Slice (17 page)

T
HIRTY-TWO

T
he night was quiet. Not even the crickets were chirping. A sliver of moonlight striped the floor. Abby lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting.

Then she heard it.

The whistle.

Just a low sound, hardly anything more than the stray call of a bird. Abby could hear it through her window, even though the window was closed. The little girl didn't move at first. She waited to hear the whistle again, which she did. Then she threw off her sheet and stepped out of her bed.

Moving over to the window, she looked down into the yard. There, in the moonlight, stood her friend.

Her only friend.

No one else at school talked to her but Aaron.

The little boy lifted his hand and gestured for her to come down and join him. It was better that way. Mommy would hear them if they played up here again.

Abby pulled on a hoodie that was hanging on the post of her bed, and stuck her bare feet into a pair of sneakers. She didn't bother trying to tie the pink laces, since she wasn't that good at it yet, and she certainly wasn't going to ask Mommy.

She opened the door of her room and peeked out into the hall. There was no one in sight. She tiptoed toward the steps, pausing at the top to listen. She could hear Mommy in the kitchen, the soft tap-tap-tap of her computer keyboard reaching the little girl's ears. When Abby had gone to bed, Mommy had been sitting at the kitchen table, trying to write. Abby was glad that her mother seemed to be writing now. She knew Mommy was always happiest when she was writing.

She took the first few steps down the stairs.

Abby knew sneaking out of the house was bad, and she didn't like to be bad. But Aaron was outside waiting for her. She couldn't say no to Aaron. She would just have to be very, very quiet so Mommy didn't hear.

Abby reached the bottom of the stairs. She peered around to look into the kitchen. Mommy was at the table, with her back facing Abby. But the moment Abby made a move toward the front door, Mommy stopped typing and got up out of her chair. Abby froze, taking a step back on the staircase, ready to scramble back up to her room. But Mommy moved out of the little girl's view. Abby heard the refrigerator open, and then the pop of a lid on a can of Diet Coke.

In that instant, Abby made a mad dash for the door.

 

 

In the kitchen, Jessie thought she heard a sound.

Taking a sip of her Diet Coke, she strolled out into the living room. She looked around and saw nothing. Then she noticed the front screen door wasn't closed tightly. That must have been what she'd heard—the door rattling. She thought she had shut it securely earlier—and locked it, too. She'd been very careful about keeping the doors locked ever since Inga's death. She pulled the door shut, pressing the lock into place. It was an old lock, and could easily come loose. That must have been what had happened. Even a breeze could rattle the door and unlock it. She needed to fix it. Jessie looked outside. It was such a quiet night. Even the crickets were silent. The trees stood utterly still. There was no breeze, none at all.

So how had this door come unlocked?

T
HIRTY-THREE

“
B
ut I don't
wanna
go to bed!” Ashton was shrieking.

“Our mother never makes us go to bed this early!” Piper wailed.

Consuela was having none of their guff. “It's past nine o'clock,” the housekeeper-cook-assistant told the children. “And nine o'clock is your bedtime on Sunday nights.”

Heather was still at the Radisson Hotel downtown, overseeing a catering job. Consuela was standing at the bottom of the stairs, pointing her finger up at Ashton and Piper and telling them to stop yelling and screaming and throwing things and get to bed. Bryan, meanwhile, sat within earshot in the living room, pouring himself another Manhattan. He preferred not to get involved in such squabbles.

“You're just a
servant
!” Ashton shouted at Consuela. “You work for
us
! You can't tell us what to do.”

“Your mother left me in charge,” Consuela replied, hands on hips now. “And she said you should be in bed by nine.”

“I wonder if you're even in this country legally,” Piper charged, tossing a tennis ball down at Consuela. In the living room, Bryan heard it hit the marble floor and bounce several times.

“If my father wants us to go to bed, he'd tell us himself,” Ashton whined.

Bryan paused, his drink to his lips. Sure enough, Consuela poked her head in the room. “Mr. Pierce?” she asked, her face tired.

“Get to bed, you goddamn brats!” Bryan shouted at the top of his lungs.

He heard muttering and grumbling and maybe even a curse word or two. First and second graders using “fucks” and “shits.” What kind of kids were they raising?

But there was no more whining. He could hear the kids scuttling overhead into their respective bedrooms.

“Thank you, Mr. Pierce,” Consuela said.

“Don't mention it,” Bryan said, taking another sip of his Manhattan. “By the way, Consuela, you'll be here for a while longer, won't you?”

“I told Heather I'd wait for her to get back so I could help her put away the dishes from the catering job,” she replied.

Bryan smiled. “Good. Because I'm going for a walk. Just out to the brook and back.”

“Oh, do be careful, Mr. Pierce,” Consuela pleaded. “They still haven't caught that madman who killed that poor German girl.”

Bryan laughed. “My money's on Todd Bennett as the killer. Probably killed the chick because she rebuffed his advances.”

“Oh, no, I don't think Mr. Bennett—”

Bryan stood up. “One never knows what a man is capable of, Consuela,” he told her with a wink. “Or what lurks down deep in his soul.”

Consuela shivered and hurried off to the kitchen.

The whisky was making Bryan feel agitated. He couldn't just sit there anymore. Since the other night, he'd been completely unable to get his sweet Jessaloo off his mind. He had to see her. He suspected strongly she was still in love with him. Otherwise she wouldn't have reacted so intensely that day of the picnic when he'd come on to her.

He figured she'd be alone tonight. Her kid would be asleep.

He'd just pop by and say hello.

Maybe he'd even stop and pick her one of Heather's pink roses that were growing on the side of the house. He'd even pluck off all the thorns.

Bryan smiled.

Yes, he'd do just that.

A rose without any thorns.

That would win her over.

T
HIRTY-FOUR

G
ert Gorin was feeling restless. Arthur was snoozing in his chair, having fallen asleep in the middle of the baseball game on television. Gert had switched the channel, watching some of Bill O'Reilly and then a little of an old melodrama starring Ava Gardner on Turner Classic Movies. But she had a sense that something was happening tonight. And Gert had learned a long time ago to trust her senses.

They'd never failed her. She had known that Millie Manning had taken that swan dive off her back deck even before any cops had arrived. Gert had heard something, a strange kind of thud. It had come from across the street, from the direction of the Manning house. Granted, the Manning house was several yards down the road, and surrounded by the big security wall and all those tall pine trees. But still Gert had heard something. She figured she had supersonic ears. She'd gotten out her binoculars, hidden behind a bush and tried to see what she could find out, aiming the specs at the Manning mansion. She had seen nothing unusual, but it hadn't been long before she'd heard the sirens. Gert had been right. Something had indeed happened over there.

Millie Manning was dead. And her husband may well have pushed her off that deck.

Tonight Gert felt the same sort of tingling. It started at the base of her neck, at the top of her spine, and crept down her arms and into her fingers. She switched off the TV and got up off the couch.

“Hey!” Arthur croaked, immediately awake. “Why'd you turn off my game?”

“Here,” she said, tossing him the remote control. It landed in his lap. “I'm taking a walk.”

“At this hour?”

“Something's up,” she told him. “I can feel it.”

“You'll never learn, Gert,” her husband said.

Gert pulled on a sweater and headed outside.

The night was chilly. Summer really was ending, she realized, and fall was around the corner, and then winter not long after that. Gert hugged herself for warmth and hurried across the grass toward the road. She looked around. Not a soul to be seen. Not a sound. The lights were on in Jessie's house, but dark in Monica's. Gert thought she could detect a light through the trees over at the Manning mansion, but she couldn't be certain. The other houses of Hickory Dell—where the Pierces and old Mr. Thayer dwelled—were farther down the road, hidden by the woods, and Gert couldn't see them.

So where did this tingle in her arms come from?

Then she heard the snap of a twig.

Gert snapped her head in that direction. She spied a flash of color across the street, down toward the end of the cul-de-sac.

She was frightened. Maybe she was being foolish wandering outside in the dark. After all, a few weeks ago, a girl had been brutally murdered out here, on a dark, still night much like this one. Gert thought she should just scurry back into the house now. But instead she ducked behind a tall blue spruce tree in her front yard and peered across the street toward the place where she'd seen the flash of color. There. She saw it again.

Children.

Two children were walking through the woods down to the brook. For the slightest of seconds, the kids emerged from the shadows and walked through a column of moonlight, and Gert thought she recognized one of them as Abby Clarkson. The other child was a boy. . . .

No, Gert thought, not Ashton Pierce. Even from this distance and in the dim light of the moon, Gert could tell the child didn't have red hair.

The boy with Abby looked more like the one who'd been sitting in her gazebo a few weeks earlier.

Now why would Jessie let her daughter wander down to the brook this late at night—and with the killer of her nanny still not caught?

The children disappeared into the trees. Gert lost sight of them.

But then, still peering through the branches of her blue spruce, she spotted something else.

Bryan Pierce, crossing the street, and slinking through the shadows toward Jessie's house. And Gert was certain that he was carrying a rose.

Her fear finally getting the best of her, Gert scrambled back inside.

“Well, how do you like these apples?” she announced to Arthur as she strode into the kitchen. “Bryan Pierce is carrying on an affair with Jessie Clarkson!”

“I thought it was his wife who was carrying on an affair with John Manning,” Arthur grumbled, his eyes on the television set.

“I don't know where that affair stands,” Gert said, “but I just saw Bryan sneaking up Jessie's driveway carrying a rose.”

Arthur shook his head. “Don't think that's the kind of proof that would stand up in a court of law.”

“I knew that girl was trouble ever since she first hooked up with that Emil Deetz!” Gert declared. “And do you know, she lets her five-year-old daughter traipse through the woods after dark. . . .”

A thought occurred to her at that moment. Maybe Jessie didn't know Abby was outside. Maybe she'd appreciate Gert giving her a call to tell her that she'd just seen her daughter wandering down by the brook. And even if Jessie
did
know Abby was outside, getting her on the phone right about now could give Gert a clue about what was going on with Bryan. . . . Maybe she'd even hear Bryan in the background.

She quickly punched in Jessie's number on her wall phone.

“Who you calling?” Arthur wanted to know.

“Hush,” his wife commanded.

The phone rang and rang, finally switching over to voice mail. Gert frowned. She decided not to leave a message. Instead, she headed back outside to see if she could spot the children again.

Maybe she ought to walk them back up to Jessie's house. . . .

T
HIRTY-FIVE

J
essie was halfway up the stairs when her phone rang. She considered going back downstairs and answering it, but then decided against it.

She was worried all of a sudden.

Worried about Abby.

Maybe it was just residual jitters after Inga's death. But ever since she'd found the front door unlocked, Jessie hadn't been able to concentrate on her writing.

Maybe it wasn't jitters.

Maybe it was a mother's sixth sense.

So she let the phone ring as she continued up the stairs toward Abby's room.

T
HIRTY-SIX

“
W
here are we going?” Abby asked Aaron.

They had stepped over the brook and continued deeper into the woods.

“A special place,” Aaron replied, easily making his way across the sticks and twigs and stones despite his bare feet.

Abby was glad she'd worn her sneakers, even if she did keep stumbling on the untied laces.

Up ahead a dark shape loomed among the trees. Abby had never been this far in the woods before.

“I'm scared,” she said.

Aaron turned around and took her hand. “Come on, Abby. You'll like this place.”

The dark shape in the trees, as they drew closer, revealed itself to be an old, dilapidated barn. Aaron held Abby's hand tightly as they passed through the big open door. The roof of the structure had collapsed in several places, allowing moonlight to fill much of the interior. Aaron led Abby over several piles of wood and rusted old piping. With Aaron leading the way, the little girl felt less frightened.

“This is a very special place,” Aaron told her.

The barn smelled of old hay and mold. Abby sneezed. At one end, an old tractor rusted in the dark. Empty horse stalls lined another wall. Above, in a section where the roof still held firm, a series of beams ran the width of the barn.

“Let's go up there,” Aaron suggested.

Abby looked up. The beams were very high, but not so high that they scared her. After all, she'd lived her first five years in New York City, and she'd often been in buildings much higher than those beams.

“Okay,” she said to Aaron.

“We'll climb this ladder here,” he told her, pointing to a ladder that rose up from the floor to the first of the beams, “and then walk across the beam and jump into that pile of hay over there.” Abby followed the direction of the little boy's finger. At the far end of the barn, under the broken roof, was a mound of hay that looked soft and inviting from here. Aaron's idea sounded like fun.

But the ladder seemed weak and rickety when Abby touched it. She instinctively pulled back.

“I'll go first,” Aaron told her, “so you'll see that it's safe.”

Abby stood back and let him climb.

Aaron quickly scrambled up the ladder. It barely bent under his weight. Hopping easily from the top rung onto the beam, the boy moved like a cat across its length. He didn't even look down. He just walked along the beam in his bare feet as if he'd done it many times before. Maybe he had, Abby thought.

At the end of the beam, he stood over the haystack.

“Watch me, Abby!” he called.

Aaron leapt into the air. He tumbled down gracefully, turning a somersault in the air. He landed on his butt into the hay, which acted like a soft cushion, breaking his fall. His laughter echoed through the old barn.

“Now you do it, Abby!” he sang out.

Abby thought it looked like a lot of fun. So she grabbed hold of the ladder with both hands and put her right foot onto the first rung. The ladder trembled in her hands and made a long, low creaking sound. She took another step up the ladder and it shook some more. She paused, worried that the ladder might break.

“Come on, Abby!” Aaron called.

Abby took a deep breath, and then another step.