Silence

by Thomas Perry

  But things between Carl and Scott Schelling had changed six years ago. Carl had been out at a club late one night when Scott called. Carl could have had his phone off, he could have let it ring and listened to the message, but he had answered. It had been Scott, telling him that he needed him right away.

  When Carl arrived at the house, Scott was wearing only a pair of jeans, pacing back and forth in the driveway in his bare feet. Scott was wild-eyed and scared, like a kid. Carl said, “What’s the problem?” and Scott shook his head and pulled Carl inside. Once the door was shut, Scott said, “Carl, I’m in trouble. Kit died.”

  “What do you mean, ‘died’? Of what?”

  “Come on.” Scott hurried him along the corridor past the workout room and into the big master bedroom. There was Kit, lying on the carpet with a belt tightened around her neck.

  Carl had felt revulsion, but his strongest impression now was how scared Scott had been. Scott swore through clenched teeth at his bad luck, and then blamed Kit for making him do this to her. He paced, looking in every direction but at the body. Then he collapsed on the bed, sobbing at the fact that he could go to jail for life.

  Repelled and disgusted, Carl felt ashamed to be there. But he had known Scott for years by then, and he couldn’t help having some concern for him. Scott was usually so definite and decisive, so sure of himself; but here he was, whining and swearing, yet absolutely helpless.

  Carl had looked at the clock on the nightstand. “Scotty, it’s going to be light in three or four hours. Call the cops and tell them you killed her, and it was an accident.”

  Scott said, “I can’t call the cops. What can I say—that I thought she was an intruder, so I strangled her with my belt? Please. You’ve got to help me get rid of the body.”

  Carl had resisted. “You’ve got no record. If you call them, maybe it was just a fight and you lost your temper.”

  But Scott had kept after him, begging and pleading, offering money and eternal gratitude. Finally it had gotten to be too much to listen to anymore. “All right,” said Carl. “I’ll help you. There’s an old tarp in the garage. We’ll wrap her in that for now, and get her out of the house.” Carl took over and told Scott what to do. He made Scott put on some shoes and a hooded sweatshirt. They rolled Kit in the tarp, dragged her along the hall, and out to the garage. Then they lifted her into the trunk of the Town Car. Carl set two shovels and a case of bottled water in with her.

  Scott asked, “Why use the Town Car?”

  “It’s got a big trunk. She won’t fit in the Maserati.”

  Carl drove them out into the hills to an area above the San Gabriel Reservoir. Carl drove the car off the road into a stand of big trees, and then kept driving as far as he dared. After he stopped, he took a shovel, handed the other to Scott, and said, “Dig.” Scott was not accustomed to doing physical work, but he had been lifting weights and doing machine workouts, so he was better at it than Carl had expected. They were still digging when the woods around them began to come out of the deep dark. By then the hole was so deep that Carl’s shoulders were below ground level, and the pile of dirt was high above their heads.

  They climbed out, lifted the body from the trunk, unrolled the tarp, and set the body at the edge of the grave. Carl said, “Okay, undress her.”

  “What?”

  “Take off her clothes in case she’s found. If it’s just her, she’s a Jane Doe, probably forever. They can trace clothes and jewelry.”

  Scott nodded. He knelt beside the body and unbuttoned her blouse. His hands shook. “Shit,” he said. “I can’t do this.”

  “You have to.”

  But in the end, it had been Carl who stripped the body. He took her clothes, the watch and rings, and put them into the trunk. Then he rolled the body into the grave and began to shovel dirt over her. After he had been shoveling by himself for a few minutes, Scott came up behind him and took a cautious peek into the hole. When he had verified that she was no longer visible, he joined in and shoveled the dirt so quickly that Carl had needed to step back to avoid having loose dirt tossed onto his shoes and pants.

  Carl smoothed over the dirt and shoveled some leaves and debris and rocks over it to make the spot hard to distinguish from any other in the area. After that, he put Scott in the back seat to wait while he dragged his shovel over the ground to get rid of footprints. Finally he backed the car out to the road and drove Scott home in the early-morning sunshine.

  It took Carl three more full days to get rid of every sign that Kit had ever existed. Kit’s clothes had to be taken out and burned, along with the clothes Carl and Scott had worn to bury her. The car had to be washed at home, then rewashed at a car wash and detailed. Next Carl had to take it to get four new tires. The shovels had to be washed, and the tarp thrown into a Dumpster sixty miles away. Even Scott’s bedroom furniture and carpets were replaced.

  A week later, he and Scott had become aware of the problem of Wendy Harper’s curiosity. She and her friend Olivia had been to Kit’s apartment at least twice, and she had asked numerous people for any and all information they had about her. It was as though she were trying to prepare a case against Scott. Carl had listened in disbelief to what Scott proposed.

  “You use a bat. You hit her once on the legs to knock her down. Then hit her once on the head. One line drive, and she’s dead. That’s all it takes. The cops will think it was a mugging, or a pervert, because who else would do a woman like that?”

  Carl answered, “Not me,” but Scott kept talking. “Is it money? You know I’ll take care of you. What do you want—a house? I’ll give you enough for two houses and a car to put in the garage. Think about it.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I don’t mean a long time, I mean right now.”

  “I’m thinking. No.”

  “You’ve got to do this, Carl. You’re vulnerable. Regardless of how she died, just moving and hiding a body like that will put us both away until we’re old. A house free and clear, Carl. You’ll be able to buy a house, a car, and get a year’s pay for starters.”

  Carl had listened more closely to Scott’s warnings than to his promises, and slowly he began to be afraid. Wendy Harper knew too much already, and she kept prying and searching and questioning. He had waited for Wendy outside her house late one night, and he had hit her with the bat. The first swing had knocked her flat, but she had gotten up and tried to run. He had dropped the bat, grabbed her by the sleeve of her blouse, and thrown her to the ground, but the blouse had ripped off in his hands. Then he had snatched up the bat and swung for her skull, but had missed her out of nervousness. The truth was that he had closed his eyes at the last second. He had not wanted to see this woman’s head smashed open, so he had shut his eyes. The bat had hit the sidewalk with a hollow sound and sent a sting like an electric shock from his palms to his elbows. He could see that he had hit her head on the bounce, and it was bleeding.

  Then there had been bright headlights on the dark, quiet street—first one set, and then another behind it. He could see nothing beyond the blinding glare, and there was no way to hide the woman at his feet—she seemed all white blouse, white skin, blond hair that glowed with reflected light—so he ran. He ran through back yards and over fences, out to the next street and around the corner to the alley where his car was parked.

  Carl had reached the car before he looked down and noticed that he still held half of her white blouse in his left hand with the bat. He wrapped the bloody bat in it so it wouldn’t stain the carpet in his car, and then drove.

  That night changed Carl’s job completely. He was no longer a driver, he was an accomplice posing as a driver. Driving was just a cover, a plausible reason for Scott and Carl to go places together and talk alone in the car with no chance to be overheard. Carl had needed to find the kind of people who would search for Wendy Harper, then hire and supervise them. Scott had acted as though that kind of thing would be easy for Carl, but it wasn’t. Killers didn’t take his orders easil
y. They seemed to sense instantly that he was afraid of them, and they spoke to him with a patronizing tone, an affection that didn’t include respect. It was the way some people talked to children.

  For six years he had acted as paymaster and go-between. He had done it all, without ever keeping a dime of the money. As he thought about it, he realized that Scott Schelling would never have done that. Scott would have found a way to steal a little. That was simply another of the differences between them.

  As soon as Densmore was dead, Scott had decided that he and Carl would handle the whole problem themselves. Carl had known it was madness: Neither Carl nor Scott had any business trying to manipulate and fool people like the Turners. There were just some people who were too mean and crazy to fuck around with. Now Scott had finally figured that out, too, so he was planning to pay them a million dollars in cash, just as he had promised.

  Carl knew exactly what the amount would consist of. It had to be in hundreds because smaller bills made a bigger package. Even in hundreds, it meant ten thousand hundred-dollar bills. There would be a suitcase full of money. Scott would never walk into Crosswinds Records carrying a suitcase full of cash. For one thing, it meant that later the Turners would have to walk out of Crosswinds carrying a suitcase full of cash. They could be stopped, and he could find himself having to explain it. Scott had to have hidden it where he could control it, and where he could come and get it at will. It had to be somewhere in his house.

  As Carl walked toward the house, he took out his keys. His mind was already running an inventory of the best places in the house to hide a suitcase. The place he planned to look first was in the row of suitcases Scott stored in the closet of the second best guest bedroom. Carl unlocked the front door, stepped to the alarm keypad on the wall, punched in the alarm code, then ENTER, then OFF, then ENTER.

  He stepped inside, and as he closed the door, his eye caught movement. He turned. There stood the Turners. They had been watching him come in, waiting at the right side of the stairs. They had guns in their hands, so he kept his hands in sight, far out from his sides. “Paul. Sylvie. Wow! You scared me. Is Scott home already?”

  “No, he’s not here,” Paul said. “Do you know where he is?”

  “That’s why I didn’t expect to see anybody here. He’s been out of town since Friday for a weekend conference with a bunch of other bigwigs. He was supposed to be back this morning, but he got held over. It’s just one of the problems that come up when you deal with important people—they’re busy. You’ll get used to it.”

  “Where’s our money, Carl?” Sylvie asked.

  “Scott has it. I’m sure he’s got it ready for you, but I don’t know where.”

  “Too bad,” Paul said.

  “Really bad,” Sylvie echoed.

  Carl held up his hands. “Wait. Let me call him and ask.”

  Paul said, “All right.”

  Carl took out his cell phone and pressed the autodial key for Scott’s cell. He listened to the sound of a ring, then another, and another, his heart pounding. Then there was a tone, and Scott’s voice came on and said, “Leave a message.” Carl winced. He said, “Scott, this is Carl. Please give me a call right away. It’s really important.” He disconnected, then pressed the key for the next number, the office number. It went right to Scott’s voice mail. A recording of Tiffany’s voice said, “Please leave a message,” and Carl left the same message. He could see that Paul was watching him closely, his fingers flexing on the gun.

  Carl said, “He seems to be out of range right now. He’s in Santa Fe, so I guess it’s not too surprising. But I have an idea as to where he might have left the money. Let’s take a look.”

  Paul considered the suggestion for a moment. “Okay. We may as well try.”

  Carl trudged toward the staircase. He was almost certain that the money would be in the suitcase upstairs, and he was leading them to it. He had been hoping, imagining that he was going to end up with the million dollars, but he had been kidding himself. People like Carl Zacca didn’t end up rich, they ended up driving cabs until they were seventy-five.

  He was afraid, and he hated himself for being afraid. He was sure he knew where the money was, and he had a gun in his coat pocket, but it might as well be a pocketful of sand. He didn’t have the courage to reach for it. He climbed the stairs, wishing that he had courage. He walked along the upstairs hallway and opened the guest-room door. He went to the closet, with Paul and Sylvie a step behind him on either side.

  Suddenly Carl saw things clearly. He realized that he didn’t have to reach for his gun and try to shoot it out with two people. If he were to lunge at Sylvie, he could grab her gun and turn it on Paul, using Sylvie as a shield. He reached toward the closet door, pivoted, and made a desperate grab for Sylvie.

  Sylvie spun and jumped away at the same time. When her feet hit the floor, she was aiming her gun at him.

  Carl felt the shots enter his torso, as though they were hitting him in specific places for target practice. There was something shameful in doing that to a person. He pulled his gun out of his coat, but he never got to fire it. He fell to the floor.

  Paul kicked the gun away from Carl’s hand, then opened the closet door. There were three black Tumi suitcases inside. He opened one, then the second, then the third. “Shit,” he said. “Nothing in here but empty suitcases.”

  43

  JACK TILL GAZED through the half-open door into the small office. Claire, the police sketch artist, lifted her right hand with the pencil in it and brushed back her long, natural gray hair, then returned the pencil to the big sketch pad. She listened to Olivia’s description as she worked, made erasures and new lines with a methodical, imperturbable patience. Till stood looking at the sheet for only a few seconds, then walked on. It was enough to verify that Olivia’s memory was producing a picture that matched the pictures from Wendy’s and Eric’s memories. Kit Stoddard’s face stared out at him from the paper, and he felt Kit Stoddard was a real person.

  Till walked along the hall past two more offices and into the Homicide bay. Wendy was still in there talking to Poliakoff, but when Poliakoff saw Till he beckoned. As Till approached, Poliakoff said, “Wendy, why don’t you take a break? I want to talk to Jack for a minute.”

  “Fine with me. You going to be long?”

  “No. You can both be out of here in ten minutes. There’s fresh coffee in the break room.”

  She walked off toward the break room, and Poliakoff pointed to her chair. Till sat down.

  Poliakoff said, “This afternoon I managed to keep Linda Gordon a female victim in her thirties, who will be identified after her family is notified that she’s been hurt.”

  “Thanks for that, Max.”

  “Don’t bother to thank me. A couple of reporters got the truth out of the DA’s office, so as of the eleven-o’clock news tonight, the shooter will know he shot the wrong blonde.”

  “Shit,” said Till. “So much for having the heat off.”

  Poliakoff studied him. “Why haven’t you told me that you and Wendy were screwing?”

  “My mother doesn’t know yet.”

  “Your mother is deceased. And she isn’t trying to conduct a homicide investigation. Why haven’t you told me?”

  “It’s very recent. I’m not sure what to say about it yet.”

  “You two should talk more. She told me it’s not recent. She says she was trying to interest you six years ago, but you wouldn’t bite.”

  “She was a client who had hired me to get her out of town because people were trying to crush her skull with baseball bats. Somehow it didn’t strike me as the right time to start a relationship.”

  “But now is the right time?”

  “Maybe. It doesn’t change anything about the case.”

  “Sure it doesn’t. Why haven’t you asked me what I found in Linda Gordon’s house after you left?”

  “You found nothing, or you wouldn’t have been able to wait to tell me.”

  Poliakoff
sighed. “You’re close enough.”

  “Did you get to look?”

  “No. The lieutenant showed up right after you left, and so I ran out of time.”

  Till noticed that Poliakoff was looking past him at the doorway, so he turned and saw Wendy there waiting for him. “Is there any reason why I can’t get her out of sight before the eleven-o’clock news?”

  Poliakoff said, “No reason I know of. As soon as you two leave, I’m going over to St. Joseph’s to see if I can interview Linda Gordon. Sometimes getting shot makes you rethink your alliances. Then I’ll go home.” He stared at Till for a moment. “It’s too late to go back to Linda Gordon’s house. I’ve already sent everybody there home for the night.”

  Till stared at him. “Thanks, Max.”

  AT TEN-THIRTY, Till pulled off the freeway at Coldwater, drove up Ventura Boulevard to the street where Linda Gordon lived, and cruised past her house. “The crime-scene people are finished, and the house is empty,” he said. “Let’s take a look around the neighborhood to see if we’re alone.” He drove up and down the streets in the neighborhood, satisfied himself that nobody was watching the house, and then parked up the block and took two flashlights and two pairs of gloves out of the trunk of his car.

  “Gloves?”

  “I forgot to tell you. Always wear gloves when you commit a felony.”

  “A felony? Are you any good at that?”