Patriot

CHAPTER 35

As Brick Kelly made his way up his brick walkway, the front door suddenly swung open. Expecting to see Hildy, he was mildly startled. Instead of his housekeeper of many years, there was a tall and very attractive blonde of early middle age. Big blue eyes and a pink Chanel suit that hugged her lush figure. The only sour note was her perfume. It may well have been expensive, but something about the smell was off-putting.

“Hello,” Brick said, smiling. “I’m Brick Kelly.”

He was off balance. He thought he pretty much knew all Jane’s friends, but he couldn’t for the life of him place this woman. She was extremely good-looking. He would have remembered this one, had he met her, wouldn’t he?

“I’m terribly sorry to startle you, Mr. Kelly,” she said in an accent that could only come from the Deep South. She stepped back into the house so he could enter the foyer. “I’m Mrs. Methune. I’m afraid there’s been a terrible accident.”

“What happened?” Brick said, setting his bulging leather briefcase on the console table atop all the mail. He looked around, suddenly on edge for some reason.

“Is Hildy all right? Where the hell is Hildy? Hold on just a second, okay? Hildy? Where are you?”

Brick went first to the kitchen and emerged seconds later, heading for the central staircase.

“Hildy,” he called out. “Please come down here. Right now.” Getting no response, he went back to the woman waiting by the door. “Probably up in the attic,” he said.

Crystal took a step toward him, her face full of tender concern. Her blue eyes brimming… for one insane moment Brick actually thought she was going to kiss him on the lips…

“Someone ran over your poor dog. Right out at the end of the drive. I came around the corner and saw the poor thing lying there in the road. It must have happened only a few seconds earlier. I saw the flashing brake lights of a car up ahead just before it disappeared over the hill.”

“Captain? Jesus Christ! Where is he? Is it bad?”

“I would have taken him straightaway to the vet, but I’m a stranger here, just visiting friends in Upperville, and had no idea which way to go. I gathered the poor thing up in a blanket and brought him here to the house. Your very kind housekeeper and I tried to stabilize him until we could locate the doctor… but…”

“But what?”

“I am so very sorry.”

“He’s dead? Don’t tell me that. Don’t even—”

“He’s on the sofa in the library.”

The director tore himself away and raced down the hall and into his library.

She heard a cry of despair and ducked into the living room. There was a deep velvet wing chair by the hearth and she collapsed into it, her orange Hermès bag resting in her lap, the .38 automatic within easy reach when she needed it.

Timing was everything, as always. She needed to get the target out of the house as quickly as possible. Before he had time to question her about Hildy’s whereabouts. She’d kill him here in the house if she had to, but that was the last thing she wanted to do. She wanted him out under the trees by her car. Where she could put a bullet in his brain and heave him up into the back of the wagon. Drive him back to Kentucky where she would dispose of him and the car as well…

“Where the hell is Hildy?” Kelly demanded, suddenly appearing in the living room doorway. He’d wiped away his tears, but the enormous grief was written all over his face.

“She’s in shock, I’m afraid. Devastated. Poor old thing said she was going up to her room to lie down. I’m to let her know when you arrive and—”

“That won’t be necessary, Mrs.—”

“Methune, Crystal Methune.”

“I’d like to be alone now, Mrs. Methune. I’m sure you can understand that. I’m grateful for all your help. I know you did the best you could under the circumstances. Good Samaritans are as rare as rocking horse shit around here these days… and now… May I at least walk you out to your car? Least I could do, I think.”

She took a tentative step toward the front door, paused, and looked over her shoulder. She said, “Oh, you shouldn’t bother. I can find my way.”

Crystal lasered the big blues on him as she pulled the door open.

“Well, then,” she said, “I’ll be going. But… wait… on second thought, it might help somehow if I described what I saw. The hit-and-run car up ahead, I mean. I only got a glimpse of it but I’m pretty good at that kind of thing…”

“Yes. Yes, that would be very helpful. I wouldn’t mind having a little chat with that sonofabitch,” he said, following her outside.

“Right. You of all people could probably find him. I mean—”

Shit, Crystal thought, her mind racing. Staring at that chiseled face, she’d lost her focus and put him on high alert.

“What the living hell do you mean by that?” he said, his eyes going suddenly dark and suspicious. “Why me ‘of all people’? Do you know who I am?”

“No, of course not — I mean, whoever did it is probably a neighbor. Somebody close by. Someone you know.”

He started at her hard, decided what she’d said was logical.

“Yeah. Probably so,” Brick said.

“All right,” she said, heading down the walk and hoping he’d follow. She left her bag unlatched and hung it from her left shoulder the way she’d been trained.

He was a courtly sort, an old southern gentleman to be sure, trusted her because of her appearance and the old wagon. Men are all suckers anyway; she wasn’t surprised. He’d looked like he wanted to kiss her back there.

He lightly took her elbow as they made their way out into the increasing gloom of evening.

“So, tell me, Mrs. Methune—”

“Please. Call me Crystal, won’t you? And you are?”

“Brick will do. Just Brick.”

First-name basis. Bingo.

“Well, Brick, the first thing I noticed was that there were no skid marks on the pavement. So, whoever it was, he didn’t even bother to hit the brakes…”

“Christ.”

Their footsteps were crunching on the pebbles now. Maybe thirty feet more to her car. She put her hand into her bag as if searching for her keys… covering her action by saying, “He was going very fast or I’d have gotten a much better look at him. Sorry.”

“Definitely a he?”

“Definitely. Bald head.”

“What else did you see? The car color?”

“Yes, it was red. Cherry red. No top. Some kind of sports car, I think. Very loud. Very low to the ground. Do they still make Corvettes?”

“Of course. A red Corvette. Wouldn’t you just know it? Asshole.”

They were very near the Chrysler now and she began to enter the semi-fugue state she went to in kill mode. Everything slowed way down… her fingers closed around the pistol grip, her index finger slid easily inside the trigger guard… and suddenly she went cold. He was no longer walking just behind her, he was matching her stride for stride… what was he doing?

He was stock-still, staring at the bloody front fender of her car.

All the blood! How could she not have seen that? How could she have been so stupid not to have realized—

“You lying fucking bitch!” he cried out, his rage given full vent in an explosion of curses.

She spun to her left, then to her right, pulling the gun as she did, knowing she had him now, swinging the muzzle up to where she’d heard his voice coming from.

He wasn’t there!

No! Somehow he’d bounded up onto the hood of the wagon, and then leaped onto the roof.

She whirled again and fired, missing his head by inches. “You’re going to die like your dog!” she said coolly, squeezing the trigger as she swung the gun around…

He wasn’t there.

He was flown from the roof, hands outstretched, coming straight for her, getting his hands around her throat, his momentum slamming her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her.

He was on top of her now, his right hand going for her gun, his left tightening around her throat. His strength was just overwhelming, and she knew instantly that she’d underestimated her opponent — he was shutting down her esophagus and she had seconds remaining to put a bullet in his head. His hand was sweaty and she was able to twist the barrel away from herself and toward his heaving torso above her. He grabbed her gun hand with blinding speed.

Crystal squeezed the trigger and died in the same instant. At the last second, Brick had found the muzzle of her gun and pressed it into the soft flesh of her belly.

The woman would never know if she’d won that final battle and that was too bad, Brick thought, rolling off her dead body, because she’d goddamn lost that life, the murderous bitch who’d run his dog down in cold blood. His Captain. His beloved old Captain. He’d wanted to avenge Captain’s life with hers and by God he’d done it.

He looked into her stone dead eyes and said, “He’ll get a far better funeral than you will, you worthless piece of filth. You can bet on it. No one will even know you ever lived.”

Brick couldn’t stand the stink of her another second and heaved himself away, rolling over onto the grass. He lay there for a long time, watching the pinpoint stars pop into life in the blue-black heavens above. He mourned his dog then, letting the tears just flow, rolling hot across his cheeks, but not cried in vain.

He’d avenged the life of his old friend of many years. That was all there was to say now. He’d just have to live with the rest of it.

He left her lying there, dead on the gravel, and made his way back up the hill to his house. There were no lights on for some reason. It was full dark. Why hadn’t Hildy turned on the — oh Christ…

He bolted up the walkway, through the front door, taking the steps three at a time. Hildy’s room was up on the third floor, but it took him less than a minute to reach her door at the end of the hall.

He paused a second to catch his breath.

No noise from inside. No snoring. Perhaps she’d taken one of her “sleep tranquilizers” to shut down all the pain over Captain. Not only her own grief, but what she must have imagined Brick would feel like. Poor dear Hildy, with a heart bigger than the sky.

“Hildy,” he said quietly, rapping softly on her door. “Hildy, it’s me. I’m home. Are you asleep?”

Nothing.

Feeling a wave of nausea rising, Brick twisted the knob and pushed the door inward.

All the lights were off, but a new moon was flooding the room.

He walked toward her, already knowing what he was going to find, but unable to just turn and walk away without at least seeing her. He had to look away from her face. The stench of blood was overpowering. He bent down on one knee, taking her hand in both of his and squeezing it before bringing it to his lips.

“Oh, Hildy, I’m so, so sorry.”

How long he knelt there in the streaming moonlight, holding her cold, dead hand he didn’t know. Maybe forever.

But, finally, he realized that he’d seen far more than his share of death this night. He got up, profoundly sad and weary, and walked across the wooden floor, Hildy’s whole room now turned silver by the rising moon. He picked up the phone on the hall table. First he called the McLean police, then CIA. Fighting tears, he descended the stairs.

He pulled the door shut behind him.

He went out into the moonlight. Everything looks lovelier by moonlight. He crossed the small stream and went into the barn to find his shovel. It was right where he’d left it, leaning against the wall just inside the door. He took it and stepped back outside, gazing across at the lovely pale blue countryside, his eyes finally coming to rest on one of his favorite places.

In the near distance was a grassy hillock overlooking the main paddocks, and he went there now. He made his way slowly to the top, seeking the solace he knew he would find up there. The night air was cool and sweet with a perfume that couldn’t be bought for any amount of money, jasmine and honeysuckle.

A single apple tree stood atop the hill, now gnarled and twisted, but it had provided all the shade his family ever needed up there… high summer picnics, usually… but the children’s swing he’d hung from the same limb where his father had once hung one for him. Everything made this a place close to heaven. In spring, it was covered with wildflowers; in summer, like now, with swaying green grass that was never mown. In winter, the gentle slope of the white hill was a paradise for children with sleds.

He found a perfect place at the base of the old apple tree and shoved his spade into the ground to mark the spot.

And then he went down the hill to bring the old Captain home to his final resting place.