“You think someone killed her to keep her quiet?” Vera licked her fingers to pick up the crumbs from her plate and the surrounding table.
—Ann Cleeves, Silent Voices
We crouched low on either side of the back door of the van, me wielding the rolling pin and my mother-in-law with a large foil tin of hot potatoes. The van jerked to a full stop. Helen stumbled, and the pan of potatoes flew out of her hands and splattered across the floor and the wall. She froze where she’d landed on her knees, probably thinking the same thing I was: with only one rolling pin between us, we didn’t stand a chance against a man with a deadly weapon.
I finally noticed that the tool we’d used to distribute hot glue on those silly corsages was still plugged in. “Grab the glue gun,” I hissed.
When the door was thrown open, I was so surprised not to see David Sloan that I almost forgot to swing my makeshift bat. But Helen didn’t hesitate, shooting a stream of hot glue into Christopher’s eyes. He screamed, and I gathered my wits and walloped him with all my strength. He sank to the pavement, clutching his head, and I hit him again, this time on his right forearm. The gun in his hand skittered across the road, discharging a round into the scrub palmettos on the other side of the ditch. He fell to the ground, moaning with pain.
“You make one move and I’ll bash your head in the next time.” I brandished the rolling pin, practically growling with anger so he would realize I meant every word.
While I stood guard over him, Helen scrambled back into the van and emerged with the roll of duct tape.
“Put your arms behind your back,” she told him.
“She broke my arm,” he squawked. “It’s killing me.”
I gave him a light whack on the back, and he did what she’d told him. Each time he tried to squirm away, I rapped him again with the rolling pin to let him know we meant business. Within minutes, he was hog-tied exactly the way he had left us. Helen slapped an extra piece of tape over his mouth.
“There is nothing we care to hear from you,” she said in a fierce voice. “I have half a mind to jam him in that little closet,” she said. “See how he likes that claustrophobic space. Meanwhile, where is his phone?” She sorted through his pockets until she found his cell phone.
“Call 911 and tell them where you think we are.” She handed the phone to me, and I called. Then we stood guard, waiting for the authorities to arrive and take over. Finally my mind slowed down enough to react to what I was seeing.
“Christopher?” I said, feeling puzzled. “What the heck is he doing here? I was sure it was David Sloan or even Paul. Or for that matter, Bee. This guy never crossed my mind—he was so polite and helpful.” His eyes were wide and wild and he was trying to talk through the duct tape I’d slapped over his lips.
Helen’s face looked stony and she kicked at him. “If he killed Claudette, he’s also the one who took my daughter and ruined her life. We wondered if it was someone who moved down here recently. I bet he followed her here, planning to keep her from revealing his identity if needed.”
Christopher struggled on the ground, grunting through the duct tape. It sounded like he was trying to say, “I can explain …”
“You keep your mouth shut unless you want Hayley here to bash your brains in with that rolling pin,” Helen barked at him, then scrambled into the ditch along the road to retrieve the gun he’d lost. Once back on the side of the road, she parted Christopher’s hair with the barrel of the gun to show me the dark roots. His eyes went wide as she pressed the barrel of the gun against his temple.
“I have half a mind to shoot you dead right here,” she said. “I know for sure that Hayley, being married to a cop, understands the Florida stand-your-ground statute: a person is justified in using deadly force if she reasonably believes such action will repel imminent death to herself or another.”
She glanced over at me, and though I felt sick to my stomach, I nodded. I couldn’t imagine not telling the truth when the police turned up—I doubted that shooting him when he was trussed up like a spring lamb would fit the stand-your-ground bill. But he deserved to be terrified. Nor was I going to argue with my mother-in-law in this kind of a mood. If she shot him here in cold blood, I was sure Nathan would find her the best lawyer in the state.
I heard the whine of sirens in the distance, and several cars had begun to pull over behind us, their occupants running up to see how they could help. Helen kept the gun trained on Christopher and instructed the bystanders to stand back until the cops arrived. I saw several of them using phones to film Christopher on the pavement, who was wild-eyed, flopping from side to side, and trying to yell through the duct tape.
A sheriff’s department SUV screamed to a stop alongside us, and two deputies leaped out with weapons drawn.
“Ma’am,” said one to Nathan’s mom, “put the gun on the ground and step back with your hands in the air.”
She did as she was told, I dropped the rolling pin and raised my hands too, and the deputies patted us both down. While we were explaining what had happened, a fire department ambulance screeched up behind us, and finally the vehicle I’d been waiting for—Nathan’s. He darted over to us with a look on his face that I hoped to never see again: fear, rage, and anguish. He had pulled his gun out of its holster as he ran, and now he trained it on Christopher.
“If you hurt either one of them, I swear I will shoot you dead on the spot.”
“We’ve got this,” said the sheriff’s deputy. He held a beefy hand up to my husband and stared at Nathan hard until he holstered his gun.
I ran over and flung myself into Nathan’s arms. “I’m okay. Your mom is okay.”
He hugged me so tight I could barely breath, and then walked over to hug his mother, and then pulled both of us into his strong embrace. He rocked us, back and forth, whispering soothing words. “I’m so sorry. You’re okay. He’ll never hurt anyone else.”