An Educated Death (47 page)

Ellie made no effort to get up. From the floor, she said, "It's true that she came to me for the money. I didn't agree to meet her anywhere. I told her I wouldn't give it to her and I told her to go to hell. No one made her sleep with my husband." Then she gripped the edge of the couch and pushed herself to a sitting position. "Don't you see, Josh? You've got the wrong people. We're innocent."

"Innocent? Innocent? How do you figure that?" The words reverberated with incredulous scorn. "You'd better step over by the fireplace, detective," Josh said. "I don't want to hurt you."

He raised his hand and I saw, now that my eyes had adjusted to the gloom, that he was holding a gun. Even if Ellie Drucker had committed the crime she so vehemently denied, this wasn't the way to end things. And wasn't it about time for Dom to come flying through that window? What was I supposed to do? Holler? Scream? But if I screamed, Josh would shoot me. Better to keep talking.

Something crackled and shifted with a thud. From the corner of my eye, I saw the remains of a fire in the fireplace. I fantasized a dramatic escapade involving fireplace tools and burning logs, but it required eyes in the back of my head. "Josh, who told you it was Drucker? Was it Rick McTeague?"

"Yes. He took me to dinner at the Sedgwick House. That's when he told me that Laney went away Columbus Day weekend with Mr. Drucker, and then he told me about the small feet."

Keep him talking. "He hadn't told you this before?"

"Unh-uh. No. McTeague likes secrets. You must know that. He thrives on them."

"So why did he tell you now?"

"He said he was feeling sorry for me." Josh made a sound that was almost a chuckle. "But it was really to liven things up. It worked, too."

Straining to keep my voice neutral, I said, "So you came back from dinner, got your gun, and came here?" I wondered if McTeague, the world's biggest voyeur, was lurking out there in the dark with Dom, each of them peering through a different window, with McTeague hoping Josh would shoot one or more of us for the experience.

"I didn't. I was upset. You know my dad's coming tomorrow. Christmas vacation is going to be a nightmare of cocktail parties and theater and everyone commenting on how much I've grown, like I was still six, and Dad's women friends trying to get me into bed. It's so sick! I was supposed to go back and pack but I couldn't face it, so I went over to the theater to see if Russ—Professor Hamlin—was there. I always go to Russ when I'm upset. Now that Laney's gone, he's my only friend."

"Rick McTeague isn't a friend?"

"Give me a break. He was a free meal. A chance to get off campus."

Keep him talking. Beside me, Ellie was edging toward the fireplace. I didn't know what she had in mind, but a distraction would be nice. "Did you find Hamlin?"

"Oh, yeah. He was there. Friday nights he likes to work on things. Time when he can be alone. Hey! Mrs. Drucker. Get back over by your husband. Now!" He punctuated the order by smashing another of Ellie Drucker's priceless antiques. Ellie gave a sob and crept back to the couch. Chas Drucker moved restlessly and groaned. Josh gripped the gun nervously, shifting it from one hand to the other.

"Did you talk about what you'd just learned from McTeague?"

"Of course. He's my advisor. I tell him everything."

"What was his reaction?"

"Wild. I've never seen him so mad. He said that if he were me, he'd get some sort of a weapon and march over here, shoot the Druckers and claim temporary insanity. He said if we didn't do something, the campus would close around them and protect them and Laney's death would just be written off as a suicide."

"What about Carol Frank?"

He brushed me off. "We didn't talk about that."

I might be a dim bulb sometimes, but the rheostat was slowly being turned and the results were both illuminating and terrifying. I understood what was happening.

"He's using you, Josh. You were set up."

At that moment, the lights went out.

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

In novels, the lights go out when a person is knocked unconscious, but I was fully conscious. I was standing in a room lit only by the remnants of a fire, and the sounds around me were like Fourth of July fireworks. There was the sound of Josh's gun going off, a chilling scream from Ellie Drucker, the smashing of glass and wood as someone came through a window. I moved away from the fire and into deeper darkness, tripping over Ellie, who was now sprawled across the floor. She screamed again and this time she went on screaming. Feet thudded against the front door.

I took another step backward and came up against something very hard and sharp right at the base of my neck. "Don't make a sound," a voice hissed in my ear. A hand grabbed my elbow and pulled me firmly backward. We went through a door and another and a cold, damp smell mixed with gasoline rushed at me. "Down the stairs. Very carefully, now. I wouldn't want to hurt you."

We descended the stairs with one of his hands on my shoulder and the other holding the knife at my neck. Partway down, I missed a stair and came down hard on my ankle. The pain seemed to come right through the top of my head. "Careful!" The knife jabbed and a hand went over my mouth. "Shut up. Don't scream, or next time it will be for real."

What was that for? Fun? I didn't ask. "Come on," he whispered. "Move it." Gingerly I lowered my weight onto the injured ankle. It was no picnic. Four more steps and we were at the bottom. Prodded by the knife, I limped through the darkness. He seemed completely at home. "Watch it." Grabbed my arm and steered me left, then right, and on for some distance until we were at another staircase. "I played a blind man once," he said. "Summer stock. I trained by walking around down here. It's a huge space. Runs under all the units. All right. Up we go. And please don't get any grandiose ideas about escape. I was a marine. I've been trained to kill with this knife. I could do it."

The door at the top of the stairs swung silently open. The air, as we passed through, smelling faintly of WD-40. He'd been preparing for this. Through the light coming in the window, I could see that we were in a kitchen. "Stop," he ordered. He went and looked out. "Busy, busy, busy. Although it didn't quite go as planned. Josh has too great a flair for the dramatic. If he hadn't insisted on having you as his audience, things would have gone swimmingly. The unfortunate deaths of a faculty couple at the hands of a distraught student, followed by his equally unfortunate suicide, the whole complicated by a nice, messy fire."

There was a scuffing sound and then he pressed me into a chair. "Please take your seat and put your hands behind you." He accentuated the point with the knife tip at the base of my throat. He wrapped my wrists with enough duct tape to secure the
Queen Mary
, circled my mouth a couple times, taped my feet to the chair, and excused himself. "A moment," he said. "I think we could still use a little fire." So what I had smelled in the basement
was
gasoline. The hands that wrapped tape around my head still smelled of it.

Behind the tape, I gagged. I recalled a recent case where a child had smothered after being wrapped in tape and was grateful I could still breathe. But where were we and where were the cops? Surely Dom must have noticed I was missing? Logic said that this was more faculty housing attached, though probably not next-door, to the Drucker's, that we must now be in Hamlin's place. But why had he brought me here and what was he going to do with me?

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. Just a slow-walking, slow-working educational consultant. Russ Hamlin, having set his protégé in motion, hadn't been able to resist hanging around to see what happened and so he could be there to deliver the coup de grace in the form of a fire. And being conveniently on the scene, he'd witnessed the moment when my own little lightbulb had gone on, and I'd said, "He's using you, Josh," understanding perfectly well that I now knew who was the owner of those small feet, who had been pining hopelessly after Laney Taggert, and who had been the worst possible source to turn to when she ran out of people to ask for money.

Josh and the Druckers were supposed to be dead, but even alive they couldn't harm Hamlin. What could Josh say? That Hamlin had commiserated with him and agreed that in Josh's place he'd be inclined to seek revenge? They didn't know what I knew. But Hamlin did, and he'd already killed twice.

I wiggled my hands and feet, trying to get them loose, but the reason people use duct tape is because it's so good at what it does—holding things securely together. Of course, if they ever found my body, they might find Hamlin's fingerprints on the tape. The police had just solved a crime that way recently. When this was over, Dorrie and Suzanne and I were going to have to retitle our book
Cinderella and the Duct Tape Murders.
Except that only Suzanne and Dorrie would get to write it.

Maybe if I rubbed my wrists against the edge of the counter? I tried to bump my way across the room, but it made a frightful racket, bringing Hamlin through the door just as the chair fell over, slamming me onto the kitchen floor. I bit my lip, my mouth filling with the salty tang of blood I couldn't spit out. Hamlin knelt down and leaned into my face so close I could feel his chin brush my cheek. "You think you're so smart, don't you? I've heard how you bragged to Rocky about solving a bunch of murders. Big, bright professional consultant coming in here and pushing us all around with your questions. Before Dorrie came, this was a nice place. Now look at us. We're all at each other's throats."

It wasn't irony. He was ridiculously serious. And seriously crazy. When he waved the knife in front of my face, the whites of his eyes seemed to glitter in the dim light, his shadowed face fierce. "I'd kill you right now, but I have my future to think of. I'm not home, you see. I've left for the holidays. The only change of plans is that for part of the trip, I'm bringing a guest. It's unfortunate that we're so pressed for time. This would be the dramatically appropriate moment for me to reveal all the details of my dastardly crimes, for we both know they are mine, do we not? Ah, but I forget... you're being surprisingly silent at the moment."

It was probably just as well that my mouth was taped shut because I had a lot to say, much of it unprintable. All I could do was glare.

"I sense disapproval, do I not?" he said, mockingly. "You can't imagine how it was for me, pining away after that darling girl, maintaining my chastity only through Herculean effort, only to discover she'd given herself, without love or passion, but only out of curiosity, to that loathsome old fart!"

He's not that much older than you are
, I thought. Awful as my situation was, I pitied Dorrie for having to be the leader in such a moral wasteland. Her predecessor had left her with more than a fiscal and admissions crisis, he'd left her with a profound moral crisis.

He stepped back, as though I'd asked a question. "Carol Frank? Well, that was a tragedy, since Carol and I were casual friends. But after she talked with you she came to me. She confronted me, said she knew about my feelings for Laney and that Laney had decided to ask me for money, did I know anything about what happened to Laney? I never thought of her as a stupid woman, so I was surprised. I don't think she realized..."

He let the thought drop. "But, with what she knew, I had no choice. I could hardly sit by and let that foolish woman ruin my life." I tried to say something but of course it was just a mumble.

"Morality?" he said, placing his hand on his chest. "What has that to do with me? The actor's life is all pretense. But enough of that. We've got to be going. Of this, perhaps more later, at our leisure. Now..." He sat back on his heels. "I'm going to cut your feet loose and we're going to walk out to my car. A bit of a hike, I'm afraid. Naturally, my car isn't here. I know what you're thinking... you're thinking that just as soon as we get outside you're going to make a break for it and head straight toward those cops. Perhaps this will ensure your cooperation."

He jerked open my jacket, pushed up my sweater, and jabbed the knife into my side just below my rib cage. I screamed against the duct tape, writhing in agony, while he bent down and cut my legs free. I curled into a ball, trying to stop the fiery pain. He crossed the kitchen and shut the door against the smoke that was beginning to fill the room. Outside, I could hear Dom calling my name.

"Isn't it nice to know you'll be missed?" he said, grabbing my elbow and hauling me to my feet. I stumbled once or twice crossing the room. My swollen ankle pressed against the boot.

He pushed me roughly up against the wall. "Now, no funny stuff, understand?" The knife blade touched my spine.

He didn't have to worry. I didn't find any of this funny. I should have listened to Rocky and Andre and let the big guys handle this. Probably Rocky wouldn't have figured out about Hamlin but maybe Carol wouldn't have gotten killed and Josh wouldn't have tried to be a murderer. Now there never would be those laughing boys and willful brown girls.

I was bleeding. Not big-deal serious shock-inducing exsanguinating bleeding, just medium-sized painful wet goddamn-this-hurts nasty bleeding. But there was more in store. Hamlin was flashy and handsome and obsessive and self-centered and couldn't bear to be upstaged. He wanted to be the one to bring down the curtain on this act. I flashed back to another time, another place, another person with a knife. That time I had sat, drugged and helpless, while someone slit my wrists and left me sitting in a pool of my own blood. I remembered the pain as the knife sliced through me and my certainty that I was going to die. The horrible warm stickiness of so much blood. I wasn't going to let that happen again.