Most Likely to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  Putting a pleasant expression on her face, Rachel shook hands with Marilyn. “Thank you so much for seeing us.”

  Dean nodded. “We really appreciate this.”

  He and Rachel sat on the sofa facing Marilyn. Her son stood behind her wheelchair, one hand on her shoulder. “Go ahead, Mom. Tell them what you know.”

  Marilyn Dewey looked down into her lap where she held her clasped hands, her fingers knotted and swollen. “If Patrick were alive, I’d never…I’ve kept his secret all these years.”

  Rachel scooted to the edge of the sofa. What secret?

  “Patrick was a good man,” Marilyn said. “A good husband and father.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Dean glanced up at Pat Jr. before focusing on Mrs. Dewey. “Just take your time in telling us what you know.”

  “Patrick wasn’t with me the night that Marcott boy was killed.” The words rushed out of her in one long, run-together sentence.

  Rachel and Dean exchanged questioning glances.

  Silence hung over the room like a heavy fog.

  “Are you saying that when the police questioned you twenty years ago, you lied?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, I lied for my husband. Patrick told me that if I didn’t give him an alibi, the police would dig deeper and he’d be in big trouble,” Marilyn explained. “I asked him why he needed an alibi, and he said I was better off not knowing, to just do as he asked and everything would be all right.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  Pat Jr. squeezed his mother’s shoulder reassuringly. “It’s all right. You’re doing just fine. Tell them the rest of it.”

  Marilyn swallowed hard. “I was a young woman with two children and no job. I didn’t even graduate from high school. I needed Patrick.” She paused, sighed heavily and looked pleadingly at Rachel. “And I loved him.”

  “We understand,” Rachel said. She did understand why a woman would lie for her husband. But understanding didn’t mean approval.

  “I lied to the police about two things. Patrick was not with me the night the Marcott boy was murdered. And the crossbow that he reported stolen wasn’t stolen. He—he hid it in the garage, inside this big old toolbox that had belonged to his father.”

  Rachel tensed. “Do you know why he reported the crossbow stolen?”

  Marilyn shook her head. “I asked him, but he wouldn’t tell me. We never discussed it—none of it—ever again. Not until…” Tears streamed down her face.

  Pat Jr. whipped out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to his mother. She wiped away the tears and wadded up the handkerchief in her trembling hands.

  “Patrick had throat cancer. He’d been a heavy smoker all his life,” Marilyn said. “A few days before he died, he told me he had to clear his conscience before…He needed to bare his soul to me, to beg me to forgive him.”

  Rachel held her breath. Dean didn’t move a muscle. A deadly soft anticipation filled the room.

  “Patrick killed that boy,” Marilyn said. “That Marcott boy.”

  “Did he tell you that he killed Jake Marcott?” Dean asked, his voice sympathetically gentle.

  “Yes. He said that he planned it a few weeks beforehand and that’s why he reported the crossbow stolen, so that when he used it…”

  “Why did your husband kill Jake?” Rachel asked.

  Marilyn hesitated, then said, “There was a girl, you see. A girl that Patrick had been seeing.” She paused as if the truth were too terrible for her to utter aloud. “My husband had an affair with a teenage girl.”

  Oh my God! Rachel’s mind worked at lightning speed, putting together the missing pieces to a twenty-year-old puzzle.

  Marilyn Dewey wept, her heart breaking anew because her husband had been unfaithful to her all those years ago. “This girl had been involved with the Marcott boy, too.” Marilyn looked up at her son and grasped the hand that clutched her shoulder.

  Pat Jr. leaned down and hugged her.

  She regained her composure and continued. “Patrick said this boy had been cruel to the girl, that he’d mistreated her badly, that he deserved to die. The only way to stop the boy from continuing to abuse the girl was to kill him.”

  “Did your husband tell you the girl’s name?” Rachel asked, hoping beyond hope that he had.

  Marilyn shook her head. “No.” She glanced from Rachel to Dean and then up at her son. “Even on his deathbed, he wanted to protect her.”

  Several days following Rachel and Dean’s interview with Marilyn Dewey and a follow-up interview that was officially recorded, the Portland P.D. had permanently closed the cold case file on the Cupid Killer murder. Chief Charlie Young made the wise decision to delay making the news public until after the St. Elizabeth’s reunion. And Dean had managed to persuade the powers that be not to press charges against Mrs. Dewey, a woman in her sixties who suffered from crippling arthritis. In Rachel’s opinion, the woman had suffered enough, and Dean agreed. It seemed they agreed on a great many things.

  If only Mrs. Dewey could have given them the girl’s name…

  Everything made sense now. All except one of the old puzzle pieces had been placed together. Patrick Dewey had been having an affair with a girl Jake had also been involved with, a girl Jake had abused. Patrick had plotted Jake’s demise and killed his rival in a spectacular way. The expert bowman had shot Jake directly in the heart with “Cupid’s arrow.”

  But what had happened after Jake’s murder? Had the girl turned against Patrick? Or had Patrick ended the secret affair?

  Rachel had thought surely someone other than Patrick Dewey and the girl had known about their affair. Where and when had they met? A local motel? Somewhere out of town? Had someone possibly seen the girl with Patrick?

  She had racked her brain trying to figure out a way to unearth this girl’s identity, but in the end, she realized that the span of twenty years worked against their discovering the truth. Would any motels or hotels still have records from twenty years ago? And even if they did, Patrick would hardly have used his real name. And she certainly couldn’t expect any former hotel employee to remember a man and teenage girl who had secret rendezvous in 1986.

  As each day had passed, Rachel’s frustration level had risen. If not for Dean’s wonderful calming effect on her, she wasn’t sure she’d have made it through without a major meltdown. As she lay in Dean’s arms each night, she wondered how she’d gotten so damn lucky. She could regret not finding love with Dean years ago, but there was no point in looking back. Today was all that mattered. For Dean and her and for their old high-school friends. Jake Marcott’s murder case had been solved; the murderer was dead. But the recent murders remained unsolved, the killer still out there, ready to kill again.

  Tonight was the night. Everything was in order. Every detail planned. They would all be here, the classmates from the graduating classes of 1986. The alumni from St. Elizabeth’s, Western Catholic, and even some graduates from Washington High School. The police had brought in bomb-sniffing dogs and the authorities had done what they thought was a thorough search of the building. But no one remembered the old basement area under the gymnasium. She doubted that there was anyone still alive who knew about that subterranean level that could be reached only through the basement of the school itself and not directly from the gym. The only reason she knew the location was because her great-uncle had once been the custodian, back in the sixties, and he’d told her about it.

  If the police had searched down there, they would have found her secret room, the senior lockers, and the souvenirs from Mandy, Aurora, and Haylie. If that had happened, she would have had to formulate a new plan rather quickly, perhaps continue the executions beyond tonight’s event. But as luck would have it, she didn’t have to change her plans.

  After helping the decorating committee set up tables and chairs in the old gym and spread colorful streamers from the bleachers and rafters, she had separated from the others as they left for the afternoon and had made her way into the basement. Several days earl
ier, she had brought everything she would need for tonight and stored it all down here. And when she reappeared tonight, dressed to the nines, no one would be the wiser.

  If no one got in her way, if nothing interfered with her plans, three people would die tonight: Kristen, Rachel, and Lindsay. Whichever one she could get to the easiest would be the first to die.

  Giggling happily, she danced around and around in the forgotten cellar beneath the gym, Patrick Dewey’s old Beretta in her hand. He had given it to her, all those years ago—an unregistered pistol—to use as protection.

  “If that bastard ever tries to rape you again, shoot him,” Patrick had said.

  Dear, sweet, loving Patrick.

  He had truly cared about her. And she’d never had the heart to tell him that although she hated Jake with every fiber of her being, she also loved him.

  Patrick wouldn’t have understood.

  If you hadn’t been at my side that night, I wouldn’t have had the courage to kill Jake and end the nightmare my life had become. You were my white knight, Patrick, my avenging angel.

  Rachel gave herself one final inspection in the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. Here she was, wearing an ankle-length teal green satin dress that clung to her curves and accentuated her breasts, preparing to attend her twenty-year class reunion. A reunion marred by the recent murders of three classmates and an all-too-real threat that others were in danger. If she’d had her way, they would have canceled tonight’s affair, but with so many people actually looking forward to the reunion dance and so many having come in from out of state, the committee had decided they didn’t have much choice but to continue with the event as planned.

  Checking her watch—six-fifteen—she heaved a deep sigh and picked up the tiny diamond hoops from the dresser and inserted them into her pierced ears. Dean was picking her up at six-thirty, which gave her just enough time to collect her thoughts and calm her jittery nerves.

  When her cell phone rang, she gasped. Cursing herself for being so nervous, she flipped open the phone and checked the caller ID.

  “Hello, Dean,” she said playfully, trying to act as if she weren’t worried sick.

  “Listen, honey. I need you to get down to headquarters immediately.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “I just got a call from Pat Dewey. He and his mother are in Portland and they’re about two miles from headquarters. It seems when she finished cleaning out her bedroom closet this afternoon, intending to either pack or trash what was left, she came across some photographs that were in an old suitcase that her sons had brought down from the attic.”

  “Photographs of what?”

  “Of whom,” Dean corrected. “She isn’t sure who the person in the photos is, but she thinks it could be the girl Patrick had the affair with twenty years ago.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “Could Pat describe the girl to you? Could you—”

  “He couldn’t give me a description,” Dean said. “It seems his mother won’t let him see the pictures.”

  “What? Why?”

  “He thinks it’s because the girl in the photos is probably naked. He told me that his mother said she will hand those photographs over only to you.”

  “Because I’m a woman.”

  “Yeah, that would be my guess.”

  “I’ll get to headquarters as soon as possible, but in late Saturday afternoon traffic, it’ll take me a good thirty minutes.”

  “Just drive carefully.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Lindsay would rather be anywhere than here. With the old gymnasium decorated so nicely, it reminded her far too much of the last time this building had hosted a special dance. The Valentine’s Day dance of 1986. Only back then, everything had been decked out in red, white, and pink, with paper hearts and fat little Cupids adorning every nook and cranny. If Wyatt weren’t at her side tonight, she would have run out the door as fast as she could and gotten as far away from St. Elizabeth’s as humanly possible.

  “We didn’t have to come here tonight.” Wyatt placed his arm around her waist as he whispered in her ear.

  “Yes, we did. I did.” She turned and smiled at him. A forced smile. “I’ve been running from the past far too long. I ran from you, from our son…and from Jake’s memory. I need to do this, so that I can lay his ghost to rest.”

  “Whatever you need to do to vanquish Jake’s ghost and put the past behind us, I’ll help you. Just say the word and—”

  “Go outside with me,” she told him. “I need to go back inside the labyrinth, to the spot where Jake was killed. Where I found him.”

  “Are you sure?” Wyatt asked. “Why put yourself through that kind of torture?”

  “I can’t explain it. It’s just something I need to do.”

  “All right. Do you want to go now or wait until later?”

  “Now, before I lose my nerve.”

  As they headed for the exit, they ran into April Wright. “Where are you two going? Not leaving so soon, I hope.”

  “No, we’re just going to get a breath of fresh air,” Lindsay lied. “We’ll be back before things really get started.”

  “You’d better be careful out there,” April said. “You wouldn’t catch me wandering around outside in the dark. Not tonight. Not with somebody out there just waiting to take potshots at us.”

  “It’s not dark yet. There’s plenty of daylight left,” Wyatt said. “Besides, Lindsay won’t be alone, not for a single minute.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear.”

  Wyatt cupped her elbow and led her out of the gym and onto the school grounds. “I think it’s this way, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she replied, “right over there.”

  Hidden deep inside the maze of hedges, the huge oak tree towered high into the evening sky. Beneath the oak, the sculpture of the Madonna still resided in a place of honor. This was where she’d found Jake. The arrow that had pierced his heart had pinned him to the tree.

  Suddenly flashes of memory popped into Lindsay’s mind, like an accelerated movie clip. She saw Jake’s sightless eyes staring at her. The blood on his shirt. The still-smoldering cigarette lying at his feet. She could hear her own screams as she rushed toward him, praying that he was still alive.

  But he was dead.

  Lindsay shivered uncontrollably.

  Wyatt wrapped her in his strong, comforting arms. “Let it go. You’re here with me now and you’re safe. You’ve confronted the demons from the past. It’s over.”

  She sobbed against his chest while he soothed her. He allowed her several minutes to recover, then grasped her hand and said, “It’s time to get back to the dance.”

  Marilyn Dewey sat in her wheelchair, a small manila folder clasped in her weathered, arthritis-crippled hands. She looked up the moment the door to the captain’s office opened and Rachel walked in. Rachel nodded at Dean, who stood in the corner, then went straight to Marilyn.

  Rachel pulled out a chair, dragged it directly across from Marilyn, and sat down facing the other woman. “I believe you have something you want to show me.”

  Marilyn’s dark, soulful eyes lifted, and she stared directly at Rachel. “He took pictures of her.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Nude pictures.”

  “You found them today?” Rachel nodded to the envelope in Marilyn’s lap.

  “They were in Patrick’s old suitcase…one he hadn’t used in years.”

  “May I see the photographs?” Rachel held out her hand, trying her best not to push, not to be overly eager. But God in heaven, these old pictures could reveal the identity of a murderer and thus prevent any future deaths.

  Marilyn lifted the envelope, as careful with it as if it were made of spun glass, and handed it to Rachel. “He—he wrote things on the back of each photograph. Things about her.”

  Rachel released a chest-tight breath as she clasped the envelope. “Would you prefer that L
ieutenant McMichaels and I look at these—”

  “No,” Marilyn cried. “Not him. Only you.”

  “All right, only me. Do you want me to look at them in another room?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Pat Dewey placed both hands on his mother’s quivering shoulders.

  “Stay here,” Rachel told Dean as she headed for the door.

  He nodded.

  Rachel closed the door behind her, went straight to the captain’s secretary’s desk, sat down, and opened the envelope. With her hands trembling and her heartbeat strumming in her ears, she turned the envelope upside down and shook out the contents. A stack of old Polaroid photos fell into her waiting hands.

  Oh, God! Oh, God!

  She turned the photos over and groaned when she immediately recognized the naked girl in the first picture. Sitting demurely on the edge of a bed, her index finger stuck seductively in her mouth, she stared at the camera. Wide-eyed, but far from innocent.

  Rachel hurriedly looked through the two dozen snapshots of the teenager, each pose slightly different, obviously all the pictures were not taken at the same time. She read a few of the notes on the backs of the photos, then one in particular caught her eye.

  Merciful Lord!

  That one final missing piece in the puzzle fell into place.

  Rachel stuffed the photos back in the envelope, got up, and rushed into the captain’s office.

  “Put a call in to the patrol cars closest to St. Elizabeth’s and send them over to the school,” Rachel said. “The killer is there right now. Lindsay and Kristen are in immediate danger!”

  Chapter 33

  Lindsay excused herself to go to the restroom. Martina and Kristen were coming out as she was going in. When she walked into the locker room, which you had to go through to reach the girls’ restroom, she saw several old classmates standing around talking, but once in the restroom, she was alone. A shiver of apprehension raced up her spine. The eerie quiet inside the stall unnerved her. She hurried, relieving herself quickly; then in her haste, she wound up pulling a run in her stockings when her fingernail caught in the nylon. Drat!