Who Killed Mr. Garland's Mistress? (19 page)

She had almost completed attaching the thread to the bedroom door when she remembered her sneakers and clothes. Going back into the bedroom she found his breathing regular, donned her sneaks, and finished attaching the thread.

Tavie stood by the door of Will's apartment mentally going over her check list. The items not in the field jacket pocket were in the suitcase, everything was in order. His telephone—God, yes. It would be just her luck to have some drunken crony from The Pen and Pencil decide to make a crazy midnight call. She took the phone off the hook.

Pulling on a pair of sheer gloves, she let herself silently out of the apartment.

She drove carefully away from the apartment in Will's car. She breathed deeply and tried to give her full attention to the road. Care was imperative, running a stop sign, speeding, or any casual police stop would be disasterous. She had made it from the apartment to the car without incident, and that was a part of her plan that she considered crucial. The field jacket and large hat were a partial disguise, but it was just as well that she hadn't run into anyone in the hall or parking lot.

She thought about the similar shotguns. They were both twelve-gauge, double-barreled, side-by-side Brownings. Her research informed her that with one BB-load she could put a pattern of pellets equal to seventy percent of the load into a thirty-inch circle at forty yards. Since she planned to fire at ten yards, or less, she imagined that close to one hundred percent of the pellets should fall into the circle.

Will's suggestion had tipped her off about shotguns, and a little research informed her that rifles had rifling. The repeated firing of a rifle during its life slightly changed the impression marks rifling left on the bullet. The marks became as distinctive as fingerprints. So much so that ballistics experts could match spent bullets to a particular rifle. Shotguns were smooth-bored, and since they fired pellets of various sizes, no marks were left that could be traced from one shotgun to another.

She drove the car automatically and with detachment toward Helen's house. Once she took off a glove and held her hand under the map light; the fingers were steady, the palm cool. That was the way it should be.

As she passed Helen's house she slowed, looking for the entrance to the logging road. Finding the almost obscured entrance to the dirt road, she quickly pulled off, stopped the car, and turned off the engine and lights.

Step one required the rubber tubing, measuring cup, Rob's key, and the shotgun purchased yesterday. Helen's house was dark as she got out of the car and started through the underbrush.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Their red Datsun, parked flagrantly in Helen's driveway, made her want to scrawl an obscene message for the two of them. She forced herself to think of the few minutes left until it would be over. There would be no messages, no maniacal ravings, all would go according to her blueprint.

The dark house sat on a small incline, and the partial moon made deep shadows around trees and the house itself. The road was little traveled, but she carefully looked for oncoming headlights before rushing across the road into the shadows alongside the small car. If a car should pass now, she could lie prone and unnoticed alongside the car.

Tavie unscrewed the gas cap of the Datsun and inserted the rubber hose into the tank. She siphoned the gasoline and allowed the first flow to go into the measuring cup. She had placed a small adhesive strip at the ten-ounce mark on the interior of the cup. When she felt the gasoline rise to that point she took the hose from the cup and allowed the rest of the gasoline to trickle down through the grass. It stopped in a few moments. He hadn't filled the tank. For some perverse reason, perhaps in his excitement, he hadn't noticed that there was only a few gallons in the tank. She poured her measuring cup of gasoline back in the tank and replaced the cap.

She slowly opened the back door of the car. She knew the interior light didn't go on with the back door, and she placed the new shotgun in the far rear of the small station wagon and partially covered it with the floor mat. Reaching into her field jacket pocket, she threw Rob's key on the floor of the rear seat.

Tavie made her way back to her car, and without turning on the headlights, backed the car out the logging road onto the main road. She drove the two miles to the main intersection where a small closed gas station had an outdoor phone booth. She pulled the car out of sight in back of the station and went into the phone booth.

Helen answered on the fourth ring. “Yes.”

“Mrs. Fraser, I'd like to speak to my husband,” she said.

There was an almost imperceptible pause on the line, “I'm sorry, you must have the wrong Fraser.”

“This is Octavia Garland, Helen, and I want to speak to Rob. I wouldn't call if it wasn't an emergency.”

“I'm sorry …”

“Hell'll never forgive you if you don't put him on the line. I said this was an emergency.”

There was another pause while Helen debated with herself and then reluctantly handed the phone to Rob.

“Tavie, is that you?” Rob asked.

“I need you home, Rob. I need you home desperately.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“A mutual friend.”

“That son-of-a-bitch Jack.”

“It's not his fault, Rob. I told you, this is an emergency. I called and begged him. It's little Rob, there's been an accident.”

“Oh, my God. Where are you?”

“Home. Come quickly.”

She hung up without waiting for his reply. From the car she had an unobstructed view of the road, and yet she herself was well hidden in the shadows of the station. He'd probably try and call the house, but would get a busy signal, then he'd realize that no matter what the consequences he'd have to come.

Timing was so important and always left room for a possible flaw. The gasoline in his tank would take him past this spot and out onto the interstate highway. The highway was uncrowded at this time of night and his stalled car should be spotted shortly by the state police. If he was picked up too soon … once again she'd have to count on mathematical probability.

The red Datsun passed her, hesitated briefly at a stop sign, turned onto the main road, and was soon out of sight. Tavie started the car and turned toward Helen's house.

Clutching the heavy shotgun she stood with her back against the side of the house. Remembering with a start that the gun was unloaded, she opened the breach and inserted two shells from the supply in her field jacket pocket. A dim light from a hall lamp came through the front window.

As she went around the front corner of the house, she saw a row of low bushes two feet from the wall. She edged along the small border between the bushes toward the front door. Three low cement steps, with a low-wrought iron railing on each side, led up to the front door. She went around the railing to the door and inserted the duplicate key into the lock. It wouldn't turn. She tried again and felt the faintly discernible click as the tumblers turned.

The momentum of the weight hitting her across the shoulders knocked Tavie over the wrought-iron rail into the bushes below. The dog's low growl frightened her and she pulled her arms across her face. She could feel her face pushed into the soft dirt as the dog's teeth tore at the cloth of her jacket.

Momentarily the tearing teeth were gone and a low deep bark reverberated through the night, and then the tearing again as she felt sharp pain in her arm and shoulders. Turning, she held a protective arm across her face and neck as the large head loomed inches above her. The gun was gone. Only her upraised arm saved her from the dog's neck lunge as fabric ripped.

It was the unforeseen—there had been no way to anticipate—and then all thought and regrets were gone, only an instinct for survival remained. She rolled over and crawled to her knees only to be knocked forward again by the dog's thrusting weight. As she fell, her hand felt the stock of the shotgun, and she clawed the weapon to her. Turning, she swung the gun across the dog's head.

The dog yelped and fell from her as she struggled to her feet. The dog shook his head, as if to clear his senses, and she saw the teeth bare as his front legs dipped and his powerful haunches tightened for a leap. She fired the shotgun from a hip position pointblank into the dog's chest. She was knocked backwards against the house wall as the dog tumbled away and lay still.

A floodlight switched on and illuminated the front lawn of the house. She stood starkly outlined in its glare. In the penumbra of light she saw the dog twitch and lie still.

Tavie, clutching the shotgun, ran for the road, tripped over the body of the dog, and sprawled across the grass.

A woman in a long housecoat stepped around the corner of the house into the periphery of light. Helen coolly raised her hand and aimed the small gun at Tavie. Turning on her stomach, Tavie fired, without aiming, at the floodlight attached to the eave of the house.

Helen fired simultaneously with the floodlight shattering in the shotgun's blast. The yard was plunged into darkness. Tavie scrambled to her feet and ran toward the protecting woods. She stood, with heaving chest, against a large tree.

The element of surprise was gone. Helen knew somebody was there and even had a gun. Somebody, a neighbor, might have heard the shots, help would be on the way—it was over. No, it couldn't be. They'd know, she had called Rob, they'd find out it was her—they'd send her back to the hospital. She had to finish.

She fumbled with the shotgun until it broke open. Putting the expended shells in her jacket pocket she loaded two more. There might still be time. Helen had come out so quickly from the back door she probably hadn't brought her keys, that meant she would return by the back door, if she wasn't still out here. No, she'd heard the shotgun. The wise thing for her to do would be to return to the house.

Tavie ran to the front door and fumbled with the key still inserted in the lock. Turning the key slowly she pushed the door open, stepped in, and shut it quickly behind her. As she had imagined, the living room was to the left, and she stepped into the darkened room and hunched behind an easy chair.

The house was silent, except for what she imagined was the crescendo of her gasping breath. She held her breath and heard the faint click and squeak of the rear screen door. She tried to let her breath out in short shallow gasps.

She heard steps in the hallway and raised the shotgun to a firing position. There were probably two entrances to the room she was in, through the hallway, the way she had come, and a rear hall entrance from the family or dining room. If there were an easily accessible switch the room could be bathed in light any moment; Tavie would be outlined and helpless. She would have to gamble on the probability that Helen, entering the house through the rear door, would come into the room from the far doorway.

A light clicked on.

It wasn't the living room light, but came through the entryway in the rear of the house. Helen would be around the corner of the far end of the room. Was she waiting coolly? Did she know? Tavie heard a slight click and then the further click of a telephone dial.

Moving quietly and swiftly down the length of the room, Tavie inched her body around the corner and saw Helen's back to her. Helen held a phone in one hand, the pistol in another, and was talking into the phone.

“Operator, get me the state …”

An instinct or faint rustling must have reached Helen—she turned to face Tavie. They faced each other in a split second of frozen tableau, and yet Tavie was able to discern the flicker of fright change to a shuttered coolness as Helen's hand swept upward with the pistol.

The first shot of the twelve-gauge shotgun blew a hole in Helen's chest while the second knocked her across the room and sprawled her against the dining-room wall.

The havoc wrecked by the blasts at such close range was far more than she had expected. Tavie dropped the shotgun and felt bile rush to her mouth. She clamped a restraining hand over her face and swallowed repeatedly. As she walked the few feet across the room to the body she saw that the upper portion of the torso was barely recognizable. Specks of blood were spattered across the rear wall of the room.

She wanted to run screaming into the woods.

Time. She could hear the slow methodical click of a metronome within her, and knew that seconds were rushing by, each one a precious entity. She pulled the body away from the wall and threw aside the layers of housecoat. Helen wore a brief pair of red panties, and Tavie ripped them from the body and tossed them across the room.

Reaching frantically into her jacket pocket, with a prayer that it was unharmed, she pulled out the hypodermic syringe. It was intact, only a portion of the plastic cylinder bent slightly inward. She pushed the legs of the body apart and inserted the syringe into the vagina of the corpse. Taking care not to puncture skin or damage tissue she pushed the plunger of the syringe in half-way.

Extracting the syringe she noticed that half its contents were left. She half-stood and ejected the remaining portion of semen over Helen's face.

Helen was dead now and had no inkling of this final degrading act—the final act of what would be taken for sexual perversion.

Putting the syringe back in her pocket, she picked up the shotgun, and ran out the back door and toward her car.

Slippery hands fumbled with the ignition key of the car. Finally, the engine turned over, and with a screech of tires the car sprang forward. She put the gears in reverse and tried to back calmly out the logging road. What had she forgotten? She turned the car abruptly and drove up Helen's driveway.

Leaping from the car she ran to the front door, locked the door from the outside, and pocketed the key. She opened the trunk of the car and took out an old blanket.

She had to roll the heavy dog's body onto the blanket and drag it across the grass toward the car. It took all her strength to push the dog over the lip of the trunk. She knew the dog had bitten and scratched her, possibly bits of fabric and skin could be found around his claws. He would have to be disposed of.