Racing the Devil (24 page)

O
N SATURDAY MORNING
, I followed Samuel Avery to the Piggly Wiggly, the post office, and finally a florist’s shop, from which he emerged with a cauldron-sized basket of red and pink carnations. Next stop, St. Thomas Hospital. He went in with the basket and came out without it.

How sweet.

I tried, without success, to repress my cynicism.

When he went straight home from the hospital, I called it a day. I didn’t like the reverend, but I had no concrete reason to consider him a suspect. Nothing but an unsubstantiated hunch and his uncanny resemblance to a dead man. I couldn’t spend all my time on him.

I drove home wishing for a magic pill that would solve Amy Hartwell’s murder, bring Josh safely home, and maybe throw in a winning lottery ticket. Star light, star bright, and all that jazz.

When I walked in, Jay said, “I have something for you on the insurance. Sorry it’s taken so long, but my guy at the company was in the hospital. Broke his leg parasailing in the Bahamas and just got back to work today.”

“Great.” I tossed my briefcase onto the couch. “Shoot.”

“You wanted to know if there was a life insurance policy on Amy Hartwell.”

“Right.”

“My friend says there was one. Half a million dollars.”

“The beneficiary?”

“Calvin Hartwell. Also, there’s a policy that ensures that if one of them died, the house would be paid for. The house is appraised at $250,000.”

I whistled. “So Calvin is about $750,000 richer. And free to marry his soul mate.”

Jay shrugged and took a sip of his water. “Sure beats having to pay alimony.”

AS SUSPECTS WENT
, Calvin Hartwell was a good one. He had motive, opportunity, and an alibi that was unreliable at best. With one wife missing, another dead, and a history of philandering, he was looking less and less like the Good Christian Man Glenda had called him. Had he decided to end his painful marriage and cash in on Amy’s life insurance at the same time? If so, it seemed the wages of sin were three-quarters of a million dollars.

That afternoon, I stopped by Bluefield, parked a few doors down, and watched Cal Hartwell play softball with his girls. With only three of them, it was really just a hit, pitch, and catch practice session, with the three players alternating positions. Katrina loped around the bases, long legs pumping, cornsilk hair flying behind her. The younger, Tara, scrambled after the ball, a bright smile on her broad, sunny face.

Calvin slid to third base as Tara scooped up the ball in her fist and flung it to him. He tipped it with his fingers and let Kat-rina fly past him toward home.

I didn’t want to see him this way, warm and unguarded with his girls. I wanted him to be a villain.

The game ended, and they disappeared into the house, the girls on either side of Calvin, each with an arm around his waist. There was no sign of the distance I’d noticed between Calvin and Katrina.

I stayed long enough to make sure they’d gone in for the night, then drove by Maria’s place to pick up Paulie. On the way, I punched in Elisha Casale’s phone number. Paused, thumb poised over the “dial” button. Trust, she’d said. I didn’t seem to be very good at that, but pestering her wasn’t going to help me find Josh any faster.

D.W. met me at the door with Queenie close behind. She hobbled over and leaned against my legs, and I stroked her head, knowing that the day was coming when the pain of her arthritis would outweigh whatever pleasure she got from the rest of her life.

“Is she getting her arthritis medicine?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Do you think you could increase it? She seems to be hurting.”

“The vet said we could double it if we needed to.” “I want you to.”

“Sure. We were going to try that in a couple days, anyway.” He closed the door behind me. “Before you call Paulie, there’s something I want to show you.”

I followed him downstairs to Maria’s darkroom and photo gallery. Then he stepped aside to let me pass. The pictures from the picnic had been added to the collection. Paulie blowing out his candles, Paulie opening his presents, Josh sulking on the dock, Caitlin swinging on the swing set, her yellow sundress tucked around her hips. Wendy, shoving a deviled egg into Randall’s laughing mouth.

D.W. grilling the hamburgers, a strained smile on his face. Me, playing my guitar on the picnic table. Me, holding Paulie on my lap. Me, talking to Randall. Me, licking birthday icing off my fingers. Me.

D.W.’s voice came from behind me. “Sometimes I am so damn jealous of you.”

When I answered, even I could hear the bitterness in my voice. “You have my wife, my kid, my house. Even my dog. What do you have to be jealous of, man?”

“That’s just it. It’s your wife. Your kid. Your dog.” He gestured to the pictures. “She still loves you, Cowboy. She loves you more than she loves me. I know that, and I have to live with it, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her go. Just don’t rub my nose in it, okay?”

I thought about it for a moment before I nodded. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, I thought. Divorce should be a clean severance, like an amputation. But what was it they said about phantom pains?

“Hell of a world, isn’t it D.W.?”

He nodded back, solemnly. “It is that.”

O
N SUNDAY, I DRESSED
in jeans and a meerkat T-shirt Maria had given me, then went downstairs to find Jay and Paulie eating Cocoa Puffs and cinnamon toast in the living room. Queenie was stretched out at their feet like an Akita rug.

“Bugs Bunny, Daddy,” Paulie said, pointing at the TV. “What’s up, Doc?”

I bent down for a milky kiss, and squeezed onto the couch next to my son. The phone shrilled, and Jay reached across Paulie and me to answer it, which meant he was still hoping for a call from Eric.

He held the receiver to his ear, and his crestfallen expression told me it wasn’t Mr. Perfect on the other end of the line.

“It’s for you,” he said, and handed me the receiver.

It was Birdie Drafon.

“Mr. McKean, I hate to bother you,” she said. “But I think something is wrong at Amy’s house. I mean, the Hartwells’.”

“What do you mean, something’s wrong?”

“Well . . .” She sounded tentative. “It may be nothing. But Calvin and the girls didn’t go to church today. The car is still out front. That isn’t like him.”

“Maybe he’s sick,” I suggested. “Or one of the girls is.”

“Yes, I thought of that. So I went over to see if there was anything I could do. And there was no answer. It was . . . so quiet, Mr. McKean. Too quiet, if you know what I mean.”

“Ms. Birdie, have you called the police?”

“Oh, no. It isn’t anything I can put my finger on. The police would think I was just some hysterical old loon. It just feels wrong somehow.”

“All right. I’ll come and check it out. Do the Hartwells have a dog?”

“No. Calvin doesn’t like hair on the furniture.”

“One more thing, then.” I was already sliding off the couch. “Do you happen to have a key to the house?”

The Colt was tucked away in the top of my closet, like it always was when Paulie was around. I pulled it down and loaded it, then tucked it into the Galco small-of-back holster and strapped it on. Regretfully, I untucked the meerkat shirt and tugged it down to hide the gun.

So much for sartorial eloquence.

“Can you take Paulie home for me?” I asked Jay. “There’s something I have to do, and I’m not sure how long it will take.”

“Sure,” he said. “Is it about the Amy Hartwell thing?”

“It’s about the Hartwells. I don’t know if it’s about the thing.”

Thirty minutes later, I strolled up the walkway to the Hartwell home, Ms. Birdie’s key in my pocket. With a handkerchief around my hand to keep from leaving fingerprints, I rang the bell.

No answer. I wasn’t surprised, but a hollow feeling settled in my gut all the same.

Ms. Birdie was right. It was too quiet.

With the handkerchief still in hand, I pushed the key into the lock and turned it. Cracked the door open, and the stench of human waste rocked me back a step.

“Cal?” I called. “Calvin Hartwell?”

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, knowing there would be no answer.

Cal slumped on the couch, one hand still gripping the Browning Hi-Power. I knew, even before I saw the spray of blood on the wall and on the couch behind his head, that he was dead. He hadn’t begun to decay, but his muscles had relaxed, releasing the contents of both bowel and bladder. Beneath the smell of feces and urine was the delicate scent of potpourri.

I circled the body, careful not to touch anything, and looked at the entrance wound. The bullet had entered beneath the chin, and there was a ragged, oozing asterisk where the explosion gases had expanded between the skin and the bone and blown out a starburst around the bullet hole. Beside him, spattered with droplets of blood, was a crumpled piece of paper that said, “God forgive me.”

His eyes were glazed and unblinking. I didn’t need to check for a pulse.

Instead, I peered into the kitchen and the den, then took the stairs two at a time to the second floor, where the bedrooms must be.

First room on the right, the master bedroom. I pushed the door open and glanced inside. Empty. I didn’t waste my time there, but my mind registered the shoes lined up neatly on the floor of the open closet, the clothing arranged by color and type, everything ordered with military precision, except for the bed, which was still rumpled. Odd. A man like Cal, I’d have thought he’d make the bed before he offed himself. He would have wanted to leave everything in order.

The next room was a bathroom, empty.

The next door had a sign on the front. Rainbows. Butterflies. A smiling teddy bear carrying a basket of something. Berries, maybe. Or wildflowers.
Tara’s Honey Tree
, it said.

I pushed the door open a crack and peeked through. Brightly colored patchwork bedspread, yellow curtains, shelves filled with books, dolls, and antique teddy bears.

The little girl was sprawled across the bed, one leg dangling over the edge. Her arms were thrown up over her head, as if she’d been struggling when the gun went off. Her cheeks were streaked with blood and tears, and her nightgown was drenched with red.

Damn it. Damn it to hell.

I’d spent seven years solving homicides, seen death’s thousand ugly faces, but the kids still got to me.

Somehow my legs carried me across the room. My fingers felt for a pulse, found her skin cool beneath my hand.

Too late for CPR, too late for anything.

Damn Cal.

I turned away sharply and crossed the hall, where a crayoned sign on the door was decorated with hearts, flowers, and a unicorn with a glittered horn.
Katrina’s Magical Kingdom
.

With a mixture of hope and dread, I opened it.

My mind let me see white lace curtains and a white lace canopy over a bed draped with a white lace-and-satin coverlet. A cut-crystal teardrop dangled from the window, splashing rainbows across the room and over unicorn music boxes, unicorn posters, unicorn figurines, stuffed unicorns.

Only then would it let me see the splashes of red across the pillow, the spray of blood against the headboard, the thin, hunched figure half-covered by the bloody bedspread. At twelve, she was almost a woman.

It looked like she might never make it.

“Oh, Jesus,” I heard myself moan.

I knew it was hopeless, but I pressed two fingers to her neck and felt a faint flutter, like the kiss of a butterfly.

She was alive.

I
CALLED 911 AND FRANK CAMPANELLA
, then jerked open a dresser drawer and snatched out a white Mickey Mouse T-shirt. Katrina had a single oozing entrance wound and an exit wound that had left a halo of blood on the pillow around her head.

With nothing to do but worry and wait, I held the shirt against the wounds and tried to picture the sequence of events. Cal, stricken with guilt, decides to kill himself. But he has his daughters to think of. He could send them away, but how will they survive without either parent? How can he leave them?

He steps into Katrina’s room and fires the gun into her head at point-blank range. Then he goes into Tara’s room. Awakened by the earlier shot, she struggles against her father, but to no avail. He presses the barrel of the gun to her temple and pulls the trigger. She falls back, and, enraged by her defiance, he empties the gun into her chest. Finally, he goes into the living room, writes his plea for forgiveness, places the barrel of the gun beneath his chin, and blows his brains all over the wall behind him.