When I Kill You (7 page)

The bouncer was now laughing so hard I had to shove him out of the way. I waddled across the room to the whistles of the hardcore drinkers, through the swinging door with the hand pointing
Toilets This Way
. I went past the Womens, past the kegs and crates of bottles, out the rear exit and kept going.

CHAPTER TEN

M
arcia yelling at me on the phone first thing in the morning was getting to be a bad routine. I hated her uppity, nagging voice. I hated her telling me I'd failed again. I hated her saying I now had until tomorrow to do the job. I hated
her
. But when she
didn't
call first thing Saturday morning, I began to get nervous. I found myself talking to her in my head, making excuses. I'd given it my all. It wasn't my fault her horrible husband was still alive. Whereas
my
life was all but over. Come Monday I'd be looking through bars.

People went missing every day. I decided I was going to be one of them. I had a few hundred in the bank, a credit card not yet maxed out and a banged-up car. Enough to get me—where? Winnipeg? Calgary? Vancouver? I'd run. I'd go underground. I'd get away from the mess my life had become.

I told myself,
Okay, girl, stay cool. You've
got a lot to do
. I drove downtown and closed my checking account. I stopped off at a pharmacy and came back with a box of Clairol and a bottle of Liquid Bronze. I took a pair of scissors and hacked my hair off real short. A few hours later, I was no longer blond with shoulder-length hair but darkest mahogany, gelled up into spikes, and my skin was a few tones darker. I looked like a giant hedgehog with a tan. I wasn't crazy about my new appearance, but I had to say even my own mother wouldn't have known me.

I packed only the clothes I needed, some camping gear, my iPod and my mobile. I boxed up the food I figured I could use on the road. I tossed all my personal stuff— letters, cards, photos. I hesitated over my wedding album. It was the only reminder of Chico that I had. I decided he wasn't worth it, and it went too. I left everything else. I loaded up my car. Before I said goodbye to my apartment, I watered my plants. Maybe some kind soul would rescue them. And I called Jimmy.

“Hey, Lava,” he sang out when he heard my voice. “I was about to give you a bell.”

“Listen, Jimmy—” I started, but he cut me off.

“I got great news for you, kid. You got your match! Janey Jumps pulled out. You're on with Wanda Sunday.”

I was so geared up for flight, I didn't know what he was talking about for a minute. My life as a mud wrestler seemed a million years ago. I dropped into a chair. At that moment I wanted to tell him everything. About Chico, Bernie, blackmailing Marcia, Slippery Stanley and the horrible hand fate had dealt me. I wanted to bawl my head off. Instead I said, “Oh.”

“Well, don't say thank-you. I had to lean on Al for this. You said it was what you wanted.”

“I mean it's really great, Jimbo.” I tried to pump enthusiasm into my voice.

“So, you up for this? You can win this, girl. Just get your head around it. You can win this.” Good old Jimmy. Always in my corner. Always pulling for me.

Something—my backbone—stiffened. I stood up. “You're right,” I said, really meaning it. “I can win this. I'll flatten the head-butting bitch. And thanks, Jimbo. Thanks a lot.”

I unloaded my car and humped my stuff back up to my apartment. I could run another day. I thought,
Damn Marcia
. And then I called her.

* * *

“I told you not to contact me,” she barked as soon as she recognized my voice. “I was going to call you—”

“Shut up and listen,” I told her. “I'm not doing your dirty work. You want him dead, you do it. And you can take your video and shove it.”

“Hold on. Not so fast. You still have time…”

She went on talking, but I shouted over her, “You deaf ? I said no. Nix. Niente. You're finished using me.”

“…it's simple, foolproof, and this time I'm even going to help you.”

“What?” I said.

“Domestic accidents happen all the time. Stanley's away for the afternoon. So the coast is clear for you to booby-trap the cellar stairs. Think about it, Gina. It's him or you. Is he worth a lifetime in jail?”

He wasn't. She'd called him a beast. I knew he was a sadist. I didn't feel sorry for her being married to him. She got what she deserved. But
I
deserved better than a permanent berth in prison for a death I did
not
cause, even if I had to commit murder to make sure that didn't happen. I knew now I couldn't have saved Chico. I hadn't
let
him fall. He'd set up his own exit, and there was nothing I could have done about it.

Her plan was simple. Stanley always watched tv on Saturday nights. His favorite show came on at 8:00—
Creeps
, a new thriller series. I thought the name suited him. All I had to do was rig a wire across the cellar steps and trip the circuit breaker sometime after 8:00. The wiring in the house was old. Fuses were always blowing. The fuse box was in the cellar. Stanley would grab a flashlight and go down to the cellar to the get the power up again. Marcia would make sure the flashlight had dead batteries. She'd already arranged her alibi. She was going out. And Stanley would go bump.

Her plan was simple, and it was smart. As I listened to her talk, I really began to think I could have it all. I could get rid of Stanley, get Marcia off my back and drag Wild Woman Wanda through the mud.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
arcia had told me to come around to the rear of the house because she didn't want the neighbors to see her letting me in. She was waiting for me at the back door and jerked it open before I could knock.

“Who—?” she started to say until she realized it was me in my new look. If she suspected I'd been preparing to cut and run, she didn't say. Just, “Did you bring everything you need? I can't be expected to supply anything. Nothing must link—”

“I know,” I sneered, “to you.” The fact the murder was going to happen in her own home didn't seem to count. As long as she was out of it. “Yeah, I got the stuff.” I had bought wire and nails from Home Hardware. I already had the hammer.

She got right down to business. “The cellar stairs are off the kitchen.” She led the way in through a mudroom and a pantry. The kitchen was roomy and old-fashioned, with a worn tile floor and painted cupboards reaching to the ceiling. But the appliances were new and gleaming white. It figured.

She pointed to a door at the far end and said in her hoity-toity twang, “I'll leave you to it.” She stalked off, very lady-ofthe-manor. I was the hired help. Except I wasn't being paid.

I opened the cellar door and groped for a light switch. A single bulb dangling from the ceiling gave weak lighting to some very steep, narrow, wooden stairs. I went down them carefully, surprised no one had broken their neck on them before now. They ended in a real cellar, not a basement rec room. It had an earth floor, something you don't see except in old houses. The fuse box was on the wall near the bottom of the stairs. There was a lot of dusty, cobwebby junk piled up all over the place. The air smelled damp and moldy.

I chose the third step down. It wasn't rocket science, two nails and a bit of wire strung tightly across the side supports. The job was done in five minutes. Then I realized there were two problems. First, I wasn't supposed to trip the breaker until after eight o'clock. But if Stanley came down the stairs for any reason
before
then, he'd turn the light on and he'd go down carefully, like I did. A wire across any of the steps would be visible. I'd have to do something about the lightbulb. Second, I had forgotten to bring a wire cutter.

“Marcia?” I called.

No response. I went up into the kitchen and called again. I wandered through the dining room into the living room. Everything in the Beekland house was like a freeze-frame from an old movie. The furniture was heavy mahogany and overstuffed upholstery. The oak floors were highly polished with dark carpets here and there. Heavy curtains blocked out the sun. Gloomy paintings hung on the walls. There were knickknacks and framed photos everywhere. Gents in jackets and women in hats and mid-length dresses. There was a studio shot of a boy and a girl that I figured were the Beekland's kids when they were little. They were both chubby and blond and had a discontented look that had stayed with them in later photos that I saw. I knew why, growing up with such parents.

That was when I heard the wail. It was high-pitched—the same sound I'd heard when I'd prowled around the house four days ago, only weaker. It came from upstairs, and this time I knew it wasn't a cat. I wondered again if the Beekland's had a kid, but it sounded more like a soul in distress than a baby. Something funny was going on. All along I'd been praying for a way out. Maybe—just
maybe
—this was something I could use against Marcia to even the playing field.

The big oak staircase was uncarpeted. I took the steps quietly. There was an open door just off the landing. I looked in. I saw a sunny room and something I had totally
not
expected—an old woman propped up against some pillows in a bed. Her eyes were closed. She was thin, with white hair, and her arms and face were covered in bruises. She'd been eating something and food had spilled down her front. When she tried to raise a hand to pick at her soiled nightgown, I saw that she was strapped into the bed.

“What are you doing here?”

I whirled around. Marcia was standing right behind me. She looked furious.

“I'd like to know what's going on,” I demanded. From her startled expression, I thought I had her. This helpless, battered old woman, tied down against her will, was something Marcia didn't want the world to know about. And my ticket to freedom.

The woman's mouth twisted open, and another cry filled the air. Up close it grated on my nerves.

“Get out.” Marcia shoved me away from the doorway.

“Who is she?” I said, holding my ground in the hall.

“My mother,” Marcia snapped. She carried a wet towel in one hand, a squeeze bottle in the other.

“Your m-mother?” I stammered.

“Yes, my mother,” Marcia said impatiently.

“Why's she tied up like that, if she's your mother?”

“She's ill. She tries to get out of bed and falls down because her balance is bad. She hurts herself, so she has to be restrained. Now if you don't mind, I have to clean her up. Have you finished?” She jerked her head, meaning downstairs.

“Need a wire cutter,” I mumbled, backing away.

“You were
supposed
to bring everything with you.” She was madder at my failure to come equipped than at my discovery of her mother. “There's a toolbox in the cellar. You may find something there.”

I did. Marcia came looking for me just as I was finishing up.

“I'll have to loosen the lightbulb,” I warned. “In case he comes down before eight.”

“He won't, but better to play it safe. Just don't forget to tighten it again. And dismantle the wire. After.”

Her mind really did work like that.

“Be here by seven thirty,” she barked out orders, timing it to the minute. “The coal door to the cellar at the side of the house will be unlocked. Let yourself in and wait. I'll go out at seven fifty. His program comes on at eight o'clock. I'll leave the door to the kitchen open so you can hear the tv. Pull the circuit breaker just when the action's building up. Best to do it after eight fifteen and before eight forty-five, but not during a commercial. My neighbor across the street is home tonight and I told her I'd drop by to make a Heart and Stroke contribution. She collects for them. I'll stay there chatting until I see the lights go out here. I'll make sure she notices too.”

Her foolproof alibi
, I thought.

“Which reminds me,” she went on. “The cellar windows are curtained, but use a penlight, not a flashlight, just in case. I'll get him good and mad before I go. That'll put him in the right frame of mind. I want him stewing and in a hurry. He'll storm down the steps, and goodbye Stanley. Oh, one last thing. Make sure he's dead. If the fall doesn't kill him, you'll have to finish him off.”

“Any suggestions how?” I asked, laying on the sarcasm. “I can't exactly stab or shoot him if he's supposed to die in a domestic accident.”

She gave me a pitying look. “
You're
the wrestler. Break his neck.”

She'd worked it out, down to the last detail. I knew her plan would succeed, and I knew why all of mine had failed. I was not a natural killer. Marcia was.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
was back at the Beekland house by seven thirty. The coal door wasn't like a normal door. It opened up out from the ground into a chute. It was where coal for heating used to be dumped in the old days. It was still daylight outside, but as I slid down the chute into the Beekland's cellar, I slid down into darkness. But not silence. Marcia had promised a fight, and there was a humdinger of a shouting match going on upstairs. I sat at the bottom of the chute for a moment, listening. I couldn't make out words, just angry voices. They were really going at it.
Maybe they'll kill each other off
, I thought. I'll be rid of both of them. I'll just slip away the way I came. After dismantling the wire and tightening the lightbulb, of course.

I flicked my penlight on and followed the narrow beam to the foot of the cellar steps. As I crept up them, I checked the wire. It was in place, so tight it plinked. Good to her word, Marcia had left the door leading into the kitchen open a crack, letting through a sliver of light. I switched off the penlight and sat on the top step. From there I could hear more plainly.

“Cheap, cheap, cheap!” Marcia was yelling. “Too cheap to send her to a nursing home. To cheap to hire a nurse.”