Dead in the Water

by Annelise Ryan

  “You should have come to us sooner,” Hurley says.

  “I know,” Prince says, hanging his head. “I should have and didn’t. But I’m here now.” He walks over and hands his gun to Hurley. “Here. It’s not loaded.” Hurley takes the gun and checks it to make sure.

  Prince takes a zip tie out of his pocket and hands it to Hurley. Then he turns around and puts his hands behind his back. “Take me in. But get me a meeting with whoever has the power to make a deal happen, and do it quick. Please. My family’s life depends on it.”

  Hurley gives me a questioning look. I nod, and he goes ahead and zip-ties Prince’s wrists together. He steers Prince out of the room toward the stairs as he takes out his cell phone and makes a call.

  “Hey, Bob, I need your help,” Hurley says as he follows Prince down the stairs. In my mind, I imagine darting forward and giving Prince a hefty shove. I squeeze my eyes closed to block it out. “I’m bringing a suspect to the station and I’m going to bring him in through the garage downstairs,” Hurley continues. “I need you to make some calls and have the following people meet me there.”

  I tune out the conversation at that point and walk over to Emily. I bend down and wrap my arms around her, hugging her. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she says with typical smart-ass, teenage bravado.

  “You were very brave. I was so scared when that guy stopped us downstairs.”

  “He was a little scary,” Emily admits. “He just walked in through the back door. He was going to shoot Hoover, but I convinced him to let me lock Hoover down in the basement. Then I tried to keep him downstairs in the kitchen so he wouldn’t know Matthew was up here, but he insisted on going upstairs. And then he said if I didn’t do everything he said, he’d shoot Matthew.”

  I release my hug on her and kneel down in front of her. “Thank you, Emily. Thank you for being such a good big sister.”

  Her eyes water up and she looks away from me. “I love that little guy,” she says. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything . . .” She can’t finish the sentence, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

  I reach up and hug her again, and her tears turn into sobs. I hold her for several minutes, hearing the distant murmur of voices from downstairs. Finally I let her go, brush her hair back from her face, and kiss her on the forehead. “Are you okay?”

  She nods and sniffles.

  “I’m going to go downstairs to check on Hurley and let Hoover out of the basement. Will you be okay up here?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  I go downstairs and find Hurley standing in the living room with Prince, ready to walk out the front door. “I’m not sure how late I’ll be,” he says, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

  “I know. We’ll be here when you get back.”

  There is a knock on the door and we all freeze. “Is someone coming to meet you here?” I ask Hurley.

  He shakes his head. Prince looks panicked and backs up several feet.

  “Who is it?” I holler through the door.

  “It’s Alison,” says a familiar voice. “I wanted to follow up with you guys on the news thing, see what’s happening.”

  I look at Hurley and roll my eyes. “It’s okay,” I say to Prince. “She’s a friend, a local reporter. She’s the one who was on the news tonight.”

  Prince shakes his head. “No reporters.”

  Hurley sighs and says, “I’ll take him out the back door and around the side of the house.” With that, he nudges Prince toward the kitchen. I tell Alison to hold on a sec and wait until I hear the back door open and close. Then I unlock and open the front door.

  “Hey, Mattie,” Alison says with a smile. “I hope I’m not too late. I thought I might hear from you guys tonight, but when I didn’t, I figured I’d stop by and—” She stops and cocks her head. Then she looks over toward the driveway. I have a pretty good idea what she’s looking at, and she confirms my suspicion a second later.

  “Who is that? Did you flush someone out?” she says, her eyes big as she stares into the dark. “You did, didn’t you? It worked.” She turns to step back off the front stoop and says, “Who is he? What does he know?”

  I step outside and squint in the darkness. I see Hurley holding Prince by the arm and pushing him toward the door of his car.

  Alison is off the stoop now, heading toward them. “Alison,” I say in a sharp tone. “Wait!” But she’s having none of it. She’s hurrying toward Prince and Hurley. I make a mad dash after her.

  From the corner of my eye, I see headlights coming down the street and my mind registers the fact that the vehicle is moving slowly. Something in my spine prickles, and when I look toward the headlights, a streetlamp briefly illuminates the dark SUV, the rolled-down window, the glint of something metallic. I open my mouth to yell, to warn Hurley, but I’m a split second too late.

  Gunfire erupts, a staccato burst of bullets that seems to go on forever. I hear a scream, and a grunt, and then the squeal of wheels. From behind me, I hear another scream from upstairs, and the sound of Hoover’s frantic barking from beneath me. I back up toward the door, ready to duck inside, but then realize the car is already gone. I look over toward Hurley’s car and my heart leaps into my mouth. All three of them are on the ground. Prince is lying on his side in the driveway; Hurley is on his knees beside him; Alison is lying on her back on the sidewalk, her eyes staring straight up at the sky.

  Emily hurtles down the stairs. “Mattie, what happened?”

  “Go back upstairs, Em, and check on Matthew. Then stay there.”

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  She heads back upstairs and I shut the front door behind me. My legs are trembling and I take a tentative step toward the others. “Hurley, are you hit?”

  “I’m okay,” he says, the panic barely contained in his voice. “You?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Prince is hit. He’s hurt bad. We need an ambulance.” I take my cell phone out of my pocket and dial 911. By the time the operator answers, I’m kneeling beside Alison and see that she’s been shot in the head and is beyond anyone’s help. I fight back the tears and anger welling up inside me and focus on giving the operator the necessary instructions. In the process, I leave Alison and move over to Hurley and Prince.

  Prince, perhaps ironically given what he did to Hal, has been hit in the neck and the bullet has nicked his carotid artery. Hurley has his hand over the wound, trying to stem the blood flow, but I can see it’s coming too fast and furious. Prince is going to die any second, bleeding out the same way Hal did.

  He seems to realize this and he beckons Hurley to lean down closer to him. Hurley does so, and Prince whispers something in his ear. I try to hear what it is, but sirens are closing in already and their sound drowns out the whispers.

  I get up to my feet and walk toward the street to meet the cops and the ambulance. Just as they arrive, I glance back at Prince and Hurley. Prince’s head is lolling to one side, his eyes staring up at the sky, sightless. I can tell he’s gone. Hurley’s expression is one of pure, red-hot anger.

  I realize that in a strictly karmic way, justice has been served for Hal, Tina, and Carolyn. Their killer has been caught and is dead. But then it dawns on me that I never asked Prince about Tomas Wyzinski. Was he behind that, too? Had he framed the man? Was that what he’d meant when he’d said things hadn’t worked out as planned, and he only had one death on his conscience? Had that death been Marla Weber’s?

  Though I can find some solace in knowing we solved the deaths of Hal, Tina, and Carolyn, I realize Prince was merely the tip of an iceberg that may be big enough to take all of us down. And judging from the look on Hurley’s face, he knows this, too. We aren’t even close to being done with this case. I wonder if we ever will be.

  CHAPTER 32

  Emily, Desi, Erika, and I head down the funeral home stairs and hit the buzzer on the wall. “Are you sure about this?” Desi asks me, looking back up the stairs longingly. I wou
ldn’t be surprised if she made a mad dash in an attempt to escape.

  “Trust me. I know the setting is a little unusual, but Barbara is one of the most talented stylists I know. You’ll be amazed at what she can do.”

  “Well, duh,” Emily says. “If she can make dead people look good, she has to be talented.”

  The door opens and Barbara smiles at the four of us. I make the introductions, and then Barbara says, “Please come in.” She waves a hand toward the room behind her, which is hardly your typical salon interior. Here the walls are made of tile you can wash down with a hose, the chairs are actually stainless-steel tables with drain channels built in, and the primary smells are formaldehyde and something else sickly sweet and undefinable.

  Desi looks pale and jittery, so I reach into my purse and dig out one of the mini bottles of vodka I stashed in there earlier. “Here,” I tell her. “Drink this.”

  She eyes it skeptically for a moment, then unscrews the top and chugs it down in one gulp. I take out a second mini bottle and hand it to her. “Pace yourself,” I warn.

  She nods, but I can already see a glow in her cheeks. Barbara has put a mat down on one of the tables and she pats it and says to Desi, “Hop up here and lie down.”

  Desi looks at the table, then at me, then back to the table. “You get used to it after the first time,” I tell her. “Trust me.”

  “What’s the matter, Mom,” Erika taunts. “Are you a scaredy-cat?”

  This seems to stiffen Desi’s spine. She squares her shoulders, walks over to the table, and hops up onto it. Then she opens her second mini bottle and chugs it. She blinks hard as she swallows, licks her lips, and says, “Let’s do this.” She flops down onto her back and Barbara hovers over her, studying her lines and colors.

  “Ooh, you have beautiful high cheekbones,” Barbara says. “And your skin tones are perfect.”

  Three hours later, Barbara has transformed all of us into chic, beautiful women. Everyone’s makeup is done to perfection and we all have a sophisticated updo. I pay Barbara for her ministrations, invite her to attend the wedding, and then drive all of us to Desi’s house in the hearse. It seems a fitting mode of transportation, considering.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Desi says from the front passenger seat, looking in the mirror in her visor. “She is truly masterful with the makeup. I haven’t looked this good in years.”

  “I’ve never looked this good ever,” Erika says, staring at her face in a compact mirror.

  Emily smiles, but says nothing.

  We arrive at Desi’s house with an hour to go before the wedding ceremony, which is scheduled for five. It seems like plenty of time, but I know it might take a lot of time to turn myself into something that looks marriage-worthy. Desi has taken care of the dress problem quite nicely, but I wish we could have found a better pair of shoes. I had hoped to find some heels we could dye to match the color of the dress, but they weren’t available in Sasquatch sizes. I finally settled on a pair of silver pumps and had to choose between a twelve, which was a smidge too small, and a thirteen, which was a smidge too big, because I couldn’t find anything in a twelve and a half. I opted for the thirteen, not wanting my feet to be cramped and painful. But it means the shoes slip on and off my heels when I walk.

  “Come look at the backyard,” Desi says, taking me by the hand. “Tell me what you think.”

  She leads me out through the back door and onto her covered patio. I stand there in awe, looking at what she’s done. There are tiny white lights strung around the columns holding up the roof patio, and more white lights crisscrossing the ceiling with gentle arcs of blue gossamer fabric hanging below. A long white carpet path leads out into the yard, stopping at an arch decorated with blue and white flowers and more of the tiny white lights. White wooden folding chairs sit on either side of the carpeted path, and there are two white columns at the end of the path wrapped in the tiny white lights and bursting with blue flowers at the top.

  “Desi, it’s beautiful,” I say, tears welling in my eyes.

  “Don’t start crying,” she says. “You’ll ruin Barbara’s perfect makeup.”

  I sniff back my tears and take a moment to collect myself. “It almost seems wrong to feel so happy after everything that’s happened.”

  Desi nods solemnly. “It’s not your fault, Mattie. What happened to Alison is in no way your fault. You have to believe that.”

  I nod, but I don’t believe it. My cell phone rings and I take it out of my pocket. “It’s the Realtor,” I tell Desi, and then I answer the call. Desi stands by, watching me with an expectant expression until I’m done.

  “Well?” she says when I disconnect the call.

  “It’s a done deal. The land is ours. We can start building as soon as our contractor is ready.”

  “That’s great! The new place will be so much better for you guys.”

  It will, in many ways. After a long discussion, Hurley and I decided to go ahead with the wedding, even though it felt wrong to do it on the heels of Alison’s death. And we also decided that Hurley’s house was not going to work for us down the road.

  “I’ve always felt like Hurley’s house is . . . well . . . Hurley’s house,” I say. “It will be nice to have something that is uniquely ours.”

  “And the extra security will be welcome, too, I’m sure,” Desi says.

  She’s right about that. Hurley and I looked at a number of different plans, eventually settling on a four-bedroom house that will be equipped with a state-of-the-art alarm system. In light of what happened with Alison and Prince, it seems like the logical thing to do. And it will be a better fit for all of us, leaving us with a bedroom we can use as an office. Or a family addition, if we decide to go that route.

  Desi looks around to see if anyone is nearby; when she sees we are alone, she says, “Did Hurley take care of Prince’s family?”

  I nod. “He made all the necessary arrangements. It was the least we could do for the guy. He may have done some awful things, but he did them out of love for his family. At least this way his death won’t be for naught.”

  When he realized he was dying, Prince had whispered the location of his family to Hurley and begged him to take care of them. Now that Prince was dead, we weren’t sure the people who had hired him would have a reason to go after his family, but Hurley had promised the man he would take care of them, and he had. Prince had also told Hurley something else before he died, a name—just one, but it was a start—of one of the players in the drug scheme that had led to all this mayhem. Hurley hasn’t told me whose name Prince gave him, but he has assured me the investigation will continue.

  “Come on,” Desi says, taking my arm and steering me back into the house. “Let’s get dressed and get this show on the road before you change your mind.”

  “I’m not changing my mind,” I say with a smile. “Hurley and I are meant to be together. I’m convinced of that.”

  We head for Desi’s bedroom, where the girls are already parading around in the dresses they bought for the occasion. Desi helps me get my dress on, taking care not to mess my makeup and hair, and then I help her do the same. By the time we’re done, the men come knocking on the bedroom door.

  Desi opens it and Matthew comes running into the room. “Mama!” He stops a few feet from me and stares. “Mama booful,” he says.

  “And look at you,” I say, happy tears welling in my eyes. He is dressed in a tiny suit in a pale shade of blue that has a jacket and shorts. He has white knee socks on, a white shirt, and shiny black shoes. “You look so handsome!” I pick him up and give him a big kiss, leaving a lipstick mark on his cheek.

  Hurley is beaming. “You are beautiful,” he says.

  “Thank you. You’re looking pretty good yourself, handsome,” I say with a wink. Despite our conviction to keep things casual, Hurley eventually opted for a dark blue suit with a lighter blue shirt and a blue-and-silver–striped tie.

  “I got you a little something,” he says, walk
ing over and handing me a small gift-wrapped box.

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s just a little something I wanted to give you. Open it. I think it will be self-explanatory.”

  I tear off the paper, open the box, and look inside. It is filled with Little Debbie coffee cakes.

  “I felt like I needed to give Tommy Smithson a run for his money,” Hurley says.

  Desi and the others all look at us with confused, inquiring expressions. “Inside joke,” I tell them. And then I walk over and give my future husband a big kiss. “Thank you. It’s the perfect gift.”

  “I have some news for you, too,” he says. “I just heard that Tomas Wyzinski’s sentencing hearing is over. He got life without the possibility for parole.”

  I frown at this. “Why can’t I shake the idea that he was wrongly convicted? And that I helped do it?”

  Hurley shakes his head. “To be fair, we don’t know if Prince was involved with that particular situation. I talked to Beckwith, but the only argument I could put forth was your claim that Lech said the bad guy was driving a blue convertible and Prince owned a blue Mercedes convertible. We’re going to have to come up with better evidence than that if we’re going to get Tomas off. At least Beckwith was willing to forgo the death penalty.”

  “Well, that’s something, I guess,” I say. “I have some news for you, too. The Realtor called a little while ago and we got the land.”

  “That’s great!” he says with a big grin. “With any luck, we can be in the new house by fall.”

  Lucien, who has been standing in the doorway the entire time, says, “The guests are arriving. I’m going to go make sure everyone gets seated.” He glances at his watch. “T-minus twenty minutes.”

  Hurley gives me a kiss and then he and Lucien depart. I look over at Emily and Erika and say, “I need you guys to do me a favor. Can you take Matthew and go help the men get everyone seated? We’ll meet you out on the patio in twenty. I need to have a private chat with my sister.”