Journalstone's 2010 Warped Words for Twisted Minds Read Free Page B

in.
    “You moved her!”
    “We heard you the first time!” Vaughn protested, starting to realize what that larger object they’d seen on Malik’s PDA might have been.
    “Why’d you have to go and cut into the wall?” the guy cried like some frustrated child. “It would’ve been just fine if you’d left it alone!”
    “We didn’t cut into the damned wall!” Trish corrected, still holding her weapon. “That was the guy from the pest control company! Maybe you oughta be pressing a damned knife to his throat!”
    “You swing that, and he’s dead!” the man threatened, his eyes frantic.
    “If you even nick him I will beat your ass with this thing like you’ve got some candy in you!”
    “Trish,” Vaughn spoke calmly, “put down the bat.”
    “Like hell!” his wife declined.
    “Baby, this is Mr. Pimbleton.” Vaughn was breathing shallowly through his nose.
    “I don’t give a shit who this crazed hobo ass is!” Trish’s cheeks were flushed now.
    “The former owner of this house. Please, Trish, just put the bat down and everything’s going to be okay.” His eyes went to their unwelcome visitor. “You got a first name?”
    The intruder wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. “Ted.”
    “Okay, then, Ted,” Vaughn replied evenly, “I’m Vaughn and this is my wife, Trish. What is it that you seem to think we moved?”
    “Not ‘what’! Who! I put her in the wall before the police came for me, and she’s not there anymore!”
    “Who did you place in the wall?”
    “My Aunt.”
     
    *  *  *
     
    Not only was Vaughn able to persuade Trish to lower her weapon, but managed to get Ted to release him, as well. The nervous man still held on to the knife, but, at least, it was no longer pressed against Vaughn’s jugular.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be in a hospital somewhere staring at ink blots right now?” Trish wasn’t the least bit interested in being civil.
    “I found out a week ago the place had been sold when my cousin came to visit,” Ted revealed, scratching his unruly beard stubble. “They send the soiled linens out to be cleaned, so I was able to hide in the laundry. The hospital has so-so security.”
    “We noticed.” She glared at Vaughn when he lightly nudged her. “So, you wanna tell us why you murdered a helpless old woman and stuffed her in our basement wall?”
    “‘Helpless’?” A hoarse hiccup escaped his throat that could almost be a laugh. “Yeah, that’s a good one. She was about as helpless as a hungry water moccasin.”
    “Is it true you killed your wife and daughter?” Vaughn asked, weighing out just how far gone this man was.
    “It’s my fault they’re dead, but I’m not the one who murdered them.”
    “Look, Ted,” Trish studied him, “it’s not a good time to be vague right now.”
    “Did you know ‘Ring around the Rosie’ was really about the Black Plague?” he suddenly asked.
    “They talked about it on the History Channel once,” Vaughn offered.
    “I didn’t know until six years ago when I was looking through an encyclopedia on Europe at the hospital library. We used to sing that all the time as kids, none of us having a clue as to how screwed up it actually was. It’s amazing all the terrible stuff’s that’s hidden as something sweet and innocent. For Christ sake, even “Rock-a-bye Baby” is about abusing kids.”
    “Your aunt...” Trish probed, her free hand absently playing with the keys in her jeans pocket.
     “All the family told me about Edina was that she was our rich great aunt from somewhere in Europe, but that could’ve been anywhere. I mean, Europe’s huge. My aunt came to stay with my cousin in Delaware for a while. I met her only once when I was 9 after my cousin’s mom died two months after she got there. She paid visits from time to time with members of our family, often lavishing her fortune on them as she did. Other than pinching my cheeks and talking like one of those people off Masterpiece Theater, I