4 Arch Enemy of Murder (28 page)

“Again an amusing theory, my dear, but your lack of proof is astounding,” the judge said.

“And your overabundance of condescension is equally astounding. I found the person who sold the lion.”

“You said it was an anonymous purchase.”

“With enough money, nothing remains anonymous,” Lacy said. “You all think you’re special because you have money and power. You believe you’re impervious to the rules, that you
make
the rules. But guess what? You’re not the only people in this town with money and power. And if I have to, I will spend every dime I have to prove your guilt and Pearl Merleputter’s innocence. I will bring in every forensic expert in the country to dispel the notion that it was her bullet that killed her husband. I will hire a team of expert fortune hunters and have them retrieve every single shell and casing in the tri-county area until I prove which one of you was the shooter. And then I’ll figure out how much money it takes to make the anonymous lion buyer not so anonymous anymore. Oh, and did I mention my friends in the press? I know an editor at a certain New York paper who would have a field day with one small town’s local power corruption. Can you imagine how the picture of that lion is going to play when I finally have her captured? I’ve never thought a Pulitzer was within my grasp, but who knows?”

The mayor tugged at his collar and chugged a glass of ice water. The detective and judge were much cooler. “Hypothetically speaking, it seems unwise for a lone woman to walk into a group of armed men and begin issuing threats,” the judge said. He shifted slightly, revealing the gun lying beside him.

Lacy felt a moment of panic, but then she remembered the maid. They couldn’t shoot her in the house while the maid was there, and the woman would remember letting her in. And then there was Michael waiting outside. “Good thing I didn’t come alone,” she said. She smiled, but inside she was quavering. Maybe it was her imagination, but she sensed their collective disappointment about not being able to dispose of her immediately. There was another minute of silence before the detective spoke.

“What do you want?”

“I want Pearl Merleputter free, and I want whoever is responsible to pay for her husband’s murder. I want the lion caught humanely with no more illegal shooting. And I want the masterminding plotting to stop.”

“You don’t want much, do you?” the mayor asked. His tone was somewhere between sarcastic and petrified.

“I want justice,” Lacy said.

“Seems to me you’re only pretending to care about this Pearl woman. Why don’t you admit that this is really about Jason?” Arroyo asked.

“I’m angry that Pearl has been dragged into this mess. But I’m livid that Jason has been harmed. And if he or anyone that I care about is ever harmed again, I will personally see to it that this little club is blown wide open and exposed for the cesspool it is.”

“You might want to be careful who you threaten,” the judge said.

“So might you,” Lacy returned. “Do we understand each other, gentleman?”

No one answered, but then Lacy hadn’t expected them to. She had made her point; there was no need to emasculate them and take any more of their precious power. “Very well. Good day, then.” They were so hostile that she backed out of the room, not wanting to turn her back on any of them. She held up just fine until she was outside. By the time she reached Michael, she was trembling.

“What happened in there?”

“The less you know, the better,” Lacy said.

“Isn’t it just my Irish luck to flee a murder investigation and land smack in the middle of whatever this is,” Michael said.

“You’re not in the middle of this,” Lacy said. “You’re not anywhere near this. They have no idea who you are, and I intend to keep it that way. I protect my friends.”

“You sound like a Mafioso,” he said.

“I think maybe I just became one,” Lacy said. “Or maybe I’m Elliot Ness.” They trudged back through the woods, nervously now since they knew there was a lion. Lacy drove Michael home, and then without conscious thought headed to the hospital.

At some point in the day, Jason must have been awake because Lacy’s name was now on the approved visitor’s list. But as she sneaked up to his room, she heard his mother’s voice. She paused, trying to work up the courage to go in when something his mother said filtered out into the hallway.

“Elephants and ponies, Jason,” she whispered. Puzzled and too insecure of her place in his life to go inside, Lacy tucked her tail between her legs and walked away.
 

Two days later, Lacy stood in front of a too-small grave, feeling sad and overwhelmed. In the intervening forty eight hours, Pearl had been set free. And George the waiter had been arrested. Not only that, but he had fully confessed to the accidental murder of Jonah Merleputter and the accidental shooting of Jason Cantor. In a quick-as-lightning plea deal presided over by Judge Kronk, he was sentenced to one year of prison in a minimum security facility. Some of the officers were outraged over the light sentence, but Detective Arroyo, the official representative of the officers’ union, made a statement about intent verses accident--a virtual endorsement of the sentence.

And on the front page of the paper, a lion had been captured by animal control. Unsubstantiated reports were that someone had kept it as an illegal pet, letting it go when it became too big to handle.

Lacy was furious that an innocent man had been thrown under the bus by the nefarious group. She had tried to visit George, but he had already been moved. She wrote him a letter, but she wasn’t sure it would ever be received. She wondered what he had been paid to take the fall, and then she thought of his family and their immigration woes. She was filled with impotent rage, but what could she do? The man had willingly confessed. No one would believe her if she said he was coerced by the presiding judge and detective. They had bested her when she thought she had the best of them. In retrospect, she could see that they had recruited George into their group in anticipation of needing a scapegoat. Someday she would level the playing field and make them pay for their misdeeds, but not today. Today was about remembrance for one whose life had ended far too soon.

“Hey.”

Lacy hadn’t heard Jason approach. She looked up at him in surprise. “What are you doing here? I called the hospital and they said you weren’t supposed to be released until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“There was dust on the television,” he said.

She blinked at him, trying to decipher his meaning. “So?”

“So? So if there was dust on the television, think of what else they didn’t clean. Disgusting. I had to leave for my own safety.”

“Just to clarify, you left a hospital against medical advice because it wasn’t clean enough for you?”

“Sounds about right,” he said.

“Wow,” she mouthed.

He smiled, tried to lift his arm, thought better of it, and switched sides. Once she was on his left, he slid his arm around her and cinched her close. “Thanks for coming today. It means a lot to me that you remembered, especially because you didn’t think I was going to make it.”

She eased her arm around his waist and read the inscription on the small grave silently to herself.
Joshua Cantor, beloved son and brother.
His birthday was today; the little life had ended at the tender age of seven so many years ago. How differently would Jason’s life have turned out if his brother had lived?

After a few minutes of silent remembrance, he turned his head slightly and kissed her temple. “Those flowers from you?” he asked. She nodded, and he gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You missed your grand opening Saturday.”

She shrugged. She had woken in the hospital with him far after the grand opening of the Stakely building, and she hadn’t given it a thought.

“You were at the hospital,” he said.

“How did you know?”

“One of the nurses described a crazy woman with long red hair and scary green eyes. I went out on a limb and guessed it was you. Why weren’t you there when I woke up?”

“Your dance card was a bit crowded, and I had something I needed to do,” she said.

“Why do you have a black eye and fat lip?”

“Riley.”

“How does she look?”

“The same,” she said.

He squeezed her shoulders. “There’s my brutally violent girl. Did you walk?”

“Always.”

“Can I give you a ride?”

“Are you okay to drive?”

“Sure,” he said. His flippant tone wasn’t convincing, but they were only a few blocks from home. The ride was over almost before it got started. They remained in the car, reluctant to get out. Finally Lacy couldn’t take the tension anymore. Jason followed slowly behind her. They paused on the porch and faced each other.

There was a part of Lacy that wanted to bury her head in the sand, to pretend nothing was wrong between them. But lack of communication had been their problem for far too long, and it was her turn to take the first step. “Jason, I was wrong about so many things,” she said. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. I went about everything all wrong. I kept trying to make you do what I wanted you to do, to be who I wanted you to be. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

They stared at each other, the tension and silence so oppressive Lacy felt almost like she was suffocating. “Did you mean it when you said you were done?”

“Geez, are you crazy? I was mad, but I’m not stupid. I’ve bluffed so many times since you came along. I thought you were beginning to see through me.”

“Bluffed about what?” Lacy asked.

“About letting you go, about staying away. Didn’t it ever occur to you that no matter how many times I said it, I couldn’t follow through and actually leave you alone? I made fun of Tosh for being pathetic, when the truth is that I’m the most pathetic man in the universe when it comes to you.”

“You said Tosh’s name,” Lacy pointed out. He had never said it before unless he had to.

“The rumor on the street is that he saved my life. Expect me to look for ways to try and kill him so I can save him and repay the debt.”

Lacy laughed, but it was a wobbly sound, too full of recent terror to be amused. Jason inched closer and rested his good hand on her waist. She slipped her arms around his neck, closed her eyes, and pressed her face to his chest.

“I’m going to be good with everything now,” he said. “I promise. I’m going to be patient and realize you need to take your time. I know you and he are tight, and I know you have issues with the whole relationship thing.”

She shook her head.

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean that it’s really nice, what you’re offering, but it’s a moot point.”

“Speak slowly and clearly for the poor guy who lost too much blood. What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that in that moment when I saw Tosh covered in blood and realized it was yours, nothing else mattered. Not trying to tiptoe around Tosh’s feelings, not my fear of commitment—nothing. I’m saying that I’m in this thing that we have going on, fully and completely.”

He stared at her, wordlessly blinking for so long that she began to feel like a fool. Had she assumed too much? Had she read too much into their friendship? Had she misunderstood everything? Time to backpedal. “I mean, if you want to be with me. I guess you never really said that you wanted to be in an exclusive relationship. I just assumed, and that’s probably a presumptuous assumption on my part. You see, this is why I didn’t want to do this because I always mess it up. I’m not very good at…”

“Lacy,” he interrupted.

“What?” she said. She stared at his chest, afraid to look up and see the gentle rejection in his expression.

“You’re ruining the moment with too many words.”

“Oh, sorry. I babble when…”

He pressed his index finger to her lips and then used it to tip her face up, and then he kissed her. Her lip was still swollen and split, so the kiss was gentle. But it was a very sweet sort of kiss, the kind that promised many more to come. When it was over, she was the first to speak.