Marcia Talley - A Quiet Death

I was rubbing sweat and soot off my face with the tail of my shirt, looking around, wondering where the bastard had gotten to. He had to be somewhere in the neighborhood, I knew, because his truck – GOTALAW – still sat at the edge of the drive not far from the tree where I had parked Lilith.

I wondered if Hoffner knew about Lilith’s studio. No telling what he’d do to the studio – snap her brushes, squeeze paint out of the tubes, trash her paintings. If you had a giant yard sale, sold the entire contents of Lilith’s house, you wouldn’t equal the value of even one of her paintings, at least not in my opinion.

A sudden movement caught my eye, a flash of yellow at the perimeter of the woods. ‘What’s out there?’ I asked Lilith who was eyeing Hoffner’s truck with murder on her mind.

‘A tool shed. Gardening stuff. A riding mower.’

‘Keep an eye on your mother,’ I told Nick. ‘Don’t let her anywhere near the house.’

I was glancing around the yard, looking for something I could use as a weapon, when Jim Hoffner stalked into view, bold as brass, heading for his truck and a quick getaway.

When he got within range, I flew at him like a banshee, attacking him with both fists, pummeling his chest like a jackhammer. ‘You bastard! You set that fire on purpose! We could have been burned alive!’

Hoffner laughed, a manic, Halloween funhouse cackle that chilled me to the bone.

Infuriated, I cocked my arm, but before I could get off a good left hook to his jaw, Hoffner grabbed me by the hair, twisted my head painfully, and threw me to the ground. His right hand dived beneath his jacket and, almost before I could blink, I was staring up into the business end of what looked like a 9mm Glock.

‘Bitch!’ The arm holding the big black gun didn’t waver.

‘Hoffner, don’t!’ Nick yelled.

Hoffner’s lip curled nastily. ‘I have to, Aupry. Thanks to you and your big fat mouth, she knows.’

Lilith struggled to her feet, her eyes wild, wide. ‘Stop! Is everybody crazy ?’

Nick limped toward Hoffner. ‘You can’t, Hoffner! Hannah saved my life. She called the paramedics, she held my hand, she prayed with me, for Christ’s sake, when we both thought I was dying.’

Sirens began to wail in the distance. With half my brain I willed them to hurry, with the other half, I prayed. Please God, please, I’m not ready to go!

It didn’t seem to occur to anybody that if Hoffner wanted to weasel out of the mess he’d created, he’d have to dispose of three witnesses, not just one.

‘What’s that man talking about, Nicholas?’

Nick faced his mother. ‘Hoffner believes your letters will be worth a lot of money to a certain party who will pay anything to keep his dirty little secret.’

Lilith opened her mouth, but nothing came out. I could almost see the wheels going around, taking it all in. The ‘dirty little secret’ was Lilith herself.

‘Tell him where the letters are, Mother. Nothing’s worth getting shot over.’

Lilith stiffened. ‘I put them in a safety deposit box where they can’t do anybody harm.’

Suddenly the gun wasn’t pointing at me, but at Lilith. ‘I don’t believe you! Let’s go. Get them!’

Lilith folded her arms across her chest, set her jaw. ‘No.’

Hoffner took a step in Lilith’s direction. ‘You’re coming with me. Now.’

Without warning, Nick’s cane shot out, knocking the gun out of Hoffner’s hand. The gun landed on the grass at my feet. I snatched it up, cocked my arm and threw the gun as hard as I could, watching with pleasure as it spiraled into the flaming house.

‘God dammit!’ Hoffner bolted for his truck, gunned the engine and fishtailed down the drive. Before he had driven more than one hundred yards, the brake lights flashed red, the truck skewed sideways, and he leapt out of the cab. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked aloud.

Lilith held up a box cutter, shrugged. ‘When he wasn’t looking, I messed with his tires.’

‘Lilith, how…?’ I indicated the box cutter.

‘I picked it up when we were in the living room.’

I could have hugged her.

Hoffner bobbed like an apple, hesitating, caught between an oncoming fire truck on the one hand and an angry mob of three on the other, one armed with a box cutter, a second with a cane, and me with a rage so hot and intense that if I tore Hoffner to shreds with my teeth and bare hands, no court in the world would have held me responsible. Hoffner sprinted toward the woods, heading in the direction of Fishing Creek.

The pumper unit from the Church Creek Fire Company screeched to a halt at the foot of the drive, inches from Hoffner’s front bumper. His truck was blocking their way.

A radio crackled. Permission apparently asked and granted, because seconds later the fire truck advanced, made contact with Hoffner’s vehicle and shoved it, grinding and lurching, into a stand of trees where it sat, slewed sideways between two giant tulip poplars.

Hoffner’s yellow jacket disappeared into the trees. If he continued in that direction, I worried, no way he’d miss Lilith’s studio.

‘Is everyone out of the house?’ a fireman asked as he hopped out of the truck.

‘Yes. We’re all here.’ I said.

‘Good,’ he said as his colleagues busily unrolled their hoses. The pumper roared to life and water began to play against what remained of the roof of Lilith’s cottage, sizzling, changing the smoke from black to white as clouds of steam arose from the ashes.

‘Injuries?’

Nobody spoke. Nick leaned on his cane, Lilith against a tree, leg bent, stork-like, at the knee. With the exception of the firemen who clearly had other priorities, I was the only able-bodied person in the neighborhood. If anybody was going to stop Hoffner, it had to be me.

‘Nick, I need to borrow your cane.’ With Hoffner’s gun gone, I hoped the weapon would give me some tactical advantage.

Nick looked confused.

‘Wait a minute,’ his mother said. She uncurled her fingers revealing the box cutter cradled in her palm.

‘My God,’ I whispered, considering the implications. Slashing tires was one thing, but a living human being? I shivered. Yet Hoffner had just proved how dangerous he could be. I took the box cutter from Lilith, opened and closed it experimentally a few times, admiring the way the razor moved smoothly in and out of its casing. ‘Just in case,’ I told her, securing the blade and slipping the cutter into my pocket.

Then I sprinted into the woods after James Hoffner.

As I suspected, Hoffner had found Lilith’s studio hideaway. When I charged through the door, his back was to me and he appeared to be studying ‘Sailboat 23,’ still clamped to Lilith’s easel.

‘The police are on the way, Hoffner. I’d blow this joint if I were you.’

He turned to face me, slowly, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He grinned malevolently. ‘It’s just you and me, then, Mrs Ives? Mano-a-mano?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Do you have to be so melodramatic? There’s nothing here, as you can see. Lilith told you. She’s put her letters into a bank vault. What don’t you understand about that, Hoffner? No point in discussing it with me. Why don’t you go away now and discuss it with the bank officers at BB &T?

‘What do you expect to gain from the letters, anyway?’ I pressed on. ‘Chandler’s not going to give in to blackmail. He’ll simply acknowledge the affair and move on. Every public figure is having affairs these days. It’s quite the thing. Lynx News isn’t going to fire him because of a simple affair.’

Hoffner smiled dangerously. ‘It isn’t Chandler.’

‘Dorothea? Don’t make me laugh. She’s known about her husband’s affair with Lilith for years.’