“As I told the police,” Rhodes said. “I didn’t leave the house the night Mark died. Esperanza has verified that. She told the police that she was here all night and so was I.”
“You sure she’s going to stick to that story?” Dooley said. He caught a flicker of something in Rhodes’s face. Doubt?
“Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” Landers said.
“He’s right,” Rhodes said quietly. “Mark knew. He was going to the police.”
“What?” Landers stared at him incredulously.
“He was going to turn us in, Peter. I tried to talk to him. I tried to stop him. That’s all that happened. I tried to stop him and he fell.”
“Fell?” Landers said.
“The cops say he was pushed,” Dooley said.
“He fell,” Rhodes said again, his voice hard. “And if you stay calm, Peter, everything will be okay.”
“First you killed those homeless guys,” Dooley said. “Then you killed Mark. You know what I bet, Rhodes? I bet you have something of his in your treasure chest along with whatever stuff you took from those homeless guys. Am I right?” Another flicker.
‘What stuff?” Landers said. “What does he keep talking about homeless guys?”
Rhodes’ eyes flicked in Landers’ direction. “The less said, the better, Peter.”
“But why Gillette?” Dooley said, except the words weren’t coming out smoothly anymore. He had trouble shaping them around all that cotton in his mouth. “He wasn’t in on it. He didn’t even know you last year. Why did you kill him?” It didn’t make sense. Unless—“You knew Beth wanted me to get hypnotized. You were afraid I’d remember seeing you up there, shoving Mark off that bridge, weren’t you? You sent Gillette to ask me about it.” That had to be why Gillette had approached Dooley at school and asked him what he had seen and whether he thought Everley had been pushed. Gillette was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d probably wondered why Rhodes was so interested. He’d been tight with Esperanza at the party. Maybe she’d said something that got him thinking. “That’s why you invited me to your party. You put something in my drink, and the next thing I know, I’m a suspect in a smash-and-grab—”
“The electronics store was Eddy’s idea,” Rhodes said mildly. “He didn’t like you much, Dooley. If you ask me, he was afraid of you.” The idea seemed to amuse Rhodes.
“The smash-and-grab would have got me out of the way, if that’s all you wanted,” Dooley said. “Why did you kill him?”
“I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill Mark and I didn’t kill Eddy,” Rhodes said, and Dooley had to hand it to him, he was calm. “I have an alibi for both times. Esperanza told the police exactly where I was the night Mark died. And I have half a dozen witnesses for the night Eddy died—we partied pretty late that night, Dooley.”
Dooley glanced at Landers.
“How about you, Peter? What’s your alibi for the night Gillette died? You dropped Megan off at her house, but you didn’t stay with her. Where did you go? What’s your plan, Peter? Are you going to get Megan to lie for you the way Rhodes gets Esperanza to lie for him? What if she won’t? What if her parents were up when she got home or woke up and saw she was there alone? What’s your plan B?”
Landers looked nervously at Rhodes.
“That’s enough,” Rhodes said.
“Look at the pictures, Peter,” Dooley said. “Right there on the bar. Look at them.”
Landers turned to look at the envelope on the bar. Slowly, he walked toward it and picked it up.
“You knew Mark. You knew how he was always taking pictures. Well, he took some pictures a couple of days before he died. They’re in that envelope. Open it. Go ahead. Take a look.”
Landers hesitated but finally opened the envelope. He studied the pictures, looking from them to Dooley and back again, and frowned. Finally he said, “What is this?”
“I figure they’re mementos,” Dooley said. “Those newspapers you see? They both have articles about those homeless guys who were killed.” Landers looked up, confused.
“Guys,” he said. “You keep saying guys.”
“Don’t listen to him, Peter,” Rhodes said.
“Yeah, guys,” Dooley said. “Two of them. One in January, one in March. The animal skulls… well—” He glanced at Rhodes. “I figure Rhodes has had those for a long time. If you look closely, you’ll see a pair of gloves and a hat. I’ll bet you anything they’re from the homeless guys.” But Dooley was watching Landers now, not Rhodes. More than anything, Landers looked bewildered. “See that skull with the gold chain and gold heart around it. Now look at the other picture on the bar, the one in the frame. That’s Rhodes’ sister. Look at what she’s wearing around her neck, Peter.”
Landers picked up the framed photograph and stared at it. Then he looked at one of Mark Everley’s photos. Finally he glanced at Rhodes.
“You know what I think, Peter?” Dooley said. “I think your pal Rhodes got started torturing small animals. Then he moved onto something just as helpless—his kid sister. Maybe that held him for a while, but he had a taste of it. I’ve met a few guys like that, Peter. They’re scary. Once they get a taste, they get off on it. They want more. So he moved up to a couple of homeless guys—I bet you thought no one would care, right, Rhodes? I bet you thought you could get your thrills and no one was even going to notice.”
Landers was still holding the photos. He shook his head. “You keep saying guys, but you’ve got it wrong. It was only one guy and it didn’t happen the way you think.”
“Shut up, Peter,” Rhodes said.
“We were downtown one night,” Landers said. “We’d been out at a movie and then we fooled around and we were on our way home when this old guy came up to us and started to harass us—”
“Peter, shut up,” Rhodes said again.
“He’s got it all wrong,” Landers said. “The guy was in our face. He was hassling us. He was drunk or high or something and he stank. He got aggressive, so Win pushed him away. But the guy kept coming back and coming back. So we—”
“Peter, shut the fuck up.”
“When he was down, we kicked him. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t get up again, he didn’t hassle us anymore, you know?” Landers looked almost sorry. “We didn’t even know the guy was dead until the next day. And then—” He shrugged helplessly. “Nobody knew. Nobody saw us. The cops didn’t have any leads.” He looked at Rhodes.
“Be smart for a change, Peter,” Dooley said. The room was starting to spin. His head pounded. “If you’re telling the truth, undo me, Peter. Undo me and come to the police with me and tell them everything you know. They can make it easy on you, if you were only involved in that one, if you had nothing to do with the second one, and if you cooperate.”
Landers didn’t move. “The second one?” he said to Rhodes. “You killed another guy?”
“The first one probably got him all worked up,” Dooley said. “He probably couldn’t wait to do it again.”
Landers stared at Rhodes. “Two guys?”
“Don’t listen to him, Peter. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Look at the pictures, Peter,” Dooley said.
Landers was staring at them, first one, then another, then another.
“You said Eddy found out. Eddy, not Mark. You said that’s why we…”
Dooley had been fishing when he’d asked if Landers had killed Gillette. But, Jesus, if he really had…
“I don’t know what he told you, Peter. But if you think you’re going to get away with it, if you think somehow all of this…” he nodded around the room, “if you think all this is going to protect you, if you think he’s going to protect you, you’re wrong. He killed Mark—your friend Mark. Look at the pictures, Peter. He killed his own sister.”
Rhodes tensed.
“What are you talking about?” Landers said.
“The animal skulls, the newspapers, the gloves, the hat—they�
�re trophies. Mementos. He probably takes them out and looks at them the way most people look at their vacation souvenirs. He relives the thrill. Why do you think he’s got his sister’s necklace in there with all that stuff?”
Landers stared at Rhodes.
“My sister drowned,” Rhodes said calmly. “It was an accident.”
“But these pictures—”
“Forget the pictures. We got bigger things to worry about, Peter.”
“What if someone else has seen them?” Landers said.
Rhodes and Landers both turned to Dooley. Dooley couldn’t help smiling just a little.
“That dweeb Warren has seen them, but he thinks they belong to Mark. And he doesn’t have copies,” Rhodes said. “We have everything right here. If the cops ask him about them or if he talks to the cops, that’s what he’ll say. That the stuff belonged to Mark and that Dooley here had the only copies. And he—” he nodded at Dooley “– he hasn’t shown them to the cops yet. He hasn’t shown them to anyone yet, have you, Dooley?”
Dooley was sweating now. He had to work hard to stay focused on Rhodes, on his face and on what he was saying.
“Gillette didn’t know about the homeless guys,” he said. “He couldn’t have. But he knew about Mark. Isn’t that right, Rhodes? You sent him to talk to me about what I saw that night. And he knew Mark was here the night he died—Esperanza told him, didn’t she? And then you asked him to help set me up—to get me out of the way. He knew something was up, didn’t he? Did he threaten you or blackmail you?” The room was spinning faster and faster. “Or did you think if Gillette turned up dead, I’d be the natural suspect?”
Landers looked at Rhodes, completely lost now. “What’s he talking about, Win? Mark fell, right? That’s what you said, right?”
“Shut up, Peter,” Rhodes said wearily. He came out from behind the bar. He had a gun in his hand.
Landers’ eyes got big staring at it. “What the fuck?” he said. “You’re not going to—”
Rhodes crossed to the fireplace, took a brass poker from a stand on the hearth, walked back to where Landers was standing, and handed Landers the gun. Landers stared down at it, like he couldn’t believe he was holding it.
“Is this loaded?” he said.
Rhodes didn’t answer.
“Win, you’re not going to—”
“Mark was one sick guy, Peter,” Rhodes said, his voice eerily calm, even soothing. “He told me what he did. He told me everything. I’m pretty sure that’s why he jumped. I didn’t want to say anything—his family has already been through a lot.”
“I don’t get it,” Landers said. He seemed to be struggling now to keep up. “I thought you said—”
Rhodes raised the poker and brought it down hard on Landers’ head. A look of surprise flickered across Landers’ face before he crumpled. Rhodes raised the poker and hit him again, harder this time, it seemed to Dooley, the poker making a sickening sound when it made contact with Landers’ skull. Rhodes hit him a third time and then straightened up and turned to Dooley. He seemed perfectly calm, one hundred percent in control.
“You came here,” Rhodes said to him. “You were completely out of it. I think he must have been on drugs, officer,” he said, as if he were talking to the cops now. “He burst into the house, he was completely crazy, he was making crazy accusations. He threatened Peter. It wasn’t the first time. He and Peter and Mark Everley were in a street fight in the summer. And then he attacked Peter at my party—you can ask anyone who was there. The next thing I knew, he grabbed a poker from the fireplace and he attacked Peter with it. It was awful. He kept hitting him and hitting him. I didn’t know what to do. He was killing Peter. He was doing it right before my eyes. So I ran and got one of my father’s guns—yes, officer, I know it shouldn’t have been loaded, but, my God, if it hadn’t been, I’d be dead by now. I tried to stop him. Honest I did. But after he finished with Peter, he came after me with that poker and I knew he was going to kill me. I had to do it. I had to shoot him.” Rhodes bent to pick up the gun that Landers had dropped.
Dooley staggered to his feet. His knees were jelly, but he managed to stay upright. He charged Rhodes as he was straightening up and heard something—it sounded like an explosion—in the split second before his head made contact with Rhodes’ belly. Dooley went down.
Twenty-Six
You’re not listening, are you?” Warren said.
“What?” Dooley said, turning away from the window because, really, what was the point of looking out anyway? He couldn’t see the street, much less the entrance to the hospital. And even if he could, what good would it do? If she hadn’t showed up by now, she wasn’t going to.
“That’s okay,” Warren said. “I really just came to drop off the card.” The card was enormous. It was made out of construction paper and decorated all over with marking pens and cut-out red hearts. It was from Warren’s sister. “She wanted to come with me, but my mother didn’t think it was a good idea. Don’t ask me why.”
Dooley had a pretty good idea. He had seen the newspaper. Rhodes, who was eighteen, was named in the article. So was Landers, seventeen, dead. Also mentioned were two murders (Mark Everley and Edward Gillette) and that the police were looking into additional criminal acts in conjunction with Rhodes and one of the unnamed youths. Dooley imagined there weren’t a lot of mothers who wanted their daughters visiting someone who had been involved in all that, especially when it was far from clear what “all that” involved.
“Does it hurt?” Warren said, nodding at Dooley’s arm.
“Like a bitch,” Dooley said. Rhodes had shot just before Dooley’s head plowed into Rhodes’ abdomen and just as Dooley was starting to feel that he was losing it. He was pretty sure that Rhodes would have finished him off if his head hadn’t made contact with the granite hearth of the fireplace. “But I’m getting discharged first thing tomorrow, so I guess that means it’s not serious.” He looked at the card that Warren had propped up on the bedside table. “Tell Alicia thanks,” he said.
“Sure thing,” Warren said.
He and Dooley both turned toward the door in response to a rap on the doorframe, and Dooley lost his breath and his heart in that one instant.
Beth was standing there. She was dressed casually—jeans and a soft blue sweater—but to Dooley she sparkled as if she were wearing jewels. She smiled shyly at him.
“Can I come in?”
Dooley started to say, “Of course,” but his mouth was so dry he couldn’t get the words out. In the end, he just nodded.
Warren wasn’t much better. He stared open-mouthed at Beth for a few moments before he finally stuttered a hello. He told Dooley he had to go, whirled around to leave, and tripped on the chair that was standing beside the bed. He grabbed the back of the chair to steady himself, but the chair started to tip over. If Beth hadn’t grabbed an arm to steady him, he would have ended up on the floor. As it was, his face turned crimson, he stammered an apology to Beth—Dooley didn’t know why he was apologizing, but he did understand why Warren was acting the way he was—and stumbled out of the room. After he had gone, Beth turned back to Dooley, her head slightly bowed as if she were afraid to look him in the eye.
“I was going to come sooner,” she said, “but I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me.”
Dooley couldn’t think of a single reason that he wouldn’t want to see her.
“You know,” she said, “because of all those things I said about you and thought about you. And because—” She looked down at the floor for a moment. “They said you were shot. That wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for Mark. I’m sorry.”
Dooley started to shrug, but the pain caught him and he winced. Beth looked even more upset.
“It’s okay,” Dooley said. “I’m being discharged tomorrow. The doctor said it was just a flesh wound—it didn’t hit any bone or anything. Believe me, I’ve been hurt worse.” He said the last part to make her feel better and remembered too late how she felt
about people hurting people and people getting hurt by other people. Jesus, he never said the right thing when she was around.
“I brought you something,” she said. She reached into her purse, brought out a plastic bag from a bookstore, and handed it to him. It was a book—Irvine Welsh. “Your uncle said you like him. It’s his latest. I hope you haven’t read it.”
He thanked her.
“How about you?” he said. “How are you doing?”
She shrugged. Her head was bowed again.
“I feel like I’m mad at everyone,” she said. “I feel like I want to hurt everyone—Win for what he did to Mark. Peter, for doing what he did. Both of them, pretending to be Mark’s friends. Win’s maid.” She shook her head. “I know Mark loved her, but none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for her.”
When she looked up at him again, there were tears in her eyes. She wiped them fiercely away.
“I know you didn’t like Mark,” she said.
“I didn’t know him,” Dooley reminded her.
“But he was trying to do the right thing,” she said. “That’s what the police say. The maid—”
“Esperanza,” Dooley said quietly. “Her name is Esperanza.”
“Esperanza,” she said, trying it out but not liking it. “She told the police that Mark called her and told her she should pack her things, he was coming to get her and take her out of there.”
Dooley nodded. “He wanted to get her out of the house before he called the police. He didn’t want her to get caught up in anything. He was afraid she was going to get deported. He loved her, Beth.”
She looked at him, her brown eyes glistening.
“I should go,” she said.
He wanted to tell her, no. No, she shouldn’t go. She should stay. She should stay forever. But why would she do that? Why would she want to be anywhere near him ever again? Forever and always, he was associated with the death of her brother.
She stood there for a moment longer. Then she was gone.
Dooley’s uncle came by first thing the next morning. He had an overnight bag with him, which he dropped onto the end of Dooley’s bed. He waited out in the hall while Dooley got dressed. He signed the discharge papers and listened closely while the doctor who had seen Dooley explained about wound treatment. He carried the overnight bag for Dooley when they left the hospital. When they got to the car, he said, “You feel good enough to go out for breakfast, or do you want to go straight home?”
Dooley Takes the Fall Page 23