Lisa Jackson - Most Likely To Die

Dean nodded. “We really appreciate this.”

He and Rachel sat on the sofa facing Marilyn. Her son stood behind her wheelchair, one hand on her shoulder. “Go ahead, Mom. Tell them what you know.”

Marilyn Dewey looked down into her lap where she held her clasped hands, her fingers knotted and swollen. “If Patrick were alive, I’d never…I’ve kept his secret all these years.”

Rachel scooted to the edge of the sofa. What secret?

“Patrick was a good man,” Marilyn said. “A good husband and father.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Dean glanced up at Pat Jr. before focusing on Mrs. Dewey. “Just take your time in telling us what you know.”

“Patrick wasn’t with me the night that Marcott boy was killed.” The words rushed out of her in one long, run-together sentence.

Rachel and Dean exchanged questioning glances.

Silence hung over the room like a heavy fog.

“Are you saying that when the police questioned you twenty years ago, you lied?” Rachel asked.

“Yes, I lied for my husband. Patrick told me that if I didn’t give him an alibi, the police would dig deeper and he’d be in big trouble,” Marilyn explained. “I asked him why he needed an alibi, and he said I was better off not knowing, to just do as he asked and everything would be all right.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

Pat Jr. squeezed his mother’s shoulder reassuringly. “It’s all right. You’re doing just fine. Tell them the rest of it.”

Marilyn swallowed hard. “I was a young woman with two children and no job. I didn’t even graduate from high school. I needed Patrick.” She paused, sighed heavily and looked pleadingly at Rachel. “And I loved him.”

“We understand,” Rachel said. She did understand why a woman would lie for her husband. But understanding didn’t mean approval.

“I lied to the police about two things. Patrick was not with me the night the Marcott boy was murdered. And the crossbow that he reported stolen wasn’t stolen. He-he hid it in the garage, inside this big old toolbox that had belonged to his father.”

Rachel tensed. “Do you know why he reported the crossbow stolen?”

Marilyn shook her head. “I asked him, but he wouldn’t tell me. We never discussed it-none of it-ever again. Not until…” Tears streamed down her face.

Pat Jr. whipped out a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to his mother. She wiped away the tears and wadded up the handkerchief in her trembling hands.

“Patrick had throat cancer. He’d been a heavy smoker all his life,” Marilyn said. “A few days before he died, he told me he had to clear his conscience before…He needed to bare his soul to me, to beg me to forgive him.”

Rachel held her breath. Dean didn’t move a muscle. A deadly soft anticipation filled the room.

“Patrick killed that boy,” Marilyn said. “That Marcott boy.”

“Did he tell you that he killed Jake Marcott?” Dean asked, his voice sympathetically gentle.

“Yes. He said that he planned it a few weeks beforehand and that’s why he reported the crossbow stolen, so that when he used it…”

“Why did your husband kill Jake?” Rachel asked.

Marilyn hesitated, then said, “There was a girl, you see. A girl that Patrick had been seeing.” She paused as if the truth were too terrible for her to utter aloud. “My husband had an affair with a teenage girl.”

Oh my God! Rachel’s mind worked at lightning speed, putting together the missing pieces to a twenty-year-old puzzle.

Marilyn Dewey wept, her heart breaking anew because her husband had been unfaithful to her all those years ago. “This girl had been involved with the Marcott boy, too.” Marilyn looked up at her son and grasped the hand that clutched her shoulder.

Pat Jr. leaned down and hugged her.

She regained her composure and continued. “Patrick said this boy had been cruel to the girl, that he’d mistreated her badly, that he deserved to die. The only way to stop the boy from continuing to abuse the girl was to kill him.”

“Did your husband tell you the girl’s name?” Rachel asked, hoping beyond hope that he had.

Marilyn shook her head. “No.” She glanced from Rachel to Dean and then up at her son. “Even on his deathbed, he wanted to protect her.”

Several days following Rachel and Dean’s interview with Marilyn Dewey and a follow-up interview that was officially recorded, the Portland P.D. had permanently closed the cold case file on the Cupid Killer murder. Chief Charlie Young made the wise decision to delay making the news public until after the St. Elizabeth’s reunion. And Dean had managed to persuade the powers that be not to press charges against Mrs. Dewey, a woman in her sixties who suffered from crippling arthritis. In Rachel’s opinion, the woman had suffered enough, and Dean agreed. It seemed they agreed on a great many things.

If only Mrs. Dewey could have given them the girl’s name…

Everything made sense now. All except one of the old puzzle pieces had been placed together. Patrick Dewey had been having an affair with a girl Jake had also been involved with, a girl Jake had abused. Patrick had plotted Jake’s demise and killed his rival in a spectacular way. The expert bowman had shot Jake directly in the heart with “Cupid’s arrow.”

But what had happened after Jake’s murder? Had the girl turned against Patrick? Or had Patrick ended the secret affair?

Rachel had thought surely someone other than Patrick Dewey and the girl had known about their affair. Where and when had they met? A local motel? Somewhere out of town? Had someone possibly seen the girl with Patrick?

She had racked her brain trying to figure out a way to unearth this girl’s identity, but in the end, she realized that the span of twenty years worked against their discovering the truth. Would any motels or hotels still have records from twenty years ago? And even if they did, Patrick would hardly have used his real name. And she certainly couldn’t expect any former hotel employee to remember a man and teenage girl who had secret rendezvous in 1986.

As each day had passed, Rachel’s frustration level had risen. If not for Dean’s wonderful calming effect on her, she wasn’t sure she’d have made it through without a major meltdown. As she lay in Dean’s arms each night, she wondered how she’d gotten so damn lucky. She could regret not finding love with Dean years ago, but there was no point in looking back. Today was all that mattered. For Dean and her and for their old high-school friends. Jake Marcott’s murder case had been solved; the murderer was dead. But the recent murders remained unsolved, the killer still out there, ready to kill again.

Tonight was the night. Everything was in order. Every detail planned. They would all be here, the classmates from the graduating classes of 1986. The alumni from St. Elizabeth’s, Western Catholic, and even some graduates from Washington High School. The police had brought in bomb-sniffing dogs and the authorities had done what they thought was a thorough search of the building. But no one remembered the old basement area under the gymnasium. She doubted that there was anyone still alive who knew about that subterranean level that could be reached only through the basement of the school itself and not directly from the gym. The only reason she knew the location was because her great-uncle had once been the custodian, back in the sixties, and he’d told her about it.

If the police had searched down there, they would have found her secret room, the senior lockers, and the souvenirs from Mandy, Aurora, and Haylie. If that had happened, she would have had to formulate a new plan rather quickly, perhaps continue the executions beyond tonight’s event. But as luck would have it, she didn’t have to change her plans.