Deb Baker - Ding Dong Dead

He was going to kill her after he won this last arm-wrestling bout.

She felt the door inching back at her, heard both of them breathing hard, felt her feet sliding back, and looked around one last time for a weapon.

Then she was flung away and the door banged against the wall, wide open.

“I don’t have time for this,” Andy snarled, coming at her. “You’re going to tell me what you know, if I have to force it out of you.”

Gretchen grabbed the first thing she saw, the first thing she could get in her grasp, and whipped it at him. The coffeepot crashed into Andy and a wave of hot coffee shot from the rim.

He slapped his hands against his face, trying to wipe away the hot brew.

“Strike one,” she screamed, feeling warriorlike in spite of her terror. The coffeepot shattered on the floor, but she was already moving, picking up a heavy mug and throwing it at him, striking his forehead. She wasn’t going down without a fight. She’d make sure to scratch him. They would find traces of his DNA under her fingernails. She’d figure out how to leave a message before she died.

She backed toward a small, cluttered table in the corner. Stage props were piled on it, and she almost collapsed in joy when she saw the butt of the stage gun poking out of the mess.

Gretchen grabbed the gun and trained it on Andy. “Turn around slowly,” she said. “Do it!”

That stopped him. Without another word, he did as she demanded, turning his back to her. He looked overly confident for a man in his position. His hands were in his pockets. The pick!

Without further thought, she clunked him on the head with the gun. He wobbled. She drew back and struck again, harder this time. He crashed to the floor.

Standing over his prone body, Gretchen hoped she hadn’t hit him too hard. What if she’d killed him?

Andy didn’t move.

Was he breathing?

Gretchen wasn’t about to get close enough to find out or to be grabbed.

She’d call the cops and an ambulance.

Should she run out into the street and flag someone down?

She’d get Mr. B. He’d help her.

Gretchen pounded up the stairs and rapped hard on Mr. B.’s apartment door, watching her back all the way, feeling afraid, feeling the adrenaline.

Mr. B. didn’t answer her desperate knocks. She turned the doorknob.

Unlocked.

What a break.

If he wasn’t at home, she could still go inside and use his phone. He’d never know, and if he did, he’d understand that she’d had no choice. Gretchen opened the door cautiously, not wanting to startle Mr. B. if he was home. “It’s Gretchen,” she called, trying to project her voice out, but not loud enough to give her location away to Andy. “I need to use your phone.”

Gretchen quickly shut the door behind her and locked it, loving the sound of the bolt action. Then she remembered Andy’s lock-picking tool. He still had it.

Move quickly, she told herself. Although he hadn’t looked like he was in any shape to pursue her.

She looked around at the typical single older male décor, stark in contrast to what he’d accomplished with the lower banquet hall. The smell of pipe tobacco hung in the air, thick and soothing.

Gretchen moved through the apartment, still calling out softly while glancing around for a landline. A younger man might not have one in these modern days of high-tech advancement and wireless connections, but Gretchen had noticed Mr. B.’s old-fashioned mannerisms and she’d never seen him using a cell phone.

He’d have a landline phone in his house.

The small kitchen and living area didn’t produce one.

The door to the only other room in the apartment was closed. She tapped. Nothing from inside.

Slowly she turned the handle.

What would he think if he came home and found her inside, searching through his house? How embarrassing would that be?

Gretchen poked her head inside. His bedroom. Drawn blinds on the windows kept the room cast in darkness, but she could tell that it wasn’t occupied at the moment. She flipped a switch on the wall next to the door and an overhead light came on.

There had better be a phone in here or she’d have to go back down those steps and risk another encounter with Andy. That is, if she hadn’t killed him.

For good measure, she also locked the bedroom door behind her. That would slow down the professional lock picker.

The nightstand didn’t offer up a phone. Neither did the top of the dresser.

The man didn’t have a phone? What was the world coming to?

In the future, she’d be telling her children old-fashioned stories of street-side pay phones and phones with cords. If she lived to have kids.

Gretchen’s eyes lit on a glass curio cabinet in the corner that she hadn’t noticed at first. She walked over, peered in-and sucked in her breath in surprise.

The cabinet contained rocks, a fairly sizeable collection. Each specimen had an identification tag attached to it.

Gretchen opened the curio and picked up a rock. Read the tag.

Exchanged it for another. Read another tag.

And another.

The rocks had long complex names that she couldn’t pronounce, let alone decipher. Granodiorite, gabbro, anaorthosite gneiss.

And every one of them had a place of origin neatly printed underneath the name.

Cairo.

Jericho.

Zimbabwe.

The same exotic places she’d daydreamed about. The travel stickers had come from these faraway cities. They had been placed lovingly on a doll’s travel trunk by a young girl named Flora.

Gretchen had found John Swilling’s rock collection.

Caroline sits in an interrogation room with Matt Albright. Good thing Gretchen took off down the street before the detective found out about their escapade at the museum. He’s working his jaw like he’s trying to restrain an angry outburst. It crosses her mind to push him a little. What happens when her daughter’s boyfriend gets really angry? She’d like to see him at his worst.

If he’s not the right guy for Gretchen, she wants to know now.

“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You spent the night at the museum after I specifically told you that it was off-limits?”

“You never told me any such thing.”

“I warned your daughter. The two of you violated police orders. That building is under investigation. It’s a crime scene. I can’t believe it.” He studies the ceiling like he might find the answer written up there.

Caroline feels a tinge of compassion for him. He’s in a tough place, sitting on the fence between his professional ethics and his personal relationship with her daughter. Would he be exhibiting this kind of frustration with two women he didn’t know? She doesn’t think so. He feels helpless and is afraid for them. His emotions surface as anger. She studied psychology in college and is putting it to good use.

She won’t let him get to her.

His elbows are on the table. He rubs both hands through his hair. “Where is she?” he asks.

“I said I’ll tell you but not yet.” Calm down first.

“The guy you hog-tied insists he was protecting you.”

“Hardly likely. He broke in. He had a knife.”

“You think he’s a killer.”

“Yes.”

“Both Flora Berringer and Allison Thomasia were murdered with a geologist’s hammer, not a switchblade. The killer didn’t use a knife on his victims. The guy you assaulted is in trouble for breaking and entering and carrying, but not for murdering a woman in a cemetery. Not for stashing bones in an armoire.”

Could Matt be right? Caroline isn’t sure. But Jerome, not exactly a harmless guy, is off the street. “I wouldn’t discount him if I were you,” she says.