Dead Man Falls (37 page)

The young man was nice-looking, probably in his mid-twenties, average height and above average build. He wore khakis, a green polo shirt and a pistol on his hip. I have come to realize that sort of thing is not so unusual around here, but it still kind of unsettled me. As I studied the guy a little more, a shiver prickled the hairs on my neck and a flash of recognition flickered just outside my grasp. Was this Nathan Irwin? Nadine’s son? Nephew? How did I know him?

"The officers are just here asking some questions," Pollock said, eyeing the kid. "Are you Nadine’s boy?"

"I’m Nathan Irwin. Do I know you?"

Pollock adjusted the lapels of his sport coat, affected a cocky grin and stuck out his hand. "Willard Pollock. Nice to--"

"Pollock? You’re Willard Pollock?" Nathan glanced over his shoulder toward the house again. "The one who sent the letter?"

"Well, yeah. Used to be married to your mother years ago, although I wasn’t the best husband around. Wanted to apologize for all that."

He looked at the house again. "I don’t know what you wrote in the letter, but it really messed her up."

"That’s sure not what I intended," Pollock said, shaking his head sadly. "I wronged your mother, and wanted to make things right. That’s why I’m here."

After a few seconds, Nathan turned toward me and cocked his head, his lips curving upward in an arrogant half-smirk. An irksome and unpleasantly familiar pose that made my stomach turn inward on itself.

"You’re Jolene," he said. "Older than the pictures, but still about the same. Should have noticed it right off."

He knew me from old pictures? How? And why, oh why, did he look like Willard Pollock--the younger dark-haired version--I used to know and hate?

I looked him over again, trying to convince myself I was wrong, that the light was just playing tricks on me, that I’d lost my mind, anything. But no. There was no mistaking the similarities. The build, the chin, teeth, eyes, hair, and that irritating and assuming cocky grin. Not a carbon copy, but darned close. "You really are his kid."

Pollock jerked to attention, then frowned and stared at Nathan. "What?"

Nathan snorted. "The man’s name may be on my birth certificate, but that means nothing. I was adopted. Mother never told me, of course. She just said my father had died before I was born. But I found the court papers when I was very young. So, biologically speaking," he nodded to Pollock, "he’s not my father any more than she’s my mother."

Oh, I wouldn’t want to bet the farm on that one. If Pollock was being straight earlier, Nadine couldn’t have given birth to Nathan, but Pollock sure could have fathered him. And while I was in a betting mood, I’d say that Rhonda was responsible for the other half of his gene pool. And his looks had nothing to do with it.

"Nadine knew Rhonda was going to Abilene. And she knew why," I said to Pollock. "She got what she’d always wanted, and she got another jab at you while she was at it. Kind of sick, if you ask me, but it makes sense."

Willard Pollock’s cocky pose melted away. "You really think..." he muttered, looking at Nathan. "Holy shit."

Oh, yes. It was looking like Nadine Irwin Pollock had adopted her ex-husband’s illegitimate child. On purpose. I glanced at Nathan who was not doing too well at following the banter. "You never tried to find out anything about your birth mother?"

"No. I don’t know anything about either biological parent, and it doesn’t matter."

Oh, it mattered.

"Nathan, boy," Pollock said, composing himself a little. "We need to sit down and talk about some things."

"Nothing to talk about." Nathan took a deep ragged breath and balled his hands into fists. "I know more about both of you than anyone should ever have to."

Huh? Why would he know about us? Wouldn’t Nadine have wanted to forget that awful time in her life, take her baby and move on?

Nathan's lip curled and his nostrils flared. "When most toddlers were listening to Mother Goose, I sat with that ugly yellow yearbook, listening to her tell me stories about the people in the pictures. Strangers I didn’t know and never would. Or so I thought."

Ugly yellow yearbook? Uh-oh. I feared there was only one those ever created in the entire state, maybe even the world. And his mother had told him stories from it instead of nursery rhymes? Yuck. Oh, my, but we had ourselves one warped individual. We also had a darned good motive for murder.

The repetitive torture of looking at the insipid cover was probably enough to inspire homicidal tendencies. But add in Mommy’s obviously twisted spin on the contents and you had a blueprint for "How to Create a Sociopath 101."

That ugly little fear bug dug its teeth into me as stared into the face of a killer. And worse, his mother had apparently put him up to it.

"We really need to be going," I said, wondering if a scream would bring Jerry out of the house.

"How strange it was," Nathan continued. "Knowing the intimate details of people I'd never met, that had nothing to do with me, yet knowing nothing of my own origins."

Oh, he knew. Mommy had undoubtedly given him plenty of details about his birth parents whether he wanted it or not--or even understood it-- not that I was going to tell him the truth and squirrel up his brain even more. "Nice meeting you, Nathan," I said, and sorry about your screwed-up childhood. "We need to be going. Jerry got a call from dispatch--"

"Jerry?" Nathan snapped his head around toward the house again. "Jerry Don Parker? Sheriff Parker?"

I nodded.

Nathan spun on his heel and broke into a run. He raced to the side of the house and through the open iron gate.

I looked at Pollock and we both broke into a run, following as fast as we could.

At the back of the house, a sliding patio door stood open, beige curtains still swaying. We vaulted up the steps, through the door and into a large open family room.

Panting and blinking to adjust to the dimness, I saw a huge kitchen on the left and a formal dining room behind that. Straight in front of us, Nathan Irwin stood silhouetted in the doorway of what was probably a formal living area.

"I didn’t want to believe it," he said, his voice a mix of shock and anguish. "Oh, Mother, how could you?"

Nerves prickled along my back and the uneasiness I’d felt outside turned to pure terror. What had she done?
And, please God, tell me it hadn't been done to Jerry.
I wanted to panic, really I did, but another voice kept screaming, "do something," so I did.

I slid my hand down to the pistol at my waist, flipped the strap off with my thumb and eased it from its holster. I released the safety and held the gun close. I'd chambered a round earlier, so I didn't have to worry about the distinctive
chink-chink
attracting attention. Only when a big whoosh of air escaped my lips did I realize I’d been holding my breath.

Nathan didn't look back and took a step further into the living room.

As he did, I caught sight of a tall gray-haired woman in a floral dress, sitting on a Victorian style settee, a sterling silver tea set on the table in front of her.

"Now, Nathan," she said, "you know I have only your best interests at heart, dear. I’ve spent my whole life trying to take care of you and I’m certainly not going to stop now. These are just things that must be done."

Nathan said something that I couldn’t quite understand, but the tone sounded stern.

"Oh, now, don’t be silly, darling. I’ve just made a fresh pot of tea for the nice young officers. Have your friends back there come in and join us too."

Tea? Jerry was having tea with Nadine? Not likely. If he was in that room--and able--he wouldn’t be sitting there sipping hot tea. He’d be saying something, doing something. Why wasn’t he? Why wasn’t Rick? And had she just referred to friends--me and Pollock?

I didn’t much like the questions popping through my head, but I liked the probable answers even less. I walked a few steps closer, keeping to the side of the doorway, holding my pistol just as I’d been taught, but keeping it down in front of me.

Pollock strutted past me without a word and marched into the room toward Nadine. "Hello, honey."

Nadine jumped to her feet. "Willard! You finally came!" Her voice lilted up in an excited little yip. "You should have called first, of course. You always did have a problem with that. I never knew when you’d show up or when you wouldn’t. And now, here you are and I’m not at all prepared."

"We have to talk about a few things, honey," Pollock said. "That’s why I’m here."

She smiled brightly and clasped her hands in front of her chest. "You showing up, after all these years, why it's just so sweet. I never expected to see you again, you know, and then you sent that letter..."

Pollock took a few more steps toward her. "Nadine--"

"Now, Willard, let's not rush things," she said.

"Honey--"

"Oh, stop it!" she snapped, her voice flipping from syrupy sweet to low and feral. "We’ll talk when
I’m
ready to talk. But first"--back to the sappy voice--"we must all have a nice cup of tea." She sat back down and snapped her fingers. "Nathan, dear, have your guest in the other room come in and join us."

Nathan didn’t come out the door immediately to get me, but he would, I knew that. And I didn’t know what to do about it. Shoot him? Hold him at gun point?

A thousand more questions shot through my mind, but one thing seemed pretty clear. If Jerry and Rick were in that room with Nadine, they were not okay. I refused to consider how not okay. I took a deep breath and held it, trying to force away any emotion--or speculation that would spark emotion--and just do what had to be done.

The problem was I didn’t have the training or experience to handle something like this. One little handgun safety class does not a professional make, and this situation called for a professional--a whole team of them, in fact.

Since I was neither a police officer nor a psychologist, my odds of gaining control with either words or bullets was not good. Furthermore, I didn’t know what I needed to gain control of. Who all had weapons besides Nathan? Did Nadine? Was there someone else in the room as well?

If I walked in there with a gun in my hand, it was highly likely I wouldn’t get to keep it long. Right now, no one knew I even had a gun and it seemed best that I keep it that way. I slid the pistol back in its holster and pulled my shirt over it just as Nathan came through the door.

"Mother wants you to join your friends for tea."

If Jerry and Rick were capable of speaking, they would be. So, either they were dead or maybe gagged. Or, maybe she'd drugged them with the tea and they were unconscious. I like those last two options far better than the first. In fact, the idea that Nadine had offered them tainted tea and they accepted just to be polite was a theory I could work with. Unconscious instead of dead was even better. "I’m not much into tea, thanks. I’ll have a Dr Pepper instead, in the can, unopened. Want me to get it myself from the kitchen over there?"

"Do what she says," Nathan hissed, stepping behind me. "You won’t like it if she gets upset."

"I think it’s little late for that," I muttered.

Again, I tried to assess what role he was playing in the game. He'd sounded surprised, and maybe even a little angry, when he’d first walked into the living room, but now he was doing what his mother said. Why?

The look on his face and the way he was acting made me think he was scared. Scared of his mother, the situation, or both? Maybe it was just the multiple-murder thing that made him nervous. Maybe he was better one on one. "Are you sure this is what you want to do, Nathan?"

He grabbed my arm and shoved me forward. "I don’t see a choice at the moment."

Yeah, neither did I.

He prodded me ahead of him toward the living room. "Don’t be disrespectful. She hates that."

Don’t we all.

As I got closer to the doorway, I took a better look at Nadine Irwin. She wore a long floral dress similar to the one I'd seen her in at the falls and her dark hair was again pulled back in a severe bun. She had a static smile on her face and a wicked Stepford Wives glow in her eyes. The woman who’d made a point of chatting with me at the opening ceremony was indeed the same woman who’d been standing behind the young man tossing the package of yellow cord--the same young man who was standing behind me right now.

Nathan Irwin.

Nate, the security guard.

The pieces fell into place like toppling dominoes. Nate had been the one to discover Red White’s body. He’d also been there the night Rhonda was found--the same night his mother had gone to get him a burger. No wonder the killer had been able to dump the bodies without anybody noticing. The one who was supposed to notice
was
the killer--or the killer’s mother or son, depending.

They had to be in on it together. Nathan probably did the heavy hauling--maybe even the executions--but I’d bet nutty Nadine was the one calling the shots. She’d apparently trained him since birth for the job.

I paused in the doorway, trying to get my bearings. Gold flocked wallpaper, old photographs and ornate mirrors covered the walls. It was in one of the mirrors that I first caught a glimpse of Jerry, or at least the top of his head. My gut reaction was to race into the room to see if he was okay, and Rick. But somehow I managed to stop myself. I also didn’t scream, cry, grovel, or throw up, although hysteria was pushing me to do all of the above.

I sucked in a deep breath and held it, shutting out my own internal noise and any distractions. I would not allow myself to think that Jerry and Rick were already dead. I would not. Letting my breath out slowly, I took a tentative step inside the room, then snapped my head to my immediate left.

Pollock stood beside an oversized red brocade settee. Rick’s blonde head slumped against the armrest beside him. Jerry at the far end.

They both looked dead. Despite my best intentions to stay calm, my heart caught in my throat.

Then, I saw Jerry’s chest move slightly, and move again in slow, shaky breaths. Rick was breathing too, but very, very slowly. They were alive, but barely.