Foal Play: A Mystery (23 page)

As Bill led Bobby to the living room, Colleen retreated to the kitchen. “How are you two?” she asked Myrtle and Nellie.

“Poor Bobby,” Nellie said.

“I want to talk to him,” Myrtle said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Colleen said.

“He’s not the killer.”

“Killer?” Nellie asked with surprise. “What killer?”

“We’ll explain later,” Colleen said. “Please, stay put. I’ll be right back.” She left the kitchen and joined Bill and Bobby in the living room.

“Bobby says he has something to tell you,” Bill said as she entered.

“Oh?”

Bobby stared at his feet. Colleen looked at Bill for an answer. Bill shrugged.

She squatted in front of Bobby. “Does this have something to do with you selling your mother’s house to Antonio Salvatore?”

Bobby gaped at Colleen. “How do you know that?”

“I saw you talking to him at his trailer.”

She studied Bobby a moment. There was something more on his mind. “That’s not what you wanted to tell me, is it?”

He shook his head. His eyes welled with tears and he said, “Burn burn burn.”

“Speak up so we can hear you,” Bill said.

Bobby sighed. “Burn burn burn,” he said again and burst into tears.

Colleen stared at Bobby, perplexed. Wasn’t that what Charlie had been chanting at Myrtle’s memorial service? Why was Bobby saying that now? Then it hit her. It’s what Crazy Charlie had been trying to tell her the night Myrtle’s house exploded.

“Charlie heard you, saw you the night of the fire. That’s why you got so angry at him at the memorial service.”

“I didn’t mean to set the fire; I was just so angry. Mother and I fought that night about selling the house. When she was at the fair I came back home. I hate living there. I lost it, started ripping things up. I don’t remember doing it but I guess I knocked a candle over or something because when I got back in my car the next thing I knew, the house … the explosion … I panicked. Ran. I didn’t know Mother had come home.” Bobby broke down and sobbed.

Bill shook his head.

“And the kitchen window?” she asked. “Was that part of your vandalism when you got home?”

Bobby nodded and wept anew. “Don’t you see? I can’t go back to that house. It’s the place where I killed … That’s why I went to Mr. Salvatore. I’ve got to sell it.”

“What about the motorcycle?” Bill asked, not fully convinced. “Seems like a peculiar way to grieve.”

“I always wanted a bike. Mother wouldn’t let me get one. Funny. Now I’d trade that bike and everything else just to have her back.”

“It’s a deal.”

Colleen, Bill, and Bobby turned to see Myrtle in the living room entrance.

Nellie was at Myrtle’s side a moment later. “Mitch, what’s going on?” she asked.

“Go back to the kitchen,
Uncle
,” Colleen said.

“I can’t do this any longer,” Myrtle said, tore the hat from her head, and stripped the mustache from her upper lip.

“Mother!” Bobby said, leaping from the sofa.

“Bobby!” Myrtle said and ran to her son.

“Oh!” Nellie gasped and clutched the wall.

Colleen groaned.

“Now, hold on one minute,” Bill said, trying to pluck Myrtle’s arms from around Bobby’s plump waist.

“Myrtle? Is that really you?” Nellie asked in a daze as Colleen helped her to a chair.

“It’s me, Nell,” she said, still hugging Bobby.

“But … how? We’re best friends.”

“Remember I won the acting award senior year?”

Nellie stared at Myrtle in shock.

“I knew it was you,” Bobby said and squeezed his mother until her feet came off the ground.

“Before we all get carried away with this reunion, there’s still the matter of the murder of Rosemary Kennedy, the dead fisherman, and the drugs on the beach,” Bill said, finally wrenching mother and son apart.

“Not to mention the identity of the person who did perish in that fire,” Colleen added.

“That poor woman,” Nellie said, still in shock.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Little Bobby didn’t have anything to do with those things and you all know it,” Myrtle said in a huff.

“I may have accidentally caused that fire,” Bobby said. “But I’m no drug-dealing murderer.”

Colleen studied Bobby. She believed he was telling the truth; and if that was the case, the killer was still out there and perhaps on his way to the house. Bill must have been thinking the same thing because he grabbed his walkie-talkie.

“Stay right there,” he said to Bobby, crossed to the foyer, and hit the button on his walkie-talkie. “Rodney, this is Bill. Over.”

No response.

Bill clicked the
TALK
button again. “Rodney, are you there? Over.”

Still nothing from the deputy. Colleen crossed to Bill and touched his arm. Rodney was their only lookout. Bill had chosen him not only because he was the best deputy but the strongest. If Rodney wasn’t answering his walkie-talkie, something was dreadfully wrong.

The only safe assumption
is to assume the worst. Colleen had said this to her firefighters during training any number of times but never did it seem more relevant than it did now. With communication to Bill’s deputy cut off there was a good chance that something terrible had happened to Rodney and that the killer was on his way to her house. Colleen hustled Myrtle and Nellie into the hallway away from the windows while Bill clicked off the foyer and porch lights and locked the front door.

“What’s going on?” Nellie asked with a quiver in her voice.

Bill released Bobby from the handcuffs.

“Does this mean I’m free to go?” Bobby asked.

“No,” Bill said.

“Please, tell me what’s going on,” Nellie said.

“We don’t have much time,” Colleen said. “We need to get you safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“From the person who killed Miss Kennedy,” Myrtle said.

Nellie swayed as if about to faint and Myrtle steadied her. “No time for dramatics, Nell,” Myrtle said and placed Nellie’s arm around her shoulders for support.

Sparky barked on the back porch. Everyone in the room fell silent. Bill crept toward the back door, his gun drawn. Bobby ducked into the kitchen. Colleen moved Myrtle and Nellie to the living room, against the wall, and positioned a chair in front of them for protection.

“Don’t move,” she said. She tiptoed across the room and peered down the hall to where Bill was tucked against the wall near the back door.

Bill turned the doorknob and opened the door. Colleen saw Sparky pacing on the shore near the dock. She squinted to see what Sparky was growling at. For a second she froze at the sight of her dock going up in flames. Then she blinked and the shock was gone.

“Fire,” she said to Bill. “I’ll get extinguishers.”

“Wait until it’s safe,” he said but Colleen was already crossing to the kitchen.

She grabbed an extinguisher from the wall and an extra from the closet. “Come with me,” she said to Bobby and handed him an extinguisher. She marched down the hall with Bobby on her heels. Ahead of her, Bill had stepped onto the porch and was scanning the grounds with his gun aimed in front of him. Sparky barked as the flames leapt down the dock toward the house. Colleen pushed open the door.

“I don’t see anyone,” Bill said.

“Good. Let’s go.” Colleen hurried past Bill with Bobby half walking, half running to keep up. Sparky ran to her as she reached the shore. “Good boy,” she said, patting the dog’s head. “Now stay.”

Sparky whimpered but obeyed. She jogged down the dock toward the flames. Bobby struggled to keep up, the fire extinguisher in his hands throwing off his balance. She came to a stop a safe distance from the flames and waited for Bobby.

“Ever use one of these before?” she asked when a panting Bobby joined her.

Bobby shook his head.

“You’re about to learn. Just remember the word ‘pass.’ Pull the pin, aim at the base of the fire, slowly squeeze the lever, and sweep from side to side,” she coached and demonstrated. “Pull, aim, squeeze, sweep. Got it?”

Bobby set his jaw and straightened his shoulders. It was the first time she had seen him stand like a man in control. She faced the flames. “Pull the pin,” she said, pulling her pin and releasing the locking mechanism. “Now aim the nozzle at the dock. Very little on the fire ground falls up.”

She was pleased to see Bobby do exactly as instructed. “Good. Now squeeze the lever. Slowly.” Extinguishing agent poured from the nozzles. “Move the extinguisher from side to side, like you’re sweeping.”

Colleen moved the nozzle back and forth, aiming at the base of the flames. Bobby did the same. They each took a section of the dock and edged foot by foot down the dock until the fire was completely out.

“You did great,” she said as the charge on their extinguishers depleted.

Bobby grinned with pride. Colleen gave him a pat on the back. A Jet Ski bobbing in the water at the shore caught her eye and she was on alert again.

“What’s that doing here?”

“I rented it at Nell’s today; remember the scene in the parking lot?” Bobby said and hopped down to the shore a few feet below.

As Bobby waded into the water and secured the Jet Ski, Colleen strode up the dock toward the house. The sound of breaking glass from inside the house turned her walk into a sprint.

Sparky howled as Bill and Colleen ran to the house and up the porch steps. Bill cocked his gun, peered through the screen door, cracked it open, and slid inside. She and Sparky followed him in but Colleen pushed the dog back as they inched toward the living room.

“Where’s the old man?” she heard a voice with a Brooklyn accent demand from the living room.

Bill edged sideways toward the living room entrance. Colleen clung to the opposite wall and out of sight. She and Bill moved forward until they saw the back of the intruder.

“We told you, we don’t know about any old man,” Myrtle said.

“You think I’m stupid? You think you can dress up in his clothes and fool me, you old hag?”

“That’s enough,” Myrtle said from the living room and a second later a shoe flew through the air, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

Bill and Colleen leapt forward and discovered the intruder rubbing his nose. On either side of him were broken lamps. Myrtle’s shoes lay in the middle of the debris.

“Stop throwing shoes at me,” the intruder said.

Colleen stared at the stranger, dumbfounded. How could it be that the person before her was none other than the handsome man who had smiled at her at the fireworks, the man she had seen at Myrtle’s memorial service, the man who had helped her with her groceries at Food Lion? Was this man really responsible for the trouble in Corolla? Was he Pinky’s ne’er-do-well nephew, Max “Sweet Boy” Cascio? And how could she have come that close to danger and not known it?

“You,” she uttered.

The man sneered at Colleen. Gone was any hint of civility from their earlier encounter.

Bill’s eyes narrowed. “You know this man?”

Colleen clenched her jaw, annoyed with herself for not having put two and two together. “Max, isn’t it?” she said. “Or should I call you Sweet Boy?”

“How do you know my name?” Max asked, swinging his pistol toward her. “My uncle rat me out?”

“Drop the gun,” Bill ordered, raising his revolver.

Sparky snarled and Colleen held his leash tight.

Max snatched Myrtle and swung her in front of him.

“Myrtle,” Nellie said with a gasp.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Max,” Bill said, his gun leveled at Max’s head.

Just then Bobby burst inside, down the hall, and into the living room. “Mother!” he cried, skidding to a stop when he saw Max with a gun pointed at Myrtle’s temple.

“Back up,” Max said, waving the gun wildly.

“Take it easy and everyone can walk away from this without getting hurt,” Bill said.

“You bet I’m walking away,” Max said, pressing the barrel even closer to Myrtle’s temple. “Now back up, all of you, or I drop the old woman.”

Nellie immediately moved away. Bobby raised a clenched fist. Colleen grabbed his arm and forced him to step away with her and Sparky.

“You, too, Sheriff,” Max said, his eyes darting about the room.

Bill hesitated, then moved back. Max shuffled sideways with Myrtle in front of him.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, you hoodlum,” Myrtle said and attempted to break free. Max yanked on her arm and she cried out in pain. “Monster,” she said between gasps.

Colleen, Bill, Bobby, and Nellie watched helplessly as Max found his way to the front door and backed out of the house with Myrtle. Sparky yelped and jerked on his collar but Colleen held him firmly back. She didn’t want him to get shot or endanger Myrtle.

“Are we just going to stand here?” Bobby asked as Max dragged Myrtle down the porch steps, threw her into the backseat of his sedan, and slipped into the driver’s seat.

“No,” Colleen said, her voice low.

The moment Max’s vehicle pulled away from the house and screeched down the driveway, Colleen and Bill sprang into action. Bill holstered his gun and dashed out the front door.

“Sparky, come,” she said and ran after Bill.

“I’ll take the water,” Bobby said, slammed out the back door, and ran to his Jet Ski.

Colleen whipped open the door of her SUV and Sparky flew in. She hopped in, slammed the door closed, and started the engine.

Bill threw his vehicle in gear as Nellie appeared on the porch frantically waving her arms. “What about me?”

“You want me to take her?” Colleen asked Bill through her open window.

Bill shook his head and leaned out his window. “Get in,” he said to Nellie.

Nellie hurried down the steps and into his car. He flipped on the flashing lights. His vehicle kicked up dirt as he sped down the driveway.

Colleen maneuvered her SUV and hit the gas. She glanced at Sparky, who was staring out the front windshield, his mouth open and tongue wagging.

Bill’s vehicle pulled onto the side of the road up ahead. Colleen saw Rodney stumbling from the woods and rubbing his neck. As she approached, Rodney gave them a thumbs-up. Bill stopped near Rodney and Colleen slowed next to Bill.