by Stephen John
I could see the imaginary light bulb beginning to flicker over Gus’s head.
“Oh . . . Now I get it.”.
Victor looked at Bessie, “You see, I told you he was smart.”
Bessie nodded, albeit halfheartedly, “It’s truly amazing. I mean that,” she said in a tone that was nearly dripping with sarcasm. Fortunately, Gus seemed to be fully sold on Victor’s line of B.S. and not paying attention to Bessie.
“So, I help you and you let me off, is that it?” Gus asked.
Victor smiled slyly.
“It is very common for an agency to strike a deal with criminals who are specialists in their field, in exchange for, shall we say, special considerations.”
I noted that Victor once again never actually said yes.
Gus thought for a moment and nodded, “Yes, I think I understand. What would you want me to do?”
“Good question, Gus. You have established yourself as an expert in the field of Aconitum poisoning. We know you killed Emma Peterson and Thelma Slater, and we know you used Aconitum to do it. We also know that you escaped detection from the local authorities—in the case of Thelma Slater, for nearly a year. That means you’re good—very good. Pulling that off was masterful. It’s the kind of information that we would find very useful with certain enemies of state.”
“So, if I tell you how I did all this, then you’ll use that same method to kill our enemies?”
And there it was . . . He said, ‘If I tell you how I did all this . . .’ I had just heard him confess to murder. Victor, once again, turned briefly toward the camera, away from Gus’s line of sight, and winked at me.
“You seem to have a strong understanding of the process,” Victor replied. “That’s why we need a man like you. I want you to come to work for us.”
“So . . . I’d be . . . like a hero?”
Victor paused momentarily. I thought he was going to break character and go off on Gus. He regained his composure quickly, however.
“That is certainly one way to look at it.”.
“Can I think it over?”
He was stalling, I thought. Victor was losing him. The moment of truth had arrived.
“Certainly,” Victor replied. “Take as much time as you need—provided it’s not more than thirty seconds.”
“Thirty seconds?” Gus repeated.
“You seem to think we are presenting you with options,” piped Bessie. She was clearly agitated with Gus Proctor.
“I’ll handle this Agent Butts,” Victor said.
Bessie glared at him again. Victor turned back to Gus.
“This is a one-time offer, my friend, and the offer expires in thirty seconds, beginning now.”
He tapped his watch.
“Why the deadline?” he asked.
“Because I don’t have time to mess around, and because, unless you are an idiot, you know you have no choice. You are a coldblooded murderer, Mr. Proctor. We have you dead to rights. You either work for us or face dire consequences.”
Gus began to hyperventilate. I saw him biting his lip, anxiously.
Victor tapped his watch.
“What’s it going to be, Mr. Proctor?”
Gus began to balk. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. I drew a deep breath and held it as I watched.
“Can you give me another few minutes?” Gus pleaded. “I have questions for you.”
“You are not in a bargaining position, Mr. Proctor. No more questions. I just need to hear you say yes or no. Twenty seconds.”
I was beginning to sweat watching all this unfold. On the other hand, if Victor were any calmer, he’d be asleep. Victor Bloom was one cool cat.
Gus remained silent, deep in thought.
“You need to decide, Mr. Proctor,” Victor barked. “If you do not agree to my terms, my offer is off the table and I will call in the local authorities. You’ll be in a cell within the hour and I promise you, Mr. Proctor, you will never see the light of day as a free man again. And it won’t end there. While you are in jail awaiting trial, I’ll make sure your cellmate is the largest, meanest, hairiest felon in the jail. You know what happens in jail to pretty boys like you . . . don’t you?”
“But this is not fair,” he pleaded. “I need time . . .”
“Time like you gave Emma Peterson?” Bessie snapped. “With the evidence we have mounted against you, the only thing you will ever need to decide again, is whether your execution will be by hanging or lethal injection. Louisiana is a death penalty state, but I’m sure you knew that?”
“If I do this, you will let me off, right?”
Victor looked at his watch, “We’re done talking—decide. Decide now. Do you agree to my terms or do I make the call? Ten seconds remain.”
“Don’t I need to sign a contract? I mean, I need a lawyer to look all this over, right?”
“What part of the words, clandestine and covert, did you not understand? Do you honestly believe we have contracts floating about for off-the-books operations?”
“Oh, this is useless!” Bessie barked. “I told you this guy was an idiot. I’ve had enough. Make the call.”
Victor pulled his cell and began dialing the phone. Each time he hit a number Gus could hear the loud tones being dialed.
Gus opened his mouth to speak but then caught himself, again remaining silent.
“Yes, operator,” Victor said into what was undoubtedly dead air on his cell phone, “Please connect me with Deputy Director Mark Mosely.”
“Okay! Okay!” Gus screamed. “Just hang up. I’ll do it.”
“Forget it,” Bessie snapped. “It’s too late.”
“No! No! I’ll do it. I swear.”
“No more games?” Bessie asked.
“No more games, I swear.”
Victor pretended to hit the end button on his cell. He looked Gus in the eye.
“Wise decision, Mr. Proctor.”
He sat down again.
Gus began to sob freely. Victor gave him a moment, turning to his two ‘agents.’
“That will be all, gentlemen. I now need to ask Gus a few questions that are outside the purview of your security clearance.”
Chad and Jerry nodded and left the room. Victor turned back to Gus.
“Mr. Proctor, you’ve made a wise decision,” he said. “Soon, we are going to want full details outlining every step you made in the process of killing Emma Peterson.”
“But you said, you already knew everything.”
Victor didn’t miss a beat. It was a question he expected.
“I do, but my director will want to hear it. . . from you. He needs to understand just how clever you are, and how valuable you can be.”
Gus seemed to be staring a hole through Victor. I could almost hear him thinking, wondering whether or not he should back out. I drew in a breath and held it as I wondered whether Gus Proctor was figuring it all out. Victor returned the stare with a steely-eyed one of his own. Victor was a pro, pure and simple.
“Okay,” he said, finally. “I’m in.”
“Good. Let’s begin. I need you to answer a few simple questions so I can prove to my deputy director that you can indeed be of use,” he said, quietly and seriously. “I will ask you each question one time. Remember, as of now, you and I are partners, and partners do not lie. National security is at stake. Even the smallest lie can compromise the lives of our agents. If I get so much as a whiff of a lie, the deal will be off and I will have you arrested on the spot. Do you understand?”
Gus looked at him, wide-eyed, and nodded, “I won’t lie.”
“I’m going to remove your handcuffs now,” Victor said. “Rest assured, however, my gun is readily accessible.”
“I understand.”
Gus nodded. Victor removed the cuffs and slipped them into his pocket. Gus rubbed his wrists.
“Good. Well, now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way,” he said loudly, sneaking a glance at the camera, “let’s get down to business.”
/> Oh crap—that was my cue. I was so mesmerized by what was happening, I nearly forgot the signal. I let out a huge sigh of relief. Victor had cleared an enormous hurdle, but he was not home free yet.
I hit the record button. Everything from this point forward, video and audio, was now being recorded. None of the bull hockey Victor had been slinging before was on tape, however.
Victor pulled a tiny handheld recorder from his pocket. He fiddled with it, “I can never get this damn thing to work,” he said. He appeared to be having difficulty turning the small device on, which I was pretty certain was for appearances only.
“There, I have it. Everything you say going forward will now be part of the official record,” Victor said. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Gus said.
Again, Victor was masterful. He had just legally informed Gus legally that he was recording the conversation. Gus still had no idea he was on camera, however, but for the purposes of criminal entrapment, Victor made sure that Gus was on record saying he knew he was being recorded. Gus was not cuffed; he no longer seemed to be unduly stressed. He was confessing of his own free will. At least that’s how a jury will see it, I was convinced.
Victor stated his name and the date, this time leaving out the title of Special Agent. He asked Gus if he was there today of his own free will. Gus said yes.
“Thank you for agreeing to tell us in your own words how you killed Emma Peterson,” Victor said. “I know this is a difficult thing for you to do. Just take your time and answer my questions. For the moment, I wish to discuss Emma Peterson and only Emma Peterson. No one else. Understand?”
Gus nodded.
I smiled once again at Victor’s brilliant manipulation. He was intentionally leaving Thelma Slater’s name out of the record. If the plan went sour and Gus’s confession to Emma’s murder ended up being thrown out, the authorities could still pursue him for the murder of Thelma Slater. In Victor’s mind, justice was justice. If Gus was punished to the full degree of the law, it mattered little whether it was for Emma’s murder or Thelma Slater’s. Either way, Emma’s killer would be brought to justice.
“What do you want to know?” Gus asked.
“We are going to want to know everything?” Victor answered, “but my first question is; how did you get Emma to drink the Aconitum-laced tea on Friday night while you were at a party in Thibodaux?”
“I thought you already knew how I created my alibi.”
Victor did not miss a beat, “I do. As I said, this is for the record.”
“Oh, okay. It was pretty easy. Emma told me she’d been having trouble sleeping, so I made up a story about this special homemade tea. I assured her it would allow her to sleep. I put the tea outside her front door in the milk box on Thursday night. I called her from a party I was attending in Thibodaux on Friday evening. I told her I dropped the tea off and convinced her to make an especially strong cup.”
“That’s it?” Victor questioned, somewhat surprised. “You simply put poison tea in her milk box, then called her and told her to make it herself?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t she question why you didn’t knock on the door and simply hand it to her?”
“Yes. I told her that I was working elsewhere in Sinful late at night. I told her the lights were out when I arrived at her house and that I didn’t want to wake her.”
“Smart. Go on. What made you think she’d actually drink it?”
“The advanced planning was the key,” he said. “You have to build a level of trust. I’d spent a great deal of time building that bond with Emma. I knew she loved tea and I knew she had been having trouble sleeping. I was pretty certain I could get her to make the tea herself if I provided it for her. The plan was to do it on a Friday night.”
“Because you knew you’d be ninety miles away that evening?” Victor asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that I had an alibi. To be even more careful, I borrowed a cell phone from another person at the party to call Emma. That way, if the authorities traced my cell phone, they could not have traced a call from me to her that night.”
Victor nodded, “Smart.”
“And so simple,” he said, looking at Bessie.
“Simple is better,” Gus said.
For a man so obviously clueless in some areas. He had a streak of brilliance about him, but we had our answer. Gus wasn’t at Emma’s house on Friday because he didn’t need to be. He provided the poisonous tea and Emma made her own cup of poison and drank it at his behest. I could see Victor’s body language change as Gus described the scenario. I worried that the personal emotional connection might cause him to lose his edge.
“How did you select Emma as a victim in the first place?” Victor asked.
“Maxine Reed, another client of mine, recommended her,” Gus said. “In my first meeting with Emma, I noted how modestly she lived—like she didn’t have two nickels to rub together. But suddenly she is ordering thousands of dollars in landscaping work? I knew she came into money, suddenly.”
“So, you went to work on her, so to speak?” Bessie asked.
“That’s right.”
“How is it that Maxine Reed did not become one of your victims?” Victor asked.
“Maxine had very little money,” he said. “There was no advantage in it for me. That’s why I use her garden to grow the Aconitum I used for . . . well, you know.”
“So, you intentionally avoided growing the Aconitum plant in Emma’s garden . . .” Victor began.
“Yes, so no one would stumble on it and make a connection.”
“Were you also aware that Emma had heart problems?”
“Sure. It’s one of the things that made this all so easy. I didn’t think anyone would suspect a thing. I knew that she was on heart medication. Aconitum poisoning looks like a heart attack.”
Gus went through a series of questions next: how he obtained the Aconitum; how he knew how to make the tea; how he tried to convince her to open an offshore account, and many more questions. As the questioning proceeded, Gus opened up more and more, providing more and more detail as he went along. It was as though he took pride in what he’d accomplished. All of Gus’s answers lined up perfectly with what we already knew, but actually hearing Gus say it aloud was having an unintended impact. I noticed through Victor’s body language and tone of voice, that he was not handling the vivid detail very well.
“How is it that the poisonous tea disappeared from the kitchen after Emma died?” Bessie asked, taking over the questioning. Victor was clearly struggling emotionally.
“I knew that I’d be at her place on Saturday and that she’d already be dead. It was my regular day to work at Emma’s house, so no one would question why I was on site. I did all my landscaping work as normal. Emma normally greeted me and brought me iced tea or lemonade. When she never appeared, I knew it was all playing out like I wanted.”
“So, you calmly worked on the landscaping for hours knowing Emma Peterson was inside, dead?” Victor asked.
“Yes. On this day, I spent more time in her front yard than normal. I made sure that several of her neighbors saw me casually going about my business in the event the police ever asked.”
“And why it that?”
“I wanted the police to believe I was not nervous about being there. I mean, what kind of man could casually go about his business knowing a dead woman was inside the house?”
“What kind of man indeed?”
“So, after you finished your yard work, you went into the house?” Bessie asked. “How did you get in?”
“I knew where Emma kept her spare house key. It was in a drawer near the kitchen utensils. I took it the previous Saturday while we were sipping tea in her dining room. I let myself in. I replaced the spare key in its original spot once I was inside. Later, I told the Deputy that the door was already ajar when I knocked.”
“And that’s when you saw her body?”
“Yes. Ther
e were pieces of a broken tea cup and spilled tea on the floor. I took time to clean all that up and removed the remaining tainted tea. I put all that stuff in my truck so the police couldn’t find it in the garbage later.”
Bessie nodded. She was beginning to get emotional herself, but somehow managed to maintain her composure. Still, I thought I heard a tiny break in her voice as she continued.
“Aconitum has a characteristically bitter taste. How did you mask the flavor?”
“I found a recipe in the Witchcraft and Wicca magazine. I purchased several ingredients to mix with the tea—made all the purchases in cash in case anyone tried to trace it later. They masked the taste of the Aconitum quite well. Actually, I’ve read that they actually make the tea taste very good. Of course, I’ve never tried it, myself.”
He chuckled at his joke.
“What a pity,” Victor said, in a soft voice.
“What?” Gus replied.
Victor bit his lip, undoubtedly wanting to choke the bastard.
“How did you verify what you believed? That she came into money.”
“As time went on, I got to know Emma. After a few weeks spending time with her, I gained her trust. She told me about the large gift she received.”
“So, what then?”
“I worked hard to get closer to her,” he said. “I told her I was lonely and needed companionship. She admitted the same. I told her I didn’t care about the age difference—I just wanted a very close friend to spend time with. She bought it all, hook, line and sinker.”
“Did you become lovers?” Bessie asked.
“No. I wanted to. That’s always the sure-fire way to get exactly what you want. Emma wasn’t ready for something like that, though. She was lonely, and wanted companionship.”
“So, you took advantage of her while she was in her most vulnerable state?” Victor said.
“Yes.”
“What about the off-shore account? Emma began the process of opening one but never completed it.”
“Yeah, it fell apart on me. I kept telling Emma it was my dream to move to the Caymans. I made it sound so good. I told her I would love for her to come with me. She balked, of course. I convinced her that it was a good idea to open an account there, if nothing else, then for the tax purposes alone. I was working on convincing her to move there with me.”