strained the rows of buttons across the front of his jacket. He scratched at a patch on one shoulder. “I’m sure, like usual, you’ve got a good explanation for being outside in this winter weather and how you ‘came upon’ yet another corpse.”
“Emma, Emma! Are you all right?” Hunter ran out the glass door, panting. “We’ve been searching, yelling, and—” He threw his arms around Emma and breathed her in. Then, over her shoulder, his gaze fell on the body. “What th—”
Emma was so grateful for his touch as the tension drained out of her. She spoke into Hunter’s shoulder. “He said he was going to kill me. Something about how I’d messed around so much with ‘his organization’ and how I was gonna get what was comin’ to me for stealing his money.” She looked into Hunter’s blue eyes. “What money, Hunter? It has to be about”—she spread her arms wide—“this money for the fundraiser, money that Charlie raised for Billy. Dontcha think? Do you think Charlie stole money intended for his brother?”
She put her face back into Hunter’s shoulder, and he removed his own jacket to drape over Emma.
“I don’t think Charlie would do that,” she continued. “Even when I thought he was your basic Neanderthal, I wouldn’t have thought that about him, but now, the more I know about his story and this family... I was so scared, Hunter. That maniac seemed almost—gleeful. Happy to be getting rid of me.”
“He was a monster, sweetie. A killer looking for ways to maintain his bottom line, it sounds like.” He addressed Detective Niome. “It looks like Charlie’s killer is out on this slab of ice that should be a skating rink, not a swimming pool. Emma’s done all your work for you.”
“Emma! Emma Rose Lovett! Where have you been?” Leslie and Edward rounded the corner from the front of the house. “We’ve all been yelling, and it’s hard for my Jimmy Choos in this snow.” She shook a stiletto-clad toe at Emma. “But you really worried me, Grasshoppah, with all the death threats and notes on the Honda and—ohhhh...” Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of the dead man on the pool. “Holy crap on a cracker! What happened here?”
Edward’s hands covered his mouth, and his eyes bugged. To everyone’s surprise, Niome slowly stepped onto the pool of ice, entering just far enough to confirm that the man really was dead, then he exited. He shook his shoulders like he was trying to fling away the cold. “Your friend found another body. She’s almost an expert. She’s just getting ready to tell us what happened. Right, Miss Lovett?”
Hunter squeezed Emma’s hands then threw an arm around her shoulders, encouraging her.
“Right, sure. So I came back to the bathroom over there, and my favorite painting is on the wall, and...”
O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony...
More are men’s marked than their lives before.
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, and sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
– Richard II, II.1.5–6, 11–14
Chapter 26
Saturday, October 28
“LET’S GO LET’S GO L-E-T-S-G-O let’s!” The TJ High Cheerleaders were lined up along the racetrack, facing the crowd in the stands. The cheerleaders clapped twice, stomping their feet in time. “Go!” Stomp, stomp. “Wildcats for Coach Charlie!”
They screamed, and the crowd cheered and stomped their feet along the bleacher boards, shouting, “Coach Charlie, Coach Charlie! We miss Coach Charlie!”
Emma, Leslie, Hunter, and Edward stood along the side of the cheering crowd, huddling in the cold. They all held thermoses of hot chocolate, and Emma wore pink fuzzy earmuffs she’d found on sale at REI.
“He’s much more popular now that he’s gone,” remarked Leslie. “I find it interesting how that works, like how the value of an artist’s paintings goes way up after he or she dies.”
“Charlie’s value was really held in all he did for his brother,” Emma said. “I hope that fundraising can continue.” Feeling still on edge—she hadn’t really been able to calm herself fully after the attack at the party, she closed her eyes and held the warm thermos next to her cheek.
Nobody knew who the dead guy was or why he’d been at the party. Even William hadn’t been able to figure if he’d come through the front door—he thought he and Billy had greeted all the guests with the airhorn trick. Emma blew the steam rising from the thermos. Why do we do that? It’s steam—we’re not stoking a fire. “Well, I don’t know about all y’all, but I am happier than a mosquito in a blood bank now that his killer is dead!”
Edward placed his thermos to his cheek, drawing the heat. “Ah, yes, Miss Emma. You’ve foiled the criminals populating this small town once again. I’m so impressed by you!” He was, surprisingly, sans bow tie in an orange puffy overcoat with a multicolored knit scarf wrapped around his neck. He looked like a festive fruit tree. “Tell us all again how you managed to get him into—er, onto—the pool as opposed to yourself, which was, well, obviously his intent? And he had a gun.”
“And we don’t know if he was working alone, either, do we?” Hunter asked.
“Crapola. He did say we.” Emma stared down at her cuticles, thinking about jumping into a new bad habit. “He for sure said something about his organization.”
“Yeah, Mizzz Lovett,” drawled Carl Niome, who’d sidled up to the group, startling Emma.
Leslie gripped her black knit scarf tightly, her face blanching with anger at the intrusion.
“I’d like to know the same thing,” Carl said. “How you turned the tables on an actual gun-toting enforcer for a criminal element—maybe mafia—and killed him? How does someone all, all delicate and small make that happen? I could arrest you, ya know—for murder—which is where we seem to end up alla the damn time.” He crossed his arms over his burgeoning belly, made even more prominent because of the Sherpa-lined brown bomber jackets zipped over his uniform.
“He’s a mobster?” asked Leslie. “How do you know that?” She elbowed Emma. “Show ’im how you did that slick move that threw the dude on the pool.” Leslie grabbed her pal by the wrist and heaved the hand over her head, beginning the maneuver she’d made Emma show the whole group after the party.
Emma shook her head at her friend but still smiled at the memories, both the childhood memories with Hannah and the memories from teaching those techniques to her friends. The distraction had done an amazing job of calming Emma down after what happened Friday night, recreating the duels she used to have with Hannah and showing her friends how fast they could throw an opponent off guard. Especially when you’re tryin’ to keep yourself outta the pond. Billy’d been especially tickled when Emma had tossed him onto a couch.
“So you identified the man who attacked me?” I wish I were more sorry he’s dead, but I’m just... I’m just not. Emma inhaled a deep breath of cold air.
Carl nodded. “His prints came right up with a match. Name was Bart Whedbee, and he was a knee breaker for quite a lotta organizations in the state—some prostitution, a little drug running—mostly loan sharking. Ted couldn’t find any connections to Charlie’s fundraising for Billy. All those monies are accounted for, and there ain’t nothin’ hinky ’bout the numbers.”
Edward asked, “So why would he kill Charlie, then?”
“Or come to the gala and try to kill me?” Emma asked. “If everything’s on the up and up with Charlie’s business dealings, I mean. It doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“Do you have any ideas as far as who let him into the party? Obviously the guy you overheard talking to Bart, but have you had any new epiphanies as to who that might’ve been?” Hunter asked.
Emma sucked in a breath then choked on frigid air. Between coughs, she said, “No, no more ideas. I’m sure the other voice was male. That’s all. Which puts us right back to our suspect list as far as who killed Charlie—they were all at the party. Except Sawyer—I guess this confirms the conclusion we’d already come to about his innocence.”
Leslie had been glaring daggers at the chief of detectives since his disturbance to their celebration. “Officer Ted? That hulking master of monosyllabism? That’s who does your research?”
Niome nodded. “Just because he don’t talk much doesn’t mean he ain’t useful. And I’ve got no idea why Whedbee’d be trying to off you, Miz Lovett, which is why I’m asking the question in the first place!”
Hunter stepped forward, placing a hand on Emma’s arm. Emma wasn’t sure if he was trying to protect her or keep her from doing that move on Carl and starting a whole riot on the racetrack. Maybe getting herself arrested. “No offense, Detective Niome, but nobody around here seems to have any idea why anybody got offed, as you put it. Emma was just trying to defend herself from a monster. One who’d threatened her before with that note on her car, which I gave you earlier, and the phone call, which we also told you about. You should be thanking her for getting a murderer off the streets.”
“Yeah, Carl. ‘You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting with most admired disorder. Stand not upon the order of your going; but go at once.’ Macbeth.” Leslie bowed deeply, flinging the loose end of her knit scarf around her neck. “You should be thanking the lady, not haranguing her with ridiculousness.”
Carl’s chest puffed up under his fluffy coat. “Police legwork is not ridiculous.” He huffed, glaring at Hunter but avoiding Leslie. “Just because this guy’s a criminal doesn’t mean we don’t have to investigate his death. And your girlfriend is tied up in everything questionable that goes on around these parts.” He nodded toward Leslie. “Her and her Shakespeare-quoter pal over here. You gotta admit, they’re around all this stuff all the time.” He shifted his gaze farther, alighting on a group of boys on the field that looked ready to start a fight. “Gotta go. We didn’t find the murder weapon at Bart’s house, though—a lotta guns, some box cutters but no golf clubs, not even smooth-handled not-designer ones. I’ll be back to talk to you more later, Miz Lovett. Keep yerself available.” He jogged across the track, calling back over his shoulder, “Just lettin’ ya know” before focusing on the teenagers. “Hey! Hey, punks, c’mere!”
“Ugh. I am completely weary of that brain-dead troglodyte.” Leslie sighed. “Sooooo. Maybe Bart Whedbee isn’t our killer,” Leslie announced, fists propped on her hips. “But—”
Emma shivered. But I’m glad he’s no longer part of the picture. I feel much better investigating Charlie’s death without worrying about some gun-totin’ psychopath.”
