| |
I STOOD OUTSIDE THE front door of Michelle Thompson’s house after I rang the bell a second time.
When she finally came to the door she appeared out of sorts, covering what I felt was a look of surprise with a smile that was a little too forced. She pushed open the glass storm door and leaned out, her feet still on the threshold. She looked out past me toward the street.
“Henry,” she said. “Mickey let you in?”
“Took some convincing. Especially after you’d told him not to.”
She pushed out an unconvincing smile. “Mickey doesn’t always hear things the right way...”
I looked her right in the eye. “Mickey’s smarter than you think.”
She pushed her hair back from her forehead without saying a word.
“Mind if I come inside?” I didn’t wait for her answer and pushed my way past her. I sniffed the air as I walked toward the kitchen. “You’re baking more cookies?”
Michelle followed behind me. “I...I’m on my way out. I have an appointment. You’re going to have to leave.”
“This won’t take long, I don’t think. Although you might want to tell whoever it is you’re meeting you might not make it.” I turned and leaned against the doorway. Michelle walked past me. I folded my arms and looked over at the tray of cookies out on the counter. “So where is he?”
Michelle waited a moment. “Where is who?”
“Nate.” I turned and looked down the hall.
She stood behind the counter, her mouth opened as if she was about to say something. But she didn’t. Her eyes looked past me.
I turned and looked behind me and Nate stood still in the hall, no more than ten feet away.
He had a 9mm in his grasp and I looked down the muzzle, pointed straight at me.
I was between Nate out in the hallway, and Michelle on the other side of the counter in the kitchen. I looked back at Nate. “Is that the same gun you used to shoot your friend at the record store?”
Nate shrugged. “He’s not really much of a friend.”
“But you did shoot him? For what, to set it up so you could disappear? Then come over here... snuggle-up with your nanny?”
Nate squinted his eyes as he held the gun out in front of him with both hands.
I turned to Michelle. “I gotta be honest. When I thought maybe it was Roy you were sleeping with...I knew he was a little too old for you. But, now, this is just as weird. The nanny? I mean...” I looked back and forth from Nate to Michelle. “Throw in the fact you’re married to his stepfather and—”
“Don’t call him that,” Nate said. He had rough-sounding anger in his voice I hadn’t heard before.
I said, “So why didn’t you just shoot him? Use that gun you have right there in your hands. Instead of going through all the trouble to set up a bike accident...” I looked up and down his arms. “Looks like the poison sumac cleared up? Stuff can be nasty, you know.”
Nate looked down at his arms with the 9mm still in his grasp and pointed my way.
Michelle kept her eyes on me. “Nate, don’t say a word. He has no idea what he’s talking about.” Michelle’s eyes shifted toward Nate then back to me.
I watched her eyes go behind her toward a wooden block of knives and wondered why I showed up unarmed. But that decision had already been made. I looked down at the tray of cookies.
“So, Nate...why’d you do it? For love? Or because you think John killed your mother?”
“He did kill my mother!” he yelled.
I saw a different side of Nate he’d obviously suppressed quite well until then.
I turned to Michelle. “At least someone believes you.”
She kept her eyes on me as I turned to Nate, staring back at Michelle.
“He knows the truth,” Michelle said. “He knows John killed his mother. And then kept all her life insurance money to himself. Nate deserved better than that.” She looked past me, toward Nate, and smiled. “Right hon?”
I shrugged. “Okay, well then if that’s the way you’re going to tell the story...” I looked back at Nate then back to Michelle. “So did you help him kill John?” I turned to Nate, my hands still up in front of me. “And I’m guessing she’ll share something with you, from John’s insurance?”
Nate didn’t answer. His eyes went back and forth from me to Michelle. He looked nervous as his hands had a slight shake to them.
“Nate, just to set the record straight. I know what you want to believe. And what Michelle has told you. But John did not kill your mother. Did he give you the shaft by not giving you the insurance money from your mother’s policy?” I nodded. “Of course he did. But he didn’t kill her. His only crime was trying to cover up what really happened. He was guilty of trying to protect the woman he loved.”
Nate looked past me toward Michelle. “What is he talking about?”
Michelle shook her head. “Don’t listen to him, Nate. He has no idea what he’s saying.”
“No?” I watched Michelle take a step toward the block of knives. “Nate, do you really want to be a private investigator?”
Nate took a moment before he answered. “No, not really.”
I let out somewhat of a laugh. “I didn’t think so.” I took a step toward him. “Why don’t you put down the gun, Nate?” I tried to keep an eye on both of them, wondering who was going to make the first move.
Michelle leaned against the counter. “Nate, you have to shoot him.”
Nate stared back at her, the gun tight in his grasp.
I held my hands up, my palms out toward him. “Nate, don’t. I can help you. Just hear me out...”
“Shoot him!” Michelle screamed.
“Nate, there were plenty of witnesses that night. John had an alibi. And not just his friends. There was footage of him stopping at a 7-Eleven. She’d already been dead two hours at the time he was there.”
Michelle said, “Nate, don’t listen to him. John killed your mother. I saw the whole thing.” Michelle ripped a knife from the block and lunged toward me over the counter, the blade coming toward my chest.
I lunged forward and reached for the tray of cookies. I swung it along with a dozen or so cookies and hit Michelle’s arm just as she came at me with the knife.
Blood came down my arm as the blade caught the back of my hand.
I turned as Nate took a step toward me, closing his eyes as he pulled the trigger but not before I swung the tray toward him.
But the gun fired as it fell from his hand and Michelle screamed. She stumbled backward and fell back onto the floor behind the counter.
Nate ran at me empty handed but I grabbed him by his shirt and drove my knee into his stomach. He fell back onto the floor and smacked his head against the base of the doorway.
I ran around the counter and stood over Michelle. She grabbed at her shoulder with blood coming through her shirt. I turned, about to defend myself as Nate came around from the other side.
But he stopped and looked down at Michelle. Tears came down his cheek. “Is she dead?”