Murder Is Forever, Volume 1 Read online

  Instinctively, Nancy’s head flew up to clutch the cross around her neck.

  “That was a close one,” she gasped. But there was no one there to hear her.

  Chapter 15

  Billie

  It was Billie’s idea to have this meeting today. He wasn’t far from Carrollton, anyway, killing time at Bass Pro Shops, a cavernous hunting and fishing store outside of Dallas.

  With its in-house shooting gallery, archery range, and brewpub, BPS could almost be an amusement park, and Billie had been looking forward to getting some quality R&R in—trying a few rifles out, maybe a crossbow. Stacey had come along for the ride and had invited her son, Dustin, and Billie’s nephew, Michael, to go with them to meet Mr. John.

  Billie had mixed feelings about these youngsters he had in tow.

  Up to this point, he’d been happy to spread Mr. John’s money around. But Billie’d been stringing Mr. John along for so long now, sooner or later the well was bound to run dry. Billie’d burned through so much of the money already that he was starting to feel like he really ought to be looking out for himself at this point.

  On the other hand, Billie knew that he’d begun to run out of excuses, so if Mr. John did threaten to call it quits, he could always shift the blame over to Dustin and Speck.

  All in all, it might not be the worst thing to have them along. And as things turned out, Speck was the one who ended up doing most of the talking while Billie nursed his beer.

  By the end of the meeting, he’d hatched a whole new plot with Mr. John.

  What it amounted to was this: Nancy Howard had been planning a trip to San Marcos—the Texas town where she and Frank Howard had first met. Speck would follow her, shoot her there, and take a cell-phone photograph of her corpse, which he would show to Mr. John in person back up in Carrollton.

  Once he’d seen it, Mr. John would give Billie, Stacey, Dustin, and Speck $100,000, drawn on Nancy’s life insurance policy, which they would split between them.

  Then he’d pay them $5,000 a week—money that they would split too—for the rest of their lives.

  Billie did the math in his head: That was a quarter million dollars a year, give or take. And if Mr. John changed his mind about paying, Stacey had enough dirt on the man to blackmail him into paying whatever he had left. Either way, they were going to get their hands on every last cent of Mr. John’s money.

  For the first time, the thought of actually killing Nancy Howard—instead of just stringing Mr. John along, and along, and along—seemed like the best way to go.

  Chapter 16

  Frank and Dustin

  Frank was in his Lexus, listening to Christian radio, driving toward Ben Wheeler to talk to Dustin in person.

  “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,” the radio minster was saying, “murders, adulteries, fornications…”

  Dustin had been calling Frank pretty much nightly. But for a few nights now, he hadn’t been making a whole lot of sense.

  What Frank knew already was that Billie and Stacey had ended up behind bars, yet again. What Frank did not understand was what their latest arrest had to do with the fact that Nancy had already been down to San Marcos and managed to get herself back in one piece.

  “The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast…”

  Frank turned the radio off in disgust. On the floor under his feet was a bag full of money—big bills, packed tightly and bound with blue elastic bands. Frank tossed the bag in the backseat as he pulled up the driveway. He saw the Firebird with its bashed-in windshield, the lawn full of weeds, the screen door hanging off one of its hinges.

  “It’s one way to live,” Frank mumbled to himself under his breath.

  “My mom,” Dustin said to him once he came inside. “She’s not doing too well in there, in County.”

  “I wouldn’t expect that she would be,” said Frank.

  He looked around the room. Dustin was nineteen. Old enough to get by on his own. But he’d been living with Michael Speck for a few weeks now, ever since Billie and Stacey’s arrest. From what Frank could see, this domestic arrangement was not working out for the kid. Speck was nowhere to be seen, and Dustin looked like he was barely there. His face was unnaturally pale, except for the deep, purple bags under his eyes. He was wild-eyed and smelled almost moldy, like an old shower curtain. When Dustin spoke, his words ran into each other.

  “You really want to help your momma?” Frank said.

  Earnestly, Dustin said, “I would do anything.”

  “Iwoodoo anythang” was what it sounded like.

  “The best thing to do,” Frank told him, “is the job you all signed up for.”

  “Anythang,” Dustin said.

  Frank walked back out to the Lexus and returned a moment later, carrying a crumpled-up paper bag.

  “Here,” he told Dustin. “Take this and use it to bail your mom out of jail. Then go and buy yourself a baseball bat. Wait for my call. And then drive out to Gaylord. You know where Gaylord is? In Grapevine, less than an hour outside of Dallas. Nancy’s going to a convention there. I’ll give you the name of the hotel she’s at. You’ll sneak in and use your baseball bat on her. Use it real good. And make sure to get pictures.”

  “Thank you,” Dustin said. “Mr. John, you can be sure we’ll take care of this for you.”

  “And, Dustin? There’s just one more thing. This business in San Marcos didn’t work out for us. So I’ve been thinking, we should have a contingency plan. This convention that Nancy’s going to, it won’t be for a while now. Why don’t you drive up to Carrollton in the meantime. See the lay of the land. I’m sure there’s a good way to do it there too. Maybe a burglary. Maybe a fire.”

  Dustin did not know what contingency meant. But everything else Mr. John said made good sense to him.

  “Sure,” he said. “Fire sounds like a real good way to go.”

  PART FOUR

  JULY 2012

  Chapter 17

  Dustin

  It was nighttime in Carrollton, and Dustin was driving a rented Honda Accord around and around and around the whole town, high on the methamphetamine he’d been smoking, every waking minute of every day, ever since he’d moved in with Michael Speck.

  It had been a few weeks now since Mr. John had driven out to talk to him about bailing his mom out of jail. The money that Mr. John left behind totaled $24,000. And the first thing that Dustin had done was go out and buy himself the biggest bag of methamphetamine anyone in Ben Wheeler had ever seen. He’d smoked a lot of that crank himself, and shared freely with friends and neighbors.

  After a few sleepless nights, he’d taken to posting selfies on Facebook—stacks of hundred-dollar bills all around.

  A few nights after that, when eight thousand dollars blew off the hood of his car, he didn’t even bother to scoop the money back up.

  Then, with the money all gone, Dustin had called Mr. John and done what he’d seen Billie do countless times. Just like that, he asked for more money. And, just like that, Mr. John had agreed. The convention in Gaylord was still a few weeks away. But Dustin was more than willing to drive up to Carrollton.

  “Okay,” Mr. John had told him. “I’ll hide some cash for you up here. You can drive up and pick it up. But you know what you’ll have to do here to earn it.”

  The streets in Carrollton didn’t make any sense to Dustin. The houses all looked like the same great big house, and he couldn’t make heads or tails of the neighborhoods.

  “Frankford Estates,” he mumbled to himself in the front seat. “Parkside Estates. What’s up with this town anyway?”

  There was a can of gasoline in the trunk and a box of bullets in Dustin’s lap. But the box had spilled over, and now there were bullets all over his lap, on the seat under him, and on the floor, rolling this way and that in the Honda. There was also a map, which Dustin had given up on, and a slip of paper, on which he’d written the address that Mr. John had given him. Dustin must have been high
when he’d written it down—he could not make sense of it at all. And so he drove, around and around for hours in circles, in squares, and in zigzags, without getting closer to where it was that he needed to be.

  It was as if he were driving underwater.

  Exasperated, he pulled the car over. There, in the driver’s seat, he’d gripped the wheel with both hands, closed his eyes tightly, and breathed, in and out, until the white noise in his head died down to a whisper. He checked the address once again—this time, he could almost make out words and numbers. He took out the gun he’d brought—a silver .380 that Speck had lent him—and checked it too.

  Having centered himself, he put the car key back in the ignition, turned the engine on, pulled out into the night—and promptly got lost. He turned the rental car around, and then around again. He made one wrong turn, then made another. Then, giving up on the whole enterprise, he made one final U-turn.

  As he did so, the Honda’s headlights swept across a driveway. And there, standing outside, he saw Nancy Howard.

  Chapter 18

  Bethany Wright

  Dustin recognized her right away—recognized her from one of the photos that Mr. John had shown him. Except now she was wearing a nightgown, slippers, and a bathrobe. Nancy looked lost in thought, walking a recycling bin down to the end of her driveway.

  Dustin could not believe his luck. Quickly, he turned off his headlights, ducked down in the driver’s seat, counted to twenty. When he came back up in his seat, Nancy Howard was gone. But he knew which house was hers now, and he was ready.

  Quietly, he gathered the bullets off his lap and the seat and the floor. He made sure his gun was loaded. He closed his eyes yet again. It had been a few hours now since his last hit, and though his head was still cloudy he was grateful for it—the drug would help him do what he couldn’t do sober.

  “I’ll count to two hundred,” he told himself. “Give her a few minutes to get in bed.”

  He’d counted to sixty when the police siren sounded behind him.

  * * *

  Officer Bethany Wright had had her eye on Dustin for some time, seen him circling the neighborhoods, pulling over at random, then starting again. He’d been driving so slowly, the cop hadn’t had much of a reason to stop him. But now that Dustin was just sitting there, in his car, with the headlights off and his engine still on, Wright felt that she had sufficient reason to question him.

  “Sir,” she said as walked up to the driver’s side door and looked at the kid inside, pale and jittery in his threadbare Batman T-shirt. “How long have you been in Carrollton tonight?”

  Dustin was breathing heavily. He’d had just enough time to hide the gun under the passenger seat.

  “Been trying to find my uncle’s house now for two, three, four hours,” he said with a long, heavy sigh.

  “The reason I ask is, I saw you earlier. And now I see you again…”

  “Yeah. I was going in circles. Circles and circles. Circles and circles and circles and circles…”

  Officer Wright fingered the strap on her holster. What the computer in her squad car had told her was that the Honda was a hundred miles away from its point of origin. And, even if the car was in the right place, the man sitting behind the wheel belonged elsewhere. Carrollton was an upscale town, easy and quiet. Sometimes the local kids would smoke grass or get drunk and dumb out in their pickups. But this kid, who could not have been older than twenty, was strung out on meth. That much was clear: He had that moldy shower-curtain smell that truly committed meth heads would get on their binges. And when the officer asked for his license—the kid was nineteen, it turned out—she saw that he was from a methed-out town in East Texas and didn’t belong in Carrollton at all.

  “Will you please step out of the car?” she asked.

  Chapter 19

  Dustin

  Dustin was dazed, but not too dazed to know that he had not broken the law just yet.

  He stepped out quietly, calmly.

  He thought he could talk his way out.

  First, he told the lady cop that he’d come to Carrollton to borrow some money from his uncle.

  A few seconds later, he said that he’d been looking for his stepfather.

  A few seconds after that, he volunteered the information that his stepfather was in jail.

  The lady cop didn’t look fazed at all. But Dustin felt that his words were all coming out wrong, in a tangle that didn’t convey how innocent his actions, up to that point, had been.

  “Tell me again who you’re visiting here,” the cop instructed. “’Cause now I’m confused. First you said ‘uncle’ and then you said—”

  “His name’s John,” Dustin interrupted. “Okay? We always called him ‘John.’ That was it.”

  This was much better. So close to the truth, Dustin reasoned, it didn’t even sound much like a lie.

  It was just like Billie had told him: “Always stick close to the truth when you lie. So close that you believe everything you’re saying.”

  Now Dustin was doing just that, and it didn’t surprise him at all to see the cop smiling, or to feel himself smiling as well.

  “Okay,” she said. “So, John’s…a friend of the family?”

  “Yes. Basically.”

  “And what is your business with John?”

  This was a curveball. But so far, the truth had seemed like a good strategy, and Dustin decided that he’d go all in.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m not trying to cause no problems, ma’am. But the thing is I am a hit man. Like, a contract killer? I’m a hit man, and I’m up here in Carrollton—”

  Even before he’d gotten the words out, it dawned on Dustin he’d made a mistake. A weird mistake, and it was weird, too, that although he’d commanded his mouth to stop talking, it kept on talking on its own accord.

  “I’m up here to commit a hit,” the mouth said. “A hit on a woman in Carrollton.”

  Chapter 20

  Bethany Wright

  Officer Wright had never met an honest to goodness hit man. But you didn’t need to be Columbo or Kojak—anyone with opposable thumbs could see that Dustin was too high to know what he was saying. For all he seemed to know, he was at home playing video games.

  Still, you could not have a kid like this driving around town. Not in the shape he was in.

  Even in the back of her Carrollton PD patrol car, the kid kept on talking, without making much sense at all.

  “Sir,” the officer said. “I would seriously advise you to zip it until we get down to the station.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Dustin, and for the few minutes it took to get down to the station he actually managed to keep his mouth shut. Inside, he was fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell, where he sat, fidgeting on the hard cot, mumbling to himself.

  “If they had me on murder, they’d send me to prison for certain,” he said. “But I didn’t commit any murder. The most they could get me on now is attempted murder. But how would the prove it? I told the lady cop I was a hit man. But it’s not like she found my gun. And how could she know who I’ve killed, when I haven’t killed anybody just yet?”

  He was still mumbling when the officer finished up her arrest report. Dustin had been driving erratically. He was certainly under the influence of something, even though he wasn’t drunk. The best thing to do, she thought, was hold him overnight, wait for him to sober up, and send him back to East Texas. She hoped the kid could get clean. While he was young. While it still made a difference. If he didn’t, the cops in East Texas would put him away for something more meaningful than a traffic stop. And maybe that would be for the best. A kid so turned around that he couldn’t tell the difference between video games and real life? Who thought he was an actual hit man?

  Officer Wright had a certain amount of sympathy. She had teenage boys of her own. And she knew how rough towns in East Texas could be. She also knew that what she could get on him now wouldn’t lead to much more than a few days in County. An
d frankly, if Texas cops started locking up all the meth heads in Texas, the state’s prisons would burst at the seams and a horde of real criminals would descend like some biblical plague.

  Better to roll the dice on Dustin. Let the chips fall wherever they may—as long as they did not fall in Carrollton.

  “Son,” she said at the end of her shift early the next morning, after having filed her report, “now that you’ve slept it off, I’m going to ask you to get yourself right out of Carrollton. Whoever this John is, I don’t see that finding him’s going to do you much good. What you need, if you ask me, is a shower, a strong cup of coffee, and a long, hard look in the mirror. Is this really where you want to end up?”

  Dustin rubbed his eyes. For the first time since his encounter with the lady cop, words failed him entirely. He gaped at her for a moment.

  “Really?” he said. “Just like that?”

  “Just this time,” the officer said as she opened the holding cell door. “Just this once. And never again in this town, son.”

  Chapter 21

  The Howards

  A few weeks after Dustin’s arrest in Carrollton, Frank and Nancy sat down to a romantic dinner at their home in Carrollton.

  Nancy had looked forward to this meal for days now, planning this date night for over a week.

  She’d shopped all day, soaked the beans the previous evening, had the beef on a slow boil since that afternoon. And if the tortillas were store bought, the guacamole and salsas were homemade and spicy, though not too spicy—just the way Frank had always liked them. Nancy had ironed the tablecloth to within an inch of its life. The linen napkins, which had thin, red lines around their borders, were the same ones she used when company came over. But tonight it would be just the two of them, eating and laughing together like newlyweds.