Chapter 41

Dear Sophie,

I wrote to you earlier about my disappearing birdfeeders. Well! The camera caught my daughter-in-law sneaking one away. When I confronted her, she had the gall to inform me that I had too many birdfeeders. I told her my birdfeeders were none of her business and if I ever caught her taking one, I would call the authorities. She hasn’t been to visit since. My son tells me she thinks the feeders make too much of a mess on the ground. But this is my house, and those birds make me happy!

Happy as a Bird in Ravenswood, West Virginia

 

Dear Happy as a Bird,

If you are troubled by the mess under the feeders, then you can do something about it. There are trays made exclusively for this purpose. They go under the feeders to catch loose seeds. You can also buy hull-free seeds. Most of what drops is the hull. Some bargain seeds are packed with seeds birds won’t eat. If you spend a little more for hull-less seeds that birds like, there will be less waste.

Sophie

I drove home, convinced that I had overlooked something important. I must have.

I was working on the plan for the research chefs when the door knocker sounded. Expecting to see Jo or her mom, I opened the door with a smile. But it was Wolf who stood on my stoop.

“You look beat,” I said.

“I hear you finally met Morgan.”

“I don’t think we’ll be besties. Would you like to come in?”

Putting on a pot of coffee, I asked, “Would you care to try my no-bake cheesecake?”

Wolf grimaced. “Do I want to try it?”

I laughed at him, cut slices for both of us, and poured the coffee. “What kept you up all night?”

“Pierce Carver. He’s being released from the hospital today.”

“Are you going to charge him with Tate’s murder?”

“Most likely. We used luminol on his Jeep. Looks like he tried hard to scrub something with bleach. We found a few drops of blood that he probably missed and a little bit of hair that matches Tate’s. But best of all, there’s the glass neck of a bottle of champagne that exactly matches the brand used to kill Tate. Hey, this is pretty good!”

I thought it was, too. Nicely refreshing with the fruit in it. “Then how do you explain the blood on and in Bernie’s car? And the clamshell that held the cheesecake?”

“We suspect that he saw Spencer’s backpack and took it to convince Bobbie Sue that Spencer had killed his dad.”

“That didn’t answer my question about Bernie’s car.”

Wolf sat back, holding his coffee mug between his hands. “I don’t have an answer for that. All I can imagine is that he planned to use Bernie’s car, thus implicating him, but something happened that made him use his own car instead. We’ll get it out of him.”

“So Bernie is off the hook?”

Wolf released a big sigh. “Almost. The problem for us is beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless we can explain the blood in and on Bernie’s car, you can bet Pierce’s lawyer will make a very big stink about it, and it would probably be enough for a couple of jurors to have a reasonable doubt about Pierce’s guilt.”

“At least you can get some sleep tonight,” I said.

“And he won’t be threatening you, or worse.” Wolf got to his feet. “It was good seeing you, Sophie.”

“It was good seeing you, too, Wolf.”

He pecked me on the cheek and left.

I walked Daisy down to my favorite florist and bought a dozen red roses for Jo. I could remember the thrill of being presented roses when I was a kid.

It was still light outside when I drove over to Jo’s ballet recital. I could have walked, but I hadn’t napped in the afternoon, and with so little sleep last night, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take a longish walk home.

Bobbie Sue beckoned to me from her seat when I entered. I slid in next to Spencer and said hi to Spencer and Coach. Coach seemed to be turning up everywhere they went. But it had always been that way. Hadn’t he said that he coached the kids in their informal games when Spencer was little? Before Bobbie Sue was the Queen of Cheesecake and before she married Tate.

The lights were lowered, the curtain opened, and live music began.

Jo and her friends danced to Pharrell Williams’s “Happy,” which lived up to its name and left everyone smiling. Coach excused himself, saying he’d left their flowers in the car and they might wilt in the heat. He returned with gorgeous pink and white lilies. After the recital, parents rushed the stage, and I was pleased to see that Jo wasn’t the only child receiving flowers.

Darkness had fallen while we were inside. We said goodnight and I told Jo one last time how fabulous she was. Bobbie Sue was taking them to Jo’s favorite place for ice cream and invited me along. I declined, citing exhaustion. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep.

The parking lot emptied fast as families left with their dancers. I turned on my ignition and the car started, then coughed and sputtered. I tried again and it simply refused to turn on. I slumped in my seat, telling myself to wait a minute and try again. I pumped the gas pedal and pressed the ignition button. It just wouldn’t respond.

It was entirely too late to call the shop that had repaired it. I phoned Nina but my call rolled over to voicemail. I hated to bother Mars again, but I called him because it was that or walk home. His phone rolled over to voicemail, too. Poor Bernie, he picked me up last time. Still, I called his cell phone but he didn’t answer. What were they all doing tonight? I left a message and tried to start the car one more time.

After three more attempts I had to face facts. The car was not going to start. No problem. I could walk. It wasn’t that far.

I screamed when someone tapped on my window. When I saw that it was Coach, I rolled the window down. “You wouldn’t by chance be a wizard with cars that don’t start?”

He smiled at me and in that moment, I remembered the first words he ever said to me. I was supposed to give Spencer a ride to work this morning and Bobbie Sue told me what happened. That was what I had missed. It had been a bold lie. Spencer was off that day. On the morning that Tate was discovered, Spencer had called Pierce, but not Coach. He had shown up on his own to find out if Tate was dead or alive.

And now, I was looking into the eyes of Tate’s murderer. My only way out was to keep my cool and pretend that I didn’t know he had killed Tate.

“Pop the hood and I’ll have a look,” he said.

I pulled the lever that opened the hood and glanced around the parking lot. It was empty except for a lone car on the other side that probably belonged to Coach.

Was it safer to stay in my car or to get out? I rolled the window up. Could I slam the hood on him and run? Or was he happy and thinking he got away with murdering Tate? Maybe he wasn’t planning to harm me. But then why was he still here? Why, when everyone else had left, was he still in the parking lot waiting for me? Fear struck my heart. Had he disabled my car intentionally when he left to retrieve the flowers?

He returned to my window. I rolled it down just two inches so it would seem like I was being friendly.

“No luck, I’m afraid. Can I give you a ride?”

I knew better than to get into his car. Not a chance! They would never find my body. He would drive out into the countryside somewhere and dump me in the woods.

“Thanks!” I said cheerily, but I called a friend and he’s on the way to pick me up. I appreciate your offer, but I’d better wait for him.”

He smiled at me again. Why hadn’t I noticed that horrible sinister smile when I first met him?

“No problem,” he said. “I’ll wait with you. Make sure you’re safe.”

Oh no! It was a no-lose proposition for him. Now I couldn’t walk home because he would grab me if I left the car. And if Mars or Nina showed up, Coach would look like the good guy for protecting me. And if no one showed up, which was highly likely, then . . . then what? Why was I being so stupid? I quickly pressed 911.

“Alexandria Police Department,” said a woman’s voice. “What is the nature of your emergency?”

“My car conked out and there’s a man here who is scaring me.”

“Is he threatening you?”

How to answer that? “I’m afraid of him,” I whispered.

“Ma’am, just call an Uber. We’re not here to give people rides home.”

At that moment, Coach slammed a rock into the driver’s side window. I screamed as glass shattered all over me. He reached a hand through the hole and tried to grab my neck. I seized his hand in both of mine and chomped down on his fingers as hard as I could.

He yowled in pain and jerked his hand back. He yanked at the door handle repeatedly in an effort to open the car door. His bloody right hand returned through the broken window in a minute, trying to locate the buttons that unlocked the doors. Why didn’t I have a knife or any kind of weapon in my car?

I pressed 911 again. This time I screamed, “Help!” and rattled off the address.

The woman’s voice asked calmly, “What is the nature of your emergency?”

I had lost every fiber of politeness and self-control. “A man is trying to kill me!”

The click of the car doors unlocking shot terror through me and propelled me into a complete panic.

“Why?” I screamed at him as I scrambled to the passenger seat. “Why me?”

“Because you figured it out. You asked Spencer if he was working that day. It was one of my two mistakes.”

I had to keep him talking. I unlatched the passenger door but didn’t open it. “You lied to me. But you did it well. I didn’t realize it for a long time. What was the other mistake?”

“Leaving Tate’s body while I went to get Bernie’s car.”

He was inside the car now and reaching for me. I squished against the passenger-side door as far away as I could without opening it. I needed him to follow me.

“You must have been surprised when you returned, and Tate was gone.”

“Big mistake. Big bad mistake. I spent a night thinking I blew it and expecting the police to show up. I thought maybe he wasn’t dead after all. I planned it so well. So precisely. And then to have that happen—”

He lunged at me as I expected he would. I pushed the door open and jumped out of the car, positioning myself toward the door to the back seat. He reached for me, fumbling as he crossed the center console, his arms and hands going for my throat. I managed to evade them and slammed the car door on his arms. He bellowed like a wounded animal. The window was closed and intact. I leaned against the door, digging my heels into the pavement and using my body like a lever to hold the door closed.

He was stronger than me, but his arms were pinned. And heaven help me for being so horrible, but I hoped they might even be broken.

I heard a siren in the distance, but I didn’t dare relax or run. What if it was on the way to another emergency? Running was my next option. But he would catch me. He was a runner, and I most certainly wasn’t. I couldn’t let that happen. If it did, I would have to be clever and take cover, hiding wherever I could. I glanced around, choosing the road that had the most homes. Where people might hear me, might help me. We were only two blocks from King Street. If I could make it that far, there would be a lot of traffic.

My heart sank when the siren faded. I had to keep this up as long as possible. I needed to buy time.

But then he managed to yank his arms inside the door, and I knew time was up.

I ran across the street and down the middle of the road. He would be behind me soon. He was so much faster than I could ever be. I darted to the right and ran along the sidewalk to King Street.

“Sophie!”

For a moment, I thought Coach was calling me.

“Sophie! Over here!” I recognized Bernie’s voice. Mars’s car pulled up to the curb and Bernie hopped out of the driver’s seat. He ran to me and I grabbed him in a fierce hug.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I am now,” I said into the cotton fabric of his shirt.