In Self Defense (15 page)

“That he planned all this,” she said, “right from the start.”

“Who?”

“The stalker, of course.”

“Why?”

“To get rid of her husband.  To make her more vulnerable, more accessible.”

Dusty considered the idea for a moment.  “But how could he have known that Durant was going to come home a day early?” he asked finally.  “Nobody knew that.”

“I don’t know,” she conceded.  “It’s just that the guy knows things.  He’s always known things.  And he’s been playing us like violins from the start.  And there’s something, I can’t quite put my finger on it, that doesn’t feel right.”

“Look,” her partner said, “I’m every bit as bummed about this whole thing as you are.  But the truth is, we blew it, and you’re looking for excuses.”

Erin sighed.  She knew Dusty was right.  And she knew something else, too.  She knew that Clare was still at great risk.  Because, whatever the stalker knew or didn’t know, or had or hadn’t done, the chances of the captain allowing sixteen extra officers to remain on stakeout indefinitely were zero.

***

James Lilly rang the Durants’ doorbell at just past eight o’clock.  Nina let him in.

“Is she all right?” he whispered, although there was no reason to be cautious.

“She’s catatonic, if you call that all right,” Nina replied.  Word of Richard’s death hadn’t yet hit the newspapers or the television stations, but she had taken it upon herself to call James at six-thirty, leaving a message on his answering machine when he didn’t pick up.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“If you could help me get her up off the floor, I’d appreciate it.  I can’t lift her by myself.”

“Off the floor?” James repeated.

“Yes,” Nina declared.  “She’s been there . . . all night.”

James followed Nina up the stairs and into the master bedroom to find Clare still wedged in the corner with her arms still holding herself together, still staring at the same red spot on the carpet.

“This just won’t do,” he murmured, shaking his head.  He crossed the room quickly, bent down, and plucked Clare up off the floor as though she were a child.  “Where do you want her?” he asked.

“Out of here,” Nina said firmly, and led the way to a guestroom just down the hall, right next to the one where she had intended to spend the night but, as it turned out, had instead ended up spending little more than an hour.

James deposited Clare on the bed.  In the process, the robe that Nina managed to put around her slips off, and the flimsy nightgown she was still wearing hid very little.

Nina hastily pulled the covers up over her friend and then ushered James out of the room.  “Thank you,” she said.  “I didn’t want to have to bother you so early, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Not a problem,” James assured her.

All Nina had said in her message was that he should come as quickly as he could because something terrible had happened.

“Can you tell me what this is all about?” he asked now, and Nina explained as best she could.  By the time she finished, his face was white and his pale eyes were bulging behind his glasses.

“Someone is stalking her?” he managed to say, his Texas twang accentuated.  “She thought she was shooting a stalker and she shot Mr. Durant instead?  Did I hear you right?”

“I’m afraid so.”

But James was shaking his head in confusion.  “I don't see how that could be possible,” he said.  “Mr. Durant was in Vermont.”

“That’s what we thought, too,” Nina confirmed.

“But you don’t understand, I spoke to him yesterday morning,” James insisted.  “I’m his assistant.  He would certainly have told me if he was planning to come back a day early.  I would have been the first to know.  He didn’t say a word.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Nina told him with a sigh, “let me assure you it was Richard Durant’s body I saw riddled with bullets on the floor of the master bedroom, and you can take my word for it that it’s his blood soaking into the carpet in there right now.”

***

Doreen Mulcahy spent her days off on her sister’s farm in Yelm.  It was usually a quiet and peaceful respite for her, away from kids, away from television, away from the daily grind of caring for a busy family.  At her sister’s place, she had nothing more urgent to do than tend to the sheep and the goats and feed the chickens, and she usually found that doing so cleared her mind and renewed her energy.  But not this time.

She hardly slept at all on Thursday night, instead tossing and turning and worrying about what was going on at the house in Laurelhurst.  Something in the pit of her stomach told her all was not well, and Doreen had learned to trust that instinct.

By ten o’clock on Friday morning, she couldn’t stand it any longer.  She hugged her sister, jumped into the Voyager, and headed north, her sense of foreboding increasing with every mile of Interstate 5 that passed beneath the Plymouth’s wheels.

***

The Board of Directors of Nicolaidis Industries held an emergency meeting at ten o’clock in the morning, during which they discussed the scant details they knew about Richard Durant’s demise.

“What a dreadful mistake,” they were heard to murmur.  “What a terrible tragedy for Clare and the children.  But we must make sure that Nicolaidis Industries goes on.”

Douglas Potter, the vice president in charge of research and development, was named acting CEO, until a more formal process could be undertaken.

Although she was by far the major stockholder in the company, Clare did not attend the meeting.  Not that anyone expected her to.  They all understood that there was grieving to do and arrangements to make.

***

Nina found Clare’s address book in a desk drawer in the library and called everyone who was listed in it.  She was just starting to dial the number for Doreen’s sister in Yelm when the housekeeper came through the back door.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it,” Doreen cried, wagging her head and wringing her hands when Nina told her what had happened.  “I just had this awful feeling all night long.  I should have been here.  I never should have let her talk me into going.”

“I know how you feel,” Nina said.  “But it all happened so fast.  I don’t think your being here would have changed anything.”

“How is she?” the housekeeper asked, heading up the stairs.

Nina shrugged.  “About how you’d expect her to be,” she replied.  “I had to get her out of her room, so we put her in the yellow guestroom, and I’ve been checking on her every half hour.  She hasn’t budged.”

The two women stopped outside the room and peered through the doorway.  Clare was barely visible beneath the covers.  Her eyes were closed, her face flushed.

“Did you call the doctor?” Doreen whispered.

“Yes, of course,” Nina assured her.  “He came last night and again this morning, and gave her shots.  He said he’d come back this afternoon.”

“What about the children?” Doreen asked as they went back down the hall.  “Have they been told yet?”

“I called Richard’s sister,” Nina said.  “She said she would tell them, and then bring them home later.”

Doreen stopped in front of the master bedroom and stared at the stained carpet and the bullet-ridden doorframe.  “I think maybe it would be better if Julie and Peter stayed in Ravenna for a little while longer,” she said slowly.

***

Clare awakened with a start.  She was in a strange bed, bundled under flowery sheets that weren’t hers.  She didn’t recognize the butter yellow paint that cover the walls, and the view out the window was all at odds with what it should be.  For a moment, she wondered if she was back in a hospital, the victim of yet another calamity she couldn’t quite recall.  Except she knew that hospitals had white sheets and white walls and no views.

And then she remembered.  She had killed her husband.  She did what he taught her to do and squeezed the trigger until there were no more bullets left to shoot, and then the police came and the doctor, too.  The police took the gun away from her, and the doctor stuck a needle in her.  And then, somehow, she had ended up, not in a hospital, but right here.  But where was here?  She peered around until the yellow walls became familiar and she remembered the flowered bedding.  She was in a guestroom in her very own home.  Well, Richard’s home, anyway.  It had never truly been hers.  Not in all the ten years she had lived in it.  But she would fix that now, she decided.  Just as soon as she could, she would sell this place, and move with Doreen and the children back to Ballard.  Then everything would be all right again.  Clare stretched, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

***

Richard’s parents came hurrying up from their home Richard had bought them in Centralia.  His brother Jeffrey drove down from Bellingham.  Elaine stayed at home with Julie and Peter.  By noon, the story was being broadcast on every television channel and radio station, and the big house began to fill with people who wanted to pay their respects, from the rank and file of Nicolaidis Industries to the Mayor and even the Governor. 

It didn’t seem to matter that Clare wasn’t there to greet them.  People understood, especially those who knew the specific circumstances of Richard Durant’s death.  The family held court in her place.  At first, they were flattered by the outpouring of sympathy, then overwhelmed, then exhausted.

Doreen went into action, retrieving Clare’s address book and finding the number for the company that routinely catered their large affairs.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” the woman who owned the company promised.  “I’ve got a dozen things I can pull out of the freezer.  Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.”

***

Julie Durant stood in an upstairs window of her aunt’s home.  It was starting to rain, big soft plops smacking against the glass pane that would soon become hurtling needles searching for cracks in the ancient wood frame.  This place had lots of cracks, cracks that had turned into leaks, and when it rained hard, like it was about to do, her cousins set buckets out in strategic places on the second floor to catch the drops.  Her uncle often spoke of having the roof repaired and the windows replaced, but it never seemed to happen.

Julie didn’t mind.  She liked this house.  It was warm and cozy, and the creaks and groans in the night were familiar ones.  She liked sharing a room with her cousin Becky, too.  It was fun to whisper together, in the dark, just before falling asleep.  And it was comforting to know that someone was there, just in case she might wake up in the night, and despite the darkness, see the foot.

Peter might have wanted to go home, but Julie was in no hurry to get back to Laurelhurst.  There was no need.  The twelve-year-old was quite content to stay right here in Ravenna.  She knew her mother was safe.

Aunt Elaine didn’t let them go to school.  Instead, she sat them down at the kitchen table and told them, as gently as she knew how, what had happened to their father.  Not all the gory details, of course, she skipped over them, just the terrible end result.  Peter was scared and began to cry.  But Julie never shed a tear.  As soon as she could, she escaped upstairs to the room she shared with Becky, closing the door and crawling, fully clothed, under the covers.  She was shivering, but she wasn’t cold.  She was sad, but not surprised.  Ever since that day on the mountain, she had been waiting for something else to happen.

***

The children!  Clare sat bolt upright.  A small lamp burned on the nightstand beside her.  It was dark outside the window.  And there was silence.  Where were the children?

She scrambled out of the bed, pulled on the robe she found at the foot of it, and hurried out the door and down the hall, not stopping to wonder why she had been sleeping in a guestroom.  But the children’s rooms were empty, their beds still made up and waiting.  Clare tried to remember.  What day was it?  It was Friday, wasn't it?  Of course, she thought.  The children were in Ravenna, because of that silly stalker scare.  But it was late.  Surely they should have been back by now.  They had a special dinner planned.  Richard was coming home tonight.

Clare went back down the hall.  Perhaps they were keeping Doreen company in the kitchen while she was cooking, or watching television in the family room.  Without thinking, she started down the front stairs, stopping only when she reached the halfway mark and realized that there were a whole lot of people she didn’t remember inviting that had apparently come to visit.  They were staring up at her with a strange mixture of surprise and horror in their eyes.

And then she remembered.

***

The investigation, although pretty routine, took five days, and in the end, as expected, Richard Durant’s death was ruled an accident.  Erin went to Laurelhurst to give Clare the news barely an hour before it was released to the public.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this,” she said.

“It isn’t your fault,” Clare assured her with a sigh.  “You did your best.  I know you did.”

Erin took a breath.  “But sometimes, our best just isn’t good enough,” she said.  “Which is really why I’m here.  I wanted to talk to you about the stalker.”

Clare looked up, startled.  “Oh my God,” she said.  “He’s what started all this, and I’d almost forgotten him.  How strange.”