Portia was doing a quick recap: “Mrs. Pink is the woman who organized the doll show where Susan Darden supposedly met the vendor who is suspected of abducting little Elizabeth Ann Darden.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Marjorie said.
Portia peppered Pink with questions, and as the interview progressed, Pink seemed to remember more and more. She even seemed to be intimating that she definitely did remember seeing Molly, the doll lady, who was the prime suspect in the Darden baby kidnapping.
Ronnie thrust out his chin. “This ain’t good, Ma. You really screwed up.”
Marjorie held up a hand. “Shut up.” She wanted to hear the rest of the interview.
The Pink woman blathered on as Marjorie watched with growing rage and ever-narrowing eyes. This woman could be trouble, she thought to herself. If the police come back and question this woman, it could be the end for us. For me anyway.
“Ma, don’t ya think . . .” Ronnie started.
Marjorie tuned him out as the camera moved in close on Portia Bourgoyne. “Here at Newswatch 7,” Portia said, looking smug, as if she’d already scored a network anchor job, “we feel this information will be critical in helping solve such a horrific crime.”
“That’s what you think,” Marjorie said to the TV.
The TV cut back to the anchor desk, where a blow-combed anchorman gazed steadily into the camera and said, “On a related note, the baby found in the woods outside of Cannon Falls . . .”
Marjorie’s heart was jolted for the second time in two minutes. “What!” she exploded. “What did I just hear?”
Ronnie frowned as Marjorie extended a hand toward the television set and listened to the story. When it was over, she grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on—an amber glass ashtray with a Budweiser logo—and hurled it at Ronnie’s head. Cigarette butts exploded everywhere as it caught him squarely in the right temple.
“Ma!” he yelped.
“You left that baby in the woods near Cannon Falls?” Marjorie shrieked. She was on her feet and screaming, hopping up and down like a crazy person. “What the hell were you thinking? You were supposed to bury it!”
Ronnie held up a hand. “I can explain everything.”
She folded her arms across her scrawny chest. “This better be good.”
“Do you remember when I went to pick up that bobcat carcass from that hunter down in Red Wing?”
“Not really, but go on. I want to hear your whole stupid story.”
“It was just a couple of months ago, right after that other baby died. You wanted me to bury her, but it was too cold. We had that early ice storm and the ground was already frozen. Even the pickax would just, like, bounce back at me.”
“Lazy,” Marjorie said. “You stupid lazy boy. So you’re telling me you took the kid along with you? To Red Wing?”
Ronnie was nodding now. “I thought I was just being, you know, practical. But Red Wing is kind of . . . populated. More populated than here anyway. So I drove farther west, until I came across this woodlot. How was I supposed to know that a couple of dumb-ass hunters would stumble upon the thing? I couldn’t, right? I mean, I couldn’t know that.”
“Huh,” Marjorie said. She didn’t want to hear any more of his excuses. She had too much to think about.
Ronnie touched a hand to his forehead and winced. “Jeez, Ma. You really clobbered me.”
“Shut the hell up, Ronnie. You’re the one who screwed things up. Now I gotta think for a while.” Marjorie got up and walked out of the room. Her voice trailed after her. “I have to figure out what to do.”
Retreating to her craft studio (if you could even call it that), Marjorie grabbed her tweezers and resumed working on the doll’s eyelashes. She nipped and poked for another ten minutes until she had them just about perfect. The whole time she worked, her brain skittered along, planning, scheming, trying to calculate the odds. She knew the Cannon Falls kid probably wouldn’t present that much of a problem. If Ronnie had left it in the woods like he said he had—and she had no reason to doubt him—they should be fine. Animals, rain, wind, and snow would have erased any little bits of telltale evidence.
No, the real problem, the major dilemma Marjorie faced right now, was talky old Muriel Pink. Muriel Pink, who had started flapping her lips once they poked a TV camera in her face. Because as sure as God made little green apples, the cops were gonna go back and talk to that old bitch again.
* * *
BY nine o’clock that night, Marjorie had devised what she figured was a pretty smart plan. It was dangerous, even daring. But executed properly, would surely put an end to all their worries. They’d be safe again. And Marjorie, just like a little brown spider who’d administered its lethal bite, would be able to scuttle back into her snuggle hole again. Because she wanted to, needed to, be safe.
Ronnie was standing in the kitchen, refrigerator door wide open and drinking milk directly from the carton, when Marjorie said, “We’re going out. Just get your car and don’t ask any questions.”
Ronnie wiped his mouth. “Can’t,” he said. “My battery’s fried. I tried putting a charger on it but it wouldn’t hold worth shit. Probably gonna have to go to Fleet Farm and buy a new one.”
“Can you take the battery out of my car for now?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Ronnie said.
“Do it.”
Marjorie knew that Ronnie’s car, a two-door lowrider from the late eighties, was the perfect crime car. Painted a dull brownish burgundy, it had been stripped of any make or model insignia, and a bystander would be hard-pressed to give an exact description of it. Besides, the car was registered in Ronnie’s name. If things really went off the rails tonight, if Ronnie got caught red-handed and hauled down to the police station, it might give her the break she needed to get away. She still had five grand in cash stashed in a lockbox in Eau Claire. After that . . . well, she’d just have to improvise.
Five minutes later, Ronnie came stomping back inside. “Done,” he told her.
“What’s done?” Shake asked. She’d heard doors opening and closing and had crept in to investigate.
“None of your beeswax,” Marjorie said. That’s all she needed was Shake nosing around. She didn’t trust the girl as far as she could throw her.
“Ronnie?” Shake said. But Ronnie was focused only on Marjorie.
“How bad’s the weather?” Marjorie asked. She’d already looked up Muriel Pink’s address in an old phone book.
“It’s sleeting like a bastard out there,” Ronnie said. “Really coming down.”
“What are you two up to?” Shake asked. She clutched at a ratty pink cardigan that barely stretched across her belly. “Where are you guys going?”
“Just some business,” Marjorie said. “I have to run over to the Family Resource Center.”
“At this time of night?” Something didn’t feel right to Shake. But she was dog tired and her ankles were sore and swollen again. All she could think about was crawling back into the lounger and settling into a restless sleep.
“We won’t be gone long,” Ronnie assured her. “You take it easy. Get some rest.”
“I guess,” Shake said. She stared at them again, then waddled out of the room.
Marjorie turned anxious eyes on Ronnie. “Do you still have your night vision goggles?”
“Yeah, sure I do.” Ronnie had bought a set of Sightmark Ghost Hunter night vision glasses that were his pride and joy. He’d earned the money to pay for them by doing taxidermy jobs for local hunters. Sometimes he even hit the jackpot and got to work on something really great, like the bobcat he’d done for the guy over in Red Wing. A great big cat the man had shot when he was hunting out in Wyoming.
“And you need to bring your hunting knives, too.”
Ronnie stared at his mother for a full fifteen seconds before comprehension finally dawned
. “Oh shit,” he said. “You wanna do that old lady, don’t you?” He was suddenly both aroused as well as struck with an almost paralyzing case of nerves. Was this what he wanted to do? Was this all he was good for?
“We can’t do nothing about that Cannon Falls baby,” Marjorie said. “That’s a done deal.” She was pulling on her coat, fumbling with her mittens. “But we can sure as hell do something about Muriel Pink.”
* * *
THE drive through the countryside was dicey at best. Sleet pelted down, icing the windows and turning the blacktopped county roads into a skating rink.
“This is really getting bad,” Ronnie said. He snuck a sidelong glance at Marjorie. “You think we should turn around?”
Marjorie just stared straight ahead. Her mind was made up; there was no turning back.
They crawled along County Road BB, finally came out on Carmichael Road, and then, four miles farther, hit the Interstate. Finally, they slid down the hill, the Saint Croix River a wide swath of darkness below them, and turned off into Hudson. As they cruised through the downtown area, they didn’t see a soul out walking. Just lights burning in a couple of bars.
“They really roll up the sidewalks in this town, don’t they?” Marjorie said. “That’s good.” She peered out, silently mouthing the names of the street signs. “Turn here. Locust Street.” They drove up a slight hill, past the police station, and then hung a left on Third.
They cruised past the Octagon House at Myrtle and Third and then turned right on Oak. A couple more turns and Ronnie slowed the car as they glided past Muriel Pink’s house on Flint Street.
“That’s it?” he asked. The house was dark, save for a dim light that glowed somewhere. Maybe in the kitchen.
“Keep going,” Marjorie said. “Go on past her house a little ways.”
Ronnie drove to the end of the block and stopped. Put the car in Park, left the engine running. “You sure you want to do this?” he said. Ronnie didn’t mind a little rough sex when he needed to get his gun off, but killing a woman? Then again, it might be interesting. Sort of a new . . . diversion.
“She’s gonna be a problem,” Marjorie said, sounding almost philosophical. “Sooner or later. You saw the way she talked on TV. All puffed up and certain of herself. With a little more coaxing, she could probably identify me. You, too.”
“I don’t think she saw me.”
“Don’t get smart.”
Ronnie hunched forward over the steering wheel.
“I need you to man up and take care of business,” Marjorie said.
“What do you mean?” Ronnie snapped back. “Exactly?”
“I want you to go in there and use your hunting knife. Take care of that woman nice and quick, just like you would an ordinary whitetail deer.”
Ronnie smiled crookedly in the darkness. “You mean kill her?”
Marjorie stared at him.
Ronnie was sweating in the faint warmth being spewed out by the car’s heater. He’d worked with a butcher once, a guy named Hofferman over in Martell. Helped him butcher and process more than fifty deer during hunting season. Skinned ’em, carved out the front shoulders, backstraps, brisket, sirloin, and hindquarters. Quick and efficient, assembly-line style. He’d found the work thought provoking.
Finally Ronnie said, “I never did a person before.”
“There’s a first time for everything, my boy. Besides, you’ve gone after women before, don’t play dumb with me.”
He gestured back toward Muriel Pink’s house and shrugged. He was still undecided. “But not like this. She’s an old lady.”
“Listen to me.” Marjorie reached across the front seat and grabbed hold of his collar, showing surprising strength for such a birdlike woman. “If that old lady ID’s either one of us, we’re cooked.”
“Maybe she—”
“Shut up and listen to me. Do you want to go to prison?”
Ronnie shrugged his shoulders. “Of course not.”
“If that Pink woman identifies us, we’ll sure as shit go to prison, no questions asked. And you, my boy, will never survive that experience.”
Ronnie felt his guts practically turn to water.
“When women are sent to jail, they get to live in cottages and cook meals in a real kitchen,” Marjorie said. “Guys go to hard-core prisons with cement cells, twenty-foot walls, and guard towers with automatic rifles. You’ve seen that prison over in Stillwater, haven’t you? You want to call that place home for the next thirty years?”
Ronnie shook his head.
Marjorie continued to pound away at him. Finally, she turned the tide by asking him one simple question: “Do you want nasty old men to use you like they would a woman?”
That was when Ronnie heaved a knowing sigh. He gathered up his knives, his night vision glasses, and the battered pizza box in the backseat. Then, without a word to her, he climbed out of the car and slunk toward what would soon become a charnel house.
* * *
MARJORIE waited in the dark. Anxious, quivering like a frightened Chihuahua. Biting her nails down to almost nothing. Then, finally, to bloody stumps. With the engine off, it was getting colder and colder and she sank into her coat, pulling up the collar and shivering. As the night yawned on, the windows began to fog. Still, her hands and feet jiggled with nervous energy.
After what seemed like an eternity—but was probably no more than twenty minutes—Marjorie was delirious with worry and ready to jack the key into the ignition and take off without him. She glanced into the rearview mirror and caught barely a hint of shadow creeping around the corner of the house. Ah, Ronnie. Now the boy was moving more quickly, his head swiveling to see if anyone was watching.
No one was.
As he neared the car, Ronnie broke into a staggering lope. Then he ripped open the car door and flung himself into the backseat.
“Did you do it?” Marjorie asked, turning to look at him.
Ronnie sank back, a stupid smile on his face. “What do you think?”
In the dim light from the overhead bulb, Marjorie could make out telltale bloody splotches. “Watch your clothes,” she warned. “Watch your clothes and stay on top of that old army blanket.”
“Shut up and drive.”
Marjorie slid across the front seat and took her place behind the wheel. She drove back through Hudson slowly and carefully. When she finally gazed into the rearview mirror, Ronnie was sprawled across the backseat and snoring softly. He might have been unnerved by his actions tonight, but he was sleeping like a baby.
Marjorie allowed herself a tight smile. The kid came through, she told herself. He pulled it off. Which means one big problem is solved. Now, knock on wood, we’re home free.
25
MAX, Afton, and Andy Farmer were sitting in the conference room, watching the tape of Portia Bourgoyne’s interview.
“The TV station sent this over?” Max asked.
Farmer nodded. “Not because they were particularly interested in doing a public service. There was, shall we say, pressure?”
“Good. Have the FBI guys seen this?” Max asked.
“We sent a copy over to them,” Farmer said.
“I still can’t believe Bourgoyne got to this woman,” Afton said.
“Leaks,” Farmer said. “They’re what can kill an investigation.”
“Or bog it down,” Max said.
Afton looked at the paperwork strewn about the table. “Are we bogged down?”
“You tell me,” Max said. Then, “Maybe.”
Afton furrowed her brow. She wished she could be of more help.
“Or maybe not,” Max said. “Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.”
“You gonna go through all those notes again?” Farmer asked Max. “You got copies of all the interviews? The stuff Dillon and I did? The ones the FBI handled?”
“We got it all,” Max said.
* * *
AFTON and Max were twenty minutes into their analysis when the phone rang.
Max didn’t look up, but instead aimed a pen at the phone. Afton snatched up the receiver. “Yes?”
“I thought you and Max might be in there,” Angel Graham said. “I have a call holding from a Dr. Sansevere at the ME’s office. Do you want me to put her through?”
“Please.” Afton punched the button to turn on the speakerphone. “Dr. Sansevere is calling,” she told Max. “I think she might have something for us.”
“Dr. Sansevere?” Max said. “This is Max Montgomery. How can I help?”
“I’ve got some news for you.” Her voice was brisk and businesslike.
“Go ahead. Sorry if this sounds like we’re talking from the bottom of a garbage can, but we’ve got you on speakerphone. I want my colleague to hear this, too.”
“The baby that was brought back from Cannon Falls?” said Dr. Sansevere. “There was a problem with her heart. What we call a VSD, a hole in the heart.”
Afton felt sick to her stomach. “You mean somebody stabbed her?” she asked. “Shot her?”
“No, no,” Dr. Sansevere said. “Nothing like that, not any kind of external injury. It was a congenital defect, something the child was born with. A ventricular septal defect. Lots of babies are born with it. It’s basically a hole in the septum that separates the ventricles, the two lower parts of the heart.”
Max locked eyes with Afton.
“Could it have been repaired?” Afton asked.
“Perhaps. If she’d had immediate medical attention. VSDs more often than not require open heart surgery.”
“So that was the cause of death?” Max asked. “A bad heart?”
“Probably the defect was so bad that her heart simply stopped beating,” Dr. Sansevere said.
“So she was doomed from birth?” Afton asked.
“I would say so, yes,” Dr. Sansevere said. “That was the main issue we encountered in her autopsy. I found no petechial hemorrhages to indicate she might have been smothered, which is an insidious but common way to kill an infant. There were no ligature marks, no cuts or bruises. Her head hadn’t been shaken, nothing abnormal showed up in her scan. The only thing abnormal about that little girl was her heart. And the fact that she was somewhat malnourished.”
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