A Novel Way to Die (24 page)

“Don’t want to make that same mistake twice,” he said with a cold smile. He bent to
scoop the shattered phone into one of the empty metal paint cans and then replaced
the lid, pounding it tightly shut again with his fist.

“So, as you were saying, you were here, and then you left. And when someone asks what
happened after that?” He trailed off on a mock-questioning note and shrugged. “Sorry,
Darla, but it’s not like I’m your boyfriend. No one expects me to keep track of your
whereabouts.

“And here’s something you probably don’t know,” he went on as she struggled not to
break down into desperate sobs. “I overheard Tera telling Curt that her mother had
bought a gun. Your detective friend must have figured that out for him to arrest her.
Apparently, Hilda had plenty of opportunity and a whole boatload of motive. Hell,
if I’d been a little more patient, I could have let her to do the job for me.”

“B-but, he is—was—your friend.”
Keep him talking. Buy some time.
“Why would you kill him?”

“Let’s just say that my old buddy Curt found out that my relationship with the building
inspector’s office was a bit more . . . involved . . . than he thought. Toby and I
had a few profitable little projects going on the side that didn’t include him. Curt
wanted a cut, and after all the work I’d put in, I wasn’t inclined to share. Things
got out of hand after that.”

“But why bring me here so I could find Curt’s body?” she pressed him. “Why not bury
him in the basement, too?”

“Because it was a hell of a lot easier to have him found murdered with you to back
up my story than to try to hide the body.”

Barry gave his head a disgusted shake.

“Unfortunately, that kind of plan only works well once. Oh, and thanks for the tip
about Bill Ferguson. If the police decide they don’t have enough evidence against
Hilda, I’ll be sure to tell your detective friend that I overheard Bill threaten Curt
more than once. With any luck, maybe we can pin your disappearance on him, too.”

With that, he made a show of glancing at his watch and added, “Like you said before,
daylight’s burning, so why don’t we get this over with? Remember, I’ve got a funeral
to go to in Connecticut.”

Once again, he advanced on her with grim purpose. Limbs quivering, Darla stubbornly
began moving in a circle away from him while trying to avoid yet another hole cut
through the subflooring. She vowed as she did so that first thing tomorrow—if she
made it to tomorrow—she was signing up for self-defense classes. But for now, her
only strategy was to keep the man from backing her into a corner. Pinned against the
wall, she would be helpless. If she could keep on moving, just like in a chess game,
she might still be able to slip past him and avoid a fatal checkmate.

Barry, however, knew what she was doing.

“You’re not going to win this one, Darla, I promise you. The harder you keep fighting,
the worse it’s going to be for you—”

He broke off with a curse to dodge the roll of duct tape she had snatched from the
floor and flung at him. The tape merely bounced off him, but she didn’t care. She
took her chance and dashed toward the door. He made a grab for her arm and caught
her coat sleeve, but an instant later she had pulled the same trick he’d done with
Hamlet and shrugged out of her coat, free again. She was almost to the door, and out
of arm’s reach now.

All except for her hair.

As she flew by him, Barry snagged his fingers in the long locks and jerked, stopping
her short with a painful snap of her head that made her stumble against the doorjamb.
He jerked her again, and this time her temple smacked squarely against wood. Momentarily
stunned, she almost fell.

And then she was choking, her fingers helplessly scrabbling at the hands that were
wrapped around her throat, cutting off any hope of screaming, any chance of breathing.
Barry had won, just as he’d promised. Before the day’s end she would be joining the
luckless Tera in a shallow hole that would be covered again by bricks and plywood.

Unless James managed to convince the police that Barry had something to do with her
disappearance, then that would be the end of it. Once Reese and his people searched
the basement and found nothing, Barry would be free to plaster over the basement door
as planned, guaranteeing that no one would find them, or discover Hamlet’s battered
body stuffed away in the ancient boiler. Barry would finish his remodel and sell the
place to someone else . . . someone who would not know that a man had once been murdered
within those damp subterranean walls, and would never guess that two women had followed
him there in death.

But as she teetered on the last edge of unconsciousness, accepting her fate, the pressure
abruptly released, and she dropped to the ground.

TWENTY-TWO

DARLA FELT THE SPLINTERED FLOOR PRESSING INTO HER
cheek as she struggled for air, her vision little more than a red blur. Through the
sounds of her gasps, she was aware of a distant pounding that wasn’t just her throbbing
head, and then ripping sounds.

“You were right, your friends have come looking for you,” she heard Barry’s furious
voice from what seemed a long way away. He loomed in suddenly to slap something cold
and sticky over her mouth before wrapping her wrists and ankles together with something
that held them immobile.

“You wait all nice and comfy here. I’ll talk to them and then be back to deal with
you in a minute.” Then he was gone, shutting the door after him and leaving her lying
in a heap.

“Hang on, I’m coming,” she heard Barry’s voice drifting up to her through the holes
in the floor.

Get up
, the familiar voice in her head shouted, though it was hard to hear it over the roar
of blood in her ears as her pulse raced. She tried to force her body to comply, dragging
her knees to her chest so that she could shift her bound legs beneath her and prop
herself into a sitting position. But even that small effort made her head spin.

Through the haze she heard the now-familiar shriek of hinges that was the front door
opening and realized she had only a few moments to try to pull herself together.

Focus! James knows something is wrong . . . that’s why he’s here . . . don’t let him
leave without finding you!

Her vision began to clear, and she realized in relief that while Barry had used duct
tape to bind her wrists, in his haste he’d left her arms in front. She could rip the
tape from her mouth and scream for help . . . or could she? As her dizziness subsided,
she saw that the tape covered not just her wrists but her hands as well, plastering
them together in a prayerlike pose that left all but her fingertips immobilized.

Frantically, she began scrabbling with her fingernails at the edges of the silver
tape on her face that stretched almost from ear to ear. As she did so, she was aware
of voices drifting up to her, the holes in the floor channeling the sound to her as
clearly as if she was in the same room.

“Uh, hi,” she heard Barry say, his tone one of friendly bafflement. “I wasn’t expecting
guests.”

“We are looking for Darla,” came James’s chilly response. “I spoke to her on her phone
less than thirty minutes ago. She said she was here, and that she was on her way back
to the store. Unfortunately, she never arrived.”

“Well, I—”

“Quit stalling, Mr. Eisen.”

This voice was Jake’s. Thank God James had had the sense not to come alone!

“You’ve got about three seconds to tell us where Darla is,” she threatened, lapsing
into cop mode, “and then I’m calling 9-1-1 and Detective Reese, in that order. One,
two . . .”

Darla could hear the steel behind her words and knew that Barry had met his match.
But the man didn’t seem inclined to admit it.

“Wait a minute,” he replied, sounding confused. “Darla was here, yes. I heard her
talking to you, Mr. James. But then she left in a hurry. Didn’t she call to tell you
what happened?”

“I tried calling her on the way over,” James replied, “and I got no answer.”

Darla had finally loosened a corner on the tape gag. Now she began tugging on it,
tears springing to her eyes as the top layer of her skin seemed to pull off with every
inch of tape that she managed to dislodge. Had she been able to get a better grip,
she would have ripped it away in a single agonizing motion. Instead, she was forced
into this slow torture.

“Mr. Eisen, you look like you’ve been in a fight.” This was Jake’s voice again, sounding
colder still. “You mind telling us how you got blood on your neck and your shirt sleeve?”

“I’m trying to explain.”

Now, Barry sounded politely exasperated, and Darla could picture him giving them a
deprecating shrug.

“Darla came over here looking for her cat. She got a call from you”—Darla assumed
he was indicating James—“and said it was an emergency at the store. But as she was
leaving, we heard a cat meowing out by the Dumpster. We ran to check, and it was Hamlet.
He was injured. His back leg looked pretty messed up. We assumed he’d been hit by
a car and crawled there to hide, like cats do.”

“Hamlet’s, like, hurt?” The incredulous voice belonged to Robert, who had apparently
rounded out the posse that had come in search of her. “Where is he now? Where’s Ms.
Pettistone?”

“She took him to the emergency vet. I had to crawl between the container and the house
to get him out, and that’s how I got scratched up.”

Barry’s voice was rueful, the nice guy who’d tried to help out and gladly paid the
price for it. And even worse, Darla thought in despair, the ex-debate captain’s story
sounded reasonable.

“I told her I’d call a car service so she could take him to the vet, but she said
her own car was parked in the garage nearby, and it would be faster for her to go
get it.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?” Jake’s tone was accusatory, disbelieving. “How was she
going to drive and carry a hurt cat all at the same time?”

“I told her I’d go. Hell, I volunteered to drive her car. But the cat was going crazy.
I guess I caused him some pain when I pulled him out from where he was stuck, and
he didn’t want me anywhere near him. Darla said it was better for me to stay here.
I should have thought to call you, Mr. James, but she said she would phone you as
soon as she got to the vet.”

“I have Dr. Birmingham’s phone number in my contacts,” James said. “Let me phone her
now and see if Darla is there.”

“I’ll try Darla on her cell,” Jake said. There was a pause, and then Darla could hear
Jake’s voice again, saying, “It goes straight to voice mail. James, did you get the
vet?”

“I reached a recording saying that the vet’s offices are closed on Sunday, and it
gave an emergency number to dial. If what Mr. Eisen is telling us is indeed the truth,
then perhaps they have sent Darla elsewhere.”

Darla barely heard this last, however, for she had finally tugged off the final bit
of tape. Though the delicate flesh around her mouth burned painfully now where she’d
lost skin in the process, her emotion was one of triumph. It didn’t matter that her
hands and feet were still bound. All she needed to do was scream and her friends would
come racing to her rescue. She took a swift breath and let it out again in what she
meant to be a primal cry for help.

But what came out of her ravaged throat was nothing more than a whispered croak.

Horrified, Darla tried again, but with the same results. Though it had been brief,
the pressure of Barry’s hands around her throat apparently had been sufficient to
do some damage. In fact, the pain that somehow had stayed on the fringes of her consciousness
now swept over her. Her throat felt scraped raw and was painfully swollen, the sensation
far worse than the time she’d been rushed to the emergency room as a child when the
strep throat she’d contracted had set fire to her tonsils and made breathing almost
impossible. And that didn’t even count the raging headache from where she’d struck
her head on the doorjamb.

Think!
If she couldn’t make some sort of noise, Jake and James and Robert might well leave
without finding her. And that meant Barry would return upstairs to finish what he
had started.

Trying to hold back a wave of dread at the thought, she pounded her bound hands against
the wooden subfloor. The resulting sound, however, was muffled by the tape, and the
vibrations absorbed by the floor’s surface. At this rate, she’d never catch anyone’s
attention two stories down. If only she had a hammer, or something with some weight
behind it!

She frantically scanned the room for something malletlike, even though she knew all
Barry’s tools were downstairs. She heard Jake say, “I think I should call Reese, anyhow.
And we can send Robert over to the garage to see if Darla’s car is still there.”

“I agree with your suggestion,” James said. “In fact, I—”

“Now wait a minute.”

Barry’s voice had cut James short, and Darla could hear the anger in his tone.

“I don’t mean to be rude, and I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t care about
Darla or her cat, but I’ve got some projects I have to finish here. I was supposed
to be in Connecticut for Curt’s funeral, but one of the building inspectors was giving
me a hard time about the wiring we just did. So I really need you people to leave
right now so I can finish this project and get on the road.”

“We won’t be in your way,” was Jake’s flip reply. “Go on with what you were doing.
I’m just going to call Detective Reese.”

“Call him,” Barry said, no longer bothering to sound like Mr. Reasonable Guy. “I’ll
mention to him that you guys were asked to leave and you won’t. I think it’s called
trespassing, and probably harassment, too.”

Darla, meanwhile, had spied another of the empty gallon paint cans lying near the
closest wall. Not a hammer, but better than nothing. She began wriggling her way over
to it, careful to avoid the hole in the floor. If this didn’t worked, as a last resort
she could fling herself through that opening. Her body hitting the floor below would
cause enough ruckus to bring someone running—and the fall couldn’t be any worse than
what Barry had planned for her.

“Maybe we should leave, Jake,” James was saying now, and his suggestion sent a wave
of panic through her. Had Barry actually convinced them that he was hiding nothing?
“If Mr. Eisen wants us off his property, I think we are obliged—”

“Hey, look what I found behind the door,” Robert cut him short, his tone excited.
“They look like the sticks Ms. Pettistone had in her hair this morning. And this one
looks like it has, you know, blood on it!”

Blood from where I managed to stab Barry
, she thought in satisfaction as she inched her way closer to her goal
.
Surely the sight of blood would convince them that something was wrong there.

“Remember, I told you the cat was hurt,” she could hear Barry counter reasonably.
“We tried to make a splint with those hair things, but it didn’t work. That’s where
the blood came from. She must have dropped them there.”

At his words, a shudder went through her. Once again, the man had come up with a plausible
argument for another uncomfortable question. Plausible enough that the trio might
finally give up and unknowingly leave her behind. She couldn’t let that happen. She
had to get to that paint can before they marched back out the door again!

But this time, it seemed that her friends weren’t buying what Barry was selling.

“That story is, in the parlance, bullshit,” James replied, much to her relief. “In
fact, I am beginning to think you are keeping something from us. Darla, can you hear
me? Are you somewhere in this house?”

“Darla! Darla, are you here?” Jake echoed. “Damn it, Barry, you’d better spill your
guts now, or I’ll let Robert use that bat of his on you!”

Barry began to argue the point, and James to counter him, but Darla didn’t need to
hear any more. The important thing was that her friends didn’t believe him!

By now, she had reached the paint can and dragged herself to her knees beside it.
The sweat from her palms had seeped into the adhesive of the tape, loosening its grip
on her skin. Now, she could use both hands to readily grasp the bail on the paint
can. Holding it by that wire handle, she raised the empty can shoulder high and then
smacked it against an exposed stud in the wall.

To her surprise, the can gave off a hollow bong, almost like a bell.

Encouraged, she raised the can and swung it against the stud again, and yet again.
Each time, the dull rings were louder, reverberating in the empty room.

“Wait!” Jake’s voice rose above the small hubbub that had been going on below. “What
in the hell is that sound? It’s almost like a cowbell ringing.”

Darla raised the can to strike it again; then, recalling something Jake had said a
few days earlier, she changed her mind. Grabbing the metal container by its edge now,
she used it like a mallet against the floor to beat out a familiar two-part rhythm.

Shave and a haircut, two bits. Shave and a haircut, two bits.

“Oh my God, it’s Darla,” she heard Jake’s stunned cry. “Did you hear that? She’s the
only one I know who does that stupid knock.”

“It sounds like it’s coming from, you know, upstairs,” Robert added. “Here, I’ll go
look for her. Ms. Pettistone! Where are you?”

“Give me that bat, Robert. I might need it. James, go with him,” Jake snapped. “I’ll
keep an eye on Mr. Eisen until Reese and his team can get here.”

Darla could hear feet pounding up the first flight of stairs, heard James and Robert
call her name as doors flung open. She rang her makeshift bell again, and then again,
doing her best to guide them her way. And finally, a lifetime later, the door to the
room where she was huddled burst open.