Dead Wood (19 page)

Forty-two

T
he first thing I did was vomit. I made it to the toilet, wondering about destroying evidence, but hurl I did. My whole body was shaking, probably from both fear and the aftermath of having an ungodly amount of volts shot through my system. I was having a near death and out-of-body experience at the same time.

Somehow, I found my way back to the first bedroom where one of the twins had been hiding. I assumed the note was meant to be written in my hand, and sure enough, there was a slip of paper. It was the one on which I’d jotted down my name and phone number and given to someone in Shannon’s entourage, maybe Molly?

It was standard, depressed prose: God forgive me, I’m a failure. The note said I had begun an affair with Memphis, fallen in love and when I told her it was over because I was a relatively happily married man, she killed herself. Which then weighed so heavily on me that I could only deal with it by killing myself as well.

The note stopped there, probably when I entered the house and interrupted the forger at work.

I thought about what to do next. I should call the police. Yes, call the police. They would arrive, I’d make my statement, a few hours of questioning and I’d be released around midnight. No, don’t call the police. I stood there, shaking, trying to pull myself together.

Shit. I checked my watch. It was late – I would have to hurry to make my meeting with Shannon.

Leaving the scene of a crime is a felony. So is killing people and I had two dead bodies to my name, and a third hanging from a ceiling fan.

Having asked the old woman for directions to the farmhouse, the people on the ferry, I knew there was no way I could avoid facing the cops. The question was, when did I want to do that? Leaving the scene of a crime would be more than enough to have my P.I. license revoked.

Still, I was hot on this thing and I had a feeling that my meeting with Shannon would bring it to an end.

I decided to compromise. First, I did a quick run-through of Memphis’ house, looking for anything that I could use with Shannon. It felt good to be moving, to be doing something.

I went through every room in the house but came up empty. There was no other choice. I left the house and made a beeline for the silver BMW. It was either Memphis’ or the twins’, but I didn’t know which.

I looked inside and saw a small bag in the front passenger seat’s floor space. It didn’t seem to belong there, and I had a hard time believing it belonged to one of the twins.

In fact, I could’ve sworn that I’d seen the bag somewhere. It looked small, neat and organized. It was a brown leather briefcase and I could see the Franklin planner inside.

I had seen the bag before.

It was Molly’s.

I tried the door and found it was locked. At the back of the house was a small flower bed with a border of river rocks. I picked up the biggest rock, went back and smashed in the Beemer’s window.

The alarm went off and I grabbed the bag.

On the way back to my car, I lived up to the other end of my compromise.

I called my sister.

She didn’t like what I had to say.

Forty-three

I
wasn’t really in the best shape. I ached from the tazer blast, and a blow one of the twins had laid on my spine. But mostly I was in shock from killing two women. The sight of blood, especially my own, made me very uncomfortable. And right now, I was doing everything I could to not think about what had taken place at Memphis’ farmhouse. I’m sure the cops were there by now, wondering where I was, and scouring the scene, trying to figure out what had happened.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ellen where I was going. Suffice to say, if there was any way to reach through the phone line and strangle someone, she would have popped my head off like a champagne cork.

Now, I was just trying to keep it together.

I was early for my rendezvous with Shannon. I parked my car in the Windmill Pointe parking lot and hurried out to the dock. The wind was picking up and the chop had graduated from stiff to severe. Above me, the night sky showed no stars and I could see the black inkiness of serious storm clouds.

The benches normally taken by fisherman going after the perch that hung out close to shore were empty. As were the picnic tables and beach chairs. The whole fucking place was empty except for me.

And maybe Shannon Sparrow.

•  •  •

A flash of lightning threw a spotlight on the lake. There wasn’t a single boat. Even the buoys looked like they wanted to come in and get out of the wind.

My boat was called Air Fare because it was owned by some pilot who’d had money to burn, but then lost his job. I had a feeling it was due to drinking because when I took ownership of the boat and went down below, the smell of gin was overwhelming. Something told me that the pilot was most likely never far from a martini. A man after my own heart, to be honest. I could use about a baker’s dozen of martinis right now.

It had occurred to me that maybe someone had dropped Shannon off. After all, a woman of her stature usually had a driver. Maybe she’d had someone drop her off, then would call to have someone pick her up. I hadn’t noticed anyone in the parking lot. There weren’t even any cars, other than a black pickup truck and a white Toyota Tercel, both of which I knew belonged to park workers.

The boat looked just like I’d left it. The dark red spinnaker cover was snapped into place. The mooring lines were all taut. The deck was neat and clean.

There was no sign of Shannon.

I turned back toward the parking lot. No sense standing out there waiting for her. I boarded the boat and unlocked the doors to the cabin down below.

The smell was a mixture of marine oil, gasoline, booze and cleaning products.

I flipped on the generator and turned on some of the interior lights, careful to make sure the curtains were drawn. A glimpse into Molly’s briefcase had confirmed the rising feeling. Things were falling into place and this meeting with Shannon was going to prove everything I believed to be right.

At least, that’s what I hoped.

•  •  •

“John?”

I heard her voice from the pier. I’d been lost in thought but now stepped up onto the deck and called back. “Shannon.”

She had on blue jeans, a windbreaker and topsiders. A large bag was slung over her shoulder. Her hair was loosely pulled back. She looked…normal.

“Nice boat,” she said.

“It’s a tub of shit, but thanks,” I said.

She stood there, uncertain. It was odd seeing her by herself. No gang of hangers-on swarming around like a pack of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. She seemed smaller, less sure of herself. Maybe I was reading too much into it.

She stepped off the main dock and walked along the dividing dock between my boat and the one next to me.

I held her hand as she hopped onto the deck. Without saying a word, she went down the stairs to the cabin. After taking a quick look around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I followed her below.

The cabin’s layout was simple. On one side was a small table surrounded by a U-shaped bench. The other side was a long counter with a sink, a fridge and the radio. Small storage compartments were tucked everywhere in between.

I gestured for Shannon to sit on one end of the bench and I took the other. The space was too small to sit face-to-face so she sat straight ahead and I sat with my legs out toward the stairs.

“Okay, who called this meeting?” I said.

“What happened to your face?” she asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How come you haven’t said a word about Molly’s death?” I said, ignoring her question. I mean, come on, your assistant falls down the stairs, breaks her neck, and you keep an appointment to meet a P.I. at ten o’clock at night? It was about as absurd as me killing two people and keeping an appointment with a country music star. Chaos reigned.

“I guess I’m all talked out about it,” she said. “I’ve been over it with the cops nine or ten times.”

“Now that you’ve got your story straight, why don’t you lay it on me?”

“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. “And don’t talk to me like that.”

“You weren’t there when she died?”

She shook her head. “Do you have anything to drink around here?” she said. “Aren’t sailors always supposed to have booze on hand?”

I hesitated and took a look at the big purse she’d slid off her shoulder and placed on the table.

“Oh, please,” she said.

It was a moment of truth of sorts. Did I think Shannon was knee-deep in this thing? The bigger question was, how could she not be? But as I looked at her across the table, my gut told me she wasn’t. I got up, went to the sideboard and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and splashed some into a clean glass for her.

“You’re not drinking?” she said.

“You need me to?” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders.

I waited while Shannon drained half the glass in one big gulp. The boat rocked slightly and I knew that the wind had picked up even more, if it was able to whip waves that big into the harbor.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

With a shaking hand, she reached for her purse. I watched her as she pulled out a thick joint and a lighter. As she tried to light the tip, it slipped from her hand and landed on the floor.

“Just tell me what you do know,” I said.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice quavering. “I have people who are supposed to do that for me.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” I said.

She nodded.

“Too many people doing too many things on your behalf,” I said. It didn’t seem to register for a moment. When it did, she went pale and it was hard to see her as the superstar in the press. On the covers of magazines and the object of countless fan clubs and websites. She looked like a scared, lonely woman approaching middle-age.

“Please help me,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her lips trembled and the tears started rolling down her cheeks. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.

I let out a long breath. “I think I do.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

I took the CD from Molly’s purse, the one I’d found in the twins’ silver BMW. I went to the control panel of the boat where a small, built-in CD player was housed. I flicked on the power button and slid the disc in. I waited a moment and then hit play.

It was just static at first. Almost like a gentle scratching. And then soft, acoustic guitar. Gentle notes, full of sorrow and melancholy.

And then a voice.

A really beautiful, haunting voice that began to sing of lost love and the ghosts of lovers past.

I was listening at last to Jesse Barre.

The music itself was rough, but you could hear the quality, the command of the song and the ease of the voice. She sounded like a natural. But it was the power of the words that moved me the most. It was the kind of song that if you heard it on the radio, you would wait and hope the DJ would tell you who it was so you could immediately go buy the CD.

I looked at Shannon and I could tell she knew the same thing. The fear in her face was gone, replaced with a kind of warm recognition. Even in the midst of murder and mayhem, she was enough of a human being and a musician to recognize true beauty when she heard it. And she was hearing it now.

When the song was over, I turned back to the player and hit pause.

I heard clapping and when I turned back, Teddy Armbruster stood next to Shannon.

And next to Teddy was a man.

He looked oddly familiar to me. He had a smirk on his lean, slightly wolfish face.

The boat seemed to sway under me and my knees felt weak. I reached out with my hand against the side of the cabinet to steady myself.

“Surprise, surprise,” Teddy said.

The man just looked at me, curious amusement on his face.

It was him.

The man who I’d met on a snowy night so many years ago.

“Look at him, he’s in shock,” Teddy said.

I couldn’t stop looking at the man. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Teddy spoke again, a wide smile on his face.

“I’d introduce you,” Teddy said, unable to suppress a chuckle. “But I believe you two have already met.”

It was him.

The man who killed Benjamin Collins.

Forty-four

“W
hy don’t you step away from the CD player, John,” Teddy said. On cue, the man who’d killed Benjamin Collins eased out a handgun from a shoulder holster.

“Take out the CD and hand it to me,” Teddy said.

I did as asked.

“Teddy, what are you doing?” Shannon said.

Teddy smiled at her, took the CD and slipped it into the breast pocket of his suitcoat.

“Nothing you need to worry about, Shannon.”

“But I do,” she said. She turned to me. “That was Jesse Barre singing, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “And singing beautifully,” I added, still not taking my eyes from the man across from me.

“What a shame,” Teddy said.

“John,” Shannon said. She was looking at the final destination, but wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here.

“Jesse Barre was going to retire from making guitars,” I said. “Her boyfriend, Nevada Hornsby told me she was taking a sabbatical.”

“Permanent sabbatical,” Teddy said. “An oxymoron, I suppose.” His smirk was vile.

“At the time, I didn’t know what it meant,” I said. I was about to ramble, but I didn’t know what else to do. No one was stopping me, and I needed some time to try to figure something out.

“But then when I found the CD in Molly’s purse – the one Erma and Freda killed her for, I started to realize what had happened,” I said. “Jesse had contacted Memphis, probably for advice. Memphis lied to me about not knowing Jesse. Memphis was probably threatened by it, worried that Shannon would start buying Jesse’s songs, so she convinced Laurence Grasso that when he got out of prison if he killed Jesse for her, Memphis would try to get him back with Shannon.”

“Oh my God,” Shannon said.

“Oh, please,” Teddy said. He was bored, looking around the inside of my sailboat with obvious disgust. The man with the gun was only looking at me.

“And Grasso set Coltraine up to take the fall.”

“This isn’t true,” Shannon said.

“I think at some point, when Grasso was out of control, Memphis went to Teddy and spilled the beans,” I said. “Somehow, Molly realized what was going on and ever the spin doctor, Teddy had both Memphis and Molly killed. And now he’ll try to kill me. All to keep the gravy train rolling in.”

Shannon began to sob outright.

“Time to go,” Teddy said. “Get up.”

“You’d better go with him, Shannon,” I said. She looked like a broken woman. Her head down, silent sobs wracking her narrow shoulders-

And then she launched herself at Teddy, windmilling her arms, slapping at his face, trying to claw him. It caught us all flatfooted. Teddy struggled to get Shannon under control. Too late, I started to make my move.

Way too late.

The man was already next to me with the muzzle of the gun just behind my ear. How he moved that fast, I had no idea. But any chance I had was gone.

Teddy finally pinned Shannon’s arms against her sides and hauled her up the stairs. She was screaming at him and calling my name until he managed to clamp a hand over her mouth.

I heard her muffled sobs as she and Teddy stepped off the boat onto the dock.

The man and I stood there for a moment, the boat gently rocking from the departure of Teddy and Shannon.

I thought I was going to die. Ellen would probably find me. She’d have to call Anna. I wouldn’t see my daughters grow up. For just a moment, I felt a sense of closure. The same man that had killed Benjamin Collins was now going to kill me.

“Just like old times,” the man said, affecting an effeminate lilt to his voice. The same one that had fooled me a few years back. “Me and you,” he said.

If I was going to die, I at least wanted some answers. I thought I deserved them before I had my brains splattered on the boat’s walls.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He chuckled softly. There was a pause and I expected to see a burst of light and then nothing but darkness.

Instead, the man said, “Start the boat.”