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

by Arlene Hunt

  ‘What is it?’ Mike asked.

  She stuck her thumb in her mouth and chewed on the nail. She looked nervous and uncomfortable.

  ‘Spit it out, Emma, I don’t have all day.’

  ‘She said there was a, um, thing … in the paper. She said it was about your wife. So I went out and got one.’

  Mike climbed out of the Mini and towered over her. Ace put down his screwdriver and watched them silently.

  ‘And? What about her?’

  ‘Um … I … it was about Jessie. How she, um … has been married before and stuff.’

  ‘What in the blue blazes are you going on about?’

  Emma’s cheeks flushed pink under the weight of Mike’s gaze. Her other hand whipped around from behind her back. ‘Well don’t get mad at me, I thought you should know is all. Here.’ She rammed a copy of The Rockville Gazette into his hands and started back towards the office.

  Mike stared at the front page. The headline read, ‘Tragic history of hero’. Under it was the photo of Jessie in the hospital bed but beside that was another larger photo of a youthful-looking Jessie with blonde hair, smiling goofily into the camera. She was holding hands with another man. The man was young too; he had a bad haircut and hard eyes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Ace asked.

  Mike ignored him. He opened the newspaper and began to read. At each line he heard the sound in his ears deepen; felt a rising sensation from his guts. ‘Son of a bitch.’ He walked into the office, with Ace following hot on his heels. Emma was in the street outside, smoking and pacing in a circle. She was on her cell phone and looked rattled. The phone in the office began to ring. Warily, Mike picked it up as Ace stepped outside to join Emma. ‘Mike Conway.’

  ‘Mike?’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Hey, Mom.’

  ‘Have you seen the paper?’

  ‘Just now.’

  ‘That journalist, that Levine woman, she’s run some story on Jessie. I have it here in front of me. She says Jessie killed her first husband.’

  Mike glanced out to the yard where Emma was talking to Ace, her arms gesticulating wildly as she spoke. Ace had a cigarette in his mouth but had not lit it. Mike could tell from how he was standing his brother was not taking any pleasure in what he was hearing.

  ‘Mike?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘She says that Jessie has been married before, that she shot her first husband dead. I don’t understand. Did you know anything about any of this? Is it true?’

  ‘I have to go, Mom.’

  ‘Mike?’

  ‘I’m gonna have to call you back.’ He hung up and called his house. Nobody answered. He hung up again and was about to call Jessie’s cell when the phone rang under his hand. He hesitated briefly, and then picked up.

  ‘Mike, it’s Penny. Mom called.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Is this true?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘How the hell can you not know something like that? Are you really telling me Jessie never told you she was married before? Really?’

  ‘It never came up.’

  ‘Are you kidding me with this shit? It never came up?’

  ‘Are you deaf, Penny?’

  ‘Are you stupid, Mike? Everyone’s talking about this. Mom’s in hysterics.’

  ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Don’t you dare hang up on me, Mike Conway. This is serious. We need to get the family together and talk this over. We need—’

  Mike slammed the receiver down. He ripped the phone from the desk and flung it through the window. Ace looked at the shattered glass and at the phone lying in the street. He said nothing, but picked it up and carried it back inside. Emma stayed outside. She looked terrified.

  ‘Go on home,’ Ace said, jerking his head towards the street. ‘I’ll take care of shit here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mike said, trying to breathe, feeling as though someone had just kicked him square in the guts.

  29

  Caleb ditched the gun in a stinking dumpster in Hidden Valley and returned to the other side of town as fast as the law allowed. As he drove, he noticed that he had blood spattered all over his clothes and he swore. If he got stopped now he’d have questions to answer.

  He managed to get home without meeting anyone. Once inside, he paced the apartment, trying to think. He was furious at Frank and worse, furious at himself. Frank had been nothing but a piece of shit but the cops would be all over the killings. People had seen him park the car; the girl had seen him come in. The cops would canvass people who knew Frank, which meant they would be at the bar in no time. It would not take long for them to put two and two together and come looking for him.

  They would speak to Sonja. They would offer her a description. She was not a stupid woman; she was Category A to the core. She would know exactly to whom they were referring. She would be shocked: kind, shy Art? Then she would wonder, then she would think about her security.

  Caleb had monumentally fucked up his entire game plan. He had lost a Category A over a goddamn maggot like Frank. He kicked a chair over and punched a hole in the plaster. This was what happened when a person relaxed. He had grown sloppy, too comfortable in his new skin, and this was the result. He reeled and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the hall mirror. He stared at himself, imagining his features morphing and sliding. It was time to ditch Arthur S Weils. It was time to ditch Charlotte.

  He went to the bedroom and sat on the end of the bed, which he had made perfectly that morning. Thoughts swirled around his brain: Sonja, the cabin. He considered just snatching her, but it was impossible, not even he could risk that. To be captured now would be the death of him. It was no good. Sonja would not be his.

  He closed his eyes and forced himself to think. He would need to leave Charlotte. He would head to the cabin to regroup and reorganise. He would need to replace Sonja.

  Caleb tilted his head. Replace her with another.

  Who?

  The redhead.

  With each slow inhale and exhale he thought of Jessie Conway. She was Category A, he was sure of it. He needed that; he needed affirmation now more than ever. Why not her?

  Another problem presented itself. He needed money. Without Frank he was stuck with Barbara’s useless crap. He looked at the calendar on the wall. It was two days from payday, but he needed that money.

  He looked at his watch. His shift at the Depot had already started twenty-five minutes ago. If he wanted to collect the paycheck he would need a story to roll out on the sad, sack-of-shit owner. He thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on his chest. What could he use to open his boss’s wallet? Something sentimental would do it.

  Caleb changed his clothing and packed as much as he could as fast as he could. He carried everything to the car downstairs and loaded it, then used a screwdriver to exchange the number plates with a rust-coloured Honda Civic belonging to another resident before returning to the apartment. There was, he realised standing in the living room, the issue of fingerprints. He definitely did not have the time to clean the whole place down.

  He went to the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers until he found a box of matches. He set fire to the chintz curtain in the bedroom, then returned to the living room, where he pulled some of the stuffing from the sofa and lit it. He watched as first it smouldered, then bust into a strangely coloured flame – blue first, then brilliant orange. By the time he closed the apartment door for the final time the apartment was a furnace.

  Caleb drove to Home Depot and parked in the customer parking lot instead of the staff one. He walked through the store floor, ignoring the curious looks from the rest of the staff. He went upstairs and knocked on the door of the manager’s office.

  Stuart Gilmore had a light system bolted onto the doorjamb, like the kind you’d see at a bank with a holding porch. If the light was red you could not enter, if it was green you could. The
fact that the panels to either side of Stuart’s door were bubble glass, allowing the waiting party to see Stuart twiddling his thumbs, did nothing to dissuade him from using the stupid system.

  Caleb rapped on the door and waited for the green light. While he waited, he ran through his story once more in his head. He did not like Stuart Gilmore. He reminded Caleb of a landlocked walrus. He was large and obscenely fleshy and he always seemed to be sweating, no matter the weather. It sure wasn’t from the amount of manual work his did about the place. It took a lot of effort to be as lazy as Stuart Gilmore.

  The light flashed green. Caleb arranged his facial features and opened the door.

  ‘Hey there, Art.’ Stuart leaned back in his custom-made leather recliner and folded his hands across his prodigious stomach. The heat in the office was stifling and the floor fan by Stuart’s chair did nothing but move the warm air around. ‘I thought you might not be joining us today.’

  ‘Sorry, Stuart, I’ve had a bit of a crisis.’ Caleb smiled and waited to see his boss’s reaction to it. It was a well-practised, friendly smile, not too wide, not too many teeth. But sometimes men reacted differently to it than women. He had once been asked what the fuck he was smiling at by a man who had taken offence to his toothy grin. Caleb had replied, ‘not a whole lot’, before leaving the man holding his guts in place behind a parked station wagon.

  Stuart smiled back and looked at him inquisitively. ‘So what can I do you for?’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to lay one on you Stuart, but I’m handing in my notice, and I’ll need my pay.’

  Stuart’s face fell. He sat forward in his chair. ‘That’s a … well that’s a hell of a request, Art, all things considered. I thought you liked it here.’

  ‘I do, I surely do.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s my mother. She fell the night before last and broke her hip. She’s okay insofar as I can gather, but she’s pretty shaken up. I need to go make sure she’s being looked after right.’

  ‘Oh jeez, I’m real sorry to hear that, Art. What age is she?’

  ‘She’s seventy.’

  ‘Awful, that’s just awful. Gosh their bones are so brittle at that age.’

  ‘I know it’s short notice and I hate to put you on the spot like this Stu, but I’m really in a bind.’

  ‘I know, Art, I understand. You may not know this, but my own mother,’ and here Stuart’s voice quavered with emotion, ‘Lord bless her, she lives with me fulltime so I know how it is. Believe me when I say that.’

  ‘Oh, I had no idea,’ Caleb lied. He had known about Stuart’s mother; that was why he had chosen the mother line in the first place.

  Stuart sniffed and snuffled. ‘Oh yes, it’s hard when they get older, yes it really is.’

  ‘So you see the position I’m in.’

  ‘Sure, you’ll need to square your hours with Tom and I’ll sort out your cheque. Boy it’s just awful when they get older, I know. Which hospital is she at?’

  ‘She’s not in hospital.’

  ‘She’s not in hospital?’ Stuart frowned. ‘Oh, I thought—’

  ‘She couldn’t afford to stay there.’

  ‘They didn’t keep her? With a broken hip?’

  ‘Insurance won’t cover her for much more than a trip to the emergency room.’

  ‘Blood-sucking leeches, I’ll bet not.’

  Caleb endured a long-winded diatribe on the evils of insurance companies before he was able to remove himself from the office. He went downstairs to the main floor to seek out the manager, Tomas Vorkenski. He found Tomas standing near the entrance of the loading dock with a clipboard in hand, talking to one of the forklift drivers. Caleb stood to one side and waited for him to acknowledge his presence. He waited a full two minutes before Tomas made eye contact, though he knew the foreman knew he was there.

  ‘What?’

  Caleb did not use any form of smile with Tomas. Tomas was a humourless second-generation Pole and had made it clear from the first day that he did not like Caleb, and no amount of smiling was going to change his mind on the matter. For his part, Caleb was cautious around Tomas. The man was no fool and Caleb had more than once wondered if Tomas sensed some of Caleb’s more twisted thoughts. Sometimes Caleb thought he might have to do something about Tomas. Sometimes he thought he would enjoy that a lot.

  ‘What?’ Tomas repeated, his pale eyes boring a hole through Caleb.

  ‘I’m taking off. I need my hour sheet.’

  ‘You’re taking off?’

  ‘Yeah, I quit.’

  ‘That so? I’ll do one up for you; you can have it end of day.’

  ‘I need it now. I spoke to Stuart, he’s expecting it.’

  ‘You talked to Stuart without talking to me first?’

  Caleb did not reply. It was a redundant question and not worthy of a response. He looked steadily at Tomas, playing eye chicken, as he often did. He knew the foreman would try to jam him up if he could find a good enough reason to do so.

  Tomas looked away first. ‘Fine, I’ll drop it in to him. Nice knowing you.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Feeling’s mutual.’

  Last-word merchant, Caleb thought as he walked back across to the main building. He glanced at his watch. It was almost noon. Soon as he had the cheque he could get out of there. Now that his plan was in motion he felt re-energised, filled with secrecy and excitement.

  He walked directly to Tomas’s office and paused at the door. He glanced around. When he was certain no one had noticed him, he stepped inside and shut the door behind him. He unzipped his pants, pulled out his penis and urinated in the corner of the room. The carpet was dark blue and showed no discernable colour change, but it would sure stink like hell by the end of the day.

  When he was finished he zipped up, left the office and went to the staff room to do a number on a turkey sandwich belonging to a woman named Gloria.

  30

  Mike slammed the truck into a sliding stop outside his house and ran up the steps, ignoring a startled Rudy who had been asleep in a patch of sunlight on the porch. Jessie was at the counter in the kitchen making a sandwich. Her hair lay wet on her shoulder, her face lightly flushed. Her greeting died on her lips when she saw Mike’s expression. He strode towards her and slammed the newspaper down on the counter. ‘Read it.’

  Jessie looked down. Mike watched her eyes skim over the front page, feeling the skin on the back of his neck prickle as she read downwards. He wanted so badly for her to react angrily, to dismiss the story as nonsense. He wanted her to take his hand and shake her head and put him out of his misery with a word.

  She raised her head. Mike saw her eyes go wide with fear and shame and felt the bottom slide out of his world. ‘Is this true?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Mike, listen to me…’ she reached for him, but he reeled away with an agonised howl.

  ‘Oh my God. Oh my God. I can’t believe this. Everything, everything we have together, everything we have is based on a fucking lie.’

  ‘Mike, please, let me explain—’

  Mike spun around and grabbed her by both arms. ‘Explain? Eight years, Jessie. You had eight years to explain. Eight years!’

  ‘Stop it!’ She yanked herself free and took a step backwards. ‘You’re scaring me.’

  Mike pointed a trembling hand at the paper. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about him?’

  ‘I … I couldn’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, couldn’t? What the fuck does that mean, Jessie?’

  She flinched. His voice was venomous, something she had never heard from him before. ‘Well, when was I supposed to broach it? The first time we spoke? What about on our first date or the first time we slept together? What was I was supposed to say, “Gee, Mike, I like you a lot. By the way, I shot and killed my first husband, could you pass the salt?”’

  ‘That’s your answer? The timing was off?’

 
; She lowered her head and stood silent for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was flat. ‘Do you know what it’s like to live in dread? Do you know what it’s like to dread the sound of a vehicle approaching your home? Do you know what it’s like to dread a certain look or a certain tone of voice? To spend your life terrified of making a mistake or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time? Do you have any idea what it’s like to dread like that?’

  Mike shook his head.

  ‘Well I do. I wouldn’t wish that on my very worst enemy.’

  ‘You were afraid of him? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not stupid, Jessie. You must have known what he was like before you hitched your wagon to his.’

  ‘I was barely eighteen when I married him, Mike. I was only a kid. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, only that I wanted to get the hell out of my parents’ home.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know what happened.’

  Mike pulled a face.

  ‘I mean it. Somewhere along the line he changed. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was always the way he was and I was too dumb to see it until it was too late.’

  ‘What way was he?’

  ‘Mean.’ Tears began to spill down her face. ‘Mean and dirty to the core. I never met a man so mean in my whole life and I hope to never meet one again.’

  ‘How long were you with him?’

  ‘Three years.’

  Mike pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. ‘Ah shit, Jessie, what do you take me for? If he’s as bad as you make out why didn’t you leave him sooner?’

  ‘I did, at least I tried. Thing is, no matter what, he’d show up at my work or bug my friends. It was a small town, Mike, hard to avoid an ex-husband, especially one hell-bent on running into you. He’d plead with me to come back, tell me he’d change. That he was sorry. I fell for that line a number of times before I realised that’s all it was, a line.’

  She reached out to touch him. Mike pushed her hand away, though it almost killed him to do so. ‘Please, Mike. I wish I could explain to you how … powerless I was back then, how vulnerable. He would not take no for an answer, he would not leave me alone. He had only one intention and that was to make me suffer for leaving him.’