The Last Family

4

To the tourists who flooded the Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter he might have been a local as he sat sipping coffee with his back to the levee, facing Jackson Square. He looked like anything other than what he was. He was dressed casually, but expensively, and was reading the newspaper account that detailed the search for a multiple-murder suspect who had killed three people in Tennessee and covered his escape with a bomb. One composite looked like a child’s drawing of a man in a ranger’s hat, and the second a bad rendition of an elderly physician named Evans. To Martin Fletcher it looked like a drag queen dressed up for Halloween. The crude drawings made him want to laugh.

The newspaper article quoted a fire official as saying it was a miracle no one had been killed by the incendiary device planted at the airport, which had destroyed seventy-eight vehicles. It had taken several hours for the Nashville fire department to put out the fire. The bombing itself was relegated to page two, since the article detailing the abduction and murder of George Lee and scout leader Ruth Tippet, and the overdosing of Doris Lee, covered most of page one. The picture of Rainey Lee seated on his home’s rear deck with his head buried in his hands warmed Martin’s heart.

He laid the paper aside, sipped at his coffee, and watched a couple with a small child at the next table. The child’s face and hands were covered in powdered sugar from the French doughnuts. The mother caught sight of him watching the child, so he smiled at the parents. “How old is she?” he asked.

“Four,” the mother said.

“I like benyenays,” the child giggled, holding a square with a perfect half-moon missing from one side.

“They’re called ben-yeahs,” her mother corrected.

“What’s your name, my little beauty?” he asked.

“Molly!” she squealed.

“I once had one just like you at home,” he said. “Children her age are so wonderful. But they can grow into troublesome adults.”

“Where’s home?” the man asked.

“Spain. Outside Madrid.”

“You don’t have a Latin accent,” the man said.

“I am an actor,” he replied, placing his fingers gingerly at his chest. “I have many accents and many languages. My grandfather was a Texan, my mother a saint-but aren’t they all?” He winked at the wife, who blushed.

“Might we have seen you in anything?” the man asked.

“Possibly,” he replied. “If you see Spanish or Italian cinema. I have yet to make it in Hollywood films. But I audition often enough, and who knows? Recently I played a doctor in a small production. A two-man play.”

They showed Martin a “gee, that’s too bad” smile and resumed their breakfast. “We’ll be watching for you,” the man said. The child made a pair of glasses with her index fingers and thumbs, peering at Martin through them.

Martin opened his paper and spent the next few minutes reminiscing over the series of kills he had made during the past four years. While he did so, he remained aware of the people parading past the open-air cafe. As was his habit, he made an appraisal of each in relation to himself. This hunter was also hunted, a fact of life he could never lose sight of. He laid the paper aside, happy that the couple and child had moved on. Then he peeled the wrapping from a large cigar and lit it with a wooden kitchen match from his pocket.

The two ex-Greers and three McLeans had been easy enough. Hardest for him had been the little Lee girl, Eleanor. He had discovered early in his surveillance that she kept her imaginary treasures, everyday-found objects, in the shed that doubled as her playhouse. He had rigged the explosion so that it would look like a child-playing-with-matches accident. He’d taken the matches from the Lee kitchen himself when they were out and put them beside the lawn mower. A simple device insured that when she opened the door, it would tip a can filled with gasoline, and when she closed it again, a match struck and voom. The evidence of the booby trap-the fishing line, a plastic paint bucket, a mousetrap, and a piece of tape-were destroyed by the fire. He had assumed she would die at once. It was both good and bad that she had lingered. Good because it gave Rainey a chance to twist in the horror of it, bad that the innocent child had suffered so long. But so it went. The innocent suffered for the sins of the parents.

The Green Team members from Miami were suffering hell, and now they’d blame Paul Masterson, as they should. He wished he could see the confrontation between the men and their old boss, and he tried to imagine Paul’s reaction when he heard about the latest killings. Surely he’s been keeping up-so why hasn’t he shown? It was a perplexing question. Martin had challenged him openly now, and he would have to come. Unless he’s even more of a coward than I imagined. He wanted to show Paul the cold hearts of his wife and children.

He put a set of earphones in place and switched on the Walkman in his pocket. He listened to the latest tapes he had retrieved, concentrating on the voices of the woman, Laura, and her two children, Adam and Erin. Soon the work would be done. He closed his eyes and thought sadly about his own wife and child and their deaths at the hands of hired killers. And then he let his creative side take over, and he freed his mind to dream of how he would deal with the last family.