pulled tiny hunks of wood from my skin. It was barely past Halloween, but all the songs this impossibly young doctor hummed sounded like “Frosty the Snowman.”
DEPUTY WHEELER: “Did your attacker say anything that led you to believe he killed Agnes Mephisto?”
“Sorry, no.”
DEPUTY WHEELER: “Do you have any idea what he was looking for?”
“Sorry, no.”
GUS: “Why were you there, Beth?”
“Sorry . . . oh.” This was a question I should have been able to answer. “Um, well, Gloria—that’s Agnes’s sister—asked me to clean up the house. Marina and I did most of the work a couple of weeks ago, but there was some paperwork to do. I had a free night since the kids are with their dad on Wednesdays, so I took the opportunity and . . .” I was doing that babbling thing again. “And that’s about it.”
Gus and the deputy both made notations on their notepads.
Taking down the facts was all they were doing. I wasn’t being arrested, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. So why did watching them jot down my words make me feel guilty?
“I might be in contact for some follow-up questions, Mrs. Kennedy,” Deputy Wheeler said. “Thanks for your help.” She nodded at us, then left.
“Help?” I crossed my eyes. “If I was helpful, I’d hate to see someone who wasn’t.”
Gus chuckled and slid his own pad into his coat pocket. “You were polite at least.” He looked at the doctor. “How much longer?”
Still humming about Frosty, the doctor pulled out another splinter and dropped it onto a metal tray. “Ten minutes.”
“Have you had any dinner?” Gus asked me.
“Not really, but—”
“I’ll go down to the cafeteria and get you a sandwich. Then I’ll drive you home.” I started to object, but he overrode me. “No arguing. You try to drive like that and you’ll be sorry tomorrow.”
“Sure will,” the doctor said cheerfully. “Tomorrow morning she’ll be okay, but I hope you have an automatic transmission.”
We ignored him. Long ago, in the back of the choir stalls, Gus and I had come to an agreement about Christmas carols before Thanksgiving: Anyone who forced them upon an unwilling world should be ignored as much as possible. “I’m driving you home,” Gus said. “And I’ll get one of the guys to drive your car back to your house.”
“But I’m—”
“You’re not fine,” Gus interrupted. “For once, let someone help you.”
Tears stung my eyes. I must have been more tired than I thought. “Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
The next morning personal hygiene was an exercise in frustration. The doctor had slapped gauze pads on the worst of the splinters. “Keep those dry for twenty-four hours,” he’d said. What he hadn’t said was how to manage that simple-sounding task. With gauze on both hands, I couldn’t take a shower and I couldn’t take a bath.
I ended up using a washcloth and kitchen gloves. I washed my hair in the sink, and by the time I put it up wet in a ponytail, I wanted to go back to bed. Who knew that a few splinters could make you so tired?
With one thing and another, I was half an hour late getting to the store. I came in the back door and hung up the coat I’d draped over my shoulders. “Sorry I’m late, Lois.”
“Oh! My! Lord!” Lois dropped the armload of books she was carrying. “What happened? Did you—? Are you —?” She put her hands to her mouth.
“It’s nothing. An accident.” Kind of.
“Accident?”
“Yes,” I said. “I was doing some cleaning at Agnes’s house and you know how klutzy I can be. A picture fell off the wall and onto my hands, and the glass broke.” I looked at the masses of gauze. The story had sounded better last night.
The front door burst open. Marina flew in, her red hair sticking out in a dozen directions. “Beth, it’s all my fault you’re hurt. I am so, so sorry.” She flung herself onto me and drew me to her bosom. “How can I make it up to you?”
Lois looked from Marina to me and back again, then lifted her eyebrows. “Accident?”
My best friend snorted into my hair. “If you call someone overpowering Beth and tossing her into a basement an accident. If you call Beth using her wits to escape certain death an accident.”
The future unfolded before me. Marina would spread the story hither and yon. A parade of people would traipse through the store, gawking at my wounds, begging me to tell the story over and over again. No one would buy a single book, and I wouldn’t get a thing done.
I extracted myself from Marina’s clutches. “Lois, can you watch the store?” I dragged Marina to my office and shut the door. “Tell me you didn’t blog about last night.”
“Not yet.” She pursed her lips. “I’m trying to think of the best way to start it. How does this sound? ‘Local business owner defies death.’ Or how about ‘Courageous Rynwood woman lives to fight another day.’ Or—”
“Don’t you dare post anything about this.”
“Of course I won’t. But just think if I did.” Her cheeks glowed with color.
There was a knock, and Lois popped her head in. “Beth, there’s a gentleman to see you.”
Before I could tell her to send whoever it was away, Evan Garrett came in. “Good morning, Beth. Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you were in a meeting.”
His gaze fell on my hands. “Oh, my God. Beth.” He took hold of my shoulders and looked into my upturned face. “Are you all right?” He kissed my forehead, then pulled back and searched my eyes. “You’re in pain, I can tell. Here.” He hooked his foot around the leg of a chair and drew it near. “Sit.”
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling free of him. “Marina, this is Evan Garrett. Evan, Marina Neff.”
They nodded, and Marina shot me a you’ve-been-holding-out-on-me look. “Evan and I,” I said, “went to kindergarten together. He bought the hardware a few weeks ago.”
“Kindergarten?” Marina’s eyes narrowed to small slits, and I knew I’d be grilled later on.
Evan paid no attention to the feminine undercurrents swirling about. He was gently turning my hands this way and that. “How on earth did this happen? A car accident?”
Excellent idea. A car crash could explain all sorts of bizarre injuries. Anyone would believe a car crash story. This would work. All I had to do was convince Lois I’d been in a car accident, work on getting Marina to spread a car-crash story, and make sure Gus and Deputy Wheeler didn’t release my name to the press. Piece of cake.
“Hah.” Marina tossed her hair back. “This young lady was almost murdered last night.”
“What?” Evan went still.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Maybe sitting down wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I groped for the back of the chair and sat. “If he’d wanted to kill me, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“What!” Evan’s voice rose. “Who? Your ex-husband? Have you told the police? You’ll need a restraining order.” His former profession was rearing its legal head. “Let’s go. The paperwork takes a while, but you’ll be safer in the long run.”
I wanted to drop my head into my hands, but I didn’t want to undo the carefully taped gauze. Instead, I closed my eyes and wished they’d both disappear.
“It wasn’t her husband,” Marina said. “It was the guy who killed Agnes Mephisto.”
“The school principal?” Evan looked from Marina to an unresponsive me, then back to Marina. “What’s going on here?”
Marina launched into an extravagant version of what I’d done last night. Every time I tried to get her to stop, she overrode me. After three attempts, I quit trying. It was like trying to fight a tidal wave.
She concluded, “Beth made her way to a telephone and called 911.”
I opened one eye. Evan was crouched in front of me, his mouth firmed into a straight line. “Why were you in Agnes’s house?”
Trust a lawyer to get to the crux of the matter. “Cleaning up,” I said lamely.
“No, you weren’t.” Evan touched one of my earlobes. It was burning hot. “What were you doing?”
I didn’t say anything. Marina, for a change, didn’t say anything, either.
