“Just amazing.”
“Aren’t you wondering about Patricia, too?” I asked. “Or Todd? Aren’t you curious to know what happened to them?”
Rolly’s eyes danced. “Of course, yes, I am. I mean, I already know they were found in the car, in the quarry.”
“Yeah, that’s true. But everything else, who killed them, I figure you must already know about that,” I said. “Otherwise, you’d have asked.”
Rolly’s look grew grim. “I just, I don’t want to bombard you with questions. You’ve only been home a couple of minutes.”
“Do you want to know how they died? What actually happened to them?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Maybe in a minute.” I took another drink of water. I hoped the Advils would kick in soon. “Rolly,” I said, “were you the one who delivered the money?”
“What?”
“The money. For Tess. To spend on Cynthia. It was you, wasn’t it?”
He licked his lip nervously. “What did Clayton tell you?”
“What do you think he told me?”
Rolly ran his hand over the top of his head, turned away from me. “He’s told you everything, hasn’t he?”
I said nothing. I decided it was better for Rolly to think I knew more than I actually did.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, shaking his head. “The son of a bitch. He swore he’d never tell. He thinks it was me that somehow led you to him, doesn’t he? That’s why he’s reneged on our arrangement.”
“Is that what you call it, Rolly? An arrangement?”
“We had a deal!” He shook his head in anger. “I’m so close. So close to retirement. All I want is some peace, to get out of that fucking school, to get away, to get out of this goddamn town.”
“Why don’t you just tell me about it, Rolly? See if your version matches Clayton’s.”
“He’s told you about Connie Gormley, hasn’t he? About the accident.”
I didn’t say anything.
“We were coming back from a fishing trip,” Rolly said. “It was Clayton’s idea to stop for a beer. I could have done the drive home without stopping, but I said okay. We went into this bar, we were just going to have a beer and go, and this girl, she starts coming on to me, you know?”
“Connie Gormley.”
“Yeah. I mean, she’s sitting with me, and she’s had a few beers, and I ended up having a few more. Clayton, he’s kind of taking it easy, tells me to do the same, but I don’t know what the hell happened. This Connie and I, we both slip out of the bar while Clayton’s taking a leak, end up out back of the bar in the backseat of her car.”
“You and Millicent, you were married then,” I said. It wasn’t really a judgment, I simply wasn’t sure. But Rolly’s scowl made clear how he’d taken it.
“Once in a while,” he said, “I’d slip.”
“So you slipped with Connie Gormley. How’d she end up going from that backseat to that ditch?”
“When we…when we were done, and I was heading back to the bar, she asked me for fifty bucks. I told her if she was a hooker she should have made that clear from the outset, but I don’t know if she even was a hooker. Maybe she just needed the fifty. Anyway, I wouldn’t pay her, and she said maybe she’d look me up sometime, at my home, get the money from my wife.”
“Oh.”
“She started scrapping with me by the car, and I guess I shoved back, a little too hard, and she tripped and her head came down right on the bumper, and that was it.”
“She was dead,” I said.
Rolly swallowed. “People had seen us, right? In the bar? They might remember me and Clayton. I figured, if she got hit by a car instead, the police would think it was some sort of accident, that she’d gone walking, that she was drunk, they wouldn’t be looking for some guy she picked up in the bar.”
I was shaking my head.
“Terry,” he said, “if you’d been in that situation, you’d have been panicking, too. I got Clayton, told him what I’d done, and there was something in his face, like he felt he was as trapped by the situation as I was, he didn’t want to be talking to any cops. I didn’t know then, about the kind of life he was living, that he wasn’t who he claimed to be, that he was living a double life. So we put her in the car, took her down the highway, then Clayton held her up at the side of the road, tossed her in front of the car as I drove past. Then we put her in the ditch.”
“My God,” I said.
“Isn’t a night goes by I don’t think about it, Terry. It was a horrible thing. But sometimes, you have to be in a situation to appreciate what has to be done.” He shook his head again. “Clayton swore he’d never tell. The son of a bitch.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “I tried to get him to, but he didn’t give you up. But let me see if I can guess how the rest of this goes. One night, Clayton and Patricia and Todd, they disappear off the face of the earth, nobody knows what happened to them, not even you. Then one day, a year later, maybe a few years later, you get a call. It’s Clayton. Quid pro quo time. He covered up for you, for killing Connie Gormley, now he wanted you to do something for him. Be a courier, basically. Deliver money. He’d send it to you, maybe to a postal box or something. And then you’d slip it to Tess, drop it in her car, hide it in her newspaper, whatever.”
Rolly stared at me.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s more or less what happened.”
“And then, like an idiot,” I said, “I told you what Tess had revealed to me. When we had lunch. About getting the money. About how she still had the envelopes and the letter, the one warning her never to try to find out where the money came from, to never tell anyone about it. How, after all these years, she’d saved them.”
Now Rolly had nothing to say.
I came at him from another direction. “Do you think a man who was prepared to murder two people to please his mother would lie to her about whether he’d ever killed anyone before?”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m kind of thinking out loud here. I don’t think he would. I think a man who was about to kill for his mother, I don’t think he’d mind admitting to her if he’d already killed before.” I paused. “And the thing is, up until the moment the man said it, I was convinced that he’d already killed two people.”
“I have no idea what you’re driving at,” Rolly said.
“I’m talking about Jeremy Sloan. Clayton’s son, from the other marriage, with the other woman, Enid. But I suspect you know about them. Clayton would have probably explained it when he started sending you money to deliver to Tess. I figured Jeremy had killed Tess. And I figured he’d killed Abagnall. But now, I’m not so sure about that anymore.”
Rolly swallowed.
“Did you go see Tess after I told you what she had told me?” I asked. “Were you afraid that maybe she’d figured it out? Were you worried that maybe the letter she still had, the envelopes, that maybe they might still carry some forensic evidence linking them to you? And that if that happened, then you’d be linked to Clayton, and he wouldn’t be obliged to keep your secret any longer?”
“I didn’t want to kill her,” Rolly said.
“You did a pretty good job of it, though,” I said.
“But I thought she was dying anyway. It wasn’t like I’d be stealing that much time from her. And then, later, after I’d done it, you told me about the new tests. About how she wasn’t dying after all.”
“Rolly…”
“She’d given the letter and the envelopes to the detective,” he said.
“And you took his business card from the bulletin board,” I said.
“I called him, arranged a meeting, in the parking garage.”
“You killed him and took his briefcase with the papers inside,” I said.
Rolly cocked his head a bit to the left. “What do you think? Do you think my fingerprints would still have been on those envelopes after all these years? Saliva traces, maybe, when I seale
d them?”
I shrugged. “Who knows,” I said. “I’m just an English teacher.”
“I got rid of them just the same,” Rolly said.
I looked down at the floor. I wasn’t just in pain. I felt a tremendous sadness. “Rolly,” I said, “you’ve been such a good friend for so many years. I don’t know, maybe even I’d be willing to keep my mouth shut about a horrible lapse in judgment more than twenty-five years ago. You probably never meant to kill Connie Gormley, it was just one of those things. It’d be hard to live with, covering that up for you, but for a friend, maybe.”
He eyed me warily.
“But Tess. You killed my wife’s aunt. Wonderful, sweet Tess. And you didn’t stop with her. There’s no way I can let that go.”
He reached into the pocket of the long coat and pulled out a gun. I wondered if it could be the one he’d found in the schoolyard, among the beer bottles and crack pipes.
“For crying out loud, Rolly.”
“Go upstairs, Terry,” he said.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“I’ve already bought my trailer,” he said. “It’s all set. I’ve picked out a boat. I’ve only got a few weeks to go. I deserve a decent retirement.”
He motioned me toward the stairs, followed me up them. Halfway up, I turned suddenly, tried to kick at him, but I was too slow. He jumped back a step, kept the gun trained on me.
“What’s going on?” Cynthia called from Grace’s room.
I stepped into the room, followed by Rolly. Cynthia, over by Grace’s desk, opened her mouth when she saw the gun, but no words came out.
“It was Rolly,” I said to Cynthia. “He killed Tess.”
“What?”
“And Abagnall.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Ask him.”
“Shut up,” Rolly said.
“What are you going to do, Rolly?” I asked him, turning around slowly by Grace’s bed. “Kill both of us, and Grace, too? You think you can kill that many people, and the police won’t figure it out?”
“I have to do something,” he said.
“Does Millicent know? Does she know she’s living with a monster?”
“I’m not a monster. I made a mistake. I had a bit too much to drink, that woman provoked me, demanding money that way. It just happened.”
Cynthia was flushed, her eyes wide. She must not have been able to believe what she was hearing. Too many shocks for one day. She lost it, not unlike she did when the phony psychic had dropped by. She screamed and charged at him, but Rolly was ready, swinging the gun into her face, catching her across the cheek, knocking her to the floor by Grace’s desk.
“I’m sorry, Cynthia,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
I thought I could take him at that moment, but he had the gun back on me. “God, Terry, I hate to have to do this. I really do. Sit down. Sit on the bed there.”
He took a step forward, and I moved back a foot, sat down on the edge of Grace’s bed. Cynthia was still on the floor, blood running down toward her neck from the gash in her cheek.
“Toss me a pillow,” he said.
So that was the plan. Put a pillow over the muzzle of the gun, cut down on the noise.
I glanced over at Cynthia. She had one hand slightly under Grace’s desk. She looked at me, and she nodded ever so slightly. There was something in her eyes. Not fear. Something else. She was saying, Trust me. I reached for a pillow at the top of Grace’s bed. It was a special one, with a design of the moon and the stars on the pillowcase.
I tossed it to Rolly, but I made my throw just a bit short, and he had to take half a step forward to catch it.
That’s when Cynthia got to her feet. “Sprung” would be a better word. She had something in her hand. Something long and black.
Grace’s piece-of-crap telescope.
Cynthia first swung it back over her own shoulder, giving her a chance to build up some speed, then she came at Rolly’s head with her famous backhand, putting everything she had into it, and a little bit more.
He turned, saw it coming, but he never had a chance to react. She caught him across the side of his skull and it didn’t sound much like something you’d hear at a tennis match. It was more like the crack of a bat hitting a fastball.
It was a home run.
Rolly Carruthers dropped like a stone. It was a wonder Cynthia didn’t kill him.
50
“Okay,” said Cynthia, “so you know the deal?”
Grace nodded. She had her backpack ready. Her lunch was in there, her homework, even a cell phone. A pink cell phone. Cynthia had insisted, and I put up no argument. When we first told Grace our plan, she said, “Will it have text messaging? It has to have text messaging.” I’d like to tell you Grace is the only kid in third grade with a cell phone, but I’d be lying. Such is the world today.
“So what do you do?”
“When I get to school, I call you.”
“That’s right,” said Cynthia. “What else?”
“I have to get the teacher to say hi, too.”
“That’s right. I’ve already set it up with her. She’ll be expecting it. And she’s not going to do it in the front of the class, so you won’t have to be embarrassed.”
“Am I going to have to do this every day?”
I said, “Let’s just take it a day at a time, okay?”
Grace smiled. That was fine with her. Being able to walk to school unescorted, even if you had to call home when you got there, made the deal pretty attractive to her. I don’t know which of the three of us was the most nervous, but we’d had a long talk about it a couple of nights earlier. There was a consensus that we all needed to move forward, to reclaim our lives.
Walking to school alone was at the top of Grace’s agenda. We were surprised, frankly. After what she’d been through, we thought she might actually be happy with an escort. The fact that she still wanted her independence seemed to me and Cynthia a hopeful sign.
We both gave her hugs goodbye, and we stood in the window watching her as long as we could, until she turned the corner.
It seemed like we were both holding our breath. We hovered over the phone in the kitchen.
Rolly was still recovering from one hell of a concussion. He was in the hospital. That made him easy to find when Rona Wedmore showed up to charge him in the deaths of Tess Berman and Denton Abagnall. The Connie Gormley case had been reopened, too, but that one was going to be a bit trickier to prove. The only witness, Clayton, was dead, and there was no physical evidence, like the car Rolly had been driving when he and Clayton staged the hit. It was probably rusting away in an automobile graveyard someplace.
His wife, Millicent, phoned and screamed at us, said we were liars, that her husband hadn’t done anything, that they were just getting ready to move to Florida, that she was going to get a lawyer and sue our asses off.
We had to get a new number. Unlisted.
It was just as well. Just before we did, we were getting several calls a day from Paula Malloy at Deadline, wanting to do a follow-up story. We never returned her calls, and when we saw her through the window standing on the front step, we didn’t answer the door.
I had to get my ribs all taped up, and the doctor says Cynthia will probably need plastic surgery on her cheek. As for emotional scars, well, who knows.
Clayton Sloan’s estate is still being sorted out. That could take a while, but that’s okay. Cynthia’s not even sure she wants the money. I’m working on her about that.
Vince Fleming was transferred from the hospital in Lewiston to the one here in Milford. He’s going to be okay. I visited him the other day and he said Jane better end up with straight As. I told him I was on it.
I promised him I’d keep tabs on Jane’s academic career, but I might be doing it from a different school. I’m thinking of putting in for a transfer. It’s not many teachers end up getting their principal charged in two murders. It can get a bit awkward in the staff room.
The phone rang. Cynthia had the receiver in her hand before the first ring finished.
“Okay…okay,” she said. “You’re okay? No problems? Okay…Let me talk to your teacher…. Hi, Mrs. Enders. Yeah, no, she sounds fine…. Thank you…. Thank you so much…. Yes, we have been through a lot, it’s true. I think I might still go over and meet her after school. At least today. Okay…Thanks. You too…. Okay…Bye.”
She hung up. “She’s okay,” she said.
“That’s what I figured,” I said, and we both shed a couple of tears.
“You okay?” I said.
Cynthia grabbed a tissue, dabbed at her eyes. “Yeah. You want some coffee?”
“Sure,” I said. “Pour us some. I have to get something.”
I went to the front hall closet, dug into the pocket of the sport coat I’d been wearing that night when everything happened, and pulled out the envelope. I came back into the kitchen, where Cynthia was sitting with her coffee, a mug sitting across the table at my spot.
“I already put your sugar in,” she said, and then she saw the envelope. “What’s that?”
I sat down, holding on to it.
“I was waiting for the right time, and I think this is it,” I said. “Let me give you some background.”
Cynthia had the look you get when you’re expecting bad news from your doctor.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Clayton, your father, he explained this to me, wanted me to explain it to you.”
“What?”
“That night, after you had that big fight with your parents, and you went up to bed, I guess you kind of passed out. Anyway, your mom, Patricia, she felt bad. From what you’ve said, she didn’t like it when things were bad between the two of you.”
“No, she didn’t,” Cynthia whispered. “She liked to smooth things over as soon as she could.”
“Well, I guess that was what she wanted to do, so she wrote you…a note. She put it out in front of your door, before she left to take Todd to the drugstore, to buy some bristol board.”
Cynthia couldn’t take her eyes off the envelope in my hands.
“Anyway, your father, he wasn’t feeling quite so conciliatory, not yet. He was still pretty pissed, about having to go out and look for you, finding you in that car with Vince, dragging you home. He was thinking it was too soon to smooth things over. So after your mother left, he went back upstairs, and he took the note that she’d left for you, and stuffed it into his pocket.”