'How do you want to handle this?' I asked. Since it was inarguably Fraymore's show, I intended to take orders from him.
'First we talk,' he said.
'And then?'
'If she doesn't pay attention, we punt.'
Great plan. Not long on strategy, but Fraymore was in charge; I was just along for the ride. I wasn't ecstatic about being stuck in a vehicle with no possibility of radio contact. If we ran into trouble, there'd be no calling for help or backup. All those anxious thoughts drummed through my head as we sat there, but for a change I surprised myself and kept my mouth shut.
Marjorie Connors and two other women came strolling out of the church basement about twenty-five after eight. The three of them ambled to the middle of the lot, where they stopped long enough to chat briefly and exchange hugs. I'm sure Marjorie must have seen the Montego parked nearby, but she gave no indication. As soon as the other two women started toward their own car, she struck out for the front of the Suburban. She knelt beside the dog and began unfastening Sunshine's lead.
By then both Gordon Fraymore and I were out of the Montego. As we approached, Sunshine lurched to her feet. I expected another spurt of frail barking, but the dog kept quiet. Only when Fraymore was within a matter of feet did Marjorie appear to notice him, but instead of addressing him, she spoke to the dog.
'Come on, girl,' she said, tugging on the leash. 'Let's go for a ride.'
'Evening, Marjorie,' Detective Fraymore drawled. 'I wanted to talk to you about the fire out at your place this afternoon. Do you have a minute?'
The woman's startling violet eyes met Fraymore's and held them without wavering. Meantime Sunshine hobbled forward. She stopped directly in front of Gordon Fraymore. Reflexively, and without bothering to look, he reached down and began to ruffle the old dog's lank ears. I should have tumbled right then, but I didn't.
'I don't have much time, or anything to say, either,' she answered with casual unconcern. 'As you know, I wasn't home when the fire started.' She tugged on the leash again. 'It's late, girl. Come on. It's a long drive.'
Leading the dog, she walked around the Suburban and opened the door on the rider's side. Sunshine made one feeble attempt to crawl in by herself, but then she settled back on her haunches and waited patiently for help. Marjorie Connors leaned over, picked up the dog, and bodily boosted her up onto the bench seat. Then she closed the door and started around to the other side.
'We know all about you, Marjorie,' Fraymore said, speaking slowly and deliberately. 'Including the fact that you were once married to Guy Lewis.'
Had I been Marjorie, that single all-encompassing revelation would have stopped me cold, but she didn't even break her stride. Straightening her shoulders, she thrust one hand determinedly into the pocket of her leather jacket and kept walking. Pure survival instinct, years of working the streets, warned me she had a gun.
'Please, Marjorie,' Gordon Fraymore said haltingly, and with far more gentleness than I would have thought possible. 'Please don't make me do this.'
She stopped, turned around, and looked at him then. There was a moment-a vivid, electric, breathtaking moment-when everything I didn't understand suddenly whirred into focus like a scene in the viewfinder on one of those new electronic cameras. It happened when I finally allowed my senses to make the obvious connections-to see the abject way Gordon Fraymore was looking at her. When I let myself hear the heartbreak and desperate pleading in his voice.
Marjorie Connors and Gordon Fraymore were lovers.
And in that moment, when I realized the truth, I finally understood why Fraymore had dragged me along to the hospital, why he had issued me the bullet-proof vest.
For several seconds, no one moved. We all three stood there, frozen in place like life-sized pieces of art in public places. Marjorie's right hand never left her pocket. She kept her gaze focused on Fraymore's face, but she seemed impervious to the look of stark entreaty that was written there.
'I'm leaving now, Gordon,' she said firmly, the way a mother speaks to a recalcitrant child. 'We all have to do what we have to do. If you want to stop me, you'll have to shoot.'
With that, she climbed into the Suburban, shut and locked the door behind her, and started the engine. She jammed the gearshift into reverse and peeled out of the parking place, then she sent the truck barreling forward. Fraymore and I were left standing in a shower of gravel and a cloud of dust.
For another moment, Gordon Fraymore still didn't move. Ashen-faced, he stared after the fleeing truck, then slowly he let out his breath.
He sighed. 'We'd better go get her and bring her back,' he said grimly.
Several blocks away a fanfare of pealing trumpets from the Elizabethan announced the beginning of the outdoor show. Onstage there would be plenty of action and fighting. Fake blood would flow during well- choreographed swordplay, but no one would die. After the performance, all the players-the ones who survived the plot as well as those who didn't-would appear onstage for curtain calls and much-deserved applause.
Down here in the church parking lot, real lives were on the line. None of us would be using fake bullets. Ours were all too real. When the action was over, there was a better-than-even chance that one or more of us would be either badly hurt or dead. But we weren't worthy of pealing trumpets. And when the action was over, I doubted we'd be rewarded with a round of applause, either. It didn't seem fair.
'Why'd you let her go, for God's sake?' I demanded as we headed for the Montego. 'Why didn't you try to stop her?'
Gordon Fraymore shook his head. 'You saw it. She had a gun. I couldn't risk it, not here on the street in the middle of town. It's too dangerous. Someone else might get hurt.'
That may sound like a lame excuse, but he was right. When you're confronted by that kind of situation, the safety of innocent bystanders takes precedence over every other consideration.
Back in the car, we tore across the parking lot toward the street, only to see Marjorie Connors' Suburban a good three blocks away, speeding south. Without benefit of either lights or siren, hot pursuit was out of the question.
After checking oncoming traffic, Fraymore turned carefully onto the street and followed the Suburban at a speed that gave little hope of our ever catching up. We were in the detective's lovingly maintained Montego. He drove the aging Mercury as if it were made of spun glass that would shatter at the slightest jar. Had we been in Fraymore's city-owned Lumina, it would have been a different story. Cop cars are disposable items, meant to be rode hard and put up wet.
While Fraymore drove, there was nothing for me to do but worry. 'How dangerous is she?' I asked.
Fraymore didn't answer right away. 'Three people are dead so far,' he returned gloomily. 'You tell me.'
CHAPTER 20
Riding in the car with Fraymore was an emotional nightmare. I knew exactly what he was thinking, what he was feeling, because I had walked in his shoes once. Dreading what was to come, I was scared witless, not just for me but for all of us. The situation was every bit as dangerous as walking into a house filled with highly volatile liquid-propane gas.
We followed Marjorie south and out of town, across the freeway, and past the turnoff to the charred remains of Live Oak Farm. She was speeding, but not as much as I would have expected. Even without hot pursuit, we maintained some visual contact.
'Are you going to stop and call for backup?' I asked as we passed what I knew to be both the last gas station and the last telephone booth on the outskirts of town.
'You are my backup,' Gordon Fraymore responded.
I do ask stupid questions.
Outside the car, dusk was fast approaching. Fraymore flipped on the headlights. We swept out through rolling pastureland, around the end of what was evidently a small lake, then up a steep grade laced with switchback curves, and into the mountains, a lower spur of the Cascade Range. Neither the Suburban nor the Montego were particularly good at cornering on the steep, winding road. When Marjorie Connors increased her pace, Fraymore
