by Tami Hoag
He let the last shred of the Mr. Nice Guy act fall away. “That’s the flip of the switch that sets you off and makes you think you can scream at people and threaten them, and be a Class A bitch to anyone who crosses you.”
Her jaw dropped, astonished anyone would speak to her that way. “I beg your pardon?” she said again.
“You don’t want my pardon,” Vince scoffed. “You want to kick me in the balls right now, don’t you? Because I won’t do what you want, and I won’t believe what you want me to believe just because that’s your agenda.
“I’m bigger than you, and meaner than you, and I’m not going to take your bullshit,” he said. “I’m not some little fifth-grade teacher you can push around and try to intimidate.”
Janet Crane’s face was nearly purple, her eyes popping. Vince expected her hair to stand straight up. She pointed to the door.
“Get out! Get out of my house!”
Vince laughed at her. “Or what? You’ll call a cop?” He hooked a thumb at Mendez. “I brought a cop with me. Where’s your witness? Who’s going to testify on your behalf? The child you drugged to make him sleep so he won’t bother you?”
She turned on Mendez. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
Mendez was the picture of disinterest, so unconcerned with her needs he couldn’t be bothered to raise more than one shoulder to shrug. “He outranks me.”
“I’m calling my husband,” she announced, storming down the hall to a beautiful study with two desks and white bookshelves that climbed to the ceiling.
“So you do know where he is,” Vince said.
She glared at him as she snatched up the receiver of the phone. “He has a cellular telephone in his car.”
“Really? What for? So he can be available for all those urgent emergency teeth cleanings?” Vince asked. “That’s an extravagant toy—”
“So what?” she snapped back at him, punching numbers.
“So he works all day in an office ten minutes away from here. Why does he need a cellular telephone? You’re telling us he rarely leaves the house if he’s not working. When is he not at your beck and call?”
“But he’s not here now,” Mendez pointed out.
“True,” Vince said. “But I doubt he and his cronies are playing cards in his car, and why would he lug that phone into his card game with him? You have to carry the damn things around in a suitcase.”
“Doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Mendez agreed. “Unless he’s just that whipped.”
“Is that it?” Vince asked, depressing the plunger on the phone and disconnecting her call. “Do you have your husband that cowed, Mrs. Crane?”
She was so angry now there were tears in her eyes and her mouth was quivering as she tried to hold back the vitriol she wanted to spew at him. She made a strangled gurgling sound in her throat.
“Because that kind of domineering, controlling behavior can create some pretty nasty recoil on the other end of a relationship,” Vince said.
“Edmund Kemper,” Mendez offered.
Vince nodded. To Janet Crane he said, “Edmund Kemper endured so many years of domination by his mother, he ended up murdering college coeds and cutting their heads off to relieve his psychological pressure.”
“My husband is NOT a MURDERER!” she screamed.
“You’re that sure?” Vince asked quietly. “He was the last person to see Karly Vickers the day she disappeared. He knew Lisa Warwick from the Thomas Center. And it turns out he was arrested in Oxnard for soliciting Julie Paulson for sex. Those women are all dead or missing.”
Janet Crane slammed the receiver down on the phone and stood absolutely rigid beside the desk. “You’re lying. My husband is a pillar of this community. He is well respected. He is admired. He is the perfect husband and father.”
“Is he?” Vince said. “Because down in Ventura County he’s just another john that comes to Oxnard to fuck hookers.”
“That’s outrageous! How dare you say that!”
“And if I opened one of his desk drawers here and showed you newspaper clippings from all three of these cases, what would you say then, Mrs. Crane?”
“Get out of my house,” she said. “Get out of my house or I’m calling our attorney.”
Vince exchanged a look with Mendez.
“You’d better be on good terms with that attorney,” Vince said. “You never know how soon you might need his services.”
He let the silence between them hang for a moment. She was breathing hard, starting to hyperventilate. Even clenched into fists at her side, her hands were shaking. Good.
“Think about that, Mrs. Crane,” he said quietly. “Every time he’s out of your sight. Every time he doesn’t answer that cellular telephone. Every minute he doesn’t have to listen to you harping and harping and harping. Where is he? Every time he brings you a little gift of jewelry, where did he get it? Every time he goes out to be a part of the search for Karly Vickers or man the phones on the hotline. Why is he really doing that?”
She said nothing, just continued to stare at him, glassy-eyed and trembling with rage.
“One more thing,” Vince said, taking a step toward her, and then another. He lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “If I hear you’re trying to take your son out of Anne Navarre’s class, or that you’re going to sue her, or that you accosted her on the street, you’ll answer to me, Mrs. Crane.
“All I have to do is make one hint to a reporter that you know something you shouldn’t about that murder victim in the park, or that your husband has a predilection for prostitutes, and all that status you prize so highly comes tumbling down,” he said.
“You’re threatening me?”
“No,” he said, taking another step into her personal space, leaning toward her so that she had to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. “I’m telling you how it is. I’m the big dog in this fight, Janet. Don’t piss on my fences.”
He didn’t wait for a reaction from her. He had accomplished exactly what he had set out to do. How she reacted now was irrelevant. He turned his back on her and walked out.
He didn’t realize how hot he’d gotten until he stepped out into the cold. He was sweating and breathing hard. He felt more than a little primitive. The male of the species defending his mate, testosterone running like a flood through his veins. His pulse pounded in his head, and he worried for a second he might have a stroke.
Jesus H.
When they reached the car, Mendez opened his door and paused to look across the roof at him.
“Man, just so you know,” he said. “I am NEVER getting on your bad side.”
Vince forced half a grin. “Like we say in Chicago: She had it coming.”
49
As Detective Mendez and the other man went out the door, Tommy scurried back up the stairs—just far enough to be out of sight. His heart was beating so fast he thought it might burst and send blood gushing everywhere.
His mother would be mad at him then for getting blood all over her carpet. Everything about their house belonged to her.
Don’t get blood on my carpets.
Don’t spill juice on my clean floor.
Don’t get dirt on my sofa.
A lot of the time he felt like he and his dad didn’t belong there at all.
He sat now on the stairs just out of reach of the light from below. He was shaking and scared and mad all at once. He had so many crazy, mixed-up feelings tumbling around inside of him he thought he might throw up again.
This had been the worst night of his life. Worse even than finding the dead lady, though he couldn’t help thinking if he hadn’t fallen on the dead lady none of the rest of this would be happening.
His mother had exploded over Miss Navarre asking him questions. Miss Navarre was no friend to him, his mother had told him. She was a lot of bad names Tommy would have gotten his mouth washed out with soap for using.
And he was in trouble too—for answering Miss Navarre. But what else was he supposed to
do? She was his teacher and she asked him a question. And why was it such a bad question anyway?
Because Miss Navarre was practically accusing his dad of being a serial killer.
Tommy didn’t believe that, but what if she was? Then he would feel like Miss Navarre had betrayed him. That idea hurt him like getting cut with a knife.
He wished he could talk to Miss Navarre now. She was smart and caring, and usually knew what to do. She kept telling him she wanted to help him, that if he needed to talk about anything, anything at all, he should call her.
He wanted to call.
He was scared to call.
She had said to call. Anytime.
He thought of all the times this week Miss Navarre had been there for him, to help him, to comfort him. And even though he was kind of in love with her, he knew the way she treated him was more like if she was his mother.
How he wished he had a mother like her, or like Wendy’s mom. Mrs. Morgan was always full of smiles and laughter, and she hugged and kissed everybody for practically no reason at all. That was what a mother should be like, he thought, and then felt guilty. His mom was a very unhappy person, and he should be sad for her. She told him that herself every once in a while when she was in one of her blue times.
Lately she was on the rampage more often than not. She had carried on for a long time before dinner, mad at Tommy, mad at his father. Then she wouldn’t speak at all during dinner. She clanked her silverware together and against her plate like she was angry at the tuna casserole. She sighed and tsked over and over, waiting for someone to ask her what the matter was. No one did. Both he and his dad knew if they asked her, she would go off again.
When they were finished with dinner she ripped the plates off the table and practically threw them in the sink. Then his father had made the huge mistake of telling her to calm down because it didn’t matter what Miss Navarre thought.
Oh, brother! That had set her off. What was wrong with him? How could he think it didn’t matter? Why wouldn’t he stand up for himself, for her, for HIS FAMILY!
It was never a good thing when his mother started speaking in capital letters and exclamation points. That meant she would keep going for a long time.
And she had.
His dad had finally had enough and just walked out of the house, got in his car, and drove away, leaving Tommy alone again to deal with his mother. That wasn’t fair to him. He was just a kid, after all. Even grown men were afraid of his mother.
She had gone into one of her hyper moods and dragged him downtown and paraded him around like a prize dog. She went from being so angry to being too happy to see people, too eager to show him off as her perfect son.
That always made Tommy uncomfortable. He was sure people looked at him and figured he was a dork for going along with it.
And then she had gone off on Miss Navarre. Right on the street with people all around. By that point Tommy had been so tired and confused and had listened to so much of his mother’s ranting, he didn’t know what to think.
What he had known was that he didn’t want to be there. He was embarrassed and hurt and mad and wanted to run away and go join someone else’s family.
When they got home he had been sent immediately to his room to put his pajamas on. Then he had to take the allergy medicine, sickeningly sweet and purple, and he was so stupid that he had told his mother he didn’t want to take it. She had screamed at him so loud it hurt his ears.
In the end, he had taken the medicine, but as soon as she had gone out of the room Tommy had gone back into his bathroom and stuck his toothbrush down his throat until he threw up.
Now he wished he had taken it after all and that he had slept through everything that just happened.
When he heard the voices downstairs he had crept down the steps to see what was going on. The bigger, older man was from the FBI! The FBI had come to his house to ask questions about his father. And Detective Mendez too.
Tommy had listened as the FBI man had made his mother angrier and angrier. She had lied and told him Tommy’s father was playing cards. She sure wouldn’t have told him the truth, that she was such a terrible person his father could only take so much of her.
When they had all disappeared down the hall, Tommy had hurried down the upstairs hall and down the back staircase, through the kitchen to the little bathroom that shared a wall with the study. There he had sat on the toilet, listening to everything that was said.
It was terrible. The FBI man believed his father was a killer. His dad was no serial killer! His dad was the best dad in the world. So what if he had been the last person to see that lady? Someone had to be the last person to see her before the kidnapper got her. And besides, his dad had been home that night.
Tommy hadn’t been very sure of that before, but he was sure now. His dad had come home and they had played catch in the yard, and they watched Cosby together and had fun, and it was the best night. That’s how he remembered it now, and that’s what he was going to tell anyone who asked him—even the FBI.
Wendy stood in the dining room, pressed up against the wall next to the French doors that went into the living room. No one knew she was there. It was dark in the dining room, and her parents believed she was asleep upstairs. They were too wrapped up in their argument to notice anything else anyway.
Adults were foolish, she had decided. Or naïve—that was a word Tommy had taught her. They thought they could put on nice faces and phony voices and make a kid believe anything. That was about as stupid as she had been when she was little and believed if she pretended to be a cat, she would actually look like a cat to people watching her.
She listened now to the things they said to each other. Hurtful things. Sad things. Things that would add up to nothing good.
“What do you want me to do, Sara? Go to a hotel? This is my home. You’re the one who’s not happy. Why don’t you leave?”
“You’re the one who’s cheating—”
“That’s bullshit! You don’t trust me. How hurt do you think I am? You think you’re the wounded party here, Sara. What about me?”
“You’re the one the detectives are asking questions about! How well did you know Lisa Warwick? Where were you when that other girl went missing?”
“So you just go ahead and believe I’m a killer?”
“I don’t! But—”
“That’s insane! They’re asking questions because they don’t have the answers! It’s called an investigation. That’s what they do.”
“I know you had feelings for Lisa. I know she had feelings for you—”
“So you think I had feelings for her, that I was cheating on you with her, but I also murdered her? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Nothing makes sense! We had such a good thing. We had such a nice family—”
“We still do if you would stop being such a crazy jealous bitch!”
“Stop it!” Wendy shouted, running into the living room. “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop fighting!”
Stunned to silence, both of her parents stared at her.
“You’re never here, Daddy!” she said, then turned to her mother. “And when he’s home all you do is fight! Stop it!”
Her mother put her face in her hands and started to cry. Her father looked from one to the other of them.
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said to Wendy. “But I think it’s better if I just go tonight. Maybe you can talk some sense into your mother.”
Wendy’s mom looked up at him, shocked and angry. She got up from the sofa and walked right up to Wendy’s dad.
“How dare you do that to your daughter,” she said, her voice tight and controlled, the way it got when she was really mad. “How dare you?”
Her father got a hard, cold expression that scared Wendy deep inside. “It takes two, Sara. Think about that.”
He turned and walked out of the room. A minute later, the front door slammed. And just like that, he was gone.
50
“What
the hell is the matter with you?”
Dennis could hear his father’s voice as soon as he snuck in the back door. It was like he had hit the Pause button on his way out. His parents were still having the same conversation they had been having when he had snuck out of the house earlier.
He had somehow managed to slip away from the supper table without attracting his father’s attention, which had been a minor miracle—especially because his stupid sisters weren’t there for a distraction. They had gone to the football game at the high school and then to a sleep-over. Stupid lucky cows. Dennis couldn’t imagine why they had friends and he didn’t. They were so stupid.
Anyway, Dennis had managed to slide out of his chair and out of the room without attracting attention. His father was too busy going on about how he was being betrayed at work, and how Dixon didn’t appreciate him. He seemed to be just talking out loud, like he was trying to figure it all out, and it didn’t really matter if anyone was listening or not. Then every once in a while he would direct something at Dennis’s mother, and she would have to say something to prove that she was paying attention.
Dennis had gotten enough of his father’s attention the night before, getting punished for taking the finger to school. His dad had been furious about that. Dennis had embarrassed him and made him look bad at work.
He had made Dennis take off all his clothes except his underpants and stand in the corner of the dining room while everyone else ate dinner.
“You humiliated me,” his father said. “Now I’m going to humiliate you.”
He had been made to stand there for hours, until he had to go to the bathroom so bad he wet his pants.
After he cleaned up the mess, he had been sent to bed. He had waited until he got checked on, then climbed out his window and down the oak tree that grew beside the house.
He spent hours looking in people’s windows. They never saw him, but he saw them do all kinds of things. It was like having his own television with no channels he wasn’t allowed to watch. Mostly he looked for bedroom windows where he watched girls and ladies take their clothes off. He liked to look at their boobs, all different shapes and sizes.