Murders of a Feather, page 27
“Come on,” I called to the dogs, picking their leashes off the coat rack. “You too, Bella. Let’s get some of that energy out of you before we get ready for bed.” I gently slipped a harness over Bella’s gray wrinkled skin and clicked on her lead.
“Wait,” I said. “I see some hair growing.” Sure enough, in a random spot behind her shoulder was a thin short tuft of light brown fur. “Celebration time! First bark and first new hair growth.” On an impulse, I sent both Mike and Mari a quick text and photo of Bella’s shoulder.
Mike texted back immediately.
Congrats to Bella. I’d like to confirm that hair growth in person.
Anytime, I answered.
The ibuprofen must have kicked in because my headache hadn’t gotten worse. I expected a quiet solo evening, which was fine with me.
As soon as I opened the door, Buddy bolted in the wrong direction, barking full throttle.
Bella remained glued to my side. A strange chemical smell lingered in the air.
An apparition appeared out of a clump of evergreens and moved toward me. The figure wore a full-length reflective garment with the pant legs tucked into high, black rubber boots. Face and hair were hidden under a grimacing Halloween mask. Plastic wraparound safety glasses covered both eyes. Something dark and dangerous hung down along its right side—gunmetal reflected in the pale light.
“Get inside,” a male voice said. His left leg kicked out at Buddy who had lunged at him.
“Listen. We don’t keep any money in the cash register…”
“Shut up and get inside,” he repeated, this time raising the gun and pointing it at my heart. “I don’t want that crazy giant next door to get curious.”
How does he know about Pinky?
I froze.
“Get going or I’ll shoot your dog. I swear it.”
By now I’d recognized the voice. Rob had lied about most things, but he wasn’t lying now. Over the barking the faint caw of a crow floated in the air.
Maybe Pinky would turn the corner in his plowing truck and see us. Pinky with his loaded shotgun.
“Move it,” Rob snarled almost landing his boot on my twenty-five-pound dog. Bella began to shake.
No vehicles passed by. Pinky’s home was dark and still. No witnesses to see me open the door and let a killer in.
“You first,” he said gesturing with the gun.
I opened the apartment door, glancing up at the motion detector camera. The lens seemed dirty. Rob followed behind, his jumpsuit swishing when he walked.
“If you’re thinking your outdoor cameras will help you, forget it. I spray-painted the lenses fifteen minutes ago. Cut your outdoor wires, too. So kind of Babs to explain your security system to me.”
Buddy kept on barking, circling in closer.
“Shut him up, or I swear I’ll kill him.”
I bent down to pick up his leash while Bella continued to shake.
“What the hell is that?” Rob asked, pointing to her elephant like skin, crusted and bare of fur.
“She’s a sweet dog with mange that I’m treating. Don’t go near her. It’s contagious.” That was a lie, but I didn’t want Rob to get any ideas.
Buddy kept barking, running back and forth in front of me.
“Shut up,” Rob screamed.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, trying to sound as annoyed as possible. “I can leave him in here or put him in a cage in the animal hospital. Your choice.”
He stared at me. “What do you usually do?”
“He’s been a bit of a pest lately,” I lied. “So at night I leave both dogs in the animal hospital.” That of course was a complete fabrication. My friends knew both dogs slept in the apartment with me. I realized I’d started thinking like Babs, trying to leave clues for my friends in case…
“All right. Let’s go into the hospital. No tricks now, Dr. Kate.”
Under the bright fluorescent hospital lights, Rob appeared more like a bad nightmare. His voice sounded muffled under the mask. Close up, I realized exam gloves covered both hands. The wraparound plastic safety glasses ensured no stray eyelash would contaminate the scene.
He’d come prepared.
The treatment room smelled of disinfectant. Buddy continued barking, upsetting Mr. Katt, who looked down at him with hatred from his lofty perch on top of the cages.
Gramps made me promise to keep the pepper spray in my pocket. I’d kept that promise. It was in the pocket of my white coat draped on the back of my office chair, about twelve feet away.
I opened a bottom cage, and Buddy scampered in. With a quick gesture I tied his leash to the cage bars. Another clue. Buddy chews his leash. My friends would catch that anomaly immediately.
Bella still shivered, reacting to the violence she sensed nearby. I placed her gently in a cage then walked over toward the treatment whiteboard.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Rob said.
“Putting her treatment on the board for tomorrow. I do that every night.”
He looked skeptical, but I swiftly wrote Roberta, skin scraping and lime-sulfur bath. Another clue. I wrote in cursive, my note deliberately sloppy instead of my usual clear printing. There was no Roberta in the hospital. I hoped they would connect Roberta with Rob.
“Is that it?”
“The dogs need beds, water and food bowls, and toys.” I stood still not moving. How could I catch him off guard?
“Go get them. We don’t have all night.”
Still standing my ground, I asked, “What are you going to do to me?”
“Don’t worry. You’re going to take an overdose and die in your sleep. A tear-jerking suicide note will be on your nightstand. Babs’s death was too much for you.”
“No one will believe it,” I told him.
“I don’t care,” he said.
I made a big deal out of getting the bowls and filling them with food and water. Then I glanced around as though searching for something. “My dog’s bed and favorite toy are in my office,” I lied. The only bed and toy in there belonged to Mr. Katt.
This time his answer sounded agitated. “Well, go get them.”
“Alright.” I bent down to pick the round pet bed off the floor. “I’ve got to get his toy or he won’t shut up.” Using the pet bed in my arms as a cover, I plucked the pepper spray from my coat pocket, camouflaging it behind Mr. Katt’s squeaky mouse.
“Shove that stuff in the cages and let’s go.”
With the pepper spray safely in my pants pocket, I opened Buddy’s cage and placed Mr. Katt’s bed and stuffed toy inside. Buddy appeared confused, and Mr. Katt looked homicidal.
Gramps’s voice whispered in my mind, Good job, Katie. Remember what I taught you.
I gave Bella a hospital bed and toy and closed her cage. When I stood up, Rob didn’t seem so scary. Instead he looked like a pathetic pile of plastic.
He hadn’t shot me yet. That wasn’t his plan. I deliberately walked over to one of the lab chairs and sat down. “So tell me, why did you kill them?”
“Stand up!” he yelled.
“You had a great life in Oak Falls. Plenty of women, a good job. What happened?”
“What happened?” Rob said in a quiet voice. “Alicia happened. It was always Alicia.”
Alicia. Her high school boyfriend died in a one-car crash. Alicia. Her husband committed suicide. Alicia. Feeling stalked for years. Her sister, Ursula, said bad luck seemed to follow her golden baby sister.
“I didn’t recognize you, Scooter,” I told him. “You’ve changed a lot since high school.”
“Very good, Dr. Kate,” Rob answered with a fake bow. “That’s precisely why you’ve become too dangerous. Why would you recognize me? I’ve had gastric bypass surgery. Laser resurfacing to get rid of acne scars—by the way, that laser feels like your face is on fire.”
“Rough,” I replied, searching the room for another weapon.
“Plastic surgery on my nose, ear pinning, capped teeth, and a new identity. I’m handsome now. I have to fight the women off.”
Narcissistic love. Scooter’s obsessive love destroyed so many lives.
“How did you pay for it?” I had to keep him talking. Behind me, the ping of a text message sounded on my phone.
“Don’t answer it,” Rob yelled.
“Greg Owens threatened me today,” I said. “You could have pinned the murders on him.”
Rob laughed. “Who do you think made him believe José screwed up his wife’s diagnosis? I kept hoping the idiot would do my work for me and kill José, but instead he moped around and cried.”
“But if you loved Alicia, why did you kill her?” I began to plot how to knock those glasses off his face. “Why did you kill the woman you loved?”
“That was the one thing that didn’t go as planned,” Rob admitted. “José wanted to elope and say their vows at Lover’s Lake. We drove up in his car to scout out the perfect location. The fool wanted it to be a surprise.”
“You parked on the forest road on the lake side.” That explained the lack of tire tracks.
“My plan was to make it look like an accident. Have him slip and fall into the lake. Hit his head, maybe. Then Alicia would turn to me for comfort.”
“But instead…”
“She saw his car turn off the highway. Alicia knew how much José loved that stupid lake and guessed where we were going. I suppose she thought she’d surprise us. What I didn’t know was José had his gun with him. We argued. There was a struggle. I grabbed his gun, pulled him close and shot him in the chest.”
“Alicia saw it?” Now things made sense.
“She screamed at me. I told her it was an accident. I told her how much I loved her—and something I said—frightened her. She started running back to her car but tripped in the snow. When I picked her up and held her in my arms, she stomped on my foot and dove into the lake.”
A fatal mistake, even for a strong swimmer.
“She didn’t get far. Her clothes and boots pulled her down.”
His words turned cold and clinical. No hint of regret in his voice.
“She struggled. Legs caught among the reeds. I promised not to hurt her. When she came close enough, I lifted her out of the water. Her lips turned blue but she still fought me. I saved her, and she still fought me.”
Before I could comment, he added, “I kissed her while I strangled her.”
The vision of Alicia’s wide frozen eyes floated up into my consciousness.
“Afterward, I couldn’t hold her any longer. She slipped from my arms and fell backward into the water. I watched her sink. I watched until the bubbles died away.”
“And José?”
“I put the gun into his hand and fired off another shot—left him facedown in the snow to rot.”
Nice guy.
Rob continued in a bragging voice. “My biggest problem was returning Alicia’s car, so I took that one first. Nora was at a concert in the city, so I parked Alicia’s car in the driveway as the snow started to fall, borrowed the snowmobile, and went back for José’s truck. Stashed that at our place. Then I drove my car back to that stupid lake, put the snowmobile in the flatbed like I’ve done plenty of times, and had everything stored away before midnight. By the time Nora got home, I was asleep in her bed. Ingenious, right?”
“Not really. You should have left José’s truck parked near the lake. You created a lot of questions leaving them without transportation.” I used my most sarcastic tone. “Big mistake. Does Nora know?” I asked.
“Nora? Dumb as a rock.” He shifted his weight. “Do you know how I felt after I killed Alicia?”
“No idea.”
“Like a cancerous tumor had been ripped from my heart.” The mask failed to filter out the note of exhilaration.
My text chime pinged again. Rob turned his head.
I needed to get his attention off my phone. “What about Babs?”
His head swiveled back toward me. Buddy put his paw on Mr. Katt’s toy, making it squeak.
“Babs was too curious, like you, Dr. Kate. After you found the bodies, she asked me a butt load of questions. First she focused on Bruce as the murderer, but I suspected she’d eventually turn that focus on me. Killing her here in your animal hospital was a stroke of genius.”
“Yeah, you’re a real genius,” I said as sarcastically as possible. “Except Babs left us clues. She figured out you were going to kill her.”
“Liar. We had coffee. We talked. Then she went to sleep. Perfect.”
Buddy squeaked Mr. Katt’s toy again.
“Did anyone else help you? What about that friend from high school? You guys were inseparable.”
“Funny you should ask.” I had the feeling that under his latex mask he was smiling.
“Who is it? Bruce? Hughie?”
Rob lifted the gun up and pointed it at my head. “It’s a surprise.”
“Tell me.”
“I think we’re done here, Dr. Kate. I’m going to follow you into your apartment now. Walk slowly and keep your hands in the air or I’ll kill both those mutts.”
I stood up. So did Buddy, flipping the cat toy in the air as it squeaked over and over.
Mr. Katt had had enough. The hated dog had his toy and bed and an invader in his hospital smelled like danger. With a yowling screech, he hurled himself at Rob, landing in the middle of his back, claws extended and began ripping his latex mask into shreds.
“What the hell?” Rob tried in vain to grab the angry cat. Embedded back claws hung on tight.
I scooped my cell phone from the countertop, jammed it in my pocket, and ran toward the apartment door, slamming it behind me. Not stopping for a coat, I tore out the front door, Rob screaming obscenities behind me. Another car pulled into the hospital parking lot.
Mike. I recognized his old Scion and made a beeline toward it.
The car barely stopped before Mike opened his door. “Kate. You never answered my texts. What’s going on?”
Rob burst through my door, his latex mask hanging down in bloody strips. “Hi, Mike,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Mike?
No. Not Mike.
Was he the second killer?
“Kate,” Mike yelled out, brandishing a screwdriver in his hand, “run!”
Rob laughed and dodged the thrown tool that skittered across the snow. “My turn,” he said and fired. A bloom of red appeared on Mike’s coat.
“Change of plan,” Rob said, sighting the weapon on me. “One down and one to go. So long, Dr. Kate.”
I dove to the frozen ground as a shot fired, my hands and cheek scraping gravel and dirt. A black shape appeared out of nowhere. The angry crow dive-bombed Rob’s face. Sharp talons and a deadly pointed beak went straight for his eyes, knocking the safety glasses to the ground. Another crow joined, and yet another flew at him, landing on Rob’s head, attacking his forehead, his eyes.
He screamed, pinwheeling his arms to fight off the crows. Drops of blood painted the snow.
The diversion was enough for me to use the pepper spray. I showed no mercy. One hand shooed away the crows, and the other sprayed the pepper spray directly into his fake green eyes. Rob dropped the gun and screamed again, clawing his own face. I kicked him in the groin just like Gramps taught me.
“Special delivery from Babs.”
Then I kicked him again.
When I ran over to Mike’s car, I expected the worst. Instead, he stood up, grimacing in pain.
“We need to restrain that maniac. Right now,” he said.
“But your shoulder?”
“I’ve had worse. Got any duct tape in that truck?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” I threw open the cab door while Mike opened his trunk and removed some rope.
Rob lay writhing and moaning on the ground. I didn’t expect him to stay there for long.
“You’re still bleeding,” I told Mike as I wrapped first one then the other of Rob’s flailing gloved hands with tape.
Mike went to town with the rope, hog-tying Rob, securing his legs and arms.
“You’ve done this before,” I said.
“Rodeo and 4-H,” Mike admitted. When he stood up he said, “I feel odd.”
I guided Mike back to his car and sat him down in the passenger seat, motor running and heat blasting. When I slid off his jacket, I saw a swelling circle of blood high up on his shoulder. “We need to apply pressure.”
A gray sweater lay in the back seat, so I balled it up and pressed it hard against the gunshot wound. I called 911 and told them to hurry.
“Ouch,” he said. “I think I overdid it tying him up.” His teeth started to chatter, despite the warm air pouring out of the car vents. “Am I going into shock?”
His beautiful blue-gray eyes were the only color in a deathly pale face.
“Not yet,” I said. “Keep holding my hand. Don’t let go.” In the distance I heard sirens. The sweater pressed under my fingers became slick and heavy with blood.
“I can’t see the stars this time,” he said, eyelids fluttering.
“Don’t worry. We’ll see them together.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The surgery waiting room at the hospital in Kingston was meant to be a comfortable place for families waiting for news of their loved one’s operation. It was painted in subdued natural colors, and clusters of separate seats gave an illusion of privacy. About ten other individuals waited with us. All glanced up periodically at the electronic board listing patients undergoing procedures.
I wouldn’t know. I’d been pacing up and down for almost an hour, reviewing the anatomy of the shoulder in my mind—the arteries, the nerves, and everything that could go wrong.
Mari watched with dark solemn eyes.
“Shouldn’t they be finished by now?” I asked. My cheek burned from gravel cuts.
“Sit down, Kate. You’re wearing yourself out.” She patted the chair next to her.
“Thanks for taking care of the dogs,” I told her, trying to stay calm while feeling like I was jumping out of my skin.
From the depths of her purse, she pulled out a banana. “Take a bite,” she said, “and tell me about Rob. I never would have picked him as a killer.”
