SIXTY-FOUR
It
wasn’t as though Phyllis wanted to use a knife. She would have preferred a gun, but feared the noise would attract attention, certainly if she fired it outside the house. Her son may have a silencer for one of his weapons, but she certainly doesn’t. And she has no expertise in poisons. She considered holding a pillow over his face, but she feared he’d put up too much of a struggle and she wouldn’t be able to finish the job.
In the end, a knife seemed the way to go.
Now he’s in the trunk, wrapped in the plastic. Later, she will get Richard to help her bury him in the woods. She knows she hasn’t the strength to dig a grave. Richard is still a strapping lad, and it shouldn’t be any trouble for him. She’s already put a shovel in the car, and a pair of gardening gloves so he won’t get blisters. And even though she didn’t choose to use it on her husband, she has a gun in her handbag.
She just hopes Richard isn’t too upset that she decided something had to be done with Harry. That it had to be done now. For seven years he’s been burdened with the guilt of what he did, been so attentive to his stepfather. Phyllis knows he still loves him, that he remembers that there were good times among the bad, when Harry was a real father to him.
Richard’s just going to have to get used to the idea.
Phyllis has one more stop to make.
She’ll go the Weaver house, hold the wife hostage, get him on the phone, tell him to bring her the book. Once she has it in her possession, she’ll find out from the detective whether anyone else knows about Harry. If not, the killing can end with the Weavers.
You can’t go around knocking off everyone. Have to draw the line somewhere. She’ll be relieved to have it end with the Weavers. Then she and Richard can go on about their lives again.
It’ll be good to have things back to normal.
She can feel the extra weight in the back of the car as she drives. Going around corners, she notices the back end is heavy, sways some. She’s looked up Weaver’s address, makes a call on her cell as she heads to that part of town.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Where are you now?” she asks her son.
“Almost home.”
“You know where Mr. Weaver lives?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s where I’m going now. Go there, and park across the street and down a ways. Call me if you see anything suspicious.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just let me handle things now.”
“What about Dad? Is he okay? Is he at the house?”
“Not anymore, child. I’ve moved him.”
“Moved him where?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later. Just get to Weaver’s house.”
Phyllis ends the call.
She finds the Weaver house, pulls up to the curb and parks on the street. Goes to the door and rings the bell. Seconds later, it is opened.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Weaver?” Phyllis says.
“That’s right.”
“I can’t believe we’ve never actually met, and if we have, please forgive me for not remembering. I’m Phyllis Pearce. I own Patchett’s.”
“Oh, of course, hello. What can I do for you?” Donna Weaver asks.
“May I come in?”
Donna opens the door wide and admits her. Donna is wearing a bulky, button-up-the-front, long-sleeved sweater, and feels the need to apologize for it. “I just put this on. It’s one of my husband’s. It looks awful, but the house is chilly. There’s something wonky with the thermostat.”
“I’m hardly a fashion plate myself,” Phyllis says. “It looks very comfortable.”
“Excuse the mess,” Donna says, pointing to the coffee table in the living room. It is covered in sketches of the same person from different angles, all in differing stages of completion. Charcoal pencils, fixative spray, a thick book of sketch paper, a small pad of yellow sticky notes. One of the sketches has a yellow note stuck to it, a few words scribbled on it.
“What’s this?” Phyllis asks.
“Just . . . drawings. Of our son.”
“Oh yes,” Phyllis says. “I’m so sorry.”
Donna’s attempt to smile turns into a jagged line. “Thank you.”
“This has to have been such a difficult time for you. How long has it been now since he passed away?”
“Is there something I can help you with, Mrs. Pearce?”
“Phyllis, please.” The woman smiles. “I understand your son died by misadventure. That he was under the influence of drugs when he fell off the roof.”
Donna puts a hand delicately to her chest, as though she has indigestion. “I really don’t want to talk about that.”
“I only mention it because we have something in common, in a way. I mean, your son must be a terrible disappointment to you. The things he could have done, all thrown away. Now, my Richard—you know him of course because you process his checks—is still alive, but I swear, if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s how to screw something u
p.”
“I think you should leave.”
“I need to see your husband,” Phyllis says.
“I’ll be sure to tell him you were here.”
“He’s been by a couple of times to talk to me. I think we kind of hit it off. I need you to call him now and get him over here right away.”
“I’m sorry,” Donna says. “I’m not doing that. If you want to talk to him, call him yourself. And I repeat, I think you should leave.”
Phyllis sets her purse on the floor, opens it, and takes out a handgun. She points it at Donna and says, “Call him.”
Donna struggles to remain calm, but she has never had a gun pointed at her before, and she feels as though her insides are about to melt. “What do you want with him?”
“That’s between him and me,” Phyllis says. “Is the phone in the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’d best go to the kitchen.”
Donna goes to the kitchen phone, puts the receiver to her ear, hits the memory button that will connect to her husband’s cell. She talks to him briefly before Phyllis takes the phone from her.
“Mr. Weaver? Phyllis Pearce here. We have some things we need to discuss. You’re going to help me out, because if you don’t, it’s going to be your fault what happens to your wife.”
“Leave her alone.”
“And you need to know, your house is being watched. You come here by yourself. If anyone else shows up, your wife will die. And bring the book.”
“What book?”
“Please don’t do that. I’m sure you have it. The one my husband gave to that boy. I need to have that back.”
“Where’s Harry?” Weaver asks.
“Excuse me?” Phyllis’ eyes go wide.
“He’s not in his room downstairs. Where’ve you got him?”
“Just get here,” Phyllis says, and replaces the receiver.
“Whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done,” Donna says, moving back into the living room, “you should just turn yourself in. Get a lawyer. He can arrange a surrender for you. He can work something out.”
“I don’t think so,” Phyllis says as Donna leans over the coffee table, shuffling her drawings. “What are you doing?”
Donna, her back to the woman, continues to collect the pictures into a neat pile, slides them into a folder.
“I said, what are you doing?” Phyllis asks.
“I don’t like you looking at pictures of my son.”
Phyllis comes around the other side of the coffee table, orders Donna to stop what she’s doing and sit down. Phyllis goes to the window, pulls back the curtain an inch to get a look at the street.
Her son’s black pickup is parked at the curb on the other side
.
Phyllis sighs with relief. “Richard is here.” She appears contemplative. “I hope he understands what I’ve had to do.”
SIXTY-FIVE
I’d
waved Augie over so he could hear both sides of the conversation. He was huddled close to me, his ear close to mine, and when Phyllis ended the call we looked at each other and he said, “Did you actually talk to Donna?”
He’d missed the first few seconds of the conversation. “Yeah,” I said. “She sounds okay, but she’s scared.”
“She says the house is being watched. That’ll be Ricky. What the hell does she want?”
“Me,” I said. “And the book. Ricky must think he killed Claire, or she’d be asking for her, too.”
“What book?”
I patted my chest to reassure myself that it was still in my jacket pocket. “A kind of diary Harry kept. It proves he’s been alive all these years.”
I started moving toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Augie asked.
“Going for Donna.”
“What’s the plan?” he asked as I kept walking.
“No idea, but hanging around here isn’t part of it.”
He followed me all the way to my car, grabbing my arm as I was opening the door of the Subaru.
“Hold on,” he said. “You think if you give her that book, that’s going to be the end of it? Think about what you know. What she
knows
you know. You think she’s just going to get in her car and drive off? You go off half-cocked, you’ll end up getting you and Donna both killed.”
I stopped.
“Tell me how to handle it.”
“First,” Augie said, “I’ll take care of Ricky.”
“How you going to do that?”
“I’ll figure that out,” he said. “Give me a five-minute head start to see where he is, get in position.”
“Five minutes,” I said.
“I’ll call you,” he said.
We decided we’d both drive to within a couple of blocks of my house, then I’d wait while Augie found a spot he could watch Ricky from. I’d give him five minutes to call me, then drive to my house.
When we were a quarter mile away, I pulled over. Augie rolled up alongside in his Suburban, held up all five fingers of one hand, then drove off.
I kept my eyes on the dashboard clock. Two minutes. Three minutes. It seemed more like three hours.
Hang in there, Donna
.
I looked at the clock again. Four minutes.
I wasn’t waiting any longer. I put the transmission into drive.
My phone rang.
“I’m ready.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a house. Looking out the living room at Ricky in his pickup. He’s on the other side of the street from your place, two houses down.”
“How did you get in a—”
“I broke in. Go.”
I went.
A Ford Crown Vic was parked in front of our place. Just up the street, facing this way, Ricky’s black pickup. Through the tinted windows, I could just make out someone behind the wheel. I turned into the driveway, got out, noticed a hand pulling back the living room curtain an inch.
Should I knock? It was my own house, and Phyllis could obviously see me coming. So when I got to the door, I turned the knob and entered.
Phyllis was waiting for me, standing ten feet away from the door, weapon drawn, held in both hands to try and keep it steady. Her face looked drawn and haggard, and she seemed to have aged ten years since I’d last seen her. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, but it didn’t feel all that warm in here.
I glanced into the living room, saw Donna sitting on the couch, her mouth a jagged line across her face.
“Take out your gun,” Phyllis said.
I reached around for my Glock, removed it from my holster.
“Put it there, right there,” she said, pointing to the table in the front hall where we set our keys and dropped the mail. I did as she asked. “In there,” she said, pointing to the living room. I moved slowly.
“You okay?” I asked Donna. I thought it odd she didn’t stand up. She sat there, holding her right wrist with her left hand.
“I’m okay,” she said quietly.
“She hurt you?” I said, looking at her wrist.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Sit down,” Phyllis said.
I took a seat that allowed me to see Phyllis and Donna, and catch a glimpse of the street through the sheers.
“Smartest thing for you to do, Phyllis,” I said, “is walk out that door, hop in the truck with your son, and turn yourself in.”
“The book,” she said.
I reached, slowly, into my jacket and tossed it at Phyllis’ feet. She knelt and picked it up.
“It’s not very interesting reading,” I said as she stood, the gun still pointed at us.
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “I am. But I have to do what I have to do.”
“You think you’ve just about got the well capped now?” I asked. “What did Ricky tell you? That he got Dennis and Claire? That I’m the last one left who knows what happened? Now that you’ve got that piece of evidence in your hands, and you’ve taken care of Donna and me, you’ve got this under control?”
Her jaw trembled slightly. “Something like that.”
“Claire’s alive,” I told her. “Ricky didn’t hit her. And she’s home now, with her father. So now Sanders knows. And I’ve talked to Augie, and he knows. You’ll end up killing half of Griffon before you’re done, Phyllis.”
The color was draining from her face. “You’re lying.”
“No,” I said calmly. “I’m not.”
“We . . . we never wanted anyone to get hurt,” she said. “It was that boy’s fault. He had no business coming into our house.”
“Ricky killed Hanna Rodomski, didn’t he?” I asked. “When he found out the girls had tricked him.”
“She wouldn’t tell him where Claire went,” Phyllis said. “Sometimes he gets angry. But most of the time he’s a good boy. He’s a
police
officer. He does good things all the time.”
I wanted to know whether Ricky had told her about what had happened between him and our son, but I couldn’t bring that up, not now, with Donna present. What she was going through, at this moment, was traumatic enough without learning that everything we thought we knew about what had happened to Scott was wrong.
“I’m sure that’ll be taken into account,” I said. “Don’t make things worse by hurting anyone else. Everything has to end here. You and Ricky will have to answer for the things you’ve done, and it’s not going to be easy, but this can all come to an end quietly, or it can come to an end very badly.”
“You brought help, didn’t you?” Phyllis asked.
“I’m all alone,” I said.
“You’re lying!” she said, waving the gun. “Someone else is out there.”
I got half out of my chair, pulled back the sheer so we had an unobstructed view of the street. “You see anyone?”
Phyllis glanced out. “I don’t believe you.”
I sat back down, looked at Donna. Her face was rigid.
“Phyllis, give it up.”
“I could . . . we could take her with us,” she said, waving the gun at Donna. “Until we got somewhere safe.”
“Think it through, Phyllis. You have secret bank accounts somewhere? False identities in place? That doesn’t strike me as your kind of thing.”
I looked out the window again. Something had caught my eye. Something to do with Phyllis’ Crown Victoria.
“I’m somebody in this town,” Phyllis said. “I’m Phyllis Pearce. I know things about people.”
I looked back at her. “You think you know enough to get out from under this mess?”
This time, when I glanced out the window, I squinted. Something was dripping from below the trunk of the woman’s car, close to the bumper. Enough that a small puddle was forming at the back of the car.
I said to Phyllis, “Seems like a funny place for a car to be leaking oil.”
She said, “What?”
She moved closer to the window and glanced out. “Oh no,” she said quietly.
Phyllis was holding the gun, at that moment, down at her side, her back to both Donna and me. I was thinking:
This is my chance. Jump her now.
I was getting ready to spring when I realized Donna was already on the move. Reaching up into the sleeve of my borrowed sweater, taking something out.
The small can of fixative spray.
She had her index finger on the nozzle, and as Phyllis turned back around, Donna pressed it.