Murder Take Two (37 page)

“Okay. He was locked in a stall with the security guy who was supposed to be taking care of the place.”

And very embarrassed about it, she realized when she got back to the stable. The wide sliding door stood open and he waited like a recruit before the drill sergeant, standing in the large rectangle of light reaching out to the gravel path.

“You make a habit of getting yourself in trouble?” she asked.

“I sure hope not,” he said fervently, and when he saw her face, added, “ma'am.”

EMTs loaded a drugged security guard—a young college student with a summer job—into the ambulance. They pronounced him okay, only sleepy.

*   *   *

“Tell me what happened?” she said to Yancy as she drove them to the department.

He related his vague thoughts about the trailer's air-conditioning and not being able to locate Laura Edwards.

About the time he was talking with Laura's driver, Susan was learning from Justin Kiddering information that had her zeroed in on Clem Jones.

“You gave up another gun,” she said.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“How did you expect to get out of this one?”

He didn't say he hadn't expected to need getting out of anything, but she could see him thinking it.

“The mansion is kind of far. I figured it might be out of range. I borrowed the security guard's cell phone. It was in my pocket.”

“Dispatch heard a gunshot.”

“I punched nine-one-one and hoped they could hear what was going on. That was Clem convincing me she'd shoot Ms. Edwards.”

*   *   *

“Why couldn't you mind your own business,” Clem said sorrowfully to Yancy when he came into the interview room with Susan.

She was so ready to explain, it had taken some doing to stick Miranda in there before she started.

“For my mother,” Clem said. Her fingers found the locket hanging on a chain around her neck and opened it. One side held a picture of herself. She indicated the other. “This is her.” Blond hair, pretty oval face.

“At her funeral, I promised her Laura wouldn't get away with it.”

The Laura Edwards's character in
Lethal Promise
had made a promise to a dead father. Susan wondered if that had affected Clem.

“Laura deserved to die.” Bitterness curled the words up at the edges. “Lie in a coffin of dark shiny wood with satin pillows under her head. She killed my mother.”

Clem twisted around to see if Yancy understood. “Your mother was at the barn.”

He stiffened.

It was him she was explaining to, wanting him to understand. She'd refused to say anything at all unless he was present. Under different circumstances, she'd have been a young woman in love.

“I sawed partway through the railing and somehow I lost this.” She touched the locket. “The clasp had broken. I was frantic, but it was right there lying on the straw. I grabbed it and kissed it and slipped it in my pocket. When I looked down your mother was watching. I wouldn't have hurt her.”

Yancy gave her a stare of top-grade disbelief.

She blinked furiously as tears pooled in her eyes. Susan thought she was trying desperately to hold on, as though she'd reached the brink of some inner precipice.

“I got it fixed first thing,” Clem said. “I wear it always. On the Patio that night before—before Sheri—I kissed it then too.” Clem seemed mortified at the tears, and wanting some pride to cling to. Despair settled over her slumped shoulders along with an impotent anger that he was seeing both. “Your mother,” Clem said to Yancy, “looked at me with the strangest look.”

“What about your father?” Susan said.

“I don't have a father,” Clem replied with porcupine reflexes. “He left us. She killed herself.” Clem could barely say the words. Her hands clasped and reclasped, meshing her fingers together. “Hanged herself. I was eighteen.”

Clem's throat worked. “She couldn't go on without him.”

“Why did he leave her?”

Fierce hatred flashed in Clem's eyes. “To be with Laura. He thought she was going to marry him. Would you like to hear something funny? She never wanted to marry him. He was in love.” Heavy sarcasm. “Everybody falls in love with Laura. He destroyed my mother and Laura didn't even love him back.”

Clem leaned forward across the table. “And would you like to hear something funnier? She didn't even know who I was and I have the very same name as my father.”

The look she wore was defiant, tempered with toughness, a look of desperation trying to say, I can nail anybody's ass to the wall.

“What about Kay Bender?” Susan said.

“Kay was an accident. Laura was supposed to be up there. She never pays for what she does, somebody else always pays.”

“And Sheri Lloyd?”

“She wouldn't let it alone. I told her and told her, but she was such a flake.”

“Is that why you killed her?”

Clem shook her head impatiently. “She saw me come back from the barn. I said I was getting something for Fifer, but she kept threatening me. She wanted me to do things to Laura so Fifer would get mad at her. She babbled on about her astrologer. ‘Help will be available from an unlikely source. The color pink is important.'”

Clem rubbed the heels of her palms over her eyes. “The idiot decided I was the help because of my hair color. It didn't even matter when I changed the color, she still—I was afraid she'd say something to somebody with brains and—”

Clem talked to her hands. “And get me caught before—” She looked at Susan. “I wanted Laura to die like my mother.”

*   *   *

In her dream, Laura could see Clem's vicious, white face, eyes ringed with black.
You didn't care
 … The voice was eerie with echoing menace. She wanted to scream, to beg. Hands tied. Rope on her throat squeezing. She trembled, felt herself falling, spinning in black pain. Helpless. Choking.

She jerked awake. The hospital gown felt clammy. She stared up at the tile ceiling, took a breath, working through terror, remembering. She was safe, in a cool white hospital room.

She remembered images, a muscular man with dark curls asking questions and giving orders. Nurses with soft voices.
Take a deep breath. Hold it.
Pain. Needles. Losing consciousness … Visions of Ben looking down at her. A dream?

Her mind felt fuzzy. She slept. How long? Hours? Days? Pain made its way through whatever she'd been given. Her head ached, her legs, arms, and stomach felt on fire. Bandages. She worried about her face.

Dr. Sheffield, of the muscles and curls, had been back—when?—and listened to her chest, looked at her throat, peered in her ears, shined lights in her eyes. He'd also checked dressings. Everywhere pain. Pain pain pain.

Resting a hip against the bed, he crossed his arms. “Contusions and abrasions. You're going to feel it for some time. Infection is something that needs to be watched for. But you're going to be fine.”

“My face?” She was almost afraid to ask.

He smiled. “Just as beautiful as ever. A scratch or two. Nothing. You're very lucky. If you hadn't grabbed the rope like you did—” She listened in horror at him drop grizzly comments. “… dislocate the neck between first and second vertebrae … fracture of odontoid process … sever spinal chord … medulla oblongata … outright decapitation.

“The leather helped,” he said. “It isn't for show that motorcyclists cover themselves in it.”

On those words of information, he strode off and she could imagine him leather-clad and straddling a noisy aggressive machine.

She hadn't been trying to save her life so much as save her face. Pain the length of her body and in her arms had removed even that desire. It had wiped out all thought except how much she hurt.

Tears ran down her face. Everything, it seemed, made her cry. Covered in bandages.
Now Laura May,
she heard her father's voice,
you always do exaggerate.
She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. Why couldn't she cry like she did in films. Tears glistening, a trickle down a cheek. Blah, nose running all over the place.

She was an actress, her face was her biggest asset. With it damaged permanently, what kind of roles would she get? Her whole life, everyone she knew, everything she did, work, play, revolved around movies. What would happen if she lost it? She wouldn't have a life. She wouldn't get a roomful of flowers; nobody would care she was almost killed.

And balloons, and cards. Nick had sent a bouquet of red roses.

She mopped her face and blew. Mopped and blew. To stop all this, she groped for the remote control, clicked on the wall-mounted television, and surfed through channels. The runaway stagecoach with a cowboy hanging between galloping horses plunged her slipping and tumbling down a long black tunnel. She punched the control.

“… and now our top news story from Bob Randall in Hampstead, Kansas. Bob?”

“It's an incredible story, Jerry. Here in the quiet little town of Hampstead, Kansas, in the middle of wheat fields, actress Laura Edwards came to make a movie. What happened was even more dramatic than the story she was filming. It had everything: suspense, terror, misdirection, a cliff-hanger ending. Even a runaway horse.”

Cut to visual of horse looking noble, deigning to accept an equine nugget.

Jerry: “He'll probably be approached with movie offers.” Chuckle. “Maybe even a television series. I hope he has a good agent.” Serious. “I understand there is a suspect in custody. Can you tell us anything about that, Bob?”

“There is a suspect, Jerry. The police are not releasing any information about him yet.”

“Thanks, Bob. And now we take you to the press conference videotaped earlier.”

Cut to: conference room. SRO. Chief Wren at a podium, cool and poised. On her right, looking handsome and heroic, Officer Yancy. On her left, looking important, the mayor.

In a dry voice, the chief related the events of Laura's harrowing ordeal. A little expression wouldn't have hurt any, Laura thought irritably. For all the emotion this woman was putting out, Laura might have stumbled stepping off the curb.

Chief Wren fielded questions, refusing to answer most, not even giving out the suspect's name “while the case is still active.”

“What about the stalker?”

“Is he involved?”

“I can't comment on that at this time.”

“Is it true the suspect you have in custody is a member of the film crew?”

“No comment at this time.”

“How badly was Ms. Edwards hurt?”

“I'm not a physician, I can't answer that.”

“Will she be able to finish this movie?”

“Is she expected to recover fully?”

Laura thought Fifer must be gloating. He'd see that information and innuendo got spread around, truths and falsehoods and anything else he could throw in. All that free publicity. Star threatened by deranged crew member. There might even be front-page headlines.

“Is it true you personally captured the suspect after a dramatic chase that rivals a movie climax?”

Dry, level voice. “The suspect in custody was brought in through the combined efforts of the officers of the Hampstead police department.” Chief Wren stepped down, cameras flashed, motors whirred, mikes were thrust at her. Laura clicked off the TV.

“Terrible performance.”

“You could have done better?” Startled, she turned her head. Ben stood in the doorway, looking tight and invulnerable.

“Oh, Ben—” She held out her arms and hugged him awkwardly. Tears started again and for once in her life she didn't want to cry.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Which reply do you want? The one Fifer will give the investors or the real one? ‘Ms. Edwards is doing great. A few scratches and a bruise or two. She's shaken up, but she's a great lady and she'll be back at work tomorrow.'”

He sat on the edge of the bed.

“I didn't know I could hurt in so many places at the same time.” Damn it, would she ever stop crying.

He lifted her chin with a knuckle and tipped her head to one side, then the other. “You look in good shape for someone who got involved with a runaway horse.”

“You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Ben?”

“Have I ever?” He handed her a tissue.

“No, you haven't.” She blotted her face. “It's so upsetting to think someone could hate me that much. Clem Jones? I hardly know who she is—” Laura examined his face, trying to see behind his shuttered exterior. “You going to tell me that's why she hated me? I'm so self-centered, I don't see anybody else?”

He smiled.

Tears again. He looked so damn good when he smiled. “You're really arrogant. You know that?”

“So you always told me.”

True. He wrapped himself up in so many macho defenses, his armor clanked when he walked. She didn't know that when they were married; she was a lot smarter now. “Do you hate me, Ben?”

“No.”

“Did you ever?”

“Maybe. When you left. It's been a long time.”

“I was so scared,” she said in a small voice. “The rope kept getting tighter and tighter. I couldn't breathe—”

He ran a hand gently down her cheek. “Hey, you came through with barely a scratch.”

She pressed her face against his throat and cried. He stroked her hair and murmured, “It's okay, Laurie. It's okay.” She heard his heart beat.

He tipped her chin up and she looked into eyes that were softer and, for the first time that she could remember, understanding.

“Are you happy, Ben?”

“Happy?”

“Content, fulfilled, ready to spend the rest of your life here?”

“It's Californians who talk about contentment and fulfillment. In Kansas we talk about humidity and whether it's going to rain.”

She put a finger on his mouth to stop him talking. “Twelve more days of filming here. Assuming there are no more interruptions like murder, kidnapping, and—is there anything else?”