High Deceit

by C. E. Waterman

  Dad was already at the table reading, and apparently, they still weren’t talking.

  She set Tony’s plate on the table and sighed as she sank into the chair across from him. “I want you to call when you get to Grandma Katherine’s.”

  He picked up his fork and ran his thumb along the handle. “I don’t want to go. I shouldn’t run off when the family needs me.”

  She rested her hand on his arm. “The mess this family is in isn’t your doing.” She cast a sideways glance at his dad and, ignoring his grunt, refocused on Tony. “And I want you out of it. When it’s safe, you can come home, or we’ll join you. Under no circumstances are you to try to fix this on your own. Do you hear me?”

  Kind of hard not to. “Yes.” Tony stared at his plate. “I’m not a baby, you know, Mom.”

  She tightened her grip on his arm until he glanced up. Her eyes flashed, and she let go. “There will be no more talk. You will do as I say and go to your grandmother’s. Is that clear?”

  He nodded. When she spoke like that, there was no use arguing. He wanted to ask where Jimmy was, but she obviously wasn’t in the mood.

  His dad had lowered the papers he was reading during this whole exchange but hadn’t said a word.

  And good thing, because Tony could barely keep his mouth shut as it was. He still couldn’t believe all this. How could they do something so awful? He wanted to reject the thought. The bad guys Mark had been seeking were under his nose the whole time. At the hospital, Tony even entertained the thought that he, Tony Rossetti, might be the macho man in front of Lucy, solve the case, and save Mark. What a joke! How could Lucy even look at him again?

  Even if she didn’t know before, it would get around. He’d have to leave home for good. He couldn’t face Robin if Mark went to jail for something his father and brother had done, but he couldn’t turn his own family in either. Did she already know his family members were suspects? She didn’t act like it. And Mark never did either.

  Trying to shove it out of his mind, he finished his breakfast, loaded his things in the car, and kissed his mom good-bye. Dad came to the door, but Tony refused to notice him. He slid behind the wheel, backed out, and drove down the street without glancing back.

  He wasn’t sure when the idea came to him, was it last night or this morning? He would go to his grandmother’s but not before uncovering more about Carlo. He was the real bad guy here, and the only way out of this was to get Carlo before Carlo got his family. He had to be stopped. And obviously neither Dad nor Jimmy would do it.

  If he checked out the restaurant, maybe he could catch up with Carlo there. He didn’t want to be seen though, so he’d have to be careful. Ignoring what his mother had said, Tony rehearsed his plan. If they were having him followed, it had to appear he was leaving town. He made his way to the highway and headed east.

  He focused on the rearview mirror. Traffic stacked up behind him. None of the cars stayed with him, but he couldn’t be sure. He slammed on the brakes to avoid the car that slowed in front of him. Better concentrate on driving. He took the next exit. Did any of the cars following him look familiar? He didn’t think so.

  He drove into a gas station. While he swiped his card and filled the gas tank, he studied the highway and the exit ramp. Cars were veering off and maneuvering into the station. No one paid him any attention. He shook the nozzle and tightened the gas cap while glancing around. Still, everyone went about their business. If anyone had followed, they must have figured he was leaving and went back to Carlo. Or no one had been watching in the first place. To be sure, he removed the binoculars from his glove compartment and, staying as low as possible in the seat, searched again. Everything was normal. Now to implement his plan.

  He kept to the back roads and parked a block behind Rossetti’s—far enough away to go unseen but close enough to train his binoculars on the exit. He stayed in the car and watched.

  And watched.

  Nothing happened.

  Was coming here a huge waste of time? He started to fold the binoculars, when the back door opened. He refocused quickly. Carlo exited! Tony waited while Carlo got into his Ferrari and left the lot. Once Carlo rounded the corner, Tony eased from the curb. By the time he reached the corner, he glimpsed Carlo’s taillights as the car turned again. Trying to keep it in sight, he stayed back. Following someone was harder than it appeared on TV.

  Soon Carlo chose a main road and other traffic surrounded him, so Tony relaxed. But he almost missed the turn when he couldn’t change lanes in time. Where was Carlo going? Wouldn’t it be his luck if he followed him around all day and nothing happened? His grandmother would be worried when he didn’t arrive on time. Maybe he could call and tell her he had a flat. Who did he think he was anyway, Sherlock Holmes? He was certainly not a detective. Look what had been going on in his own house, and he didn’t have a clue. What made him think he could catch someone like Carlo? And what would he do if he did?

  He had about decided to stop the chase when Carlo swerved to the side of the road, stopped, and got out. What was he doing? Was he meeting someone? Maybe Tony could see who and then take off. Then he could call Mark from his grandmother’s and give him a description. Feeling good, he stopped a half a block down.

  Carlo had already gone into an ugly pink house.

  As Tony approached, he saw that the blue front door was open. Paint peeled from it, and Tony feared the screen would squeak. Gingerly, he tugged it toward him. The walls were covered in a yellow film, and the place smelled like old cigarette smoke. He thought he heard something on his left so he followed, his tennis shoes making little creaks on the bubbled linoleum.

  He was concentrating so hard on being silent, he didn’t immediately realize he couldn’t hear Carlo. In fact, he couldn’t hear anything except his own breathing. He’d better go back to the car and wait. Maybe the person Carlo came to meet would go out with him, and Tony could get a picture with his phone.

  As he turned to go, he glimpsed a figure from the corner of his eye moments before something slammed into him, knocking him sideways. His head hit the wall, and someone yanked his arm behind his back and twisted. A man’s arm folded around his neck. The smell of Carlo’s aftershave enveloped him.

  “What are you doing, Tony?” The whisper next to his ear lifted the hair on Tony’s neck.

  He grunted. Sharp pain radiated through his shoulder.

  “What? Cat got your tongue? Why aren’t you with Granny? I warned your father about you. You’re nothing but trouble.”

  “Let me go!” Tony jammed his other elbow back. Carlo jerked his arm again, and Tony sucked in his breath at the pain. He stood still.

  “That’s better. If you don’t behave, I’ll have to break it, and I don’t want to.” Tightening his grip around Tony’s neck, Carlo released his arm but kept it pinned against his body. It offered immediate relief, but no room to move it to the front.

  A second later, something hard poked Tony’s ribs. He lowered his gaze. Sure enough, it was a gun.

  “You’ve really messed up this time. I have half a mind to shoot you right here and get it over with. But I might be able to use you later, so I’m giving you a chance.” He moved his arm away from Tony’s neck and placed a hand on his shoulder, giving him a push.

  Tony stumbled along the narrow hallway and around the corner. Steps led to an open basement door. Carlo kept his hand on Tony’s shoulder as he moved down the stairs, and at the bottom, Carlo gave him a shove.

  Tony tried to bring his arm around, but it was stuck. He put the other hand out to stop his face from hitting the cement, but he twisted and landed on his sore arm. Pain shot through his shoulder. When he rolled over on his face, his arm loosened, and he managed to pull it around. He sat up and rubbed his shoulder, cradling his arm in his lap.

  Carlo laughed. “Did I hurt your wittle arm?” He sneered. “Maybe it’ll teach you to do what you’re told.”

  He stepped back and slammed the door. The lock clicked.

  3
7

  Anger continued boiling inside Robin. She composed her features, forcing the anger to a simmer. Beth had cried while Mark lay there, silent, maybe dying, and Robin had believed her. Maybe Beth cried because she didn’t want to do it. Maybe she was forced, and they could work out something together. She wanted to ask, but where to start?

  “I know you won’t believe me, but I never wanted to hurt Mark.” Beth solved the dilemma.

  Robin angled her body toward her. “Did someone threaten you? You don’t have to do this. We can work something out. I’m sure the chief will want to help.”

  Beth laughed. “Threaten me? No.”

  “Then why did you give information to the drug dealers? Why did you tell them Mark was awake? That’s why they tried to kill him, right? Because they found out through you he was awake?”

  “Well, yes and no.” Beth rounded a corner. “Renee Jackson was on duty, and she was infatuated with Jack. I needed to make the most of that. I told them he needed to go. But that clown, Oscar, botched it and got himself caught. How do you mess up a clean shot at ten feet? The moron. I should’ve done it myself, but taking care of the guard was risky enough. If he’d seen me, he would’ve recognized me, although that was part of the fun.”

  “You were there?” Robin decided to play along. “How did you deal with the guard? I got sketchy details from Mark, but I’m not sure he knows what happened.”

  “I’d been there a lot, watching. If anyone asked, I could say I was concerned about Mark. But no one saw me. I watched everyone, and Jack was popular with the nurses. He flirted with them all, but Renee gave him the most attention. She neglected her duties when he was around. So she became integral to my plan.” She curved to the right.

  Robin frowned. Her face wasn’t covered. If she could see where Beth was going, did it mean Beth would kill her?

  “Anyway,” Beth continued. “That night I dressed up as a nurse and waited in an empty room until Jack went in to use the restroom. He did it a couple of the nights I stayed over, so I assumed it was routine.”

  Robin squirmed. Someone spying on her when she was asleep gave her the creeps. Beth was right. Jack came in every night before she turned the light out, and she didn’t notice him coming in again until morning. How often had Beth been down the hall watching?

  “I ground up some of Aunt Janice’s sleeping pills into a baggie, slipped them into some coffee, and set it next to his chair,” Beth continued her story. “He thought Renee brought him a fresh cup, and he drank it. It didn’t take long because I put in three times the dosage Aunt Janice uses. After all, Jack’s a big guy. Oscar was supposed to go right in. But he waited too long, and Peter came in and, well, you know the rest.”

  Robin didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet.

  Beth shrugged. “Everyone assumed the leak in the department was someone who passed on information to the boss. I didn’t have to tell the boss anything.” She stared into Robin’s eyes. “I am the boss.”

  Robin blinked and stifled a gasp. When she talked about ordering the hit on Mark, Robin got the impression Beth was passing on orders given to her. She tried to keep her voice even. “How did you go from being a trusted police administrative assistant to being a criminal? I don’t understand.”

  “No one does. That’s the beauty of it. My real father was killed committing a burglary when I was two years old, and my aunt and uncle raised me. They were nice people and all, but they never could get ahead. The story was that my father died in a car wreck and I took their last name. No one ever knew. I knew though. They never lied to me.”

  Beth turned toward the poorer side of town. “I could see people thought I wasn’t too bright when I started working for the chief, so I used it to my advantage. I uncovered the names of my father’s friends from some old papers I found and got in touch with them. I learned a few things along the way, and pretty soon, I was running the show.” She stopped for a breath. The words spilled out as if she’d been waiting to tell someone. As though she needed someone to know how smart she was. It must have been difficult hiding it for so long.

  “Nobody ever suspected the lowly secretary. And being blonde didn’t hurt. I could pretend I didn’t quite get it, and they bought it—hook, line, and sinker. I’m not sure Mark bought the dumb routine though. Greg believed it, and David used to take advantage of it, flirting with me and thinking I wouldn’t tell on him when he turned stuff in half done. I finished them up and never told the chief. David was supposed to take the fall. His unfinished reports allowed me to make changes he wouldn’t have wanted. Before long, I could have gotten rid of him. And when the chief wanted to know what happened, I could’ve produced incriminating reports. Being the dumb blonde that I am, no one would’ve expected me to see what was right in front of my face.”

  “Why Mark then?”

  “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not sure how he knew to go to the warehouse, but I did what I had to do. I guess it doesn’t matter now.” Beth was no longer talking. She was obviously thinking aloud.

  Robin tried to be quiet, hardly breathing, so Beth would forget she was there.

  “Now I guess I’ll need to implement plan B.” She fell silent again.

  Robin moved her wrists. The tape pulled. What was plan B? And how did it involve her?

  Beth drew up at the curb in front of an abandoned house. She turned off the car and came around to let Robin out. “Now don’t get any ideas. No one’s around, and if they were, they wouldn’t care. I could shoot you on the street, and no one would even notice. So go quietly, and everything will be OK.”

  Beth’s face carried an expression unlike any Robin had seen there before—almost clean of emotion—and her eyes glinted like ice pellets stuck in her head. Greg had been right. Getting this close to a murderer wasn’t a good idea.

  Robin approached the door without another word. Beth started to move around her when the door burst open from the inside. A small man with a pockmarked face glowered at them. Where had she seen him before?

  “I’ll take care of her if you want to get things set up,” he said.

  Beth nodded and handed him the gun. He nudged Robin into a hallway with stairs at the end. She tottered down the steps, her tied hands impairing her balance. The guy reminded her of the little boys in school who used to trip her and her friends then laugh when they got hurt. She would bet he wasn’t the gentle type. She reached the bottom safely, and he stepped around and unlocked the door. He motioned for her to open it, and she brought her taped hands up, fit the knob between them, and turned. As it opened, he shoved her from behind. Her hands broke her fall, but she still ground her elbow into the cement floor.

  As she expected, he laughed as he slammed the door and locked it.

  “Mrs. Clayton?”

  Sunlight streamed in the high window, its glare obscuring the speaker.

  “Tony? Is that you? What are you doing here?” She rolled over and sat up. “If you’re here, you’re in as much trouble as I am, and that’s not a good thing. But I have to admit, I’m happy to see you.”

  Tony knelt beside her. “Here, let me get that tape off.” He tried to pull it gently, but even so all the hair came with it. She rubbed her wrists and then her shoulder.

  “How did you get here?” he asked.

  She told him about Beth, and he told her about Carlo.

  “Well, now we know the connection, not that it’ll help at this point,” she said. “I don’t think they’re staying around long. Beth knows they suspect her at the station.”

  “At least Mark will be safe now if they leave.” Tony wrapped his arms around his knees. “I don’t know why they kept trying to kill him. It’s not like he remembered anything.” His face mirrored her frustration.

  “I think they’re afraid he might, and they didn’t want to take a chance.”

  “They caught the guy, right?” he said.

  “Yes, but he’s not talking about who hired him.”

  “I think
Carlo hired him, and I think I saw him do it. It’s one of the things that made me suspicious of Carlo in the first place. I saw him hand a man something and say ‘half now and half after.’ I didn’t think about it at the time. Then a whole bunch of other things happened, and I ended up here.”

  “Does Carlo know you saw him?”

  “No. I don’t think I’d be alive right now if he did. He only knows about me following him this morning.”

  “How do you know Carlo? And how did you know to follow him?”

  He lowered his head until it touched his knees, and she could barely hear him. “You see, my family is involved.”

  “Involved? How?”

  He lifted his head. “I didn’t want to see it, but it explains a few things. My dad always wanted a successful business. My mom is a great cook, but it takes money to make a place like Rossetti’s really nice.”

  “So they started dealing?” She kept her voice soft, afraid to scare him out of talking.

  “They were storing it at the restaurant. My parents didn’t have to do anything at first, but then they started asking for more and more from my dad. They involved my brother more as an insurance policy than anything else. I would’ve been next. I think the only way they could trust my dad was if he had too much to lose.”

  He flexed his arm and rubbed his shoulder. “They were trying to get me involved, but my mother had a fit, and they backed off. I think they thought she’d chuck it all and tell on them if they went too far.” He smiled. “She would have, too.” The smile slipped from his face. “But how far is too far? Dealing to kids? Murder? How far were my parents willing to go?”

  “What will you do?” Robin asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but I can’t live like them, Mrs. Clayton. I can’t!” He covered his face with his hands. “I don’t want to be afraid all the time. My dad and brother, and even my mother, are afraid and miserable. I didn’t know it wasn’t normal until I met Lucy’s family. I want to be like them…and you and Mark.”