The Hot Pink Farmhouse

CHAPTER 13

There was so much sobbing coming from the other end of the phone that at first Mitch couldn’t even tell who the caller was. When he finally recognized the voice he laid down his fork and said, “Slow down, Takai. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Father!” she cried out. “I-I don’t know what to do or who to

… I’m so sorry to bother you, but I-”

“It’s okay, I’m not doing anything special.” In truth, he was busy wolfing down a third helping of Des’s remarkable Hoppin’ John. Des was still on the job. Bella had headed back to the Frederick House for the night and the Deacon had gone home. So had the helicopters that had been circling overhead for the past two hours, making him feel as if he were living in a war zone. “Just tell me what’s happened-is Hangtown all right?”

“No, he is not all right! He’s in one of his drunken rages. Totally out of control. And they’re not releasing Jim until the morning and I’m all by myself and-”

“Wait, isn’t there still a trooper stationed there?”

“He’s parked way down at the gate to keep the damned press out. There’s no one here besides me. And I just can’t handle him. H-he’s really scaring me, Mitch. I’ve never seen him this bad. Could you

…?”

“Don’t say another word. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He went right out the door into the darkness, jumped into his pickup and headed over the wooden causeway to Peck Point. It had gotten windy out, and a cold drizzle was beginning to fall. A couple of TV news reporters from Hartford were still huddled under bright lights at the gate, trying to hold on to their hairdos as they filed their stories on Melanie Zide’s murder for the eleven-o’clock news. He steamed right past them and got onto the Old Shore Road and floored it, heading north with his brights and wipers on.

By the time he turned off of Route 156 onto Old Ferry Road the drizzle had become a hard, steady rain. There was no press corps clustered at the foot of Hangtown’s private drive at this hour. Only the one state police cruiser that Takai had mentioned, which sat there blocking the entrance to the drive, its lights on, its engine running, a lone trooper behind the wheel. Mitch pulled up and waited but the trooper wouldn’t budge from his nice dry ride, so Mitch had to get out and slog through the rain with his head down to tell him that Takai was expecting him. The trooper didn’t seem the least bit interested. He didn’t even roll down his window when Mitch tapped on it. Asleep. The big oaf was asleep.

Annoyed, Mitch yanked open the guy’s door and-

Out he tumbled, his weight bowling Mitch over onto the wet ground underneath him, the trooper staring right down at him with half of his head blown off and a look of blind terror on what was left of his face.

Mitch let out a strangled cry and scrambled out from under him, shuddering with revulsion. Now he was seeing blood and more blood in the light of his truck’s beams. Some of it had gotten on him. And there was broken glass all over the dead man and the seat and the dashboard. Whoever shot him had fired right through the passenger-side window.

Mitch stood frozen there, overcome by the shock and the horror of it. Briefly, he thought he might pass out. Dazed, he stumbled blindly away… And then… And then he started running, slipping and sliding on the wet leaves, falling, getting back up. Up the long, twisting dirt drive he ran in the black of night, hearing himself panting, his footsteps chunking heavily. Mitch ran and he ran. Past the totem poles made of personal computers, alongside the meadow filled with car parts, around the big bend toward Wendell Frye’s hot pink house. The place was ablaze with lights. Every light in every window was on. Mitch ran and he ran, staggering to a halt only when he’d reached Moose’s old Land Rover, which was parked right out front.

He fell against it, gulping for breath, his chest aching, when suddenly Sam came lunging furiously at him from the front seat, throwing himself against the rolled-up windows, barking and snarling.

Someone had locked Hangtown’s dog in the car, and the normally mellow German shepherd was totally beside himself, a hundred and twenty savage pounds of fangs and muscles. Mitch didn’t know why he’d been locked up. But he wasn’t going to let him out. Not the way he was acting.

The front door to the house was wide open.

Mitch proceeded inside, calling out Takai’s name, calling out Hangtown’s name, listening, hearing nothing in response. No sound at all except for his own heart pounding in his chest. Dripping wet, he headed straight for the phone in the kitchen to call for help. Des. He would call Des. He picked up the phone and was starting to punch in the numbers when he realized it was dead. Nothing but stone-cold silence greeted his ear.

The line was out. Someone had made sure it was out.

Mitch did have a cell phone for emergencies, but in his mad haste he had left it in his truck. He was standing there in the big farm kitchen thinking seriously about going back for it when he heard the scream.

It was a woman’s scream. A scream of absolute terror. No time for phone calls. Only time to do something. The scream had come from the direction of the living room. Mitch started that way… Only now he could hear footsteps running directly overhead. Doors slamming. A cackling of maniacal laughter. Another scream-this time it seemed to be coming from the basement.

The passageways. They were in Hangtown’s secret passageways.

He grabbed a flashlight from the counter and dashed into the living room, trying to remember which suit of armor activated which hidden door. And exactly where that damned trapdoor in the floor was. He was not anxious to take another wild funhouse ride down to the cellar. Bracing himself, Mitch took a deep breath and raised the right gauntlet of one of the suits… and the trapdoor immediately dropped open right next to his feet. Greatly relieved, he lifted the visor on the other suit, opening the bookcase next to the fireplace. He barged through it into the utter darkness of the narrow secret passageway, flashlight in hand, fingering his way along its damp, cobwebbed walls. His knees did not feel entirely normal. Rubbery was not normal. And the beam of the flashlight was beginning to flicker. The batteries were almost gone, and a horrified Mitch was suddenly realizing…

My God, I have seen this movie a million times. There’s always a tight shot on the Amiable Boob who’s just trying to help out. And as he stupidly gropes his way along, the Drooling Madman jumps out of the darkness behind him with an ax and the audience sees him and the Amiable Boob doesn’t and… WHAM! Only I am NOT sitting safely in a darkened theater with a jumbo-sized tub of hot buttered popcorn in my lap. I am IN this. Moose and Melanie are really dead. That cop out at the gate is really dead. And, if I don’t watch out, I am really dead.

Now the floor fell away before him. He’d reached the spiral staircase to the cellar. He went down slowly, the narrow wooden stairs creaking under his weight as small creatures skittered along the water pipes right near his head, squealing. Rats. They were rats. At the bottom of the stairs he reached a cement floor, the flashlight’s dimming beam falling on the slick catacomb walls. He inched his way forward, hearing footsteps running above him, alongside him, next to him. And cackling. He heard a man cackling. And now a woman’s voice was crying, “No, don’t! No!” Christ, where were they? And now, yes, he was in the wine cellar. He’d found the wine cellar. Fumbling for the light switch, he flicked it on.

Nothing. No lights came on.

Mitch waved the flashlight’s faltering beam around. The hidden cupboard in the wall, the one where they used to stash booze during Prohibition, was wide open. He searched the shelves in hopes of finding candles or matches. But he found nothing but dust. And now his flashlight was practically dead and he was going to be stranded down here in the blackness, blind and helpless, if he didn’t come up with a plan, and fast…

The kitchen. There were kerosene lanterns in the kitchen. If he could just find that passageway that Hangtown had led him down… Yes, here it was. This one… Okay, good, and here was the other spiral staircase, the one that led up to that secret corridor behind the upstairs bedrooms. On the other end of that corridor was the old service staircase to the kitchen. It was a plan. He could do this.

Mitch felt his way up the winding stairs from the cellar to the second floor in almost total darkness. His flashlight was barely giving off a glow now. Groping the wall for balance, he heard a door slam. And then Hangtown’s voice cry out, “You won’t get away from me! You will never get away!” And Takai shriek, “Father, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Both of their voices seemed only inches away from him. But all he could see was blackness.

Where were they? Where?

Now he stumbled. There were no more stairs. He had reached that narrow second-floor corridor. He’d forgotten just how low the ceiling was. He ran headfirst into the cobwebs, his face covered with them. A spider moved across his cheek en route to his mouth. He swiped it away, his skin crawling, and felt his way blindly around one sharp corner, then another…

Until suddenly he came upon blessed, golden light. It was the secret doors in back of the bedroom closets. They’d been flung open, the bedroom lights flooding the passageway with illumination. Blinking, Mitch halted at the first room he came to and parted the clothing that hung there in the closet before him. The entire room had been trashed. Furniture was overturned, bedding strewn.

Now he heard a tremendous crash from the room next door, followed by a shriek.

And Takai was streaking down the narrow corridor toward him, her face stricken with terror. Takai’s white silk blouse was ripped to shreds, her gray flannel slacks torn at the knees. And she was limping. One shoe was off, her bare foot bleeding. “Oh, thank God, thank God, thank God!” she cried as she ran smack into Mitch, hugging and kissing him madly, hysterically. She was absolutely out of control, her breath sour and hot as she clutched him, great sobs coming from her throat. “You’re here! You’re really here! Oh, thank God!”

Mitch could hear glass being smashed in the next bedroom, heavy footsteps thudding on the floor. “Where are you, princess?!” Hangtown roared. “I’ll find you! I’ll kill you!”

“What’s happened?” Mitch demanded, shaking Takai by the shoulders. “Tell me!”

“Where’s your gun?” she sobbed. “You must… you’ve got to shoot him!”

“I have no gun. Try to get a hold of yourself. What’s going on?”

“He’s gone c-completely mad!” Takai managed to get out. “First he shot the cop at the gate. Now he’s trying to shoot me. He’s been chasing me all over this crazy house. H-he has the Barrett, Mitch. That giant shotgun he used on Moose.”

“I’ll kill you!” Hangtown’s footsteps were coming closer now. “You can’t get away from me!”

Takai let out a scream. Mitch grabbed her by the hand and yanked her roughly back down the corridor into the darkness.

“Mitch, I can’t see!” she protested breathlessly, stumbling against him as they descended the spiral staircase blindly.

“Just hold on to me,” he whispered, Hangtown’s footsteps growing fainter as they escaped farther back down into the blackness, Takai’s slim hand cold and clammy in his. “He shot Moose, is that it?”

“Yes, Mitch. God knows why. He loved her. He needed her. He…” Takai’s voice trailed off in the darkness, her breathing shallow and uneven. “He keeps mumbling something about his damned will, of all things.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. He’s making no sense… God!”

“Do you know where he keeps it?”

“What difference does that make? We have got to get out of here before he kills us both!”

“My truck’s down at the gate. So is my cell phone, I’m afraid. Your phone is out.”

“I know-he cut the outside wires. And stole my cell phone out of my shoulder bag.”

“Does he keep his will in that wall safe in the living room?”

“I think so,” she replied, as they inched their way down the staircase, step by step. “But I don’t know the combination. No one does, except for Father.”

“Okay, that’s not a problem.”

“Are you saying he told you the combination?”

“He didn’t have to-I know how his mind works.”

“I’ve known that awful man my whole life and not once have I known him. How can you even say that?”

Because he was certain, that was how. In fact, Mitch had never been as certain of anything in his whole life.

They reached the passageway at the bottom of the staircase now, standing there in the blackness as Mitch tried to regain his bearings. “I don’t suppose you can find your way back to the living room from here, can you?”

“With my eyes closed,” she replied. “We used to play down here when we were kids.”

Now she was the one leading Mitch. Slowly and surely, she led him back through the darkness of the catacombs toward the rickety wooden staircase. Up they climbed, back toward that secret doorway next to the fireplace, back into the living room. They stood there hand in hand, blinking from the lights. Listening for Hangtown. Hearing only silence. Takai suddenly becoming aware of how revealing her torn blouse was. She folded her arms primly in front of her exposed, taut left nipple, her bare shoulders scratched and bleeding, one cheek scraped raw. Her bare foot still oozed blood.

Mitch started toward the big rolltop desk over by the windows and pushed the button under the center drawer, triggering the panel of bookcases that hid the wall safe. “The combination will be taped underneath one of the other drawers,” he told her.

“How do you know that?” Takai demanded, sticking close to him.

“Because that’s where it is in every old movie I’ve ever seen-more important, he’s ever seen.”

“Make it fast,” she said urgently. “We’ve got to get out of here before he finds us.”

Quickly, Mitch knelt before the desk and started yanking out its drawers, dumping their contents out onto the floor and flipping them over, one after another after another… until, sure enough, there it was, on the underside of the bottom left-hand drawer, scrawled in pencil on a piece of masking tape: R16-L18-R26-L08.

Mitch tore it off and headed for the wall safe with it, Takai gaping at him in amazement. After spinning the dial a couple of times he carefully entered the correct combination, paused and yanked the safe open.

The first thing he found inside was cash. Lots of cash. Stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in rubber bands.

“My God,” Takai gasped, piling them onto the desk. “That crazy old man must have a hundred thousand bucks in there.”

“You didn’t know about it?”

“Are you kidding me? If I had, I would have told him to put it in the damned bank.”

Deeper inside the safe, Mitch found a metal strongbox. It was unlocked. He found a fistful of stock certificates and legal papers inside. But it was the folded legal brief right on top that was of greatest interest, the one proclaiming itself “The Last Will and Testament of Wendell Frye.”

It was not an old document. It was on crisp new paper that still smelled of fresh ink. In fact, it was dated only three days ago, Mitch noticed. “He must have changed his will,” he mused aloud. “Sure, that must be what he meant.”

“Here, let me see that…” Takai snatched it away from him, her eyes scanning it quickly. And growing narrower and narrower as she began to comprehend the details. “Oh, that bastard!” she hissed. “He will never get away with this!”

“Oh, yes, I will, princess,” a heavy voice spoke up from the front hallway.

It was Hangtown, standing there in the doorway with the huge. 50-caliber Barrett propped against his shoulder. It looked something Rambo might have used to shoot a chopper out of the sky. As for the aged artist, he seemed exhausted and disheveled, but calm.

Eerily calm.

“I took you out of my will and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it,” he said, his voice low and menacing. Now he propped the Barrett on a table, the weight of its long barrel steadied by its own built-in stand, and pointed it directly at his younger daughter. “Care to know why I did it, Big Mitch?”

“Whatever you say, Hangtown,” Mitch replied, his eyes never leaving that big gun.

“He’ll kill us both, Mitch!” Takai cried. “He’s out of his mind.”

“I’ve never been more sane in my life,” Hangtown said. “That evil woman’s trying to trick you, Mitch. It wasn’t me who shot Moose. It was she. She killed Colin’s secretary. And she killed that cop at the gate, too. She wanted you to think I did it so you’d come running to her rescue. She was hoping you’d shoot me down like a rabid dog.”

“I could never do that to you,” Mitch insisted. “Not in a million years.”

“Then she would have done it herself,” Hangtown told him. “With you serving as her sympathetic witness. But I stopped her. And now it’s all over.”

“Put down that gun, Father,” Takai pleaded, her voice quavering. “You’re sick. You need help.”

Hangtown ignored her, staring down at the gun in his hands. “When I gave you that tour of my wine cellar the other night,” he told Mitch, “I discovered that somebody had been using my secret hooch cupboard. Hiding something in there. Something wrapped up in a rug or a blanket.”

“I noticed the outline in the dust,” Mitch recalled. “I remember that you seemed bothered.”

“Damned straight I was. Because there were only three other people on the face of the earth who knew that cupboard existed-Takai, Moose and Big Jim. And because I had no idea what was going on. None. Not until it was too late. Too damned-” He broke off, his voice choking, before he turned his penetrating blue-eyed gaze on his daughter.

Takai had begun to back slowly up against the fireplace, her own eyes wide with fear. She was trapped and she knew it.

“After you murdered your own sister with this thing,” Hangtown said to her, “you stashed it back in the hooch cupboard, knowing the police would never find it there. But I found it in there. That’s when I knew you’d done it, you evil bitch. But I kept quiet-I didn’t want the law to have you. I wanted to take care of you myself, just as soon as the two of us were alone. I wanted the satisfaction of telling you that you were too late. I wanted to see the look on your lovely, twisted face when you realized that you killed Moose for nothing.” He stood there grinning at her crookedly. “It may not be much, but it’s the only satisfaction this old soul has left. That and seeing you die before I do.”

“You bastard,” she snarled at him, the skin stretching tight across the bones of her face. “You mean, sick bastard.”

“Go on and tell him, princess,” Hangtown thundered at her. “Tell Mitch how you killed your own sister.”

“Screw you!”

He fired the Barrett, a colossal, deafening boom that took out a fist-sized hole over the mantel less than a foot from her head.

She shrank back against the fireplace, her teeth chattering.

Mitch stood there frozen, his ears ringing, realizing that there was only one way this could possibly turn out. Takai was going to die-right here, right now. There was no way he could stop it. The only question that remained unanswered was whether he himself was about to die, too.

If only Des knew he was here. If only he’d called her. If only

…

“It’s all about this farm,” Hangtown explained to him, his gnarled, misshapen hands loosely cradling the huge gun. “That’s why she killed her. My old will left it to both of them after I was gone. And my Moose would never, ever sell out her heritage to any pillager like Bruce Leanse. Her I raised right. So Takai took her out, ensuring that she’d come into the whole thing when it’s time for me to take my own dirt nap-or so she thought. I was one step ahead of her, Big Mitch. The more involved she got with Leanse, the more positive I became that she’d try to destroy this place after I’m gone. And I couldn’t let that happen. Not on my watch. I’m responsible for our land. So I’ve taken care of it. Left it to the art academy. They’ll maintain it as a place where young artists will always be able to live and work. The Nature Conservancy will see to the wetlands. And you, my dear sweet princess, get nothing. Not one acre. Not one cent.” The old man’s finger tightened on the trigger once again. “Tell him, girl,” he commanded her. “Tell Mitch how you killed your own sister. Tell him or I’ll put this one right between your treacherous eyes!”

“Fine!” Takai spat at him defiantly. “I’m happy to tell him. I’m proud of what I did. I started planning it when I went out to Southern California this summer to visit the grave of my mother, a sweet, beautiful woman who you tormented until she killed herself, you sadistic bastard. I wanted to blow your head to pieces. I wanted the biggest gun money can buy. I wanted that gun. I bought it at a gun show in Gardena with a fake ID. I bought my Porsche out there, too. That’s how I got the damned gun home. I drove back with it cross-country. Got in some target practice in the Mojave Desert, too, so I’d be good and ready. I bought it with the express purpose of killing you,” Takai said to her father with cold, quiet savagery. “Until, slowly, it began to dawn on me that I’d be letting you off the hook that way-if you were dead, you wouldn’t feel any pain. I wanted you to feel the pain, every day and every night. I wanted you to suffer like I had suffered. There was only one person on the face of the earth who you gave a damn about-Moose. So I killed her.”

Now Mitch understood. Now he knew what Hangtown had meant when he said the past had killed Moose. Payback. It was payback.

“I killed her knowing that you’d spend the last days of your cruel, miserable life in torment,” Takai went on, her eyes feverish. “I killed her knowing that when you did finally die I’d be your sole heir-and could do what I wished with this run-down, weedy old junkyard

… I waited for the right opening. She handed it right to me when she started sneaking out every night to bang Colin. All I had to do was pull the ignition coil on her Land Rover.” Now Takai let out a shrill, mocking laugh. “You taught us all about cars when we were little, remember, Father?”

“And how to hunt,” Hangtown affirmed miserably. “I remember.”

“I knew she wouldn’t want to bother with jumper cables at that time of night. All of that raising and lowering of hoods might wake you or Jim up. Plus she was anxious to be with Colin. And my bedroom light was on. So she asked if she could borrow my car. I gave her my keys and reconnected her coil as soon as she took off. Easy. When the trooper tested it the next day, and it kicked right over, I passed it off as nothing more than quirky Lucas wiring. Totally believable.”

“Just as it was totally believable that someone in Dorset would try to kill you,” Mitch spoke up, the pieces beginning to fall into horrible place now. “You were the one with all the enemies. You were the one noted for her night moves. It was your car. Everyone assumed that you were the intended victim-and that poor Moose simply got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that wasn’t it at all. She was the target all along. Very clever.”

“Not clever,” Hangtown argued. “Evil-through and through.”

Takai didn’t respond, just stood there smirking at her father in ugly triumph.

“Yet you cried for Moose in my arms,” Mitch said to her. “Genuine tears. How were you able to do that?”

“I was crying for my mother,” she answered bitingly. “I’ve cried for her each and every night. But I got even. It took me years, but I got even.”

“And you found yourself a fall guy in Jim Bolan,” Mitch said.

“That part was even easier,” she said, nodding. “Since he’d been a sniper in ’Nam, I chose a sniper’s roost. And planted one of Jim’s cigarette butts there that I stole from an ashtray. With three pairs of heavy socks on, I was able to wear his mudroom boots up there. By carrying the Barrett, my weight even approximated his. If they wanted to build a case against him, and they did, the shoe prints were his. I knew what time she’d be getting home. I waited for her there at the crossroads. When she came to a stop, I let her have it. It was perfect. And I would have gotten away with it, too, if that damned pig Melanie hadn’t wrecked everything. She wanted twenty thousand to keep quiet. Twenty thousand or she’d talk. Damn that woman!”

“She found out?” Mitch asked.

“Not about this,” Takai snapped contemptuously. “About the other thing.”

Mitch shook his head at her, confused. “What other thing?”

“That I was Cutter,” Takai explained. “Colin’s male cyber lover. Or at least he thought I was male. It was a scam that Melanie and Babette cooked up. I agreed to help them out-because the new school is vital to my future, and because I know what men want. I know how to hook you, and how to keep you hooked. You are so easy… I created an online identity for myself and I went after Colin and I hooked him, but good. It worked like a charm-until Melanie got greedy. I was afraid she might wreck my whole plan. I just couldn’t chance that. So I had her meet me upriver at the Millington Ferry parking lot late at night. Supposedly to pay her the money she wanted. Instead, I shot her with my Ladysmith. Then I dumped her body in the river and made it look like she’d left town.”

“What you didn’t plan on,” Mitch said, “was her body washing up right away on Big Sister, correct?”

“I thought the river current would float it way out to sea,” Takai admitted. “Maybe it would wash up on the north shore of Long Island in a month. I was wrong. But the law has nothing on me. I bought that gun with a fake ID, too. It’s at the bottom of the river now. They’ll never find it. They can’t prove I killed her. They can’t prove I killed anyone.”

“They won’t have to,” Hangtown said ominously, his finger still on the Barrett’s trigger. “You’ll already be dead.”

Takai said nothing to that, just glared at her father defiantly.

“You say the new school’s vital to your future,” Mitch said. “How so?”

“The Aerie,” she replied. “Without the new school, it’ll never happen. And without this farm, it’ll never happen. Bruce promised me a future with his company if I can deliver it for him. The Aerie will make me. This is my one chance to put myself on the map. I need this to happen.”

“Why?” Mitch asked her.

“What do you mean, why? Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me,” Mitch responded, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine any personal goal that would enable me to justify murdering three human beings, one of them my own sister. No, I’m afraid not. No.”

Takai gaped at him in amazement, as if she’d just discovered he was way beyond stupid. “Father understands why,” she said, her eyes flicking back to Hangtown. “He told me so. I’m a Frye. I have this intense desire to create. It’s in my blood. But I have zero talent. I can’t draw. I can’t paint. I can’t do anything. And yet, I need to create.”

“So do lots of people who don’t commit murder,” Mitch said coldly.

“Not people who are the great Wendell Frye’s daughter. Do you have any idea how hard that is? I am supposed to be somebody. Instead, I spend my days and nights peddling ugly, overpriced houses to rich assholes with no taste. It’s not fair, damn it!”

Mitch was aware of this happening to the children of film stars. The burden of carrying around a famous name brought many of them to their knees. Drug and alcohol abuse were common. Instead of trying to destroy herself, Takai had turned her anger outward. “Life isn’t fair,” he said to her. “You can’t use that as an excuse. It doesn’t justify what you did.”

“Evil,” Hangtown repeated, his voice barely more than a whisper now. “She was always evil.”

“And Moose was always good,” she jeered at him. “And look where it got her, Father. She’s in a body bag at the morgue. And look where it got Mother-a lonely grave in Laguna Beach. Because of you. All because of you. You killed them both, you bastard. And now you’re feeling the pain I felt. I want you to feel it. I hope you feel it for a long, long time. I hope you live for goddamned ever!” Takai broke off, glancing sidelong at Mitch. “My shoulder bag’s right there on the sofa next to you,” she murmured, her eyes flicking back at the Barrett.

“What about it?” Mitch’s own eyes were on the Barrett, too.

“I have another gun. It’s in there. He wouldn’t let me near it before, but-”

“Don’t try it, Big Mitch,” warned Hangtown. “I genuinely don’t want to hurt you.”

“He’ll never shoot you,” Takai said, urging Mitch on. “He likes you. And so do I. We could build something together, Mitch. We could be terrific.”

“Thanks, Takai, but somehow I don’t think it would work out.”

“I can’t tell you how I felt when you came to my rescue just now,” she went on, her voice getting throaty and seductive. “Everything fell right into place, Mitch. There’s nothing I won’t do to make you happy. And, believe me, I can do things to you that no one else has ever dreamed of-for sure not that uptight black girl. Get me that gun and I’ll show you, Mitch. Get it for me, It’s right there…”

“Don’t try it, Big Mitch.”

“I won’t,” Mitch promised, although he was thinking that if he had Takai’s gun he might be able to persuade Hang-town to drop his. Maybe this could be settled without bloodshed. It was at least worth a try. Slowly, he inched a bit closer to the sofa, his arm beginning to reach out… out…

And Hangtown fired at him-blowing out the window right next to his head.

Mitch instantly froze, his ears ringing all over again. “Okay, okay, I’m not moving! But listen to me. Just listen… If Takai did do these things, don’t you want her to suffer?”

“No, I want her to die,” Hangtown said, turning the gun back on her. “And now she’s going to.”

Takai cowered against the wall in her torn clothing, her eyes darting wildly around the room for a means of escape, a shield, something, anything. There was nothing. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

“But you’ll be letting her off the hook,” Mitch argued, his voice rising in desperation. “If you kill her, she won’t suffer. She wins. But jail, that’s something else. Think about it, Hangtown. She’ll have to live in a cage for years and years. She’ll get fat and ugly. Now that’s the ultimate revenge-not killing her.”

Hangtown considered this for a moment, his finger easing slightly off of the trigger. “You make a good point,” he conceded. The old master remained amazingly calm. “But she killed my Moose. And now I’m going to kill her.”

“You can’t kill your own daughter.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong. I’m the only one in the world who has that right.”

“How do you figure?” Mitch asked.

“Because I gave her life,” Hangtown answered simply. “I gave it to her, and now I’m going to take it away.”

“I thought only God had the right to do that,” Mitch said.

Hangtown let out a great big laugh. “Haven’t you heard the news-there is no God.” Then his creased face fell and he gazed at his daughter with nothing but profound sadness. “Good-bye, princess,” he said huskily, his finger tightening on the trigger.

“No, Father. No…!”

“Drop your weapon, Hangtown!” a booming voice abruptly commanded him. “Drop it now.” It was Des, blessed Des, standing there in the doorway with her Sig-Sauer aimed at Hangtown and every muscle in her body tensed.

Mitch had never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life. “Good evening, Trooper Mitry. We were just hashing out a family dispute here.”

“So I see,” she said, edging closer into the room, rain glistening on her slicker and big hat. “Drop your weapon, Hangtown.”

“Drop your own weapon, Desiree,” he growled. “This is a private matter. We have no need for any law.”

“It was Takai who murdered Moose and Melanie,” Mitch told Des. “And the trooper down at the gate.”

“We just found Trooper Olsen. Soave’s phoning it in.” Des glared at Takai and said, “That man had a wife and two young children. But I don’t suppose that matters to you very much.”

“Of course it matters,” Takai said indignantly. “Do you think I’m some kind of a psychopath?”

“I really don’t know what you are, Miss Frye. I’m just here to arrest you.”

A sudden sob of relief came from Takai’s chest. “Well, thank you for that.”

“Don’t thank me,” Des snapped at her. “Whatever you do, don’t thank me.”

“You can’t have her,” Hangtown objected. “She’s mine.”

“It’s no use, Mr. Frye,” Des said, moving in still closer. “Lieutenant Tedone is right outside. And this place will be swarming with cruisers any minute. You’ll just end up getting yourself shot. Don’t do it. Let us have her.”

“Give me a reason,” Hangtown insisted. “Give me one good reason.”

Now Takai was starting to edge slowly away from the fireplace. She did have a means of escape, Mitch suddenly realized. The trapdoor. The open trapdoor on the other side of the sofa. True, she was a good ten feet from it. But if she could manage to dive through it without getting shot she might actually get away through the catacombs.

“Trooper, I’d like to call my lawyer,” she said in a soft, trembly voice, inching her way closer and closer to the trapdoor. “Before we go, if I may.”

“You just chill out, Miss Frye,” Des said, her eyes riveted on Hangtown as Takai continued to edge closer to that gaping trapdoor. “And for God’s sake, shut your pretty-girl hole, or I’ll shoot you myself… Please put it down, Hangtown,” she begged, her own gun still aimed right at him, clutched tightly in both hands. “I have great respect for you. I like you. But if you don’t put it down, I’ll have to shoot you. Don’t make me do it. Don’t make me shoot you. Please.”

“Let the law take its course,” Mitch urged him. “Think about Crazy Daisy. Think about how you and Gentle Kate felt.”

“I am being punished for my sins,” Hangtown muttered under his breath, his finger on the trigger, eyes on Takai.

“Who the hell’s Crazy Daisy?” Des demanded, her finger on the trigger.

Mitch didn’t respond. He was standing there thinking: I am not in the living room of a historic home in Dorset, Connecticut, anymore. I am in a hot, dusty saloon with a name like the Silver Dollar or Last Chance, and somebody is about to end up dead on the floor.

But who?

Hangtown said it again: “Good-bye, princess.” His finger tightening on the trigger…

“No, Father…!”

“Hangtown, don’t-!”

“Drop it! I’m warning you…!”

And an animal roar came out of the old man-

And Takai made her move-a sudden, desperate lunge for that trapdoor-

And never made it.

He blew her away. The sheer force of the Barrett’s blast flinging her hard up against the wall, her chest torn wide open. What slid ever so slowly down the wall to the floor was no longer a person, let alone a gorgeous and deeply, deeply troubled one.

Des still had her Sig-Sauer aimed right at the old man. But she hadn’t fired a shot at him. Couldn’t. She was frozen there, a stricken expression on her face.

Mitch couldn’t move a muscle either. He could barely breathe.

As for Hangtown, he calmly laid the Barrett flat on the table, went over to the butler’s tray by the desk and poured himself a brandy from a leaded glass decanter. Then he raised his glass to what had once been his younger daughter and in a deep, solemn voice said, “Good fight, good night.”

Mitch never got a chance to speak to Wendell Frye again.

The great artist had told him that when the will to live is gone, a person can go very fast. Hangtown went very fast. A massive heart attack killed him two days later. The page-one obituary in Mitch’s newspaper called him a “colossus of twentieth-century art.” Hangtown never had to stand trial for Takai’s murder. He was never even formally charged. He was already a man of leisure by then, taking his nice long dirt nap.

He didn’t even have to leave his beloved farm. He was buried there later that week among his forefathers in the family’s cemetery overlooking the river, right alongside his Gentle Kate. Moose and Takai were laid to rest there at the same time. It was a small private ceremony. Some of Moose’s schoolteacher friends were there, as were a few members of the art academy faculty. Greta Patterson was there with Colin. Jim Bolan was there. So was Takai’s ex-husband, Dirk Doughty, whose bags were in his car-he was driving home to Toledo right after the funeral. And Mitch was there. He’d brought Sheila Enman along with him, as promised.

As Mitch was driving the old lady to the ceremony, he told her about Moose’s quest to discover the secret ingredient in her chocolate chip cookies.

“If only she’d asked me,” Mrs. Enman lamented sadly. “Gracious, I would have told her.”

“Of course you would have,” Mitch agreed. “It’s the sour cream, right?”

Mrs. Enman smiled at him enigmatically, but remained silent. She would not tell him.

This was Dorset, after all.

Melanie Zide was buried later that same day in the town cemetery. No one came.