Caskets & Conspiracies

by Nellie K Neves

  “Lindy Johnson, private investigator. I thought you were dead.”

  His voice registered all at once. I had not seen his face, just his expensive leather shoes. I heard his voice as he ordered my death, moments before I was buried in a pine casket and sealed beneath layers of dirt.

  “That’s right. I forgot. You don’t know me. I’m sorry. That’s rude of me,” Richard said as he watched my face shrewdly.

  “You’re Richard Wagnor, CEO of Pharmaco,” I answered before he could say anything. “Or are you Trevor Cripley, a local lawyer who happens to show up in a wealthy widow’s last hours?”

  His smile only spread. “You are good, very good. It is refreshing to find someone your age who is willing to take pride in her work and truly excel.”

  I was determined to wipe the grin from his face.

  “Which name do you use when you head up The Hope Allegiance, or is there another name that you use to deal with them? Do you ever get confused when you introduce yourself? I’d be tripping over myself with all the identities you have to juggle.”

  The smile faded slightly and the air between us turned cold.

  “You should learn when to stop, Miss Johnson. There aren’t points for overachievers in this business.”

  I set my jaw and shrugged. “Personal flaw of mine, I guess.”

  The leather chair he sat in tilted back slightly as he watched me.

  “How do you imagine this all happening, Miss Johnson? Why are you here,” an eyebrow cocked slightly as he finished his sentence, “unarmed?”

  I could draw out a bluff. “How do you know I am unarmed?” The light in the room shifted as the sun slipped behind a skyscraper.

  Richard pulled a drawer open and set something heavy on his desk. My 9 mm lay on its side with the muzzle pointed directly at my abdomen in insult.

  “Because it’s right here, and it’s your only gun.”

  He took pleasure in the anger that burned in my chest, I was sure of it.

  “You see, I’ve looked into you. After all, you aren’t the only one with a gift for profiling.” His smug demeanor annoyed me, but I kept my face placid. “While you try to act like you’re rogue and above the law, when it actually comes down to it, you register your firearms, you vote without fail, and your taxes are filed by February first with no mistakes. You come in here thinking you can intimidate me with your bad attitude and whipping boy in the basement. I have studied you, and you are better alone. What has it been? Five years now that you’ve worked on your own? If you had a team, I might be concerned. When it comes down to it, you’ll always choose independence.” He pushed himself up from the desk, my gun balanced in his palm. “So I ask you again, Miss Johnson, what exactly are you planning?”

  Completely brazen, I replied, “I want answers. I know you are going to kill me, but if you really have looked into me as well as you say you have, then you know justice isn’t nearly as important to me as solving the puzzle.”

  My heart thumped in my chest so hard I worried he might see it, but I held my ground, my phone still clutched tight in my left hand.

  “I am going to kill you. Honestly, I thought I already had, so really your appearance here is aggravating to say the least.” The gun remained pointed at the floor, but he lifted it to his hand as if to examine it. “It’s not really a girl’s gun, is it? But you aren’t a typical girl, are you? I have seen your thirst for answers, and I felt you coming even before you knew I existed. It’s been exciting having an opponent who was almost worthy.” The gun drifted to his side again, threat negated for the moment. Like a predator who knows the kill is not far off, he asked, “What do you want to know?”

  I displayed my cell phone and asked, “Do you mind if I record you?”

  It was amusing to him. “For what purpose? There is no way you’ll see the sun rise, and I will smash that phone beyond recognition.”

  My lips pursed and my shoulders lifted slightly with indifference. “Call it habit. I like to keep my cases tidy and organized. It’s a quirk of mine.”

  A knock sounded at the double doors and Richard held up a finger. “Hold on. I’m expecting someone.” His finger remained on the trigger as he walked to the door. The moment his head was turned I began dialing, but as the door popped open, my heart sank.

  “Mr. Billings,” Richard scolded as two security guards dragged Ryder into the room, “you are late. I had to get my own door. You know I hate that.”

  Ryder’s nose dripped blood, a cut had opened above his swollen right eye and from what I could tell, his lip was puffy and split. From the way his weight hung on the guards, I could see that he had other injuries, internal hidden ones, the kind that caused real damage.

  With dramatic flair Richard released a sigh. “Isn’t it frustrating to be let down by the people you work with?”

  Ryder started to speak. “Lindy, I’m sorry I—”

  In one fluid motion, Richard cracked the gun across Ryder’s face, the force whipping his head back until it hung limp, the skin darkening immediately.

  “I hate interruptions, Mr. Billings.”

  The narcissism was not hard to see. He thought more of himself than anyone else, but as I scrutinized the rest of his behavior, he noticed my prying eyes. “Are you diagnosing me, Lindy?” Richard asked, slightly amused. When I did not respond he said, “I believe the psychiatrists landed on invulnerable narcissist with the possibility of anti-social personality disorder.”

  I tried to keep my eyes off Ryder’s bleeding face. It was easier if I ignored him. With my voice flat and even, I said, “I was leaning toward all-around sociopath, but those fit too.”

  His temper flared. Leave it up to a true narcissist to anger over a common diagnosis. The gun cocked and leveled at my head.

  “Do you have a death wish, Miss Johnson?”

  It was important not to cower, not to cave in the slightest. The second he saw my fear, it would be over. My life, and more especially Ryder’s life, was only spared because I was still a challenge. In Richard’s twisted mind, I was still unbroken.

  “Well, once you’ve clawed yourself out of your own grave, you start doubting death’s ability to hold you.” I stared past the gun into the stark blue eyes of my captor. “I go to bed every night not knowing what the morning will hold. A bullet in the head looks better than any future I can see.”

  He chewed on my words, the evening glow of the sun cast golden hints on the dark furniture as I waited for my fate. Finally the gun dropped to his side.

  “It’ll be a shame to kill you, a real shame.”

  My phone buzzed in my hand. As Richard paced the space around Ryder, I took a moment to glance at the screen. My confidence rose.

  “Richard, you never told me if I could record you. Do you mind?” I took a chance and played on his egotistical tendencies. “You could even keep it and relive this moment over and over.” He paused and considered the thought and I pushed it a little further. “We can even leave it running when you shoot me, a clear record of the very instant your brilliance triumphs mine. Imagine being able to relive that victorious moment over and over again.”

  I made a mistake and met Ryder’s gaze. This was not the plan. None of this was supposed to happen. I could see the shame in his eyes. He had been caught. The recording was supposed to go through to his phone. How could I possibly succeed? Failure dripped from him like the blood that seeped from his wounds.

  Richard’s voice broke the heavy silence. “I was planning on killing you somewhere else. After all, I just replaced this carpet.” He frowned at Ryder and his puddle of blood. “But now that it’s been spoiled, I suppose we can just roll your corpses up in it and be done.” The merit of my words had appealed to him. “Yes, please. Record this. I have so few accounts of my own genius. It would be nice to relive it.”

  The way he spoke about the loss of human life was indicative of the anti-social personality disorder, no reverence for human life. He was like a child with a magnifying glass burning bugs o
n the sidewalk for his own amusement.

  Richard perched on the edge of his desk, gun cocked and ready but pointed at the ground. I opened the microphone app and hovered my thumb over the record button, keeping the screen faced toward him the entire time so he did not doubt my motives.

  As the device began recording, he asked, “What would you like to know?”

  It might as well have been an interview on one of those late night talk shows. I imagined sitting at my desk and a crowd cheering for the sociopath of the year as he strode on stage, arms waving for adoring fans.

  “Tell me about Hannah and Joel Edwards, or rather Walter and Stacy.”

  “Oh, yes. The Brimley’s. Good people, very ambitious. They came to me earlier this year. Stacy had been working at The Hope Affiliates, this do-good-all-the-time group that feeds and clothes the masses of unwashed around the world. Pointless in my opinion, but she had managed to make a bit of change in it before they were found out.” He shifted slightly and continued, “Before she left, Stacy had secured the tax-exemption numbers as well as a few other identifying codes that could be used to mimic the company. Walter had this idea that they could use the information to take on the identity of The Hope Affiliates and buy up a small church.”

  “That’s where you came in?” I asked.

  He allowed my interruption. “They could not use their names, and they needed untraceable funds.” Richard’s eyebrow ticked slightly. “Somehow they learned about our little secret society, The Hope Allegiance, and they thought that the similarity between the two organizations was serendipitous. At the time, I agreed.”

  “What is The Hope Allegiance, exactly?” I asked.

  Richard’s lip puckered and his brow furrowed slightly. “Lindy, that disappoints me. I thought you knew.” The gun tilted back and forth with his hand like a scale weighing my worthiness. Finally he answered, “The Hope Allegiance has been around since,” he frowned, “gosh, I don’t even know. Five generations that I know of, but I imagine it’s been longer. It was born as a secret society in medical schools, individuals who believed suffering should be cut short where possible.”

  “Angels of mercy?”

  The smile was so sweet that it sickened me. “That’s a nice way of saying it. Yes. I like that.” The gun rested against his thigh once more. “We operate in silence, only identified by a small tattoo that is given at initiation into the society. Doctors were the first, then nurses, and then, as we grew, it became necessary to include the people who could create medicines to ease the bond of life, and consequently people within legislature and the FDA who could aid the approval of such medications.”

  “How widespread are you?” My phone felt hot in my hand. Time was running out.

  “That’s the crazy part. I don’t even know. I manage the chapter on the West Coast, but I have heard rumors of international groups being established.”

  “So your agents fed the toxic drugs to dying patients, and the Brimley’s cashed in?”

  He sighed. “Nothing as transparent as that, Miss Johnson. No.” He crossed his feet at the ankles and explained, “We test these drugs in small samples, watered down versions, but we need real-life application. The opportunity provided by the Brimley’s offered us real-life case studies. I’m sure as a psychology major, you tested your share of little white mice. You know the value of each case study. Each of the deaths from Sodexus offered us an exact time line based off dosage and demographic differences. It gave us an opportunity to study, sharpen our craft, and even develop some new medications that would help those who were truly suffering.”

  I discounted his comparison of the lives he had extinguished to rodents. “Those people though, Milton and Ethyl, they weren’t dying. They were healthy and strong.”

  “We needed virile subjects, healthy mice, if you will. All part of the process.”

  His outlook on the human existence was revolting. “So you killed them?”

  “They killed themselves. I didn’t shove the pills down their throats,” he corrected. “If anything, the doctors we used, Harrison, Dexley and Montiger, they killed them, but I was not personally involved. I suppose the Brimleys could even be held partially responsible since it was their fault that these people all suffered unfortunate ‘accidents.’”

  I had heard enough of his sidestepping. “Tell me about Trevor Cripley.”

  His nose wrinkled slightly, and the edges of his mouth turned down, as if the name smelled bad. “Trevor Cripley was my given name. I worked as a lawyer. Top of my class but never successful, not until I became Richard Wagnor. Still, the law degree is real, and the work I did for those widows would hold up in court. For me, it was a way to make a few dollars at something I normally did for free. I really do believe in the mission of the allegiance, Lindy. This new chapter, the supplements we are introducing, it will be a marvelous step for our cause.”

  Again, I felt a nauseating ache over his disrespect for life. In their last moments, in the absolute delirium when the drugs had rendered them completely incompetent, Wagnor and the Brimleys cashed in and took everything. Ethyl’s story had finally been told.

  “Who killed my aunt? Who killed Stella?”

  He straightened slightly, as he became immediately defensive. “Now, you can’t get belligerent, Miss Johnson. You were both warned and on multiple occasions.”

  My cold exterior faltered, and the phone bit into my palm as my grip tightened. “Who killed her?”

  With arrogance and pride dripping from his voice he said simply, “I did. Then I had them toss her from the van like the trash she was.”

  My eyes welled with tears, and my chest vibrated with hot rage that threatened to burst from me. The gun rose, and I knew he had seen my break.

  “This has been fun, but I think I have entertained you enough.” He held out his hand. “Give me the phone.”

  Like a child giving up a precious toy, I let the phone drop into his outstretched hand, completely unwilling to touch any part of his skin. He glanced over the screen for a moment, a victorious smile slowly fading away.

  “Wait, the microphone wasn’t recording. You didn’t catch any of this.”

  It was my turn to smile. “Trust me. It was recording. Just not on my phone.”

  In the dying light of the sun, Richard’s eyes looked at the screen again. It was then that he likely saw the blue bar that ran across the top of the face that read, “call connected Seattle Police Department.”

  “You see,” I explained with my code word that chief Saunders had given me the night before, “I am part of a team.”

  His rage exploded red hot as he smashed my gun across my face. In the same instant, Ryder’s elbow crashed into the bridge of his captor’s face. I knelt on the ground on my hands and knees trying to regain my focus when Richard’s expensive Italian loafers collided with my stomach, propelling me from the ground and rolling me to my back. As he recoiled to kick again, I struck out with my own strength, my heel connected with his knee, cracking it backward and causing him to stumble. I regained my footing and set another kick directly into his stomach just as he straightened once more. The gun tumbled from his grasp, but in his absolute rage, he tackled me to the floor like a linebacker.

  I could hear Ryder’s cries of anguish, but I could not help him. Richard’s large hands struggled to grasp my throat, yanking at my clothes, tearing at my skin, determined to choke the life out of me. I drew back a fist and cracked it against his face. His nose collapsed beneath my knuckles, a revolting mush of cartilage and tissue. As he rolled back, I turned over and stretched my fingers to their limit. The cold metal of my gun melded with my skin like an old friend, and I rolled back just as Richard towered over me again, but this time the muzzle of my gun rested against the flesh of his forehead.

  For a second, I just held it there, considering the options I faced. It was still self-defense if I pulled the trigger. He had killed Stella, and he deserved to die. But Wagnor was right, I obeyed the law and I upheld justice. Ryde
r’s cry of pain brought me to my senses and I yelled, “Call them off, or I’ll kill you right here!”

  Richard’s voice held the first traces of fear that I had heard from him, laced with a bitter edge. “Drop him! Back off before she kills me, you idiots.”

  I dared not take my eyes from Richard for a second. Lying on my back, I was still vulnerable, and he knew it. I heard Ryder’s body collapse to the floor, and I hoped he was alive.

  “Back up,” I commanded, “but slowly.”

  Richard retreated, and just as gingerly, I pulled myself from the floor, never lowering the gun or letting him out of my sight. The double doors burst open, and a team of heavily armored policemen stormed in. My code word had signaled the raid, and they had responded with speed and agility. Shouts became deafening, the line between friend and foe blurred. I lowered the gun, sunk to my knees and put my hands behind my head. It was standard procedure for surrender, and I was more than willing to let the big guns take over.

  Richard Wagnor had other plans. With one swift movement, his hand dipped into his suit pocket, surely to retrieve a weapon. One of the officers saw the movement and took the shot, the bullet piercing near his left shoulder. But it was too late. It was not a weapon he had reached for but a tiny black device with multiple buttons. Smoke exuded from his computer and from the computer in the next room. It was a fail-safe.

  Wagnor’s laugh was low and hollow, sanity crushed beneath his defeat. “The computers, the files, it’s all gone. The agents have been warned, and you’ll never win.”

  He could have spoken to anyone in the room, but he turned to me, the one he viewed as his true adversary. Blood stained his teeth. His nose was no longer perfect but smashed in by my strength. The control and arrogance were there but off-kilter, like a hat he wore askew. I could not comprehend what he meant. I did not have the power left in me. Strong arms pulled him from the room, his blood leaving a trail behind him on his precious carpet.