Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

  “End of messages,” announced a mechanical voice.

  “What the hell?” Rachel said. “Who was that?”

  “My, God, she’s calling you, too,” Molly murmured. A hand over her mouth, she moved toward the answering machine on the counter. “How — how long has this been going on?”

  Rachel shook her head. “This is the first time. Why? Do you know this nut job?

  “No, but she’s phoned me a few times — and said things.”

  “ ‘Said things’? Well, that’s vague enough. What kind of things?”

  Molly couldn’t look at her. “Mostly stuff about my brother,” she lied. She didn’t want to admit this horrible woman had caught Jeff in a lie about where he’d been the night of Angela’s murder.

  “Well, I’m just going to star-six-nine her ass,” Rachel said, reaching for the phone.

  “Don’t bother, the number’s blocked,” Molly said.

  Rachel took her hand away from the phone and stared at her.

  “Could you play the message back?” Molly asked. “Maybe if I hear her again, I’ll recognize her voice. She’s never actually left me a message. I didn’t think she’d risk having her voice recorded. She must be getting bolder.”

  Rachel reached over and pressed a button on the answering machine. The Comcast lady came on, and Rachel quickly pushed another button to skip over it.

  “Rachel Cross?”

  Molly listened to that creepy voice, trying to discern if it sounded familiar. She blankly stared at the breakfast nook — until suddenly something moved past the window.

  “Rachel, you’ll be sorry you ever moved onto that block… you stupid bitch.”

  Molly spotted a man in a hooded sweatshirt. He seemed to have come from the woods at the edge of Rachel’s backyard. It looked as if he was about to walk right up to the house.

  Rachel must have spotted him, too, because she suddenly let out a shriek.

  The hooded man took off — toward Molly’s backyard.

  Rachel frantically stabbed at the buttons on the answering machine to shut it off. “Oh, Jesus, where’d he go?” She grabbed the phone. “Did you see him? I’m calling the police!”

  All Molly could think about was Erin alone in the basement, and that man heading toward her house. She ran for the front door.

  “Molly, wait!” Rachel called after her. “For God’s sake, don’t go out there!”

  She flew out the front door, and raced across the lawn. The door was unlocked. She hadn’t thought there would be any need to lock it. She’d been gone such a short time. Molly flung open the door and ran up the front hallway to the kitchen.

  Then she saw him. The hooded man was poised outside the family room’s sliding glass door. He violently tugged at the handle. Molly could hear it rattle.

  “Get out of here!” she screamed, without thinking. She spun around and fumbled for a large knife from the rack on the kitchen counter.

  The rattling became louder, then stopped abruptly.

  Molly swiveled around again with the knife in her shaky hand.

  But the man was gone.

  Natalie What’s-Her-Name quietly argued with one of the cops.

  They’d pulled her car over, and now her slightly battered blue Mini Cooper was parked in front of Molly’s house. Everyone on the block had gathered at the end of the driveway while the police combed the area for the man with the hooded sweatshirt. Lynette had been at the hospital all day. Jill was babysitting Dakota and Carson. Both kids — along with Jill’s son, Darren — had been fascinated by the police presence on their block. But now the novelty was wearing off, and they were starting to hit and poke each other. Molly held Erin’s hand, while Rachel whispered to her that right now, she had sixty dollars’ worth of frozen food thawing out on her kitchen counter.

  Four patrol cars had shown up, and a total of six cops were checking around each home to make sure there was no sign of a breakin. The two old skeletons of half-finished homes were getting the once-over, too. Jill wanted one of the cops to accompany her back inside her house — just to double-check and be safe.

  Natalie must have misunderstood, and thought they were about to do a search inside each residence. “I can’t let you just barge in there!” she argued to a stocky, blond, babyfaced cop. Her voice was shrill. She wore jeans and a white top that seemed too big for her. Though pretty, she was way too thin. Standing this close to her, Molly noticed that her teeth were grayish. “I’m house-sitting for these people, and I’d need to check with the owners before I let anyone inside.”

  Molly wondered what the hell she was talking about. She and Jeff had joked about how Natalie should have installed a revolving door in the Nguyens’ house to accommodate all the guys who dropped in — at all hours. And some of them looked rather seedy, too.

  “We’re just checking the grounds, ma’am,” the cop assured her.

  “Well, why can’t I go home right now? Why are you holding me here?”

  Because the police want to make sure you don’t end up in one of the Nguyens’ closets with your throat slit, Molly wanted to say. But she kept quiet.

  “Daddy’s home!” Erin declared. She started waving at Jeff’s silver Lexus as it crawled up the cul-de-sac.

  Molly knew he must have been alarmed to come home from work to see four police cars on the block — and most of his neighbors standing at the end of his driveway. He pulled over in front of Natalie’s Mini Cooper.

  “Erin, stay with Rachel for a minute,” Molly said.

  Rachel took her hand. “C’mon, cutie pie, keep me company.”

  Molly stepped around to Jeff’s side of the Lexus as he opened the door. “Everyone’s okay,” she said under her breath. “We had a prowler. He came out of the woods into Rachel’s backyard and tried to get into our place through the sliding glass doors. But I scared him off. I told Erin this is just a police drill. I didn’t want to worry her.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he murmured, hugging her. “You sure you’re okay?”

  She gratefully held on to him. “Yeah, just a little shaken up.”

  He kissed her, and Molly kissed him back. Jeff loosened his tie and slung his arm around her, and they started toward the others.

  But he suddenly stopped dead and pulled his arm away. He stared at everyone gathered at the end of the driveway. Molly realized, to Jeff, most of them were strangers. “I don’t think you’ve met a couple of our neighbors, have you?” she said. “Jeff, this is Natalie. . and from next door, Rachel.”

  Natalie looked him up and down for a moment. Then she turned to the police officer. “May I go inside my house now?” she muttered.

  The cop nodded wearily, and Natalie retreated to her car.

  “We haven’t formally met yet either, Jeff,” said Jill with a pinched smile. She put her hands on her chubby son’s shoulders. “I was a friend of Angela’s. I was at the funeral, but never got the opportunity to give you my condolences. And this is my son, Darren. Darren, say hello to Mr. Dennehy.”

  “Hello,” the kid muttered.

  Jeff didn’t respond at all. He glanced over at Natalie’s Mini Cooper as it pulled down the cul-de-sac toward the Nguyens’ driveway.

  Just then, Erin broke away from Rachel. She ran up to Jeff and hugged him around the legs. He patted her on the head. He gazed at Jill and her son, and nodded.

  “Hi, Jeff,” Rachel said, coming to him, ready to shake his hand.

  He didn’t reach out to her. “Excuse me,” he muttered. Then he retreated toward the house — with Erin clinging to him.

  “Nice to meet you!” Rachel called.

  Molly was embarrassed that he’d acted so rudely — especially to Rachel, who was her friend. Jeff was like a zombie. She watched him and Erin head inside the house.

  “Officer?” she heard Rachel say. “Officer, I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but right before Mrs. Dennehy and I noticed that guy in my backyard, this crazy woman left me a really weird, threatening voice mail.”


  Molly turned toward them.

  Rachel nodded in her direction. “Mrs. Dennehy said this same woman has been harassing her, too.”

  The cop frowned at her. “Have you reported this, Mrs. Dennehy?”

  She shook her head. “We had a lot of crank callers and hang-ups after Angela was murdered. I just figured this one was taking longer to move on than the others.”

  “Are the calls of an obscene nature?” the policeman asked.

  “Well, she called me a bitch,” Rachel chimed in. “And usually people don’t call me that until they know me better.”

  The cop looked a bit mystified, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not to laugh.

  “I still have her on my answering machine,” Rachel continued. “Would you like to hear?”

  The cop turned to Molly. “Could you come with us, Mrs. Dennehy?”

  She followed them toward Rachel’s house. The cop mumbled something into a little walkie-talkie device on his shoulder. Molly glanced over at her house, wondering about Jeff and his odd behavior. He’d been so concerned when she’d told him about the attempted breakin, and within a minute or two, he’d just walked inside the house — leaving her behind.

  She was reluctant to report the harassing phone calls. What if the police wanted to put a tap on the phone and listen in? Then they’d hear this woman asking where Jeff had been the night Angela was killed.

  She knew Jeff couldn’t have had anything to do with Angela’s death. But the police didn’t know that.

  “Have a listen,” Rachel announced, once they were in her kitchen. She pressed a button on the answering machine.

  “You have no messages,” the machine’s mechanical voice announced.

  “What? Oh, damn it!” Rachel said. “I must have pressed the wrong button and erased it when I was trying to shut it off. Of all the stupid. .” She sighed. “Well, you can ask Mrs. Dennehy. It was this crazy-sounding woman with a scratchy voice — and a weird way of talking, almost like she was reading a nursery rhyme. She said I’d be sorry I ever moved onto this block.”

  The cop turned to Molly. “What kind of things has this woman said in her messages to you, Mrs. Dennehy?”

  “Well, she’s never actually left me a message,” Molly explained. “I’ve only spoken with her a few times — and mostly it’s just gibberish.” She tried to avoid eye contact with Rachel. “She hasn’t spouted anything obscene or threatening.”

  “One minute, please,” the officer said. He retreated down the hallway — by Rachel’s front door. He muttered into his shoulder walkie-talkie again.

  “Molly?” Rachel whispered. “What gives? Don’t you want to report this?”

  “I just don’t feel like getting into that whole thing about my brother again,” she said under her breath. And it was partially true. In that note left in Chris’s locker and the letter sent to Rachel, the telephone woman was holding that over her head as well. “I’m sorry, but right now, I’d just as soon drop it.”

  Rachel patted her arm. “Okay, Molly,” she sighed. “But something tells me I’m not getting the whole true story here.”

  When she walked through the front door five minutes later, she glanced over toward Jeff’s study at the stack of old credit card bills on his desk. If he asked what she’d been doing in there, she would tell him, “I’m trying to figure out why the hell there’s no record of where you were the night Angela was murdered.”

  She’d just told that nice policeman it wasn’t worth reporting a few strange phone calls. But she knew she couldn’t ignore them much longer.

  She found Jeff mixing a drink in the kitchen, while Erin watched TV in the family room. Jeff offered her a highball. It looked like a bourbon and water — her I-really-need-a-drink drink of choice. “Something tells me you need this,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Thanks, anyway.” She turned toward her stepdaughter. “Erin, could you go watch that down in the basement, please?”

  With a sigh, Jeff set the drink down and reached for one he was already working on.

  Oblivious to the tension in the air, Erin passed between them and retreated down to the basement. Molly found the remote and switched off the family-room TV. She took off her cardigan sweater and draped it over the back of her chair at the breakfast table. She could hear the television in the basement starting up.

  She turned to Jeff. The kitchen’s island counter was between them. “Okay, so what was that all about?” she asked him quietly. “Why were you so rude to our neighbors?”

  He shrugged. “Why should you care? You hate them. They’ve been awful to you.”

  “I don’t hate Rachel. I happen to like her very much. She went to shake your hand, and you just ignored her.”

  Jeff put down his drink and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry, honey. I was distracted. I was worried about you and Erin and the house. If you want, I’ll send each one of them a written apology — starting with your friend. .” He seemed to falter for her name.

  “Rachel,” she said. “I’ve already apologized for you. But you need to know something, Jeff. That crazy woman caller who’s been harassing me—”

  “Damn it, Molly, I’ve told you, if you’d just screen your calls—”

  “Let me finish,” she insisted. “The woman left a message on Rachel’s answering machine today. I heard it. She threatened Rachel. The same woman called Angela and Kay shortly before they were killed. I’m beginning to think Kay’s death wasn’t an accident. She could have been murdered. Have you stopped to consider all the deaths and accidents and tragedies this one little block has experienced lately? You should have heard Lynette last night accusing me of stirring up some kind of hornet’s nest of bad luck for everyone here on Willow Tree Court. She even brought up Charlie in her little tirade.”

  “You can’t take what she said seriously,” Jeff pointed out. “She was half out of her mind last night.”

  “But the thing of it is I don’t really blame Lynette for feeling that way. I’ve felt it too, at times. After what Charlie did, I’ve always worried about something horrible like that happening again to someone else I love. I’ve tried to prepare myself for when the other shoe might drop. Maybe that’s why I became so obsessed over the cul-de-sac killings. I didn’t want to tell you, but I’ve had some nights here when you’re out of town that I’ve been absolutely terrified.”

  “But you’ve always acted so brave,” he whispered. “Why didn’t you say anything?” Setting down his drink, Jeff looked like he was about to come around the counter to hug her.

  “Would it have made a difference if I said something?” she asked. “You’d have gone on your trips anyway. Am I right?”

  It stopped him in his tracks.

  She put her hand up. “My point is — I can’t really blame Lynette for thinking bad luck follows me around. But I know it’s not me or my bad luck that’s making all these horrible things happen lately. I think it’s the work of this demented woman on the telephone — I think she may be responsible for everything from Erin’s smashed pumpkin to Courtney’s car wreck. I need to tell this to the police — before someone else is hurt or killed. But one thing is holding me back, Jeff. She has something on you. You weren’t in Washington, D.C., when Angela, Larry, and Taylor were killed. And yet you’re sticking to that story. Well, sooner or later, the police are going to figure out you’re lying. And Jeff, God help me, I don’t want to be the one who exposes your lie. But I will. I will, if it means I can stop this woman from hurting someone else.”

  Frowning, he let out an exasperated sigh. “Honey, listen. .”

  He stopped talking at the sound of someone at the front door.

  Molly heard the lock click. She peeked down the front hallway to see Chris opening the door. He wore his school jacket and had his backpack slung over one shoulder.

  “Hey,” he mumbled. “Sorry I’m late. I took the bus to the hospital to see Courtney. But she was pretty out of it, so it wasn’t much of a visit. . ”

  Mo
lly just nodded, then turned and walked into the kitchen again. At the breakfast table, she grabbed her cardigan from the back of her chair. “I’m going out,” she said. “There’s leftover ham in the refrigerator. Or you can order out. I don’t care. You guys are on your own for dinner.”

  Chris looked at Jeff — and then at her. Unlike his kid sister, he seemed to sense the tension in the room. “What’s going on?”

  “Ask your father,” Molly grumbled, throwing on her sweater. She grabbed her purse. “Good luck getting a straight answer from him. I’ve tried, and I can’t.”

  She headed down the hall — and out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “I heard you come in at eleven,” he said.

  Molly squinted at Jeff standing at the top of the attic stairs. She lay on the chaise longue in her art studio, snuggled under the comfy throw from Restoration Hardware. She realized Jeff must have snuck up there in the middle of the night and covered her with it.

  He was right. She’d come home at eleven o’clock. She’d driven to Capitol Hill and gotten Thai carryout from Jamjurri. Then she’d driven to a lookout point on Fifteenth Avenue, a small park with a panoramic view of Husky Stadium, Lake Washington, and Bellevue.

  Molly had sat in the car, eating her ginger chicken and gazing at the Bellevue lights in the distance. The park was across from Lakeview Cemetery, where they’d buried Angela — a fitting spot for her to admit to herself that Angela had been right all along. She didn’t even want to think it, but the evidence — or lack thereof — was overwhelming. All those business trips Jeff had taken without any expense records meant he was hiding something — like an affair, or several affairs. Jeff had been with another woman the night Angela had been murdered.

  The son of a bitch wasn’t much better than Jeremy Hahn. And now she was going to have his baby.

  When she’d come home last night, she’d had no desire to see him — or even sleep on the same floor as him. She’d gotten a pillow from one of the twin beds in the guest room, and then taken it upstairs to her studio.