The Red Scream (23 page)

As she parked in front of the house, Molly was glad to see the red Toyota in the driveway. Yesterday Alison had looked so distraught Molly had wondered if she was going to keep the appointment. And by now she’d probably heard about David Serrano; she could well be a basket case.

Molly walked up and rang the bell. She frowned when she saw that the door was standing open and tried to peer in through the warped aluminum screen door. God, if the murders of two people
who were close to you couldn’t get you to lock your doors, what could?

Alison McFarland’s bare feet made absolutely no noise; suddenly she just materialized on the other side of the screen. She wore cutoff jeans that looked like they’d been chewed off rather than cut, leaving a stringy fringe of denim threads hanging down her thin pale thighs. She opened the screen door and held it for Molly. “Mrs. Cates, did you hear about David?” There was a shrill edge to her voice.

“Yes, I did. And I’m so sorry. How did you hear?” In the morning light that streamed in through the open door the girl’s face was milky pale. Under her eyes the circles looked like week-old bruises.

“My father just called. The police called him real early this morning. They want to talk to all of us about David. I just called down to the police station to tell them about the lunch date he missed with me yesterday. Remember when I saw you at the hospital?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And Mark was going to stop by the police station after running to tell them about when we saw him last.”

“When was that, Alison?”

“Monday night. He came over and the three of us went out for pizza.”

“The three of you? You, David, and Mark?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you say Mark had seen David after that?”

“No. They were going to go running and out for a drink Tuesday night, but David called and canceled it.” She crossed her arms tight over her thin chest. “And here I was feeling annoyed yesterday that he didn’t show up.” Her eyes squeezed shut. “He was probably already dead. God. This is like some nightmare that doesn’t ever end.”

Keeping her eyes shut, she said, “And I saw the article in this morning’s paper—the one about Louie Bronk saying he didn’t do it. I feel like the whole world’s collapsing.”

Molly rested a hand on her shoulder and felt a tremor under her hand.

Alison turned and led the way into a stuffy dark living room furnished with a few mismatched chairs and a card table with a goose-necked lamp. She sat at the table, which was covered with open
books and loose papers, and started to chew on a thumbnail. When she looked up and saw Molly watching, she stopped. “Sit down. Please.”

Molly chose the chair closest to Alison.

“I just don’t know what to think now.” Alison’s voice sounded close to tears. “It’s too much.”

“I can see how you’d feel overwhelmed right now, Alison. And I see you’re trying to study.”

“Have to—paper due,” the girl said, glancing down at the books on the table. “Here I was looking forward to this whole awful thing about my mother finally being over. And it all starts up again. Georgia gets killed. And then David. And now with him—you know, Louie Bronk—saying he didn’t do it …” Her voice trailed off.

“But he did. No matter what Louie Bronk says now, Alison, I believe he killed your mother. Most death-row inmates protest their innocence to the end. What’s unusual about Louie is that he’s waited so long to start doing it.”

Alison began chewing the side of her thumb. She nodded. “Yeah, he’s just trying to save his ass. But it won’t work.”

“No, it won’t,” Molly said. “Alison, I don’t want to add to your worries now, but I do think you should keep your door locked. When I arrived, it was open.”

Alison gave a nod. “Yeah. I forget. My father wants me to move back home while this is going on; he’s going to hire an extra security person for the house, in addition to Frank Purcell, who follows him everywhere, like a shadow. They’re both putting a lot of pressure on me to do it but …”

Thinking of the open door, Molly said, “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. For a while. Can’t hurt.”

Alison shrugged. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess I will. He needs me now.” When she pulled her thumb away from her mouth, Molly could see that it looked red and raw.

Molly held up her little tape recorder. “Is it all right with you if I record this conversation? I like to do it because my note-taking breaks down when people get to talking fast.”

“I don’t mind,” Alison said in a voice that suggested there wasn’t much she did mind. “But like I told you on the phone I don’t have anything earth-shaking to tell you.”

Molly put it in her lap and switched it on, watching to make sure
the tape was spinning. “I’m not looking for earth-shaking,” she said, “just your reaction now to what’s going on, how you feel about the coming execution. Your father’s concerned that this is going to be too difficult for you, set you back somehow. I sure don’t want to do anything like that.”

A shadow of a smile crossed Alison’s wan face. “My father doesn’t know anything about me anymore.”

“How come?”

“Well, ever since he got married and I moved in with Mark, I don’t see him much.”

“I gather your father doesn’t approve of your living arrangements.”

A small smile threatened again. “He doesn’t like it. As a matter of fact, he hates it, but he can’t do anything about it.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He threatened to cut off my allowance. You know, if I’m old enough to make a decision like this I’m old enough to support myself. I think he thought it would bring me running home.”

“But it didn’t,” Molly said.

“Nope. And he didn’t do it anyway. I knew he wouldn’t. But I got a part-time job anyway, just in case.”

“With school that must be difficult,” Molly said.

“It’s only twelve hours a week, so it’s not too bad. Mark’s been a good influence on me there.”

“How’s that?”

“Well he’s been on his own totally since his mother died when he was eighteen. He’s had to drop out of school a couple of times because of money, but he’s about to finish up now. Of course my father would never even think of helping him.”

“Mark’s mother was your father’s sister?”

“Yes. But Daddy didn’t have anything to do with her.”

“Why was that?”

“Oh, he thought she was trashy and lazy. Anyone who doesn’t work twenty-four hours a day is lazy, according to Daddy. We’re trying to figure out how Mark can afford to go to graduate school. He wants to get an MBA. And we’ve thought about getting married, too, so …” She shrugged, but her pale lips were tight with what looked to Molly like resentment.

“What are you studying, Alison?”

Alison picked up a pencil off the table and rolled it between her palms. “Journalism. I’m thinking of being a crime writer—like you.”

Molly looked at her in surprise. Very few people set out to be crime writers; they usually fell into it like she did and found they had a knack for it.

“I was wondering if you’d tell me how you got started, Mrs. Cates?”

Molly hesitated. This was a question she got asked all the time, but something about the girl made her reluctant to give the stock answer to it. When she opened her mouth to speak, she surprised herself with a truth she hadn’t spoken in years: “A long time ago when I was sixteen, my father was murdered, out at Lake Travis. The sheriff didn’t do much about it, so I started looking into it myself. In the process I got to know some reporters at the paper and later when I had to earn a living, I went and applied for a job. The reporter on the crime beat had just left and no one else wanted to do it so they let me try. I just sort of learned on the job.”

“You didn’t study it in college?”

Molly sighed. It was one of her major regrets in life. “Never went to college. But this was more than twenty years ago, Alison, when the business wasn’t so competitive. I sure don’t recommend anyone trying to do it that way today.”

Alison leaned forward. “Did you find out who killed him? Your father, I mean.”

Molly felt the old anger rising hot and thick in her throat. “No. I never did. I narrowed it down some, but I never have known for sure.” She heard the whiny quaver in her voice, and as always, she despised her inability to control it.

Alison let the pencil fall to the table. “God, that’s awful, not to know. That must’ve been so hard for you.”

Once you let even a little piece of truth slip out, Molly thought, it opens the spigot. “I adored my father,” she said, “and, more than anything, I wanted to do that last thing for him.” She closed her lips, determined not to let this start a flood of truth-telling.

Alison looked down at her bony bare feet and said very quietly, “Maybe that’s why you’re still writing about crime. Because that didn’t get solved.”

“Maybe,” Molly said impassively. “What about you, Alison? Why do you want to be a crime reporter?”

“Maybe part of it is like with you—something to do with my mother’s death. But even before that happened, I was fascinated with murders and things. When I was eight I started reading mysteries. I exhausted Nancy Drew and the usual stuff and went on to adult things pretty quick.”

“What things?”

“Oh, like detective magazines and true crime books. I’ve read just about everything. Joe McGinness, Anne Rule. But my all-time favorites are
In Cold Blood
and
Blood and Money
.”

“Those are two of my favorites, too,” Molly said.

“I told you over the phone how much I liked your book,” Alison said. “It must’ve made you real mad this morning to read what Louie Bronk said about it.”

“It sure did.” Molly realized for the first time how angry she really was.

“Does it …” The girl hesitated, looking for the right words. “You know. Does it make you have any doubts?”

The girl probably had a future as a crime reporter; she certainly knew how to ask the right questions. “None. Bronk’s a pathological liar. It’s hard to know whether you can believe anything he says. But I do believe he killed your mother and I believe the version he told me which I related in my book is essentially accurate.”

“Have you talked to him today?” Alison said. “Asked him why all of a sudden he’s changed his story?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you going to?” Alison asked. “I think that’s a lot more interesting than talking to me.”

Molly stopped breathing for a minute as she considered it. She hadn’t acknowledged it yet, but of course that’s what she was going to do. As soon as this interview was over. And if this was going to be an interview where she interviewed Alison rather than the reverse, she’d better take charge of it now.

“Yes,” Molly said, “I’m going to drive to Huntsville this afternoon. Alison, why did you agree to be a witness at the execution?”

“Oh. If I’m going to be a crime reporter, I guess I should get used to this sort of thing.” As if she couldn’t last too long without doing it, her thumb went up to her mouth and she ripped at what little bit remained of the nail.

“What else?” Molly prompted.

The girl put the hand in her lap and held on to it with the other hand. “Since I can remember I’ve been this poor little girl without a mother who everyone felt sorry for. I’m tired of that; it’s so passive and pathetic. Witnessing the execution sounded like a way to have a part in avenging my mother.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess I’m trying to stop being a victim.”

Molly nodded. “Being a victim is the pits. I agree.”

“And this may sound snobbish, but to have your life devastated by someone like Louie Bronk, this filthy, subhuman, stupid drifter who barely lives in the same world. I mean, it’s humiliating in a way.” She looked directly into Molly’s eyes. “Isn’t it?”

Molly felt like cringing from the sentiment, but she couldn’t help sharing it. “Yes, it is,” she admitted. “What about the death penalty, Alison. How do you feel about that?”

“Oh,” the girl said fiercely, “anything less wouldn’t be enough. It has to be death. I know you’re opposed to it because I’ve read your things in
Lone Star Monthly
, but I think that’s a philosophical thing. I get the impression from reading your book that you won’t shed any tears when he dies.”

Molly looked at the girl in wonder and said, “I think you’re very perceptive. Alison, tell me if this is something you’d rather not talk about, but I’d like to hear what you remember about the day your mother was killed.”

Alison said slowly, “I was only eleven and it was so long ago so …” Automatically her hand went up to her mouth and she chewed on the side of her index finger, pulling at the skin. “I remember waking up from a nap, but you know how you tend to be all hazy for a while. It’s mostly a blur. Well, I heard this noise outside—probably it was a gunshot—and I looked around the house for someone—my mother or David. David was usually there in the afternoon. My mother wasn’t home much. But no one was in the house and I remember feeling scared. I guess that’s my main memory—the empty house and feeling scared and alone. I never liked being alone.”

“When you were looking around, did you notice that some things had been stolen?”

Alison shook her head. “But I wasn’t really looking. I was hot and sweaty and I wandered to the door and saw David. He was coming out of the garage and then he came running at me and made me go
back in the house and I could see how upset he was. He could barely speak he was so upset. But he didn’t tell me my mother was dead. I didn’t find out until later.”

“When?”

“That night, I think. My father told me. And it’s hard to separate what I really remember from the day and what I heard at the trial.”

“What about the car?”

“Oh, when I was standing in the doorway, I saw it pulling away—that white car.” Alison stood up abruptly. “It’s so warm in here. Would you like some iced tea, Mrs. Cates? I’m really thirsty, after talking your ear off, and it’s cooler in the kitchen anyway.”

Molly followed her through a narrow hall to the kitchen, which was a pleasant sunny room. A breeze wafted in through an open window, rustling the newspapers that lay open on the linoleum table.

Alison took a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator and an ice tray from the tiny freezer. She poured two tall glasses and plopped a few ice cubes in afterward.