The Enemy at Home

As Nora stood up, the nylon stocking fell from her neck and drifted to the floor. She felt as if her windpipe had been crushed, and she started coughing. She dropped Joe’s gun onto the chair’s seat cushion. Still gasping for air, she stared down at her brother’s body.

Sprawled on her living room rug, Ray had a hole in his chest that bled through his shirt. His eyes were open in a dazed, dead stare—as if the shock he’d experienced in his final seconds had been forever stamped on his face.

Nora was in shock, too.

She started sobbing and wasn’t sure she could ever stop. But she couldn’t afford to fall apart right now. The weeping made her sore throat even worse. With a handkerchief, Nora wiped her eyes and nose. She kept telling herself that Ray had already been dead to her.

The gunshot must have been heard by everyone on the block. Had any of her neighbors called the police? At this point, answering a bunch of questions from some police investigator would just about kill her. The last thing she wanted to do was reveal all the evil things Ray had done—all his horrible crimes. Yet she had to call the police before someone else did, before someone came knocking on her door about the gunshot.

Making a wide arc around Ray’s body, she staggered to the phone in the front hallway. But Nora hesitated before picking up the receiver. She thought about Chris and Jane—and the legacy their deranged uncle had left for them. Ray had been right about that. This would ruin her family.

Why couldn’t he have been killed in that explosion? Until this evening, she’d thought her brother had died a coward and a bungler. And she might have been able to forgive him. But that was before she’d realized what he’d done was much, much worse.

She heard a car outside. It sounded like the vehicle was slowing down. Her first thought was that one of the neighbors had indeed called the police about the gunshot.

Nora went to the front door. With a shaky hand, she moved aside the blackout curtain and glanced out the window. A taxi had pulled up to the end of the driveway. Joe climbed out of the back seat.

Nora turned and glanced at her brother’s corpse again. She stepped back toward the living room.

For a few moments—maybe longer—everything stood still. The reality of what had just happened started to sink in and it paralyzed her. She couldn’t stop staring at Ray’s lifeless body.

A gentle knocking on the front door snapped her out of it.

Biting her lip, Nora went back to the door and opened it.

With his clothes still filthy and a bandage over the gash on his forehead, Joe gave her a tentative smile. “I saw the curtain move, and figured you were up. I—” He fell silent and his smile disappeared. “My God, Nora, what happened to your neck?”

She realized that the stocking must have left a mark. “Ray showed up here a half hour ago,” she said—in a strained, scratchy voice.

Opening the door wider, she nodded toward the living room.

Joe brushed past her and stopped dead in the living room entryway.

“My God,” he whispered again, staring down at Ray’s corpse. He stood there and said nothing else for a few moments.

Finally, he turned, took her hand and led her into the front hall. He sat her down on the stairs.

Nora heard herself quietly explain everything that had happened. She knew, if she called the police and they saw this crime scene and the marks on her neck, she could plead self-defense. It would probably be an open-and-shut case.

“But you don’t want to call the police, do you?” Joe asked, standing in front of her with his hand on the newel post. “You don’t want it getting out about what he’s done.”

Nora couldn’t answer him without crying. She folded her arms and shook her head. “But I have to . . .”

Joe glanced toward the living room and frowned. From where she sat on the stairs, Nora couldn’t see into the room. But she knew Joe was looking at Ray, sprawled on the floor.

“Before you shot him,” Joe said, “did you at least tell him that he didn’t get away with it—that we knew he set up my brother?”

Touching her neck, Nora cleared her throat and nodded. “He . . . he became very agitated about that. He figured out that Jackson’s brother must have tipped me off, but he didn’t know you were Jackson’s brother. He couldn’t remember your first name. He kept asking me where he could find you. He wanted to strike a deal with me. He’d leave town and completely disappear if I told him where you were.”

“But you wouldn’t tell him?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t do that to you, Joe.”

He said nothing. But he smiled a little and sighed.

Nora shrugged. “Anyway, then he started to choke me . . . and you know the rest . . .” Her voice started quivering. “Listen, we can’t just sit here. I . . . I have to call the police . . .”

“And it’ll completely destroy your family, you know it will,” Joe said.

Closing her eyes, she nodded. “That’s what Ray said. And he was right. But I don’t have a choice.”

Joe gazed over toward Ray’s corpse again. “Yes, you do. He died nearly two weeks ago in an explosion down in San Diego.” He turned to her. “You and I are the only ones who know he came here tonight, Nora. If we buried him somewhere, no one would be the wiser. Nobody’s looking for him. He already took care of that for us by faking his death.”

“I can’t,” she whimpered, her throat still scratchy. “I need to take responsibility for what happened . . .”

“For killing him in self-defense?” Joe asked. “Or are you assuming responsibility for his crimes, because he was your kid brother? Is it worth ruining your life and devastating your family?”

“The families of Ray’s victims deserve to know . . .”

“The police already have their murderer—and he’s in the hospital morgue right now with an ice pick in his head. You couldn’t ask for a more suitable ending for the ‘Rosie’ killer. You wouldn’t be doing the victims’ families any favors by confusing the issue with this revelation about your brother. I talked to one of the cops in the emergency room tonight. They’re certain they have the right guy this time—and he got what he deserved. Don’t wreck that for the cops and everyone else because you want to punish yourself.”

Nora couldn’t argue with what he was saying. But she was never one of those people who felt okay about getting away with something. Even if she took Joe’s advice and buried Ray somewhere, it would still haunt her for the rest of her life. Yet Joe was right. No one would be the wiser—including her children and her husband. And they wouldn’t be hurt by any of this.

“Another thing,” Joe said. “It’s like I already told you, the navy doesn’t want the truth getting out about Ray. They’re trying to keep a lid on it. I’d just as soon you keep a lid on it, too . . .”

“I don’t understand,” Nora said, bewildered. “I thought you—of all people—would want Ray exposed as the murderer he was.”

“Now that he’s dead, it doesn’t matter so much.” Wincing a bit, Joe shrugged. “It’s complicated. I can explain later. Basically, I don’t want everyone knowing that my poor brother got duped . . .” He glanced toward the living room again—and then at her. “Nora, I understand that you need to do what you think is the right thing here. But no one wants to know about your brother. It won’t help anybody. Don’t let Ray destroy you and your family. I can bury him someplace for you. I’ll make this go away—and make it right.”

Nora gazed up at him. “I couldn’t let you do that, Joe . . .” She reached up toward the newel post and placed her hand on his. “Not alone . . .”

* * *

“Please, God, I hope we’re doing the right thing here,” Nora murmured—so quietly that she could barely hear herself.

Soaked with perspiration and covered in grime, she was exhausted. She could see her breath in the cold night air. With the back of a shovel, she patted down the rectangle of loose, dark dirt over Ray’s grave.

They’d found a tiny clearing between some trees and shrubs. While digging the hole, she and Joe hadn’t encountered many rocks or tree roots. Joe had done most of the heavy work and hadn’t complained—despite his bruised ribs. Moments ago, he’d gone to collect some branches to cover the freshly turned soil. Nora took this time alone to pray over her brother’s grave.

“All the people Ray hurt, please, God, ease their suffering,” she whispered. “I hope what we’re doing here somehow helps them and the police put an end to all this. Let Joe be right about that. I’m doing this to protect my family. And maybe I’m still trying to protect Ray, too. I’m always going to feel responsible for him—for what he did . . .”

Nora heard twigs snapping underfoot and rustling. Through the trees, she spotted Joe approaching the gravesite.

She realized she’d started out praying and ended up talking to herself.

While she’d dug her brother’s grave, Nora had come to the conclusion that burying Ray was more or less the best thing they could do—for everyone. There was no better solution—at least, nothing that didn’t involve people getting hurt. But she couldn’t shake a few lingering doubts. And she would always be worried that someone might discover the grave.

Two hours ago, Joe had asked if she wanted to bury her brother in the ravine. But Nora knew that if she did that, she’d never be able to look at her backyard without thinking about Ray’s body hidden in the gulch below.

She’d had another place in mind.

Before wrapping her brother in an old, paint-splattered drop cloth, Joe had removed Ray’s wallet and some car keys from his pants pocket. That was when they’d realized Ray must have robbed a Bakersfield man named Sidney Garrick and assumed his identity. Ray may have even killed him. In all likelihood, Ray had parked Sidney Garrick’s car somewhere near the house. But they’d decided that the car would have to remain there for the time being.

Going through Ray’s other pockets, Joe had also found a room key to cabin 16 of the Blue Haven Roadside Hotel. “We’ll need to check his room and make sure he didn’t leave anything there,” Joe had said. “This is going to be a long night, Nora. This place you want to bury him, is it close?”

She’d told him that it was a forty-minute drive.

They’d carried Ray out the back door and loaded him into the Packard’s trunk—along with two shovels. Nora had remembered to bring a flashlight and the key to the gate marked PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. Then, with Joe beside her in the passenger seat, Nora had driven, retracing the route she’d taken the night before to Mrs. Landauer’s private woodland retreat.

They’d found this spot in the forest—at least fifty feet from the dirt trail.

Now she helped Joe scatter some branches and leaves over the gravesite. Joe wiped off his hands and then retrieved his shovel. “Before we go, would you like to say a prayer or something?”

“I already did that,” Nora replied. She picked up her shovel, too.

“Well, then I’ll say my own little prayer.” Joe stopped and looked down at the unmarked grave. “God, let no one ever find what we’ve buried here—at least, not in our lifetime.”

“Amen,” Nora murmured. “God, forgive him.”

Then, dirty and tired, they treaded back to the car.

During the drive home, Nora struggled to keep her eyes open and focus on the road. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you, Joe,” she told him. “I’m in your debt—and so is my family. As I mentioned earlier, I thought you of all people would want to see Ray exposed as the murderer he was.”

“Well, I’m trying to protect my brother, too,” he admitted. The breeze through the open window on the passenger side ruffled his hair. “In the long run, it’s better for Jackson this way. He was tricked into helping Ray with his scheme—to the point of switching dog tags with him. I think about the investigation and the news stories, and I’d hate to see Jackson put under that kind of scrutiny. People can be pretty cruel and heartless. But when I talked to some of the guys in his and Ray’s outfit, none of them had a mean thing to say about Jackson. Maybe it’s because they were talking to his brother. But no one accused Jackson of being a coward or a deserter. The general consensus among them seemed to be that, after the explosion, Jackson must have gotten confused and thought they were under attack. So, he threw his stuff together, thinking they’d be shipping out. But then he wandered off base where something must have happened to him. Jackson was actually smarter than that. He would have stayed put and waited for his orders. Still, if they want to think he got confused and wandered off, I guess that’s not so bad.”

“I should be getting word from the navy any day now about the remains,” Nora said, turning onto Erickson Road. “I’ve reserved a plot and a marker at Lakeview Cemetery, which isn’t far from the house. I haven’t instructed them yet about what I want on the tombstone. I’ll pay for everything, of course. Would you like Jackson to be buried in Seattle?”

A sad smile came to his face. “That’s awful nice of you, Nora . . .”

“No, it’s the very least I can do,” she replied, watching the road ahead.

“Well, I’ll have to think about it,” Joe said. “Andy—I mean, Jackson—he always wanted to be buried at sea . . .”

It was one fifty in the morning when, on the way home, they swung by the Blue Haven Roadside Hotel, a long, sprawling, cabin-style motor court. Slightly dilapidated, it looked like the place had seen better days. From the rendering of a lumberjack on the road sign, Nora guessed the hotel must have catered to timber workers at one time.

No one seemed to be around when she and Joe let themselves into cabin 16. Joe found a couple of his brother’s shirts hanging in the closet. Pulling them off their hangers, he held the bunched-up shirts to his chest for a moment. Nora noticed tears in his eyes. He seemed so grateful to have found them.

Then they went back to searching the cabin for anything that might be traced to Ray, Jackson, or the murders. Nora wondered if Ray had kept any souvenirs from his victims—like the wind-up Scottie with the cymbals. But they didn’t find anything. If Ray had stolen something of value from any of the women he’d murdered, he must have sold or pawned it already. They left with only the two shirts.

Twenty-five minutes later, as Nora slowly drove down her block, Joe kept a lookout for a car with California plates. He had her stop alongside a black Chrysler coupe. The key he’d taken from Ray’s pocket easily fit into the lock. In the trunk, he found Nora’s three missing aprons, a bag containing her nylons and lipstick, and a box of tools—lockpicks, a crowbar, screwdrivers and master keys.

Joe said they looked like a burglar’s tools. He said he would dump them off at a scrap drive post, making a few trips so it wasn’t so obvious what he was scrapping.

Nora had no desire to hold on to the nylons, the lipstick or the aprons. They seemed tainted now. She would burn them in the furnace before going to bed. She was too tired to do anything about Sidney Garrick’s Chrysler. Within the next day or two, she’d drive the car to another part of town, park it, leave the wallet in the glove compartment, and then take a bus home.

After she pulled into the driveway, they unloaded the shovels, Ray’s box of tools and Jackson’s shirts.

“I need to be up for work in two hours,” Nora sighed, grabbing the aprons and the bag containing her nylons and lipstick out of the back seat. She closed the car door and glanced at the house. “It’s just two hours, but right now, I really don’t want to be alone in there.”

“You shouldn’t have to be,” Joe replied.

She stashed the shovels in the garage. Joe set the box of tools and the shirts on the steps to the garage apartment. Then he closed the door, locked it again and came back to Nora. They headed into the house together.

While Joe washed up in the powder room, Nora went down to the basement and burned the stockings, the aprons and the lipstick in the furnace. Then she scrubbed the bloodstain out of the rug in the living room. She kept thinking there was something else she needed to do.

“We’ve covered everything,” Joe told her. “What you need to do is rest.”

He made her a sandwich while she took a shower.

They sat together on the family room sofa. Nora had a couple of bites of her sandwich and half a glass of milk.

Joe didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He was just there, and that was enough.

Nora rested her head on his shoulder—an intimate gesture she’d shared only with Pete. The last time had been months and months ago. Somehow, it didn’t feel strange with Joe. Nora was so grateful that she began to cry, but not for long.

She felt his arm go around her shoulders and soon fell asleep.