I wasn't much of a night person, but I couldn't have slept if I'd tucked myself into Egyptian cotton sheets after a full body massage. Curt was downstairs watching the Phillies play the Dodgers. He'd put a midnight call time on his note, and it was getting close. Part of me hoped he wouldn't show. But if he did, I wanted to be there, for Curt and for Annie.
At 11:45, I went downstairs and sat beside him. He put an arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. We watched the game in silence until the doorbell rang ten minutes later.
He shut off the television and stood. "Why don't you go back upstairs."
I stared at him. "What are you talking about? I want to hear what he has to say."
He ran a hand over his face and sighed. "I knew that. It was just a suggestion." He picked up his cell phone from the coffee table and slipped it into his breast pocket. "Let's do this."
We went to the door. Ernie stood there with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He'd buttoned his shirt. He looked ready for a police lineup.
Curt stepped aside without a word and Ernie came in clutching a torn piece of brown paper bag. "I got your note. You said there'd be money in it for me, so here I am." His lips were on the thin side and chapped from spending so much time outdoors, so his forced grin looked painful. I hoped it was.
"Here you are." Curt stepped around him to close the front door. He looked like he was in full predator mode. Scary. "I want you to take a look at something for me." He held out the picture of Randy O'Brien on his cell phone. "You never gave us a description of Sasquatch. Is this him?"
"I didn't see him," Ernie said quickly. "Not really. It was dark. His back was to me."
"Like it is here," Curt said, holding the cell phone closer. "Right?"
"Yeah. I guess." Ernie glanced at it and looked away.
"Let me give you a description," Curt said. His tone was amiable. "Does he have a shaved head and two different colored eyes?"
"I didn't see his eyes," Ernie said, too quickly. "Like I said, it was dark."
"How about his head?" Curt asked. "Did you see his head?"
"He might maybe have been bald," Ernie said. "I can't say for sure one way or the other. I wasn't on top of him, you know." He held out his hand. "Look, I don't want no trouble. Just give me the money, and I'll be on my way."
I noticed Curt stayed between Ernie and the door.
"I'm surprised you don't recognize one of your buddies," Curt said.
"What…?" I began.
Curt's arms were crossed. He lifted a couple of fingers in my direction, and I stopped talking. I didn't know what to say anyway.
Ernie managed to blanch despite his overdone tan. "Look, man, I did what I could here."
"I think you did more than that," Curt said. "Right, Eddie?"
I could actually feel my face grow pale. "Eddie?" I whispered. "Eddie Lanergan?"
"Who's Eddie Lanergan?" Ernie glanced back and forth between us. "What're you talking about, mister? I told you, my name's Ernie."
"Sure it is." Curt looked at me. "Check out the sneakers."
I looked at a pair of violently orange sneakers, the same sneakers Ernie had been wearing when he'd first shown up at the front door. The ones worn by the man who'd sold Randy O'Brien the watch and probably the earrings and necklace, too. Curt must have noticed them before too, and remembered them afterward.
"And the wedding ring," Curt added.
Immediately Ernie stuck his hands back in his pockets. "I ain't married."
"I know," Curt said. "Not anymore. Not after you killed your wife." He forcibly pulled Ernie's arm out of his pocket so I could see the braided tricolor gold wedding band. The match to the wedding band we'd seen in Annie's jewelry box. I wanted to tear it off his finger.
"You killed Annie?" I stared at him. "But you're dead!"
He actually laughed, a rusty gate kind of laugh that made my entire body hot with fury. "That's what she thought. I hear my service was very moving. A shame she didn't have anything to bury but some ashes."
There might be something to bury very soon. I'd never seen such contempt in Curt's expression. "How did you do it?" he demanded. "Her post said you died in an explosion."
Eddie shrugged. "Remember the gas explosion in Northeast Philly, leveled a house? Poor Eddie happened to be wrong place, wrong time. That was my brother's house."
My jaw dropped. "You killed your own brother, too?"
He rolled his eyes. "No, I didn't kill my brother. He's serving twenty to life in Graterford. He's not gonna be needin' the place."
"Then why did you do it?" I asked.
He pulled a duh face. "I needed to be dead. With nothing left of me, or it wasn't gonna work."
"But why?" I repeated. "Why Annie?"
He made a patronizing tsk, tsk sound. "Poor Annie Hollander, wanted so bad to be married. I had her pegged the minute I saw her at the Mummers parade. You know she paid for dinner that night? And every night after that. She was happy to do it. She'd got what she wanted. The man of her dreams." He waggled his fingers. The gold band gleamed in the light of the chandelier.
My eyes fixed on it. "Why didn't you sell that, too?" I asked him. "It obviously didn't mean anything to you."
"You're wrong there," he told me. "It meant respectability. It's just a tool. People are reassured when they see a wedding ring. Like they think it makes you a stand-up guy to have the wife, the kids, the picket fence." He snorted. "It still didn't get me no job or a roof over my head."
Maybe that had something to do with the fact he smelled like a shrimp boat.
"Well," he said, "I don't need respectability no more. And I'm not exactly the sentimental type, case you hadn't noticed."
"Parasite." Curt practically spat the word. If I didn't stop him, it was entirely possible he'd rip Eddie's head right off his body. I didn't move a muscle.
"You were stealing her jewelry," I said, figuring it out as I went. "She never lost anything. But she knew something was going on, and she put the valuable things in her safe deposit box."
A shadow crossed his face. He hadn't known about the safe deposit box. I felt a little thrill of satisfaction and couldn't resist twisting the knife. "She had a lot of money in there, too. More than you'll ever see in your worthless life." And suddenly I knew. "Life insurance money," I said. "Your life insurance money. You wanted to steal your own policy proceeds?"
"Well, I couldn't collect hers, seein' as how she was alive at the time," he said. "I ain't stupid. I know the cops look hard at the spouse in cases like this. But if I died first, the payoff would be the same—I'd be in the clear, and Annie'd have gotten herself a free education in trusting the wrong people."
"How'd you pull it off?" Curt cut in.
Eddie snorted. "Like I'm gonna spill my guts to you. Then what? You
call the cops? They didn't believe you the first time. Why should
they believe you now when there's still no body?"
Annie was still missing. I couldn't think about that now.
"I won't call the cops," Curt said. "It'll be just between us. We're alone here. Look, you're obviously a criminal mastermind, but did you really think the beach was the perfect place to bury her?"
He narrowed his eyes. "You wearin' a wire?"
Curt held his arms out to the side. "Where would I hide it?" He had a point. There was barely room in that T-shirt for his skin.
Eddie looked him over and shrugged. "It wasn't perfect, but it was easy. Until youse screwed it up. I was gonna let some stupid fat housewife find her in broad daylight, and I wouldn't have had to deal with no dead body no more. Why you think it was a shallow grave?"
"Because you're lazy?" I suggested.
His eyes went black. "That's how my wife used to talk to me. Always wanting me to get a job, to do something with my life. Well, I did. I sold off her life in pieces, but it didn't amount to nothin'. The diamond from those fancy earrings. Her watch. The pearl earrings to a buddy."
Randy O'Brien, who'd hit on Annie and hadn't even bothered to attend Eddie's funeral, and had pointed us straight toward Ernie for twenty bucks. Some buddy.
"Why come up with the whole Sasquatch business?" Curt asked. "Why not just say you didn't see a thing on the beach that night?"
Eddie shrugged. "Ain't my fault you two actually thought there was some dude out there called Sasquatch. Anyway, got you lookin' the other way, right?" That rusty laugh grated out of him again.
"Did you steal her car, too?" I asked. It took all of my self-control not to launch myself at this animal. I kept waiting for Curt to do it, but he was just taking in the whole ugly story and letting Eddie continue to breathe. It was the first time I didn't admire his control.
"Let's say I borrowed it, to give her a ride." Eddie did a sad little headshake. "Too bad she couldn't appreciate the scenery since she made the trip in the trunk. Chop shop didn't give me much for it, but what're you gonna do. Anyway, when I ran out of things to sell, I faked dyin' so she could collect the life insurance money. I mean, let her do the work, right? Responsible Annie, always with the insurance. Gotta get insurance, honey. You never know what's gonna happen, honey." He snorted. "She was right about that. I had the perfect plan. Cops can't look at the husband if the husband's already dead. Besides, I got a rap sheet and I ain't going back to prison. So when the money came in, I just had to go get it. I wasn't sharin' it with her. For what?"
"Only the money wasn't at the house," Curt said. He was smiling a little. "She'd already put it in the safe deposit box. Where you couldn't get to it."
"Old Annie was one step ahead of me there," he agreed. "But I was one step ahead of her. She never knew she married an ex-con. She was so trusting, it was sickening."
I dug my nails into my palms to keep from smacking him.
"Why did you sell us the locket?" I asked him. "Why not just take it to some pawn shop?"
He shrugged. "I was hungry. Youse looked like you had money."
"Such a sentimentalist," Curt said, his tone icy.
A thought occurred to me. "That diet book at the house was yours, wasn't it?"
"I was a dead man," he said. "I had to change my looks. Seventy pounds and a suntan later, my looks changed."
He was right about that. He'd been a pasty doughboy in the few photographs I'd seen, and I had a feeling those photographs were the only ones Annie had ever had. I'd bet she hadn't put them away, like she'd told Carolyn. My guess was Eddie hadn't let her take many in the first place. He wouldn't want to allow too many chances to be recognized later on. And he'd isolated Annie to such an extent, groomed her for so long, that she hadn't questioned a thing. She'd just gone along with his program, right to her grave.
But I still had to know. "Why did you move the body that night?" I asked him. "Why not just let the cops take her away like you planned?"
Eddie shrugged again, unconcerned. "I was at the bar earlier watchin' some TV show where some forensic stiffs found evidence on a body. I figured it was time to move her to a better place."
"And you're going to tell us where that better place is," Curt said. "She deserves a proper burial. Her family deserves it."
Eddie scratched his chin. "I don't think so. I got a lot of livin' to do. I got no time for prison."
"You just told us everything," I said. At least I hoped he had. I didn't think I could listen to much more.
"Yeah, but at least I didn't lie to the cops." He gave a nasty little grin. I didn't see a bit of the Eddie from Annie's Facebook page in that grin or in anything else about this monster in front of us.
"Lucky you." Curt came to stand next to me. "Guess you got away with the perfect murder."
"Guess I did." Eddie stuck out his hand. "And the story's got to be worth twenty bucks."
I stared at him. "You expect us to pay you?"
"I'll give you the twenty," Curt said, "if you tell us where Annie is buried. You've got to have one decent bone in that disgusting body."
Eddie seemed to consider it. "No," he said finally, "I really don't. But it don't matter now—I washed off all the evidence anyway. She's in the Pine Barrens, near Batsto. Better find her quick, though. Lots of predators out this time of year."
"Tell me about it." Curt tipped his chin toward the door. "Get out of here."
I shot him a disbelieving look. "You're going to let him walk away?"
"We're not the cops," Curt said.
"You ain't as dumb as you look, mister." Eddie opened it casually, as if he was getting ready to take a leisurely walk in the moonlight.
The Ocean Beach police were waiting on the porch.
"They're the cops." Curt smiled at me as he took his cell phone from his pocket. "You guys hear everything?"
"Every last word," one of them said. "And it's all on tape. Thanks for your help, Eddie."
Eddie twisted around to glare at Curt. "You said you wasn't gonna call the cops!"
Curt shrugged. "What can I tell you? I'm not as dumb as I look." And he closed the door.