by Rebecca York
Tonya paused at one of the backyard gates, pushed it open, and led the way into a narrow yard with patches of scraggly grass lining a sidewalk leading to a back stoop. When she knocked at the door, there was a pause before the blinds were pulled aside.
When the person inside saw Tonya, the door swung open. An older woman in a dressing gown looked from Tonya to Max and Olivia.
“Who’s this?”
“People who want to talk to Julie.”
“About what?”
“That night ten years ago.”
The way she said it clued Max in that something significant had happened back then.
“This is Marge,” Tonya said.
“Max and Olivia.”
Nobody said nice to meet you, because it was clear the circumstances were far from nice.
“She’s been sleeping a lot. She may not be awake,” Marge said.
“It’s important,” Max said.
Marge gave them a long look. “Nobody cares about a broken-down old whore.”
“We do.”
“A lot of good it’s going to do her now.”
“This has to do with some recent murders. And it may go back to Julie.”
The woman at the door thought about that, then stepped aside.
They walked into a small, dimly lit kitchen, and he was surprised to see that it was neat and clean, although the linoleum on the floor was worn and the appliances looked like they were thirty years out of date. Turning, he saw that Tonya had not come in with them. In fact, when he looked out the back window, he saw her hurrying away.
“This way.”
They followed the woman through the kitchen, along the end of a small, shabby sitting room to a stairway, then up to a second floor landing. There were four doors, all closed, and she led them to the one on the right.
“Just a minute.”
Marge went inside and was gone for several moments. Then she opened the door again and motioned them inside, where Max caught the odor of sickness and saw a woman lying on a narrow bed. A low light on a bedside table gave a small amount of illumination, and Max could see the woman in the bed was small and shrunken, with paper-white skin and thinning dark hair hanging around her shoulders. She looked up when she saw the people in the doorway.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“We’re hoping you can give us some information,” Max said.
“I don’t know nothin’.”
“About the two boys who came down here ten years ago. I think it’s something you remember.”
She winced, and he gathered from her reaction that she knew exactly what he was talking about, even after all these years.
“Please,” Olivia said. “My best friend was murdered a few weeks ago. And there are other murders, too. We’re trying to find out how it’s related. We’re hoping you can piece it together for us.”
“Let me sit up.” The woman on the bed tried and failed to push herself up. Marge came forward, lifted her narrow shoulders up, and propped the pillows behind her.
Just moving that much seemed to exhaust Julie, and she leaned back with her eyes closed.
Finally she opened them and focused on Olivia. “I don’t know who they were,” she said. “I never knew.”
“Just tell us what happened.”
“It was two boys. From the suburbs, I think. They had a flashy car and a lot of money.”
“What kind of car?” Max asked.
“I don’t know much about cars. I just know it was red and sporty.” She stopped talking and started to cough, and it was several moments before Max could ask her another question.
“How old were they?”
“Late teens, probably. School boys.”
“High school or college?”
“I’d say high school.”
“Why? There are a lot of colleges in town.”
“Yeah, and the college guys are more sophisticated.”
“Okay.”
He and Olivia exchanged glances. So far, it fit, but it could have been any two boys.
“Troy had a sporty red car,” Olivia said, sotto voce.
He nodded, then turned back to the woman on the bed. “Okay. And what did they do?”
“Pammy and me was on the corner with some of the other girls. The two boys in the car stopped and asked who wanted to party. They looked like they were okay, and a lot of the girls said they did, but they picked me and Pammy.” She paused, closed her eyes and rested for a moment before going on. “They took us to a motel out near Security Square. You know where that is?”
“Yes,” Olivia answered.
“It was a double room with two beds.” She turned her head away. “We thought they were nice suburban kids, but they wanted to play rough. They wanted to tie us up, and we didn’t like that idea, but they offered us a lot of money, so we agreed.
“They tied each of us to one of the beds, and they started doing stuff to us. And one of them got too rough. He had his hands around Pammy’s throat, choking her. And he did it too hard.” She said the last part with a little sob. “He choked her to death while he was fucking her.”
Olivia gasped. Max reached for her hand.
“How did you get away?” he asked.
“The one who strangled her was upset. Not because he had killed her, but because he thought he was going to get caught. He told the other guy he had to help get rid of the evidence. He said she was just a whore and nobody would be looking for her. They wrapped her in the bedspread and took her outside, and they left me tied to the bed.”
She stopped and gave Olivia a pleading look. “And I knew that if they came back and I was still there, they were going to kill me, too, because I was a witness. So I struggled and I tugged like a mad woman, and I got one hand free, then the other. They had said they’d pay us big, and they’d left five hundred dollars beside the TV. I pulled on my clothes, took the money, and climbed out the bathroom window. Then I ran like the devil to a truck stop. I got a trucker to give me a ride back into the city, and I hid out. My friends helped me keep under cover, and I stayed out of sight for a long time. I think those boys was looking for me. But nobody told where I was, even when one of them waved money around.”
“So a lot of people knew about it?” Max said.
“Yes. But nobody told,” she said again, and lapsed into another coughing fit.
“Like the gunshot at the party,” Olivia whispered when the room was quiet again.
“What?” Julie asked.
“Somebody shot off a gun at the party where they started out,” Olivia said. “The party broke up, and that’s why they came into town.”
“Just my luck.” She laughed and started to cough again.
“You’re wearing her out,” Marge said in a stern voice, then turned to Julie. “You need to lie down again, honey.”
“No, it’s okay. Resting ain’t gonna do me much good, and we both know it.”
Marge sat on the side of the bed and took Julie’s hand.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?” Olivia asked.
“You think they’d believe the word of a whore over two fine upstanding kids from the suburbs?” she answered. “Besides, I didn’t even know who they was.”
Max wanted to say there would have been DNA evidence in the room, but there was no point in going back over it now. It was in the past, and nobody was going to convict Troy. Or was it Tommy Larson?
“Can you tell us what they looked like?” he asked.
“Like I said, they were both young. Good bodies. Dark hair.”
“Anything that would identify them?”
“I didn’t think so. And all I wanted was to get myself out of there.” She started coughing again. “For all the good that did. Look at me now. I never had a good life after that. I was always looking over my shoulder. I should have got out of town, but where would I have gone? The only friends I knew were here, and they were good to me.” She looked at Marge. “They’re still good to me.”
�
��You just rest up, honey,” Marge said, then looked at the visitors. “I think you’ve asked her enough questions.”
“I’m sorry. Just a few more,” Max said. “Can you tell me if there was anything special about that night? About the date, maybe.”
Max’s breath was shallow as he waited to see if she’d give him the clue he wanted to hear.
“The date,” she mused, and her expression changed. “One of them told us it was Cinco de Mayo.”
Olivia and Max exchanged glances.
Julie was still speaking. “And we didn’t know what that meant. They told us it was May fifth, a big celebration day in Mexico. Does that help?”
“Yes it does,” Max said.
When Marge gave them a pointed look, they stepped into the hall.
“Is this your home?” Max asked.
“Yes. And I take in friends who need a place to stay.”
Max dug out his wallet again and pulled out five hundred dollar bills. “This isn’t much, but I hope it will help,” he said.
“Thank you. Yes it does,” the other woman said, then added, “I should have told you, you can’t talk about Julie or about this house. I could get busted for operating a nursing home without a license. Julie isn’t the only sick woman here.”
“We understand,” Max said.
When Julie started coughing again, Max said, “Go back in. There’s one more thing I need to ask her, but it will take me a minute to set it up.”
Marge gave him a questioning look. “I can show her their pictures. From the Donley yearbook. It’s online.”
When Marge went back into the room, Olivia looked at Max. “The yearbook is online?”
“Yes. A lot of them are these days. Even real old ones. Sometimes the school does it, or someone in the class scans it in and makes it available to anyone who’s curious.”
He got out his phone and began scrolling through material.
“We’re just going to show them Troy and Tommy’s pictures?”
“No. We’re going to do it the right way.” He began downloading yearbook pictures, and she saw Brian, Gary, Patrick, Tommy, Troy, Joe Gibson, and several other boys, some of whom hadn’t been at the party.
Olivia looked at them. “Like a time machine,” she murmured.
“Yeah. We don’t have to worry about their looking different. These pictures were probably taken a few months before the party.”
When Marge came back into the hall, Max showed her the phone. “We’re hoping it’s two of them. Can we have a few more minutes with her?”
“If you’re quick.”
Max and Olivia went back into the room. Julie was propped up in bed, looking expectantly at them.
Max squatted beside the bed. “These are some boys who could be the ones. I’m going to show them to you one at a time, and you tell me if it’s one of them.”
As he began scrolling through the pictures, Olivia waited with her breath frozen in her lungs.
When Julie gasped, every muscle in Olivia’s body tensed.
“Him,” she whispered.
“You’re sure?” He glanced at Olivia. “Troy.”
“I couldn’t forget that sickening smirk. He thought he had it made, that he could do any damn thing he wanted to anyone he wanted.”
Max began scrolling through the pictures again, and once again Julie stopped him.
“That one.”
It was Tommy.
“And you’re sure about him, too?”
“Not as sure,” she conceded. “But I think so.”
“I know this was hard for you, but you’ve been a tremendous help,” Olivia said. “Thank you so much.”
“It wasn’t hard. I hope you can make them pay—after all these years.”
They thanked her again and stepped back into the hall.
“I hope you won’t tell anyone about Julie or this place,” Marge said.
“Of course not,” Olivia answered.
“Then she can’t be a witness.”
“We don’t need her for that. One of these guys is still murdering people. We just have to figure out which one,” Max said.
***
Downstairs, Marge went into the kitchen, and Olivia whispered to Max, “We can’t prove it was Troy or Tommy. And we promised that Julie wouldn’t have to get officially involved.”
“But we’ve got some pretty good evidence. She identified them. She confirmed the party date. I think we need to proceed on the assumption that the murderer is one of them.”
“And what—get a confession?”
“It may be too late to tie him to Pammy’s murder, but there will be evidence at his house connecting him to the current murders.”
“There’s still the question of a motive,” she said. “I could see killing Gary because in a twisted killer’s mind, he could somehow blame Gary for breaking up Brian’s party and therefore ‘causing’ the hooker’s murder. But why Angela and Claire? And why is he after me?”
“It’s all speculation at this point,” Max answered. “I mean there’s no way to know for sure yet. But we have to assume this guy is into cleaning up messes by eliminating witnesses. He wants anyone who could testify to what happened after the party out of the picture. And if he was raping classmates up at the cabin, he wants all those witnesses gone, too.”
“But why now? Why ten years later?”
“Because he’s afraid that the reunion is stirring up memories—like it did for you.” Max gave her a direct look. “Maybe Patrick tried to blackmail him. Maybe Gary did, and he got rid of those threats early on. But I can’t get into the mind of a twisted killer. Let’s hope we take him alive, and he can tell us.”
“You think the police might not take him alive?”
“The way he’s acting, he might force the cops to take him out, if he’s desperate enough. Or if his plans aren’t working out.”
The conversation was cut short when Max’s cell phone rang, and he saw that it was Shane on the other end of the line.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“We got a DNA match on that blood sample,” his friend said.
“You mean the name?”
The confirmation, Olivia thought. Then she heard Shane say, “Right. But it’s not who you think.”
Chapter 23
Today the man who had killed Claire Lowden was calling himself the Masked Avenger because the name amused him. He’d always given himself clever names. In high school and college, he’d been the Wonder Boy. Sometimes he was the Bondage Master. Other times he was the Business Whiz. For this mission the Masked Avenger worked best. Not that he was avenging wrongs against society like Spider-Man or some dumb superhero from a comic book. This was his own private vengeance. Only it hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. He had come to Olivia Winters’s house thinking he would leave a dead woman behind and take Olivia with him. He’d killed Claire, the weak one. But she was only a means to an end.
He slapped his hand against the steering wheel. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Olivia and that son of a bitch of a private detective had vanished. They could have left the area, but he didn’t think so. They were too hot to track him down. But they couldn’t go back to Olivia’s house because it was a crime scene. He laughed. And also a wreck, what with that broken window and the stink from the smoke bomb all over the place. Which probably meant that they were staying in a hotel or motel in the county.
He’d cruised the parking lots of all the likely places, and he hadn’t seen the bastard’s SUV.
He wanted to scream, but he had to keep himself under control. When he realized his hands were shaking, he gripped the wheel, centering himself. Forcing the panic down, he took a couple of deep breaths. Everything was under control again. He’d hit upon a better approach—using the cops.
He’d started by calling the police station on a burner phone and saying he had some important information about the murder at the Winters’ farm. He’d been in the vicinity, and he needed to talk
to the police about what he’d seen. They’d put him through to the detective investigating the case who had answered the phone, “Archie Hamilton.” As soon as the guy had identified himself, the Masked Avenger had hung up.
He smiled to himself. Once he’d gotten the guy’s name, he’d gotten his picture too. Then he’d parked down the street from the police station with the local and national reporters staking out the place.
When Hamilton left, he would follow him, hoping for a lead on Winters and Lyon. And if not, he’d find out what the fat guy knew.
Meanwhile, he pulled his cap lower over his eyes, eased back the seat of his car, and relaxed as he thought about the string of murders he’d pulled off—starting with that dumb prostitute down in Baltimore. It always helped him relax to think about his successes. The misfire at the Winters’ farm was only a temporary setback.
He’d get Olivia. And Brian Cannon would be next.
His mind drifted back to the Baltimore whore. When he’d taken her and her friend to that cheap motel, he’d been the Bondage Master. He wasn’t even sure now that he’d intended to kill her. Maybe he’d only wanted to see how far he could go. But once he’d gotten his hands around her throat, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from squeezing harder and harder.
The guy who’d gone to Baltimore with him had been scared—especially after the other girl had gotten away and stolen their money, to boot. The Masked Avenger had assured his partner the girl wouldn’t tell on them. And he’d been right about that. There had been absolutely no blowback. It was his first murder success. And the whore must have left town, because he’d never seen or heard of her again—even though he’d tried to hunt her down.
He hadn’t worried that his friend would tell anyone what had happened that night. The guy had been just as guilty as the Avenger—at least according to the law, and he wasn’t going to screw himself up for something another guy had done.
Knowing he could kill without getting caught had energized the Avenger. But he hadn’t done it again for a few years, not until after college. Then finally he’d gotten tired of paying off Patrick Morris. Patrick was blackmailing him, not because he knew about the Baltimore murders but because he knew about the stuff that had gone on at the cabin near the dam. He’d threatened to talk, and the Avenger had fixed his furnace so it would dump carbon monoxide into the guy’s house.