They All Fall Down

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  Wallace pointed the gun at me. “Hand me the gun and the other phone.”

  “What the hell are you—?” I aimed Eddie’s gun at Wallace and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing this time. Worse than a BANG! flag, the gun had now jammed.

  Wallace shook his head, then pulled the TEC-9’s trigger.

  BAM!

  The shot echoed through the trees, sending birds bursting into the sky in a cacophony of tweets. I shrieked as dirt near my left foot pocked and drove gravel into my calf.

  “I don’t want to shoot you, Miriam,” Wallace said. “I’ve grown quite fond of you, actually, but I will kill you. So give me the other phone. Now.”

  I squinted at him—his eyes were hard as amethyst again. The bitch was back. I held out the phone and asked, “Why do you need two?”

  Wallace snatched the phone from my grip. “The gun.”

  I handed him Eddie’s gun and said, “I thought we were working together to get home.”

  “You just tried to shoot me. And do you think I’m blind? Do you think that I haven’t noticed those missing figurines?”

  “I … I … Evelyn must’ve taken them. She probably—”

  “Evelyn did this, Evelyn did that. Blame the old goat since she’s hanging from a tree and unable to defend herself. That’s pretty low, even for you.”

  Because this is what you do.

  “I’m not letting you steal my game piece, Miriam. As you would say, not today, Satan. Not today.” Wallace moved away from me, then sprinted back the way we’d come.

  I finally looked down at Eddie—he still hadn’t moved. “I didn’t mean to,” I whispered to him before racing back to Artemis.

  For someone old and sick, Wallace had made great time, and now his toupee had left his head. It was hanging on by strands of white hair still tacky with glue.

  “Hey,” I shouted, “why are you running from me? You have the guns! You have the power!”

  “Who says I’m running from you?” he shouted back. “They know I’m here. I’m the one who ruined everything for them.”

  But I didn’t care about “them,” whoever they were.

  I only cared about going home.

  I only cared about using one of those damned satellite phones.

  Artemis, named for the goddess of the hunt, shimmered at the end of the trail. Wallace stumbled up the porch steps and dropped the satellite phones and Eddie’s TEC-9. Both phones landed near the old man’s foot. The gun skidded far across the porch. Wallace looked at the weapon, looked at the phones, then looked back at me. Decisions, decisions … He grabbed the phones, then ran into the house.

  Seconds later, I bounded up those steps, grabbed the TEC-9, then also stormed into the house.

  Wallace had just reached the second floor, and his breathing sounded like a truck driving through glue.

  “Give me the one of the phones,” I shouted up to him, “and I’ll leave you alone. I just wanna call—”

  He disappeared down the hallway.

  I took the stairs two at a time and reached the landing as he reached his bedroom’s double doors.

  “Wallace, wait!” I tore down the hallway as he slammed the doors behind him.

  I twisted one of the knobs, expecting it to be locked.

  No—the handle turned and the door flew open.

  The last rays of sun were catching every mirror and piece of glass in the room, blinding me with light. I blinked from all the flashes, then squinted to make out the white leather sofas and wing chairs, the crystal chandelier and the fireplace. The bedroom looked empty. The windows were closed—he couldn’t have jumped. The black-and-white framed picture of the twin boys was gone from the wall niche. Phillip’s fire-colored urn had now taken its place. I glimpsed my reflection in those mirrors—standing that far away, I saw no bloody evidence that I’d shot and killed Eddie.

  “Wallace?” I said now. “Where are you?”

  I peeked beneath the bed and found a pair of slippers. No Wallace. I threw open the closet door. Ten suits hung on the racks. Three pairs of expensive-looking loafers had been stuffed with cedar blocks and placed into wooden cubbies. No Wallace.

  “You forced me to shoot,” I shouted. “You have no reason to hide from me. The pieces on the table—I didn’t take them. Why would I lie about that?”

  “You’re really asking that question?” His voice was muffled, but he sounded close—he had ducked into another secret hidey-hole like the one in the media room. “And you still aren’t listening: I’m not hiding from you.”

  “I just wanna go home.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose, then sighed. “I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done. We survived this, you and me. We’re fighters. I just wanna see my kid again.”

  He didn’t respond.

  I leaned against the wall and forced my breathing to slow … slow … After five minutes of inhaling and slowly exhaling, my mind cleared and I could think again. “Wallace,” I said, “we will survive this—you have to believe that.”

  “My brother William…” He paused a beat, then said, “He’d find this ironic.”

  “He would? Why?”

  “I’m now the one who’s scared. He was always frightened of me. I did terrorize him. I never liked weak people, and he knew that, and so he tried to stay as far from me as he could. For that alone, he was the smarter one.”

  “You never told me how he died.”

  “I could blame poverty.”

  “He was malnourished?”

  Wallace said nothing for a few seconds, then said, “Something like that.”

  Where is he hiding? Keep him talking.

  “Wallace, how did William die?”

  “There was a ground well on our property,” he said. “We were always careful around it.”

  I edged my way around the closet and found the spot where he sounded closest.

  “Sometimes,” he continued, “we forgot the well was there. William forgot once—he was running away from me at that moment, scared of what I had planned to do to him that afternoon. He was running from me and he fell into that well.”

  “How long did it take for help to come?”

  Silence, then, “Help didn’t come.”

  My blood turned icy and my lips clamped together. “Why not?”

  “I wanted to see what would happen if he stayed down there. I said nothing as the entire town searched for him, and I didn’t tell my parents or anybody that I knew where he was, and … I have his picture here with me.”

  “You told me a little about life insurance after his death. You received a payment.”

  “Not after his death. After my parents’.”

  “They died, yes.”

  “They were murdered.”

  My body trembled and I was cold again—because of the vents and because of the words Wallace had just spoken. I didn’t want to hear any more. Didn’t want to know any more. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to shove his story away from my active thinking. “I don’t care about your past,” I said, voice cracking, “just your right now. Our right now. Just where we’ll be tomorrow this time.”

  “You’ll kill me. Everyone wants to kill me.”

  “I don’t!” I shouted. “I don’t wanna kill you. Where are you?”

  “You can’t hurt me here. No one can hurt me here. Phillip had these little safe rooms built for moments like this. He told me so, right before he died. He told me that this closet was the safest place in the house, on the island.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Escorpion, he must’ve had everyone killed on the boat. He must’ve, and that’s why they’re not here. He’s coming for me.”

  “No one’s coming,” I said, even though I believed that Escorpion had murdered the crew of La Charon. “Hey, Wallace. Island fever—that’s what you have.” I touched a wood panel, and my sweaty fingers searched for a button, a lever, or a seam. “Wallace, please. Raul, the skipper of the boat? He gave me his cell phone number. He told me to cal
l him if something went wrong. And something’s gone horribly wrong, wouldn’t you say? Please: let me call him. He’s not dead—I’d bet my life that he’s alive. And when I contact him, I’ll stay out on the cliff or at the boathouse until he comes. You can have Artemis all to yourself. And if I see Mexican gang members, I’ll run back and let you know. Then I’ll hide somewhere. I’ll hide in the media room.”

  “You have Raul’s phone number?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Doesn’t matter—you need an open space to make the call, remember?”

  Silence, then: “I’m not sharing this space with you. You can’t come in here.”

  “Fine. That’s absolutely okay with me.”

  Silence again, then: “Did you steal the figurines off the Bosch table? Did you help Evelyn kill Javier, Desi, and Trey?”

  My mouth formed “no,” but I stopped myself from speaking. Strategy, Miriam. Appear remorseful, promise never to do it again. Do whatever it takes to survive.

  “Did you take the—?”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes and placed my forehead against the wood panel. “But … I … I didn’t kill … I didn’t … I’ll give you the gun—I don’t want it. The phone, I just need one phone.”

  He said, “Leave the weapon on the closet floor. Wait in the hallway. Count to fifty. I’ll take the gun and I’ll leave you one of the phones. Then, you can come back at fifty-one once I’m safe again.”

  “Sounds good.” I sat the TEC-9 on the cream carpet. “Okay. It’s on the floor.” I stepped back and watched the panel. “Tell me when to start counting.”

  “I just need to find the button to open the … open the … oh, dear.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t speak.

  “Wallace? What’s wrong?”

  He said, “Miriam, I…” and then, “Oh, no.”

  Excerpted from the San Francisco Examiner

  Monday, June 15

  NEW CLUES IN FIFTY-YEAR-OLD DOUBLE MURDER

  DNA may help investigators solve the 1967 murders of Lottie and Ricardo Zavarnella, both 45 years old at the time of their deaths. For nearly fifty years, investigators had no solid leads or suspects in murders that shocked the then-small farm town of Fresno, California. Until now.

  The couple’s bodies were discovered by their surviving son Wallace, then 20, on Christmas Eve. The husband and wife had been stabbed to death and dragged to the undeveloped land behind their home. The Zavarnellas’ second son, William, died eleven years before in an apparent accident—he’d been reported missing but was found dead two days later. He had stumbled into a ground well and suffered a broken neck.

  “We recently received a critical piece of evidence in the mail,” Fresno County Sheriff Arlen Bassett says. That critical piece: the knife possibly used in the murders. Investigators in 1967 never recovered the murder weapon, and now forensic experts hope to find the DNA of the murderer on the knife’s handle or blade—even after fifty years. Depending on factors like sunlight, water and heat, DNA can last up to a million years.

  “In stabbings like this,” Sheriff Bassett says, “not only are the victims grievously injured, the suspect is injured, too. He or she loses their grip on the handle due to the blood, and their palm slides down to the blade.”

  As a result, the suspect’s blood would mingle with the victims’, leaving behind crucial DNA. And according to Bassett, it is difficult to thoroughly clean a knife—blood can become lodged in the wood handle as well as the edge of the blade or between the blade and the hilt.

  “All we need now is a Q-tip and we can start building a DNA profile. We may have our murderer after all this time.”

  33

  Oh, no?

  What did Wallace mean by that?

  I stood there in the closet, gaping at wood panels and screaming, “What? Tell me. What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a letter here,” he finally said. “Right next to the control panel, and…”

  “And what? What does it say?” My lips were now completely numb.

  After several moments of silence again, Wallace read:

  “‘Sweetheart. This is not a joke. By the time you read this, my brain will have eaten itself alive. I take comfort in knowing, though, that I’m still smarter than you, even after death, because you are here on this island, in this cubby, because of me.

  “‘I knew you’d find yourself in this safe room—I was all too happy to plant the idea in your head. Who are you hiding from, I wonder, because there has to be someone stronger than you, so strong that you needed to hide.

  “‘I loved you. It’s hard to say that, to admit that I loved an evil man. A conniving man. A man who took so much from me, took so much from so many. A man who denied me happiness and freedom.

  “‘I was a fool to love you, but when I stopped loving you, you wouldn’t let me go. You threatened me. You reminded me that you’ve hurt people who loved you before. That you’ll hurt me—and that I’m no different. Sadly, I’m just one more domestic abuse story—except you only just admitted to the world our true relationship, you only admitted to the world that you and I were partners and lovers, only because I was dying, only because you were dying. Every day, over the last two years of my life, I’ve thought about your denial. And as I prepared to die, I thought about your denial while I cleaned our attic and closets. I found the knife, the weapon you used to kill your parents. You will deny this, that you killed them, but science will uncover the truth. That’s why I sent the knife to the sheriff in Fresno. You killed them. You also killed William. All for money.”

  I whispered, “Shit,” then rested my forehead against the cool wood panel. Wallace was a murderer. A cold-blooded …

  “‘Don’t worry,’” Wallace continued to read. “‘You aren’t the only one I will take with me as I die. I’m also punishing those clients who made my last year alive completely miserable. Miriam, Javier, Trey, Desirée, Edward, Evelyn—they are six of the worst human beings I’ve ever had to save. Because of me, they didn’t die in jail, killed by time or needles filled with poison, and now as I lie dying, I regret that. There is a price to pay. For all of us.’”

  The old man groaned.

  I tasted salt from tears that had slipped down my cheeks.

  Wallace read on. “‘Joseph Conrad wrote, “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” Evelyn, the most miserable wretch of all, the evilest of them all, the one who destroyed any chances of my going to heaven, didn’t want to come to Artemis, and I know she didn’t want to do as I asked once she arrived. But she came and she did as I asked because if she hadn’t, I would’ve had her beloved dachshund Chachi killed, and then her abhorrent mother Nancy chopped into pieces and spread across the Mojave Desert. So Evelyn poisoned. She strangled. She boiled and burned. She didn’t have to worry about you because I knew that you and the three who survived would simply take care of each other.

  “‘My final instruction to that hopeless creature: hang yourself from the strongest branch. Yes, I told her to do that, and on my last trip here, I left the rope and the jewelry cleaner to be used in the food in what would be her room, and I also left figurines on the table for Evelyn to take once each of you perished. I wrote her instructions to increase the temperature on the Jacuzzi tub’s thermostat. No one will mourn a nurse who killed at least three of her patients. Good riddance.

  “‘So, congratulations, my love—’”

  Wallace choked back a sob, and then another. Then he forced out, “‘Don’t bother with scattering my ashes. You won’t be leaving this closet, since you loved hiding in one for most of our relationship. Don’t torment yourself about Escorpion taking revenge for stealing his land. He won’t find you. But you will die here. That’s for certain. Your cancer, like mine, will slowly eat at your liver and then chew through your stomach and the rest of your insides until there’s nothing whole and nothing healthy left. />
  “‘Hallelujah.

  “‘See you in hell, my love. There, we will be together forever, you and I—just like you’d threatened every time I talked of leaving you. This is the end of all things, my love.

  “‘Phillip

  “‘P.S. There was no Saturday boat coming for the memorial service. There were no other guests. All of that? Fiction. The truth: this weekend was reserved just for you and the six. As far as my will is concerned? I lied about that, too. You won’t receive a penny—not that you’d be alive to spend one dime—and neither will anyone who may somehow make it off this island alive. Project Angel Food and the California Association of Black Lawyers, however, are about to hit their end-of-year fund-raising goals. You will not be acknowledged in their annual reports.

  “‘P.P.S. I hope it hurts.’”

  34

  “Help me!” Wallace was now banging on the closet panel.

  I don’t know how long he’d been banging, because my ears had just heard the most bizarre, the most horrific thing. Wallace had allowed his brother to die and had murdered his parents. He’d hidden the murder weapon in his attic all this time. And Evelyn—I had been right about her. But Phillip—I’d been wrong, so wrong, about him, about how he’d felt about me. I couldn’t believe that he’d brought me here to … die.

  No will. No inheritance. No memorial service.

  Set up. I’d been set up. To die.

  And Phillip had hated Wallace—and he’d hated Frank, Javier, Eddie, Desi, Evelyn, and me so much that he’d brought us all here to die.

  Wallace would suffer the most by slowly dying in a safe room.

  “Oh, no,” I said, my face warm and my belly swarming with foamy nausea. “No, no, no.”

  Phillip had lied to me about our relationship. Where I thought there was love, there was simply loathing in disguise. I’d told him my fears, my secrets, and he’d plotted ways to …

  I hunched over—couldn’t breathe, couldn’t—

  “Miriam,” Wallace was shouting, “what the hell are you doing out there? Help me! Call Raul!”

  “How?” I barked back. “You have both phones! And I lied—Raul didn’t give me his cell phone number. I just said that to convince you to come out of the closet.”