Dead Lies (14 page)

CHAPTER 15

W
EB MARINO WOKE WITH A START, AND THE FIRST THOUGHT THAT POPPED
into his head was Beth’s dress—the yellow dress with white trim she’d been wearing yesterday. Serena would need a dress, he thought. Serena would need a dress like that to be buried in.

He glanced at the old clock radio on his bedside table that spelled out 4:02 in broken neon lines. He’d finally closed his eyes an hour ago and yet, here he was, wide awake again. He knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep. He felt awake in the way you feel when you have to get up really early to do something special, like go fishing with your dad or fly to Bermuda with the beautiful girl you’ve recently begun dating—that wide-eyed, fix-me-some-eggs-and-bacon kind of awake. Except that today didn’t hold the kind of expectant promise those other kinds did. Today the autopsies would be performed on Serena and Bill, and then their bodies would be taken to the funeral home where they’d be pumped with embalming fluid and plastered with pancake makeup. The wake was tomorrow, Thursday; Friday morning his sister and brother-in-law would be put in the ground. On Saturday Web would have to start figuring out how life would go on without Serena.

He rose from his bed and reached for his Cheetah, the prosthetic limb he used when he exercised. Looking a lot like a foreshortened hockey stick—with the curved part that connects with the puck forming the “shoe”—it was a marvel of design. Designed to propel the body forward with locomotive speed and efficiency, it caused some people—Web included—to believe it performed even better than a real leg.

After snapping the sleek carbon-fiber limb into place, Web pulled on a pair of gray sweats and a dark hooded sweatshirt. He slipped a running sneaker onto his real foot and moved soundlessly through the upstairs hall. He was careful to avoid the floorboard that had creaked ever since he and Serena were little, and snuck to the kitchen for midnight snacks. The house was quiet, and he couldn’t see any cracks of light under the other doors. He hoped his family was asleep. He hoped the dreams that had been haunting him for the past three days hadn’t found them, too.

In spite of the few winks he’d gotten tonight, his nerves were so raw they were cutting up his insides, and he was thinking that a hard run would dull their edges a bit, maybe tire him out enough so that he could go back to sleep.

When he opened the front door, the shock of cold almost sent him back inside. But it was a starry, windless night, and the empty streets beckoned him.

He started out slow, finding his breath as his muscles began to warm up, especially the hip joint above his stump, which was always a little stiff at the beginning of a workout. He picked up the pace when his eyes adjusted to the dark and he was confident he could dodge the black patches of ice on the street that the plows had missed. Soon he was running fast enough that the frigid air felt like it was burning holes through his lungs. He felt nimble and free. He ignored the discomfort in his lungs and pushed on, running, moving away from himself into the nothingness ahead.

He pounded along the familiar streets, passing his old elementary school, which had a sign for a poinsetta plant sale pitched out front, and a few blocks later came upon the Catholic Church in which Serena and Bill had been married. The neo-Gothic church was made of imposing gray stone. Against the dark sky, the spires shooting from the slate roof looked to Web like giant icicles reaching for the heavens. He followed Butterworth Terrace down the hill to where it intersected with Merrill Avenue, and then he crossed Merrill and headed uphill again into the part of the Heights that was filled primarily with Tudor homes, the closest thing Avondale had to a housing development. Danny lived there, on a parallel street two blocks west.

Web’s throat and lungs were still raw from the initial shock of cold, but thanks to the internal heat he was generating, the rest of his body now felt warm. He let the stillness of the early morning hour quiet his mind, even as his heart and muscles worked overtime.

Twenty minutes later he was flying. He’d achieved the euphoric state athletes find when they move perfectly in tune with the surroundings, as if their bodies could go on forever without food, drink or rest. He felt no discomfort, only the rhythm of his breath keeping pace with his steps. Even with an artificial leg, his body moved in perfect rhythm. Left, right, left, right…he could keep time with his own beat. He wasn’t conscious of how many miles he’d covered or how long he’d been out. He only knew he felt stronger and more alive than he’d ever felt in his life.

Crack!

A frozen tree limb somewhere above his head snapped off, slicing the quiet like a blue jay’s scream, and he felt the whoosh of air as it crashed down inches in front of him onto the street. He leapt over it just in time, but his prosthesis got caught in one of the twisted twigs, and it almost made him tumble onto the pavement. Miraculously, he recovered his footing without falling but he stopped and bent over to catch his breath. He was panting hard, his heart pumping with adrenaline. Feeling the runner’s high begin to slip away, Web looked around to see what street he was on. It took a few seconds to realize he was two blocks from Serena’s house. He hesitated only for a second before making the decision to jog over there.

A few minutes later, he turned down her street and saw the boxy shape of her center-hall Colonial rising in the distance. It was a much smaller version of their childhood home and on a plot of land half its size, but the overall effect just as gracious. He’d half expected to see the house faded and sagging the way houses do when the owners move away, leaving an empty hull filled only with memories. There was a car parked in front, and the rectangular bump on the roof told him what it was. He wasn’t surprised a squad car was stationed there. Kreeger told him they’d be guarding the house while it was still an active crime scene.

When he got to Serena’s driveway, the police car’s headlights flicked on, blinding him momentarily. He put a hand over his face, and through his squint he saw the outline of a body materialize from the glare, its right hand poised above the hip.

A lanky figure approached, coming to a stop five or six feet in front of him. The man’s face came into full view, and Web watched his eyes dart warily between his face and missing leg. Web waited for usual mix of reactions—first surprise, then wariness, next curiosity, and finally pity. For some there was outright horror, too, as if a missing leg was something you could catch. But surprisingly only curiosity appeared on this young cop’s face—that and something else he didn’t normally get right off the bat: respect.

“Can I help you, sir?” said the officer.

“My name is Web Marino,” Web said, pausing to see if the officer would acknowledge the name.

“Oh, yes, sir, I recognize you. Uh, I mean, I was one of the officers who took the call the other night…the night your sister, uh…”

Web remembered this was the same officer who’d responded to his 9-1-1 call with Anna Valentine. But he couldn’t remember his name.

“Paul Fisher,” the young cop supplied, offering his hand.

Web obliged with a shake. “Thank you again for everything you did for us that night.” It felt weird to say this, given the circumstances that had brought the two of them together, but Web knew it never hurt to be nice.

“May I ask, sir, what you’re doing out here this late?”

“Actually, I’m not really sure,” answered Web, realizing how odd—even suspicious—his presence here at four thirty in the morning must look, especially in his dark hooded sweatshirt. He must look like the Unabomber. “I couldn’t sleep so I went out for a run and somehow I ended up here.” The officer didn’t respond, so Web offered up the thought that popped into his head, surprising even himself. “I realize it’s late, but I was wondering if I could go inside Serena’s house”—he hoped saying Serena’s name would score a sympathy point with the young officer—“and see if I can find some clothes for the burial. I could save my mother and sister the pain…. Seeing as I’m here, I figure I might as well take a look in their closet.”

The officer was silent for a few seconds as he regarded him, and Web guessed the man would send him away, tell him to please come back at a more reasonable hour. Instead he said, “Let me radio in and see if it’s okay.”

“Thanks.” Web watched the officer climb back into his car and shut the door.

As he waited, he realized that on some level, the notion of coming here to look for a dress for Serena had actually been in the back of his mind all along. It was like an unseen force had woken him up earlier and led him to this spot. And yet that unseen force hadn’t told him how he was going to get all the stuff home.

The officer finally emerged from his car again. “You’re okay.” He handed Web a key.

Web managed a half smile, wondering if Detective Kreeger had been woken up. He hoped not. He hoped the man wasn’t even sleeping at all—that he’d been up for the past three days straight working on solving his sister’s case. “Thanks, I’ll be no more than ten minutes,” he assured the officer.

“Actually, would you like me to go with you?” The young man frowned. “It’s probably still pretty messy in there…”

Web pictured his sister’s lifeless body as it had lain in the crimson pool. Nothing could be worse than what he’d seen on Christmas night. “I’d rather go alone, if you don’t mind.”

The officer nodded in understanding. “You’ll have to go in the front door,” he said. “The back door is boarded up.”

Web walked up the front path and slipped the key into the door. Entering, he was struck by how cold the house felt, as if a window was open somewhere. Then he realized there was no reason for the heat to be on. No one lived here any longer.

The house was pitch-dark. He avoided looking in the direction of the kitchen, knowing he could never set foot in that room again. He crossed the front hallway and snapped on the small lamp on the table, bathing the room in a pale, shadowy light. As he climbed the stairs and rounded the upstairs hallway that led to the master bedroom, he thought about what he’d come for. Bill’s burial outfit would be easy to pick—Web guessed any one of his Brooks Brothers suits would do—but he tried to think what he’d take for Serena. He remembered she’d recently splurged on an outfit—a silk dress from Prada, he recalled, and wondered if that’s what he should take for her. He’d never seen his sister wear the dress, but Serena had talked about it in the hushed tones women reserve for discussions of ex-best friends and high fashion. Like many men, Web had never cared much about clothes. He let former girlfriends shop for him, drawing the line at bright colors and fancy patterns. But somehow this seemed like the most important sartorial decision he would ever make. After all, Serena and Bill would be spending eternity in these clothes.

He sighed, guessing that if he made the wrong decision, he could always come back tomorrow with Beth or his mom.

As he reached the door to the master bedroom he put out his hand to feel for the light then froze when he heard a rustling noise from the darkness ahead of him. He held his breath, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him. Was there something there, or was it just the trees blowing in the wind? But there hadn’t been any wind tonight…

In the split second it took for him to acknowledge that someone was in the house, a man leapt out from Serena’s bedroom and slammed into him like a lion taking down a gazelle, knocking them both backwards. As they fell, Web assessed that his assailant was much shorter than he but had the power and speed of a freight train. The attacker was wearing dark clothes, gloves, and a ski mask, and when the man exhaled as he landed on top of him, Web could smell coffee on his breath.

It was a surreal sensation. Here he was lying beneath the animal who’d murdered his sister and brother-in-law—and was about to kill him, too—and yet all Web could think was that the guy was a coffee drinker.

Web fought to push the black-clad figure off of him, but the man held on tight, locking his body in a steel grip. They rolled together in the narrow hallway like a pair of wrestlers in a high school competition, slamming first into the wall on the right then dangerously against the thin posts of the banister on the opposite side. Web heard one of the spindles crack and recalled the branch he’d tangled with earlier. He wondered what it would be like to free fall like the branch to the first floor below, locked in the stranger’s embrace.

Would he die on impact? Or end up a quadriplegic?

The man shifted his weight, and in that movement must have registered Web’s prosthetic leg, because Web heard an intake of breath. Capitalizing on the man’s hesitation, Web tried to take a swipe at his attacker. But it didn’t even connect. Even with only half of the man’s weight upon him, Web could barely move. His arm flailed to the side then flopped back helplessly onto the rug. In the next second the guy re-positioned himself and trapped Web again, digging one foot into the ground and using his other leg to pin Web’s prosthesis to the floor. In slow motion, Web watched the man’s right hand ball into a fist—later he’d tell Kreeger that’s how he knew the man was right-handed—then wind it back like Mariano Rivera sending a cut fastball into home plate.