Dead Calm

by Annelise Ryan

  “I don’t believe you,” Pamela says when Hurley is done.

  “I understand this must be difficult for you to accept,” Hurley says. “I think I have a way to convince you.” He then explains what we have in mind.

  Pamela listens, sipping her drink periodically, but I’m not sure she’s buying it. When Hurley’s done, he gives her a questioning look.

  “I don’t think so,” Pamela says. She shakes her head and sets her mug down near the sink.

  “What have you got to lose by trying?” Hurley says. “If we’re wrong, we’ll go away, and life can continue as before.”

  Pamela weighs this, her back to us as she stares out the window over her kitchen sink. I watch her body language, looking for clues, and when I see her shoulders sag in resignation, I know we’ve convinced her. She turns around then, looks Hurley in the eye, and says, “I guess I have a phone call to make.”

  We listen as Pamela makes her phone call, and when she’s done, she goes into her living room and sits by herself. While we’re waiting, Hurley goes out to his car to fetch the printer we brought with us—still with its evidence tag—and brings it in to the kitchen, setting it on the breakfast bar.

  Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rings, and the front door opens. Penny comes flying into the house, her face appropriately panicked-looking.

  “You people,” she says in a chastising tone as she looks at the three of us sitting at the breakfast bar. “Where is Pammy?”

  “I’m right here,” Pamela says from behind her. She has left her chair in the living room and come to join us.

  Hurley takes out his handcuffs and walks over to Pamela. “Pamela Knowlton, you are under arrest for the murders of your husband, Craig, as well as Meredith Lansing. You have the right to remain silent.”

  “Hold on a second!” Penny says as Hurley slaps a handcuff on one of Pamela’s wrists. “You can’t arrest her. What evidence do you have?”

  “I told you on the phone, Penny,” Pamela says. “Apparently, the note they found in the motel room was printed from a computer. And there was some sort of flaw in the printing that they say is identifiable to a specific printer.” She nods toward the printer on the counter. “They’ve printed something on my home printer, and apparently that flaw is there. It’s a match.”

  “Of course it is,” Penny says dismissively. “Craig used the same printer.”

  “There’s more,” Pamela says. “They found the gun near Craig’s right hand. And the shot that killed him was fired from the right-hand side.”

  “So?” Penny says, shaking her head in confusion.

  “Craig was left-handed,” Pamela says quietly.

  We watch the cacophony of emotions that crosses Penny’s face. I see hints of shock, fear, paranoia, and then resignation. “You killed Craig?” she says finally, staring at her sister.

  “No!” Pamela says. “How can you even think I would do such a thing?”

  Penny gives Pamela a sad, but solicitous look. “Don’t worry, Pammy. I’ll help you. We’ll get you a good attorney. You can afford the best.”

  “I doubt that,” I say to Penny. “I’m afraid all of Mrs. Knowlton’s monies will be seized and held. Given the nature of her work, that money will be available to cover the lawsuits filed by her clients. And I’m sure there will be plenty of them.”

  “What?” Penny says. “No.” She looks over at Hurley. “That’s not true.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Hurley says. “It’s a special set of rules that apply when someone who has a fiduciary duty to others perpetrates felony fraud. And this certain qualifies.”

  “You can’t do that,” Penny says.

  “Oh, but we can,” Hurley says. “We can take it all, including her car and her house.”

  Penny looks stunned. “Pamela, you need to call a lawyer right away. Or tell me what number to call and I’ll do it.”

  Pamela tilts her head, giving her sister a sad look. “I already called him,” she says. “What they’ve just told you is the absolute truth.”

  “No,” Penny says, shaking her head. She starts to pace. “No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be.”

  Pamela starts to sob softly, and it distracts Penny, who gives her a withering look. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she says. “Don’t start blubbering.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it,” Pamela says, looking at her sister with the saddest expression I’ve ever seen. “What they said about you is true. You killed Craig.”

  Penny scowls at her sister. “What sort of nonsense are you spewing?”

  “They say they have evidence, Penny. They confiscated the car you just turned in, and there were traces of urine on one of the seats. They say they’re testing it for DNA and that it will turn out to be Craig’s.”

  Penny pauses her pacing, her brows drawn together in thought. Then her face relaxes. “So Craig peed in my car once. That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “We also found your tire tracks out on County Road P by the woods behind the Grizzly,” Hurley says.

  “The what?” Penny says very fast. It’s clear we’re starting to rattle her.

  “The Grizzly Motel?” I say. “You know, the place where you stalked your ex-husband and his fling, the woman he had an affair with?”

  Penny glares at me, but her expression quickly morphs into that of a trapped animal. She looks around the room wildly. “You’re all crazy,” she says. “It was Craig who had an affair with that lab woman,” she says. “You have the proof with those cell phones.”

  I look at Hurley and see his face curl into a satisfied smile. “What cell phones?” he asks Penny.

  Too late she realizes her mistake. The information about the extra burner phones hasn’t yet been released or shared.

  Hurley slips off the handcuff he had placed on Pamela’s wrist. He lets the cuffs hang from his hand as he approaches Penny. “Here’s what happened,” he says. “You tell me if I’m wrong at any point. You found yourself broke and abandoned by your husband and kids, and you needed a way to get back on your feet, to get your hands on some cash. Your sister here has done quite well for herself and has plenty of cash. You know that because she’s bailed you out several times in the past. Not to mention the nice house and cars she and Craig own. And she owes you, right? I mean, you spent all those years raising her, spending your own money.”

  Penny stares at him and says nothing.

  “Somewhere along the way, you met John Lansing,” Hurley continues. “I haven’t quite figured that part out yet, but I’m guessing it was at a casino. My guys are canvassing them now with his picture and yours, and I’m certain we’ll not only get a match eventually, but we’ll find evidence of the two of you commiserating. You shared your common woes regarding your lack of funds, the bad turn of luck you had both experienced, and your dissatisfaction with your marriages and spouses. And between the two of you, you cooked up a plan to get rid of Meredith and Craig so that you could collect on the life insurance policies.”

  “That’s absurd,” Penny says. “I wouldn’t collect on anyone’s life insurance.”

  “You would collect Craig’s eventually,” Hurley says, “along with all the rest of his and Pamela’s money once you moved back in with Pamela and took control over her life again. Just like it was back in the day, right? Or better yet, if your sister is arrested and convicted for Craig’s murder, the money is all yours.”

  Penny says nothing, so Hurley continues.

  “John Lansing was willing to settle for the insurance and retirement money his wife had, or perhaps you offered him a share of your funds. So you cooked up a scheme wherein you faked an affair between Craig and Meredith. You bought two burner phones, and you and John each kept one of them. You sent regular text messages back and forth, and called one another at times to check in. You changed the passwords on all of the victims’ computers to make it look like they were trying to hide something. I have to admit that your patience in planning all of it was quite remarkable. You spent over a mon
th plotting out that nonexistent affair.”

  Penny is frozen in place, still staring silently at Hurley. But with this last compliment, one eyebrow arches almost imperceptibly.

  “And when the time came, you carried out the rest of your plan,” Hurley continues. “You ordered two Italian dinners of some sort from the same place so it would appear that Craig and Meredith had shared a meal, and you bought two of the same bottles of wine. Then you each spiked the food with crushed up sleeping pills from Meredith Lansing’s prescription. Before the sleeping pills kicked in too hard, you got your victims into cars and drove them out to the Grizzly Motel. I’m guessing John drove Meredith in her car first, booked the room, carried her inside, and then returned to town and parked the car in the hospital lot. John looked enough like Craig for it to work, especially if the plan was to shoot Craig in the head, thereby distorting his appearance some. But the owner of the motel already identified John as the person who actually checked in when we showed her his picture.”

  “You shot Craig in the head?” Pamela says, looking at her sister in horror.

  “I didn’t shoot Craig,” Penny snaps. “I didn’t shoot anyone.”

  “I suspect that’s true,” I tell Pamela. “She killed Craig, but I think she had John do the actual shooting. She picked him up at the hospital parking lot with Craig already doped up in her car. They drove out to the motel together, and I’m sure it took the two of them to get Craig’s body into the motel room.” I pause and look at Penny. “Did you know that Craig was already dead at that point? Did the two of you carry him into the room like he was drunk?”

  Penny’s eyes narrow at me, and one of her hands starts opening and closing, opening and closing.

  “That’s my guess, anyway,” I say with a shrug, continuing. “Then you left John in the motel room and drove your car around to the adjacent county road and parked where that path emerges from the woods behind the motel. John’s job was to shoot both Meredith and Craig, drop the gun by Craig’s hand, and then bolt from the room, disappearing down that path in the woods. By the time anyone looked out to see what was going on, he was already gone.”

  “Ridiculous,” Penny mutters, her arms folded over her chest as she glares at me.

  “Actually, it’s ingenious,” Hurley says. “You are clearly a very smart and clever person to have pulled off something this complicated.”

  Penny can’t help herself. She actually preens beneath Hurley’s praise. “I am smart,” she says. “I may not have book smarts or math skills like Pamela, but I’m smarter than she is in my own way.”

  Pamela, who has stopped crying at this point, closes her eyes and walks over to the breakfast bar, settling on a stool, and cradling her head in one hand

  “If you’re so smart,” I say, “why did you screw up so much of your plan?”

  “I didn’t screw up!” Penny yells.

  “But you did,” I say. “You missed the very significant fact that Craig was left-handed, a rookie mistake. You didn’t realize that your car would leave tracks on the muddy shoulder of the road. You had a backup plan all along to pin this on John Lansing if we figured out the motel scene was staged, didn’t you? You even managed to get him to handle a bullet so there would be a partial print on it. But if we arrested him, you knew he would spill the beans, so when we ramped up our investigation to the point where you thought we’d figured it out, you eliminated him. But you messed that up as well. And you miscalculated how much of the drug Craig could handle, killing him before the scene could be staged. Not much of a nurse, are you?” I taunt.

  Penny’s mouth tightens, and she stares me down like I’m a toreador and she’s a bull. I can practically see steam coming from her nose.

  “And I’m guessing you also messed up with the phones when you texted John Lansing to meet you under the double arches the day of the murders,” I add. “That was your practice run, right? Except you used the burner phones to communicate the meeting place by mistake instead of your regular phones.”

  Penny closes her eyes and sighs heavily. “This is all speculation,” she says. “You have no actual proof.”

  Hurley says, “Oh, but we do. The gun that was used was stolen from a man named Philip Conroy last year, and we’ve discovered you once took care of him at the nursing home where you worked at the time. And we confiscated the car you traded in the day of the murders. When we get the results of the DNA test on Craig’s urine, it will be a done deal.”

  Penny stands frozen for a moment, then she opens her eyes and turns to her sister. “I did this for you, for us, Pammy,” she says.

  Pamela shivers. “The hell you did. You did it for yourself. I loved my husband.”

  “But he wasn’t good for you,” Penny says. “You were wasting all that money on trying to have a kid, and I could see the kind of stress it was creating for you. In fact, that’s how I got Craig to meet me for dinner that night. I told him that I knew of a new fertility treatment you and he could try, one that would almost guarantee success.”

  “My God,” Pamela says, shaking her head. “How low can you go?”

  “I’d do anything for you, Pammy,” Penny says, giving her sister a pleading look. “It’s always been you and me together, just the two of us. That’s how it’s supposed to be. People just don’t understand the bond we share. Even Mom and Dad didn’t understand. They were going to send me away from you, you know. When they found out that I’d accessed their bank accounts so I could have a little fun at the casino, they threatened to have me jailed. I begged them not to turn me in, and they finally said they would let it go if I went to a rehab facility for a six-month program.” Penny chuffs her disgust at this idea. “Rehab,” she spits out. “Can you imagine that? Six months away from you? I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Oh my God,” I say. “You killed your parents, didn’t you? You blew the house up.”

  Penny sighs impatiently. “It’s not like they gave me any choice,” she says with irritation. “They wanted to send me away. And they were cutting me off financially. I had to do something. So I blew out the pilot lights on the stove and turned all the burners on right before Pammy and I left that morning. Then I lit a candle in the dining room.”

  I hear a sound like a low rumble that quickly grows in intensity and pitch until I realize what it is. Pamela lets out a blood-curdling scream and hops off her stool, lunging at Penny. She starts hitting her sister with her fists, screaming the entire time. Hurley and I both jump in. I manage to contain Pamela’s flailing arms, dragging her back. Hurley grabs Penny by the arm and pulls her in the opposite direction.

  Once they are separated, the two sisters engage in a stare-off. Pamela, her chest heaving, her rage-infused face red, says nothing at first.

  Penny, her hair wild where Pamela grabbed at it, stands beside Hurley looking at her sister with an almost pitiable sadness. “I did it for us, Pammy,” she says. “Someday you’ll come to see that.”

  “Get . . . her . . . out . . . of . . . here,” Pamela says through gritted teeth. Her next words come out shrill and screaming. “Get her out!”

  Hurley snaps his handcuffs on Penny and informs her she is under arrest. He recites the Miranda warning to her. As they are walking toward the front door, I hear Penny say, “That stuff about Pamela’s money being confiscated, was that true?”

  “Nope,” Hurley says.

  My last image of Penny is of a woman with her arms cuffed behind her back, crazy hair sticking out all over her head, emitting an insane, maniacal laugh.

  I release my grip on Pamela and ask her if she’s okay.

  She looks at me with a blotchy, tear-stained face. “I don’t think I’ll be okay for a long time, if ever. But I’m not going to kill myself or anyone else, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  I study her and decide she’s telling me the truth. “Okay then,” I say. “I’m really sorry for the way things turned out.”

  “Yeah, me too,” she says with deep sarcasm. “Would you mind s
howing yourselves out?” She doesn’t wait for us to give her an answer. She shambles off, heading down the hallway toward her bedroom.

  I turn and look at Cletus. “Did we get it all?” I ask him.

  He picks up the camera from the counter and pushes a couple of buttons. “Looks good,” he says. “Will you e-mail me my copy today?”

  “I will,” I tell him. “So what do you think of this new career plan so far?”

  “I’m liking it,” he says. “I have a scoop on a great human-interest story, and a front-row seat to the capture of a serial killer.”

  “All in a day’s work,” I say with a wink. “Now you need to go out there and catch a bunch more.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Six months later

  I roll over in bed and feel a warm body beneath my arm. A gentle squeeze tells me that it’s too small a body to be Hurley. I open an eye and look. My son’s big blue eyes are staring back at me. His face cracks into a big smile.

  “Morning, momma,” he says.

  “Good morning, Matthew,” I say.

  “Maffew loves momma.”

  “And momma loves you,” I say, kissing him on the forehead. “Where’s daddy?”

  “He’s making breakfast. He’s making on-a-lets.”

  “Omelets,” I enunciate carefully.

  “I said that,” Matthew says with a big pout.

  “Okay. Let’s go have some omelets.”

  “On-a-lets! On-a-lets!” He scrambles down to the bottom of the bed and jumps down. Then he goes running down the hallway, still yelling. “On-a-lets! On-a-lets!”

  “Don’t run on the stairs, Matthew,” I yell.

  “I be careful,” he says, and I pray he means it. We taught him how to go down the stairs safely months ago, when we were still in the old house and realized he had figured out how to undo the lock on the gate we put up. My son has a mind of his own, and most of the time, it’s even odds whether or not telling him not to do something will work. So simply telling him not to go downstairs alone wasn’t much of an option.