Dead Even

by Mariah Stewart

  Jesus.

  He stopped shaking for a minute. Miranda Cahill—he cringed at the irony—had been here just the day before yesterday. He could have told her. He could still tell her. He could get the FBI to help him. Protect him.

  Yeah, Miz Cahill, you were right. It was just supposed to be a game, that’s all. Something to pass the time while we were in the courthouse waiting. I swear to you, it wasn’t supposed to happen. I never thought it was going to happen. But then, see, Channing got out, and he did Vince’s hits. Then Vince, he gets out, and he’s thinking, hey, Channing did it, I have to do it, too. That’s what I think happened, anyway. I think Vince didn’t want to feel like Channing was, you know, a tougher man than he was. So then, Vince is out, and he picks up the game, and he does . . . he does these people that I had said pissed me off. I didn’t really want them to die, you gotta understand that. I never thought anyone was really gonna die. . . .

  He whimpered aloud.

  And then I get out, and all I want to do is just live my life. Get a job. Find a girl. Live my life. I had no intention of playing out the game.

  And then this guy came along and said I had to. . . .

  And what was he going to say when they asked him who the stranger was?

  “I don’t know,” he said aloud. “I don’t know who he is. I never even seen his face. . . .”

  Like anyone is going to believe that.

  Archer hugged himself in the dark, and tried to think of a way out of the mess he’d gotten himself into, preferably one that would not require him to kill or, in the alternative, to be killed.

  Right at that moment, he wasn’t sure which would be worse.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Claire Channing was watching from the living room window of her well-kept white clapboard ranch house as the man and woman crossed her lawn, headed for her front door. Even if they hadn’t given her the courtesy of a phone call, she’d have known just by looking at them that they were law. She’d seen more than enough law enforcement types over the past six months. After the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of her foster son, Curtis, had concluded, she’d thought she’d seen the last of them.

  Apparently not. Her face was etched with sadness as the doorbell rang. Would there never be an end to the questions?

  “I appreciate you being on time,” she said wearily as she opened the door.

  “Mrs. Channing, I’m Special Agent Miranda Cahill. We spoke earlier on the phone.” In the agent’s left hand were her credentials.

  Claire Channing had seen her share of those over the past months, as well.

  “I’m Agent Fletcher, ma’am.” The second agent introduced himself.

  “Do come in, Agent Cahill, Agent Fletcher.” Mrs. Channing stepped back, offering a weak smile as the two agents eased past her. “I’m afraid things are a bit disheveled right now. . . .”

  “You’re moving?” Agent Cahill asked.

  “Yes. With everything that’s happened over the past several months, I just need . . .” Mrs. Channing shook her head.

  “A change of scenery.” Agent Cahill completed the sentence for her. “Of course you do. I’m sure this whole matter has been terribly stressful for you, Mrs. Channing. It’s very nice of you to give Agent Fletcher and me a few minutes of your time. We won’t keep you any longer than necessary, I promise.”

  “Thank you. It has been an ordeal.” Mrs. Channing sat on the arm of a club chair; several boxes had been stacked on its seat. “After Curtis . . . well, there was so much . . . commotion. Reporters and police, it just got to be too much. I spent some time in Florida with my sister, and that time away made me realize that there really wasn’t anything to hold me here anymore. My husband has been gone these years, and Curtis . . . Curtis won’t be coming back. So I listed the house for sale, and the agent found a buyer. We settle in two weeks. It’s taking me longer than I expected to pack, though. It’s not easy to pack up fifty-two years of your life in a month’s time, you know.”

  “I’m sure it’s very difficult for you, Mrs. Channing. We’ll make this as easy for you as we can,” Will assured her.

  “Well, then. What exactly do you need to know that no one else has asked me over the past six months?”

  “Can you think of anyone Curtis might have had a grievance against? Someone he might have wanted to take revenge on?” Agent Cahill appeared to choose her words carefully.

  “What kind of a question is that?” Claire Channing was taken aback. “Curtis is dead. What is this talk of revenge?”

  “Mrs. Channing, we have reason to believe that before Curtis died, he and two other men made a pact . . . an agreement.” More carefully chosen words from Miranda Cahill.

  “A pact?” Mrs. Channing frowned. “What kind of a pact? What are you talking about?”

  “They made an agreement to kill for one another, Mrs. Channing,” Will Fletcher said. “The women whom Curtis killed earlier this year—all have ties to one of the other two men. Then, two months ago, two people having ties to another of the men was killed by the second. We believe a third man is about to kill three people having ties to Curtis.”

  “This is crazy. Just crazy.” Mrs. Channing walked out of the room. The agents followed.

  “Mrs. Channing—”

  “This is crazy talk, Agent Cahill.” Claire Channing sat at the table in the sun-filled kitchen, staring at her hands. “Curtis . . . killed those women. I know he did that. But it was because of what had happened to him so long ago, when he was just a little boy. It wasn’t for revenge or for anything like what you’re talking about.”

  She looked from one agent to the other, appealing for their understanding.

  “Things happened to him. Things that made him . . . not right. Not that it’s an excuse for what he did to all those women. I know nothing could excuse what he did. But if you understood what happened to him, you’d know that there was something inside him that just wasn’t right. And God help him, it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t ask for those terrible things to be done to him.”

  “We know, Mrs. Channing. We’ve read the files,” Will told her gently. “We know what happened to him . . . what his mother did to him.”

  “Then you know that he just . . . couldn’t help but be what he was. How could any child be right when they’ve had to endure such abominations. And at the hands of their own mother.” Tears started down her face, and she ignored them. “We tried, Marshall and I, to make it up to him. To give him a good home. Love. A family. Good times. Good memories. We tried to make up for all the bad. But it wasn’t enough, you see. It could never be enough. . . .”

  “You and your husband did your best, Mrs. Channing.” Miranda knelt in front of the elderly woman and took her hands in her own. “If one thing was clear from reading the files, it’s that you and Mr. Channing were the best thing that ever happened to Curtis. He cared a great deal for you. But there’s no way that you could change what happened to him, and you weren’t responsible for that.”

  “This . . . this revenge thing you’re suggesting.” Mrs. Channing shivered. “This is different. It’s colder, somehow.”

  “We’re sorry to have upset you, Mrs. Channing, but we need to know if you can think of anyone from his past—from high school, even—whom Curtis would have wanted to . . . hurt.” Miranda spoke softly.

  “You were going to say kill.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t think of a soul.” The elderly woman shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry. I can’t think of anyone Curtis ever had problems with.”

  Miranda handed her a business card.

  “My phone numbers are on here, Mrs. Channing. If you think of someone . . . someone he didn’t get along with, or someone who gave him a hard time . . .”

  “I can’t think of a one. He had a few friends in school, not many. He was a loner. But he got along with everyone. I never heard him say anything negative about anyone.”

  “If you remembe
r anything . . . any incident, however small or insignificant it may seem . . .”

  “Of course, Agent Cahill. I will call you.”

  “Thank you.” Miranda stood. “I’m sorry we upset you.”

  Claire Channing merely nodded her head.

  “We’ll see ourselves out,” Will told her. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Channing.”

  Once outside, Miranda exhaled a long, slow breath.

  “That was painful,” she said as they walked to the car. “Poor, poor woman. After all she’s gone through, all the pain of the past few months, she finally thinks it’s all behind her, then we turn up, asking questions. Bringing it all back . . .”

  “What’s the likelihood she’s forgotten?” Will asked as he unlocked the rental car.

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s on her mind at least once every day. She’ll never get over it.”

  She slid into the passenger seat and strapped herself in.

  “How do you get over something like that?” Will started the car and checked the rearview mirror before pulling out onto the road. “You think you’re doing something wonderful, you take in this little boy who’s had such a tragic life. You give him a loving home; you treat him as if he’s your own flesh and blood, and in spite of it all, he grows up to be a serial killer.”

  “She seems like such a sweet woman.”

  “She is.”

  They drove in silence for several miles.

  “So what now?” Miranda asked.

  “On to Albert Unger.”

  “He should be easy enough to find. Assuming he’s still working at the same place he was working when Aidan and Mara found him.”

  “I hope so. He’s the closest thing we have to a potential victim,” Miranda reminded him.

  “So, what do we say when we find him?”

  “I’m still working on that. I’m hoping that, by the time we reach Telford, I’ll have that figured out. . . .”

  There was silence for several miles, until Miranda broke it. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said, “did you specifically ask for this car, or was this all they had left at the rental-car place today?”

  “Few things happen by accident, Cahill.” He smiled. He was wondering when she’d say something about the truly ugly bottom-of-the-line sedan he’d leased.

  “Really? You really called the rental agency and asked for the slowest, oldest, butt-ugliest car they had?”

  “You know that budgetary restrictions determine what car we can get,” he said loftily, his eyes straight ahead on the road before them.

  “Most of us manage to do a little better than this. Think it will make it all the way to Telford?”

  “Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

  “Wake me up when we get there.” She closed her eyes.

  “You’re supposed to be thinking of an opening line for our approach to Unger.”

  “I’m sleeping on it, Fletcher.” Her eyes still closed, she reached her hand down next to the seat, searching for the controls. Finding it, she slid the seat back as far as it would go and stretched out her long legs. “I do some of my best work with my eyes closed.”

  Amen, he silently agreed. Amen . . .

  Archer Lowell stumbled along the perimeter of the field, then headed for the woods well beyond the trailer camp.

  “Don’t like this,” he muttered to himself. “Don’t want to do this . . .”

  The gun that he’d shoved into the waistband of his jeans was cold and heavy and foreign. Today would mark the third day in a row he’d spent at the shooting range, practicing putting a single hole in the middle of the bull’s-eye. Just like the stranger—Burt, he’d said his name was—had told him to do. Practice, practice, practice.

  “Yeah, well, I practiced,” he said aloud. “Today’s the last day I’m doing this. I know how to shoot the damned gun. Don’t know what he thinks I am, that I have to keep going back. I told him I done good enough with it the first day. But nooooo.”

  Archer kicked at a clump of dry earth in his path.

  “Just all craziness, anyway,” he mumbled as he walked along. “I hate him. Hate him. I should use this fucking gun on him, that’s what I should do.”

  He kicked another clump.

  “Making me do this thing I don’t want to do. Kill some man I don’t even know. Shit.”

  His hands started to shake just thinking about it. He was going to have to kill a man. Burt had given him until Friday to leave for Ohio, which was where this guy Unger lived. He already had his bus ticket. Burt had bought it for him and left it in his mailbox.

  Shit. He wiped at his nose with his sleeve as he walked along. At the very least, Burt coulda driven him. Who takes a Greyhound to make a hit?

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  At twenty-five minutes past midnight, in the empty movie theater, the frail, stooped man slid his broom under the front row of seats. Methodically, he swept the debris into a central pile.

  “Mr. Unger?” Will said. He and Miranda approached the old man slowly, so as not to alarm him.

  “I’m Al Unger.” The man stopped pushing the broom he held with both hands and leaned upon it, his expression guarded.

  “My name is Will Fletcher. This is Miranda Cahill. We’re with the FBI.”

  “Jesus, not again.” Unger looked from one agent to the other. “Curt come back from the dead and kill someone else?”

  “Not yet,” Miranda told him. “But we’re thinking he might do just that, in a manner of speaking.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I know he’s dead. I was one of the few people at his funeral who actually knew him.”

  “We’re aware of that, Mr. Unger.” Miranda hesitated. “Is there someplace we can talk?”

  Unger gestured toward the empty movie theater.

  “Got the whole theater to ourselves. Oughta be good enough.”

  “How about we sit down here in the front?” Will pointed to the row of seats.

  “Long as it don’t hold me up too long. I don’t want to miss my bus,” Unger told them as he sat. “Now, what the hell is this all about, talking about Curtis coming back from the dead? What kind of nonsense is that?”

  Miranda and Will filled him in on the FBI’s theory.

  “You have got to be kidding. You think Curt asked someone else to kill me?” Unger’s eyebrows shot up nearly to his sparse hairline. “Why in the name of God would he do that?”

  “Before Curtis died, he’d been holding a woman captive. Her name was Anne Marie McCall. She’s an FBI profiler,” Miranda told him.

  “I remember that. She was the sister of that girl Curt been trying to find.”

  Miranda nodded.

  “Curt told Dr. McCall that he hated you for killing his mother.”

  Unger stared at Miranda blankly.

  “Hated me for that? For killing her and stopping his suffering? Shit.” Unger shook his head. “You’d think he’d a been thanking me. Why would he hate me for that?”

  “Because he’d wanted to kill her himself.”

  Unger nodded slowly. “That, I can understand. I can understand why he would have wanted to been the one . . . but he was just a little boy then. Eight, nine, maybe. If she’d a kept on doing what she’d been doing to him, he wouldn’t have lived long enough to grow up.”

  “That’s probably true, Mr. Unger,” Miranda agreed.

  “But the problem we have now,” Will told him, “is that someone else might be thinking about doing that job for him.”

  “Curt killed someone for him, you said, so you figure now this other person is going to kill me for Curt?”

  “Close enough.” Will nodded.

  “Well, then, best I can do is watch my back.” Albert Unger stood slowly. “Any idea what this guy looks like? The one who wants to kill me?”

  “He’s young, about twenty. Tall, lanky. Bad skin . . .” Miranda opened the leather bag that hung from her shoulder.

  Unger started to laugh.

 
; “Miss, that’s a fair description of maybe half the young men who come into this theater.”

  “Maybe this will help.” She handed him a photograph. “That’s his mug shot. He looks a bit different these days. His hair’s a bit longer; he’s lost some weight. . . .”

  “Still looks like half the kids I see on any given day. I can’t be running every time some young kid comes through that door.”

  “We’re not suggesting that. We just want you to be aware of people. A little more watchful, maybe. And here.” She took a card out of her wallet. “If you even think someone is watching you, if anyone makes you feel uncomfortable, or uneasy, I want you to call me. Stay right where you are until we can get someone to you, okay?”

  He studied the card, then slipped it into his pocket.

  “Sure. Thanks.” He stood up, leaning on the broom handle to get out of his seat. “You know, someone was by a few weeks ago. Some writer. Said he used to get mail from Curtis. Said he wants to talk to me, maybe do a book about me and Curtis. That’d be something, wouldn’t it?”

  “It sure would,” Miranda agreed.

  “Well, I better get back to work here. I lock up, you know, after I’m done, and if I’m too late turning the lights off, the local cops come in to see what’s going on, and the boss always hears about it. Thanks for letting me know what’s what.”

  “You’re welcome. Just be careful.”

  “Will do, Agent . . .”

  “Fletcher,” Will told him.

  “Pleased to have met you.” Albert Unger went back to pushing his broom under the seats, and brought a wide swath of popcorn and candy wrappers into the light.

  “Mr. Unger,” Miranda paused on her way up the aisle, “what was the name of the writer who contacted you?”

  “Don’t remember, offhand.” Unger turned to her. “Got his card at home someplace, though.”

  “When you find it, or if he calls you again, will you let me know?”

  “Sure, sure.” The old man nodded. “Be glad to give you a call.”

  “Collect,” she called over her shoulder. “Call collect . . .”