Amanda gave me a quick hug.
“Thank you, Taylor,” she said.
Amanda went out the door and Anne came in, closing it behind her. When she was close, I hugged her. I hugged her hard. There was nothing sexual about it. I hugged her for comfort, the way you might hug your best friend if she happened to be a woman. I kissed her forehead. She wrinkled her nose at me.
I released her and moved to the sofa in my living room, resting my backside against the arm. Anne closed the distance between us. I grabbed the lapels of her jacket and pulled her closer. She rested her hands on my shoulders. I slowly buttoned her jacket. The gesture didn’t seem to surprise her one bit.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Taylor?”
“We’re not doing this anymore.”
“You’re saying we’re done?”
“Not done. Just different. Annie, I love you. I always have. You’re my best friend. Without you, I would feel outnumbered. I like your kids, too. Your husband’s an ass, but he deserves better. We all do.”
“What’s this? Suddenly you’re behaving like an adult?”
“It had to happen sooner or later.”
“Is this because of the woman who lives across the hall? And her little girl?”
“No. No, Annie, it’s just … I don’t want to be that guy, anymore. I want to be—”
“Who do you want to be?”
“The person I was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before this. Before Cynthia. Before … I don’t know. It might take awhile until I figure it out.”
“What happened in Arona, it messed with your head, didn’t it?”
“Not just Arona. Annie, there are a lot of screwed-up people in the world.”
“You’re telling me? I’m a cop, remember?”
“I just want to get my name off the list.”
She hugged me and kissed my cheek and hugged me again. Finally she released me and headed for the door.
“I meant to tell you,” she said. “Barbecue, early Sunday afternoon, my place. There’ll be a lot of cops there. You’ll know most of them. My husband, too. Bring beer and plenty of ice.”
“Okay.”
She opened my door and paused, staring at Claire Wedemeyer’s door across the way.
“If you bring a date,” she said, “I will shoot her on sight.”
I moved to where she stood and gave her another quick hug.
“From now on, I’ll bring all my girls to you for approval before I get serious,” I said. “How’s that?”
“If you had done that with Cynthia, think of all the trouble you would have avoided.”
“My point exactly.”
The smartphone in my jacket pocket chirped. I checked the incoming text. It was from Devon Barrington.
“I need to deal with this,” I said.
“Don’t forget Sunday. Yeah, and you can bring a date. Bring Claire.”
A moment later Anne was out the door. I closed it. With my back against the wood, I opened the text.
I need you to come to North Oaks right away, it read.
I replied, Your mother would not like it.
My mother is not here.
Even better reason to stay away.
I need you.
I’m sorry.
I’m alone.
Where’s Ophira?
She’s gone.
The text forced me to pause. Mrs. Barrington never left Devon alone. The girl told me so herself.
I texted, Where did Ophira go?
Please help me.
The case was over. If she wanted to, Mrs. Barrington could have me arrested for trespassing, if nothing else. I would get no help from David Helin. My license could even be endangered. What other reasons could I think of for ignoring the girl?
I replied, I’ll be there in 15 minutes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Kamin County Sheriff’s Department had confiscated my Beretta. Fortunately, I had another. It was tucked under my belt at the small of my back as I drove to North Oaks.
I jumped on West Pleasant Lake Road and followed it as it wound its way through the North Oaks Golf Club to the lane that led to Mrs. Barrington’s estate. I kept looking for the community service officer, but I didn’t see his Chrysler 300. Then I did. Someone had rolled the big car off the lane into a clearing among the trees between the main road and Mrs. Barrington’s house. I nearly missed it. If not for the reflection of the late afternoon sun on the rear window I probably would have.
I slowed my car and stopped. The way the Chrysler was parked, nose in, it was unlikely the CSO was guarding the place from interlopers—I love that word, interlopers—who might have learned that the charges against Mrs. Barrington had been dropped. Certainly he wasn’t running a speed trap.
I left my car and walked back to the Chrysler. I circled it so that I would come up on the driver’s side. That’s when I saw the bullet holes. There were so many that they could only have come from an automatic weapon. The driver’s side window was shattered into a thousand pieces. I looked inside. The CSO was slumped sideways on the front seat, his eyes staring at nothing. There wasn’t much blood. He must have died quickly, I told myself.
“North Oaks isn’t going to like this,” I said aloud.
I ran back to the Camry as fast as I could. I fumbled with my smartphone, punched the numbers I wanted, and made a call even as I drove up the remaining portion of the long driveway and parked in front of the garage. The operator wanted to keep me on the line, but I silenced the cell and slipped it into my pocket just as I reached the Barringtons’ front door. I both rang the bell and knocked. The knocking caused the door to inch open. I pressed my hand against the wood and swung it open the rest of the way.
“Devon,” I called.
There was no reply.
I stepped inside and saw her.
Ophira was lying on the stone floor of the foyer. A bullet had caught her high in the chest and thrown her backward. She had fallen with her arms and legs spread-eagle as if she were making snow angels.
I slipped the Beretta out from under my jacket and thumbed off the safety.
I bent to the woman and rested two fingers along her carotid artery.
She was cold to the touch. There was no pulse.
“Devon,” I said softly. “Did you do this?”
I stood and called to her the way that Ophira had.
“Dev. Devon, child. Where are you?”
I felt movement near the arched entranceway that led to the Barringtons’ dining room and spun that way. I brought the Beretta up and went into a Weaver stance, the gun in my right hand, my left supporting it, my left arm close to my body, my head tilted slightly to align the sights on the target.
Esther Tibbits appeared. She was dressed for business in a white shirt, black jacket, and black skirt. She was using Devon as a shield, standing directly behind her. Her left arm was wrapped around Devon’s shoulder, her hand resting just above the girl’s breast. She also had a gun. It was pressed against Devon’s temple.
I aimed the Beretta at Esther’s right eye. Devon’s head was too close to the target. I was afraid to take the shot.
There was movement behind me. Someone had been hiding in the living room as well.
I turned my head for a quick peek. Eric, wearing camo again, carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.
I looked back at Esther.
I tried to relax my hands.
“Drop your gun,” Esther said.
“No.”
Devon smiled, actually smiled. It surprised me as much as the rest of her demeanor. Nothing about her expression or body language suggested fear.
“Drop it,” Esther said again.
“No,” I repeated.
“I’ll kill her.”
“You’re going to kill her anyway. If you do, I’ll kill you. Your brother might get a few shots off. He might even get me before I shoot him. On the other hand, he might miss. Your uncle Curtis did.�
��
“I won’t miss,” Eric said.
“In either case, Esther, you’ll be dead before I am.”
I said it, but I wasn’t sure I meant it. You’re taught to always take the target directly in front of you first. Except Eric had an automatic weapon. Plus, he was trained. Or at least he had practice shooting trees. That made him the greater threat.
“We didn’t come here to kill the girl,” Esther said.
“Did you come here to kill the maid?”
“It was an accident.”
“That makes all the difference.”
“We came here for you. Because of what you did to Uncle Curtis. Because of what you did to the Patriots.”
“Then you should have come to my house.”
“We didn’t know where you lived,” Eric said. “We knew where the Barringtons lived, though. We knew you were friends.”
“We saw you with the girl at Everheart’s,” Esther said. “You like her. You don’t want to see her hurt.”
“No, I don’t.”
I spun and shot Eric.
I shot him three times.
I dove to my left as I squeezed off the rounds.
He hadn’t even been aiming his rifle. Instead, he was holding it like a fire hose.
His body twisted and he fell backward. The rifle clattered across the hardwood floor.
I landed on my shoulder, my back toward Esther.
I tried to roll into some kind of firing position, but I knew it was too late.
The floor exploded under my hands.
I kept rolling.
Esther moved deeper into the foyer. She was circling for a better angle, holding her gun with both hands as if she had done this sort of thing before.
I tried to bring my own gun up.
I heard the shots—one, two, three, four, five.
I saw the bullets tear into Esther’s body. Two in the chest, her arm, her shoulder, her face.
Blood saturated her white shirt.
She bounced off the front door and fell forward.
Esther landed facedown next to Ophira.
I kept rolling until I could see Devon. She was standing next to the small table, the one with the silver tray on top, near the staircase. The drawer of the table that I had wanted to peek into so long ago was now open.
Devon was staring at the nine-millimeter Ruger LC9 she held in her hand. The slide had locked open when she fired her final round. It seemed to surprise her. She shook the gun and looked down at me.
“Did I break it?” she asked.
“You’re out of bullets.”
“Oh.”
She carefully set down the gun and helped me stand up. We drifted to the staircase and sat next to each other. She took my hand in both of hers and squeezed tight.
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” she said.
I was gazing at the Ruger on the floor. Marianne Haukass wasn’t an idiot. Well, maybe she was, but Martin McGaney wasn’t. He would match the Ruger to the slugs in Esther’s body. That was SOP. He would also match it against the bullets that killed Emily and Mayor Franson. Mrs. Barrington would finally be forced to confront the darkness in her daughter.
“Why did you keep it?” I asked.
“The gun? I stole it from my mother. It’s the only one I had.”
“Bad things are going to happen to you, but they won’t be as bad as they seem. Your mother has a very good lawyer. He’ll do his best to make sure you’re charged as a juvenile. He might even be able to make a mental-illness defense, get you sent to a hospital. You should be free by the time you’re nineteen. Twenty-one at the latest.”
“But Taylor, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yes, you did, honey.”
“The woman with the big tits—she had it coming, breaking into my house, shooting my friend. I was only defending myself. I was defending you.”
“Emily. And the mayor.”
“Oh. I forgot.”
“Why did you shoot Emily?”
“She was going to blackmail Joel just like the mayor was going to blackmail Mom. She yelled at him as she was driving away that night. She said, ‘This is going to cost you. This is going to cost you a lot.’ Taylor, do you think I’m insane? I mean, I didn’t even cry when they killed Ophira. I wasn’t afraid at all when they were threatening to shoot you. Or me even. I must be crazy.”
“No. Just sick.”
“What’s the difference?”
“You’re going to get better.”
“I hope it doesn’t take too long. I have so much to do.”
She leaned against my shoulder and started humming a tune that I had never heard before.
Outside, the sirens wailed.
ALSO BY DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT
FEATURING HOLLAND TAYLOR
Penance
Practice to Deceive
Dearly Departed
FEATURING RUSHMORE MCKENZIE
A Hard Ticket Home
Tin City
Pretty Girl Gone
Dead Boyfriends
Madman on a Drum
Jelly’s Gold
The Taking of Libbie, SD
Highway 61
Curse of the Jade Lily
The Last Kind Word
The Devil May Care
Unidentified Woman #15
Stealing the Countess
What the Dead Leave Behind
OTHER NOVELS
The Devil and the Diva (with Renée Valois)
Finders Keepers
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT won the Edgar Award for his first Holland Taylor crime novel, Penance, and is the three-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for his crime fiction. In addition to the Holland Taylor series, he is also the author of several novels featuring Rushmore McKenzie. He is a past president of the Private Eye Writers of America. Housewright lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Also by David Housewright
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DARKNESS, SING ME A SONG. Copyright © 2017 by David Housewright. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.
10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover photograph of girl © Robert Jones
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Housewright, David, 1955– author.
Title: Darkness, sing me a song / David Housewright.
Description: First edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017041312 | ISBN 9781250094476 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250094483 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Private investigators—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3558.O8668 D37 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041312
eISBN 9781250094483
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First Edition: January 2018
Darkness, Sing Me a Song--A Holland Taylor Mystery Page 26
