The Double Cross (33 page)

The footsteps started up again and for a moment moved toward me. I held my breath. Then, just when they seemed on top of me, they stopped and seemed to move in the other direction.

“Keep going,” I thought. “Just let me get out of here and I will never again stick my nose where it doesn’t belong. I will live a long life making quilts and drawing pictures and staying out of trouble.”

The footsteps were gone. Definitely gone. I stood up, took a deep breath, and ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I didn’t care that tree branches were slapping me across the face as I ran. I didn’t care that my feet kept getting stuck in mud. Or that I had bitten so hard into my lip that it was beginning to bleed. I just wanted to get out of the woods and back to the inn as fast as I could.

I was heading toward the edge of the woods when my cell phone rang. The sound was so startling that I nearly dropped it.

“Nell?” I heard Jesse’s worried voice on the other end.

“Jesse,” I whispered. “I’m near where we found the body. I’m in trouble. I’m heading toward the inn.”

“I’m coming to get you,” he said. “And Nell, I . . .”

The signal was lost, and with it Jesse’s comforting voice. My heart sank.

“Don’t let that be the last time I talk to him,” I silently prayed.

Then I saw the gun.

“Jesse’s on his way right now,” I called out as defiantly as I could, but even I could hear the fear in my voice.

“Well, he’s going to be too late,” was the response.

I looked at his face. The gentle man who had become a friend, and who I’d thought might be a nice match for Bernie, was George’s killer—and was ready to kill me.

The gun was pointed directly at me. I made a choice. I turned and ran back toward the trees. I’d taken ten steps when I heard a loud sound.

After that all I could feel was pain.

I fell to the ground. I could feel Pete getting closer. In seconds he was standing over me with his gun pointed directly at me.

“Your first quilt,” I said. “It was a grave.”

“I didn’t mean to do that. Susanne was right about forgetting yourself when you make one of those quilts. I thought you had figured it out, that day in the classroom. I was scared. But you didn’t.” He laughed a little. “It was reckless of me but it was funny too. You think you’re so smart, and you didn’t see it.”

“I see it now.”

“I know.” There was sadness in his voice. I hoped it would translate into a reluctance to shoot me. “I tried to keep you out of here, but you wouldn’t listen. I don’t understand why you just couldn’t mind your own business.”

The gun was getting closer to my face.

It was stupid, but it was all I could think of. I kicked his knee as hard as I could. I expected the rifle to go off, but instead Pete stumbled, dropping the gun.

“What the hell?” he said, as startled as I was.

I jumped up and grabbed the gun. I could feel a searing pain in my shoulder and I knew the wetness I felt against my skin was blood, but I was the one with a weapon. That was all that mattered.

I took the butt of the gun and hit him. Pete fell back for a moment but came after me. I knew I wouldn’t have time to run.

“Go ahead and shoot that thing,” Pete taunted. Whatever kindness there was in him was buried under desperation. “You need to know what you’re doing with a rifle and, trust me, city kid, you don’t.”

He started to get up. I pointed the rifle at him, awkwardly, wincing at the pain that shot up my arm.

“Do you really want to take that chance?” I yelled.

Pete nodded. “Yeah, Nell, I think I do.”

I tried to remember everything Frank had taught me. Then I pulled the trigger.

“Damn!” Pete fell to the ground in what seemed like slow motion, gripping his right leg.

My whole body began to shake and I found the rifle slipping from my arm. I held it at my side, watching Pete writhe in pain.

“Great shot.”

I turned and saw Jesse, Frank, and McIntyre running toward me, led by Barney.

“Thanks, Frank,” I said, and handed him the rifle. Jesse grabbed me and I collapsed in his arms.

“I’ll get an ambulance,” Frank said, and ran from the scene while Jesse wrapped his arms protectively around me.

McIntyre stepped over to Pete. “This is probably pretty obvious, but you’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Nell Fitzgerald.”

“And the murder of George Olnhausen,” I said.

McIntyre nodded toward me, then turned his attention back to Pete. “That too. Now, if you will just tell me why you did it.”

Pete scowled at him but said nothing.

“I know why,” I said. “His wife’s body is buried twenty feet from where we found George.”

McIntyre turned back to Pete. “You killed Siobhan?”

Pete grimaced. “I’m not saying anything. If you want answers, you’ll have to ask the busybody from out of town.”

McIntyre looked at me. “I will, Pete. Thanks for the advice. It’s nice when we’re all working together.” He reached down and hand-cuffed Pete’s hands.

CHAPTER 52

My shoulder wasn’t as bad as the initial pain had led to me to believe. The bullet had gone right through, and once the doctor had patched me up at the hospital and given me a very welcome pain reliever, Jesse took me back to the inn.

“And you’re going straight to bed,” he said.

But much to Jesse’s annoyance, that didn’t happen. As soon as our car pulled up, McIntyre stepped forward to thank me for my help, and then my grandmother, Bernie, and all the students from Susanne’s class ran out to greet me. Joi and her mother were on the porch but came down to welcome me. Barney, who had his nose in a flower bed, looked up and came running, pushing past the others.

“You solved the case,” I said as he jumped all over me. “If you hadn’t insisted on digging in those spots, we wouldn’t have found out what happened.”

“That’s probably why Pete killed Frank’s dog,” McIntyre said. “If he was hunting on the property with Frank, he probably sniffed at the body and started digging. Pete didn’t bury her very deep.”

“Barney must have discovered the body that day,” I said. “And when Bernie left, George went looking for her. I think he must have left the picnic basket but taken the quilt because it was too nice to just leave it there.”

“That’s why George wasn’t where I left him,” Bernie said. “I thought I’d walked back to the wrong tree.”

“While he was looking for you, he probably found Barney, and what Barney was digging up, and went looking for help.”

“And found Pete instead,” Jesse said. “All this time Barney’s been going back into the woods, looking for that spot. He was trying to uncover a murderer.” Jesse stroked Barney’s head. “I guess you’ve been hanging out with these detectives long enough to want in on a case.”

“He nearly got Nell killed,” my grandmother said. “I don’t know what I would have done . . .”

I reached out and hugged her with my good arm. “I’m fine. And Barney didn’t almost get me killed. He saved my life. He ran to get Jesse.”

“It’s true,” Jesse said. “Barney found McIntyre and me and brought us right to her.”

“How did you get there?” I asked Frank.

“I heard shots. Then I heard you yell out. I knew if you kept wandering in the woods you’d get yourself in trouble, so I came to help.”

I hugged him. “You’re a difficult man to like,” I said, “but you’re a good man.”

He laughed. “A lot of people feel that way about me. Including my wife.”

I looked at Helen, who was standing the farthest from me of any of the students. Even the twins had crowded around.

“Your wife doesn’t feel that way, Frank,” I said. “She tried to set you up for a murder rap.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Helen protested, as Frank turned to her, confusion spreading across his face.

I shook my head. “She told Susanne that she and George were in love. That was nonsense, but if anyone thought you believed it, it would be a motive for a hot-tempered guy like you to shoot him. Plus you seemed to be so fond of Rita. That might look like an affair, too.”

“He was my pharmacist,” Rita said. “He knew what medications I was on. He knew I was sick.”

“I figured that out, but it took me a while,” I admitted. “You also knew about Pete’s wife and her headaches. And, I’m assuming, her unhappiness.”

“Pete wanted things his way. We all do,” Frank acknowledged. “But he was particularly rigid. When Siobhan, his wife . . . when she got a job and started to come into town a lot, he didn’t care for that. She used to confide in me because she knew I had a professional obligation to keep it to myself. We don’t have any therapists in Winston, so it’s me or the bartender at McGrudy’s.”

“And then you heard she’d left Pete.”

He nodded. “I was happy for her. I thought there couldn’t be an unhappier wife in the county.” He looked toward Helen. “I guess I was wrong.”

“But why kill her?” Joi asked. “Hasn’t he heard of divorce?”

“He told me that his place was a dream he’d worked all his life for. And if they divorced, I guess he figured she’d get half,” I said.

“I don’t see why you’re accusing me of doing anything wrong. Pete’s marital troubles have nothing to do with me,” Helen said.

“You gave your seam ripper to Frank after George was killed. Frank must have dropped it in the woods when he went hunting. It probably fell out of a hole in his pocket. You got lucky that if fell out so close to the murder scene.”

“No, she didn’t,” Frank said. “She knew I hunted in that area. And in the days after George’s death she’s been giving me things to hold. Earrings, her spare car key, that seam ripper. She must have figured something would fall out in the woods. I guess that explains why I kept finding a hole in every pair of pants I put on.”

“I knew Frank was innocent when I realized, the seam ripper had to have been dropped there after the murder, because if had been there when we found George’s body, I’m sure McIntyre would have found it.” I looked toward McIntyre and smiled. “He’s a very good cop. If I’d believed that at the beginning, I wouldn’t have almost fallen for Helen’s scheme to frame Frank.”

“If not for you, I might have thought it was Bernie,” McIntyre said.

I turned back to Frank. “And Helen made a point of telling me that you were alone in the woods on the day of the murder. In fact, Helen went out of her way each time I saw her to point me in your direction.”

Helen made grunting noises but didn’t move or deny it.

“I was thrown off the track when the twins told me that she had walked into the woods, but she couldn’t have.”

Helen glared at the twins, who ignored her and looked toward me.

“Pete told us he saw her, but didn’t want to get in the middle of it, because he and Frank didn’t get along as it was,” one of them said. “So we agreed to say something.”

“We thought we were doing the right thing,” the other added.

“There is one thing that doesn’t make sense,” Jesse said to Helen. “If you didn’t go to the woods, how did you know about Bernie being bent over the body?”

Helen shrugged and seemed to give up her protestations. “Pete told me.” Her voice was hard, as if she was being treated unfairly and was the real victim. “After his fight with Frank, I called to thank him. I’d never had a man defend my honor before.” She glared at her husband. “Pete told me that I was a real lady. And then he told me that he’d seen Bernie in the woods, bending over George. He asked for my advice, something my husband never did. He didn’t want to cause any problems for Bernie, but he felt the police should know, so I promised to tell McIntyre. I guess he was using me, like he did the twins.” She sighed heavily. “I obviously had no idea he’d killed George.”

“He set you up to frame Bernie,” I said, “and you used it to set up Frank. The items Frank dropped in the woods would point to you, but any investigation by the police would uncover your severe arthritis. You couldn’t possibly walk that far into the woods with your bad knees. McIntyre would assume you were covering for someone. And it would be perfectly reasonable for him to assume that person was Frank.”