Payne & Misery Page 25

  Although I had to concentrate to hear him, I think he said, “I … did … the best I could.” Perhaps he wanted absolution. I didn’t have that power. With exaggerated effort, he closed his eyes again.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Payne. They’re coming to help you. Hang on. Someone will be here soon.” With a fire station close by, I hoped they’d send paramedics from there instead of from town. I rocked slowly on my heels, unsure how to assist him.

  When he opened his steely eyes a few minutes later, I saw renewed clarity. He seemed to understand who I was, or at least that I wasn’t Lila. His words came out a bit clearer, though still slurred. “Head. Hurts. Bad.” He blinked, chest heaving with forced breath. “Didn’t mean her harm. That’s … what she wanted.”

  In that moment, I knew Lila was dead, but I asked anyway. “Where is Lila?”

  His lids quivered shut, but his voice continued—stronger as if he’d gained a slight second wind. “Had a cow once that lost her calf. Bawled all night long. Not just the first night, but the second and third. Next morning—” He pressed his hand on his head and closed his eyes. At least a minute passed before he spoke again. “Found the mama dead. Drowned in the river below the pasture.”

  My heart flip-flopped. “You mean Lila?”

  He didn’t seem able to hold his head straight. It flopped to the side and he gagged.

  “Lila is dead. Is that what you’re saying?”

  He lifted thin eyelids with an effort that reminded me of prying open winter shutters. He gave a single nod, which seemed to require almost all his remaining energy. Icy fingers clutched my heart, and numbness set in.

  The steeliness of his eyes softened to something more like lead. I cradled him in my arms, studying the face of this person I had so feared. With a jolt that jump-started my heart, I realized I wanted him to be okay. At that moment, he didn’t seem sinister or scary. Just an old man in pain, a fellow creature with strengths and faults just like mine. That must be how God sees people when he looks at us.

  I wished I could do more. I stroked his brow and prayed. “God be merciful to this man.” All I knew was to recite the one Bible verse I memorized as a child: John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

  I repeated the verse twice, emphasizing different words each time. Gradually, the peace of God invaded the room. Will’s body, once rigid and tense with pain, relaxed in my arms.

  The piercing siren of an emergency vehicle wailed above us. The front door banged open and feet pounded down the stairs. Will’s eyes opened one last time.

  I asked, “Did you kill her, Mr. Payne? Did you kill Lila?”

  He used all his breath to get out one word, “Fire.” Then he sucked air with a loud, bronchial sound and whispered, “She made me do it.”

  38

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I waited by the phone until Zora Jane called with Silverthorne’s report. William Payne had suffered a severe stroke. A CAT scan revealed hemorrhaging in his brain. Aphasia kept him from speaking. With a compromised airway, he had to be intubated in the ER. He slipped into a semi-comatose state, so they put him in ICU.

  “Here’s an odd thing,” Zora Jane said. “Silverthorne got a full report on Alan Kliner from Des Moines police, including a picture and fingerprints.”

  Interesting. But not odd. “Uh-huh.”

  “Alan’s neighbors told authorities he’s been gone the last couple months. A search of his apartment turned up a flight itinerary for a trip to Sacramento in September. From the looks of his place, he hasn’t been back since.”

  “Not possible. Jesse and I both spoke with Alan. Less than two weeks ago. He was in Iowa. At his house. There must be some mistake.” From the way he talked, it sounded as if he’d never visited California. I tried to remember exactly what he said on the phone.

  Zora Jane continued. “We don’t know what to think about that. Silverthorne says he’ll bring the picture when he comes this way next.”

  I didn’t know what to think about that either.

  Based on my conversation with Will prior to his stroke, detectives and forensic analysts swarmed the Payne property. Molly and I watched from the deck as they cordoned off the area with wide yellow ribbons of crime scene tape. We stayed away, though, and let the experts work. I knew what they would find. Silverthorne said the investigators used fluorescein and a UV scope to illuminate a large bloodstain in the middle of the floor in the former shrine room.

  According to the newspaper article that appeared a few days later, a lengthy search of the ash mound uncovered parts of a skull, assorted bone fragments, and teeth belonging to a petite female in her forties. The blackened jawbone fragment matched the same person. What I’d seen leaning against the wall in the downstairs room had been Lila’s tiny body wrapped in a roll of carpet instead of a casket. Will incinerated her on a funerary pyre along with all her possessions, just as Native Americans did in centuries past. What the article couldn’t tell me was why. Will’s last words echoed in my brain like a stuck record. “She made me do it.”

  Which “she?” Helen or Lila?

  Sunday morning’s newspaper featured a front-page spread about Lila’s death. Apparently, crime scene investigators extracted a bullet from the forehead of the skull. Guns registered to Will Payne were confiscated for testing. No match could be made, however. A records search revealed no registered firearms in Helen’s name, but detectives searched the 1995 Bayliner Capri—Miss Misery—found in Helen Sterne’s garage to look for one anyway. Failing to find a gun, the issue of the murder weapon went unresolved.

  I caught up with Silverthorne at the sheriff’s office. He’d just come out of a meeting with Deputy Dunn. At the door connecting the waiting area with the inner offices, the two stood facing each other.

  Silverthorne smiled when he saw me. “Hey! I was coming out your way pretty soon.”

  “I wanted to know if you’ve made any progress on the photograph from the hit-and-run scene.” I’d gone directly to the sheriff’s office after I found it.

  They glanced at each other. Dunn answered. “Forensics magnified the license number and it matches the Buick’s.”

  “Excellent. Did they identify the hunched-over person?”

  Silverthorne spoke. “Couldn’t make a positive ID. But it’s definitely a female. Since Helen already admitted she drove the Buick that night, I’m sure that’s enough to convince a jury.”

  Dunn nodded. “They’re re-examining the vehicle at the impound lot.”

  Memories of Helen’s scream that penetrated the double panes of her kitchen window flashed to mind. “When I heard her say accident, she meant the hit-and-run.”

  Silverthorne nodded. “Looks that way.”

  “So that means you can arrest her for killing that boy. At the minimum, she fled the scene of a fatal accident.”

  They flicked another glance at each other before Dunn said, “Already issued an APB.”

  Silverthorne’s voice sounded weary. “Helen has disappeared.”

  Later that afternoon, I waited for a meeting with the Callahans and Silverthorne. I wandered to my office and got out my yellow legal pad of notes again. With a blue Sharpie, I drew a thick line through all the irrelevant data, then tried to reorganize the rest. Knowing several new facts, I hoped the solution would materialize. Now we knew that Helen killed Lila’s baby and little Marcus Whitney. We knew Lila was dead. But how did she die?

  Also, a couple details about the hit-and-run didn’t make sense. The Buick’s back license showed in the birthday party photo. So the car faced away from the house. That meant Helen was driving toward Highway 49 instead of away. She hadn’t just made a detour when she hit the four-year-old. She was returning to the freeway from somewhere else. Where did she go first? What was she doing at that corner?

  How about Alan Kliner? He couldn’t be in California. We had talked to him in Iowa. I leaned back in my desk
chair and closed my eyes. Unfortunately, a mental solution didn’t materialize. Instead, I remembered Helen using past tense when we talked about Lila at the hardware store weeks before. Why hadn’t I picked that up then? Some sleuth I turned out to be.

  I stood and stared out the window at the gray house.

  A shadowy silhouette darted across one of the windows— someone in Will’s bedroom.

  Who?

  “I bet I know where Helen is.”

  I tore downstairs and raced for the arena where Jesse and Ranger practiced. We could catch her if we didn’t create too much noise, so I didn’t want to yell.

  Jesse had just rounded a barrel when he saw me coming. He stopped and crossed his hands over the saddle horn. “To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

  Huffing from the run down the hill, I jabbed a finger toward Will’s. “Someone’s inside down there. Hurry!”

  Jesse swung off Ranger—leaving him to wander the arena fully saddled—and led the way through the pasture. I followed closely, head down. Just before we got to the gate between our property and Will’s, he stopped abruptly. I slammed into his back.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Just saw her. She’s in the kitchen.” He plucked his cell phone from his shirt pocket.

  I raised my eyebrows. Since when did Jesse start carrying that thing?

  He punched in someone’s number, waited, then whispered, “It’s Jesse Sterling. We’re watching someone at Will’s. Think it’s Helen.” … “Meet you there.” He snapped his flip phone shut.

  By the time we arrived at the front door, Ed Callahan had gotten there too. They conferred in whispers before Ed crouched to hurry toward the back of the house. Then Jesse gestured toward the front door. We hunched like commandos and tiptoed, crouching behind bushes whenever possible.

  The door creaked when Jesse pushed it open. We froze a second before entering cat-paw quiet and turning right toward the kitchen. Slamming cupboard doors informed us of the whereabouts of Helen’s frantic search. Turning the corner with extreme stealth, we hauled up short at our first glimpse of the intruder.

  It wasn’t Helen.

  Slight of build and rough, the black-clad man from the motel stood on a box, rummaging through a cabinet. He startled when he realized he had company. Catching himself before falling, he issued a profanity. “What are you doin’ here?”

  With a bold step, Jesse entered the room with me directly behind. “We might ask you the same question.”

  Just then, Ed jimmied the back door. It popped open and he pounced inside, weapon drawn. Ed looked shocked, straightened, and gave the man a quick once-over. “You’re not Helen.”

  Footsteps from the front door made us all jump. In seconds, Zora Jane led Silverthorne into the room.

  Silverthorne looked puzzled a moment before addressing the black-leathered man. “You must be Alan Kliner.

  39

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  According to Silverthorne’s report, Alan Kliner wouldn’t say much. Not why he came to California in September. Not how he knew Helen or what they were doing at the motel. Nothing about Lila’s death. But he got real choked up when he talked about her. Silverthorne thought it was an act. After questioning Alan for hours at the sheriff’s office, they let him go, advising him not to leave town until the loose ends got tied up.

  “We seem to be stuck,” Silverthorne said. “Alan’s involved, but we don’t know how. Will can’t talk yet; still too sick.” A weighty sigh tumbled out. “No one knows how Lila died. With the angle of the gunshot wound in the skull fragments they found, the coroner can’t say for certain whether her death was suicide or murder. There’s no way to establish the exact time of death.” He shook his head. “We need more than bone fragments. We know the Coopers saw Helen leave between seven and seven thirty, instead of six to six fifteen like she says. According to Helen’s statement, when she left, Lila was still alive. We have no way to confirm or exclude that statement. We’ve got Helen for the hit-and-run and the murder of Baby Blue, but we can’t find her.”

  “Those are big problems,” Ed said.

  “We re-interviewed everyone, hoping they’d say something different. No such luck. I just wanted to ask you to pray.”

  “Good idea,” Zora Jane said.

  Silverthorne rubbed his eyes. He looked as if he needed a vacation or at the minimum, several nights of sound sleep. “You folks don’t know anything about some treasure Will kept at his house, do you?”

  We shook our heads.

  “Why?” Jesse asked.

  “Alan’s been camping in the woods on Will’s property, looking for something. He’s the vagrant the sheriff’s office arrested awhile back. Will mentioned someone breaking into his garage and rifling through his stuff. Maybe that’s why Alan came out here a month ago.”

  Ed looked thoughtful. “It’s a good thing they let him go, then. We’ll watch for him. See if he tries again.”

  Jesse and I exchanged a glance. How could Alan have been here and in Iowa at the same time? What would Alan be searching for at Will’s house?

  I knew Jesse felt torn about going away for the weekend. But he’d been looking forward to this next shoot for a month, so I persuaded him to go and not worry about me. He needed to do something fun. What good would staying home do anyway? There’d been no sign of anyone at Will’s since we found Alan. Helen must be hiding somewhere. Alan wouldn’t be dumb enough to break in now that he knew we were watching.

  So Jesse reluctantly left on Friday morning. He wasn’t going far, only about an hour away, so he could get home quickly. I felt good about his decision.

  Near dusk on Saturday, I went to fix my dinner. In the quiet kitchen, I piled leftover chicken enchiladas and rice from last night on a plate and slipped it into the microwave. This one modern technological innovation I deemed completely necessary. I had no idea why a person would ever need, say, an HDTV iPod with Wi-Fi—I didn’t even know what that was—but quick heating for leftovers made perfect sense.

  Molly sat beside me when I placed my meal on the kitchen table.

  “Thank you, God, for this food and for all your bountiful gifts,” I prayed. “Please keep Jesse safe and help us get to the bottom of who killed Lila.”

  When I opened my eyes, a glimmer of light drew my attention down the hill. “Now, who do you suppose would be down there?” I cut into the enchilada and scooped the chunk into my mouth. Helen or Alan?

  I chewed while light winked in Will’s bedroom window. The light bobbed and swung, as if from a flashlight.

  “What is she looking for? Or he?”

  Molly batted her brown eyes adoringly. She licked her lips, anticipating a donation from my plate.

  Jesse gave her table scraps. I never did.

  She rested her chin on my leg. Her hot breath steamed through my jeans as she panted. Soft brown eyes blinked again. “You make it hard, don’t you, old girl?” I rubbed her ears while I watched the lights a few minutes longer. Maybe it wasn’t either of them. Ongoing news coverage alerted the community to the now-uninhabited state of the gray house. Plenty of bad guys watched TV. Could be a thief looting the place.

  “I should call Deputy Dunn, don’t you think?”

  Molly just stared at me.

  I went to the deck, hoping for a better view.

  When I returned to the kitchen, I punched in the phone number for the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. The light flickered in and out of windows while I waited for someone to answer. “Deputy Dunn, please.”

  “Sorry,” the dispatcher said. “Deputy Dunn is not available. Would you like his voicemail?”

  “Sure. But maybe I should speak with whoever is there because if he doesn’t get this soon, it’ll be too late.”

  Apparently she didn’t hear the last sentence because she’d already connected me to Dunn’s answering message. I paced while the message completed. “This is Christine Sterling. I see lights on at Will’s house. If you’re looking for Helen S
terne, she’s probably down there.”

  I hung up feeling dissatisfied so I dialed Silverthorne’s cell phone. His answering message rolled. I sighed. What’s the point of carrying a phone with you if you’re not going to answer it when you’re needed?

  The lights continued to move.

  Maybe I should have asked for the officer on duty. There must be others working this case with Dunn.

  What if I just run down there and check it out myself?

  I stood at the window, watching. After a minute or so, the light went out. I held my breath until a spark of light flickered in the kitchen window.

  Not stopping to consider the consequences, I plodded down the hill as darkness settled over the hillside. I would just peek in the windows, go straight home, and call the sheriff’s office again.

  Previously, I had success peeking in windows. I braced against the side of the house and pulled myself up slowly until I could see into the kitchen with one eye.

  In the eerie light cast by what appeared to be an industrial-size camping lantern, Helen rummaged furiously through the kitchen cabinets. Light from under her chin painted horror-film shadows on her face. Gaping cabinet doors marked the path she’d already searched. Boxes and trash cluttered her wake.

  Fixed in amazement, I watched while she exited the room. Doors slammed and search noises commenced in another location. I crouched as still as possible until my muscles ached, before slinking around the house toward the bedrooms. With care, I stooped low to slide under each window—in case she might peek out.

  I circled the back and then the side. When I arrived at the front of the attached garage, I slid between the outside wall and a tall shrub, where I fit snugly with a clear view of the front walkway and the garage. I’d stay put and see what she was up to.

  The chilly air made me shiver. Why didn’t I grab a jacket and maybe my cell phone? Also, why didn’t I think of calling Jesse’s cell phone? I never thought of cell phones. On the rare occasion I managed to carry the thing, I wouldn’t have remembered to turn it on or charge it up. Useless technology.