Lie in Wait (23 page)

 

PART IV

 

Chapter 55

V
ICTOR AWOKE LA
TER
than he had in decades. The clock on the night stand showed 10:30.

Fran lay asleep on her back, mouth agape. Asleep, Victor knew, she felt no pain.

All these years, she'd been asleep to Victor, too.

By evening, she would be awake to it. It would shatter her, but her son, their son, would be free.
It's going to be all right,
he thought.
My boy is going to be all right.

He would reveal all, even if it meant losing Fran to free their son.

Victor would be free too. He'd found a way to confess his sins and to be free of them. Finally. God, through this trial, had shown Victor the way to relieve his burden and return to the light of the truth.

His chest felt lighter than anytime since his days on the football field. It was as though his heart had been encrusted in a black shell. And last night, when he'd made his decision, whatever repercussions it might lead to, he felt that shell crack. Pieces fell away, as if another man lived inside him, a better, more Godly man, ready to be born.

“Yes,” he would say.
Yes,
he would
shout
. “I did it. A sinful act. Do what you will to me. Call me what you will. Judge me as you will. Only one can truly judge me and He is not you. Just let my son go. Release him.”

Victor rose from bed and stretched, ambled to the bathroom.

The window Brad had smashed in his attempt to flee was boarded over, but the cold air found its way in enough so Victor could see his breath. Everything he touched was cold. The light switch. The counter. The faucet handles. The linoleum floor was icy on his bare feet. He stood before the medicine-­cabinet mirror. He was surprised to see his face bearded.

Despite the beard his face appeared skeletal, his cheekbones pronounced. His eyes looked feral. He looked like one of the hikers on the news who'd lost his way in a vast wilderness he'd thought he'd could handle, but couldn't; and though he'd found his way out, he looked ravaged, as if he'd gone without nourishment of body or soul for years.

He cranked the faucet and filled his cupped palms with cold water, pressed his face into them. Then he lathered his stubble with shaving cream and heated a razor beneath scalding water, swiped a circle in the fogged mirror and shaved.

He was struck by the face gazing back. He looked almost boyish.

Almost innocent.

He took a hot shower. The heat revived. Melted away at the casing he had lived in for so many years. It was nearly too hot to bear. He put his face to the water and let it pound him. His back was still sore where King had pounded on it.

Showered, he stepped out, braced himself against the cold of the room. Steam eddied. He felt as though he were moving through clouds.

In the bedroom, he selected his best corduroys, the ones whose fraying at the cuffs was least unnoticeable. He put on the whitest of his T-­shirts and a flannel check shirt. The shirt was missing its lowest button on the front, but when he tucked it in you could barely notice. He pulled on the new boots he'd bought, wishing now he had not scuffed them in a pathetic attempt to appear more salt-­of-­the-­earth. He was done pretending. He put on his windbreaker then left the house with his wife sleeping, safe from the wakened world.

T
HIS WAS IT.
He would tell Merryfield what he knew first; tell him he was going to the cops and Merryfield's world was about to unravel. It did not matter that Victor's world would unravel too. His boy would go free with what Victor revealed.

He strode down the sidewalk, hurrying toward Merryfield's office building on Main Street when his cell phone rang and he was told the news that stopped him.

He turned and ran back for home.

Confronting Merryfield would have to wait.

 

Chapter 56

T
EST FLINCHED WHEN
her cell phone buzzed in her hand.

Whoever had last called had just left a voice mail.

She accessed her voice mail and stepped away from her kids.

“You stink, Mom,” George said and huffed over to the coffee table where Test's iPad sat.

“Watch your mouth.” Test snapped her fingers at her son. “And don't touch that,” she said as she listened to an old woman's voice saying, “I thought of something you said and it just doesn't make any sense. I wanted to get hold a you before my son picked me up for the day. It was bothering me. I think you may want to know.”

Test dialed the number back.

The phone on the other end rang.

George gave Test a sidelong glance, testing her, and picked up the iPad.

“I'm warning you,” Test said to him.

“Mom,” Elizabeth said, tugging at Test's sleeve as Test drifted toward the kitchen.

“One
second
,” Test said more harshly than intended. Tears welled in Elizabeth's eyes.

“Hello,” the old woman said.

“This is Detective Test.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Oh, yes. Of course,” the old woman said.

“What was your call about?” Test said.

George tried to covertly swipe his finger across the iPad screen. Test snapped her fingers.

“Well,” the woman said, “it occurred to me you asked if I made calls to a certain number and I said I made a lot of calls, being a volunteer for that sort of thing.”

“And?”
Get to the point
, Test thought.

Elizabeth was tugging at Test's sleeve, trying to crawl up her leg. How come her kids never wanted to crawl on her except when she was on the phone? As soon as she got on the phone, they were all over her—­Elizabeth anyway.

“Well. I don't make calls,” the old woman said.

“I don't understand.” The old woman was a crackpot.

“Plural,” the woman said. “I make a lot of calls but I never call a house twice if they don't answer. I just mark the box that reads Contact Did Not Answer.”

“Could you have called the same number on behalf of different organizations?”

“No. Besides I checked my phone bill. I usually don't check it, because it's just me and I don't call long distance except for my volunteer work and I just give the organizations a copy to get reimbursed. But. I see a number in Canaan was called a bunch of times.”

Test's pulse quickened. “You said you live alone.”

“I do.”

“Then how could—­”

George sat with the iPad in his lap. Face wild as he blatantly played a game, to control his urges, glancing at Test with a challenging look on his face.

Elizabeth was now weeping disingenuously in the corner.

“I have a volunteer who comes several days a week,” the woman said. “He does odd chores for me. Laundry and dishes. Runs to the store.”

Test knew it. Knew something in the LUD would link back. But how? As North said: so what if there were other threatening calls, Brad was the doer. “You think this person called?”

“I know he did. The times on the billing,” the woman said. “They are all times when he's here. And he's the only person ever in my home. Except for my son and his family. They all have cell phones. And use them text anyway, hardly ever make calls.”

“Could this volunteer make calls without you knowing?”

“I go into my room at the end of the hall when he gets to really cleaning. It's too much commotion for my nerves. If he made calls from my kitchen phone I'd never hear him.”

Test walked into the kitchen. “What's his name?”

“Mom!” Elizabeth shouted.

Test wrote the name on a pad of paper, then asked the woman the volunteer's age. The old woman guessed mid-­thirties. “But he's probably ten years older. Everyone looks like a child when you're my age.”

Test asked what he looked like. Average. Medium height. Brown hair. What kind of car he drove. None that she'd seen. He took the bus, she had assumed. What volunteer agency he worked with. Helping Hands. Test thanked the woman and hung up, her heart pounding a staccato arrhythmic beat.

She looked at the name she'd written.

Randy Clark.

It meant absolutely nothing to her.

The old woman's description was of no use. But, with his and the agency's name, all of that information would be easy enough to discover.

Test dialed Officer Larkin and asked him to run a background.

“No problem. What's it about? If you don't mind my asking. Are you onto another case after what that kid did?”

“What kid?” Test asked, confused.

“Brad Jenkins.”

Test said nothing.

There was an embarrassed pause. “He tried to kill himself this morning,” Larkin said.

“What? How?” It was unbelievable. North had not looped her in on this development.

“He cut his wrists on the metal bedframe in his cell. He's in rough shape. Sorry, I thought you'd have been in the loop.”

“I've been offline all morning,” she said, “with my kids, not answering the phone. I'm sure I have messages.” It was bull, but she'd rather not admit she hadn't made the grade. Yet Larkin
had
been privy. “Who told you?” Test asked.

“I heard it over the radio. Just now.”

“Of course.”

“So, what case is this background info about?” Larkin asked.

“Just,” Test began. Nothing now, she thought. Suicide. Brad might as well have confessed. The woman's call, her information, it didn't amount to anything—­just a threatening call with no tie to the murder. If the calls had even been threatening. Of which there was no proof. “Vandalism,” Test said. “No hurry. When and if you get a chance. I don't want to waste resources.”

Test hung up as Claude came into the kitchen, his hair still slightly damp and tousled from the shower he'd taken just before he'd left for the store. His plaid L.L. Bean shirt was tucked into his jeans, and he was sporting a belt. It was as professional a look as he'd ever muster, and Test loved him for it. But, just now, as he caught Test shutting down her phone, he gave her a put-­upon look she did not love so much; even if she deserved it.

“What,” she said.

Claude set the extra keys on the counter and glanced into the living room where George was absorbed in the iPad and Elizabeth sobbed in silence, giving her parents the pitiful woebegone look of a Dickens orphan.

“That didn't last long,” Claude said.

“I had to make a call,” she said, tightening at having to explain herself. Feeling the tug-­of-­war of guilt and resentfulness. She was dejected that her lead proved to be all smoke and no fire. No wonder North hadn't called her.

Claude worked a finger in his ear.

Test's phone rang.

She wanted to look at the screen, but refrained.

Claude stared at the phone, glanced at George toying with the iPad, Elizabeth simpering.

“Answer it,” he said, shrugging.

Test glanced at the screen.
UNKNOWN CALLER.

Perhaps the old woman had changed her mind and decided that she'd made the calls after all. Who knew? If so, Test would call Larkin and put the kibosh on the BG of Randy Clark.

“Hello?” Test said as she answered the call.

“I've been trying to call you,” North said.

“I'm with my kids. Your calls came in as unknown.”

“My home line's unlisted. I'd have left a message but wanted to get you in person to tell you—­”

“Larkin told me.” So, she was in the loop after all. “Is—­”

“He's critical. He better pull through to face the music. The coward. I'm going to call to see when I can interview him. He may be in a mindset that prompts a confession, if he comes to enough. Or ever. If he doesn't, at least it will save the taxpayer.”

It's over
, Test thought.

She had a brief urge to ask North if he thought Brad had tried to kill himself because he was guilty or just scared. But it was her stubborn side that wanted to ask. The stubborn side that had embarrassed her enough already.

“Well,” she said, “If he comes to—­”

“I'll call.
And
leave a message.”

Test got off the phone, Claude lifting an eyebrow at her.

“Our suspect tried to kill himself,” she said.

“You sound disappointed.”

She shrugged. She was. For many reasons. Her instincts, and her hard work at putting together pieces, phantom pieces, had proved fallible with this turn. But. At least now she could focus on whoever had poisoned Charlie. “I want the doer to pay for what he did,” she said. “Not take the easy way out. I may get called in if Brad wakes. I'd need to get a sitter if that happens.”

Claude nodded.

“If he does wake. And I go late. I'll make it up to George and Elizabeth,” Test said. She could hear the disappointment in her voice, feel it harden like setting concrete in her gut. The harder she'd try to make up for it, the worse she'd feel, and the more pronounced her own failing as a mother would be to her. There was no making up for lost time. Lost time was just that: lost.

Claude grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter. Stared at it, contemplating. He set it down and snatched a handful of mini Snickers from the bag left over from Halloween. “Do what you think is best,” he said and gave her a kiss on her cheek, his hands slipping along her hip. “I look forward to our date later, if you're here,” he said, a wildness in his eyes. This time he kissed her on the mouth.

He leaned into the living-­room doorway and said, “See you kids later. Be good for your mama. And George, be fair to your sister.”

George didn't glance from the iPad.

Claude headed out for St. Johnsbury.

George glanced at Test. “Go ahead and play on it for a while if you want,” Test said and knelt beside Elizabeth, who had stopped her fake sobbing but was pouting. “Will you make Mama a real nice Lite-­Brite picture? Then we can all do something special?” Test said.

“What can we do special?” Elizabeth said, a glint in her eye. Already she knew all too well when she held leverage.

“Give it some thought while you do the Lite-­Brite. Make it something super duper,” Test said.

“Will you stay here and play with us?” Elizabeth pleaded.

Test nodded. “Promise.”