A Death in Duck: Lindsay Harding Cozy Mystery Series (Reverend Lindsay Harding Mystery Book 2) (26 page)

Lindsay’s thoughts about her mother’s motivations underwent another seismic shift. Could it be that her mother had been telling the truth about trying to protect her? That the only reason she’d helped Swoopes was to keep Lindsay from harm?

“Well?” Swoopes demanded.

“Fine. But remember, God punishes you extra hard if you lie to a minister. I have your word. The combination is 04-27-03-27-04-25.” She had to hope that the numbers were far enough off of the true combination that the safe wouldn’t open when Swoopes tried them, but close enough that she could have a chance to complete her Hail Mary.

              Swoopes immediately began to spin the dials of the lock, still keeping a weather eye on Lindsay. When he reached the last of the six numbers, he wrenched the large steel handle. It didn’t budge. He tried again with more force, but still he handle didn’t yield an inch. “Say those numbers again,” he demanded. Lindsay repeated the series of incorrect numbers. When his second attempt also failed to open the safe, he sprang down to the floor in front of Lindsay like a pouncing tiger. “Liar!” he growled.

              “It’s temperamental,” Lindsay replied evenly. “It’s very old, and it takes a little while to get the hang of it. You have to jiggle it a little after each rotation to get the pins to click into place. If you help me stand up, I’ll watch you and tell you when to jiggle. Now, you’ve gotta move it up and down on the odd spins and a little bit side to side on the even spins. Except on the last spin. Definitely don’t jiggle it then or you’ll have to start all over. You’ll be able to feel it in your fingertips when the pins click.” She nodded reassuringly. She hoped that her explanation sounded convincing…and sufficiently convoluted.

He glared at her and went to the kitchen. He returned a moment later wielding a heavy butcher’s knife. Lindsay gasped when she saw it, but her anxiety was misplaced. Swoopes used the knife to slit open the tape that bound her wrists. “You do it,” he commanded. Lindsay began to struggle to her feet, clawing her way unsteadily up the wall. In truth, despite her injuries and the binding on her ankles, she could have risen easily and would’ve had no trouble standing unassisted. Good balance was one of the benefits of being very short. However, she needed him to do what he did next—cut the tape on her ankles. Phase one of Operation Hail Mary had been successful.

He drew out his handgun and trained it on her. “Open it.”

Lindsay stepped in front of the safe and whispered a silent prayer.
God, help me to trust that you have given me all the tools I need to live through this
. With a shaky breath, she began spinning the dials. Swoopes watched her carefully, making sure that she entered the numbers she’d given him and jiggled the dial at the appropriate intervals. After the first two correct numbers were entered under Swoopes’s close supervision, Lindsay said, “How did you get hold of my angel pin? I thought I dropped it in the hospital garden.” Although she did genuinely want to know the answer, the question was timed to distract his attention momentarily. She couldn’t let him see that she’d tricked him by giving him the wrong combination. Sure enough, when Swoopes opened his mouth to speak, his eye twitched away from the dial for a split second—long enough for her to move the dial from the 03 to the 04 position and quickly spin it onto the next number.

“It wasn’t your pin I was after,” Swoopes said. “If that little friend of yours hadn’t’a come along, I would’a been able to get hold of a real angel.” He stroked Lindsay’s hair and ran his hand down the back of her neck, causing every muscle in her body to seize in terror. “But it turned out for the best. The pin was enough to convince Sarabelle that I meant business, and I didn’t have to worry about what to do with you after I finished with you.”

Lindsay stepped back abruptly as the final pin clicked into place. “There,” she said. Now all you have to do it open it.”

Chapter 25

“Remember,” Lindsay said, feigning sincerity. “You promised that if I helped you, you’d let us go.”

Swoopes pushed her roughly aside and took hold of the handle. He cranked it sideways and the thick, heavy door creaked open. All the guns were gone, as Lindsay knew they would be. In the bottom of the safe lay a few neatly-folded cloths and cleaning tools. The shelves at the top of the safe housed empty ammunition boxes and the dented metal cashier’s box containing Nancy Mix’s ashes.

“What the hell?” Swoopes roared. He opened the door wider, as if in the hope that somewhere, hidden in the back, the safe contained a secret Aladdin’s cave full of treasures. He set the gun down on top of the safe as he did what Lindsay had prayed that he would do. She held her breath, watching him pull down the cashier’s box containing her grandmother’s remains. The small key had been left in the top of the box. He twisted it and pulled open the lid.

Lindsay sprang forward and pushed up as hard as she could on the bottom of the box, throwing several pounds of gray ash into Swoopes’s face. The box clattered to the floor as Swoopes spat and coughed, trying to clear his eyes with his balled fists. With ashes clinging to his face, clothes, and hair, and his face twisted into a grimace of rage, he looked like a horror-movie zombie.  Lindsay shoved him backwards with all her might and reached up for the gun. His reflexes were quicker than Lindsay had anticipated, though. He sprang forward and groped blindly for the gun. Lindsay only had time to bat it away with her hand and send it skittering across the room. Swoopes lurched towards it, but he tripped over one of the overturned dining chairs. As he tried to scramble to his feet, Lindsay panicked. There was no way she could reach the gun before he did, and even if she somehow miraculously managed to, Swoopes would overpower her before she could fire a shot.

Her earlier, whispered prayer flashed into her mind.
God, help me to trust that you have given me all the tools I need to live through this
. And then—miraculously—she realized that God had given her all the tools she needed. She reached into her jacket pocket, her hand closing around the flathead screwdriver that she’d been using to start her car. Without a moment’s hesitation, she raised it and then plunged it into Swoopes’s lower back. The ease with which it sank into his flesh almost made her physically sick.

Swoopes let out a yowl of pain, arching backwards and reaching for the screwdriver. Lindsay yanked it out as he rolled over onto his back. She stabbed it downwards again, this time connecting with the soft flesh of his belly. His hands closed over the top over hers and she realized that, despite his wounds, he would easily manage to wrest it from her grip. She took a step back and kicked him as hard as she could in his groin. He dropped the screwdriver and instantly curled up like a pork rind in hot grease. Lindsay dashed across the room and seized the gun.

By the time Swoopes rose from the ground still clutching his stomach, he found his own gun trained on him. Lindsay held it out in front of her with shaking hands. “Don’t move,” she commanded.

“Why don’t you put that big gun down, honey?” he soothed. “You know you ain’t gonna shoot nobody. Betchya never even held a gun before.”

Although Lindsay had learned at a young age how to fire the hunting rifle Aunt Harding had given her, it was true that she had never before held a handgun. All the times she had seen Aunt Harding clean the guns in her collection, and she had never once been allowed to handle them.

Her eyes darted from Swoopes’s face to the weapon in her hands, trying to figure out how it worked. Swoopes took a step toward her with his hands raised as if he meant no harm. The look of pure malice in his eyes belied the white flag gesture. She could see the blood beginning to soak through his shirt, but the injuries didn’t seem to have done enough damage to stop his advance. She frantically felt along the side of the gun for some kind of safety switch—that much she had learned from her duck hunting days. She found the small mechanism, and slid it to the off position. As Swoopes continued to advance toward her, she inhaled deeply and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She slid the safety back and forth, pulling the trigger. Again and again, nothing happened.

              Swoopes smiled and began to move ahead with renewed confidence. None of Aunt Harding’s guns had looked remotely like this one. They were all older weapons, and with a few exceptions, they were hunting rifles or shotguns. Her mind pored over every recollection of a gunfight that she’d seen on TV or in a movie. She remembered cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, John Wayne pulling down on the lever of a revolver to cock the gun. This gun had no such lever—just a slick silver barrel. Why could every single Hollywood actor who ever lived do this with such ease, while she, whose very life depended on it, couldn’t get the damn thing to fire?! Swoopes was now directly in front of her. Another five steps and her life would be over.

              Suddenly, she remembered the terrible movie she had seen on last summer’s double date with Tanner and Gibb. The beefy ex-pro-wrestler who starred in it had used this same kind of slick-looking gun. She could envision him as he launched himself acrobatically from an exploding car, all the while pulling back on the gun’s top, releasing spent cartridges while new bullets rose into the chamber. She moved her hand to the top of the gun and closed it around the slide. She pulled back, heard the bullet click up into the chamber, closed her eyes, pulled the trigger, and fired. She fired again and again until the only thing sound the gun made when she pulled the trigger was a dull clicking. Five shots in total.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that although she had finally managed to fire the gun, she hadn’t managed to aim it. She had been shooting from nearly point blank range, but only two bullets had connected with Swoopes’s body; the others had whizzed harmlessly into the wall behind him. Swoopes held his left hand to his wounded right arm and shoulder. Though the wounds didn’t appear to be likely to be fatal, the shock and pain were enough to send him crashing to his knees.

Lindsay raced to the kitchen phone. A new wave of horror swept over her—Swoopes had ripped the receiver and outlet from the wall. Bare wires now dangled from the space the outlet box used to occupy. It was the only phone in Aunt Harding’s house.

Her mind teemed with muddled thoughts. She had a head start, and despite her injuries, she was in far better shape than Swoopes. She knew that she could make it to safety. But what about Simmy and Sarabelle? Would she find help for them in time? Could she risk leaving them in the same room as a killer who had nothing left to lose? She crept back into the dining room, keeping the gun in front of her like a talisman. Swoopes lay moaning on the floor. Sarabelle was still motionless under the table. Simmy slumped next to the open safe, mumbling dazedly to herself.

Lindsay stepped back into the kitchen and inspected the weapon she was holding. She clicked a heretofore unnoticed button and released the magazine from the gun. Shaking it, she peered inside. Empty. As she pocketed the now-useless gun, she paced the kitchen and tried to organize her thoughts. She mentally lined up her choices. One: flee and hope that Swoopes was too incapacitated to harm Sarabelle or Simmy before she could summon help. Two: try to escape with Sarabelle and Simmy. Three: kill Swoopes.

She immediately dismissed option three. Defending herself against an onrushing attacker was one thing, but the idea of walking over and trying to kill Swoopes with a knife or her bare hands while he lay bleeding on the floor was too terrible to contemplate. Even with a fairly broad interpretation of the Bible’s core message, she was pretty sure that God would take a dim view of a chaplain committing a calculated murder. She realized that option one wasn’t a real alternative either. She could no more leave Sarabelle and Simmy in danger than she could sprout wings and fly through the ceiling. It was simply not in her nature.

Swoopes’s jacket was still lying on the dining room table, so Lindsay quickly rifled through his pockets until she found the keys to his truck. She knelt down next to Simmy. “Simmy?” she whispered. “Simmy, can you hear me? We’ve gotta move.”

Simmy’s eyelids fluttered open and she smiled like a dreaming child. Lindsay grabbed the butcher’s knife from the dining table and cut the tape that bound Simmy’s hands and feet. She set the knife on the floor and hooked Simmy’s arm around her shoulder, hoisting the old woman to her feet. Simmy was able to stagger along beside Lindsay until they reached Swoopes’s truck. Lindsay heaved Simmy into the passenger’s seat and returned to the house. Sarabelle was much more difficult to manage. She had always seemed impossibly petite to Lindsay—even more elfin in figure than Lindsay herself. Now, however, she was out cold and had all the maneuverability of a beached orca.

With great difficulty, Lindsay managed to drag Sarabelle out of the house and down the back steps. As she pulled her mother across the sand toward the truck, she kept one eye trained on the back door of the house. All was quiet. Lindsay continued to slowly, painfully drag Sarabelle across the sand, stopping frequently to catch her breath. Any kind of deep inhalation was excruciating, and the hunching and pulling motion only made the torture more extreme. Several times, Lindsay’s vision swam and she had to will herself not to pass out from the pain. When they finally reached the truck, Lindsay found Simmy still hunched over in the front seat. “Simmy,” she called, patting her gently on the cheek. “Try to stay awake, okay? I think you have a concussion.”

Simmy smiled. “It’s so nice that we’re all together like this. We’ll have such a nice time at the beach. Did you bring the sandwiches?” she asked, looking suddenly worried about the possible absence of refreshments.

“Okay, I
know
you have a concussion,” Lindsay mumbled, returning to the daunting task of trying to lift Sarabelle into the truck alongside Simmy. Getting her mother into the truck required her full concentration; it was like picking up vanilla pudding with a pair of tongs. Finally, Lindsay managed to get every stray body part within the cab of the truck.

“Lindsay, honey?” Simmy called in a sleepy voice. She was looking over the top of Lindsay’s bowed head. “Can you ask that man if he brought the sandwiches?”

Lindsay spun around. There, lurching across the sand towards them, was Leander Swoopes. He had crept up soundlessly while her attention was focused on Sarabelle, and now he was mere steps away.

Lindsay screamed and dove into the truck on top of her mother and Simmy. She slammed the passenger’s side door shut and pushed the lock button just as Swoopes reached for the outside door handle. The truck had a single bench seat, which Lindsay clambered across to reach the driver’s side. While she fumbled for the key, Swoopes rounded the truck to the driver’s side and tried that door. When he found it, too, was locked, he banged on the glass with the handle of the butcher’s knife. “You better let me in, girlie,” he shouted through the glass.

Trying not to make eye contact with Swoopes, Lindsay found the key and put it into the ignition. To her immense relief, the engine turned over on the first try. She could barely reach the pedals—the seat was adjusted to Swoopes’s height, but there was no time to change it. She slammed the truck into reverse, propelling it quickly away from him. Terrified that the wheels would get stuck in the soft sand next to the house, Lindsay spun the wheel hard to the right, trying to maneuver onto the beaten track. The rapid movement, though, sent Simmy and Sarabelle careening into her like riders on a Tilt-a-Whirl. As their inert bodies pressed Lindsay against the driver’s side door, her foot slipped off the accelerator. She shoved them across the seat and slid back into position at the wheel.

As her eyes snapped back to the windshield, she saw a large object hurtling towards her. She barely had time to duck before it made impact, shattering the windshield and showering her hair with fragmented safety glass. When she looked up again, a large rock rested on top of one of the wiper blades, which was now bent back into the empty opening that used to hold the windshield. During the seconds it took for Lindsay to regain her position, Swoopes covered the distance between them. He sprang on the hood of the truck and reached through the void into the cab. His bloody fingers clawed the air just in front of Lindsay’s chest as she pressed herself backwards into the seat. In order to shift into Drive, she had to edge forward ever so slightly. As she did so, Swoopes grabbed hold of the front of her jacket. For a brief moment, Lindsay felt herself being pulled forward. She gripped the steering wheel, trying to keep from being lifted from the truck. When Swoopes’s fist closed around her jacket, though, she felt the material rip. He cried out in pain and relaxed his grip. Lindsay looked down to see that her angel pin, which Swoopes had affixed to the front of her jacket only minutes before, was now sticking out from the middle of his palm like a stigmata. That split-second distraction was all Lindsay needed to slide forward, slam on the accelerator, and twist the wheel, throwing Swoopes off the hood.

She steered onto the sand road. When she chanced a glance in the rear view mirror, Swoopes was nowhere to be seen. She kept her foot glued to the accelerator, flying past the desolate beaches and shuttered vacation homes along the way, not slowing down until she reached the twinkling lights of Corolla.