Frozen Stiff (29 page)

Richmond drops like a ton of bricks.

I duck back behind the couch and sit there a minute, panicked and trying to figure out what to do next. With Richmond down I know time is of the essence, and in my gut I know I have to do something.

I look down at the gun in my hands and squeeze my eyes closed for a second to brace myself and muster up some courage. Then I open my eyes, stand up, aim the gun at Colbert, and pull the trigger. A nanosecond later, the driver side headlight explodes.

I duck back down behind the couch, expecting to hear another exchange of gunfire, but there isn’t any. Is Hurley shot too? If not, is he armed? Not being able to see what’s going on terrifies me because I realize Colbert could pop up on me any second. Like a turtle on speed, I thrust my head around the corner to look and then pull back. What I see reassures me a little. Colbert has moved down the side of the car toward its rear, farther from the house. His attention is focused on the woods and as I see him peer around the back end of the car, I raise myself up and look out the window, searching for Hurley. I don’t see him, but I do see Richmond lying on the ground, groaning. At least he’s not dead. Yet.

When I look back toward Colbert, I see him start to rise in preparation for another shot over the roof of the car. Seconds later he fires and ducks back down. Once again I wait for Hurley to return fire, but nothing happens.

Emboldened by this lack of response, Colbert stands and steps around to the back of the car, his gun held in front of him. I run hunched over to the door, ducking down by the front grille of the car. When I look toward the woods I finally spy Hurley standing behind a tree, his side to the bark, facing me. He sees me and gives a little nod. I breathe a sigh of relief that he appears to be okay, but then he shows me his hands, which are empty.

Colbert fires a shot at the tree and the bullet bites into the bark, sending pieces of it flying. Hurley flinches and hugs himself in tighter to the tree. Richmond moans and tries to pick himself up from the ground. I see his gun lying in the dirt several feet in front of him. And then I watch in horror as Colbert raises his gun and takes aim at Richmond’s massive form struggling helplessly on the ground.

Desperate, I rise up, take my stance again, and try to line the sights on my gun up with Colbert’s chest. My hands and body are shaking like I’m in the spin cycle of a washer but I pull the trigger anyway, knowing it’s now or never.

I see sparks fly up about ten feet to the front and left of Colbert and realize the bullet has struck a large decorative boulder in Izzy’s yard. I line Colbert up in my sights again and prepare to pull the trigger a second time, figuring if nothing else I might be able to rattle him enough to distract him, but then the most amazing thing happens; Colbert slumps to the ground.

At first I think he’s merely trying to avoid my shots, but he’s lying very still, not moving at all. Not trusting him, I keep my gun pointed at him and step around the front of the car.

Hurley peers around the tree, takes in the scene, and steps away from his protection, too. Slowly the two of us approach Colbert, who remains utterly still. Then I see the blooming red stain on the left side of Colbert’s shirt and realize that when my bullet ricocheted off the boulder, it hit him.

Hurley closes the final gap with a few long strides and kicks Colbert’s gun off to the side. Then he looks over at me. “Take your finger off the trigger and lower the gun, Mattie,” he says in a calm reassuring voice.

I do as he says and he walks over and takes the gun from my hand. “Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod, staring down at Colbert. “Is he dead?”

Hurley kneels down and places his fingers along Colbert’s neck, feeling for the carotid. After a few seconds he looks up at me and says, “He’s got a pulse.” As if to confirm this fact, Colbert moans. “Good thing he’s a reckless, stupid rookie and wasn’t wearing his vest.”

Off in the distance I hear sirens approaching, and though I should feel relieved that the craziness is over and help is on the way, all I can think about is the fact that I just shot a man.

I shake it off and shift my attention to Richmond, who is lying on his back looking up at us, blood seeping from his belly. Unfortunately, he wasn’t wearing a vest either and I suspect it’s because he couldn’t find one that would fit. Kneeling beside him, I start to undo his jacket so I can look at his wound.

“Will this get me out of going to the gym for a while?” he asks with a grim smile.

I smile back at him. “A little while,” I say, ripping his shirt apart. The bullet hole is in his right lower abdomen and though there is a fair amount of bleeding, it appears to be slowing. “But I’m not going to let you off the hook forever,” I add.

Cop cars come screaming up the drive, parking willy-nilly wherever they can. Junior Feller is the first out of his car and after quickly taking in the scene, he radios for a couple of ambulances. I take off my jacket and push it against Richmond’s wound to further dampen the bleeding. The night air is bitterly cold but when I shiver, I’m not sure if it’s nerves or the chill that triggered it.

As Hurley briefs Junior on what happened, I have one of the other cops come over and take over Richmond’s wound management. Then I shift my attention to Colbert.

I move over to him but Hurley stops me. “Let him lay there,” he says.

“I can’t, Hurley. I’m a nurse. I have to try.”

He frowns and sighs heavily. “Fine,” he says. “But let me cuff him first.”

I wait as one of the cops puts Colbert in handcuffs and removes his utility belt. When I’m finally able to open Colbert’s jacket and shirt, I find a sucking chest wound on his right side. But he’s breathing and his pulse, though very fast, is strong.

The ambulances arrive and I turn Colbert’s care over to the EMTs. They load Colbert first and take off, then with the help of several cops, they manage to get Richmond on a stretcher and loaded into the second rig.

Hurley walks back over to me as the ambulance prepares to leave. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I nod even though I’m trembling uncontrollably due to the cold, my nerves, and lots of excess adrenaline. Hurley takes my chin in his hand and turns my head, forcing me to look at him. “You did good, Mattie. You saved my life. You saved all our lives.”

I nod again. Then I burst into sobbing, body-wracking tears and let Hurley hold me in his strong, very capable arms.

Chapter 46

W
illiam walks into my mother’s dining room carrying his pride and joy: a perfectly browned, crisp-skinned turkey. Thanksgiving was yesterday and I have to admit I’m a little bummed that I wasn’t able to celebrate on the only day of the year when big thighs are thought to be a good thing. But it couldn’t be helped. I spent the entire holiday in debriefing sessions with detectives from the county sheriff’s office, trying to fill in the blanks about the Ackerman-Dilles-Colbert debacle.

At least most of my favorite people are here with me: Hurley, Izzy, Dom, William, and my mother. Okay, my mother isn’t really one of my favorite people but she is my mother and I’m kind of stuck with her.

Hoover is here too, and he’s hovering at our feet beneath the table, knowing that Dom and I are likely to be good for a dropped scrap or two.

William sets his pièce de résistance in the center of the table, which is well laden with all kinds of other fattening goodies, and after we all ooh and aah over the turkey, we dig in like a horde of locusts. As William starts carving, the rest of us grab dishes full of food and begin the big pass-around until our plates are piled high.

Everyone, that is, except my mother, who clearly didn’t pass her appetite on to me. She takes tiny dribs and drabs of each selection while eyeing the turkey with a worried eye. “Are you sure we can’t get the Asian bird flu from eating that thing?” she asks.

“It’s an American turkey, not an Asian one, Mom,” I say, knowing I’m wasting my breath.

She sighs, shakes her head, and declines William’s offering when he tries to put a slice of the meat on her plate. William gives us all an “Isn’t she cute?” smile and continues his duties. Clearly the man is smitten.

As soon as we all have our plates loaded up, everyone but Mom digs in with gusto. She pushes her food around and eyes the rest of us with disdain.

“I don’t know how you people can eat after everything that’s happened,” she says. She drops her fork with a clatter and puts the back of her hand to her forehead. “I’m not feeling very well. Why isn’t David here?”

“He had a date,” I tell her. “Apparently he and our insurance adjuster hit it off. He’s moved on, Mom. Get used to it.” I knew something was up when David suddenly capitulated on the divorce thing. I should have known there was another woman involved; some things never change.

My mother lets out a sound of disgust, no doubt to mourn the loss of her personal family physician.

William says, “Mattie has filled us in on most of what happened, but the one thing she didn’t tell us is how Bob Richmond figured out Colbert was involved.”

“The e-mails,” Hurley explains. “There were a couple of them that seemed to reference the same material as the ones between Smith and Ackerman but they were between Smith and another, unknown e-mail address. So Richmond called the Internet provider to find out who that e-mail belonged to. Apparently Colbert wasn’t smart enough to sign up for an e-mail account using a phony ID. I’m surprised he didn’t use the Leon Lindquist name Dilles gave him like he did for the car rental.”

“How did you end up at my house with Richmond?” I ask Hurley. “I thought you were under arrest.”

“I was,” Hurley says. “The sheriff’s deputies brought me to Sorenson and turned me over to Richmond right after you and Colbert left. Richmond was about to lock me up when he got the information about the e-mail address. Once he knew Colbert was involved, it didn’t take Richmond long to fit the pieces together. He sent Junior and another cop over to the motel while he and I went to your place.”

“Thank goodness,” I say, the memory of how close I came to death making me shudder.

“Of course,” Hurley goes on, “the full extent of Dilles and Ackerman’s involvement wasn’t clear yet, but fortunately Colbert sang like the proverbial canary yesterday when they offered him a plea deal. Now he and Ackerman are likely to end up as Dilles’s prison mates. And the cops have arrested Smith, too. Between the damage to his SUV and the e-mails, they can hit him with both conspiracy charges and the attempted murder of Trina.”

“How is this Trina woman doing?” Izzy asks.

“She’s stable and they were able to save her leg,” I tell him. “Her recovery will be long and hard, but it looks like she’ll be good as new eventually.”

“Well,” Izzy says, bestowing me with a smile, “it looks like your faith in Hurley was justified after all. Congratulations on solving a very complicated case.”

“Thanks,” I say, and then I look over at Hurley. “I told you Ackerman was involved,” I say, feeling smug.

“And I told you Dilles was,” Hurley counters.

“And you were both right,” Izzy says quickly, playing mediator. “Sounds to me like the two of you are going to make a crackerjack investigative team.”

Hurley and I exchange a momentary look before we both drop our gazes to our plates.

Dom says, “I’m still a little confused on the details. This rookie cop was the one who committed all these crimes?”

I nod and swallow the glob of mashed potatoes and gravy I have in my mouth. “He was. Smith used his criminal connections to come up with a fake ID and history for Colbert, whose real name is Jonathan Haney. Colbert applied for a job at the Sorenson PD, which apparently has several openings, did his academy training, and then went to work learning all he could about Hurley. One of Smith’s prior clients taught Colbert how to pick locks and once he had that down, it was easy enough for him to break into Hurley’s house and do what he needed to do.”

I pause and give Hurley a questioning look, knowing that the next subject I want to address is a sensitive one for him. He gives me a subtle nod and then focuses on his plate of food.

“Callie was targeted right from the get-go,” I continue. “And since Ackerman knew about her past with Hurley, he got the idea to frame him for her murder, thereby taking care of Ackerman’s problem with Callie’s threatened paternity suit. Callie’s sister knew Ackerman and Callie were involved and I suspect Ackerman knew she knew. That’s why he had to have other murders occur that had no connection to him but would point the finger at Hurley. It was Ackerman who suggested that Callie investigate the police corruption thing with Hurley, telling her that he got the anonymous call. And since it didn’t raise any eyebrows for Ackerman to be calling one of his employees, the phone records for Callie’s cell didn’t raise any eyebrows, either. After killing Callie, Colbert made sure there was evidence pointing to Hurley with the hair we found in her wound, the metal fragments that were stuck in her hair, and the knife he discovered in Hurley’s boat.

“After that, it was easy enough to discover the lawsuit Mr. Minniver had with Hurley since it’s listed on the public circuit court site. Once Minniver was targeted, Colbert watched him for a few days and stole the spare key the man had stashed in his front porch light. Then he snuck in and poisoned Minniver’s iced tea with the cyanide, knowing Hurley had potassium cyanide in his shop.”

“Frighteningly clever,” William says, looking both intrigued and appalled.

“I still don’t understand why they went after David,” my mother whines.

“They thought Hurley and Mattie had a thing going on,” Izzy offers. Then he quickly adds, “Understandable, since that’s what David thought, too, leading to a very public argument between him and Hurley at the grocery store, an argument that Colbert witnessed. It gave him one more thing to use to frame Hurley.”

“
Is
there something going on between you two?” William asks, looking from me to Hurley.

“Nope,” Hurley and I both say quickly.

“We’re working partners, nothing more,” I add.

“David may not be here,” Izzy says to my mother, “but be thankful he’s alive. The plan was for him to die in that fire but thanks to Mattie, he didn’t. Your daughter has been a hero three times this week.”

“Yes, I heard that you were the one who shot this Colbert guy,” William says.

Hurley chuckles and says, “Well, technically she shot a rock, but fortunately the bullet ricocheted and hit Colbert.”

I give him an exasperated look. “So I’m not an ace shot,” I grumble. “Sue me.”

Hurley holds his hands up in surrender. “Hey, your lousy shooting saved both me and Richmond. If you hadn’t hit the headlight with that first shot, Colbert might have gone after us that much sooner. As it was he thought that shot came from me. He didn’t know I wasn’t armed.”

“How is Richmond?” Dom asks.

“He’s doing fine,” I say. “Ironically his fat slowed the bullet enough that it didn’t do any serious damage. It nicked his bowel and he’s going to be pooping in a bag for a few months, but other than that, he should be okay.”

“Matterhorn Marie Fjell Winston!” my mother admonishes. “We don’t discuss bodily functions at the dinner table.”

Everyone at the table turns to look at me. Izzy shrinks down like a turtle trying to duck back into its shell, William looks confused, and Dom looks apologetic.

Hurley, on the other hand, looks amused. “Matterhorn?” he repeats in a tone that makes it sound like he just tasted something horrid. “Your real name is Matterhorn?”

I shoot my mother a look that rivals one of her own and have the satisfaction of seeing her flinch and clutch at her chest. “Oh my God,” she says. “My days are truly numbered.”

Just as I start to preen, convinced that I’ve finally mastered the talent of The Look, she adds, “Your dog has his nose in my crotch again.”