by Julie Smith
Warren retied me and ate standing at the counter.
“Excellent,” he said. “You pass.”
I nodded, humoring him.
“I think you’re good enough to cook for the whole family. You hungry, Julio?”
Julio shook his head.
“I bet you kids are. And Rebecca’s going to make you a lovely bouillabaisse, aren’t you, Rebecca? Fugu bouillabaisse.”
Fugu, of course, is another name for puffer.
“They say it makes great sashimi. If you eat only that, you’re relatively safe. But you’re going to eat everything—the liver, the skin, the intestines—all the yummy parts absolutely saturated in the world’s deadliest nerve toxin.”
The last of the huevos were disappearing. The man ate like most people breathe.
“We’ll all watch our Rebecca fillet the fish, and then chop the onions and garlic—cooking for the people she loves, just a perfect little … What’s the Yiddish word, Rebecca?”
"Balabosta.”
“And then we’ll smell those delightful smells while it’s cooking. Probably we won’t smell them for long, though, because I bet you all four shit your pants thinking about what’s in store. There are quite a few terrifying symptoms, but in the end, the toxin works by paralysis. You’ll just freeze up, bit by bit, till you can’t move. They say the victims retain acute mental consciousness till the last moment—no coma, no nothing.” He yawned. “Coffee time.”
I hoped that meant what I thought it did. He went into the kitchen, banged things around, and finally yelled, “Esperanza, can you operate this goddamn coffee machine?”
He couldn’t see us. I shook my head at her. “No!” she shouted.
“I can!” I sang out sweetly. To the kids I whispered, “Make noise in about ten minutes.”
He untied me and we went through the watching routine once more. I had to search for the coffee and then struggle to figure out the damned coffeemaker, but he barely noticed, he was so self-absorbed; back in lecture mode.
“The whole thing—the thing with Sadie—was a misunderstanding, you see. But a fortuitous error, it turned out. It changed everything.”
“Right. Now you’re a homicidal maniac.” I palmed another capsule.
“Homicidal, temporarily. But a maniac, no. Ever since that first delicious moment—the moment that opened up the world—everything I’ve done has been supremely rational. Completely logical. Absolutely necessary. And of course, I’ll stop killing after tonight. I would be crazy to think I could keep on getting away with it.”
He scraped up a glob of salsa with a chip, stashed it, chewed loudly. I absolutely couldn’t believe it. The fat slob was eating again. “It’s interesting how these things happen. It’s like it was meant to be, like a portal opens and says, ‘Warren, step through me.’ The portal was Sadie in this case, of course.”
There was a nasty thump from the living room. Not looking up, I dumped powder into coffee, tucked away the capsule halves.
Then I pivoted in the direction of the thump, just in time to see Warren turning back, remembering me too late. He grabbed me and jerked my hair so hard I screamed.
Over his shoulder I saw what Esperanza had done—tipped the chair to which Warren had tied her. Now on the floor, chair and all, she was working at Julio’s bonds with her teeth.
“Naughty girl,” said Warren. “You don’t know how I punish naughty girls, do you? I hurt somebody else.” He gave my hair another yank.
She moved her teeth off the clothesline, but kept her head on Julio’s ankles, that being the closest she could get to a hug, I supposed.
“It’s going to be Rebecca this time—now, what do you think I should do with her?”
No answer.
“Rebecca! Pick that chair up.”
I obeyed, righting Esperanza, giving her a little squeeze of thanks for what she’d done.
“Think about it, Esperanza.” And he took me back to finish making the coffee.
Afterward, sipping it, he said to Esperanza, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to let you take the heat for her. That is, if you want to.”
I shouted, “No, Warren Nowell, she will not! You want to hurt somebody, pick on somebody your own size.”
“By all means resort to clichés, Rebecca. It’ll help the situation no end. You know, we really do have a killer instinct? I’m going to give Esperanza a chance to develop hers.”
“Dear God, no!”
Julio shouted, “You bastard! Leave her alone.”
“You know what’s in the bathroom, Esperanza?”
She shook her head.
“Something I want you to kill.”
Oh, the fish. Not one of us. My heart slowed to only three times normal speed.
But Esperanza paled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He dropped it for a while, letting the suspense build, sipping and talking, killing cookies while Esperanza probably thought of hapless kittens and bunny rabbits hidden in the bathroom.
“I never meant to kill Sadie at all. That wasn’t in the cards even for a moment. All I wanted to do was blackmail her. It all seems so stupid and petty now. I wanted her ridiculous job.”
“But I thought you didn’t,” I said. “I thought you wanted to write a book.”
“I did, of course. I do. And now I can do it. You see what I mean about things working out? I never wanted the stupid job. But Mary Ellen and Katy—and Mother, of course—were always on my back about being director. I thought I’d do them a favor, that was all.” He shrugged, as if homicide were the least he could offer.
“Also, I happened to be upholding the law. You see, sweet Sadie stole the Sheffield Pearl. How, I don’t know—she was probably over at Katy’s one day and lifted it when Katy was drunk. Her office door was slightly open and I saw her holding it up, looking at it with this kind of dreamy smile, and then hiding it in her desk.
“I could have just called the police, but I recognized an opportunity, ladies and gentleman. I’d been hoping for one, thinking about one for so many years. A golden moment that would change my life. And finally one came to me—in the form of a glimpse of a woman looking at a pearl.” He licked salsa from the comer of his mouth, smug as a cat.
“So I took the rest of the day and made my arrangements. Then I saw her go up on the roof with Julio. Naturally I followed and waited. I knew she’d stay there after Julio left—she treated it like her personal veranda. When he’d gone, she unhooked the plastic rope and bent down by the tank. When I came up, she said, ‘Oh, Warren, look at this splendid feather boa kelp.’” He did Sadie in falsetto.
“I whipped out the Polaroid and showed it to her.”
“The Polaroid?”
“Why, yes, Rebecca, the Polaroid. When Sadie went to the roof, I simply sneaked in and took a picture of the pearl lying in her desk drawer. Pretty incriminating, wouldn’t you say? So I flashed it at her. I thought she’d try to grab it and beg for mercy, but she just seemed kind of puzzled. Finally she said, ‘Warren, what’s that?’
“I said, ‘You know perfectly well what it is. It’s the Sheffield Pearl.’” He stowed a cookie. “I said, ‘Look, I've already called Katy. I know it’s been stolen.’”
“And then she did something unbelievably stupid. She said, ‘You mean that pearl belongs to Katy Montebello?’ Can you believe the nerve? The insult to my intelligence?
“I couldn’t handle her garbage anymore. I told her I was prepared to call the police and also to go before the board. But of course, I let her know I’d forget the whole thing—and let her keep the pearl—if she’d resign. That was the whole point.
“She said obviously we couldn’t go on working together. But do you know what she meant? Not the obvious. Not by a long shot. The bitch tried to fire me!
“I mean, can you believe that?” He paused. “I really started to get mad. Where does she get off, I’m thinking, you know what I mean? For Christ’s sake, the woman’s a thief. But she says, ‘Listen, f
or what it’s worth, I didn’t steal that pearl. I can’t tell you why I have it, but it happens to be for a legitimate reason—’
“Oh, sure it was. She either stole it or she received stolen property. What other choices are there?”
We were silent with our own guilty knowledge.
“The bitch had the gall to say, ‘I’m sorry it has to end this way,’ and she started to leave. Then she turned back around and she said, ‘Warren, I’m going to tell you something. I’m really going to go out on a limb, and I hope I don’t hurt your feelings. Please believe me when I tell you that I know this isn’t your fault, I understand that. I’ve felt terrible for you ever since I met your mother.’
“Now you see where this is leading. The bitch! My mother! I just started to see red. I said, ‘Where the hell did you meet my mother?’
“She said, ‘Katy brought her around to some event or other. I’ve met her several times, actually.’ She put a hand on my wrist, can you believe it!” One after another, fat hands moving like motors, he stuffed cookies and chomped, giving new meaning to the term “fast and furious.”
“Can you believe she touched me? In the very act of insulting my mother? She said, ‘Warren, nobody should have to go through what you went through.’ Do you believe it? She didn’t even know my mother! She said, ‘You don’t have to live with this, really you don’t—you can get better.’” He was doing the falsetto again.
“And that was it. After that, nothing but red rage.”
I said, “That was it? You mean you don’t remember what happened next?”
“Of course I remember. I meant that was it for her. What happened was, I slammed her up against the wall of the lab and tried like hell to choke her to death. But the bitch got away and jumped in the tank. She knew I can’t swim.
“But by then the portal had opened. Sure it was the rage that made me slam her and try to choke her, but when I had my hands around her neck, something else kicked in, you know that? Something I wanted all my life and didn’t know how to get. Know what that was, my captive audience?”
Even I couldn’t speak by this point.
“Power. I finally felt power, came into my own power. I never knew what that felt like before. She was in the tank, scared to death… . You should have seen the look on her face. Warren Nowell had the power of life and death over Sadie Swedlow, and she knew it. Can you imagine what an exhilarating moment that was? I was really enjoying myself by this time. That’s what I meant about the killer instinct. We really do have one, you understand? We really have one. And mine had just kicked in.
“She tried to scream, but she couldn’t. At least I think that’s what she was trying to do; she kept looking like she was trying to make sounds come out, but maybe I damaged her vocal cords or something. When she finally spoke, she whispered. She said, ‘Warren,’ in this little whispery, pleading way, and I knew exactly what to do. Apologize. I said, ‘Omigod, Sadie, I don’t know what came over me,’ and garbage like that, all the time taking off my coat and rolling up my sleeves. And I could tell she trusted me again. All those months of knowing one guy, it’s pretty hard to see him as another guy, I guess. She couldn’t know what had just happened to me—all she thought was, I got out of control and then I went back to normal.
“The bottom line is, she let me try to help her out of the tank.”
I spoke quickly to stop him going into the details. “You drowned her.”
He nodded. “I drowned her. And then I tied her arm to the fence to hold her still while I got Marty’s jacket and letter opener, and you know the rest. Except for one thing—I put the pearl in Sadie’s hand and closed it. I thought I had it rigged so the hand wouldn’t open.
“I thought the police theory would be that one of them stole it, the other found out, and they fought over it, but—” he paused, waxing philosophical “—it wasn’t to be. Anyway, all that, of course, was before I remembered Katy knew I knew about it. So I had to kill her, too.”
“But I don’t see why you needed to get the pearl.”
“Because Katy might have told someone I called. And if it were ever found in the tank, that someone just might remember. Now, of course, I can simply put it back in her house—I’ll get my mother to take me there on some pretext—and if anyone ever says anything, I’ll say they must be mistaken. I’m sure you see the problem—I can’t simply go on killing people at random on the off chance she might have told them. Though I don’t know about that maid of hers—”
He was going to kill her, I knew it then. He was going to kill us and he was going to kill her next, and then he’d starting killing people at random, women, probably, and maybe he’d finally kill his mother and then call the cops the way Edmund Emil Kemper had done. Kemper, who was now doing a life sentence, had racked up ten victims, including his grandparents, before he’d worked up the courage to murder the one he was really mad at. And when he finally killed her, he took out another woman as well, bringing his total to twelve. But murder, apparently, wasn’t the whole point: he ground up his mother’s larynx in the garbage disposal.
I don’t know why Kemper popped into my mind—maybe what Warren had said about not killing people at random. The way he said it belied the words. And then when he mentioned Yolie, I knew. I knew that I could blurt out that she didn’t know, that I knew she didn’t know, and it wouldn’t save her—he might even use my words as his rationalization.
Warren yawned. Was the Seconal starting to work? He released Esperanza and then me, using me for his hostage. He took us into the bathroom and gave her the spear gun, making very sure to keep my body between his and the weapon.
Despite old sayings about shooting fish in a barrel, puffers aren’t that big, and Esperanza missed the first time. Warren slapped me a couple of times to improve her aim.
The second time, by placing the point of the spear nearly on her fish, she got one, and it nearly broke my heart that he wouldn’t let me gather her up when she sat down and cried in the middle of the bathroom floor.
But there was a bright side. Warren was so annoyed at the damage caused by the spear, he let her net the second.
I was encouraged by the yawn. When I retied Esperanza, I not only didn’t tie her tightly, I barely tied her at all. He didn’t check the knots.
“I need more coffee.”
Delighted to oblige. I slipped in the third cap.
He sipped and watched me contentedly while I put together a perfectly splendid fish stew.
I filleted the fish, finding the prized liver and guts, then chopped onions, garlic, and tomatoes, just as he predicted, biding my time. He was big and he’d eaten a lot. It would take time, but three caps of the stuff would work eventually. I kept telling myself that. Over and over.
The stew was simmering in a pot, the skillet I’d used for sautéeing still on the stove, Warren sitting on the counter when he began to yawn and blink steadily.
Julio said, “You’ll never get away with it, Warren. What the hell do you plan to do with four bodies?”
“Why, nothing.” He showed us his tonsils, didn’t even stifle the yawn. “You and Rebecca simply made puffer bouillabaisse, and poisoned yourselves and two kids. The reason will never be known.” He shrugged, smiling. He rubbed an eye with his gun hand. The bastard was having the time of his life.
Never even turning my head, taking aim out of the comer of my eye, I picked up the skillet with both hands and bashed the hand holding the gun, still at his face. I swung the hot pan like a baseball bat, swung my whole body with it, hoping to injure both hand and face. The gun flew out of his hand, over the counter, dropping on the other side in the living room.
He could have gone for me, subdued me, and then retrieved the gun, but he was too woozy, perhaps, and I still had the frying pan. Instead, he went for the gun, swinging his legs around and over the counter, dropping off the other side.
It was a smart move. I either had to climb up and drop down to follow him, or go around the counter and into the liv
ing room through the door. I chose that way, and by the time I got there, he was picking himself up, now holding the gun, but he hadn’t yet had the time to wheel around.
“Warren, look out!” Esperanza’s voice was desperate.
He stared at her, and caught a hagfish in the face. Slime hung on him like cobwebs. “Aaaarrrh!”
Automatically his hand rose to wipe off the loathsome mess, and Esperanza threw another. He threw up the other hand to defend himself. And I crowned him with the skillet.
He fell forward. I hit him again, and then a third time, prostrating him. When he was lying on his nose, I hit him again.
“Rebecca?” Esperanza’s voice was small. “Do you want the gun?”
She was holding it with two hands the way she’d seen the good guys do it on television.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“It’s easy to catch a hagfish. They can’t see you coming because they don’t have eyes.”
“Gross.” But Keil was jealous, I could tell.
“Okay,” said Libby. “If it’s so easy, let’s see you do it again. Bet you five dollars you won’t do it again.”
Esperanza’s golden face lit up. “Bet I will.”
Marty said, “Do we have to? At the dinner table? Couldn’t we talk about something else?”
Libby and Esperanza spoke as one, outraged. “But we have to! It’s our therapy.”
“Just not hagfish, okay? The frying pan, sure; shooting the puffer, no big deal, just no hagfish. Please?”
Keil stuffed turkey and dressing into his mouth, but Marty took a break, held her napkin over her mouth for quite a while, finally swallowed, and resumed eating. Slowly.
It was Thanksgiving, and we were all together—all the Whiteheads, even Don; both the Sotos; me, of course; and Ricky. It was our reunion, for all of us who’d been through it, except Ava.
The kids had been rushed into therapy, and from the way Marty was behaving, I thought maybe she’d enrolled herself as well. From her refusal to invite Ava, for one thing. “I’m sick and tired of being a victim. I don’t care if she cries all day and all night. She makes the kids miserable, she makes me miserable, and if we ask her to step back, stop trying to control us, she turns into a martyr and makes us the bad guys. We all end up feeling manipulated, and for once, we’re going to think about ourselves first.”