Valerie Malmont - Death, Guns and Sticky Buns

“Good guess, Tori. But wrong motive.”

“What then?” I asked. “You might as well tell me why. I'm obviously not going to tell anyone.”

“I eliminated Darious because he was a blundering idiot. He couldn't do anything right.”

“Like what?”

“Like killing you, for one thing.”

“It was Darious who shot at me.”

“Shot and missed. He couldn't even set your house on fire properly. When you survived being pushed off the staircase at the college, I decided I'd had enough.”

“But Darious liked me. I know he did. I don't understand why he would want to kill me.”

“That carousel was all he cared about. When I learned you'd visited him, I told him you were conducting an undercover investigation about carousel robberies for a story. When you showed up the second time, he believed me. I invited you to come riding, let Darious know by cell phone when we left so he had time to hide in Devil's Den, then led you to where you'd be right in his sights.”

“Why not do me in yourself?”

“I wanted to make sure I had an alibi when an attempt was made on your life.” She sighed. “My grandma always said, ‘If you want a job done well, do it yourself.’ ”

“But why me? What did I do to you?”

“When I suggested to President Godlove that he ask you to quietly look into my husband's death, I thought doing so would give me plausibility as the bereaved widow. I had no idea you'd take your assignment so seriously. You asked too many questions of too many people. I knew it would be only a matter of time before you figured everything out. You reminded me of a bulldog I had as a kid. Once he got hold of something, he wouldn't let go. You're the same way.”

“I only did what I thought should be done.”

“Exactly. But you were supposed to come to the conclusion that Woody Woodruff was a bumbler who accidentally put real bullets in the guns.”

“But, Woody isn't the kind of…”

Charlotte sighed. “I know, Tori. I underestimated both of you. You got too close to the truth.”

“What do you mean? The truth about what?”

She snickered. It wasn't a pleasant sound. “Oh, Mack committed suicide, all right. After I told him he would die painfully in less than a month. We agreed suicide made to look like an accident would be the ideal solution. He'd die quickly, I'd get the insurance money, and I'd split it with Lillie White to take care of her brat.”

“How did you convince him he was going to die? The nurse at Dr. Washabaugh's office said he had… Oh my God. You killed Dr. Washabaugh, didn't you?”

“Technically no. Darious did it. To cover up destroying Mack's medical records. It was supposed to look like a robbery gone wrong.”

“But Vesta was there; she told me how hard Mack took his diagnosis.”

“She'd be dead, too, if she'd gone to work when she was supposed to. But Vesta has such a reputation for making up stories that nobody in their right mind is going to pay any attention to what she says. In this case, though, she was right about what she saw. She just didn't understand what was going on. You see, I interpreted for Mack using sign language, but what I told him was not what Dr. Washabaugh told me. Very simple. I'd interpreted everything for him for the last four years. He trusted me.”

“And look what it got him. That's disgusting!”

Charlotte shrugged. “I did what I had to do. After we got home that day, while he was still in shock, I convinced him that staging an accidental death was the only way he could avoid dying slowly and painfully and still provide for Lillie and the baby. We planned his ‘accidental’ death down to the last detail. The plans were already under way for the mock execution, and it was easy for Mack to persuade Janet to let him play the convicted man. We even planned for me to be away for the weekend, so I couldn't be suspected of doing anything wrong. It was easy to change the ammunition; he simply substituted his key for the storeroom key while Janet Margolies was in the bathroom, then went back later that night to reload the guns.”

“And his plan would have worked, if he'd switched the keys back again.”

“He was supposed to bring the key and the ammo home and put them in the safe. After all the fuss died down, I'd be able to dispose of them. But when I opened the safe to get them, they weren't there. I guessed, wrongly, that he'd managed to get rid of them on Friday night. I never realized he'd done something as stupid as putting the evidence in his desk at the college.”

“What was the purpose of his leaving a suicide note, then, if you wanted it to appear to be an accident?”

“That was a CYA letter. You know, cover-your-ass. If somehow the authorities came to suspect what happened and that I'd had something to do with his death, I was to bring it out. We never thought it would get to that point-not with that idiot Luscious Miller running the police department. If you hadn't come by with your prattle about Wonder Wads and suicide, that letter would still be in the safe, and I'd have enough money to make a new life for myself.”

“And so would Lillie White,” I pointed out.

“Like I'd share it with that tramp. Wasn't it enough she stole my husband's love from me? The only reason he turned to her was because he couldn't stand to look at me after I was burned.” The hand holding the gun dropped as if she'd forgotten it was there. “He told me he was going to leave me… was going to marry her… I loved him too much to let that happen.”

“Was Darious involved in the plot to kill your husband?”

“Hell no, Mack was his goose who laid golden eggs. But I knew Darious was so crazy to get money to refin-ish that carousel, he didn't care where it came from, so I offered him part of the insurance money to kill Dr. Washabaugh and make it look like a robbery gone bad. He was a man with no morals, Tori. He tried to blackmail me!”

Like she had scruples! “So you killed him.”

“I had to, to keep him from talking. Just like I have to kill you, Tori.”

“That was a bluff, Charlotte. If he'd gone to the police, he would have implicated himself. You didn't have to kill him. You didn't have to kill your husband either. I'm sure he would have provided for you.”

“There was no money left. Mack was the worst businessman in the world. Even the farm had a double mortgage. There was no way he could have supported two families. But it wasn't really about money,” she said. “I could never give him children, and that's the one thing he always wanted. With the baby coming and me so ugly, he said he never wanted to see me again. I couldn't let that whore have him. I'd devoted myself to taking care of him and all he cared about was having a baby. He didn't love me. He probably never did.”

Charlotte 's empty left hand rose. “Look!” Before I realized what she was doing, she pulled the mask up over her head. Her sleek blond hair tumbled loose, covering her face, and she swept it back. “Look,” she cried again. “Look at me.”

I stared at her in silent shock. I don't know what I had expected to see, but this was definitely not it.

“Have you ever seen anything so hideous?”

“ Charlotte… you're… you're beautiful!” The face she had uncovered was unblemished, so far as I could see.

“No,” she wailed. “I'm ugly. There're scars beneath my skin-maybe you can't see them, but Mack could. He couldn't bear to look at me after the fire. Or touch me. He said nobody would ever want me again. Then he said he was going to leave me. Leave me alone. Alone and hideous. And poor. You understand why I couldn't let that happen, don't you, Tori?”

No, I did not! Charlotte been responsible for three deaths: her own husband, Dr. Washabaugh, and Dari-ous. And she'd nearly killed Professor Nakamura and me. I could not feel any sympathy for her.