South of Hell (Louis Kincaid Mysteries)

by P J Parrish

  Margi brushed back her hair and looked around. The candles were getting low, and soon there would be no more light at all.

  “And that motherfucker Shockey,” Brandt said softly. “I’m going to take extra special care of him. He’s going to pay for fucking my wife. He’s going to pay real hard.”

  “You going tonight?” Margi asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Brandt took another drink and turned back to the window. From behind, she could see his reflection. The watery glass gave a distorted shimmer to his face.

  “Owen, please don’t go tonight,” she said. “You been drinking, and it’s raining…”

  Brandt mumbled something and took another drink, but he didn’t move away from the window.

  Margi drew a shallow breath and walked up behind him, never more scared in her life than she was right now. She reached around him and began stroking his zipper. He wasn’t responding real quick, and she knew it would be a grueling effort to get him off, since he’d already finished almost a whole bottle since dinner, but she wanted to try.

  “I’m afraid of storms,” she whispered in his ear. “Stay here with me, and I’ll suck you off real good.”

  He took another drink, quiet as he thought about her offer. She continued to stroke him. When he started get hard, he turned and faced her, put a muddy hand on her shoulder, and pushed her down to her knees.

  As she unzipped his pants, she wondered if Jean had ever knelt on this same floor and done this same thing.

  And she wondered if she had enough courage tonight to do what she needed to do. She didn’t want that little girl to die. And she didn’t want to die herself in this horrible place.

  She didn’t want that gypsy woman to be right.

  He didn’t fall asleep until after one a.m. Snoring and sated and naked from the waist down, he passed out on the old mattress in the dining room.

  It was easy to rifle his pockets for the keys to the Gremlin and easy to slip out the kitchen door and lose herself in the darkness. It wasn’t so easy to keep driving through the swirl of rain, the tiny car slipping and sliding on the muddy road and her head filled with guilt and fear and just about everything else a woman could feel when she was about to betray the man she loved.

  She couldn’t use the pay phone outside the closed Texaco, because she only had dollar bills, so she had to drive all the way into town. A couple of lights glowed in the murkiness, but as she pulled into a parking lot, she saw the stores were closed. The only thing open was the tavern.

  Two bearlike guys sat at the bar, hunched over their beers. They gave her a quick once-over, and seeing her battered face and dripping hair, they looked away. She wondered if either of them or the bartender knew who she was and what she was doing. Men like Owen had pals all over. Would one of these guys quietly slip away and drive out to the farm to tell Owen she was here?

  She got four dollars’ worth of quarters from the bartender and quickly left the tavern for the phone booth outside. The light was burned out, and she had to use five matches to get enough light to read the phone number she had written in ink on the back of her hand.

  She dropped in the quarters and dialed. As the phone rang on the other end, Margi looked out at the darkness and shivered. A sick feeling filled her belly, and she shut her eyes.

  A man’s deep voice broke the monotonous ringing. “Hello?”

  “Detective Shockey?” she asked.

  “Yeah…who’s this?”

  “This is Margi,” she said.

  “Margi who?”

  “Margi,” she said, glancing around. “Owen’s woman.”

  She heard a crash and a bump on the other end of the phone. Then the detective’s voice came back, stronger and wide awake.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m in Hell.”

  “What’s going on?”

  One of the bear-men came out of the tavern and hurried toward a semi parked under a floodlight. He stopped at the cab’s door and squinted at her.

  “Margi, what’s going on?” Shockey asked.

  “Owen’s got a knife, and he’s going to come there and kill you and take the girl,” she whispered. “He said he’d kill everyone else, too. That woman and that black guy and anyone who tried to stop him.”

  “Where is he now?” Shockey asked.

  “Passed out,” Margi said. “He won’t come there till morning.”

  “He said he wants Amy? Why?”

  The bear-man was sitting in his truck, watching her. She turned her back to him and lowered her voice again. “He thinks the girl saw him kill Jean,” Margi said. “He thinks that lady doctor is trying to get her to remember it all. I’m telling you, he’s just crazy now, Detective, walking around all night looking for a dead woman and talking to himself.”

  “Take a breath, Margi.”

  She did, but it didn’t help calm down her hammering heart.

  “All right, look,” Shockey said. “I want you to come here to me. If you’re willing to say he beat you up and threatened people, we can put him back in jail. You understand that?”

  “Put him back in jail?” she said. “Owen can’t go back to jail. He’ll kill himself if he has to go back.”

  “He’ll kill you if he doesn’t,” Shockey said. “Can’t you see that? You want to die out there like Jean did?”

  Margi closed her eyes against the burn of tears. “No, but…”

  “You’ve come this far,” Shockey said. “You’ve taken the first step. You can’t go back now.”

  She ran a hand under her nose and looked at the parking lot. The man in the semi was gone, and the light on the tavern roof was out. There was nothing to see but darkness.

  “Come to me now,” Shockey said. “I’ll give you directions to my apartment. You got a pen or something?”

  “No, but I can remember,” she said. “If I get lost, I’ll call again.”

  “Okay. You know how to get to I-94?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good.” He gave her directions to his apartment in Ann Arbor and made her repeat them back three times. “South State Street. It’s the blue apartment building just before the sports museum. You can’t miss it. Building two, apartment two upstairs. I’ll have the balcony light on.”

  Margi shut her eyes again. Her chest hurt, and it was hard to breathe.

  “Repeat the directions back to me again,” Shockey said.

  She did, surprised that she remembered any of it.

  “You’re going to come, right?” he asked.

  “Yes…”

  “Promise me, Margi,” he said. “Promise me right now you’ll get in that car and start this way. Don’t you go back to that farm for nothing. You hear me? Nothing.”

  “I promise, Detective.”

  “Okay,” he said. “You’re doing the right thing. I’m proud of you.”

  She was quiet. A police detective. Proud of her.

  “Go,” Shockey said. “I’ll see you in about a half-hour. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She hung up the phone and pushed open the door to the phone booth. She heard the rumble of another semi pulling in, and a second later, its headlights washed over her. She froze in the glare.

  The squeal of brakes, the hard thud of a door. She brought up a hand to shield her eyes as a fuzzy silhouette got out of the passenger side of the truck and advanced toward her. She recognized his walk immediately.

  “Who did you call, bitch?”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  A release of air brakes and the growl of an engine. The semi’s headlights moved away, and for a second, Margi couldn’t see anything in the engulfing darkness. The truck rumbled down the highway, leaving them alone.

  A bolt of lightning split the blackness, illuminating Brandt’s face for a second.

  “Who did you call?” he asked again.

  “No one.”

  He was just standing there staring at her, water dripping down his face. She focused on his fists
, clenching and unclenching. Why wasn’t he screaming at her? Why wasn’t he already hitting her?

  “Give me the keys,” he said calmly.

  She dug the keys from her jacket and held them out to him. He took them and pointed to the Gremlin.

  “Get in the car,” he said.

  The puddles were deep, the rain on her face like icy pin pricks. Brandt followed her around to the passenger side, pushed her inside, and slammed the door.

  When he got in on his side, the car filled up with the stink of whiskey. She closed her eyes as shivers rattled through her bones.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. Who the fuck did you call?”

  “No one,” she whispered.

  He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head to his. His other hand pinched her cheeks. He leaned close. In a flash of lightning, his eyes were filmed with that same sick look he got when he talked about Jean.

  “I…I called that cop,” she said. “I wanted—”

  “You did what?”

  “I called him to warn him,” she said. “I was trying to keep you from doing something stupid, Owen! I was trying to save you. Don’t you understand that?”

  He smacked her. Her head hit the window, and for a second, she couldn’t see anything except a spin of darkness. Then he jerked her back to him.

  “You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” Brandt asked.

  “No! I didn’t want you to go back to jail!”

  She covered her face, expecting another punch, but none came. The engine roared to life, and the Gremlin jolted into gear, spinning gravel until the tires hit asphalt.

  She wiped her face and looked up. Nothing ahead but a tunnel of white-washed trees and the splatter of rain on the windshield.

  “You’re too stupid to live,” Brandt said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. But I love you. You know I love you. I was trying to save you from yourself!”

  “What did he say?”

  “What?”

  “What did the cop say to you?”

  “He wanted me to come to his place and make some statement against you, but I told him no,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that. I would never say nothing bad against you.”

  “His place?” Brandt asked. “You mean his house? He told you to come to his house?”

  “Yeah, but I told—”

  “Shut up,” he said. “Where does he live?”

  Oh, my God. He would go there if she told him. And that detective would open the door thinking it was her, and Owen would kill him. What was she supposed to say now? How could she be so stupid?

  Brandt tried to backhand her, but she pressed back against the door. The car skidded and hit gravel before Brandt managed to right it.

  “Where the fuck does he live?” Brandt shouted.

  “I don’t know!” she cried. “He didn’t get that far, because I told him—”

  Brandt smashed her head against the side window. It stunned her with an explosion of white sparks behind her eyes.

  “Answer me!” he said.

  You’re doing the right thing. I’m proud of you, Margi.

  “I can’t,” she whimpered.

  For a few seconds, it was quiet, except for the hard pounding of rain on the roof of the car. She kept her eyes closed, gripped by a rush of fear so strong it left her paralyzed. She clutched the door handle and started to cry.

  Brandt pressed down on the gas pedal, the force of the sudden acceleration pushing her back into the seat. She made herself look. The car was tearing down the road, the rain rushing toward them like a shower of silver pins.

  “Where does he live?”

  Don’t tell him. He won’t kill you. He loves you. He won’t kill you…

  She blinked and snuck a look at the dashboard. The little red needle on the speedometer jiggled at sixty. Something was thumping under her feet, like a loose piece of rubber.

  “Where the fuck does he live?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Brandt leaned over suddenly and pushed open the passenger door. A fierce wet wind swept in, whipping up the food wrappers and newspapers like a tornado. She grabbed at the door to close it, but he knocked her hands away and started to push at her shoulder. The car skidded but kept going.

  “Oh, my God!” she screamed. “Stop it!”

  “Get out!” he shouted.

  “Please don’t do this!”

  The Gremlin fishtailed, throwing her against the dash and back again toward the open door. He shoved and slapped at her, forcing her farther across the seat and into the full spray of rain. The muddy splash of water filled her mouth and ripped at her face. The road—it was so close she could see rocks and weeds.

  “Where does he live?” Brandt shouted.

  “State Street! Next to the sports museum!” she screamed. “Blue apartment! Building two, apartment two, upstairs!”

  The car went into a sudden skid, and she lost her grip. She saw nothing but the rush of gravel as it sprayed up toward her.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Shockey looked at his watch. It was three-fifteen. Margi should be here by now. Damn it, where was she? Did she have an accident? Or had she gone back to the farm?

  He stepped to the balcony and looked over the apartment complex’s parking lot. It wasn’t very big, and he could see both entrances. Through the rain, he could see the trickle of traffic along South State Street, too. No green Gremlin.

  Damn it.

  He went back inside and dropped to the sofa. The phone was sitting on the coffee table, silent. He checked his watch again. Only three minutes had passed. He should’ve gone to her instead of making her come all this way.

  Where are you, Margi?

  He pushed to his feet and wandered to the kitchen. The bottle of Beefeater was sitting on the counter. He stared at it for a long time.

  He hadn’t thought about it until after he’d hung up the phone, but what he had done was stupid. Giving his address to a woman who could have been playing him, pulling his strings as easily as Brandt was pulling hers. The pit in his stomach was telling him that this whole thing could be a setup, that Brandt was on his way here now to kill him.

  It wasn’t her fault, really. She was just weak, that was all. And he had let down every defensive shield he had because he himself was desperate.

  He turned and walked back to the balcony.

  Still no Gremlin.

  He’d give her thirty more minutes, and if she didn’t show, he’d have to go out there to that farm and at least make sure the bastard hadn’t killed her.

  But he couldn’t go alone, because he knew if he did and found her dead, Brandt would end up dead, too. And he would spend the rest of his life in jail.

  He went back to the phone and dialed the Ann Arbor Hilton. It rang eleven times, then went back to the front desk. He asked them to try the room again. This time, someone picked up.

  “Peeper? It’s me.”

  “It’s three-thirty a.m.,” Louis said. “What’s going on?”

  “I got a call from Margi,” Shockey said. “She’s ready to file charges against Brandt and said he threatened to kill me and you and take Amy.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I told her to come here,” Shockey said. “It’s been two hours, and she hasn’t showed yet. I’m going to give her another half-hour, then head to the farm.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “What the hell else can I do?” Shockey asked. “It’s like Jean all over again. Don’t you see that? Her in trouble out there and me sitting on my ass doing fucking nothing!”

  “Jake, calm down.”

  “She’s dead, Kincaid. She’s dead because of me.”

  “Shut up and calm down.”

  Shockey closed his eyes and pulled in a fiery breath. From the open door of the balcony, he heard the putter of a car engine.

  “I think she’s here,” Shockey said.

  “I’m coming over anyway,” Louis said. “Stay there, and keep her the
re with you.”

  Shockey moved to the sliding glass door, but he couldn’t see the parking lot below without putting the phone down and stepping outside.

  “Promise me, Jake,” Louis said. “Stay there until I get there.”

  “Okay, okay,” Shockey said.

  He hung up and went out onto the balcony. The Gremlin was parked under a street lamp. He didn’t see Margi, and he called down to her, but no one answered. He went back inside.

  He thought again about the possibility that Margi might bring Brandt with her. His revolver was on the coffee table, and he grabbed it before he went to the door. The chain was latched, and he opened the door two inches so he could see anyone coming up the stairs.

  The door burst open, slamming into Shockey’s forehead. He stumbled backward and groped for something to grab on to, but there was nothing to break his fall.

  He hit the coffee table with a splintering of wood and glass. Brandt was suddenly over him. A muddy shoe came down hard on Shockey’s wrist, pinning his gun hand to the floor.

  Shockey started swinging at Brandt’s body with his left hand, pummeling him with punches that hit only hard muscle. He could feel Brandt’s hands close around his revolver. He tried to grip it tighter and get it turned toward Brandt, but Brandt was too close, too heavy, dripping water that was making everything slippery.

  Brandt wrenched the gun from Shockey’s hand.

  The knife came down in a flash of silver.

  Shockey grabbed at Brandt’s hand, but the thrust was too powerful to stop. The blade plunged into Shockey’s shoulder.

  “Christ…fuck…” Shockey gasped.

  Brandt stabbed him again, slicing blindly at Shockey’s raised arms. The blade ripped through the sleeves of his shirt and sliced skin.

  “You sonofa—”

  Shockey groped for the knife, but Brandt’s thrusts were wild, puncturing Shockey’s hands and chest and spraying the air with a mist of blood. He could feel his strength fading with every furious beat of his heart.

  “This is what I did to her!” Brandt screamed. “You hear me? This is how I killed the bitch! You hear me? You hear me?”