The Killing House

19

Marie Clouzot drove through the entrance of the Franklin Grove Cemetery, a maze of looping, hilly roads contained within ten-foot stone walls. She knew where she was going, having scouted the area during a previous visit to Petersburg, Pennsylvania.

She climbed a steep hill on the northeast side of the cemetery and, reaching the top, saw the new silver Cadillac DeVille Statesman hearse parked in the prearranged meeting spot. She pulled behind it, angling her Chevy so Brandon could easily access their latest prize.

They always picked cemeteries to do the exchange. Here, a hearse wouldn’t arouse suspicion, and more often than not there were no security cameras watching. Such was the case with Franklin Grove; Brandon had checked with the company in charge of both maintenance and security. The person with whom he’d spoken hadn’t found the questions in the least bit odd or suspicious, as Brandon Arkoff was the owner of Washington Memorial Park, one of the finest funeral homes Baltimore, Maryland, had to offer.

The lapels of Brandon’s navy-blue suit jacket flapped in the wind as he darted around the hearse, his head turned so she could see only the right side of his face. Even after all their time together, he was still sensitive about his disfigurement.

Having done this many times before, there was no need to speak. They knew their responsibilities.

Marie moved to the back of the hearse and opened the hatchback. The door swung to the left, blocking the view of anyone who might suddenly appear at the bottom of the hill. No one was standing there, but Brandon always moved as though the police were about to descend on them at any moment. He threw open the Chevy’s door, flinching at the sight of the blood on the passenger’s seat. It was everywhere, bright and red: smeared against the seat and console, across James Weeks’s jeans and the front of his wool coat, on his cut and swollen lips; it had soaked into his long, blond, girlish fringe and dried on his high, smooth forehead peppered with acne.

Brandon shot her a withering look of disapproval.

‘I accidentally broke his nose when I pinned his head against the console,’ Marie said, fishing the plastic police-grade handcuffs from her jacket pocket.

With a grunt Brandon lifted the limp body out of the passenger’s seat, turned and dumped the unconscious teenager on top of the tarp set up next to the coffin they always used — a dark stained timber model with a high-gloss lacquer polish and carved panels of The Last Supper fitted on each side. The lid was already open, the edge resting against the hearse’s padded ceiling.

Marie secured the cuffs around the boy’s ankles. Brandon, kneeling on the hearse’s back seat, reached over the headrest and grabbed the teenager underneath the arms. Together they lifted Weeks and moved him inside the coffin — a difficult task, given the tight opening. Weeks’s lolling head smacked up against the edges of the lid and coffin. Having been heavily sedated, he made no sound, nor any sign that he had registered pain.

It took a moment to get Weeks settled on his back. His broken nose had started to swell, reducing the blood flow to a trickle. Brandon stuffed the edges of a handkerchief up the boy’s nostrils to stem any further bleeding. Marie went to work folding the tarp, careful not to allow any blood to spill.

‘How much of the sedative did you give him?’

‘All of it,’ she said.

‘Put the tarp inside the coffin — and your coat and gloves. They’re covered in blood.’

She did. Brandon reached up, grabbed the edge of a polished sheet of inlaid wood and swung it down. It clicked in place, hiding James Weeks.

Marie reached inside the coffin with her clean hands and grabbed the small lock resting on the white satin bed lace interior. She pulled back the fabric and locked the bottom half, while Brandon secured the top. Now Dr Stanley Weeks’s eldest child was imprisoned inside the coffin’s false bottom. Holes had been drilled along the sides; precious Jimmy would have plenty of air for the long drive back to Baltimore.

Marie shut the hatchback. Three minutes of work and it was done.

Brandon joined her outside. ‘I’ll take care of the Chevy,’ he said, winded from the exertion. Stocky for as long as she’d known him, middle age had packed on another thirty pounds; exercise easily fatigued him. ‘Take the hearse in case someone saw you.’ He opened the back of the Chevy and removed the plastic bucket holding the rags, bleach and paper towels. ‘Get going. I need to clean up this goddamn mess.’

Marie shot him an icy stare. She didn’t have the time for another argument.

She left without kissing him goodbye.

Marie concentrated on driving. When she reached the highway, she stayed in the slow lane and stuck to the speed limit.

Her thoughts drifted to Brandon. He had always been prone to worry, but what had happened in Colorado had pushed him over the edge.

Brandon hadn’t accompanied her to Colorado; he’d been in Baltimore with Rico Herrera. Brandon manned the phone so Rico could talk to his mother. Theresa Herrera was supposed to kill her husband and then disappear. For ever.

But it hadn’t worked out that way. Theresa Herrera had employed a New York private investigator to look into the disappearance of her precious little boy, and a man had shown up on her doorstep. Listening to their conversation, Marie had known the man simply wasn’t going to skulk away. And he would have insisted on coming into the house — something she couldn’t allow to happen. The idea had panicked her, yes, but, as it turned out, her instincts were correct. When she threw back the door she saw the man holding a gun, and she shot him. The bomb was to be used only as a last resort, a way of cleaning up a crime scene in case something went horribly wrong. The dynamite, connected to a disposable cell phone and detonated by a single call, was concealed at the roomy bottom of her beautiful Birkin bag. During the course of her many home visits to the parents of missing children, she had never once come close to using it. Nine times out of ten the wife killed the husband, or vice versa. In the two instances when this hadn’t happened, she had killed both parents, staging the scene to appear as though they were victims of some sort of domestic squabble. Marie slipped out the door, leaving no evidence, and drove home with no one the wiser.

Brandon had demanded that they postpone the trip to go after James Weeks. It was too soon, he’d said. Marie had tried to soothe his paranoia by reminding him — again — of the facts. The man who had showed up on Theresa’s front doorstep, the private investigator or whatever he was, was dead; she’d shot him twice in the chest. She’d fled through the back of the house and disappeared into the woods; nobody had seen her, and no one had followed her. Theresa Herrera was dead and the Birkin bag sitting on the foot of the bed had killed Dr Herrera. There were no survivors, no witnesses. Everything was fine. There was no reason not to head to Pennsylvania.

Brandon had wanted the dust to settle. He had wanted to wait at least three months.

Marie had no intention of waiting that long. She intended to take James Weeks, with or without Brandon’s help. He had relented, but not without a fight.

Her anger began to soften when her thoughts turned to all the obstacles she and Brandon had overcome. Together.

She needed to show Brandon how much she appreciated him. Maybe order a takeout from that Italian restaurant he loved, then settle down in front of their big LED-screen TV and watch the video she’d taken of Theresa Herrera.

Marie made it to Baltimore in two hours flat.

The building for the defunct printing press had a long, wide bay that could accommodate a tractor-trailer. She pulled inside and parked at the far end. Then she got out and went to work.

Everything was set up and ready when Brandon arrived nearly an hour later, sitting in the passenger seat of a champagne-coloured Toyota Camry. The driver was bundled in a wool navy-blue pea coat. Marie saw the craggy face and thick, bulbous nose, and smiled. Gary Corrigan, tall and in his early fifties, had devoted the past two years to bodybuilding. Whenever Marie hugged him, as she did now, it felt like she was wrapping her arms around a cloth sack stuffed with smooth boulders. Corrigan kissed her on the cheek and then scurried away to leave them to it.

Marie already had the casket gurney pushed up against the back of the hearse. The coffin was too heavy for her to lift by herself. With Brandon’s help, they grabbed the bars and pushed the coffin across the gurney’s sturdy rollers. He refused her offer to help him carry Jimmy Weeks downstairs.

She followed him, glancing at the small refrigerator set up on a grimy corner desk. She was about to go to it when she remembered she had already tucked the bottle of Gatorade inside her pocket.

Brandon placed the teenager face first against the operating table. The sedative had started to wear off; James Weeks moaned as they removed his clothing. He flinched slightly when the scalpel cut a two-inch incision between his shoulder blades. His eyes fluttered open under the bright operating lights.

While Brandon shaved off the boy’s hair with a pair of electric clippers — head lice were a constant problem down here — Marie picked up a flashlight and made her way back towards the stairwell. She moved past it, her trainers whisper-quiet against the concrete floor, and unlocked the door at the far end of the short hall.

Lying near the back of the small room and curled into a foetal position on the concrete floor was a bone-thin teenaged boy dressed in torn jeans and a threadbare T-shirt several sizes too small. Barefoot and shivering, he held up a shaky hand to shield his eyes from the bright beam of light.

The smell, as always, was atrocious. Breathing through her mouth, she moved closer, careful of the slop bucket. When she leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees, the boy didn’t try to move away.

‘Are you ready to see your mother, Rico?’