But it was still a little creepy here, and past time for me to get back to the barns.
I hit my printer’s on button and printed out the two articles—the one with the groundbreaking ceremony, and Aurelia’s wedding piece. I waited impatiently while the pages chugged out of the printer. Then I folded them and stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans. I turned off the printer and the computer and stepped out of the stuffy little trailer.
And out into the night, which was dark and velvety and pleasantly mild after the heat of the day. I could hear a stray cow mooing over in the barns. I suddenly felt calmer. I pulled out my cell phone to call the chief.
The chief, or 911? Debbie Ann would probably turn right around and call the chief. I could save hassle by calling him directly. Then again, if he had gone home to get some sleep, better to let Debbie Ann do the waking. Besides—
Something struck my hand, hard, and the cell phone flew out of my grasp and landed somewhere with a barely audible thump. And I could feel something metallic pressed against the back of my neck.
Chapter 35
“What are you—” I began.
“Sssshhh. You don’t want to make a fuss.” Plunkett. “You’d be surprised how many vital body parts run through the neck. Almost impossible not to hit at least one of them if this gun should go off, accidental-like.”
I thought of telling him how much I hated mealymouthed people, and how much I’d rather he just came right out and said, “Shut up or I’ll shoot.” But I could think of only one thing stupider than ticking off a man holding a loaded gun to my spine, and that was provoking him to hearty laughter.
“I want you to know I’m not trying to get fresh,” he said. “But I need to see what you stuck in your pocket.”
I felt his finger reaching into my back pocket, and pulling out the folded printouts. Then I heard the faint crackle as he unfolded them.
He sighed.
“Dammit,” he said. “I told Reely to be careful. To pick a dark spot and put on enough makeup so that she couldn’t be recognized. She should have listened.”
Actually, she should have explained to him that nothing short of plastic surgery could hide her very distinctive nose.
I heard another bit of crackling, presumably as he stuffed the crumpled sheets of paper into his own pocket.
“Get moving,” he said. “Slow and sure, now. You don’t want this thing to go off prematurely.”
He chuckled as if he’d said something hilarious. Maybe he had. I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to judge. All I knew was that I could really learn to dislike the sound of his chuckle. The pressure on the back of my neck increased, and I took a step forward, then another. He steered me with a gentle nudge against the left or right side of my neck. We were heading for the Midway. Away from the populated part of the fair.
My brain was racing frantically, although so far it hadn’t come up with anything more useful than a graphic picture of what the bullet would do if he fired the gun. He was holding it at an upward angle, so if it missed the spinal cord it’d head for the brain. I didn’t like the odds.
“And how do you plan to explain away my death?” I asked. “Genette’s in custody. And if you were planning on framing Molly again—well, never mind.”
I was trying to give the impression that I knew Molly was alibied. I probably just gave the impression that I was getting frantic.
“I figure I’ll just wait and see who your chief seems to be suspecting and plant the gun in some useful place,” Plunkett said. “Worked just fine with Riordan.”
“Is that the way you do things over in Clay County?” I asked.
“Pretty much.”
“I have to give you credit for nerves of steel.” I tried to make my tone sound like grudging admiration. “You had the murder weapon in your pocket the whole time, didn’t you? At the crime scene, I mean.”
“Yup.” There was that annoying chuckle again. “And straight-arrow Vern never even suspected I planted it.”
So now I knew, just in case I had any doubts, that I was right about who killed Brett. Of course, now I also knew he had no intention of letting me stay alive to share that information.
Every step took us farther away from the barns, the most likely source of help. And I figured that once we got through the gate into the Midway, my odds of successfully getting away from him got much worse.
But he realized that, too. The closer we got to the gate, the more alert he seemed to every bit of rough ground, every misstep.
Was he just a little on edge at passing so close to the place where he’d killed Brett?
No, I decided. He was on edge because we were getting close to the gate. He thought he was home free once we were through the gate, and he was expecting me to make a break for it on the Caerphilly side. I could use that. I hoped.