Singer hurried on. “This is what I think we should say. I came about eleven. Johnny introduced us, we talked for a bit, and then he came in here while you made me a sandwich and showed me around. We took the dog out for a minute. Later we came in and found Johnny. We were together the whole time. That will stop the cops from wasting their time on us. How’s that sound?”
Lauren’s forehead wrinkled in concentration and she worried the inside of her cheek. “I could just tell them the truth, just say I was outside.”
“So was I, but wouldn’t it be better if we were outside together? They’ll check our hands to see if we’ve fired a weapon but as long as we haven’t we’re home free. You haven’t fired a gun lately, have you?”
Lauren gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Guns were John’s obsession not mine.”
A little tension left Singer. “I remember he always had firearms, was always taking potshots out the window at mailboxes and signs as we drove from gig to gig.”
Lauren nodded. “That sounds like him.”
“Johnny once got us kicked out of a motel when he shot at a lamp. He missed the lamp and nearly killed the guy in the next room. If the guy had been sitting up in bed instead of lying down, Johnny would have killed him.”
“That’s John, all right.” Lauren’s eyes went back to the office where her husband’s body lay.
“Let’s get out of here.” Singer bent and picked up her backpack. “We’ll call the cops from another room.”
Lauren’s next words stopped her. “Oh my god, what if the murderer is still in the house?”
Eight
Their eyes lifted to the coffered ceiling as if they might be able to see who or what was hiding there.
“How many rooms are there?” Singer asked, still examining the ceiling.
Lauren ticked them off on her fingers as she answered, “Five bedrooms, six baths, kitchen, this room, which is supposed to be the family room.” She pointed to the room with the body before continuing, “John’s office, a media room, studio, living room, and dining room.”
“And I live in a van,” Singer said before she remembered that Beastie might be gone.
“John kept weapons in half of those rooms,” Lauren said.
“Jesus H. Christ.”
“Exactly. If there’s someone else in the house, they have their choice of things to kill us with.”
“We’ll take this with us.” Singer picked up the revolver.
“I’m not going out there,” Lauren protested. “It’s too dangerous. There’s a phone in John’s office; I’m going to call the Mounties from there.” Lauren headed for the office and got as far as the door to the study before she lost her conviction. She lingered with her hand on the latch. Finally, Lauren shoved back the door.
Beyond Lauren, Singer could see John Vibald’s corpse. The smell of it filled her nostrils.
Lauren gave a sharp intake of breath and said, “I can’t.”
“Best not to anyway. The less we touch in there the better.”
Lauren turned away from the body and clamped her hand over her mouth.
“Are you okay?”
Lauren lowered her hand and wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t think I really took it in until now.”
“Shock.”
“It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.” She glanced at Singer. “I was mad when I went in there to speak to John.” The words were said in a tone that was confessional.
“Why?”
Lauren’s eyes slid away from Singer’s. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“Where was the gun?”
“On the desk. I picked it up. I . . . well I don’t know why. I got even angrier because he was dead. Crazy, it was like he’d cheated me out of having my say.”
“Shock is weird like that. Why did you come to the door with the gun?”
Lauren stared down at the body and didn’t answer.
“Were you afraid of who might be at the door?”
Still no answer.
Singer turned away from the repulsive sight spread out on the floor. “We need to phone the police, but let’s do it from another room.”
Holding the revolver in front of her, Singer went towards the hall door and waited for Lauren. When Lauren joined her, Singer inclined her head towards the door. “Open it.”
Lauren scrunched up her face. “But what if . . .” Her wide eyes were fixed on Singer.
Singer pointed at the door with the gun and nodded again. Lauren moved to the side and reached slowly for the grip in the wood panel. Pressed tightly against the wall and out of sight of whatever waited for them, she slid the door back into its pocket.
Nine
A white mop on four legs ran into the room before the door was fully open. Scooting past Lauren, the small dog skidded to a stop and scrambled to turn on the hardwood. That’s when the dog saw the body through the still-open office door, planted all four feet, and began to howl.
Lauren hurried to the whimpering and shaking dog. “Missy,” Lauren cooed, squatting to the animal and stroking her. “Poor baby.”
Singer’s laughter filled the room. Lauren looked up in surprise and then picked up the dog, cradling her pet in her arms, and came to join Singer at the door.
Lauren’s forehead furrowed. “What’s funny?”
Singer tucked a frizz of hair behind her ear. “I never thought it would be something so small. I nearly wet myself when I heard her bark.”
“Missy would never hurt you, she loves everyone.”
As if to prove it was true the little dog leaned out to Singer with its small, pink tongue extended.
They stepped cautiously into the flagstone foyer. A broad stairway climbed to the left. On the right was the front door and across the flagstone floor was a closed door.
Lauren pointed left, down a hall that ran the length of the grand staircase, and said in a quiet voice, “The kitchen has a phone.”
They ran down the hall to the brightly lit kitchen that shone like it had come off the truck the day before, all gleaming granite, stainless steel, and white marble.
Singer turned in a circle, taking in the kitchen. It was outside of her experience of the world. “Holy shit! How many people work here?”
Lauren picked up the phone and began punching numbers before she answered Singer’s question. “Only one, Fern Utt. She comes in every morning for three hours. And her son, Foster Utt, comes two afternoons a week to cut grass and do odd jobs.” She leaned back against the counter and waited for someone to answer her call. “Then of course there’s me, I’m full-time.”
Lauren lifted the mouthpiece from under her chin. “My husband has been shot,” she said and then she began to answer questions.
Singer listened intently to Lauren’s half of the conversation, half expecting Lauren to tell the Mounties about the strange woman who had killed her husband.
“They’re on their way,” Lauren said as she hung up the phone.
Singer let out the breath she’d been holding. Lauren hadn’t betrayed her but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t. “I’m starving,” Singer said. “Mind making me a sandwich?”
Lauren’s face registered surprise.
“You made me one before we went out with the dog. Remember? That’s supposed to be our story. So let’s do that. It will make the account more real.”
Lauren nodded and went to the fridge and started taking things out.
“And where’s the bathroom?” Singer put the revolver on the bar.
“First door on the right,” Lauren said, pointing down a second hall leading out of the kitchen. She started to turn away but stopped. She studied Singer.
Singer waited.
Finally Lauren made her decision. They were strangers but they needed each other. She nodded. “There’s a guest bedroom next to t
he bathroom. You can drop your bag in there. It will look like you planned on staying.”
The musty bedroom had a cold, unused feel to it, like a tourist motel in the off-season. Singer tossed her bag on the peach bedspread. A remnant of good manners said it wasn’t polite to set her scruffy belongings on the pristine cover. She smoothed out the comforter before she rethought her tidiness. The police were coming. Best not have it too perfect. Who knew what they’d check on? She stretched out on the bed, moving her body about to wrinkle the top. She stood up and checked out the effect. She reached into her bag and brought out the man’s flannel shirt, removed cigarettes and a lighter from the pocket, and then dropped the shirt on the bed. It gave the room a nice, lived-in feel, like she belonged here and hadn’t a care in the world.
In the kitchen the smell of coffee filled the room. On the bar beside the revolver was a ham and cheese sandwich with pickles. To Singer this was a feast. The cost of getting to Glenphiddie Island was only slightly more shocking than the price of the expensive ferry food.
“I haven’t eaten since lunch,” Singer said. She didn’t tell Lauren that lunch had been a half-eaten apple and some crackers someone left behind on a picnic table at the ferry station. Life had taught her to take what was on offer before it was gone and being sensitive about other people’s leftovers was a luxury Singer couldn’t afford. Such feelings were for regular folks, people like Lauren, who would find eating other people’s food disgusting.
When the last crumb had disappeared, Singer said, “Mind if I smoke?”
Lauren was polishing the already gleaming granite counter. “It’s your funeral.” She dropped the cloth and reached beneath the sink for an ashtray. She set a garishly painted ceramic ashtray down in front of Singer. “Go crazy.”
Singer moved the ashtray closer. “I think someone potty trained you way too early. It’s given you an uptight, pain-in-the-ass attitude.” Singer pulled a cigarette from the pack she’d stolen off an orange plastic table in the ferry terminal food court. “Are you always mad at the world?”
Lauren sighed. “Sometimes it seems like it.”
Suddenly the sound of sirens filled the room.
Ten
Frozen in place, the two women listened. When the sound faded Lauren said, “You can hear them when they’re right below us but then when they go around a switchback the mountain blocks out the sound.”
Singer exhaled a line of smoke. “How long before they get here?”
“At a guess . . . fifteen to twenty minutes.”
“It seemed to take me a lot longer than that.”
“They’ll have fog lights and they know the road.” Lauren picked up the dishes.
“Leave them,” Singer said. Lauren started to protest, but Singer added, “Part of our alibi.”
“It goes against my nature to leave dishes.” She smiled at Singer. “Besides angry you can add anal retentive to my personality chart.” She slid the dishes back onto the counter. “Just this once.”
“Watch your attitude.” Singer ground out the cigarette. “And don’t make it easy on them. You were here. How hard are they going to look for someone else to blame for the shooting? You’re a rich woman with a dead husband.”
“But I’m not rich.”
“Come again?”
“Prenup . . . if I left him or he died before seven years were up I got a fixed sum of money. It wasn’t overly generous.”
“Johnny never was. The guys in the band always lived on junk food while Johnny ate steak.”
Lauren leaned a hip against the counter. “Yup, that would be the wonderful guy I knew.”
Singer pointed at Lauren with a fresh cigarette. “Now there you go again. Try and be a grieving widow, and it wouldn’t hurt to break open an onion.”
Lauren straightened. “I’m not going to pretend something I don’t feel.”
“Honey, that’s life. Sometimes we all have to pretend something we don’t feel. It’s what my mother would call being nice. Be nice.” Singer lit the cigarette and took a long drag before saying, “Why did you marry him anyway?”
“God, I’ve asked myself that over and over. It’s a long story, but the quick answer is I liked the attention. I thought it made me a someone to be with John, but it turned out being with him made me the housekeeper.”
“Johnny could be charming when he wanted something.” Singer brushed her hair back from her face. “If he wanted you, you didn’t stand a chance.”
“That’s pretty much how it was, but all the charm was gone within months of the wedding. So in place of a life of travel and adventure we hunkered down here, and instead of my life expanding it was cut off and closed in. I wasn’t allowed to change anything in the house. There isn’t one room that reflects my taste because John wouldn’t let me redecorate. Tonight . . . well things happened tonight and I decided that I wasn’t going to let myself be beaten down any longer. I was claiming my life for me.”
“That sounds close to a confession. I wouldn’t share that information with the police.”
“I was only telling you ’cause you asked.”
“Okay, but keep your real feelings to yourself. You went in to see Johnny and found him on the floor with a hole in his head. You picked up the gun out of fear. You were afraid that the killer was still here.”
A haunting wail seeped into the kitchen. Anxiety awoke in Singer. The Mounties wouldn’t get past Johnny being murdered the night a homeless singer, who used to sing with the band, arrived. Along with the wife, an outsider would be right up there on the suspect list, and there were certain events in Singer’s past that would shine that apple for them.
She was well and truly stuck in this shit, and there was no chance of just disappearing, not on a tiny island. She couldn’t just get lost in the crowd and she had no transportation. For now she was trapped.
And there was another problem. Would they search the van? A search of the van would be a very bad thing. Singer’s knowledge of the law was shaky at best, but past experience told her there were two sets of laws, one for upright citizens and one for people like her, and if they thought she was involved in Johnny Vibes’s death, her rights would have nothing to do with what happened.
Lauren had only told the dispatcher that her husband had been shot. Could they convince the police it was suicide? It was possible but unlikely. If Lauren didn’t believe it was suicide no one else would.
Singer studied Lauren, who paced the floor, worrying a hangnail and thinking. Lauren’s shock was being replaced by the reality of a dead husband and cracks were appearing in her tough facade.
Singer was pretty sure Lauren was trying to decide whether to go along with their alibi or dump the murder on Singer.
Had Lauren killed Johnny? Singer’s gut said no and her instincts had kept her alive until now. If what Lauren said was true, there was no financial motive, and when she’d opened that door to Singer . . . well something else was happening there. No, Singer decided, whoever killed Johnny it wasn’t Lauren.
“Let’s go over it.” Singer tapped the ash off her cigarette. “I arrived about eleven. Johnny introduced us, then, after a little chitchat, he went to that room.”
“John’s office,” Lauren added with a nod.
“Right. You showed me around and made me a sandwich, then we went out for a walk with the dog.”
“Why didn’t we hear the shot?”
“Don’t know . . . a log house, wind direction, doesn’t matter; it’s not our problem. Leave that to the police to worry about. The important thing is we take ourselves out of the equation and stick to our story. No matter how they twist it, that’s all we say. We were together the whole time, strangers with no reason to alibi each other.”
Lauren opened her mouth to argue, but the sound of sirens floated into the room again, silencing her.
“Isn’t that a bitch?” Singer s
aid. “So weird, like some wailing phantom flying around the house and circling us.”
Lauren looked frightened. “They’re getting close.”
“Listen, there’s no need to say Johnny wouldn’t kill himself. If they come to that conclusion, fine.”
“But . . .” Lauren stopped, standing straighter and nodding. “Okay. Maybe I’m wrong anyway.”
There were things Singer still wanted to know before she left Mount Skeena. “Where are the other guys from Johnny’s band?”
“Here.”
“Where?”
“Here, within walking distance of this house. Although, like you said, John was always mean. Their houses are about a tenth of this one, and so is their income. John never gave up control.”
“Control,” Singer said softly. “Yes, I remember that. So he didn’t change?”
“Not if he was an asshole when you knew him.” Lauren saw the look Singer flashed her and said, “All right, I hear you.”
“This means you and I aren’t the only ones with motive and opportunity.”
“What motive did you have, Singer?”
“None, no reason at all except I’m here. The cops only need to know that about me.” Her irrepressible grin flashed. “Great timing, huh?”
“You see, what’s worrying me is exactly that.” Lauren pointed her finger at Singer. “You show up and John dies. That’s what worries me. You were here.”
“We were both here. That’s why we need each other, need to alibi each other. No sense in the Mounties wasting time.” Again her mouth turned up in amusement. “Without you as an alibi, they’ll probably think I came here to rob the place.”
Lauren picked up the ashtray. “Maybe you did.”
Singer laughed. “Yeah, that would be me, master burglar.”
Now Lauren smiled.
“You should smile more often.”
“Don’t try to distract me. Why are you here, Singer?”
Long Gone Man Page 3