“Beth, it’s Richard. I can’t keep the children tonight.” He spoke loudly over an odd assortment of background noises.
I unlocked the car and slid in. “It’s Wednesday.”
“Yes, I know, and I’m sorry, but my mom is having heart surgery tomorrow. She went in for a checkup, and now she’s in the hospital. They wouldn’t even let her go home.”
“Richard, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” His voice was rough. “I’m sure she’ll be fine, but . . .”
“You have to go. Of course you do. Give her my best.”
“I will. How soon can you get here? My flight leaves in an hour and a half.”
“You’re at the airport?” Suddenly, the noises made sense. He was rolling his suitcase, and disembodied voices were calling flights.
“The kids are right here with me. We’ll be waiting at the front entrance.”
“I’ll be there as—” But he’d already hung up.
“You two stay here.” After stuffing the car keys in my coat pocket, I half turned to address both children at the same time—Jenna in the backseat, Oliver in the front. “I’ll only be a minute,” I said.
“But I haven’t seen Mrs. Neff all day.” Oliver’s lower lip stuck out. “I want to show her my new drawing.” He kicked his backpack.
“Show her tomorrow.” What I had to tell Marina wasn’t for the consumption of small children, and since Marina’s DH always took Zach to karate lessons on Wednesday nights, I knew she’d be alone. I was still angry with her, of course, but I could ignore that for as long as it took to deliver this news. “Be back in a flash.”
A whoosh of cold, wet air flew in. I got out quickly and shut the door behind me. Inside the car, the kids were already arguing about something. I rapped on the window. “Be nice to each other,” I said loudly.
Before I’d moved two steps from the car, the argument started anew. I shook my head and hurried around the side of the house. For once the gate opened easily; I took it as a good omen. Like I always did, I knocked on the back door as I turned the doorknob. “Marina, it’s me.” But the door was locked. I rattled the knob and knocked again. “Hey! Let me in!”
A ruffled curtain covered the lower two-thirds of the door’s window. I got up on my tiptoes. Marina was at the kitchen table, hands on her lap, staring at the calendar on the far wall.
I banged my knuckles on the glass. “Marina, it’s Beth! I need to talk to you!” Marina was first; then I had to call Deputy Wheeler and then Gus. “Hey, c’mon. Open up!”
Marina shook her head and continued her stare-down with November.
Sunday afternoon’s spat came back with a rush. “Oh, please.” Rain was coming down my neck. The kids were in a car that was growing colder by the minute, and Marina was playing a thirteen-year-old princess.
I hurried off the back stoop and went across the wet lawn. A few months ago when Marina and I returned late from a Friday night movie in Madison, we came back to a locked door. Her DH had bolted it before he went up to bed, and since I’d driven, Marina hadn’t brought her keys. “Not a problem,” Marina had said as she reached for a hidden key. “Swear you won’t tell, okay? The DH doesn’t know.” Now I waded through soggy shrubbery, crouched, and reached under the wooden deck for a key hanging on a nail.
Water slicked onto me as I backed out of the yews. More water soaked through my shoes and into my socks as I crossed the lawn again. Princess Marina was going to have to lend me some footgear before I went home.
Back on the stoop, I banged on the door one more time. “Hey! Are you going to let me in or what?”
Marina, still at the table and still looking at the wall, shook her head.
I slid the key into the lock, turned the dead bolt, and went in.“What’s wrong with you?”Wind came inside with me, and I turned around to push the door shut. “Geez, it’s like December out there. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe what I found out. I know who killed—”
I faced Marina and suddenly nothing I had to say mattered.
“Beth.” Her voice was strained.
It made sense that her voice was tight. Mine would sound like that, too, if a long and very sharp knife were being held against my throat.
Chapter 21
There I was, standing in Marina’s kitchen, as I had hundreds of times before. We’d baked cookies, roasted turkeys, and broiled fish in this kitchen. I could almost smell the sugar we’d burned last winter when we’d tried to make caramel. A killer with a knife couldn’t possibly have been in this room. Could he?
“Women!” Don Hatcher said. “Why can’t you leave well enough alone?”
Much too late, I remembered seeing a white van parked in the driveway next door—Don’s, with the magnetic signs for Lakeside Dry Cleaners peeled off.
“Because men keep messing things up,” Marina said.
Panic shot through me. I was still standing by the door, at least fifteen feet away from the tip of the ten-inch chef’s knife. No way was I going to be able to move fast enough to save Marina from that sharp edge. I shut my eyes.
“Only reason men mess things up is women are always nagging at them. Do this, do that.” Don pitched his voice high. “Why did you put the margarine on the left side of the fridge? Why don’t you ever take me anywhere? Why haven’t you painted the living room yet? Nag, nag, nag.” He returned his voice to normal. “You’re all the same.”
Slowly, I opened my eyes.
“I’m the same as Catherine Zeta-Jones?” Marina put her hand to her chest and fluttered her eyelashes. “How very nice of you to think so.”
Don’t make him mad, I begged silently. My dear sweet silly best friend, don’t, don’t, don’t make him mad.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Don snarled. “You’re about as like Catherine Zeta-Jones as I am.”
Marina cast off a heavy sigh and slid a glance in my direction. “Dashing my hopes and dreams, Don. Just dashing them to bits.”
I licked my lips. The fear I’d felt in the basement was nothing next to the fear that was now shredding my heart. Somehow I had to distract Don long enough for Marina to get away from that knife, long enough for us both to get away.
“You didn’t mean to kill Agnes, did you?” I asked.
“Another woman who couldn’t leave well enough alone. Like this one here.” He made a slight move. Marina gasped, and a slow trickle of red started running down her neck. “And you, too, Miss Bookstore. Why were you in Agnes’s house the other night? All I wanted was to figure out a way to stop that school addition. Why did you have to get in the way?”
My breaths sounded loud in my ears. “Like your wife?”
“Tanya.” The knife sagged away from Marina’s pale skin. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. She kept on and on about moving to Florida. If it hadn’t been during the Packers game, I might have listened.” He sounded as if he believed it. “But, no, she had to stand in front of the TV right in the middle of a beautiful pass. Okay, it was a preseason game, but still, I had to shove her out of the way; I
“And the digging for that new water main was right there,” I said.
“Yeah. Like an omen or something. They’d just laid the pipe next to the school, and the dirt was nice and easy to dig. After, I told people she took off for Florida. Everyone believed me. No one would have known except that Agnes Mephisto had to get a bug in her head to build an addition. Couldn’t leave well enough alone, see? I went there that night to talk some sense into her. I mean no one wanted that addition, no one. But she wouldn’t listen.” He swore. “I got a little mad and tapped her on the head. Had no idea there were so many people with soft skulls.”
“Then here I come with WisconSINs!” Marina sang out.
