But it all seemed like a terribly long shot. There was still a slim chance that John Richard wouldn’t lose his temper, no matter how provoked.
In my van the cellular phone was bleating insistently. I grabbed it and flipped it open, but whoever it was had hung up. Arch? I called Tom but got his machine. I told him about the tapes and that he should send somebody up to the LakeCenter to retrieve them. Then I picked up the large plastic container of cookies.
The cleaning crew had left by the time I reentered the LakeCenter. The floor gleamed like a mirror and the thousands of little Babsie faces smiled beatifically at me. My cellular squawked again. I thumped the container of cookies down on the counter and reached for it.
“Goldy? Where’ve you been?” It was Frances Markasian. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours! What’d you give me this number for if ? “
“Spare me, Frances.”
“What happened?” she cried. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the LakeCenter doing a catering job for the doll show. What do you want?”
“One of my sources told me a woman with a van was snooping around at Suz Craig’s house, digging around outside. Was it you? What did you find?”
“Nothing. And who’s your source?”
“Suz’s neighbor, Lynn Tollifer. She saw your van and called me. Did you find those tapes?”
“Frances, you’re too much.”
“Well, I didn’t, I mean… I’m coming over. I want those tapes!”
“Forget it! The cops get them ? “
“So help me, Goldy, I’ll strip that van of yours and pull every pot out of that LakeCenter kitchen, I’ll ? “
“Cool it, Frances, I don’t have the tapes,” I lied.
“You’re lying, I swear. I’m in a meeting, and my editor won’t let me leave. But I’ll be over there in half an hour, so help me ? “
I disconnected.
Oh, brother. Wait a minute. This place had a live security guard. This place also had vigilante collectors if the guard couldn’t do his job. Again, I scanned the LakeCenter ballroom. Where could I put the tapes, in a place that would take Frances forever to find them? The table full of Holiday Babsies looked the most promising. They all belonged to Gail Rodine, and she wasn’t selling. I’d stash them in the doll boxes, call Tom again, and have the cops figure it all out.
It was unlikely that I’d have the place to my-self for long, so I raced across the ballroom to the right display and slipped one tape each under the skins of Holiday Babsies from 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994. There were at least thirty dolls there. Gail Rodine lived in Aspen Meadow, and when she took the dolls back home, Tom could get the tapes without much trouble. He wouldn’t be happy about it, though.
When I tucked the flap of the last box into place, I heard a loud thump at the front of the LakeCenter. My skin turned cold. The Jerk. Had I locked the side door? I couldn’t remember. I trotted toward it. Unfortunately, the slickly polished floor was as slippery as a skating rink. I skidded sideways, desperately twisted to regain my balance, and finally managed to land with a crash on both of my hands. I yelped with pain. By the time this case was over, I’d be covered in bruises from head to toe.
I tried to roll over and was only partially successful. My back seemed to have regained its flexibility, but the only thing really paining me now was my left hand, in particular, my left thumb. Broken in three places by the Jerk, and destined forever to give me trouble.
I looked at my aching thumb. I looked at it and looked at it, and I had a dawning sense of horror. You’ll be throwing pizza in no time, the orthopedic surgeon had told me after a particularly savage beating had brought me to the hospital along with the broken thumb. He knew the pattern of bruises inflicted by the Jerk because he’d seen them before. I’ll be kicking field goals in no time, he’d promised, much later. What do you think… you’ll go back to being an orthopedic surgeon? Suz had said. Your voice sounds so familiar, I’d said. Did you treat Arch.?
No. He’d treated me. A long time ago. He could plan the murder because he knew exactly what to do and how to make it look as if John Richard Korman had done it.
At that moment the side door of the LakeCenter swung open and Chris Corey appeared, a heavy, bearded study in fury. He saw me on the floor, holding my aching thumb. He snarled: “I see you’re still good at getting yourself injured! How’s the thumb? And while you’re telling me, give me those tapes!”
28
I scrambled to my feet. Pain shot through my body, but I had to think. The front door to the LakeCenter was locked; the back door was locked ? for security. Somehow I had to get out through the entrance where Chris Corey stood.
“I don’t have them,” I replied shakily.
“I know you do! I paid that kid, Luke Tollifer, to watch Suz’s house. Where are they?”
“In the car, in the car! My van!”
“Show me!”
I made my way to the door, thinking I might be able to slip past him and run. Before I could squeak by, however, he grabbed my left hand, and then my thumb. Cruelly, he twisted it behind my back. I yelped. At the same time, I noticed the cast on his ankle had mysteriously vanished.
“Where’s your phone?”
“In… in my apron pocket.” He felt inside my pocket with his free hand, tugged my phone out, and sent it skittering across the shiny floor. “I want the tapes, then I’ll leave. Walk to your van, get those tapes, then I’m gone.
Scream, and I swear to God I’ll hit you harder than I did her.”
Oh, God. Fear washed through my body. My feet slid out from under me. He wrenched me up off the slippery floor.
“Please, Chris, don’t,” I gasped. “Think about what this is going to do to you. To Tina.”
“Yeah, yeah. ‘Think about Tina’ is what I should have done before, huh? Move.”
“Okay, okay,” I gasped. My thumb throbbed in agony. I feared I’d pass out. Chris pushed me forward through the threshold of the side door. I looked back at him, insanely confused that his limp had also disappeared. As he fiercely nudged me along the log wall, a gaggle of redwing blackbirds erupted from the wetlands bordering the LakeCenter.
I looked around wildly for help. The parking lot was empty except for my van. Where had Chris parked? I thought about screaming. But who would hear me? We were hundreds of yards from the road, even farther from the Lakeview Shopping Center.
As we rounded the building, Chris pushed me along the sidewalk toward the parking lot. I caught a I glimpse of a car on the far side of the building ? the side opposite the kitchen. Of course. He’d driven up quietly and parked away from the kitchen. And naturally he knew how to be quiet; hadn’t he approached Suz’s house in the darkness and quiet, in a Jeep just like John Richard’s?
The guard was no help. Chris had clobbered him ? the crash I’d heard at the front ? and he lay sprawled next to the trash can.
“Where are the tapes?” Chris asked as we neared my van.
?Ahh … aah …?
He wrenched my thumb brutally. “Where?”
“I can’t … think … if you’re hurting me,” I protested in a low voice. I was using negotiating skills I had learned long ago, to keep John Richard from hurting me. When he relented a bit, I said, “Aah … under the… passenger seat. It’s a tight squeeze, you’ll never be able to reach. Better let me … get them.”
The first cars of the doll people appeared at the far end of the dirt-road entryway to the LakeCenter. Stall, stall, I thought desperately. Chris wrenched open the passenger-side door and pushed me inside, still gripping my thumb.
“You have to let go of me,” I gasped. “Or I can’t get them.” I tried to think. Where was my tire iron? Did I have any spare kitchen utensils anywhere, something I could use on him? He shoved me into the van on my stomach. But at least he relinquished his death-grip on my thumb. I reached under the seat with my numb left hand. Nothing, of course. “Hold on,” I called. “Just a sec.”
