by West, CJ
The leather briefcase at his feet was larger than the one Charlie had given him for his fiftieth birthday and the shine suggested it was brand new. He had it pinned to the chair with his heels as if he were a traveler in the wrong part of town and he expected someone to try and wrestle it away. There was a single sheet of paper similarly pinned between his hip and the arm of the chair. He had been reading it when Charlie and the women returned from shopping, but quickly shifted it to his side when he saw them carrying the groceries inside.
His gaze never faltered from the window.
Charlie swallowed hard as he considered why his father was scared nearly comatose. Ever since the fire he’d been plagued by guilt for what he’d done to the Deudon family. Now his stomach turned sour as he realized the letter could be from Randy; the case at his father’s feet a payoff for Randy to forget what he’d seen in that farmhouse. Charlie’s weakness brought tremendous trouble for everyone around him and now it seemed his father was here to bail him out. He couldn’t think of another reason that could bring his parents home so suddenly.
Charlie turned back into the kitchen and watched his mother flick carrot peels into the sink. “How long are you staying?” he asked.
“Not sure, dear.”
“Why’d you come back?”
“Your father has some business.” Her matter-or-fact tone trivialized their three-thousand-mile trip, but Charlie suspected their return had something to do with him.
“Business” to Charles could mean about anything, but before Charlie could put together a more specific question, a horrid shriek pierced the quiet vineyard. Deirdre paused just long enough to refill her lungs between blasts that needed no words to describe the depths of her terror.
Charlie wheeled around the kitchen, grabbed the cleaver from the counter, and awkwardly loped for the door. Charles seemed hesitant to leave his case for whatever reason, but an instant later, the door slammed shut and Charlie heard his footsteps catching him from behind.
The two men burst into Charlie’s house together to find Deirdre standing at the very back edge of the recliner, tipping the seat back, with her hands against the wall for balance. She screamed down at three long black snakes who were taking turns striking up at the chair and falling back to the carpet. Deirdre’s cries agitated the four-foot reptiles and perpetuated their assault. Under the television, another snake writhed with two tiny feet and a thin brown tail protruding from its mouth as it forced a mouse down. Charlie whiffed peanut butter and noticed Deirdre’s dishes on the side table. The unlucky mouse had been drawn out by the scent. The snake had struck and caught it, starting the siren-like cries that had yet to cease.
Charlie felt a warped admiration for Randy’s work. The black racers weren’t poisonous and now the purpose of the mice was clear. The mice were food for the snakes just like the corn was food for the mice at the Caulfield’s. Randy had to feed them to keep them inside and how artfully he had given Charlie the dishonor of distributing their meals! Charlie could have prevented this, but he let the mice go free and now there were dozens of snakes slithering around his house after them. Deirdre was terrified, but there was more to this prank than that. The snakes were nastier than the infestation of mice at the Caulfield’s. Randy was signaling that his revenge for the Marstons would be entirely more severe and Charlie was beginning to doubt that Randy planned to stop until he was dead, too.
Charlie pulled back from the chaos of the moment and froze, anticipating what Randy had planned for them next. The snakes would scare Deirdre out of the house. She’d beg to sleep next door and Charlie guessed that was exactly what Randy wanted. A thorough check of his parents’ house was in order after dinner. The next series of surprises would occur there.
“Charlie! What are you doing? Don’t just stand there, help me!” Deirdre shrieked.
Charlie angled into the living room behind the snakes, weighing the cleaver in his hands. He froze again, startled by the realization that they’d left his mother alone. Randy was coming and going at will, and the snakes would be the perfect distraction for him to slip into his parents’ house. After weeks of little innuendos, Randy knew the one thing that scared Charlie as much as snakes scared Deirdre was the image of Randy molesting his mother.
Charlie pointed to his father. “Get home. I’ll take care of the snakes.”
Deirdre was incredulous. “What?”
Charlie pointed furiously toward the door. “Go! Go now!”
Charles looked confused. He hesitated then rushed back home.
Deirdre wailed as Charles left.
One of the snakes struck upward and came to rest teetering on the edge of the recliner before excitedly spiraling toward Deirdre’s feet. Charlie snatched the tail and yanked the serpent back to the floor. It struck in mid-air, catching Charlie in the hip of his jeans. Charlie lashed instinctively with the cleaver, chopping through the snake and into the carpet. The shortened head section, now just several inches, writhed erratically at his feet.
Deirdre seemed only slightly relieved, but calmed as Charlie hacked away at another snake. When she finally stopped yelling, the remaining snakes turned their attention to Charlie, unfazed by his proficiency with the meat cleaver. Their strikes were longer and quicker than his hacks and he soon retreated to his bedroom for the bat. Deirdre flashed him a look of absolute panic as he abandoned her with three bloody carcasses and four live snakes at her feet. He motioned for her to keep quiet as he left. There were two more in the middle of the kitchen floor, forcing Charlie to hug the wall as he made his way to his room.
Newly armed, Charlie met the snakes that trailed him to the bedroom door with successive cracks that left them writhing. The bat crushed bowl-shaped dents in the linoleum where their flattened heads had been. He returned to the living room and attacked the four he found there with equal vigor. The first three perished with four or five whacks each. The last escaped under the couch.
He stood triumphantly in the center of the room and raised an arm to Deirdre. “Do you want to go next door for dinner, or stay here and watch TV?” he asked.
Deirdre didn’t appreciate his humor.
“I’m not moving until those things are gone,” she said, pointing a shaky finger at the twitching, mutilated carcasses on the floor.
Charlie dutifully picked up two mangled snakes and carried them to the front door without relinquishing the bat. He stopped on the top step and flung them as far onto the lawn as he could. After two more such trips, the carcasses were gone from the living room. Deirdre, still shaken, reluctantly climbed down from the recliner with an unsteady hand on the armrest. She tiptoed in long careful strides across the floor as if afraid to touch the carpet where the snakes had been.
Charlie escorted her outside to the grass. “You need anything upstairs?”
“Not now. Maybe you can get my bag after dinner.”
Charlie turned to go up, but Deirdre wouldn’t let go of his arm. Sensing she was too frightened to be alone, he wrapped his arm around her and walked her across the lawn to dinner.
Chapter Forty-one
Charlie marveled that his mother had continued her dinner preparations undisturbed by the chaos next door. The intimate dining table, less than a third of the table in Piolenc, was set with china, silver, and crystal all meticulously aligned. In the center lay generous trays of stuffed mushrooms and jumbo shrimp on a garnished bed of ice. Beside the platters were two open bottles of a fruity 1992 sparkling, a wine Sebastian had nurtured for most of its life.
Across the table, Deirdre absently nibbled a mushroom, engrossed in her view of the linen-white wall behind Charlie. Somewhere beneath the eggshell finish, the snakes were still slithering toward her. Mother, to Charlie’s left, was typically silent, but uncharacteristically fidgety. Her eyes cut from window to doorway and back as she alternately picked at her hors d'oeuvres then aligned and re-aligned her silver. Her chair was askew, angled to allow a clearer view through the window behind Deirdre. It was as if the dinne
r she labored over was secondary to the events about to unfold on the lawn. Charles also had an eye on the window from his seat at the opposite end of the table. The vacant, timid expression he’d worn earlier had turned angry and aggressive with three glasses of wine and the discovery of the snakes. Charlie expected to hear his wrath during dinner, but he’d been unusually subdued. It was as if Charles and Elizabeth were plagued by a ghost outside the window that only they could see.
Dinner proceeded as quietly as the hors d’oeuvres, with each of them absorbed in their own affairs. When Charles finished, he pushed his plate forward and leaned in toward Charlie.
“How did so many snakes get in your house?”
“Randy put them there,” Charlie said, bracing for his father’s reprimand.
Charles paused, nodding, as he suppressed some version of, “I told you to get rid of that despicable bum.” He continued in a measured, respectful tone that caught Charlie off guard. “Are you sure it was Randy?”
The polite exchange was a complete surprise, but that didn’t change what was happening or who was to blame. “I’m positive. They go with the mice.”
Charles puzzled over the cryptic reply. “What mice?”
Deirdre gasped from her stupor. “You knew there were mice in the house and you didn’t tell me?”
“I thought you’d freak,” Charlie explained.
“As opposed to what happened before dinner? How could you let me go back there alone?”
“Believe me, I didn’t know about the snakes.”
Charles looked unsure whether to laugh or scream. “Are you sure it was Randy?” he asked again.
“I’m positive. When I got back from France, the house was booby trapped.”
Charlie went on to tell them about the sensor under the mat that triggered the paint ball gun and the mice he found in the attic. When he mentioned the curly scripted notes, his parents both went pale. Charlie knew then that they had come back to Westport to pay Randy off.
Elizabeth spoke first. “Was he trying to hurt you?”
“No, I think he was going for a combination of scared and humiliated.”
“Aren’t you two friends?”
“Not exactly. At first I thought he wanted me to be his sidekick, but I’m beginning to doubt that. He’s got something against me, but I can’t figure out what it is. He framed me for the murder in Piolenc, and then,” Charlie hesitated to flash a look at Deirdre, “he had Monique Deudon killed so I’d get off.” As he spoke the words for the first time, he knew they were true.
The idea hit Deirdre hard and the implications rippled through her like shock waves.
Charles and Elizabeth brushed it off as absurd.
Elizabeth reacted first. “You’re not making sense.”
“Follow me a second. I spent the afternoon being grilled by Laroche. I told him Deirdre was in Westport. Right? So, then Randy sends someone to kill Monique. No way I could make that mistake, because I know where Deirdre is. Laroche figures that out, asks a few more questions, and bang, I’m free to go.”
Charles patted the table to draw Charlie’s attention. “You’re still not making sense. Why would he help you?”
“He’s not helping me. He wants me here. I think he wants all of us here.”
“This is Randy we’re talking about. He’s not some deep-thinking intellectual. No way he’s smart enough to get us all here together.”
“We’re here, aren’t we? Look, there’s no doubt he framed me. No one else could have taken those pictures.” He paused. “And there’s no doubt he rigged the paintball gun. Get it? He sent me to Piolenc by giving the pictures to the gendarmes. He called me back by killing Monique so I’d look innocent. When I got here, I walked right into whizzing paint pellets. Don’t you get it? He knew I was coming back. It’s a game to him and he’s warning me to start paying attention.”
“Whoa. He’s not that smart.”
“Exactly what he wants you to think.”
“Be realistic, Charlie. He’s a reckless, sophomoric punk, nothing more.”
“I’ve seen what he’s capable of. He acts outrageous, he looks outrageous, but it’s a scam. Everything he does, he does for a reason. He’s manipulating Deirdre and me, I just don’t know why.”
“Don’t give him too much credit. He’s a loser that’s all.”
“Don’t underestimate him. I watched him ruin this guy’s life to get even for something he did years ago. It was brilliant. He ruined the guy’s marriage, destroyed his house, got him fired. You should have seen him doing it. It was evil.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so impressed by this mongrel.”
Charlie told them about the mice, the holes in the roof, the leaky water pipes, the fish in the couch, the remote doorbell, the remote control of their heater, the holes that let the insects in and even the urine in the heating ducts. Elizabeth was stunned. Charles shook his head at each new prank, thinking it must be the last.
“That just proves he belongs in an asylum,” Charles said.
“Not at all. He let them suffer for two weeks. They were the ones going insane. They lost control. He pushed and pushed and then, he hit them hard. He sent a letter to their insurance agent predicting a fire. He burned the house down and framed the guy for arson and now he’s going to jail.”
Charles finally grasped that this was more than a string of practical jokes. “So the police didn’t catch him?”
“Randy, no. They have no idea Randy was involved. This guy Caulfield on the other hand, he’s—” Charlie froze at his father’s expression of horror.
“Bill Caulfield?”
“And his wife, Jo. You know them?”
Charlie’s parents stared down the table at each other in a long pregnant silence.
“What happened to Bill?” Charles asked when he regained his voice.
“He’s been indicted. According to the papers, his wife is leaving him and he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in court. He’ll be in prison a very long time.”
“Holy shit!” Charles breathed. He stood and paced toward the hall.
Charlie had never seen his father so nervous. “Do you know this guy?”
“Know him? We’ve worked together for twenty years. He was my loan officer at the credit union. I followed him to Fleet and now Bank of America.”
“So why would Randy have something against me and Bill Caulfield?”
“I don’t know about Randy, but I know someone who has it in for me and Bill Caulfield. Maybe Randy’s working for him.” Charles stopped in the doorway, staring back at his family.
Charlie motioned for the name with both hands.
Charles slowly returned to his chair, faced his son and began in a low confessional tone, “I think it’s Oliver Joyet. He might—”
Deirdre, who’d held a trancelike focus on the wall throughout dinner, gasped loud enough to stop Charles mid-sentence.
“What? Don’t tell me you know Oliver too?” Charles asked.
“We all do,” she stammered. “Randy’s real name is Oliver Joyet.”
Charles jumped up, spun around behind his chair, and started pacing more quickly than before, his hands in his hair.
Charlie watched his father struggling to make sense of Randy’s actions as he scurried back and forth. Randy hadn’t been here to befriend Charlie at all; Oliver posed as Randy to get even with Charles. From the first day Charlie had met him, Randy was the initiator of everything they did. He’d always hated Charles, calling him the evil entrepreneur. He predicted that Charlie would learn about the evils of the family business and how the Lord would repay thieving capitalists like his father. How many times had Randy said, Charlie was too easy to kill.
Was he debating with himself?
Charlie remembered the briefcase he’d seen earlier and the note. Money was the obvious answer, but it was much more than that with Bill Caulfield. Randy destroyed him. He took away a life Caulfield didn’t deserve. Charlie feared they were headed for th
e same sort of fate. It took him a minute to ask, “What does Randy have against you? What does he want?”
Charles spoke very slowly, eyeing Deirdre as if she were about to become privy to a family secret. “A long time ago we bought this winery from the Joyets.”
“Right. After the propylene glycol was found in the wine.” Charlie began to nod as he listened to his own words. Oliver’s parents had been killed in a car crash during the scandal. Oliver lost the winery, his parents, and his home. Charlie remembered what Sebastian had said about Roger Joyet never touching the wine and his theory that it was doctored by someone else.
Charlie locked eyes with his father. “You added the anti-freeze.”
Charles was frozen like a trapped animal under his son’s glare.
He nodded. “Oliver saw me do it.”
The evil was finally revealed and Charlie dropped his eyes to the floor. The man who had spurred him to work so hard was a fraud. Charles didn’t build the business; he stole it. Charlie imagined how far the deception went. Had mother known all these years?
The hurt in her eyes said she was as disappointed as her son.
Charles stepped back from the table, in silent penance.
“What about Bill Caulfield? What does Randy—or Oliver—have against him?” Charlie asked.
“Bill loaned me the money to buy the vineyard from the estate.”
“So?”
“He refused to make the same loan to Roger Joyet. I’m not sure how Oliver found out, but I’m sure that was the reason.”
“So you and Bill put them out of business.”
Charles’ nod was barely discernible.
Oliver had gone to great lengths to punish Bill Caulfield, a man who could have saved his parents, but chose not to. He planned fifteen years for his revenge, waiting for just the right time. He controlled them with his pranks as if he knew them intimately. That one idea put Charlie’s relationship with Oliver in perspective. Oliver spent two months testing Charlie, lurking about, learning everything he could about the Marstons. Charlie welcomed him in and let him walk among them day and night for weeks. He knew their fears and weaknesses and he used his knowledge terrifyingly well.
