09 Dead Man Running, page 12
Suddenly the horses made a sharp left and we were headed back to the Tiki Torches and the road. Collette’s wagon was stopped, and another wagon that had been coming from the opposite direction had pulled over.
The horses picked the worst place to come back on the road, because at that point the road swelled on a rise, and the horses and my wagon were going to have to go up a steep incline of about ten feet. Visions of me toppling through the air crowded my mind, and I pulled on the reins and shouted, “Stop, you stupid animals!”
They didn’t stop. They took that incline like there was no tomorrow. As I glanced behind me at the wagon, I saw the last three or four remaining passengers tumble out of the back, the hay bales falling after them. The laughing idiot was among those who bit the dust on that last hill. I squeezed my eyes shut and grabbed onto those reins so tight I could feel the leather cutting into my hands.
Then the horses just stopped. They couldn’t make it the rest of the way up onto the road with the wagon attached. They stumbled backward and whinnied furiously, and when they did, I saw a few people scuttle down off the road and come after the horses. Several people grabbed hold of the horses’ bridles or bits or manes, wherever they could get some leverage, and stopped them. I jumped down off of that seat so quickly you would have thought I was an Olympic athlete.
Then I just stood and shook for several minutes.
When the sirens began to wail in the distance, I remembered the gunshots. People who had been in my wagon were strewn all over the field. Some were bleeding, some hobbling. When I crested the swell of the road, I ran for Collette’s wagon. “Collette!” I called out.
I found her sitting in the road at the base of the tractor wheel, tears streaming down her face. “Are you all right?” I asked.
She said nothing. I glanced around at the other passengers. The ambulances pulled up one, two, three. Somebody from Collette’s wagon had been shot in the calf. There was a bullet hole on the side of the wagon, and one of the tractor tires had gone flat. I assumed a bullet had hit it. “Collette,” I said.
She still said nothing. Finally she grabbed my hand and stood up. “I have always hated this town!” she cried. Then she collapsed into sobs in my arms.
Colin stepped up to me then. He’d been driving the other tractor that had stopped to help them. He looked as though he’d just received the worst news of his life, and instantly my whole body went weak. Mary! She’d been in his wagon. “Mare?” I said and swallowed.
“She’s fine,” he said. He pointed down the road, where one of the motorcycles was lying as if some child had just casually discarded one of his toys. The driver lay on the concrete with a pool of blood slowly trailing from his body. My eyes searched Colin’s for an explanation.
“I shot him,” he said and hung his head. Colin never had gotten used to this part of his job.
“But you weren’t even on duty,” I said.
“Ever since the stuff with the mayor … I’ve been carrying my weapon even off duty,” he said. “It’s a good thing. Well, in a way.”
Mary came running up to me. She slammed into me so hard she almost knocked me over. “Mommy!” she squealed.
“Mary,” I said. “It’s all right.” I picked her up and hugged her close.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “You should have seen it. Grandpa was, like, brilliant. He just stood up like this and then he did this and then kapow, kapow. The guy did a somersault off of his bike and landed in the road! And he bounced! Dead people really do bounce!”
She was breathless, her eyes wide. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen,” she said.
Clearly she had no clue that her life had been in danger, or even that the guy on the motorcycle would not be getting back up. I mean, she knew he was dead, she’d said he was dead, but I don’t think she completely understood that he was dead—and that her grandpa had taken his life.
“Mary, honey,” Collette said. “You come with me.” They went off to sit in the back of somebody’s pickup truck.
“Are you all right?” I asked Colin.
“No, I’m not all right. Dammit, Torie, what the hell is going on here? We’ve had the occasional poisoning and breaking and entering in our town, but we’ve never had somebody shooting at our people or our tourists. This has gone too far!” he said. “This is my family, my friends, my home. No, I am not all right. And if Mary … When she realizes I killed that man …”
“All right,” I said. By this time there were three ambulances, three squad cars, and a boatload of people who had been passing by and stopped to see what was going on or to ask if they could help. “What do we know?”
“I’ll tell you what I know. The damn mayor was in Collette’s wagon, that’s what I know!” he screamed.
I glanced around, and sure enough, I saw Bill and his wife sitting on the side of the road, unscathed but shaken. “You think this was an attempt … You think this was a hit?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what I think,” he said. “Completely unsubstantiated guess, but that’s exactly what I think.”
“Wow,” I said. “Why didn’t they just use a car bomb?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Bill’s cars—yes, both of them—have been in the shop recently. He and his wife have walked everywhere. I haven’t seen him in a car in over a week,” he said.
“Are you suggesting . . .?”
“I am suggesting that he knows his life is in danger,” he said. “And I intend to find out right now.”
“Wait,” I said. I filled Colin in on the argument I’d witnessed the night before between Bill and the stranger. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “Brilliant, that’s just brilliant.”
“Why doesn’t Bill just run? Go into hiding? I mean, wouldn’t you, if you knew somebody was trying to kill you?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” Colin headed over toward Bill, and I followed on his heels. I did it quietly, hoping he wouldn’t even notice that I was there.
When we reached the spot where Bill and his wife were sitting, the mayor looked up from his shaking hands and said, “What do you want?”
“I want to know what’s going on here, Bill,” Colin said.
“What makes you think I know anything about this?” he snapped back. Mrs. Castlereagh’s eyes suggested he did, though.
“I hear there was a domestic disturbance at your home last night,” Colin said.
Oops. Bill, of course, looked over Colin’s shoulder to me. I was right, Colin hadn’t realized that I was standing there. He glanced over his shoulder, sighed heavily and motioned with his head for me to leave. I did as he instructed, trying to walk as slowly and listen as intently as I could. It turned out that I didn’t really need to, because the mayor started yelling at Colin, which I was not prepared for. I don’t think Colin was much prepared for it, either.
“Just stay out of this!” Bill yelled.
Colin said something that I couldn’t hear.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bill again.
Colin kept his cool, and as a result, I couldn’t hear a word he said.
“Tell her,” Bill said, pointing at me, “that what happens in front of my house is my business. Who the hell is up at that time looking out the window, anyway?”
At that, I tucked tail and headed back to the truck where Mary and Collette were. Before I could get there, Bill and his wife walked briskly over to one of the townsfolk, asked for a ride, and left.
Colin came back over to me, with his swagger exaggerated just a little. “You really know how to piss people off,” he said.
“It’s an art,” I said. “So what do you think he did to warrant this?”
“Gambling debt, maybe? I mean, it’s the simplest, most common thing I can think of. I think he borrowed money from someone for something and then stiffed them,” he said.
“Have you checked his banking records?”
“Not yet. His whole financial history is at the top of my list now,” he said.
“You know he’s not going to talk,” I said.
“No, probably not,” Colin said. “And really, I have no evidence that they were after Bill. Guess I’ll have more leverage once I know who these clowns on the bikes actually were.”
“Where’s the other one?”
“Got away.”
“Are Tito de Rosa’s whereabouts accounted for?”
“We’ll find out,” he said. He stormed off and went to the closest squad car.
I walked over and hugged Mary, who was still babbling on about the guy doing the flip over his motorcycle. Her eyes were glassy and I realized that she was in a mild state of shock. Collette lay on her back, staring up at the stars, still cussing. Most of those cuss words had either my name or New Kassel attached to them.
“Hey, Colin!” I called.
He turned around. “What?”
“Can you get somebody to drive Mary and me to the hospital? I think she’s going to need a sedative or something.”
Colin came running over to the truck. “Why? What’s the matter with her?”
“Nothing, physically. I mean, she’s not hurt. I think she’s going into shock.”
She was shaking all over, her mouth still spewing words at a thousand miles an hour. He glanced around and saw Chuck standing by his truck. “Chuck! Take Torie and Mary to the hospital, now!”
“Colin,” I said, “don’t push Bill. Not tonight. Put him under surveillance. I might be wrong, but I don’t think this has anything to do with his finances. He hasn’t been acting like somebody in debt for gambling.”
“What do you know?” Colin asked.
It’s difficult when you live right next door to the very person who can destroy you. Rudy’s words came back to me, only in reverse. What if I could destroy the mayor?
“Whatever it is I know, I don’t know I know it yet. But there’s something else going on here,” I said.
Rudy almost took the hospital doors off the hinges as he came bursting through them. He ran up to me and hugged me close. “How’s Mary?”
“She’s fine, now,” I said. “They gave her a sedative, and they want to watch her overnight.”
“I don’t believe this,” he said. Then he glanced around the room and saw Chuck sitting in a chair.
“Chuck drove Mary and me over here,” I said.
Chuck got up and grabbed Rudy by the shoulder and gave him one of those man-to-man hugs. “Thanks, Chuck,” Rudy said.
“My pleasure,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave until you got here, but I’m going to go ahead and go now.”
We both watched Chuck walk out of the hospital doors, and then Rudy turned to me, taking a deep breath. “What is going on?”
“Well, Colin seems to think it was an attempted hit on the mayor,” I said.
The color drained from his face. “I just saw Bill at his house. He had a taxi meet him.”
“We don’t have taxis in New Kassel,” I said.
“I know. He called a St. Louis cab to come all the way down here and get him.”
“The jerk is afraid to even use his own car to run,” I said. “Rudy, this is serious.”
“Well, if he’s gone now, I’m not going to worry about it. As long as he’s out of my town and away from my family, I don’t care,” he said.
But I did care. There was no love lost between the mayor and me. In fact, I despised him most of the time. For some reason, though, I knew I could figure this out and felt bound to do so. I don’t know, maybe it was because I knew his daughter Karri fairly well, and even though I didn’t like him, he was still her father. I was reminded of Rachel having been worried about Vinnie Baietto being somebody’s dad. Or son. Well, I knew for a fact that Bill had children.
And I felt sorry for them.
I glanced around the hospital emergency room. Wisteria was the closest emergency room, so all of the victims from tonight’s fiasco had been brought here. The room was in utter chaos. The waiting room was in just as much disarray. Other than the person who’d been shot in the calf, most of the injuries were not serious. Bumps on the heads, cuts, scrapes, and a few broken bones. A few hours after the incident and I was noticing that my butt cheeks were incredibly sore and it felt like one of my shoulders sat higher than the other.
Out of nowhere Rudy grabbed me and hugged me even closer. “You were right,” he said.
“About what?”
“That there was something going on with the mayor,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
He said nothing, but I felt as though he wanted to say more. Something in his body language. I’d let it go for now. Rudy was like anybody else. If you pushed him too much he’d clam up and be stubborn. He was stubborn enough anyway that I didn’t want to give him any extra reasons to be.
So I did something I rarely did. I shut up and hugged him back, pretending that everything was okay. But everything wasn’t okay. Something was very, very wrong in my town.
Thirteen
The next day came whether I was ready for it or not. I would have loved nothing better than for the sun to have taken the day off for a change, but it rose. I can’t sleep once it’s daylight, and since we didn’t get home until eight in the morning, there would be no sleep for me. Rachel had gone to Riley’s for a few hours, but was home by noon. Mary had curled up in bed with her daddy, both of them drooling onto my snowmen flannel sheets quite nicely. About ten that morning, Helen Wickland called and said that she would give my tours for the day. So I lay around and watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy on DVD with Rachel until my eyes were red and glassy and I was seeing pointy ears and hairy feet everywhere I looked. We ordered pizza in.
By the time the end credits rolled on the third movie, the living room looked like a movie theater, with soda cans strewn about, empty microwave popcorn bags on the end tables, and something sticky on the coffee table. I glanced around at the room and sighed. I’d have to clean it. Tomorrow. For now it was dark, and maybe I could finally sleep. So I toddled off to bed, but I jumped at every sound. It was the most fitful night of sleep I think I’ve ever had.
That damn sun rose the next morning, too. On a Monday! Rudy and Mary had literally slept all Saturday and Sunday and all night last night. although Mary had gotten up about five this morning for good. The morning had gone by in a fairly normal fashion. Rudy went to work. Rachel and Mary went to school. I was so sleepy I was stupid.
I had two choices. I could either stay at home and stare at four walls or I could go to work and stare at four walls and at least have the opportunity of an interruption to break my stupor. So I grabbed Matthew and took him to work with me rather than taking him to my mother’s. There I sat, trying desperately to work, but my mind kept wandering. I’d had to comfort two different children in the past week because of violence that they had witnessed. There were no two ways about it. I was pissed off.
The Catholic church records would have to wait. I snatched my purse, threw Matthew on my hip, turned off my computer, and went into the kitchen at the Gaheimer House to get a bottle of water. Stephanie was standing at the sink trying to get a stain out of a doily that normally graced one of the upstairs chests. Somehow Elmer had managed to knock over a cup of coffee when he was giving a tour last week—although he still swears that the coffee wasn’t his. Stephanie had left Jimmy at her mother’s today. I think she was afraid to bring him into town.
“Hey, you want to run down to the library with me? I’m just going to one of the branches in South County. They have a book there with St. Louis wills from 1920 to 1960. I need to look for one.”
“Sure,” she said.
“Oh, good. Because I’m honestly in no shape to drive.”
We locked up and then headed to South St. Louis County in Stephanie’s car. We pulled off in Arnold and got sandwiches and fries from the drive-through at Lion’s Choice and were back on the highway in a flash. Matthew was in heaven, shoving fries into his mouth faster than I could stop him, since I couldn’t reach him in the backseat. For once, he could eat as piggishly as he wanted. When we reached the Tesson Ferry branch of the library, we still weren’t finished eating, so we sat outside with the windows rolled down and finished our food. The air was so cool and clean, it was almost as if it separated all of my nose hairs as I breathed it in.
“So, what’s up with your friend Collette?” she asked. “She’s moving?”
“She says she might be,” I said. “With Collette, you never honestly know until it happens. That’s why I try not to get too worked up over things until I know for sure. But she’s right. She is due for a change. Long overdue, so I expect her to move somewhere. Even if it’s not Arizona.”
“I have a cousin like that. She moves all over the country. Every three to four years she moves, just because she needs a change,” she said. “Me? It takes me three or four years just to get to know my neighbors.”
“Well, maybe that’s why your cousin moves,” I said. “She finally gets to know the neighbors.”
She smiled and agreed that was a possibility.
“So, are you freaked by what happened?” I asked.
“A little,” she said. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”
“You want to quit?”
She laughed and swallowed a fry. “No,” she said. “What’s changed recently? I mean, Bill has been the mayor for all of these years. Why would somebody be after him now? What has the mayor got to hide that’s just become apparent recently?”
“I dunno,” I said. “I don’t live in his house.”
“No, I mean in town. What’s changed?”
I thought about it a moment. “For one thing, he’s about ready to lose his job, and I think he knows it,” I said.
