Chosen for Death (36 page)

"I waited," he said, his voice shaking with emotion, "for my mother to deny it. To explain that it wasn't possible for Carrie to be her child, because Jeremiah and I are her only children. I waited, and she didn't deny it. Instead, she told Carrie the whole story. The whole, sickening, revolting story of what her uncle had done. And then she begged Carrie to go away and leave her alone to protect her secret. Carrie didn't want to. She wouldn't give up, she kept trying to make my mother acknowledge her, despite my mother's pleas and her pain. That's when I began to hate Carrie. When I first saw clearly that she was evil. Then Carrie left and my mother sat and cried. I shut my door and thought about what to do."

"When you talked to your mother about it, how did she react?"

"She doesn't know I overheard, or that I ever met Carrie," he said. "God, I wish I hadn't!"

"I'm sure she'd feel the same."

"Shut up," he shouted, "or the next time, I'll kick you in the face. You don't understand, that's all." Well, he'd finally gotten something right. I sure didn't understand.

He bent over, gripping his stomach as though he had cramps. He was crying now, his tears mingling with the rain, his breath coming in shuddering gasps. I didn't feel one bit sorry for him. I found a sharp rock which fit nicely into my hand. Gripping it tightly, I waited for a chance to use it.

"I was filled with revulsion, for myself and for Carrie," he said. "The night before, I had held her in my arms while she cried as she told me that she was afraid she might be pregnant. And if she was, the baby was mine. She said she didn't know yet what she'd do, but in a way she was very happy to be having my baby. And now I had discovered that I'd been having sex with my sister. That she'd seduced me into being no better than that wretched uncle who raped my mother. Oh, God. Jesus. Can you imagine? I was fucking my own sister?"

The lid flew off my self-control like a pressure cooker blowing a gasket. "You pious, self-centered Jesus-loving shit! You're not some misled saint, you know. You're nothing more than a horny guy who told a few lies and screwed a girl because she was available. She wasn't an inflatable doll, she was a person with people who loved her just like you love your mother."

I was screaming at him, my rage at what he'd done to her, to me, to all of us pouring out in an unstoppable flow like lava from an erupting volcano. "No, not like you love your mother. The way you love your mother is sick. It's sick to kill someone because it might embarrass you or get you in trouble. Do you hear, sicko? It's not normal to smash someone's head and rape them with a stick because having sex turned out to be a mistake, like you did, you bastard. If your goddamned mother hadn't been so determined to suffer... if she'd told you about Carrie..."

I was so mad I could hardly speak. "If you had to kill someone, why didn't you kill yourself, you despicable, low-life scum? You arrogant, self-righteous sinner. She was my sister!" Now I was crying, too. For poor Carrie and her dead hopes and dreams, for the rest of us who had to go on without her, and in frustration that the world could produce creatures like the twisted fool beside me. Arms tensed, I waited for the kick that I was sure was coming, but none did.

His arms were wrapped around his body to control his shivering. He went on as though he hadn't heard me, as if I'd never said a word. "My mother went for a walk on the beach. She always does that when she's upset. I went into the bathroom and puked until I was hollow. Then I decided Carrie had to die. It was the only way to protect my mother. The only way that my sin and her sin and the taint of incest could end. The only way I could see that goodness and order could be restored. I knew Carrie hadn't told anyone else about finding her mother. She was very private. Very secretive about things. A few days later I arranged to meet her. And I killed her."

"Why did you do that... that thing with the stick?" The question I didn't want to hear the answer to and had to ask.

"It just seemed like the right thing to do. I had to destroy the baby, too, you see." Not only remorseless and completely self-centered, the idiot didn't know anything about biology, either. Or maybe he'd read too much science fiction and imagined the baby would keep growing on its own and eventually come and get him, making a perfect tabloid headline—"Revenge of the Killer Baby."

Down at the water's edge, one rock slammed against another with a sharp crack. His head jerked around and he stared into the fog, startled. Clutching my rock, I launched myself at him, driving my head into his nose. The cartilage gave with a mushy crunch and his blood poured over both of us. He grabbed his face with both hands and I hit him with the rock. The first time I didn't hit him very hard. It's not easy to make yourself hurt someone even when you want to.

He lurched toward me, bloody and menacing, swinging a fist which grazed my nose. The stinging pain focused my anger nicely. "This is for what you did to Carrie," I yelled and hit him again. This time I put all my rage into the blow, hitting him as hard as I could. He dropped at my feet and lay still. I bent over him and felt in his neck for a pulse. It was the first time I'd ever checked anyone's pulse but my own. His heartbeat was strong and steady. I knelt beside him, listening to him breathe noisily through his battered nose. Blood poured from his nose and a gash on his head, almost black in the deepening gloom.

I was still holding the rock. An image of Carrie lying in the dirt, impaled on a stick, rose up before me. I saw Carrie in her white casket, saw the traumatized faces of Todd, Dad, and Uncle Henry. Remembered my promise. Thea will fix it. I'd found her killer just as I promised, but now a part of me wanted a more exact form of revenge than the law would allow. I wanted him just as dead as Carrie was. Just as battered, just as bloody. I wanted to hit him until his face was smashed. I wanted to destroy him just like he'd destroyed her. He stirred. Moaning softly, he fumbled a hand over his face. His blue eyes opened, stared at me. I saw the knowledge there of what was coming. He made a feeble effort to move away. I raised the rock again. "You've come to the end of the line," I said, "and don't expect to wake up in Heaven."

In the distance I could hear sirens and the shrill sound of tires skidding on wet pavement, followed by footsteps and voices shouting. The good guys coming to my rescue, now that I no longer needed rescuing. I looked down again at Chris Davis, huddled on the sand, a pathetic, self-righteous, God-fearing murderer. One killing was enough. I wasn't going to descend to his level. My self-control was returning, but I was so angry, so intent on killing him, I had to pry the rock out of my own hand. I dropped it onto the sand and rose to my feet. "Over here," I called, "we're over here."

Andre and two other men in yellow slickers emerged from the fog. I pointed down at the boy lying on the beach. "This is Carrie's biological brother, Chris Davis," I said. "He killed her."

"Are you OK?" Andre asked.

"Battered, but still standing," I said. "The heavy damage is all emotional."

I started toward the car. Andre put a hand on my arm, stopping me. I tried to shake him off. I was awash with adrenaline, trembling, shocked and sick at what I'd wanted to do and almost done, infected by Chris Davis's sickness. I wanted no company right now, not even his. "Your nose is bleeding," he said, holding out his handkerchief.

I touched my face, staring in surprise at the blood on my fingers, and took the handkerchief. "I was sure you wouldn't come. How did you know?"

"I'm a detective, remember? How would Carrie's brother know where to find you? You didn't tell him, his mother didn't know, and Carrie isn't in the phone book."

"Thanks for coming," I said. "You got here just in time." I didn't explain, but I thought he knew what I meant and that I needed to be alone for a while. Their questions could wait. I left them to deal with things and walked back through the cold gray rain to my car. When the shock wore off, I was going to ache in a dozen new places. If I had known how painful this would be, would I still have done it? It was a question I couldn't answer with certainty, but I thought the answer was yes. I'd done the job and I'd found Carrie's killer. I felt no flush of triumph, no sense of satisfaction. I only felt stunned, hollow, and possessed by a terrible sadness. Mechanically, I let myself into the car, started the engine, and turned on the heat. Then I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and cried one more time for my sister.

The End

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Here's an excerpt from

DEATH IN A FUNHOUSE MIRROR

A Thea Kozak Mystery

Book Two

~

I looked over the top of my book at Andre, asleep in his lounge chair, looking gorgeous and ridiculous in the tiny red bathing suit that had been the reason it took us from nine o'clock, when we woke up, until almost eleven to get from the bedroom out to the deck. It was the kind of suit I used to look at in stores and laugh, unable to imagine anybody wearing one. In fact, I had laughed when he came out of the bathroom wearing it, until he pointed out that my bikini bottom was even briefer. I disagreed, and we ended up standing in front of the mirror, hip to hip, comparing.

For us, getting that close is always dangerous. There are a lot of things we disagree about. He's a cop, a Maine state trooper, and I'm a consultant to independent schools. Sometimes I find him too rigid, too judgmental, or so distracted by his work—he's a homicide detective—that he's completely unavailable. He says I'm too impetuous, and too prim—an unlikely combination, if you ask me, but that's what he says—and I also have an incurable tendency to get wrapped up in my work. We don't live together. We don't even live in the same state, which may help us get along despite our differences, but when it comes to our physical relationship, we have no disagreements. So, even though we'd planned to have breakfast out on the deck and spend the morning reading, we'd gotten sidetracked.

Staring at that little bathing suit had naturally led to staring at his body. I'd always assumed those small, revealing suits were for slight men, or men with the exaggerated vee shapes of models. Andre isn't built like that. He has what I think of as a sturdy body. Not stocky, he doesn't have an ounce of fat, but he has a substantial presence, nice strong legs, and a comfortably hairy chest. It's okay with me. I like substantial men. I'm no peanut myself. If I were a frightened crime victim, Andre Lemieux is exactly the kind of cop I'd want to show up and protect me, strong and kind and comforting. If I were a bad guy, I'd sit up nights praying that he never came after me. There's something about the hard glare in his eyes, and a subdued anger that emanates from him, that tells you how much he hates the bad guys and makes you sure he'll get them in the end. I'd been on the receiving end of his inquisitorial technique when my sister Carrie was killed. I knew how tough he could be.

The "in the mirror" comparison eventually led to the conclusion that we had to take the suits off to compare them properly, and since we hadn't seen each other for three weeks, that naturally led to other things. We concluded with a frantic raid on the refrigerator instead of the genteel breakfast I'd envisioned, and now we were out on the deck of my new condo, where we could look past a patch of green lawn onto a delicious expanse of blue water, just like the real estate ad had promised.