Blindfold (26 page)

And Lane and Maggie were, at this very moment, the only two people in the new courthouse.

chuckle. "Why, you little scamp, you! You know, don't you? You figured it out, all by your little self. Congratulations. Not that it makes any difference. We're the only people in this building, Maggie. I phoned in a bomb threat to the high school. The police are there, waiting for it to blow up. And all of the men working in here went over there to see what was up."

Out of breath, her heart hammering in her chest, Maggie stood in the middle of the empty, unfinished office, shaking. The floor was bare, the boards she was standing on wobbly, clearly not nailed in place yet, and there were tools everywhere. Directly in front of the plastic, two sawhorses faced each other, as if they were carrying on a conversation. A long, loose board two inches thick rested at a slant against the sawhorse facing Maggie. A hammer, a saw, and a box of nails sat on the other.

Someone was working up here, she told herself in an effort to calm herself. They'll be back. Any minute now, they'll be back.

There was no place to hide, none at all. No desk, no file cabinet, not even a potted plant. And no place to run to.

"Sheriff?" she shouted desperately. "Sheriff Donovan, are you up here?"

No answer.

She moved swiftly to the plastic curtain and would have pulled a loose edge aside to scream for help, if there hadn't been a sudden whoosh of air behind her. She hadn't heard a thing until then, hadn't realized that she had no more time left.

Something thick and black slipped over her eyes, and a voice whispered in her ear, "I took my shoes off so you wouldn't hear me, just like I did in the law library. Wasn't that clever of me?" Then strong hands whirled Maggie around, grabbed both of her hands at the same time, and roughly wound a rope around her wrists, tying her hands in front of her. "I have just picked up a large hammer. If you make one sound, just one, I'm going to bash your brains m.

Terrifyingly conscious of the four-story drop to the ground directly at her back, Maggie made no move to resist. One gentle shove and she'd fall to her death.

The hands that led her, then, away from the opening were not rough. They walked a few feet, and then she was gently pushed into a sitting position on what she realized was the sawhorse facing the door. When Lane spoke next, Maggie could tell that she was seated, too, on the opposite sawhorse, facing Maggie.

"We have plenty of time," Lane said, in a normal, rather friendly voice. "Felicity doesn't have bomb-sniffing dogs. Doesn't even have a bomb squad, can you believe that? So it'll take a while for them to figure out there's no bomb over at the high school." Her voice hardened. "Where's my ticket? And my key?"

"In my purse." Maggie let herself feel relief that it wasn't Scout. His mother must not have been told yet that she was being sent to California. Or maybe she just hadn't wanted to admit it. They really should tell her soon.

Maggie could feel the edge of the board that rested at a slant against the sawhorse digging into her left hip. It felt oddly comforting, as if it meant she wasn't completely alone. "You saw me pick up the ticket?"

"Nope. But I couldn't find it, and then you flew out of the room. Wasn't hard to figure out. I knew you'd think it was Scout, because he'd been to the bus station. And I knew that, as much as you'd hate to, you'd go straight to the sheriff even though Scout is one of your best friends. Everyone knows how fair you are. That's why you're foreperson. So I called the sheriffs office to find out where he was, and they said he was here. I knew you'd come here looking for him. Then I called in the bomb threat."

"I get it about the beam collapsing ... you were there ... and the explosion, which probably wasn't hard. What I don't get is the well. You fell in."

"Yep. I did. Saw the well on the diagrams at the WOH. I was afraid your mother was going to change her mind about canceling the plans, and I couldn't let that happen. When I went over there to find the well, some old guy came along, showed me where it was, and told me it was pretty well filled in. I knew I wouldn't get hurt. But I wore the sweatsuit for added protection." Lane laughed. "Those diagrams they found in Chantilly's car don't have anything to do with the old courthouse. James takes drafting class. That was his homework."

Maggie, loathing the blindfold, nodded. "I knew that sweatsuit wasn't the kind of outfit you usually wear in public. But... why Helen's hankie, if you

were trying to make it look like an accident, like the cover had just given way?"

"The sweatsuit helped, you know," Lane said. "The doctor said so. As for the hankie, I was afraid the sheriff would notice the boards had been sawed through. Fd had that hankie for a long time. Took it from Helen's room before Fd even thought of any of this stuff. It was pretty, and I wanted it. I figured, if he did notice the boards hadn't just given way, he'd suspect Helen, which would buy me some time. So I took the hankie with me when I dove into that hole in the ground. Good thing, too, because that sheriff isn't as dumb as he looks."

"Well, you just think of everything, don't you?"

"Don't be cute. Okay, here's the deal. You, Magdalene Jaye Keene, have been convicted of destroying my life. By finding Dante when no one else had."

"That wasn't my fault."

"Well, yeah, I know that. But the other two have already been taken care of, and you do bear some responsibility, you know. Anyway," continuing blithely, "I've appointed myself your executioner. Any last wishes?"

"Sure. Don't kill me. Like you did the others."

"I'm not going to kill you like I did the others. I'm going to kill you in an entirely different way." Low, cold laughter. Not maniacal, but still, insane in its own way.

Maggie's blood froze. Lane was insane, though few people would have guessed it. But you couldn't kill two people and try to kill three more without

losing your sanity, could you? Or did the sanity go first, and then the deaths?

Why hadn't she guessed? Why hadn't anyone?

"Actually, I'm not going to kill you at all."

Maggie held her breath.

"Fm just going to make you take a little walk, that's all. Right through that opening over there. Blindfolded, of course. You're going to walk the plank, just like pirates did once upon a time." Lane sighed heavily. "Anyway, that's an unacceptable last wish, asking for a reprieve. No reprieves. Got another wish?"

When the nervous tapping sound began, Maggie wasn't sure at first what it was, and a tiny sprig of hope arose within her... someone might be coming up the stairs? Then she realized, with bitter disappointment, that Lane had put her shoes back on and was tapping the heels of her black flats against the slanted board resting at her feet.

Maggie shifted imperceptibly closer to the board beside her. The bottom edge was resting on the floor, the upper half directly adjacent to Maggie's left shoulder. Being blindfolded seemed to have improved her hearing. If Lane continued tapping her feet...

But with her hands tied, and her eyes covered ... impossible to save herself.

"Yes. I do have another last wish. Tell me why you did it. Tell me what you did." Maybe the sheriff would come. Maybe a worker. Someone. How long did it take to discover that a bomb scare had been a hoax, without bomb-sniffing dogs or a bomb squad?

"Sure. Why not? But just in case you get any dumb ideas, remember the hammer in my hand."

Maggie felt sick. "Just tell me."

She felt even sicker as the story of Christy's death and Dante's imprisonment unfolded.

"All I wanted him to do was leave town. I even gave him money. And I got him out of his cell and up the chute. But once we got outside, Dante changed his mind. He said why should he leave Felicity when I was the one who had killed Christy? He said he wouldn't go, that I had to go to the authorities and confess. Right. Like I was stupid enough to do that. So I pushed him. Hard. He fell, landing on his back on the parking lot, with his head facing the open chute window. He was sort of stunned, so I grabbed his feet and pushed again, harder this time. Pushed him into the chute. He slid down backward, and I heard the crack when his skull slammed into the wooden railroad ties holding the coal in the bin."

The voice paused, and Maggie said, "I guess you didn't call for help."

"Very funny. I slid back down the coal chute. I knew right away that Dante was dead. His face looked peaceful. I thought that was nice. I figured I'd probably saved him a lot of heartache, you know? I mean, no one would ever have believed that I killed Christy instead of him, and that would have been really hard on him. He'd have felt persecuted all of his life," a giggle, "not to mention prosecuted."

The casual way Lane spoke of murder, even if it

had been involuntary in the beginning, at least, turned Maggie's entire body icy cold. Lane could just as easily have been discussing a football game, or shopping at the mall, or a movie.

"I couldn't leave him there for someone to find. And I couldn't carry him out of there. The bin was half-full of coal that no one ever bothered to remove, so I used my hands to scoop out a kind of well. Sort of like a grave, you might say. It took forever, and I was scared to death someone would hear me. Then I took off his jacket and cap, because he certainly wasn't going to need them and I'd always liked them. I thought it would be nice to have something to remind me of him. Then I put him in there and covered him up. Then I went home. The next day, I sent a letter to the newspaper, saying I'd seen rats coming out of the coal chute window and urging parents to keep their kids out of that cellar. Signed it with a fake name, of course. And it worked, as far as I knew. If any kids did sneak down there after that, they never found Dante. But then, why would they? No one ever played in the coal pile itself. Too dirty."

The wind at Maggie's back was stronger now, whistling like a teakettle, tugging at the plastic flap. If only she could see. She was as helpless as she had ever been. And so scared, her teeth were beginning to chatter. She clamped them together fiercely, biting her tongue in the process, but refusing to cry out with the sudden pain. "You saw the renovation plans during P.E.?" she asked. "That's how you knew about the beam?"

"Good guess. But it was James who locked you in that coal bin. I saw him do it. I was pretty sure then he'd be blamed for anything I did. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone. I just wanted to push home the point that the building was a wreck, that's all. So your mother would stop. But," she said hastily, "James and Chantilly did all the other stuff. The gavel, the bloody scale, the dolL" Contempt laced the words, "I would never bother with that kind of adolescent stuff."

"No, just murder," Maggie mumbled.

"I'm still holding this hammer, Maggie. So I'd watch my mouth if I were you."

"You turned the gas on in the kitchen at the bazaar?"

"Of course. That was so easy! I could have thrown a flaming log in through that window, and no one would have noticed. All they cared about was filling their stomachs with barbecue. Anyway, it was just a match. A fireplace match. Not that big. But it did the trick. I did wait until I saw you leave the kitchen, Maggie. Give me credit."

"You must have really loved him," Maggie said quietly. 'To do all that for him."

"I didn't blame Dante for picking Christy. Any guy would have. And by the way, Maggie, Scout wasn't lying. He never knew Christy."

Well, that was something. Scout hadn't lied. His mother was wrong.

"But I blamed her for the way she treated him. It was awful, horrible. She deserved to die! If someone treated Whit like that, you'd hate her, wouldn't you?"

"No. Fd hate him for letting her. And maybe you hated Dante, too, Lane. Maybe you just don't want to admit it." Maggie thought, just for a second, that she heard voices. Distant voices, but still... maybe help was on its way.

They'd better hurry.

"Maggie, we have to get this over with. You have to stand up now."

"Why did you stop in the law library? Why did you quit pushing the ladder?"

"Because you wouldn't give up! When I saw that you weren't going to let go, I knew I would have to quit before the others came back. You are so stubborn!"

It might be okay if Lane stood up, too. It might help. Crazy thought, crazy ... but she was not going to just sit here and let herself be pushed from the fourth floor.

"What if someone else had fallen into the well? Instead of you?"

She could almost hear the shrug. "That would have worked, too. But I really didn't want anyone else to get hurt. So I made sure I got there first, knowing I wouldn't get hurt."

"This from someone who's killed two people and is about to kill a third," Maggie said acidly. If she could just time this perfectly ... no, no, it would never work, crazy, crazy ... But it was something. "Do you really expect to get out of town before anyone sees or hears me fall screaming to my death? What makes you think you'll even get out of the building?"

'This building has sixty zillion entrances. I'm going out the one that's farthest from where you'll be . . . landing. Everyone will be on that side, where you hit. Not anywhere near the exit I'm using. Now, I want that bus ticket and my key. Then you're taking a walk, like I promised."

"I can't take my shoulder bag off, not with my hands tied in front of me. You'll have to come over here and get what you want." Stand up, Maggie urged silently, go ahead, stand up, feeling with her left shoulder for the board. It was still there, still resting beside her, like a teeter-totter, with her at the high end and Lane at the low end. She strained to hear the slightest sound, the tiniest whisper of fabric that would mean Lane was rising from the sawhorse.

She heard it. The sound of Lane's brown corduroy skirt rubbing against the sawhorse as Lane got to her feet.

So fast it took her own breath away, Maggie whirled to her left and pounded down with her bound, fisted hands on the top of the loose, seesaw board.

And a hot, triumphant surge of satisfaction rushed through her as the next sound she heard was the clicking together of Lane's teeth and a pained grunt when the board flew up and caught her under the chin. The sound that followed immediately was that of a body flying backward, tumbling over a sawhorse, and hitting the bare floor with a thud.