House Rivals (24 page)

“I already finished.”

“Then go back in the house and pick up all the crap in the family room.”

“It smells like cigarette smoke in here.”

“Bobby, if you don't get out of my sight in the next two seconds . . .”

“Jeez, all right. Are you on the rag or something?”

“What did you just say?” She could feel her eyes practically popping out of her head.

Bobby vanished like Houdini.

She found the cigarette she'd dropped. She was lucky it hadn't started a fire since it had landed next to a bunch of dirty rags that Dick hadn't put back in the rag box. She took a couple more puffs on the cigarette, then crushed it out and went back into the house. Dick was making dinner and he glanced over at her as she passed through the kitchen but had the good sense not to say anything. She was going to tell him what Bobby had said about her being on the rag and jump all over his ass—she knew Bobby had heard that expression from him—but not right now. She found her purse sitting on the dining room table, extracted her key ring, and went back to the garage.

There was a metal box on a shelf in the garage that was too high for the boys to reach without a ladder. The box had a padlock on it and she was the only one who had the key. Since she wasn't much taller than her oldest son, she got the stepladder, climbed up, and took the box off the shelf and put it on the workbench that Dick rarely used.

Inside the box were three pistols. The first was a nine millimeter SIG Sauer P226 that Dick had bought before they were married. The second gun was a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver that her father had given her one Christmas when he read about a rapist running around Bismarck. The .357 kicked like a mule and was so damn heavy it was like carrying a brick in her purse. The final gun in the box was a little two-shot Derringer that fired .32 caliber bullets. It weighed less than a pound and was about three and half inches long.

She bought the Derringer when she'd been running all around the Dakotas on Curtis's behalf. She'd been in Beulah, a small North Dakota town in a gas-rich area, having dinner alone one night when some drunken ape started hitting on her—and then followed her back to her motel room. She was able to get into her room and lock the door, but the ape started pounding on it and didn't leave until she called the cops, who took twenty minutes to get there. She purchased the Derringer at an estate sale after her experience in Beulah, so she'd have some protection in the future when she was traveling alone. She thought it was cute and she liked that she could easily hold it in her small right hand.

But when her oldest son started walking and getting into every drawer and cabinet in the house, she decided she didn't want the guns in the house or the cars or anyplace where her boys could even remotely get at them. So she took all the guns they owned, dumped them into the lockbox in the garage, and she kept the only key.

The Derringer was perfect for what she had in mind. It was easy to conceal, it wasn't registered, and, since it was like a revolver, she didn't have to worry about shell casings.

She slipped the Derringer into her back pocket and headed back into the house. When she saw Dick still at the counter making dinner, she took a breath and told herself she needed to quit acting like such a bitch.

“Honey, is there anything I can do to help?” she said.

29

Marjorie Dawkins was a planner.

She was better than anyone she knew in terms of figuring out all the details, scheduling the tasks to be performed, and developing contingency plans in case something went wrong. She never said it out loud to anyone, but she thought she would have made a hell of a general.

At noon, the day she was meeting Bill, she laid out everything she would need: the clothes she'd wear, gloves, a few paper bags. She put the gloves and one of the bags in her car and left the other bags in the garage. Then she drove over to a tavern, and setting the stopwatch feature on her cell phone, she drove from the tavern to the park as fast as she could. She checked the stopwatch: ninety-four seconds. Perfect.

While Marjorie was fine-tuning the details of her plan, DeMarco met with Westerberg only to hear how little progress she'd made. She'd had no luck getting the IRS to audit D&L Consulting, and had been unable to get a warrant to see if Logan or Dawkins had transferred money to an offshore account after Sarah was killed. Nonetheless, he called Doug Thorpe and told him the FBI was still hot on the trail of Sarah's killer, making it sound as if progress was actually being made. He called Mahoney next; he thought about lying to him, too, but told the truth, that he was stuck and couldn't figure out what to do.

He drove to Bill Logan's house a couple of times and knocked on the door, but Logan wasn't home—or was hiding inside his home. DeMarco convinced Westerberg to try to find Logan via his cell phone again, and she appealed to the cooperative judge who'd granted her the previous warrant, but was unsuccessful in locating Logan. It appeared as if he'd disabled or ditched his phone.

At five, after a day filled with frustration, DeMarco decided to go to dinner. But he wanted to go someplace other than the American Grill. He liked the American Grill; he just didn't want to run into the teacher again. He called the front desk and they recommended a place called Jack's Steakhouse.

He decided to have a drink in the bar before he sat down to dinner, and was halfway through his martini when who should walk into the bar but the long-legged, raven-haired beauty he'd seen in the American Grill. It seemed odd he should run into the same woman two nights in a row, but then thought that Bismarck was a pretty small town and there weren't all that many places to go. When the woman saw him she made an oh-my-gosh expression, as if she was equally surprised, and DeMarco waved her over.

He hadn't been in the mood for companionship earlier, but his mood suddenly changed.

Marjorie was just leaving the house to drive over to the boys' school when her phone rang. It was Heckler.

“Yeah?” she said.

“He's at Jack's Steakhouse and your pal, Christie, just walked into the place.”

“Are you sure DeMarco hasn't seen you following him?”

“I don't think so. My girlfriend's with me and she's driving, so if he looks at the cars behind him, he'll see a couple instead of a single guy. And I switched cars again.”

Marjorie was flabbergasted that Heckler would have a girlfriend, but all she said was, “Good,” and hung up. By tomorrow, DeMarco—­Bismarck's newest rapist—should be in jail.

She drove about a block farther, then something occurred to her: the rape charge would give DeMarco one hell of an alibi—and maybe that wasn't good. She called Heckler back. “I've changed my mind. Call Christie and tell her to get out of that bar right now. Immediately. Tell her I'll pay her half of what I promised her, but I don't want her to do anything with DeMarco. You got it?”

“Yeah, okay,” Heckler said.

“And you and your girlfriend can stop following DeMarco, too. Take your girlfriend out for dinner, then go home. I'll pay for the dinner.”

When DeMarco told Christie that he lived in Washington, D.C., she asked if he knew the president. He was beginning to think that she wasn't the brightest female on the planet and she was nowhere near as interesting as his little teacher friend—but she was so damn good-looking that he was willing to overlook a few minor flaws.

She was rambling on about some mean thing her boss at Walmart had said to her, when her phone rang. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I better take this.” She listened to whoever had called for less than a minute and hung up.

“Problem?” DeMarco asked.

“Oh, no. Nothing important. Anyway, I'm just standing there at the checkout counter and Horace says to me . . .”

Marjorie arrived at the PTA meeting promptly at seven thirty and shot the breeze with some of the other moms until the meeting started. The topic that night was alerting parents if there was a lockdown. A couple weeks ago, over in Fargo, some schizo nut had been walking around with a shotgun, firing at stop signs and garbage cans and mailboxes. The Fargo cops called the nearest school and told the principal to lock it down until they located the whacko, who had somehow managed to disappear. The cops eventually found the crazy guy talking to a tree but the school never notified the parents that their kids were in danger. The parents learned about the lockdown only if they happened to be listening to the radio or if their kids had cell phones and called home; some moms didn't hear about it until their kids got home that afternoon.

Marjorie had decided that that kind of shit wasn't going to happen at her boys' school, and she wanted the school to develop a system where parents and nannies and whoever else would be notified on their cell phones as soon as a lockdown commenced. Then everybody spent an hour yelling, the moms saying they didn't want to be the last to know that their kids were in danger and the principal and his lackeys saying they didn't have the time, the budget, or the expertise to develop and maintain a system that would send a text message to every mom in the district.

Marjorie finally took charge and said she knew a guy—meaning Gordy—and he would develop the system for the school and set it up so it would be easy for some secretary to add and delete phone numbers from it. And her guy wouldn't charge the school a thing—­meaning Marjorie didn't intend to pay Gordy for doing a public service. Everybody needed to pay back once in a while, including a pot-smoking hacker like Gordy. The meeting ended with the principal saying he'd take Marjorie's suggestion under advisement, and Marjorie said fine, but her tone of voice made it clear that if he didn't do what she wanted she was going to make his life a living hell.

Bill Logan arrived at the park half an hour early. He wanted to scope the place out. What he particularly wanted to do was make sure that Murdock wasn't lurking about. There weren't any cars in the parking lot and there weren't a bunch of places to hide, so it looked okay but it still made him nervous meeting Marjorie here after dark. He thought about what she'd said about why she'd picked the meeting place—because it was the first place she could think of where she wouldn't have to say the name on the phone—and that made sense. Still, he would have felt more comfortable if they'd met in a bar. It wasn't like they were trying to hide that they were partners.

On the other hand, maybe this was a good place to meet her because after he gave her the copy of the document he'd prepared, she was going to go crazy and start screaming at him. But that was all right. After tonight, he might not ever see Marjorie again and she'd have to find somebody else to scream at.

He walked over to a picnic table and took a seat. He started to place the document in the center of the table so it would be the first thing Marjorie would see, then noticed the table was a bit damp and grimy. So he rolled up the document and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket; he'd hand it to her after he explained what he'd done and why Curtis had better leave him alone.

As he sat there waiting for Marjorie, he thought about all the things he'd have to do before he moved to Fargo. He'd have to put his house on the market, of course, but the market was booming right now so he ought to turn a decent profit. Then he'd have to find a place in Fargo to buy, but he was thinking that maybe for a while he'd just rent. He'd probably have to put some of his furniture in storage and would have to get someone to drive one of his cars to Fargo. Yeah, relocating was going to be a hassle but he was actually starting to look forward to moving out of Bismarck and working for Concordia. He was anxious to see how the big boys played the game.

After the PTA meeting was over, about ten of the moms went to a tavern, which they always did after the PTA meetings. The mothers pushed tables together, ordered glasses of Merlot and Chardonnay, and started gossiping. At one point, Marjorie tossed into the ring that she'd heard that Amelia Moore, the fifth-grade math teacher, spent damn near every night at the American Grill and would screw anything with a dick between its legs.

At ten after nine, Marjorie said to the woman sitting next to her, “Jean, would you mind watching my purse? I need to go outside for just a second.”

“Aw, geez, Marge, are you smoking again?”

Marjorie tried to look sheepish.

Inside Marjorie's purse was her cell phone. She knew cell phones could be used to locate people and trace their movements, and by leaving her cell phone next to Jean no one would be able to use it to prove she'd left the tavern. Marjorie had thought of everything.

She walked to the rear of the tavern, pushed through the back exit, then she really started moving. She hopped into her car, put on the gloves lying on the passenger seat, and drove like a maniac to the park where Logan was waiting—which took exactly ninety seconds, four seconds faster than when she'd timed the trip earlier in the day. And there was Bill, sitting at the picnic table, and no one else was anywhere in sight. It was actually dark enough outside that she couldn't really tell that it was Bill sitting there, but who else could it be?

She fast-walked toward him like she was in a race, and when she was about six feet away, she pulled the Derringer out of her jacket pocket and pointed it at his face.

Bill said, “Whoa, Marjorie. What—”

Marjorie shot him right in the center of his forehead and Bill fell off the bench and onto the grass near the picnic table. “Whoa, Marjorie, my ass,” she muttered. She walked around the table, bent over, placed the muzzle of the derringer directly against his left temple, and shot him once more in the head. The .32 caliber bullets didn't make any more noise than a popcorn fart.

She ran back to her car, tossed the Derringer into the glove box, stripped off the gloves and placed them on the passenger seat, and started the engine. Two minutes later she was a little out of breath, but sipping a glass of wine and seated next to her friend, Jean, who'd been watching her purse. It was 9:17 p.m. She'd been gone from the bar exactly seven minutes—about the time it takes to finish a smoke then maybe go to the bathroom.

Marjorie finished her glass of wine, ordered another, gossiped some more, and again excused herself. She went out to her car, put on her gloves, took the Derringer out of the glove box, and placed it in the paper bag she'd staged for that purpose. She then walked up the street a little ways and shoved the bag deep into a trash can. If the Derringer was found—which seemed highly unlikely—Marjorie wasn't worried, as the gun wasn't registered to her. As for fingerprints, she'd wiped hers off the gun and the bullets the day she decided to use the Derringer and had always worn gloves when she touched the gun after that. But most likely the murder weapon wouldn't be found because tomorrow was garbage pickup day, and by tomorrow night her cute little Derringer would be under ten tons of trash in a landfill.

She dropped the gloves she'd been wearing into another trash can, then went back into the tavern and sat down with her friends again. At ten o'clock she told all the moms good-bye, that it was time to head on home to Dick and the boys, and they all praised her again for taking the initiative on the lockdown-notification project.

When she returned home the boys were in bed and Dick was watching TV. “How'd the meeting go?” he asked, like he could give a shit.

“I'll tell you about it in a minute,” she said. She walked into her home office and sent out three emails sitting in the draft folder. The times she sent the emails would be recorded in her machine and on the Comcast server. Next she grabbed a robe, went into the bathroom, took off her clothes, and took a quick shower. She shampooed her hair and she really scrubbed her hands and arms even though she'd been wearing a long-sleeved blouse and gloves when she shot Bill. She went back into the bedroom and put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and slipped into some tennis shoes. She picked up the clothes she'd been wearing when she shot Bill, including her shoes, and placed the clothes and shoes into the paper bags she'd staged for this purpose.

She went back into her office, sent out three more emails, then told Dick she'd forgotten something in her car. He'd figure she was probably sneaking out to the garage for a smoke. She went out the back door with the paper bags that contained her clothes and walked down the alley, placing the bags in her neighbors' trash cans—which would all be picked up first thing in the morning. As she walked back to the house she was humming but didn't realize it. If there had been blood or gunshot residue or little chunks of Bill's DNA on her clothes or skin, she'd just taken care of those problems.

Back in the house she used the landline to call a mom she'd seen at the PTA meeting, made an excuse for calling so late, then jabbered with the woman for a few minutes. Although Dick could testify that she came home right after she left the tavern, the emails and phone call would further establish the fact.

Marjorie figured that when the cops found Bill Logan's body—most likely tomorrow morning when it was light out—they'd think that the person who killed him was the same guy who'd tried to kill him before. This time the guy just succeeded. And although she didn't know anything about forensic science other than what she'd seen on those CSI shows, she guessed that the cops would most likely establish the time of death at sometime the night before. She didn't know if taking liver temperatures and all that stuff could pin the time down to around nine p.m., but she almost hoped so. Marjorie had a solid alibi from seven thirty until almost midnight between the PTA meeting, the gossip session at the tavern, and all the emails and phone calls after she got home.