I turned to Naddie. "What the heck is burking?"
"My God," she said, grabbing onto the edge of the tasting table for support. "It dates back to nineteenth-century Edinburgh," she whispered. "Burke and Hare were these two fellows who dug up bodies to sell for anatomical dissection. When digging got to be a lot like work, they decided to streamline operations. They'd get a victim drunk, and while Burke sat on his chest to keep the lungs deflated, Hare would cover his nose and mouth, neatly asphyxiating him. It's extremely difficult to detect," Naddie continued, "unless you're looking for it."
"Jesus," I said. I thought about Valerie and Clark and those other poor folks at Ginger Cove and felt an overwhelming urge to force a pillow over Chet's face and hold it there until he quit squirming. Then I'd let him breathe. Then I'd mash the pillow over his face again. And again.
"Quick! Before he gets back!" In the light coming in from the window, I was able to identify the bin holding the champagne. I rushed over and pulled out a magnum. I held it in both hands and was about to use it like a club to smash down the door when I realized Chet was no longer alone.
"Hey, Nick. What's happening, man?"
"What the fuck?" It was Pottorff. His shadow, shorter and bulkier than Chet's, blocked the light coming in through the door. He was lifting his feet, examining his shoes. He'd stepped in the wine.
"Asshole! I thought you were supposed to be watching them?"
"I am watching them. They didn't go nowhere."
"Son of a bitch!" Stepping high, Pottorff's shadow receded.
"I didn't break them bottles, Nick. Them bitches did." Chet sounded desperate.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Look at this mess!"
"Look, man-" Chet began.
"Just get rid of them!"
I wrapped an arm around Naddie and dragged her with me as I retreated to the far corner of the wine cellar. I handed her my magnum and picked out another one for myself. Whatever happened, we'd go down fighting.
I braced myself, expecting Chet to burst in at any moment, gun blazing.
Then, from somewhere upstairs, a new voice shouted, "Not here, you morons!"
"Who is that?" Naddie whispered.
"I don't know!"
We heard muffled conversation, and within minutes the door opened and Pottorff slunk in, followed by Chet.
I raised the magnum to my shoulder like a baseball bat and got ready to swing.
"Drop the bottle, lady." It was Chet, backing up the order with his gun pointed directly at Mrs. Bromley. "You, too," he snarled.
Prudently, we did as we were told.
Pottorff grabbed my arm and dragged me roughly out of the wine cellar. Chet escorted Naddie, a bit more courteously. Maybe he hadn't emerged fully formed out of the primordial slime. Maybe he had a mother after all.
Retracing our steps, they hustled us back through the family room, up the stairs, through the kitchen and into the garage, where they shoved us into the back of the van and slammed the door.
Once again we heard the garage door grind open, and with Chet at the wheel and Pottorff riding shotgun, the van peeled off into the late afternoon sunshine.
The plan, apparently, was to pummel us to death.
Traveling at a high rate of speed, the van lurched through our captor's neighborhood with Naddie and me ricocheting off the walls as it careened around corners and joggled over potholes.
Naddie held onto the lawn mower. "Can you get the door open?"
On my hands and knees, I crawled to the cargo door and tried the handle. "It's locked!" I yelled over the roar of the engine. "But even if I could get it open, they're driving too fast. We'd be killed if we tried to jump."
Chet slammed on the brakes and I slid forward into a bag of grass seed. I looked up to check on Mrs. Bromley. She was still hanging onto the lawn mower, but under its tie-downs the mower had shifted alarmingly. I crawled forward, dragging the grass seed with me. Before the van began to move again, I helped Naddie into a corner on the passenger side of the van and cushioned her on both sides with seed bags. "You okay?"
She nodded, looking pale.
I piled two more seed bags around her for good measure, then the van took off and I slid back toward the cargo doors.
Where the hell were they taking us?
I cast a desperate eye around the van. A canvas bag containing gardening tools dangled from a single handle, its contents jingling and clanging like pie tins. I crawled across the floorboards and dumped the bag out: a cultivating fork, some pruning shears, a bulb planter. I set the Garden Weasel mini-claw aside, thinking it might come in handy later, grabbed the trowel and crawled back to the cargo door. Kneeling, I used the trowel to scrape at the paint covering the window.
"It's coming off, Naddie!" A peephole began to take shape. I scraped some more, enlarging the opening until it became a nickel, a quarter, a silver dollar. I put my eye to the window.
Traffic was light, but then, it was Sunday. I counted three cars behind us, and then four. Chet was traveling fast, passing everyone in his path. We sped past a highway sign, but I could see only its back side.
We were on an expressway, though. I shifted my gaze to the right, across the median to the other side of the divided highway. A green sign announcing the Route 50 split for Annapolis and Washington, D.C., was receding into the distance. "We're heading north on I-97," I told Naddie.
I started in again with the trowel. I'd made a hole about six inches in diameter when Naddie said, "Listen!"
It was the first of the sirens.
The van slowed. Chet must have heard it, too.
I cupped my face and put it to the window, searching the road behind us for any sign of a police car. The siren grew louder. The van slowed again, but I couldn't see any flashing lights.
"Come on! Come on!" I chanted. "Where the hell are you?"
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A two-tone blue cruiser pulling a U-ey, pitching and yawing over the median strip, siren whoop-whoop-whooping and blue lights flashing.
"Naddie! They're coming! Oh, thank God, thank God!"
But Chet wasn't planning to wait around for the Anne Arundel County police. The van lurched and I was thrown against the cargo door. As the van sped up, I crawled forward, pounding with my trowel on the Plexiglas partition that separated us from the driver's compartment. "Slow down, you idiots! You're going to get us all killed!"
As if they cared. They had seat belts, after all.
I turned to check on Mrs. Bromley. "You okay, Naddie?"
Looking small and frightened between the seed sacks, Mrs. Bromley nodded.
I crawled back to my peephole. The cop car was still behind, easing into the fast lane. He was going to force Chet over.
Then the cop drifted back. In a moment I saw why. A funeral procession, headlights blazing, had been crawling up the slow lane. Model citizens all, they tried to get out of the way, but some had pulled to the shoulder, some to the median, others, in confusion, still clogged the slow lane. Chet barely slowed. Like a stunt car driver gone berserk, he threaded his way between the mourners, horn blaring.
We passed the exit for BWI Airport. In a few minutes, I knew, we'd reach the Baltimore beltway. The cop was still behind, but his lights were receding. Had he determined that the chase was an unreasonable risk to innocent bystanders? Had he given up? Damn! If he didn't catch us before the beltway, Chet could go east on I-695. He could go west. He could drive north through the Harbor Tunnel. Unless the cops called in a helicopter, we might never be found.
I needed to stop Chet. But how?
Still holding the trowel, I crawled around the van, searching desperately for a weapon. I banged into buckets and flower pots, muddy work gloves and boots, a compost pail and a rusty wheelbarrow. It was like crawling through a minefield. Then I saw it, like a beacon in the night: a yellow canister strapped to the wall with a bungee cord. I tucked the trowel into my waistband and, pitching and weaving drunkenly, made my way toward the canister, thinking it would make an excellent bludgeon. Bracing myself against the wall, I unhooked the bungee cords and pulled the canister down. I checked the label. Insecticide. Oh, ho, ho, better yet, I thought as I tucked the canister under my arm. Some painters' masks hung on a peg nearby. I snatched them as I passed and staggered forward.