The Girl in the Green Raincoat_ A Novel - Laura Lippman [47]
Tess knew she probably wouldn’t die at the taser’s first contact, but she would be immobilized. More immobilized. She could try to heave herself out of bed, but she couldn’t outrun a snail in her condition. Instead, as Carole approached, she picked up the cane her aunt had given her and tried to push the panic button on the alarm console above her head. But the angle was awkward, and Carole knocked the cane away, although not out of Tess’s grip. She was thrown a little off-balance, her high heels catching on the rug. In that split-second, Tess used the cane as she had used it so many times, to open the door on Dempsey’s crate.
Freed, the dog rushed toward his former mistress—going straight for the hem of her coat, trying to shred it with his teeth. Carole screamed and kicked at the dog, but he was quite the little sidewinder, evading her every move. Carole tried to use her weapon on him, but Tess rapped her right wrist sharply with the cane and the taser fell, skittering across the floor. Carole crawled after it, the dog nipping at her legs and backside. But now Carole was out of cane range, her hands closing over the taser, and she might fire it from there in her desperation.
Searching frantically for something, anything, she could reach from the bed, Tess risked leaning forward and hefting the chamber pot, throwing its contents at Carole Epstein’s face. Shocked, Carole let go of the taser with an outraged screech, but Tess wasn’t through. She managed to heave the chamber pot at the woman’s head, hitting her midsection instead. This gave Tess the time she needed to grab the cane and hit the panic button, sounding a wail of an alarm that could be heard up and down the street. Dempsey continued to bite and tear, as if intent on shredding that raincoat. This was the battle for which he had been preparing, this was his enemy, the coldhearted mistress who had staged her disappearance and left him behind.
Tess felt a sharp pain in her midsection, quite unlike anything she had ever known. Had she torn something, or—worse? The pain shot through her again and she looked for her phone, which had been knocked from the table in the struggle. Scooping it up, she called 911, screaming her address into the phone, asking for an ambulance, even as the house phone rang, probably the alarm company. Good, they would call police if she didn’t pick up and provide the code.
Carole Epstein was up on her feet again, now intent only on getting away, but Lloyd, truly better late than never, picked that moment to arrive with Tess’s dinner. Bless street-smart Lloyd, he didn’t need to be told that a woman dripping with dog urine was someone who should be detained. Tess could hear them scuffling, and the whole neighborhood probably could hear Carole Epstein’s ugly screams and epithets.
“Release the hounds,” Tess cried to Lloyd, and he ran to the bedroom to let out Esskay and Miata, who had been scratching at the door all the while. For the first time, the three dogs worked in concert together, their fealty to Tess overriding their previous disputes.
“They’ve got her cornered in the dining room,” Lloyd said breathlessly, crouching by her. “Who is that crazy lady? Did she hurt you?”
“I don’t know, Lloyd. I called 911—something—it feels—I need to get to the hospital, but you have to stay here with her until the police can take her away. Tell the police that she assaulted me, that she’s a killer, and not to let her go under any circumstances. Then call the club and get Crow on the phone, tell him to meet me at Hopkins.”
“Tess—is the baby coming?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on inside me.”
In Baltimore public schools, they tell you in sixth grade where babies come from,