The Root of All Evil (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 4) (34 page)

“Walk?” he asked, turning the spare over in her truck bed. “Why not just call somebody? Do you have your phone?”

Cooper paused. She had a phone, but it still wasn’t charged enough to use. With her truck turned off, the phone was doing nothing but lying dead in her cupholder. Harry didn’t need to know that. “I didn’t want to bother anybody.”

Harry nodded, walking over to the flat. “I get it. Phone is dead, right?”

“No,” Cooper squeaked. She cleared her throat and stood up straight. “Mr. Wintersteen, I appreciate you stopping, but . . .”

“The flat has a pretty good-sized hole in it,” he said, interrupting what was going to be a speech about not needing help, which was a lie, but one she was willing to live with so long as it helped her live a bit longer. “Your spare, on the other hand, is just old. I think it’s fixable. I keep a tire repair kit and pump in my trunk. We should be able to get this patched up quick. You won’t want to drive a long way on it, but the spare should get you home.”

He went back to his car and opened his trunk. When he reached in, Cooper cringed, expecting to see the instrument of her demise, but instead of returning with an Uzi or shiv, Harry returned with the kit and pump, as promised. Silently, he went to work on the spare, and when he’d finished patching and filling it, he bounced it on the pavement.

“That’ll do,” he announced. He rolled it over to the flat, went back to his trunk and returned once again with a jack. “Mind bringing your tire iron?”

Cooper did as he asked, still not sure if she could trust him. As she stood by, he removed the flat on the front driver’s side and exchanged it for the spare. When he was done, Harry stood and wiped his hands on his pants.

He handed the tire iron to Cooper. “You should be all set.”

“Great,” Cooper replied, feeling a little guilty for her suspicions. Harry actually was just a simple, good Samaritan. “Thanks for stopping. Lucky you were driving by.”

“About that . . .” Harry smiled sheepishly. “It wasn’t really
lucky
at all.”

Cooper wasn’t sure she wanted an explanation, but still she asked, “What do you mean?” She held the tire iron tightly.

“I . . . kind of followed you here.”

Cooper took a step back.

“Not that I follow you as a practice,” Harry explained. “I hadn’t originally intended to follow you at all. You see, I was at the police station. Since you stopped answering my calls, and the police decided not to tell me anything about my Sylvia’s heinous murder, I decided to camp out at the station until someone would talk to me. I saw you go in, and you were there so long. Then, you were talking to that cop . . . I thought you might know something. I tried to call you, but your phone just went to voice mail.”

Cooper continued to hold the tire iron in front of her like a shield.
So that’s how he knew my phone was dead,
she thought.
And he coincidentally showed up to help when I suddenly had a flat and couldn’t call for help.
She took another half step away from him.

“I’m telling the truth, I swear,” he said.

“You were waiting at the station, saw me and wanted to talk, but couldn’t get me on the phone.” Cooper met his gaze. “Naturally the next step was to stalk me.”

“I wasn’t
stalking,”
he argued, his tone irritated. “You sound like Sylvia’s friend. I heard her once tell Sylvia that I was a
stalker.
I just wanted to talk to you, and I was out of options.”

Cooper tried to maintain a calm exterior. If Harry was still keeping up the act of harmless science teacher, she didn’t want him to know she had her doubts. “All right then,” she said. “I’m sorry for my word choice.
Stalk
may have been harsh. At any rate, I do appreciate you stopping to help me, and I probably ought to be on my way. My family is expecting me for supper . . . They’ll worry if I’m not there.”

Harry accepted the brief apology. “I shouldn’t be upset. I know I can come on a little strong. I’m just a very passionate person, Ms. Lee. I hope it won’t change your opinion of me.”

“Not at all, Mr. Wintersteen. Not at all.”

He started back to his car, kit and jack in hand. “I’ll wait until you get on the road before I leave.”

“That’s kind, but I’ll let you go first,” Cooper countered. There was no way she’d give him another chance to follow her. “I’m going to wait a few minutes until my phone’s charged enough that I can check messages. I want to make sure I don’t need to stop and get anything on my way home.”

Without argument, Harry left, pulling onto the highway and driving away. Cooper sat in her truck with the air conditioner running and watched his car get smaller and smaller in the distance.

There was something very creepy about Harry, and the more she thought about it, the more she wondered: could this man be a cold, heartless killer? Abbi Merken thought he was harmless, and Cooper had been inclined to agree, but what better disguise to give a hitman? He came across as obsessive and weird, not deadly. To the world, he loved Sylvia too much to ever harm her; to Cooper, that love was beginning to look like a cover. Harry was in a perfect position to keep tabs on Sylvia, and when she slipped up, he had perfect access to clean up the mess. His fingerprints were already at the school, naturally. He could keep an eye on the investigation as part of his false identity as lover of the tragically departed.

The more Cooper thought about it, the more she believed Harry was the one.

17

When she was certain Harry was out of sight, Cooper pulled out and continued her drive home, unsure what to do next. She was supposed to be done with this investigation. McNamara was supposed to have everything she had. Moreover, Cooper had enough to worry about in her personal life without adding murderers back into the mix.

If nothing else, the encounter with Harry had gotten her mind off of Will Brayden, and Cooper could once again listen to the Beatles without thinking of either Will or Nathan. She blasted her music all the way home. Once in the driveway, she opened her phone. It wasn’t charged much, but the battery had enough power to show her that she had missed messages. Eight of them.

She sighed, listening to the first three voice mails. They were from Harry, asking why she was at the police station and pleading for an update on Sylvia’s case. Cooper deleted them without a second thought. She expected the fourth message, left twenty minutes ago, to be more of the same, but instead it was Ashley.

“Cooper, I’m in labor! I’m sure this time. Rhonda said so, too. She called Dr. Birnbaum, and he said to go to the hospital, so that’s where Lincoln’s taking me now. I called Mama. She and Daddy were at the store and just left from there. Can you pick up Grammy on your way?” Ashley stopped talking, and Cooper could hear Lincoln in the background telling her to “breathe through it.” Shortly thereafter, Ashley spoke again. “Okay, I got to go, Coop. I’m having a baby!”

Cooper slammed the truck door behind her as she sprinted toward the house, saying a prayer for her sister, her brother-in-law and her new little nephew or niece. She fumbled with her keys at the door, finally found the right one, inserted it into the lock and burst into the front room.

The TV blared through the house, the volume unreasonably high. Everything was dark, and the light switch wasn’t working.

“Hello?” She took a few steps farther in. “Grammy, you here?”

A grunt from the living room drew her attention, and cautiously, Cooper walked in the direction of the sound. The darkness made it difficult to see. But she knew something was wrong. Very wrong. The crash of a lamp breaking on the floor confirmed it. Cooper picked up the pace.

By the light of the TV, she took in the scene.

An intruder stood in the middle of the living room. He wore all black and a mask covered his face. It was he who’d grunted. On his left was Grammy, batting him over the head with the TV remote control, and on his right, Ms. Donna slammed a heavy book repeatedly into his gut. With one hand he tried to fend off the attacks. With the other he held on to his bleeding shoulder. A shard of the shattered lamp protruded from the skin.

Growling, Popeye had latched on to one of his heels.

“Grammy!” Cooper exclaimed, distracting all three people from their struggle. The intruder pushed Grammy and Ms. Donna out of the way, scooped up something from the floor and ran past Cooper, knocking her to the ground. Only then did she see the glint of steel in his hand. He had a knife.

Cooper ran after him to the back door, expecting to see him hop over a fence, but when she looked out, the intruder was gone. There was no sign of which way he’d run.

Cooper hurried back to the living room, pulling Grammy into her arms. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m all right,” Grammy assured her, wringing her unsteady hands. “I’m not the one that fellow was after.”

Cooper looked to their house guest, who sat on the couch, shaking. “Ms. Donna, are you all right?”

“I’m so sorry to put your family in danger, Cooper!” Ms. Donna said, anguished. Her eyes were wide with fear. “I’m so sorry!”

“Ms. Donna, did he hurt you?”

“He tried.” She displayed the arm of her sweater. There was a long gash in it. “I guess he wasn’t expecting me to move as fast as I did. All he saw was a woman with a limp.”

“I doubt he was expecting either of us to do what we did,” Grammy commented, taking a seat next to her. “But I think it’s safe to say he learned to respect his elders.”

Using the house phone, Cooper dialed McNamara’s direct line. When he picked up, before he could even ask who was calling, Cooper exclaimed, “The killer was just in my house!”

“Ms. Lee, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me, Inspector, and the killer was just here.”

“Is everyone safe?”

“Yes, yes, they are, thank God, but . . . He was here with a knife. He tried to kill a friend, but he got more of a fight than he bargained for. He left when I walked in with a phone in my hand. If I hadn’t shown up . . .”

She could hear McNamara giving orders to someone in his office, and then he spoke to her again. “Ms. Lee, I’m dispatching officers now. Tell me what happened.”

“When I came inside, the lights were off and the TV was up loud. He was in the living room, fending off my grammy and our house guest. He saw me and ran out the back, but not before he stopped to pick up his knife. I tried to see which way he went, but I couldn’t. He’s just . . . gone.”

“Just stay calm, Ms. Lee. I’ll have people there in a matter of minutes. Do you want to stay on the line? I’m transferring the call to my cell, so I can talk as long as you want while I’m en route.”

Cooper almost said “Yes,” but then she looked at Grammy and Ms. Donna, sitting quietly and shivering with fear. “I need to go,” she answered. “I’m not the one who needs comforting right now.”

She slid onto the couch beside Grammy. “Police are on the way. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Ms. Donna scoffed. “That’s just like them, too! Coming to help out
after
the fact. I’m sure glad you came home when you did.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” Cooper apologized. “I had a flat on the way or I’d have been here a while ago.”

Grammy took Cooper’s hand. “It’s a good thing you weren’t here, Granddaughter, or he might have attacked you, too. This way, we fought him off, and you scared him out of the house. I don’t even want to think about what might’ve happened if you were here, up in your apartment by yourself when he snuck in.” She took a few deep breaths. “Thankfully, we don’t have to think about what might’ve happened.”

Cooper shook her head. “You don’t understand, Grammy. If I’d been here sooner, we’d be at the hospital now instead of waiting around here. That man would’ve broken into an empty house.”

“I don’t understand? Why would we be at the hospital?”

“You don’t know?”

Grammy clucked her tongue. “If I knew I wouldn’t be asking.”

“Ashley’s having her baby! I just got her message when I pulled into the driveway. She wanted me to pick you up and come to the hospital.”

“Then your friend would’ve been by herself.”

For a second, Cooper’s breath caught in her throat. Of course she would’ve invited Ms. Donna to come to the hospital, but Ms. Donna wouldn’t have, not to such an important family event. She would’ve stayed at the house alone. Then she’d have been easy prey for the intruder.

“You’re right,” Cooper finally said, very quietly. “Ms. Donna, I . . .”

“As I said before,” Ms. Donna interjected, “I’m sure glad you came home when you did.”

A horrible, sinking feeling filled Cooper’s gut, and she tried to cover it with a little levity. She smiled at Ms. Donna. “You probably didn’t need my help at all. From what I saw, you and Grammy had things under control.”

“You don’t mess with the Lee women,” Grammy announced, waving a fist in the air. “These young ’uns think I’m just a frail has-been, but you don’t know tough until you’ve lived on a farm. That’s a kind of fortitude you can’t beat—not with a knife or a face mask or anything else.”

Shortly thereafter, the police arrived, sirens blaring. Two patrol cars pulled into the driveway, along with an ambulance. Cooper met the cops at the front door.

McNamara was the first among them. His hand rested against his holstered pistol. “Ms. Lee, are you all right?”

“I’m okay. Ms. Donna and Grammy are inside on the couch. They’re shaken, but they aren’t hurt.”

McNamara gently squeezed her arm as he passed. Cooper could hear him introducing himself to the two ladies, who were more than willing to recount the dramatic event. Cooper stepped aside to allow the other police and paramedics into the house, and then she closed the door after them.

For half an hour she stood behind the couch, one hand on Grammy’s shoulder and the other on Ms. Donna’s, as they related the details of the attack to Inspector McNamara. When they were done, the inspector pulled Cooper aside.

“Tell me everything you saw,” he said, and Cooper did. She took him through every moment, from pulling into the driveway to meeting him at the front door. No sooner had she finished than Grammy joined them.