Fact or Fiction_A Sam Prichard Mystery

by David Archer

  “Yep, and Betty told me that he moved back here to a little town called Ewing in the north part of Franklin County after he got out of prison. Care to guess what he was imprisoned for? Never mind, I’ll just tell you. It was for vehicular manslaughter. His wife had lost her mind to dementia a year or two earlier, even though she was really too young for it, and he started drinking a lot. He had a bad wreck and got in trouble over it. His daughter, Kimberly, was taken away by the state and he lost track of her, so when he got out of prison he came back here to Illinois. He’d changed his name back when he and Lynette got married, but Betty said she and a few other people around here knew who he really was. He and Betty are about the same age, and she even dated him in high school way back when.”

  “But what does all this have to do with my mom?”

  “Everything. After Bill returned to this area, he settled in Benton and got married again. I guess he was still into younger women, because his new wife was only in her early twenties. They had a daughter named Marcy, and that’s the Marcy we met at Jim’s Fresh Stop there in Thompsonville, the one who was so happy to tell me all about Millie and Ross and Debbie.”

  Her head still shaking, Indie stared at him. “My God, Sam,” he said, “that means Bill and Lynette, this Bill and Lynette we’re talking about, those are my grandparents?”

  “They have to be,” he said. “Indie, this is way too much to be any kind of coincidence. Beauregard said he was worried about a female descendant being in danger, right? He was talking about your mother, Kim, even if he didn’t know it.”

  “Oh, my God,” Indie said again, “oh, my—Sam, you said you know who the killer is. Who?”

  “It’s Marcy,” Sam replied. “Betty said she ran into Bill and Marcy together one time at Walmart, and asked if they’d ever gone to see Millie. She said Bill just looked at the floor, but Marcy flew into a rage and told her that they wanted nothing to do with her because Millie’s daughter, Lynette, had ruined her father’s life. Take all of that together with the fact that Marcy is probably the only person associated with Millie at all who would ever have worn a hat like that one, and it approaches certainty that she’s the one Jason Garrity saw leaving the backyard that day, the one Ross saw throw down the hat and hurry away.”

  “Okay, I can see that,” Indie said, “but why would she want to take Mom?”

  “Think about it, babe. Marcy blamed Lynette, your grandmother, for somehow ruining her dad’s life. She couldn’t get to Lynette, so she attacked the only other person she could reach, Millie. But then, here we come along years later, and we introduced ourselves to her. Remember how she kept looking at your mom? She reacted when I told her your mother’s name, and I’d just about bet you Marcy spotted a family resemblance or something. However it came about, she’s apparently decided that trying to kill your mother is another shot of revenge against Lynette.”

  “Oh, God, Sam,” Indie said with tears starting to stream down her cheeks. “Sam, what are we going to do? We can’t let anything happen to my mom!”

  “I don’t intend to,” Sam replied. He yanked his phone out of his pocket and quickly called Detective Moore. “It’s Sam Prichard, and I’m pretty sure I know who the killer is, but I need your help. My mother-in-law has disappeared, and I’m just dead certain she’s gonna be the next victim if we don’t find her fast.”

  Moore sputtered. “Wait, what? If you know who it is, tell me.”

  “Remember we talked about Bill Parkinson and didn’t know what happened to him? He’s living right here in the area, and Marcy Elimon is his youngest daughter. I’ll explain it all to you later, but Marcy killed Millie because she blames Lynette for somehow ruining Bill’s life. Now, in an even stranger twist of fate, it turns out my mother-in-law is Bill and Lynette’s daughter. If Marcy hated Lynette enough to kill Millie, her mother, imagine what she’ll do to Lynette’s daughter.”

  “Holy geez,” Moore said. “But that would mean your mother-in-law is Marcy’s half sister. Geez, this is like some damn soap opera, but I think you’re right. About two years ago, Marcy got stopped in the middle of the night by one of the city officers, I think it was a taillight out or something. Anyway, the officer that stopped her knew her, but he said she was all dressed up like some old bag lady or something.” Sam could hear him shouting something off to the side, as if he had put his hand over the mouthpiece. A second later he came back. “Marcy’s car is a white Chevy Malibu, about five years old. That’s just about as nondescript a car as you could possibly drive, because there are probably a few hundred of them around here. Remember Rosie saw Crazy Daisy get shoved into a white car? I’ve got our dispatcher putting in an APB out right now. She’s out there somewhere, Sam, and we’re going to find her.”

  “Keep me posted,” Sam said. “I’m on the way to Thompsonville now, but I’m just hoping to spot them along the way.”

  *

  Kim had been just about to place the call when the woman she had nodded to came around the building. She looked up with a smile, but the expression on the woman’s face made it fade away quickly. The snub-nosed .38 in her hand sent a shiver of fear down Kim’s spine.

  “I need you to come with me, dear,” she said. Her voice was high, Kim noticed, and cracked a bit, but Kim wasn’t about to criticize. Besides, there was something about those yellowed teeth that was almost more frightening than the gun.

  “I—I need to make a phone call,” she said, but the phone was suddenly snatched out of her hand. It went into the left pocket of a jacket the woman was wearing while the gun went into the right, and a quick motion of her head told Kim to start walking into the woods.

  “There won’t be any phone calls, I’m afraid,” she said. “Just start walking that way. We’re going to my car, and I don’t want any trouble out of you.”

  Kim had never liked confrontation. Her childhood had been full of them, especially after her mother’s Alzheimer’s began to make its presence known. Her mother would get it in her head to go for a walk, or try to take the car for a drive, but even at ten years old Kim knew that she couldn’t leave her mother unsupervised. There were many arguments, many confrontations, and she had grown weary of them by the time her father was taken away to jail and her mother had to go into a nursing home.

  Then there were the foster homes. She learned quickly not to argue about anything, because all it would do was get her a beating, or something even worse. By the time became a teenager, she had reached the point of just going along with what anyone wanted. It kept her from the beatings, but it also led her to getting pregnant just after her sixteenth birthday. Suddenly she had to grow up, and she had never learned to properly deal with confrontation.

  Confrontation on its own was bad enough, but a confrontation with someone holding a gun could be suicidal. Kim turned and started walking in the direction she was told to go. The terror-driven adrenaline that was racing through her made her walk quickly, but despite looking old and somewhat decrepit, the woman behind her was having no trouble keeping up.

  There was a path in the woods, and Kim followed it instinctively. It came out a few minutes later onto the roadway that wound through the park, and the woman came up beside her and pointed at a white sedan. “That’s my car,” she said. She opened the passenger door and held it while Kim got in, then shut it. Keeping her eyes on Kim through the windshield, she walked around the front and got behind the wheel.

  “Where are we going?” Kim asked, but the other woman simply barked at her to shut up. Kim huddled into herself and leaned against the car door as the woman started the car and put it in gear.

  “If you’re thinking about trying to jump out,” she said to Kim, “don’t. I prefer not to shoot you, especially in the middle of this park, but I will if I have to.”

  Kim only nodded. She didn’t trust herself to say anything at that point. She looked out the window at the trees going past and suddenly realized that she was looking at the playground where Grace was still watching Kenzie running and
playing tag with other children. She tried mightily to send a telepathic message to her friend to look toward the car, but Grace kept her eyes on her granddaughter and never noticed Kim riding past.

  Within a couple of minutes, they were moving through the backstreets of the town and then turned onto one of the main streets. Kim watched through the window as buildings rolled past, and then they emerged onto the square. They headed east, and she began to suspect that her life was coming to its end.

  “Would you at least tell me why?” Kim asked. “I’d really like to know, before you kill me.”

  The driver glanced over at her but said nothing. A second later she returned her attention to the road.

  Kim waited a minute or so, then turned in her seat so that she was facing the woman who had abducted her. There was something familiar about her, but Kim couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “I don’t know who you are,” she said, “but I know you’re not who you pretend to be. You want people to look at you and see this old woman, but you’re really much younger, aren’t you?”

  “You think you’re so smart? You figure out why, then.”

  Kim stared at her for another moment, but then a familiar sensation began somewhere in the back of her skull. Something stirred back there, and she felt a sense of relief that now, in the final moments of her life, Beauregard was going to be back at her side. At least he’d be there to comfort her in her final moments, and she felt a sense of gratitude even as she waited for darkness to come.

  It didn’t come, though. Instead, a sense of peace came over her, just the way it always did when Beauregard began to speak.

  I’m here, she heard in her mind. I’m with you, and I’m going to help you. Kimberly, it’s time for us to do what must be done. It’s time for you to remember the things you chose not to remember.

  What things? she asked. Beauregard, what am I supposed remember?

  I have found what I was seeking, Kimberly. Just open your mind and think back to when you were a little girl. Think about the stories your mother used to tell you at bedtime. Let yourself remember, and it will all become clear.

  Bedtime stories? I remember Mother telling me stories, yes, but that was a long time ago. I’m sure they were the usual ones, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and the all those old stories. Weren’t they?

  Remember, Kimberly. You must let yourself remember; you must not hide from it any longer. Just remember.

  Marcy turned to look at her for a second, then looked back at the road ahead. “You think staring at me is going to make me nervous or something? Just turn around and look out the window again.”

  “I remember,” Kim said. “Oh, my God, I remember.”

  “What are you, crazy? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “It was so long ago,” Kim said. “I was maybe four or five, I guess, and my mother used to tell me stories. They were all about our family, stories that were passed down from generation to generation, and she said it was important for me to know them.”

  The woman behind the wheel was bouncing her attention between the road and her passenger, and her eyes were quite wide. “What? Oh, my God, you’re some kind of loony.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I just haven’t thought about these things in so many years, I had them buried so deeply. Have you ever buried something so deeply that you couldn’t even remember it?”

  “Oh, good Lord,” Marcy said. “I always figured you must have been a weakling, but I never would’ve guessed you were just plain crazy.”

  Kim smiled at her, a sense of calm settling into place. “I don’t think I’m weak,” she said. “My life has dealt me some pretty bad cards, but I’ve always done whatever I had to do to survive. That isn’t weakness; I think it’s exactly the opposite. I think it’s a kind of strength.”

  “Oh, God, knock it off! You think you got it all figured out, don’t you? You want to know why I’m going to kill you? It’s because it was all your mother’s fault!”

  Kim cocked her head to one side, staring at the strange woman who was driving. “My mother? What was my mother’s fault?”

  Marcy looked over at her captive for a second, then cut her eyes back to the road. “My dad,” she said, her words dripping with rage. “No, our dad. Your mother couldn’t keep her own mind together, and it just about destroyed him. Even now, after all these years she’s been gone, he still talks about her when he drinks, and he’s always drinking. Mom got him dried out a dozen times, but he always goes back to it because he says it’s the only way he can cope with knowing your mother is gone. I was only thirteen when Mom decided she’d had enough and walked out on us.”

  Kim stared at her, confused, but then something about the woman’s eyes sent a shock of recognition through her. “Oh, my gosh,” she said softly. “You’re the lady from the diner. Marcy, that’s your name, right?”

  “Oh, you decide to start catching on?” Marcy asked her, snapping her attention back to the road ahead. “Don’t you have any idea who I am?”

  Kim shrugged and shook her head. “I remember your name, because we just met the other day. Other than that, how am I supposed to know anything about you?”

  Marcy suddenly reached across and slapped her across the face with the back of her hand. “I’m your freaking sister,” she yelled. “Can’t you see the resemblance? We both have our father’s eyes, but you’ve got more of his chin than I do, and I’ve got more of his nose than you.”

  Kim was holding a hand to her stricken face, her mouth open and her eyes wide. “My sister? But I don’t have any sisters.”

  Marcy shook her head, a derisive laugh coming from her. “That you knew of,” she said. “We share the same father. Bill Perkins? Do you remember him at all?”

  Kim was openly staring, now. Her hand was still on her cheek, but she had managed to close her mouth. “Of course I remember my father,” she said. “But I haven’t seen him in many, many years. The last time I saw him was the day the judge sent him to prison, but then they took me away and I was never able to find him after that. If you’re my sister, then tell me, where has he been all this time?”

  Marcy sneered at her. “He’s been trying to drink himself to death, mooning over that crazy woman that gave birth to you. You know, the one who ended up in the loony bin? Your mother, who forgot who you even were?”

  Kim lowered her hand and folded both of them together in her lap. “That wasn’t her fault,” she said. “It was Alzheimer’s disease. They don’t know why, but some people can develop it when they’re still very young. My mother just happened to be one of those unlucky souls.”

  “Unlucky? You’re saying she was unlucky? My father was the unlucky one, because he loved her and all she did was destroy him. Back when I was a kid, I used to feel sorry for her when Daddy would talk about what happened, but the more I grew up, the more I came to hate her.” She spun her head to face Kim. “And I hate you,” she suddenly screamed. “You want to know what I grew up with? I grew up with a father who could hardly even stand to let me sit on his lap because it made him remember the daughter he couldn’t find. Every time he started thinking about you, then he started thinking about her, and that would start another bout of drinking. He’d drink and drink until he either puked or passed out, and guess who had to clean up after him when that happened. Guess who had to help get him into bed, help take his clothes off. Me, that’s who. Where the hell were you? You should’ve been there to help take care of him—it was all your mother’s fault, anyway.”

  Kim looked at her, and there was pity in her face. “Oh, Marcy, I’m so sorry. I loved my father, I truly did. When Mom started getting bad, I felt like my whole world had come to an end, but I didn’t even understand what that concept really meant. I didn’t find that out until they took my daddy away from me, too.” She took a deep breath. “But Marcy, Daddy’s drinking wasn’t my mother’s fault. It was his. He was the one who decided to hide from all the pain in a bottle, not my mother. What happened to her was beyond her
control; she had no choice in it at all. But Daddy? Daddy chose to drink, and all of that has to be on him.”

  “Shut up!” Marcy screamed. “Don’t you dare try to put this on him. She’s the one who went crazy, she’s the one who had to be put into a nuthouse. He didn’t know how to cope with it—that’s why he started drinking—but then everything went to hell. He got sent to prison, and you ran out on him, too. And me, I came along after he got out and had to be the one he couldn’t hold, the one he couldn’t love the way he loved you. God, how I hate you!”

  “So that’s why you’re going to kill me?” Kim asked. “Because our father made you jealous? How many people have you killed, Marcy, trying to punish the world for the pain you felt growing up?”

  What am I doing? Kim suddenly asked herself. Am I trying to force her to shoot me? This is insane—I shouldn’t be trying to argue with her.

  Just be calm, Kimberly, Beauregard’s voice said in her mind. Sam is coming, but we must delay her until he can arrive.

  Marcy clamped her jaw shut and gripped the wheel, then pressed her foot down on the accelerator. The car shot forward.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Marcy said suddenly. “The only ones that matter are you and your grandmother. She gave birth to your mother, and your mother gave birth to you. You were the reasons Daddy couldn’t go on with his life; you were the reasons he couldn’t love me the way he should have. Well, I took care of your grandmother, and now I’m going to take care of you.”

  A four-way stop loomed ahead, and Marcy used the brakes to slow, but not to stop. The car roared around the corner. This was the Akin-Thompsonville Road, a strip of blacktop that Marcy knew well. The woods along both sides were so dense in spots that even hunters rarely bothered to go into them.

  Any one of them would be a perfect place to leave a body, but Marcy knew one that was even better. It was just a matter of getting to it without being seen, but she knew exactly how to accomplish that, as well.

  *

  “Damn,” Sam said, “where the hell is Beauregard when I really need him?”