"Could you leave me alone?" she snapped.
Now, what was that all about? It had been all I could do to pry her out of the library bake sale. She was hightailing from this one for all she was worth. "You invited me to this thing," I reminded her. She struck off at a fast walk in the direction of her condos. "You don"t have a car?" I called after her.
"Brought everything earlier and drove back. Thought the exercise would be great."
"Good idea." I hurried up and fell in step beside her.
She stopped short, eyeing my cake. "You"d better be careful with that."
"Did I do something to p.i.s.s you off?"
"You won"t put Violet in jail. You hara.s.s everybody. You act like you"re some big-shot detective and all you do is...get in the way!" With that she took off again.
Now she was p.i.s.sing me off. "I don"t have the authority to put Violet in jail, but you"ll be happy to know, I think she"s at the center of this."
"What do you mean?"
It was simply something Larrabee had said. Yes, I"d had my soul-searching moments about Violet the night before, but no, I did not believe she was guilty of killing Roland. My vacillations were over. But Melinda didn"t have to know that.
"Maybe I should have listened to you sooner."
"Of course you should have."
I"d hoped to get her to slow down, but she seemed determined to keep on marching. We were getting farther and farther away from my car. I was worried about my rum cake.
"What finally changed your mind?" she asked. Her hands were in her pockets and her shoulders were hunched.
"She hit him with the tray. Maybe no one else did."
"That"s not exactly news."
"She and Roland got in a huge fight. I think it was over you."
"What do you mean?" She threw me a sideways look.
I carefully shifted my rum cake from one arm to the other. We"d gone about four blocks and turned west. A couple more and we would be near her condo, away from the center of Lake Chinook and deep into the residential district of First Addition. I wasn"t sure what I was doing, why it felt so imperative to keep with her. There was something driving me I couldn"t put my finger on.
"Roland took a cell phone call right before Violet hit him with the tray. The call was about you."
Her steps faltered. "Did Violet tell you that?"
"Yes."
"Why are you turning this on me? Didn"t you just say you finally believed me about her? It"s Violet. She killed him!" She picked up her pace again.
"You know Dante? From the club?" She didn"t answer, just kept walking. "He was killed last night. Someone shot him at a truck stop diner down I-5 past Salem. Apparently he owned the place."
"Why are you following me? I don"t have anything to do with CMC anymore."
"Don"t you want to know how he was killed?"
"I don"t know Dante," she said. "I don"t care what you heard, he was not my introduction to the club."
"I didn"t say he was."
"Well, that"s what Violet thought."
Was it? Abruptly she turned into a small park that was surrounded by a tall laurel hedge. I followed after her. There was no one about. The scattered benches were empty, the water fountain filling with dirt and twigs. There was a play structure in the center that looked as if it had plopped down by Martians, its bright primary colors and twisting red, blue and parrot-green pipes jarring in the natural setting of trees, shrubbery and gra.s.s.
Melinda stopped short and faced me. "Stop following me. I don"t know what your game is, but it"s over, as far as I"m concerned. I"m going home now. Take your rum cake and shove it up your a.s.s."
"What is it that I said? Melinda, come on!"
"You don"t believe it was Violet. You just said that so you could grill me again."
"I did think it was Violet. Last night. I came to that conclusion."
"But now you"ve changed your mind."
My cell phone rang. Melinda threw a glance at my purse, made a sound of pure annoyance and turned her back on me. "I"m going home. If you keep following me, I"ll call the police." She headed off again.
I stayed where I was, staring after her. I was hara.s.sing her and to what end? I was hanging on to Melinda for reasons I couldn"t explain. So she"d known Dante. So she"d been a member of CMC. So Roland and Dante were both dead.
Feeling a little foolish, I juggled the cake and pulled my phone from my purse one-handed. It was a familiar number, but there was no name. I turned back the way I"d come. "Jane Kelly."
"Well, there. We finally connect," Deenie said, huffing out a sigh as if it were a big relief. "I promise my boyfriend won"t cut in this time. He and I are through anyway. I don"t know why I put up with his s.h.i.t so long in the first place. I must be a glutton for punishment. Okay, now...I can"t remember...what did you want? Something about the wedding."
I wanted to clap my hand to my forehead and I would have, too, if I"d had one free.
Before I could answer, she said, "Oh, it was a timeline. That"s right. You wanted to know where I was and when. Who I was with, right? Let"s see...I was with Gigi at Castellina. Melinda brought us mimosas and then she left. Then Gigi and I went in the limo to Cahill Winery. n.o.body was there when we first got there. Except Melinda. She must have driven right over. Then the wedding party started coming and we were having champagne. The groomsmen were knocking it back, y"know? Gigi was a little concerned, so I asked Melinda if she"d maybe step in, as someone older, y"know? Kind of let them know it was not okay? But she got that phone call and left, so I had to go up to them. Emmett wasn"t there yet, or maybe he coulda done it. But the best man wasn"t paying attention, so it was up to the maid of honor. Which, y"know, I was thinking, I didn"t sign up for this. I just wanted-"
"Melinda left?"
"Hauled a.s.s right outta there," Deenie confirmed. "I don"t think anybody noticed but me. She was back before pictures, so it hardly matters. Anyway, I just wanted everybody to behave and not let it be my problem."
"Deenie, I"ve gotta go. I"ll call you later."
"Well, G.o.ddamm it. How-"
I snapped off my phone. Melinda was nearing the far end of the park. "Hey!" I yelled. I set my cake down and ran through the mud to catch up with her.
She half turned, saw me coming, looked as if she were about to run for it, then seemed to make a decision. She turned around and marched right toward me. We stopped short of each other by the red and blue plastic play structure.
"See what I"m doing?" she said, holding up her cell phone, then punching the b.u.t.tons with force. "I"m calling the police!"
"I don"t know who you"re calling but it"s not the police. You don"t want them anywhere near you."
"Yeah? Wait and see." She placed the phone next to her ear and glared at me.
I called her bluff. Just stood there and waited.
The phone rang and rang and we faced each other like a high noon standoff. It gave me time to think. Where I"d been running on pure instinct before, now I saw it for what it was.
"You"re one of Dante"s women," I said. "He did introduce you to the club."
"No, that"s what Violet thought."
"Violet would have said so. You just made that up because you slipped by saying he hadn"t introduced you."
"You-are-hara.s.sing me."
"Dante"s a blackmailer, too. He brings you to the club, then when one of you actually meets someone who"s interested, who might actually offer marriage, he steps right in. The bite"s on you. He can blackmail you to his heart"s content. And if things go wrong, he can call up the new husband. Maybe new hubby"ll pay the blackmail."
Melinda dropped her arm, the phone loose in her hand.
"That"s what happened. You stopped paying and Dante called Roland and told him you were a truck stop prost.i.tute. And then he called you and told you what he"d done. He loved to make people squirm. Especially women."
"You"ve...you...are so wrong!"
But her face was the color of wet cement. She looked ready to pa.s.s out.
"You left the wedding and drove to Roland"s, expecting to reason with him. But he was in a rage. At Violet, too, for hitting him, but mainly at you. He said he was divorcing you, and he was going to marry Violet."
"Violet hit him."
"But you killed him. And last night...you killed Dante."
She shivered hard. The phone slipped from her fingers and plopped in the mud. She tucked her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders, quaking with emotion. And then she looked at me, some of her color returning.
She pulled a handgun from her pocket and aimed it at me.
Just like that.
Blood rushed to my head. All sounds in the park receded. In my peripheral vision I could see little birds darting in and out of the bushes, but it was as if someone had put the sound on mute. My own breathing and heartbeat filled my ears to bursting. My vision zeroed in on the end of the gun, its deadly little hole pointing at me like a finger.
Melinda was breathing hard, too. Beneath her white coat, I could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. She didn"t want this any more than I did. But she had a steely determination and a desperate secret to hide.
My mouth was dry and my brain was empty. I should have seen this coming. But in the park? Here? I hadn"t expected her to be so reckless.
I tried to speak. Stopped. Cleared my throat. Tried again. "You don"t want to do that," I whispered, gaze fixed on the handgun. If I were Dwayne I would know what type it was. If I were Dwayne, I wouldn"t be in this position.
"I couldn"t stop Dante from telling Roland," she said.
She"d stopped him pretty good from what I could tell.
"You tried to...reason with him..." It was all I could get out. My life had zeroed down to this moment, this gun, this woman...this breath.
"We were supposed to go to the wedding together. Roland and me. He"d said we would. But then he didn"t want to go early, but I had the orange juice and champagne. He told me to go on without him and he"d come later. I didn"t know he was with Violet. If I"d known..." She shook her head as if to clear it. Her body buzzed like a vibrator, emotion thrumming through her, a living thing.
I kept quiet, afraid to say anything.
"Everybody was getting ready for pictures. No one was looking at me, so I left. I went straight to the house and he was holding his head. Violet had hit him with the tray. But he didn"t care! He only cared that Dante had called and told him I was...not what he thought. Roland called me a wh.o.r.e. I said he had it wrong and he laughed. He laughed." Her tone was full of disbelief, her face ravaged. "Then he walked away from me. To the sunroom, staring out at the garden. The tray was on the banquette. I was-pleading with him, begging him. We were supposed to be getting back together!" she insisted.
The gun wavered in my vision. My heart pounded so hard it hurt my chest. I was afraid she would shoot me by mistake, just in the telling of the story.
"He said he was divorcing me. Cutting me off. Those were his words. "I"m cutting you off, you dirty, f.u.c.king wh.o.r.e." And then he said he was marrying Violet. He loved her. She was pa.s.sionate. She"d hit him with the tray, but he seemed to see it as some kind of...expression of love! Men are so stupid, don"t you think?" she said, her tone shifting abruptly. "So stupid."
I didn"t respond.
"Then he said he was going to expose me. Tell my secret to the world. He"d been angry when he first heard. Furious. He and Violet had got in a fight because he was so angry. He"d taken it out on her, but he saw it all so clearly now. I was dirty and cheap and worthless.
"I tried to talk to him. That was my past. Long ago. Like another person, not even me! He walked away from me and I grabbed his arm. I shook it. Shook it as hard as I could. He told me I was pathetic. Pulled my fingers back. I thought he was going to break them off." Her breath came in gasps at the memory. "I was crying and he didn"t care. Violet was all he cared about. Violet."
At some level I was measuring the distance between us. Could I run? Zigzag? Escape? How good a shot was she? Would she hunt me down or let me go? She"d killed Dante and taken his gun. She was made of steel and purpose and rampaging emotions.
"The tray was just there," she went on. "His ear was bleeding. Violet caught him on the side of the head, but she didn"t put any strength to it. She didn"t mean it. But I reached for the tray. I had my gloves on. My wedding gloves. And I meant it."
She looked at me. She meant it now.
My first instinct is always to flee. Always.
But I stood rooted to the spot.
Melinda lifted the gun, sighting. A moment pa.s.sed. And another. I understood instinctively that she would have trouble shooting me in cold blood without a jump, a dodge, a trigger.
In a distance I heard a dog woof. Someone coming to the park. Someone walking their dog. I thought of The Binkster. Of what would happen to my dog if I should die.
And I did the unthinkable. I leapt at her.
She jerked the gun in surprise. I made contact, grabbing for the weapon, my hands slipping. We fought, standing, slipping in the mud, my hands on her wrists, fumbling, flailing.
Blam!
The sound blasted through the air. My ears rang. The acrid and now familiar smell of cordite filled my nose. There was a numbness in my abdomen. I thought, I"m hit, but I"m okay. I"m okay. I"m okay.
I wasn"t sure I believed it.
There were voices behind me. Alarmed voices. A sense of urgent scurrying.
Melinda stumbled back from me. The gun dropped with a thud into the muck beneath our feet, companion to her cell phone.
She said, "You shot me."
I blinked. Stared blankly. Didn"t say that she was wrong.
She pressed her hand to her stomach, holding her white coat close.
I backed away from her, dimly aware that I felt no pain. None. I wasn"t hurt.