Deb Baker - Ding Dong Dead

If Dean McNalty wanted to eliminate the Swilling trust beneficiaries, he would have killed Trudy Fernwich, not Allison Thomasia.

Trudy Fernwich might have killed Allison, but Caroline had also been attacked. Would the Fernwich woman have offered the doll club the opportunity to convert the house only to turn around and try to kill them? Not likely.

She crossed off McNalty and Fernwich.

Jerome had a switchblade and a bad attitude. He was her first pick. But Daisy didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, and Daisy wasn’t easily fooled. She also had that unexplained networking thing going on. Could their drums beat out the name of the real killer if the homeless community needed to know? Gretchen wouldn’t be surprised.

Then she remembered her mother’s comment about Jerome. She had seen him at the accident, speaking with the homeless. His presence established evidence against him, suggesting that he was following Caroline. It could also be the basis for his innocence, if Daisy was correct about his role as protector.

Next, Gretchen wrote down the names of the doll club members, but she quickly eliminated them. After all, they were her friends. They were working hard to make the fundraiser a success.

Her pen wavered above Julie’s name. Julie Wicker was the peacemaker of the group, running interference between the director and the cast, always having a kind word to say. So why hadn’t Julie met her as she said she would? What did she know? Gretchen prayed that Julie hadn’t been murdered for what she knew. She didn’t want the reason to take Julie’s name off of the list to be because she’d been killed.

What about Andy? He didn’t have an alibi, and he’d left identification at the cemetery like a calling card. And he and his wife were estranged when she died.

Andy and Jerome were tied for first place.

But Andy hadn’t attacked her with a weapon as Jerome had. Thinking back on the encounter, Jerome hadn’t exactly attacked them. He hadn’t even put up much resistance. Gretchen’s adrenaline had been pumping hard at the time. Now she wondered if her mother and she had initiated the assault.

The more she thought, the more confused she became.

While she was at it, she might as well add the ghost to the murder tree she was creating. What if the apparition held a grudge against the family and would haunt them forever, killing descendants in bloody revenge? Gretchen didn’t write that down. It was too far out in Ninaland for her.

Gretchen left the coffee pot to work its magic brew and returned to the comfort of the stage chair.

That’s when she heard a soft click coming from down the hall.

Gretchen ducked into the break room and pressed her body up behind the door, one eye staring out from the crack. Heavy footsteps slowly approached.

A cold blast of intuition had propelled Gretchen out of the chair and off the stage, telling her to seek shelter. Hurry. She reacted to the perceived threat and ran, now feeling slightly foolish for hiding behind a door.

She’d lost all perspective. She was running scared instead of standing and fighting. Yet she wasn’t about to come out without knowing who was inside the room.

Through the crack in the door, she watched and waited. Footsteps paused. She flattened herself further. Whoever was inside the building was as wary as she.

The footsteps continued forward until he came into view.

Andy Thomasia!

The man had a way of working with locks that frightened her. What was wrong with him that he couldn’t respect a locked door? He was carrying a weapon of some sort, holding it in his right hand as though he expected to use it soon.

The silence was so absolute, Gretchen was sure he’d hear her if she swallowed or blinked. She froze, motionless like the six-foot Barbie on the stage that had caught his attention. She had a moment to think of her next move while he stepped up on the stage and walked around the enormous doll.

She didn’t have anything to protect herself with. Where was her pepper spray? Gretchen couldn’t remember what she’d done with it after spraying Jerome.

Daisy had been right about Jerome. Now that she was locked in a deserted building with the murdered woman’s husband, she believed Daisy.

Too late.

Think! How am I going to escape?

Andy’s gaze found the teddy bear lying on the floor in front of the chair that Gretchen had so hastily abandoned. He swung his head toward the break room, alert again, hunting for sound or motion. He cocked his head, his eyes sweeping along the floor from the stage to the door where Gretchen hid.

She pressed against the wall.

His eyes followed the crack in the door from the bottom up. He looked sinister, gaunt and menacing.

Their eyes locked.

“Don’t come down from the stage,” Gretchen said. “Or I’ll shoot.”

“You’re the exact image of your mother. Feisty, passionate.” Andy moved fluidly down the stage steps. “Impulsive.”

“I mean it. Stop.”

“You don’t have a gun.”

“I do.”

“Show me.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

Oh jeez.

“Where’s Caroline?” he asked.

“She’ll be here any minute with the police.”

Where are you, Mom?

Andy looked a little worn around the edges. Under different circumstances, Gretchen would have felt sorry for him. That is, if he hadn’t been so adept at breaking and entering. And if his driver’s license hadn’t been left at the scene of the murder. “What happened at the museum?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I saw a cop leaving.”

“I don’t know what happened,” Gretchen lied.

My mother and I decided to beat up the wrong guy.

“Come out from behind the door,” Andy said. “We need to talk.”

“I wouldn’t have helped you in the first place if I knew then what I know now.”

“Somebody is setting me up. You have to believe me.”

“Go away. Tell that to the police.”

“Come out and talk to me.”

“Yeah, right, like I’ll trot right over and let you stab me.”

Andy scowled. Then he glanced at the thing in his hand. “Oh, this? It’s my lock pick.” He put it in his pocket and held up his hands as though that would reassure her.

Gretchen, still flattened against the wall behind the door, looked back into the break room, frantic to find a weapon and protect herself. Where was the stage pistol? That would get her out of here. He wouldn’t know that it was a fake.

The gun wasn’t in sight.

“I tell you what,” Andy said, taking one slow step at a time toward her, “I’ll come in there and we’ll have a cup of that wonderful-smelling coffee and share information.”

“Stay out. I’m warning you.”

“But I’m turning myself in, right? I’m giving myself up to you.”

He came closer, reached the threshold. When he walked through the doorway, Gretchen used all her might to slam the door against him. She locked both palms against the back of the door and shoved as hard as she could, throwing all her body weight behind it.

She felt resistance, but she’d expected that. If his reflexes were slower than hers, the door might hit him in the head. That didn’t happen. Instead, the door was coming back at her.

They were locked in a war against each other. He, on the outside, determined to get in. She, on the inside, doing everything she could to keep him out.

Gretchen was a strong woman. She’d been jealous of all the Phoenix twig women when she had first arrived in Arizona, but now, she thanked her body. Heavier would have been even better. Three hundred pounds would have been perfect.

She was no match for Andy. He had the advantage of additional weight and more arm strength.