Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 05 - Just Ducky (29 page)

“I do. Why?” Paul asked, his interest piqued.

“When I left to go home last Tuesday evening, you were downstairs lifting weights, weren’t you? And you were just waiting until Ducky was alone to come upstairs and kill her. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” Paul said. “So what?”

“And, Tom, you weren’t really here today to do some light housekeeping, were you?” I asked.

“Not hardly. You’re a smart lady, aren’t you?” Tom’s question was meant to be sarcastic, but I felt flattered anyway. Even though it was most likely going to cost me my life, I was getting to the truth of the matter. “Paul told me to come here after he finished his workout on the Nautilus. We were meeting to discuss our final job before we call it quits. We want to make one big final heist, and there’s some valuable art in the new antique store across from the coffee shop on Locust Street. I don’t clean there, but it has the identical security system as the pharmacy where I do have a cleaning contract. So I know how to disable it, and we can kick in the back door like we always do. We’ll have thirty seconds to disarm the alarm, and I can do it in less than twenty, even without a pass code.”

“You going to talk all night, or we going to get this done before we get caught red-handed?” Paul asked his partner. He was getting nervous and anxious, and I knew I couldn’t put off the inevitable much longer.

“Okay. So you want me to stab her with my buck knife, or what?” Tom asked. “I could also slice her throat, just to make sure she’s good and dead.”

“No, I think it’s best if we hang her the same way we did Ducky,” Paul countered. “That worked well, I thought.”

Even though I didn’t particularly have a preference for being stabbed and my throat sliced over being hung, I couldn’t help but point out to them that one small-town librarian hanging herself in the library was an anomaly, but two of them hanging themselves in the same town, in the same library, was a serial killer on the loose who was targeting librarians. Who’d have ever thought being a hooker in Rockdale was a safer occupation than being a librarian, as least as far as serial killers were concerned?

While they discussed the best way to do away with me, who was the only current threat to their freedom, I was trying to think of a way to defend myself. Two men against one female did not put the odds in my favor. I’d barely been able to walk up the stairs to enter the library, but I’d heard of mothers lifting cars off their children after adrenalin had kicked in during a life or death situation. In a fight for my life, I felt sure I could hold my own with the aging jockey until the cows came home, but a cow wouldn’t have time to pass gas before Paul would have me in a guillotine choke, leaving me defenseless within seconds. And the big hulk was standing within two or three feet from me, so I tried to start mentally boosting my adrenalin level by visualizing having to lift my new car off my daughter, Wendy. I don’t know if it did anything for my adrenaline level, but it did help keep my mind off being carved up like a jack o’lantern with Tom’s buck knife.

“She’s right, you know,” Tom said. “I think we need to think of a less obvious way to whack this broad. I still vote for the buck knife.”

“Either way,
whacking
this broad will make it obvious both of them were murdered, not suicidal,” Paul said. “But stabbing her would leave a bloody mess where it’d be easier to leave footprints, fingerprints, and other evidence. We weren’t prepared for this, so we didn’t bring gloves with us like we did when we hung Ducky, and when we robbed the local stores.”

“And think about it, Tom. If, by some very slim chance, your prints weren’t discovered in the blood bath stabbing me is sure to cause, as the janitor you’d probably be asked to clean up the ‘bloody mess’ that would result from the brutal slaying,” I said dramatically.

“Shut up lady!” Paul said. “I’ve got to think.”

“Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll go sit out in my car, so as not to disturb you two, and you can come get me when you’ve made up your minds. You wouldn’t want to make the wrong decision, so take your time, talk it over, and maybe take a vote after you’ve debated the pros and cons of each method of killing me that’s under consideration.”

“Lady, what part of ‘shut up’ didn’t you understand? I’ve made up
our
minds, and we’re going to do it my way. Tom, do you have more rope in your truck?”

“Yes, I always carry plenty of it in the back tool chest. It comes in handy for a lot of things,” Tom replied.

“Go get the ladder and some rope while I knock her out, and we’ll go from there. Try not to draw attention to yourself, because we don’t want any witnesses. Wait until the coast is clear before you go outside. At least with these dark-tinted windows in the library no one can see inside from the street.”

I knew that to be true. The windows were not only tinted, they also had a reflective finish that reminded me of those one-way mirrors in interrogation rooms. I was getting very frightened now. Paul could overpower me and choke me into unconsciousness within seconds. And whether or not these two buffoons ultimately got away with killing both Ducky and me was really not an issue to me anymore. Saving my ass had taken precedence.

I watched Tom scan the entire street before letting himself out the front door to run to his vehicle, parked in the dime store parking lot down the street. With a determined expression on his face, Paul stepped toward me. I put my hand up, and said, “Wait! Since I don’t get a last supper, like most people do who are about to be executed, can I at least have one last swallow of my drink? I deserve that much, at least. My throat is so dry I can’t even swallow.”

“Being able to swallow won’t be an issue in about 10 seconds. But, what the hell, go ahead. Just make it quick. We haven’t got much time,” Paul replied.

Wrong answer, I thought, as I picked my coffee cup off the table, where I’d sat it down to mess with my phone while I turned on the recorder. I flung my still reasonably warm coffee in Paul’s face, scrambling for the new gun in my fanny pack, as he cursed and wiped the tepid liquid away from his eyes. Before he could regain his vision, and reach out for me, I’d taken a couple steps backward with my brand new pink-handled pistol in my hand. I pointed it right between his eyes, with a steely resolve I had no idea I possessed. I was angry, and found I didn’t even need to fake the bravado I was exhibiting.

I was almost relieved the gun had no bullets in it, or I might have been tempted to blow the scumbag away, for taking one human being’s life, and threatening another, just so he could get revenge on Ducky, and also speed up the process of moving into his own apartment. Well, he’d be moving all right, but he might not like his new eight-by-ten foot home.

“Whoa lady! Be careful or that thing might go off!” He hollered, his eyes as big and fixed as a hoot owl’s. For a moment I thought he might turn his head around a hundred and eighty degrees, looking for a way out of the mess he’d just found himself in.

“Don’t get any stupid ideas, Paul. I am very proficient with this weapon and I can guarantee you I won’t hesitate to shoot you if you make one sudden move. Get down on your knees with your hands behind your back, right now, before I blow your worthless head off! Try anything stupid and I’ll turn your brain into gooey confetti and scatter it all over this room!”

I knew I had to sound tough to have even a remote chance to get away with my little charade of being able to actually shoot the poor dumb bastard. I was pleasantly surprised when he believed I could, and would, and did exactly what I’d told him to do.

I was also thankful he didn’t challenge me to prove my shooting proficiency, which is tough to do when the gun is not loaded and you have no clue how to even use the weapon you’ve owned for less than an hour. I’d actually be more dangerous with an undercooked chicken than I would be with my empty-chambered firearm.

Little did Paul know the only ammunition I had for the gun was in a sack in the front seat of my car, and I wouldn’t know how to load the thing even if I had the box of birdshot shells with me.

In fact, I was pretty certain the safety was on, or so the salesman had told me, but I didn’t know where it was, or how to release it. With the gun still trained on Paul, I fiddled around with it, without being obvious about it, until I figured out how to take the safety off, for whatever good that would do me with no bullets to fire.

I’d seen actors cock their guns in movies, so I pulled back the cock thingy on my little Sig P238 right then for a little extra affect, and with hopes of raising the fear factor up a notch.

“Don’t shoot me! I promise I won’t move! Please be careful and don’t accidentally pull the trigger!” Paul said.

“It would be no accident, trust me!”

“Please, put the gun down, or at least point it the other way. I promise I won’t move until the police get here to arrest me.” Paul was nearly begging me as his eyes were welling up. It looked to me like the big bad, iron-pumping, karate-chopping, cage fighter had turned sissy on me. He’d be lucky if he didn’t wet his pants before I could call the cops on him.

Just for my own amusement, I pointed the empty gun just below his belt, and laughed out loud when he immediately fainted and slithered to the ground. This would certainly make keeping control over him much easier, while I called for help.

Without setting the gun down, just in case Paul was faking it and trying to pull a fast one on me, I pulled my cell phone out of my pouch and called 9-1-1, which I had on speed dial. When the dispatcher answered and asked me what my emergency was, I explained briefly I was holding a man at gunpoint in the library who, along with his partner-in-crime, had just threatened to kill me, and had already killed Bertha Duckworthy. I asked them to tell the responding officers to watch for Tom Melvard to be walking up the street with a length of rope he and Paul Miller were planning to hang me with, as they had the librarian the previous week.

As I ended my phone call, I noticed Paul was starting to stir already. I began praying the cops would arrive quickly. Tom would be back any minute, and one of the men might decide to take a chance on taking a bullet in an attempt to overpower me, and disarming me in the process. Of course, if either of them was going to take a bullet, he’d have to go out to my car and get one first. I could feel my palms begin to sweat, and my hold on the gun become shakier. Paul was waking up and becoming more alert with each second that passed.

Fortunately, no more than thirty seconds later, Tom Melvard came through the front door of the library with Detective Travis following closely on his heels. I was never so glad to see a police officer in my life. On first impression, I hadn’t been overly fond of Clint Travis, but as of that very moment, he was my new best friend.

Before long the library was as full of police officers, firemen, and other first responders, as it had been the morning I found Ducky strung up from the rafters. Even a reporter for the
Rockdale Gazette
had arrived on the scene, and was trying to pin me down for an interview.

I was getting kind of tired of having my face and name plastered all over the front page of the local newspaper, but I could not have been any happier about being able to announce to the world that even though the Rockdale Police Department had paid no attention to my keen observations and suspicions, I’d been right all along. Ducky had not taken her own life. Instead, it had been taken from her! And now, justice would be served on her behalf.

I’d feel completely safe now when I walked into the Rockdale Public Library tomorrow morning to begin my new job as interim head librarian. It still hurt to breathe, much less move, but I felt upbeat and excited about the next couple of months, even though I’d just lost my only other employee at the library, not to mention the custodian. I’d have to contact Colby Tucker as soon as I got home to give him the news and see what he wanted me to do about hiring new employees.

In the meantime, I was going to sit back and relax, and enjoy one hot cup of coffee after another on the back porch of the Alexandria Inn, while wallowing in the satisfaction of knowing I’d once again been instrumental in bringing down a killer.

Chapter 19

“Congratulations Lexie!” Detective Johnston said to me in greeting, as he walked into the kitchen early Monday morning. We’d long ago given him a spare key to the inn so he could let himself in and out as he pleased. We thought of Wyatt as family now, and he was one of our dearest friends. And who better to give a key to than a police officer who had pulled my feet out of the fire more than once.