“A year or so ago. Right after she and her husband separated. She made it clear afterward that I was just a revenge fuck. I never forgave her for that. But she did have a gorgeous body, didn’t she, our Jess?”
I made a lunge at him; he struck me with the pistol, then kneed me in the groin. I sank back into the chair.
“But you want to know the third reason, the main reason, why I killed Jess?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“You. You were falling in love with Jess; she was falling in love with you. That made her your Achilles’ heel, your most vulnerable spot. I followed you to her house that night in Chattanooga. Being out of a job at the moment, I had plenty of time to keep tabs on you. I saw you spring up the stairs to her house like a teenager going on a date; I saw her come to the door and welcome you in; Christ, I even heard the two of you moaning up there in her bedroom. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to walk in and shoot you both in her bed. But I kept my eyes on the prize.”
“And what prize was that, Garland?”
“Making you suffer.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done that,” I said. “But if you kill me, too, the police will match the bullet to the one that killed Jess. They’ll know that whoever murdered me also murdered Jess.”
He laughed and shook his head. “As you said, you’d make a lousy criminal, Bill. You’re not going to be murdered; you’re going to die by your own hand. Tragic, really: Bill Brockton, driven to suicide by his guilt over murdering Dr. Carter, his despair over losing his reputation, his fear of going to prison and getting manhandled by some of his old friends.”
“Go to hell,” I said. “I will never commit suicide.”
“Call it assisted suicide, then,” he said. “The criminalists will find your prints, and only your prints, on the gun. The autopsy-my autopsy-will find powder burns and even a nice, round contact impression from the muzzle, which you held tight against your skull as you pulled the trigger.” As he said it, he jammed the gun into my temple. “It’s a terrible thing, losing one’s hard-earned reputation, isn’t it, Bill? We have that experience in common now.” He smiled and added, “Just like we have Jess in common now.”
The sight of him disgusted me, and I looked away. And when I did, I saw a glimmer of hope. It was the tiny green diode on my cellphone, the one that blinked every few seconds during a call. Georgia, I realized. I had been talking to her on the cell when Hamilton called, and I never hung up. Was there a chance she was still on the line? Please, God, let her be listening; please let someone hear me die; please let someone know the truth.
It was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. “So tell me more about how you killed Jess,” I said.
“With plea sure,” he said. “Pun intended. Where shall I begin?”
It was the same question I’d put to Burt DeVriess the night I’d hired him. “At the beginning of the end,” I said. “When you abducted her, or broke into her house, or what ever you did when you made your move.”
“Hmmmm,” he said, as if savoring a fond memory. “It was that night the two of you had dinner at By the Tracks. That row of shops facing the restaurant? I was on the sidewalk, behind one of the columns, right in front of her car. Jess came out of the restaurant alone. She hit the remote to unlock her car and got in. I stepped out from behind the column and got in with her. It was so easy.”
“Then what? Where did you take her? Your house?”
“I have a large wine cellar in my basement-a concrete room within a concrete basement. Very secure, and very quiet. No sound gets in; no sound gets out.”
I thought I should ask for more details about Jess’s death, but my courage failed me; I couldn’t bear to hear the details of her suffering. “The hair and fibers-my hair, my carpet, my bedspread-how did you get those onto her body before the autopsy?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I wrote them into the autopsy report, but I didn’t collect them until the next day. That rock through the window of your front door?” I nodded; the note had an antievolution message on it, so I’d assumed it was thrown by one of the creationist protesters. “My little Trojan horse. The broken window let me reach in and unlock the door, put blood and some of Jess’s hair on your sheets, then collect some of your hair and tell the police I found it on Jess’s body. The police had no reason to doubt me.”
I was just about to ask where he’d found a truck so nearly like mine for transporting Jess to the Body Farm when a series of low beeps sounded from the bookshelf beside him. It was the low-battery warning on my cellphone, and I kicked myself for not having charged it in the car earlier in the day. Hamilton whirled in the direction of the sound, and his eyes spotted the blinking light on the cell. Keeping the gun pointed at me, he sidled over, picked up the phone, and held it to his ear. Then he flipped it closed. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “Time’s up.” He stepped toward me and raised the gun to my right temple.
Just then the front doorbell rang. Hamilton and I both jumped, and I was surprised his trigger finger had not reflexively tightened enough to fire the gun. “Now what?” I asked.
“Now nothing,” he said. “Stand still and don’t make a sound or I’ll shoot you.”
“You’re going to shoot me anyway,” I said. “Why shouldn’t I make you do it when there’s a witness within earshot?”
“You stupid son of a bitch,” he said. “No matter what, I walk away clean. You called me on the phone, distraught and suicidal. I raced over and tried to talk sense into you. Just as I was about to persuade you to hand over the gun, someone rang the doorbell, and you panicked and pulled the trigger. There is no scenario I cannot explain.”
There was a loud knock on the door. “Bill? You awake?” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Bill?” The volume was getting louder. “Hey, Bill-come on, let’s go!”
At the word “go,” the living room window closest to us shattered, and then the world seemed to explode. I seemed to be falling, but curiously-even as I felt myself hit the floor-the image that remained frozen in my gaze was of my front door, and of Garland Hamilton standing beside me, his hand and the stock of a pistol just visible in my peripheral vision. So this is what it’s like to die of a gunshot to the head, I thought.
And suddenly my vision unfroze, just in time for me to see a squad of police officers, wearing body armor and carry ing automatic weapons, pouring through my front door. One of them flung himself over my body, and two of them grabbed Garland Hamilton, who appeared as dazed as I felt. Two more pointed weapons at Hamilton’s chest.
One of the policemen spoke into a shoulder-mounted radio mic. “All clear in the house,” he said. “Suspect is restrained. No casualties.”
A moment later, Detective John Evers-whose voice it was I’d heard at the door-strode in. He surveyed the bizarre scene, studying Hamilton for a long moment, then reached down to help me up. “You okay?” he said.
“I guess maybe I am,” I said. “I thought I’d been shot in the head. Evidently not.”
He laughed. “Stun grenade. It’s nice when they work like they’re supposed to.”
“Where the hell did all you guys come from?”
“You have some character calls herself ‘Miss Georgia Youngblood’ to thank for the cavalry,” he said. “She heard you and Hamilton on her cellphone, called 911 on a landline from somewhere at UT Medical Center. Gave the dispatcher your name and my name, then held the cellphone up to the mouthpiece. The dispatcher patched me in, and I pulled the SWAT guys in pretty quick.”
“Amazing,” I said. “You got here just in the nick.”