Today, Thursday, Mayor B was at work as usual. His factory has a second shift that goes till 11:00 p.m., but the mayor keeps regular business hours in his office. Mrs. Eva B said she had to run out to Piggly Wiggly, and in case she didn't return before I was through, she left my check on the kitchen counter. The door slammed behind her on her way out. Mrs. B's always in a hurry.
I finished my dustin in the formal dinin room and headed to Mayor B's office, totin my fold-up, two-step stool. Have to drag that thing to ever room to dust up high. House cleanin would be a whole lot easier if I was six foot tall.
In the office I set down my stool and walked to the desk I done dusted a thousand times. And found myself eyein the shiny gold drawer handles.
Like iron filins to a magnet my hand reached for the top drawer. I glanced over my shoulder out to the front hallway, even though I knew nobody was there. My fingers pulled the drawer. It rolled open so easy.
Green hangin files is what I seen. Inside em, folder after beige folder with labels like "City Council" and "Downtown." But the one that caught my eye was "Closet Killings."
That sent a chill rollin down my back.
Three years and five victims. Then, just two nights ago—Lord, have mercy on us—a sixth. I could recite each name and date, knew each woman myself. The whole town did. The population a Amaryllis barely reaches 1,700, so who's not gon know everbody else?
I pulled out the manila folder. Laid it on the desk.
My heart took to trippin.
For a minute I almost put the file back. Didn't want to see, didn't want to know. Instead I opened the folder.
On top sat a full-page color picture a Martha Edgars, from the waist up. Blood all over her, a knife buried in her neck. She'd been shoved in a closet, clothes hangin round her. Her eyes was wide open like she died in utter terror.
I let out a little scream and tipped my face to the ceilin. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Couldn't pray no more than the precious Savior's name. My breaths got all staggery, and sweat popped down my back. I leaned against the desk and pulled in air.
Not that I hadn't known how Martha died. But to see it for myself . . .
I flipped over the picture. Couldn't bear to see it again. I lowered my eyes—and seen photo #2. Sara Fulgerson. Just as bloody. Knife just as deep in her neck, but the handle was different. Sara's eyes was closed. Like Martha, she was propped up against a closet wall.
My heart liked to beat right outta me. I pressed a hand to my chest.
Martha was my age—sixty-two. Sara, fifty-seven. Both white women.
What crazy voice in my head was it tol me to look at the third picture, I'll never know.
It was Sonya Stelligman, sixty-one. Another knife in the neck, blood everwhere. She sat in her closet. Sonya was a black lady, went to my church. I loved that woman.
Next I saw Alma Withers, only forty-eight when she was killed. Similar stab wound. Then Carla Brewster, sixty-four. Butchered the same way. Alma was white, Carla, black.
There they was—pictures a the first five murders, in order. That Mayor B, he was meticulous, all right.
My knees went weak. I huffed down into Mayor B's chair and leaned back, steadyin myself. Alma's photo still glared up at me, should I turn my face back to it. Last thing I wanted to do.
But there was one more killin—the most recent. Erika Hollinger, white girl jus twenty years old. Husband sent off to the Afghanistan war, then blown to pieces by a bomb six months ago. Erika had been a town wild child, raised by a single mother who drank too much. As for Erika's husband, Brent Hollinger, I'd cleaned his parents' house for years. Watched Brent grow. He was a good boy. I went to his and Erika's weddin—just about the only black face there. Later I went to Brent's funeral. Who'd a guessed within half a year Erika would be dead too. Now, two days after her murder I still didn't know when her funeral would be. The police had yet to release her body.
Somethin beyond me made my hand flip over Alma's picture. And there sat Erika. Knifed in the neck and bloodied, the ends a her thick brown hair clotted in red. Once pretty face all blotched and purple.
My body went to shakin. Good thing Mrs. B didn't choose that time to come home. Don't think I coulda moved.
The whole town knew the victims was all found in their closets. And that one person killed em all. The police said no doubt bout that, because ever crime scene was the same. Now I seen the proof. Each knife handle looked different, but from the size they all looked to be parin knives. Somethin ever woman would have in her kitchen.
I slapped the file shut. Why did the mayor have these pictures?
They had to come from the police. But those men were a tight bunch, two of em father and son. And Chief Adam Cotter ruled the roost. Cotter and Mayor B was tight, too. But the chief had kept a zipped lip on details a the Closet Killings. So to make an extra set a pictures a ever murder for Austin Bradmeyer—and let the man take em home? I couldn't see Mr. I'm-the-Boss-Here Cotter doin that, even for the mayor. Besides, why would Mayor B want those horrible things?
The grandfather clock in the front hallway bonged, bringin me back to my senses. I still had an office to clean. If Mrs. B come back she'd wonder what I been doin with my time.
I picked up the folder—with two fingers like I didn't want to touch it—and spread apart the green hangin file to drop it back in. That's when I seen the ring restin on the bottom a the file.
My heart knew what it was almost before my brain kicked in—and my muscles just plain froze.
Erika Hollinger, born Erika Lokin, got the ring from her mother on her sixteenth birthday, handed down from her great-grandmother. Far as I know she never took it off. Two days ago I seen Erika at the drugstore late that afternoon. She seemed upset. "How you doin?" I touched her arm. She shook her head in that determined way a hers—"I'm fine"—but wiped her eyes. Sad, her bein so young and losin a husband and all. So I took myself home and baked a batch a brownies and carted em over to Erika's house to cheer her up. We ended up sittin on her couch like two good friends—which we really ain't—eatin those brownies and watchin a movie. Around 10:00 I went home, and Erika said she was headed for bed. I tol her to wrap up the brownies so they wouldn't get hard. Erika rolled her big brown eyes but did what I said. She made a big deal a rippin off the plastic wrap while I watched.
And that ring was on her finger.
Sometime that night Erika was killed while sleepin in her bed. Just like the other five. When I heard the awful news yesterday I couldn't believe it. I called the police and tol em I been to Erika's house that very night. Chief Cotter said to come in and give a statement. He took me in that little interrogation room at the station and questioned me up and down. At the end he said, "You by any chance notice Erika's diamond ring on her little finger?"
Later that day I talked to Erika's mama. She also wondered if I seen the ring. Because when the police found Erika's body, she said, that ring was the only thing missin from the house.
Mayor B said nothin bout bein in Erika's house that night she was killed. Why should he be? In fact just this mornin the county paper ran a quote from Mayor B, sayin how sad he was that while he and the wife were safe at home, across town another woman was gettin herself killed.
Now here sat Erika's ring in Mayor B's desk drawer.
Somethin in my belly started to tremble. I set down the folder and picked up that ring. Looked inside the gold band. There they was—Erika's great-grandmother's initials: A.K.L.
I dropped the ring back in the folder like it was on fire.
Cherrie Mae, you know you crazy for what you thinkin. You know theys an explanation.
I looked from those awful pictures to the ring.
Trophies? I seen crime shows on TV. I know crazed killers keep such things. And we sure did have ourselves a crazy killer in Amaryllis.
But it ain't Aust
in Bradmeyer, Cherrie Mae, come on, girl.
Maybe Mayor B kept those pictures to remind hisself how much he wanted to catch the Closet Killer. Least that's what he says all the time.
Fine then. What about the ring? The police might a given him a set a those pictures, but they didn't even know he had that ring.
I heard the Bradmeyers' front doh open. My body jerked. I threw the picture file back in the hangin folder and slid the drawer shut. Snatched up my dust rag, heart rattlin in my chest.
"I'm back, Cherrie Mae!" Mrs. B called.
"Yes, ma'am. I'm in the office." Somehow my voice came out normal. I heard Mrs. B's footsteps comin and started dustin like my life depended on it.
Fact was, it did.
By the time I got outta that house, my mouth run dry and my knees wobbled. I loaded my car with all my supplies and the stool, and slid inside to rest my head against the steerin wheel. Surely I was as good as dead. Me, a woman livin alone in Amaryllis, and knowin what I did. What was I gon do? I couldn't keep quiet bout somethin this big. And I couldn't tell nobody neither.
Because who in town's gonna believe the likes a five-foot-high Cherrie Mae Devine when she says the mayor's the one who killed them six women?
Chapter 2
Tully
Just after lunch I fell asleep on the couch and dreamed I was back in high school. Erika Lokin, a year older than me, was going all crazy over some new boyfriend. I kept saying, "Be careful." Didn't even know the guy, but that's all that came out of my mouth. I woke up on my side, eyes fixed on that Coke stain on the carpet I've been meaning to clean up. Day was warm as toast, but chill bumps ran all over me. My belly felt mountain-heavy, and my head hurt.
"Be careful."
I hated Erika Lokin—later Erika Hollinger—all through high school. She was way more sophisticated than me and so beautiful, with that thick brown hair and doe eyes, long lashes. My mouse-brown hair and too-round face couldn't hold a candle to hers. And she was fierce in her love for my Michael. She made no bones about the fact she wanted him back after he broke up with her and started dating me. In her mind she never let Mike go. Not till her dying day.
Will I burn in hell for being glad she's dead?
When I woke up from my dream the little square clock on the wall read 1:20. Mike would need to be at work at the factory by 3:00. I could hear him under the outside carport, country music cranking out his radio. Tinkering on his old fishing boat, I imagine. I could picture him with his shirt off, his powerful hand holding some tool, steel blue eyes squinting, and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. If things didn't go just right, that quick temper of his would crackle, curses spilling from his lips. My bad boy Michael. My heart since I was in eighth grade.
He'd had that swagger that so got to me. At thirteen, I knew he'd never look my way. I wasn't thin enough, pretty enough. And I was too quiet to make him notice. I watched him date Erika all my freshman year of high school. Then came that night at the school baseball game when he happened to sit next to me—without Erika.
Two days ago I was singing. Sewing clothes for my baby boy, due in two months. Nineteen years old and happy to be a mother. Now my mind had near shut down. I could hardly breathe.
You think you know where you're going in life. You think you got it all figured out. I sure did. My parents always expected me to go to college. Ole Miss, where they met. Instead their perfect daughter fell for the town rebel-without-a-cause, four years older. A man who got a job right out of high school, working the late shift at Mayor Bradmeyer's plastics factory, and waited for that daughter to graduate and marry him. My mother still mourns my wedding day. Thinks I threw away my life. "You're too smart not to go to college!" she cried when Mike and I got engaged. "Valedictorian of your class!"
Couldn't she see how he made me feel? How he'd acted like there was no other girl in the world? I refused to listen when she said he was no good. That he couldn't be trusted. I told my mother if I couldn't have Michael Phillips, I wouldn't have a life.
Now look at me.
Erika Hollinger thought she had it all figured out too. Married right out of high school, although college was never in her future. Then three days ago she up and tells me her latest news.
Yesterday, when I heard Erika had been murdered, I threw up. Victim number six, said the police. Stabbed, then stashed in the closet like the rest of them. Lots of blood. What other details they saw at the scene, they wouldn't say. But clearly it was the work of the same killer. And once again—no witnesses and no evidence.
Well, as far as they know.
People in town declare this and that about the murders. Everybody is a suspect, and nobody at all. They lock their doors and whisper their suspicions over the phone. I lock my doors too, when Mike is at work. He doesn't get off until 11:00 p.m.—long after dark, even in the summer.
My mom thinks the killer is somebody in the next town or beyond. Some psycho who creeps in, murders our women, then steals away. Couldn't be one of us, she says. Not in Amaryllis. I used to think that too. I wanted to believe it.
Now I know she's wrong. He lives right here among us, all right. But if I tell, I'm dead.
The killer is my husband.
Chapter 3
Tully
Three days ago—on Monday—Erika called me. After years of stalking to a different aisle when she saw me in the grocery store. After spreading rumors about me in high school. From the day Mike and I got engaged when I was a junior, she hadn't spoken to me. Instead she threw herself at tall, muscular Bruce Hollinger, who'd always had a crush on her. Flaunted him around town like she didn't care a whit about Michael Phillips anymore. She married Bruce and made sure Mike and I weren't invited to the wedding, even though Mike and Bruce were friends. When Bruce went off to war and was later killed, I took Erika a casserole. She wouldn't even let me in the house. Standing right there on her front porch, she shoved the glass pan back at me.
"No thank you, not from the likes of you."
So why was she calling me now, while Mike was at work?
I stood in my kitchen with the phone to my ear, feeling like I had a basketball between my legs. At seven months the baby had dropped. Just a week ago I'd had to stop my job as checker at the Amaryllis Piggly Wiggly because the doctor told me to get off my feet.
"Tully." Erika's voice vibrated right through me. "You need to come over and hear what I have to say."
"You have something to say, Erika, you can tell me right now."
"Oh, no." She gave a little chuckle. "I want to see your face."
My fingers tightened on the receiver. I didn't want to play her games. But I'd never been a match against Erika. She knew how to ride all over me. "I couldn't come if I wanted to. Doctor said to keep my feet up."
"Oh, right, you're pregnant." She singsonged the words. "You want Daddy around when the baby's born?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Come over here now, Tully, if you know what's good for you."
"No."
"Fine. I'll tell your mother first." Erika hung up.
She knew she had me with that. My mother and I had enough strain between us, and I didn't need any more reason for the woman to remind me of my "mistakes." Besides, that comment about Mike being around for the birth—as if he wouldn't be—scared me to death.
In ten minutes I was lumbering up to Erika's front door, sweat rolling down my back, cursing myself for allowing her to rope me in. She waved me inside with a Karo smile—syrupy sweet and colorless. Sat me on the couch. Even told me to put my feet up. I said no, thank you. Swollen ankles or not, no way could I relax within a hundred yards of Erika Hollinger.
She perched prettily on the edge of her blue-flowered chair and leaned toward me, fingers laced. Her makeup was perfect, with pink blush and shiny lipstick. Like she wanted to rub it in how good
she looked next to me. "I'm three months pregnant"—Erika looked me straight in the eye—"and Mike's the father."
The world spun down my spine.
Erika stood and with a flourish pulled up her T-shirt. "See?"
Her belly did stick out some, although less than mine had after the first trimester. But Erika had always been taller and thinner than me. I stared at that bump, my tongue numb.
Erika lowered her shirt and sat back down. Crossed a prim leg. "Don't believe me?"
With both hands I started to push off the couch. "I'm leaving."
"You might want to hear me out."
I jerked toward her. "Erika, you've been a conniving liar since I've known you."
"Oh, a big word from the smart one." Her head tilted. "But who can blame you for not believin me? Michael's good at keepin his secrets."
"He doesn't love you, Erika! He never has." Why couldn't I get to my feet? My legs were like water.
"Want proof?" Her voice hardened. "I've got it." She rose again, graceful as a swan, and glided to a knickknack case against the wall. Grabbed something off the middle shelf. "Here." She walked over to me and held out a picture. "See for yourself."
I glared up at Erika, refusing to take it from her hand. She positioned the photo upright, holding the top with two fingers.
My gaze pulled to the picture—and glued there. I frowned. Leaned forward to see better, despite myself. Erika lay on a bed in some clinic I didn't recognize, her shirt pulled up to expose her belly. A nurse stood over her performing an ultrasound, one hand pointing to the monitor. I could barely make out the grainy form of a fetus.
Holding Erika's hand, standing in half profile to the camera, was Mike.
My muscles gave out. I sagged back against the couch cushions, stunned betrayal whirling in me. Erika said not a word. Just pulled back the picture with a smirk on her face.
"Take your time." She resettled in her chair. "I know it's a shock."
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