Death of the Office Witch (30 page)

“I don't know who. But I suspect it was an attempt to shift suspicion from the agency. It was a stupid move and probably carried out in panic.” And probably because everybody at Congdon and Morse has their identity tied up in their job. Except maybe Larry and Tracy.

“And because Gloria knew damaging secrets about everyone that could be used to destroy their professional positions. Because she had you, Roger, to broadcast them to the public if we didn't cooperate. But those secrets would come out in a police investigation anyway. Maybe whoever was responsible hoped it would look like anyone in the alley or elsewhere in the building could have killed her. Which was silly, because those who knew her would be looked at first and hardest.”

“If you weren't there, you can't know any of this. But even if you're right, it's murder. Whoever chased my wife down that hallway and scared her so she fell and hit her head murdered her. And I think if that's what happened it would have to have been you, Charlie Greene,” Roger said, never taking his eyes off Libby down by the water.

“Roger, Gloria said Charlie was psychic, remember? I feel that from her too. I doubt—”

“What do you know, Marv? You can't communicate with either Gloria or Mary Ann.” Roger wore very little jewelry today. Just earrings and his wedding band. His face was swollen with grief far worse than either of the dead women's had been swollen by death. Her heart went out to him despite his threatening posture.

Charlie, this man's a blackmailer. For information, but he uses it to make money. Roger's identity is wrapped up in his work, too, and he lost a great conduit of information to feed his little empire of newsletters, books, mail-order seminars, and videos when he lost Gloria.

“So why did Mary Ann have to die, then?” Marvin asked Charlie, moving in front of Roger, maybe to interrupt the man's scrutiny of Libby. “If Gloria's death was an accident, was Mary Ann's too?”

“Mary Ann's death may have been planned. She'd been missing for over a week. Maybe she was kidnapped and then murdered.”

“Oh, right.” Roger looked away finally from Charlie's kid. “Mary Ann's death is premeditated while my wife's is an accident. People can drown by accident, too, you know. Or is it because Gloria died at
your
agency and Mary Ann died here, so far away from it?”

Charlie heard the Harley spit into life, rev, throw gravel when it took off, and Libby's footsteps coming up behind her. She saw Marvin's helpless shrug, saw Roger lunge past her frozen vision.

And all, it seemed, in an instant.

Then Roger stood before Charlie with Libby pasted to his front in a hostage position, the sharp edge of a pocket knife against her throat. “Funny how your deductive powers serve only your purposes, isn't it, Charlie Greene?”

Charlie drove the Toyota. Libby sat in back with Roger Tuschman and the pocket knife. Marvin Grunion drove the old dusty blue pickup that had brought him and Roger to the reservoir. It tailgated her all the way to 1132 Honeah Place.

Marvin had pleaded with Roger not to do this. Charlie was disappointed when Marvin didn't turn off on a side road and race away to get help. Maybe he thought that would panic Roger into doing something even more drastic. Maybe Marvin had a cellular and had already punched 911. Maybe the police would be at the condo when they arrived.

Charlie's chick hadn't made a peep, and Charlie couldn't see her in the rearview mirror. When she started to turn her head, Roger snarled a warning.

“I don't understand why you're doing this,” she mustered the courage to say, still numbed at how suddenly a normal day had turned on her. “We've done nothing to you.”

“You killed my wife, bitch. Gloria practically said as much at the séance. Mary Ann dies, and who do the cops bring out to question at the scene? Just one suspect—you. We can't all be wrong.” His voice dropped back to a snarl. “Marvin gets a ‘feeling' about Rizzi Reservoir, and we go up there to see if there's any answers—and who comes along? You. I don't believe in coincidence, babe. Everything happens for a reason. And the reason Marv and I went to the reservoir today was to find justice for the murder of my wife. I think we found it.”

If there was smog up here, Charlie couldn't detect any blurring of colors, which were stunningly bright even through her smear of tears. The two-lane road was black, the spring growth of weeds and trees bordering it, new-minted green. She had to slow for a gaggle of colorful cyclists, wanting to honk the Toyota's horn at them for help—the knife blade against her daughter's throat keeping her from it.

“If you hurt her, I'll kill you.” Charlie thought she might have heard a slight whimper from the backseat.

Of course, no matter how glorious the day, no one at the apartment complex stood out around their back doors enjoying it at the particular moment Charlie, Libby, and their captor left the Toyota and entered 1132. No sign of police, either. Charlie could only hope someone would notice this outrage from a window and run to a phone and punch 911.

Libby was wide-eyed and pale. Never letting go of her, Roger exchanged the pocket knife for the far larger and more lethal ceremonial blade from the floor-to-ceiling shelves of fish-tank decor on the wall behind the dining room table where Marvin the Shaman had arranged and muttered over Gloria's effects the last time Charlie visited this place.

Holding the double-edged blade against Libby's long slender throat, Roger ordered them both into straight-backed chairs at the table in the dining room, and when Marvin arrived ordered him to bind Charlie to hers—chest, wrists, ankles—with strips of flat plastic ribbon rope. Charlie expected him to secretly cut her some slack. He had, after all, tried to talk his friend out of this. But the fake rope was so tight she felt the partial loss of blood flow to feet and hands within minutes.

Libby was soon bound the same way, but Roger added tape across her mouth. The two men went about silently closing Levelors against the beautiful day, where normal people went about their normal business, not knowing. Then they disappeared upstairs.

The room included a living room at the other end of the “L” that held the dining room, plus the small kitchen across the counter space. Charlie thought of screaming for the neighbors, but feared the two men would rush down to hurt Libby before help arrived. You had to be pretty brave to answer screams nowadays.

Libby's eyes questioned Charlie's, a lone tear dropping suddenly down a smooth cheek and across the tape that kept her silent.

“Hang in there, honey, I'm working on it.”

Charlie must have imagined the incredulous look across the table. The same look Libby had displayed earlier that day when Charlie realized she'd never brought her daughter to the agency before.

When Marvin and Roger returned, they wore long, black, hot-looking robes. They set the large candelabrum in the center of the table and lit the one red and three white candles. Marvin's expression suggested he wasn't going to be any help after all. Roger set the lemon skewered with nails before Charlie, while Marvin lit a stick of incense that gave off an odor Charlie could equate only with that of vomit.

“Now I want you to tell me what brought you to Rizzi Reservoir on this particular day, Charlie Greene,” he intoned. “And if you lie, your daughter will suffer for it before your eyes.”

“I went to Rizzi Reservoir because Libby wanted to see where Mary Ann drowned.”

“Wanted to see where her dear mother committed a crime?” Roger took over. “Why did you kill Mary Ann Leffler? What had she ever done to you?”

“I didn't kill her.” Please Marvin, tell me you called 911 on the way here.

Roger leaned over Charlie so close she could smell his excited sweat through the putrid incense. “Why did you chase my wife down that hall then?”

“I didn't.”

“How did you get her out to those bushes off the alley? You couldn't have done it alone. Who helped you?”

“I didn't do that, either.”

Roger went to the kitchen, and after a while returned with a pewter plate. He passed it back and forth under Charlie's nose. There was something long and flat and sliced on it. He mumbled from deep in his throat and then lit a match to the juice on the plate. The fumes came right into Charlie's head before she had the sense to hold her breath.

She had an impromptu memory of her mother mellowing uncharacteristically after a shot of something while being prepped for surgery years ago. Edwina had turned her eyes in drunken love toward Charlie, who found the situation embarrassing. Charlie ached with wanting to embarrass Libby the same way, but drifted away before she could focus.

Charlie came back to a melodic ringing in her ears. She wanted to slide back into the peaceful sleep where she had been so comfortable, but a dancing flame directly in front of her divided into two dancing flames and then into four. Small flames. How did they do that?

“Who helped you carry Gloria Tuschman out to the bushes?” a voice echoed from on high, and something black blocked out the miraculous flames.

Charlie giggled. People should feel this good all the time. “They held her by the ankles and the wrists and swung her back and forth and flll-ung her up over the wall and into the bushes.”

“Who did this?”

“I don't know them, but they're always out there. They're real easy to piss off, too.” Charlie started laughing with no good idea why.

“Do you see Libby? Do you see what I'm going to do to her?”

“I see these cute little fires coming apart and coming together. Soooo—”

“Move the damn candles,” another voice said.

“Now do you see her?”

“Nooooo.”

“Take the tape off and let the kid talk to her mother.”

“Tell your mother—”

“I have to pee and I'm pretty sure throw up, too.” Libby's voice came from far away and in a panic. Probably too much pepperoni and cheese.

“Oh, shit. Take her to the can, Marv. Hurry, cleaning lady won't be in for a week.”

“I don't think that woman killed anyone. But she might be able to tell us who did. She's psychic, all right.”

“Take the kid up to the can, Marv.”

Charlie wasn't feeling so euphoric suddenly. Her hands and feet had frozen into solid chunks. A weird sensation moved inside her.

“Jesus, Marv, get back down here! She's … Oh, God. Oh, shit. Marv?”

31

“Is that blood? What do we do? She going to die?”

“I'm not a doctor, Roger. Untie her. Rub her hands. Circulation's cut off.”

“You rub her hands. You tied her up. Where's the kid?”

“Upstairs in the bathroom.”

“You left her alone up there? What are you—crazy?”

“Even I can't be two places at once. Charlie, can you hear me? It's Marvin. Charlie?”

Charlie could hear them both. She couldn't seem to work up the energy to answer, though.

“Don't worry, Charlie,” Marvin was whispering now, “I'll get help. I'm in enough trouble for moving Mary Ann from the reservoir. I'm not taking the blame for this, too. Not even for Roger. He's a crazy man. Lie still now, I'll be back.”

“Hey, don't leave me alone with him, forgodsake,” Charlie was pretty sure she said aloud. But she could feel the draft from the open doorway. She was laid out on the couch facing it. It was night out there.

Upstairs Roger stomped about, slamming doors, swearing in an increasingly unstable pitch. Charlie had about decided to get herself into a sitting position when he came thundering down the stairs. She closed her eyes and hoped she looked dead instead.

“Fucking tramp kid. She's gone, Marv. What she do? Fly? Jump from a second story window? Last time I listen to you, buddy. Marv? Marv!” His swearing degenerated to grunts and enraged snorts before he, too, ran out the door. But Roger slammed it behind him.

The odor of vomit was more than incense now. Charlie's head and heart pounded in syncopation. She struggled to find the proper muscles and inform them she wanted to sit up.

“Mom?” Libby whispered from the head of the stairs, and Charlie managed to sit up too fast.

“They're both gone for a minute. Hurry.”

Libby came down the stairs running. “Let's make a run for the car and the cellular.”

“Where's my purse? We'll need the keys.”

“Right here.” Libby bent down beside the shelves of occult paraphernalia.

Leaning on her child, Charlie found herself run-walked to the door on numbed feet. It opened easily from inside, and they were out in the night, Charlie sucking in cool orange-blossom air. They could hear Roger's demented screaming not far away. Libby shoved Charlie into the rider's side of the Toyota, slamming the door on her.

“Whadaya gonna do?” Charlie asked, her tongue getting lost in a general scary dizziness, when Libby climbed in behind the wheel and flipped the door locks.

“Help me find the keys, Mom, don't wig out on me now.”

“Keys. Help her find the keys. Don't wig—” Charlie pawed through her purse with hands that had no feeling in places and were filled with painful tingles in others. She did feel the plastic teeth of the shark key chain her daughter had given her for Christmas and pulled out the private keys to her life. “Still wanna know what you're gonna do. You can't drive.”

“Mom, don't start in being trouble, okay? We're in really deep shit here. And I'm the best we got. Which one's the car key?”

“One with the black rubber top thingy on it. Here comes Roger.” Charlie wasn't sure which she feared most. Libby trying to drive or Gloria's deranged husband throwing himself across the Toyota's hood, as if that would stop it. “You even know how to start this thing? How to get it in reverse?”

But Libby already had it started and in reverse. Charlie hoped there was no one behind them, human or automobile. This was the first and only new car she'd ever owned, and it wouldn't be paid off until Martians landed in Manhattan. Kansas. The dependable little model that never broke down. But the cellular was dead. Probably because the cord to the receiver had been sliced through.