by R. G. Belsky
The house of Mrs. Charles Matheson, who used to be my wife Susan Dougherty.
Susan had lived a lie for a long time, and now it was finally all going to end.
I squealed to a stop in front of the house, jumped out of the car, and ran up across the lawn to the front door. Susan must have heard me coming. She opened the door before I got there.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“The police will be here soon,” I said.
“You called them?”
“Dennis Righetti. He’s an old friend of mine.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want anyone else killed.”
“I didn’t kill any of those people,” she said. “I told you that.”
“I know what you told me.”
“But . . .”
“We better go inside,” I said.
I went over it all in the living room. Everything I’d found out that day. She didn’t ask me any questions. She didn’t interrupt. She seemed to be in a state of shock.
“The thing is,” I explained, “David Galvin has a disciple. Someone he convinced to finish the job for him before he died. This person has become a killing machine just like Galvin was. Murdered Dodson, Hiller, Franze, Whitney Martin, John Montero—and probably Montero’s two accomplices in his little scam with me too. There’s two names left for the killer—you and Lisa. Lisa’s got more protection than money can buy. I figure you’re an easier target right now.”
“Do you think someone like that would be able to find me?”
“I found you.”
A frightening thought suddenly came to me.
“The killer doesn’t have to find you,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I may have already led the killer right to you.”
I got up and looked out the window. Everything on the street was quiet. No sign of anyone there.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said. “Before it’s too late.”
“It already is,” a woman’s voice said.
But it wasn’t Susan. The speaker was in the living room with us. I don’t know how long she’d been in the house. I realized that she’d probably followed me on my whirlwind trip up from the city. She wouldn’t have had any trouble keeping up with me. Because she drove even faster than I did.
She looked manic and jittery and kind of crazy, but then she always did.
I just never knew why.
Now she was standing there pointing a gun at me.
Bonnie.
Chapter 70
“You were right about me the first time, Joe,” Bonnie said. “But you let me talk you out of it. I really had to think fast to come up with all the answers on Hiller and Dodson. The wedding I was supposed to be in. That anonymous phone call about Hillsdale I said they had a record of at the switchboard. If you’d checked, you’d have found none of it was true. But you never did. Not very good reporting, partner.”
“I believed you,” I said.
“That was your big mistake.”
“You killed them all, didn’t you?”
“That I did.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“John Montero,” I said.
She nodded. “He ruined my life.”
Bonnie was the little girl in the story. The one about the man who was found in the East River after he refused to sell his company to the Montero Corporation. I finally realized it when I’d looked closely at that old picture of Edward Findlay’s family.
“My mother committed suicide about six months later because she just couldn’t go on anymore,” Bonnie said. “I was sent to live with some foster family named Kerns, which is where I picked up this name. My foster father sexually abused me all through high school. I hated him, I hated them—I hated their name. I kept using it though because it was a reminder of what John Montero had done to my family. Then one day I decided to do the same thing to him. Take away his family. One by one. First I killed the brother. Then the mother. Lisa was supposed to be next, but that got screwed up. It still would have worked if she’d gone to jail. Then, after you got her off, I decided to go right after Montero. That just leaves Lisa. I’ll go see her after I’ve finished here with you two.”
“Why us?” I asked. “Why the others like Hillman and Dodson? We didn’t have anything to do with your father’s death.”
“You’re talking too much,” she said. “Sit down over there. Next to your wife. Or your ex-wife.”
I sat. As I did, I looked over at Susan. I thought she’d be scared. She was, but not just by the gun pointed at the two of us. She kept staring at the front door. At first I didn’t know why, but then I remembered about Joey. It was close to four o’clock, and Joey would be coming home from school soon. He’d come bouncing in through the front door, yell out a greeting to his mother, and then . . .
“The police are on their way,” I said to Bonnie.
“Nice try,” she smiled.
“I called them before I left.”
“You’re bluffing.”
She didn’t seem worried.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Bonnie said. “You turn up here, find your ex-wife—who you thought was dead all these years—and discover she’s married to another man. So you go crazy, shoot her—and then shoot yourself with the same gun. Which just happens to be the same gun that killed all the rest of them.” She smiled. “Or maybe we’ll just do it as another David Galvin murder. They’ll find you dead in each other’s arms. Two last victims for Felix the Cat. A final fantasy from beyond the grave. That’s got front-page headline written all over it, doesn’t it, Joe? Hell, I could even write the story.”
Susan just sat there silently. I knew she was still thinking about Joey walking in on this.
“Let us go,” I begged. “We won’t tell anyone.”
“Jesus Christ, Joe, don’t insult my intelligence. Of course, you’d tell people. It’s the fuckin’ story of a lifetime. Only you’re never going to get a chance to write it.”
I tried to keep her talking. I didn’t have a plan. It was the only thing I could think of to do.
“What about the rape story at Penn State?” I asked. “Was that all a lie too?”
“As a matter of fact, that one was true. Yeah, that was pretty traumatic. Just like it was pretty traumatic to lose my mother and father within six months of each other, and have to go live with some family from hell. I was really messed up as a kid. Sexually—and a lot of other ways too. I have John Montero to thank for it. I promised myself that someday I would make him pay for what he had done. Except I never knew how. Until I met David Galvin.”
“How does Galvin fit into this?” I asked.
“I went to see him in prison about a year ago. For an interview, just like you found out. That part was true. I lied though when I said he wouldn’t talk to me. He talked to me, all right. God, did we talk. David was the most fascinating person I’ve ever met. He opened up my life in a way no one had ever done before.
“I told him about John Montero, and he said he’d known the daughter in college. That set something off between us. Something special. Something inspired.
“He’d just been diagnosed with cancer a few weeks earlier. I guess he knew he was going to die. He wanted to do something spectacular before he left this world. One last game.
“So he gave me this idea. A way to get back at John Montero. He said killing was fun, it was easy—it was the greatest high, the biggest thrill, a person could ever experience. Once he put the idea in my head, I couldn’t get rid of it. I thought about it constantly. I became obsessed by it. It was my only reason for living.
“I decided to take John Montero’s family away from him, just the way he’d taken away mine. Slowly. One by one. Galvin helped me. He took me through it. He helped me plan everything. He was my mentor. He was my inspiration.
“We started with the brother. I made friends with him at this lake house he was staying at in upstat
e New York. Then one day—when we were alone—I knocked him unconscious with a hammer and threw him into the deep water. I figured if anyone saw the bruise on his head, they’d figure it happened when he hit a rock at the bottom of the lake. But no one ever did. Everyone just assumed it was a case of accidental drowning.
“Mrs. Montero was next. She was a lot tougher. But I waited until no one was home, snuck in, and knocked her out with some chloroform. Then I dragged her into the garage, put her in her car, closed all the doors and windows, and started the engine. Pretty soon she was on her way to eternity.
“And then there was Lisa. Dear, sweet Lisa. That was supposed to be her under the covers with Franze, when I shot them. I started firing as soon as I walked into the bedroom, so I didn’t realize my mistake until after they were both dead. It should have been Lisa. But, when she became the chief suspect in the murder, I liked it even better. She’d go to jail for the rest of her life. Montero would be devastated. And I even got to cover the story for the Banner. It was perfect. Until you came along and messed everything up. I was so mad after the charges were dropped that I wanted to kill you right then.”
I remembered the speeding car that almost hit me outside Lanigan’s.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” I said. “You tried to run me down.”
“Yeah, that’s right. A few inches the other way—and it would have been over right there. We wouldn’t be sitting here right now. But then I decided it would be better to let you live for a while. That way you could lead me to my last victim.”
She pointed over toward Susan. She still hadn’t said anything. She looked like she was in a trance.
“And Joseph Corman and Karen Raphael?”
“Your detective and mystery witness?” Bonnie laughed. “Oh yeah, I did them too. I followed you that day you told me about going to meet them. Once I knew who they were, it was easy. I just waited for them in the parking garage. I said I worked with you on the Banner. They were very surprised at the end.”
“Why them?”
“They helped Montero.”
“But they were just acting out a role . . .”
“They were the enemy. They had to die. All our enemies have to die.”
Our enemies.
“You mean you and Galvin?” I asked.
“David and I made a pact,” she said. “He taught me how to get revenge on John Montero and his family. In return, I’d help him get revenge against his enemies. He said all the others had failed him. I was the only one worthy of him. The one he needed for his last game. We took an oath to be allies forever. A blood oath. And we sealed it with a kiss.”
I stared at her.
“We had sex, Joe. One time in his cell. They left us alone because I was a reporter, and we did it right there. My experience with sex has never been very good. I told you that. After everything that happened to me, I’d pretty much given up on it. Until David Galvin. I suddenly realized he was the one I’d been waiting for. It was like . . . like having sex with a god.
“Afterward, he told me his idea. He knew he had only about a year to live. But he said it was fate that had brought us together. Just like fate was bringing everything together for him in one last burst of passion at the end of his life on this planet. Lisa Montero. The Great Pretenders. You and your wife. It’s strange how something like that happens. All the planets are in alignment or something, I guess. But it’s a sign. A sign from God. Or in this case a sign to God.
“You see, that was our deal—David and me. He taught me how to get rid of the Monteros. He turned my life around. So I agreed to finish his last job for him. To close the book on the Great Pretenders. They’d all let him down, he said. They were all unworthy. If he was dying, he wanted to take them all with him.”
I remembered she said she’d followed me to get to Susan. So Galvin hadn’t given her all the answers.
“He didn’t tell you who the Last Great Pretender was?” I asked.
Bonnie shook her head. “No. I was as surprised when I found out who it was as you were,” she said, looking over at Susan. “But that was part of the game, I guess. And I was playing it, just like you. Only I knew it.”
“Galvin was using you too, Bonnie.”
“David loves me,” she said proudly.
“He’s dead.”
“Not really.”
“But . . .”
“I still talk to him every day,” she said.
I wondered how it would end up for Bonnie. Would she kill herself to be with the man she loved. Or would she spend the rest of her life in some fantasy world pretending that Galvin was still alive. I thought about that cult in San Diego that committed mass suicide because their leader convinced them that a space ship was coming to take them to a new world. About all the people who died in Jonestown because they listened to the wrong person. About the Manson girls who savagely murdered actress Karen Tate and others because Manson ordered them to do it. We’re all looking for something in this life. Some of us just find it in the darkest places.
“That’s enough talking,” Bonnie said. “I know you probably have a lot more questions. Reporter’s curiosity and all that. But we’re out of time. Besides, it’s not your story anymore. It’s my story. It’s always been my story.”
There was a sense of serenity that settled in on me when I realized that I was going to die with Susan.
I’d always felt that I should have been with her and Joey in that boating accident I’d thought they died in eight years ago.
Now, at least, she and I would be together again.
Suddenly there was a knock on the front door. Susan looked over at me in terror. Bonnie seemed confused at first too, but then she realized who it must be.
Joey.
“Well, well,” Bonnie laughed. “The whole family is going to get to be together one last time. Isn’t that nice?”
There was another knock.
Then the door started to open.
Bonnie turned in that direction with the gun.
“N-o-o-o!” Susan screamed.
She hurtled herself at Bonnie and the gun like a human projectile.
Bonnie started firing. The first shot hit Susan in the shoulder. There was a bright red splotch of blood on her blouse. Susan hesitated for just a second, then kept coming at Bonnie. She leaped on top of her and the two women went down in a heap. I ran over and desperately tried to get the gun away from Bonnie, but I couldn’t get at it in time. There was another gunshot. And then I felt Susan’s body go limp.
That’s when Righetti and a half dozen other cops came bursting in through the front door.
A lot of what happened after that is very hazy. I remember them pulling Bonnie to her feet, getting the gun away from her, and putting handcuffs on her. I remember someone calling for an ambulance. I remember the blood all over Susan’s clothes. There was so much blood. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. No one could.
When the ambulance finally came, I got in and rode with her to the hospital.
She had enough strength left to reach out and hold my hand. She squeezed it tightly.
She tried to say something, but I couldn’t make out the words.
I leaned down closer to try and hear. So close my lips were almost touching hers.
“I love you,” she whispered. “You were the one. You’ve always been the one. I’ve always loved you. That’s why I had to leave. It hurt so much that you could never love me back.”
I kissed her gently.
“Joey . . . ?” she asked.
“He’s fine.”
“Take care of our son.”
“Everything’s going to be all right.”
I cradled her in my arms again and kissed her.
I held onto her like that until we got to the hospital where they told me she was dead.
Chapter 71
“I’ve decided to quit,” I told Spencer Blackwood.
“You mean the Banner?” Blackwood asked. He didn’t seem as surprised as I thought
he would be.
“Being a newspaperman.”
“Now why would you want to do that?”
“I screwed up, Spence.”
“How?”
“Lisa Montero.”
“Oh, you mean that phony story about the witness,” he said.
I stared at him. “You knew?”
“I figured it out somewhere along the line. Like I told you once before, I just didn’t wake up one day at seventy and become the editor. I used to be a pretty damned good reporter myself.”
We were sitting at the bar in Lanigan’s on a hot June afternoon, a few weeks after Bonnie had been arrested. When I had told Blackwood I needed to see him, he suggested we meet here instead of his office. He’d done the same thing eight years ago after Rollins had fired me. That time he told me that I’d be back someday. That all bad things do eventually pass.
So now here we were again.
“If you know, how come you didn’t fire me?”
“I never had any proof.”
“You do now.”
“Okay, you’re fired,” he smiled.
Blackwood took a drink of the beer on the bar in front of him.
“So what are you going to do next?” he asked. “I guess that fancy public relations job with your ex-fiancée’s daddy is out, huh? Let’s see, you’re forty-one years old, you’ve never really been anything but a newspaperman in your whole life and—to be perfectly candid—you’re pretty much damaged goods if you leave here again under a cloud. But there’s still probably plenty of opportunities out there for you. Hey, maybe you can apply to one of those correspondence courses for hotel management. Or go to truck driving school—you know, like those ads on late-night TV. And then there’s the food services industry. I hear that’s a really interesting field. I can picture you right now as the up-and-coming assistant manager of some McDonald’s in a place like Peekskill. Or maybe even Poughkeepsie . . .”
“This isn’t a joke,” I said quietly. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“I fucked up.”
“So what? Do you think you’re the first person that ever fucked up? Look, you made a mistake on this story. But you also did a lot of things right. I’ve got reporters upstairs who go their entire careers without doing as many things right as you did on this story. You’re not perfect, Joe. You’re flawed. We all are.”