Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

  A cool breeze whipped through her, and she shuddered. Rubbing her arms, Molly watched the cop walk down the darkened cul-de-sac to his Toyota Camry. It was parked in front of Lynette’s house.

  There was room for only one car in his two-car garage. Every time he opened the big, automatic door, his neighbors probably caught a glimpse of the storage unit he’d built in there. One half of his garage had been boarded up from floor to ceiling. The reinforced, unpainted thick sheets of wood created another room — accessible through a thick door that had a padlock on it.

  He’d made the most of the small space, creating a maze of closets and cabinets — most of them with padlocks on the doors. In one closet, he had jumpsuits and uniforms of every kind: janitor, paramedic, cable service, pest-control service, UPS delivery, and mailman — to name a few. There was also a cabinet exclusively dedicated to holding coils of rope, and duct tape — though lately, he’d come to rely on torn-up bedsheets in lieu of rope. Watching people rip apart the sheets from their linen closets to make their own restraints had become an important part of the ritual for him.

  One door, which looked as if it led to another closet, merely opened up to a wooden wall. On the wall he’d displayed several NO OUTLET and DEAD END signs. He’d hammered nails into that wooden wall, carefully spacing them like brackets so they held up the signs. He didn’t want any glue or tape compromising the integrity of his trophies. Beneath each sign, he’d written in black laundry marker the dead-end street from which he’d taken it, the cul-de-sac where he’d cleaned a house, as he liked to think of it. He knew it was risky to hold on to such hard evidence, but he was sentimental.

  Beneath the most recent NO OUTLET sign, he’d printed in block letters: LAUREL LANE.

  He didn’t have a dead-end sign from Alder Court in Bellevue.

  That was because he’d never set foot on Alder Court in Bellevue. He didn’t kill those people. It was staged to look like one of his killings. The person who had killed Angela Dennehy, Larry Keegan, and his daughter Taylor may have slit their throats, stuffed each body into a closet, left all the lights on, and stolen the NO OUTLET sign at the end of Alder Court. But it wasn’t a cul-de-sac killing. The murderer of those three people had another agenda.

  Could it be he’d had a personal or professional grudge against one of his victims?

  According to all the early news stories, Larry Keegan had been divorced for four years, and his ex-wife, who had since remarried, was devastated by the news. His business associates spoke very highly of him, too.

  That left Angela Dennehy. He couldn’t help thinking that someone wanted her dead, and then made it look like a cul-de-sac killing. Perhaps Larry and Taylor were just collateral damage.

  The hinges squeaked as he closed the door to his makeshift trophy case.

  As far as he could tell, the police hadn’t yet figured out that the Alder Court murders were the work of a copycat. Right now, he was the only one who knew — along with the real murderer, of course.

  Frowning, he put the padlock back on the door to his trophy case. He wasn’t happy someone had decided to imitate him.

  He’d have to do something about that.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Something hit the side of her car, and Molly flinched. She was driving back from the doctor’s office, and about to turn onto Willow Tree Court. Thwack! It happened again, this time on her car door. “Good God, what is that?” she asked no one in particular.

  She almost stepped on the brake, but a BMW was on her tail, and it was sure to rear-end her. So she kept moving, turning left onto the cul-de-sac. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some movement in the vacant lot at the corner. It was Carson and Dakota Hahn — along with Jill’s son, Darren. The little brats were throwing dirt balls at passing cars. Molly wanted to roll down her window and scream at them, but she was afraid she’d end up with a mouthful of dirt. So she just kept driving.

  The doctor had agreed to squeeze her in for an appointment this afternoon. She’d gone on the sly while Jeff and the kids visited Trish to make funeral plans for Angela.

  The latest cul-de-sac killings had been the top news story since yesterday. So the receptionist at the doctor’s office had taken pity on Molly and not charged her for missing yesterday’s appointment. The doctor had recommended an ob-gyn, with whom Molly now had an appointment in a month.

  That seemed like such a long time away. Molly figured she’d wait until after Angela’s funeral to tell Jeff about the baby.

  As she turned into her driveway, she spotted a woman at her front stoop. A pretty brunette in her mid-thirties, she held a pie in her hands. Her jeans and the clingy waffle-pattern pale blue top showed off her trim, aerobicized figure. She came down the front walkway to meet her.

  Molly climbed out of the car, and shut the door.

  “Are you Mrs. Dennehy?” the woman asked.

  Molly nodded. “Yes.”

  “I’m Rachel Cross, your new neighbor.”

  Molly smiled. “Oh, hello, it’s nice to meet you.”

  “What happened to your door?” she asked, nodding at the car.

  Molly glanced at the dirt smudges where Lynette’s and Jill’s brood had hit the bull’s-eye with their dirt balls. “That’s the handiwork of the little darlings down the block,” Molly explained. “There’s a vacant lot by the intersection at the end of the cul-de-sac, and the kids sometimes throw dirt balls at passing cars.”

  “Sweet,” Rachel said. “Well, I stand warned. I’ll make sure to drive with the windows rolled up.”

  “Good idea,” Molly said. She smiled at her. “I’m Molly, by the way. Is that pie for us?”

  “Yes, it’s apple,” Rachel said. “I made it myself — that is, if removing it from the bakery box and covering the pie with Handi-Wrap constitutes making it.”

  Molly took the pie from her. “In my book, it does, definitely. This is so nice of you. I should be bringing a pie over to you, welcoming you to the neighborhood.”

  “Well, I heard the news about your husband’s first wife, and according to the mailman, her kids live with you now. So — well, my mother always used to bring a pie over to the neighbors if there was an illness or a death in the family.”

  “That’s sweet, thank you. And it’s good to know the mailman has his finger on the pulse of what’s happening around here. Too bad he can’t always get the mail to the right address — which reminds me, I have something for you. . ” Molly balanced the pie in one hand while she unlocked the door. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Oh, thanks,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “But I still have a ton of unpacking to do.”

  “Be right back.” Molly scurried inside the house. She set the pie down on the kitchen counter, then grabbed the mail — rubber-banded together — that she’d gotten by mistake. There were only five pieces of mail, mostly junk; but there was something that looked like a personal letter. She left the door open as she brought it back outside to Rachel. “We got these by mistake last week. They’re addressed to you.”

  “Well, that’s mighty neighborly of you to keep them for me,” Rachel said. “And about that pie, the woman at the bakery said if you heat it in a conventional oven for fifteen minutes before serving, it’s incredible.”

  Molly nodded. “Thanks again, Rachel. I hope you’ll take a rain check, and drop in any time.”

  Rachel gave her a nervous smile and shrugged. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I don’t know a lot of people in Seattle. I moved here from Tampa, Florida. I looked at a map of the United States and figured Seattle was just about as far as I could get from Tampa — and my ex-husband.”

  “Sounds like an interesting story,” Molly said.

  She nodded. “We’ll save it for some snowy night by the fire. Anyway, I dealt with this Realtor over the phone, and he sent me photos of the house over the Internet. I fell in love with it while I was still in Florida. I didn’t hear about these — these cul-de-sac murders until after I bought the house.” She
let out a long sigh. “I’m a little nervous about being alone in a new place as it is. I feel a lot better knowing I have a nice neighbor next door.”

  “Well, vice versa,” Molly said with a smile. “Feel free to call up if you ever get scared or you need anything.”

  Rachel nodded and waved to her as she started down the walkway. “Nice meeting you, Molly!”

  As Molly waved back, she remembered her last conversation with Kay, in which she had promised to be Kay’s Neighborhood Watch buddy.

  Molly’s smile waned.

  Stepping inside, she closed the door and went back to the kitchen. The pie looked pretty damn good. She wondered if she should give in to her craving and have a slice. She was searching through the utensil drawer for a knife when the phone rang.

  Molly snatched up the receiver. “Yes, hello?”

  There was no response on the other end.

  “Hello?” she repeated.

  “Ask him where he really was,” a woman whispered.

  “What?”

  The woman didn’t reply. But Molly heard her breathing — like someone with asthma.

  “Who is this?” Molly asked.

  She heard a click on the other end of the line and then nothing.

  The next afternoon, Jeff and Chris drove to Northgate Mall so Chris could get a decent suit for the funeral. The services were delayed until next week because of the autopsy.

  Molly planned to work on her latest painting, still in the early stages. It was for a national soft-drink company’s print ad. The client wanted an illustration with twenty people, all drinking cola at a party; but each person was from a certain period from the 1920s to the current day. It was to represent the ninety years people had been enjoying that soft drink brand. Molly thought it was a corny idea, but the money and the exposure were good.

  From the basement she’d gotten Erin some watercolors and paper, so they could work together up in her studio. If the phone rang, she’d let the machine answer it.

  She was still a little unhinged by yesterday’s call, mostly because Angela had gotten those strange phone calls not long before she’d been murdered. Molly had told Jeff about it: “ ‘Ask him where he really was.’ What do you suppose she meant by that?”

  Jeff had seemed unfazed. “Yesterday, we got how many hang-ups and how many people calling just to hear our voices? We’re in the news, and we’re in the phone book, not a good combination. We’re going to get some weird calls. You really need to screen them, hon.”

  Molly had taken his advice today. There had been several hang-ups.

  She and Erin were about to head upstairs when she heard shrieking outside. It sounded like Carson and Dakota Hahn.

  Molly peered out the living room window and gasped.

  A man was running up the cul-de-sac with Dakota Hahn in his arms. Screaming and squirming, she was covered with blood and dirt.

  “Stay here,” Molly said to Erin.

  She hurried outside. Next door, Rachel stepped out of the house as well.

  Molly raced up the walkway. She saw Carson and Darren trailing behind the man, crying. They had blood all over their hands. Carson stumbled and fell on the pavement. He let out a loud wail.

  Molly ran out to the street and scooped him up. The sleeve of his jacket was torn, and Molly could see blood. It looked like he’d skinned his arm in the fall. He was crying so hard, he couldn’t seem to get a breath.

  The man holding Dakota swiveled around to face her. He was about thirty, and borderline handsome, with wavy dark blond hair and a cleft in his chin. He looked panic stricken. “Are you the mother?” he asked, over the children’s screams.

  Breathless, Molly gaped at him — and then at Dakota, whose chubby, dirt-smudged face was lined with bloody scratches. She wouldn’t stop shrieking.

  “Are you the mother?” the stranger repeated, louder this time.

  With Carson writhing in her arms, Molly shook her head and pointed to Lynette’s house. “They live over there. What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” the stranger yelled. “I was driving by, and I heard the screams. Then I saw the kids on that lot at the corner, and they were bleeding—”

  “Ye gods, look, he’s got pieces of glass in his hands!” Rachel exclaimed. Hovering over Jill’s son, Darren, she held him by his wrists. The plump, brown-haired six-year-old wriggled in her grasp and cried softly — a miserable staccato moan.

  Within moments, Lynette and Jill ran out of their respective houses, adding to the chorus of screams. Lynette tried to take Dakota from the Good Samaritan stranger, but when her daughter reached up to wrap a hand around her mother’s neck, the glass embedded in her palm scratched her. Lynette automatically recoiled.

  “God, now you’re bleeding, too,” the man said. “Better let me carry her inside. . ”

  Jill looked slightly crazed with her unkempt auburn hair and her too-tight black tee and purple pajama pants. She practically pushed Rachel out of the way to tend to her son. “What happened?” she demanded to know, grabbing him by the wrist. She examined his hands. “Who did this?”

  “We were just playing!” Darren sobbed. “The dirt had glass in it. . ”

  Jill rushed Darren to her house at the end of the block.

  Once inside Lynette’s house, the stranger propped Dakota on the kitchen counter near the sink. Molly sat Carson down in a chair at the breakfast table. She carefully peeled off his jacket and checked the scrape on his arm from when he fell. It wasn’t too bad. She kept telling him that he would be all right, and he calmed down a little. His jacket got the worst of it. Then she looked at his hands. Past the blood and dirt, she could see about three little pieces of glass in one hand, and two in the other. His right-hand index finger had a bad cut on it. “We’ll need some tweezers, Lynette,” she announced.

  Running water over some paper towels, Lynette didn’t seem to hear her past Dakota’s incessant screams. The stranger held the little girl’s arms down while Lynette cleaned off her scratched, filthy face.

  Molly had a pretty good idea of what must have happened. Obviously, the kids were in the vacant lot again, scooping up dirt balls to hurl at passing cars. They must have stumbled upon a patch of dirt with broken glass scattered about.

  Molly glanced over at Rachel, standing in the doorway to Lynette’s kitchen, wringing her hands. “Do you need some antiseptic?” she asked, over Dakota’s sobbing. “I have Neosporin at home. . ”

  Lynette didn’t seem to be listening. She put down the wet paper towel and reached for her daughter. “You’re scaring her,” she snapped at the man. “I’ve got her now. There, there, sweetie. .”

  “That’s Lynette’s way of saying thank you,” Molly murmured to the man. Lynette didn’t seem to catch the remark. Molly led Carson to the sink and ran his hands under the water.

  Lynette turned toward her. “Did you do this?” she hissed.

  Molly frowned at her. “Of course not, my God. . ”

  “You’re always complaining about the kids playing in that lot. Maybe you decided to do something about it—”

  “Lynette, I wouldn’t plant broken glass in there. Give me a break.”

  Yet Molly wouldn’t have been surprised if someone whose car had been pelted by dirt balls often enough had scattered the glass in that spot — perhaps someone on the cross street. Or maybe some slob had just tossed a bunch of bottles out of a car passing by the lot.

  Lynette turned to Rachel and the man. “I’ve got it under control, people. I’m fine. You can go now.”

  “Well, you’re welcome, and it was awfully nice meeting you,” Rachel said, with a jaunty little salute. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

  The blond-haired stranger just looked baffled as he sheepishly followed Rachel out the door.

  “Lynette, that was our new neighbor, Rachel Cross,” Molly said, rinsing Carson’s hands under the cold water. With her fingernails, she carefully picked out some of the bits of glass. The bleeding wasn’t bad, but Carson kept squir
ming. “And the man was a total stranger who stopped to rescue your injured children. He got his jacket all bloody carrying your daughter around, and all you did was snap at him like he was your indentured servant. I know you’re under duress, but really, a thank-you might have been nice.”

  “I’m pretty sure what this is all about,” Lynette whispered, rocking Dakota in her arms. “Well, I’m sorry, but I felt it was my duty to talk to that police detective the other night. I wasn’t looking to get you in trouble.”

  “You didn’t get me into trouble,” Molly said. “So don’t worry about it.” She gently dabbed Carson’s hands with a paper towel. “He’s going to need some antiseptic on this scrape from when he fell. . ”

  “So — you expect me to believe you’re not upset?” Lynette pressed. “And you’re not the one who called me?”

  “What are you talking about?” Molly asked, concerned. “What call?”

  Lynette quickly shook her head. “Nothing, forget it. I–I can carry on from here.” She nodded toward the door. “Thank you, Molly.”

  Her tone sounded more like a fuck you than a thank you. But Molly just let it go. She needed to get home to Erin. She quickly dried off her hands and then headed for the door. Outside, she found Rachel standing at the end of the Hahns’ driveway. “Are the kids okay?” Rachel asked.

  Molly nodded tiredly. “Where did that man go?”

  “Oh, he slinked off into the sunset with his tail between his legs.” She nodded toward Lynette’s house. “Well, I’m not too crazy about her. I can’t believe she actually accused you of cutting up her kids. Who would do something like that? And the other one — with the chubby kid who looks like Pugsley on The Addams Family—she practically gave me a full body check to get at her kid. I guess I shouldn’t judge them during a situation like this.”

  “Oh, you’ll find once you really get to know them—”

  “That they’re both bitches?” Rachel finished for her.

  Molly laughed.