The Last Victim (18 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

BOOK: The Last Victim
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Bridget stared out at the back lot. The Dumpster was by the kitchen door, and it smelled of old meat and rotting fruit. Bridget caught a glimpse of a Subaru with its lights off—peeling out of the lot. The car disappeared around the bend.
Bridget could still hear its tires screeching in the distance.
“He said he heard you speaking Spanish to the other waiter,” David explained. He sat on the passenger side—across from his mother. Eric was behind him, lightly kicking the back of his seat.
Hands on the wheel, Bridget watched the road ahead. “That’s all? He was talking with you an awful long time.”
David sighed. “He asked if we had a Spanish father. And big mouth back there says, ‘No, our father’s divorced.’ So then the waiter asked if you had a Spanish boyfriend or something. I told him, no, and he asked some other stuff, like what grades we were in at school, and bla, bla, bla.”
“The wader kept on axing if Mom has a boyfriend,” Eric piped up from the back. Leaning forward, he stuck his head between the two front seats.
She shot David a look. “Is that true?”
“Yeah, he came back to it a couple of times.”
Bridget sighed. “Listen, guys. As it comes closer to the election, you’re going to get a lot of people coming up and asking you a bunch of stuff about me—and about Uncle Brad. You handled it well tonight. But from now on, just politely tell them to call my office or e-mail me at
Corrigan forOregon dot com
.” She paused. “Better yet, just go by my old rule and don’t talk to strangers. Okay?”
“Okay!” Eric replied in a singsong voice. He sat back again and recommenced kicking the back of his brother’s seat.
“That guy with the red hair,” David whispered. “He wasn’t a waiter, was he?”
“No,” she said under her breath.
“Then who was he, Mom?”
She stared at the road ahead. “I don’t know, honey. Maybe a reporter, maybe somebody working for Foley, or maybe just some nut. I really don’t know.”
Beep.
“Hello, Bridget. This is Zach Matthias calling around eight o’clock, Tuesday night. I just wanted to say that I was glad we ran into each other today—despite the sad occasion. Um, I’m wondering if you might be free for lunch tomorrow. If tomorrow doesn’t work out for you, maybe the next day?” He chuckled. “It wouldn’t be an interview, don’t worry. Anyway, my number is—”
Bridget switched off the machine. David came bounding down the back stairs. He stopped to grin at her. “Who’s that? Sounds like he’s asking you out on a date.”
“It’s an old high school friend,” Bridget explained. “The ‘dorky guy’ from the yearbook, the one you were making fun of this afternoon.”
“Sounds like a loser.”
Bridget frowned. “Why aren’t you doing your homework?”
“I just came down to get a Coke.” He headed to the refrigerator.
Bridget sat down at the breakfast table. “As long as you’re taking a break, do you have a minute? I need to talk with you about something.”
David opened his Coke and plopped down across from her. “What’s up?”
“Well, it has to do with what we were talking about in the car,” Bridget said. “With the election coming up, you might have some more—strange encounters, like what happened to you and Eric tonight, or like last week, when we had the prowler outside and called the police. I don’t want to alarm you, but just be extra cautious. Okay?”
He seemed to take her warnings with all the seriousness of being told he might have to take out the garbage more frequently in the week ahead. David shrugged. “Okay, sure, Mom.” He started to get up.
“Honey, I’m sincere about this,” she said, taking hold of his arm.
David sat back down.
“You’re going to have people coming up to you,” she continued. “You have to be extra, extra careful. So—if someone tells you he’s a policeman, and he wants you to go with him, ask to see a photo ID. Don’t let him just show you some badge. And even then, go to the nearest adult and tell them what’s happening. Borrow a cell phone and call me—or Uncle Brad, or your father.”
“I know that,” David said. “I’m not dumb.”
“No, you’re not. But for the next few weeks, I don’t want you—or Eric—going off anywhere by yourself. Stick with your buddies—and stick close to your brother.”
Working up a smile, she squeezed his arm. “By the way, I’m very proud of the way you’ve been looking after Eric. Since your dad moved out, I’ve noticed how patient and sweet you’ve been with the little guy. He’s very lucky to have a big brother like you. And I’m lucky to have you for a son.”
“Oh, c’mon, Mom,” David said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t get all sappy on me. Give me a break.”
She nodded and patted his arm. “All right, I just wanted you to know, I’m proud of you.” Bridget sighed. “By the way, I met your dad for coffee this morning. He wants to spend some more time with you and Eric. So you’ll probably be over there this week—for dinner or maybe even to spend the night. He really misses you guys.”
David stared at her, deadpan. “Are you sure this was Dad, and not some guy who just looked like him?”
Bridget frowned. “Hey, cut him some slack. All right?”
David got to his feet. “Okay, Mom,” he muttered. “I’ll try.” He kissed her forehead, then took his Coke and started up the back stairs.
Bridget got up and poured herself a glass of Chardonnay. Returning to the table, she grabbed her purse and fished out her notepad. She stared at Cheryl Blume’s phone number. She couldn’t call her from home. There was a pay phone at the 7-Eleven a few blocks away, but she didn’t want to leave the boys alone at night—not even for a few minutes.
She’d have to try calling Cheryl in the morning.
With the wineglass in her hand, Bridget moved over to the answering machine at her desk near the back stairway. She played Zach Matthias’s message over again. David was right: Zach was asking her out on a date. It was lunch, but it was still a date. Could it be that he had no ulterior motive? Seeing Gerry again this morning had reminded her of how lonely she was. And seeing Zach this afternoon had reminded her of when he was a sweet four-eyed geek with a crush on her. She still couldn’t believe the transformation. He was so handsome. Could he still have feelings for her—after twenty years?
She knew from her own experience that it was possible. It had been over twenty years since she’d last set eyes on Brad’s blond, blue-eyed, brooding friend, David Ahern. He was her first real crush, and he’d barely paid any attention to her. Yet she still had feelings for the guy, enough so that she named her firstborn David. No one ever made the connection. She’d told everyone that she’d just always liked the name.
Sometimes the sweet pain and longing she’d had for that young man in high school felt just as potent today. She still couldn’t think about David Ahern without a little bit of regret. Bridget wished she knew what had happened to him.
She played Zach’s phone message again: “. . . I just wanted to say that I was glad we ran into each other today—despite the sad occasion. Um, I’m wondering if you might be free for lunch tomorrow. . . .”
He sounded nervous—a bit like the old Zach. Or was that just an act? Had he figured out that she was lonely and somewhat vulnerable? Did he expect her to trust him and open up to him—simply because they’d known each other back in high school?
She thought of what her brother had said: “The guy’s poison, Brigg.”
Bridget swallowed hard. Her hand hovered above the answering machine for a moment. Then she hit the Erase button.
Bridget switched off her bedside lamp. She’d already double-checked the locks on the front and back doors—along with the first-floor windows. Down the hall, the boys were asleep. It was 11:45.
It had been such a bizarre and emotionally draining day—from learning of Fuller’s suspicious death to chasing down that red-haired man who had been talking with her sons in the restaurant. And there was Zachary Matthias too. She had such weird mixed feelings about him—attraction, apprehension, longing, and fear. He made her remember what it was like to have a crush on someone.
She should have known sleep wouldn’t come easy tonight. She couldn’t stop thinking about high school—and Fuller and Zach when they were young. She recalled those nights her junior year when David Ahern had stayed over. The very idea that he was sleeping down the hall from her always kept her wide-awake. She remembered once running into him in the hallway when he was on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. His blond hair was disheveled, and he wore only his white briefs. He didn’t seem to care that she saw him, and even insisted that she use the bathroom first. Of course, she couldn’t really do anything in there, not when he was using it next. All she did was wash her hands and straighten the towels on the rack.
With his clothes off or on, David Ahern always had the same effect on her. She got all tongue-tied around him and acted like an idiot. One of the most idiotic things she did—whenever he slept over—was steal his pillowcase in the morning and substitute it with one from the linen closet. She’d put David’s pillowcase over her own extra pillow. Then she’d hug the pillow, smell his hair on it, and touch it against her bare skin. She’d hold on to the pillowcase as long as she could—long after his scent wore off. He had no idea how crazy she was for him.
David Ahern went away to college when she and Brad started their senior year at McLaren High. Brad still got together with him during Christmas, spring, and summer vacations. But after they moved to Portland, Brad lost touch with him. Bridget never saw David Ahern again.
Their mother died during their senior year. That was when Bridget and Brad had spent so much of their time alone in the house. And it was in the spring when Bridget had decided to reach out to Mallory Meehan. After a couple of sessions in the library and that trek through Gorman’s Creek with her, Bridget had decided to avoid her. But Mallory kept calling anyway.
One evening a week before graduation, Mallory invited herself over to Bridget’s house. Bridget never forgot how Mallory stepped into the front hall and looked around with awe. “God, your place is so big,” she remarked. “My house is much smaller. But it’s decorated nicer. Did your mother decorate this herself? She really should have had a professional do it. My aunt’s a professional interior decorator, and she did our house.”
Then she asked for a tour of the house and criticized the furnishings in every room. But she took a definite shining to a double-strand pearl necklace Bridget had inherited from her mother. It was one of the few pieces her father had let her keep. The rest of the jewelry had gone into a safety deposit box. The double strand of pearls was the only piece she cared about anyway. Bridget kept the necklace in its original jewelry box on her dresser.
Bridget didn’t realize when she said good-bye to Mallory later that afternoon, she was also saying good-bye to her pearl necklace.
She discovered the empty jewel box the following day. She phoned Mallory. “I know you wouldn’t have stolen it,” Bridget told her. “But—um—you might have picked it up and put the necklace in your pocket for a second, then forgot about it.”
“What are you talking about?” Mallory said. “What necklace?”
“The one you were admiring, and asking about,” Bridget shot back. “What, do you have amnesia now?”
“Maybe your maid stole it,” Mallory suggested.
“The maid hasn’t been here in three days. The necklace was there yesterday, Mallory. Besides me, you’re the only other person who’s been in my room since yesterday. Just give it back, and I won’t raise a stink. It was my dead mother’s, okay?”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mallory maintained.
So, along with acrophobia and claustrophobia, now kleptomania could be added to the list of Mallory’s various “conditions.”
Bridget phoned her again about the necklace. And again, Mallory denied ever even having set eyes on it. Then Mallory asked Bridget when she was going to invite her back to her house again.
“Why?” Bridget retorted. “So you can criticize everything here and rip off some more family heirlooms?”
After that, Bridget no longer merely disliked Mallory Meehan, she loathed her. Within two days, Bridget had a group of classmates who shared her sentiments. Among them, her brother.
On graduation night, after the dance, Brad and his girlfriend, Cheryl Blume, along with Fuller Sterns and Olivia Rankin, went to Olivia’s house and got drunk on Boone’s Farm wine in the basement rec room. Bridget wasn’t in on it. She’d gone to the dance with Mark Easton, a hunk from the football team. Bridget had been so flattered when he’d asked her. But after telling him at the dance that she had no desire to hang around with her brother and his friends all night, Bridget found herself dropped off at home at half past midnight with a polite kiss on the cheek.
Apparently, things were a bit wilder in the Rankins’ basement rec room. After both couples paired off and made out, Fuller snuck into Mr. Rankin’s workroom and found a can of black paint and some brushes. Within an hour, Brad and Fuller were climbing the five-story water tower on the edge of town. Brad had taken off his tuxedo jacket and tied a plastic bag—filled with the paint can and brushes—to his belt.
By 3:20 AM, Brad and Fuller had painted
BOBCATS CLASS OF
on the side of the water tower tank. With Cheryl and Olivia coaching them from the ground, the boys got the block letters even and straight. No sloppy graffiti there. They were about to paint ’85 when the girls noticed Mallory Meehan drive by in her mother’s burnt-umber Plymouth Volare. It was hard to miss that old heap with the broken antenna. Plus, Mrs. Meehan’s Volare was the only car to pass by at that early morning hour.
Mallory had told anyone who would listen that she had no intention of attending the graduation dance. She was celebrating her accomplishments by driving alone to the Pacific coast and meditating until dawn. Apparently, she hadn’t lasted that long.
The Volare slowed down and Mallory poked her head out the window to gape up at Fuller and Brad. Then she suddenly hit the gas and sailed down the road.
Fifteen minutes later, Brad and Fuller had
BOBCATS CLASS OF
’85
FOREV
painted on the side of the water tank, when two squad cars pulled up to the base of the tower.
The police caught Olivia and Cheryl smoking a joint, and stopped Fuller and Brad before they could paint the ER in FOREVER.
Everyone went quietly—except for Cheryl, who became belligerent with the officers. They charged her with resisting arrest and placed her in a holding cell until her parents arrived at the station. Brad, Fuller, and Olivia were let go with the understanding that they had to return later that week and repaint the water tower tank. The cops went easy on them mostly because Brad’s recently widowed father was such a powerful figure in McLaren. Besides, they liked Brad. Everyone did.
Cheryl, however, had to agree to forty hours of community service in order to have her charges dropped.
The group knew Mallory was the one who had called the police on them. They didn’t need her mailing in an editorial to the
Cowlitz Country Register
, in which she pretty much ratted on herself. The published editorial was titled:
IS VIRTUE THE ONLY REWARD FOR GOOD CITIZENSHIP
? In her piece, Mallory wondered why the police didn’t give out monetary awards to
vigilant citizens who report vandalism, thefts, and other crimes against our community. A grateful McLaren might have considered giving this good citizen at least one hundred dollars for notifying authorities about a vandalism being committed on one of the town’s landmarks on graduation night last week.
Fuller, Olivia, and Cheryl wanted revenge. But Brad saw no point in getting back at Mallory. He suggested they drop it, do their penance, and enjoy the rest of the summer. Though his friends continued to carry a grudge against Mallory, they went along with him.
Mallory’s editorial also suggested if the police force offered better monetary incentives to vigilant citizens, many crimes could be prevented or solved.
The author of this editorial firmly believes that last year’s murders of Andy Shields and Richard and Robert Gaines might be solved if a substantial reward was offered.
Mallory’s fixation over those unsolved murders hadn’t diminished. In fact, one afternoon in late July, that obsession ran rampant, and she went a little crazy. Bridget witnessed it—along with a few other
good citizens
in the parking lot of Quality Foods in the center of town.
Bridget did the household shopping at Quality Foods at least twice a week. She was usually the only teenager in the place with a shopping cart full of food and other essentials.
That afternoon, she left the supermarket with four bags in her cart. She was walking a few paces behind Sonny Fessler, who had been in there talking to the ever-patient checkers. They were used to him coming in to chat quietly—always about the weather or what he’d had for breakfast and lunch that day. No one ever paid much attention to Sonny. But at times, an exasperated checker might say, “Sonny, I can’t talk, we’re really busy right now,” or something along those lines. Sonny would nod, give a friendly wave, then shuffle out of the supermarket.
He’d bought a pack of Big Red chewing gum that afternoon. Bridget saw him slip it into his pocket as he wandered toward his Schwinn, parked at the bike rack in front of the supermarket. Despite the summer heat, he wore a flannel shirt and his hunting cap. The sweat ran down the side of his unshaven face. He bent down to work the combination on his bicycle lock.
“Hi, Sonny,” Bridget said, pushing her shopping cart past him. “How are you doing?”
He looked up at her and nodded. “Hi, young Corrigan girl,” he said, giving her a slightly startled smile. His teeth were yellowish brown.
“My God, Bridget!” someone screamed. “Why are you even talking to that retard? He’s a murderer!”
Bridget glanced toward the parking lot. Mallory Meehan slammed the driver’s door of her mother’s Volare, slung her purse over her shoulder, and headed toward them. She wore madras shorts and a yellow T-shirt that had
GENIUS
written across the front. Her frizzy brown hair was all wild and unkempt, and she looked angry.
“You’re a murderer, Sonny Fessler!” she yelled. “You butchered those three boys! I’m on to you!”
Sonny slowly straightened up and stared at her. He looked frightened and confused. Bridget noticed his lower lip quivering. His eyes filled with tears. “What?” he called back timidly.
Mallory approached, shaking her finger at him. “You heard me! I said I’m on to you—”
“Stop it!” Bridget shouted. “What the hell is wrong with you, Mallory? Leave him alone!”
People in the parking lot were staring.
“He’s trying to act so innocent, but I know—”
“Shut up!” Bridget said. She turned to Sonny, who was visibly trembling. “Pay no attention to her, Sonny. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You go on. Don’t listen to her.”
Sonny Fessler climbed on his Schwinn. With an unsteady grip on the handlebars, he started to pedal away. The bike seemed to wobble a bit.
“Go ahead and run!” Mallory yelled after him. “But just remember, I’m on to you! You’re going to pay for your crimes. You—”
“Shut the
fuck
up,” Bridget growled.
Mallory turned to stare at her.
“How could you be so stupid and insensitive?” Bridget asked. “Sonny Fessler wouldn’t hurt a soul. Why are you picking on him? What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with
you?
” Mallory shot back. “The only reason you’re nice to him is that he’s retarded. Do you think that makes you a good person or something? The only reason people are nice to
you
is that you’re Brad Corrigan’s twin sister. Otherwise, you’d be just as pathetic as Sonny Fessler. And you know that’s true.”
Mallory marched toward the supermarket door. It opened automatically. In the doorway, she swiveled around and shot Bridget one more cold, superior look. “Oh, and if I’m so
stupid
, how come I’m the one here who has an academic scholarship to the University of Washington?”
Speechless, Bridget stood by her shopping cart and watched Mallory flounce into the store.
Driving home, Bridget kept replaying the scene in her head. She kept thinking she should have said this or that—as if anything she said would ever penetrate Mallory’s armor.
Bridget felt like crap. Mallory’s words hurt. And the only thing that made Bridget feel better was considering the source—and fantasizing about different ways to make Mallory suffer.
When she returned home, Brad helped her unload the groceries. Cheryl, Fuller, and Olivia were also there in the kitchen, gorging on snacks and soda. Bridget found them a willing audience as she shared her fantasies of revenge on Mallory Meehan.

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