Shocking True Story

by Gregg Olsen

  I wanted to cry. Not because there wasn't any porn, of course, but because I'd done nothing to deserve this gloomily austere guest room. I'd always been on the side of law and order. My whole middling career had been about that. In my books, the good guys always triumphed over evil. To think that I would hurt someone for any reason made me want to hurl. It wasn't who I was.

  Marty Raines, damn you for doing this to me!

  But as I sat there, head spinning, stomach turning, wondering what had happened at 2121 Old Stump Road, I knew I couldn't argue two things. June Parker was dead. And someone killed her just as I was about to interview her for my new book. It wasn't a big leap to think that there was a connection between me and the victim. Who would have done this? And why?

  As I sat there waiting for Val to get me out of there, I played that scene at the Parker place over and over. I could see no clue written in her blood. No finger pointing to anyone who would want to do her harm. I put my head on the pillow and looked at the wall, my eyes immediately locking on an equation written by an unsteady hand.

  DP + JC = Luv

  It hit me then, I was in Danny Parker's jail cell. JC was Janet Carter, of course. They'd stripped me of every sharp object that I'd had in my pockets when they processed me, of course. No pen. No pencil. I looked around the cell for something I could use to leave my mark, too.A broken toothbrush caught my eye. It was in the corner, by the stainless steel sink and toilet fixture. I picked it up and started scratching on the wall.

  KR + VR = Love

  I put my head back down on the thin pillow. I wanted to die. I wanted to stage a prison break. I wanted, really, more than anything, for Valerie to get me the F out of there.

  “Ryan!” the gravelly voice of a jailor came from down the corridor.

  I looked up. The man had squinty eyes and, apparently, a department-issue moustache that swept under his nose with a quarter-inch dip below the corners of his mouth.

  “Yeah?”

  “No choice on the entree for your meal. Swiss steak and mashed potatoes. You want Jell-O or a slice of pie for dessert?”

  I wanted freedom!

  “What kind of pie?”I asked.

  “Apple. Jell-O is lime made with Sprite instead of water.”

  “Pie, then.”

  I never got the slice of county jail apple pie. An hour later, the same corrections officer came back with a key jangling and a smile on his face.

  “You're out of here. Go home.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Saturday, August 31

  Home. Where the dirty dishes were stacked until five minutes before Valerie and her un-air-conditioned car pulled up to the driveway. Home. Where Hedda stretched out on my clean carpet to dig for fleas at the base of her tail. Home. Where Taylor and Hayley threatened each other over who was more powerful on Nickelodeon's Nick at Nite TV lineup—Samantha on Bewitched or Jeannie on I Dream of Jeannie. Home, where I was free. Sort of free. Martin Raines ate crow when the prosecution abruptly backed down on the case against me in the murder of Mrs. Parker. I was home. The anonymous tip was rescinded by whoever it was that had said I had been there earlier. A receipt for my two dollars' worth of gas at the Flying J was time/date stamped. I was exactly where I said I had been. The girl in the gas station's glass booth identified me. She had read Murder Cruise.

  But she wasn't a fan. She thought my books victimized the victims.

  “I'd rather pump gas than do what he does for a living,” she reportedly told investigators. “At the end of the day, I can wash off my stink.”

  By then I was a cocktail of emotions: Bitter, relieved, mad, tired. I thanked God I didn't need the attorney I didn't have.

  My wife and daughters put their arms around me so tightly that if I had wanted to breathe in, it would have been impossible. I didn't want to. I just wanted to stand there frozen in time with Valerie, Hayley and Taylor. Valerie had been crying and I let her face brush against my chest, leaving a swipe of mascara. We had talked on the phone from the jail and she had called an attorney for a criminal referral. Thankfully it was not needed. Not then, anyway. Valerie had alternated between tearful and stoic.

  “Better take a look at this,” she said, releasing me from her arms. In her hand she held a copy of a Seattle daily newspaper.

  I studied her eyes for a clue about the content of the paper.

  “Not good, huh?” I said.

  “Not good.”

  She unfurled the front page. The headline was below the fold.

  MURDER, HE WROTE

  CRIME WRITER HELD IN SLAYING

  Beneath it was a publicity photo I had sent in for the “Library Chats” series held for children at the Seattle Public Library. The editors had published it the size of a postage stamp back then. This time it was larger than a playing card. I smiled my authorly smile from the page. I was thankful that Moan-a-lot's mug shot had not been used. Even so, I was sure that someone would characterize my photo as “the picture of evil... Those eyes... they are almost otherworldly.”

  “Val, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for this mess.”

  “Honey, don't be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about. This is not your fault.” She drew closer and squeezed my hand. “In a day or two it will all pass. You'll see. Life will be normal again.”

  “I know,” I lied. “All normal again.”

  There were seven phone calls winking at me on my telephone answering machine. Jett three times. My agent. My mother. My editor. A hangup.

  “...hope you're okay...”

  “...can't believe what they've done.”

  “...didn't know if I could see you in jail...”

  “...I know its been hard on your family, but your sales should really pick up...”

  “...Honey, now that you're out of jail, dinner's still on?”

  “...This little setback won't delay your manuscript delivery?”

  I returned no calls. I was still too numb to speak to anyone. I just wanted something to eat, a shower, and bed. Valerie and I had homemade lasagna. We had wine from a box with a spigot in our refrigerator. The girls picked at their food in front of the television, pulling apart layers of pasta as if participating in an archaeological dig. Both were certain that the noticeable lumps in the pasta sauce were hamburger meat, which they now called “Dead Animal Matter” or “DAM.”

  Four disturbing little eyes, two blue, two green, stared at us.

  “Mom, is this meat?” Hayley asked.

  “Soy, honey. Soy protein,” Valerie convincingly insisted from the kitchen table. “It only tastes like hamburger.”

  A few minutes later, a shout came from the family room where they flopped in the glow of the TV.

  “Dad! Wanda-Lou's on!”

  “What?” I hadn't thought of Wanda-Lou Webster in a long time. Maybe months. She had ditched the true crime writer I sicced her on and wrote her own account of her sister's case for Toe Tag Books. They paid her $7,500 and sent her on a tour of six major cities. I saw her on a Rita Adams Show called “Triumph Through Adversity.”

  I thought a far better title would have been: “Making Money Off a Family Tragedy.”

  “She's plugging that book again?” Valerie slid over on the white sofa next to me.

  Taylor's eyes widened. “No, Mom. She's on Inside Edition talking about Daddy!”

  The Botoxed host faced the camera with some kind of unexplainable demeanor while graphics came up proclaiming a “WORLD EXCLUSIVE.”

  “...she lived to tell...”

  I grabbed a pillow and held it against my stomach. I was going to get sick.

  “Could it be true? Is the true crime author's story...written in blood?”

  The words spun around before stopping on the screen to drip a red goo that was supposed to be blood. I hadn't killed anyone yet, but I wondered if I could knock off the idiot who devised the graphics and title for the piece.

  I barely recognized Wanda-Lou when the camera followed her along a stretch of beach. In her hand
, she held a copy of her book and a lighted cigarette. Her hair was very blonde. She had lost twenty pounds. At least. Her outfit was tasteful and flattering. Expensive. Wanda-Lou Webster had traded up since I saw her get into her car and drive away from Port Gamble.

  “I lived with the Ryans for six weeks... six of the most frightening weeks in my life!”

  “Six weeks?” Val whispered with great disdain. “Seemed like six years to me.”

  “...There was a desperation about Mr. Ryan. He seemed so driven to make a success out of my cousin's story that it scared me. All he cared about was making the story bigger than it was....”

  The camera zoomed in for a close up. A tear spilled down Wanda-Lou's cheek. I never knew the woman had cheekbones. I never knew her eyes were so blue. I guess when it got right down to it, I flat-out didn't know the woman.

  Her lip trembled as she choked back tears.

  “I feel so lucky. So lucky to be alive.”

  “Alive? What is she trying to do to me?” I screamed at the television as my face went from white to red. Sweat condensed along my brow.

  Valerie didn't answer and the girls stayed transfixed by our unwelcome houseguest's image on the screen.

  The answer came when she held up a copy of A Cousin's Loss.

  The new look of horror on my wife's face betrayed her as she attempted to dismiss Wanda-Lou and calm me.

  “Kevin, she's only trying to sell copies of her book,” she said.

  I clinched a fist and hammered on my own thigh. “She's trying to kill me with bad publicity.”

  Val turned off the TV just after the show's announcer revealed I had been released from jail and promised viewers a look at the next show's “Studs of the Outback.”

  I had enough. I was going to bed. I was devoid of feeling. A shell.

  Valerie tried to soothe my battered psyche once more after turning off her bedside reading light.

  “If it is any consolation, Kevin,” she said softly as our eyes adjusted to the darkness of our bedroom, “the last chapter of Love You to Death was the best of the bunch so far.”

  Even Valerie's comment of praise fell flat. She cuddled closer to me. But I resisted her. I was too upset. Nothing, nothing, could make me feel better. Not then, anyway. I turned over and tried to sleep. When slumber eluded me, I did what I thought I did best. I went to my computer and got to work.

  ♦

  Love You to Death

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE BARS HAD CLOSED WITH A SLIPSHOD clang that could be heard from Timberlake to the ocean. Taverns, too. It was two o'clock in the morning and the drunk and disorderly got into their dented Trans Ams and their pickups with sound systems that would rival a movie theater's. The lingering done by the lonely, looking for a ride home or a bed to sleep in, was over. That night, two women from the outskirts of Timberlake had made good on threats to their no-good husbands: They went home with a man who promised a good time, some more booze. The gal who ran the checkout counter at the AM/PM mini market on Ocean Boulevard sold most of her beer just after two a.m.

  Deke Cameron and Janet Lee Kerr followed Jim Winston to his place on G Street. Deke was too drunk to drive so Janet took the wheel for the last three blocks after he got out to relieve himself on some lady's rose bushes.

  “The last thing we need is to get pulled over when we're on our way to get rid of One-Ball Paul.”

  “Yeah,” Deke agreed. They parked on the street and Deke staggered up the driveway. Janet steadied her boyfriend as they followed Jim inside.

  “Can't hold his liquor, huh?”

  “He's okay. He just had a little beyond his limit.”

  Deke slumped into a papa-san chair.

  The front room of Winston's little house was impeccably ordered. A floor-to-ceiling cinder block and one-by-six bookshelf held practically every spy thriller paperback that had ever been published. Some were vintage, from the thirties or earlier. All were filed by author's name. The magazines on the wood burl coffee table had been fanned out like a card dealer's deck. The one on the top was the latest issue of Soldier of Fortune. A Boston fern thrived in a corner window. Jim Winston, a lifelong bachelor, was as good a housekeeper as any. The fact that his interest fell along military, or survivalist, lines spoke to that. Though the man never served in the Army, the Navy, or the Marines, he carried the legacy of a military discipline as if he had actually earned it.

  Janet Lee Kerr pushed the button on her own emotions. She trembled her lip and held her beer can with such vigor it crunched slightly, but she didn't seem to notice. Or she didn't care. She just wanted to make a point.

  “Jim, we've got a terrible problem. My ex-husband is trying to get custody of my daughter.” She turned to Deke, who was half asleep, and patted his knee in a gesture of affection. “Our daughter.”

  Jim appeared to understand. “Deke told me. He told me everything. I'd like to help, but I don't think so.”

  “He hasn't told you everything.”

  “He has, Janet. I know what you want done.”

  “Lindy—that's my—our—daughter—is in trouble. Bigger trouble than you know.”

  Jim Winston furrowed his caterpillar brow and drained a beer.

  “What do you mean?'

  “A few days ago I found some blood.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch beating up his little girl?”

  “Worse.”

  Deke raised his eyelids. He wanted to hear what Janet was saying. It was something he hadn't yet heard.

  Janet put her hands in her face and started to cry.

  “I found blood! I found blood in her underpants! I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure he's been messing with Lindy.”

  Deke sat up like a shooting gallery duck. Fast and straight. Adrenalin pumped straight into his brain. He had never been so alert in his life.

  “That piece of shit! Why didn't you tell me, Janet! That fucker has to die!” he raged.

  Jim Winston was also appalled. “Call the police,” he said. “It's better for them to handle it.”

  “The police won't do shit,” Janet said. “They didn't do a thing to stop him from beating the crap out of me. Yeah, I've called the police for help. Some help!”

  “Yeah,” Deke said, “the police will probably want to make Paul Kerr one of his dumbshit deputies.”

  Janet started to pace. “We got to get rid of Paul before Lindy is abused again. It has to be tonight.”

  The urgency startled Jim Winston.

  “Tonight? Not tonight. We've got to plan this thing, unless you all want to spend the best years of your lives in prison.”

  “If not tonight, tomorrow,” Janet said. “We can't wait. Think of what that monster will do to Lindy on his next visit.”

  “When is that?”

  “Saturday.”

  The three of them piled into the front seat of Jim Winston's white Cavalier and drove out to Old Stump Road to Paul and Liz Kerr's place. Jim wanted to cool everyone down and get a better feel for Paul Kerr before they developed any plan. He called out landmarks and numbers off his odometer to Janet, who logged the information down on the backside of his car registration.

  “Two-tenths.”

  “Half mile.”

  “One mile.”

  Deke Cameron cracked the window and blew a jet of gray cigarette smoke out into the darkness of the early morning. Jim Winston's last name was the same as a smoker's favorite brand, but this Winston allowed no one to smoke in his vehicle. His ashtray was a virgin, holding only loose coins from the drive-in window he stopped at when he went out to eat on his own. As he was at home, Jim was fastidious when it came to his car: The change was organized by denomination. The maps in his glove box were folded back in the same manner as they had been when he bought them.

  “Slow down,” Janet said. “It's up there on the right. That's his truck out front.”

  Jim pulled over and cut his headlights, stiff beams of light brushed over a front yard of brambles, bicycles and a blue Chevy half-ton truc
k. A tire swing moved in the wind. The only illumination coming from the Kerr's mildew-ravaged mobile home was coming from a porch light. An enormous rectangular hole was carved in the hillside, barely visible from the truck. A dog barked off in the distance.

  “Swimming pool?” Jim asked about the hole.

  Janet shook her head.

  “No, a new mobile. I heard they were getting a brand fucking new mobile home.” Her face tightened. “Seems like he gets everything he wants. I get nothing.”

  “You have me,” Deke said.

  “Right. I have you. I am losing my daughter. I have no money. I have basically nothing going for me.”

  “What about the money?” Jim asked.

  “I'm broke, what do you mean?”

  “The money. Who's going to pay for this job?”

  “My mother. My mother's going to come up with it.”

  “I want half up front.”

  “No problem. Half of what?”

  “Five thousand dollars.”

  Janet gasped. She bounced her elbow into Deke Cameron's gut.

  “Five grand? We want to kill him, not give him a freakin' funeral! Jesus, five grand! I don't believe this!”

  Jim Winston stared straight ahead.

  “Half up front.”

  “We were thinking more like a thousand for the whole thing.”

  “Better rethink that. Anyone who'll do the job for a thousand is an idiot.”

  “Can you meet us halfway?” Deke asked.

  “This isn't a flea-market bargaining table, guys. Five grand is what I need for the job.”

  The three sat in silence. Deke could feel Janet tense up, but she said nothing.

  “Five thousand bucks, I don't know,” Janet finally said.

  Jim Winston remained firm. He seemed to enjoy the power, the control. “That's the price.”

  “It's a lot of money,” Deke said.

  Jim shrugged. “It's a big job, dude.”

  “Yeah, but how do I know that you can pull it off?”