Hometown Favorite: A Novel (32 page)

Sabrina realized she still had her bag slung over her right
shoulder as she was marched into the kitchen. She grasped her
bag and swung around, striking Tyler in the side of the face with
this newfound weapon. The heroic burst of energy to change
fortune only amused Tyler, and Sabrina stared at him in wonder
at the ineffectiveness of her strike.

The blow to the side of her head was so swift, it did not have
time to register in her brain.

Tyler watched Sabrina crumple to the floor, a human rag
doll among the scattered contents of her purse. This could not
have been a more perfect outcome. He would not have to move
her body at all. He bent down, picked up Sabrina's cell phone
and passport, and slipped back into the office.

One final sweep of the desk netted him another twenty-five
hundred dollars and Dewayne's passport. This luck felt orchestrated, but he would never admit to it. No, when his criminal
peers told this story, they would speak of him as the architect of
this master plan. The glory belonged to him alone. He dropped
the extra cash, Sabrina's cell phone, and his weapon into his
bag, and then laid Sabrina's and Dewayne's passports on top of
the fax machine next to the E-tickets and travel itinerary sent
over from the agency-one-way flights to Argentina departing
that afternoon.

He needed to delay the admiration for his work. A few more
details needed his attention. Satisfied with the condition of
the office, he threw his bag over his shoulder, snatched the
golf club-he may actually take up golf, he thought, once he
had settled into a new location-and returned to the kitchen.
Sabrina had not moved from the point on the floor where she
had fallen, but to be sure she had indeed expired from the deft
strike to the head, he placed two latexed fingers on her neck
in search of a pulse. He found none, so he tiptoed out of the
kitchen, careful to avoid contact with the bodies.

Once in the garage he quickened his pace. After removing the
smoothie containers from the cooler and dropping them into his
bag, he decided he liked the door of the Denali to remain open.
He then counted out five thousand in cash from what he had lifted from the desk in the office, leaving him a balance of just
over ten thousand, and stuffed the money into Dewayne's coat
pocket. He wrapped Dewayne's hand around the leather grip of
the nine iron and set the end resting on the garage floor. Finally,
he reached over the steering wheel and turned on the ignition.

The master stepped back to the kitchen and took one last look
before closing the door. Then the master reviewed all the steps
he had taken to implement his plan, those calculated and those
spontaneous. He almost hated to leave the scene, considering how
perfectly everything had gone. He wished he could be here when
Rosella arrived, followed by the paramedics and the police. He
wished he could hear their interpretations of the gallery of scenes
laid out for them, gloat as they deduced the wrong conclusions,
even muster a level of false sympathy for the accused.

Yes, he would write this story of exactly how it happened.
He would not leave this masterwork for lesser mortals to write.
His account would be definitive.

"This is OnStar. My name is Martha. How may we assist
you, Mr. Jobe?"

The voice startled him out of his reverie. Martha had to
ask the question a second time before Tyler was sure of the
voice's origin. How did that happen? He did not move. He
held his breath, his mind racing with new alternatives to this
unexpected twist. Martha asked the question a third time with
a slight edge of impatience, and Tyler realized he must have hit
the OnStar button when turning on the ignition to the car.

"Due to lack of response, OnStar is disconnecting:'

No one would believe this ending except the aficionados of
pulp fiction. It was a detail even the master planner had to admit
he would never have chosen to tempt fate's whims. It was brilliant,
and the master planner filled the enclosed darkening atmosphere
with uproarious laughter.

Just hours before the Jobe calamity, Cherie had left Webb Furniture early, complaining of some pains in her chest and an
upset stomach, a delayed reaction to last night's Chinese takeout, she explained. She took a half day of sick leave, a rarity in
Cherie's professional life. On her sofa was where she wanted to
be, watching Dr. Phil and Oprah, shows she never saw because
she was stretching sheets of simulated leather over the metal
frames during daylight hours.

The flat screen that hung in her living room was like a memorial to her son's kindness. When Cherie had found out her son
had paid off her mortgage-he did receive that scolding he had
anticipated-Cherie had taken a portion of the money she had
in a savings account and bought herself the flat screen to watch
her son play football. Now, the reminder of his thoughtfulness
toward her brought a wave of emotion as she turned on the
TV and settled in to rest.

She was frustrated when a special news bulletin interrupted
Oprah's interview with a celebrity promoting the release of her
new movie, one she had no intention of seeing. The screen cut
to a reporter standing in front of a chaotic scene. Something
about being in an upscale, residential neighborhood outside
Houston, the reporter said. Cherie thought the house in the background looked so much like Dewayne's, but she could
not understand the reporter's words. The masses of peoplefirefighters, police, reporters, and general onlookers behind
the police barricades distracted her. But when she heard the
reporter say her son's name, she rose from the sofa and began to
shuffle backward toward the bathroom, her eyes riveted to the
screen. Paramedics were coming out of the Jobe house pushing gurneys loaded down with black bags and depositing the
contents in waiting ambulances. As the ambulances began to
drive away, Cherie tumbled into the bathroom, voiding everything inside her stomach.

When she returned to the living room, she held on to the
back of the recliner to keep from collapsing and listened to
the police spokeswoman give an account of what was known
so far. An OnStar representative had received a call from the
owner of the vehicle, an occupant who resided in the house, but
there was no response. She became suspicious and alerted the
police. Four people found inside; Dewayne Jobe was the only
one found alive, and he had just been taken to an undisclosed
hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Cherie returned to the bathroom to ride out a second wave of
convulsions in her abdomen and chest. The persistent ringing of
the phone in the kitchen pulled her out of the bathroom, and as
she passed through the living room to answer the phone, Oprah
and the crowd convulsed in laughter at the story the celebrity
had just told. Cherie could not believe they were laughing.
How could they be laughing at a time like this?

She stumbled over to the television and turned down the
sound. She could not abide hearing laughter. She answered
the phone, thinking it might be Rosella, but instead it was Jake
Hopper. Yes, she did have the television on. Yes, she had just seen the report. Yes, it was unbelievable. Yes, she was also in
shock. And why were they even having this conversation?

"I'll close up the store and be right over;" Jake said.

Cherie did not reply but carried the phone with her to the
television, stretching the cord to its full length. She took the
remote in her hands and began to back away from the screen,
not wanting to be too close to the horror it had reported. The
TV had become an enemy, forcing its sick, repulsive, sanitized
news into her home, her life, her heart.

Her son. Her only son.

She flipped the remote and found another cable channel
covering the story.

All three children were dead, the reporter said.

Cherie dropped the phone on the floor, and the taut cord
yanked the receiver back into the kitchen.

All three were brutally murdered, the reporter continued.

Cherie dropped the remote, and when it hit the hardwood
floor, the plastic case broke open, scattering the batteries.

The reporter ended the segment by saying they could not
confirm it, but police were saying Dewayne Jobe was the
number one suspect who may have perpetrated these heinous
crimes.

The only thing left to drop to the floor was Cherie, and she
collapsed in an agony of broiling pain.

' "My son, she whispered. "My only son."

Rosella had commented to her friends how strange it was that
Dewayne did not call on his way to the Stars' training facility
once he landed, and had she not been in the middle of a mud
bath, she would have called him. There wasn't even a message from either Sabrina or Dewayne when she checked her voice mail after showering off the medicinal dirt, and when
she called them, she left a terse message on each of their voice
mails. He and Sabrina would get a mild reprimand from her
at dinner tonight.

But the police were waiting for her in the parking lot of
the Mediterranean where she had spent an invigorating day
with her friends. She would not be going home to prepare the
family dinner.

The two uniformed policewomen who escorted her to their
car and drove her to the hospital were very polite, but they
gave Rosella little information about what had happened at
her house. In an act of benign deception, one policewoman
asked for Rosella's cell phone, explaining the battery in her
phone had died and she needed to check on her child in day
care. In all innocence, Rosella gave it to her. The officers did
not want her to receive or make any calls that might give her
a concrete idea of what disaster had befallen her family. They
tried to keep Rosella from panicking by telling her there had
been an accident, people were hurt-to what extent they weren't
sure-and she didn't need to go home. They would take her
straight to the hospital.

The policewomen would let someone above their pay grade
tell Rosella who was dead and who was still recovering. They
had not been at the scene, so they could not comment on the
small army of people who had descended upon Rosella's neighborhood, and the reason for the police escort was to avoid the
crowds and media that always show up when a celebrity of any
kind has an accident.

All this seemed to reassure Rosella for the duration of the
drive, so much so she forgot she had loaned the officer her
phone. After the phone call, the officer turned off the phone
and concealed it on the seat between them.

When they arrived at the hospital, television trucks were
camped outside the front entrance and a crowd of people
moved in and out of the lobby. The driver of the police car
spoke to someone on the radio, then drove a few blocks farther
down the street and entered a loading dock at the rear of the
building. A Detective John Hathaway met Rosella and the two
officers at a back entrance leading to the lower floors. Rosella
took her phone without noticing it was off, and she dropped
it into her purse as the officers told her good-bye.