A View to a Kill

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “You haven’t said anything.”

  “Good meeting you, Joss.” He turned and walked away, but shouted over his shoulder, “Barb didn’t kill Alex, by the way.”

  “I know she didn’t,” I yelled.

  I know.

  CHAPTER 47

  January 10, 1990

  Elias Pratt stood tall and straight, hands clasped around the metal bars of his cell, reflecting on what would become the last moments of his life. Earlier in the day, he’d been told the execution team, the “strap-down people” as they were called, had completed their series of pre-death rehearsals. The oak chair known as Gruesome Gertie had been tested on several occasions by a man similar to Elias’s height and weight. The man had sat in the chair, checked the straps, ensured the seat was sturdy—solid enough to perform its duty that night without fail.

  What sparse belongings Elias had were boxed up and labeled for shipment to his mother. His head had been shaved, and an adult diaper secured, hidden beneath his pants.

  Whether or not he feared what was about to come next, it didn’t matter; the hour was at hand. Now, moments away from being escorted to the execution chamber, he felt no differently than he had the night he’d crouched over Sandra Hamilton’s body, waiting to be picked up by the police. It was a kind of numb resignation. The very same resignation he’d felt his entire life. Admitting it to himself now, he felt lighter, like a bar of truth had been lifted. Life. Death. It didn’t matter. Aging only put off the inevitable death all people experienced in the end. Only his end would have nothing to do with old age.

  During his time in prison, Elias had tried reaching out to Sandra through letters. He wanted to explain what happened the night she found her parents on the kitchen floor, to make her understand the motive behind their murders, behind why both of her parents died by his own hand. Contrary to his other murders, theirs had nothing to do with a robbery or because of a desire to kill. But he imagined she knew already.

  He’d loved her.

  At least, he’d thought he loved her at the time.

  Now he was certain his skewed idea of love was much different than the feelings most men and women had for each other.

  Still, he’d been smitten ever since the first time he saw her step out of Toby Fink’s car at the drive-in, ratted hair pulled back in a pink and white polka-dot scrunchy, acid-washed jeans so tight they looked like they were painted on. Elias wanted to touch her, to be near her, to learn everything about her. And he had.

  The good.

  The bad.

  The secret so revolting his blood sizzled like water boiling over on a stove when he learned it.

  His thoughts turned to Paula. If he had been capable of love, true love, he now knew it would have been for her. While plain and simple, the kind of girl most men never gave a second glance at, she was more devoted to him than any woman had ever been. So devoted, she had killed because of her love for him. He only wished he’d realized his true feelings for her before he’d crouched over Sandra, sacrificing his life for hers when he could have turned and fled. Fled and never looked back. Now he realized why Paula did what she did afterward, and why she told everyone she’d been raped. She’d killed for him, and still, he’d given up his life over Sandra.

  Two officers approached Elias’s cell. The taller one muttered, “It’s time.” He didn’t look Elias in the eye when he said it. The other officer shouted for Elias’s cell to be opened. As the cell gate parted in front of him, Elias couldn’t help but wish it could remain shut.

  Officers positioned themselves on both sides. He was then escorted into a room built with cinderblocks. The blocks were painted a dingy shade of white, which perfectly matched the tone of the room and what it was used for sometimes. Gruesome Gertie was in the center of the room, unoccupied and alone, her appearance so frightening he took two steps back when he saw her. The shorter of the two guards shoved him forward, and in one swift, surreal moment, Elias was stuffed into the chair. In seconds the leather straps were secured. One under the chin. One across the chest. One around his waist. Two over his wrists and elbows. A tight mask was positioned on his head, waiting to be pulled over his face when the time was right.

  The warden, coroner, and physician were all in place, eyes shiny, seeming almost too eager for the show to begin. Through the two-way glass in front of him, he scanned left to right, recognizing many faces in attendance. There were a few witnesses from prior victims’ families, at least two members of the news media, his mother, and one of his brothers.

  No Sandra and no Paula—only a faithful Alexa Weston sitting in the middle of the second row. Her face was stern, emotionless. In the company of everyone else, Elias figured she had no choice but to be impartial. To the world, she was supposed to see him the way they all did, as nothing more than a ruthless killer. He supposed it was true. No matter what spin she spun in her book to make him seem humane, he wasn’t. He smiled, recalling the past, knowing how proficiently he’d worked her over. He was sure she loved him, in her way, and she probably thought he felt the same, even though he didn’t.

  Sitting here now, watching her smooth a hand over her abdomen, over his baby, his unborn seed, he was filled with satisfaction.

  My legacy will live on.

  A man placed a microphone in front of Elias’s face. “Do you have a final statement?”

  He leaned forward, eyed Alexa for the last time, and spoke the words of investigative journalist I.F. Stone. “Every emancipation has in it the seeds of a new slavery, and every truth easily becomes a lie.”

  The headpiece was slipped over his face, and as the first round of electrical currents was administered and his body strained against the straps, he laughed and laughed and laughed, knowing no witness in the room, save one, would ever understand the last thing he had to say.

  CHAPTER 48

  November 29, 2015

  Alexandra Weston

  Sitting in a living room far smaller than the one she’d sat in many years earlier, Alexandra did what she didn’t do best. She waited. Stared at Paula Page. Paula stared at the floor. Alexandra wanted to move things along, but knew she couldn’t. Not yet. First she needed to allow ample time for Paula to absorb what she’d just said.

  A minute ticked by.

  Then two.

  Paula, it seemed, was too rattled to speak.

  Not that Alexandra blamed her.

  Writing a “where are they now” version of the most famous criminals Alexandra had interviewed over her thirty-five-year career was something she had no interest doing. The idea was good, and she had no doubt the book would sell well. The problem was, it didn’t fit into her plans to publish her memoir and retire. With this project taking up so much of her time, her memoir would have to wait until the following year.

  Since publishing Elias’s story twenty-five years earlier, Alexandra had come to see him in a different light. No longer young and naïve like she was when she wrote about him the first time, she could now see how he’d manipulated her, clouded her mind into writing the story he wanted her to tell. She regretted it. No man had ever managed that before, and no man since. Even now, she didn’t know how she had been so blind.

  The opportunity to fix past mistakes was an opportunity at redemption. It wouldn’t be jaded or muddled with confused emotion. It would be filled with only one thing: truth. Part of that truth was sitting across from her now.

  At long last, Paula’s mouth opened, and what followed was exactly what Alexandra expected. “What are you going to do with the information you know about me?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “What do you mean yet? What do you want to keep quiet?”

  “I don’t want anything,” Alexandra said.

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “I thought you should know.”

  “How do you think it’s going to look when everyone finds out you knew I shot Sandra and you kept it to yourself?”

  Alexandra crossed one leg over the other.
“How stupid do you think I am? I’m not going to say I found out all those years ago. I’m going to say I only recently discovered it.”

  “Then I’ll say you always knew.”

  Alexandra bobbed her shoulders up and down. “Do whatever you like. No one will believe you over me.”

  “Look around, Mrs. Weston. I’ve lost everything. My husband. My home. Thanks to you, he divorced me after finding out I lied about being raped. Imagine how it felt to lose the life I had and then find out you left it out of the book anyway. I don’t understand why you did it.”

  “I made Elias a promise, and I shouldn’t have.”

  “How is your promise any different now than it was then?”

  “It isn’t. I just see things clearly now. And the truth is I don’t care what you think or what you want or what will happen to you when my book is released. I care that he made a fool of me, and now I intend to set it right.”

  “You’re a bitch.”

  Alexandra stood, slung her handbag over her shoulder, patted Paula on the shoulder, and laughed. “Good for you! Get it off your chest. Feels good, doesn’t it, to say what you wanted to say since the moment I walked in here? I like your spirit.”

  Alexandra headed for the door.

  “We’re not done talking.”

  Alexandra turned. “Oh yes, we are.”

  “If I’m going down, she is too.”

  Interest piqued, Alexandra asked, “Who’s she?”

  “Sit back down, Mrs. Weston. There’s something you should know about Sandra Hamilton.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Present Day

  On the table inside my hotel room I spied a white envelope with my name on it propped against a vase on the desk. I dialed the receptionist and was told the envelope had been left for me an hour earlier. I opened it, unfolded the pages inside. The first page contained a letter handwritten in cursive ink.

  This mess with Alexandra Weston is something I didn’t want my family to be caught up in. Not again. But as the news came on this evening and I learned of Barbara Berry’s death, I wondered who else might be in danger. I thought about Chelsea, and I thought about you, so determined to find answers, I imagine you’ll never stop until you have them. If something happened to Elias’s daughter, I don’t think I could forgive myself. So yes, the truth is I read Elias’s letters to Sandra and Paula. Then I sealed them in a different envelope and gave them to them, just like I said I did. After Alexandra’s visit, I was angry. I didn’t like the idea of her writing another book, dragging out the past. It was clear to me that the affection she’d once had for Elias had changed, and I believed she was out to stir up trouble for my family again.

  In Elias’s letters to both women, he was kind and apologetic. I wish I could say that’s all they were, but they were much more. Elias told Paula that Alexandra was pregnant with his baby. He asked Paula to kill Alexandra after the baby was born, and raise the baby as her own. He told her where he’d hidden all the items he’d stolen from all the robberies and said she’d have enough money to take the baby and run away.

  So many years had come and gone, I didn’t think it would matter whether I gave the letter to Paula anymore. Chelsea’s a grown woman. She wouldn’t get taken now. Paula has moved on with her life. As for his request to end Alexandra’s life, I figured Paula would have a good laugh at Elias’s expense for even thinking she’d consider it.

  As I write this now, I have to wonder whether I was wrong. As for what Elias said to Sandra, well, I suggest you talk to her about that yourself. You seem like a good person, Miss Jax. In light of recent events, I’d encourage you to take precautions and not to see either woman alone. Take that beautiful boy with you.

  Good luck.

  Loretta Pratt

  CHAPTER 50

  Two hours later, I sat in the lobby of my hotel across from two disgruntled women.

  “Thank you both for meeting me tonight,” I said.

  Paula looked at Sandra then at me. “You never said she’d be here. I shouldn’t have agreed to this.”

  “You agreed because I told you I knew about the letters Elias wrote you,” I said. “I wasn’t aware you two had a problem with each other.”

  Dressed in a loose-fitting tank top in the middle of winter, jeans, and a cheap pair of flip-flops, Sandra looked like she could be bought for a dollar and change if the right guy was interested. She slouched in her seat, kicked her feet over the top of the table, and said, “We don’t have a problem with each other. Why would we?”

  Paula rolled her eyes. Clearly one of them didn’t agree. “Why are we here? What do you want?”

  “I’ll get straight to it. Which one of you killed Alexandra Weston and Barbara Berry?”

  Paula shot out of her chair, stuck a flattened hand in my direction. “Whoa, wait a minute. I didn’t come here to be accused of anything, especially something I didn’t do.”

  Finch, who was sitting two tables away, leaned around the book he was pretending to read and said, “Sit down, Paula.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Do what he says,” I said.

  She remained standing, defiant, glancing around, assessing all possible exits.

  “Now,” I said.

  Sandra laughed in amusement, remained seated.

  Paula lowered herself back into her seat. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “I know what was in your letter,” I said.

  “You’re full of it. You couldn’t possibly know. Elias is dead, and the letter was sealed when it was given to me.”

  “What if I told you the letter was read and put into a different envelope before it was delivered to you, so it appeared like it hadn’t been opened?”

  “I still say you’re bluffing. If you knew what it said, you wouldn’t play games. You’d just tell me.”

  Sandra perked up, curious to hear my answer.

  “For starters, Elias’s mother was supposed to give you the letter right after Elias died, and she didn’t,” I said.

  “She said she only recently went through the box,” Paula said.

  “Don’t you find it a little too convenient that right after Alexandra Weston told Loretta she was writing a memoir that included a chapter on her son that Loretta finally decided to deliver the letters?”

  “What are you saying—the three of us conspired to kill Alexandra to keep her from releasing the book?”

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  “I don’t know Loretta, and I don’t know Sandra either. We didn’t meet up together, and we didn’t make any plans. There’s nothing going on here. Nothing, mmm ... kay?”

  “On the other hand, Alexandra was poisoned,” I said, “which could have easily been a one-person job.”

  “Well, I didn’t do it,” Paula said.

  “I didn’t do it either,” Sandra said. “Can’t say I’m sorry she’s dead though.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “She tried to scare me, told me she was writing about my family in her memoir.”

  “And it didn’t upset you?”

  Sandra brushed a hand through the air. “I mean, yeah, I guess. It doesn’t affect me though. I don’t care what other people think. I am who I am. Period.”

  I shifted the focus back to Paula. “Elias asked you to kill Alexandra in his letter. He wanted you to kidnap the baby, his baby, and raise her yourself.”

  Sandra sat straight up in her chair, grinning like she was witnessing a riveting scene in a movie. “He wanted you to kill Alexandra Weston and take her baby? Wow. That’s messed up.”

  “Not now,” Paula said. “Twenty-five years ago.”

  “Were you surprised when you read what he wanted you to do?” I asked.

  “He was crazy to think I’d do it,” Paula said. “But then, this is Elias we’re talking about. He was crazy. And I was too stupid to notice. I thought I knew him. I worshipped him. The guy I fell in love with wasn’t real, just a man I created in
my mind.”

  “He created what he wanted you to see. He did the same thing to Alexandra, and as smart as she was, she fell for it too.”

  “Why take her baby though?” Paula asked. “And why ask me to keep it? I don’t get it.”

  “He must have asked you because he thought you would do it. What I don’t understand is ... why?”

  “Because I—” Paula stopped and her eyes flitted around the room.

  “Because you what?” Sandra asked. “What’s your deal? Just say what you need to say.”

  Tiny sweat beads gathered in the creases on Paula’s forehead. She wiped her brow with her hand, tried to act normal. I looked at Finch. He saw it too. We all did.

  With all of us focusing on Paula, I asked the question that had been on my mind since I learned about her letter. “Why would he ask you to kill for him?”

  Instead of looking at me, she looked at Sandra. “I don’t know.”

  “He must have thought you were capable of it. What would make him think that?”

  She glanced at Sandra again.

  I was missing something. Something big.

  “Sandra,” I said. “What was in your letter?”

  “A bunch of bullshit.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He didn’t shoot me,” Sandra said.

  “What?”

  “He said the night my parents were killed, he didn’t shoot me.”

  “How’s that possible? If he didn’t shoot you, who did? And if someone else shot you, was he trying to say he had an accomplice?”

  “Who knows?”

  I turned again to Paula. “What do you know that you’re not saying?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You were his girlfriend, Paula. You know something. I can tell. We all can.”

  Paula gripped the corner of the side table next to her, like if she didn’t grab hold of something she’d slide off her chair. In a hushed voice, she said, “I’m sorry. It was a long time ago.”

  “Sorry for what?” I asked.