Bound to Die

by Laurie Rockenbeck

  Drummond arrived and went into the changing room. Put on his harness thing, came back into the main room, and knelt. Payne, dressed like a woman dressed like a man in the leather suit, entered from behind and tied Drummond up. Drummond didn’t notice that whoever was tying him up was not Karen and didn’t struggle.

  Payne finished with some sort of statement, maybe said something to Drummond. Was his message simply to subdue Drummond and ejaculate on him? Or, had he given Drummond a more complex message, something to relay to Karen? The note only referenced the message. Too bad he hadn’t repeated it.

  Payne threw his regular clothes on over the suit because he realized he was out of time and left Drummond alone, expecting Karen to show up within minutes. He must have taken the mask with him. Payne didn’t even know he had committed murder until the news reports of Drummond’s death. He freaked out. His psyche wasn’t strong enough to take the responsibility for what he did. He stewed, and blamed Karen Hunter, turning his anger at himself on her.

  Court stood back from the whiteboard and looked at it. Everything fit. Now they needed to find Payne before he got to Karen.

  58

  He worked with Ivy for another half hour putting together warrants on all of Payne’s credit cards. If he had a new phone, they couldn’t find it. Payne’s real estate agent wasn’t returning Court’s calls, either. Court left a curt message, threatening the woman with arrest for obstructing justice if she didn’t get back to him ASAP. Payne’s last paycheck had been mailed to the house, and he hadn’t given Haubek a new address, not even for his income-tax papers for the end of the year.

  For all intents and purposes, it looked like Payne wanted to slide off the face of the earth as soon as his mother died. It could have been a coincidence, or it could have been a more calculated effort on his part to hide himself. If so, why? Was he planning on some other deluded scenario with Karen?

  Their only hope was for more information on the credit cards or his computer. Ashena was surrounded by components when he went to check in with her. She didn’t even look up from what she was doing as he hovered nearby. “This is going to take a while. You might as well go get some rest, ’cause I’m betting you’re going to have a lot to run with when I’m done.”

  Ivy suggested they go home, take showers and nap until Ashena was done, whenever that would be.

  It was late, and the weather had an eerie quiet calmness to it. He got off his bus a stop early to pick up some dinner. What he loved about Dick’s was the lack of choice. The burgers came the way they came. You either got a burger, a cheeseburger, or a deluxe, and you couldn’t ask for changes like “no mayo.” There were three kinds of shakes and the menu never changed. He got a Deluxe, a strawberry shake, and fries. Simple, uncomplicated. Freeing.

  He needed the fat and carb fortification to face whatever Britt was about to lay on him, and the long night and day ahead. By the time he had eaten his fill and walked home, her car was parked in his driveway.

  She was leaning against his front door reading email or Facebooking or something on her phone. When he got to her, she leaned forward and kissed him on both cheeks, European style. “Ohhhh … you’re eating unhealthy. I can smell the grease on you, Court.”

  “You saw the cup in my hand.” He held it up and wiggled it at her.

  “You got me.”

  “You’d make a good detective.” He unlocked the door and ushered her in.

  He slipped off his shoes and put on his slippers, motioning for her to do the same. She selected one of several extra pairs he kept for guests, making herself at home while he went into the kitchen to grab her a beer. He was hoping he would get called back in soon and kept to his milkshake. It had finally melted enough to suck through the straw.

  “So.”

  “So,” she repeated.

  Awkward conversations with Britt had become the norm, so he waited for her to take a drink and launch into whatever it was she was here for.

  “Remember when you and Amanda got into that fight? The mondo one before you tried that treatment with Bailey?”

  Court couldn’t forget. Wouldn’t ever forget. It was like being hit in the stomach when she brought it up, completely out of the blue.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. It was a rhetorical question. “So, Amanda came to me when she left you that night. I don’t think I ever told you this before, but she… She told me some things that made me hate you for a while.”

  Court sat back in his chair. None of this was a surprise. Why dredge it up now? Why now after she’d told him to get a life three nights ago?

  “Amanda convinced me you were wrong to push for the treatment. That your pushing for the treatment is what killed Bailey.”

  This was old news. Bailey would have died without the treatment. That was one hundred percent certain, and he’d taken the slim odds that the experimental procedure would give them all more time.

  It had been Amanda’s mantra for weeks before she blew her face off. If he hadn’t pushed the procedure, Bailey would have lived longer. “Why are you bringing this up now, Britt? Why today?”

  She downed half her beer before answering. She wiped the foam off her lips with the back of her hand. “I’ve been blaming you for all of it. Bailey’s death. Amanda’s suicide. I’ve been telling myself it was your fault you left your gun out. I’ve been telling myself it was your fault. That you forced Amanda into allowing the treatment. That it was all your fault. But it wasn’t. I abandoned her when she needed me most. I couldn’t stand to be over there with my kids. She looked at them like they should have died too. She hated me for having healthy children. I should have known it was her depression talking. If I had listened better. Hung out with her more, held her hand tighter….”

  Court’s heart ached with a ferocity he had forgotten. Seeing his sister tearing herself up over this, with as much anger as he had aimed at himself, was gut wrenching. She had been talking to herself on Saturday. Not just him. He grabbed her hands. “Britt. You were right the other day. We need to move on. Both of us do.”

  She shook her head. “I know. I give you shit for not moving on, and then I got a good look in the mirror.” She wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “Look, I’ve come to apologize. I get that it wasn’t your fault.”

  “You don’t need to apologize, Britt.”

  “No. I do need to. It’s long overdue.”

  “Why tonight?” Court asked.

  “One of the kids at school has a little sister who was just diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma. They asked me what I knew about it. I guess they’d heard about Bailey through the grapevine. I spent hours reading about the newest treatment options. And the one you chose? It’s working. I know it didn’t work for us, for Bailey, but in the last three years, they’ve fine-tuned the combination of surgery and radiation and medications. I honestly don’t understand it all, but it looks like what they were doing four years ago was the beginning of a new protocol that is beginning to work.”

  Court felt the pressure that usually hit him before he cried building behind his eyes and clogging his nose. He didn’t want to cry any more, not for Bailey or Amanda. Something about the way Britt said it knocked something loose in his heart. Even if it hadn’t worked for Bailey, the protocol worked for others. He focused on the art deco chandelier over his dining table. He willed away tears. He needed to be done crying.

  “It’s little comfort to know what you lost is helping others, Court, I know, but I felt I had to tell you. And, well, Amanda, she did what she did out of anger at herself as much as at you. It’s her family that carries the depression gene.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “A couple weeks before she died. I wanted to be angry at someone, so I chose you. Your gun.”

  “I shouldn’t have left it out. It made it too easy for her.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If it wasn’t your gun, it would have been pills. Or something else. When Amanda put her mind to something, she always carried through with it.
” She paused, smiling. “I miss her. But … well … I wanted … needed to apologize.”

  Enough. This was as much as he could deal with in one night. Change the subject, get her talking about something else now. “Does this mean you’re going to stop setting me up with all the wrong women?”

  Britt wiped at her face with her shirtsleeve and stopped, blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What wrong women?”

  Court stood up and walked to the fireplace, pretended to study the Klimt print Amanda had bought him for their first anniversary that hung over it. “Seriously? Ever since you came up here, you’ve been trying to set me up with the women who are totally not my type.”

  She jumped up, edging herself in between the mantle and Court, forcing him to face her. “I’ve introduced you to a lot of nice women, but, Court, you’ve been the one sabotaging things.”

  Court half-laughed. “Right. Let’s see. Cami?”

  “She’s your best friend.”

  “Yeah, but she’s a kinky butch into femme women.”

  Britt waved away the protest. “Okay, fine. Maybe you’re not into each other, but you both like feminine women. Everyone else had possibility.”

  “Oh, like Vivian? She took me to a Renaissance faire. She made me wear tights. And elf ears.”

  Britt giggled. “Did you get any pictures?”

  “Like I’d show you. There was Debbie, Carina, Helen, Margo, Jamie, Emily, and Roberta.” He counted them off on his fingers, one by one.

  “Hey, every one of them is a nice girl who liked you, Court.”

  “Right. Debbie wanted to have sex in yoga positions. Carina wanted me to become vegan. Helen wanted me to go Paleo.” He stopped, seeing a theme. “All of them wanted to change me in one way or another. Margo wanted me to embrace my feminine side, Jamie wanted me to stop being a cop, Emily wanted me to give up all my worldly goods to travel the world, and Roberta.” He stumbled on Roberta and had to think for a second to remember what had been Roberta’s bugaboo. “Oh, right, how could I forget? Roberta wanted me to become a queer porn star. She said I could make a ton of money with my ‘super-hot body.’ Okay, that one actually appealed to me for about ten minutes.”

  Britt was laughing hard now.

  “I’m glad to see you find the humor in it all,” Court said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

  “Oh, Court, you should have told me some of this before now. I only got the story from their side, and I have to say you came across as kind of a jerk.” She grabbed his chin in her hand. “It was pretty much a consensus. All you wanted from them was sex.”

  “Really?” But she was right. He had wanted sex. He had gotten it, too. But after you’ve gotten physically intimate with someone, they usually wanted the other kind—the emotional kind—something he wasn’t able to give. He could see that now.

  She nodded. “Can’t say I blame you. Companionship feels good, no matter who you’re with in the short term.”

  The truth hurt. “Yeah, well. They were right. I don’t think I can handle much more than sex.”

  “Still?” Britt asked. “I got the feeling you and Madeline have clicked pretty well.”

  A warm fuzzy tickled him when Britt mentioned her name. “Okay, maybe. She lost Jake to gunfire, so it still remains to be seen if she can handle a cop in her life. But yeah, I like her. A lot. A lot.” Court’s pocket buzzed. “Hold on, we’re getting close on this case.”

  It was a text. He held the phone up for Britt to see. “Your latest endeavor,” he said. “She wants to know if I am free to talk.”

  “I like Madeline, Court. You’d make a good couple.”

  Court pulled Britt in close for a hug. “As long as she doesn’t ask me to wear tights or pointy ears.”

  As soon as Britt left, Court returned Madeline’s call. Britt and he were forging a new way forward, but he doubted her ability to stop playing big sister. Court wasn’t big on small talk, but he spent half an hour on the phone, mostly listening to Madeline. She had a pleasant, warm voice. She wanted to sign up for a dance class with him. She offered to sign them both up, but she had no idea if he could make a regular Tuesday night work.

  “I don’t know if I can make anything regular, ever, but if I don’t try, it will never happen,” he said. “I’m going to be coming off this case tomorrow or the next day. When’s it start?”

  “It starts in three weeks, every Tuesday for six weeks.”

  Was he committing to a nine-week relationship? He paused for a long moment. “Can we sign up next week still? I’d like to give it some thought.”

  He could hear the disappointment in her silence.

  “Madeline? I’m totally focused on this investigation, and I’m exhausted. I need some time. The way my life works, I have a hard time imagining being available on a regular basis.”

  “Sure, Court. No problem. Stay safe chasing down the bad guy, will you?”

  He knew he’d hurt her, that his pause had stung. Still, he wasn’t sure he was ready for such a commitment. Not yet. He needed more time to get to know her.

  Throughout his conversation with Madeline, he kept thinking about calling Karen Hunter to update her. As soon as he said goodnight to Madeline, he dialed her.

  She picked up before the second ring. “Detective? What’s up?”

  Her voice sounded keyed. Anxious. “I wanted to fill you in. We figured out who Jarvis is.”

  “What? How’d you find him?”

  “We didn’t find him, we only know who he is.”

  “Well? Who is he?”

  “There were a few emails from him this week. He signed them Jarvis but the email user name is TinyTim.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “TinyTim, like in A Christmas Carol? So, how did that help you? Did you trace the email somehow, like where he sent it from?”

  “No, but this TinyTim guy had sent you several emails you ignored. He was getting more and more upset about you not responding, so he put that note on your door. But what put it together was what you told me about Jarvis having a small penis. Tiny. And we had this guy from Haubek on our radar already. His name is Tim. TinyTim. Gotta be him. Anyway, we don’t have a professional profiler like they do on TV shows, but I get the sense he has some screws loose and is going to come after you. Some people get angry at the focus of their addiction, and when it’s a person that anger can turn into an attempt to kill that person.”

  “Wow. That’s just great news,” she said, her voice dripping in sarcasm. “After all that time fixating on me, do you think he’d actually try to hurt me?”

  “No telling what he might do, but, in my experience, when people lose it like this, they often lash out. He very well might attempt to harm you or your kids. I know we talked about this earlier, but you ought to reconsider your decision to stay.”

  “You’ve got three people watching the house. I feel safe enough here.”

  “We don’t know what this guy is capable of. We know he tied Drummond up and left him to die. If it were me, I’d be clearing out of there.”

  “Look, this guy used to worship me, I can’t imagine that he’d really try to hurt me. I doubt he’d go after my kids either. And, if what he said is true, he didn’t intend to kill Berkeley.”

  “I can’t force you out of your house, but this guy is not the same guy he was twelve years ago when you knew him.”

  “I refuse to be bullied out of fear. You have armed officers here guarding us. And, I don’t want to disrupt my life any more than it has been.”

  Court hung up feeling uneasy. The house backed onto a greenbelt. Lots of trees and shrubs created a pretty good hiding place. Still, three trained and armed police officers against one guy should be no problem.

  It was late, but Ashena still hadn’t texted back. He took a shower and dived into his bed for a nap. He put his phone by his head for easy access through the night. He could be back at the station in five minutes when he needed to. He worked through half a d
ozen meditation exercises he’d learned from one of the Britt’s failed picks before he fell into a deep sleep filled with nightmares. Bailey and Amanda danced around Berkeley Drummond’s hanging body chasing each other in circles and laughing as they sang Ring Around the Rosie.

  59

  Ashena texted him at five thirty in the morning, followed by Ivy. He hopped into the shower to wash away the nightmares and perk himself up. He was instantly deluged by a torrential rain as he stepped outside. He rushed back in and grabbed a couple changes of clothes, an extra coat and a few protein bars, stuffed them in a bag and waved down the first taxi that came by.

  Ivy jumped onto the same elevator a split second before the doors swished shut, and they rushed over to Ashena’s desk without even stopping at their own. Ashena stood up when Court and Ivy approached her desk, coming around so she was in between the two of them. Court could see this was going to be a short discussion by the small sheaf of papers she had in her hands.

  “Here’s what I got. His work computer was wiped clean. But, the good news is, it was wiped with the idea someone else was going to come in and use it, not to hide something major. I managed to recover a lot of his deleted data. There isn’t much to go on, but he was doing searches of apartments in Redmond. He might not have talked openly about moving there, but he wasn’t trying hard to hide it.”

  She circled a list of addresses with her long fingernail. “Here are six apartment complexes that he spent a lot of time on. Or, at least, he clicked on all their pages, some of them multiple times. Below those are four more where he only looked at the home-page. I’d start with the first six. I even put them in order of highest number of clicks to lowest. I didn’t find any email correspondence, so he probably called or visited them.”