Deb Baker - Ding Dong Dead

“Nacho said the guy wouldn’t help me, and Nacho wouldn’t give me his name. And why should the guy help me? He’d be incriminating himself.”

“Andy.” Gretchen had to make her move to escape before it was too late. “How did you find us at the library so easily?” she asked. Would she have time to grab her phone from the charger? Not likely. She’d have to leave it behind.

Andy leaned back in the seat, which was what Gretchen was waiting for. “It was the strangest thing,” he said. “I told Nacho that I wanted to find Caroline. Not long afterward, he gave me your location. It’s like there’s some kind of communication system, but I don’t know how it-”

Gretchen slammed her body against the driver’s door at the same time that she released the handle. The door flew open and she was out. If Andy had a weapon besides the lock pick, she hadn’t seen it yet.

She broke into a run, aiming straight for the library, relieved that she didn’t hear him chasing her. Every muscle in her body was taut, and she was very aware of her exposed back.

She gained the steps leading into the library. Several other patrons were also entering.

The only sound Gretchen could hear was her own ragged, frightened breath.

A librarian tapped Gretchen on the shoulder. “We’re closing in five minutes,” she said.

Late Saturday afternoon and the Birch women had nowhere to go.

Caroline had previously downplayed her old friend’s actions. She’d wanted to believe in Andy’s innocence; she’d known him for so long as a friend, and as more. But she reluctantly sided with Gretchen after hearing about the incident in the car.

Caroline’s defense of Andy ended when she learned that his driver’s license had been dropped at the murder scene. Had it happened the way he told it or had Andy lost it after killing his wife? Anything was possible. They would no longer take chances, even when dealing with old flames.

Andy now had the backing of the homeless community thanks to their foolhardy confidence in him. They would have to find Nacho or Daisy and rectify that. Otherwise the homeless people could continue to help Andy locate them.

“Saturday night,” Gretchen said. “We’ll never find them.”

“Let it go,” Caroline said. “We don’t have any proof that Andy is a murderer. Besides, we promised to give him two days. If we don’t discover anything useful by then, we’ll turn the entire problem over to the police along with the information we have so far.”

“We can’t go back to the car,” Gretchen said. “He might be waiting.”

“Even if he’s not, Nacho and his tribal drumbeaters know what we’re driving.” Caroline gave her a weak smile. “I never thought I’d have to hide from Daisy and Nacho’s street family.”

“Or from Matt,” Gretchen added. “I’d like to get my cell phone out of the car, though.”

“Really, Gretchen, you’re too attached to that thing. We have mine.”

They called a cab and gave the driver the address of the banquet hall. On the way, they contacted Nina and April and asked them to meet them there. “Leave your cars someplace else,” Gretchen advised them. “As many blocks away as you can comfortably walk. We wouldn’t want anyone to pass the building and see familiar cars parked right in front of it.”

Within an hour, the four women were sitting with an oversized Barbie doll on the edge of the stage, eating burgers picked up by the ever-ravenous April.

Tutu, Nimrod, and Enrico whizzed around the room, playing chase games and looking for mischief while Caroline and Gretchen brought Nina and April up-to-date.

“You need to get into witness protection,” April said when they were finished.

“I don’t think they have those kinds of programs anymore,” Nina replied.

Gretchen addressed her aunt. “Why don’t you use your psychic powers to help us out? It’s worked in the past. Can’t you put out a distress call?”

“Mayday, Mayday.” April giggled.

“I can’t perform on demand. Messages come in randomly, and they aren’t one hundred percent reliable.”

“Walk backward,” April suggested. “I heard it helps stimulate psychics.”

“The exercise isn’t about walking backward. I’m supposed to think backward,” Nina said. “And it isn’t appropriate for this case.”

“What if you held an object and concentrated,” Caroline said. “Would that work?”

“Like what?” Nina asked, looking doubtful.

“I know,” April said around a cheek filled with burger. “A piece of the skeleton would be good. Except I’m sure the police removed it from the house.”

“Yuck. I’m not touching any dead person’s bones.”

“It should be something connected to the victims,” Caroline said.

“What about the photograph?” Gretchen said, remembering that she had a copy of it in her purse.

“I held it before and didn’t feel a thing.” Nina drained her soda and set it down on the stage floor. “But I’m pretty sure the killer is male.”

“We already suspect a man,” April said. “That isn’t useful information.”

“What’s your reason for believing it’s a man, Nina?” Gretchen wanted to hear everyone’s conclusions. Maybe something would jump out at them. Other than ghosts.

“I think a man killed Allison and the same man is after you, because I have trouble ‘reading’ men.” Nina held her fingers up in quotation marks. “When we went near that neighbor’s house, I got a powerful incoming message. And there was a reason for it. They knew something important, yet disturbing. Women are easy. Men, I can’t do.”

“In other words,” Gretchen said for clarification, which tended to be a difficult task when dealing with Nina, “when we found the bones in the wardrobe, if the corpse’s killer had been a woman, you believe that you would have known that through a feeling or a message.”

“Right. But I didn’t, so it’s a man.” She glanced around the group. “I think.”

Gretchen heard footsteps overhead.

“Mr. B.,” April said, shifting her eyes to the ceiling.

Heavy shoes banged down the stairs from the apartment above. A moment later, Mr. B. entered the room. “Thought I heard something down here,” he said. “What are you doing rehearsing on a Saturday night?”

“We’re not,” Caroline said. “We’re just going over some of the finer points.”

“Four good-looking women like you should have dates.”

After a couple minutes of polite conversation he left, banging back up the steps, leaving behind the scent of cherry pipe tobacco. Gretchen sighed. Mr. B. was right. She should be out with Matt.

What was all this drama doing to their relationship?

Did they still have one?

The four women reflected on the stories about Flora’s son Richard related to them by Nora and Bea Wade.

“Does mental disease run in families?” April asked when the story was over.

“Genes account for so much,” Caroline said.

“That’s right.” Nina stroked Tutu from the canine’s seat of power on her lap. “Look at our family. We’re spiritual and we have special abilities.” She glanced sharply at Gretchen. “If only we’d accept them.”

Caroline, the oldest, was the most knowledgeable about psychiatric procedures practiced in the seventies and eighties.

“Shock therapy was big,” she said. “And could be given against a patient’s will.”

“I’ve seen it in movies,” April added. “Patients were strapped down to tables with no anesthesia and all those wires attached to their bodies. Then the seizures. I can’t even think about it without feeling faint.”

Caroline nodded. “Electroshock was used to treat depression.”