Chopping Spree

BMW rolled smoothly over the snow-rutted road.

“What’s bothering you most, then?” I probed gently.

She exhaled again before replying. “Bothering me most? You mean apart from the fact that a man I loved and was hoping to marry might have been betraying me, but we’ll never know because now he’s dead?”

“Ellie—”

“Let’s see. The cops aren’t making my life easier. I’ve told them over and over, I hired Rufus because I thought Barry was cheating on me. Whether he was having a bona fide affair with Pam or was just infatuated, having a mental fling, Rufus never did find out. That’s what’s so funny! But those detectives are obsessed. I told them I was having a massage when somebody tried to drive over Barry. They don’t listen. I swore Marla, Page, and I left Prince and Grogan just before nine, but they won’t let go of it. I got a ride home with Elizabeth Harrington. So what? The cops just keep insisting and poking into my life. OK, here we are.”

We drove into the parking lot we’d just left a few hours earlier. Lights rimmed the asphalt and lit the sidewalk angling steeply up to the lacrosse fields. The place looked desolate and forlorn. Ellie reached for the door handle, then hesitated.

“Ellie, where are we going? The headmaster will be fast asleep.”

She gnawed her bottom lip and hesitated. “Apparently, there’s some evidence that will clear me. Somebody called, said they’d leave it for me at the lacrosse field. And I don’t know who it was, so don’t ask.”

“Said they’d leave evidence at the lacrosse field?” Was this like Barry leaving me his puppy? “Who left evidence at the lacrosse field?”

“I don’t know.”

My eyes followed the shadowy sidewalk up to the dark, bleak playing field. Under dimmed lights, the empty bleachers looked like the skeleton of some prehistoric beast. The portable toilet looked like a gloomy, abandoned outpost.

I asked, “Why not leave this evidence at some warm, populated place like the library, for crying out loud? Why not give it directly to the police?”

“Who knows? Look, you can see that there’s nobody up there. We’ll just run up and get it.” Ellie popped open her glove compartment. I was thinking she’d be reaching for a flashlight, but no. Her hand emerged with a small twenty-two, a woman’s gun.

“Oh, Ellie, no.” As much as I was curious about what someone might have left for Ellie, I didn’t want to be a part of anything involving a gun. “This is ridiculous. The sun will be up in, what? Six hours? Seven? We’ll go get the ‘evidence’ then. Let’s go home.”

Ignoring me, she grabbed her cell phone with her free hand and stuck it into her coat pocket. Still gripping the ugly little gun, she said, “I told you, Goldy, I’m desperate. Let’s go before this wind blows whatever it is away.” She inhaled, gripped the pistol, and slipped from the car.

Crap, crap, crap. Why had I come out with her in the first place? And why couldn’t she be a liberal and believe in gun control? I powered up my own cell and hit the automatic dial for Tom’s phone. If he was at the department or at home, it would be on. If he was between the two, we might be out of range. When the messaging service answered, I cursed silently. Then I announced that I was at Elk Park Prep with Ellie McNeely, and that if we weren’t back by eleven, come get us. While Ellie stamped her boots and gestured impatiently to me with the pistol, I reached into my bag and pulled out the Mace. Did everyone in Aspen Meadow carry a weapon? I followed her, but didn’t feel a bit comfortable.

The wind died for a bit as our feet crunched over the snow of the parking lot. Ellie glanced around; I kept my eyes on the field. On the bleachers, I could just make out a pile of lacrosse sticks, loaners the school kept on hand for practice. A crumpled athletic bag sat atop the players’ bench, abandoned or forgotten. Then again, maybe it contained evidence that would clear Ellie of innuendo…or murder.

“Actually,” Ellie said, with a nervous laugh, “this is sort of like one of Barry’s little games. You know, follow the clues.”

The wind picked up again, and I shivered inside my jacket. “Heather the receptionist told me you hadn’t been able to find the engagement ring.”

“Heather told you?” she asked, shaking her head. “What, was Barry so embarrassed by my stupidity that he laughed at me with his secretary?”

“I… I don’t know.” Actually, it did sound sort of smarmy, as if Barry not only had been playing games with Ellie, but looking down on her as well. He’d even made jokes about her behind her back.

We climbed over a plow-made drift at the edge of the lot. Ellie tried to make her voice cheery. A cover for fear?

“The clue for the ring went something like, ‘When we fight, and then we…go to bed, that’s how you’ll find your ring.’ So I thought it had to do with sex or foreplay, and I ripped through sheets and box springs and pillows, with Barry laughing the whole time. I never found any ring.”

I slipped on the ice, dropped the Mace, and grabbed for the handrail at the side of the walkway. I also cursed Barry Dean, because it looked as if he’d poked almost relentless fun at a woman he supposedly was committed to.

“You all right?” Ellie asked.

I grabbed the rail. “Let’s rest for a sec.”

“Sure. Anyway, I wanted to believe he was sincere,” Ellie went on. Her breath was coming out in steaming gasps. “I believed I’d find the ring eventually. So that’s why I bought him the gold cuff links and left them to be engraved.”

“You left them to be engraved, and then what happened?”

She sighed. “I tucked the jeweler’s receipt into my purse, bought a cup of coffee, and sat down by the tot lot. That was when the purse was ripped off. In the mess that followed, I spaced out about the receipt. Not very smart, huh?” She paused. All was silent, except for the wind rushing through the trees above the playing fields. “Later, when the cops were trying to cut a deal with Teddy Fury, that teenage brat admitted he’d stolen my purse along with twenty or so others. He claimed he dumped it—he remembered the Louis Vuitton pattern, and was afraid of being caught with it—after taking the cash. According to Teddy, somebody else must have picked my purse out of the Dumpster, and lifted my car keys and the receipt. Just like later that same day, Teddy claims, somebody else crashed my car. Later in the week, Teddy also swears, somebody else used the receipt to pick up the cuff links. Then whoever did that conveniently placed the cuff links in that damn truck.” Her eyes watered as she smiled at me. “Are you ready to go?”

We made our way slowly up the sidewalk. I had a new appreciation for all the walking Arch had to do in a day. And he carried a heavy bag.

“What do you think?” Ellie demanded, when we were halfway up the steep ascent to the field.

“I think my lungs are going to burst.”

“What do you think about Teddy Fury’s story?”

Ellie seemed determined to downplay the fact that we were out in the freezing wind, at night, chasing after elusive evidence on a deserted school field. Fine. We soldiered on.

“What about the jewelry clerk?” I asked. “Did he remember the person who picked up the cuff links?”

“Nope. And whoever it was didn’t have to sign anything. The clerk who handed over the cuff links looked at a sheriff’s department photo of Teddy Fury and said Teddy wasn’t the one.”

We were finally at the bleachers. Gusts of snow swirled up and around the field. Only two halide lights, one by each net, lit the shadows. Ellie traipsed in front of the bleachers, which held nothing but the sticks, and then over to the players’ bench, where she set down her pistol and dumped out the contents of the bag. Socks, Gatorade bottles, a jersey, pads, and a book fell onto the snow. Ellie stooped and pawed through them, then straightened.

“Nothing!”

Surprise, surprise. “Let’s go. We can—”

“Oh, wait.” She picked up the gun and pointed it at the toilet. I peered at the battered metal door. A manila envelope had been taped to it. Manila envelopes, Barry’s old trademark. Ellie quick-stepped toward it. Reluctantly, I followed.