Killer Commute (29 page)

As she stepped up to the dining-room level, she dared glance back to find Gladys of the anklets also holding a gun, holding it on David Dalrymple. So much for that little rescue scenario.

If the worst thing in the world could have happened to Charlie now, she would have said it was a toss-up between the feel of a bullet entering her spine and what actually happened.

She and her captor stepped out of Betty's kitchen door and then off her patio just as Libby Abigail Greene stepped out of her Wrangler. A rough hand on her shoulder stopped Charlie. Surprise and then shock stopped her daughter.

A hard metal poke in the back again sent Charlie moving forward toward Libby, who was talking and gesturing either to Charlie or to the man behind her. He would have to kill Libby now, too. There had to be something Charlie could do. Just giving him what he wanted would only ensure the slaughter of everyone in the compound and anyone who happened by. There could be no witnesses. There was too much at stake here.

But anything she did could endanger her daughter. Anything she
didn't
do could, too.

She watched Tuxedo jump onto the picnic table with a ravaged familiar piece of green and in desperation walked off toward the gate to the alley. Charlie gambled and did the unexpected with a man holding a gun, a man who had to kill once he got what he came for, a man who was between her and her child. Libby would be so distracted to find Jeremy alive she could hardly be expected to do anything rational. But what would the kid do? Charlie dared not think.

Charlie's plan was to separate herself from Libby so he'd have to decide which one to go after. Charlie hoped he'd chose her. She hung a right and angled toward the back gate of the compound and without a glance at or permission from her captor.

This is so dumb. He's gotten this far, he's obviously smart enough to force Libby with him into the alley and shoot you both there.

Not until he finds the money, he won't.

It took Charlie every ounce of will she owned to not look over her shoulder. If there was a gunshot and Libby lay dead, she wouldn't have heard it. The gate wasn't locked. Why bother now?

In the alley, fluffy Hairy Granger tried to squeeze between her feet with every step and Charlie finally picked him up so she wouldn't trip on him. Cats had to be the most irritating animals on earth. Okay, next to murderers.

The holes in the stucco she and Larry and Ed had made in Jeremy's alley wall last night looked to have grown in size. For all of Officer Mason's threats, no crime-scene tape had gone up around that wall. In fact a seagull perched in one of those holes right now. He wasn't eating money and he wasn't eating fish scraps. He was sure eyeing Hairy Granger, though.

Charlie kept walking. She'd never wanted to know much about alley life—figured it would make her angry, disgusted, and guilty, and her plate was too full of that already. Besides, this alley was too close to home. But Hairy stiffened in her arms as they approached a pair of legs in scruffy pants and sandals sticking out from behind a storage unit for garbage cans.

The guy's feet and legs looked relaxed unto death, but when she and Hairy passed him his face looked euphoric unto a high just short of an overdose, and he had cigarettes and booze nearby for when he came off it. His eyes couldn't track and his nose was bleeding, but he winked at her. He was one happy fella. A stack of unopened pizza boxes sat innocently next to him. This man had everything but shelter. This man had money. This man had probably followed the seagull. This man was going to be dead meat in seconds.

Charlie, you may not hear him babbling at you. You can't even hear Hairy, whose vibrations could mean either purring or growling, but you must do something.

Screw the idiot, he's killing himself without my help, and this damn cat is making me feel sneezy.

But Hairy clung to her when she tried to put him down, so she faced the breathless inevitable by turning around with this overhaired burden hanging on her front to face the reality of what the armed creep might have done to Libby. Charlie could not only not hear, she couldn't breathe. Her options were minuscule, her time frame destroyed.

She had seen that look in Jeremy's eyes before but had denied it as reality because she needed him. It was the Jeremy who could throw rocks at Hairy one day and entice Tuxedo onto his lap by merely sitting down the next. The Jeremy who fed the seagull his dinner scraps and then chased it off with curses. There was insanity here. To believe she'd allowed her Libby to live so near this danger all these years made her sick now.

Hairy climbed up on her shoulder, taking the pressure off her rib, and Charlie sucked air into her lungs.

Libby Abigail Greene lay sprawled at his feet. Jeremy had the gun in both hands extended out and aimed at Charlie, but was looking sideways at the seagull sitting in the hole in the ruins of the house he'd deeded over to Betty Beesom. His mouth looked as if he was shouting—maybe raving, who knows?

And Art and Wilma Granger were sneaking up behind him, motioning for Charlie to hit the deck before the good-sized plank in Art's hands contacted Jeremy's skull. In front of him at his feet, Libby raised her head and made a thumbs-up motion. Thank God she wasn't dead.

But it was too late for Charlie. Jeremy pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 39

T
HE LAST TIME
Charlie was dead, she couldn't hear. This time she could. And she'd thought
life
was interesting.

The problem was, the sound she could hear was deafening.

Are you never satisfied?

“Will you shut up?”

“Mom?”

“Oh, honey, I didn't mean you. I was talking to the buzz in my head.”

“She's got a buzz in her head,” Libby told some guy who looked suspiciously like a paramedic. The two of them bent over her.

“Don't let them resuscitate me, Libby. I've already got a broken rib, forgodsake.”

“It's your head that's bleeding,” the paramedic said. “And we don't normally resuscitate people who can talk.”

“Actually, that's from a different trauma. I did the rib by accident when I thought she'd been shot because of the bleeding ear. This woman has been greatly mistreated, but I think not shot in the head.” David Dalrymple looked down on her now, too. “She's been totally deaf for the last two hours.”

“I can hear now. Don't let them take me to the hospital, David. Libby—what's happened to Jeremy? I heard the gun go off and it was aimed at me. Tell me Mrs. Beesom's okay.”

“Trauma injuries to the ear don't work that way,” the paramedic assured the ex-lieutenant. “Bleeding from anywhere in the head is serious—no matter how or when it happens.”

“Art hit him over the head with a piece of two-by-four, but I saw you go down about when the gun went off.” Wilma Granger had that smile on her lips but fear in her eyes. How'd she do that? “You sure you ain't been shot, Charlie?”

Actually, Charlie wasn't sure of anything. One ear was sore and her head felt bruised where she'd hit the alley going down. Gladys, if that was her real name, had turned over her weapon and untaped Dalrymple, who spirited both women out of the house. She'd kept saying, “Help me, please? Hurry, he'll kill us all.”

“You just can't stay out of trouble, can you, Ms. Greene?” Detective Amuller's joined the faces above her.

“Johann Sebastian,” Charlie greeted him with glee and then passed out. Most probably from the needle prick in her arm.

*   *   *

Charlie was treated in the emergency room—X-rayed, analyzed, lab-tested, checked for balance problems, and released. She had no bullet wounds, only some dried blood in one ear. It was strongly suggested she must have passed out from the fear of being shot by a man pointing a gun at her or by the pain as her hearing returned.

Her lawyer arrived. So did Amuller.

Her rib wasn't broken, merely cracked. There isn't anything you can do for a cracked rib but learn to move in the least painful ways and to avoid lifting. Sort of roll off the front of a chair instead of leaning on your arms to rise. Never twist your body entering or leaving an automobile. Avoid jarring of any kind and roll your legs over the edge of the bed allowing gravity to work for you while transferring most of your weight to your legs and feet before somehow getting your upper body upright, and never, never breathe shallowly, even when asleep. Because you'll get pneumonia.

Otherwise, piece of cake, no problem, nobody ever died of a cracked rib, well hardly nobody, and you'll feel totally normal in six to eight weeks.

“Six to eight weeks—that's two months. I can't—”

“Sure seems to be hearing fine now,” Johann Sebastian Amuller shouted for everyone in the emergency room. “I suppose you're going to tell me Jeremy Fiedler killed Jeremy Fiedler and Gladys Phillips. I got Fiedler on a slab and I'll soon have the man who shot Gladys. I think you should know I'm not convinced that I don't have two murders and two murderers.”

Everyone seemed to be shouting. Charlie heard too well. Seemed better even than before the bouquet bomber blew away her self-confidence and the safety of her fortress. God, she missed Jeremy.

The Jeremy with the gun escaped from the alley attack after Art hit him with the two-by-four only to find Gladys on Betty's patio with Betty and Dalrymple, so he shot Gladys dead on the spot. Betty would have been next but Dalrymple knocked her to the ground, stood in front of her, and aimed Gladys's gun at Jeremy when Art and his two-by-four charged again, this time into the compound and Jeremy took off out the front destroyed gate. It all happened in a matter of seconds and Dalrymple would have shot the fleeing murderer in the back but discovered too late that poor Gladys's weapon was not loaded.

Art Granger lobbed the two-by-four after him but it fell short. Jeremy was gone again, leaving more murder in his wake.

No sign of hearing loss or major damage to the little hairs deep in her ears could be detected. Dr. Peter Rasmusen, Long Beach's renowned hearing specialist, was highly recommended by the staff in the ER to look into any problems that might crop up.

Johann Sebastian gave Ernesto Seligman a thumbs-up, Charlie a wink, and repeated himself. “See you in court.”

Attorney Seligman turned to David Dalrymple. “You're positive she wasn't hearing for at least two hours this afternoon?”

“Tried to tell Amuller I'd swear to it in court. I will, that's a promise. He won't listen. You know, Charlie, you may be right about him. We need good young men like that in law enforcement desperately. I can't understand his mindset here.”

*   *   *

“It's
Good Cops, Bad Guys,
David. Unfortunately it's easier to learn about people from it and movies than actually observing reality.”

“So you saw Charlie flinch and go wimpy, too, when her hearing shut down?” Ed Esterhazie asked Dalrymple. “Sorry, Charlie—but that look you get when you suddenly can't hear isn't any I've ever experienced.”

They and Ernesto Seligman were helping Charlie and Libby search for loot in the ruin of the fortress.

“So which man was Jeremy Fiedler, the dead man in the Trailblazer or the one holding you all hostage?” the attorney asked.

“They both were, or neither. There have been two Jeremys all along. But nobody noticed, except Mrs. Beesom. She notices everything.”

“That is way weird,” Libby said. “That's why sometimes he limped and sometimes he didn't. Why sometimes his hair looked different, and one day Tuxedo would jump on his lap and another day hiss at Jeremy.”

“We see what we expect to see, not always what's really in front of our eyes.” Evening light was fading to night dark and even flashlights didn't reveal much inside the holes in Jeremy's house. They had to take their chances. Charlie had insisted Libby go to the Esterhazie's or to Lori Schantz's but the kid was getting fed up with this.

“I'll leave if you will,” had been her reply.

Life sucks when your teen can make such pronouncements while having to bend over to look you in the face. “I have the feeling it was Harry who Tuxedo didn't like,” Charlie said now. “The man who was holding a gun on us this afternoon. He even had the nerve to attend Jeremy's memorial. That's why Betty Beesom practically went into shock at the beach that day. She knew there were two of them. She didn't trust Harry for some reason, and especially not with Jeremy dead. But Harry got to her before our little trip to the eye doctor and convinced her somehow that he'd see to it everything was all right for her. And since she ended up owning Jeremy's house, maybe she decided that meant Harry, too, would look after her—if she didn't give him away, that is.”

“Exactly when did you figure all this out?” Dalrymple wanted to know.

“Like I told you, I was beginning to tumble that day we lunched at the Pit. All those lookalikes, the clever impersonations and disguises, makeup—probably surgery even—to look like someone you aren't, and so convincingly. On the way home on the 405 I kept feeling I was on the cusp of what was going on here, just almost there, and then my ears did their thing and I couldn't concentrate on anything else. And Mrs. Beesom kept saying she meant Hairy the cat when she'd slip and say ‘Harry.' And then Doug came across all those Beesom brokerage accounts that had been cashed in, and Tuxedo started dragging tortured hundred-dollar bills into the house instead of poor birds and bugs. It all came together. And the redwood house and the red Ferrari.”

“What would that have to do with someone methodically destroying his identity electronically?” Dalrymple pulled a chunk of wall away to make a hole bigger and Ed pointed a flashlight down it to disclose stacks of bills, neatly piled. These holes were cut into unusual cavities between the inner and outer wall, and there had been less damage to wall and cash down that far. “Oh, all this money.”