Onyx Webb 9

by Diandra Archer

Onyx knew that wasn’t true, of course. Taking a life—no matter how close that life was to ending—was the greater crime. The second crime simply led to her punishment.

  In any case, Onyx knew it was time to let it go.

  As best she could.

  Breakups are like broken mirrors. Sometimes it is best to leave the pieces where they are rather than cut yourself trying to pick them up.

  The night before, Onyx saw someone standing at the edge of the clearing staring at the lighthouse. A woman.

  Onyx thought she knew her. It was the woman from Noah’s restaurant, Ellen. Why would she be here? Looking for Noah? He must have left without telling them where he’d gone.

  Wherever Noah had gone off to, it was none of Onyx’s business. The woman watching the lighthouse, however, was.

  This happened before—a woman standing in the clearing watching the lighthouse at night—right before Christmas 1937.

  The woman back then was Claudia.

  Onyx had dispatched Claudia not once, but twice. The first time legally, sending the brazen home-wrecker off to prison. The second time was of a more physical nature, sending Claudia off to the ethers—or wherever one went in the end.

  Now Onyx was dealing with this woman.

  Onyx located two shotgun shells in the drawer of an end table and slid them into the shotgun and placed it inside the lighthouse door.

  Onyx was tired of women coming after her men—even if Noah was no longer hers.

  6:04 P.M. EST

  JACKSON, GEORGIA

  WYATT SCROGGER’S FINAL DAY on Georgia’s death row was a comedian’s gold mine for material. Unfortunately, it was material he’d never get the chance to use.

  In twelve hours, the joke would be on him.

  Wyatt was escorted from his cell on death row with other condemned inmates to a cell in the death house—an isolated, single-cell complex where state-ordered executions were carried out.

  The new cell had two doors.

  The first door led into the cell. The second door led into the room where Wyatt would be strapped to a gurney and receive the lethal injection that would end his life the following morning.

  “Welcome to happy hour,” the guard said, glancing at his watch. “Cocktails will be served at six.”

  “Good one,” Wyatt said, knowing the cocktails in question were of the lethal variety. “You work on that a long time?”

  The guard pulled out a plastic bag and held it open. “Shoelaces. Take them off and place them in the bag.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re on death watch. Gotta make sure you don’t kill yourself before the state is ready to kill you.”

  “Well, who can argue with that?” Wyatt said as he untied his shoelaces and dropped them in the plastic bag.

  “Now your underwear.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “We’ve had guys hang themselves with less,” the guard said.

  Wyatt shook his head and let his prison-issued pants drop to the floor. “So, after a month in battle the commander tells the troops he’s got good news and bad news. The good news is everybody was to get a change of underwear. All the soldiers began to cheer. Now for the bad news. Smith, you change with Adams. Barnes, you change with Thompson.”

  The guard didn’t laugh.

  Wyatt removed his underwear and dropped them in the bag.

  “Can I get a pen and some paper?” Wyatt asked.

  “Nope,” the guard said. “Last guy who asked for a pen stabbed himself in the neck.”

  “Crayons then?”

  “Nope,” the guard said. “No pens, no papers, no books, no TV, no nothing.”

  “Any word on my book?” Wyatt asked.

  “I said, no books.”

  “No, I mean the book I wrote.”

  “No idea,” the guard said. “You’ll have to ask the warden.”

  “What am I supposed to do to keep myself busy?”

  “You could always nap,” the guard said and then turned to leave. “I’ll be back in an hour to escort you to your physical.”

  “My physical? You’re shittin’ me.”

  “I shit you not,” the guard said. “The state’s not allowed to put an inmate to death if they’re not in good enough condition.”

  “I wish I’d known that earlier,” Wyatt snorted. “I’d have taken worse care of myself.”

  “You got any more questions before I leave?”

  “Yeah. How many times have you been through this?”

  “Through what?”

  “The death process.”

  The guard paused. “I don’t know. I got transferred here in 2006, so my first was Hightower in June 2007. After Hightower, there was Lynd, Osborne, Alderman, Newland, Mize, McClain, Ford, and Rhode. What does that make? Eight?”

  “Nine,” Wyatt said.

  “So, nine then.”

  “Must be hard, what you do,” Wyatt said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You remember all the names—in order,” Wyatt said.

  “I remember the faces too,” the guard said. “Someone has to.”

  Wyatt nodded. “Which one was the hardest?”

  “I don’t know,” the guard said. “Ask me tomorrow.”

  6:28 P.M. EST

  THE DOUBLETREE HOTEL, CHARLESTON

  OLYMPIA FUDGE TOOK her recording equipment to the desk and plugged in the battery charger. Then she opened her suitcase and began putting her clothes on hangers, which she then hung on the edge of the metal rod in the shower. Once everything had been hung, she turned the shower on as hot as it would go and shut the door behind her—something she’d learned from Nathaniel when they traveled together on location.

  “The steam removes the smell from the garments and the wrinkles drop right out,” Nathaniel said when he’d showed her the trick. “But no more than five minutes, princess. More than five minutes and you’ll end up with mold-growing mildew deep in the fibers of the wool.”

  Those were good days, Olympia thought. Back when she and Nathaniel were still friends. Before he was murdered. Before he’d decided to make her life a living hell.

  Olympia set the alarm clock on the nightstand for five minutes and stepped out on the balcony to have a smoke.

  Olympia heard the alarm beeping, stubbed out the cigarette, and went back inside. When she opened the shower door, steam billowed out of the room and she stepped back quickly, careful not to let the steam hit her afro. The last thing she wanted to do was go to a costume party with a head of lazy hair.

  Olympia glanced at the alarm clock.

  She needed to get dressed and go.

  Olympia slid on her tight-fitting yellow spandex pants and pink bikini halter top and looked in the mirror. Wait, the outfit wasn’t complete without the sawed-off shotgun.

  Olympia grabbed the shotgun and assumed the pose she remembered Pam Grier making on the poster for the movie Coffy. “That’s right,” Olympia said to herself in the mirror. “You are the biggest, baddest revenge-seeking bitch to ever hit this city.”

  NATHANIEL CRYER stood on the other side of the mirror in Olympia’s hotel room and watched his ex-television show co-host primping and preening over herself like a self-conscious peacock.

  To Nathaniel, the ridiculous blaxploitation movie costume made Olympia look like a cheap hooker. At least she hadn’t forgotten everything he taught her and took the time to steam her clothes.

  “You look like a twenty-dollar hooker, girl,” Nathaniel mouthed on the other side of the mirror. Then he watched as Olympia stuffed the shotgun into the bag with her podcast equipment and headed for the door.

  Nathaniel was impressed with one thing, though. Olympia had the street smarts to buy a sawed-off shotgun for a hundred bucks from a hoodlum in a Charleston alley. When he was alive, Nathaniel had a hard time scoring weed at a Guns N’ Roses concert. It seemed like a lot of work to put the finishing touches on a ball costume, but he admired her attention to detail.

  A cos
tume party, Nathaniel thought. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a costume party. Sounded like fun.

  6:42 P.M. EST

  DECLAN MULVANEY’S BEDROOM

  DECLAN MULVANEY PULLED two pair of formal shoes from the closet and laid them on the bed. The first pair was brand new. The second pair was older—soft, broken-in, with small, virtually imperceptible cracks in the patent leather from years of wear.

  Declan took a pen and wrote the word donate on a piece of notepaper and dropped it in the box with the new shoes.

  This was not a night for new shoes.

  Let someone else break them in.

  Declan was sitting on the edge of the bed polishing his shoes, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, when he heard a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?” Declan said as loud as he could. Even the force of calling out caused considerable pain in his midsection.

  “It’s me, Koda.”

  “Come in,” Declan said.

  The door opened and Koda slipped inside, but he stopped cold when he saw how thin and frail his grandfather looked. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

  “Good enough to shine my shoes,” Declan said. “Why?”

  “Nothing,” Koda said. “I don’t know. You just seem to be moving a bit slower lately, and I thought—”

  “I’m eighty-eight years old, Koda,” Declan said, cutting Koda off. “When a man hits my age, he moves slower. Don’t read any more into to it.”

  Koda said nothing.

  He knew his grandfather was lying.

  “The real question is how are you doing?” Declan said. “I’ve got to imagine the stress of throwing this shindig is a bit overwhelming.”

  “You’re sick, aren’t you?” Koda said.

  Now it was Declan’s turn to stay silent.

  “Tell me,” Koda prompted. “If there’s something—”

  “Come sit,” Declan said, patting the bed next to him with his hand.

  Koda walked over and took a seat.

  “The end comes for all men,” Declan said finally. “But don’t worry. There is still a lot of miles left on this old jalopy.”

  Koda wrapped his arm around Declan, and they both fell silent.

  Declan waited for Koda to leave and then dropped the freshly polished tuxedo shoes on the floor and slid his feet into them, not bothering to put on socks.

  For some men, wearing dress shoes without socks was a fashion statement. For Declan, it was something else—something with a deeper meaning. Socks were hard to come by in the orphanage. And if you were lucky enough to get your hands on a pair, you saved them for winter.

  Winter.

  Declan hated winter when he was young. It was a harsh and menacing season.

  Winter was bleak.

  Barren.

  Like the end of one’s life.

  Interestingly, Declan now found winter to be the opposite. Winter was welcoming somehow.

  Tomorrow was the first day of winter, and Declan was ready for its arrival.

  Declan stood, crossed the room, and lowered himself slowly into the chair behind the desk. Then he inserted a blank cassette tape into the recorder he’d asked Stormy Boyd to get for him.

  Declan looked at his watch.

  He had almost an hour before he needed to be downstairs to greet the governor. An hour should be enough for a man to confess his sins.

  6:51 P.M. EST

  DOWNTOWN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

  STANTON LEE MUNGEHR parked on Rutledge Avenue, one block north of Calhoun Street, and climbed out of the van. He disliked the inconvenience of his plan, but what other option did he have? Driving over to the Mulvaney mansion in the van was out of the question—as was walking over.

  Telling Koda he had errands to run and wanted to be picked up here at the tailor shop was the best option—even if it meant leaving the van on the street downtown for the night.

  Stan Lee glanced at his watch. The tailor closed in ten minutes.

  He best be on the move.

  The tailor brought the white suit out on a hanger in a clear plastic bag. “Do you wish to try it on?”

  “Yes, please,” Stan Lee said. He took the suit into the fitting room and pulled the drapes closed behind him, pleased that he’d used the alias Southern Gentleman for the purposes of dealing with the tailor. He couldn’t use Glenn Oren Mattheus, which was the name he used to purchase the house. Sergent Elton Nahum was out too—even if the Nahum alias was literally a dead end. Anything that could be linked to him—direct or otherwise—was dangerous.

  Stan Lee was off the ketamine.

  No more mistakes.

  Three minutes later, Stan Lee emerged in the suit and stepped in front of the mirror.

  “What do you think?” the tailor asked. “Are the pants to your liking this time?”

  Yes, the pants. That was the reason Stan Lee brought the suit to the tailor in the first place—the result of having asked the medical facility to make his new prosthetics an inch longer than the previous set.

  Stan Lee had done the same thing the previous three times he’d had his prosthetics replaced—making him four inches taller than when he’d first moved to Charleston. Instead of five feet ten inches, Stan Lee was now six feet two inches.

  Who didn’t want to be six feet two inches if they could?

  The problem was the additional four inches were all in his legs, making them out of proportion with his torso. It also made it a bit more difficult to walk, almost like he was on a springy set of stilts.

  “Yes, the pants look better,” Stan Lee said, admiring his reflection in the mirror. “Does the coat look okay to you? The length, I mean?”

  The tailor stepped behind Stan Lee and looked in the mirror. “Perfect, sir.”

  Stan Lee knew the tailor was lying, but let it go. What was he supposed to do? Kill the man? An interesting thought, but good tailors were hard to find.

  “Shall I bag the garment for you?” the tailor asked.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll wear it out. I’m on my way to an engagement,” Stan Lee said.

  “Oh, how very nice for you,” the tailor said excitedly. “You are getting engaged!”

  Stan Lee exited the tailor shop and stood in the doorway of the building. The limousine should be there any minute. God, it was cold, Stan Lee thought. There should a law against it getting so cold south of the Mason-Dixon line.

  “Forget something?” Stan Lee heard a female say from behind him. He didn’t bother turning to see who it was. He already knew.

  It was Kara.

  “Leave me alone,” Stan Lee said.

  “I asked you a question,” Kara said. “Have you forgotten anything?”

  Damn it, she was right.

  The knife.

  He’d left it in the van.

  Stan Lee exited the shelter of the doorway and walked up the street to where he’d parked the van and climbed inside.

  The knife had been an unplanned purchase—well, not entirely.

  Stan Lee had gone on eBay in search of an inexpensive bone-handled pocketknife. He got the idea from watching the man in the bowler hat whittling on the back deck of the Mulvaney mansion. It was hard to tell exactly what the man was making—even through his high-powered binoculars. It appeared to be a duck. Or a deer maybe. In any case, Stan Lee thought it might be a good hobby—especially after getting off the Ketamine.

  That’s when Stan Lee stumbled on the knife. Not just any knife, but the knife the nun had on her when she’d come to Wisconsin to kill him.

  Stan Lee recognized it immediately—the big brown handle, the steel blade sharpened razor-thin over the years—the same knife lying on the floor next to the nun in Judd Coker’s upstairs hallway. The engraved inscription removed any remaining doubt:

  First Place Hunting Competition,

  1904 St. Louis World’s Fair

  How the nun’s knife ended up on eBay, Stan Lee had no way of knowing.

  All Stan Lee knew was he had to h
ave it.

  Three days of bidding and $285 later, the knife was his.

  Now, where in the hell had he put it?

  “Look under the seat,” Kara said.

  Stan Lee slid his hand beneath the driver’s seat and searched around until he felt the leather sheath that held the knife and pulled it out.

  “Headlights,” Kara said.

  Stan Lee turned his head and saw a vehicle coming up Rutledge Avenue toward the tailor shop. It was a limousine.

  “Don’t let him see you coming from the van,” Kara said. “Walk around the block and come up from the other side.”

  Yes, that was a good idea.

  It would take a few minutes, but the limo wasn’t going to leave without him, was it now?

  6:55 P.M. EST

  LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA

  NEWT DRYSTAD WALKED back to his hotel room, turned on the light, and looked at the enormous web that filled every square foot of the room. He had to admit, it did make him look a bit insane.

  Newt closed the door behind him and took off his jacket. On any other day, he’d have tossed his jacket on the chair or the bed, but he’d pushed both into the bathroom, so he tossed it in the corner.

  That’s when he saw the postcard lying on the floor.

  The one with the poem.

  Newt had run out of staples, so he’d taped it to the string. It must have fallen off.

  Newt bent down, picked up the postcard, and read it again.

  A Fine Southern Gentleman

  A fine Southern Gent came strolling along,

  Smiling a smile and singing a song.

  Holding a door open wide for a belle,

  Who has no earthly idea she is headed for hell.

  Newt’s heart began to race.

  There was something about the poem that bothered him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Now he knew what it was.

  It was the title: A Fine Southern Gentleman.

  Newt had seen the words somewhere before.