She looked over at Jessica. In the pale light, Lorraine’s face appeared to be glowing in a peculiar, almost eerie way. Her eyes were bright, too. She had never looked so alive, so excited, so animated.
Jessica found herself drawing away. “It’s a terrible thing,” she said carefully. “It must make you feel kind of strange.”
“Strange? I wouldn’t use that word. Of course, I knew Arthur as well as Becky. You knew that I knew Arthur Mortimer, Jessica, didn’t you? I knew them all. Lloyd Nolan was my real estate agent. Dr. Ditzler was my kids’ doctor. And Arthur Mortimer was my baby-sitter’s father. I knew each one of them.’’
“Of course you did, Lorraine,’’ Jessica said uneasily. “I knew them, too.”
“Ah, but there’s a difference,” Lorraine insisted. “You see, I not only knew them. I also knew where they lived and where they worked. I knew their schedules. I knew when they’d be at home, when they’d be at the office, when they’d be alone. I made a point of knowing all that.
“But what was even more important was that they all knew me. They trusted me.”
“The ribbon ...” Jessica uttered, her throat so dry it was all she could do to get a sound out. “I figured maybe Jim ...”
“Excellent reasoning, Jessie, but I’m afraid that this time you’re wrong,” Lorraine said calmly. “Yes, the purple ribbon is from my house. But don’t you see, Jessie? It’s not Jim who murdered Lloyd Nolan and Dr. Ditzler and Arthur Mortimer.’’
“You, Lorraine?” Jessica couldn’t manage anything more than a whisper. “It was you?”
“I know it was bad, Jessie.” Lorraine’s voice sounded strangely soft and gentle. “But don’t you see? I had to. The truth is that I didn’t have any other choice.’’
“But why, Lorraine? Why did you do it?”
“Oh, gosh, I didn’t really want to kill those men, Jessie.” Lorraine sounded so matter-of-fact. “I mean, I did mean to kill them—of course I did; I planned the whole thing so perfectly— but it was really Jim I intended to kill all along. The others were just to fool the police, to make them think that Jim was just another victim.
“Think about it. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? If I had just killed Jim, it would have looked pretty suspicious. But this way . . . Well, it seemed like the ideal way to get rid of him.”
Jessica kept losing touch with reality, thinking she was only dreaming and then feeling so smothered by her emotions that this simply had to be real. Through the car windows she could see how dark it was . . . and how isolated they were. They were completely alone. Even if she could get out of the car, a car in which the driver controlled the locks on all the doors, there was no place to go. No place to run.
“Oh, Lorraine,’’ she heard herself saying in a soothing voice, “what you did is not so bad. Not really. It was all just. . . kind of a misunderstanding. Look, all you have to do is explain this to the police.”
Lorraine laughed. “The police? No, they’d never understand. ‘‘
“Okay, then,” Jessica said quickly. “If you don’t want anybody else to know, we won’t tell anybody, ever. We’ll just keep it our little secret.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Jessie. You see, it’s not safe for me to have anybody know. Not even you.”
Jessica could feel the hysteria rising. But even in its midst, she knew it was crucial that she keep her head. Her thoughts were racing, so fast that it was hard for her to think clearly about what to do. With the car doors locked, and Lorraine in full control over them, that left the windows. She could try breaking a window and climbing out, but that would take too long.
Besides, the only thing heavy enough to accomplish that was one of the tools tucked beneath the seat. And Lorraine was already reaching for those. Her movements were deliberate but determined. Her eyes were very bright.
When had Jessica seen that look before? Of course! The time that Lorraine had pretended she was going to shoot herself. That look came from the triumphant feeling of knowing that, for once, she had the power to control others.
Lorraine pulled out one of the metal tools then, stroking it fondly, obviously loving the feeling of it in her hands. It was an odd-looking thing, something Jessica couldn’t remember having ever seen before. It was not very long or very thick, and the way Lorraine was handling it made it clear that it wasn’t overly heavy. Its treachery came mainly from the claw-shaped tip, the two sharp metal points at the end of a curve.
It was the same tool that had been used in the other murders, all right. The one that neither Terry not the police could identify. Yet here it was, no doubt one of the more obscure items from Jim Denholm’s hardware store inventory.
Frantically, Jessica looked all around. The sight of the dark, empty parking lot only escalated her fear. Yet she still possessed a strange sense of logic, one that warned her that she had to keep Lorraine talking.
“Why—why did you want to kill Jim?” Jessica asked. “Do you think you could tell me about it, Lorraine?’’ While she was mainly stalling for time, there was a part of her that sincerely wanted to know.
Lorraine looked at her as if she had just failed to grasp the punch line of an extremely simple, obvious joke. “Don’t you see, Jessie? It was my only way out.”
“You mean your only way out of the marriage?’’
“That’s right.”
“But what about divorce? Couldn’t you have just divorced him?”
Lorraine laughed. “Sometimes you’re so naive, Jessica, especially for somebody who thinks of herself as so sophisticated. Divorce him? Why? So I could go on being tied to him through the kids for the rest of my life? No, that wouldn’t have been the answer. I wanted to be rid of him. I wanted him gone.
“Besides, it was only fair that he pay.”
“Pay for what, Lorraine?” Jessica asked gently.
“For not living up to his end of the bargain. I know I’ve always kept up my end.
“But it didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. My family didn’t appreciate me. I kept getting these feelings all the time . . . feelings that I didn’t matter, that I didn’t count, that I was hardly even a part of the world.” She sighed. “All I ever wanted was to be somebody’s wife and somebody’s mother.”
Lorraine turned away then, staring out the window and thinking for a few seconds. More to herself than to Jessica, she mumbled, “I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe I made a mistake in buying the whole traditional thing.’’
When had she heard those words before? Despite her terror, the computer that was Jessica’s mind was running through its memory bank, trying to place that phrase.
And then it clicked. Nikki. Those were the exact words she had used. She, too, claimed that she had bought the whole thing. The Prince Charming, the knight in shining armor, the whole bit about living happily ever after . . . only to learn the hard way that it was all only a myth.
Maybe Lorraine and I are not so different after all, Jessica was thinking. Whether we’ve been willing to admit it or not, we’ve both been living with anger. Anger over having handed over the responsibility for our own happiness—indeed, our own lives—to someone else.
It was bound to take its toll, all that anger stuffed inside us like kapok inside a Raggedy Ann doll. In fact, when you come right down to it, the only real difference between Lorraine and me is the way we’ve chosen to deal with our anger.
“I couldn’t stand it anymore,” Lorraine went on, speaking calmly. “I needed to act, to do something to get away from those awful feelings. Actually, it was at your house that I first got the idea for eliminating Jim from my life. Just making him disappear.”
“My house?” Even as she spoke, Jessica was easing her hand toward the lock. But she saw that Lorraine’s elbow was resting on her lock, the master lock. The instant she heard the click from the passenger side, she could relock all four doors. It was hopeless.
“That’s right,” she was saying, still in that strange, even voice. “It was
back in September. The very first time you had us all over to dinner, remember?”
“Of course I remember that evening. But what happened to make you . . . what happened?”
“I remember the whole thing perfectly. Jim was telling David about how he’d almost gotten killed that day. Remember? He was driving too fast on Cedar Swamp Road, and his car went into a skid. He said, ‘I almost got killed today.’ And it got me thinking about how different everything would be without him. How much easier it would be.”
Her face lit up as she stroked the metal tool in her hands. It was as if suddenly she remembered it was there. Jessica swallowed hard. Her eyes were fixed on the tool—thick metal, almost a foot and a half long, with its sharp, claw-like tip.
She was smiling as she asked, “Do you know what this is, Jessie?”
Jessica shifted back in her seat. “Uh, no,” she replied uneasily. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before.”
“It’s called a cat’s paw. Isn’t that a wonderful name? I found it at one of Jim’s stores. I don’t know what it’s used for. Normally, I mean. What I’ve been using it for is to reach out and take a couple of swats . . . just like a cat.” She laughed.
Then she grew serious. “I’m sorry, Jessie. I really am. But now that you know everything, I’m afraid there’s just no other way.”
Lorraine’s hands were clasped tightly around the cat’s paw. As she raised it up into the air, there was a determined look on her face, as if she were about to perform some chore that was not particularly pleasant, but nevertheless necessary.
The blood was throbbing through Jessica’s temples, so loud it seemed to drown out everything else. She put up her arms, grabbing at the tool, defending, vaguely aware that she was screaming.
And then all of a sudden, cutting through the noise, she heard someone yelling, “Jessie! Is everything okay? What’s going on in there?”
It took her a few seconds to process it, to realize that what she had heard was real and not merely a fantasy. And then there was Nikki’s face at the window, peering in at her with a frantic look, just a few inches away on the other side of the glass.
Beside her, she heard a moan. She could feel the tension in the car dissipate, like the air coming out of a balloon. Nikki began slamming on the window with her fist, screaming, “Open up! Open up!”
Lorraine crumpled up in the front seat, like a used tissue that someone had discarded. She began crying softly, sobbing into the steering wheel. But instead of hearing sadness or even fear, Jessica recognized the sound of great relief.
“It’s over now,” Jessica said gently. She reached over and placed her hand on Lorraine’s shoulder. But the other woman didn’t seem to notice.
And then the parking lot was coming alive with the shriek of sirens and bright blinking lights. Two police cars pulled up beside them with the screech of rubber against tarmac. As Jessica reached back and felt around until she located the proper button and finally unlocked the car door, she was embarrassed on Lorraine’s behalf. How humiliating, having it all end like this.
Despite her moment of sympathy, however, she couldn’t climb out of the car fast enough.
“Thank God, Nikki!’’ Jessica gasped, throwing herself in her friend’s arms as four police officers, three men and a woman, surrounded Lorraine’s car. They looked nervous, but Jessica knew that the danger was past.
She stood there in the cold parking lot, clinging to Nikki, burying her face in her coat as she made desperate sobbing sounds. Nikki hugged her tightly, then finally drew back to look at her.
“Are you all right, Jess?”
Jessica hiccupped a few times as she nodded. “I think so. Yes, I’m fine. At least I am now. Oh, Nikki, how did you find me? How did you know?’’
“I called your house to apologize about last night. I’d been feeling so bad about it, Jess. Anyway, when your baby-sitter told me you’d gone out shopping, I remembered what you said last night about going to the mall tonight with Lorraine.
“After I hung up, I started thinking about what you’d told me over at Los Amigos. About the murders and Lorraine and Terry. And the comment I made about Lorraine’s kid . . . and the hair ribbons. Suddenly it all just snapped into place. That business about the purple ribbons and all. I figured it out. And suddenly I had this gut feeling that you were in trouble.”
“Nikki, you saved my life.”
The flow of adrenaline that had been getting Jessica through these last five or ten minutes suddenly ran out. She could feel her knees about to give way. Once again she grabbed her friend, barely able to stand up on her own. The fact that she had come extremely close to being victim number four, a body discovered in the parking lot of a shopping mall, was finally sinking in.
She glanced over at the Volvo and saw that one of the police officers had just snapped a pair of handcuffs on the sobbing Lorraine and was now leading her toward one of the police cars.
“Who’s gonna drive her car?” one of the others called.
The female police officer, meanwhile, came over and laid a comforting hand on Jessica’s arm.
“Do you want to press charges?” she asked.
Jessica shook her head. “I think poor Lorraine already has enough to deal with.’’
The police officer gave her a funny look. “All right, then. We’ll still have to ask you some questions, so we’ll be in touch. In the meantime, why don’t you go home and get some rest? You look like you need it. Hey, you gonna be all right?”
Jessica nodded meekly.
She was vaguely aware of the sound of the slamming of car doors, followed by the starting up of the motors of the police cars and the Volvo. For another few seconds, bright headlights and red blinkers cut into the darkness of the night. And then they were driving away, leaving Jessica and Nikki standing alone together in the parking lot.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” Nikki said. “Are you positive you’re all right?’’
“I’m fine, really. Just a little shaky, that’s all.”
“You don’t want to stop at the emergency room? Get something for your nerves?’’
Jessica shook her head.
“Well, then, how about a good stiff drink? My treat.”
Jessica laughed. “I just want to go home.”
She stood for a moment, watching the vanishing cars. All the while she was trying to digest the fact that her cupcake-baking, soap-opera-watching next-door neighbor was in fact a coldblooded murderer.
“Hey, Jess?” Nikki asked in a soft, strained voice as she opened the car door for her friend and ushered her in. “Did she tell you why she did it?”
“Yes, she did. And do you know what? This might sound really crazy, but I actually understand.”
“So what was it, Jess? What was it all about?”
Jessica sighed. “I guess what it all comes down to is that Lorraine was finding that putting too much sugar in her husband’s coffee simply wasn’t enough anymore.”
Chapter Twenty
The glaring overhead light in the kitchen seemed warm and comforting as Jessica and Nikki sat at the table, nursing their second cups of coffee. Even though she was drinking decaf, Jessica knew that sleep would not come to her easily. After calling David, she had felt very much alone, and she was grateful that her friend had agreed to stay with her. Being in the house with no one but Sammy, lying in bed and listening to the numbers of her digital clock radio click into a new position every sixty seconds, would have been too much for her to handle.
“So, Jess, you never showed me the new sweater you got at the mall tonight,” Nikki joked.
“What price vanity?” Jessica returned grimly. “Actually, I left it in Lorraine’s car. It’ll probably show up at the trial, marked Exhibit Z or something.”
“Right, along with the cat’s paw and the purple ribbons and the bride’s edition of The Joy of Cooking.’’ Nikki shook her head as she returned her half-empty mug to the table, pushing it away as if this
time she truly intended to leave the stuff alone. “I still don’t get it, Jess. How could she do it?”
“It just goes to show you what anger can do,” Jessica replied calmly. “Especially the pent-up kind.”
“I guess hers was of king-size proportions. Or maybe I should say family-size.” Nikki shook her head slowly. “Poor Lorraine.”
Suddenly she stopped herself. “Wow, did you hear what I just said? ‘Poor Lorraine?’ Imagine, me thinking of a serial killer as someone deserving of my sympathy. And yet... and yet I really understand what she must have been feeling.” In a soft voice, she added, “I know I’ve felt that way sometimes. That sense of being stuck, not believing that I could ever go out and get what I want for myself.’’
Jessica nodded. “I keep thinking about my mother. Mainly about how she always felt she didn’t deserve very much. You know, it’s funny. Our mothers were saying to us, ‘Go out and make a place for yourself in the world. Demand more for yourselves than we ever did.’ But the example they were setting for us made it hard.’’
“Lorraine didn’t even have that much,” Nikki said. “I don’t think she even understood the idea of ever wanting more for herself. It was totally beyond her. She was the kind of woman who felt guilty if she insisted on watching what she wanted on television instead of what her husband wanted to watch. Or her kids, for that matter.”
“Guilt,” Jessica repeated, taking a sip of decaf without tasting it.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, ‘guilt.’ It’s funny; the last time I saw my brother Peter, he put this strange question to me. He asked me what purpose guilt served for me. At the time, I didn’t know the answer. But now I realize that feeling guilty keeps us from having to face what we really want. For ourselves, not for other people.”
“Yeah, feeling as if we deserve to put ourselves first; that’s a heavy one, isn’t it?” Nikki sighed. “It seems as if somewhere along the way, a lot of us women seem to have lost that, doesn’t it?”
Jessica nodded in agreement, “I think it happened somewhere between playing with toy kitchens and trying to get the boys in junior high to like us.”
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