Ding Dong Dead (24 page)

Through the crack in the door, she watched and waited. Footsteps paused. She flattened herself further. Whoever was inside the building was as wary as she.

The footsteps continued forward until he came into view.

Andy Thomasia!

The man had a way of working with locks that frightened her. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t respect a locked door? He was carrying a weapon of some sort, holding it in his right hand as though he expected to use it soon.

The silence was so absolute, Gretchen was sure he’d hear her if she swallowed or blinked. She froze, motionless like the six-foot Barbie on the stage that had caught his attention. She had a moment to think of her next move while he stepped up on the stage and walked around the enormous doll.

She didn’t have anything to protect herself with. Where was her pepper spray? Gretchen couldn’t remember what she’d done with it after spraying Jerome.

Daisy had been right about Jerome. Now that she was locked in a deserted building with the murdered woman’s husband, she believed Daisy.

Too late
.

Andy’s gaze found the teddy bear lying on the floor in front of the chair that Gretchen had so hastily abandoned. He swung his head toward the break room, alert again, hunting for sound or motion. He cocked his head, his eyes sweeping along the floor from the stage to the door where Gretchen hid.

She pressed against the wall.

His eyes followed the crack in the door from the bottom up. He looked sinister, gaunt and menacing.

Their eyes locked.

“Don’t come down from the stage,” Gretchen said. “Or I’ll shoot.”

“You’re the exact image of your mother. Feisty, passionate.” Andy moved fluidly down the stage steps. “Impulsive.”

“I mean it. Stop.”

“You don’t have a gun.”

“I do.”

“Show me.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“Where’s Caroline?” he asked.

“She’ll be here any minute with the police.”

Andy looked a little worn around the edges. Under different circumstances, Gretchen would have felt sorry for him. That is, if he hadn’t been so adept at breaking and entering. And if his driver’s license hadn’t been left at the scene of the murder. “What happened at the museum?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I saw a cop leaving.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Gretchen lied.

“Come out from behind the door,” Andy said. “We need to talk.”

“I wouldn’t have helped you in the first place if I knew then what I know now.”

“Somebody is setting me up. You have to believe me.”

“Go away. Tell that to the police.”

“Come out and talk to me.”

“Yeah, right, like I’ll trot right over and let you stab me.”

Andy scowled. Then he glanced at the thing in his hand. “Oh, this? It’s my lock pick.” He put it in his pocket and held up his hands as though that would reassure her.

Gretchen, still flattened against the wall behind the door, looked back into the break room, frantic to find a weapon and protect herself. Where was the stage pistol? That would get her out of here. He wouldn’t know that it was a fake.

The gun wasn’t in sight.

“I tell you what,” Andy said, taking one slow step at a time toward her, “I’ll come in there and we’ll have a cup of that wonderful-smelling coffee and share information.”

“Stay out. I’m warning you.”

“But I’m turning myself in, right? I’m giving myself up to you.”

He came closer, reached the threshold. When he walked through the doorway, Gretchen used all her might to slam the door against him. She locked both palms against the back of the door and shoved as hard as she could, throwing all her body weight behind it.

She felt resistance, but she’d expected that. If his reflexes were slower than hers, the door might hit him in the head. That didn’t happen. Instead, the door was coming back at her.

They were locked in a war against each other. He, on the outside, determined to get in. She, on the inside, doing everything she could to keep him out.

Gretchen was a strong woman. She’d been jealous of all the Phoenix twig women when she had first arrived in Arizona, but now, she thanked her body. Heavier would have been even better. Three hundred pounds would have been perfect.

She was no match for Andy. He had the advantage of additional weight and more arm strength.

He was going to kill her after he won this last arm-wrestling bout.

She felt the door inching back at her, heard both of them breathing hard, felt her feet sliding back, and looked around one last time for a weapon.

Then she was flung away and the door banged against the wall, wide open.

“I don’t have time for this,” Andy snarled, coming at her. “You’re going to tell me what you know, if I have to force it out of you.”

Gretchen grabbed the first thing she saw, the first thing she could get in her grasp, and whipped it at him. The coffeepot crashed into Andy and a wave of hot coffee shot from the rim.

He slapped his hands against his face, trying to wipe away the hot brew.

“Strike one,” she screamed, feeling warriorlike in spite of her terror. The coffeepot shattered on the floor, but she was already moving, picking up a heavy mug and throwing it at him, striking his forehead. She wasn’t going down without a fight. She’d make sure to scratch him. They would find traces of his DNA under her fingernails. She’d figure out how to leave a message before she died.

She backed toward a small, cluttered table in the corner. Stage props were piled on it, and she almost collapsed in joy when she saw the butt of the stage gun poking out of the mess.

Gretchen grabbed the gun and trained it on Andy. “Turn around slowly,” she said. “Do it!”

That stopped him. Without another word, he did as she demanded, turning his back to her. He looked overly confident for a man in his position. His hands were in his pockets. The pick!

Without further thought, she clunked him on the head with the gun. He wobbled. She drew back and struck again, harder this time. He crashed to the floor.

Standing over his prone body, Gretchen hoped she hadn’t hit him too hard. What if she’d killed him?

Andy didn’t move.

Was he breathing?

Gretchen wasn’t about to get close enough to find out or to be grabbed.

She’d call the cops and an ambulance.

Should she run out into the street and flag someone down?

She’d get Mr. B. He’d help her.

Gretchen pounded up the stairs and rapped hard on Mr. B.’s apartment door, watching her back all the way, feeling afraid, feeling the adrenaline.

Mr. B. didn’t answer her desperate knocks. She turned the doorknob.

Unlocked.

What a break.

If he wasn’t at home, she could still go inside and use his phone. He’d never know, and if he did, he’d understand that she’d had no choice. Gretchen opened the door cautiously, not wanting to startle Mr. B. if he was home. “It’s Gretchen,” she called, trying to project her voice out, but not loud enough to give her location away to Andy. “I need to use your phone.”

Gretchen quickly shut the door behind her and locked it, loving the sound of the bolt action. Then she remembered Andy’s lock-picking tool. He still had it.

Move quickly
, she told herself. Although he hadn’t looked like he was in any shape to pursue her.

She looked around at the typical single older male décor, stark in contrast to what he’d accomplished with the lower banquet hall. The smell of pipe tobacco hung in the air, thick and soothing.

Gretchen moved through the apartment, still calling out softly while glancing around for a landline. A younger man might not have one in these modern days of high-tech advancement and wireless connections, but Gretchen had noticed Mr. B.’s old-fashioned mannerisms and she’d never seen him using a cell phone.

He’d have a landline phone in his house.

The small kitchen and living area didn’t produce one.

The door to the only other room in the apartment was closed. She tapped. Nothing from inside.

Slowly she turned the handle.

What would he think if he came home and found her inside, searching through his house? How embarrassing would that be?

Gretchen poked her head inside. His bedroom. Drawn blinds on the windows kept the room cast in darkness, but she could tell that it wasn’t occupied at the moment. She flipped a switch on the wall next to the door and an overhead light came on.

There had better be a phone in here or she’d have to go back down those steps and risk another encounter with Andy. That is, if she hadn’t killed him.

For good measure, she also locked the bedroom door behind her. That would slow down the professional lock picker.

The nightstand didn’t offer up a phone. Neither did the top of the dresser.

The man didn’t have a phone? What was the world coming to?

In the future, she’d be telling her children old-fashioned stories of street-side pay phones and phones with cords. If she lived to have kids.

Gretchen’s eyes lit on a glass curio cabinet in the corner that she hadn’t noticed at first. She walked over, peered in—and sucked in her breath in surprise.

The cabinet contained rocks, a fairly sizeable collection. Each specimen had an identification tag attached to it.

Gretchen opened the curio and picked up a rock. Read the tag.

Exchanged it for another. Read another tag.

And another.

The rocks had long complex names that she couldn’t pronounce, let alone decipher. Granodiorite, gabbro, anaorthosite gneiss.

And every one of them had a place of origin neatly printed underneath the name.

Cairo.

Jericho.

Zimbabwe.

The same exotic places she’d daydreamed about. The travel stickers had come from these faraway cities. They had been placed lovingly on a doll’s travel trunk by a young girl named Flora.

Gretchen had found John Swilling’s rock collection.

Caroline sits in an interrogation room with Matt Albright. Good thing Gretchen took off down the street before the detective found out about their escapade at the museum. He’s working his jaw like he’s trying to restrain an angry outburst. It crosses her mind to push him a little. What happens when her daughter’s boyfriend gets really angry? She’d like to see him at his worst.

If he’s not the right guy for Gretchen, she wants to know now.

“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You spent the night at the museum after I specifically told you that it was off-limits?”

“You never told me any such thing.”

“I warned your daughter. The two of you violated police orders. That building is under investigation. It’s a crime scene. I can’t believe it.” He studies the ceiling like he might find the answer written up there.

Caroline feels a tinge of compassion for him. He’s in a tough place, sitting on the fence between his professional ethics and his personal relationship with her daughter. Would he be exhibiting this kind of frustration with two women he didn’t know? She doesn’t think so. He feels helpless and is afraid for them. His emotions surface as anger. She studied psychology in college and is putting it to good use.

She won’t let him get to her.

His elbows are on the table. He rubs both hands through his hair. “Where is she?” he asks.

“I said I’ll tell you but not yet.”
Calm down first.

“The guy you hog-tied insists he was protecting you.”

“Hardly likely. He broke in. He had a knife.”

“You think he’s a killer.”

“Yes.”

“Both Flora Berringer and Allison Thomasia were murdered with a geologist’s hammer, not a switchblade. The killer didn’t use a knife on his victims. The guy you assaulted is in trouble for breaking and entering and carrying, but not for murdering a woman in a cemetery. Not for stashing bones in an armoire.”

Could Matt be right? Caroline isn’t sure. But Jerome, not exactly a harmless guy, is off the street. “I wouldn’t discount him if I were you,” she says.

“Where is she?”

“At the banquet hall. She has my cell phone.”

She gives him the number and he dials with his thumb. “No answer.”

“The phone was running low on power.”

They are out in a front entry room of the police station when another cop pulls Matt aside. Whispers. She hears only one word.
Berringer
.

“I’ll have someone take you home,” Matt says to her. “I’ll let you know if we need anything else from you.”

He has dismissed her, distracted.

The detective stops at a window and speaks clearly, so Caroline doesn’t miss a word. “Locate a car in central Phoenix,” he says to the dispatcher. “Have the squad pick up Gretchen Birch and bring her here.” He gives the location of the banquet hall before disappearing down the hall.

Gretchen was rigid with shock. She stared at the rock collection. It had to be John Swilling’s collection. What was it doing in Mr. B.’s apartment? Was her landlord actually Richard Berringer? No wonder the man had been so eager to donate space for their luncheon. The club members had been thrilled. They wouldn’t have considered turning down his offer. How devious!

She glanced out the window to the street below. A car pulled up on the side of the building and Julie Wicker got out of the driver’s side.

A little late for their meeting, but Gretchen would forgive the woman for not showing up earlier. She needed her help and was relieved to see her alive and well.