Crazy Wanda

by Terry Goodkind

  The dogs in the fenced yards were still barking. They barked as they followed her along inside their fences as she walked back to her car. She knew most of these dogs. They barked virtually nonstop and were always ignored by their owners.

  No one seemed to have paid any attention to the gunshots, either. In this neighborhood gunfire wasn’t all that uncommon. Since no one came out of their houses to look, Wanda guessed that being inside the house and using a pillow must have muffled the shots enough that no one took note.

  Back in her car, she drove calmly away, exhilarated and overwhelmed with a sense of satisfaction.

  She couldn’t believe how easy it was to kill people and get away with it if you knew what you were doing.

  CHAPTER 15

  Wanda’s parents didn’t have any life insurance, and they didn’t have bank accounts. Her father didn’t believe in banks, so he kept what little cash he had in a tin box on the top shelf in the bedroom closet. Wanda had taken the cash and left the box on the floor with half the clothes in the closet. It amounted to a few hundred dollars. He always felt guilty for keeping some money for himself and not giving it to the church. No doubt he prayed for forgiveness, so he could be absolved of guilt and still have the money. He had always prayed after beating her, too, probably to be absolved of that as well.

  It was several days before the bodies were discovered. The police called Wanda and asked her to come in. She cried and gasped in shock over the murders the whole time they asked questions. The police asked if she knew of anyone who could have had a beef with her parents. She told them that everyone loved her God-fearing parents. After exhausting their list of questions, the police thanked her for coming down and said they were sorry for her loss. Idiots.

  Wanda didn’t tell Ricky what had really happened. What would be the point? The less he knew, the better. All he knew was what she had told him about how badly they had treated her growing up and how her father had beaten her, so he wouldn’t need to pretend he was sad.

  Her parents had owed more on their house than it was worth, so the bank was going to take it. That was fine with Wanda. She didn’t ever want to see the place again.

  Since her parents had no life insurance, Ricky paid for the funeral. Wanda contributed most of the cash she had taken from their house. She said it was her savings from tips at the bar. He said it wasn’t necessary, but she said they had been her parents and she wouldn’t have it any other way. He nodded his understanding.

  The service at the church went on forever, with a long sermon and then prayers for their souls. The funeral itself was simple, but nice. Her mother’s casket was open, her father’s closed. Their friends from church came and cried and prayed their little hearts out. They all told Wanda how sorry they were. She dabbed her eyes and thanked them.

  The graveside service was mercifully short.

  She was relieved when it was all over.

  Life with Ricky gradually settled down to a routine. While he was busy at work earning money, she kept the house tidy and cooked dinner for him. The beautiful house came to feel homey. She was happy there.

  But there was one thing still nagging at her, the same thing that had been bothering her for quite some time, the thing she couldn’t get over.

  She missed Angela in her life.

  The more time that went by, the more important she realized Angela had been to her.

  Even though she had Ricky and a wonderful house, she still felt empty inside. Life seemed flat. Angela was somehow bigger than life. Wanda missed Angela and wanted to be friends with her again, so she decided she would see if she could get back her old job at the bar.

  It felt good driving into the parking lot at Barry’s Place again. The good part of her old job was that people in the bar liked her. She’d had a lot of fun there. It had been where she’d met Ricky.

  Being a weeknight it wasn’t busy, so she was pretty sure she would have a chance to talk to Barry and ask for her job back, but first she really wanted to see Angela.

  Wanda was relieved to see that Angela’s primer-gray pickup was in the parking lot. Barry would be there as well. Barry was always there. Wanda planned on being giggly and coy when she asked Barry for forgiveness and her old job back. He was a softhearted guy, so she was pretty sure she could talk him into it. That way she would be working with Angela again. That way they would just naturally get back to being friends and spending time together at the bar.

  It was a dream come true living with Ricky in such a nice house, but it would be the cherry on top to get back in Angela’s good graces again. Wanda would make it up to her somehow. Maybe she could get Angela a puppy. She would be the best friend Angela had ever had.

  Inside the bar, men recognized her and shouted their greetings. Wanda grinned and winked on her way past. It felt good. She didn’t see Barry, but Angela was behind the bar.

  Wanda walked up to the bar and hopped up on a stool right in front of Angela. She slung her big handbag up onto the next stool and then folded her arms on the bar as she leaned in.

  When Wanda looked up into Angela’s eyes, the world stopped.

  Wanda’s mouth went dry. Her fingers tingled. She felt hot and faint.

  She sat paralyzed at the look on Angela’s face, but mostly at the look in her eyes.

  She knew.

  It was crystal clear in her eyes. Angela knew. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in Wanda’s mind that Angela knew everything. Wanda didn’t know how she knew, but she knew it all.

  Wanda snatched up her handbag and ran out of the bar.

  CHAPTER 16

  Angela’s phone rang as she walked out into the dimly lit parking lot. The call was from Wanda. She had known it would be. Angela could see her car across the parking lot, Wanda sitting in it, phone in hand.

  She answered the call but didn’t say anything.

  “Angela?” Wanda asked after a moment of silence. “Angela? Are you there?”

  Angela stopped where she was as she watched Wanda across the parking lot. “I’m here.”

  “Angela … I’m so sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for, Wanda?”

  “I’m sorry that I shot your dog,” she said in a tearful voice.

  It took Angela a fraction of a second to realize what Wanda was talking about. When she had found the cigarette butt, Angela had suspected Albert. For some reason she had also suspected Wanda, because it had just seemed like somehow crazy Wanda would be involved. But it still surprised and saddened her to hear the confession.

  “Why would you have done that, Wanda?”

  Wanda was choking in tears, now. “It’s a long story, but I thought you had told Ricky’s wife about him and me.”

  “I didn’t approve of what you were doing, and told you so, but I’m not a snitch.”

  “I know.” Angela could see her nodding in her car. “I know. I was so stupid.”

  “You were stupid about a lot of things, Wanda.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They found the body of Ricky’s wife today. The property owner noticed where a vehicle had stopped. He saw footprints. It made him curious, so he investigated and found the body.”

  Wanda was silent.

  “You really blew it this time, Wanda.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The police arrested Ricky this afternoon. Now they’re looking for you.”

  “You mean Ricky killed his wife?”

  “Oh please, don’t try to bullshit me, Wanda. I know what you did.”

  “You couldn’t possibly know.”

  “I told you I was born a freak, remember?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know what that means.”

  “My mother used drugs. Lots of drugs. Because of that I was born broken. I don’t feel things like normal people. But it also left me with the freaky ability to recognize killers just by looking in their eyes. And when I look into their eyes, I see more than their guilt. I see everything they’ve done. Everything. I see everything abou
t those sins written on their soul.

  “When I looked into your eyes a few minutes ago, I saw everything. I think you realized that, didn’t you? That’s why you ran out.”

  “But the police won’t be able to—”

  “The police aren’t stupid. The forensics lab will look at the nylon cable tie from around her throat. They will find tool marks on the end of that nylon tie. They will go looking for the tool that left those marks.

  “They will find a pair of pliers on the workbench in Ricky’s garage.”

  “How could you possibly … ?”

  “The forensics lab will match the tool marks on those pliers to the marks on the cable tie from around the neck of Ricky’s dead wife.”

  “So Ricky—”

  “I told you, cut the BS. I already saw in your eyes that you ran and got those pliers because Ricky couldn’t pull the cable tie tight enough around his wife’s neck. The police will find your fingerprints on those pliers. They will inspect the rope you and Ricky wrapped around the body. The forensics lab will find some dark hairs tangled in that rope. DNA analysis will show those hairs to be from you.”

  “But my fingerprints on the pliers don’t mean—”

  “Your fingerprints are also on the knife you shoved through Albert’s throat.”

  That gave her pause.

  “Did you ever think to wipe off your fingerprints? Did that ever occur to you, Wanda? Didn’t you think the police would check the murder weapon for prints?”

  She stammered for a moment, trying to find her voice. “I … I thought they would assume it was another homeless drunk who killed him and robbed him. They were supposed to think it was another drunk.”

  Wanda sounded desperate, wanting it to be so. In a way, Angela felt sorry for her. She was a killer, and deserved to die, but Angela felt a little sad for how Wanda wasn’t able to think things through and simply thought she could get away with things because she wanted to. But then, killers always thought they would get away with it. They never considered consequences. They never realized how smart the authorities were.

  “Then you went to your parents’ house,” Angela said, “and you murdered them. You used a throw pillow from your father’s chair to muffle the shots. The bullets will match the gun you stole from Brad. The gun you have in your big handbag.”

  “My parents were monsters!”

  “Maybe so,” Angela said, “but they never murdered anyone.”

  The cold logic of that left Wanda speechless. It often had in the past when Angela pointed out what should be obvious.

  Wanda’s car was parked near the streetlight. Angela could see her lean over and pull the revolver out of her handbag.

  When she did, Angela switched her phone to her other hand and pulled her own gun out of the holster inside the waistband at the small of her back. Gun in hand, she started walking slowly, deliberately, toward Wanda’s car.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Wanda asked through tears.

  “The police aren’t stupid. You left evidence everywhere, Wanda. They’ve already arrested Ricky. Ricky never had much of a spine. He just did what you told him to do. He’s going to start singing. Today, tomorrow, the next day, he will break down and confess everything. He will want to minimize his role, so he will say it was all your doing. To bolster his story, he will tell them how you spit in his wife’s face while she was dying.

  “The forensics lab will match DNA they find on her face to you. The police are going to find your fingerprints on the pliers just like they are going to find your prints on the knife you put through Albert’s throat, just like they are going to find your fingerprints on your father’s wallet that you tossed aside after you took out the cash.”

  Wanda hung her head as she cried silently for a moment.

  “I made Albert suffer for what he did,” she finally said. “For what he did to you. If Albert really was your father, he should have loved you like I do.”

  “You have a crazy way of showing love, Wanda.”

  “Not crazy to me.”

  “That’s the problem,” Angela said softly into her phone.

  “Angela … what’s going to happen to me?”

  Angela didn’t ever allow killers to get away with killing. It was her strange calling. It was what she lived for. It was her only reason for living. It was her purpose.

  Although what she did with killers was justice, the police wouldn’t see it that way, so she didn’t ever want to be caught. For that reason, she never left bodies where they could be found.

  In this case, though, Wanda had a gun in her hand, a gun she had used to murder her parents. Whether or not she pointed it at Angela didn’t matter. It would be seen as self-defense, so this time there was no need to worry about the body.

  Wanda’s car was sitting at a slight angle. The window would deflect a small .22 round in an unpredictable way. Angela needed Wanda to roll down the window so she would have that clean shot. Then it would be over in an instant. Wanda wouldn’t know what hit her. She would simply cease to exist.

  Angela kept the gun hidden behind her thigh as she held the phone up to her ear with her other hand.

  “Angela,” Wanda cried over the phone, “I’m so scared. What’s going to happen to me?”

  “The truth? If you surrender, or run and are captured, you will be arrested, tried, and convicted of four murders. If they don’t give you a death sentence, you will spend the rest of your life in a living hell, never to be free again.

  “The thing is, Wanda, one way or another, you are going to pay for your sins. Sooner or later, one way or another, everyone pays for their sins.”

  As Angela got closer, she could finally see Wanda’s eyes as she wept. “Crazy Wanda,” she murmured to herself. Wanda always acted first and thought later.

  “Come on, Wanda,” Angela whispered, “roll down your window. It will all be over before you know what happened.”

  Wanda just sat there, gun in hand, phone to her ear.

  “Angela …”

  Angela stopped not far from the car.

  “What?”

  “Angela, I finally understand what that tattoo on your throat means. You said one time to pray that I never had reason to know what it meant. But now I know. You really are a dark angel. A dark angel sent for me.”

  As Angela watched, Wanda put gun the barrel in her mouth.

  A sudden sound, like a sledgehammer wrapped with a T-shirt striking an anvil, rang through the still darkness.

  The inside of the car windows instantly misted with red.

  Angela stood staring for a moment, then slipped her gun back in the holster under her top at the small of her back.

  This was one body of a killer she had no desire to see.

  She turned and walked back to the bar. Her part in this was over. Wanda was no more.

  Someone else would discover the body and call 911.

  Angela didn’t ever get involved with the authorities if she could avoid it. With this, she could avoid it. Soon, someone else would call them.

  She didn’t know if she would ever see Bardolph again, but if she did, she would tell him that his mate’s killer was dead. Somehow, she thought he would understand.

  Read more about Angela Constantine in the major novel

  THE GIRL IN THE MOON

  and in the novella

  TROUBLE’S CHILD