Scream For Me

Chapter Sixteen

Dutton, Wednesday, January 31, 3:45 p.m.

Well, well. He stood in the bank’s vault staring into Rhett Porter’s safe-deposit box. His chuckle was bitter as he read the letter Rhett had left behind.

My key is being held by an attorney you’ve never met, in a place you’ve never been, along with a sealed letter detailing our sins. If anything happens to my wife or kids, the letter gets mailed to every major newspaper in the country, and my key will be turned over to the state’s attorney. See you in hell.

It was dated less than a week after he’d fed DJ to the gators. He guessed Rhett Porter wasn’t so dumb after all.

He pocketed the note and left the vault, nodding to old Rob Davis, who waited outside. Davis owned the bank and normally would have delegated tasks such as safe-deposit boxes to a lowly employee. But this was a delicate matter, and he’d come without a warrant. He’d known Davis wouldn’t question his request, because he knew more about old Rob Davis than Davis knew about him. That was power.

“I’m done.”

Davis gave him a look of contempt. “You abuse your position.”

“And you don’t? Give my regards to your wife, Rob,” he said deliberately. “And if Garth asks, tell him I have it.”

Rob Davis’s cheeks went hollow. “It?”

“Your nephew will understand. Garth’s smart that way.” He touched his hat. “Bye.”

Macon , Georgia , Wednesday, January 31, 3:45 p.m.

“We’re late,” Alex said as Daniel signed them in.

“I know. I wanted Fulmore and his lawyer to get here first. I want a grand entrance.”

“He’s just going to say he didn’t kill her, like he’s been saying for thirteen years.”

“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Between your memory and the yearbooks we’ve gathered, we’ve identified ten of the fifteen pictures. Only Alicia was murdered.”

“And Sheila,” she corrected, “but I get your drift. Daniel, I’ve read about the trial. They had evidence on Gary Fulmore that tied him to Alicia’s body. Her blood was on his clothes. It’s not like they railroaded him for murder.”

“I know. One of the things I’m hoping to get out of this is some way to determine if that picture of Alicia was taken the same night she was killed or a different night. If it was the same night and the rapists followed the same MO, maybe they left her somewhere and Fulmore came along and found her.”

“I wish I remembered that night,” she gritted out. “Dammit.”

“It’ll come. You said you were sick that night.”

“Yeah. I had stomach cramps and went to bed. It was awful.”

“Were you sick often?”

Her step faltered and she looked up at him, wide-eyed and miserable. “No. Hardly ever. It’s another coincidence, isn’t it? Do you think I was drugged, too?”

He slid his arm around her for a hard hug as they arrived at the small room in which she’d come face-to-face with the man accused of suffocating her sister before beating her face with a tire iron. “Let’s take one thing at a time. Are you ready?”

She swallowed hard. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Then you walk in first. I want to watch him when he sees you.”

Her shoulders grew rigid as she took a deep breath. Then, with determination, she twisted the doorknob and pushed her way inside where a man in orange coveralls and a man in a cheap suit waited. The cheap suit was Jordan Bell, the defense counsel.

Bell stood up, annoyed. “It’s about time you-” He stopped at the clatter beside him. Gary Fulmore had shoved back from the table, his chair bouncing against the concrete floor and his shackles clanging. His mouth was open, his face instantly pale.

Bell ’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is this?”

Fulmore backed away when Daniel pulled out Alex’s chair and she slowly sat.

As pale as Fulmore was, Alex was paler. She was pale… as a ghost. Daniel felt like the biggest heel in the universe for putting her through this. But she’d wanted to find Bailey. She’d wanted to help him get justice for the three murdered women.

Somehow, some way, Alicia’s murder was the linchpin that held it all together.

“I said”-the lawyer hissed through his teeth-“what the hell is this?”

“M-m-make her g-g-go aw-w-way,” Fulmore stammered, his breath coming in shallow pants. “Go aw-way.”

“I came to see you,” Alex said, her voice calm. “Do you know who I am?”

Bell was frowning to beat all hell. “You never said you would bring her.”

Alex stood up and leaned forward, bracing her fists on the table. “I asked you a question, Mr. Fulmore. Do you know who I am?”

Who she was, was magnificent, Daniel thought. Calm, cool, and collected under extreme stress. Quite simply, she took his breath away.

She had the same effect on Fulmore, who was nearly hyper- ventilating.

Daniel moved so that he stood between Fulmore and Alex. She was still as pale as death, her eyes wide and intense, and he realized she wasn’t calm and collected. She was only cool, which meant she was terrified. But she was holding it together.

“Alicia Tremaine was my sister. You killed her.”

“No.” Fulmore shook his head vehemently. “I did not.”

“You killed her,” Alex continued as if Fulmore hadn’t spoken. “You put your hands over her mouth and smothered her until she died. Then you beat her face again and again until even her own mother didn’t recognize her.”

Fulmore was staring at Alex’s face. “I didn’t,” he said, desperation in his voice.

“You did,” she spat. “Then you dumped her in a ditch like she was garbage.”

“No. She was already in the ditch.”

“ Gary,” Bell said. “Stop talking.”

Alex jerked her face to glare at Bell with loathing and contempt. “He’s serving a life sentence. What more can I possibly do to hurt him?”

Fulmore hadn’t taken his eyes off Alex. “I didn’t kill her, I swear. And I didn’t dump her in that ditch. She was already dead when I found her.”

She turned back to him, her contempt now focused and cold. “You killed her. Her blood was on your clothes. On that tire iron they found in your hand.”

“No. That’s not what happened.”

“Maybe you could tell us what did happen,” Daniel said softly.

“ Gary,” Bell warned. “Shut up.”

“No.” Fulmore was trembling. “I see her face, still. I see her when I try to sleep.” His eyes locked on Alex’s, filled with misery. “I see her face.”

Alex made no move to comfort, her expression now set in stone. “Good. So do I. Every time I look in the mirror, I see her face.”

Fulmore swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his bony throat.

“What happened, Gary?” Daniel repeated, and when Jordan Bell would have protested, Daniel froze the lawyer with a look. Alex was trembling, and he gently pushed her back into her chair, Fulmore’s eyes following her down.

“It was warm,” Fulmore murmured. “Hot, even. I was walking. Sweatin’. Thirsty.”

“Where were you walking?” Daniel prompted.

“Nowhere. Anywhere. I was high. PCP. That’s what they told me anyhow.”

“Who told you?” Daniel asked, still softly.

“The cops that took me in.”

“Do you remember who took you in?”

Fulmore’s lips thinned. “Sheriff Frank Loomis.”

Daniel wanted to ask more about Frank, but held those questions back. “So you were high and you were walking and you were hot and thirsty. What then?”

He gave a facial shrug. “I smelled it. Whiskey. And I remember wanting some.”

“Where were you?”

“On the side of some road outside of some bumfuck town in the middle of nowhere. Dutton,” he spat it out. “I wish I’d never heard of the place.”

That makes two of us, Daniel thought, then looked at Alex. Three of us. “Do you remember what time it was?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t never carry a watch. But it was bright again, all the time. I could finally see where I was. I’d wandered… I guess I was lost.”

Bright again? Daniel made a mental note to check the phase of the moon on the night Alicia was murdered. “All right. So you smelled whiskey. And then?”

“I followed my nose to the whiskey down into this ditch. There was a blanket and I thought I’d take it. My blanket was nasty.” He swallowed hard, his eyes still focused on Alex. “I grabbed the blanket and yanked. And she just… fell out.”

Alex flinched. Her skin was ashen, her lips bright pink from her lipstick, and Daniel thought of Sheila, dead in the corner, her hands still gripping her gun. He considered stopping the whole interview and rushing Alex out of this place where she’d be safe. But they’d come this far and he knew she was made of sterner stuff. So he swallowed the emotion and kept his voice level. “What do you mean, Gary, ‘she fell out’?”

“I grabbed the blanket and she rolled out of it, naked. Her arms were all limp and rubbery and they flopped, all spread out. One of her hands landed on my foot.” His tone had gone hollow. His eyes never left Alex’s face. “Then I saw her face,” he said, pain in every word. “Her eyes were starin’ at me. Empty. Like empty holes.” Just like Alex’s stared at him now. Empty and blank. “I was… wild. Scared out of my mind.”

He said nothing, lapsing back into a memory that still obviously had the power to scare him out of his mind. “ Gary, what did you do?”

“I don’t know. I wanted her to… stop lookin’ at me.” His clenched fists punched at the air twice, hard and fast, sending chains jangling. “So I hit her.”

“With your hands?”

“Yes. At first. But she wouldn’t stop lookin’ at me.” Fulmore was rocking now, and Alex continued to stare at him blankly.

Daniel poised himself to hold Fulmore back in the event he became unable to distinguish Alex in the now from Alicia in the then. “Where did you get the tire iron?”

“In my blanket. I carried it with me always, in my blanket. But then it was in my hands and I was smashing her face. I hit her again and again and again.”

Visualizing it, Daniel drew in a quick breath. And in that moment knew this man had not killed Alicia Tremaine.

Tears streaked Fulmore’s face, but his clenched fists stayed frozen in front of him. “I just wanted her to stop lookin’ at me.” His shoulders sagged. “And then, finally, she did.”

“You’d beaten her face.”

“Yes. But just her eyes.” He looked childishly beseeching. “I had to close her eyes.”

“So then what did you do?”

Fulmore wiped his face with his shoulder. “I wrapped her up. Better.”

“Better?”

He nodded. “She was kind of loose in the blanket before. I wrapped her up tight.” He swallowed again. “Like a baby, only she weren’t no baby.”

“What about her hands, Gary?” Daniel asked, and Fulmore nodded absently.

“She had pretty hands. I folded them across her belly before I wrapped her up.”

They’d found Alicia’s ring in his pocket. A glance at Bell from the corner of Daniel’s eye told him the lawyer was thinking the same thing.

“Did she have anything on her hands?” Bell asked him, using the same soft tone.

“A ring. It was blue.”

“The stone was blue?” Daniel asked, and watched Alex stretch out her hands and stare at her fingers, then slowly curl her hands into fists.

“Yeah.”

“And you wrapped her up with the ring on her hand,” Bell murmured, and Fulmore’s eyes shot up to meet Daniel’s, panicked and angry.

“Yeah.” The faraway tone was gone. “They said I took it, but I didn’t.”

“Then what happened, Gary?”

“I don’t remember. I must have taken some more PCP. The next thing I knew, I had three guys on top of me and they were beating me with their clubs.” Fulmore’s chin jutted out. “They said I killed her, but I didn’t. They wanted me to take a plea, but I wouldn’t. I did a terrible thing to that girl, but I did not kill her.” His final words were evenly spaced and very deliberate. “I did not.”

“Do you remember going to the autobody shop?” Bell asked him.

“No. Like I said, I woke and three guys were holding me down.”

“Thank you for your time,” Daniel said. “We’ll be in touch.”

Fulmore looked to Bell, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Can we get a new trial?”

Bell’s eyes met Daniel’s. “Can we?”

“I don’t know. I can’t make promises, Bell, you know that. I’m not a DA.”

“But you know the DA,” Bell said cagily. “Gary’s told you what he knows. He’s cooperating without guarantee of recourse. That should mean something.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed at Bell. “I said I’d be in touch. Now I have to get back to Atlanta for a meeting.” He urged Alex to her feet. “Come on, let’s go.”

She came willingly, more like a doll than a live person, and once again Daniel’s mind was assaulted with the memory of Sheila’s dead body in that corner. He put his arm around Alex’s shoulders and propelled her from the room.

They were almost to Daniel’s car when Bell shouted for them to wait, then jogged the length of the parking lot, breathing hard. “I’m going to file for a new trial.”

“Premature,” Daniel said.

“I don’t think so and neither do you, or you wouldn’t have driven all the way down here and put her through that.” He pointed to Alex, who lifted her chin and gave him a cool look. But she said nothing and he nodded, satisfied he’d hit the truth. “I’ve been following the news, Vartanian. Somebody’s re-creating these murders.”

“Could be a copycat,” Daniel said, and Bell shook his head.

“You don’t think so,” he said again. “Look. I know your sister was killed, Miss Fallon, and I’m sorry, but Gary’s lost thirteen years of his life.”

Daniel sighed. “When this is over, we’ll meet with the state’s attorney.”

Bell nodded briskly. “That’s fair.”

Atlanta, Wednesday, January 31, 5:30 p.m.

They were close to Atlanta when Daniel finally spoke. “Are you all right?”

She was staring at her hands, a frown puckering her brow. “I don’t know.”

“When he said Alicia ‘fell out’ of the blanket, it was like you went into a trance.”

“I did?” Abruptly she turned to look at him. “Meredith wants to try hypnosis.”

He agreed with Meredith, but in his experience the person undergoing hypnosis had to be open. He wasn’t sure Alex was open right now. “What do you want?”

“To make this all go away.” She whispered it fiercely.

He reached for her hand. “I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you. Daniel… I… I didn’t expect to feel that way when I finally saw him. I wanted to kill him myself.”

Daniel frowned. “You mean you’d never seen Fulmore?”

“No. I was in Ohio the whole time of the trial. Aunt Kim and Uncle Steve wanted to protect me. They were good to me.”

“Then you’re lucky.” The words came out more bitterly than he’d expected. He kept his eyes on the road, but he could feel her eyes studying his profile.

“Your parents weren’t good to you.”

It was such a simple statement, he almost laughed. “No.”

Her brows lifted. “What about your sister, Susannah? Are you two close?”

Suze. Daniel sighed. “No. I’d like to be, but we’re not.”

“She’s hurting. You’ve both lost your parents and even though they died a few months ago, for you, it was really just last week.”

Daniel huffed a mirthless laugh. “Our parents were dead to us a long time before Simon killed them. We were what you’d call a dysfunctional family.”

“Does Susannah know about the pictures?”

“Yeah. She was there when I turned them over to Ciccotelli up in Philly.” Suze knew a lot about Simon, more than she’d told him, of that Daniel was certain.

“And?”

He looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You look like you want to say more.”

“I can’t. I’m not sure I could even if I knew.” He thought about his sister, working long hours as a New York City assistant DA, living alone, with only her dog for company. He thought about the pictures and the pain on Gretchen French’s face.

It was the same pain he’d seen on Susannah’s when he’d asked her what Simon had done to her. She hadn’t been able to tell him, but Daniel was terrified that he already knew. He cleared his throat and focused on the matter at hand. “I’m thinking Gary Fulmore did not kill your sister.”

Alex regarded him levelly, no surprise on her face. “Why do you think that?”

“First, I believed his story. You said yourself, he’s serving a life sentence, so at this point how can we hurt him any more? What does he gain from lying now?”

“He’s hoping for a new trial.”

He heard the thread of panic in her voice and made his response as gentle as he could. “Alex, honey, I think he might deserve one. Listen to me. He said he hit her face, repeatedly. Try to think past the fact that this was Alicia and think about what you know. Be a nurse for me now. If Alicia had been alive, or even if he’d just killed her, and he’d hit her that viciously and repeatedly…”

“There would have been a lot of blood,” she murmured. “He would have been covered in her blood.”

“But he wasn’t. Wanda at the sheriff’s office told me there was blood on the cuffs of his pants. Alicia had been dead for a while by the time he hit her.”

“Maybe Wanda was wrong.” Her voice was desperate, and he realized Alex wanted Fulmore to be guilty. And he wondered why it was so important to her.

“I’ll never know,” he replied carefully. “All of the evidence is gone. The blanket, Fulmore’s clothes, the tire iron… all gone. I have to assume Wanda is right, until I can prove otherwise, and if Wanda is right, Alicia was already dead when Fulmore hit her.”

She moistened her lips. “He still could have killed her, waited, then come back to hit her face later.” But there was no conviction in her words. “But that doesn’t make sense, does it? If he killed her, he’d probably run, not come back, beat her, then wander into an autobody shop. What else is bothering you about his story?”

“Plenty. If her arm flopped like that-” Daniel stopped when he sensed a stillness come over her. “Alex, what is it?”

She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. “I don’t remember.”

“But it makes the screams come, right?” She nodded tightly and he brought her hand to his lips. “I’m sorry to make you go through this.”

“There was thunder,” she said unexpectedly. “That night. Thunder and lightning.”

It was bright again, all the time, Fulmore had said. It must have stormed before. He’d have to check. “It was April,” he said quietly. “Storms are common then.”

“I know. It was hot outside that day. It was hot that night.”

Daniel glanced at her, then back at the road where traffic was starting to snarl. “But you slept through the night that night,” he said very softly. “From the time you got home from school until the next morning when your mother woke you up. You were sick.”

Her mouth opened, then closed. When she spoke, her voice was cool. “If Alicia’s body was limp, rigor hadn’t set in. If he’s telling the truth, Alicia hadn’t been dead more than a few hours by that point.”

“You still think he’s lying.”

“Maybe. But if he didn’t kill her… Gary Fulmore’s been in prison a long time.”

“I know.” He tapped his steering wheel as traffic came to a complete halt, with him stuck in the far left lane. His meeting started in less than twenty minutes. He was going to be late again. He turned his mind from the traffic back to Gary Fulmore. “Fulmore has a damn good memory of that night for someone who was flying high on PCP.”

“Maybe he’s made that whole story up in his mind,” Alex said, her chin lifting. Then her shoulders slumped. “Or maybe he wasn’t on PCP at all.”

Which was one of the things that was bothering him the most. Frank Loomis had made that arrest, and too many things weren’t adding up. “Randy Mansfield said it took three men to take him down. That sounds like somebody on PCP.”

“But that was hours later. After they’d found Alicia.”

“Alex, what happened after they found Alicia? At your house? Among your family?”

She shuddered. “My mother had been calling everyone in town, all morning after she found Alicia’s bed empty.”

“Empty or un-slept-in?”

“Un-slept-in. They figured she’d snuck out some time the night before.”

“Did you share a room?”

Alex shook her head. “Not at that point. Alicia was still mad about the tattoo. She’d moved out of our room into Bailey’s room. I was getting the silent treatment.”

“How long had it been since your birthday, when you all got the tattoos?”

“A week. She’d been sixteen for only a week.”

So had you, baby. “Do you think Bailey knew she’d left the house that night?”

She moved her shoulders, not quite a shrug. “Bailey insisted she didn’t. But Bailey was wild then. She was good at lying on the fly to get out of trouble. So I don’t know. I remember still feeling sick, kind of…” She stilled again. “Kind of hung over.”

“Like you’d been drugged?”

“Maybe. But nobody ever asked me about it, because of what happened… later that night.” She closed her eyes on a grimace. “You know.”

When she’d overdosed on tranquilizers prescribed for her hysterical mother. “I know. How did you learn Alicia’s body had been found?”

“The Porter boys found her body and went running to Mrs. Monroe’s house for help. Mrs. Monroe knew Mama had been looking for Alicia, so she called her. My mother got there before the police.”

Daniel grimaced. “Your mother found her like that?”

Her swallow was audible. “Yes. Later they went to the morgue to… to identify her.”

“They?”

She nodded. “My mother.” She turned her face to look out the car window at the stopped traffic, her body tensing, her face ashen once more. “And Craig. When they came home, my mother was hysterical, crying, screaming… He gave her some pills.”

“Craig?”

“Yes. Then he went to work.”

“He went to work? After that? He left you all alone?”

“Yeah,” Alex said bitterly. “He was a real prince.”

“So he gave your mother some pills. Then what happened?”

“Mama was crying, so I climbed into bed with her and she went to sleep.” She was pale and trembling again. Traffic hadn’t moved an inch, so Daniel put the car in park and leaned over the gearshift to pull her close.

“And then what, honey?”

“Then I woke up and she wasn’t there. I heard her screaming and came down the stairs…” Abruptly she lunged from the seat and bolted from the car.

“Alex.” Daniel jumped from the car as she darted to the side of the road, where she fell to her knees, heaving. He knelt beside her, rubbing her back as she shuddered.

Motorists were watching, intrigued by the sudden excitement. One man rolled down his window. “Do you need help? I can call 911.”

Daniel knew that as soon as anyone recognized Alex, the cell phone cameras would come out, so he made his smile rueful. “Thanks, but no. Just a little morning sickness a little late in the day.” He leaned over to whisper in her ear. “Can you stand?”

She nodded, her face clammy. “I’m sorry.”

“Sshh. Hush.” He put his arm around her waist and physically lifted her to her feet. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.” He looked up the road. “The nearest exit is three miles up the road. I could use my lights, but that’ll draw attention to us.”

“I think I just did draw attention to us,” she murmured.

“You drew attention to a pregnant couple. Just keep your head down and we can keep it that way.” Gently he led her back to the car and put her in, pushing her head between her knees. “Head down.” He slid behind the wheel and pulled his car onto the left shoulder, ignoring the glares of the motorists he passed.

“You’re going to get a ticket,” Alex muttered, and he smiled, then reached over to stroke the back of her neck and felt her muscles begin to soften.

“You pregnant women get testy,” he said, and she chuckled once. He turned into the first emergency access he came to, then pulled into the opposite bound lanes where traffic was moving more smoothly. He put on his lights and traffic parted like the Red Sea. “We’ll use the back roads for now. You want me to stop and get you some water?”

A little color had returned to her cheeks. “That’d be good. Thank you, Daniel.”

He frowned, wishing she’d stop thanking him. Wishing she’d stop having occasion to do so. Wishing he could see inside her head to understand exactly what it was that was causing that visceral, very physical response. Her cousin was right. They needed to get to the bottom of this and hypnosis might be the best way.

Wednesday, January 31, 6:15 p.m.

Well, that took them long enough, he thought, looking at the TV screen. The news anchor had flashed a picture of the boy, saying he was wanted for questioning by the police. He wasn’t such a bright kid, but he’d done everything he’d been asked to do.

Shame he’d have to die now, but… so it goes. The kid had grown up with all the luxuries money could buy. Now it was time to pay the piper, or at a minimum, pay for the sins of his father. In the kid’s case, his grandfather.

Who knew a kid that rich would be lonely? But he had been. He’d been excited to have a friend, and eager to help in any way he could. He’d make it painless for the kid. One bullet, right through the head. The boy would be dead before he hit the ground.