Eight Perfect Murders(72)

I overtook her but stayed in my lane. The overpass was coming up fast and I was imagining scenarios. What if I nudged her, edging my own car into her lane? Would she let us collide, spin out together, and go over the edge? Down deep, I knew that she wouldn’t. My wife avoided collisions. That didn’t stop her from wrecking her own life, but I knew that if I pulled into her lane, she’d swerve to avoid me.

I did it. I cut diagonally across in front of her when we were barreling along the overpass, and she did exactly what I thought she’d do. She drove right off the edge.



Back at home, I waited for the police to arrive. They showed up at eight in the morning to tell me that my wife was dead. It was a relief, of course. I’d been worried that maybe I’d injured her in some horrible way. I’d also been worried that maybe she’d killed someone else when her car had landed on the road below. But she hadn’t, and for that I was also grateful.



It’s a funny thing grieving for someone you’ve murdered. In the beginning my sadness was coupled with an enormous guilt. I kept wondering if I’d simply let Claire drive home that night what would have happened next. Maybe she’d have asked me to check her into a rehabilitation center, said that she’d hit bottom, and wanted to get better. Or maybe she’d have kept returning to Atwell for drugs, and I’d have let her do it. Just waiting around, hoping she might change.

Reading her diary helped. There was such a clear villain in the story of Claire and me, and that villain was Eric Atwell. Finding a way to kill him got me through the worst of my grief, and then time did its trick. I haven’t gotten over it, but it did get easier. I bought the store and immersed myself in work. Even though I stopped reading crime novels myself—violent death loomed too large in them—I knew enough to help my customers. I was a bookseller, and I was good at it. That was enough.





Chapter 31




The phone rang, and then switched over to voice mail. I hit end on my cell phone and was about to destroy the phone when it buzzed. Gwen Mulvey was calling back.

“Hey.”

“What’s going on?” she said.

“Have you heard anything?”

“Anything about what?”

“There’s a dead man in Boston. His name is Marty Kingship, and he’s Charlie. He’s our Charlie. He killed Robin Callahan, Ethan Byrd, and Jay Bradshaw. And he killed Bill Manso and Elaine Johnson, and one night ago he killed Nicholas Pruitt in New Essex, Massachusetts.”

“Slow down,” she said. “Where is he now? You said he’s dead?”

“I just called 911 and gave them the address. They should be on the way.”

“Who killed him?”

“I did. I shot him late last night. More like this morning. He was going to kill Brian and Tess Murray and make it look like the murder from The Red House Mystery.”

“Who was he?”

“He’d been a police officer in Smithfield, Massachusetts. He’d retired and was living in Boston. He also killed Eric Atwell. He did it for me. I asked him to. That’s how this whole thing started. It’s my fault, really. I started it. Marty was insane, but I started it.”

“You’re going to need to slow down, Mal. Where are you right now? Can I come to you?”

For one brief moment I thought about it. Thought about seeing Gwen again just one more time. But I also knew that there was no way to do that without ending up in a holding cell, and I had decided a long time ago that I would never willingly allow that to happen.

I said, “Sorry, no. And I can’t talk long. As soon as we’re done here, I’m getting rid of this cell phone. I have five minutes. What do you want to know?”

I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Are you hurt?” she said.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Did you know it was him all along?”

“Marty? No, I didn’t. We planned it all online, and never gave each other our identities. He figured out who I was, then found my list, and started using it. I only figured out who he was last night. If I’d known earlier, I would have told you.”

“You said Nicholas Pruitt is dead. That’s the name you gave me, right? Last time we talked?”

“I thought that Pruitt might have been Charlie, but he wasn’t. He died from an overdose of alcohol and some kind of drug. Check the house for Kingship’s prints. They’ll probably be there.”

“Good lord.”

“Look, when you talk with the investigators on this case, just tell them that I called you with this information. You don’t need to say that you came and found me in Boston. I want you to get your job back.”

“I’m not sure that’ll happen.”

“I think it will. You’ll get some credit for figuring out that the list and the murders were connected. Give them the information they don’t have. He killed Eric Atwell, with a gun he said he took from a crime scene. Tell them we met on a website called Duckburg. You’ll be fine.”

“I have a lot more questions.”

“I have to go. Sorry, Gwen.”

“Can I ask you one more, then?”

“Of course,” I said. I knew what it would be.

“What happened to my father? Did Marty kill Steve Clifton?”