Cause to Kill (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 1) (16 page)

Avery had nowhere to go. Her favorite place, the shooting range,
was for cops, and she no longer felt like a cop. Her house was dark and empty,
and she knew that if she went home, she would simply crawl into bed and remain
there for days.

A local pub, right around the corner from her house, was open.

She started the morning off right.

“Scotch,” she said, “the good stuff.”

“We have a lot of good stuff,” the bartender replied.

Avery didn’t recognize him. She’d only ever visited the bar at
night. Not any longer, she thought with reckless abandon. I’m a
day
drinker now.

“Lagavulin!” she demanded and pounded the bar.

There were only a couple of other people in the bar at that hour,
all locals, two old men that looked like they drank for a living.

“Another!” Avery called.

After four shots, she was wasted.

Strangely, the sensation reminded her of the past. After Howard
Randall had killed again after his release through Avery’s genius defense,
she’d gone on a bender for weeks. All she remembered from that time were lonely
nights in her dark room, and hangovers, and the constant media coverage that
seemed to run in a loop.

She stared down at herself, at her hand and clothes and the people
in the bar.

Look how far you’ve fallen, she thought. Not even a cop anymore.

Nothing.

Her father’s face came to mind, laughing: “You think you’re so
special,” he’d once told her with a gun pointed at her temple. “You ain’t
special. I
made
you, and I can
take
you.”

Avery stumbled home.

Images of the killer merged with car routes and her father and
Howard Randall, and the last thing she remembered before she blacked out was
her own sobs.

* * *

Avery spent the rest of the day in bed, the blinds closed.
Randomly throughout the afternoon and night, she got up to hydrate or down a
beer or stuff her face with leftovers in the refrigerator before she headed
back to her room and crashed.

At ten o’clock on Saturday morning, the phone rang.

The caller ID read Rose.

Avery picked up, groggy and still consumed with sleep.

“Hey.”

The voice on the other end was tough and unrelenting.

“You sound asleep. Did I wake you?”

“No, no,” Avery said and sat up to wipe the spittle from her chin.
“I’m up.”

“You never answered my email.”

“What email?”

“I responded to your email. I said yes to lunch. Are we still on?”

It took a second for Avery to understand what she meant, but then
she remembered having emailed Rose at the height of her own excitement, when
she thought she was on the verge of catching a killer. Now, hung over, a pariah
at work, and not even sure about her own position, she was loath to dress up
her misery in clothes and makeup and try to act like a loving mother in front
of her estranged daughter.

“Yeah,” she said. “Of course. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Are you sure? You sound terrible.”

“I’m just, I’m fine, honey. Noon. Right?”

“See you then.”

The line went dead.

Rose, Avery thought with a sigh.

They were strangers. Avery had never admitted it to anyone, but
nursing Rose and trying to be a mother had been a nightmare. At the time, the
idea
of motherhood had been beautiful: a new life, the wonder of childbirth, the
possibility that Rose could save her relationship with Jack. In
practice
,
however, she’d found it to be exhausting, unrewarding, and yet another reason
to battle with Jack. Any chance she could get, Avery had hired a nanny, or put
Rose in daycare, or handed her over to her ex-husband. Work had been her only
refuge.

I was such a bad mother, she thought.

No
, she tried to remind herself. It wasn’t
all
bad.

She had truly
loved
Rose.

There were plenty of great memories. Sometimes they would laugh
and dress up together. Avery even taught her how to wear high-heeled shoes.
There were hugs and tears and late-night movies and ice cream.

All of that seemed so far away now.

They’d been apart for years.

After Howard Randall, Jack had filed for custody, and he got it.
He said that Avery had been an unfit mother, and cited numerous incidents,
including pictures of when Rose had started to cut herself, and texts and
emails to her mother that had never been answered.

When was the last time I saw her? Avery wondered.

Christmas, she thought. No, a few months ago. You passed her on
the street. You hadn’t seen her in so long she was practically unrecognizable.

Now, Avery wanted to be a mother, a
real
mother. She wanted
to be the person Rose called for advice and had sleepovers with and went on
ice-cream binges.

Pain continued to stand in Avery’s way, the endless pain in her
heart and stomach over what she’d done in the past, and what she still had to
make up for as a detective. It was all consuming, a giant, dark monster that
demanded to be fed.

There is no justice.

Avery pulled herself together.

In jeans, T-shirt, and a brown blazer, she stared at herself in
the mirror. Too much makeup, she thought. You look tired. Depressed. Hung over.

A bright smile did little to hide her inner turmoil.

“Fuck it,” she said.

Jake’s Place on Harrison Avenue was a dark, cavernous diner with
maroon booths and lots of places where people could enjoy a good meal and
remain largely anonymous. On multiple occasions, Avery had spotted movie stars
and celebrities. Rose had first picked the location during the custody dispute,
and although Avery was sure it was because Rose didn’t want to be seen with her
own mother, it had become the string that kept them together, and the only
place they ever met after long months apart.

Rose was there early, already seated in a booth far away from
other customers.

In many ways, she was a clone of Avery when she was young: blue
eyes, light brown hair, a model’s features, and excellent taste in clothing.
She wore a short-sleeved blouse that exposed her toned arms. A tiny diamond
nose ring had been placed near her left nostril. With perfect posture and a
guarded stare, she gave a perfunctory smile before her features once again
turned blank and unreadable.

“Hi,” Avery said.

“Hi,” was the curt reply.

Avery leaned in for an awkward hug that wasn’t returned.

“I like the nose ring,” she said.

“I thought you hated nose rings.”

“It looks good on you.”

“I was surprised by the email,” Rose said. “You don’t contact me
that often.”

“That’s not true.”

“I take that back,” Rose thought. “You only contact me when things
are going really well, but from what I read in the papers, and from what I can
see for myself,” she said with a squinted observation, “that’s not the case.”

“Thanks a lot.”

To Avery, who only saw her daughter in spurts every year, Rose
appeared far older and more mature than her sixteen years might have indicated.
Early admission to college. Full scholarship to Brandeis. She even worked as a
nanny for a family near her house.

“How’s Dad?” Avery asked.

The waiter came by an interrupted them.

“Hello, there,” he said. “My name is Pete. I’m new here so bear
with me. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Just water,” Rose said.

“Me, too.”

“OK, here are your menus. I’ll be back in a minute to take your
order.”

“Thanks,” Avery said.

“Why do you always ask about Dad?” Rose snapped when they were
alone.

“Just curious.”

“If you’re so curious, why don’t you call him yourself?”

“Rose—”

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I said that. You know what? I
don’t even know why I’m
here
,” she lamented. “To be honest, Mom, I don’t
know why
you
want
me here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m seeing a therapist,” Rose said.

“Really? That’s great.”

“She says I have a
lot
of mommy issues.”

“Like what?”

“Like, you left us.”

“Rose, I never—”

“Hold on,” Rose insisted, “please. Let me finish. Then you can
talk, OK? You left. You handed custody over to Dad and you were gone. Do you
have any idea how that destroyed me?”

“I have
some
idea—”

“No, you don’t. I was like, super popular before that whole thing
went down. Then, practically overnight, I’m the girl everyone has to stay away
from. People teased me. Called me a murderer because my mom let off a killer.
And I certainly couldn’t talk to
you
, my own mother. I needed you back
then. I really did, but you practically abandoned me right then and there. You
refused to talk to me, refused to talk about the case. Do you realize that
everything I knew about you from that time, I learned from the papers?”

“Rose—”

“And of course, there was no money,” Rose laughed with a flip of
her hand. “We were broke after you lost your job. You never thought about that,
did you? You went from a star attorney to a cop. Great move, Mom.”

“I
had
to do that,” Avery snapped back.

“We had
nothing
,” Rose insisted. “You can’t just start a
new career over in the middle of your life. We had to move. Did you ever think
about that? About how it would
affect
us?”

Avery sat back.

“Is this why you came here? To yell at me?”

“Why did
you
want to come here, Mom?”

“I wanted to reconnect, to see how you were, to talk to try and
work things out.”

“Well, none of that is going to happen unless we get over
this
first, and I’m not over it. I’m just not.”

Rose shook her head and looked to the ceiling.

“You know? For years I thought you were a superstar. Incredible
personality, big job, we lived in a great house, and it was like—wow—my mom is
amazing. But then it all fell apart, and everything went along with it, the
house, the job and
you
—most of all, you.”

“My whole life collapsed,” Avery said. “I was devastated.”

“I was your daughter,” Rose complained. “I was there too. You
ignored me.”

“I’m here now,” Avery swore, “I’m here right now.”

The waiter came back.

“OK, ladies! Do we know what we want?”

Simultaneously, Avery and Rose yelled: “
Not yet!
”

“Whoa,
OK
. Why don’t you just flag me down when you’re
ready.”

No one answered.

The waiter backed away and left.

Rose rubbed her face.

“It’s too soon,” she realized. “I’m sorry, Mom. But it’s too soon.
You asked why I wanted to come here? Because I thought I was ready. I’m not.”

She edged out of her seat and stood up.

“Rose, please. Sit down. We just got here. I miss you. I want to
talk.”

“It’s not about you, Mom. It was never
just about you
.
Don’t you get that?”

“Give me another chance,” Avery said. “Let’s start over.”

Rose shook her head.

“I’m not ready yet. I’m sorry. I thought I was, but I’m not.”

She walked out.

“Rose!
Rose
!?
”

For a long time, Avery remained in the diner booth, alone. She
ordered eggs and toast, a small salad, and a cup of coffee and just sat there,
going over everything that had been said.

My daughter hates me, she realized.

More depressed than she’d been in years, she wanted to crawl in a
hole and die. Instead, she paid the check and walked out.

Sunlight made her cringe.

Why can’t it be a
rainy
day? she wondered.

People on the street seemed to race by. Cars whizzed past her
view. She stood alone among the activity like a spirit, not yet dead, not truly
alive.

This is what the killer wants, she thought. He’s in your head.
He’s laughing at you. Just like Howard.
Just like Howard.

Avery went back to her car and drove.

Without any conscious thought to a destination, she found herself
headed south—toward the prison. The bodies of all three girls kept flashing in
her mind, and the killer and the car and the routes and some house, a house she
imaged he might live in: small, hidden by trees with an unkempt lawn, because
he had better things to do than mow a lawn. Her suspects were discarded, every
one of them.

She needed a fresh start. A new perspective.

The prison parking lot was as she remembered. The walk inside was
the same. Guards whispered behind her back and pointed. The woman behind the
gates chided her for no appointment.

“He said he
knew
you’d back,” a guard laughed. “What are
you, in love now? I guess I
should
believe everything I read in the
papers.”

There was no real reason to go back. She didn’t actually believe
he would help her, or could help her, not after the disastrous turn at Art for
Life. He just liked to play games, she understood. But Avery was in the mood
for games. She had nothing left to hide, nowhere else to go, and for some
strange reason—at that moment in time—Howard Randall seemed like the only
real
friend she had in the world.

Howard sat in the basement meeting room as he had before, only
this time, the smile was gone, he appeared concerned.

“You don’t look quite yourself today, Avery. Are you all right?”

Avery laughed.

If she had a cigarette, she might have taken it out and begun to
smoke. She hadn’t smoked since she was a kid, but that’s how she felt:
reckless, untouchable.

She took seat and placed her elbows on the table.

“Your last tip was bullshit,” she said. “An artist? Did you mean
John Lang?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“
Bullshit
!
”

She aggressively smiled.

“You played me,” she said. “Nice move. Was that all so we could
take a trip down memory lane and you could watch me break down in tears?”

“I take no comfort in your pain,” he said in earnest.

“
Fuck you!
” she yelled. “You’re playing games with me right
now. You told me he was an artist. You practically handed him to me on a
platter.”

“Your killer
is
an artist,” he said. “A
true
artist.”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“He takes great pride in his work. He’s no random killer. He’s no
butcher. There is a
purpose
to his cause. These girls
mean
something to him. He knows them, personally, and in exchange for their lives he
gives them immortality, in art.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

Howard leaned forward.

“You never asked me how I chose
my
victims,” he replied,
“or
why
they were positioned in such ways.”

As Howard’s defense attorney, Avery had covered every possible
avenue to get him acquitted. One of those avenues had involved understanding
the killer’s mind and why he had committed such heinous acts, so that she could
effectively distance Howard from the murders based on his own personal history.

“It was a statement on people that act dead in real life,” she
said. “You picked your best students and charged them with some crime against
humanity, and then you dismembered them and placed their parts on the ground to
look like multiple people trying to escape from the underworld.”

“
No
,” Howard snapped.

He leaned back.

“What is life?” he urgently asked. “What does it
mean
? Why
are we
here
?”

“How is that relevant to anything?”

“
It’s everything!
” he yelled and hammered the table.

A guard peeked through the viewing hole.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, Thomas,” Howard said, “I’m just getting,
excited
.”

The guard left.

“Life is short,” Howard tried to explain, “and it’s cyclical. We
live and we die again and again in a constant cycle within this atmosphere.
How
we live—in
this
life—affects all the other times we are reborn, the very
energy of ourselves and our world. My victims were chosen because they had
flaws, certain flaws that they would never have corrected in
this
life.
That’s why I had to help them, so they could thrive in the
next
life.”

“Is that how you justify your actions?”

“This world is what we make of it, Avery. Anything we wish can be
ours. My actions are based on my beliefs. How do you justify
your
actions?”

“I’m trying to make amends for my past, and I do it every day.”

He sighed and shook his head and appeared ready to blush, like a
man that had finally, startlingly, found the woman of his dreams.

“You’re so special,” he gushed, “so very special. I knew it the
moment I saw you. Tough and smart and funny and yet, flawed, broken by your
past. I can help you fix that, Avery. Let me help you. There’s still time.
Don’t you want to be happy, free?”

I want my daughter back, she thought.

“I want to find a killer,” she said aloud.

Howard eased forward, as sharp as a hawk.

“How did it feel when your father murdered your mother?”

Avery stiffened.

How does he know about that? she wondered. It was in all the
papers, she told herself. It’s public record. Anyone can find that information.

“You want to dig up my past again?” she said, “Make me cry? Not
today. I’m already at rock bottom. There’s nowhere else for me to go.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Now you can
rise
.”

The day of her mother’s death was clear in Avery’s mind.

It happened behind the house, after school. She came home and
heard the shot. She was only ten at the time. One shot, silence, and then
another. A run into the forest and she saw her father there, standing over her
body, the shotgun in his hand. “Go get me a shovel,” he’d said.

“I felt nothing,” Avery admitted to Howard. “My mother was a drunk
and never there for me. She made it clear I was a mistake. I felt nothing when
she died.”

“What kind of mother are
you
?”

A crack. Avery felt a crack in the empty, desolate shell of her
existence. And although she was empty and depleted, she began to realize she
could still be hurt.

“I don’t want to talk about Rose.”

A deep frown furrowed Howard’s brows.

“I see,” he said. “I understand.”

He searched the ceiling, thought about something else, and turned
back to her.

“Your killer knows these girls,” he said. “What do they all have
in common?”

Avery shook her head.

“The third girl is a mystery for now,” she said. “The first two, both
in college, both in sororities. One’s a senior, one’s a junior, so that’s no
connection.”

“No,” he whispered.

“What?”

“No,” he said again. “You’re wrong.”

“About
what
?”

Disappointment sank his gaze.

“Have you ever heard the story about the boy and the butterfly?”
he asked. “When a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, the butterfly uses
its body and wings to break free from the cocoon. It is a difficult,
time-consuming task, but as the butterfly struggles and works, it gains muscle,
and strength, and when it finally does breaks free, it is able to launch it
into the sky and capture food with ease and
survive
. However, one day, a
boy that kept caterpillars as pets saw one of his cocoons shake and move. He
felt sorry for the budding creature and wanted to help it, so that it would not
have to suffer so much. He asked his mother to cut a slight opening in the
cocoon to aid in its escape. But that simple act, born of love and care, robbed
the butterfly of its power, and when it finally emerged—all too soon—its body
and limbs and wings were not yet strong enough to hunt or fly, and within days,
it died.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Avery asked. “Am I the butterfly
or the boy?”

Howard wouldn’t answer.

He simply lowered his head and remained silent, even when Avery
continued to ask, and then shout, and then pound on the table for an answer.