by Bill Alive
“Meaning, someone else?” I said.
He nodded. “The guy was crazy. What if someone needled him? Used him as a murder weapon?”
I tried to care, but I only felt worse, more tired. “I thought Kelsey killed Ed because he wanted Vanessa. Then he goes and nearly kills her too?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Mark said. “Maybe Ed was Kelsey’s idea, but then, one chink in his self-righteous armor and he might flip to despair and suicide.”
“Suicide, maybe,” I said. Trying to think was like chewing a full mouth of peanut butter. “But why would he kill Vanessa?”
“He wouldn’t on his own. But what if someone got him thinking she deserved to die too? An ‘adulteress’.”
I slumped back into the seat. Usually I didn’t mind how Thunder rattled on this gravel climb, but right now I wished it would just stop already, so I could sleep for a week.
“Maybe he even told Vanessa who ‘goaded’ him,” Mark said. “Before he thought he’d beaten her to death. Damn, I should have asked her, I shouldn’t have left so fast.”
He looked ashamed. I felt a small twinge of concern for him, and any feeling at all was like a tiny drop of rain in a drought. “It’s cool, no worries,” I said. “I can text Ceci to see if she’s said anything else.”
I sat up and sent the text. In less than a minute, she sent the reply.
I winced.
“Anything?” Mark said.
“No,” I said.
“What is it? What happened?”
“She freaked out so much, she hurt herself or something.”
“How? How bad?”
“Doesn’t say,” I said. “But they gave her sedatives. She’s out again.”
Mark swore.
We rattled around a turn, and nearly hit a taxi barreling down the one-lane road. You don’t want to mess with a Back Mosby taxi. This one was typical, an ancient gray rust bucket with JAKE’S ‘TAXI’ and a local phone number plastered on the doors in peeling, crooked letter decals. The time-scrabbled driver looked like he’d done multiple tours in Vietnam and might still moonlight as a hit man, if the pay was double digits.
Mark had to pull as far off the road as he could, right near the cliff where we’d almost … yeah, never mind. Spoiler.
But being back there, I got this sudden, weird deja vu.
“It’s like nothing’s even happened,” I said. “All these people are dead, and we didn’t really solve anything or save anyone.”
“That’s not true,” Mark said. “For one thing, you figured out Vanessa’s secret lover.”
“Roger? A lover?” I said. “He’s a balding middle-aged dude who’s not even into sex. He only wanted her ‘soul.’ Wonder if he’ll want it now.”
“I wonder,” Mark said.
“What do you mean?”
The taxi had blown past, and we rumbled back onto the gravel for the last stretch up to the house.
“Didn’t you say that the other girl in Roger’s group was super hot?” he said. “Yvette?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Whoa … you mean the whole ‘spiritual group’ thing was just a front? To collect a harem?”
“You tell me,” Mark said. “You’re the one who’s seen him in action.”
“Crap. Yvette did hang on his every word. And Vanessa was so weird with him, it was like he had this power. How is that possible?”
“People have other needs besides sex,” Mark said. “Meanwhile … there’s also his wife. Totally quiet.”
“Oh man!” I said. “I can’t even remember exactly what she looked like! Except the hair!”
“A wife in that situation might want to get rid of an ‘adulteress’.”
“Oh my gosh. So that’s it? Mrs. Turcot goaded Kelsey to kill Vanessa, then kill himself?”
“Maybe,” Mark said. “But she’s not the only jealous woman in the mix.”
“Who else? Yvette? Why would Yvette care?”
“Think about it. If Mrs. Turcot was really so drab, Yvette had no competition. She had Roger basically to herself. But then he goes and meets this flashy new flirt.”
“Yvette wouldn’t … I can’t believe that,” I said. I don’t know what rational reason I pretended to have. My real reasons were super obvious. Mrs. Turcot was old and rude and did that creepy rosary stuff, and Yvette was young and pretty and had smiled at me. No way Yvette was some murderer.
Mark’s face went grim. “I hope you’re right.”
“Why?” I followed his gaze.
On our tiny concrete slab of porch, gaunt and haunted and hunched in a hungry stare right at us, stood Yvette.
Chapter 37
Yvette rushed me before I even got all the way out of the car. She didn’t touch me, but she leaned in, eager and anxious and still very hot. Her near-white pigtail brushed my neck.
At first, the close hotness flooded me like a power surge, the old rush. But then, beneath it, like an armpit stench under too much perfume, came her fear. Fear wafted off her like a miasma of swamp gas. It was almost physical.
Maybe it was physical. I realized I was feeling afraid, just standing here with her. Like it was contagious.
Or … I glanced at Mark, who was watching her warily over Thunder, like he was happy to keep his distance and a hunk of metal between them. Was he feeling what I was feeling?
I really had to stop getting these flashes of possible empathy. That was not going to be a thing. Period.
Yvette didn’t even look at Mark. She launched into talking at me, super fast.
“Pete, I’m so sorry, I know this is completely inappropriate, but I had nowhere else to go, I don’t expect any special treatment…”
She kept talking, but all the time, her wide eyes were pleading, hold me, protect me, take me…
Again the hotness rushed me … but Ceci’s snipe flicked me like an elbow dig … it’s a drug, Pete. And I thought, yeah … maybe.
I could feel the tug of this girly woman-child begging me to seize her, possess her … but at the same time, she couldn’t really care about me. I was just the closest available male.
I remembered Mark wondering once how hot girls must feel, walking through a world where almost every guy sees them like a vending machine, a constellation of patterns that happen to trigger intense pleasure. Now I could actually feel it myself, both the rush of the power and the crush of being totally replaceable.
I stepped back and crossed my arms over my heart. “Calm down, Yvette,” I said. “This is my friend Mark.”
I was hoping he’d tag team in here, or maybe she could give him the vampire stare for thirty seconds while I recharged. But she stayed mesmerized on me.
“I don’t have anywhere to go, Pete,” she pleaded. “They kicked me out.”
“Kicked you out? Who?”
She looked bewildered, like this was incredibly obvious. “Roger and his wife!”
“You live there?” I said.
We shrank back in mutual astonishment. My disbelief clearly freaked her out. She was starting to look frantic.
Mark finally stepped around the car. “Yvette, what can we get you?” he said, all smooth Client Mode to the hilt. “Coffee? Tea?”
Yvette squirmed. She seemed deeply uncomfortable, like a kid when you ask what they want to be when they grow up. She stared at her feet and mumbled, “Oh, just water is fine.”
Mark squinted. “How about some tea?”
She looked up, surprised. But then she seemed to relax, like she could enjoy the tea now because she hadn’t actually asked for it.
Mark and I carried in our precious groceries, including the tea we’d luckily just bought. He puttered around getting the kettle ready, and the normal, prosaic clatter helped me uncoil a little.
I sat on the couch, and Yvette perched at the other end. She was rocking a little, staring at her knees shrouded beneath the long denim jumper, but also flitting me glances. The woman had an almost gravitational pull, like a tiny black hole. She made me think of some su
ction sea creature, pried off her host, alone in the ocean and screaming for a new partner.
Resisting her was draining me. If I could only think of something to say. Why the hell had she been living with Roger? Maybe the harem thing had been … literal.
At last, Mark brought over the tea, in some chipped mug from the thrift store.
“So,” he said, mercifully sitting between us. “Why did they kick you out?”
Yvette cupped her sweatered hands around the mug, like she was warming her hands by a campfire. Without looking at Mark, she said, “It’s Mrs. Turcot.” Her voice was tight. “She’s finally lost it.”
Mark waited.
When she didn’t continue, he prodded gently. “You all heard about Kelsey?”
She nodded. Her face contracted in a traumatized about-to-cry, but she pulled herself together.
“They were fighting about it all morning. They … she … she’s always hated me. Roger tried his best to make peace, but she’s so possessive, she acts like she owns him. She did it to Olivia and now she’s doing it to me, finding fault, nibbling me to death. When Theodore made his disgusting accusations about me, she completely took his side—”
“Accusations?” I blurted. “What are you talking about?”
She went stiff, prim and proper. “It’s not something I’d repeat. And he couldn’t even accuse me to my face, he just called Roger, a couple days ago. He said we went in the basement and I … we…” She grimaced.
“Got it,” Mark said.
I thought, Really, Theodore? What the hell is it now? I keep thinking we’re done with you.
Why would Theodore tell that kind of lie? Had he made a play, and found Yvette not as desperate as Olivia? Was this his petty revenge? And here he’d been acting like he was all super religious now…
“Roger believed me, of course,” Yvette said. “But his wife … nothing would satisfy her. It’s crazy! I wouldn’t even go in the basement without permission!”
“What’s in the basement?” Mark said, too quickly.
But Yvette’s face closed. All at once, she was secret, loyal, eyeing us with distrust.
I got creeped out all over again. Her emotional states could thrash so fast.
Mark said, “Did Mrs. Turcot threaten you?”
She flipped back to scared. “Not openly. But Roger said … for my own safety … after what happened to Vanessa…”
She started rocking again. I realized she might practically be in shock. But also trying to act like she was totally fine.
“Where can we talk to Mrs. Turcot?” Mark said. “Is she at the house?”
Yvette shook her head. “She left.” Her voice was getting smaller, curling in on itself. “She’s at the store.”
“What store?” I said.
“Our store. I mean … theirs…”
“Is it that little Catholic gift store behind Main Street?” Mark said. “Athanasius something?”
She nodded, and gulped.
“Okay. I tell you what, Yvette, Pete and I will go talk to her. We can give you a ride somewhere.”
“Please,” she said. She fixed Mark with her begging stare. “I can sleep on the floor.”
“There must be someone, Yvette,” Mark said. “What about a sister? Your parents?”
“It’s just my aunt, she’s in Florida.” Her voice was getting shaky. “Please, please, I can do the housework—”
“Okay, okay.” Mark held his palm out, the universal symbol for just stop talking. She stopped. “We’ll work it out when we get back. Why don’t you chill out and watch TV?”
She squirmed, that nervous kid again. “I don’t know … there’s a lot of garbage on.”
Mark suppressed a small sigh. With forced politeness, he said, “I can stream pretty much anything. There must be something family friendly.”
Her eyes lit up, and she cocked her head with a shy smile. “We do like the Donna Reed Show.”
Mark’s smile went tight. But he set it up for her.
I couldn’t bear to watch how eager she was. I went to my room and tried on three different outfits, like the right look might lift my spirits. Nope.
As we left to go pry a confession out of Mrs. Turcot, Yvette was sitting on our couch, watching the old show, wrapped in a blanket and the cheesy music and canned laughter. She was tranced out, gone, with the smile of a six-year-old in her safe place. She looked like a refugee.
And we were going to go talk to the woman who might want her dead.
Chapter 38
If our Back Mosby Main Street is barely still breathing, the back streets on either side are definitely on a respirator. I don’t know what kind of entrepreneur gets a good feeling about a retail front on the back side of a building.
Wandering these hidden stores is like wandering backstage. It’s intriguing for maybe thirty seconds, and then you realize that even though the play might not be much, you’re still missing it.
We must have taken longer than I thought with the food shopping earlier, because by now, the light was already waning into afternoon. Maybe the hospital trauma had torpedoed my sense of time.
Mark had to cruise the street twice before we picked out the sign tilting off a concrete wall: “ST. ATHANASIUS ROMAN CATHOLIC STORE.”
“So they are Catholic?” I said.
“No,” Mark said.
“Yeah, Kelsey said that pope dude should have been shot. I’m so confused.”
“No, they are.”
The storefront had no windows, just a narrow glass door huddled in the gray brick. The afternoon sun was unkind, picking out the utility pipes that snaked up the corner and the squat gray fan box for the air conditioning. The parking lot pavement had rumpled and broken at the edges, like the construction guys had poured it in a hurry so they could go out for drinks.
“Mrs. Turcot’s not going to just confess,” I said, as we walked across the bumpy tarmac.
“No. But I can try to get a vibe.”
“Did you get a vibe from Yvette?”
“As much as I could stand. She’s got rock-hard shields, but they couldn’t hide all the fear. Her fear is for real.”
“But Kelsey was scared too,” I said.
“True.”
Mark pulled open the glass door, and stale warm air blasted in my face. You wouldn’t think you’d need to run the AC in late fall, but this room could have used it. Were they economizing?
I braced myself for the store to be as creepy as Kelsey’s trailer. To my surprise, it felt like any other kitschy gift store. At first.
At first, it was almost a parallel universe version of Vivian’s place. Instead of kitschy elephant gods, there were kitschy saints, kitschy crucifixes, and thirty or forty variations on plastic Mary statues. Even a wall of bumper stickers. You could totally forget you were about to grill a murder suspect. The main smell was old microwave popcorn.
But then you started to notice things.
The place had a shabbiness, a corrosion, a suspicious glint in the eyes of the shadows. There were lots of books, and many were old and seriously used. Others were new, thick paperbacks, opened only once, if that. They screamed “self-published”; even the strident fonts on the spines blurted a mind unhinged. The titles trended hard toward the dire … Mary Weeps for Lost Souls … America: The Coming Persecution … How You and Your Family Can Survive the Three Days of Darkness…
Sure, you can find your fair share of unhinged covers over at Valley Visions too. But the worst hell we believe in is global warming.
As for people, the store was empty. Except, I suddenly realized, for Mrs. Turcot. She was stooping over the front counter, staring at us.
Even with her stoop, her extreme height made her seem like a vulture on its branch, watching you from its remote height. The fake red of her curls made her look even more pale and old. Her bony face was a locked vault, with eyes squinting behind huge round glasses and lips clamped white. My hopes sank … this woman wasn’t going to let a single false word sl
ip, let alone confess.
With Client Mode cheer, Mark said, “Good morning! I was just wondering—”
“I know why you’re here.”
Her voice was cold. Barren.
Then she focused on me, and the anger came.
“My husband invited you into our home,” she spat. “You didn’t tell us you were a detective.”
I realized I was flinching with guilt. Holy moley. This skeletal Vulture Lady might be an accessory to murder, and here she was making me feel guilty! For real! That had to be a superpower.
“I wasn’t coming over to snoop around!” I said, with a significant glare at Mark. “I actually thought your husband was a spiritual guy!”
“He is,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve any of this. He keeps trying to help these people, and they all turn out to be mentally imbalanced.”
“Like Kelsey?” Mark said, neutral.
Her face tightened. “All of them.”
“Kelsey certainly did seem to need some guidance,” Mark said.
Her lean cheeks twitched, like a tic. Somehow she looked scared. And super guilty.
“I pray that God has mercy on his soul,” she said.
“We heard he thought God was telling him to do it,” Mark said. “That’s what he told Vanessa.”
Her eyes went wide and panicked.
“I thought…” she said, faltering for the first time. “Isn’t that woman in critical condition?”
“She is,” Mark said. “But she’s having her lucid moments.”
He was squinting, scrutinizing her as hard as I’d ever seen him try to vibe anyone.
“Of course, she sounds very confused,” he said. “It’s hard to be sure what she’s trying to say.”
Mrs. Turcot said, cold and clear, “I goaded him.”
I froze.
Mark gaped.
Mrs. Turcot licked her lips, then said, louder, “I goaded Kelsey Lubitsch to enact Divine Justice. On Vanessa Kimm and himself.”
Mark had to work his mouth a bit to speak, and he could still only manage, “Why?” But when his voice did come out, it sounded casual. It was surreal.
Mrs. Turcot blinked. Her face was a mask of stone.
Then she said, “Because I wanted Roger all to myself.”
