A Wee Dose of Death (25 page)

Anyone for Martial Arts?

T
uesday morning, I woke up with a crick in my neck. I must have slept with my head at a funny angle. My stiff neck didn't stop me from eating, though. I shoveled in a huge breakfast and called Kittredge at seven thirty, hoping to hear a voice mail informing me how soon they'd open. Chester answered, and I could imagine his suspenders bursting with pride. “It's here. We had a sewage line get stuck late yesterday, and nobody can get here to fix it and clean up until sometime this morning, so we're closed, but I had to be here for that, and I thought I'd stick around until you got here. Be sure you use the facilities somewhere else, because you won't be able to do it here.”

I was pretty sure Chester had a wife. Or sisters.

“Somebody else called a few minutes ago to ask if you were going to pick it up today.”

“Really? Do you know who it was?”

“She didn't leave a name.”

Karaline. She'd probably called from the hospital. But why hadn't she called me directly? “Well, if she calls back, tell her I'll be there by ten thirty at the latest, probably more like ten.”

He said something else. It sounded like,
She called yesterday, too
, but his words sounded choppy. I looked at my phone. Two percent. Phooey. I said good-bye, hoping he'd hear me, and plugged it in. If I dressed fast, I could make it.

I wouldn't say I set a world record, but I was at my front door in only a few minutes. “Come on, Dirk. Let's leave.”

“Will ye call the constable to let him know ye are leaving?”

“No, he may still be asleep. Here, you carry the shawl while we drive over to Karaline's to pick up her SUV.”

*   *   *

Emily woke early.
She'd been doing that ever since Marcus died, almost as if she were taking on his habits. He was always up early. He always ate an enormous breakfast—which he cooked himself. He always walked to work. Emily's breath caught.

He always walked to work. Always. So why had that grad student said his car was there? She hadn't questioned it at the time, but they only had one car, and Emily had used it to drive to Burlington after the break-in. So Marcus couldn't have driven it to UVM. He couldn't have, anyway, because that was Wednesday, three days after he was already . . .

She reached for the phone.
He won't be up this early
, she thought,
but I'll leave him a voice mail.

*   *   *

When Harper's phone
rang, it took him a moment to bring his thoughts back to the present. “Harper here.”

“Oh.”

The voice sounded flustered. “Can I help you?”

“I thought I'd get your voice mail. This is Emily.”

Harper listened to what she said, but he didn't see any problem. People mistook one car for another all the time. “Thanks for letting me know,” he finally said. “I'll look into it.”

He wrote himself a little note, knowing all along he'd never do anything with it. He pulled his in-box toward him and lifted the stack of three or four items, most of which he knew had been there for days. He slid the note underneath. The papers right above it were fastened with one of those round, curly paper clips. He never used those. Give him a jumbo gem clip any day.

He pulled the clipped items out, saw it was Fairing's fender file, and laughed. The young officer reminded him of Sarah, his little sister. Not so little, he reminded himself, and started to jot a note to call Sarah tomorrow on her twenty-ninth birthday, but the driver's license photo of a guy in suspenders caught his eye and stopped him in mid-phrase. Peggy had been talking about suspenders. Some guy at the food equipment place.

He looked through the item. Owner of possible dent-and-run. Cessford Kerr. Home address in Winooski. Two other possibles, guy named Featherstone lived in Bennington, and woman named Harvey was from Burlington.

Winooski. The equipment place was in Winooski. What had Peggy called the manager? Chester Kerr. Cessford Kerr? Blazing badges, was she driving right into the clutches of the gray parka guy? He checked weight and height on the license and compared them to his memory of the gray parka on skis. Could be.

He stood and walked to the wall map. It wasn't far from the bottom of the Perth trail to where the fender bender happened. They could be connected.

He called Peggy, but her phone rang five times before it went to voice mail.

He looked up the Kittredge address and plugged it into his GPS.

*   *   *

“The sun, 'tis
well above the horizon. Should ye not stop and call the constable?”

We'd made good time. I'd probably be there by ten thirty. “Why are you so anxious to have me call him?”

“I dinna like ye being out here wi' no one knowing where ye are.”

“You know where I am. That's good enough for me. With your magic hands, I couldn't be safer.”

“Mistress Peggy . . .”

He sounded so serious I glanced over at him.

“Keep your eyn on the road,” he ordered. “But ye need to know this: I dinna understand what I did, why my hands . . . I dinna ken if I could do it again.”

“Don't worry about it,” I told him. “Something in you responded to the need. Karaline is your friend. We both did what we could.”

He didn't look pacified, but I didn't know what else to say. I didn't understand it, either.

“All right. You win,” I said, pulling into the next scenic overview. “I'll call.”

But when I reached for my phone, that pocket on my purse was empty. “Crapola on toast! I left it charging at home.”

I pulled back onto the road. “Dirk, I need to talk something through. Are you willing to be a sounding board?”

“I am nae bored.”

Once we got that straightened out I said, “I've been thinking.”

“Usually a good idea,” he said. “One maun think.”

“Hush! And quit laughing at me. You remember having lunch with the grad students? Am I crazy or did PD have a brown scarf around his neck?”

“Aye. That he did.”

“I think it's the one Emily was telling me about. The one she gave her husband.”

“He gave away a wee gift from his wife?”

“No. No, I think . . . This is nuts, but I saw a stain on that scarf.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see him lean forward and look at me. “What are ye saying?”

“I think PD is the killer.” Before Dirk could object, I pressed on. “He's short. He would have had to disguise his voice because we'd already talked with him.”

“Aye.”

“And he has the scarf he stole from Dr. W. Can't you see it all fits together? What do you think?”

“Since my dagger doesna appear to work so weel now that I am deid, I think we maun stay well awa' from the wee bug building.”

*   *   *

Harper wanted a
perfectly clean, dry road; there was no way he could make any time on a snowy road with icy patches where trees shadowed the asphalt. Maybe she'd have a flat tire. Maybe she'd get hungry and stop for a bite to eat. Just in case, he examined the parked cars in the few towns he went through; he'd recognize her brown Volvo anywhere.

He kept trying her phone. He kept getting voice mail.

He had to stop her before she got to Kittredge.

Between towns, he broke the speed limit by a wide margin.

He was almost there before he thought that he should have called Tolly Smith. She could have had a SWAT team there on a moment's notice.

*   *   *

I pulled into
an empty parking lot at Kittredge. I'd probably have to go around back somewhere to get the thing loaded, but for now I wasn't sure just where, so I settled Karaline's SUV fairly close to the front door.

Dirk preceded me into the showroom. I saw—or thought I saw—someone bending over behind the counter, but I was still blinded by the bright sunlight outside. As my eyes adjusted I walked forward calling out, “Chester? Is that you?”

He rose, and everything seemed to happen at once.

It wasn't Chester. Dirk jumped in front of me. Through him, I could see PD in his black ski mask. “You're . . . I recognize you.”

“This is for John Knot,” he cried—at least that was what it sounded like, and his voice sounded high-pitched with fear, excitement, anger? I couldn't tell and didn't care, because as he shouted, he flung a spray of liquid at me. I could barely see the test tube in his hand—with Dirk in front of me, everything looked hazy.

He whipped off his ski mask, and I gasped, inhaling some of the horrible-tasting liquid. “That's enough microbes to kill a dozen people. You're dead already,” said Stripe, “only you can't feel it yet.”

*   *   *

By the time
Harper made it to Kittredge, his hands were so tight on the steering wheel, he thought he'd have to peel them off, but her car wasn't in the parking lot. He drove past
a big white SUV and circled the building just to be sure. In back he saw two cars. One was a gray Ford with a smashed right rear taillight. It had to be Chester's car.

He called Tolly Smith, asked for backup, and reached for his Glock. He knew it was stupid not to wait, but there was no time to delay. Not if Peggy's life was on the line.

*   *   *

Somehow I found
my voice. “Wait! Don't do anything.” I was talking to Dirk, but Stripe didn't know that. I reached out and touched Dirk's arm. The cool water-like feeling was calming.

“How d'ye know she isna hiding one of those wee cannons?”

He had a point, but I thought maybe Stripe would have used it already if she'd had it with her. After all, she'd shot Karaline without a second thought. “I have to find out what's going on.”

“You're going to die—that's what's going on.”

I rubbed my other sleeve across my face to get the liquid out of my eyes. “You probably got some on yourself.”

I heard tears in her voice. “That doesn't matter. Without John Nhat, nothing isn't worth it anymore.”

Poor grammar
, a piece of my mind said. “Who the heck is John Knot?”

“Not Knot. His name was John Nhat Copley.”

“Was? What happened to him?”

“Wantstring found out what he was doing, and he had to leave. He didn't even answer my last e-mail about the senator. It doesn't matter if I die.” There was so much venom in Stripe's voice, every
S
sounded like a hiss.

“The senator? Is John the one who knifed Senator Calais?”

“He . . .” Stripe's voice wavered. “He succeeded?”

“Don't you listen to the news? Of course he didn't succeed. He was arrested.”

She snarled and took a step forward.

Dirk must have felt the threat, as well. “Ye wee nathaira. Ye willna last a heartbeat once I get my hands on ye.”

I hung on to Dirk. If I had to die, I wanted him nearby to ease the pain. Of course, the one I really wanted at the moment was Harper. Why hadn't I called to say good-bye?

Stripe edged closer. I backed up and pulled Dirk with me.

*   *   *

Harper tried three
back doors off the loading platforms. All were locked. The fourth one opened without a squeak. He ducked inside. He wanted to shout her name, but Chester was probably desperate. Harper was bitingly aware that Chester could be hiding in here anywhere, tucked behind any one of these enormous shelves.

The moment he heard voices, though, he moved as quickly and quietly as he could. The door to the showroom was ajar. He listened just long enough to hear what was happening. He stepped into the room.

“Police! Put your hands in the air.”

Chester—
wait a minute—how could Chester be a woman?
— raised her hands, but Peggy cried out, “Don't come in here! Don't! She's the one who shot Karaline. She doused me with something deadly. Get away while you can.”

That was all Harper needed to hear. He strode toward the woman. He'd find out her name later. “You are under arrest for the murder of Marcus Wantstring. You have the right to remain silent. . . .” The words rolled out without his even having to think of them.

*   *   *

“Don't come in
here,” I said, but he didn't pay any attention to me. He started that Miranda thing and stopped only when a voice from the front door said, “I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.”

Harper shifted to his left, swinging his gun between both of them. “Hit the floor, Peggy.”

Even as I dropped, I had time to register that I'd been wrong about the scarf.

“Like I said,” came PD's voice from behind me, “nothing to worry about. I incinerated all your little microbes, Zebra, and substituted an ascosporogenous yeast.”

I lifted my head. “A what?”

PD ignored me. “Rather stupid of you not to notice the different color gradation.”