“It appears we have a standoff,” she said, trying to sound confident.
“Except only one of us is bulletproof,” I answered. I showed her the damage to my jacket and shirt. Her mouth fell open. She didn’t have an answer for that. I reached out with my left hand, and she walked toward me and laid the shotgun in my palm.
Thank God. She’d been aiming a little too low to hit my bulletproof parts.
I stood and led her back to the B and B. Catherine and Annalise were standing over the man I’d knocked down. Well-Spoken stumbled and almost fell against me. I took her elbow to support her. “Thank you.” She sounded grateful. “My name is Merpati.” She looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“I’m Ray. See that woman up ahead? She’s a peer.” I felt Merpati slow a little, but I urged her forward. “We have another few seconds before we say hi to her, and I want you to think about how you’re going to present yourself. Helpful? Snotty? Pretty, wounded girl who needs a big guy to save her?”
She let go of my arm immediately. We walked together up the middle of the street toward the B and B. Townspeople stood in open doorways or in lighted windows, watching us.
We joined the others. Annalise had her foot on the gunman’s back, holding him belly-down on the gravel. Catherine was kneeling beside him. He was talking in Chinese.
“I don’t understand you, young man. I don’t understand.”
His wraparound shades had come off, and I was startled to see just how young he was. I didn’t think he was old enough to buy a beer.
Merpati said: “He wants to go back to Hong Kong. He has a sister there who needs him.”
I looked back at the B and B. A tall, slender young couple stood on the porch. Kripke stood beside them. They had the shell-shocked look of people who’d just been through a disaster. “How many dead bodies inside?”
Catherine stood. “Aside from this guy’s friends? Five that I found right away. Nadia is one of them. I didn’t see Nicholas, but I didn’t search all that hard.” She looked down at the kid on the gravel. “I wonder how many of them had sisters who needed them? Or kids?”
“Enough,” Annalise said. She slapped the back of the kid’s head. It made a sound like a cracking walnut, and he fell still.
Damn. Whether he deserved it or not, I didn’t think we were the ones to dish out that sort of punishment.
Catherine gaped at Annalise. She didn’t look relieved to have Annalise to keep her safe anymore. Suddenly, she looked afraid. She stepped toward Merpati, clasped her hands in front of her body, and spoke in a low, friendly voice: “Hello, honey. Did you order all this killing?” It was a new role for her.
“No!” Merpati responded. “Never. I was forced to come here by the man who killed my employer. The old man. He ordered this. They were going to leave me at the scene to take the blame.”
This was the same voice that had bartered Kripke’s murder in the Wilbur kitchen. Of course, now that she’d been caught, she was all shocked innocence.
“Who was the target?” I asked. I shouldn’t have butted in on Catherine’s shtick, but I was angry and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
“I don’t know,” she answered, turning back to Catherine’s friendly face. “I wasn’t involved in the planning of this terrible, terrible crime.”
“For Christ’s sake,” I said, my voice sharp. Merpati turned toward me quickly. If she was pretending to be afraid of me, she was doing a damn good job of it. I thought I might have been stepping on Catherine’s work, but the expression on her face was encouraging. I waved my hand at the dead kid. “This guy spoke German, did he? Or did that tattooed bastard speak Chinese?”
“Cantonese,” she corrected, with the habit of someone who corrected other people often.
“Whatever. I’ll bet the only way they could have gotten their orders was through you. You’re saying the old German guy didn’t make you a better offer? You didn’t switch teams and bring a couple of dumb young guys with you? You’re going to be stuck with that story for a while, so you better be sure.”
She turned back to Catherine. “I swear. I am telling the truth. I swear.”
Catherine bent low so their faces were close together. “We know that’s not true, honey. I don’t want them to kill you, but I can’t stop them if you don’t help me.”
Holy crap. I was the bad cop.
Unfortunately, Merpati wasn’t sold. “It’s the truth,” she said. Her voice quavered as she spoke—she was afraid, but she wasn’t going to change her story.
“We don’t have time for this,” Annalise said. She stepped forward.
“Wait!” Catherine snapped. She turned back to Merpati. “Honey, you have to give me something.”
Merpati looked at her and shook her head. She had tears on her cheeks. She believed she was about to be killed, and she wasn’t going to give us a thing. Whatever the old man had on her, it was strong.
Catherine sighed. “Okay,” she said to me. “Go ahead.”
I blinked at her. Go ahead and what? I hope she wasn’t expecting me to start throwing punches. I had a shotgun in my hand. Was I supposed to use it on her, with little mobs of neighbors gathering down the street to watch us?
“Ray.” Catherine sounded annoyed with me. “Quickly, or your
“What?” I was completely at a loss.
“Lord,” Catherine said. “You’ll use it on me but not her?”
