The Homewreckers(131)

Hattie stared in horror as Davis sat up and raised the gun and pointed it at Ribsy. She looked wildly around. A wheelbarrow with sacks of concrete mix stood nearby with a shovel balanced on top of the stack. She grabbed the shovel and blindly struck out at him with the back of it, raining blows at his head, his shoulders, and his abdomen. When he tried to shield his face with his arms, she slammed him again. Davis howled, and the pistol flew across the room, skidding a few feet away from Hattie.

She lunged for the gun, then stood and pointed it at him. “Don’t you fucking touch my dog again.”



* * *



“Ribsy, come!” Hattie said. He was crouched by Davis’s feet, growling. The dog looked back at her, hesitated, then trotted over to her side. She reached down and scratched his ears, keeping the gun trained on Davis.

Her legs were wobbling badly. She spied an empty five-gallon bucket of joint compound near the wheelbarrow and collapsed on top of it. Then she pulled out her phone.

Davis was moaning softly, cradling his bleeding hand close to his chest. “What are you doing?”

“Calling the detective who’s been looking for you.”

But before she could do that, her phone rang. It was Mo.

“You were supposed to call me back,” he said. “I was worried. Are you okay?”

“I am now,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “But I need to hang up and call the police.”

“Hattie? Where are you?”

“At the house next door. I’ll call you later. I swear.”

“Call nine-one-one. I’m coming out there.”

She ended the call but instead of dialing 911, she called Makarowicz.

“Hey,” she said, keeping the gun trained on Davis. “I found your guy.”

“You mean Hoffman? You found Davis Hoffman? Where are you? Is he still there? Are you okay?”

“I’m at that house just north of mine. The one under construction. I think he was hiding out here. Anyway, he pulled a gun on me, but then Ribsy jumped him, and I kinda beat him up with a shovel. Davis, I mean, not Ribsy. How soon can you get here?”

“On my way,” Makarowicz said.



* * *



“I would never have shot you,” Davis said. “You know me, Hattie. I would never.”

Hattie stared at him. Her thoughts flashed back to their early teen years. She remembered halcyon summer days at the beach, or out on Davis’s boat, the three of them, Hattie, Hank, and Davis.

“No. I don’t know you at all. I thought we were friends. You, me, Hank.”

“Truthfully? It was never about Hank. I just wanted to be close to you, Hattie.”

“What about Elise?” she asked.

“Elise was always the consolation prize. She knew it, I knew it. She wanted a kid; we both thought it would fix things. It didn’t. Nothing can fix me because I’m broken.”

His liquid brown eyes were pleading. “I came out here to kill myself. But there were too many people around. So I hid over here. Waiting for the right time. Tonight was the night. You should have let me do it.”

“Let you take the easy way out? Not on your life,” she said. Her hands were trembling so badly she had to prop her elbows up on her knees and grip the pistol with both hands.

“Will you tell me something?” she asked.

He rubbed at his forehead with his good hand. Even in the dim light she could see a huge lump forming. “Depends on what you want to know.”

“How did you know about the septic tank?”

“When we were nine or ten, Holland and I used to play army. We were best friends, played together all the time back then, when I was at my grandmother’s house, and he was at his. This was before I realized what a psycho he was. His grandmother had workers over there, draining the tank. Holland tricked me. He said I could be the American soldier, and I should jump down in the foxhole, and he’d be the Nazi, and then I should just pop up and shoot him. Next thing I know, he’s dragging a big sheet of plywood over and covering the pit. I was trapped. I couldn’t push it away. It was summertime and I was crying and begging him to let me out, and all the time, I could hear him up there, laughing his ass off. I don’t know how long he left me there. An hour? Eventually, he came back and let me out. But he told me if I ever ratted him out to my parents he’d sneak into my house and cut my throat with a knife. He was a sick little bastard, even then, and he grew up to be a sick, horny teenaged bastard.”

Hattie felt a twinge of sympathy for nine-year-old Davis, being bullied by Holland Creedmore. But then she remembered Lanier Ragan’s fate, and she felt the cold fury burning in the pit of her stomach.

“If it was an accident, how did Lanier’s skull get bashed in? You said she was screaming after she fell. The fall wasn’t what killed her.”

Davis was silent then. He dropped his head to his knees, and she saw his shoulders rise and fall as he wept.

She waited.

When he raised his head, tears glinted on his cheeks. “I was afraid he’d hear her. Holland. He’d been signaling her, with that stupid lantern. ‘Hurry. Hurry.’ We taught ourselves semaphore with an old book we found. Did you know that?”

“You haven’t answered my question. How did you kill her?”