Till Murder Do Us Part Read online

  The expression seems to say, I told you marrying me was going to be an adventure, didn’t I?

  Chapter 38

  June 3, 2003

  Kathi waits in a conference room inside the district attorney’s office. With her is Lieutenant John Lucas. They both have paper coffee cups sitting in front of them, but they’ve long since drained the contents.

  They’ve been waiting longer than they expected.

  Kathi arrived in San Joaquin County today for the start of Eric’s trial, only to find out that the DA and Eric’s defense lawyer were in a meeting.

  It’s been almost a year since the judge agreed to bind the case over for trial, but, as Kathi has learned time and again, the wheels of justice move slowly. She’s had to wait for her opportunity to testify in front of the actual jury that will decide Eric’s fate.

  She felt good after her testimony at the preliminary hearing. She was able to lay out everything that happened and everything she did to investigate the real Eric Wright. Her former husband’s mood changed as she spoke. The glint in his eye changed to a glower as he realized just how responsible she was for his arrest.

  She was glad she could finally wipe that smirk off his face.

  When she was told to wait in the conference room with Lucas, Kathi assumed the DA, Thomas McGowan, wanted to chat with her about her testimony. But now, as she waits for the DA to return, doubt begins to consume her. It might be that Eric Wright’s luck hasn’t run out after all.

  The longer she waits, the more worried she becomes, and the more certain she is that he’s going to cut a deal.

  When McGowan enters the room, he is apologetic for making them wait.

  “First of all,” he says, “I just want to say that you’ve both done a phenomenal job. This case is two decades old, and Eric Wright wouldn’t be in custody today if not for you.” He looks at Lucas and says, “Top-notch police work, John.” Then he turns his attention to Kathi. “You should be very proud, Ms. Spiars. This man would have gotten away with this crime if not for your tenacity and perseverance. You never gave up. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a hero.”

  “I sense a but coming,” Kathi says.

  The DA takes a deep breath. “But,” he says, “the case isn’t strong. The preliminary hearing last year exposed the holes in it, and there’s nothing we’ve been able to do in the last year to patch those holes. I’m going to let Mr. Wright plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in lieu of a trial.”

  Kathi doesn’t think that sounds so bad. “He’ll still go to jail, won’t he?”

  “Yes, but the maximum sentence is six years. He could be out in two with good behavior.”

  Now Kathi feels sick. Only two years? For killing a person? For all the pain he’s caused so many people?

  Two measly years behind bars before he gets to go free again?

  McGowan explains the problems with the case. There’s no doubt that Eric Wright is a bad person: a compulsive liar, a deadbeat who ran out on his children, a fraud who fooled people into believing he was someone he wasn’t. They can prove that all day long. But he’s not on trial for those offenses—he’s on trial for killing Lester Marks. And when it comes to killing Lester Marks, there isn’t much hard evidence.

  The case is so old that some of the evidence—Lester Marks’s clothes, the chain that weighed down his body—has gone missing over time. The initial medical examiner’s report was inconclusive, and there’s no way to do another.

  The note with Eric’s name on it, Eric’s comment to the police chief in Colorado about bones in the water, and even Kathi’s claim that he kept gold in the toilet are all circumstantial.

  Moreover, the defense attorney is suggesting that Lester Marks’s own son probably killed him and is looking for a scapegoat. The father and son had a long, well-documented history of conflict, and the younger Marks has been in and out of incarceration his whole adult life. At best, the son is an unreliable witness; at worst, his history allows the defense an opportunity to craft an alternative narrative that could plant seeds of doubt in the minds of jurors.

  On top of that, Eric’s defense lawyer is trying to paint his client as a victim, making him out to be a long-suffering, traumatized veteran caught up in a case he has nothing to do with. Hearing this makes Kathi angry. Pretending to be a wounded veteran trivializes the suffering of real victims. Though of course for Eric Wright, that’s just another offense in a long list of shameful deceptions.

  “I’m worried that if I go forward with the murder charge,” McGowan says, “his lawyer might be able to get him acquitted. He might do no time at all. This way, we at least get him to admit to killing Marks. This way, he at least has to do some time behind bars.”

  “He has to admit it?” Kathi asks, realizing for the first time that this is what she really wants.

  She wants her ex-husband to finally admit what he’s done.

  “It’s an admission in a legal sense,” the attorney explains. “He can still tell the judge that he didn’t do it, but as far as the law is concerned, he is admitting to the intentional killing of another human being.”

  Kathi feels as though she’s going to throw up. He doesn’t even have to admit he’s guilty. He can plead guilty yet maintain he’s doing it for his own self-preservation.

  “Please excuse me,” she says, and she rises and walks out of the room, down the hall, and finds a large window overlooking a grassy area outside.

  She stares out, not really registering what she’s looking at. She’s lost in thought. All her hard work—all these years of her life—has come down to this. Was it worth it?

  A few minutes later, Lieutenant John Lucas finds her in the hallway.

  “I always said it would be out of my hands once it got to this point,” Kathi tells him. “Whether Eric got the death penalty or life in prison or only two years, that part is out of my hands. I know in my heart I’ve done everything I could.”

  Lucas agrees—there’s nothing more she could have done.

  “This has consumed my life for far too long,” she says. “It’s time for me to be done with it. It’s time for me to wash my hands of it.”

  Lucas asks her what’s next for her.

  “I’m going to move back to Colorado,” Kathi says. “I’ll stick around for the sentencing, and then it’s time for me to get on with my life.”

  Chapter 39

  June 6, 2003

  Eric Wright wears an ill-fitting suit to the sentencing hearing. The fabric sags on his now-bloated frame.

  Kathi sits in the back of the courtroom, watching the proceedings. When it’s Eric’s chance to speak, he tells the judge that he has agreed to plead guilty to avoid the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. The judge explains to him, as the DA previously explained to Kathi, that for the purposes of the law, he is admitting to purposefully killing another human.

  “I hereby sentence you to the maximum: six years in prison,” the judge says. “And I order you to pay fifty-five thousand dollars to the family of Lester Marks in the form of restitution.”

  Fat chance of ever getting that money from him, Kathi thinks.

  When the judge smacks his gavel down and everyone in court rises, Eric is all smiles. He shakes his lawyer’s hand, beaming like a man who just got the best news of his life.

  And maybe he did.

  Kathi has made her peace with what she knew was going to happen, but still, it’s a bitter pill to swallow. He didn’t get away scot-free, but it’s pretty damn close, as far as she’s concerned.

  The journalists in the front row begin to file out, some asking if they can get a statement from her when she exits the courtroom. She agrees to speak to them, but she’s not ready to leave yet.

  She watches Eric, who glances into the gallery and spots her in the back of the court. He keeps his eyes on her for a few seconds, nodding to her and offering a half smile.

  It’s only a look, a simple acknowledgment, but in her mind, the expression on his face
says a lot.

  It says, You can’t win them all. Maybe we both won a little and lost a little today.

  It says, Whatever it was we had—the love, the hate, the hiding and the running—it’s all over now.

  It says, Not bad, kid—you’re the one who caught me.

  Or maybe it doesn’t mean any of those things. Smiling was always Eric’s fallback expression, his ability to knock people off their guard, break down any hostility toward him—charm them. Maybe the expression has no meaning whatsoever.

  Kathi gives him the slightest nod of her head. She isn’t sure what she means to communicate with it—maybe just Good-bye.

  Eric turns to the jail deputies waiting to take him into custody. As he disappears into the passageway to the jail, Kathi thinks—hopes—that this is the last time she will ever see him.

  Kathi leaves the courtroom to find television crews ready and waiting for her, their cameras set up and their reporters brandishing microphones.

  “Ms. Spiars, can we get a statement?” one says.

  “Ms. Spiars, are you happy with this verdict?”

  “Kathi,” another asks, “is it true that today is your anniversary?”

  Kathi squints at the woman asking the question. My anniversary? It dawns on her what the reporter is suggesting. It takes a moment to remember what day it is and whether it holds any significance for her.

  “I hadn’t realized,” she says with a laugh. “Yes, twenty-two years ago today, I married a man and vowed to spend the rest of my life with him. But it turned out the man I married was not who I thought he was. They say love is blind—I guess I was blinder than most.”

  The reporters laugh and keep the cameras rolling.

  “What’s next for you?” a reporter asks.

  “Now,” Kathi says, taking a big, relieved breath, “I can finally say good-bye to this chapter of my life and move on.”

  Epilogue

  Silt, Colorado

  January 26, 2008

  Kathi Spiars draws back the curtain on the front picture window of her two-bedroom home and takes a look at the snow falling outside. She turns off the light inside so she can see outside better. Her yard and neighborhood are blanketed in white, and more fat flakes rain from the sky. It looks as though there’s no end in sight to this storm.

  She doesn’t mind. She has nowhere to be on a night like this. She turns the light back on, keeping it dim, and feeds another log into her wood-burning stove. She stretches out on the couch, pulling a blanket over her legs, and turns on the TV. She flips through the channels, trying to find something worth watching.

  She stops when she spots one of the Jason Bourne movies playing. She considers giving the movie a chance, but the scene on the screen shows Matt Damon making an impassioned speech about being an ex-assassin running from his past, and the woman, that pretty German actress whose name she can’t remember, is falling for him. Kathi begins flipping through channels again. She doesn’t need to see an actor pretending to be a spy—she lived it.

  After Eric’s sentencing, she moved back to Colorado, opting for the small town of Silt, which is just twenty minutes down the road from Glenwood Springs. She loves this area of the state but couldn’t bring herself to live in the same community where she has so many memories.

  The district attorney, Thomas McGowan, called her a few years ago to let her know that her ex had been paroled and was free again. Since then, she’s tried not to worry about him showing up to seek retribution. But sometimes, when there’s an unexpected knock at the door, her anxiety looms—she fears it’ll be Eric, not the mail carrier delivering a package. Or if she’s out hiking alone, she sometimes worries that she’s being followed. If a man appears on the path in front of her, she feels her breath catch in her throat until she can see his face clearly.

  These fears evaporate as quickly as they appear, but she can’t quite shake them completely. It bothers her that she can’t entirely let go of the fear that gripped her for so many years. She’s in her late fifties now, and she wants to make the best of what’s left of her life, and not have the residual effects of her life with Eric Wright haunt her any longer.

  Her cell phone rings. Having traded her old flip phone for a new smartphone, she can check the screen to see who is calling. Even though it’s completely irrational, she always fears that she’ll see the name ERIC WRIGHT.

  Instead it’s a number she doesn’t recognize from Stockton, California.

  She’s not in the habit of answering calls from unknown numbers, but given where it’s coming from, she has a feeling it’s either John Lucas—now the assistant sheriff—or district attorney Thomas McGowan.

  It turns out to be the latter.

  “I’ve got some news that I thought you might want to know,” the DA tells her. “Eric Wright is dead.”

  Kathi is not sure how to react to this. The news leaves her feeling numb.

  McGowan explains that he got a call from a newspaper reporter in San Diego County who told him Eric Wright died of a heart attack at home with his wife.

  “Apparently he remarried,” McGowan says.

  Of course he did, Kathi thinks. I wonder if she was also a petite blonde with a name that started with K, like the rest of us. Or if he wasn’t so choosy at sixty and just picked the easiest mark he could dupe.

  “The thing is,” McGowan says, sounding nervous about delivering the next part of his news, “apparently the body has already been cremated. I actually feel a little skeptical about all this. Is it possible he faked his death again?”

  Kathi’s numbness turns to nausea. She should have seen this coming. Nothing in the life of Eric Wright was normal—of course his death wouldn’t be, either.

  “It’s probably true,” the DA says. “But given who we’re talking about, I can’t help but feel some uncertainty that everything is as it seems.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Kathi agrees, her mouth dry.

  After they hang up, Kathi sits on her couch, lost in thought. While she would never wish for a person to die—not even Eric Wright—she has in many ways been looking forward to the news of his death. She always thought that if and when he died, she might be able to finally move on. She might finally feel safe again.

  Goddamn you, Eric. You couldn’t even give me this. You couldn’t even give me the peace of mind of knowing you’re dead.

  She realizes she’ll spend the rest of her life as she has the past few years: mostly healed. Mostly unafraid. But always with those moments when there’s a knock at the door or a voice in the woods, and her first thought will be, He’s finally come for me.

  She won’t run again. She won’t hide. The fear will never go away, not fully—but she can refuse to give in to it.

  Kathi rises from the couch and again looks out the window at the snow falling outside. But because she didn’t turn out the light, when she draws back the curtain, she sees nothing but blackness through the glass.

  For all she knows, Eric Wright could be on the other side, staring back at her.

  Ramp Up to Murder

  James Patterson

  with Max DiLallo

  Prologue

  April 10, 1991

  Sitting on a gunmetal-black Yamaha Banshee ATV, idling on the shoulder of a sleepy desert highway, Robert Lyon removes his sunglasses and blots the perspiration from his brow. It’s nearly 4:00 p.m., but the sun still feels blazingly hot—and the khakis, long-sleeved shirt, and bulky helmet he’s wearing aren’t doing him any favors.

  Robert squints as he looks out at the barren, windswept landscape all around him. Shell Canyon, as the area is known, lies just outside Ocotillo, California. This tiny speck of a town sits about eighty miles east of San Diego and a stone’s throw from the U.S.-Mexico border. With nothing but sand and craggy rocks as far as the eye can see, the place could almost pass for the surface of the moon.

  “Ready to ride, squirt?” he asks.

  Robert turns to David Lyon, his ten-year-old son, who is sitting
on a smaller four-wheeler beside him.

  “Almost!” David answers excitedly, fiddling with the chin strap of his oversize headgear. “This is gonna be awesome!”

  Robert beams. He knows how much his boy has been looking forward to going ATV-ing. And so has he. While his wife and daughter are spending the afternoon lounging by the motel pool, Robert has carved out these few hours from his family’s vacation to do some bonding, man to man, with his young son. To share some quality time together. To cut loose and have a little high-speed fun.

  “Okay, Dad, I’m ready!” David declares. He revs his vehicle’s engine. He’s practically bouncing in his seat with anticipation.

  Robert replies, “Now remember what the guy at the rental shop said. Accelerate slowly. Brake gently. And turn widely. You don’t want to flip over. Any questions?”

  “Just one.” A sly grin creeps across David’s face. “Think you can catch me?”

  Before Robert can respond, his son jams the throttle and David’s ATV roars to life. It lurches forward, kicking up a plume of sand and gravel.

  Robert shakes his head good-naturedly. He engages his own throttle. And they’re off.

  Father and son are soon tearing across the wide-open desert flats, leaving a thick cloud of dust and exhaust in their wake. They rumble across a parched riverbed. They rattle through shallow canyons. They crunch over petrified tree branches.

  David briefly glances back and flashes his father a smile as bright as the morning sun. He’s clearly having the time of his life. He also seems to be gaining confidence in his driving—and gaining speed. Robert’s paternal instinct is to call out to his son to slow down, to be careful, to take it easy. But he knows that over the whistling of the wind and the screeching of the engines, his words will never be heard.

  Suddenly, as they pass a small ravine, David does slow down.

  Then he banks so sharply to the left, looping back in the direction they came, that his side wheels briefly lift off the ground.