In-Laws and Outlaws (3 page)

After a time Connie had regained enough control that she could talk rationally. “I've been thinking about it, and I've come to the conclusion that what happened to Theo is not connected to what's happening now. That was an isolated … incident.” Her face crumpled; she'd probably never before spoken of her son's death as an
incident
, a trivializing word for what must have been the biggest trauma of her life until now. “Those kidnappers … they just wanted money. They were vicious and sadistic—” She broke off suddenly, shaking her head; she couldn't stand to think about that. “But this time,” she went on in agitation, “this time there've been no demands for ransom or anything like that. There's just somebody out there who's killing us off, one at a time. Somebody hates us.”

“Can you bear to talk about the kids?” I asked her. “Were they together when they died?”

“No, they all died separately. And each time they were away from home for the weekend. So they could be got at, you see.”

Young Bobby Kurland had been the first to die. He'd gone with friends for a ski weekend at Stowe, in February, braving sub-zero temperatures for the joy of sliding down a mountain on two fiberglass slats strapped to his feet. Their first day there, it had happened. Bobby had started down a long slope but never made it to the bottom. They found him smashed into a tree, the front of his skull crushed. And they found something else, as well: boot prints in the snow, leading to the tree and then away again. Someone had found Bobby and had
not
gone for help, a turn of the screw the family could have done without.

But Connie construed it differently. “It was the killer, you see,” she explained with every semblance of reasonableness. “He was waiting for Bobby. To ambush him.”

I didn't try to talk her out of it; best wait to hear the whole story. Ike Henry was next, Connie told me. He'd been attending a science fair in Toronto along with some of his classmates from Exeter. They were leaving the exhibition hall when a car came roaring down the street, lunging from side to side and clearly out of control. The teacher who'd taken the kids to the fair had watched in horror as Ike was pinned against a stone wall with a force that all but cut his body in two. The driver had backed off from the wall and driven away before any of the onlookers could recover from their shock. That sent a chill down my spine; Stuart had also died in a hit-and-run accident. But the driver of the car that killed Ike had never been found, a fact that Connie, never too strong on cause and effect, interpreted to mean the killing was deliberate.

Lynn Ferguson's death was the strangest of all. At seventeen, Lynn had turned into an expert swimmer; she'd won a number of local and state championships and was trying to make the Olympics team. The feeling in the family was that she had a good chance of succeeding. So in April Lynn had gone to New York for a swimming meet, an early Olympics trials competition that she'd been training for for almost a year. She'd won her first heat and gone back to the hotel to change for dinner. When she didn't show up to meet her teammates in the lobby, her coach went up to check on her. Lynn, the championship swimmer, had drowned—in her hotel bathtub. The soap she'd slipped on was there, and the blood-covered water spigot matched exactly the indentation in her temple where she'd hit. The medical examiner said Lynn had never regained consciousness, and therefore she'd drowned in the bathwater.

Connie covered her face with her hands. “Those kids never took baths,” she said in a muffled voice. “They always took showers. Theo too.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “I doubt if Lynn had had a bath since she was old enough to work the shower controls.”

That seemed pretty flimsy evidence. “You can't be sure of that.”

Connie sighed. “Yes, I'm sure. I asked Elinor.”

Well, Lynn's mother should know, if anyone would. But still …

“Then this month—Raymond. Burned to death. And everyone's accepting that stupid story that he fell asleep smoking. Raymond always said I ought to have at least one smoke-free room wherever we were. He never even smoked in hotel bedrooms. If we didn't have a suite, he'd go into the bathroom to light up. Raymond did
not
start that fire!” She took a deep breath. “Look at the pattern, Gillian. Bobby in February. Ike in March. Lynn in April. Raymond in May. One a month. Like clockwork.”

And June was just a week away. “Is that what you're afraid of? That you'll be next? You think you're in danger?”

“I'd have to be an idiot
not
to think it! We're all in danger—but I can't make anyone see that.” Her eyes suddenly grew wide. “And now you're in danger too! You're a Decker—oh, Gillian! I shouldn't have asked you to come here! Oh, my! What have I done?”

Whew. I knew what conventional wisdom required of me; I was supposed to pooh-pooh her fears—nicely—and try to reassure her, to persuade her that her suspicions were groundless. The four deaths in the family, I should say, were nothing more than what they appeared to be: accidents. But I couldn't do it. Because at least part of what she was saying made a chilling sort of sense. I wasn't convinced that someone was out to kill off the entire Decker clan, but four violent deaths in a row … how could anyone dismiss that as mere coincidence? And one a month? Like a schedule? “Why weren't you at the Martha's Vineyard house with Raymond?” I asked Connie.

“I was going down the next day. I had some errands to take care of here first. Oh, if I'd only let the errands go and gone with him …”

Then maybe she could have gotten him out of the house in time. “Was the whole house destroyed?”

“No, only that one wing. That's one of the reasons they think Raymond caused it, because it was localized.” She looked at me hopelessly. “You probably think I'm crazy too.”

“No, Connie. I don't think you're crazy at all.”

Hope returned. “You believe me?”

“Well … I'm not sure. Do the, er, police suspect anything?”

“Which police? The ones in Vermont? Canada? New York? Martha's Vineyard? They all died in different places. I did tell the man who investigated Raymond's death what I thought.” She smiled wryly. “He listened very politely.”

Hm. I didn't want to think that one person was responsible for all four deaths, but there was one connection—possibly a coincidence—that Connie obviously wasn't letting herself think about. And that was the nature of the deaths. They all four involved mutilations of some sort. Bobby Kurland and Lynn Ferguson had had their skulls smashed. Ike Henry had been cut almost in two. And Raymond Decker had burned to death. No quick easy bullet through the brain for any of them. If Raymond and the three kids had indeed been murdered, then it was by someone who wanted to make their deaths as grim and as hurtful as possible. Someone filled with hate.

The phone rang. Connie looked at me helplessly. “Would you, Gillian? I don't want to talk to anybody tonight.”

That sounded more like the Connie I remembered. I didn't want to talk to anyone either, since whoever was calling was bound to be a Decker and I needed time to think over what Connie had told me. Besides, it had been ten years since I'd walked out and I had no right to expect a friendly reception.

Sure enough, it was a Decker—Annette Decker Kurland, twin
extraordinaire
. I swallowed and in an unsteady voice identified myself. There was a long, tense pause at the other end of the line. But then Annette recovered and thanked me for coming, even managing to inject some warmth into her voice. “Are you staying with Connie?” she wanted to know.

“Yes, I plan to.”

“Good. She needs someone with her, but she doesn't seem to want any of us there.” Annette's voice was deep, and she spoke in a deliberate manner, like someone who never allowed herself to be rushed. “Connie's been … distraught.”

“I know.”

“She's there in the room with you? Listening?”

“That's right. Annette, I learned only today about Ike. I am so sorry—what a waste! I can't tell you how sorry I am.”

“Thank you. And you're right, it is a waste. A stupid waste of a young life. I don't know if I'll ever get over it, to tell you the truth. In a way, losing a child is even worse than losing a husband … oh dear, I didn't mean it's easier on Connie than it was on me. Don't tell her I said that.”

“I won't.”

Then she said something odd: “Besides, Raymond was my brother. I knew him a lot longer than Connie did.” That sounded as if she thought the family tragedies
had
been harder on her than on Connie. Too many deaths, too close together; nobody was thinking straight. Annette said, “Gillian, if Connie brings up the detective again, try to talk her out of it? Please?”

Detective? “I'll do my best.” That seemed a safe thing to say. What detective?

“The funeral's at eleven,” Annette went on. “I'll pick you both up at ten-thirty. I don't want Connie going alone,” she emphasized. “There'll be reporters, unfortunately, and she's not up to coping with that hassle.”

“Reporters,” I repeated, and heard Connie groan. “I hadn't thought of that. All right, Annette, we'll be ready at ten-thirty.”

“Gillian,” she said quietly, “I'm glad you're back.”

I was pleased; she sounded as if she meant it. I hung up and turned to Connie, wondering whether to ask her about the detective or not.

But she didn't give me a chance. “Reporters!” she exploded. “They have no respect for anyone's private grief! They've been all over the place, shouting questions and trying to get at you when you go from the house to the car! They just won't leave you alone!”

“I didn't see anyone outside when I got here.”

“Because Uncle Oscar pulled some strings to make them ease up. But they'll try to get into the funeral, the twins say. Rob's had to hire guards to keep them out of the cemetery tomorrow. Gillian, you should see some of the things they've written! Somebody sent me a newspaper that said ‘A Family Marked for Tragedy' right on the front page!
The front page!
”

That must have galled them all; the Deckers had a near-obsessive distaste for publicity about their private lives. They avoided it like poison. “Tell me about the detective.”

“The … oh. I wanted to hire one, to investigate everything, starting with Bobby's so-called accident on the ski slope. But Annette and Michelle pointed out that
we
were the ones who'd end up being investigated, if the detective had to look for things in Raymond's and the kids' lives that might have led to their being murdered. And they were right. It was a dumb idea.”

Not so dumb, if the four deaths truly were the result of murderous intent on the part of person or persons unknown. But the twins had a point; the detective would have to concentrate on the family. If the killer was indeed some unknown maniac, as seemed likely, then any such professional investigation of the family would not only be pointless but most probably hurtful as well. I didn't think Connie understood what a thorough investigation would entail; she'd have to talk not only about Raymond but about Theo as well. A little earlier she'd barely been able to say his name without choking.

Connie and I talked on for a couple of hours, until we were both drooping with exhaustion. Connie'd talk a little, then cry a little, and then she'd ask me questions about my life without listening to the answers. The conversation never strayed far from the four deaths in the family; Connie kept coming back to them no matter what we were talking about. She had nothing more to add to what she'd said before, but she kept repeating it over and over. It had become a compulsion with her, this need to talk about murder.

I didn't know how much of what she was saying I could trust. But regardless of the interpretation Connie put on events, four of our people did die violently; there was no disputing that. If only the authorities were as concerned as the news reporters were! I couldn't believe the police were as indifferent as Connie made them out to be; she didn't always know everything that was going on. I'd have to ask one of the others tomorrow.

Tomorrow. A day I'd like to excise from the calendar. I'd come here thinking I'd be attending one funeral when in effect it would be the same as four. Bobby, Lynn, and Ike—I'd never had a chance to mourn their deaths. And now Raymond's name had been added to the list. The thought of
all
of them dead was just too much to cope with.

I asked Connie to show me to my room. I needed to take a sleeping pill and blot it all out for a while

3

On the morning of the funeral, Connie Decker had already gone into her vague-and-distant mode by the time I got down to breakfast. She was there but not there, present in body but not in spirit. She didn't want to talk about anything to do with the funeral, nothing at all. I didn't push her; this was Connie's notion of self-control, her way of bracing herself for the ordeal to come. Besides, the glazed look in her eyes suggested she'd taken something to calm her down.

The family had decided on a brief ceremony to be held in a private cemetery—no church, no funeral home, and an Episcopalian minister who'd do no more than lead a prayer at the end. The twins, Rob Kurland, and Oscar Ferguson would speak at the gravesite. While that was going on, a team of caterers would move into Connie's house and prepare a buffet for the callers who would be stopping by later. Connie was nervous about that part; her housekeeper didn't like having caterers around. The twins had arranged it.

For some reason I couldn't get warm. I woke up chilled to the bone and was still feeling the occasional shudder when Annette Henry came by to pick us up. I was nervous about this first meeting and stood watching through a window as a chauffeur opened the door of a gray Rolls to let out a tall woman dressed in black, the top half of her face hidden by the brim of the hat she was wearing. She seemed to be alone. “Where's Tom?” I asked Connie.