Terrified (20 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

BOOK: Terrified
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“He’ll just track you down through your brother,” Audrey warned. “It would be very easy for him—or for JJ.”
“What if I went to the police?”
Audrey looked frightened. She reached over and put a hand over hers. “Please, don’t do that,” she whispered.
“Why? Are you afraid what it’ll do to your family? Are you afraid of what will happen to Glenn’s reputation?”
“No, Lisa. I’m afraid of what will happen to you.”
“Well, then tell me, what am I supposed to do?” Lisa asked. “Be his punching bag until he gets sick and tired of me? And then I go quietly? Is that it? You’ve said I shouldn’t do this and I shouldn’t do that. So—tell me, Audrey, what am I supposed to do?”
Glenn’s sister shrugged helplessly. “There’s a chance it could be an isolated incident. After all, you’ve been married six months, and this is the first time that—”
“It happened before—four months ago,” she interrupted. “He swore to me it would never happen again. You know his history. Do you really think this is an ‘isolated incident’? So—I’ll ask you once more. What am I supposed to do?”
“I wish I knew.” She glanced down into her glass of bourbon. “I really thought he might have changed with you. But I guess it’s just in Glenn’s nature. When he was eleven, my parents gave him a cocker spaniel, Skyler. It was a sweet dog, already housebroken. Glenn beat that poor thing whenever it didn’t obey him—or sometimes just because he was mad or frustrated about something else. And Skyler was so loyal to him, so loving. That dog loved him right up until the moment Glenn bashed its brains in… .”
Lisa was silent. But she knew right then she had to get away from him somehow, whatever it took.
She wasn’t going to end up like that poor, damned dog.
 
 
Megan turned off the burner for the spaghetti sauce and meatballs. Then she took the garlic bread out of the oven.
It was a different kitchen from the one of fifteen years ago. This one was smaller, modest—with appliances that were about ten years old and a linoleum floor. She wasn’t sitting at her breakfast table, aching, beaten up, and smelling of chicken stock. But her mind was in the exact same place. She was thinking that she couldn’t just sit back and let the inevitable happen. Glenn was out of prison, and he was probably looking for her. Soon, the police would be looking for her, too—if they weren’t already. She needed a plan.
“Hey, Mom?”
Megan nervously rubbed her forehead. “Yes, sweetie?” she replied, raising her voice.
“
Dr. No
is on Starz at seven,” Josh called from the living room. “Can we watch that?”
He’d seen it already. He and Darren had gone through a James Bond phase the summer after seventh grade. She wandered into the living room. Josh had already set up the TV tables. He was sitting on the couch with one leg draped over the sofa arm. The local news was on the big-screen TV. Megan looked at him and folded her arms. “Are you going to watch the whole movie?” she asked. “That’s a two-hour commitment. What’s the homework situation like?”
“Minimal,” Josh said, his eyes on the TV.
“All right,
Dr. No
it is,” she said, turning toward the kitchen.
“John Flick is next with the Sports wrap-up,”
announced the gray-haired TV news anchor.
“But first, Debi Donahue has this harrowing story about a Seattle woman, and her connection to a Chicago-area murder case in which an innocent man was sent to prison for fourteen years… .”
Megan stopped dead. She swiveled around and gaped at the TV. She couldn’t believe it. How could this be happening? She glanced at Josh—and then at the TV again.
“This was the gruesome scene in Seattle’s Discovery Park three weeks ago,”
the reporter was saying in voice-over. They showed police cars parked by a wooded area at dusk. Their red flashers were whirling. Tied around several trees, yellow police tape sealed off the area from several bystanders who had stopped by to gawk at the scene. One of the policemen was talking to another cop, and pointing to something in the bushes. The TV camera picked up the top of a black, plastic garbage bag—sticking up over the foliage.
Megan still couldn’t understand how this could be happening: “…
a Seattle woman’s connection to a notorious Chicago-area murder case …”
No one from the police or the press had talked to her today. The home phone line hadn’t even rung once. How could they be reporting it on the news? It didn’t make any sense.
She could already see where the news segment was going with a tie-in to the recent Garbage Bag Killing in Seattle. They were going to talk about Glenn and the Garbage Bag Murder case on Chicago’s North Shore fifteen years ago. Would they show a photo of the wife he was accused of killing?
She stood there frozen, her hand clinging to the framework on the side of the living room entry. She looked at Josh again. “Um, I—I thought you were going to watch your movie.”
“It’s not on for another eight minutes,” he said, focused on the TV screen. “And I want to catch the sports.”
“Well, dinner’s ready,” she said, with another nervous glimpse at the television. “Come on into the kitchen, and serve yourself.”
“In a minute,” he replied. “I want to see this.”
Megan wanted to see it, too. She had to find out how much they knew. Maybe someone had traced the missing Lisa Swann to Seattle, but they still hadn’t quite identified or located her yet. The story was probably on all the other local stations. She couldn’t hope to keep it from Josh forever. His friends and their parents would see this. People from her job, her gym, and the supermarket would see it, too. Still, part of her couldn’t let Josh see it
now
.
“C’mon, honey, dinner will get cold… .”
He didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Mom, please, I’m trying to watch this.”
Megan kept wondering what she was going to tell him. How would she explain it? Her stomach in knots, she fell silent and gazed at the TV—and the crime site at Discovery Park.
“It was here that the partial remains of Paula Conlon, a thirty-seven-year-old ad agency employee from Magnolia, were found in three separate garbage bags,”
the reporter continued in her grim voice-over.
They showed a photo of Paula Conlon, the same picture of the pretty brunette that Megan had seen online.
“While police investigators try to link Conlon’s murder to similar Seattle-area cases going back for over a decade,”
the reporter continued,
“this scene at Discovery Park must have seemed disturbingly familiar to Candice Blanco, a thirty-one-year-old glass artist who moved to Seattle two years ago.”
The image on TV switched to a sturdy-looking woman with messy brown hair—and one wild, dyed-yellow streak sprouting from her widow’s peak. She had a pierced nostril, and her mascara was laid on thick. In the background, Megan recognized Pioneer Square’s Victorian pergola. And despite the years that had passed and her slightly artsy-gothic look, Megan recognized the woman on camera as Glenn’s niece.
“It was very unsettling,”
Candy said.
“Of course, I couldn’t help being reminded of what happened back when I was seventeen, and my family was living in the Chicago area… .”
Candy’s image slowly dissolved to her senior portrait from St. Regina High School—with her graduation cap and gown, the well-scrubbed, smiling face, and the Jennifer Aniston-on-
Friends
hairstyle.
“In October of 1996,”
the reporter explained,
“Candice Blanco was a high school student in the affluent Chicago suburb of Wilmette, when the woman who had been married to her uncle for only fourteen months disappeared… .”
Megan couldn’t breathe.
Oh, Jesus, there I am
, she thought, staring at the TV—along with Josh. A photo of Lisa Swann at a charity event, which the Chicago press had used several times, came up on the screen. It was only on for a second—before the image went negative, an eerie, arty touch by whoever had put together the news story.
Megan stole another glance at Josh, who was biting his thumbnail, enrapt by the newscast. He hadn’t seemed to recognize his mother in the old photograph.
A news clip with
Courtesy of WGN-TV
across the top came up on the television. The forest setting was similar to the initial crime scene in Discovery Park, only the caption emblazoned at the bottom of the screen was,
Turnbull Woods, Glencoe, IL.
“Then two weeks after Lisa Swann went missing,”
the reporter went on,
“the severed body parts of an unidentified woman were found in garbage bags at different locations in the north suburbs of Chicago. Seventeen-year-old Candice read in the newspaper that a section of the victim’s torso carried burn marks similar to ones she’d seen on her aunt. This was the start of the state’s case against her uncle, a prominent surgeon, Dr. Glenn Swann… .”
An old clip of Glenn, dressed in a business suit, being led in handcuffs into a police car appeared on the screen. Police and reporters crowded around him while flashbulbs went off.
Megan glanced at Josh again—as he gazed at his father for the first time. The light from the TV flickered across his face. He seemed mesmerized, but he always looked that way while parked in front of the TV, always the same hypnotized expression.
She instinctively touched her left rib cage. Josh had seen her in her bra and panties at one time or another. She thanked God the burn marks weren’t quite as visible anymore.
“Stories of spousal abuse and a mountain of circumstantial evidence helped convict Dr. Glenn Swann for the murder of his wife,”
said the reporter, now on the screen. A pretty redhead, she wore a trench coat and stood by the pier on the waterfront, not far from Pioneer Square.
“It was traumatic for the niece who reluctantly played a part in that conviction.”
Candy was back on the screen, still in front of the Pioneer Square pergola. Megan couldn’t believe her niece was here in Seattle—and had been for the last two years. How was it that they hadn’t run into each other in all that time? Maybe they had, and just hadn’t recognized each other.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,”
Candy was saying.
“I still have nightmares. I had to identify the burn marks on my aunt’s severed midsection. I don’t know if it was an incredible coincidence or if they messed up the new DNA tests. But the burn marks were an exact match to the scars on my Aunt Lisa. I stand by that. I swore to it under oath at the trial fourteen years ago, and swore to it again when investigators interviewed me last week after my uncle was pardoned… .”
Josh suddenly got to his feet. “God, what gives? There’s only four minutes of news left,” he muttered. “Are they
ever
going to get to the sports?” He brushed past her and hurried into the kitchen. “Call me if they start announcing the scores.”
“Go ahead and serve yourself,” Megan called to him in a daze.
She considered it divine intervention Josh hadn’t noticed his own mother on television. Her stomach was in knots, and she couldn’t fathom the idea of eating dinner—not now. For the rest of the night, she would be waiting for the phone to ring or someone to knock on the door. Josh might not have recognized her on TV, but others could have—even people she barely knew. She’d rented cars to at least thirty customers today. Any one of them could be watching this broadcast right now.
On the television, there was a video clip of an exonerated Glenn, flanked by his lawyers, leaving the courthouse. She’d already seen the video online. Glenn was scowling as he made his way down the steps.
Josh wasn’t in the room to see the angry look on his father’s face.
Megan knew the man on her TV screen wouldn’t be happy until he found her.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
Portland, Oregon
 
H
e wheeled his carry-on bag from the gate to the main terminal at Portland International Airport. He’d been told to pack light—for just one or two nights. The man on the phone who had issued him instructions called himself Danny.
Following Danny’s directives, Glenn hadn’t told anyone where he was headed. He’d also withdrawn eleven thousand dollars from his bank account. Danny had said once he arrived in Portland, he shouldn’t use his credit cards, just cash. Obviously, the guy didn’t want him leaving a credit card trail. Glenn figured Portland was just a stopover for another locale, where he’d be reunited with his long-lost,
dead
wife.
So far, the venture hadn’t cost Glenn a thing—beyond the airfare to Portland, and some time. He was supposed to work at the homeless women’s shelter tonight, but screw it. He hadn’t wanted to do the stint in the first place. It had already been written up in the Chicago papers three days ago that he’d volunteered, which was what really mattered most.
All the press about his pardon eleven days before had started to die down. He hadn’t done any interviews, and he was keeping a low profile. He was hoping to return to Chicago before anyone noticed he was gone—that included the police.
He knew this Danny creep had some kind of angle. It wasn’t just money he was after; otherwise, he’d have been more up front about it. This guy was putting him through the paces, setting him up for something. But Glenn wasn’t worried. He was intrigued. Whatever he had to do or pay, it was worth the cost if he could get to Lisa. Ultimately, she’d be the one to pay—for the last fourteen years she’d let him rot in prison.
And he could do practically anything he wanted to her. Because there was no way she could go to the police without getting herself into a shitload of trouble.
Today was the first time he’d flown since before his arrest. He hadn’t realized how air travel had turned into such a fucking nightmare. Standing in the security line, he was convinced about half of the people in front of him were board-certified morons. Maybe it was because of all the metal detectors in prison that he knew what to expect, but hadn’t these idiots flown at all recently? He lost track of how many bimbos in line couldn’t foresee that their goddamn jewelry would set off the scanner. How many dickheads couldn’t figure out that they had to empty their pockets of change and keys? As he sat in first class, watching his fellow passengers pass by with all their worldly belongings stuffed into their bulky carry-on bags, Glenn felt like he was in a third world country. At any minute, he expected to see someone pushing a herd of goats down the aisle. And the service in first class was horrible.
Wandering into the main terminal, Glenn kept thinking,
This better be worth it.
He was supposed to wait here for someone to contact him. He glanced around at all the shops: Made in Oregon, Powell’s Books, The Nike Store, Hudson News, and the fast-food joints. Every few moments, there was another announcement on the loudspeaker. He didn’t see anyone staring back at him.
Frowning, Glenn dug his cell phone from the pocket of his suede jacket, and he made sure it was switched on. He stood and waited. He got the come-on look from a couple of sexy women, and at least that made the wait less boring.
He finally wheeled his carry-on into the men’s restroom, where he took a leak. He was washing his hands at the row of sinks when his cell phone rang. He quickly dried his hands and answered it. “Yeah, hello?”
“Hi, Glenn, welcome to Portland. Did you enjoy your flight?”
“Not much, but I’m here. So without the bullshit, what am I supposed to do next?”
He listened to Danny chuckling on the other end. He could also hear announcements in the background—the same announcements he heard over the loudspeaker. The guy was here in the airport.
Glenn automatically glanced around the restroom: two guys at the row of urinals, and one older man just stepping out from the stalls. Glenn didn’t see any feet in the space under the stall doors. The guy wasn’t in here with him.
“Okay,” Danny said. “Take a taxi to the Portland Amtrak station. You’ll get further instructions from there.”
There was a click on the other end.
Glenn slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket, and then pulled his carry-on out of the restroom. He paused outside the men’s room door. He knew Danny was watching him. With a tiny grin, he extended his middle finger, and then pretended to wipe something out of the corner of his eye.
 
 
He sat by the rain-beaded window, seat 19 in car 8 of the Amtrak line to Vancouver, British Columbia. They were just passing the Tacoma Narrows, where he stared at the tall twin suspension bridges towering over the choppy, gray water. Glenn had been on the train for almost three hours, and it would be another five before they were supposed to cross into British Columbia. He had a feeling he wouldn’t make it that far.
He’d just set foot inside the old-fashioned train station in Portland when his cell phone had rung. Danny had instructed him to pay for the coach ticket to Vancouver in cash, and bring his carry-on bag with him. Glenn had been required to give his name and show ID when they’d made out the ticket. Anyone looking for him would know he was headed to Vancouver, B.C. Danny had to realize that. So far, he’d been pretty clever. Glenn figured sometime before the train rolled into Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Bellingham, or one of the other stops, he’d suddenly get a call from Danny to grab his carry-on and disembark. His gut instinct told him it would be Seattle.
Car 8 was about three-quarters full, and on a par with the airline’s first-class section as far as comfort and seat size went. Glenn kept glancing at the other passengers, wondering which one might be Danny. Why else would the guy have insisted he sit in coach?
Glenn knew he was being watched, and it amused him. He made a guessing game of it. He noticed a skinny man of about thirty, sitting by himself three rows back. He had glasses, a five-o’clock shadow along his jaw, a tattoo on his neck, and a Scottish tweed hat partially covering his bald head. He had a sort of weird-edgy quality, and got up a few times—twice to the bathroom, twice to the dinner car. Now he was mumbling on his cell phone.
Or maybe it was the grungy-looking guy with the ponytail. He didn’t have a seat in the car, but had passed through at least five times. The guy kept eyeballing Glenn whenever he walked by.
As he got to his feet, Glenn shot a look at Mr. Tattoo Neck. The guy stared back for a moment, and then glanced out his window. Moving up the aisle, Glenn slid open the partition door and ducked into the restroom.
He was about to act against some explicit instructions. He was about to tell someone he might be in Seattle for the next day or two.
Locking the restroom door behind him, Glenn felt a bit claustrophobic inside the tiny stainless steel cubicle. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number he’d had lawyers track down for him last week. He counted three ringtones before she finally answered: “Hello?”
He braced himself against the wall as the train rocked a bit. “Candy, is that you?”
There was silence on the other end.
He knew—even after all these years—she recognized his voice. And yet, he still had to say it: “Candy, dear, this is your Uncle Glenn.”
 
 
“Next stop, King Street Station, Seattle,” the conductor announced. “Exit all doors for Seattle King Street Station in two minutes… .”
One minute later, Glenn’s cell phone rang.
Christ, this guy’s predictable
, he thought, reaching into his jacket pocket. He clicked on the phone. “Yes?”
“Slight change of plans,” Danny said on the other end. “Grab your bag and get off the train at King Street Station. Wait there for further instructions. Understand?”
“Yeah,” he said, deadpan. “Seattle? Huh, wow, I’m really surprised.”
“You will be, Glenn,” he replied. “Just you wait, you will be.” Then he clicked off.
 
 
After sitting on an old-fashioned, long wooden bench in King Street Station for an hour and forty-five minutes, Glenn figured the big surprise—so far—was that this son of a bitch might have pulled the plug on the whole operation.
The station was a dump, a decrepit century-old building that someone in the eighties must have decided to reconstruct cheaply—only they’d abandoned it mid-project, and decades later it was still frozen in mid-construction. Except for a few vending machines, there was no place to buy food, magazines, or a goddamn drink. The place was crowded, too, and not without its share of screaming kids. He didn’t see Mr. Tattoo Neck or the ponytail guy anywhere.
Glenn glanced at his watch. It was almost five o’clock. This was bullshit. He’d give Danny until 5:15. If he didn’t hear from him by then, he’d call Candy again and have her meet him someplace.
He could tell she’d been freaked out by his call. “No matter what went down fifteen years ago, honey, we’re still family,” he’d assured her. “Family is the most important thing. I told you that in my letters. You’re the only niece I have. I might be in Seattle soon, and I’d like to see you.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure I want to see you, Uncle Glenn,” she’d replied, an edge in her voice.
“What if I was to tell you that I know your Aunt Lisa is alive and living somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, maybe even Seattle?” he’d said. “Or did you already know that? Are you in on it, honey?”
“In on what? Aunt Lisa’s alive? What are you talking about?”
“Maybe we can get together, and I can explain,” he’d replied. “I just want a little bit of your time, maybe an hour. I think you owe me that much after fifteen years.”
There had been a long pause on the other end, and then finally, “I suppose I could meet you someplace. When do you think you’ll be in Seattle?”
He’d told her he might be there within the next day or two and asked her not to tell anyone about it. He didn’t think she was working with this Danny schmuck, but he still had to make certain. He just hoped Candy kept her mouth shut about their conversation.
He glanced at his watch again: 5:20. He’d waited long enough for this guy. Just as Glenn got to his feet, his cell phone rang. He quickly clicked it on. “About time,” he grunted. “I’m tired of getting jerked around here.”
“Take a taxi up to Capitol Hill,” Danny said. There was traffic noise in the background. Danny was outside someplace. “Have the driver drop you off at Harvard Avenue and Pine. Got that?”
“Listen, I’m tired of this bullshit—”
“Harvard Avenue and Pine,” he repeated. Then he hung up.
Fifteen minutes later, when the driver dropped him off on the corner of Pine and Harvard, Glenn found himself standing at a crosswalk with his carry-on bag. At least it had stopped raining. The trees along the parkway rustled in the wind, shedding some of their leaves. It was starting to get dark out. Farther down Pine, he could see the lights and skyscrapers of the city center.
Glenn checked his wristwatch again: 5:40. He wasn’t going to wait around for another two hours this time. If Danny didn’t call within ten minutes, screw it. He’d catch another cab and go check into one of the hotels downtown.
Seattle Central Community College, a big, block-long brick building, was behind him. There was a plaza area on a slope with wide steps and benches. Teenagers on skateboards were trying stunts on the steps. The grinding of their wheels on the pavement was annoying, louder than all the traffic noise—even the buses. If one of those assholes wiped out and they started screaming for a doctor, he’d be damned if he’d lift a finger to help.
Directly across the street in a much older brick building was the Egyptian Theater. He noticed one of the theater’s windows was open, and he got a waft of movie theater popcorn smell with the breeze. The marquee read:
HITCHCOCK FESTIVAL
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
CARY GRANT – EVA MARIE SAINT
3
DAYS ONLY
!
Glenn glanced over his shoulder at a parking garage. He wondered if Danny was there, inside one of the cars. He grinned and threw a wave in that direction—just to screw with him if he was there.
He looked at his watch again: 5:55.
The hell with this
, he thought.
He pulled out his cell phone, ready to call and book a hotel. But the phone rang in his hand, startling him. Glenn clicked it on. “Yeah?”
It was a blank text with a photo attachment. Frowning at the iPhone screen, Glenn downloaded the picture, which came up on the screen in sections.
It was a photo of his supposedly dead wife, Lisa. She wore a green blazer that looked like part of some job uniform. She was walking in front of the theater across the street. The marquee above her was exactly the same, the Hitchcock Festival,
North by Northwest.
The photo was taken right here—from where he was standing—within the last three days.
Glenn smiled. Yes, the trip, the time, and getting jerked around were all worth it. He was ready to do business with this stranger on the phone.

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