Chapter 7: Final Acts

"Quickly, Connnell," Karne took my wrist in his grip and pulled me, trotting to match his long stride, from the terminal to his car. I was barely in my seat before he sped away, glaring at the roads as though he was daring them to prevent him from beating her to the house.

"She'll notice there' s no construction, won't she?" I'd struggled to wrench my skirt into place beneath me and snap my seatbelt on as Karne took the series of curved ramps that led away from the airport.

"I've put a notice in her mailbox that announces the start of a construction project like the one I described. She'll expect it to start tomorrow." Karne let out a quiet hiss as we reached a congested intersection. He reached across my lap and opened the dash compartment. I shifted warily as he groped its contents.

"If you'll tell me what you're after," I began. Karne's hand closed around something and he nearly rammed his elbow into my thigh as he drew it out of the compartment. I flinched when I saw it. It was a handgun. Karne turned to look at me as we remained stopped at the light.

"She will be volatile," he said calmly.

"Please, Karne," I barely resisted the urge to clutch at his forearm. "You can't just do this."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd stop questioning me, Connell," he snapped. He glanced at the safety and reached into his jacket, depositing the gun in his holster in one practiced motion. I forced myself to look straight ahead. Threads of worry and protest and a weak amount of gratitude and admiration swirled in my thoughts, confusing my perceptions of the road in front of me. As I noticed my distraction I seized on it: it was dangerous to be out of focus, especially where we were headed. I took a deep breath and let it hiss out my mouth.

Karne slowed his erratic driving when we reached the street leading up to Ms. Grange-Martinson's house. I felt my knee twinge, and I reached for it. We rounded the corner of the driveway, and Karne parked the car in front. He stepped out of his door like we'd arrived to meet her for tea, but he'd already snapped the safety off of his gun when I joined him at the front bumper of the car.

"Oliver? Violet?" I heard Ms. Grange-Martinson before I saw her. Her voice carried over to us easily, though she was standing some distance away on the edge of the gravel extension of her driveway. Karne took my elbow and started to walk toward her, still behaving as though we belonged there.

"I'm sorry for the intrusion," he said in an almost jaunty tone. I tightened my forearm muscles, and he lightly pressed his fingertips into the skin of my arm. "Violet was concerned for you and asked if we could delay a bit to make sure you were all right." He swiveled his head to look at me fondly.

"Oh you little dear," she cooed. Her bleached smile flashed under the sun. She put a palm up to the side of her tightly bound hair, and I noticed a few strands had strayed forward as though she'd been fussing with them. "There's no need to worry."

"You see, dear?" Oliver gave me the fond glance again, and I smiled weakly and nervously back up at him.

"But won't you miss your flight?" I tried to keep my voice level.

"I'm sorry, dear, I saw your mouth move but I missed what you said." She walked closer to us. I felt a small quake start in my chest. Karne was still beside me, and I felt an increase of pressure from his fingers again.

"Oh," I said a little more loudly. "I was only worried you'd miss your plane." She turned her smile toward me briefly, and then gave a soft laugh.

"Never mind about that, Violet," she soothed. "There are always other flights." She brushed her palms over her immaculate skirt as though she were smoothing out wrinkles. "Now you'll forgive me for being a poor hostess, but I've got to see to a few things before the construction starts. I'm sure you understand."

"Of course we do," Karne said heartily. "There, dear," he continued. "All's well, just as I told you." He made a show of patting my arm, and I could see Ms. Grange-Martinson's face harden. She forced it back into place quickly. It was then, as we were all smiling at one another and shifting our weight uncomfortably on the concrete of the driveway, when the first patrol car rounded the corner onto the street.

"I wonder what on earth," she said. Her voice was tight and high-pitched, and I had to strain to hear it. The patrol car rounded the drive way. "There must be some misunderstanding," she said. Her hands had closed into fists; she took another step toward us. Karne stayed still. Then the sound of the door of the patrol car opening set him in motion. He dropped my arm and strode toward Ms. Grange-Martinson, who stood between us and the gravel driveway extension.

"There's no point now," he said firmly, continuing to close in on her, and on the plot we thought held the remains of all three victims. Her fists opened, and she raised her hands. She narrowed her eyes and positioned herself to block Karne's path.

"Who are you?" Her voice shifted to a lower and more forceful timbre. I could hear the officer's footsteps approaching behind me, but I felt fixed in my stance, unable to do anything for Karne.

"This is the woman, officer," Karne waved an arm toward Ms. Grange-Martinson. The officer swept past me, and his partner was close behind. She straightened her posture and rounded on them.

"Don't you dare," she snapped, tensing her arms by her sides. The first officer calmly told her to put her arms up and away from her torso. I watched them subdue and cuff her, then grab her bodily as she briefly struggled against them, digging in her heels and twisting her back as they walked her to the patrol car. Karne's face was placid as the officers did their work. While they radioed in a report of the arrest he quickly fixed the safety on his gun.

Once I could no longer hear her hissing voice coming from the car I finally felt able to move. I walked toward Karne and the gravel patch, one foot in front of the other. He watched me come.

"Well, Connell?" He prodded. I pulled one step past him as we approached. There was a wide-toothed rake discarded in the gravel at the side of an exposed patch of tamped-down dirt. I could see two areas of disturbed soil and the edge of a third. So Karne was right. I'd thought I'd be proud of him at the end of all this, but I can't say I was. I remember pulling my arms around myself and letting my eyes glaze as I looked at the dirt patch, and simply feeling worn, blank, and cold.

"It's got to be official from here," I said at last. I could see Karne's sharp nod from the corner of my eye. We walked slowly back to the patrol car, which had been joined by two others and a crime scene team van. We stood near the steps of the house, waiting in silence.

We stayed as dozens of people arrived and the scene was sealed. We backed farther away at the request of a few officers, and Karne still said nothing. I pushed my hands into my pockets, unwilling to leave him standing alone. I focused my attention on the hurried activity in front of me. Ms. Grange-Martinson was in the back of a patrol car staring daggers at the cops walking along the borders of the area covered in gravel. I noticed they stayed a good distance from the edge of the concrete.

At last, Karne and I walked toward a uniformed woman standing nearby. She looked familiar from another scene, I thought, and I think she thought the same about me. I introduced myself with my title, and introduced Karne without one. I could see him straighten as though he'd been slighted. She peered at him a moment and he looked back calmly. I was reminded of our meeting in the elevator.

"I'm not sure this is one of your scenes, Doctor," the woman began.

"How's that?" I pulled my attention from the excavation back to the woman.

"I think it's one for a shrink," the woman joked. I forced the corners of my mouth to lift.

"Have they got the remains out?" I flung my hand in the direction of the patch where I could see three dark holes in the dirt.

"Yeah," the officer said. "They've found two females, both decapitated, and a male. Smells like they've been here a while." She turned her face to glance toward a fellow officer on the other side of the gravel. I scanned the perimeter of the crime scene until my eyes landed on three black body bags, zipped tight and resting on the ground.

"DuPret isn't here yet, right?" I'd turned to look at the team picking through the rocks alongside the three bagged bodies.

"Nope," she said, casually nodding in the direction of another officer.

I wandered away, not even checking to see if Karne was following me. I'd become aware, again, that most of DuPret's job was foreign to me. I didn't see the people he put away, or the way they reacted to the realization we knew what they'd done. It wasn't something I could say I felt good about, even though I sure didn't want Ms. Grange-Martinson anywhere near any other potential victims.

"No one wins, Connell." Karne's voice was quiet by my shoulder. I flinched.

"Yeah," I muttered. I glanced at him before turning to look where he was faced—back at the three black bags. We stood quietly as the crime scene team continued to sift through the shallow gravel.

"Ah. DuPret." Karne turned toward the sound of a car approaching. DuPret launched toward us as soon as he parked. I watched him come.

"Doc. Karne," he nodded. "Going to tell me what you know?"

"Perhaps we'll simply tell you what you don't know, DuPret," Karne said. DuPret's face twitched, but he stayed quiet. Karne nodded once and drew a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. He took his time in lighting one, and took a lazy drag that he blew slowly into the air over our heads. He started telling DuPret about the tea blends, gesturing in the air between us. The flakes of ash from his cigarette caught on the slow breeze and came to rest on the front of DuPret's dark jacket.

The scene team brought the van around and loaded the bags into the back. I watched the guys on the team strip the gloves from their hands and swing up into the front seat of the van. They stopped to roll down the windows before they started the engine. I nodded toward the driver when we caught each other's glances. I turned my attention back to Karne's ongoing lecture.

"…Ramos had the added duty of polishing the floor of the atrium on the night Ms. Grange-Martinson buried the second set of bones. He saw her there. She killed him. I suspect you will find the murder weapon among her taxidermy tools. And you'll wonder why the two women never saw a doctor?" DuPret nodded, looking very annoyed. "She convinced them they had an illness, and that she knew how to treat it." Karne waved a hand again, sending ash flying. "You can manage the rest, detective?" Karne raised an eyebrow at DuPret, who straightened up and looked annoyed.

"Course," he snapped. "You two just get on with your day out, Karne." DuPret walked toward the crime scene team, scowling. Karne let out a quiet chuckle. He dropped his cigarette butt and ground his heel against it.

"How did you know about the illness?" I muttered to Karne, a little worried he'd made that part up.

"Her mailbox contained two newsletters on alternative treatments for Lupus with subscription tags bearing her name." Karne turned his grey eyes on me. I folded my arms in front of my chest and looked away for a moment. "Anything else, doctor?"

"Don't call me that," I said automatically. I supposed there wasn't anything else. After we left Victoria Grange-Martinson's driveway my adventure in the world of murder mysteries was over. Back to the dry bones for me.

DuPret walked past us on the way to his car; he punctured the quiet between us to tell us he was headed to the station. Karne nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. I found myself copying his posture as we stood together on the edge of the gravel patch.


I lost sight of Karne at the precinct, where my credentials got me through security at once. I followed DuPret toward his office and he gestured for me to sit until he returned. Some time later—I'm not sure how long exactly, the female officer from the scene walked me down a series of drab hallways to the separate observation room of an interview area. I was impressed at the parallel to all the TV cop shows I'd seen; the woman told me the room was sort of a relic from the old days, and that the newer buildings didn't have one. I was grateful this one did. I took my post and turned on the speaker that allowed me to hear the conversation between Karne, DuPret, and Ms. Grange-Martinson.

She sat at a table with a grey fiberglass top. It and the bench near it appeared to be bolted to the floor. It looked uncomfortable, but she never shifted in the seat. She sat up straight, with her hands gently folded together atop the table. They'd taken off her cuffs as she sat, but I could see the indentations on her exposed wrists. Predictably, she was giving Karne her polished and bleached smile.

"You do have an eye for plants, Oliver," she purred. She extended a hand across the table toward him, and Karne looked down at it like it was a lab specimen. I tightened my grip on the sill at the base of the one-way glass. It was almost a relief to feel the sharp edge of the flaking laminate putting a crease in the skin of my fingers. Otherwise, standing in the dark observation room and hearing them through a tinny speaker, I could almost imagine this was all on TV, or in my head, or otherwise not happening. But it was, and Karne was there. He was doing this. We were.

"Ms. Grange-Martinson," Karne said firmly, "you stabbed Mr. Ramos. Why did you take his body to your home?"

"Stabbed him? Oh, Oliver, you don't believe these men about my tea, do you?" The smile on her face became rigid and she withdrew her hand again. DuPret stepped closer to the table, and her eyes flicked toward him.

"Stop this." Karne's nostrils flared. He placed his palms down on the surface of the table and loomed over her. I could see the muscles of her jaw tighten as she held her smile. "You transported him. Why?"

"I saw your wife, Oliver," she said quietly, looking down at her fingernails. She smiled broadly. "Of course you married a Violet, being a gardener." Karne drew back up to his full height, wrinkling his forehead. She looked back up at him, and he smoothed his face back to a neutral expression. "Finicky plants, violets. I saw her when we had tea, that little girl of yours. She thought when I left you I didn't see her, but I did. I saw her looking at my birds, the little homes I made for them."

"Ramos, Ms. Grange-Martinson," Karne insisted. She put up a hand.

"She has such pretty hair, your little girl." I felt a sliver of veneer give way under my grip and drop to the floor. DuPret's eyes cut toward Karne. "The others were never curious, you know. They never asked about the birds." I leaned closer to the glass. Karne stood with his thumbs hooked into the lowest corners of his trouser pockets; his face was stern.

"Ms. Grange-Martinson," Karne tried again.

"No." She snapped at him, all traces of her smile gone and the powerful muscles of her temples and jaw visibly tensed beneath the skin of her face. "I know what you did, Oliver. You wanted to keep her. You took the tea I sent for her. You'd never have let me have her like my husband let me have his girls. I took care of them. They died just as I said they would; I told them how they would die."

"How was that?" DuPret cut in.

"Lupus, DuPret," Karne said quietly. "She told them they had symptoms of Lupus." I heard myself make a quiet choking noise. When he'd said so before I'd managed not to picture it: the women dying in beds in her house, and her knowing precisely what she was doing.

"Very good, Oliver," she smiled. "Oh, they thought I understood so well," she laughed lightly. I felt a bitter taste rise up onto the back of my tongue. "I could have planted your little Violet in my garden, Oliver." She laughed again and I let go of the ledge. I stepped away from the glass and shook my hands once as I dropped them to my sides. "Right there in the afternoon sun. What do you think?"

"I think you never planned to kill Ramos. I think you did a bad job of it. I think you took him to your garden to hide your failure." Karne's voice was flat and bored, almost. I watched him turn his side to her, and a rapid shot of feeling—like a muscle cramp in a rapid wave—flew from my shoulders down my torso. How could he be so calm?

"My failure?" She snapped at him. She pressed her palms to the table edge and started to stand. DuPret moved closer to her, but Karne stayed turned away. "He meant nothing!"

"But you failed, didn't you?" Karne raised his left hand up to the level of his chest and seemed to study the back of his hand. He curled his fingers into a fist and dropped it to his side again. "You were careless and angry—you made a mess of him, and right there in the office under all the security cameras. Anyone could have known."

"No one did! No one knew. I took him out. I took care of him." She'd stood and was leaning across the table toward him, her face pale and frozen. She reached toward him. DuPret put a hand on her shoulder to push her back into the chair. Karne turned his head to look directly at her for a moment, then strode purposefully toward the door.

I watched him leave. I watched a uniformed officer cuff Ms. Grange-Martinson and take her from the room. I realized, finally, that I'd put my palm to my stomach and was holding it there. I'd also pulled the corner of my lower lip into my mouth and had started to run my teeth over the surface. The repeated sensation started to soothe me. I composed myself, smoothed my shirt down my front, and walked out the door.

DuPret followed me into the hallway. I tried to be covert about my need to catch my breath. We stood silently side by side, eyes trained ahead to the door of the interview room. I dropped my shoulder blades back to lean against the wall.

"Your first death threat, Doc?" DuPret's voice wasn't mocking; his intonation was almost flat.

"Yeah," I managed at last. I cleared my throat and shifted my weight.

"If I didn't have reports to file I'd buy you a beer," he said. He swiveled his head and looked at me, still without any visible mockery. "Tell you what, Nancy Drew. Get Karne to buy you one. He owes you." DuPret turned his face back toward the door, then turned to walk back to his office.

"DuPret," I called, my voice quieter than I'd intended. He looked back at me and raised his eyebrows. "Thanks." A very small ripple of surprise passed his features; he then nodded once and turned back toward his office. I watched him walk off, and when I looked back toward the door I realized I'd been running my fingers around the fake tattooed wedding band as though there were actually a ring there. I brought my hand up to my face and looked again at the twisting design. She was right. Karne did have an eye for plants.


Yes, this is a do-over, patient readers. I agreed with J.A. Lowell so thoroughly that I rewrote the final scenes. Please forgive any confusion from the original (lame) ending.