“And be left without any money?”
“You’d have gotten alimony.”
“Not if I remarried.”
“And who were you planning to—” Then I stopped, because I knew the answer. I’d forgotten the clipping I also found in her purse.
“I did it for you, Mark — don’t you see that? Now we’re both free and I’ve got his money. And the store!”
I knew then that I had to tell Chief Lambert about it. Keeping quiet would only have involved me deeper in her crazy scheme. “It’s time to go back,” I said.
She stood for a moment in the dim light, staring down at the place where the fire had been. Then she hugged herself and shivered. “It’s over, isn’t it?”
“All over.”
How to Kill a Hostage
by Richard Reinsmith
Her name was Susan. She was young and pretty — with her whole life ahead of her — but she could identify the men who’d robbed the bank, so she’d have to die. The question was: how to kill her? The answer was surprising — but quite effective!
When we came out of the bank, Sam held the hostage’s wrist, dragging her along. I carried the bag of money and we each had a gun in our right hand. We’d chosen the Triangle Shopping Center bank because the parking lot was a hell of a mess and we knew cops would have trouble reaching the scene. We’d counted on a teller pushing one of those silent alarms that notifies the police a robbery is in progress. We’d calculated we would be on our way before the cops arrived.
But it didn’t turn out that way. Two state troopers were outside the bank when we emerged. They didn’t fire at Sam because he had the pretty blonde bank teller shoved in front after we came through the glass doors. But they didn’t give a damn about shooting at me. A bullet roared past my head and smashed glass.
I had planned my response when we first began outlining the robbery. I didn’t want to kill a state cop. But I didn’t want to stand around on a Principle while one shot me. So, I’d finally reasoned, if we were faced with a shootout, I’d aim for the cop’s stomach. I deliberately carried a .25. With luck a person could live though a gut shot with that caliber — if somebody got him to the hospital fast enough, if the surgeon was good and if the bullet hadn’t done too much damage. What you might call a fighting chance. Whereas, if I’d carried a .45, the chances wouldn’t be so good. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people cannot live after having a .45 pass through their stomach.
The cop went down when I hit him and, luckily, the gun flew from his hand. I’d hoped the shot would knock him unconscious but it didn’t. There are times when it seems nothing goes exactly the way you’d hoped. He crawled toward his gun. Stubborn soul. Meanwhile — Sam had shot the other cop in the chest.
We reached our car. I was sliding behind the steering wheel when I heard Sam shoot again and looked up to see he’d shot the arm of the cop who’d been crawling toward his weapon. I only saw the last of it but it looked as if that stubborn soul had been about to shoot me in the back.
But then I slammed the car door and we roared out of there. A quarter of a mile away, we skidded to a stop beside the second car we’d arranged, transferred the money and the hostage to the trunk. Sam slapped some adhesive tape around the girl’s mouth, put handcuffs on her wrists. We took our false mustaches and beards and long-hair wigs, putting them in the bag we’d thought. I drove the second car toward our home base point while Sam walked the three blocks to our third car — dropping the bag of wigs in a street trash can.
All we needed now was some luck. The police would be looking for two men in a white car while we would be individuals, each driving a black car. The hair bit might throw them off too, if they took the wigs and so forth seriously, because Sam and I both had short haircuts, my hair was grey and Sam’s was blond.
About eight or nine blocks away, I stopped at a traffic light. A county cop pulled up beside me.
He frowned. He tilted his head to one side as if listening intently. I tilted my head to the same angle and tried to turn up the volume control on my ears.
Then I heard it. Thump-thump-thump. The girl in the car trunk was kicking.
“What the hell is that?” the county cop asked, frowning more deeply. He was a good frowner and looked like a mean cop.
I listened to the girl kicking against the trunk lid and said, “That’s my muffer. Got a bad hole. Makes a weird sound.”
“You’re telling me? You better get that fixed. You know there’s a law against—” But he stopped in midstream because they were calling him on his radio and telling him about an armed robbery at the Triangle Shopping Center. He did an illegal U-turn at the intersection and sped off.
I drove on to home base, took the money inside and then the girl. “You almost got me into trouble back there,” I told her. I pulled up the hidden trap door and pointed at the stairs. “There’s a bomb shelter down there,” I explained. “A comfortable room to keep you in until the heat clears off.”
I motioned for her to go down the stairs.
She shook her head no.
I said, “please?”
She mumbled something beneath the bandage that sounded like a no and didn’t move.
We must have picked the toughest teller in the bank.
“If you don’t walk down the stairs, I’ll hit you on the head and roll you down while you’re unconscious.”
I thought the threat would work but her face reddened with anger, she glared and growled something beneath the gag that sounded like a threat. I walked around and goosed her with the barrel of the .25.
She squealed and then moved under her own steam.
When Sam arrived an hour or so later, we divided the money. Over a hundred thousand dollars apiece — not a bad haul if we didn’t have to pay with our lives. As each hour went by, it looked as if there was less and less likelihood we’d have to pay in any way. We listened to the police radio band and learned they were apparently chasing us in the next state.
“It worked,” Sam said with a smile as we sat there, looking at each other over the two stacks of money on the table.
The plan had started when Sam’s father died and we began renovating his summer cottage for either sale or personal use. We couldn’t quite decide which. In the process of working on the cottage, we’d discovered the hidden trap door and the bomb shelter beneath. We’d started by speculating it would be a good place for someone to hide the loot if they pulled a robbery. The speculation had led to the actual plan. We had a perfect reason for being at the cottage. Everybody in the country knew we were renovating it.
“Now we let the hostage loose and we can relax.” Sam looked at the girl as she sat there tied to the chair and the smile slowly faded from his face.
At first I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The gag was still around her mouth. Nothing wrong with it. I’d done a good job of tying her to the chair.
Her blue eyes kept watching us, growing wider and wider.
“We made a mistake,” Sam said. “We forgot to blindfold her.”
I was glad he said we.
Hell of a mistake to make. We’d planned a blindfold.
“We’ll have to kill her,” Sam said. “She knows what we look like.”
“I’ll do it,” I volunteered. “She’s a royal pain, almost got me in trouble for having a bad muffler... You know that law about mufflers? She was kicking like hell in the trunk. And she wouldn’t come down the stairs.”
I took my gun, released the safety and aimed at her head. Sam turned the other way. He didn’t want to watch.