Vicious

CHAPTER TWELVE

“You definitely need some Tic Tacs or something, because your breath stinks!” the donkey with the voice of Eddie Murphy was telling Shrek.

Mattie screeched with laughter as if this were the first time he’d heard that line. Actually, this was probably his eighth viewing of Shrek.

Susan had tried to get him to take a nap after lunch, but he’d been too keyed up. So she’d compromised and let him lay on the sunroom sofa with a blanket over him and Shrek to keep him company.

With a leather-bound folder tucked under her arm, Susan glanced out the sliding glass door at the backyard. Then she went to the window above the kitchen sink and peered out at the woods. Finally, she took a long look out the living room window at the driveway. Since lunch, she’d been going through this routine every few minutes. There was still no sign of Allen. But she wasn’t just keeping a lookout for her fiancé. She also needed to make sure that hunter hadn’t come back.

The folder belonged to Allen, and he’d brought it along for the trip. It was full of information he’d gathered for this weekend getaway. He was always very organized when they traveled. Susan had seen him refer to the papers inside his folder a few times this week, but she’d never really looked at it herself. She’d just retrieved it from the nightstand on Allen’s side of the bed upstairs.

Sitting down at the dining room table, she opened the folder and glanced at a printout of the MapQuest directions to the Cullen house—just like the one he’d given her.

In the sunroom, Mattie was giggling at the movie. This weekend vacation was supposed to be spent sailing, hiking, and appreciating the great outdoors. So far, her son had spent most of his time inside watching DVDs he’d already seen.

And so far, this getaway had been nothing but trouble. Allen had never really answered her question last night: “I don’t understand why you felt you needed to bring a gun along this weekend. I mean, were you expecting trouble?”

There was something about his planning this trip that had seemed very rushed and forced. Early in the week, he’d suddenly decided they needed to go to Cullen. Susan wondered if he’d had some ulterior motive for this sojourn. Was there someone else he planned to see here, someone he expected trouble from?

Susan hoped to find something about his personal travel plans in Allen’s folder, some clue that would help her figure out what had happened to him. He’d been gone for two and a half hours for an errand that should have taken fifteen minutes.

He had a printout with photos of the rental house here at Twenty-two Birch—along with a listing of all the dimensions and amenities. He had an e-mail confirmation, too. There was a similar printout of the boat he’d rented, The Seaworthy, and confirmation for that, too. Susan remembered the e-mail she’d read on the computer in the boat’s cabin earlier: We apologize again for the confusion with the other boat, and we’re happy we could meet your specific request. From the table, Susan glanced toward the dining room window at The Seaworthy moored at the rickety, old dock. She wondered, Why that particular boat?

She found a printout for a restaurant, The Willow Tree Inn, along with a coupon for a free dessert. Both the coupon and the printout had Reservations Strongly Recommended for Weekend Dinners and Brunches posted on it. Allen had talked about going there for dinner tonight, but they hadn’t discussed a particular time yet.

She came across another page—from an Internet weather site, showing the five-day forecast for Cullen, Washington. It was supposed to go down to the mid fifties and rain tomorrow.

Finally, Susan uncovered some notes Allen had scribbled on a sheet of yellow legal paper:

CULLEN – Deprt by 8:30 Fri

–Bayside Rentals – ck everything works on boat & arrange delivery.

–Ck w/house rental, make sure place is cleaned. Pick up keys.

–Gas/coal for BBQ?

–Buy groceries.

–Sue & M arrive by 1 PM.

–SAT – sail w/Sue & M by noon for @ least 4 hrs.

Susan glanced at the back of the yellow piece of paper. It was blank. There was nothing about returning the boat or turning in the keys to the house on Sunday. Allen’s notes to himself ended once he’d taken her and Mattie sailing this afternoon.

Another thing that struck her as odd: he hadn’t jotted down any time for dinner at this restaurant, which strongly recommended reservations, and yet he’d allotted a specific time for sailing. Why did they have to sail for at least four hours?

That hunter had shown up in their yard around noon. Was that just a coincidence? It had been the same time they were supposed to be out on the boat.

There were no notes or printed e-mails indicating Allen was supposed to meet someone. But she couldn’t get over the feeling it was part of a private agenda for this trip.

Susan closed the folder. If only she could, she’d pack up their stuff, load Mattie in the car, and just head straight for home right now. She really hated this place. The last straw had been the sheriff—of all people—stealing her panties.

Mattie let out a shriek of laughter in the next room.

Rubbing her head, Susan got up from the table and conducted another window check. She tried to figure it out. Allen had last been seen at Rosie’s Roadside Sundries. Somewhere between there and this house, he’d disappeared. That teenager, Jordan Prewitt, he’d been at the store the same time as Allen. And he’d mentioned yesterday that he was one of their closest neighbors, a little over a mile away.

Susan went back to the dining room table and pulled a pen from her purse. She wrote on the back of Allen’s MapQuest directions:

Dear A,

Where the H are you? We’re worried! I even asked the local police to keep an eye out for you. I’m going nuts just sitting here waiting. Mattie and I are taking a quick drive around in hopes of finding you out and about. We’ll be back within 45 min. If you get this message, just STAY PUT! Hope to see you soon!

XXXXXXXX – Moi @ 2:25 pm

She’d hidden the flare gun and extra flares in the kitchen cabinet above the sink—just in case she needed it again. She retrieved the gun and some flares, then stuck them in her purse.

It was tough tearing Mattie away from Shrek, and then he insisted he write HELLO! with a smiling face in the O at the bottom of her note to Allen. After about ten minutes, they finally got on the road.

Rosie had mentioned where the Prewitt family cabin was, but Susan had forgotten the street name. Driving up Carroll Creek Road, she slowed down at every little avenue and private lane along the way. There was no one behind her, so she could take her time. None of the road signs jogged her memory, and she didn’t notice a black BMW parked along any of those little arteries.

All the while, Mattie was in his safety seat in back with Woody, reciting his favorite lines from Shrek and trying to imitate the voices.

Susan decided to go to the grocery store and ask Rosie for directions to Jordy Prewitt’s cabin.

“Their place is on Cedar Crest Way,” Rosie told her, five minutes later. “It’s really just a long private driveway. The Prewitts’ cabin is the only house there. They’re smack dab halfway between here and where you’re staying on Birch.” She put on her glasses, and on the back of a flier, she sketched out a crude map.

Susan held on to Mattie’s hand. She’d bought him a box of animal crackers.

“I’m awfully sorry your fiancé is still M.I.A.,” Rosie said, leaning on the counter to draw her map. “You’re smart to check with Jordan though—just to make sure he didn’t see anything on his way home. Like I told you, he got sick all of a sudden and hurried out of the store while your fiancé was still—”

Rosie didn’t finish. She glanced up and squinted at Susan. “Did I tell you earlier that Jordan left before your fiancé?”

Susan nodded.

Rosie sighed. “Oh, hon, I feel like the village idiot. Now that I think about it, Jordy left after your fiancé. He was still in the parking lot when your mister drove away.” She took off her glasses. “You know, it’s quite possible Jordy got a look at which direction your man was headed. At the very least, he could tell you that much.”

Susan nodded again. At last, she finally had some kind of lead. Peering over the counter, she studied the map Rosie had drawn. “So—Cedar Crest Way,” she said. “Exactly how do I get there?”

In the basement of the brown-shingle cabin at the end of Cedar Crest Way, Leo was trying his best to comprehend what his friend had done. Jordan still stood between him and the helpless, gagged man facedown across the worktable. The knife ready in his hand, Jordan hadn’t yet dropped that threatening stance. Leo knew his friend wouldn’t ever use that knife on him. But he was almost certain that if he’d tried to pass him by and help the man, Jordan would punch his lights out.

He remained at the bottom of the basement stairs. He couldn’t believe Jordan was capable of this. It didn’t make any sense.

“I thought your mom died in a car accident,” Leo murmured.

“I lied. I was ashamed, okay?”

“Ashamed?” Leo repeated.

Tears welled in Jordan’s eyes. “I was there when he knocked my mother down and dragged her away. I was there, and I couldn’t help her. I was eight years old at the time.”

Baffled, Leo shook his head. The man moaned and whimpered past the gag in his mouth. His eyes kept pleading with him for some kind of intervention.

“Where’s Moira?” Jordan asked. “You can’t let her see this.”

“She’s still in the woods. She wanted to be alone. Listen, Jordan—”

“You need to do something for me,” Jordan interrupted. He was still breathing hard, and his voice had a tremor in it. “Go upstairs, pack all your shit and her shit, and then wait for her outside. She can’t see any of this; she can’t know. I want you guys to go, just drive away. Go home. And you can’t tell her about this, Leo. The biggest favor you can do for me is to forget all about it….”

“C’mon, Jordan, you know I can’t do that.” Leo started to move toward him.

“Goddamn it!” he growled. “Do I have to tie you up, too? Because I will if it looks like you’re going to screw this up for me. I swear to God…”

Leo took a deep breath. He wished his friend would put that stupid knife down. He pointed to the helpless man. “If this guy is a murderer—like you say—then let’s call the police.”

The muted whining from Jordan’s prisoner suddenly escalated. Leo glanced at him, and the man nodded emphatically. Leo realized the poor guy wanted him to call the police.

“I don’t trust the cops around here,” Jordan said. “The sheriff’s a scumbag. He let this son of a bitch get away at least twice—”

“What do you mean?” Leo asked.

“My mother was killed here in Cullen,” Jordan explained. “Her family used to have a vacation house about a mile down the road—by the bay. She and my dad divorced, and I was staying with her for the weekend. The first day I got here,” he turned toward his captive, “this piece of shit was stalking us….”

The man started whimpering louder again, and he shook his head.

“My mom called the cops,” Jordan said, almost yelling to be heard over him. “The sheriff came out and didn’t do a damn thing. He treated my mother like she was crazy. And the next day, he”—Jordan nodded at his prisoner—“he showed up in the backyard. My mom was on the dock, and I was in a boat on the water. I watched him come down to the dock and attack my mother. He kept hitting her. I couldn’t get to her in time. As much as I tried, I couldn’t save her. I watched him knock her unconscious and carry her off.”

The man was shaking his head adamantly. He tugged at the rope restraining his taped-up wrists; then he finally gave up and dropped his forehead against the worktable. He started crying.

Leo just stared at him—and then at his friend. It was all coming at him too fast. He still couldn’t believe Jordan had been lying to him about his mother’s death for so many years. Now, suddenly, he claimed to have found her killer. Leo couldn’t help thinking his friend had snapped and lost his mind. Jordan didn’t mess around with drugs. So what other explanation was there? Leo had never before been afraid of Jordan, but he was scared of him now.

“The sheriff didn’t take it too seriously,” Jordan continued, a bitterness creeping into his tone. He turned to glare at the man. “You left me a little sailor doll, your Mama’s Boy calling card. The stupid sheriff thought it was mine. He didn’t think to ask. He didn’t think Mama’s Boy would be working so far north of Seattle.” Jordan rubbed his forehead. “The first few hours—the most important hours when we might have gotten to her on time—the damn sheriff hardly did anything. He just recruited a few flunky cops from neighboring communities to form a search party for her. Like I say, he just didn’t take it seriously enough. What he really should have done was call the state police and the FBI….”

“I don’t understand,” Leo murmured. “You said you saw her get abducted. You were an eyewitness. Why didn’t he take it seriously?”

“Because,” Jordan hesitated. “My mom had problems. He thought she’d wandered off with some guy, and I’d exaggerated about it.”

“What do you mean your mom had problems?”

“What does it fucking matter?” Jordan screamed. He stabbed his finger in the direction of the man. “What matters is that he beat and strangled my mother to death. Then he came back. He got past the sheriff and all those other idiot cops and dumped her body in the forest by our house.” Jordan swiveled around and grabbed his prisoner by the hair. Yanking his head back, he put the knife to his throat.

“No, Jordan!” Leo yelled, rushing to stop his friend. “Jesus, please, wait…don’t…”

“You probably thought you were being so damn clever,” he growled into the man’s ear. His hand shook as he traced a thin line of blood on his prisoner’s neck with the knifepoint. “Weren’t you the smug bastard? Sneaking past all those police and throwing her in those woods so close to where you took her? I bet that gave you a big rush. Did it make you feel superior?”

“Please, Jordan, stop it!” Leo cried. “You don’t do this kind of thing! The Jordan I know—the one who’s my friend—he wouldn’t do anything like this….”

Jordan pulled the knife away from the man’s throat, then let go of his scalp.

The man started coughing behind the gag in his mouth. His head slumped against the worktable, and his whole body shook.

Jordan stepped away from him. The knife slipped out of his hands and clanked on the cellar floor. Leo almost recoiled as his friend came toward him. But Jordan put his arms around him. “Oh, God, Leo,” he cried, hugging him fiercely. “My mom was naked when they found her. He’d stripped off all her clothes. My mom…she always used to get so cold at night….”

Leo felt his friend’s tears against the side of his face. He patted his back and looked over at the man. He was crying, too—and choking. Leo wondered how he could breathe with a nose full of snot and that gag in his mouth.

“C’mon, buddy, sit down,” Leo whispered, leading Jordan to the stairs. With a sigh, Jordan sank down on the third step from the bottom. He wiped his eyes.

Leo patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going to take the gag out of his mouth so he doesn’t choke to death, okay?”

Jordan numbly stared down at the cement floor.

Leo went back to the man and carefully pulled at the wadded-up handkerchief in his mouth. “My God,” he murmured. “This is really crammed in here….”

Once Leo had pried out the handkerchief, the man gasped and went into a coughing fit. His scratched face was beet-red, and Leo stared at the veins protruding on the side of his forehead. “Thanks,” he finally whispered in a raspy voice. “Thank you.” Then he lapsed into another coughing fit.

Leo hurried over to the laundry sink. He grabbed a plastic measuring cup off the top of the washer and filled it with water. But it foamed over with suds. He kept rinsing out the cup, and then filled it up and tasted it. There was still a faint under-taste of soap, but he figured the guy didn’t care. He took the cup to him, and the man slurped it down. “Thank you,” he said again. “My face is burning up. Please, if you could…”

Grabbing the handkerchief, Leo went to the sink again and ran the handkerchief under the faucet. He glanced over his shoulder at Jordan.

His friend stared back at him. “I’m not letting him go,” he said quietly.

Leo returned to the man and patted his face with the cool, wet handkerchief. The guy hadn’t been kidding. His face was hot, like something was cooking under the skin. Leo did his best to clean the dirt and dried blood off the gash on his cheek. This close, he could see a horrible bruise forming on his forehead—and a second bump on his skull, the bloody clot partially obscured by his thick, silver-black hair. Leo couldn’t believe Jordan had done this to the man.

“Please,” the man whispered. “Please, you need to call the police….” He coughed again. “Your friend is making a terrible mistake. If I was really a murderer, would I be begging you to get the police?”

Leo looked back at Jordan.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he and the sheriff had some kind of deal,” Jordan said. “I’ve read everything there is about Mama’s Boy. I’ve become an expert on the subject. One of the theories was that Mama’s Boy must have had a police connection of some sort, and that’s why he was always able to keep one step ahead of the investigators. For a while there, they even thought Mama’s Boy was a cop.” He glared at the man and then shook his head at Leo. “No police.”

“If you don’t trust the sheriff here, then call the state police,” the man argued. He glanced at Leo. “I don’t care who you call. Just get me some help, please. He hit me in the head and knocked me out twice. I feel nauseous. For all I know, I could have a concussion. I belong in a hospital….”

“You belong in the fucking electric chair,” Jordan grumbled.

Leo turned to Jordan. “His forehead’s awfully hot. He could be really sick.”

“My fiancée and her son are waiting for me,” the man explained. “We came up here for the weekend—from Seattle. They’re probably climbing the walls wondering what’s happened….”

“That’s bullshit,” Jordan said, standing up. He clutched the banister. “You told me the kid was four years old. I saw your car, asshole. There wasn’t a child seat in the back. There was nothing in that car to indicate a kid had ever been in it. You’re lying.”

“We came up in separate cars!” the man cried. “I wanted to open the rental house and rent a boat before she got up here—so it would be all ready for her. They drove up in an old-model red Toyota yesterday afternoon. Damn it, go to Twenty-two Birch and ask. Her name is Susan Blanchette, and her son’s name is Matthew. We’ve known each other a year. Check it out, I’m telling the truth.”

His mouth open, Jordan stared at him and blinked.

Leo remembered the woman with the little boy at the store yesterday. Jordan had shown some interest in her. Leo turned toward the man. “Is your fiancée thin and kind of tall—really pretty with dark brown hair?”

The man nodded. Then he looked at Jordan. “She got a flat tire yesterday in practically the same spot I did. Were you responsible for that, too?”

Jordan said nothing.

“Did you sabotage her car the way you did mine?” the man pressed.

Jordan shook his head. “No. And you’re here to answer questions—not ask them.” He stepped down to the bottom of the stairs, then reached behind his back. From the waist of his jeans, he pulled out a gun that had been hidden by his shirttail.

“My God,” Leo murmured. His first inclination was to back away, but he held his ground between Jordan and the man. He’d never seen his friend with a gun before.

“Do you always take a Smith & Wesson along on family vacations?” Jordan asked.

The man seemed stumped for a moment. “It’s registered,” he said. “I bought it because I was carjacked once. I wasn’t sure about the area here, so I brought it along—just to be safe.”

Jordan cracked a tiny smile. “Didn’t quite work out for you, did it?”

“Owning a gun doesn’t make me a killer,” the man argued. “I’ve never used it.”

“You’re right, Mama’s Boy,” Jordan replied. “You strangled all your victims—after stripping them and beating the hell out of them. But I’ll bet you used a gun plenty of times—when you abducted those women. Not with my mom, you beat her unconscious with a blackjack before you took her away. But there were others. You must have had a gun on Anita Breckinridge at that Safeway in Lynnwood. How else would you have persuaded her to leave her kid sitting in the shopping cart and quietly walk out of the store with you? You must remember Anita, Allen. That was just a few days after Christmas, 1997. Poor Anita never got to see the New Year. You left her body by a jogging trail off Lake Union in Seattle.”

Stepping closer to the worktable, Jordan showed him the Smith & Wesson revolver. “Was this the gun you used so she’d cooperate? Did you stick this pistol in Melanie Edgars’ back? Is that why she went with you? All the newspapers wondered why a mother would suddenly leave her three-year-old son unattended in the kiddy pool. That was at the Burien Park and Recreation Center in the summer of 2000. You left a little plastic pail and shovel by Melanie’s beach blanket. You held on to Melanie longer than the others—three days. Then you killed her and dumped her body on the beach in West Seattle….”

“Oh, God, please,” the man whispered to Leo. “You have to do something. This is insane….”

Leo stared at his best friend. Jordan was practically a stranger to him. His buddy had never even hinted he knew about these murders. Yet obviously, he had all the names, places, and approximate dates committed to memory.

He wondered how Jordan could be so certain this man was his mother’s killer. It had happened ten years ago. And from Jordan’s own telling, he’d been in a boat on the bay, some distance from his mother and the man who had abducted her.

“Listen, I’m sorry your mother was murdered,” the man said. Stretched over the worktable, his whole body trembled. “That’s horrible, and I—I—don’t blame you for wanting to get even with somebody—anybody—for what happened to her. But you have the wrong guy, Jordan. You’ve made a terrible mistake. I’m begging you to call the police. I won’t press charges. I’m just asking you to do the right thing, the sensible thing. If I’m really a murderer, the police won’t let me go. And if you’re wrong, you’ve just made a dumb, forgivable mistake. The only thing I’d ask is that you get some counseling.”

“Nice try,” Jordan said.

But Leo moved toward him and took hold of his arm. He pulled his friend away from their captive, toward the dust-covered washer and dryer. “What he’s saying makes sense, Jordan,” he whispered. “Let me drive over to that grocery store and call the state police. If this guy’s really a killer, then they’ve got him. And they have you as a witness….” He trailed off because Jordan was shaking his head. “What? What is it?”

“I need to talk to him first,” he insisted. “I need to get a confession out of him.”

“Well, how are you going to do that?” Leo asked. “Do you plan to torture him? Y’know, even innocent people will plead guilty when they’re being tortured. Is that what you’re going to do next? My God, Jordan, he’s already been hit over the head and knocked unconscious twice. He’s scared. You heard him, his fiancée and her kid are waiting for him, worried about him. How can you be so sure he’s the one?”

Jordan put his hand on Leo’s shoulder and leaned in close to him. “After he killed my mother,” Jordan whispered, “the police and this special Mama’s Boy task force had me look at all these books full of mug shots. They were hoping I might identify the guy who took her. Like I told you, I was eight years old, Leo. My mom was just murdered, and I was sitting there in this crummy police station, poring through hundreds of photos of criminals—rapists, sex offenders, and murderers. But I didn’t find him in those books. I never saw that man again, not until today.”

“Goddamn it!” the man bellowed. “Get me out of here…. Please!”

“Shut the hell up!” Jordan snapped at him.

“I still don’t understand how you can be so sure he’s the one,” Leo whispered.

Jordan took a deep breath and then leaned in closer to him. “I heard him talking to my mother—very friendly at first. But then he hit her, and he called her a bitch. Even though I was pretty far away, I could hear him. I pissed in my pants, Leo. I was so horrified—and helpless. Earlier today, while I was in the store,” he nodded toward the man, “he came in. I just heard his voice, and I almost pissed in my pants again.”

“Then let me go call the state police,” Leo said.

“No, what I need you to do is keep Moira away,” Jordan insisted. “She could be back here any minute now, and she can’t see this. She can’t be a part of it. Drive her in to town, drive her home, I don’t care what you do. Just keep your girlfriend out of here. I need some time with this scumbag.”

Leo hesitated. He was afraid of what might happen if he left Jordan alone with the man.

Jordan rubbed his shoulder. “Like I told you before,” he said under his breath. “I know everything there is to know about Mama’s Boy. I’ll catch him in a lie. I’ll get a confession out of him.”

Leo pulled away. His eyes wrestled with Jordan’s. “And then what?” he asked. “What are you going to do with him then?”

Jordan stared at him and said nothing.

They both already knew the answer.