101 Mystery Stories

49 Death Threat Susan Dunlap

“Don’t give me excuses. Do it right, damn it! What do you think I’m paying you for?” Wynne slammed down the phone.

I stood in the doorway, amazed at my sister’s authority though I had seen her control situations for nearly 40 years. Even lying here in the hospital, she was still the executive, the first woman in the state to have become senior vice president of a major company. I wondered if it was Chuck or some other harried assistant who had felt the sting of her tongue.

As she looked at me her expression changed from irritation to concern. “Lynne, why are you lurking in the doorway? You’re shaking. Come in and tell me what’s the matter.”

I walked in unsteadily and sat on the plastic chair next to the bed. “It happened again.”

“What this time?”

I swallowed, holding my hands one on top of the other on my lap, trying to calm myself enough to be coherent.

The room was bare — hospital-green curtain pulled back against hospital-green walls. Wynne sat propped up in bed. I looked at her face, at the fragile smile that used to be strong. Funny, our features were so similar, almost exact, but no one had ever mixed us up. Wynne’s compact body had always looked forceful, and mine had merely seemed small.

Then she changed so suddenly when she’d become ill months ago. It was as if her underpinnings had been jerked loose and she had sped past me on the way to old age. But even now, from a distance we were indistinguishable. But the way it looked; within six months we would both be dead.

“Lynne, I’m really worried about you,” she said with an anxiety in her voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. “What happened?”

“Another shot at me. It just missed my head. If I hadn’t stumbled—” My hands were shaking.

Wynne put her hand over them, steadying them with her own calm. “Have you notified the police?”

“They’re no help. They take a report and then — nothing. I don’t think they believe me. Another hysterical middle-aged woman.”

Wynne nodded. “Let’s go through the whole thing again. I’m used to handling problems. It gives me something to think about when I’m on the dialysis machine.”

It sounded cold, but it was just Wynne’s way. She didn’t want me to feel I was imposing.

“Someone shot at me three times. If I weren’t always tripping and turning my ankle—”

“And you have no idea who it might be?”

“None. Who would want to kill me? Why? Really, what difference would it make if I died? Who would care?”

“I would.” Her hand pressed mine. “You’re all I have. You don’t know how I look forward to your visits.”

I swallowed. “Wynne, you shouldn’t cut yourself off from your office. Why don’t you let Chuck come to see you?”

“No,” she snapped. “I can’t let him see me like this.”

She looked all right to me — better than I was likely to look if I didn’t find out who was shooting at me.

Wynne must have divined my thought for she said irritably, “You don’t show someone who’s after your job how sick you are. I’ve never told any of them that I’m on the dialysis machine.” She shook her head as if to dismiss an unacceptable thought. “I told them it was just one kidney that failed, that I was having it removed.” Her face moved into a tenuous grin. “I know all the details from your own operation. So don’t say you never did anything for me.”

I didn’t know how to answer. Could Wynne really hide the fact that she was dying? Chuck had been her assistant for ten years. He’d taken over her job as acting senior vice president. I had assumed they were friends, but I guess I didn’t understand the nature of friendship in business.

Impatiently Wynne motioned me to go on.

Swallowing my annoyance, I reminded myself that Wynne was used to giving orders and now she had no one to order around but me. Still, I didn’t know where to begin. I was too ordinary — a middle-aged first-grade teacher — to make enemies. If it had been Wynne—

“Well,” she said, “we’ll have to consider all the possibilities.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have any money, no insurance other than the teachers’ association policy.”

“And that goes to Michael?”

“Yes, but Michael’s not going to come all the way from Los Angeles to shoot his mother so he can inherit two thousand dollars and an old clapboard house.”

“I didn’t mean that.” She looked hurt. “I was just listing all the possibilities. You have to do that. You can’t let sentiment stand in the way of your goal. I had to learn that long ago. There are plenty of people who have wanted me out of the way.”

“But they weren’t trying to murder you!”

“Wynne, I’m the one they’re trying to kill. No one would kill you now. I mean, not when you’re — so sick.” I didn’t want to say dying. But maybe no one knew Wynne was dying. Chuck, at least, had been kept in the dark, or so Wynne thought. I was beginning to wonder if she herself had accepted it. “I mean you’re not working. You don’t have any active connection with the company now. How could you be a threat to anyone?”

The lines in her face hardened. “I know things. When I get out of here, I’m going back. I’ll find out who’s been out to get me. I’ll take care of them! I’m too valuable for the company to just forget!”

I felt angry and guilty at the same time. Wynne had shoved the death threat to me aside — it was less important than her past business vendettas. I looked down at her hands, held one on top of the other on her lap. Just as mine were when I was nervous. In many ways we were so alike.

“Who, particularly,” I asked, “would want to kill you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Chuck? Would he really kill to keep your job? Would he mistake me for you?”

She looked at me in amazement, as if the possibility were too fantastic to believe. “Lynne, anyone — Chuck especially — who would take the trouble and the risk involved in murder would be more careful than that.”

“But maybe they don’t know you have an identical twin.”

She sighed, her jaw settling back in the tired frown. “They know. When you’ve held as important a position as I have, they know.” She paused, then said, “Lynne, I’m afraid you haven’t made much of a case. I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, but the truth is you’ve always leaned on me. Are you sure this death thing isn’t just a reaction to my own condition? It does happen in twins.”

“No, I think not. I’ve been through years of therapy. Our bodies may be identical, but my mind is finally my own!”

She sat silent.

The awkwardness grew. “Listen Wynne, I know you have business to take care of. I interrupted your phone call when I came in, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She nodded, a tired sorrow showing in her eyes. But I wasn’t out of the room before she picked up the phone.

As I walked down the hall, I thought again what an amazing person she was. Dying from kidney failure, and she was still barking at subordinates. I wondered about Chuck — did he allow her to run things from her hospital room? Did he believe Wynne’s story about her condition? Could he think I was she coming for treatment? Not likely. If Chuck were anything like Wynne, by now he would have a solid grip on the vice presidency. He would have removed any trace of Wynne and she’d have to fight him for the job.

Still, I stopped by the door, afraid to go out.

But if Wynne wasn’t giving orders to Chuck or some other subordinate, who was she yelling at? “What do you think I’m paying you for?” she had demanded.

She wasn’t paying anyone at the company. She wasn’t paying any expenses at the hospital — she had full insurance coverage. There was nothing she needed.

Or was there?

My hand went around back to my kidney.