by Stacy Green
Death. That’s what he was talking about. But whose? Panic tasted like metal shavings on my tongue. I tried to breathe normally, but I felt the swell in my chest, that fast gasp for air as if someone had been holding a pillow over my face and given me one blissful second to try to breathe.
“Who is it?” I asked the second he hung up.
“Lionel Kent.”
31
I wasn’t prepared to be hanging on the edge of a crime scene in the middle of winter. Granted, I had the right sort of coat and boots, and death certainly didn’t make me squeamish, but standing on the side of the road, with my hands shoved in my pockets and my head ducked down against the wind, while a small group of police officers encircled a dead body wasn’t something I’d planned on today.
Lennox stood next to a man wearing a coat that looked to weigh at least twenty pounds. From the way the man approached the body, his eyes knitted and his movements methodical, I assumed he was the medical examiner. Sheriff’s deputies and state troopers flanked the other two men. Snippets of conversation drifted back to me in cold gusts, but I couldn’t make out enough for details.
The SUV’s engine hummed; Lennox had been gracious enough to leave it on for me. But I couldn’t stay inside. Lionel Kent’s remains held little interest for me, but even so, my body seemed compelled to be a part of the scene, even if I had to stand on the fringe.
We were exactly six miles across the Delaware state line, and not much farther from Maryland and Virginia, in a pocket of fields off the kind of gravel country road that might see half a dozen cars in a day or none at all. Lionel lay some thirty feet off the road, cut down in the snow. Last fall’s weeds poked out from the white drifts, as if the plants refused to be forgotten, soaking up whatever winter sun they could until the snow melted and they could begin their cycle all over again. This place had loneliness locked up tightly. The flat field stretched as far as I could see, and Lionel’s blue plaid shirt looked like a bruise against the white.
Lennox moved towards me, his tall frame bent against the wind. “You should have stayed inside the car. It’s damned cold out here.”
“Too anxious.” I wanted to ask him for details, but he’d either provide them or he wouldn’t.
“Single gunshot wound to the head.” Lennox pointed to the snow where one of the responding officers had left evidence markers. “Looks like he was led right out there and executed.”
“That cold bitch.”
“You’re not really surprised, are you?”
“I don’t know.” Maybe I’d hoped Mary’s twisted sense of family might save Lionel. Some kind of duty she felt she owed him, since he’d been the one to visit her in the mental hospital. But her loyalty only lasted until it no longer served her purposes.
“Weapon looks like a nine millimeter. I’m assuming it’s not registered, but we’re checking anyway,” Lennox said. “His wallet’s gone, but the county boys have already found next of kin.”
I waited.
“His mother, and she lives in Dale City too.”
I got back in the truck and fastened my seatbelt.
Lennox insisted on being the one to deliver the bad news to Margaret Kent. This was an experience I really wanted to stay in the car for, but he opened my door and waited until I’d stepped onto her icy sidewalk. She lived alone, on the east side of Dale City, in an inexpensive but well-maintained duplex. Recent snow covered the walk and the porch. I assumed her son had neglected his duties in clearing them.
“She’s never married?” I asked Lennox as we picked our way up the walk.
“Not that we can find. I’ll take any break we can get at this point.”
I half-expected an elderly version of Mary to open the door, but Margaret Kent looked more like a frail baby bird. Barely five feet, with hands twisted from arthritis and decades of wrinkles around her eyes, she trembled in her doorway. “Can I help you?”
“Margaret Kent?” Agent Lennox’s voice and demeanor changed, his tightly controlled persona shifting into one of camaraderie and compassion. As if they were old friends, and he was just the person to deliver the worst news of her life, because he’d be able to support her through it.
A lovely illusion.
“I am. What’s this about?” Margaret’s eyes shifted from Lennox and then to me. Did I look properly compassionate? I certainly felt it, although righteous anger seemed to dim my empathy. Another person had died at Mary’s hands, and I was sick of being too many steps behind her.
“I’m Agent Lennox of the FBI, and this is Lucy Kendall, a private investigator working with me on a case involving your niece, Mary Weston-Beckett. May we come in?”
Margaret’s brown eyes burned with the brightness of a freshly sparked fire. “It’s my son, isn’t it? She’s gone and got him into trouble.”
“Why don’t we come in, and I’ll tell you everything I can,” Lennox said.
The old lady shifted out of the way, although either one of us could have brushed her aside with a single arm. Her small front room was filled to the brim with a lifetime of knickknacks and memories. Collectibles I’d never seen the point in spending money on. Photo after photo of her son through the years. The temperature suddenly felt like we’d been dropped on the equator. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, didn’t want to be the one Margaret honed in on, demanding news about her son. I wanted to fade into the background and observe, so I kept my coat on and started to sweat.
“Is Lionel dead?” Her voice wavered only a single note.
“I’m afraid so.” Lennox reached out an arm, as if he expected this frail looking lady to faint, but she simply walked to a recliner that needed new upholstery and sat. Her hands folded into her lap, her head bowed. Her shoulders–no bigger than some children’s–trembled.
Lennox sat in the chair nearest her; I hovered by the couch. I didn’t know what to say or touch or even think, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” Lennox asked.
Margaret shook her head. “It’s just me and Lionel. Or it was. Now it’s just me.” She looked up, her face crumpled as though she’d been sucker-punched. “I’m old. Everyone I know is dying or dead. I just never thought I’d outlive my child. That’s not supposed to happen.”
“No, it isn’t.” Lennox gave her a minute, the silence stretching me like a guitar string. How could he be so patient? How could he mask the anger I knew he felt and channel it into something gentle and understanding? He’d seen the mess of Lionel Kent, knew what his evil cousin had pulled him into. I wanted to rage against everything, and I knew Lennox did too. I saw in the tautness of his hands as we drove to Margaret’s house, the grinding of his jaw and the way his eyes narrowed at the road, as if daring something to get in his path.
And yet here he sat, calm and collected, whatever turmoil he felt completely masked.
“Was he with Mary?” Margaret broke the silence.
“We have reason to believe he was,” Lennox said. “They were spotted at a gas station in the last forty-eight hours. Were you aware Mary had contacted your son?”
“I suspected it,” she said. “He called me early Tuesday morning, upset. It had snowed again, and I needed him to shovel. But he said he couldn’t, that he was too sick to get out.”
“But you didn’t believe it,” Lennox said.
She shook her head, tears standing in her eyes. “Lionel doesn’t believe in being sick. And I heard something in his voice, even though I can’t really say what it was. Fear, I suppose. Something wasn’t right.”
“Why’d you assume it had to do with Mary?”
“It was only a matter of time.” The old woman reached behind her for a faded green, crocheted blanket. She wrapped it around her shoulders, and fresh sweat broke out across my upper lip. Her wrecked hands fisted the blanket in her lap. “When I heard the news about her this winter, that she’d been involved in all those killings in Lancaster, and that she was probably still doing it, I wasn’t surprised. I told Lionel to st
ay away from her if she came calling, but it had been years, and he didn’t think she would. Not now.”
“Did he believe she was involved?” Lennox asked.
“He didn’t want to think about it,” Margaret said. “He still sees her as the cousin he wanted to look out for their whole lives.” She chewed the corner of her mouth, rocking back and forth, her hands still clutching the blanket. “And she got him killed. My son is dead.” Her tears fell onto her hands, looking like great puddles against her paper-thin skin.
“You’re Alan Kent’s sister?” Lennox offered her another tissue. I held my breath even though I knew the answer.
“God help him, yes.” Margaret shuddered, pulling the blanket tighter. “I wish he’d left Mary with our mother and me, instead of taking her on the road so much. But he was never right after Korea, and even worse after Mary’s mother died. He didn’t think about what was best for Mary as a child, you know? A stable environment with some kind of education. He only thought about all his losses and being alone on the road. He wouldn’t listen.”
Lennox and I glanced at each other. We’d both heard ‘Korea.’ Kelly had been right. And if Alan Kent was using his benefits as a veteran, then he had to be using his real name.
“When did he start taking her?” Lennox prodded Margaret.
“Why does it matter?” Her frail voice pitched high. “She needs to be stopped before she gets anyone else killed. You don’t need a history lesson on her.”
“Actually, we do.” Lennox’s gentle voice never waivered. “It will help me understand her, which in turn gives me a better shot at locating her.”
Margaret’s teary eyes looked doubtful, but she sniffed and continued. “Just after her sixth birthday,” she said. “Right in the middle of kindergarten, and they were gone for three weeks. And it just got worse from there.” Margaret grew more agitated as she spoke. “How’s a girl supposed to learn to be a girl when she spends all that time in a semitruck on the road? How’s she supposed to learn to be social? Alan always took her homework, and for some reason the school never really argued much, but I thought it was awful.”
Lennox made a sympathetic noise. “Was she always a different child?”
“Not until then.” Margaret wiped her eyes with the soaked tissue. I wanted to hand her another, but I couldn’t make myself move. “She was bright and outgoing. And then year by year–no, trip by trip, really–it got worse. She withdrew and became moody. I thought part of it was just adolescence and girl stuff. You know that poor thing got her period on the road? She was thirteen, and her father hadn’t said a thing to her about it. She didn’t know what was going on.” Now she looked at me, and I wanted to hide beneath the hood of my coat. But Margaret didn’t seem to notice. “1967! Those things weren’t exactly advertised the way they are now, but mothers warned their daughters. I’m the one who sat her down and talked to her about sex, told how she could get pregnant now. I tried so hard to get her father to just leave her with me, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“I’m sure you did,” Lennox said. “She was a watcher, then?” Lennox asked. “An observer?”
“As she got older, yes. You could see it inside of her–she’d sit there, unsure of how to join in with the other kids. She didn’t fit it anymore.” Margaret shivered. “It’s like she was suddenly an adult trapped in a little girl’s body. Gave me the shivers.”
“And yet she and Lionel were close?”
Margaret jerked at her son’s name. She brought the blanket to her face, inhaling deeply. “Lionel loved this blanket. He used it when he was over here the other day. Sometimes he stayed with me, especially when the weather was bad.”
Lennox waited, allowing the woman her moment of heartbreak. I fidgeted, wishing I could run away. Her pain dredged up memories of my sister, and I needed a clear head today.
Finally, Margaret took a deep breath, as if to steel herself. “As much as she’d allow it He’s only eighteen months older, and he always felt protective of her. So he tried, every time she came home, to draw her into normal things. But it never really worked.” The sadness in her eyes turned to pure hatred. “I should have made him stay away from her. I knew she was no good for him.”
“What about the accident in the nineties?” Lennox said. “Mary suffered serious injury and eventually checked herself into a hospital for depression. Lionel visited her.”
“Yes, he did.” Pride drifted into her eyes, and she raised her chin. “She didn’t have no one else, then.”
“What about her father?”
“Alan just disappeared. Mary never would tell Lionel what happened, but she was damned hurt. The two of them were so unnaturally close. Those terrible things happened in Lancaster, and Alan was right by her side, taking care of her. At the time, we all felt sorry for her being so taken up with such a horrible man. And then losing her son.” She made a sound of disgust. “I hope she burns in hell.”
“Did you ever meet Chris?” This was the first time I’d spoken, and my throat itched with the effort.
Margaret jumped again, evidently having forgotten I was there. “No. Mary never brought anyone in her life around to us. She went back on the road with Alan, and I’d heard they were living downstate. Then the accident happened. I don’t know if she blamed him for the accident or vice versa, but the story I got was that he dropped her off at that hospital, and that was it. It devastated her for a long time. We thought when she remarried and had that boy, things might be different. But I guess evil always remains evil.” Margaret’s small body shuddered. “Now she’s taken my son. How could she be so evil?”
Lennox took his time, the subtle shift from empathetic listener to skilled investigator altering the mood of the room. I wondered if the woman guessed that Mary had killed Lionel, or if she just blamed her for getting him involved. I hoped I wasn’t in the house when Lennox gave her the details.
“If I can speak frankly,” Lennox said, “I believe she learned it from her father. We have evidence that suggests Alan kidnapped and killed several girls, dating back to the early seventies. And possibly before that. We’re still putting the pieces together, but the scenario is looking more and more likely.”
Margaret stared, swallowing as if she gone days without a drink. “He was never right after Korea. And after Judy–his wife–died, he never dated that I knew. But I always figured he must have someone, even if she just passed in the night. But Mary never talked about another woman. And oh! Mary was with him. You think he did this with her, when she was a child? Is that why?”
Lennox reined her back in. “That’s one of several scenarios. Would you mind looking at some evidence photos?” He reached for the briefcase I’d forgotten he’d brought with him. “These are from a murder in March of 1964. A fifteen-year-old girl disappeared walking home from school not ten miles from here. Alan was on the road then, right?”
“He was a trucker, yes. But I don’t know if he was here or halfway across the state in March of 1964. And please, for all that’s holy, don’t show me any dead girls. I can’t take it.”
“Of course not.” Lennox retrieved a black and white photo, and I leaned over the couch to get a look at it. A weedy area, probably in the woods, with spring shoots struggling to come through the still melting snow. Beneath a still naked bush lay a doll, with scuff marks on her face and tattered dress.
“Do you recognize this doll?”
Margaret looked everywhere but the photo for a moment, her hands twisting and clasping in her lap, but the temptation proved too great. I felt the recognition before I saw it on her face, felt the zing in my ears and the prickling on my scalp.
“That’s Mary’s,” Margaret said. “I gave it to her for Christmas, and she lost it. I remember because she didn’t even seem to care, as if she’d outgrown such things–or never been interested in them in the first place. I always wondered if she just threw it away.”
Had she? Had a desperate child tried to leave something behind as a cry for help from her dem
ented father? Or had she simply forgotten about the doll?
“When was the last time you spoke to Alan?” Lennox asked.
She closed her eyes for a minute, her jaw working as if she were chewing leather. “More than ten years ago, after he had his stroke in 2003. Until then, I had no idea he and Mary were even speaking again.”
“Did the stroke leave him with any lasting side effects?” Lennox had shifted to the edge of the couch.
“I think it affected his driving,” Margaret said. “When he called me, he was looking for Lionel. Mary needed his help with something, and I had a hard time understanding him. After all that time, there wasn’t much to say.”
“Do you happen to know where Alan was living at the time? Or where he’s been living since then?” Lennox’s legs twitched, his feet tapping the worn carpet. “We know Mary lived in Philadelphia for several years, free and clear as Mary Beckett, but we can’t find any trace of Alan anywhere.”
She shook her head, running a hand through her thin hair. One of the strands caught in her twisted finger. “The last time I spoke to him, he was living somewhere in Pennsylvania. That’s all I can tell you.” Her eyes still glistened with tears, but a steely resolve steadied her voice. “Now I want you to tell me exactly what happened to my son.”
I wanted to run out of that house and throw myself in the glittering snow, as if it could somehow wash off the secondhand misery I’d been painted with after spending another thirty minutes with Margaret. She cried over her son, talked about the child he’d been and the man he’d become. He’d made his mistakes, but he was mostly good–a hard worker who took care of his mother and tried to do the right thing. My skin itched with every word. Lionel was nothing like the men I’d killed, and yet somehow he’d been elected their representative in my mind. Witnessing Margaret’s grief felt like I’d been forced to sit and watch the Harrison brothers’ family cry, or Preacher’s. Or one of the others.
I didn’t think I’d feel clean again if I stripped and bathed in the virgin snow.
