Citizen Insane (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #2) (9 page)

“Why were you at her house this morning anyway? What’s going on with Bunny Bergen? You know something.”

“I told you I can’t talk about this.”

Roz popped up, holding up a pair of keys in her hand. “I’m ready. I thought it would be better if I followed in my own car. Then we have a way home if they release you. That okay with you?”

I didn’t want to let the topic go. “Howard?”

He wasn’t budging. “You need to go.”

Bewildered, Roz glanced between us. “Did anyone hear what I said?”

Fine. If Howard didn’t care that Bunny Bergen was running around assassinating the mothers of Rustic Woods, then neither did I. “Sure, Roz. That’s a good idea. Juan will keep me company, right Juan?”

Juan smiled while wrapping things up for our departure.

“I’ll call you to check in,” Howard said, putting his hand on mine.

“Sure. You go do your job.”

“Barb—I love you. We’ll talk about. . . that other thing later.”

“Bunny?”

“No. The OTHER, other thing.”

Juan, as wonderful as he was, interrupted Howard at the absolutely wrong moment. “Time to go.”

Howard stepped away, the doors swung closed, the siren whooped, and we were off.

True to her word, Roz followed right on our tail and walked alongside my gurney as the EMTs wheeled me through the emergency entrance at Rustic Woods Hospital. After I answered a gazillion questions, they rolled me into a curtained area where the checked my blood pressure and tested my pupils for dilation. People kept coming and going. Roz and I didn’t have enough privacy to talk to Roz about Michelle, the gunshot wounds, or Bunny. Could Bunny be crazy enough to attempt murder? I wondered whether Roz had said anything to the police about her.

“Mrs. Marr, a doctor will be here soon. Lie back and relax.” The gray-haired, spectacled nurse pulled the curtain behind her, finally leaving Roz and me alone.

Roz scooted her little stool to the side of my bed, her eyes wide in curiosity. “Did Howard tell you anything?”

“Michelle is alive, did you know that?”

“Yes. I’m so relieved.”

“Do you know she was walking around with three gunshot wounds when I hit her?”

“No!”

I nodded. “Howard says I barely tapped her. They can’t believe she’s still alive—whoever shot her really wanted her DOA.”

Roz’s jaw dropped. “That’s awful. I guess it’s lucky that Bunny called you. We wouldn’t have been out otherwise. Who knows what would have happened?”

“Lucky? Or planned event? Roz. Aren’t you following the dots here?”

She rolled her eyes. I was really tired of people rolling their eyes at me. I’m not as stupid as I look. “Roz. Think. Bunny shows up on my lawn looney as a tune. Then the entire Rustic Woods fire and rescue brigade descends on her house—just because she ran over a rabbit? Really? I’m not buying it. Then she threatens Michelle in broad daylight—”

“It was night time.”

“In broad nightlight—says she’ll kill her—then, as the song goes, ‘isn’t it ironic?’ Michelle shows up filled with more holes than a bag of lifesavers. AND whose phone call caused me to get me to get in my car and ultimately hit Michelle? Hmm?”

Roz crossed her arms. “That song has nothing to do with irony.”

“Would you stay on topic here?”

“I don’t get what one thing has to do with the other.”

“You mean, that she threatens to kill Michelle and then Michelle ends up almost killed?”

“No—I mean I don’t know what this morning’s event has to do with the other thing.”

“You mean, that she has a mondo bizarro meltdown, then threatens to kill Michelle, then Michelle ends up almost killed? That thing?”

“Okay—you made your point.” She crossed her arms. “It’s suspicious.”

“Thank you.” I blew some dangling hair out of my face. “And yet, Howard doesn’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told Howard about their fight after the PTA. He didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, that is a little strange. Something else too, now that I think of it.”

“About Bunny?”

“No—back at the accident scene. When the police questioned me, they asked basic questions, like why we were out, where we were going, whether you’d been drinking. Things you’d expect them to ask. But, if they knew she’d been shot, why didn’t they ask me if I’d seen anything suspicious?”

I silently wondered the same thing. “Me too,” I said finally. “Same questions.”

“They questioned your mom too.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t think they questioned her so much as she gave them a load of information they may or may not have wanted. Evidently there was some man at your house with her after the PTA meeting.”

“Russell Crow.”

“Who?”

“Not the actor—the fire fighter.”

“Yum.”

“Trust me. He’s as good as they get.”

“Muscles?”

“Sculpted like a DaVinci original.”

“Five o’clock shadow?”

“Sensationally sexy stubble.”

“Wow. At your house?”

“My mother is trying to set me up with him.”

“You’re married.”

“She thinks that’s negotiable. So does Howard I guess.”

“Anyway,” Roz said, “I did mention that we were on our way to Bunny Bergen’s house, since they asked where we were going. So Howard won’t be looking into her as a suspect?”

“He said it’s a police matter. The FBI isn’t involved.”

She ran her hands through her hair. “Well, I’m tired. I just want to get home and forget that any of this happened.” The phone in her hand rang, startling us both. She looked at the display. “Peggy.”

Just as Roz answered, a lady doctor pulled the curtain back. “Cell phones aren’t allowed in the hospital. You’ll need to take that outside.”

“Peggy, I’ll call you back.”

Roz left while the lady introduced herself as Dr. Vaziri then gave me the once over for the umpteenth time.

“How’s your head, Mrs. Marr?”

“It’s sore where the branch hit,” I said, touching my bandaged forehead. “Otherwise, it’s fine.”

“I see no reason to admit you. You don’t show signs of concussion or swelling. They brought you in because you lost consciousness when you took that blow to your head, but that may have been due to the mental trauma of the other accident. I suggest you go home and rest. Make sure someone stays with you for at least twenty-four hours.”

I didn’t tell her that my chances of keeping that promise were iffy at best.

Roz drove us home while I talked to Peggy on her cell.

“She was shot?” asked Peggy.

“Three times.”

“How is she?”

“I don’t know. Howard says she’s lucky to be alive—the shots were at close range.”

“I’ll stop by her house tomorrow and see if I can help her husband in any way. He’s such a nice guy.”

“How well do you know Michelle?”

“She goes to my church and her boys come over to play sometimes. This is just awful. How are you?”

“Tired. Can we finish talking tomorrow?”

“Si, Signora. I’ll talk to you both after I run my morning errands.”

The clock on Roz’s dash read 2:31 a.m. when we pulled onto White Willow Circle. The neighborhood was void of law enforcement and emergency vehicles. All signs of turmoil were gone. So was my van. Howard’s car was parked on the street though. Roz wanted to walk me up to the front door, but I insisted that she just let me out in the driveway. I might have run over a dying woman and tried to decapitate myself with a tree limb, but I wasn’t an invalid.

Chapter Eight

SEEING HOWARD’S CAR PARKED OUT front had brightened my mood. I hadn’t been surprised that he didn’t make it to the hospital. His work always took him longer than he predicted. It was the curse of being an FBI wife. More often than not, two hours could become two days or even two weeks.

Expecting to find him in the house, I searched each room quickly. He wasn’t downstairs, so I leaped up several stairs at a time while calling his name, fully certain he’d be in our bed, waiting to welcome me home with a kiss and a hug and other displays of affection worthy of an R rating. Maybe if I was really lucky, X rated activities would follow.

So much for censored fun. He was nowhere to be found. For good measure, I checked each of the girls’ rooms, but Howard was a missing entity. It seemed odd that his car was home and he wasn’t, but I was just too tired and achy to think about it anymore. My body needed a bed to lie down on. My mind needed sleep. Back in the husband-free room, I sat on the edge of the bed, slipped off one shoe then the other and let myself fall back. I’d strip down and get into some jammies in a minute, after giving the ol’ eyeballs a momentary rest . . .

I’m at the Cannes Film Festival. I’m there to review selected screenings but am driving down a seaside road in my van looking for a place to park. Crowds of A-list stars cover the sidewalks while paparazzi swarm like ants at a celebrity picnic. It’s a dream within a dream. Without warning, I lose control of the van—it’s driving itself and there’s nothing I can do. It swerves fast to the right, then again fast to the left. People are screaming and running every which way.

“Get out of my way!” I holler. “I’m a menace behind the wheel! They should revoke my license!”

Now I realize the van has turned into a Mini Cooper and Matt Damon is sitting next to me.

“Drive it like I did in the Bourne Identity,” he says.

“But Matt, that wasn’t you—that was a stunt driver.

He looks upset. “Really? Oh, Pooh Bear.”

Before I know it, Matt is gone and Winnie-the-Pooh sits in his place eating from a honey jar.

“Pooh Bear,” I say to myself. “Why does that sound so familiar?

When I look up, the Mini-Cooper is about to plow right into the entire cast of Porky’s Revenge.

My eyes opened before I witnessed the pigs fly.

Pooh Bear. Michelle’s last words before she lost consciousness. In all of the mayhem, I’d forgotten. Was it a message? Like Orson Wells whispering “Rosebud” just before he dropped the snowglobe then kicked the bucket in
Citizen Kane
? Or did she just have a thing for silly ol’ bears? My head started to pound as I relived the grisly scene from last night. I touched the throbbing spot and felt a nasty knot where the tree branch had struck me. Wouldn’t I be a lovely sight? The clock on my bed stand told me it was 7:05 in the morning. Not exactly a full night’s restful sleep, but I was awake now and sounds drifted from downstairs. Someone was home.

When I pulled the quilt away to sit up, I remembered I had fallen asleep uncovered. Then I noticed the note on the bed next to me.
Shower before you come down. You don’t want to scare the girls. Came up with a story—just play along
. The handwriting wasn’t Howard’s—it was Colt’s familiar scrawl. What a guy. It wasn’t until I looked in the mirror that I understood why the girls might become frightened. My shirt and sweatpants were stained with blood. Some dried caked remnants remained on my arms as well, even though they tried to clean it off at the hospital.

The shower felt so good that I didn’t want it to end. But taking up residence in the bathroom was no way to live, so I got out, dressed myself, slapped a band-aid over the black and blue goose egg on my forehead, turned my frown upside down and headed downstairs. The enticing aroma of fried bacon welcomed me before the girls did. I found them sitting around the table munching. Colt was bent over Amber, cutting a banana into her bowl of Rice Krispies. Bethany was reading a book while shoveling scrambled eggs into her mouth, and Callie ate a piece of toast while glued to the screen of her cell phone. A pretty typical morning in our house except I never fixed eggs and bacon on a school day. Colt would make some lucky woman a great wife one day.

“Hey there, Curly!” Having finished slicing the banana, he popped the last bit into his own mouth and threw the peel into my kitchen trash can. “Pull up a chair. The coffee is ready.”

Amber patted the table. “Sit next to me, Mommy! Look what Colt made!”

Next to her bowl of cereal was a pancake as big as the plate it sat on—two banana slices for eyes, a mouth made of chocolate chips and whipped cream hair. “I can’t eat it,” she said solemnly. “It’s too pretty.”

Before my butt hit the chair, a steamy cup of brew was placed in front of me, already fixed to my liking—a teaspoon of sugar and a dash of cream. While I sipped, a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and sliced tomatoes appeared. Holy cow. I wondered if I had I moved to Bizarre-o-world where mothers were treated as well as their children. “So, when did you guys get here?” I asked before scooping up some eggs.

“Your mom called the condo at six-thirty this morning,” answered Colt. “She had somewhere to be. I told her I’d pick up the girls and bring them home for you.”

I wanted to know why Howard didn’t bring them, but was afraid of the answer, so I decided not to ask. At least not until the girls were gone.

“Man,” I said smiling at my three beauties. “You must be tired.”

“Not me.” Amber was always in a good mood. The other two didn’t look up or answer. They were probably pooped and grumpy.