The Fault Tree

by Louise Ure

  He nodded. Finish what you start. And don’t leave loose ends lying around that can trip you up. But he couldn’t face killing them right now.

  When the garage door was open, he hustled the blind woman inside, throwing her into the open trunk of the Mercedes. The gauze bandage around her throat had come loose. There was no wound underneath. Hell, he hadn’t even managed to do that right.

  He’d keep the little girl up front with them. Easier to control the woman that way, and he could make sure they weren’t working to get the tape off each other’s wrists.

  At the last moment, he decided to go back into the house and see what else he could pick up for the trip. He soft-stepped from room to room, in case anyone else was home. The house was quiet. There was a cold deli chicken in the refrigerator and a six-pack of Fresca. He set those aside. He opened a carton of orange juice and took two big gulps. There. He could already feel his system responding, his sugar level rising. He wiped where he’d touched the carton and put it back in the refrigerator. Then he tapped the homeowner with his boot until the man’s hip was up and he could reach his wallet. Forty dollars. Enough to start with.

  The best find of all was a little .38 Smith & Wesson in the bedside table.

  It was time to get out of town, and now he knew where to go.

  Chapter 82

  I banged my shin on the bumper, then bashed my forehead against more metal and landed headfirst in the trunk. The trunk lid didn’t brush my shoulder when it closed. Must be an SUV or a fairly old sedan. I had trailed my fingers across the lip of the lid as he shoved me inside and found the abbreviated peace symbol of a Mercedes logo.

  Teresa’s muffled cries poisoned the air. They must have taped or gagged her. I worked my tongue under the tape and rubbed my face against the trunk liner until my gag came loose.

  “Teresa! I’m still here! Don’t cry, honey, everything will be okay!” I lied.

  A few minutes later, two car doors slammed shut and the engine started. A powerful ratchety-ratchety sound with a tinny metal top note, like all the nuts and bolts were trying to tear themselves loose and go flying off into space: the sound of a well-tuned diesel engine. There was a lot of carbon in that first exhaust after ignition; the car hadn’t been driven recently or often.

  There was a hard, dry rubber trunk liner instead of the plush nylon carpeting used today, and that would make the car an early 1970s vintage. That knowledge didn’t help me, but it allowed me a moment’s recognition that I hadn’t given in to the panic. I was still thinking, processing. Maybe it would lead to an escape plan.

  We reversed, then turned left and right in seemingly random patterns. I was thrown from one side to the other without warning and my terror mounted. The trunk was no darker than what I was used to, but the movement—the jostling—was like a bad dream of perpetually falling, never knowing when or what you were going to hit. You’re powerless, it screamed. You have no control. You’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I couldn’t hold back the tears.

  Chapter 83

  Brodie and Juanita Greene marched through the stairway door and approached Dupree’s desk as he was hanging up the phone. The slash across Juanita’s throat was still wrapped with gauze, but the bruises around her eyes were fading from black to yellow-green.

  Nellis returned from Richardson’s office and joined them.

  Dupree nodded at Juanita, then asked Nellis, “Any news on the truck?” Nellis shook his head.

  “I’m kicking myself for leaving Cadence alone,” Brodie said.

  “She had two cops out front and her cousin inside. It should have been enough,” Dupree said.

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “We’ve got some news on the Econoline van,” Juanita said. “It was burned pretty badly in spots, but the gas tank didn’t explode, and both the engine compartment and the back part of the van were almost untouched. It was definitely the car that tried to run Cadence over.”

  “Specifically?”

  “There are wood splinters that match her cane trapped in the undercarriage, and the right front fender shows the impact where the car hit her on her way to the laundry.” She paused. “Cade was also right about the antifreeze leak, the suspension problem, and the radiator cap.”

  “I can’t say for sure that we would have dusted there,” Brodie said. “Maybe so, maybe not. But she was right. They’d wiped off everywhere else—even the hood release—but they forgot the radiator cap.”

  “Whose print is it?” Dupree asked.

  “Beatrice McDougall’s. It matches the prints from her room.”

  Dupree nodded. They couldn’t prove when Beatrice had touched the radiator cap, but she was familiar enough with the car to be helping with repairs, and she was in the van when her father was killed. “Was there anything in the van to tie her directly to the Prentice killing?”

  Brodie grimaced. “The metal canister in the van had come from Wanda Prentice’s kitchen. There are three sets of prints on it—Wanda Prentice’s, Beatrice McDougall’s, and one other we don’t have a name for.”

  “That would be Mr. Pickett. His prints aren’t on file.”

  “All three prints were covered in blood,” Juanita added. “So we know both kids were there.”

  “Do we have some kind of Romeo and Juliet thing going on?” Brodie asked.

  Dupree’s shrug looked more like a shudder. “Only if Romeo and Juliet decided to waste everybody in Verona instead of killing themselves.”

  Chapter 84

  I inched sideways until my bound hands connected with the side of the trunk. Was there a sharp edge someplace that I could use to cut the tape? Nothing. Damn Mercedes for their rounded corners and rubber-padded luxury.

  Maybe I could reach the wiring for the taillights and disable it. I scootched backward until I found a rubber-coated wire about half the thickness of my little finger. I pulled until it came free. There, at least the car had a malfunction that the police could stop it for. I thought about using the taillights to send a signal but realized that a flashing turn signal or brake light would not attract much attention in daylight hours. And how many times, in my sighted days, had I followed some old car with its blinker turned on for ten miles? Back then I’d just thought the driver was forgetful, not evil.

  Who was this driver? His voice sounded half-man/half-boy. How could someone so young have so much hate inside him?

  There was a hard lump under my left hip. I still had my tool belt on! Most of the tools had sprayed across the front yard as I was catapulted into the foot well of the car, but maybe I hadn’t lost all of them. I twisted the belt so the buckle was behind me and clawed at the fastener until it came loose. Then rolling left and right, I left the belt on the floor of the trunk and rolled back with my hands on top of it. One pocket was flat and empty. In the other, snugged down into the corner, was a short-handled screwdriver, the handle and shaft together no more than the length of my middle finger. Good for close-in work, not much good when you needed leverage. All I needed was the tip.

  The car accelerated and held that high rate of speed. We must be on the freeway. I palmed the screwdriver and started digging at the tape that kept my hands behind me. In no more than two minutes, I had loosened the torn edge and could grasp an inch of tape. I began unrolling it, tugging, then passing the loose end from one finger to the next. I broke free just as the car darted across several lanes and back again, sending me flying against the gas tank. I almost let out a roar of celebration but gritted my teeth and started work on my ankles.

  When the next turn sent me careening to the left, I was jammed against the gas tank, with a crushed paper bag between my feet. I grabbed the bag, uncurled the top, and reached in. Maybe there would be something I could use.

  I burbled a laugh of hysteria when I realized that I was holding a flashlight. Of all the useless tools I could find. I used to tease Juanita that her roadside emergency kit would include red wine, chocolates, and a paperback book. Mine would inc
lude WD-40 and maybe tortillas. I’d never asked for a flashlight.

  What else was in there? A plastic tub of something that smelled like baby wipes. Extra batteries—for the flashlight, I presumed. And a slim plastic bottle with a bullet-shaped twist-open tip. What was it? What had our handy homeowner thought would be appropriate to leave in a paper bag in the trunk of his old Mercedes?

  Only one way to find out. I took off the tip and sniffed at the open bottle. Just for confirmation, I put a drop on my finger and rubbed it. Yep. Elmer’s glue. I had my own bottle at home, since I used Elmer’s or rubber cement when drawing maps to someplace I’d never been before. Ten small drops on a page meant thirty paces. An X to the side of a line could mean a bench or a tree or a mailbox. I could follow the glue like a beacon.

  I tucked the screwdriver and the glue into my jeans pocket, then lifted the corner of the trunk liner and hid my tool belt. I didn’t want him to see the tool belt and realize that I might be armed. It was the only advantage I had.

  Like that liquor store sign Juanita had told me about last month: “I’m not surrounded. I’m just free to attack in any direction!” I wasn’t exactly optimistic, but at least I wasn’t dead yet. And Teresa needed me.

  Chapter 85

  Dupree paced outside the counselor’s office at Palo Verde High School, the door in front of him closed and locked. C’mon, c’mon. There was a killer loose out there. Smothered sobs leaked out across the linoleum. He knocked again, harder this time, and the door opened. The counselor, Mary Ellen Costova, ushered out a teary young woman whose red eyes and Kleenex attested to her freshman state of mind.

  “It’ll be okay, Julie. Go wash your face and go back to class.” She patted the girl on the shoulder and turned to the detective.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” she said after Dupree introduced himself. Costova looked like a teenager herself, slim and blond with the wings of her hair caught up in silver combs. “This must be about Beatrice McDougall. It’s been all over the news.” Dupree took the metal guest chair at the side of her desk.

  “What can you tell me about her time here?” Nellis was running down all the leads on the stolen truck, while Dupree was backtracking in hopes of finding another way to locate them.

  “She was only here her freshman and sophomore years, then her family moved across town. I think her father said he preferred to homeschool her.”

  “Any reason for that? Did he dislike the school system, or was there a discipline problem?”

  “Probably a little bit of both. He was a very conservative man—very religious—and felt that Beatrice needed more spiritual guidance than she would get here.” Her delivery was straightforward, but Dupree got the impression that she hadn’t agreed with McDougall.

  “Isn’t that what church services and Sunday school are for?”

  “Mr. McDougall would have preferred religious instruction in all facets of education. He circulated a petition to have intelligent design taught as part of our science program.” Now Dupree could definitely hear the distaste in her voice.

  “What’s the girl like? Is she in agreement with her father’s choices?”

  Costova glanced at the closed door. “Hardly. She was very conservative in looks—no makeup, always wearing white—but there was something rebellious about her, almost malicious. Her life had been so cloistered. If I had to guess, I’d say she’d be one of those kids who really overreact when they finally get off their leash.”

  “So Mr. McDougall decided to homeschool her?”

  “Yes, but there was another reason too. He thought there were bad influences here and he wanted to get her away from them.” A momentary flashback to Spider and his Bitsy, then Dupree refocused as the counselor continued. “Do you know the name Gerald Pickett?”

  Dupree sat up straight.

  “A good boy from a bad family. His father’s in prison on an assault charge. The mother’s a drunk, and his older brother has been in and out of trouble his whole life. Well, anyway, Gerald—and it’s always Gerald, he never let anybody call him Gerry—fell head over heels in love with Beatrice. Worshipped her from afar. When Beatrice’s father found out about it, he just about had the kid arrested.”

  “For what? Love’s not a crime.”

  “There weren’t any real charges, just a lot of shouting about how Gerald was a ‘bad seed.’ He wouldn’t let him anywhere near his daughter. Tried to get the kid expelled.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Gerald set out to prove him wrong. He found out about that new emancipation law that went into effect a few years ago and decided to divorce himself from his family when he was sixteen.”

  “Why didn’t he just go into foster care or something?” Until the law had changed, anyone under the age of eighteen would automatically have gone into a foster care program if there were problems at home. With the new law, a sixteen-year-old could file to be emancipated from his family—considered an adult—if he could prove he had the social skills and financial support to live alone.

  “We talked about that. He got a job at Home Depot and a small apartment. He proved to the judge that he could keep up his grades and take care of himself. He graduated last year with a B-minus average.” She shrugged. “He was acting like an adult.”

  “And the relationship with Beatrice?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it died out. Maybe they hid it for a while. I never heard anything more after Mr. McDougall took her out of school.”

  “You describe Pickett as a ‘good boy.’ Do you think he could be involved in something like killing Beatrice’s father?”

  “Well, he sure didn’t have good role models to learn from. And I have seen violent behavior from him—like fighting—if someone was teasing him about Beatrice, but I don’t know. He’s got a moral compass, if that’s what you’re asking, but I don’t know if it’s pointed north.”

  She jotted a name and number on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “If you really want to find out about Gerald, go see Mr. Janetos, the history teacher. They were close.”

  Dupree leaned forward to take the paper, exposing the rough sketch he’d drawn of the counselor.

  She glanced at the page and smiled in surprise. “It’s only got a half dozen lines, but you made it look like me.”

  Dupree waved away the compliment. “It’s just something I do to jog my memory.” He closed the notebook, embarrassed for one of his portrait subjects to have seen the work. “I wonder if the father drove them together by trying to keep them apart,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Her life was so controlled—so mandated—by her father. Gerald Pickett might have looked like the only way out.”

  In the parking lot, Dupree flipped down the visor and pointed the car west toward police headquarters. Now he was wondering if he’d done the same thing with Bitsy.

  Chapter 86

  Three screws held the trunk latch in place. Three Phillips head screws. And I had a regular screwdriver. I tried to notch it into the crossed indentations but it wouldn’t hold for even a quarter turn. I cussed myself, remembering Turbo’s teasing. “Just grow your fingernails into the shape of a Phillips head screwdriver,” he’d said. “You’ll have those Ferrari guys drooling all over you, Stick.”

  Sweat ran into my eyes and down my chest. I checked my watch, but it was stopped at three-ten. Must have taken a direct hit during the pummeling. I didn’t know what time it was, but it seemed like two hours later when, my knuckles bloody and grossly swollen with repeated battering, the second screw came loose. If I could pivot the plate to the side, even with the one remaining screw holding it in place, I could relieve the pressure on the hook that held the trunk closed and slip it open. My breath was hot and shallow. The trunk was getting hotter and I felt like I was being kiln-fired. I scrabbled with both hands, biting my tongue in pain when I pulled two fingernails off. There, finally, a fresh breeze through the slit of open space. I held the top of the trunk in place so the driver couldn’t see it rise
up in his rearview mirror.

  The car turned left and slowed measurably. We weren’t on pavement anymore. A dirt road, but well maintained, not rutted and not too dusty. A rural lane? A long private driveway? No voices or traffic sounds in the distance.

  The car stopped. Two doors opened, the suspension bouncing as bodies exited, then the doors closed. Nothing from Teresa. Was she still alive?

  Suddenly the trunk lid was pulled from my hand and I felt sunshine and fresh air on my face. I lashed out with the short-handled screwdriver, connecting with flesh somewhere above me.

  A scream. A young woman’s voice, high-pitched with pain.

  Someone slammed the trunk lid once on my wrists, pulled me forward by the hair, and smashed my face on the bumper. My nose erupted and blood flooded my mouth.

  “That’s not nice,” the woman said. I batted ineffectually with throbbing wrists and hands. “Stop it or I’ll hurt your little girl.”

  That was enough to freeze me. I heard Teresa’s muted wails. It sounded like she was still taped up, but she could probably see what was happening.

  “Lolly? Bea? Put this on your arm. I’ll find something to wrap it up with.” The young man’s voice.

  He retaped my hands, this time in front, and pulled me from the trunk. I leaned against the rear bumper of the Mercedes, trying to regain my balance and clear my head. Teresa ran to me and buried her head in my stomach. I reached around her with bound hands and held her close.

  The girl I’d hurt kept sniffling and crying. He’d called her “Lolly” and “Bea.” Was this Beatrice McDougall? It didn’t look like she was a kidnap victim at all.