Wreath of Deception (26 page)

Deirdre had grown agitated, moving about as she talked, waving her pistol for emphasis. Jo backed slowly toward her trash can with her handful of noodle-filled towels, watching Deirdre and trying to remember which knives had been left in the knife block that sat on the counter, and which lay buried in her dishwasher.

“Perhaps Alden should have considered that before he got involved with Bethanne.”

Deirdre’s anger melted into rueful pity. “Men can be so weak, can’t they? For all his brilliance, Alden managed to let himself be drawn in by that tennis slut. If it weren’t for me watching out for him, who knows where he’d be? When I pointed out the risks he was taking, Alden agreed it had to end.”

Deirdre said it as calmly as if she and Alden had discussed the downside of wearing polka-dotted bow ties to public appearances. Jo wondered how calmly these “risks” had in fact been pointed out. She reached the trash can and turned to deposit the towels. The knife block sat a few inches to the right, and Jo saw two handles poking out of it: the boning knife and the small paring knife. Which one should she try to grab?

“When did you become aware that Kyle knew what was going on?”

“The night that Alden met with Bethanne at the club to break it off with her. I had slipped over to monitor the situation, determined to step in if she gave him a difficult time. But then I saw that ridiculous person from the tennis shop, creeping around, spying on them.”

Deirdre looked at Jo, incensed. “Bethanne was being perfectly reasonable at the time, but Kyle, I knew, had no sense of what was important. He would think his pitiful acting career, getting money to bankroll it or publicity to fuel it, was more critical than who eventually guides our state, or our country, toward peace and prosperity.”

“And of course, who stands beside that governor or president,” Jo added.

“Alden wouldn’t be where he is except for me,” Deirdre declared. “I deserve the rewards of being First Lady.”

That’s what it was all about, of course. Deirdre didn’t really care about the country’s need for Alden. Deirdre cared most about her place in the spotlight, once the elevated positions were reached. Something else now occurred to Jo.

“My car accident. Did you have something to do with that?”

“Of course. You were getting too close, determined to talk to Bethanne. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, though, so I had to use what I had at hand.” Deirdre gave a small laugh. “Alden always claims I carry a small pharmacy around with me. I have to admit I’ve gathered up quite a variety of pills. It’s not always easy being the wife of a politician, you know. There’s enormous stress involved, which brings on sleep problems and such.

“The doctor I went to see in Baltimore prescribed the Restoril I used on Kyle. I wouldn’t dare go to Doctor Davidson here in Abbotsville. The people in his office know me, and you know how easily things get out. Besides, the office staff of my Baltimore doctor is extremely overworked, and they don’t always guard their cache of drug samples as they should. They make it so easy to reach for a few packets on your way out from the examining room.” She smiled, amused. “I’m not even sure what I dropped into your soda that night.”

“You intended to kill me?”

“As I said, I didn’t have time to plan. I wanted to at least slow you down. You were starting to move much too quickly in dangerous directions. I
tried
to convince you it was the jealous boyfriend who killed Kyle. There I was, showing up for all those wretched workshops of yours, just to guide you onto safer paths. This could have all been avoided if you’d only cooperated.”

As Deirdre paced, ranting on about her supposed hardships and pressures, then crowing over her clever handling of them, Jo reached back for the paring knife, hoping Deirdre’s agitation covered the movement. She slid the knife into the back pocket of her jeans, grateful for the recent weight loss that made them loose enough to do so easily.

“What about that anonymous letter you called me about?” she asked, anxious to keep Deirdre talking.

“Again, something intended merely to slow you down.”

Something intended to get me arrested for murder.
“So you wrote it?”

“Certainly. Taking all the proper precautions, of course. How helpful all those television crime shows can be. I used the library’s computer to print it out, wore gloves to prevent fingerprints, and swabbed the envelope’s flap with a wet cotton ball to avoid leaving DNA. Not that I thought they’d ever go to that much trouble on a simple letter, but one never knows.”

“I assume, then, you plan to eventually eliminate Bethanne, as a proper precaution, of course,” Jo said.

Deirdre sighed. “It’s so true that a woman’s work is never done. At first she was being sensible, and willing to step quietly out of the picture, for her own sake as well as ours. But she seems to be an ongoing temptation for Alden. If she had only gone away and caused problems for someone at a tennis club in Arizona, for instance, she would have saved a lot of trouble for us all.

“But enough of this. It’s time to get moving.” Deirdre picked up Jo’s keys from the counter. Jo took a step toward Deirdre, but Deirdre stopped her with a firm thrust of her pistol. “First, though, remove that knife from your pocket.”

Jo’s heart sank.

“Slowly,” Deirdre added, watching intently as Jo silently followed the order.

“Drop it on the floor and kick it to that far corner.”

Jo did so, watching her only hope spin out of reach.

“Now walk ahead of me into the garage.”

Deirdre pulled open the connecting door and waved Jo out. She held Jo’s keys in her left hand. Where did she plan to take her? Surely Deirdre couldn’t drive and hold the gun on her at the same time? Jo’s hopes began to revive. If Deirdre ordered her to drive, perhaps she could manage an escape after all.

Jo stepped down the single step into the garage and moved past her workshop room toward her car.

“Stop,” Deirdre said, and Jo heard her keys jangle. She looked around and saw Deirdre locate the key to Jo’s jewelry workroom and fit it into the lock. She waved Jo in.

“What—?

“Just get in!”

With Deirdre’s pistol nearly in her face, Jo got in. But what was going on? Did Deirdre plan to let her live after all? Did she intend to simply confine Jo there while she escaped? That didn’t make any sense. Deirdre didn’t want a life on the run; she wanted a life of prestige and power.

Jo heard the lock turn, then footsteps walk to her car. The car door opened, and in a moment Jo heard her ignition turn over. She expected to hear the garage door open next, but instead she heard her car door slam shut and Deirdre’s footsteps return.

No, oh no!

“Don’t do this, Deirdre!”

“Don’t worry, Jo, it will be quite painless.” Deirdre’s voice came from near the door.

“You won’t get away with it! Alden’s career will be over!”

“Ah, but I will, Jo. I’ve had time to plan this. You see, when they find you, they will think you committed suicide. I will come back in the morning for our appointment to discuss a jewelry commission. Remember that brooch design we were going to discuss? No? No matter, it will be scribbled on your calendar. What a horrible discovery I will make then. Perhaps I’ll even get one of your neighbors to help me find you. Of course I will have unlocked this door, first.

“And the police will eventually find a letter—hidden somewhat sloppily in your bedroom—that will obviously be from Kyle—threatening to blackmail you about your husband’s murder. It will become so clear that your conscience overcame you and you chose suicide, surrounded by your beloved jewelry implements. Lieutenant Morgan will have no trouble whatsoever believing it.”

Jo saw immediately how right Deirdre was. Morgan would take it as confirmation of what he’d suspected all along. His case would be tidily and efficiently closed as Jo was proclaimed responsible for the recent Abbotsville murders.

“Good-bye, Jo. I’m sorry. I truly am. But you wouldn’t listen.”

Jo heard the door to her kitchen close, and Deirdre’s footsteps faded away as she headed toward Jo’s bedroom to plant her false evidence. Within moments Jo faintly heard her back door close and pictured Deirdre slipping easily to wherever she had left her car, unseen by neighbors who were likely staring at televisions rather than out their windows.

All the while, Jo heard her car engine chugging away, pumping carbon monoxide into the closed garage. Jo rattled the knob on her workshop door and then threw her weight against it. Again. It barely moved.

It had never occurred to her that she might be locked in this room, accidentally or not. The door locked and unlocked by key, which she carried on her key ring. She only locked it when she was out of it, never while she was inside, working. And if she had her key ring with her, there was no need to keep a spare inside the room. It wasn’t a freezer, after all, simply her workroom. She never, never anticipated something like this.

“Help!” she cried. “Help! Help!”

Even as she did so, she realized the futility of it. There was no way her voice would carry through this door and the length of the garage, especially over the sound of the engine. She began to panic.

Mike, Mike, what can I do? I can’t think. Help me.

Jo drew a deep calming breath, trying not to imagine what might be going into her lungs. She had to keep her wits about her. There must be something she could do to save herself. She couldn’t let Deirdre get away with everything. She couldn’t let her go on to kill Bethanne and who knew what other unfortunate person who happened to be in the way of Alden’s career climb. But what could Jo do to get out of here?

Jo realized she had remained standing in the dark all this time, listening for Deirdre’s movements. She flipped on the light switch and looked around at her jewelry bench. Was there something there she could use to break out?

Her jewelry tools, unfortunately, were meant for delicate work, not for demolition. She picked up a ball-peen hammer. Was it weighty enough to break the door’s lock? Jo hefted it, deciding at best it could put artistic-looking dents in the metal, if placed correctly. Was there anything there to pick the lock with? Jo remembered joking with Carrie about sending off for a lock-picking set. How she wished she had one now, along with the skill to actually use it.

Except that Jo didn’t have time to diddle with the lock, even if she had half a chance of being successful. Her garage was small, the room she was in was not airtight, and she would be running out of oxygen before long. She wasn’t sure how long she had, but she knew she wasn’t in a position to dally.

Jo’s searching gaze, which had been roaming across the door, suddenly stopped. The hinges! Maybe she could take off the door hinges. Jo scrambled through her tool bench for something to use. She grabbed a steel punch that looked about the right size and knelt down to look at the bottom hinge, and then groaned when she saw the rust. Was that likely to make things harder? Probably, but she got to work, placing the steel punch against the lower end of the pin and tapping firmly with her hammer. The pin didn’t budge.

Jo felt a wave of dizziness and fought it off. Kneeling near the floor probably placed her closest to where the bad air flowed into her room. She looked around for rags, grabbed a couple from beside her bench, and stuffed them into the space between door and floor. The garage air would still enter her room, but hopefully, now, more slowly. She resumed tapping at the pin, frustrated with the limits on the swing of her hammer. The hinge was less than a foot from the floor, and she wasn’t feeling any give whatsoever. Until at last she felt the pin move, just a bit.

Encouraged, she adjusted the punch and tapped again. Another shift.
Tap, shift
.
Tap, shift
. The pin moved excruciatingly slowly, but it was moving. Jo tried not to think about her car’s exhaust as she worked. She tried to ignore the nausea that had crept into her stomach. Was that due to the air? She couldn’t think about it now.
Tap, shift
.
Tap, shift
. Finally the pin poked enough above the hinge for her to grasp it, and she pulled and wiggled the rusty metal, feeling skin scrape off as she did so, until the pin came out.

One done, one to go. Jo stood to work on the upper hinge, feeling the room sway as she rose, but shaking the feeling away. She reached up to the top hinge, images of Deirdre’s deadly work running through her mind as she tapped. She pictured Deirdre at the grand opening, which, in retrospect, was not so grand. Still she remembered the busyness of the day: the milling crowds, the crying children, the circus music. As Jo had been rushing about, attending to customers, Deirdre had blended in as one more stranger, slipping through the crowd, casually helping herself to punch, carrying a drugged paper cupful to the overheated clown outside, then watching and waiting until the drug took effect and he staggered to the back room.

Had she planned the use of the knitting needle to throw more suspicion on Jo? Probably. Deirdre, Jo was convinced, despite all her pretense at concern and offers of help, would have been delighted to see Jo charged with Kyle’s murder. She would have happily continued to play along as one of the sympathetic workshop ladies, commiserating over Jo’s plight, wringing hands that in private would be clapping with joy. Jo, however, remembered Loralee’s jaundiced look while discussing Deirdre and her dogs that one night. Had Loralee noticed a few cracks in Deirdre’s façade and seen through the deception? Jo wished she had coaxed out Loralee’s thoughts right away, instead of brushing it all off as a trivial personality clash.

Tap, shift. Tap, shift.

Jo thought of that night she had invited Deirdre into her home after fixing her bracelet in this workroom. She had been tired after a long day, she remembered, but sensing Deirdre’s interest and suspecting loneliness, Jo had chided herself that it wouldn’t kill her to be hospitable. She laughed grimly at the memory. What irony. It didn’t kill her then, but what would it do to her now? No, she wouldn’t think in that direction. Keep working on the hinge.