The Killer's Wife (14 page)
Authors: Bill Floyd
R
andy pulled into our driveway that afternoon at five minutes past two. I was standing on the front porch, waiting, trying to hold myself together until I could get my hands on Hayden. From my vantage, I could see down the street from our cul-de-sac all the way to Maple Avenue, the main artery leading out of the neighborhood toward town, and I’d watched that intersection in agony, pacing, certain up until the very moment his car appeared that he wasn’t coming back ever again. That I’d never see my son again. That I would have to bear all of this alone.
andy pulled into our driveway that afternoon at five minutes past two. I was standing on the front porch, waiting, trying to hold myself together until I could get my hands on Hayden. From my vantage, I could see down the street from our cul-de-sac all the way to Maple Avenue, the main artery leading out of the neighborhood toward town, and I’d watched that intersection in agony, pacing, certain up until the very moment his car appeared that he wasn’t coming back ever again. That I’d never see my son again. That I would have to bear all of this alone.
All down the street, the sense of a lazy summer day prevailed: Tony and Sheila Johnson sat on their side deck, two houses down, Sheila reading a magazine as Tony blabbed on his cordless phone; across from their house, Betsy Morrison kept an eye on her infant son as he splashed in a kiddie pool; Max Flores labored behind his lawn mower, shirtless, his hairy back a target for clinging grass and mosquitoes. Todd Cline had moved his Expedition down the street a couple of driveways and parked by the sidewalk. When I looked at the SUV, I could see no sign of him, even though I knew he was there. Obliviousness reigned, except in my head, where it had counted for so much for so long.
Cline had directed me to pull my Accord out of the garage and park in the center of the driveway, effectively blocking it off. Randy drove up behind my car and cut the engine on his BMW. I heard him engage the emergency brake. I was already walking across the yard to meet him.
He opened his door and looked questioningly at my parking job.
“I was thinking of washing it,” I said quickly. Tremors in every word.
His face, up until then, had exhibited a brief instant of strange, new trust that made me feel as if I’d been punched in my heart. As soon as he looked into my eyes, though, his expression changed to one of disappointment; a rueful, reproachful glare that said he’d expected more of me. He stood by, motionless, while I opened the back door of the BMW. Hayden was strapped into his child seat, waving his arms happily when I leaned in. The tears came hot and beyond
my control as I wrestled with the straps until I had him loose and in my arms.
my control as I wrestled with the straps until I had him loose and in my arms.
When I emerged, Randy was lingering there, only an arm’s length away, hands clenched by his sides. He saw my tears and said, “Did you really think I would hurt him?”
I was already backing away, moving toward the house without ever taking my eyes off him. Randy’s face hardened. He started after me.
Another vehicle door slammed, just down the street. Todd Cline, twenty yards away when he got out of his Expedition, called Randy’s name.
My husband turned and saw the officer coming. Cline wore his service revolver in plain sight on his belt. “Hey, Randy. You mind if I have a word with you?”
I was frozen now, watching as Cline closed the distance. I whispered in my little boy’s ear, the soft, precious little ear that couldn’t yet translate that I was telling him everything would be all right, Mommy was here, Mommy would keep him safe. I kissed his head and smoothed his hair. He knew something was going on, because he started to wail and cry.
Tires squealed at the end of our road, where it intersected with Maple Avenue. Three police cruisers, one after the other with only a bumper’s length between them, raced toward our house. Betsy Morrison stood and moved out onto the sidewalk to watch. Sheila Johnson grabbed her husband’s elbow and pointed. Randy, who’d looked back when Cline called his name, now turned back around to face me. He said, with a sadness so immense and impenetrable that for a moment it was like we were back at his apartment in
the early days, me swooning from romance and mystery and all the other lies: “Nina, I thought we might have finally been able to share something again.”
the early days, me swooning from romance and mystery and all the other lies: “Nina, I thought we might have finally been able to share something again.”
He was wearing those baggy khaki shorts that every man his age in our neighborhood wore during the summer. Those cargo pockets so deep you could carry just about anything in them. His right hand moved into the front pocket, and I saw the weight pulling that side of his shorts down.
I pointed. I shouted to Cline, “He’s got a gun!”
Cline drew his weapon as Randy spun around in his direction. He was indeed reaching for a gun, a compact .44 slide automatic he’d been carrying in the car, but the hammer caught on the liner of his pocket. He never got it out. Cline didn’t yell at him to drop it, he didn’t order “Hands up!” or any of that. He just shot Randy twice. Randy jolted in place, his right hand still fishing in his shorts. He looked down at where the blood had instantly soaked the front of his shirt, then dropped over on his side in the grass. I could hear him wheezing. Cline came up close and stepped on his left arm, then leaned over and twisted the right arm until it came up out of the pocket. The police cruisers had come to a stop, rocking on their suspensions, officers swarming now. I heard one of them repeating, “Shots fired, ambulance requested,” into his radio. Randy seemed unable to speak, and instead stared up at them defiantly, bloody bubbles frothing out of his nose and mouth. A cop fished the .44 out of his pocket and backpedaled rapidly, holding the weapon by the barrel.
Max Flores was still mowing his yard. He’d been cutting a swath in the other direction and only now did his wife
come out of the house and alert him to the confrontation that was taking place behind him. The mower went quiet and finally everyone was staring.
come out of the house and alert him to the confrontation that was taking place behind him. The mower went quiet and finally everyone was staring.
I realized I was screaming. One of the officers came and took me by the arm and led me into our house. I was hysterical, clutching Hayden so tightly that the cop eventually had to pry him from my grasp. “You’re going to smother him,” he kept telling me, as kindly as he could say such a thing, but I kept twisting away when he reached for us. Finally I relented and stood numbly, staring out the front window as more and more people showed up, a regular congregation on our lawn, uniformed officers and people without uniforms who I assumed to be investigators of some kind. Soon the crowd was so thick I lost sight of Randy. The late arrivals kept clapping Todd Cline on the back, asking if he was okay. I heard Randy’s awful coughing. The ambulance was wailing in the distance, but I had the feeling that everyone was hoping the paramedics wouldn’t arrive in time to save him. I don’t know what I was hoping.
But they got there in time.
A
fter my lunch meeting with Duane and Carolyn, the rest of the week passed quietly. By Wednesday, there hadn’t been a single mention of my name in the newspapers or on TV since the weekend. The last instance was a feature in the
News and Observer
Sunday edition, which focused mostly on recapping the time line of Randy’s crimes, arrest, and trial, along with a few choice insinuations from Pritchett. The prosecutor who’d won the death penalty conviction against my ex-husband six years ago was quoted in the article as saying that his office never had any interest in me,
nor had he heard anything in the time since then that would lead him to suspect my involvement. The reporter had contacted a few of the family members of Randy’s victims, but each of them declined to make any statement, except to say that they wished to put the past behind them.
fter my lunch meeting with Duane and Carolyn, the rest of the week passed quietly. By Wednesday, there hadn’t been a single mention of my name in the newspapers or on TV since the weekend. The last instance was a feature in the
News and Observer
Sunday edition, which focused mostly on recapping the time line of Randy’s crimes, arrest, and trial, along with a few choice insinuations from Pritchett. The prosecutor who’d won the death penalty conviction against my ex-husband six years ago was quoted in the article as saying that his office never had any interest in me,
nor had he heard anything in the time since then that would lead him to suspect my involvement. The reporter had contacted a few of the family members of Randy’s victims, but each of them declined to make any statement, except to say that they wished to put the past behind them.
As did we all. Only Pritchett seemed to be trapped within the cycle of his grief, and I knew there was nothing I could do to salve his turmoil.
I probably should have returned to Data Managers, but by that point I saw it as an earned vacation, so I stuck around the house, reading magazines and cleaning up. It felt empty without Hayden there. Each day I watched the clock wind slowly past noon and interminably through the next few hours until it was time to pick him up from his after-school suspension.
On Wednesday, after a late lunch, I started vacuuming the downstairs. I intended to finish the living room and front hallway, then wash up and go to collect my little guy. But when I switched off the vacuum cleaner I heard a noise outside, splicing the afternoon as it edged toward the early winter dusk. Sirens, a bevy of layered clarions rising and falling in countertime, not too far away. I wondered briefly if there’d been some kind of pileup on I-40. Then I heard the television, which I’d left going in the den while I was working.
I told myself I was hearing it wrong.
When I went into the den, I was already shaking. The banner BREAKING NEWS was scrolling at the bottom of the screen. I picked up the remote and cranked the volume. They switched away from a dour anchorwoman in the
newsroom, and the scene that replaced it effectively took out my knees. It was a wide-angle shot taken from a news helicopter, hovering above the grounds of Cary Learning Center. I recognized the splay of structures, the gymnasium and practice field. Several official vehicles, all with their lights spinning, were parked haphazardly out in front of a building situated to the right of the administrative offices.
newsroom, and the scene that replaced it effectively took out my knees. It was a wide-angle shot taken from a news helicopter, hovering above the grounds of Cary Learning Center. I recognized the splay of structures, the gymnasium and practice field. Several official vehicles, all with their lights spinning, were parked haphazardly out in front of a building situated to the right of the administrative offices.
“Details are still coming into News Channel Eleven,” the voice-over said, “but for those of you just joining us, Cary police are confirming the death of at least one person on the campus of Cary Learning Center. This is an elementary school, just off Davis Drive. Now, officials are telling us that most of the students had already left for the day when the incident occurred, so they’re asking that parents stop calling unless they have reason to believe their children might’ve still been on the grounds for extracurricular activities of some kind. The phone lines at the school are overwhelmed and parents are advised to call the Cary Police Department if they have any further—”
I snapped out of it. I snatched my purse off an end table and ran for the carport. The garage door was opening and I was still fumbling with my car keys when the high bark of a truncated siren bleeped behind me. The sound was so sudden and sharp, my heart nearly drove out right through my sternum. When I turned around, a police cruiser was pulling to the curb at the end of the driveway.
An officer leaned out the window. “Ma’am? Ms. Leigh Wren?”
“Is my son all right?”
The officer got out and opened the back door of the cruiser for me. “Ma’am, we’ve been asked to take you over to the school. We don’t have any more information than that right now, but I’m sure they’ll explain everything to you once we get there.”
I
kept telling them to hurry. They used the siren and the lights. They blew around other cars as the drivers moved off to the side of the road. We arrived at the campus in a little more than four minutes, but it seemed like hours. Long enough for me to call the Rowes on my cell phone. I was doing it mostly to keep talking, anything to stall my mind, to fend off the obvious conclusion.
kept telling them to hurry. They used the siren and the lights. They blew around other cars as the drivers moved off to the side of the road. We arrived at the campus in a little more than four minutes, but it seemed like hours. Long enough for me to call the Rowes on my cell phone. I was doing it mostly to keep talking, anything to stall my mind, to fend off the obvious conclusion.
Duane picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Nina. We’re actually over in your neck of the woods today, I had to give a depo in divorce court in Raleigh. You given any more thought to what we said about nailing Pritchett?”
“Something’s happened at Hayden’s school. It’s on TV, and the police are taking me there right now, but they won’t tell me what happened to him.” I realized I was talking calmly. I should have been screaming, losing my shit, but instead I only felt a sense of deep cold, a glacial stillness as though my heart had slowed to a single beat per minute. It was like a sudden hibernation, as if I could only view the world through an aperture in my cave while events unfolded outside, beyond my volition or control.
Duane asked for directions and I gave them in a monotone. I could hear him on the other end of the line, snapping his fingers loudly; I imagined alarm on Carolyn’s face as she sat beside him. “Please hurry,” I said, and hung up.
We arrived at the school a moment later, the driver weaving through the vehicles lined up in the traffic circle. He parked and I started pulling at the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. I’d momentarily blanked that I was in the back of a police car. The officer from the passenger’s side opened my door and stood out of the way. I spotted Beasley among a cluster of policemen gathered outside the entrance to the classroom building on my left, the one I’d seen them swarming in the news report. I made a beeline for the vice principal. The officers who’d brought me followed closely behind, saying, “Ma’am, hold on, please,” a couple of times before they gave up.
Beasley started saying he was sorry as soon as he saw me. The world threatened to go dark and I tried to maintain consciousness. “Where is Hayden?” I asked, and knew from the faces surrounding me that it’d come out as a shriek. I heard someone saying, “There’s the mother,” and I thought I might go crazy standing there. A man wearing khakis and a tie took my arm firmly and steered me toward the administration building.
“Will someone please answer me?” I pleaded.
The man holding my elbow introduced himself as Detective Justin Matthews. He was young and healthy-looking, his stark gray sideburns serving as the only indication that he’d had any experience outside of a computer simulation. I
might have found him attractive, in different circumstances.
might have found him attractive, in different circumstances.
“Ms. Wren, the only way to say this is to just tell you: Your son has been abducted. An as yet unidentified assailant entered the classroom where Hayden was at the time, killed the teacher who was there with him, and then left the premises with your son in his custody. We don’t know if this assailant had any accomplices, but we did get a vehicle description as they left the scene. Two witnesses saw a recent-model minivan, beige or off-white, leaving the campus. Does that sound like any vehicle you’re familiar with?”
Half the parents in Cary drove something similar. I shook my head. “He’s been abducted?” It made zero sense.
Matthews continued. “We’ve already issued an Amber Alert, using the photograph from his school yearbook, but we’re going to need some more specifics from you. Can you help us with that?”
“Abducted,” I repeated. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. The world went kaleidoscopic.
T
he next thing I was aware of was being lowered into a chair in Beasley’s office, the same chair Rachel Dutton had politely ceded to me during our impromptu conference last week. Matthews and another officer were holding me by my arms. Matthews told the guy to go find the paramedics. “Shock,” he said quietly.
he next thing I was aware of was being lowered into a chair in Beasley’s office, the same chair Rachel Dutton had politely ceded to me during our impromptu conference last week. Matthews and another officer were holding me by my arms. Matthews told the guy to go find the paramedics. “Shock,” he said quietly.
“I’m all right,” I said. I blinked and the room came into focus: the computer terminal on Beasley’s desk, his potted plants, the framed photo of him from his coaching days. I
stared at Matthews hard, steadily, trying to show him I was coherent. “What do you need to know? How can I help?”
stared at Matthews hard, steadily, trying to show him I was coherent. “What do you need to know? How can I help?”
He took out a pad and pen. Another couple of officers crowded into the room to take notes as well. One of them kept moving outside to the reception area and talking into a handheld radio, repeating what I said to a dispatcher somewhere on the other end of the line. I was familiar with the Amber Alerts, those big signs over the highway that would stream physical stats and clothing and license numbers.
I could not, even for the space of a single precious breath, believe that any of this was taking place.
They asked about what Hayden had worn to school that morning. I described his blue jeans, his tennis shoes, his light brown sweatshirt. They asked if he had scars of any kind. I told them about the slight discoloration that remained along the left underside of his chin from where he took a spill at the swimming pool last year. I had a sudden, lucid vision of a mortician lifting my dead son’s face with two plastic-gloved fingers, searching for the scar. The reaction was swift and unstoppable; I turned and vomited into Beasley’s wastebasket. The convulsion passed, and I dug in my purse for some mints. After I’d bitten down on one, I held the tin out to the officers. They eyed me warily and I told Matthews, “I’m fine. Please continue. I want to help in whatever way I can.”
Matthews asked if I could think of anyone specific who might want to hurt me or my son or my son’s teacher.
It finally sunk in, what they’d been saying about her. “Ms. Dutton? Oh, no.”
Matthews cleared the room. Once the other officers had left, he closed the door and said, “I’ve been following your story in the papers. We’ve already got someone contacting the authorities in California, to see if your ex-husband might know anything about this. Do you think he might?”
“Maybe. Except that he’s on fucking Death Row, so I don’t know how …”
“What about Charles Pritchett?”
I shrugged. “He hates me. But he can’t possibly be that crazy, can he? I mean, everyone knows that he’s been trying to hurt me. It would be so obvious. He strikes me as a childish, vindictive man, but I don’t know if that means he’s capable of something like this.”
“Childish and vindictive describes the majority of the criminals I deal with,” Matthews said evenly. “Especially the violent ones. Do you know Mr. Pritchett’s whereabouts?”
“My private investigators know … I mean, his private investigators.” I explained to Matthews about Duane and Carolyn. While I was filling him in, I heard Duane’s voice from the reception area. He was talking to the cops, trying to find out where I was. I asked Matthews if he could come in.
Carolyn was there, too. Matthews invited them in and stood aside while Carolyn held me. Matthews said, “Ms. Wren says you folks might know where we can find Charles Pritchett. We can call the hotels but I figured it might be faster—”
“He’s at the Hilton in Raleigh,” Carolyn said. She pulled a couple of sheets of paper from her purse and handed them to Matthews. “There’s a summary of what we’ve been able
to find out about him. I wrote it up on the way over, so you might need me to translate some of the chicken scratch. You think he might be involved with all this?”
to find out about him. I wrote it up on the way over, so you might need me to translate some of the chicken scratch. You think he might be involved with all this?”
Matthews inclined his head toward me. “Ms. Wren doesn’t seem to think it fits. But we’ll certainly want to speak with him.” He sized up Duane. “So you have some background in law enforcement, Mr. Rowe?”
“Fourteen years. Six in Baltimore, the other eight in Virginia.”
“You see Pritchett as a possibility?”
“Can you fill me in on what actually happened? I don’t want to step on any toes, but it’d help, given what we’ve been investigating on Nina’s behalf over the past few weeks.”
Matthews was cool to the idea. “Ms. Wren explained how you located her for Pritchett and then, after he went public, you guys came to her and offered your services out of the goodness of your hearts …”
“I wouldn’t buy it either,” Duane admitted. “Let me give you some phone numbers for reference.”
I realized for the first time that Matthews was looking at the Rowes with suspicion. I almost wanted to scream at him:
But they’re trying to help! What the fuck are you doing? Stop asking us stupid questions and get out there and FIND MY SON! My poor Hayden, oh, God, he must be so scared.
I started shaking and Carolyn asked the men to let us have a few moments alone.
But they’re trying to help! What the fuck are you doing? Stop asking us stupid questions and get out there and FIND MY SON! My poor Hayden, oh, God, he must be so scared.
I started shaking and Carolyn asked the men to let us have a few moments alone.
The shudders passed more quickly than I thought they might. Carolyn held out a box of tissues she’d found while rummaging through Beasley’s desk drawers, but I still
wasn’t actually crying. I told her: “If anything happens to him, I won’t make it.”
wasn’t actually crying. I told her: “If anything happens to him, I won’t make it.”
She didn’t offer any platitudes. She said, “I know.”
M
atthews came back into the office a few minutes later, with Duane, Thomas Beasley, and another uniformed officer following. Matthews said, “Ma’am, if you don’t have any objections to the Rowes’ involvement, I don’t either. I can use their background.”
atthews came back into the office a few minutes later, with Duane, Thomas Beasley, and another uniformed officer following. Matthews said, “Ma’am, if you don’t have any objections to the Rowes’ involvement, I don’t either. I can use their background.”
“I want them here.”
“Okay. Mr. Beasley, can you run the surveillance footage for us again? Maybe Ms. Wren will see something about the perpetrator that rings a bell.”
“You’ve got it on tape?” I was aghast. “I nearly got stripsearched by security when I came here last week to meet with Mr. Beasley. How did someone get into a classroom?”
Beasley looked physically ill. “The security personnel are only on-campus during regular class hours.”
Everyone’s faces were impassive, as though it was all simply a budgeting snafu. But I knew; I remembered how, not so long ago, it was the children themselves everyone was afraid of. Our own children.
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