Winter Break (12 page)

Evan stopped mid-thought, listening. Downstairs, at the front door, there was a faint clicking sound. A metallic scrape or jiggle. Like a key turning in a lock.

‘Fuck me,’ Sty murmured. He listened for another moment, then motioned to Evan to give him the knife.

Evan pulled it out of the mattress, passed it to Sty who sped silently down the steps. Evan followed him down to the second level, where he stood at the banister, watching Sty position himself beside the heavy carved wood door, knife raised, ready to strike.

The sounds stopped.

A woman’s voice penetrated the door. ‘Okay. That’s that.’

But she didn’t leave, and a few seconds later, the key slid into the hole again, jiggled in the lock.

Evan felt his face get hot, his blood pump as he watched Sty ready to pounce. He pictured the surprise on the bitch’s face, the spray of her blood. Wondered if she’d have time to scream or fight back. Pictured her gaping slashed flesh.

When the woman took the key out and walked away, Sty exhaled loudly and lowered the knife. Evan shrugged and lowered his head, sorely disappointed.

Harper stood at the curb, preparing to go back inside. Gearing herself up to help Vivian with the damned tree. She needed to be kinder; despite Vivian’s self-centered, manipulative, needy narcissistic nature, she was still her mother. Bracing herself, Harper started up the unshoveled walk but, hearing a car approach, she stopped and turned. Saw Lou driving up the street.

He parked in the driveway, got out of the car, smiling cheerily. ‘What’s up?’

‘I saw you, Lou.’ Harper hadn’t planned to say that; the words just came out of her mouth.

‘You saw me?’ He walked over to her, as if to accompany her into the house.

‘The package. I saw you open it.’

‘Oh. That.’ He stopped walking, put his hands in the pockets of his down jacket.

‘Turned out it was nothing—’

‘I saw what it was.’

His eyes flashed, met Harper’s. ‘Then you know it was nothing.’

‘It wasn’t exactly “nothing”. What’s going on? Tell me.’

‘What’s going on?’ His eyes did a nano-shimmy. ‘Nothing. I mean, how should I know—’

‘Why did you open it?’

‘What is this, Harper? The third degree?’ His hands went up in the air, defensive. ‘Okay. I admit. I shouldn’t have opened it. You’re right.’

‘And?’

‘And nothing. I opened it. I thought it might be something good. Like one of those computer tablet things – or leather gloves—’

‘But it wasn’t.’

‘No.’ His eyes darted down, then sideways toward the woods, then back at Harper. ‘Look, what do you want me to say? I was wrong. I shouldn’t have opened it. Sorry. Okay?’

Harper watched him shift his weight. ‘We need to call the authorities.’

Lou’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. ‘For Christ’s sake, why?’

‘Sending materials like that through the mail is illegal. It might be considered a terrorist threat—’

‘God, Harper,’ he interrupted. ‘What is it with you? Making everything into some big deal—’

‘Are you saying this isn’t a big deal? Someone sent a mutilated carcass to my home—’

‘Okay, fair enough. It’s a big deal, but a small one.’ Clouds of breath puffed short and swift from his mouth. ‘Look, Harper, if you call your authorities, I get in trouble for opening a package not addressed to me. What’s that called – meddling with the mail or something? Do you really want to open that can of worms?’

She said nothing. Pictured her mother’s hysteria if yet another of her men got arrested.

‘Besides, this wasn’t terrorism. There was no public threat. No bomb or amtracks powder.’

Amtracks? Like the trains? ‘You mean anthrax?’

‘That’s what I said. Look, nobody got hurt except an effing rodent. It was probably a sick private joke. In fact – you know what? I bet they meant it for those frat boys next door and they got the address off by a couple numbers. Go ahead – ask those boys if they don’t have a guy by that name – Ed Whateveritwas. I bet they do.’

‘The place is closed for winter break.’

‘Well, so what. It doesn’t really matter who was supposed to get it. Whoever it was, he ought to be glad I opened it for him. I mean who wants to get a package like that?’ Lou laughed, slapping her on the shoulder.

‘Come on,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s go in – too cold to stand out here yapping.’

Harper crossed her arms, reluctant, but she was cold and went along. She wanted to ask Lou more about his late-night wanderings, but her instincts told her to save it. At the moment, his guard was up, worried that she’d turn him in for tampering with the mail. More questions would only make him more defensive.

They were halfway up the front walk when Vivian, bundled in her bright red down jacket, burst out the front door, waving. ‘Where were you two? Go lie down, Harper. And Lou, remember we’re going shopping. I’m ready.’

Harper headed inside, put the key back into her pocket. And kept her eyes on Lou as he embraced her mother and led her away.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Sty lowered the knife, letting out a breath as the woman left. ‘She thought she had a key? Why was she trying to get in?’

Evan came down the steps, peered through the blinds of the dining room to watch her walk away.

‘Shit, Evan. Our neighbor lady knows something. She must have seen you—’

‘What she saw was a bare-assed kid running outside in the snow. We already know that.’

‘If that’s all she saw, why is she here snooping around? She called the cops and they did their thing. So what is she doing? What’s with the key?’

‘Who cares? It isn’t ours. It didn’t fit.’

Sty stepped close to Evan, breathing into his face. ‘Are you absolutely certain she didn’t see anything? Willing to bet your entire future on that conclusion?’

Evan stepped away. ‘What if I’m not? What are you suggesting? That we eliminate her?’ He had no objection to killing her, was still pumped from the excitement of moments ago when she’d stood a door’s width away from death, the anticipation of the attack.

Sty stood still, brows furrowed, arms crossed, the knife still in his hand. ‘First things first,’ he finally decided. ‘We can’t allow events to spiral out of control. No tangential moves. Let’s finish upstairs; then we’ll decide.’

Evan disagreed. ‘But who knows what she’s up to. We’re wasting time—’

‘Then let’s get this done quickly. One task at a time.’

Evan muttered, ‘Who made you fucking king?’ But Sty was already on his way up the steps without listening, without looking back.

Harper hung her jacket in the closet and stood for a moment, touching Hank’s parka and overcoat, missing him. Thinking about how slowly time was passing. How long it would be until he came home. She listened to the emptiness of the house, chided herself for wallowing. Changed her focus back to Lou, his secretive excursions late at night. His theft of the package, his casual reaction to the gutted rat.

The man was up to something. She was sure. In moments, Harper was upstairs in the guest room, going through his things. She opened a drawer, felt around in his socks and sweaters. Found a wire leading from the drawer to a socket, attached to a cell phone. Odd to have a cell phone in with his socks, but not incriminating. She opened the closet. Checked the pockets of his blazer and suit jackets. Felt the shelf above the clothes.

Nothing.

She sat on the bed, frustrated. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Lou just wandered around at night, opened other people’s mail, indulged her mother and made malapropisms. Maybe he was simply what he appeared to be.

But she remembered the edge to his voice, the quick flash in his eyes. And her instincts insisted that no, Lou was not as he appeared.

Sitting on the bed, she gazed around the room. What had she missed? The nightstand? She reached over, opened the drawer. Found a flashlight, a novel. Things she’d put there. She got up, went to the other side of the bed, looked in the other nightstand. Her mother’s spare reading glasses. Earrings. Vials of pills – oh, her mother was taking cholesterol medicine. And Zoloft? Wow. Was Vivian depressed?

Harper pondered that, replaced the pills, closed the drawer. Looked under the bed. Luggage. Stepped into the guest bathroom, rifled through Lou’s shaving kit, the medicine cabinet. Found only what belonged there. Soap, toothpaste, razor and shaving cream. She shut the medicine cabinet door, stared at herself in the mirror. What was she doing? What was she looking for? She looked away. Walked out of the bathroom, through the bedroom. Stopped at the linen closet and, just to be thorough, opened the door. Towels and bed sheets.

Enough, she told herself. Go lie down and rest. She looked around, making sure the room looked untouched. As she smoothed out the spot where she’d sat on the bed, her foot bumped the suitcase. Harper hesitated, aware that she had no business looking inside. That there was probably nothing in there anyway. But it was the only place left that Lou could have hidden something, so she pulled it out and opened it.

And gaped at the contents. She’d never seen so much cash before. Thick wads of it. Hundreds, fifties, twenties. Harper couldn’t even estimate how much there was – or why Lou would have it with him. She started to count, and sat surrounded by money. She’d gotten to seventy-five thousand and hadn’t made a dent when she was interrupted by a soft musical tone.

It came from inside the dresser drawer. Lou’s phone had begun to ring.

For the next few hours, Evan and Sty attended to the noxious mattress, cutting it into chunks and neatly depositing them into green plastic trash bags that they lined up at the rear door of the fraternity house. Then they made sure Rory’s floor and walls had been scrubbed clean, scuffing them up again to make them look pretty much the way they had at semester’s end.

Finally, there was just one more item to dispose of.

Sty sat on Evan’s box spring, staring at the body.

Evan squatted, examining it. Poking the stiff and rigid muscles. ‘We could do the same with him.’

Sty rubbed his eyes, sighing.

‘Seriously,’ Evan continued. ‘We cut him up, throw him out. The bags are in the junkyard. Nobody finds him. No sign he was ever even here.’ He stood, suddenly enthusiastic about his idea.

Sty pursed his lips, took a few breaths before answering. ‘And how do you propose we clean up the mess that would make?’

‘We do it in the shower. Use some bleach.’

Sty lay back on the box springs. ‘It’s unnecessary—’

‘So what’s your idea?’

‘As we planned originally. We deposit the body—’

‘Where someone might find it within hours. This way, there’s no chance of that.’

Sty sighed. ‘Do you have any idea how much gore we’d have to deal with? The mess?’

‘It’s meat, that’s all. No different than dressing a deer.’

‘As if you’ve ever hunted a deer. Besides, he’s still in rigor. We’d need a damned chain saw.’

Evan thought for a minute. Tried to move one of Sebastian’s arms. It was fixed, hard as steel. ‘We could go buy one—’

‘Great idea. And they could trace the purchase to us.’

‘Not if we pay cash. Besides, why would anyone care if we bought a saw? We could be cutting firewood or a Christmas tree—’

‘Dammit, Evan. We can’t keep improvising. Haven’t you listened to a single word I’ve said? We need to stick to the plan. We follow it step by step, meticulously. That way, we won’t make careless mistakes like Leopold—’

‘Fine,’ Evan snapped. ‘Whatever you say.’ Sty was being irrationally inflexible, but Evan couldn’t bear another Leopold and Loeb lecture. ‘But we better dump him soon, or we’ll never get the stink out of here.’

Sty got off the bed. ‘Right. We should get him out of here. You take the shoulders.’ He reached for Sebastian’s feet.

Together, they carried the body down the steps. As they reached the second-floor landing, Evan grunted, ‘Dammit.’

‘What?’ Sly stopped.

‘We’re giving my mattress to Rory. So where am I supposed to sleep?’

‘I’ll lend you my inflatable.’ Sty flared his nostrils. Sometimes, for a smart guy, Evan was shockingly, annoyingly oblique.

Harper opened the dresser drawer and pulled out the phone, held it and saw the name on the screen: Rita.

Rita?

Slowly, she raised the phone to her ear and pressed the button, answering the call but saying nothing.

‘Ed?’ The woman was breathless, urgent. ‘Ed? Why the hell haven’t you answered my calls? What’s going on?’

Harper waited while saying nothing.

‘Okay, don’t even answer. Don’t talk to me. I guess I don’t blame you after what happened. Still, I wish you’d understand the position I was in. I had no choice. It didn’t mean—’ She stopped, lowered her voice. ‘Anyway, I owe you. So I’m letting you know: I’m pretty sure Wally knows where you are. For the last few weeks, all he’s talked about is: “Where the fuck is Ed?” Now nothing. Now, he’s restless, not sleeping, jumpy as shit, and you know what that means.’

The woman stopped talking. Waiting. Harper waited, too; she had no idea what it meant.

‘Ed?’

Harper didn’t dare breathe.

‘Ed? You still got nothing to say to me? Not even: “Thanks, Rita”? Not a word?’

She paused, giving him a chance.

‘Okay, well, fuck you. We’re even now, and you can go to hell. But Wally’s waiting to hear that you’re dead, so take my advice and watch your fucking back.’

Rita hung up, and Harper repeated her final words. Wally, whoever he was, was waiting to find out that Ed, who was obviously really Lou, was dead. Had he arranged for someone to kill Lou? Harper recalled the package, addressed to Ed. Had the dead rat been a warning? A message saying that Wally knew where he was, had his address, could get to him? Could make him as dead as the rat?

Harper replaced the phone where she’d found it, thinking about what she would do. Whoever this Lou or Ed guy was, he was staying in her home. And, if people were trying to kill him, then her mother and she and the baby were also in danger. And that, she would not allow.

The gun was hidden under the mattress. A Colt .45 with a box of ammunition. And a bunch of papers, a handful of passports, drivers’ licenses with Lou’s picture and different names: Frederick Lowry, Peter Flemming. Oliver Hines. Damn. Who was this guy? A spy? A con artist? And how dare he bring a gun into her house? Harper sputtered, lifting the mattress to see if other weapons had been stashed there, remembering too late that she wasn’t supposed to exert herself. A startling stab shot through her abdomen, and she dropped the mattress, cursing. Flopping onto the bed in a fetal position, waiting for the pain to pass. Wondering what it was – it hadn’t been a contraction. Maybe a pulled muscle? Whatever it was, she had to take it easy. Couldn’t lift things. Lying on the guest bed, she looked around the room, identifying hiding places. Was anything behind the vent? Taped under the dresser? Inside the toilet tank? When she got her breath back, she took her time, moving from spot to spot, feeling and reaching and looking, but finding nothing more. She was examining Lou’s pockets, when she heard her mother’s car pull into the driveway. Quickly, she closed the closet door, surveyed the room to make sure it looked the way she’d found it. Stepped into the hallway just as Vivian called from the foyer.