Alex Harris 00 - Poisoned

Stuart reached into his pocket and pulled something out. I knew a silencer when I saw one and my heart raced faster than it had been. Maybe I would have a heart attack first. “If you’re not going to help me, I’ll just kill you first and search afterward in peace.”
    “You didn’t have any luck finding the papers before, what makes you think you’ll find them now?” I said making one more attempt at stalling Stuart.
    “That was stupid of me. I never thought Bradley would hide them at Mamoo’s house. He was smarter than I gave him credit for. He must have seen something in my face when I stopped by his apartment and knew I wanted them. Okay. Enough talk. Let’s get this over with.”
    He raised the gun and God help me, one of Winston’s damn quotes came into my head. One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half . Meet it head on, huh? Okay I could do that. My eyes darted quickly looking for something to grab that I could use to throw at Stuart but I didn’t think the Yankee Magazine sitting on the coffee table would do much damage. The only thing left to do was scream and that’s exactly what I did. Loudly. Then I screamed again hoping that someone, anyone, might hear me.
    “Drop the gun!”
    “Huh?” At first I thought Stuart was talking to me but then I realized the voice had come from the direction of the kitchen. Stuart whirled around. I threw myself onto the floor between the sofa and the coffee table, hitting my knee on the corner of the table.
    “I said drop it!” the voice yelled again.
    Stuart raised the barrel but before he could get it up a shot rang out in my small house. Stuart fell back, slumped over the sofa. The gun flew from his hands and landed on top of my leg. He clutched his left shoulder yelling in pain.
    I slithered out from my hiding place and crawled around to the back of the sofa.
    “Ms. Harris, you forgot to lock your back door.”

    *****

    With the sound of sirens and flashing lights, not to mention a gunshot, most of my neighbors came out into the street. Stuart Brissart had been put into an ambulance and a police car with two officers followed it to the hospital.
    After coming from behind the sofa, I had jumped up and thrown my arms around Detective Maroni, who blushed at my obvious display of gratitude. I started laughing uncontrollably and he asked me what was so funny.
    “It’s just that I thought you kind of looked like Clark Kent, with your glasses, and nice starched shirts and short hair.”
    “I’ve heard that before.”
    “Well, it’s true. Not only do you look like Clark Kent, but you act like Superman. We’re going to have to do something about the hair, though.”
    I heard a car door slam and turned toward the street. John stood there staring at me. At first I thought he was going to yell, but then his famous smile filled up his face. He rushed up the steps and picked me up.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

    “Okay, so where were we?” Mary-Beth asked as she settled back down on the floor.
    “I said that I have never been so happy to see another human being in all my days. I just wish he didn’t have to shoot Stuart so near my sofa. Luckily, he wore leather and it soaked up the blood pretty well.”
    “Alex! We’re eating,” chided Mary-Beth, slicing large portions of cheesecake and passing them around.
    “Sorry. I felt so sure Stuart was going to shoot me right then and there. My life didn’t exactly pass before my eyes, but I kept thinking about John and...” I took John’s hand. “And my sister and Henry and Kendall and Mom and Dad in London and how this was really going to wreck their vacation. And Meme. Meme would never recover if I had been killed.”
    “So you knew it was Stuart right away?” Mary-Beth asked
    “No. Not right away,” I said. “At first I thought he was a robber but he looked familiar somehow. And why it didn’t click all at once, I don’t know.” I took a bite of my cake. “There is one thing I don’t understand.”
    “What’s that?” John asked.
    “How would killing Bradley change anything? I mean just because Bradley was dead, that didn’t mean that Mrs. Brissart would sell the land.”
    “No, it didn’t. But Bradley figured out the fact the land wasn’t theirs to sell. The land in question belongs to Kendra’s family. Stuart told