by Ellery Kane
On Friday afternoon, in response to intense speculation regarding the nature of Kate Culpepper’s death, Police Chief Scott Morrow issued the following statement: “Based upon the results of our investigation—including the time of death, the nature and location of the victim’s wounds, DNA evidence found on the victim’s body and the murder weapon, as well as other evidence found at the scene—it has been determined that Ian Culpepper likely murdered his wife shortly before he inflicted superficial wounds to himself. The coroner has also determined Kate was approximately eight weeks pregnant at the time of her death.” Chief Morrow declined to answer questions, citing the sensitive nature of ongoing criminal proceedings.
THE DOWNTOWN STAR
“Love Doctor’s Secret Love Child—and the Revenge of a Woman Scorned”
When Kate Culpepper was brutally stabbed to death by her husband, Ian, inside their Pebble Beach mansion, no one knew she had a shocking secret. A secret so dark it may have led to her demise: she was pregnant with another man’s child.
A source close to the investigation confirmed to The Downtown Star that DNA testing excluded Culpepper as the father of Kate’s eight-week-old fetus. Did Culpepper learn of his wife’s affair and stab her in a jealous rage? Insiders say the blonde-haired beauty had a wandering eye much like her husband and had hopped into bed with one of his colleagues shortly after their arrival in sleepy Carmel. But no one, not even those closest to the couple, suspected the truth about the Love Doctors’ ill-fated marriage.
In another bombshell revelation, Ian’s ex-wife, Ava Lawson, was indicted for his murder, after mounting evidence pointed to her involvement in the attack. Reminiscent of the infamous “scorned woman” Betty Broderick, the suburban housewife who shot to death her ex-husband and his second wife, it is believed that Lawson sought her revenge against her ex-husband in a vicious Valentine’s Day slaughter. Pictured below, arriving back at her Carmel cottage, Lawson looks remorseless, apparently unperturbed by the allegations against her, leading some to dub her the “Valentine Vixen.”
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Saturday Morning
February 25, 2018
Sleep is a luxury I can’t afford. And I can’t sleep anyway. Even with the deadbolt turned and the safety latch in place. Because some monsters live in your head—they know their way around up there—and you can’t lock them out. They’ve scoped out all the best hiding places, sinking their sharp claws in when you least expect it. Like at 4 a.m., when you’re half-asleep and you swear to God you see your dead father standing at the foot of the bed, half of his face missing. Or Wallace Bergman grinning with his eyes of fire. You blink and it’s your ex-husband, bleeding onto the cheap bedspread.
Though it’s still dark out, there’s the promise of the sun—a soft glow—at the edge of the horizon. I follow it as I drive to my office, with a quick stop to buy a burner phone. I park just off Ocean Avenue and fire up the screen. I shouldn’t look, but I can’t resist. The same way I’d been drawn to Love Doctored every Monday in prime time. The carnage, even my own, is magnetic.
Valentine Vixen. That’s what they’re calling me, apparently. It’s the headline on the home page, right above that picture of me from yesterday, trudging up the sidewalk like a zombie. I scroll through the article the same way I’d watch a horror film, grimacing and peeking through my fingers. Waiting for the damning words to jump out at me.
Revenge.
Betty Broderick.
Remorseless.
A scorned woman.
And then I see it.
I rest the phone on my lap, drawing a shaky breath before I pick it up again.
My eyes scan the page, but my mind is back there, a million years ago, with Ian pacing beside our bed. His tear-soaked voice suddenly hardened. “I’ll blow my goddamned brains out just like your father.” All the times he’d made that threat, he’d never threatened me. But then, I hadn’t been pregnant with another man’s child. And Kate had been, apparently. Which only confirmed the suspicions in Ian’s letter.
I sink back in my seat and turn up the radio, trying to blast out the thoughts, the memories. And the question that keeps turning over and over in my mind, like the undead in a shallow grave: Was Ian capable of that kind of murder?
Not the impersonal kind. A medicated Wallace, an airborne car, and a fire he could simply walk away from, hands clean. But an act of ancient warfare? The thrust of a blade into the soft flesh of the woman he’d loved. A deep slice across the neck he’d once kissed. Stabbing required physical effort. Intention. The kind of personal cruelty that not only sullied your hands but stained them, working its way beneath your fingernails.
“Kate put up one heck of a fight”—that’s what Detective Lennox had said. And I thrust open the door, feeling sick at the memory of that gash, the one that had likely ended her. And the realization that the man I had once slept beside had wielded the fatal strike.
I lock the car behind me and do a slow spin, surveying the empty sidewalk. The road deserted. The businesses still shuttered. Seeing no one, I head up Ocean Avenue. Still wet from last night’s storm, the gutters are clogged with sludge and leaves long dead. Yet somehow the air remains unsettled. Like the clouds could darken, the rain could fall. Again and at any moment. Or maybe it’s just the storm gathering inside me.
At Seaside Sweets, the OPEN sign is turned off, the door locked. But the lights are on, and I know Marianne’s inside. She’d once told me she kept worse hours than Jack, awakening well before sunrise to prep the shop.
I steel myself at the entry, afraid of what I have to do. The hornets’ nest I need to poke. And it begins with a solid knock on the door, my fist rapping against the seashell logo.
Distracted, Marianne emerges from the back in a flour-spotted apron. She wipes her hands on a dish towel before she looks up and sees me standing there. I give a little wave, a sad smile, to disarm her. But the shock registers on her face. She’s afraid of me.
Still, she comes to the door and opens it. A crack.
“Ava. Um . . . I don’t quite know what to say. You don’t have patients, do you?”
She probably doesn’t mean it as a jab, but it stings anyway. Because I’m not sure if she means today or ever again. And honestly, I can only answer the first. “No. Not on a Saturday. May I come in?”
Her eyes—the ones she gave to Cooper—flit to the kitchen and back to me. I wonder if she’s doing what I’d done with Ricky. A version of it anyway. Searching out all the ways she can defend herself from the Valentine Vixen. Death by bread knife, rolling pin, or sugar coma. I could come up with worse ways to go. “I don’t think Jack would like that. Me being alone with you in here.”
I sigh under the weight of the woman she believes I am. Though the truth is not much better. “Do you really think I would hurt you?”
“Of course not. But it gives the appearance of impropriety, cavorting with someone accused of . . . well, you know.”
Marianne can’t even say the word.
“To who?” I ask, waving my hand toward the street. It’s so quiet I can hear the roar of the ocean, a soft murmur from here. “The seagulls?”
She says nothing for a moment, and I curse myself. Me and my smart mouth. But then she steps aside and ushers me in. “Just a few minutes. I have a catering order to get started on, and Olivia will be here any minute.”
I wonder if Olivia is a real employee or a made-up person. If that’s the sort of thing I inspire now. Fabricating a cover story so you won’t be stabbed to death in your sweetshop. “It won’t take long. I really just wanted to ask about Luke. How is he?”
She frowns as she busies herself at the already-spotless counter, wiping it vigorously with the floured towel and leaving a white trail down the center. “Oh goodness. I’m making a mess.”
When she looks up at me, her eyes glisten. And I can hardly believ
e she’s about to cry. The only other time I’d witnessed her tears, Cooper had been to blame. Well, Cooper and Luke. They’d nearly come to blows at a Donovan family dinner, one of my first a few months back. Cooper had racked up another citizen complaint, this one for excessive force, and Luke hadn’t backed up his story. “You don’t snitch on another cop, much less your brother. Did she put you up to it?” That’s what Cooper had shouted before he’d pushed Luke in the chest. Jack had wedged his way between them; Marianne had cried; and I’d sat there stunned, still feeling the burn of his accusation.
“You seem upset,” I say, employing therapist mode.
She sniffles, nods. “My sons got along once, believe it or not. But they’ve always been competitive. Cooper, more so. Especially when it comes to impressing Jack.”
“I can see why. They’ve got big shoes to fill with Mr. Excellence in Investigation five years running.” Marianne’s smile, however brief, is a comfort. “Did they have a fight?”
She wipes her cheeks, straightens her apron. “Last night. They both came over for dinner. And it went downhill fast.”
“Why?” Of course, I can guess the answer.
“You, dear.” Valentine Vixen herself.
“What happened?”
“Well, Cooper overheard Luke leaving you a message. He got mouthy and left with a black eye.”
I grimace to hide my satisfaction. Maybe I am a back-row girl after all, the sort who would take pleasure in a man going to blows for her. “And Luke?”
“I haven’t heard from him since he stormed out.” She turns her back to me, glancing toward the kitchen. And the room feels cold. “You shouldn’t have gotten him involved in this. He’s different than you. His heart hasn’t been broken yet.”
“And I’m not trying to break it.” Not trying. Such a cop-out.
“Oh, Ava.” She spins around, blue eyes afire, and spits out my name, bitter as a lemon peel. “What do you think will happen when you go to prison for murder? How do imagine Luke’s going to look? As a cop? As a man? It will destroy him. And his career.”
“He didn’t even want to be a police officer. He just gave in to make you and Jack happy. Do you know he still talks about law school? All. The. Time.” I say it mostly to hurt her. To show her. See, I know him better than you. “Besides, I didn’t kill Ian. And I think Cooper—”
I retract my poison arrow. I can’t fire it, not that one. Not at her. But I keep it in the quiver, knowing who it’s meant for. Remembering what Ian had written in the last paragraph of the letter I’d reread at least a hundred times:
I’m not sure who Kate got herself involved with, but he’s well-connected. Maybe a lawyer or even a cop. Because she knows things I didn’t tell her. Things from W.B.’s accident report. The investigation. Maybe it will all blow over. Maybe it already has. Or maybe it’s come out already and you’re rotting in a jail cell somewhere. I don’t know what she’s planning, but she could destroy me with what she knows. And Aves, I’m afraid. For both of us.
“I think Cooper knows something. He went to Cliffside and pretended to be Luke.”
Marianne swallows hard and sets free her own arrow. “Jack told me that little girl, Madison, is talking again. She’s given a statement.” Aimed right at the heart, it’s a fatal wound. Jack would’ve been proud. My father too. Don’t give them a chance to fire back—take them out with a single shot. That was his advice. “You should go before I call him.”
But she’s the one to do it, straight through the swinging kitchen doors, leaving me standing alone and talking to the empty display case. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” I say it again, louder this time, knowing she’ll hear me.
From behind, the door rattles. A young girl steps inside, pockets her key, and takes out her headphones, still playing. I can hear the tinny sound of the music.
“Is everything okay?” she asks me.
I nod as I brush past. Then, I see her nametag. Olivia.
I’m the only liar here.
****
You have three new messages. Message one. Thursday, February 23, 7 p.m.
“Uh, hi, Doctor Lawson, it’s Claus. I’m not sure if you’re . . . uh, well . . . free yet. But I think it’s best if we cancel Fridays for the time being. I wish you the best of—”
Delete.
Next new message. Thursday, February 23, 7:05 p.m.
“Doctor Lawson, Joan McCorkle here. I’m afraid I won’t be able to continue in therapy with you for obvious reasons. I’ll expect a refund for—”
Delete.
Next new message. Friday, February 24, 5:59 p.m.
“Ava, it’s Luke. I tried your cell, but I’m guessing you ditched it. And your house phone’s been busy for hours. Probably took it off the hook. Anyway, I’m at Mom and Dad’s for dinner. And I’ll be on duty till six tomorrow morning. Don’t know if you’ll get this but if you do, I’ll be at our spot around seven. I need—”
I hang up and check the clock. 6:45. I can still make it.
But first, I have to get what I came for.
Inside my purse, I find the tiny silver key that fits the lock to the cabinet where I keep my patient files. My fingers search the well-worn edges until I find it. CLEO CAMPBELL.
Tucking the folder under my arm, I open the door, ready to run to my car. To the man who defended my honor. The man who punched Cooper in the face. Because he believes me. That thought is an antidote to everything else, even Marianne’s arrow with its little poison tip: Maddie.
“David.” I stop short in the threshold. “I’m on my way out.”
“Please. I have to talk to you.” He sounds as ragged as I’ve ever heard him and looks worse. In a coffee-stained SimuLife T-shirt, baggy blue jeans, and the pièce de résistance—a pair of mud-colored Crocs. David is a butterfly turned caterpillar. “Tara kicked me out.”
“How did you know I was here?”
He jerks his head toward the window, then looks away, embarrassed. “I slept in the McLaren last night. Well, slept might be overstating it. Let me tell you, that car may do zero to sixty in three seconds flat, but it’s no Ritz. Anyway, I was up at four, so I drove by your house, but you weren’t there. Just a helluva lot of reporters. So I thought I’d check your office. And I saw the light on.”
My father’s watch ticks at me from my wrist. 6:50. “Have you seen the news? I’m probably not the best person to talk to right now. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to practice psychology after all this is over.”
I have a flash of me and Marbles sitting face-to-face on cold metal benches at a table that’s bolted to the floor. The kind they have in prison. Where they can’t even trust you not to wield a piece of furniture as a weapon. “Tell me more,” I’ll say.
“I heard about all that. And yeah, it was pretty fucked up of you to lie to me. You knew Pep. This whole time. Man, I can’t get over it.” He lowers his voice to a raspy whisper. “But I don’t think you killed him.”
“Who, then?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
6:53. “Okay. But it has to be quick.”
I lock the outer door and sit in my own waiting room. Waiting for David to speak. For him to give me what I’ve always needed. What I can’t give to myself. Absolution. Just like I’d told Ricky.
“So I confessed everything to Tara last night. About the gambling. About the money I owed to Ian. How we’re up to our eyeballs in debt. And the one night . . . with that girl.”
“Cleo.”
His Croc-ed foot taps in time with the second hand, and I ache at the thought of Luke waiting, wondering if I’m coming at all. “Yeah. Cleo. Cleopatra. Whatever. Anyway, Tara had an epic meltdown like I knew she would. The whole I-should’ve-never-married-a-loser-like-you speech. No surprise there. But she said something bat-shit crazy.”
I do the therapist nod, calm and
reassuring. But inside, my heart slams against my chest. Like a prisoner who’s spotted a chink in the bars. A key left unguarded. A way out.
“Get this. She said she already knew about Cleo. That she’d known since it happened. That she arranged for it to happen.”
“Arranged for it? What do you mean?”
“I mean, she went online and hired a fucking escort to test me. She said some of her friends had done it too. And that got me thinking.”
The Fidelity Five. It sits like a rock in my throat and I can’t speak.
“What if Kate hired Cleo too?”
The empathic murmur is all I can manage.
“It would explain why Cleo freaked the night she saw me and Ian at The Pearl. It was a while after we’d hooked up. I went to get a drink and she was there, talking up Ian. So damn nervous, she spilled my drink. She probably thought I’d tell him. Ruin the whole setup.”
“Wow.” That’s what squeaks out. Just wow.
“When I saw this story about Kate being knocked up by some other guy, it all made sense.”
I try to find a thread to follow, but the tangle in my brain only knots tighter. My thoughts a jumbled mess, I stare down at my watch. 7:01. I’m already late. But I feel weighted here. To this chair. To the words he’s about to say. Sink me or save me, I have to hear them.