Takai cowered against the wall in her torn clothing, her eyes darting wildly around the room for a means of escape, a shield, something, anything. There was nothing. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
“But you’ll be letting her off the hook,” Mitch argued, his voice rising in desperation. “If you kill her, she won’t suffer. She wins. But jail, that’s something else. Think about it, Hangtown. She’ll have to live in a cage for years and years. She’ll get fat and ugly. Now that’s the ultimate revenge-not killing her.”
Hangtown considered this for a moment, his finger easing slightly off of the trigger. “You make a good point,” he conceded. The old master remained amazingly calm. “But she killed my Moose. And now I’m going to kill her.”
“You can’t kill your own daughter.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m the only one in the world who has that right.”
“How do you figure?” Mitch asked.
“Because I gave her life,” Hangtown answered simply. “I gave it to her, and now I’m going to take it away.”
“I thought only God had the right to do that,” Mitch said.
Hangtown let out a great big laugh. “Haven’t you heard the news-there is no God.” Then his creased face fell and he gazed at his daughter with nothing but profound sadness. “Good-bye, princess,” he said huskily, his finger tightening on the trigger.
“No, Father. No…!”
“Drop your weapon, Hangtown!” a booming voice abruptly commanded him. “Drop it now.” It was Des, blessed Des, standing there in the doorway with her Sig-Sauer aimed at Hangtown and every muscle in her body tensed.
Mitch had never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life. “Good evening, Trooper Mitry. We were just hashing out a family dispute here.”
“So I see,” she said, edging closer into the room, rain glistening on her slicker and big hat. “Drop your weapon, Hangtown.”
“Drop your own weapon, Desiree,” he growled. “This is a private matter. We have no need for any law.”
“It was Takai who murdered Moose and Melanie,” Mitch told Des. “And the trooper down at the gate.”
“We just found Trooper Olsen. Soave’s phoning it in.” Des glared at Takai and said, “That man had a wife and two young children. But I don’t suppose that matters to you very much.”
“Of course it matters,” Takai said indignantly. “Do you think I’m some kind of a psychopath?”
“I really don’t know what you are, Miss Frye. I’m just here to arrest you.”
A sudden sob of relief came from Takai’s chest. “Well, thank you for that.”
“Don’t thank me,” Des snapped at her. “Whatever you do, don’t thank me.”
“You can’t have her,” Hangtown objected. “She’s mine.”
“It’s no use, Mr. Frye,” Des said, moving in still closer. “Lieutenant Tedone is right outside. And this place will be swarming with cruisers any minute. You’ll just end up getting yourself shot. Don’t do it. Let us have her.”
“Give me a reason,” Hangtown insisted. “Give me one good reason.”
Now Takai was starting to edge slowly away from the fireplace. She did have a means of escape, Mitch suddenly realized. The trapdoor. The open trapdoor on the other side of the sofa. True, she was a good ten feet from it. But if she could manage to dive through it without getting shot she might actually get away through the catacombs.
“Trooper, I’d like to call my lawyer,” she said in a soft, trembly voice, inching her way closer and closer to the trapdoor. “Before we go, if I may.”
“You just chill out, Miss Frye,” Des said, her eyes riveted on Hangtown as Takai continued to edge closer to that gaping trapdoor. “And for God’s sake, shut your pretty-girl hole, or I’ll shoot you myself… Please put it down, Hangtown,” she begged, her own gun still aimed right at him, clutched tightly in both hands. “I have great respect for you. I like you. But if you don’t put it down, I’ll have to shoot you. Don’t make me do it. Don’t make me shoot you. Please.”
“Let the law take its course,” Mitch urged him. “Think about Crazy Daisy. Think about how you and Gentle Kate felt.”
“I am being punished for my sins,” Hangtown muttered under his breath, his finger on the trigger, eyes on Takai.
“Who the hell’s Crazy Daisy?” Des demanded, her finger on the trigger.
Mitch didn’t respond. He was standing there thinking: I am not in the living room of a historic home in Dorset, Connecticut, anymore. I am in a hot, dusty saloon with a name like the Silver Dollar or Last Chance, and somebody is about to end up dead on the floor.
But who?
Hangtown said it again: “Good-bye, princess.” His finger tightening on the trigger…
“No, Father…!”
“Hangtown, don’t-!”
“Drop it! I’m warning you…!”
And an animal roar came out of the old man-
And Takai made her move-a sudden, desperate lunge for that trapdoor-
And never made it.
He blew her away. The sheer force of the Barrett’s blast flinging her hard up against the wall, her chest torn wide open. What slid ever so slowly down the wall to the floor was no longer a person, let alone a gorgeous and deeply, deeply troubled one.
Des still had her Sig-Sauer aimed right at the old man. But she hadn’t fired a shot at him. Couldn’t. She was frozen there, a stricken expression on her face.
Mitch couldn’t move a muscle either. He could barely breathe.
As for Hangtown, he calmly laid the Barrett flat on the table, went over to the butler’s tray by the desk and poured himself a brandy from a leaded glass decanter. Then he raised his glass to what had once been his younger daughter and in a deep, solemn voice said, “Good fight, good night.”
Mitch never got a chance to speak to Wendell Frye again.
The great artist had told him that when the will to live is gone, a person can go very fast. Hangtown went very fast. A massive heart attack killed him two days later. The page-one obituary in Mitch’s newspaper called him a “colossus of twentieth-century art.” Hangtown never had to stand trial for Takai’s murder. He was never even formally charged. He was already a man of leisure by then, taking his nice long dirt nap.
He didn’t even have to leave his beloved farm. He was buried there later that week among his forefathers in the family’s cemetery overlooking the river, right alongside his Gentle Kate. Moose and Takai were laid to rest there at the same time. It was a small private ceremony. Some of Moose’s schoolteacher friends were there, as were a few members of the art academy faculty. Greta Patterson was there with Colin. Jim Bolan was there. So was Takai’s ex-husband, Dirk Doughty, whose bags were in his car-he was driving home to Toledo right after the funeral. And Mitch was there. He’d brought Sheila Enman along with him, as promised.
As Mitch was driving the old lady to the ceremony, he told her about Moose’s quest to discover the secret ingredient in her chocolate chip cookies.
“If only she’d asked me,” Mrs. Enman lamented sadly. “Gracious, I would have told her.”
“Of course you would have,” Mitch agreed. “It’s the sour cream, right?”
Mrs. Enman smiled at him enigmatically, but remained silent. She would not tell him.
This was Dorset, after all.
Melanie Zide was buried later that same day in the town cemetery. No one came.
C HAPTER 14
The skeletal remains of the young sculptress known as Crazy Daisy were found in a shallow grave under a tree, a stone cairn marking the spot. Mitch had been told about the grave by Hangtown, but chose to keep the news from Des until after the funeral. Des found this both curious and upsetting. She could not believe he had kept silent.
