by David Beers
Sorry, officer, I’ve got to catch this flight to Stanford. This whole full scholarship thing sometimes gets in the way of killing strangers.
No, that didn’t scare him. He could walk away from Vondi’s accusations unscathed. Yet, John still wanted to kill him.
John looked to his door at the sound of someone knocking. He thought he was alone in the house. “Yeah?” he said.
“It’s me,” his mom answered. “Can I come in?”
He hadn’t heard her arrive home; she was supposed to be at work. He wanted time to think through all of this without anyone bothering him. He didn’t need Harry right now because he was going forward with it regardless. That’s what he missed about England, the ability to be totally alone. The last year he had no one and now he found he preferred it.
“Sure,” he said, not quite as loudly.
She opened the door and closed it behind her, leaning against it and keeping her hands on the door knob. “Hey.”
“Hey,” John said. “Come home early from work?”
“Yes, I took off a little early today. I wanted to talk to you about your conversation with Dr. Vondi … before everyone else gets home.”
John moved his eyes back to the ceiling. “What about it?”
“What did he say to you?”
“He asked a pretty absurd question, Mom, to tell you the truth.”
“What was it?” Lori said.
“He wanted to know if I killed a private investigator he hired to keep tabs on me while I was over there.”
Silence rushed into the room as if a category five hurricane blew it in. No one said anything and even the fan’s turning above seemed to drown out in the oppressive wordlessness.
“Say that again, John. Please.”
“He asked if I killed a private investigator. Someone he hired to look at me.”
“He said that today?” Like she couldn’t understand John’s words, as if she was dividing her attention between a crossword puzzle and their conversation.
“Yes.”
“What else did he say? I need you to be very specific with me.”
John hadn’t heard her voice like this before. He thought that his mother had feared some part of him for a long time, and in the fear, she somewhat deferred to him. Here, though, he heard no deference in her voice. He wasn’t sure he heard anything besides anger—not even frustration, but the purest anger his mother might have ever expressed.
“He said that he was going to the police, but if I told him the truth, he would make sure he took care of me through the process. I think he meant he would be my shrink and ensure that I ended up in some kind of clinic, instead of jail.”
“What did you tell him?” Lori asked.
“That if he contacted me again I’d get a restraining order.”
“Good,” she said. “Have the police reached out to you?”
John laughed. “No, Mom. It’s absurd, that he would go to the cops and tell them I killed someone without having any evidence. Hell, it looks like he’s the crazy one, given that he sent someone to find me in England.”
“Hush, John.” Her voice held an edge that he didn’t know she possessed. “It doesn’t matter what you think the police will or won’t do. He threatened to go, so let’s not skirt the subject. If someone dug far enough, would they find something?”
John didn’t look to her, though he could feel her eyes burning into him. “I don’t know.” He hoped she wouldn’t ask anymore questions because he had no other truth to give.
He watched as his mother walked to the window on the other side of his bed. She didn’t see Harry though she stood only two feet from the dead man. Harry said nothing, just stared at her with burst pupils—Harry, finally silent as John’s mother had her say.
* * *
Lori looked at their front yard through John's window.
She liked the yard, thought it fit nicely with the rest of the neighborhood, but also had a uniqueness to it. A bit of her and Scott. When was the last time they worked the yard together? A long time. Now someone else tended to everything they created.
John hadn’t looked at her since she entered the room, holding his own counsel. What he didn’t understand, even now, was that it didn’t matter whether Vondi had evidence. Just the mention of John’s name to the police would create something John didn’t need in his life. That couldn’t happen, no matter what.
Lori pushed the idea of John sitting down with Vondi for this very reason.
She wanted to put the psychologist behind them both. Forever. He had been a mistake; one that appeared ready to stretch far into the future if she let it.
Which she wouldn’t.
She didn’t condone her son’s actions and at the same time, she would never sacrifice him to society. She saw her mother slowly grow more and more insane; eventually, she would have killed Lori if the disease hadn’t taken her first. The same thing might happen with John, and even though Lori knew that, she wouldn’t act against him.
No, she had to figure out how to act against Vondi.
“What do you think about him?” she said.
“He’s an insect.”
Lori fell silent again as she thought this through. If she set this up—encouraged John to go after Vondi, he couldn’t be the one taking the fall if something happened. If she encouraged this, she would be the one who went to jail.
“What do you want to do to him, John?” she said.
She heard John sit up on the bed but he didn’t say anything. Lori didn’t turn around because she felt he hadn’t sat up for her.
Who then, Lori? Who else is in here?
It didn’t matter. She would wait on his answer and then decide the best way to move forward.
“He’s got to go,” John said and Lori nodded at his words. For the first time in their lives, they were in sync.
“If he goes to the police, it could hurt you later on. Maybe not right now. You’re probably right that he doesn’t have anything on you and the cops won’t find anything either. But what if someone else gives your name in the future? That’s twice your name is associated with something you don’t want to be associated with.” She paused. How long did she have before Scott showed up? An hour? “I want to tell you how my mother killed my father, okay? I don’t want you to say anything at all; I just want you to listen and very, very carefully. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” her son said.
“She took a butcher’s knife and put it right in the middle of his throat. Not a regular knife, but a cleaver, John. She slammed it right in the middle of his Adam’s apple.”
She waited a few minutes, wondering if she should say anything else, or if her point had been made.
“Do you understand?” She turned around then, looking at John. His eyes had been focused on the corner of the room behind Lori, but she watched as he pulled them to her.
John nodded.
“Let me hear you say it, please.”
“I understand.”
23
Present Day
“What do you want to do with her?” Harry said.
John looked to the bathroom, the door closed and Ms. Starbucks quiet inside. He wasn’t sure yet how he wanted to handle everything. Too much was happening all around him, and moving a live, fully bound woman into a hotel room without being caught had been a nightmare in itself.
“We can wait until the girls get here or we can go ahead and take care of her now.”
Harry stood at the hotel room door. His lips and the edges of his face around them were turning black, burning from the flames that flickered out of his mouth each time he spoke. John looked at Harry’s lips, appearing more and more like burnt vienna sausages.
“What do you think Tremock is up to?” John said. “Do you think we have time to get started with her right now?”
Harry went to the bathroom door and banged on it with his fist. John heard the girl squeal from inside and briefly wondered how that was even possible—how she could hea
r Harry’s knocking?
Harry isn’t knocking, you insane fuck. You are.
Hush, John thought.
Harry laughed at the girl’s terror, and then turned back to John, the skin around his eyes looking like his lips; the flames couldn’t be contained. “I imagine Dick Face is trying to find you. Other than that, though, I don’t have much idea.” He banged on the door again and this time a frightened whimper escaped the bathroom. “What I really want to know is if we’re going to have fun now or if we’re going to wait until you get the whole group in here?”
If they started now, they might not be able to get in touch with Alicia and Diane. If Tremock was on his game at all, he had Diane and Alicia watched, and how could John get them to this hotel room with that going on?
“We’re going to wait,” he said.
“Goddamnit.” Harry walked back across the room and lay down next to John on the bed. John felt heat baking off his dead friend as if he were an industrial oven. “Do you think we can get Detective Dick Face? He’s been in the way for far too long. I know the important people are your wife and sister, but if we have a chance, I want to make sure he gets what he deserves.”
John picked up the phone from the nightstand.
“I’m talking about justice here, John. Justice. Everyone is going to get exactly what they deserve, and Dick Face is no exception to that. You know what I’m saying?”
John did, most definitely, know what Harry was saying. He just didn’t know if they had time. Right now, he needed to talk to his wife—and in complete truth, he wasn’t exactly sure what to say. If he couldn’t find the right words, it would be tougher to provide Alicia and Diane their chance to prove themselves.
“I really want that fucker,” Harry said. He turned on his side, looking at John as if they were old lovers lying in bed together. “I mean, don’t you?”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP, HARRY!” John shouted. “I CAN’T FUCKING FOCUS WITH YOU TALKING.”
Harry laughed. He brought his fat fingered hand to John’s leg and danced it across his thigh, the middle and index fingers acting like tiny feet.
“Get off me,” John said, swiping his hand away. “I have to think.”
“Think, smink. Let’s go in there and have a little fun with her. Then we’ll call them.”
It sounded good. Amazing, actually. That’s all John needed—a little respite from the pressure mounting all around him. Going into the bathroom and using one of Harry’s knives would let him forget about it.
“Exactly. Just for a second and we’ll be right back out, ready to get on the phone with your family.”
John shook his head, trying to scatter Harry’s words. “No. We don’t have time. We have to get them over here now or he’ll get them first.”
“You’re always such a goddamn drag,” Harry said, flipping over so that his back faced John like a scorned lover.
John looked at the phone in his hand and wondered why in the hell he picked it up to begin with? He had his cellphone in his pocket, and tracking the landline number would be much easier than his cell.
Get a grip, John.
“Get a grip, John,” Harry said in a mocking child’s voice.
He set the phone down, doing his best to ignore Harry, and pulled his cell out. He looked up Diane and put the phone to his ear.
It rang three times before she answered.
“Hello?”
Diane’s voice spoke of sorrow so great, it could only be born in the depths of hell. Both he and Diane were in hell, then. And maybe that was for the best, because maybe she deserved a little bit of it too.
“Hey. It’s me,” he said.
“Where are you, John? The cops are here.” She broke down, tears commandeering her ability to speak.
“Shh,” John said. “Calm down, babe. Everything is okay. Are the cops near you now?”
It took her a second to bring the tears under control, but she finally said, “They’re looking at me. I’m in the backyard.”
“Can they hear you, honey?”
“No.”
“Where’s Alicia?” John asked.
“Inside with them.”
“The boys?”
“John! Why are you asking me all these questions. No one is telling me anything. NOTHING! The boys aren’t here and I’m not allowed to know where they are. Where are you, John? What’s happening?”
“That cop, the one who came by the house. Is he there?” John said.
“He just showed up.”
“It’s all because of him, Diane. He’s concocted this entire insane story about how I’m a serial killer.”
“The lawyer isn’t letting us talk to them much,” Diane said.
“The lawyer?”
“Your dad got one before he left. Where is he, John? He hasn’t called and he’s not answering. What the hell is happening?”
“Listen to me, Diane. I want you to get out of there. You and Alicia both. Don’t bring anyone else, not even the lawyer. The three of us need to talk and get a plan together, because it’s clear the cops aren’t playing around. This guy has the whole department in a fury.”
“Come to you?”
“Yes,” John said. “I’m at a hotel off eighty-one. It’s about two hours or so outside of the city. You won’t miss it if you just keep on eighty-one; it’s called The Rhinehart. You got that? I’m in room thirteen thirty-three.”
“John, how do I get out of here? No one is letting me leave without a cop coming with me.”
He closed his eyes, trying to focus his mind, wanting to find the sharpness that he used to command in business meetings—able to slice through arguments as if they were warm butter.
“You’re going to tell them that you’re leaving. Tell your lawyer first. They can’t make you stay there, and make sure the lawyer lets them know that. You have to get out here, Diane. We have to get through this together, but if I show up at that house, I’m going to jail and you know it.”
Diane was quiet for a few seconds. “John, I need to know the truth. All of it. When I get there, you’re telling me everything.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a little bit.”
Diane hung the phone up and John looked to Harry who had turned over once more.
Harry smiled wide, flames flickering out through the spaces in his teeth. “Well, at least we’re on the same page with her. She wants to know the truth as bad as we want to share it.”
* * *
Confusion didn’t begin to describe the world Diane Hilt inhabited.
Perhaps Alicia saw things more clearly, but Diane knew she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She hung the phone up and looked down at her feet, green grass surrounding them. Her back was to the house’s glass doors, but she knew the police still stared at her.
What if they’re monitoring your cellphone? What if they know that was John? What if they traced it?
All questions Diane didn’t have the first hope of answering.
She could barely believe what John was asking her to do, and more, that she was considering it.
Is this what battered women feel like? They know how crazy their life sounds if said aloud, but they always go back..
Because she was going to John. She didn’t know why, exactly; because he was her husband? Because she had spent the past decade at his side? Because she’d already gone through so much with him? Maybe all of it and maybe none of it. Perhaps she was meant to be with John and if that meant going down a burning roller coaster with no brakes, then that’s what she’d do.
So how are you going to get out of here?
First, she needed Alicia.
Diane put her cell-phone into her pocket and walked back to the house. She opened the glass door.
“Was it him?”
Diane looked to Tremock, the detective who first showed up here saying her husband was a murderer. He was back now, having just walked in, and already demanding answers.
“No. I need to speak to my sister-in-law and I’d li
ke all of you to stay down here while I do.”
“Mrs. Hilt—” the detective tried to talk.
“Nothing else until I speak to her,” Diane said. Nervous breakdown or not, she wasn’t going to let this man dictate what she did regarding her husband. Not until they had John in handcuffs and behind bars. If she wanted to see him, then that’s exactly what she would do.
Diane walked across the kitchen and into the living room. “Alicia, will you come upstairs with me?”
Alicia’s eyebrows raised but she didn’t say anything. She simply stood and followed Diane up the flight of stairs and down the hall until they reached the master bedroom.
“Was it him?” Alicia said.
Diane nodded. She went to the closed door and opened it slightly, peeking out down the hall. None of the cops had followed her up.
“Where is he?” Alicia asked.
“Outside of Dallas on eighty-one. He’s at a hotel. He wants us to come to him.” Diane looked back to Alicia. “Alone.”
“Without the cops?”
“Without anyone. The cops, the lawyer. Just us.”
Alicia didn’t so much as sit down on the bed, but collapsed on it. She let out a heavy sigh which turned into a sob and from there degenerated into a series of weak hitches. “We can’t go to him, Diane. We can’t.”
“What are you talking about, we can’t? If he wants us to come to him, we have to. He’s my husband, your brother for God’s sake.”
“Diane,” Alicia said through her tears. “They told me something. I can barely believe it, but we can’t go to him.”
“They told you something? Not me?”
Alicia nodded. “I made him. Tremock. Before he got here.” She was trying to get herself under control, at least enough to speak coherently. “They said he killed Dad. That John killed him down in Mexico and that whatever he’s doing now … that’s why we’re in danger.”
Diane walked over to the bed so that she stood in front of her sister-in-law. “They said John killed your father? And you believed them?”
