Chapter 28
Colly paced the porch for twenty minutes until she spotted headlights coming up the drive. A dusty Volkswagen pulled into the yard. Avery climbed out in ratty Converse sneakers, jeans, and a rumpled t-shirt with “Whatever” printed on the front. She wore heavy-rimmed glasses, and her purple-streaked hair was tied back with a scrunchie.
She looks like a ninth-grader , Colly thought.
Avery walked towards the house. “What’s up?”
Colly was in no mood for pleasantries. “You know what happened to your brother, don’t you? You’ve been lying about it for twenty years.”
Avery stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. Her face was ashen. “What—”
“No more bullshit—I’m sick of it.” Colly threw open the screen door, and Avery followed her warily into the house. In the living room, she stopped when she saw the crime-scene photos on the coffee table.
“Sit down,” Colly said.
Avery lowered herself cautiously onto the sofa. Colly sat beside her and picked up the photo of Avery’s childhood bedroom. “You told me you were in bed asleep when that fire broke out—that you only remember your father carrying you out of the house. That’s what you told investigators in ’98, as well.” She thrust the photo under Avery’s nose. “I want to know what really happened.”
Avery stared down at the image of the blackened walls and ash-covered bed, and her brows knotted.
“You’re going to make me drag it out of you?” Colly jabbed with her forefinger at a small pink shape in the photo, clearly visible at one end of the bed. “That’s a folded nightgown. I do that, too—put my pajamas under the pillow in the morning. You were in street clothes when the EMTs arrived. The other day, you said you were wearing your nightgown when your father carried you outside, but you changed into clothes you got off the clothesline. That didn’t make much sense to me. Then again, people do weird things in a crisis.” Colly shrugged. “But in that case, your nightie should be outside the house, not here.”
Avery’s eyes were large. She said nothing.
“I’m giving you a chance to explain. If you’re going to be stubborn, I’ll call Russ.” Colly dropped the photo and reached for her phone.
“Don’t,” Avery said quickly. “Please.”
Colly crossed her arms. “I want the truth.”
Avery nodded, but said nothing for a while. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that Colly had to lean in to hear. “My old man was a drunk. He never had a job that I remember. My mom had three, but if she spent too much on groceries and not enough on booze, he’d hit her. He hit all of us. I used to wear long sleeves to school to hide the bruises, no matter how hot it was. But Adam got the worst of it. He’d try to protect us.”
Avery’s scowl softened. Adam had been a good kid, she told Colly. He’d gotten into trouble a lot, of course, not having a decent role model. He was so starved for male attention and approval that he’d latch onto anyone who paid him the slightest notice. He used to follow the high-school boys around like a shadow—a lot of his vandalism and truancy were attempts to impress them. Of all the older boys, he had particularly admired Niall Shaw.
Colly sat back. “Shaw?”
Avery’s face darkened. “Adam thought he was the coolest. He was from out of state, so he seemed different—more sophisticated, I guess. Even in high school. He’d talk about Montana. And England, where his dad came from. Adam loved listening to him, and Shaw liked having his own personal fan club. Even at my age, I could see it.”
“That’s why you don’t like him?”
“Shaw’s an asshole. He’d let Adam tag along on his fishing trips and be his gofer—but not really his friend. He made that clear. Adam always came home depressed after being with him.”
“We’re getting off track. What happened the night of the fire?”
Avery looked away. It had been a typical evening, she said. During dinner, her father had lost his temper and started beating her mother over some little something—the tuna casserole was too hot, or not hot enough. Adam was twelve, big for his age. He’d begun to intervene more assertively in recent months.
“Adam actually pulled a knife on my dad that night,” Avery said. “And it worked. The old man backed off.” Their mother, shaken and in pain from the beating, went straight to bed. “I guess she took sedatives, but I didn’t know that, then.” Avery sighed. “Dad went out to the Blue Moon after supper, as usual. That was our favorite time of day, Adam and me. He had an old Nintendo Mom found at the thrift store. We played Donkey Kong till pretty late. Finally, Adam said we should go to bed since it was a school night. He got into his pajamas, but I was being a brat, dragging my feet.” She swallowed. “That’s when the old man came home.”
Several hours of heavy drinking at the saloon had not improved Budd Parker’s temper. He walked through the door spoiling for a fight, and when he saw dirty dishes and congealed casserole still on the table, he exploded.
“He came into our room screaming and went after me with the belt,” Avery said. “Adam jumped in to stop him. Dad was still pissed about what happened at dinner, I guess. He yelled, ‘I’ll teach you to pull a knife on me, you little bastard.’ He dropped the belt and started punching Adam, kicking him, hitting him with anything he could find. Finally, he grabbed the belt, but instead of flogging Adam with it, he started choking him. I was crouched down between my bed and dresser. I saw the whole thing. The old man was holding him up off the ground, and Adam was thrashing, clawing at the belt. I watched his face turn red, then purple. His tongue was sticking out, all fat, like a sausage.” Avery hesitated. “Then he stopped thrashing, and his arms dropped. He was looking right at me when he died.”
Colly realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled sharply. “Your father murdered Adam.”
Avery nodded. She was staring at her fingers plaited in her lap. “Mom slept through the whole thing.”
A thousand questions flooded Colly’s mind, but she set them aside. “Then what?”
“It’s a little fuzzy—I must’ve been in shock. I remember my father dropping Adam in a heap, like a rag doll. He wasn’t angry anymore. He just stood there. Then he nudged Adam with his boot and said, ‘Enough playacting. Get up,’ or something. He was drunk—I guess it took a while to sink in.”
When he finally realized what he’d done, Budd Parker shifted into self-preservation mode. “He stripped off Adam’s pajamas and put his clothes back on him,” Avery said. “It’s hard to dress a dead body. He wanted me to help, but I couldn’t move. Then, he threw my brother over his shoulder. He grabbed my arm and dragged me along. He carried Adam to the truck, and he told me to get some old chains out of the toolshed. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. I thought he might kill me, too. He put the chains in the truck, and he made me get in. I don’t know why. Maybe he was scared I’d call 911 if he left me at the house. I asked where we were going, but he didn’t answer. We drove up the highway, swerving like crazy. I can still see the yellow centerline waving like a ribbon. If a cop had stopped us, maybe...” Avery shrugged. “We ended up at the stock pond. The old man wrapped the chains around Adam and waded out to the middle. He pushed my brother under and watched to make sure he stayed down. Then we drove home. On the way, he said if I ever told anyone, he’d kill me and my mother, both. He said when people asked, I should say that Adam was in the house when I went to bed, and when I woke up, he was gone.”
Avery stopped and looked up. Her eyes were dry, her expression dazed and vacant. She seemed stupefied with the effort of reliving that night’s events.
“I’m sorry,” Colly said gently. “Look, I get why you kept quiet as a kid. But Russ said your dad’s been dead for years. You knew Willis was innocent—of murder, anyway. Why didn’t you tell anyone? Your story would’ve gotten him a new trial, at least.”
Avery twisted her fingers miserably in her lap and said nothing.
Colly felt a surge of weary irritation. “This changes everything. I’ve been investigating under the assumption there’s just one killer, and you knew that isn’t true.”
Avery remained silent. As Colly sat wondering what to do or say next, the crime-scene photos on the coffee table caught her eye. A sudden thought struck her. “How did the fire start?”
Avery stiffened. Her eyes darted to Colly’s.
“It was you, wasn’t it? You torched the house,” Colly said.
She could see the pulse pounding in the younger woman’s throat. After a minute, Avery gave a barely discernible nod.
“Tell me.”
Avery nodded again but seemed unable to start.
“You got back from the stock pond,” Colly prompted. “Then what? Your mother was still asleep?”
“Yeah.” Avery cleared her throat. “The old man drank a few stiff ones and was out cold on the couch in fifteen minutes. By then it was three a.m. I went back to my bedroom. It was a wreck, broken stuff everywhere. Adam’s pajamas were still on the floor. They were wet. The room stank of urine.
“As I stood there, some switch flipped in my brain. I hated my father—I wanted to hurt him like he hurt Adam. I remembered seeing the gas can in the shed when I got the chains out. I didn’t think—I just ran outside and got the can. It was half-full. I poured it all over the living room.”
Avery’s mouth was dry. She licked her lips. “My father’s lighter was on the coffee table. I—I lit it and tossed it on the floor. Then I picked up the empty gas can, and I ran.
“I stood outside, watching the flames through the living room window. I could hear the smoke alarm shrieking. And that’s when it dawned on me that my mother was trapped in there, too. I’d been so focused on revenge that I’d blocked everything else. I banged on her bedroom window, but nothing happened. So I ran back inside. I made it partway down the hall, but the smoke was so thick. Fire was everywhere.” She touched her scarred cheek. “Everything went black. Next thing I knew, someone was carrying me outside. It was my father. He laid me on the grass and ran back into the house. I guess he tried to get my mother, but the place was an inferno by then. When he came out, he rolled in the dirt, screaming. That’s all I remember till sirens woke me up, and we were in the ambulance.”
“You never told anyone?”
Avery shook her head slowly.
“Why not?”
“I killed my own mother.”
“You were a traumatized kid.”
Avery said nothing.
Colly picked up the photo of Budd Parker, burned and blackened, on the hospital gurney. She stared at it thoughtfully. “The Rangers thought Adam’s killer got him out of the pond. But that’s impossible.”
Avery’s eyes flickered with a hint of their usual animation. “Exactly—Dad was in the hospital for six months. Someone else found Adam and posed his body with that rabbit mask—then twenty years later, the same psycho killed Denny.”
Colly leaned back and sighed. “Maybe the Rangers were right about Willis, after all. I thought there was no way he could’ve transported Adam to the ranch—but this means he didn’t have to. He could’ve found Adam floating in the pond, already dead. Maybe that somehow got him fixated on the idea of murder.”
Avery frowned. “It can’t be Willis.”
“Why not? The doctors who evaluated him said he had an antisocially disordered brain structure—whatever that means. If he was already predisposed, finding Adam could’ve triggered him, somehow. Then he had twenty years in prison to fantasize about it. Maybe when he saw Denny hanging out at the stock pond last fall, the temptation was too much.”
“But Willis had a solid alibi, and he passed a polygraph,” Avery said. “Besides, who else but the killer could’ve broken into the farmhouse today and left that rabbit mask in Satchel’s suitcase?” Avery’s eyes, larger and darker than usual through the heavy-rimmed glasses, shone with impatience. “This is why I pushed Russ for the case review. I owed Willis that much, at least. I knew the Rangers had it wrong. I thought if we could prove Willis didn’t plant that mask on Denny, everyone would realize he couldn’t have planted the one on Adam, either. Don’t you see?”
Colly experienced a quick flash of anger. “Sure, I see. You wanted to free your conscience without having to fess up to the whole truth. So I had to waste four days finding it out for myself.”
Avery flushed. “Are you going to report me?”
“ Report you? I should have you arrested. You’re guilty of obstruction, at the very least.”
Avery was silent. She stared at her feet. After a minute, she cleared her throat. “What happens now?”
“I don’t know.” Colly leaned back and stared at the ceiling, thinking hard. Avery’s story answered some questions. But it raised many others. It had been difficult enough to imagine a single-killer scenario that explained all the evidence. But two killers? The person who’d found Adam’s body was strong enough to pull him out of the pond—presumably an adult male or possibly more than one person. He, or they, must have cared about the boy and wanted his body discovered—yet for some reason didn’t call the police. That was riddle enough. But what was the hare’s mask about? And why would a person like that murder another boy two decades later in a similar way? Willis’s sexual deviance and brain abnormalities might explain it; but if Willis was innocent, Colly couldn’t imagine a scenario that accounted for all the variables.
A bump, followed by a faint clattering noise, interrupted her train of thought. The women leapt up, and Colly snatched her holstered pistol from the coffee table. “That came from outside.”
Avery nodded. “I’m not armed.”
“Stay behind me, then.”
Colly moved quickly to the foyer and opened the front door. A white envelope fell onto the mat. Ignoring it, Colly stepped outside. In the moonlight, a dark figure was running very fast down the long drive towards the road.
“Stop—police!” Colly started down the steps.
The screen door slammed, and Avery flew past.
So much for staying behind me , Colly thought. Hell’s bells, that kid can move. She followed as quickly as she could in her sock feet but was only halfway down the drive when Avery tackled the fleeing man. He went down with a loud grunt. By the time Colly reached them, Avery was sitting on the man’s back and twisting his arm in a hammerlock.
“I’ve got you covered,” Colly said. “Check him.”
Avery rolled the man onto his back and patted him down, then stepped away. “He’s all right.”
“Get up,” Colly ordered.
The man climbed slowly to his feet, cursing softly and rubbing his shoulder.
Avery switched on her phone’s flashlight app and turned it on the stranger, who quickly raised his hand to shield his eyes.
“Who are you?” Colly demanded.
The stranger remained silent.
“Lower your hand.”
The man obeyed. Avery shone the light full in his face, then let out a long, low whistle of surprise.