The Ghost and the Dead Deb (24 page)

A branch bumped the windshield, startling me.

“Talk to me, Jack, so I don’t feel all alone.”

“Couldn’t say.”

Just when I feared I would have to back all the way out of a dead end, I came to a wide, circular clearing large enough to accommodate a half-dozen vehicles. Though the area seemed remote, I saw twinkling lights through the thick, old tree trunks—a faraway building probably—but I could not make out any details. I circled the area until I spied a gleam of metal in the headlights’ glare. Half-smothered in branches, sat a big red pickup truck with
Napp Hardware
in black letters on the side. I stopped the car and cut the engine.

Inside the trees the night sounds were more pronounced, the traffic roar muted. I heard an owl hoot as I moved carefully to the truck, the flashlight from my glove compartment in hand. I tried three keys in the door before I found the right one. Finally the lock clicked. I reached for the handle when a voice in my head stopped me.

“How—”

Use the material from your blouse like a glove
—

You want me to take it off ?”

“Don’t worry, Jack. I’ll manage.”

I stuck my hand into the tail of my shirt. The door opened with a metallic groan. In the dim glow of the roof light I could see the messy interior of the cab, which smelled of oil, turpentine, and fresh paint. There were tools and boxes of nails between the two bucket seats, sheets of sandpaper scattered on the floor, and several old copies of the weekly penny-saver newspaper.

“Jack, what are we looking for?”

I crawled inside the cab, careful not to touch anything with my hands. I used the flashlight to check the back of the pickup, which was filled with building materials, a toolbox, some electrical drills and saws, a portable lathe, cans of paint, and bundles of rags. I also spied coils of yellow rope—probably the same type found wrapped around Angel Stark’s throat. Since it was nearly impossible to squeeze into the open bed of the pickup from the cab, I focused my attention on searching the driver’s area. As I rifled through the glove compartment, I moved my leg and several tiny metallic objects clattered to the floor. I played my flashlight along the floor mat until I saw them—two bullets, with brass casings and silver tips.

“That’s right! What do we do? Call the police?”

“There are two bullets, Jack.”

“The chief would only say I made a story up to protect Johnny.”

Possible
—
unless you find Angel’s gun, and they can lift prints off one of the bullets. So let’s hope we never have to go that route. Now, grab one of those slugs with your blouse, wrap it up real gentle like, so if there is a print on it you don’t smear it.

There was no way I was going to reach one of the bullets with the shirt still on my back. I sighed and stripped it off, then wound the material around my hand. Dressed only in my khaki pants and white cotton bra, my skin prickled in the night’s slight breeze and I felt Jack’s eyes on me—which was, of course, patently ridiculous.

My cheeks flamed. “Cut it out, Jack.”

My fingers closed around the slug and I grabbed it, wrapped it, then I climbed out of the cab, closed the door, and made sure it was locked. I felt naked and vulnerable and I nearly screamed when headlights flashed through the trees—not from the direction of the service road, but from whatever that building was beyond the trees.

Then the headlights went out and I swore I heard voices, faintly and far away. That got me curious. I moved away from my own car, toward the light peeking through the trees. I found a path and followed it, my flashlight beam stabbing through the darkness.

Another pair of headlights shone through the woods, and I soon realized I was approaching the parking lot of the Comfy-Time Motel. Lit up beyond the trees was the very vending area where I’d found the cell phone earlier in the day.

“Jack . . .”

I know. This doesn’t look good for Johnny-boy. Victoria Banks was snatched less than a hundred yards from where he stashed his wheels
—
too close to be a coincidence, the coppers will insist.

I sighed. It was after midnight, and I was lurking in the woods near a motel parking lot in my bra with my blouse wrapped around a bullet.

“I think I’ve seen enough, Jack.”

I turned and panned the trees with my flashlight—the light caught the edge of a dingy white rectangle, and I saw it was that old rusting Private Property sign hanging from one nail on the giant oak tree that split the single trail in two.

I retraced my steps down the trail where I had come from but more paths branched off and I realized that it was easier to find a building in the darkness than a car parked in the woods.

“Oh, God, Jack . . . I think I took the wrong path . . . I think I’m lost . . .”

But I did. I turned around and retraced my steps once more and started again. I began moving so quickly I almost outpaced my own flashlight beam. The column of light danced with my every step, throwing crazy shadows. My heart raced as I stumbled along. Suddenly my foot caught something and I went down onto my hands and knees. I still clutched the bundled blouse with the bullet, but the flashlight flew from my hand.

It landed off the path, rolled and stopped. The beam of light fell on what looked like a squirming black mass. I blinked as a cloud of flittering night bugs rose from the heap on the ground. I looked closer, saw a length of yellow rope encircling puffy black flesh, straw-blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail, and pale, mottled skin still crawling with insects.

Then I screamed.

I’m the sucker in this deal.
You’re
the smart guy.

—Raymond Chandler, “Blackmailer’s Don’t Shoot,”
Black Mask
magazine, 1933 (featuring Philip Mallory, the precursor to Philip Marlowe)

 

 

 

I WAS SICKENED, horrified, panicked. I picked up the flashlight and blindly ran. Branches clawed my head and arms, scrub brush tore my slacks, stones invaded my sandals.

Jack tried to stop me, but I wasn’t a hardened ex-cop turned P.I. with a hundred crime scenes in my past and a gun strapped under my shoulder for protection. I was a widowed single mother completely lost—and in over my head.

The sound of my own name finally broke through. I couldn’t remember the last time Jack had called me anything but doll or baby. My steps slowed.

“Jack . . . it was . . . Victoria Banks . . . ,” I rasped, trying to catch my breath. “She was strangled, just like Angel . . . with yellow rope . . .”

“No, Jack. I have to get out of here. I have to call the police.”

But
. . .

Jack kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. I continued moving along the path, not sure where I was going, just as long as it was
away
from those grotesque remains. My heart was beating faster than moth wings against a porch light, and my palms were so slick with sweat I almost dropped the flashlight.

When it felt to me as if I’d run far enough, I began sweeping the milky beam in wide arcs to either side of the trail, looking hard into the woods until, thankfully, I caught a glimpse of Bud’s red pickup about twenty feet away. I jogged through the trees toward it. From there, I made my way back to my Saturn.

I opened the trunk, ripped a section of paper towel off the roll I kept there, carefully transferred the bullet into it, put it in my pocket, and threw my blouse back on. Inside the car, I pulled out the small silver cell phone I had thrown into my purse earlier.

I opened the phone. The display screen’s neon green lit the pitch dark interior of the Saturn with an eerie glow. “What do you think I’m doing?” I snapped aloud. “I’m calling the police. Then I’m waiting right here until they arrive and I’m going to tell them everything.”

“Why?”

You hid Johnny in your back room when you knew the police were looking for him, that’s why. You withheld evidence to protect him, you’re in the middle of the woods after having tampered with more evidence and you don’t have a get out of jail free ticket
—

“What are you talking about? This is murder, not Monopoly!”

“But you were the one who suggested we come out here!”

“What river would that be, Jack, the river Styx?”

I collapsed backward against the car seat and closed the cell phone. “I’m not going back out there. I mean it.”

A long silence followed.

“Jack?”

I did.

 

 

AT A DESERTED rest stop along the highway, I pulled up to a pay phone and called the State Police. Doing my best to disguise my voice, I told them I saw a dead body in the woods behind the Comfy-Time Motel, gave them a good idea of where to look, added that I didn’t want to get involved, and hung up.

Then I drove home, checked on my sleeping Spencer, and went to bed. It would be many hours, however, before I could calm down enough to go to sleep.

“Jack? I don’t know what to do with this . . . Victoria was strangled so close to Johnny’s truck . . . and with that same yellow rope he’s been carrying in his pickup . . . but Johnny’s not some sort of a sick killer who strangled Bethany, Angel,
and
Victoria. He just can’t be!”

My head was pounding. In my sleeveless cotton nightgown, I rose from the bed and went to the bathroom. In the mirror, my shoulder-length reddish-brown hair looked a tangled mess. My arms were covered with unsightly scratches, and the expression in my bloodshot green eyes appeared crazed. I took two aspirin, knocked it back with tap water, and groaned.

“I’ll be fine.” I doused the cuts on my arms with antibacterial spray.

I ignored that and went back to the bedroom. “All three of these young women had been strangled,” I continued reasoning as I sat down on the mattress, “and what Milner said earlier was right . . . I’ve also read enough thrillers to know that light strangulation during sex is a kinky turn-on for some individuals, which can lead to a form of auto-erotic death.”

“There was a case in New York City some years ago involving a wealthy East Side debutante and a prep school classmate—the sexual experimentation had gotten out of hand and the girl had ended up dead. I want to believe Johnny’s innocent . . . he has to be for Bud’s and Mina’s sake . . . but, Jack, how do I prove it?”

The room went quiet. Too quiet. Then the ghost said,
Maybe you don’t.

“I can’t accept that.”

“So who killed Victoria, Jack? Who killed Angel? Who killed Bethany?”

“Yes, Jack.”

“I can’t.”

“I don’t think I can . . .”

I clicked off the lamp, lay back on the mattress, hugged a pillow, and sighed. “When you were alive, what did you do to relax?”

Me?
Jack laughed.
Two ways, baby . . . You want to hear them?

“Sure.”

First way: a bottle of good Scotch
—

“I’d prefer white wine.”

“And the second way?”

Jack laughed again, but this time the sound was deep and low and very male.
Close your eyes,
he whispered,
I’ll show you . . .