The Survivors Club (24 page)

That someone could do this for fun.

That they could do this to this soldier. Who, by all accounts, was troubled and suffered deeply from what he’d experienced in Iraq.

Tess thought about Michael DeKoven.

She wondered if he had a sniper rifle. She wondered where he practiced. She wondered who she could talk to who would tell her.

Finally she got back into her Tahoe and drove south.

Next stop: Phoenix.

By the time Michael got back home, he had gone through several stages: fear, despair, and now anger. He parked the 4Runner in the garage and walked to the house. He went to the bathroom off the kitchen, not wanting to create a mess in the master bathroom. Since it was right near the back door it would be easier for cleanup.

Gingerly, he stripped off his jersey and shorts, wincing with pain and ready for a hot shower where he could just stand there and let the water pour over him and he could just…think.

He did. But the water pounded him like needles, and he couldn’t stand to remain under the spray very long. Just get the dirt and dried blood off, pick out a little of the gravel and twigs.

He’d been unable to think too well up to now. But now he was at DeKoven Central, his power base. A man’s home was his castle, and this place
was
a castle.

He patted himself dry and thought about what he could wear—a silk robe would probably be the best. As he walked into the bedroom he glanced in the large mirror and saw two things. How pale and scared his face looked—

And Martin, on his stomach, sprawled on the bed behind him. Tanned and beautiful.

Asleep.

When he first came into the room it had scared him to see someone here. The first thing he’d felt was fear.

As if fear had been sown into him. He could almost smell it on himself. He looked at Martin, felt the usual appreciation for his lover’s beauty.

He felt it despite the stinging road rash, the bruises. He was raw to the air. Knew that he’d be stiff and in terrible pain tomorrow, his muscles torqued around in all sorts of ways.

If he was going to do anything of a sexual nature, it had to be now.

And there lay Martin. So perfect.

Just what the doctor ordered.

He padded quietly to the walk-in closet. The birchwood dowel, four feet long and a quarter inch in diameter, stood in the corner of the closet, the price sticker still affixed. On the floor beneath was a nylon cord in a loop. Already cut.

He’d stashed it all here for a moment just like this.

The fucker in the truck ran him off the
road
.

He left that note.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

“The fuck you don’t,” Michael muttered. “You don’t know the
half
I did.” He grabbed the rope.
Martin still sleeping.
Jet lag? Michael had always been quick as a snake, and he had rehearsed it so many times and done it more than a few, it went fast. Knee into Martin’s back. Wrap the rope tight around his two wrists, then secure the two ends to the headboard posts.

Martin squeaked.

Bucked.

Cried out.

“It’s okay, Martin,” Michael said, gently running his hand down Martin’s gleaming flank as if quieting a horse. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay, not yet.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
.

“Michael, please!”

“I’m feeling my dark side,” Michael said in way of explanation.

“Please!”

“You have a choice.”

“No!”

“A choice, Martin.” He reached under the bed and groped around for the book. He’d marked the pages with Post-it Notes.

He held up the first page. The Chelsea grin.

“Oh, God, Michael, don’t even joke about that—”

Michael felt the dark tide rising in his chest. It all but obliterated the terror he’d felt as the truck bore down on him. But the dread remained.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID
.

That fueled his anger. His anger was always silent, but effective. He said, “You don’t like the Chelsea grin? I admit, it would ruin you for acting jobs. Or modeling. Look at the picture.”

Obediently, Martin craned his neck to look again. He’d seen it before. The Chelsea grin was what happened when someone took a knife to the corners of a man’s mouth and cut to make the grin wider.

“Michael, you wouldn’t—”

“Martin, you don’t know what I’m capable of.”

Martin stared at him.

“You have a choice. Like last time.” Michael reached out and touched a black curl of Martin’s hair, hooked it behind his lover’s ear. “You know you’ll be all right. A little bit of pain, and then pleasure beyond your wildest dreams. You just have to choose. The Chelsea grin or—”

“Please!
Please!
”

“Shhhhhhhh.” Michael put his finger to his lover’s lips. Martin was shaking uncontrollably. It reminded him of his wife’s worthless Chihuahua, always trembling. “You don’t want that, it’s okay,” Michael crooned. “There’s always another option.”

“What?
What?
”

“The bastinado. Some pain, but on the good side, no marks. No
marks
, Martin. Nothing to mar your beauty. Easy peasy. Just something for you to get through, to prove how much you love me.”

“Michael, I
love
you. Let’s make love and—”

“Shhhhhhh. A couple of whacks, that’s all. No more than two to each foot.”

“No! Please, Michael! Let’s make love! Please, I want you so much—”

“The Chelsea grin or the bastinado? You have to choose.”

Martin was crying now. Sobbing. His fear kited up out of his soul and Michael felt that if he opened his mouth right now he could swallow it whole. “You have to say it, Martin.”

Martin whimpered, “The bas—the bastinado.”

“Legs in the air. Soles of the feet facing me.”

Martin raised them slowly.

“Keep them up. No fair cheating. I want my two whacks. I won’t be cheated.”

Martin’s legs were trembling. His beautiful, muscular, tanned legs. He would keep them up. He was completely in submission mode.

Michael took a couple of practice swings. The dowel whipped back and forth, making a satisfying
whooshing
sound as it cleaved the air.

“You know something, Martin?” Michael said as he stood at the foot of the bed and assumed the stance of a Samurai.

Thwack!

“I’m feeling better already.”

CHAPTER 44

By the time Tess reached Phoenix, it was getting late. She’d called ahead and the cold case detective, a tall rawboned woman named Jenny Searles, came out to greet her. She led the way down the hallway to the office she shared with two other detectives, both immersed in their own cases at their desks.

Searles had a file on her desk, marked Karen Poole.

Karen Poole’s murder book.

Searles said, “Couple of things, so you won’t get pissed off at me. This is a cold case, and as often happens, it looks like a few things are either missing or incomplete. There was a big reorganization of the file room seven or eight years ago, and a lot of stuff ended up being misplaced.”

Tess nodded. She’d worked in a cold case unit years ago in Albuquerque, and sometimes a cold case was like a piece of paper torn to bits. You had to paste together the story as best you could. “Thanks for the warning.”

“No problem.”

The first page carried the details of the shooting. Karen Poole, along with the clerk, was killed. Karen had been standing by the counter of the Pit Stop convenience store, talking to the young man behind the counter. It was just before shift change at twelve midnight. She was shot at point-blank range. The young man, a kid with dishwater-blond hair and a stud through his eyebrow, had fallen behind the counter, shot through the eye. The killer had managed to get him to open the cash register and took what little money was there.

Tess watched and rewatched the surveillance tape. The man who entered the store wore a black ski mask and a hoodie. The sweatshirt he wore either made him look bulky or he was heavyset. Under the ski mask his head looked substantial, and from the way he moved, Tess thought he was older—pushing forty. Definitely not a kid.

Tess asked Searles, “Have you made any progress on this case?”

“Unfortunately, no. The only witnesses are dead. And the guy must have run off to a car parked nearby.”

“Anything unusual?”

“No. Except usually the robberies are committed by younger males.”

She saw no nervousness. No panic. No hesitation.

He was good with a weapon. Just from the trajectory, just from the way he killed.

“How much money was there in the drawer?”

“Twenty dollars.”

Tess went back and forth through the report. It looked an awful lot like Karen Poole had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was just too much evidence that this was a convenience store holdup.

But she didn’t believe that.

Tess had already formed an opinion, already thought the shooter was Wade Poole. Everything she’d learned about him pointed to
that. But the evidence just wasn’t there. There didn’t seem to be a way
to orchestrate it. No way to make it happen. Too many variables.

Tess said, “So what do you think?”

“The guy’s a good shot.”

The image was grainy and dark. The man had walked out the door to the right, money stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie. To the right along the walkway and out of view. Gone.

“Can we look at it again?”

“Sure.”

Tess watched it three times.

“Can we go back?”

“Sure.”

“There.”

Detective Searles stopped the tape. There was a lot of static, everything frozen, gray and black, blurry image, the greenish light of a car going by, headlights hitting the wall.

“What does that look like to you?”

“His hand?”

“Yes.”

“He’s wearing gloves.”

“Yes, he is. But there. You can see the outline of a ring. On his right hand.”

“Looks like some kind of man’s ring. Biggest ring I’ve ever seen.”

The ring was bulky and square, stretching the leather glove.

Tess had seen a clunky ring like that before. She’d seen it on the third finger of the right hand of the cheerful rancher type she’d met at Jaimie Wolfe’s place.

How he’d grinned and looked around at the stable yard, at the riding ring, and the barn. “Name’s Barnes,” he’d told her.

She saw him reach down to lift a potted plant off its saucer, exposing the key to the house. Saw the clunky ring sparkle in the sunlight as he twisted the key in the doorknob, all the while making small talk. She remembered asking him for his contact information so she could talk to him later, and how he’d put her off by asking her to give him her card.

“I’ll copy you on the file and the tape,” Jenny Searles was saying. “The detective on the original case is Sol Green. I think his number’s still good.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

“Great,” Tess said. But she hardly registered the walk back out to the front doors of the station.

She was still back at Jaimie’s ranch, watching Wade Poole let the dogs inside the house as he gave her the biggest snow job ever.

Tess called Sol Green’s number but got no reply. She checked in to a Red Roof Inn off the freeway—on her dime—and called Bonny at home.

“Where are you again?”

“I’m in Phoenix.”

She ran it down for him.

“Any progress?”

“I don’t know. I thought while I was here I would see what I could find out about Pat Schofield’s sister’s homicide.”

“What’s that got to do with it? How long ago was she killed?”

“Eleven years ago.”

“I don’t see what you’re looking for.”

“I don’t, either. It’s probably nothing. But Pat Scofield, George Hanley’s daughter, ran into Wade Poole, Karen’s husband. She’s afraid of him, and thinks Karen was a victim of domestic violence.”

“That’s not your case. What’s it look like?”

“It
looks
like a simple robbery-homicide. A holdup.”

“Then why are you still there?”

“I’m sleepy, and I don’t want to make the drive.”

A pause.

Tess wondered, in that moment, if she’d just driven over the line.

“Good enough,” Bonny said at last. “Keep me posted.”

The next morning Tess called Danny, who was awake and on his way in to work. “Do you have the Scofields’ number?”

“No, but it’s in the file.”

“Will you text me?”

“Sure.”

“How’s Elena?”

“Perfect. Although you’d be amazed how such a puny little thing can make such noise. We’re in for a long long year.”

More than a
year
, Tess thought.

Tess called Sol Green again. This time he answered—on the first ring. “I was just about to call you.”

Tess asked if she could come by and talk to him. He gave her directions to an older section of Phoenix. Brick ranch houses, lots of large trees and lawns—something you didn’t see in new sections.

Sol Green and his wife were just finishing breakfast when Tess showed up.

They insisted she have breakfast.

Tess asked him a number of questions about the homicide. His wife at that point took the dishes to the sink and rinsed them, as if shutting out what they were saying, then came over and kissed him on the cheek and said, “I’m going to the store.”

“Okay, hon.”

He leveled his worn eyes on Tess. “So what do you want to know?”

Tess was on the freeway by ten a.m. She’d already put in a call to Bonny, telling him what she’d learned from Sol Green. “Bottom line, Wade Poole knew where Karen would be that night, because she was waiting for her nephew to get off work.”

“Her nephew?”

“The other victim, David Molroney. He was her nephew—which was not in the cold case file.”

She’d learned this from Sol Green.

Tess explained that Karen had been married before she married Wade Poole and was on good terms with David, her nephew from that marriage. In fact, she thought of him as a son. His car was in the shop that week, and while he could get a ride to the store, she agreed to pick him up while his car was in the shop. She did it for a week.

“Sol Green told me they looked at Poole, but he had friends who vouched for him—he was at a bowling alley. Said he cooperated. Everything pointed to a random shooting.”

Bonny whistled.

Tess said, “He wanted to get rid of her, so he made it look like a robbery.”

“Audacious.”

Tess told Bonny about her meeting with Dave Barnes a.k.a. Wade Poole at Jaimie Wolfe’s place. Remembering how he’d smiled and looked around the barnyard and picked himself out a nice, unmemorable name. Remembering the chunky ring on his finger. “He was good, Bonny. He was just your friendly neighborhood rancher type looking after a friend’s property.”

She saw his face now: open, honest, affable. A sunny personality.

Only a psychopath could pull that off.

Bonny said, “Jesus.”

Driving back, Tess superimposed the image of the man she’d met at Jaimie’s over the hooded figure at the convenience store. Fortunately, she could run the tape back in her head exactly as she’d seen it on the video recorder.

Tess recognized his movements.

Subtle things.

The man had always been in control. He knew how to get the upper hand from the beginning—like a good cop would.

And then, there were the gloves, and the bulky ring hidden underneath one of them.