Carlene Thompson

  "She had a funny way of showing it."

  Chris ignored her. "So we decided she'd have an abortion. It didn't work out the way it was supposed to. Something went wrong. She could never have a baby after that. So you see, I not only had to live with the fact that I'd cheated on you, I had to take responsibility for Lucy's abortion and her sterility. It was just a couple of months after that when Hayley was kidnapped. I felt like it was some kind of retribution."

  "So that's why you wanted me to leave you—because you thought it was fair punishment for what you'd done, what you thought you'd caused."

  He nodded. Caroline stared at him. He looked miserable. She knew he was miserable. But at the moment she could feel nothing for him except contempt. She remembered how happily he'd greeted her and Hayley when they came back from Jamaica that spring. But already he'd been unfaithful with her best friend, who was carrying his child—a child he'd wanted aborted rather than have her find out the truth. And so, those last few weeks of Hayley's life, she'd been surrounded by lies—lies that almost twenty years later could still rock her world.

  "Caroline, I know you can never forgive me, but if you would just try to understand."

  Caroline looked at him coldly. "Chris, I've been trying to understand you for a long, long time. I made every excuse in the book for you. But even I can't live a fantasy forever."

  She set down her coffee mug and numbly walked from the cabin she had once loved, knowing she would never enter it again.

  Chapter 12

  HARRY VINTON WAS zealously attacking the kitchen drain with a plunger when the doorbell rang. At first he ignored it, but when it rang for the fourth time, he flung down the plunger with a curse and stalked into the living room.

  The moment he swung open the door and faced Tom Jerome, he knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

  "Got a few minutes, Vinton?" Jerome asked, his eyes granite gray in the fading afternoon light. "I'd like to ask you a few questions."

  "You already did." Harry's voice emerged loud and strong, although he felt as if everything in his big gut was shaking. "Besides, I'm busy."

  "Then I'll come back." Tom paused, his eyes skewering Harry like a pig bound for roasting. "And I'll keep coming back until I get what I want."

  And he would. Something far back in Harry's mind tolled like a death knell, and he knew it was all over. After nineteen years, it was all over.

  "All right." He stepped back to let Tom enter the living room filled with expensive but neglected furniture. Newspapers lay scattered over a good braided rag, and crashed beer cans littered the early American tables. Lucy would die if she saw nice furnishings abused this way, Tom thought absently. Clearly Harry had decorated the place with care, then stopped caring completely. A shame.

  Harry sank down on a battered wing chair, and Tom noticed the tremor around his mouth. "So what is it you want this time, Jerome?" he asked gruffly.

  Tom didn't ask if he could sit. He stood looking down on Harry. "Why did you suppress evidence in the Hayley Corday case?"

  Harry tried to look affronted: "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

  "No? Well, what about Mrs. Margaret Evans? You know, the woman who spotted Hayley in the back of a Cadillac parked at the roadside rest outside Mayesville?"

  "A crank."

  "I don't think so, Vinton. I think the lady knew exactly what she saw and gave you a very accurate account of it, including the license number of the Cadillac. A brown Cadillac it was, just like Millicent Longworth's. But of course that information doesn't appear in your report."

  "License number, hell!" Harry exploded. "She didn't give me any license number."

  "She says she did. And I believe her."

  "Millicent Longworth didn't even know that kid."

  "Vinton, she lived next door Hayley's entire life. Don't give me any 'she didn't know her' crap."

  "But Longworth was gone the night of the kidnapping."

  "Oh, yes—the convenient alibi. She was visiting Sally Rice." Tom was bending over Harry, his piercing gray eyes above his high-bridged nose making him look like a bird of prey. "Funny, but I discovered that Sally Rice used to work for the Longworths. She was their maid for nearly twenty years. Very loyal to the family. What's even more interesting is that one month after the Corday murder, she moved to Florida into a nice Palm Beach condo. Of course she'd been living on a small pension, but I guess she was really thrifty with her money, right?"

  Harry's throat made a loud gulping sound as he swallowed. "Just what the hell are you getting at?"

  "I'm getting at the fact that you did a piss-poor job of looking for that little girl, even to the point of suppressing evidence. I'm getting at the fact that not long after her murder, you were able to quit the force and dabble at being a PI while living more comfortably than ever. I'm getting at the fact that you were at Millicent Longworth's the night before her murder."

  Harry blanched, his breath rattling. "Who says I was at the Longworth place?"

  "The girl who came to use the phone," Tom said, not feeling a twinge of conscience about stretching the truth. He was working on a hunch and at this point was interested mainly in catching Vinton's reactions. "She's seen you before—she recognized you."

  "That is a goddamned lie."

  "Then what are you so upset about?"

  Harry hauled himself out of his chair, his face inches from Tom's. "How would you like some young hot shit making all these accusations about you?"

  "I wouldn't like it, but I wouldn't go to pieces. Not unless they were true."

  Sweat popped out on Harry's forehead. "What if I was at the Longworth place? She didn't die that night."

  "But the next night she did die—in a fire that was deliberately set. She died handcuffed to the bed. What happened, Harry? Did her conscience finally get the best of her? Was she going to confess to killing Hayley and name you as an accessory?"

  "Get out of my house," Harry spat.

  "Gladly. But I don't think I need to tell you not to leave town. You may have gotten away with whatever you pulled in the Corday case, but you're not going to get away with Millicent Longworth's murder."

  "I did not murder that woman." Harry's voice cracked. "I didn't."

  Tom smiled. "Then you don't have anything to worry about, do you?"

  Harry stared as Tom calmly walked out the door and closed it behind him. He felt rooted to the floor as blood rushed from his head to his feet like lava surging down a mountain. How many times over the years had he envisioned this scene? A hundred? A thousand? So many times he thought that if the day ever came, he'd be cool in his practiced nonchalance. But he wasn't cool. He'd acted like a sixteen-year-old caught robbing the local convenience store—shaking, terrified, guilty as sin. Twenty years ago he could have handled Jerome. Now look at him—a befuddled alcoholic. He'd screwed up bad. He raised his meaty hand to rub the cold sweat off his forehead. Well, this was just great. If Jerome was only fishing, he'd learned everything he didn't already know. Except about Millicent's death. Shit! Arson-homicide. Who would have wanted to burn the old bat? Not him. He already had one death on his conscience—he wouldn't have added a second, even if she'd threatened to tell the police, which she hadn't. But Jerome would never believe that. Hell, nobody who knew about his part in the Corday case would believe it.

  His hands would not stop shaking. A drink, that's what he needed. A good stiff drink.

  He tottered into the kitchen on unsteady legs and opened the cabinet. What would it be? His eyes fell on the half-full bottle of Ezra Brooks bourbon he kept for special occasions. That would do the trick. Twelve years old and mellow, pure velvet going down the throat. He poured a generous portion and with a sigh of pleasure tossed it down. It rushed through him, warm and comforting, and he poured another shot, gulping it as quickly as the first. The third he decided to savor. He'd sip his drink, turn on the tube, and think his way out of this mess.

  Sitting in his big chair in the living room, he aimed
the remote control at the television, not really paying attention as the channels clicked silently by. The evening news on the networks. Cartoons on a cable station, a movie on HBO. He paused at the movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger in something. He kind of liked Schwarzenegger movies. Lots of action, not a lot of stupid romance…

  When he awakened, the room was in total darkness except for images dancing across the TV screen. Groggily he looked at the bottle of bourbon, which was empty. Then he tried to focus on the face of a gilt-and-crystal anniversary clock on the table beside him. It wavered, but he thought the little hand was around nine. He'd been passed out for hours. He tried to get up, then fell backward with the effort. God, he was soused. Paralyzed. Bound to be sick tomorrow. Still, pleasantly numb. He didn't have to think about Hayley Corday or Millicent Longworth or Tom Hot Shit from Chicago.

  Harry groaned at the memory of Tom and gazed at the TV, where a baseball soared in slow motion through the air to slam into the light board. Spheres of light plummeted against the night sky like glowing confetti while music soared in the background.

  "That looks so pretty. I could paint that."

  Harry jumped, the bottle rolling off his lap. The voice hadn't come from the television. It seemed to come from somewhere behind him. But of course he was hallucinating. He rubbed his eyes.

  "Only I'd make it even prettier."

  No, he wasn't hallucinating. At least he didn't think he was. "Who's there?" Harry struggled forward, his big legs pumping up and down with the effort. Suddenly a length of wire slipped around his neck and he was jerked violently backward. The stinging told him the wire was cutting his flesh.

  "Sit still." A kid's voice, he thought in amazement. A little girl holding a wire around his neck. He touched the wire. If this was a hallucination, it was damned realistic.

  "Do you know who I am?"

  "No," Harry croaked. The room was swimming. If he wasn't so damn dizzy and weak, he could get out of the chair, break free of the wire.

  "Don't you remember Hayley Corday?"

  "What is this? A joke?"

  The wire tightened and jerked. "Not a joke."

  Harry felt as if his thoughts were thrashing around, trying to come to some logical conclusion. After a moment he said in triumph, "This is a trick! One of Tom Jerome's dumb shit tricks."

  "You shouldn't say bad words."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "I didn't even know anything about you till I killed Miss Longworth, but she told me how you'd covered everything up, kept it a secret. Why'd you do it? For money?"

  Harry made a feeble effort to push himself forward, but the wire cut more deeply into his skin. Already blood was dripping down the front of his tee shirt. He looked at it quizzically, almost as if it weren't his blood.

  "You killed Millicent?"

  "Oh, yes. And Pamela. I didn't know I'd have to kill you, too." She made a clucking sound of disapproval. "But you were bad just like them, so you have to die, too."

  Harry felt urine wetting his pants and soaking into the chair cushion. Drunk as he was, he knew this was no stunt. Hell, he was bleeding. And that voice! Childish, but deadly. He started to blubber. "Millicent Longworth was crazy. Always had been crazy. I couldn't nail her for the Corday killing, but she did it. You can't believe anything she said."

  "Oh, yes, I did believe her. It makes sense now. It all makes sense."

  In a sudden, groggy panic Harry clawed at the arms of the chair. "You're crazy. You can't…"

  His voice stopped as a knife neatly sliced across his throat, cutting his vocal cords. Blood splashed forward, all over his thighs, onto the braided rug.

  "I have to stand behind you so I don't get blood all over me," the voice explained sweetly. "But don't worry. I know how to cut. It won't take you very long to die." The wire was released and Harry slumped forward. Then a strong hand pushed him from the chair. He landed on his knees and his right shoulder, all squishing into the blood-soaked rug. He managed to turn his head slightly. Moonlight streaming through a window outlined a wavering form beside him. Gurgling, he reached for it, but it hovered beyond his grasp. Dully, he let himself roll on his back.

  He wasn't going to make it, and suddenly he didn't care. Is this the way Teresa felt before the mugger launched his last, fatal stab wound into her heart? he wondered dreamily. Is this the way that kid had felt as a cleaver rose to lop off her head? Well, he wouldn't feel sorry for them anymore because really it wasn't so bad. Kind of peaceful, actually. Peaceful and final. In some ways, it was better than life.

  "Where are you going?" David asked as Caroline drew a black wool-jersey dress over her head and smoothed it across her hips.

  She hesitated, then said boldly, "To Millicent Longworth's funeral."

  "What for?"

  "She was an acquaintance. I used to live near her, you know."

  "I know that very well. I also know you never said ten words to her in all that time."

  "Yes, I did."

  "Let's not split hairs. Why don't you just be honest with me?"

  "I think there's a connection between Millicent's death and everything that's been going on with us the last few weeks."

  "And what good is attending the funeral going to do?"

  "If there is a bouquet of black silk orchids at the funeral, I'll know there's a connection."

  Caroline stood quietly, waiting for David to object. Instead he shrugged out of his blue cardigan and went to the closet. "I'm going with you. Is my gray suit back from the cleaner's?"

  Caroline looked at him in astonishment. "I thought you'd have a fit."

  David turned to grin at her. "Honey, I'm not quite the old fuddy-duddy you've always thought." Then he sobered. "I still think we should leave the investigating to the police, but except for Tom I don't think they're taking our problem too seriously."

  "I didn't think you did, either."

  "I know. You're hurt because you think I don't believe you about the flowers. I want to prove to you that I do."

  Or else you want to prove that they really don't exist and I'm imagining this, Caroline thought. But whatever David's real motivation was, she was glad he had offered to go along.

  Caroline went over to hug him. "David, thank you so much for not trying to stop me. But I really don't want the children to be alone."

  "Why don't you call Lucy?" David tore the plastic bag off his newly cleaned suit. "She probably wouldn't mind baby-sitting for a couple of hours."

  "No!" David glanced at her, startled, and she lowered her voice. "I mean, her mother hasn't been well and I think Lucy was going to see her this afternoon."

  Caroline had not spoken to Lucy since Chris's revelation about their past affair. Lucy had called three or four times, obviously aware of what Chris had told her, but Caroline asked Greg or David to say she was busy and would call back. She knew that someday soon she would have to confront Lucy, but she couldn't do it when she was still so angry. "I could call Fidelia."

  "No. I don't want her left alone here with the kids."

  "Well, where does that leave us? I don't know of anyone else to call on such short notice, and considering all that's happening, I'm not going to leave Melinda in Greg's hands."

  "Okay, I'll stay," David said, hanging his suit back in the closet. "But I don't like the idea of your going to this funeral alone."

  "What can happen with me surrounded by a lot of people? I'll be fine. And you wait and see—this time I'll have a bouquet to bring home."

  It was Sunday and Greg was glued to a football game on television while Melinda sat on the family-room floor cutting out paper dolls. "Where are you going, Mommy?" she asked when Caroline passed through the room in her high heels.

  "To a funeral. I want you to stay here with Greg and Daddy."

  "Whose funeral—and why can't I go?"

  "Can it, squirt, I can't hear," Greg said absently.

  Melinda automatically stuck out her tongue at him and looked back at Caroline appealingly. "Please can I go?
I won't cry or anything. I don't even know who died."

  Caroline dropped a kiss on her head. "I'd rather you stay here."

  Melinda assumed her most long-suffering face. "Okay. You go on and have fun. I'll just sit here with my old paper dolls."

  "Cheer up, kid," David said, walking into the room. "When Mommy gets back we'll go for ice cream."

  "Oh, goody!" Melinda squealed, clapping her hands. This set off George, which in turn set off Greg. "It's impossible to watch anything in this house!" he blustered. "Noise everywhere!"

  "Well, just go to Julie's then," Melinda shouted back. "Big grouch."

  "Good luck," Caroline muttered to David as she slipped into her coat. "I think I'd rather be going to a funeral than hanging around here. At least it'll be quiet."

  Millicent's funeral was being held in the old St. John's Episcopal Church on the west side of the city, the church frequented by most of the town's blue bloods for the past fifty years. Unlike Pamela's funeral, Millicent's drew no crowds. Caroline had no trouble finding a parking space. In fact, if she hadn't double-checked the obituary column that morning, she would have thought she was in the wrong place. Only a handful of cars were parked in front of the church. Caroline noticed a man going around taking license plate numbers and remembered Tom telling her the police did that at the funerals of murder victims, thinking the killer might attend. Probably several plainclothesmen had been doing the same at Pamela's funeral, but in the crush of people she hadn't noticed. As she climbed the steps toward the church doors, she saw only a handful of curiosity-seekers clustered around, studying everyone who passed as if they could detect Millicent's killer.

  As she walked into the cool dimness of the chapel and sat down near the back, Caroline's heart suddenly beat harder. Although she had never been particularly religious, there was something about the soft organ music, the glowing gold cross above the altar, the slant of winter sun through jewel-colored stained glass windows that filled her with a sense of something higher, more powerful than man. Is that power benevolent? she wondered. That seemed impossible in light of the brutal murder of her little girl. Yet here, in this quiet, compelling place, she could almost believe in a God who looked after the floundering humans who were His children, and who had a reason for taking away the innocent ones.