Any hope one might have seen in Charlotte’s eyes was fading. “I know what you’re saying, I do. But—”
Gabriella raised a silencing hand. “I don’t think you’re someone I can trust.”
“I am! I—”
“Where’s the bathroom?” Len said.
Their eyes turned to Leonard, who was standing at one end of the kitchen island.
He shrugged. “I have to go.”
Charlotte sprang to her feet. “I can show you where it is,” she said with forced hospitality. She started across the room, pointing. Her path was taking her close to the top of the stairs that led to the front door.
“No!” Gabriella said. The order was meant for both Charlotte and her son.
As she neared the top of the staircase, Charlotte bolted.
“Leonard!”
Despite his size and lumbering nature, Leonard was quick. He turned on his heels and went after Charlotte.
He reached out and managed to grab her by the hair, yanking her back like a puppet on a string. As she was snapped back, he used her momentum against her, propelling her into the wall where he’d first pinned her by the neck.
Charlotte screamed.
Gabriella cocked her head to one side. Was that the doorbell she heard? It was hard to tell with all the other racket. She pushed back her chair and moved toward the struggle.
Leonard grabbed Charlotte by her right arm and flung her toward the steps like a bear flinging a rag doll. Charlotte sailed out into the stairwell, airborne. She didn’t land until seven steps down, her head connecting first with a wooden riser, making a sound like the crack of a bat hitting a ball.
Leonard and his mother ran to the top of the stairs and watched Charlotte’s lifeless body tumble down the remaining steps.
And the door at the bottom was flung open.
Anna White took two swift steps into the house, froze momentarily as she saw the body hurtling toward her, then screamed.
“Good God,” Gabriella said.
Anna’s gaze went higher. Saw Leonard and Gabriella looming over her like two vindictive gods.
She backed out of the house and ran.
“Stop her!” Gabriella said to her son.
Leonard ran down the stairs, leaping over the dead woman. Gabriella followed, but it took her longer to navigate around Charlotte. By the time she was outside and could take in what was happening, Anna had reached the end of the driveway, Leonard only a step behind her.
Anna tripped on the curb and went down in the middle of the deserted street. Her purse fell off her shoulder and hit the pavement, spilling car keys and a cell phone. She tried to scramble to her feet, but Leonard was on her, viciously kicking her upper thigh. She shrieked with pain, fell back, and clutched at her leg.
Now Gabriella was at her son’s side, struggling to catch her breath.
“Who the hell is she?” she asked, shaking her head furiously with frustration.
“I don’t know,” her son replied. “What should I do?”
Gabriella took a quick look up and down the street and was relieved to see it was deserted.
“Kill her,” she said.
At which point there was a strange sound. A whoosh. Something cutting through the air at considerable speed.
Behind them.
And then a loud whomp.
Leonard staggered, nearly stepping on Anna.
Gabriella whirled around and said, “What the—”
Another whoosh, followed by a whomp.
Frank White swung the head of the club — a driver, more specifically, a one-wood — into Gabriella’s temple.
The woman went down instantly, her legs crumpling beneath her.
Leonard was clutching the back of his head as he stumbled a few more steps. Blood was seeping through his fingers. He managed to stop pitching forward, stood a moment to regain his balance, then turned to see what had hit him.
Frank, standing there in his striped pajamas, could see that he didn’t have much time.
He swung the club back over his shoulder, then came out with it a third time, putting everything he had into the swing. His arms, molded from hundreds of hours on his rowing machine, were pistons.
Leonard went to raise an arm defensively, but he was too slow.
The club caught him in his upper left cheek, just below the eye. That whole side of his face was instantly transformed into a bloody, pulpy mess.
Leonard went down.
Frank stood there, wild-eyed and frozen, panting, holding the driver like a bat, waiting to see whether he was going to need it again. When Gabriella and Leonard hadn’t moved for fifteen seconds, Frank knelt down next to Anna, dropped the club onto the street and reached out, tentatively, to stroke her hair.
“Are you okay, Joanie?” he asked.
“Yes,” Anna said, struggling to hold back tears. “I’m good.” She reached an arm up and cupped her father’s bristly, unshaven chin.
“I’ve never been better.”
Sixty-Five
Detective Joe Arnwright: Are you okay now, Mr. Hoffman? Can we continue?
Kenneth Hoffman: Yes, yes, I think so. I needed a minute.
Arnwright: Of course. I’m very sorry.
Hoffman: It’s all my fault. All of it. When you follow everything back to the beginning, it’s the decisions I made that set the wheels in motion. Did the doctors have anything more to say about Leonard?
Arnwright: He’s still in a coma. He’s in the Milford Hospital.
Hoffman: So he has no idea his mother is dead.
Arnwright: No.
Hoffman: That son of a bitch. He didn’t have to do that to them. I hope he spends whatever years he has left in jail.
Arnwright: They were going to kill his daughter, Mr. Hoffman. He won’t be charged. Mr. White saved her life. And he’s an old man, to boot. He’d fallen asleep in the back of her SUV. Thought they were going to visit his late wife.
Hoffman: God, this is so... Maybe it’d be better if Leonard never wakes up. He’ll face so much trouble if he does.
Arnwright: I don’t know what to say to that, Mr. Hoffman.
Hoffman: Gabriella never should have involved him. Not this time, and not that night. At heart, he’s a true innocent. All he ever wanted to do was make his mother happy.
Arnwright: I understand, Mr. Hoffman, that while he didn’t kill those two women, he was culpable. He helped your wife put them in the chairs and tied them up after she’d drugged them. And he did kill Paul Davis. And he killed Bill Myers. And Charlotte Davis. I don’t know that I’d call someone like that innocent.
Hoffman: He wouldn’t have done any of this without her telling him to do it. He loved his mother so much. He always wanted to please her. At heart, he’s a gentle boy. That was why they hired him for the ice cream job. It was the perfect thing for him. And he was a good driver. He never had so much as a fender bender. I know that it’s hard to believe, but before all this, I can’t think of any time that he ever hurt anyone. And God knows, he’d have been entitled. The way the other kids used to tease him when he was little. Always a little slower than the others. They mocked him, called him stupid, but he isn’t really. He’s not book smart, not school smart, but he’s smart enough. He manages. Well, up to now.
Arnwright: You were close with your son?
Hoffman: Yes, I mean, I loved him very much. I still do. It’s why I did what I did.