David Handler - The sweet golden parachute

As Mitch kept pushing and pushing: “Where will go now? You don’t trust each other, so you’ll have to stay together twenty-four, seven. And won’t that suck. It means no more nubile teenaged girls for you, Eric. Just plain old Danielle, morning, noon and-”

“I told you to shut up!” roared Eric, punching Mitch in the head, driving him into the floor.

Danielle cried out, “No, Eric! No!”

But it was no use. The organic farmer was a man possessed. “I told you! I told you!” he screamed as he pummeled Mitch in the head again and again. “I told you!” And now he was over Mitch, raising that knife high up over his head. “Say good-bye, you fat son of a bitch, because I am going to stick this in your eye! So help me I’ll…”

Yolie did not hesitate, did not waver, did not miss.

She pumped three shots right into Eric Vickers with her semiautomatic. The first went into the center of his back. The second into his neck. The third blew out the back of his head. So rapid and precise was her gunfire that, for a brief moment the meat sack formerly known as Eric Vickers was still suspended there above Mitch, clutching that knife overhead.

Until he collapsed on top of Mitch in a dead heap.

Danielle fell to the floor before him, screaming.

Soave sprinted down the stairs and cuffed her as Yolie threw open the church’s front doors to give the all-clear sign. Des was the slowest to make it down the stairs. Her knees didn’t seem to be working too well.

As for Mitch, he didn’t seem the least bit fazed, despite the knife-point hostage ordeal, the punches to his head, Eric getting shot to death. The man’s blood was all over him. And yet, the very first thing Mitch said to her after he’d struggled out from under Eric’s body was, “What took you so long, slats? I was running out of things to say.”

Des stared at him, dumfounded. “You knew I was up there,” she said hoarsely, as a pair of uniforms led the stricken Danielle outside. “How, Mitch?”

“Because you’re you. I knew you’d never wait for that hostage unit to get here.” He removed his bloodied jacket and calmly tossed it aside, grinning at Soave and Yolie. “But I wasn’t counting on backup. Thanks large.”

“No prob,” Yolie said. “Wherever my baby girl goes, I go.”

“I never believed this was possible, Berger,” Soave said, shaking his head. “But if anyone on earth could do it, you were the man for the job.”

“What job, Lieutenant?”

“You actually talked that man to death.”

“Hey, you go with your strengths.” Mitch pulled a clean, folded handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out to Des. “Here, you’ll be needing this. That cellar’s mold city.”

He knew her better than she knew herself-which sometimes irked the hell out of her. Right now, as Des proceeded to sneeze her head off, it just made her feel cherished.

“Des, I want you to know that Allison slept on the couch last night.”

“Of course she did,” Des snuffled.

“And Quirt peed in her sneaker.”

“That’s my man.”

“Oh, and one other thing. It was Claudia who was next, not Poochie. They were going to make it look like a suicide. I’m sorry to say I don’t have that on tape. He broke my recorder.”

“Danielle will give it up,” Soave said confidently. “A full confession’s her only chance.”

“School me on something, boyfriend,” Des said. “You knew those Bilco doors were unlocked?”

“I did.”

“And that there was a stairway into the cloakroom?”

“I didn’t. But I assumed you’d figure something out.”

“Mitch, what if I hadn’t?”

“The thought never crossed my mind. I believe in you.”

“But that’s total lunacy!”

“Des, it’s not any such thing.” With his eyes he told her what it was.

She gazed back at him, swallowing. “I swear, I don’t know whether to hug you or hit you.”

She hugged him. And even though he’d been acting all gallant and cool, she knew he was plenty shaken. Because when Mitch hugged her back he held on tighter than she’d ever been held by anyone in her life. He was still holding on when they came in to take care of Eric’s body.

(TWO DAYS LATER)

The old lighthouse out on Big Sister was kept padlocked shut. Mitch had one of the keys. Des held the kerosene lantern for him while he used it in the darkness of midnight, hearing the forlorn foghorn from the lighthouse across the river at Saybrook Point. The hinges creaked mightily when he swung the lighthouse’s massive steel door open. Inside, the spiral staircase up to the lantern room resembled a six-story-high corkscrew.

“We won’t be able to see a thing in this fog,” Des pointed out, remaining there in the doorway with the light. “Visibility’s less than a quarter-mile.”

“There’s something up there I want to show you,” Mitch said as he began to climb the twisting cast-iron stairs. “It’s a surprise, okay?”

Des didn’t budge. “Mitch, I hate surprises.”

“I know this. Just come on, will you?”

Reluctantly, she joined him, their footsteps echoing in the narrow enclosed cylinder.

It was the first evening they’d managed to spend together since Yolie Snipes shot Eric Vickers dead on the floor of the Congo Church. Danielle had been arraigned in New London Superior Court on two counts of murder in the first degree. She was being held without bond and, as Soave had predicted, was talking her head off. Blaming it all on Eric. The news of her arrest had served as a major wake-up call for Mark Widdifield. That very same day he paid a visit to Claudia at their cottage. Stayed for dinner and never left. The two of them were trying to work things out, Mitch had heard. Claudia was also spending more time with Poochie. Her famous mother was lonely and adrift without Guy Tolliver in her life. Plus she still wasn’t allowed to drive. So it was Claudia who was now chauffeuring her around Dorset. Claudia who was helping her shop for a vintage Mercedes to replace her fabulous, long-gone Gullwing. Claudia who was bringing her around to the idea that someone ought to catalog her art collection. There was even talk that she’d convinced Poochie to get a physical exam, but Mitch was fairly certain this was merely idle gossip. Likewise the rumor that young Bement was going to take over operation of Four Chimneys Farm.

Mitch’s literary agent had started reading Justine’s manuscript and couldn’t put it down. Called Mitch immediately to tell him that he wasn’t crazy-She’ll Do Ya was indeed great. And that he wanted to represent her. Justine had shrieked with girlish delight when Mitch phoned her with the news.

Actually, Justine was the one person in town who wasn’t shocked by what Eric and Danielle had done. “Well, what did you expect?” she said to Mitch. “All people are liars. Except for you. You’re okay, even if you are stuck in a hopeless relationship.”

Mitch didn’t know what she meant by that last comment.

When he stopped by McGee’s Diner to see how Allison Mapes was coping, Mitch discovered that she’d cleared out of Dorset a few hours after Eric was shot. Taken off for Daytona Beach, Florida, with Stevie and Donnie Kershaw. She’d told Dick McGee that the three of them planned to find work down there and never come back. Which didn’t sit very well with Milo. The snarly little swamp Yankee seemed like a broken man when Mitch encountered him at the A amp;P So downcast he didn’t even bother to be nasty. Rut Peck told Mitch that the little guy was positively devastated by his boys leaving him.

Maybe, Mitch reflected, the little guy should have been nicer to them.

Mitch was huffing and puffing by the time they’d climbed their way up to the old lighthouse’s lantern room. Once upon a time, twin thousand-watt lamps had been positioned up here to warn seafarers of the treacherous rocks. Now there was only an empty, glass-walled chamber with amazing views in every direction. On a clear night, the lights from Long Island’s north shore were clearly visible across the Sound. Tonight, Mitch could barely make out the lighthouse at Saybrook Point. He’d already been up here twice today. Once to sweep up. Once to lug everything up here and arrange it just so. The bottle of Moet amp; Chandon in its ice bucket. The long-stemmed glasses. The dozen roses in a vase, candles that he’d positioned everywhere. There was a blanket for them to sit on.