Little Death by the Sea (40 page)

Kazmaroff scratched his neck and continued to
look at the file. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“I see. Perhaps we should talk to her now.”
Burton decided he felt a little better. Kazmaroff was actually
reddening and Burton thought he could see a bare hint of sweat
forming on his upper lip.

Dave was already dialing the phone.

“And perhaps a few of the others in the
office?” Oh, yes, Jack was feeling much better now. “Why don’t we
give them a jingle and ask them about Miss Stump? Think we could do
that, Dave?”

Kazmaroff wasn’t looking at Burton, but
concentrating on staring at the front of the blank file folder
while he waited for a pick-up on the other end of the line.

“No answer,” he muttered, still holding the
phone.

“Call the others, Dave.” Burton walked over
to the blackboard and picked up the piece of chalk again. He heard
Kazmaroff hang up and dial again and then begin speaking. Jack
wrote at the top of the board: “Gerry Parker.” Under that he wrote:
“Maggie’s sister, agency employee” He tapped the last name lightly
with the tip of his chalk. What’s the connection here? Carefully,
he drew lines from all three categories and connected them with the
circle he was drawing around Gerry’s name. Coincidences can solve
cases, he thought, still looking at Dierdre’s name.

“Okay, thanks, a lot, no, you’ve been a big
help. We’ll let you know.”

Kazmaroff hung up the phone.

“Jack...” Kazmaroff clutched a small notebook
in his hand and massaged it restlessly with his fingers.

Burton turned and looked at him. “You found
out something?” he asked.

“I talked to a guy, Pokey Lane,” Kazmaroff
said quickly. “He’s the art director at Selby and Parkers.”

“Yeah, okay, so?”

“Lane said it was common knowledge that Patti
Stump was in love with Parker.”

7

Maggie dialed in her international credit
card number on the airplane phone and then Gerry and Darla’s
number. She heard the busy signal and a wave of almost unbearable
frustration came over her. She quickly hung up the phone and dialed
a different number. The seconds were long and painful as she waited
for Brownie to answer. She watched the wobbling backside of her
irate businessman as he waddled down the airplane’s center aisle.
Please be home, Brownie. I can’t think of anyone else who can help
me now.

The phone rang on the other end. The
answering machine did not even pick up. After ten rings, Maggie
hung up and dialed Gerry’s house again. This time the phone rang
but there was no answer.

She hung up and placed her head down on the
tray in front of her.

“Miss?”

She turned to see a stern-faced flight
attendant standing before her.

“All trays in their upright position for
take-off, please,” she said.

8

Darla flicked off the television remote
control and sat on the couch trying to savor the stillness of the
house. It was no use. She missed her family. Her home felt strange
and unfamiliar now, with boxes filling every room, obstructing
every hallway. Already-packed pictures and photos left blank,
uncomprehending walls where reassuring loved ones had stared down
at her.

She considered calling her mother again but
decided against it. The only thing on her mind tonight was the one
thing that was bound to start another parental lecture. And she
wasn’t in the mood for it.

Getting up slowly from the couch, Darla
pulled her cotton cardigan around her and slipped on her flat
ballet shoes to pad into the kitchen and make a bowl of popcorn for
dinner. She wondered why Gerry hadn’t called yet. He had, she
assumed, been in the hotel by now for hours. Sighing as she reached
for the microwave popcorn packet, she had to admit that she hadn’t
exactly been acting like the kind of loving, understanding wife a
husband would want to call. She braced herself against the urge to
feel sorry for her current loneliness and tossed the popcorn bag
into the microwave. She set the oven timer and stood in the doorway
of the kitchen.

Moving away from a job she liked, from a
school for Haley she was satisfied with, from friends she’d known
since childhood, from a city she loved, and from family right
around the corner. Moving away from a lifetime of comfort and
familiarity to a land at the bottom of the world. A place that
saluted a queen, not a president, that drank tea—but never iced,
that revered windsurfing over tennis. A place she had never
expected to visit, much less live.

The sound of the bell on the microwave ripped
into her indulgent mood and she jumped a little. Must be spooked,
she thought, mildly amused with herself. She had packed all the
bowls already, so she just opened the steaming popcorn bag and ate
a handful standing up in the kitchen.

What in the world is my life going to be like
in Auckland, New Zealand? she wondered sadly. The dark windows of
the kitchen reflected her own image back at her. Through them, she
could see the bare branches of the trees behind her house, as they
swayed gently, wickedly in the blackened windows.

Suddenly, she heard a different sound. Not a
quiet creaking sound of the house settling down for the night, or a
gentle whistling sound of the wind spinning leaves against the
siding. Darla heard a crunching sound that shouldn’t be. A sound of
slow furtiveness. A sound from within the house.

Chapter 21

1

Gerry rotated his neck slowly, trying to work
the strain out of his shoulders. He sat propped up on his Best
Western double bed, fully clothed except for his shoes. He had
arrived in Savannah nearly an hour ago and had gone immediately to
bed for a brief nap—something he rarely did at home. The stress
must be getting to me, he thought as he massaged his neck with
inexpert, blunt fingers.

He had debated calling Darla as soon as he
arrived but had decided against it. The seven hour drive had
afforded him a peaceful respite that he wasn’t willing to
relinquish just yet. No sullen stares or recalcitrant answers in
response to perfectly normal, even friendly, questions. Just a
seven-hour stretch of road and radio. He wasn’t willing to stir the
numbness of his mind right now with the guilt and silent
accusations Darla would certainly feel obliged to dish up over the
phone.

Needless to say, he thought with a sigh, the
frequency of sexual episodes had been a little low lately. He
looked at the phone again. Soon enough to call her after he’d had
dinner with the prospective buyer, he thought. If all went well,
he’d be in a good mood and better armored to endure her
unhappiness. He got up from the bed to put on a clean shirt.

2

Had these events always been on a collision
course? Since when? Since Elise came back? Since Nicole was born?
Since Elise was born? Maggie lifted the gin and tonic to her lips
and smiled politely at her seatmate. He’d insisted on buying the
drink for her. They were approaching Atlanta. Things could finally
start to happen now once she got down. She pulled out the flight
magazine and flipped through its well-flipped pages, not really
seeing the pictures and advertisements. She found it impossible to
concentrate on anything but the slow passage of time until the
plane landed.

So, Elise hadn’t died because of Gerard or
because of a wicked, dirty part of Paris, or even because of drugs.
She had died because of a sickness in her own, native country. And
what about Nicole? The damaged, little waif belonging to no one?
What’s to become of her? Maggie thought of her parents experiencing
one more loss, one more bone-crushing disappointment, and she took
a long gulp of her drink.

“Plenty more where that came from.” Her
seatmate smiled over at her.

“You’ve been very nice to me,” Maggie
said.

“Ah, well, I’ve had a nervous flight here and
there, myself.”

“I’m not really afraid of flying, you
know.”

“The thought did occur to me.”

The attendants came by with plastic bags and
collected their cups and indicated that they would be landing
within a few minutes. Maggie felt a rush of energy fill her chest.
She’d decided not to waste any more time calling the police once
they’d landed. As soon as she got down she would hire a taxi to
take her straight to Gerry and Darla’s house.

3

“I guess it never occurred to you, huh? That
you were holding him back?” Patti Stump sat at the Parker kitchen
table, her spine rigid in the straight-back basketweave chair.
Balls of wadded up newspaper ballooned in front of her on the
table. The dark, blocky form of a twenty-one round Glock pistol lay
casually on the table by her hand.

“I mean, I can’t imagine your taking the time
to ask him if you were meeting his needs? Did you ever do
that?”

Darla sat at the table facing the woman. Her
hands were drawn tightly behind her and bound to the slats of the
matching kitchen chair. Her beautiful chestnut brown hair stuck out
of her head in shocks as if she’d been maneuvered around by it.

She licked her lips and stared at the woman.
And at the gun.

“I want you to talk to me, Darla,” Stump
said. Her eyes were mad and piercing. She wore a lavender pantsuit,
the kind Darla hadn’t seen since the sixties. The pant legs were
flared and the trousers rode tightly on the woman’s bony hips. “I
didn’t let the others talk, you know. You should feel honored.”

“You know about the others, right?” A hint of
annoyance seemed to creep into Stump’s up-to-now quite patient
voice. “Gerry knows too. Did you know that?”

Darla cleared her throat but was afraid to
speak.

“Sweet little Dierdre? Remember her?” Stump
smiled wickedly as if the first real dose of pain were about to be
administered. “Gerry screwed her, you know. At the office one
night. When it was over, and he’d gone, I waited for her. Do you
understand me?”

Oh, my God. She killed Dierdre.

Stump’s gaze darted toward the kitchen
appliances as if she were looking for something and then returned
to watch Darla’s reaction.

“I’ll bet you didn’t know that Gerry screwed
her, did you?”

Darla bit her parched lips.

“We’ve screwed too, you know.” Stump leaned
across the table toward Darla. “He loves me and wants to divorce
you. He told me he couldn’t stand you...that just to touch you
makes him sick to his stomach.” She stroked Darla’s bare arm. “I’m
sorry the little girl isn’t here tonight.” Stump stood up as if she
would search the house again to make sure. She looked back at Darla
and smiled. “I’ll have to kill her too, of course.”

Darla fought back the bile rising in her
throat, wondering if terror itself was enough to kill you or just
make you go mad.

4

Gerry dialed the number and tucked himself
further into the phone booth. His buyer waited patiently at their
dinner table over the Dover sole and Brussels sprouts. Gerry tried
to remember how many client dinners he had sprung for, enthused
over, gushed during, and then rolled his eyes about afterward.

His potential buyer tonight, Jim Panfel, was
not a bad sort. He was canny and smart, and would probably get
along great with Maggie. Or was Gerry just trying to allay any
guilt feelings over selling out before Maggie had a chance to
disagree? God, he was starting to think like Darla.

He tapped a finger against the pay phone
impatiently and listened to it ring a half a dozen times on the
other end before she finally picked up. By then, Gerry had worked
up a mild annoyance. Give me a break. How long does it take to
wander in to the kitchen from where ever the TV is?

“Hello?”

Instantly, he knew something was wrong. Her
voice was withered yet controlled. Immediately, all of Gerry’s
fears of the last six months came roaring back in living color to
settle around his neck.

“Darla, what’s wrong?” He clutched the phone
cord, his eyes darting to the other phone booth situated three feet
away and wondered if he could stay on the line with her while
dialing the police from the other cabinet.

“Oh, Gerry—“ She sounded weak and
frightened.

He could hear her begin to cry, as if the
sound of his voice was the only catalyst she’d been vulnerable
to.

“Darla!” he said hoarsely.

And then the other voice came on the line. A
voice that would awaken him, time and time again for years to come,
in a screaming sweat from the deepest of sleeps, the sweetest of
dreams. A voice he would remember until the day he died.

“It’s me, darling,” the voice hissed. “It’s
Patti. I’m here with wifey. We’re all here together.”

Gerry was mute. He tried to imagine the
scene. Patti at his house, Darla hysterical...

“What’s going on, Patti?” he asked evenly,
hoping he didn’t sound as out of control as he felt.

“I’m taking care of business, lover. I know
how hard this must be for you.”

“Patti, what are you doing there?”

“Don’t worry, darling, I told you—“

“What’s going on?! Patti, let me speak to my
wife—“

“Your ‘wife’? Your ‘wife’?” Her voice came
across the wire like serpents writhing across dried leaves. “You
can forget your ‘wife’, darling. She’s deadsville, okay? She’s
terminated, okay?”

My God, my God, my God...Gerry felt his mind
unraveling.

“...I did little Dierdre too, or hadn’t you
figured that out? Maybe I overestimated you, Gerry. I’m doing it
for you, you bastard! Do you hear me? I did ‘em all for you!”

Gerry saw his prospective buyer rise from his
dinner chair and look impatiently in Gerry’s direction in the phone
booth. Gerry twisted away from the image and stared at the back of
the booth. “My God, Patti,” he said. “You couldn’t have...”

“Couldn’t have what? Killed someone for you?
How about two someones? How about going on three someones?” A
screech of laughter erupted across the telephone wire into the
claustrophobic phone booth.