The Woman Who Couldn't Scream

  No response. Of course.

  “I just got out of emergency myself. Your local law enforcement spent a useless day chasing after the Terrances. We did find out only one Terrance is left. John Senior dumped John Junior’s body on the road as a distraction. It worked. Moen and I were in the lead, saw the body hit the ground, slammed headfirst into a tree trying to avoid it, got hit from behind, and I ended up getting hauled to the hospital by none other than Stag Denali.” It seemed like Rainbow would say something now. Something raunchy, something funny, something earthy.

  But no, she didn’t move. Her heart monitor beeped quietly, slowly, steadily.

  Kateri continued, “I know, I know. You approve. I approve, too, or rather my loins do. Unfortunately, my brain’s kind of worried about the guy. If you’ll recall, he was walking past the Oceanview Café when the shooting occurred. He dove for the ground a split second before we heard anything. And he came through it unscathed. We’ve been digging bullets and buckshot out of every tree and every building in the square, while he laid right on the sidewalk in full sight and didn’t get a scratch. Which is lucky … unless he planned the shooting. I mean, he waltzes into town, romances me in a big way, announces he wants to build a casino on the rez that’s going to cause no end of trouble for law enforcement, and when I say I oppose it and I unexpectedly win the election, I’m gunned down?” Kateri put her hand on her ribs. “As dear Mrs. Branyon pointed out, you’re the one who actually got gunned down. In my place. Like I didn’t already know that.” Kateri found her throat was getting tight. She swallowed. Waited. Swallowed again. “But the point remains, did Stag help the Terrances plan that drive-by? Not that a drive-by is tough to work out, but for them to escape for four days…” Kateri realized she was staring at Rainbow, expecting an answer. Rainbow was so interested in people, she had such insight into people’s minds and hearts, Kateri depended on her, listened to her …

  She wanted to hear Rainbow again. Hear her voice.

  “Right now they’re doing an autopsy on John Junior. Apparently he was shot during the drive-by. We’ve lost John Senior in the mountains. But Bergen and the guys did find his campsite—or one of them—and his car. He escaped in an off-road vehicle, the bastard.” Sliding her hand under the blanket, Kateri took Rainbow’s cool, still fingers. She leaned close and whispered, “We will get him. I swear to you, we will get him.” She leaned back quickly before her tears could fall on Rainbow’s face.

  Behind her, the door opened. She wiped at her face, then faced Mrs. Branyon.

  But it wasn’t Mrs. Branyon. It was Officer Moen. “Sheriff, you heard what happened with Terrance?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry we screwed up.” The pale, redheaded boy scraped his foot across the linoleum.

  “We didn’t screw up. We simply didn’t realize the cold bastard would treat his son’s body like garbage.” Truer words she’d never spoken. “We know better now, and we won’t underestimate him again.”

  “I can give you the details on the way to City Hall.”

  She cleared her throat. “Dr. Frownfelter told me to go home.”

  “Um, I don’t think you should. Or … or can.”

  For the first time, she focused, really focused, on Moen. He had brown stains on his cuffs and a brown smear across his chest—bloodstains—and the kid looked tired. Grasping his arm, she turned him toward the door and pushed him into the corridor. “Moen, you have to be off duty. Why are you here?”

  “Monique Ries came to the hospital in an ambulance. I came in with her.”

  Monique Ries was a local, probably in her thirties although she looked older, overweight, overly affectionate when intoxicated—and she was always intoxicated. But for all that, no one disliked Monique enough to hurt her. “What happened to Monique?”

  “We had a slashing incident behind the Gem Lounge.”

  “Slashing?” Man, this week just got better and better. “Who? How?”

  “Unknown perp.”

  “Unknown perp…” Yep, better and better.

  “Miss Ries was at the bar getting her morning refreshments…”

  “Right.”

  “She met some guy lurking outside the ladies’ room, he made an offer, she followed him into the alley and he tried to slash her throat with, like, a box knife. Something really sharp.”

  “Slash her throat?” Good God almighty. “He … missed?”

  “She started shrieking and body-butted him.” Moen looked at Kateri meaningfully. “She carries a lot of body.”

  Kateri waved at him to continue.

  “She slammed him into the wall, shrieking all the time. Bertha Waldschmidt heard her and came out the back door with a knife.” Moen was getting enthusiastic in his telling. “Bertha chased him to the end of the alley, then came back for Monique. She’s okay, he missed her throat, cut her along the jawline, but man, you should have seen the blood!”

  “Really. No. I don’t need to see any more blood.” She’d seen enough of her own. “Was she admitted?”

  “I dunno. They’re stitching her up right now. She’s drunk, of course.”

  She and Moen were going to have to have another chat about being careful with his politically incorrect commentary. “Do we have a perp description?”

  “Monique said he was tall, dark and handsome.”

  “Not helpful. What did Bertha say?”

  “Bertha said she wants to talk to you.”

  “Then we’d better go to the police station.” She held up one finger. “Let me say good-bye to Rainbow.”

  “She won’t know—”

  Kateri shot him a look that made him pale so much his freckles glowed like tiny beads of embarrassment.

  “I’ll wait out here,” he said.

  Kateri pushed the door open. She knew a moment of terror while she listened for the beeping of the heart monitor, but it sounded quiet, slow and steady. She walked to the bed. “I’ve got to go to the police station. You know Monique Ries … she got cut by an unknown perp. If you were here and talking, I’ll bet you would have a suspect for me. Wouldn’t you?”

  No answer. Rainbow did not move. The flame of her life flickered so dimly, Kateri could scarcely see it.

  Come on, Rainbow. Wake up! Lightly, Kateri put her hand on Rainbow’s chest. “I’ll be back soon. Stay alive. Please. Stay alive.” Turning, she hurried toward the door.

  She met Mrs. Branyon coming in.

  Mrs. Branyon took one look at the brightly lit room and shrieked, “You wicked girl! Do you never follow instruction from your betters?”

  Tired, impatient and grieved, Kateri snapped, “I do. But I so seldom hear from my betters.” She stalked past Mrs. Branyon, down the corridor and out the exit into the sunshine Mrs. Branyon so despised.

  Okay. Now she was ready to interview Bertha.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Moen babbled all the way into town. First he apologized for hitting the tree, asked how Kateri was feeling, then without waiting for a reply he told her that they’d lost John Terrance, he’d gotten away in an all-terrain vehicle, but they found his camp and confiscated his car. She didn’t try to interrupt, to tell him she already had heard a briefing from Bergen, and sure enough she picked up a few more details she stored away in her mind. Like the fact that Moen’s eyes were gleaming with excitement and the young man who usually only spoke to put his foot in his mouth spewed forth words as fast as he could. Virtue Falls didn’t usually see such drama, and he relished every moment.

  The Virtue Falls City Hall housed the Virtue Falls Police Department. City Hall was in the Historical Registry so when the building survived The Earthquake—everyone in town referred to that life-shattering event as The Earthquake—monies had been collected to fix it. They got more than they hoped and less than they needed, and the resulting fight about whether to restore the ornate façade or strengthen the structure had left them with a lot of seriously peeved citizens on both sides of the fence and a levee to raise enough money to pa
y the contractor when he overran his estimate.

  Speaking as someone who worked in the big old stone building, Kateri thought all the money should have been spent on the seismic design upgrade. But nobody asked her or any of the other officers.

  The walk through the police department to her office proved enlightening. She had left the chase in bad shape and returned in decent shape; she had expected to be inundated with mockery about her female frailty. Instead she heard mumbles of, “Sorry we lost him, Sheriff.”

  When she got to the door of her office, she faced them and said, “Guys, a dead body is a great diversion. Time and again, I’ve gone through it in my mind and I don’t know what else we would have done. Do you?”

  Heads shook.

  “Let me talk to Mrs. Waldschmidt about this attack, then we’ll figure out our next strategy for catching John Terrance.”

  Heads nodded.

  Bergen asked, “You don’t suppose Terrance slashed Monique Ries, do you?”

  Kateri shook her head. “There’s no way he could have gotten down here so fast.” But of course he could, and a smart move that would be with every law enforcement officer in the state chasing around the mountains. “Let me see what Bertha has to say.”

  Bertha Waldschmidt was in her seventies, around five foot two and ninety-five pounds soaking wet. She wore black boots, black leggings, a slender coral sweater and a bulky black cardigan. Her inky-black hair was cut in the same pageboy style she’d worn for as long as Kateri remembered. The Gem Lounge had been in business for forty-five years and Bertha was the original owner. She was the toughest broad who had ever owned a bar in Virtue Falls.

  Kateri adored her.

  “Sweetheart!” Bertha sat in Kateri’s office, drinking the vile police department coffee as if she liked it. “Congratulations on your election. Sorry about the shootings. John Terrance and his son are pigs. Sit down and I’ll tell you what I know about Monique and her hookup.”

  Kateri wandered behind her desk, leaned her staff against the wall, placed her hands on the arms of her chair and lowered herself into the seat. “Good to see you, too, Bertha. Mind if we record this?”

  “Go for it, honey.” Bertha waited while Kateri pulled out her computer tablet, hit Record and placed it on the desk between them. Then, at Kateri’s nod, she launched into her story. “The attacker was never in the bar. I figure he came in by the unlocked back door.”

  “Why was it unlocked?”

  “Because I’m always going out into the alley to smoke my cigarette. Damn stupid state laws, won’t even let me smoke in my own establishment.” Bertha took Kateri’s agreement as natural. “The door’s always unlocked, sometimes the street people come in for a snack, but what do I care? I give them some popcorn, a few sticks of pepperoni, a baggie of vegetables and they wander off again.”

  Beneath Bertha’s gruff exterior beat a kind heart.

  Kateri knew better than to point that out. Bertha was tough; she could also carve out your liver with a broken beer bottle. And she’d break the glass to do it.

  “I went out to smoke, and as soon as I opened the door, there was Monique shrieking at the top of her lungs and beating on this guy. I wasn’t going to interfere. When she’s been drinking, Monique has her ‘sexy moments.’” Bertha used air quotes. “But I took a second look and she was bleeding all down her neck and her shoulder. I yelled a word I don’t use in polite company, grabbed a knife and the guy started running toward the street.”

  “No motivation that you know of?”

  “None. Monique told me she had never seen him before, but she was swimming hard toward the drunk end of the pool.”

  Exactly what Moen had said. “Can you identify the slasher?”

  Moen stepped into the doorway. “Sheriff, you want me to—”

  Bertha cut him off. “I saw him from the back while he was getting the hell out of there. He’s white. Or at least not African-American. Dark brown hair. I think he’s tall, but I’m five one and seven-eighths and I’m no judge of men when they’re vertical.”

  Horror painted Moen’s freckled face, and he ducked away.

  Bertha glanced toward the suddenly empty doorway. “Poor kid. I probably scarred him for life.”

  “He’ll survive.” Kateri wished Bergen hadn’t raised the specter, but now she had to ask, “Was the attacker John Terrance?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t know John Terrance from a hole in the ground.” Bertha’s sharp blue eyes snapped with fury. “’Bout thirty years ago, that smartass swaggering woman-hating hood came into the Gem Lounge selling his filthy drugs. When I told him to get the hell out, he said, ‘What are you going to do about it, old lady?’”

  Kateri leaned her head against the back of her chair. She was going to enjoy this.

  Bertha continued, “I came around the bar. He stood up. I grabbed him by the nuts, lifted him up on his tiptoes and walked him backward out the door and onto the sidewalk. Told him to never return.”

  Torn between amusement, admiration and horror, Kateri asked, “Did he return?”

  “Of course he did. That night with a pistol. I pulled my sawed-off shotgun out from underneath the bar, pointed it at him and asked who he thought he was going to harm with that little popgun. Haven’t seen him since.” Bertha examined her fingernails and smiled. “I did hear he had to fight a lot of men before they stopped laughing in his face.” Her smile faded. “He ambushed them, usually. Nasty punk.”

  “He’s gotten nastier.”

  “I know, dear. I am so sorry about Rainbow. I recall when she was young. I recall when she delivered you. I recall your mother.”

  Of course she did. Kateri remembered going into the Gem Lounge to fetch her mother after those long bouts of drinking that rendered Mary limp, jolly or sometimes … violent.

  “Mary deserved better than your father, but damn, she raised you good. She would be proud.”

  Kateri blinked away tears. Yes. For all the problems she had experienced with her mother, she had never doubted Mary loved her. Kateri had never stopped working for her mother’s approval. She had always believed that somehow, somewhere Mary knew what Kateri had accomplished … She really needed to get home before she dissolved into a puddle of damp emotion. “Thank you, Bertha. I’m glad you think that.” She leaned forward, put her elbows on the desk and fixed her gaze on Bertha’s face. “Listen—John Terrance is a lot more dangerous now than he was thirty years ago, or even last week. He’s out to settle some scores and he’s already proven he can get into town for a shooting. So why not come in and slash a woman’s throat?”

  “Why not try to shoot you again?”

  “Why not make women afraid to come to your bar and destroy your business? And at the same time make me look incompetent as sheriff?”

  Bertha nodded, but doubtfully. “He would have had to think awfully fast and be sort of subtle, and I never heard he was any too bright.”

  “He’s not intelligent, but he’s got an underhanded way of figuring things out.”

  “Like a weasel with rabies?”

  “Yes. I don’t know whether to hope it’s John Terrance and when we’ve got him we’ve got the slasher, or to hope we’ve got two criminals and both are fools.” Kateri rubbed her forehead.

  “If Monique has never seen the slasher before, then he’s not a local because she’s known every man in town, most of them in the biblical sense. So maybe after screwing up his little crime, he’ll move on.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears. But I’m afraid, after your story about getting a grip on John Terrance’s testicles…”

  “Not much there, and I grabbed ’em hard enough to know.”

  “One of the scores he wants to settle is yours. Men don’t forget stuff like that. You’ll be careful?”

  “You bet. A few years ago, I installed a good security system at the Lounge. I live over the bar. So he’s going to have to catch me out in the open to work me over.” Bertha pulled back her bulky cardigan to reveal
a holster and pistol. “I’ve got a concealed carry permit.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “If I see that worthless piece of shit, I’ll shoot first and ask questions afterward.”

  Kateri should give her standard speech: Call law enforcement and do not try to apprehend. She decided against it. After all, Bertha wasn’t going to try and apprehend him. She intended to kill him.

  Bertha continued, “As for Monique’s slasher, I’d recognize him from the back.”

  “For the love of God, don’t shoot him until we prove—”

  Bertha stood up. “I’m old and cranky, but I’m not stupid. Got any other questions about the slashing, Sheriff Kwinault?”

  “That about does it. Thank you for coming in. If you remember any other details, please call and one of my officers will be by to take your statement.”

  Bertha pointed her finger at Kateri. “You come. Come by for a drink.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I know.” Bertha waggled that finger. “You don’t drink alcohol. Come by for a Coke and some corn nuts. When you were a kid, you always liked corn nuts. It would do my barflies good to know the sheriff was interested in their welfare.”

  When Bertha was right, she was right. Kateri painfully pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  Bertha winked and headed out the door.

  Moen eased into Kateri’s office. “Bergen sent me in to take you home.”

  “Great. I’ve got a pain pill calling my name.” Kateri got her walking stick.

  Moen looked distressed. “You don’t suppose Mrs. Waldschmidt meant she likes men to be horizontal? As in…”

  “As in sex?” Kateri grinned as she wound her way through the patrol room. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t want to think. She’s got to be six hundred years old!”

  Dumbass kid. “You know Bertha’s been married five times? To a couple husbands I never met, to the same guy twice, to one guy who was half her age … I heard she wore the poor guy out.”