Maggie and the Empty Noose

by Barbara Cool Lee

  A simple way to add twenty-first century convenience to a twentieth-century car. It worked perfectly.

  As long as you were right-handed.

  She looked at the accident photograph of the cherry red luxury car.

  On the driver's side, to the left of the steering wheel, near the air vent, there was a drink holder. Of course there was. It was something so common no one would have even noticed it.

  No ashtrays. Those had gone out of fashion at the turn of the century. But any car worth buying had drink holders in abundance.

  So there it was. The perfect place for a left-handed man to put his paper cup for tapping his cigarette ashes.

  And in the photograph it was empty, a gaping, unused circle of black, as devastating as a noose.

  She felt the outrage wash through her at the simplicity of the whole thing.

  Because the man who was nervously, jerkily bringing that cigarette to his lips and taking a drag, over and over, in a futile attempt to steady his nerves; the man who was left-handed, and so he was smoking with his left hand, and getting annoyed at the awkwardness of having to tap out the ashes in a cup on his right, instead of the left side that felt so much more natural to him; the man who had slashed his wrists and hoped to die all those years ago for killing his best friend in a car accident—

  That man hadn't been in the driver's seat when David Zimmer was killed.

  He had been sitting in the passenger seat, wasted on drink and drugs, and smoking obsessively to calm himself, and tapping the ashes into the little paper cup in the center console.

  On his left side.

  "Pull over," said Eddie from the back seat.

  Reese tapped the ash into the cup again, that fatal movement that told Maggie everything about why Olivia had been murdered.

  She covered the phone screen with her palm, but Eddie said, "don't bother," and so she stopped. "Give me the phone," he said, and she saw the gleam of metal in his hand, and so she did. Then Eddie said again, to Reese, "pull over."

  "What's up, Eddie?" Reese asked. "We're almost home."

  "There." Eddie motioned with a silvery gun that glimmered in the moonlight. "That turnout up ahead. Pull in there."

  "What the—?"

  "I mean it, Reese," Eddie said.

  "Do it," Maggie said quietly. "We need to talk."

  Jasper whined and she gave him the Quiet command. He hushed.

  The Bug's tires whispered to a halt on the paved turnout. Reese turned off the puttering engine, and the sudden silence was deafening.

  "I don't understand," Reese said.

  "Get out," Eddie said.

  She and Reese got out.

  When Eddie pushed the seat forward and got out, too, Jasper attempted to leave with him, but the seat belt held him back.

  Maggie shushed him and told him to stay. Eddie shut the door and left the dog inside.

  His piercing bark broke the quiet, only slightly muffled by the closed car.

  They stood together, the three of them, in what turned out to be a viewpoint overlooking the open sea.

  The hush of waves on the beach far below drowned out all other sound.

  The sky above was clear, not as clear as the uninterrupted sky in Deep Creek had been, but clear enough to see the moon, with its shadowed craters that had fascinated a young farm boy and made him dream of being an astronaut and traveling to other planets.

  Now that boy stood at the edge of the cliff and stared at his childhood friend, and watched him point the silver gun directly at his chest.

  "What's going on, Eddie? What's this about?" Then it struck him: "You killed Olivia? But why?"

  "You heard a seagull," she said contemptuously. "You were playing me, and I fell for it."

  "I wasn't playing you. You just wouldn't let it go," Eddie said. "I tried to point you in another direction."

  "If you heard something in your kitchen at midnight, you couldn't have been on the beach," she said. "Very clever."

  "I wasn't trying to be clever," Eddie said. "I was trying to make it all go away."

  "Make what go away?" Reese asked. "What are you two talking about?"

  "I'm sorry," Eddie said. He pointed the gun at Reese's chest. "But I have to kill you now."

  "Like you had to kill Olivia," Maggie said.

  "Yes," he said. "You understand, don't you?"

  She nodded.

  "I don't get this," Reese said. "What did she do to make you kill her?"

  Eddie didn't say anything to him. He still couldn't, even now, standing at the edge of a cliff and pointing a gun at a man he'd known since kindergarten.

  "It wasn't what Olivia did," Maggie said. "It was what she knew."

  Reese shook his head. "What she knew? What could she have known?"

  "What could she have known that would make killing her necessary to keep her quiet?" Maggie asked. "What truth could be so horrible that it could never come out?"

  Eddie just stood there. All his bluffing done, he was crying now, and he wiped at his face with his free hand.

  "Frank woke up in bed the morning after the crash," Maggie said, "covered in David's blood. He had no idea what had happened until he turned on the news."

  Reese rubbed his hand over his eyes, as if he could block out that image.

  "And when we were at David's grave, you told me you never remembered that day, Reese."

  "So?" he asked.

  "There were only four people in the car. You, David, Frank, and Eddie." She sighed. "You admitted you caused the crash the same day it happened. You pled guilty to vehicular manslaughter without even fighting the charges. You lost custody of your son because of it. You tried to kill yourself because of what you had done."

  "I know that," he said, getting impatient. "Everybody knows that."

  "Why, Reese?" she asked. "Ask yourself why you did all that."

  "Because I crashed the car and killed David," he said softly. "Do you hate me for it, Eddie? Is that what this is? You said you forgave me, but you didn't, did you?"

  Eddie shook his head, unable to speak.

  "Come on, Eddie," Maggie said gently. "If you're going to kill us, you at least owe Reese the truth."

  But Eddie shook his head again.

  "Yes," she said. "Don't make me say it. You tell him."

  Eddie sobbed, a heart-wrenching sound that almost made her feel sorry for him. But he couldn't say it.

  So she did. "He was the driver, Reese. He killed David."

  Reese just stood there, shaking his head. He had been a murderer for so long in his mind it just wouldn't sink in.

  The two men faced each other, the pointed gun pinning them less than ten feet apart, and they stared at each other.

  Finally it dawned on Reese, and when Eddie saw it, he let out a groan.

  "I wasn't driving," Reese whispered. "I wasn't the driver. But you said I was. You told the police I was. You told me I was."

  "How did Olivia know?" Maggie asked.

  "She watched us go," Eddie whispered. He looked out at the endless ocean, but was obviously seeing something else in his mind. "She was standing on the marble steps of Reese's house, holding Shane in her arms. It was dark, and we were stumbling on the driveway, and she was saying we shouldn't go to the club. And Reese dropped the keys because he was so wasted, and I picked them up, and got in the driver's seat…." His voice drifted off as he watched the events unfold in his mind. "And she was laughing, and said we would all break our necks and it served us right for leaving her with the baby while we partied…."

  "All this time," Reese whispered. "You lied to me."

  "You put Olivia on the board of directors of your charity," Maggie said. "And you juggled her and Reese. You had to keep her happy, and still keep the flow of Reese's money to the charity coming."

  "I had to," he said, turning to Maggie and pleading with his eyes. "You see that? I had to have Reese's money for the children. And Olivia just wouldn't stop pushing. She wanted money. She wanted attention. It was
never enough."

  He turned to Reese. "I was backed into a corner. I had to… she was…. You know what she was. There was no way out with her. She'd drive you to the edge and laugh. She was a monster."

  "And you had to give her anything she asked for, or she would tell the truth about that night," Reese said.

  "It would kill them," he whispered. "You see that, don't you, Reese?"

  "I see that, Eddie."

  That image of David Zimmer's carefully tended grave flashed in Maggie's mind. The lack of headstone to keep the obsessive fans away, but the shrub of white daisies, and the carved wooden teddy bear that had once stood on a little country boy's night stand. And all those pebbles, marking years of visits by David's grieving parents to the place where their son was buried.

  This wasn't about the police finding out. Or the public. Or even Eddie's wife, or his children.

  It was about the bone-deep, never-ending grief of his parents. Parents whose only consolation was their boiling hatred for the man they blamed for their innocent son's death.

  "They can't know," Eddie said.

  And so Olivia had to die. And now Maggie had to die. And Reese had to die. And so would anyone who could break the spell Eddie had woven to protect his parents from the truth: that one of their sons had killed the other.

  "Don't you see?" Eddie said desperately. "When you tried to commit suicide I felt bad about it. But then you got better, and I figured it was meant to be, right? You got clean because of the crash. You came back better than ever, and became a big movie star, and your life was perfect after that."

  "Perfect," Reese said bitterly. "Yeah."

  What had Reese said the other night? Lots of fanatics want to hurt celebrities. We aren't real people to them. We're just symbols of something in their own lives that they love or hate or long for.

  Eddie hadn't framed his friend Stanley Tibbets. He had framed Reese Stevens, famous rock star, a symbol of Hollywood debauchery he could pin the crime on, to direct it as far away from himself as possible.

  And he had convinced himself it didn't matter, because Reese was beautiful, and rich, and famous, and so his life was perfect. The blame wouldn't hurt him like it would a real person.

  And Eddie made sense to Maggie now. The obsession with karma. The desperation to do only the most virtuous things, from drinking the purest water, to raising the kindest children, to running a charity that helped thousands of people, dedicating his life to selfless service.

  "You tried to atone for it," she said.

  "Yes! You see, don't you?" He waved the gun to emphasize his point. "It was for the greater good."

  He shuffled his feet on the pavement, getting restless, working himself up to what he knew he needed to do.

  "Why now?" Maggie asked, to keep him talking, to distract him from his inevitable next move.

  "Because you figured it out."

  "Not that. Why kill Olivia? It's been so many years. Why now?"

  "She wanted the charity. My charity. My life's work that would make it all okay. She thought if it was her charity, she would get that stupid housewives show. She told me I had to give it to her. Make her CEO. I had to step aside and leave the charity to her." His eyes pleaded with them. "You see why I couldn't, don't you?"

  "It was your atonement," Reese said. "It was your good deed to make up for the bad one."

  "Yes! And she was going to take it all. Turn it into a cash cow for herself. Use it to make herself famous and rich."

  "And you would have nothing," Maggie said. "Nothing to show that you were a good person, and you meant well, and you weren't just the man who killed his brother."

  "Nobody can know that," Eddie said. He looked down at the gun. "Nobody can know. Nobody can ever know."

  He raised the gun, centered it on Reese's perfect chest. "It's over. Tonight. We'll go out together. Like we should have all those years ago. But they will never know why. No one will be left to tell them."

  "So don't tell them," Reese said calmly. He actually smiled at Eddie. Maggie didn't understand what had changed. Somehow the tables had turned in an instant. Reese was now the serene Zen master, and Eddie was the frightened, confused one.

  "What do you mean?" Eddie asked.

  "There's no reason for anyone to know," Reese said, as if it were obvious.

  Eddie scoffed. "The police will keep looking. They're not going to just forget about Olivia's murder. They're going to keep digging."

  The gun waved in Maggie's direction. "Like her. Always digging. They need a solution."

  "Of course they do. You killed Olivia. You have to atone for that, Eddie," Reese said patiently. "You have to clear that from your ledger. You understand that, don't you?"

  "But I can't," he whispered. "They'll need to know why."

  "She threatened the charity, Eddie."

  A glimmer of hope sparked in Eddie's eyes. "My charity?"

  "Your charity," Reese explained, as if he were speaking to a child. "That you started to contribute goodness to the world. She was trying to destroy it, you said. To turn it into a cash cow for her insatiable greed."

  "Yes," he whispered. "She was."

  "And that is enough reason for murder, isn't it, Eddie? Trying to destroy your life's work is enough reason for anybody to lash out."

  The gun lowered an inch. "It is."

  Reese stood there, like a magnanimous, golden Greek god, offering absolution to his best friend's brother. "I will swear to it in court. I give you my word, Eddie."

  Maggie felt the tears burn at her eyes. "Oh, no, Reese. You can't. You'll always be blamed for David's death."

  "I don't care," Reese said, and she could see he meant it.

  "But you weren't the driver," she said, wanting to be sure he realized what he was doing.

  "No," he said with that same eerily calm smile. "I wasn't the driver."

  "Stanley?" Eddie said in a strangled-sounding voice, and Maggie realized that was the first time she'd ever heard Eddie call him by his true name, the first time in years he recognized him for who he really was.

  Reese's smile encompassed Eddie. "Tell them it was about the money," he said gently. "I'll swear to it. And so will Maggie."

  "Yes," Maggie said. "I'll swear that's what you told us."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lieutenant Ibarra's expression was absolutely neutral.

  Eddie sat in the chair in front of Ibarra's big desk, with Reese next to him. Maggie stood to the side, declining Ibarra's offer to have another chair brought in to the office. She'd rather stand.

  Rather watch, and listen, and observe Eddie as he told his story.

  It took a long time.

  Eddie told how Olivia had threatened his charity. How she'd wanted to take over. To use it to further her career, to siphon off money meant for the children. How she'd wanted to steal, not only to fund her lavish lifestyle, but to support the oxycodone habit that ate up thousands of dollars per week.

  Eddie told of agreeing to meet with her at midnight on the beach to talk about it.

  He told of giving Lotus and Serenity a bunch of candy, and them ending up sick and unable to sleep.

  Told how he'd set the clocks ahead to make Paige think the time was later, and then put cough medicine into the soothing herbal tea he gave the whole family to supposedly calm their stomachs.

  Told of waiting until the medicine made them drift off to sleep, and then slipping out of the house and going to meet Olivia.

  Told how she'd fallen during a scuffle, and hit her head on a rock, and had then run away from him up the beach stairs to Casablanca before collapsing, dead, by the pool.

  Told of placing the body in Reese's bed, using the key to his best friend's house that he happened to have in his pocket.

  Told of mixing Olivia's drugs in Reese's orange juice, hoping, in his words, to "knock him out for a while."

  Told of throwing the rock that had killed Olivia into the ocean, washing off the patio, sneaking back home, resetting the cl
ocks, and then going to sleep until his family woke up and provided him with the perfect alibi for the accidental death of Olivia Sigworth and the poisoning of Reese Stevens.

  Maggie stood through it all, watching, and listening, and feeling the growing rage inside of her.

  When Eddie had finished his whole explanation, Ibarra cleared his throat. "Anything else?" he asked, with about as much passion as if he were a waiter taking an order for french fries.

  Eddie shook his head.

  Ibarra glanced up at her. He raised an eyebrow, just slightly. "Any questions?" he asked.

  "There were no fingerprints," she said softly to Eddie. "You wore gloves." It wasn't a question, but Eddie nodded slightly.

  The room was silent for a minute.

  Reese had been quiet through the whole thing, and now he sat back in his chair, the only one in the room who appeared relaxed and comfortable.

  Ibarra pressed a button on his phone and that brought in two officers.

  He nodded to the camera in the corner of the office. "We'll need Mr. Zimmer's statement transcribed for him to sign."

  One officer nodded.

  The other man took Eddie by the arm. Eddie stood up, then followed the officer out of the room. He didn't look back.

  After Eddie was gone, Ibarra turned to Reese and Maggie and said, "you two expect me to believe this fairy tale?"

  "You think he's innocent?" Maggie asked.

  "Of course not. But that confession—give me a break! He makes himself sound like a child who tripped over a rock and it magically killed someone."

  "He's admitting he committed the murder," Reese said. "Isn't that enough?"

  "He almost killed you," Ibarra said. "Is it enough for you?"

  Maggie looked down at her hands, said nothing.

  "I know what he did," Reese said shortly. "But it's over. He'll go to prison and we can get on with our lives."

  "You sure you want it that way?"

  "Yeah," Reese said. "I want it that way."

  Ibarra shrugged. "Okay."

  Reese stood up, and they started to leave the room, but Ibarra said, "Stay a minute, Maggie."