Chili Con Corpses (22 page)

There was no reply.

Kinsley’s footsteps moved with slow deliberation.

“Put that down, Kinsley. You’re being ridiculous.”

“You and that loser, Dwight, you’re in this whole scheme together. He gets Parker’s practice and you get my money. Is that it? Well, game’s over!” she raged. “Get out of my house!”

He snorted again. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to forget this whole conversation, and we’re going to go on a little trip. See? I’ve already rented a car and a nice suite of rooms down in the Keys. Our bags are packed, too.” He chuckled. “This isn’t an optional trip,
sweetheart
. You’re coming with me. Now put that poker down.”

James almost stopped breathing.
What was Kinsley planning to do with that fireplace poker?

“Get out of my bag!” Gary shouted as James heard the sound of a zipper being opened.

“What are these vials?” Kinsley sounded dumbfounded. “Wildnil!” She stomped back to Gary. “What do you plan to do with these? Poison my cocktail while I’m sunning on the beach?” She crossed the room again. “I’m getting rid of you for good.”

“Put that phone down!” Gary roared, and when it was obvious that Kinsley wasn’t listening, his steps began to pick up speed as he neared his wife.

“Help me!” Kinsley screamed, and James burst out of the pantry with Murphy right on his heels.

A few seconds later, Kinsley stood with her back flattened against the living room wall, the phone clutched against her chest as though it would protect her. Lucy stood in front of her, but something was odd about her posture. She seemed to be sagging sideways, as though she were slowly losing her balance, and she wore a surprised expression on her face.

Gary was on the floor, struggling like a wild animal as Bennett attempted to pry the poker from his hands. James was shocked to see that the point of the tool was glistening with blood.

“Lucy!” James saw the wound in her thigh and stared in transfixed horror as blood flowed from the hole.

Torn between aiding Bennett and supporting Lucy as she crumpled toward the floor, James ran to Lucy. He cradled her head as he eased her to the floor and then turned, looking for a piece of cloth he could use to staunch the flow of blood. He dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a dishtowel, and as he applied pressure to Lucy’s wound, he saw Murphy rip the poker from Gary’s hands.

“Gillian! Lindy!” Murphy yelled. “Call for help!”

There was no answer from upstairs.

“There’s no dial tone,” Kinsley breathed. She held out the phone for everyone to see. Her face was white as flour and she stood immobile, staring at her husband as though he were a complete stranger.

On the floor, Gary began to laugh. “You idiots! You can’t do anything to me! You’ve got no proof! Nothing!”

Murphy raised the poker. “Shut up. Now put your hands in the air.”

“No,” said a low and deadly voice from the other side of the room. A masked man stepped out of the shadow at the base of the staircase and raised a gun. “
You
put your hands in the air. All of you.”

Gary scrambled away from Bennett’s clutches and stood just behind the man clothed all in black. “It’s about time you got here. How did you know this group of morons was coming after us?”

“Only you, Gary. And that’s fine with me. Someone’s got to deal with your dead body.” And then man raised his arm.

Gary’s eyes flew open in fear. “What—?”

The man fired two shots into Gary’s torso.

One of the women screamed as Gary’s body slid down the wall, leaving a path of bright blood on the stark white behind him.

Without another word, the man turned his gun on the rest of the group and backed toward the door. He reached his arm behind his hip and twisted the knob. Slipping outside like a ghost, he disappeared into the night.

Inside Kinsley’s living room, no one moved.

“My cell phone,” Lucy finally croaked from the floor while trying to reach inside her coat.

“I’ll get it. Don’t try to move.” Murphy gently retrieved the phone from an interior pocket of Lucy’s jacket. Her voice trembled violently as she spoke to the 9-1-1 operator.

James met Bennett’s eyes and the mail carrier snapped to life, springing up the stairs leading to the bedrooms two at a time. Kinsley was cowering on the floor, hugging her knees and hiding her face in her arms.

Before James could even rise to his feet, Bennett called his name from the top of the stairs. “James! They’ve both been knocked out cold!” he shouted. “Come on, man.”

Stirred into action by the fear of what horrors could have been inflicted upon his friends, James hustled up the stairs to find Lindy and Gillian splayed upon the bedroom carpet. Their breathing was even and there was no sign of trauma to their heads.

“Maybe he injected them with something,” James whispered.

“This is some mess, some mess,” Bennett muttered, kneeling over Gillian.

The sound of sirens approaching caused them both to sigh in relief.

Bennett moved to the window and looked out. “Lucky that we’re right in town. The cavalry was just around the corner.”

As James hastened down the stairs and opened the front door, his heart froze in shock at the sight of Sergeant McClellan standing on the stoop. His long hands gripped the nape of the masked man’s black shirt.

“Could you give me a hand?” McClellan asked. He and James dragged the inert figure inside.

As soon as they released him onto the floor, McClellan rolled the motionless man onto his back. Outside, several sheriff’s cars and an EMT van pulled to a screeching stop in front of the house. Blue, red, and white lights burst into the living room, striping the walls, ceilings, and floors with blinding color.

Despite the noise and the flashing lights, James could focus on nothing else but the man beneath him. Even as the paramedics pushed him aside to reach Lucy and Gary, his eyes were fixed on the masked face. Even as he heard footsteps thunder up the stairs, he couldn’t blink. Even as Murphy called his name over and over again, he heard nothing. His attention was zeroed in on McClellan’s sticklike fingers as they reached forward and, in what seemed like agonizingly slow motion, rolled the mask, inch by excruciating inch, up over the gunman’s face.

Staring at the handsome features—the square jaw, the narrow nose, and the flawless skin peppered by stubble, James tried to comprehend the image his eyes had relayed to his brain. His mind rebelled, struggling against the logic of what he saw.

The man in the mask was Colin Crabtree.

The supper club
members were gathered around Lucy’s hospital bed, waiting in polite silence as she spoke on the phone to the sheriff of Madison County.

“Thank you for the offer, sir. I will certainly consider it.” She replaced the phone on the nightstand and then grimaced as she straightened her injured leg.

“How are you?” Gillian asked, patting Lucy’s hand in quick, agitated taps.

“I’m fine. Really.” She smiled at her friends. “Getting stabbed by a fireplace poker was great for my career! Both the Madison and Augusta departments want me to come aboard as a deputy sheriff as soon as I’m well enough.”

Bennett frowned. “What’s wrong with working for Shenandoah County?”

“Nothing.” Lucy shrugged. “But they haven’t offered me a position. I suppose Donovan’s been whispering mean nothings in Huckabee’s ear again. You know, how I’m a loose cannon, don’t follow procedure, regularly endanger the lives of citizens, blah, blah, blah.”

Lindy sat down in one of the two chairs in front of a filmy window that faced the parking lot. Behind her head, fat snowflakes swirled through the air, lazily falling upon the black pavement until it appeared to be sprinkled with chalk dust.

“Does that mean you’d move to another town?” Lindy clasped her hands together as though she feared the answer.

“Maybe,” Lucy answered softly and then turned her blue gaze upon James.

He wanted to tell her not to go, but he knew that he had no right to influence her decisions just because he didn’t want her to vanish from his life. “We’d never be the same without you,” he told her, meaning that the supper club wouldn’t feel right without her presence. But he also realized that he wanted her in his life. The thought of Lucy being completely gone from Quincy’s Gap instantly filled him with anxiety and sorrow.

“There’s our heroine!” cried a voice from the threshold. There was Milla, carrying a baking tray that bore a large sheet cake covered in white frosting. “This is my peppermint patty cake,” she declared, setting the cake down on the swivel tray next to Lucy’s bed. “The cake is chocolate, the icing is peppermint butter cream, and the word ‘hero’ is spelled out with tiny crumbles of chilled peppermint patties. I know it’s the masculine form of the word, but I just didn’t have room to write out ‘heroine,’ my dear.” Milla leaned over and cupped Lucy’s cheek in her hand. “You are something else, young lady.” Tearing up, she reached into her purse and blew her nose into a tissue. “Let’s cut this cake, and you all can explain to a simple old woman what in this world happened yesterday.”

Lindy volunteered to do the talking while the rest of the supper club concentrated on the rich chocolate cake layered with mint-flavored icing so buttery, creamy, and sugar-laden that James could feel his teeth shrieking in protest. He was pleased to see that Lucy had set aside her dietary restrictions for the moment and was eating the largest slice of them all with fervor.

“This frosting,” Lucy moaned after Lindy had finished talking and everyone had eaten his or her slices of cake. “Milla, you know my biggest weakness now.”

“It’s your kryptonite, huh?” Milla laughed. “Don’t worry dear, I’ll keep your secret. But boy, oh boy, there were a whole
mess
of secrets in that class of mine!” She shook her head in disbelief. “So you’re telling me that Colin Crabtree and Kinsley’s new husband killed that sweet Parker and were planning on … getting rid of Kinsley, too?”

“That’s what we’ve heard from the State Police,” Bennett answered. “The two of them almost got away with it, too. Lucky for everyone, McClellan’s been shadowing Colin for weeks. Seems he never trusted the guy.”

“Then who poisoned Kinsley at your party, Lindy?” Milla wanted to know. “And using
my
very own
chili con queso
recipe, too?”

“Gary,” Lindy said. “But he didn’t want to kill her then. He just wanted her to get sick so that he could set up Dwight to take the fall and he, Gary, could rescue Kinsley and earn her trust. We think he was going to kill her in Florida. He had both a rental car and a hotel room booked in the Keys, and had also rented a private sailboat. Looks like he was going to dope her up with Wildnil and toss her overboard.”

“That horrible little troll!” Milla waved her cake knife in the air. “After what that girl’s been through, I hope he rots away in jail until he’s nothing but skin and bones.”

Lucy pointed at the ceiling. “Gary’s a floor above me. He’s in the ICU. McClellan said the only reason the guy’s still breathing is that Colin shot him with a .22 and missed his major organs.” She smirked. “I’d say he’s lucky, but I’ve heard mumbles from my nurses that he may never walk again. I guess one of the bullets damaged his spinal cord.”

Gillian sighed and fluffed her hair, which had acquired cantaloupe-hued highlights in the last twenty-four hours. “Money is
so
corruptive. It tainted Colin and Gary, and
robbed
Parker of her very life. The Buddha knows it will take years of love and healing for Kinsley to trust again. Poor soul!”

“The word around school is that her parents are here and are going to stay with her until she’s ready to move back to Kansas,” Lindy said. “So at least she’s not alone.”

“I hate to say it, but finding out that Gary is a scoundrel doesn’t seem like a big surprise,” Milla scoffed.

“Gary did have a black aura, but I was
terribly
distraught to see Colin’s handsome face beneath that ski mask!” Gillian wailed. “I thought he was one of the
good
ones. I mean, he took care of sick animals!”

“But he wasn’t very good at that job, remember?” James added, pleased that he could remind Gillian of the man’s imperfections once again.

“Colin was Mr. Sneed all along.” Lucy poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on her nightstand. “He just picked up the clothes from a thrift store and the hat caught his eye because it looked like the kind of thing an old man would wear. He never even noticed the fishing lure! The wig and beard came from some online costume shop, so we never would have been able to solve the crime by visiting local stores.” She paused and stared at her water glass. “I told you guys that strangulation was a personal crime. The crazy thing is, Colin knew all along that Parker had gone as a chaperone in Kinsley’s place.” She sipped her water. “That man committed a premeditated murder so that Gary could step in and comfort Kinsley. It was a seriously huge gamble, but neither of them cared.”

“It’s all
too
awful. And what about the quiet vet … Dwight?” Milla sounded worried. “He was innocent all along?”

James nodded. “Kinsley’s hired one of the state’s top criminal lawyers to help get him out of jail right away. Murphy’s been trying to interview him for the last two days, but Kinsley’s been taking up all the allotted visiting time.” He smiled. “Rumor has it that they are making plans to build a million-dollar animal rescue facility in Parker’s name.”

“What a wonderful tribute!” Gillian clapped with glee. “And
so
many animals will benefit. Just think of some pitiable puppy or kitten trying to survive outside on a day like today. It breaks my heart …” She choked up.

Bennett handed her a tissue from the box on Lucy’s nightstand. “We’re celebrating the end of this nutty affair, woman. Don’t get all blubbery on us now.”

“There’s still something I don’t get.” Milla rose and began wiping off the cake knife with a napkin until it gleamed beneath the overhead lights. “How are Colin and Gary connected? A vet and a stockbroker from different states? I don’t get it.”

“They’ve been planning this for a long time,” Lucy explained. “And they’ve been friends for a long time, too. Boyhood friends.”

“Their families
summered
together,” Lindy mimicked a haughty, aristocratic tone. “In Bar Harbor, Maine. The boys were enrolled in an eight-week theater camp every year. They learned how to act
all
the classics and apparently decided that if Shakespeare’s characters could commit murder on a regular basis, then they could kill off a few folks as well.”

“Ah!” Milla slapped herself in the head. “I should have guessed the Maine connection by the lobster references Gary made during my class.”

“Gary and Colin kept in close touch after graduating from college. Apparently, they were both frustrated about not becoming wealthy right away. Gary especially,” Lucy continued. “So they decided to find an heiress to seduce, marry, and knock off. Unfortunately, the other girls they flirted with didn’t take the bait. It wasn’t until the Willis sisters came along that their scheme had any hope of working.”

Milla licked a dab of icing from the end of her fork. “How do you know all this?”

“McClellan called this morning,” Lucy said. “Both of our felons are doing their best to rat out the other. So much for lifelong friendships!” She snorted and then turned sober. “Though I think I’ve got some amazing friends right here in this room. We did this as a team. Murphy too. I thought she’d be here today. Has anyone seen her?”

James picked at some crumbs on his plate. “She’s writing articles as fast as her fingers can generate them. I guess a lot of big city papers are going to run her pieces.”

“Good for her,” Lucy mumbled and then sank back against the pillows, suddenly looking exhausted.

“We’ve worn you out!” Gillian cried and then began pushing Bennett out the door. “Time to go, everyone.”

“Oh my, she’s right,” Milla agreed. She gathered up plates, forks, and napkins and pulled on her coat. Kissing Lucy on the forehead, she asked, “When will you be released, dear?”

“Tomorrow.”

Milla was concerned. “I don’t suppose you can drive home. Do you have a ride?”

“I’ll come get her,” Lindy quickly volunteered. “I’m sure I can get out of school a bit early.”

A cough from the doorway alerted them to the presence of new visitors. It was Sheriff Huckabee and Principal Chavez. Both men stepped aside as Bennett and Gillian made their exit.

“Ms. Perez?” Chavez gestured to Lindy. “May I have a word with you in private, please?”

Lindy gulped, said goodbye to Lucy, and left the room. Milla scurried out after them, leaving James to stand awkwardly by as Huckabee entered.

“So I hear you’ve been gettin’ job offers from other departments?” The fleshy sheriff tugged on the ends of his mustache.

“Yessir,” Lucy replied as James turned to leave.

“Well, I got one more for you. How about it, Lucy? You wanna be a deputy right here in Shenandoah?”

Lucy appeared undecided. She glanced at James, a look of appeal on her face. Huckabee followed her eyes and examined James curiously.

“You her career advisor or somethin’?” A hint of disapproval laced his question.

James shook his head, and then, spying a memo pad next to the phone, scrawled out a single sentence. He then folded the paper and slipped it into Lucy’s hand.

“Get some rest,” he told her and smiled on his way out the door. As he waited for the elevator, he noticed Lindy and Chavez huddled together on two chairs in the waiting room. Chavez was holding Lindy’s hand and gazing into her eyes as though she were the only person in the world, though dozens of people sat all around them. James could tell that whatever Chavez was saying was filling his friend with joy.

As he watched, the twosome suddenly flung their arms around each other and exchanged a passionate kiss. The waiting room fell completely silent, and when the couple finally noticed and separated in embarrassment, the onlookers whistled and applauded the display of affection.