by Amy Pershing
“Actually I can’t think of anything better to do with my time than that,” Jason said, laughing, “but you’re right, Helene, there’s other stuff I need to do first.” Yeah, like slap some handcuffs on that Trey creep.
Jason turned back toward the parking lot, and Helene and I continued our walk. Diogi trailed behind us, proudly carrying his stinky fish. Helene made no attempt to draw me out, for which I was grateful. I needed some time to think, to process what had just happened and what I’d just heard.
Finally breaking the silence, I said, “Jason wants me to get a restraining order against Trey.”
“Does he,” Helene said mildly. “And why is that?”
“Well, he apparently said he was going to try to steal my mother’s notebook again and shoot my dog in the process.”
“Then a restraining order seems like a reasonable precaution to me,” Helene said.
“And because he thinks Trey drowned Estelle,” I said.
Helene didn’t even break stride. “And why is that?”
“Because it wasn’t Mr. Logan.”
Helene nodded thoughtfully.
“You called it,” I pointed out. “You knew it wasn’t Mr. Logan. And even if you didn’t expect it to lead to murder, you knew Trey had a twisted psyche.”
Helene nodded. “It’s beginning to look that way, I’m afraid.”
It was. And it made me sad. And afraid.
“Let’s go see Roland about that restraining order,” Helene said.
* * *
* * *
If you have never had to take out a restraining order against someone, I sincerely hope you never have to do so. But if you must, then take a lawyer with you. Roland was, once again, superb, guiding me through the forms at the police station and ensuring that Trey would be served with the papers immediately.
“He’d be a fool to come anywhere near you now,” he said as he dropped me off back at Aunt Ida’s.
“Or near my dog?” I asked.
“Or your dog,” Roland said.
So I wasn’t afraid anymore. But I was still sad.
* * *
* * *
Krista arrived as I was frying up a nice comforting grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. (Tip: Swiss cheese, which in my opinion tastes like an old boot when it’s cold, is the best all melty in a grilled cheese sandwich.) And by “Krista arrived,” I mean just let herself in without knocking or anything. That’s how I knew it was her without even turning around.
“Hi, Krista,” I said, lifting a corner of the sandwich with my spatula to see if it was just the perfect shade of light toasty brown. It was. (Tip: Use mayonnaise on the bread when you fry it. You don’t have to worry about softening butter to spread it and the sandwich crisps up better.) I turned to her. “You want half of my grilled cheese?”
“Sure,” Krista said, throwing herself on the couch. “You make the best grilled cheese.”
“I make the best everything,” I corrected her.
“That, too,” she acknowledged.
I cut the sandwich on the diagonal with the spatula (sandwiches always seem more special cut on the diagonal) and slipped half onto a plate. I held it out to her and she took it greedily. Then I grilled two more sandwiches, just to keep our strength up. When we’d finished gorging ourselves and had fed Diogi a few of the crusts, we wiped our greasy hands on paper towels and looked at each other. Suddenly things felt just a little awkward.
Krista finally jumped in.
“Any idea when the cops are going to come knocking on Curtis’s door about that photo?”
“Like, never,” I responded. “Because, duh, he’s not a suspect.” Then a thought hit me. “And how do you know they haven’t come knocking on his door?”
Krista just grinned at me.
“You told him about the photo?” I couldn’t believe it. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I wanted to pay him back,” Krista said defiantly. “I wanted to scare the crap out of him.”
Okay. I could see that.
“And did it?” I asked. “Scare the crap out of him, I mean.”
“Oh yeah,” Krista said with some satisfaction. “Not that he would admit to it. But he’s one of those guys who if he’s scared gets really pissed off. And he was majorly pissed off at me.”
“At you? Why at you?”
“Because I told him that I told you not to delete the photo. I told him the cops would see it.”
“Jeez, Krista. You really know how to turn down the temperature, don’t you?”
“Not my strong suit,” she admitted.
I relented. “Anyway, tell him not to worry. The cops never saw it.”
“You deleted it?” Krista exclaimed. “I told you not to do that. You can’t delete evidence!”
I grinned at her. “First of all, it’s not evidence anymore. And second of all, what I actually said was that the cops never saw it. I deleted it from Estelle’s phone, but just in case, I sent a copy to myself by text and then deleted the text from her phone.”
Krista laughed with delight. “Oh, you clever girl, you.”
“And you can tell that sleazeball that that photo now holds a special place in my phone’s gallery and if he ever gives you grief again, I personally will make sure it finds its way into the public eye.”
Krista looked at me with awe. “Badass,” she said admiringly.
“Or just a good friend,” I said.
“Same thing,” she said, “but ‘badass’ sounds cooler.”
FORTY-FIVE
When I’d left Jason on the beach earlier, all he’d said was he’d call me later. So I wasn’t exactly expecting him that evening, but in my heart of hearts, I was really hoping he’d come by for some dinner and canoodling.
As Grumpy’s fit of the sulks was apparently over, I drove to the fish market to pick up some scallops and stopped at Nelson’s for a bottle of California chardonnay, just in case. I also took a nice hot bath and prepped my face in the tiny mirror over the sink. I had to stoop just a little to see the top of my head, but that was par for the course. The six-foot-something Julia Child had had her kitchen remodeled so that all the counters were six inches higher than the norm. When I decorate my dream house, every mirror will be hung high enough that I can see the top of my head. In the meantime, I would stoop. Some lip gloss, some blusher, a dramatic hair flip (more for how it made me feel than how it actually worked).
So I was a little disappointed when Jason texted me with “working tonight.” Fortunately, he almost immediately followed that up with the only slightly more romantic “see you tomorrow?”
What the hell. I’d take it. I sent back what I hoped was a friendly “sounds good.” No emoticon though. I didn’t want to appear overeager.
I went over to Helene’s to pick up the Scottoline mystery but declined her offer to stay for dinner. The scallops went into the minifridge and the bread and Swiss cheese came back out. You like grilled cheese sandwiches, I reminded myself. But it definitely felt like a letdown. So I dolled it up by adding some sliced sweet onion and chopped cherry tomatoes. Yummy. The chardonnay was the perfect accompaniment.
Maybe it was the second glass of wine or maybe it was residual exhaustion from my ordeal the day before, but even the Scottoline wasn’t enough to keep me awake. I put it aside, snapped off the bedside lamp, and fell into a dark, dreamless well of sleep.
Exhausted new mothers will tell you that they can sleep through every kind of noise except their child’s cry. The slightest sound from their child will snap them awake. Which might explain why, though I dimly registered some noise out in the driveway, I didn’t actually wake up until Diogi’s soft whine had me sitting bolt upright in bed like a spring toy. He was still in his usual place at the bottom of the bed, but his head was raised and cocked toward the door to the ell.
It seemed
to me that I could hear movement on the other side of the door, but I needed to be sure. “Shut up,” I whispered to Diogi, whose whining was getting louder. Diogi, bless his heart, shut up.
Yes, movement. A tiny rattling noise. My first thought was that a curious raccoon was sniffing around. Curious raccoons are the bane of existence for Cape homeowners. But raccoons tend to grunt softly as they explore, almost like they’re talking to themselves, and my visitor was definitely not talking to himself. My visitor, I realized, was ever so quietly shaking the spare key out of the conch shell conveniently illuminated by the light over my front door.
Without taking my eyes off the door, I reached over to the bedside table and fumbled for my phone in the dark. Diogi seemed to sense my fear, for, though he stayed on the bed, he rose to his feet and began to growl low in his throat. This time I didn’t shush him. Maybe the growl would hold the intruder—no, come on, Sam, just say it—hold Trey off long enough for me to dial 911.
But before I could even begin to punch the numbers in with my shaking fingers, the door opened. A man stood there, silhouetted by the light behind him. He was nothing more than a dark and menacing shadow. Diogi and I, on the other hand, were nicely illumined by the light behind the intruder. In my shock, all I could register was that there was something glinting in his hand. A gun. But Jason had told me the authorities had impounded the gun.
“Drop the phone and call off your dog.” The voice was cold and uncompromising, the voice of a man who was used to giving commands, used to having them followed. And infinitely secure in the power of the gun in his hand.
This was not Trey. For one thing, the intruder was shorter than Trey. And this was not Trey’s voice. This was the voice of a stranger. A stranger, it seemed clear to me, who would not think twice about hurting anybody, let alone a dog.
I put a hand on Diogi’s collar. “Shush, boy,” I said clearly. “Shut up now. Everything’s fine.”
Diogi quieted, but he did not for a moment think everything was fine. I could see the fur rising on the back of his neck, and I held the collar more firmly.
“What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
The man gestured at my phone. “That,” he said. I wished I could see his face. It was unnerving trying to deal with a shadow.
“My phone?” I said. I held it out toward him with the hand that wasn’t holding Diogi’s collar. “Sure. Take it.”
The man laughed. It was not a nice laugh. It was a laugh like glass splintering. “I don’t think so,” he said. “The only fingerprints on that phone are going to be yours.”
What did that mean? I tried not to go there. I said nothing. I honestly didn’t know what I was expected to do.
Then the shadowy figure walked toward the bed. If I hadn’t been more worried about Diogi getting shot than me, I would have fainted dead away right then. But as the hand without the gun moved toward me, I was swamped by terror. The relief when the intruder simply switched on the bedside lamp was almost as overwhelming as my fear had been.
In the light from the lamp, I could see him now. And what I saw, I didn’t like. Improbably white teeth. A chin like the prow of a ship. Thinning brown hair carefully combed and gelled over the top of his head.
I saw Curtis Henson.
Why was Curtis Henson standing in front of me with a gun?
And suddenly I understood. Krista had told him I still had that photo. Yes, I reminded myself, because you told her to tell him.
“You want the photo,” I said dully.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “And you’re going to give it to me. Or, more precisely, you’re going to kill it.” I didn’t like the way he said kill it. I kept remembering that fingerprints remark.
“Okay,” I said. I pulled up the photo gallery with shaking fingers and held the phone out so that he could see the photo.
He nodded. “Kill it,” he said again, gesturing at me with the gun.
Diogi growled again, louder this time.
“Sure,” I said. I hit delete, and when the phone asked me again if I wanted to delete this photo, I hit delete again. The photo disappeared. “There,” I said. “Gone. Nothing for you to worry about.”
Curtis smiled at me. It wasn’t a nice smile. What had Krista called it? His killer smile. “Well, it’s a start anyway,” he said.
A start?
“I’ve still got to delete you and my little friend with benefits,” he said.
I stared at him. Delete me? Delete Krista?
“Come on,” he said, “we’re going for a ride. Bring the phone.” He waved the gun at me and pointed to the door of the ell.
I could feel Diogi stiffening against my restraining hand as the growling increased.
“And get rid of that dog before I do.”
My blood went cold. And though I doubted he’d actually shoot Diogi, I wasn’t going to take the chance. I slid out of the bed and Diogi looked at me inquiringly.
“Come on, boy,” I said. “Why don’t you go find Helene?” At the sound of her name, Diogi’s ears went up and he jumped off the bed, though never taking his eye off Curtis.
“Who’s Helene?” Curtis asked, his voice deep with distrust.
“The dog across the street,” I lied. “He loves her.”
I walked Diogi across the room, shivering in my pajamas. When I pointed out the open door, he looked at me uncertainly. Did I really want him to leave me with this man? I tried to banish the fear from my voice. “Go on,” I said. “Go find Helene.”
And so Diogi went.
I had never felt so alone in my life.
FORTY-SIX
Come on,” Curtis said from behind me, nudging me out the door with his gun. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t get it,” I said as I walked toward his car where it was parked next to my truck. “The photo’s gone. You’ve got nothing to worry about. And I’m not going to say anything. Krista’s my friend. I’d never let anything hurt her. That’s why I didn’t show the photo to the authorities, why I pulled it off Estelle’s phone in the first place.”
“Yeah, well maybe you shouldn’t have taken that bitch’s handbag in the first place. Maybe you should have just left it on that old table.”
Wait. What? I could understand Curtis thinking I’d taken Estelle’s handbag because, after all, I had her phone. But how did he know that Estelle’s handbag had been on the workbench? I didn’t even know that. I had suspected it, but I didn’t know it.
And then it all became clear. Curtis knew that the purse had been on the workbench because Curtis had seen it on the workbench. Because he’d been there himself. Drowning Estelle.
Not Trey drowning Estelle. Curtis drowning Estelle.
And then Curtis had heard someone coming, walking under the deck, though in the darkness under the overhang it would have been impossible to see who. And when that person had left, Curtis had turned Estelle over to see if she was well and truly dead and then climbed back up on the breakwater to get the handbag. Which wasn’t there. Because Mr. Logan had taken it. Not me. But Curtis didn’t know that.
Wait. Something didn’t make sense here. Curtis had been with Krista the night Estelle was killed. She’d told me so. I thought back. What had she said, exactly? “That was the night after you got back, right? Sorry, but he was with me.”
But Krista never knew what day it was. “I’m always behind,” she’d said. And as usual, she’d gotten it wrong, and I’d missed it. She’d sent me to the Grill the first night I was back—a Wednesday night—not the night after, not Thursday. Not the Thursday night that I’d seen her getting ready for her mystery date.
Curtis Henson had been with Krista on Thursday night, not Wednesday night. Not on the night Estelle had been killed. I was willing to bet that Henson had no alibi for that night and had no intention of letting me alert the authorities to that fact.
In spite of the gun wedged between my shoulder blades, I stopped dead.
“You killed Estelle,” I said dully, stating the obvious but somehow wanting, needing confirmation. And an explanation of sorts. “Why? Why not just pay her off?”
“She was getting greedy,” he said. “She knew with the election she had me over a barrel and started demanding more and more money. I told her if the sums got any bigger, my wife was going to notice my withdrawals, but she just laughed and said in that case maybe she’d just sell the photo to the gutter press.”
He said the words “gutter press” with great moral disdain. That’s rich, I thought, coming from a murderer.
“Either way,” he said, “I knew she had to go. And then you got involved, and I knew you had to go, too. And Krista, of course. It’s like the three of you had it in for me from the start. I never asked for this. Once I’ve cleaned up your mess, I can move on.” His self-pity was mind-boggling.
As we’d been talking, my eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could see the bulk of Curtis’s enormous SUV next to Grumpy. It looked like a hearse. The gun jabbed me sharply between my shoulder blades.
“Come on. Let’s get in your truck,” Curtis said.
That surprised me. “Why the truck?” I asked. Curtis only grunted.
I opened the door so that the interior light illuminated the two of us, but didn’t move to get in.
“Where are we going?” I asked. Not because I really wanted to know the details of his plan. I asked because I needed to stall for time. The woods at night are filled with many rustling noises, but what I had just heard behind us—and what Curtis hadn’t yet registered—was not one of those usual noises.
“We’re going to the beach,” he said. “Sadly, you’re very depressed. You lost your job. You’ve been humiliated publicly. Krista told me all about it. Finding that old biddy in the pond was the last straw. You’ve been through a lot of trauma. You want to end it all. So, you’re going for a little swim. You’re going to swim and swim until you can’t swim anymore.”