Hal laughed at that, a broken, brittle sound. “You think I loved Bethany? Once maybe. But by the time she was murdered I hated her so much I probably could have killed her myself.”
“But not Victoria.”
“No. Not her. But then there was always more to her than Bethany. She quickly regretted getting involved with Donald. She . . . she was starting to love me, I think.”
Okay, baby, you got him where you want him. Spring your theory. Only make it sound like you already know for sure, like he’s not telling you anything you don’t know. Lie, baby. Lie good.
I swallowed my nerves. “And then, of course, Angel killed Victoria. I know that, too, Hal. I found the evidence.”
His expression darkened. “I heard the whole thing over the cell phone. We were talking, Vicky and I. Suddenly Vicky said something like ‘what are you doing here,’ and then I heard another voice. Angel’s. She said something like ‘you want to threaten me now?’ That’s when the connection broke.”
“You were in Newport when this happened?”
Hal shook his head. “I was already in my car, on my way to that fleabag motel on the highway. After the connection broke, I floored it. When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw Angel getting into a parked car. I thought Vicky might have been in that car, too, and I followed it.”
“So you came here to confront Angel.”
“I got here right as she pulled up. Of course, Vicky wasn’t in the car. Not in the backseat, not on the floor, not in the trunk. By that time, Vicky was already dead in the woods. But I didn’t know it at the time. I demanded Angel tell me where Vicky was, what had happened.”
“And did she?”
“Angel was high, I think. She laughed and ran down this path. She thought it was a big game. She had some yellow rope draped around her neck, told me how she’d grabbed a few pieces of it off the back of that kid Johnny’s pickup, just so she could frame him a second time.”
I closed my eyes a moment. “Jack, did you hear that?”
Yeah, baby. Remember the kid’s testimony in the bookstore —he’d said he’d been so upset trying to get away from Angel he’d flooded the engine in the parking lot. It wouldn’t start for a few minutes.
I could hardly believe it was that simple. “That must have been the moment Angel grabbed the lengths of rope,” I silently agreed. “But Johnny had been so focused on the truck’s stalling, he never saw her do it.”
“Angel’s hands were still bloody when I confronted her,” Hal continued. “She was still holding the gun she’d used to beat Vicky unconscious. She pretended to tighten the piece of rope around her neck so she could show me exactly how she’d killed Vicky. It was a big game, a big taunt to torture me. That was Angel’s kick, you know? Making people squirm. She’d gone to the motel, called Vicky from one of the motel’s pay phones to lure her outside, then forced her at gunpoint into the woods. There were no bullets in her gun, she told me she’d thrown them in Johnny Napp’s face when he’d refused to help her. So she beat Vicky unconscious with the butt and strangled the life out of her with one of the pieces of rope she’d taken.”
His gaze, which had gone far away as he recounted that night, suddenly focused on me. “Angel was a monster and had to be stopped. And I was going to stop her. That’s all I could think. I just snapped . . . slapped her and cursed her. She fought me, but I took the ends of the rope she’d draped around her neck to taunt me and I started to choke her. Angel fought hard. I know what she wrote about me in that book—she called me childish, sentimental, weak, had no respect for me. She never thought I had it in me . . . but I wouldn’t stop . . .”
My throat suddenly felt like it had been stuffed with cotton balls. I tried to clear it.
Steady, kid. Hang in there.
“So that’s why you were wearing the jacket and tie when I met you at the bookstore?” I asked. “And why you quickly threw on a wrinkled, dirty windbreaker from your car’s trunk after you got back to the parking lot. To hide the scratches?”
“Yes, Mrs. McClure, and why I’m wearing this jacket now.”
“And you knew your skin and blood might be under Angel’s fingernails and on her body. So you threw it into the water hoping to destroy any such evidence.”
“Yes. For all I know, it didn’t,” he admitted.
“For all I know, it did,” I said.
Hope flashed behind Hal McConnell’s stare, followed by suspicion. “Why am I here, then? This is blackmail, isn’t it? You want money, don’t you?”
“Not blackmail,” I said. “Blackmail is impossible. Look up.”
Hal lifted his head. “See that box on the pole behind me, the wires leading out of it, to the bushes over there?”
His eyes traced my map. Hal nodded.
“There’s another security camera up there. If you killed Angel right here, as you said you did, then the murder was caught on camera and that recording is also in the hands of the State Police.”
Hal’s eyes dropped. He reached one hand into the pocket of his sport jacket. “I guess I’ll need this then . . .”
As I watched, Hal drew a bloodstained handgun out of his pocket. Before he could raise the weapon, Seymour Tarnish burst from behind a pile of canvas-covered wood on the site, waving a baseball bat he kept in his ice cream truck and yelling—
“Don’t try it, buster. You might be able to shoot me, but you can’t shoot everyone!”
Milner Logan stepped out from his hiding place behind the chest-high brick foundation, weaponless, though his muscular physique was imposing enough. From behind Hal McConnell, Mr. Koh emerged from his hiding place behind a bush, a long branch in hand. Finally, Fiona Finch, my aunt Sadie, and J. Parker Brainert stumbled out of their own hiding places. Poor Brainert was cursing that he’d stepped his loafers in a pile of goose dung.
Hal McConnell quickly realized that they’d heard every word.
“Yes, Hal. They are all willing to testify to the things you confessed if they have to.”
Hal shrugged, turned the gun handle first and handed it to me. “I wasn’t going to shoot you. There are no bullets in the gun,” he said. “It’s just another piece of evidence I wanted you to have.”
Suddenly, Hal’s face and body seemed to completely relax.
I stared at him, puzzled. “You look relieved.”
“It’s all going to come out now,” he said. “All of it. No more wall. No more code of silence. They’ll never forget Bethany now. Or Victoria . . . and they’ll all pay for hiding the truth.”
I took the gun and he met my eyes.
“But, Hal, the truth won’t set you free,” I said softly. “You’ll have to stand trial.”
“It’s okay, Mrs. McClure. I’m ready. Unlike Angel, I have a conscience.”
EPILOGUE
I have a secret passion for mercy . . . but justice is what keeps happening to people.
—Ross McDonald
“I HAVE A surprise for you, Jack.”
A surprise for a ghost? Don’t that beat all.
It was late Monday evening, chilly for early October, and I was alone in my bedroom, getting ready to turn in. I pulled the combination alarm clock/CD player out of the shopping bag and began struggling to free it from its foam prison.
“It’ll just take a few minutes to put together,” I promised.
Baby, in case you haven’t noticed, time is all I got.
Today, I had finally found the time to drive to All Things Bed & Beautiful. Besides the alarm clock/CD player for myself, I’d gotten Aunt Sadie a new comforter and Spencer a set of Spider-Man sheets. He was sleeping on them now. But Sadie wasn’t under her new comforter. She and Bud Napp were, once again, out on the town—which for Quindicott meant pizza at Franzetti’s and a drink at Donovan’s Pub.