The Killing Club

by Marcie Walsh; Michael Malone

  I asked, “What do you mean, Meredith? People get in his way and he kills them?”

  “You have to believe me.Barclay would never harm that woman.” (It was apparently not possible for her to say Amanda’s name.) I said, “You think people don’t kill the people they love? They do it all the time.”

  Rod said, “I think she means Barclay cared too much to stop seeing Amanda, despite the divorce clause in the prenuptial.”

  She nodded, a concession.“I begged him to break it off.I told him he was jeopardizing everything.He’d worked so hard.We all had.He had a future.”

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  I said, “You don’t mean the new development, do you? You mean politics.”

  “Of course I mean politics.Money is nothing.But it can change things if you know how to use it.” She looked out the window at the land and buildings she’d restored so handsomely, then back at us.“I met her, of course.She came here to my home.Invited by him.She was very beautiful.”

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “We argued.He told me he wanted her the way I wanted River Bend.

  That he was in love with her.” Meredith Ober smiled as if it were the strangest remark she’d ever heard anyone make.

  I thought about telling her that she could have had another grandchild if Amanda hadn’t died.

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  21

  A B U

  ROD OFFERED MEhisbedtorestin.Helivedonthe

  “wrong” side of Deep Port River, on the way to River Bend and right on the riverbank, so he could drop in his kayak as soon as he awakened.His place, gray shingles with a wide porch, had been a summer cabin that he’d started working on by winterizing when he’d bought it.He was always adding rooms in his “spare” time.So far he’d built on a garage and a sunroom.Sometimes I helped him.

  “I’m not a baby.”

  Rod pulled up the white comforter, tucking it around my shoulders.

  “I’ll check you later.”

  “Listen ...Rod ...About Garth?”

  He touched my hand through the covers.“Jamie, you feel like you want to give me back the ring, that’s your call.” He turned out the bedside lamp.“I hope you won’t.Go to sleep.”

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  “I’m not going to sleep.”

  “Okay, that’s fine.” He closed the walnut shutters on the windows of his bedroom and quietly shut the door behind him.

  And the next thing I knew, the loudly ticking metal clock beside his bed said three thirty.Afternoon light flared through the western windows.I walked over and opened the shutters.The sun was already heading into the lake.

  A nightmare had awakened me.All the members of the Killing Club, but the ages we are now, not teenagers, were lounging around the stage floor of the Pine Barrens Playhouse, laughing together about something, but I don’t know what it was.Then all the men except Pudge suddenly si-dled over to Amanda and started to pull at her clothes.She screamed.Every time Pudge tried to tell them to stop, blood instead of words poured from his lips.Then I realized that Amanda was not screaming because she was being attacked, but because of something happening behind us.The doors of the loading dock banged apart with a loud wrenching noise.And Lyall, dead, dank, wet and green, with rotted weeds hanging from him, stood there.He held Barclay’s crossbow to his chest.The sunlight behind him was sparking in shafts of light, blinding us.The light made a glittering square on the backstage concrete floor near the loading dock.The concrete floor.

  The square of lighter gray in the concrete floor.

  “WHERE YOU BEEN?” Danny said when I called him.A mug of coffee in hand, I was leaning on the rail of the high stilted porch of Rod’s cabin, looking down at the river.

  “You guys find Barclay?” I asked.

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  “Are you shitting me? That guy’s in fuckin’ Brazil dancing the tango.”

  “You mean Argentina, Danny.”

  He snorted.“Gotcha, I’m not Danny.It’s Donny the Mattress King ...So they’re releasing your dad and Dino.”

  “Yeah, I just talked to my father.Sounds like they’re okay.Joe Jr.’s picking them up.So at least Dad’ll see him for Christmas.”

  “Sorry about last night.Shoulda walked you to the door.”

  “Aww, Donny, you’re so much nicer than Dan.” I ate the last bite of the prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich that Rod had left wrapped on the counter for me.“Listen, a guy loves power tools the way you do is bound to know somebody who can use a jackhammer.I need one at the Pine Barrens Playhouse as soon as you can get it there.But I need you to pick me up at Rod’s house first.”

  “Rod’s right here.You want to talk to him?”

  “No.And don’t tell him about the jackhammer.”

  “You are one weird and bossy lady.”

  TURNS OUT DANNY knew two guys who used jackhammers.I should have thought of the Griswald cousins myself; after all, I saw Morris and Dwight at Dixon all the time.Between them, the two men weighed five hundred pounds.They appeared to have modeled their looks on childhood illustrations of Paul Bunyan.And they did nice work paving the streets of downtown Gloria when they weren’t in the holding tank on drunk and disorderly charges.That’s where they happened to be when Danny cut them a deal for the holidays.

  So Morris and Dwight followed us out to the playhouse in their old 2 4 6

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  blue dented pickup truck with its big Christmas wreath on the front grill and on the rear bumper a sticker surprisingly asking tailgaters to PRAISE

  THE LORD.The truck had a very large and angry St.Bernard dog riding in the back.The dog barked the whole hour it took the Griswalds to cut open the rough square section of concrete I’d noticed at the theater when Garth and I had looked the place over.The section backstage by the loading dock where the shade of gray looked different.

  The concrete flooring was only eight inches deep.The cousins sledge-hammered the broken-up chunks out of the way.Below was hard-packed dirt, and they used their shovels to move that.

  “What the hell are we doing?” Danny pulled me aside to whisper.

  “This better be good.”

  “What, you don’t want to look like an asshole in front of the town drunks?”

  About three feet down, I yelled for the Griswalds to stop their digging.I’d seen a scrap of torn black plastic bag.I stood in the hole and took a look at the contents.Then I gestured to Danny.“You want to get them out of here?”

  “Aww, this sucks,” Morris told Dwight.“We’re the ones dug it.”

  Dwight was curious.“What is it in there? It’s Barclay Ober, right? I heard in the tank, you’re looking for him.”

  But Danny forced them to drive off with their dog, who barked furiously at us as they left.

  We moved aside enough dirt to push back the torn plastic and shine our flashlights on its contents.

  It wasn’t the body of Barclay Ober buried there, wrapped in a garbage bag, below the concrete floor.It was Lyall Hillier.

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  There was little left of him but pieces of flesh, bones and rags of clothes and staring empty eyes.But the wide black zipper and the polyester decal of the Tour de France cyclist had outlasted the corduroy jacket they’d been a part of.And the silver snake ring was still on his decom-posed forefinger.

  BACK AT THE MORGUE, Gert Anderssen told us that she was no expert.We needed a specialist, a forensic anthropologist.

  “Give me a guess,” Rod told her.

  Her guess would be that, yes, Lyall Hillier had been dead for at least a decade.He hadn’t drowned.He hadn’t killed himself.He’d been struck, very hard, on the temple with a blunt instrument.His skull was cracked.

  The fissure was over two inches long.

  As it turned out, Sweets was able to provide us with Lyall’s dental records.They were still on file in th
e charts of the dentist from whom she’d bought her practice.They matched the teeth of the corpse.“Hardly even any cavities,” she said.“Great teeth.”

  GERT SAID SHE HAD called “Chief Waige” (as she always called him) to tell him to put me officially back on the Killing Club homicides, since it was clear this latest discovery of mine was connected to the current murders.“He will do this,” she said.“This is settled.” We all pretended not to have any idea why she’d have such influence on Waige.As we left, she warned us she was going to take early retirement if things kept 2 4 8

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  on this way.“In two days is Christmas, by God, and here we stand in a morgue.Night after night, I’m never home.”

  Rod, Dan and I tried not to look at one another, all wondering why she’d want to be home, if that’s where Warren Waige was.

  THE NEXT DAY, Christmas Eve, the three of us sat together in the new squad room, talking it over, eating grinders for lunch.We had copies of the original police report on Lyall’s “drowning” to study.

  “Did they chase after Lyall when he ran off?” I looked at the photo we’d taken of the backstage hole.“Did they kill him to stop him from telling about the hazing, bury him, then set up the fake drowning? It’s not possible.”

  Rod agreed.The five young people had talked to the police the next morning.“They didn’t have time to bury him there.The police aren’t going to notice a big square of wet concrete?”

  Danny suggested that maybe the loading area floor had been wood or dirt rather than concrete back then.The truth was, I didn’t remember one way or the other.But his idea didn’t make sense either.Why would the area where Lyall was buried be a different color unless someone had knocked old concrete loose, buried the body, and then poured new concrete over it? And, as Rod said, that would take more time than they’d had, even if they’d all been doing it together—Barclay, Garth, Connie, Ben and Amanda.

  Plus, I couldn’t believe that they all had been complicit in a killing that they’d kept quiet about in some kind of conspiracy for nearly a dozen 2 4 9

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  years.But if Barclay had done it alone? If it all went back to Lyall? It would explain ...

  Abu interrupted with a knock on an imaginary door.(One of the things I don’t like about our modern offices is there are no doors to the squad room.)

  As always Abu looked like he’d borrowed his clothes from somebody three times his size.The sleeve of his sweatshirt fell down his arm when he waved at me.“Hey, Jamie, I hear that Death Book killer guy tried to gas your whole damn family.I got to tell you, this is not the kind of club I would ever want to get my name on the membership of, know what I mean?” Abu was carrying two metal evidence cups.He opened them for us.

  Danny said, “Looks like dirt.”

  Abu told him it was dirt.One container had particles of earth taken from the clothing of the corpse we’d dug up.One had earth from the surrounding area.Some of the dirt on the clothes was indigenous to the earth in which Lyall’s body had been buried.But there was other dirt there, little bits of it, clinging especially to his shoes, that was very different.The second dirt had in it traces of bonemeal, fish emulsion, phosphorous, Epsom salts and other ingredients one might use in a garden to fertilize it.

  “Like a flower or a vegetable garden?” Danny asked.

  “Yeah, something worked on.”

  The additives, trapped in plastic, were still traceable.

  “So the body was moved?” Rod gave Abu the victory sign that made everyone at GPD smile whenever they got one from him.

  Abu smiled now.“Lieutenant Wolenski, that body was moved no more than eight years ago.” He waited till we asked him how he could 2 5 0

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  know that.“Because that particular cement binder that mixed up that concrete, they didn’t make it till eight years ago.” Abu grinned.

  I said, “Could be Barclay put Lyall in the trunk of his car, drove everybody else home, then went home himself and buried him in the gardens at River Bend.”

  “But why move him back to the theater?” Rod asked.“Why not just leave him where he was?”

  “Maybe because of all Meredith’s landscaping.”

  Abu screwed the tops back on his metal cups.“Meanwhile, just call me the George Washington Carver of the CSI.” He did a parody of a hip-hop dance step and walked away.

  “Carver? Is that somebody on a TV show?” Danny asked me.

  ROD LEFT TO GO TELL Lyall’s parents that they could, after all these years, bury their son’s body.I wondered if it would be worse, or easier, for them to know he hadn’t killed himself.

  I was down in Abu’s lab asking him about the use of cyanide potassium in insecticides.Could the killer have gotten the cyanide from a garden store?

  Abu said, “Well, he didn’t stroll on down to Solly’s Drugs and say,

  ‘Hey, there, Mr.Pharmacist, sell me some lethal cyanide salts and throw in a tube of dental fixative while you’re at it.’ ”

  The jazz melody started to play on my cell phone.At first I didn’t recognize it.“I believe that’s your phone,” Abu told me.“Want me to cus-tomize that ring for you?”

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  It was a bad connection—in a lot of ways.“Jamie? It’s Garth.I’ve got some news.”

  “Are you okay? Garth, where are you, New York City? We just found Lyall’s body.He didn’t drown.He was killed.”

  For a while, I didn’t hear anything.I thought maybe I’d lost him.But finally he said, “I’m going to tell you something, but only you.You understand?”

  “Garth, what’s going on? Where are you?”

  “I figure you’ve got a right.But you bring other cops with you, and it’s off.”

  “What’s off?”

  “I’m in Sea Isle City.Leave right now.Don’t talk to Rod or anybody else on your way.You’ve got forty minutes.” He gave me the address of a restaurant on the oceanfront.

  “Are you listening to me? We found Lyall!”

  “I heard you.You want to arrest the guy who did it all or not?”

  My heart was thudding so fast, I had to make myself breathe.Abu turned to look at me as I asked, “What are you telling me, Garth?”

  He said, “Where Barclay is,” and hung up.

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  22

  I S A A C W U R T Z

  GARTH MCBRIDE AND I HADalmost made love once,a lifetime ago, in a small beach house in Sea Isle City.It was the summer place of Debbie Deklerk’s parents, three rows back from the ocean, and it wasn’t air-conditioned.The August after we’d graduated from Hart, Debbie had had her birthday party there and had invited a group of us.It was the last time the Killing Club met together—until Ben’s funeral.I remember the sea breeze chilling my sunburned skin that night.

  In the parking lot of a restaurant called the Deep, in Sea Isle City, Garth leaned against a big new Lincoln Town Car, a Hertz rental.

  “I thought you didn’t have a driver’s license.” I locked up my Mustang and walked over to him.

  “I don’t.My source rented it for me....So, a lot’s happened.Sad lot.”

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  “Too much.” The sun was nearly set, but the last rays forced me to shade my eyes to see him.

  “I’m really sorry about Pudge.”

  “Me too,” I said.“Nothing will make it right.” We looked at each other, acknowledging that.“You’ve found Barclay?”

  Garth rubbed his photogenic hair.“I know nobody thinks so, including me, but I am a reporter.”

  “Where is he?”

  “My source’ll take us there.She’s inside.”

  “She?”

  “Before we go in, okay? Talk to me for a second.How did Lyall die?”

  I looked at him for a long time, then told him someone had hit Lyall with something hard enough to crack open his skull.Maybe a
lug wrench or an iron pipe.“At GPD we’ve talked about the possibility that all of you there at the playhouse helped bury Lyall that night.Is that true?”

  He shook his head.“Not true.You know that.” He waited until I nodded at him.Then he looked out toward the ocean.“Weird to find out after all this time that it wasn’t suicide. I spent a lot of years ...” He shrugged.“I always felt guilty.Letting that hazing happen.It’s the thing I guess I’ll wake up in the night over, the rest of my life.I figured ...”

  “He was in love with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We all thought that.Maybe he was.” We headed up the driftwood stairs to the restaurant door.“But why did Barclay kill him?”

  He shrugged.“Isn’t it pretty obvious Barclay’s gone nuts?”

  “Is he here in Sea Isle City?”

  “He’s got a house up the road on Daybreak Point.I waited for you.”

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  “Why?”

  “They took you off the case and it didn’t seem right.I want his story.

  I figure you want—do you still call it a ‘collar’?”

  I didn’t tell him that Chief Waige had been forced to return me to the investigation, so actually I wasn’t off the case.However, I couldn’t arrest anybody beyond the town limits of Gloria, New Jersey.Instead I just asked him how he’d located Barclay.

  “Chinatown, ” he said.“Remember how Barclay loved the movie Chinatown?”

  No, I didn’t remember that.But I remembered that Garth never forgot anything.

  “So I went to Harbor House—”

  “The senior care center?”

  “And that’s where I found her.She’s in here.” He pushed open the door to the seafood restaurant, every inch of which was decorated for Christmas, from strings of starfish with red lights in them hung across the ceiling to big plastic elves standing guard in the windows.It was Christmas Eve and there was only one (unhappy-looking) family having an early dinner at the tables, but the bar was so crowded with holiday rev-elers that I didn’t see Garth’s source until she waved her piña colada at the bartender.She wanted her pineapple slice, which he’d forgotten to add to the big glass.It was my great-aunt Betty Wurtz.