by Lis Wiehl
“Maybe she realized later that she had taken it with her,” Nicole said, “and then couldn’t think of how to get rid of it.”
They pulled up beside the house. The media crowds were gone now. So was Valerie’s car. Wayne answered the door.
“Hello, Wayne,” Nicole said.
Jalapeño pushed himself forward and began nosing the two women’s hands.
“Is your wife home?”
He straightened up. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes haunted. “Why? Do you have news? Has Fairview confessed?”
“Is Valerie here?” Allison repeated.
“No—she took Whitney to school, but she should be back pretty soon.”
Nicole said, “Maybe we can talk to you for a second, then.”
“Of course.” He stepped back. “Come in.”
Once they were in the living room, Allison said, “Wayne, we were just over at Safe Harbor shelter.”
“Oh?” His face was carefully bland.
“Have you ever been there?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
No longer anxious to talk to them, Wayne busied himself lining up the fan of magazines on the coffee table.
“Is that the name of the animal shelter that had Jalapeño?” At the sound of his name, the dog pushed against Wayne’s thigh, and Wayne stroked the dog’s ears.
With a sigh, Nicole said, “Wayne, just—just stop. You know what kind of shelter it is. One of the women who works there recognized you on TV. She said you had come in for help a couple of times, but you used a fake name. So we need to ask you, Wayne—has Valerie ever hurt you?” A beat. “Or hurt your girls?”
He tried to look bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
Nicole said, “Wayne, please. Why didn’t you tell us about your wife? About Valerie?”
He looked down at his hands, which were still now. “Look, let me tell you something. When I was growing up, there were a couple of rules: you never hit anyone smaller than you, and you never, ever hit a woman.”
Allison felt more confused. Was Wayne saying he had been the one who had been abusive?
“So say your wife throws a telephone at you and it hits you in the head, then what do you do? Call the police?”
He looked back up at them with reddened eyes. “Valerie told me if I did that, she would tell them that I was the one who hit her. Was I supposed to throw a phone back at her? I couldn’t do that. Try to talk it out with her? Have you ever tried to talk anything out with Valerie? File for divorce? She would have killed me.”
“Wayne,” Nicole said. “Wayne, do you think Valerie is capable of murder?”
His face morphed with shock as he realized what Nicole was implying.
“What are you saying? Are you thinking she had something to do with what happened to Katie? That’s impossible. She would never hurt the girls. She loves them so much. She raised Katie like she was her own mother, and of course Whitney is the most important person on the planet to her.”
“Okay,” Allison said carefully. “So she wouldn’t hurt the girls. But she would hurt you? Why do you think she did that?”
“Because she’s always held it over me that it was my fault that we had to get married. I got her drunk after my first wife’s funeral, I couldn’t control myself, I got her pregnant, and I left her no choice. She’s still so angry about it. She moved out of her parents’ house and straight into mine. She never got to go to college. She never even dated. And some-times that comes out as rage.”
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Jalapeño regarded him anxiously, tail thumping lightly on the floor.
“And she’s right,” Wayne continued. “It is my fault. I stole Valerie’s childhood from her. And as she got older, she realized how much she had missed, and she got angrier and angrier. It started with little things. If she thought I didn’t like the dinner, she would tip the plates on the floor. Then she started throwing the plates at me. And then just whatever was handy.”
“If you went to the shelter, why didn’t you let them help you?” Nicole asked quietly.
“If we both got up in court and each said the other one was beating us—who do you think most judges would believe? And then I wouldn’t see my girls again. And Valerie’s not always like that. Sometimes she can go for months and everything’s great, and I think she’s finally healed. But then something will happen to set her off again.”
They heard the sound of the front door opening. Nicole got to her feet, with Allison following a beat later. But it wasn’t just Valerie who walked around the corner. She had one arm around Cassidy’s stiff shoulders. And Valerie’s other hand pressed a gun against Cassidy’s ribs.
“Valerie—what are you doing with my gun?” Wayne asked.
Valerie didn’t answer. Instead, she said in a bright voice, “Wayne—look who I found trying to listen at the window outside! Isn’t this a nice surprise? Cassidy, the reporter who helped us.” Her voice tightened. “Cassidy, the reporter who is building her career on our tragedy.”
Sensing the rising tension, Jalapeño began to whine.
Wayne said, “Look, Valerie, they know.”
“They know?”
Allison had expected her to grow even angrier, but instead her shoulders slumped as if in relief. But the gun didn’t budge.
“Then they have to understand it was an accident. I just snapped. She knew how to push my buttons, and she just kept pushing and pushing them.”
“Wait—are you talking about Katie?” Wayne’s voice rose and broke. “I meant they knew that you beat me. What are you saying? Are you saying you killed Katie?”
Valerie lifted her head. “You don’t understand. All I wanted was for her to be quiet. If she had only been quiet, nothing would have happened.”
“Tell us what happened, Valerie,” Nicole said soothingly. “We want to know. We want to hear your side of the story.”
Her words tumbled out. “I followed Katie that day. I thought she was meeting a boy. When she heard me coming down the path, she said”— Valerie made her voice high and mincing—“‘What took you so long, James?’ There’s only one James we know. Our senator. A man old enough to be my father, let alone her father. So I slapped her. I slapped her and called her a fool.”
Jalapeño growled as if he could understand her, but Valerie paid him no mind, lost in the details of what had happened the month before. She had taken her arm from around Cassidy’s shoulder. But now, Allison noted with horror, the gun was pointed squarely at her. At her belly.
“But Katie told me they were in loove.” The word was loaded with sarcasm. “Love! Like she would know what that word meant! She’s seventeen! She knows nothing! I told her she was going to ruin her life. That she would turn up pregnant and have to walk around with her belly showing and her shame for everyone to see.”
Valerie’s eyes narrowed. “And then she told me that she was smarter than me. Smart enough to have taken care of it. Unlike me. And then I thought I heard someone. She was still shouting about things no one else had any business knowing about, so I told her to be quiet. But she wouldn’t. So I tried to put my hand over her mouth. Just to shush her. But she pushed me away. And the side of my hand hit her throat. And then suddenly she was on the ground making this terrible whistling noise. And her eyes—her eyes were so big. And then the whistling stopped.”
The room was absolutely silent, all of them staring at Valerie.
“And I knew”—her voice was close to a whisper—“I knew that if I didn’t act fast, Whitney would not only lose her sister, but also her mother. So I put the leash around her neck. I tied it to a branch, but it broke. And then I heard someone coming, so I left.”
While she was listening, Allison had been slowly edging away from Valerie, so that the gun was now pointing somewhere between her and Nicole. At least she hoped it was.
Cassidy had watched her captor’s confession with darting eyes. Allison could tell her attention was torn between thinking what a grea
t scoop this would make and wondering whether she would die before she ever got to serve it up to viewers.
In that moment, when they were all digesting the news, Nicole made her move. Her gun was in her hand so fast it seemed like a magic trick. And after that, everything happened so fast. Jalapeño jumping, Nicole’s gun firing, Valerie’s going off at the same time, Cassidy screaming, Wayne shouting, “No!”
And then Nicole was on the floor with bright red blood quickly drenching her white blouse. With the dog lying next to her, whining and biting its flank.
And Valerie still standing, unscathed. If she hesitated, it was only because she couldn’t decide which of them to shoot next.
The only time Allison had fired a gun was when Nicole had invited her to spend a few hours at the FBI range in rural Washington State. The weight of Nicole’s Glock had surprised her, as had the way it kicked up with every shot. She had flinched and blinked each time she pulled the trigger. And she hadn’t been very good.
But now without hesitation she grabbed Nicole’s gun from her slack hand. She remembered her friend’s advice. You aim at the largest part of the body and pull the trigger until the subject goes down.
The shot threw Valerie back against the wall. Red bloomed on her chest. Her eyes widened in surprise. The gun fell from her hand to the floor. She raised her hands to the wound, her fingers dabbling the blood. Her body turned boneless and she slid down the wall, leaving a long smear of blood. Raising her shocked eyes to their faces, she said, “I had to think of Whitney.” She wheezed, gasped, tried to breathe, but blood bubbled from her lips. And then she slumped over sideways.
Cassidy grabbed a dishcloth from the kitchen and pressed it to Nic’s shoulder as she yanked her cell phone from her belt and dialed 911.
Allison fell to her knees. She moved her fingers around Valerie’s wrist, but even as she found it, the pulse eased and then vanished altogether. She had no clue how to get it back.
FONG CHONG RESTAURANT
January 29
Allison was the first person to arrive at Fong Chong in Portland’s Chinatown. While she waited for her friends, she thought about all the changes the last six weeks had brought. A new life had begun within her and she had killed a woman. And in different ways, she had saved both of her closest friends.
Wayne and Whitney were in seclusion, getting used to Valerie’s absence and the reality of what she had done.
Lily Rangel was safely back at home, after having gotten drunk at a party and then deciding to lie low rather than face her parents.
Senator Fairview was facing the Senate Ethics Committee, but there was talk that he might escape with a censure.
His wife, however, had been charged with hiring a transient to attack the first young woman he could find hiking alone in Forest Park. Nancy hadn’t really known whether her husband was guilty, and had been trying to cloud the case as much as possible.
Allison’s stalker was in a mental hospital.
Nicole came in the door. Uncharacteristically for her, she immediately gave Allison a hug that was only a little awkward because her right arm was in a sling. The bullet had gone through her arm, somehow managing to miss anything important.
“Thank you again for saving my life,” Nicole whispered in her ear.
“Just returning the favor after you saved mine,” Allison said, giving her good shoulder a squeeze.
As they released each other, Cassidy walked in the door of the restaurant, blinking rapidly. She said, “There’s something really strange in the sky.”
“What?” Allison asked, looking past her.
“It’s a big bright disk of light.”
“Very funny,” Nicole said, but she smiled nonetheless.
“For three?” the waiter asked.
They nodded, and he led them to one of the brown and orange vinyl booths. He poured them each a cup of tea.
“The floor looks kind of dirty,” Nicole whispered as soon as he was out of earshot.
“You don’t come here for the floor,” Cassidy said. “You come here for the food. I still can’t believe you haven’t eaten here before.”
Nicole looked offended. “I’ve had Chinese food.”
“Yeah, but if you’ve never had dim sum, it’s not the same.”
“You have to admit this place doesn’t look like much from the outside.” Nicole looked around pointedly at the bucket swivel chairs, the Formica tables, and the two surly waiters yelling at each other across the room in what might have been Cantonese.
“I think it’s the perfect place for the Triple Threat Club to meet,” Allison said. “It symbolizes that we need to be open to trying new things. And,” she added, “that life is full of delicious, mysterious morsels.”
As she spoke, women piloting silver carts piled high with tiny plates circled the tables, calling out the names of their wares.
“Hum bao!”
“Pork shu mai!”
“Ha gow!”
Allison and Cassidy immediately pointed at four or five plates. At first, Nicole tried to ask questions about each dish, but since none of the servers seemed to speak English as a first language—or even a second or third—she soon followed their lead.
Since she couldn’t use her right hand, the waiter brought her a fork. It only took about three or four bites before she said, “Okay, okay, I take it back. You come here for the food.” Speaking around a mouthful of shrimp dumpling, she asked Allison, “So how are you doing?”
Allison could feel both her friends regarding her closely. “It’s a bit of a roller coaster. Killing someone sure isn’t like shooting holes in a target. But I’ve been going to my pastor, and he’s been talking through it with me. It turns out he’s a Vietnam vet. He’s helping me understand there’s no burden too heavy for me to carry. Not with God’s help.”
She felt a little self-conscious being so open about her beliefs, but instead of being sarcastic or snarky, the other two women regarded her thoughtfully.
Allison pointed her chopsticks at Cassidy. “How about you? Have you decided which offer to take? Boston? LA?”
Cassidy sat back, a private smile playing about her face. “Actually, I’ve decided to stay in Portland. The ratings have been so high that Channel Four made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. The only other news I have is that I went back to the shelter, and they helped me decide to press charges against Rick. It might not work, given that he is employed by the very organization that’s in charge of investigating him. But I hear he’s running scared. And if nothing else, it will give them a heads-up in case he ever tries it with another woman. As a result, I’ve officially sworn off men.” She leaned toward Nicole and mimed a leer. “But women, however . . .”
With a laugh, Nicole pushed her back. “You’re too late.”
It was hard to startle Cassidy, but this news did it. “What do you mean?”
“I actually went out with someone last weekend.” Nicole smiled a Cheshire grin. “I’m not sure I would even call it a date. Let’s just say he’s a friend. But I’m not answering any questions about who, why, what, or how.”
Allison lifted her cup of tea. “This calls for a toast. To Nicole, for taking the plunge.”
Nicole clinked her cup against Allison’s and then Cassidy’s. “And to Cassidy for being smart enough to get out of the pool.” She looked at Allison. “And to Allison for saving my life—and creating a new life. And to the Triple Threat Club, for living up to its name.”
“And to the memory of Katie Converse,” Allison said.
“To Katie,” they all echoed solemnly and raised their cups to their lips.
HAND OF FATE
It is usually more important
how a man meets his fate than what it is.
—KARL WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT
CHAPTER 1
KNWS Radio
Tuesday, February 7
Jim Fate bounced on the toes of his black Salvatore Ferragamo loafers. He liked to work on his feet. Listeners could hear
it in your voice if you were sitting down, could detect the lack of energy. He leaned forward, his lips nearly touching the silver mesh of the mike.
“Can massive federal spending and a huge new layer of government bureaucracy really make the United States a better, safer place? Or is it a matter of simply enforcing the food safety laws the states already have on the books? For more than a century, our food safety system has been built on the policy that food companies—not government—have the primary responsibility for the safety and integrity of the foods they produce.”
“So what are you suggesting, Jim?” Victoria Hanawa, his cohost, asked. “Are you saying we just let more Americans die when they buy food a company couldn’t bother to keep clean?”
She sat on a high stool on the other side of the U-shaped table, her back to the glass wall that separated the radio studio from the screener’s booth. To Jim’s right was the control room, sometimes called the news tank, where the board operator worked his bank of equipment and where one or more local reporters joined him at the top and the bottom of the hour.
“What I’m saying, Hanawa, is that activists are seizing the latest salmonella scare to further their own goals of increasing the power of the federal government. They don’t really care about these people. They only care about their own agenda, which is to create a nanny state full of burdensome, unworkable, and costly regulation. And of course the federal government, being the federal government, believes that the only solution to any problem is adding another layer—or ten—of federal government.”
While he spoke, Jim eyed the two screens in front of him. One displayed the show schedule. It was also hooked up to the Internet so he could look up points on the fly. The other screen showed the listeners holding for their chance to talk. On it, Chris had listed the name, town, and point of view of each caller. Three people were still on the list, meaning they would hold over the upcoming break. Now a fourth caller and a fifth joined the queue.
“What about the Tenth Amendment? There are state laws already in place to address these issues! We don’t need to add a whole new layer of government bureaucracy that could end up doubling or even tripling food prices! I mean, that would be stuck on stupid.”
