Something Wicked Read online

  Now he picked up his cell phone and punched in her number. Again. He had done the same thing three times already but had hung up before she answered. She would come back when she was ready, and then he would have to have a talk with her and tell her that no, this wasn’t the way things were going to be. She was going to have to be more responsible. When they had a child to take care of, she wasn’t going to be able to just up and leave.

  Her voice mail answered: “Hi. You’ve reached Kristina. Leave a message.”

  Holding on to his temper, Hale waited until the beep, then said, “Okay, I need you to pick up, Kristina. We’ve got to talk about a few things. This isn’t . . .” He wanted to scream at her, but it wasn’t going to help. Whatever she was going through was real to her, even if he couldn’t understand it.

  Do you believe in sorcery?

  He shook his head and continued, “We’ve got to make some plans for this baby, and I mean beyond the crib and car seat. Call me. Please.” He tried to sound serious but nonthreatening, but all he wanted to do was swear or throw something or bang his head against a wall.

  “God damn it,” he said softly into the empty room, looking out his window to the mass of dark clouds that had gathered. It had been dry all day for a change, but it looked like some serious precipitation was on the way. His mind flew to Savvy. Had she left Portland yet? He sure as hell hoped so.

  The Rib-I was alive with tiny white lights twinkling around its eaves and windows, but it was still late afternoon, so apart from a few desultory trucks, an SUV, and three sedans, the parking lot was empty. The sun was long gone, and the gloom was pervasive, the sense of the heavens pressing down enough to make Savvy decide to find a motel as soon as she’d seen if DeWitt was here.

  Stepping into the bar, she saw one man sitting at a table with an empty glass, a blank expression, and a cell phone lying in front of him. His hands were flat on the tabletop, as if he were getting ready to make a quick draw, but when he saw her, he reached for the cell phone, as if he expected her to take it.

  There were other figures farther into the dim recesses beyond, but there was something about him—a self-imposed wall that said, “Back the hell off”—that suggested he might be her man.

  “Mr. DeWitt?” she asked, approaching him.

  “Who wants to know?” He stared at her belly.

  “I’m Detective Dunbar with the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department.” She pulled her wallet from her messenger bag, flipped it open, and displayed her badge, not that he seemed to care.

  His eyes slowly lifted to hers. They were as red and bleary as she would have expected, given what she knew about his habits. “Yeah?” He lurched forward in his chair. “Lemme see if I can guess why you’re here.”

  “You know why, Mr. DeWitt.”

  “Bankruptcy Bluff. Oh, sure. I know.” He waved the cell phone at her. “I just gotta make a call. My ride. Don’t wanna drive drunk.”

  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Suit yourself.” He pressed the keys on his phone with serious concentration, then put it to his ear. It rang for long moments, and then Savannah heard the faint sound of someone’s voice, but DeWitt snapped the phone shut. He looked despondent and on the verge of surliness. “Fucking voice mail,” he muttered.

  “You signed off on the stability of the dune. Said it was safe to build on. There have been reports—”

  “Reports,” he sneered. “Oh, yeah. Reports.”

  “From professional people who said the ground’s always been unstable, and they would have never green-lighted the area.”

  “Monday morning quarterbacking.” He picked up his empty glass, then set it down again, looking around for the bartender. “They’re liars. Old man Bancroft wanted that development, and I gave it to him, sure. But they woulda done the same. It was within the parameters.”

  Savannah had only a basic idea of the whole process, but his growing belligerence and defensive tone suggested he knew more than he was saying. Maybe he cut corners, or maybe those “parameters” were just a little too close to the edge.

  “You’re saying Declan Bancroft pushed for the development.”

  “He sure as hell did. And now that old bastard blames me for everything. And Hale,” he went on. “He wanted it, too.”

  “Hale gave you the go-ahead?”

  “They all wanted it,” he said, waving his arms expansively. “Whad do I gotta do to get a drink around here?” he yelled.

  “Sober up,” was the bartender’s laconic reply.

  “Well, fuck that.”

  “Mr. DeWitt, I’m mainly investigating the Donatella homicides, and it may well be that the construction problems are the reason they were killed,” Savvy said.

  “Nah . . . It was something else.”

  A waitress strolled up to them, eyeing DeWitt cautiously, as if she expected him to jump up and grab her. “Would you like anything?” she asked Savannah.

  “Get the rib eye,” DeWitt said before she could answer.

  “Well . . .” Savannah debated.

  The waitress made a face, as if she didn’t want to agree with DeWitt, but she admitted, “It’s what we’re known for.”

  “All right. Medium-rare to rare.”

  “She likes it bloody,” DeWitt said, nodding, as if he’d delivered seriously sage advice.

  Ignoring him, the waitress asked, “What kinda dressing on your salad?”

  “You have a vinaigrette?”

  “Yep.” She scribbled that down, then asked, “Baked potato, mashed, or fries? Comes with it.” Her eyes slid toward DeWitt. “He might want to share some fries,” she suggested meaningfully.

  Clearly, the waitress wanted him to eat something, so Savvy said, “Okay, fries.”

  “Anything to drink?”

  “Another Scotch,” DeWitt answered, jumping in at the same time Savvy said, “Just water, thanks.”

  The waitress’s pencil was poised.

  “Just water,” Savannah repeated.

  “And a Scotch,” DeWitt insisted.

  The waitress put in the order, and she and the bartender conferred for a while. In the end DeWitt got his drink, and he swallowed half his glass in one take.

  Savvy dispensed with the salad in record time, feeling ravenous, as ever, and when her main dish arrived, she turned the plate so the french fries were closest to DeWitt. He ignored them, merely sitting back in his chair and waiting, chin down on his chest, as if he were about to nod off.

  The steak was good, much better than she’d expected it would be, and she wanted to moan about the way it practically melted on her tongue. It felt like she hadn’t eaten in a week, and she would have really enjoyed herself if it weren’t for DeWitt’s eyes watching her every move.

  Finally, she slid her plate away and took a long drink of water. DeWitt finished his drink and studied her, and for a moment she thought he was asleep, until she saw him blink several times. He seemed to be staring at the floor, but Savannah thought he was calculating something. Even though it seemed as if he’d had a lot to drink, and the bar staff certainly thought so, he was fairly lucid. She opened her mouth to ask him another question, but he got there first and blew her thoughts to smithereens.

  “He fired me. The old man. But it was Hale who wanted me gone, because I knew, y’see. I knew about his wife. I saw her at the house, and I knew.”

  More about Kristina. Savannah felt cold inside. “What house?”

  “The Donatellas. What we’re talking about,” he said, as if she were dense. “And she wasn’t with St. Cloud. Uh-uh.”

  “But she was with someone,” Savvy said, picking up on his tone. If he said, Marcus Donatella . . .

  He wagged a finger in front of her nose. “You think I don’t know who you are? You’re the sister. Carrying the next little St. Cloud. Bet Declan’d like to piss himself, he’s so excited to have a great-grandson on the way.”

  The sex of her child was the worst-kept secret on the planet. “You say you saw Kri
stina with someone?”

  But DeWitt wasn’t ready to switch back to the original topic. “A boy. That’s what she said.” He gave her a sly look. “She was talking all about it to him.”

  “Who? Kristina?” Savvy asked. No wonder he was the goat around the office. Criminal incompetency and just being an all-around asshole.

  “You figure it out, Miss Cop.” He lurched up from the table and headed for the door. “I need a cab,” he threw over his shoulder to the bartender.

  “I can give you a ride,” Savvy said. She didn’t want to be in his company any longer than she had to, but she wanted to know what the hell he was alluding to.

  “You as hot as your sister?” He leered at her. “I’ve never made it with a pregnant woman before.”

  “Not that kind of ride,” she said levelly.

  He grinned and staggered back a step.

  “I’ll get that cab,” the bartender put in, saving Savvy from wanting to blast the worm.

  DeWitt staggered outside and shivered, pulling the collar of his coat closer to his neck. “Gonna snow.”

  Savannah wanted to pepper him with questions but knew he would just keep playing games. DeWitt was all innuendo and bluster. Except he did know about the baby.

  “What do you think you know about my sister?” she asked quietly.

  “A helluva lot more than you do, or her husband does. I saw her there a coupla times. With him.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “Calls himself Charlie when he’s trolling for a hot piece of ass,” he said. “A real rat bastard. She knew him, all right, and I do mean that in the biblical sense. I was there one night, looking around, feeling sick about the whole goddamn thing. Looking for the goddamn proof that they’re all wrong.”

  “You were at Bancroft Bluff, checking out the integrity of the dune?” she asked, trying to keep up with his rambling talk.

  “Didn’t I just say so? Hell. It’s all political, anyway. Somebody gets pissed at somebody, and they condemn the whole area just because they can.” He waved an arm. “It’s not my fault.”

  She wasn’t going to point out the obvious, that, well, yes, it was his fault for ignoring the signs that the dune was sloughing into the sea. It was, in fact, his job. “You saw my sister there,” she said, prodding him.

  “Sure did. He had her up against the wall. Banging her like crazy, and she was . . . man . . . in ecstasy. Head thrown back and first making these little kittenlike sounds and then screamin’! She was riding him and lovin’ it.” His smile was a leer.

  Savvy fought back the urge to do him physical harm. She wanted to slap him silly, and he knew it, the bastard. “You saw my sister with someone in the Donatella house,” she reiterated.

  “That’s what I’m telling you. Doing the dirty right against that same wall. The one that was painted with ‘blood money.’ You know.”

  “Who is this Charlie?”

  “I told ya. Good Time Charlie. You got questions, ask your sister. She knows him pretty good.”

  A brisk wind ripped at Savvy’s jacket, and she pulled it tighter around her. “You saw Charlie and Kristina St. Cloud together at the Donatella house.”

  “Why don’t you write it down, Detective?”

  “Could you have been mistaken?”

  “Look, I know you probably don’t want to believe that your sister’s screwing around on her husband, but I know what I saw. They were taking advantage of the fact that the Donatellas had skedaddled. Chickenshits. After they left the dune, everybody went. Oh, sure, they would pretend to be livin’ there, just to get people to stay, but it was a lie and everybody knew it. Fuckin’ scared they were gonna fall into the goddamn ocean.”

  “Is Charlie connected to Bancroft Bluff?”

  “He was fuckin’ the boss’s wife. Jesus, woman. How many ways I gotta say it? That’s as connected as you get!”

  “Kristina picked the venue for this alleged rendezvous?”

  “How would I know?” He glanced around. “Christ, it’s cold.”

  Savvy looked up toward the darkening skies. She was going to have to get that room ASAP. “Where can I find this Charlie?”

  DeWitt closed his eyes and lost his balance, taking a step backward before catching himself. “Stay away from him. That’s my advice to you, pregnant lady. Far, far away . . .”

  “Where have you seen him around?”

  He waved an expansive arm to encompass the whole world as a cab pulled up in front of the restaurant and he staggered forward to get the door. “Don’t charge me too much, man,” he whined to the cabbie as he climbed inside.

  “What’s Charlie’s real name?” Savvy asked, raising her voice.

  “Beelzebub,” he muttered, slamming the door behind him.

  Savvy stared after the departing cab for a moment, fighting down a shiver. She thought DeWitt’s brain might be alcohol soaked, but he’d definitely put a chill in her soul, and the weather wasn’t helping. Walking back to her car, she placed a call to Kristina, whose phone went straight to voice mail again. Damn it all to hell. Where are you? Savvy hung up without leaving a message. Kristina would see she’d called from her missed-call list and maybe call her back.

  Beelzebub, she thought. Ridiculous. If anyone was a devil, it was more likely Owen DeWitt himself.

  CHAPTER 13

  Mary’s journal lay unopened on Catherine’s nightstand, next to the oil lamp with its soft, shimmering flame. Knowing she would be drawn into Mary’s world as soon as she opened its leather cover, Catherine walked into her bedroom but refused to look at it, just as she had refused to look at it every other time she’d entered the room. Yes, she needed to read it. Yes, she believed it held some of the keys to what had happened to her sister. And yes, there were bound to be clues to the past, the pieces that Catherine did not know herself, the ones Mary had deliberately hidden from her.

  But there were also bound to be references to the things Catherine did know about . . . things she would sooner forget.

  Still, she was only putting off the inevitable. She’d asked Detective Dunbar for a DNA test on the knife, hoping there would be some sign of the killer.

  Yet she thought she might know who he was.

  Her jaw clenched, and she forcibly relaxed it. He was like Justice. Determined and driven and filled with genetic anomalies that as often as not turned him into an evil monster incapable of living within social boundaries.

  She needed to find the adoption records.

  “Aunt Catherine?”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin as she turned swiftly to the open door of her bedroom. Cassandra stood there, her eyes glimmering in the faint light.

  “You scared me!” Catherine exclaimed, one hand over her chest. Her heart was thudding erratically.

  “I think he’s done something really bad.”

  “Who?” she asked automatically.

  “The man from the bones.”

  “Cassandra . . .”

  “He went to her,” Cassandra whispered urgently.

  Catherine walked over and put her arms around Cassandra, holding her tightly, knowing how much her visions scared her. “What did he do?”

  “Can you see it?”

  “No, I—” Catherine paused, momentarily seeing a heavy block of wood.

  “He killed her.” Cassandra hesitated a moment, her body quivering, and then she added in a voice so soft Catherine could scarcely hear it, even though her lips weren’t far from her ear, “And then he watched her die, and . . . he liked the way it felt. He says it’s . . . better than sex.”

  Nothing is better than sex, Mary said, eyeing her sister with that cat-and-cream smile.

  “Who did he kill, Cassandra?” Catherine made herself ask, her throat tight.

  The girl slowly pulled away from her, and she came back to herself, as if waking from a dream. She looked slightly confused. “Our mother?” she asked, as if Catherine held the answer. Then, “No, it was a different woman.” As if suddenly alarmed at bei
ng too near to Mary, she added, “And it’s Maggie. My name is Maggie.”

  She left the room in a rush, legs flying beneath her long skirts, as if she wanted nothing more to do with either Catherine or the visions that had plagued her—her gift—since she was young.

  Catherine thought about Cassandra’s vision. About the man from the bones. Forcing herself to the nightstand, she picked up the small volume and started at the beginning, but Mary’s young girl ramblings held little interest for her. Thus she opened the book and held it flat, letting the pages fall to their natural breaking point.

  With dread she read the passage.

  Cathy thinks she’s in love with a prince, but he’s just like the rest of them. It’s so easy to have any of them, it’s laughable. I lean in and envelop them, and they’re mine. I thought she was going to cry when she asked me, “Is it a scent?” She kept pestering me, and I told her, “It’s just something you don’t have. Sorryyy . . .” Should I let her have him, or put him in the trophy case?

  Catherine slammed the book shut, only to open it again to a later page, a well-thumbed section, one that Mary had apparently gone back to time and again.

  I saved Cathy from that rapist, but I wouldn’t let her have happiness. That’s what she says to me all the time. “You won’t let me be happy.” There is no happiness. There’s only conquest. I took him from her, and I’m not sorry. It’s for her own good. She wasn’t meant to have him.

  They’re all mine. From Parnell to Seamus to the devil who gave me D. The rapist. Back from the dead, but dead again.

  Right, Cath? You’re reading this, aren’t you? You know who I’m talking about. Is it still a secret? Have you managed to keep your mouth shut? Or have you pointed your finger at him, like you always point it at me?

  Catherine clamped the book shut this time with a soft whump. She thought about Mary out on Echo Island and all the years her sister had lived there in obscurity. Mary hadn’t wanted to be taken. She’d gone there against her will. But once ensconced, she’d scarcely protested. In fact she’d changed from railing at Catherine whenever she brought supplies to showing her the herb garden she’d begun in the hardscrabble terraced backyard. She’d even asked for different seeds and plants to add to it. This had surprised Catherine greatly because up till then, Mary’s single-minded, obsessive nature had seemed to have to do only with men.