If You Ever Tell (12 page)

She’d darted away from the window and left him standing, mower running, mouth slightly open, sweat pouring, heart beating fast. Then Hugh Farr’s wide face appeared at the window, glowering, and Mac managed a cheerful wave, then had begun mowing with a vengeance as he tried to wipe the song “Sweet Sixteen” out of his mind.

Later that evening he’d laughed at himself. He must have been suffering some kind of heatstroke to have such a powerful reaction to a silly flirty little sixteen-year-old girl, he’d mused. If he saw her again, he probably wouldn’t even give her a second look.

But over the next few years, he had seen her repeatedly and she always had the same effect on him—intense attraction and discomfort because she was too young for him. Still, Mac had never gotten tired of looking at her. Or talking to her. And later of kissing her and planning a life with her.

“And you are a sentimental dope wasting time thinking about the past, because she made it perfectly clear she doesn’t want to have anything to do with you anymore,” Mac told himself aloud in the empty club. “And who could blame her? I was young and stupid and I have no one except myself to blame for blowing my chance with Teri Farr a
long
time ago.”

Half to take his mind off Teresa, half to fight off an impending wave of sadness for “the good old days,” Mac snapped on the twenty-seven-inch-screen television on a shelf at the end of the bar. A lot of people told him he should get one of those sixty-two-inch high-definition televisions, but Mac always told them he didn’t want to turn Club Rendezvous into a sports bar. At night, he wouldn’t even allow his employees to turn on what they considered the pitifully dilapidated small television set on the shelf. Now a perky blond announcer whose smile looked strained repeated the news for what was probably the tenth time that morning.

Mac was on his way to retrieve a pale blue matchbook lying under a table on the ivory carpet when the name “Roscoe Lee Byrnes” pierced his preoccupation like a needle popping a balloon. He jerked upward, banging his head on the underside of the table, and swore loudly. Then, rubbing at the spot on his head that was already beginning to throb, he moved away from the table and stood to listen to the newscaster talking about Byrnes’s execution this week. Her glossy red-lipped smile of a few moments ago had vanished and her dark blue eyes hardened with the somberness of her current news subject:

“Roscoe Lee Byrnes, the man convicted of killing twenty-two people over a three-year period, announced last night that in his confession eight years ago when he was apprehended in Pennsylvania, he claimed two victims whom he now says he did not kill—Hubert and Wendy Farr of Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Hubert Farr, owner of Farr Coal Company, and his twenty-nine-year-old wife were stabbed to death in their bed. Mrs. Farr’s eight-year-old daughter received a serious knife wound to the abdomen but survived. Mr. Farr’s teenage daughter received only a shallow cut on the arm. Byrnes now says that although he had been in the Point Pleasant area near the time of the murders, he not only had never heard of the Farrs, he did not kill them.”

Mac’s mouth opened slightly in shock and he moved closer to the television although he could hear perfectly from where he stood. Nevertheless, he turned up the volume, then stood back and stared unflinchingly as the broad face of Roscoe Lee Byrnes appeared in a video clip. His head looked huge, as if it were going to overflow the television screen, and Mac had the feeling that behind those big pale blue eyes lay nothing—no conscience, no soul, nothing.

Byrnes twisted his beefy hands together as the tape picked up the sound of dry skin rubbing against dry skin. “I know it don’t make no difference whether I kilt twenty-two people or twenty—I’m still gonna die—but I wanna set the record straight.…”

The man’s rumbling, toneless voice set Mac’s teeth on edge, and although he wouldn’t like to admit it, Byrnes’s hauntingly pale eyes made him feel cold. It was hard to believe this blundering, doughlike creature had killed again and again. It wasn’t hard to believe he didn’t seem to feel a shred of remorse.

“Them police seemed all excited over those Farrs gettin’ offed, so since I’d been to that town and all, I got a notion to say I did it and impress ever’one. But I was lyin’. I want people to know that before I die. You hear that, God? I’m tellin’ people I lied and I’m sorry. I don’t want credit for killin’ nobody I didn’t kill. But I also wanna say I
know
one day the person that really did kill them people and stabbed that li’l girl will get what’s comin’ to ’em.”

The video ended and the blond newscaster reappeared. “Roscoe Lee Byrnes will die by lethal injection in State Correctional Institution–Greene in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, on Friday.” Her broad smile reappeared with startling immediacy. “And in other news…”

But Mac didn’t hear her. His face grim, he clicked off the television and headed for the door of the club.

The dark hall seemed endless, stretching in front of her like a tunnel deep beneath a giant mountain. Someone was screaming—shrilly, mechanically, deafeningly. The noise came from all around her. She banged into something—a table—then ricocheted into a warm, shadowy being swathed in something slippery. The Being had no face that she could see, but it had a scent—the scent of sandalwood. The Being held up two cautionary fingers to what must have been its mouth, and in spite of the screaming, Teresa heard a soft, comforting, “Shhhh.” She strained her hearing and there it was again. “Shhhh,” right before she felt pain slice her left arm. She froze, the screaming that she now realized had been her own stopping as she watched the Being drift down the stairs and out the front door. Then she felt blood dripping down her arm. She began to run and cry, “Celeste!

“Celeste! Celeste!”

Teresa sat bolt upright in bed as Sierra leaped onto her lap, ears even more erect, a low growl rumbling in her throat. Teri squeezed the shining brown dog, her gaze shooting all around her cheerful bedroom, still full of late-afternoon sunlight. It was a dream, she thought in relief.

The dog sensed the lessening of tension in Teri’s body. After another scan around the room with her own sharp honey brown gaze, Sierra turned and placed a reassuring lick on Teri’s nose. “Thank you,” Teri said. “I feel much better.” Sierra jumped up and whirled around, front legs flat, back end sticking up, ready for a frolic.

Teresa rubbed the top of the dog’s head. “Sorry, but I’m not up to romping right now.” She glanced at the bedside clock. It was five o’clock in the afternoon and she’d just awakened from a two-hour nap feeling worse than when, upset, depressed, and tired from lack of sleep the night before, she’d crawled into bed after Kent left. “Let’s go downstairs and get a snack,” she said. “Dog biscuits and ice cream are great for chasing away the dregs of bad dreams.”

Once downstairs, Teresa put three scoops of ice cream in a bowl and dug out a large beef-basted biscuit from the “treat bin.” Sierra looked hopefully at the bowl, but Teri shook her head. “Sorry, girl. This is double chocolate fudge and dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate.” She laid the biscuit on the vinyl floor and felt a twinge of guilt as Sierra looked at it with vast indifference. “I promise to get cherry swirl at the grocery store tomorrow, if you’ll settle for a biscuit now,” Teri cajoled as the dog slowly bent her head and picked up an unappetizing biscuit.

They ambled back to the living room, Sierra clenching the biscuit between her teeth as if it were a piece of dry wood, Teri holding the cold bowl of ice cream against her burning forehead. She glanced at the television, then, fearing she might see another announcement about Byrnes claiming he didn’t kill Hugh and Wendy Farr, turned on the stereo instead. She flung herself onto the big, soft recliner that always felt as if it were lovingly holding her.

This was supposed to be a happy day, Teri thought, the day when little Daniel got to meet the guy she hoped would become his best friend, Caesar. Instead, the afternoon had turned into a nightmare with Sharon and Kent falling into an argument, Daniel sobbing, and, worst of all, Roscoe Lee Byrnes proclaiming his innocence of the Farr murders at the expense of Teri’s and Kent’s peace of mind. By evening, the whole town would be rehashing the murders of Hugh and Wendy and speculating on the guilt or innocence of Teresa, the “wild, rebellious” teenager who’d survived the bloodbath with a cut while everyone else in her house had been slashed to death or seriously stabbed. No wonder I had to go to bed for a while after Kent and Sharon left, Teri thought. I haven’t had a headache like that since—

Since right after the murders, before Byrnes had been caught and had confessed to killing Hugh and Wendy. Then Teri had a constant headache, an unrelenting upset stomach, and nights filled with gruesome dreams of mutilated bodies and massive pools of blood.

After Byrnes’s confession eight years earlier, her stomach had calmed and her headaches had lessened. She’d still been plagued with nightmares about finding the bodies of Hugh and Wendy, but they’d always ended with her screaming. She’d never had a dream that took her beyond Hugh and Wendy’s bedroom. She’d never felt herself walk down the hall, bump into the killer, and feel him slash her left arm quickly and deftly, almost absently.

And in the dream she’d never heard the killer emitting that soft, soothing, “Shhhh,” right next to her ear, a soft, soothing, “Shhhh,” she suddenly realized she’d heard long before that awful night eight years ago.

M
AC
M
AC
K
ENZIE COULDN’T MAKE
himself stop clenching the steering wheel of his silver Lexus as he always did when he was angry or distressed, and this afternoon he was both. If only he hadn’t turned on the television when he was cleaning the bar… if only, what? Roscoe Lee Byrnes wouldn’t have claimed he didn’t kill the Farrs? Mac and especially Teresa would no longer be objects of suspicion? Perhaps they wouldn’t be subjects of another grueling police investigation? No, the earlier he’d found out about Byrnes, the better. Mac still had time to talk to his mother today.

Mac pulled up in front of her first-floor apartment and glanced in the rearview mirror at his face, slightly damp from anxiety and the fact that he’d forgotten to turn on the car air conditioner. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, knowing that he must act calm. His mother’s health was fine, but ever since the Farr murders, she’d been excitable, nervous, overreacting to any unexpected bad event, no matter how minor. Byrnes’s announcement could hardly be considered minor. Mac needed to see if she was all right.

He tapped lightly on Emma’s door and in a moment, the tall, slender woman wearing an apron appeared, every silver hair in place, a soft shade of pink lipstick brightening her pale face. She had a dab of flour on her cheek and she wiped her hands fervidly on a towel. “Hiya, Mom,” Mac said easily. “How’s it going?”

“Jedediah Abraham!” his mother cried in loud joy.

Mac cringed. He loved that his mother was always so glad to see him. He hated that she’d named him after his two grandfathers and all of his life had stubbornly insisted on calling him by both names, not just “Mac” as he’d christened himself. “I wasn’t expecting you today, Son.”

“So I see.” Mac wiped at the flour on her cheek. “You’re busy baking, aren’t you? What’s on the menu today?”

“An experiment. And come in out of the heat. My goodness, your cheeks are flushed red as roses and your hair is in ringlets. You look like you ran here.”

“My hair is wavy, Mom, and my cheeks don’t look anything like red roses. You make me sound like a Renaissance maiden.” Mac stepped into the small apartment, tastefully decorated in shades of burgundy and blue. “I’m almost afraid to ask what kind of experiment you’re conducting. Nothing that can blow a hole in the ozone layer, is it?”

Emma giggled, her facial skin crinkling like thin tissue paper, her green eyes dancing as she took his arm and pushed him toward the most uncomfortable chair in the room. She was remarkably strong for such a thin woman and she kept pushing him until he’d landed with a thud on a cushion hard as a church pew. “Oh, honey, you and your silliness! A hole in the ozone layer. That doesn’t say much for my cooking, does it?” Emma chirped while Mac tried to absorb the shock to his lower back and attempted to arrange himself in a more comfortable position. “I’m working on a new muffin recipe.”

“Mom, you’re going to corner the market on baked goods in this town,” Mac said. “You know you don’t have to work this hard. You don’t have to work at all.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? Sit in my robe and watch soap operas all afternoon like Mrs. Beemer down in Apartment Five? Or gossip on the phone half the day like that crabby old woman in Apartment Eight? She must pay people to talk to her, she’s so disagreeable!”

“No, Mom, I know you aren’t one for having idle hands. I’m just saying you don’t have to work yourself to a frazzle. You’re a lady of leisure, now.”

“Lady of leisure, my foot,” Emma pronounced as she set a glass of iced tea beside him. “What happens to us if that club of yours goes kaput?”

“I don’t expect it to go kaput, but if it does fail, I’ll do something else.” Mac gratefully sipped the cold, sweet tea. “I refuse to ever let us be poor again, Mom.”

“I’ve been poor most of my life and I’ve gotten used to it.” Emma returned to the small kitchen divided from the living room only by a long Formica-topped counter. She picked up a large mixing bowl and began furiously whipping batter. “I never wanted my children to be poor, though, and you were for so long. And I certainly don’t want my girls having to drop out of college! Wouldn’t that be awful with them just months away from being seniors?” She set down the bowl with a clatter. “Oh my, it would be terrible!”

“Mom, don’t get upset over something that isn’t going to happen.” Mac spoke soothingly. “We’re not poor. The girls are going to finish college, I’m going to keep my club open, you’re going to bake until you wear out that new oven, and we’ll all live happily ever after.” His mother still looked alarmed, lost in her sudden vision of the family abruptly falling into dire poverty. Now certainly wasn’t the time to bring up Byrnes. Mac searched his mind for a topic of possible interest to her and said, “I see you got your hair done yesterday.”