At Risk

by Judith E. French

  “Enjoy your swim, Number Thirty-six?” He lifted a slim ulna from the pot, thrilling to the texture of the slick, clean surface. The bone didn’t answer, but he hadn’t expected it to. His ladies rarely had anything to say after a period of submersion. The Game Master chuckled. When dead women started talking to him, he’d know he’d lost it. After all, he wasn’t a madman.

  No, he didn’t expect conversation, but it would have been an intriguing variation on what had become the dullest part of the game. He’d have to think of a more creative way to dispose of the remains, some method that offered greater challenge. Letting the crabs eat flesh and hair off the butchered carcasses had become routine, and if there was one thing that bored him, it was routine.

  He sucked a gummy scrap of residue off a cracked rib and tossed the bone into the water. The marsh would soon reduce that bit of offal to crumbling shreds, indistinguishable from the layers of muck that formed the floor of the ancient salt marsh. He tucked the remaining ribs into the gunnysack on the floor of the boat before tending his second trap.

  Most of the phalanges and the metacarpals were missing from the nurse’s right hand, but that was to be expected. This specimen had been short and petite, nothing like the supersized stockbroker last fall. Three traps had sufficed for thirty-six. He remembered her name, but she was a discarded game piece, too insignificant to bother addressing formally.

  He frowned. The nurse had been a definite disappointment, not nearly as quick or crude as his first planned kill, the waterman, or as messy as thirty-seven, foolish Tracy, whose death had been hardly fulfilling.

  The Game Master regretted that it had been impossible to remove Tracy’s body from the scene. A single finger hardly qualified as a trophy of . . . of . . . He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Ah, yes, a trophy of the sophomore. Silly Tracy would be “the sophomore.” Not a particularly original classification, he supposed, but then she hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. She’d been hardly worth the trouble it had taken to plan and carry out her execution.

  Poor little sophomore, a mere pawn sacrificed in a larger game, that of his next quarry, the professor. He had great hopes for her. “Yes.” The Game Master smiled. “With a little assistance, the professor might prove my finest and most satisfying adversary.”

  The third pot lay some distance away. He’d saved the best for last, and anticipation made his hands tremble as he pulled up the wire cage containing Number Thirty-six’s skull. Her hair had been long and blond. He hoped a few strands remained. Skulls proved such interesting diversions—all those delightfully shaped holes—and those with hair were always the best.

  “Ah,” he crooned as the water drained away, leaving his prize gleaming ivory in the mist. “So many of you waiting for me . . . So many women, and all I have to do is collect them.”

  Liz’s night had passed without further incident. She got up minutes before the alarm went off and followed her normal morning routine for a workday. She filled Muffin’s water dish and had started for the door, briefcase and sweater in hand, when the phone rang. She almost didn’t answer. It was getting late, and she had a class. But then curiosity got the best of her, and she picked up.

  “Liz! Good, I caught you.”

  Damn. “Russell.” Liz grimaced at the sound of her ex-husband’s voice. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

  “How are you?”

  “Russell, I can’t talk now. I’m due at—”

  “At school. I know. But I was talking to Katie, and she’s worried about you. She asked me to call.”

  “I’m fine.” She shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “I read about the incident in the papers. Awful. A terrible thing—terrible for you.”

  “Worse for Tracy Fleming.”

  “It’s too early in the morning for sarcasm,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re still pissed about Katie going to school in Dublin. It’s the experience of a lifetime. She’s having a ball.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Liz glanced at her watch. “Did you want anything, Russell? Have you had a change of heart and suddenly decided to contribute toward her tuition?”

  “Are you going to start bitching about money again?”

  “Why not? Who’s paying for our daughter’s education? I am. You’ve never given me a dime of child support.”

  “It wasn’t because I didn’t want to. You know the bankruptcy wasn’t my fault. My partner—”

  “Your financial problems didn’t stop you from remarrying. Twice. Or from fathering other children.”

  “That comment’s beneath you. You’ve been fortunate. You’ve always had enough income to provide for Katie’s needs. And now you’ve inherited the family farm and—”

  “Bought the farm,” she answered. “Bought, as in an exchange of money. All I inherited were past-due taxes, a leaking roof, and debts.”

  “There were good reasons why I couldn’t help out more when Katie was small.”

  “You were broke because you gambled away every cent you could get your hands on.” She sounded like a shrew, but then, she could always count on Russell to bring out the worst in her.

  “That was years ago. Dr. Elliott says I—”

  “You don’t need your shrink’s excuses. You have an endless supply of your own.”

  “I didn’t call you to argue.”

  “No? That’s a surprise.” She was annoyed and not about to let him weasel away from the subject. “Katie had a full family scholarship at Somerville,” she reminded him.

  “Apparently, she wasn’t happy there.”

  “She was happy enough until you filled her head with dreams of castles and shamrocks.”

  “That’s unfair, Liz, and you know it. Katie has always wanted to study abroad. With my cousin living in Ireland, it seemed the perfect solution.”

  “I’m hanging up, Russell.”

  “I’m worried about you. You never used to be so bitter.”

  “I don’t think I’m bitter enough,” she answered. “Contribute to her education fund, or Katie’s coming home at the end of the semester. And give my love to Danielle and all the little Montgomerys.”

  “Liz—”

  “Go to hell, Russell,” she said before placing the handset gently on the receiver. “Damn.” She’d forgotten to warn Katie not to give the new number to her father. And now that he had it, he’d probably buy billboard space and advertise it to the world. It was going to be another world-class morning.

  She wasn’t deceived by her ex-husband’s apparent concern. He wanted something. A loan? Russell Montgomery never bothered being charming without a reason. Unfortunately, it had taken her four years of marriage to discover that.

  “Experience is the best teacher,” her father had always said. “A man learns more by living than he can get from books.” She supposed that counted for women as well. She knew that being married to Russell had given her quite an education.

  She paused long enough to gather Muffin in her arms and give the cat a quick hug. “At least I can depend on you,” she murmured. Muffin was a superb mouser, and if she could just train her to drop the little rodent bodies in the trash instead of carrying them up to deposit on her bed, life would be that much calmer.

  Liz was halfway to her car when she noticed a small boat approaching her landing. The operator stood and waved. Liz got into her car and drove across the lawn to the dock.

  Jack Rafferty cut his motor, allowed his boat to drift against the mooring post, and leaped ashore. “Morning, Lizzy,” he called.

  Uncertainty made her voice sharper than she intended. “What are you doing here?”

  He paused and gazed at the house. “You’ve cleaned the old place up,” he said. “Looks good.”

  “Jack, I’ve got to go to work. If you stopped by to reminisce about old times—”

  “No, I didn’t. Come with me. There’s something I want you to see.”

  “Why would I go any
where with you? I have a class this morning.”

  He strode toward her, and the years fell away until she was seventeen again, standing on this spot and watching him come up the dock. Jack had added muscle since then, but the Rafferty eyes were the same intense hue, and he still moved with grace and purpose.

  “What’s happened to you, Lizzy? Lost your nerve? You didn’t mind missing school in the old days.”

  “I was a stupid kid, Jack. I’m not that anymore.”

  He stopped. “No, guess you’re not, Doctor Clarke.” He shrugged. “But this has to do with you and probably with Tracy’s murder.”

  “Can’t you just tell me?” She knew the answer.

  “Showing’s easier.”

  He’d told her the same thing the time she’d asked him if he cared about her. Jack had never said the words she’d longed to hear. Instead, he’d pushed her down on the deck of his father’s fishing boat and kissed her. No boy had ever kissed her that way before, and if she shut her eyes, she knew she’d feel the sun-heated planks beneath her bare back again and taste the salt on Jack’s skin.

  Oh, Lord, Jack Rafferty was her weak spot.

  “Come on, unless you’ve gotten too high and mighty to take a ride with an ex-jailbird.”

  Common sense told her to turn the car around and drive to school, but Jack had always known how to make her break the rules. “Give me a minute to change into jeans and call to let the school know I’m not coming in.”

  He nodded, and she hurried to the house. She took the stairs at a run, located clean jeans, boat shoes, and a T-shirt, and pulled them on. Using a pad and ballpoint pen from a drawer in her nightstand, she left a note on her pillow. Gone for a boat ride with Jack Rafferty. If she disappeared, at least someone would know whom she’d been with last.

  Liz wondered if she was getting paranoid. This was Jack, for God’s sake. She ran a hand through her short hair, then picked up the note and crumpled it into a ball. She was about to toss the paper into the trashcan when she hesitated, unsure if she was behaving irrationally or not. Hadn’t she just found a dead girl in her office? That wasn’t normal. Maybe she had good reason to be paranoid. She threw the message on her bed and hurried downstairs.

  Twenty minutes later, she was seated in the bow of Jack’s boat as he steered a course out of the river and into the Delaware Bay. He turned south and headed down the coast. The tide was low, and Jack kept the small craft far enough from the beach to keep the motor from hitting bottom.

  It had been too long since Liz had been on the open water. Another day, she would have reveled in the sound of the waves and the feel of salt spray hitting her face. But being with Jack, under these circumstances, kept her from fully enjoying the experience.

  She twisted to look at him. One bronzed hand was on the tiller; the other rested on his left knee. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and he had a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead. He looked as though he hadn’t bothered to shave this morning. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “What?”

  She raised her voice, trying to make herself heard above the wind and tide. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  At forty-four, Jack was as infuriating as he’d been at twenty. He revealed what he was thinking when he wanted to or not at all. The habit annoyed her no end, and she knew that he was aware of it.

  They passed a lone fisherman anchored in the shallows in an aluminum pram and an older couple heading north in a twenty-four-foot Grady White. Gradually, Liz felt herself relaxing. She didn’t know why she was here, but she felt better than she had since she’d found Tracy’s body. She found herself caught up in the familiar sights and sounds of the bay: flocks of migrating shore birds wheeling in formation overhead before descending to the beach in search of horseshoe-crab eggs, a black and white osprey carrying twigs to her nest atop a channel marker, and the wind-blown shrieks of laughing gulls.

  Maybe she was crazy, but she’d always seen beauty here. For all of California’s balmy weather, white sand, and blue water, the West Coast had never stolen her heart as the Delaware Bay did. “Bay water in your blood,” Daddy had said.

  At Bowers Beach, Jack turned right and headed up the Murderkill River, past the public boat ramps and docks. An old man throwing bread to the ducks looked up and waved, and Liz waved back. The commercial fishing boats were all out on the bay. Private craft bobbed against their moorings on the South Bowers side, but Jack didn’t let up on the throttle. He continued on past the houses and businesses lining the waterway.

  “Where are we going?” she asked again.

  “Not far.”

  They rounded a bend, and he pointed toward a boat ramp ahead on the left. An ambulance, an aging fire truck that read South Bowers in white letters painted on the side, and three police cars were drawn up at the landing. At the water’s edge, a crowd gathered around a large wrecker in the process of winching a blue Ford truck out of the river. Several divers in wet suits waited nearby.

  Jack steered the boat in a slow circle, then aimed the bow back toward the bay. “Wayne Boyd’s truck,” he said. “I heard they found it this morning.”

  “Tracy’s boyfriend?”

  He nodded. “Cops never caught up with him.”

  “Suicide?”

  Jack shrugged. “He wasn’t launching a boat. Apparently, somebody drove straight off the dock at a high rate of speed.”

  Stunned, she stared back at the truck. “Did they find a body?”

  “Not yet. If they had, the divers wouldn’t be going back in the water.”

  “You think Wayne deliberately drove the truck off the ramp?”

  “No loss if he did. Wayne was a shit.”

  “But why kill Tracy and then himself? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Shits don’t always make sense.”

  She was quiet as they motored past the restaurant and rows of pilings lined with squawking seagulls. “If Wayne did it, then it’s over, isn’t it? The other kids at Somerville are safe?” I’m safe.

  Jack didn’t answer.

  That had always been his habit, as well. He didn’t believe in stating the obvious. Liz shut her eyes and tried to imagine what it would be like to stop jumping at shadows.

  Once they were out in the bay again, Jack turned the boat north. “I heard you have a kid in college,” he said. “Just the one daughter?”

  “Yes,” she answered, grateful to be talking about Katie. “She’s living in Dublin—Ireland. She—”

  “I know where Dublin is, Lizzy. I may not have a doctorate, but I did manage a few years at Del State.”

  “I’m sorry,” she answered. “I didn’t mean—”

  He grinned at her. “I’m a waterman. It’s in my blood, like it’s in yours. I’m not cut out for classrooms or a nine-to-five job. But that doesn’t make me Jed Clampett, either.”

  Emotion made her voice husky. “Twenty years is a long time, Jack. I didn’t know what you were doing.”

  “Didn’t you?” He pushed the throttle to full. “I heard when you got your divorce.”

  She wanted to ask how he’d found out. Instead, she gripped the side of the boat and fixed her gaze on an osprey’s nest atop a buoy. After several minutes, she asked, “Do you have any children?”

  “Divorced. No kids.”

  “Significant other?”

  He shook his head.

  “Tracy?”

  He scowled. “I told you, she was a friend. She lived down the street. Tracy didn’t have much in the way of family. No father. Mother’s in jail someplace down South. Texas or Arkansas. There’s Aunt Charlene, but she never did much for Tracy except spend the kid’s welfare allotment on beer, cigarettes, and the slots. My mom used to buy Tracy school clothes and shoes.”

  “She had ambition.”

  “She wanted something more out of life than she had. And she was sweet. Too sweet to be with a guy like Wayne.”

  “Did the police question you about her death?”
>
  “Nope. Never found me.”

  “Why were you still in the parking lot when Amelia and I arrived? I was late. Tracy was murdered—”

  “Earlier,” he finished for her. “She was probably killed while I was sitting there waiting for her.”

  “Why would you wait for forty, forty-five minutes?”

  “Tracy told me she had this important appointment with her history professor. She wanted to keep it, but she didn’t plan to stay at school that day. She was scared of Wayne, and she wanted to move out of her trailer. After I dropped her off, she asked me to wait and take her home.”

  “But you were leaving when I arrived. Why did you go without her, if you thought she—”

  “Look, Lizzy, either you believe me or you don’t. Tracy said that she’d see if you’d give her an extension on a paper that was due. She thought it wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes. If she wasn’t back in half an hour, she said for me to just go. There was another guy who had an early class and then nothing until after lunch. She thought he’d give her a ride home.”

  “So you waited how long?”

  “Half an hour. Then another ten, maybe fifteen minutes, before I took off. I’m not sure. I wasn’t expecting to provide an alibi. Hell, I didn’t expect her to end up dead.”

  She took a deep breath. “Did you have anything to do with that truck in the river?”

  “If I did, would I be stupid enough to tell you?”

  Liz felt suddenly chilled despite the warmth of the morning. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  His gaze locked with hers for what seemed an eternity. “I didn’t do anything to Tracy or to Wayne. If I had found him, I wouldn’t finish it that way.”

  Was he telling the truth? She thought he was. She’d never known Jack to lie to her, not even when he knew that his words would tear her world in two. On the other hand, he had a temper, and he was capable of violence. She’d always known that.