by Paula Boyd
Ugly yellow yearbook? Uh-oh. I feared there was only one those ever created in the entire state, maybe even the world. And his mother had told him stories from it instead of nursery rhymes? Yuck. Oh, my, but we had ourselves one warped individual. We also had a darned good motive for murder.
The repetitive torture of looking at the insipid cover was probably enough to inspire homicidal tendencies. But add in Mommy’s obviously twisted spin on the contents and you had a blueprint for "How to Create a Sociopath 101."
That ugly little fear bug dug its teeth into me as stared into the face of a killer. And worse, his mother had apparently put him up to it.
"We really need to be going," I said, wondering if a scream would bring Jerry out of the house.
"How strange it was," Nathan continued. "Knowing the intimate details of people I'd never met, that had nothing to do with me, yet knowing nothing of my own origins."
Oh, he knew. Mommy had undoubtedly given him plenty of details about his birth parents whether he wanted it or not--or even understood it-- not that I was going to tell him the truth and squirrel up his brain even more. "Nice meeting you, Nathan," I said, and sorry about your screwed-up childhood. "We need to be going. Jerry got a call from dispatch--"
"Jerry?" Nathan snapped his head around toward the house again. "Jerry Don Parker? Sheriff Parker?"
I nodded.
Nathan spun on his heel and broke into a run. He raced to the side of the house and through the open iron gate.
I looked at Pollock and we both broke into a run, following as fast as we could.
At the back of the house, a sliding patio door stood open, beige curtains still swaying. We vaulted up the steps, through the door and into a large open family room.
Panting and blinking to adjust to the dimness, I saw a huge kitchen on the left and a formal dining room behind that. Straight in front of us, Nathan Irwin stood silhouetted in the doorway of what was probably a formal living area.
"I didn’t want to believe it," he said, his voice a mix of shock and anguish. "Oh, Mother, how could you?"
Nerves prickled along my back and the uneasiness I’d felt outside turned to pure terror. What had she done? And, please God, tell me it hadn't been done to Jerry. I wanted to panic, really I did, but another voice kept screaming, "do something," so I did.
I slid my hand down to the pistol at my waist, flipped the strap off with my thumb and eased it from its holster. I released the safety and held the gun close. I'd chambered a round earlier, so I didn't have to worry about the distinctive chink-chink attracting attention. Only when a big whoosh of air escaped my lips did I realize I’d been holding my breath.
Nathan didn't look back and took a step further into the living room.
As he did, I caught sight of a tall gray-haired woman in a floral dress, sitting on a Victorian style settee, a sterling silver tea set on the table in front of her.
"Now, Nathan," she said, "you know I have only your best interests at heart, dear. I’ve spent my whole life trying to take care of you and I’m certainly not going to stop now. These are just things that must be done."
Nathan said something that I couldn’t quite understand, but the tone sounded stern.
"Oh, now, don’t be silly, darling. I’ve just made a fresh pot of tea for the nice young officers. Have your friends back there come in and join us too."
Tea? Jerry was having tea with Nadine? Not likely. If he was in that room--and able--he wouldn’t be sitting there sipping hot tea. He’d be saying something, doing something. Why wasn’t he? Why wasn’t Rick? And had she just referred to friends--me and Pollock?
I didn’t much like the questions popping through my head, but I liked the probable answers even less. I walked a few steps closer, keeping to the side of the doorway, holding my pistol just as I’d been taught, but keeping it down in front of me.
Pollock strutted past me without a word and marched into the room toward Nadine. "Hello, honey."
Nadine jumped to her feet. "Willard! You finally came!" Her voice lilted up in an excited little yip. "You should have called first, of course. You always did have a problem with that. I never knew when you’d show up or when you wouldn’t. And now, here you are and I’m not at all prepared."
"We have to talk about a few things, honey," Pollock said. "That’s why I’m here."
She smiled brightly and clasped her hands in front of her chest. "You showing up, after all these years, why it's just so sweet. I never expected to see you again, you know, and then you sent that letter..."
Pollock took a few more steps toward her. "Nadine--"
"Now, Willard, let's not rush things," she said.
"Honey--"
"Oh, stop it!" she snapped, her voice flipping from syrupy sweet to low and feral. "We’ll talk when I’m ready to talk. But first"--back to the sappy voice--"we must all have a nice cup of tea." She sat back down and snapped her fingers. "Nathan, dear, have your guest in the other room come in and join us."
Nathan didn’t come out the door immediately to get me, but he would, I knew that. And I didn’t know what to do about it. Shoot him? Hold him at gun point?
A thousand more questions shot through my mind, but one thing seemed pretty clear. If Jerry and Rick were in that room with Nadine, they were not okay. I refused to consider how not okay. I took a deep breath and held it, trying to force away any emotion--or speculation that would spark emotion--and just do what had to be done.
The problem was I didn’t have the training or experience to handle something like this. One little handgun safety class does not a professional make, and this situation called for a professional--a whole team of them, in fact.
Since I was neither a police officer nor a psychologist, my odds of gaining control with either words or bullets was not good. Furthermore, I didn’t know what I needed to gain control of. Who all had weapons besides Nathan? Did Nadine? Was there someone else in the room as well?
If I walked in there with a gun in my hand, it was highly likely I wouldn’t get to keep it long. Right now, no one knew I even had a gun and it seemed best that I keep it that way. I slid the pistol back in its holster and pulled my shirt over it just as Nathan came through the door.
"Mother wants you to join your friends for tea."
If Jerry and Rick were capable of speaking, they would be. So, either they were dead or maybe gagged. Or, maybe she'd drugged them with the tea and they were unconscious. I like those last two options far better than the first. In fact, the idea that Nadine had offered them tainted tea and they accepted just to be polite was a theory I could work with. Unconscious instead of dead was even better. "I’m not much into tea, thanks. I’ll have a Dr Pepper instead, in the can, unopened. Want me to get it myself from the kitchen over there?"
"Do what she says," Nathan hissed, stepping behind me. "You won’t like it if she gets upset."
"I think it’s little late for that," I muttered.
Again, I tried to assess what role he was playing in the game. He'd sounded surprised, and maybe even a little angry, when he’d first walked into the living room, but now he was doing what his mother said. Why?
The look on his face and the way he was acting made me think he was scared. Scared of his mother, the situation, or both? Maybe it was just the multiple-murder thing that made him nervous. Maybe he was better one on one. "Are you sure this is what you want to do, Nathan?"
He grabbed my arm and shoved me forward. "I don’t see a choice at the moment."
Yeah, neither did I.
He prodded me ahead of him toward the living room. "Don’t be disrespectful. She hates that."
Don’t we all.
As I got closer to the doorway, I took a better look at Nadine Irwin. She wore a long floral dress similar to the one I'd seen her in at the falls and her dark hair was again pulled back in a severe bun. She had a static smile on her face and a wicked Stepford Wives glow in her eyes. The woman who’d made a point of chatting with me at the opening ceremony was indeed the sa
me woman who’d been standing behind the young man tossing the package of yellow cord--the same young man who was standing behind me right now.
Nathan Irwin.
Nate, the security guard.
The pieces fell into place like toppling dominoes. Nate had been the one to discover Red White’s body. He’d also been there the night Rhonda was found--the same night his mother had gone to get him a burger. No wonder the killer had been able to dump the bodies without anybody noticing. The one who was supposed to notice was the killer--or the killer’s mother or son, depending.
They had to be in on it together. Nathan probably did the heavy hauling--maybe even the executions--but I’d bet nutty Nadine was the one calling the shots. She’d apparently trained him since birth for the job.
I paused in the doorway, trying to get my bearings. Gold flocked wallpaper, old photographs and ornate mirrors covered the walls. It was in one of the mirrors that I first caught a glimpse of Jerry, or at least the top of his head. My gut reaction was to race into the room to see if he was okay, and Rick. But somehow I managed to stop myself. I also didn’t scream, cry, grovel, or throw up, although hysteria was pushing me to do all of the above.
I sucked in a deep breath and held it, shutting out my own internal noise and any distractions. I would not allow myself to think that Jerry and Rick were already dead. I would not. Letting my breath out slowly, I took a tentative step inside the room, then snapped my head to my immediate left.
Pollock stood beside an oversized red brocade settee. Rick’s blonde head slumped against the armrest beside him. Jerry at the far end.
They both looked dead. Despite my best intentions to stay calm, my heart caught in my throat.
Then, I saw Jerry’s chest move slightly, and move again in slow, shaky breaths. Rick was breathing too, but very, very slowly. They were alive, but barely.
Pollock stood with his hand propped on the back of the settee, staring down at the men, looking a little green around the gills himself. He turned toward me and whispered. "It’s not good, Jolene. Not good at all."
"My, dear," Nadine said, grabbing my attention. "So good to see you again. You have just been so helpful to come over here like this." She clasped her hands in front of her chest and sighed. "It does sadden me, however, to see that you’ve not outgrown your foolishness."
"And which one would that be? I have several lists to choose from."
The comeback surprised me. The fact that I could speak surprised me. But seeing Jerry barely breathing had pushed me over the edge from panic into anger, and it was a much better place to be. Anger knew how to handle these situations, and seeing Jerry like that had made me really, really angry.
Nadine smiled. "Willard complained often of your insolent attitude, but I suspected he actually admired you for it. He was always one for a challenge." She turned and smiled at Pollock. "Interesting, isn't it, that she was the one that precipitated your undoing, rather than the ones you slept with?"
While these little tidbits about who and what were interesting, they weren't nearly as interesting as the two syringes on the tea tray next to the pitcher. Had she injected the men with something? I looked over at the settee again and tried to make a logical unemotional evaluation. Not easy, but I forced myself to make as clinical an observation as possible.
I noticed a red spot behind Rick’s ear, blood matting his blond hair over a golf-ball-sized knot. Jerry was too far away for me to tell if he had anything similar, but odds were that he did. Whether it was the blow, the drug or a combination of the two that had incapacitated them, the two men were not in good shape. Their respiration rates had slowed to almost nothing, and if there was any more kick left in the drug they wouldn’t be breathing at all very soon. How much time did they have?
I ventured a glance back at Nathan to gauge what he might be planning next, how he fit in to this surreal drama, and what chance I had of doing anything about it. I was a little surprised to see a perplexed look on his face.
"Mother," Nathan said from behind me. "I think you must have forgotten to take your medication today. I’ll go get it for you."
Nadine’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. "You’re not going anywhere. I will take my medication when I see fit, Nathan, and not a minute before. Now, sit down, both of you. I’ll hear no more about medicines and doctors."
"Sit in that chair," Nathan said quietly, prodding me in the general direction of a velvet Queen Anne a few feet from the couch. He followed and stood behind me after I was seated. "Don’t move and don’t say anything."
Nadine fiddled with the tea set. "Willard, darling, it’s been so very long. And don’t you look handsome as always." She patted the space beside her. "Come over here and sit with me."
Pollock clearly did not like that prospect at all. "Nadine, honey," he said, still leaning on the sofa next to Rick. "How come you never told me about the boy?"
A short hysterical laugh burst from her lips. "Well, Willard, to put it rather crudely, I didn’t want the poor dear to turn out like you. He had enough hardships to deal with as it was."
Being the highly perceptive type, I sensed Nathan tensing behind me. I got the feeling he didn’t much like the way the parental issues were playing out. It was a gamble--and not even a calculated one, as I didn’t know how many buttons you could push before crazy turned into murdering crazy--but we needed to get off the fence and do something. Jerry and Rick needed help, and they needed it now. The biology issue seemed the quickest way to Nathan’s psyche.
"You’ve really done a number on this kid, Mrs. Pollock," I said deliberately. "If it were me in this boat, I’d want to know to know the truth no matter how bad it might be. Obviously, he's figured out that Willard is his father, but he deserves to know the rest."
Pollock nodded his head and took a ragged breath. "She’s right, Nadine. It’s not right how you’ve lied to the boy all these years."
"Shut up," she hissed. "Both of you."
I pushed on anyway. "Now about his birth mother--"
"Stop it!" Nathan yelled, sounding like he was ready to crack. He stepped out from behind the chair, pistol drawn. He pointed at me, then at Pollock. "I don’t want to hear this," he said, his voice quivering. "No more. From either of you."
"Nathan!" his mother said, jumping to her feet. "You put that gun away right now and settle yourself down. These people are simply lying to you. Nothing has changed and there is no reason for you to worry. I’ll take care of everything, just like I always do."
"You can’t take care of it anymore, Nadine," I said, digging my feet into the carpet to keep my legs from shaking. "Too many people know. You can’t kill the entire police department. They have the adoption records. They know."
"No!" Nadine stood there, wringing her hands, looking at me, looking at Pollock, then at her son. "No one knows. I’ve made sure of it. There’s no one left outside this room who knows the truth."
Technically, I feared she was right--at least in the short term. The police would figure it out eventually, but that wouldn’t do us much good if we were all dead.
The only weak link in the situation seemed to be Nathan. I didn’t know if he was involved in the murders or not--and in spite of him holding a gun on us, I was leaning toward not--but either way, I had a feeling he was the swing vote.
"Hell of a family situation you’ve got here, Nathan," I said. "And I’m really sorry about the whole thing. But you say the word and I’ll tell you what she never would."
"No!" Nadine screeched.
He swung back to Nadine. "Sit down, Mother. I want to know."
I kept my gaze on both Nathan and Nadine. Nathan had the gun, but Nadine was the one who worried me. "The girl was eighteen when you were born," I ventured. "Maybe you've heard of her--"
"No!" Nadine shrieked again and took a step toward me. "Mother! Sit down."
"I can’t do that, Nathan," she said, her voice hard and even. "I can’t let these people fill your head with lies. I have spent my whole
life protecting you from this, and I will not stop now." Her face solidified into an emotionless concrete mask. "Now, go on to your room, Nathan. This is none of your concern." He didn't move. "Go!"
Nathan stood there, visibly shaking. He’d been ordered to his room and it apparently was taking everything he had not to obey.
It occurred to me that Pollock hadn’t said much lately, so I glanced in his direction. He was still in the place he’d been when I came into the room, but he was not looking good. A sheen of sweat covered his pale face and his mouth hung open slightly. His left arm was locked against the couch to keep him upright and his right fist was pressed against the center of his chest.
My first guess was that he was having a heart attack. My second guess was that he was having a fatal heart attack. Even if I got myself killed, I had to do something right now or none of us had a chance.
"Nathan," I said quietly. "Did you kill Calvin Holt?"
He shook his head, but kept staring at his mother.
"Did you kill anyone?"
He shook his head again, the hand holding the gun dropping limply to his side. "I had no idea…"
"Nathan," Nadine said, edging slowly around the coffee table. "Don’t you say one word to these people. They will take what you say and twist it into lies."
"Stop!" His voice boomed across the room. "Don’t you talk to me about lies!"
I slid my right hand under my shirt and propped my hand over the butt of the pistol, watching Nadine, watching Nathan. What was I going to do, shoot her? Stand up and say, "Nobody move?"
The room was a narrow rectangle with me at the end, Nathan to my left, then farther left, Pollock and the couch with Rick and Jerry, in that order. Nadine straight ahead and to the right.
Pollock was starting to wobble, and I figured he wouldn’t be on his feet much longer.
Nadine now held a baseball bat that she had grabbed from somewhere and was heading toward me, a very unpleasant gleam in her eye.
A baseball bat?
I wrapped my fingers around the pistol grip, jumped up and jerked the gun out of the holster.
Nadine shrieked.
