A Murderer Among Us (27 page)

If I’m right, Lydia thought, it will soon be over. Twin Lakes will regain its tranquility, and the biggest decision a resident will have to make is whether to spend the evening playing cards or going to the movies. She smiled, anticipating her special treat when the case was closed—a date with Sol Molina.

After dessert and coffee refills, they called it a night. Caroline ordered the bill, did the addition and collected everyone’s share. A few women drifted off to the ladies’ room. Finally, they all rose, some unsteadily, and bid each other good-night as they walked out into the chilly night air and climbed into the four cars for the return trip to Twin Lakes.

In Caroline’s car, silence reigned for the first five minutes of the ride. Then Barbara yawned. “It’s not even nine-thirty and I’m falling asleep.”

“It’s the wine,” Lydia told her. “Tonight was wonderful, Caroline. What’s scheduled for next month?”

“We have a lecturer coming to lead a discussion about current events.”

They fell silent again. Barbara spoke. “I wonder if the police have charged Viv for the murders.”

“I hope they solve this case soon,” Shari said, “or I’m going to fly down to Florida and spend a few weeks with my sister.”

Lydia wondered if Sol Molina would answer his cell phone when she called him the minute she arrived home.

The Twin Lakes’ patrol car cruised past her house as Caroline dropped her off. Lydia thanked her and wished everyone a good night, then punched in the numbers on the pad beside her garage door. The three women called out their good-nights as the door closed down behind her.

Lydia walked through the small washer-dryer room calling, “Reggie, Reggie,” but her cat remained out of sight.

That’s odd,
she thought. He always ran to greet her after she’d been out, whether to express his annoyance for having been left alone or to demand food.

In the kitchen, Lydia kicked off her shoes and reached for the phone.

“Put that down!”

Stunned, Lydia dropped the phone, which clattered to the ceramic tile floor. The voice had come from the unlit dining room. Lydia gasped as Peg DiMarco appeared, her outstretched hand pointing a pistol.

“Get in here, away from the window!”

Lydia eyed the bay window and the curtains she’d forgotten to draw.

“Hurry, or I’ll shoot your precious cat!”

“Don’t hurt him. I’m coming.”

Lydia moved slowly to give herself time to gather her wits. How could she have forgotten Peg knew the combination to her garage door just as she knew Peg’s? She must have said something during one of their conversations to make Peg believe she’d figured out Peg was the murderer when, in fact, she hadn’t the slightest idea at the time.

Damn it, she should have borrowed a cell phone to call Sol everywhere—at the police station, on his cell—until she reached him! On his list, Marshall had crossed out letters before Peg’s name. Undoubtedly, they were part of his special nickname for her or the name Peg had used when he knew her before they’d both moved to Twin Lakes. Not that it mattered. Now Lydia had to focus on getting out of this alive.

Peg waved her toward the living room. “Sit down there!”

Her brand new sofa. Lydia perched on the edge of the cushion and stared at the small pistol that followed her every move. Her anxiety grew when she noticed Peg’s arm was trembling. Peg was on medication and extremely agitated. There was the horrible possibility she’d press the trigger by accident.

“This is all your fault, Miss CEO. You had to stick your nose where it didn’t belong and rake up the past. You turned everyone against Warren.”

“Warren?” For a moment, Lydia had forgotten Weill’s original name, which infuriated Peg even more.

“Warren Mannes, you moron! My Hawk. My life.” A heartrending groan rose up from the core of the bantam-sized woman holding her hostage, moving Lydia to pity. It was quickly replaced by repulsion.

“You took my car and mowed down poor Claire Weill!”

“Poor Claire, my ass. She had everything she wanted, including Warren. He loved me. Warren and I were a team. We belonged together.”

“You helped him steal from the company you worked for,” Lydia said slowly as she pieced it all together.

“I sure did and was happy to do it.” Peg’s voice quavered with fury. “I was a damn good bookkeeper, but that wasn’t enough for the bastard I worked for. He had me perform unmentionable acts. This was before anyone heard of suing for sexual harassment at the workplace. And I needed that job.”

I’m not going there,
Lydia thought. “Your boss had to have known you were involved with the embezzlement, yet he didn’t blow the whistle on you.”

Peg curled her lip into an ugly grimace. “I had enough on him to send him away for twenty years. I earned that money! Even Warren agreed. He paid back most of what he’d taken from the company, including what he’d given me as my part of the deal. He looked after me.”

“Afterward, he moved to Twin Lakes, and you did too.”

Peg perched on the chair beside Izzy’s statue of
Family
. “He promised he’d divorce Claire and we’d get married. We could pretend we met here. No one knew about us. Any time he came to the office, we hardly spoke. We always met in secret. Everything was going fine until that nosy—no matter.”

Lydia stared at her. “You killed Frank Fuller.”

Peg shrugged. “The guy was always creeping around taking photos. When I realized he’d shot a few of Warren and me, I had to destroy them and fix him for good.”

Peg was insane. Ice-cold terror crept up Lydia’s spine, threatening to paralyze her. She had to keep Peg talking. “Only Warren didn’t keep his part of the bargain.”

Peg shook her head. “He had trouble keeping up his end of any bargain. Warren found he liked living at Twin Lakes. He decided he’d stay married to Claire and continue to see me—like old times.”

“Did he know you killed Claire?”

Peg snorted. “Smart as he was, my Hawk wore blinders when life turned raw and ugly. I swore I had nothing to do with Claire’s death and he believed me. He had to, you see, if we were to live happily ever after.”

She paused then snorted again. “Only there was no happily ever after. The fool never knew when to stop.”

The gun, Lydia noticed, no longer pointed at her but rested on Peg’s lap. Now would be the moment to distract Peg then fling the keys she still gripped in her hand at Peg’s face.

Unfortunately, Peg seemed to read her thoughts. She leveled the gun at Lydia’s chest. A look of pure hatred colored her face.

“I saw how he looked at you, despite the mud you threw at him. Figured he could have a new wife who was both pretty and rich and keep his magpie on the side, as usual.”

“But I never—”

“Shut up!”

Peg eyed the sculpture beside her. “Lucky Lydia, who had such a wonderful and loving husband. An artist instead of a drunken, gambling bum. Two lovely daughters.”

With both hands, she shoved the sculpture from its pedestal. Lydia screamed as it fell to the ground, the head of the father figure breaking off. Peg’s glare warned her to stay where she was.

“Only you weren’t vulnerable, as you put it.” Her laughter turned maniacal. “Too good for the likes of Warren. So he decided to go after money alone.”

“Viv,” Lydia murmured.

“Yes, Viv, that ugly humpbacked dwarf! I asked him how he could even think of making love to her and he said it was easy—he closed his eyes and thought of me.”

“Is that when you decided to kill him?”

Peg cast her a look of respect. “As a matter of fact, it was. I went over there, promising myself I’d forgive him if he agreed we’d get married. When he told me he was going to marry Viv, I carried on a bit then agreed to spend the night with him. I prepared his favorite tea with enough drops to knock him out in ten minutes. He got groggy. I insisted we go out back so he could get some air. When he was weak enough, I hit him on the head with a statue, then put him face down in the water. I went home and cried all night.”

Lydia heard a muffled meow. “Where’s Reggie? What did you do to him?”

“Your annoying cat’s in the bathroom.” Peg threw her a malevolent grin. “Don’t worry. I’m sure some kind person will adopt him.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, her heart thudding against her ribs.

“Did you really think I was going to let you live? I saw that bulb light up in your brain when you spotted my magpies and asked if I’d ever seen Warren’s.”

“But I didn’t know then,” Lydia protested.

“Sure you did.” Peg sniggered. “Only it gave you the willies to admit it was your helpful next-door neighbor who’d killed all those people.”

Maybe, Lydia agreed silently, not that it mattered anymore. What mattered was disarming Peg before she shot her.

“Get up!” Peg ordered. “Slowly.”

Lydia stood. Peg circled around the coffee table so that she stood between the living room and the dining room.

“Now, unlock the back door and we’ll go outside.”

Lydia’s eyes flew to the door. She could have sworn she heard a sound coming from that direction. “I don’t have shoes on!”

“You won’t need any shoes. Go on!”

Her hesitation earned her a prod from the gun. Peg was that close. Close wasn’t good. Lydia took two tentative steps and turned her head to keep Peg within sight. Peg hadn’t moved. She took two more steps then veered suddenly into the darkened hallway that led to the bedrooms and baths.

“Hey! What do you think—!” A bullet whizzed by.

Lydia crouched to the floor. She reached up and turned the knob of the door closest to her. A blur of red fur zoomed past her as she tumbled into the guest bathroom. She turned, ready to slam the door shut, when she saw Reggie scamper between Peg’s legs. Peg stumbled backward, her left hand out to break her fall.

Damn it, she still held the gun in her other hand.

“Lydia!” Peg screamed. “You can’t get away from me!”

Lydia locked the bathroom door. A temporary reprieve. In a matter of seconds, her homicidal neighbor would be shooting off the handle. She threw open the window and saw cars parked helter-skelter on her lawn. Help had come but she couldn’t afford to wait five seconds, not with Peg on her tail. She pushed out the screen and was halfway through the window when the sound of shattering glass made her pause.

She opened the door a crack and peered out. Detective Sol Molina stood in the police stance she knew well from TV and movies—a semi-crouch, both hands on his gun. It was pointed at a now whimpering Peg.

“Place the gun on the floor,” he ordered.

Peg did as she was told.

“Now walk toward me. That’s right.”

Sol clicked handcuffs on Peg. Lydia stood just inside the bathroom and stared as uniformed officers filled the house. Two approached Peg and ushered her out the front door. Lydia felt as though she were watching a movie. What was happening couldn’t be taking place in her house, in her life.

I’m safe. I can leave the bathroom, she told herself. She stepped into the hall and stumbled. She would have fallen if Sol hadn’t rushed over to lend his support. He helped her into the dining room where she sank into a chair.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Only I feel totally discombobulated.”

“Delayed reaction. Shock, actually.” He strode off to the nearest bedroom and brought back a quilt, which he wrapped around her. “Be back soon as I can.”

The house filled with more people. Benny Lieberman and another man came toward her. Benny put an arm around her. “Are you all right, Lydia?”

“I think so.” To her dismay, she burst into tears.

Benny settled her on a sofa as if she were an invalid, then he phoned his wife and Barbara. Her two friends fluttered around her like handmaidens, bringing pillows and doing everything they could think of to make her comfortable. Caroline prepared a mug of steaming tea and brandy, which she swore was the very thing Lydia needed. Sipping the hot drink helped soothe her rattled nerves and helped her to realize her horrible ordeal was over. She was safe.

When Sol returned, her two friends faded into the kitchen to give them privacy. Sol knelt beside her. For a moment, he just gazed into her eyes. “Thank God we stopped her in time.”

Lydia nodded, too full of emotion to speak.

“We’re leaving now. I’ll be down at the station, taking your neighbor’s statement and doing paperwork for a good part of the night. I’ll come by tomorrow to take your statement.”

The spin he’d put on the last sentence set her heart racing.

“I look forward to it,” she said demurely.

His knowing laughter was loud enough to bring Barbara into view. She gave Lydia a wink.

“Just one thing,” he said, “call your daughter when you’re up to it, and thank her for saving your life.”

“Merry?”

“That’s right. She phoned me sounding frantic because she couldn’t get you on your cell phone. She insisted something was wrong or you would have picked up.”

Lydia cast a guilty glance toward the kitchen, where her uncharged cell phone lay in the bottom of her pocketbook.

Sol went on. “I was on my way over here when she called. I had my suspicions about your neighbor. After I got your aborted message, I took another look at Weill’s list, saw the scratched-out ‘MAG,’ and managed to put it all together.”

She gazed into his eyes. Now they were green. Definitely green. “You saved my life, you know.”

He winked. “All in the line of duty, ma’am,” he said, then lowered his voice. “I better get the hell out of here while I still can.”

She watched his retreat to the door, not noticing that Barbara and Caroline had taken his place.

“That’s some hunk of man,” Caroline commented. “I hope you’re not letting him out of your life.”

Lydia grinned. “He’s coming back tomorrow to ask me questions.”

“Make sure you give him the right answers.”

The phone rang. Barbara went into the kitchen to answer it. She returned a minute later, holding the phone out to Lydia. “It’s your daughter.”

“Hi, Merry,” she began.

“It’s me, Mom,” Abbie said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine—now.”

“Good. Merry was worried because you went out and she couldn’t get you on your cell phone. I told her you probably just forgot to turn it on.”