She looked dazed, but he thought that she might have been exaggerating for his benefit. He allowed her to sit up with her back against the wall, although he insisted that she keep her legs outstretched and her hands away from her body. It would make it harder for her to raise herself up if she tried to attack him again. Louis was under no illusions about how dangerous this woman was.
‘Because I know that you called your husband after you spoke to me at the bookstore. My guess is that he’s expecting the all-clear.’
Angel had called Louis when he was within sight of the house to tell him that William Daund was on the move. ‘Let him come,’ had been Louis’s instruction.
Louis waited while she went to her ‘Recent Calls’ and found ‘Bill’. He let the gun touch her left temple as her finger hovered over the call button.
‘If I was aware that your husband was coming, then you understand I’m not working alone. Your husband is being followed. If you say anything to alert him, we’ll know. This doesn’t have to end badly for you.’
She stared at him. Any after effects, real or feigned, of the blow to her head were now almost entirely gone.
‘We both know that’s not true,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen your face.’
‘Ma’am,’ said Louis, ‘right now you have no idea just how much worse this could get for you and your family.’
It was the mention of her family that did it. This wasn’t just about her and her husband.
‘Fuck,’ she said again, softly.
‘You were that concerned about the safety of your boys, maybe you should have picked another line of work,’ said Louis. ‘Make the call. Raise the volume, but don’t put it on speaker.’
She did as she was told. Louis listened.
‘Zill?’ said her husband.
‘I’m home,’ she said. ‘But we still need to talk.’
‘I’m on my way. No more over the phone.’
‘Okay. Just be quick.’
The call ended.
‘Zill and Bill,’ said Louis. ‘Cute.’
She didn’t reply. He could see her calculating, trying to figure out what moves were open to her. Seconds later, Louis’s phone buzzed.
‘Angel.’
‘He’s about five minutes from you.’
‘Stay as close as you can.’
‘Got it.’
Louis continued to point the gun at Zilla Daund.
‘Crawl into the kitchen on your belly,’ he said. ‘Do it.’
‘What?’
‘If you try to get to your feet I’ll kill you.’
‘You’re an animal.’
‘Now you’re just being hurtful,’ said Louis. ‘Kitchen.’
He stayed behind her as she crawled, keeping the gun on her all the way. The kitchen was mostly walnut, with a matching table and four chairs at the center. When Zilla Daund reached the table, Louis told her to get up slowly and take a seat facing the door. He removed a cup from a shelf and placed it in front of her. The kitchen extended the width of the house, with a connecting door leading to a big living room with a dining area at one end. Between the table and the connecting door was a refrigerator and a glass-fronted cabinet filled with canned goods. It was there that Louis took up position. He couldn’t see the front door, but he could see the woman.
The sound of a car pulling up came from the front of the house. About a minute later there was the sound of a key in the door. This was the moment. This was when Zilla Daund would warn her husband.
The door opened. Three things happened almost simultaneously.
Zilla Daund screamed her husband’s name and threw herself to the kitchen floor.
William Daund raised the gun that was already in his hand and prepared to fire.
And Angel appeared behind William Daund and killed him with a single suppressed shot to the back of the head. Angel then proceeded into the house and closed the door behind him. He didn’t look at Daund’s body as he stepped over it. It was not callousness. He just didn’t want to see what he had done. He checked the street from the living room window, but there was no indication that anyone had witnessed what had occurred. Then again, they wouldn’t know for sure unless the cops arrived on the doorstep. This had to be quick.
When he joined Louis in the kitchen, Zilla Daund was standing by the utility room. She was under Louis’s gun, but she had a big kitchen knife in her hand. On whom she intended to try to use it wasn’t clear, but turning it on anyone in that room, including herself, wouldn’t be a positive turn of events.
‘You were only ever going to let one of us live,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Louis. ‘Neither of you was ever going to live. The first one into the house was just going to live longer.’
Zilla Daund turned the knife in her hand, and placed the tip of it against her throat.
‘You’ll leave with nothing,’ she said.
‘Before you do that,’ said Louis, ‘you ought to call your son.’
He placed a cell phone on the kitchen table and slid it carefully to the end nearest Zilla. He lowered his gun. Angel did the same. Zilla Daund approached the table. She picked up the phone. There was one name on the display: Kerr, her younger boy.
She called his number. He answered.
‘Kerr?’ she said.
‘Mom? Mom?’
‘Kerr, are you okay?’
‘I don’t know where I am, Mom. I got jumped by some men, and they’ve been driving me around for hours. Mom, I’m scared. What’s happening?’
‘You’re going to be fine, honey. It’s a big mistake. Those men are about to let you go. I love you.’
‘Mom? What—’
Zilla Daund killed the connection. She placed the knife back in its block. She bit her lower lip and shook her head. Her eyes were elsewhere. A tear trickled down one cheek, but whether it was for her son, her husband, or herself could not be known.
‘Your word?’ she said.
‘He’ll be released unharmed,’ said Angel.
He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. Threatening kids was not in his nature. It was necessary, but that didn’t make it right.
‘How can I trust you?’ said Zilla Daund.
‘Without overstating the obvious,’ said Louis, ‘you don’t have much choice. But I figure Cambion told you enough about us, and you’ve maybe learned a little more in the meantime.’
‘We made some calls,’ she admitted.
‘And?’
‘If we’d known about you, we’d have killed you before we went after the detective.’
‘Ambitious.’
‘And careful.’
‘No. If you were careful, you’d have done your homework first.’
Zilla Daund conceded the point.
‘Who told you to kill the detective?’ said Louis.
‘Hayley Conyer.’
‘Who’s Hayley Conyer?’
‘The chief selectman of the town of Prosperous, Maine.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t ask, but everything Hayley does is for the good of the town.’
‘You kill for anyone else?’
‘No, just her.’
‘For money?’
‘She pays, but we’d have helped her for nothing if we had to. We’re of the town from generations past.’
‘Who else knew?’
‘Morland, the chief of police. Pastor Warraner. The rest of the board of selectmen.’
‘Did you kill a homeless man named Jude in Portland and make it look like suicide?’
‘Yes.’
‘And his daughter?’
‘No.’
‘What’s so special about Prosperous?’ asked Angel.
Zilla Daund’s mouth settled into the odd grimace of determination that Louis had identified back at the bookstore, her teeth gritted, her lips slightly parted.
‘That’s all you get,’ she said.
‘You sold out your town pretty easily,’ said Louis.
‘I didn’t sell it out at all,’ said Zilla Daund. ‘Prosperous will eat you alive.’
Louis shot her twice. She shuddered on the kitchen floor for a time before she died. Louis walked to the front window of the house and looked out. It was already getting dark. The houses in this modern dormitory community all sat on large lots divided by hedges and trees. Lights burned in some of the homes, but there was nobody on the streets. Louis wondered how anyone could live in a development like this, with its near-identical houses on clearly delineated lots, the tiny differences in detail or aspect designed to give a false impression of individuality. Maybe killing people was the only way the Daunds could keep from going crazy.
Given more time, they would have searched the house, but Angel was uneasy. From his jacket pocket he produced two flasks of carbolic acid, or liquefied phenol. He and Louis retraced their steps through the house, spraying the carbolic acid as they went. Phenol was a useful contaminant of DNA samples. Once they were done, they left the house and returned to their cars. Each had a false adhesive number plate attached to the original. They took only seconds to remove, and melted in open fame. Louis made the call to Kerr Daund’s captors, but they were instructed not to release him until the following morning, by which time Angel and Louis would be far away from Asheville, North Carolina but considerably closer to Prosperous, Maine.