| |
With Tanner’s gun trained on her, Josie had slowly dragged Mikey Corrigan into the ballroom. Not a single servant was left in the house and while she knew someone would return eventually, she had a feeling it’d be too late for Corrigan and her.
“Tie him up!” Tanner said, as he threw her some rope.
“Why are you doing this?” asked Josie as she tied Mr. Corrigan’s feet together, hoping if she did it slowly enough they’d be interrupted.
“Hurry up!” said Tanner.
“You’re not going to get away with this. Deputy Irwin and his men are out there.”
“But they brought dogs, which means they’ll be a mile away when they catch up to Franklin. I’ll be long gone by then.”
“Is Kurt Franklin dead?”
Tanner shrugged. “Probably. I didn’t have enough time to make sure he was dead before I had to get back here.”
“Once they find him dead, they’ll know it’s you.”
“Actually, they’ll think Franklin killed himself. They’ll take it as a confession for killing so many people. Now tie his hands and make it snappy.”
Josie tied Mr. Corrigan’s hands, hoping he could break through easily. At that moment, he groaned. Tanner trained his gun on both of them. “Corrigan! Wake up.”
Corrigan was woozy, but when he could focus his eyes enough to see Tanner, he immediately tried to stand.
“Take another step and I’ll kill both of you.”
Corrigan stopped, then more or less fell back on the ground. “Why the hell are you doing this?”
“Because of what you did to my mother.”
Corrigan stared at him. “You’re Louise’s son?”
That sent Tanner into a rage. “You don’t even remember! Yes! I’m her son!”
Corrigan thought about it for a moment, then a memory surfaced. “Your name is Fred. You liked baseball. We snuck into a game one time.”
“I don’t want to talk about that now! You tricked my mother! You said you’d marry her. You were supposed to protect her. You’re the father of the baby which finally got us kicked out of that rat hole apartment.”
Mikey shook his head, then got dizzy from the motion. “Your mother and I were never anything other than friends. I don’t know who that baby’s father was.”
“Liar!” There was a frantic energy to Tanner which made him all the more dangerous. He was pacing back and forth, waving his gun. “She loved you!”
“I cared for your mother,” said Corrigan carefully. “I cared for all of you. But when she was pregnant that last time, she said she was taking all of you to family in Oklahoma.”
“Liar!”
“It’s the truth. I gave her a few bucks for the trip, then I never heard from her again.”
“And you never thought to look for her?”
Corrigan shook his head. “I was too busy tryin’ not to get killed.”
“You don’t know what happened afterward. We moved to Oklahoma, but there was no marriage. We stayed in one fleabag hotel after another. She started drinking and never stopped. She was killed by one of her dates, and the rest of us were split up. I’ll spare you the details of what happened to me.” He raised his gun.
Josie stepped in front of Corrigan, who tried to pull her out of the way. “No!” she said. “If you shoot him, everyone will come running. Your best chance of getting out of here is if you leave now.”
“Getting out of here isn’t nearly as important as killing him.”
Josie had to keep him talking. Someone had to come back to the house eventually. “Why did you kill Delores Spencer? She was your partner, wasn’t she?”
“I was always going to kill her. I met her on the carnival circuit in Oklahoma all those years ago. She was a first-class grifter. Earlier this year, she saw my picture in one of the gossip magazines and figured I’d be good for a buck or two. She tracked me down in Hollywood and told me to introduce her to some stars she could blackmail. If I didn’t, she said she’d tell everyone in town where I came from. I couldn’t allow that to happen, but I figured someone like her could be useful for a while. I’d hired a P.I. in Chicago to follow Corrigan. When I heard about this party, I knew it’d be the perfect chance to kill him without his goons hanging around. I got Kurt and me invited.”
“And you made sure Delores Spencer left behind an incriminating piece of evidence at the boarding house.”
Tanner smiled. “You found the ticket?”
Josie nodded. “You’ve done a good job framing Kurt Franklin. Between that and the bogus bio about him growing up in Chicago, some people might believe it was him. But not us.”
“It’s not going to matter what you think because you’ll be dead.”
“You really think Agent Barker will let you go?”
“I’m not going to be here when he returns. I’ve got enough dough to disappear. They’ll never find me.”
Josie had to keep him talking. “Why did you kill Delores after she gave you an alibi by shooting Mr. Corrigan?”
He shrugged his shoulders, as if killing her had meant nothing. “She would have bled me dry. I knew she had to go sooner rather than later. So, I slipped into her room and killed her. Fortunately, this blackmail business took the attention away from what I did.”
“Why’d you kill Farnsworth?”
“He’d seen me that night and wanted payment.”
“Constance?”
“That was bad timing. She ran outside just as I was about to scale the wall to kill Corrigan in his bed. So I killed her. Just like I’m going to kill you.”
“The hell you are,” said David Remington from the entrance to the ballroom. He was a welcome sight, though he looked unarmed. He wouldn’t have come in here without a way to defend himself, would he?
Oh, dear. Josie got the terrible feeling that’s exactly what he’d done.
“Time is running out, Tanner,” said Josie. “Get out of here and run.”
“Not until I finish what I started.” He suddenly aimed his gun at Corrigan, but David started toward him at the same time. Tanner shot David who went down, blood shooting out of his chest.
Corrigan shoved Josie out of the way as he rushed Tanner. Josie lost her balance and fell into the Victrola just as she felt the strongest earthquake to date. The room began to spin as she fell to the floor in what felt like slow motion. She hit her head hard and as the room grew darker, the last thing she saw was a lifeless David Remington bleeding profusely on the floor.