October Fest Part 15

"Don't need any. At least not right away."

I was so angry I could only see out of one eye. "Is that all?"

"You tell me."

The one time in my life I needed a comeback more than a fish needed water, and I had nothing. I stormed out, slamming the door on my way and then returning to slam it again.

I was so angry when I stomped out of the police department that my footprints gave off sparks. Sure, the phrase "the gerbil t.u.r.d" wasn't going to replace "the smoking gun" in the lexicon anytime soon, but Gary didn't seem to have anything better to go on. What a harda.s.s he was. Literally, not figuratively, dammit.

But I didn't need him. I'd stumbled through by myself just fine until now. Well, sort of. The b.u.mmer was that if I was going to nail Kenya, I did need Bad Brad. I tromped over to his two-bedroom apartment above the Kla.s.sy Kwilt Shoppe in downtown Battle Lake and rang the bell.

He buzzed me in, informing me over the intercom that his apartment was the third door on my right at the top of the stairs. He was thrilled to see me, meeting me in the hallway and offering me a tour of his digs. I'd never been to his local abode before and followed him in reluctantly. I thought it a gimme that the place would be a dump with beer cases standing in for furniture and trash to the ceiling, but I found it to be neatly-kept. One of the bedrooms housed his musical instruments, all of them in their cases on a custom-built shelf or displayed on the wall. Peeking in the second bedroom revealed that the bedspread didn't match his pillow cases or his curtains, but he had all three, and they were where they should be. In his kitchen, his dishes had been washed and were drying, and he even had a (intentionally) dried flower bouquet on this kitchen table. The furniture in the living room was old and mismatched but there were no dirty clothes lying around or dust collecting. I refused to go into his bathroom for fear of finding that he did not have b.o.o.by magazines stacked next to the toilet. That would be too much topsy-turviness for one day.

While Brad showed me around, I filled him in on the details of my plan. Part of me didn't want to tell him the whole story, that I thought Kenya had tricked Webber into meeting her in a room she knew would be empty so she could knock him out, suffocate him, string some of her mom's hair around his fingers, and stomp around in her mom's shoes, made muddy courtesy of the ditch and some lake water. I didn't know how to convince him to secure to his person the handheld tape recorder I'd picked up at the hardware store on the way over without telling him, though, and I certainly didn't know how I'd get him to trap her into confessing if he didn't have some insider info. Plus, it hurts to lie to a guy without eyebrows.

He was alarmingly happy to help. "I'm Crockett and you're Tubbs, dude!"

Before I even finished outlining the whole plan, he'd tossed some Phil Collins into his stereo and thrown a mint green blazer on over his worn Husker Du T-shirt before racing to call Kenya. I had to push him down and remind him we needed Vanderbrick's a.s.sistance before we phoned her. Fortunately, Vanderbrick was home and happy to help after I explained what was going down.

That piece in place, I gave Brad the thumbs up to call the woman who'd been phoning him several times a day since their Octoberfest rendezvous. He pitched his voice low and invited her over to do the no-pants dance. He sure knew how to sweet talk the ladies. I heard him wheedle her, convince her that time away from her family would be the best thing for her tonight, and finally, she relented. He hung up the phone and said Kenya was almost done with her funeral obligations and would be here within the hour.

The final phase of the puzzle was for me to duct tape the portable tape recorder to Brad's body. When he pulled up his shirt, I shouldn't have been surprised to see that he was shaved as clean as a volleyball.

"The doctor do that?"

"Nope," he said, grinning happily. "In the Air Tonight" was weaving its way out of the speakers.

I refused to comment further. Once Brad was wired, I checked his computer for the millionth time to see if Vanderbrick had followed through. He'd been surprised to hear from me again, even more surprised when I explained that I thought Glokkmann's daughter had murdered Webber and then her mother. I promised to share all the details if he'd helped me. He said it wouldn't be easy, but he'd try his best. He still hadn't fulfilled his end of the bargain, though.

Brad offered to sing a love song for me to pa.s.s the time. When I declined, he asked if I'd like to play his skin flute. I also took a pa.s.s on that. And Vanderbrick still hadn't come through. If he didn't or couldn't stick to his word, this plan was sunk and Kenya would walk away from two murders. The clock told me she'd be here in less than fifteen minutes, and still nothing.

"Maybe you should restart the computer. It's pretty old."

I took Brad's advice for the first and last time and was almost disappointed that it worked. Vanderbrick had written and posted the article just like he'd said he would, with only five minutes until Kenya's ETA. Leaving the screen up and sequestering myself into the closet off the living room, I realized I felt sorry for both of today's main actors. There was Brad, who kept his house clean but had so thoroughly bought into his own myth that he couldn't be a decent person for more than thirty seconds in a row, and Kenya, who had apparently suffered so much when she was just a toddler or at the hands of her verbally vicious mother that she'd matured into a killer.

I pushed those thoughts away and settled back just in time, leaving a slight crack in the door. The doorbell rang, a pleasant inhale-exhale of a chime. Brad flipped up his collar and tossed thumbs up back at me.

"Stop it," I hissed. "Remember, I'm not here."

He sang a couple bars of "Easy Lover" before opening the door. I couldn't believe he was still thinking he'd see some action. If I was right, Kenya was as balanced as a corporate checkbook, and Brad was putting himself in deep danger by inviting her here.

"Baby!" That's all Brad had time to say before Kenya jumped in the air and wrapped her legs around him, kissing his face like a honey bear and stroking the arms of his pastel blazer.

I leaned back from the crack in the door, my eye burning. Was I willing to listen to Brad and Kenya going at it in the off chance that she'd confess at some point? That's when an icy reminder pushed my face back to the crack. If she kept stroking his body like she was trying to shine her silver, she'd find the sleek voice recorder taped between his shoulder blades. He must have remembered the same thing, because he pulled her away from him and tossed her on the couch, out of my line of sight.

"What's wrong?" She asked. I could tell from the high tone of her voice that she was worked up.

"Nothing, sweetcakes! I just like a little antic.i.p.ation." I caught a glimpse of him striding toward the computer.

"That's not what you said when you invited me here. You said you were going to make love to me. That's why I came. I missed you, Brad." She lunged off the couch and also pa.s.sed across my line of sight.

"I've missed you too, baby, I really have, and I want to make this special. Can I get you some wine?"

She giggled and then bounced back past the couch and into the kitchen. Brad followed. I heard the clinking of gla.s.ses and the throaty, insider laughter of two people dancing the pre-s.e.x polka. It was driving me crazy, not hearing what they were saying, and I wanted to crack the door wider to improve my amplification. But I didn't, fortunately, as they returned to the sofa moments later.

I heard the squeak of couch springs and the rustle of clothing. "I've been worried about you, baby."

"You've got a big heart." I sensed she was reaching for a part of him that definitely wasn't his heart, though it probably had a comparable blood supply.

"That can wait. I wanna talk first."

My heart was thumping so loudly it echoed off the walls of the closet. This was the moment. This segue is exactly what we'd talked about. He'd been certain she'd show up raring for action. The plan was that he'd lead her on and prime her with wine. When her guard was down he'd spill about the blog entry he'd "found." What happened next relied completely on his ability to convince her that he regularly followed The Body Politic. It was the weakest link in our otherwise anemic plan.

"I've got something much more fun that I want to do with my mouth." I heard the jangle of wine gla.s.ses being set down and the wet friction of kissing followed by the crisp whip of a zipper being opened.

"I wanna talk now," Brad said, his voice husky. He stood and positioned himself in my line of sight, his side to me. Kenya followed, leaning against his shoulder, her face toward me. Her gaze was so intense that I was certain she could see me. He pulled up his zipper.

And that's when I saw it. It was a switch, an audible click, an eerie shift as clear as white against black. Her face, next to his ear, had gone psychoceramic. "You didn't want to talk when I was calling you every day," she rasped dangerously.

Brad was oblivious to Kenya's unhinging. "That was then, this is now, baby. I've got something I have to tell you. You know that guy who was murdered here last week? I was reading his blog. You know, curious who he was since he was killed just up the road. Anyway, he posted something the night he was murdered, and I think you wanna see it."

Brad disappeared from my sight and must have strolled toward his computer. He didn't see the black-ice stare Kenya gave his back, but I did, and it made my stomach gurgle. She wasn't all there anymore. Some bedrock part of her had fled. I wanted to stand, to stop what I knew was unfolding, but it was like I was watching a distant play.

"It's about you." Brad kept his voice surprised and sincere. "He wrote that you asked him to meet in his friend's empty room that Sat.u.r.day night but weren't there when he showed up. You were going to give him some information about your mom that would ruin her. But you didn't show when you said you would, so he went back to his room to type up his blog post. The last thing he wrote was that you had called and he was going to meet you in room 19 for sure this time."

We were winging this last part. When I'd crossed paths with Webber on the motel stairs last Sat.u.r.day, he'd been agitated. I had an inkling that was because Kenya had originally stood him up. If true, it was a detail that only she and Webber would have known, and it would have to be enough to convince her that the blog post Vanderbrick had just posted on Webber's site was genuine.

"I know you met him there later, and you killed him, and I'm glad you did, baby. He was a p.r.i.c.k. An absolute p.r.i.c.k."

All the air in the room grew heavy and dropped to the ground, making it difficult to breathe. I was sure Brad had overplayed his hand. Kenya was as still as rock, her eyes black and wide, her mouth a stiff red slash across her face. She was either going to laugh in his face or slice it off and eat his nose with a dessert fork. "He wasn't. He wasn't a bad man at all."

"What?" Her voice was soft, and Brad, who I could hear still fooling with his computer, didn't hear her the first time.

"I was just going to tell him how he was right, and my mom was an alcoholic, and she did take bribes. I had the evidence, and I could have just handed it to him. But she would have squirmed her way out of that. She walked away clean from everything. And so he died. Hammy helped me." She laughed, and it sounded like wind through a skull.

"Hammy?"

She reached onto the table behind her for her purse, and then a puzzled look crossed her face, quickly replaced by a serene smile. "He's my gerbil. He's not here."

"He helped you to suffocate Webber? That's what I don't get. I don't get how a little thing like you could kill a guy." Brad was talking fast, and I could tell he was beginning to feel anxious.

"I gave him one of my mom's sleeping pills, all crushed up in wine. It made him slow. When his back was to me, I hit him with a hotel chair. That didn't kill him, so I took the bag out of the bathroom garbage and tied it around his neck. Shooting the Queen was even easier."

Brad's voice shook. "Well, it's done, and that's what's important." Not as important as me spending the extra $1.23 on the 90-minute tape, apparently, because that's when it ran out. The record b.u.t.ton popped out as loudly as a firecracker.

Kenya jumped, startled. "What was that?"

Brad attempted a clicking sound in his throat. "Beatboxing. A new thing for the band. You like?" He continued to wheeze and chirrup like a tractor straining up a hill.

She shook her head slowly and held her arms out, her purse still clutched in one hand. "Come hold me."

G.o.d save him, Brad did. Now they were both in my line of sight. She wrapped her arms around him and dipped her head into his chest. "I'm guilty," she whispered. "I did it. I killed Webber and I shot my mom."

Brad laughed uncomfortably but didn't push her away. Her purse fell to the ground, and in her hand and behind his back was a gun. I choked.

"We could go out like Thelma and Louise," she sighed, slowly raising the barrel of the pistol to the back of his neck.

I powered through my fear and yelled. Kenya staggered back and pointed the gun toward the closet door. Without time to think, I stood and pushed it open and found myself staring into the bottomless black barrel of her pistol. The whole scene felt slow-moving and ridiculous, way more watery and surreal than in the movies. It didn't have to end this way. But Kenya's eyes were lit by crazy, and the three of us were not walking out of here. Her finger clenched against the trigger. Brad whimpered but didn't move. This must have felt as inevitable to him as it did to me.

And then the front door exploded.

"Everybody down!"

Deputy Wohnt led the charge but two plainclothes officers were directly on his heels. I was still partially in the closet and obliged immediately with the command. Brad also dropped to the ground and then scurried past me so he was fully in the closet.

Kenya did not respond. She studied the three men, guns drawn, their breath coming in adrenaline bursts, exactly like she'd studied me the first time we'd met at the side of the stage on debate day. She was a hawk, recording every detail before deciding whether they were worth her attention. Her gun had been hanging at her side but she drew it slowly up, swiveling the end toward her face. I lunged forward to grab it, but Wohnt was quicker. He fired a single shot at her right shoulder and she dropped her weapon and crumpled.

One of the officers moved swiftly to retrieve the pistol and the other called for an ambulance on his shoulder unit.

"Are you okay?"

Wohnt had crossed the room in three strides. He made a move to reach toward me but stopped abruptly, turning back to focus on Kenya. He flipped her over. Her eyes were open and she was shivering. There wasn't much blood, even when he ripped her shirt open to get a clear look at the wound. "I need a blanket and a clean towel."

I followed his orders as best I could. My legs were shaky but they carried me into Brad's bedroom and then bathroom. I was distantly relieved to see the latest issue of Juggz and Huggz on the sink next to his toilet. I hurried back and handed Wohnt the cloth. He staunched Kenya's wound and covered her with the blanket. When the paramedics arrived moments later, some color had returned to her cheeks.

They hauled her out, and Wohnt and the remaining officer stayed behind. Wohnt turned to me, fire blazing in his eyes. He shoved me onto the couch and stood over me. "This the sting?"

At first I couldn't meet his gaze, adrenaline and shock swirling dangerously fast in my stomach. Then I remembered that discomfort and indignation were close cousins and I shot to my feet, jabbing him in the chest with my finger. "I asked for your help but you weren't interested. Said my gerbil t.u.r.d theory was stupid. Said that wasn't enough to go on." I walked angrily toward the closet, knocking Wohnt out of the way. I leaned forward and snaked my arm down the back of still-cowering Brad's shirt. A loud ripping sound followed by a sad squeal from Brad, and I had the tape recorder in hand. "Here. Why don't you see if that's enough to go on."

Wohnt's eyes were glittering dangerously. "What will I hear if I listen to this?"

"Kenya confessing to killing Webber. And her mother."

The other officer came up behind Gary and clapped him on the shoulder. "You were right about her."

They exchanged a look, and I couldn't read either d.a.m.n one of their faces. Hysteria and rage vied for position in my cluttered head. "Right about what? Right that you should listen to me more? Right that I was right and you were wrong?"

My voice went a little screechy as the reality of what had just happened closed over me. "Right that all the men in my life are either too good for me, dead, or fibergla.s.s statues?"

"I'm not too good for you!" Brad said from the closet.

"Shut up." I shoved my hands on my hips. "Right that you can get me to confess to Watergate with that cop stare of yours, and that I'm an eyelash shy of a nervous breakdown and that I would have been better off moving to Siberia than Battle Lake and that I'm going to die a lonely old cat lady?"

Gary was vibrating ever so slightly, and I thought he was going to yell at me before I realized he was laughing.

His back-up shook his head in wonder. "Yup, absolutely right."

"I think he meant that Wohnt was right that you're about as lucky as a three-legged cat," said Mrs. Berns.

"What does that even mean?" I couldn't believe how lovely she looked in the white wedding gown. It was two weeks since her car accident, and although the bruises on her face had faded to the color of dirt smudges and she was still crutch-bound, she glowed. The dress was shamelessly white and flowing and fitted at the top to display more cleavage than I'd ever seen on her. As her matron of honor, something she insisted on calling me given what she referred to as my "geriatric" s.e.x life, I was at the Senior Sunset curling her hair and helping her with her makeup. I didn't know how to do either so she mostly shooed me away and took care of business herself, as usual. She insisted I fill her in on every speck of what she referred to as the "Gerbil t.u.r.d Sting."

"I don't know. Tell me again what you spewed toward the end?"

I told her. It didn't get better in the telling.

"Ah. I retract my first answer. My best guess is that Wohnt has been telling people that you're a nice girl who needs to get laid in the worst way."

"n.o.body needs to get laid."

"Speak for yourself."

I wasn't going to argue. She was the expert at this table. I indicated the front of her dress. "Where've you been hiding those b.o.o.bs, anyway?"

"When you get to be my age, you just roll 'em up. Your cups runneth over even if it takes a while to locate your nipples." She dusted glittery powder over her soft and wrinkled skin. "So you didn't finish your story. What's going to happen to that crazy girl Africa now that you got her confession on tape?"

"Kenya. And since she confessed again to killing Webber and her mom on the way to the hospital, I think she's going away for good. Her dad's found her a good lawyer, though, so you never know."

"She say why she did it?"

I shook my head. "Not really. Just that she hated her mom and wasn't going to let her continue to ruin lives."

Mrs. Berns tsked. "Makes my kids look like angels for only wanting to incarcerate me in a maximum security nursing home."

"Not kids, kid. Just Conrad. Remember that Elizabeth is on your team now." I studied my fingernails. "You know what? When I think back to my conversation with Glokkmann at the jail, I think she knew Kenya had killed Webber and was hoping she would come forward on her own. Guess that wasn't her best gamble."

"I'll say. I've been meaning to mention, you get all glowy when you talk about solving crimes. You ever notice that?"

I had. "Is it weird?"

"If you mean is it uncommon, most good things are. You ever thought about going pro?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean this." She pulled open the top drawer of her vanity and handed me a stack of papers from the Minnesota Private Detective and Protective Agent Licensing Board.

Just reading the letterhead made me shiver, in a good way, but I played it cool. "I don't know."

"Sure you do."

She was right. I smiled and hugged her. "You wanna do the training with me?"

"Maybe. Depends how much work it is."

"Thank you," I said. "Thank you, thank you! You know you're my best friend, right?"

"I better be. I made you my matron of honor." She liked calling me that.

I stuffed the papers into my purse. I'd have to read them later, when the idea of becoming a private investigator didn't seem so big and intimidating. Besides, tonight was all about Mrs. Berns. "Are all your kids invited to the wedding?"