Murder at the Tremont House (A Blue Plate Cafe Mystery) (24 page)

My alarm went off at 6:10, and I was ready by 6:30—barely any makeup, teeth brushed, hair sort of brushed, Huggles let out briefly, and I was ready to go.

It was a slow morning at the Blue Plate, which of course gave me more time to conjure up awful scenarios and wild theories. Rick called a little before noon to say he was back from Canton.

“
Halstead wants to arrest Roger and Cary. He thinks we can play good cop, bad cop, and get them to testify against each other, as though they were in cahoots on this. I told him the reasons he was wrong, but he said he’d wait till Monday to make a decision. I’m going to stay here and catch up on paperwork. I’ll be over sometime this afternoon for a late lunch.”

A few minutes later, David walked in, and I was delighted both to see him and to be rescued from my own dark thoughts. He ordered a BLT and I asked if he was feeling well.

“Can’t eat chicken-fried steak every day,” he said. “How about dinner in Tyler tonight?”

“
Sounds good. Let me check with Marj.” Long-suffering Marj agreed and said she was glad to see me get out of town, even briefly.

When I reported that to David, I asked,
“Will Rick let us go?” I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but the deeper rivalry between the two came to the surface.

“
Is he my keeper, too now?”

“
No. You know how he feels about my being in danger.”

“
I know I can protect you,” he said, his tone betraying just a bit of anger. Since he was sitting with Ava and Jess, I don’t think he wanted to come out and say he had a gun, but he said, “I have the necessary equipment.”

I was relieved, and we made plans to go again to Currents, the place we all liked. I did not suggest inviting Rick.

Chapter Twenty

We were lazy that Saturday afternoon. Tom and Henry did as
Tom promised and took Huggles for a run in the country, complete with a Frisbee. Although invited to go along, David elected to head back to his cabin. The girls were sitting with him at a corner table near the door, Ava buried in a book and Jess working on one of her endless art projects. They had chosen not to go with their father and brother on the promise of shampoo and manicures at my house. Rick was investigating the Smith family, though still with no resolution, but I guess we felt too complacent. I was anticipating getting the girls shampooed and then going to dinner with David.

It was a warm day, upper eighties, but with a nice breeze. I opened
the café doors and windows, turned on the ceiling fan and forgot about air conditioning. Gram would have approved. The only things covering the front doors were the double-wide screens that banged every time someone came in and out.

Except when Bonnie Smith came in about two. She looked around as though deciding where she wanted to sit. Then, in what later seemed to me one sudden, blurred moment, she whipped out a handgun and grabbed Jess, holding the gun to the child
’s head. I started forward without thinking but froze when she said, “Everyone stay where you are or I shoot this sweet child.”

David was
halfway out of his chair. She gave him one glance and said, “You too.” We froze, including the staff and two customers who were in the room. “Miss Chambers,” Bonnie said. “You come with us. Do what I say if you want this girl to live.”

Jess was softly crying and looking to me to rescue her. How did I explain to the child
I couldn’t? I was helpless.

“
I’ll do anything,” I said. “Just let her go.” My voice trembled, and I glanced at David who also had an agonized look on his face.

“
In due time. Go out the door in front of me. My car is right outside, keys in the ignition, doors open. You’re driving. Get in and buckle up.”

On shaky legs I went out the door, followed closely by Bonnie who dragged a whimpering Jess. Bonnie saw me into the car and slammed the door. Then she rounded the car, got into the passenger seat, and literally threw Jess from her so hard that the
child landed hard on the gravel and cried out in pain.

“
She’s hurt!” I cried.

“
Not as bad as being shot,” she said. “Take 64 to Canton. I’ll direct you. Go on, drive!” She poked me in the ribs with the gun.

I drove. Finally I got up the nerve to ask,
“Where are we going?”

“
Dallas. I don’t want to kill again. If you do as I say, I’ll let you go.”

I was thinking,
No way you’re going to get away with this. Marj or David will call Rick, and he’ll follow us. He’ll save me.
As we drove by City Hall, I saw Rick’s car parked there. Why wasn’t he running to it? Or aiming a gun at the tires? Why wasn’t he doing anything? Frustration and fear mingled inside me like a volcano about to erupt.

At the edge of Canton
, we turned left on 243, and I knew where we were going—the back road to Dallas, my favorite route. Only now I thought of it as long and endless. We drove slowly through Canton traffic. “Follow the speed limit. I don’t want to attract attention.”

I did as she said, but on
ce clear of the town limits she directed me to speed up. I kept glancing surreptitiously in the rear view mirror to see if Rick was following us. He wasn’t.

The drive wasn
’t as long as I expected because she kept up an endless monologue that began with, “I had to kill her, you know. She was sleeping with Cary. She seduced my poor darling boy. I’ve devoted my life to raising that child, and now it’s all over. He’s corrupted, she’s dead, and I’ll never see Cary again. I can’t put myself or him in that kind of danger.”

The only danger I could think of was her arrest for murder and kidnapping which didn
’t put Cary in danger. In fact, it might be a huge relief to him. Who knew how twisted things really were in that family?

I wanted to keep her talking.
“Sally? Sally Vaughn seduced Cary?” I knew it wasn’t Sara Jo, since Roger’s confession to Rick.

“
Oh yes,” she said. “She was clever, pretending to tutor him. But that reporter told me all about it. In detail. I don’t know how she found out, but I know she spent hours talking to him. I never asked if he told her.”

“
Why did you kill Sara Jo?”

“
Besides the fact that she wanted to resume a mother-son relationship with him? Because she was going to expose the whole sordid story, expose my child to scandal. He’d be the laughingstock of his classmates.

Rather the envy, I suspect
ed.
Instead I said, “But he was her child.”

“
No,” she said fiercely. “Don’t ever say that again. He was
my
child. I raised him from the time he was barely walking. All she did was give birth to him. We’re lucky he didn’t have fetal alcohol syndrome. She was a tramp. It wasn’t hard to kill her at all. She deserved it.”

A shiver shook my whole body at the harshness of
her tone. It began to dawn on me I was driving with a sociopath, and she was holding a loaded gun on me. Not good odds.

We reached Kaufman and had to slow to go around the square. That was where Rick caught up with us, staying discreetly back in his private, unmarked car, but I knew it was him. I almost let out a huge sigh of relief, but I bit my lip to keep it back.

Once out of Kaufman, we merged onto 175 and began to cross that long flat stretch that leads to the incline up to Crandall. I doubted I could get away with running the car off the road, though my mind was frantically trying to come up with a plan. As we neared Crandall, I noticed there were no other cars on the road, except for that lone car following us.

Bonnie was so wrapped up in her vengeance, she didn
’t notice. “I wouldn’t have had to do this if Roger weren’t such a weakling,” she said, waving the gun around wildly. “Man has no backbone. Couldn’t stand him.” The hatred in her tone made me turn toward her briefly, and I saw the coldest eyes I’d ever looked into. “I only stayed because of Cary, and when it came to protecting my boy, I did what I had to. I’m not sorry. I just wish I could see him grow up into the fine young man he’s going to be.”

Yeah, sure, with a background like this!
“What will you do?”

“
Go somewhere, establish a new identity and start all over again. I’m a pro at it. We did it all those years to hide from Sara Jo, and I resented every move we made, every time we changed our name, every time I had to forge a new birth certificate with the latest name so I could register Cary in school. Oh, yes, I knew how to do those things. I grew up on the shady side of the law. Cary never asked about it, bless him! But we decided to stay in Wheeler until he graduated, no matter what.” She crossed her arms as though to show determination—but the gun was still pointing at me. “And then
she
found us.”

“
Did you shoot out the windows of the B&B?” I asked to distract her. A little flattery, even about gun skills, never hurt anyone-at least I hoped it wouldn’t backfire and hurt me. “If so, you’re pretty good with a shotgun.”

“
’Course I am. I grew up on a dirt-poor ranch in West Texas, shooting birds and squirrels and sometimes bigger game for dinner. I know how to use a shotgun.”

I wondered how much she knew about handguns, though Lord knows I didn
’t know anything about them.

Ahead I spotted a roadblock—sawhorses and state trooper cars plus Chester Grimes
’ car blocking the road. Bonnie saw it about the same time.

“
Drive on through it,” she ordered. “You can make it through those sawhorses to the side. Good thing you’re a good driver.” She’d been waving the gun around, but now she pointed it directly at me.

I was t
empted to close my eyes and aim for the sawhorses, but I knew I might miss and hit a trooper—or kill us. So heart pounding and eyes wide open, I drove though the sawhorses, though I did slow down some. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chester standing by the nearest car. I felt a bump and looked back to see him crumple on the ground. One trooper ran to him, while the other fired some useless shots in our direction. “He’s hurt! I’ve probably killed one of my best friends.”

“
Drive,” she ordered. “If he’s dead, you can’t do anything. If he’s not, they’ll take care of him, and it will divert attention from us.”

Once again I was amazed at her casual attitude toward death—that is everyone
’s but her own.

Just then we both re
alized Rick had also driven through the barricade where we broke it, carefully skirting the scene around Chester. But he was close on our tail. Bonnie did an amazing thing that made me think she didn’t know as much about handguns as she did about shotguns. She leaned out her window and began shooting at Rick. I prayed and drove, counting bullets as she fired wildly. One, two, three…I had no idea how many bullets were in the chamber of her gun. To my everlasting relief, I heard the futile click as she tried an empty chamber.

It was now or never
. Without slowing I headed for a low bar ditch and a clump of trees and bramble on our side of the road. She turned, pointed the empty gun at me, and tried to fire it. Defeated, she threw it on the floor and began to scratch and claw at my right arm, shouting, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get back on the road.”

I fought h
er off as best I could, but I needed both hands on the wheel. She reached for my face, and I took one hand off the wheel to pull her hair—hard, until she screamed. With one hand I guided the SUV into the trees, hearing the scratches on the metal, and finally came to a halt against a tree that blocked her from opening the passenger door. In one swift movement, I freed my seat belt and jumped from the car while she pounded on her door. Standing beside the open driver’s door, I heard her curse and then saw her clamber across the gear and under the steering wheel. As she stuck one leg out and reached for the door to pull herself out, I slammed it shut with every ounce of strength my anger gave me.

I think, though I
couldn’t be certain, I heard the sickening crunch of breaking bone. I know I heard a cry of terrible pain from her. But I stood there, holding the door tight until Rick came up and nudged me out of the way.

David had jumped out of the passenger seat of Rick
’s car. He enveloped me in his arms, and said, “I’m so glad I didn’t lose you. I couldn’t stand it.”

I sobbed into his chest, wetting his shirt thoroughly, but he just stood there, holding me tight while I shook and cried.

Rick opened the car door and advised Bonnie of her rights.

She managed to yell,
“Rights, hell! Get me help. I’m in terrible pain. I think my leg’s been crushed. Maybe my hand, too.”

Rick turned toward us, and David released me to get a hug from Rick, his eyes full of worry and admiration.
“You took an awful chance.”

Was he lecturing me again?
“I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t go all the way to Dallas with her. I’m sure she would have killed me. You should have heard her talk. I have a full confession.”