Tell Me You're Sorry (26 page)

“All right already, I'm coming!” someone called from inside the house.

Ryan couldn't believe it. Someone was actually home.

“Who is it?” the woman yelled. “Who's there?” It sounded like she was on the other side of the door now. And she sounded pissed off.

“My name's Ryan!” he called. He figured she was looking right at him through the peephole. “I'm sorry to bother you. I'm looking for someone who used to live in this house.”

He heard the chain lock rattling. Then the door opened a couple of inches—as far as the chain allowed. A frumpy-looking, thirtyish blonde glared at him through the crack. “If you're really looking for someone who
used
to live here, then they wouldn't be here
now
, would they?”

Ryan tried to smile. “Um, that's a good point. I was hoping you might know how I could get ahold of them. The family who lived here was named Metcalf. This was back in the eighties.”

She quickly shook her head. “I have no idea who you're talking about.” It looked like she was about to shut the door.

“Hey, wait a minute, okay?” Ryan said. “Is there someone on the cul-de-sac who's lived here for a while—someone who might have known them?”

She rolled her eyes. “Try the Sperrys—1123.” She shut the door in his face.

“Okay, thanks a lot!” Ryan called in his best wiseass manner. “It was really great talking to you! Bye!”

He turned away, and retreated to his car. “What an asshole,” he muttered.

After only a few minutes parked in the driveway, the VW was already baking inside. Backing out of the driveway, he turned around and started looking for the address.

The house at 1123 was a graceful old Tudor with a beautifully maintained lawn. There were two cars in the driveway. That was a good sign. Ryan parked on the street. On his way to the front door, he said a little prayer these people would be home and a little nicer than their skanky neighbor down the block. He rang the bell.

He heard some activity inside—muted voices, then footsteps. The door was opened by a man in his mid-forties with receding sandy-colored hair. His eyes had dark circles under them. He wore shorts and an oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Hi, my name's Ryan, and I was wondering if Mr. or Mrs. Sperry is home.”

“Mr. Sperry passed away six years ago,” he said, scratching his chin. “And Mrs. Sperry—well, she can't come to the door. I'm her son-in-law. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Um, I was hoping Mrs. Sperry could tell me something about a family that used to live in the gray house down the block. Their name was Metcalf.”

“Who is it, Jeff?” someone called from inside the house.

He glanced over his shoulder, and then nodded at Ryan. “Come on in,” he said. “And just wait right here for a minute, okay? You can leave the door open . . .”

As soon as Ryan stepped over the threshold, a rank smell hit him. It was like rotten fruit. At least they had the air-conditioning cranked up. He waited in the foyer—as he was told. He couldn't quite see into the living room, where he heard people murmuring. But there was a mirror on one wall, allowing him a glimpse of what was going on just around the corner. A hospital bed was set up in the living room. An old woman was in the bed, surrounded by a small group of people—some sitting, some standing. Ryan noticed the man who had answered the door. He whispered something to a red-haired woman in a sleeveless blouse and shorts. She nodded, patted his shoulder, and then stepped away. Ryan couldn't see her in the mirror anymore.

After a moment, she came around the corner with her purse slung over her shoulder. She was pretty, and about the same age as the man, who was probably her husband. “Hi, I'm Gretchen, Mrs. Sperry's daughter,” she said. “My mom, she—well, she's sick. Actually, she's dying. My family's been keeping a vigil for the last two days. C'mon, let's go outside . . .”

Ryan followed her out to the front stoop. It felt good to breathe fresh air again. He realized the awful smell inside the house had been death.

Gretchen dug into her purse and took out a pack of Virginia Slims. “Look at me,” she said, lighting her cigarette. “I'm sneaking a smoke while my mother lies in there dying of cancer.”

“I'm really sorry,” Ryan said. “And I—I apologize for my timing, too. It really sucks.”

She let out a tired laugh. “Don't worry about it. They'll give me a yell if there's any change. I was looking for an excuse to step outside for a few minutes.” She leaned against the doorframe and puffed on her cigarette. “So—my husband told me. Your name is Ryan, and you want to know about the Metcalfs.”

“Yeah, Mark Metcalf was a friend of my father's, and I'm trying to track him down—Mark, that is.”

She sighed and exhaled some smoke. “Well, I'm not sure if I can be any help. The last time I saw Mark was at his mother's funeral, which was in '95 or '96. He had a girl with him. I think she was his fiancée. He was a sportscaster for some TV station in Oklahoma City. Or maybe he was the weatherman, I forget. Anyway, he was on the local news there. I'm afraid that's all I know—and that was almost twenty years ago.”

“Does he have any brothers or sisters?” Ryan asked.

Gretchen shook her head. “No. After Mrs. Metcalf died, Mark's dad moved to Florida. I'm not sure whether or not he's still alive.”

“Did you know Mark well? Did you know any of his friends?”

“No, he was a few years older than me. I have to admit, I hardly noticed him. He always had some sort of job. I think he worked at a country club for a while—”

“Lake Ridge Country Club,” Ryan said.

“That sounds right,” Gretchen said, shrugging. “Like I said, I didn't pay much attention to him. I can't tell you anything about the crowd he hung out with—or if he even had a crowd. He was a real nice guy, but kind of nerdy, you know? Then he hit college and wow, something happened, because he came back for summer vacation looking really good.” She smiled wistfully. “I remember when he was still gawky-looking, my mom used to say, ‘That Metcalf boy is going to be a real heartbreaker when he gets a little older.' And she was right.”

She took one last drag of her cigarette, dropped it on the stoop, and ground it out underneath her sandal. She nudged it off the front stoop with her foot. “Anyway, I should get back inside,” she said. “I'm not sure I was much help.”

“You were,” Ryan said. “Thanks a lot. And I'm—I'm really sorry about your mom.”

Gretchen opened the door, but then she turned to smile at him. She had tears in her eyes. “Let me give you a little bit of advice, Ryan,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “They might drive you crazy once in a while. But cherish the time you have with your folks while they're still around. Okay?”

Ryan felt his throat tighten. He decided not to tell her it was too late for him.

He managed to work up a smile, and nodded. “Okay,” he whispered.

 

 

 

“So—I Googled ‘Mark Metcalf, TV News,' and of course, I got all these stupid links about the actor again. But I finally found something—a Web site for the KIXY TV news team in Seattle. That's right by you, isn't it?”

“It's about a three-and-a-half-hour drive,” she said, “or fifty-three minutes from gate to gate if you're flying.”

Stephanie was on her cell phone, standing by the window in her room at the Airport Executive Inn. She'd shut the drapes earlier, but now parted one curtain back to look out at the parking lot. She was pretty sure no one had followed her here.

After finding the Royal Doulton figurine in her bedroom, she'd packed in a hurry. That included the figurine of the old woman selling balloons. Even though it seemed slightly tainted now that these killers had handled it, the piece still had sentimental value. She'd thought about calling the police, but it seemed pointless. Her credibility with them was next to zero. She'd reported the piece as stolen from her sister's house in Croton back in November, and now it was in her home. How could she explain it to them? Would they believe that the killers of her sister's family were terrorizing her?

The cops wouldn't buy it at all.

So Stephanie had packed her suitcase. She'd deleted all the e-mails to and from Ryan in her desktop computer, and then unplugged the thing. After setting her home security alarm, she hurried to her car in the garage and drove all over Portland. Once she was sure no one was following her, she checked into the Airport Executive Inn—a mere four miles from her house. She had enough points accrued from all her travels to stay there for free. She registered under her own name, and parked close to the back where no one could see her car from the street.

She'd been contemplating a trip to Chicago so she could talk with Selena Jayne's father in person. She'd also planned to ask about Mark Metcalf at his old address in Evanston.

But Ryan had beaten her to the punch in the hunt for Mark Metcalf. Apparently, Lake Ridge Country Club's former valet wasn't in Chicago anymore. He was just fifty-three minutes away.

“They have his picture on the KIXY TV Web site,” Ryan continued. “The neighbor on Terry Lane said he got better looking as he got older, but I still recognized him from the 1986 photo. They had his bio on the Web site, too,” Ryan continued. “Born in St. Louis, went to college at the University of Colorado, got his start at a TV station in Oklahoma City. They never mentioned Chicago. Maybe that's because he'd just as soon forget about it.”

“Did they say if he was married or not?” Stephanie asked.

“I was just getting to that. The bio said he has a wife and two kids. So—then I went online and googled

‘Mark Metcalf, KIXY TV News.' There's a video of him on YouTube, flubbing a line and accidentally saying ‘shit' on the air. It's pretty funny. But more important, there's a
Seattle Times
obituary for his wife, Dina. She died a month ago.”

“How?”

“ ‘An accident in the home,' the article said, which sounded like bullshit to me. I mean, if she broke her neck falling off a ladder or tripping down a flight of stairs, why not just say so? But that ‘accident' business was the official story they gave. So I went looking on the blogs, and found something. Dina Metcalf died of carbon monoxide poisoning after parking her vintage Oldsmobile in the family garage and leaving the motor on. Looks like suicide.”

“The key words here are
looks like
,” Stephanie said.

“So if the suicide was staged, that pretty much means my mom and your sister didn't kill themselves, right?”

“That's what I was thinking,” Stephanie said. “It never made any sense to me that Rebecca committed suicide. But in a strange, twisted way, it makes sense that she was murdered. It's all part of a pattern. They do away with the wife, staging it like a suicide. The husband is left confused, vulnerable, feeling guilty. Then he meets some woman who builds him up again . . .”

“Only so that they can kill him—along with the new wife and the kids,” Ryan said.

Stephanie realized he was right. They didn't kill any of these husbands while they were still grieving. They waited until their lives seemed back on track again. It was like waiting until a sick prisoner got well before executing him.

“So do you suppose this Metcalf guy has met his future Mrs. yet?” Ryan asked.

“That's the key, the new wife,” Stephanie said. “She's part of this. I don't know how they're getting these women to cooperate. Obviously, these women are going in on these schemes not knowing they'll end up dead—and disfigured.”

Stephanie glanced at her wristwatch, and grabbed the little leather folder from on top of the TV. She'd stayed in enough hotels throughout the Pacific North-west to know that some of the dish companies in other cities carried Seattle stations in their lineup.

There it was amid the TV stations listed in the channel guide: KIXY Channel 15 (Seattle).

With the remote, she switched on the TV, muted it, and set the channel to 15. There was a commercial for toilet paper with a cartoon bear.

“Do you think this is at all tied to that waitress disappearing back in 1986?” Ryan asked.

“Possibly,” Stephanie said, still eyeing the TV. “That reminds me. I have an address for the father. Mr. Jayne's working at an Episcopal church in Glenview. I confirmed it with someone there. He lives in the garage apartment behind the rectory.”

“That's fantastic. What's the address?”

“No—no, forget it. I don't want you taking any chances. So far, they seem to think you've accepted the official story about what happened to your family. You don't want to tip them off you know something. Right now it's up for grabs how involved Barton Jayne is in any of this.”

“Stephanie, I'll just go talk to him. He's there right by a church. What can happen? Besides, I can handle a guy in his seventies.”

“Forget it. I'll fly out there and talk to him in a couple of days. If he's connected to these killers or being watched by them, it won't matter that I'm paying him a visit. They already have it in for me.”

She had nightmares of reading online about a deadly fire at Rosanne Farrell's Highland Park home, claiming the lives of Ryan and his grandmother. Or perhaps it would look as if a burglar had killed them. Or maybe it would appear as if Ryan had copied his father in some sort of murder-suicide ritual.