by Gregg Olsen
Raines was unsure he heard right. "Kill him?"
Deke breathed his words in. "Yeah. But I didn't. I chickened out and they told me they'd get someone else. God, they were mad at me."
"Mad enough to kill you?"
"You don't know them."
♦
I looked over my wife's edits. Very clean. I was on the right track. She'd gone through the material quickly—always a good “I-read-this-book-until-I-almost-dropped-dead” indicator. I didn't have to nudge, harangue or even pretend to be hurt that she wasn't plowing through the material at a fast enough clip. Good. She even added a couple of “smiley” faces on some lines she liked. I added buns and oatmeal burgers to the list.
BOOK II
The Finger of Guilt
"I lived with the Ryans for six weeks...
six of the most frightening weeks of my life."
—WANDA-LOU WEBSTER
Chapter Twenty
Wednesday, August 28
I HAD AN AUTHOR BOOK SIGNING scheduled for the afternoon in Seattle and there was no way out of it. It was during a "soft" grand opening for a discount variety market that had just been converted into a food store called Bag 'n Save. It was in one of the worst, reader-less parts of the city: the kind of place where food stamps are the currency of choice. A "soft" opening meant there would be no publicity, no promotion.
No book buyers.
The sales representative from my publisher had set it up through the distributor.
"It'll be fun, Kevin," Susan, the sales rep, persisted. "And it'll be good for your career."
I highly doubted either. I considered a signing anywhere but a bookstore to be the ultimate in humiliation.
"I think I'm busy, Susan. Research, you understand. Gotta write that next book."
"Please," she begged, her whiny voice coming across the phone in what I was sure was an abuse of fiber-optics. "I've got C.J. Cunningham and Misty Dawn scheduled with you. It will be so much fun."
C.J. Cunningham was a Seattle writer who was always on the verge of great success. Her books were funny, well-plotted and under-published. I liked her just fine. Misty Dawn was a romance-queen wannabe from Vashon Island. Her real name did not approach the Live-Nude-Girls! name her publisher had bestowed upon her when they signed her for a two-book contract. She was born Diane Hornung. I didn't know her and I figured she wasn't much of a threat at a signing table. She had only written one book.
"Okay, Susan, I'll be there," I begrudgingly told the sales rep.
As I drove across the Narrows Bridge, then north on I-5 to Seattle's melancholy south end, I could not help but recall the miserable signings I had suffered through in the past. I had been humiliated in malls, airports, school libraries. I had endured some of the most incongruous of book-signing venues. The coup de grâce had been the time I was skunked at a friend's bed-and-bath shop. My friend put my table and chair next to a Granny Smith potpourri display and I smelled of the stuff for days. Worst of all, my own mother showed up, but got so enamored with the soaps of the world display that she forgot why she had come there in the first place. She bought everything but a book.
[Valerie got a quadruple-pack gift set of Lavender of Kew Gardens soaps for Christmas that year. The scent reminded me of the miserable day when I sold no books and reeked of Granny Smith. I used to run hot tap water over the bars to make the damn things shrink faster. FYI, triple-milled lasts forever.]
I was the last to arrive at the Bag 'n Save. Misty was not exactly the image I had seen on the inside back cover of her book, Neptune's Daughter. With the exception of her hair, which was auburn and wavy, she looked nothing like a Misty Dawn. Her lips were thin. Her face sallow. Her eyes drooped. The woman was more in need of a Photoshop and Glamour Shots makeover than anyone I saw hovering around the photography/lingerie studio at the mall in Timberlake.
C.J. Cunningham, with whom I had endured other signings, pulled me aside and gave me a nudge.
"Check out her giveaway."
"Giveaway?" I asked, somewhat puzzled.
C.J. pointed at the display table. "In the basket."
I couldn't make out what the glittering golden shapes heaped inside a large, tulle-trimmed white wicker basket were supposed to be. "What are they?" I finally asked.
"Seahorse angels! She made a bunch of seahorse angel pins to commemorate the release of her book."
"Oh. God," I whispered, shaking my head. "What am I supposed to give away? Crime scene refrigerator magnets?"
Two hours later, I felt sorry for C.J. and myself. Misty Dawn had given away all her stupid pins and sold about sixty books. Maybe more. I sold two; C.J, four. At one point it was so slow at our end of the table that a store checker asked me to help an elderly lady out with her groceries. I did. C.J. gave store patrons tips on recycling. During one of the few times she was able to put her pen down, Misty Dawn told us that Nicole Kidman's people called her agent to say the actress was interested in playing the title role in the feature film adaptation of Neptune's Daughter.
"I'm so happy for you," I lied, as I forked over the money for a copy of the book my sister-in-law would devour in a sitting. She was one of those romance addicts who read three or four a week and never threw one away. She had a spare bedroom lined from floor to ceiling with books. On the back of the door was an autographed poster of Fabio (pre-margarine commercials and his goose-whacking on the roller coaster) that I got for her at a writers' expo in Portland. She gushed when she got it. There were millions of readers like her.
Nicole or not, I figured Misty Dawn ought to do all right. There was no justice in the world.
♦
I WAS HOME BY 3:15 THAT AFTERNOON. Despite the dismal book signing, the time by myself in the LUV gave me the opportunity to think about the Parker murder and how it related to Love You to Death. Of course, there had to be a connection. But what? Who would kill Danny's mother and try to suck me into the bloody crime by having me find her?
It came to me as I pulled up my driveway, Hedda barking from her dog run. The answer had to be somewhere within the book I was writing. Within the cast of characters in Love You to Death. As inane as the story was, somewhere it was real and undeniably evil. Somewhere within the bunch of low-rent losers I was interviewing was the killer of an innocent woman.
In writing Love You to Death, I knew that I just might solve June Rose Parker's murder.
Valerie left a note that took the girls to an early movie. They wouldn't be back for at least a couple of hours. Good. I gave Hedda a Milkbone and sat down at my desk. Valerie and I had a pact that I wouldn't work evenings and never on Saturday.
"Saturday is a family day," she said.
And while I pledged to keep evenings free, it was a difficult promise to keep. When sources agreed to an interview, I had to go. When a phone call came, I had to take it. When a book rep called to get me to a soft grand opening... well, I knew I would say no to that next time. The fact was that I was not in the position to put anyone off. I needed them far more than they needed me. They had the story. I took the notes.
I made a couple of calls. Anna Cameron's daughter told me that her mother was out shopping.
"You that novelist writin' the book about my big brother?" she asked.
I didn't see any sense in explaining the difference between nonfiction and fiction.
"Yes, I am," I said.
"I'm not supposed to talk to you. My mom says you're trying to write bad things about my brother."
"I'm sorry she feels that way. Will you at least tell her that I phoned? I really want to talk to her about Danny. I don't want to make any mistakes."
The girl told me she'd pass along the message.
I tried to get Jett on the phone, but all I got was her voicemail.
Finally, I tried Paul Kerr's number. Paul was Janet's ex-husband. Though he was outside of the main action of the story I was writing, he was very much a player.
"I'm trying to reach Mr. Kerr," I said. "Is he home?"
"Hi! I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time. My name is Kevin Ryan and I'm writing a book about what happened with Janet, Deke and Danny. Do you think your husband would talk to me?"
There was a slight hesitation. "Well, I don't rightly know," she said. "Let me ask him."
Though she pressed her palm to the mouthpiece, I heard her call out: "Some reporter writin' a book wants to talk to you about Janet Lee!"
A voice came through loud and clear: "Tell 'em I'll talk with him! I want the whole world to know what kind of woman that bitch is! Tell him to come right on over."
When she got back on the line and repeated what I had already heard, I explained that I was a couple hours away, and if I left immediately I could be there around dinner time. I was not fishing for an invitation by any means—far from it—but that's what I got.
"Then you can have supper with us. Makin' cabbage-stuffed buns tonight," she said cheerfully.
I scrawled a message for Valerie, begging for forgiveness and pledging undying love. I was doing this for us. For the kids. For that dream house with hardwood floors we would build one day. On Sunday we'd take a drive to the Olympic Peninsula and let Hedda and girls run around on the gray sands of some desolate stretch of the Washington coast.
It will be fun, I wrote.
Chapter Twenty-one
Thursday, August 29
I HAD DRIVEN PAST THE KERR RESIDENCE several times on previous visits to Timberlake. The last time was that terrible evening when I found Danny Parker's mother dead in the hallway of her tidy little home. As I understood it, the investigation was making some progress. What I had learned from Martin Raines, however, troubled me greatly. The cyanide that killed June Parker was a component of a mix used by gardeners to rid their vegetable patches of rodents. Weasel-Die was ninety-nine percent filler and one percent sodium cyanide. One little taste, however, was the last thing a weasel or mole would ever get. I knew the product quite well. The killer in my book Over the Counter Murders had killed her husband when she refilled headache capsules with the deadly poison ten years before. The crime lab in Olympia had sent a sample on to a chemist at the University of Washington for additional analysis. Another sample was earmarked for the FBI—though it was such a low-priority case that it was doubtful chemists there would process it any time soon.
A pack of dogs barked from a rusty chain link kennel enclosure next to the metal gleam of the brand new double-wide trailer that Paul and Liz Kerr shared with Paul and Janet's daughter, Lindy. The dogs riveted my attention, the way large, threatening animals always did. They were a Siberian Husky and Gray Wolf cross, and they seemed hungry. They were also scary, but I knew they came with the territory. Breeding with wolves was popular out in Nowheresville. One man even raised a pit-bull/wolf cross and advertised them as great pets for kids. I preferred droopy-eared Hedda.
The pungent smell of dog urine pierced the cool air. On a hot day in summertime, I was certain the place would stink to high heaven.
A three-year-old girl ran down the front lawn and crossed the road.
"That was Lindy," Liz Kerr said as she emerged from the other side of the yelping kennel. "Sent her to the neighbors. She's heard plenty about her mother and I guess we just don't want her to hear any more of this garbage."
"I can imagine," I said. "It must be very hard on such a little girl."
Liz nodded and motioned me around to the front door of the mobile.
"She really doesn't remember her mom much, which I guess is a good thing. " Liz tossed a hunk of meat over the kennel wall, sending the dogs into a slobbering and yelping frenzy.
"Come on in," she said, smiling. "Paul's watching the tube."
Liz Kerr looked to be in her forties, though she could be younger. She had deep brown hair with a skunk-tail streak, a thin face, and under her eyes, circles as dark and clear as lines left by thick-tipped Magic Markers. Her features were small and pleasant. She might even have been pretty before hard knocks keeled her over. She was cautious, but friendly, and despite the fact that she had stirred her dogs into a bloody riot, I thought she was pretty nice.
The stinky smell of cooking cabbage seeped unpleasantly from inside as she pushed the aluminum front door open. I wasn't hungry in the least.
"Dinner will be ready in five minutes," she announced.
"Great. Smells great," I lied. "I'm starved."
"Paul!" she called out, her voice loud and clear. "That reporter is here!"
"Get him a beer and send him in here," the voice I had heard over the phone shot back from another room.
"Better take one for him, too. " Liz handed me a couple of cold cans and pointed me in the direction of the living room.
Paul Kerr was stretched out on a brown and tan plaid sofa. The back of his head had left a slightly greasy transfer on the armrest furthest from the television. His big toe poked through a hole in his thick, white work socks at the other end. He was no more than a worn-out thirty-year-old. He was a logger, like his father and grandfather before him. He had such rough, callused hands I doubted it was possible for him to leave a fingerprint. His forearms were massive and the skin hammock of his stomach slipped over his Peterbilt belt buckle. Pockmarks on his face from teenage acne were the only reminders that he, like his wife, Liz, he had once been very young.
"So you want to know about Janet and her mother, huh?" he said after I introduced myself and gave him a beer. Spray from his flip-top hit my face.
"You caught me," I said, jokingly as I searched for something to wipe the sudsy spray off my mustache and eyebrows, both of which were in need of a good trim.
"Well, I'll tell you, you haven't got a clue about those evil bitches. Hell, if I were you, I'd sleep with one eye open. Heard you've been talking with those she-devils up at the prison."
"Yeah," I said. "Just a couple of times."
"Ever say anything about me?"
"Not really. Nothing comes to mind, anyway."
I didn't feel that it was the best time for me to tell him that Janet had told me Paul had only one testicle and had once considered an operation to have a ping pong ball inserted into his scrotum to give him the bulge he was sorely lacking. At least he thought so. Janet had not done much to assuage her husband's manhood. Whenever they got into a screaming match, Janet's heart-stabbing nickname for him was "One-Ball Paul."
Better not bring that up.
Or the story Connie Carter had confided about how Paul had molested Lindy and attempted to sell her into white slavery off the loading dock at the Timberlake Lumber Mill, where he delivered trucks of logs each week.
No, it wouldn't be how I would start the interview. Just not a good idea.
Liz Kerr served cabbage rolls as we chatted and watched Wheel of Fortune. The rolls were actually pretty good and I ate three. Paul had at least seven and Liz consumed two. I washed the food down with another beer and suggested that after Wheel was done spinning we could turn off the television and talk about the case that landed his ex-wife and former mother-in-law in prison.
"After Jeopardy," Liz insisted.
And so we watched, and after it was over, Liz turned off the TV on the intro to Dancing With the Stars and we talked. Liz brought out a Tupperware container of Snickerdoodles and matching Snap-on Tool mugs of coffee. Paul, however, stuck with his beers. Lindy stayed down at the neighbor's. Though I only saw her that moment when I first arrived, evidence that a little girl lived in that house was everywhere: a painting of a turkey taped on the front of the refrigerator, a Barbie with butchered hair on the floor by the TV and a stack of little girl's laundry on the redwood burl coffee table. Lindy Kerr was a sweet little thing. And from what everyone was telling me, she was without question at the center of the mess.
About three and a half hours with the Kerrs, I was on my way home in the LUV with the goods to write the next chapter of Lov
e You to Death. In fact, all I had to do was transcribe it from the thoughts in my head.
Chapter Twenty-two
♦
Love You to Death
PART SIX
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND ALWAYS guaranteed long lines at the supermarket and fried chicken buckets full of rain. It had been that way ever since Paul Kerr could remember. He got off work from the mill in time to run home, shower, change to a clean T-shirt and jeans and get to the store to pick up supplies for a weekend camping trip with his buddies. They planned to meet in the parking lot at the Fred Meyer discount store at seven before driving to the ocean for three days of camping, beer and good times. Paul packed a little bag of pot into the zippered compartment of his backpack. Others would carry more illegal goodies, though that wasn't all they were bringing. One buddy found a couple of girls with nothing better to do. One was a honey blonde teenage checker from the discount store named Michelle McMahon. She was a nice enough girl. Made it to work on time. Lived with her parents. And when the opportunity came up to do some thing a little different, a little dangerous, she jumped at it with trampoline-like abandon. She told her folks she was camping with her best friend and her family.
"We're going to Seaside," she said. "They have a cabin just one block from the beach."
Seaside was a rinky-dink resort town of bumper cars and saltwater taffy stands on the northern edge of the Oregon coast. It was the kind of place the middle class swarmed to with the first sign of the elusive warmth of summer weather; a place that was still within the means of the folks of Timberlake.
Michelle's best friend, however, didn't have a cabin there. In fact, she had never been there before in her life. She didn't even have parents, not really. Michelle's best friend was a sixteen-year-old Timberlake High School dropout named Janet Lee Carter.
Paul Kerr was young and horny, and Janet looked pretty good. By the end of the first night on the beach, Janet was inside his sleeping bag, acting every bit the consensual adult she insisted she was. It was only the next morning when his buddy told him that she was jail bait and that he'd better watch his step.
