fifteen

“Aaaand-a-one-dolla-one-dolla-do-I-gotta-one-dolla-and-a-one-and-a-two-and-a-do-I-gotta-two-and-a …”

Wren kept half her attention on the item she was selling, but let the other half roam over the crowd to find Death. He was in the side yard, sitting in the seat of a riding mower they hadn’t sold yet. He was watching her with a faint grin and she knew he got a kick out of listening to her drop into her patter. She also knew that he was watching for Declan Fairchild, and if the escaped con showed his face within a mile of this sale, Death would see him.

She turned both eyes back to the sale, kicking her speed up a notch just to show off, and grinning to herself.

“Wren,” Death had said, “has a talented tongue.”

She sold three more items, glancing over from time to time to make sure he was still there, and then she looked over and he was gone and Jody Keystone was running and shouting.

“He took Death! He took Death! He hit him over the head and took him!”

_____

Death awoke to a pounding headache that sent bright flashes of light behind his eyes. For the first few seconds of consciousness he was disoriented, lost in time. He was back in Afghanistan, in the middle of a firefight with armed insurgents. Adrenaline spiked through him, ramping up his heartbeat and leaving him gasping to breathe. When he tried to dive for cover and found he couldn’t move the panic nearly choked him. He fought it down, and gradually the war receded and reality returned.

It wasn’t a great improvement.

He was sitting up in a hard straight chair and his hands were tied behind his back with something thin and tough but ever so slightly flexible.

He blinked his eyes open, recoiling from even the dim light in the room where he found himself. It was a kitchen, he realized. An old lady kitchen, with cat figurines on the window sill and flowery burner covers on the stove. A fine layer of dust covered everything, so an old lady kitchen that had been missing its old lady for several months.

Death’s gun lay on the table, not three feet away. So close and yet still entirely out of reach. Late afternoon sun slanted through the window, more emphasizing the shadows in the room than dispelling them. The man who stood at the sink with his back to Death was a complete stranger.

Death shook his head, then wished he hadn’t. Rather than clearing it, the movement sent spikes of agony shooting behind his eyes. The stranger turned with a glass in his hand and memory slowly surfaced. He’d been at the auction, looking at the mower Death was sitting on. Asking stupid questions. Acting harmless. Looking like a computer tech or an insurance adjuster. And Death had let his guard down.

“Would you like some water?” the man asked.

“Yes, please.”

The stranger jerked the glass, tossing its contents in Death’s face.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Death tested his bonds. Clothesline, he thought, the plastic-covered-wire kind. He had been hit over the head and disarmed and his hands were bound, but his feet were free. And he wasn’t actually fastened to the chair. His arms were pulled behind his back and tied together but if he could get just a little leeway he should be able to stand up and slide free. Whoever this guy was, he was an amateur. Not that that necessarily made him less dangerous.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure? Am I supposed to know who you are?”

“Be glad you don’t,” the stranger said. “It means that maybe I can leave you alive.”

“I see. Unlike Josiah Halftree?”

The man just grinned. He strolled over to a cupboard beside the sink and came back with a paring knife. The faint sunlight glinted off a razor-sharp blade. “You had a gun. Didn’t do you any good. You know, I’ve never really liked guns. But knives, now …”

Death swallowed and worked at his bonds, trying to keep his movements discreet as the cords began to loosen ever so slightly.

The stranger pulled a second kitchen chair over and Death studied the design, knowing he was probably tied to one that was identical. It was an old but sturdy-looking ladder back chair. One of them would make a passable weapon.

This second chair had a metal work light clamped to the back. The man turned it on and shone it in Death’s face, making him groan and turn his head away, squeezing his eyes closed. Even through his closed eyelids, the light burned red into his aching brain.

“And now, Mr. Bogart, you’re going to tell me everything you know about the jewels in the old Campbell house.”

_____

“Jody said it was a Mr. Ten Oeck. He substitute teaches sometimes.”

The chief nodded. “Yeah, I kind of thought it might be. Death’s hunch paid off. We found half a dozen calls to and from Ten Oeck on Whitaker’s phone. We’ve been looking for him to bring him in for questioning and we’ve been trying to get a warrant to search his house, but the judge wasn’t convinced we had reasonable suspicion and wouldn’t sign off on it. He will now. Just sit tight. We’re gonna find him and we’re gonna get Death back for you.”

Wren watched him go, angry and unhappy that she couldn’t do more. She’d taken to carrying her atlatl and half a dozen darts in her truck after Fairchild shot up her house, and she fiddled with the weapon now and ached for a chance to use it.

“Ten Oeck?” she said, to no one in particular. “Who the hell is Ten Oeck, anyway?”

“Martin Ten Oeck.” It was Felix Knotty who answered her. “He’s Odessa Myers’ grandson.”

“Odessa Myers. I remember that name. From the obituary. She’s one of Ava Campbell Fairchild’s cousins, right?”

“Was, yeah. On her mother’s side. She died about six months ago.”

Wren narrowed her eyes, thinking fiercely. “Where did she live?”

“Old family farm, about six miles south of here.”

“That’s where he took Death,” she said with certainty. “He’s not going to take him back to his own house.”

“Right. Good idea. We’ll call the chief. Wren? Wren, going after him yourself is a bad idea!”

She barely paused in the act of climbing into her truck. “You want to come along?”

“Hell yeah!”

“Then get in. We’ll call the cops on the way.”

_____

The stranger moved in slowly, brandishing the paring knife, turning it as he closed in so that the light caught and reflected back from the razor edge. It wasn’t a big knife, nor anything with an impressive lineage or scary reputation. No Bowie knife, nor switchblade, nor even a Ginsu. Just a plain old kitchen knife meant for slicing apples or peeling potatoes. But Death knew that it was more than capable of scarring or even killing him.

He swallowed hard and tensed himself to action. Bad lungs or not, he had to prevail or he knew he would not be leaving this room alive.

He forced himself to breathe slowly and regularly, biding his time and waiting as the stranger moved ever closer. The ropes were loosening, but barely and slowly. They would afford him perhaps half an inch of freedom, but that would have to be enough. At the very last second, he ducked, knocked the man’s knife hand away with the back of his head and then brought his head sharply forward, slamming his forehead into his assailant’s nose. He felt a satisfying crunch and then the other man was reeling back, clutching his streaming nose and cursing, the knife falling forgotten to the floor.

Death rose from the chair, sliding his bound hands up the back and planting his left foot firmly on the fallen knife. As his hands cleared the top rail, he grabbed onto one of the uprights, twisted his body and swung the chair like an awkward baseball bat. Breathe, he told himself. Breathe. Breathe. His head was spinning, with spikes of pain so intense that each seemed to have its own shape and color. The room grew dim around him. He could feel unconsciousness creeping in and fought it with every fiber of his being, knowing that if he passed out before his attacker was neutralized, the best he could hope for would be to never wake up again.

The stranger roared in wordless rage and charged him like a bull, driving him back against the wall, closing his hands around Death’s neck. His eyes were dark, his face twisted in fury and he was screaming out threats and insults. Death tried to ram him with his shoulders, kicked at his knees, drove one knee up into his groin. The man ignored everything he did, holding him by the throat, shaking him like a dog shaking a rat as blackness like deep water closed over his head.

_____

The barn was half collapsed, the chicken house a moldering pile. A line of sheds in the back yard were gray with age and listing to one side. The yard was overgrown, but there was a van in the driveway and a light in the back. Wren circled the house, keeping close to the wall, Felix close behind her. She carried her atlatl and three darts and her slingshot and a bag full of marbles were in one pocket. The police dispatcher had warned her against approaching the house herself, but she’d pretended to lose reception and hung up.

If Death was in that house, and every instinct she had insisted he was, she’d be damned if she’d wait around for someone else to come and save him.

The sun was low in the sky now. The long grass disappeared into longer shadows. One single window in the back of the house shone yellow in the gathering twilight, and from that window there came a sudden bellow.

“You bastard! You goddamn utter bastard! I’m going to kill you! Do you understand? I’m going to cut you into vulture food. I’m going to take your eyes and cut out your tongue. I’m going to show you what your guts look like. I’m going to cut out your liver and eat it in front of you!”

There was a back door the other side of the window. Felix dropped and rolled under the window, coming up next to the door with an agility surprising in a man of his age.

“Give me some kind of distraction,” he hissed.

Wren fell back several paces to give herself room. Dropping two of her darts, she set the third in the atlatl. Taking a few bare seconds to judge distance and elevation and wind speed, she drew back her arm and let fly.

_____

Chaos entered the room with an explosion of glass and light and electricity as a six-foot atlatl dart crashed through the window, took out the work light and buried itself in the wall. The stranger jerked back, ducking instinctively and flinging Death away.

“What the hell?”

Death lay gasping desperately, fighting off the blackness. The knife was right in front of him, but his hands were still tied behind his back. He fought with his bonds. He could feel the wire twisting and stretching, but barely. The rope was slick with his blood and he knew that eventually he would be able to free himself, but he doubted he’d live that long.

Then the back door was yanked almost off its hinges and Felix Knotty charged in screaming “Semper Fi!”

_____

“The dispatcher told you baboons not to come charging in here!”

“Did she? I couldn’t understand her. It was a bad connection.”

“He did. The dispatcher was a man tonight.”

“See? I told you I had a bad connection.”

Officer Grigsby rolled his eyes and thunked his head gently against the wall. His cruiser was pulled up into the farmhouse yard, its searchlight aimed through the open door. When the atlatl took out the work light, it blew every fuse in the house’s 1920s-era fuse box.

“Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction? Don’t you have to wait for the sheriff or something?” Felix was being disagreeable, strutting around like a game cock that had been robbed of its game. Ten Oeck had bolted the minute he realized he was outnumbered. Felix had grabbed Death’s gun from the table and chased after him, but hadn’t even come close to catching him, a fact that wasn’t helping his disposition.

“The sheriff’s on his way,” Grigsby said. “He’s coordinating the search parties.”

The police had put out a BOLO on Ten Oeck and alerted every police force within a hundred mile radius. They knew who the murderer was now, but he was still at large and no one was going to be sleeping soundly tonight.

Wren sat on the floor, cradling Death against her breast. She was petting the hair back from his face and talking baby talk to him.

“Dammit, I’m the Marine,” he muttered.

She wiped his forehead with a damp cloth and leaned in close to hear him, her cheek brushing his, her long, red braid dangling over both their shoulders. “What was that?”

“I’m the Marine,” he repeated. “I’m s’posed to save the damsel in distress. I’m not s’posed to be the damsel in distress!”

“Oh, honey,” she said, kissing him on the temple.

There was a commotion at the kitchen door.

“I’m not letting anyone else in this building until the chief or the sheriff gets here,” Grigsby said, sounding put upon.

There was a yard full of Keystones. They’d followed in Wren’s wake and arrived just seconds after Grigsby did.

“You’ll let Rosie through.” Leona’s voice was no-nonsense.

“No, I won’t. I’m the cop. I’m in charge here and what I say goes. And what I say is—”

“Yes, ma’am!” Leona insisted. “You say, ‘yes ma’am’, Leroy Grigsby.” She stood toe-to-toe with him in the doorway. He broke first.

“Yes, ma’am,” he sighed. “But only Rosie.”

He stepped aside and a slender, graceful black woman came in and knelt next to Death and Wren. “Hi, Death,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced, but I’m Rosie Keystone.”

“Mercy’s mom,” he guessed.

“That’s right. I’m also a nurse practitioner. Why don’t we just take a look at you and see how you’re doing?”

She shone a penlight in his eyes, one at a time, and he winced and flinched away.

“Does the light hurt?”

“Uh, a little, yeah.”

“A little on a Marine scale. So that would be ‘excruciating’ to a normal person, right?”

He laughed slightly but didn’t answer. “Who the hell is Ten Oeck?” he asked instead. “How did you find me so fast?”

“Martin Ten Oeck is a freelance accountant and substitute teacher,” Wren answered. “Jody recognized him because Ten Oeck subbed in their middle school domestic engineering class last month. He’s also Odessa Myers’ grandson.”

“Myers. Ava Fairchild’s cousin. Dead or Alzheimer’s?”

“What?”

He waved one hand to indicate their surroundings. “Old lady kitchen. No old lady for several months now. The chief said one of the cousins was dead and another was in a care facility with Alzheimer’s. Odessa Myers. Dead or Alzheimer’s?”

“Dead. About six months ago.” Wren looked up at Rosie. “Even scrambled, his brains work better than most people’s.”

“They do. Let’s see how scrambled they are.” She addressed Death. “Can you tell me what day of the week it is?”

“Saturday.”

“Good. Remember my name?”

“Rosie. Rosie Keystone.”

“How about your full name?”

“Death Bogart.”

“No middle name?”

“Not one I’m going to admit to.”

“All right then.” She smiled and sat back. “I think he’s going to be okay. We’re looking at a moderate concussion and a few bruises. Wake him up every couple of hours and make sure he’s coherent. If he’s not, or if you can’t wake him, get him to a hospital. He needs to take it easy for the next couple of days.” She turned back to Death. “I’m going to give you something for the pain, okay?”

“Thanks. You got anything for a wounded ego?”

“From what I’ve heard, you put up a good fight. I don’t see why you think you should have a wounded ego.”

“Are you kidding? I got kidnapped by a substitute home ec teacher and rescued by a girl. What the hell blew up out there, anyway?”

“Oh, that.” Wren grinned. “Nothing blew up very much. Really. I just threw an atlatl dart through the window and it kind of exploded the work light. Just a little bit.”

Death sighed and shook his head. “This woman’s not sane, you know,” he told Rosie conversationally.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’re both dissing someone who throws spears at people and you claim that I’m not sane?”

“She’s got a point,” Rosie acknowledged wryly. “I think, if you want to keep her from atlatling anyone, your best bet is to not get kidnapped anymore.”

“Yeah, because I totally did that on purpose,” Death snarked.

“Well, don’t do it anymore, capisce?”

“HUA,” Wren corrected. “He’s a Marine. You say ‘HUA’.”

“HUA?”

“Heard, Understood, Acknowledged.”

“Ah. Right. HUA, then?”

“HUA,” Death agreed with a wry smile. “From now on, I promise, I will do my best to avoid any and all evil home ec teachers, substitute or otherwise.”