Zack migrates to my side while the medics load Simone onto their stretcher. They check her pupils and drive her away.

  13

  A strong thump startles me out of my morning coffee. I open the front door to find David Graham standing there. “What’s up?”

  “I just bumped into Zack on Main Street,” David tells me. “He said he ordered you to take the day off work.”

  “Yeah, he did.” I return to the table and my mug of joe. “Apparently, I’m too frail and old to sell candy all day.”

  “He told me he was worried about you standing on your feet for twelve hours, and I don’t blame him.”

  “For your information,” I retort, “it’s only eight hours since he and Patty changed our schedule and I can handle it perfectly well. I shouldn’t be relegated to light duty just because I got hit on the head.”

  “If you’re on light duty, maybe you’d like to come with me instead. Maybe you’d like to make yourself useful investigating a murder and an assault.”

  I perk up my ears. “You mean like….?”

  “I’m going to the roadhouse to question the bouncer and the bartender about Simone’s disappearance. Since she was last seen at the roadhouse, they’re the ones who can tell us the most about who took her.”

  I jump up. “I’m on it.”

  He grins at me while I grab my coat and accompany him to the car. In a few minutes, we’re parked in front of Woody’s.

  We approach the bouncer first. “Do you remember that tall lady that came in here yesterday?”

  He nods and chews some invisible speck inside his mouth. “How could I forget?”

  “Did you see who she left with?” David asks. “Did you see her leave at all?”

  “I didn’t see a thing after you asked about her yesterday,” the bouncer replies. “You came along and asked if I saw her. I told you I saw her walk in but not come out. That’s the last I heard about her until right now.”

  David walks into the building without saying anything else. He approaches the bartender. “Did you see a tall lady walk in here yesterday—nicely dressed, kinda on the older side?”

  “Sure. I told you she went that way.” He points to the same corner. I’m getting deja vu.

  “Did you see her with anyone?” David asks. “She came here to meet someone and she doesn’t remember leaving. Was anyone else in here around that time?”

  “There was one guy,” the bartender tells us. “He was kinda short, dark hair and brown eyes. He had kind of a rough look, you know, but then again, most people who come in here do.”

  David casts a sideways glance at me and frowns. “Javier?”

  “How could it be?” I reply. “He’s behind bars.”

  “It couldn’t be Morton. He’s not short and he was with me the whole time.”

  “That only leaves one person,” I tell him. “Bret. Did you check with the buyer?”

  “I called the number and got his voice mail. I left a message, but I haven’t heard back.”

  “It has to be Bret,” I insist. “He’s the only suspect left, and I’m pretty sure Carol and Ronald Sneed didn’t hit me over the head and kidnap Simone and beat her to a pulp.”

  He nods but doesn’t smile. This is no time for jokes. He rounds on the bartender. “So did the lady go over to the corner with him?”

  The bartender nods. “She waltzed in here and saw him. She walked up to him and they talked for about ten seconds before they both went over there. That’s the last I saw of either of them.”

  David inclines his head toward the exit. Out in the parking lot, we hold a powwow. “It had to be Bret. He’s the only suspect left.”

  “Let’s go to his shop and see if he’s there,” I suggest. “Maybe he’s got a perfectly plausible explanation for all this.”

  “I don’t see how he could.”

  We get into David’s car. It’s a tense ride back to Main Street and he hits the brakes extra hard when he parks in front of Bret’s store. I can see through the windshield that the shop is closed. All the lights are off and the sign on the door confirms it, but we get out and knock just to make sure.

  “Now what?” I ask David when no one answers.

  “He bought a house over in the western neighborhood. It’s not far from Simone’s. Let’s go check it out. We might catch him at home sipping a cold one.”

  I snort. “Yeah, right.”

  Just then, my phone rings. I touch the green button and hold it to my ear. Zack’s voice echoes over the airwaves, but at the same moment, David’s phone rings. It drowns out Zack’s words. All I hear is a garbled yelling on the other end.

  “Hold on a second, sweetheart,” I tell him. “I can’t hear you. Slow down. What’s going on?”

  David starts talking into his own phone. In the back of my mind, I hear his voice rising. Something must be wrong. That makes me concentrate extra hard to listen to what Zack is shouting to me from the other end.

  “I’m telling you, Mom,” he bellows. “Simone is gone. She left the hospital against medical orders.”

  “What?” I gasp. “She can’t have! She was supposed to get a scan this morning to rule out any brain injury.”

  “I just showed up and she was walking out to her car with Bret, that sleazy antique store owner from across the street. I tried to talk her out of it, Mom, but she wouldn’t listen. She looked scared, though. She kept looking around like a frightened rabbit. She just kept saying again and again, ‘I have to go, I have to go’. Then they both got into her car and drove away. I raced into the hospital to check with the doctors. They all advised her to stay, but she wouldn’t listen to them, either. One of the nurses said Bret showed up and visited Simone, and she completely changed in an instant. He must have said something to her. I wouldn’t be surprised if he threatened her, Mom, but he kept giving me this cheesy grin like he was the nicest guy in the world. It was really creepy.”

  My blood runs cold. So we were right. Now Bret has Simone again.

  I haul my addled brain into focus. “It’s all right, sweetheart. David is here with me, and we’re going to find her. You did everything you could. Why don’t you come back to town now? I’ll see you in a little while.”

  I hang up. When I raise my head, I discover David staring at me with an ashen face. “Who was that?”

  I burst into action. “Get in the car quick. It was Zack. Bret showed up at the hospital. He said something to Simone to frighten her and convince her to leave with him. She checked out against medical advice. Now he’s got her somewhere.”

  We leap into the car and David hits the gas. He plows down Main Street, heading west.

  “Who called you?” I ask him on the way.

  “It was Javier’s parole officer. He drove Javier down to Hartford yesterday and turned him over to the State Corrections Department. Javier was really depressed about being sent back to prison, so the parole officer went to visit him at the lock-up this morning. They were talking and Javier admitted to him that Bret hired him to attack Simone. Bret bought that gun and arranged for someone at the roadhouse to pass it to Javier the night I arrested him.”

  “But that’s impossible,” I counter. “Javier couldn’t have attacked Simone. She didn’t get attacked until after Javier got arrested.”

  “Exactly—which means someone else attacked her. We know Bret paid Javier to do it and he paid for the gun he intended for Javier to use. When Javier got busted, Bret must have decided to do everything himself.”

  “What about me?” I ask. “Why would he attack me and leave me at the roadhouse? Maybe he hired someone else to do it—someone from the roadhouse, maybe.”

  “I think it’s more likely he did it himself and tried to make it appear that someone from the roadhouse did it. That was probably his plan all along—to deflect the blame off himself onto someone with a record. That’s probably why he chose Javier in the first place. Then, if Javier got caught, Bret could play all innocent and say he was nowhere in sight at the time.”

  “I still don’t see why he would kill Christopher,” I remark. “He had no reason to.”

  “We’ll find out. Look.” He nods toward Simone’s house. Her car sits in the driveway.

  David parks down the block out of sight of Simone’s house. We get out and sneak up to the window. We don’t see anything.

  David and I crouch down in the flowerbeds. He moves his mouth close to my ear. “You check the front. I’ll go around to the back door. See if you can find any sign of Simone or Bret.”

  I nod and he creeps off. I lose sight of him and make my way to the next window. It looks in on an immaculate library decorated with antiques much nicer than the ones Simone sells in her store.

  I spot Simone inside, but she’s not sitting on the window seat staring out the window this time. Nylon cinch straps hold her arms to an Edwardian armchair chair and her wrists to the legs.

  Bret looms over her with a gun pointed into her battered face. No one would recognize his features transported with howling fury. He thunders at her full volume and spittle flies from his teeth when he speaks. The sound pounds the glass in front of me.

  Simone cringes in abject terror. She shrinks to get away from him, but she can’t move with those straps restraining. Her bruised eyes roll in their sockets and her mouth contorts with sobs.

  In front of my shocked eyes, Bret seizes her by the neck. He gives her a brutal shake and stuffs the pistol barrel into her mouth. His fingers tighten around the trigger. Holy crap, he’s gonna shoot her right in front of me!

  I have to do something. I don’t know what, but I can’t stand here and watch him blow Simone’s brains out. My brain shifts into overdrive. In half a second, I raise my hand and rap on the window loud enough to attract Bret’s attention.

  The instant his wicked little eyes train on me, my courage drains out through my heels. My knees tremble. For a minute, I fear I’ll wet my pants, I’m so petrified.

  So slowly, painfully slowly, Bret turns his murderous visage on me. He pulls the gun out of Simone’s mouth and swivels to face me. There I am, standing outside the window like a moron. I’m too stupid with fear to move a muscle, but at least he’s looking at me instead of Simone. I can run away if only I can get my legs working.

  Bret stalks one treacherous step toward me. He raises his gun to aim it at me through the glass. I give myself the command to run, but nothing happens. Run, Margaret! For the love of God, run!

  I blink at this homicidal maniac. I can’t think. I can’t uproot my feet from the flower bed to get the hell out of there. I’m not really going to stand here and wait for him to shoot me, am I?

  At that moment, a flying whirlwind rockets into the room. It hurtles at Bret from behind. He pitches forward and the gun flies out of his hand. He buckles onto his face and I recognize David Graham riding him to the ground.

  Simone screams in fright, but at least she’s safe. David lands on Bret’s back. He slams one mighty hand against Bret’s neck to pin him down and snatches the other by the wrist to wrench it behind Bret’s back.

  The whole incident lasts less than five seconds, but it seems like ten years to me. I can only struggle to breathe while watching David handcuff Bret.

  I snap out of my stupor when David gets to his feet and takes hold of the straps binding Simone. I rush into the house in time for her to lunge out of the chair and fling her arms around me. “Oh, thank you, Margaret! Thank you! I thought I was dead for sure. You saved my life!”

  I pat her on the back. “It’s all right. You’re safe now. He won’t hurt you.”

  David takes hold of Bret’s collar and hauls him to his feet. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Christopher Partridge, two counts of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm against Margaret Nichols and Simone Peretti, and two counts of attempted murder against Margaret Nichols and Simone Peretti.”

  “I wasn’t trying to cause grievous bodily harm!” Bret thunders.

  I point to Simone’s face. “What do you call that? If that’s not grievous bodily harm, I don’t know what is.”

  “I was trying to kill her,” he fires back. “I thought she was dead in that alley. That’s the only reason I left her there. I wouldn’t have left if I thought she was still alive.”

  David sighs. “Then that makes three counts of attempted murder. You’re going away for a long time, Bret, and you never even got a chance to open that fancy antique store of yours. You never found out if you had a chance in this town. People might have really liked your stuff. You and Simone could have lived and worked and conducted business side by side. You didn’t have to kill Christopher.”

  “How could you?” Simone cries. “How could you kill such a sweet, loving, kind man?”

  Bret glares at her. Then he mumbles into his collar. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill anybody.”

  My mouth falls open. “You did all this over an accident?”

  “It can’t have been an accident if you went to Simone’s store carrying a gun,” David remarks. “It sounds to me like you were up to no good.”

  “I only went there to see what sort of stock she had,” Bret explains. “I told myself I served a different clientele than her. I told myself we could coexist without competing with each other, but the more time passed before I opened, the more I started to doubt myself. I just wanted to go take a look. I had no idea he would be there.”

  “You went to take a look with a gun,” David reminds him.

  “I always carry it after dark. I got mugged in the city. Since then, I always carry it. I never planned to use it, but he caught me. He said he was going to call the cops and get me arrested. I saw all my plans crumbling before my eyes. I pulled out the gun and pointed it at him. I didn’t mean to shoot him. I only wanted to warn him to move away from the phone, but he decided to play vigilante. He charged me and grabbed the gun. We wrestled over it and it went off in my hand. The next thing I knew, he was lying flat on his back with blood pouring out of his chest. I ran for it.”

  “So you hired Javier to attack Simone to make it look like he was the one who killed Christopher,” David continues. “Is that it?”

  Bret turns his face away. “I freaked out. It was stupid.”

  “It was more than stupid,” David tells him. “It was colossal.”

  He shoves Bret toward the door. He marches him out of the house and the library falls silent. I study Simone. “Are you sure you’re okay? I was really worried when Zack called to say you’d checked out of the hospital. I think you should go back there. The doctors still want to do a scan on your head to make sure you don’t have any brain damage.”

  Simone collapses into her chair. She covers her face with her hands. “Oh, Margaret! I just don’t think I can take any more of this. First Christopher, and now this!”

  I drop on my knees by her chair and put my arms around her. “I know, sweetheart. I know it’s been bad lately, but it’s all over now. You never have to worry about Bret again.”

  “It’s not over,” she moans. “Whenever anything bad happened to me, I always called Christopher. He was always the first person I called when I needed help or someone to talk to. Now he’s not there anymore! He’s dead and I can never call on him for help again, especially not now when I need him the most.”

  She bursts into loud sobs and folds onto my shoulder. I can only hold her while she cries.

  A few minutes later, David returns. Simone sits up and wipes off her cheeks. “Thank you, Detective. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “I was just telling Simone,” I tell him, “that I think she should go back to the hospital for that scan. She wasn’t ready to be released.”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea,” he replies. “I’ll drive you back there, Simone, but I need to take Bret to the station first. I wouldn’t like you to ride in the same car with him.”

  “I have a better idea,” I counter. “I’ll borrow Zack’s car. I’ll drive her to the hospital.”

  David cocks his head to one side. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. You go to the station. I’ll take care of Simone.” I walk him out to the car. “Are you sure he won’t get out on some technicality because Christopher’s death was accidental? I would hate to reassure Simone that she’s safe, only to have to deal with Bret again later.”

  “He won’t get out on a technicality,” he replies. “What he did to Christopher was capital murder. Under the law, if you shoot someone during the commission of another crime, it’s automatically considered first-degree homicide. Bret was breaking and entering and carrying a gun that may or may not have been legal. That makes it equivalent to premeditation. He’ll go up for that alone, not to mention all the other charges he’ll be facing.”

  I sigh and gaze at the shadowy figure in the back seat. “What a tragedy, and all over a mistake.”

  “This goes way beyond a mistake,” he replies. “What Bret did goes way beyond stupidity. It was willful negligence that cost an innocent man his life. Then he followed it up by trying to frame another innocent man for murder and assault. He beat a woman half to death when he was literally trying to beat her to death and he assaulted you, too. All of that together makes him one of the most dangerous criminals I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with for a long time.”

  “You’re right. I guess I’m just going through my end-of-case blues.”

  He puts his arms around me and kisses me on the forehead. “I’m just glad you didn’t decide to tackle the killer yourself this time. Now go inside and text Zack to come and get you. I’ll see you later.”

  He gets in his car and waves to me before he drives off. I take one more long breath before I head back into the house to collect Simone.

  14

  Zack parks his car in the driveway and cracks the door. “Here we are, Grandma and Grandpa. Home sweet home!”

 

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