Page 43 of Nine Lives

13

Thursday, September 22, 10:43 a.m.

She didn’t know much about the person who’d written the list, the person who’d so far killed at least three people, but she did know that he wasn’t randomly shooting his victims in the street. At least not yet. So far, he had drowned Frank Hopkins in shallow water on a public beach, shot Matthew Beaumont from behind in an isolated location, and poisoned Arthur Kruse with an elaborate contraption. In all three cases there had been no witnesses. Because of that, Jessica felt relatively safe drinking her morning coffee on a bench outside of the Port Clyde General Store.

It was a cold, sunny morning, and she gripped the to-go cup with both hands to keep them warm. Her body was shivering but she was worried less about that than she was about her numb hands. Her Glock was in her side holster, and she might need quick hands to get to it.

There was a constant but slow-moving stream of cars coming and going through Port Clyde. Passengers were gathering on the dock to take the ferry to Monhegan Island, and small boats were coming over from nearby islands, some people just to get coffee or breakfast and head back. The sun came out from behind a three-story bed-and-breakfast, and Jessica moved along the bench to sit in its ineffective light. It was then that she saw the car she’d been waiting for, the dark gray Chevy, pulling into the ferry parking lot, then pulling out again to head back up the incline that led out of the village.

Leaving her coffee cup behind, Jessica raced to her own car, starting it up and speeding away from the curb, scattering gravel. She told herself to slow down, that they were on a peninsula, and there were limited places to go. After cresting a small hill she spotted the car up ahead, heading northeast. Between them was a FedEx truck. She would have liked to keep the truck right where it was, but it was trundling along under the speed limit, and she lost sight of the Chevy, so she accelerated around it on a corner, and kept up her speed until she could see the car again. She followed at what felt like a reasonable distance; in some ways she didn’t particularly mind if she was spotted. She had a gun with her, and if he figured out she was trailing him, then let him try to get the drop on her.

They passed through the village of Tenants Harbor, dipped down a hill to cross an inlet at low tide, then back up an incline to where the Chevy turned right down a side road. Jessica followed, slowing down now, figuring that in the unlikely event she hadn’t been spotted, then why risk it now, and she drove a mile to the end of the road without spotting the Chevy again. She turned around and went slowly back down the dark, wooded street, checking driveways, then spotting a dirt road she’d missed. She took it, the road bending sharply, passing an abandoned granite works building, then dead-ending. Either the Chevy had pulled into the closed garage of the weathered ranch house that was the final building on this road, or it had cut down the narrow, weed-choked driveway that went past a faded sign advertising the Long Cove Quarry.

Jessica thought: This is a trap.

But she also had a gun, now resting on her passenger seat, the safety off. And trap or not, this was an opportunity. Her body flush with adrenaline, she drove her car down the single track, through dense pockets of trees on either side, and emerged into an open space scattered here and there with piles of discarded granite and rusted machinery. There were cliffs on all sides, and a swimming hole shimmered in the sun, reflecting the colored leaves of the trees that lined the top of the cliffs.

The Equinox was parked twenty yards away. Jessica stopped her own car, killed the engine, and took hold of her gun. A man stepped out of the car, looking directly at her. He wore a baseball cap, as he’d done when she’d spotted him the day before. It was a Steelers hat, which seemed wrong somehow. He looked toward her, raised his arms slowly to show that his hands were empty.

She stepped out of the car, the gun down by her side, her finger resting along the short barrel. She took a few steps toward him, and yelled out, “Get down on the ground,” raising her gun slightly, but not so that it pointed at him.

Jessica didn’t hear anything, and she didn’t feel anything, but for a discernible moment, she knew she’d been foolish, that she’d lost this particular game. The man in front of her was bait, and she was now on the hook.

The bullet, moving faster than the sound it had made coming from the Remington M24, struck Jessica Winslow in the back of her skull, sending her pitching forward onto a slab of speckled granite.

Donald Bennett stood frozen for a moment, confused even though he had heard the gunshot, and watched the woman in the fleece jacket lift in the air slightly before hitting the ground like a head-shot doe. He’d been giddy with excitement all morning at the thought of getting revenge on his new buddy’s girlfriend, but now he wasn’t sure what was happening. He just knew it was something bad.

He didn’t hear the next shot, the one that hit him in the dead center of his chest.

When Fischer got to his Equinox, stowing his rifle in his trunk, he detected the faint sound of a distant siren, probably nothing to do with him. But, still, he felt suddenly exposed out in the daylight, in a quarry with two dead bodies and only one exit. He made the quick decision to leave the bodies where they had fallen and drove out of the quarry as fast as he could. When he’d first started in this business, he’d been meticulous about covering up his crimes, but over the years, he worried less and less about it. In real life, the police just weren’t as good as TV shows and movies made them out to be.

As he was leaving the peninsula, a police car went past him going the other way. Maybe the gunshots had been reported, but he was already turning south on Route 1. He looked at his watch, realized that if he pushed through without stopping, he could be back in bed with his wife by midnight.

Five

1

Thursday, September 22, 6:00 p.m.

It was drizzling rain, but the walk from his house to his neighbor’s was less than fifty yards, so Jack Radebaugh wasn’t wearing any kind of jacket when he pushed the doorbell, cradling two bottles of wine in his free arm.

Margaret answered the door, and for a moment he thought he might have the wrong night because a look of surprise, or maybe fright, crossed her face. But then she said, “Oh, I told you to bring nothing, and you bring two bottles of wine.” She held out her hands and he handed her the wine.

“I didn’t know what we’d be having so I brought a bottle of red and a bottle of white.”

“Come in. Eric just called and he’s leaving the office now, so he’ll be here any minute.”

“It smells delicious in here,” Jack said.

“Braised beef ribs. I hope that’s okay.”

“It sounds perfect.”

Margaret led him to a high-ceilinged living room and indicated an expensive-looking white couch for him to sit on. On the coffee table in front of the couch was a platter of appetizers. Rounds of bread topped with a little bit of smoked salmon, a dollop of what looked like sour cream, and a sprinkling of chives.

“What can I get you to drink?” Margaret said. She was wiping her hands along her corduroy skirt, and Jack thought she seemed nervous, or if not nervous, then harried. There was a sheen of sweat along her forehead.

“Well, what do you have?”

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