| |
I drove towards home, trying to concentrate on what I was doing and not on how angry I was. Or how scared – because if I pissed him off too much, Petreski might not come back. But even so, he did not get to order me around. I thought I had made that perfectly clear.
I was restless, and not ready to go home, where I’d probably have to tell the whole sad story to Don and listen to him tell me he told me so. So, with Helena Wilton in jail – and Josh Katz probably out – I decided to go check on Jennifer Katz. Maybe her husband wasn’t a murderer after all – again, not convinced – but he was still a cheating scumbag and she could probably use a friend. I was hardly snooping at all.
It wasn’t hard to find the Katzes’ address, since they were so active in the neighborhood. The house was a two-story four-square with a large covered porch. Someone in the family had a green thumb – the flower beds were full of bushes and fresh plantings getting ready to bloom. Blue-glazed flower pots overflowed with bright pink geraniums on either side of the porch steps. I couldn’t picture Josh working in the garden, so this must have been Jennifer’s work.
I rang the doorbell and stepped back from the door. I could hear Buttercup barking, and footsteps approaching. Mrs. Katz’s face appeared in the small window in the door and she smiled before opening it.
“Hello, Jake! How are you? What brings you by?”
“I just wanted to check on you and Buttercup. See how you were doing.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet. Come on in.” She held the door open and I stepped inside. The blinds were all open and sunlight streamed in.
“This is really nice,” I said.
“Thanks. I’m going to redecorate. Paint it a more cheerful color. Fresh start, you know?”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“Would you like a gin and tonic?” she asked.
I was more of a beer drinker, but since it wasn’t likely she had beer in the house, I decided to join her. “Sure, why not?”
I followed her into the kitchen where a bottle of gin already sat on the counter. She went to the pantry and came back with a fresh bottle of tonic water. “Josh hates gin. Now that he’s gone, I’m going to try them all. Especially the expensive ones.”
“Sounds, um, interesting.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not going off on a bender or anything. I’m just not going to let anyone stop me from doing what I really want from now on.” She took a couple of glasses from a cabinet, setting them on the counter before opening the freezer. “Oh, bother. The freezer must be on the blink again. The ice is all stuck together.”
She opened a drawer and started rummaging around. “That’s odd. I could have sworn it was in here.” She moved to the next drawer and started shifting the contents around.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“The ice pick. The ice in the freezer is always sticking together, and it should be in here.”
I pulled open the first drawer. “Maybe you just overlooked it. What does it look like?”
“Nothing fancy. Wooden handle, and a metal spike about,” she held her fingers a few inches apart, “so long.”
I froze. “When... when was the last time you saw it?”
“Oh, it’s been a while. Maybe three or four weeks since the last time we used it.” She was still rummaging. She hadn’t made the connection yet.
“Mrs. Katz...”
“Jennifer.” She turned to smile at me. “I’ll never be Mrs. Katz again as...” her voice trailed off and her eyes got wide.
“What?” I thought I knew what.
“The...” she looked down at the open drawer. “The ice pick’s not here, is it?”
“I have a really bad feeling it isn’t. Has anyone other than you or Mr. Katz been in the house recently?”
“As far as I know just the police, when they came for my needles. No... wait... Josh hosted a meeting here one evening. The protest group. I wasn’t here, though. I was teaching a knitting class up in Spring. I didn’t get home until the meeting was over. I don’t know who was here.”
I heard a slapping, banging sound from the next room and jumped.
“It’s okay,” Jennifer said. “It’s just Buttercup using the pet door.”
I started backing out of the kitchen, towards the front door, motioning for Jennifer to follow me. “Okay, sure.” But I felt uneasy about that sound, and I could have sworn I’d seen Buttercup in the living room not five minutes earlier. Quick and stealthy, Buttercup was not.
“So, what color were you thinking about painting in here?” I asked, still moving towards the door. Jennifer followed, eyes fixed on my face.
“Oh,” she glanced down to where Buttercup stretched out on his bed in front of the fireplace. I had to hand it to her, she kept her head and her voice stayed steady. I suppose living with a human powder-keg for years could give a person nerves of steel. “Oh, I’ve always loved the ocean. I was thinking of something tropical. Like aqua, maybe?”
“Sounds great.” I felt the door at my back and reached behind me to open it. “What about the furniture?” I asked as I turned the knob.
“Oh, all new, probably.”
I got the door opened and pushed her through it just as Josh Katz charged through the dining room door, ice pick held high. He came straight at me, though I think his target was really Jennifer. The force of his attack left the pick embedded in the wood of the door frame, and I shouldered him aside and followed Jennifer through the door.
“Run!” I screamed at her, and grabbed her hand as I passed her. We hit the street and ran towards Studewood, where there would be businesses and the most traffic. And witnesses. I managed to work my phone out of my pocket as we ran, but I couldn’t focus on it enough to call 911.
We were only a block from the busy street when we stumbled and Jennifer’s hand was wrenched out of mine. I turned to see her on her ass on the pavement, the ice pick sticking out of her shoulder as she turned to kick and claw at her attacker.
Josh Katz stood over her, chest heaving and face red. Sweat was dripping from him – he was in no shape to be chasing people down the street. We probably would have outrun him if he hadn’t been fueled by adrenalin and rage.
“You bitch!” Katz was screaming as he pawed at Jennifer, trying to get at the pick in her back.
I ran at him, trying to tackle him back off of Jennifer, but he was heavier and meaner and just brushed me aside. I fell and rolled a couple of times before I jumped back up and came at him from behind, trying to pull him away.
“The police!” I was shouting, hoping someone would hear. “Someone call the police!”
Katz started fighting me at that point, taking his hands off Jennifer and turning to push at me again, and I could feel his weight behind the attack. I flew back several feet, landing against a parked car before everything went black.
❧
“...rand? Mr. Hillebrand? Can you hear me?” a voice was saying. I didn’t feel like answering, but I grunted.
“Mr. Hillebrand?”
I cracked one eye open and saw a blur that I thought might be Detective Perez looking at me. That didn’t make sense, though, because the blur looked concerned. I blinked hard and tried opening my eyes again.
“Detective Perez?” I mumbled. Then, because I’m lame like that, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “You sure do have pretty hair.”
She scowled then, and the world tilted back onto its axis. “He’s awake,” she said as she stood.
I tried looking around, but my head hurt and someone was shining a light in my eye. “Ow!” I batted at the light and it moved away.
“Looks like we’ve got a feisty one, Doug!” I heard a deep voice say.
“That’s good. If they’re feisty they’ll be okay.”
“Jennifer? Is Jennifer okay?” I tried to get up.
“Hold on there, tiger. Hold on. We’ve got to check you out.”
I tried to sit still, but they sure seemed to be taking a long time. I could hear voices and sirens and see flashing red and blue lights out of the corner of my eye, but the two EMTs were blocking most of my field of vision.
“Please. Can you please just tell me if Jennifer is okay?” I asked again.
“She’s feisty, too,” said the first EMT, not-Doug.
I leaned my head back against the car where I was still sitting and let them finish doing what they needed to do.
“Can he talk yet?” I heard Petreski’s voice from somewhere behind Doug. I was afraid to see him, afraid he would be angry, afraid this might be the last time.
“Yeah, he can talk. We should take him to the hospital for observation, though. He hit his head – he wasn’t out for long, but he did lose consciousness.”
“I’m fine. No hospital. I want to see Jennifer.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Petreski told the EMTs. They stepped aside and Petreski crouched down in front of me. He didn’t look angry, but I didn’t know how good an actor he was.
“Jennifer?” I asked, because I had to know. The last time I’d seen her she had an ice pick sticking out of her back and Katz had her on the ground.
“She’ll be fine. She’s on her way to the hospital, like you should be.”
“What about Katz? It was Katz. He got into the house. He chased us down the street with a freaking ice pick.”
Petreski shifted to one side, and beyond him I saw the bulk of Josh Katz, lying face down in the street. People in uniforms and jumpsuits were shuffling around him, but no one seemed overly worried about him.
“Oh my God. Is he dead? Did you have to shoot him to get him off of her?”
“No, nothing like that. He was like that when we got here. A witness said it looked like he had a heart attack or a stroke.”
“He was pretty red in the face, and he was in bad shape. I’m surprised he was able to catch up to us.” I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at Katz anymore. “Can I go home now?” I asked.
“Soon. But first, would you please go to the hospital and get checked out? That way I can finish up here and I’ll know you’re safe. If you go, you can see Jennifer.”
I opened my eyes to look at him. He smiled, just a small smile, but I knew we’d be okay. “Fine. But you have to come get me as soon as you’re done here.”
“I promise.”
