She's Not There (25 page)

When Lisa finished reading the file she looked up at TJ who was watching her expectantly, her body swaddled in the fur throw as if protecting herself from an unknown presence. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?

“He fits our profile.”

When TJ remained mute, Lisa said, “Are you going to tell Richard about this?”

TJ expressed a dry, mirthless laugh. “Yeah right. What do you think?”

Lisa swallowed the last of her drink, oblivious to the fact that it was warm and diluted. “I think we need a lot more alcohol.” Then it came to her—the reason for TJ’s silence. “Dammit! There’s nothing concrete here, is there?” Lisa threw down the file.

TJ shook her head, pulling the throw tighter around her small body.

Lisa sputtered. “But what about circumstantial evidence—the preponderance of evidence? Wouldn’t the totality of everything be enough?”

“Nah. Might be if it was anyone else. I thought about telling Richard, but don’t think it’s a good idea. He wouldn’t have an open mind being as how the beast is one of them.”

It was Lisa’s turn for silence, her thoughts spinning. Unable to turn off her psychologist’s fascination with the man, she picked up the photo of Ronnie. God, he’d been so ugly before his accident. And that name. Ronald Rommelfanger. His classmates must have been on him incessantly. What were the chances that after his ‘rebirth’ as the handsome James Wilson, he’d act out his pent-up rage against women? Orth had been right; Wilson, as their killer, was fascinating.

TJ lifted her glass, tilting the last few drops of the drink into her mouth. “I can hear the wheels turning over there. What are you thinkin’?”

Lisa took a deep breath. The new information felt like a bad dream. “We have to tell—“

“No!” TJ interrupted furiously, abandoning the throw as she jumped up. “We can’t tell anyone!”

“Why?”

“We can’t tell anyone,” TJ repeated.

“What do we do? Wait it out while he kills more women and hope the police come up with him as a suspect?”

TJ stood, walked into the kitchen and came back with the bottle of Tequila and two shot glasses. She poured two, and handed one to Lisa. “Didn’t see any limes in your fridge, so bottoms up.” She raised the glass to her lips and gulped down the Tequila.

What the hell?
Lisa picked up the shot glass and followed suit.

TJ sat down with her elbows on her knees, staring into the fire. “Have a story to tell you. About me. And Janeen.”

This must be serious.
“All right.”

“Everyone loved Janeen’s husband, Mario. I did too; he was a great guy. And talented. He sang with a group of jazz musicians that made it pretty big in town. When they broke up, he couldn’t get another gig. He started drinking—turned ugly when he had too much. Started roughing Janeen up if she complained when he came home late, drunk. She didn’t tell anybody about it for a long time. She even tried to hide it from me, but I noticed a nasty bruise on her neck one night. She tried to blame it on playing with the kids. I knew better, seen too many women like her, too many bruises just like hers. After a while, you can spot them a block away.”

Lisa sighed. “I know. I’ve worked with many of those women.” As Lisa listened to the unfolding drama of TJ, Janeen, and Mario, Janeen’s abusive husband, she wanted to go to TJ and put her arm around her. But she knew the story had to flow without interruption, without any reaction, and most importantly, without judgment.

“He went to rehab after I took him aside and explained what I’d do to him if it happened again. But he was only there for a week when they sent him home. Said he could work with them as an outpatient. What a joke. He started drinkin’ again when he was still going for his supposed counseling. I told Janeen to leave him, get a divorce. But she loved him, still believed he would change. You know how that goes.

“Next thing, I get a call from her one night when I’m on shift. She was hysterical, told me she called 911. He had her trapped in the bathroom, bangin’ on the door, yellin’ at her to let him in. We just happened to be in the neighborhood at the time. I got there before the emergency responders, ran in before my partner could get out of the car. When I found them, he’d just busted down the door and was goin’ for her with a knife. He lunged for me when I told him to drop it.” Her knuckles whitened as she clutched the shot glass she held. “I shot him.”

Lisa poured TJ another inch of tequila. “TJ, you did what you had to do. You saved your sister’s life.”

“I didn’t have to shoot to kill. There was time to disable him. My gut took over—I wanted the bastard dead.”

“That’s understandable. She’s your sister.”

TJ snorted. “Yeah. Understandable. Only good thing that happened that night is she got the kids the hell out before he went wild.”

Lisa said softly, “That’s a terrible secret to be carrying around all these years.” And she realized the time had come—she had to tell TJ about her own past. She’d never told anyone the whole story, had carried it like a hidden birthmark all these years. “You aren’t the only one with a secret in her past.”

Looking a little less glum, TJ raised her eyebrows.

Lisa rose from the couch, discarding the fur throw. “I have something to show you.”

She led TJ to the lower level of the house, to a room that contained the furnace, her laundry equipment, shelves and cupboards. In a dark corner behind the furnace, was a tall, locked cabinet. She pulled out a key ring and opened it. Lined up inside were a dozen rifles.

TJ gaped. “These are yours?”

“They were my grandfather’s. I inherited them with the house. I grew up with guns. All the men in my family hunted, and as soon as I was old enough to hold a rifle, my grandfather taught me to shoot.”

“You hunted?”

“No. I never could do it. But I was fascinated with guns and loved to go to target practice with him.” She picked up a rifle, holding it almost lovingly.

“That one’s quite the cannon.”

“It’s a 30.06. He used it for deer hunting, but it’s a bit of overkill for deer, although it’s a popular weapon for the sport.”

Lisa handed it to her. TJ held the rifle, admiring its heft. She passed it back, looking like she was wondering where Lisa was going with all this.

Lisa put the gun back, locked the cabinet, and gestured for TJ to follow her. They went upstairs, and Lisa handed her a coat. They walked across the driveway to a large shed where a motion-sensored light went on at their approach. Lisa unlocked the doors. In the middle of the shed was a matched pair of shiny, dark-blue snowmobiles.

TJ’s face brightened. “We’re going for a ride? Never been on one, but might be fun.”

“Not with all the tequila we have in our bellies. Some other time.”

Lisa walked over to a large wooden box once used for firewood. She fumbled with a key, opened the padlocked box and lifted out a rifle identical to the one she’d shown TJ in the house. TJ took it from her and looked it over.

“Same rifle. No?”

“Same rifle, yes.” Lisa said. “But what’s different?”

“Wow! This baby has a special sight on it—like on a sniper’s rifle.” She looked up at Lisa. “Bet you were good. Must be a story behind this cannon.”

Lisa took the gun back and reversed the process she’d gone through getting it out.

“It is quite a story. But it’s going to take a lot more tequila to tell it.”

Another shot of tequila later, Lisa and TJ sat across the table from each other. TJ couldn’t imagine what Lisa was going to reveal about her past. How bad could it be? Lisa seemed to be all white bread and wasp.

Lisa’s hands gripped the bottle of tequilla, her nails peeling the label. “I told you the short version of this, but there’s a lot more to it. After we separated and my ex threatened to sue me for custody of Paige, I nearly lost my mind.“

TJ reached over, took the bottle from Lisa and poured them another drink.

“I talked to an attorney. He said nothing could prevent Lawrence from trying to get custody, even though it was unlikely he’d win. I couldn’t live with ‘unlikely’. Lawrence was a tyrant, a total control freak. He started disciplining her harshly before she was even two-years-old, I didn’t want him raising Paige, and I couldn’t imagine living without her.”

She looked at TJ. “You must have some idea of what I was going through. You probably had similar feelings when your brother-in-law was alive.”

TJ nodded.

Lisa said, “One night I dreamt that I shot the bastard. The dream stayed with me for days. He threatened me again and warned that me he’d contacted the best attorney in family law and said I wouldn’t have a chance of getting custody of my daughter.

“After that I started thinking about it; about actually killing him. Whenever Paige was with him, I spent my time refreshing my skills with the 30.06. I had an elaborate plan in place, but the gist of it was I’d follow him when he went hunting. I’d find just the right spot, take him down, and then pray it would look like a hunting accident. Now when I think about it, I realize how naïve it was.” She downed the shot TJ poured. Her words, while not slurred, had lost their usual crispness. “But you know what? It was a pretty damn good plan.”

“What happened? The jerk is still alive and you got custody, right?”

“Yes, he’s still breathing and I got custody of Paige. But it wasn’t because I won a big legal battle or because Lawrence had a change of heart. Ironically, I was saved from my madness when he met someone else. He fell head-over-heels with a nineteen-year-old, and all of a sudden he couldn’t wait to finalize the divorce. She wanted a big wedding, and a life with no encumbrances from his previous marriage.”

TJ sifted through it, amazed at Lisa’s story.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I would have gone through with it?”

“Figured you’d get around to it if you wanted to tell me.”

“I believe I would have. I would have shot him.”

“You sound pretty sure of that.”

“I have to tell you everything I planned in preparation.” Lisa put on a pot of coffee. When it was ready, TJ followed her back to the couch. Cradling the mug of steaming coffee, Lisa began, ““My plan to get rid of Lawrence began with the rifle. I started refreshing my shooting skills at a remote spot near Beaver Dam. I was good with it, even won a few matches when I was a kid. I bought its twin, the one I have locked in the shed, from a dealer at a gun show—a parking lot deal. Scary, really, how easy it was to get as long as I had enough money to grease his palm. I’d dressed like a man for the occasion, mustache and all.”

TJ couldn’t help but chuckle as she pictured Lisa in disguise.

“I knew you’d get a kick out of that. I drove to Chicago one weekend to pick up the props and paid cash. Too bad I didn’t know you then—I could have used some help with it. It took a lot of practice to get it right.”

TJ grinned. “It’s an art.”

Lisa continued with her narrative. “I had the advantage of knowing exactly where Lawrence hunted, because he dragged me along once so they’d have an extra license just in case they had a good bounty. Lawrence liked to slip out after he and his buddies came back in for the day and do his own thing. It was an ego thing; he thought he could do something on his own that the trio couldn’t.”

TJ’s eyes narrowed. “Hmm. Your alibi?”

“That was where a stroke of luck came in. The opening weekend of deer hunting, which was when he and his buddies always went, coincided with a conference in the cities that I happened to be registered to attend. It’s a huge affair; no one would have been the wiser if I slipped out for a day. Not the perfect alibi, but rational.

“I found a little lot in St. Paul that did the rent-a-heap thing. For a big enough cash deposit, they said I could rent a pickup with no questions asked. I planned on wearing the disguise when I picked it up.”

TJ poured more coffee, feeling her senses slowly returning to a pre-alcohol stage. Lisa hadn’t exaggerated. It had been a good plan. “Sounds like you thought of everything.”

“Well, I knew I’d be the first one the police would question if they suspected his death wasn’t a hunting-related incident. They’d take the 30.06, test it, and when it turned out not to be a match, hopefully I’d be off the hook.”

TJ ran over it in her mind. “One question. Why do you still have the knock-off rifle? Why didn’t you dump it?”

“I would have if I’d used it. It would be in the bottom of the Mississippi river gathering sand.” Lisa paused for a sip of coffee. “It felt good to tell somebody. But it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been burdened with.”

TJ snorted. “Now you sound like Orth.”

“Orth?”

She’d wanted to tell Lisa about her trip to his house and started by telling her how he’d come to her after the meeting with the police at Eric’s—how he’d practically read her mind. She watched Lisa’s face for a reaction when she got to the part about stopping Wilson herself, but Lisa’s demeanor remained impassive.

Lisa pondered. “So you trusted him with this. I suppose I would have, too.” She got up from the couch. “I think we need more coffee. And some sugar. How about dessert?”

“On top of all that tequila?”

Lisa set a plate of brownies on the table in front of the sofa. TJ picked one up but didn’t take a bite. “We have to do something—hafta’ get rid of the guy.”

Lisa said, “I was afraid that’s where we were headed. I think we have to give the police some time to put it together. Maybe they’ll work it out.”

Does that mean she’s on board with it?
TJ took a deep breath. “Yeah, in a perfect world. ‘Fraid Wilson’ll take off if he knows the department is working it.”

“I’m not so sure about that. He’ll believe there’s nothing the police can find. But you’re right, with his skills it would be easy for him to change his name and head for places unknown. But I think he’ll revel in watching them spin their wheels for a while and do some gloating, enjoy feeling omnipotent. He doesn’t know we’re on to him, so he won’t have a sense of urgency.”

TJ had to agree with her logic. They probably did have some time. “If the cops don’t get him, you’ll help me out?”

“Help you out? I’ll pull the trigger.”