Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  “That doesn’t help us very much.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Which is why I’m going to suggest the following course of action…I will ask him what’s going on myself.”

  He chose to save this suggestion for the end of the meeting, and their outburst of surprise and dismay only confirmed the wisdom of this decision. After several minutes of arguing and confusion, they calmed to the point Cesar could address him directly without interruption.

  “Why?” the old man demanded. “We could just as easily have a couple of our younger men pick him up and question him. Why you?”

  “Because,” Antonio once again held up his hand for calm, “we don’t know how sensitive the information he has actually is. This way whatever he knows stays only in the top echelons. Assuming he knows anything at all. I understand he’s convinced the police he has no idea what’s going on.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “The point is he may know something critical without being aware it. Those people aren’t trying to kill him for the fun of it. We need to figure out what’s going on, and he’s the only link we have to finding out. If it turns out he is of no use to us, I can still have him eliminated if this council believes it necessary.”

  More murmured discussion ensued, ending with Cesar rising from his chair. He spoke as one obviously outvoted.

  “Very well, Antonio.” The old man scowled at him across the table, “We will do this your way. But tread carefully. Our entire future may rest on what you do here. We will be watching.”

  “Yes, Elder.” Antonio inclined his head, and watched the Council file out of the room without comment. His station came by both blood and deed, but he still governed by their consent. The Council were the guardians of both The People and their history. They were the final authority on all matters of great or long-term import.

  He stood in respectful silence until the door closed, then slouched back into his chair. Antonio hated these meetings, and treading the minefield of tradition and protocol that came with them. He always found himself exhausted by the time the meetings came to an end.

  With a long-suffering sigh, his gaze returned to the image on the screen.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle,” came the quiet voice beside the TV monitor. “I spoke out of turn and I shamed you.”

  “Forget it.” He waved the cigar dismissively. “They are a bunch of old fossils who are living proof that you can live too long. I assume you brought the death of the woman in the bathroom up for a reason.”

  “I think it is significant.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes, and I think we may be misinterpreting the entire attack at the hospital.”

  “Interesting.” He leaned forward, giving his full attention to the slender shadow at the other end of the room. “How so? Start with the woman.”

  The shadow pointed her remote and the images on the screen flew backwards in reverse. They came to a stop with the woman exiting the bathroom, gun in hand.

  “Notice her duffel bag.”

  She played the next couple of seconds in a loop.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s empty now. It was bulging before, but now empty.”

  “What about her pistol and magazines?”

  “Not near large enough to account for this, Uncle. I think she had something else in the duffel bag. Something she was willing to shoot the woman in the bathroom over, merely for seeing it.”

  “You mean…”

  “Yes, sir. It would make sense. Other than the woman in the bathroom, she only shot at anybody who tried to stop her from reaching Sellars. Every move she made had purpose. I think the woman had a companion, a big one, which she sent up into the roof and after Sellars while she came from another direction.”

  “But the risk!” Antonio stared at the duffel bag. “I can’t believe they would want this Sellars guy dead so badly they would risk exposure like that.”

  “I concur. I don’t believe they would either.”

  Again the images on the screen reversed, flying backwards until they stopped with the tall woman glaring at the receptionists behind their desk. At this point of the film she stood closest to the camera, bringing her face into sharp focus. The shadow of Olivia’s arm pointed at her eyes.

  “She’s been crying,” his niece observed. “Not exactly the stone cold killer we’ve been hearing about.”

  “Okay, I’ll take your word for it. But what do you think it means?”

  “I think…” Olivia hesitated, and even in the dim light Antonio could read her uncertainty. He knew his niece was brilliant, with an encyclopedic knowledge of a wide variety of subjects and an intellect that moved at near light speed. But her sense of formality sometimes made her a victim of the same archaic attitudes shared by the elders of the Council.

  “It’s okay,” he chuckled. “The council is gone, and the nineteenth century left with them. It’s only me now, so you can speak freely.”

  “I think,” she began again, “it means we are misreading the attack at the hospital, and quite possibly her very nature itself. I don’t think she was sent to kill Sellars, I believe she took that upon herself. In my opinion, she was grieving for Arthur Weston and trying to finish what he started.”

  Antonio digested this opinion for a moment.

  “So,” he leaned forward and put his chin on his fist, “you’re saying Weston was sent to do the job, and then when he dies in the attempt she freaks out and takes it as a personal mission on her part?”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  He concentrated a moment on the ramifications of her scenario, then decided to save time.

  “So what does this mean, if true?”

  “I’m suggesting a relationship between Arthur Weston and the mystery woman. Probably a blood relationship.”

  “You mean his daughter?” Antonio’s eyes widened, “But I thought we had pretty much confirmed Weston was second generation. The odds of him having kids…”

  “It would explain a great deal, Uncle.”

  “But that would make her third generation.” He now stared at the screen with renewed intensity.

  “Which would explain why we know so little of her,” Olivia continued. “They would have protected her and hidden her away.”

  “But she has no malformations, or deformities!” Antonio pointed his own remote at the screen and fast forwarded it to show the shooter walking away from the camera, her backside to the camera. “None at all.”

  “At least none visible. But the abilities she demonstrates only support my contention. They probably exceed what we just witnessed. And I’m willing to bet she wasn’t even supposed to be on this mission, but Weston took advantage of his assignment to take her along for a trip. He probably thought it was going to be easy, and if luck hadn’t intervened it would have, and then he would show his girl some of the outside world. But things went wrong.”

  “And she watches her father die instead, then goes berserk,” Antonio finished.

  “Yes, Uncle. I think that is what happened.”

  Antonio chewed on his cigar and pondered this for a moment. If true, it changed a lot of things. But it also raised new problems.

  “How confident are you of this scenario you have pieced together?”

  She hesitated, and he knew she grappled with the reality he, and possibly others, would be acting on the assessment she made here. He understood it was an enormous thing, having people possibly live or die based on the evaluations you make of a situation, but she would have to learn to live with it in her new role. She possessed more than enough intelligence, now the time had come to get the seasoning.

  “I would rate my scenario as 75 percent likely,” she offered in a small voice.

  “Well then,” he figured nerves on her part probably knocked that certainty down by about ten percent, “I think it is more important than ever we have a chat with Mr. Adam Sellars…while he is still alive.”

  “We?”

  “Why yes, Olivia.” A
ntonio stretched and rose from his chair. “You are going to assist me on this endeavor. Remember, you are my second now and have all the authority and responsibilities included with that. Are you up to it?”

  “Yes, Uncle.” Back to her calm, imperturbable self. He had no doubts he had taken on his most efficient assistant ever, and the experience would serve her well in the future.

  “Good.” He unholstered the model 1911 .45 he kept beneath his jacket, and examined its custom pearl handle with idle speculation. “Now let’s turn our attention to figuring out what needs to be done about the mysterious Mr. Sellars, and whether he is worth more to us dead or alive.”

  ###

  “This is Ellen Tauber,” Ellen snapped, annoyed Miss Sterling had forwarded a call to her office without identifying the caller.

  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “Dad!” She sat up from the confines of her massive leather chair. “Are you in town?”

  “I’m afraid not, Bruiser.” His voice carried sincere regret. “I’m still stuck up here in DC. The convention doesn’t end till Friday.”

  “Is it snowing up there?”

  “Not yet. And I hope to be gone before it arrives. I’m going to be hung up after the convention in a meeting with some associates. I’ll be back down there next weekend though, and we’ll go do something.”

  “It’s a date. So what’s going on up there, Dad?”

  Her father presided over his court in Austin, but had taken time off to attend what her mother called “one of his geriatric jaunts” to some convention in Washington, DC. She knew he planned on retiring from the state bench soon, and now looked to firm up contacts on the national level. Ambition ran like a molten river through the Tauber family.

  “The usual…old men networking and conniving. But I’m more interested in what’s going on down there at the moment.”

  “What do you mean?” Ellen leaned back into the embrace of her large chair and stared out her window at a soggy Thursday afternoon in Houston. Unlike DC, winters here settled for merely being gray and damp.

  “Don’t be coy, Ellen. That gunfight in the hospital even made the news up here. Then I get a call saying you have been going to bat for the man in the middle of the whole thing…pro bono.”

  “The man in ‘the middle of the whole thing’ is Adam, Dad. You remember him.”

  “Yes, I do remember him. I also remember you and him broke up almost a year ago.”

  “Dad,” she groaned, “this has nothing to do with that. I told you I still considered him a friend.”

  “Yes, honey. But that was a long time ago. You’re with Brad now. Remember him? The senator’s son?”

  “Dad! This has nothing to do with Brad either!”

  “I understand, but are you sure he does? There are considerations.”

  “Considerations?!”

  “Okay, I put that badly and you know I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I mean there were four policemen, counting the detective at the pool, who have been murdered. The police and the District Attorney’s office are under a lot of pressure to show progress in this case. They don’t have a lot of time before the feds get involved and they have exactly one man who is connected to those events…but they are running into you and you have your claws out.”

  “I don’t remember defending my clients any other way. I still don’t see what this has to do with Brad.”

  “Politics, honey. They need something to show soon, and Adam is all they got. You’re in their way and they know you and Adam have a history. Soon, they’re going to push back.”

  “So? Let them push. I’m acting within ethical guidelines. I‘m not scared of them.”

  “I know you‘re not, Bruiser. But I’m not talking about them pushing through fair means, or proper channels. If they don’t get something soon, the situation becomes even more political, which means the gloves come off.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, among other things, they will go at you through the people you care about. You need to understand. I not only got a call from Houston over this matter, I’ve had one of Senator Lipscomb’s aides inquire about it too.”

  “Brad’s father?” A cold weight began to form in the pit of her stomach. “But, why?”

  “Senators are sensitive to scandal, honey. And his office was sending out feelers to see if any potential for a scandal existed here.”

  Ellen closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “I am not a politician.”

  “No, honey, I know that. But your grandfather is, your future father-in-law is, and I may very well be someday. And you might want to get into politics yourself in the future. I’m only saying to consider the appearances of your position, and the ramifications involved.”

  Ellen found herself beginning to feel confined in the recesses of her plush chair. She stood up, stabbed the button on her speaker phone, and walked over to the rain-beaded window.

  “Dad, Adam needs my help. He’s in something way over his head and he doesn‘t even know what it is.”

  “Are you sure, Ellen? I wouldn’t be too surprised over what he might get into. I remember Adam as being somewhat cocksure and headstrong.”

  “Not anymore.” Ellen sighed at the gloomy vista on the other side of the glass. “Nowadays, you would hardly know him. I‘m not sure if I do either.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Just woolgathering. He may have been a little cocky, but he wasn’t a criminal. And you’re asking me to throw him to the wolves?”

  “No…no…I’m asking you to think about the ramifications. The bigger picture here. Call in a favor somewhere and pass him off to another attorney. That wouldn’t be so bad, now would it?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. He honestly thinks he’s in the clear now. Detective Blevins told him they were pursuing other lines of investigation.”

  “And you know as well as I do how long that will last if they don’t turn anything up. The mayor is already riding them for results. Look honey, I’m only saying to back up and get some distance here. You haven’t seen Adam in eleven months, you don’t know what he’s into these days. And you have other people to think about.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “Then promise me you will at least think about it.”

  “Dad.”

  “Honey, I’m not saying throw him to the wolves. I’m just saying maybe the high-powered defense attorney in this case should step back and allow herself to be replaced by somebody more appropriate.”

  “You mean somebody the District Attorney can walk all over.”

  “I mean somebody with neither a personal interest nor a personal stake in the matter. You’re too close to this, and you know it.”

  Ellen said nothing, and studied her reflection in the window.. She had never backed away from a fight in her life. It went against the very core of her nature. But now there existed the very real threat she might be the weapon used against people she cared about…a position she never even imagined facing before. Now people who weren’t her friend and client depended on her, too.

  And she was caught in the middle.

  “Ellen?”

  She closed her eyes, thinking about the future she and Brad intended to build together. An old boyfriend from college, they had picked up together rapidly after bumping into each other five months ago. Three months later, they were engaged. The wedding was set for the upcoming summer, down in the Bahamas.

  Now that all hung in jeopardy.

  All because of a frail shadow of a man she once knew and loved.

  “Ellen? Honey?”

  Things were now complicated, and she needed to figure out how compromised she really was.

  And fast.

  “I’ll think about it, Dad.” The words tasted like bile in her mouth. “I’ll figure out what I’ve got to do.”

  “I know you will, honey. I’m so sorry about this.”


  “So am I.”

  Neither spoke for a moment, and Ellen continued to stare out at the rain. The cold lump in her stomach now weighed a ton. She watched the river of headlights reflecting off the wet pavement of the road below, and tried to remember the pride she felt on getting this office with its commanding view. It stood for so many things she had worked her whole life for.

  Pride, respect, success, power, and freedom.

  Now it was merely a room.

  “Well, I have to go,” the voice on the speaker muttered. “I love you, Ellen.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “I love you too, Dad.”

  ###

  “Ain’t nothin’ to this,” Eddie Vega assured his two nervous partners.

  Their old Pontiac sedan rolled to a silent stop in the midnight darkness under the trees beside Hallisboro City Park. This end of the park featured paths, picnic tables, benches, and a children’s playground, all under a canopy of tall oaks and elms. At night, the blackness under that leafy roof appeared almost absolute, although Eddie knew the occasional electric lamp lit select places among the brushy paths.

  “This place has “ambush” written all over it.” His cousin Carlos leaned over from the back seat and stared at the murky underbrush. This was his first run with Eddie…both him and his friend Rueben, too.

  Eddie could feel the tension pouring off the two like heat. It made the interior of the car feel crowded, even though there was space to spare. He didn’t really want to bring these two, but Emilio insisted. So his job was to be a good soldier and nursemaid these two through this thing.

  “I’ve done this delivery four times before. This is a milk run, cousin. The only reason Emilio sent you with me was to see if you two could keep your cool without shooting up an empty playground. Stay frosty and we’ll be heading back to Galveston in fifteen minutes.”