Moving Is Murder (32 page)

“Are you sure? I mean …” Brent wheedled.

“Brent,” she snapped, “I know you’re attracted to her, but get over it. She knows. She’s seen everything. She had it in her car. For weeks!” She gouged the air with the gun toward her car. I moved back, brushed up against Brent, and then scrunched away from him, but tried to not get any closer to Diana. I checked the rearview mirror, but the parking lot was empty. I felt a
sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, like I’d just swallowed a rock.

“This really isn’t a good idea,” I said.

“And on top of that,” Diana continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “she’s asked questions nonstop. We don’t have any choice. Stop arguing. I need to think.” She rubbed her temple. “It would be best if it happened at her house. Can’t do anything with the car. That might look suspicious.” She talked to herself in a low tone.

“Diana, maybe we should …” Brent began.

“Shut up!” She licked her dry and cracked lips, then chewed on her index fingernail. “We have to do it now. I hate this!” She tucked another stray hair behind her ear. “No time to plan.”

Brent opened his mouth to argue, but Diana pointed the gun at him. “Get in there. And don’t forget to pick me up!”

“All right.” Brent slammed the door and Livvy started to wail. In my rearview mirror, I watched him quickly cross the parking lot. I’d hoped they would forget Livvy was in the back, but no such luck now. She never had been one to let anyone forget she was around.

I automatically reached back to jiggle Livvy’s car seat. Diana jerked and raised the gun. “I’m just trying to calm her down.” I tried for a soothing tone, but my voice came out squeaky. Diana lowered the gun slightly, back out of view of anyone passing the car. Not that there was anyone out there anyway.

“Drive,” she commanded and then rubbed her head again with quivering fingers. “Go the back way.”

Livvy’s cries subsided to murmurs of protest when I hit the road. We passed the point where I had found Cass. The noises changed to grunts. Oh no, not now. We sailed through the back gate. The Security Police on duty
glanced our way and then returned to their paperwork. Diana seemed to relax a little once we were on the highway.

There was a squishy, splattering sound from the backseat, a momentary silence, and then Livvy started crying again, full-force screams. Within seconds, the whole interior of the Cherokee smelled like a combination of stockyard, moldy socks, and rotten eggs.

“Good grief. Do something about that. It smells awful.”

I jerked the wheel and brought the Cherokee to a stop on the shoulder of the road. I hopped out and grabbed the diaper bag.

Cars whooshed past. The air of their wake pressed the back of my jeans to my legs. With my shaking fingers, I struggled to release Livvy’s seat belt.

“Hurry up,” Diana demanded.

“It takes a while to get her out.” I gently placed Livvy on a blanket on the backseat to shelter her from the drizzle and the gusts of wind. I checked Diana. She leaned over the seat, watching me intensely.

Stupid. Stupid, I cursed myself. Why hadn’t I waited until we were in Vernon, or at least at a gas station? There would have been people around; maybe I could have signaled someone I was in trouble. I unsnapped Livvy’s outfit and pulled out a diaper and the box of wipes. I’d been so anxious to get out of the car that I pulled over too soon. I glanced at the flat terrain. Even if I picked up Livvy and ran we wouldn’t be able to get far. Nowhere to hide. No trees, rocks, or buildings, just patchy grass. I should have at least waited until the land started to rise and the road cut a passage deeply through rock, making steep “walls” on each side of the
road. Livvy continued to cry. I can’t believe this is happening. I fought down a spasm of laughter.

Diana’s voice was steadier than it had been earlier. “Don’t even think about it. I’ll shoot. I want this to look like an accident, but if you run, I’ll kill you and cover it up.”

I opened the diaper’s tape fasteners with jerky fingers. It was happening, all right. Diana pulled back when I opened the diaper and cleaned up Livvy. I toyed with the idea of tossing the whole thing in Diana’s face and running, but where would we go? Instead I put the diaper in a plastic bag and sealed it. I quickly taped on the clean diaper, my hands moving smoothly through the rote motions I’d already performed thousands of times in Livvy’s short life. I refastened the snaps on her outfit and scooped her up in my arms. I hummed in her ear with my chin pressed against her wooly hat. She hiccuped, sighed, and began sucking her thumb. A car surged past, ruffled my hair, and made my jeans flap against my legs.

If fear had a continuum like grief, my fear seemed to morph into cold, hard anger. Diana would probably kill us both without a second’s hesitation, but I was determined to fight with everything I had. Livvy needed me and Mitch needed me. There was no way I was going down without a fight. I took a deep breath and put Livvy back in the car seat. My hands were steadier and I’d lost the feeling of sheer panic. I’d settled into determined anger.

I pulled back onto the road, but kept under the speed limit. Diana shifted around in her seat. “Go faster.” She bit her thumbnail.

“I can’t. The roads are too slick. It’s the drizzle.”

We drove in silence for a while.

“You must specialize in ‘accidents,”’ I said. Diana twisted toward me. We entered Clairmont, a tiny assemblage of gas stations, check-cashing businesses, and pizza places that clung to the side of the freeway leading to the base. Maybe I could distract her.

When she didn’t reply I went on, “Cass’s death was almost perfect. No one suspected you planned it.” Flattery couldn’t hurt. “But why did you leave the cup in her car?”

“I’m not stupid enough to talk to you.” The tires schussed through the thin layer of water on the road as fat drops of rain plopped on the windshield. I turned the wipers on intermittent and slowed a little more.

“It won’t hurt to tell. I’m not going to be around.” My heartbeat seemed to thunder in my ears for a moment and I thought I might pass out, but then I managed to say, “You must have planned to be the first person to reach her after the attack.”

Diana sighed a sigh of pure exasperation, like a parent discussing their difficult teenager. “She wasn’t even supposed to leave the squadron. She should have stepped on it when she first accelerated and that would trigger their defense, stinging. Repeatedly, you know. Bees can only sting once, but wasps sting again and again. I’d have said I was calling for help, but delayed. In the confusion, I could have gotten the cup and thrown it away.”

I glanced down at my pocket. The EpiPen made a faint bulge, but to me it seemed to pulsate. Diana probably took the EpiPen out of the van when she put the wasps in it. Maybe she removed the one from Cass’s purse during the barbeque. It wouldn’t have been hard to take either one, since Cass left the van unlocked and
her purse probably sat in the pile of unattended purses and bags near the door of The Hole during the barbeque.

Joe had mentioned Cass’s allergic reaction last year at the squad’s pool party. Everyone at the squad would have known about her allergy and where Cass kept the EpiPens. And even if Cass was able to inject herself with a spare EpiPen, Diana had the variable of time on her side since the base didn’t have an emergency room.

“Know much about bees and wasps? Are you allergic, too?” I asked.

Diana snorted. “No. The Internet is wonderful for research,” she said condescendingly.

“How did you get the wasps in there in the first place?”

Diana waved the gun in an off-handed gesture. “I made a trap. Used some soft strawberries to attract the wasps. Then I cooled them in the refrigerator so I could move them. Before the barbeque, I put them in the cup and left it in a small cooler in the basement.” She shrugged. “Not that difficult.”

No one would have noticed a cooler at a squadron during a barbeque. And I did remember seeing Diana in the hall on my way out of the squadron with an armload of picnic supplies, including a small cooler.

“But that wasn’t your first attempt. You had something to do with the brakes and steering failing on Cass’s van, didn’t you?”

She was silent, so I continued, “The Internet again?”

“Hardly. One of mom’s many, many boyfriends worked on his car while I played. Mom was off on one of her jobs. Was it waitressing? Or maybe that was when she was checking groceries? It didn’t matter. Ted
thought I was playing while he showed his greasy friend how to ‘fix’ the brakes and steering on his wife’s car. She’d been fooling around on him.”

We reached the main highway. I moved into the lane that arched to the east and merged with the traffic on the interstate. Only about ten minutes until we reached my house. My hands were slick on the steering wheel and my mouth felt dry. Could I use the EpiPen on her? I discarded the idea. It would be too hard to get it out of the amber tube and I didn’t know what it would do to her, if anything. Better to keep her talking.

“Where’s your mom?”

Diana shrugged. “Took off for Canada. She’s always been like that.” Her voice turned bitter. “She’s never been able to settle down. Make a home, a life. We moved eighteen times when I was in school. Can you believe that? What kind of mother would do that to her child?” I murmured sympathetic noises and she continued, “I certainly wouldn’t. I know what my kids need. Security, a stable home.” Her breathing went raspy. “I’m a good mom. I’m not about to lose everything I’ve worked for. Not for them and not for me.”

“But how was Cass a threat to you?”

Diana looked at me like she thought I was the biggest imbecile she’d ever seen. “I wasn’t about to let Cass blab that there might,
might,
be an earlier easement that completely restricted development.”

“How did you know Cass knew about that easement?” I asked.

“She was stupid enough to call me and ask about it while she was at the county requesting copies of everything she could get her hands on about the land.”

I remembered Debbie, the clerk at the county records office, and her irritation that Cass wouldn’t get
off her cell phone. I reviewed the past weeks and a few things fell into place.

“So it was you searching Cass’s house and garage.” She lifted one shoulder in acknowledgment.

“Why did you trash their house?”’

“I couldn’t find the box. The box that was in your car.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw her hands tighten on the gun. Livvy started crying. Diana raised her voice. “It could have been
anywhere.
It was just a bundle of paper.”

Anger seemed to radiate from Diana. I gripped the wheel tighter and tried to distract her from thinking about that box in my car, so close, but just out of reach. “You took the DVD player to make it look like a burglary. Nice touch. It threw the police off.”

She took a deep breath, sat up straighter, and regained control of herself. “Of course it did.” A tiny smile turned up the corners of her lips. “I dumped it in the first trash can I came to. Pure luck it was Gwen’s.”

When Diana couldn’t find the box at Cass’s, she assumed it was at my house with the garage sale things and searched there. “How did you get into our house?”

“I took the extra key off your key holder while you thought I was setting up for the garage sale,” Diana said.

I decided not to bring up the failed attempt to poison me. She probably added the antifreeze to my cup while she was searching.

After a few beats of silence she spoke again. “Cass was infuriating. She wasn’t about to let it go.” Diana was still thinking about Cass. The break-ins had been minor things to her. “She would have told everyone. You know how she was, couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it.” Diana rolled her eyes, like how childish can you
be? “One little thing and she couldn’t keep from talking about it. I’ve kept secrets all my life. It’s not that hard.”

I raised my eyebrows in a silent question. Diana didn’t look like the type of person who had secrets in her past.

“Do you think I always dressed like this, acted like this? You’ve met my mother.” Diana’s attention focused on the drenched trees that formed a corridor on each side of the interstate. She gave a little half-laugh and shook her head. “We were classic trailer park trash. I hated it and was
not
going to keep living that way.” She watched the trees for a few miles. I tried not to break the reminiscent spell. Diana was distracted and if I could get to the turnoff for Rim Rock Road, there were businesses, gas stations, and a convenience store. Maybe I could do something there. I said softly, “But your mom said something about tennis.” Tennis matches brought to mind country clubs, not trailer parks.

“It was part of P.E. in middle school. I was good, so I got on the tennis team. My coach knew where I came from and told me I could get a scholarship, if I worked at it. So I did. I played in high school and during my junior year I got a job at the local country club working in the locker room. For the first time, I saw another way of life. Those women could lose a diamond tennis bracelet and not even care because they had another one at home. They looked spectacular, even if they weren’t beautiful.

“Security and stability, that was what they had. I didn’t put it into words then, but I knew I wanted to be like them. It’s funny. I haven’t thought about this in a long time. It seems almost like I’m talking about another person, not myself.

“I remade myself. I paid attention to how those women dressed, did their hair, their makeup. I got my scholarship.”

I concentrated on the road while I ran over my impressions of Diana. She always seemed perfect, exact in her words and her appearance. At times, she even reminded me of a mannequin, a flawless exterior, but inside she was plastic and artificial. She was too perfect to be real. Her nail polish never had a chip, her shoes never had a scuff mark. At least now that I knew Diana’s perfection was a carefully maintained act, I didn’t have to feel like I fell short. She was an impersonation.

But that realization didn’t help me now. I mentally kicked myself for not exploring her flawlessness. It made me uncomfortable, but if I’d pursued it, I might not be chauffeuring a killer. I focused on Diana again to keep her talking. “How’s Jeff involved in this?”