Paper-Thin Alibi (29 page)
“You called them!” Meg accused. Her eyes had grown huge, but worst of all she pointed the gun right at Jo.
“I didn’t. Truly, Meg, I didn’t call the police.”
“I don’t believe you! They’re out there, and it’s because of you. You promised! You promised you’d help me run away with Pat.”
“I tried, Meg. But I didn’t know you wouldn’t be able to reach Pat.”
“You lied to me!” Tears had sprung to Meg’s eyes, tears of anger and frustration. She still pointed the gun at Jo, but her hand shook with emotion, making Jo fear an accidental trigger pull as much as a deliberate one.
Light suddenly flooded the outdoors, seeping through the slatted walls into the barn. “Meg Boyer! We have you surrounded. Throw out your weapon and come out.”
Jo thought she recognized Mark Rosatti’s voice, distorted though it was, by a bullhorn. Jo flashed back to Mark’s description of what had gone wrong with the situation when Russ was shot. The woman who had been held hostage at that time had panicked and run, causing her frenzied boyfriend to let loose a stream of bullets, one of which caught Russ. Jo didn’t want Mark, or anyone else who had come to help her, to get hurt—or worse. Jo certainly wasn’t going to panic and run, but she couldn’t let Meg fall apart either, causing an exchange of bullets.
What could she do to diffuse the situation? The boyfriend in Russ’s situation had been drunk. Meg wasn’t drunk, but her mental state wasn’t far from drunkenness with its cloudy thinking. She had already swung within minutes from thoughts of suicide to giddy plans for an impossible future, to threats on people’s lives. Reasoning wasn’t likely to get through to her. But what would?
“You better go away!” Meg screamed. “I’ll shoot her if you try to come in here.”
“You don’t have to shoot anyone, Meg,” Mark’s voice said. “You can end this now by coming out. No one needs to get hurt.”
“I’ll hurt anyone I have to!” Meg cried, then said to Jo, “They probably think I don’t know how to use this, but I do. Kevin got it for me, to protect myself when he was gone, and I know how to handle it. So don’t think I don’t.”
“I never thought that, Meg,” Jo said. “I could see you were expert with it. You must have practiced a lot, right? At a shooting range?”
Meg nodded.
“That was very smart of you.”
Meg didn’t answer, but Jo thought a bit of the wildness in her eyes had receded. She still breathed heavily, and her eyes shifted rapidly between Jo and the scene outside, as glimpsed through the slits in the wood. The blazing light made it impossible to see little more than shadows behind it, which gave the entire area a surreal look. Mark and whoever else was with him must have come through the woods and barricaded themselves just beyond the tree line. Jo could only imagine what Meg must be feeling, caught in this trap when only moments ago she had been immersed in her fantasy life.
The ring of a cell phone startled them both. It came from one of Meg’s jacket pockets. Meg made no move to answer it. The ringing continued, then stopped as Meg’s voice mail likely kicked in. Suddenly Meg’s whole body jerked.
“That might have been Pat!”
She scrambled for the phone and flicked it open to hear the message, her expression changing quickly from excited to angry. She snapped the phone shut. Within seconds it rang again. She ignored it. Then the third cycle began. This time she opened the phone by the third ring and angrily demanded, “Stop calling me!”
Assuming it was Mark on the other end, Jo watched Meg listen for a few moments, then say, “No, I’m not going to let her go. I’d be a total fool to do that, wouldn’t I?” More listening, then Meg said, “I’ll tell you what I want, Lieutenant Morgan, I want everyone out there to go away! That’s what I want.”
Lieutenant Morgan! Jo clutched her throat and would have rushed to press her eye against one of the wall slits if it weren’t for the fact that Meg was still pointing the gun at her.
“I don’t want to hear about that,” Meg cried into the phone and angrily ended the call.
“That was Russ?” Jo asked. “He’s out there?”
Meg shook her head impatiently. “He’s at the hospital. He said Kevin was getting worse.” Meg snorted. “Like I should care?”
Jo exhaled. At least Russ hadn’t somehow dragged himself to the scene. But he had found another way to participate and seemed to be trying to stir sympathy in Meg for the man she’d been married to for several years. Meg had hung up on Russ, but perhaps Jo could carry on what he had started.
“Kevin wasn’t a bad husband, Meg, was he?”
Meg scowled at Jo. “He wasn’t Pat.”
“No, of course not. But he couldn’t help that, could he? I’m sure he loved you, to want to marry you. He must have seen the same things in you that Pat did. How long did you date? Very long?”
Meg frowned but shook her head. “A couple of months. I was working at a shoe store. I hated it, and I was lonely. Kevin came along and he seemed better than nothing, which is what I had at the time.” Meg’s face contorted. “Because of Linda.”
Wanting to keep Meg’s thoughts on her husband, Jo asked, “Was this after Kevin was in the army?”
To Jo’s surprise Meg’s expression suddenly cleared. “I made that up,” she said. “Kevin was never in the army. I just wanted you to think that was how he knew that photographer.”
“I did think that. You fooled me, Meg.”
“Kevin never went to meet with the guy. He didn’t know anything about it. I just sent him out of town to pick up mulch for the yard. I fixed him coffee to take along, and put that stuff in it. I didn’t know how fast it would work or when he would actually drink it, but I figured someone would find him, wherever he ended up. And everyone would think the photographer had poisoned him.”
“That was very clever, Meg.” Jo said it as smilingly as she could manage, though inwardly cringing. Jo badly wanted to ask what Meg had put in Kevin’s coffee, but she was sure Meg would immediately shut down. At least now she was talking, and not about shooting Jo or anyone else.
“So Kevin was never in the army?”
Meg shook her head dismissively. “They wouldn’t have wanted him.”
“But he’s a decent man, isn’t he, Meg? He treated you well. He worked hard enough for you two to buy a house.”
“Pat makes beautiful furniture. He set up his own business from scratch.”
Meg’s phone rang again. Jo saw the inner struggle.
Should she answer or ignore it?
When it reached the fourth ring, Meg opened the phone. “Now what?” The words were impatient, but the tone was less so. Meg’s eyes suddenly grew large.
Should she answer or ignore it?
When it reached the fourth ring, Meg opened the phone. “Now what?” The words were impatient, but the tone was less so. Meg’s eyes suddenly grew large.
“Pat’s coming? Coming here!”
Jo wondered how Russ had managed that?
“How soon will Pat be here?” Meg asked. “Yes, I’ll talk to him. Of course I will!” Her face suddenly contorted. “If you’re lying to me—”
Jo didn’t know what Russ answered but it must have been reassuring enough since Meg’s expression cleared, though it remained wary. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’ll talk to Pat when he gets here.” She closed her phone and gazed at Jo, though Jo doubted she was seeing her at all. What expectations Meg had of the imminent appearance of Pat, Jo had no way of knowing. Nor could she imagine what the police would allow Pat to say or do. Obviously, taking off with Meg would not be included, though Jo couldn’t help but suspect Meg had delusions in that direction.
“Pat’s on his way,” Meg said.
“I heard. That’s wonderful.”
Meg smiled. She ran her hand through her hair, which the rain had plastered flat to her head. “I left my purse in the car,” she murmured, and Jo guessed she was thinking of the brush and makeup that were stowed in it.
“You look fine, Meg,” Jo assured her.
Meg looked unconvinced, so Jo added, “Pat won’t care if you’re not perfect, you know. He liked that you were down-to-earth, remember?”
“Yes,” Meg agreed, her eyes shining. “He did.” Her expression turned puzzled. “How did Linda ever get anywhere with him? She was not his type at all, with her perfect hair and her painted-on face.”
Jo shrugged. “Men can be blinded sometimes.”
“Yes, that’s it. He was blinded. Linda was good at that. She fooled so many people, at least for a while. Poor Pat. How awful he must have felt once his eyes opened and he really saw who he was married to.”
“You didn’t poison Linda for Pat’s sake, though, did you, Meg? I mean, you knew by the time you killed her that they had divorced.”
“I hated her. All those years I hated her. She took Pat away from me. And then I found out at the craft show that she hadn’t even cared enough about him to keep him. It was like she took him just to hurt me. I finally had my chance to hurt her back.” Meg smiled smugly. “I was there, you know, when her throat started closing up. I watched her being wheeled off to the hospital. It was so great. I kept my fingers crossed that they wouldn’t figure out what was wrong with her until it was too late.”
“So you knew she was highly allergic to peanuts.”
“I overheard her talking about it to the school nurse. She said her sensitivity to peanuts was getting worse instead of better. I figured if that were true, by now she might be supersensitive and that maybe eating even one candy filled with peanut paste could actually kill her. It was worth a try, anyway.”
Jo remembered believing Meg when she’d claimed to be unaware of Linda’s allergy. But then Jo, and many others, had believed a lot of things about Meg that turned out to be lies. Meg seemed to have enjoyed the pretenses, as though fooling people proved how much smarter she was, rather than how devious she could be.
A voice suddenly boomed across the clearing. “Meg? Are you there, Meg. This is Pat.”
Meg whirled toward the door at the sound of Patrick Weeks’s voice.
“Pat! Is it really you? I’m here, Pat. I’m here.”
Jo saw that Meg’s face had gone through a transformation, as though she were suddenly sixteen again and her date for the big dance had finally arrived.
“Meg, they’d like you to come on out. Will you do that?”
“I can’t, Pat! Not yet. Tell them to go away first. Please? Then we can talk.”
“They won’t go away. Not until you stop threatening to shoot people. Why don’t you just throw that gun away and come on out of the barn with Miss McAllister? Okay?”
“Pat,” Meg said, ignoring his words, smiling, “I keep remembering that lake we went to on our days off from the pool. Do you remember, Pat? We’d take a picnic lunch and spread out our towels and just lie there and talk for hours. Remember that, Pat?”
“I remember.”
“And remember that time we rented a boat and rowed all the way out? And it started raining, but we stayed out anyway because then we were the only ones out there? It was like we were the only two people in the world. Do you remember, Pat?”
“Those were good times, Meg.”
“Let’s go back to that lake, Pat.”
There was a long silence, and Jo could imagine Pat looking to Mark Rosatti for guidance on how to answer. Or was Russ coaching by phone from the hospital? Where was Pat’s little daughter, Abby? Back in Marlsburg, Jo hoped, safely watched over by Shirley.
Finally Pat spoke again. “That was a long time ago, Meg.”
“No, not so long. Everything that happened since then has been erased. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s like it never happened! Linda’s gone. Kevin’s gone. There’s nothing standing between us anymore. We can be Pat and Meg again, back at the lake. The two of us, just like it used to be.”
Jo thought she heard a long sigh come from Pat. Though he’d probably dropped the bullhorn away from his face, some of his reaction still came through.
“Nothing is like it used to be,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “
We’re
not who we used to be, Meg. I’ve changed, you’ve changed. It’s no good.”
We’re
not who we used to be, Meg. I’ve changed, you’ve changed. It’s no good.”
“Don’t say that, Pat! We
are
the same. We have to be! I want it so badly, Pat.”
are
the same. We have to be! I want it so badly, Pat.”
Tears had sprung to Meg’s eyes.
“Wanting something doesn’t make it so, Meg. It’s too late. It’s all too late.”
“It’s
not
too late, Pat! It’s not. I don’t want it to be.”
not
too late, Pat! It’s not. I don’t want it to be.”
Silence.
“Pat? Did you hear me? It’s not too late! Really, it’s not too late.” Meg’s tears began running down her cheeks. She made no move to wipe them.
More silence, then Pat said tiredly, “Meg, why don’t you just come on out like they want you to? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“But I’ve been waiting so long, Pat! I came here so we could finally be together. Don’t ask me to give that up! I haven’t changed, Pat. I haven’t. Not inside, I haven’t. I promise!”
Pat didn’t answer.
“Pat,” Meg called, “are you there? Answer me! Don’t you see? It’s not too late!”
The silence drew out, magnifying the few, tiny sounds of raindrops dripping from overhead leaves.
Meg backed against the wooden door. “He doesn’t believe me. Why not?” she asked. “Why won’t he listen? How can he do this to me?” Her voice turned hollow. “I waited so long. For nothing.”
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