Shoot / Don't Shoot

“I think so. This morning, before I went looking for Madeline Bellerman, I went by the hospital to see Leann Jessup. I ended up talking to her friend, Kimberly George.”

“Her ex-lover, you mean.”

“Current, not ex,” Carol returned. “Kimberly told me that after she saw you on the news with Leann, she realized she was wrong, that she wanted to get back together.”

“When she saw the two of us?” Joanna echoed. “But I’m not—”

“I know,” Carol said. “Don’t worry about it. I told Kimberly that this morning. But on Wednes­day evening, Kim evidently stopped by Leann’s room on the APOA campus to see if they could patch things up. I don’t know how explicit their reconciliation was, but I think Larry Dysart saw what was happening. He saw one more chance to add to his collection, this time with a deceased Dave Thompson holding the bag.

“I’d like to think that it wouldn’t have worked, that we would have been smarter than that. And I think Larry was beginning to fall apart. That’s what happens to guys like that. They convince themselves that they’re all-powerful and that the cops are too stupid to figure it out. They kill at shorter and shorter intervals until finally their fuses blow.”

Another long silence fell between the two women. “Who were the others?” Joanna asked fi­nally. “Were they all from around here?”

Carol shook her head. “I believe we’ll find they’re from other parts of the country and that the mur­ders took place over a number of years. Larry Dy­sart knocked around some, working pickup jobs here and there. We’re currently checking with other jurisdictions where he either lived or traveled. Only one other case—number five—for sure happened anywhere around here. When that victim died, her death was listed as natural causes. You’ll never guess who that one was.”

“Who?” Joanna asked, wanting to know and yet feeling a sense of dread as she waited for Carol’s answer.

“Emily Dysart Morgan,” she said. “Larry’s mother. She was an Alzheimer’s patient right here in Peoria. She disappeared from a nursing home during a rainstorm in the dead of summer four years ago. Everyone assumed she had died of natural causes and had been washed down the Agua Fria. Her body was never found. Until today.”

“Today?”

Carol Strong nodded, her mouth grim. “Today wasn’t the first time Larry used Tommy Tomp­kins’s vapor-barrier-wrapped bomb shelter. With Jenny and Ceci, it didn’t work, thank God, but with Larry’s mother, I’d say it did.”

Butch Dixon came around the bar. “Are you off duty now?” he asked Carol Strong.

“Yes.”

“What can I get you to drink, then? It’s on the house.”

“Whiskey,” Carol Strong said. “Jack Daniel’s straight up.”

By Sunday afternoon, as the Bradys were packing up to go back to Bisbee, Joanna already knew that the remainder of her APOA session would be post­poned until after the first of the year. “So why can’t you come home today?” Jenny insisted.

“Because I need to pick up my stuff from the dorm,” Joanna answered. “And that won’t be available until tomorrow morning. Not only that, Dave Thompson’s funeral is scheduled for tomorrow af­ternoon. I should go to that.”

“All right,” Jenny said. “But I wish you were coming with us today.”

“So do I,” Joanna said.

The next morning, Joanna had