“What!” Kay and I yelped together.
He remained deadpan for a moment, then grinned. “Okay, not what you’re thinking. I hypnotized her and she fell asleep. It took a while but I was able to wiggle out of the rope she had tied me up with. So I left.”
“On foot?” Kay asked.
“Yeah. Unfortunately she fell asleep with her head on her purse, and she’d put my wallet inside. I was afraid I'd wake her if I tried to get it back, so I didn’t have any money to call a cab to get back home. Her car keys were in there too, so I couldn’t take that. Plus I wasn’t sure where it was safe to go.”
“I wish I'd been there to see it,” Kay commented. “You make it sound awfully easy.”
“I'd say she had been hypnotized before. She was very suggestible. She must have been tired anyway, and once it got late it was fairly simple to put her into a trance and suggest that she have a good, long sleep.”
“Good grief,” I said, “can you do that with anyone? Hypnotize them without them knowing?” I could feel every paranoid instinct I'd ever had flaring to new life.
“No, no, of course I can't. And I wouldn’t have done it to her if I hadn't been desperate.” He looked me in the eyes. “I promise you I would never do something like that to you. I doubt if I could.”
Our gaze stayed locked until Kay broke in. “How about going back to the beginning? At least our beginning, or rather Louisa’s. Who is the woman who kidnapped you?”
Bob turned to face her. “That’s the weird thing, Kay, I don’t know. I have no idea who she is or where she fits into the picture. She had a gun—that’s how she got me out of the grocery store. You remember I went in for dog food, Louisa?”
I nodded. “I was listening to the radio and the next thing I knew you came out with this blonde and got into another car. I half killed myself getting into the driver’s seat to follow you. If you ever lock the door when I'm waiting in the car again I may shoot you myself.”
His eyes crinkled in a smile. “I’ll try to break myself of the habit,” he promised. “I wanted you to be safe.”
“She was safer than you, anyway,” Kay said.
“True. So I was in the dog food aisle deciding what size bag to get. I heard high heels clicking on the tile floor but I didn’t pay attention until something hard poked into my ribs. She moved in close beside me and said that she would shoot me if I didn’t come along quietly. She took my arm to guide me out of the store and to her car, and I could feel the gun in my ribs the whole time.”
“Thank heavens she didn’t trip in those high heels and shoot you accidentally,” I said. One of the voices in my head said that’s exactly what I would have done in her place.
“When we got to the car, she told me to open the door and slide over behind the wheel. Then she handed me a key and told me to drive. We headed to the highway. I tried to drive slowly because I thought I saw you following, Louisa.”
I nodded. “I was, but I got stopped by the police for speeding.”
“Where did she take you?” Kay asked.
“We were only on the freeway a couple of miles,” he said. “She told me to exit at West Elm and we drove to one of the motels at that interchange. She must have checked in earlier. She had a room in the back. We parked in front of it and she slid out of the car first and told me to follow her. And she had a bag from that hardware store next to the grocery. She told me to bring it. It turned out to have a rope in it.”
Kay wrinkled her nose. “For some reason, a bag with a rope in it is even more sinister than the gun. What did you talk about in the car?”
“Nothing, really. I said you’re making a big mistake, what’s going on, and she just ignored me except for giving directions.”
I shivered at the thought of being forced to drive with a silent stranger pointing a gun at me.
“When we got to her room, she kicked the door shut behind her. She told me to sit in the straight chair by the table, and she tied me up. God, I sound like an idiot, letting some woman tie me up without overpowering her and getting away. But she kept the gun on me even when she was dealing with the rope. I figured at that range she couldn’t miss, and that being shot would hurt rather a lot.”
“What happened after she tied you up?” I asked.
“She asked me where the tape was, and I said I wouldn’t tell her. And we repeated that with minor variations for an hour or more. She threatened me with the gun again, but I pointed out if she shot me she’d never learn anything. She opened a bottle of Scotch and sipped it from a glass from the bathroom. Finally she sat down on the bed. She looked exhausted. The only thing she seemed able to focus on was getting hold of the tape.”
I suddenly thought of something. “Her car,” I said.
“What about it?” he asked.
“When I told Chief Johnson about my car being stolen I forgot to tell him that her car was sitting by the road to your house,” I explained. “If it's her own car he can find out who she is from the license plates. It's too old a car to be a rental. I suppose it could have been stolen, if someone else was as stupid as I was and left the keys in the ignition.”
“I've done the same thing in my own driveway,” Bob consoled. “You couldn’t know someone was lurking.”
Kay said, “Go call Ed, Louisa, and use the speakerphone so we can hear too.” I looked at her blankly. “Press the button that says speaker and when you hear the dial tone, dial,” she instructed, and sighed at me.
I went over to the phone on the kitchen counter and did as she instructed. She rattled off the phone number from memory. We listened to the ring, then to Kerry Sue’s Maddock’s perky voice saying, “Willow Falls Police. How may I help you?”
“This is Louisa McGuire—” I started.
“Hey, Louisa, how you doin’? I don’t think I've even talked to you since you moved back to town.” There was a little snapping noise. Kerry Sue had always been a gum chewer. “That sure was a shame about your folks. Did your dad suffer much?”
“I don’t believe—”
“And your mom, that was really somethin’. She just didn’t want to go on without him, did she?”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kay and Bob exchange a look, which I interpreted as Kay saying ‘I told you so’ regarding Kerry Sue’s mental prowess.
“Well, no, she—”
“And your husband too. We were sure sorry about your loss.” She snapped her gum again.
“Thank you, I—”
“Is it really true that he choked to death in a restaurant while some bimbo was under the table givin’ him a blow job?”
I wanted to sink through the floor where I stood. That would put me out of Bob’s sight and near the back door, where I could get in Kay’s car and either drive away and never come back, or go straight around the block to the police station and kill Kerry Sue. I finally found my voice.
“That’s what the papers said, Kerry Sue, but I certainly wasn’t there at the time.”
“Well, that’s a blessing anyway. Say, did you find your car yet?”
“No, I was hoping that you all would be doing that,” I said. “May I speak to Chief Johnson, please?”
“Ed? He’s not here. He’s out driving around somewhere.”
“I need to talk to him,” I persevered. “Can you have him call me?”
“Yeah, sure, Louisa, you bet. I'll tell him as soon as he comes in.”
“Um, this might be important, Kerry Sue. Could you call him now and have him ring me right away?”
“Why? What’s up?”
“Well, I—I thought of something that might help him find my car. And I need to tell him soon.”
“Your car that got stolen?” More snapping from her gum.
“Right. That car. Please tell him to call me at Kay’s number, not mine.”
“You’re at Kay’s? I noticed she has the store closed today. How is she?”
Across the room, Kay opened her mouth, miming a scream. I turned my back on her. “She’s fine, Kerry Sue. I have to go now. Have Chief Johnson call me soon, okay?”
“Sure, you bet. See you.” Her phone clattered down and we heard the dial tone. I couldn’t figure out what button to push to disconnect it, so I picked up the receiver and dropped it back in its cradle. When I turned to Kay and Bob, Kay had her head down on her arms and her shoulders were heaving. I wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying. Bob’s face was a study.
“Kerry Sue will have Ed call us here,” I informed them.
Kay raised her head and I saw tears on her cheeks, but I could tell they were tears of laughter. We looked at each other, then we both shrugged. “She’s just as likely to call her Aunt Mildred as Ed,” she said.
“I don’t think she’ll have time,” I said. “I'm going over there right now and kill her.”
Bob looked alarmed, but Kay said, “Good idea. Certainly no jury of your peers would see it as anything other than justifiable homicide.”
“And who would my peers be in this case?”
“Anyone who had ever called the police station when Kerry Sue was on duty.”
“True,” I said. I made myself look at Bob. “I don’t believe I ever mentioned how my husband died.”
His expression was carefully neutral. “No reason why you should have. It must have been terrible for you.”
“It was,” I agreed, “but at least it was worse for him.”