Jill Churchill: A Farewell to Yarns

Mel cast Jane a quick sympathetic look and spoke again to Fiona. "By the way, I have men posted on all sides of the house. Don't think about escaping.”

She smiled at him as if she pitied him. "It wasn't and isn't my intention, Detective Van-Dyne. I'm fully prepared to pay the price for what I've done. I knew I might have to before I did it. Just so Albert doesn't pay. It will only take me ten minutes or so to pack.”

As soon as she was gone, Jane jumped up and rushed to the sliding door. Stepping outside, she took several long, deep breaths, trying to stave off the nausea that had been about to overcome her. Mel was with her in a second. "You'll freeze to death out here."

“I hope so.”

He led her to a patio chair and made her sit down on the hard, cold metal. "Put your head between your knees."

“I'm not going to faint."

“You're sure?" he asked. She nodded and watched as he pulled a small walkie-talkie unit out of his pocket and mumbled into it.

The man's a walking electronics store, she thought wildly. She had an urge to laugh but knew it would get away from her if she let it start. She stood, shivering. Mel signaled across the yard, apparently to someone concealed in the bushes, then led her inside. He picked up a blanket folded across the back of a chair and wrapped it around her.

Just as he'd sat back down and looked at his watch, they heard the front door open. "Where's everybody gone?" Albert Howard called out. "I've brought the boxes oh, Jane, you're still here," he added, coming into the family room. "What's the matter?”

Mel said, "I think you should sit down, Mr. Howard. I'm afraid I have bad news for you. Your wife has confessed to the murders of Phyllis Wagner and Bobby Bryant.”

Albert just stood there at first, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "What? That's crazy. Why would you say a thing like that? Fiona? My wife wouldn't kill anybody."

“I'm afraid she has."

“I don't believe a word of this. You've gone crazy. Where is she? We'll get this straightened out as soon as I call my lawyer."

“I think you should do that," Mel said. "Your wife is upstairs packing to go with me.”

Albert sputtered for a moment more, then dropped his armload of paper cartons and ran up the stairs. They could hear his footsteps as he ran through the hall above, shouting for Fiona.

He pounded on a door. Mel took the walkie-talkie out of his pocket again. There was a sudden sound of wood breaking. Mel barked a quick order into the gadget, then said to Jane, "Stay here.”

But Jane followed him slowly. When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she heard a bloodcurdling man's scream. She knew she should do as Mel told her, but her legs seemed to be operating independently of her, slowly taking her up the stairs.

They were in the bathroom. "Stand back while I pull the plug," Mel was shouting.

“Fiona! Fiona!" Albert said, as Mel shoved him into the hall.

There was the sound of water splashing and a weight hitting the bathroom floor. Albert flung himself back into the room. "It's too late," Mel said.

Jane stopped at the doorway. Fiona, fully dressed and sopping wet, was lying on the floor. Albert was kneeling over her, trying to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Jane looked away. Mel came out just as three other men pelted up the stairs. "She filled up the tub and pulled a radio in with herself," he said. "Call an ambulance, and tell them to have something to calm the husband down.”

Albert was sobbing. "Fiona! Fiona! Talk to me. You can't die. Fiona, you can't die. What will I do without you? Fiona! Answer me. Say something. Oh, God!”

One of the men went into the bathroom and started talking soothingly to him, another went back downstairs, and the third stood in the bath‑ room doorway, shaking his head. "I like to never," he said, bewildered. "She's in a bathroom, for Christ's sake. Why do it that way when she could have just slashed her wrists? Neater and faster."

“She wouldn't have done that," Jane explained, her voice shaking. "Fiona couldn't stand the sight of blood. She couldn't even hear about it without almost fainting.”

Mel turned to stare at her. "What did you say?"

“ Fiona couldn't stand the sight of—of blood!" Jane said. "Oh, my God, she couldn't have killed Phyllis!"

“Or Bobby," Mel added. "Oh, shit! Have I ever loused this up. She all but told us. She said she'd do anything to protect him.”

Jane stepped over and looked in the bathroom door at Richie Divine clasping his wife's lifeless hand. "She gave everything she had for him. Even her life.”

Mel edged past her and bent down. "Albert Howard, also known as Richie Divine, also known as Richard Lewis Devane, I arrest you for the murders of—”

Jane walked down the stairs and went into the family room. She stared for a long time at the dime store strip of photos of Richie and Fiona. If only she could fill her eyes and mind with those two happy, hopeful young faces and forget the dead woman and the murderer she had died to protect in the upstairs bathroom.

Twenty-seven

The next morning Shelley came over to hear what had happened while Jane put away groceries from a hasty pillage and plunder visit to the grocery store. Jane spoke disjointedly as she rearranged the contents of the refrigerator to make room for new items.

“You're driving me mad! Let the nonperishables wait," Shelley finally insisted. "Come sit down, and tell me everything." They took steaming cups of spiced tea and packaged cookies into the living room. "Jane, you've put your tree up! When did you have time?”

It was an enormous tree, and the cats were frolicking among the boughs, making the ornaments rattle. "The kids got it yesterday afternoon and even decorated it. Katie beat the boys into it, because it was always Steve's job. I shudder to think what she's got on them that she could make them go to all that trouble. I'm very suspicious of that big package."

“Which one?" Shelley asked with wide-eyed innocence.

“This one. It's huge and squashy. It feels like a blanket or an—an afghan! Shelley, you bought me my afghan!”

Shelley feigned outrage. "I certainly did not. Look at the tag."

“It's from the kids. Oh—that's what Mike took you aside to talk about when you were over here Sunday night."

“I'm not admitting anything.”

Willard, trying to adjust himself comfortably with his chin on Jane's lap where he might pick up any cookie crumbs that dropped, suddenly sat up and howled horribly. Jane went to the door and let Mel VanDyne in.

“Thought you'd want to know you can get back into the Howards' house this afternoon if you need to clear things out from your sale. Hello, Mrs. Nowack."

“He's confessed, then?" Jane asked, moving her coat and Shelley's off Steve's old favorite chair so Mel could sit down.

“Has he ever. Once he got started, he didn't seem to be able to stop. He'll probably go to a mental hospital instead of jail. At least the press hasn't found out about this yet. It's going to be a three-ring circus when they catch on that Richie Divine is alive and about to be locked up."

“I feel awful about this," Jane said. "If I hadn't dragged Phyllis over there in the first place—"

“You can't blame yourself, Jane. Killing people wasn't new to him. He's confessed to arranging for the bomb on the plane as well. He let a half dozen people die so that he could be Albert Howard."

“Poor Fiona," Shelley said.

“Oh, I don't know. He's trying hard to absolve her, but the more he talks, the more it seems she was responsible. Not that she actually planned any of it, but it was she who convinced him he had to escape the public spotlight at all costs. I'm not sure he's the one who hated it. And without her, he has no sense of self-preservation at all. Of course, killing the boy was different—"