The Beginning (33 page)

“When she got loose that first night and screamed her head off—you heard her, Sally, Amabel told us the next day—we put a guard on her. But then two nights later she got loose again, and that time Amabel was forced to call Hal Vorhees over, because of you, Sally. There was no choice. Since it was Doc's fault that she got loose, since he'd been her guard, we all decided that she had to die. There was simply no other choice. We were sorry about it, but it had to be done, and Doc Spiver had to kill her. But he couldn't stomach it. He was going to call Sheriff Mountebank.” She shrugged.

“Fair is fair. We've always been scrupulously fair. Helen Keaton drew the straw. She put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. If it hadn't been for that sheriff and that medical examiner in Portland, it would have been declared suicide. Yes, that was a pity. Amazingly unfair.”

It was remarkable, Quinlan was thinking, that every criminal he'd ever known had loved to talk, to brag about how great he was, how he was smarter than everyone else. Even a little old lady.

“Yeah,” he said, “a real pity.”

Martha was fiddling with her glasses, since she wasn't wearing her pearls, but her voice was calm and assured. “You don't appreciate what we've done, Mr. Quinlan. We turned a squalid little ghost town into a picture postcard village. Everything is pristine. Everything is beautifully planned. We leave nothing to chance. We discuss everything. We even have a gardening service for those who don't enjoy tending flowers. We have a painting service that comes in every week. Of course, we also have a chairperson for each service. We are an intelligent, loyal, industrious group of older citizens. Each of us has a responsibility, each has an assignment.”

“Who selects the victims?” Corey asked. She was standing beside Thomas, her hand on his shoulder. He was still conscious, but his face was white as death. She'd wrapped a hand-crocheted afghan around him. It looked as if a grandmother had spent hours putting those soft pastel squares together.

Quinlan stared at that afghan. Then he stared at Martha. He'd be willing to wager she had knitted the afghan. No accounting for grandmothers. Martha was a vicious, cold-blooded killer.

Martha laughed softly. “Who? Why, all of us, Ms. Harper. Our four gentlemen who play gin rummy around their barrel? They look over everyone who drives in for refreshment at the World's Greatest Ice Cream Shop.

“Zeke down at the cafe eyes every tourist from his window in the kitchen. When he's too busy, then Nelda pays attention when folk take out their wallets to pay.

“Sherry and Della run the souvenir shop in that little cottage close to the ocean cliffs. They check out tourists there. As you can imagine, we must make decisions very quickly.” She sighed. “Sometimes we've erred. A pity. One couple looked so very affluent, drove a Mercedes even, but we only found three hundred dollars, nothing else of any use. All we could do was send Gus to Portland with the car to sell it. It turned out it was leased. That was close. As I recall, Ralph refused to lay them out, didn't you, Ralph? You said they didn't deserve it. And we all agreed. They weren't honest with us. They lied.”

“Exactly right,” Ralph Keaton said. “I wrapped them each in a cheap sheet, the dirty liars. Helen wanted the name Shylock on their grave marker, but we knew we couldn't be that obvious so we changed it to Smith, so nondescript it was like they'd never even existed.”

“This is amazing,” Sally said, looking at each one of those old faces. “Truly amazing. You're all mad. I wonder what they'll do with all of you. Put you all on trial as mass murderers? Or chuck you into an insane asylum?”

“I hear a helicopter,” Reverend Hal Vorhees said. “We've got to hurry, Martha.”

“You're going to shoot us?” Corey asked, stepping away from Thomas. “You honest to God think you can get away with killing all of us?”

“Of course we can,” Purn Davies said, rising from the sofa, looking a bit less pale. He picked up a shotgun from beside him and walked forward. “We've got nothing to lose. Nothing at all. Isn't that right, Martha?”

“Perfectly right, Purn.”

“You're all senile and stupid!” Sally screamed.

In that instant, when most attention was focused on Sally, Quinlan grabbed Purn Davies's sawed-off shotgun and leaped at Martha. He took her down and rolled over her. He had his arm around her throat and the gun digging into the small of her back. His right hand was tangled in the chain that secured her glasses.

There was stunned silence. Thelma Nettro slowly turned around in her chair. “Let her go, Mr. Quinlan. If you don't, we'll kill her along with the rest of you. You agree, don't you, Martha?”

There was no choice, none at all. Quinlan knew that. He knew he had to act quickly, with no hesitation. He had to make them believe. He had to scare them down to their old bones. It had to be shocking. It had to punch these old people back to reality, out of the insane world they'd created and inhabited. He had to show them they had no more control.

Quinlan raised the shotgun and shot Purn Davies in the chest. The blast knocked the old man off the floor, against an ancient piano. Blood spewed everywhere. The old man didn't make a sound, just slid onto the floor. There were a dozen screams, curses, and horrified yells.

Quinlan shouted over the din, “I can get at least three more of you before you get me. Want to bet it's not going to be you? Come on, you old geezers, come and try it.”

The shotgun was double-barreled. One of them would realize quickly enough that he had only one shot left.

“Corey, grab my gun, quick.”

She had it in an instant. Reverend Hal Vorhees raised his pistol. Quinlan shot him cleanly through his right arm. Corey threw Quinlan his SIG.

“Who else?” Quinlan said. “This gun is a semiautomatic. It can take you all down. Anybody else? It will make a bigger, bloodier mess than that wimpy little shotgun did on old Purn. It'll spew your ancient guts all over this room. I'll bet none of you has ever dispatched your victim with a semiautomatic. It ain't a pretty sight. Look at Purn. Yeah, look at him. It could be you.”

Silence. Dead silence. He heard someone vomiting. That was amazing. One of them could actually throw up seeing Purn Davies after they'd killed sixty people?

Thelma Nettro said, “You all right, Martha?”

“Oh, yes,” Martha said. She flexed her hands. She smiled. She kicked back against Quinlan's groin. He felt searing pain, felt his head swim with dizziness, felt the inevitable nausea. He hit her on the temple with his SIG.

He didn't know if she was dead. He didn't particularly care. He said between gritted teeth as the nausea began to get to him, “Sally, get me Gus's gun. Be sure to stay clear of any hands that could grab you. The rest of you, drop all your weapons. Ease down to the floor. We're going to stay here nice and quiet until my guys arrive.”

Thelma Nettro said, “Did you kill her, Mr. Quinlan?”

“I don't know,” he said, the pain still roiling through his groin.

“Martha's like a daughter to me. Don't you remember? I told you that once.” She raised a pistol from her lap and shot him.

In the next instant, the front door burst open. Sally, who was running to Quinlan, heard a man shout, “Nobody move! FBI!”

“Agent Quinlan, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he said very clearly. “I can hear you, but I don't want to. Go away. I hurt and I want to hurt alone. My Boy Scout leader told me a long time ago that men didn't whine or moan, except in private.”

“You're a trooper, Agent Quinlan. Now, I'll make that hurt go away. How bad is it?”

“On a scale from one to ten, it's a thirteen. Go away. Let me groan in peace.”

The nurse smiled over at Sally. “Is he always like this?”

“I don't know. This is the first time I've ever been around him when he's been shot.”

“Hopefully that won't happen again.”

“It won't,” Sally said. “If he ever lets it happen again, I'll kill him.”

The nurse injected morphine into his IV drip. “There,” she said, lightly rubbing his arm above the elbow, “you won't hurt very soon now. As soon as you have your wits together, you can give yourself pain medication whenever you need it. Ah, here's Dr. Wiggs.”

The surgeon was tall, skinny as a post, with the most beautiful black eyes Quinlan had ever seen. “I'm in Portland?”

“Yes, at OHSU, Oregon Health and Sciences University Hospital. I'm Dr. Wiggs. I took that bullet out of your chest. You're doing fine, Agent Quinlan. I hear you're a very brave man. It's a pleasure to save a brave man.”

“I'm going to get even braver soon,” Quinlan said, his voice a bit slurred from the morphine. He was feeling fine now. In fact, if he weren't tied to this damned bed with all these hookups in every orifice of his body, he'd want to dance, maybe even play his saxophone. He'd like to call Ms. Lilly, maybe even tell Marvin the Bouncer a joke. He realized his mind wasn't quite on track. He had to remember to ask Fuzz the Bartender to get some decent white wine in stock for Sally.

“Why is that, Agent Quinlan?” the nurse asked.

“Why is what?”

“Why are you going to get even braver?”

He frowned, then smiled as he remembered. He said, his voice as proud and happy as a man's could ever get, “I'm going to marry Sally.”

He turned his head and gave her the silliest smile she'd ever seen. “We're going to spend our honeymoon at my cabin in Maryland. On Louise Lynn Lake. It's a beautiful place, with smells that make your senses melt and—”

He was out.

“Good,” Dr. Wiggs said. “He needs lots of sleep. Don't worry, Ms. Brainerd. He'll be fine. I was a bit worried for a while in surgery, but he's young and strong and he's got a will to survive that's rare.

“Now, let me just check him over. Why don't you go outside? Agent Shredder and Agent Harper are in the waiting room. Oh, yes, there's a Mr. Marvin Brammer there too and a man who's sitting on the sofa with a computer on his lap.”

“Mr. Brammer is James's boss. The guy with the computer—”

“The sexy one.”

“Yes, that's Agent Savich. He's also FBI.”

“Mr. Brammer's got quite a twinkle in those eyes of his,” Dr. Wiggs said. “As for Agent Savich, no matter how gorgeous he is, I don't know if he's even aware of where he is. I heard him say, to no one in particular, ‘Eureka!' but nothing else. Go out now, Ms. Brainerd, and leave me alone with my patient.”

The waiting room was down the hall. Sally ran into Marvin Brammer's arms. “He's all right,” she said over and over. “He'll be fine. He's already complaining. He was talking about his Boy Scout leader telling him that men never whine or moan except when they're alone. He'll be fine. We're going to get married, and I'll make sure he never gets shot again.”

“Good,” Marvin Brammer said, hugged her tightly, then turned her over to Savich, who gave her a distracted hug and kiss on the cheek. “I've found them, Sally,” he said. “I've found that monster who isn't your father.”

Marvin Brammer said, “Eureka?”

“That's it. I've got to call the FBI office in Seattle. They're at Sea-Tac Airport. Yeah, the idiot bought two tickets to Budapest, via New York. He used a phony credit card and a phony passport.”

“Then how did you get him?” Thomas Shredder said, walking over. His arm was in a sling. He had good color in his cheeks again. “He doesn't look like Amory St. John anymore.”

“Not hard,” Savich said, patting his laptop. “Me and MAX here and our modem can do anything. Sally's aunt used her own passport. Ain't that a kick? She had to, I guess. I suppose they prayed she'd get through. They should have laid low until they got a phony one for her too. Corey, you and Thomas must have really scared them. They couldn't wait to get out of the country.”

“So,” Sally said slowly, as Savich phoned the Seattle FBI office, “it's nearly over. What's going to happen to the town, Mr. Brammer?”

“Agents are all over the cemetery. Like the old folk said, they buried all the people they murdered with their identification, so there's been no problem determining who anybody is.

“Mass murder, nothing else to call it, all by a bunch of senior citizens.” He shook his head. “I thought I'd seen everything, but this takes the cake.

“Evil,” he added, stroking his chin. “Evil can sprout up anyplace. None of the seniors is saying a word. They're loyal to each other, I'll say that for them, even though it doesn't matter. That Martha Crittlan, she'll pull through, although I'll bet she'll wish she hadn't. Imagine, that seemingly sweet lady was the brains and resolution behind the town.”

“She's the most wonderful cook,” Corey Harper said and sighed. “That last dinner was the most delicious meal I've ever eaten in my life.”

“Yeah,” Thomas Shredder said, “and it could have been our last meal, since she drugged us.”

“You'll survive,” Marvin Brammer said. “Oh, yes, one of the agents found a slew of diaries that old Thelma Nettro kept throughout all her time in The Cove.”

Sally said, “She always had one with her. Do you know that she had a black circle on her tongue from licking the end of the fountain pen before she wrote?”

“Knowing our people, they'll probably check for that. Old Thelma was very specific about how everything came about. It's probably the best proof and history anyone could have of the entire episode. I mean, she wrote everything, beginning back in the 1950s five or so years after she and her husband came to The Cove.

“It's all the attorney general's problem now. I'll wager they're hating every minute of it. You can't begin to imagine what the media are doing with all this. Well, maybe you can. It's nuts. At least Sheriff Mountebank came out of the coma this morning, that's one good thing. His three deputies are pulling through as well. They were drugged and tied up in that shed where you guys were.”

“Amory St. John and my aunt Amabel,” Sally said. “Mr. Brammer, what will happen to them when you nab them?”

“He'll be in jail three lifetimes. As for your aunt, Sally, I don't know if they'll toss her in with the other seniors or if they'll add kidnapping charges and conspiracy charges. We'll have to see.”

“Eureka again!”

Everyone turned to Savich. He looked up, grinning a bit sheepishly. “I wanted all of you to know that Sally's divorce will be final in six months. Let's make it the middle of October. I've booked Elm Street Presbyterian in D.C. for the fourteenth. Everything's set.”

“Will you marry me, Corey?” Thomas Shredder said.

She gave him a sharp look. “You have to prove to me you're no longer a sexist. That could take a good year, even if you try really hard. Don't forget, a condition is that I become the SAC of the Portland office.”

“You could always shoot him in the other arm if he backslides,” Brammer said. “As to special agent in charge, why, Ms. Harper, I'll do a great deal of thinking about that.”

Sally smiled at them all—all of them lifelong friends now—and walked back to James's room.

He would live. As to all the rest of it, well, she wasn't going to think about it until she had to.

Life was all in your perspective, she'd decided during that helicopter ride to Portland, James white as death lying on that stretcher beside her, tubes sticking out of him. She was going to keep her perspective on James's face. A nice face, a sexy face. She couldn't wait for him to get well so they could go to the
Bonhomie Club
and he could play his saxophone.

 

THE
next morning, Quinlan opened the
Oregonian
that a nurse had brought him. The headline was:

 

ARMORY ST. JOHN KILLED
WHILE FLEEING FBI

 

Like he didn't deserve it, he thought. “Yeah, poor bugger,” he said aloud, and read on. Evidently Amory St. John had tried to run, but he hadn't made it. He'd left Amabel in a flash, jumped onto a baggage truck, knocked out the driver, and driven off, the FBI right behind him. He hadn't gotten far. He'd even been stupid enough to fire on the agents, refusing orders to stop and throw down his weapon.

He was dead. The bastard was finally dead. Sally wouldn't have to go through a trial. She wouldn't ever have to face him again.

What about Amabel?

Apparently the
Oregonian
hadn't known which headline to splash—The Cove murders or Amory St. John. Since The Cove had gotten the big print the day before, he supposed they decided it was Amory's turn.

Amabel Perdy, he read, had pleaded innocent of all charges, both with regard to Amory St. John and with regard to The Cove, saying she had no idea what was going on in either case. She was an artist, she maintained. She helped sell the World's Greatest Ice Cream. That was all she did.

Wait until the media found out about Thelma's diaries, he thought. That would nail her hide but good. All of the seniors' hides. He was tired, his chest hurt real bad, and so he pumped a small dose of morphine into his arm.

Soon, he knew, he would be sleeping like a baby, his mind free of all this crap. He just wished he could see Sally before he went under again.

When she appeared at his bedside, smiling down at him, he knew he must be dreaming.

“You look like an angel.”

He heard a laugh and felt her mouth on his, all warm and soft.

“Nice,” he said. “More.”

“Go to sleep, buster,” she said. “I'll be here when you wake up.”

“Every morning?”

“Yes. Always.”