Hungry Hostages Read online

  "Don't you have the authority to have people transported from this town, or is that just a rumor I've heard?"

  I looked him in the face as I was speaking and he was frowning at me.

  "I see you've heard about the petition.."

  Seeing from the look on his face that he was about to justify himself (no matter how feebly) I interrupted him quickly with, "before you say anymore, I just want to ask you to reconsider what you're doing."

  I walked away from him in disgust.

  C h a p t e r4

  I think it's safe to say to I didn't get much more about the Kit Worthington story for the rest of the gala evening and I just had to make do with writing a column about his arrest and release, which I published in next week's paper.

  A few weeks after it was published, however, the town began to be rocked with a spate of robberies of local stores in Sunshine Bluff and in other nearby towns and the finger was obviously pointed in Kit's direction, which there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was warranted.

  Once again, he escaped capture as he'd now gone into hiding and no proof against him could be brought forward by the local police, so much to Lulu's consternation, he got off scot free. At least it was something to put in next weeks paper!

  Amongst all this, there was some shock news at the diner the next morning, that once again brought my detective streak to the fore.

  "You'll never guess what has happened!" Lulu cried as soon as she saw me.

  "The sheriff's petition has been signed by just about everyone and I have to get out of town?" I asked, filling in the blank.

  "No, try again. It has something to do with Kit Worthington."

  "Another robbery? Only this time he has been caught in the act?"

  "You're getting warmer."

  "Just tell me."

  "There has been another robbery but Kit Worthington hasn't been caught for it, though if he did have anything to do with it, he'll be facing a murder charge."

  "Has someone been killed?" I asked, going cold inside.

  Lulu nodded, "it was the newsagent, Gerald Pickering."

  "Gerald Pickering!" I repeated.

  "That's right. The police think it has something to do with a suspected robbery at the premises. The till was wide open and empty when they got there. It looks like he tried to defend his property and he was killed in the process."

  I jumped out of my seat, "I'd better get over there!"

  "It won't help your cause with the sheriff any!" She called to my back as I exited the diner.

  When I got to the familiar newsagents, the door and window had metal shutters over them and there was police tape all around the building. I ducked underneath the tape and hammered on the shutters until they were lifted up.

  My friend, deputy Eddy Shiller, was staring back at me from the doorway and I heard Mali's voice in the back ground.

  "What's all the noise about?" He shouted.

  Coming up behind Eddy, he pulled a face at me and said, "Miss Womack, what a surprise. It's a pity our meeting has to be so brief because I'm afraid you can't stay."

  "Please, sheriff, let me have a look. I won't get in your way. I do have some information in connection with the man's death," I pleaded, putting on my best sheepish eyes.

  "Sorry, members of the public can't come in here. If you have any information you can report to my office when I return, " he said dismissively.

  Eddy gently took me by the shoulders and led me outside.

  "We'll talk later," he said.

  "Was it a gun shot wound?"

  "Yes. The sheriff thinks it was a robbery gone wrong."

  "I don't agree. I don't think this is connected to the other robberies at all."

  "See you later, Bryony."

  He returned to the store and the shutters came clattering down in front of me. I turned my steps back towards the diner, sauntering along the street.

  ∞∞∞

  "There are at least two reasons why I think this was no ordinary robbery. The obvious one is that there are a lot of angry women out there who have been used by him. The other, is that I happened to get a glimpse of his body the other day when I peeked over Mali's shoulder and the positioning of the body was all wrong for a robbery," I told Eddy when we met up at the bar for a drink that night.

  I looked across at him and he was leaning on one elbow. He had that look in his blue eyes that said he was listening to something he had heard too many times before.

  "Are you fed up of helping me solve these things? Why don't you elect a better sheriff?" I asked, leaning back in my seat and taking a sip of my ice cold cocktail.

  Eddy sat up straight and smoothed down his shiny blonde hair, "you could be the sheriff."

  "Me? No way. I'd hate that job."

  "Would you? You seem to enjoy it."

  "I enjoy sleuthing, that's all. I don't want to run this town."

  "Anyway, betting back to Gerald Pickering. I get what you tell me about the women, they can be vengeful. The bit I don't get is what you mean about his body. Why couldn't it have been a robbery?"

  "Right, the way I see it is that if he had been trying to stop the robbery, the body would have been found by the till."

  "That's if it was an accident?"

  "Right. They stole all the money from the till and to get to it they would have had to fight him off. I can imagine Mr Pickering would pull a stunt like that."

  "But you don't think that's the way it happened?"

  "No, because his body was found close to the door."

  "Bryony, do you really think that proves anything? He could have been trying to stop them from entering."

  "That's not the way robberies work. They never give away their real intention at the door. That would foil their plan straight away. They usually threaten the person with a gun when they are behind the till."

  Eddy thought about this for a moment and then said, "you're right, actually. It's not something the chief mentioned, however."

  "He wouldn't. I know the sheriff well enough by now to know that he only judges situations from what he can see right before him. He never delves into what is beneath the surface. He does his job well only when he doesn't have to think about it too much."

  "You have him down to a tee. Alright, what do you want me to do?"

  "You can start by finding out where this Elaine lives who he was arguing with the last time I saw him."

  "Don't you have a surname?"

  "No, but I can describe her."

  Eddy rolled his eyes at me, " I'm not sure how helpful that is but go on."

  I described to him the woman I'd seen leaving the newsagents, although I hadn't seen her face.

  "What car was she driving? Was it a sports car?"

  "It was a little red sporty car."

  "Was it an MG?"

  "It could have been. I'm not very good with cars."

  "That sounds very much like Elaine Hancock."

  "You know her?" I cried.

  "I've seen her around town before. She grew up near here and her mom still lives in the area. She's a supermodel."

  "Well, I've never heard of her."

  "I think her mom lives in Sunshine Spells. I know the house. We can go there first, see if she can tell us more about her and Gerald Pickering."

  "You're on!"

  C h a p t e r5

  Elaine Hancock's mother lived on a quiet street with only two houses on each side and it was a pretty little white bungalow with a neat and tidy exterior.

  The lady herself was similar in age to my own mom but frailer and less glamorous than her, with short, chestnut colored hair that was going grey (my mom would never dream of growing old gracefully like that, odd that her daughter was a model!) I assumed she must have been in bad health because of this, though and adding to my assumption was the fact that she wore a pink house coat over her clothes and she leaned on a walking stick when she answered the door.

  She let us in at once when Eddy held up his police badge and we
asked her some questions around her kitchen table.

  "It's Gerald they found, is it?" She asked, when Eddy had filled her in on the story so far.

  "You knew him, Mrs Hancock?" I asked.

  "Oh yes. He was my daughter's boyfriend and she sometimes brought him here. I never approved of him and recently we found out that he was already married. So I haven't got a good word to say about him, as you can imagine," she explained, squinting at me through her small, amber colored eyes.

  "Your daughter is a supermodel, is that right?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said, drawing herself up proudly. "She is a great beauty. The pride of my life. We have always been what you would call poor but my daughter broke the mould of our family. She made something of herself."

  "I suppose it would have cut you deep to see her mistreated by the likes of Gerald Pickering?" I asked.

  "For a time, then I came to realise he was just one of those men, you can't change them."

  "And what about your daughter?" I continued to ask the questions while Eddy looked on.

  "She was very angry at first and she went to confront him at the newsagents. I think she's got over it now, though."

  I turned to Eddy to let him know it was time for him to ask the question we had planned and he took the hint.

  "I know she confronted him. In fact, a witness said that they heard your daughter threaten to kill Mr Pickering during this confrontation," he said.

  Far from the angry glare I had expected to see on Mrs Hancock's face after this insinuation, I saw a look of amusement.

  "You can't seriously suspect my daughter?" Was all she asked and she asked it in such a way that I suspected she was challenging us somehow. Her head tilted to one side as she looked at us and I wondered then if she was offended at being passed over for her daughter.

  "I don't understand," I said.

  "Well, I don't suppose I can expect you to know about my past. I'll be back directly."

  She hobbled out of the room and came back carrying a photograph album under her arm, which she placed on the table and opened to the middle. Then she slid it across to us and we looked down at the pictures on the page.

  "Were you in the secret service, Mrs Hancock?" I asked, staring down at the picture of her as a young woman, dressed in a grey suit and sitting by a code breaker machine.

  "Yes, I'm a dab hand at using a gun. I was a good shot. I Had a good aim too. I always keep a gun in the house, you never know when you might need it. I'm a vulnerable woman these days'. I must say I could still use it if I needed to."

  "You are ill?" I asked.

  "Cancer. It's terminal, I'm afraid."

  "Are you telling us that you killed Gerald Pickering?" Eddy asked.

  She began to laugh uncontrollbly and when she had calmed down, she said, "I'm telling you I could have done it, that's all." Her face was full of amusement and tears of laughter were still streaming down her face. I could see this was all a game to her, perhaps it was something to do with her being a spy.

  "May we see the gun, please?" Eddy asked.

  "Of course. Come this way."

  She seemed both eager and happy to show it to us and she led us down a corridor and into her bedroom, where she unlocked a drawer by her bed with a key hanging around her neck and let us look inside. It was a small pistol, tucked away in a foam compartment.

  "I am gonna have to take this with me to test it for fingerprints," Eddy said seriously.

  "Take it by all means but you won't find anything."

  Using a tissue, Eddy carefully lifted it out, wrapping it up well and placed it inside his pocket.

  "Were you here the day Mr Pickering was killed?" Eddy asked as we were leaving.

  "Where else would I be?"

  "Was your daughter with you?" He continued.

  "Yes, she was with me," she replied unconvincingly.

  Eddy and I looked at each other but we said nothing and left her once again alone.

  "I wonder, could she have committed the crime herself in such frail health as she is? Is she really that ill or was it just for show. I got the feeling she was toying with us, that's why she mentioned the gun," I said, back in the car after leaving Mrs Hancock's.

  "But would she mention it if she were guilty? Surely that would be something to hide?"

  "Unless she is trying to distract us. She might think her daughter did kill Mr Pickering and she wants to take the blame. If her illness is terminal, she might have wanted to make the ultimate sacrifice in behalf of her daughter."

  "Hm. She did say her daughter was the pride of her life."

  "The other option is that they are both in it together."

  "You mean one commits the crime while the other takes the blame?"

  "Something like that. She could have taught Elaine to shoot and she used her gun, making it look like a robbery and hoping it would get lost in all the other robberies that have been happening recently."

  "As well as checking the gun for fingerprints, I should be able to tell if the bullets match the one used on Gerald."

  "One thing we can be sure of, is that the gun used in the robbery would have been more than just a pistol like that one."

  "I agree with you there. I don't believe Elaine was with her at the time of his death, do you?"

  "Not a bit of it. Let's go and see where she really was."

  C h a p t e r6

  Elaine Hancock fulfilled all our expectations of her beauty and more. Now I could behold her face to face (instead of just from the back) I could see why she was a supermodel. Her complexion was flawless, her amber eyes matched her mother's but in color only, Elaine's were wide and bright and they were her most prominent feature to the beholder.

  She ushered us into an immaculate, modern apartment, which we hardly dared move in and we settled on her grey leather couch with some trepidation. We both refused her offer of refreshments as neither of us dared be the one to spill anything.

  She sat down opposite to us on a matching grey leather armchair, crossing one leg over the other, on which she was wearing black glittery bootleg slacks. A smile lit up her features to let us know she was ready to be questioned.

  After a nervous cough, Eddy started off the questioning with, "so, Miss Hancock. I take it you know why we are here?"

  "Yes, deputy. It is about Gerald. Such a tragedy, he was sweet when he wanted to be," she said, speaking with a slight husky tone. I recognised it from the newsagents, only it had a harsher note to it then.

  "Sweet? A witness told us you had a row in his shop because he was married?" I put in, cutting through the casual tone that Eddy had adopted.

  "We did have a row, but what couple doesn't?" She asked innocently.

  "Was he married?" I continued firmly.

  "He was. I found out the day before I confronted him and I was so angry."

  "You were angry. Angry enough to threaten to kill him."

  "Well, no. I wouldn't have harmed him," she said evasively.

  "You haven't actually answered my question, Miss Hancock. Did you or did you not threaten to kill him?"

  "Who are you anyway? Do I have to answer this person's questions?" She looked at Eddy as she asked this last question.

  I was rapidly going off her. She didn't seem quite so innocent underneath all this play acting.

  "I would like to hear your answers, please," Eddy said firmly.

  "Alright. I admit I did say something along the lines of, 'I'd like to kill you,' but that's just a cliche, isn't it?"

  "Your exact words were, 'I'll kill you someday, I swear.' That's stronger than a cliche, I would say," said I, reading out the words I had written down on my notepad.

  I could see she was seething inside from the way she flipped her red hair over one shoulder and crossed her arms.

  "That's a serious threat, Miss Hancock," Eddy said.

  "What are you going to do? Arrest me?" She asked, unfolding her arms and holding out her hands.

  "I'll need you to tell me where you
were on the day Mr Pickering was killed," this was Eddy in his best professional voice.

  "I was with my mother. I presume she has already told you we were both at her home in sunshine spells."

  "So, you're coroborating her story?" Eddy asked.

  Elaine threw her head back and laughed.

  "You don't seriously suspect my mother of this? I suppose she told you about her being a first rate shot. It's a long time since she fired any, though!" She exclaimed.

  "Can you think of anyone else who may have held a grudge against him?" I asked.

  "Apart from the obvious one, his wife, I'm not sure. He did mention a brother once, and I gathered he might have had a vendetta against him. Don't ask me for the details because I don't know."

  "Did his wife know about you?" I continued.

  "Yes, she's the one who came to see me to ward me off."

  "Gerald told me he hadn't seen his wife for years."

  "They were separated but she didn't like him seeing anyone else. I think he had a few affairs when they were together. That's what caused her to walk out on him. Look, are you going to keep me any longer because I do have other places I need to be." She glanced at the watch on her arm.

  Feeling we'd kept her long enough, we thanked her for her time and hastily left her apartment.

  ∞∞∞

  Eddy called in at my house on his way home from work to fill me in on what he'd found out that day and I let him into the hallway where he stayed, it being just a brief visit.

  "I checked the gun for fingerprints, though I'm afraid Mrs Hancock was right. Only her's were on it and the bullets don't match," he said, bending down to stroke my black and white cat, Sunny, who was rubbing himself along his legs and purring loudly.

  "Elaine couldn't have used it to kill Gerald then."

  "I managed to trace the wife and brother. She lives in Sunnydale. The brother's further afield."

  "Great, we can go visit them."

  Eddy pulled a face, "less of the we stuff. I'm afraid I had to tell the sheriff what I was doing and he wasn't too happy, as you can imagine. He told me to lay off these extra hours and concentrate on working for him. So I can tell you their addresses but I can't help you out anymore. Sorry." He said regretfully.