Elizabeth Zelvin - Bruce Kohler 04 - Death Will Save Your Life (9 page)

Barbara signed up for a reflexology session with Lorenzo to pump him about his whereabouts that night after the ceremony ended. He and the librarian might have seized the occasion of her husband being occupied and in the public eye—literally with bells on—to go off and make love under the stars. If Madhouse had caught them at it and threatened to make trouble, they might have brained him with a paddle. But Barbara achieved nothing but nirvana for her feet, as she assured us later. Lorenzo wasn’t talking.

Jimmy went to an AA meeting in town. Both he and Barbara tried to talk me into going along, but I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Honey. I couldn’t imagine where the thing with her was going, but I liked being there. It felt like I was getting a do-over of the teenage innocence I’d short-circuited at fourteen when Jimmy and I discovered alcohol. Both of us believed that we’d been drunks from the first exhilarating slug from a 40-ounce bottle of Colt 45. Jimmy told Barbara and me that we wouldn’t believe who he’d run into at the meeting, but he wouldn’t tell us who it was. Jimmy takes anonymity very seriously. Barbara said that if it was someone we suspected of the murders, he had to tell us, but he only laughed.

Honey’s hotshot lawyer, who’d had less of a problem transferring his allegiance from Melvin than she’d expected, found her a good criminal lawyer who finally talked Callaghan, or maybe his bosses, into letting her go back to the city to start sorting out Melvin’s affairs. She was apologetic about leaving me, not that I felt entitled in any way. I told her to do what she had to do and not worry about it.

I was thinking about Honey, murder, and what to do with the rest of my life as I picked my way along a mossy trail to Contemplation Pond. Three pools of subtly harmonious proportions reflected the eternal yet evanescent sky to create a numinous communion with the higher self. It sez here. There was a bronze plaque. Water lilies floated on the still water. The deep, retching croaks of the bullfrogs for which the Pond was famous marred the serenity, if you asked me. I wondered if deep listening would help. I sat down on a rock near the pond and contemplated the hell out of those frogs until the croaks began to form a pleasing continuo.

I hadn’t heard from Honey since she’d left the Farm. Was she really the sweet, guileless woman I was so attracted to? Could she possibly be the gold-digger Jojo and Annabel thought she was? Had she used me as a smokescreen? It didn’t take much to make me doubt myself.

I was no longer alone. I felt the faintest breath of air move the little hairs on the back of my neck. I unfolded myself and squinted in the bright light to see who it was.

Feather stood in the center of a circular flagged patio, slicing and slashing the air with what looked like a samurai sword. I’d never seen anyone look so focused, every sinew in motion as she flowed from pose to pose. So much for her being too wimpy to murder anyone.

How do you interrupt a woman with a sword? I cleared my throat and spoke her name. The bullfrogs drowned me out. I tried again, louder.

“Feather?”

The third time she heard me and lowered the sword. She didn’t so much stop as flow to stillness.

“Nice sword,” I said.

“It was my husband’s,” she said.

If she could swing a sword like that, a canoe paddle would be child’s play. I wondered where she’d been on Midsummer Night right before she went searching for Madhouse so conspicuously. She’d done a good job of convincing two hundred witnesses that she didn’t know where her husband was. She could have done it herself. And now we were alone, and she was armed.

The invisible web of tension between us collapsed as a party of senior citizens hove into view. They were decked out to assault the Matterhorn: stout boots, wide-brimmed hats, sturdy walking sticks, and, by the shine on their exposed patches of skin, enough sunblock and insect repellent to stock a medium-sized pharmacy. A prosperous-looking dude in an Aquarius blazer led the pack.

Neither contemplation nor interrogation could take place in such a hubbub. One of the little old ladies already crouched at the edge of the pond, tickling the nearest froggie with a cattail and talking baby talk. One red-faced gent patted his pockets, hunting frantically for a handkerchief, shades, or maybe his nitroglycerin. Another complained loudly and bitterly about his arthritic knees. I put my sweaty hands together palm to palm in steeple shape and sketched a bow over the tops of my fingers in Feather’s general direction. Then I got the hell out of there and made my way down to the lake.

The beach was deserted. But I caught a glimpse of movement in the water out by the raft. A red two-piece bikini identified the distant figure as a woman. She swung herself up onto the raft with an athletic economy of motion.

Squinting, I recognized Annabel. I waved my arm in a broad gesture.

“Yo! Annabel! Come on in and talk to me.”

“Come on out!”

“No bathing suit. Too many clothes.”

Her laugh rang out. She had a nice laugh.

“Take them off!”

No one had invited me to flirt in a long time. I stripped down to my shorts and waded into the water.

Barbara circled the campus in the afternoon heat, looking for Bruce. Jimmy had gone into town to get online at the library again. It amazed her that she had managed to keep him unplugged for so long. She had offered to go along, but Jimmy had vetoed that plan, rightly guessing that she wanted to ask the librarian embarrassing questions. He didn’t want to wear his welcome out and lose access to the library’s WiFi.

At the dining hall, a cohort of Aquarians trotted to and fro preparing for dinner.

“Has anybody seen Feather?” someone called out.

“Leave her alone,” someone else advised. “She has enough to deal with.”

Someone gave an earsplitting blast on the conch, and Aquarians converged on the dining hall. Neither Bruce nor Jimmy was among them. Maybe Bruce had gone for a swim.

Arriving on the deserted beach, she looked out across the lake. Two intertwined figures splashed around near the raft. Bruce and Annabel. What on earth were they doing? Making love? Even Bruce couldn’t be such a fool. As she watched, Annabel pushed Bruce’s head underwater with all the muscle power of her paddle- and tennis-honed arms.

“Hey! Cut that out!” she yelled.

They ignored her. A maelstrom of splashing meant Bruce was putting up a fight. But Barbara couldn’t see his head. She snatched up a small, hard lifesaving ring that she found lying on the shore and waded out into the water.

Barbara’s waterlogged clothes dragged at her body, but her sneakers were impervious to the muck on the lake bottom. It sucked at her as she clomped forward. The water rose to her waist. She let the canvas life preserver float behind her, tethered to her wrist by its nylon rope. She kept up a steady stream of curses at Annabel, reassurances and exhortations to hang on to Bruce, and cries for help. Surely somebody would hear her.

Okay, I was stupid. I was just making conversation, talking about what had happened to deflect her from trying to get my shorts off. She thought I was accusing her of the murders and didn’t wait to check. I’d be jumpy too if I’d killed two people. Sitting on the edge of the raft while I treaded water, she scissored her long legs around my neck and squeezed. When I began to squawk and flail, she slammed the heel of one hand down hard on the top of my head. With the other hand, she chopped at whatever she could reach.

I clawed at her legs, but I couldn’t break her grip. Those lean thighs were tough as beef jerky. Water flowed into my nostrils in what felt like a tidal surge of duckweed, swan poop, and bacteria. The mix of high times and screwups that made up my life so far began to flash before my eyes. As I slid toward oblivion, a hand grasped my hair and yanked. My face burst out of the water. I gulped air into my aching lungs, retched, and heaved up about a gallon of lake. My scalp hurt like hell, but I was alive.

“Bruce! You idiot! You could have been killed! I’ve got you. Let go.”

“Let go and let God,” I giggled, still oxygen deprived and out of it. “One day at a time.”

Barbara clamped her arm across my shoulder and chest like an iron band.

“You are such a jerk! Lie back and float.”

Her hip dug into my back as she towed me through the water. She made for shore in a dogged sidestroke.

“Whasha got there?”

“You sound sloshy. Don’t wiggle! Lifesaving ring.”

“Shtill got lake inshide. Did you shave my life?”

Barbara snorted and spat water.

“Sort of. I whacked Annabel with the ring until she let you go.”

“Where she go?”

“Never mind Annabel, let’s get you to shore first. Come on, you can stand now.”

She bumped me with her hip and flipped me upright. The water was still deep enough that she could toss me around like a pancake. But I was able to stagger to shore, my toes digging into the muck.

Barbara tossed the lifesaver onto the beach.

“Go get dry. There’s a towel under the lifeguard chair.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to wrap myself in a dry towel. My legs started to tremble.

While Barbara towed me in, Annabel had grabbed a canoe. It shot across the lake, leaping forward with each powerful stroke of the paddle.

“Where are the Marines?” I asked.

“We are the Marines. I’m going after her.”

“Don’t be silly, Barbara.” I tried not to let my teeth chatter. “Why don’t you just call the cops?”

“One, cell phones don’t work here, remember? Two, she tried to kill you. I don’t want her to get away with it, but I’m not so sure the cops would believe us.”

She had a point. I could picture Callaghan’s face when we tried to explain she’d tried to kill me with her legs.

“Three, she’d be halfway to Canada by the time they got here. I’m going.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“Dammit, I don’t need protecting. You look as if you’re about to throw up.”

“I’m not,” I lied. It felt like I’d swallowed the whole lake. There were probably Canada geese swimming around in my esophagus. “This is no time to go all feminist on me. She’s got muscles like Wonder Woman. We’ll go together. You really think we can catch her?”

“She’s made a mistake,” Barbara said. “The lake is ridiculously small.”

“It is?” Since I’d nearly died in it, the lake seemed plenty big enough to me.

“It’s the bend,” Barbara said. “The impression of limitless distance is deceptive. If we can get her before she can get to the road, we’ve got her.”

“Let’s go, then. Which one?” I nodded at the jumble of canoes pulled up on the beach.

“The Klepper kayak,” she said. “See? It’s wider and flatter than the canoes, and it’ll be faster. It’s the only way we’ll catch her.”

Barbara grabbed a paddle.

“There should be another paddle like this one,” she said, “a long one with a blade on both ends.”

“I’ll find the paddle. You try to call. Jimmy got a signal up on the lifeguard chair the other day.”

Barbara clambered up on the lifeguard chair. As I hunted for the paddle, she provided background music: curses at her unresponsive cell phone, then a whoop as she reached Jimmy, and an incoherent explanation ending with “Just come!”

She tumbled down to the sand.

“He was in the car, halfway back from town. He’ll call Callaghan. Let’s go!”

We pushed off and hopped in, me wobbling on one foot while Barbara assured me that this kind of kayak was exceptionally stable.

“Left, right. Left, right.” She dipped the paddle on either side. “Match my strokes. I am
furious
with Annabel, aren’t you? She killed two people and tried to murder you. I never liked her anyway. I resent the hell out of those long legs and those thin
shiksa
thighs. I can’t believe no one came when I screamed. Usually the beach is so crowded you can’t even find a patch of sand or even grass to lie down on.”

Only Barbara would talk a blue streak while chasing a murderer.

“What happened back there?” I asked.

“I saw her holding your head underwater, so I grabbed the life preserver and jumped in. I walloped her with it till she fell off the raft. I guess I know now what going berserk means. I didn’t mean to hurt her, I just wanted to get her off you. It’s a good thing they made me take Red Cross lifesaving at Girl Scout camp. I used a fireman’s carry to tow you.”