by P. B. Ryan
Nielsen pulled into the pizza parlor’s nearly-empty parking lot. The OPEN sign was still dark, but lights burned inside the building. “How are we handling this?” I asked.
“I’ll just watch you in action.”
I glared at him for a moment and got out of the car. He tagged behind me. The shop’s door was unlocked and we stepped inside.
“We don’t open for another half hour,” said a teenaged girl mopping the entryway.
“I’d like to speak to the manager.”
“That’s me,” said a harassed-looking man of about forty, coming up from behind the girl. His nametag read Dennis Sloan. “Are you interested in the assistant manager’s job?”
“No.” I introduced myself, ignoring Nielsen, and pulled out one of my business cards. “I’m here about an employee, Rob Sumner.”
“Ex-employee.”
Interesting that Linda Sumner wasn’t aware of her husband’s current employment status. Just where had he been going every day, when he should have been working?
“I’m looking into Matt and Claudia Sumner’s deaths. Can you give me some insight into Rob’s character?”
He scrutinized my card. “I can’t tell you why he was let go—corporate policy.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
Sloan took a half-step back and crossed his arms over his chest, his expression stony.
“When was he fired?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Just about the time of his father’s death.
“I understand he’s not very responsible—or reliable,” I said. “And maybe he drinks a little too much. He expects other people to clean up his messes.” I thought about Rob’s parents, and wondered if Claudia had slipped her son money to keep him afloat until he found another job. “He’s also got a violent streak.”
Sloan’s eyes flashed, and his mouth went tight. “No comment.”
He didn’t need to say a word. “Thanks for your help.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
We went back outside and headed for Nielsen’s car. “That went well,” he said.
I could’ve decked him. He opened the driver’s door as a rusty Ford Escort pulled into the lot, parking in the spot farthest from the entrance. A tall, skinny kid dressed in the franchise’s standard uniform got out. On an impulse, I jogged over to meet him.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
He looked at me suspiciously. “What about?”
“Rob Sumner.” I handed him my card as Nielsen joined us. “I’m investigating his parents’ deaths. What can you tell me about Rob?”
“He’s an asshole,” the kid answered without hesitation.
“Why’d he get fired?”
“He was balling one of the waitresses in the storeroom after hours.”
Good old Rob—following right in his old man’s footsteps.
“He was already on probation for beating up my buddy, Gene,” the kid continued. Reticence wasn’t his problem.
“Gene was another employee?”
“Yeah, until that bastard Sumner got him fired last month.”
“What happened?”
“Rob said Gene was stealing money from the girls’ tip jars. But it was Rob who took the money—Gene saw him. After Mr. Sloan fired him, Gene came back to have it out with Rob. He didn’t know the guy’s a psycho. He broke Gene’s nose—really messed up his face.”
Sloan watched us from the restaurant’s plate glass door. I nodded in his direction. “Don’t let him give you a hard time for talking to me. The First Amendment says you’re entitled to an opinion, kid. Thanks for the information.”
I headed back to the SUV with Nielsen trotting to keep up. “You got some good stuff. Why don’t you don’t look happy?” he asked.
I waited until we were inside the car and he started the engine before answering. “Rob Sumner threatened me the other day. At the time I didn’t take it seriously.” I looked down at the sling surrounding my broken arm and thought about the throbbing in my skull that never really went away. “Maybe I should.”
“It’s a tough game you’re playing,” Sam said. “Or maybe I should remind you that it isn’t a game. Just keep in mind how Sumner was killed and what happened to his body afterwards.”
I turned to stare at him. He didn’t have the clue what I knew—what I’d seen. And I wasn’t about to tell him.
Chapter 22
Richard cut over from the Thruway to Route 400, heading southeast. The ride so far had been silent, and though I couldn’t pick up on anything Richard felt, I could tell by his body language that he was nearing the boiling point.
“What if you’re wrong? What if it wasn’t her?” he blurted at last. His fingers, wrapped around the steering wheel, were white. I held onto the envelope of evidence I’d brought along nearly as tightly.
I glanced across the seat. “I’m not wrong.”
“You haven’t even considered the possibility that someone else could’ve killed Sumner.”
“I don’t have to.”
He kept his gaze fixed on the road. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it one bit.”
As I gazed out at the colorless countryside, doubt crept into my thoughts. A week before, Richard had suggested I might be twisting the facts to support a delusion. That accusation still haunted me.
“Okay, Rich, say Sharon wasn’t the murderer. There’re only three other possible suspects.”
“That you know of,” he shot back.
I ignored him. “Claudia Sumner, for one. With her husband conveniently out of the way, she was eager to get on with her life. She liked money and seemed to know about every one of his insurance policies. She knew of his affairs and she was conveniently out of town at the time of the murder. Nice little alibi. I got the impression that her life would improve with Sumner out of the way. No doubt she’d planned to find someone else who could maintain the lifestyle she obviously enjoyed. That is, if he wasn’t already waiting in the wings.”
“Of course, the fact that she’s been killed, too, eliminates her from the running.”
“You got that,” I agreed. “How about her son? Rob Sumner and his father didn’t get along. Rob had been in some kind of trouble several years before. Maggie thought it might be drugs. She wasn’t sure.”
“What else?” Richard asked, giving me a quick glance across the seat before turning his gaze back to the road.
“Rob’s former girlfriend had been screwing his father. Not pretty, but that would’ve been ancient history—hardly worth killing his father for years later. Rob lost his job around the time his father was killed—but that was no motive for murder, either.”
“Strike two,” Richard said. “Although, from the looks of his house, Rob wasn’t living the good life.”
“No,” I agreed, “and he cheated on his wife only months after their marriage. A chip off the old block. He stole tips from waitresses who made less than minimum wage, and he’s got a violent streak that’s easily aroused. He may not have killed his father, but once the will’s read, he’ll probably profit from his father’s death.”
“Who else?”
“Don Feddar, the guy Sumner fired before Christmas. He might have had a motive for murder, but he also had an undisputed alibi for the evening of the killing. And he certainly couldn’t afford to pay anyone to do it for him. Strike three and out.”
We were silent for a minute or two. Richard finally broke the quiet. “Everything you’ve said to count out the other suspects sounds totally logical. But have you used logic to support your theory that Sharon killed Sumner?”
“I know what I know,” I said, but he was too intent on driving to notice the glare I gave him. “However jumbled the original vision was, I’d known about the murder before it happened. I knew the murderer had stood at the grave on the day of the funeral. Something directed me to the murder site and the victim’s last remains. The same thing compelled me to go to Sumner’s neighborhood where I found the jog
ger who’d seen the killer’s car. I also knew the killer had handled the garage door opener.”
“All intangibles,” Richard muttered, waving a dismissive hand at me.
“Hey, I sensed the killer at the funeral and at the cemetery; that’s why I was so sure that the killer had sent Sumner the invitation to the child’s birthday party. That was the first real evidence that led me to Sharon Walker. Her son was born on January tenth—same as the invitation. Sharon Walker was engaged to Rob Sumner before her child was born. Sharon Walker had business dealings with the murdered man. Sharon Walker was a skilled hunter. A skilled hunter killed Matt Sumner.”
“There’re lots of skilled hunters around here.”
“Oh, come on, Rich. A good investigator relies on his instincts. And, damn it, I know Sharon Walker murdered Matt Sumner.”
“Your belief in her guilt isn’t hard evidence. In the eyes of the law, she’s innocent until proven guilty. Have you found enough to take to the police?”
I sank back in my seat. “I don’t know.” I studied the scenery flashing past the window, caught sight of a house number. “ It should be close now.”
Richard braked, pulling over to the shoulder of the road.
Sharon lived on the outskirts of town, but I knew the place before I saw the numbers tacked around the front door. The gloomy skies added to the air of neglect that hung around the old farmhouse. Ancient forest-green paint was sun-blistered and peeling, half the shutters were gone from the windows, and the gutters around the front hung precariously from the edge of the roof. Four steps led to a rickety porch. A good gust of wind would probably knock it down. The detached garage looked forlorn at the end of the long rutted drive. Sticks and bits of trash covered the matted lawn. In the driveway sat a maroon Chevy Caprice station wagon with a chrome roof rack. Richard pulled his car up behind it and shut off the engine.
We got out and I headed straight for the wagon. The driver’s door had been painted over in a slightly different color, probably covering an advertisement for Walker Construction. I touched the tailgate and a shudder of revulsion ran through me as conflicting visions of Sumner lying in the back of the car seemed to explode behind my eyes. I had it: She’d driven the barely conscious man to Holland. After she’d killed him, she’d loaded the body into the back of the car once more and taken it to his home. And all the while she’d felt powerful and dangerous. It had excited her.
“Well?” Richard asked.
I nodded, letting out a ragged breath, needing to clear my head of the remaining web of strong emotions. “He was in there all right. After he was dead, she ... covered him with a dark blanket.”
To the right of the car, away from the house, sat a dilapidated barbecue. Bricks had fallen from it in a waterfall of debris.
The muddy ash pit beckoned. I picked up a stick and poked at the grayish goo, turning up swatches of scorched fabric. “She must have burned his clothes here.” I dislodged scraps of different materials from out of the muck.
Richard held out a clean handkerchief and let me settle the fabric evidence onto it, one at a time; then he carefully folded it and put it into his coat pocket. He glanced over his shoulder at the house.
“Someone was just at the window.”
“Was it her?”
“I only saw the curtains move.”
I looked back down at the ash pit, suddenly afraid—and not just for myself. This woman had already committed one—probably two—terrible crimes.
“Maybe you should wait in the car. Two of us could be intimidating. I don’t want to push her into doing something stupid.”
Richard didn’t look happy. “Whatever you do, don’t provoke her.”
“That’s the last thing I intend to do.”
He nodded and turned, heading back to the Lincoln.
I crossed the twenty yards of brown lawn to the house, climbed the porch steps, knocked on the door, and wondered what the hell I’d say to the woman. I waited about thirty seconds before knocking again.
Time dragged.
It would be smarter to just forget the whole thing.
What if she remembered my voice from that prank call the week before?
I was about to try one last time when the door was wrenched open.
“Yeah, what do you want?”
Dressed in stained gray jogging pants, sweatshirt, and sneakers, her bleached hair cropped short, Sharon Walker was overweight and unattractive, her expression haunted. Not at all like the photo of the young girl I’d seen only days before.
She wasn’t what I would’ve expected of Matt Sumner’s lover—or Rob’s.
“Ms. Walker? My name’s Jeffrey Resnick and—”
“I know who you are.”
“Did Rob Sumner call you?”
She crossed her arms across her chest. “Yes. What right have you got to say that Matt was killed by somebody at Walker Construction? What right?”
“I didn’t say that. I told him I was looking into his father’s dealings with Walker Construction.”
“Why?”
I chose my words carefully. “There seems to be a question of impropriety.”
“Even if it was true, which it isn’t, what difference could it possibly make now? He’s dead. My father’s dead. Walker Construction is dead. It doesn’t matter any more.”
A small boy, about four years old, pushed forward, attaching himself to her leg. He looked like a miniature version of Matt Sumner.
“Is that Jackie?” I asked.
“His name’s Jimmy. He was named after my father.”
“Was he once called Jackie?”
“What were you doing poking around my car and my yard? You’re trespassing on my property. I have every right to call the cops and have you arrested. Now get out of here.” She turned to go back inside and I grabbed her arm.
“Wait—!”
A second became an eternity as the vision of what she’d done—all the triumph, the horror, and the fear—hit me as hard as being clobbered with that baseball bat.
I saw them—standing by the barbecue, arguing—Sumner waving a letter at her. She screamed at him while the little boy cowered in terror behind her. My hand tightened around her forearm, but I couldn’t move as the vision shifted.
Claudia Sumner had pleaded for her life—but Sharon made her kneel on the condo’s virginal white carpet, held the snub-nosed revolver to the base of her skull, and pulled the trigger.
“Let go!” Sharon yelled.
Overlapping images of Sharon and Sumner—Sharon and Claudia—assaulted me, squeezing the breath from my lungs. Feelings of fear, anger, and triumph bombarded me.
The boy leaped forward, punching me on the thighs. “Leave my mommy alone, you bad man.”
Her face twisted in fury, Sharon wrenched away from me, shoved me, and sent me tumbling backward down the steps—only the rickety rail saved me. She grabbed the boy, turned, and slammed the door. The deadbolt clicked in place.
Muscles quivering with shock, I pulled myself upright. Gasping for breath, I forced myself to move—to get the hell out of there.
I headed for the car, breaking into a jog for the last ten yards, yanked open the passenger side door and scrambled in.
“What happened?” Richard demanded.
“Go! Now!”
The tires spun in the gravel as he gunned the engine. The Lincoln jerked down the drive and onto the highway heading west. Numb, I sat there, staring at nothing, the fingers of my right hand clamped around the door’s hand grip just to keep from trembling.
“Jeff!” Richard’s voice was stern.
“She killed him, all right,” I blurted. “He showed her a copy of the lab report. The one that told him the hair sample he’d provided did not match his DNA exactly. And he knew. He knew! So he came out to her house to confront her. He told her she wouldn’t get another dime out of him. If she wanted money, she could go to the boy’s father. She could go to Rob for money.”
“Good grief,” Richard mutte
red.
The images began to sort themselves out in my head.
“She bent down and grabbed—” I had to concentrate to understand. “She grabbed a brick from the barbecue and slammed it into his skull. The kid went berserk. She thought she’d killed Sumner. When he wasn’t dead, she flipped out—decided to have some fun with him. She’s strong. She dumped him in the back of the station wagon, took him out to Holland, cut off his clothes with her deer-skinning knife, and let him squirm in the snow, all the time taunting him. He didn’t believe she’d actually do it. He begged her to stop, but she only laughed. The kid got out of the car andran across the snow—shrieking, crying. She screamed at him to get back in the car. The kid was terrified. She crouched down, cut Sumner free, and told him to run. Then she took aim with the bow.”
“Jesus. You got all that from just touching her?”
“More.” I shuddered again, frozen to my toes. “I have to assimilate it.”
He pulled into the parking lot of a diner along the road. By then my initial panic had subsided. I grabbed my envelope and followed him inside. At nearly three in the afternoon, the place was deserted. Richard pointed to a booth near the front, and a waitress in a white uniform and black apron came to the table. “Coffee and apple pie for both of us,” Richard said.
“A la mode?” she asked hopefully.
“Plain.”
She frowned, but hustled off.
“I don’t want anything,” I said.
“Shut up and do as I tell you for once.”
I shut up.
The pie was typical diner fare. The filling oozed out of the crushed crust, making it look as though someone had sat on it. It was stale, too. The coffee was bitter.
“What else?” Richard prompted.
“Sharon was screwing both of them. Rob because she thought she loved him, Matt because she wanted to save her father’s construction company.”
“Did Rob know at the time?”
“I don’t know. But his father paid her, supported the boy. Something must’ve happened.” I thought about it for a moment and realized what I’d seen for myself. “Sumner noticed the boy had his wife’s nose. To confirm his suspicions, he had the kid’s hair DNA tested, comparing it with some of Claudia’s as well as his own. Because it matched factors from both of them, the test proved it was Rob, not Matt, who fathered Sharon’s son.”
