The Killing Vision (23 page)

He could not stop thinking about Wade and the
visions he had seen.  Most of all he could not get the image from his head of
Clifton coming at Wade with the bottle.  It made him hurt for his brother,
knowing what they had both endured over the years, but it also made him angry
as hell that he and Wade had never discussed their abuse, had never tried to
get past it.  But no matter what the two of them had endured, no matter what
else Wade had done, he was no murderer.  Joel had seen it.  Had
felt
it.

Beside him, Derek sat with an untouched glass of
orange juice.  He had been biting his fingernails again, and Joel noticed with
a wince that his thumb was bleeding.

What about Derek?  Hadn’t he known her as well?  Could
he have something to do with girl’s disappearance?  Evidently, the police
didn’t think so.  But sometimes the police could overlook obvious clues.  Joel
steeled himself for what was to come, then placed a hand on Derek’s shoulder.

Instantly he was met with visions and feelings,
mostly about girls and cars, and Derek’s job at the Dairy Queen, which he
evidently hated.  He saw Derek talking to the girl at the college, one of many
he had also seen Wade rolling around with.  But there was nothing else.  Derek
was innocent as well.

Joel removed his hand and felt the pain between his
eyes.  Sometimes these episodes left him with migraines, and he was afraid he
was getting one now.

Marla slammed the phone down and wiped her eyes on
the back of her hand.  “Damn lawyers,” she muttered.  “No one’s answering the
phone yet.”

“Just give them time,” Joel said.

She picked up her coffee, then set it back down.  “I
don’t know why I even care.”  Fresh tears spilled down her face.  “I should
have left him years ago, while I was still young.”

“You don’t mean that,” Joel said, but after what he
had seen in Wade’s head yesterday, he knew that she was right.

“He’s been out screwing around on me since we got
married.  I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, that it was just my
imagination.  And then, when I knew he was really doing it, I told myself it
was just temporary.  A phase he was going through.  I figured he’d settle down
after a while, after he got it all out of his system.  I should have known.” 
She wiped her face with her sleeve.  “And now the dumbass has gone and probably
killed somebody.  I should be surprised, but I’m not.”

Joel rubbed his temples and closed his eyes.  Surely
his head was going to explode.  “He didn’t do it, Marla.”

“How do you know?” she said, and her voice was
sharp.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, meeting her
gaze evenly.  “I just know,” he said.

She took a deep breath.  “It doesn’t matter.  I
should just leave his ass in jail.  Let him rot in there.”

“You can’t do that,” Joel told her.  “He needs you
now.”  He looked at Derek.  “He needs all of us.”

Marla turned her gaze toward the back door to the
outside and took a sip of coffee.  “It’s just too fucking bad,” she said. 
“When all this is over, I’m gone.”

* * *

2:17 PM

Wade opened the bottle of water and took a sip.  It
had been a rough twenty-four hours.  Dragged off to jail in front of his
family.  Suffering a sleepless night in a cell with a passed-out snoring drunk. 
Having meals with a bunch of punk kids who thought they were hard asses.  Meeting
with the attorney for the first time—a balding scrap of a boy with a stained shirt
and rampant eczema on his elbows—and finding out he had been denied bail.  It
was almost too much.  He was about ready to do anything to get the fuck out of
here.

Halloran, the detective across the table from him in
the interrogation room, shuffled through his notes.  Beside him, the younger
detective, Chapman, looked at Wade with cold green eyes, and Wade couldn’t help
but think his red hair made him look like a big leprechaun.  Next to Wade, the
fledgling attorney—Wade couldn’t even remember his name—scribbled something in
a notebook.

“Now,” Halloran said, “what’s your relationship with
Abigail Saunders?”

“I know her,” Wade said, “just like I told you
yesterday.  I met her and her roommate at the Capitol a couple of weeks ago.”

“Have the two of you had a sexual relationship?”

“Yes.”

“Have you and Miss Mitchell also had a sexual
relationship?”

Wade stared at the table, but he had to suppress a
slight grin.  “Yes.”

“Did you ever threaten either of them?”

Wade blew out a breath.  “No.”

Halloran checked his notes.  “Police were called to
your house two years ago.  Remember that?”

Oh, shit here it comes.  “Of course I do.”  He and
Marla had been in one of their many arguments.  He had slapped her and she had
locked herself in the bedroom and called 911.

“Domestic assault,” Halloran said.  “Against your
wife.”

“She dropped the charges.”

“But you have a history of violence against women.”

“That was a misunderstanding,” Wade said.  “I never
went to jail.”  He took another sip of water.  God, it was hot in this room. 
“Look me up.  I’ve never been in here or any other jail before.”

“We
have
looked you up, Mr. Roberts,” the
red-haired detective said.

“So you know I’m clean.”

Halloran looked at him.  “I’m not convinced.  I
think you killed Abigail Saunders.”

Panic struck him.  “No!” 

The attorney looked up from scribbling.  “You have
any proof besides the driver’s license in his truck?”

Halloran looked at the attorney, but didn’t answer
him.  “It must have really pissed you off to find out you and your son were both
interested in the same girl, huh?”

Rage boiled within him.  “Leave my son out of this.”

“I think you got so pissed that you killed Miss
Saunders and dumped her body someplace.”

The rage was giving way to exasperation.  “I swear
to God I had nothing to do with her disappearing.  I didn’t kill anybody.”

“Where is the body, Mr. Roberts?  Did you dump it in
the river like the others?”

He felt a jolt and looked up at Halloran.  “Others? 
What others?”

The attorney became rigid.  “What the hell are you
talking about, Lieutenant?”

Halloran looked from the attorney to Wade and back
to the attorney.  “We recovered Abigail Saunders’ driver’s license from your
truck, but we also found something else.  Two hairs.  Two blonde hairs.”

Wade looked into Halloran’s eyes and felt horror
washing over him.

“Two blonde hairs that were a match to Sarah Jo
McElvoy.”

* * *

4:29 PM

Marla sat on the porch in the afternoon sun, staring
across the road at the field of corn and feeling the glass of Coke and Captain
Morgan cold and wet in her hand.  She had done it.  She had gone and fucking
done it.  And the asshole had never suspected a thing.  He would never have
suspected her of all people.  No one would have suspected her.

Abby Saunders certainly never suspected anything. 
Not when she answered her door.  Not until Marla asked how long she had been
fucking Wade.  She had sputtered some excuses then, saying how she didn’t know
he was married, that he had lied to her.  That he had lied to her roommate as
well.

And that’s when Marla knew the truth.  He
had
been fucking both those bitches.  The rage had taken over then.  Abby ran
toward the back of the apartment, but Marla caught her just inside the bedroom
door and gave her a punch to the head that sent her sprawling into a bedside
table.  Abby started pleading with her then.  Crying and begging her to stop. 
But Marla could not control herself.  Her anger took over.  Beside her was an
ironing board.  The iron sat atop it.  Marla grabbed for it and it went flying,
striking Abby in the temple.  The girl balled up in pain, then got to her hands
and knees to crawl away.

But Marla was too strong for her.  Instantly she
caught Abby’s ankle and shoved her knee into the small of Abby’s back, then
threw her full weight on it.  The girl cried out, but Marla already had the
iron’s cord wrapped around her throat and was pulling tight.  Abby was gasping
for breath, and her hands flailed behind her head, clawing frantically at the
air.  Marla pulled tighter.  Sweat was pouring down her face from the effort. 
She couldn’t see Abby’s face, but she kept her eyes on one of the girl’s ears
that stuck out through the mass of curly hair.  The ear turned bright red, then
violet.  Gradually, Abby’s struggles became weaker and Marla felt her go limp. 
She continued to pull on the cord long after she thought the girl was dead. 
She wanted to be sure.

Finally, she fell back off the body and slumped
against the bed, exhausted.  She wiped the sweat from her face with the tail of
her shirt and untangled her legs from Abby’s.  She watched the girl’s back for
several minutes before she was convinced she was dead.  Then she collapsed on
the floor.  Her back and shoulders ached, and she rested for a moment to catch
her breath and think.  And while she lay there, the plan formed in her mind. 
It was perfect.  As long as she didn’t get caught.

She pulled the sheet off the unmade bed and clumsily
wrapped it around the body.  Abby was solid, and the dead weight was nearly
impossible to maneuver, especially in the confined area between the dresser and
the bed.  When the sheet was tucked around the body, Marla looked around the
room and spotted Abby’s purse on a hook behind the door.  She pawed through it
until she found a brown leather wallet, and she pulled Abby’s license from the
holder and stuffed it into her own pocket.

In the darkened living room, she peeked through the
curtains to the street below.  Night had fallen and the streetlights didn’t
reach where she had parked the truck at the back of the apartment lot.  She
watched the street for a moment.  No cars passed, and there were no people to
be seen.  This was her chance.

In the bedroom, she grabbed Abby’s body by the
ankles and dragged it down the hall toward the door to the apartment.  She
stuck her head out one more time to make sure the street was clear, then pulled
the body out onto the small porch and down the wooden steps.  Abby’s head
knocked against each step on the way down, and for a moment, giddy with nerves,
Marla thought she would get the giggles.  She took a deep breath and continued
down to the gravel lot.  At the truck, she lowered the tailgate and hoisted
Abby’s legs into the bed.  Then she grabbed the body under the arms and shoved
with all her strength.  For a moment she thought her legs would buckle, but she
managed to find an extra burst of energy and lift the rest of the body.  The
sheet had come loose and Abby’s hair splayed out across the bed of the truck. 
Marla climbed up and wrapped the body tighter, then covered it with some of the
junk in the pickup’s bed.  She took a seat on the wheel well and looked at her
work.  It would be good enough to get out of town, anyway.

She closed the tailgate as quietly as she could,
then climbed into the cab.  Her hands had begun to shake, but that was from
exhaustion.  Her mind was calm and clear.  She could do this.

She started the truck and backed out of the drive
before she turned on the lights, then she headed down the street toward the
intersection that would lead her out of the city limits.  She watched the body
in the rear-view mirror.  The junk kept the sheet in place, but she would not
breathe easy until she was completely away from the street lights.

At the intersection she had just started to make the
turn when the light turned from yellow to red.  She almost ran it, but then she
caught sight of a police car in the lot of the Hardee’s across the street, and
she slammed on the brakes.  She heard the junk in the bed shift, and her eyes
instantly went to the rear-view mirror.  With sudden horror, she realized
Abby’s hair was again visible under the edge of the sheet.  She glanced back
across the street.  The cop car hadn’t moved.  The driver of the white Grand Am
beside her was keeping his eyes on the light.  She took a deep breath and
gripped the wheel tighter.

The light finally changed, and she made the turn
onto the highway toward the darkness at the edge of the city.  After a mile or
so, the streetlights ended, and she relaxed a little.  Ahead was a turnoff onto
a dirt lane that wound back into the woods.  The road was easy to miss if you
weren’t looking for it.  She slowed and turned off the highway.  The thick
growth of trees crowded her from both sides and the ruts in the road jarred the
truck like an earthquake.  She hadn’t been back here in years, not since she
and Wade came back here to mess around before they were married, but it hadn’t
changed much. 

When she had gone about half a mile, she stopped the
truck and climbed out into the heavy night air.  The drone of insects blocked
all the noise from the highway, and somewhere an owl hooted.  It was black as a
cave back here, and she stumbled through the tall weeds and undergrowth toward
the back of the truck.  She opened the tailgate and grabbed the body under the
arms.  Pulling Abby out was a hell of a lot easier than putting her in, but it
was still exhausting.