The Killing Kind

I opened the door as she reached the first step to the porch. “Take a wrong turn, Mrs. Mercier?” I asked.

“One of us has,” she replied, “and I think it might be you.”

“I never catch a break. I see those two roads diverging in a forest, and damn if I don't take the one that ends at a cliff edge.”

We stood about ten paces apart, eyeing each other up like a pair of mismatched gunfighters. Deborah Mercier couldn't have looked more like a WASP if her coat had been striped with yellow and her eyes had been on the sides of her head. She removed her glasses and those pale blue eyes held all the warmth of the Arctic Sea, the pupils tiny and receding like the bodies of drowned sailors sinking into their depths.

“Would you like to come inside?” I asked. I turned away and heard her footsteps on the wood behind me. They stopped before they reached the door. I looked back at her and saw her nostrils twitch a little in mild disgust as her gaze passed over the interior of my home.

“If you're waiting for me to carry you over the threshold, I ought to tell you that I have a bad back and we might not make it.”

Her nostrils twitched a little more and her eyes froze over entirely, trapping the pupils at the size of pinpoints. Then, carefully, the heels of her black pumps making a sound like the clicking of bones on the floorboards, she followed me into the house.

I led her to the kitchen and offered her coffee. She declined, but I went ahead and started making a pot anyway. I watched as she opened her coat and sat down, revealing a tight black formal dress that ended above her knees. Her legs, like the rest of her, looked good for forty-something. In fact, she would have looked good for forty, and not bad for thirty-five. She removed a pack of cigarettes from her bag and lit up with a gold Dunhill lighter. She took a long drag on the cigarette, then blew a thin stream of smoke through her pursed lips.

“Feel free to smoke,” I said.

“If I was concerned, I'd have asked.”

“If I was concerned, I'd make you put it out.”

Her head turned a little to one side, and she smiled emptily. “So you think you can make people do what you want?”

“I believe we may have that in common, Mrs. Mercier.”

“It's probably the only thing we do have in common, Mr. Parker.”

“Here's hoping,” I replied. I brought the coffee pot to the table and poured myself a cup.

“On second thought, I will have some of that coffee,” she said.

“Smells good, doesn't it?”

“Or maybe everything else in here smells so bad. You live alone?”

“Just me and my ego.”

“I'm sure the two of you are very happy together.”

“Ecstatic.” I found a second cup and filled it, then took a carton of skimmed milk from the refrigerator and placed it between us.

“I'm sorry, I don't have any sugar.”

She reached into her bag again and produced some Sweet'n Low. She added it to the coffee and stirred it before tasting it carefully. Since she didn't fall to the floor clutching her throat and gasping, I figured it was probably okay. She didn't say anything for a time; she just sipped and smoked.

“Your house needs a woman's touch,” she said at last, as she took another drag on her cigarette. She held in the smoke until I thought it would come out her ears.

“Why, you do cleaning as well?”

She didn't reply. Instead, she finally released the smoke and dropped the remains of the cigarette into the coffee. Classy. She didn't learn that at the Madeira School for Girls.

“I hear you were married once.”

“That's right, I was.”

“And you had a child, a little girl.”

“Je

“And now your wife and child are dead. Somebody killed them, and then you killed him.”

I didn't respond. My silence didn't appear to concern Mrs. Mercier.

“That must have been very hard for you,” she continued. There was no trace of sympathy in her voice but her eyes were briefly thawed by what might have been amusement.

“Yes, it was.”

“But you see, Mr. Parker, I still have a marriage, and I still have a child. I don't like the fact that my husband has hired you, against my wishes, to investigate the death of a girl who has nothing to do with our lives. It is disturbing my relationship with my husband, and it is interfering with the preparations for my daughter's wedding. I want it to stop.”

I noticed the emphasis on “my” daughter but didn't comment. For the final time, she took something from her handbag. It was a check.

“I know how much my husband paid you,” she said, passing the folded check across the table toward me, her red nails like eagle's talons dipped in a rabbit's blood. “I'll pay you the same amount to walk away.”

She withdrew her hand. The check lay on the table between us, looking lonely and unloved.

“I don't believe you're so wealthy that you can afford to turn down that kind of money, Mr. Parker. You were willing to take it from my husband, so you should have no difficulty in accepting it from me.”

I made no move for the check. Instead, I poured myself some fresh coffee. I didn't offer any to Mrs. Mercier. I guessed from the floating cigarette butt that she'd had enough.

“There's a difference. Your husband was buying my time, and whatever expertise I could offer. You, on the other hand, are trying to buy me.”

“Really? Then, under the circumstances, my offer is particularly generous.”

I smiled. She smiled back. From a distance-a really long distance-we might have looked like we were having a good time. It seemed like the right moment to put an end to that misapprehension.

“When did you find out that Grace was your husband's child?” I asked. I experienced a brief surge of satisfaction as her face paled, and her head rocked back a little as if she'd been slapped.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she replied, but she didn't sound convincing.

“For a start, there's the breakup of your husband's partnership with Curtis Peltier seven months before her birth and his willingness to spend a significant amount of money employing me to investigate the circumstances of her death. Then, of course, there's the resemblance. It must have been like a kick in the guts every time you saw her, Mrs. Mercier.”

She stood up and grabbed the check from the table. “You're a mean bastard,” she hissed.

“That might hurt a little more if it came from somebody else, Mrs. Mercier, but not from you.” I reached forward suddenly and clamped her wrist tightly in my right hand. For the first time, she looked scared.

“It was you, wasn't it? It was you who told Grace about the Fellowship. Did you set her on their trail knowing what they would do to her? I don't believe that your husband said anything to her about it, and her thesis dealt with the past, not the present, so there was no reason for her to start prying into the organization. But you must have been aware of what your husband was doing, of the moves he was making against them. What did you say to her, Mrs. Mercier? What information did you give her that led those people to kill her?”

Deborah Mercier bared her teeth at me and her fingernails raked across the back of my hand, immediately drawing blood. “I'll make sure my husband ruins your life for what you just said to me,” she snarled, as I released her hand.

“I don't think so. I think when he finds out that you sent his daughter to her death, then it's your life that won't be worth living.”

I stood as she snatched up her bag and started for the hallway. Before she could reach the kitchen door, I blocked her with my arm.

“There's one more thing you should know, Mrs. Mercier. You and your husband have set in motion a chain of events that you can't control. There are people out there who are prepared to kill to protect themselves. So you should be glad that your husband is paying me because, as of now, I'm the best chance you have of finding those people before they come after both of you.”