Bad Things (26 page)

I stared at Pierce.

178 Michael Marshall

“The door to the house she has been living in was opened with a

key,” he said. “Cory and Brooke’s place was forced.”

“A subterfuge the average eight-year-old could have dreamed up,”

I said. “And given what’s happened here, shouldn’t you care just a

little bit about where Ellen Robertson is?”

He ignored me. “I’ll get this logged,” he told Cory. “Anything

else, you phone me.”

Cory nodded. He looked so calm, so magnanimous in his forgive-

ness of the regrettable behavior of others, that I wanted to punch him

in the face.

The sheriff evidently caught this. “Does Mr. Henderson have

business here?”

“Not that I’m aware,” Cory said.

“Maybe you’d like to walk with me back down to the gate,” Pierce

said, taking me lightly by the elbow.

“Yes,” Brooke added. “Run along. We’ve tidying to do.”

I pulled my arm away from the policeman and started walking.

When we reached the road I saw a police car was already there wait-

ing for the sheriff, with Deputy Greene behind the wheel.

The gate swung shut behind us. Pierce and I hadn’t spoken on the

way down the drive, but before he got in the car, he turned to me.

“I’m not going to have a problem with you, am I?”

“That depends on whether you start doing any police work.”

He looked down the road. “Mr. Henderson, what happened to

your son was a sad thing but it doesn’t give you a free pass. Neither

does the ser vice you used to perform for your country.”

“Somebody thought I ought to see a piece of paper last night,” I

said. “You should hear about it, too.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It related to a Romanian woman called Ilena, suspected in the

murder of a sex traffi cker in Europe ten years ago, her whereabouts

currently unknown. It was pushed under my motel door. Then some-

B A D T H I N G S 179

body called my room at hourly intervals throughout the night. You

think either of those are things Ellen Robertson might do? If not,

then she isn’t the problem here.”

The sheriff looked away at the trees for a moment, then back at

me. “Remember what I said.”

He and his deputy spoke for a moment once the car door was

shut, and then they pulled away.

I’d opened my own car and was about to get in when I heard a woman’s

voice, slowly reciting numbers.

Brooke was standing about a foot from the other side of the gate.

Her arms were folded, and the warm smile was back. Once she saw

she’d got my attention, she said the numbers again, three separate

series of digits.

“So what’s that?” I asked.

“Our house phone. My cell, Cory’s cell. Write them down. That

way you’d be able to establish that none of them were involved in any

alleged persecution of you last night.”

I nodded. “Probably you feel that makes you smart, Brooke. In

fact, it’s additional evidence of premeditation.”

“I don’t know who called you last night, Mr. Henderson, but it

honestly wasn’t me.”

I knew I was playing into her hands, but I didn’t care. “What’s the

real problem here, Brooke?”

“Nothing that won’t be resolved. And actually I should probably

thank you, as your arrival seems to have helped matters along. Your

presence has unbalanced Ellen somewhat, don’t you think? Perhaps

your raw masculinity simply turned her pretty head.”

“No, seriously,” I persisted. “Is it that she’s prettier than you? I

mean, I’m sure you’ve noticed. Probably Cory has, too. Has it been

trying, having a more attractive woman around?”

180 Michael Marshall

She laughed.

“And younger, too, which is worse. Is that what makes it diffi -

cult?”

I reached into the car, grabbed something from the passenger

seat, and walked over to the gate. She made no move to step back. I

stood in front of her, opened the neck of the sweater, and checked the

label.

“Dior,” I said. “Expensive, right? I assume you’d know. I guess

your father probably bought a lot of that kind of thing for you in the

past. Did he stop, once Ellen came along? Did it slip his mind, once

he had a life of his own again? After all, just because we get older—

and you
are
getting older, Brooke, no matter how much exercise you

do—it doesn’t stop us all being about ten-years-old inside, does it?

Not when it comes to the people who gave birth to us.”

Her face was blank now.

“Is it that simple? Is Ellen the little sister who came along and

stole Daddy’s love?”

“You’re a very dull and stupid man.”

“I’ve heard it said. So—what should I do with this sweater? Find

Ellen and give it to her, or do you believe it belongs to you? Like

Black Ridge and everything else in a fi fty-mile radius?”

“Perhaps the sledgehammer approach used to work in your old

profession, but it means nothing here.”

I let that one go, the easiest way of hiding that it had thrown me

to have this kind of thing dropped into the conversation twice in

fi ve minutes. Now that she was not smiling, Brooke’s face had be-

come more handsome, hinting at the black and white photographs

one sometimes comes across of pioneer women, sitting fi erce and im-

placable alongside men who stood in the picture to prove their domi-

nance, but who could not have survived a week without their wives.

She would even have been very attractive, were it not for her eyes,

which were dark and fl at, as if painted on pieces of old stone.

B A D T H I N G S 181

As I turned to go, she spoke again. “She caused the death of my

father.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said, though her voice did not sound as it

had before. The sun was out and it seemed a little warmer, suddenly.

Also as though the odor I’d caught off the sweater had intensifi ed. It

was a dry smell, but still sweet.

“You don’t know people like I do,” she said. “Or understand how

everything links to everything else.”

“I think you meet the people you deserve.”

“Very deep. I like that. And so tell me. What did your poor wife

do, to deserve you?”

She turned and walked away up the drive, toward where her

brother stood watching us.

C H A P T E R 2 5

“Where the hell are you?”

“I don’t know.”

It had taken Ellen Robertson nearly two hours to answer her

phone, and I wasn’t in the mood for being screwed around. “What

do you mean,
you don’t know
?”

“I . . . I’m just not sure.”

I established that when she’d checked herself out of the hospital,

a little after eight the previous evening, she’d arranged for a cab

from town to come pick her up. At fi rst she’d intended to go back

to her house, but on the way home she realized she simply couldn’t

face the Robertsons, and told the driver to drop her in Black Ridge

instead.

“You could have come to me.”

“I didn’t know where you were staying.”

“You have my cell number.”

“I didn’t think it would be a good idea.”

When she arrived in town she wound up walking into a bar,

at the opposite end of town from Kelly Street and the Mountain

View. She got rather more to drink than to eat and soon realized

she wasn’t feeling right. A man sitting at the bar became attentive.

B A D T H I N G S 183

This culminated in a dispute that required the intervention of a bar-

tender. After the man had been encouraged out into the night, Ellen

had a few more drinks before fi nally making her way to a motel. This

morning she’d woken early and checked out on autopilot. She didn’t

sound at all clear on where she’d been since then.

“Well, what can you see right now?” I asked.

“Some places.”

“What are they
called
?”

She listlessly read out a couple of business names.

“What? Did you just say ‘The Write Sisters’?”

“Yes,” she mumbled.

“Turn around. The coffee shop is right opposite the bar where

you and I met. The bar you used to go to with Gerry, remember?”

She didn’t say anything.

“I think you may have left the hospital just a little prematurely,

Ellen. I’m going to come take you back.”

“I’m not safe there.”

“Trust me,” I said, without thinking. “You’re better there than at

home right now.”

Vague though she was, she was onto that fast enough. “Why?

What do you mean?”

I had little choice but to tell her what had happened at her house.

“So
now
do you believe I’m in danger?”

“I never had any problem believing Brooke and Cory meant you

harm,” I said. “Not after I’d met them. Look, will you go get a coffee,

wait for me?”

“I’m
not
going back to the hospital.”

“Ilena, please just do as I ask.”

There was silence. When she fi nally replied, she sounded very far

away. “So. You know.”

“It makes no difference to me.”

“It will. It always does.”

184 Michael Marshall

When I parked on Kelly Street I spotted a female figure slumped

over one of the tables in the window of the coffee shop. I parked

and walked quickly inside. The place was pretty full. I passed the

mechanic guy, sitting by himself with the local paper, who gave me

a cursory nod.

When I got to her table, it seemed to take Ellen a moment to rec-

ognize me. “I waited,” she said eventually. “But I’m still not going.”

“You want something to drink?”

She shook her head. I went to order coffee at the counter. The

blue-haired girl had evidently turned up for work after all, and was

fi ddling with the coffee machine. Her shoulders looked bowed. I had

to order twice before she mumbled that she’d bring it over.

Back at the table I looked Ellen up and down. “You actually don’t

look so good.”

“How charming.”

“I don’t mean on the outside. Are you getting headaches?”

She shook her head. “Feel a bit dizzy. That’s all. I need something

to eat, maybe.”

“No, you’ve got a concussion,” I said fi rmly. “You need to go back

to the hospital.”

“What did I say when you fi rst got here?”

“I’m not going to drag you there,” I said. “I’m not your dad. I’m

just telling you what I think. It’s up to you what you do with the in-

formation.”

“How was I when you saw me in the hospital?”

“Fine. Pretty much. You were saying some weird shit, but that

seems to be how you roll.”

“But now you think I have a concussion?”

“Onset can be delayed, which is why they keep people in for ob-

servation, and why you should still be there. You’ve got to get yourself

feeling strong enough to take on Brooke and Cory.”

“Take them on?”

B A D T H I N G S 185

“They didn’t just mess with your stuff this time. They’ve involved

the police.”

“I can’t fi ght them. Don’t you understand yet? It’s not just them.”

“I know that. The sheriff is looking for you right now, convinced

or pretending to be convinced that you’re responsible for acts of van-

dalism against people he feels honor bound to protect. And he knows

your real name now, too.”

She hadn’t appeared to be concentrating, but the last sentence got

through to her. She stared at me, looking miserable. “How?
How
does

he know?”

“He needed to understand that you’re being—”

“You told him.”

“Yes.”

“And so everyone knows now.
You
know,
he
knows . . .”

“He won’t spread it around,” I said. “He’s basically a good—”

“Everybody knows,” she repeated dismally. “No more Ellen.

Welcome back, Ilena.”

“Ellen . . .”

It felt colder, suddenly, as if a breeze had come down the street

and made its way in through the cracks around the door to come sit

with us at the table. Ellen wouldn’t look me in the eye.

There was no sign of my coffee. I glanced over at the counter but

the girl there didn’t seem to have moved since I came in. I assumed

she must be doing something, however, as I could smell something

sweet in the air, presumably a syrup, oddly strong. I heard a very faint

sound and turned back.

“Ellen—
stop
that, for God’s sake.”

“Stop what?”

“Your
hands
.”

She glanced down, apparently mystifi ed, to see she was slowly

raking the fi ngernails of one hand across the back of the other, hard

enough to draw blood.

186 Michael Marshall

She moved her fi ngers away, and looked at the scratch marks, a

pattern of long lines, crossing one another at crooked angles. I didn’t

know what to say and I couldn’t read the expression on her face. It

seemed like simple curiosity.

“You need to get back to the hospital, Ellen.”

She shook her head. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“What are you saying? That this is Ilena, making you do this?

You still need—”

“
I’m
Ilena, you
asshole,
” she said loudly. “What, you think she was some stupid bitch, into self-harm? Poor little Romanian slut,

couldn’t protect herself from the bad men, so she cuts herself in-