Chapter 35
“If this is a robbery, you can have whatever is in the register, but it’s not a lot.” I couldn’t recall there ever being a robbery in the tourist part of New Camel. We didn’t sell many high-end items. And a magick shop seemed like the least likely target of all. But the customer is always supposed to be right and this one had a gun, so she could take whatever she wanted.
“Move it,” she snapped.
My brain finally made the connection that had eluded me for too long. She looked familiar, because I’d seen a newspaper photograph of her with her family when they moved to the area. She was Ginny Westfield, the ME’s wife. No wonder robbery didn’t interest her. The stakes were significantly higher. She’d killed Jim, although I didn’t have a clue as to why. And now she was here to wrap up a few loose ends, namely me. The threats had not been empty after all.
I walked to the door slowly, trying to come up with a plan to defend myself if things went farther south. As I was approaching the counter, the shop phone rang. “Don’t even think about answering it,” she warned me.
“If it’s someone who knows I’m supposed to be here, they’ll come check on me if I don’t answer.” After one missed call during the workday? Not likely. Unless I came up with some better ideas, I’d be dead by closing time.
“Let me worry about that,” she said. “Keep walking.”
I considered trying to flee instead of locking the door. She might not have any qualms about shooting me in the back, but I had to try something. There was no cavalry on its way to rescue me. With my body positioned to block the doorknob from Ginny’s view, I turned it slowly, until it was free of the jamb. I started to fling it open, but she’d already realized what I was up to and was on the move. She body-slammed me into the door, knocking it shut. I was going to have a mess of bruises later. If there was a later. It didn’t escape my attention, though, that she could have shot me, but chose not to. Maybe I was wrong about what she was after. Or maybe she was worried that a gunshot at the open door would prompt some panicked 911 calls.
She ordered me out of the way and took care of locking the door and turning the sign herself. I considered screaming, but that was guaranteed to bring Tilly running and put her in danger too. “Now what?” I asked.
“We’ll go into your storeroom.”
“I don’t have one,” I said, trying to punch a hole in her plan. She was probably thinking the storeroom was far enough back from the street that a gunshot in there might not be heard. Then she could run out the rear door and be long gone before anyone knew what she’d done.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do I look stupid to you? I know everything there is to know about this shop.”
So she’d come in that first time to reconnoiter. Too bad hindsight wasn’t great at solving murders.
“The storeroom,” Ginny repeated. I led the way down the short hall with her behind me, the gun most likely pointed at my head. When we turned into the storeroom, the theme song from Game of Thrones filled the air. She jammed the barrel of the gun against the back of my skull. “Where’s that coming from?”
“It’s the ringtone on my cell,” I said. “It’s on my desk up front.” The explanation seemed to appease her. She ordered me to the back of the storeroom where the rear door is located and unlocked it.
“That took long enough,” Roger Westfield snapped, shutting the door quickly behind himself. Killing was apparently a family activity. Ginny handed the gun to her husband and gave him a brief rundown on what was what, after which he told her to leave. She seemed happy enough to oblige, letting herself out the way he’d come in. Seconds later, Tilly’s voice rang out loud and clear from the direction of her shop, which meant the connecting door was open.
“I can’t believe you ate it all.” She sounded like she was scolding Merlin. “It’s a good thing I hid a piece for Kailyn!” Judging by the volume of her voice, she was coming closer. I tried to send her a telepathic message to stay away. It had never worked in the past when we’d tried it, but I was desperate.
A frown creased Westfield’s forehead. When his wife had cased the place, she must have missed the connecting door between our shops. A nasty little fly in the ointment.
“Not a word,” he said, “or you’ll get her killed too.”
I nodded, but my brain kept screaming, Tilly, stay away. Please stay away. A moment later she appeared in the doorway of the storeroom, a plate of strudel in her hand. She looked from me to the ME and back again, no doubt trying to figure out what she’d walked in on. When she noticed the gun, the color drained from her face and her breathing became rapid and shallow. She started swaying on her feet, woozy as a drunk on a trampoline.
“Aunt Tilly,” I said, “get a hold of yourself. Fainting isn’t going to help anyone.” I knew from having seen Bronwen handle Tilly in crisis mode that firm direction was the only way to reach her. She blinked rapidly and clenched her jaw as she tried to oblige me, but she was having trouble finding her equilibrium. By that time, I’d started second-guessing my words. If she fainted, at least she wouldn’t be afraid. Where were Morgana and Bronwen when we could have used them? The sudden appearance of two talking clouds, complete with lightning bolts, would have provided the kind of distraction I needed to try to take Westfield down.
“How did you get in here?” he rasped at Tilly, who was teetering on the brink of consciousness.
“I . . . we . . . I mean—”
I could see he was losing patience with her. “There’s a connecting door between her shop and mine,” I explained.
“Get over there next to your niece,” he said, using the gun like a pointer. Tilly managed to wobble over to me, the plate of strudel still in her hand.
“Tilly,” Merlin called out from her shop, “what would you have me do with the leftover tea?” If the situation had been on a TV sitcom, it would have been silly and entertaining, but this was all too real and could easily end up with all of us dead.
Westfield glared at us. “Tell him whatever you have to, but keep him from coming in here if you value his life.”
Tilly looked at me for guidance, so I nodded. “Stay there,” she called back, her voice as wobbly as she was. “I’ll be back in two minutes.” Westfield seemed satisfied with her performance. But he didn’t know Merlin. Telling the sorcerer not to do something was as good as handing him an invitation to try it. It was one of his less endearing charms.
A moment later, Merlin was standing in the doorway, followed closely by Sashkatu. “What kind of nut farm is this?” Westfield was getting himself worked up. Not a good thing as long as he was holding the gun. “Is anybody else going to show up?”
“No,” Tilly whimpered. “I locked the front door after my last reading.” Great, I thought. So much for any chance of being rescued. No, I wasn’t giving up that easily. I turned my thoughts to strategy. The ME had to have a breakpoint, the maximum number of people he thought he could control by himself. Or kill. How many bullets were in his gun? Did he have more in his pocket? Maybe not. After all, he’d planned on killing one person today—me.
“Get in here, old man,” he ordered Merlin.
“Do you know to whom you’re speaking?” the wizard demanded regally. “What exactly is the meaning of all this?”
“Get in here and shut up. Does that work better for you?” Westfield was getting angrier and more agitated by the minute. He clearly hadn’t planned on a mass execution, but now he was stuck. How could he let any of us leave the room alive?
Although he could be arrogant, Merlin was hardly a fool. Without another word, he made his way over to us, Sashkatu as good as Velcroed to his leg.
If we had any chance of surviving this ordeal, we needed a plan and we needed it fast. What if all of us charged at him? No, the odds were good that he’d get off a couple of shots and they could be fatal. I wasn’t willing to risk it. Maybe our best chance was to try to reach Westfield on a personal level. That was how I’d connected with him that first time in his office. I knew one thing about him for certain. He adored his wife and daughters. “Dr. Westfield,” I said, “have you considered the consequences of what you’re doing? For your children’s sake, put the gun down. There has to be a better solution, no matter what the problem is.”
“I tried other solutions, but you don’t scare easily. And you were getting too close.”
“Too close to what?” I asked naively.
“Drop the dumb act. You’re as clever as they come. You played the staff in my dentist’s office to get information on me.”
How could he have found out about that? “I don’t understand.”
“They called to change the appointment you supposedly made for me. Ring a bell now?” There was nothing I could say that would help my case, so I kept my mouth shut. “And you probably got my license number last night.”
“I tried, but it was too dark out.”
“I have no reason to believe you. The real question is whether or not you’ve convinced Duggan to run the plate for you. He isn’t your biggest fan.”
You don’t say. I was about to bring up the subject of his family again, when Merlin cleared his throat. “My young man, by any civilized code of conduct, threatening to slaughter unarmed people, especially ladies, is a cowardly and despicable act.”
“Merlin, don’t,” I pleaded, without any real hope of stopping him. “You’re only making matters worse.”
“Nonsense, this fellow is sorely in need of instruction.”
“You ought to listen to the ‘lady,’ ” Westfield shot back.
Merlin ignored both of us. “Although I am not privy to your complaint with Miss Wilde, the honorable way to correct a perceived wrong is to challenge your enemy to a fair duel. Since it would not be seemly for you to issue such a challenge to a lady, I will act as her second and meet you at a time and place of your choosing.” I felt like I was watching two cars about to collide and I had no way to stop them.
“What’s wrong with this guy?” the ME asked.
“He suffers from dementia,” Tilly piped up.
Merlin wheeled around to look her in the face. “I most certainly do not. Why would you say such a thing?”
“To save your hide,” she rasped under her breath.
“Enough, all of you,” Westfield snapped, waving the gun at us.
“You have such beautiful children,” I said softly, trying to turn the conversation back to personal matters. “Do you have any idea what this will do to them?”
“Do you think I wanted to kill Harkens?” he asked incredulously. “Do you think I want this?”
“No, I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “Maybe Jim was an accident? With a good lawyer—”
“It wasn’t an accident; I simply reached the end of my rope. Everyone thinks you get to choose how you live your life, but it’s not true. Life backs you into corners, into impossible choices.”
“I know.” The moment the pointless words slipped out, I regretted them. This wasn’t a little chat between friends about mundane disappointments. Every word mattered. No do-overs.
His expression hardened. “You don’t have a clue.”
“Then do the decent thing and at least explain this to us.”
He didn’t say anything for the length of a minute. I figured my attempt to reach him had failed. I was trying to come up with another tactic, when he finally broke his silence. “The decent thing, huh? Okay, but only to prove my point. I was the ME for Manhattan before I moved up here. I did my job well and went home to my family with a clear conscience every night. I did right by my wife and children. In other words, I lived a good life, an exemplary life, some might say. Then one night the cops brought in a body for autopsy. It was getting late, so I put it in cold storage to work on in the morning. But bright and early the next day, I was visited at home by a man who said he was associated with the Rigosi family. Said they were prepared to pay me half a million dollars to do them a little favor. Easy stuff. All I had to do was lie about the cause of death for the body that came in the night before. I was ridiculously naive. I thanked the man for the generous offer, but said I couldn’t accept. He asked me if I would prefer to visit my wife and daughters in the cemetery.”
Tilly gasped.
“He said it calmly,” Westfield went on, “didn’t so much as raise his voice. At first I thought I hadn’t heard him correctly. So he repeated it in the same casual way. Then he said I had two minutes to decide. It was the easiest choice I ever had to make. I chose to keep my family alive.” His voice started to tremble on the last words.
“Oh dear, how awful,” Tilly said, shaking her head. “You poor boy.”
“Truly terrible,” I said, meaning every word of it deep down in my gut. “But I don’t understand what Jim Harkens had to do with it.”
“I took the money,” he continued, “gave up the position I’d worked hard to attain and moved my family up here to the sticks, so I would never be a target for people like that again. I didn’t tell my wife the truth, because I didn’t want her to live in fear. I told her I wanted to leave the city to raise our family in a safer environment. She didn’t need much convincing. She grew up in the suburbs and wasn’t much of a city girl at heart. After we were settled here, I hired Harkens to write my will. I also gave him a sealed letter to be given to my wife, should I predecease her. The letter explained the truth about our move and told her where to find the money. But Harkens was too curious for his own good. He betrayed me and opened the letter. He decided he could use some of that dirty money himself. He started blackmailing me. If I didn’t cooperate, he threatened to tell the authorities, my family and the rest of the world what I’d done. I couldn’t let that happen, because my family would be right back in jeopardy from the Rigosis. So I paid him what he asked for. But he was a gambler and he kept needing more. I finally told my wife the truth. Every miserable grain of it. Then I went to Harkens’s office and killed him.” He heaved a deep sigh. “The scary part was that I didn’t feel remorse. All I felt was relief.”
We were all silent, trying to digest what we’d heard. In spite of myself, I couldn’t help feeling a certain kinship with him. Given those same circumstances, I might have done the same thing. Yet that didn’t make it right. And if the ME was arrested and tried for murdering Jim, the whole sordid mess would come to light and the threat against his family might still be carried out. The police could promise to protect the Westfield girls, but if someone wanted them dead badly enough . . .
“If you kill us too, you’ll be looking at four counts of homicide. And when they bring you to trial, the truth will come out. You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. Your wife will be tried for abetting you. What about your daughters’ safety then?”
The ME shrugged. “I’ve thought about this long and hard and I’ve come to understand the mean truth. I lost my family the night that corpse landed on my autopsy table. It’s just taken me all this time to realize it.” He sounded resigned, defeated, but he wouldn’t have come here to kill me if he didn’t also harbor some hope for a future. Even if it was only for a future on the run.
“I have a question,” I said, aware I was treading on dangerous ground.
“Sure, why not?” he said expansively. “But make it quick, because I’ve wasted enough time here and we have to get down to business.”