Death Before Facebook (Skip Langdon #4) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  He took her to the edge and stared over. The hospital was surrounded by police. Someone with a megaphone was preparing to shout up at him.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said. “Do you think a helicopter could land here?’

  “What do you want, Cole? Do you really think you can get out of this one?”

  “Well now, that depends, doesn’t it? On how much your fellow officers want to save your neck.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t you?”

  She smiled to herself. It wasn’t about to come to that. She was either going to be long dead before, or he was. It was the first time in her life she’d ever really wanted to kill someone.

  This was no place to start a fight—right on the edge of a roof, but he wouldn’t move away, not with an audience down there. She had to do it now. Her foot came up sharp to his groin just as her free elbow whammed him in the kidneys.

  She heard the breath go out of him, but he tightened his grip on her. She relaxed for a moment, knowing he couldn’t hold her. The pain would be too much. She whacked him again and twisted away, grabbing his gun hand. He went down on his knees.

  She had both hands on his forearm, trying to get him to drop the gun. With his free hand, he grabbed her hair and pulled.

  “Pull it out, you bastard!” She slammed his arm against the low railing of the roof, but still he held the gun.

  He let go of her hair and punched her face. Furious, she tried to throw him off the roof. It was easy; she simply twisted more, and his weight shifted toward the railing. His back bent over it, but his arms pushed against her.

  “Die, you bastard. Go off the roof. I don’t care if I kill you.”

  His fingers opened. The gun fell.

  And her anger started to dissipate. She kicked him. “Get up.”

  He came up swinging, but she swung back, both arms together, and landed a blow to his left cheek that sent him reeling. He was three steps from her now; she couldn’t reach him, and she had no weapon.

  It occurred to her that he might hurl himself from the roof, and that was unacceptable. She was aware that she’d just tried to throw him off it, but it was only a dim cognizance, like a childhood memory of a person she used to be. Her whole being focused now on stopping him.

  She dived for him, and though the distance was greater this time, she’d judged it better. She brought him down just as a phalanx of cops burst through the door from the fifth floor.

  She heard his head hit the concrete and bounce, exactly as Geoff’s must have done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  IT WAS ENDING now, and it was all right. He’d done what he had to do. Looking at things in reverse order, Cole honestly couldn’t think of a thing he’d have done differently, given what his motivations were, and the events that came before.

  He’d had to kill Lenore after she made that stupid post about the diary. (Of course in the end, the book hadn’t had a single incriminating word in it, but how was he to know that? It was her fault for saying it did.)

  He’d done it rather elegantly, if he did say so. Writing the fake suicide note was brilliant, though perhaps the concrete block wasn’t. It did get the job done, and he thought it had a nice Virginia Woolf-ish quality, but he could see now that it might not be the sort of thing one might have done to oneself. It might have made the cops suspicious.

  Nonetheless, he had had to kill her. That wasn’t in dispute.

  Geoff was another matter. He’d loved Geoff.

  Well, actually, he hadn’t. He loved Marguerite and Neetsie. He knew exactly what love was.

  He had affection for Geoff, but not all that much. Besides, he’d always known something might happen, that somehow Geoff would remember something, say something, and he couldn’t be allowed to do that, because Marguerite had to be protected.

  Marguerite.

  It was worth it. She was worth it.

  He hadn’t really been able to tell the cop about it because Kit was there, but it was like a fire, that first time he saw her. He touched her arm and his fingers got singed.

  What he felt for her was so different from what he felt for Kit, with whom he’d really made a marriage of convenience, it seemed in retrospect. He hadn’t thought that he was in love with her. Always nagging to have a baby, get a job, do this or that or the other thing.

  He was deeply, deeply in love with Marguerite, and yet it never once occurred to him he could be with her. He didn’t know what he thought; he guessed simply that he was married and that was that.

  After Leighton died, it didn’t occur to him that he could leave Kit now. That she had served her purpose and Marguerite was free. But then they’d moved away and eventually she had left him. He couldn’t believe it—she had left him.

  For the first time he realized he could marry Marguerite.

  But she was already remarried.

  And then years later, it turned out he had an opportunity to move back to New Orleans, and she wasn’t married.

  She’d responded when he sent her the ring from the faked burglary (as he knew she would), and they picked up the courtship again. They’d been blissfully happy until Kit stuck her nose in.

  The whole damn state of affairs had been caused by Kit. He’d just learned that last night. When he got Geoff’s diary.

  What it said was that Kit, who knew hypnosis, had offered to help Geoff with his memories. The blackmail notes would have started soon, Cole was pretty sure of that. He hadn’t asked her how successful they’d been with the hypnosis, but he knew the slightest little snippet would be enough for Kit. She probably suspected all along anyway; probably made the offer hoping to find out after all these years.

  You had to be careful with her, and he and Marguerite had been. He hadn’t lied when he said they’d never been back to the Terry apartment.

  But once they had made love at Marguerite and Leighton’s. Just once, because Marguerite really wanted to. She liked the danger, but that wasn’t what she said when she phoned.

  “Cole, come over, I’m desperate to see you.”

  “I’m on my way.” He wasn’t, of course. It was a game they played when they couldn’t see each other.

  “No, I mean it, I’m serious. There’s no reason why not. Geoff’s asleep and Leighton won’t be home for hours and hours.”

  “I can already feel you against me, your hair tickling my chest…” He was playing their game.

  Her voice exploded in his ear. “Don’t, I can’t stand it!”

  “Ouch.”

  “Come.”

  “I can’t come into your house. You’re crazy.”

  “Come and I’ll do things you never even heard of; I’ll lick every part of your body and then I’ll do it again.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I need you, Cole. My skin heats up when I think of you, and I’ve been thinking of you for hours. I’m burning alive. I have to have you. I’m going to light all the candles in the house and think about you till I feel you next to me. I’ll leave the key under the mat.”

  When he slipped into bed with her, on Leighton’s side, at first he thought her skin felt rough. But she was wearing lace, black lace, and black mesh stockings, with three-inch heels, in bed. She’d actually worn her shoes to bed.

  She had done what she said; she had lit all the candles and she had taken them into the bedroom.

  She was on top of him, the candlelight playing on her face, her hair cascading down her back, her body lithe and white under the black lace, when they heard the unmistakable sound of a door opening.

  The rest was a blur, the last real memory he had being Marguerite jumping off him. He remembered so well because it hurt so much. She had twisted her body, forgetting he was inside her, and had swung a leg over his chest, sitting on him rather than straddling, a lot of weight at once.

  She had screamed and thrown her hands up, he didn’t know why. And then he saw Leighton with the gun, looming over the bed, practically on them. But not quit
e.

  Marguerite ran at him, threw her body at him, and they fought. Cole got out of bed, ran at both of them, but it was too late; the gun went off, he wasn’t sure how, and Leighton was dead by the time he got there.

  He and Marguerite figured out what to do: make it look like a burglary and leave. It was only about ten o’clock; Marguerite could come home and find the body by eleven-thirty or so.

  They left Leighton where he was.

  All they had to do, really, was make up the bed as if nothing had happened. And remove the candles, of course.

  Then ransack the room a little.

  Marguerite had kept a surprisingly stiff upper lip throughout the whole thing, had been almost chipper.

  A good woman in a crisis, he had thought at the time.

  As they were leaving, she gave him the gun to dispose of and an heirloom ring, something flashy but not valuable. So she could find something missing.

  They’d kept the door closed, in case Geoff woke up, and when they opened it, he was in the hall. Marguerite knelt and gathered him to her, saying, “Oh, my poor baby,” or something of the sort, and for the first time gave way to tears.

  He patted her shoulder. “It’s all right, Mommy.”

  “Sweetheart, how long have you been here?”

  He looked at the floor. “I don’t know. What was that big noise?”

  “You must have been dreaming, honey. I didn’t hear anything.”

  Cole made up Geoff’s bed and put away his pajamas while Marguerite got him dressed to go to his grandmother’s.

  When he thought about it now, Cole was glad Geoff was dead, that he never had to find out his mother had killed his father.

  * * *

  “Mom, are you all right?”

  It was the last thing Neetsie had said before they stuffed Marguerite into the back of a police car, as if she were the one who was guilty. Now she was hunched down, making herself as small as she could. She wasn’t sure why she was sitting that way, but it was the way her life was.

  Smaller.

  She didn’t know how to answer Neetsie. What did you say when your life disappeared chunk by chunk over the course of a week? When you realized the husband you loved had turned you into a drug addict? Worse still, that you had willingly collaborated.

  I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to think about it..

  I knew he killed Geoff. I must have known, as soon as I heard about the TOWN, and the flashbacks. But I was so out of it no one talked to me about it. I could keep quiet and I could sleep most of the time so I never had to think about it.

  Now she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  It’s my fault. It’s all because I insisted on his coming over that night. Why did I do that? Was I crazy?

  But she knew she wasn’t, really. She was just young and in love and rebellious. And the times were right for illicit love and daring trysts.

  Yet how stupid. What a waste.

  Not of Leighton’s life. He was a small-minded sadist whose very unacceptability had attracted her—that and his cruelty, perhaps. There were things she wanted to explore then, things she had long since left behind.

  It was a waste of her life, and Mike’s. She had married Mike out of desperation and fury at Cole and out of guilt on Geoff’s account.

  But it should never have happened. It was a mistake for all three of them.

  She had tried often to imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t insisted that time, Miss Sexual Revolution spinning out of control.

  Or was that what she was? Maybe she was Mrs. Leighton Kavanagh hoping to get caught.

  If that was it, it didn’t have to happen that way. She could have been indiscreet in some other way, some less dangerous way, and Leighton would have divorced her, and in the ensuing scandal Kit would have divorced Cole and that would have been it. No fuss, no muss. They would simply have changed partners.

  Yet even now, even as guilt and contrition pounded within her like a headache, she could remember the pure excitement of that night, the thrill of waiting in bed for Cole, decked out in a black lace camisole and silk stockings. She had even worn high heels to bed. But that was too silly. She had taken them off before he got there and she and Cole had laughed about it later.

  She wasn’t laughing at the time. She was in another world, so clouded with her own desire that if Geoff had gotten up she couldn’t have dealt with it. The sensation was so strong it was almost painful. Actually it did have an element of pain, a constriction in her pelvis that begged to be eased.

  And later, the sculptured outline of Cole’s arms and shoulders in the candlelight—then Leighton. She hadn’t heard anything, not the key in the lock, not his footsteps, not anything except his voice: “What the hell is going on here?”

  She knew what he would do if he caught an intruder in his home, had heard him say it a thousand times: “Shoot him on sight.” Cole was the worst kind of intruder, the kind that needed shooting most.

  She had to get to Leighton, she had to get his gun. She had had her eyes closed, and had opened them when she heard his voice, and then all she saw was the way the room had become darker, as his body blocked the candlelight. But she knew he had his gun.

  She got off Cole so fast he groaned; somehow or other she must have hurt him. She hit the floor, stumbled on one of the high heels, and went down on one knee. A vise grabbed her elbow—Leighton’s left hand.

  “Who the fuck is this?” he said, and drew his gun with his other hand.

  Her head was almost at his hip level. She watched the gun leave its holster, saw him point it at Cole, all in one smooth motion. And she bit his thigh. Not hard, she thought now (or the autopsy would have shown tooth marks), but as hard as she could through his uniform pants.

  He screamed—a man’s scream, something like “Aaaaaaa”— and kicked at her, squeezed harder on her elbow.

  Cole rose up from the bed, using his locked hands as a bludgeon, catching Leighton square on the nose. She didn’t see that, but he told her later, as they were straightening the room.

  What she knew was that Leighton lost his balance and stumbled, letting go of her elbow. She pitched her body into his, and was almost instantly sandwiched between Leighton and Cole, who had grabbed Leighton’s right hand.

  She bit her lip in a savage effort not to scream, so as not to wake Geoff. Terrified, she slithered down between the two men and, once more on the floor, saw her opportunity. She stuck her shoulders between Leighton’s legs, which were now braced, feet somewhat apart, put one hand on each leg, and pushed. She didn’t feel him start to fall, even to shake or seemingly to notice, until she heard the shot and he fell backward, away from her.

  She never knew whether that bit of distraction had made the difference, whether he’d lost mental equilibrium if not physical. Her entire face was sore with the effort not to scream.

  She had gone right away to check on Geoff, as soon as she could get something on, leaving Cole to cope with what had happened. The boy was awake, but only barely. She told him the noise was upstairs, one of the neighbors had dropped something heavy.

  He was a boy who watched a lot of television; even at four, he knew what a gunshot sounded like. He probably didn’t believe her.

  She knew why Cole killed him, killed her only son twenty-seven years later, and it hurt almost more than the fact that he did it. It was the real reason she never balked at taking the pills, why she wanted to sleep all the time.

  Leighton’s killing was done in self-defense. She was the only witness and she knew that Cole wasn’t going to jail even if Geoff remembered seeing him there, remembered how he and Marguerite covered up what had happened.

  But he might have been dragged down to the police station, might even have been arrested and had to stand trial, would almost certainly have been subjected to public scrutiny.

  What’s wrong with me? How could I have been so passive? How could I have let it happen?

  But she knew why. She could only face it
now because that morning there weren’t any pills. Last night there had been some, she was almost sure….

  Oh, Jesus. He gave them to Lenore!

  She had found the diary. Feeling more energetic than usual, she had picked up in the kitchen a little, and discovered it under some newspapers. It meant nothing to her, she’d noted only that Geoff was trying hypnotherapy with Kit and thought how odd that was, considering Cole had once been married to Kit, and she wondered if Geoff knew that.

  All day she’d felt odd. She was probably in withdrawal, now that she thought of it. She’d felt uneasy and angry. Then when the cop had come and dragged her off, she’d directed her anger at her, at the cop.

  Cole took her home and left. Left her after what she’d been through! And he didn’t even say where he was going.

  Then Neetsie came over to see how she was doing. They’d gotten to talking—about too many things. Had she told Neetsie what happened that night in 1967? She didn’t know.

  She did know that somehow, somewhere, in that conversation, her veil against the world had finally dropped, that she had admitted to herself that Cole killed her son.

  And Neetsie knew too.

  She’d been clinging to that Baton Rouge thing, telling herself that it couldn’t have been Cole because he was away.

  That seemed ludicrous once she said it out loud.

  It was only an hour there and an hour back—Cole could have been back in bed at his hotel by seven-thirty, even allowing half an hour for Geoff to wake up and try to rescue the cat.

  It was Neetsie who figured out that Kit was in danger, Neetsie who’d taken her to the hospital, had known about Kit’s private place, the solarium in the old leper ward.

  But Marguerite was firm—she’d insisted the girl stay out of the room with Cole. Her father.

  Marguerite realized something strange on the way to the hospital—that Neetsie knew Kit well, and she loved her. In some odd way, Cole’s ex-wife, a woman she had no use for—in principle, anyway—was a mother of sorts to her daughter.

  She was hunkered down now, wishing she didn’t know that or any of it—wishing for the pills. How to answer when her daughter, who was all she had left, asked her if she was all right?