Premise of Innocence, page 34
“Yes. I see.”
She tried to look around the edge to see what she’d painted while keeping it visible to him. She shifted to get more light on it through the open door to the hallway.
“Doesn’t it show you just what I said about Natalie?”
“It shows a lot. Difference is, you’re talking about seeing Natalie. I see you. In this painting, in all of them. That night at Mikey’s, the night we sat at the picnic table while you drew and I talked—”
“I talked, too. About art.”
“Yeah. You said it made sense of what you see around you.”
She blinked at him. “It does. It always did. I wonder if that’s why when Chad insisted I give it up, I sort of went off the rails of myself for a while. I was trying so hard to be what he wanted. To have the family— I know. My cousins would say that family didn’t exist. That I made it up in my head. You don’t need to say it.”
“Wasn’t what I was going to say. I thought that night that you didn’t see what other people saw and that was because it was you seeing it. You put yourself into your art. I told myself then that I didn’t say it because it would make you uncomfortable.
“Truth is, it would’ve made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t the man you drew. I’m even less that man now.”
She stared at him. “You’re wrong. You were and you are.”
“Well, isn’t this touching.”
Rachel Northcutt.
Before her first word was out, he’d pushed Ally behind the crate, out of Rachel’s sight and the aim of the gun she held.
“And isn’t that even more touching? Proving Ally right that you’re some kind of hero, huh? Not that it’s going to make any difference. You’ll notice I’m at the doorway. With my weapon drawn, while yours — which I’m quite sure you have — is not. You can’t get it out, you can’t get past me. I shoot you, then I shoot her, one-two.
“You might as well come out, Ally.”
Ally hadn’t learned much from Chad about guns, but enough to recognize a substantial handgun with a suppressor on it.
Rachel sighed as if in deep disappointment. “This has been a long time coming, I’m afraid.”
Ally inhaled sharply. “You only volunteered to help after Chad was shot to go through his things. What were you looking for?”
“Records. At least that tells me you never found them. I wondered about that.”
“That’s what you fought with Chad about at the Sunday brunch.”
“Very good. I realized you wouldn’t defy Iris. I relaxed and took it slow. Got through a lot of stuff over the years. Eliminated all the best possibilities. But you were coming out of it, whether you knew it or not. The stuff with your cousins the past year and a half was pulling you more and more out of the Northcutt Triangle. Iris saw it. Drove her mad. I saw it. And I prepared.”
“Wait a minute. How did you get in? I changed the locks.”
She scoffed. “And left the keys on the counter when I helped you the next weekend. Said I was going out for takeout, took the keys and detoured to duplicate the keys. You never even knew they were gone.”
Why was Rachel talking like this? Putting off what she intended to do?
“But why shoot him? You and Chad were always close.”
“Close? He tormented me as a kid. I used him as an adult. Then he thought he could start ordering me around. Killing him was the only reasonable solution to protect my position.” She looked away from her.
Rachel didn’t want to do this — she seemed to genuinely like Ally — but she would.
And she didn’t have any trouble looking at Landis.
“Protect your position how? If you were both doing the same thing?”
“We were not doing the same thing. I selected a few spread-out targets for a specific goal.”
“The townhouse.”
She didn’t bother to confirm. “Chad, undisciplined as always, scattered-gunned, involved more idiots, and then thought he was going to tell me we weren’t stopping when I said we were. He thought he could dictate to me. I only took him in because I needed a short-term boost.”
“How did his taking people’s money give you a boost?”
“Consider it a franchise fee.”
“What do you think, Bel?” Landis asked loudly, focusing over Rachel’s shoulder to the hallway.
She sneered at him. “Right. Like I’m supposed to turn around to see if your partner’s behind me.”
Ally looked from him back to Rachel. Her voice shook with the same vibration as her accelerated heartbeat. “But… how did you have time? If you did the break-in at the house looking for Chad’s notebook, how could you have been at the Fairlington Courthouse trying to kill me? Because you were on-duty later, when the department learned about Chad’s condition deteriorating.”
“You think I shot at you at the courthouse? I’ll shoot you now, but I didn’t shoot at you there.”
“But—”
“I did.”
Iris Northcutt held a large, old-fashioned handgun, pointed at Ally.
It shook, even in her two-handed hold.
Rachel moved over, making room for the older woman, whose focus never left her daughter-in-law.
“You said he was dead. You told 911 he was dead. You—”
“I thought he was. All that… damage.”
The older woman hadn’t heard. “—wanted him to be dead. And I vowed that day that when you got your wish and my son truly was dead, that I would kill you.”
“I never wanted him dead and I’m sorry I said that. But what I said didn’t change anything. They did everything they could. You know they did. Just as he fought as hard as he could to keep living.
“He did and you did and, whether you believe it or not, I fought, too. Hoping he would recover. Because if he did, I could leave him. I could start a new life. Otherwise, I was tied to him in ways I could never escape.”
“Escape? You?” Her voice shook with venom. “Escape. You were never good enough for him. Never deserved him or to be a Northcutt.”
She raised the gun again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Rachel snapped.
She wrenched the gun from Iris with a one-handed hold on her wrist that made the older woman howl with pain.
Landis’ muscles tightened, but he didn’t lunge. There wasn’t time before Rachel dropped Iris’ gun in her pocket and was focused on him again. Her aim at him had never wavered.
“Why did you do that?” Iris held her right wrist in her left palm. “I told you I’m going to shoot her.”
“Not with that thing you’re not. We’d have everybody in a square mile here in seconds with the noise that thing would make.”
“You knew Iris planned to shoot Ally,” Landis said.
“Now or at the courthouse?” She smirked. “I knew she said she meant to shoot at her. Never thought the crazy old lady would actually try, and if she did try, there was no reason on earth to think she’d hit her. Uncle David taught her to shoot back in the dark ages and she hasn’t practiced since. Ally wasn’t in any danger. Then.”
“Yet you chose that day to go into Ally’s house and check for the records. Like there was urgency, which there would have been if Iris killed Ally, because then other people — especially Iris, assuming she got away with it, but alternatively Ally’s family — would have access to the house and potentially go through the few things you hadn’t yet checked. All this time after shooting Chad, you’d finally know for sure.”
“After shooting… You? You shot my Chad?” Iris screeched.
“Be quiet. He’s trying to confuse you. We’ll talk about this later, Iris.”
“She did, Iris,” Ally said. “She shot Chad, then drove away and left him bleeding on the driveway.”
“I don’t know,” Landis said, “that sounds a lot like cause and effect to me.”
“Cause and eff—? Stop that, Iris. Stop.”
But Iris continued to claw at Rachel’s gun-holding hand, distracting her as Rutherford Belichek came around her other side and neatly disarmed her.
He also snapped the handcuffs around her wrists.
Tanner Landis put the cuffs on Iris Northcutt.
“I cooperated,” Rachel shouted as she was led out. “Remember that. You wouldn’t have flushed out Iris without me. And I never shot at Ally.”
“Yeah,” Bel said under his breath, “thanks a lot for that.”
* * * *
“The right murder suspect is like the perfect utility knife — it solves all your problems, answers all your needs. That’s what Rachel did,” Landis said, answering a question from Jamie.
They were all in the break room at Fairlington PD, with Ally and Tanner enjoying the freedom of being out of their body armor, while waiting for the tech to set up so they could listen to Danolin’s just concluded interview of Rachel Northcutt.
Nobody had questions about Iris Northcutt’s actions or motivations.
“Solves all your problems. Might use that line someday,” Maggie said.
“As long as I get credit,” Landis said. “Rachel answered the need for someone who knew the routine on Gardington Road. Who knew the areas of the county to jack a tinted-window car and dispose of it, who knew the routes to avoid security cameras and the perfect spot to dispose of it.
“She also answered the major question of why do nothing for four and a half years, then begin to act. Because she had been acting all along by searching all along.”
Bel picked it up. “At first, she’d thought she had what she needed — Chad’s little black book of crime. Except what she took off him after shooting him was a new book after he thought he lost the old one.”
“Thought? Didn’t he lose it?”
“Misplaced it. He put it under the bed, tucked into a strap under the mattress. That was his line about keeping it close to his heart — that’s where his heart was when he slept. Except Ally had been stowing her sketch book under the bed, too. He unknowingly slid his book into the sketch book.
“Ally took that sketchbook to the storage locker during her preparations to leave him, not knowing his notebook was jammed inside. She found it on our first trip to the locker today.”
“Okay, and I get that Chad wouldn’t quit, but shooting him?”
“She ran the group, taking a cut, using Chad as her visible lieutenant — no one else knew who the leader was. She had a specific goal — to get her own place without the Northcutt family trust, because Iris was holding tight to those funds. When Rachel achieved that, then got first one promotion, then more, she had a lot to lose. And — unlike the others — she’d used the money carefully, so she didn’t need more.
“Chad wasn’t about to stop with his mother and girlfriend to support. Plus, he’d pulled his buddies in.”
“And Mark Junior? Was he in it? Is that why he came over that Sunday? To try to make peace between his cousins?” Jamie asked.
“We don’t think so. His finances show no sign of other income.”
“If he was stealing,” Landis added, “he’s the worst thief ever, because he has nothing to show for it. Neither Rachel or Chad thought he was smart enough to include. They also might not have been sure he’d go along.”
“But she said she was at the dentist, how did she break in to Ally’s house Tuesday?” Jamie objected.
“She lied,” Landis said. “Never thought anybody would check. We checked. What we didn’t expect was Iris showing up.”
“That’s why Rachel kept talking. She expected Iris. I had no idea, but you saw her, didn’t you, Tanner?” Ally asked.
“I saw a shadow in the hallway that wasn’t Belichek.”
“Because I wouldn’t have been sloppy enough to let you see my shadow.”
“Because you would’ve had to shrink. A bunch.”
“And then he used the cause-and-effect line to really get Bel to move, reminding him of Tanner’s insight about there being two actors,” Ally said.
She saw a few grins at her praise, but didn’t mind, because he winked at her.
“Here we go,” the tech said. “Missed the beginning, unless you want me to rewind.”
“We’ll rewind if we need to.”
Rachel’s voice came.
“…and he was out of control. Plus, I knew Ally was getting ready to leave. Chad didn’t see the signs — too caught up in the wonderfulness of Chad to ever think she’d actually do it. When she finally got up the gumption, I was ready, because he would have lost his mind, along with every bit of self-preservation or protection of the operation. He’d have bulldozed and blundered, gouging and crashing through my careful wall of protection. Might have killed her, too. And then the investigative spotlight would have been turned on him full-force. Couldn’t have that.
“Better, far, far better to kill him. Sure, they looked into some of his cases looking for suspects. But I’d covered my tracks. And a word here and there pushed Wampler farther off.”
Rachel looked no different. She seemed at ease.
“What were you searching for?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. You know what. Or if you don’t, Landis and Belichek do. If they didn’t tell you, I don’t hold out much hope for your career.” Her sneer faded. “I couldn’t find his damned records. Only knew he’d kept any after he got drunk and started threatening me — as if he were in charge. I thought I had them when I took the notebook from his pocket, but it was almost new, just a few days’ worth. He’d had another one somewhere. I had to find that.”
Jamie whispered, “Why is she talking now?”
“Common trait with Chad — ego,” Bel said.
“Iris bought you time with her refusal to let anything change in the house.”
“Fat lot of good it did me. All that work for nothing. I should have known Chad wouldn’t have hidden anything that well. The first search should have turned up anything he stashed. But I couldn’t count on that. I kept thinking maybe the next time, the next thing I checked, I’d find it.”
“Until Tuesday.”
“Yeah. When the news came about Chad finally getting ready to die, which meant Iris was going to be otherwise occupied—”
“Trying to kill Ally,” Maggie growled.
“—and you’d all be frantic in Fairlington, then converging on Chad, giving me time to search again. He said he kept it close to his heart. I figured his house or that other woman’s place. Willow’s was a breeze. Had it covered the first week after he died. In and out whenever I wanted. Found stuff I can’t unsee, but nothing of his.
“Worked through the house methodically. But with Chad failing… Then I thought about that line about his heart again. The jewelry box, in case he was being sentimental. Literal with the underwear drawer — undershirts for covering his heart and shorts because from the time he hit puberty that was the closest thing to his heart. All that crap still there because of Aunt Iris.”
“Why under the bed, Rachel?” Danolin asked.
“Hah,” Maggie said.
“Because I thought Ally might be like a normal person and have shit under the bed, but of course she didn’t. Nothing. I got damned nothing.”
“Wouldn’t say nothing,” Danolin said. “Conspiracy to attempt murder for starters.”
“You’re nuts. You think I put that crazy bitch up to shooting at Ally, setting off mortar rounds left and right. I wanted to kill the woman myself. Not the first time.”
“You were ready to shoot Ally today.”
She lifted one shoulder.
EPILOGUE
The search through Chad Northcutt’s body cam footage proved frustrating and worthwhile. Frustrating because it was incomplete. Worthwhile because it twice caught incriminating statements, apparently when he thought it was off.
Better, he implicated Dewey Selton in both statements, so he was in custody. It was less clear if Ethan Paulz was involved, although it turned out he had inherited the cabin from a great-uncle. More investigative work to be done there.
Word did trickle out in the Piscattoway County Police Department about the roles played by Susanna Wuertl and Ted Tancroft.
Landis and Belichek talked to each of them. Neither showed any sign of leaving.
It wasn’t all rose petals thrown at their feet, but they had support from enough colleagues and superiors. Mark Northcutt Junior made public gestures of support.
He and his parents cut off contact with Iris, while reestablishing connections to other branches of the family.
Rachel’s father moved. Not very far, because he continued to support her through the legal process, but no longer in the Northcutt neighborhood.
Iris, of course, had an entirely new address.
Her house, and the one across the street from it, sold to people who didn’t know each other.
The homeless woman Danolin forced Terrington to track down identified Iris as the figure in the hoodie after Danolin won her over with a homey interview room none of the rest of homicide recognized.
Iris and Rachel continued to process through the justice system. All concerned expected its apparatus would eventually wrap them up and deliver them to where they belonged.
Any hastening of David Senior’s death by his wife, Landis and Belichek gladly left to Piscattoway to sort out.
Ally’s mother and father returned to Pittsburgh — separately — where they pursued their individual interests and kept abreast of what the other was doing. They had limited contact with their daughter.
Tanner took her home to meet his family three weeks ago. If there was ever love at first sight, that was it.
And there was no question of him holding them at arm’s length. Not if he wanted to be with her.
Ally walked away from the house on Gardington Road, signing it over to the Northcutt family trust, which now meant Mark Junior and his parents. He took the TV and a photo album. The rest was sold, proceeds going to a fund for the children of slain law enforcement.
Ally took only her clothes and the jewelry box. And, of course, the contents of her storage unit.
Jamie insisted Ally move into her house in Fairlington. She said it was a win-win. Her spending a lot of time at Bel’s house left her house empty. She got security for the house, Ally got a change of scenery.
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