Nightmare in Shining Armor (18 page)

“How?”

“She had a heart condition, you know.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Yeah, well, she did. Apparently she got a little upset at you, and kicked you out. Right?”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with poison?”

“After she kicked you out, she asked Caleb for one of her pills—she took them all the time—only this time he gave her a pill of his own. The idea was to tell the cops that you'd given it to her.”

“What kind of pill?”

Charlie took the last slice of pizza. Motherly spittle didn't seem to bother him.

“I don't know. Josh didn't say. Only that it was supposed to work right away, only it didn't. So Caleb broke her neck.”

“What?”
I couldn't believe I'd heard right.

“He was in the marines, see. He knew how to
kill a man with his bare hands. An old woman was a piece of cake.”

“That's horrible!” My mind was racing. It was horrible in more ways than one. If I hadn't upset the Widow Saunders, she wouldn't have felt the need for a pill, and Caleb wouldn't have had the opportunity to carry out his plan.

“Yeah, that's pretty awful, isn't it. But Josh thinks because his brother confessed right away, that they'll take it easier on him. Is that true?”

“I don't know.” I stared at the ice in the bottom of my paper cup as my horror turned to anger. Surely investigator Sharp had known about the broken neck. The woman was irritating, but not an idiot. She must have realized that my hands were practically incapable of breaking a wishbone. Apparently she'd been trying to terrify me into a confession regarding Tweetie.

“Mama, what are you thinking about?” Charlie's eyes are blue like his father's, but not as blue as Greg's.

“Nothing, dear.”

“Mama, I need to talk to Daddy.”

“On Caleb's behalf?” I confess that his desire irked me. While I do want my children to be happy on their own terms, a small—no, make that a large—part of me would rather that their terms didn't include a timber snake.

Charlie shook his head. “Nah, not about Caleb. About Tweetie. I know it's got to hurt Daddy something awful.”

I smiled. “You're a good man, Charlie.”

“Do you know what time Daddy gets in?”

I shook my head.

“I'd like to meet his plane,” he said quietly.

I nodded. Yes, I'd raised a good man.

“I think Malcolm Biddle would know. You want me to call him?”

“Nah, I think I'll just spend the night at Daddy's. My exam isn't until ten.”

We cleared the table and then started our rounds of the mall. It soon became clear, however, that as grown up as my son was, he was still not quite ready to be seen shopping with his mama. I left Charlie at the Gap after slipping him a fistful of bills.

“I love you, Mama,” he said and gave me a kiss. Thank heavens there were some things my son would never outgrow.

I
bought a silk animal print scarf at Dillard's for myself, and then, feeling especially generous, bought similar ones for Mama and Susan. Mama would never wear hers, but it would make a nice donation to the white elephant sale at her church. I thought of buying a tie for Greg, but abandoned that idea in favor of a windbreaker. After all, he was going to be spending the bulk of his time in a shrimp boat out on the ocean.

When I left the mall I had just enough time to keep my date with Greg. This posed something of a dilemma, because Malcolm Biddle's South Park home was hardly out of the way, and swinging by would cost me only an extra five minutes. Charlie had given up too easily on the idea of greeting his father at the airport. Malcolm, I was sure, would be happy to take Charlie along, or at the very least, would give me Buford's itinerary.

I called both Greg and Malcolm, but with mixed results. Malcom's answering machine picked up, which meant he might or might not be there. At Greg's, the phone kept ringing, which meant he
was out and had neglected to turn the machine on. I tried Malcolm again.

“Hey there,” he said cheerfully, “what can I do for you?”

“Malcolm, what time does Buford's plane land, and are you picking him up?”

“I offered to, Abby, but he's coming at one thirty-five in the morning and I have a court case tomorrow at eight. Real nasty divorce. Lots of money involved. Buford insisted he'd take a cab.”

I asked Malcolm which airline it was, since I knew there was no direct service to Charlotte from Japan. Buford would be arriving on U.S. Air via Detroit, he said, and gave me the flight number. I scribbled everything down on the back of a church bulletin that had been knocking about in my purse since Mama dragged me to her church for the midnight service on Christmas Eve.

“Abby, you thinking of going out there by yourself?”

“No, it's for Charlie. He misses his daddy.”

“Tell him to be careful. That's when drunks rule the highway.”

I thanked Malcolm, looked at my watch, and panicked. I was supposed to be at Greg's in fifteen minutes. Greg has teased me before about sometimes being late—it is
not
a habit, mind you—and once said he always cuts me a margin of at least half an hour. That would explain why he wasn't even home. But even with an extra thirty minutes, there was no way I was going to find Charlie in the mall and get there in time.

“Think, Abby,” I admonished myself. “Think, damn it!”

 

I pulled into Buford and Tweetie's driveway with just enough time left on my margin to slip the church bulletin under the kitchen door. I knew that was the door Charlie would use, because folks in the South reserve the front door for company.

It was strange being there. When Buford and I bought the house, the neighborhood was only a couple of years old and sparsely landscaped. But now, with our first frost yet to come, it was lush and leafy. A suburban woods. The crape myrtle to the left of the garage had been no taller than I when I planted it that first year. Tonight it towered above the roof. When first installed, the laurel oaks on the front lawn had had trunks as thick as broom handles. Now they were broader than my chest.

I got out of the car, pretending just for a moment that I was still Mrs. Buford Timberlake—still as happy as I had imagined I was during the first years of our marriage. I might be home from the mall, or I might have just returned from a volunteer stint in the hospital gift shop. Either way, Buford would be inside reading the paper, and there would be a vodka martini waiting for me. Three olives.

The curved flagstone path from the driveway to the kitchen door marked the border of my old herb garden, and it was seeing it again that brought me back to reality. Mrs. Abigail Timberlake would not have let it go to pot. The rosemary bush was way
out of hand, a clear indication to me that Tweetie had not been a fan of Mediterranean cooking. The bay tree had either died or been removed, which was understandable because it would have gotten too large. There were no annual herbs, of course; that would have required planting on Tweetie's part. The dominant plant, save for the rosemary, was the perennial catnip I'd planted the day we brought Dmitri home from the pound. In just six years it had virtually taken over the little plot, escaping to fill in the spaces between stones, and even colonizing patches of the main yard itself. One couldn't walk up to the kitchen door now without wading through the stuff.

“Dmitri's going to go bonkers when I get back to Mama's,” I muttered aloud. “He's going to roll around on my shoes like a crazed maniac—that's it! I know who killed Tweetie!” It was a wonder the dead woman herself didn't hear me.

Then it really hit me. The knowledge of the blond bimbo's killer was so overwhelming, it literally took my breath away. I sank to the sidewalk and, sitting among the crushed fragrant leaves of mint, tried to gather my thoughts. Of course it had to be him. He had a key to Buford's and Tweetie's house, didn't he? And he was young enough, and strong enough, to wear a suit of armor.

Besides, it was catnip that had made a tom fool out of Dmitri the night before. The killer, dressed in the seventeenth-century cuirass, had walked down this very path, the herbs whipping against the armor with every move, leaving behind their
pungent oils. When the suit was stashed beneath my bed, some of the oil must have rubbed off and scented the carpet.

I struggled to my feet, the jungle of mint threatening to pull me down, like the seaweed clump I'd once found myself tangled in while swimming in the Caribbean. Having a sprained ankle only added to the problem. Then adrenaline kicked in and I thrashed my way back to the car. There was only one way to catch a man as clever and diabolical as that, and I knew just how to do it. It was back to Plan A.

 

The killer stood in the doorway, blocking my view of his foyer. “Abby?”

“Is C. J. here?”

He blinked in surprise. “No.”

“Where is she?”

“I haven't the slightest idea.”

“Why not? You two were certainly hitting it off. You could have cut the pheromones with a knife.”

He didn't even bother to smile. “Yeah, I was attracted to her—at first. But the woman's nuts, you know that?”

“She's a bagel short of a dozen,” I agreed.

He stepped back and started to close the door. “Sorry I couldn't help you.”

“Wait! We need to talk.”

“You want to come in?”

“No thanks. Here is fine.” The tiny recorder buried in my bosom was doing its job. It had better be.

“So what do you want to talk about, Abby?”

“I just want to tell you how impressed I am. You actually had me convinced that you'd turned a new leaf.”

“I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You apologized to me at the Rob-Bobs' for all the times you've hit on me. Very good, Malcolm. And that bit about your wife dumping you, and not the other way around. Stick to the truth, good liars always say. Just mix up things a little, right? Well, you did that beautifully. And that promise to help me find a contractor who could remodel my bedroom so I'd never recognize the murder scene—why, that was a touch of brilliance!”

He smiled. “It was, wasn't it?”

“Oh yes. But the pièce de résistance was when you called during the party to ask if Tweetie was there. That was beyond brilliant. Where did you call from, dear? The next room?”

“I was upstairs in your john, taking a whiz,” he said with a grin. “Aren't cell phones nifty?”

“You're scum, you know that? You're worse than scum. You're what's left in the bottom of the garbage truck after it's dumped its load. You're ooooze.” I let the word dribble slowly from my lips. “You make me sick. Well, let me tell you something, buster. You're not getting away with Tweetie's murder. I've already told the cops what I've suspected, and that I'm here. So you may just as well give it up. Just tell me one thing—why did you do it?”

I should have remembered that ooze is not a stable substance. I'd been careful to stand well out of Malcolm Biddle's reach, but during my harangue he'd somehow managed to slide over to one side without me noticing. There must have been a console near the door, because the next thing I knew, I was staring into the barrel of revolver.

“Come on in,” he said with a triumphant smirk and a wave of the gun. “It's getting a little chilly out there, and I don't want to have to turn the furnace on just yet. Just make sure you leave your purse outside.”

An expletive escaped my well-bred lips. I had indeed told the cops what I suspected—well, I'd left a message on Greg's machine—but Malcolm's response wasn't at all what I'd counted on. Buford's junior law partner was supposed to realize that the gig was up. And just as he confessed to everything, the police were supposed to tear up the driveway, their sirens wailing. Now I can see that it was a bit naive on my part, but I am a child of the TV generation. The criminal is always apprehended just in the nick of time.

But while I may be naive, I'm not totally stupid. I had more than just the pepper spray with me this time. I had Amy.

Amy is Buford's gun—don't ask me why he named it that—which he keeps in the nightstand beside his bed. Buford had the gun the entire time we were married, and it was the cause of many fights, especially after the children were born. I demanded that Amy be at least banished to a locked
drawer, or the upper reaches of his closet, but my rock-headed ex refused. Amy was for protection, he claimed, and she couldn't do the job in a hatbox on a shelf.

This evening was the first time Amy had ever been pressed into service, but alas, the old gal was in my purse, along with a million and one other things. I fumbled for her, but got my hairbrush instead.

Malcolm laughed. “Drop your purse right there on the steps.”

“But it's patent leather,” I wailed. “It'll get scraped.”

I started edging back down the steps. There were only three of them. Then there was only twenty feet of sidewalk until I reached my car. And then…

He released the safety. “Suit yourself, but don't think I won't shoot you. This model is remarkably quiet. The neighbors will think it's just a car backfiring—assuming they even hear it. The couple next door are deaf as posts, and the people across the street are never sober enough to pay attention.”

“Don't mind if I do,” I said as I dropped my purse and stepped over the threshold. At this point sarcasm was my only weapon. It may not have been much of a tool to wield against him, but it kept me from turning into jelly.

I know, I know. The conventional wisdom is to never allow a gunman to take you into his private domain, be it a car or a house. Most folks couldn't hit the side of a barn with a handgun, and running
from your assailant in a zigzag fashion is probably good advice. If you have two good ankles.

Malcolm stepped aside to let me pass, and I noticed with disgust that he had surprisingly good taste in decorating. Somebody had, at any rate. I expected to see a Hugh-Hefner-meets-Arnold-Schwarzenegger thing going on, lots of leather and touches of black lace here and there. Instead, I saw a room with a clean design. One extraordinarily large Persian carpet—probably Joshagan, and probably early nineteenth century—dominated the room, and from it all the colors had been taken and put to good effect. Blue, brown, ivory, it was definitely a man's room, but it didn't knock you over with testosterone.

“Nice place you have here,” I said. “Too bad you won't be seeing it for, oh, let's see, twenty years at least. No, better make that the rest of your life.” I shook my head. “Pity that you don't look good in stripes. You've got just a touch too much of a waist going on. Still, there might be somebody there who finds you attractive. How would you feel about a girlfriend named Bruce?”

Malcom laughed. “I've always liked your spunk, Abby.”

“Enough to put down your gun and let me go?”

“I'm afraid not. I've got big plans for you. Would you like to hear them?”