Mock Apple Alibi, page 24
Maybe he should have thought about that before he had done what he had.
Chapter 49
Watching Stayner, Erin caught a movement in her peripheral vision. Something out the window. She reached for the plate of cookies, drawing Stayner’s eye.
“You want another one?” she suggested.
He shook his head in irritation. “No. No more cookies. I need to know—”
“You don’t like them?” Erin asked earnestly, blinking at him as if her eyes were welling with tears.
“Yes, they’re delicious. They are always good. But I need to focus on—”
“Did you notice that there are two different kinds?” Erin asked, still holding the plate in front of him, leaning her face closer to it. “If you look really carefully, you can see that these ones are made with buckwheat flour,” she pointed, “and these ones…” Erin pointed at one of the other cookies.
Despite himself, Stayner looked closely at the cookies that Erin was pointing at.
“You see the slight difference in color…”
The front door swung open with a resounding bang. Erin pushed the plate of cookies toward Stayner’s face, making him strike out defensively to block it rather than reach for his gun and turn to see who was coming in the door. In a split second, Terry’s hand was on Stayner’s shoulder.
“Hold it right there, Rod,” he said in a low, threatening voice. “Keep your hands up. Don’t move.”
“What is this?” Stayner protested, starting to lower his hands. Terry’s hand tightened.
“I said to stay there and not move your hands.”
“What do you think you’re doing? I’m a cop! We’ve worked together for months! What is this?”
Sheriff Wilmot moved in from the back hall and Tom Baker trailed Terry into the house and held his service weapon pointed squarely at Stayner’s chest. Erin moved back slowly. There were cookies all over the carpet. More vacuuming for Mrs. Peach.
“Mrs. Peach, is she okay?” she asked Wilmot since he was the one who had come from that direction.
“The old gal is just fine,” Wilmot said, smiling. “She knew exactly what she was doing.”
“You might think that I’m just a crazy old lady,” Mrs. Peach told Stayner, coming slowly into the room with her walker, her movements much slower than the sheriff’s. “People always underestimate old people. It’s time you learned that not all of us seniors have old-timer’s disease.” She gave Erin a broad, toothy smile. “And do young people not know about extensions?”
“Hair extensions?” Erin teased.
“Phone extensions! I do have phones in other rooms, young man,” she lectured Stayner. “You thought I was just a crazy old lady and wouldn’t call the police.” She shook her head. “Like I didn’t know what was going on right in front of my own eyes!”
“We do appreciate it, ma’am,” Terry told Mrs. Peach, smiling his approval. He took Stayner’s gun and other equipment, and handed his handcuffs back to him. “Put those bracelets on.”
Stayner obeyed, scowling. Once they were ratcheted shut, Terry bent down and also removed Stayner’s ankle holster.
“You don’t work with a guy for months without knowing he’s got a throw-down.”
Stayner started to rise from the couch, but Terry pushed him back down. He leaned toward Stayner, eye to eye, his expression stern.
“Where are Vic and the others?”
Stayner looked around at everyone watching him. “How would I know that? We’ve been investigating for days, but I don’t—”
“I’ve been investigating while you’ve been blocking and misdirecting,” Terry corrected. “It surprised me when Erin said you had been by to check on her and Vic the other night, but I thought it was just a nice gesture. One cop looking out for another cop’s family. You hadn’t reported that you were coming over, but you had already clocked out. A little off-duty protection for a fellow officer. I appreciated it, especially when Vic was kidnapped, but Erin was still safe. But you didn’t need Erin; you needed someone to use as leverage against Willie.”
Stayner sat back, eyeing Terry and not answering.
“Willie is gone,” Terry told him. “Did Erin tell you? Killed by his own soldiers. Big coup. He should have seen it coming. He’s been dealing with the infighting ever since he stepped in.” Terry cleared his throat and avoided looking at Erin, as if he knew any eye contact would start her crying, and he knew she wouldn’t want to break down in front of everyone else. “The man was always a thorn in my side, but I’m sorry it had to happen that way.”
Stayner dropped his eyes and stared down at the carpet as if fascinated by it.
“If you want to be dealt with kindly by the courts, you’d better not let anything happen to those hostages,” Wilmot told Stayner. “The first thing to do is ensure everybody is safe and well. If the authorities see that you have cooperated fully and that you never intended to hurt anyone with this scheme, you will be given more leniency.”
“I was trying to stop the violence and killing,” Stayner said, his jaw set. “I was trying to stop the feuding between the clans. It’s been going on for generations, and I saw an opportunity to make a real difference. To disable them. To stop it and have the chance to wipe these organizations out. I don’t know why law enforcement has let these activities go on for years. They should have gotten tough about it years ago. They could have stopped it.”
Sheriff Wilmot nodded slowly. “It’s not as easy as it sounds. You have to use a balanced approach. You don’t need someone gunning for all of your law enforcement. Someone like Crazy Theresa gets it in her head to start taking out officers, and in a little place like this… then what do you think happens? No one else is going to step forward and volunteer to take their places. And you can’t just go around arresting people without knowing that you’ll be able to get convictions. Young pups like you always think you can just march in and clean up the town like some TV Western. But it’s not that easy.”
“Well, I don’t think I did too badly,” Stayner said. “I succeeded, didn’t I?”
“Assassinating Willie was your doing? I don’t think so. That would have happened with or without your interference.”
“No one would have dared to do it if it wasn’t for me. And Willie himself wouldn’t have let it happen. I told him that if he wanted things to go back to normal in Bald Eagle Falls, he’d better throw himself on his sword. If he didn’t… he would have to deal with the fallout.”
“And you think Willie’s death will make a difference? That this will change anything?”
“If the clan doesn’t have a clear leader, it will break down. You can go in and arrest the others competing for the leadership, and they won’t have any direction.”
“We need evidence to make arrests. And the Jacksons will come in and take up whatever business the Dysons lose,” Wilmot pointed out.
“That’s when you have to put the pressure on the Jacksons, too,” Stayner told him, his voice harsh. “Look, I shouldn’t be the only one willing to step forward and deal with this. If you’re afraid to do anything, and Moose River is afraid to do anything, you just end up with this feud that goes on and on.”
“Right now, I want to see those Bald Eagle Falls citizens returned to their lives,” Wilmot told him. “You think you’re some kind of avenging angel? You can just come in and mess around with people’s lives? Treat them like pawns in this game of yours? That isn’t the way life works. You put yourself in that position, and you become one of them. An outlaw. A criminal.”
“I never hurt anyone,” Stayner assured him. “Those people are just fine. I wouldn’t hurt any innocent people. Though…” he frowned, “I’m not sure we can refer to that Jackson girl as an innocent bystander. She was part of the organization. She breaks with the Jacksons to hook up with a Dyson and thinks it won’t have any negative effects? The leader of the Dysons?”
“He wasn’t at the time,” Erin pointed out. “He made his break with them years ago. No one knew he would one day be called on as the heir of the family to act as its leader.”
“He knew. And I’m sure she did, too.”
“Well, she isn’t going to cause any problems,” Wilmot said reasonably. “That’s all over. Willie is gone. There is no reason to hold Vic or anyone else.”
Stayner scowled. “If he’d just quit and gone back to his life, he would have found them. It was his own stubbornness that kept them hidden.”
“They’re in one of his mines?” Erin guessed. “That’s where I was going to start looking next.”
“You were going to look in the mines?” Terry repeated in disbelief. He knew better than anyone how much Erin hated the mines and tunnels.
“Yes, I was,” she told him firmly, looking him in the eye.
Terry shrugged and shook his head. “Okay. You were,” he agreed.
“How did you figure it out?” Stayner demanded. “None of you showed any sign of suspecting what I had done.”
All eyes turned toward Erin. She was embarrassed.
“Well, it wasn’t me. I mean, it was just by luck, really. You lost a button. When you took Vic. She must have pulled it off in the struggle. I found it when I took Nilla back that night. I didn’t realize at first. I thought Terry had lost it when he had gone in to check on Vic. But… he wasn’t wearing a uniform when he went in there. He was wearing a T-shirt. He couldn’t have lost his uniform button in there.”
“That darn dog,” Stayner griped. “Yeah, I know—he doesn’t like men. No excuse for the stupid dog to come after me. There was no ‘struggle.’ Vic knew better than to fight with a gun on her.”
“Nilla was protecting Vic,” Erin pointed out. “That’s not stupid. Just loyal.”
“I wasn’t even touching her. She dropped a piece of paper. Trying to leave you some kind of clue or message. I bent down to pick it up, and that dang dog comes after me, biting and scratching, launching himself at me like… one of those dogs that goes after badgers. Didn’t have a clue what he was up against, the stupid thing.”
Erin supposed they were lucky that Stayner hadn’t shot Nilla.
“Which mine are they in? We have to get them now.” Erin wiped at tears leaking out the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want them to spend another night in a mine. Not another minute.”
Chapter 50
Erin wanted to be the first one into the mine, but of course, the police would not allow that. There was no guarantee that Stayner had been working on his own; he might have guards or co-conspirators inside protecting the hostages.
Erin thought he might have been protecting her from herself as well, ensuring she didn’t have to go inside. Instead, she was waiting outside while the police went in to retrieve the hostages. While Erin hated being on the outside, she also suspected that she did not want to see the conditions that the hostages had been held in.
Especially toileting arrangements. If there was a honey bucket in there, Erin would throw up, just as she had on the Alaskan cruise. Not very helpful in the midst of a rescue.
So she waited outside the entrance of the mine, trying to ignore flashbacks to when she had been left for dead in one of the tunnels, and when Vic and the others had been trapped by an explosion when treasure hunting.
Caves and mines were not good places. They just weren’t.
They were not safe.
Stayner could have booby-trapped the place, rigged an explosion to collapse the entrance once everyone was inside. Erin could be in the same situation all over again—only this time, there was no police radio or cell phone to call for help. She would have to drive back to town for help.
Nilla wriggled in her arms and licked her face with his fast tongue, distracting her from the flashbacks. Erin wiped at the tears on her face and cuddled Nilla, waiting for disaster to fall.
“I’ll bet you just can’t wait to see your mommy,” she told Nilla in a choked voice.
Nilla licked her again, whining and wriggling.
There was a noise from within the mine. Erin detected Terry’s voice. Had they not found the hostages? Had Stayner not told them the correct location? He might have signaled someone that he had been caught by sending them to a monitored location instead of the actual holding site. Erin held her breath, hugging Nilla against her cheek.
Nilla started to bark and wriggle frantically, kicking out and scratching with powerful back legs, and Erin was forced to let him go to avoid having her arms shredded. The little white dog dashed toward the indistinct clump of people emerging from the mine.
Erin heard Vic’s voice rise above the others and ran toward them. She wasn’t as fast as Nilla and was trying to be careful not to trip over anything in the dark. They should have set up some bright lights instead of just using the headlights of the vehicles.
Vic had scooped Nilla up and was trying to calm down the wriggling, yipping mass of white fur. She saw Erin coming and held her other arm wide for a hug. In an instant, Erin found her place there, hugging Vic and an armful of Nilla to her, laughing with tears running down her face.
“Oh, Vicky! Oh, I’ve been so scared. I was so afraid of what might have happened to you!”
Vic returned the embrace, holding her tightly.
“It’s okay, Erin. Everything is okay. I’m all right. We all are. It wasn’t fun, but no one was hurt.”
Erin tried to settle her sobs enough to talk clearly and looked at the rest of the group that Terry, Sheriff Wilmot, and Tom Banks had brought out of the mine.
“I’m so glad Nilla is okay,” Vic laughed at the dog squirming in her arms. She kissed him on top of the head. “That stupid Stayner kept saying that if I didn’t do what he said, or if’n I tried to escape or contact anyone, he would go back and kill him! He was so mad at Nilla that I was afraid he would even if I did everything he said.”
Other townspeople were waiting behind Erin, there to provide medical support, food, transportation, and moral support. Whatever was needed. To begin with, Erin saw no one but Vic, her best friend, the person she had been most concerned about. Vic had been the most critical hostage, the one Stayner could be sure that Willie would do anything to protect.
Erin was finally able to pull herself back from Vic to look around, rubbing dog hair into her eyes as she tried to wipe away the tears. She saw Naomi smiling at her, and behind her, Mr. Foster, looking worn and worried. And… no one. Erin tried to blink her eyes clear and looked around the small group.
“But… what about Mary Lou? Where is she?”
Vic shook her head. “She wasn’t here, Erin. I don’t know… Stayner said he didn’t know where she was; he didn’t take her. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.” She sniffled, trying to keep her composure. “Maybe he did take her, and something went wrong…”
Erin swallowed a couple of times, trying to keep the hot lump in her throat from growing so large that she couldn’t breathe.
“Or maybe there’s another mine,” Vic suggested hoarsely.
Erin didn’t say anything, and neither did the others. If something had gone wrong with the abduction of Mary Lou, Stayner would have disposed of the evidence. Maybe down an old well or mine shaft that would never be used again. He hadn’t had time to dispose of Potter’s body, but it had been several days since Mary Lou’s abduction, and her remains had not been discovered.
They walked as a group across the clearing to reach the other waiting volunteers. People handed the hostages bottles of water and offered sandwiches and treats.
Vic looked around at the friendly faces, disappointment in her eyes. She saw Erin watching her.
“I guess… I was hoping he would be here. I know he can’t get away from the clan whenever he wants to, but…”
No one had told her yet about Willie. Erin pulled Vic close, bumping their heads close together.
“Oh, Vic…” Her voice broke, and she didn’t know how she was going to break it to her. The enormity of what had happened was overwhelming.
“What?” Vic’s eyes welled with tears. “No! No, tell me what’s happened!”
“I can’t… we just got word tonight. I don’t know what happened. But…”
“Tell me!” Vic insisted and turned away from Erin to Terry and Sheriff Wilmot. “What happened? Why isn’t he here? What happened to Willie?”
Wilmot cleared his throat. “We don’t yet have confirmation or any details,” he warned. “But we were told that… he’d been killed.”
“No!” The cry was torn out of Vic.
Erin looked at her haggard face, pale in the light of the moon and the car headlights, and started crying in earnest. If there was one thing she couldn’t block out, it was someone else’s pain.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked out, squeezing Vic’s narrow shoulders as they started to shake. “I’m so, so sorry…”
She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t believe all of the platitudes. She didn’t believe Willie was gone to a better place or that Vic would see him again.
She didn’t believe in angels, ghosts, or spirits.
When life ended, it was over, and Vic would have to learn how to go on with her life without Willie.
Erin would be there for her, would do everything she could to comfort and help her friend, but she knew they would never see Willie again, in this life or another.
Chapter 51
The return home was a blur. Erin wasn’t sure of any of the details later, even who she had traveled back with. She had not let herself be separated from Vic, and Vic didn’t let go of Nilla. They were a package deal.
Erin’s living room was crowded at first. She wanted to hear what had happened to everyone, but their words went right over her head. She stared at their dirt-smudged faces, at Vic’s pain-filled eyes, and she couldn’t comprehend anything else.
