The Dead Room

she could understand language just fine, could form and process complex sentences easily inside her head, the brain damage had saddled her with expressive aphasia, this maddening, incurable condition that limited her speech to no more than four words at a time, mostly nouns and verbs delivered in a slow, telegraphic manner. On a good day.

‘Shot,’ she said.

‘Someone shot you in the face?’

‘You… ah… did.’

Ben staring like he didn’t recognize her. Like he didn’t remember.

‘You… ah… shot me… and… ah… my children. Carter and… ah… ah… Michael. Your… ah… two partners… ah… murdered… my… ah… husband. Dan… Dan Russo.’

‘Can’t say I know anyone by that name.’

‘He… ah… ah… a contractor. Wellesley.’

‘That his company name? Wellesley?’

A slight grin on Ben’s face, having fun with this.

‘Lived… ah… in… ah… Wellesley. You’re… ah… two… ah… partners, they… ah… ah… killed him. Rope. Tied it and… ah… ah… neck. Strangled him. Waste disposal… my house. Wellesley. Five… ah… years… ah… five years… ago.’

‘I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.’

No. No, she didn’t.

This morning, after she had dropped off her prescription, she had turned around and seen, at the far end of the aisle, a man looking over shelves stocked with pain relievers. This man had the same thin, almost feminine lips as the man who had forced his way into her home. The organizer, the man she knew only as Ben.

No… No, it can’t be him, she had thought. Why would Ben come back to Wellesley after all this time? Ben and his two partners, the ski-masked men who had murdered Dan in the kitchen, had disappeared from the face of the earth five years ago. Those men were never found and never would be.

And Ben, she remembered quite clearly, had had a blond crew cut threaded with grey. The man standing in the aisle wore a dark blue baseball cap over long black hair that curled around the ears. Ben had had pale skin. This man had a dark tan and was dressed like someone who spent his days lounging on a boat Sperry Top-Sider shoes, khaki shorts and a pair of aviator sunglasses hanging in the V of a white untucked Oxford shirt. He wore a thick gold wedding band and a gold Rolex Yacht-Master watch. Ben hadn’t worn a wedding ring.

Jamie remembered watching as the man reached for something on the top shelf. On the wrist of his right hand and stretching across his palm was a thick rubbery white scar shaped like a mutant starfish.

Ben had had the exact same scar. She had seen it when he wrapped the duct tape across her mouth. She hadn’t seen the two men who had entered the house. Later, she’d heard one of them call upstairs: ‘Let’s go, Ben.’

‘Partners,’ Jamie said, reaching inside her windbreaker for the Magnum. ‘I want… ah… their names.’

Ben hawked a gob of bloody phlegm over the side of the car, then leaned back against the boot lid. Nothing lived behind those eyes. Just two glassy lifeless balls polished to a bright shine. Soulless.

‘Partners,’ she said. ‘Names.’

He didn’t answer.

She pressed the muzzle against his forehead, blood pumping through her limbs.

Ben didn’t flinch.

‘I… I… will… ah…

‘Oh, I definitely think you’ll kill me. You shot your way inside the house, shot me in the thigh – and you did one hell of a job taking down my friend. You’re a regular Calamity Jane, blazing new frontiers.’ His voice was surprisingly calm. ‘Nobody learns to shoot like that unless they’re a cop. You still on the force, sweetheart? I’m assuming you are, since you go around carrying that big gun you’ve got.’

She didn’t answer. She had retired from her patrolman days after Carter was born. After Dan had died, she carried the Magnum with her everywhere. For protection.

‘Why… ah… woman and… ah… boy… ah –’

‘Are you asking me what I was doing inside the house?’

She nodded.

‘That’s confidential information,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Man… ah… ah… who drove… ah… you, was… ah… he… ah –’

‘Take a look at this from my point of view. I have something you need – the missing pieces of the puzzle, you could say. I give it to you and you blow my brains out and you, what, leave my body in the boot? Is that the plan?’

Jamie didn’t answer. When she had indulged in this fantasy, she’d always imagined Ben begging for his life. She’d imagined him crying and screaming. Sometimes she’d imagined him pious and remorseful, reduced to a blubbering, child-like state where he confessed all of his sins. But now, in real life, out in the hot, dark woods buzzing with mosquitoes, Ben was acting as if having a gun pressed to his head was normal. As if he’d been in this exact situation before and knew how to play it.

‘I’m gonna let you in on a secret,’ Ben said. ‘I’m a cop.’

13

‘Cop,’ Jamie repeated.

Ben grinned, flashing his bloody teeth. ‘Glad to see that bullet I put in your head didn’t impair your hearing.’

A sensation like slicing razor blades ran up her spine, reached the base of her skull and then made its way through the scarred meat of her brain. Brought her back to the place she had lived every day since the shootings – a space of perpetual darkness where the air felt like concrete blocks stacked against her skin, her bones threatening to crack with each breath.

‘Badge,’ she said.

‘I’m more of the undercover variety, so I don’t carry one. Bad for business.’

Her heart banged away inside her chest.

Ben licked his swollen, bloody lips. ‘I don’t expect you to take my word for it, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give you a number to call, and this person will explain the facts of life to you. You got a phone?’

She had left it inside the minivan. Driving to Belham, she had called Michael to tell him she was still at the hospital and wouldn’t be home until late; she asked him to give Carter a bath. She’d tossed the phone on the passenger seat and forgotten about it until now, her focus on tailing the BMW without being spotted.

‘A simple yes or no will do,’ Ben said.

‘My… ah… husband.’

‘Danny.’ Ben saying it as if they had been the closest of friends.

‘Why… you… ah… did you –’

‘The person you’re about to call will explain everything. Let me know when you’re ready to start dialling. If you don’t have a phone, you can borrow mine. It’s in my right-front pocket.’

Jamie didn’t move – was suddenly afraid to move. Something about the way Ben had shifted the tables on her, dictating what he wanted her to do in that calm voice of his, kept her feet planted.

‘Tell… me.’

‘The number is six one seven, two –’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Husband. Why?’

‘You’ve got to speak to my man. He can –’

‘No. You… ah… ah… explain.’

‘I understand you’re pissed and want your questions answered right now. Don’t begrudge you that in the least. I mean, you’ve prayed for this moment for a long time and want it to go your way.’