Hothouse Orchid (Holly Barker 6)

“Thank you, ma’am,” Teddy replied. He went back to the kitchen to take a look at his roast and start the vegetables. He had been contemplating telling her who he was but best not to lay too much on her all at once. Maybe best never to tell her who he once was before he was Jack Smithson.

40

Teddy woke up a little after two a.m. Lauren was breathing deeply beside him. She never woke up in the night. He rolled gently out of bed, got into the dark clothes he had left on a chair, took a small bag he had packed and left the house. He had parked farther away from the house than usual, so the sound of the cranking engine would not wake Lauren.

He drove at the speed limit, so as not to attract the attention of the local police, who were on the lookout for lone males driving late at night, and soon he was driving past the big church and into the quiet residential neighborhood where James Bruno lived. He drove slowly past the house, where he saw Bruno’s cruiser parked in the driveway and no lights on in the house.

Teddy switched off his headlights and circled the block, looking for lights in the neighboring houses. He saw none. He parked behind Bruno’s house, across the concrete drainage ditch and sat quietly in the car for a moment, looking for lights. None.

He popped the trunk and got out of the car. He retrieved the paper bag from the home store and the small bag he had packed, then crossed the drainage ditch, jumping across the narrow stream to keep his feet dry. He walked to the hedge at the rear of Bruno’s property and passed through one of the gaps where a plant had been allowed to die.

He stopped just inside the hedge and opened the paper bag. He withdrew the painter’s soft paper socks he had bought and put them on his feet, tucking his trousers into them, then he put on a paper hairnet and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He took the.22-caliber semiautomatic pistol from the bag, racked the slide and secured the safety, then he tucked the weapon into his belt. He left his bag and the paper bag beside the hedge and walked slowly toward the house.

He looked through the back door into the kitchen and saw a night-light glowing, probably in the house’s central hallway. He used a strip of flexible plastic to pop the cheap lock on the kitchen door, then, very slowly, he opened it and let himself into the house, leaving the door ajar.

As he expected, there was no security system in the old ranch house, and he stood still in the kitchen for two minutes, listening for any sound. Finally, he walked into the hallway, found the night-light and unplugged it, then he stood still for another two minutes to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the darkness.

There was just enough light coming into the house from a streetlamp out front to allow him to move around with confidence, and he made his way to the rear, where he thought the master bedroom would be. He stopped again to listen and heard a gentle, regular snoring coming from the rear room. He walked to the door and stepped inside.

James Bruno lay on his back, soundly asleep, snoring. Teddy walked toward him and stopped, perhaps four feet away, to get a better look at him. Then he saw the gun.

It was a 9-mm Glock, and it lay on the bedside table in its holster. This was an unexpected benefit; he wouldn’t need the.22. Teddy lifted the holster and gun slowly from the table, tucked the holster under his arm and, very slowly, pulled the Glock free. He replaced the holster on the bedside table next to a half-empty bottle of Famous Grouse Scotch whiskey and an empty glass.

Gently, he eased the pistol’s slide back far enough to ascertain the presence of a cartridge in the chamber, then he eased it closed. He took a step closer to Bruno, and a board squeaked under his foot. Bruno stopped snoring and made a noise. Teddy waited patiently for him to fall fully asleep again.

Soon Bruno resumed snoring. Teddy held the pistol in his left, gloved hand and eased it slowly into position a fraction of an inch from Bruno’s open mouth. He aimed carefully, not wishing to strike a tooth or a lip, then fired a single shot.

Bruno made a jerking movement and then relaxed. The shot had passed through his mouth, then severed the spine at the neck before passing into the pillow beneath his head.

Teddy held his position for just a moment, then he lifted Bruno’s right hand, rubbed the pistol on his hand and forearm to deposit gunshot residue there, then dropped the weapon. It landed on Bruno’s upper chest and slid off his body to the floor beside the bed.

Now Teddy switched on a small flashlight and had a look around the room, not seeing what he was looking for. He left the room and walked quickly down the hall, finding a small den with a desk. The center drawer yielded what Teddy was seeking: a medical insurance card that bore a sample of Bruno’s signature and a stack of printed letterheads.

He took a sheet of stationery from the desk drawer, closed the drawer and then fed the paper into a portable typewriter on the desktop. He held the flashlight in his mouth, thought for a moment, then typed:

To whom it may concern:

I can’t do this anymore. It is enough. The women were all innocent; that’s what attracted me to them. I’ve punished enough, and now I will end this once and for all.

Teddy typed the date at the bottom, then took the paper from the typewriter and looked closely at the signature on the card. He was a good forger, and he didn’t even need to practice. He signed the letter with a pen from the desk drawer and left it on the desk.

He visited the bedroom once more to be sure everything was in order, then he went back to the kitchen and left the house, first locking and closing the door.

At the hedge, he shucked off the paper socks, hairnet and latex gloves; put them into the paper bag; picked up his own small bag and returned to the car. Halfway across town he came to a construction Dumpster and deposited the paper bag there.

He was at home and in bed with Lauren slightly less than an hour after he left.

They both woke early, as usual. “Did you sleep well?” he asked. “Like a baby,” she said.

“So did I,” he replied.

41

Detective Jimmy Weathers was at his desk early, as usual. He had been there only a moment when his phone rang.

“Detective Weathers.”

“Jimmy, it’s Lauren Cade.”