Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money (38 page)

Arianna and I exchanged a glance. What could
that mean? I think we both imagined horrors beyond the most
horrible. What we imagined, however, didn’t even come close.

The body was wheeled, covered, into a small
viewing area. A window separated us from the corpse, but it was
close, anyway. Too close. I could hear Arianna’s sharp intake of
breath when an orderly moved the sheet away. I put a hand on her
elbow in what I hoped was a comforting way, bracing myself to catch
her should she fall.

We could see that the corpse had been
severely and curiously burned. It looked as though his head, legs
and arms had been cooked: that simple. Roasted like a Sunday
chicken. There was no hair and not a lot of skin left on his head
and we could see where the flesh on his cheek had, literally, been
cooked away. The same was true for his hands and arms, legs and
feet. They were purplish, blistered and completely
unrecognizable.

I knew it was ridiculous, but right then I
would have sworn that, along with the dead chemical smell always
found in hospital-type places, I could taste charcoal in the air,
right through the glass between us. It was like a campfire, but
without the pleasant connotations. I shuddered.

Where the body wasn’t burned, it was ruined.
And it was difficult to tell what was fire damage and what had come
from other sources. There appeared to be wounds across the neck,
chest and torso. Bullets. I saw again the glint of silver in Paul’s
hand the day before. I averted my head for a moment. Closed my
eyes, wishing I was anywhere but here.

“Mrs. Billings, is it him?” The sheriff's
voice was quiet but insistent.

“I... I believe so. It’s difficult to
tell.”

I looked at her closely, looking for some
sign.
I
could see it wasn’t Ernie, but no one was asking me,
so I kept my mouth shut. What I saw while I watched her, though,
was a transformation. She went from looking like the suitably
subdued new widow to... what? I couldn’t tell, but I saw her sort
of blanch, saw her pallor heightened and I caught a throb begin at
the base of her throat.

I followed her glance: she seemed to be
looking very carefully at the corpse’s left thigh. And there, in a
spot miraculously saved from ruination, I saw it too. A mole,
vaguely heart-shaped and about the size of my own thumbnail. Not a
mole I recognized. Not Ernie, if there’d been any doubt. But then
why this new layer of despair? And why wasn’t she saying
anything?

“Mrs. Billings, I can imagine this is
difficult for you, but if you could give me a positive
identification, one way of the other, it would be very helpful to
us here.”

She hesitated a minute, obviously fighting
for control and, perhaps, for guidance. And then, “It’s... it’s
him. I’m quite sure.”

As the three of us made our way back to the
surface, I asked the sheriff what had happened to Ernie. I hardly
recognized my own voice as I spoke.

The sheriff looked at Arianna before
answering. She nodded and the sheriff replied in a gentle voice.
“We found him in a burned-out lodge at an abandoned YMCA camp about
a hundred miles from here. There will be an autopsy... sorry Mrs.
Billings,” Arianna nodded an acknowledgment at his consideration.
“But, as you’ll have observed, there is some question about the
cause of death. He’s badly burned, but death appears to have been
from gunshot wounds. And we had a witness report from someone who
says they saw a person shot at that location yesterday.”

“How did you know it was him?” I heard
myself asking.

“His wallet was on him, all his ID: driver’s
license, credit cards,” he shot a cautious glance at Arianna, saw
she was holding up and continued. “When we ran his name, we found a
match in missing persons and it all seemed to fit pretty well. All
we had to do then was bring Mrs. Billings in for a positive
ID.”

“But there’ll be DNA testing, right?”
Arianna asked, her voice weak. Not surprisingly so, all things
considered. But I wondered.

He replaced his hat while answering. A
studied gesture, as though weighing how to answer. “Wouldn’t think
so, really. We don’t do that as a matter of course, not down here.
Not when there’s no question about the victim’s identity. And
everything here seems to add up pretty much.”

“Parts of him,” I observed cautiously, “seem
more seriously burned than others.”

The sheriff hesitated, noted Arianna
watching him intently for an answer, “There’ll be an investigation
so, really, I don’t know how much I should say.”

We’d reached the hospital’s admitting area.
We were not far from sunshine. But, for the moment, we stood in the
wretched recycled hospital air, the pale green walls giving
Arianna’s face a ghostly glow. She was visibly fighting tears.
“Please sir,” she said plaintively — and if I hadn’t suspected how
much acting was involved, my heart would have gone out to her, “you
have some idea. And it would... it would be soothing to me to
know.”

“Well,” he ran his fingers through his hair,
“I don’t know how soothing it will be but,” grieving widows were
obviously not his specialty, “right now we suspect that some of the
burns you saw in there — particularly on the hands, feet and face —
were done intentionally, before the fire, to obscure his identity.
Maybe whoever did it hoped we’d take the body to be a drifter or a
hiker and not think it was Mr. Billings at all. Since the... since
Mr. Billings was a victim of kidnapping, we think the perpetrators
probably wanted people to think he was still alive so that they
could get their money. I guess they didn’t count on our witness.
And, because of that witness, our men got to the scene in time to
put the blaze out before it did more damage to... to your
husband’s... remains.”

I was ready to tell the sheriff who I was —
that I was the witness — and mention Paul’s involvement, as well,
but Arianna started speaking rapidly — maniacally? — before I had a
chance.

“Sheriff, thank you for your time,” she
said. “I think you’ll understand that I have a need to get out of
doors right now,” she was already in motion. “You know how to
contact me should you have further questions.” He let us go more
quickly and easily than I would have imagined. I figured that the
thought of a beautiful widow blowing her cookies on the cold
linoleum floor made him more tractable than he might have been. We
were outside in minutes.

The sunlight on our heads felt like tonic.
It also felt impossible after the cold, metallic sterility of the
morgue, a sterility that had been offset only by that sickly sweet
burnt wood smell I still thought I’d imagined, though I was no
longer completely sure. Now sun, newly watered grass and, from
somewhere nearby, flowers. What had gone before might have been a
dream.

The hospital was part of a large civic
complex. We walked for a bit, each full of our own thoughts, until
we came to a bench surrounded by green grass and flowers. Arianna
indicated she’d like to sit, and we did.

“That’s not Ernie,” I said without
preamble.

She shook her head, no. But it was a sad,
resigned no. Her husband was not dead. She had not told the police.
And she looked more upset than when we’d arrived. “How did you
know?” she asked.

“That guy is circumcised. Ernie isn’t...
well, wasn’t.”

“I noticed that too.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’m... I’m not sure, Madeline. I nearly
did. But then... then I realized something else. Something that
showed me how much bigger all of this is than I’d thought.” She
looked at me intently, as though willing me to understand. “There’s
more here than you see, Madeline. More here than I do, as well. And
I keep thinking that, if we just let it play out, maybe it will go
away.”

“You don’t really think that.”

She nodded. “I do.”

I suddenly understood something. “That
wasn’t Ernie in there, but I get the feeling you knew who it
was.”

Her reaction surprised me. I had expected
denial, or maybe a cornered shiftiness around the issue. What she
did, though, was put her head in her hands and sob. And not
delicate little Wellesley sobs, either, but gut-wrenching silent
wails that came from some deeply hurt place. I was mystified, but
you couldn’t see her and not know she wasn’t acting anymore: this
was real. She was, in her careful way, completely devastated. I
looked around. There was no one within earshot and anyone watching
from a distance — like the sheriff, say — would be seeing an
understandably distraught widow who had just been forced to view
the charred remains of her beloved husband.

“His name was Marcus,” she whispered it like
a prayer. Like a benediction. “Marcus Hayles.”

I thought of her reaction to the mole on the
thigh. “You knew him well.”

Arianna nodded through sobs. “Very well. And
now I think — I
have
to think — that nothing was as it
seemed.” She looked directly into my eyes, it was almost a plea.
“You see, Ernest didn’t know about Marcus. There was no way he
could have known. And yet...” she indicated the building we’d come
from, lying peaceful and white in the sunshine, giving no hints
about what we’d seen inside. Marcus Hayles. Arianna’s lover,
because what else could all of this mean?

“But if he didn’t know, then how...?”

“That’s just it! And when I think about it
now, it was all too perfect. Even the way I met Marcus, the way...
the way we came together.”

“Tell me Arianna.” And yes, I wanted to
know. But I felt part of me
had
to know, as well.

“When I was coming out here, to California
to meet Ernest, I met Marcus on the plane. He made me laugh,
Madeline. He made me laugh the way Ernest had when I first met him.
He even looked a bit like Ernest: the same coloring, the same
height and build,” her voice broke, perhaps thinking of what both
of those things might mean.

I could see Arianna struggling for control.
I sat there with her and waited. Somewhere nearby a sprinkler
started, the wet rhythm it created was slightly soothing. The scent
of flowers and things growing wafted to us. Birdsong rippled
through the air.

“Ernest had said he couldn’t meet me at the
airport that first day. He had meetings. I’d have to find my own
way to Brentwood. That wasn’t unusual, I’d take a cab. But Marcus
and I had enjoyed such a nice chat on the plane and he offered to
give me a ride home — to my new home, which should have been
Ernest’s job! He was so charming, Marcus was. So...
irresistible.

“I’d never had an affair before, but we
practically started it on that very first day. Marcus seemed so
smitten
by me. And I think that affected me more deeply than
anything. No one had felt that way about me for so long. No one had
shown me that I was beautiful,” I looked at her lovely face but I
could see she wasn’t acting now either. “No one had made me feel as
though I mattered. Not for a long time.” Her voice slid to a
whisper. “And then Marcus. I loved him. I thought he loved me.”

“But you said Ernie didn’t know about
Marcus.”

Her head snapped back up, a glint in her
eye. “Don’t you see? That’s what’s so frightening. What if Ernie
did that
too
?” she hissed. “What if he gave Marcus to me,
knowing that he would take him away.” She seemed to be warming to
her theory, working it out even as she spoke. “What if Ernie
selected him for me?” her voice broke. “Sent him to me. Maybe...
maybe even paid him to be with me, just so he could take him away?
Take him away and use him in his own place. Like this.”

What Arianna was suggesting was horrible.
Beyond belief. Yet it fit with the things I’d been theorizing
earlier. And it fit with what Alex Montoya had said: that the
corporate psychopath was capable of anything. Even this.

Previously, I wouldn’t have thought Ernie
capable of premeditated murder, not really. Maybe if — as I had
supposed yesterday — maybe if you were to get in his way. But to
find a man physically similar to himself and then manipulate the
situation in this incredibly twisted way, was that even possible?
I’d underestimated him. Again.

“And then there’s Paul,” I was hardly aware
that I’d said it aloud.

“Paul?”

“Westbrook. The business card.” She just
looked at me questioningly. “The name really doesn’t mean anything
to you?”

She shook her head. “Just the card. Should
it?”

And so I told her everything I knew and even
everything I
thought
I knew. And the things I’d learned from
Arianna today just made my theories seem all the more likely.

“Wait then,” she said after a while. “What
you’re suggesting is that Ernest and this Westbrook person were
manipulating things — together — all along.”

“In a sense,” I nodded. “Yes. Though when I
think about it now, I believe it must always have been Ernie who
was the manipulator: the puppeteer, almost. And that he’s probably
been using Paul as keenly as he’s ever used anyone. Including us.
Maybe Paul just stayed useful to him longer.” And, being the
sycophant that he was, he’d probably made sure he stayed useful, as
well.

“I find it inconceivable that I wouldn’t
have known about Paul. About him being such an important part of
Ernie’s life.” She paused as though thinking this through, then
said more forcefully, “I
would
have known.”

I spoke softly to her. Gently. “Think about
what you’re saying. We’re talking about someone that you suspect
put you together with a lover that he had every intention of
killing at some point.” I thought of Alex again. “I think your
husband is capable of anything.”

“But it’s done now, isn’t it, Madeline?” Her
voice was pleading. Hopeful. “It’s done. Finished. There’s nothing
more that
we
can do.”

I watched her carefully before I answered,
yet there was no manipulation in her eyes. Just hope. She wanted me
to agree with her. She wanted to be right. But she wasn’t right. At
some level she had to have known it.