Текст книги "Dead Wood"

Автор книги: Dan Ames

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

Chapter Forty-Two

The first thing I did was vomit. I made it to the toilet, worrying about destroying evidence, but hurl I did. My whole body was shaking, probably from both fear and the aftermath of having an ungodly amount of volts shot through my system. I was having a near-death and an out-of-body experience at the same time.

Somehow, I found my way back to the first bedroom, where one of the twins had been hiding. I assumed the note was meant to be written in my hand, and sure enough, there was a slip of paper. It was the one on which I’d jotted down my name and phone number and given to someone in Shannon’s entourage, maybe Molly?

It was standard, depressed prose: “God forgive me, I’m a failure . . .” The note said I had begun an affair with Memphis, fallen in love, and when I told her it was over because I was a relatively happily married man, she killed herself. Which then weighed so heavily on me that I could only deal with it by killing myself as well.

The note stopped there, probably when I entered the house and interrupted the forger at work.

I thought about what to do next. I should call the police. Yes, call the police. They would arrive, I’d make my statement, a few hours of questioning, and I’d be released around midnight. No, don’t call the police. I stood there, shaking, trying to pull myself together.

Shit. I checked my watch. It was late—I would have to hurry to make my meeting with Shannon.

Leaving the scene of a crime was a felony. So was killing people, and I had two dead bodies to my name, and a third hanging from a ceiling fan.

With the old woman and the hound, and the people on the ferry, I knew there was no way I could avoid facing the cops. The question was: when did I want to face them? Leaving the scene of a crime would be more than enough to have my PI license revoked.

Still, I was hot on this thing, and I had a feeling that my meeting with Shannon would bring it to an end.

I decided to compromise. First, I did a quick run-through of Memphis’ house, looking for anything that I could use with Shannon. It felt good to be moving, to be doing something.

I went through every room in the house but came up empty. There was no other choice. I left the house and made a beeline for the silver BMW. It was either Memphis’ or the twins’, but I didn’t know which.

I looked inside and saw a bag in the front passenger seat’s floor space. It struck a chord with me, and for some reason, I didn’t think it belonged to one of the twins.

In fact, I could’ve sworn that I’d seen the bag somewhere. It looked neat and organized, made of brown leather. I could see the Franklin planner inside.

I had seen the bag before.

It was Molly’s.

I tried the door and found it was locked. At the back of the house was a small flower bed with a border of river rocks. I picked up the biggest rock, went back, and smashed in the Beemer’s window.

The alarm went off, and I grabbed the bag.

On the way back to my car, I lived up to the other end of my compromise.

I called my sister.

She didn’t like what I had to say.

Chapter Forty-Three

I wasn’t really in the best shape. I ached from the Taser blast and a blow one of the twins had laid on my spine. But mostly I was in shock from killing two women. The sight of blood, especially my own, made me very uncomfortable. And right now, I was doing everything I could to not think about what had taken place at Memphis’ farmhouse. I’m sure the cops were there by now, wondering where I was, scouring the scene, trying to figure out what had happened.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ellen where I was going. Suffice it to say, if there was any way to reach through the phone line and strangle someone, she would have popped my head off like a champagne cork.

Now I was just trying to keep it together.

I was early for my rendezvous with Shannon. I parked my car in the Windmill Pointe Marina parking lot and hurried out to the dock. The wind was picking up, and the chop had graduated from stiff to severe. Above me, the night sky showed no stars, and I could see the black inkiness of serious storm clouds.

The benches normally taken by fishermen going after the perch that hung out close to shore were empty. As were the picnic tables and beach chairs. The whole fucking place was empty except for me.

And maybe Shannon Sparrow.

•

A flash of lightning threw a spotlight on the lake. There wasn’t a single boat. Even the buoys looked like they wanted to come in and get out of the wind.

My boat was called Air Fare because it was owned by some pilot who’d had money to burn, but then lost his job. I had a feeling it was due to drinking, because when I took ownership of the boat and went down below, the smell of gin was overwhelming. Something told me that the pilot was most likely never far from a martini. A man after my own heart, to be honest. I could use about a baker’s dozen of martinis right now.

It had occurred to me that maybe someone had dropped Shannon off. After all, a woman of her stature usually had a driver. Maybe she’d had someone drop her off then would call to have someone pick her up. I hadn’t noticed anyone in the parking lot. There weren’t even any cars, other than a black pickup truck and a white Toyota Tercel, both of which I knew belonged to park workers.

The boat looked just like I’d left it. The dark-red spinnaker cover was snapped into place. The mooring lines were all taut. The deck was neat and clean.

There was no sign of Shannon.

I turned back toward the parking lot. No sense standing out there waiting for her. I boarded the boat and unlocked the doors to the cabin down below.

The smell was a mixture of marine oil, gasoline, booze, and cleaning products.

I flipped on the generator and turned on some of the interior lights, careful to make sure the curtains were drawn. A glimpse into Molly’s briefcase had confirmed the rising feeling. Things were falling into place, and this meeting with Shannon was going to prove everything I believed to be right.

At least, that’s what I hoped.

•

“John?”

I heard her voice from the pier. I’d been lost in thought but now stepped up onto the deck and called back. “Shannon.”

She had on blue jeans, a windbreaker, and topsiders. A large bag was slung over her shoulder. Her hair was loosely pulled back. She looked . . . normal.

“Nice boat,” she said.

“It’s a tub of shit, but thanks,” I said.

She stood there, uncertain. It was odd seeing her by herself. No gang of hangers-on swarming around like a pack of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. She seemed smaller, less sure of herself. Maybe I was reading too much into it.

She stepped off the main dock and walked along the dividing dock between my boat and the one next to me.

I held her hand as she hopped onto the deck. Without saying a word, she went down the stairs to the cabin. After taking a quick look around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I followed her below.

The cabin’s layout was simple. On one side was a small table surrounded by a U-shaped bench. The other side was a long counter with a sink, a fridge, and a radio. Small storage compartments were tucked everywhere in between.

I gestured for Shannon to sit on one end of the bench, and I took the other. The space was too small to sit face to face, so she sat straight ahead and I sat with my legs out toward the stairs.

“Okay, who called this meeting?” I said.

“What happened to your face?” she asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How come you haven’t said a word about Molly’s death?” I said, ignoring her question. I mean, come on, your assistant falls down the stairs, breaks her neck, and you keep an appointment to meet a PI at ten o’clock at night? It was about as absurd as me killing two people and keeping an appointment with a country music star. Chaos reigned.

“I guess I’m all talked out about it,” she said. “I’ve been over it with the cops nine or ten times.”

“Now that you’ve got your story straight, why don’t you lay it on me?”

“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. “And don’t talk to me like that.”

“You weren’t there when she died?”

She shook her head. “Do you have anything to drink around here?” she said. “Aren’t sailors always supposed to have booze on hand?”

I hesitated and took a look at the big purse she’d slid off her shoulder and placed on the table.

“Oh please,” she said.

It was a moment of truth of sorts. Did I think Shannon was knee-deep in this thing? The bigger question was: how could she not be? But as I looked at her across the table, my gut told me she wasn’t. I got up, went to the sideboard, and grabbed a bottle of whiskey, splashing some into a clean glass for her.

“You’re not drinking?” she said.

“You need me to?” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders.

I waited while Shannon drained half the glass in one big gulp. The boat rocked slightly, and I knew that the wind had picked up even more, if it was able to whip waves that big into the harbor.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

With a shaking hand, she reached for her purse. I watched her as she pulled out a thick joint and a lighter. As she tried to light the tip, it slipped from her hand and landed on the floor.

“Just tell me what you do know,” I said.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice quavering. “I have people who are supposed to do that for me.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” I said.

She nodded.

“Too many people doing too many things on your behalf,” I said. It didn’t seem to register for a moment. When it did, she went pale, and it was hard to see her as the superstar in the press. On the covers of magazines and the object of countless fan clubs and websites. She looked like a scared, lonely woman approaching middle-age.

“Please help me,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her lips trembled, and the tears started rolling down her cheeks. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.

I let out a long breath. “I think I do.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

I took the CD from Molly’s purse, the one I’d found in the twins’ silver BMW. I went to the control panel of the boat where a small, built-in CD player was housed. I flicked on the power button and slid the disc in. I waited a moment and then hit play.

It was just static at first. Almost like a gentle scratching. And then soft, acoustic guitar. Gentle notes, full of sorrow and melancholy.

And then a voice.

A really beautiful, haunting voice that sang of lost love and the ghosts of lovers past.

I was listening at last to Jesse Barre.

The music itself was rough, but you could hear the quality, the command of the song and the ease of the voice. She sounded like a natural. But it was the power of the words that moved me the most. It was the kind of song that if you heard it on the radio, you would wait and hope the DJ would tell you who it was, so you could immediately go buy the CD.

I looked at Shannon, and I could tell she knew the same thing. The fear in her face was gone, replaced with a kind of warm recognition. Even in the midst of murder and mayhem, she was enough of a human being and a musician to recognize true beauty when she heard it. And she was hearing it now.

When the song was over, I turned back to the player and hit pause.

I heard clapping and when I turned back, Teddy Armbruster stood next to Shannon.

And next to Teddy was a man.

He looked oddly familiar to me. He had a smirk on his lean, slightly wolfish face.

The boat seemed to sway under me, and my knees felt weak. I reached out with my hand against the side of the cabinet to steady myself.

“Surprise, surprise,” Teddy said.

The man just looked at me, curious amusement on his face.

It was him.

The man who I’d met on a snowy night so many years ago.

“Look at him . . . he’s in shock,” Teddy said.

I couldn’t stop looking at the man. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Teddy spoke again, a wide smile on his face.

“I’d introduce you,” Teddy said, unable to suppress a chuckle. “But I believe you two have already met.”

It was him.

The man who’d killed Benjamin Collins.

Chapter Forty-Four

“Why don’t you step away from the CD player, John?” Teddy said. On cue, the man who’d killed Benjamin Collins eased out a handgun from a shoulder holster.

“Take out the CD and hand it to me,” Teddy said.

I did as asked.

“Teddy, what are you doing?” Shannon said.

Teddy smiled at her, took the CD, and slipped it into the breast pocket of his suit coat.

“Nothing you need to worry about, Shannon.”

“But I do,” she said. She turned to me. “That was Jesse Barre singing, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “And singing beautifully,” I added, still not taking my eyes from the man across from me.

“What a shame,” Teddy said.

“John,” Shannon said. She was looking at the final destination, but wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here.

“Jesse Barre was going to retire from making guitars,” I said. “Her boyfriend, Nevada Hornsby, told me she was taking a sabbatical.”

“Permanent sabbatical,” Teddy said. “An oxymoron, I suppose.” His smirk was vile.

“At the time, I didn’t know what it meant,” I said. I was about to ramble, but I didn’t know what else to do. No one was stopping me, and I needed some time to try to figure something out.

“But then when I found the CD in Molly’s purse—the one Erma and Freda had killed her for—I started to realize what happened,” I said. “Jesse had contacted Memphis, probably for advice. Memphis lied to me about not knowing Jesse. Memphis was probably threatened by it, worried that Shannon would start buying Jesse’s songs, so she convinced Laurence Grasso that when he got out of prison, if he killed Jesse for her, Memphis would try to get him back with Shannon.”

“Oh my God,” Shannon said.

“Oh please,” Teddy said. He was bored, looking around the inside of my sailboat with obvious disgust. The man with the gun was only looking at me.

“And Grasso set Coltraine up to take the fall.”

“This isn’t true,” Shannon said.

“I think at some point, when Grasso was out of control, Memphis went to Teddy and spilled the beans,” I said. “Somehow, Molly realized what was going on and, ever the spin doctor, Teddy had both Memphis and Molly killed. And now he’ll try to kill me. All to keep the gravy train rolling in.”

Shannon began to sob outright.

“Time to go,” Teddy said. “Get up.”

“You’d better go with him, Shannon,” I said. She looked like a broken woman. Her head down, silent sobs wracking her narrow shoulders—

And then she launched herself at Teddy, windmilling her arms, slapping at his face, trying to claw him. It caught us all flatfooted. Teddy struggled to get Shannon under control. Too late, I started to make my move.

Way too late.

The man was already next to me with the muzzle of the gun just behind my ear. How he moved that fast, I had no idea. But any chance I had was gone.

Teddy finally pinned Shannon’s arms against her sides and hauled her up the stairs. She was screaming at him and calling my name until he managed to clamp a hand over her mouth.

I heard her muffled sobs as she and Teddy stepped off the boat onto the dock.

The man and I stood there for a moment, the boat gently rocking from the departure of Teddy and Shannon.

I thought I was going to die. Ellen would probably find me. She’d have to call Anna. I wouldn’t see my daughters grow up. For just a moment, I felt a sense of closure. The same man who had killed Benjamin Collins was now going to kill me.

“Just like old times,” the man said, affecting an effeminate lilt to his voice. The same one that had fooled me a few years back. “Me and you,” he said.

If I was going to die, I at least wanted some answers. I thought I deserved them before I had my brains splattered on the boat’s walls.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He chuckled softly. There was a pause, and I expected to see a burst of light and then nothing but darkness.

Instead, the man said, “Start the boat.”

Chapter Forty-Five

There was now a raging storm on the water. Gray clouds obscured the stars, and white foam whipped off the waves.

With the man’s gun trained on my head at all times, I backed the boat out of its slip, then pushed it toward the harbor opening where I could see Lake St. Clair in all its glorious frenzy. It had begun to rain, and the water came down in sheets, as if poured from the black sky. Chain lightning flashed on the horizon across the lake, over Canada.

I toyed with the idea of jumping overboard, but something told me I’d get as far as one step, maybe two, before my head was fully vented.

As I steered the Air Fare, I thought about how appropriate this was. The boy entrusted to me, Benjamin Collins, had been sliced up and found floating in Lake St. Clair. A lot of people blamed me, including myself, for what had happened. Although I hadn’t actually been the one to kill him, I’d had the opportunity to save him, and I’d blown it.

So now here I was with his real killer, and I was faced with the same fate. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to save myself from him either. I could imagine the story in the newspaper: “Cop Killed in Same Manner as Earlier Victim.” They’d have a field day with it. Or maybe the man here had a plan to make it look like a suicide. I was sure he had a plan.

“Where to?” I shouted as the rain whipped directly into my face.

“Out,” he said.

Maybe he was going to conk me over the head and toss me overboard. Even in good shape, I’d have trouble swimming in this shit. Knocked unconscious, I wouldn’t have a chance.

The Air Fare was a good-sized boat, twenty-nine-feet long. However, Lake St. Clair was some three hundred square miles, and waves commonly got as big as they do on Lake Huron, or even Lake Michigan. Right now, my boat was being tossed around pretty good. In fact, I’d never been out in water this rough. Wave after wave bashed into the prow, and we rode the water like a mechanical bull.

“Why?” I shouted to the man, who had now moved around directly behind me. He seemed a bit unsteady. If he killed me, how was he planning to get back to shore? Somehow, I was sure he would manage.

I glanced back at him, and he shook his head then gestured with the gun for me to look back to where I was going.

In my mind, some questions were starting to get answered. I’d always assumed that the man who’d killed Benjamin Collins had been a psychopath. Not a jilted lover. But now I knew for sure. My guess was that when I’d killed Erma and Freda, Teddy had brought in someone new. Or someone old, in this case.

The man was a hired killer.

So why had he killed Benjamin Collins? As soon as I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t the right question.

“Who hired you to kill Benjamin Collins?”

I looked back, and he had a smirk on his face. He shook his head.

I turned back just as a giant wave washed over the front of the boat. Water hit me in the chest, and I staggered back. I didn’t know what to be more afraid of. Being murdered by a contract killer. Or being washed overboard and drowning. Same result, different paths.

Did he plan on taking me over by the yacht club? Where he’d left the butchered body of Benjamin Collins? Right now, we were pointing straight out to the middle of the lake.

I heard the man singing behind me. Over the din of the wind and the rain and the crashing waves, this fucker was singing. I recognized the tune. “Let it Bleed” from the Rolling Stones. Wonderful.

It pissed me off. Here I was, about to die. My two daughters were about to lose their father, Anna was about to lose her husband, and my killer was singing. Having a grand old time. Well, fuck him.

I let go of the wheel and faced him. “You’re the scum of the earth—just so you know,” I shouted at him.

He continued his little musical number.

“You can kill me,” I said. “But you’re a coward. A rotten, murdering piece of dogshit.”

The anger choked up inside me, and I realized there was no point in waiting. If I was going to die, I was going to die the way I wanted.

He seemed to read my mind.

He brought his gun up and now held it straight out from his body pointing at me.

“Come on, you rotten sonofabi—” I started to say.

A resounding crash screamed in my ears, and the boat’s deck slipped out from underneath me. The splintering of wood shattered the sounds of the storm, and I landed on my side, pain slicing up my back. I saw the prow of another boat bisecting the Air Fare. Cut it right in fucking half.

The ship’s prow was white, and I saw the line of blue down the side along with the word POLICE.

I struggled to get to my feet as water rushed all around me. The Air Fare was sagging, nearly broken in half.

A weight pressed on my back, and hands grasped the side of my head. My head was wrenched to the side, and the pain shot up my neck. He was on top of me, trying to break my neck. Unbelievable. How had he moved that fast? How had he gotten behind me again so soon after we were rammed?

Pain shot through my body, and I twisted beneath him. Just as I wondered why he wasn’t shooting me, I realized he must have lost his gun.

I immediately stopped twisting and, instead, pulled him in the direction he was trying to make me go.

We both rolled and crashed against the side of the boat as another wave broke over us. It knocked him off me, and I thought I heard other voices shouting.

I got to my feet and whirled around just as he came at me. He hit me in the face and then in the stomach. My breath flew out of me in a gush, and then he whirled, a karate kick that would’ve finished the job of taking off my head had I not ducked at just the right moment. I slipped as another wave caught me full in the face, and my feet flew out from under me. I crashed into the Air Fare’s stern, which had become the receptacle for the damage done in the boat’s middle.

I slumped to the deck, water up to my waist, and felt sharp fragments of wood scrape my back. I looked up and saw the impossible.

He was coming at me, full bore, with a steadiness and animal grace that made me look on in awe.

As I watched him come with the inevitability of Death itself, my hands wrapped around something that felt like a wooden bat. Just as he got close enough and I could see him winding up for another killer kick, I lashed out. The blow caught him in the side of the neck at just the right time. Off balance, he fell to the deck as another wave crashed over us. I was knocked down and the pole, which I now saw was the jib’s handle, had broken in half. A nasty, jagged break with a long sliver of wood jutting from the middle.

The Air Fare tilted, the weight of the water in the stern sending the bow up. The man slid down the deck toward me, blood in his mouth either from my blow or from being knocked down by a wave.

I raised the pole over my head with both hands and fell on top of him, driving the pole straight into him like a pile driver. My mind was on autopilot, just a raw, savage fury and a fear of dying pounding in my head.

I felt the pole plunge through his chest and bury itself in the softer wood of the deck. He reached for me, but I saw his eyes glaze. His arms went instead to the wooden spear, now rammed firmly into the sinking boat’s deck. He tugged at it, but it didn’t move.

Blood gushed from his mouth.

“Who are you?” I screamed at him. His eyes were open, and I thought he was going to speak.

Instead, he laughed.

There was another loud crack, but this time it wasn’t thunder or another ship. It was the Air Fare. The boat seemed to break in half, and suddenly black water was below me and I was sinking. There was an explosion. A bright-orange flame licked the air, and I was under, trying to kick off my shoes and pants, my ribs and back and neck screaming in agony. I kicked toward the surface, my lungs on fire.

I broke through the surface only to have a wave slam into my face with such force that my head snapped back, and I saw black, and then green again as I was forced back underwater. I bobbed to the surface and heard voices. Something hit me in the face. It wasn’t rain or wood debris from the boat.

It was rope.

I got my hands around it and felt myself being pulled.

The blackness came again.

And this time, it stayed.