The first visitors were neighbors, most of who confessed to being just curious, but still took plenty of time meandering through the house. Amy asked every visitor to sign a visitors’ log, but some people were reluctant to do so. They didn’t want to be hectored by real estate agents and Amy certainly couldn’t tell them that she was trying to keep track of potential suspects.
The first hour passed and Amy started to relax. There were no strange people, nothing out of the ordinary. She described the features of the home to older couples, young families, a single woman and a father house-hunting for his son. She pointed out exceptional features, suggested different uses of the five bedrooms depending on the audience, and trooped up and down stairs and in and out doors until her feet hurt.
She checked her cell phone when there was a lull, sitting down at the kitchen table and kicking off her shoes. She’d already checked for messages twice, but there could be a call from the hospital. That was her justification and not that she was looking for a message from Ryan. He hadn’t called, but it was possible he’d left a message on her home machine. She let her other messages play while thinking about him.
She wanted to believe he’d called because she didn’t want to believe that he might be regretting what happened. Perhaps he was afraid that he’d saddled himself with a mother and her kid and she didn’t want him to think that. She’d had sex without any expectation beyond that of satisfying a primal need to be held and loved.
Sudden footsteps on the stairs startled her. An older, bearded man in a full-length wool coat stepped into the kitchen and stopped short, blinking at Amy through small tortoiseshell glasses.
“Excuse me,” he said in a gruff voice. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“No, that is, you didn’t,” Amy said, slipping back into her heels and pocketing her phone. “I didn’t realize anyone was still here. Have you seen the kitchen?”
He nodded. “The other woman told me there was a door through here to the garage?”
Amy showed him to it. “Would you like me to show you the rest of the property?”
“That isn’t necessary. I’ll just look around.”
“Of course.”
As soon as he’d exited, her cell phone rang. Detective Juarez sounded breathless. “They’ve spotted a strange car near your house and I’m heading over there. Don’t be concerned, it’s probably nothing, but we’ve got to check it out. Officer Feeney will remain outside.”
She looked out a front window on her way upstairs and could see Officer Feeney sitting in his car. He looked like he was eating something.
She could hear a couple in the master bedroom and knew they’d been fooling around on the bed by the sudden scrambling noise and red faces as she walked in.
“Can I answer any questions?”
“Does any of the furniture come with the place?” the man asked with apparent casualness but his eyes strayed to the bed.
When they’d headed down to see the kitchen, Amy lingered, looking out the window and seeing the older man walking along the side of the pool. He looked as if he might topple in.
In all, close to fifty people came through the home, which was almost an unheard of number, according to Poppy. “If you’re lucky that young couple I was talking to will make an offer. He’s an investment banker and she’s a broker. I’m sure their financing will be a snap.”
Late-afternoon sun streaked the dining room with light while they gathered the materials. “If you’ll get the lights and windows upstairs,” Poppy said, “I’ll shut up the pool and the garage and then I’ve got to get going. Jack’s made reservations for us at Shade Blue.”
Amy didn’t know where she and Emma would be eating. Probably a rest stop McDonald’s.
The Harrigans weren’t returning until Monday, so the home had to be completely secured. Amy checked the windows in every room on the first floor and drew the blinds. The light was fading fast and the streetlights had switched on. She was a little annoyed that Feeney hadn’t made it back in the house yet to check things. She’d called him five minutes ago. At least he was out there; she could just see his form in the car.
“Wait. Let’s not take him yet. We’ve got to wait until he approaches the house.”
Juarez spoke tersely into the mike and got a grunt of acknowledgement from Detective Dickson in the other unmarked. The dingy white car circled the block again, cruising slowly past Amy’s house. This time Juarez caught a glimpse of a white man wearing a knit hat behind the wheel.
He could feel the adrenaline coursing through him, giving him power. This was what he liked about police work, the hunt, the chase, the moment when all the hours of boring work paid off.
The white car circled for the fifth time and this time it idled near Amy’s house. They could see the guy looking up at the porch and then around him. Juarez slid farther down in his seat. The motor stopped and the door opened. A lanky white guy stepped out wearing dark blue jeans, worn white at the knees and the seat, and a brown corduroy jacket patched at the elbows. A blue knit hat was pulled low on his head.
“Let’s see what he does,” Juarez said into the mike, and then crooned, “C’mon, man, head for the house. You know you want to.”
Instead the man ducked back into the car, but he emerged just as suddenly holding something wrapped in cellophane. A bouquet of flowers.
Poppy headed out the back door as fast as she could in her Manolo Blahniks. She loved these shoes and the way they made her legs look and Jack certainly responded to them, but they were a bitch on cement.
She groaned when she saw the lounge chairs. They had to go back in the pool house. Well, she wasn’t hauling these herself. Young officer pizza face could help—he certainly hadn’t done much else. So much for tax dollars at work.
Of course she’d have to traipse down the driveway to get to him. That would just make her later. Sighing, Poppy headed for the chairs.
The door to the pool house had been left ajar. All the better. She began dragging one of the lounge chairs toward the open door. It was loud and very heavy. She looked toward the house, hoping Amy would see her and come out to help, but no such luck.
Chair number one got stowed in the space specially created for all the pool junk the family had acquired. Then she had to work on chair number two. She was securing it in the locker designed for them when she heard footsteps in the doorway.
“Nice timing,” she said, irritably without turning around.
Amy hurried up the wide carpeted steps to the second floor, trying to quell the sense of fear that came from being in the house alone. The Harrigans’ faces smiled out at her from photos hanging on the walls and she hurried past them, checking the windows in two of the children’s bedrooms before heading into the bathroom next door.
A candle flickered in the darkness, catching the face of a clown-shaped soap dispenser and throwing its shadow high against the brightly painted wall. Amy blew it out and hurried out of the darkness into the next room. She glanced out the window at the pool as she passed through the master bedroom and was surprised to see that it was still uncovered. Wind was rippling the water and a few leaves had blown across the surface. Poppy must have forgotten it.
She checked that the windows were locked and drew the curtains and did the same in two more bedrooms before hurrying down the back stairs to the first floor and the kitchen.
Her heels clicked on the tiled floor, echoing in the vast room. The stainless-steel appliances mirrored a blurred reflection of her as she checked to make sure things were off and the windows were locked. She walked through the mudroom to the back door that opened out to the portico and the pool.
The minute she got the door open she could hear banging. The door to the pool house was open and slamming into the wall behind it as a strong wind blew against it. Focused on the door and irritated that it had been left open, it wasn’t until Amy was almost level with the pool that she noticed the dark form floating in the center.
Poppy’s body was na
iled to a board and floating faceup.
“It’s him!” Dickson’s voice hissed over the mike. “He’s got the flowers! Let’s nail him.”
“Wait!” Juarez commanded. “Let’s see what he does. Just wait.”
The guy avoided the walkway at the front of the house, coming in from the side, climbing up the small hill quickly, his sneakers slipping in the leaf-covered lawn. He passed the swing set and disappeared from view around the back of the house.
“Now!” Juarez shouted. He dropped the mike and sprinted from the car, hand reaching for his piece. He saw Dickson and Black coming from the other side and they converged on the house, pieces drawn.
“Freeze, motherfucker!” Juarez shouted so loud that the guy actually dropped the flowers.
“Hey, man, no problem,” the man said, holding his hands up without being asked, his head whipping back and forth from Juarez to Black and Dickson. Black slammed him hard against the side of the house, smashing his face up against the frame and the guy cried out and blood spilled from his mouth in a thin stream.
“What were you doing with the flowers?” Juarez demanded, holstering his piece as Dickson expertly cuffed the man and pulled him around to face them.
“Nothing. J-just delivering them.” He was young and he didn’t look familiar. His eyes were a watery blue. Vacant. He reeked of pot.
“What’s your name?” Juarez demanded, patting him down, searching his pockets for a wallet that he extracted as the guy answered.
“Brian. Brian Keesey.”
There was no Brian Keesey on their list of suspects. Amy had never mentioned a Brian. Something wasn’t right. He looked in Brian’s wallet. Up-to-date license. Same guy, same name. A community college ID. Fifty bucks. A red foil-wrapped condom that had probably been in there since the first Clinton administration.
“How do you know Amy Moran?”
“Who?”
“Amy Moran,” Black shouted. “This is her house, you moron.”
“I don’t know who she is.”
“So why are you delivering”—Juarez looked at the bundle on the ground and noticed the hard, black buds wrapped in black tissue paper—“dead flowers to her.”
“Some guy paid me to.”
“Who? Who paid you to deliver them?”
“I don’t know. Some guy.”
“You didn’t get his name?”
“He didn’t tell me. I didn’t ask. He said he’d give me fifty bucks if I took these flowers to a woman’s house and left them by the back door.”
“And you didn’t think there was anything strange about that?” Black demanded, shoving the guy’s shoulder against the wall.
“Ow!” The guy shrank from him. “It wasn’t like it was drugs, man. They were just flowers. I figured it was for an ex. I asked him that and he said the woman had screwed with him.”
“What did he look like?” Juarez demanded.
“I don’t know. Just an average guy.”
“White? Black?”
“White.”
“Hair color?”
“Dark brown. Curly.”
“Eyes?”
“He wore glasses.”
“Build?”
Brian shrugged again. “I don’t know. Average. Maybe a little big in the shoulders.”
His description wasn’t great, but Juarez thought he’d do better with a police artist. When he said as much, Brian protested.
“No way, man, I don’t want to be involved.”
“You’re already involved, ass wipe,” Black said. “The minute you took that fifty bucks you got involved.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Listen, Brian, this guy you took the money from probably killed two women. So you’re going to do exactly as you’re told or I’m going to charge you with possession for the nickel bag you’ve got stowed in your car.”
Juarez could have laughed at Brian’s mouth hanging open like a fish, but something was niggling him. That feeling again, the instinct that something wasn’t right.
“Have you done this before?” he said.
“No. Never.” Brian shook his head repeatedly, as if that made his denial more sincere. Black obviously didn’t believe him, taking the opportunity to give him another shove against the wall. Juarez knew it was the truth. Why? Why had the killer given this job to this kid?
It hit him at that same moment that the radios in both cars started bleeping like mad.
“Fuck! We’ve been played!” He bolted for his car, leaving Black shouting behind him.
The key almost snapped in the ignition and the transmission protested as he jackknifed in the road and floored the accelerator in the opposite direction. The voice of the dispatcher, “We’ve got a homicide reported at 225 Oakhurst Lane. All available cars report immediately.”
That it was Poppy there was no doubt. The same hot pink suit, the same blond hair, though it was plastered to her face in long wet strands. Her shoes were still on her feet, though the heel of one had snapped right off. Her eyes were gone, pools of blood in their place. The three-carat diamond wedding set she’d sported on her left hand was missing, as was the finger. She’d been nailed to a surfboard, her arms positioned above her head, her legs crossed at the ankles, the fiberglass shattered in spots.
Amy stumbled backward, falling on the cement and scraping her knee before rising and running. She moved with self-preservation. She couldn’t go back to the house; she couldn’t go in the garage. She pushed her way through the manicured hedges that bordered the portico and tore through the flowerbeds beyond it, heading down the front lawn toward the unmarked police car. She could see Feeney sitting there, but she couldn’t make her voice loud enough to alert him. She pounded on the car as she came abreast, but he didn’t move. He’d fallen asleep over his newspaper. She ran to the driver’s side and yanked open the door.
“He’s here!” she shouted, shaking Officer Feeney by the shoulder. He slumped to the side and that’s when she saw the blood spilling in a wide arc from his throat.
Chapter 33
Blood was hard to get rid of it, which was why Guy generally preferred swift, sweet measures, but it was satisfying. Like finger painting. He’d longed to leave a message in blood—a little Hitchcock edge—but he hadn’t had the time.
As it was, he’d gotten a little spatter on his heavy cotton shirt and that had to go into the incinerator. Pity. He’d liked that shirt.
He was sitting on the couch with his right arm encased in a warm bath of Epsom salts that he’d rigged up in a large crystal bowl. All that nailing at one time had just about done him in. Thank God it was fairly quiet. He’d thought the surfboard might not work, the fiberglass split so easily, but he’d managed it. It was a much nicer touch than leaving her floating in the pool. Besides, her body fat count was so low she probably would have sunk like a stone.
He took another sip of his vodka tonic and thought again of the look on that woman’s face when she’d seen him in the pool house. Sometimes he wished he had a partner so that he could capture that image on film! What he wouldn’t give for a wall of those photos. That wasn’t a good idea, though. Those sorts of partnerships always soured. It was a good way to get caught and it was always the other guy who sold you down the river.
He clicked through the numerous cable stations until he found a nice serial killer drama. They were fun to laugh at usually. Either the killers were bumbling fools or the detectives or both. Tonight he couldn’t get into it. He was feeling restless.
He’d had this feeling before. He knew what it was. He was getting tired of the game. It was time to wrap this up. He was angry, too. Angry that Amy didn’t understand what he was trying to do.
He crunched his way through the ice cubes in the glass and then slowly got up, careful to keep his right arm immobile, and carried the glass back into the kitchen.
Violet stared at him from the refrigerator. She was naked in the picture. She’d agreed to that. Stretching on the faux mink blanket beca
use he told her that Marilyn Monroe had done something similar, and you could say this about Vi, she wanted to be a star.
He selected a knife from the butcher block with his left hand and fiddled with the photo, thinking of Amy and her betrayal. He’d been a fool to believe in her. He could see that now. She’d never been Violet, not really. She was a whore, just like the rest of them. They were all whores. Stupid bitches in heat. Not worthy of a decent man. Not worthy of living.
He flicked the knife back and forth as he thought about what he would do to Amy. Little pieces of the photo dropped to the floor.
After a few minutes he stepped back and surveyed his work. Now Violet was missing her left breast as well as her right. He couldn’t shove something up her cunt, so he’d taken it right out. A neat little square, removing the center of her whoredom.
Soon he would remove the new whore. The imposter. That’s how he thought of Amy. She had to be punished for that. She had to be taught her place. He would bring her to see it before he released her soul. He would help her acknowledge her sinful nature, her whore self. She would be absolved.
Chapter 34
The coroner made two trips to Oakhurst Lane. Officer Feeney’s body was carried out first, because there were fewer photographs needed and because he was one of their own. By the time they’d made it back to the station, the whole town knew there’d been two more murders committed because reporters had joined the crowd that gathered beyond the crime scene tape at the Harrigans’ house.
The chief personally visited Mrs. Feeney, the officer’s sixty-two-year-old mother, who doted on the son who’d still lived with her. Unfortunately, nobody realized that Mrs. Feeney loathed her son’s fiancé, so no one thought to tell her. She showed up at the department, plump face puffy from hours of crying, nails bitten to the quick from worrying because she hadn’t heard from him.
She’d been hysterical when they told her. They had to call an ambulance to have her taken to the hospital in shock.
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