The Last Victim (20 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

BOOK: The Last Victim
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“So we simply walk away?” Bridget countered. “We can’t do that. We’re responsible for what happened here. I don’t know about you guys, but if Mallory’s dead, and I don’t own up to it now, this will be hanging over my head for the rest of my life. I’d rather go to the cops. I don’t want to carry this inside me, keeping it secret—”
“That’s right,” Brad said. “We won’t be able to talk about this with anyone. We all have to agree, we won’t ever tell a soul about what just happened. We shouldn’t even talk about it with each other after today.”
Bridget turned to him. “Brad, what are you saying?”
“Fuller’s right.” He sighed. “All of us are planning to go away to college in two weeks. Do you think that’s going to happen if we turn ourselves in? There will be inquests, hearings, maybe even a trial. And we’re all eighteen. We’ll be tried as adults. We could be guilty of manslaughter—or reckless endangerment—or—”
“Or leaving the scene of a crime?” Bridget said.
“Brigg, none of us will have a future. Think about it. You want to do this to Dad right now—so soon after Mom dying?” He shook his head. “No one knows Mallory came out here. We should leave her where she is, cover our tracks, and say nothing.”
Bridget felt sick to her stomach. She glanced down the well. Mallory hadn’t moved.
“There’s nothing we can do for Mallory now,” she heard Brad say. “I know it sounds uncaring, but we have to think about how we can get through this without ruining our lives. . . .”
He was very convincing. They left Mallory at the bottom of that abandoned well. Brad said it would appear as if she’d gone looking for something in there, then simply fallen in. Fuller was worried about his blood—and bits of his skin—under her fingernails.
“Maybe they won’t examine her that closely,” Brad replied, leading the group up the trail. They were carrying their masks and lab coats. “After all, it sure looks like an accident, doesn’t it? Meanwhile, until your arm heals, you better wear long-sleeve shirts.”
Bridget wanted to get a rope, a flashlight, and a first-aid kit, then come back and climb down that well. If Mallory was still alive, they could get her out of there. And if she was dead, then at least they’d know they had done everything possible to save her.
“She’s dead, Brigg,” Brad said. “It’s too risky for us to keep marching up and down Briar Court and this trail. Someone might see us.”
Brad had an answer for everything, and everyone agreed with him. Even back then, he’d shown incredible leadership skills, keeping cool under fire. He made them rally together. They were a team, all protecting each other. Each one promised they would never talk about what had just happened—not even to a priest, or a psychiatrist, or a future spouse.
“We were never here,” Brad said, as they approached the break in the barbed-wire fence. “And none of us will ever come back. Okay?”
Everyone agreed—except Bridget. She turned away from her brother and gazed at the trail behind them. She figured it would be dark soon. She would definitely need the flashlight.
They passed Mallory’s mother’s Volare, parked halfway down Briar Court. Fuller thought they should move the car. It seemed like a blatant indication of where Mallory might be found.
“That’s a terrific idea,” Brad said, deadpan. “Want to go back there, climb down the well, and get the car keys out of her pocket? The car stays where it is. Makes sense that she’d leave it there before going into the woods. We’re not altering anything. And none of us are going back.”
One hour and twenty minutes later, Bridget was alone on the trail through Gorman’s Creek. Even with a flashlight to help her navigate in the darkness, she still stumbled over tree roots, divots, and rocks along the crude path. She was weighed down with forty feet of rope she’d found in the garage, and a plastic bag with a bottle of water, a washcloth, a can of Bactine, and some old smelling salts.
The group had broken up after emerging from Gorman’s Creek, all of them slinking off to their respective homes. Brad had retreated into his bedroom. As Bridget had gathered up supplies for her trip, she’d heard him in there, crying. She’d gently called to him that she was driving to the store, and did he need anything? She knew he mostly needed to be left alone.
Instead of driving to Quality Foods, she’d driven to Briar Court and parked behind Mallory’s mother’s Volare.
She was sweating—from the warm night, and from fear. In the heart of Gorman’s Creek, Bridget could hardly see anything beyond the flashlight’s illuminating beam. Everything else was just blackness. It occurred to her that she had to be insane to venture through these haunted woods alone. And what for? So she could climb down a hidden well and feel the pulse of a dead girl. Yet Bridget knew she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t go back and check on Mallory.
Bushes and leaves rustled around her. Bridget wondered what kind of animals roamed these woods after dark. Or was it just her and Mallory and some ghosts out here? Bridget shone the light past the trees, hoping to spot the Bowerses’ fireplace in the distance. The turnoff from the path was some place along there.
Bridget realized she would have to go to the police if Mallory was still alive. And if Mallory was dead, she would still go to the police. The others didn’t need to be involved. She would tell the authorities that she and Mallory were alone when Mallory fell down the well. It was a lie that would let everyone else off the hook. And it would even soothe her conscience—if only just a little bit. Better to report Mallory’s death and tell a lie than to leave her corpse out here for the coyotes.
Brad would be furious she’d broken their pact, but tough. She was doing it for him and the others—and for herself. It wasn’t exactly the right thing to do, but it was the
less wrong
thing. Bridget kept stopping to direct the flashlight to her left, where she could hear the rushing water in the ravine. The beam of light made shadows sweep across the trees and bushes—so they seemed to move. Bridget couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Finally, she saw the remnants of a brick fireplace and chimney in the clearing.
Bridget headed toward the Bowers ruins, then made her way to the plateau below it. In the blackness, she couldn’t see the ravine, but she knew just one wrong step would send her toppling down the hillside.
“Mallory?” she timidly called, ducking around the tilted tree. She set down the heavy rope. She planned to tie it around the trunk of the tree, then lower herself into the well. “Mallory? Can you hear me?”
She really didn’t expect an answer. But calling out for Mallory gave her a little bit of hope. Bridget shone the light down at the ground. She saw the discarded trapdoor, then directed the beam to the crawl space opening. “Mallory?”
Edging closer to the bunker, she felt sick. She didn’t want to look at Mallory’s corpse. Wincing, Bridget forced herself to peer into the well. She directed the flashlight down there.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. Bridget couldn’t believe what she saw.
She saw an empty well.
Leaves rustled behind her. Bridget swiveled around and aimed the flashlight at the ravine below. She didn’t see anyone. “Mallory?” she called. Then louder: “Mallory? Mallory, are you there?”
Bridget grabbed the coiled rope off the ground. Trembling, she made her way past the tilted tree and up toward the Bowers ruins. She trained the light on the broken-down old fireplace, the front stoop, and the surrounding bushes. There was no sign of anyone.
She heard leaves fluttering again, then a twig snapping. Bridget stayed perfectly still. “Mallory?” she whispered.
She couldn’t see anything in the darkness. But it felt as if someone was watching her every move. “Mallory? Where are you?” she cried out. “Mallory?
Mallory, can you hear me
?”
Then she remembered something Mallory Meehan had told her during their trek through these woods last May: “There’s no other place in this town where you could scream and scream, and no one would hear.”
Bridget fell silent. Tears stung her eyes. With a shaky hand, she aimed the flashlight toward the trees. She had to find the path. She needed to get the hell out of there.
She heard a scream.
Bridget sat up in bed and glanced at the luminous digital clock on her nightstand: 2:27 AM. She heard another scream. It was Eric.
Throwing aside the covers, Bridget jumped out of bed and ran down the hall to the boys’ room.
David was climbing out of bed. “Hey, doofus!” he said. “Wake up, you’re having a nightmare.” He started toward his little brother’s bed, but stopped when he saw his mother.
Bridget raced to Eric’s bedside. “Honey, it’s okay. . . .”
“There’s a man in the room!” Eric cried. Sitting up in bed, he clutched the covers to his chest. “I saw a man!”
“You were dreaming, dopey,” David said, plopping back down on his own bed. Sleepy-eyed, he ran a hand through his hair. He blindly reached for the lamp on his nightstand and switched on the light.
Bridget put her arms around Eric. He was trembling. “I saw a man creep into the room,” he whimpered. “Could you—could you check the closet?”
Bridget checked the closet for him—and for herself too. She knew Eric had just imagined the intruder, but she needed to make sure. She stepped into the bathroom too, even peeked behind the shower curtain. She asked David to turn off the light again, then sat on the side of Eric’s bed.
“Okay, guys, let’s all settle down and go back to sleep,” she said. She stroked Eric’s hair. “There’s nobody here but us chickens. We’re safe. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing bad is going to happen to any of us.”
She didn’t really believe what she was saying. But she said it again. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
He was excited about the rough, pencil sketches. He had her lying facedown with her hands tied behind her back. She was nude—except for her bra. He wanted the bra to be black. It would look so stark against her pale skin. Very kinky, the black bra and nothing else.
He didn’t like overmanipulating his death scenes. But if she wasn’t wearing a black bra, he’d make her put one on.
In one of the sketches, her legs were slightly spread, showing off her ass. In another, he’d drawn her legs tucked under her—as if she had slumped forward from a kneeling position. He liked that one. There was something vulnerable about it.
He’d made up his mind. Before strangling her, he would get her to kneel down.
She would die in the living room. On the end table, near where her corpse would be found, there was a framed portrait of the two boys—one of those details that fascinated him. The last time he’d broken into the house, he’d taken a close-up photo of it.
Good-looking little brats. He wanted to get their likenesses down for the portrait within the painting. It was a nice ironic touch to have the framed picture there—by the corpse. David’s and Eric’s well-scrubbed faces would be smiling down at the kinky death scene in front of them.
He snickered at the notion. When he strangled her, it would be like working in front of an audience.
“I believe Ms. Corrigan has time for just one more question,” the chairwoman said.
Bridget shared the stage with a stout, gray-haired woman with big glasses and a long, purple scarf draped around her neck. Bridget wore a charcoal-colored suit. They both stood behind podiums on an otherwise bare stage in the Performing Arts Hall at Roberts High School in Salem, Oregon.
Bridget’s speech, sponsored by the local chapter of the League of Women Voters, had gone over nicely with the three hundred people in the audience. And so far, she’d sailed through the questions. Flashbulbs kept going off in her face, but she’d becomed accustomed to that—almost.
“I see a hand up in the back,” the chairwoman said, pointing out to the audience. “You have a question?”
A woman stood up near the back of the auditorium. Bridget smiled at her, though the woman’s face was in the shadows.
“Hello, Bridget,”
she heard the woman say.
“I’m Mallory Meehan.”
“What?” Bridget whispered. She felt a sudden wave of nausea.
“Could you step forward and speak up, please?” the chairwoman said.
A robust woman with black hair stepped into the aisle, cleared her throat, and spoke up. “
I’m Valerie Sheehan!
” she called. Then someone handed her a microphone. “Can you hear me now?”
Bridget managed to smile and nod. She stopped gripping the edges of the podium. “Hi, Valerie. I can hear you fine.”
“I saw Jim Foley on the news this morning,” Valerie continued, now a bit too loudly. She referred to some notes she’d made. “And Mr. Foley said, I quote, ‘Brad Corrigan is morally unfit to hold public office. A close look at his professional record, and a closer look at his personal past, confirms what I say. He is morally unfit.’ End quote.” Valerie looked up from her notes. “Could you possibly answer these charges, Ms. Corrigan?”
Bridget nodded and smiled again. “I’d love to answer those charges, Valerie. But, as usual, when Jim Foley slings mud, there’s never any substance to it. I can’t reply to anything specific here. All we have is mud. It’s dark, it’s dirty, and it’s murky.” Bridget paused to let that sink in. “My brother’s professional record is impeccable. The law firm he started has been defending people’s civil rights for thirteen years. He has prosecuted everything from corrupt landlords to greedy corporations. You’d be hard pressed to find anything immoral about his professional record. As for his personal past, he’s been happily married to the same woman for several years. They have a darling daughter and another child on the way. He’s been a terrific uncle to my two sons and an all-around great brother to me. However, I must admit, Brad isn’t perfect. And he is guilty of a crime. He stole a pack of Rainblow bubblegum from the corner grocery when he was eight. But he felt so guilty, he went back an hour later and paid for it, then volunteered to sweep in front of the store for a week—which he did.”
There was some polite laughter from the crowd.
“I don’t know how that compares to Jim Foley stealing the pensions from hundreds of Mobilink employees when he retired from there. But you, the voters, can decide. On election day, you tell Jim Foley just who is ‘morally unfit for public office....’ ”
As she wrapped up her speech and thanked the crowd, Bridget kept wondering what Foley’s spies had uncovered about Brad’s past. And why weren’t they saying anything yet? Had Brad considered potential damage control?
She and Shelley had parked the minivan down the block from the school, near a playfield. Shelley was taking the rest of the day off to get together with her sister, who lived in Salem.
“You sure it’s okay I’m ditching you?” Shelley asked, walking to the minivan with her.
“It’s fine,” Bridget assured her. “I’ll crank up
ABBA’s Greatest Hits
on the way home, and the time will fly. Have fun tonight.”
Shelley’s sister pulled up behind them in a station wagon, then tapped the horn. Bridget waved at her while Shelley got a shopping bag of clothes for her sister out of the minivan. That was when Bridget noticed a pay phone across the street—at the edge of the playfield.
She still hadn’t had a chance to call Cheryl Blume.
Bridget waved at Shelley as the station wagon pulled away from the curb. Then the smile faded from her face, and she crossed the street to the pay phone. She’d gotten some quarters at Starbucks that morning. She dialed Cheryl’s number in Eugene and was instructed to deposit two dollars for the first three minutes.
Bridget put the coins in the slot, then counted the ring tones. Odds weren’t good Cheryl was home at eleven o’clock on a Wednesday morning. Bridget expected an answering machine to click on. But on the fourth ring, someone answered: “Yes, hello?”
“Hello, is Cheryl there, please?” Bridget said.
“This is Cheryl. Who’s calling?”
“Um, hi, Cheryl. It’s Bridget Corrigan.”
There was a silence on the other end of the line. “Um, you know, from high school?” Bridget added.
“Yes, my brother left me a message this morning and said you called. What’s going on?”
“Well, I know it’s going to sound kind of crazy, but I’m a little worried. Have you noticed anyone following you around lately?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I have some sad news. Fuller Sterns died a few days ago. It was a car wreck. He—”
“Yes, I heard about it. What does that have to do with me?”
“Olivia Rankin is dead too,” Bridget said. “An apparent suicide a couple of weeks ago. There are a lot of suspicious circumstances behind both these deaths. And one happened practically right after the other. It’s just too much of a coincidence.”
There was no response from the other end of the line.
“Cheryl, I’m worried that there’s a connection here,” Bridget continued. “When I last talked to Fuller—just a few days ago—he was worried too. Someone was stalking him. And now it’s happening to me. All of us who were with Mallory that night at Gorman’s Creek seem to be targeted. That’s why I’m asking if you’ve noticed anything strange lately—like someone following you or somebody watching your house.”
“No, I haven’t,” Cheryl replied. “And quite frankly, I really don’t appreciate this phone call, Bridget. I’m very busy and don’t have time for these paranoid tales of stalkers and ‘coincidental deaths.’ ”
“Listen, Cheryl—”
“No, you listen,” she cut in. “I’ve put the Gorman’s Creek incident behind me. Considering how much you and Brad are in the public eye right now, you’d be wise to do the same thing.” She sighed. “I need to hang up now.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re all right,” Bridget said lamely. “I’ll say hello to Brad for you.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Cheryl replied.
Bridget heard a click. Then the other end of the line went dead.
“Good-bye,” Bridget said to no one. Then she hung up the phone.
“That was a good speech.”
Bridget swiveled around.
Zach Matthias was smiling at her. He wore sunglasses, a pressed blue shirt, khakis, and a brown leather jacket. She hadn’t noticed him in the auditorium; and she didn’t know how long he’d been standing behind her just now.
“You shouldn’t—” Bridget caught her breath and managed to smile. “That was a sneak attack.”
He shrugged. “Sorry, I just didn’t want to interrupt your phone conversation.”
Bridget wondered how much of it he’d heard.
“Like I said, nice speech,” he continued. “It was a lot like the one you gave in Corvallis three weeks ago. I covered that one too.”
“Well, they get recycled once in a while,” Bridget replied. She headed across the street toward her minivan.
“I liked how you replied to that last question,” Zach said, walking alongside her. “You really gave it to old Jim Foley. I love what you said about your brother’s criminal record. I thought you showed extremely good judgment not mentioning what he, Fuller, Olivia, and Cheryl did back in eighty-five.”
Bridget stopped to stare at him.
Folding his arms, he leaned against the side of her van and grinned at her. “I’m talking about the great water tower scandal.
Bobcats class of eighty-five forever.
Or should I say
Forev?
Remember how it stayed like that for three days—until your brother and Fuller had to start painting over it?”
Bridget nodded and gave him a pale smile. She dug her keys out of her purse.
“Remember Mallory Meehan sending in that editorial to the
Register
? She wanted a reward for ratting on those guys—like she was turning in a crew of terrorists or something.” He took off his sunglasses and squinted at her. “Hey, did you ever get your mother’s necklace back from her?”
“What?” Bridget whispered.
“Kim Li told me that Mallory stole your mother’s necklace—”
Bridget unlocked the car door and nodded. “Yes, that’s right. And no, I—I never got it back.”
He moved away from the car, then put his sunglasses back on. “You seem like you’re in a hurry to get out of here.”
“Yes, it was nice seeing you again, Zach. But I’m sorry, I need to get back to Portland for something.”
“Really? Because I checked the Corrigan-for-Oregon Web site, and it didn’t show you had anything scheduled for this afternoon.”
Bridget’s eyes narrowed at him. “This is something personal.”
He nodded. “That’s good. For a minute there, I thought you were trying to avoid me.”
She opened the car door, then climbed inside. “Take care, Zach.”
He stopped her before she closed the car door. “Just for the record, Bridget, I may work for a pro-Foley newspaper, but personally, I can’t stand the son of a bitch. And I’m glad you nailed him today about screwing all those Mobilink employees out of their pensions. And I’d still like to take you out to lunch sometime.”
Zach pulled out his wallet, then took out a business card and set it on her dashboard. “Give me a call, okay?”
Before she could reply, he smiled and nodded, then closed the minivan’s door for her.
Bridget plucked the card from the dashboard and stuffed it in her purse. He unnerved her. And yes, she was attracted to him. Bridget made an effort not to look at Zach as she started up the car. She pulled away from the curb. It wasn’t until she started down the street that she let herself look back at him—in the side mirror.
She saw him standing there in the distance—right over the stenciled warning:
Some objects may be closer than they appear.
It started to drizzle during her drive back to Portland. Bridget switched on the windshield wipers and kept her eyes on the slick road ahead.
ABBA’s Greatest Hits
played at a low volume.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Zach Matthias. Miles back, she’d stolen a look at his business card while at a red light:
ZACHARY MATTHIAS
Writer/Communications/Correspondent
503/555-4159
It didn’t mention anything about the
Portland Examiner
. She wondered why—if he’d been covering her campaign work for at least three weeks now—she hadn’t yet seen one single article he’d written. Every day, Shelley left on her desk current newspaper and magazine articles relating to her and the campaign. Certainly, she would have noticed a Zachary Matthias byline among them—if there had ever been one.
If he was lying about his job as a reporter, what else was he lying about? He came on like he still harbored that crush he’d had on her in high school. But Bridget didn’t want to fall for it. She wondered what he
really
wanted. And she wondered just how much of her conversation with Cheryl Blume he’d heard.

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