Love You to Death (20 page)
“So you two are back together?” I asked. “You worked things out?”
She smiled. “He finally proposed! We’re getting married.”
“That’s great, Shell. Really great.” She was blocking the entrance to her cubicle. There was no way I could get past her.
“Where are you meeting Baxter?” I asked. “Maybe we could go have a celebration drink until he arrives.”
Her expression changed back. Hardened. I’d said the wrong thing. Intruded on her fantasy world?
She reached into her tote bag and started digging around. “Where is it?” she muttered. “Shit!”
“There’s only one place you can meet Baxter” came Ben’s voice. “The John Doe cemetery.”
We whirled around. Ben held a gun trained on Shelley.
She dug in her tote bag again. Frantic. “Where is it? Where!”
“This?” he asked, holding up an evidence bag containing a small handgun. “You left it in the bathroom at Runion’s Bar and Grill.”
“I was going to shoot myself in the head,” she said slowly, staring at the floor. “But I couldn’t do it.”
Ben motioned for me to run past her, but Shelley grabbed my hair.
“You’re so stupid!” she yelled at me. “He’s just going to dump you. They all do!”
“Is that what Baxter did?” Ben asked. “He dumped you?”
“We’re getting married,” she screamed.
“Baxter Coe is dead, Shelley,” Ben said. “I saw that photograph of him, which I assume you put away because there were cops nosing around
Maine Life,
and I finally remembered where I’d seen him before—among photographs of unidentified murder victims. He was from England, here to hike the Appalachian trail. His family reported him missing after he failed to check in at a promised stop, but they had no idea where to start looking for him, where on the trail he might be. People he came across had different recollections of when they’d met him. They resigned themselves to thinking a bear had gotten him, or a bad fall.”
“He almost made it, too,” Shelley said. “The entire trail.”
“But then he met you,” Ben said.
She nodded. “He decided to visit Portland one night, and he picked me up as I ate alone in a restaurant. Me. Do you know that’s never happened to me? And then he sweet-talked his way into my apartment, where he used me. Had sex with me, and then snuck out in the middle of the night. Jerk. He was a jerk just like Abby’s boyfriends. He didn’t even say goodbye.”
I held my breath. Ben waited, not moving a muscle.
“And so I took my gun down from the high shelf in my closet,” she continued, “and followed him down Commercial Street. He was stumbling a little because he was still drunk. He stopped to piss, right in the water, do you believe that? And I confronted him. ‘You didn’t even get my number,’ I said. He stared at me and laughed.
Laughed.
‘It was just good sex, okay?’ he said. ‘Let’s just leave it at that.’ And then he started to walk away. So I pulled out my gun and shot him in the chest. He fell back into the water.”
“Is that what you intended for Ted Puck?” Ben asked. “For him to fall back into the water? So he wouldn’t be found right away?”
She rolled her eyes. “That idiot grabbed on to a post when he went down,” she snapped. “I would have kicked him off the pier, but I heard voices and so I hid for a while. But it was so cold and I heard more voices, so I just ran off.”
I closed my eyes. This was crazy.
“You pushed Tom Greer in front of a truck?” Ben asked.
“I heard his bones crack,” she said with a smile. “I’m so petite no one ever looks twice at me. A crowd full of people and no one noticed me. It’s always like that. I guess being little and unattractive has its advantages. He was my first. Baxter dumped me, and then a few months later that drippy therapist dumped Abby. Minutes before our holiday party. How dare he embarrass her like that! Well, I got him back. My little secret, too. I can’t tell you how good that felt. So good that when the next loser hurt my good friend Abby, I got even with him, too.”
Ben stared at her. “And you let a pit bull loose in Riley Witherspoon’s house?”
“I hid nearby to hear him scream. Pansy. He was screaming, ‘Help me, help me.’” She laughed. “What a baby.”
“Shelley Gould, you’re under arrest for the murder of Ted Puck and the attempted murders of Riley Witherspoon and Tom Greer. You have the right to remain silent….”
My ears felt as if they were stuffed with wet cotton. My legs gave out and I dropped hard to the floor, which thankfully was carpeted. Ben called for backup, and within minutes the offices were full of police.
“You were there for me, Abs,” Shelley said as an officer led her away. “So I was there for you.”
I stared at her. She was out of her mind. She stopped and turned back. “I would have gotten to that sniveling little tax lawyer, Henry, but he was such a baby and kept himself surrounded. I couldn’t get him alone. But don’t worry. I’ll put a hole in his head. Little shit.”
I gasped. Answers, questions,
why
would come later. But there was one thing I had to know. “Shelley, what was so different about tonight? Why did you get so upset tonight?”
She burst into tears. “Because Baxter told me it was over this time. For good. I really loved him, Abby.”
Ben nodded at the officer at her side, and she was led away.
“Wha—” I started to say. But I had no idea what question to ask. My mind was racing with questions.
Ben put a bracing hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I nodded. “I need to lie down.”
“I’ll have an officer take you over to Urgent Care,” he said. “I want you checked out. And then an officer will drive you home.”
An officer. Because the case is closed. I waited for him to say his famous
I’ll be in touch,
but he didn’t.
I
spent the rest of the evening at home alone, uninterested in being with anyone but Ben, and who knew where he was? Not here. He’d called a couple of hours earlier to tell me that Shelley had signed a confession, that she slipped in and out of lucidity and was being evaluated by a police psychologist.
How could someone seem so normal on a daily basis for over a year? How could someone have committed Shelley’s crimes, lived in her dream world and functioned at work? Finch had often praised her as
Maine Life
’s best fact-checker. How was that possible? Jolie and Rebecca couldn’t believe that the tiny, seemingly cool woman they’d met a few times, most recently at my apartment the morning we found out Ted had been murdered, could have been behind it all.
Once people started hearing the news, my phone rang off the hook. Roger was beside himself and so traumatized by the turn of events that he was planning to give Finch his notice and thinking about signing up to become a park ranger, to work in the wild. That sounded pretty good to me. I thanked him for being my friend and silently apologized for doubting him.
Oliver called personally to apologize, but informed me that Olivia had demanded he call or she’d leave him. That got a tiny smile out of me. Opal called to say she knew all along it wasn’t me and that I’d be like a celebrity at her wedding, but that I’d better not steal her thunder. Veronica left a message that she was thankful this “messy business” was all over and that things could go back to normal. But of course they couldn’t. “Normal” had changed.
Ben’s partner, Frank Fargo, had stopped by the E.R. to “thank me for everything.” And then Finch and Marcella surprised me by coming by my apartment to see how I was. For great work under pressure, I was being promoted to features editor and moving to a real office on the other side of the hall, as far away from Shelley’s cubicle as possible. Finch had already asked the building crew to take out Shelley’s cubicle and get rid of her furniture.
The sucking-up e-mails continued and all said the same thing.
I never believed you did it for a minute!
The strange thing was, the only person I truly believed had known I was innocent from the get-go was Ben. I was one hundred percent sure he’d known. And that he’d thought if he stayed glued to my side long enough, I’d lead the killer right to him. And I had.
My cell phone rang. Ben.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m totally shell-shocked,” I said.
“Up for a visit?”
My heart leaped. “Sure.”
“Good, because I’m in front of your building.”
I ran to the door and opened it and waited, needing to see him. When the elevator pinged open and there he was, it was all I could do not to f ling myself into his arms.
“Her lawyer said she’ll plead guilty by reason of insanity,” Ben said. “She’ll probably be found incompetent to stand trial and turned over to a mental hospital for the criminally insane.”
“But how can she be insane and function at work every day?” I asked. “Do her job so well? As a fact-checker, no less! And conduct normal conversations? I don’t understand this at all!”
“I don’t, either,” he said. “But I am glad it’s over.”
“Me, too.” Except for the part where you have no reason to trail me around the clock.
He smiled and didn’t say anything else, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest. “Well, I’d better get going,” he said. “I’ve already been assigned to a new case.”
Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry.
“Well, we’ll always have Moose City,” I said, and then burst into tears.
“Abby, hey,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I know it’s going to be tough for you to just go back to your old life after everything you’ve been through. If you ever need to talk, I’m here for you, okay?”
So that was it? Thanks for your help and call me if you need a friend?
“Will you be okay here alone?” he asked. “If you want to call someone to come over, I’ll wait till they get here.”
They’re already here, I thought. I shook my head. “I’ll be fine.” And I would. I knew that, as a graduate of the school of bad breakups. I’d been okay and I’d be okay. And it wasn’t as if Ben was breaking up with me, since there was never even a
we
to begin with.
“You take care, Abby,” he said. And with one last look at me, he smiled and was gone.
T
wo weeks later I walked down the aisle of Opal’s wedding as a blonde. It was wonderful to not be me for a night. No one recognized me with my long blond hair, so there was very little “That’s her—that’s Abby Foote, the one who was suspected of murdering her ex-boyfriends!”
I did get a lot of “Want to dance?” from male relatives who didn’t recognize me. Of course, the minute I said, “It’s me, Abby, blond for a day,” the whispers and questions started.
The telephone version of events again made its way around the chairs set up for Opal and Jackson’s ceremony and then at the reception. I was seated at the family table—me, my lack of date, Olivia and Oliver, Veronica and her lack of date, and Opal and Jackson.
My wig itched, but Opal refused to let me take it off.
I sat at my table in my pretty pink dress and sipped my white wine, watching Opal and Jackson slow dance to a Frank Sinatra song. On the other side of the dance floor, Olivia and Oliver were chest to chest, cheek to cheek, looking happy for once. Veronica was deep in conversation with an attractive fiftysomething whom I’d never seen before.
Good for you,
I thought. I wasn’t so sure I agreed that it was all about letting go when you wanted to hold on. I wasn’t so sure that hanging on until you were ready to let go was such a terrible thing. It was in Shelley’s case. But it wasn’t always. I wouldn’t be ready to let go of Ben for a long time. And who said I should? When my heart, mind and soul were okay again without him in my life, I’d know it.
Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Ben in a tux, but of course it wasn’t him.
Do not think about him,
I ordered myself.
He is not in bed with another woman right now. He is out solving crimes. He is chasing bad guys. He is—
Right next to me. I almost jumped out of my chair at the sudden sight of him. It was as though wishful thinking had conjured him up, looking more gorgeous than ever in a tuxedo.
He held out a hand. “Dance?”
I couldn’t speak. So he smiled and took my hand and led me to the dance floor. The band played a Norah Jones song, but the singer was no Norah.
He touched my hair—my wig. “I meant to tell you that day in the bridal salon that I liked you much better as a brunette,” he said, his arm slipping around my waist.
I smiled. “Good. You didn’t need to come, you know.”
“I know. But I’d already RSVP’d, and you know how brides get about head count. I would have made the ceremony, too, but I got tied up with a new case.”
I laughed. “You were always very polite.”
“Abby,” he said, serious again, “I wanted to thank you once more for all your help with the case. I know it was tough on you. And I’m sorry for what I put you through.”
Oh. So that’s why he was here. Opal or Veronica had probably reiterated the invitation to the wedding, despite my no longer requiring a chaperone, as a thank-you for saving their lives when they thought they were in need of saving. He’d likely make his rounds, shake some hands, thank me again, take a token bite of his chicken or fish and then leave.
“You were doing your job,” I said. “I get it.”
“There’s something I want you to know,” he said, his hand squeezing mine.
“You won’t forget me this time?” I asked, trying to smile.
He laughed. “What I was going to say is that I wouldn’t have solved the case without you. You’re an amazing woman, Abby. Stronger and tougher than you know.”
If he said
I hope we can be friends,
I would drop dead.
So tell him how you feel. Don’t let him walk out the door without knowing.
Be bold. You have nothing to lose. You will not have to deal with the embarrassment factor because you will probably never see him again anyway, unless your next boyfriend ends up dead, so just
say it.
“Ben, there’s something I want
you
to know,” I said.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I want you to know that…that I was hoping you were going to say something a little more romantic back there. A little more romantic than ‘I couldn’t have solved the case without you.’”
I held my breath.
“How’s this?” he said. “Have I ever told you that I like your perfume?” He leaned closer to me. “Hmm.”
“That’s not bad,” I said. Not exactly the declaration of endless love I was hoping for, but it was something. “You’ve never told me you like anything about me.”
He smiled. “I like your perfume. I like a lot of things about you.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like your brain. Your mind. Your heart. Your face. Your body.”
I froze and stared at him. “What about my feet?” was all I could think of to say.
“Those, too. I like the whole package, Abby. In fact, I was going to say something romantic back there, but you didn’t give me a chance. Actually, I wanted to say something romantic two weeks ago, when I came to see you the night Shelley was arrested. But I needed some time to sort everything out. Think things through.”
He could top what he’d already said?
He squeezed my hand again. “I was thinking that since we know each other so well, we could skip dating and go straight to a serious relationship.”
My heart f lipped. I laughed. “You know what I think?”
“What do you think, Abby Foote?”
I think that even though I love you to death, we need to go back to the start.
“Since we got to know each other under such crazy circumstances, I’d like to start from square one,” I said. “From the beginning. I want to go back before the badges f lashing in my cubicle. I want to go back to ‘Hi, Ben! It’s me, Abby Foote. We went to high school together!’”
“I think that’s very wise,” he said. “Abby Foote, well, well! I remember you. I had a mad crush on you,” he added, those dark, dark eyes twinkling.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “No, you didn’t.”
He smiled and took both my hands. “I do now. So, how about for our first date I treat you to the best lobster in Portland?”
“Where?” I asked.
“My place.”
I smiled. “Opal says that everything you need to know about the man in your life you learn on your first date. She’d say this was a blinking neon sign that you were moving too fast.”
So when you propose to me six months from now and I accept, she’ll say, “See, he was in love from date one!”
“She’d be right,” he said. “But I have ten years to make up for,” he added, pulling me close.
And then he kissed me. A fireworks kiss. Worth the wait.
Look for another Abby Foote mystery next January.