Saturday, June 10
As I walked toward my truck, I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel drive and saw Margaris’s silver Range Rover emerge into the turnaround in front of the mobile home. The SUV made a sharp left turn and pulled up behind my truck.
My gut immediately tightened around the turkey sandwich I’d just eaten. Margaris had decided to make a personal visit, which seemed out of character for him, and I didn’t like it. Not to mention that he’d effectively blocked my truck with his SUV. As if echoing my frantic thoughts, Salinger was barking and throwing herself furiously against the mobile home door.
As Margaris slammed the SUV door with a loud thud, I shifted my keys to my left hand, pressing the envelope that contained the Margaris article and the five Sandinsky articles close to my chest as I fished the pepper spray out of my purse and shoved it into my jeans pocket.
“You got my message,” I said as he came up beside me. He was standing so close, I could smell a musky dampness exuding from his clothes; and his green rain slicker and waterproof pants were blotched with mud, as if he’d been walking in the woods all afternoon.
“Is that the article?” he pointed to the envelope. There was an amazing calmness about him that made me even more nervous.
As I opened the envelope and shuffled through the articles, it started to rain again, a warm rain that felt capable of bringing anything to life.
“I saw the stakes along the river.” I was taking my time finding the article. I needed to gauge what I was dealing with. “When do you break ground?”
He was staring at me as if I were the entertainment. “Monday.”
“You don’t waste any time.”
“Time is money.”
I eased the article out and handed it to him, closing the envelope flap.
As he glanced at it, there was a flicker at the corner of his mouth. He gave it back to me. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“Andy Weathers, the guy who found your daughter on the ferry and who is now dead, had this article hidden at his cottage.”
He shook his head. “So?”
“You have to admit it’s quite a coincidence. And Weathers had another article about you and the protest meeting against your development.”
“And this proves what?”
I wasn’t about to tell him what I’d learned from Bernard about the connection between the Mink River murders and the Sandinsky murder, or the meaning of the Shakespeare quote and my hunch about the two brothers. Not here, not in this isolated place where no one would hear me if I screamed.
“Like I said in my phone message, I think Weathers’s death is tied to the two murders,” I said lamely. “I’m still following up leads.”
“You do that.”
He started to walk away, then stopped. When he turned back, something had changed in his demeanor—something subtle, like a slight shift in temperature; nothing you could see, only feel.
“Aren’t you going to show me what else you have there?”
Before I could react, he yanked the envelope from me. My hand reached into my pocket and clamped round the pepper spray.
He leafed through the articles briefly as if he were bored, then thrust them back at me.
“What’s that about?”
I had to give him credit; he did look puzzled.
“Like I said, following up leads.”
For a moment, we stood face to face, his expression as blank as the rain, mine questioning. Then he abruptly turned away and walked toward his SUV. I let out a long deep breath. If he was one of the brothers, he’d hidden it well, his exterior as unreadable as steel. Maybe I was wrong about Margaris.
I shoved the soggy articles into the envelope and reached for the truck’s door handle when I suddenly heard the crunch of gravel. I reached for my pepper spray and then everything went black.
* * *
There was a rocking motion that seemed to be coming from the base of my skull. I rolled over on my back. The rocking dropped to the pit of my stomach; I was going to be sick. I opened my eyes to a gray sky and rain pelting my face. I tried to sit up but my hands and feet were tied.
Margaris was kneeling in the back of the canoe vigorously paddling, as if someone were chasing him. His butt rested up against the seat. The hood of the green rain slicker was pulled over his baseball cap and tied tightly under his chin. His face was flushed, his mouth a hard line, his eyes slate blue.
“I’m going to be sick,” I said.
He stopped paddling, slid the paddle inside the canoe, and inched forward on his knees. He grabbed my shoulders and yanked me to a sitting position.
“Puke in the river,” he said, moving back to his position against the seat.
I leaned over the side, but the wave of nausea passed. The water was metallic and molten—the rain falling relentlessly in sheets. My blouse, jeans, underwear were drenched. My hair hung in rivulets around my face. Though the sun hadn’t set and the air was warm, I was cold. Dampness seemed to have settled into my bones.
“What are you doing?” I asked. If I’d had any doubts about Margaris and Weathers being brothers, they were gone.
He was paddling hard, switching sides, struggling to keep the canoe moving straight ahead. The seiche must be against him, because he didn’t seem to be making a lot of progress. Rain dripped off the rim of his black baseball cap and down the front of his rain slicker. He wore the same green pants, but he’d changed his sneakers for heavy work boots. One of the laces was untied and dangled in the brown water that pooled around his feet. On the floor between us was a red and gray backpack, whose strap circled the center thwart.
“That’s up to you,” he said, breathing hard.
My head pounded and my hands and feet tingled with numbness, but I tried to stay focused. “That reporter, Wallace Bernard, the one who wrote the articles on the Sandinsky murder, I talked to him this morning. He knows about you,” I said. “If I turn up dead or missing, he’ll go to the police.”
“And tell them what? What do you think you’ve figured out? Some ridiculous theory about Weathers killing those girls and my being his brother? That’s your theory, isn’t it? The problem is there’s no proof. As far as the police know, they have their killer. Face it, you’re the only one who won’t let this go.”
He was right. “What do you want?” I didn’t think Margaris was a psychopath like his brother. But would he kill to keep me quiet?
He kept paddling, looking side to side with each stroke as if he expected someone to appear on one of the shores. “Silence. You let this thing go. In exchange you get to live. I thought about bribing you. But then, money’s not much of a temptation for you, is it? You’re all about feeling good at the end of the day.”
He stopped paddling a moment and pushed himself up on the stern seat. He nudged my foot with his boot as if I was a prize fish he’d just caught.
“What did you make as a teacher, huh? Couldn’t have been much. I know you don’t make squat as a reporter for that hick paper. Ah, but there’s that promise you made to Annie Everson. You willing to die for that?”
How did he know about my promise to Annie? I wondered.
“Don’t look so surprised. Annie told me all about it. She thinks you’re going to find the ‘real’ killer. She’s convinced that Erik Ritter didn’t do it. I wonder where she got that idea.”
He bent down, picked up a water bottle and took a long drink. He closed the plunger and threw the bottle behind him.
“She’s another do-gooder like you. Look what that got her—a dead daughter. People like you never get it. You think the world is run by good deeds. But that’s where you’re wrong. The world is run by power. Power and money, which amount to the same thing. The powerful call the shots. The powerful win. And their daughters don’t get killed by lunatics.”
I was astonished at his callousness. “How?”
“How do I know about your pathetic life? You’re not the only one with sources. Your life’s an open book. If you have enough money, you can read it. I even know about the cancer. A shame you’d have to die like this. After everything. But hey, life’s just full of those kinds of ironies. Like that Cohen woman. Girl gets fellowship. Girl gets murdered. Go figure.” He grinned. “So how much do you value your life? Enough to live with a little guilt?”
The nausea was back. I leaned over the side and this time I vomited. All my good intentions about health over the side. When I was done, I sat back against the front seat and faced Margaris. The hard seat dug into my spine. If I didn’t cooperate, he was going to kill me. That was now clear. Or was he just going to kill me regardless?
“Was it you or your brother who did the murders?”
“You answer me first. Silence or your life?” The canoe was listing back downstream. He began paddling again.
“How will you know I’ll keep my end of the bargain?”
He laughed. “We’re getting close to the place. So what’s it going to be?”
I looked over my shoulder. I saw the Nature Conservancy path upriver on the right. Margaris veered the canoe toward it.
“I can’t make that kind of decision without knowing if you killed those young women.”
“What possible motive would I have to kill them?” he scoffed.
“They discovered something about the Hine’s dragonfly that would have stopped your development.”
He laughed again, this time putting his head back. The sound echoed through the forest. “The only thing they discovered was that my brother’s a killer.”
“Like your uncle?” I asked. “Or was your mother right?”
“Andy, or should I say Eddie, didn’t kill our sister, if that’s what you’re asking. Good old pervert Uncle Bill did that. But Eddie might as well have. After they convicted Bill, Eddie told me he’d known all along Bill had killed Ashley. I told him he was crazy. He said he’d seen Ashley’s purple hair band in Bill’s car after she went missing. When I asked him why he didn’t tell the police, he said family doesn’t turn on family. I said that was lame, considering Uncle Mental had killed our half-sister. Kinda makes you wonder if murder runs in families. Like maybe there’s a gene for it. For your sake, you’d better hope it doesn’t.”
The shore was getting closer. I knew once I set foot on it, I’d be walking to my death.
“What about your brother’s death?”
He shoved the paddle into the river so hard water splashed over the side of the canoe. “What do you care about him? He was a murderer. The world’s a better place without him.”
“Did you kill him?”
As if he were explaining something difficult to a child, his voice softened. “He wouldn’t listen. I told him he had to stop baiting you, that he’d get caught. I couldn’t keep covering up for him. I begged him to stop. I even offered him money if he’d leave. ‘Go somewhere else,’ I told him. ‘Get a fresh start.’ He laughed at me. Told me he wasn’t leaving until he finished what he started. That’s when I knew I couldn’t let the dumb fuck live. Eddie always thought he could outsmart everyone. Even me. Why couldn’t he just stay up here and live out his useless life riding back and forth on that ferry he loved so much? Why’d he have to ruin my life? He wouldn’t listen. So, he had to die. In business, we call that downsizing. My brother just wasn’t productive. So he had to go.”
“You know the police will eventually figure it out. And killing me will only make it worse for you.”
“They’ll figure it out, all right. I’ll make sure of that. But they’ll figure it out wrong. That’s where you come in. That’s the beauty of my plan. Or should I say, Eddie’s plan.” The canoe was within feet of the shore.
“They’ll think the killer struck again. They’ll realize the killer’s still out there. Which puts my brother in the clear. And, unfortunately, that piece of shit Ritter. But I’ll deal with him later.”
He wasn’t making sense. “I don’t fit the pattern of the other victims.”
The canoe’s nose bumped the shore lodging in the mud. Margaris stopped paddling and reached down for the backpack. He unzipped the top compartment.
He took out a long, yellow-haired wig and dangled it in front of me. “Who do you think my brother’s next victim was, Ms. Girard? I found this at his house after his unfortunate fall. That’s why he took that damned dog of yours and left that picture. He was luring you to him. He hated you. Seems you reminded him of that reporter Bernard. The one he blamed for our mother’s death. Too bad for Eddie, I happened by and spoiled his plan. You should have seen his face when he opened the door and saw it was me and not you. He bragged to me about his plan to kill you. I saved your pathetic life. Now’s your chance to save yourself.”
“What about Erik Ritter?” I asked, desperate to break through to him. “If I keep quiet an innocent man goes to prison.”
His mouth tightened. “Ritter raped my daughter. That son of a bitch belongs in prison where he’ll learn what it means to be raped.”
I didn’t believe he’d let me go. My agreeing to silence was his way of winning. He wanted control not only over my body but my soul. The ultimate power trip.
I had nothing to lose, so I decided to test my theory. “Okay, I’ll keep quiet. I’ll let it go. You’re right, Ritter belongs in prison.”
He laughed. “I knew it. I knew you’d cave.”
“You got what you want. Now let me go.”
He shoved the wig in the backpack, zipped it up and threw it on shore. After securing the paddle under the thwarts, he jumped onto the muddy bank.
“Time’s up,” he said.
He reached down, untied my feet and yanked me up by my shoulders. “Now. Out of the boat.”
I pulled away from him, falling back onto the seat. “I said I’d keep quiet. You can walk away from this. Just let me go.” I’d been right about him. This was all a power trip.
He dragged me out of the canoe by my arms and pushed me up the bank. My running shoes sank in the squishy mud, but I managed to stay upright. In front of me was the two-mile hiking trail that led to the Conservancy parking lot. To my right was the trail leading to the clearing. I gazed straight ahead, willing someone to be walking toward us. But all I saw were woods glistening green in the quiet light.
“Too late. You should have stayed out of this,” he said, picking up the backpack.