by Greg Herren
“We do.” He clenched his jaw again. “But it’s got to wait…”
“Unless Venus manages to trace Bestuzhev’s body back to us somehow.”
“Don’t even think it.”
Yeah, like it was that easy.
I rubbed my burning eyes and cleared my head again. I said a brief chant to the Goddess for strength and wisdom and started picking my way through the many pieces, seeing if there was another way to fit them all together in a way that made sense, would reveal who the killer was.
Amanda was mentally unstable and had been for most of her life. Everyone agreed she’d been fixated on Billy since they were teenagers. She’d spent most of her life in and out of institutions. I could certainly understand her fixation/obsession with Billy Barron—sex appeal and sensuality practically oozed out of his every pore. But we’d only been able to track down two instances where she’d been violent—running Deborah Holt over with her car and going after Jane Barron with a baseball bat. Both times Margery had bought her out of trouble.
But both of those crimes had been impulsive, spur-of-the-moment things, nothing premeditated. That didn’t prove Amanda wasn’t capable of coldly plotting out how to eliminate her rivals for Billy—maybe she learned from her failures. And yet…
She had a motive to kill all three of the dead Grand Dames.
But…again with the loose tooth.
Chloe and Fidelis were rivals for Billy, and she might think killing them got them out of her way to be with him again, and that fit with her past behavior. Everyone she’d harmed stood between her and a fantasy life as Mrs. Billy Barron that was never going to happen.
But Megan wasn’t a rival. The only reason she had to kill Megan would be that Megan knew the truth about Deborah Holt.
The others could be crimes of passion, but killing Megan was cold-blooded and calculated.
But why now?
And trying to fit Eric’s murder in with the other three? It just didn’t belong. It was like a piece from another puzzle had gotten slipped accidentally into the wrong box.
The wrong box.
Two puzzles.
Maybe…maybe the crimes weren’t related at all.
No, that wasn’t possible. It was too big a coincidence that all four of them were killed over the course of the same weekend with the same kind of weapon.
It was irritating. I was almost there. I was so close to the answer I could feel it.
Think, Scotty, think. You’re smarter than this.
You’ve met Amanda. What did you think?
Something had seemed off about her, sure. But not to this extreme—not to the point of being a borderline serial killer. Her sense of right and wrong could be skewed, and if given the opportunity to hurt someone she’d do it. I could see it.
I could see her behind the wheel of a car, her heart broken and seeing Deborah there, the stray thought run her over and she can’t be with Billy.
Over a prom date, I reminded myself. She killed someone over a fucking date to a high school dance. And then went after Billy’s wife with a baseball bat years later.
I could see her working herself up into a frenzy, grabbing a baseball bat, and going after Jane.
Not the behavior of the most mentally stable woman.
Yet none of these murders this weekend were crimes of opportunity, I was sure of it. This was a carefully crafted plan, and I’d eat my leather jacket if that didn’t turn out to be the case.
These murders were designed to lead us all back to Amanda, mentally unstable Amanda. And who would believe her? Margery would buy her way out of it again, if she could—never underestimate the power of wealth to affect both an investigation and a prosecution. She’d probably wind up back in a mental hospital and be released in a few years.
The killer used baseball bats to emphasize the connection to Billy and Amanda.
The stakes were high in the fight over the will, but I couldn’t see Rebecca going to this much trouble to get Billy out of her way. Wouldn’t it be easier just to have Billy killed?
I could see Amanda in a manic, obsessive phase driven to kill someone she felt was a threat to her or blocking her from getting what she wanted.
That tracked.
I did not believe that she could come up with a master plan and execute it so coldly, ruthlessly, efficiently.
It didn’t fit.
Just like Eric’s murder.
None of it made sense.
My head hurt.
And why the hell did Margery want to see me so badly?
I pressed my index fingers into my temples. Sometimes that worked to relieve headaches, but it didn’t this time.
I needed sleep.
The gates to the Lautenschlaeger driveway were open as Frank slowed and took the turn. The driveway lights weren’t on, and most of the house was in darkness.
The light beside the front door was lit.
Frank whistled. “Nice place. You’d think she’d have turned on some lights.”
“It’s gorgeous inside,” I replied as we drove up the slope to the front steps. He turned off the engine when we stopped. We climbed the steps to the front door together, braced against the cold wind and freezing rain. He rang the buzzer and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. He gave me a weak smile while we waited what seemed like an eternity in the cold. There were no lights on in any of the windows lining the porch.
I was beginning to think no one was home when I heard the deadbolt sliding back.
“What took you so long?” Margery looked uncharacteristically sloppy and harried. Her hair was coming lose from the bun she’d tied it up into, and she wore little makeup, if any. She looked tired and worried. Her long red Chinese silk dressing gown was dusted with cigarette ash, and what appeared to be grease spots were scattered liberally over the top. Her eyes looked a little wild. She glanced around outside, and I couldn’t help but notice her hands were shaking. “Get inside quickly, come on.” She literally grabbed us both by our jacket sleeves and tugged.
Why the hell is Margery answering her own front door? I wondered as I followed her into the gloom of the entry foyer. I gave Frank a puzzled glance. The overhead chandelier wasn’t on, but some of the smaller light sconces gave off a strange red light.
Margery slammed the door shut behind us.
The sound echoed through the house.
I squinted in the darkness and weird reddish light. “Can someone turn on a light?” I said, my eyes adjusting when I realized someone was standing on the other side of the foyer, in the shadow cast by the suit of armor.
It was Amanda.
She was holding a gun.
And it was pointing at us.
“Please, Amanda—” Margery started, but was cut off.
“Shut up, bitch.” Amanda sneered. She waved with the gun. Margery finally flicked the switch on the wall, flooding the foyer with light. Amanda looked terrible. Her hair was greasy and unbrushed, and she was wearing garish makeup—blue eye shadow and dark lines drawn around her eyes, bright red lipstick, and two spots of red painted on her cheekbones. Beneath the clownish makeup her skin was greenish-white, with a slight sheen of greasy sweat on it. Her eyes were burning. She didn’t look well. She licked her lips as her eyes darted back and forth between us. “Hands up, all of you.”
The three of us slowly raised our hands.
While it wasn’t the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me, it’s something you never get used to. I wasn’t even aware I was holding my breath until I exhaled loudly enough to have her swing the gun toward me.
“I’m sorry,” I heard Margery mutter. She’d moved until she was standing next to me. “She made me call you.”
Yeah, thanks for that, we owe you one.
I heard a car door slam out front.
“Amanda.” I kept my hands raised. “Put the gun down. You need help, it’s okay. No one holds you responsible for—” Before I could finish, the door behind me opened. A cold wind blew in, and it shut again.
> “What are you doing here?” Amanda’s voice was shaky, and the gun swung in my direction again. “You’re not supposed to be here. Go away, Billy. Go home. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Amanda, what are you doing?” Billy said softly, stepping around me. In spite of the situation, I was aware of his musk, his presence. Seriously, he was that charismatic. “What’s wrong with you? You have to stop this, Amanda. You can’t keep hurting people.”
I took a step closer to him. Surely, she wouldn’t shoot him, so standing close to him was the smartest place for me to be.
At least, I thought so, until Billy started walking across the foyer toward her. I glanced over at Margery, but her face was just an expressionless mask. Amanda looked pale and terrified.
“Stay away from me, Billy. You stay away from me!” Her voice rose, and her hands were shaking—which wasn’t a good sign. “You—you don’t love me! You never loved me! All I wanted was for you to LOVE ME!” She screamed the last words, spittle flying. “Was that so much to ask? WAS IT?”
Margery looked like she was going to start crying at any moment. “Amanda—”
“SHUT UP, Mother!” She swiveled the gun back and forth between Billy and her mother and me. She hissed, “I should have shot you years ago, Mother. And I’ll do it right now if you don’t STOP.”
“Amanda, you aren’t well again, it’s okay, no one has to get hurt,” Billy said gently. “Give me the gun, sweetheart, before you do something you don’t really want to do, okay? Everything will be fine if you give me the gun.”
“All I ever wanted was for you to love me, Billy.” She turned the gun on him, her eyes wild. “Everything I’ve ever done was for you, Billy. All of it. Those women—those women, those whores, were wrong for you, weren’t they? I told you. I’m the only one who could make you happy.”
“But, Amanda.” Billy’s voice remained remarkably calm and I realized this wasn’t the first time he’d talked Amanda down from a ledge.
Poor guy has been dealing with this for years.
And if this wasn’t the first time—maybe he’d be able to talk her down.
“I’m sorry, Amanda, I’ll always care for you. But I don’t love you.”
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Frank moving casually, cautiously, a little bit at a time, to the side. He met my eyes and gave a little headshake. He was going to try to flank her and didn’t want me to draw attention to him.
“You have to love me!” Her voice was rising, getting more hysterical. “I don’t have any other reason to live!”
“What happened to that girl in high school?” I asked. My voice sounded far away, and I knew I was being flooded with adrenaline. I could hear my own heartbeat. I was also sweating a little.
The gun swung toward me. “It was an ACCIDENT! No one believed me.”
I took a step forward. “I believe you, Amanda.”
“I didn’t mean to do it! It was an accident. Everyone thought I did it on purpose!” Her voice came out in a choked sob. “Everyone turned on me! My own mother! My family! NO ONE BELIEVED ME!”
“That had to be rough.” I took another step forward. “It’s terrible when people you love, people you count on, don’t believe you.”
“You have no idea.” Her lips tightened. “After everything I did for them! Everything I did for Billy, and you see how he treats me! He’s been cheating on me for over thirty years!”
“I wasn’t—Amanda, I wasn’t cheating on you. We weren’t together.” Billy sounded tired, sad.
I glanced over at Margery. She was pale, and beads of perspiration dotted her forehead.
“Don’t you lie to me, Billy Barron,” Amanda went on. “You were my date at the premiere, but I saw you with her. I saw you talking, I saw you KISS her.” Her face looked sad, and God help me, I actually started to feel sorry for her. “Why wasn’t I ever enough for you, Billy? Why?”
“Amanda—”
“You know she was helping Rebecca. I heard them talking in the ladies’ room…she was only sleeping with you to help get something on you for your bitch stepmother.” She tilted her head to one side. “And that whore Chloe. She was fucking you to get even with my mother, because she knew it would hurt me. Neither one of them deserved to live for what they were doing…why can’t you understand that, Billy? Why have you never been satisfied with just me? I would have made you happy, you know. More than any other woman, Billy, I would have done anything for you. I would do anything for you.”
Margery let out a choked sob. “Amanda, please, put the gun down, we can get you help…”
“Like before?” Amanda swung around to her mother with the gun. “You’re going to have me locked up again, Mother?”
Keep talking, I thought, please, just keep talking.
Frank was still moving, bit by bit. Soon he would be on her left.
She couldn’t keep the gun trained on all of us at the same time.
I took another slight step to my own left.
She was staring at her mother. There was a bit of foam at the side of her mouth.
I reached into my pocket and put my hands on my iPhone.
I took my eyes off Amanda for a moment to glance down at it. It was locked. Irritated, I swept a finger along the bar and unlocked it. I touched the contacts icon, all the while cursing Steve Jobs. Goddamned fucking touchscreen phone!
It’s not easy to go through all that touch nonsense when you’re trying to call the goddamned police while a maniac is holding you at gunpoint.
Once the contact screen was up, I touched a name and hit Call.
“As for that whore Chloe…” Amanda started giggling. She was pointing the gun directly at Billy, who was about halfway across the foyer now. “Chloe was all wrong for you and she was causing problems for my mother and then, you know, Megan, she wanted money, she called me and she wanted money, she’s always wanted money from me and my mother…she said she’d tell about what happened in high school and she said it was all my fault, everything…”
What?
And then all the strange permits Stan Dreher had gotten to do construction in the city made sense.
Lautenschlaeger money had greased the wheels. That was how things worked in New Orleans.
“Is that why you killed Megan?” I asked, slipping my phone back into my pocket, hoping that Venus could hear everything.
“Megan?” The gun swung around to me. I’d moved far enough to the side so she couldn’t see Frank moving now, as long as she was looking at me.
Billy was also looking at me. “Megan’s dead?”
“She figured it all out, didn’t she?” I said, taking a deep breath, needing to keep her distracted so Frank could come at her from behind. “Megan knew you’d killed them, she figured it all out, didn’t she? Did she want more money? Was that why you decided—”
Margery started crying. “Baby, please.”
“You had to kill her, too—you can never trust a blackmailer, can you? You killed Chloe and Fidelis to get them out of Billy’s life, and then you killed Megan, too, to keep her quiet, right?”
“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” she screamed. “Stay back!” she screamed as Billy took another few steps forward. “I’ll shoot you, you just watch and see!”
“Why did you want us here, Amanda?” I said.
Her head swung back around to me. She still hadn’t noticed Frank creeping to her side.
Her eyes narrowed, but she looked a little confused. “I—I don’t know why you’re here,” she said, “but I am not standing for this anymore! I WON’T HAVE IT AND I AM NOT GOING BACK TO THE HOSPITAL NO ONE CAN MAKE ME I’LL KILL YOU ALL BEFORE I LET THAT HAPPEN DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”
Frank moved ever closer to her while she was looking at me. But then Billy moved forward again, and if looks could kill, I would have vaporized him on the spot when Amanda turned back to him. Frank froze, but she still hadn’t noticed he’d moved. A few more feet and he’d be close enough…
“Give me the gun,
Amanda,” Billy said softly. “You’re not well, like you weren’t when you hit Deborah with your car. We need to get you some help, now. And if you get help, we can be together. Isn’t that what you want, Mandygirl? Give me the gun and everything will work out the way you want it to.”
I could hear Venus’s voice saying hello in my pocket. I glanced over at Amanda but she was completely focused on Billy.
“Do you mean that?” Her face looked so hopeful that my heart almost broke for her. “It’s all I wanted, you know, Billy. All I ever wanted.” She smiled so hopefully. He was almost close enough to grab the gun from her. Frank kept creeping along the wall. She couldn’t see him now, not as focused as she was on Billy. Frank was so close now, but he couldn’t move another step without drawing her attention. Margery looked over at me, her eyes pleading.
“What do you think you’re doing!” Amanda screamed, turning the gun back to me. “Did I tell you you could move? I SHOULD SHOOT YOU RIGHT NOW.”
I froze.
Amanda’s eyes locked on mine.
Frank was close enough, and Billy was standing right in front of her.
What happened next all happened in slow motion, what I can remember of it.
The gun went off.
It took me a moment to realize that sudden burning feeling meant I’d been hit. I had a moment to think that bitch just shot me and my hands instinctively went to my side. There was numbness, and pain, and my vision began to narrow. My ears were ringing, and I could hear noise, but couldn’t hear anything because the ringing was so loud, so fucking loud and I could see Frank’s face across the room and everything was buzzing, and then the pain was so sudden and intense I dropped down to my knees.
I could feel my blood, hot and wet, on my hands.
I looked down, not able to believe it.
My mind couldn’t grasp that I’d been shot.
Me, Milton Scott Bradley, he of the charmed life and the wacky but loving family. The ex-stripper and bar slut, who’d somehow managed to find love with two great guys.
I tried to say something, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out.
The ringing was so loud.