“Ah, yes. I remember him well. He tried to run. It was most amusing. He squealed like a rabbit and went from side to side. This way and that. He kept tripping over himself. But at the end he turned and faced me. And stood as straight as he could.”
A manly man at the last. “He’s the one that got you, you know. The one who buried the handkerchief.”
Ferguson’s eye’s widened with anger. “Now, there’s irony for you.”
The next blow was a glancing one to my head. Not hard enough to knock me out. I suspected he knew all about torture. How much a victim can take. I reeled. His skills would have been honed in Afghanistan.
“If it’s not revenge against my sister, what?”
“Money, honey. There’s this man who wants to build private prisons here in Kansas.” He smirked. “All that space going to waste. They are looking for a top-notch psychologist to oversee it. And naturally, they couldn’t do any better than me.”
Another movement so fast that I barely saw it. The pain in my elbow was so intense I thought I would pass out.
“And all we had to do was to knock the hell out of your little half-assed regional center. Just a nudge or two more and the press will be asking for your head. Inept, stupid bitch.”
My finger this time. His movements were as skilled as a dancer. I stood us straight as I could manage. Do it for Franklin. Do it for Franklin. He stood at the end. Like a manly man.
“Did Dimon know? Is Frank in on this?”
“That wimp? He’s not worth dealing with. Stubborn starch-shirted fraud.”
My face would be next, I guessed. I stood full square.
The air quickened. Dorothy. Came up behind Ferguson.
Suddenly his eyes widened and a metallic tip emerged from his stomach. Ferguson’s mouth flew open and his face froze in disbelief.
He stared at the blade. His arms flailed toward his back in a useless flapping motion. Rage tightened his throat and choked off his words. Words that strained toward me. Words that yearned to destroy me. Steal my soul. Then he slowly sank to the floor like the air escaping from a balloon.
Incredulous I looked at Keith’s aunt—then down at the walking stick Ferguson still clung to. Carved with the murder of crows.
It was missing the very top.
Blood gushed from Ferguson’s middle. Dorothy had hit the aorta. Then without removing the weapon, she braced one foot on his body, levered it upward and sideways to nick the heart.
“A sword cane,” I gasped. “Your walking stick is a sword cane!”
“Yes.” Dorothy viewed Ferguson with curiosity and not a trace of remorse. “He was evil through and through.” She wiped the blade on his shirt and returned it to the shaft, carefully lining up the murder of crows.
“But where? Where was it?”
“Up the sleeve of my coat.” She was matter-of-fact—neither victorious or regretful. “Historically, that’s why people greet by shaking their right hands. To make sure they don’t have a weapon up their sleeve.”
“Call,” I mumbled. “His body. We’ve got to call. Keith, Sam. Everyone.” My voice shook. I couldn’t think straight because of the pain.
“There is no landline out here and he made it a point to leave his cell in Topeka, remember?” She was eerily calm as though Ferguson was a character in her book.
“Merilee. We’ve got to get her out of here.”
“Get his keys,” Dorothy ordered.
They were on the floor about three feet from Ferguson. I scooped them up and went to the door leading to the room where Merilee was confined. When I opened it she was huddled in a corner wrapped in a blanket. Her eyes were vacant and there was no movement. I pulled her to her feet and forced her to walk.
“It’s over, Merilee. You’re safe now. Come with us. We’ll get you help. Decent food. Your parents. A hospital.”
God only knew how long it would take to restore this child’s soul if it could be done at all. I threw one of Merilee’s arms around my uninjured shoulder and Dorothy supported the other arm. I shuddered when I passed Ferguson’s body. I had a sick vision of him rising from the dead. I hobbled to the door and bolted it behind us.
Just in case.
We struggled upstairs. Our purses lay on a kitchen cabinet. My gun was still inside. No doubt he had left it there because he knew he wouldn’t need it. No doubt he thought he could easily outwit two women. Besides, he preferred slower methods.
We made it to the fence and then closed the gate. Dorothy stayed in front of it with Merilee and I went to the outbuilding where Ferguson had housed his Volkswagen. There was no way to call from his car but at least I knew how to use a stick shift.
Throbbing with pain, I drove over to the two women. It didn’t take long to reach I-70 and the nearest filling station.
Once inside, I asked the startled clerk for the use of his landline.
I choked back tears and called home.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Three days later, I felt ridiculously pampered lying on the sofa in front of the fire. Keith wouldn’t let me out of his sight. He brought me food and books and lugged a TV set down to the great room so I could binge-watch. I had a concussion, a broken collar bone, a chipped elbow, and massive bruising on my thigh from where Ferguson had bludgeoned me with the walking stick. I couldn’t stop sleeping, which was supposed to be a good thing.
Dorothy was receiving the same treatment but she wanted to sit in a recliner so she could knit when she was awake. Her fingers still worked. Badly bruised from being slammed against the wall, she was in agony and on pain pills for the first time in her life. She had been ordered to move as little as possible and give her body a chance to heal. Keith brought her fresh ice compresses and fetched anything she desired. It would be a while before either of us regained our energy.
Despite Dorothy’s black-and-blue appearance, an occasional smile crept across her usually impassive face because there had been a breathless call from her agent yesterday. Her latest mystery had shot to the top of the New York Times best-seller list. Our ordeal had made the national news. Talk shows came courting.
Sam was at our house from early in the morning until late at night. Yesterday he had shyly presented Dorothy with three skeins of cashmere yarn. “Know you like to keep your hands busy. The shopkeeper told me this is enough for a shawl. You can exchange it for a different color if you want to. It’s sort of a crème color,” he needlessly pointed out. “Knew you wouldn’t want anything too gaudy.”
“It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. What a wonderful gift. Thank you so very much, you dear thoughtful man.”
Touched, I looked away.
***
Today when we were finally alone together I asked Dorothy the question that had been bugging me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She understood immediately. She laid her knitting on her lap. Her chair was positioned so she could see my face. Her gaze was stern, but kindly. “Because you would have taken it away from me. Insisted on it. You’re younger, far stronger. And God only knows more agile. Quick. Smart. But you couldn’t handle it.”
I started to protest, then said nothing.
“The blade is razor sharp. Damascus steel. I was trained in its use. To kill someone with a single thrust—especially from the back—requires a specific motion. We could never have managed to do this from the front. He would have disarmed us immediately. You saw how easily he took away the walking stick shaft and used it against us.”
I drew in a sharp breath and struggled to take all this in. All the time I’d been yelling, pleading, trying to outwit Ferguson, she obviously had been planning, plotting, trying out different scenarios in her mind.
“And this depended on surprise, Lottie. Surprise is a mystery writer’s specialty. What we are never quite sure about in the beginning becomes clear in the ending.”
She wasn’t finished. I could tell by the hardening of her features that I was going to receive one of her little lectures.
“I could not count on you to keep a sword cane a surprise. I’ve watched you. Studied you. No. It would not be a surprise. It would be written on your face. Too often what you are thinking is there in your eyes. I couldn’t risk it.”
“You were trained, Dorothy? Actually trained to use a sword cane?”
“Of course. Do you think mystery authors just make up all the interesting research in their books? I visit locales, take courses, contact experts. I owe it to my readers to make all the details as accurate as possible.” She picked up her knitting and gave me a haughty gaze.
“That’s why I’m on the best-seller list.”
***
Josie came that afternoon. Tosca preceded her into the room and jumped onto Dorothy’s lap. I struggled into a sitting position. My sister and I hugged and I started crying as she stroked my hair.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Sorry I didn’t realize in time. Even after I realized why I was haunted by that dream and the meaning of ‘not buying it.’ I knew he had a narcissistic disorder and clung to whacko theories, but that describes every other psychologist I know. We hate to give up our pet ideas. It took far too long for me to realize he was dangerous.”
“He was evil,” I said flatly. “Pure evil.”
“Yes. I could throw a lot of names at you. Malignant narcissist, sadistic sociopath, anti-social personality disorder, and cite study after study. Blaming genetics, blaming the environment, blaming this or that, but ‘evil’ covers it. Ferguson was in a class all by himself.”
“Dimon is the one who dropped the ball. He told me that Ferguson had been thoroughly vetted and he couldn’t have been. He lied on his application and said he was.”
“He was vetted,” Josie said. “Harold checked. But he said sociopaths can beat a lot of tests and someone like Ferguson, who is brilliant and trained, knows all the answers. Since they don’t feel guilt and remorse, they breeze right through lie detector tests.”
She headed for the closet with her coat and hat. Earlier, Keith had thrown cedar logs on the fire and the odor wafted through the room. After Josie settled into a recliner, I passed her a bowl of popcorn.
“No thanks. I ate a late lunch.”
A music channel on the TV played arias from old musicals. Soft. Pleasant. Sunshine spotlighted a patch on the floor. The room was warm. Everything as comfortable as could be.
But my soul was chilled. “Tell me about Merilee.”
“Not good, Lottie. Too much damage for her to be restored by simply going home. In fact, I don’t know if home will ever be the same for her. Or her parents. Right now I want her to skip the rest of her school year and maybe it won’t be a good idea for her ever to go back to her class.”
I cringed at the thought of the lewd questions she would be subjected to under the guise of compassion.
“So where?”
“Right now she is at my house. Wrapped in satin and given every luxury I can dream up. Perfume and bubble baths. Which she takes three times a day, I might add.”
“Splendid!” Startled, Tosca looked up when Dorothy boomed her approval.
“There is no hospital, no place, no group that I am aware of that could possibly help her at this time. And her parents are in only slightly better shape. But they are relieved that their daughter is in an absolutely safe environment. They can e-mail and phone Merilee every day.”
I had been with Merilee when she was reunited with her family. They all hugged and cried and wept but when it was time for them all to go home, Merilee screamed in protest and pulled away. “No,” she wailed. “No.”
Joyce Latimer had been picked at random. Because she was there. Walking alone on a gorgeous fall day under a cloudless sky. In love. Full of hope. She was the victim of a “crime of opportunity” committed by a sociopath who used the baby to taunt the law. Despite seeing Ferguson’s dead body, Merilee was still terrified of suffering the same fate. She dreaded being alone. Dreamed of empty stretches of road. Barren landscapes. Pursued by monsters.
“Patricia and Ernie may have to leave Western Kansas too. But for right now their biggest challenge will be to pull themselves together. And I’m going to do everything I can to help them. Even if I have to pay for a place for them to stay in a tranquil setting for a month or so. On the other hand, they are church-going people and members of a loving congregation. Being around people who have been their friends all their lives may be the best route to go.”
“And their farm is homestead land. Ernie might never get over leaving it.”
“Yes, and spring isn’t too far off. Ernie will be out in the sunshine working the land. Blue sky overhead. The smell of dirt. Growth. I suspect that will do more good than any advice from a psychologist.”
Especially from a psychologist. Right at this moment I hated psychologists. Sisters excepted, of course.
“A friend of mine has agreed to see Merilee. Dr. Shore’s the best at treating this type of trauma, although I doubt she’s seen anything to equal this. Merilee has lost her brother. She associates her home with ghosts and voices. She did tell me she had asked Ferguson why her family had been singled out. He told her searching for Brent was the only way to draw people to the Garden of Eden. And of course, the only way he got Brent there was to tell him Joyce was alive and waiting for him.”
“But he couldn’t have planned on Dorothy and me going there.”
“No. You two were there by blind chance and worked into his plans perfectly.”
Suddenly she lost her professional tone and shook with fury “Goddamn that bastard. Now I understand revenge killers who take the law into their own hands.” Tears streamed down Josie’s face. “Sorry.” She whistled to Tosca who jumped off of Dorothy’s lap. “We’re going for a walk.”
By the time Josie returned, Keith had finished choring. She had regained her composure and was ready to question him.
“Joyce Latimer? Did you find her body?”
“Yes. We didn’t need the cadaver dog this time. Since we knew what we were looking for from the very beginning, it was easy to spot the most recent dig. Ferguson didn’t even require special tools because the forensic team had turned over so much soil.”
Josie nodded sadly, knowing the stages of decomposition and the likely state of Joyce’s body.
Keith stared at the fire. “People always talk about ‘closure’ but I don’t think there is any. The Latimers were glad to get her remains and will have a real burial and that’s some comfort. I guess they can sort of move on.”
“Doesn’t happen,” Josie said. “Not really. It’s a myth.”
“And the first baby? The one found ten years ago in the Elizabeth Polly Park? Who was the mother?” Dorothy asked.
“We may never know.” I readjusted my quilt. “We have the baby’s DNA. And the DNA of thousands of missing girls are in the national databases, but most are not. There may never be a match.”
“I’m going to back to New York,” Dorothy said abruptly. “I want to go home, where’s there’s a lower crime rate per capita. But I’ve decided to buy my little house here in Gateway City and come back from time to time. A small town will add an extra dimension to my research.”
We all applauded. And to see a certain sheriff, I thought.
***
Dimon leaped his feet when I entered the room. His face blanched when he saw the extent of my injuries. Keith had volunteered to come in with me but I wanted to face Dimon alone.
“Lottie, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I had no idea.”
“There’s an old saying out our way…‘He who would sup with the Devil should use a long spoon.’”
He looked away. “Not quite sure I follow,” he mumbled.
“Oh, I think
you do. It means if you mess with lying hypocrites for the sake of money, you aren’t going to be able to keep enough of a distance. Not money—funding, as you call it. Sounds a little better, but not much.”
“I swear I didn’t know, Lottie.”
“I believe you didn’t have a clue that injecting Ferguson into our investigation was a ploy to sabotage the regional center, but you’re dining with Devil when you mess with the PAC in back of Timothy Williams. He’s a dolt. A tool. A play toy.”
He splayed his fingers across his face and then dragged them down over his features and revealed bloodshot eyes, deeper lines in his face.
“They are letting me take the fall.”
I didn’t have to ask who. The press was roasting him alive.
I looked at him for a few more minutes. He had been used. And he was fundamentally a good man. I intended to set the record straight. Lift the pillars like a female Samson and bring the temple down.
***
The morning was winter bright. The sky overhead was an intense blue. I looked out from our podium at a sea of people, not only from Topeka but from all over the state. I turned to the line of dignitaries on the platform with me. I still looked like hell but took a perverse pleasure in showing the good people of this state how close I had come to getting killed.
I nodded my head and an honor guard proceeded up the steps to the stage. Following was the entire Northwest Kansas Regional Team. The crowd rose to its feet and the crescendo of voices exploded when Dorothy appeared. She held her head high and gave a queenly nod of acknowledgment. She had helped me research the details that would form the foundation of my acceptance speech.
The governor gave a touching introduction and officially launched the Northwest Kansas Regional Crime Center. His praise reached to heaven. Then he acknowledged the various members of the team. One after another they came forward and received their medals. There hadn’t been this enthusiastic a reception since the Royals won the pennant.
It was my turn. I stepped up to the microphone and gazed at my notes although it was unlikely that I needed them for what I was going to say. Cheers rose. I choked back tears and held up my hand for them to stop.
Fractured Families Page 28
