Getting Rid of Bradley Read online

  “Are you crazy?” Zack said. “You’ve got me for a bodyguard and you don’t feel safe? What’s wrong with you? First no junk, and now this.”

  “No junk?” Anthony said.

  “Cleanest house I’ve ever searched,” Zack said. “No junk.”

  “That’s un-American,” Anthony said.

  “So what happens when I go back to school tomorrow?” Lucy said.

  “We keep somebody in the house,” Anthony said.

  “You’re not going back to school,” Zack said.

  Lucy and Anthony both frowned at him.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he told Anthony. “Suppose this guy grabs her and forces her to let him in the house? Suppose he decides to take a hostage? Suppose...”

  “Suppose you stop scaring Lucy,” Anthony said. “He’s not going to grab her.”

  “We don’t know that. We’ve got one attempted-murder charge that could turn into murder at any time. We’ve got a million and a half that’s floating around somewhere. And we’ve got the guy who’s mixed up with both, who also makes bombs and shoots guns. You want to tell me again about how we should dress Lucy up and send her off to the one place where everybody knows she’s going to be?”

  Anthony considered Zack for a moment. “All right. If it’s all right with Lucy.”

  “All right,” Lucy said after a moment and went upstairs to phone her principal.

  “What are you doing?” Anthony asked when she was gone, and for once Zack was serious when he answered.

  “I’m scared for her. You should have seen her at the hospital. She was absolutely rocked. I just want to keep her safe until we get this guy. We’ve got to pretty soon. We’re close. I just want to keep her safe.”

  “There’s something else,” Anthony said. “I spent most of the afternoon on the phone to Beulah Ridge, Pennsylvania, trying to catch people while they were home. I talked to a couple of people who knew both Bradleys.”

  “And?”

  “And John Bradley was the school’s golden boy until he got caught one too many times stealing and cheating. The strange thing was, even while people were talking about how bad he was, there was admiration in their voices. And they said, every one of them, that the one person who stuck by John Bradley through thick and thin, no matter what he did, was—”

  “Let me guess.”

  “Right. Lucy’s Bradley.” He held up a hand when Zack opened his mouth. “Sorry. Bradley Porter. Seems like there wasn’t much to Bradley Porter except for straight A’s and the cleanest locker in the school. All the excitement he had, he got from hanging around with John Bradley. Hero worship.”

  “That was twenty years ago.”

  “Bradley Porter invited him to his wedding.”

  Zack straightened so quickly that he almost fell off the love seat “What?”

  “Bianca Bergman Bradley found the invitation and set out about two weeks ago to track him here. The Bergmans called this morning. They haven’t heard from her since Thursday. Her description matched the shooting victim. We told them about her, and they’re on their way now.”

  Zack sat down on the loveseat, totally confused. “The blonde in the hospital can’t be Bianca Bradley. She’s Bradley Porter’s girlfriend. Lucy ID’d her.”

  “Maybe she’s both.”

  “How?” Zack almost snarled the question. “How could she be? She was in California until two weeks ago.”

  Anthony ignored him. “You know, if John Bradley came here to hide with Bradley Porter, a lot of things that didn’t fit suddenly make sense. John Bradley embezzles the money in California and escapes from the cops, his homicidal in-laws, and his shrew of a wife. That part I could understand. But then I could never figure out why he’d come here to Riverbend. Let’s face it, we’re not the Paris of the Midwest. But if he’s got an old friend here who has always done anything he wanted, that part falls into place, too. He calls Bradley Porter. Bradley gets him a room in Overlook using the name of their old home town as an alias.”

  “What about the bonds?” Zack said.

  “John Bradley hands over the bonds to Bradley Porter for safekeeping. After all, he’d have to be a fool to keep them in Overlook. Those people will kill you for your socks, let alone a million and a half. Then Bianca shows up and calls you to put the pressure on him, and he shoots her.”

  “Right. How did she get my number?”

  “She called the station and asked who was handling the Bradley case. They’d give her either you or me.”

  Zack leaned back against the loveseat, scowling. “So how did Lucy get involved? Because Bradley Porter hid the bonds in this house?” He shook his head. “We really combed this place. Unless he took up the floorboards, the bonds aren’t here.”

  “Well, something is.” Anthony stood to go. “It’s possible that Bradley Porter doesn’t even know about it The desk clerk never saw him, so he may still be just an innocent bystander, helping out an old high-school friend.”

  Zack shook his head. “Bradley Porter is involved. I know it.”

  Anthony checked his watch and started for the door. “Well, just in case, you take care of Lucy. And don’t assume because she sits there and blinks that she’s okay.”

  “Oh, you picked up on the blink, too, did you?” Zack followed him to the door. “You’re spending too much time with her. And what’s this about telling her about the concussion? What else did you tell her?”

  “Nothing important. I’m going home to salvage what’s left of my Sunday. Give my love to Lucy.”

  “No,” Zack said, and Anthony laughed as he went out the door.

  “THERE’S JUST SOMETHING about it that just doesn’t make sense,” Lucy told Zack later while she watched him chop onions at the big old porcelain sink in her kitchen. “This whole master-criminal thing. Especially this thing with you and Bradley pitting your wits against each other. Bradley never pitted a wit in his life.”

  “Maybe he just hid that side of himself from you.” Zack picked up the cutting board and moved to the old white stove next to Lucy, where a cast-iron pan full of hamburger was simmering. He dumped the onions into the pan with the hamburger. “Face it, you weren’t close.”

  “We weren’t,” Lucy agreed. “Bradley’s a very... closed person, I guess. I thought he would relax after we were married, but he didn’t. And after a while, I didn’t try very hard to open him up. I had the house and the dogs, and that was enough.” She picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the hamburger to keep it from sticking. “I should have tried harder.”

  “Why?” Zack took the spoon from her. “He’s a rat who possibly tried to murder his girlfriend. That’s like Mrs. Bluebeard saying ‘I just didn’t give enough.’”

  “I suppose.” Lucy felt herself growing depressed again. She opened a blue enameled cupboard door, took down the chili powder, and handed it to him. Then she changed the subject. “Wait until Anthony hears you can cook.”

  “Forget Anthony,” Zack said.

  THEY ATE DINNER IN THE dining room in the soft amber light of the stained-glass lamp over Lucy’s big oak dining-room table. They talked about his family and hers and about their jobs, moving in front of the fire to the love seat with their coffee when dinner was done. The hours passed, and they lost all track of time, sitting and laughing in the firelight. The only interruptions were two phone calls, both hang-ups that made Zack uneasy. He didn’t discuss them with Lucy, and he made a conscious effort not to talk about either one of the Bradleys or the case, and he watched while all the tension drained out of her, and she smiled and laughed with him.

  Maybe when this was all over, maybe then he could call her. Maybe they could go out, or just stay in and laugh.

  Maybe when this mess was out of the way, and she was over Bradley, they could make love.

  Maybe even fall in love.

  It was a terrible thought because it appealed to him so much.

  Falling in love meant commitment. Commitment meant marriage. Marriage meant r