He looked at the man without pity and didn’t hesitate. Swinging a foot back, he kicked Langer as hard as he could, square in the face. The glasses went flying and bones crunched as the creep’s head snapped back and he crumpled to the floor and stopped moving.
Hutch didn’t know if the guy was dead or alive and didn’t give a damn.
Scooping up the switchblade, he scrambled back to Ronnie and began cutting away the tape that strapped her to the mattress. As he pulled her free, she lurched into his arms, sobbing, and he hugged her tight, smoothing her hair.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay…”
She trembled uncontrollably. “Christopher… He took Christopher…”
“I know… I know.”
“Gus said he wanted to help us get out of town. But then he drove me here and left me with that sick fuck and took Chris with him.” The tears were still flowing. “Oh, my God, Hutch. Oh, my God.”
“We’ll find him,” Hutch said, remembering Gus’s promise, hoping that he was a man of his word. “Help me with this mattress.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
He pulled her to her feet. “There’s something underneath it. A gift from Gus.”
She eyed him skeptically, but didn’t protest. They grabbed hold of the mattress and flipped it up against the wall—
—and laying face down on the carpet was a rectangular piece of white paper or cardboard.
Hutch grabbed it and turned it over, expecting to find a note of some kind.
Instead he saw a familiar photograph: the shot of Ronnie kissing him in the back of Andy’s Mustang. The same shot that had been sold to The Gab Bag by one of her neighbors.
Ronnie wiped at her eyes and stared. “What the hell is this supposed to mean?”
Hutch was at a loss, thinking it had to be another of Gus’s games.
But then it hit him.
One of Ronnie’s neighbors.
One of Ronnie’s neighbors had taken this shot.
Hutch knew what this meant. “Find your clothes,” he said, digging into his pocket for his cell phone. “I’ll try to get hold of Andy. We need a ride out of here.”
“Hutch, what’s going on? Where are we going?”
“To your neck of the woods,” he told her. “Roscoe Village.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
THERE WERE NO paparazzi or tabloid reporters camped out in front of the Baldacci home. No news vans parked at the curb. The buzzards had already picked at the carcass, and satisfied that Ronnie Baldacci wasn’t coming home, they’d moved on to the Next Big Story.
For now, at least.
The neighborhood was remarkably quiet, asleep for the night, and as Andy steered his Mustang around the corner, Hutch wasn’t surprised to see Gus’s blue Volvo parked in the driveway of a two-story bungalow across the street and to the left. Judging by the angle of the photograph, this had to be where the photographer lived.
Ronnie shuddered when she saw the car.
“Oh my God,” she said. “He’s here. He’s waiting for us.”
“I don’t think so.” Hutch slipped an arm around her, remembering what Gus had told him. That he would be long gone, off on another adventure.
Assuming the old psycho had told him the truth, that is.
“He just wanted to make sure we found the right house,” Hutch said. “I’m guessing it’s a rental?”
Ronnie nodded. “It has been for years. There’s been a half dozen different families living there. Do you think Christopher’s in there?”
“I hope so, but let’s not—”
Before Hutch could finish, and before Andy could even pull the Mustang to a complete stop, Ronnie broke away, threw her door open, and was out of the car.
“Christopher!” she shouted. “Chris!”
Then she tore across the lawn and Hutch followed, his head once again throbbing as he ran after her.
What if he was wrong?
What if Gus was inside?
As she was about to reach the front steps, Hutch caught up to her and grabbed her arm, stopping her, whispering urgently, “Wait. Wait!”
“I need to get in there,” she said, trying to break free. “Christopher’s in there. I know he is.”
Hutch didn’t doubt her instincts, but if the boy was in there, was he alive? If Gus had done something to him, if Gus had hurt him or worse, Hutch didn’t want her seeing him like that.
He tried to catch his breath. “Just wait here. I’ll check it out.”
“You can’t expect me to—”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Look at me, Ronnie. I’m serious. Let me go in first. If I find anything, I’ll call you in.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then closed it and nodded. She was trembling again, almost uncontrollably. Now Andy was coming toward them, and Hutch gestured to him, sending him a message with his gaze.
Andy immediately moved to Ronnie, putting a comforting arm around her. “Easy now, everything’ll be fine.”
He and Hutch exchanged looks, then Hutch noticed a pile of gardening tools laying in a nearby patch of dirt. Moving to them, he found a rabbiting spade and hefted it, then returned to the steps, nodded to his friends, and started up them.
He checked the door, found it unlocked, turned the knob.
A moment later he was inside the house.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
TWO THINGS HIT him as he stepped inside.
First was the faint smell of chemicals permeating the air, but it wasn’t the mix of disinfectant and polish you might expect in a house like this. He stood in a nicely appointed living room that looked as if it had been furnished and decorated in the 1940’s. But that smell was acrid, pungent, and all Hutch could think about were the many crime documentaries he’d seen on cable TV—and the murderers who used lye or acid to dispose of a body.
The second thing that hit him was the music coming from the back part of the house. Frantic, xylophone heavy—old-fashioned cartoon music—which Hutch hoped was a good sign.
Proof that Christopher had been here?
Proof that he was still here?
Or was he the reason for the chemical smell?
The music came from beyond a doorway to Hutch’s left. Tightening his grip on the spade, he stepped into yet another hallway.
No graffiti in here, just a faded floral patterned wallpaper. He saw the flickering light of a television coming from another open doorway at the end of the hall, and headed toward it, his heartbeat kicking up as he got closer.
But as he stepped inside a small bedroom, relief washed over him. The television played in a corner, the antics of Tom and Jerry throwing light on a bed across the room. And on that bed was Christopher, his tiny chest rising and falling, rising and falling, fast asleep.
Hutch relaxed, knowing now—knowing for certain—that Gus had been true to his word. Tossing the spade onto a chair, he moved to the bed and hefted Christopher into his arms, calling out to Ronnie and Andy as he stepped back into the hallway.
A moment later, Ronnie came running, crying out in relief when she saw Christopher, then pulled him into her arms and hugged him tight.
The boy came awake, staring groggily at her. “Mommy?”
“It’s okay, baby, everything’s okay now.”
“Grandpa Gus said you went away.”
A chill swept through Hutch and by the look on Ronnie’s face, he could see that she was feeling it, too. “I’m not going anywhere, hon. Not if I can help it.”
But Hutch knew this wasn’t over yet. Despite her words, Ronnie still faced the real possibility of going away for a long, long time. Unless, that is, Gus continued to live up to his promise and somehow told them who had killed Jenny.
The answer had to be in this house.
But where?
Andy was the one who answered the question. As he stepped into the hallway behind Ronnie, he sniffed and said, “Smells like we got an old-school camera buff living here. Somebody has a darkroom.”
An
d there it was.
Another reason for the photograph.
Gus had been living here. Gus was the camera buff. And Gus taken the shot of Hutch and Ronnie.
What else could it be?
He had told Hutch flat-out that he liked to watch. And if he and Langer had been watching Ronnie, watching her mother’s house, how many other photographs had the old guy taken?
And what story did they tell?
________
HUTCH FOUND THE darkroom on the second floor. The upstairs bathroom had been converted—foil covering the windows, bottles of photo chemicals lining the counter, wash trays, tongs, an enlarger in the corner. There was even a laptop computer and a scanner for digitizing the prints.
Gus was old-school, all right.
The room reeked of chemicals, and Hutch had to cover his nose as he stepped inside and flicked on the light. He hadn’t wanted Christopher to see whatever was in here. And even though Ronnie was reluctant to confront her mother after their altercation in his apartment, he’d sent her and Andy across the street to wait for him.
But to be honest, Christopher was just an excuse. If Hutch really was about to find evidence pointing to Jenny’s killer, he preferred to do it alone. She was never far from his mind—hadn’t been for nearly a decade—and he wanted this moment to himself.
He had earned it, as Gus would say. His throbbing skull told him that much.
But as he looked around the room, disappointment began to weigh him down. He had hoped to find a string of photos pinned to the line above the wash trays—a message from Gus.
But it was empty.
He quickly checked through the vanity drawers and found nothing but more developing tools. But then his gaze was drawn again to the laptop. It sat there in the corner, next to the scanner and enlarger, its lid down. If Gus had digitized one of the photographs to send to The Grab Bag, could he have digitized them all?
Stepping over to the computer, Hutch lifted the lid and heard the hard drive whirr to life. The screen brightened and a screensaver filled it—a line of scrolling white text against a blue background that read:
The simplest explanation is usually the right one…
Gus’s message. No doubt about it.
Hutch touched a key and the screensaver went away, showing a slideshow application, a single photograph centered on the screen:
—Ronnie standing in her mother’s driveway, holding Christopher high in her arms, both laughing uproariously.
Hutch tapped the touch pad and navigated to the next photo:
—Ronnie, Christopher and Lola in the front yard, Christopher clinging to his grandmother’s legs, Lola eyeing her daughter with her usual disapproving scowl.
And the next photo:
—Lola and Christopher on the porch, Ronnie on the walkway, talking on the phone.
And the next, this one a night shot:
—A dark figure leaving the Baldacci house, wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. The same sweatshirt Abernathy had held up in court. The one they’d found covered in blood.
Hutch paused. Didn’t like what he was seeing. He waited a moment, then tapped the touchpad and moved on to the next photo, which showed a change of view, this one a grainy night shot through a car windshield:
—Two women standing in a vacant lot, lit only by a nearby streetlight. Too far away to be identified. One wearing a business suit, the other in jeans. And that sweatshirt.
Hutch’s gut clinched up. So here it was.
Sucking in a breath, he tapped the touchpad and moved on to the next photo:
—A closer view of the two women, the one in the suit clearly identifiable as Jenny, the other with her back to the camera, hood covering her head.
Was it Ronnie?
Could it actually be Ronnie?
Hutch’s stomach rolled as he thought about her attempts to manipulate him, the bruise on her mother’s head, her dead ex-husband, the attempt to flee the country…
Were these signs of guilt after all?
Was this the surprise Gus had promised?
Hutch’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding. He looked at Jenny’s face, at those eyes, his gut aching in a whole new way.
His finger hovered over the touchpad… then he tapped it again:
—A wider shot of the two women. Jenny on the ground now, arms thrashing, the other woman crouching over her, a blade flashing in her hand. Blood everywhere.
Hutch swallowed, suddenly sick to his stomach.
Gus had watched a woman die—the woman Hutch had loved—and had done nothing to stop it. And now that Hutch had come this far, he almost wished he hadn’t. Wasn’t sure he wanted to see what came next.
Maybe he didn’t want to know who the woman in the hoodie was.
Maybe the truth would turn out to be inconvenient.
Maybe he had invested too much time and money and a good part of his soul into a lie.
Pushing past his trepidation, he let his finger hover again, then finally tapped the touchpad, bringing the next photograph into view:
—A close-up of the killer crouching over Jenny’s body, a bloodied broken scissor blade in hand, her face turned toward Gus’s camera, unaware of his presence, and clearly visible in the streetlight.
And Gus had been right. Hutch was surprised by what he saw, the phrase Dysfunction Junction once again springing to the front of his mind.
But he also felt such a feeling of relief that he could barely contain himself. Because it wasn’t Ronnie in the photograph.
It was Lola.
Lola Baldacci.
She had killed Jenny. She had set her own daughter up—the phone calls, the dog hairs, the bloody sweatshirt, the broken scissors.
Hutch stood there, trembling, trying to wrap his head around this revelation, trying to figure out why Lola would do something so heinous to her own flesh and blood…
And for the second time that night, he heard Ronnie scream.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
THE TABLOIDS HAD a field day. Called her Looney Lola, the doting grandmother who wielded a deadly knife in the dark of night.
Or something along those lines.
In the aftermath of it all, Hutch didn’t care what the vultures had to say. His only concern was Ronnie, who, for the second time in her life, had walked into a room to find that someone she loved had taken—as Ronnie herself put it—the express route to heaven.
Or maybe hell in this case.
Dysfunction Junction.
When she and Andy first stepped into Lola’s house, Ronnie had been nervous, their confrontation still weighing on her mind. She hadn’t meant to hurt her mother. Lola had stumbled as Ronnie wrenched Christopher away from her and had hit her head on a low-hanging lamp. The last time Ronnie had seen her, she was sitting on the sofa holding her forehead with her hand.
So Ronnie had no idea what she was walking into. She had seen a light in the kitchen, and thinking Lola must be awake, had handed Christopher over to Andy. Then she took a deep breath and crossed through the living room, surprised her mother hadn’t heard them come in.
As she called out, however, she got no response, hearing only an odd thrashing sound, as if someone were tossing and turning in bed.
“Mom?” she called again, but still got no answer.
She stopped when she stepped through the doorway. Found Lola hanging by a short rope from the light fixture, her face blue, her eyes bulging, her body still swinging.
Ronnie screamed, shot forward, grabbed a kitchen knife and cut her mother down, shouting for Andy to keep Christopher out of there!
Keep him out!
But it was too late for Lola. She was beyond help. Had died right there on the floor. Died in her daughter’s arms.
And the note they found on the kitchen table read:
You left me no choice
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
“I DON’T GET it,” Monica said. “Why would Ronnie’s mother do that to her? Why would she set her up like that?”<
br />
They were all sitting at their usual table at The Monkey House, Ronnie conspicuously absent, Hutch once again back to his root beer regimen, now two weeks sober after resetting the clock.
“She wanted Christopher all to herself,” Matt said. He had brought along a friend—a desk clerk he’d met at the Dumont Hotel, who seemed very much enamored with him. “She had always blamed Ronnie for the death of her own son, and I guess she figured this was her way of getting him back and getting rid of the ‘rotten’ one at the same time.”
Tom shook his head sadly. “In a way the cops weren’t too far off. It turned out to be a custody case after all, and Jenny had the misfortune to get in the middle of it.”
Matt nodded. “When Ronnie complained to her mom that Jenny’s firm was representing her ex-husband, Mom must’ve seen it as an opportunity.”
“Looney Lola indeed,” Andy said.
“But what about Ronnie’s ex?” Monica asked. “Was that Lola, too?”
Matt nodded again. “That seems pretty likely. The cops found search records on the computer in her bedroom related to murder for hire, so they’re thinking she must have arranged a hit. And if Ronnie was convicted, Lola would be free and clear to take custody of the kid. They’ll know more when they find a shooter.”
“If they ever do,” Hutch said.
Nadine, who had decided to join them at their invitation despite her lingering feelings of guilt and humiliation, studied her rum and Coke morosely. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve certainly learned a lesson from all of this.”
“And what’s that?” Hutch asked.
“Never ever ever jump to conclusions.”
“Amen,” he said.
A-fucking-men.
________
HUTCH PUT RONNIE and Christopher on a plane to Italy that night.
After spending the last two weeks at Hutch’s apartment, fending off calls from the media, Ronnie had decided she needed to get away for a while, just her and Christopher. Fortunately, they both had passports they’d gotten for a trip to Canada a few years back.
Hutch had agreed to send them to a small villa he’d rented, with a promise to join them whenever Ronnie was ready.
Mortal Crimes 1 Page 183