Last to Die: A gripping psychological thriller not for the faint hearted

by Arlene Hunt

  Clint raised his head, his expression one of derision. ‘Stalking my ass. Shit, they lived in the same town. Stands to reason they’d run into each other.’

  ‘You don’t think she was afraid of him?’

  ‘I tell you what I do know. I know she killed him. I know she shot him dead like a rabid dog. Point-blank range. I know Doug never stood a chance.’

  Darla leaned forward. ‘I read the police report, Mr Robinson. On the night your brother died his blood alcohol was .28. I also read the hospital records on Jessie. She was battered black and blue and had cuts and lacerations to her scalp and hands.’

  ‘Yeah, they had … disagreements. Look, she knew what buttons to push with Doug and she pushed ’em. I know folk say a man ought to keep his hands to himself, but she was like a flint. And let me explain something to you, Darly, maybe damp down that judgement I see in your eyes. You can talk all you want about fightin’ and whatnot, but only one of them is in the ground.’

  Darla looked down at her notes. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Robinson, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘I ain’t saying my brother was some kind of saint, but neither was she. She’s cold, that woman, cold as stone.’ Clint Robinson sat back in his seat and shook his head a little. ‘People can say all they want, but if I ever cross her again I’m gonna make real sure to keep my back to the wall.’

  25

  Caleb’s sleep was fitful and filled with dreams. He woke early the next morning and worked out, but could not shake the feeling of claustrophobia and unease. This was unusual after a successful mission and it troubled him.

  He drank a cup of coffee and drove the Taurus across town to the apartment of Frank Fulchano, or ‘Frankie the Fence’ as he was also – and perhaps better – known. Frank was a small, twisted little bird, with skin the colour of molasses. He was a forty-eight-year-old street hustler with foul teeth and a fouler disposition. He lived in a small walk-up in Tuckaseegee. Caleb had met him months before at Sonja’s bar.

  Caleb had been to the apartment only once before but found it easily. He parked one street over, eyeballed a group of youths watching him from some nearby steps and walked back to the flat. He climbed the metal stairs to the third level, carrying a black gym bag over his shoulder.

  Frank lived in the last apartment at the end of a graffiti-soiled walkway. Caleb passed apartments, noting that all the windows had bars over them. The air was filled with music and the smell of fried food. Caleb rapped on Frank’s door and took a hasty step back as an explosion of barking came from within. Something big and solid struck the door.

  A few moments later the door opened on the chain and a Hispanic woman of indeterminate age wearing just a t-shirt and panties looked him up a down. A massive dog with cropped ears rammed most of its head through the gap and barked throatily.

  ‘What you want?’

  ‘Frank’s expecting me.’

  ‘He didn’t say nothing about expecting no one.’

  ‘I got business with him.’ Caleb opened the bag and partially withdrew Barbara Cross’s laptop.

  ‘Wait here.’ She closed the door.

  Caleb waited, feeling the back of his shirt grow clammy and stick to his skin. He was thirsty and the heat and dust disturbed him. He thought of the cabin, of the cool creek filled with sweet, cold water and he licked his lips.

  Minutes ticked by. Caleb eased his weight from one foot to the other. His mind wandered a little. He had a shift later that morning in the Home Depot. Maybe he’d try to pick up some more sheet metal afterwards, assuming the floor manager was nowhere around. That Polish prick had it in for him, although Caleb, who usually did his best to avoid hassle, did not know why.

  The woman returned to the door with the dog. She stuck her hand out. ‘Give me the bag.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? What you mean, no?’

  ‘I mean no.’

  ‘What you got?’

  ‘Various things.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Electronics, jewellery, a jacket.’

  ‘He don’t do clothes.’

  Caleb shrugged. ‘You keep it then.’

  She looked at him and closed the door. Caleb heard the chain rattle and then she opened the door just enough for him to slide past. She held the dog by its chain. It stood on its hind legs and tried to sniff him. Caleb doubted she’d be able to restrain it if it meant business.

  ‘He down the hall, last room.’

  Caleb walked past two open doors. The first one led to a kitchen and in it sat another woman, younger than the one who had let him in, a daughter maybe, pudgy, wearing denim shorts and flip-flops. The second room was empty, but fresh cigarette smoke drifted on the beams of sunlight and there was a trace of a man’s cologne.

  Frank was in the last room, as she had said. It was a small office of sorts. Two of the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with crowded shelves. There was a sofa propped up against the third, and the fourth held a widescreen television that looked very new and very out of place. Frank sat on the couch. He wore a white wife-beater and jeans, on his head was a straw cowboy hat with a bandana tied around the rim. His bare feet were propped up on a coffee table littered with cables and assorted electrical equipment. He was smoking something from a plastic bottle. The air was thick with the cloying stink of it.

  ‘I told you ’bout comin’ here, man.’ He inhaled deeply, held it and released, tilting his head all the way back, exposing his throat. Caleb shrugged one shoulder.

  ‘I have something.’

  ‘Shit, we coulda done business at the bar.’

  ‘I don’t want to do business there.’

  ‘What the fuck … this ain’t about what you wanna do, chico.’

  Frank put the bottle down and grinned at Caleb.

  ‘You’re still sweet on Sonja, heh?’

  Caleb narrowed his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘I see you watching her, man. I know you interested in some cream. Don’t let Bear know you sweet on his bird. Man liable to clip them wings.’

  Caleb saw a shadow move in the hall outside. Frank’s pupils were black and massive. He was sweating up a storm and his jaw muscles twitched rapidly. Something was not right.

  ‘So what you got?’

  Caleb opened the bag and emptied the contents onto the coffee table.

  Frank glanced at what he laid out, waved a hand. ‘I give you two for the lot.’

  ‘Two hundred?’ Caleb frowned. He had done business with Frank before. He didn’t like the filthy dick but he had never been slighted like this. He picked up the delicate gold watch he had removed from Barbara’s wrist. ‘This is a Cartier. These go for real money.’

  ‘Then take it to a real fucking store.’

  Caleb noticed Frank’s eyes dart to the door behind him and back again. Caleb always, even as a child, had an innate sense of danger, and he felt it now. Yes, the look could mean nothing, or it could mean plenty. Pretending to gather up his goods, Caleb reached down into this boot and withdrew his grandfather’s knife. He stepped to the right and turned as a thin, wiry man with bad skin lowered a gun to where his head had been seconds before.

  Caleb swung the knife in a backwards arc and drove it straight into the man’s left eye. He twisted his wrist, feeling the blade crunch around in the socket. The man dropped the gun and began screaming, as blood and fluid splashed across Caleb’s skin. Caleb bent, grabbed the gun and shot the man in the side of the head.

  Frank tried to scramble to his feet but he was out of shape and wasted. Caleb shot him twice, knocking him backwards onto the sofa. He swiped his stolen goods into the bag, yanked his knife from the dead man and stepped into the hall.

  The woman came into the hall from the kitchen, preventing his escape. She stared at him, released the dog and it charged without hesitation. Caleb shot it mid-stride, and shot the woman during the next, blowing half her face off in the process. He looked through the rooms for the girl and found an open window in a
bedroom. She was gone.

  ‘Shit.’

  He used the bottom of his t-shirt to open the door handle and hurried along the walkway, leaving the apartment door open, the smell of cordite in his nostrils.

  26

  Darla paced the corridor for a while, but finally she returned to her office and remained there, trying to force her left leg into submission as it jiggled up and down with nervous anticipation.

  It was early in the morning and the station was almost empty. Darla had been there since five-thirty and had managed to bribe Kath Hilson, the Features Editor, to get out of bed and read over her piece before it landed in Popeye’s inbox. Now it was a waiting game. Darla hated waiting. Shortly after eight, the door to her office opened and Kath’s tousled head appeared.

  ‘Well?’ Darla stretched.

  ‘You checked out all the sources?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Verified all the accounts? Including the police and hospital reports?’

  ‘All that could be, yeah. Any that I couldn’t I left out.’

  Kath pushed her glasses up onto her head and leaned on the door, her expression one of mild disapproval. She was a stern-faced woman in her forties, but fair and well liked by everyone in the office.

  ‘What’s the matter? Why the face? You don’t think it’s good?’

  ‘It’s red hot, but are you sure the angle is one you want to run with, Darla?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This piece,’ Kath jerked her head towards Darla’s computer. ‘Are you prepared for the shitstorm this is going to cause when it gets published? If it gets published.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be published?’

  ‘There are a lot of people in this town who think Jessie Conway walks on water.’

  ‘I know that,’ Darla said, nodding. ‘So what? She lied about who she is. She shot and killed her husband. She hid her identity. You don’t think that’s relevant to what happened here in Rockville?’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You know my nephew goes to that school.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘If it wasn’t for Jessie Conway he might very well be dead now.’

  ‘Speculation. You don’t know that.’

  ‘What has that poor woman ever done to you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Darla threw her hands up in exasperation, ‘this is a genuine public interest story.’

  ‘This looks like a hatchet job, Darla.’

  ‘There’s nothing personal in this. I’m reporting the facts and that is my job.’

  ‘On your head be it, girl,’ Kath said, and closed the door.

  After another quick rewrite, Darla emailed the entire file to Popeye and went to the cafeteria for coffee. Her stomach felt upset and she was more than a little aggrieved by what Kath had said. Yeah, fine, it was no secret that she was ambitious and that Jessie Conway and her family had been of interest to her, but to accuse her of personalising a story was way out of line.

  Darla carried the coffee to the bathroom. She washed her hands and dabbed the back of her neck with cooling water before she reapplied her lipstick. When she returned to her office she was a little surprised to find Popeye sitting in her chair.

  ‘Morning Lee.’

  ‘Come in.’

  She did not remind him that he was, in fact, in her office; something in his expression made any word that crossed her mind evaporate. She closed the door, and, being left with no option, took the chair normally reserved for Chippy.

  ‘Something the matter, Lee?’

  Popeye eyed her from across the desk. ‘I don’t know, is there?’

  Darla spread her hands. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’ve got a few reservations.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘This story.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Darla shot out of her chair, ‘this story is rock solid. I’ve confirmed every assertion made with different sources. I’ve got the legal documents to back up everything I’ve written. I’ve—’

  ‘I know all that. ‘

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘It’s … there’s a lot of emotion tied into this situation, with the Conway woman.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Darla put both hands on the desk and leaned across it. ‘You were the one who told me that emotion had nothing to do with the news.’

  ‘She’s a local hero.’

  ‘She’s also a liar. I checked with Carmichael, the Principal; she had no idea about Jessie’s past.’

  ‘So she omitted a few details. That doesn’t change the fact that the people of this town regard her as a goddamn hero.’

  ‘That’s because they don’t know her! She could be a complete sociopath.’

  ‘Shit, don’t say that.’

  ‘You know how she was able to do what she did? Because killing comes easy to her.’

  Popeye sighed. ‘Even going by what you found, it’s not killing that comes easy is it?

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, defending herself is what she’s good at.’

  ‘To-may-to, to-mah-to.’

  ‘I’m serious, Darla. You open this can you need to be prepared for the worms that come out.’

  ‘I’m ready, Lee. I’m prepared to stand by what I say; my cards are on the table. You don’t run this story, then, by God, I’m going to take it elsewhere.’

  Popeye linked his stubby fingers together. He puffed air from his cheeks.

  ‘Are you prepared to stand by me and my story?’

  Finally, he looked her square in the eye. ‘Run it.’

  27

  Jessie lay in the shuttered bedroom, watching the shadows cross the ceiling. Despite the multitude of tablets she had taken, sleep eluded her. Her thoughts were jumbled, confused. She could not escape them, even with narcotics. Shortly before dawn she gave up trying. She rose quietly, put on shorts and a t-shirt and left the house, pausing only to collect a sleepy but excited Rudy.

  She walked up the drive and stepped onto the road. The air was heavy and warm, but tolerable. She walked a mile until she reached a trailhead and slipped into the woods, feeling strangely calm and removed from her surroundings. Jessie began to run, slowly at first, and then gathering pace as her muscles remembered their previous role in life.

  Twenty-five minutes later she crested the ridge behind her house with her heart hammering in her ears. There were a number of routes to take, but she had deliberately chosen the most difficult and least used. She was not sure why she was hitting the trail so hard, but she wanted nothing more than to run. She wanted to run away from her quiet house, to leave behind the husband with the watchful, doleful eyes. She wanted to run away from calls and visitors, from enquiries and questions. She wanted to run away from her own mind, from her own thoughts, from her guilt and her despair.

  ‘Come on, Rudy.’

  She attacked the next hill with gusto. The terrain was steep and thick with scrub bushes and shoulder-high ferns, the earth underfoot compacted hard from the summer heat. She pitched forward and used her weight to stabilise her ascent. Her muscles ached and the sweat ran freely now. She felt light-headed and breathless, but still she ran.

  She would keep running.

  She would not stop.

  If she could run she could leave it behind. She needed only to figure out where her foot went next, which section of slope would hold her weight, which root could she grasp. This was easy. This was primal.

  Jessie glanced up. The crest of the hill was within reach, two hundred yards above her. The path grew steeper and the clay began to crumble underfoot. Rudy fell behind. She dug her feet in and swung her elbows. Keep going. Please don’t stop.

  She slipped, grabbed some crabgrass and pulled. The sweat ran down her back, into the waistband of her shorts. Her lungs screamed for air. Her muscles sang in protest. She was slowing, exhausted. She dug deep; her feet scrabbled as loose pebbles rolled away down the bank to the trees below. There was less to grab here, she was out i
n no man’s land, between the last few scrubby yards and the thickly covered ledge. The soil here was no longer red, it was paler, sun bleached. Dust. Earth. Dead.

  She threw everything she had into the last few feet, up one long agonising stride at a time, another, then another, and then, finally, with a partial scream, she made it to the ridge, where she collapsed onto the parched grass, her chest heaving.

  Jessie rolled onto her back and watched a cloud move lazily across the washed-out blue of the morning sky. It never stops, she thought. If I live, if I die, the clouds still go by, the sun still rises. Life will go on with or without me. It was a revelation of sorts; one she tested again.

  I am not special.

  I am not unique.

  I am here.

  After a few minutes, she sat up, wiped the dust from her t-shirt and looked down the valley. Dawn had fully broken now and although there remained some pockets of darkness in distant corners, the sun’s rays stretched across the valley floor. She searched but could not locate her house. For some reason this pleased her.

  Rudy thundered up the hill behind her, his tongue lolling out of the corner of his mouth. She watched the old dog scramble his way towards her, thinking that there was a time he would have been under her feet the whole way. When had he grown so old? He reached her, puffing and blowing like crazy, and threw himself down at her feet. Jessie let him rest. She sat with her hand on his ruff, gazing at the valley, thinking. For the first time in weeks she felt something within her lift.

  She felt present. Not worrying about the future, not burning from the past. She was here, on a ledge overlooking the valley with her dog. The sun was overhead and she was here, alive. Present. No earth moved; no crack of celestial thunder passed overhead. There was nothing to mark the occasion, but in that moment Jessie Conway suddenly felt that maybe, just maybe, she might make it out the other side after all.

  28

  Mike was helping Ace dismantle the interior of an original Mini Cooper when Emma appeared at the passenger door and cleared her throat. ‘Hey, Mike. Listen, I got a call from my mom a short while back.’