Murder Among Strangers (The Kate Austen Mystery Series) Read online

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  “That’s not the point. I explained to you what we gotta do.”

  “Yeah, I know. You gotta get rid of her. I understand that. But we don’t have to treat her mean beforehand, do we?”

  Bobby kissed Sheryl Ann’s finger. Then he pulled her close and kissed her hard on the mouth. “You’re a hell of a lot of trouble, woman.” But he leaned over and untied me.

  “You try anything, lady, and it’s all over. You got that?” He patted his jacket pocket revealing a gunlike bulge. “I’ll walk the two of you to the rest room door. Sheryl Ann, you keep a good eye on her inside.”

  My head throbbed when I stood up, and I felt the sour taste of nausea in my throat. I looked for someone to signal for help.

  “Come on, lady.” Bobby shoved me ahead of him. “We ain’t got all night.”

  We’d stopped at a small, old-fashioned gas station somewhere well off the beaten path. Except for the station attendant, who was inside a Spartan-like cubicle off the service bay talking on the phone, we were the only people around. At least the rain had stopped.

  The restrooms were located on the side of the building, and locked.

  “Go get the key,” Bobby barked to Sheryl Ann. He kept his right hand in his pocket, calling attention to the gunlike bulge. “I shoulda killed you straight off,” he muttered when we were alone.

  I didn’t tempt fate by asking why he hadn’t.

  Sheryl Ann returned with the key and opened the bathroom door. Bobby nudged me forward, then did the same to Sheryl Ann. “Go on.”

  “It’s a single,” she protested. “Just a toilet and sink.”

  “So?”

  “Bobby, I don’t want—”

  “Either you stand watch over her, or I will.”

  Sheryl Ann looked at him, started to say something, then changed her mind. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  Joining me in the tiny, far-from-clean bathroom, she seemed no happier about the situation than I was. As I crossed the sticky floor to the toilet, she turned to face the aqua-tiled wall, giving me the semblance of privacy.

  What I really wanted was the chance to scrawl a message, to somehow indicate that I needed help. The illusion of privacy wasn’t enough for that. Although, to be honest, I wasn’t at all sure anyone would have noticed since the walls were covered with several generations of graffiti.

  There was no window. No way out but the door where Bobby stood watch.

  “What’s your name?” Sheryl Ann asked, still facing the wall.

  “Kate.”

  “You married?”

  “I was. My divorce was final last month.”

  “He run out on you?”

  “Not exactly.” Andy had left me, but he’d come back. Not with his tail between his legs, exactly, but willing to pick up where we’d left off. Trouble was, where we’d left off wasn’t all that great, even from my perspective. And in the interim I’d met Michael.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  Andy made me feel insignificant. Generic woman rather than cherished one. And he was a first person singular pronoun guy—I and me instead of we and us. But I didn’t think that was the sort of hurt she was talking about.

  “It was a mutual decision,” I told her. “We’re still friends.”

  “That’s good.” Sheryl Ann giggled, a thin sound edged with nervousness. “Better than killing the guy,” she added in a whisper.

  “Is that what you did?” I asked, washing my hands in the thin trickle of available water. My whisper matched her own. “Did you kill your husband?”

  “Poor Tully,” was all she said.

  “Why’d you do it?”

  She looked at me. “Do you miss him?”

  “Who?”

  “Your husband. Or are you seeing someone?”

  I felt a stab of anguish when I thought of Michael. Before I could answer, there was a banging on the door from outside. “You about finished in there?” Bobby yelled.

  “Yeah, she’s coming,” Sheryl Ann shot back. “But then I gotta go.”

  “Send her out first.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She opened the door.

  “We’ll meet you at the car,” Bobby snapped. “Don’t take all night, either.”

  As we headed back, I tried to catch the attendant’s eye. He looked our way once, briefly. I mouthed, “Help,” with as much exaggeration as I could muster. The man must have misread my plea for a yawn because he yawned himself several times in succession and showed no interest at all in me or the jacket pocket Bobby kept pointed in my direction.

  Traveling in the backseat instead of the trunk was definitely warmer, but only marginally more comfortable. Bobby had again bound my hands and feet with rough, itchy rope, told me to lie flat, then wrapped me in the scratchy, smelly blanket that had formerly covered Tully. I could hear Bobby and Sheryl Ann in the front, munching on potato chips. The beat of rap from the radio pounded in my head.

  “You sure this is a good idea?” Sheryl Ann asked after a while.

  “Sure what’s a good idea?”

  “Taking him to Idaho.”

  “What else were we gonna do with him? Couldn’t leave him at the house where someone would find him. No body, no crime.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from correcting him.

  “I don’t know,” Sheryl Anne mumbled. “It doesn’t seem right somehow.”

  “Wasn’t right the way he treated you, either.”

  “Could have been worse.”

  Bobby gave a throaty laugh. “Is that why you took up with me, ’cause you were so in love with Tully? Don’t go making the guy into a saint just ’cause he’s dead.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Besides, what’s done is done. It’s ourselves we’ve got to worry about now.”

  Silence, then Sheryl Ann giggled.

  “Not here, Bobby. Kate’s back there, don’t forget.”

  “So?”

  “Bobby, stop it. Please.”

  He laughed. “Kate, huh? You two have gotten chummy real fast.”

  “You spend time with someone, you got to know their name.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because, why?” Bobby’s tone vacillated between teasing and peevish.

  “Because it’s only right.”

  “Only right,” he mimicked. “Sweetheart, you aren’t by any chance a preacher’s daughter, are you? You sometimes seem awfully interested in doing what’s right.”

  “My father wasn’t any preacher, for sure.”

  Bobby gave a few grunts in time to the music. “Let me have another handful of chips.”

  The rattle of cellophane. “How much longer?” Sheryl Ann asked.

  “Tonight? We’ll stop pretty soon. It’s almost two o’clock, and I’m about done in.”

  Two o’clock. What would Michael be thinking? He’d be worried by now. Past the anger on which we’d parted, past the irritation at my being late, past the point of trying to convince himself that everything was okay.

  I tried to remember if I’d left the number of my evening appointment. I’d been late getting out of the house, busy leaving instructions for Libby and Anna. But the name and number were in my appointment book. Certainly Michael would think to check. As a policeman, he knows his way around trouble as well as anyone.

  But what good would it do? He’d talk to Donna, find out that we’d discussed various options—watercolor, oils, tapestry. That we’d looked at slides, set a date for me to come back with selections, and that I’d left before nine. Someone would eventually find my car. And then what?

  It wasn’t hard to imagine.

  Kate Austen, last seen leaving the office of a client she was visiting in connection with her art consultant business, did not return home last night. Her car, an older model Volvo wagon, was found early this morning along a deserted stretch of road in the Diablo Canyon area. Although foul play is suspected, there were no signs that she left her car under duress. Friends and family have no clue as to
her whereabouts.

  And they might never know, I thought, swallowing against the lump in my throat. Me and Tully buried in some far-off comer of Idaho.

  No body, no crime. Not true in the strictest sense, but it sure made solving a crime more difficult

  Chapter 3

  Outside the rain lashed against the windows and pummeled the roof. Inside, the house was quiet, the predawn stillness almost palpable. Michael could feel it graze his skin, hear it ringing in his ears. He filled the kettle with water and set it to boil. More coffee was the last thing he needed. But he wasn’t going to be sleeping tonight, anyway. This morning, he corrected himself. It was already half past three.

  He’d waited until midnight before calling the highway patrol and the Walnut Hills Police Department, where he himself was a lieutenant. Kate didn’t like him breathing down her neck. He needed to give her room, she said. And she had told him, rather curtly, that she wasn’t sure what time she’d be home, certainly not before ten.

  It wasn’t like Kate to be late without calling, but he hadn’t been too worried at first, despite the rain. An undercurrent of tension had settled between them the past few weeks, and he figured that Kate was simply flexing some muscle. Putting him on notice that she wasn’t to be trifled with.

  It was his fault, he knew. Or mostly his fault, anyway. He would be the first to admit he’d been difficult to live with, snapping when he shouldn’t have, withdrawing when Kate asked him what was wrong. But with what was going on at work, well, he was worried. And it didn’t help matters any that he felt uncomfortable talking about it with Kate.

  When he’d checked at midnight, there’d been no reports of an accident involving a Volvo wagon. By twelve- thirty, no longer able to ignore the uneasiness at the back of his mind, he’d called Kate’s evening appointment, a woman by the name of Donna Saxon, apologizing profusely for waking her.

  Kate had left her place a little before nine, Donna said, and no, she hadn’t mentioned plans to go elsewhere. Not that she would have necessarily. Michael had called Kate’s friend Sharon Covington next, again with apologies. The things women knew about their friends, and their friends’ lives, always astounded him. He’d been hoping Sharon would laugh at his worry and remind him that Kate had a midnight PTA meeting or some such thing. Sharon hadn’t been able to help, though, and her apprehension about Kate’s absence only compounded his own.

  Michael had intended to wait another two hours before calling work again. But by one o’clock he was frantic. He’d picked up the phone and sent a couple of cars out to look for her. He would have gone himself except that Libby and Anna were asleep, and he wanted to be home in case Kate called.

  And then there’d been nothing more he could do but pace the house, watch the clock, and listen for the sound of Kate’s car pulling into the driveway. That’s what he’d been doing for the past two and a half hours.

  When the kettle came to a boil, Michael spooned coffee into the Melitta cone and poured the water through. He’d taken one of the chipped mugs. Kate hated using them, but he didn’t mind. He’d never even considered this an issue before meeting Kate. Of course, his ex-wife wouldn’t have kept any chipped dish in the house, so maybe he’d never had a chance to consider it.

  Michael took his coffee to the small eating area off the kitchen and sat watching the rain splatter against the window. He was past the initial waiting, past the growing anxiety that came with the knowledge something wasn’t right. Now, he was scared. The news, when it came, was going to be bad. The only question was how bad.

  Chapter 4

  “This place must be at least fifty years old,” Sheryl Ann said as the car slowed to a stop. “Makes Motel 6 look like a four-star resort.”

  “It’ll do,” Bobby replied.

  “I hope it’s clean. I’m not sleeping where there’s bugs.”

  “I’ll shake out the bedding for you. How’s that?”

  “If there’s bugs,” she grumbled, “shaking them loose isn’t going to make it better.”

  I was glad we were stopping, no matter how bad the place was. My body was cramped from lying in one position without the ability to move. More importantly, this might give me another chance to summon help. And anything was better than the cold dread that had paralyzed me the last few hours.

  “Go get us a room,” Bobby told Sheryl Ann. “Don’t give them your real name, either. Here’s sixty dollars, Kate’s treat, but the room better be a whole lot cheaper than that.”

  Sheryl Ann hesitated. “What are we going to do about Kate?”

  She can spend the night in the trunk.”

  “We can’t do that,” Sheryl Ann protested, taking the words right out of my mouth. Not that I could have spoken them anyway, with the gag binding my flesh.

  “Can’t leave her in the car,” Bobby noted. “She might attract attention.”

  “We’ve got to let her come inside, Bobby. It’s cold out here, and she probably needs to use the rest room again.”

  I grunted agreement. I didn’t like them talking about me like I wasn’t there.

  Bobby gave a humorless laugh. “You’re missing the point here, baby. She’s no guest or nothin’. She’s a witness to a fucking crime. Our crime.”

  “Only ’cause she was trying to help me.”

  “Doesn’t matter why, Sheryl Ann. Fact remains, she’s a danger. She opens her yap, and we go to jail.”

  The car door opened. “Bobby Lake, you’ve got a heart of stone.” And then it slammed shut.

  “Lady,” he muttered, presumably addressing me, “you’re nothing but a heap of trouble. I can’t wait to be rid of you.”

  Why didn’t he kill me then? Not that I wanted to encourage that line of action, but it was a thought that passed my mind with alarming frequency.

  “Nothing personal,” Bobby added.

  As if that made any difference.

  Fear churned inside me, making it difficult to breathe. I didn’t want to die. Especially not like this.

  I didn’t want to spend the night in the trunk, either, lying next to a stinking dead man. Frustration mixed with the fear. Tears again filled my eyes.

  I was not going to spend the night in the trunk. It was cold outside. Close to freezing probably, based on the icy chill that swept the car when Sheryl Ann opened the door. My muscles were sore, my wrists burned from trying to work free of the restraints, and my throat tickled from the cloth gagging my mouth. My whole body screamed in protest.

  Sheryl Ann returned a few minutes later. “We’re in 3B,” she said tersely.

  We drove a few hundred feet, parked, and the two of them got out without exchanging another word.

  Alone, I began working myself free of the blanket. I wasn’t sure how long I had before Bobby returned to stuff me into the trunk, but I wasn’t about to let opportunity pass me by. Certainly we couldn’t be the only people at the motel, however old and seedy it was. If I could just catch sight of another human being, I’d hit the horn if I could reach it, or pound the car window with my fists.

  I’d barely managed to extricate my head from the scratchy wool shroud when I heard Bobby coming toward the car. My optimism dissipated like a puff of smoke. But the charge of energy that had accompanied it remained. I wasn’t going back into the trunk without a fight. I tensed, ready to start thrashing the minute he touched me.

  Bobby opened the backseat door with an angry tug. “Come on. You’re sleeping inside tonight.” He leaned in and untied my feet.

  I struggled to slide out of the car—something that’s not easy when your hands are tied.

  “Any funny business,” Bobby warned, “and you’ll wish I’d left you in the trunk. That understood?” He removed the gag.

  “Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t my doing.”

  Looking around, I could appreciate Sheryl Ann’s concern about the quality of the accommodations. The motel consisted of six tiny concrete-block bungalows. The tarpaper roofs didn’t look strong enough to keep out t
he night air much less the rain. There wasn’t one single car in the lot besides Bobby’s.

  We went through the bathroom routine again, with Sheryl Ann’s back keeping me company while my mind raced through possible scenarios of escape. Then Bobby retied my feet and replaced the gag. I spent the night on the floor of the closet, but thanks to Sheryl Ann I had both a blanket and a pillow.

  What I needed was a plan for escape, and that I didn’t have. My hands and feet were tied tightly. No matter how much I twisted and tugged, the rope wouldn’t give. Besides, I’d heard Bobby moving furniture. I was sure he’d managed to pen me in so that I couldn’t break free without alerting him.

  I tried to stay calm. I knew that was important. Tried not to think about how desperately I missed Anna and Libby and Michael. How much I wanted to see them again.

  My wrists were raw from trying to work the ties loose. My shoulder and hip pressed uncomfortably against the hard floor, and my right foot had developed a painful cramp. But it was my heart that hurt most.

  Tears welled in my eyes. I cried silently, choked with despair.

 

  The sudden glare of the overhead light woke me.

  “You gotta get up,” Sheryl Ann said. “It’s morning.”

  I didn’t want morning. I wanted to climb back into the world of my dream. A world with Michael and Anna and Libby. A comforting world, the memory of which again brought tears to my eyes.

  “Bobby went to get some donuts and stuff,” Sheryl Ann explained. “He won’t be gone long. If you want a shower, you need to do it now.” She removed the gag, and untied my feet and hands. “I’ve got the gun. Don’t make me use it, okay?”

  I nodded. Sheryl Ann was a strange mix of compassion and callousness. I had no doubt that she’d shoot me if she had to.

  “There’s toothpaste near the sink if you want to rub some on your teeth. And you can use some of my body lotion if you want. Only you’ve got to be quick about it.”

  My head still thick with sleep, I stumbled into the tiny, worn bathroom.

  “I’ll give you privacy,” Sheryl Ann said. “Just leave the door cracked a fraction.”