Murder for Bid (27 page)

The edges of his lips curled as he spoke. He seemed to take delight in my fear. “Finally, you got it right. How fun this has been, watching you flit from one suspect to another. You were so easy to play. Madeline, the judge, and Richard Schmidt. And, when I wasn’t playing you, I was setting you up as the murderer. A little more time and …” 

“You planted the bracelet?”

“Yes, that was me. You’re an easy target, you know. Digging around in people’s garbage doesn’t give you the best reputation.”

“How did …”

“Easy. I distracted you with our date and I had one of my people do it.”

My expression must have betrayed my thoughts.

He started laughing. “You actually thought I was attracted to you? No, Phillipena, you’re not quite my type.”

I shriveled. There it was, straight from the man himself. Everyone had tried to tell me. How could I have ever been so stupid to think that he could find me attractive? “I’m glad you found it all so amusing,” I answered, with not as much bravado as I had hoped.

“You were so sure that Schmidt did it. What you didn’t realize is that he’s too good a person to ever kill his wife. He may have wanted to once he found out about her affair, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t enough of a man to actually do it. In fact, he wasn’t much of a man at all, if you know what I mean. He couldn’t satisfy Amanda’s needs. That’s why she needed me.”

“You were her lover?” I had never considered the possibility.

“Yes, we were lovers. Until she decided to break it off.”

Rain had matted his hair, creating jagged points along the fringes of his face. His rain-soaked shirt clung to his body, emphasizing his powerful physique. I suddenly realized where I had seen the distinct double stitching of his shirt’s seams before.

“It was your shirt that I found in the garbage can.”

Greg’s laugh sliced through the thundering rain. “Yes, I suppose it was. It got stained during one of my visits and I had to dispose of it. I actually borrowed one of Richard’s shirts. It didn’t fit properly, but oh well.”

My mind flashed back to when Schmidt tore the shirt in two. He must have realized that it wasn’t his. Had he confronted her that afternoon? Did she come clean about the affair? Beg his forgiveness? Were they going to try to make things work between them? Was he willing to forgive her and love the child as his own?

“Come on, little Miss Detective,” Greg said, taking away my flashlight and grabbing my arm. “You’re coming with me.” his fingers dug into my flesh. He started dragging me toward the road. Every time I struggled, his grip tightened. My arm was on fire. I could feel blood tricking down my wet sleeve.

I prayed that Sean had heard enough to know where I was or even that I was in trouble. Maybe he thought that my cell phone had just cut out. Would he be looking for me? I walked as slowly as I could, stalling for time by asking questions.

“Did you plan on killing Amanda or did you lose control?” I shouted over the rain. He was pulling me through the mud. I was struggling. His powerful legs didn’t seem to have any problem maneuvering through the quick-sand-like puddles.

He glanced back at me and cackled. “Lose control? No. She was a problem and I took care of it.”

“What do you mean, she was a problem?”

“Do you think I actually loved the woman?” He laughed heartily as if it was all a big joke. “I could have any woman I want. No, she served a purpose. She was my inside to the city council office. Once she fell for me, it was easy. She could work her husband for just about any type of permit I needed. I did the same with Madeline. It’s very useful to sleep with the wife of a judge, especially when I need her to influence her husband on certain court rulings.”

“I don’t understand. If Amanda was so useful, why kill her?”

He seemed to consider the question for a minute. “Amanda was so civic minded and always fighting for a cause. She got onto some committee trying to save the Bensenville neighborhood from destruction.”

“The industrial park deal?”

“Yes. There was going to be a couple of chemical plants in the park. This group she belonged to was all worried about ground water contamination and air pollution. They started a movement and even succeeded in stopping the project for a while. They convinced the court to deny permits.”

“But those decisions were overruled. The project was passed through. Were you paying off the judge?”

He threw back his head and opened his mouth. A low haunting laugh escaped from between his lips. “I was. A lot of money, too. Madeline arranged it all. Madeline, the judge and I, we were quite the team.”

He winked. I shuddered.

“I still don’t understand what Amanda did to deserve to die?”

“She was desperate and naïve. She was clinging to me. Maybe she needed rescuing from her husband’s never-ending control, or maybe she really thought she loved me.” He shrugged, blowing off the notion. “Who knows? When she finally found out about Madeline and me, she flew into a rage. She was a woman scorned and went after us with vengeance. She knew I was on the opposite side of the Bensenville deal. It didn’t take long for her to put it all together. She figured that I was using Madeline to get the judge to accept bribes for overturning the rulings, but it wasn’t enough for her to just break off our relationship. She had to go after me. She even enlisted the help of the judge’s intern to get some sort of proof that I had bribed Reiner. She eventually involved Richard’s law firm. She would have ruined me.”

We had crossed the construction site and were approaching the sidewalk. My legs were moving incredibly slow. I didn’t know if it was fear slowing me down, or the humongous clods of mud caked against my feet.

We had reached the plastic fencing and I noticed a few planks of wood stacked on the ground. I made a dive for one, planning to use it as a weapon, but I was too slow. Greg shoved me aside and snatched it up himself.  “No,” I screamed, cowering as he raised it up as if to bludgeon me with it. It would end the same for me as it did for Amanda. Tomorrow, my body would be found here, skull smashed, covered in mud.
My poor parents. “Shut up,” he shouted, suddenly dropping the wood and pointing the flashlight beam toward the fence. “Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not going to kill you here at my construction site. No, you’re going to climb over this fence and walk straight over to my car, so I can take you for a little ride.”

I hesitated and watched in horror as he switched the flashlight to his left hand and withdrew a gun. He pointed it at me, emphasizing his point, “Then again, I’m flexible. If you don’t get in the car, I’ll simply shoot you here and drag your body. I doubt that anyone will even hear the shot in this weather.”
             

He was right. The beating rain was deafening.

I started for the car, falling as I attempted to clear the fence. Fear and the mud were making my legs heavy and useless.

Greg snatched me back up. “Come on,” he snapped.

“I’m sorry.” What? Had I just apologized to this beast? He was going to kill me.

“I’m sorry. I
’m sorry. Sorry.” I continued to whimper hysterically. I was sorry. Why didn’t I listen to Sean? “Please, God,” I silently bargained, “if you get me out of this alive, I’ll never play detective again.”

Someone
loomed before us. “Stop there, Greg.”

I was suddenly snatched backwards. Greg’s forearm wrapped around my neck. He was holding me so tightly that my feet lifted off the ground.

“Put it down or I’ll kill her right now,” Greg snarled.

“Kill her. I couldn’t care less. She’s such a nuisance.”

I rolled my eyes up to see Richard Schmidt facing us. His outstretched hand held a gun.

“I said put it down.” Greg placed his pistol directly on my temple. The cold pressure of the barrel felt as if it were boring into my skull.

“You killed my wife,” Schmidt said. He inched closer.

“Don’t come any closer, Richard.” I could feel Greg’s grip tighten around my neck. He was trembling. The gun barrel danced around my temple.

“You killed my wife. I thought you were my friend.”

“Oh, yeah.
Is that why you were gathering evidence against the judge and me?”

“I didn’t even know you were involved. I only knew that the judge was taking bribes to rule against the zoning laws. I didn’t know you were the one paying him. The project wasn’t even awarded to Davis Construction; it went to some other company.”

Greg’s breath was hot on my neck as he spoke, “Yes, a dummy company set up by me.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well Amanda knew and she was going to expose everything. She wanted to ruin me.”

“You’re so stupid, Greg. When you killed Amanda, you killed your own child.”

“Shut up!” Greg was trembling now. I squeezed my eyes shut wondering if I would feel any pain when the gun went off.

“It had to be yours. I can’t have … The coroner said it was a boy. You killed your own son. I would have taken her back. It wasn’t all her fault. I wasn’t the best husband. I would have forgiven her, raised the boy.”

“Shut up! Shut up!” In a flash, Greg slid the gun from my temple and aimed at Schmidt. Shots exploded. I fell to the ground and coiled up like a fetus, arms crossed over my head. Something fell next to me, causing me to tense even tighter. Sirens blared and tires screeched, but I remained balled up in the mud, too afraid to move.

Then a hand grabbed the back of my shirt and began pulling me upward. I screamed and kicked.

“Pippi, stop! It’s me. Are you alright?”

At the sound of Sean’s voice, I uncoiled, jumped up, and threw my arms around his neck. “Sean! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right now,” he soothed.

I looked down. In the rotating beams of the police sirens, I could see Greg lying face down, spidery veins of bloody mud flowing in tiny streams away from his lifeless body. A couple feet away, Richard Schmidt was being handcuffed. A pistol lay next to his feet. He was crying—blathering unintelligently about Amanda and the child.

Within seconds, a sea of uniformed officers descended upon the scene. They started taking Schmidt away.

“Why are they cuffing him? He saved my life, Sean. It was Greg who killed Amanda.”

“They’re taking him in for questioning. We’ll get it all straightened out at the station.” 

“How did you know?” I muttered.

“Schmidt called in a while ago. Apparently, he saw you sitting in your car outside his house. He was ticked. I was coming to get you when I got your call. I got here just in time to see what was going down. I shot Greg from behind.”

I started to tremble. I was so cold. I leaned into Sean, looking for comfort and warmth. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you.”

He pulled me close, his lips grazing over my forehead. “Not now, Pippi. Let’s get you home,” he whispered.

Chapter Eighteen

A few days later, we were back in our favorite booth at
BonMarito’s. I was still trying to sort things out. “I was so sure it was Schmidt,” I said as we waited for a half veggie, half pepperoni.

“Yeah.
Let’s just say, you’re not high on his list of favorite people either.”

Our pizza came and we ate in silence for a while before I remembered that I hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing Jessica Hanson at Schmidt’s office.

“It
was
Jessica Hanson who you saw,” he replied.

I was surprised. “I thought you had Jessica in protective custody.”

“No, we had offered, but she declined our help. She went to stay at a relative’s house until things died down. We had an officer on her, but she eluded him. Apparently she was hell bent on getting some sort of information to Richard Schmidt. That’s why she went to his office. She thought she was so smart about it, but she should have listened to us because someone took a shot at her.”

“Someone shot at her?” I was shocked.

“Yes. Apparently, after she left Schmidt’s office, someone took a shot at her in the parking lot. She’s at Edwards Hospital in grave condition. We haven’t been able to question her.”

I thought back to that day and remembered seeing Madeli
ne Reiner outside the Clark Building. I told Sean.

“We’ll check into it. I’ll get a warrant for the Reiners’ residence. Maybe we’ll find a gun matching the ballistics from the bullet pulled out of Jessica.”

I shuddered. “What information did she have for Schmidt’s, anyway?”

Sean shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. We won’t really know all the details until she’s able to talk. I do know that she wanted Schmidt to reopen the investigation. Jessica was a huge activist against the Bensenville industrial park deal. Seemed she hated the judge for overturning his rulings and wanted to see him brought to justice. She and Amanda had met at some environmental demonstration and
became quick friends. They had been building a case against the judge for some time and were hoping that Schmidt could help them use the evidence to reopen the case in the Appeals Court.”