My mind was scrambling, screaming at my body to do something, but I was paralyzed. My gun and phone lay on the kitchen counter with the photographs, and she had me cornered. Marilee’s big bed blocked me on one side and the bedroom wall was at my right. The only possible weapon was the nearest lamp. The lamps were tall and made of what appeared to be heavy cast iron. If I could grab the closest one and unplug it before Olga Winnick stabbed me, I might be able to stun her with it and run.
As I edged a half step toward the table, she looked back at me.
In that split second, I understood why she was there. I said, “You’re protecting your family right now, aren’t you? You’re here to stop me from telling the truth about who killed Marilee Doerring and Harrison Frazier. It wasn’t you, it was your husband.”
Tears filled her eyes and spilled unheeded down her cheeks. “She lured him into her perversions! She was an evil, evil woman.”
I thought of the photographs on the kitchen counter. “She did lure him and trick him and use him. How did you find out?”
She wiped at her eyes with her free hand. “A wife always knows. He would leave our bed and come here, he was obsessed. Night after night, I saw him go through her lanai to her. She was here waiting for him, here with all her filthy practices.”
Her voice broke and she shut her eyes for a second to compose herself. I took the opportunity to scoot a few steps closer to the lamp. If I could keep her talking, I had a chance.
She opened her eyes and looked at me with renewed determination.
I said, “He came here Thursday night, didn’t he? And found Harrison Frazier with Marilee. That must have been a shock to him.”
She shook her head, quick to support her husband’s intelligence. “He already knew. He saw him when he arrived. He kept watching the house, pacing back and forth, acting as if I wasn’t even there, didn’t see, didn’t understand. Men can be so blind where predatory women are concerned.”
I nodded sympathetically, thought about saying “Ain’t it the truth,” then decided against it. Instead, I said, “Did you know when he came here Thursday night?”
“Oh yes, I knew. Carl didn’t know I was awake, but I knew when he got out of bed and left the house. I stood in my kitchen window and watched him go to her lanai just as he always did, saw him disappear into her house just as I’d watched him many times before. He carried a weapon in his hand, a piece of pipe he must have had in the garage. My heart was breaking, but I could not stop him, you see, because it would have led to a scene that might have wakened Phillip. I did not want him to know what his father was doing. A boy should look up to his father as a role model.”
“So you stood at the window and waited and watched.”
Her breath shuddered, sending out more intense waves of alcohol. “Yes.”
“And what did you see, Mrs. Winnick?”
“I saw my husband come out of this house with something in his arms. He carried it across the backyard and walked along the fence beside the woods, and then he disappeared from my view. I didn’t know what it was that he carried. Then he came back here to the house again. In a little while, he went out to the driveway and got into that man’s car and drove away.”
I pushed my foot a few inches to the left and said, “What time was this?”
Wearily, she said, “It was exactly five minutes past one. I know because I looked at the clock on the microwave after he left.”
I pulled my right foot alongside the left one, trying to make it look as if I were just adjusting my posture, and said, “You must have been extremely concerned. I mean, it didn’t look good for your family, did it?”
“I had to do something. A woman like you can’t understand what it is to be a good wife and mother. You can’t know how a real woman will go to any length to save her family.”
For a minute there, I’d been feeling sorry for her, but that brought me back to reality. “What did you do, Mrs. Winnick? How did you save your family?”
“I came over here and saw what had happened. Saw the mess here. The shower was still running, that naked man hanging out of the tub and blood on the floor. That piece of pipe next to him. It was awful. I turned off the shower and put the man on the floor while I cleaned everything. I went out the side door and put the pipe in the garbage can at the street. Then I went back home.”
Above her head, Ghost had gone into a stalking crouch on the armoire, neck stretched forward and down, legs bent and quivering, tail swishing side to side. I had seen cats go into that pose just before sinking their fangs into a snake’s body and flinging it side to side until it died. Olga Winnick and her alcohol fumes had become an enemy, prey to be pounced upon and crushed.
The shrill beep-beep-beep of my cell phone sounded from the kitchen, and all three of us went rigid. Distracted, Ghost’s head twisted nervously toward the sound.
I said, “I really should answer that.”
She grimaced. “You underestimate my intelligence, Miss Hemingway.”
“Not true, Mrs. Winnick. I think you’ve been brilliant. I’m really impressed. But you left out the part about dressing the man and taping his head to the cat’s water bowl.”
She sighed again and gave me an irritated glare. “That wasn’t until later. Carl was home when I got back. He had driven the man’s car to the Landings and parked it there, then he took a taxi to the Sea Breeze and walked home. He was shaken and humble. We had a long talk. He begged me for forgiveness and I forgave him for what he’d done. It was one of the best talks we’ve ever had.”
“How nice for you.”
“Yes. Then he told me he thought there were photographs the police might find, and I came back to look for them. While I was looking, the man made a sound. He wasn’t dead after all, you see. I knew he could identify Carl, so I dressed him and dragged him into the kitchen and taped his head to the water bowl. I would have put him in the tub, but he was too heavy and I didn’t want to ask Carl to help. He was far too upset by then to be of much use anyway.”
“It was a little after four o’clock when you left here, wasn’t it?”
Her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. “How did you know that?”
“Because Phillip saw you. I guess he’s more like you than I realized, because he made up a big lie to save you.”
“That’s not true! Phillip was asleep.”
“Phillip had been playing piano at the Crab House, Mrs. Winnick. He had just climbed back in his window when he saw you leave Marilee’s lanai.”
A tremor played over her face, as if her nerve endings were readjusting themselves, and the hand with the knife raised an inch.
Okay, if I was dead anyway, I might as well say what would hurt her the most.
“Phillip knew what you did. He loved you so much that he didn’t tell, but he knew. He killed himself keeping your terrible secret.”
“I don’t want to hear any more!”
She charged toward me with the knife held high, enveloped in a miasma of alcohol and revenge. I lunged for the lamp and jerked it forward, pulling the cord out of the wall and plunging the room into darkness. But the thing was incredibly heavy and too thick to wrap my hand around. In the darkness, I could see her silhouette flying toward me.
I did the only thing that seemed halfway logical. I dived for her legs, hoping to knock her down before her knife plunged into my back.
As I hit her, she screamed and flailed the air. I scrabbled behind her and straightened up, ready to grab her knife hand. Something soft brushed across my face, and she screamed again. I realized it was a scream of pain and that it was Ghost’s tail I had felt. Ghost was on her head, raking his claws across her face and shoulders.
I sprinted to the kitchen and grabbed my gun. I was halfway down the hall with it when I doubled back to get my cell phone. As I left the kitchen, I heard the thud of footsteps running down the hall toward the bedroom. I knew who it was. I also knew Ghost would be killed if I didn’t get to him in time.