by Jeff Abbott
‘God Almighty.’ Claudia fired. Heather and Junior dead. Sam missing. Jesus. His stomach tottered on the lip of a pit. ‘I need Spires’s home and pager numbers.’
Trudy gave him the numbers.
He dialed Delford’s number. No answer. He tried the pager number, keyed in the nursing home’s number, hoping for a quick response.
Think. Think.
Buddy Beere knew about Corey Hubble. Perhaps even assisted in the grand deception. Pete had found out where Corey was and Buddy silenced him. Perhaps silenced Marcy Ballew as well.
But how did Buddy learn that Pete had found Corey? Who knew what Pete knew? Not even Velvet, he’d kept even her in the dark. Not Kathy
… killing Pete meant no money, and Whit didn’t even know if she knew Buddy Beere.
‘They authorized him to be moved,’ Felix Duplessis said again, sitting in his chair, staring at Whit. His face sagged with the worn look of someone who suspects a good day will not come in the immediate future. The call came this morning. She insisted he be moved to a home up in Shreveport immediately.’
‘She?’ Gooch asked.
‘John’s trustee,’ Duplessis said. ‘Laura Taylor.’
‘Let me have her number, please,’ Whit said. Aside from the Austin number was a 361 area code: Texas Coastal Bend.
Duplessis clicked on his speakerphone, and Whit dialed. The phone chirped and a woman’s voice answered.
‘Hello?’
Duplessis said, ‘Miz Taylor?’
A pause. ‘Yes, this is she.’ She sounded tired, anxious, and exactly like Faith Hubble. Whit leaned over the phone, still silent, his eyes closed.
‘This is Felix Duplessis at Memorial Oaks in Deshay. How are you?’
‘All right. Have you moved John yet?’
‘There’s been a delay here, ma’am.’
‘He has to be moved immediately to the home in Shreveport. That’s what we pay for. Immediately.’
‘Well, yes, ma’am, but we’ve had a problem,’ Duplessis said. ‘There’s a gentleman…’
Whit stood by the speakerphone and leaned down. ‘Faith. It’s Whit. I’m here. I found Corey.’
No answer from the other end of the line.
‘Faith?’ Whit tried again. ‘Are you there?’
‘I’m here,’ she finally said.
‘Why does Corey have to be moved so quickly?’
‘I…’
And as soon as he asked the question, he saw his own logic misfire. Pete had died because he learned the secret. The secret the other Hubbles had cultivated and manufactured. But neither Faith nor Lucinda knew of his plans for the movie, that he was blood-hounding Corey’s trail.
Pete would have had only one confidant, one person he needed to turn against the Hubbles.
‘Is it Sam?’ Whit asked. ‘It is. Sam.’
‘He’s run off. He may be on his way there.’ Her voice broke. ‘Whit, don’t let him do anything… stupid. Please.’
‘He killed Pete,’ Whit said. ‘He killed his own father. Goddamn it. Faith. You knew?’
‘If Sam is there… please don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him!’
Whit turned to Felix Duplessis. ‘We need to move Corey… I mean, John. Or get guards here, one of the two. Now.’
‘Now, wait a second, we just got to get this sorted out…’ Duplessis said, and through the blinds Whit saw a BMW slide crookedly into a parking space, bumping a van. A lanky figure loped toward the nursing home’s front door.
‘Faith, he’s here,’ Whit said. ‘Sam’s just pulled up. Do you know if he’s armed?’
Gooch bolted from the room.
‘Don’t hurt him!’ Faith screamed. ‘Please!’
Whit ran out of the office. He spotted Gooch heading toward Corey’s room, pushing the wheelchaired patients back into their rooms, telling the aides to get them out of the hallway. The aides, collecting the breakfast trays, began to argue with him.
‘Call the police! Now!’ Whit yelled back at Duplessis. His yell made the hallway go silent.
‘Whit!’ Faith screamed from the phone. ‘Don’t hurt him, he’s my baby, don’t…’ and her voice vanished as Duplessis jabbed a button and dialed 911.
Whit reached the lobby just as Sam Hubble, wearing a denim jacket and dark glasses, left the information desk with a nod, heading toward the north ward of rooms.
‘Sam!’ Whit yelled.
Sam Hubble turned.
‘You fucker.’ Sam reached behind him, pulling a Ruger from its tucked spot in the back of his jeans, hidden by a baggy T-shirt. He pointed it at Whit’s head, six feet away. The woman at the information desk screamed and ran down the other hallway.
‘It’s over, Sam,’ Whit said, holding his palms up. ‘It’s over. I just talked with your mother. She wants to talk to you. Give me the gun and let’s go to the office and talk with her.’
‘You fuck my mother so you think you can tell me what to do?’ Sam narrowed his eyes into a hateful stare. ‘I don’t think it works that way.’
He knew, oh, damn. He knew like Corey knew, years ago. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt. Your mother’s on the phone, she wants to talk with you.’
‘I hate you,’ Sam said. ‘Why did you have to come here, drag her into this?’
‘It’s over,’ Whit repeated. ‘The only person Pete would have trusted with the whole story of what he found was you. You’re the only one he would have told, because he wanted you to be with him. He had dirt so bad on your mother and your grandmother that he actually might have won custody from them. So he told you what happened to your uncle Corey, but you decided to side with the home team. Your grandmother and your mother. You didn’t want Pete ruining their lives, so you ended his.’ He softened his tone. ‘It’s over, Sam. Put it down.’
‘Shut your mouth.’ Sam gestured with the Ruger. He glanced at the others in the lobby: a woman visiting a wheelchair-bound man, both cowering by a coffee table. ‘I start shooting and maybe I don’t start with you.’
‘There’s no point in hurting anyone else. The police are on their way. Give me the gun and let’s go talk to your mom.’
‘No.’ Sam backed down the hall, keeping the gun leveled at Whit. Whit followed him, slowly.
‘Pete told you what he thought you should know about your perfect family, all to convince you to be on his side.’
Sam hurried down the hallway, residents and aides and nurses scrambling and screaming, hurrying into rooms. At the end of the hall Whit saw Gooch move out from Corey’s room, then duck back in.
‘He was lying,’ Sam managed. He bumped into a food tray trolley, shoved it over. Fish sticks and macaroni greased the floor. The gun shook in his hand. The boy began to cry.
Whit kept his voice even, his movement even with Sam’s, close but not too close. ‘Monday night he thinks he’s spending it with you, he sends Velvet away. And maybe you call, tell him you need some time to think. He’s alone. Your friend Heather goes to see him. You hide out on an empty boat nearby, maybe. Had she been befriending him for you, spying on him? They drink, she flirts. Maybe she sets up the camera for him. You sneak aboard. He strips and gets on the bed, maybe she strips, and you come into the room, shove the gun in his mouth, and fire. Or she does. Which was it?’
‘Heather didn’t do nothing,’ Sam whispered. ‘Stop saying that.’
‘He’s dead, your family’s safe, and you found a bonus: a half million in cash. You’ve also got his computer and all his notes on Corey. Heather pretends to find the body, but when your father’s other associations start producing questions, you produce a suicide note. And Pete conveniently confesses to his own brother’s accidental death. Just so no one bothers to pick up looking for Corey.’
Sam stopped. They stood ten feet away from the end of the hall, near Corey’s room. The screams had died down as the terrified clients took cover, except for one rasping old woman’s voice calling from a nearby room, ‘Nurse? Nurse?’
‘I couldn’t let him… couldn’t
let him do this to us.’ Tears streamed from Sam’s eyes.
‘I know you were just trying to help your grandmother, Sam. Your mother’s on the phone, down at the office, she wants to talk to you. Give me the gun and come with me. We know how all this happened. There’s nothing to be gained from hurting Corey or anyone else.’
A shrill of sirens screamed in the parking lot. A hard light gleamed in the boy’s eyes.
Sam muttered, ‘Fuck you,’ and Gooch launched himself from the door, pile-driving the boy down, smashing a fist against the boy’s wrist. The pistol fell and Whit grabbed it.
Sam wriggled beneath Gooch, cursing, crying. Gooch yanked him to his feet, holding him with one massive arm.
‘You okay?’ he asked Whit.
Whit watched Sam’s face. ‘Yeah. Sam, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.’
Officers charged into the hall, demanding all three of them lie facedown. Whit put the gun on the floor as ordered and put his face on the cool tile. Duplessis hurried among the police, explaining, telling them Gooch and Whit were okay.
As the Deshay officers pulled Sam down the hall, he sobbed, ‘Let me call Heather. Please let me call Heather.’
Oh, God, he doesn’t know.
Whit went to go deal with the police and to tell Faith her son was still alive.
Hours later, when evening began its soft slide into Deshay, Whit returned to Corey Hubble’s room. Corey lay in the bed, eyelids like half-moons, moaning softly. A police guard at the door nodded Whit in.
Whit pulled up a chair next to the bed.
‘Well. Hello. It’s been a long while. I know you and I weren’t close, but I also don’t know… what you can hear, what you can understand. I’m gonna assume it’s more than we think.’ He touched the bone-thin arm under the sheet, remembering the smiling boy holding a proud string of redfish aloft. ‘The fishing’s been good this year, Corey, although I sure haven’t had time to go. We don’t have a prayer in football season this year. The coach doesn’t know his butt from a hole in the ground, so we’re all resigned to losing. We ought to do better in basketball next spring, one of the Lindstrom boys is six-seven. And would you believe I’m a judge? I know: a Mosley acting all respectable. But it may only be for a little while now.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I went to go see Marian Duchamp. She cares about you, you know, even if things weren’t exactly running smooth between you…’
The talk went on for another hour before Corey dozed into sleep. Whit stayed by his bed, watching the ghost breathe.
42
The one true suicide note composed that October in Encina County read as follows: I deeply regret the things I have done and left undone. I murmured that at church each Sunday for the past sixteen years and each time it felt like a bee’s sting near my heart and God knew I was a rotten liar. If I make it to heaven I’ll know He’s forgiven me. I take full responsibility for what happened to Corey Hubble and in turn what happened to Pete Hubble. I heard as a boy that love made you do great things, but I never figured good love would make you do evil. I write this not as explanation but as apology, and because regretfully Lucinda will not tell one moment’s truth. Lucinda and I became lovers before her husband died. His death from cancer was long and drawn-out, and the love between them faded long before he got sick. We were very careful and discreet, but Corey found out about us after Lucinda’s election to the state senate. I don’t know how, maybe he started following his mother and spotted us at one of the motels we used. He delivered flowers for spending money, so perhaps he saw us where we shouldn’t be. While we were staying at a friend’s house in Houston, Corey surprised us. He burst into the upstairs bedroom with a shotgun and we fought. I got the shotgun away from him, but then he grabbed for my service revolver and I grabbed it back and it fired twice, once hitting him in the head. He was hurt, but he didn’t die. Lucinda’s an RN. She stabilized him but refused to take him to a doctor because she was worried about the scandal. I began to cease to love her then. What kind of woman does that? A kiss can fool you. But I went along with her idea, scared shitless of losing my career, and we drove the boy to Texarkana, where she knew of a nursing home where she could cut a deal. She’d been doing legislation on nursing home reform, so she knew which homes were crooked and might cut her a deal and would benefit most from her protection. Lucinda greased some palms and he got care at the home. We thought he would quietly die but he didn’t. We returned to Port Leo late that Saturday, me driving Corey’s car, Lucinda driving mine. I took command of the investigation into Corey’s disappearance, and I stamped out any evidence that could point to him having fallen victim to violence. I am sorry to the people of Port Leo for betraying their trust, but I was young and foolish and scared. I have read a lot on head and brain injuries, and they are confounding, unpredictable things. Corey hovered over our lives, not alive and not dead. He haunts me even now. The administrator at the home (Phil Farr) was a goddamned crook, and he’d done Medicare fraud before, creating clients that never existed. After we took Corey there Lucinda protected this home against agency investigations. Farr and this clerk made Corey into John Taylor. This clerk was a creepy little bastard who was suspected at one point of smothering a lady patient at the home, but nothing came of that. Now we know that clerk became Buddy Beere and followed Lucinda eventually to Port Leo, and now he has killed some poor young women. I take blame for that as well. I thought Lucinda had killed Pete, or perhaps his ex-wife Faith. I did not want a murder investigation centering on the Hubbles. I behaved badly. I am sorry to the people I have hurt. I am not sorry to Lucinda Hubble, and the people of the Coastal Bend should not suffer her one moment longer. I apologize to the people who have suffered so because of my mistakes, including Claudia Salazar, who I wrongfully terminated and should have her job back. Claudia, don’t hate me. I always loved you more than a little. God forgive me my wrongs. – Delford Morton Spires
He hanged himself with a stout length of rope. His service revolver lay on the floor below his feet, polished and oiled, next to his gleaming badge and his carefully folded uniform.
Claudia and Whit stood on the slope of land leading away from Buddy Beere’s cabin, watching the work crew spear the ground with their shovels. The men dug slowly, carefully, methodically unearthing the land around Buddy’s house, looking for the mortal remains of Marcy Ballew and the women from Brownsville and Laredo. Claudia stood on crutches, her leg heavily bandaged, her hair pulled up from her eyes. Whit leaned against an old laurel oak. He held blank autopsy orders, ready to fill out in case the searchers found human remains.
Whit watched her. Her face was emotionless. ‘You sure you want to be here?’
‘It’s okay. You got to look the beast in the eye, Whit.’
‘You gonna bring David here when’s he released?’ Whit asked. David was recuperating at a Corpus Christi hospital, having suffered severe bone and nerve damage in his back and chest from the shotgun blast. He was out of immediate danger, but the road to rehabilitation looked to be long and winding.
‘If he wants to come,’ she said, not looking at him.
‘You haven’t talked about David much.’
‘David… needs me right now. Badly.’
Claudia said nothing for a long while, watching the dirt slowly pile.
A pair of FBI agents came out of the cabin, notepads open, arguing. Buddy’s belongings had been boxed and catalogued and no doubt would be sent to Quantico for the criminal psychologists to purr over. All the evidence they would need to scribe their papers on Buddy Beere, add him to the literature of the compulsive killer. Patsy Duchamp, given a meaty story, had delineated most of the facts in the paper, and Whit had read the account with a greasy kink in his stomach: Buddy was born Darren Burdell in Milwaukee, with a hophead mother who disciplined her tot with blades and lit cigarettes. Little Darren killed his mother at age thirteen when she tried to castrate him. He decapitated her an hour after her death, which gave the social workers pause. He spent time at a juvenile home and mental ward, seemed
to improve, worked odd jobs. Fell out of sight and headed south, apparently killing the occasional prostitute or runaway. One pundit quoted on television opined that Buddy preferred work at nursing homes since he would get to see people expire on a fairly regular basis. This might also explain his desire to be a rural JP. Serving as coroner, inspecting dead bodies, would have been delightfully stimulating for him. Credit-card receipts showed he had visited Deshay at least twice a year – perhaps treating Corey as a trophy, an example of his cleverness, paralleling the serial-killer fixation on visiting hidden remains of victims. A check of the human resources files at Placid Harbor showed that Buddy, armed with a master password, had altered the personnel records three times to indicate he was present at the nursing home when he was not. The dates were the dates when Marcy Ballew, Angela Norris, and Laura Palinski all vanished.
Claudia watched the federal agents walking around the cabin. ‘I wonder why he didn’t bury Heather if he buried the others,’ she said in a dead voice.
Whit inched onto the thin ice. ‘You couldn’t have saved Heather, Claudia. You couldn’t know she was in mortal danger. Neither did she.’
‘I could have convinced her to stay in a safe place.’
‘Stop it,’ Whit said. ‘She was a co-conspirator in murder. No way was she going to get close to you or let you help her. You saved Velvet and David and anyone else Buddy would have killed along the line. That has to be enough.’
‘Delford could have told me.’ She suddenly shivered. ‘He could have turned himself in. He had years of outstanding service on his side. He could have cut a deal, testifying against Lucinda.’
‘You want pearls with your hair shirt, Claudia?’ Whit said. He put an arm around her, and she leaned against him, old friend to old friend.
They watched the work crew begin to dig on a fresh stretch of land, between the oaks. Fifteen minutes later the crew found bones. Claudia stayed in the shade of the trees while Whit completed the autopsy authorizations.