Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,60

absorbed that quickly. From looking perplexed and angry, his expression went to murderous.

“What were you going to do with the rope and the tape, Sam?” he asked very quietly.

I felt all the blood drain from my face. I hadn’t followed through on my own idea until Martin asked that critical question.

“You son of a bitch, I was going to hurt you like you hurt me,” Sam Ulrich said savagely.

“I didn’t rape your wife.”

“I wasn’t going to rape her,” he said, as if I weren’t there. “I was going to scare her and leave her tied up so you’d know what it was like to see your family helpless.”

“Your logic escapes me,” Martin said, and his voice was like a brand-new razor blade.

I knew this was a quarrel between the two men, but after all, it was I who would have been tied up.

“Didn’t you feel it might be a little cowardly,” I said clearly, “to creep up in the dark and tie up a woman who wasn’t even your real enemy?”

It seemed Sam Ulrich had never put it to himself quite that way. He turned even redder in a slow, ugly way.

“I’d like to kill you,” Martin said very quietly. I didn’t doubt his sincerity, and I could tell from the hunch of his shoulders that Ulrich didn’t, either. Martin, even in pajama bottoms, had more authority than Sam Ulrich would have had in a suit. “But since it’s Roe’s house you broke into, and her you were going to harm, maybe she should decide what should happen to you.”

I knew that Martin would kill this man if I asked him to.

I thought of calling the police. I thought of cops I knew from having dated Arthur, perhaps even Arthur himself, up here in my bedroom looking at me in my black nightie. I thought of their eyes as they found out Martin and I had been asleep together when I heard someone downstairs. I thought of the report taken from the police blotter that appeared daily in the Lawrenceton Sentinel. Then I thought of letting this dreadful coward go scot-free. But my flesh crawled when I pictured myself alone here with this frustrated man and his rope and his tape.

And I’ll tell you what I just plain liked about Martin. He let me think. He didn’t say one word, or look impatient, or even make a face.

“Do you have a wife?” I asked Sam Ulrich.

“Yes,” he mumbled.

“Children?”

“Two.”

“What are their names?”

He looked more and more humiliated. “Jannie and Lisa,” he said reluctantly.

“Jannie and Lisa wouldn’t like to see their father’s name in the paper for attacking an unarmed woman in her home.”

I thought that between anger and humiliation he might cry.

I got a pen and a notepad from my bedside drawer.

“Write,” I said.

He took the pen and paper.

“Date it.”

He wrote the date.

“I am dictating this now. Start writing,” I told him. “I, Sam Ulrich, broke into the townhouse of Aurora Teagarden tonight. . .” His hand finally moved. When it stopped, I continued. “I had with me some rope and masking tape.” Done. “She was asleep in bed with all the lights out, and I did not know anyone was in the townhouse with her.” His fingers moved even slower. “I was only prevented by her house guest from doing her harm. If I do not abide by the conditions she sets forth, she will send this letter to the police, with a copy to my wife.” And as he finished writing, I told him to sign it.

He waited to hear my conditions.

“What I want to see is your house up for sale tomorrow, and for God’s sake don’t list it with Select Realty. And I want you out of here, moved, family and all, within the week. I never want you to come back here, and I never want to see you again. You may not get a job like you’re used to, but anything, I think, would be better than being in jail for what you wanted to do to me.”

Martin’s face was blank.

Ulrich was so upset his features were distorted. I wondered if between rage, and relief, and shock, he would have a heart attack on the way home, and I found myself not much caring if he did.

“Martin, could you please walk Mr. Ulrich to his car?”

“Sure, honey,” Martin agreed, with a dangerous kind of smoothness. “Come on, Ulrich. You’re lucky I asked the lady. I would have put you in the hospital if it had