Once Upon A Killing (A Gass County Novel Book 2) (22 page)

“Wayne, don’t close your eyes, stay with us.”

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“Mr. Matthews?” a dark rumbled shook him and made the railings on the bed rattle as it woke him to life.

“Is it God?” he heard himself whisper.

“In your case, fortunately not. I’m Melanie Orchard, I work with your friend Brody Jensen. I’m with the police.”

“You made me think I was dead.”

“You’re not dead. You’re at the intensive care unit at a hospital in Wicheta, and because you finally answered me, I can, with relief, tell the staff you have woken up and are certainly not deceased.”

“I didn’t recognize your voice.”

“I understand, because we’ve never met before. I do appreciate the comparison to God, I’ll put that on my next resume, should I ever write one.”

“God or Goddess, I just wanted to know if I was still alive or not.”
“That’s a valid question. Is there anyone you’d like me to contact for you? A spouse, parents, friends?”

“No,” he whispered and kept his eyes closed. Moving anything but the vocal cords and lips proved too much.

“Are you sure?”

“Christine, yes, maybe call Christine. Brody knows.”

“Mr. Matthews, Brody is with Ms. Christine at the moment.”

“What?”

“Um, Mr. Matthews…”

“Yes…” he breathed impatiently.

“Christine has several limbs broken and was hanged from the ceiling inside your garage, left to die, had it not been for Brody returning to your home the night after the party.”

“Had it not been for Brody, you say…”

“Ms. Christine is at the hospital in Primrose Valley getting her left arm in a cast, and is resting from the events. Brody is with her at the moment, sir.”

“Why am I not there?” his frustration strained his body and he started breathed heavily, releasing a moan.

“Well, sir, your injury was of another kind and needed other type of treatments.”

“What?” his left hand attempted a slight move only to fall exhausted onto his chest.

“You have a skull fracture, Mr. Matthew, and…” she stopped short.

“Go on,” his whisper motioned.

“Your skull was divided in half at the back, and then sewn back together.”

“I don’t remember…”

“An axe was used, sir, an axe from your shed. Sewing needles from Harold’s were used to reattach the skin to your scalp. Very poorly done, sir, will leave a big scar.”

“I remember the sudden hit, and the smell of leather.”

“You’ve been asleep for five days, sir, and I have been watching you since you arrived here. Brody has, as I said, stayed with Ms. Christine.”

“Who would dream up a vicious act like this?”

A breath escaped Melanie’s lungs. “You know her as Mary, sir.”

“Mary? My Mary?”

“Mary has an admiration for knives,” Melanie answered causally, as if reading random items of a grocery list.

“What are you talking about, my Mary?!” his lungs coughed draining his energy.

“Familiar with a woman named Lucy?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Took a vicious tumble down the stairs only to meet her last minutes as a stab victim. Sounds like the fall was something similar to what happened to Ms. Christine as well, in Mary’s presence, “ she confirmed then continued. “Your physician, which you visited several towns away from Primrose Valley…”

“Fatality by stab wounds, I heard,” Wayne cut her off.

“Gardening scissors, sir. Awful. Apparently, the doctor had a hard time covering up the correct result to the paternity test, thus had to be silenced.”

“Oh, my God. Seem as if I’m the cause of all these… casualties.”

“You’re not, sir. Only someone with a disturbed and sick mind would interpret your slight annoyance with your neighbor’s dog as a reason to end its days on earth.”

“No,” his voice stunned.

“Yes, sorry sir. Ms. Mary was not only pretending to be your daughter in an attempt to get closer to you, but also spreading despair with mischievous deeds along her way. She already confessed, sir, with nothing but a smile, pride shining on her delicate face for being capable of such crimes without being detected for so long. She’s said you betrayed her, sir. Is that correct?” Melanie leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

“Betrayed her?”

“Rumor has it you didn’t pay enough attention to her. She also mentioned seeing you at Lucy’s housel or the slut’s house, as she named it, several times during the week when you were dating. She said you were a selective man-whore then as you are now and paid as much attention to her as one would a dying fly.”

“Dating Lucy… that was over a decade ago. If not more. But I’ve met her, Mary, you say?”

“Not sure, sir, I only know she lived across the street and up the hill from Lucy. I’ve been over there. Her bedroom window in the old house faced the front porch of Lucy’s childhood home.”

He felt his pulse accelerate, and suddenly his mouth was a dry as a desert. “Foster Street. House number forty-two,” he mumbled and closed his eyes. His chanting began in a whisper, but escalated quickly. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Vicious, mad, and oh so scary,” he repeated in delusion. Over and over again, until Melanie pushed back her metal chair, scraping the cement floor covered in white sterile linoleum and rushed out in the corridor, waving down two nurses for assistance.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Vicious, mad, and oh so scary,” the noise echoed the walls of the hospital, calling attention not only to employees but patients in close proximity.

“He will be out for a while, Officer. Please refrain from anymore of your questioning until his mental state has stabilized and his wounds heal better. At the point where he is now, we’re just happy all nerve cells, eyesight, and body movements are functioning. The head wound was deep, poorly stitched back together, and was without doubt made to cause as much trauma as possible,” Dr. Sanford cornered Melanie at the water fountain at the end of the corridor.

“Absolutely, I have no further questions at the moment. There’s already been a confession.”

“If I should be perfectly honest,” Dr. Sanford voice lowered to a mumble. “If the other person hadn’t come in and distracted the offender, Mr. Matthews in there would have had two skulls instead of one.” Her feet moved her quickly down the same corridor she had just rushed up and left Melanie alone by the still trickling water fountain. She looked down and released its button with her hand and wiped the side of her mouth.

Once more the long corridor of the hospital lay silent, and with soft steps she slowly walked back to room thirty-four and pushed the door open enough to slide in easily and without detection from the nurse’s station at the other end.

The room looked different from just a few minutes earlier. Lights were off, and the only brightness entering the tomb-like space came from the small gaps between the tall blinds covering the sole window of Wayne’s confinement.

She stared at him for a moment, a few steps away from the bed, and found it difficult to believe someone as dainty as Mary could cause such tremendous pain and destruction to such a large man’s body. Goliath and David came to mind, as she knew he would have been able to defend himself had he known she was right behind him in the kitchen, about to swing the heaviness of the axe to the back of his head. But he hadn’t stood a chance from her quiet approach.

Chapter Thirty

Brody was at his wits end making sure Wayne stayed as far away from Christine as possible. The last weeks had brought a more agitated Wayne, frustrated and angry over the bond Christine had cut off, leaving him to fend not only with his own recovery, but with his feelings.

“She mentioned it’s not worth it, Wayne. I’m not sure what it means to you guys, but that’s the only statement you’ll get out of her.”

Grabbing for anything within arm’s reach, Wayne threw the food blender across the room and smashed a lamp standing in the corner.

“And not only is your life in darkness, now your room will be too,” Brody said, watching the inferno progressing before his eyes as he sat at one of the chairs in Wayne’s kitchen, rotating the brim of his hat in his hands.

“There had just been too many things wrong between you, Wayne. Too many women, too many arguments for her to continue. You played the game for long, but now you’re out. She needs recovery as well as you,” his hand grabbed a cell phone flying by his face in midair and placed it on the table.

“That girl, Mary, broke her arm, Wayne, tossed your rope for towing around her neck and hoisted Christine up to the ceiling of your garage. Had it not been for me dropping my house keys in your yard before I left your party, that wood beam over your car in there would have claimed her life,” his head nodding out the window toward the garage now circled in yellow crime scene tape, which had made him and his house the most popular topic in the neighborhood among the gossiping neighbors on the cul-de-sac.

Wayne wished the entire house could be plastered in signs telling everyone to ‘fuck-off’, ‘leave me alone’, and ‘mind your own business.’

“She could have picked you, Brody, you!” Wayne yelled, unable to conceal his fury.

“What do you mean?” Brody asked, placing the hat on the table.

“We all knew Mary back then, remember? She could have picked any of us guys to get back at, not just me.”

“Well,” Brody looked down at his feet. “You were the one who decided to take her out on a picnic, make her trust you enough to undress herself, and left her to join your friends in vicious laughter in the bushes. That was cruel, Wayne. Not nice.”

“Billy did things too. He was the one who spread the rumor about her being a witch, living on that creepy hill with her bedroom in the attic. She used to stop by the pond on her way home from school to collect frogs to bring home. Everyone joked she was part of the Addams Family.”

“Guess what you did brought the pain, though. She was after you. Jealousy, Wayne. She wanted you and you not only ignored her, instead you put her in the spotlight in the worst possible way.”

“Gee, thanks for your tremendous support, Brody.”

Brody didn’t respond. Instead he looked out the window, his mind quietly repeating the mantra they all had chanted loudly from the bottom of the hill as small, stupid bastards to the lonely girl rushing up the hill to hide in her old three-story house, where the attic was a sanctuary and the best viewpoint of the town: “Mary, Mary, quite contrary. Vicious, mad, and oh so scary.”

Chapter Thirty-one

It looked just awful. Just bloody awful. Gray, wet from the rain, and so cold the tears that should have made it out must have frozen on the inside of his eyes.

He was alone now. The strangest feeling in the world. He simply stood there, a mere ten feet from the recently covered grave. Only fifteen minutes earlier it had been an open trench to fall into, but he hadn’t. It could have been him. It definitely could be his body lying deep in that hole, but instead his body was alive, his eyes able to watch what happens after someone who isn’t loved by anyone is put back into the earth.

Thank god he had people who cared about him. People who liked him well enough, and people who loved him. He was sure any of them would show their faces if it had been his funeral today. But it wasn’t. The few cars that had turned into the cemetery had recently left and the only car left by the iron gate, dividing the living world with the dead, was his blue pick-up truck he’d parked almost an hour ago.

It had been a short ceremony, with a few words chosen by the minister, as no one really knew what to really say. He was glad he hadn’t been there alone during the whole service. Brody was there, of course. Not only as his oldest friend but, as the Sheriff in town, he’d been the one dealing with the body after the passing. Bryce, his sister Maddie, and Christine had been the next ones to park and walk the slanting gravel trail down to the side of the small chapel, where there had been a spot left to dig in. A spot soft enough for a shovel or two to make the grave. A few minutes later Jefferson had arrived quietly, standing by his side, holding Raylyn’s hand tight in his.

It must have been one of the most quiet funeral services of all time. A mere five sentences may have escaped the lips of Mr. Hester, the minister of Primrose Valley. But no one else moved their lips.

The grave was covered in brown dirt, a head stone made from a large stone boulder from the fields grazing the town showed her name, marking her existence on earth.“Mary Donaghue, 1988-2015. May you rest in peace.”