One Hot Murder (35 page)

Cooper’s Race had no streetlights, so at least Abby wouldn’t see her skulking around the neighborhood. She stopped at Davenport’s car, flashing the light inside. A half-filled cup of coffee sat in the holder. She opened the door and reached inside to pick it up. The McDonald’s cup was no longer warm. He’d left it there some time ago. She replaced the cup in the holder and shut the car door. Where the heck could he be?

She looked down the street toward the Wheelers’ house, and frowned. He had to be lurking around the house somewhere. Maybe in the backyard. Katie hefted her flashlight. It would make a pretty good weapon, if need be.

Did she really think she needed a weapon?

Call 911
, the voice inside her taunted.

And say what? That Abby Wheeler has a body in her house stinking up the joint? Yeah, they’d take me really seriously with that
one.

And what if Abby
did
have a body in the basement? Maybe it wasn’t hot flashes that were the reason behind her keeping the air-conditioning set at such a low level, but to keep the house cold enough to keep the body from quickly decomposing during the prolonged heat wave.

You are really stupid if you don’t call 911 right now
, the voice taunted, but Katie forged ahead, keeping to the shadows as she approached the Wheeler house once again.

She had to have killed Jerry Murphy. But why? They were supposed to be running away together that week. What could have caused her to kill her (supposed) lover when what she wanted (another guess on Katie’s part)—to leave Dennis—was at hand?

Davenport had said Murphy had bought train tickets to Florida. But what if he’d bought round-trip instead of one-way tickets? What if all he wanted was a fling and she’d wanted more?

He had a good job he enjoyed, a budding business restoring old cars. Running away with his married lover just didn’t seem to be a logical step—especially for a man who liked to flirt with women. Was Abby just one entry on his dance card? Had he been seeing others as well as her?

All supposition
, the voice said.

One thing was certain: Ray Davenport was hanging around somewhere near, watching the situation.

But what if he wasn’t? What if he’d made it inside the house to talk to Abby and something unforeseen had happened? She’d (possibly) already killed one person. Would Davenport have been so desperate to collar one last felon that he disregarded his own advice to let the Sheriff’s Office handle it?

What if Abby had killed him, too?

Katie hefted her flashlight and slunk behind a tree in the yard next to the Wheeler home. Where would Abby be right now? Sitting alone at her dining room table, scarfing down pizza? That was a good bet. Where would she have put a stinking body? In the basement? That was the coldest part of a house during the summer months, especially if air-conditioning was in use. Katie decided to poke around the foundation and hope she didn’t run into spiders, crickets, and slugs.

Scurrying across the driveway, she saw that Abby’s car was parked close to the house. More cover. She sidled past it and hunkered down to the window well. Damn. Glass blocks filled the rectangle where a window should have been. They let light in, but kept nosy people—and presumably would-be burglars—out. She turned on her flashlight and got exactly the results she expected—the light was reflected back at her. She doused the light and sat back on her
haunches. If all the windows had been filled with the blocks, she was skunked.

She duckwalked around the side of the house to the next break in the concrete block foundation and found a real window. She turned her flashlight back on and placed it directly on the glass. The funnel of light shone on the basement floor, but there wasn’t anything to see. She moved it back and forth, and several stacked cartons came into view. Not much help.

She moved along the back of the house to another window, maneuvered her flashlight to touch the glass, as sticky filaments of spiderwebs clung to her hands. She tried not to think about the probable occupant of the web and trained her flashlight on the glass.

She squinted to make sense of the sight. Mounds of what look like sheets and towels along a long cylinder of some type. Cylinder or body?

Katie swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise up her throat. It was all well and good to think there might be a body in that basement, but the realization that there really could be one sickened her.

And then she noticed the foot sticking out at an odd angle. She carefully moved the flashlight across the glass, but from that angle, couldn’t see much beyond it…except what looked like the bottom step from the stairwell that led back to the home’s main level.

Did that foot belong to Ray Davenport?

Katie stood, seized with indecision.

And then the backyard was flooded with light, blinding her.

Within seconds, a voice called out, “Don’t move, or I’ll blow your head off.”

Abby Wheeler stood at the corner of the house, arms extended, clutching a mammoth gun—her late husband’s Magnum.

Katie raised her hands in submission, still clasping the flashlight in her right. “Are you really going to shoot me, Abby—in all this light? I’ll bet your neighbors can dial nine-one-one just as fast as I can.”

Katie’s phone rang.

Abby stood there, staring at her.

Katie stared back.

The phone continued to ring.

“I’ll bet it’s Andy. I told him I’d deliver your pizza and be right back. If I don’t answer this call, he’ll probably call nine-one-one.”

The gun wavered ever-so-slightly.

“Face it, Abby. You’re done.”

The phone kept ringing.

“I could still blow you away, you nosy bitch.”

Katie sighed. Why did nasty people always call
her
a bitch?

“You could, but that would just make your jail sentence that much longer.”

“You think I’d ever get parole after killing that bastard husband of mine?”

The phone abruptly stopped chirping. It must have rolled over into voice mail.

Katie blinked, stunned by Abby’s last words. “Dennis? But I thought you killed Jerry.”

“Why would I want to do that? I actually loved him.”

“Then whose body did they find in Wood U?”

“It was Jerry,” she said bitterly. “Dennis was going to do the deed. He texted Jerry and told him I wanted to meet him at the shop. Told him where the key was hidden. Jerry let himself inside, but Dennis got there late—and found someone had already killed him.”

Oh dear God.
Did Sally Casey even know what Dennis looked like? Had she mistaken Jerry for Dennis and killed him without proof of identity?

“Did Dennis know about the trip you and Jerry were taking to Florida?”

Abby sniffed and the heavy gun again wavered in her grasp. “He laughed. He said he’d taken steps to make sure I couldn’t touch any of the money in our joint accounts. He’d moved it to other banks. He’d canceled all my credit cards and burned my driver’s license. I had nothing—no money or access to it, and no way to prove my identity without a lot of hassle.”

“But he made one big mistake, didn’t he?”

Abby laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. “He put the gun down. I picked it up and I shot him.”

“Was that before or after Gilda called to tell you about the fire?”

“Before. Maybe a minute before.”

“So you really didn’t have to act when you arrived at the Square last Saturday night. You knew your lover was dead—and you’d just killed your husband.”

“I still haven’t figured out why anyone would want to kill Jerry. Maybe another jealous husband—I never figured he was the monogamous type.”

The faint sounds of a siren cut through the night.

Katie could see light behind the drapes of the neighbor’s house. Movement told her that someone was watching the spectacle.
Thank you for dialing 911
, she thought.

“I’d say we’re about to get company any minute now,” Katie said calmly.

“I’ll have them arrest you for trespassing.” She glanced over her shoulder to look at the lighted window next door. “My neighbor will back me up.”

“And how will you explain the bodies in the basement?”

“Bodies?” Abby asked innocently.

“There’s someone lying at the bottom step of your basement stairs. I presume it’s Detective Davenport.”

Abby’s face twisted into a scowl.

The sirens got a whole lot louder.

“Give it up, Abby. It’s all over.”

“Never, bitch,” she said, and pulled the trigger.

Katie dove to her right as the big gun’s recoil knocked Abby off her feet. Katie scrambled in the dew-soaked grass as Abby fired again. Katie kept moving until she was out of the bright light, but smacked into a wooden fence. She scrambled to climb it, but found it was higher than her outstretched hands could reach. She couldn’t find the top to pull herself up.

The gun fired again, taking out a big chunk of the fence to her right. Katie darted left. This side of the yard was hemmed in by chain link fence, and a good deal shorter. She leapt it like a fleeing gazelle.

“Put your hands up!” a male voice ordered and Katie instinctively pivoted.

Abby whirled, drawing the gun up to fire.

An explosion of sound erupted, but not from Abby’s gun. She was thrown backward, smashing into the wet ground, her pretty peach sweatshirt awash in scarlet.

“Will you stop complaining?” Katie grated as she walked alongside the gurney, trying to stay in step with the EMTs.

“I’ve got a broken foot, I’ve got a concussion! Don’t you think I have a right to complain?” Davenport asked, and winced as the gurney bounced on the uneven driveway.

Katie sighed. “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you’d called me in for backup.”

“You?” he accused. “I was crazy to come over here on my own. I should’ve done what I always told you to do. I should’ve minded my own business.”

“But you didn’t. And Abby Wheeler pushed you down a flight of stairs. Just how did that happen, by the way?”

“It’s embarrassing. I said I noticed the smell in her house, and she said she thought there was a dead rat in the basement. She opened the cellar door, I looked down, and she gave me a shove. It all happened rather fast.”

“And while you were out of it…well, you know the rest.”

“Yeah. Now my suspect’s dead, and a fine deputy has got to live with the guilt for the rest of his life.”

“She could’ve killed you, too. She tried to kill me. I was just lucky she couldn’t see in the dark. And I’m grateful that Andy and Abby’s neighbors both called nine-one-one.”

They approached the ambulance, and the EMTs halted.

Davenport made a grab for Katie’s hand. “Could you call my girls? I don’t want some unfeeling cop to tell them what happened and that I’m in the hospital. It’ll scare them half to death, especially after what happened with their mother last year.”

Davenport’s wife had died as the result of a car accident. Had one of the girls fielded that call, too?

“I’d be glad to,” she assured him. He gave her the number and she programmed it into her cell phone.

“And ask for Sophie. She’s the levelheaded one,” Davenport added.

“And what will we do about your party tomorrow night?” Katie asked.

“You don’t think a broken foot is going to keep me from my retirement party, do you? Not a chance!”

“All right. Then I’ll see you tomorrow night. Call—or have Sophie call—if you need anything,” Katie said sincerely.

Davenport nodded and sank back against the gurney’s pillow, grunting as the EMTs loaded him into the back of the ambulance. Katie watched as they slammed the back door. She stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the damp chill that had settled.

She glanced toward one of the patrol cars. Deputy Schuler leaned against the trunk, his face pale in the blazing light of the headlights from another cruiser. She’d heard him tell his superiors that he’d never before fired his service revolver during the ten years he’d been a deputy. He was terribly upset, but Katie had no qualms about telling Detective
Hamilton what she’d seen, and that Schuler had acted in self-defense. Abby Wheeler would have shot Schuler dead where he stood if he hadn’t fired first, but that knowledge didn’t help the man now. He was a nice guy. As Davenport had intimated, the events of this night would no doubt haunt him forever.