T. Parker - Summer Of Fear

I picked up the car phone and dialed Karen's home number, even though it was close to 2:00 a.m. She answered groggily. I hit a low spot in the canyon and the line went fuzzy for moment, then snapped back into clarity. I asked her simply whether Martin's complaint to DA Peter Haight named Russell Monroe as the killer of Alice Fultz, or Russell Monroe and Grace Wilson.

"You promised," she said.

"I know, and I'm sorry. My ass is very much on the line here, Karen."

"You know how easy these cellular things are to tap?"

"I'm looking at death row. Tell me, Karen-is Haight going to indict me, or Grace and me?"

A long silence ensued, then another patch of static as we dipped behind a hillside, then the voiceless clarity again.

"Grace won't be named," she said finally. "Just you. They're banking she'll work with them and testify."

Whatever will was driving my body at that moment seemed to diminish to almost nothing. I was floating, as if in the horse latitudes, bereft of power.

Amber took my hand. "Martin plans to have Grace testify against you?"

I nodded.

"She was in on it. It's pure Grace. Damn, Russell, if you could only see her as I have."

"We'll both be seeing her in about five minutes."

She was asleep in the guest room when we walked in. My father sat beside her, shotgun across his lap, drinking coffee and reading a magazine. In the limited light, Grace looked more like a child than a woman, her wavy dark hair hid her face and, in spite of the heat, she lay bundled to the neck in the blanket. The ceiling fan whirred above. Theodore examined us, and I sensed his understanding of what had just happened, then realized I hadn't bothered to so much as dust off my clothes or run a brush through my hair.

"Looks like you three have some business here," he said, rising. "I'll get lost for a while."

With this, I turned on the light. Grace stirred, whimpered, then opened one dark eye on me.

"What?" she whispered without moving.

"Get up," I said. "We need to talk."

I took her robe from the foot of the bed and handed it to her, turned my back for a moment, and closed my eyes. Let me find her innocent, I thought. Let there be an explanation for this. I heard the rustling of terry cloth on skin, then Grace's perturbed sigh. When I turned, she was sitting up, wrapped in the robe, both eyes trained, rather malignantly, upon Amber. The color had fallen from her face and her mouth was slightly open-half astonishment, half anger.

"I'm in hell," she said.

"Wonderful to see you, too, Grace."

Grace's eyes seemed to lose their focus for a moment and I sensed in her the desire to run. For a moment, I thought she would.

But when she sprang from the bed, it was not to escape but to charge Amber. I intercepted her, caught her strong wrists in my hands, and threw her back onto the bed. I beat her to the pillow and removed the. 32.

"You hateful thing," said Amber.

"Russell," Grace said, training her fearful eyes on m "Can you please make her go away?"

"No. But you can listen."

I came right out with what we had discovered: the ripped nail at Amber's, the nine matching it in Grace's wastebasket. I saved Brent Sides's recanted testimony, should it be needed later.

"Explain," I said.

Grace moved her disdainful eyes from her mother to me "Twin horrors," she said. "It's like being raised by wolves."

"We were talking about July the third," I said.

"If you're accusing me of murder because you think nails in my bathroom match one found at her house-you're even dumber than I thought, Russ."

'Funny," I said. "No one mentioned murder at all. I was just wondering what you were doing at Amber's that night."

"I was not at Amber's that night. I was with Brent."

"We just came from his apartment. He said you didn't show up until real late. You were frightened. You smelled bad. He was afraid to ask where you'd been. So, now I'm asking- where were you?"

Grace colored deeply but not with shame. It was anger that showed through her skin and fueled a tiny fire in each eye. "I hate you both."

"That's nice," I said. "Where were you? And if you weren't at Amber's, how did your fingernail manage to get there without you? Grace-I'm tired of your crap."

The anger in Grace's eyes looked, for a moment, almost flamelike. I had never seen this in her, and yet it didn't surprise me. My own temper was a fierce, though temporary, thing. Amber's was, too. And as I looked at my daughter then, I saw that she was, both literally and figuratively, up against a wall.

Amber, silent throughout until now, turned to look at me. "Welcome to your girl," she said.

"You're the thing from hell," said Grace.

"I know, dear," answered Amber. "I know. But I'm trying hard to be something else. What were you doing in my house that night, Grace? You may as well tell us, since we have proof that you were there. Let me guess-you came to apologize for not talking to me for six months, for acting like I was dead."

"To beg your forgiveness and take your money, as suggested by those big oafs you sent. Here, Mother, do you like their handiwork?" Grace lifted a foot bottom toward her mother.

I heard the slight intake of breath as Amber understood what she was seeing.

"It worked," said Grace. "That is exactly what I was doing at your house on July the third. I was there to surrender to you.

I had had enough. I was scared enough of you by then to carry that gun in my purse. I admit that the idea of shooting you came to mind, and it wasn't a totally unpleasant thought. But what I wanted that night was to tell you I'd given up. I was done. You had won. I didn't want any more burned body parts. I didn't want your money, either. All I wanted was to be able to sleep at night without worrying who might be outside my door."

Grace looked steadily at me, then at her mother. The fires of anger were gone. "What I saw in your bedroom terrified me. I thought it was you. I called Martin, but he wasn't home, called Russell, but you weren't home. Then I went to Brent's and tried to sleep. I wasn't going to call the police and talk to some rookie patrolman about my own mother's murder. Why? Because when I looked down at you, Mother; the terror didn't come from what had happened to you; it came from how.. fitting it seemed to be. Looking at your dead body made me a little bit happy. And I knew by the time all the news of our bad blood got out-Grace Wilson would be the number-one suspect So I hid out, then came here to Russell."

I listened to the motor of the ceiling fan, the gentle whoosh of the blades. "The nail, Grace."

Grace looked down now, at her knees still covered by the blanket. Her voice was suddenly weaker. "And I'll tell you some thing I have never told another human being, Russell and Amber. It almost hurts me to say it, but I will because it explains why I was there, and why my nail stayed behind."

She looked up at Amber now with an expression so different from before, I could hardly believe it belonged to the same person. Tears welled in her lovely dark eyes and her lips so capable of scorn and sarcasm, simply trembled.

"I… I have always… in a way… I have always loved You, Mother. And when I saw you lying there, after I felt the relief of knowing you were dead and I was safe, and after I felt that horrid… satisfaction at what had happened to you, I fell down to the floor on my knees and cried and prayed and cried and prayed and I dug my fingers so hard into your carpet, the nail broke off. I didn't notice it until I was leaving. I looked for it but couldn't find it. Back home, I took off the others and threw them away so that if the police came to me, they'd see I didn't wear nails. I was too upset and too afraid to realize they'd be as easy to find in the dumpster as they would have been on my fingers. I think I probably left a fresh pack around, anyway. I'd make a lousy criminal."