Last to Die: A gripping psychological thriller not for the faint hearted (14 page)

M
ike slammed
the truck into a sliding stop outside his house and ran up the steps, ignoring a startled Rudy who had been asleep in a patch of sunlight on the porch. Jessie was at the counter in the kitchen making a sandwich. Her hair lay wet on her shoulder, her face lightly flushed. Her greeting died on her lips when she saw Mike’s expression. He strode towards her and slammed the newspaper down on the counter. ‘Read it.’

Jessie looked down. Mike watched her eyes skim over the front page, feeling the skin on the back of his neck prickle as she read downwards. He wanted so badly for her to react angrily, to dismiss the story as nonsense. He wanted her to take his hand and shake her head and put him out of his misery with a word.

She raised her head. Mike saw her eyes go wide with fear and shame and felt the bottom slide out of his world. ‘Is this true?’

She said nothing.

‘
Is it true?
’

‘Mike, listen to me…’ she reached for him, but he reeled away with an agonised howl.

‘Oh my God. Oh my God. I can’t believe this. Everything, everything we have together, everything we have is based on a fucking lie.’

‘Mike, please, let me explain—’

Mike spun around and grabbed her by both arms. ‘Explain? Eight years, Jessie. You had eight years to explain. 
Eight years!
’

‘
Stop it!
’ She yanked herself free and took a step backwards. ‘You’re scaring me.’

Mike pointed a trembling hand at the paper. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about him?’

‘I … I couldn’t.’

‘What do you mean, couldn’t? What the fuck does that mean, Jessie?’

She flinched. His voice was venomous, something she had never heard from him before. ‘Well, when was I supposed to broach it? The first time we spoke? What about on our first date or the first time we slept together? What was I was supposed to say, “Gee, Mike, I like you a lot. By the way, I shot and killed my first husband, could you pass the salt?”’

‘That’s your answer? The timing was off?’

She lowered her head and stood silent for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was flat. ‘Do you know what it’s like to live in dread? Do you know what it’s like to dread the sound of a vehicle approaching your home? Do you know what it’s like to dread a certain look or a certain tone of voice? To spend your life terrified of making a mistake or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time? Do you have any idea what it’s like to dread like that?’

Mike shook his head.

‘Well I do. I wouldn’t wish that on my very worst enemy.’

‘You were afraid of him? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not stupid, Jessie. You must have known what he was like before you hitched your wagon to his.’

‘I was barely eighteen when I married him, Mike. I was only a kid. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, only that I wanted to get the hell out of my parents’ home.’

‘So what happened?’

‘I don’t know what happened.’

Mike pulled a face.

‘I mean it. Somewhere along the line he changed. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was always the way he was and I was too dumb to see it until it was too late.’

‘What way was he?’

‘Mean.’ Tears began to spill down her face. ‘Mean and dirty to the core. I never met a man so mean in my whole life and I hope to never meet one again.’

‘How long were you with him?’

‘Three years.’

Mike pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. ‘Ah shit, Jessie, what do you take me for? If he’s as bad as you make out why didn’t you leave him sooner?’

‘I did, at least I tried. Thing is, no matter what, he’d show up at my work or bug my friends. It was a small town, Mike, hard to avoid an ex-husband, especially one hell-bent on running into you. He’d plead with me to come back, tell me he’d change. That he was sorry. I fell for that line a number of times before I realised that’s all it was, a line.’

She reached out to touch him. Mike pushed her hand away, though it almost killed him to do so. ‘Please, Mike. I wish I could explain to you how … powerless I was back then, how vulnerable. He would not take no for an answer, he would not leave me alone. He had only one intention and that was to make me suffer for leaving him.’

‘So you went back to him?’

‘I did, and for a week or two it was okay. And then it wasn’t.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’ Jessie took a shaky breath and wiped at her tears with her hands. ‘I don’t really remember what he was angry about, or what I said, but he … well, this time he really did a number on me. That’s when I realised that I would die if I spent another day with him. I waited until the next morning when he had gone to work, I packed whatever I could carry and I walked to a friend’s house. I never went back.’

‘And then?’

‘She patched me up and she talked me into filing a police report. Took photos of my injuries to keep on record. After that I filed for divorce.’

‘How’d he react to that?’

‘He kept a low profile for a while. I waitressed during the day and started a night school course,’ she shrugged, ‘I thought I could go forward with my life. Stupid.’

Mike said nothing, but Jessie felt his gaze on her face.

‘One night I pulled into the yard at my friend’s house and he came at me, out of the shadows. He was drunk, belligerent, called me all sorts of names. He started to hit me, tried to knock me down, but I made it up the steps and inside the house. I was screaming at him, screaming for help, but Maxine wasn’t home and I…’ She blinked, her eyes unfocused, lost to her memories, ‘I tried to wedge the door closed but he kicked it almost clean off the hinges. I remember thinking it was hanging funny. I fell, got to my feet and bolted for Maxine’s room. I knew she kept a gun in the dresser by the bed. I just wanted to scare him with it, but he laughed at me.’

‘So you shot him.’

‘He kept coming. I had no choice.’

‘You say that a lot.’ As soon as he had uttered the words he was sorry, but it was too late. Jessie turned her head, bewildered, then slowly the meaning of what he had said hit home. Her features crumpled, her eyes bruised with hurt.

‘You don’t get to throw that at me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Mike said, feeling like a heel, but angry too.

‘You think that of me? Is that it?’

‘No I don’t.’

‘My God, Mike, you think I wanted to kill my husband?’

‘I don’t know, did you?’

She took a step away from him, crying now. ‘You can go straight to hell Mike Conway, if that’s what you think of me.’

‘Tell you the truth, Jessie, I don’t know what to think of you. I feel like I hardly know you.’

‘You ought to know me, Mike.’

‘Yeah, I ought to but I don’t.’

‘You want me to beat myself up for you? Tell you how much it kills me to see you hurting? You think I wanted you to find out like this?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘I never asked for 
any
 of this. None of it, but I won’t stand here and let you cast that kind of aspersion on me, and goddamn you for even thinking it.’ She walked out of the room and moments later Mike heard the door of the bedroom slam shut.

C
aleb cashed
his final cheque from the Home Depot, burned Arthur S Weils’ licence and began using the licence of one George Graham, a rare identity he kept for emergencies. The real George had been a dumbass Category Z labourer Caleb had spotted hitchhiking after his truck broke down six miles outside Atlanta, and whose body Caleb had left lying in a fetid lowland swamp later that same day.

Caleb drove along the interstate, keeping the needle under the speed limit. He was in better humour now that he was on the road and had almost talked himself into believing that ditching Charlotte had been predestined.

He drove for a number of hours, planning his next course of action. Other than staying under the police radar, he was under no particular pressure, and now that he had some money he was in no real rush. He thought briefly about Sonja and wondered if the cops had spoken to her already. Would her white skin prickle to think she had stood so close to death so often? Certainly, she would not forget him, not now. He would be a part of her thoughts forever.

That cheered him a little.

Close to two o’clock he pulled off the highway at the service exit and parked the Taurus outside a diner. He went in and ordered a plate of grits, gravy, biscuits and some black coffee. He was waiting for his food when he saw Jessie Conway’s face appear on the television behind the counter.

‘Can you turn that up a bit?’

The waiter did as he asked.

Caleb listened to the breathless news reporter as she broke the news of Jessie’s past, of her dead first husband, of her actions in Rockville High. There was an undercurrent to the story, a salacious edge that had not been there before. Caleb found himself enthralled. This confirmed it; she was without any doubt a 
bona fide
 Category A. By the time he’d finished his food, Frank and Sonja and Charlotte were completely consigned to the past, and Caleb cared nothing for the past. The past was nothing, a dream; it could not be touched or altered. It was, in his view, worthless.

He hit the road, changing route twice more. By the time he reached the outskirts of Rockville it was after six in the evening. Caleb drove through neat suburbs, with their mid-sized homes and well-watered lawns, moving slowly into narrower streets where the homes needed the odd paint job and some of the cars sat low on patches of scrubby grass. No children played outdoors that he could see. On this scorching evening the town seemed empty and tired.

He got out at the Dawn’s Light Motel and stretched his legs. The motel was a two-storey affair with a wraparound balcony on the second floor and wooden stairs dead centre leading from the parking lot. Positioned directly in front of the main office, the stairs allowed the proprietor full view of who came and went. This did not unduly bother Caleb. He was not planning to spend much time there other than to sleep.

He parked the Taurus next to a wilting scrub rose, entered the office and removed his sunglasses. A chubby young man wearing a pale pink t-shirt and a string of coloured beads tight around his neck glanced over the cover of 
People
 magazine at him.

‘Hi, can I help you?”

‘I need a room.’

The man put the magazine down and stood up. He had a fake diamond earring the size of a nickel in his left ear. ‘Do you have a reservation?’

‘No.’

‘Single or a double?’

‘Whichever.’

‘Can I have your name and some identification?’

Caleb supplied the necessary, and while his invoice was being readied he read the notice board behind the clerk’s back.

‘Will that be cash or credit card?’

‘Cash.’

‘Would you like a room to the front or the back?’

‘Front.’

‘Any preference for a floor?’

‘Ground.’

‘Chatty one, aren’t you?’

Caleb looked at him until the younger man flushed.

‘Okay. How long do you want the room?

‘Today through ’til Sunday.’

‘You leaving Sunday?’

Caleb leaned on the counter with his elbow. ‘If not I’ll let you know.’

The clerk removed a cardkey from under the counter and slotted it into a cardboard envelope.

‘Room will need to be vacated by noon. There’s a space for your car outside the room.’

Caleb took the key.

‘Will you be needing anything else?’

‘There a library in town?’

‘Oh sure, it’s over on Wellton Street. Imagine it’s closed now but—’

‘How much for the maps?’

The man snatched a map from a metal holder with a theatrical flourish. ‘These? Six dollars.’

Caleb dug some change from his pocket and dropped it on the counter.

‘You don’t really need a map, you know?’ said the man, ‘I can tell you anything you need to know about Rockville.’ He smiled and blinked a number of times. Caleb stared at him blankly before he took the map and shoved it into his back pocket.

‘If you need anything at all just call down, my name is Ritchie. I’ll be here 
all
 night.’

Caleb nodded, tired of the interaction.

The room was situated second from the end of the building nearest the street. Caleb moved his car down and parked in the allotted spot. He let himself into the room and locked the door behind him. It was small and the furnishings were a little dated but it was clean. There was a double bed and a bathroom to the rear. He set his bag on the bed and closed the curtains. He checked to see if there was a window in the bathroom. There was, big enough for him to fit through should he need to.

He drank some water from the tap and went back to the bed. He put his keys and the map on the dresser, lay on the bed and slipped his hands under his head. He listened to the cars pass by on the street outside, and heard doors opening and closing in the building. After a while, he slept.

When he awoke it was getting dark. Caleb switched on the bedside lamp and rubbed his hand over his face. He opened the map, studied it, and after a while folded it and put it in his travel bag. He shoved the bag under the bed and left the room, carefully locking the door behind him. A black cat sat on the bonnet of his car. It flattened as he approached, pinning its ears close to his head.

‘Move,’ Caleb said. The animal did so immediately, racing off into the bushes. Cats are smart, Caleb thought as he got into his car and drove away into the night.

R
ockville was not a large town
, and it did not take Caleb long to scout it from end to end. He located the library first, then the school, which he recognised from the television. From there he tracked his way back to the town centre, thinking of Jessie Conway, getting a feel for her and the places she had to be familiar with.

When he was sure he had his bearings, Caleb’s thoughts turned to food. He pulled into the parking lot of a place called Ray’s Diner. It was only one block from the school and he figured Jessie had probably eaten there from time to time. He parked the Taurus in the farthest spot from the CCTV camera, went in and sat at the counter. He ordered a taco and a bowl of home cut fries. When the food came, he was surprised to find it was good and he understood why the place was filling up.

He watched the comings and goings without appearing to take much notice of either. There seemed to him a strange prevailing mood in the air. A lot of people appeared to be drinking heavily and the conversations, from the snippets he could hear, seemed forced and shrill. To the rear of the main floor was a set of booths, four on each side of the aisle to the bathrooms. The booths were occupied by two groups of loud and vocally aggressive teenagers. He watched them for a while, amused at their posturing, but curious as to why their high jinks went on without comment, especially when one group started firing fries across the aisle at another.

He ordered another light beer and waited for the woman who had been watching him to make her move. She had been side-eyeballing him since he had sat down and in that time had consumed four glasses of cheap bourbon to his two beers.

She made her move when she came up to the bar to order her fifth glass. She casually bumped against him as she was going past.

‘Oh sorry, sugar.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘I would hope so.’

He smiled at her and smoothed his beard with his left hand. He watched her eyes scan for a wedding ring.

‘Waiting on someone?’

‘Nope, all alone.’

‘Well now that ain’t right.’

‘I just ordered a drink.’ He glanced at the barman. ‘Can I get you one?’

‘Well sure.’

‘What are you having?’

‘I’ll take a Maker’s Mark.’

He signalled to the barman and ordered the drink. The barman fetched the bottle down and smirked at the woman as he poured. ‘You are getting 
expensive
 tastes, Louisa.’ She shot him a dirty look.

‘You don’t worry about my 
taste
, Ray, worry about your business.’

Caleb pretended to watch the teenagers as the barman poured, saying nothing. He had met men like Ray before, they noticed things: accents, faces. They struck up conversations easily and probed with abandon. He did not wish to speak with Ray.

When Ray eventually moved away, Caleb raised his bottle to Louisa, who had settled on the stool beside him. ‘Cheers to you.’

‘And to you, honey.’

They clinked. She drained half the glass in one mouthful and set it on the bar.

‘I don’t recognise you. You’re not from around here, are you?’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I’d remember a handsome face like yours.’

He smiled, and tried to look bashful. It was not the best look in his repertoire and he seldom used it, but he doubted that she’d notice how out of practise he was. ‘No, I’m passing through. My mother lives over yonder in Bridgewater. I’m on my way to see her.’

‘Oh yeah? Bridgewater. Used to know a guy from there.’ She touched her glass absentmindedly and licked her lips. ‘Your people are from there?’

‘Born and raised.’

‘What’s their name? Maybe I know ’em.’

‘Vaughn.’

‘Can’t place them. But it’s good that you keep in touch with your family. Lot of folk forget where they came from. You can believe that.’

Ray drifted back down the bar, looking up along the glass shelves towards the bottles as though he’d never seen them before. His curiosity was transparent, even to Louisa, who huffed and rolled her eyes.

Caleb waited until Ray returned to the other end of the bar. ‘I haven’t been back much, but my mother, she hasn’t been too well lately.’

‘I am sorry to hear it.’

‘There are worse things in the world, right? Mom’s a good age.’

Louisa was looking at her glass again. He knew she was probably wondering when it would seem appropriate to drink from it again.

‘I mean look what happened here.’

She glanced at him.

‘I guess folk are still pretty torn up about what happened up at the school.’

He sipped his beer, pretending not to notice her eyes on his face, trying to read him. She might be a drunk, but she was no fool.

‘Bridgewater, huh? Did you go to Trenton High or St Columbus?’

He snorted. ‘TH of course. My family couldn’t afford to send no child to Columbus. Come to think of it, I don’t know many folk that could.’

Right answer. She picked up her glass and took a delicate sip.

‘You want a fresh drink?’

She looked surprised. ‘Well sure.’

‘Maker’s Mark again okay?’

‘It surely is.’ She leaned in closer to him.

‘I know it sounds kind of stupid, but with everything that’s going on in the world, a man would be a fool to miss the opportunity to have a drink with an attractive woman.’ He wondered if that was too much, but she didn’t seem to notice how corny it sounded. He watched her signal to Ray, who came down the bar in a flash.

By the time he left Ray’s Diner two hours later, Caleb had a phone number he didn’t want and a headache from the five bottles of light beer he had consumed. His wallet was a good deal lighter from the seven bourbons he had paid for. But that was okay too. He had learned plenty of what he needed to know and there were always ways for a man like him to pick up some more money.