by Chris Culver
“Excellent.”
“Before you get too excited, I’ve got a condition. You go with me.”
“Do you need me to hold your hand?”
“No,” I said, my voice flat and as emotionless as I could make it. “I need you to get me past the security outside your mother’s house. If she sees me coming in alone, she’s going to know something’s up.”
“There are better ways, honey,” said Tess. “Put a pinch of cyanide in her morning drink, or better yet, go to the botanical gardens and get a couple of oleander leaves. She’s so drunk most of the day that if you chop those up and put them in her tea, she’ll never even know until her heart stops.”
“If I’m going to do this, I’m going to go straight at her. None of this cloak and dagger stuff.”
“All right,” said Tess. “If that’s your game plan, I can assist. How do you plan to kill her? Some ways are harder than others, I’ve heard.”
I looked at my dashboard. “I’m going to kill her. What else do you want to know?”
“I want to know what I should be prepared for. Should I put down a tarp in the back room? Do you need me to get you a baseball bat? I like to plan. You know that.”
“I’m going to shoot her in the head with a .45.”
“Hmm . . .” said Tess, thoughtfully. “That will certainly get it done. That’s an awfully big gun, though. Couldn’t you use something smaller? A round that big will make such a mess.”
“It’s the tool I’ve got,” I said, my voice sharp.
“All right, then,” said Tess. “That’s what we’ll use.”
“I’m glad you’re agreeable. Meet me tomorrow morning in front of the art museum at ten. We’ll go over things then and get this done.”
“I like this commanding version of Steve. Maybe he can stick around for a while afterwards, too.”
“We’ll see.”
We spoke for another minute before I hung up, feeling more than a little slimy. That was one call down; now the other. I called Vince and waited for him to pick up.
“Vince, it’s Steve again. You got a minute?”
“Sure.”
“I need one more favor. I need you to call Captain Leonard Morgan and tell him that Tess and I plan to murder Annette Girard sometime tomorrow morning after ten.”
Vince didn’t respond at first, but then he cleared his throat. “You sure you’ve thought this through?”
I blinked and softened my voice. “Yeah. Unfortunately.” I sighed. “I’m going to jail, and there’s no way I can get around that. But when I go, I’m taking Tess with me.”
47
I stayed in the truck stop that night and was only disturbed once, at about ten in the evening, when a Southern Baptist minister and his wife knocked on my window to ask if I’d like a sandwich. Apparently, Isaac’s old jeep and my lack of a shave and clean clothes for the past few days made me look more derelict than I expected. I thanked them for their generosity but declined. Sometime after that, I’m not sure when, I slipped into a fitful slumber that stretched until about four in the morning. After waking, I kept my eyes closed for about half an hour, but sleep refused to return.
I used the restroom inside the truck stop, and when I returned to my car, I drove west without giving much thought to my destination. Fortunately, hunger quickly took over the navigation duties and directed me toward a Steak ’n Shake off the interstate. After breakfast and three cups of coffee, I felt significantly more energized, more like myself. St. Louis was only about two hours away, so I beat rush hour by a good forty-five minutes and arrived at Forrest Park at a little after seven, three hours before I was to meet Tess.
I parked on Government Drive, approximately halfway between the art museum and the zoo, and started walking without conscious direction, remembering things I had done and places I had seen. After approximately two hours, I made it back to my car and drove to one of the lots flanking the art museum. Already, a small crowd had begun to form on the front steps.
I glanced at my watch. Five minutes to ten. Every time I had asked to meet Tess somewhere lately, she had been punctual, which meant I should be seeing her any moment. At ten, a docent opened the art museum’s front doors, allowing the crowd inside, and I stepped out of my car to look around.
No Tess.
I called her, but her phone went to voicemail.
“Hey. It’s Steve Hale, and I’m at the Art Museum. Since you’re not here, I’m going inside. I’ll meet you by the bronze Degas sculpture in the Impressionist area.”
I hung up after that and followed a group of young people, likely college students, inside. As often as I had stepped into the art museum, the enormous, marble-clad foyer always left me feeling humbled.
I hurried to the Impressionist gallery and settled into a black leather couch in front of a mural-sized Monet painting. Time slipped away from me until I glanced at my watch at half after ten. Tess still hadn’t arrived, so I sent her a text message asking when she’d be there. When she neither returned my message nor arrived by a quarter to eleven, I felt something I hadn’t expected. A trickle of hope.
Maybe it had worked. Maybe she had been arrested.
I sent a second message at eleven and hung around the art museum for another half hour before leaving and looking around the surrounding grounds. No white Nissan and no Tess Girard. Instead of sending another text, I called her up. Remarkably, she answered.
“I’m at the art museum,” I said, stepping down the limestone steps in front. “You’re late. Where are you?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Are you planning on coming to see me?”
“No.”
King Louis IX, aka St. Louis—or at least an immense bronze statue of him atop a warhorse—stood across the road from me.
“And why not?”
“I was going to,” said Tess. “I even planned on it, but then my lawyer called. Do you know what he said?”
I looked left and right to make sure traffic was clear before crossing the street. Art Hill and the Grand Basin spread out beneath me.
“I have no idea what he said.”
“As it turns out, several detectives from Salt Lake City have been raising a stink since seeing my picture in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They seem to believe I had something to do with Holly Olson’s death.”
I gritted my teeth. “You did convince her boyfriend to kill her.”
“I want you to be honest,” said Tess. “You never intended to kill my mother, did you?”
“No.”
“Do you remember what I said would happen if you didn’t?”
I looked left and right to make sure I was alone. A white Park Services dump truck lumbered beside me on the street, drowning out anything else Tess might have said.
“I believe you said you would slit my niece’s throat and hire thugs to gang-rape my wife.”
“Something to that effect, anyway,” said Tess. “I may have been out of line when I said that, and if so, I apologize. Do you forgive me?”
“Sure,” I said. “Now will you meet me? I’d like to get this over with.”
“Ohhhhh,” she said, holding the syllable. “Well, that’s a problem. Our situation has changed. You’re not the only one the police want to talk to now.”
My nostrils flared as I exhaled. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“And I’m sorry for the short notice of this call. I normally try to be more accommodating.”
I sat on a stone bench overlooking Art Hill and shivered as the breeze cut through my thin jacket. “What do you want to do?”
“With jail hanging over my head, I need to get some things done quickly. Since I’ve been back, I feel like I haven’t been able to see anybody. I didn’t even get to give Katherine a hug or meet little Ashley. You played such an important part in my life, I feel like I’ve let them down by not seeing them.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “You haven’t.”
“Intellectually, I know you�
��re right, but I’m a softie. I can’t help it.”
“I’ll be sure to give them your love.”
“You are so sweet,” said Tess. “But there’s nothing like an in-person meeting. You want to know what I did?”
I closed my eyes and felt my shoulders drop. “No.”
“I’ll tell you, anyway. Do you remember telling my sister that Ashley was in kindergarten at Mary Queen of Peace?”
I blinked. “I remember.”
“I thought that this would be the perfect time to see her. So I waited outside the school this morning while the other boys and girls filed in. Neither she nor Katherine showed. I was so disappointed.”
My hand started trembling. I coughed, hoping my voice wouldn’t waver. “You can still get out of town if you leave soon.”
“Katherine was one of my sorority sisters, and I couldn’t leave without saying hello to her.”
I swallowed, feeling the tremble that had started in my hands vibrate through my chest. “Just leave.”
“It’s okay, honey,” said Tess, soothingly. “Since I couldn’t find them, I started thinking and then I realized something. Katherine left you and took Ashley, didn’t she?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You don’t have to play the tough guy,” said Tess. “You’re hurt, and it’s my fault.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” said Tess, her voice almost soothing. “This is my fault, but I’m going to put it right. I promise you.”
I tried to force strength into my voice that I didn’t actually possess. “She’s gone, and I don’t know where she is.”
“After everything I’ve put her through, I can’t really blame her. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take care of this. I’ll explain everything to her.”
“You don’t need to do that. I don’t know where she is; you should focus on getting out of town.”
She chortled. “Silly Steven. I know exactly where she is. I’m sure you’ve been there a time or two yourself, but if you haven’t, you can find the address on the Internet. Her parents’ home in Chicago, you remember it, don’t you? It’s a greystone in Wicker Park a couple of blocks from a Persian place with great falafel.”
“Of course I remember my in-laws’ house. Leave them out of this. This is between you and me.”
“I don’t know what you think is going on here, but I simply plan to see my old sorority sister and give her a hug. You’re acting as if I’m going to practice my knife work on her.”
My voice wavered. “Where are you? I’ll meet you so we can talk.”
“I’m in the living room.”
“Whose living room?”
Her voice turned coy. “I think you know.”
I closed my eyes. “Where are Jean and Terry?”
“They’re in the basement. They weren’t too keen on me staying here to greet their daughter.”
“Can I talk to them?”
“Hmm,” said Tess. She paused for a moment. “I’m afraid they’re not receiving visitors at the moment.”
“What about Katherine? Where is she?”
“She’s fine. Ashley’s fine, too.”
I leaned forward and whispered into the phone. “What do you want?”
“I was thinking we could have a little get-together to hash a few things out.”
My voice came out strained. “If you hurt them . . .”
“Perish the thought. I would like you to come up here, though.”
I held my breath for a five count in the hopes that it would calm my racing heart. It didn’t. “Fine. I’m on my way. Just don’t hurt anybody.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say that.” She hesitated, but then spoke. “I do have one request, though. The police want us both, so I think it’d be best if we left them out of this. I’ll even give you a little incentive. If I see a police officer or even get the most fleeting suspicion that you’ve gone to the police, I’ll open up your motherin-law’s throat in front of Ashley. Do you think she’d like playing with her grandma’s blood?”
My entire body shook. “Don’t you dare.”
Tess chuckled. “And in one moment, your fear turns our love into hate.”
“What are you going to do if I come?”
“I’m glad you asked,” she said. “I’m a little cash-poor right now, so I’m going to need that money we stole from my stepfather. You give me that, and I’ll leave. You’ll never see or hear from me again.”
Of course I no longer had that money. An elderly couple on a stroll eyed me from a nearby walkway. I waved, but that merely made them walk faster. “Somehow I doubt it.”
“You’re so pessimistic. Just come alone, and everything will be fine.”
I stood up and looked around to make sure the elderly couple was far enough away that they couldn’t hear me. “I’m on my way. If you hurt either of them, you’re going to regret it.”
“And if you don’t hurry, your family of three might become a family of two. Now, we’ve both made threats, but only one is viable. Care to find out which one?”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “I’ll call you tonight.”
48
Jean and Terry, Katherine’s parents, lived in a hundred-year-old row house in Wicker Park, a trendy neighborhood northwest of the Loop. I drove up as fast as I could and parallel parked near a stone church at the corner of North Hoyne and Le Moyne Avenue. Before exiting my car, I reached to the seat beside me for my firearm and holster, both still wrapped inside fabric grocery sacks. The gun felt strange and heavy on my hip, but I was sure that I’d get used to it soon enough. As I stepped out of the vehicle, I caught the damp, almost acrid smell of fallen walnuts on the breeze, and I heard three boys talking on the front porch of a nearby house. I nodded to them as I passed, but they mostly ignored me.
Clad in roughly hewn gray granite, Jean and Terry’s home wasn’t huge, but it was comfortable. As I knocked on the front door, I wrapped my fingers around the grip of my firearm, preparing myself to shoot Tess as soon as I saw her. No one came answered my knock, so I pulled my weapon out of the holster, holding it between my hips and the house, and tried the knob. The door swung open, exposing a front parlor that had been recently gutted to the studs and stripped of all historic charm.
“Anybody here?” I asked, stepping inside.
No one answered.
Muscles all over my body trembled as anxiety rippled through me. Ashley, Jean, Terry—somebody should have answered. I took the stairs into the basement. Like the first floor, the basement had recently been refinished in a fashion that a realtor would likely call tasteful, or maybe even neutral. It felt more like a furniture store than a home in which real flesh-and-blood people lived.
“Jean? Terry?”
For the first time, I heard a noise, a muffled cry, maybe. I walked toward the source of it, a guest bedroom, where I found my mother and father-in-law slumped beside each other on foldable metal chairs. Tess had covered their mouths with duct tape and then used zip ties to secure their arms and ankles to their seats. Their bloodshot eyes opened wide when they saw me. Terry tried to say something, his face and neck red with strain, but no recognizable words came from his throat.
“Hold tight,” I said. “I’m going to get a knife from the kitchen. I’ll cut you out.”
A cord rose on Terry’s neck as he stamped his foot and glared at me, but I ignored him and ran upstairs for a pair of kitchen shears. When I came down, I gently tugged at the tape on my motherin-law’s mouth. As soon as it was free, Jean gasped and said Tess was gone. She then directed me to help her husband before I worried about the zip ties connecting her to her chair. Terry jerked his head as I tried to pull the tape from his mouth.
“This will be easier if you just stop moving.”
“Please listen to him, sweetheart,” said Jean. “He’s trying to free you.”
&nbs
p; Terry glared at his wife before looking at me again. As soon as I got a corner off, I yanked hard, causing him to grimace with pain. I hate to admit that was satisfying, but it was.
“Where are Katherine and Ashley?” I asked.
“Ashley’s in the storage closet,” said Terry, my father-in-law. “I don’t know where Katherine is. She and that woman left hours ago.”
I used the kitchen shears to cut through the zip ties tying Jean to her chair before leaving the bedroom and running to the basement storage closet. Tess had propped a wooden kitchen chair beneath the doorknob, effectively holding it shut. I kicked that out of the way and threw open the door. My niece lay on top of a sleeping bag in her pajamas, my wife’s iPad in front of her. I immediately scooped her up and held her against me. She wrapped her arms and legs around my back.
“I don’t know their Wi-Fi password,” she said. “I couldn’t even watch Netflix. It was awful.”
My chest shook as I chuckled and inhaled deep, relieved breaths.
“I’m sure they’ll give it to you later,” I said.
“Are you crying?” she asked.
I reached up to my face and wiped my cheek. “Yeah. Don’t tell anybody.”
“I won’t, but can you let me down? I’ve got to pee.”
“Sure,” I said, relaxing my grip. She slid to the ground and then immediately ran past me, presumably to the bathroom, while I leaned against the doorframe to catch my breath. Terry and Jean whispered to each other. I knew I was going to have to talk to them eventually, but I stayed and waited beside the restroom for Ashley to finish. When she came out, I asked her if she was okay and she said yes. More than anything, she seemed confused, which was better than being scared. As she sat down on the basement couch, she cocked her head at me and then looked around.
“Where’s Aunt Katherine?”
“She’s out with a friend,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Did she go out with that blonde woman?”
I nodded. “That’s the one.”
“She was a bitch.”
“You shouldn’t use that word, honey. It’s not nice.”
Ashley shrugged. “I don’t know a better one to use.”