Marny knocked again, louder, but there was still no answer. And no Molly.
The interior of the house was carefully furnished and decorated in a coastal decor where driftwood and ships’ artifacts were abundant. It appeared to be empty.
“Maybe he’s not home,” Esther said.
Marny looked at William as if he were a fortune-teller and could disclose the whereabouts of Mr. Tuttle and his little white toy dog. William stared back at him with wide eyes but said nothing.
After knocking one more time with no response, Marny tried the door and found it open. Not surprising. Mr. Condon told him once that Mr. Tuttle never locked his doors. He was a gentle and trusting man who harmed no one and expected the same grace shown back to him. He had made no enemies on his way to making a ton of money—a colossal feat in itself.
“Mr. Tuttle?” Marny’s voice echoed in the massive vaulted-ceiling great room. A small loft was above them and to their left the kitchen. In front of them stood a fireplace with a wide mantle and beyond that, the dining room and living room.
The house was quiet and still.
Marny tried again. “Hello. Mr. Tuttle. Molly. Here, Molly.” But only silence answered.
He wandered into the kitchen. A dirty plate, crusted with food, sat in the sink. A mug half filled with coffee accompanied it. The countertop was mostly open and free of clutter. For a bachelor, Mr. Tuttle kept a neat home.
Marny walked into the dining room, Esther and William on his heels. Adjoining the dining room was the living room, furnished with beige sofa and chairs and a coffee table made of treated driftwood and glass. On the wall was a large weathered ship’s wheel. But no Mr. Tuttle.
Through the living room and to the left was a door. It was slightly ajar, and through the opening Marny could see that it was a bedroom.
“Maybe you two should stay here, and I’ll go see.”
He thought Mr. Tuttle might still be sleeping. If that was the case, he was quite the sound sleeper, and they could quietly make their exit and walk around to the front door and try the doorbell. Marny didn’t want Mr. Tuttle to awaken and find three strangers in his home and die suddenly of a massive coronary. Though that would not be surprising, given Marny’s track record.
Marny walked across the carpeting, not making a single sound, and stood in the doorway. From there he could see the end of the bed and what looked like feet under a blanket. A hushed buzz came from the room, an air pump of some kind. He pushed the door open. Mr. Tuttle was lying on his back, covers pulled up to his chest. He had a plastic mask on his face with a hose extending from it, a CPAP machine. Apparently Mr. Tuttle suffered from sleep apnea.
Marny was about to step back out of the room when he noticed something dark about Mr. Tuttle’s face, along the side of the mask. The shades were drawn in the room, muting the morning sunlight, and at first it appeared to be nothing more than a shadow … only it wasn’t.
Taking small, slow steps, Marny walked closer to the bed, close enough that he could see what he didn’t want to see, what he’d feared most. Mr. Tuttle was dead, a gunshot through his right eye. And next to him, also dead, was his dearly beloved Molly.
Chapter 22
MEMORIES ARE HAUNTING things, bold nightmares not satisfied to lurk in the world of dreams.
At least Marny’s memories were. When he was nine, Billy Tillman moved next door. Billy was a year older than Marny and a good four inches taller and twenty pounds heavier. Billy was what the other kids called a deadhead, a punk. When he wasn’t running around town, he stayed mostly to himself, listening to his Black Sabbath and AC/DC and Alice Cooper. His wardrobe consisted of black rock ’n’ roll T-shirts and faded jeans. And his mouth consisted of cuss words and racial slurs and colorful descriptions of body parts.
His mom used to beat him something awful. Billy would never admit it, but when he’d show up in the woods with a swollen eye or fat lip and try to tell Marny he’d fallen down the steps, it was no secret what had really happened. Marny could see it in his eyes, hear it in the tone of his voice. The pain was there, the shame. He’d try to cheer up Billy, offer to play whatever he wanted and let him win, but on those days nothing seemed to help.
For three years straight Billy was Marny’s only friend. He was the big brother Marny had always wanted. When Marny was eleven, Billy gave him his first cigarette; when he was twelve, Billy gave him his first dirty magazine.
A month later Billy was dead. Time caught up with him, and the payment on Marny’s curse came due.
They were playing hide-and-seek in the woods behind their neighborhood, and it was Marny’s turn to be It. Billy always found the best places to hide. No matter how long Marny looked, Billy would never come out, would never even make a peep to give him a hint. It was as if he enjoyed the time alone and didn’t want it to end. On this particular Thursday, Marny had been looking for nearly a half hour, and the sun was getting low in the sky. Finally he gave up and hollered to Billy to come out; it was getting too dark and he was going home.
After a few minutes, Marny heard a rustle high in one of the trees, then a sharp snap and a yell. A quick moment and burst of cracking branches later it all ended with a thud. Billy had fallen from the tree.
Marny ran to where he’d heard the noise and saw Billy lying motionless facedown at the base of a white pine.
“Billy? You okay?”
He didn’t move. Billy’s hand twitched like it had a stutter in it. He nudged Billy’s shoulder. “Hey, Billy. C’mon, man, you okay?”
Still nothing but the stutter in his right hand.
Marny rolled Billy over and immediately vomited on the ground beside him. A stick, a jagged branch, protruded a good two inches from Billy’s left eye. Billy didn’t move, but his right eye fixed on Marny. The older boy’s lips formed words, but Marny couldn’t hear what he was saying. He leaned closer and realized his friend was speaking gibberish. Saying something about giving the dog a bath and taking it for a walk. Only Billy didn’t have a dog.
Leaving Billy there on the forest floor with that branch sticking out of his eye and the stutter in his hand and talking about the dog he didn’t have, Marny ran home and told his mother. An hour later Billy officially died on the operating table, but the doctor told Marny’s mom he was gone before he hit the ground. When Marny looked at Mr. Tuttle and saw that empty eye socket, he thought of Billy Tillman’s eye, and the vomit surged up his throat. Fortunately he was able to control it this time and didn’t soil Mr. Tuttle’s carpet. As quickly as he could, he exited the room and glanced at Esther and William. They were in the middle of the living room holding hands.
“We need to get out of here.”
Esther said nothing until they were on the patio with the glass door shut securely. “What is it?”
Marny stopped and inhaled long and slow. The smell of sea salt cleared his head. “He’s dead. Murdered.”
“By Gary?”
“I suppose.”
“He knew we might come here for help.”
Marny looked at her, anger clawing at his chest. “Really? Is that the kind of animal he is? He’d murder an innocent man while he slept just because we might go to him for help?”
William glanced at his sister as if giving permission to tell the truth.
Esther didn’t hesitate. “You have no idea what kind of a monster he is. We thought we did, but it’s so much worse.”
“Oh, I have an idea,” Marny said.
“Then it’s wrong,” she said. “Whatever you think he’s capable of, it’s a million times worse than that. You’ve never seen darkness like he has inside him.”
Marny thought of Karl Gunnison and the hate that filled that man, the anger and violence that lurked just under his exterior like a beast hungry for its next unsuspecting victim. He’d always thought Karl was the father of evil, the king of hatefulness. How could anyone be worse than him?
Marny looked around, trying to develop a plan as quickly as possible. To their backs was the
bay. The sun had fully cleared the horizon by now and the line between sky and ocean was vivid and straight. The waters moved peacefully, oblivious to the turmoil that brewed on land. Booker Island was out there as well as a few other small, uninhabited islands. To their left the shoreline was dotted with boulders and pebbled beach and, off in the distance, the town of Pine Harbor stirring from a sound night’s sleep. To their right was Mr. Condon’s house, the place of last night’s nightmare. The Nova was still in the driveway, parked behind Mr. Condon’s pickup, but there was no sign of Petey’s patrol car.
“I need to get the keys to Mr. Condon’s truck.”
They headed across Mr. Tuttle’s yard and into Mr. Condon’s. The bungalow stood silent and lifeless. Memories of the previous evening replayed in Marny’s mind. The sound of strangulation, Mr. Condon’s tortured gurgles and gasps, Gary’s voice, thick with venom. He didn’t want to go in there, didn’t want to face what he’d only imagined up to this point.
But they needed the keys to the truck. Marny had an idea, a place they could go to hide and collect their thoughts.
“Wait,” Esther said. “What if he’s in there?”
Marny had thought of that, the very real possibility that Gary would be waiting for them, ready to rain down violence and revenge, but their other choices were equally dangerous. They could go to the main road and walk to Pine Harbor, but that left them in the open, easy targets for an insane pursuer. They could make their way down the beach, but again, they’d be in the open, nearly begging Gary to locate them.
“I don’t think he is,” Marny said, and he meant it. Call it instinct or some kind of weird sixth sense—maybe William’s abilities were rubbing off on him—but he didn’t feel Gary’s presence. “We’ll take it slow.”
The back door was unlocked. It opened into the kitchen, the place where Mr. Condon always greeted Marny with a “Well, hello, Mahny.” There was no greeting this time, only silence and fear of what was to come. Esther put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Marny expected to see Mr. Condon seated at the table, face gray and swollen, Pete on the floor in a pool of blood, and the place a mess. But it looked like none of what they’d heard taking place last night had actually occurred. Nothing was out of place, nothing broken. No bodies. No sign of struggle or violence. It was as if he’d imagined the whole ordeal and would find Mr. Condon at the garage under someone’s car.
“Esther?” Marny wondered if she saw the same thing.
She said nothing, but the tears in her eyes said it all.
“Gary did this, didn’t he? He cleaned up after himself.”
She nodded. “He knew the police would come looking for your friend.”
Petey. The police had come, that’s why Pete’s patrol car was gone. And they’d most likely found nothing.
Marny walked over to the kitchen table and ran his hand along the surface. Three scratch marks, shallow ruts in the wood, were all that remained. Maybe Mr. Condon was still alive. Then Marny thought of Mr. Tuttle in his bed and the pointlessness of his execution and doubted Mr. Condon had made it out of the house alive last night.
“There is someone we can go to for help,” Esther said.
She had Marny’s attention.
“Our father.”
Chapter 23
COME AGAIN? I thought you said you didn’t know where your father was.”
“I said I hadn’t had any contact with him since he walked out on us.”
“But you know where he lives?”
Esther was quiet for a moment. She took William’s withered hand in hers and rubbed it. “A few years after he left, before Gary came on the scene, I heard my mom talking on the phone to her sister. I got enough from the conversation to find out that our father had moved to western Massachusetts, Franklin County. It was the last time I ever heard her mention him.”
“And you want to go there and ask him to help you after all these years.” Marny had his doubts this plan of hers would work. He wondered how this guy would react to his daughter and son— the son he’d walked out on—showing up on his doorstep with a stranger. “What makes you think he can help us, if he even will?”
“Our father was a Maine state trooper, loved his job. He must still have some sense of justice.” She paused, looked at Marny, looked at William. “I can convince him to help us, I know I can.”
Marny didn’t miss the way she only referred to her father as “father.” He knew there was a time when she must have called him Daddy, then Dad, but that bond had been shattered when he abandoned them for his own selfish gain, and she was left with the wounds.
“What makes you so sure? Western Massachusetts is a long way off. I don’t want to go there for nothing.” He turned to William. “And how about you, William. How do you feel about asking your father for help?”
William looked at Esther. “What do you think, Esther?”
She smiled and rubbed his hand. “I think he’s asking you.”
Looking at Marny with those big brown eyes, William shrugged.
“Do you mind if we find your dad?”
Marny could tell by the look on William’s face that dad was a foreign term to him, but he shrugged and said, “No, Marnin.” That was it.
“Okay, let’s find him then.” Marny headed into the living room and turned on Mr. Condon’s computer. “What’s his name?”
“Harold Rose,” Esther said. “Harold J. Rose.”
Marny tapped the computer keys. It didn’t take long to find the street address for Harold J. Rose of Monroe Bridge, Massachusetts. “There he is. Should we call the state police and find out if he still works there? Maybe he got a job with them when he moved.”
Esther shook her head. “No. The fewer people who know this the better. Mr. Tuttle wound up the way he did because of association.”
An image of Mr. Tuttle’s empty eye socket flashed through Marny’s mind. He’d met his fate while he slept not only because the long tentacles of Marny’s curse had reached through Mr. Condon to him, but because of his association with Esther and William through Mr. Condon and Marny. It was a double whammy, more disastrous than any Marny could have imagined. If Esther and William’s father would agree to help them, one curse to battle was enough. “You say that like it’s happened before.”
Esther turned to the window. “There’ve been others.”
“Other murders?”
She nodded, and he didn’t miss the tears in her eyes.
“Because of association?”
Esther shrugged. “I don’t know why. He had his reasons, no matter how twisted they were. In his mind, he was doing the right thing.” She looked directly at him, and a single tear slipped from her eye and slid down her cheek. “You have no idea what kind of monster he is.”
Gary had made a calculated decision.
After taking care of the house and disposing of all evidence, after getting rid of the patrol car parked in the driveway, after erasing every track of his ever having been in the vicinity of the Condon place, he’d decided to leave for the night rather than wait for the three to return to the house. If he was going to see this thing through to the end, he’d need sleep. Besides, there was the chance that the cop had radioed in his last stop, and sooner or later his fellow officers would be out to look for him when he didn’t answer their repeated calls.
Gary didn’t want to risk being there when the police arrived, found nothing out of the ordinary, and left. And he made sure they’d find nothing suspicious.
He’d slept just fine at the Bayside Motel in Pine Harbor. The bed was firm and the room dark. He’d opened the window to let the sounds of the water waft over him and lull him to sleep. At 6:00 a.m. the alarm had sounded, and with it, the voice in his head.
Don’t let him out of your sight. He must be protected at all times. He is your responsibility now.
It had taken Gary only thirty minutes to shower and dress. Then he was off to the house to wait for the three to return. When he arrived, he drove by the place tw
o times to make sure the area was clear of cops or other visitors. Satisfied that he was alone and the house was empty, he pulled the Taurus into the driveway and said a prayer.
Marny wrote Harold Rose’s address on a piece of paper. “I really don’t like this Gary guy.”
“Not too many people do.”
“Are you—”
His question was cut short by Esther’s hand on his mouth. Her eyes widened, and Marny immediately saw the fear in them. She’d heard something.
William inched closer to his sister.
A second later Marny heard it too, the sound of tires rolling over asphalt. A car had pulled into the driveway. He got up from the desk chair and moved quickly to the front window. A car door shut. Peering around the window pane he saw Gary standing outside his Taurus, running his thumbs around the waistline of his pants. He looked around, then headed for the front door.
Marny pointed toward the kitchen and grabbed the piece of paper with the address on it as they passed the desk. Once in the kitchen he went for the keys to Mr. Condon’s pickup, only they weren’t there. He always hung them on the hook by the telephone.
Marny had another thought, a backup plan. “Follow me.”
As they slipped quietly out the back, Marny heard the front door open. The garage was no more than ten feet from the house, connected by a breezeway. Mr. Condon kept the keys to the Buick, his Darla, hanging on a nail just inside the door. Marny grabbed the keys. “Hurry, get in.”
Esther pulled up. “This?”
“You have another idea?”
Frantic Page 9