“For a professor you really aren’t that bright,” said Rocky. “Sure, Cordelia sold a few drugs to some high school kids. Those dolls of hers were a good cover. She was a nice lady. She and I were together a lot of years. But there’s no way Cordelia could have organized the business. She was small-time. All she wanted was money to pay her taxes.”
Suddenly Maggie understood.
“Annie. Annie was the one who managed the operation, wasn’t she?” Annie, who collected high-end antiques and wore expensive clothes on a small-town police chief’s salary.
Annie, who kept busy every hour of the day proving she was a perfect wife and mother. Annie, who had friends and family in South Boston. Suddenly it all fit together.
“But what about Dan Jeffrey? Why was he killed?” Maggie moved closer to the car door and kept pushing it with her shoulder and arm. She had to get out. The metal creaked and moved another fraction of an inch.
“He panicked when his daughter showed up. He thought she’d tell her friends in Colorado he was still alive, and it’d get back to the police or insurance people there, and he’d be arrested. He didn’t want that. He was going to take off. Annie said she loved him. I don’t know the details. But what Annie wants, Annie gets. Dan hired me to take him to Boston in my old fishing boat. I hardly use it anymore, but he was desperate to get away and not have anyone see him go, so I agreed. Somehow Annie found out. She met us at my dock at dawn the day we were going to leave. They argued, and she shot him. She paid me to take him and the gun and throw them both overboard in the Bay. I guess I didn’t go far enough out.”
“And Cordelia?” She tried to keep her voice steady, and Rocky talking, while she put as much pressure as she could on the jammed door. Every tenth of an inch counted.
“She wanted out of the business. At first she wanted to scare Diana, get her to leave Winslow. Get her away from the drugs and the craziness. That was the fire.”
“Cordelia was going to burn her own house?”
“She was pretending to. Then she told me she’d decided to get out of the business. She’d changed her will, Dan was gone, and she was going to ask Diana to come and live with her. She wanted a family. She was going to tell Annie she wasn’t taking any more product. She was going to return what she had, and that was the end.”
“And?”
“Next thing I knew Cordelia was dead.” Maybe Rocky’s eyes were filled with tears. Maybe the rain had just gotten harder.
“And so now you’re supposed to kill me,” said Maggie. “Because I know too much.”
“Idiot. You’ve made sure she knows more than she did before.” Annie’s voice was weak, but her eyes were open, and beginning to focus. “You’re even more stupid than I thought you were, Rocky.”
“Annie, I may be stupid, but I know enough to know I’m through with you. Through with all this. Killing Cordelia put it over the line for me. I loved that woman. You knew that, but it didn’t make a difference. You had no reason to kill her.”
“If she wasn’t in the business, she could have turned on us.”
“She didn’t know about Dan.”
“But I do. And now you’ve been crazy enough to tell this Maggie person. You’re an accessory to Dan Jeffrey’s murder, Rocky. There’s no way you’ll get away with that.”
Rocky reached under his hoodie.
Through the rain Maggie saw the end of Rocky’s gun. She pushed her shoulder even harder against the car door. The metal was groaning, but pounding rain on the roof of the car and the wind all around them masked the sound.
“You think you can get away with shooting both of us?” Annie managed to shriek. “Two defenseless women, trapped in a car, shot by a madman? My husband will hunt you down!”
Maggie, focused on trying to get her car door open, and on Rocky outside in the rain, heard Annie groan. She glanced back. Annie was looking for her pocketbook. “My gun,” she whispered. “In my bag. My gun.”
No way was Maggie giving a killer a gun. Especially a killer who’d lured her to wherever this place was and planned to kill her. She hoped the pocketbook was far enough back in the car that Annie, jammed in the front seat with a broken arm, wouldn’t be able to reach it. The gun must still be in her purse since she hadn’t seen it on the car floor.
Rocky was pointing his gun now, aiming it through the open car window, only inches from Maggie’s head.
If she closed the window would the glass deflect the bullet?
Not at such close range.
Besides, it would take too long to close the window.
“I think it would be simpler for me to shoot now,” he said, calmly. “At least I won’t be shooting either of you in the back of the head, Annie, the way you shot Cordelia. I’m giving you each a chance to think about what’s going to happen. Who wants to die first?”
One chance. Luckily the darkness and rain meant Rocky couldn’t see inside the car as well as Maggie could see out. She took every bit of strength she had left and pushed on her door.
This time it gave way, with the loud sound of metal scraping metal. The door sprang open, hitting the unsuspecting Rocky’s torso, including his gun arm, knocking him into the muddy street, and taking Maggie with it, as she held on to the door handle.
Rocky’s gun fired, and Maggie grabbed at the arm holding the gun, and kneed him in the groin.
He screamed and doubled up in pain as she grabbed the gun and managed to pull herself upright on the open door and limp a few feet away from both Rocky and the car.
She stood, gun pointed at Rocky, but with an occasional glance toward the car to make sure Annie hadn’t figured out how to reach her purse. And her gun.
Her ankle wasn’t just throbbing, she realized. It gave her no support. She couldn’t run.
She checked the gun. It was loaded. She’d hated going hunting with her father when she’d been a child, but she had learned a few things from those days.
She aimed, and she could shoot if necessary.
She didn’t say anything, and all Rocky did was swear a couple of times.
It seemed they were there, Rocky on the ground, Maggie standing in the rain and wind, forever.
But it was probably only a couple of minutes before they all heard the screams of an ambulance, and then a police car, in the distance. And then coming closer.
Chapter 40
Papaver somniferum.Hand-colored print from A.B. Strong’s The American Flora, or History of Plants and Wild Flowers, 1846. White Poppy, with yellow center and green stem and leaf. This variety, whose botanical name means “sleep-bringing,” is the plant from which opium is derived, which is why L. Frank Baum had Dorothy and her friends fall asleep in a field of them in The Wizard of Oz. 6.5 x 9 inches, toned at edges. Price: $50.
After the ambulance and police arrived, the flurry of activity and explanations was confusing, but adequate.
Rocky ended up at the police station. Annie and Maggie were both taken to Winslow General Hospital, with police escorts.
“Sorry to break up the bachelor party,” Maggie’d explained, after she was finally able to borrow a telephone at the emergency room and call Will. “But I hope you and Jim are still sober. There was a car accident, and I know you’re mad, but I need you to pick me up at the hospital. Bring Jim, too. I think I might need a lawyer.”
“Jim’s not with me,” Will had said. “Both pre-wedding parties were cancelled. You have no idea how worried I’ve been about you. Right after you left Gussie called to tell us to stay safe and dry and not go out tonight. I’ll call Jim now. You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Except my ankle. ”