Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 01 - The Trouble With Charlie (40 page)

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Joel jabbed Ted’s shoulder. “Let’s the hell out of here.”

Joel stared at Ted. Ted didn’t notice. He held the gun to his temple, bargaining with a shadow.

Sirens wailed outside.

“Come on, man,” Joel urged. “Put the gun down.”

Oh God. The shadow swelled, and I swear I heard a bellowing roar.

Ted whimpered like a scared little boy. He pressed the gun against his head. “Please, Chuckie. Don’t—”

“Charlie!” I ran, holding the wall. “Stop—”

I needed Ted alive. To talk to the police. To confess.

The sirens screamed. The doorbell rang. Someone yelled, “Philadelphia Police! Open the door!”

Joel looked around, backed into the dining room.

Ted pleaded. “Charlie—Chuckie—Please—”

I yelled, “No—Don’t!”

But Charlie didn’t listen. The gun went off one more time.

Even with half his forehead blown away, Ted lived long enough to tell the police that he’d killed Charlie. Well, not exactly. What he said first was: “It was. Me. Charlie.”

I stood behind the freckled redheaded cop kneeling beside him. I called out, “Tell them why, Ted. Tell them why you did it.”

Ted gurgled.

A burly black cop bellied up to me. “Move back, ma’am.”

The redhead asked, “Who’s Charlie? Where is he now?”

“Tell them, Ted.” I called. Didn’t budge.

“What’s he saying?” A skinny mustached cop turned to the burly one.

“I don’t know. Bus here yet?”

“No, but he won’t make it onto the bus—”

“Officers, please. Listen to him, will you?” I interrupted. “It’s a dying confession.”

“Ma’am,” the burly one put his hands on my shoulders and began shoving me, physically, from the scene.

“That’s my brother-in-law. He’s dying. He killed my husband. Listen to—”

“Ma’am, move away. You don’t want to make this hard on yourself. Let us do our job.”

I argued. He threatened to arrest me. Like I cared. If they didn’t hear Ted’s confession, I would go to prison for the murder he’d committed. I tried to get around Burly, back to Ted.

“Ma’am, I’m warning you—”

Over his high, wide shoulders, I could see more cops. They swarmed in with the EMTs. And someone I never thought I’d be happy to see, Detective Nick Stiles.

Hours must have passed. Darkness deepened and lifted. I noted location changes. My house. An ambulance. The emergency room. And, finally, Susan’s house.

I leaned into the cushions of the floral sofa, and Becky handed me steaming tea. Susan sliced the freshly baked lemon poppy seed cake she’d brought to the coffee table. Handed out plates.

Jen grabbed the first one, complaining. “You cut such skinny pieces, Susan. Are you saying we’re getting fat? Or just charging by the slice?”

“Behave, Jen.” Becky smirked. “We have company.”

Detective Stiles accepted a plate, smiling. “No need to behave
on my account.” His smile was lopsided, marred by the scar that crossed his face. Even so, I adored it. Thought it was fantastic. Hadn’t seen it before. Was elated to be with him when there was reason to smile.

Susan took the last plate and took a seat on a wingback chair. “So. Should I do the honors?” She reached into a bucket of ice, lifted a bottle. When the cork popped, everyone cheered. Well, not Detective Stiles. He sipped coffee. But the rest of us whooped without reserve.

Susan poured. Toasted. “To the end of a terrible ordeal. And justice.”

“And Elle surviving.” Becky chimed in, squeezing my arm.

“And the Fantastic Four.” Jen added. She occasionally called us that, like the comic book.

“To friendship.” I lifted my glass, looking at them one at a time. Becky, Jen, Susan. And finally, Detective Stiles. Who wasn’t really my friend. But at that moment, I loved him as if he were.

Detective Stiles was on duty, couldn’t have champagne, but he raised his coffee cup, silently accepting my toast, and we drank. We ate tart and sweet moist cake. Breathed freely, without fear.

“I think you owe Elle an apology, Detective,” Jen drank her glass in one gulp. Poured herself another.

“Well, actually—” he began.

“No, he doesn’t, Jen.” Susan scolded. “He was doing his job.”

“Oh, KMA.” Kiss My Ass. Jen swallowed, as usual, bickering with Susan. “We all knew she was innocent.”

“Look. Even Elle didn’t remember what happened and couldn’t give herself an alibi.”

Detective Stiles didn’t try to interrupt. Just sipped coffee, listening.

“But she’d never have killed anyone. Especially Charlie.”

“Detective Stiles was just following evidence and procedure—and he went out of his way to bend rules for Elle. We should thank him. Just back off, Jen.”

“FY, Susan.” Jen glowered. Downed her second glass. Poured a third.

“More cake, Detective?” Becky offered.

Jen said she wanted more, cut several slabs. Thick ones.

“So,” Susan sipped champagne, “it’s over.”

Detective Stiles shifted in his chair. “Well, not entirely.”

“What do you mean?” Susan stiffened. “She didn’t kill anyone. Derek was dead before she shot him, and Ted gave a dying confession—”

“Whoa, hold on, Susan.” Again, the crooked smile. “Relax. No charges are being filed against Elle. But still, four people are dead. It’s not over. We need statements. There’s a ton of paperwork. Elle’s house is still a crime scene. And she might have to testify, if we can ever find the creep behind all this.”

“Who was behind it?” I had no idea which creep he was talking about. “Was it Ogden or Walters?”

“No. All those guys were just members.”

“Members?” I closed my hand around the stem of my glass. “Of what?”

“Oh—she doesn’t know,” Becky swallowed cake. “She was in the hospital.”

I’d stayed overnight for observation, due to a concussion. But I insisted on leaving, got released by lunchtime. Hadn’t slept. Felt woozy. Wanted to go home. But couldn’t until the police were done there. Lifted my glass and sipped cool bubbly.

Two men had died in my house—counting Charlie, three.

Then again, Charlie wasn’t quite dead. I considered telling them that he’d killed Ted. That it hadn’t really been a suicide. But I decided not to. Last time I’d mentioned Charlie, no one believed me. They’d said it was my imagination. My need. This time would be no different.

“Are you listening? Elle? Hello?” Susan clapped her hands in front of my face.

“She does that,” Becky explained to Detective Stiles. “She wanders in her mind. We call it ‘pulling an Elle.’”

“I wasn’t doing an Elle.” Was I? “I was just thinking.” Wondering, in fact, how my hallucination of Charlie’s ghost—something I’d imagined—could have killed Ted. Unless Ted also hallucinated Charlie—maybe out of guilt? And he’d been talking to his conscience? His own imagined Charlie? Or maybe—could Charlie really have been there? Both Ted and I had sensed him. Was it possible? And if so, would he still be at the house when I got back?

Would he ever leave?

Did I want him to?

I couldn’t be sure. I still didn’t know what Charlie had been intending to do with the flash drive. Blackmail the men? Blow the whistle on them? And I didn’t know why Sherry McBride had a copy of the drive. Was it Charlie’s backup? Was she operating on her own, blackmailing the men independent of Charlie?

Damn Sherry McBride. Charlie’s “girlfriend.” But he hadn’t loved her. Had he?

My head hurt. I sipped champagne, watched the five people gathered around Susan’s big round kitchen table. Encircled in a glow. Tea, coffee, cake, champagne.

Listened.

“—But that’s just one of the names.” Stiles had a soothing baritone. “He kept changing it so he wouldn’t get caught—”

“Because he has it online, and the servers could catch on, shut him down, and get him prosecuted.” Susan interrupted. “‘Kid Love’ is less erudite than most of the names. But he hops around, changes sites and names. Basically, it’s an international pedophile club. He arranges travel to countries that look the other way and tolerate adults using child prostitutes.”

He arranges travel? I’d lost the thread of conversation. Were they talking about Joel?

“He hooks his pervs up with kids as young as they want,” she went on. “Infants. Toddlers. The site offers ‘erotic experiences that supercede—’ what was it again? ‘The narrow limits of gender, race, and age’?”

“No, the ‘bourgeois limits,’” Becky corrected.

“Sickening.” Jen grimaced, stuffed more cake into her mouth.

But Joel had said he only made travel arrangements for Derek’s clients, nothing more. Another lie? Why did I still want to believe he was innocent? The man had lied to me, kidnapped me, helped Derek try to kill me, maybe even murdered Sherry McBride. And still, I had trouble accepting that he was the one who arranged trips for pedophiles. Joel was unquestionably the group leader they were talking about. Not Derek or Somerset or Ogden or Walters. Joel. The travel agent. The leader of the group. The one holding the camera? I pictured him, standing with me at my door, pressing his lean, long muscled body against me. Kissing me ever so gently—it was all fake. Every word, every gesture, every touch had been calculated. Designed to manipulate me and get his hands on Charlie’s flash drive.

Even so, I needed to hear it.

They were still talking. The conversation had moved on. I interrupted. “What’s the name of the guy with the website? The one who organizes the pedophiles?”

“Right now, he’s going by Lowery.” Stiles sucked a poppy seed from between his teeth. “Joel Lowery. Has a local travel agency called Ma—”

“Magic Travel.”

“So yesterday wasn’t your first contact? You know him?”

Yes. I did.

And no, I didn’t.

I wondered where he’d gone. How he’d gotten out of the house so quickly when the police arrived. He hadn’t driven away. His van was still parked in front of my house, loaded with equipment. Joel. I remembered his charm, his smile as he pulled a quarter from my ear. A scarf from the air. A rose from nothing.

Actually, it was no surprise that he’d vanished; the man was a magician.

I stopped seeing Dr. Schroeder at our next session. He wasn’t happy about it. Said he was concerned that I was stopping therapy so suddenly, just as my memories were beginning to surface.