34
H
er pants pocket tore asunder and the little phone slid down her leg through the hole and clattered across the floor, halting under a table. She just barely caught the secateurs, which were caught in the pocket's torn fabric before they, too, slid beyond her reach.
Hilde rushed toward her, a long metal tool in her hand, something with which to smooth clay. Louise had no time to retrieve the phone from under the drying table. Instead, she clutched her snubby secateurs as if they were a sword and prepared to confront Hilde. As she saw the young woman flying at her, she realized that it was an uneven fight, for her weapon was a fraction of the size of Hilde's.
She knew the only answer was flight. Forgetting what she should have known, she rushed down the outside aisle and nearly fell after she tripped over a prone body. She kept herself upright by grabbing onto the drying table, sending cat reproductions flying through the air and crashing onto the floor. Several landed on the body, which reacted with a reassuring groan.
“Ow!” It was Charlie, and now she was certain he would live, provided she could lure this murderous woman out of the studio.
“Charlie, hold on!” she cried, and raced onward to the exit door, reaching it only a few feet before Hilde did. She wrenched it open and dashed into the pelting rain. She didn't have to turn around to know that her young assailant was directly behind her.
Only one solution came to mind, and it wasn't a very good one. She must get to the street before Hilde did and hope that someone in this monsoon was willing to stop and help her. She dodged into the front yard and, like a skier doing the slalom, skidded back and forth down the hill through Sarah Swanson's native plants and shrubs, panting noisily as she went down the steep hillside, stumbling sometimes over the river rocks used to mulch the plants. Hilde followed, making straining sounds like a feral animal.
And she is an animal
, thought Louise.
She's killed twice and has no reason not to kill again.
She grazed the big clump of oakleaf hydrangeas, batted down several of the smaller, less tough native grasses and a kerria shrub, and nearly entangled herself in a Sir Harry Lauder's Walking Stick. She evaded the low pines, for they were dark patches that were easier to see in the rain. She was nearly to the bottom of the hill.
Ahead of her was the
Crataegus crusgalli
, a tree that she knew. Hope swelled in Louise's heart, for this tree could save her. Behind her ran Hilde Brunner, still groaning intermittently from the strain of pursuing an enemy who could destroy her. Between groans, her breathing was noisy and raspy like Louise's. Louise increased her speed and headed for a collision with the innocent-looking tree. Just as she was going to crash into it she swerved to the left, so hard that she tripped and fell and rolled down onto the sidewalk.
“Oww!” she cried, as she skidded onto the concrete sidewalk. The entire right side of her body throbbed with pain, and her right leg felt as if it were broken.
Then she heard Hilde's scream. With her vision blocked by Louise, Hilde must have continued straight ahead when Louise swerved. She had done what Louise had planned, crashed into the hawthorn, whose inch-long thorns must have pierced her skin. Louise struggled to her knees, then gradually to her feet. After a moment, she found she could stand up. Hilde was writhing on the ground underneath the tree and howling like a resentful baby, yellling out, “
Scheise, Scheise
,
Scheise!
”
She didn't know what to do. She could try to find a stray tree branch and brain her, or stab her with the secateurs that she still clutched in her hand, but that would be like killing a baby seal. Yet she knew that if this young woman had another chance, she would kill Louise in an instant. Hilde had to be taken out of action.
Headlights of a car turning the corner off Rebecca Road onto Larch Road penetrated the rain. They were like beacons of hope to Louise, the equivalent of a lighthouse light to a foundering ship in the ocean. She said, “Thank God.” If she'd ever needed help, it was now.
The big dark Swanson car slowed in the street near her. Sarah Swanson rolled down the passenger side window. “Louise! What on earth are you doing out in thisâ” She spotted the figure on the ground. “Who is that ... is that Hilde? Is she hurt?”
“Yes, it's Hilde, and I must tell youâ”
Mort had now lurched the car into park and swung out of the driver's seat. He hurried over to Hilde, whose angry cries had turned into pathetic-sounding moans. “Hilde, my little one!” he called. “What has happened to you? You are all bloody!”
“Ooh, Uncle Mort, help me!”
With each step a small agony, Louise struggled after him, as he arrived at the prone girl's side. “No, no, Mort, leave her there! She'll hurt you!”
“Nonsense,” he rebuked her and crouched down and took Hilde in his arms and held her like a child. Without warning, the young woman sat up straight and reared back with one arm. Emitting a loud bellow, she thrust the arm forward and struck Mort Swanson in the head. He slumped over, and Hilde discarded her weapon, a large river rock, onto the ground. She stumbled to her feet and stood there shaking her head, trying to focus on Louise, who was only a dozen feet away. Deep scratches marred her bloody face and rain streamed through her tangled hair. Within seconds, she seemed to collect herself and placed her feet wide apart in the stance of a young warrior ready to strike. Louise knew that it was to be a contest between the two of them.
“Hilde,” she warned, “you've done enough harm.”
Her young adversary laughed out loud, a harsh, irreverent laugh. “You think you can stop me?” sneered Hilde. “You're old enough to be my mother!”
Louise measured the situation. It was hard to tell who was injured more seriously in the race down the hill. It must mean something that Hilde didn't immediately dash forward to attack and instead stood with her legs unnaturally wide apart. Despite her gimpy leg, Louise felt invincible. Adrenaline was running through her body like a river. Once her opponent came to her, she was ready for hand-to-hand combat. She gripped the secateurs more firmly in her hand. This wretched person had framed her for two murders and had beaten two of her friends, Charlie and Mort, to the ground. Now she thought that she could run over Louise as easily as running over a helpless old lady.
Louise forgot her gimpy leg and rushed toward Hilde, bringing her down to the ground and landing on top of her, with the secateurs flying out of her grasp. Now it was a tussle, and Louise could barely keep the younger woman from throwing her off.
“I can help stop her, Louise,” said a strong voice in back of her. It was Sarah Swanson. She was standing over the two of them.
“Sarah, don't get into this,” Louise pleaded. All her attention was on keeping the young woman pinned to the ground, knowing it was worth her life. “Hilde is a murderer.”
“I gathered that,” said Sarah, bitterness in her voice. “Who else would strike out at a man, a sick man at that, who'd treated her like his own daughter?”
“I'll take care of her.” Louise glanced up quickly at her friend and gasped. Sarah was holding a foot-long gun and had it pointed straight at Hilde's heart. Hilde had seen the weapon, too. The fight suddenly went out of her. She wilted back on the ground like a spent flower. Louise loosened her hold, sat back and tried to catch her breath.
“Good!” Sarah cried. “And don't move again. My husband had better not be hurt, Hilde, or I'll kill you with no hesitation at all.”
Louise had to do something quickly. She got to her feet. In the calmest voice she could muster, she said, “Let me hold that gun. Then you can go to Mort.”
Sarah's voice was dangerously harsh. “You're hurt, Louise. You can hardly walk. Get out of the way now. I'll handle Hilde.” As she tried to shoulder her aside, Louise decided she'd have to use force to take the weapon from her friend. At that instant, a car careened around the corner. She saw the headlights of Bill's Camry, turned on bright in his attempt to see through the rainstorm. He parked at an angle so that the lights lit up their little tableau. Sarah stopped in her tracks and shielded her eyes with one hand. Bill leaped out, stuffing his phone in his pocket as he ran toward them. “Hey, what's going on?” he cried.
“Bill, hurry!”
He touched her shoulder and said, “Thank God you're safe, Louise,” then quickly moved to Sarah's side. “Sarah,” he said quietly, “let me take that gun while you tend to Mort.”
Sarah looked up at him with a mixture of tears and rain on her face. She handed over the weapon, then ran to her husband.
Bill shook his head. “I can only guess what's happened here.”
“Keep that gun aimed at Hilde. She's Kristina Weeren's sister and has been out for vengeance. Not only did she kill two people, but she's injured both Charlie Hurd and Mort, I don't know how badlyâ”
“Charlie's hurt, too?”
“He's in Sarah's studio. I think he's pretty bad off. If you hand me your phone, I'll call the police.”
“I've already called them. But HildeâI can hardly believe it.”
“YesâHilde. And Bill, never tell me again that your timing's off. Your timing's perfect.”
As her husband focused his attention on the beautiful, bloody-faced villain in their midst, Louise could hear police sirens in the distance. Finally she felt safe. She gave way to the pain in her injured leg and slid down onto the puddly sidewalk. Unlike some Sylvan Valley sidewalks, it mercifully had no jagged edges sticking up.
35
Saturday, August 25
Â
B
ill took a final look out the front door and then joined Louise in the living room, where she lay on the couch, wearing her reading glasses. In between phone calls and visits from neighbors, she was reading her book.
“I see a U-Haul and some wooden crates being stacked at Sam's front door,” said Bill. “Sam and Greg are standing out front, talking.”
“Arguing, or just talking?”
“Talking, but they both look kind of unhappy. Did Sam and Greg break up?”
Louise, her injured leg stretched out on the living room sofa, sighed. “I hope that I didn't have anything to do with it, but I'm afraid I did. I can see why Greg might think I monopolize Sam on Saturdays.”
Bill grinned. “That's because you do. I just accept that you both are compulsive gardeners.”
“Maybe Sam didn't like the fact that Greg was so anxious to point the finger at me in those murders.”
“Greg did see a person in sweatshirt and hat riding that cart at the time Peter Hoffman was killed. Dan Trace told me that, amidst his effusive apologies last night. But he doesn't think Greg was the one who phoned in on Mike Cunningham. He believes that person was Hilde herself, or rather Margit Hilde Weeren.”
“Greg suspected me of murder, Bill. And he may have embellished his story to make it worse.”
“You don't know that for sure, do you?”
She looked over at her husband. “No, I don't.” Why did he always have to put his finger on the truth? She was having guilt feelings enough about possibly ruining her friend Sam's life. Talk about the need to apologize. Even with her gimpy leg, she needed to get over to her neighbors before it was too late.
She sat forward. “Uh, Bill, why don't you hurry out and peek at them again.”
He did as instructed and came back. “Well, now they're going back in the house. They're bringing the crates back in.”
Relief flooded over her, and she sat back and sighed. “Maybe they're giving it another try.”
“Louise, you didn't do anything on purpose.”
“The trouble with me is that I've never gotten to know Greg. Actually, I know Hilde better than him. I even have a certain empathy for her.”
“Are you serious?”
“I'm just saying that after I heard her story, I could see how she did these terrible things. Peter Hoffman was wealthy and hired the best lawyers. He spent only a brief time in a comfortable mental hospital as his punishment for killing and dismembering her sister. It ruined her parents' lives as well as hers, and now she's totally alone in this world. If that had happened to you or me, what would we have done?”
Bill shook his head. “We wouldn't have gone after the perpetrator like she did, and the auxiliary players as well. She thought you'd also profited from her sister's death. You might have been the next person on her list.”
She gave her husband a sober look. “I didn't want to tell you, but her idea was to kill me and make it look like suicide. Then she could have calmly finished her summer internship and returned to Europe.”
He whistled between his teeth. “I knew you were in danger. But I didn't know what direction the danger came from. Why did you begin to suspect her?”
“Only when you asked me to write down that journal. When they came over last night, Nora and Ron and Mary and Richard and I talked about the weird things Peter said at the party. That included the big fuss he made over Hilde. When I remembered how he looked at Hilde as if he knew her, I began to concentrate on her instead of the usual suspects. I recalled she'd had a disagreement with Elsebeth Baumgartner. So I called Elsebeth and learned the truth. We would have known much sooner that Hilde was Kristina's sister if either Martha or I had talked to Elsebeth after she met the girl, for she knew right away that Hilde was flying under false colors.”
Bill chuckled. “The Swiss flag was not her flag.”
“You can honestly say this was a volunteer effort, Bill, with family and friends helping. Without Martha getting out and getting acquainted with people, we'd never have come to know about Hilde, nor would we have been able to tell the police about Downing's antagonistic relationship with Mike Cunningham. Mary was the one who learned that Peter tattled on Lee Downingâ”
“Not that business corruption had a thing to do with this,” said Bill.
“How does all this leave Phyllis Hoffman, I wonder?”
“Better off than when Cunningham was claiming the major part of Hoffman's assets. On the other hand, she'll have Lee Downing trying to cut into them. In spite of whatever the SEC charges him with, he was swindled by Peter Hoffman in that sales deal.”
Louise winced as she moved her sore leg. “At least I know our injured friends are improving. Charlie Hurd's still in the hospital, but he's improving. He wants to write what he calls a âgroundbreaking' first-person story about his encounter with a killer.”
“We could expect no less of Charlie,” said Bill, smiling.
“And then Mort. He's out of the hospital and at home with Sarah. He told Sarah why he's been so troubled.”
“And why was that?”
“He knew more than he told police. He knew the bare outlines of Mike's and Peter's deal with Lee Downing. Though he tried to stay out of it, he suspected the worst kind of deception on their part. And he knew more about Phyllis Hoffman than he wanted to, even suspected these might be contract killings that she'd arranged.”
“They certainly did benefit her.”
“But she was his client, so he was reluctant to tell police his suspicions. It turned out they were groundless.”
“That sounds like Mort,” said Bill, shaking his head.
“Last night, when they brought over dinner, I heard news from Nora and Ron and Mary and Richard.”
“Oh, what of our troubled friends?”
“Not so troubled as they were. Nora and Ron are taking a quiet vacation on an island south of Cancún, to celebrate her fiftieth birthday.”
Bill smiled. “Maybe turning fifty will do it for her.”
“And Richard's going back to work three days a week. He's very happy.”
“He's one of those men incapable of being retired, or anyway, not at fifty-five.” He moved closer to her on the couch, as close as her leg would permit. “Now let's talk about us, Louise. It's going to take me a while before I regain that sense of safety that I usually feel. I think I let you down, deserted youâ”
“No, you didn't, Bill.”
“The only answer is for you to come with me to Europe.”
She laughed in delight. “What a hardship. I'd love to.”
“We'll leave early next week. You can wander the streets of Vienna while I'm in meetings, or else sit around and get your leg stronger. Then we can spend a week in Tuscany. You might even gain a few pounds eating good pasta.”
“Not a bad thing,” she said, drily, thinking of Marty Corbin's criticism of her scrawny frame. She was happy to leave her job for a while. “Before we leave, though, we're going to have a little supper for our friends, just like I promised.”
“Isn't that taking on too much? How can you whip up a fancy dinner in two days?”
She tossed her hand in a careless gesture. “Martha's given me lots of tips. I'll chop some truffles into scrambled eggs for course number one. It's supposed to be very gourmet. Then we'll have roasted guinea hen for the main dish. Martha says it's easy. She'll stay in phone contact while I'm cooking in case I have a problem.”
Her husband looked down at her with furrowed brow. “If you say so, Louise. And of course we're due home the first week in October, because of the wedding. By the way, how are the wedding plans? The girls must have it all together by now.”
The smile vanished from Louise's face. “Not completely.”
“What's wrong?”
“I know it will work out in the end. Janie's been shopping on a daily basis. But she can't find a wedding dress that Martha will sit still for.”
“What's the problem?”
“They cost too much.”
Bill smiled broadly. “Too much materialism for our nonmaterial girl. Why don't they try a secondhand clothes shop?”
Louise peered at him over her reading glasses. “Why didn't I think of that?”