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Maybe this was a fool’s errand. He would prefer that it was. But his gut was telling him otherwise.
Two doors down from the Smithson residence was a house with a for-rent sign in the yard. It looked like it had been there for some time. Banking on the house being vacant, he waded through the weeds in the front yard and down the side of the house to the backyard. A dog from somewhere in the vicinity began to bark, but he ignored it as he walked across the next backyard. It was separated from Marjorie Smithson’s by a chain-link fence. Calder climbed over it.
There, he stopped, waiting for a challenge, listening for any indication from inside the squat, square house that he’d been seen or heard. When nothing happened, he moved to one of two narrow, vertical windows on the back of the house, cupped his hands around his eyes, and peered through the pane.
The woman looking directly back at him through the window glass was only a yard away from him. But her open eyes were unseeing. The sight was so unexpected, so grotesque, he reflexively stumbled backward, huffing breaths through his mouth.
Collecting himself quickly, he took his phone from his pocket and sent Compton a text.Woman, guessing Marj, fatal GSWH. Bedroom, NE rear corner of house. I’m going in.
He made certain that his phone was silenced, then cautiously approached the block of crumbling concrete that served as a back stoop. The outer door was screened. He held his breath as he tried it. It was unlocked, but the hinges squeaked when he opened it. He waited. So far, so good. He wedged himself between the screened door and the solid one and tested the knob. It turned. Heart thudding, he pushed the door open.
He was surprised to hear a familiar voice: Shauna’s.
He listened for several seconds and, when he heard Elle’s mellow voice, he realized he was hearing the broadcast of their interview.
He stepped into an untidy kitchen. The television would help cover any noise he made, but he wished he had on shoes other than his boots. His footsteps—
Dawn’s voice froze him.
“Weren’t you listening? Compton said they couldn’t test any DNA on the cap until they had a suspect, and I certainly wasn’t one. See? Nobody would suspect acasualty.”
The TV sound track continued but became like white noise to him. He crept forward across the kitchen and passed through a doorway into a small dining room. On the opposite side from the kitchen was a wide opening into the living area.
A framed mirror hung on the wall to his left. In it, he could see Elle reflected, seated in a chair. He experienced a momentary surge of relief to find her still alive, but upon further inspection, he saw that her arms were taped to the chair.
She hadn’t noticed him. He mentally tried to telegraph her of his presence. At the same time, he didn’t want her to react in a way that would alert Dawn.
“How did you plan to escape?” Elle asked.
“As Mom and I followed Calder through the entrance, I noticed the game tents off to the right. I’d told Mom to make her way toward the first one in the row as soon as all hell broke loose and that we’d look for each other somewhere near there.
“In the panic, I doubted anyone would notice me passing the pistol and the windbreaker off to her. No one did. Everyone was trying to save their own skin. I trusted her aim. She was supposed to injure me, but not too bad.”
“You planned all along to beshot?”
“Well, yes. Our success depended on it.”
“I see.”
“We decided my calf was a safe place for me to be injured.”
“You could have been crippled for life, Dawn. You took a huge risk.”
“The whole plot was a risk. But one worth taking.”
Elle said nothing.
“Anyway,” Dawn continued, “after Mom saw that I was down but not seriously injured, she ran into that tent. There stood the dopehead.” She laughed. “Mom told me later that he about scared her to death. He didn’t say anything, just gave her this stupid, glazed stare. When she realized he was stoned, she walked straight up to him and shot him in the head. He never flinched, she said. The cops figured he’d saved the last bullet for himself, but, actually, it was sheer luck there was one left for poor Levi. Seems like it was meant to be, doesn’t it? I mean, he was a wasted life.”
Jesus, Calder thought.
She continued to babble. “Anyway, Mom had the presence of mind to put the gun in his hand. She stuffed the ruined windbreaker up her sweatshirt, then slipped through the back of the tent and went yelling and screaming toward an exit like everyone else.
“Later, she played out the whole ‘I can’t find my daughter’ thing. Frantic-like. Hysterical. You know. When Frank got to the emergency room, even he was convinced that both of us had been traumatized.”
“Getting yourself shot was quite a sacrifice,” Elle said.
“A necessary evil.”
