by Alex Kava
It was something that Dr. P. had warned her about. That she could make a wonderful-looking package who would attract men just like she had always desired, but that someone would still be miserable on the inside.
Damn! She hated when Dr. P. was right, because yes, she was still miserable, but now she no longer had the extra weight to blame. Before, she could fall back on that excuse. If she couldn’t attract a man, it was because of her weight. If she had no friends, it was because of her weight. If she wasn’t a successful artist it was because no one wanted a contract with a fat artist.
She had transferred her tendency to find comfort from food to trying to find it in men. Maybe she could try explaining that to Sonny the next time he stopped by. Would that stop him from trying to slice out her hormone deficiency?
Oh, God! What had she done?
Suddenly her stomach felt as if she were being sliced in two. She tried to curl up to stop the pain but the restraints wouldn’t let her. This pain was not from eating too fast. Could it be food poisoning? Had the mayonnaise in the sandwich gone bad? Now every muscle in her body tensed as she cringed against the cramp that turned her stomach inside out. What was happening to her? She had never felt like this before.
Finally the pain eased. She began to relax. Maybe it was from the panic. Maybe she just needed to stay calm. But not a minute later, her entire body braced itself for a second wave of cramps. And that’s when she knew Sonny had poisoned her.
CHAPTER 37
Maggie let Jacob Marley lead her to his office, down the hallway to the rear of the funeral home. Each time he attempted to place his hand on the small of her back she found a way to make him remove it, either by turning toward him or simply stopping short. She recognized the tactic as a leveling tool, a way for him to gain the upper hand. She couldn’t help thinking that it was probably an occupational hazard. Maybe it worked with his clients, not the dead ones, of course, but the ones who would be vulnerable and making the spending decisions.
Now she watched as he offered his office’s guest chair while he took a seat on the front corner of his desk where he would tower over her. That was when Maggie decided there was something about Jacob Marley she didn’t like. What was worse, there was something about him she didn’t trust.
She remained standing, pretending to be interested in the black-and-white photos that took up one wall, photos of a small boy, presumably young Jacob, an only child, with his mother and father.
“What is it that I can help you with, Maggie? You don’t mind if I call you Maggie, do you?”
“Actually, when it’s official business I prefer Agent O’Dell, thank you.”
“Official business.” He attempted a laugh, but it ended up sounding like a nervous cough. “That sounds serious.”
Before she could bring up Joan Begley, he asked, “Is this about Steve Earlman?”
She had forgotten about the town butcher and only now realized Marley and Marley may have been the funeral home that hadn’t managed to bury him. Or at least, not keep him buried. She leaned against the wall, studying Mr. Jacob Marley. She guessed him to be in his early thirties, a plain-looking man with a weak chin and narrow eyes, but in the expensive black suit and sitting high on the corner of his desk, he looked in control and poised. And he was concerned about Steve Earlman.
“I know it hasn’t been released,” he continued, “but rumor is that Steve’s body showed up in one of those barrels. It’s true, isn’t it? That’s what you’re here to check on, right?”
He was fidgeting, swinging one foot. Marley didn’t look like the type of man who allowed himself to perspire, and yet if she wasn’t mistaken, there were beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. Now Maggie was curious. What exactly was Jacob Marley worried about?
“I really can’t go into any details,” she told him. “But if that were true, what explanation could there be for something like that happening?”
Maggie still believed the killer had access to the body before it made it out to the graveyard. Perhaps he had sneaked into the funeral home after hours. Had there been a break-in that Marley failed to report? Was that what had him worried?
“We buried him in a vault,” he said, then quickly added, “the family requested a vault. You can see for yourself.” He picked up a folder from his desk, handing it to her.
It was Steve Earlman’s file with copies of his funeral arrangements and an itemized invoice. Marley had pulled it. He had been waiting for this visit. He was worried about something and it wasn’t poor Steve Earl-man’s corpse.
She flipped through the file, not sure what she should be looking for. The charges looked standard. No extravagances stood out. And yes, there was a charge of $850 for a vault, not just a vault but something called a “Monticello vault.”
“Our vaults are sealed tight,” he continued. “They’re guaranteed against cracking or seepage.”
“Really? Has anyone ever complained?”
“Excuse me?”
“Has anyone ever asked for their money back?”
He stared at her then finally laughed, this time a loud, hearty, rehearsed one. “Oh, goodness, no. But that’s a good one, Maggie.”
“Agent O’Dell.”
“Excuse me?”
“I really would prefer if you called me Agent O’Dell, Mr. Marley.”
“Oh, sure, of course.”
Maggie searched the rest of the documents in Steve Earlman’s file.
“Actually, I was curious about another client of yours. I understand you worked with Joan Begley to make arrangements for her grandmother’s funeral. Is that right?”
“Joan Begley?”
This seemed to throw him off completely.
“Yes, of course, I worked with Joan last week. We finished the last of the paperwork on Saturday. Was there a problem?”
Jacob Marley seemed more surprised than concerned this time.
She wanted to ask about their dinner out at Fellini’s. She wanted to ask him if he knew she was missing. But the look on Marley’s face answered her questions. Whatever hope she had that Jacob Marley may have had something to do with Joan Begley’s disappearance, Maggie knew that hope was squelched by the look of total confusion and surprise. Jacob Marley was hiding something, but it didn’t have anything to do with Joan. Instead, it was probably right in front of her inside this file.
Marley’s phone began ringing. He grabbed the receiver. “Yes?”
What should she be looking for? What was Marley nervous they would find?
“I’m with someone right now,” Marley said into the phone, unable to hide his irritation. “No, I won’t be able to pick up the body for at least another hour. Is Simon working today? Good. Send him when he gets in.”
He hung up the phone and turned back to Maggie. “Worst part of this job is that we always have to be on call and keep some strange hours.”
“Yes, I suppose it would be very unpredictable,” Maggie said, flipping through the pages. Then she noticed something that caught her attention. If she remembered correctly, Calvin Vargus was one of the men who had discovered the first body at the rock quarry. “You contract out with Calvin Vargus and Walter Hobbs to dig the graves?”
“Yes, that’s right.” He shifted his weight and the other leg began swinging this time. “They have the equipment to do it.”
“How long have they been doing it?”
“Oh, gosh—” Marley folded his arms over his chest “—I think as far back as when Wally’s father ran the business and he contracted with my father. So it goes back a ways. My father was a very loyal man, working with the same people for years.” He pointed to one of the photos on the wall, a portrait of the older Marley, looking somber as if ready for a funeral. “People felt the same way about him, too, God rest his soul. Even now when I try to do something different, make a few changes here and there, I can’t seem to do it without someone telling me, ‘That’s not the way Jacob Marley would do it.’”
Suddenly it struck Magg
ie. Maybe she was wrong after all. “Your father’s name was Jacob, too?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So you’re a junior?”
“Yes, but please, I really hate being called Junior. Anything but Junior.”
CHAPTER 38
Tully let her wait on him. She had insisted. It was the first time he had been inside her brownstone. The first time he had been invited. By default, of course, he reminded himself, but still, an invitation was an invitation.
She had decided they would be more comfortable here than at Joan Begley’s loft. There, she had been distracted. Tully had noticed her walking, stepping lightly, quietly, reverently. He knew Joan Begley was a client of Dr. Patterson’s, but he didn’t have to be a profiler to guess she had also been somewhat of a friend. Or if not a friend, then someone Dr. Patterson genuinely cared about. There was a connection. Even he could see that, feel that.
He studied her face while she poured the coffee into mugs, preoccupied with the task, and so it was safe to study her. He sat at the counter that separated her living room from her kitchen—a spic-and-span kitchen with hanging utensils and pots and pans in more sizes and shapes than Tully could think of uses for. Here, among her own things, she looked less vulnerable than she had at Joan Begley’s. But even here, she still looked…it was hard to explain. She looked tired. No, that wasn’t right. She looked…sad.
“Cream or sugar?” she asked with only a glance over her shoulder.
“No, thanks. I take it black.” He knew before she reached for the cream that she would pour a healthy dollop of it into hers, making it look like milky chocolate. Cream, but no sugar. And if available she preferred a café mocha.
The realization startled him. These days he couldn’t remember what color socks he had put on in the morning—hopefully they at least matched. And yet, here he was remembering how Dr. Gwen Patterson took her coffee.
“So you think Maggie’s right? That this Sonny has something to do with Joan’s disappearance?”
“He sends her e-mails every day that she’s in Connecticut, obviously every day after they met. Sometimes two and three a day. Then all of a sudden they just happen to stop on Saturday, the day she disappeared. Too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“But from the e-mails we read, they sounded like friends, confidants. He didn’t sound like someone who would want to hurt her.”
Her cell phone interrupted them and Dr. Patterson managed to grab it before the second ring, like someone expecting news, any news.
“Hello?” Then her entire face softened. “Hi, Maggie,” she greeted her friend. “No, I’m okay. Yes, I did meet Tully at Joan’s apartment. Actually, he’s here. No, here at my brownstone.” She listened for a few minutes then said, “Hold on.” She handed him the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”
“Hey, O’Dell.”
“Tully, can you tell me anything about Sonny?”
“Well, we were able to get into her e-mail.”
“Already?”
“Dr. Patterson figured out the password. There’re daily e-mails from this guy, but we were just talking about that. They sound pretty chummy, in a friendly way, not a romantic way. Right?” He looked at Gwen for her agreement. “But here’s the thing. His e-mails stop the day she disappeared.”
“Can you track him?”
“I’ve got Bernard working on it. So far it looks like he uses a free e-mail account and there’s no customer profile on him anywhere that I can find. I’m betting he uses a public computer. Probably the local library or maybe one of those cafés that have computers available.”
“Have you talked to Cunningham today?”
“No, he’s in meetings all day. Why?”
“He managed to get out of a meeting long enough to call me.”
“Uh-oh. You’re busted?”
“Not sure. Look, Tully, I just don’t want you getting into trouble for helping me out on this.”
Tully glanced up at Dr. Patterson. She stood on the other side of the counter, sipping coffee and watching him, thinking he was focused on listening to O’Dell when he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
“Tully, do you hear me?” O’Dell was saying in his ear. “I don’t want you getting into trouble over this.”
“Don’t worry about it, O’Dell.”
CHAPTER 39
He fixed her soup, hearty chicken noodle. It was just canned—that’s all he had—but it smelled good even after he had dissolved the crystals in it. She’d never notice the tiny white residue. Especially after he crumbled saltine crackers into it.
He placed the small bottle back behind his mother’s secret stash, her array of “home remedies” that included molasses and honey and vinegar alongside cough syrup and plenty of children’s aspirin. The brown bottle contained the magic crystals she insisted would make him well. It wasn’t until after she was gone, her control over him broken only by death, that he discovered the brown bottle with the real label hidden underneath an old expired prescription. The real label simply read in bold, black letters, “Arsenic.” He had kept it just as he had found it, realizing that some day he might need that kind of control over someone. And he had been right.
He found her sitting at the window, exactly where he had left her with the restraints now wrapped around the chair. She stared out at the woods through the tempered glass. He had specially ordered and installed the custom-made glass himself. Thick and unbreakable, it allowed a view and let the sunshine in, but on the outside it simply looked like a mirrored solar panel for heat. It provided an excellent work environment—sunny and cheerful, yet private and quiet, protecting his specimens.
She looked up at him. This time her hand didn’t move, though he could see the red welts on her wrists where she must have fought the leather restraints again. And then he saw the scratches and grooves in the chair’s arm. She had ruined the wood. She had done it on purpose. His mother’s chair, a Duncan Phyfe he had reupholstered himself, and she had ruined it by rubbing the buckles of the leather restraints into the wood.
He felt the anger rising but it came with bile, threatening to back up from his stomach. He could taste it. No, no. He couldn’t be sick. He wouldn’t. He mustn’t think about the chair. No anger. He couldn’t afford to make himself sick.
He placed the tray on the table next to her and avoided looking at the scarred chair arm.
“You must be hungry,” he said, as he pulled up a stool from his workbench.
“I don’t feel so good, Sonny,” she mumbled. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why? Why? Because you must be hungry,” he said in a singsong voice, a fake happy voice he had learned so well from his mother. “You ate all of your sandwich but that was hours ago.”
“Can’t we just talk for a while?” she insisted. And he thought her voice sounded whiny. He hadn’t noticed before how whiny her voice was.
He scooped up a spoonful of soup and held it in front of her, waiting for her to open her mouth. She only stared at him.
“Open wide,” he instructed.
She continued to stare.
He brought the spoon to her lips and began to wedge it in, but she kept her lips pursed tight. Suddenly she jerked her head away to the side, so abruptly that she almost knocked the spoon out of his hand and did end up spilling it on his shirtsleeve.
He tasted the bile again. Oh, God! He couldn’t be sick. He felt his face grow hot. But he scooped up another spoonful and held it in front of her again.
“Come on, now, you have to eat.”
She turned her head slowly to look at him, this time the glaze clearing a bit, revealing her defiance.
“Not until we talk.”
“Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he told her, continuing to keep his happy voice, despite the turmoil brewing in his stomach. “Now, open up.”
He brought the spoon to her lips again, but this time she raised her restrained hand just enough to knock his elbow. It spilled
all over his trousers. He’d have to change before work.
He rose slowly to his feet, taking his time to roll up the soiled sleeves of his shirt. A difficult task when his hands were shaking and his fingers were balling up into fists. He could feel the transformation, a lead-hot iron stabbing into his guts. And he could see the transformation in the way she looked at him. Whatever drugged courage had possessed her was gone now. She struggled against the restraints, kicking at the chair legs and smacking the ankle shackles against the wood, leaving more grooves in the precious wood.
“I guess you’ve chosen to do this the hard way,” he said through gritted teeth. This time he left the spoon on the tray, and he picked up the bowl of soup.
CHAPTER 40
West Haven, Connecticut
Maggie wasn’t sure what she was doing here. There were other places she needed to check out, coincidences she needed to follow up on. Like Jacob Marley Jr. and whether or not anyone called him Sonny. Or if Wally Hobbs’s contract to dig graves for the funeral home had anything to do with Steve Earlman not staying buried. Not to mention the address she had found imprinted on Joan Begley’s hotel notepad, and whether or not it was the meeting place for a rendezvous that may have been her last. There were plenty of places where she needed to look for answers and she wasn’t sure this was one of them. Yet, here she was at the University of New Haven.
The aroma filled the classroom laboratory. Maggie thought it smelled like beef broth. And annoyingly good. Professor Adam Bonzado stood over the industrial-size stove, lifting the lids of several steaming pots, stirring one with a wooden spoon before replacing the lids and turning down the gas flame. Today he wore a purple-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt with blue jeans and high-top sneakers. His plastic goggles were down around his neck, sharing swing space with a paper surgical mask. He glanced at her over his shoulder. Then did a double take, surprised to see her.