Murder Is Forever, Volume 1 Read online

Mr. John.

  * * *

  Frank was almost relieved.

  He had survived the worst thing he feared could have happened to him. All of the witnesses, there on parade, were like walk-ons in the story of his life. Each time one of them told just a bit of the truth—and really, Frank knew, it was only his lawyers who’d lied—it was the lifting of a burden that Frank had been carrying for years. If he’d been younger, he would have been better at juggling all his affairs: his love affairs, and all the money he’d stolen from Raley. But Frank was older and slower now, and once he’d dropped that first ball he’d been juggling, his world had crashed down all around him. For a long time before the shooting, he’d been frantic. So anxious, for so long, he’d gotten used to it. He had not allowed himself to feel the anxiety. But it was there all along, and it got so much worse in the aftermath of the shooting. Now, as he sat in the rubble and ruins of his own life, Frank felt still and at peace. It was a feeling he had not known in years. There was nothing to hide now. No more trouble that he could get himself into. Nothing to fear.

  Frank stayed in that state for some hours after the verdict, and the days that followed were full of calm. Even walking back into the courtroom for sentencing didn’t alarm him.

  “Life” was a sentence Frank Howard had been serving all along.

  Chapter 45

  Nancy

  The house on Bluebonnet Way was so quiet now. Nancy still prayed, every day, that the time would come when her children forgave her.

  Hearing about Frank’s infidelity had shocked Ashley, Jed, and Brianna—even shattered them. If they didn’t know their own father, what did they know? What could they be sure of?

  The answer turned out to be simple: The children were sure of Frank’s innocence. They had to be, because the world in which Frank was guilty was a world that no longer made sense.

  She was proud of them, even, for being so loyal to their father, as misguided as that loyalty had turned out to be. But she was also conflicted. Wasn’t being on Frank’s side the same as wishing that Nancy, their mother, was dead? That was what Frank had wanted, after all. And though Frank had failed, there was a sense in which he had succeeded. He’d wanted to break Nancy’s family apart, and he’d done that. He’d wanted to take her away from the children, and he had done that too. The way things turned out might not have been the end result Frank was after, but from Nancy’s perspective, it amounted to much the same thing.

  It was all so terribly unfair.

  Still, Nancy was glad to be alive. She had her faith, and the hatred she did feel for Frank, in her weaker moments, had less to do with his actions in and of themselves than with the ways in which those actions had tested her beliefs. The long nights that had followed the shooting had taken Nancy down some of the darkest paths that she had ever been on. It was the only time in her life that she’d asked Jesus questions and found herself doubting the answers. But she’d come out into the light at the end of that tunnel, and she tried hard not to hate, to forgive, and be grateful for the good things in her life:

  Her church. Her faith. The friends who had stuck by her.

  The family would recover, she thought. Just as Nancy herself had recovered. God’s grace was infinite, and Nancy prayed more for it now than she ever had before the shooting. If anything, Nancy knew the long trial that she’d gone through had only strengthened her faith. That was just one of the miracles she had been blessed to receive.

  Now, in church and at home, Nancy ended her prayers by thanking Jesus for her second chance and by asking God to bring her children home to her.

  Then, soberly, she would pray for the salvation of John Frank Howard’s soul.

  Mother of All Murders

  James Patterson with Christopher Charles

  Chapter 1

  Aleah has read the same page of her history text a half-dozen times and still can’t remember the name of Henry VIII’s first wife. It’s impossible to concentrate with her parents arguing on the other side of a paper-thin wall—especially when they’re arguing about her.

  “We need that money for Aleah’s college,” her mother says.

  “Really?” her father says. “With her grades, she’ll be lucky if she graduates.”

  “So your solution is to put a down payment on a brand-new SUV?”

  “I’m not solving anything. There’s nothing to solve. She’s getting a job and that’s it.”

  Aleah slams the book shut, gets out of bed, sits at her desk, and taps the spacebar on her computer. The monitor lights up. She refreshes her Facebook page, clicks on the messages icon, then types in the name of her best friend and neighbor: Gypsy Rose.

  “Hey, Gypsy,” she writes, “I thought you were going to send me pictures of your ‘Secret Sam’!!!”

  She hits Return, waits.

  Her parents keep at it. She hears them moving back and forth between the kitchen and living room, screaming at each other as if they’re standing a football field apart.

  “What kind of job will she get with no education?” her mother asks.

  “She has as much education as you or me.”

  “That’s my point.”

  Aleah hits the Refresh button. She can see that Gypsy has read her message, but still no response.

  “PHOTOS PLEASE!!!” Aleah types. “You wouldn’t believe the night I’m having.”

  She stares at the screen, hears her father say: “Some people aren’t cut out for college. There’s no shame in it.”

  The computer makes a pinging sound, and a red “1” appears at the top of the page. Aleah clicks as fast as she can. Instead of photos, she finds a message from Gypsy:

  “THAT BITCH IS DEAD.”

  Aleah pushes back in her chair, feels her pulse quicken. She’s never heard Gypsy say so much as “damn.”

  She hits Refresh again, hoping for a punch line. After a long beat, she yells, “MOM!!!”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, she’s sitting at the front window with her mother, watching two cops approach Gypsy’s front door. The shorter of the two rings the bell, then presses his face to the side glass panel. The taller one shakes his head, knocks with his baton, and seems startled when the door, unlocked, swings open a few inches. They look at each other, then step inside.

  “Police,” Officer Weir, the shorter one, calls. “Anyone home?”

  Officer Crace, Weir’s partner, switches on an overhead light. They are standing in an L-shaped living/dining area. The space is crowded with oversized furniture and a robust collection of medical supplies: expensive-looking wheelchairs line the back wall; the long dining table is nearly covered in pill bottles and syringes; a series of shelves house braces and casts shaped like every body part a person might injure.

  “This some kind of clinic?” Crace asks.

  “Just a residence,” Weir says.

  “Hello,” Crace calls. “It’s the police.”

  No answer.

  “What did the message say again?” Crace asks.

  “That bitch is dead.”

  “And it was the daughter who sent it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any info on her?”

  “The 911 caller said she’s a shut-in. Sick since the day she was born.”

  Crace points to the row of wheelchairs.

  “So I guess those are hers?” he asks.

  “Looks like she’s got one for every day of the week.”

  “We know anything about the mother?”

  “Name’s Dee Dee Blancharde. Single mom. Used to be some kind of medical assistant. Now she just takes care of her gimpy kid.”

  “All right,” Crace says. “Let’s have a look around.”

  They start down a narrow hallway off the dining area. Crace takes the first door on the right: Dee Dee’s bedroom. The room is pitch dark. He switches on the overhead. A blackout shade covers the only window. An unmade king-size bed with a noticeable sag in the middle takes up most of the room. The air smells of vapor rubs and menth
ol. There’s a thick, well-worn medical encyclopedia on the nightstand.

  His partner calls for him from the next room: “Crace, get in here. You’ve got to see this.”

  He finds Weir standing at the center of what looks like a dollhouse bedroom built to human scale: yellow walls with rose-patterned wallpaper trim, a canopy bed with hospital-style rails, pristine shag area rugs, a white dresser with gold handles and a heart-shaped mirror, a matching white desk to house Gypsy’s computer. The wall above the computer is plastered with intricate, detailed drawings that might have been ripped from a fantasy video game—pages and pages of monsters and dragons and women in tight-fitting armor wielding swords.

  “It’s just a bedroom,” Crace says.

  “Yeah, but there’s something creepy about it,” Weir says. “It doesn’t fit with the rest of the house. It’s like walking into a shrine or one of those museum recreations. Everything’s a little too perfect.”

  “If you say so.”

  Weir starts for the door, stumbles over an object buried in one of the shag rugs.

  “What’s this?” he asks.

  He kneels down, finds a beige inhaler with a chewed up mouthpiece.

  “Jesus,” Crace says. “Is anything not wrong with this girl?”

  They move back through the dining area and into the kitchen. And that’s where they find her: Dee Dee Blancharde sprawled on the linoleum floor, her plain white shift soaked in blood.

  Chapter 2

  “Good God, how much do think she weighs?” Detective Brian Slater asks. “Gotta be three fifty, easy.”

  “Still counts as one victim,” his new partner, Detective Emily Draper, says.

  They’re staring down at Dee Dee Blancharde’s body while a CSI team moves through the house behind them. Slater counts four distinct stab wounds. He pulls at the cuff of one of his latex gloves and lets go, like snapping a rubber band against his wrist.

  “Any sign of the knife?” he asks a passing crime tech.

  “Nothing yet, boss,” the man says.

  “All right,” Slater tells Draper. “Let’s take a little tour.”

  They start with the pill bottles and syringes on the dining room table. Draper reads the labels out loud: “Eteplirsen, Mexitil, Prednisone, Sprycel, Clafen, Zolpidem, Klonopin…”

  “All for the daughter?” Slater asks.

  “Looks that way.”

  “You’d think the meds alone would kill her,” Slater says. “Let’s get the names of her docs.”

  Draper takes out her phone, starts snapping pictures of the bottles. Slater turns his attention to the wheelchairs. There’s a column of folded manuals stacked five high. There’s a forest-green motorized recliner with a joystick for steering, a bright-red scooter with a wire basket in front that makes Slater think of The Wizard of Oz.

  “That’s a hell of a collection,” he says. “I can’t see how a person would need more than one.”

  “Girls like to accessorize,” Draper says.

  “Those are some pricey accessories.”

  “Depends who paid for them. Maybe they had some kind of mega insurance.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Slater says.

  They move on to Dee Dee’s room. Slater begins rifling through the dresser drawers, hoping to turn up a diary. Draper digs through the closet, beginning with the jam-packed clothes rack. Among the colorful striped shirts, smocks, and overalls, she finds a stash of costumes: a purple fleece bathrobe with a Star Trek delta shield sewn onto the left breast pocket; a pair of moss-green fairy wings dangling from a wooden hanger; a plus-size silver jumpsuit with a thick black belt and what looks like a computer screen painted across the chest.

  “A little old for trick or treating,” Draper says under her breath.

  She kneels, pushes aside a heap of shoes and boots, finds a knee-high safe with an electronic lock. The door is wide open.

  “Hey, Brian,” she calls. “I’ve got something here.”

  Slater crouches behind her, whistles.

  “Nice find for a rookie,” he says.

  “Or do you mean for a woman?”

  “Do me a favor,” Slater grins. “Wait till I say something offensive before you get offended.”

  Draper reaches into the safe, pulls out a small spiral pad, flips through the pages.

  “It’s a ledger,” she says.

  Slater reads over her shoulder. The most recent page lists, in bright red block letters, payments from a half-dozen charitable foundations, among them the Springfield Leukemia Society, the Knights of Columbus, and the First Methodist Church of Springfield. The total comes to just over $4,000.

  Draper runs her hand across the floor of the safe, comes away with a single rubber band.

  “This is what’s left of the money,” she says.

  Slater stands, smooths out a crease in his pants.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” he says. “Whoever killed her knew the combination.”

  “Or forced it out of her.”

  Slater gives a skeptical shrug.

  “Could be,” he says. “But there are no signs of torture. No signs of any struggle outside the kitchen.”

  They get a crime scene tech to dust the safe and bag the ledger, then move on to Gypsy’s dollhouse bedroom.

  “Not sure I’ve seen a canopy hospital bed before,” Draper says. “Is it possible to be crippled and spoiled?”

  Slater points to the desk: “We’ll need to get forensics on that computer.”

  Draper goes through the gold-handled drawers while Slater studies Gypsy’s drawings. He is taken by the exaggerated yet controlled lines, the way a wolf with wings looks like it might fly off the page, the way a gargoyle’s fangs blossom into thorny roses. The girl has talent, he thinks. Even if fantasy is so much bunk.

  He spots a drawing that isn’t like the others: a simple headstone, rounded at the edges, with nothing but clouds in the background. There’s an engraving at the top of the stone: RIP GYPSY ROSE BLANCHARDE.

  “What do you make of this?” he asks Draper.

  She moves closer, stands on tiptoes.

  “Maybe those are the two things she wants most,” Draper says.

  “Which two things?”

  “Rest and peace.”

  * * *

  Draper and Slater stand outside the Blancharde home, Slater smoking an unfiltered cigarette, Draper sipping cold coffee from a paper cup.

  “Hell of a duo,” Slater says, “for such a quiet street.”

  “These little suburban houses pack a lot of drama,” Draper says. “Nobody really knows what goes on inside them.”

  Slater grins.

  “That’s deep,” he says, blowing out a long stream of smoke. Draper punches his arm.

  “So what do you think?” Slater asks. “Someone stabs the mother and makes off with the girl?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “The father, maybe?”

  “I had one of the uniforms check on him. He’s down in Louisiana with an airtight alibi. Seems he’s been out of the picture for years.”

  “Maybe Dee Dee Blancharde had a beau,” Slater says. “No forced entry. The code to the safe. Had to be someone they knew.”

  “But why take the girl?”

  Slater shrugs.

  “People have every kind of fetish,” he says.

  “OK, but why take the girl and not her meds? Anyone who knew them had to know how sick she was.”

  Slater looks up and down street as though he expects to see Gypsy Rose turn a corner on one of her motorized wheelchairs.

  “Maybe that’s the fetish,” he says. “Maybe whoever took her wants to watch her die.”

  Chapter 3

  Pastor Mike steps to a small podium at the center of the lawn and signals for everyone to gather round. Dee Dee Blancharde stands beside him, her fingers gripping the backrest of Gypsy’s Lightweight Cruiser Deluxe. Gypsy, in her frilly white hat with the pompoms dangling off the sides, manages to look happy and carefree despite the wheelcha
ir, despite the oxygen tank and the tubes running from her nose.

  “Come now,” Pastor Mike shouts. “It’s time to begin.”

  Neighbors step away from the folding-table buffet to join the circle of reporters, photographers, and churchgoers.

  “This is truly a blessed day,” Pastor Mike says, raising his cupped hands skyward. “We have here two people whose long and harrowing journey ought to inspire us all. Dee Dee Blancharde and her daughter, Gypsy Rose, have persevered through every shape and form of adversity. But the daughter, plagued by illness, has been anything but a burden to her loving mother. With a strength that smacks of God’s love, Dee Dee Blancharde has outsmarted and outlasted obstacles of biblical proportions. They were driven from their Louisiana home by Katrina’s wrath, the daughter sick with cancer and muscular dystrophy, the mother exhausted beyond measure, and now, finally, they have found a soft place to land. They have found this place, this house standing here behind me which we at Springfield Methodist could not be more pleased to have built for them, complete with all the modifications necessary for a girl in Gypsy Rose’s condition. Please join me in welcoming them into our community.”

  There’s a round of applause as the pastor steps aside and Anne-Marie Burrell of Channel 4’s Mornings with Anne-Marie takes his place. She’s in her early forties, pretty in a regional-television way, though Dee Dee wonders what kind of flaws all that makeup is hiding. Cameramen disperse around her, two on either side and one kneeling in front of the podium.

  “Good morning, everyone,” she starts, stretching her flawless smile as wide as it will go.

  “Good morning, Anne-Marie,” the small crowd returns.

  Dee Dee looks out at the strangers gathered on her lawn, thinks: people will do anything to catch a glimpse of themselves on the idiot box.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Anne-Marie continues. “This is, as Pastor Mike said, a blessed day. Like you, I’m here to honor and celebrate the work Pastor Mike and his congregation have done…”