It took Carl three more full days to get rid of every sign that Kit had ever existed. Kit’s clothes had to be taken out and burned, along with the clothes Carl and Scott had worn to bury her. The car had to be washed at home, then rewashed at a car wash and detailed. Next Carl had to take it to get four new tires. The shovels had to be washed, and the tarp thrown into a Dumpster sixty miles away. Even Scott’s bedroom furniture and carpets were replaced.
A week later, he and Scott had become aware of the problem of Wendy Harper’s curiosity. She and her friend Olivia had been to Kit’s apartment at least twice, and she had asked numerous people for any and all information they had about her. It was as though she were trying to prepare a case against Scott. Carl had listened in disbelief to what Scott proposed.
“You use a bat. You hit her once on the legs to knock her down. Then hit her once on the head. One line drive, and she’s dead. That’s all it takes. The cops will think it was a mugging, or a pervert, because who else would do a woman like that?”
Carl answered, “Not me,” but Scott kept talking. “Is it money? You know I’ll take care of you. What do you want—a house? I’ll give you enough for two houses and a car to put in the garage. Think about it.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I don’t mean a long time, I mean right now.”
“I’m thinking. No.”
“You’ve got to do this, Carl. You’re vulnerable. Regardless of how she died, just moving and hiding a body like that will put us both away until we’re old. A house free and clear, Carl. You’ll be able to buy a house, a car, and get a year’s pay for starters.”
Carl had listened more closely to Scott’s warnings than to his promises, and slowly he began to be afraid. Wendy Harper knew too much already, and she kept prying and searching and questioning. He had waited for Wendy outside her house late one night, and he had hit her with the bat. The first swing had knocked her flat, but she had gotten up and tried to run. He had dropped the bat, grabbed her by the sleeve of her blouse, and thrown her to the ground, but the blouse had ripped off in his hands. Then he had snatched up the bat and swung for her skull, but had missed her out of nervousness. The truth was that he had closed his eyes at the last second. He had not wanted to see this woman’s head smashed open, so he had shut his eyes. The bat had hit the sidewalk with a hollow sound and sent a sting like an electric shock from his palms to his elbows. He could see that he had hit her head on the bounce, and it was bleeding.
Then there had been bright headlights on the dark, quiet street—first one set, and then another behind it. He could see nothing beyond the blinding glare, and there was no way to hide the woman at his feet—she seemed all white blouse, white skin, blond hair that glowed with reflected light—so he ran. He ran through back yards and over fences, out to the next street and around the corner to the alley where his car was parked.
Carl had reached the car before he looked down and noticed that he still held half of her white blouse in his left hand with the bat. He wrapped the bloody bat in it so it wouldn’t stain the carpet in his car, and then drove.
That night changed Carl’s job completely. He was no longer a driver, he was an accomplice posing as a driver. Driving was just a cover, a plausible reason for Scott and Carl to go places together and talk alone in the car with no chance to be overheard. Carl had needed to find the kind of people who would search for Wendy Harper, then hire and supervise them. Scott had acted as though that kind of thing would be easy for Carl, but it wasn’t. Killers didn’t take his orders easily. They seemed to sense instantly that he was afraid of them, and they spoke to him with a patronizing tone, an affection that didn’t include respect. It was the way some people talked to children.
For six years he had acted as paymaster and go-between. He had done it all, without ever keeping a dime of the money. As he thought about it, he realized that Scott Schelling would never have done that. Scott would have found a way to steal a little. That was simply another of the differences between them.
As soon as Densmore was dead, Scott had decided that he and Carl would handle the whole problem themselves. Carl had known it was madness: Neither Carl nor Scott had any business trying to manipulate and fool people like the Turners. There were just some people who were too mean and crazy to fuck around with. Now Scott had finally figured that out, too, so he was planning to pay them a million dollars in cash, just as he had promised.
Carl knew exactly what the amount would consist of. It had to be in hundreds because smaller bills made a bigger package. Even in hundreds, it meant ten thousand hundred-dollar bills. There would be a suitcase full of money. Scott would never walk into Crosswinds Records carrying a suitcase full of cash. For one thing, it meant that later the Turners would have to walk out of Crosswinds carrying a suitcase full of cash. They could be stopped, and he could find himself having to explain it. Scott had to have hidden it where he could control it, and where he could come and get it at will. It had to be somewhere in his house.
As Carl walked toward the house, he took out his keys. His mind was already running an inventory of the best places in the house to hide a suitcase. The place he planned to look first was in the row of suitcases Scott stored in the closet of the second best guest bedroom. Carl unlocked the front door, stepped to the alarm keypad on the wall, punched in the alarm code, then ENTER, then OFF, then ENTER.
He stepped inside, and as he closed the door, his eye caught movement. He turned. There stood the Turners. They had been watching him come in, waiting at the right side of the stairs. They had guns in their hands, so he kept his hands in sight, far out from his sides. “Paul. Sylvie. Wow! You scared me. Is Scott home already?”
“No, he’s not here,” Paul said. “Do you know where he is?”
“That’s why I didn’t expect to see anybody here. He’s been out of town since Friday for a weekend conference with a bunch of other bigwigs. He was supposed to be back this morning, but he got held over. It’s just one of the problems that come up when you deal with important people—they’re busy. You’ll get used to it.”
“Where’s our money, Carl?” Sylvie asked.
“Scott has it. I’m sure he’s got it ready for you, but I don’t know where.”
“Too bad,” Paul said.
“Really bad,” Sylvie echoed.
Carl held up his hands. “Wait. Let me call him and ask.”
Paul said, “All right.”
Carl took out his cell phone and pressed the autodial key for Scott’s cell. He listened to the sound of a ring, then another, and another, his heart pounding. Then there was a tone, and Scott’s voice came on and said, “Leave a message.” Carl winced. He said, “Scott, this is Carl. Please give me a call right away. It’s really important.” He disconnected, then pressed the key for the next number, the office number. It went right to Scott’s voice mail. A recording of Tiffany’s voice said, “Please leave a message,” and Carl left the same message. He could see that Paul was watching him closely, his fingers flexing on the gun.
Carl said, “He seems to be out of range right now. He’s in Santa Fe, so I guess it’s not too surprising. But I have an idea as to where he might have left the money. Let’s take a look.”
Paul considered the suggestion for a moment. “Okay. We may as well try.”
Carl trudged toward the staircase. He was almost certain that the money would be in the suitcase upstairs, and he was leading them to it. He had been hoping, imagining that he was going to end up with the million dollars, but he had been kidding himself. People like Carl Zacca didn’t end up rich, they ended up driving cabs until they were seventy-five.