Authors: Arlene Sachitano
Harriet pulled her arm painfully out of Bebe's surprisingly strong grip. “I'm not going anywhere with you."
"I have nine millimeters here that say you're going anywhere I want you to.” She pulled an ugly-looking black gun from behind her back. “And right now, it's saying you're joining your friends in the shed."
She pushed the gun into Harriet's side and shoved her forward.
At the door of the outbuilding, Harriet tried to break away, but Bebe was quick.
"Don't make me shoot you,” she said. “I really want you all to be bullet-free. According to my calculations, there will only be ash left behind when the fire cools, but these things aren't always exact. I'd rather be safe than sorry. Now, just go in here.” She pulled a key from her pocket with her free hand and quickly unlocked the door and shoved Harriet inside.
The room was dark and smelled like earth and cut grass. It took a moment, but when Harriet's eyes had adjusted to the dark she could see Aiden and Carla sitting on bags of fertilizer and Terry lying at their feet on the cement floor, apparently unconscious. She started toward them, but Bebe pulled her back.
"Not so fast, sister,” she said. “I don't trust you."
"What's going on, Bebe? Why are you doing this?"
"I think it's obvious what's going on.” The little girl voice that had been so annoying was gone now. “You trespassers are about to suffer a horrible accident. Maxwell should have been more careful with his rags.” She referred to the long-time Foggy Point Fire Protection groundskeeper. “He used linseed oil on the wood benches in front of the building. Did you know linseed oil can spontaneously combust? It's going to be really sad. Carla followed Terry here, and Aiden followed her. No one knows why Terry is here, and now no one ever will. He'll be gone, poof, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
Harriet looked at Aiden; he was intently looking at her feet. Coils of hose were neatly stacked in a pile beside her.
"Why do you have to kill Aiden and Carla?” Harriet asked, wondering if Lauren was back to her car yet. “Carla has a baby."
"And I do feel really bad about that,” Bebe said.
"Wendy,” Carla whimpered. “My baby.” She started quietly sobbing.
"I said I'm sorry, didn't I? I'm not a monster. I feel really bad about all this. You three have always been really nice to me. It's not my fault, though. It's his.” She pointed the barrel of the gun toward the prone form of Terry. “Carlton and I are leaving this horrible place this afternoon, but Terry couldn't wait for us to be gone. He had to keep asking questions and causing trouble among our night workers. Do you realize he caused us to miss our final shipment?"
"Shipment of what?” Aiden asked, speaking for the first time.
"None of your business,” Bebe snapped.
"If we're all going to die, could I at least hug Harriet one last time?” he asked. “If you feel so bad, this could make up for it."
He had a plan. Harriet couldn't see where he was going yet, though.
"Come on,” he pleaded. “I promise I won't do anything."
Bebe looked uncertain. Aiden looked at the hoses again.
"Harriet and I haven't even known each other a year yet. Barely six months. Remember when we first met?” he asked her.
Harriet thought back, quickly scanning her memories. Aiden looked intently at her and then at the pile of hose again. She'd met Aiden at a Loose Threads meeting when he'd first returned from Africa. How could that help? she wondered. He'd brought his mother's quilt to her to repair after he'd wrapped an injured dog in it. She didn't see how that would help, either.
Then she knew what he wanted.
"You can leave my hands tied,” he said. “Come on, we're going to be dead in a few minutes and you can go on your way. What difference will it make if Harriet and I are together when we die or not.” He gave Bebe his best puppy dog look.
"Okay,” she said slowly. Harriet was amazed again at how Aiden could charm the ladies—even the crazy ones, apparently. “But Carla has to move.” She turned away from Harriet and grabbed for Carla. The young woman refused to move from Aiden's side.
Carla was stronger than she looked. Bebe had to turn her back to Harriet and use both hands to push Carla away from Aiden. The minute she turned, Harriet grabbed the end of the top hose stacked by her feet. The end with the industrial-size oscillating sprinkler still attached. In a blur, she swung the hose once around her head and let centrifugal force carry the heavy sprinkler into the back of Bebe's head.
Bebe crumpled to her knees, and Terry suddenly came alive, delivering a scissor kick to her body and twisting his body over hers, pinning her to the floor. Aiden kicked the gun away and added his weight to Terry's on the woman's back. Terry rolled off and turned a ghastly shade of green.
"Find something sharp to cut our ties with,” Aiden said, but Harriet was already rummaging around on Max's tool bench. She found a pair of wire cutters and made quick work of the plastic straps on Aiden's and Carla's wrists. Carla then snipped Terry's.
"He's unconscious again,” she said in a worried voice.
"Lauren went for help. Our phones didn't get reception, so she was going to Miller Hill and then driving toward town if needed. I told her to send the police."
"How did you know we were in here?” Aiden asked. He found some garden twine on the workbench and tied Bebe's hands behind her back.
"We didn't. Lauren has a friend who has access to real-time satellite imagery. She searched Foggy Point for Carla's missing car. We figured if we found the car, we'd have a starting point for our search.” She gently bumped her good arm into his shoulder. “We weren't even sure you were missing, actually. You said you had to work in the morning, and when you didn't show up for the funeral I thought you'd had an emergency. Until I saw your Bronco in the picture Lauren had of Carla's car."
"Well, for once I'm glad you were snoopy and took a risk. Our friend here was about to blow us up."
"So I gathered. What I don't get is why."
"I'm not too clear on that myself,” Aiden said. He tied Bebe's feet together just as she roused slightly.
"I'm pretty sure it has something to do with Terry,” Carla said. “He's been in and out of consciousness since I've been here. I think Bebe hit him hard on his head."
"I should have killed him when I had him down,” Bebe said in a groggy voice. “His corpse would have burned just as well."
"So, why didn't you?” Harriet asked. Carla turned to her with a look of horror.
"Inquiring minds want to know,” Harriet added.
"If you insist,” Bebe said, and struggled to sit up. “I couldn't burn the shed until we'd shipped our last order. And I was afraid, with this weather, he'd start to smell."
"And you weren't worried someone would find his live body?” Harriet asked.
"Carlton gave the grounds crew a couple of furlough days so no one would have a reason to come into the shed. If he'd started smelling and the wind blew the wrong way, someone might have investigated."
"You really thought this out, didn't you?"
Bebe looked at Harriet for a long minute. “I had to improvise, okay? The plan was, we make our last shipment, close the operation down, and then Carlton and I leave this dump forever."
"So when Terry started snooping around and causing trouble, why didn't you cut your losses and run?"
"Does it really matter?” Bebe asked.
"I'd like to know."
"Me, too,” Carla said and looked away, her face turning pink.
"They aren't the kind of customers you disappoint, okay?"
"So what is this mystery product you've been shipping?” Aiden asked.
"I think I'd like to invoke my right to remain silent."
"We aren't the police,” Harriet said.
"
We
are,” said Officer Nguyen as he opened the door. “Would anyone like to tell me what's going on here?"
At first, no one spoke. Then everyone spoke at once. Aunt Beth arrived with Lauren and Connie. More police arrived, and eventually Carlton came with a skinny blond officer and her chunky, red-faced partner. Harriet recognized them from the break-in that had occurred in her studio the first week she'd been back in Foggy Point, more than six months ago.
"We found him boarding a plane bound for the Caymen Islands,” the blonde said.
"Detective Black asked us to find him and bring him here, since he owns the place,” the chunky officer said. He looked over at Bebe. “And because he's married to her."
"You were leaving without me?” Bebe screeched, her composure slipping for just a moment. “Never mind, don't answer that. Don't say anything.” She glared at him to reinforce her command.
Officer Nguyen called an ambulance for Terry, and Carla rode with him to the hospital. Aunt Beth insisted Harriet go to the hospital and get her arm checked out, and at that point her shoulder hurt enough that she agreed.
Terry refused to
stay in the hospital overnight, and as soon as he'd absorbed a couple of bags of IV fluids, he checked himself out. The doctors had insisted on examining Carla, too, and she was given her own fluids. Harriet went home after a sturdier brace was applied to her shoulder and Dr. Pattee had lectured her on the concept of keeping her collarbone out of harm's way until it had healed.
Aunt Beth and Connie had decided everyone should meet at Harriet's, since she had a patio large enough to accommodate the Loose Threads and friends, plus her house was still clean from the previous gathering of the Willis clan.
Harriet was once again amazed at the ability of the Loose Threads to conjure up large quantities of delicious food on short notice. There were two fruit salads, a macaroni salad with hard salami, red peppers and cubes of Swiss cheese with Italian dressing and Jenny's secret recipe baked beans. Harry Willis was at the gas grill cooking hamburgers and hot dogs. Jorge arrived just behind Terry with a large bowl of guacamole balanced on one arm and several large bags of chips in the other.
"Looks like I'm at the right place,” he said, and set the bowl in the middle of the food-laden picnic table then went into the kitchen to find a platter for the chips.
Ben Willis came out carrying two armloads of folding chairs. “What did I miss?” he asked.
"Nothing yet,” Harriet said. “Now that Terry's here, let's make sure no one is in the house. And see that everyone's got something to drink."
"Yes, ma'am,” Ben said and saluted Harriet.
Aiden was leaning back in a padded lounge with Harriet perched upright beside his legs. The Loose Threads and the youngest Willis boys pulled their chairs into a circle. Aunt Beth insisted Terry also sit in a lounge with his feet up. Mavis pressed a tall, icy glass of water into his hand.
"Drink,” she ordered.
Jorge sat at the picnic table, slightly out of the circle but close enough to not miss anything.
"So, talk,” Harriet said to Terry.
"I'm sure you're all anxious to know what happened today, and what's been going on for the last two weeks—really. Before I get into that, I just want to thank everyone involved in rescuing me and apologize for any lies or deceptions I've perpetrated on you."
"I hope you're not expecting us to give you blanket forgiveness without hearing the whole story,” Lauren said.
Harriet couldn't argue with her sentiment.
Terry put both hands up in front of him in a gesture of surrender. “Fair enough,” he said. “As you all probably guessed already, my father did not work at Foggy Point Fire Protection nor am I doing a genealogy study of any sort."
"You got that right,” DeAnn said. She must have come straight from work, as she was still wearing her green polo shirt that said
Foggy Point Video
over the left breast pocket.
"I work for a special branch of the navy,” he said.
"What about the two tours in Iraq?” Harriet asked.
"All true."
"If everyone would stop interrupting the boy, we might find out what's going on,” Aunt Beth said and glared at Harriet.
"As I said, I'm in a unique branch of the military. We do special investigations. Sort of like a military cold case squad.” He took a long drink of water. “I came to Foggy Point to investigate a cold case that had developed into a current one."
Aunt Beth refilled his glass.
"It all started during operation Desert Shield. If you remember, that was the military action that preceded the first Gulf War."
"We remember,” Mavis muttered.
"All branches of the military were hustling to arm their soldiers with state-of-the-art equipment so they'd be ready to ship out when the inevitable escalation occurred. This included body armor."
The group became quiet as the direction his explanation was going to take became clear.
"Back then, developments in ammunition and body armor were in a race against each other. Impenetrable armor would be developed and a new bullet would come along that could pierce it. Now, this is the part where I have to fill in the blanks a little, as I've yet to find a living source to confirm the Industrial Fiber Products end of things."
Jorge got up quietly with the pitchers and refilled people's glasses.
"What I know is that several lapses of judgment had to have happened. A prototype batch of body armor that was labeled Industrial Fiber Products was shipped to actual troops on their way to Iraq."
Mavis leaned back and looked at the sky. She put her age-spotted hands to her throat. Harriet was pretty sure her friend wasn't going to like what was coming next.
"The armor failed, and the entire unit wearing it was killed. According to the file of the chief warrant officer who issued the armor on the government end, Gerald Willis had erroneously certified the product as passing all the required tests."
Mavis gasped, and Ben went to her side and put his arm around her.
"What isn't in the file is any record of the government's own independent quality tests. The death of Gerald Willis is noted in the file with a recommendation to end further inquiries."
"Doesn't that seem a little odd?” Harry asked. “I mean, our dad takes the blame and then suddenly dies."