Dust to Dust

nursing homes for almost sixty years, what did you expect?”

Diane looked at the others, then at Tyler.

“Everett’s sister, Maybelle Agnes Gauthier, your great-aunt, had a unique way of making her pottery. She used human bone from people she enticed Everett to kill. The sixteen-year-old Everett chopped them up and boiled the parts so she could render the bones into dust to temper the clay for her pottery. Nice little family, huh?” said Diane. “We found some of the bodies in the well, along with Everett’s bloody fingerprints on the tools and in the clay.”

Everett Walters was shaking now. Diane couldn’t tell if it was from anger or from the fear that came with revelation.

“That’s what you brought into your house, Wendy,” said Diane, “a monster who had access to your son. And he brought him to this. This is why I have sympathy with Tyler, Marsha. He didn’t have a chance, under the influence of someone like Everett.”

“Shut up. Shut your damn hole, you bitch. Shut your damn mouth.” Everett was shaking his fist at Diane.

“You,” said Wendy, “have the nerve to tell her to shut up, you monster. Look what you’ve done.”

Everett ignored Wendy, but continued to stare at Diane. “I’ll kill you, if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll kill you and you’ll know it’s coming. I’ll chop you up while you are still alive. You’ll feel everything. You bitch. You bitch. You’ll feel every cut.”

“See, Tyler, this isn’t you,” said Diane.

But Tyler had passed out.

Chapter 62

When Diane looked back at Everett Walters, he was pointing a gun at her.

Well, hell.

“Now it’s time to pay the piper,” he said.

“Oh God, Tyler,” yelled Wendy.

She stood up and started toward her unconscious son. As she crossed in front of Everett, she didn’t see the blow from the pistol butt coming to the back of her head. Wendy reeled forward and fell, crashing into the table, rolling off it onto the floor at Marsha’s feet. For a moment, Diane thought Marsha was going to kick her. Wendy struggled to get to her feet. She looked seriously hurt.

“Just lie there,” said Diane. “Until you get your breath.”

Ross Kingsley stood and faced Everett. “This may seem like a good idea to you now, but you’re very angry. I understand that. Take a moment and think about this. It will do you no good to cut off your nose to spite your face,” he said.

“It won’t be my nose I’ll be cutting off,” he said. “You and the woman are do- gooders. I know your type. You take care of people too yellow to take care of themselves. So this is why I’m going to tell you, I’ll be shooting these other folks first. I’ll shoot my worthless daughter-in-law right now unless you sit down. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Kingsley hesitated a moment, then sat down. Diane guessed he was trying to think of something else to say. Right now, Everett wasn’t in the mood to listen.

All the guns were across the room with Tyler, except the one in Everett’s hand and the one under the sofa. Diane tried to think of a plan to get her hands on one of them. She didn’t see how she could do it fast enough.

But maybe Wendy could. She was still on the floor and Diane could see her looking under the couch. She saw the gun; Diane was sure. But the coffee table was between her and the sofa. Everett would cut her down if she tried. Maybe if there was a diversion.

“Apparently, it’s me you want to, how did you put it, chop up in little pieces? Why don’t you leave these people alone?” Diane said, standing up and facing him.

“All full of piss and vinegar, aren’t you? Think you can make your move once we get away from these people here? I know how your mind’s working.” He tapped his finger on his temple. “It’s not going to go like that. No, I’m not going to drop my guard. You aren’t going to get off, not after what you’ve done.”

“Don’t like being outed as a serial killer?” said Diane. She stepped toward him.

“Shut up. When I tell you to shut that damn hole of yours, I mean it,” he said.

He started backing slowly toward the entrance to the living room, pointing his gun at Diane’s head.

“Any one of you so much as looks like you’re going to stand up is going to get it. I can shoot her and any one of you before you dive for the guns. Now, we are going out. You try and follow, she’s dead and I’ll take my chances. Are we all on the same page?”

He looked back at Diane, who stood a few feet away from him.

“Still got that mind working, don’t you, girlie? Thinking about doing a dive like Wendy?” he said.

Diane was thinking of something like that. Diving at him quickly, knocking him off his feet before he could shoot. But he was too alert to a move like that now. If he was taking her to another location, he had to get her out of the house, across the yard, and into a vehicle. He would have to let his guard down at some point.

“Don’t do it,” said Everett. “It won’t work. Now, very slowly, I want you to step-”

Crash!

Everett fell to the floor, a pink guitar careening away from the spot where his head had been a moment before.

“That’s for my sister,” said Samantha.

She hit him again on the head with the solid hardwood guitar.

“That’s for making me ruin my Fender Stratocaster guitar. I’ll send you the bill.”

She kicked him in the back.

“That’s for ruining my family.”

Diane grabbed the gun that had fallen from his hand.

“Play much baseball?” Diane asked Samantha.

“No, but I have a mean golf swing,” she said, and hugged Diane.

Diane turned in time to see Kingsley on his feet, hitting Samuel Carruthers in the jaw with his fist. Kingsley knocked him against a hutch filled with china that crashed on the shelves. He picked up the guns and turned to face Carruthers, who was struggling to his feet.

“What happened?” asked Diane, keeping an eye on Everett Walters as she spoke.

“He was going after the gun,” said Kingsley. “He was planning on shooting one of them. I’ve been watching him.”

“You’re crazy. I’m going to sue,” Carruthers said. He stood, scowling at Kingsley, his bathrobe askew, showing his gray boxer shorts and T-shirt. He rubbed his jaw and ran a hand through his uncombed hair.

“I saw it,” said Kingsley. “You telegraphed your intentions. You’ve been sitting there stewing over your helplessness. And now that everything’s over, you were going to get a gun and shoot one of the people responsible for your daughter’s death. Now that they were helpless and you could do it in safety.”

“How dare you,” began Marsha, retying her own robe. “You come in here and disrupt our lives.”

Kingsley ignored her.

“If you want to be a man, take care of your family. The two of you have been self-indulgent so long, you’ve forgotten that you have another daughter. Get out of the computer games and quit sitting staring at your dead daughter’s painting and drinking yourself into oblivion. Look at the two of you. Your daughter just came in and saved your sorry ass and all you can think of is how to make yourself feel like a man. Did either of you go to her just now? And while I’m at it, do you know she found Stacy Dance’s body? Do you know what that kind of thing does to a person?” said Kingsley.

Marsha whimpered and looked at her daughter. “Samantha? How could she have found her? That doesn’t make sense.”

“There’s going to be a lot in your world that doesn’t make sense for a while,” said Kingsley. “Start by getting sober and talking to your daughter like an adult. And thank her for saving us all.”

“Well said,” whispered Diane.