Execution of Innocence

by Christopher Pike

  Mary thought that odd. Yet, not really.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five…

  At the farm Hannah stopped the car near the barn. As she started to get out she said that they had to get Charlie into the barn. Of course he’d wake when they lifted him so what Hannah really meant was that they had to kill Charlie before they stashed his dead body in the barn. With Hannah the things that weren't spoken were the most revealing. Mary grabbed her arm as she started to get out.

  “I want to do it,” Mary said.

  Hannah paused. “Can you?”

  “I don’t want you to do it.”

  Hannah understood. “He’s unconscious. You can use anything, a large rock or something.”

  Mary opened her door. “Something.”

  Charlie must have been suffering from blood loss as well as the cold. Actually, he was probably still recovering from floating under the ground for God knew how long. He did not wake as they lifted him out of the backseat and put him on his back in the snow. Staring down at him, Mary couldn't believe that they had the nerve to treat any human being this way. The perverse irony of it was that Hannah was standing on the other side of him waiting for Mary to whack him.

  “How do you want to do it?” Hannah asked.

  Mary looked around. “A brick maybe. Do you see any?”

  Hannah searched, then pointed. “There's one there on top of that pile of junk under that white pine.”

  “Let's get it,” Mary said, stepping around Charlie to join Hannah. Together they walked toward the discarded brick. They paused in front of the pile with the brick, and the moment was crucial. For Mary paused longer, and so it was Hannah who bent over to pick it up.

  As she did so Mary slipped behind her and shoved her forward.

  Hannah’s face smashed into the brick, her rear up in the air. Mary yanked up the back of Hannah’s jacket to reveal the revolver tucked in her belt. Mary grabbed the gun and pulled it loose. She moved quickly and precisely, without fear. She had positioned herself perfectly to take aim between her friend’s eyes before Hannah could recover her balance. Hannah now stood crouched like a wary animal.

  “How did you know?” Hannah whispered.

  “Riles said that four shots had been fired from the gun they found. I remembered that there had been six shots. That meant there must have been another gun.”

  “When did you remember?”

  “When I saw Charlie alive.” Mary waved the revolver. “Get in the barn.”

  Hannah trembled. “You won’t kill me. I know you, Mary, you're not a killer.”

  Mary cocked the hammer. “You do not know me, Hannah.”

  Hannah raised her arms and walked in the direction of the barn. Mary followed closely but not so close that Hannah could whirl around and disarm her. Mary had seen enough thrillers to know about that little trick. Hannah seemed to move in slow motion agony. Her trembling had changed to outright shaking, and she was weeping softly. She risked a glance over her shoulder.

  “Please don't shoot me,” she whispered.

  “Shut up. Keep walking.”

  Hannah choked. “I don’t want to die.”

  “Charlie doesn’t want to die either. Dick didn’t want to die.”

  Hannah was a mass of nerves. “I'm sorry, Mary. Please believe me. I didn't want it to happen this way.”

  “Bullshit. You set this up from the beginning. Looking back, it's all so obvious. Charlie found out about Dick kissing me at the Sadie Hawkins' because you phoned and told him. You manipulated me into wanting revenge and then you manipulated your brother into playing the fool in your scheme. You drugged him with the PCP right after you left me at the Pizza Palace. You wanted his brain boiling. You put the live ammo in Charlie's gun, and you told Dick just to shoot close to us, not at us. Even stoned, he listened to you. Why shouldn't he listen to his own sister? He probably thought it would make the evening more exciting. Then you manipulated Charlie into stopping the car and getting out to face Dick. You knew Charlie well—that he would never run from your brother. Finally you seemingly randomly jumped into the fray to accomplish your own hidden agenda. From the outside, in the pitch black, you looked brave. You were risking your life to save two angry young guys from hurting each other. The only thing about your hidden agenda was that it included a hidden gun. You shot them both with the gun I'm holding. A gun you later stashed in Charlie’s truck. You did it right in front of me and I didn’t even see it. Tell me, Hannah, how were you able to shoot so well in the dark? Are you a vampire or are you just lucky?”

  Hannah had stopped and dropped her arms. She panted hard. On her face lines of terror. “If I tell you the truth will you let me go?” she asked meekly.

  Mary’s gun hand shook. “Damn you! You tell me or I shoot you right now where you stand!”

  Hannah moaned. “I bought some of those special night glasses at an army surplus store in Portland. They were old and cracked and expensive but they worked. They let me see in the dark. I just wore them for a second. Then I put them back in my coat pocket.”

  “Where are they now?” Mary demanded.

  “In Charlie’s truck.”

  Mary smiled thinly and glanced back at Charlie, who continued to sleep peacefully. She had to get him out of the elements soon. “You had everything figured perfectly. Too bad you didn't count on Charlie’s St. Christopher medal, and the fact that this old well’s underground stream leads out to fresh air somewhere. You’re smart Hannah, but it's Charlie who’s lucky.” Mary paused and took a step closer. She was so pissed she actually rammed the barrel against Hannah's throat. “The only trouble is I don’t know what all these revelations make me.”

  Hannah gasped. “You can’t kill me. I can’t die.”

  Mary chuckled. “Wrong, girl. You can die. You deserve to die. Hearing you talk like that makes me feel better about killing you. Keep walking, get into the bam, I don’t want to mess up this nice clean snow.”

  Hannah bawled. “You can’t do this to me!”

  Mary smacked her in the face with the gun. “Stop it! You started all this and you’re going to finish it. You have nothing to complain about. You’ll play Charlie's part—the murderer who fled the scene of the crime. Then when things cool down, I’ll come out here and move you to a better hiding place. Until then you'll be a good little dead body and lie out here in this barn and try not to rot too much.”

  Hannah entered the realm of shock. She couldn't speak. Mary had to threaten to smack her again to get her to move. Hannah staggered toward the nearby barn as if she had already been shot. Mary wondered what it would be like to pull the trigger, to watch her friend die. She longed for the darkness that had hidden Dick's death. Just a flash of fire, then a glimpse of the nightmare. Mary knew that this moment would haunt her.

  The interior of the barn was nothing. Four ugly wooden walls. A place to hide despicable acts. Mary gestured for Hannah to move toward the corner. At the last moment Hannah dropped down on her knees in front of Mary. She placed her hands together near her heart in an attitude of prayer. Her pretty hazel eyes were murky swamp gas now. She stared up at Mary with the anguish of a tortured child.

  “I thought you loved me,” Hannah whispered.

  Mary bit her lip, trying to keep her right arm steady.

  “No,” she said tightly. “I don't love you.”

  Hannah nodded as if in acceptance. “Please don't hurt my face. My father never loved me either, but he always told me how pretty I was.”

  Mary nodded. “Goodbye, Hannah.”

  Hannah closed her eyes. “Bye.”

  Mary shot her in the heart. Hannah fell forward on her face. Mary rolled her over before she left the barn. She had to see her friend's face one last time, perhaps to understand for the remainder of her life exactly what she had done. Hannah’s chest was stained red. But her face, the face of the monster who had had the nerve to wipe two innocent people out of existence, looked like that of a pretty young girl taking a nap. Had her father been the
re, he might have felt the desire to wipe away the lock of blond hair that had fallen on her face. Mary brushed it aside.

  The guilty were never executed.

  The moment of death brought an instant of innocence.

  Mary turned and walked out of the barn.

  Outside she wiped off the gun and threw it in some bushes.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Lieutenant Riles and Lieutenant Sharp were contemplating going home and going to bed. Neither had a family, no one waiting for them. The idea of sleep was becoming more inviting with each passing hour. The tech guys were out at the scene of the murder, Kohner was still dissecting Dick, and Mary and Hannah were probably shopping for clothes for their next high school dance. Of course Riles had doubts about the latter. He suspected the girls were up to much more dangerous activities.

  “We're not doing much good here,” Sharp said as the two of them worked on yet another cup of coffee. “Should we go back out to the Crossroads?”

  Riles shook his head. “We’d just get in the way.”

  “Maybe we should check in with Kohner again.”

  “If he finds something he'll let us know.”

  “Then what are we doing here?” Sharp asked.

  “We’re supposed to be thinking.”

  “My brains stopped working when the girls left.” Sharp yawned. “Are you having any profound thoughts?”

  “Linda Hoppe is on my mind.”

  Sharp was surprised. “We are getting desperate, aren't we?”

  “Perhaps not. All these girls grew up together. They know stuff about each other that could take us months to discover without them.”

  “But Linda? She has less working brain tissue than Dick's.”

  “Her stupidity could be her biggest asset. She doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut.” Riles stood. “I'd like to talk to her again.”

  Sharp also got up slowly. “About what?”

  “I keep thinking how the tire tracks led away from the second group of blood puddles that we found. I’d give a lot to know where those tracks ended up.” Riles paused as he headed for the door. “You don't have to come. You can rest if you want.”

  “I told you, I go where you go.” Sharp had to laugh. “Even to Linda Hoppe's house.”

  As it turned out, Linda was not at home, but at the Day Glow Donut. The detectives found her eating a chocolate-covered doughnut and drinking milk with friends. The latter cleared out as soon as they saw the lieutenants. Linda told them to get lost, in fact; she said it with authority, letting them know she was important and that she knew things they didn't. Even though their previous meeting had not ended well, Linda looked positively ecstatic to see them. She even offered them one of her doughnuts. The police respectfully declined. Linda rubbed her hands together excitedly.

  “Have you caught them yet?” she asked.

  “Who?” Sharp asked.

  “The murderers, of course.”

  “But we thought you thought Mary did it?” Riles asked.

  Linda waved her hand. “I've thought about it more and changed my mind. It's too obvious that Mary is the killer. I mean, like, she announced to practically the whole world that she wanted to kill Charlie. Why would she do that and then go ahead and do it? I mean, shit, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Linda,” Sharp said patiently. “It is Dick who's dead.”

  “I know, I know. But these things can happen in pairs, and Hannah and Dick are twins. We talked about that. I think there's a connection.”

  Riles and Sharp had to exchange a look on that one.

  “We fail to see it,” Sharp said.

  Linda brushed her dark hair aside—it was no longer pinned up with Excalibur—and leaned forward. “I think it was Hannah who killed Dick. She shot him so she'd inherit all her dad's money. It's perfect motivation.”

  “But you said last time that Hannah and Dick loved each other,” Sharp said.

  Linda was unmoved. “What is love when we're talking about millions of dollars? I mean, you guys know what makes the world go round. It sure ain't love, come on. It's cash and sex—that's it, nothing else matters. And if you don't have one, you can't get the other.”

  “Linda,” Riles said, “you have known Mary and Hannah all your life, right?”

  Linda sat back, seemingly hurt that they weren't interested in her theories.

  “Yeah,” she said carefully. “But I wouldn’t help them kill someone, if that’s what you're saying.”

  “I'm not implying that you would,” Riles said politely. “I was just wondering if, as you girls grew up together, you had any favorite hiding places out of town that you'd go? Say, when you were eight to twelve. Places you used to ride to on your bikes?”

  Linda made a face. “What a weird question. I mean, we all had bikes and liked to ride everywhere. Hannah didn't kill her brother because he had a bike and she didn't. She had one, too. It was a green Schwinn mountain bike, totally radical.”

  Riles smiled. “I know you're right about that. But if you could humor me for a moment, where did you girls like to go when you wanted to get away from everything?”

  Linda suddenly clapped her hands together. “I know what you’re asking! You want to know where they might have dumped Charlie’s body!”

  Riles nodded. “That's it exactly.”

  Linda thought real hard. “Hannah and me used to go to this deserted farm sometimes. It's not that far from here, a few miles out on the road to Whistler.”

  Both cops sat up straight.

  “Can you give us exact directions?” Riles asked.

  “Sure.” And Linda did give them directions, several versions of them. After about ten minutes and many questions they basically knew how to get to the farm. When she was done Linda wanted to know if they thought she’d be interviewed on TV.

  “Probably,” Riles said. “You're obviously important to this case.”

  Linda smiled. “Cool.” Then she stopped smiling. “Oh, I forgot to tell you guys something. It’s real important, I don’t know how I could have forgot.”

  “What?” Sharp asked.

  “I thought I saw Charlie.”

  “What?” they both said.

  Linda was unsure. “I couldn’t swear it was him, but it sure looked like him.”

  “When and where do you think you saw him?” Riles asked quietly.

  Linda shrugged. “This morning, wandering down the middle of the street. I didn't get a good look at him. It might have been somebody else.”

  “Didn't you stop to make sure who it was?” Sharp asked.

  Linda took a bite of her doughnut. “No. I was too busy.”

  “What were you doing?” Riles asked.

  Linda chewed. “Stuff.”

  In the snow at the deserted farm that Linda said was a favorite childhood haunt of Hannah's, they found fresh tire tracks in the snow. Two sets actually, both from the same car. Sharp and Riles studied them carefully, crouched together a few feet from a stone well.

  “These look like the treads on Mary’s tires,” Riles said. “The same tires near the two puddles of blood.”

  “Are you sure?” Sharp asked.

  “Pretty damn sure.”

  Sharp glanced at the well. “Do you think they dumped Charlie in there?”

  “I think that's more likely than the possibility that Charlie was walking around town this morning.”

  They stood and walked over to the well and peered down into it. The well seemed to swallow the faint sound of their breathing, a tunnel into perpetual night. Far below, maybe fifty feet, they could hear running water.

  “If they threw him in here he's gone,” Sharp said.

  “I'm not so sure about that. I've been out here before. I think the underground stream comes out somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  Riles frowned. “I can't remember.”

  “You've been spending too much time with Linda Hoppe.”

  “I believe it. Let's check out the barn.”

&nbs
p; The bam was empty.

  Except for footprints in the dust, and some red stuff in the corner. Excited, they hurried toward the latter but their excitement faded when Riles touched one drop of it and rolled it slowly between his fingers. He sniffed the red gook.

  “Catsup,” he said.

  Sharp was deflated. “Damn.”

  Riles studied a nearby set of footprints. “Mary's New Balance running shoes.” He pointed deeper into the corner. “Hannah's Nike walking shoes.”

  “Tell me, how can you tell what’s a walking shoe and what's a running shoe?”

  “Experience.” Riles added, “I sold sports shoes to put myself through college.”

  “I didn't know that.”

  “It was only a part time job,” Riles said.

  “No. I didn’t know you went to college. I'll have to treat you with more respect.” Sharp nodded to the catsup on Riles’s fingers. “If only that belonged to Charlie, we’d have a stronger case against the girls.”

  Riles stared at the red stuff. “But it fooled you for a second, didn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t it fool you?”

  “Yes. For a moment.” Riles studied the prints some more. “I wonder if it fooled someone else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why is there catsup here?” Riles asked. “I think that's the important question.”

  Sharp was doubtful. “You might be reading too much into it. Somebody probably just sat here and ate fries.”

  “No. This catsup is fresh. In fact, in this cold, it should be frozen and it’s not.”

  “I’m not following you,” Sharp admitted.

  “Catsup is one of the few substances people have on hand that can look like blood. I wonder if one of the girls used it on the other girl to fake her out. Or rather, I wonder if one of the girls used it on herself to fake the other out.”

  Sharp nodded. “To fake the fact that she was bleeding.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It sounds like you're reaching again.”

  Riles stood. “I want to go see the girls again. Now.”

  Sharp got up. “We have no right to question them so soon after their release.”