Chapter 13

As Dexter had anticipated, whacking Betty upside the head with the shovel had knocked her out cold. She slumped in the doorway, resembling a drunk who hadn’t quite made it through the door after a long night of boozing.

He hooked his hands underneath her armpits and dragged her inside. She was a slender woman, easy to move. He kicked the door shut behind him.

The small foyer opened into the living room. It was furnished with a burgundy sofa and chairs, an oak coffee table, a television broadcasting a soap opera, and the tall Christmas tree he had seen from the street.

Photographs were everywhere. Pictures of Betty and her dead husband. Pictures of his wife. However, none of the shots of his wife were recent; he’d seen all of them before.

But that didn’t mean anything.

He propped Betty against the sofa. Her bosom rose and fell slowly, and her lips were parted, drool spilling over them, but her eyelids didn’t flutter. She would be unconscious for a few moments yet.

He locked the front door and cinched the curtains shut. Shadows sprang from the corners of the room, like old friends.

He opened his jacket and withdrew the Scimitar blade, a folding knife, the design of which was based on a famous Japanese sword. It was a particularly lethal piece of cutlery.

Brandishing the blade, he strode through the house, his boots thudding across the floor. In her golden years, Betty lived alone to his knowledge, but he wanted to ensure that there was no one else lurking inside.

He also was seeking signs of his wife. He doubted that she lived with Betty, but she surely would’ve visited the old bitch often, and she might’ve left behind personal effects that would give him irrefutable proof that she was in the area.

There was no one else in the house. He found nothing of his wife, either. Odd.

Betty would have to give him some answers, then.

In a drawer in the kitchen, Dexter found a thick roll of duct tape. Returning to the living room, he found Betty unconscious, but breathing at a faster rate. About to awaken.

 Quickly, he bound her thin wrists in her lap with a swath of tape, and wrapped up her bony ankles, too. He lifted her off the floor and placed her in a nearby Lazy-Boy recliner.

He slid the coffee table across the rug and sat on it, so he could look her directly in the face and analyze every nuance of her expressions when he spoke to her. Like a human lie detector.

Her face in repose, Betty was a striking woman for her age. A thick, full head of gray hair. Healthy cinnamon complexion. High cheekbones. Full lips. Based on the photos he’d seen of her in her youth, Betty had been quite the fox. She bore a strong, family resemblance to his wife.

“Oh, Betty,” he said, softly. “Wake up, old girl. I want to talk to you.”

Her eyelids fluttered. She was awake, yet pretending to be asleep.

He whisked the Scimitar blade across the back of her hand, drawing a thin line of blood. Betty’s eyes flew open, and she let out a short scream.

“Don’t play games with me,” he said. “I don’t have time. We need to talk.”

Fear and pain glistened in her honey-brown eyes. She had eyes like his wife, too.

“I don’t have anything to discuss with you, Dexter.”

“I think you do. You know why I’m here. Where’s my wife?”

“She’s not your wife any more. She divorced you while you were incarcerated. Surely you know that.”

Dexter raised the knife, waved it before her eyes like a hypnotist’s pendulum. She stared at it, gnawing her lip.

“Let’s be clear on one thing,” Dexter said. “There was no divorce. I never consented to it.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you consented to it or not. In the eyes of the law, you’re divorced.”

“Not in my eyes!” Spittle sprayed from Dexter’s lips. Betty shuddered, squeezed her eyes shut as if praying.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” he said.

She opened her eyes.

“Marriage is for life,” he said. “Till death do us part. We took those vows before God. She’s my wife, and she always will be. The so-called divorce that she sent to me while I was on lockdown is meaningless, in my eyes—and as far as you’re concerned, I am the law.”

“Okay, Dexter,” she said. “You’re correct. I’d like to help you, I really would. But can you first put away the knife, and free my arms and legs, please?”

“No. Don’t patronize me. It’s transparent and, frankly, coming from you, ridiculous.”

She lifted her chin defiantly. She was a proud woman and hated to be put in her place. His wife was the same way.

“Back to my first question.” Dexter spun the knife around his fingers like a stage magician. “Where’s my wife?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me.” He lowered the blade to her hand, where blood oozed from the first surface cut.

She tensed. “I don’t know, I really don’t. I haven’t seen her in three years. She left town about a year after you went to prison.”

“Why?”

“Because she believed that once you were set free, you would kill her.”

“Kill her?” That made Dexter laugh. “Kill my wife? The love of my life? Now, I would torture her so badly she would want me to kill her to put her out of her misery, but I would never, ever, intentionally murder her. No way.”

“I don’t know where she’s gone,” Betty said. “She said . . . it wouldn’t be safe for me to know.”

“Have you talked to her on the phone since she’s left?”

“No,” Betty said, too quickly.

“You’re lying again.” Dexter seized one of her spindly fingers. She tried to pull away, but his grip was firm. “I’m going to slice off this finger here.”

“No, please!”

“Then talk.”

“Earlier this year. On my seventieth birthday. She called me.”

Releasing her finger, Dexter hunched forward, gaze intent. “From where?”

“I don’t know. There was no number on Caller ID, and she knew better than to tell me where she was calling from, or to give me her number.”

Tapping his lip with the knife, Dexter considered that. “What did she say?”

“She said she was doing fine.” Betty got teary-eyed, sniffled. “She said that she loved me . . . and missed me something terrible.”

“I’m touched. But I’m not sure I believe you have no clue whatsoever about where she’s gone, or how to get in touch with her. No, I don’t believe that at all.”

Betty blinked away tears. “But I’ve told you the truth.”

“I know my wife. She adores you, takes care of you. She would never sever her ties with you and call only once a year.”

Dexter surveyed the living room, the hallway, and the kitchen beyond.

“There has to be something in here that she’s sent you,” he said.

“There’s nothing, I promise you.” But he detected a trace of worry in her voice.

“I’ll check for myself.”

He began his search in the most obvious of places: underneath the Christmas tree. A half-dozen brightly wrapped gifts were piled beneath the tree’s ornament-laden boughs. Each present was adorned with a bow and a tag that identified the giver, and the recipient.

He looked through them, tossing each item aside after he checked the tag. All of the gifts were from Betty, to people whose names he’d never heard.

“Those presents are going to children at my church,” Betty said.

Dexter cursed. She was right. None of the gifts came from, or were addressed to, his wife.

“I told you, she doesn’t send me gifts, or anything else,” Betty said. “It would be much too risky for her.”

“Where’s your little black book?”

“Pardon?”

“Your address book, you old bitch. It’s a black, leather-bound book. I’ve seen it here before.”

Betty recoiled at his sharp words, but she said, “It’s in the study. Look on the desk, near the telephone.”

In the study, Dexter found the book just where she’d said it would be. It lay near a cordless phone and a stack of envelopes.

Dexter flipped through the address book. Underneath his wife’s name, the last address listed was of their Chicago condo, and he knew that she no longer lived there. The phone number was their old number, too.

I don’t believe this. The old bitch is hiding something from me.

He noticed the pile of envelopes beside the phone. He riffled through them. Most of them were recent utility bills and bank statements, but one of them had been sent from Thad Washington, in St. Louis, Missouri. It had a postmark of December 11, one week ago.

The envelope had already been sliced open. He looked inside, and found a personal check written from Thad to Betty, in the amount of one thousand dollars.

Dexter scrutinized the check like a bank teller suspicious of fraud. He returned to the living room and waved the check in Betty’s face.

“What’s this?” he asked.

She frowned. “What is it? I can’t read without my glasses. Since you’re so smart you surely remember that about me.”

In her haughty tone, he sensed an undercurrent of anxiety.

“It’s a check from Thad Washington to you, for one grand,” he said. “I remember Thad. He was a co-worker of my wife’s at a salon in Chicago—some faggot hair stylist. Why is he sending money to you?”

Betty’s gaze slipped away from him. “He’s . . . he’s paying me back for a . . . for a loan I once gave him.”

He slapped her—a swift, backhand pimp slap. Her head rocked sideways, and her eyes rolled.

“I’ve wanted to do that to you from the first day I met you,” he said. “That stupid lie you just told me gave me a good reason.”

Betty’s lips worked, but no words came out. It pleased him—he’d quite literally knocked the dumb old bitch down a few pegs.

The telephone rang.

“Saved by the bell,” Dexter said. He moved to the phone on the end table. The Caller ID display stated: Unknown Number.

Intuition guided Dexter’s hand to the handset.

“Hello?” he said.

The caller did not reply. The silence confirmed Dexter’s gut instinct.

It was his wife.

Her timing was as impeccable as ever.