Dead Wrong (24 page)

“No, sir. Just trying to find a needle in a haystack. Thought maybe you could help us look.”

“I go on break soon as I finish up here. Usually go next door and have my dinner when the matinee cleanup is done.”

“How about if we meet you there?” Aidan offered.

“Dinner on you?” Unger asked slyly.

“Sure.”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes, tops.” Unger turned the vacuum cleaner back on and went back to work.

“You really think he’ll show?” Mara asked after they’d been seated for almost twenty minutes at the small luncheonette-style eatery.

“I think so. I think he’s curious.”

“What do you think you’ll learn from him? He’s obviously not the Mary Douglas killer.”

“I don’t know. Maybe just a glimpse into the mind of someone who does that sort of thing. Kills a woman like that, then tries to tidy up the scene.”

The door opened and Unger shuffled in.

Mara smiled as the man approached the table. “Mr. Unger.”

“Miss.” He stood in front of the table, apparently not knowing what to do next, whether to sit next to Mara or to Aidan.

She motioned to him to take the seat next to hers, which would, she figured, allow Aidan to make eye contact with Unger. This was, after all, Aidan’s show. She was only along for the ride.

The waitress took their orders, teasing Unger by saying, “So, Albie, looks like you won’t be dining alone today, eh?”

Unger nodded and blushed.

“You’re a cop, I know you told me that, but tell me again what kind.” Unger took slow sips from the coffee the waitress had left for him.

“I’m with the FBI. My name is Aidan Shields. This is Mara Douglas.”

He watched Unger’s face to see if there was any reaction whatsoever when he mentioned Mara’s name. There was none.

“I didn’t do nothin’ that the FBI needs to know about.” Unger looked as if he was about to panic.

“We know that. We just want you to tell us, if you wouldn’t mind, what happened between you and your wife.”

“She weren’t my wife, though I loved her like she was and tried to be a father to her boy. That’s the truth. That’s the one thing you have to understand. I loved Joanie. I did.”

He paused when he saw the waitress approach with his soup and did not resume speaking until she was out of hearing range. He lowered his voice, though, just to make certain that he wasn’t overheard. It would serve no good cause for the people he dealt with every day to know that he had served almost thirty years in prison for murder.

“We’d been living together for almost two years. Oh, I knew she wasn’t gonna be around forever, she being almost fifteen years younger than me. But I gave her a home, took in her and her boy too, tried to get her off the drugs, tried to get her to stay away from the drink. I was doing pretty good there for a while, too. Then I screwed up and went to prison for ten months. Well . . .” He sipped his soup from his spoon, as if he needed the sustenance to go on.

“Well, I come out when my time is up, first thing I do is go to the house we had out there on Railroad Avenue, not sure she would still be there. The prison was about a hundred eighty miles from Lake Grove, you know. She didn’t have no car and unless she could get someone to bring her out, she couldn’t visit much.” He turned his attention back to the soup, stirring it and looking into the cup intently.

“Was she still there?” Aidan asked.

Unger finished the soup, then sat back while the waitress took his empty cup, and served his dinner and the salads ordered by Mara and Aidan.

“Enjoy,” she said brightly as she walked away.

“She was still there, all right.” Unger’s face hardened. “Strung out on heroin and drunk as a skunk. I left the house and went down to Eagle’s, the bar at the corner. I look back on that day now, and I think, if I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have known. . . .”

“Known what, Mr. Unger?” Mara heard herself ask.

“She’d been turning tricks from just about the day I left. In my house. In my bed. And other things, things worse than whorin’. Things no decent person would even think of doing.” He looked at Aidan. “I was drunk, I admit it, and it ain’t no excuse, and I never said it was. But I came back home and threw her to the floor and I . . . forced her. Next thing I know, the knife was in my hand and I don’t know what took over me but I started stabbing her and I couldn’t stop. All’s I remember thinking is that after what she done, she deserved it. Had it coming to her, not even so much for what she done to me, but for what she done to that boy. Animals got more respect for their young than she did.”

Unger’s head shook slowly, side to side. “She—Joanie—she had no business putting that boy out.”

“Putting the boy out?” Aidan put his fork down.

“Some of her boyfriends liked little boys as best they liked women.”

“You mean she—?” Mara found the words too distasteful.

“Traded her son for drugs, yeah.”

“How old was he at the time, do you remember?” Aidan asked.

“Seven, eight, nine, somewhere thereabouts.”

“What happened to him? Where is he now, do you know?” Aidan asked as the first hint of understanding began to hum in his brain.

“No idea.” Unger shrugged. “They put him into foster care. I never heard what became of him.”

“What was Joanie’s last name, Mr. Unger?” Aidan stared at his plate. Knowing.

“It was Gibbons. Joanie Gibbons . . .”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

C
URTIS
C
HANNING HAD LAIN AWAKE MOST OF THE
night, staring at the dark smudge in the center of the ceiling that was the overhead light fixture. Too exasperated with himself to even be annoyed, he focused on a game plan. As he saw it, he had two choices. He could forget the whole thing and move on. Or he could finish the job and
then
move on.

By morning he’d decided that it was times like this that proved the mettle of a man. And he, Curtis Alan Channing, whatever else he might be, was a man of his word. He’d heard someone famous once—he couldn’t remember who it was, but it was someone really big—say that a man’s word had to be his bond. Well, okay then. He’d find a way to make it right.

He crossed his legs at the ankles under the light blanket and closed his eyes. Sometimes it helped to visualize the task at hand. No problem there. Once he found his quarry, he knew exactly what he’d do. If he could get close enough, that is.

It was a given that the police would be watching the home of every M. Douglas from here to Harrisburg and back. How could he narrow the field if he couldn’t get close enough to take a look? Some of those M. Douglases would be men, right? Once he identified who was who, he could cross off those right away and concentrate on the others.

He shifted on the old mattress and sighed. This would have been so much easier if he hadn’t been so careless the first two times and so cocky the third. Following Mary number three to the courthouse hadn’t been enough, he realized now, but
damn
, what were the chances of two women with identical names working in the same place?

He’d asked himself that same question many times.

It was a greater challenge now, with greater risks. That was the only way to look at it.

And if the risks were greater, so then would be the rewards.

He just had to figure out how to get close enough to find his own M. Douglas.

In the end, it had been way too easy. The police had all but stretched a banner over the front of the house:

KILLER TAKE NOTE: THIS IS THE ONE.

Channing had set out first thing in the morning to buy a Walkman and some new running shoes. Returning to his room, he called his landlord and feigned illness, asking if he could keep the room for another few days, then pulled on a pair of sweatpants. He laced up the running shoes, then went out to his car. Armed with the page he’d ripped from the
D
section of the local phone book, and thinking that starting at the top of the list had gotten him nowhere, he drove to the neighborhood where the last M. Douglas on the list lived. He parked four blocks away, then set out on his run. By the time he passed the house, he was already starting to glisten with sweat, which he thought made him look all the more authentic. Jogging past the home, he pretended not to notice the police car parked out front.

1145 Green Avenue. One down.

On to the second name on the list and 821 Forrest.

And then the third: 2232 Oak.

1757 Baker. The fourth.

Each house had a police car parked in front or across the street.

And then, bingo.

1733 Hillcrest.

A house with not one, not two, but three police cars on the street. Of course, they’d want to make certain that no one got near the real M. Douglas, and if one cop was good, three cops were better.

Thank you, Lyndon PD.

He observed as much as he could while jogging past, pretending to notice nothing.

The house next door was a bungalow. An old woman stood at the end of the driveway, directing the delivery of several bags of mulch and several flats of flowers from a nursery truck.

Walsh’s Nursery.

The name on the mailbox was Helena West.

Now all he had to do was figure out how to use this information to get past the police and close enough to his M. Douglas to take care of business.

He returned to his room, and by the time he was showered and dressed, he had a plan.

At three-thirty that afternoon, Channing parked his car in Helena West’s driveway. On the way over, he’d stopped at Walsh’s and picked up several more flats of the same flowers he’d seen being delivered to the West home that morning.

He pretended not to notice the police officer who stood near the back gate of the house next door as he walked up the path that ran alongside the West house.

“Mrs. West?” he called from end of the path. “Mrs. West?”

The elderly woman poked her head out the back door. “Yes?”

“I’m from Walsh’s. The truck that came over earlier didn’t bring your entire order.”

“They didn’t?”

“No. They forgot a few flats. Where would you like me to put them?”

“Oh.” She frowned, looking just slightly confused for a moment. “Are you certain? I thought I had all of my flowers.”

She came through the back door and onto the porch, where she peered over the back railing. “Yes, see, there. There they are. Three flats. That’s what I bought.” She pointed to the flowers on the ground below.

“I don’t know, ma’am. I just deliver where they tell me to.”

“Well, I know what I bought and I know what I paid for. You’ll have to take them back.”

“Are you sure? They were pretty sure these went to you.” He searched his pocket for the paper on which he’d written her address. “To 1735 Hillcrest. Mrs. West.”

“That’s me, but the flowers are not mine. I bought those three flats this morning, and the only reason I had them delivered was I bought some mulch, too, and couldn’t fit it into the back of my car. Now, sometimes I do buy a little extra for my neighbor—your prices there at Walsh’s are so low, you know—but today, I didn’t bother because—” She stopped, deciding she shouldn’t say another word. She might be old, but she wasn’t stupid.

She’d seen the news, knew that Mara worked for the court system, knew even from past conversations that Mara had had several cases with Judge Styler. After seeing that newscast the night before, she had figured out in a flash why Mara had been whisked away by that good-looking Aidan fellow.

She could put two and two together and get four every time.

Of course, none of this was the business of the delivery man from Walsh’s Nursery.

“I didn’t bother because she’s finished planting for the season,” she told him. “In any event, those flowers are not mine. You’re going to have to take them back.”

“Sure thing.” He started to lift the first flat, then pretended to notice the police presence next door.