Deb Baker - Ding Dong Dead

“Wait!” The spray can felt full. Rachel hadn’t even noticed. She was focused on her mission. “Let me get up,” Gretchen said. “I want to do it your way.”

“Yes, that would be best. I can’t stand to see you hurting.”

What a crazy woman!

Holding her damaged arm against her body, Gretchen struggled slowly to her feet. As soon as she was upright, Gretchen abruptly turned, raised her good arm, and sprayed Rachel’s face without letting up. Rachel screamed and swung the hammer, striking empty air and throwing her off balance. She staggered. Gretchen got in one last blast before running for the stairs.

She felt nauseated by the pain in her shoulder and from the fumes that had filled the air.

Gretchen heard the downstairs door open, saw men with badges below her, felt her knees buckling. “Upstairs,” she said.

They pounded past her. One of the officers stayed behind. He bent down to her. “You’re going to be okay,” he said. “I’m right here.”

Shouts came from above. Then a shrill scream.

A cop at the top of the stairs called down. “She jumped from the balcony.”

Gretchen leaned against the rail, cradling her arm.

From below she heard other officers talking, shouting orders. She caught enough of what they said to know that her attacker hadn’t survived the fall.

This time, Rachel really was dead.

The officer who was protecting Gretchen moved aside. Strong, capable arms lifted her.

“Are you all right?”

“What took you so long?” she said to Matt.

“Oh, so now you want me,” he said. “It’s about time.”

He gave her a dazzling smile, but his face was pale and he had that trapped look he got when his doll phobia kicked in.

“Get me out of here,” she said.

“Great idea.”

Home. There really wasn’t anyplace like home. Gretchen found herself surrounded by well-wishers and a pack of small animals. Even Wobbles braved the crowd to welcome her. Her arm was in a sling, and pain medication pumped through her veins making her feel warm and mellow. She’d been lucky: only her collarbone was broken. It would heal.

The sexiest man alive sat next to her.

“We’re going to call you the aerosol queen,” Matt said.

April giggled, watching him with adoring eyes. “The attack of the aerosol queen,” she said. “A great name for a movie.”

“Quit calling me names,” Gretchen said, laughing.

“It’s true,” Nina said. “You blasted Jerome, then Andy and Julie. You are the aerosol queen.”

“I’ve removed every spray can from the house,” Caroline said.

“Very funny. And I didn’t blast Andy.”

“You clobbered him,” April said. “Good thing you didn’t do permanent damage.”

Nina was fussing with Tutu’s barky braids, straightening them before she said, “What a horrible life Richard had. Committed to an insane asylum when he wasn’t unbalanced at all!”

“Like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” April said. “That Nurse Ratched was more nuts than the inmates. It turns out that Rachel was the crazy one in the family.”

Gretchen couldn’t tear her gaze from Matt. “She was so convincing,” she said. “I never would have guessed that Julie had removed her mother’s head from the armoire. Her intention was to take her mother’s body out, or what was left of it, in bits and pieces.” What a gruesome thought.

“We tested her tote bag,” Matt said. “She transported Flora Swilling’s head inside it.”

“Yuck,” April said. “And to think I was alone at the museum with her. I bet she took Flora’s head that day.”

“We discovered the skeleton before she completed her mission,” Nina said. “Thanks to our friendly ghost.”

Matt’s Chrome cologne was acting as an elixir. Gretchen felt light-headed. “What about the real Julie Wicker? Did she exist as Rachel said?”

“Julie Wicker actually was Rachel’s second cousin. When the real Julie Wicker passed away, Rachel, always the schemer, sent for her birth certificate and reinvented herself as Julie.”

“On a part-time basis?” Gretchen thought this was utterly bizarre.

“Exactly. She was testing out her new role in case she needed it one day. That day came when Allison Thomasia arrived in Phoenix and Rachel thought she had put together too many pieces. Allison began to delve too deeply into their family history and that really set Rachel off.”

Nina shivered. “And to think that she was a member of our club, that she was one of the cast members.”

Gretchen snuggled closer to Matt. Her shoulder injury had saved her from having to deal with his anger. Instead, he was in male protective mode. She liked it. “Trudy Fernwich came as a big surprise to her.”

“Yes, thanks to due diligence by Attorney McNalty, the trustee,” Matt said. “Trudy Fernwich is Flora’s niece, but she was a black sheep of sorts and hadn’t kept in touch with the rest of the family for many years. McNalty is shocked at what happened. Allison came to his office, and, thinking he was doing a good turn, he brought her together with another family member, Julie Wicker. He’s understandably upset.”

“Andy flew back to LA,” Caroline said.

“I was worried that I had killed him.” Gretchen felt more than a little guilty about her attacks on two innocent men.

“He’ll be fine,” Matt said. “And he refused to press charges against you, although I tried to talk him into it.” From the playful grin on his face, Gretchen knew he was kidding.

Gretchen glanced at her mother. “I’m glad you didn’t marry him. He’s not one of my favorite people.”

“Andy’s been under incredible stress,” Caroline said, defending him to the very end.

“Jerome is behind bars for a while,” Matt said.

“We aren’t pursuing charges against him for entering the museum,” Caroline said.

“That will help,” Matt said. “But he still has a concealed weapon charge to deal with.”

Nimrod leapt at Gretchen’s legs until Matt picked him up so he could give Gretchen a kiss.

“I missed you, too,” she said.

“What about me?” Matt said. “Didn’t you miss me?”

“Bring your face over here,” Gretchen said. “I’ll show you just how much I missed you.”

“Nina,” April said, laughing, “tell us how your psychic antennae went so awry? What about, ‘The killer must be a man’?”

“I was wrong this time,” Nina said, not fazed by her error. “But I’m going to ask our ghost for help figuring out where I went wrong.”

“You’re kidding,” April said.

“Want to help?”

“No way.”

“She’s waiting for us at the museum,” Nina said. “I can feel it.”

Caroline laughed. “You’re giving up auras and tarot readings to become a ghost hunter?”

“You don’t just quit gifts like mine. I’m simply tuning in to another paranormal wavelength.”

“I can’t help feeling responsible for some of what happened,” Gretchen said. “I’m the one who told Julie that Mom was at the museum the morning she tried to run her off the road.”

“How could you have known?” Caroline said. “She’s responsible for her actions, not you.”

“I should have known when she left Curves to run errands. She was gone from play practice all morning and I never connected-”

“None of us did,” April said.

Gretchen wasn’t through. She was cleansing her conscience. “I told the cast that the doll head was at our house. Julie was right there, taking it in. If we had been home, who knows what she would have done to us.”

“Why did she want the doll head?” April asked, directing the question to Matt.

He shrugged. “We might never know. Maybe in some twisted way she wanted to keep the doll with her mother.”