TWENTY-SIX

When she saw the gun, Katie’s mind flashed back to the classroom scene, to Jon McCartel, to another shooting. Fear turned her to stone. Trapped by her own foolishness! Why had she come here without telling someone where she would be? The locked drawer. The Cayo Hueso file. The bankbooks. They were adding up to her death. A gut feeling told her that Elizabeth Wright had murdered Alexa and that she wouldn’t hesitate to kill again. It would be easier the second time.

“Come out with your hands up.”

The low, deadly voice prompted Katie to squirm farther to the back of the closet where she crouched behind the carton of towels. She could no longer see the woman or the gun, but the floorboards creaked as footsteps approached, and light flooded in as Elizabeth Wright flung open the door and stepped inside the closet. Katie looked into the gun barrel.

“So it’s you!” Contempt roughened Wright’s voice and she backed into her office. “Get up!”

Katie stood.

“Place your hands on your head and come out of there.”

Katie obeyed, standing just outside the closet door and feeling more vulnerable than she had felt in all her life.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for the Cayo Hueso file.” She forced strength into her voice. “Those documents are public records and I have a legal right to see them. You’re breaking the law by withholding them.”

“And my office is private property. You’ve no legal right to be here. I’ll call the police and have you arrested for trespassing, for breaking and entering, for…you…you scum. And you found the bankbooks too, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” No point in lying. “The arresting officers you plan to call will probably find the bankbooks most interesting. Where did all that money come from? That’s the very first question they’ll ask you. Where did it come from?”

“None of your business!” A flush flooded Wright’s neck and rose to her hairline, making her face look drawn and raddled. “You’ve seen too much, Katie Hassworth, P.I.” She steadied the gun with both hands.

“So before I die, tell me about the bankbooks.” She forced bravado into her voice, but her arms were beginning to ache, and she had to fight to keep her body from shaking. Was the gun Elizabeth Wright held the same gun that had fired a shot into Alexa’s wall hanging?

“I’ll tell you nothing.” She reached for the telephone.

“The money came from Alexa Chitting, didn’t it?”

Wright’s lips parted, but she didn’t answer.

“Don’t look so surprised. Po told me that Alexa had withdrawn a hundred thou from her account the Friday before her death, receiving it in cash. But he didn’t know what she had done with it.”

“The Chitting affairs are none of my concern.”

“Why did Alexa give you the hundred thou?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice sounded less sure. “Po Chitting knew nothing of his wife’s business dealings.”

“So you were concerned with Chitting affairs. You’re contradicting yourself.”

“It’s common gossip that the Chittings didn’t get along, that Alexa ran the marina.”

“Po knew about the hundred thousand. Cash.” Talk. Talk. She had to keep talking. Talk was her only defense. Her mouth felt so dry her lips threatened to stick to her teeth, but she forced more words. “Were you uneasy carrying so much cash? Where did you hide it over the weekend? It must have made some bundle! Did you sleep with it under your pillow?”

“You’re in no position to question me!”

“Did one suitcase hold it? Two suitcases? It must have been some sort of a payoff.”

“I’m going to shoot you.”

“You’d be foolish to kill me here. I’m unarmed. You couldn’t even plead self-defense. Insanity, maybe, but do you really want to do time in a mental ward? I’ve heard they’re not a lot of fun.”

“A person is allowed to defend himself and his property. You’re an intruder on my premises.” She raised the gun a fraction of an inch.

“You’ve a right to defend yourself, but not with undue force. Using a gun against an unarmed person will be considered undue force. Believe it. The police will. So will the jury of your peers.”

“Well I don’t believe it.”

“Kill me and you’ll do time. That’s a promise. May I please lower my hands?”

Wright cleared her throat and shook her head as if Katie’s words confused her. “Keep your hands where they are. You can’t get away with this.”

“And you can’t get away with Alexa Chitting’s murder.”

Wright gave a harsh laugh. “What put that idea into your head? Alexa and I were involved in an important business transaction, but I certainly didn’t kill her. Maybe you need to go back go detective school.”

She wished she had been able to activate her tape recorder. Wright had just admitted to a business deal with Alexa, but she could deny it later. “Please, may I lower my hands? Your gun will keep you in control.”

“All right, but one threatening move from you and I’ll pull the trigger. Count on it.”

Katie lowered her arms, feeling warmth return to her fingertips as the blood began circulating freely once more. In the strained quiet between them her mind began to clear, offering theories, possibilities. Talk. She had to keep Wright talking.

“The money was a bribe, wasn’t it, Ms. Wright? Alexa was bribing you.”

“Alexa was dying of cancer. The money was payment for a favor.”

“Then it did come from Alexa. I thought so.”

Wright’s lips clamped into a tight white line as she realized she had confirmed information that Katie had only been surmising. “Of course I’ll deny that if anyone questions me. It will be my word against yours.”

“I can guess the nature of the favor,” Katie said. “Suddenly you found the salt ponds totally inappropriate as a location for Cayo Hueso. Traffic would snarl. The population increase would have a negative impact on the environment. And what about the endangered alligators and egrets? Once you changed your position and vetoed using the salt ponds for the housing project, Alexa paid you the hundred thousand.”

“You’re wrong, of course.” Elizabeth chuckled. “Even if you lived to present your theory to the public, nobody would believe you. You seem to forget that in the last analysis, I was strongly in favor of the Cayo Hueso project being built in the salt pond area. The newspaper even carried that headline.”

“But of course you were in favor of it once Alexa was dead. The public isn’t totally dumb. People can figure out that you vetoed the salt pond area and accepted Alexa’s bribe. Then you killed her and did another about-face. As the old cliché goes, you wanted to eat your cake and have it, too. And you almost succeeded.”

“You’re making no sense at all.”

“By killing Alexa, you were then free to go ahead with Cayo Hueso at the salt pond location.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Only Alexa could have proved that you accepted a bribe. And she was dead. You hid the money carefully, depositing it in amounts that wouldn’t draw undue attention from bank officials or the IRS. You were set, weren’t you? You had a fortune, and you knew that the successful completion of the Cayo Hueso development would earn you a much-coveted career advancement. You thought you had it all, didn’t you?”

“Nobody will believe a tale like that. Not for a minute.”

Katie kept talking. “Of course people will believe me. They can see that you’d not only have a nice cushion of Alexa’s money plus the interest it had drawn, but you’d also have the Cayo Hueso project to your credit and a substantial raise in salary.”

“You’re not going to lay Alexa Chitting’s murder at my doorstep!” Her tone grew low and menacing. “I didn’t kill her and I won’t let you botch my career by dragging my name through a lot of rotten publicity for the sake of your big detective ego. You’re a dead woman.”

“Think, Wright, think. You shoot me here and you’ll have to hide my body. That won’t be easy. Have you thought through that problem?”

“Hide your body! Are you crazy? I’ll shoot you and call the police immediately. It’s that simple. Self-defense. No jury would blame me.”

“An unarmed person attacking a person with a gun? Who’d buy that story?”

“Pick up a bookend from my desk.”

Katie hesitated, eyeing the heavy brass sharks that supported several books.

“Pick one of them up. Grab it firmly. Get your fingerprints all over it.”

Katie picked up the bookend, hearing the soft thud of the books as they fell against the desk blotter. She tasted a bitterness on the back of her tongue. The taste of death?

“Now you have a weapon. I’ll tell the police that you came at me with the bookend and I had to defend myself. When they see that shark, they’ll believe me. A blow from it could be lethal.”

“A gun against a bookend? The prosecuting attorney will call it undue force.”

“So I panicked. Most policemen are chauvinists. Their upbringing has programmed them to expect women to panic. I’ll be believed.”

Katie knew those words were probably true. Now what? She had to act fast. In picking up the bookend, she had stepped closer to her foe. On impulse she gave Wright’s wrist a sharp chop with the side of her hand which sent the gun flying across the carpet.

“You…” Wright gasped.

They both lunged for the gun. Wright’s hand closed over it, but Katie slammed the bookend against her fingers, making her shriek and draw back. Before Katie could drop the bookend and grab the gun, Wright clutched it again. And it went off.

The bullet grazed Katie’s arm as it tore through a shade and the windowpane. Clutching her arm, she froze, momentarily stunned as she felt warm blood on her fingers. Wright stood dazed by the sound, and Katie seized the chance to act. Ignoring the searing heat that flooded her left arm, she gave Wright’s wrist another chop. This time Katie caught the gun as it fell.

“Hands on your head.” Her voice came in short gasps and she aimed the gun at Wright as she raised her hands.

“You won’t get away with this, Hassworth.”

Katie eased to the desk, removed the telephone receiver with her left hand in spite of the pain and the blood running down her arm. With the receiver lying on the desk, she tried to call the police without looking away from her captive. Blood dripped on the desk blotter and her arm throbbed through a white searing numbness.

“Police department, Sgt. Babcock speaking.”

The voice seemed to come from a great distance. Picking up the receiver with her numbed left hand, Katie had just started to speak when Wright kicked the gun from her hand, then raced for the door.

“Stop!” Retrieving the gun, Katie fired into the air, but Wright continued to run, heading for Duval Street and its many hole-in-the-wall shops.

Katie lowered the gun and gave her message to the police.

“Katie Hassworth speaking from the Simonton Street Office of Community Affairs. There’s been a shooting.”