A Night at the Operation (34 page)

Sharon would be dead.

I backed up against the door, in the hope that I could somehow gain speed in a lunge, but Gwen was already moving the blade toward Sharon’s neck, and a tiny spot of blood showed on her throat. Sharon inhaled deeply, gasping for breath. She looked terrified.

But mostly, she looked angry at Gwen. “It was you, wasn’t it?” Sharon growled. “You pushed that shopping cart at me with the cinder blocks in it, and you threw the brick that hit Elliot.”

“Of course it was me,” Gwen said. “Although I am sorry about that, Mr. Freed; I was aiming the brick at
her
, and I simply missed.” Her face hardened again. “My sister and her worthless husband knew—Wally was driving the car, even—but they were useless. They left it all up to me, as usual.”

“They left it up to you to kill your father, too, didn’t they?” I said. The Lillian scenario had been too easy; I’d wanted it to be Lillian who did the killing, so I believed it when it was offered.

“Oh, they wanted it, trust me,” Gwen said. “But they couldn’t do it themselves. No, it was always me who did the dirty work.”

“But Lillian got arrested and charged with the murder,” I said, thinking out loud. “Why wouldn’t she rat you out then?”

“She’ll get off, and she knows it,” Gwen said. “She can afford the best criminal lawyer in the world. And I promised if she keeps quiet, I’d end the affair I was having with her husband.”

“It was you with him at the hotel in Newark.”

She closed her eyes and nodded her head, acknowledging what I’d suggested, even while she pointed out what an idiot I was for not figuring it out sooner.

“My family is more screwed up than you can possibly imagine,” Gwen said.

“You know,” I said, deciding to take a more aggressive attitude, “I’ve had it with you and your family.”

Gwen stopped, startled by my tone. “What the hell are you talking about, you’re tired of us? This woman . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, she ruined your life. I should have figured it. You were the one who said your father wouldn’t invest without a prototype, and that’s what the pTYpe on that stupid gadget of Lennon’s meant.”

“Don’t you call it . . .” Gwen began.

“I’m
talking
!” I figured crazy responds to crazy and Gwen was major crazy. “You were behind the whole connection between Lennon and your father to begin with, weren’t you? You looked into Lennon’s big blue eyes, and you wanted him to have whatever he wanted, no matter how impractical it was. So you went to work on your father, and he agreed to meet this brilliant inventor. But he saw the clamp was too clumsy, too badly designed, to be marketable, and he turned Lennon down. And you got so mad you went in there and cut your own father’s throat, probably with the blade on the clamp. Right?
Right
?”

Gwen looked so stunned that I considered diving for the scalpel, but I just couldn’t force myself to do it—one miscalculation, and Sharon would be dead.

Then there was a knock on the door.

Before Gwen could say anything, the hand behind my back turned the knob and I swung the office door out into the lobby. A guy in a dark blue uniform stood there, and I had a momentary sigh of relief; the police were here.

But, no. “Registered letter,” he said, holding out an envelope.

“Don’t let him in,” Gwen ordered.

And that’s when it came to me.

“Come on in,” I said. “Do I have to sign?”

“Yes,” the mailman said. “It’s standard.”

Now, Gwen would have to kill two
more
of us if she thought she was going to get away with this gambit. I’d have to keep the postal guy in the office, though, because she had seemed perfectly willing to slice Sharon’s throat in front of me.

The guy walked in, but closed the door behind him, and that was a problem. It was already crowded in the office. He wormed his way past me to the desk, and held out a pen. “Sign, please?”

“Just a second. Let me get my pen.”

He held his out. “I have one.”

“I know,” I said airily. I noticed Gwen had lowered her hand, keeping the scalpel out of sight, but she must have had it close by, and had covered Sharon’s wrists, bound to the chair, with her scarf. Sharon couldn’t use the wheels of the chair to escape. There just wasn’t enough room in the office to maneuver.

I leaned over the postal guy and reached for a jar of pens I keep on the desk. I made a show of trying out different ones, trying to find just the right writing implement.

“Just sign for the letter,” Gwen said.

But then there was another knock on the door, and I motioned to the postal guy. He opened it before Gwen could protest.

Leo Munson stood in the doorway, and I waved him in. “Leo!” I shouted in the most jovial voice I could muster. “Come on in!”

Leo surveyed the room, and asked, “Where?”

“We’ll make room. What’s up?”

Leo squeezed his way through the door and stood next to Sharon, pressed against one of the filing cabinets. “I just wanted to see if you were still showing the Pink Panther cartoon before the movie,” he said. “I hate the Pink Panther.”

“No,” I told him. “We’ve moved on to Road Runner.”

“About time,” Leo answered. “Well, that was all . . .”

“Stick around,” I said. “I think there’s a box of Yodels in that file cabinet.” Leo has a sweets fixation, and he started the tortured process of turning around to open the drawer.

Gwen was looking even more livid than before, and it didn’t help when the door opened and Sophie and Jonathan appeared in the doorway. “What’s going on in here?” Sophie said. “People come in, and they don’t come out.”

“Sophie! Jonathan!” I sounded like a game show host. “Leo, did I tell you that Sophie is now the manager of Comedy Tonight?”

Leo turned and smiled, chocolate on his lips. “No! Come here, sweetie, let me give you a hug. Congratulations!” And the two kids started to make their way into the room.

Sharon allowed herself a sly grin. She understood that I was trying to make it difficult both for Gwen to get away with anything in front of people, but also to move her arm. Sharon nodded in my direction. I made sure Sophie didn’t close the door behind her.

“Anybody else out there?” I yelled.

“Stop that!” Gwen shouted, but she was being drowned out by the conversation in the room.

My father appeared in the doorway, with my mother by his side. “So this is where everybody went,” he said. “What’s going on? It looks crowded.”

“We’re shooting for the Guinness World Record for the most people in a broom closet,” I told him. “Come on in!”

“Could you just sign for the letter?” the postman said.

“I thought you guys always rang twice,” I told him. It didn’t seem to appease him at all, but it did shut him up.

Gwen’s face was as angry as I’ve ever seen a human look. In fact, since I’ve never actually been in the room with an annoyed cheetah, I was willing to say it was the angriest face I’d seen on any species.

She stuck out her lower lip and painfully raised her arm with the scalpel. “This has gone far enough,” she said, loudly enough to be heard.

Gwen got her arm back in place on Sharon’s throat, and a gasp went around the room. Nobody spoke.

Except my mother.

“What do you think you’re doing to my daughter-in-law?” Gloria Freed shot at Gwen. She was on my side, yet my mother’s voice still frightened
me
.

“I’m making her pay,” Gwen said, and tried to move the scalpel, but it was difficult to move her arm.

“Pay for what?” my mother wanted to know. “Sharon hasn’t done anything wrong, except scare us all to death.”

“She ruined my life. I’m Gwen Chapman.” She seemed to think that would cut some ice in this room, but was sadly mistaken.

“Oh, don’t be an idiot,” my mother said.

“This can’t be the best way to solve your problem.” My father. Ever the voice of reason, Arthur Freed.

From outside, I heard Sandy Arnstein’s voice. “Arthur? Is that you?”

I nodded at Dad: Yes, get more people here. “Yeah!” Dad shouted. “Come on in!”

We hit the jackpot: Arnstein appeared with Milt the painter, Ralph the plasterer, and Mr. A-OK the plumber. “What the hell is this?” Arnstein asked. “It looks like the black hole of Calcutta in there.”

“But it’s so much
fun
!” Sharon shouted. “Come on in!”

And that was all it took—all four men started squeezing their way in. The rest of the gathering (with the exception of Gwen, who was still trying to draw her arm back, but kept hitting it on an old projector we use for spare parts) now understood the game, and started pressing in to make room. By the time the four workmen got inside, we had created a scene around Gwen and Sharon that made
The Last Supper
look like an Ansel Adams photograph of Montana on an especially empty day.

Dad, edging toward Gwen, had his eye on the scalpel. But his arms were literally pressed straight down against his sides, and he’s not that strong. I began to worry about his heart.

And that’s when Gregory showed up.

He didn’t even ask any questions. He just wormed his way in and tried to make it to Sharon. He got as far as the plumber and was caught in an eddy that threatened to send him back out the door.

“Gregory!” my mother yelled. “Grab her!”

“I would,” he answered, “but she’s all the way over there.”

“Not her
. Her!
”

Bobo Kaminsky showed up in the door. “You didn’t pay for the snow tires, Elliot,” he said. “Hey. You having a party?”

“Yes, and there’s Yodels!” Leo shouted. Bobo, all six-feet-two in every direction of him, needed to hear no more. He was on his way, and much groaning ensued.

“Give it up, Gwen,” I said in as close to a normal voice as I could muster. “You’re not getting anywhere.”

“Yes, I am,” she insisted. “I’ll kill her if I have to carve through all of you to do it.”
Major
crazy.

“Elliot?” When Meg Vidal’s voice came through the door, before I could see her, I closed my eyes.
Please, Meg. Be wearing your uniform
.

But Meg is a detective, and only dresses in blues for cop funerals and special ceremonies. She showed up in the doorway, and stood, amazed, at the spectacle therein.

“What in god’s name . . . ?”

“Detective Vidal, a woman in here is trying to commit felony murder!” I shouted. “Draw your weapon!”

“And shoot at
whom
?” Meg asked. “It’s a sea of humanity in there.”

“I’ll show you,” Sharon said. “Come to me.”

“Officer, this woman killed my father! They arrested her and they let her go! And they’re framing my sister for the murder!” Gwen’s voice seemed to come out of the back wall. Leo was stretched out on the filing cabinets, actually eating a Yodel, and the mailman was sitting on the desk, chatting with the plasterer.

Meg considered her gun, but knew it was impossible to pick out a target. She sighed, and began squirming into the room.

And right behind her was Moe Baxter. “Elliot, where the hell are my car keys?”

“In here, Moe!” I yelled. “I’ve got ’em for you. Thanks for the loaner.”

Moe stood in the doorway and said, “No way.” Moe’s a germophobe. Normally, being in a small room with that many people would be his idea of hell. But then he spotted Sharon in the room, and yelled, “Sharon! I’m so glad you’re okay!” He dove into the scrum.

Still at the door, I decided to make Gwen that much more uncomfortable. I closed the door. There were groans from the crowd.

The seventeen of us, in a room built for, well, two brooms, were practically immobile. I couldn’t decide if I wanted Anthony and Carla to come down and join us, but luckily, it didn’t become an issue. Gregory stood on the little table I use for the spare equipment on the left side of the room. Sophie and Jonathan had taken up a position beneath it. I was not interested in finding out what they were doing.

Meg, in the meantime, was inching her way toward Gwen.

But Gwen was raising her scalpel hand over her head. I expected to hear Sondheim tunes and looked for the barber chair, but this time, the blade was headed downward, toward Sharon.

“You can’t kill her!” I shouted. “She’s pregnant!”

All the motion and sound in the room stopped. Even Gwen’s hand halted in midair.

“Elliot!” Sharon said, annoyed.

Gregory, on the table, looked positively stricken. “Pregnant?” he asked. “But we haven’t . . .” Then he glared at me.
“You,”
he snarled.

“A grandchild!” my mother shouted. “Finally!”

There were noises of congratulations around the room.

But Gregory was unmoved. “Oh yeah?” he spat at me. “Well, I was the one who trashed your house!”

Again, silence in the room. “What?” I asked.

“You heard me. You wouldn’t listen to me, even when I told you Sharon was missing. Dumb old Gregory being dumb again. So I took Sharon’s spare key to your house, and I went there looking for something that would remind her of how you treated her when you were married, so she’d stop idealizing you. That stupid video collection of yours—you love it more than her! So I started . . .” His voice just trailed off.

“But I thought your house was burglarized, too,” Mom said.

“I made that up,” Gregory mumbled.

“You
lied
to me,” Mom gasped. Of all the things about Gregory to be appalled about, she chose that one.

“Let me clue you in, dumb old Gregory—and don’t be so hard on yourself; you’re not that old. When you trashed my living room, you yanked the answering machine out of the wall, so it wasn’t flashing when I got home, and we
never got Sharon’s message
.” I looked at him (as best as I could through the sea of humanity). “You could have saved us all a lot of worry.”

Gregory said, “Um . . .”

In the fray, Meg had inched her way to Gwen; with that as her mission from the start, she’d made sure to keep her arms free. She grabbed Gwen’s wrist and halted any movement of the scalpel. Bobo reached over with the desk scissors and cut the surgical tape on Sharon’s wrists, and she stood up, causing ripples in the crowd.