Frenzy

by John Lutz

  He rolled his chair closer to his desk and picked up on the fourth ring, said who and where he was.

  “Detective Quinn, this is Ida Tucker.”

  He scooted even closer to the desk so he could see the remote caller ID. Yep, Ida Tucker. Ohio number.

  “Is everything okay?” Quinn asked. He’d picked up the stress in her voice. How can everything be okay when you’ve just yesterday buried two of your children? “I mean, considering.”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said, a catch in her throat. “My ex-husband, Edward, had a heart attack.”

  Christ!

  “I’m sorry, dear. Is he—?”

  “He’s dead. The doctor said it might have been brought on by the girls’ funerals. All that stress, all in one day.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Ida. Anything you need?”

  “No, no. But I thought you should know.”

  “I’m glad you called me. I wish I could ease your grief.”

  “Well,” she said, “it isn’t only my grief. That evening, after Edward was . . . gone, his old friend and longtime attorney, Joel Price, came by the house to talk to me. He told me that years ago Edward had given him the letters.”

  “Your letters explaining what Henry Tucker wrote before he died in England?”

  “No. Henry’s letters themselves. The original originals.”

  Quinn sat for a few seconds trying to process that. “Why would Edward do that and keep it secret from everyone?”

  “I don’t know.” The catch was back in her voice.

  “Have you—”

  “I haven’t gone to the bank to open the box where the letters are. Joel Price suggested he be there with me, in case of any legal ramifications. He still has the key and would be witness to what’s in the box. He thought, since the letters and the girls’ deaths are part of a police investigation, you might want to be there too when the box is opened.”

  “Joel Price is a smart lawyer,” Quinn said. “As soon as we hang up, I’m going to book a flight to Columbus and then drive to see you. That is, if you’re ready to do this, Ida.”

  “I’m not just ready, Detective Quinn. I’m eager.”

  They landed at the Columbus airport in Ohio, where they rented a Hertz black Jeep. Quinn drove, and Pearl sat beside him. When they hit open highway and greater speeds, the squared-off little vehicle rocked in the wind but remained easy to control.

  They got into Green Forest before dusk and settled into the room they’d reserved at the Flower Bed Hotel, a place recommended by Ida Tucker. It was a four-story frame building painted a soft green with brown shutters. The walkway from the parking area to the entrance was lined with pink- and blue-flowered foliage in full bloom, punctuated by bright red geraniums.

  Quinn and Pearl checked in and rode the single elevator to the third floor. There they were met by a bellhop who’d gotten a head start on them while they were getting conversation and instructions from a girl who looked like a teenager at the front desk. A good place for supper, they were advised, was the Crazy Fish, just down the block.

  After placing their luggage where they directed, and needlessly pointing out where the bathroom and TV remote were, the bellhop, a lean, older man with bushy gray hair, introduced himself as Leonard and asked if there might be anything else they’d need.

  Quinn told him not at the moment and tipped him twenty dollars, creating an instant friend.

  Leonard looked as if he might click his heels and bow, but didn’t, and thanked Quinn profusely.

  “Anything you need,” he said, “ just let me know.”

  Quinn said that he would.

  On the way out, Leonard said, “Word to the wise: I wouldn’t do supper at the Crazy Fish.”

  When they were alone in the heavy silence, Pearl said, “Now what?”

  Quinn said, “Get a third opinion, I guess.”

  After supper at the Crazy Fish, which was surprisingly good, Quinn called Ida Tucker, and he and Pearl drove to the Tucker home.

  They found Ida waiting, dressed in black and leaving a scent of lavender as she ushered them inside the white frame house. It was a brick-and-frame two-story with a porch that ran across the front and around one corner. Ivy grew densely up one of the brick walls. There were three Adirondack chairs and a wooden glider with a fat cushion on the porch. It looked like the kind of place where Harry Truman might have grown up if he’d been from Ohio.

  Ida looked as if she’d been crying but seemed to have it under control. Quinn looked closely at her eyes. She didn’t seem medicated.

  A tall, slender man with a long face that looked as if it had never once displayed an expression stood by a sofa and coffee table. Ida introduced him as Joel Price, longtime friend and attorney of Edward. He was wearing a black pin-striped suit, white shirt, and black tie. Quinn knew that Ida must be in her eighties or nineties, Price in his nineties, but both looked . . . not so much younger, but well preserved.

  At Ida’s direction, they settled into chair and sofa, Pearl and Quinn in matching brown leather armchairs, Ida and Price on the sofa.

  “Would anyone care for refreshments?” Ida asked, as if suddenly she remembered her manners.

  Everyone said no, that they were fine.

  “I was surprised that the funeral was so soon after Edward passed,” Quinn said.

  Ida was clutching a wadded white handkerchief and raised it as if to dab at her eyes, but instead lowered it back onto her lap. “Edward was cremated,” she said. “That was what he requested.”

  “Had he been ill?” Pearl asked.

  “He’d been old,” Ida said.

  Joel Price smiled grimly. “Something that at least isn’t contagious,” he said.

  Ida appeared shocked. “Oh, I’m sorry, Joel. I forgot you and Edward were about the same age.”

  “Actually,” Price said, “I’m four years younger.” Again the grim smile. “But you didn’t come here to listen to us reminisce.”

  “Didn’t they?” Ida said. “The thing to remember is that, despite the matrimonial wars, despite the divorce, Edward and I never really fell out of love.”

  “Your subsequent husband—”

  “Maybe we didn’t come here to reminisce,” Ida said.

  “The letters written by Henry Tucker . . .” Quinn said, glad they were dealing with an attorney who knew how to get to the point. He didn’t want to get lost in the Tucker/Douglass/Kingdom family-tree maze. “Have you seen them yet?”

  “Oh, no,” Price said. “Neither of us has. Edward was adamant about that. I recall that quite vividly.”

  “So the letters are in your safe?” Pearl asked.

  “No, no.” Price’s right arm trembled slightly. The only sign of advanced age he’d shown since they arrived. “They’re in a safety-deposit box at the bank, in both my name and Edward’s. The key was kept in a file at my office. I have it with me now, but of course at this hour the bank is closed. I requested your presence here so we can lay down some ground rules for when the box is opened in the morning.”

  “That’s kind of difficult to do when we don’t know what’s in the letters,” Quinn said.

  Price nodded, as if he’d expected that response. “That’s the point. We don’t have the slightest idea what the letters contain. I thought it would be a good idea to have police presence when the box was open, primarily so it will be established that the contents weren’t trifled with.” He leaned forward on the sofa, seemingly so light he didn’t dent the cushion. “You must understand that Edward Tucker is my client, and I owe my allegiance to him even though he’s passed.”

  Quinn didn’t think so, but the last thing he wanted was a legal problem. He waited to see what Price had in mind.

  “We’ll go to the bank together tomorrow,” Price said. “I’ll unlock and open the box in plain sight of all. I would like to be able to examine the letters first, to make sure there is nothing of potential damage to Edward’s reputation or his family. Then I will give the lett
ers to you to read. If they constitute some kind of evidence in an active homicide investigation, they will pass to your possession if you request them.” He placed bony hands on his kneecaps and smiled widely with straight but yellowed teeth. “Is that acceptable?”

  Quinn returned the smile. “So far. We’ll take it a step at a time.”

  “Fair enough,” Price said.

  “Edward would approve,” Ida Tucker said.

  Quinn and Price exchanged glances. Both knew that, being dead, Edward Tucker didn’t have much in the way of legal standing. He couldn’t voice his legal opinions now.

  At the same time, being dead, he couldn’t be harmed by the law.

  45

  Prentis, Florida, 1995

  “Let me out of the damned car, Dwayne!”

  Honey Carter was twenty and blond and beautiful. Dwayne was well aware that she resembled both his mother and Maude, reflecting his father’s taste in women.

  Honey had something else in common with those two women. She didn’t love Dwayne, and never had.

  She’d gone out with him a few times and then rebuffed him, called him a rich freak.

  Well, she might as well have called him that. She’d made him feel that way.

  What did she want? He was young and reasonably good looking. Rich, but how could she count that against him? And he carried a 3.9 grade point average at the University of South Florida. Higher education was a snap for him. Read the book (on or off his computer) in a single sitting, then relax and ace the course.

  Not that he was going back. College bored the hell out of him. And some people began giving him odd looks, fearful looks, and avoided him. Rumors bloomed even if they couldn’t take root. Others on campus had found out who he was, and about the murder of his father and stepmother-to-be.

  This last part actually attracted a certain kind of woman to him—as long as there were other people in the room. Rumors, rumors, rumors about him. Some of them must be true. And if he was rich, he was probably guilty. Wasn’t that the way it always worked?

  This final attempt to save his and Honey’s relationship (at least as Dwayne saw it) wasn’t working out very well. They were in his car on dark and isolated Lagoon Road. It had seemed romantic to Dwayne, a perfect setting for reviving a love affair showing signs of strain.

  Until the sun went down.

  Now they were surrounded by darkness. He was amused. Honey was faced with the classic dilemma: stay and screw, or get out of the car and be in grave danger. He wanted to see how she’d deal with the problem.

  She was pretending now, he was sure. Showing him she didn’t take that kind of treatment from anyone, male or female. But it was all a show.

  He used the car’s lighter to fire up a cigarette, took a deep drag, and leaned his head back so he was staring up at the headliner, thinking about what he might do with the cigarette’s glowing ember.

  “Do you really want to get out of the car here?” Dwayne asked.

  Honey lost her focus on him, and suddenly realized how dark it had become.

  “There are gators out there,” Dwayne said. “And python snakes.”

  People in the area had kept pythons as pets until they got too big and dangerous. Then they set them loose in the swamp, where they thrived and multiplied. There had been state sponsored hunting seasons on the pythons. Many of the snakes were over twenty feet long. They were still out there. Now and then there were stories in the Florida papers. Along with photographs.

  Honey, a journalism major, read the papers.

  “Drive me goddamned home!” Honey demanded. There was a catch of fear in her throat.

  Home was where she lived off campus, in an apartment with two other young women.

  Dwayne had seen Honey walking off campus, near a coffee shop where he was going to search for her. Instead, there she was, striding along the sidewalk, alone. He’d pulled to the curb in front of her and opened the door on her side of the car. Honey didn’t like scenes. Dwayne made it clear to her that if she didn’t get in the car so they could go somewhere and talk reasonably, he would make a hell of a scene.

  He wanted her to hurry because no one they knew was around to see her get in his car.

  Not knowing better, she hurried.

  Now no one knew Honey was here with Dwayne, on godforsaken Lagoon Road, in the deep, deep swamp. She suddenly understood the meaning of their aloneness. The realization of her vulnerability passed between them like electricity.

  Something was going to happen here, tonight.

  He moved toward her to hug her to him, as if to reassure her of her safety.

  Her eyes widened and she slid away from his grasp. The door handle clicked and the dome light flashed on.

  “The classic dilemma,” Dwayne said.

  “You really want to give me that choice?” she asked, her door already open six inches.

  The fear in her eyes made something tighten in the core of Dwayne. A coil of pure pleasure. How terrified she was!

  But she was bluffing. He was sure of it.

  He decided to call her bluff, and in a fashion she wouldn’t like. It was time for the stuck-up bitch to learn a lesson.

  “I’m not giving you a choice,” he said. “I want you to go.”

  She pushed the car door open wider, as if about to leave.

  He had to hand it to her. She was going to take it to the wire.

  He stared straight ahead, smiling. She was going to break, beg, give in completely to her terror.

  But she didn’t.

  The door opened wider, swung shut. And Honey was gone.

  Dwayne sat stunned.

  More balls than I thought.

  He shut the passenger’s side door so there was no interior light. The car already was well off the road where it wouldn’t be noticed, and hardly anyone drove this road at night.

  Nothing to do but go after the bitch.

  She’d be a manageable bundle when he found her. He might hide and watch her awhile before rescuing her. Let fear dissolve what was left of her willpower. Then it would be her turn for a fate worse than death.

  He got a flashlight out of the glove compartment, opened the driver’s side door, and slipped out of the car and into the black and fetid swamp.

  Honey’s heart was fluttering irregularly, like something wild trying to escape the prison of her rib cage. She’d never been so frightened. She was breathing hard, making soft whimpering sounds, running, simply running through the night, splashing through shallow water, flailing away at branches scratching at her face. There were creatures around her, terrible creatures, that she could sense and sometimes hear.

  She knew there must be another road running parallel to Lagoon, but she couldn’t think of one.

  Then it came to her.

  Yes, last summer, when she was helping Helga Ditweiller learn to drive.

  What’s the name of that road? Cypress? South Road? Or is it just a number? Maybe—

  She splashed through ankle-deep water and slammed head-on into a thick tree trunk.

  And became part of the darkness of the swamp.

  Dwayne took two steps into the swamp and his flashlight went dead.

  Batteries. Damn it! I haven’t replaced the batteries in months.

  He stopped and stood still, listening.

  There were only the sounds of the swamp at night. Insects thrumming, larger things stirring, what might be the distant grunt of a gator.

  “Honey!”

  His call was unanswered.

  Again.

  Carefully, so he wouldn’t lose his bearings in the night, he back-stepped toward the road. He held the dead flashlight as if it was a club. He hated it when things got out of control like this, and it was no fault of his own.

  Flashlight batteries aren’t made for this kind of climate. They go bad practically overnight.

  Why did the damned bitch have to run into the swamp?

  His heel found hard pavement. Civilization! Grateful for firm footing, he turned
and strode toward his car.

  And stopped.

  He didn’t have a flashlight that worked, but he had matches. And cigarettes.

  And he was sure he could find his way to Honey. She couldn’t have gone far in the thick foliage and mud that dragged at every step. And he couldn’t hear her splashing around. She wasn’t moving, he was sure. She probably thought she was hiding.

  He glanced left and right into darkness. Surrounded by swamp country, no one would hear her screams. And if anyone did hear them, they’d assume the noise was being made by some animal, probably in the jaws of a gator.

  If Honey did make it back to civilization, she wouldn’t get all that much sympathy. If he applied the cigarettes to the folds of her body, where they were barely visible, her scars wouldn’t look nearly as painful as they were. And there was no way she could prove he’d done anything to her.

  He told himself that Honey would eventually be okay. She’d have a hard night, then she’d turn up somewhere, hysterical and cursing, and yammering a story that no one would believe. Not coming from such an “adventurous” girl.

  A hard night in the swamp. He wondered what that would be like.

  Well, it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t the one who got stubborn and ran blindly away in the night. And he’d searched for her, hadn’t he? It wasn’t his fault that the flashlight went dead. Was he supposed to keep fresh batteries in the damned thing just in case some stupid cow did a dash into the swamp at night?

  The swamp at night.

  Now look what she was going to get for being such a nose-in-the-air bitch.

  He shivered. Then he made sure there was nothing to indicate that Honey Carter had been in his car tonight. If she tried to implicate him in her panic and dumb dash, he’d simply deny it all, say she was lying. She’d gotten herself lost in the swamp and run into the wrong kind of people. Probably teased them, the way she liked to do. So they attacked her, had their fun with cigarettes and who knew what else. Now she was using him for a convenient scapegoat so she wouldn’t seem like such a boob. Maybe there’d be no real, serious harm done, anyway. Just another he said/she said thing. People would soon forget. And pretty soon there’d be more and different rumors about Honey, tease that she was.