They

Chapter One

June 22, 1999,

Mission Viejo, California

VINCE WALTERS PANTED as he rounded the last stretch of his jog. The front of his tank top was soaked with perspiration. His armpits felt like hot patches as he slowed his pace. He was approaching Shadow Lane, and the trek to his home was up a slight incline through the upper middle-class neighborhood. Vince timed his pace, and then picked it up a bit as he ascended the slight grade that led up the street. He lived halfway down, left side. Almost home.

The early evening was still bright and sunny on this Tuesday afternoon. A light breeze blew in from the ocean. The breeze felt good against his sweaty skin. In another month it would be too hot to jog in this weather. He was building his system up quite well. Four months ago he wouldn’t have been able to jog two miles a night. Not that he’d been out of shape—he and Laura had had a work-out room in the house and he still owned the equipment. They’d used it regularly. But he hadn’t been much on cardiovascular activity at the time. The most he ever did was a few minutes on the treadmill every other night. Other than that it was light weight training, abdominal and pectoral exercises, and yoga. He’d been intending to take a martial arts class of some sort, but Laura’s death had interrupted those plans. He hadn’t thought about martial arts since then.

He tried to banish those thoughts. That’s what the jogging was supposed to be for, to keep him from thinking so much about Laura. But he had, and that tiny infraction, that little mention of her in relation to his past physical exercise habits, brought his thoughts back to her again. Started the whole thing over again:

Their meeting at Corporate Financial where they’d both worked. Their courtship. Their marriage five years ago.

Their love. God, how he’d loved her…

He still didn’t know how it happened. He tried to take solace in the fact that it was an honest accident, but he still didn’t understand how it could have happened. Laura had been a good driver; a safe driver.

Laura Walters had just left her office and was entering the south-bound on-ramp of the 5 freeway at Ortega Highway. The on-ramp was long, and the evening rush hour had been over, so traffic was flowing moderately. Laura had left work late that night after having been in a meeting most of the day and catching up on things in her office. She’d entered the on-ramp and by all accounts was driving at a normal speed when her car, a black Nissan Maxima, suddenly left the on-ramp, plunging fifty feet down the incline.

She hadn’t been going that fast. But then she hadn’t tried to stop, either. It was almost as if she’d made a slight error in judgment and driven off the on-ramp by sheer accident.

Hard to believe when that particular on-ramp was one of the most well-lit in Irvine.

Which only left one other possibility—that Laura had intentionally steered her car off the on-ramp.

Vince could not believe that. Neither could her friends or family. Laura Walters had loved life, loved her job, and most important, loved her husband. She wouldn’t have deliberately killed herself.

Something must have stolen her attention from her driving for one brief moment, a fraction of a second.

She’d been killed immediately upon impact.

Vince’s breathing grew heavier with the exertion of his running, but thinking about Laura also helped bring it on. Vince quenched the thoughts away as he sprinted faster up the street, heading for home. He concentrated on the movement of his limbs, the steady pace of his breathing—in and out, in and out—as he ran, and then he was jogging up the driveway of his house. He fished in the pockets of his shorts for his keys as he went up the walk to the front door.

He let himself in, panting heavily. The descending sunlight spilled through the sun-roof in the living room, creating a dazzling effect of light that splashed across the coffee colored carpet. He closed the front door and trudged through the living room, removing his tank top with one quick motion. He threw the garment on the sofa and headed for the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, the dining area lay in shadows but he paid it no mind as he opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Evian. He drank, gulping down the cold water. He wiped his forearm over his sweaty brow. His throat was very dry so he drank some more, taking his time at it and letting the water quench his thirst.

When he caught his breath he put the Evian bottle on the counter and exited the kitchen, moving through the living room, past the family room with the enormous entertainment center they’d built up over the years, and up the stairs to their bedroom. His bedroom. He still couldn’t get used to calling it his.

He stopped at the threshold, looking at the bedroom. By his standards it was in shambles. They both used to keep the house immaculate. Now there was no point. The sheets were pulled down over the king-sized bed and bunched down at the foot. Underwear and socks from the past week were scattered along the floor near the foot of the bed. His shirts, likewise, were strung here and there on the floor without regard to landing. Only his slacks were hung up with some form of neatness in the closet. He could feel the sweat almost vibrate on his body as he stood at the bedroom doorway. I must smell like a pig, he thought. That helped veer him away from what he was on the track of thinking about. Instead, he headed into the bathroom for a shower.

When he emerged fifteen minutes later he felt better, much more refreshed. He walked nude to the bureau and fished around inside for a pair of shorts. He found a pair of white boxer shorts with Bart Simpson imprinted on them. He put them on and paused at the mirror over the bureau for a moment. He ran his fingers through his damp hair, surveying himself. He’d lost weight since Laura’s death, but at least he didn’t look sickly anymore. For awhile he’d been really out of it; rarely eating, never exercising, doing nothing but driving around his and Laura’s favorite haunts, roaming around the empty house crying over her loss and feeling sorry for himself. When he’d returned to work he’d thrown himself into his job, staying at the office at times till eleven o’clock at night. His employees raised questioning eyebrows but never said anything. They were giving him his space. Even his best friend Brian Saunders, who’d hired him almost ten years ago, said nothing, but let it be known that if he ever needed for anything—and I mean anything—that he was there. Vince realized this and appreciated it. And he somehow found the strength to work through the loss.

He even started dating again. Something he thought he would never be able to do. He was currently seeing a woman Brian hooked him up with at a business function. Tracy Harris. He liked her, and he could tell Tracy was wildly attracted to him. It felt good. But it was hard getting used to. He was taking it slow, one step at a time.

He stepped back from the mirror and examined himself. He was gaining some color again, and while he wasn’t the golden tan he’d been of his youth, it was an improvement. His muscle tone had crept back and, with a combination of getting back into his eating habits and exercise, he’d been able to bring his weight back up. Only this time all caution had been thrown to the wind in regards to his food intake. Where before he wouldn’t have been caught dead eating beef, he craved McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr at least twice a week now. The jogging and assorted other cardiovascular exercises he’d implemented helped to burn off some of the extra calories and fat he was getting.

He smiled at his reflection in the mirror. Doing good!

He turned away from the mirror and noticed the blinking light of his answering machine. He wondered briefly if it was Tracy. Curious to hear the message, he crossed the bedroom and pressed the PLAY button. The tape rewound.

The voice that came out of the speaker wasn’t one he recognized. It was a male and appeared hesitant. “Uh… Mr. Walters? This is Officer Tom Hoffman from Warwick Township in Lititz, Pennsylvania. I’m the Chief of Police here in town. Could you please return my call as soon as you can? It’s very urgent. My number here is… area code 717-626-1500. Don’t worry about the time difference. I’ll be up, and I’ll be home. Please call me… thank you.” The sound of a phone being hung up, and then silence.

Vince looked down at the answering machine, puzzled.

Lititz, Pennsylvania. His mother lived there—at least, as far as he knew she did. He hadn’t spoken to her in over five years, and the last time he had she’d still lived there. Since then, he tried not to think about her, much less keep in touch. She’d made it clear to him the last time they’d spoken that he was pretty much not wanted in her life.

He stood before the dresser, the message echoing through his brain. The only explanation he could think of why a small town sheriff from his mother’s town would call him was if something had happened to her. He reached for the answering machine and scrambled for a pen and scrap paper as the tape rewound. He replayed the message, jotted down the number, then sat down on the bed and put his hand on the phone with sickening dread.

What else could it be? he thought. Something’s finally happened to her. She finally went over the edge from overzealous religious nut to bona fide psycho. Maybe she killed a gynecologist. Or maybe her church group turned into one of those militias and the FBI was holding her and her friends on weapons charges. He stopped the mental debates on what possibly could have happened, and picked up the phone to call Pennsylvania.

The phone was picked up on the fifth ring. “Hello?” It was Mr. Hoffman’s voice.

“Officer Hoffman, this is Vince Walters returning your call.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Walters.” Recognition immediately set in the lawman’s tone of voice, as well as a tinge of hesitation, as if he had bad news and didn’t want to be the messenger. “Thank you for calling me back.”

“What’s happened?” It was the first thing he could think of to say. Why else would a law enforcement official from Lititz call? It was ten o’clock at night in that part of the country. It had to be his mother.

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Mr. Walters,” Hoffman said, gravely.

“Please, call me Vince.”

“All right, Vince.” Tom Hoffman paused. Then he took a deep breath, as if he was composing himself. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news,” he said again. His voice cracked slightly.

“What is it? Is it my mother?” Vince’s heart was racing.

“I’m afraid your mother has been murdered, son.”

Vince sat on the bed, the news of his mother’s death settling over him. It should be affecting him more than it was, but it wasn’t. It felt as if the news Chief Hoffman had delivered was more along the lines of, I regret to inform you that your appointment with your accountant has to be changed—is Saturday morning okay? Or, the kids down the street from your house stole your garbage cans; would you like to press charges?

“Vince? Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. What did you say?”

“I said, your mother has been murdered.” There was a sense of awkwardness on the other end of the line, as if Chief Hoffman wasn’t used to delivering this kind of news. Vince supposed he wasn’t. He’d lived in Lititz for a little over a year, and the most local law enforcement had to put up with was catching speeders on Route 501 and breaking up the occasional bar fight at the local tavern.

“How?” Vince asked. “What happened?”

That seemed to break the tension. “Well, we’re investigating it now as a homicide because that’s certainly what it looks like. It appears to have been a breakin gone bad. Her neighbor, Jacob Harris, found her when she failed to show up to church that day. The door was busted open and the place was ransacked. They found Maggie in her bedroom.” Chief Hoffman’s voice was deadpan. “She was slashed up pretty bad. The coroner thinks she probably bled to death.”

“My God,” Vince said. He was shocked.

“Nothing appears taken,” Tom Hoffman continued. “At least not yet. The place was a mess; drawers pulled out and rummaged through, cabinets opened and stuff spilled out, sofa cushions slashed open. Crap everywhere. They even tore apart the attic. Nothing valuable appears to have been taken, but then your mother didn’t appear to have anything of value anyway.”

“No, I don’t think she did,” Vince said. As far as he knew, his mother had disavowed all worldly things years ago.

“Anyway, Lillian Withers suggested I call you,” Sheriff Hoffman said. “She said that you’d been estranged from your mother for quite some time, but she felt you should know.”

The mention of Lillian Withers cut through the din of shock that Vince felt over hearing the news of his mother’s death. He managed a slight smile. He’d always liked Lillian, even though she was cut of the same fundamentalist Christian mold of his mother. He didn’t know why he liked her; perhaps it was the gentle way she listened to him when he was growing up, the times she baby-sat him when he was ten years old and mother had that awful job at the factory. This would have been when they were living in Toronto, Canada. Man how time flies, he thought. But there were other reasons why he felt a special fondness for Lillian above all the other people Mom had chosen to surround them with when he was growing up. She’d provided a human touch and voice when all that was shoved down his throat was hellfire and damnation. And in a world devoid of love—especially from his mother—that went a long way.

“I’m glad you did,” Vince said. He ran a hand through his hair. “How did you find me?”

“We may be small town cops, but we can still track people down if we have to.” Chief Hoffman gave his first genuine laugh since he called, and Vince found that to be a welcoming relief as well. “Although I gotta admit, it was tough. With no criminal record to go by, it took me about four hours longer than usual.” This time they both laughed, and Vince found himself in a better frame of mind than he’d felt in… why since Laura’s death. “I finally got your address through tracing your social security number. We kept running names until we found a match.”

“When did this all happen?” Vince said. He had a million questions and they all beckoned to be answered now.

“Last night, we think. She was found early this morning. I’ve been putting off calling you because… well, I don’t convey bad news very well. Never have. Especially when it comes to something this grim.”

“I understand.”

“Lillian wanted me to give you a message,” Tom Hoffman said. “She wanted to know if you could come out and sort of… help out with making the funeral arrangements and maybe tending to your mother’s property.”

“Of course,” Vince said. Isn’t that what you were supposed to do when your mother passed away? “I’ll try to get out there tomorrow if I can.”

“Thank you, Vince. And please accept my condolences.”

“Thank you.”

“Goodnight, Vince.”

“Night.”

He hung up the phone feeling numb, detached. Despite the severity of the news, he didn’t feel anything. He supposed he should feel some sense of outrage or grief. After all, it was his mother who’d been murdered. But he didn’t feel any of those things. A part of him felt guilty over his lack of immediate sorrow and grief, but he quickly quashed them. He’d been a mess when he heard about Laura’s death. He’d cried, gone into a rage. The depth of his mourning for Laura was so deep that he didn’t think he would be able to pull himself out of it. But he was starting to do just that. And now there was the news of his mother’s sudden death.

But he didn’t feel sad over what had happened to his mother. Not in the least bit.

Because let’s face it, he thought as he exited the bedroom and headed downstairs in his Bart Simpson boxer shorts, she was a sad excuse for a mother the last fourteen years. She didn’t even want to see me, much less hear from me. The way she treated me when I left for college, when I graduated, when I got married. She told me I was the spawn of hell. What kind of mother tells her child that?

One like Maggie Walters, obviously. A woman who immerses herself so deep in crazed Christian Fundamentalism that even snake-handling Pentecostals think she’s off her rocker. A woman who plucks her son away from his father at the age of eight and moves him all the way across the country, then enters him in no less than a dozen schools between then and when he’s sixteen, trying everything she can to suppress his life, ruling over him with an iron fist and the King James Bible… telling him that even if he lived in accordance to the word of God he was probably going to Hell anyway… that was a woman who lost all respect from her son.

But I’m all she’s got she can call family, he thought as he pulled out the Yellow Pages from the counter near the phone and began flipping through it to find the travel agencies. What else can I do?

With that question in his mind, he began making arrangements to fly to Pennsylvania the following morning.