Wicked Game

Chapter Nineteen

Hudson’s truck rattled down Highway 217 before turning off at Canyon and heading east toward the city. Mike’s Garage, Mitch’s workplace, was about another mile in.

He looked across at Becca. She’d been awfully quiet since their lovemaking and he wondered if he’d done something wrong. “What is it?” he asked her again, feeling like one of those idiots who keeps asking, “What’s wrong?” when the person clearly doesn’t want to say.

“Just tired,” she said.

They passed auto dealership after auto dealership pressed shoulder to shoulder along the road that cut through this ravine in the west hills surrounding Portland. She glanced at her watch. “It’s kinda late. Shouldn’t he be off work by now?”

“He said he was working late, and that was a little over an hour ago. If he’s not there, we’ll check his apartment, and if he’s not there, we’ll go home.” Hudson ran through a yellow light and drove the remaining quarter mile to a cross street where Mike’s Garage was located.

The low, flat stucco building that once had been a gas station looked empty. The lights in the building were out, the Closed sign visible, not a soul in sight. But Mitch’s black Tahoe was parked in a spot at the side of the building.

“He must’ve gone with someone, gotten a ride,” Becca said as Hudson pulled up next to the big rig and parked, cutting the engine.

“Maybe.”

“The place is closed.”

“I know.” Hudson opened the glove compartment, retrieved a small flashlight, then stepped out of the pickup, leaving the driver’s door open. He punched out a number on his cell phone and walked toward the garage, listening. “It’s ringing.” He nodded toward the garage. “Inside.” Becca heard the faint sound of some downloaded tune.

“Maybe Mitch left it by mistake.”

“Left his truck and his cell phone?” Hudson was already walking around to the back of the garage as Becca shoved open the passenger door and hopped to the ground, catching up with Hudson. By the time they reached a slightly ajar back door, the cell phone was still playing a song from the eighties. “Mitch?” he called into the darkened interior, his voice echoing slightly. “Mitch?”

“He’s not here,” Becca said again, but even as she stepped over the threshold of the garage she felt that something was wrong. No security lights were lit and country music was playing softly from speakers. But there was a strange, eerie quietude to the place that caused the hairs on the back of her arms to lift. Her stomach knotted as she kept up with Hudson. They picked their way through the parked cars in various states of disassembly, the scents of rubber and grease mingling with the odor of dust. The beam of Hudson’s flashlight slid over the open hoods and raised carriages.

“Mitch, you here?” Hudson said again and Becca shivered.

This time Becca heard a low, nearly inaudible moan.

Her heart glitched. She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Mitch!” Hudson shone his light in the direction of the sound. The beam tracked over a stained cement floor to a man’s legs poking from beneath the weight of a sporty red car crushing his chest, pinning him beneath. “Shit!”

They ran to the mechanic’s-Mitch’s-side. “He has to be alive. Has to,” Becca whispered, trying to convince herself. As she peered beneath the car and caught a glimpse of Mitch’s face, a mask of death, his eyes closed, only the raspy sound of his breath indicating there was a bit of life in his body.

Hudson was kneeling by Mitch’s side. “Hit the lights!” he ordered Becca, shining the beam of his flashlight onto the far wall where a switch was visible. “And call for help.”

Becca was already on her feet, fumbling in her purse, retrieving her cell, dialing 911. She hurried across the concrete, nearly tripping on a drain before she reached the switch and threw it. Immediately, flickering fluorescent overhead lights cast a bluish glow over the garish scene.

“He’s still alive,” Hudson said as the 911 operator answered.

Becca wasted no time. “I need an ambulance immediately.”

“What is your name and the nature of your emergency.”

“I’m Rebecca Sutcliff and I’m at Mike’s Garage, off Canyon Boulevard. There’s been a horrible accident, Mitch Bellotti-he’s trapped under a car, he’s bleeding and…and…send someone to…” She turned anxiously to Hudson.

“The cross street is Eighty-sixth or seventh!” Hudson had jumped to his feet, heading for the roller jack.

“Did you hear that? Eighty-sixth or seventh and Canyon. Send someone quickly.”

“The victim is alive?”

“Barely. Send an ambulance now!”

“There’s a squad car in the area, if you’ll please stay on the line. Ma’am, please stay on the line and-”

Screw that! Becca hit the speaker option on her phone and left the cell on the hood of a Ford Escape. She couldn’t waste time talking.

Hudson’s hands grabbed the jack’s lever and he rapidly pumped it upward. Slowly the car began to rise off Mitch’s broken chest. In tandem they grabbed the creeper and pulled him from harm’s way.

Blood covered the front of Mitch’s garage jumpsuit where metal had punched through his skin, smearing his name. His entire abdomen looked as if it had fallen in on itself.

The sound of sirens split the air and Becca thought she’d never been so relieved in her life as she and Hudson eased Mitch out from under the car’s carriage. Hudson found the button to raise the garage doors and hit it. The doors on all three bays began grinding upward as a squad car-lights flashing, siren screaming-flew into the lot. The driver stood on the brakes and two officers emerged.

“What the hell happened here?” the taller of the two cops asked. Another siren sounded-the ambulance, thank God!

Hudson said grimly, “We found him this way.”

“Alive?” the shorter officer, a woman with a blond ponytail, looked at Hudson from beneath the brim of her hat.

“I think so, but he’s in bad shape.”

While her partner knelt at Mitch’s side, she was on the phone, barking orders, talking to the EMTs as the ambulance roared into the parking lot. A crowd had begun to gather, traffic slowing and snarling around Mike’s. Within minutes another squad car arrived, and while the first officers interviewed Becca and Hudson and the EMTs worked over Mitch, the newly arrived cops worked to hold back the crowd and keep the traffic moving.

Becca and Hudson were asked to stick around while Mitch was placed on a stretcher, wheeled into the ambulance, and whisked away. The owner of the garage was called and the area roped off with crime scene tape.

Hudson and Becca, standing beneath the overhang, were barraged with more questions but finally allowed to leave. They headed directly to the hospital, and on the way, Becca called as many of their friends as she could. The EMTs hadn’t given them a diagnosis, but both Becca and Hudson realized that Mitch was hanging by a thread. Hudson didn’t say it, but Becca read it in his eyes. He didn’t think Mitch would make it through the night.

“Glenn…Renee…and now Mitch?” Becca whispered to Hudson.

“It’s not a conspiracy,” he said, but she sensed he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

“What is it, then?” she asked, but he couldn’t come up with a response.

Mac was on the phone when Gretchen, who’d been slipping into her jacket and getting ready to leave, received a call on her cell phone. She was halfway to the door but she stopped in the act of pushing her arms through her sleeves and turned to meet Mac’s eyes.

Mac glanced away, needing all his attention for the phone call he was already handling. But Gretchen wouldn’t be put off. He heard her say grimly, “Thanks for the heads-up,” then marched back to Mac’s desk and stood in front of it. He lifted an impatient hand to her. She could just damn well wait for once.

“Mitch Bellotti died tonight,” she told him loudly. The other officers still in the station turned to look.

Mac was taken aback. “Something’s come up,” he said into the phone. “I’ll call you back. Mitch Bellotti died?” he demanded as he hung up. “How?”

“At his job. Got crushed by a car that slipped off a jack. It fell on his chest before he could get out. Punched right through his chest and broke his ribs.” She went on with other details she’d obtained from a Beaverton police officer she was friends with, and Mac learned he was found about an hour or so after the incident by Hudson Walker and Becca Sutcliff, who had called 911. The EMTs who worked on Bellotti got him to the hospital, but he died within five minutes of arrival, the broken ribs having penetrated other organs. There’d been too much damage and he’d bled out before they could save him. “Unconscious the whole time,” Gretchen finished. “Last person to see him alive was a guy who worked with him, Phil Reece. All the stories jibe according to the Beaverton PD.”

“It’s been ruled an accident?”

“So far.” Her tone suggested it was just a matter of time until they learned otherwise.

“Jesus,” Mac said. He could hardly take it all in.

Gretchen pointed out, “Someone’s killing your suspects.”

“Someones, maybe.”

She cocked her head. “You know something.”

He shook his head, sorry he’d said anything so soon. “You’ve got friends with Beaverton PD, I have friends with Portland.”

“Give,” she demanded.

“When there’s corroboration.”

“You’re talking about the arson at Blue Note. Know who set it?”

“Not for sure.”

“C’mon, McNally. We were making so much progress.” She slipped a hip on his desk and looked at him through her lashes.

Mac yanked out the sheaf of pages trapped by her hip. “Go home, Sandler,” he growled.

“You’re starting to like me. I can tell. What are you doing?” she demanded as Mac started searching through the thick file labeled Brentwood.

He ignored Gretchen. He needed to sort through the information that seemed to be coming at him from all sides, none of which connected. He needed to be alone. He needed quiet.

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” she observed. “When you feel like talking, I’m only a phone call away.” She waved her cell phone at him as she strode toward the door.

Mac slid a look after her, then shook his head. She was actually becoming an active participant rather than departmental dead weight. It wouldn’t be long till she moved on.

“Just when I was starting to like her,” he said dryly, then turned to his notes. Mitch Bellotti: Ex-jock, football player, average student at St. Elizabeth’s, married and divorced, worked at Mike’s Garage for nearly ten years. Two traffic tickets in the past decade, no kids. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but certainly not anyone whom someone would want to kill.

What the hell was going on? He had some pieces but not enough. There was more at play than he knew.

The station was quiet; nearly everyone was gone. He leaned back in his chair and thought about the dead. Disregarding his computer, he drew columns, labeling them: Jezebel Brentwood, Glenn Stafford, Renee Walker Trudeau, and Mitchell Bellotti. He made note of their sex, date of death, place of death, marital status, closest friends, beneficiaries of their wills if he had that information, and anything else he could think of.

The most obvious fact that linked them was that they knew each other, had gone to high school together. And somehow, Jessie’s disappearance was the start of it all. He circled her name. She was killed twenty years earlier than the others, but what had set off these last three deaths? He had an idea about Glenn Stafford; the Portland PD were closing in on the arsonist. But he didn’t know how it related to Renee Trudeau and now Mitch Bellotti.

Mitch and Glenn had been good friends, but Renee…?

And then there was Jessie.

Renee had been working on Jessie’s story and she’d found a link to the Oregon coast. Glenn owned a restaurant with Scott in Lincoln City, south of Deception Bay. Jessie’s parents had owned a beach house in that small town, but Mitch had no connection with the coast that Mac could discern. Credit card records showed Tim Trudeau had been in Seaside and Deception Bay in the last five months, something he’d been less than forthcoming about. He and Renee had been having troubles, so maybe her death was completely separate from the others?

Mac groaned and rose from his chair, running his hands through his hair. Glancing at the picture of his son, he walked toward the windows on the south side. They overlooked the parking lot but he wasn’t seeing anything but the images within his own head.

Renee Trudeau’s Camry was still being searched, tested, and gone over for any kind of evidence, but so far there was nothing out of the ordinary and the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department hadn’t located any body shop who’d done repair work on a truck or car that might have pushed her car over the cliff.

Renee’s cell phone records hadn’t helped much either. A couple of calls to her brother and friends, but nothing significant. Mac wondered if another run to the coast might turn up something new.

Mac went back to his desk and sorted through his files till he pulled out his report on the man who’d picked up Jessie Brentwood off Highway 53. She’d been coming back from the beach or somewhere near it. Had she been visiting the Brentwoods’ cabin? Why was she hitchhiking? Had something happened there that precipitated her death?

Had Renee learned what that was?

And what about Mitch’s death tonight? Could it really be an accident? Could it? Could the poor bastard have just gotten unlucky? The Grand Am just slipping off the jack?

“Nah,” he told himself. Not with all the other friends of the Preppy Pricks dropping like flies.

He stared down at his jumble of notes. All the pieces were there, a massive jigsaw puzzle that just needed to be put together in the right order.

Becca felt as if a stone were stuck in her gut, weighing her down. All of her burgeoning joy at the thought of maybe being pregnant was superseded by a horrifying sense of despair. Someone was killing them, one by one. All of them.

She looked around the room. It was late, but she wasn’t alone. Most of their friends had collected at her condo after rushing to the hospital upon hearing the news about Mitch. Now they stood in a semicircle in front of her fireplace. Tamara, Scott, and Jarrett stood on one side, Zeke and Evangeline on the other. The Third had slumped into a chair, and Hudson stood next to Becca. They were drinking coffee or wine, but mostly they just stood and stared blankly at each other. Even Ringo was subdued, lying on his bed and observing the group while the gas fire hissed and outside a deep fog settled in.

“I just don’t understand,” Tamara said, perching on a bar stool near the kitchen counter. “You all think that Mitch was killed, that this wasn’t an accident.”

“Not just Mitch,” Hudson said.

A murmur of agreement swept through the room.

“Been a bunch of murders,” Jarrett said.

“Oh, no.” Evangeline was shaking her head, her blond hair moving against her shoulders. Her hand reached for Zeke’s but his were in his pockets. His head was bent and he was remote enough to be on a different planet. “I don’t believe it,” she went on shakily. “No one would want to kill Mitch or Glenn…or Renee.”

“Well, they did,” The Third said, all of his cockiness gone. His face was lined, his hair falling over his eyes instead of neatly combed. “Something’s up. And it started with those kids finding Jessie’s body. Someone’s picking us off. And it has to do with Jessie.”

“Mitch’s death wasn’t murder,” Scott said, shuddering.

“Someone dropped that jack handle,” Hudson said. “It didn’t fall on its own.”

Scott asked, “You tell the police that?”

“Yep. Wanted everything on the table. No secrets.”

Hudson gazed at Zeke hard and Zeke flushed. Unless Zeke had gone straight to the phone and started calling the group, they still didn’t know he was the baby’s father and therefore the bones belonged to Jessie. Zeke’s uncomfortable posture said the secret was still under wraps.

Zeke couldn’t hold his gaze.

“Who sent those notes?” Hudson asked him.

Vangie caught the tension between them and said quickly, “You can’t think it’s Zeke?”

“Was it?” Hudson asked Zeke point-blank.

“No.” He was positive.

Hudson said, “Jessie didn’t send them. Jessie’s dead. Those are her bones. DNA’s proved it.”

“How?” Scott asked, surprised. “I thought there was nothing to match Jessie’s DNA to.”

“The baby’s DNA was matched to her father’s,” Hudson said. “And the father is one of us. Stands to reason the bones are Jessie’s.”

“You’re the father?” Jarrett’s dark brows slammed together and he looked at Hudson, then slowly followed his gaze to Zeke.

“I am,” Zeke stated flatly.

The group collectively absorbed the shock of that news, turning toward Zeke and staring at him.

“Oh, my God,” Tamara exhaled.

Evangeline blinked several times, as if her brain couldn’t process something so abhorrent. “It’s Hudson’s baby,” she finally said. “She was Hudson’s girlfriend.”

“I slept with Jessie,” Zeke said. “We were seeing each other behind Hudson’s back.”

Becca shivered, wishing she were in Hudson’s arms, but he had taken a half step back, watching the drama play out among his friends.

“No, you weren’t.” Vangie was positive.

“I’m not proud of it. And Jessie only really wanted Hudson, anyway. I just wanted her. I just wanted to have her. You knew I was seeing Jessie,” he suddenly accused Evangeline, whose eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Jessie told me she confided in you.”

“No! No!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Zeke demanded. “Why are you so afraid of the truth?”

“I didn’t believe her,” Vangie said. “She was always saying hurtful things. We weren’t best friends!”

“Oh, my God,” Tamara said again, staring at Evangeline in fascination. “Jessie was confessing the truth, but you couldn’t stand to hear it because you’ve always had this obsession over Zeke!”

“This is all Jessie’s doing.” Evangeline’s whole body was quaking.

“Jessie’s dead,” Zeke said harshly.

“And so are Glenn and Renee and Mitch,” Hudson pointed out.

“I don’t believe you would do that to Hudson,” Vangie said. “You wouldn’t go behind his back.”

“I just wanted her.” Zeke’s jaw was set in anger.

“Fuck, we all did,” The Third said, trying to defuse the situation.

“But Zeke was the one who scored, apparently.” Jarrett started to see amusement in the situation. “Wouldn’t have guessed that one.”

“Zeke, come on,” Vangie pleaded. She wrapped her arms around his torso but he stiffened in her embrace. “We’re getting married.”

“Well, who the hell killed her?” The Third demanded. “Zeke? Is that what we’re saying?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Zeke said angrily.

“If anyone did, it was one of you!” Flushed, Evangeline gazed around the room at the men. “And Jessie sent those nursery rhymes to point the finger at you!”

“How many ways do I have to say it?” Zeke demanded. “Jessie is dead. She’s been dead for twenty years!”

“Why didn’t Zeke get one of the nursery rhymes?” Scott asked.

“Yeah,” Jarrett said, looking thoughtfully at Vangie.

“Because Evangeline sent them,” Hudson said quietly. “To point the finger at the rest of us.”

“You’re all-hateful!” Evangeline’s eyes filled with unshed tears.

Becca gazed at the shaking blond woman and realized Hudson was right. “You heard at Blue Note about the nursery rhymes, when Mitch and Glenn brought them up. You’re afraid Zeke really did kill Jessie. That’s why you’ve been so adamant that she’s alive.”

“No…” She raised a hand, as if to ward off Becca’s words.

“You never really believed it,” Becca went on. “You’ve thought she was dead from the beginning.”

“Jessie was some kind of witch! She could see the future, I’m telling you! She knew she was going to die! But it wasn’t Zeke!”

“Did you kill her?” Tamara demanded.

A deep wail boiled from inside Vangie’s soul. She clung to Zeke for support as the sound reverberated through the room. Becca turned to Hudson and he moved swiftly to take her in his arms.

“You did kill her,” Scott said on a note of wonder.

“I didn’t! I couldn’t! It was someone else. Someone evil. Renee was right. Jessie thought someone was after her. Hunting her down. She’d been to the beach looking up her past. And this…thing…found her!”

“Trouble,” Becca said.

“Go ahead and make up stories.” The Third got up from his chair and glared at Vangie. “All this mystic crap. You killed her. You hunted her down and killed her because she was pregnant with Zeke’s baby.”

“Zeke,” Evangeline pleaded. “Tell them it’s not true.” Her cheeks were wet with tears.

“I found the envelopes in the shredder, Vangie. Blue strips where you shredded the evidence. I saved them for the police.”

“What?” She backed away from him, her hands slowly letting go, her face a mask of horror.

“McNally guessed. When he told me that my DNA matched the baby’s, he also as good as said you sent the notes. He knows, Vangie.”

“Then why hasn’t he picked her up?” Scott demanded.

“Because I don’t think she killed Jessie.”

“I didn’t.” A ray of hope entered her voice.

“She sent the notes. She was afraid I’d killed Jessie. But Jessie’s death, I don’t know. And Glenn and Renee and Mitch…” Zeke closed his eyes and wearily shook his head. When Evangeline tried to embrace him again, he jerked away as if burned. “We’re done, Vangie.”

“Okay, okay. I believe Jessie’s dead. And I sent the notes-but it wasn’t because I thought you killed her. I just wanted the investigation to leave us alone. I love you, Zeke,” she implored. “So much.”

He gazed at her a bit helplessly. “But I don’t love you. I never really did.”