Ghastly Glass (32 page)

Despite my supreme terror, I heard everyone around us start screaming and running. Apparently we were so frightening that it was causing a general panic. I heard Livy yell to Harry that she was getting out of here. I couldn’t see what was happening as Bart landed on his feet with a hard thud, then took off running through the scattering crowd.

Death was light on his feet for a seven-foot guy who possibly weighed in at over three hundred pounds. I didn’t blame the crowd for running. With Bart continuing to shout terrible, threatening phrases as he ran, we were superscary. If I’d seen us, I’d be running, too.

But the hood from his cloak had dropped over my face and I couldn’t see anything. I tried to pull it up, but it kept falling back down. I hoped Bart could see where he was running so we didn’t end up crashing into the apothecary or the privies, but I knew there was no guarantee. While it would be some sort of poetic justice to end up in a privy after my stunt with Rafe, I kept hoping karma was asleep.
Please don’t let us fall in a privy. Please don’t let us fall in a privy.

“Can you see where you’re going?” I asked in that unique voice that comes from having your entire body jogged up and down at breakneck speed. “Bart? Can you hear me?”

“It’s hard to talk. I can see it.”

He sounded breathless. It was probably hard to push that big body so fast. I hoped he didn’t have a heart attack or something before we found his brother’s killer. I decided not to distract him again and hoped we’d get wherever we were going in two pieces. Once you put yourself on the path of destruction (especially riding on the shoulders of Death), you get whatever comes next.

The people in the crowd rushed in every direction. Lou stood in one place with Henry while Bart and I rushed toward them. Of course, he couldn’t have known we were coming for them. I didn’t even know. I thought we were a diversion, but we ended up being a cataclysm.

I felt a whack and thud before I flew off of Bart’s broad shoulders. I couldn’t tell anything since I was totally swamped in the huge, heavy robe. The only thing I was sure of was that I’d lost my ride somewhere. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to tuck into a fetal position, hoping to minimize the damage from the coming impact.

I was praying, too, as though I hadn’t just been consorting with all kinds of demonic creatures and recently said I wouldn’t mind going someplace besides heaven if there was plenty of chocolate. Surprising how quickly you can recant when it comes right down to it. Mostly my prayer went something like this:
Not the privies. Not the privies. Oh God, not the privies.

And someone must’ve been listening because I didn’t crash into the privies headfirst. Instead, I crashed into a person. I heard the air whoosh out of their body when I hit them, and whoever it was went down like a stone.

I tried to get to my feet, muttering all kinds of apologies (and secretly glad not to be in the privies as long as the person I fell on wasn’t dead), but the stupid robe kept swallowing me. I’d pull it one way and a huge glop of it would fall back on me again. I could hear groaning and moved my feet off of the person I’d hit. “Sorry,” I said louder. “I’m trying to get out of this. Sorry.”

I heard a sound like a sharp click of metal and pulled hard at the right side of the robe, hoping to finally see some light. But instead, because the left side of the robe was still under my foot, I jerked my leg out from under me. I collapsed in a heap of robe and desperate woman on top of the person I’d just cannonballed.

There was a loud, deafening retort, like a car backfiring except much closer.
Like directly underneath me.
The person swore and pushed at us (me and the robe), but it didn’t do any good until strong arms lifted me from my predicament and another set of hands pulled the robe straight off from above my head.

“Are you okay?” Chase’s face was very close to mine.

A dozen flashlights were playing over me. I put out my hand to fend them off. “I’m fine. Turn off the mini-searchlights. They’re blinding me!”

Chase grabbed me up in a tight bear hug. “Jessie, you scared the crap out of me. What were you doing? You’re lucky you didn’t get yourself killed.”

I was totally confused. “I know it was taking a chance when I had Bart jump off the stage, but I thought it might be a good diversion. I heard Lou out here talking to Henry.”

The man standing beside me (dressed like an inquisitor) pulled back his mask. It was Detective Almond (kudos on the costume). “We had it in hand, young woman. We didn’t need your interference.”

I glanced beyond our small circle and saw several zombies (probably plainclothes cops) picking someone who looked like Lou off the ground. One of them had just snatched a gun from him. “Did he try to shoot me? Was that what the noise was?”

Chase put his arm around me. “I think that’s exactly what happened. You’re not shot, are you?”

“No. Not as far as I can tell. I mean, how do you tell if you’ve been shot? I didn’t feel any pain or gushing blood.”

“And don’t let Detective Almond kid you. We’d already tried to close in on our real-life thug as soon as Lonnie’s radio caught his conversation with Henry. It was a disaster.”

“As soon as Lou realized who we were,” Grigg continued, “he held the gun on Henry to get out of the Village. He might’ve shot him or actually escaped if it wasn’t for you falling on him. Good work, Jessie.”

I glanced around. “Where’s Bart?”

“Here I am, lady.” He already had his Death robe on again. He was probably the only one who could’ve pulled that yardage straight off over my head.

I left Chase’s side and went over to hug the big guy. “What happened back there? Are you okay?”

“I don’t know what happened. I think I tripped over someone.”

“You could say that,” Tony groaned from somewhere behind Bart. “How much do you weigh, dude?”

Bart laughed. “Not enough sometimes. Sorry I hurt you, Mr. Devil.”

Two zombies walked through what was left of the fleeing crowd with Henry held between them. “Now we’ll figure out what’s going on, right, Mr. Trent?” Detective Almond seemed pleased with himself, although I couldn’t see where he’d played much of a part in all this except for being in the right place at the right time. And even that, we’d set up for him.

“I’m not saying anything,” Henry decided. “I want a lawyer.”

“That’s fine with me,” Detective Almond told him. “I wonder how long it’ll take Lou to make bail. An hour? Maybe less. With someone like him, it’s hard to say. But I
guarantee
no one will be around to save your ass next time he comes for you.”

Henry started crying. “Okay. Okay. I get the idea. I borrowed some money from him. I spent thirty thousand dollars from the money my uncle gave me to start the new store. I had some bad breaks at the track, but I thought I could win it back before I had to use it. I was wrong.”

“So you used the sage green glass rod to beat Roger up so you could use his power of attorney to get the money back while he was in the hospital,” I finished for him with a flourish and quite a bit of satisfaction.

“You were listening!”
Henry glared at me. “That’s rude, you know, even for this place.”

“I get that part,” Detective Almond said. “What I don’t get is why you killed the giant? Was it just for fun?”

“Wait a minute!” Henry looked at all of us as if we’d act as witnesses for him. “I didn’t kill anyone. All I did was borrow some money and use Uncle Roger to try to pay it back.”

“Is that all?” Chase mocked him.

“That doesn’t make me guilty of murder,” Henry continued. “I didn’t kill that big Death guy. That wasn’t me.”

“His name was Ross,” Bart said quietly. “He was my brother.”

Detective Almond looked back and up. I could see his mind working when he saw Bart. He obviously didn’t know he was Ross’s brother. I suspected he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to stop him if he lunged at Henry. “Let’s wrap this up at the station. Read him his rights, boys. Let’s go.”

I could hear Henry’s shouting and pleading that he wasn’t Ross’s killer halfway out of the park. Maybe no one else believed him, but I did. I had an extravagant hot fudge sundae riding on it. But how could I prove the two crimes weren’t linked? It wasn’t like the real killer was going to rush out and confess to save Henry.

“Don’t worry,” Detective Almond told Bart, “we’ll get him to confess. It’s a slam dunk from here.”

“Thank you, sir.” Bart extended his hand. “I appreciate all you’ve done for my brother.”

“I appreciate your help as well.” Detective Almond shook his hand, his fingers disappearing into Bart’s. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir.”

“That sounds like a job well done,
Sir Bailiff
.” Grigg said it loudly as though trying to make a point.

“Of course.” Detective Almond shook Chase’s hand, too. “Good job, Manhattan.”

“Thanks. I have my Scooby-Doo gang to thank for tonight. Maybe now the Village can get back to normal.”

“As normal as that is,” Detective Almond muttered as he walked away.

“Huzzah!” Grigg yelled. “I believe this calls for a round or two of ale. What say you, my fine companions?”

There was a general round of “Huzzahs,” then everyone started toward Baron’s, which was the closest tavern.

“I think we might pass on that, guys.” Chase put his arm around me and grinned. “I have a bet to collect on.”

Of course I never believed for one minute that Chase had won the bet. I made him wait two weeks before giving in. He bought the Joan of Arc armor and sword, but it rested on a chair in the bedroom all that time. Finally, I admitted he seemed to be right about Henry.

I mean, everything went from one hundred to zero once the police had him in custody. All of the dire blood (and not blood)
Death shall find thee
messages disappeared from the Village. Everything was as calm and smooth as Mirror Lake. It appeared as though Chase had been right and Henry was a killer as well as an attacker.

We watched on the eight o’clock news one night about two weeks later as Henry, through his attorney, pleaded not guilty to killing Ross DeMilo.

“Is that Henry standing there with him?” I asked Chase. He looked so different. I knew it had to be him, but I didn’t trust my eyes.

“That’s him. A few weeks of jail can do some bad things to a man.” Chase lay beside me in the bed above the dungeon. We’d been back there for a while and nothing weird had happened. Even the banshee had been silent.

I looked at him, enjoying the Monday morning quiet after the relatively uneventful King’s Feast the night before. I ran my hand through his long, loose hair. “And you’d know so much about that,” I teased him.

He grew strangely serious. “I do, actually. My dad was in prison for almost ten years when I was growing up. He was a stockbroker who went a little off course and did some insider trading. I remember going to visit him one Sunday each month from the time I was eight until I was eighteen. It was a rough time for my family. It’s what made me decide to be a lawyer.”

I was touched that he had opened up to me that way. I hugged him with tears in my eyes for the little Chase that he had been. “That’s awful. What does he do now?”

He shrugged. “He’s been retired since then. Lucky for him he married an heiress. Lucky for me, too. We never had to go without because he was gone.”

“An heiress, huh? Does that make you an heir?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. My mom’s family owns a major national distribution company. I haven’t exactly been popular for moving away from home and not being involved with the family business.”

I sat up and stared at him, not really surprised to find out his family was loaded. I had always kind of suspected as much from little tidbits of information he’d dropped from time to time. “So you became a lawyer, but not the kind that helps people. But you don’t want to inherit from your mom either. What do you want?”

He smiled at me and pulled me back down beside him. “You. Everything after that kind of blurs out. Besides, I’d have to be in Scottsdale if I wanted to be part of the business. I couldn’t be here.”

I kissed him, not able to argue with that logic. I wanted him to be here, too. But it did sort of amaze me that someone who was rich would choose not to live that lifestyle. My brother Tony and I had always been financially challenged as we grew up. From what I can tell, my parents were the same. My grandmother who raised us had received poor packages from the church each week.

I thought about how life could change a lot as I worked with Roger after Henry went to jail. He’d become the perfect teacher after almost having his brain smashed out. I guessed that was what Chase had meant about circumstances changing a person. Roger had certainly benefited from a whack on the head and marriage to Mary.

I got the hang of using the torch enough to create some nice little animals to take home with me. Nothing Roger could sell, but that wasn’t my goal in learning glass art. I had lived as a poverty-ridden student for so many years only to find myself an assistant professor barely surviving. It was excellent incentive for me to get my Ph.D. I wondered what Chase used as incentive since he’d never gone without.