Necessary Evil

by Killarney Traynor

  We dragged the box back to the edge of the foundation; then he sprang up, climbing the walls easily, surprising me with his agility. I tossed the flashlight up to him. Then he laid flat on the ground as I tugged and grunted, and lifted the end of the box to him. He pulled it up easily.

  “Need a hand?” he asked.

  “I forgot the lantern,” I said, and turned to retrieve it.

  It was then that I heard a snap, echoing like a gun shot in the night air.

  Startled, I jumped, and then I stepped back. My foot caught on something. I twisted and went falling forward on my face. I threw my hands in front of me and they plunged into the debris, my left hand tangling in the branches, the other protecting my face.

  “Maddie! Are you all right?”

  Something moved past my face, and I jerked back instinctively. As my left hand moved, it tangled in a mess of fibers that were whispy and rough, like grass - only much finer. It freaked me out and I pulled it back hard, scraping the back of my hand on some of the undergrowth and bringing a handful of dirt and grass that wove its way around my fingers.

  “Madeleine?”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him.

  I sat up, but as I brushed the dirt from my hand, I realized that there was something more than just grass dangling from it. Something cool and hard bumped against my arm, and it was too dark to identify it. I reached out and touched it, intending to pull it away, but the feel of the smooth stone brought me up short.

  “Hurry up,” he said. “I want to get this thing open.”

  “Sure…” I said absently.

  The lantern was glowing just out of reach in the little hollow where it had fallen. I crawled over and pulled it up, casting a bright light across my left hand.

  It wasn’t grass that was entangled in my fingers: it was hair. Long, dark, wavy hair. Human hair. The dangling stone I’d felt was oval, in a Native American setting, hanging from the remains of a badly decaying leather cord. I recognized it at once.

  I jumped up with a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a squeal.

  “Gregory!”

  Gregory was standing with the flashlight playing over the trunk. He flashed it in my direction, blinding me as I stared at my arm.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  My breath was coming fast. I couldn’t tear my eyes from my arm as I lifted it up to show him. I felt like I had a mouthful of sand as I spoke.

  “I’ve found Allison Winters.”

  “What…?”

  He barely finished the word.

  Something flashed through the night air, close at hand - and Gregory folded, dropping to the ground like a dead man.

  The flashlight fell as the sound of the impact hit my ears. I screamed, probably his name, and jumped forward to grasp at the wall.

  Another beam of light hit my eyes. Someone was standing over Greg’s prone body. The same someone who’d laid him out.

  I froze, blinking, unable to see.

  A familiar voice sliced through the night air.

  “Hello, Maddie,” Joe Tremonti said, shoving back the hood that obscured his face. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Chapter 31:

  I gaped up at him.

  “Joe!” It was a sound somewhere between a gasp and a scream. “Joe, what are you doing here?”

  Joe had lowered the light to bend over where Greg had fallen. For a moment, he was clearly silhouetted in the moonlight, and I saw the outline of the backpack he was wearing - and the spade that he bore like a spear in his free hand. It was new and shiny and it glinted, knife-like, in the moonlight.

  I still couldn’t grasp what had happened.

  “Is he all right?” I asked. Begged, more like. “Joe, is he all right? What happened?”

  He turned then, and stared down at me from the edge of the pit, his figure looming up in the night and casting a shadow over me.

  And I still didn’t get it. I didn’t want to.

  “Help me up,” I commanded, lifting my arms. “Lift me up. Please. Quickly.”

  He didn’t move. He just grinned at me.

  “Isn’t it a little late for a dig, Maddie?” he asked.

  “Joe! Help him!”

  “Oh…” he said softly, almost crooning. “Yes. Your houseguest and blackmailer, the man you thought you could handle. You don’t have to worry about him, Maddie. He won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  I stared up at him.

  This is insane. This is Joe.

  “What did you do?” I whispered. “Joe, what did you do?”

  He hefted up the shovel again. “I took care of a problem. Now I have only one.”

  With a sharp movement, he thrust the shovel into the ground beside him. The force cut through the hard-packed, root-lined ground so deep that it stood quivering on its own, and I realized then just how strong he was.

  “You are alone now, aren’t you, Maddie?”

  Alone…

  He’s killed Gregory.

  I thought I knew what pain was. After all, I’d had enough experience with it. But what I was feeling now was as powerful as a full-on collision with a freight train, a dizzying, heart-stopping sort of pain that nearly drove me to my knees.

  Secondary realization spread like a wild-fire through me, sucking the air from my chest and shrinking the world to a pin-point of awareness. I stared at him, unable to speak, rage building up in me. But even then, I thought, This is crazy. That’s Joe. You know him. You know him.

  “Maddie,” he said, watching me as one would watch a caged pet. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you? Why did you come out here tonight? Why couldn’t you stay at the party, like you told me you would?”

  “Joe,” I said, and my voice was surprisingly steady. “Is Gregory all right?”

  He sighed and hunkered down to look at me.

  “You’re all alone now, Madeleine,” he said. “Just you and me.”

  Rage flooded my system. Grief took over, and I lost control. I charged the wall, scrambling up it, wordlessly screaming, determined to hurt him. I came within inches of his smug face and he, without flinching, put his hand on my forehead and shoved me backwards into the darkness of the abandoned foundation.

  I fell hard and unprepared. My head bounced off the ground and something jabbed at my rib cage. My arm hit a rock or a log, and Allison’s stone broke free, disappearing into the night. I don’t know what happened to the lamp, but it must have shattered against something, for I was plunged into sudden darkness.

  Pain spread through my side and I laid there, panting, fighting sobs.

  Joe’s voice reached me through the night air.

  “I’ve come for the same thing as you, Maddie,” he said, lightly. “And I’ve come to get Allison. As you’ve just discovered, you’re laying right on top of her. I know because… Well, I put her there.”

  Groaning, I rolled into a crouch, clutching my side. I was shaking, my teeth chattering, and his words filled me with a nameless dread.

  “No,” I whispered. “This isn’t happening. You didn’t kill her. This is a joke. Tell me it’s a joke. You couldn’t – and Greg…”

  I had to stop as his laughter rolled over me, smothering me. When I looked up, he was crouched on the side of the pit, a predator sizing up his prey.

  “Would you really believe me now, if I said I didn’t?” he asked. “You may be a little on the weak-minded side, Maddie, but you aren’t stupid. You don’t really believe that I’d come out here in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness, and kill a man just because I thought there might be a treasure around here somewhere.”

  The last time I saw her was at that epic party your folks threw for our last dig day with that delicious Professor Tremonti.

  Drink to my health, friends, Joe had said, when he was making the wedding announcement. It was a memory seared into my conscious by keen disappointment; and I could see now, as clearly as then, Joe’s white complexion and the way his hands trembled as he lifted his
glass to toast.

  It was then that I believed him. Funny how easy the admission was, as though it was the last piece in a puzzle that I’d long wanted to finish. Joe had killed Allison, and now Greg.

  But this was no time for grief. I had to stay alert. I had to keep him talking. It was the only way I had a chance to stay alive – and see to it that he got caught.

  If I could get out of this pit, that is.

  Get him off guard, Maddie.

  “You killed her the night of the dig party,” I stated, my voice a monotone.

  Joe cocked his head at me, surprised.

  “You remember it,” he said. “That was ten years ago. You were there, following me around with that adoring expression on your face. First crush, I think, but I didn’t mind you hanging around. You were just a kid.”

  “So was Allison,” I snapped. “What was she, twenty-one?”

  “So she was,” he said. “Allison Winters was attractive, and she knew it. She was helping me with a research project for my first book. That’s when she found out that I…”

  He broke off and looked at me sharply. While he was speaking, I had gotten to my feet, slowly, carefully, trying to look as though I was defeated. I was in the middle of the foundation, which was still only inches away from his reach, surrounded by softened earth that was chest height or higher, and there was no way I could get out and run before he caught me.

  Joe saw my position, and guessed my intention; but he knew, like me, that I was fairly trapped. He got to his feet, and in a display of nonchalance more terrifying than any open threat, he sauntered around the perimeter. He seemed bigger then I remembered, and his shoulders moved in sync with his steps: easy, relaxed, completely at ease.

  “I might as well tell you,” he said conversationally, like we were discussing his new book over a cup of coffee. “We’re already here, after all.”

  He paused and turned his back to me, his hand on his chin, as though he needed to recollect. But his purpose was to show me the handgun tucked into the waistband at the small of his back.

  My knees went weak, but I was determined not to give in. When Joe turned back, he found me where I had been.

  “You were about to tell me,” I said, “that Allison was going to expose you as an intellectual thief.”

  He looked startled, but he quickly recovered and his grin widened.

  “Why, Madeleine Warwick,” he said, mocking me. “Who knew you’d turned detective? Now how, I wonder, did you discover that?”

  “It what you accused Gregory Randall of,” I said. “We usually accuse other people of the things we’re guilty of ourselves. What you said about Gregory wasn’t true at all, was it?”

  Joe nodded slowly, then sighed.

  “No,” he said. “It wasn’t. Quite the opposite, actually. You won’t find a man less interested in glory than he is in truth.” He paused and, with malicious delight, said, “I should have said, than he was.”

  I glared.

  He began to pace again. “I was worried when I learned Randall was here. His reputation exceeds his actual ability, but he is still a decent historian and he’s almost as persistent as you. I knew that if anyone could find the McInnis treasure, it would be him. And I couldn’t allow that.”

  “You knew where it was?”

  “Of course I did,” he snapped. “I practically tripped over it the night I left Allison here. I didn’t know what it was then. I had… Other things on my mind.” He waved his hands impatiently, as though to stop me from getting ahead of him. “You see, like you, I didn’t believe in the treasure. My only interest was finishing that course with my class and getting back to California to start my real career. The east coast was a dead-end, as far as I was concerned. My life was out west – that’s where my career was, my wife…” He shook his head, as though driving off a bad memory. “Allison knew that. She was just a summer thing. We were adults. She should have known. But when she found out about Amber and me, she became emotional. She didn’t want to listen to reason and she threatened to tell the truth about the research.”

  “And you couldn’t allow that,” I said.

  “No. I couldn’t. It didn’t matter, really. The man who’d done the work was dead - suicide - and not really in position to publish or protest. But she kept insisting that he deserved the accolades, even though it was I who’d discovered the work and I who finished it.”

  “So you finished her.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I did.”

  He started pacing again, and I looked again for an escape. Nothing seemed promising – I would not be able to out-run him and fighting him off would be difficult, if not impossible. He had at least seventy-five lean-muscle pounds on me and he had a gun. My only weapons, if you could call them that, were my lamp and whatever I could find on the ground. That he would kill me wasn’t a question.

  I needed more time, and the only way to buy it was to keep him talking.

  So I said, “You buried her here, then what? How did her car end up in another state, when you were on a plane to California?”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “That was easy enough,” he boasted. “I knew that she was taking a road trip and I wasn’t supposed to leave until the morning. I had to change planes anyway, so I left the night of the party in her car. I drove it all the way to somewhere outside of Chicago, ditched it, and caught a bus to the airport. I made my connecting flight with about fifteen minutes to spare and no one put two and two together. It was genius. As long as no one discovered where the body was, I was safe.

  “I had stumbled across the treasure box when I was covering her up, but I didn’t realize what it was. It’s not on Chase property, and I didn’t believe in the story anyway. It was only when Mark Dulles’ special came on that I had second thoughts.”

  I remember thinking that if I ever met Mark Dulles again, I’d probably punch him in the eye for all the trouble his special had caused.

  Joe had continued. “But even then, as long as the search stayed on your property, I was safe. No one would look on the Winters property, I thought, and I was right, as long as it was the professionals looking. Then, when the amateurs started, I got nervous. They have no method or discipline. They wouldn’t necessarily know where the property lines were.”

  He was pacing again, his hands behind his back, walking in circles around me. I still hadn’t found a way out, and was cursing myself for having left my cell phone at the house. I wondered again if Greg was really dead or if he was just hurt, bleeding out into the ground as this insane stand-off continued.

  Oh, please…

  Joe stopped and turned to me.

  “Then your uncle died,” he said simply. “And I knew I had to do something to stop the searches before they found her. As you just have.”

  A chill washed over me. I forced myself to speak, to break the moment: “You must have known that someone would find her eventually, even if they weren’t looking for the treasure.”

  “Oh, I knew that,” he nodded. “But it isn’t easy to dispose of a body, you know, especially when you don’t live in the area. I needed to put it off for as long as possible. After all, evidence erodes. And I had – and have – no intention of letting anyone else find the treasure. It was my discovery, and I would reap the benefits of it. That’s when I came up with the Beaumont Letter.”

  “A stall,” I said, and he nodded.

  “A stall. Even though I knew you didn’t believe in the treasure, I wasn’t sure you’d go for it. But you fell for the scheme, hook, line, and sinker. You bought me, what, four more years, Maddie? I’m grateful.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said through gritted teeth. Bad enough that I’d made my uncle a laughing stock – I’d gone and aided a murderer as well.

  Not now, Maddie.

  “What then?” I demanded. “So you bought more time. So what? That would run out eventually.”

  “True. Eventually.”

  He stopped and pulled the pistol out of his back p
ocket. It glinted dully in the moonlight and I froze, terrified.

  He studied it, frowning and stroking the barrel. His grip tightened and he stood, silhouetted in moonlight, one hand twisting at the barrel, the other keeping firm grip of the handle. It was as though he was wrestling with the weapon, one hand trying to wrench it out of the other’s grip.

  I had backed away as far as I could in the foundation, pressing against the rock wall, watching in fear-fueled fascination.

  Then, as quietly and suddenly as the wrestling match had begun, it was over. He let go of the barrel and whipped around to face me - but it was not the end, as I assumed it was. Instead, he crouched down at the side of the hole and continued as though he’d never paused.

  “I knew that time would run out,” he said as I stared. “But for the moment I was safe, and things were working for me in California. I decided that the treasure would keep. Besides, extracting it after going through all that trouble with the Beaumont letter would be difficult, even though I’d built in safeguards. I’d made sure that none of the supplies were traceable to me and when I presented the letter to Maddox, I made sure that he and everyone knew that I was doing this for an old family friend.”

  He chuckled. “Maddox was starting to slow down, but most of the world didn’t know just how far he had slipped into senility. Refuting his find later would be a breeze, provided I kept far enough distance. I just had to wait until Maddox either broke down completely or died. When he finally did, I was free to act.

  “The next step was to drive you out.”

  His face was hooded in darkness; but the pistol, held loosely in his hand, was easy enough to make out.

  My throat was constricted, so dry that I could hardly rasp out my question. “Drive me out?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was a simple idea. California was becoming… Unfriendly, shall we say? So when the job opened up here, I moved back, established contact with you, and then hired a man to dig the holes for me. He got scared off when Randall and that kid chased him into the woods, but the plan was for him to do the digging while I stayed just close enough to ride to your ‘rescue’, so to speak.”