Bad Memory Read online

  “I’m from New York—the deputy will recognize my voice.”

  “What if he recognizes my voice?”

  “Do you know any of the sheriff’s deputies?”

  “Nope.”

  “He won’t recognize your voice then, will he?”

  “What if he traces the call to my cell phone? Like the cops do on TV.”

  “Withhold your number. Or find a pay phone. Jesus, it’s not rocket science. Don’t they teach you kids anything at school these days?”

  The kid looked at his friends, and they both nodded.

  “Okay, we’ll do it.”

  He held out a hand, palm facing up. Jessica opened her wallet and pulled out three twenties.

  “Don’t screw up,” she said. “This is important.”

  Then she made a wide U-turn on the street and headed back the way she had come.

  Jessica found a spot across the street and three houses down from McDonagh’s place. She cut the engine and lights and waited. Fifteen minutes later, just as she was about to give up hope, the front door opened, and McDonagh emerged. He climbed into the cruiser. Jessica smiled. Those little jerks had pulled it off.

  Once the cruiser was out of sight, Jessica jogged across the street and slipped round the back of the house. She gloved up and used the picklock set to gain access through the kitchen, silently praying Dylan’s mom wouldn’t choose this moment to fetch herself a glass of water. As she moved toward the hallway, Jessica’s knee nudged a dining chair, and the scrape of wood on ceramic tile seemed to her as loud as the report of a shotgun in the silence of the house.

  Jessica froze. She listened for the sound of footsteps upstairs. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She stood there in the gloom of the kitchen for a whole minute. When there was no sign of movement above her, she carried on. The door to the den was ajar, spilling faint lamplight into the hallway. Next door, the study was in almost darkness. Inside, she saw McDonagh’s laptop open on the desk, the website for an online casino on the screen.

  After finding the Mini Maglite at the bottom of her bag, she swept the beam around the room. She knew the home safe was located in the study, but she didn’t know where. Her eyes fell upon a family portrait of the McDonaghs hanging on the wall, a teenage Dylan looking awkward and gawky. She pushed a corner of the picture to one side with a fingertip to reveal the safe built into the plasterboard behind. Jessica carefully lifted the frame off the hook and set it against the desk.

  She shined the flashlight on the safe. It was modern and compact, with a digital keypad and a small LCD display. Like the ones found in hotel rooms. In her head, Jessica heard Dylan’s mocking words during their argument.

  Your birthday? Seriously? You’re as bad as my dad.

  “Is that so?” she muttered.

  She keyed the day and month Dylan was born, wincing at each loud digital beep. No joy. Then she tried the month followed by the day. Still no luck. Shit. Perhaps McDonagh had used his own date of birth when setting the combination. She had no idea when his birthday was, couldn’t recall it being celebrated while she’d been in town. Jessica chewed her bottom lip and racked her brain. Then she tapped the four digits of the year Dylan was born, and the safe’s door popped open.

  She peered inside. The flashlight’s beam revealed bundles of cash. Thousands of dollars neatly stacked and bound by rubber bands. There was also a bunch of statements for a savings account in Pat McDonagh’s name. The deposits were all for small amounts—a few thousand here, a couple of grand there. No huge sums that would arouse suspicion. Just a regular guy with a regular savings account. It was a smart move.

  At the back of the safe was a package wrapped in a clear evidence bag.

  Jessica lifted it out and turned it over in her latex-covered hands. She unsealed the bag and removed the contents from the envelope.

  “Fuck,” she whispered.

  After carefully setting down the blood-spattered watch and bracelet and cash on the desk, she read the letter. Then she looked at the name on the front of the envelope. The parcel had been addressed to Charlie Holten.

  “Find what you were looking for?”

  Jessica turned around slowly. Her stomach gripped, and her blood ran cold. McDonagh was standing in the doorway holding a Sig Sauer semiautomatic pistol. It was pointing straight at her.

  “Let’s go,” McDonagh said.

  “Where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They took Jessica’s truck, after he’d frisked her and confiscated her bag with the Glock inside.

  She drove, while McDonagh sat in the passenger seat with the gun aimed at her. On the surface, she appeared calm. No crying, no screaming, no begging for her life. Her hands rested lightly on the wheel. She wouldn’t give McDonagh the satisfaction of seeing her fear. But, underneath the cool exterior, her mind and her heart were in competition with each other to see which could race the fastest.

  “What do you think Dylan would say if he could see you now?” Jessica asked. “You think he would approve of this kind of behavior by his father? The town’s goddamn sheriff?”

  “Shut your mouth. You don’t get to talk about my boy. Not after the way you treated him.”

  “I did nothing wrong where Dylan was concerned.”

  “You lied and you cheated and you made it clear right from the get-go that you didn’t think he was good enough for you. You think you’re something special with your fancy New York ways? That you’re smarter than us dumb townsfolk? Not so smart now, are you?”

  “I never cheated on him, and I never lied to him. But you? I bet you’ve been lying to him most of his life. The poor guy probably has no clue about the things you’ve done, what you’re really like.”

  McDonagh pushed the pistol hard against Jessica’s right temple.

  “Shut your mouth and drive.”

  The silence was broken only by the occasional barked instruction to take the next right or hook a left at the end of the street. Once on the main highway, Jessica spotted headlights in her rearview, but she knew the side window would be decorated with her gray matter faster than she could alert the other driver that she needed help.

  “Take the next turn,” McDonagh said, and Jessica knew where they were going. Realized she had known all along.

  Devil’s Drop.

  The truck rolled to a stop roughly where Jessica had parked two days earlier. The same spot where she’d come across McDonagh with his strange tales of finding solitude at a former crime scene and using the place as a makeshift shooting range. Only this time, Jessica was the target.

  McDonagh reached behind him and pushed open the door. An aroma of dried earth mixed with the sickly sweet scent of grape soda lupine flooded into the cab. He kept the gun tight against the side of her head and snaked the free arm around her neck. Then he pulled Jessica roughly across the seat and out through the passenger side. McDonagh pushed her in the direction of the hundred-foot drop, the Sig Sauer now pressed against a kidney.

  “Start walking,” he said.

  She took baby steps toward the canyon. Above her, a million stars and a big, fat moon illuminated the way. Somewhere in the distance was the mournful yip of a coyote.

  “Did you follow me up here on Tuesday?” she asked.

  “No. I already told you—I come up here to think sometimes. And you’ve given me a lot to think on this past week after poking your nose around in stuff that doesn’t concern you.”

  “But you did break into my home?”

  “If you mean did I use a so-called hidden key to gain access to Sylvia Sugarman’s trailer, then yes, I did.”

  “Why?”

  “To find the Hundred Acres County police file you had in your possession and confirm my suspicions that it was the Meeks/James murder book. The same murder book that mysteriously disappeared from Archives before turning up again a day later. How did you get hold of it?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Uh-huh. It’s like that, hu
h? Keep walking.”

  McDonagh prodded her with the gun, his breath hot on the back of her neck. Jessica shuffled forward.

  “I know you’ve been blackmailing Tom Lucchese,” she said. “I saw you both at the rest area.” She couldn’t see his face, but Jessica could sense McDonagh’s surprise. “What I don’t get is why he ever agreed to pay you any cash?”

  “You read Bruce Lucchese’s letter. You really think Tom Lucchese wants the world to know his father was a murderer and he, himself, once dated his own sister? Believe me, that kind of information would be a lot more damaging to his business than a small cut of his takings each month.”

  “You covered up Tom Lucchese’s involvement back in ’87. Didn’t he realize the truth coming out would have been pretty bad for you too?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Jessica. Don’t forget, I was a mere sheriff’s deputy back then. Just a guy trying to take care of his wife and kid. Holten was calling the shots. I had to go along with the wishes of a dirty senior cop or face losing my job. What’s a guy to do?”

  “We both know you’re the dirty cop, not Holten.”

  McDonagh chuckled. “Yeah? Says who? You? You’re not going to be saying anything after tonight.”

  There was another prod with the gun, another baby step toward a wall of blackness, her sneakers kicking up a tiny dust cloud.

  “You going to kill me like you killed Holten?”

  Jessica didn’t know for sure that McDonagh was the one who had pulled the trigger on his onetime boss. But, given that he had in his possession Bruce Lucchese’s confession letter—which had been sent to Holten shortly before his death—and he was pointing a gun at her right now, she figured it was a safe bet.

  McDonagh hesitated, just for a second, then said, “Holten gave me no choice.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. “There’s always a choice, and it usually involves not shooting someone. You’re not just dirty—you’re a killer. And a cop killer, at that.”

  “If Holten had been willing to see sense, he would still be alive today. Don’t you think if I’d gone there with the intention of killing him, I’d have done it at the meeting point? A deserted wasteland, with no witnesses, rather than the middle of the street? When Holten drove off, determined to do the so-called right thing and come clean about the Luccheses, that’s when he left me no choice. I had to think of my wife and son.”

  “And now? You going to shoot me too?”

  “If I have to, I will. But you do have a choice.”

  “What’s the alternative to a bullet in the brain? I’m guessing it ain’t going to be much fun either.”

  They were now around ten feet from the cliff edge.

  “It’s simple,” McDonagh said. “You just keep on walking.”

  Jessica spun around, catching McDonagh off guard. He took a step back but kept the weapon trained on her.

  “In that case, I guess you’re going to have to shoot me. But you can look me in the eye when you do it, you fucking coward.”

  “Like I said, your choice, Jessica.”

  He raised the gun so that it was level with the center of her forehead.

  The moon seemed brighter now, and she looked into his eyes and thought she saw fear or regret. Something. Then, like the flick of a switch, there was nothing. His eyes went cold and dead. His jaw set, and his finger tensed on the trigger, and Jessica knew it was over. She would die here tonight, just like Megan Meeks and Lucas James had more than thirty years earlier.

  Then a noise broke the silence.

  It sounded like a boot sole crushing a dry, dead twig or piece of branch. Not loud, but loud enough for McDonagh to flinch, incline his head ever so slightly, and take his eyes off her for a split second. Jessica lunged. Hard and fast and low, the top of her skull connecting solidly with McDonagh’s groin. He sucked in a breath and let out a strangled moan, and they both fell to the ground, Jessica sprawled on top of him. The gun flew from McDonagh’s hand and landed somewhere in the shadows. She crawled after it, felt her fingertips brush cold steel; then she was yanked back by a hand wrapped tightly around her ankle.

  Jessica twisted around and lashed out with feet and fists as they both rolled in the dirt like a pair of mismatched street brawlers. She could feel the heat of his body and smell his warm, sour breath too close to her face. Despite his age, McDonagh was strong. Too strong for Jessica. She squirmed her arms free from under him and clawed at his face, her fingers grabbing for his eyes.

  “You little bitch,” he snarled, spraying her face with spittle.

  McDonagh climbed off her. Hauled Jessica up by the T-shirt and threw her toward the canyon. She lay in a heap a couple feet from the edge and tried to catch her breath. But McDonagh gave her no time to recover. He stuck out a boot and connected hard with her belly, and Jessica rolled backward and felt herself slip over the lip of the cliff. Gravity pulled at the lower half of her body, and her legs bicycled thin air as her fingers clung to dirt and dried brush.

  Jessica’s arms ached, and her muscles burned, and sweat rolled down her spine as she tried to pull herself up and over the ledge. She sucked in big, deep breaths and screamed at the sheer effort. She got one elbow onto the dirt, then the other, then her upper torso. She saw McDonagh push himself to his feet and walk toward her. He stood over her, grinning, and raised a boot and rested it against her shoulder.

  “You don’t have to do this, Pat,” Jessica gasped.

  “I think I do.”

  He pushed the boot harder into her shoulder, and she felt herself slip farther over the edge, her fingers unable to gain purchase on the dirt. She blinked sweat out of her eyes.

  Jessica had never really thought of herself as particularly religious, but now she found herself sending up a silent prayer to God anyway.

  McDonagh applied more pressure with the boot. She couldn’t hold on any longer. One swift, brutal kick from the sheriff was all it would take to end it for her. She knew she couldn’t beat him.

  Jessica thought of her dad and the mother she never knew. She thought of Pryce and Angie and Dionne and how close she’d come to having a second shot at a family.

  Then she closed her eyes and waited for the long drop into nothingness.

  Instead, she heard the deafening crack of a gun being discharged and felt something wet and warm hit her face. She opened her eyes and saw McDonagh fall to his knees and then crumple to the ground. Blood spurted between fingers pressed against the hole left by a bullet that had ripped through the flesh and tissue of his right shoulder.

  Jessica looked up to see a figure standing in the darkness holding a rifle.

  It was Michelle Foster.

  44

  RUE

  DAY OF EXECUTION

  Rue Hunter had never felt special.

  As a kid, she would sit cross-legged in front of the TV, watching The Price Is Right, and wishing she was an audience member and that her name would be the one called by the announcer.

  “Rue Hunter, come on down!”

  She wasn’t interested in the prizes, couldn’t care less about a new car or fancy furniture. Rue just wanted to be special enough to win a place on Contestants’ Row and chat with Bob Barker, with his neatly combed black hair and white smile and year-round tan.

  Instead, Rue had wound up on a very different kind of row. No Bob Barker, no Barker’s Beauties, no Showcase Showdown. A different kind of notoriety.

  Now, she was about to become the first inmate in California to be put to death since Clarence Ray Allen met his end in the death chamber in 2006. A number of legal challenges had meant a hiatus in executions; then, in 2016, voters had been given the choice to abolish the death penalty or speed up the appeals process. They had chosen, via Prop 66, to expedite executions. Rue remembered the look on Rose’s face when her sister had told her the result of the ballot.

  “It won’t come to anything,” Rose had said, trying to sound optimistic despite the tears flowing down her cheeks. “There are still so many lega
l obstacles; there’s no way they’ll be able to resume executions anytime soon.”

  But they had.

  “There are more than seven hundred inmates on death row in California,” Rose had pointed out. “More than double any other state in the country. Why would they come for you?”

  But they had.

  There were around twenty condemned prisoners who had exhausted their appeals, and there was Rue, who had rejected the appeals process altogether. Her name was first on the list.

  “Rue Hunter, come on down!”

  Finally, Rue Hunter was special.

  She had spent two hours traveling from Chowchilla to San Quentin on Wednesday. When she’d emerged from the prison bus, the air had smelled different and had felt cooler on her skin, a light wind blowing in from the bay. Gray clouds had gathered overhead, blocking out the sun, as Rue had gazed at the sprawling facility built more than a hundred years ago by the hands of prisoners. Nothing about the place was new—apart from the renovated death chamber. A one-story addition near the prison’s East Block, the new chamber had been completed in 2009 at a cost of thousands of dollars to the taxpayer.

  It had never been used.

  That was about to change.

  Rue had refused a last meal. She had briefly considered ordering steak and fries and slaw and onion rings, but she’d never eaten steak before, had no idea whether she’d want it cooked rare or medium rare or well done. She figured she wouldn’t have much of an appetite anyway. All she had requested was some tap water.

  At 11:30, she had been given a new pair of denim jeans and a new shirt to wear. As she’d dressed, she’d known the witnesses would have been waiting to be led into their respective viewing rooms—one for the victims’ families, one for the family of the condemned, and, finally, a gallery for public witnesses and the media. A grotesque fishbowl. She had no idea if Patty Meeks and Heather and Steve James would take their places behind the glass, but she hoped Rose would be there, sitting alone, in the space reserved for the inmate’s family. Rue’s last day should have been spent in the visiting room with her sister, before being taken to the deathwatch cell, but Rose hadn’t shown. Maybe she’d been delayed on the journey to Marin County, but she was supposed to be staying overnight in a motel with Bob and the boys in San Francisco, less than twenty miles from the prison.