Paradox

by Catherine Coulter

  * * *

  HAGGERSVILLE, MARYLAND

  FRIDAY MORNING

  Ty turned onto the interstate, flashed a look at Sala. “It’s hard to believe all this started only a week ago.” A week ago today. And Octavia was dead, and so was her killer, Victor Nesser, shot in an alley beside a pharmacy in Fort Pessel last night.

  Sala said, “It’s tough to get my head around what Savich told us—Victor and Lissy dying together. He said he spoke to both of them, they were both there. And Lissy spoke to them. It makes my hair stand on end.”

  “It does sound unbelievable,” Ty said.

  When they wended their way through morning traffic, finally arrived at the Sparrow Crematorium, Sala’s cell phone buzzed. “Porto here. Dr. Thomas, good timing. What do I mean? Nothing, really. What have you got for me?”

  Ty stopped, shut off the engine, turned to listen.

  Sala said, “A moment, please, Dr. Thomas, let me put you on speaker so Chief Christie can hear.”

  “Chief, Agent Porto, the majority of bones we’ve cleaned and examined so far show considerable trauma inflicted near time of death, repeated stab wounds, to be precise. I’m not a medical examiner, but I’d say a similar knife was used—a common six-inch fixed-blade hunting knife, like a Buck. So, Agent Porto, this is not a reprise of the crematory in Noble, Georgia. This is something else entirely.”

  Sala said, “So you believe these people were murdered, all of them stabbed to death, and the killer used Lake Massey as a dumping ground.”

  “Yes. As I said, we’ve only examined about a third of the bones, but I can’t see the pattern changing.”

  “Have you found the remains of a Caucasian man, about five foot ten, seventy-five years old?”

  “Yes, there was an older man, probably in his seventies, maybe early eighties. Multiple stab wounds, like the rest.”

  “If we provide you with a Mr. Henry LaRoque’s autopsy report, do you think you could make a positive identification?”

  “It would be possible, yes.”

  Sala said, “And Dr. Thomas, please let us know if you have any luck with the DNA harvesting. We agree the victims are very probably from the area, missing persons or people who were thought to have up and left for whatever reason. It might be our only way to identify them all.”

  Sala punched off. “So I bet Mr. Henry wasn’t cremated, he was thrown into the lake wearing his treasured belt buckle. By Susan Sparrow.”

  When they walked into the flower-filled entry of the Sparrow Crematorium it was to see Ms. Betty Chugger watching them approach her reception desk. They heard music, a soft harp, from behind a closed door to their left.

  Ms. Chugger said, her voice barely above a whisper, her finger over her lips, “We’re holding a small memorial service for a lovely woman who lived her entire life in Haggersville. So we must keep our voices down. It was Mr. Landry’s mama who insisted years ago we provide this service to the family and friends who wish it. It lessens their fear of something they haven’t experienced before, that is, of their loved one being cremated. A kind of closure, Mrs. Sparrow called it. It’s a very nice idea, don’t you think?” She added without pause, “What can I do for you this beautiful morning?”

  Ty said, “We need to see Susan Sparrow.”

  “Not possible, I’m afraid. Landry said she wasn’t feeling well this morning and he’d wanted her to stay in bed. He fears it’s some sort of flu. Only he and Eric are here today. Would you like to see them?”

  Ty looked at Sala, then shook her head at Ms. Chugger. “Not now, but thank you. We’ll be back later.”

  Sala looked up the Sparrows’ home address on his tablet.

  73

  * * *

  SPARROW HOUSE

  HAGGERSVILLE, MARYLAND

  FRIDAY MORNING

  Ty pulled her Silverado into the empty driveway of a lovely two-story colonial on Ridgeway Lane, an upper-class neighborhood with spacious front yards lined with maples and oaks. It was quiet, no traffic, no kids, and even though it wasn’t noon yet, the air was hot and still. They walked to the front door, listened, heard nothing except the low hum of the central air-conditioning. Sala pressed the doorbell, heard the ring echo through the house. He rang again, waited, and then tried the doorknob. To his surprise, the front door wasn’t locked. He pushed the door inward into a dim entry hall. Through an arched doorway to the right was a living room with traditional antebellum antiques, to the left, a businesslike study.

  Ty called out, but no one answered. They walked through the dining room to the kitchen, and beyond that through a mudroom to another smaller pale yellow study at the back of the house, probably Susan’s.

  They walked up the beautiful mahogany stairs, their steps soundless on the Oriental runner, past stylized paintings of nineteenth-century New York and Chicago, evocative and expensive-looking.

  They paused, listened, heard nothing.

  At the top of the stairs, they split up. Ty walked into an empty master bedroom with more antebellum antiques—a chest, a mirror, a rocking chair—and thick white wall-to-wall carpeting. She looked into a large, perfectly organized walk-in closet, then into the bathroom, another display of opulence, with a Jacuzzi and a double sink in beautiful green-veined marble.

  She saw a large white envelope lying on top of three perfectly folded yellow towels in the center of the bathroom counter. It was addressed to Chief Christie and Agent Porto.

  She met Sala back at the top of the stairs. He nodded down the hall. “A playroom of sorts, I guess you’d call it—a pool table, some video games, poker table, comfortable leather furniture. Beyond are guest rooms, both with baths. No one up here. What’s that?”

  Ty held up the envelope. “It was sitting on top of some towels in the master bathroom. It’s addressed to you and me, by name.”

  They sat side by side on the top step. Ty opened the sealed envelope and pulled out three sheets of very fine stationery covered with beautiful cursive. She read aloud:

  Agent, Chief, knowing you two, I’ll bet it’s Friday morning and you’ve figured out who I really am, not that it matters because I’ll be gone, and you won’t find me.

  I have very little time, so I must hurry. I know I owe you an explanation and answers to all your questions, just as I knew you would find this letter. No, it’s more than an explanation, it’s my confession.

  I confess to being solely responsible for the two crimes I’m about to describe to you. I’m very glad I failed in one of them, namely in harming Leigh Saks. My only excuse is that I panicked and didn’t see I had another choice.

  As you know, I’m sure, my real name is Albie Pierson. I was fifteen years old when a monster broke into our home and murdered my father, my mother, and my brother. I saw him take off my father’s favorite belt. I watched him carry each of their bodies out to the Gatewood dock, watched, helpless, as he dumped them, one by one, into the lake. I knew he would look for me and kill me, too, so I hid in my special spot beneath the stairs until I was certain he was gone. Finally, I walked out onto the dock, following the trail of my family’s blood, and stared down into the water. I couldn’t see their bodies. I knew to my soul he would come back because he wanted to kill me, too, and I wanted to survive. I took five thousand dollars from my father’s safe and ran.

  I won’t go into details about my life. I look back at that fifteen-year-old girl and I admire her. She grew up in the space of a single hour, and she survived. In the beginning what kept her going was the promise she made that horrible day, that she would find and kill the monster who murdered her family. Then this young girl heard the chief of police in Willicott was looking for her as a person of interest, and she realized some people believed she had killed her own family.

  The only way to stay safe until she found the killer was to stay hidden. She moved to Chicago and reinvented herself, became Susan Hadden. She studied and learned and read countless news reports online, but she never read anything that could lead her to the monster w
ho’d murdered her family at Gatewood.

  I left Chicago and moved to Haggersville six years ago, on a whim, I told myself, but of course it was because I was desperate to be near where I’d lived so happily with my family, close enough to Willicott so perhaps I’d hear something about those long-ago murders, something that would help me find the monster. But not in Willicott itself, where I might be recognized. And so I settled in Haggersville. I realized I never thought of him as a man or a murderer, but always a monster, the monster.

  I was in for a big surprise. I met and married Landry Sparrow. For the first time since my family died, I actually started to enjoy life. My Sparrow in-laws welcomed me. I hadn’t known them long when they died needlessly in the auto accident, but Landry, Eric, and I had one another, so our life continued. And the crematorium became as much mine as theirs. I will admit I never in my wildest imaginings dreamed I’d be cremating people for a living. But life can’t be predicted, can it? I already knew for certain everything could change in the blink of an eye. As it did again when you found the belt buckle in Lake Massey.

  Five and a half years ago, one month after Landry and I married, I found a white envelope in the mailbox with only my name printed on it and a single sheet enclosed. It was written in black ink, block printing, no address, no signature. The writer said he recognized me, he knew who I was because he had my photo. He was sorry he hadn’t found me on that magical day fifteen years ago today, even though he’d searched for me. But here I had turned up, right under his nose. He loved Fate, he wrote. And irony. Didn’t I find it amusing the police still wanted me for questioning, that some still believed I’d killed my family?

  I guess you could say my heart stopped. I thanked heaven I was alone at the time so Landry wouldn’t see me with the letter. The monster had found me, not the other way around. And he’d recognized me? My hair wasn’t blond now. It was nearly black, and I wore brown contact lenses. He said he was thinking about calling the police himself to see if they’d haul me in and put me on trial for murdering my family in Willicott so long ago, but didn’t I know? There was no expiration date on murder?

  I could see him laughing when he suggested I take his letter to Chief Masters. He couldn’t wait to see how the chief and the fine people of Haggersville greeted my terrible accusation. And against whom? Some imaginary ghost? He suggested the chief would think I’d written the letter myself. And what would I do then? Of course, he was right. I couldn’t take his note to the police because it would bring who I really am, Albie Pierson, into the open, ruin my name and my marriage, possibly even end with my being tried for murdering my own family.

  He wrote that he’d waited too long to kill me but now he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. I’d never know when he would come for me. I knew he was laughing when he wrote that, so pleased with himself that he could terrify me again.

  And he had. How could I protect myself? I had no idea who he was. I felt the terror of that long-ago day again when he was searching the house for me, when he was only a thin wall away. And then I realized his recognizing me, his taunting me, was the best thing that could have happened. I was no longer that innocent teenager, hadn’t been Albie Pierson hiding beneath those stairs for years. I realized I had no intention of showing the note to Chief Masters or telling anyone, but not for the reasons he believed. I wasn’t going to let him kill me. I was going to find him and kill him exactly as he’d killed them. I was going to avenge my family.

  How did I find him? I knew after his letter he had to live in town, in Haggersville, the very town I’d moved to. Otherwise how could he have seen me, recognized me? I realize, now, it was he who murdered all of those people whose bones you found in Lake Massey. He was completely insane. I made a list of all the older men in town who’d lived here a long time. I bought a handgun, but I still had no good plan.

  I wondered, since he was taking such pleasure in taunting me, torturing me, would he become careless? So I ignored his letter. I knew he’d see me, see if I was upset or find out I was planning to leave. I showed no response. I went about my business as if nothing had happened. He’d left the first letter in my mailbox on a day he knew I’d be the first one home so Landry wouldn’t see it. I set up a video camera looking out over the mailbox in case he left another. A week later he wrote another letter, this one shorter, describing most everything I’d done the day before, most all of my movements. The second letter he left at the crematorium after hours, just inside the front door, again with only my name on the envelope. What he didn’t know, of course, was that I’d set up a camera there, too. And there he was, clear as day, leaving that envelope, walking away with a jaunty step. It was Mr. Henry LaRoque.

  He was on my list of possible suspects, but needless to say, I was still shocked.

  I confess to killing Mr. Henry LaRoque five years ago. I broke into his house late at night, surprised him, and tied his hands and feet. Then I stood over him and stabbed him wherever I wished, for well over an hour. At first he couldn’t believe I’d actually found out who he was, that I’d actually had the guts to come for him. Soon he was begging to tell me everything I wanted to know if I’d end it. I told him I would if he told me why he’d done it.

  Between his screams on that very fine night, the last night of his miserable life, he gasped out that my family were his first victims, said they showed him what joy there was in killing, helped him lay out his plans for all the pleasant golden years ahead of him, and he loved them for it. It was magical for him, killing the new family at Gatewood exactly where another family had been butchered.

  Then that evil old man told me things I never expected to hear, things that hardly seemed possible, yet I wasn’t surprised. He told me he kept a journal, detailing exactly what he’d done and to whom and when, and he told me about his box of treasures, each tagged so he’d always remember the day, the victim. He kept it all in his study, hidden behind some old theological tomes no one ever looked at. He admitted he’d taken off my father’s belt before he’d thrown him into Lake Massey. He didn’t know I’d seen him do it. That Star of David belt buckle given to my father by an Israeli colonel years ago, his thanks for saving his daughter from a suicide bomber in a café in Jerusalem. LaRoque said it was his favorite, his reminder of that day, the first day of his journey when he’d stripped that belt off my father’s body, wrapped it around his hand, and put it in his jacket pocket to keep it from getting more blood on it. By this time he was delirious with pain, nearly insane with it, begging me to end it. I knew he was dying now, but I didn’t give him a final stab in the heart and end it. No, I left him there to think about how I’d killed him, the teenager he hadn’t managed to find.

  Your much-beloved Mr. Henry LaRoque was a serial killer, and he was proud of it. He basked in it to the end. That old man, that monster, claimed he’d butchered people for years and thrown their bodies into Lake Massey. Fifty-one people, he said. He was proud of how easily he’d fooled everyone in town. He was Mr. Henry to them all, so popular he never had to pay for his own coffee.

  I have never had a single regret about killing him. I think he couldn’t help writing me that note when he realized who I was. After all, I was the girl who got away, the only person who’d seen what he’d done, the only person who could appreciate who and what he was, what he’d accomplished. Would he have tried to kill me? Or would he have taken more pleasure from my knowing he might?

  When his ruined corpse was delivered to the crematorium, I unwrapped him, gloried in what he looked like now, in death. I took my father’s belt and put it around his pants, replaced his body with another’s due to be cremated. I drove Mr. Henry and his precious treasure to the lake and dumped him where he’d dumped my family, off the end of the dock at Gatewood. I’d finally avenged them. Perhaps now they could rest in peace. Against all odds, I’d kept my promise and I’d killed him.

  I was the one who struck down Gunny—Leigh Saks—with a brick, a spur-of-the-moment reaction to being terrified of what she w
ould tell the FBI hotline about that belt buckle. What could she possibly have said? I didn’t know what he’d told her that long-ago day. But I’d heard she’d seen Mr. Henry with that belt buckle, and I knew it might lead them directly to me. I didn’t have time to question Leigh myself. I acted. Now, of course, I realize she didn’t know anything that would have implicated me. All she did was watch that profane old man polishing and fondling my father’s belt buckle.

  I am grateful Leigh survived. I am grateful that whatever it was in her brain that had made her simple miraculously corrected itself. I have no understanding of how that happened. But I wish her the best in her new life. Perhaps one day she will consider I did her a favor.

  I hope you are alone in my house, that neither Landry nor Eric is there with you. I’ve written to them separately. The pain it will bring Landry makes me want a magic wand, to wish away that any of this ever happened, that I ever came to Haggersville. But I did. He will have to face it, deal with it, as I will.

  Again, my husband and my brother-in-law have no idea what I have done or who I really am. They are innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

  Yet again I have to leave my home.

  I predict the two of you will prosper.

  She’d printed out her name, then signed it

  Albie Pierson, aka Susan Pierson Hadden Sparrow

  74

  * * *

  VITA-MAX CORPORATION

  CRANSTON BUILDING, SUITE 202

  TYSONS CORNER, VIRGINIA

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON

  When Ty and Sala stepped off the elevator on the second floor of the older Cranston Building, they didn’t see anyone, understandable since it was the weekend. They heard whistling, followed it down the hall to a door that was cracked open. They walked in to see Bill Culver packing boxes. Ty had thought he’d looked good in the suit he’d worn at Octavia’s funeral, but he was even more good-looking today, dressed in jeans, boots, and a black T-shirt tight enough to show off pecs that rivaled Eric Sparrow’s.