The Hammett Hex (12 page)

Always make friends.

—The Kelly Rules

I
KNEW BETTER
than to argue with the officer. My uncles had drilled me on how to behave before I went to school. If you are carrying anything that might be interpreted as a weapon, say a comb or a pencil or a loaf of bread, drop it and get on the floor. That won't kill you. Resistance might.

I was carrying a gun.

I bent down immediately and put it on the floor. The cop kicked it out of my reach.

I couldn't help but worry about my chiffon snagging as I lay on the floor. Would I get blood on this outfit? Not that it was important in the scheme of things.

I thought I might try explaining to the cop. “Mrs. Huddy is my fiancé's grandmother. She was attacked by two male intruders who escaped down the back stairs. By all means, keep an eye on me. I'd do the same in your situation, but please get your colleagues after them. They'll be on the run. Stockings over their faces, fedoras and trench coats.”

“Don't even try yanking my chain.”

“Believe me, I know how idiotic it sounds, but those would have been intended to terrify a helpless senior citizen.”

A reedy and not in the least helpless voice escaped from the darkened bedroom. “It didn't work the way they thought it would, but you'd better hustle after them.”

I called out, “She has to watch me, Gram. It's standard procedure. I might not be who I say I am.”

Gram said, “Is she alone? How can she—”

The officer bent down and snapped a pair of cuffs on my wrists. Her name was Jennifer Martinez. “Don't worry. My partner's downstairs and there's backup on the way.” She spoke into her radio and gave a word-for-word description of the intruders. I could have gotten out of those handcuffs in two seconds flat—that had been a Kelly family parlor game when I was growing up—but I wasn't foolish enough to try it.

I added, “They seemed like males, one about six feet and the other over six feet. Heavyset. No way to tell race or ethnicity. From their movements I'd put them both in their thirties, give or take. One or both will be bleeding.”

“Bleeding? Why bleeding?”

“They experienced a snag in their plans,” I said. “We had to fight back and we used what we had, which was a massive collection of marbles in a very big glass jar.”

She glanced around, gun still trained. “Who's ‘we'?”

“Told you. Me and Gram, that's Mrs. Huddy. When the lights were out, I dropped the marbles. She managed to trick them and blow the fuse. That's how we got the gun. Gram was pretty brave.”

“I'm in here and I knew you were the right girl for my Tyler. We put the boots to those two SOBs, didn't we, Jordan!”

“We sure did, Gram.” I tried to lower my voice. “Officer,
there's an injured woman downstairs. Zoya is Mrs. Huddy's housekeeper and she appeared to have been hit on the head, I assume by the intruders, who were looking for something. I found her when I came home and I called 911.”

“Is Zoya all right?” Gram said with a shake in her voice for the first time. There was nothing wrong with her hearing.

“I hope so,” I said. “She seemed to have been knocked out but she was still breathing.”

“Why would they hurt Zoya and try to scare us? What were they looking for? Not much chance they'd get anything here,” Gram said weakly.

I thought it would be very interesting to find out exactly what they had been looking for, and I wasn't alone.

“So what were they looking for?” Martinez said.

“I have no idea. But they didn't find it, whatever it was.”

“What they found was some glass in their keisters. Check the hospitals.” Gram's voice was getting weaker, but she managed a wheezy chuckle.

“She's eighty-five and she's had a shock. She needs medical help and so does Zoya,” I said. “I'm okay, though.”

“Maybe not. Your hands are bleeding,” the cop said.

Again. Just a bit of new damage to my palms. At least the knees hadn't met any glass shards.

“Just a flesh wound as they say. I didn't even feel it.”

“Shock,” she said. “You're gonna feel it later.”

“Oh.” It was tricky talking to her from my position facedown on the floor.

She shrugged. “Things happen.”

“I guess so. They sure did happen here. Do you think anyone is going to try to catch up with those two? They might have split up. That would be smart.”

“How do I even know you weren't behind the whole thing?”

“What whole thing?”

A sound at the bedroom door took our attention away from that little squabble. Gram was leaning against the door frame and gasping for breath. How had she gotten past those marbles and glass without injuring herself? She was holding the cane and I had to admire that spirit.

“Ma'am,” Officer Martinez said. “Let me help you back to bed. The ambulance is coming.”

“Help me back to bed? I don't think so. Do you want to get killed by those marbles? I almost did.”

“What? Oh. But you—”

“What you should do, young woman, is uncuff my grandson's fiancée, who just saved my life and was extremely resourceful and brave . . .”

Her voice had started to fade away. I said, “No, you're brave, Gram. You did that amazing thing with the lights.”

Gram swayed. “I guess I do need my bed.”

“We'd better not go back in there, Gram. But you need to lie down until you've been checked by the paramedics. Where's the best bedroom for you now? Yours is way too dangerous with all that glass and the police need to check that for evidence.”

“No DNA.” Gram slowly pitched over. The cop caught her in time. I couldn't do a thing from the floor and in handcuffs. Gram added, “Masks, hats, leather gloves, plastic booties over their shoes.”

“Professionals, maybe,” the cop said, steering Gram toward the next door.

Gram said, “I'll move to the front room, if you don't mind. It was my husband's. Best room in the house.”

I said, “But luckily those crooks did cut themselves, so you will get DNA. Perhaps including mine.”

The cop said, “Right. That and fifty cents won't get you a shoe shine,” she said. “You know what the waiting time is for DNA results?”

Right. Maybe six months if no one had been killed.

“Now if you'd been killed, we could pick up the pace.”

“We were almost killed.”

“Not good enough.”

Gram put up a bit of a struggle, “You really have to let Jordan up. This is nothing short of police brutality, keeping my grandson's fiancée on the floor. It's the kind of thing that makes the news.”

I said, “It does appear that I am on good terms with the victim and, in fact, am a victim myself. Perhaps that will merit a twist of the key. As you pointed out, I am also bleeding.”

A thundering on the stairs caused us all to stop and stare. A blond head appeared at the top of the staircase and a familiar voice said, “What the—”

“Pet!”

“Tyler!”

“What the hell happened? Gram? Jordan? Zoya's lying downstairs and—”

“Oh, we had quite the visit,” Gram said. “Can't wait to tell you about it. Jordan's a cracker in an emergency.”

“Very true,” he said.

I squirmed to get a good look at him. “Is Zoya getting help?”

“There's an officer downstairs with her and the paramedics are on the way.”

“My partner,” the officer said.

Smiley bellowed, “Why are you cuffed, Jordan? Are you hurt? Is that blood? Why is she cuffed?”

Gram said, “You bet your fat fanny she's hurt. She fought off two thugs and now this . . .
official . . .
refuses to take off the handcuffs, even though I have carefully explained she's practically family. And she saved my life.”

This was not strictly true. Gram had actually saved my life. I said as much.

Gram said, “But if you hadn't come into the room and you hadn't known about the contents of the apothecary jar and you—”

Smiley—who wasn't smiling—turned to the officer and gave her his name. He also produced his badge, not that the hallowed name of Town of Cabot would cut much ice in the City by the Bay. “This is my grandmother and this is my fiancée. Can you tell me why she's in cuffs?” He reached down to help me struggle to my feet. I may have hammed it up just a bit.

“There was a lot of confusion here. I'm just following procedure. You know that.” The officer did have two little red spots on her cheeks, I was happy to note. She had been following procedure, but even so, I was glad if she was the tiniest bit embarrassed. After all the stuff that's happened to me in front of Smiley and various other officers of the law over the past three years, I am well beyond humiliation. So my no-doubt bedraggled hair, the dust on my lovely clothes, the handcuffs and the bloody hands I hadn't seen yet wouldn't be enough to bring spots to my cheeks. I was immune.

Smiley said, “Keys, please.”

Although I was pretty sure it wasn't procedure, she handed them over. “I'll need to get a statement from her at the station.”

I took a leaf from Gram's book and swayed ever so slightly. “We better give that statement here or at the hospital,” I whispered as he unlocked the cuffs. “Aren't we the victims?”

“Better sit down,” Smiley said gravely. I noticed his lips twitched.

Luckily there was an overstuffed chintz chair in the corridor for me to plop into. I tried to keep my hands from leaving gory marks on it. Of course, the pink and fuchsia
print was so busy, who would ever know? I stared at my palms, which did have a few new cuts on top of yesterday's scrapes and one small gash that was bleeding freely.

“That might need stitches,” Smiley said.

“Oh boy. I was hoping it was nothing.”

“And what's that about an apothecary jar?”

“You're going to hate this part,” I said.

“No he's not,” Gram interjected from the doorway. “He'll love it. It means there was a cosmic reason that we kept those marbles.”

“My marbles? You're kidding. That is—I don't even know what to say.”

“Don't worry. We'll pick them up. But you're going to need another jar.” I know how much childhood treasures can mean to people so I reached out to reassure him.

He threw back his head and started to laugh. “Brilliant!”

“Well, they were going to shoot us, and I couldn't see another possible weapon in the room unless we smothered them with flowered throw pillows. But Gram was the brilliant one. She shorted out the circuit by plugging in the humidifier.”

The next feet up the stairs belonged to the paramedic, who took a serious interest in Gram, now reclining in the four-poster in the huge front bedroom. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought she was having the time of her life. Gram did not want to be transported to the hospital or anywhere else. She was staying in her home.

Tyler made his way to the door of the front room. I edged up behind him. I was a bit shaky but that was all.

Gram told the paramedic, “I am perfectly fine and I value my independence. And I don't think you can force me, young man. What would your mother say?”

The paramedic had a bit of trouble keeping the grin off his face. He'd probably stop trying after five minutes with
Gram. The second paramedic arrived shortly after, apparently having taken care of Zoya.

“How is Zoya doing?” I asked. “The woman with the head injury.”

This paramedic was a cheerful woman with bright red hair and the freckles to go with it. She looked at me and said nothing in answer to my question. I said, “Sure, sure, privacy, I know, but we need to know. She took a conk on the head. That can be serious. We're worried about her.”

“They want to take her to Emergency for examination by a neurologist and scans. She's refusing.”

Gram called out from her new room, “She's scared about the money. Tell her I'll pay whatever it is.”

Tyler said, “I'll tell her.”

I added, “One of us should go with her unless she has some family around.”

Gram called out, “Zoya has no family. Just me.” And then to the paramedics: “What? Oh, all right. I'll be still, but we have a situation to deal with. Zoya's very high strung.”

I said, “Maybe I should go, although I don't think she likes me much.”

Smiley said, “I'll go with her, once I know that you and Gram are all right.”

“I'm all right. Like I said, just a flesh wound. Who knew this town would be so tough?”

The paramedic said, “Glad that's all settled. Zoya will need someone with her. She's pretty shaken up. Now, before you go anywhere, let's have a look at that hand.”

“I was lucky. It could have been worse. There was glass everywhere.”

“What all happened?”

After I'd told the story of the cable car and the Prius and the home invasion, she said, “I guess you were lucky. What did they want?”