The Truth Hurts

  “That fits the incidents so far,” Robyn points out. “The E-mails, the tape in Marie’s car, the advertising flyer and the birds. It all has a kind of clean and distant feeling about it, now that you mention it.”

  “Are you saying,” Paul asks Aileen, “there could be more than one person involved?”

  “I’m saying that I see an ambiguity in his letters, as if he’s a man who is capable of murder, but who might not enjoy the mess of it or the feelings he would have afterward. I’ve never run across killer communications quite like these before. I must confess I feel a little baffled by them.”

  My jaw drops. Aileen, confessing weakness?

  “The one thing I know for sure is that he’s dangerous, Marie. Very dangerous. I suppose—” Her expression clears, as if she’s just figured something out. “I know what it is. I feel as if it’s not your death he’s after, or not just your death, it’s something else.”

  “Robyn’s theory—”

  “No, not Franklin’s death, either.”

  “What then?”

  “I don’t know. But I feel there’s something else he wants from you. I think that your murder, or even Franklin’s, may not be the point of all this, no matter how much he claims it is.”

  “He wants the book that comes out of this,” Paul reminds her.

  “Maybe he does, or maybe that’s just a ruse to keep her too busy and distracted to be able to think straight.”

  “It has certainly done that,” I grumble.

  “So what does he want?” Paul says.

  The criminologist produces from her purse a copy of The Executioners and slaps it down on the table. “The answer is in here, I feel sure. The obvious one would be revenge.”

  “Marie?” Robyn prods me. “Who’s that pissed at you?”

  My answer is to hand her a copy I have prepared of a list of the killers I have known, interviewed, written about, and rejected, as well as the names of their kin.

  “My, my,” she says, perusing it. “A regular hall of fame of murderers. You do keep the most interesting company, Marie.”

  “Apparently,” I say, sweetly. “I’m here with you guys, aren’t I? ”

  Paul laughs, then points to the page. “Anybody on this list fit the description you just heard?”

  I turn the paper back around so I can go down the list again, and as I do, I try to picture everybody on it. “No, I’m sorry, not really.”

  The criminologist places a hand over the paper, covering it, and I look up at her. “We should start closer to home, Marie. Remember, I said that in an investigation we start with the ‘victim’ and the circle of people closest to her. Lovers. Friends. Tell us about your family, Marie.”

  “Family?”

  “Yes.” She’s sarcastic in the face of my foggy response. “You’ve heard the term before? Mother, father, children?”

  I stare off into the distance; the riverbanks disappear; an indistinct green landscape appears to my mind’s eye. Reluctantly, I say, “All right. I’ll tell you what I know about them,” and then I do. For the pitifully few minutes that it takes to tell, I have to endure the surprise and sympathy in the cops’ eyes. Even Aileen looks nonplussed. I feel increasingly exposed, coerced to reveal private and painful things I never willingly tell anybody, and I hate “Paulie Barnes” for forcing it out of me.

  “I don’t see what any of that has to do with it,” I tell them. “I wish I knew what he really wants from me.”

  The cops exchange glances, looking a little embarrassed. We know what he wants, those looks seem to say. Regardless of what your fancy-schmancy criminologist thinks. He wants you, Marie.

  Paul makes a stab at lightening the atmosphere. “I’ve heard of people who would kill to get published, but this is ridiculous.”

  We all laugh, but it’s a hollow sound.

  “Marie,” Robyn suddenly blurts. “Who inherits?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “From you, if you die. Who gets it?”

  “Oh, my cousin, Nathan Montgomery. He’s like a brother to me. He’ll get everything I inherited from my parents after my aunt and uncle had them declared officially dead, and he’ll get at least some of my royalties. The rest of it goes to other friends and some charities. But Nathan gets the bulk of mine, and vice versa, unless one of us gets married, or has kids.” I see where she’s heading with this, and say, simply, “Oh, please. No way.”

  “How should I talk to Paulie Barnes?” I ask my experts, finally.

  “I don’t think it matters,” Aileen says, astonishing me.

  “Don’t I have to worry about offending him?”

  “Not if it’s really something else he’s after.”

  “But we don’t know that—”

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” Paul says, dismissing the criminologist with a glance. “Since the bastard’s already sitting there at a computer, tell him he should go to the Web and pull up the site for the state prison up at Starke. Tell him he can see a video of a cell on death row up there, a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree video scan of the cell. Might be a good thing for him to think about. And while he’s thinking, you could suggest that he look up Florida State Criminal Statute 836.10.”

  “That’s the same one Franklin talked about. What is it?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Robyn smiles wickedly, and runs her tongue over her upper lip, as if she’s licking off something tasty.

  “ ‘Written threats to kill or do bodily injury,’ ” Paul recites. “Which he’s already guilty of. It’s a second-degree felony punishable by up to fifteen years in prison. If he’s an habitual offender, he can get up to thirty years, with no possibility of parole for ten years. But if he’s a three-time offender or a violent career criminal, it’s a mandatory minimum of thirty years.”

  “And this is without even touching you,” Robyn points out.

  “I don’t approve of mandatory minimums,” I murmur, on principle.

  “He won’t, either,” Robyn says, sarcastically.

  “He might like to know about our sexual predator laws, too,” Paul says then, in the false, chirpy tone of voice of a game show host. “How about 00-179, Robyn, you think he’d like that one?”

  “Oh, yes, Paul! Why, that’s certainly one of my favorites.”

  Paul explains, “It provides in certain cases for consecutive sentences for murder and sexual battery, instead of concurrent sentences.”

  “What kind of certain cases?” I ask.

  He looks suddenly less willing to explain things to me. “Well—”

  Robyn gets it over with. “In cases where there’s more than one incidence of murder and sexual battery, Marie.”

  “Oh. Like, if he attacked Deborah and then later, me?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Like that.”

  “Well,” I say, taking a deep breath. “These things are good to know, I guess.”

  “He needs to know them, Marie,” Paul says, turning serious. “He’s got to know that if he wants us to take him seriously, we’ll do that, all right, as seriously as life in prison or, worst case, the death penalty.”

  I turn to Aileen. I don’t like her, but she has earned my respect as a professional. “What do you think?”

  “I told you. Say anything you want to him.”

  Across the table, Robyn is shaking her head.

  “You never said what you think of Robyn’s idea that this guy is really after Franklin,” I push Aileen.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she pronounces, including all of us in one haughty glance. “His interest in you could not possibly be more obvious. His goal was to drive Franklin away from you, so that he could have you all to himself, although for what exact purpose we do not yet know.”

  “I think we do,” Paul says, flatly.

  Since none of us wants to talk about those crimes against me that might earn Paulie Barnes the electric chair, we pay up and leave. Aileen leaves first, in an officious bustle of noise and movement suggesting how busy and important
she is and how many other things she has to do today.

  “What a charmer,” Robyn comments, after she’s gone.

  Paul says, “You be careful, Marie.” He casts a glance at my bodyguard, whom we’ve all nearly forgotten about and who is getting off his stool at the bar. “Of everybody. Call if you need us, or if anything changes. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch.” Robyn gives me a quick, comforting hug. I’ve never been hugged by a cop before, and I grunt in surprise when I feel a gun under her clothing, at her right hip.

  “It’s your day off,” I say. “Why—?”

  “You can never be too careful, that’s my motto.” She gives me a quick, stern smile. “Make it yours, Marie.”

  Steve and I walk into my home to find an urgent message for me to contact Franklin’s ex-wife. When I call her, the first words out of her mouth are, “Is this supposed to make everything all right? Are you trying to buy their affection? How dare you do this without consulting me first? I’m their mother. Franklin says you didn’t even ask him. What are you thinking ?”

  “What?” I ask, rendered nearly speechless by her barrage.

  “What?” she screams at me. “You ask what ? You send my children a dog, and you ask why I’m calling you?”

  My heart stops one beat after the word dog, and my mouth goes so dry I can barely ask her, “What kind of dog?”

  “What do you mean what kind of dog! You picked it out, you ought to know! Do you have any idea how large an Irish setter gets?”

  Irish setter. Max Cady killed their Irish setter.

  “You can’t just give children a dog,” Truly rants at me, “without checking with their parents first. What am I supposed to do now? Did you think of that? I don’t want a dog. If I had wanted them to have a dog, I would have gone out and got one myself, do you understand that? And now, do I keep a dog I don’t want, or do I get to be the bad guy in my children’s eyes and make them give up the puppy? Have you ever told children they can’t have a puppy they think they get to keep? I could just kill you for doing this—”

  “Trudy.” Finally, I’ve found speech. “Trudy, I didn’t send the dog.”

  Her voice is deadly. “It came with your name on a ribbon around its neck, Marie.”

  When she says that, I feel as if a chain has tightened around my own neck. And as if that were not enough of a shock, Steve hands me something he has printed out from my computer: a new E-mail from Paulie Barnes.

  “Trudy, I have to go,” I tell her while I stare at the E-mail. “Tell Franklin I said that Paulie Barnes sent the dog. He’ll understand. Tell him to trace it.” As if he needs instruction from me. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about the dog. You and he will have to decide what to do about it. I just know that I need to stay away from you.”

  “Who the hell is Paulie Barnes?”

  “The man who is threatening us, Trudy.”

  “Perfect.” She slams her phone down. With my ears ringing, I stare at the printout in my hands.

  Dear Marie,

  Life is just one surprise after another, isn’t it?

  You do understand now, don’t you, Marie? So long as you cooperate in every way with my instructions, I will harm no one but you, and even that will not be for a little while. I don’t waste time or actions, Marie. I do only that which is necessary to convince you and to advance the plot of our book.

  Now let’s not waste any more time.

  Or do you want the dog to die?

  I will give you a second chance to spare your intimates from pain.

  Do what I am about to tell you and I will leave them—including the dog—alone.

  Marie, in your typical book about a true crime, you devote several chapters to the background of the victim—her family history, her education, her romances, hobbies, jobs, friends, and so forth. Naturally, our readers will want to know all of that about our victim, too.

  You, that is.

  I’m going to do you a favor, Marie. Before you die, you are going to know yourself better than most people do. I’m now ordering you to research yourself.You are to employ the very same talents of deduction, pursuit, intuition, and perception that have made you so good at dissecting other people’s lives. If I were a betting man I’d put down money on a sure thing—that you have already done some of this work of your own autobiography. I’d wager you have notes, possibly even actual chapters; in other words, I’m betting you have material that you can send to me now without any extra effort at all. Do it.

  But there are no doubt still things you don’t know about yourself.

  To the worthwhile end of finding them out, I am providing the following:

  An airline ticket to Birmingham, Alabama.

  There is an “attachment,” and there are five more sentences in the body of the E-mail. When I read them, my heart and breath seem to stop, and I can’t move, can’t speak, except to whisper to Steve, “Did you read this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t think. I can’t even read straight. Tell me what I have to do.”

  It’s all very simple: I am instructed to fly to Birmingham, Alabama, in the morning. Once I arrive, I am to rent a car and drive to Sebastion, where I am to find a place to stay. In Sebastion, I am to start researching and writing about the beginnings of my own life.

  But there is one more thing—those five sentences that stopped my heart:

  I’ll help you begin your research, my dear.

  Attached to this E-mail you will find the raw facts of certain events that happened many years ago. I want you to rewrite this in your own style and then submit this new chapter to me before you leave tomorrow. (And don’t forget to add that personal, chatty little note I keep expecting but have not yet received from you.)

  I believe you’ll find the enclosed fascinating, since it is an account of the murder of your parents.

  BETRAYAL

  By Marie Lightfoot

  —•—

  CHAPTER SIX

  Their car was forcibly halted that night at the intersection of Four Roads Crossing. One road led south to Birmingham, one led northwest to Memphis, a third went to Atlanta, and the last one pointed north to Nashville. Four pickup trucks cut off each angle of escape. The last one pulled up behind them so quickly it seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

  There was nothing they could do, there was no way out, not even if Michael turned their car toward the surrounding fields, because deep ditches lined the shoulders of the crossroads.

  Lyda had been right when she predicted, “We can’t escape from this.”

  Within moments, they were removed from their automobile. They were escorted at gunpoint to the truck immediately behind them. A parade of four pickup trucks then proceeded west until it came to a turnoff into private property.

  A passenger in one of the trucks drove their car away.

  He drove almost nonstop until he reached Oregon, where a relative of his owned a small backwoods plot ofland. The two of them removed the tires from the Folletinos’ car and put it up on blocks, a common fate for many vehicles in that area. The relative was a sometime mechanic, so it was not unusual to see assorted battered cars around his dilapidated house. They remembered to remove the Alabama license plate and replace it with an old one from Oregon. To complete the battered look they took sledgehammers to the car and beat in its glass, its chrome, and its doors. When they finished, it looked as if it had been in a multicar pileup or had rolled down a mountain into a rocky ravine.

  Later, when people asked why he kept such an old wreck around, the Oregon relative said, “Wasn’t nothin’ wrong with the radiator and I’ve used some other bits and pieces from it.” The truth was, he kept it as a trophy. It gave him a kick, a good laugh, to look at it rusting away over the years and to know they’d been smart enough to pull off a big one. It was a hell of a joke.

  Originally, they fought about it, though.

  “Why you gotta leave it here?” the Alabama visitor demanded of his kin. “Why don’t you just driv
e it down a ravine and leave it there?”

  “ ’Cause I’d be init, asshole.”

  “You’d get outof it first, dumbshit.”

  “It ain’t a good idea.”

  “Well, let’s burn it.”

  “Hell, no, a cop’d ask about a burned car.”

  “They’re not going to ask about it if we beat it to death?”

  “Why should they?”

  It went on for some time like that.

  Their debate ended with a sledgehammer in each man’s hands.

  When the parade of trucks turned in at the private road, they drove for a while in single file until they reachedanother turnoff. That one led them into a thicket where anything could happen and nobody would see it, or hear it. They didn’t take long to do what they had to do.

  Possibly to torture Michael, they shot Lyda first.

  They did it quick, almost the moment after they pulled her from the car, removing her just far enough away to make sure no blood spattered on them or their vehicles.

  Before they shot her, they put gunnysacks on Michael’s and Lyda’s heads and shoulders, so that the fatal mess would be contained within the sacks. They used a pistol to shoot Lyda once through her head, then twice again as she lay on the ground.

  Then they did it to Michael, with no wasted effort.

  One moment he was still standing, the next moment he lay on top of his wife’s body on the ground. Both of them had gone silently to their fates. Perhaps what held their tongues was the shock they felt upon recognizing their killers. After their deaths, their blood drained from their bodies invisibly, merging together, into the dirt beneath them. With a couple of shovelfuls of earth piled on top of it, no sign would show by morning.