Thirteen Diamonds Read online

  I had previously regarded the proliferation of deer in the area as a nuisance, but not now. Joe impatiently honked the horn, but then quit, apparently fearing that he might attract attention, even out there in the middle of nowhere. I hoped the deer had nothing on their schedules and would remain where they were.

  They started walking slowly down an old path. We watched them for a few seconds and then Joe suddenly started up, turned into the path, which was wide enough for a car, and stopped again. He pushed me forward in my seat and quickly ripped the duct tape off my hands. Then he bent down and took it off my feet.

  “Get out of here,” he said. “Go to the house, but stay off the road until you're near the house. Carol's going to come in a few minutes to make sure you're dead and to pick me up. I didn't dare go to the police station because I was afraid she'd shoot up this car with us in it.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Don't worry about me. I'll drive the car far enough into the woods down this old path so she can't see from here that it hasn't been damaged, and stop it against a tree. Then I'll come back and wait for her. When she gets here I'll act like I've been in an accident. That will be easy; I've been in enough of them.”

  “Be careful,” I said.

  “I will.”

  I opened the car door and laboriously stepped out. I immediately fell on my face; my leg had fallen asleep.

  “Are you all right?” Joe asked.

  “I'm fine,” I said, crawling away from the car. “Go on.”

  I feared that Carol would come and catch us here. Joe reached over and pulled the door shut. Then he drove the car into the woods. I struggled to stand with the help of the nearest tree. My leg prickled and had no strength; I hobbled a few steps and leaned against another tree.

  A fallen tree blocked my path, a remnant of last year's hurricane. the tree was too long to walk around in my present condition. I decided to climb over it. I managed to get one leg over the trunk and I was swinging the other leg over when it caught on a branch and I fell again.

  Pain shot through me. I needed to get up, but when I raised myself to a kneeling position and tried to stand, my gimpy leg collapsed. As I lay there I heard footsteps; Joe was walking fast back toward the road.

  I heard a car coming. It must be Carol. The car stopped a few feet from me. The fallen tree hid me from her view and vice versa. I strained to listen.

  The car door opened and Carol said something that sounded like “Well?”

  Joe said, “It worked slick as grease. Everything's fine. I just hurt my knee a little.”

  “But the car's so far off the road.”

  “It was easier to do it that way. The trees are too close together along here and too close to the road.”

  “You idiot! Nobody's going to believe she drove way in there by accident.”

  “Maybe they will.”

  “Did you take the tape off her?”

  “Of course. Here it is.”

  “I want to see her.”

  Footsteps.

  “We've got to get out of here, Carol. Somebody might come.”

  “I just want to make sure you didn't leave any evidence. If you're hurt, wait here for me.”

  “I swear everything's clean. Let's just go.”

  More footsteps. The two were now on the other side of my tree, both speaking at once.

  Carol said, “Leave me alone, damn it!”

  Joe said, “Wait! Give me the gun. It's over, Carol.”

  Sounds of a scuffle. A gunshot. Another. A masculine groan. Then temporary silence.

  The silence was broken by more footsteps, moving in the direction of my car. Running footsteps. When the sound diminished I realized I had been holding my breath. I gulped air and threatened to hyperventilate. I consciously slowed my breathing, but my heart didn't slow down. It was going for a record.

  I painfully got to my knees so that I could peek over the log. I poked my head up and saw Joe, lying on his back, right in front of me, blood soaking his shirt. He didn't move. His helmet was off and he looked handsome, even in death.

  I turned my head toward my car; I could see it through the trees. Carol was looking in the window. I had a few seconds of leeway before she came back, searching for me. I looked around but I didn't see a better hiding place than where I was. I couldn't move very far, anyway, without her seeing me. I hoped she didn't conduct a thorough search.

  Carol circled my car, speeding up as she went. The only thing that was saving me was that she was searching for me where I wasn't. I turned my head and looked at Carol's car. It was much closer to me than to Carol. I was an experienced Mercedes driver. It had a security code, but I remembered it from our discussion on the previous Sunday. Could I reach it before she did, in spite of my leg? If so, was the key in it?

  It faced toward Albert's house and there wouldn't be time to turn it around on the one-lane road. If I managed to get it started and drove to the house I could get there before Carol could back my car to the road and follow me. That would give me time to alert Albert and he had a rifle.

  I was tempted to try to reach Carol's car, but even if I beat Carol to the car she could hit me with a lucky shot. Still, that might be preferable to waiting for her to find me—waiting to die.

  I was getting up my nerve to attempt a dash to Carol's car when she started back toward me. It was too late for me now because she would see me as soon as I moved, and break into a run. And even wearing a skirt she could easily outrun me in my present condition.

  She looked from one side to another as she came. She walked a few feet off the path to check behind several fallen trees. She would do the same when she got to mine. I prepared to duck my head because she was getting too close for comfort.

  I thought I heard the sound of another car, approaching from the main road. Carol stopped walking; she heard it too. She stood, undecided, for four or five heartbeats; then she ran for her car, gun in hand. I quickly lowered my head and listened to the sound of her footsteps as they hurried by me, crunching twigs and dead leaves.

  I popped my head up again and saw Sandra's little red Toyota come around the corner. Carol had reached her Mercedes, but she didn't get in. She dropped her gun into the pocket of her suit jacket and turned to face the oncoming car. It pulled up behind Carol's car and stopped. Sandra was driving; Mark sat in the passenger seat; Winston sat in his car-seat in the back.

  As the two older ones got out, Carol went into an act. “There's been a terrible accident!” she cried, pointing down the path she had just retraced, toward my car. When Sandra and Mark looked in that direction they also saw Joe's body.

  I couldn't let them get sucked into anything, especially with Winston here. With a great effort I stood up and shouted, “Watch out! She's got a gun!”

  Sandra and Mark stared at me. I must have looked like one of the living dead. I had blood on my face and dirt all over. My appearance distracted them from Carol, who looked at me too.

  “Thank God you're alive!” Carol said, striding the few steps to me. She kept one hand in the pocket with the gun. “I thought you had been...” she hesitated.

  “Killed?” I asked.

  She grabbed my arm with her free hand.

  “Carol shot Joe!” I shouted. “She tried to kill me too.”

  Carol pulled the gun out of her pocket and placed it against my head.

  “Let her go!” Sandra said.

  She and Mark edged closer to us.

  “Hold it!” Carol commanded. They stopped. “Now listen to me.”

  Carol's hand that held me was shaking and her breathing was rapid.

  “Sandy,” Carol continued, “move your car out of the way but don't try to drive off or your grandmother gets it. Mark, turn my car around and leave it running.”

  “She's going to shoot me anyway,” I said. “Get away while you can.”

  Carol's grip on my arm tightened. Sandra watched as Carol shoved the barrel of her gun into the back of my head. A
s I winced, Sandra carefully walked back to her car, keeping one eye on Carol.

  “I remember that your car has a security code,” Mark said to Carol. “What is it?”

  “Seven, three, five, one,” I said. All the odd prime digits, starting with lucky seven and going down, up, down.”

  “I'm glad I told you,” Carol said, jabbing me with her gun. “When I forget it in the future I'll ask you.”

  “Mark,” I said, as he turned to go to the Mercedes, “remember our nim game? After your first move I knew it wouldn't go.”

  “No tricks!” Carol said, poking me with the gun again.

  Mark looked at us for another moment. I stared back at him, trying to give him a telepathic message. Then he got into the Mercedes, started it and turned it around, using the cleared path. He left it running, with the driver-side door open.

  Sandra simultaneously moved her car well past the Mercedes toward Albert's house, taking Winston out of the line of fire, and then cautiously walked back toward us. I wished she had kept going.

  Carol told Sandra to throw her keys into the Mercedes and then stand away from the car with Mark. Then, pointing the gun at my back, she made me limp in front of her up to the Mercedes. I glanced at Mark; he winked at me.

  Carol forced me to get in the passenger side, which was closest to us. She locked and shut the door and raced around to the driver side before I could escape, but I managed to unlock the door and lower the electronic window a few inches.

  Carol shut her door and tried to put the car into gear. As I anticipated, she couldn't get it out of Park. She dropped the gun into her lap so she could yank on the gearshift with both hands. Moving faster than I had in quite a while, I reached past her arms and snatched the gun. She tried to grab it back; she had her hand on it for an instant but with a last burst of strength I pulled it away and threw it out the window.

  Mark immediately ran to the car and opened my door. He pulled me out and jumped in to subdue Carol, but she climbed out her side and began to run toward the main road. Sandra gave chase; she ran every day so it was no contest. She rapidly closed the gap between them and brought Carol down with as fine a tackle as I've ever seen.

  Mark was right behind her. He took over guarding Carol so Sandra could run to her car and collect Winston. Her motherly instincts came out as she carried him back to us, hugging him and whispering to him, but keeping his head pointed away from Joe's body. Winston babbled, happy to be out in the fresh air, but when he saw my bloody face he pointed at it and said, “Uh oh.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “You owe us some explanations, Lil,” Tess said. She had collapsed into one of my chairs, having spent the day helping me move back into my apartment at Silver Acres. It was Saturday, exactly one week after I had moved out. The last two days I had talked to the police, rested and recuperated from my wounds.

  My descendants were there, too, all three generations of them, plus Mark. We were drinking beer or coffee, according to personal preference. Winston practiced climbing onto his favorite chair. King walked from one person to another, putting her head in laps and asking to be petted.

  “For example,” Sandra said, “how did you manage to communicate the locking code for the Mercedes to Mark. When I ask him he says it's a military secret.”

  “That's easy,” I said. “Remember the game of nim Mark and I played in the bar the night we met?”

  “What's nim?” Albert and Tess asked together.

  “I'll tell you later,” I said. “But for Sandra's edification, the first move Mark made in that game was to remove three toothpicks from the five-row, leaving 7-2-3-1. That is the combination that locks the transmission in Carol's Mercedes for 30 minutes to prevent theft.

  “How on earth did you both remember the details of that game?” Sandra asked.

  Mark and I grinned at each other. “Great minds think like,” he said.

  “Maybe you'd rather be dating Gogi than me,” Sandra aid, flipping her blond hair.

  “If only I were 50 years younger,” I said.

  Tess turned to Sandra. “And why did you and Mark turn up at precisely the right moment?”

  “I was at Sandy's place sponging a meal,” Mark said, “when my beeper started going off, over and over again, always with the same number. I called the number, but I got an out-of-service message.”

  “It was Gogi's former number here,” Sandra said. “We figured she was trying to tell us something...”

  “We called Albert to see if she was with him,” Mark continued, “and he said she was with Carol at Silver Acres, but when we called there we got Carol's voice mail.”

  “We called Tess' apartment, but she hadn't seen Gogi for an hour or so,” Sandra said. “So we decided to drive the route from Silver Acres to Dad's house. Fortunately, Silver Acres is almost on the way from my condo to Dad's place. We didn't see Gogi's car in the main parking lot there...”

  “Or Carol's car,” Mark cut in.

  “Then we drove directly to the farm and ran into Lillian and Carol on the road. It's a good thing you carry a cell phone, Gogi.”

  “Modern technology is sometimes useful,” I said, remembering that Carol had said the same thing about forging my signature. I was gratified that Sandra had been cooking a meal for Mark. Nowadays, if a woman sleeps with a man, it means little. But if a woman cooks for a man, it can mean a lot.

  “I still can't picture Carol as a murderer,” Albert said, shaking his head.

  I don't know whether Albert was more upset by the fact that Carol was a murderer or that she was two-timing him. She was in jail, without bail. Ellen had also been arrested, but she had already bailed herself out. Apparently, she wasn't a danger to the community. At least, she should be ejected from Silver Acres, like I was. In any case, I wasn’t planning to eat dinner with her any time soon.

  “One more question, Lil,” Tess said. “Why didn't Joe carry out the plan to kill you?”

  “Joe was going to kill me on orders from Carol because he was in love with her,” I explained. “So I put a doubt into his head; I told him a lie—I told him that Carol had slept with Albert.”

  “A lie?” Albert asked. Then he looked around the room and decided not to say any more. Instead, he said, “Well, Mother, now that you're back here I hope you're going to act more like a retired person.” But he said it somewhat defensively. After all, he had cooperated in getting me thrown out.

  “Cross my heart,” I said, making the motion, but of course I crossed my fingers also.

  Wesley poked his head in the open door and said, “May I come in?”

  I invited him to join us and introduced him to the people he didn't already know. When he had a cup of coffee in his hand he said, “I now have the proof that Carol was embezzling money. The figures she was feeding the bookkeeper don't match the actual bank balances.”

  “Joe may have gotten some of that money too,” I said.

  “Poor Joe,” Wesley said. “He was a good man. I think Carol corrupted him.”

  “He died for me,” I said, suddenly choked up. I almost added that in a vote between him and me I would have voted for him to live.

  “The Board will have to hire a new director now,” Tess said.

  “They're already working on that,” Wesley said. “And they have commissioned a complete audit of the books. It's about time.” He turned to me. “I had to get Angie transferred to the skilled nursing building. I couldn't take care of her any longer. We don't know...how long she's going to last.”

  “Oh,” I said. I was always shocked to hear that one of the residents had deteriorated or died, even when I had expected it. “I'm sorry.”

  “So I don't have a dinner companion. Perhaps you and Tess would like to join me for dinner in the dining room once in a while.”

  I didn't say anything. Tess glared at me and said, “Of course we will.”

  Of course we will. Anyone who can manipulate numbers the way Wesley can isn't all bad.

  ***

 
; APPENDIX

  SOLUTION TO THE “ODDBALL” PUZZLE

  Given: You have 12 balls that look identical and a balance scale. One of the balls is heavier or lighter than the others. In no more than three weighings on the balance scale, find the oddball and determine whether it is heavier or lighter than the others.

  Solution: Divide the 12 balls into three groups of four, A, B and C, and give each ball a number within each group. Weigh the four Group A balls against the four Group B balls. If this weighing is in balance, the oddball is in Group C. Go to V to continue. If this weighing is not in balance, note which group is heavier (and which lighter) and go to I.

  The oddball is in Group A or Group B. Set up a second weighing. On the side of the scale on which Group A was placed at the first weighing, place the following balls: A1, B2 and B3. On the other side of the scale place B1, A2 and C1. If this weighing is in balance, go to II. If the scale tilts the same way it did at the first weighing, go to III. If the scale tilts the opposite way it did at the first weighing, go to IV.

  The oddball is A3, A4 or B4. For the third weighing, weigh A3 against A4. If they balance, the oddball is B4. If they don’t balance, the oddball is the ball on the side of the scale tilted in the same direction (up or down) Group A was tilted at the first weighing.

  The oddball is A1 or B1. For the third weighing, weigh A1 against C1. If they balance the oddball is B1. If they don’t balance, it is A1.

  The oddball is A2, B2 or B3. For the third weighing, weigh B2 against B3. If they balance, the oddball is A2. If they don’t balance, the oddball is the ball on the side of the scale tilted in the same direction (up or down) Group B was tilted at the first weighing.

  The oddball is in Group C. Set up a second weighing. On one side of the scale place the following balls: C1 and C2. On the other side of the scale place C3 and A1. If this weighing is in balance, go to VI. If it is not in balance, go to VII.