Caught in a Bind (22 page)

Curt and I nodded, thankful the injuries were not more serious.

Sondra Blanchard looked at Tina but spoke to us. “I told Mrs. Bond that I don’t want to see her in here again.” She smiled to take the sting from her words. “I want her to contact the authorities tomorrow and have a restraining order executed against her husband. One of these times he’s going to do damage that isn’t repairable.”

Tina, full of pain medicine, gave a wobbly smile but said nothing.

The doctor patted her on the shoulder and disappeared down the hall, but not before I saw the worried expression on her face. How she must hate cases like this.

“Kids?” Tina managed as we got her settled in the car.

“They’re at my friend Edie’s. When we left, they were curled together in her son’s big bed. He was reading to them, and they were about thirty seconds from dreamland.”

“Why?”

Why
might be all she could say, but I knew she meant, “Why are the Whatleys willing to take us in?”

“You know Tom Whatley from Hamblin’s, don’t you? Edie’s his wife. She works with me at the
News
, but more to the point, she was an abused wife in her first marriage. She wants to help you because people helped her.”

“Her son?”

“Randy. He’s fifteen. He’s taken Jess and Lacey under his wing. He knows what they’re thinking. He’s been there.”

We showed Tina Jess and Lacey, teddy and blanket hugged close, cuddled together in Randy’s bed. Randy lay asleep on the floor beside them, wrapped in a green sleeping bag.

“He wanted to be near in case they woke up scared,” Edie whispered as we all stood in the bedroom doorway, Curt still holding Tina after carrying her up the stairs. Her head leaned wearily on his chest and tears fell silently at the sight of her sleeping kids.

We turned and entered the room across the hall. Edie had made up the bed with peach-and-yellow floral sheets, a cheery pattern that welcomed Tina.

“You sleep, Tina,” Edie said as she stroked Tina’s hair. “You’re safe here, and I want you to stay as long as you want. This is your home.”

Once again, Edie’s hospitality and heart humbled me. When we turned out the lights and left the room, Tina was still crying silent tears.

Curt drove me home, kissed me at the front door and left, as weary as I. I stumbled to the bedroom, fell into bed and slept four glorious but inadequate hours before it was time to get up and face the day and its many demands.

I needed to call Edie and find out how the various Bonds had survived the night. I needed to make certain Bill hadn’t come near the place.

I needed to find out if the police had located and arrested Bill. I needed to send Stephanie to talk to Tina.

I sighed as I pulled open my car door. I climbed in and screamed.

I had found Bill Bond, and he was never going to bother Tina or anyone else again.

FIFTEEN

B
lood, now congealed, had flowed from the wound down Bill’s front and onto the seat and the floor. Sitting somewhat slumped in my passenger seat, he looked remarkably similar to Barney Slocum sitting in Randy’s vehicle.

“Probably on purpose,” William Poole said as the police swarmed over my car. “Probably the same killer, same gun, same warped reasoning.”

“But why my car?” I wailed. As I heard myself, I thought wryly how much I sounded like Randy.

William shrugged, then smiled at me slyly. “You know you’re going to lose your car for a while, don’t you?”

I nodded in resignation. I’d been down this road before with other cars. “Scene of the crime. But you don’t have to enjoy it so much.”

I wandered back to my apartment and called Mr. Hamish, the car rental man. In the short time I had lived in Amhearst, he and I had become good friends.

“What is it this time? A murder? An accident? A deer?” He said the latter like he still didn’t believe that story no matter how many times I tried to convince him.

I sighed. He’d read about it in the
News
anyway.

“There was a body sitting in the passenger seat of my car this morning.”

“How awful,” he said in a thoroughly delighted voice. “I’ll get a car to you within fifteen minutes. Is that soon enough?”

By which he meant, will the cops still be there in fifteen minutes?

“That should be fine,” I assured him.

When he arrived, I grabbed the keys and left while he settled down to watch the excitement.

As I drove, I called Edie.

“Everyone’s fine here,” she said. “In other words, they’re all still asleep, including Randy.”

“You would have been proud of him last night, Edie. He was wonderful with those children.”

“Sort of scares you, doesn’t it? You wonder when he’s going to revert.” I could hear the combination of hope and fear in her comment.

“Edie, bring him to church Sunday morning. He’ll find a stability there that he can’t find anywhere else.”

Edie made a noncommittal noise.

“Come on,” I coaxed. “It’s Easter. And Sherrie’s singing with the bell choir. He’ll like that.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

God, please help her do more than think!

I took a deep breath. “I’ve got some hard news for you. Bill Bond, Tina’s husband, was found dead in my car this morning.”

There was a moment of startled silence. Then, “Dead? In your car? Bill Bond?”

“He was shot.”

“Like the guy in Randy’s car? Oh, my!”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do I have to tell her when she wakes up?” Edie was fading in and out by now, but I could hear the distress in her voice. I made a mental note to recharge my phone as soon as I got to work.

“No, don’t you say anything. You’ve got enough to deal with without having to handle announcing to someone that she’s a widow. The police will come out soon to tell her.”

We disconnected to static.

I called Curt as soon as I reached the newsroom and listened to his wonderfully soothing comfort. Then I brought Mac up to date on the latest death and began writing about Bill Bond. I had to stop and hit delete a number of times because I found my adjectives and adverbs were noticeably negative and entirely prejudicial.

Partway through the article I called Hamblin Motors. I didn’t know if they’d be in yet, or if they were, whether they’d heard about Bill, but I needed a quote from Mike Hamblin.

“What?” he shouted in my ear when I finally reached him. “Bill Bond is dead? How can that be? He was fine yesterday!”

“I’m sure the police will have more information than I do,” I said primly.

“The police! Why the police? Don’t tell me his crackpot wife finally did something to him!”

I thought of Tina, barely able to move last night because of what Bill had done to her, and wondered cynically what Bill had said at work about his wife. “I was wondering if you had any thoughts on Bill that I could include in my article on him.”

“Like a tribute or a eulogy, you mean? Well, he was a genuinely nice guy.”

Sure, I thought. That’s why he used Tina as a punching bag.

“And a wonderful sales manager. The customers liked him a lot. They trusted him, you know. We will miss him terribly!” I heard a grunt, a noise of disbelief. “I still can’t take in that he’s dead!”

If you’re surprised
, I thought,
imagine how I felt when I found him in my car!

“Can I come see you, Mr. Hamblin? I’d like to ask you some detailed questions about Mr. Bond, see where he worked, that kind of thing.”

“Well…” I could hear reticence in Mike’s voice.

“I was thinking I could do something more in-depth if I could talk with you. A genuine profile rather than a standard obituary. Don’t worry. It won’t put Hamblin Motors in a bad light. Not at all.”

“Oh.” Relief. “Well, why don’t you come at about six-thirty tonight? I have appointments all day that I cannot get out of, even for something this important.”

The trouble was Curt’s opening was at seven. “Can you make it a bit earlier?” I asked.

“I’m sorry—I can’t. I would if I could.” I heard the flutter of pages like he was checking his Day-Timer. “Six-thirty’s the best I can do.”

It wouldn’t take long to ask my questions. I could be at Intimations well before seven-thirty. That wouldn’t be too bad. “All right. I’ll see you at six-thirty.”

Shortly before noon I grabbed my notebook, preparing to leave a morose Mac and the oppressive atmosphere of the newsroom to spend my lunch hour at Hibernia Park.

“If Mr. Montgomery doesn’t do something soon,” fumed Jolene as she yanked a dead leaf from the jade plant, “I’m going to march right up to his mansion and demand he rescue poor Mac—and all the rest of us—from rampant despair.” She glared at Mac like his job instability and resultant melancholy were by his choice.

“Will you do me a favor?” I asked as I slid into my blue tweed blazer.

She looked at me suspiciously. Most people who asked her for favors these days wanted money. Well, so did I in a roundabout manner.

“You remember Sherrie Bauer?” I pulled my purse from my bottom drawer.

“The kid who had hysterics?”

I nodded. “I’ve been interviewing her and her mom and learning all about Freedom House for an article. I’m very impressed with them and what they do. Could you make Stephanie one of those wonderful baskets of flowers like you made for Mac?”

“Sure.” She waved her hand like it was no great matter. “I’m going to the garden shop over lunch. I’ll get the stuff then.”

“Could you do me an even bigger favor and drop it off at Freedom House? I don’t know when I’ll see Stephanie again, and I’d like her to have the flowers before Easter, sort of a holiday gift, you know?”

Did that sound as much like an imposition to her as it did to me? Surely if I wanted to give someone a gift, I should take it myself.

Oh, Lord, please let her bite! And please move her heart when she sees the place and meets Stephanie!

“Sure. Why not?” She grinned. “I’m trying to learn to be nice.”

I left before she could change her mind and stopped at Ferretti’s for a BLT, a bag of chips and a Diet Coke, all to go. Then I drove to Hibernia Park, passing between the black lion heads set in their white pillars, and down the dirt road toward the picnic grove.

I noticed that three out of the four little whitewashed cottages along the road were occupied. Why was the fourth boarded shut? I wondered. Was it just too small for any modern family to live there, or was there some structural damage? But the sight of the mansion made the little white houses fall from my mind. The warm coppery-orange building was, quite simply, beautiful.

I found a picnic table sitting in a stream of sunlight. I tore my paper bag open and spread it on top of the table. I stood on the bench, turned and sat on my bag. I ate slowly and thought as I chewed. Then I just sat in the sun and thought some more.

Eventually I forced myself to climb out of my sunbeam. I walked slowly across the lawn to the ranger station.

“Hi,” I said to the woman named Lori who sat at a desk behind the counter.

“Can I help you?” She rose and came to stand opposite me.

“I was here the other day looking for information about the mansion.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, quick to smile and reach across the counter to the brochure that I had gotten on Sunday. “This tells you all about it.”

I took the brochure and thanked her. “When I was here over the weekend, the ranger and another man were talking about the fact that someone was staying in the park in an unauthorized manner.”

She looked at me curiously.

“I’m Merry Kramer from the
News,
and I was just wondering if this person was still around. It might make a good story, you know? A homeless person staying in the park or a runaway trying to hide here.”

Lori’s face cleared. “It would make a good story, but I haven’t heard anyone talk about seeing anyone who shouldn’t be here.”

“No more blood in the bathroom? No more stolen lunches?”

“What?” She obviously had no idea what I was talking about. I felt disappointed. I handed her my card. “If you hear anything from anyone, will you call me? I still think it would make a great story.”

Lori nodded and I let myself out, careful to take my
brochure with me. I sighed. There was no story here, just some tramp who’d been and gone.

I was driving through the exit at the far side of the park when a lightning bolt hit me. Of course! Of course!

I drove around the perimeter of the park to get back to the entrance, muttering to myself about the curse of one-way roads. After driving between the twin lions again, I slowed at the little boarded-up cottage, edged my car off the road and parked.

I looked around at the peaceful scene, the towering poplars and beeches with their branches still leafless against the blue sky, the creek tumbling and creaming over rocks behind the cottage.

You’re crazy, Merry, crazy!

But I walked around the cottage anyway, listening, looking, trying to think like a man who needed to disappear for some reason I didn’t yet comprehend. Even so, I almost missed what I was looking for. If I hadn’t tripped over a stone hidden under the leaves and put out my hand to steady myself against the cottage, I wouldn’t have seen the small smear of dried blood. Rusty red against snowy white.

My heart began to pound. I looked carefully at the side of the house and saw another smear. Now that I knew what I was looking for, the trail of blood smears stood out against the pristine whitewash like flares against a night sky. I followed them to the back of the cottage. There I found a window with the shutter torn free and a large rusty stain defacing the sill.

With the hairs on the back of my neck prickling in anticipation, I made my way to the window. There was no glass, and I looked directly into darkness.

Well, I shouldn’t say directly, because the ground fell away behind the cottage, and the window was higher than I.

“Tom?” I called. “Tom, are you in there?”

There was no answer, but somehow I was aware that the silence had suddenly developed a listening quality. I was also aware that I had decided the man within was Tom Whatley. It fit somehow. That is, if there was a man within.