Triangle Read online

  Triangle

  Jeffrey Deaver

  Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

  New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver has long thrilled fans with tales of masterful villains and their nefarious ways, and the brilliant minds who bring them to justice. Now the author of the Lincoln Rhyme series has collected for the first time his award- winning, spine-tingling stories of suspense-stories that will widen your eyes and stretch your imagination.

  The New York Times says that Twisted is "a mystery hit for those who like their intrigue short and sweet… they feature tight, bare-bones plotting and the sneaky tricks that Mr. Deaver's title promises."

  This collection includes sixteen stories, including one brand new Lincoln Rhyme Christmastime story. The titles of the stories are:

  Without Jonathan

  The Weekender

  For Services Rendered

  Beautiful

  The Fall Guy

  Eye To Eye

  Triangle

  All The World's A Stage

  Gone Fishing

  Nocturne

  Lesser-Included Offense

  The Blank Card

  Together

  The Widow of Pine Creek

  The Kneeling Soldier

  The Christmas Present

  Jeffrey Deaver

  Triangle

  Copyright © 2001 by Jeffery Deaver All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  “M aybe I’ll go to Baltimore.”

  “You mean…” She looked at him. “To see…”

  “Doug,” he answered.

  “Really?” Mo Anderson asked and looked carefully at her fingernails, which she was painting bright red. He didn’t like the color but he didn’t say anything about it. She wouldn’t listen to him anyway.

  “I think it’d be fun,” he continued.

  “Oh, it would be,” she said quickly. “Doug’s a fun guy.”

  “Sure is,” Pete Anderson said. He sat across from Mo on the front porch of their split- level house in suburban Westchester County. The month was June and the air was thick with the smell of the jasmine that Mo had planted earlier in the spring. Pete used to like that smell. Now, though, it made him sick to his stomach.

  Mo inspected her nails for streaks and pretended to be sort of bored with the idea of him going to see her friend Doug. But she was a lousy actor; Pete could tell she was really excited by the idea and he knew why. But he just watched the lightning bugs and kept quiet. Unlike Mo, he could act.

  “When would you go?” she asked.

  “This weekend, I guess. Saturday.”

  They were silent and sipped their drinks, the ice clunking dully on the plastic glasses. It was the first day of summer and the sky wasn’t completely dark yet even though it was nearly nine o’clock in the evening. There must’ve been a thousand lightning bugs in their front yard.

  “I know I kinda said I’d help you clean up the garage,” he said, wincing a little, looking guilty.

  “No, I think you should go. I think it’d be a good idea,” she said.

  I know you think it’d be a good idea, Pete thought. But he didn’t say this to her. Lately he ’d been thinking a lot of things and not saying them.

  Pete was sweating-more from the excitement than from the heat-and he wiped the sweat off his face and his round buzz-cut blond hair with his napkin.

  The phone rang and Mo went to answer it.

  She came back and said, “It’s your father, ” in that sour voice of hers that Pete hated. She sat back down and didn’t say anything else, just picked up her drink and examined her nails again.

  Pete got up and went into the kitchen. His father lived in Wisconsin, not far from Lake Michigan. He loved the man and wished they lived closer together. Mo, though, didn’t like him one bit and always raised a stink when Pete wanted to go visit. She never went with him. Pete was never exactly sure what the problem was between Mo and his dad. But it made him mad that she treated the man so badly and would never talk to Pete about it.

  And he was mad too that Mo seemed to put him in the middle of things. Sometimes Pete even felt guilty he had a father.

  He had a nice talk but hung up after only ten minutes because he felt Mo didn’t want him to be on the phone.

  Pete walked back out onto the porch.

  “Saturday,” Mo said. “I think Saturday’d be fine.”

  Fine…

  Then she looked at her watch and said, “It’s getting late. Time for bed.”

  And when Mo said it was time for bed, it was definitely time for bed.

  Later that night, when Mo was asleep, Pete walked downstairs into the office. He reached behind a row of books resting on the built-in bookshelves and pulled out a large, sealed envelope.

  He carried it down to his workshop in the basement. He opened the envelope and took out a book. It was called Triangle and Pete had found it in the true-crime section of a local used-book shop after flipping through nearly twenty books about real-life murders.

  Pete had never before ripped off anything, but that day he ’d looked around the store and slipped the book inside his windbreaker, then strolled casually out the door. He’d had to steal it; he was afraid that-if everything went as he’d planned-the clerk might remember him buying the book and the police would use it as evidence.

  Triangle was the story of a couple in Colorado Springs. The wife was married to a man named Roy. But she was also seeing another man-Hank-a local carpenter. Roy found out and waited until Hank was out hiking on a mountain path, then he snuck up beside him and pushed him over the cliff. Hank grabbed onto a tree root but lost his grip-or Roy smashed his hands, it wasn’t clear-and Hank fell a hundred feet to his death on the rocks in the valley. Roy went back home and had a drink with his wife just to watch her reaction when the call came that Hank was dead.

  Pete didn’t know squat about crimes. All he knew was what he ’ d seen on TV and in the movies. None of the criminals in those shows seemed very smart and they were always getting caught by the good guys, even though they didn ’ t really seem much smarter than the bad guys. But that crime in Colorado was a smart crime. Because there were no murder weapons and very few clues. The only reason Roy got caught was that he ’ d forgotten to look for witnesses.

  If the killer had only taken the time to look around him, he would have seen the witnesses: A couple of campers had a perfect view of Hank Gibson plummeting to his bloody death, screaming as he fell, and of Roy standing on the cliff, watching him…

  Triangle became Pete’s bible. He read it from cover to cover-to see how Roy had planned the crime and to find out how the police had investigated it.

  Tonight, with Mo asleep and his electronic airline ticket to Baltimore bought and paid for, Pete read Triangle once again, paying particular attention to the parts he’d underlined. Then he walked back upstairs, packed the book in the bottom of his knapsack, and lay on the couch in the office, looking out the window at the hazy summer stars and thinking about his trip from every angle.

  Because he wanted to make sure he got away with the crime. He didn’t want to go to jail for life-like Roy.

  Oh, sure, there were risks. Pete knew that. But nothing was going to stop him.

  Doug had to die.

  Pete realized he’d been thinking about the idea, in the back of his mind, for months, not long after Mo met Doug.

  She worked part-time for a drug company in Westchester-the same company Doug was a salesman for, assigned to the Baltimore office. They met when he came to the headquarters for a sales conference. Mo had told Pete that she was having dinner with “somebody” from the company, but she didn’t say who. Pete didn’t think anything of it until he overheard her telling o
ne of her girlfriends on the phone about this interesting guy she’d met. But then she realized Pete was standing near enough to hear and she changed the subject.

  Over the next few months Pete realized that Mo was getting more and more distracted, paying less and less attention to him. And he heard her mention Doug more and more.

  One night Pete asked her about him.

  “Oh, Doug?” she said, sounding irritated. “Why, he’s just a friend, that’s all. Can’t I have friends? Aren’t I allowed?”

  Pete noticed that Mo was starting to spend a lot of time on the phone and on-line. He tried to check the phone bills to see if she was calling Baltimore but she hid them or threw them out. He also tried to read her e-mails but found she ’ d changed her password. Pete was an expert with computers and easily broke into her account. But when he went to read her e-mails he found she ’ d deleted them all.

  He was so furious he nearly smashed the computer.

  Then, to Pete’s dismay, Mo started inviting Doug to dinner at their house when he was in Westchester on company business. He was older than Mo and sort of heavy. But Pete admitted he was handsome and real slick. Those dinners were the worst… They’d all sit at the dinner table and Doug would try to charm Pete, and ask him about computers and sports and the things that Mo had obviously told Doug that Pete liked. But it was real awkward and you could tell he didn’t give a damn about Pete. He just wanted to be there with Mo, alone.

  By then Pete was checking up on Mo all the time. Sometimes he’d pretend to go to a game with Sammy Biltmore or Tony Hale but he’d come home early and find that she was gone too. Then she’d come home at eight or nine and look all flustered, not expecting to find him, and she’d say she’d been working late, even though she was just an office manager and hardly ever worked later than five before she met Doug. Once, when she claimed she was at the office, Pete called Doug’s number in Baltimore and the voice-mail message said he’d be out of town for a couple of days.

  Everything was changing. Mo and Pete would have dinner together but it wasn’t the same. They didn’t have picnics and they didn’t take walks in the evenings. And they hardly ever sat together on the porch anymore, looking out at the fireflies and making plans for trips they wanted to take.

  “I don’t like him,” Pete said. “Doug, I mean.”

  “Oh, quit being so jealous. He’s a good friend, that’s all. He likes both of us.”

  “No, he doesn’t like me.”

  “Of course he does. You don’t have to worry.”

  But Pete did worry, and he worried even more when he found a piece of paper in her purse last month. It said: D. G.-Sunday, motel 2 P.M.

  Doug’s last name was Grant.

  That Sunday morning Pete tried not to react when Mo said, “I’m going out for a while, honey. ”

  “Where you going?”

  “Shopping. I’ll be back by five.”

  He thought about asking her exactly where she was going but he didn’t think that was a good idea. It might make her suspicious. So he said cheerfully,

  “Okay, see you later. ”

  As soon as her car had pulled out of the driveway he’d started calling motels in the area and asking for Douglas Grant.

  The clerk at the Westchester Motor Inn said, “One minute, please, I’ll connect you.”

  Pete hung up fast.

  He was at the motel in fifteen minutes and, yep, there was Mo’s car parked in front of one of the doors. Pete snuck up close to the room. The shade was drawn and the lights were out, but the window was partly open. Pete could hear bits of the conversation.

  “I don’t like that.”

  “That.?” she asked.

  “That color. I want you to paint your nails red. It’s sexy. I don’t like that color you’re wearing. What is it?”

  “Peach.”

  “I like bright red,” Doug said.

  “Well, okay.”

  There was some laughing. Then a long silence. Pete tried to look inside but he couldn’t see anything. Finally Mo said, “We have to talk. About Pete.”

  “He knows something,” Doug said. “I know he does.”

  “He’s been like a damn spy lately,” she said, with that edge to her voice that Pete hated. “Sometimes I’d like to strangle him.”

  Pete closed his eyes when he heard Mo say this. Pressed the lids closed so hard he thought he might never open them again.

  He heard the sound of a beer can opening.

  Doug said, “So what if he finds out?”

  “So what? I told you what having an affair does to alimony in this state. It eliminates it. We have to be careful. I’ve got a lifestyle I’m accustomed to.”

  “Then what should we do?” Doug asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about it. I think you should do something with him.”

  “Do something with him?” Doug had an edge to his voice too. “Get him a one-way ticket.”

  “Come on.”

  “Okay, sorry. But what do you mean by ‘do something’?”

  “Get to know him.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Prove to him you’re just a friend.”

  Doug laughed and said in a soft, low voice, “Does that feel like a friend?”

  She laughed too. “Stop it. I’m trying to have a serious talk here.”

  “So, what? We go to a ball game together?”

  “No, it’s got to be more than that. Ask him to come visit you.”

  “Oh, that’d be fun.” With the same snotty tone that Mo sometimes used.

  She continued. ”No, I like it. Ask him to come down. Pretend you’ve got a girlfriend or something.”

  “He won’t believe that. ”

  “Pete’s only smart when it comes to computers and baseball. He’s stupid about everything else.”

  Pete wrung his hands together. Nearly sprained a thumb-like the time he jammed his finger on the basketball court.

  “That means I have to pretend I like him.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what it means. It’s not going to kill you.”

  “You come with him. ”

  “No,” she said. “I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”

  A pause. Then Doug said, “Oh, hell, all right. I’ll do it.”

  Pete, crouching on a strip of yellow grass beside three discarded soda cans, curled into a ball and shook with fury. It took all his willpower not to scream.

  He hurried home, threw himself down on the couch in the office, and turned on the game.

  When Mo came home-which wasn’t at five at all, like she promised, but at six- thirty-he pretended he’d fallen asleep.

  That night he decided what he had to do and the next day he went to the used-book store and stole the copy of Triangle.

  On Saturday Mo drove him to the airport.

  “You two gonna have fun together?” In the car she lit a cigarette. She’d never smoked before she met Doug.

  “You bet,” Pete said. He sounded cheerful because he was cheerful. “We’re gonna have a fine time.”

  On the day of the murder, while his wife and her lover were sipping wine in a room at the Mountain View Lodge, Roy had lunch with a business associate. The man, who wished to remain anonymous, reported that Roy was in unusually good spirits. It seemed his depression had lifted and he was happy once more.

  Fine, fine, fine…

  At the gate Mo kissed him and then hugged him hard. He didn’t kiss her but he hugged her back. But not hard. He didn’t want to touch her. Didn’t want to be touched by her.

  “You’re looking forward to going, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “I sure am,” he answered. This was true.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too,” he responded. This was not true. He hated her. He hoped the plane left on time. He didn’t want to wait here with her any longer than he had to.

  But the flight left as scheduled.

  The flight attendant, a pretty blond woman, kep
t stopping at his seat. This wasn’t unusual for Pete. Women liked him. He’d heard a million times that he was cute. Women were always leaning close and telling him that. Touching his arm, squeezing his shoulder. But today he answered her questions with a simple “Yes” or “No.”

  And kept reading Triangle. Reading the passages he’d underlined. Memorizing them.

  Learning about fingerprints, about interviewing witnesses, about footprints and trace evidence. There was a lot he didn’t understand, but he did figure out how smart the cops were and that he’d have to be very careful if he was going to kill Doug.

  “We’re about to land,” the flight attendant said. “Could you put your seat belt on, please?”

  She squeezed his shoulder and smiled at him.

  He put the seat belt on and went back to his book.

  Hank Gibson 's body had fallen one hundred and twelve feet. He 'd landed on his right side, and of the more than two hundred bones in the human body, he'd broken seventy- seven of them. His ribs had pierced all his major internal organs and his skull was flattened on one side.

  “Welcome to Baltimore, where the local time is twelve-twenty-five,” the flight attendant said. “Please remain in your seat with the seat belt fastened until the plane has come to a complete stop and the pilot has turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign. Thank you. ”

  The medical examiner estimated that Hank was traveling eighty miles an hour when he struck the ground and that death was virtually instantaneous.

  Welcome to Baltimore.

  Doug met him at the airport. Shook his hand. “How you doing, buddy?” Doug asked. “Okay.”

  This was so weird. Spending the weekend with a man that Mo knew so well and Pete hardly knew at all.

  Going hiking with somebody he hardly knew at all.

  Going to kill somebody he hardly knew at all.

  He walked along beside Doug.

  “I need a beer and some crabs,” Doug said as they got into his car. “You hungry?”

  “Sure am.”

  They stopped at the waterfront and went into an old dive. The place stunk. It smelled like the cleanser Mo used on the floor when Randolf, their Labrador retriever puppy, made a mess on the carpet.