Chapter 34
This was more like it. I'd headed up North Beanblossom Road, the sun warming my back. Fresh, cool air cycled through my lungs as my legs pumped along the country road. I cut west over to Morgantown, one of the many sleepy little towns in the area, and rolled through at a slow pace. In the center of town, the senior citizens sat outside on a porch next door to Frenchy's Pub, which sat next to the Olde Vault Building Gift Shop, with a tiny single-story building squeezed in between, all three built of bumpy limestone bricks quarried in the early 1800s. Across the street was Kathy's Cafe, the hanging sign featuring a vintage Pepsi display bigger than the store's name below it. The menu proudly announced
Fresh Homemade Pies Made Daily,
and the window showed a
National Register of Historic Places
certificate.
Turning south on Route 135, I cycled past woods, cornfields, and a yellow poster inviting me to a fish fry, Saturday 11/7, sponsored by the Fruitdale Volunteer Fire Department. Plenty of cars full of leaf-peeping tourists passed me, but these were polite Hoosiers who gave my bike and me a wide berth. I passed the Mennonite church again, wondering if they were expecting a stranger in hot pink cycling togs, and then spied the Bill Monroe Music Park. I'd never gotten to one of the big bluegrass festivals the famous man-dolinist had organized, and which were still continued every year in his memory, but I wanted to one of these days. I'd been flat-out busy with renovations in June when the festival happened. If I advertised in the program next year, though, with any luck a bunch of the business might head to my restaurant. If I still owned a restaurant.
I glanced over at the big outdoor stage nestled next to a wooded hill and pushed on. The harder I rode, the less I thought about my troubles and could just be present in this beautiful fall day. Semi present, that is. Thinking of troubles reminded me of Roberto. Maybe Graciela had sent an update on Roberto's surgery after I'd set out on my ride.
Please, please let him be all right.
I would check the second I got home.
I coasted slowly down into Nashville and locked my bike outside the visitor center. After I used the facilities, I headed for Miller's Ice Cream House. A big creamy Double Dutch Brownie Nut cone was just the ticket after all those miles. I licked it and meandered through the streets. Since it was October, most of the shops featured fall decor and Halloween decorations. I paused in front of one store, with a grinning iconic witch stirring a cauldron in the window and another perched on a broom, waving. I stared, my eyes wide. A clump of ice cream slid onto my hand and I licked it off without tasting it.
Scampering on the shelf around the bottom of the cauldron were plastic rats. The same rats I'd seen in Inspector's Lake's pictures. I headed through the open door.
“No food inside, please.” A robust woman pointed to a sign above the door:
NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED
, written in a curvy vintage-looking font.
“Sorry.” I backed out and wolfed down the small remaining bit of ice cream, munching the cone as fast as I could. I strode back in. “Can I see those rats in the window?”
The proprietor, in a brightly colored apron with happy dancing leaves all over it, pointed to a basket near the register. “You got your rats right there.”
I picked one up. The same red eyes. The tail curving the same way. “I'll take one.” I reached around to the back of my shirt and grabbed my cycling wallet from the zippered pocket.
“Only one? Whole mess of cute snakes in that other basket.” She pointed.
“I'll take just the one rat for now.” After I paid her and took the small handled bag, I asked, “Have you sold many of these this fall?”
“A local man came in and buyed up a couple dozen the other day. They're right popular this time of year.”
How could I ask her without asking her? I thought furiously. “I'm supposed to bring decorations to a party, but I don't want to copy anybody else. Who was it who bought the rats?”
“Oh, it was Eddie. Ed Kowalski. You know, who runs that nice country store restaurant down the road?”
Chapter 35
I peered into the glass door of Kowalski's a few minutes later, furious, then I rattled the knob. I'd hurried back to my bike and ridden over here as soon as I left the store. But this place was closed for the day, and it seemed to be locked up tighter than bark on a tree. I banged on the door, anyway, but it didn't get me anywhere. Why was he closed on such a gorgeous day right in the middle of tourist season?
Ed had a lot of nerve, planting fake rats and real droppings in my store and then reporting it to the health inspector. That is, I assumed it was Ed. Somehow I doubted he bought those rats for a Halloween party, like I had made up in my story to the shopkeeper.
“Ed,” I called. “You in there?” I knocked again. Silence was the only response. I cursed him silently, too. I clattered back down the stairs, the hard soles of the biking shoes making as much noise as a clog dancer, except with a lot less grace.
Taking the rat out of the bag, I tucked it into the little pouch under my seat, where I kept a spare inner tube, glad it fit. Now what to do with the bag? It was a nice compact paper bag with handles and the store's logo. A place like this would have a Dumpster around back. I clomped along the side of the store, skirting around a privacy fence until I reached the rear. A shed, or maybe a garage, was at the far end of the parking area. Weeds pushed up through cracks, and trash mixed with leaves hunkered in every corner. There was a Dumpster, all right, which smelled bad enough to knock a dog off a gut wagon. The odor of sour garbage turned my stomach.
As I walked, my toe hit a stone on the ground and I almost stumbled. When I looked down, the same black shapes I'd cleaned up this morning littered the ground. So Ed had real rats, and this was where he got the droppings. I threw my bag up and into the Dumpster. As I turned to go, my gaze traveled over the garage. The sliding doors sat half open, revealing a black car.
Ed's car. So he is here, after all.
Maybe he hadn't heard my knocking.
Oh, well.
I was going to let it go, at least for now. He'd deny staging the rats at my place even if I did talk to him.
After I hustled back to the front, I shivered as I straightened my bike from where I'd leaned it against a lamppost. A cloud hurried over the sun, turning the gorgeous day into a chilly fall afternoon. The sweat from my earlier ride chilled me, too. From out of the corner of my eye, I caught a movement from the store and glanced back at the door, but I saw no one.
On second thought, I figured, my ride home could wait one more minute. I leaned the bike back against the pole and pulled my phone out of the zippered pocket of my shirt; then I pressed the number for the South Lick Police Department. I asked for Buck and waited until he came on the line.
“Heard about the rats. Too bad,” he said. “I was hankering for a burger for lunch.”
“They weren't real rats,” I said. “I studied the pictures and they're all identical.”
“You sure about that?”
“I am. Real rats wouldn't be sitting on a table with their heads all at the same angle, and their tails, too. The droppings were real, unfortunately. Listen, I'm over in Nashville, and I happened into a Halloween store.”
“Glad you're getting your shoppin' done, Robbie. Listen, I'm kind of busy here.”
“Wait a minute. They sold the identical rats as in the picture the health inspector sent me.”
“Oh?”
Now his attention was on me again. “Yes, and the proprietor told me Ed Kowalski bought a couple dozen of them from her last week.”
“Oh. Now that's pretty interesting.”
“He's afraid of my competition,” I ventured. “I'm sure he wants to have my restaurant shut down because my food's better than his.”
“I will look into this.”
“Can you tell the health inspector? Her number just goes to voice mail and says to call back during regular business hours. I'm at his store now and I saw droppings all around his Dumpster out back.”
“I'll see what I can do.”
“Thanks. I'm riding home nowâ”
“Riding what? You got a horse now?”
“No, my bicycle.”
A horse? What century does this man live in?
“So I should be home in half an hour or so. I try not to answer my phone while I'm riding, in case you call.”
“Got it. Ride safe, now.”
I thanked him and disconnected. It was time for me to go home. With any luck, Graciela would have written to say Roberto was out of surgery and out of the woods.
Chapter 36
The magic of riding was doing its hat trick again. I'd been cycling about fifteen minutes, head down, pumping. It cleared out both the anger and the icecream calories. It was my own personal Zen zone, where all I was doing was this one thing. In the back of my brain, I knew I had a lot to deal with once I was home, but for now, the road was just the road. A Mary Chapin Carpenter song my mom used to play about a road being just a road came into my head and I sang into the wind, my legs going at the rhythm of the song.
I cut it off when an engine gunned behind me. I'd turned onto South Lick Road a few minutes earlier, a narrow way winding between wooded hills and marshes, with not a house in sight. Cars rarely traveled it, preferring the easier drive of Route 46. Slowing my pace, I glanced behind me.
Uh-oh.
A black sedan barreled toward me.
Ed's black sedan.
And I had a funny feeling he was after me. Where were those tourists when I needed them?
Now what?
I could stop and pretend I was fixing my tire. I could ditch the bike and run into the woods to the left, since it was all marsh on my right. I could ignore him and keep riding. I swore. If he decided to run me off the road again, like he did a week ago, was I better off as a moving target or a stationary one? The engine noise grew louder.
Right when I decided to ditch the bike and run, he roared up behind me. I instinctively veered right a second before he passed way too close. Gravel on the narrow shoulder scattered under my skidding wheels. I braked, fighting for control, and lost. The front wheel caught on a branch and stopped. The loss of momentum threw me over the handlebars. As I heard car brakes scream, I landed on my right shoulder, in a heap of legs and bike and dust. Or maybe that was me screaming.
The pain in my collarbone stabbed. As I pushed up to sitting with my good left arm, I grabbed a handful of gravel. I cradled the forearm of the one I couldn't move, keeping it close to my body. I'd seen a cycling friend break her collarbone and it wasn't pretty.
Hinges creaked, then Ed stood in front of me. He leaned down, setting his hands on his knees. “Oh, did you fall off your bike?” He faked concern, but his eyes gave him away.
“What do you think you're doing, running me down like that?” I bent my head back to see him. “The road's wide enough for both of us.” The light behind him blinded me and I looked away.
“The sun was in my eyes. I didn't see you.”
“Ed, the sun is that way.” I pointed across the road behind him.
“What were you doing, snooping around the back of my store, anyway?” He straightened.
“I was looking for a trash can to throw something away in. What were you doing faking a rat invasion in my restaurant?” A wave of pain washed through me and I closed my eyes for a second. I could hear the car idling and the distant machine-gun rat-a-tat of a big woodpecker. When I opened my eyes again, his smug look had turned to a glare.
“Who says I did?” He squatted in front of me.
“The woman at the store in Nashville where you bought the plastic rats, for one. That was a nasty, cheap trick. You have your own restaurant and a loyal following. Why do you have to try to wreck mine?”
“Because you've been getting a little too close to the truth, that's why. Poking your nose in where it don't belong. Asking questions all over the place.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I knowed it was only a matter of time before you figured out who killed that manipulative, blackmailing pig, Stella. And you're stealing my so-called loyal customers, too. Not to mention my best line cook.”
Ed was the murderer. Stella had been blackmailing him, too. And I was here alone with him. I was in big trouble. I needed to make him think I hadn't suspected him. “I thought Roy killed Stella. The police do, too. After you left last night, I even found Roy in my apartment, hiding in a closet.”
“That moron's too stupid to kill anybody. Unless it's by accident.”
“I didn't steal your line cook, you know. Danna left of her own accord. And last night I saw why.” A flash of pain as I moved a bit made me wonder if I was going to puke in front of him.
“Hey, it was just a little fun. She's too sensitive. They all are,” he said.
“Why was Stella blackmailing you? Everybody knows you harass women.”
He barked out a laugh. “That wasn't the goods she had on me. It was something a lot worse.” He stood. He reached down and grabbed my left arm, pulling me to standing. At least he grabbed my good arm, but that removed support from the broken collarbone. As that arm fell limp to my side, another wave of pain almost knocked me out. He pulled a gun out of his waistband with his left hand.
A gunâthe gun he shot Stella with.
My heart had never beat so hard or so fast. My feet went numb and my gut was a block of ice. But I had to get out of this. I had a father to meet. And a business to run.
Pressing the gun against my temple, he said, “I'd rather shoot you right now.” He laughed without a speck of humor.
“You don't want to do that, Ed.” I gulped in as much air as my tense lungs could manage.
“I do want to, something fierce.” He pressed it a little harder and his snicker was one of the scariest sounds I'd ever heard.
“You'll be in big trouble if you kill me.”
Too,
I added to myself. “Lower your gun down, now.” I couldn't believe it when he actually did.
“Instead of my killing you here, know what I'm going to do?”
I shook my head, terrified of the alternative, but relieved beyond belief the fatal metal no longer pressed into my skull.
“I'm going to watch you walk into that-there marsh and just keep on walking.” He waved the gun toward the marsh at his left.
Oh, no, he isn't
. “Don't be crazy, Ed. I'm sure we can work this out.” I was not going into the marsh. The air temperature was already dropping and I'd die of exposure, not to mention snapping turtles, leeches, and whatever else lurked in that murky weedy water. Give me a nice clean salty ocean any day.
“Nothin' to work out. You got too nosy. Now get the hell going.” He let go of my arm and gave my back a push.
I managed to keep my balance and took only a single step. I turned back to face him, gauging the distance. I was only going to have one chance to get out of this mess.
“Watch out, though.” He snorted as he waved the gun toward the marsh. “This here used to be a quarry way back when. And there's real quicksand in it, exactly like in all them B movies. It'd be such a crying shame if you got stuck. I don't think Lassie's alive anymore to run and get help for yâ”
Ignoring my pain, in one move I threw the gravel into his eyes and kicked his kneecap with all the strength of my muscular biker's leg. He cried out and fell. I raced around the car and leapt into the open driver's side. I swore when the seat was too far back. No time to find the lever to move it. I scootched up until my foot hit the pedal and floored it. A shot shattered the back window as I drove. The driver's door waved madly, since I couldn't reach out to close it. I only possessed one usable hand, and that was clamped tight to the steering wheel.
Two more shots followed, but didn't hit me. I didn't look back. I took a sharp bend to the right, almost too fast. I had to fight the wheel for a minute, the knuckles on my left hand bleached white with the effort, but at least the momentum swung the door shut. I drove fast, another couple of minutes, just in case he decided to hop on my bike and give chase. I finally pulled to the side long enough to slide the seat up and put on my seat belt. I'd almost died just then. Meeting my end in a car crash, instead, would be really, really stupid. I took another second to pull out my phone and press 911. I put it on speaker and laid it on the seat next to me.
As I drove away, waiting for the dispatcher, I heard the rise and fall of a siren in the distance. The usually upsetting signal of an approaching emergency vehicle never sounded so good.