Jurassic Dark, page 6
According to officials, it was Jersey—not aliens—that broke through the cooler door and wandered through town before he came in contact with the town’s beloved tree.
“It was like the beer gave him superhuman powers,” Patrolwoman Ackerman said. “He broke out of the cooler somehow. You should see the dent in the door. And then somehow…I don’t know how…he broke the darned tree clean in half. Have you seen it? Clean in half. Well, we don’t do things like that here in Goodnight. Tell your readers that. So, Mr. Jersey is going to spend some time behind bars for that one.”
Chapter 5
I jumped out of bed and stood an arm’s length away from Faye. She looked like she had been painted with a blood-soaked paintbrush.
“What happened?” I breathed, trying to stay calm. “Are you all right? Were you in a car accident? Are you hurt? Should I call an ambulance? Should I take you to the hospital?”
“I…I…” she said and fell back into her state of shock. I walked her into the bathroom and turned the shower on.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “All is well.”
I stripped her down, searching for injuries, but I didn’t find any. There wasn’t any blood on her body under her clothes. I got her in the shower, just as her shivering started. “Stay under the water until the chill is gone,” I told her.
She closed her eyes and put her head under the shower spray. I didn’t push her for information because I was worried that she was on the verge of a breakdown, and I wanted her to recover a little before I asked her any more questions. About five minutes under the hot water, Faye stopped shivering and began to weep.
I let her cry, her soft sobs coming in regular waves. Finally, after a few minutes, she slowed down, and I turned off the shower and wrapped her in a large towel.
She turned toward me. “Norton,” she croaked.
“What happened to Norton?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, as dread crept up my body.
“He’s gone.”
“Where did he go?”
Faye blinked and seemed to focus for the first time since she showed up in my bedroom. “Matilda. Gone. He’s gone. I woke up, and he was gone.”
“Gone,” I repeated. “You have to give me more details.”
Faye took my hands, and I noticed she was shaking, slightly. “Just as the party was winding down, I got very tired. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So, I went up to bed. Between you and me, I was also pretty angry, so I didn’t want to see Norton anymore. I just wanted to sleep. You understand?” I nodded. “So, I went to sleep. About fifteen minutes ago, I woke up. I felt something was wrong. Norton was on his back. He’s never on his back. He snores when he’s on his back, and he knows it wakes me so he only sleeps on his side. He loves me.”
Faye’s voice broke, and her tears began to flow, again, but she kept it together. “But he was on his back. I nudged him to move, and that’s when I realized that he wasn’t snoring even though he was on his back. He wasn’t making a sound. No sleeping sounds at all. I said, ‘Norton, you’re not making any sounds.’ I said it like an idiot, Matilda. Only an idiot says that. Why did I say that?”
I squeezed her hands to stop her loop. “Then what happened?” I asked.
“I touched him. He was wet. His whole belly and chest were wet. My hand petted his chest like he was a dog, and right in the center was a knife.”
“What do you mean, a knife? He had a knife on his chest?”
“No. He had a knife in his chest. And I said, ‘what did you do?’ I’m an idiot. I was scolding him, like he was stupid to stab himself in his chest.”
My mouth was open, and I had stopped breathing. “Norton stabbed himself?”
“Oh my God,” Faye uttered and ran for the toilet. She threw up with long heaving retches. I held her hair and rubbed her back until her body finally relaxed. She slumped onto the floor, and I sat by her.
“Did you call Amos? Did you call an ambulance?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“We have to do that. We have to call,” I insisted.
Faye wiped at her eyes, raised her face to the ceiling, and shook her head. “I can’t. He’ll arrest me. He’ll say I killed my husband.”
“Of course he won’t. You’re Faye Perkins. Everyone loves you. You’re a law-abiding citizen.”
“Don’t you know?” she asked me. “This has happened before.”
“What do you mean? Norton stabbed himself before?”
“No. My first husband. Five years ago. I woke up in the morning, and he had a knife in his chest.”
“He stabbed himself, too?” I asked, honestly shocked.
Faye grew impatient with me. “Nobody plunges a nine-inch blade into their chest, Matilda. He was murdered. They were murdered.”
“They were murdered,” I repeated, tasting the words on my tongue, not quite believing they could go together.
Tears started to flow, again, down Faye’s cheeks. “The man I love has been murdered, and I’m going to go to prison for the rest of my life.”
“With no toilet seats,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Listen, I’m sure Amos isn’t going to arrest you, but we need to call him and an ambulance. What if Norton wasn’t killed? I mean, what if someone tried to kill him, but he’s still alive?”
Faye wiped at her eyes. “What? Is that possible?” She seemed to think about it, and her face became flushed with hope.
“Let’s go,” she urged.
We argued about who was going to drive. Faye was convinced she could get us back to Goodnight UFOs faster, but in her emotional state, there was no way I was going to let her drive, so I won. She dressed in a pair of my yoga pants and a t-shirt, and we were parking in the parking lot about seven minutes later.
I turned off the motor. “Listen, Faye, we need to remain calm,” I told her. “Chill. So, you’re going to stay here, and I’m going to go in by myself. You’ve already been through enough trauma, so just stay here, and I’ll…”
She cut me off, opening her door and practically jumping out of the truck. I opened my door and tried to catch up to her, but she was running full-out toward Goodnight UFOs’ back door, and she was in infinitely better shape than I was. By the time I got to the door, she was already inside and running up the stairs to her apartment. I ran after her, huffing and puffing.
Boy, I really needed to start working out and eating right.
I heard her gasp and then a loud noise. I ran into Faye’s room and found her on the floor with her face in her hands. “I was hoping that I had dreamed it all,” she sobbed.
I was going to hug her, but that’s when I noticed Norton.
No, it wasn’t a dream. His large body was lying lifeless on the bed in a puddle of blood. The handle of a large knife was sticking out of his chest. Dry heaves threatened to start in my stomach, but I willed myself not to throw up.
I tiptoed to the bed. “Norton?” I whispered. He wasn’t breathing. His chest wasn’t moving. He wasn’t snoring. He was very dead.
Faye had been right. There was no way he could have plunged the knife so far into his chest. Someone had done it for him. A worrying thought stalked my brain. How could Faye have slept through her husband’s murder next to her in bed?
I felt instantly guilty about doubting one of my best friends. Faye was a wonderful, sweet woman, even if she was extremely talented with a nail gun. But was she talented with a large knife, too?
I shook my head to try and shake the suspicious, uncharitable thoughts out of my head. No use. They were in there like pickles in a jar.
It was hard to see one of my friends in this state. Dead. Murdered. I had seen several dead and murdered people and even spoken to some dead people since I had moved to Goodnight, but this was my first dead friend in Goodnight that I had come face to face with. My throat grew thick, and my eyes filled with tears.
“Norton?” I asked again, but he didn’t answer. He wasn’t breathing. He was as still as a stone, and it didn’t look like he was going to move any time soon. Despite the emotion and shock at seeing him with a knife lodged in his chest, I was aware enough to figure out that something was wrong with him.
“Something’s wrong with him,” I said out loud.
“You mean besides the knife in his chest?” Faye blubbered. She was weeping, and wiping her nose with the hem of the shirt I loaned her.
“There’s only one wound,” I said. “His hands are clean. It’s like he didn’t struggle. It’s like he laid there and let someone kill him and didn’t make a sound.”
Faye wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and shot a glance at her husband. “You’re right. And he doesn’t wear that for bed. That’s what he wore at the party. What does that mean, Matilda?”
I shrugged. She asked me like she expected me to give her an answer. I had no answer. None of it made sense, if I eliminated Faye as a suspect. And I was determined to eliminate her as a suspect.
I studied poor Norton closer while Faye retreated into the corner of the room, obviously not wanting to soak in the reality of her dead husband any longer. Leaning in closer to Norton, I felt for any air at all passing out of his nose. But there was nothing.
I put my hand on his forehead. “I’m so sorry that this happened to you,” I told him. “You deserved to live a long, happy life. I wish you were alive. I wish you weren’t dead. Hear that, universe? Norton shouldn’t be gone.”
Faye choked with sobs, and I left Norton to give her a hug. “It’ll be all right,” I told her, as I embraced her. “I don’t know how, but it’ll be all right.”
She wept for a moment, and then she emitted a strange, snorting sound. “Was that you?” she asked, lifting her head from my shoulder.
“I thought it was you.”
“It sounded like…”
There was another snorting sound, and we turned and stared at Norton. I could have sworn that neither Faye or I were breathing, but somehow, Norton was breathing. His chest was rising and falling in shallow but regular movements. He wasn’t making noise, anymore, but he was definitely alive. His coloring had even improved.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything,” I insisted. Once before, I had touched a dead woman, and she had come back to life. Recently, I had come to the conclusion that it had been a one-shot deal or a coincidence. I mean, it was enough that I had spoken to two dead girls. Bringing back the dead to life was a little over the top.
But here I was, once again.
“My husband’s alive,” Faye said, her mouth open and her eyes unblinking. “He was dead, and now he’s alive. It’s a miracle.”
“Maybe he was holding his breath or something,” I said like an idiot.
“Norton?” Faye said. “Norton, it’s Faye. Norton?”
But even though he was alive, he was unconscious. I would have bet money that he was in a deep coma, and if we waited around any longer without getting him medical care, he was going to return to being dead in a heartbeat.
If his heart was beating.
“Maybe the knife missed his heart,” I said. “I’m going to call 911.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, but Faye put her hand on it. “Wait,” she said.
“What do you mean, wait?”
“How about we just call Doc Greenberg?”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked her. “Norton needs a trauma center. He needs surgery. He needs all kinds of things. Not just a family doctor.”
Faye seemed to think about that for a second. “Okay, but just the paramedics. Don’t let the sheriff’s department know.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Faye, I don’t think this can remain a secret. Someone tried to kill your husband.”
Norton’s coloring had returned, but Faye’s coloring was fading fast. She looked like she had seen a ghost. “Please, Matilda. Amos will arrest me. I don’t want to go to prison. I don’t like enclosed spaces. That’s why I don’t fly. I can’t handle being locked inside the plane.”
“He won’t arrest you. You’re a law-abiding citizen, and everyone knows you and Norton are deeply in love. You guys have the best marriage I’ve ever seen. Sure, Amos will want to ask you questions, but no way will he put you in jail.”
“Yes, he will.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Yes, he will.”
“No, he won’t.”
“Yes, he will.”
“I’m getting dizzy. I need to get off this ride,” I said. “What do you mean, he will? Why will he? What do you know that I don’t know?”
Faye’s lips flattened until they almost disappeared. “Because of the other time,” she said, finally in a whisper.
“You mean the other husband? Was that true? I mean, that really happened?” I touched her shoulder. “Maybe you should think of your answer before you say anything. You’re in shock.”
“It happened with my first husband five years ago. I woke up in the morning, and he was dead. There was a knife in his chest. They didn’t arrest me that time because…do we really have time for this?”
No, we didn’t. Norton needed care fast. I called 911 and asked for the paramedics. On the phone, I remained vague about the knife. They arrived a couple minutes later and went right to work on Norton. They barely said a word because Norton needed care, and he needed to get to a trauma center in a hurry. Just as they had him on a stretcher and were wheeling him out, Amos entered the room.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded, as if I would know and the whole thing was my fault.
“Why ask me? Ask the paramedics. Ask Faye. Why do you always assume it has something to do with me?”
Amos’s eyebrows lifted high, and his mouth did a thing, which I took to mean that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
“Okay fine,” I said. “Faye woke up to him like that, and she got me, and we came back, and he was dead.”
“Dead? He’s not dead,” Amos said.
“No, not anymore. He was dead and then he became undead.”
“He became undead,” Amos repeated like I belonged in a room with mattresses lining the walls.
“You know, he was dead and then he wasn’t. It wasn’t my fault. Yes, I touched him, but that’s it. He snorted, and then we knew he wasn’t dead anymore. It wasn’t my fault. So, I called 911. It wasn’t my fault. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Faye.” I wiped sweat off my forehead. “Where’s Faye? Faye?”
There was no sign of her. She had vanished.
“Did you see her?” I asked Amos.
“No. Since I got here, I only saw you, the paramedics, and poor Norton. The paramedics saw her, but she disappeared after that.”
“But she was here. She... Oh my God. She’s running. She was worried you were going to arrest her. You’re not going to arrest her, are you? There’s a perfectly good explanation for all this.”
But of course, there wasn’t. There wasn’t a perfectly good explanation or even a crappy explanation. Now that Faye had fled the scene of the crime, there was only one explanation. I hated to believe it, but I had to.
“It’s not what you think,” I told Amos. “I refuse to believe it. I don’t believe it.”
Amos stepped forward, making me back up until I was against the wall. “Listen, here,” he said, seriously. His voice was low and gravelly. He was big and muscular. Impressive and imposing. “If you see her, you call me. She’s in big trouble, and we don’t want her to be in bigger trouble.”
He had a point. Although, I doubted she could get into bigger trouble. Trouble didn’t get bigger than this, as far as I knew.
“I’ll call you.” I didn’t know if I was lying or not. I was confused. The situation was fluid and way over my head. “But no way Faye killed Norton. Faye loved Norton.”
Amos gave me a pointed look. “Faye was in a fist fight with a woman last night. A fight over Norton.”
“Oh,” I said. “I forgot about that.”
“And I heard she said something about plunging a long knife into the other woman’s chest,” Amos continued. “Maybe she decided it would be better to use the knife on a closer victim.”
I had forgotten about that. Faye was talking about murdering Christine with a knife.
“The only thing she has going for her is that last night’s clusterfuck was so crazy that there’s no shortage of suspects,” Amos said. “Maybe I can shake the trees and get the heat off of Faye. But that’s a long shot. So, prepare yourself.”
“Shake the trees,” I repeated. If he could shake the trees, maybe I could shake the trees. “That JoBeth woman is definitely suspicious,” I suggested. Yes, I was being a catty, jealous woman, but it would have been fabulous if JoBeth was a psycho killer and on her way to the slammer and out of my hair.
Amos flicked my forehead.
“Ouch!” I yelled and pushed at him, but he was made of granite and didn’t budge. “What was that for?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’ve got that look.”
“You mean a supermodel look? I know. My beauty is a burden.”
Amos shook his head. “No, not the supermodel look. The Jessica Fletcher look. You need to stay out of this one.”
“Usually you like me butting in,” I said.
“Not when your best friend is a person of interest. And that JoBeth woman. Stay away from her. You hear me? Stay out of this. Don’t butt in. I mean it. I really, really mean it. Supermodel look or not, I’ll put you behind bars until this is over. You hear me?”
“Do they have toilet seats in jail?” I asked.
Amos shook his head. “And you get one shower a week. And no conditioner for your hair.”
I gasped. “Okay, I won’t butt in,” I said, but crossed my fingers behind my back in order to hedge my bets. Anyway, Norton would probably wake up soon and clear this all up.
