Don't Turn Around
Page 33
Maury will be here any moment.
I try to imagine the surprise on his face when he was notified that he had a visitor. That an attorney was here to see him. He isn’t expecting me.
I suddenly find myself nervous, and I tug at the collar of my dress shirt. It feels tighter than usual.
I have waited a long time to meet Maury in person. I hope he isn’t angry that I have come. But no one will question my presence. No one did when I came in. No one will at a later date. There will be no connection to this event and the events that will follow.
I know that I can do this on my own, without Maury’s assistance. But he is the master of body disposal, so I have taken this tiny, calculated risk of meeting him in person.
And the true fact of the matter is that I seek his approval. I am entering a new realm. I am smart. Smarter than those around me. I can do what I set my mind to, but at this moment, I need a confidence boost.
Or maybe I am here to reward myself for my decision. For what I am about to do.
There’s a knock on the door, it opens, and Maury walks in. He is dressed in a khaki uniform with the name of the chicken plant he works for embroidered above his left breast pocket. He waits until the door closes before he looks at me.
I gesture to the chair. He sits. I am amazed by the way my heart rate rises at the sight of him. My pulse quickens. I am in the presence of a true master. I liken it to meeting a rock star or a movie star, only I am far more interested in conversing with this man than Lindsay Lohan or even Mick Jagger.
“Maury,” I say. It isn’t a question. I have seen photos of him. I have seen his criminal and FBI files. Although he has been questioned numerous times by the FBI in the disappearance of different women, he’s been in prison only twice before. Once when he was eighteen, for stealing a car, and again in his late twenties, for another petty crime. He is forty-two and, perhaps, at his prime.
“Your time’s almost up. What? Another fifty days?” I say, wanting to make idle conversation for a moment.
“Forty-one,” he says. He leans back in his chair. He is pleasant enough looking. Average height. Brown hair. Blue eyes. At a bar, in a grocery store, I would not notice him beyond thinking he was a pleasant enough looking fellow. Which is, of course, one of the reasons he’s so good at what he does. He blends in well.
“I have to leave for work in forty minutes, but you already know that, I bet.” He watches me. “So what brings you to my neck of the woods so early in the morning…Danni?”
I see a certain magnetism in his cool blue eyes. Another reason why he’s so good at what he does.
Maury plucks a pack of gum from his breast pocket. I know that he has a sweet tooth. I read it in his FBI file. He leans forward and offers the pack to me first.
He is polite, has such good manners.
“No, thank you,” I say.
He slides a stick of tangy cinnamon flavor out of the paper package, unwraps it, and curls the stick of red gum into his mouth.
“I don’t care for—”
“No need to explain yourself,” he interrupts me as he rests his forearms on the table.
Not quite as polite as he should be. But I remind myself that he has been in prison for more than a year.
“I’m curious,” I say, smelling the cinnamon gum on his breath. “Why were you selling oxy? That was a foolish gamble to take, and lose.”
“You’re right.” He shrugs. “Obviously, I didn’t intend to get caught.” He sits back in the chair again and stretches out one leg. “It was part of another ‘project’ I was working on.”
“I see,” I say. I am curious about this “project,” but I know it would be poor manners to ask about it.
“You should come out to the ranch sometime and visit my sister and me,” he says. “You would like her.”
I feel that he is assessing me. Despite our correspondence, I know that face-to-face first impressions are important. I cannot help but hope he finds me…acceptable. “I’m not sure it would be prudent for me to visit you, Maury.”
He shrugs again.
We both sit there for a moment, him still sizing me up. “How do you know me?”
“As I’ve told you before, I’m a fan.”
He narrows his pale blue eyes.
“I work in the justice system,” I say. “People talk. Because of my ‘interests,’ I’ve done some reading. Quite a few women have disappeared in the tristate area over the last decade.”
“I’ve never been arrested in connection with any of them,” Maury defends.
“No, but you’ve been questioned.” I watch him. “There are a couple of FBI agents keeping an eye on you; you should be careful.”
“I am careful.” He chews his gum for a moment. “Your letters were interesting. It was nice to keep up with what was going on on the outside. With our poor cousin…” He searches for the name.
“Dylan ,” I offer. I am relieved that he’s satisfied with my answer as to why I contacted him. How I know what he is. What he does.
“Dylan,” he repeats. “I’m curious. A B&E, robbery, carjacking. Quite a…what do you call it?” Maury asks, chewing the red gum. “Repertoire?” He waits and then goes on when I just smile. “My guess is copycat. We get the paper in here. We hear things. Talk. Every time you sent me one of those articles, something like it had happened before then.” He nods. “Pretty smart. Good way to cover your tracks. I’ve been known to do the same…in certain phases. What I want to know is, why?”
I consider telling him I’m not comfortable answering his question, but we don’t have a lot of time. I have to be in court in an hour and I must, sometime during the day, find time to go to Lowe’s, to purchase my supplies for my kit. If I am to get something from Maury, I know I must give him something. It seems a small price to pay, a simple explanation.
“Why?” I say philosophically. “Why not?”
He studies me. I know that he and I are different. That the needs that drive him are different from mine. His are cruder. I suspect that my simple, yet complex, explanation might be difficult for him to understand. “I do it because I can,” I say, an air of mystery in my voice. “Because I can get away with it. Because others will have to take the fall for it.”
I think about James. About the things he did for me, knowingly and unknowingly. I think about the surprised look on his face when he saw the noose. Even as high as he was, he knew he was in trouble.
But how could he not have known how it would end? When he agreed to follow Casey, when I gave him the money for drugs, surely he knew it would not end well.
“So that’s how you get your thrills, huh?” Maury asks, drawing me back to the conversation at hand. “Seeing other people go to jail for what you’ve done.”
It’s my turn to shrug. “I don’t care who goes to jail as long as I don’t.”
“Was that why you asked me to draw those pictures? So I could take the fall for you?”
“Certainly not. It was perfectly safe. And fun, don’t you think?”
“So that’s it? You do these things because you can? Because you think you’re smart enough to get away with them?”
“In a nutshell,” I conclude, trying not to sound haughty. “But don’t worry. I’m not going to become the competition. I don’t see myself getting into your line of work.”
He nods thoughtfully, chewing his gum, which no longer smells of cinnamon. Then he leans forward and rests his forearms on the old table, making eye contact with me. “Okay. So what can I do for you, Danni?” A faint smile.
Casey was packing up the Christmas ornaments in the dining room, placing them into boxes, when the phone rang. Her father was watching Rooster Cogburn on DVD.
Casey checked the Caller ID screen. It said “Unavailable.” She was tempted not to answer it. But at any given time, several of her clients had her cell number. It could be someone actually calling for her, and not another telemarketer.
“Casey McDaniel,” she said into the phone.
It had been a long day. Kate had been on Ed about going out on a date, him driving her Mercedes. Freckles had been acting odd; she was worried about something. He had asked her about it in the car on the way home from the old farts’ center; all she had said was that something bad had happened at work this week. She hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him what was going on, or why Lincoln and Adam were both calling her.
Ed had a bad feeling. Frazier did, too. He was hardly interested in his popcorn.
Ed half listened to the TV, half listened to Freckles, who was talking on her cell phone.
“Hey,” she said. “Where are you calling from? You didn’t come up on my Caller ID.”
She paused to listen.
Ed guessed it was Lincoln. She liked Lincoln. Ed liked him. She was having sex with him. Ed was not.
Ed tossed another kernel of popcorn and Frazier caught it in midair. They were eating low-fat popcorn because Ed was trying to trim his waist. If he and Kate were going out on a date, he needed to take a few pounds off.
“Oh, okay,” Freckles said. “Now? Sure.”
Again, she let Lincoln speak.
“See you in a couple of minutes.”
She hung up her cell phone and went back to wrapping ornaments in pieces of used wrapping paper they had saved from Christmas. She didn’t call out to tell him who had called. Who was coming over. Or why he was coming. That meant she thought it was none of his business, or she didn’t want to worry him, but he could guess.
It was Lincoln, and he was coming for sex.
She wrapped a couple more glass ornaments and then went to the front door, unlocked it, and switched on the porch light. On her way back, she glanced in the gold-framed mirror that had hung in their living room in College Park. Ed had always liked that mirror. He remembered Lorraine’s beautiful face in it. She always checked herself in mirror before they went out the door.
Freckles gazed into the mirror now. She smoothed her honey hair with its red highlights. She was primping. Lincoln made her happy. Ed was glad; she deserved to be happy.
Ed tossed another kernel of popcorn to the dog.
“I’m going to make some tea. You want some, Daddy?”
Ed ignored her. She knew he didn’t like tea. Did she think he was so old and feeble that he couldn’t remember he didn’t like tea? He turned up the volume on the TV, trying to block out some of the thoughts bouncing around in his head.
The iPod.
Freckles said she’d think about getting Frazier an iPod. Ed had his own money. He told her he could pay for it, but she said money wasn’t the issue. She said she didn’t know if she agreed Frazier needed an MP3 player.
Tea? The thoughts in his head were rebounding so haphazardly tonight that what he wished he had was a dry martini. Lorraine had always made the best martinis.
The front door opened and Ed glanced over his shoulder. He watched Richard Nixon walk through the door. Only it wasn’t the same Tricky Dick Ed had seen standing outside the window.
Frazier barked and Ed turned and grabbed Frazier’s collar. “Sit, boy,” he whispered, unsure of why he needed to be quiet. The hair on the back of Ed’s neck stood up and he ran his hand over it. The hair was prickly under his fingertips.
“In the kitchen,” Freckles called. “I’m making tea.”
Ed glanced toward the kitchen. Something wasn’t right. He had been wrong about the phone call. Apparently, it had not been Lincoln who had called, but Richard Nixon. It was all so confusing. Lincoln had been a president once, too. Gettysburg Address. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. November 1863.
Ed slipped his fingers through Frazier’s collar and stood, his knees creaking. It was time to get ready, though for what, he wasn’t entirely sure. What he did know was that he needed the gun. What he also knew was that Lincoln belonged in the house and Richard Nixon did not.
Chapter 34
“Hey,” Casey said, her back to him as she measured loose tea into the white teapot with painted lilacs. The teapot had been her grandmother’s. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you tonight. I thought you were working late.”
When he didn’t answer, she turned around. “Didn’t you—” Her throat constricted until nothing but a croak of sound came out.
A man stood in her kitchen. A man wearing a black sweatshirt and a full latex Richard Nixon mask.
Casey’s thoughts splintered into a hundred pieces as her pulse shot up, adrenaline rushing.
Her father hadn’t imagined Richard Nixon in the window. The man spying on them had been wearing a mask!
Staring at the intruder, Casey slipped her hand behind her, hoping to locate something on the counter to defend herself. A knife, a glass pitcher. Anything.
He lunged for her. “Don’t scream,” he warned, clamping his hand painfully over her wrist. “I’ve only come for you.” Catching her other hand, he then pulled both of her hands forward. “Make a sound and I’ll kill your father now. He’s watching TV. He can sit there and continue to watch TV or I can slit his throat. Your choice.”
Casey shook with fear. She didn’t recognize his voice, which was muffled by the latex mask. Why was this man wearing a Nixon mask? This was all too bizarre. It shouldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be. It had to be a dream. She thought she was making tea, but actually she was asleep. She was having a nightmare. A bad one. Any minute, Linda would appear from the dark corner and start shrieking at her. Maybe Angel, too.
He pulled what looked like a long, plastic zip tie out of his sweatshirt pocket and secured her wrists together in front of her. Zip-strip handcuffs.
“I…I don’t understand,” she mumbled.
“It’s not important that you understand.” He nudged her forward. “What is important is that you understand that if you do anything to attempt to attract anyone’s attention while in the yard, or once we’re on the road, I’ll come back and kill your father and you’ll have to watch. Then I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?”
Casey fought the sob that rose in her throat. She nodded, terrified out of her mind.
“Do you understand?” he repeated, pushing her into the hall, shutting off the electric teakettle on the counter as he went by. “Tell me you understand.”
“Yes,” she managed. “I…I understand. But why—”
“You’re not talking now, Casey. I’m talking and you’re listening. You’re listening and you’re walking out the back door into the garage, and you’re getting into the car parked in the driveway. I have a gun in my pocket. Would you like me to show it to you? It’s a Glock 9 millimeter similar to one carried by many law enforcement agents. It’s a gun designed to kill humans.”
Casey walked through the laundry room feeling as if she were a zombie. She was so terrified that she couldn’t get her mind around what was happening.
“Wait. It’s bitter out.”
She heard him take a step back and then felt the weight of her winter coat on her shoulders.
“I don’t want you to get cold.”
Ed was digging in his sock drawer for his brown argyles when the house phone rang. He ignored it. He never answered the phone. It was never for him. But then he heard Freckles’s cell phone ringing in the dining room.
She didn’t answer that one either.
He glanced at the pistol on his bed and shuffled down the hallway. Frazier loped behind him. The cell phone was on the dining room table, next to a blue glass ornament. It had stopped ringing. Now it chirped. A message. He stared at it for a minute. Then it rang again. Ed leaned over the table and stared at the phone. H
e had left his glasses somewhere. He couldn’t read the screen.
He debated whether or not to answer it. He didn’t like cell phones. He found them annoying. Always ringing in purses, in pockets. People answering them in line at the grocery store while you were trying to talk to them.
The cell phone kept ringing. He glanced in the direction of the kitchen. Freckles always answered the phone. She must have gone somewhere. He picked it up and hit the green button on it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t use a cell phone; he just didn’t like them.
“Hello,” Ed said.
“Ed?”
“Yes, this is he.”
Frazier sniffed under the table. He was looking for a tidbit of food he’d missed but didn’t appear to be having any luck. “Check the kitchen,” he told the dog.
“What?” the voice on the phone questioned.
“Talking to Frazier,” Ed said. “No crumbs under this table. He wants crumbs, he needs to go into the kitchen or in the living room near the couch. We don’t eat much in the dining room, Freckles and I. She’s a busy woman, you know. But she keeps the dining room clean—not like Jayne. Have you ever seen Jayne’s—”
“Ed, why are you answering Casey’s phone?”
Ed walked through the dining room and looked down the hall into the laundry room. The door to the garage was open a crack. That wasn’t like Freckles leaving the door unlocked. He suddenly felt strange. Like something bad was happening right in front of him only he couldn’t quite see it.
“Ed, where’s Casey?” the voice on the phone repeated.
“Don’t think she’s here.” Ed walked past the empty kitchen into the laundry room. He stared at the partially opened door. He was beginning to get a little scared.
“Did she go out somewhere?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Ed said.
“Where?”
“Get an iPod maybe?” Ed was trying hard to remember what had happened in the last hour or two. He remembered Marshal Rooster J. Cogburn. Richard Nixon. The Gettysburg Address. He opened the door to the garage wider. “She didn’t take the car,” he observed.