All or Nothing (21 page)

With it she could rent an apartment, nothing fancy like her beautiful condo, though, because she didn’t have the money. Then she could start to have a life again. Of course it was possible to pick up a new identity right here in San Francisco, but since this was where she planned to live it was a little too close to home.

The BART line deposited her at the Oakland Amtrak station in the Jack London Square Building, and she climbed aboard and took a seat by the window, though she wasn’t looking at the scenery as the big silver Stratoliner snaked its way down the coast. Anger boiled in her just thinking of the luxurious metallic–gold Lexus, and of her beautiful apartment and her lovely clothes, all of which she had been forced to leave behind to make her own “murder” seem believable.

Experience had made her a cautious woman, though, and she had kept a stash of money––fifty thousand of Boss Harmon’s “legacy,” to be exact, in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, buried inside packets of frozen lasagna. In her position she couldn’t afford to be complacent, you never knew when you might have to pick up and run.

She had planned on moving on anyway, after marrying John MacIver. That wouldn’t have lasted long, a couple of weeks and he would have been found dead in bed. Shit, it would have been so easy, the stupid old fart didn’t know from nothin’. He would have trusted her to the ends of the earth. He had already handed over twenty thou––
and
she had seen his bank statements and his securities portfolio. Under the guise of maybe wanting to move somewhere smaller and easier to maintain after they were married, an apartment, say, close to the ocean, she had gotten him to have the big Tudor–style house appraised––at the very satisfactory sum of one point two million dollars, and was already halfway to having his name replaced on the title deed with her own. MacIver would have been way more lucrative than Boss Harmon.

Her dark eyes slitted and her hands clenched into tight fists. If it were not for Jimmy Victor, by now it all would have been hers. She would be the millionaire she had always aimed to be. Now she had to start all over again.

The train journey was long and boring. She had no interest in the beautiful coastal scenery passing outside the window, no interest in the fact that the sun was shining and the sky and the sea were a matching blue. And no interest at all in her fellow passengers, most of whom were hidden behind newspapers or books or coping with their restless kids. Dogs were less trouble. She couldn’t exactly have left a kid with the cleaning woman at the motel. A kid would have cost her a fortune, money she would rather spend on herself. The fifty thou was her nest egg, money she now had to build on in order to move to the next level. Her “operating level,” she liked to call it.

By the time the train finally clanked its way into L.A.’s Union Station, Laurie was out of her seat and waiting for the doors to open, and she already had several ideas buzzing in her head. Meanwhile it was time to take care of business.

She picked up copies of local newspapers from the station newstand, then went into the coffee shop. She ordered an iced cappuccino, sipping it through a green straw while she perused each newspaper, searching for the obituaries column. She read each obituary carefully, then wrote down two names, finished her drink and took a taxi to the Public Records Office at City Hall, where she knew that death certificates were available for public inspection.

From experience, Laurie also knew that death certificates often included the deceased’s social security number. Without such a number she could not open a bank account, rent an apartment, get a driver’s license, a telephone or a job.

She got lucky. Maria Joseph, age forty, of Glendale, had died five days ago. And right there on the death certificate was her social security number.

Laurie wrote it down carefully then walked calmly from the Records Office. No one turned to look at her, a nondescript woman with black hair falling in ragged bangs over her forehead, cut brutally short in the back as though she wanted to make herself look even plainer and more masculine. The heavy–framed eyeglasses didn’t help either. And the dark suit she wore looked cheap and dowdy.

Laurie’s metamorphosis was complete. There was no vestige of the attractive California blonde she had been just weeks ago. It gave her a buzz just walking past police headquarters knowing that she was the woman the entire state was looking for, past cops on duty who didn’t even spare her a glance.

So much for their smarts, she thought, elated. She was smarter than all of them combined. Except maybe for Al Giraud and that glamour–girl professor friend of his.
And speak of the devil . . . 

Marla, in her legal persona of strict black suit, white silk shirt, black hose and medium heels, was just going into City Hall. She had a meeting there about one of her students, whom she was recommending for a job. For once the last thing on her mind was Giraud, or her second job as Assistant P.I.––or on Laurie Martin.

She strode up the steps, frowning with concentration as she thought of what she was going to say about her star pupil, who she just knew had a brilliant future as a criminal attorney. He just had that kind of mind: sharp; seeing around every corner, seeing six points of view and verbalizing them; he’d be a straight arrow as a prosecutor and devious as they come for the defense. She didn’t like him much, but she knew he was good.

She barely noticed the dark–haired woman on the step.
Except wasn’t there something vaguely familiar about her?
Puzzled, she turned to look.

Laurie turned at the same time. Their eyes met. Behind the black–framed glases, Laurie’s were dark, burning. Then she turned and hurried into the crowd.

Marla put a hand to her leaping heart. She was going crazy, imagining things. With an effort, she pulled herself together, shrugging it away as one of those eerie things, a ghost walking over her grave. The killer’s eyes were burned into her brain, that’s all. And that poor woman must have wondered what Marla was staring at.

Pity she hadn’t finished her off that night, Laurie thought furiously, but Steve had turned up earlier than she’d expected. Pity she hadn’t finished Vickie off too, but Marla had interrupted her. She had set it up so perfectly. Now things were messy and she hated mess. She knew from experience it only led to trouble. Look what had happened with Jimmy. She had known one day Jimmy would come after her, but when it happened she was taken by surprise.

The first biggest shock of Laurie’s life had been ten years ago when she had stood outside that torched trailer in Florida, thinking of Jimmy burning to a crisp inside. She had thought by now he must look just like his favorite food––Peking duck––and she had laughed out loud. Then Clyde had barked and she’d swung around––and looked straight into Jimmy’s eyes. God, but it had given her a nasty jolt, like a flash of lightning through her body. Her first thought had been, then who the hell is it anyway, burning up in the trailer right this minute? Her second was that now Jimmy knew she had tried to kill him.

Then she heard the scream, a sound of such agony it sent a true thrill into her heart. She swung around and saw a man framed in the burning doorway. His clothes, his hair, even his skin was on fire. He was melting before her eyes.

His screams split the moist Florida night as she stood there, watching him die. It was her lover. He must have stopped by to see her earlier, the door was always open. He had probably been drinking, fallen asleep. Too bad, she thought, as he held out his burning arms pitifully to her.

She turned to look for Jimmy, but he had disappeared into the night at the first sound of approaching fire engines and squad cars. She felt the pain in her own blistered hands and arms, scorched when she had put the flame to the trailer and the propane tank exploded. By now, her lover had dwindled into a messy heap near the burning steps. She thought quickly about what to do, then she ran toward him.

The sheriff found her there, kneeling beside him, her hair and arms blackened from the flames, calling out his name . . . “Jimmy, Jimmy. . . .”

She looked tearfully at the sheriff as he helped her up, threw a blanket over her shoulders, led her toward the paramedics.

“I tried to help, I tried to save my husband,” she said in a weak little voice, holding out her scorched hands for him to see. “It was just too hot, too much, I couldn’t.” She was still sobbing when they placed her in the ambulance. The little black dog jumped in after her. They made to push him out, but she grabbed him fiercely to her.

“Clyde goes with me,” she yelled in a voice so newly strong it startled them. Seeing the surprise in their eyes she lowered her tone again to tearful despair.

“Clyde is all I have left now,” she murmured, burying her face in his soft black fur.

They let her keep the dog.

Turned out she had done Jimmy a favor. He was facing potential court–martial after being accused by a local girl of raping her. And the marine doctor said Jimmy’s hands were too badly scorched for prints, but his wife’s testimony proved it was Jimmy Victor. Now he was officially “dead,” the rape charges were dropped. And Jimmy had vanished like snow in a spring thaw.

But she knew Jimmy. He was mean, vindictive. She hadn’t seen the last of him. One day he would find her. And this time he would kill her.

That’s when she got the idea of changing identities; changing her whole look, her entire persona. Starting out again somewhere new, thousands of miles away.

Even at the funeral as she stood over “Jimmy’s” grave with Clyde by her side, along with a few of his marine buddies, she was already planning her next move. As a new woman with a new life, and perhaps a rich new husband. She thought an older man would be best, more malleable, and surely less trouble than a young stud. First though, she had to get the hell out of there.

She had nothing much to pack, just what few new things she was able to buy with the insurance money. And Clyde, of course. She was in that Buick and on the road the very next morning, bright and early. She sang as she drove along, pausing now and then to pat little Clyde, who gazed adoringly back at her. She liked dogs, they were no problem. Not like people. She had cried buckets when her first little terrier had died, but she hadn’t shed a tear when her mom and dad went.

And that was another story.

How she had hated growing up as Bonnie Hoyt, in that too–small, jerry–built frame house, with the termites gnawing their way through the beams and the Florida sun grilling mercilessly down, unfazed by the sole window unit air conditioner, bought from Sears in a half–price sale, and the whirring ceiling fans installed by her pa. She would lie naked on her bed at night with the humidity sending streaks of sweat down her neck, down her whole body, watching the twelve–inch black and white TV with the volume turned up loud so as to annoy her parents, cursing them for not being rich, for living
here.
The first Clyde sprawled on the tile floor next to the bed, limp as a rag doll from the heat; it was too hot even to wear his usual red bandanna.

She had seen the movie
Bonnie and Clyde,
and filled with envy and admiration for the daring and beautiful and vicious Bonnie, she had changed the terrier’s name to Clyde. He wore a red bandanna just like the real Clyde, and she imagined him as her partner in crime, robbing banks, slaying FBI men. . . .

Her fantasies were wild and violent, far different from the serene face she put on when she was dragged off to the Ebenezer Baptist Church every Sunday morning. Her mother and father were regular churchgoers and she’d had religion thrust down her throat since she was just a baby. She was sick of it. She had learned all she wanted to learn about the Lord and his doings. Somehow she had always felt more comfortable with the idea of Satan. Sounded like at least he might let you have a bit of fun.

A single event had been the high point of her young life. Something so scary, so powerful she had never told anyone about it. Not even Jimmy.

She and Jennifer Vanderhoven were sitting together in their school lunch break. Jennifer had big blue eyes and thick blond hair in a long braid down to her waist, and she always wore nice clothes. She hated Jennifer, but Jennifer was goofy, soft and malleable, and she, Bonnie Hoyt, was strong. Jennifer sucked up to her power and she bossed her around unmercifully.

It was winter. The heat had been turned on in the school that week and the janitor was kept busy stoking the old iron furnace. “Let’s go take a look at the furnace room,” she had suggested idly to Jennifer. She had always been attracted to fire.

Jennifer was reluctant, she hated to get her clothes dirty, but Bonnie had linked her arm in hers and practically dragged her there. She knew the janitor would be out having his lunch.

It was hot down there, dusty and smoky. Taking the big iron tongs, she pulled open the iron doors and a great heat whooshed out. It wasn’t burning exactly, just kind of glowing. Excitement rose in her as she coaxed Jennifer to come stand next to her to feel the warmth. And then, when they were close together, without even thinking she just shoved Jennifer right into that glowing oven and slammed the door. Then she ran out of there as fast as she could.

Ten minutes later when her heart had stopped thudding, she had wandered around the yard asking if anyone had seen Jennifer. And when Jennifer didn’t show up in class that afternoon, people got worried and started looking for her. Later that afternoon the police were called in, there were detectives all over the place.

When they found Jennifer’s remains in the furnace the black janitor was arrested and charged with murder.

Bonnie was a witness at the trial and she enjoyed every minute of the limelight, testifying that she and Jennifer had lunch together then they walked around for a bit. Bonnie had left her to go to the bathroom. She never saw Jennifer again. At this point she broke into loud sobs and was hustled gently from the courtroom as other eyes filled with tears of sympathy.

The janitor got a guilty verdict and a death sentence. He went to the electric chair five years later, after all appeals failed.