C Corwin - The Unraveling of Violeta Bell

At some point, Barbara found out about Phil and Violeta. Instead of dumping Phil, or murdering Phil, although either in my book would have been the sensible thing to do, she opted to murder Violeta. Clearly the professor of business ethics was not one of those people who practiced what they preached.

And the fitness room was the perfect place to kill Violeta. If indeed it was where Violeta often met Phil for their monkey business, all it would take to get her there at that hour, on the Fourth of July when firecrackers were booming all over Hannawa, was a note under the door, or an email, or whatever signal Phil used to summon Violeta to the mats. Barbara certainly had a key for the Carmichael House, and from what Gabriella and I saw that day we visited, permission to use the parking garage. Barbara also would have known about all the skeleton keys hidden all over the place. Oh yes, the fitness room was the perfect place.

And not only because of the ease in luring Violeta there. It would let Phil know in no uncertain terms that hence forth, his only woman on the side would be one Barbara Wilburger. Forever and forever. And now a hidden camera was about to catch Barbara remove the gun she used to commit murder from the ashes of the woman she murdered.

Grant and I watched as Barbara struggled to get something out the front pocket of her jeans. It was a key. She put it between her teeth for safekeeping. She took a pair of rubber gloves from her bag. They weren’t the surgical gloves you’d expect a murderer to wear. They were the bright yellow kind you buy in the cleaning aisle at the supermarket. She wiggled her fingers into them. She took the key from her teeth. She unlocked the glass door covering the niche. She put the key back between her teeth. She knelt on the floor. She pulled a black trash bag from her beach bag. She shook it open and arranged it on the marble floor, so that the bottom of the bag was flat and the sides stuck up about a foot. She removed Violeta’s urn from the niche. She carefully lowered it into the trash bag. She got on her knees again. Looked this way and that again.

Grant reached under his jacket and took out his gun. The uniformed officer leaning against the wall by the door readied his gun.

Barbara took the lid off the urn. She carefully put it next to her knee. She untied the twist-tie. Inserted it between her teeth, next to the key. With her thumbs she spread open the plastic bag inside the urn. She drilled into the ashes with her index finer. She slowly lifted the gun out. She lowered it into the trash bag. She took the twist-tie from her teeth and refastened it on the plastic bag. She put the lid back on the urn. She took the key from her teeth. She bent over and blew off whatever ashes may have floated onto the urn. She put the key back between her teeth.

Weedy readied his weapon of choice, a big shiny digital camera that could click a zillion pictures a second. Gabriella clicked her pen and scribbled on the cover of her notebook, to make sure she had plenty of ink. Dale Marabout looked at her with disdain.

Barbara put her hands around the urn. She slowly stood up.

Prince Anton couldn’t see what was happening on the monitor. But he could watch us watching. His eyes were bouncing back and forth between Grant and me like one of those Kit Kat clocks with the big Ping Pong ball eyes.

Barbara put the urn back in the niche. She took the key from her teeth again. She locked the niche door. She slid the key back into her jeans. She knelt and pulled the sides of the trash bag together. She rolled the bag up around the gun. She put it in her beach bag.

Detective Grant whispered “Go!” The officer by the door reached for the knob. He gave it a hard twist and yanked the door open. Grant, already in motion, rushed out. The officer followed him. Weedy, too.

Weedy wasn’t supposed to follow them. He was supposed to do what the rest of us were doing. Crowd around the monitor and watch.

Barbara swung around wildly, nearly falling down. We couldn’t see Grant and company, but apparently she could. She took a few quick steps back. Grant and the officer came into view. They were holding theirs guns in front of them with both hands the way they do on real television. They looked like a pair of bowlegged dowsers trying to find water. Grant’s command to “Stop right there!” echoed through the columbarium.

Barbara did not stop right there. But instead of running in the other direction, she darted right past Grant and the other officer. They twirled and pointed their guns. But they did not fire. In a second they, too, were out of the camera’s view.

There was a lot of shouting now. And the banging of feet on the marble floor. The officer watching the monitor with us raced out. We all raced after him. And Barbara Wilburger raced right past us. She headed down another long hall of niches. We were all chasing her now. Weedy was clicking pictures like a maniac.

Barbara reached the door at the end of the hall. It was locked. She froze. We formed a half circle around her. Grant was panting like James after his walks. “Bag on the floor,” he ordered. “Then you.”

Barbara got the instructions wrong. She swung the bag and hit Grant in the head. She tried to plow through us. Gabriella grabbed her around the waist and twisted her to the floor. The two uniformed officers quickly holstered their guns. One pinned Barbara’s arms. The other pinned her legs.

Dale Marabout started screaming at Gabriella. “That was not your job! Jesus-I can’t believe it! That was not your job!”

Gabriella was rubbing blood off her forehead. She’d landed hard. “Marabout,” she said. “Shut the fuck up.”

Dale wasn’t about to. “You watch. You write. You don’t tackle.”

Weedy clicked away.

The officers rolled Barbara over. Grant handcuffed her. They stood her up.

Barbara had apparently considered the possibility that she’d be caught. She had a story ready. “My mother killed her,” she said. “I knew she put the gun in there. I was just protecting her. Obstructing justice.”

Good gravy, she’d even considered what they should charge her with. I knew better, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Oh, come on! Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy a gun owner? That seems a little far-fetched!”

“She’s not the Miss Nicey Nice everyone thinks,” Barbara snarled back. “She’s a witch.”

Grant wasn’t happy. He recited the Miranda Warning to both of us.

We both ignored him.

“You were having an affair with Phil McPhee,” I said. “And so was Violeta Bell. You found out and killed her.”

“I’m a tenured professor!”

“The fur balls prove it,” I said.

Barbara recalculated. “Phil McPhee killed her. When she found out about me-that Phil and I were in love-she went nuts and threatened to tell his wife.”

“And so he had no choice but to kill her?”

“I didn’t know until after the fact.”

Barbara Wilburger was some piece of work, wasn’t she? First she was protecting the mother she hated. Now she was ratting out the man she loved.

The two officers led Barbara out. Grant put his arm around me. Whispered in my ear. “Now, what’s all this about fur balls?”

Tuesday, September 19

It was only a straw sticking out of a little plastic cup, but from my point-of-view, flat on my back in a hospital bed, still woozy from the anesthetic, it looked like some huge and horrible tool of torture. And Ike, with his big Republican smile, looked for all the world like a sadistic medieval inquisitor. “Have some apple juice,” he said.

I’d just had my tonsils out. I didn’t want any apple juice or ice cream or vanilla pudding or anything else. I just wanted to go home and hide until the shame wore off.