Fixed in Fear

by T. E. Woods

  “We’ve been in airplanes, Hadley.” Hayden interrupted her twin. “How do you think we visit Grandmama?”

  “Two times, Hayden.” Hadley sounded mad. “Two big whole times in our entire lives we’ve been to Paris. Aunt Allie says she goes there whenever she wants to. Like just to shop or get an ice cream cone. And she goes on trains, which don’t even try to tell me you’ve done because I know you haven’t. And she has more than one car. She has everything.”

  Hayden doubted that. “Does she have a boyfriend?”

  Hadley laughed. “You saw her! She’s the most beautiful woman in the world. Of course she has a boyfriend. Maybe she even has more than one. I think at least one of them is a prince.”

  “You don’t know that, do you?” Hayden teased. “You’re just making assupp…ansump—”

  “I am not making assumptions.” Hadley sounded mad again. “And stop trying to say words you can’t say. It makes you look dumb.”

  “Well, then, what’s the name of just one of her boyfriends?”

  Hadley was quiet. Hayden hoped her twin wasn’t angry. It’s just that sometimes Hadley poked at her and it was hard to take. Hayden was glad to hear the fun back in Hadley’s voice when she finally did say something.

  “I don’t know. But we could ask her.”

  “Ask who?”

  “Aunt Allie.” Hadley had that look she put on her face when she wanted Hayden to think she knew something Hayden didn’t. “We could ask Aunt Allie the name of one of her boyfriends right now.”

  Hayden felt that floppy feeling in her chest again. It didn’t hurt exactly, but she didn’t like it, either.

  Hadley put a finger to her lips. “You can’t tell anyone. Not Mommy. Not Daddy. Not even Papa. If you don’t promise me, I won’t show you something you really are gonna wish you could see.”

  Hayden started breathing that way she does when she’s scared. But she was in her bedroom with her sister. There wasn’t anything to be scared of.

  “I promise,” she whispered.

  Hadley went into the closet they shared. She opened the door to her side and pushed past dresses and skirts to a shelf in the back. She pulled out a shoe box covered in ribbons and glitter. It was her treasure box. Hayden had made one like it, too. Each girl kept their most special possessions in it. Hayden’s held cards and drawings. A safety pin bracelet her friend Lucy made her in kindergarten. A plastic bag with scraps of her dad’s beard when he shaved it off. And her most prized possession of all: a photograph of Papa and a pretty woman who was her grandma. Papa’s wife. Hayden knew her name was Edie and she died when the twins were only three years old. In the picture Grandma Edie is holding her and Papa is standing behind them, looking all happy. Hayden looked happy, too. Even though she was just a little kid. Sometimes, if she tried real hard, Hayden could grab a little wisp of what might be a memory of her grandmother. But it always disappeared real fast.

  Nobody was ever going to take that picture from her.

  Hadley had a picture like that in her treasure box, too. Only in hers Grandma Edie is holding Hadley. But that wasn’t what Hadley reached for when she brought her box over to set on Hayden’s bed. Hadley looked again to the door, lifted off the glittery lid, and pulled out something that made Hayden gasp.

  A cellphone.

  The floppy feeling in Hayden’s chest got bigger, and it got real hard to breathe.

  Chapter 26

  It was nearly two o’clock by the time Mort walked into the interview room that held Jerry Costigan. He’d been sitting on the front porch at Carlton’s house, waiting for Bilbo Runyan to return, when he got the call from Jimmy announcing he and Rita Willers had brought Costigan in. Larry was inside, attending once again to the stacks of journals and folders holding Carlton’s scholarly work. Mort decided not to tell his friend that Costigan was in cuffs down at the station. Until he could be sure they’d nailed one of Carlton’s murderers, Mort didn’t see any reason to give Larry false hope. Instead, he told Larry there was paperwork calling his name and he’d be back to pick him up in a few hours. Larry had been so involved with his work he barely glanced up and mumbled he’d be fine where he was.

  “Jerry Costigan.” In the interview room, Mort made a show of flipping pages in Costigan’s file. “For a career criminal, you’re not very good at it, are you? I’m counting nineteen arrests since you left the warm and fuzzy jurisdiction of juvenile court at age eighteen. Let’s see, you’re forty-two now, spent a total of thirteen years as a captive guest of the state, leaving eleven adult years at large. That’s, what…an average of a couple arrests a year or so? Now here you are, out of Monroe just four months and already gracing our premises with your appearance. You getting dumber at evasive techniques? Or we getting better at nailing your ass?”

  “This is bullshit.” Costigan sat waist-chained to a chair behind a metal desk. His uncombed brown hair was matted at the roots and hung in greasy, twisted strands to his shoulders. The stubble on his cheek looked less the cultivated affectation of a Seattle hipster and more akin to a man who hadn’t benefited from standing under a shower for at least three days. He wore jeans and a Seattle Mariners T-shirt under a filthy flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up far enough for Mort to read the TRY ME tattoo inked onto his left forearm. “I was heading home is all. No crime in taking a stroll on a Friday morning.”

  Mort wondered if these idiots really thought these lame claims weren’t a waste of time. “Why’d you run?”

  Costigan shifted in his seat. The chains of his handcuffs scraped across the table. “Somebody yells my name? I got startled. Turn around and there’s some dude with a dog the size of a horse right behind me? Tell me you wouldn’t take off.” He was indignant.

  Mort pulled three photographs from the file he held and slid them onto the table. Costigan peered at them. He picked one up for closer inspection and smiled before turning it around for Mort to see.

  “I like this one. Shows my better side. Isn’t that what all the fags in Hollywood say?”

  “These were taken a couple of nights ago down on the wharf.” Mort scooped the photos up and returned them to the folder. “Remember what you were doing there?”

  Costigan leaned on one hip and crossed his hands in his lap. “Not much of anything. Could be any day you find me down there grabbing a few beers after a long day job searching.”

  “You report those beers to your parole officer?”

  “That what this is about? You got me on video surveillance to catch me in a parole hiccup?”

  Mort leaned against a side wall of the small room. He made sure to avoid the mirrored observation window. He wanted Rita Willers, Jimmy DeVilla, and anyone else who cared to join them to have full view of the star of the hour’s performance. “We picked those up after a citizen came forward. Said she saw you down on the wharf walking.”

  “Taking a walk is a nine-one-one offense now? Man, things have changed since I went upriver.”

  “The citizen is named Blue Dancer.” Mort kept his tone conversational. “That ring any bells with you?”

  Costigan kept up the guise of innocent incomprehension. “She a stripper? I can barely afford a couple of beers. No way I got the green for a lap dance.” He grinned wide and slow. “Unless she’s interested in a freebie. Maybe as a, what do they call it? Act of random kindness? Then by all means, give her my number.”

  Mort pulled another stack of photos from the folder. He pushed himself off the wall and laid them on the table one by one.

  “What’s this? Some sort of campfire? Maybe a barbecue?”

  Mort placed the last photograph and took a seat opposite Costigan. “That’s what’s left of a sweat lodge down in Enumclaw. Burned to the ground along with five people attending a cleansing ceremony. Maybe you heard about it.”

  Costigan shook his head. “I’m not much on the daily news. I’m more a Laverne & Shirley rerun kind of guy.”

  “Seven people were delivered to that site. Driven up by Blue Dancer.”
Mort watched Costigan’s hands, looking for any reaction. “Seven people up, five people burned. That leaves two unaccounted for. According to the registrations at the lodge where everyone was staying, we’re missing Sam and Ernie Andrews.”

  Costigan shrugged. “And this involves me how?”

  “Those people were stabbed. One guy had his eyes gouged out. Why? We don’t know yet.” Mort leaned back in his chair. “You have a special fondness for knives, isn’t that right, Jerry?”

  Costigan sat silently still.

  “Those fires were set,” Mort continued. “Whether to hide evidence or send some kind of message, again, we don’t know. But we keep coming back to the same question: Where the hell are those Andrews brothers? Our guess is all our questions can be answered if we can just find those two guys.”

  Costigan looked bored. “You want my help in that? You looking to make me a bona fide posse member? Are we saddling up, riding out, and catching us some desperadoes?”

  Mort smiled. “No need for that, Jerry. That’s where Blue Dancer comes in. Seems she’s out enjoying her day off. Up from Enumclaw for a night in the big city, having herself a nice time. That is, until she sees one of the Andrews brothers.” He leaned forward. “You, Jerry. Blue Dancer identifies you as one of the two people she drove up to that sweat lodge who didn’t leave their corpse behind.”

  Costigan held his overall pose. But he shifted his right hand over his left and the vein in the soft of his throat began a visible pulse. “Stripper girls say lots of things.”

  Mort ignored the insult to Blue Dancer. “Mistaken identity is always a possibility, of course. Lucky for us, Tall Oaks Lodge—that’s the place all these folks stayed by the way—has been closed down since the murders. Active crime scene and all. We have the room where those Anderson boys stayed all blocked off. Yellow tape and everything, just like on TV. We got the keys those boys held, the sheets they slept in—hell, we even have the toothpaste scum still in the sink from where they took their last rinse and spit as paying guests. It’s a genuine physical evidence Costco. Big quantities at low, low prices. Fingerprints, skin cells, hair samples, you name it, we bagged it. Lab folks are working on it right now. And what with your DNA already cataloged due to your repeated visits to our finest state prisons, we won’t even have to waste time running what we find through the system.” Mort stood, walked to the door, and opened it. Two uniformed officers stepped inside. They crossed the room to stand behind Costigan.

  “And now it’s time for those magical words. Jerry Costigan, you are under arrest for the murders of Carlton Smydon, Sam Adelsburg, Oscar Vargas, Monica Doyenne, and Audrey Moe. I hope you enjoyed your breakfast and early morning walk, Jerry. It’s roadkill and outdated canned goods in a cinder-block super-max cell for the rest of your miserable life.”

  One of the uniformed cops unlocked the chain surrounding Costigan’s waist while the other pulled the man to his feet.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Mort said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you—”

  “Wait!” Costigan didn’t look bored anymore. “You can’t prove I killed those people!” His breath was coming faster than his words. “Maybe I was there. That don’t mean I killed nobody.”

  Mort looked to the two cops. “This is always the fun part, isn’t it, guys? Old Jerry here’s gonna tell me he’ll give up his partner if I talk to the judge. Convince her he was an innocent dupe who had no idea how the whole thing was going to go down. It was the other guy all the way. He’s scared is all, Your Honor. Give him a break.” Mort returned his attention to Costigan. “That about right, Jerry?”

  Costigan squirmed in the iron grip of the two policemen. “I can give you the other guy. That’s easy enough. And you’re damned straight I expect a good word for doing my duty.”

  Mort knew you could always count on two things from street-level thugs. First, it never took them any time at all to rat out their partners once they realized they were caught. Second, they always had a way of making the squeal look like it was their civic good deed for the day.

  Mort made sure Costigan saw him looking toward the observation window as though looking for input from whoever might be behind the glass. Then he turned to Costigan.

  “What the hell.” It was Mort’s turn to look bored. “Get me home to my family in time for Friday night pizza and I might be inclined to submit your name for a merit badge. Who was it? Who was the other mysterious Andrews brother?”

  Costigan licked his lips. He looked toward the observation window, then down at his filthy sneakers.

  “Ticktock, Jerry. Drop the name or I add obstruction of justice charges. Can’t go away any longer, but you sure can go away uglier.”

  Costigan locked eyes with him and Mort saw the fear there. Mort knew as well as his prisoner the reception a snitch would receive once he landed in general population.

  “It’s Auggie Apuzzo you’re looking for.” Costigan’s voice was shaky. “Our time in Monroe overlapped some. We stayed out of each other’s way, but there was respect there.”

  Mort didn’t bother to write down the name. He knew someone on the other side of the glass was already entering Apuzzo’s name into a computer bank. “How’d this little joint venture the two of you pulled come about?”

  Costigan shifted his weight from one leg to another. “He made papers about a year before I did. Never heard from him. Then I get out and set about making my way as best I can. One day I hear a knock on my door and it’s Auggie. Says he’s got a job. Needs an extra man.”

  “Someone good with knives?” Mort asked.

  “Look. I’m four months out of prison, drifting from one shit hole to the next, three pairs of undershorts to my name. Digging my fingernails into my palms hard enough to stay awake through Jack and Jill sermons just so I can score one hot meal a day. It’s not like my prospects were ever gonna change. Know what I mean? A man gets hungry.”

  Mort wasn’t interested in Costigan’s motivation. “How much did he pay you?”

  Costigan looked down in shame, as though afraid his bargain basement price tag was an accurate reflection of his worth. “Two grand. Cash.”

  Mort’s jaw tightened. Disgust pumped a bitter metallic liquid from his stomach to the back of his throat. Four hundred dollars each. That was the value Jerry Costigan placed on the lives he stole. Hell, there were restaurants in town where that would barely cover dinner for two.

  “Where am I going to find Auggie Apuzzo?” Mort was finished with conversational games. He wanted this son of a bitch in a jail cell as soon as humanly possible.

  “You don’t find Auggie.” Costigan’s voice pegged him as a trapped man who knew he had no hope for whatever life he might have fantasized about just a few hours earlier. “Auggie finds you. I ain’t seen him since he dropped me off at my house after the job was finished.”

  Mort huffed out his disgust. “Then you gave me nothing. You might as well have told me Derek Jeter was your partner. On second thought, that would have been better. At least I’d know where to find Jeter.” He looked toward the bigger of the two cops. “Take him down to booking. Be sure to tell them to scrub extra hard in the shower. I got a feeling this guy’s full of lice.”

  The policemen pulled Costigan toward the door.

  “Wait!” Jerry yelled. “I remembered something!”

  I’ll bet you did, Mort thought.

  “Unless it’s an address, I’m not interested.” Mort nodded again to the policemen.

  “He’s got a kid!” Costigan blurted out. “Talked about him from time to time. Must be around eight or nine years old by now. Called him Tommy. That’s gotta be worth something.”

  Mort could almost hear the clicking of Tommy Apuzzo’s name being entered into a computer even as the scum who’d just ratted out his father was being led down the hall.

  Chapter 27

  Lydia walked down the pine needle path away from the copse of cedar trees toward the villa. The yard had been landsca
ped to mimic the rugged abundance of a northwest rain forest, but one with a manicured and user-friendly finish. This was a property for those wanting a taste of primordial wilderness without the mud, bugs, or danger of the real thing. Her path ended at a limestone patio large enough to host a twenty-person dinner party. A glass wall showcased the interior of the home. Low-profile, high-taste furniture filled a great room serving as living, dining, and kitchen area.

  No one appeared to be home.

  Lydia had driven up that Friday afternoon from Olympia. She’d had no problem finding the Larchmont and knew from her research which of the luxury villas Allie had rented. She had no plans of entering the resort’s property through the main gate. Allie had attempted to demonstrate her power the night before by showing up at Lydia’s place uninvited and unannounced. It was time for Lydia to return the favor. So she’d parked her Volvo at a view point in the state park abutting the Larchmont property and made her way on foot through the dense forest, climbed between two strands of barbed-wire fence separating the exclusive resort from publicly funded land, and crossed the well-tended grounds until she came to Allie’s lavish temporary home.

  She made her way around the perimeter of the single-story villa, glancing into every window she passed. As she prepared to turn toward the front of the house, Lydia spotted a tall broad-shouldered man walking toward a bronze-colored E-Class Mercedes parked in the villa’s driveway. She recognized him as Allie’s driver. Lydia pressed her back to the side of the house and watched him from behind a neatly trimmed arborvitae. The driver opened the trunk of the sedan and pulled out several colorful shopping bags and a bouquet of daylilies. He headed toward the house and returned a few minutes later empty-handed. He was about to step into the car when a familiar voice called his attention to the villa’s front door.

  “Enjoy yourself this afternoon, Staz. You were wonderful with Vassily this morning. You’ve earned some rest, my dear friend.” Allie’s pronouncement was delivered with imperial benevolence. “I’m in for the rest of the day, so drink as much vodka as you’d like. I’ll text you my plans for tomorrow.”