A week later, Sam was sitting at his desk when the telephone rang. He finished the sentence he was typing, located the phone underneath the pile of wadded up papers and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Have I caught you at a bad time?” Ann asked.
“No, not at all. How are you doing?”
“Okay,” she replied, not sounding very convincing.
“You’re lying,” Sam said. “What’s wrong?”
There was a moment of silence before Ann replied, “That kid of ours is going to put me into an early grave…”
“What did she do now?”
“It’s what she didn’t do! I reminded her three times to clean up her room before she left to got out with Amanda, so I go to the grocery store and come back and what do I find? Her room hasn’t been touched! What in the world is wrong with her, Sam? Why won’t she ever mind me?”
Sam breathed a silent sigh of relief. He was afraid that it was gong to be a little more serious than this.
“Well, Ann. Do you want my honest opinion?”
“Yes, please.”
“She needs to be disciplined a bit more convincingly. You are way too easy on her!”
“But-”
“Let me finish before you get all defensive, okay? Although I think you’re being too easy on her there’s such a thing as being too hard on her and that could be even worse. My advice is to do as you’ve been doing, but with a little more edge behind it. She’s a good kid, Ann. And she’s got a good mom who loves her. She’ll be okay.”
“She’s got a good dad, too,” Ann declared.
“True.”
“She misses her dad and I miss him, too.”
“That could be fixed, you know,” Sam challenged.
Ann sighed. “I know, Sam. And don’t think I haven’t been giving that a lot of thought lately.”
There was an uncomfortable pause and Sam resumed typing, cradling the phone.
“Why are you working at home on a Saturday afternoon?” Ann asked, breaking the silence.
“I’m not working. Exactly…”
“I can hear your typewriter-wait a minute! What are you doing using the typewriter? Sam, are you actually working on your manuscript?” she asked excitedly.
“Well, not exactly. I’m working on a new one.”
“Sam, that’s wonderful! What are you writing about?”
“A deranged murderer.”
“You mean Stanley, don’t you?”
“Sort of. A first I thought of doing a true crime thing and writing a documentary of what happened but I changed my mind. I mean, I spend day in and day out writing about real things in the real world and I want to do something different for a change. Something that I’ll enjoy doing. So, I decided to make it a novel instead-based loosely on Stanley Jenkins. I figured who in the hell would believe the truth anyway? It’s rather ironic, in a sense.”
“I think that’s great, Sam! And I’ll be frank-I don’t think I’d want you to write about it. I was such a fool, Sam. I can’t believe I let myself get sucked in by him!”
Sam stopped typing. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Ann. Stanley Jenkins was a master manipulator. A genius in his own demented way, when you really think about it. He was cold and calculating, and knew how to play on people’s fears and emotions. Had it down to an art, in fact. Just be thankful that you’re still around to talk about it.”
“Did he confess to killing Cindy Fuller, too?” Ann asked.
“Oh, yeah-he was more than obliging to the police. He confessed everything. He gave Roger the whole low-down, right down to the very last detail, to all three murders. Roger said that Stanley was quite proud of his accomplishments. That man is one sick son of a bitch, that’s for sure.”
“I still can’t get over how stupid I was! If only I’d driven by his alleged home in Dublin, or at least checked to see if he really was a member of that neighborhood church. Then I would’ve known that something was wrong and…”
Sam cut her off, “Ann, dear, listen to me. Don’t blame yourself for what you could have done. Remember that first of all, you had no reason to suspect Jerry Rankin of anything. He was just some good looking guy who happened to meet you at the supermarket and then one thing led to another until you eventually went out with him. Stanley knew that the church story and his falsified residence in Dublin was a gamble, but he was banking on the hunch that you wouldn’t check up on him in the time it would take him to accomplish what he’d set out to do.”
Ann sighed. “I guess you’re right. But how come I never once noticed that he’d been in the house, or that he’d bugged the phones? How in the hell could he get away with all of that and neither Amy nor I notice anything?”
Sam lit up a cigarette and replied, “The guy was a fucking master sleuth-that’s all I can say. Roger learned that Stanley had always been a spy freak-read every secret agent book he could get his hands on when he was a kid. Used to read them late at night while his parents were asleep. His parents are yet another story altogether, by the way. It’s little wonder why Stanley ended up being so psychotic and fucked up. Anyway, James Bond was his hero and by the time Stanley was thirteen or so, he’d become obsessed with agent 007 and started fantasizing about being a spy. He used to sneak out of his house at night and go peep-tomming all over town. Got pretty good at it apparently-he never once got caught. Had he gotten caught, his mother probably would have murdered him. He spent a great deal of time casing you out back then, by the way.”
“I know, he told me,” Ann moaned.
“Anyway, he told Roger that this Larry Underwood kid peeping at Amy just about blew his cover. Apparently, Stanley had been in the back of the house one night screwing around with the telephone wires when he heard the Underwood kid climbing over the fence. Stanley ran around the side of the house just in time and hid in the bushes. Then he watched the kid as he proceeded to peep into the bathroom window presumably at Amy as she showered. Stanley realized that the boy could eventually pose a problem for his own agenda but he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with him. He couldn’t bust the kid, not then, anyway, because the kid would most likely wonder what in the hell Stanley was doing there in the backyard. So Stanley started keeping a keen eye on the Underwood kid as he spied on Amy over the next couple of weeks, trying to determine his routine. Then, once Rankin had “accidentally” met you and became a legitimate presence in your life, he struck. He had a hunch that Larry Underwood would come around on the night of Amy’s homecoming dance so when he did, Stanley was ready for him. Roger said that Stanley had wanted to, quote, ‘murder the fucking amateur,’ but opted instead to merely rough the boy up a bit.”
“This is incredible!” Ann shuddered, imagining two different deranged nut cases invading her property.
“Scary, isn’t it? The Underwood kid may become another Stanley Jenkins some day, for all we know. I’d be sure to tell Amy to keep a very close eye on that one!”
“God, Sam. What is the world coming to?”
“I don’t know, babe. I’m starting to think that the parents are to blame for a lot of the insanity that goes on anymore. Like I was saying before, parents can push their kids too far and you end up with a case like Stanley Jenkins. His parents, particularly his mother, apparently never gave him any breathing room. They demanded too much of him and wouldn’t let him have any kind of normal social life. Stanley retaliated, became a total sociopath lost in his own little world of perverse espionage. And the older he got, the more dangerous he became.”
“What’s to become of him, you think?”
“Roger thinks he’ll plead insanity. Probably spend the rest of his life in an institution. He’s got to face charges in New York and Colorado, too, keep in mind. They’ll put him away for good, one way or another, you can rest assured.”
“No chance of the death penalty?”
“Nope, I don’t think so. The guy’s a nut and they won’t hang a nut.”
“God help us all if he escapes!” Ann exclaimed.
“Tell me about it.”
“One thing has really been bothering me,” Ann said. “And that’s why Marsha never told me about her and Sara’s little scheme at the basketball game. I remember telling her about Stanley asking me out at the time and she just chuckled and never said any more about it. That wasn’t like her, to keep something from me like that.”
Sam heaved a sigh. “Do you suppose that Sara Hunt may have had something to do with that? I mean, you and Sara never got along and Marsha was hanging out with Sara around that time. Maybe Marsha felt a little ashamed at herself having been a part of the scheme and was simply too embarrassed to fess up to it.”
“You may be right, come to think about it. I can see Marsha reacting that way.”
“At any rate, It was a deadly mistake on her part, in retrospect,” Sam added grimly.
“I know.”
“I have a confession to make,” Sam announced. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I’ve just decided to tell you after all. It might make you feel a little better.”
“What is it?” Ann asked suspiciously.
“You weren’t the only one suckered by Stanley Jenkins. I was, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“The night that Shelley Hatcher came to see me was the first time I’d seen her since our divorce. It was really late at night-about 2:00 A.M.-and I wondered at the time why in the hell she’d come out of the clear blue like that after all of this time. When I asked her about it, she told me that she wanted me to see her photo portfolio so I could give her my assessment of it. It had been pouring rain to beat the band that night and she had traveled all the way from Kentucky just to show me her fucking portfolio? Well, I was skeptical, to say the least.
“Anyway, I looked it over-it was okay but not that great-and I started thinking that she had really come over to get some romantic thing going. Well, one thing led to another and we ended up sleeping together that night. Of course, I figured that my hunch was right-“
“Why are you telling me this, Sam?” Ann interrupted, angry and hurt.
“Hold on, sweetie-there’s more.”
“I don’t want to hear it!”
“Yes, you do. Hear me out, okay? I promise you that you’ll want to hear this.”
“Okay, if you insist,” Ann replied irritably.
“It turns out that Shelley had truly come to show me her portfolio. Earlier that day, Shelley had been at a McDonald’s having lunch-she works at a jewelry store in Ashland-and she just so happened to have taken her portfolio with her. A man sitting at her table saw her looking through her pictures and asked if he could take a look at them. Shelley said sure, so the guy checked out her photos. When he was through, he told her that they were excellent, adding that he of course wasn’t a photo critic by any stretch of the imagination.
“He then asked Shelley if she had shown her portfolio to someone in the business recently-to get an honest professional opinion. She mentioned that the only pro she could think of offhand was her old mentor at the newspaper she had used to work at, which of course happens to be yours truly. The stranger insisted that she should by all means look me up and show me her work as soon as possible; that, for all she knew I could line her up with some work. This got her wheels turning and the seed was planted for her to pay me a visit. Now, would you like to take a stab at who this stranger was?”
“Stanley?” Ann replied, incredulous.
“Right, it was our boy.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you get it? Stanley wanted to assure his success with you so he was determined to do anything he could to achieve that goal. He knew that if he could somehow get Shelley and me back together, even if it was only for a chat, there was the slim chance that it would somehow get back to you. That would of course caused more dissension between us, which we know it did, and as a result would sort of help clear the way for him to get you to fall for him that much easier.”
“Jesus!” Ann cried. “He was certainly methodical! How did you find all of this out?”
“Shelley called me last week and told me the whole story after she’d seen Stanley’s photo in the paper. She feels horrible about it because she realizes now what she had done. But there’s no way that she, or any of us, could have even guessed that Jerry Rankin was in fact actually Stanley Jenkins. In fact, Roger and everybody else involved in this case have all but agreed that Stanley might never have been caught if it hadn’t been for that Polaroid Amy sent me. As a matter of fact, we can thank our daughter for solving this case!”
“Our daughter and her father,” Ann corrected.
“Well, yeah, I guess you could say that,” Sam said humbly.
A short pause, then Ann said, “Sam?”
“Yeah, babe.”
“Do you really think it’s over between you and Shelley Hatcher? I mean, totally over?”
“Definitely,” Sam replied flatly.
“You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. Beyond a shadow of doubt,” Sam emphasized, wondering what this line of questioning was leading up to.
“Are your parents still flying up for Thanksgiving?”
“Yup. They’ll be here on the 22nd. Why?”
“I was just thinking, why don’t we all have Thanksgiving together-like a family. Just like we did last year.”
“Are you serious?” Sam asked, not believing his ears.
“Yes, I’m serious. I don’t want to be alone anymore, Sam. I miss you and I miss the three of us being a family. Amy does, too. And the mere thought of going through the Holidays without you is unbearable. In fact, I don’t think I could do it.”
“Does this mean…?’
“Yes, Sam. I’m ready to come home. God, am I ready!”
Sam nearly leaped out of his chair, “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that, honey! It’s been a living hell not having you and Amy around. I miss you two so much, I-”
“Let me say it first,” Ann interjected. “I love you, Sam Middleton. Always have, always will. For better, or for worse, I love you!”
“I love you too, honey!” Sam said, as a thought suddenly came to mind. “But what about Amy and school?”
“I’ve already spoken to Amy and the school’s principal about it. She’ll have to finish this semester and then she can transfer her credits to Smithtown High. Amy’s all for it and can’t wait to see her old friends again.”
“That’s great! When does the semester end?”
Christmas break, December 20, I believe.”
“Think we can wait until then?”
“We’ll have to, unfortunately, but we’ve always got the weekends in the meantime.”
“I guess that will have to do.”
“Do you have a stove in that bungalow of yours, Sam? For a turkey?”
“Uh, yeah. It’s not too big but it should be able to accommodate a fair sized bird.”
“That’s good,” Ann said, a trace of disappointment in her voice.
Sam knew what was eating her: the reality of the three of them living in this tiny house in the boondocks. He already had an answer for that.
“By the way, I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I was at the bank a few days ago and ran into Paul Malone. It seems that he’s getting transferred to Columbus at the beginning of the year.”
“You’re kidding!” Ann cried. “So he’s moving his family up here?”
“Yup.”
“And the house?”
“Putting it up for sale next week.”
“Oh God, Sam. I don’t believe it! Is there any way-”
“That we could get our old house back?” Sam finished the sentence for her. “That shouldn’t be a problem, if that’s what you want to do.”
“Oh Sam, yes! Let’s do it!”
“Consider it done.”
“Wait until Amy hears this! She’s almost missed that house as much as I have. She bitches about this place all the time. God Sam, you’re wonderful! I love you so much!”
“That goes for me, too. And tell that kid of mine the same, okay?”
“I will. I’d better go now. I think I’ll take a walk and try to come back down to earth, I’m so excited now, I’m almost sick!”
“I know what you mean. I’ll call you tomorrow, honey. We’ve got a lot of planning to do.”
“Okay. Love you, dear!”
“Love you, too.”
Sam was grinning ear to ear as he hung up the phone. He breathed a deep sigh, slid a fresh sheet of paper into the carrier and hit the keys with a flourish: