Liars Anonymous

by Louise Ure

  It would be easy. Quiet. My blood would sink into the gravel and refresh some shallow-rooted desert plant. I’d get rid of the pain. I’d never hurt anyone or disappoint anyone again.

  I caressed the dark edge with my thumb, identifying my own ridges and whorls with the stony blade, then turned to go back into the house.

  Not yet. The blade would still be here tomorrow. I could wait.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I pulled the sheet up over my eyes, ignoring the sun flooding into the bedroom.

  Three years ago my meddling had cost Walter Racine his life. How much more damage had I done this time? Had Felicia died because someone saw her talking to me? I wouldn’t shoulder the burden of Carlos’s and Reuben’s deaths—they brought that on themselves. And Markson had been killed without any help from me at all.

  The air-conditioning was off and I sweated through the sheets like a purification ceremony, but it was a ritual with no release. My cell phone rang every half hour or so. I ignored it.

  By afternoon, I’d made it to the living room, a hand of solitaire arrayed on the carpet between my outstretched legs. I couldn’t win a hand even when I cheated.

  I heard hammering at the front door.

  “Go away,” I said from my seat on the floor.

  Guillermo peeked through the window, then let himself in.

  “Raisa told me you got out and I’ve been calling since yesterday. I’ve been worried.”

  I dealt myself another card, a queen. No place to put it. I threw the cards across the room.

  “What about the kids? What about that little girl in the car seat?” Was she still alive? And an even more gut-twisting question: Was she safe?

  “We’ve done everything we could,” he said.

  “Maybe not everything.” I told him about Willard’s and Markson’s kiss in the day-care parking lot.

  “So you think the Willards killed Markson to keep their love life a secret? And then killed Felicia and Carlos?”

  Guillermo was right. It didn’t seem like a secret worth killing over. However, maybe threatening to make it public would get the lawyer to open up about other things.

  “Let’s go ask the man.”

  The offices of Willard, Levin and Pratt were in a converted adobe house, right at the twisty bit of Pima near the Arizona Inn. The circular drive was anchored by a hundred-year-old palo verde in the center of the yard. We parked on the east side of the building and went in. A thin older woman with cat’s-eye glasses rose from the chair at the reception desk as we entered.

  “I was just closing up,” she said, indicating the blank computer screen at her side. “Did you have an appointment?”

  “We’re here to see Paul Willard. Tell him it’s Jessie Dancing from HandsOn.” If he was part of the attack on Darren Markson, my name alone might be enough to spook him.

  She nodded and left the waiting area through an arched doorway on the right. She was back a moment later with a smile. “Mr. Willard only has a few minutes, but you’re welcome to come in.” She showed us down the hallway and into an oversized room with a kiva fireplace in the corner.

  “Would you like me to stay, Mr. Willard?” she asked.

  “That’s okay, Serena. I won’t be more than a couple of minutes myself. You can head home.”

  She backed out and shut the heavy wooden door behind her. I sat down in the guest chair and Guillermo took up a position near the door.

  “Serena?” I asked him. “She must be the one that Felicia Villalobos was reporting to here for her internship.” Serena McDowell had been the starred name in Felicia’s notebook.

  Willard did a double take, probably associating my name with the day we met at Emily Markson’s house and nothing else. “I believe she was, but I didn’t know much about what Ms. Villalobos was doing.”

  “Right. Like you don’t know that Emily Markson never talked to her husband in New Mexico. Like you don’t know what your wife and next-door neighbor are doing.”

  “What are you insinuating, Ms. Dancing?”

  “No insinuations. Just facts. There’s no way Emily Markson could have talked to her husband in New Mexico. He was attacked, beaten up, and killed in Tucson. And she and your wife are having an affair. All I want to know is whether it’s just the two of them, or are you part of this as well? You like threesomes, do you?”

  “Who are you? What do you want?” he said, belatedly realizing that a HandsOn operator had no business asking these questions. I stayed seated.

  “Was Darren Markson part of this sex show, or did you three keep it all to yourselves? All those bruises on Emily’s arms. And an e-mail to her about meeting at the riverbed. It was signed ‘A.’ A’ as in Aloma. Was your wife involved in Markson’s death, too?”

  “That’s enough! Aloma had nothing at all to do with Darren.”

  “Then what were your wife and Mrs. Markson doing at the day-care center together? Are they part of this child abduction ring, too?” I didn’t have any facts to back up the assertion, but maybe the jab would cause a counterpunch on his part.

  He jumped to his feet and slammed his palms on the desk. “Get out! Now!”

  “We can always ask the cops the same questions. Or the newspapers,” Guillermo said.

  “Get a clue, you two. My client Darren Markson is dead, and we’re going to have to sell the management contract for the day-care centers. I’m just trying to shut them down gradually so nobody gets left in the lurch. Aloma was there helping her friend. End of story.”

  “It looked like a whole different kind of help, with her lips locked around her neighbor in the car,” I said.

  He raised both hands in a “what am I going to do?” gesture. “That’s private. We’re consenting adults…”

  It looked like the tryst I’d witnessed, that morning at the Markson house was a three-way affair.

  The door banged open, pinning Guillermo against the wall.

  “Robert, thank God. Get these people out of here.”

  Robert Levin. Heavy eyebrows. Dark hair retreating in an ox-bow shape. I recognized his face from the newspaper photo of the groundbreaking ceremony for the day-care center. What I didn’t recognize was the gun in his hand.

  Guillermo slid out from behind the door and grabbed at Levin’s gun arm. Levin spun away from him and backed toward Willard.

  “Down on the floor, both of you.”

  “Just get them out of here, Robert,” his partner said.

  “I heard them ask about the day-care centers.” Levin’s gaze pin-balled from Willard to the two of us on the floor.

  “I was just saying that I proposed Emily Markson shut them down—”

  “I can’t let that happen. It would ruin what’s taken a long time to set up.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Get over there on the floor with them, Paul.” It looked like I’d picked the wrong attorney as the bad guy.

  Levin opened a tall cabinet behind Willard’s desk and rummaged through it until he found a roll of duct tape, and tossed it to Willard. “Tie their hands behind them.”

  “Robert, I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand, all right,” I said, rolling toward Willard. “Your partner has been working with Darren Markson and the Bracero gang to set up a smooth-running child-abduction ring. They kidnap children coming across the border illegally, stash them at the day-care centers, and then sell them. Isn’t that right, Mr. Levin? The parents can’t get anybody to pay attention because they’re illegals, and they’ve either scattered or been deported after you’ve taken their children.” In some cases, they were probably in jail, like Raisa’s two clients, twisting in nightmares about the day their child was ripped from their arms.

  I wondered why they hadn’t left the legal side of the day-care business to Levin. That way they wouldn’t have had to deal with Willard at all. But maybe this kind of legal work was Willard’s specialty and it would have looked weird to have another lawyer in the firm take it over. Above all, t
hey would have wanted everything to look normal.

  “Shut up or I’ll tape your mouth, too,” Levin said.

  “You’re lying,” Willard said to me as he wrapped the tape tightly around my wrists. “Darren Markson would never have been party to that kind of scheme. Nor would my partner.”

  Willard was wrong. Darren Markson must have grown a conscience, and he convinced Carlos and Felicia to help him. That signed their death warrants.

  “On your feet,” Levin said. Willard helped us up, then followed Levin’s pointed gun out to the hall and toward the back of the office. Levin looked both ways out the back door and hustled us to a minivan in the back lot. The rear seats were pushed flat and he shoved us into the cargo area. I skidded across the rubber flooring on my chin.

  Paul Willard got into the driver’s seat and Levin rode shotgun, his gun aimed at his partner’s gut.

  “Robert, this is insane,” Willard tried. “We’ve got to let them go.”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  He pointed west. I hoped the lawyer would be strong enough to resist, to crash the car or drive it straight to a police station, but he followed Levin’s instructions to a T. Maybe he wasn’t a brave man or maybe he had another plan. In all likelihood, he probably still thought he could talk his way out of it.

  Guillermo and I scooted closer to each other and I began clawing the tape off his hands. Levin spotted us and smashed the gun butt down on Guillermo’s head.

  “You—over there.” He motioned me to the far side of the van with the gun barrel. I inched over to the side panel and leaned back against it. A ray of setting sun lanced through the back window. It was already the Day of the Dead.

  It was only twenty minutes before Levin directed Willard to turn into a driveway. The minivan door slid open. No blindfolds. He wasn’t worried about us telling anyone where we were.

  Levin pulled me out of the cargo area by my hair, and my eyes filled with tears from the pain. When my vision cleared I recognized the rambling adobe: Chaco’s house. Levin prodded the three of us up the path.

  Unlike the first two times I’d been here, there were already cars in the driveway: Chaco’s dark Cadillac, a green Jaguar, and a low-rider that looked remarkably similar to the one that had followed me around town.

  “What are you doing here?” the young man at the door said, the XI tattoo on his arm clearly visible as he leaned against the jamb.

  “Let us in, Bobby.”

  Not Bob Eleven, after all. Bobby Levin. Robert Jr.

  Fuck. They should have just shot me for being stupid.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Bobby stepped back into the room and ushered us in. The remains of a beer and pizza dinner spilled across the counter in the kitchen, abandoned where it had first been torn into after being carried in. Chaco himself sprawled in one of the black leather chairs, TV remote in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.

  I tried to keep the shakes out of my voice. “You killed Carlos, didn’t you, Bobby?” Bobby Levin with the dreadlocks beard and dark, wild eyes. He was the real threat in the Bracero gang. “And Felicia, too,” I continued.

  “Last fucking time I use a bomb,” the kid said. “Almost blew myself up putting it in.”

  Chaco giggled, more amused by us than by the football game on the flat-screen TV. Robert Senior busied himself checking messages on his BlackBerry and Paul Willard stood as stiff as the Tin Man in the middle of the room.

  “So what happened that night by the riverbed?” I slumped to the red-stained concrete floor and kept working at the tape behind me. “Markson and Ochoa had taken a child from the day-care center, right? Were they going to shut you down or turn you in?” My guess was that they were going to rescue as many kids as they could. If they had gone to the cops, they’d be in trouble for their involvement, too.

  “Darren wanted to shut it down,” a female voice said behind me.

  I spun around. Of course. The Jaguar out front. Emily Markson crossed the room, picked a slice of pepperoni off the pizza, and ate it.

  “You told Chaco and Bobby where your husband would be that night, didn’t you?” I’d wondered how they’d known to be at the arroyo; both Markson and Carlos Ochoa would have noticed if they were being followed.

  She shrugged. “The kids are worth a hell of a lot more than he was bringing home from that damn real estate business.”

  “But, Em,” Paul Willard said. “You always told me—”

  She didn’t even glance at him. “Shut up. I only put up with you and your wife’s stupid games in case we needed to keep you in line.”

  The elder Levin popped the tab on a Tecate and took a swig. He tipped the can in Willard’s direction. “We’ll need to get rid of him now, too.”

  “Okay.” His son grabbed the gun from his waistband and—no hesitation, no reflection—shot Paul Willard in the forehead. Willard fell like a stringless puppet, brain and blood and bone scattered behind his crumpled form.

  “You idiot!” Emily Markson said. “You should have made it look like an accident!”

  The kid shrugged again. “Then he should have said that.”

  My vision dimmed. I tried to take regular breaths. A little in. A little out. If they could kill the lawyer that easily, then disposing of Guillermo and me would be no problem at all.

  I flashed back to the night of the phone call from Markson. He’d been waiting there at the cottonwood tree for Carlos to come take the little girl from him. Maybe Carlos came in too fast, and hadn’t intended to rear-end him. Markson had covered it well enough with me on the phone. He hadn’t sounded scared. Not until that third voice showed up. That third voice. Bobby Levin. A boy who could kill without even raising his blood pressure. Had Emily Markson been there, too? Maybe that’s why she’d wanted to hear the HandsOn tape; to make sure her own voice wasn’t recorded.

  I glanced over at Guillermo, who had managed to uncurl a good eight inches of duct tape from his hands. The senior Levin seemed fascinated by the blood pool seeping from Paul Willard’s head. The two Braceros had returned their attention to the football game and Emily had gone back into the bedroom, none of them troubled by the dead man or the spreading pool of blood on the floor.

  Had Emily also watched them kill her husband two days later? He might have died right here in this house. Maybe Chaco’s red floor had been colored that way on purpose, to hide the blood he knew might be there someday.

  I stood slowly, my partially unwrapped hands behind me, and leaned against the dining room table. With one final tug, I broke free of the duct tape, grabbed the car keys off the table, and pushed the alarm button. The Cadillac out front responded with a shriek. I tossed the keys in the only place I knew they’d be difficult to retrieve: under the refrigerator. Guillermo moved, lunging for Bobby Levin and crashing to the floor. Hands gouging, they rolled against Chaco’s seat, pinning his legs against the chair. I grabbed a full beer can and hurled it at the lawyer. He didn’t see it coming, and it smacked his temple with a thud. He went down.

  Emily Markson ran back into the room, this time with a gun in her hand. She raised her arm in Guillermo’s direction.

  I let out a roar and ran toward her, lowering my head below the level of the raised gun and crashing into her. She staggered back into the bedroom and the gun flew from her hand. We followed it to the floor, each kicking and clawing with one hand, the other blindly groping under the bed in a desperate race to reach the weapon.

  Emily got to the gun first, but before she could pull it from under the bed, I rolled off her and ran to the barbell in the corner. It was almost a hundred and fifty pounds—more than I’d ever lifted before. Could I do it? One exhalation, bend the knees and lift with every ounce of energy and adrenaline I’d ever known. Up.

  The movement caught me unbalanced and I spun around, a hundred and fifty pounds of lead weight careening like a windmill. Emily rolled over on her back and aimed the gun at my face.

  I let the bar drop straight across her throa
t.

  I kicked the gun across the room. She was pinned by a weight she couldn’t move, but the plates were tall enough that the bar hadn’t crushed her neck. I panted, hands on my thighs, for the space of three heartbeats, then ran back to help Guillermo.

  I took hold of Bobby’s long, tangled beard and yanked. He howled as the strands pulled away in my hand, but didn’t loosen his grip on the gun. Guillermo had both hands around Bobby’s gun wrist, forcing the barrel away from his face.

  Chaco kicked at the tangle of men at his feet and dug in the seat cushion for his own weapon. I grabbed a floor lamp and swung it hard at his face. It didn’t make a solid connection, but at least it distracted him.

  A child’s muted wail came from the next room and my heart caught in my throat. Where? I hadn’t seen a child in the bedroom.

  Then a gunshot split the air and Chaco’s chest blossomed with a new red rose. A stray shot from Guillermo’s battle with Bobby had found a different target.

  Guillermo bucked hard and rolled on top of the last Bracero. They could have been statues, frozen nose to nose with only their panting breath to give away the pantomime. Four hands gripped the gun between them.

  Another shot. I held my breath, then watched Guillermo close his eyes and slip sideways as the young Bracero squirmed out from under him.

  Bobby gave me just a moment’s glance, then turned and ran out the sliding glass door in the back and zigzagged from cactus to cactus up the sloped hill and into the darkening night.

  I knelt at Guillermo’s side. The bullet had grazed his temple and blood oozed down his face and neck. His eyes blinked slowly. He was still alive.

  “I need help!” I screamed into the phone I found in the kitchen. “Ambulance! Police! Three people shot. One on the loose! And call Deke Treadwell!” I gave them Chaco’s address then turned back to Guillermo. “Stay with me. You’re going to be okay.”

  “The wife?” he asked.

  “She’ll live.”

  I glanced over at Robert Levin. He was still unconscious, but I made sure he wasn’t going anywhere by tying his hands and feet with the cord from the floor lamp. I picked up the gun he’d threatened us with and placed it in Guillermo’s lap.