“It wasn’t just that, Tenny. I was angry.” Bertha frowned. “Fuck it. I wanted to kill him.”
Ten’s eyes widened. He was about to call her bluff until he took a minute to read her. Bertha was dead serious. “Why did you feel that way?”
“You know Corny, he was always looking for an angle. For a way to work the situation to his favor, and I was stupid enough to fall for his bullshit. I didn’t want to get together with him after he left me and Carson. Corny worked on me and on my mother’s instinct, proving that he could be a good father and provider. Just when I let him back in, I got pregnant. I wouldn’t trade Cole for anything in the world, but I should have kept my guard up when it came to Corny and his wandering dick.” Bertha’s eyes went glossy. “I believed him when he said he’d be there for us and the new baby because I wanted to, not because he’d given me any proof that he could keep his word or his dick in his pants.”
Ten knew what Bertha was saying. “We’ve all been there with an ex who was too good to be true or who used our own good nature against ourselves. I get being volcanically mad that he made you throw his no-good ass out, but what I don’t get is why you wanted to bump him off.” He hated putting it in words like that, but they were true.
“I might have been psychic, Tenny, but I had no way of knowing if the shop was going to take off or go bust. There were times when I was a reading or two away from needing to go on assistance just to feed my sons. There were nights when they ate, and I didn’t. I was so fucking mad that I allowed Corny to put me in that position, and angrier still that he couldn’t be counted on to help with the boys.”
“I can see that. What did the psychologist suggest?”
“He wanted to know what would happen in my life if I did it. If I killed my ex-husband.”
“Damn! That sounds like pretty progressive therapy to me.”
“It sounded that way to me too, but I went along with the doctor. That question was my homework assignment for the week. I had a beautiful journal, like the one Skye had, to write my thoughts and any questions I had for him to follow up on during our next session.”
Ten understood where Bertha’s tangent was going. She was wondering if Skye’s journal was for therapy, rather than a journal of her own thoughts for her own eyes. “How did the scenario play out?”
“It would have been awful,” Bertha admitted. “The clean-up. Having to tell the boys their father was dead. All the worry and paranoia that the cops were going to arrest me. I had no one to take the boys if I was arrested. They would have been put in the system, probably separated and maybe abused by some asshole who only wanted them for the government stipend.” Bertha swiped angrily at her tears. “When I was finished, I was an absolute wreck. All the anger flowed out of me and into that journal. Honestly, I felt like a deflating balloon.”
“So, therapy worked for you.”
“It did, but maybe it didn’t for Skye. If that’s what her journal was all about. It was obvious reading it that she wasn’t journaling for pleasure.”
“I got the same idea too, that there was no love or joy in her words. Except for the things that happened to her friends. It sort of read that Skye was happy when the friend threw up in class.”
“I saw the same thing. Schadenfreude. Feeling pleasure in another person’s misfortune.” Bertha was silent for a moment. “It hadn’t occurred to me until just now, but what if Skye was a sociopath and had gone out that night intent on killing someone else, and that person got the jump on her or turned the tables with her own weapon?”
“Christ,” Ten muttered under his breath. “To be honest, that never crossed our minds, and it sure as hell didn’t cross the minds of those 1980s detectives.”
“Keep in mind that women killers weren’t that well known or discussed back in the day. Until cops interviewed Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, we didn’t really know all that much about serial killers either. As long as there have been murders, there have been women murderers. We’re just better at hiding our crimes.” Bertha cackled again, sounding more like her old self.
“I’ll mention that new angle to Ronan. He’s going to love that idea.”
“One last thing.” Bertha drummed her fingers on the table. “If Skye was in therapy, why didn’t the parents tell you and the others about it?”
“Good question. I’ll bring it up to Fitzgibbon and Jude. They’re doing the work ups on the brother and sister.”
“You might get more information out of the siblings than out of the parents. The kids are going to remember the way things were since they lived that same life with their sister. If she was the stone-cold bitch then that she is now, the brother and sister will tell you. Parents are more likely to hide their kids’ flaws in the light of day, and this goes double if the child dies. All they’ll ever talk about was how good and kind the kid was, even if they were the devil incarnate in life.”
“Shit,” Ten shook his right hand out. It was stiff from all the notes he’d been jotting down. “We really are back at square one.”
“You’ve been in worse spots before and come out on top. Do your best, and I’ll do my thing from over here.” Bertha grinned broadly. “Before I get to it, I’m going to check in on Ronan and that fine ass.”
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Jude too!” Ten called out as Bertha started to dematerialize.
Bertha had opened new investigative pathways with her little pep talk. Ten knew she’d work her hardest to crack the nut that was Skye Washington, but he couldn’t count on her getting quick results. He and the others were going to have to crack this case the old-fashioned way, with good solid police work.
15
Ronan
Two hours later, and Ronan was still trying to figure out if what Bertha had to say was a crock of shit, an absolute possibility, or the answer to the puzzle. He’d never given it a second thought that Skye could have been the killer and had been double-crossed or outplayed at her own game.
Now, he was sitting in the Mustang, waiting for Ten and the others, so they could drive out to the crime scene. In the years Ronan had lived in Salem, he’d been in the Salem Towne Forest a dozen times, almost dying once, and he never knew a murder had been committed there.
Ten running out of the Magick shop brought him back to the present. He was carrying a piece of paper in his hand, which was flapping in the stiff December breeze. Carson and Cole trailed behind him. Ten opened the door to let the brothers into the backseat. “Sorry we took so long. I realized the forest is a big place and we didn’t know exactly where the body had been discovered, so I printed a map.”
“A map of the forest? How is that going to help?” Ronan started the car and pulled out into traffic. He saw Fitzgibbon, Jude, and Cope pull out behind him.
“No, Ronan, it’s a map of how to get to the spot where the murder occurred.” Tennyson sounded amused by Ronan’s confusion.
“There’s maps like that on the internet?” What the hell was this world coming to? Ronan knew murder was big business, but it chilled him to the bone that it was a market the internet catered to.