Twenty-Seven
Anderson Street
11:00 p.m.
Over the years Randolph Weller often thought of Savannah. Quite a lovely place if one had a taste for the dankness of the river and the constant influx of rude tourists. Speakeasies, historic architecture and hauntings had never been on his bucket list. No, he’d never anticipated visiting Savannah again.
He’d expected the dead to stay buried along with the secrets this oldest city in Georgia harbored just for him. A smile eased across his lips when he considered that his friends at the F...B...I...were no doubt scratching their heads and wondering why he would risk coming here. There was an entire task force dedicated to the theory that perhaps the events in Savannah were nothing more than a ploy to distract them while he slipped out of the country and far, far away.
Actually, leaving had been the plan, but this city had not been a part of it. Regrettably, he’d had to take a detour. He drew in a deep breath, savored the stench of death. The man in the other room was very near that much-feared threshold. No need to bother with him. The woman, however, was quite another matter. She had disrupted Randolph’s carefully laid plans. Apparently she had forgotten that he’d already given her an enormous gift. He shook his head. Where was the gratitude? No one appreciated the sacrifices of others these days. What a disgrace.
Until recently Randolph had chosen not to take the life of anyone who really mattered. He had prided himself on selecting those who were a waste of DNA and those who lived their lives for nothing more than to drain society. Really, his efforts to make the world a more beautiful and peaceful place had never been appreciated.
Be that as it may, he wasn’t here to wax poetic about the atrocities the common man did every day of his tragic existence. He was here to attend to a mistake he himself had made so many, many years ago.
He glanced at the grandfather clock that stood next to the front door. It was late. He’d waited long enough. With a quick flick of his hand, he overturned the ceramic lamp on the marble topped table next to his chair. The crash shattered the silence. The rustling of covers sounded and then the pad of bare feet on the cold hardwood floor.
The overhead light switched on and she stood in the doorway, squinting at its brightness. The yellow flannel gown she wore covered her from neck to toes. Her hair was a mousy brown cloud of tangles. When her eyes had focused behind the glasses, her breath caught.
“Good evening, Lucille.” He gestured to the sofa. “Please, join me. We have some catching up to do.”
She hesitated as if weighing her options. Should she run screaming back into her room and attempt to call for help? Since there were no exterior doors on that end of the house and he’d severed the old-fashioned landline that supplied phone service to her home, there was no help there. To reach the front door or the kitchen door, she would need to move past him. Her options were sorely limited.
“Please,” he repeated. “Let’s not make this more unpleasant than it needs to be.”
She took a step in his direction and then another and another until she reached the sofa. Finally she settled onto the worn cushions.
“Now. Was that so difficult?”
She clasped her hands in her lap. “Why are you here?” Her voice was rusty with sleep and fear.
Randolph laughed. “Why, Lucille, aren’t you the one who called my attorney and told him it was imperative you speak with me about the children?”
She blinked like an owl. “I didn’t know what to do. Cortland told his wife what he’d done. She came to me and asked if I took her child.”
“And what did you say, Lucille?”
“I... I told her to leave, that I had nothing to say to her.”
Randolph nodded knowingly. “But that wasn’t the end of it, was it, Lucille?”
She fiddled with the fabric of her nightgown. “She wouldn’t believe me. She just kept on and on until I told her everything.”
“A very foolish mistake.”
She flung her arms in exasperation. “What choice did I have? She just wouldn’t shut up. The next day she walked into that lake and never came back out. I thought everything would be okay after that.”
“Ah, but it wasn’t.”
She shook her head. “It only got worse.”
“Tsk. Tsk. I’m afraid you’ve brought this fate upon yourself, Lucille. I gave you an opportunity all those years ago and you took advantage of my benevolence.”
“I... I wanted to show them.” She trembled with the fear mounting in her aged body. “They had everything and they took what was mine—the only thing in this world that mattered to me. I just wanted them to feel what they’d made me feel. You told me that was a natural reaction to what I suffered.”
“Indeed,” he allowed. “When they took your son, you had every right to want revenge. To want to make them suffer that same loss. Your mistake was in having second thoughts. You let me down, Lucille. You should have drowned those children yourself and left their little bodies floating in the Savannah River for all the world to see.”
She dropped her head again. “I was afraid. They were so young and innocent. Practically babies. As much as I wanted to hurt their parents, I couldn’t kill those babies.”
“So you went to your lover.”
Her head shot up. “Bill made me happy. We made each other happy. We were both so miserable.”
How truly wretched. “Misery does love company.”
“He wanted to help me.”
“But his wife intervened while the two of you were in her home—in her bed—fucking.”
Lucille looked away. “She took them into the woods to the stream that runs behind their property and drowned them, one by one.”
He sighed. “I’m certain you understand that now I must do something to finish this before it gets further out of control.”
“We had a deal,” she accused, drawing up a little courage. “I gave you what you wanted.” Her lips quivered with the fear no doubt coursing through her veins. “Don’t forget that part.”
His patience was at an end. “Where is he?”
She shook her head. “I won’t tell you. He’s suffered enough. He isn’t the sweet boy I lost, but he’s mine.”
“Very well. I’m certain you know I will find him.” Randolph should have been far from here already, but this business had cropped up and he’d had no choice but to attend to it personally.
“Please,” she beseeched. “He needs me. My husband needs me.”
Enough. Randolph stood. “Come to me, Lucille.”
Without moving off the sofa, she peered up at him. The plea for mercy in her eyes a waste of his time as well as her own. “I’ll take him and go away. Please don’t do this.”
“He should have died all those years ago like the others. It’s time he did.”
“No,” she cried.
He reached for her, she tried to scramble away but she was not nearly fast enough. A few quick slams of her head into the table’s sleek marble top and she stilled. He entwined his fingers in her hair and dragged her through the living room to the kitchen. He opened the side door and pulled her down the two steps to the small, attached garage. There was no car parked inside, but there were numerous boxes of junk. Randolph had already cleared a spot and placed the necessary items he would need there.
“Dear, dear Lucille, you thought you were so smart.” He stretched her out in the middle of the cramped space. “I’m afraid I have neither the time nor the proper setting to prepare a true work of art, but I’ll do the best I can.”
He picked up the ax. “Did you really believe I wouldn’t come back to take care of this personally?” He watched her for a moment, enjoying her desperation as her head moved from side to side in an attempt to regain control of her faculties. “If only you’d kept your mouth shut, none of this would have been necessary.”
Randolph raised the ax and brought it down on the knee, shattering the patella, sliding through ligaments and cartilage and separating the femur and tibia. Blood spurted and Lucille tried to scream, the sound a feeble howl.
Randolph closed his eyes for a moment and enjoyed the pulsing pleasure of her fear. There was no fear purer than that which came with the knowledge that death was imminent.
He raised the ax a second time.