Blood Money

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Jack kept an eye on the pistol in Ellen Bennett’s hands. She seemed to read his mind.

“Yes, I know how to use it,” she said.

After three years of Shot Mom and threats against the whole Bennett family, Jack didn’t question it. “This isn’t smart,” he said. “Just put the gun-”

“Shut up!” she said.

A breeze rustled through the ten-foot ficus hedge around Jack’s yard, as if to remind him of the downside to landscaped privacy. Ellen Bennett was standing just off the stone path to the driveway, between Jack and his car, about five steps away from Jack and her husband. She held the gun with both hands, arms extended. She was aiming at her husband, but it would have taken only a split second to target Jack. If not point-blank range, it was darn close to it.

“I know why Geoffrey came to see you,” she said, speaking to Jack.

Bennett said, “You don’t know anything, Ellen.”

“Quiet!” she said, pointing her gun for emphasis, her voice quaking. “I’m talking to Mr. Swyteck.”

There was just enough moonlight for Jack to see the range of emotion on her face-anger, frustration, fear. Jack tried his most soothing tone. “Would love to talk to you. Let’s do it without the gun.”

She pushed on. “I bet Geoffrey didn’t tell you that he’s the one who met Merselus online.”

“Stop, Ellen,” said Bennett.

“I bet he didn’t tell you about all the other strangers he’s brought into our marriage. If you can call it a marriage. Twenty-five years of strange men who do unspeakable things to the wives of other men while their husbands watch and enjoy.”

“That’s enough,” said Bennett. He took a half step toward her, but she stopped him with a menacing thrust of the gun in his direction. She continued in an angry but unsteady voice.

“I bet Geoffrey didn’t tell you what he did when his wife started to look middle-aged. When the videos he made of me were no longer the lure on the Internet that they once were. Did he tell you about that, Mr. Swyteck?”

“Please,” said Jack. “Let’s put the gun away, all right?”

“Ellen, I’m warning you,” said Bennett.

“Hah!” she said, but it wasn’t a laugh. She was on the verge of tears. “You’re warning me? Who’s in control now, Geoffrey? I should have done this so long ago, before you could use your own daughter as bait for perverts like Merselus.”

Bennett shot a sideways glance at Jack. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“I’m speaking the truth!” she said, her voice cracking. Her eyes darted back and forth from her husband to Jack, as if she were pleading with Jack to believe her. “Geoffrey didn’t tell you why I did nothing, did he?”

“What?” said Jack.

“Damn it, Ellen! I told him Merselus did it!”

Did nothing. Her words were like a light switch for Jack, a confirmation of that gut feeling he’d carried with him since the start of Sydney’s trial, continuing through his visits to the Bennett house after her release.

“Merselus didn’t kill your granddaughter, did he?” said Jack.

She shook her head, glowering at her husband.

“It wasn’t Sydney,” said Jack.

“No, of course not.”

“Thirty seconds ago I would have said it was Geoffrey. But now I know it wasn’t him, either. Right, Ellen?”

She didn’t answer.

Jack pressed on, his theory still gelling in his head. “I know what you meant, Ellen. But I want to hear it from you. What did you mean when you said you ‘did nothing’?”

Her voice shook, and it seemed to take every bit of her strength just to steady the gun. “I’ll bet Geoffrey didn’t tell you how it killed me that my own daughter was living the same life I’d lived. How much it killed me to know that Geoffrey was already working on Emma, making her so sexually aware that she even talked to the babysitter about it. Geoffrey didn’t tell you that, did he? That’s why I did nothing. She was next. I knew she was next.”

Did nothing. Jack needed to square that with what his forensic expert had told him about the cause of Emma’s death. There had to be more to what Ellen was saying, and suddenly it all made sense. “Tell me,” said Jack. “Tell me what happened when Emma fell in the pool.”

She didn’t answer right away, but the expression on her face told Jack that he had nailed it.

“Maybe I would have made a better decision,” she said through tears. “Maybe I would have been thinking more clearly if I hadn’t been drinking the way I do to get through every day of my life. But at that very moment, when I heard that splash in the swimming pool, I truly believed that this innocent little angel was better off dead!”

“You did nothing,” said Jack.

“I. . I did nothing,” she said, her voice shaking.

“That’s not true,” said Bennett. “Damn it, Ellen! It was Merselus!”

His continued defense of his wife made no sense to Jack, until Bennett’s words from the other day came back to him. In his own twisted way, Bennett was beating back adversity to “protect what was left of his family.”

This time, Ellen Bennett was having none of it.

“That’s just another lie, Geoffrey! Lies, lies, and more lies! Twenty-five years of living your lies!”

“Ellen, stop-”

The crack of a gunshot dropped Bennett where he stood. As Jack dived to the ground for cover, another shot rang out, then another, and another. Each shot hit its mark-three to Bennett’s chest, one to his belly, and the last two directly to the head. She kept squeezing the trigger even after the chamber was emptied. Crying and on the verge of hysterics, she threw the gun at Geoffrey. It hit him in the face, but he didn’t flinch. There was no reaction of any sort. She dropped to her knees, fell forward, and buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

Jack rose slowly, but he didn’t move toward her. Ellen Bennett remained on the ground, wailing. Jack let her be, her husband’s lifeless body just a few feet away from her in the grass. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911.