Unspeakable (45 page)

 

 

He was so relieved to see there weren't any police cars, ambulances, or news vans around the hotel. During the ferry ride over, he'd had flashbacks to that horrible, chaotic scene in front of the Pelham house ten mornings ago.

As they pulled into the parking lot, Collin gazed at the sprawling three-story motel, one of those institutional tan-brick and glass buildings. All of the rooms had sliding glass doors that led to the tiniest of patios with wrought-iron railings. The first-floor rooms looked like the only ones with glass doors that were actual exits.

His grandfather parked near a side entrance. Collin felt sick to his stomach. He had no idea what to expect. And his grandfather hadn't really explained what he'd planned to do with the duffel bag full of towels and gloves.

“Whatever we find,” his grandfather said, shutting off the car engine. “We'll deal with it. Just promise you won't panic or freeze up on me or anything. I need you to be strong, Collin, and do exactly what I tell you.”

Biting his lip, he nodded.

They climbed out of the car. Collin carried the bag. His grandfather hit the car's automatic lock device, and then they ducked into the side entrance. The long hallway was dimly lit and had a swirly pattern on the maroon carpet. He heard an ice machine churning. Except for a housekeeper's pushcart outside an open door, the corridor was empty. None of it looked familiar to Collin. He had no idea where room 117 was. So he followed his grandfather, and started looking at the numbers on the doors:
129, 127, 125 . . .

They skulked past the open door to 123, where the housekeeper was cleaning the room. Collin figured they were coming up to 117 soon. He didn't see yellow police tape across any of the doorways ahead. Was it too much to hope they'd find nothing inside that room?

His grandfather stopped in front of a door with a D
O
N
OT
D
ISTURB
sign on the knob. Glancing up and down the hallway, Old Andy pulled out the key card and slipped it in the slot. Collin held his breath and watched the green light go on above the slot. His grandfather opened the door, and they both ducked inside.

Collin balked at the smell.

“Oh, no . . .” his grandfather murmured.

Near the bed, Collin saw the slightly bloated corpse, facedown on the bloodstained carpet. The head was turned to one side just enough that Collin saw his gray, distended face and the washcloth stuffed in his mouth. The back of Clay Bischoff's shirt was slashed repeatedly and soaked with blood. His hands were tied behind him. One of his loafers had fallen off his foot during the struggle. Around his ankles was an old cowboy belt that Collin recognized. It was his, and had his name on it.

He thought he was going to throw up. He tried to take a few deep breaths, but with every breath he caught the stench of that body decaying.

“You can't get sick here,” his grandfather whispered. But the color had left his face, and he looked a bit unsteady himself. Collin could tell he was trying to be strong for both of them. “Do you remember any of this from last night?” his grandfather asked. “Look around, is there anything here that's yours?”

“The belt,” Collin said, with a hand over his mouth. He nodded toward the dead man's feet. “That's mine.” His mom had bought it for him about two years ago, but it had always been too big for him. He would have tossed it out when he'd moved in with his grandparents. But he hadn't been able to throw out anything that she'd given him.

“Get the—the—rubber gloves out of the bag,” his grandfather whispered.

His hands trembling, Collin unzipped the bag and found a pair of Dee's dishwashing gloves. He handed them to his grandfather, who scowled at him. “I'm not doing it,” he hissed. “You tied him up with the belt. You take it off. Maybe it'll help you remember.”

Collin stared at him. He started to shake his head.

But his grandfather wasn't looking at him. He grabbed the duffel, took out the other pair of rubber gloves, and put them on. He went to the door, glanced out the peephole, and then fixed the chain lock in place. “Come on, Collin,” he said under his breath. “Hurry up.” He headed into the bathroom and switched on the light.

Staring down at the dead man, Collin had trouble slipping the rubber gloves over his shaky hands.

His grandfather stepped out of the bathroom and started checking drawers, the nightstands, and the desktop. He frowned at Collin. “For God's sake, we haven't got all day. Get going. . . .”

Collin nodded obediently. He tried not to step in the blood on the beige carpet. He got down on one knee and hovered over the dead man's feet. This close to the corpse the foul odor was even stronger. He tried not to gag as he reached over the body. The man's bloated, swollen ankles pinched against the belt. Wincing, Collin wrestled and tugged at the taut strap. He stared at his name embossed on it.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
“Housekeeping!”

Collin froze.

His grandfather gaped at him—then at the door. “Um, not today, thank you!” he called.

Neither one of them moved. Collin listened to the squeaky wheels of her pushcart. He heard her knocking on a neighbor's door.
“Housekeeping!”

“Stupid bitch,” his grandfather muttered. “Can't she read the do-not-disturb sign? Good God, Collin, haven't you gotten that damn thing off him yet?”

“Sorry,” he muttered. Then he started struggling with the belt again—until he finally pulled it off the dead man's ankles.

His grandfather made him check around the room—even had him poke his nose in the wastebaskets—for anything that might belong to him. Collin didn't find anything. They stashed the belt and the rubber gloves in the plastic bag. Then Collin stuffed the bag back inside the duffel. Once his grandfather checked the peep hole, they quietly slipped out to the hallway. They left the D
O
N
OT
D
ISTURB
sign on the door.

Outside, he gratefully breathed in the fresh air again. Collin couldn't believe they'd made it back to the BMW without anyone seeing them. He threw the bag in the backseat, and buckled his seat belt. Having endured the last nightmarish, revolting fifteen minutes, it was all he could do to keep from breaking down.

His grandfather backed out of the parking spot, found the lot exit, and then pulled into traffic. Neither one of them said anything. If Old Andy had been snapping at him all morning, it was understandable. Collin felt horrible, putting him through this.

He took another look back at the hotel and tried to remember coming here last night. He'd seen Clay Bischoff twice in his life: once from afar at Gail's funeral, and then again, in the lobby of Olivia's office building. Kneeling over that corpse earlier should have triggered something, but it hadn't. And looking at the hotel again, he still came up blank.

He didn't agree with his grandfather's theory that Olivia had given him some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion to kill her estranged husband. Andy didn't know Olivia like he did.

But his grandfather was right when he'd said none of this made sense. Collin couldn't believe that last night—after taking a sleeping pill—he'd gotten up and caught the last ferry out at 12:55
AM
. Then after murdering this man, practically a stranger, he'd driven two hours, looping down to Tacoma, over the Narrows Bridge, and back up to Poulsbo. And he had no memory of it at all.

If he hadn't seen the belt around the dead man's ankles, he never would have believed he had anything to do with it.

He thought about that belt and the bloody Handi Wipes in the golf bag. The nightstick and the knife were still under the driver's seat. It didn't seem like much, but he and his grandfather may as well have been carting around that dead, decaying body. Collin knew he'd be carting it around in his mind for the rest of his life. Maybe he didn't remember killing anybody, but he had to take responsibility for what he'd done.

They headed west on Denny Way, past the Space Needle and toward the water. He sighed, breaking the silence between them. “Grandpa, I think we should call the police and let them know what happened.”

“What are you, crazy?” his grandfather replied, leaning close to the wheel, intent on his driving. “We tampered with evidence back there. You think they'll go easy on you just because you don't remember tying that man up and stabbing him to death? Right now, more and more, I'm convinced we need to get you on a plane to London—away from all this, away from hypnotists and police inquiries and bad memories. We have to put some distance between you and everything else that's tearing you apart inside right now. Collin, don't you see? If we go abroad, we can start over again. We'll make a clean slate of it in someplace entirely new. You'll be able to forget all about this.”

“I really doubt that, Grandpa,” he replied. “I know I'm never going to get over it. I don't care how far I run away. I'll still have this hanging over my head. I'll still feel responsible.”

“You say that now, but you'll feel differently in a year,” his grandfather said, his eyes on the road. “You know, I got into some trouble when I was around your age. I went away and made some resolutions. Being somewhere else is what helped me get over it.”

“What kind of trouble were you in?” Collin asked.

“It doesn't matter now.” His grandfather got red in the face. “What matters is that I've worked like a dog most of my life and I'll be damned if I spend the rest of it in jail because I cleaned up some murder scene to protect you. I'm in this now—up to my neck. You owe it to me to keep quiet and forget about this. You're all I have left, my only heir, and I don't want you ending up in some insane asylum. You're going to Europe, and you're going to forget all this ever happened. . . .”

At the bottom of Denny, his grandfather took a right. They weren't headed toward the ferry terminal, but in the opposite direction—toward Ballard. “We have to get rid of this knife and the nightstick,” his grandfather announced. “Maybe we can dump them someplace over in Magnolia. We still have time before the next ferry.”

Collin was half-listening. He thought about how unlike his grandfather he was. He wanted to call Olivia, and then go to the police.

They passed a Chevron station on the left, and he automatically glanced at the gas gauge on the dash. If he'd driven over a hundred and twenty miles late last night, they were probably low on fuel.

The gauge showed the tank was nearly full.

Collin couldn't imagine himself, covered with blood, stepping out of the car to pump gas. He reached back for his wallet. He'd had about thirteen bucks when he'd last checked yesterday afternoon. He only could have paid for the gas with cash. He didn't have a credit card.

In his wallet, he had a ten and three singles.

“Grandpa, somebody . . .” He trailed off. He was about to say they'd been set up, that he couldn't have made that long drive late last night and filled up the gas tank. But then he remembered Clay's wallet on his bathroom counter at home. He could have used Clay's credit card. Even covered in blood, he could have still gotten out and pumped gas. Who would have noticed him at three or four in the morning?

He still clung to the hope that someone else had done this. But at the same time, he knew the sooner he owned up to it, the better.

“What?” his grandfather said. “You started to say something. . . .”

“Grandpa, I can't take off to Europe like you want me to,” he murmured. “I'm sorry. I'm not sure what kind of trouble you were in when you ran away. But I'm sure this is a lot worse. And I can't just shrug it off. . . .”

His grandfather shook his head. “Goddamn it,” he whispered.

Suddenly he jerked the wheel, and they turned left—across two lanes of oncoming traffic. The tires screeched as he steered onto a street marked D
EAD
E
ND.
They went over some railroad tracks. The potholed road looped around behind a large deserted warehouse. Grass grew in the pavement cracks. His grandfather stopped the car by a loading dock. To their left was a string of old, rusty, abandoned boxcars. Beyond that, Collin noticed the rail yard with a dozen tracks and several stationary freight trains. A small sign was posted by the tracks: INTERBAY YARD.

He realized they'd pulled alongside the rail yard where Wade Grinnell had been killed.

His grandfather reached under his seat and pulled out the dish towel swaddling the nightstick and knife. “This is as good a place as any for these,” he muttered. “They'll think some railroad tramp murdered him.” Opening his door, he climbed out of the car. He started to walk away, but then stopped. With his head down, he stood for a moment, clutching the dish towel.

Collin watched from inside the car. He could only see his grandfather from the back, but his shoulders were shaking. Collin realized he was crying. He opened the car door and stepped outside. He took his cell phone from his pocket, and dialed Olivia's number. It rang once.

“What are you doing?” he heard his grandfather say.

Collin looked up. Old Andy started toward him. He dropped the dish towel. The knife and nightstick hit the pavement with a clatter.

Collin turned away—just as Olivia answered on the third ring. “Hello, Collin?”

“Olivia, something happened . . . ,” he started to say.

Suddenly, his grandfather knocked the phone out of his hand. He pushed him aside, and frantically stomped on the cell phone as if it were a tarantula. “No one can know!” he barked. He was like a crazy man. “Why won't you just do what I'm asking? Why are you leaving me no choice?”