Deeper Than the Dead

“In an even more bizarre twist, the deputy’s eleven-year-old son is said to be in the building. He was arrested earlier today in connection with a stabbing in a nearby park.

“Speculation is, of course, rampant that the deputy may in fact be the notorious See-No-Evil killer who has been stalking this idyllic college town—”

Anne flipped from channel to channel to channel, every one of them showing the same scene from a different angle. None of them showing the drama going on inside the building, where lives were hanging in the balance.

81

“What can we do for you, Frank?” Vince asked.

They had been at it for thirty-five minutes. Him trying to pull answers out of Frank Farman, slowly trying to get him to turn his back to the door. Farman, sweating and shaking now from the strain of holding on to the sheriff and keeping the gun up to his head.

Vince was fighting his own war of attrition, his own energy reserves draining to the last drop. He was starting to feel shaky too, but if he could just keep Farman occupied for a little while longer something would happen. The deputy would give up, or the cavalry would burst in.

The trick was to keep him talking.

“You need to sit down? You need something to drink? What?” Vince asked, planting those needs in Farman’s head over and over.

Farman blinked hard as sweat ran down his brow and dripped into his eyes.

“Give me something, here, Frank.”

“I’ve given this department everything I have,” Farman said, his voice cracking under the strain of his emotions.

“Then let’s try to salvage some of that,” Vince suggested. “You’ve done a lot of good, Frank. Credit where it’s due. Let’s don’t fuck that up now.”

He risked taking a full step toward Farman, angling away from the door.

“Don’t come closer,” Farman said.

“I just want to help you out here, Frank,” Vince said, lowering his voice so Farman would have to concentrate a little harder to hear him. “Let’s end this in a good way.”

Farman shook his head. “It’s too late. It’s done. You don’t know.” “What don’t I know, Frank?” Vince asked. “Tell me. I’ll help you any way I can.”

“It’s too late,” he said again, his eyes filling. “She’s gone.”

“I know your wife left. We can find her, Frank. We can bring her here. You can talk.”

Farman shook his head. “It’s too late.”

Oh, shit, Vince thought. She’s dead. The risk of the situation going totally wrong multiplied by a hundred times. If he had killed his wife, there really was no going back for him. He would go to prison. Prison would not be an option for Frank Farman. He would choose death.

Vince took a deep breath and let it out. “I understand,” he said quietly. “I get it, Frank.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Farman whispered, a terrible pain carving deep into the lines of his face.

“Let’s not make it worse,” Vince said, taking another half step toward him. “Let the man go.”

He kept his eyes on Farman, not flicking so much as a nanosecond’s glance at the door easing open behind him.

Mendez slipped into the room, holding his breath. Three quick strides and he was behind Frank Farman, gun to the back of his head, just as Farman said, “I can’t go to prison.”

“Drop the gun, Frank,” he said. “Right now. It’s over.”

Three things happened simultaneously: Cal Dixon dropped, dead weight, straight down to the floor; Vince Leone shouted NO; and Frank Farman put the barrel of his .38 in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

The bullet traveled on an upward trajectory through the roof of his mouth, through his midbrain, and exited out the back of his skull, two inches right of center, slicing a shallow groove along the outermost edge of Mendez’s cheek and traveling on to bury itself in the wall.

Farman dropped where he stood like a sack of bones, falling across Cal Dixon’s legs, the entire back of his head shattered like an egg.

82

According to the handsome reporter from LA, THE SIEGE AT THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE was coming to some kind of conclusion. Shots had been fired. The sheriff’s department tactical squad had stormed the building.

Anne was shaking. The conclusion wasn’t guaranteed to be everyone’s happy ending. She wouldn’t relax until she knew Frank Farman had been subdued, one way or another, and that everyone else was safe. That Vince was safe.

Needing something to busy her hands, she brought her purse into the living room and dumped the contents on the ottoman. She actually managed to smile as Tommy’s gift tumbled out. This was what she needed—a sweet surprise.

The box was about the size and shape a ring might come in. Tommy had obviously wrapped it himself. Anne opened it as carefully as if it might contain a Faberge egg.

Inside the box was a small puddle of fine gold chain. A necklace, she thought, a little bemused. Where did a ten-year-old boy get the money to buy his teacher a necklace? And what would she do if the gift was too extravagant? It would break his heart if she gave it back.

She emptied the box into her hand and carefully sorted out the ends of the chain, lifting it up and letting it unfurl like gold thread.

A simple gold figure dangled from the chain.

A figure of a woman standing with her arms raised in victory.

The necklace Karly Vickers had been wearing in her photo on the MISSING poster.

Anne’s blood ran cold.

Her heart was beating so fast she felt faint. Her hands were trembling so the small golden figure danced this way and that, catching the lamplight.

Where could Tommy have possibly gotten this? Could there be any reasonable explanation that he would have access to a piece of jewelry given only to the women who made it through the Thomas Center program and graduated to independent living?

Her brain stalled as she tried to make sense of it. Had he found it in the woods? Would Lisa Warwick have had one too? It could have fallen in the dirt and leaves. Tommy could have picked it up during that time he and Wendy had been sitting waiting outside the yellow crime-scene tape—the time between finding the body and when she had gotten there.

That didn’t ring true, but her brain wanted to believe it anyway. Funny how the mind would willingly twist itself into a pretzel trying to make sense of something using just the incomplete information it had, filling in its own blanks.

If Frank Farman was the killer, as the newspeople were speculating, maybe Dennis had the necklace, and Tommy somehow had gotten it from Dennis.

Right. Like Dennis would give Tommy anything. Dennis would have beat up Tommy to get the necklace from him. There was no version of that story that worked in the reverse.

Wendy’s father did a lot of work for the center. Maybe somehow Wendy had come by the necklace and Tommy got the necklace from Wendy.