The Last Victim (43 page)

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Authors: Kevin O'Brien

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“I’m sorry, Bridget,” he murmured. “If it’s any consolation, the way I understand it, you and the boys weren’t supposed to be harmed. This Clay character is acting on his own. Listen, did—Sonny say anything? Were you able to talk with him?”
“I’ll tell you about it later tonight.” She whispered again: “Zach, are you sure these men were working for Brad?”
“Well, I asked the guy if Brad hired him. And he replied, ‘Yeah, right, I work for ol’ Brad Corrigan.’ ” Zach took a deep breath. “But later, he asked me why I was so sure he worked for Brad. Maybe he was jerking me around, I don’t know. Anyway, I’m calling the police to go pick up this Siegel guy. This means you’ll see your tired old sin made public, and I’m sorry, Bridget. I can’t think of any other way—”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she cut in. “It’s not an issue anymore. I’ll explain it all to you tonight, Zach. You better make that call to the police.”
After Bridget hung up with Zach, she called Barbara Church on her cell. In the background on the other end of the line, Bridget could hear music and the din of crashing bowling pins. “Would you mind taking David and Eric back to your place?” she asked her friend. “Then I’ll swing by and pick them up around nine. I hate doing this to you, Barb. But it’s kind of a family emergency.”
Her friend said it wouldn’t be a problem. Bridget thanked her profusely.
After she hung up, she turned toward Scott. They had the car windows cracked open—to keep the air circulating. It wasn’t so much to keep her awake as to neutralize the fake “fresh breeze” scent the laundry had used on her clothes. At least they were cleaned and pressed.
“Can you take me to my brother’s house, Scott?” she asked.
He nodded. “No problem.”
Bridget speed-dialed Brad’s home phone. Her father picked up. “Dad, it’s me, Brigg,” she said coolly. “Is Brad home?”
“Just a minute,” he grumbled.
She heard him put down the phone. Things weren’t right between her and her father—not after what had been said the previous evening. Bridget didn’t think things between them would ever be right again.
Brad came on the line. “Brigg? What’s going on?”
“I need to talk with you, Brad,” she said steadily. “Can I come over?”
“What is it? You sound awful, Brigg.”
“Yeah, I’m feeling pretty awful,” she whispered. “I’ll see you in an hour, Brad.”
“You can find him in a forest clearing off a dirt road near Rocky Top, Route 319, at about elevation 2,400 feet,” Zach said into the pay phone outside Rudy’s. He’d already given the police Norbert J. Siegel’s name, address, and driver’s license number. He’d told them that Siegel was a hit man involved in the murders of Gerry Hilliard and Leslie Ackerman. All the while, Zach was holding Siegel’s cell phone and scrolling through the directory.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you more exact directions,” he said. “That’s the best I can do. You might want to bring along an ambulance. He could be hurt pretty badly. I hit him with a shovel a couple of times.”
“I see here you’re calling from a pay phone in the area,” the state police dispatcher said. “What’s your exact location, Mr. Matthias?”
The name
Clay
popped up on the cell phone’s little screen—with a Portland area code.
“Mr. Matthias?”
“Um, I need to hang up,” he said. “You have my home phone. We’ll talk later.”
“Wait, just a minute—”
Zach hung up the pay phone. He made yet another call, this time to the city desk at the
Examiner.
He asked for Tina, an editor there. They’d had lunch a couple of times.
“This is Tina,” she answered.
“Hey, Tina, it’s Zach Matthias, how are you?”
“Missing you and hating work. What’s going on?”
“I need a favor. Do you still have that reverse directory for the Portland area?”
“I sure do.”
“I’m looking for a name and address for a Portland resident.”
“Okay. Go ahead. Give me the number.”
Zach looked at the screen on Norbert Siegel’s cell phone, and he read her the number for
Clay.
Ten minutes later, Zach slowed down to sixty miles an hour on Highway 22. A cop car was speeding toward him in the other lane. Its flashers were going. The patrol car whooshed by. It was headed toward Rocky Top Road.
Zach checked his rearview mirror. He noticed a Jeep straggling behind him. But he was more interested in the patrol car, which eventually disappeared from view.
The two state police officers were investigating a report made at 6:47 PM. Some joker had called in from a pay phone, claiming he’d captured and “hurt pretty badly” a hit man named Norbert J. Siegel. Apparently, one of Siegel’s jobs had been on Bridget Corrigan’s estranged husband and his girlfriend. The police had already chalked up dozens of false leads on that double homicide. But when they ran a check on
Norbert J. Siegel
, they came up with a list of priors and a couple of aliases.
So Officer Susan Rose and her partner, Edward Kelly, were on their way up to Rocky Top Road, Route 319, elevation 2,400 feet, for what they figured would be a wild-goose chase. Even with the information they had on this alleged
hit man
, the two officers had a feeling they’d be wandering around the woods for two hours, and totally wasting their time.
At just past 2,400 feet along Route 319, they did spot a dead deer off the side of the road.
Then they noticed the two men lying beside it.
They looked dead too, beaten and bloody. On the ground, near one of the bodies, there was a shovel.
“I paid a visit to Sonny Fessler today,” Bridget said.
Sitting on the edge of his big mahogany desk, Brad squinted at her. “What?”
They were in his late-thirties-style study. Brad had a bottle of Amstel Light in his hand. He’d offered Bridget something to drink, but she’d declined. Her back straight, she sat on his sofa. She still had a bit of a headache from Sonny’s pills, but after about a gallon of coffee, she felt wide-awake. In fact, she was tense and on-edge.
“Sonny’s in a rest home up in Olympia,” she explained. “I went there to talk to him, because I thought he might have seen what happened that night with Mallory at Gorman’s Creek.”
Frowning, Brad sighed, then took a swig of beer.
“Olivia Rankin worked at this rest home, and I figured Sonny might have told her something. In fact, I was right. He told her quite a lot.”
“Brigg, I—”
“We didn’t kill Mallory,” she said, cutting him off.
“What?” he whispered.
“I don’t know if she was unconscious—or merely playing dead,” Bridget explained. “But after we left, Mallory pulled herself out of that well. She ran into Sonny Fessler, and Sonny slit her throat.”
“Jesus,” he murmured.
“Sonny told me all about it today. A couple of years ago, when Olivia was working at this rest home, he admitted the same thing to her. Olivia used what she knew to tap Anastasia Fessler for money. Eventually, Anastasia’s lawyers persuaded her to back off. And that’s when our friend Olivia tried to sell this ‘new information’ about Gorman’s Creek to Fuller Sterns. She tried to sell it to you too, Brad, didn’t she?”
Her brother shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Olivia held out on you and Fuller—and the rest of us who were at Gorman’s Creek that night. We all left there thinking we’d killed Mallory Meehan. Olivia was offering you and Fuller exoneration—only she tried to put a price on it. Fuller paid her five thousand dollars. But Olivia never got a chance to tell Fuller of his innocence, because someone put a bullet in her head.”
Brad appeared dazed. He moved as if in a stupor, retreating behind his desk. He plopped down in his big leather chair. He seemed unable to look her in the eye.
“Don’t you see, Brad? For a measly five thousand dollars, you could have learned you were innocent—after all these years. You wouldn’t have had to cover up any crime or get rid of any witnesses. Don’t you see what a senseless waste it was? You—” Bridget felt sick. She took a deep breath and tried to continue in a steady voice. “You had all those people murdered—for no reason.”
He shook his head at her. “Bridget, you’re wrong. That’s crazy—”
“I know you were behind all those killings, Brad,” she said angrily, her voice quivering. “Don’t lie to me. I know it was you.”
“Brigg, I swear to God—”
“You had Olivia killed, because you thought she was trying to blackmail you. And Fuller, he made the mistake of trying to see you and dredge up Gorman’s Creek again. So your hit men arranged a car accident for him. You got rid of Gerry and Leslie, because you knew I told Gerry about Gorman’s Creek. You couldn’t have anyone around who might come forward and say the
future senator of Oregon
had committed manslaughter—or second-degree murder—twenty years ago. So you had Cheryl killed too.” Tears were in her eyes, but she let out a crazy laugh. “And it was all so goddamn unnecessary! Because you didn’t kill Mallory! None of us did.”
Brad got up from his chair. “Brigg, please, calm down. This is insane. You’re talking nonsense—”
“You tried to have Zach killed because he was digging too deeply into what happened to Mallory. You—”
The study door opened. Bridget fell silent.
Their father stepped into the room. He wore a madras shirt and khaki slacks. His white hair was carefully combed, but his face looked ashen. He shut the door behind him.
“Pop, could you leave us alone for a second?” Brad asked.
“I heard everything you two were saying,” he said in a raspy voice. He made his way across the study and braced himself against the desk with a shaky hand. He turned toward both his children. “Bridget, back when your brother decided to run for senator, he told me about this bad business at Gorman’s Creek. And I made myself a vow right there and then, that if anyone got in Brad’s way—or even threatened to get in his way—I’d cut them down.”
Brad sighed. “Pop, please—”
Their father waved him away.
“At least sit down,” Brad pleaded. “You shouldn’t—”
“I’m fine!” he growled. “I want to stand for this.” He pointed a finger at Bridget. “I heard about that gal, that Olivia, who wanted money from your brother. So I hired those fellas to get rid of her—”
“Jesus, Pop, no,” Brad said, wincing. “Please, don’t—”
“And because I didn’t want to run into any more like her later on, I had these guys take care of the others. Like I said, no one is going to get in your brother’s way—not on his
way
to the senate, or his
way
to the White House, if he wants.”
“You mean, if
you
want,” Bridget retorted. She stared at her father with wonder and pain. Now she knew what the hit man had meant when he’d told Zach that
old Brad Corrigan
had hired him. She’d misunderstood at first. So had Zach. But now she understood everything.
“My God, I don’t know you at all,” she said to her father. “And you certainly don’t know me, Dad. Zach said I wasn’t supposed to be harmed. Okay, so what did you think I was going to do? With so many people dying, sooner or later, I was bound to figure out what was happening. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you to support your brother,” he replied, glaring at her. “And keep his best interests in mind. I did what was
necessary
, Brigg. Now it’s your turn. There’s no reason any of this should ever come out.”
“What are you talking about? You had people murdered!”
“What happened to your husband and his girlfriend, the police are calling a ‘drug thing,’ ” her father said. “The other deaths looked like accidents, didn’t they? Let it stay that way. No one has to know any different.”
Bridget slowly shook her head, and then she turned to her brother. “God, listen to him, Brad. Can you believe it?”
Brad stared at her for a moment. He shoved his hands in his pockets, then looked down at the oriental rug and sighed. “So what
are
you going to do, Brigg?” he asked in a cold voice that sliced right through her.
“You want me to be a part of this?” she asked, incredulous. “Did you know what he was doing?”
“Of course not,” Brad whispered. “But if it gets out, we’re ruined.”
“Don’t muck it up, honey,” her father whispered. “I’m sick. I’m not going to be around much longer. The doctor at the hospital gave me less than a year. I want to see my son become senator before I die. Nothing is standing in our way now.”
“That’s part of your vow, isn’t it?” Bridget said. “And if I stood in Brad’s way, you’d get rid of me too. Isn’t that right? Is that how much I matter to you,
Dad?
”
“Your brother asked you a question. What are you going to do?”
She shook her head. “I’m not doing anything,” she said, standing up. “The police are already doing it. You’re both too late. Dad, your hit man—the one who was supposed to get rid of my friend Zach today—he failed in his mission. The police have him by now. I’m sorry I made
a muck of it
, Dad, but your dream is going to die before you do. Brad’s political career is over. And you’re the one who ruined it.”
Her father let out a frail cry, then staggered toward the sofa. Bridget watched him put his head in his hands and sob.
She stepped out of the study—and almost bumped into Janice. Her sister-in-law backed away from the door. Obviously, she’d been listening in on the conversation. A day after her fake miscarriage, she still carried on the charade by wearing an oversized blue sweater. She had a drink in her hand. Bridget frowned at her. Janice might have had to keep pretending she had a “tummy” for another week or two, but at least she didn’t have to drink on the sly anymore.
Bridget brushed past her.
“Why don’t you just take a knife and stab him in the heart?” Janice said in a low voice.
At the front door, Bridget glanced back at her.
“You know, he’s really dying,” Janice said. “It’s cancer, and it’s inoperable. He’s dying, and you don’t give a damn. How did such a great man end up with a bitch like you for a daughter? He told me some of the hurtful things you said to him last night. After all he’s done for you—”
“Well, he gave me an earful about
you
last night too,” Bridget retorted. “I can’t believe how for the last ten weeks, you’ve dished out all that
crap
about having
Bradley Corrigan the Third
, and how it just
had to be a boy—”
“It was a boy!” Janice growled. “I
felt
it. I knew!”
“Okay, Janice, it might have been a boy,” Bridget allowed. “But one thing we know for sure. He wasn’t Brad’s son. That wasn’t my nephew you were carrying around.”
Janice let out an irate laugh. “No, it wasn’t. You’re right. It wasn’t your nephew, Bridget. It was your
brother
.”
Bridget numbly gazed at her.
“It was your baby brother, and I wanted to keep him,” Janice whispered. She had tears in her eyes as she glared at Bridget. “Your father has only one child worthy of him. I thought he deserved another—another child to make up for his
disappointment of a daughter
.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Bridget murmured. She backed away and bumped into the door. She felt so disgusted, she just wanted to get out of there. “I—I’m sorry, Janice,” she heard herself say. “But lucky for that poor baby, it died.”
Janice slapped her across the face. The drink slipped out of her hand, and the glass smashed on the floor.
Dazed, Bridget barely felt the blow. Though the side of her face stung, it was if Janice had merely grazed her. She just couldn’t feel anything right now. Bridget turned toward the door.
She left her brother’s house and headed for the car.
Clay hadn’t planned on being there for the changing of the guard.
He was parked halfway down the block from Bridget’s house. He’d come dressed and prepared for tonight’s activities. He wore a black turtleneck and black jeans. His supplies were in a little knapsack on the floor in the front seat of his car: a set of skeleton keys, .45 revolver, hunter’s knife, Polaroid camera and extra film, heavy-duty tape, and fifty feet of the same type of cord he’d use to strangle his
Girl by a Red Sofa.
Clay had been sitting there in his car for the last twenty-five minutes. No one was on duty in front of the darkened house. But Bridget’s minivan was in the driveway.
He knew the routine by now. The guards switched shifts at seven in the morning and seven at night. The detective agency must have gotten some deal on white Tauruses, because that was all they drove. Most of the time, the same two guards were on duty: a tall, white dude with thinning brown hair; and a stocky, tough-looking black guy.
Finally, a white Taurus pulled up in front of the house. Clay watched the black guy help her out of the car, then walk her inside. Some lights went on in the gray cedar shaker. The guard must have been giving the place the once-over or using the can or something, because he stayed in there a good ten minutes. Meanwhile, the other guard finally arrived, but he stayed in his car.
Seeing the two white Tauruses parked one in front of the other struck Clay kind of funny. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was the realization that they were going to so much trouble working out their shifts, checking the house every time she came and went, always dressing up in their business suits, and driving cars that matched. It was pretty damn funny. They were going through all those formalities to guard her, and Bridget Corrigan would still end up dead tonight.
After emerging from the house, the black guy talked to his colleague, got into his car, then drove away.
Clay waited. Obviously, the boys weren’t home. And he’d already planned on using the little brats in his painting,
St. Bridget and the Children.
It wouldn’t work without them.
So for now, he just sat and waited and watched.
Janice’s slap had left a red mark on the left side of Bridget’s face. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror and camouflaged the fresh welt with some makeup. It felt a little sore. But she didn’t have time to fuss over it. She just needed to cover up the damn thing so David wouldn’t see and ask about it.
She didn’t want to answer any questions tonight—or explain anything to anybody. Too much had happened in the last few hours. Maybe Sonny Fessler’s pills weren’t completely out of her system, or perhaps it was what Rachel Towles called her “survival instincts” at work again. Whatever the case, Bridget wasn’t allowing herself to feel anything at the moment. She was just numb.

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