Laura glanced over her shoulder at him. “You mean he wanted to discuss your employee health benefits?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Joe replied. “But he said this was my spiritual coverage. He said he wanted to talk about the insurance for my soul and my future and all.”
“I see,” Laura said. She left the sauce to simmer and glanced at James in the family room. He was wrapped up in his show, not listening to them at all. She walked over to the counter-bar so that she was face-to-face with Joe.
“So—I went back to the apartment and started to clean up a little,” Joe said. “I didn’t want Mr. Singleton thinking I was this major slob. Actually, the place wasn’t that messy, but I wanted to leave a good impression, y’know? Only Mr. Singleton didn’t show up, and after a while, I fell asleep on the sofa.” He gulped down some water and stared down at the countertop. “I must have been really tired, because I didn’t wake up until early the next morning. I was still in my clothes and still on the couch. I was shivering, because it was cold in my place and I didn’t have a blanket over me or anything. I remember getting up and going to the bathroom, and then looking at the clock. It was just after six. I glanced out the window to see if it was raining or snowing, and that’s when I saw the extra car parked in the driveway with the driver’s door open. And the kid was lying there on the gravel, and I could see the blood . . .”
Joe took another sip of water. “I ran downstairs. I didn’t put on a jacket or anything. I’d fallen asleep with my shoes on. That’s how tired I must have been. Anyway, I checked on the kid, and he was still breathing, but he was unconscious. I knew he was Jae’s boyfriend because he’d been at dinner on Thursday night. I wanted to cover him with a blanket or something, but there was nothing inside the car. Then I noticed the windshield and the windows were cracked and had bullet holes. I don’t know how I slept through those gunshots, I really don’t. Anyway, I remember thinking I should have brought my phone so I could call the police or an ambulance. I ran to the house and pounded on the front door. But no one answered.”
“Didn’t you have keys to the house?” Laura asked.
“Yeah, and I had them on me when I went to meet Mr. Singleton. But I must have dug them out of my pocket when I was getting sleepy, because the police found my keys in the apartment—on the end table by the sofa. One of the cops who questioned me really homed in on that: ‘You took your keys out of your pocket to nap, but you didn’t kick off your shoes.’ He thought it was strange or suspicious or something. But I really didn’t need to have my keys on me—as long as I was home and not going anywhere, right?”
“Makes sense to me,” Laura said.
“Anyway, I couldn’t get in their front door. So I tried the side door to Mr. Singleton’s study. It was unlocked. . .” Joe winced. “I found him dead on the sofa. He’d been stripped down to his underwear, and his hands and feet were tied. He was beaten up really bad. His throat was slashed. There was blood all over the carpet—and on the glass-top coffee table and on the magazines on top of it . . .”
He cleared his throat. “There was a—a landline phone on Mr. Singleton’s desk, and the police asked me a few times about that—why I didn’t pick it up and call nine-one-one. But I guess I just freaked out. I started screaming—mostly for Mrs. Singleton. I thought she and the kids might still be asleep upstairs. I ran toward the front of the house to go up there, and that’s when I saw the blood on the floor in the front hallway. It was on the wall, too. It sort of made a trail into the living room, and I found Jae in there on the carpet. She had on a tan coat, but most of it was cut up and stained with blood . . .” He touched his left cheek. “And there was a big slash here on her face. Her eyes were still open, and she had this sort of tired, dazed expression on her face. I could see she was dead. I didn’t touch her at all. The police asked why I didn’t call nine-one-one then. But I still didn’t know about the others upstairs. I guess my thinking was muddled. I remember just wanting to find someone else there who was alive—and conscious. I figured maybe somebody broke in and killed Mr. Singleton. And poor Jae and her boyfriend just came in at the wrong time. I thought the rest of the family might still be okay, sleeping upstairs. Pretty stupid, I know. But I’d slept through everything, and I figured maybe they had, too.”
Laura just stared at him and slowly shook her head. She wasn’t sure how she would have reacted. Though she’d questioned some of what he’d told her earlier, this part of the story seemed tragically real.
“Anyway, I ran up the stairs, and I saw Mrs. Singleton there in the second-floor hallway, lying against the wall. I didn’t see her face, because her back was to me. Her feet were tied around the ankles and her hands were tied behind her . . .”
Almost the same way you and Vic tied me up earlier, Laura thought, but she didn’t say anything.
“She had on this long silky pink nightgown,” he continued. “Only I thought it was pink with dark red flowers—until I noticed the material was torn and the red blooms were actually blood. I looked down the corridor, and all the bedroom doors were open. One of them had blood smeared on it. That’s when I figured they were all dead. I raced downstairs and called the police from the kitchen phone.”
“It sounds like you didn’t touch anyone,” Laura murmured. “But the news reports said you were covered with blood.”
He nodded. “The lady on nine-one-one wanted me to stay on the line, but I told her there was a kid lying outside in the cold and he was still alive. So I hung up. Before I went outside, I just needed to double-check upstairs. I thought maybe one of the kids was spared. Willow and Connor were the youngest, and they’d spent a couple of weekends at the house with their mother. I especially liked Connor. He was a good kid. He’d just turned eleven in October. He was the baby of the family . . .”
Laura couldn’t help glancing over at James, sitting on the floor and watching TV.
“I saw a couple of the others, and when I got to Connor’s room, I found him in his pajamas, lying facedown beside the bed. His little hands and feet were tied up, I don’t know, I . . .” Joe let out a heavy sigh, and tears came to his eyes. “I just had to put him back on his bed. I felt like he belonged there, y’know? I know it’s crazy. Anyway, when I started to pick him up, he let out a moan or something. One of the cops told me later that dead bodies can do that sometimes. But I thought he might still be alive, so I tried mouth to mouth and pumping on his chest. By the time I finally realized he was dead, I was pretty much covered in blood. And then I remembered the poor guy lying out in the driveway, shot and freezing. So I pulled the quilt over Connor and hurried downstairs. I got a coat out of the front closet, ran outside, and used the coat to cover up the guy from the neck down. He was still breathing, still unconscious. But I talked to him and said things like, ‘Hang in there, guy,’ and ‘Help’s on the way.’ Finally, the police and the ambulance showed up.”
He wiped the tears from his face and then looked at her. “Anyway, that’s what happened. Do you believe me?”
Laura hesitated. Her eyes wrestled with his, and then she nodded. “I believe you, Joe.”
He smiled gratefully. “I knew you would. I told Vic in the car on the way here, I told him, ‘Mrs. Gretchell’s going to believe me. She’ll know I’m innocent. She’ll help us.’”
Laura stared at him.
The smile faded from his face. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Laura had no idea what he was talking about. She shook her head.
“My grandmother legally adopted me and changed my last name,” he said. “I used to be Joey Spiers. You were my teacher in third grade.”
“My God, Joey,” she whispered. Of course she remembered him—the poor, abused little kid with the dirty clothes, the boy she tried so hard to protect.
He nodded. “You looked out for me. You saved my life, Mrs. Gretchell. I told Vic, we need to see my old teacher. She saved my life once before. She’ll do it again.”
CHAPTER NINE
> Monday—5:33 P.M.
In Joe’s face, Laura could now see the pitiful, timid little boy from years ago. She remembered the way he took Donald Clapp’s constant abuse without crying or complaint—as if it were something he just had to accept in life. Now she understood why he couldn’t stand up to Vic. He was still the same kid inside.
Joe said she’d saved him, but she couldn’t have done a very good job of it if he’d ended up in an insane asylum and was now on the run for murdering a family of seven.
“You do remember me,” he said, smiling. He planted his elbows on the counter-bar and folded his arms.
She tried to smile back. “I used to wonder what happened to you, Joe. The last I’d heard was—seventeen years ago. I was told you’d moved in with your grandmother in Tacoma.”
“That’s right, thanks in part to you. She got custody of me and—”
“Joe! Come look!” James called from the living room. “Joe? Come here!”
“In a minute, honey,” Laura said. “Joe and I are talking . . .”
Joe climbed off the bar stool. “It’s okay. I’m keeping you from your work. Vic will get ornery if he doesn’t eat dinner soon. We’ll talk later. You’re going to help me now, aren’t you?”
Laura hesitated.
“Joe, come look-it!” James called.
“I know you will,” he said. Then he turned and joined James in front of the TV.
Laura opened the box of dry pasta and put a big pot of water on the stove to boil. She could hear shuffling upstairs. She glanced at the stove clock. Sophie and Liam had been up there with Vic for an hour and a half.
She looked over at Joe and James, sitting on the floor together, the light from the TV flickering across their faces in the dimly lit room. James’s toy trucks were still in front of them.
“Joe? Is it all right if I go upstairs and check on my kids?” she asked.
He nodded, but didn’t quite take his eyes off the television. “You can tell Vic what’s for dinner. He’ll want to know.”
Laura headed toward the front of the house. As she approached the stairs, she gazed at the front door. If she quietly slipped out right now, what would happen? Could she make it to the wine-tasting cottage and call the police from that old rotary phone, and then get back before either Joe or Vic realized she wasn’t in the house? Probably not. The trip would take at least five minutes, maybe ten. And she hadn’t forgotten what Vic had said about shooting her and her children the moment he spotted a cop on the premises.
She couldn’t risk it. But if Liam or Sophie could quietly walk out that door and just keep walking, they might be able to save themselves. At the same time, she didn’t want either one of them taking any unnecessary chances.
Laura hurried upstairs. In the hallway, she found the linen closet door open. The closet had practically been emptied out. Towels, linen, toilet paper rolls, Kleenex boxes, medical items, and toiletries all lay on the floor in a heap against the wall. She stepped over the mess and continued down the hallway. She saw Liam’s bedroom had been ransacked, too. And now her children were being forced to tear apart Sophie’s room. The place looked as if it had been turned upside down. Shelves and bookcases had been cleared, and there was a mountain of books and junk on the floor. Piles of clothes covered each twin bed. Vic sat on the cushioned window seat with his legs stretched across it and his feet up. He held the gun in one hand and had Sophie’s Magic 8 Ball in the other. It seemed to fascinate him.
With his camcorder, Liam was recording him on the sly. Laura had a feeling Vic knew about it and was secretly delighted—or at least, amused.
With a haggard look on her face, Sophie was emptying the contents of a dresser drawer onto her bed.
“Are you guys okay?” Laura asked guardedly.
“Oh, we’re in the pink here,” Vic answered, shaking the 8 Ball. “Aren’t we, kids?”
Liam and Sophie stopped to stare at her. From the miserable looks on their faces, they might as well have been a couple of POWs peering at her through a barbed-wire fence. Sophie seemed to be holding back tears. Neither of them said a word. It was almost as if they’d been forbidden to talk.
“What’s for dinner?” Vic asked.
“We’re having pasta and meat sauce,” Laura replied.
“Yum,” Vic murmured. “Sounds like you and Joe were chatting up a storm downstairs. I thought I told you to keep the conversation to a minimum.”
“If you have a problem with that, maybe you should take it up with Joe. He was doing most of the talking.”
Vic smirked. “About old times, Mrs. Gretchell?”
“Among other things.”
“Hey, did you kids know that your mom and Joe go way back to when he was in third grade? She was his teacher. Your mom helped shape the mind of a famous mass murderer. How about that?”
Sophie wiped her eyes and blinked at her. “Is he serious?”
“Really?” Liam asked. He had the camera on a strap on his shoulder, and he let it drop to his side.
“Suspected mass murderer,” Laura said. “Dinner’s in twenty minutes.” She looked at Sophie and Liam again and tried to give them a reassuring smile, but she knew it was in vain. Reluctantly, she turned away and started down the hall.
“We’ll be done here soon!” Vic called cheerfully.
Seeing Vic bully her children left Laura enraged and frustrated. She wanted to slap that snarky expression off his face. She paused by the mounds of sheets and towels by the linen closet. Among all the different medications dumped on the floor, she wished there were some kind of poison or sleeping pills or even laxatives—anything she could slip into Vic’s dinner tonight that would incapacitate him. And if he had to suffer a bit in the process, that was fine by her.
But there was nothing amid the pile of things. She thought again about getting him drunk on wine—and the risks involved to her and her kids.
Downstairs, she found Joe and James still watching TV together. She kept glancing back at them while she fixed dinner.
It was strange to think that when she’d last seen Joe, he was only four years older than James. He’d been a quiet kid with a cute face. He had dimples when he smiled, but that was rare. His long, shaggy brown hair was always dirty. Nothing he wore seemed to fit, and most of the time, his clothes were filthy. On a couple of occasions, he showed up for school in a ratty pajama top instead of a shirt. She knew Joey was the only child of a single mother, and it became more and more apparent his mother didn’t give a damn. Laura sent a tactfully worded note home with Joey, letting her know that some of the other children were complaining about his hygiene. And this was third grade, when most kids didn’t notice things like that—especially the boys. But Donald Clapp had noticed. He’d started teasing and bullying Joey. Laura did her damnedest to stifle him before the other kids joined in the harassment.
Ms. Spiers didn’t respond to her note. But the following day, Joey came to school in clean clothes. He wore the same clothes for the rest of the week—until they stank. And then he wore them again, still unwashed, part of the next week.
Ms. Spiers pulled a no-show at the parent-teacher conference. Laura tried to imagine how awful Joey’s life at home was.
Each time one of her students had a birthday, they got a little present from Laura. She’d ask them to stay after class and give them a card with a little trinket inside. Sean’s father was an amateur carpenter and had a woodshop in his garage. He made these wooden cutouts that she painted. It was probably politically incorrect, but the boys got stars and the girls received daisy-shaped cutouts. The birthday student’s photo was in the center. Laura mass-produced them each month. The kids with birthdays during vacations and weekends all got their little birthday keepsake the day before the break. When Laura gave Joey Spiers his star, he seemed absolutely awestruck by the gesture. It broke her heart that he seemed so grateful for so little.
She became very protective of him. From the window of the teachers’ lunchroom, she’d watch Joey
on the playground. She lost track of how many times she ran out there to discipline Donald—for throwing pebbles at Joey, for tripping him, for pushing him off the monkey bars. The monkey bars incident was one of the times she sent Donald to the principal, Tom Freeman.
It was also the only time she saw Joey cry. He’d had the wind knocked out of him when he’d hit the ground. Otherwise, he never complained about the abuse. He didn’t even seem to have enough sense to avoid Donald. He just took it.
Donald was disruptive in class in general, but often he’d blurt out something derogatory about Joey—that he was stupid, that he was a pig, or that he “smelled like a steaming pile of dog shit.” The “dog shit” remark netted Donald a lot of laughs and another trip to Tom Freeman’s office. When Donald hurled these insults at him in class, Joey would always look a bit surprised or confused. Sometimes, Laura could see that he was hurt and didn’t want to show it.
She talked to the principal about getting in touch with Joey’s mother. The woman needed to know that her son was being bullied. Laura wondered if she was one of those mothers who slept all morning and made her child wake, dress, and feed himself before school. Maybe that explained it. Joey often came to school sick, too.
Laura never heard from Ms. Spiers. But Donald’s father showed up to defend his obnoxious kid. And to emphasize his contempt for her, Mr. Clapp planted himself outside her classroom window that one morning so he could glare through the glass at her.
A few days after that incident, Laura spotted Donald in the school cafeteria, picking on Joey again. He swiped Joey’s brownie and upturned his lunch tray, spilling a bowl of chili all down the front of Joey’s shirt. The tray-tipping was obviously deliberate.
Laura sent Donald to Tom Freeman’s office once again. She came across a shirt for Joey in the lost and found. Then she took him into the private lavatory off the teachers’ lounge so he could wash up and change. But he didn’t seem to know what to do. He just stood there by the sink—with chili splattered down the front of him and a worried expression on his face.
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