Ring of Truth

  Caught by her unwavering stare, the boy stopped walking so suddenly that his backpack shifted, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He was a thirteen-year-old boy and had constant sexual fantasies, and one of them was sitting only yards away, staring at him. The girl had on a sleeveless green top that left her stomach bare, and a skirt so short that it rode high up on her perfect little legs, and she wore brown sandals, and one of them was dangling down, hanging by the big toe of her left foot. She was leaning forward with her hands flat on either side of her on the wide concrete porch railing. Her legs were wide apart. He felt as if he could see all the way to China.

  The girl didn’t have to say a word to him. His feet took control—or was it another part of him?—and they turned him to face her, and then they walked him up to the foot of the steps leading up to the porch, and to her. She looked his age but he’d never seen her at his school, and he knew he would have noticed a girl like this, this girl.

  She spoke first, establishing the pattern that would hold until the end. Her first words were completely ordinary, but they were the sexiest words he’d ever heard.

  “You live around here?”

  If he’d been a grown man, he might have laughed at that, at himself, for hearing promise and poetry in those four banal words.

  “Yeah.”

  They both lived “around here,” if here was an invisible metaphysical location where evil bred and grew. She—who killed her sister, who murdered her own parents though nobody knew that yet, who would one day slay the cat who slinked around the side of the house—she lived exactly in the realm that this boy inhabited, too.

  “Fucked, isn’t it?” she said, her dark eyes challenging him.

  “Totally.”

  He would rarely disagree with her, not until the very end, and then, having no practice in denying her anything she wanted, he would take his argument to its fatal, melodramatic, logical extreme. He would one day go too far, even with her, because he had never learned to stop before he got there.

  The day that Susanna sat on the front porch of her foster home watching the blond boy slouch down her street by himself, she drew her own death to her. The boy came just as eagerly, ignorantly, almost innocently to his fate, too.

  * * *

  They became inseparable almost immediately. No foster parents or group homes, no detention centers, courts, cops, or judges, no social workers or shrinks could deny them one another. She was pregnant at fourteen, at fifteen, at twenty, and maybe more often than that. The pair of them sired at least three living children they would never see, or want to. They didn’t seem interested in abortion, found pregnancy sexy, delivery climactic, abandonment a thrill. At twenty-two, however, over her objections he got a vasectomy, which he never reversed. She should have noted that early mutiny; it hinted at a strand of independence in him.

  Her autopsy revealed that her own reproductive organs were battle-scarred but functional, hence the condoms in the canvas bag. She tired of getting pregnant and never fully trusted his vasectomy. Besides, forcing him to use condoms—to his intense annoyance—was a way to punish him for getting it. It’s only natural to wonder, where are the children they bred? Certain studies have demonstrated a genetic predisposition for criminal behavior ranging from burglary to homicide. It may not be true. But if it is, the question assumes the urgency of self-interest: for our sakes, where are Stuart and Susanna’s children now?

  * * *

  “We’re just alike,” she told her blond-haired boy. “I killed my parents and you want to kill yours.”

  “Fuck, yes.”

  “I could help you do it, I know how.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on. Why not?”

  “What do we get out of it?” This wasn’t rebellion on his part, this was a certain innate business sense that she would learn to appreciate. A killer needs a good business manager. “I can walk out anytime I want to, I don’t have to kill them to do it.”

  “But they deserve it.”

  “Yeah, well who doesn’t? Except us. Look, they’re only worth what we could get in a garage sale of their stuff, their furniture and crap. They’re not worth it.”

  “But I want to.”

  “God.” He turned and took her in his arms and began to kiss her and make love to her. Nothing, nothing turned him on like her talk of killing people. God, she’d actually done it. Three times. His girlfriend was a triple killer. God, it set him on fire, melted his brain, reduced him to skin and nerves and hands and mouth and penis. “What was it like?”

  “You know” she teased.

  “Tell me again.”

  * * *

  How long, one wonders, did it take for them to cook up their first murderous scheme? Who thought of it first? Did either of them need to be persuaded by the other? Who was the instigator, who the organizer? Was one more ruthless than the other, or were they truly an almost perfectly matched set?

  It feels right, somehow, to think Susanna spoke first.

  “We could each find somebody with money.”

  “How would we do that?”

  “It’s easy. I could look for an old, senile guy with a lot of loot. You could sweet-talk some rich old lady.”

  “How would we find them?”

  “Obituaries, to see whose husband or wife has just died in a rich part of town. On the Web. Through dating services. Whatever.”

  “And just wait for them to die?”

  “Oh, no. We don’t want to wait.”

  * * *

  There are so many places in this world to find lonely people who have money to lose—maybe a lot of it—to somebody smooth who courts and caresses them.

  “Why do they have to be old?”

  “I guess they don’t have to be.”

  “I want somebody younger than that. I don’t think I could do it with an old broad.”

  “Not even for a million dollars?”

  “Maybe, but why should we if we can do better?”

  “I don’t want to think of you with somebody younger, prettier or richer than me.”

  “Nobody’s prettier than you. And when we get through, we’ll be the richest ones.”

  “We’ll have to marry them.”

  “Life insurance?”

  “Yeah, and their wills.”

  “Better find people with no families, right?”

  “Good idea, baby.”

  * * *

  They drew up their “rules of engagement,” a phrase that sounded hilarious to them:

  1. Must be worth a minimum of $ 100,000.

  2. Must be younger than fifty.

  3. Attractive.

  4. Can be single, or divorced, or widowed, just so there’s money.

  5. No kids.

  6. It’s good if their parents are both dead, even better if they don’t have brothers or sisters or any family who cares about them.

  * * *

  They found their first pair of victims in Newark, New Jersey, by dedicating themselves to studying the obituaries and then using the Internet to check credit ratings and so forth. It was quick work: spot a promising obituary on a Thursday, check it out over the next twenty-four hours, show up at the funeral as an acquaintance or admirer of the deceased.

  “I didn’t know him well, but I thought he was a great guy. So intelligent. I’ll always remember his kindness to me. And I liked the way he talked about his wife . . . about you. I can see why he thought you were so great.”

  Making up stories, insinuating themselves, flattering, consoling, comforting, offering help that they made a point of delivering promptly and sympathetically while other people fell away . . .

  “Your wife blessed us, by bringing us together.”

  “Your husband can rest easy, knowing you’re being taken care of now.”

  There were twin courtships. Twin marriages. Twin murders. Twin inheritances. Nine rings altogether: the rings from four marriages, plus the “real” rings from the symbolic marriage that Susanna and Stuart stag
ed for themselves, alone.

  After their first successful campaign in New Jersey, they moved south. Raleigh, North Carolina, was their next murderous stop. There they honed their developing skills of hunting and killing, and after that they drifted still further down the coast, to Bahia Beach.

  * * *

  It might have gone on forever, except that Susanna picked wrong.

  She married the Reverend Robert F. Wing knowing he had collected on a policy on his late wife—but not knowing he intended to spend it all unselfishly on causes of conscience. When she saw how fast the money was going, she told Stuart, at one of their Friday trysts in the old tower, “I don’t want to wait on the money I’ll get from the policy on his life. I want what’s left of her estate, too. We have to kill him now.”

  But Stuart didn’t want to. It was too soon, he said. Too risky.

  “What’s the real reason, Stuart? Are you telling me you like her? Cute little Artie? You like being married to rich, cute little Artie? Maybe you don’t want to kill her anymore and split her money with me? Maybe you want to stay with her and keep her money all to yourself?”

  That would happen over her dead body, Susanna warned him.

  When he made that prophecy come true, he unleashed within himself a rage he didn’t know he felt. It wasn’t only a rage against the woman who had controlled his life for so many years; it was a rage against life itself.

  And the funny thing was, Stuart was as surprised as anybody when his own wife was arrested for the murder of Susanna. For a while, he even half-believed the rumors about an affair between Artemis and Bob Wing. But then he came to his senses. No woman who was married to Stuart McGregor would ever look at another man. Stuart was irresistible to lonely, vulnerable women. Hadn’t Susanna always told him so?

  Why did he want possession of the canvas bag but not the rings? To him, the bag seemed like incriminating evidence, but the rings were only a woman’s silly souvenirs.

  * * *

  Stuart thought he had the last laugh on Bob Wing, on Artie, on Susanna, on everybody. The last time he visited Bob in jail—before the minister was sent to death row—Bob told him a secret for safekeeping.

  “Stuart, you’re the only person I’m trusting with this information. Please keep it until after I’m dead. You know the filling station where your wife and I got gas? While Artie was paying for it, I walked around the corner to an ATM to get some cash to pay her back. When the time is right, tell the authorities that my face will be on the videotape of that transaction. That will be the ultimate proof that Tammi will need to clear my name.”

  Susanna

  19

  It’s a sunny, perfect Sunday morning when Tammi Golding and I take Steven Orbach to church. He was released from prison twenty-four hours before his scheduled execution. Now Sands Gospel has set him up with a small apartment and a little cash, and they’re on the lookout for a job for him.

  In the sanctuary, he stands up, looking uncomfortable as Bob Wing introduces him. The preacher is back in fine form, raising the rafters with his sermons about the justice system. He is regarded as a fool by some and a saint by others for his willingness to sacrifice his own life so that others might live.

  Bob steps back from the pulpit to allow Steve to take center stage. Steve is dressed in new clothes the church has furnished him. He looks sternly handsome as he says his thank-yous. They seem to be sincere, if not altogether effusive. There are tears among the congregation, a standing ovation; heartfelt hymns are sung, and a vow is renewed among them to continue to work for the abolition of the death penalty.

  Artemis is not a member of Sands Gospel anymore. And who can blame her?

  * * *

  Afterwards, Tammi wants to take the four of us to brunch, but Bob Wing can’t go. He has hands to shake after church, and nursing homes to visit with gifts of flowers from the sanctuary. There are some people—Tammi and me, for instance, two incurable romantics—who kind of hope that one day he’ll stop by Artie’s small, elegant new house and ask her if she’d like to go along with him. We know of at least one old man whose face will light up at the sight of her.

  “Brunch?” Steve repeats as if it’s a foreign word. “Sure . . . brunch.”

  * * *

  “Eggs Benedict” is what Tammi orders for Steve, who’s never had it before.

  This strange interlude was all his lawyer’s idea. I feel uncomfortable with it, though I’m going along because I’m a carnivorous writer and these people are the meat for my plate. Tammi, high from this victory, is animated, wanting to relive my “adventure” for Steve as if we’re kids who can’t get enough of ourselves.

  “The note,” she says. “Tell him how you thought of that, Marie.”

  “I didn’t. My assistant did.” I glance up at him. “You probably don’t even know that there was a note from Lucy on the front door that night. It said that Allie was to call her the minute she got in. Well, that note wasn’t on the inventory-of-evidence list, and it wasn’t among the stuff the medical examiner turned over. So where was it? It should have been there, either in your rooms or in Allie’s room, or even someplace on the stairs if she had dropped it. Her friends said she’d stuffed it in her pocket, so where was it? My assistant even called Lyle Karnacki to ask if he knew.”

  “He told her nobody had ever come across it,” Tammi interjects, as she passes the salt and pepper to me.

  “He told Deb—my assistant—that he had thrown a fit until the crime-scene unit collected everything that was anyplace that Allison had been in that house that night. If she had walked on the stairs, he wanted those stairs vacuumed and the debris collected and examined. He was a bastard, he said, because he was so determined to make sure they had all the evidence they needed to—”

  “Convict me,” Steve says, looking at his plate with a blank expression.

  “Yes,” I agree. “The medical examiner listed the contents of her pockets. No note.”

  Steve is being fairly patient with this nonsense. At least I guess it’s patience. I don’t know if he’s patient, or kind. I don’t know anything about him, really, except that he killed his mother and he didn’t kill Allison Tobias. I don’t know if he is, at heart, a decent or possibly a rehabilitated person. I don’t know what the years have wrought in him. If he’s angry, bitter, vengeful, he doesn’t let on to us. He doesn’t show much of anything. Forbearance, maybe.

  He picks at the hollandaise sauce as if it’s distasteful to him.

  I’m sitting next to Steve in a booth. It feels to me as if neither of us is all that comfortable with the proximity. I’m scooched way over toward the window, he’s seated about as close to the aisle as he can get. We’re careful not to touch, even accidentally. Tammi’s across from us, looking pleased to provide something nice for her long-imprisoned client. She helps me tell my story. “So, when Marie found out the note never popped up anywhere, she realized that might be important.”

  Not meeting Steve’s eyes, I say, “There was only one person who could have had that note if it wasn’t anywhere Allison had been in the house. And if that person had the note, then she had to have been in the house that night with Allison, because Allison’s two friends saw her put it in her pocket. And if it was in her pocket, that meant it wasn’t right out in sight, so somebody would have had to look for it, and the only reason for them to do that was if it would incriminate them in her murder. So it had to be one of her parents.”

  Looking back, I feel breathless at the leap of intuition I took. My God, it was so little, really, on which to accuse Lucy Tobias to her own brother. But it wasn’t only that; in interviewing people, I heard those unflattering stories about the Tobiases. And suddenly I had realized that their character had always been revealed in my chapter about them,- but like everyone else, I had my attention on the wrong suspect, and so I ignored what was written between my own lines.

  “I called Lyle,” I continue, “and told him what I was thinking. It offended him so much that he hung up on m
e. But afterwards, after I called, he said he couldn’t stop thinking about it, and about his sister, as he knew her. He decided that as much as he hated the idea, there was the slim possibility I might be right.”

  Tammi’s cell phone rings. Steve looks startled and I wonder if he has ever heard or seen one before. He watches closely as she takes it out, looks at the caller ID, then takes the call. Five quick sentences and she hangs up, and says to us, “I’m sorry. That’s a client. I hate to do this, but I’ve got to go. Marie, take care of the bill, will you, and I’ll pay you back. Steven, call if you need anything, okay?”

  She gets out of the booth, and hurries to the door.

  It doesn’t take Steve two seconds to move over to the other side of the booth. Am I happy to be left alone with him? I am not.

  He doesn’t ask me to continue my story, and I don’t volunteer it. We hadn’t even gotten to the cake tin yet, and somehow it doesn’t seem important.

  “What are you going to do next?” I ask him after a few minutes.

  “Finish my eggs.”

  We eat in silence again until I say, “Are you going to sue anybody?”

  “Lauderdale Pines. Bahia. Sheriff’s Department. Prosecutors,” he says, as cool as if I had asked about the weather. “Tammi’s taking care of it.”

  “Any individuals?”

  “Every one of them.”

  “Lyle, too?”

  Steve Orbach’s cold, appraising eyes glance up at me. “Yes,” he says, and then he shovels in the last of his meal.

  “But he set you free.”

  “No.” He looks at me. “You did that. He was going to let me rot, just like every other cop.”

  I have run out of questions.

  When I reach for the bill, he beats me to it.

  “But Steve, Tammi wants—”

  “No. I’ll get it.” He insists on buying, even though it’s expensive. The truth is, I’m afraid to argue with him over it. I’m afraid of him, period, guilty or not. But I don’t want him to sense that, so I smile and say, “Thank you.”

  “How much tip?” he asks me.

  “Twenty percent.”