Phil Lingren lived in a lowland rural area on the northwest side. A limestone gravel driveway stretched into the trees from the road. I parked on the shoulder and turned off the car. Moonlight filtered through live oak branches. Insects hummed and a raccoon shuffled through the scrub and fallen branches. After a hundred yards the driveway opened into a clearing with several brightly lit sheds and outbuildings and a brightly lit house. It was one-thirty a.m. and the place looked as though Lingren were getting ready for a party.
The first outbuilding was a wooden work shed with an open front wall. On a grimy workbench there were darkly oiled table vices, a metal mallet, a hacksaw, metal tongs and a propane blowtorch – heavy tools that could bend or fashion metal. On the back of the bench stood plastic gallon milk jugs of gasoline, engine coolant and oil. The metal shavings on the floor were caked with grease.
Next was a storage shed, its door open, a fluorescent light buzzing brightly over rakes, a lawn mower, a leaf blower, an edger, shovels and a pail of garden gloves. An outside lamp threw a cone of light on the driveway. I called into the yard, ‘Mr Lingren?’
A detached two-car garage stood next to the storage shed. The doors were up, the lights on. An old Plymouth Fury was parked on one side. On the other, there was a Yamaha motorcycle and beyond it a dozen stacks of boxes that reached to the ceiling. I stepped inside, glanced under the car and moved toward the boxes. Lingren had arranged the stacks a couple of feet apart from each other as if the boxes needed breathing room. I stepped into a gap between them and eased myself through the maze.
No one was there.
A gravel path led from the garage to a brown ranch-style house. The front door was open, though a screen door was shut. Every light seemed to be on inside.
I rang the doorbell and called again, ‘Mr Lingren?’
When no one answered, I stepped into the house.
The lights suddenly went out over the yard, from the sheds and garage to the house, dumping me into blackness. The night birds and insects quieted and all was silent.
Slowly the sounds started again, first a cricket, then a rustling in the leaves near the house, and my eyes adjusted to the moonlight. I knew I should back away and go to my car. I should call Charles and we could search the place together. If Charles still wasn’t answering his phone I should drive away.
I went deeper into the house. Moonlight through the living-room windows cast shadows over worktables that were stacked with old radios, televisions and stereo components. The family room had a couch, an easy chair, a wall-mounted large-screen television and a long table strewn with computer parts. I didn’t want to know the man who lived this way.
The kitchen had only a small window, which faced away from the moonlight. I stumbled over a chair, then felt my way along counters until I reached a pantry. When I tried the door it resisted as if someone were holding the knob.
I pulled harder.
The door pulled back.
I should walk away. I should run. I should call Charles. I should stand aside and let the earth turn until it ground its old axis to dust.
I yanked the knob.
The door blew open and knocked me to the floor. A man stepped past me. I reached for him but missed, then scrambled to my feet and went after him. He ran through the house as if it were on fire. By the time I reached the living room he was out the front door. When I reached the door I glimpsed him disappearing into the trees alongside the driveway.
‘Lingren!’ I yelled.
The man didn’t slow or answer.
I went to the kitchen, groped along the wall until I found the pantry and ran my hands past the shelves until I found a circuit breaker box. The main breaker had been thrown. I flipped it and the house and yard lit up.
The house looked thirty or forty years old and had touches of the rustic. A coarse-grained chair rail lined the kitchen walls and hand-hewn beams crossed the ceiling. Electronic components littered the counters, tables and chairs. In the bedroom, clothes lay on the floor. The bathroom smelled like stale urine.
I went out the back door into the yard. Floodlights, planted in the ground, illuminated the branches of three huge live oaks. At the rear of the property, backing against a wooden fence, there was another shed. Unlike the rest of the buildings, it was dark.
I crossed the yard and tried the door. It swung open freely. A sickeningly sweet smell swelled out and I stepped away and caught my breath.
I reached inside, found a switch and flipped it.
A man was hanging by his neck from a steel support bar, a plastic bag over his head. He was a small man and wore only underwear and a white T-shirt, as if he’d awakened from sleep for this. The noose was made of clothesline. Except for the dead man the shed was empty.
I hoisted him into the air, loosened the line, got him down, laid him on the floor and pulled the bag off his face.
Phil Lingren’s dead eyes stared at me.
The man in the kitchen pantry must have killed him. I’d arrived at the house too late. A half hour. Five minutes. Thirty seconds. I didn’t know when Lingren had taken his last breath but now there was nothing left of him.
Everything was moving too fast. The killer was getting rid of the last of the partiers before anyone could focus. With Lingren dead, there were only two left – Daniel Turner and a man whose name I didn’t know and who might already be dead.
I pulled out Thomas’s phone and dialed Charles but hung up after two rings. Even if he answered he could do no good. I dialed another number and after four rings Daniel’s wife said, ‘Hello.’
I’d awakened her. ‘Hey, Patty, this is BB. Can I talk to Daniel?’
‘Christ, BB. He’s working. You can get him at the station or on his cell.’
Phil Lingren’s head tipped to the side and for a moment I thought he was alive but his body was only giving itself to the gravity that would pull it deep into the ground.
‘You still there, BB?’ Patty asked.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘This will seem like a strange question but what kind of cars do the two of you drive?’
She sighed. ‘It’s two in the morning.’
‘I know.’
‘A Honda Pilot and a Buick LaCrosse.’
‘What color is the Pilot?’
‘BB …’
‘Please.’
‘Blue. They call it blue pearl.’
‘Is that a greenish blue?’
‘No, BB, it’s blue. Pearl blue, whatever that means. I’m really tired.’
‘Just one other thing,’ I said. ‘When Daniel comes in, do me a favor and ask him about his trip to Jamaica.’
Her voice came awake and angry. ‘You know something? You’re a damned hypocrite, BB.’
‘You already know about Jamaica?’
‘It’s none of your business what I know.’ She hung up.
Why had the man in Lingren’s pantry run away instead of attacking me? Why had the shooter at Melchiori’s house allowed me to escape? I wondered about Daniel’s involvement. He’d been at Melchiori’s last party. He’d called me right after a homeless man found Belinda dead on an empty lot on Blue Avenue. He’d played me in and out. Had Daniel set me up to fall from the beginning? When I wasn’t working out as a fall guy, did he set up Terrence? And now that he had problems with Terrence, was he setting me up again?
I dialed Daniel’s cell number. When he answered I said, ‘I know you were in Jamaica.’
He said, ‘You know nothing, BB. Come in now and you won’t get hurt.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Try to figure you out,’ I said.
‘Yeah? What’s to figure?’
‘With all the people who’ve died after attending Melchiori’s party, why are you still alive?’ I asked.
‘I was hoping you would tell me,’ Daniel said. ‘Maybe you’re afraid to go after a cop. Maybe you’re my friend and can’t get yourself to kill me. Maybe another reason altogether. Why don’t you come in and talk about it?’
‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘Who were the other men at the party?’
‘I don’t like your games,’ he said.
I’d known Daniel for most of my life and I listened to his voice for signs that he’d turned vicious or worse but I heard neither innocence nor guilt. ‘I’ve got pictures of everyone who was there,’ I said. ‘Phil Lingren was one of them.’
‘Yeah, Phil was there.’
‘Melchiori too, and David Fowler and you. And one other man. You tell me who that other man is and I’ll tell you something interesting about Lingren – unless you know it already.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Who was the other man?’ I asked.
‘You’ve got his picture too?’
‘In my pocket.’
‘His name’s Steve Perkins,’ he said.
‘If you really think I’m responsible for the killings, why would you tell me that?’
‘With his picture you could identify him anyway.’
‘Or you’re setting a trap to bring me in,’ I said.
‘Or I know that Perkins is already in hiding and safe.’
‘Could be,’ I said. ‘D’you know where he lives?’
‘What’s this about Lingren?’
‘You sure you don’t already know? You can find him in his backyard shed. He got hung by his neck from a steel bar with a plastic bag over his head.’
‘Jesus, BB! Did you …’ His shock sounded real.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t. But I’m thinking that you might’ve.’
‘You there with him?’
‘Regrettably.’
‘Wait there for me,’ he said.
‘Yeah, right.’ I hung up.
Flies were buzzing around Lingren’s mouth and eyes. A couple of mosquitoes were making a strange Eucharist of his cheeks and forehead.
As I stepped out of the shed Thomas’s phone rang. I flipped it open, thinking Daniel was calling back. ‘What?’ I said.
‘BB?’ It was Susan. She sounded confused.
‘Yeah. Hey. What’s up?’
‘Why do you have Thomas’s phone?’ she asked.
‘I borrowed it from him.’
‘Is he with you?’
‘No, of course not. What’s going on?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean he’s gone. I woke up and he wasn’t here. He took my car.’
‘Damn.’ The news shouldn’t have surprised me. I’d left the house hundreds of times when I should’ve stayed locked in my room and he’d watched me go. Now he’d left in the middle of the night and the thought of it terrified me.
‘He’s worried about you,’ Susan said. ‘He wants to be with you.’
‘I’m the last person he should want to be with.’
‘Come home,’ she said. ‘Let him find you here.’
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘He’s your son, BB.’
‘Call me if he comes back.’
‘BB …’
‘I love you.’
‘Don’t say that.’
I hung up. Thomas would have no idea of where to search for me. He would have no idea what to do. But I knew too well the urge that got a man out of bed in the middle of the night and made him drive through dark, empty streets whether or not he knew where he was going.
I cut across the lawn, around the side of the house and on to the gravel driveway. Daniel had talked as if I was the killer. He could probably make a case against me. Thanks to him, forensics would be able to show that I’d been to the site where Belinda’s body was found. I’d also been to the house where Ashley Littleton’s roommate died, in the room where Aggie had taken a beating, in Melchiori’s house when he got shot, and now in Phil Lingren’s shed.
The insects buzzing in the bushes seemed to mock me. I yelled, ‘Fuck,’ and the sounds stopped but there was no echo and by the time I reached my car they started again with new urgency.
I called 411. They had numbers and addresses for three men named Steven Perkins. No one answered at the first number, and at the second the man’s voice sounded too old for weekend orgies in Jamaica. At the third the man sounded fatigued but right and so I hung up and drove toward his house.
Perkins lived in a neighborhood of neat single-story bungalows with well-tended lawns – houses that rested back in the shadows as if they were hiding from the glare of the streetlights. I parked in Perkins’ driveway behind a silver Prius, my headlights shining on a brick house with a red door. A wooden fence extended from either end of the house and circled into the backyard. Despite the rain, an irrigation system was on in the yard next door, the sprinkler heads hissing as they sprayed the lawn. The sound of semi-trailer trucks rumbling over a highway a half mile away drifted through the still air.
It was a quarter to three in the morning and Perkins’ house was dark when I climbed the front porch stairs. A glazed pot of plumbago stood on each step. A wreath of dried wildflowers hung on the door. The place looked like a cardboard cutout of a kind of happy normalcy that I’d never known personally, and standing on the porch sent a tremor of discomfort through me.
A voice answered my knock immediately. ‘Yes?’ I’d awakened no one.
‘Mr Perkins?’
‘What do you want?’
‘I need to talk to Steve Perkins.’
‘About what?’
‘Jamaica.’
Several seconds passed, then two lock bolts clicked and the door swung halfway open. The lights remained off inside and out.
‘Come in,’ the voice said.
I stepped over the threshold and a pistol barrel pressed against my jaw. I was shoved to the side and frisked from front and back. ‘Come on,’ the man said. He led me into a windowless kitchen, closed a door and turned on a light. As I expected, he was the man in Melchiori’s party photos. He was about thirty, a little short of six feet tall, and had the build of an ex-athlete who’d eaten and drunk too much. He held the pistol firmly and had a second gun tucked into his belt. A bottle of Smirnoff, the cap off, about a third full, stood on the counter next to three butcher knives.
Perkins went to the counter, lifted the bottle to his lips and asked, ‘Why are you here?’
I glanced around the kitchen. On the refrigerator, magnets held photographs of two blonde-haired girls, about three and five years old, and the crayon art that the girls had made. A large, framed professional portrait of the Perkins family – Steve himself, a blonde woman and the girls, all dressed in jeans and red shirts – hung on the wall between a spice rack and another wildflower wreath, this one shaped into a heart. The inside of the house, like the outside, felt clean and corrupt.
I scratched my cheek and said, ‘My name’s William Byrd. People call me BB.’
‘I know who you are.’
‘Then you know why I’m here. Did you know that Phil Lingren died tonight?’
Fear flashed in his eyes but he said calmly, ‘I’m not surprised. Killed the same way as the others?’
‘Close enough. You’re one of the last alive. You and Daniel Turner.’
‘I have the feeling I’m next on the list,’ he said.
‘Whose list?’
‘The girl’s father said he’d get us.’ He drank again from the vodka bottle.
‘Godrell Graham?’
He nodded. ‘When everyone else left Kingston I stayed for an extra day because I couldn’t change my flight. Graham came to my hotel room with a couple of men. He threatened me. I told him I didn’t touch Tralena. I was there when it happened but it wasn’t me and I couldn’t stop it. I said I had daughters too.’
‘Did you tell him the names of the others at the party?’
‘I had to. He said he’d kill me.’ He spoke with a deep sadness but no guilt that I could hear.
‘You deserve to die then,’ I said.
‘I’ve got two girls. I was thinking of them.’
‘You put them on the line the moment you got on the plane to Jamaica.’
‘I know.’
I asked, ‘Where are they now?’
‘I sent them with my wife to her mother’s house up in Savannah.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ll kill Graham if he comes after me,’ he said.
‘He’s not coming himself,’ I said. ‘He arrived in town two days ago. He must’ve hired out the killings.’
‘To who?’
‘Daniel Turner?’ I said.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Daniel also has a wife,’ I said. ‘He might think he has no choice.’
The idea seemed to worry him. He said, ‘Twenty minutes before you arrived there was someone else outside. He tried to come in the front door but I said I had a gun.’
‘I saw no one,’ I said. ‘Did you call nine-one-one?’
‘To say what? Someone’s trying to kill me because I saw a sixteen-year-old killed in Jamaica?’ He drank from the Smirnoff bottle. It was nearly empty. He offered it to me.
I shook my head and said, ‘You need to get out of here.’
‘I’m not running away.’
‘If you stay, you’ll die. That won’t do your daughters any good. Check into a motel in Gainesville for a few days. Go to Alabama. But don’t stay here.’
‘How about you? What good are you doing anyone?’
I tried to smile. ‘I’m already past hope.’
Without much more persuasion, Perkins turned off the kitchen light and went to assemble a travel bag. When he returned he had a third pistol.
We went out the back on to a patio. A clothesline stretched from the patio to a fence, and a plastic playhouse stood in the moonlight like a magic cottage. Next to the fence, there was a sandbox with pails.
We stayed in the shadows and worked our way around the house, Perkins carrying a pistol in one hand and his travel bag in the other. When we reached the fence gate to the front yard I stepped into the moonlight.
A gunshot rang and a bullet slapped into the gate.
I ducked to the wall.
Another gunshot rang.
‘Shoot your gun,’ I said to Perkins.
He was wild-eyed. ‘I can’t see him,’ he said.
‘Doesn’t matter. Shoot it.’
He pointed his pistol over the back fence and pulled the trigger four times and in the fury of sound I opened the latch and yelled, ‘Run.’
We pushed through the gate and sprinted across the front lawn. Gunshots trailed us.
We got into my car and I pulled back on to the street and shifted into drive. As we drove away, a large SUV that had been parked against a curb two houses down flipped on its headlights and a set of blindingly bright post-mounted spotlights. As the SUV closed on us, I stepped on the accelerator. In the rearview mirror, through the brilliant light, I recognized the silhouette of the driver.
It was Charles.