Racing the Devil (25 page)

End of story.

End of guilt.

Only, it didn’t quite make sense. The unmade bed still bothered me, as did the bloody stains on Tara’s gown. One bullet to Katrina’s head—that might have been an act of desperation, or even, in some twisted way, mercy. But someone had emptied a magazine into Tara’s body. That kind of overkill said something very different.

I remembered Cal’s face at the memorial service as he hustled his children away, the way he had gotten out of the car at the school for one last hug, the way he had looked playing softball with his daughters in the front yard. And I knew that, whatever his flaws, Cal Hartwell had loved his girls.

Then there was Amy’s murder, which had taken months of planning. A man who could arrange his wife’s death coldly and efficiently and set up an innocent man to take the blame was not a man who would be driven to suicide by guilt.

Blessedly, the ambulance arrived, and I was hustled out of the way so the paramedics could do their jobs.

I was never so glad to turn over a task to somebody else.

I met Frank and Harry in the living room, where they were examining Cal’s body with their hands jammed in their pockets.

Obeying the first rule of a crime scene: Don’t touch anything.

Harry nodded as I came over to them wiping the blood from my hands on the handkerchief. He said, “Things not exciting enough for you, you have to go looking for trouble?”

I grimaced at him, but something uncoiled from around my heart. If he was joking with me, he wasn’t thinking of me as a murderer. I said, “The younger daughter’s dead. Older one’s still hanging on, but I don’t know for how long.”

Frank looked up at me and blinked. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

I showed him the key. “Lady down the street called me, said there was something weird going on, but she didn’t want to call the police, since it was just a bad feeling. Birdie Drafon.” I gave him the address.

Frank’s bushy eyebrows merged into a V at the bridge of his nose. “You think Hartwell did this to himself?”

I shook my head, shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought so at first, but . . .”

“But?”

“He didn’t seem the type.”

“You can’t always tell.”

“That Hartwell’s handwriting?”

Frank leaned over the couch and peered down at the paper. “Too soon to tell. Plain block letters. Not too many distinguishing characteristics. Harry, you ready to start with the photos?”

“Uh huh.”

Frank and I stepped out of the way while Harry photographed the crime scene. Standing in the doorway, he began to his immediate left, then panned around the room, taking overlapping shots. Between each shot, he stopped to painstakingly label each one. When he had completely circled the room, he went to the opposite wall and took a shot of the place where he’d been standing. Then he started on the body.

“You know I have to look into you on this,” Frank said.

I didn’t know what to say to this, so I kept quiet.

The paramedics hurried past us with a gurney, an oxygen mask over Katrina’s face. Outside, the street was beginning to fill with police cars as the uniforms, the medical examiner, and the other significant personnel arrived on the scene. There was a van with the Channel 3 logo on the side.

Surprise, surprise.

I nodded toward the van. “Looks like you’ve sprung another leak.”

“She’s a stunner,” he said. “Too bad she’s a cockroach.” He stared out at the chaos that was swiftly forming in the Hartwells’ front yard.

Harry came out, blinking in the bright sunlight. “We won’t know for sure until we do the gunpowder residue tests whether Hartwell did it or not. You ought to hang around until it’s done.”

“Harry. You don’t think . . .”

“No.” He gave me a half-smile. “Just, better safe than sorry.”

They tested my hands and let me wash them when it was clear that I hadn’t discharged a firearm recently. Then I cooled my heels at the kitchen table while Frank and Harry processed the scene. It felt strange. I knew that evidence was being placed in bags and tagged, that a technician was swabbing Cal’s hands with a five percent solution of nitric acid and checking the swabs for traces of nitrates, barium, and antimony, the presence of which would prove that Cal had fired a gun shortly before his death. I wanted to be part of it all, not relegated to the kitchen hiding from the cameras.

While I waited, I tried to envision what had happened in the Hartwell house and how it related to Amy’s murder. With Cal dead, the equation had suddenly and dramatically changed.

After awhile, Frank came in and said, “He did it.”

“Gunpowder residue?”

“That’s right.”

“It doesn’t fit.”

“Well, maybe we’ll get lucky, and Katrina will be able to tell us what happened.”

“Maybe.” I thought about the spray of blood on the headboard and knew the girl wouldn’t be talking soon. If ever. “Any of the neighbors hear anything?”

“Nada. Not a thing.”

It didn’t mean much—maybe the neighbors were sound sleepers—but it made me wonder if whoever had done this had used a suppressor.

I was as certain now that Cal was innocent as I had been sure before that he wasn’t.

Maybe the killer, or killers, had overpowered Cal.

Maybe.

But sitting there in the kitchen, knowing Cal had fired the Browning, I imagined a different scenario.

I LEFT THE HARTWELL HOUSE
and trotted over to Ms. Birdie’s. From the Channel 3 van, Ashleigh called my name, but I pretended not to hear her. She started after me, but a couple of uniformed policemen blocked her path.

Ms. Birdie’s eyes welled with tears when I told her the news.

“How much more must that poor child endure?” she asked, when I got to the part about Katrina. “Will she be all right?”

“I wish I could say. Head shots are unpredictable. She could make a full recovery, or she could have varying degrees of brain damage.”

“I don’t know what that means. Are you saying she could be a vegetable?”

I sighed. “Ms. Birdie, it could mean anything.”

She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “I can’t believe Calvin would do such a thing. He wasn’t a good husband, but he wasn’t a bad man.”

“I know,” I said. “But there’s no doubt he fired the gun that killed him. I just need to find out why.”

Her moist, black currant eyes met mine. “Of course, dear. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Do you know who inherits if Calvin and the girls die?” I steeled myself for the answer. “Is Valerie the next of kin?”

She cocked her head, birdlike, to one side. “Well, I suppose so, dear, but she doesn’t inherit anything. She isn’t even beneficiary of their insurance. Cal’s will stipulates that if he and Amy both die, everything goes to the church.”

“Everything to the church? What about the girls?”

“That minister of theirs gets custody. Amy wasn’t really happy about that, but there was no one else.”

My stomach rolled at the idea of Avery taking the girls. If he was really Walter . . . “What about Valerie?”

She waved her hands. “Oh, heavens no. She didn’t even like the girls that much.”

“Grandparents? Aunts and uncles?”

“I don’t think so. Calvin’s parents were dead, and Amy’s were estranged. Then her mother died just a few months ago. It’s like a black cloud’s been hanging over that family.”

If Avery had killed the Hartwells in order to inherit, the string of deaths should end here. But if someone was systematically destroying Amy’s family, then Valerie was next.

I PARKED THE VAN
in her driveway just as a red Corvette with flames painted across the hood pulled out. I recognized the guy behind the wheel—limp blond hair, chiseled jaw. He looked like a British rock star. The last time I’d seen him, he was orchestrating the sound and lights for Amy’s memorial program. The first time I’d seen him, he was climbing into Valerie’s red Chevy.

Valerie came out of the house, holding a glass of ice water.

“I thought you weren’t seeing that guy anymore,” I said, trying to sound casual and not quite pulling it off.

She brushed my cheek with her lips. “Jealous?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I never said I was only seeing you.”

Fair enough. “Can we go in and talk for a minute?”

“I have a lot to do. Can’t we talk while I work?”

“It would be better if we went inside.”

She grinned. “My God, you’re insatiable.” Then she looked into my eyes and the smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s go inside.”

I led her into the living room, sat on the sofa, and patted the cushion beside me. She plopped down and tucked one leg beneath her, one arm resting across the back of the couch behind my shoulders. Her face was pale and perfectly still.

I took her hand and told her, as gently as I could, about Calvin and the girls. Then I told her my suspicions about Avery and the Church of the Reclamation, and about my belief that all the deaths were somehow related and that she might be in danger.

She listened wordlessly until I’d finished. Then, “You’re insane,” she said. She scraped a fingernail across a stray thread from the southwestern throw that protected her sofa. “My mother’s death was an accident. And Cal . . .” She stopped and gave a deep, animal moan. “Oh, God, Cal.”

I pulled her into my arms. She resisted at first, then buried her face against my chest and wept.

“I don’t think he did it,” I said. “Not on his own. I wish you’d stay somewhere else for a few days. Until I get this sorted out.”

She snuffled into my armpit. “He must have done it. Don’t you see? He must have been crazy.”

“He may have been crazy, but not the way you mean.”

“Because the
bed
wasn’t made?” She gave a little shriek of laughter and sat up. “Calvin never made a bed in his life. He thought that was woman’s work.”

My jaw set. “I’d still feel better if you’d find someplace else to stay. You could crash at my place for awhile.”

“No, no, there’s too much to do. Katrina, and the estate, and . . . Tell you what.” She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “If you haven’t caught the bad guys in a week, I’ll come to your place for a while.”

“Anything could happen in a week.”

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Let me stay here, then. Just in case.”

“Look.” Her cheeks were still wet, but she seemed to have cried herself out. “I don’t blame you for being freaked out. I’m pretty freaked myself. But I got along just fine before you came along, and I’ll get along just fine after you’re gone. I don’t need some guy to take care of me.”

“This is a little different.”

“Jared.” She snuggled in and gave me a peck on the jaw. “I’ll be spending my nights at the hospital with Katrina. Security guards all around. How much safer could it be?”

I DIDN’T LIKE IT
, but there wasn’t much I could do. There had been months between her mother’s death and Amy’s, weeks between Amy’s and Cal’s. Whoever was behind all this was taking his time. How long could I play Valerie’s guard dog? Awhile, but not forever. All the killer had to do was wait. Which meant I had to find him first.

Thinking bleak thoughts, I swung by the office. Opened the door to the communal stairwell I shared with four other tenants. The air in the hallway was hot and dank, like a pile of old blankets in a steam room. A sharp exhalation of breath burst from the cubby hole beneath the stairs, and I had a moment to register another smell, a layer of sweat and cheap aftershave, before a human pile driver surged out of the darkness wearing LeQuintus’s face.

He hadn’t been bluffing when he said I’d see him again.

I was too slow turning, and he hit me shoulder first, square in the chest. All the air punched out of my lungs, and the force drove me backward into the door so hard I heard the wood crack. A jolt of pain shot through my back, up through my neck and down through my tailbone. A millisecond later, the back of my head smacked the door frame. Another burst of pain, and something warm and wet trickled down the back of my neck.

Head reeling, I ducked under his arm and came up behind him. He turned to face me, pulling a ten-inch hunting knife from his belt. His eyes were cold, but he was grinning. The grin said he could think of nothing more fun than slicing me into pieces and eating my heart.

“Told you you’d be sorry, asshole,” he said. “Fuck with me. Anybody fucks with me be sorry.”

Shit.

I knew I should try to reason with him. Maybe it would even work. But I felt like coiled muscle and nerves scraped bare, and I couldn’t seem to find the words. With the smell of Katrina’s blood still in my nostrils, I reached behind my back and came up with the Colt.

“I’ve had a bad day, LeQuintus.” I pointed the gun at his head. “Blowing your brains out might actually make me feel better.”

He froze, the grin dissolving into a hard, thin line. His eyelids fluttered. In the quiet, I couldn’t even hear him breathe. “You crazy, man,” he said.

“No.
You
crazy, man. But I tell you what. If you get out of here right now, I won’t kill you today. And if I never see you around here again, maybe I won’t kill you at all.”

His eyes narrowed. “You bust my ass in front of the whole fuckin’ jail.”

I didn’t try to explain the concept of self-defense. “That’s what this is about? Your reputation?” “Ain’t nothin’ else worth nothin’.”

Couldn’t argue with that. “Then tell your buddies you came here and kicked my ass. I don’t care enough to tell them otherwise. But if you try anything like this again, I swear I’ll shoot you just for being stupid.”

He looked at me, thinking it over. Looked down the barrel of the .45. I could almost see the tumblers in his mind turning as he tried to decide if I’d really pull the trigger.

He wasn’t sure I’d shoot him.

I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t.

Then his big shoulders sagged and he turned away. “Crazy man like you,” he said. “Shouldn’t even be on the streets.”

I watched his retreating back and thought back to our first encounter. I hadn’t wanted to kill him then. I hadn’t wanted to kill anyone.

It seemed like a long time ago.