The day before we left Jerry went out with the car, saying he had some errands to run. Before that we did not know he knew how to drive a car. He was out a long time and Perry put up a fuss about it, whether Jerry had run off. I think he was more upset about Jerry running off than about him stealing our car and even the money. I figured Perry had gotten to think that I could provide anything, pass a check, steal another car, whatever. It made me feel like I was being used.
It was nice to be alone with Perry, however. It occurs to me that was the first time since we had picked up the kid, that it was just Perry and me.
As we were talking we heard the door open and Jerry stood before us. He was all wet, water still dripping off the cuffs of his jeans. Perry asked why and the kid said he had gone for a swim in the Gulf. I said in your clothes but he just shrugged. He did smell of salt water. He went into the bathroom and took a shower with the clothes on, he said to get out the salt water. Then he hung them up to dry because they were the only clothes he had. While he was in the shower we could hear him humming.
I tried once more. That kid is weird I told Perry, we should not keep him with us. Perry said we could not even be sure Jerry still wanted to stick around, he had not committed to the trip to Las Vegas. I said but what about the money, do you have any idea where he stashed the money? Perry just shrugged. Then he went to bed. I looked at the boy’s clothes before I turned in. I thought I saw some light pinkish stains on the white T-shirt but I could not be positive of that. At the time I did not think much about it. It could have been wine.
The next morning Jerry got up early, put his clothes back on, they were dry now, and said he was coming with us. He said we should get a move on and he started loading what little stuff we had into the trunk of the car. I said what’s the big hurry, but Perry was surprised and definitely pleased.
We left Sarasota and headed north, picking up I-10 in Tallahassee and then west, stopping in Pensacola, Florida, in the evening. Nobody mentioned the stains on Jerry’s shirt, which showed up more after the water dried, light pink in the centers spreading to a darker pink around the rim. When we passed a thrift store he asked if Perry would go inside and get him a new shirt. He handed Perry a five dollar bill, and Perry looked at him. But he didn’t say anything, he just went into the shop and bought a shirt. Jerry took off the stained one and put on the new one.
Driving at about noon, Perry in the passenger seat and the kid laying in the back like he usually did, with his head on the arm rest attached to the door, it was on the car radio that we first heard about a family by the name of Walker being discovered in their house in a little town near Sarasota. There was a father, mother, son and daughter. It was just like the Clutters, only the children were very young. The report said the mother had been raped, and shot, and the two children shot. The father must have come in the house while the killer was still there, and he was shot, too.
Honey, I said to Perry when I got a breath. That happened while we were in Sarasota.
Just like the Clutters, Perry said, staring out the front window, not looking at me.
If we get tied to the Clutters they’ll connect us to this other family, too, I said.
I knew him well enough to know we were both thinking the same thing. The car got really quiet. I felt like my ears got sensitive, like I was hearing the smallest sounds like an animal in the forest. I heard the upholstery in the back seat squeak a little, and in the rearview mirror I saw the kid’s face. At first he just looked interested, like he was hearing about this for the first time. It made him smile.
When the news reporter said that the detectives had found a fingerprint and a bloody boot print in the house, his eyes narrowed and he frowned.
Then the reporter said they were looking for a beige ’57 Chevy that someone had spotted by the Walker house in the late afternoon of the 19th.
Holy Christ, I shouted.
But the others did not react. The kid kept staring at the radio and Perry kept staring out the front window.
For the first time I began to be scared of the boy, more than before when it was just his grandfather that he killed, or even after I saw what he did at the Clutter place. Here I was, a killer who had done the same thing, but I was afraid of him. I had done it for the money, but this kid did it for the fun. There’s a difference.
But after that one shout, I got control of myself, I am very good at keeping control, and I kept my thoughts to myself. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and we drove on.
Fifty–two
Beaufort knew that Carlo would do as he told him to do. It didn’t matter that he held his gun lightly in his left hand while he steered slowly toward Gloria’s house, west on Golder Ranch, then down Twin Lakes to Hawser, only a left and two rights to reach the destination.
Carlo sat mournfully in the passenger seat, probably thinking about how he had no way to defend himself. Probably hoping his wife would save him.
Beaufort pulled onto the gravel drive and said, “Aw, fuck.”
Gloria’s car was there. Beaufort parked behind it and thought. Staring ahead at the house he said, “Okay, I’ve got it. Here’s how it goes. It’s a workday so she won’t stick around. In the meantime you’re going to play nice and not let on that anything is wrong. If you say anything about what’s going on, I’ll leave you alive and kill her. If I suspect for a second that you’re trying to send a message to her about our situation, I’ll leave you alive and kill her. Whatever you do, I kill her. Is that simple enough for you?”
Carlo just sat there, folded.
“Tell me you understand what I just said,” Beaufort said.
Carlo nodded without turning his head
Beaufort opened his door and got out, instructing Carlo to do the same. He put his gun in the back of his jeans with his T-shirt over it, came around to the passenger side of the car, reached in to open the glove compartment, and took out a roll of duct tape. He said, “Walk ahead of me into the house.”
In the meantime Gloria had opened the front door without her usual wide smile that she always gave to Beaufort. She was too old to be on the rag, he thought, but he could deal with her later. Achilles was another matter. Whether he recognized Carlo himself or could smell the pugs on his jeans, the dog went into a frenzy of recognition. Beaufort thought the dog provided a good distraction. He got on his knees and made a show of roughing him up while keeping half an eye on Carlo and Gloria.
Beaufort stood up from petting Achilles and said, “This is Gloria. What are you doing home?”
“I forgot my lunch and there was no appointment scheduled until two.” She put her hands up and waggled her fingers in a gesture that described some sort of magic trick. “So voilà, here I am.” The words were the old Gloria, but the face … had this been going on before now and he was too consumed with his problems to see it? He made a mental note to get more flowers.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” Carlo said, treating Gloria the way you do in any normal social situation. “I’m Carlo. Carlo DiForenza.”
Good old clueless Gloria. Not seeming to notice the almost palpable current of anxiety coming off of Carlo, she stuck out her hand and gave a tentative “Hi. Can I get you something?”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Carlo answered.
* * *
Despite the potential harm this meeting could do, Beaufort found himself amused that out in the world such a bizarre circumstance would result in the same boring small talk you got in any social situation. A few minutes of this chitchat and he figured Gloria would be on her way back to work. He sat down in the recliner next to the couch to watch the show. He didn’t bother to hide the duct tape, but put it on the coffee table.
“May I sit?” Carlo asked after shaking his head and her hand, his eyes darting between Beaufort and Gloria. When Gloria swung her hand to indicate the couch he took a seat. Achilles jumped up beside him and nosed his hand, which Carlo obligingly applied to scratching behind his ears.
“That’s a good ide
a,” Beaufort said. “Let’s all sit.”
Gloria started to speak.
“Sit,” Beaufort said, with an emphasis on the t the way you’d command a dog.
She sat, and Beaufort gazed at Achilles. “Did you ever hear the joke about the three-legged pig?” he asked.
The other two shook their heads.
“This guy is visiting a nearby farm and spots a three-legged pig. When he asks the farmer how that happened, the farmer says, ‘That pig. That pig is so good he once saved our whole family from a burning house. He squealed and squealed until we were all awake, and even tugged on my son’s pajama leg to wake him up to get out.’ And the visitor says, ‘Wow, that pig is certainly good. Did he lose his leg in the fire?’ ‘Naw,’ said the farmer. ‘When you got a pig that good you eat it real slow.’”
The other two stared at him, Carlo with something like horror and Gloria with something like disgust. And something else he hadn’t noticed, some angry spark that shows up just before the fire ignites. With an elaborate sigh he said, “What, you don’t think that’s funny? I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this world.” But he was keeping his eye on Gloria, and decided to test his intuition. “Do me a favor, honey, and put the dog in the bedroom.”
“He’ll calm down,” she said, which, given Gloria, appeared to be full-on rebellion.
“Put the dog in the bedroom,” he repeated, and stared at her. “And would you give Carlo and me a minute? We have a little private business to discuss.”
She pointed outside. “I was just on my way—”
“One minute,” Beaufort said, lifting a finger from the arm of the chair where his hand rested. He gave her a look that did its best to communicate that she was making him look bad, and she gave up and finally did as she was told. When she had wrangled Achilles into the bedroom and shut the door, she didn’t give the men a minute, but came out and stood by the couch, her whole body a question.
“I thought you were just leaving,” Beaufort said.
“I am,” Gloria said, still with the question in her eyes.
“You said we should have friends,” Beaufort said to Gloria, answering the question. “Here’s one.” He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling when Gloria looked at him with a slow burn. But not wanting to push her too hard, Beaufort attempted to placate her with “We met at the stables.”
Gloria might have tried to stop the words if she’d been given more of a warning, but her anger flared, possibly as much of a surprise to herself as to Beaufort. “You don’t work at the stables,” she said.
Fifty–three
We landed at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport without incident. I checked in at the Dallas TSA office, showed them my badge, and gave them the name and number that I’d been given. Emergency, I said. So what if it wasn’t a national emergency. There was no time for hair-splitting.
Things had been quiet, and it was almost with a sense of relief at some shoe having dropped that the boss jumped into service. This was another man, one without postnasal drip. That’s all I can remember about that time. Oh, he looked at me as if with all his soul he wanted to ask who I really was, but at the same time knew that I would not tell him.
I came around his desk and looked at his computer screen.
“The next flight to Tucson leaves in two hours,” he said.
“There’s this one,” I said, pointing to the screen.
“It’s a full flight. They’re all full flights.”
“What about an air marshal? That’s whose seat I took from Tampa.”
He checked and said, “Sorry, not on this flight. Besides, even if there was a seat open, they’re closing the doors. You can’t make it.”
“You make me make it,” I said.
He glanced at my face and picked up the phone. “Hold flight number 6571,” he said. “I have someone boarding.” He listened. “Yes, I know the flight is full. Can you get the airline to bump someone?” He listened. “What about a steward to deplane without rousing suspicion so our person can take their seat?”
He glanced up at me and shook his head, beginning to feel my frustration.
“You have to get to D concourse,” he said. “Skylink—”
“Fuck Skylink. Get me a cart now,” I said.
He placed another call, then at my direction typed a few words on a piece of computer printer paper and printed it. Within a few seconds of that, a security cart pulled up outside the office door. I got into the front seat beside the driver, and over her objection pressed the warning button the whole way from the B concourse.
I leaned forward and felt my body trying to increase the forward momentum as we wove through the crowds, the driver saying a loud ’scuse-me when a traveling zombie blocked the way. About halfway there we both spotted ahead of the cart a stooped woman with a walker who tried to wave us to a stop.
“No,” I said. “She could have got a wheelchair assist.”
The driver looked at me mournfully.
“Oh goddamit, all right, stop.” As we pulled up I grabbed the woman’s walker and threw it on the cart. I threw the woman after it.
“I’m going to C27,” she said.
“Yeah, ultimately,” I told her, and to the driver, “No more.”
Then we arrived. Without thanks I got off at the gate marked TUCSON. DEPARTED, with my tote slung over my shoulder, nodded to the gate attendant who had been notified of my coming, and entered the jetway. I felt the air sucked out as the door closed behind me. I boarded the craft. The forward steward was on the phone and glanced at me. As I walked down the aisle a few people looked up the way they do when a last person boards a plane alone. I’m sure most of them forgot my face by the time I made it aft, and only figured I was a standby and looked at their watches with the hope I hadn’t put the flight off schedule.
By the time I got to the back galley the steward there had hung up the phone. I handed to her the eight-by-ten sign I’d gotten from TSA. Clearly, instructions had already been passed along, and though she looked at me with some concern, not having been told if I was on this particular flight because of some imminent threat, she agreed to do what I said. “Listen, it isn’t about this flight,” I said softly. “You know if it was, you wouldn’t be leaving the gate. You understand.”
She took a breath and nodded. I stepped into the port bathroom, locked the door, and sat down. I felt her press the sign against the door and make apologies to the passengers over the intercom, hoping they would just be grateful to be on a flight and please feel free to use the first-class lavatory along with the remaining one aft. It would take two and a half hours to arrive in Tucson. I doubted I would have access to beverage service, but at least I didn’t have to worry about having to pee. I made two last calls before the plane taxied to the runway.
“Thank you again,” I said when Rising Star picked up.
“You’re welcome, Agent Quinn. Good luck and Godspeed.”
You might ask why that was all this person would do. If this person could pull strings with the TSA like this, couldn’t she send a team of SEALs or something to rescue Carlo from one old codger? Well, it had to do with something about jurisdiction where I was going—and what I might do there—that it was better she didn’t know about.
And that’s all you need to know about that. My other call was to check in with Gemma-Kate’s progress and see if she had any instructions for me. She did.
She told me to have a spray vial of certain dimensions ready.
“Why can’t you get that?” I asked.
“I walked over to the campus shop but they didn’t have the kind I need.”
“But do they have the stuff in the chemistry lab?” I asked.
“I’m sure they do.”
“You’re sure. Why does this make me nervous?”
“And how do you think I feel leaving the container up to you?”
“I think you don’t feel anything at all, but that’s beside the point.”
“The important thing is that it has t
o be plastic,” she said.
“Why? The canisters I’ve always had were metal.”
“Plastic will be better. Trust me.”
With this caution firmly in mind I opened up the envelope and read the rest of what Hickock had to tell.
Fifty–four
All that day I was quiet as the others, wracking my brain to think what to do. Get rid of the car, kill the kid, kept churning over and over in my mind. The murder of the Walker family was as big news as the murder of the Clutters had been, and the newspaper headlines awaited us when we stopped for the night in Louisiana. They had already picked up on the similarities of the two killings, and detectives were asking around the Sarasota area to see if they could find any witnesses. I thought about the times when I might have been seen there. I had a hard time falling asleep that night, wondering what to do.
But it turned out I did not have to make a decision after all. The next morning Jerry was gone! He must have packed up his things and stole out of the room while we were still sleeping. When Perry woke up and saw that Jerry was not in the room, he was not upset at first. But he did go out and look in the back seat of the car to see if he was sleeping there, and found an envelope with one thousand dollars in it. Then he walked down to the water’s edge. I followed behind, and I found him crying, not just teary-eyed, but dropping big tears like a child into the surf when it rolled in over his feet.
Maybe he will come back, I said. Maybe he just … and then I thought about what had happened to the Walker family the last time Jerry disappeared, and I did not want to say where I thought he might be. I just felt myself shiver in the morning breeze off the gulf and thanked my lucky stars that he was gone.
Perry said he wanted to be left alone and I walked off, unhappy that I got what I wanted but now I was not sure if I would lose Perry, too. We headed on. Perry stayed sad and didn’t talk much for a few days. I then thought he had gotten over it, but when I cracked a joke about Jerry’s big ass he punched me in the gut so hard I got the wind knocked out of me, so I said no more rather than risk another fight like we had had. Then he got over it, except for picking out the tune of “Humoresque” on his guitar once in a while. Perry said that was the song Jerry was humming all the time. That made me kind of crazy because I did not want him to recall Jerry, but I kept my mouth shut in order to keep the peace and we did not speak of him for a while. Jerry did not come back into the conversation until later. I never realized how close Perry had gotten to him, and how much Jerry stayed in his mind. We ended up in Nevada, but all the fun had gone out of things. That was where Perry got me to swear not to rat on Jerry if we were ever caught.
We Were Killers Once Page 27