Black Widow (28 page)

McAllister was looking at his wife as though he’d never seen her before. “Michael?” he said hoarsely. “Tell me you didn’t kill our son.”

“Of course I didn’t kill Michael! He was my child!” She looked at Nick beseechingly. “My baby,” she said. “My only baby. I could never have any more children after he was born, you see. I had difficulties with the birth, and they had to remove my womb. I nearly died. So Michael was special to me, my precious only child. I would never have done anythin’ to hurt him. I’ve always believed it was Kathryn who killed him. But you’re sayin’ the murders are related. I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all.”

Nick rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand. “Who knew?” he said. “Who else knew, besides you? You must have had help, Neely. You’re a little tiny thing. You couldn’t have plastered Ruby into that wall by yourself. There had to be somebody else. Somebody who helped you. Somebody who has a key to the house.”

She looked at him in disbelief. “But he wouldn’t have
_—
” She paused, her mind obviously working, trying to fit the pieces together. Her eyes slowly widened in comprehension. “Oh, blessed Jesus,” she whispered.

“Who, Neely? Who helped you?”

“Shep,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands. “Shep Henley.”

Chapter Seventeen

Kathryn’s tongue had turned to sawdust. She moved it around inside her mouth, licked at her lips with it. “What girl?” she said.

“You know what girl,” the voice said. “I tried to warn you. I tried to get you to leave it alone. But you wouldn’t listen. Now you gotta pay.”

Her heart thudding like a sledgehammer, she said, “If you harm a hair on that girl’s head, I’ll kill you.”

He chuckled, soft and low, as though she’d said something clever. “That would be hard, now, wouldn’t it, since I’m the one holdin’ all the cards?”

“What do you want?”

“I’ll make a trade. The girl for you. You come to me, I let her go.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t. But you can’t take the chance, can you?”

Fury swelled inside her, rising up to sit side-by-side with the fear. “Where are you?” she said.

“I timed it, Miz McAllister. Nine minutes. That’s how long you have to get here before I kill the girl. If you stop anywhere along the way, if you take the time to call Lover Boy, I’ll slit her throat and leave her there for you and DiSalvo to find. It’ll be just like Michael all over again, won’t it?”

Her stomach turned over. She tried to stifle the sob that rose in her throat, but she wasn’t quite successful. “Stop it,” she said firmly. “Stop it right now.”

“I really hated havin’ to kill him,” the voice continued. “But that was before I found out how good it felt to see the look in his eyes when he knew he was dying.”

The rage burst, red-hot, inside her. “Put Janine on the phone,” she demanded.

“One thing I can say for you, girl. You got a lot of moxie. You still haven’t figured out that you ain’t the one calling the shots, have you?”

“Who are you?”

“Sorry. You’ll have to wait and see. You know the road to Lake Alberta?”

She forced herself to remain calm. If she lost it now, Nick would be pulling his daughter’s body from a ditch somewhere. She tried not to think about that possibility. “Yes,” she said. “If I remember correctly, it’s where you tried to kill me the first time.”

He chuckled again. “Good girl,” he said. “Now, a half-mile past the lake, there’s a dirt road on the left. Just a couple of tire tracks with grass down the middle. Turn in, drive exactly three-tenths of a mile, and stop. And don’t bother to try callin’ anybody on the radio. I got a police radio, and if I hear anything I shouldn’t, I kill her. Understood?”

Her heartbeat was steady and rapid. “Yes,” she said.

“You got nine minutes. Starting now.”

The connection was broken. Kathryn stared for a moment at the phone, then dropped it on the floor. Nick’s keys were on the kitchen table. She grabbed them up and flew out of the apartment and down the stairs. The Blazer’s door squawked open, and she slammed it shut behind her. Her hands were trembling so hard she fumbled with the keys, finally fit the right one into the ignition. The Blazer started with a roar, and she crammed the stick shift into reverse and shot out of the driveway and into the street, directly in the path of an oncoming car. The car swerved and the driver laid on the horn.

Ignoring him, she shifted into first gear and shot down Oak Street. She took the corner on two wheels and raced toward downtown. The main street was clogged with traffic in Elba’s version of a rush hour. She swerved out around a blue minivan and screamed past Carlyle’s Barber Shop. On the sidewalk, the old men gaped. A young man attempting to cross the street leaped back out of her way as she pressed the accelerator to the floor and shot straight through the red light.

By some miracle of fate, nobody was coming the other way. She took Cypress Avenue, where the speed limit was a sedate twenty-five, at fifty miles per hour. You never could find a cop when you needed one. Not when they were all tied up somewhere else. At the outskirts of town, she reached the fifty-mile-per-hour speed limit sign, and punched it up to seventy.

She almost missed her turnoff. Kathryn hit the brakes hard, and the Blazer fishtailed. She brought it around, tires screaming, and skidded onto the gravel-topped Swanville Road. Her left front tire hit the soft shoulder and it sucked her in, bringing her to a stop so abrupt that she slammed into the steering column and her head snapped back. For a moment, she saw stars. She shook her head to clear it, and crammed the shifter into reverse. The tires spun. “Come on, you son of a bitch,” she said. She shifted it back into first and eased the gas pedal, then reversed it again and punched it. The tires spun, then with a loud whine, they caught traction, and she bounced back up onto the road.

Dust billowed behind her in a thick cloud. She passed Lake Alberta, the lowering sun turning its sparkling water to a soft rose. Passed the turnout where she and Nick had parked the Blazer last night, a lifetime ago. Began watching the shoulder for the dirt road the caller had told her about.

The entrance was overhung with greenery, and she almost drove past it. She skidded to a stop and paused for a moment, not sure the Blazer could navigate terrain this rough. The road was cut through thick forest, and it didn’t look passable. But she didn’t have a choice. There was no time for debate. Kathryn took a deep breath and cut the steering wheel sharply to the left.

It was like being plunged into night, the foliage was so thick. She glanced at her odometer as she bumped and rattled along what was little more than a path through the woods. The road took a sharp turn to the left toward the lake, and she followed its path through deep grass. When she’d driven precisely three-tenths of a mile, she brought the vehicle to a halt and turned off the engine.

The silence was overwhelming. She sat there, acrid sweat pouring from every possible orifice, her breathing the only sound. The forest was a deep, dark green, shot through with random shafts of sunlight that filtered through leafy treetops. From out of the darkness, Shep Henley appeared in front of her, wearing a police uniform and carrying a hunting rifle. She sat silently, her chest rising and falling, as he approached her.

“Very good, Miz McAllister,” he said. “Seven-and-a-half minutes. I’m impressed.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“You always were a feisty one. Fought like a wildcat that day we arrested you.”

“Where is she? Where’s Janine?”

Instead of answering, he glanced in the window, checked the backseat, walked around the vehicle and returned to the driver’s side. When he opened the door, it squawked loudly. “Needs oil,” he said. “Come on. Get out.”

It was the dogs she heard first, yipping and whining as Henley’s hard fist on the small of her back propelled her forward over uneven ground. Overhanging branches slapped at her face. Brambles caught at her bare arm, tore her skin, and a single drop of red blood beaded up and trickled slowly toward her elbow. “Why?” she said. “Why did you do it? You were a cop. You’re supposed to be one of the good guys.”

“Kevin,” he said in a conversational tone, “was never good enough for Neely. Weak, that’s what he is. Always has been. She thought his womanizin’ would stop after they got married, but it didn’t. He wasn’t even man enough to hide it from her. Left her home alone four or five nights a week while he was out stickin’ it to other women.” His face hardened. “I begged her to leave him, but Neely’s a proud woman. Said she’d made her bed, and she was gonna have to lie in it. I wanted to kill the son of a bitch.”

The sound of the dogs grew louder. Kathryn stumbled over a tree root that was hidden in the underbrush. “Where’s Janine?” she said.

“And then,” Henley said, as though she hadn’t spoken, “he got himself mixed up in that Benevolent Association. Nothing more than a damn brothel for spoiled rich boys. Then Neely found out the little tramp was pregnant, and she killed her. She was so scared when she come to me. She didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let her go to jail. A woman like Neely
_—
it would’ve killed her. So I did what I had to do.”

“You put Ruby in the wall,” she said dully.

“And nobody was ever the wiser until your damn husband decided to remodel the house. It was his own fault he died.” Henley’s voice rose, thinned, the voice of madness. “I had to keep Neely from goin’ to jail. That was my job. That’s why the good Lord put me here on this Earth. To take care of her.”

They broke through into a clearing and she saw the pickup truck. Four or five hunting dogs were caged in the back, and the dogs broke into loud yapping when they came into view. “Shut up!” Henley yelled.

The dogs fell silent, stood there wagging, watching. “Where’s Janine?” she said.

He walked around to the cab of the truck and opened the door. Janine sat on the bench seat, her eyes terrified above the rag he’d used to gag her. Henley pulled a key from his pocket and used it to unlock the handcuffs that bound her to the steering column. He untied the gag, and she ran to Kathryn and flung her arms around her.

“Oh, baby,” Kathryn said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Daddy told me not to trust anybody. But he was wearing a uniform. He told me he worked for Daddy. I believed him.”

“It’s all right,” Kathryn told her, glaring at Henley. “You didn’t do anything wrong. And Mr. Henley’s going to let you go now. Aren’t you, Henley?”

Henley pulled a package of Camels from his pocket. Pulled out a lighter and lit one. He took a long drag, and let out the smoke. “I lied,” he said.

She couldn’t let him see her fear. She had to keep the upper hand. She had to set a good example for Janine. In a voice that was remarkably strong, she said, “What are you going to do with us?”

He leaned against the side of the pickup and took another drag on the cigarette. “Well,” he said, scratching the tip of his nose on his sleeve, “in an hour or so, when it starts to get dark
_—
” He paused, and then he broke into a grin. “We’re gonna have us a hunt.”

Her heart began to thud slowly, as though it already knew something she hadn’t yet quite figured out. “A hunt?” she said.

“That’s right, Miz McAllister. The dogs and me, we’re the hunters. And you two ladies
_—
well, you’re the huntees.”

The Elba police station hadn’t seen this much action in its eighty-five-year history. The phone was ringing off the hook, Teddy fielding call after call from curious citizens who wanted to know what was all the commotion at the Chandler place. In the employee lounge that doubled as an interrogation room, Linda Barden was processing Neely McAllister, while the Judge spoke
sotto voce
to his lawyer on the pay phone just inside the front door. Bucky was at Nick’s desk, feet planted firmly on the floor, his face somber as he talked on the phone. “That’s right,” he was saying. “Jackson. That’s J-A-C-K-S-O-N. Ruby. Yes, I’ll hold.”

He looked up at Nick and rolled his eyes. “Damn woman at the dentist’s office doesn’t know her ass from her elbow.”

“Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,” Nick said. “What happened to that sweet young boy I took under my wing just a few short months ago?”

Bucky grinned. “You taught me how to be a real hardass. Sir.” His attention swerved back to the telephone. “You got ‘em? Excellent. You got somebody that can courier ‘em over here to the police station? We’re a little busy. My name? I already told you my name. It’s Officer Stimpson. S-T-I-M-P—”

There was a quick rap on the door, and Teddy stuck his head in. “Earl just radioed in,” he said. “Henley’s not at his house. His wife says he took off with the dogs two, three hours ago. She hasn’t seen him since. Says it’s not unusual. He goes off huntin’ at all hours, sometimes doesn’t come home until morning.”

“Wonderful. Okay, let’s put out an APB. This guy isn’t a fool. If we’re not careful, we’ll lose him. And call his wife and find out who his hunting buddies are. And where he likes to hunt.”

“Will do, Chief.”

He poured himself a cup of coffee and went in to where Linda was sitting with Neely McAllister. All the starch had gone out of her, and tonight, even in the silk and pearls, Neely looked every day of her fifty-seven years. “I don’t understand it,” she was saying. “I thought he loved me. How could he have killed my boy?”

“Maybe,” Nick said, “he thought it was the only way out. He knew if the truth came out, you’d go to prison. And he’d be going right along with you.”

“Oh, but I could never do that. I’d never survive in a place like that. I
_—
” Her words came to an abrupt halt and her eyes widened as the realization dawned on her that it was extremely likely she was headed to a place precisely like that. “Oh, my Lord,” she said, and began to weep again. “How will I ever get through this?”

Nick headed for the door. “You could take a few lessons in courage from your daughter-in-law,” he said.

Teddy waved him over to the dispatch desk. “I don’t know what this means, Chief,” he said, “but Raelynn Wilbur just called. Said she was driving home from the airport when she met Kathryn headed out Cypress Avenue in your Blazer, going like a bat out of hell.”

His stomach did a hard somersault. “Was my daughter with her?”

“Raelynn said as far as she could tell, Kathryn was alone. But she was goin’ so fast, it was hard to say.”

He was pondering the implications when Linda popped her head out the door of the interrogation room. “Chief? Can you come back in here for a minute? I have a question about these damn forms.”