Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
There was nothing else on Sam’s phone that Bonnie could find.
She realized he hadn’t yet been assigned an official department phone and had made do with his own in the meantime.
She’d checked through his emails and texts, but only those since the date Mr. Terrence had met his maker.
There was nothing about the case. So she donned her robe once more and dropped the phone into its pocket for the return trip to the den.
Her first clue that something was wrong was the soul-pleasing aroma of freshly brewed coffee.
Someone had got up while she’d been snooping in her son’s private business.
Only, not really snooping. She hadn’t looked at any of the emails between him and Marina, or even the handful of texts between him and Jenna, despite burning with curiosity.
She’d only looked for anything that might’ve been case-related.
Even then, she felt terrible about it and vowed silently to never ever do anything like this again.
She wouldn’t risk her relationship with Sam for the world.
She continued down the stairs and noticed the den door was open and the lights in there were on. Someone was moving around inside. Picking up her pace, she went in to join them.
Sam was on his hands and knees on the floor, looking under the desk.
“Sam, hon? Did you lose something?”
He looked up, then got up, brushing his knees. “I was sure I left my phone down here last night. Right on the desk.”
She came the rest of the way in, moving some things around on the desk. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. I’m a cop, I don’t lose things. I just… Did you come in here last night, Mom? To feel closer to Dad?”
When he repeated it back to her, she realized that he doubted that excuse had been real.
“Of course not, hon.” Sighing heavily, she sank into the chair behind the desk, sliding the phone out of her pocket, as she did.
Then, “Oh, what did I sit on?” She got up, turning to look in feigned surprise at her son’s phone, lying on the seat of the chair.
“Well, there you go. Mystery solved.” She headed for the door.
“That coffee smells good. Can I get you a cup?”
Her son stared after her and didn’t answer until she turned to look back at him. “Sam? Coffee?”
His puzzled frown worried Bonnie. His face told her that he wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but that he was pretty sure something was.
But he would never suspect his own mother of bamboozling him. Much less murder.
Would he?
Christine was the first one at Bru for the girls’ morning meeting. She’d been parked outside in her car before the place had even opened, watching traffic pass in the reflection of the curved glass front of the place. It was brighter outside, dimmer in, so the glass became a mirror.
She’d had to get out of the house. Jeff didn’t leave, so she did. She had the little ponytail holder with the pink, marble-like beads in her hand, and was stretching and relaxing its band over and over. She pocketed the thing and went inside.
Wendy was behind the counter and handed Christine her mug, already fixed the way she liked it. Black and bitter. “Bonnie’s already here,” she said, nodding toward the table near that curving front window.
Diane pulled into one of the angled parking spaces in front before Christine got to their table. She quickly came inside, pulled off her driving gloves and rubbed her hands together. Wendy handed her a coffee as well, and said, “I’ll bring the check over.”
“Are we tipping her enough?” Christine asked quietly when Diane took her seat at their table. “I don’t think we are.”
“Brr. I’m keeping my coat on,” Diane said.
“It’s such a light color, Diane,” Christine pointed out. “One coffee stain—”
“You’re right.” Diane took off the short, camel colored coat with its wide, curved lapels, and hung it on the nearby coatrack, then returned to her chair.
“Any word from Rosa?” she asked, craning her neck to glance up the block toward the bookstore, which looked the same as always.
Red brick with window boxes already full of pansies and petunias.
Rosa had put them out on the first day of spring, in defiance of the lingering winter, in rectangular planters that fit into the boxes. She brought them inside every night.
She hadn’t brought them in last night.
Christine could’ve kicked herself for not thinking of that. They needed to help out more, she thought. “Did it get below freezing last night?” she asked.
“No,” Bonnie said. “It stayed in the forties. We need to check on Rosa.”
“I’ll pop in right after,” Diane said. “Jenna’s with her. She probably let her sleep in. She’s been through so much.”
Bonnie nodded.
“So where are we this morning?” Diane asked, taking a sip of her perfect brew.
“Good news and bad,” Bonnie said. “Sam got a call as he was driving me in, and I could hear both sides of the conversation.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning over the table, so they leaned in too. “The prints on the shackle were too smudged to use.”
Each of them sighed or moaned in relief and leaned back in their seats.
Then Christine sat up. “Wait, that was the good news. What’s the bad?”
“Sam thinks there’s a vigilante behind both men’s unfortunate events,” she whispered. “And if there’s one more death…we’re officially serial killers.”
“Three makes a serial killer?” Diane asked, keeping her voice very low.
Christine was already shaking her head. “No. Technically, two of us have killed one apiece, so—”
Diane cut her off with, “It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s not like we’re going to do it again.”
Bonnie nodded in agreement. “Dan’s plate number was on that hard drive under the floorboards,” she said.
“That’s how Sam knew they were connected.
But so far, even though they’ve linked the men to each other, they haven’t linked them to any of us, other than that I worked in the same school as Mr. Terrence.
And the only place they could find any such evidence would have been the crime scenes, which have been processed by now.
If they’d found the recording of Mr. Terrence’s death, we’d have heard about that by now.
Gosh with you-know-who gone, I think we might be in the clear. ”
“We’re not even close to in the clear,” Diane said. “There’s still Jeff.”
Bonnie said, “Yes, and Sam has seen the photo with Jeff and Dan together.”
Both her friends looked at Christine. She closed her eyes. “I searched his hot rod last night and found this.” She opened her palm to show them the little girl’s hair bauble. Diane gasped and Bonnie covered her mouth and turned her head away.
“I didn’t find anything else. He caught me in the car, but I think I covered. I stayed up all night in the guest room. I’m determined to find his burner phone and give it to the police anonymously. He’ll go to prison, end of problem.”
Bonnie nodded. “Good. That seems good.”
Diane was shaking her head, though. “Chrissy, if he knows what we did, then he’ll use that to bargain his way out of prison time, by turning us in.”
“No DA would trade him for us,” Christine said. It seemed ludicrous to think any professional prosecutor would go after four old ladies rather than a pedophile.
“Double homicide is a way bigger crime than sexual assault on kids,” Diane replied. “It shouldn’t be. But it is.”
Christine leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling. She took a long, deep breath. “Maybe he doesn’t know what we did. Maybe Dangerous Dan never told him.”
“That’s possible,” Bonnie said. “It’s even likely.” Her tone was all full of hope and encouragement.
“We have to find that out for sure,” Diane said. “It’s better if we know.”
She was right, dammit. “But what if he does know?” Christine felt a fluttering sensation in her chest. “We can’t just…kill him.” The last two words were a hoarse whisper. “I’ve been married to him for almost twenty years!”
“We’d never do that, Christine,” Bonnie said.
“We’re finished with that.” She looked from Christine to Diane, who nodded.
“The first two were… I mean, we didn’t have a choice.
Either time. But from now on, we gather evidence on these pigs, and we share it with the authorities, and that’s all we do. Agreed?”
“You…want to keep doing this? Digging into this thing?” Christine asked. She was looking from one beloved face to the other.
“There were ten license plates,” Diane said. “Ten different voice recordings telling those little girls what to do.”
“We have to keep going.” Christine nodded hard. “Yes. Yes. Let’s keep going. We’ll uncover them, expose them, and let the law take its course. But back to the topic. What will we do if Jeff does know we’ve killed one of the men in that photo with him?” she asked.
Diane and Bonnie looked at each other, but it was clear neither of them had an answer. Diane’s phone rang, then. She raised it and frowned at the screen. “It’s Jenna.” Then she answered the call on speaker. “Hi, Jenna.”
“I can’t wake her up!” Jenna shrieked. “I can’t wake her up! I can’t wake her up!”
“Oh my God,” Bonnie said.
“We’re coming, Jenna,” Christine shouted at the phone. “We’re at Bru, we’re coming!”
Christine grabbed her coat, pulled out her credit card. Their server took it and said, “I’ve got this. Come back for it later. Go.” Then she ran ahead and held the door open for them.
The girls ran, because it was only a block and a half, across the street.
Diane still had Jenna on the phone. She said she’d already called 911.
As they sped down the alley beside the bookstore, Jenna held the back door open, then turned as soon as Chrissy reached it and led the way up the stairs to their second-floor home.
Christine was the first one into the bedroom and that was when the hurrying stopped. She went still, heart pounding so loud she could hear it in her ears, despite her loud breathing. The others crashed into her from behind, and as she moved aside, they went still, too.