Absolute Liability

by Jennifer Becton

“Don’t worry about me, Mom. I can take care of myself no matter what job I have.”

  “I know you can, dear—”

  Her next words were cut off by the slam of the glass door and the sound of barking. Then Tricia called out, “Sissy here?”

  “I’m here,” I said, and promptly, Tricia’s two dogs bounded into the room. They were just mutts, one short-haired with a bulky body and the other scrawny with a wiry coat, but those dogs always gave me hope for my sister. She loved them and took good care of them. Sometimes she even dressed them up. It was silly, but it showed that the nurturing, sweet Tricia was still inside her somewhere. We just had to get past the boozy rape victim that kept the old Tricia bottled up.

  My sister bounced into the room with a plastic bag, which I assumed held our dessert. Her stick-straight blond hair was over-processed but cute, and she was wearing jeans and a casual top. She looked just like she had in high school, only now she carried a cup of watered-down Lord Calvert wrapped in a napkin. She always had that cup with her. I hated it.

  She landed between my mother and me on the couch. In her haste to hug me, she forgot about her cup and the plastic bag, and we ended up in an awkward tangle, laughing.

  “I was so worried about you. You okay?” Tricia asked. She was still thinking about my abduction. Odd how she’d fixated on it, and my mother had almost ignored it. I’d explained all about the mix-up when I’d spoken to her on the phone earlier, but Tricia’s eyes revealed her fear. It couldn’t hurt to explain again. “Yeah, nothing happened to me. It was another girl from work.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Tricia said as if hearing it for the first time. Then her expression changed. “Is the other girl okay?”

  “We haven’t found her yet.”

  “Well, I know you will. You always save the day.”

  I wasn’t so sure that I was going to save the day this time, and hoping to change topics, I reached toward the bag. “What’s for dessert?”

  “Pecan pie from Varnie’s.”

  “Hands off that pie,” our mother said. “And don’t get comfortable here. Go and wash up for lunch.”

  Just like old times, we all filled our plates with pot roast, squash, and potatoes and gathered around the dining room table. Well, it would have been like old times if our father had been in his place.

  But he wasn’t.

  And he would never be again.

  I tucked my legs underneath me, trying to assume a posture of relaxation as I ate. “So what’s been going on, Tricia?”

  “I’m getting my life together, Sissy. I got a job.”

  This made me happy, but it didn’t give me a lot of hope. Tricia often went through phases where she tried to get her life together, but she never let go of that cup.

  “Where are you working?”

  “At a salon. Just sweeping and answering phones, but one day I’m going to do hair!” She told me all about the salon, how she’d applied for cosmetology school, and how Mom had paid her tuition. It sounded great, and I hoped it would work out for her.

  But I doubted it would.

  There was always the cup.

  “What have you been up to?” Tricia asked me when she was finished.

  “Working mostly.” And trying not to worry that someone might be out there who wanted to kidnap me.

  I didn’t add that second part, obviously.

  “Anything fun?”

  “Oh, you know. Same old stuff.”

  Tricia looked unsatisfied, so I decided to tell her about Leona falling into the sewage treatment tank. When I concluded with the story of the interview with Leona at the bodybuilding competition, both my mother and sister were in stitches.

  For those precious few hours at Sunday lunch, with Tricia’s dogs sleeping at our feet, everything seemed to even out for once. We were a sort-of family.

  I didn’t go out again until Monday morning. The arson inspector, Eva Sinclair, was driving down from Atlanta with her arson dog, so Vincent and I were scheduled to meet her at 11 AM. When I arrived at McKade’s furniture warehouse, Vincent was already there, parked on the side of the narrow road with his truck windows open. Unfortunately, the air was still and heavy with moisture. Not much to be done in that kind of humidity.

  “Nice weekend?” he asked as he joined me in front of the warehouse.

  “It was restful,” I lied. “Any news on Amber?” I hadn’t talked to Tripp since Saturday night at the cookout, and we hadn’t spoken a word of business then.

  “Unfortunately not. The MPD says they’ve talked to everyone Amber ever knew, and no one is standing out as a suspect. They’re focusing on the insurance angle now.”

  A full week had passed since Amber had been taken from Southeastern. After only forty-eight hours, even the simplest investigations get more complicated. Witnesses begin to second-guess themselves or start to imagine new details. And the longer Amber went unfound, the higher the chance became that her situation would not end well. I knew Tripp and Starnes were feeling the pressure to find her.

  “Well,” I said, gesturing to the warehouse, “let’s go on in and take a look. Eva will be here soon, I’m sure.”

  Vincent and I approached the shell of the building that used to house McKade’s Discount Furniture. From the road, it looked deceptively small, but the building was deep, stretching so far that I almost couldn’t see where it stopped. The exterior walls were made of orangey brick, so they still stood in all their charred glory. But before the fire could be doused, the structure’s roof, doors, and windows had been consumed, blown out, or both.

  As I picked my way through the charred leftovers of the front door, I mused that it looked a bit like a Greek ruin. But it smelled like a combination of wet dog, melted plastic, and good barbecue.

  Ordinarily, when I entered a potential arson site, I liked to walk through the whole building to get an overview and then look at the particulars, usually under the direction of the inspector. Arson was not my specialty.

  Vincent was the opposite. He studied the minutiae. He began in the front room, presumably some sort of reception area, and walked the perimeter of it, taking in every square millimeter of damage. I left him to his inspection and headed through each room fairly quickly. There weren’t many rooms, actually. I found what used to be a bathroom and a janitor’s closet, and the rest of the building consisted of an enormous storage area.

  As I entered the warehouse, I looked up. Many of the roof support beams had collapsed, so it was fortunate that the ceiling had mostly burned. Nothing was going to fall on my head. I figured I was most at risk of flyovers by poop-filled pigeons.

  When I reached the back of the room, the hairs on my neck began to stand up. I stopped.

  What had set off my alarms?

  I looked around. I saw nothing but burned building. I saw no movement outside. I didn’t even see any pigeons overhead.

  I closed my eyes and strained to listen. There was nothing out of the ordinary, just the occasional bird or passing vehicle.

  But I definitely smelled something.

  My eyes flew open and my heart began slamming into my ribs. I knew that smell.

  Something was dead.

  I hoped the smell emanated from an unfortunate squirrel or bird, but I knew I had come upon something more substantial than a piece of rotting roadkill.

  Every other thought in my head fell away, and I focused on the smell.

  I crept along the back wall, picking my way among water-sodden sofas and beams and bits of ceiling. The smell grew fainter, so I turned in the other direction, working my way back across the debris. The fetid odor strengthened as I neared the back door.

  My throat began to close up, and I gagged. If I had a weaker constitution, I would have done more than just gag. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and clenched my hands into fists. Then I released all the tension. The nausea passed, but I was shaking as I continued forward into the cloud of death.

  The rear door had been removed by the firefighters and was s
hoved inside the warehouse, just another soot-covered obstacle. I clambered over it and managed to poke my head outside a bit, gradually taking in the back of the property. Enclosed by a fence so riddled with holes that it could hardly be an effective barrier, the loading area was large enough to accommodate delivery trucks, but the alley that fed into it was narrow and the asphalt was pockmarked and uneven.

  I continued to survey the lot, turning my head from left to right and letting my eyes sweep over every detail. I did all this slowly. I knew the source of the stench, and I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to take it in all at once when it entered my field of vision.

  I continued to turn slowly, absorbing the whole panorama, until a pillar obstructed my view. I couldn’t see much.

  But I could see them. A pair of bare feet. Small, feminine feet with toenails painted a light baby pink. Feet that were scratched and bruised. Feet that had walked a rough and dirty road.

  I knew it was ridiculous, but I wanted to find some shoes to cover her feet, to protect them. To protect her.

  But I knew it was too late.

  I reached for the support of the pillar and braced myself for what I knew I was about to see. The thought of calling Vincent crossed my mind, but when I opened my mouth to do so, my voice would not come. Instead, the sight of those poor bare feet drew me onward, alone, to face the truth.

  As I inched further out of the doorway and into the bright Georgia sunshine, I felt a fresh shot of adrenaline coursing through my body, and everything on the periphery began to fade away. The world blurred except for the body that began to reveal itself to me.

  The body was female. A woman, average height, average weight. Young. Surrounded by a pool of blood.

  I approached her slowly, as if I would startle her. Unfortunately, that was no longer possible.

  She was slumped sideways against the charred brick wall, and her head hung, limp and awkward, away from me. Loose brown hair obscured her face. Her torn shirt was covered in dried blood, and her legs were bent at an almost impossible angle, causing her dark denim skirt to twist high on her thighs.

  I cringed and looked away.

  But she felt no pain anymore. Tears welled in my eyes, and I found myself staring at the long smear of blood on the cement wall.

  Flies had already discovered the body, and they swarmed around her. They darted in and out of her nose and mouth, gathered around her eyes. They came to investigate me. I batted them away from my face, trying to remind myself that these flies could help in the investigation and that they were not the most disgusting creatures on God’s green earth.

  No, that honor went to whoever had killed this woman.

  I knew I should call the police or at least tell Vincent.

  But I drew closer. I couldn’t stop myself.

  I could see angry purple bruises along the left arm and leg, probably extending higher than I could see. I saw the gashes on her limbs and marks around her wrists and ankles where she’d been bound. I caught myself before I got any closer and skirted around the body, careful to give it a wide berth.

  I squatted down beside her and peered through the horde of flies and into the woman’s face.

  Amber Willis.

  I was shocked even though I had feared—somehow known—that it was her. I rolled onto my backside and skittered backward through the weeds, gravel, and cigarette butts as if I’d been jolted with a cattle prod. I managed to get myself back onto the stoop and sit down.

  For the first few moments, I didn’t think anything at all. I just sat there breathing in and out and feeling guilty that I could still do something as simple as inhaling and exhaling while Amber could not. That my legs could still carry me away from this gruesome sight. I turned, unable to bear looking at her any longer.

  Then came the questions.

  Who had done this? Roger McKade?

  His alibi for the day of the abduction was flimsy, but he had been at La Belle Day Spa for several hours that afternoon. He might not have had time.

  If not Roger, then why had her body shown up here?

  It was now clear to me that Amber had been murdered due to her connection to Southeastern.

  But worse, she had been made to suffer and die in my place.

  I couldn’t even contemplate that at the moment.

  I sat there, staring at the ground and twiddling a cigarette butt between my thumb and forefinger before I realized what I was doing. I flicked the butt away. This was a moment for action, not contemplation. Time was crucial, so I forced myself to stand.

  But before I went back into the warehouse to find Vincent, I paused. If I’d been Catholic, I would have made the sign of the cross, but I was Baptist. We don’t have an equivalent of the gesture, but I wish we did. I would have used it then, at the moment when I saw the meeting of eternal and mortal right before me.

  Instead of genuflecting, I said, “I’m sorry, Amber.” I hoped that, wherever she was, her spirit could hear me.

  I turned away, and my mindset shifted too. I wasn’t going to be able to get through the coming hours if I continued to personalize the situation. I had to step back and stop thinking about Amber, who had just given up caffeine and who liked boys and whose life was only beginning. And who had probably given her life in place of mine. No, I couldn’t think of that. I had to think of her as a victim.

  I found Vincent looking around in the remnants of the janitor’s closet. I knew he heard me coming. I was bashing and slamming my way forward with adrenaline coursing through my body. Vincent didn’t look up when he spoke. “I’m not an arson expert, but the fire seems concentrated in certain areas. That might indicate an accelerant. Other than that, there’s nothing special here.”

  “Uh, actually, there is,” I said.

  Vincent turned around and took me in. I must have looked frightful. I could only imagine my wide-eyed, pale face. I knew I was covered in soot and dust, and I probably had cigarette butts stuck to my clothes.

  “You found something.”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice at first. I took a breath. “Amber Willis.” Vincent looked at me, his eyes wide and steady. I held on to that steadiness. “She’s dead.”

  We stared at each other for a beat.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No.” I knew I should have done that right away, but it was my first murder scene. And I knew Amber. “I’ll call now.”

  Vincent disappeared, ostensibly to view the victim. Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I dialed Tripp directly and told him what I’d found and where I’d found it.

  He cursed violently, and I agreed with his inelegant assessment. He relayed the news to someone nearby, and I assumed that the cavalry was being called in. He returned to me. “You didn’t touch anything, right?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me that.”

  A black-and-white patrol car screamed onto the scene a few minutes later. Two uniformed officers sprang out. Both were young, mustached, and eager to prove they were man enough to handle being the first responders to a homicide.

  The first officer—a blond man who identified himself as Bishop—went straight to the body to secure the immediate scene.

  The second officer—Washington—removed Vincent and me to wait in what used to be Roger McKade’s reception area.

  I sat in the rubble and soot, not caring one iota that I was ruining my clothes. I leaned against the wall and hugged my knees to my chest.

  I’d been trained to deal with such an event, but I’ve got to admit I wasn’t handling the discovery of Amber’s body all that well. I never thought I’d come upon the body of a friend or coworker. I wasn’t mentally prepared.

  Vincent had kept his distance. I don’t know if he saw my fragile state and wanted to stay clear or if he just didn’t feel like talking. I hadn’t exactly started any conversations either. I stared straight ahead, only catching Vincent out of the corner of my eye as he pretended to review the fire damage in the front office.

&n
bsp; As if that mattered to me anymore.

  We saw the crime lab’s van pull past the warehouse and into the alley. More police showed up, Tripp among them. The building was secured now, and if Eva, the arson investigative specialist from the state fire marshal’s office showed up, they wouldn’t let her in. I felt bad that she was making the trip from Atlanta for nothing.

  From the reception area, we saw the officers canvassing the lot, looking for tire marks, footprints, clues of any kind.

  Vincent and I finally made eye contact. He offered me a small half smile and walked toward me across the debris. Leaning his back against the sooty wall, he slid down to sit beside me. All I could think was that his nice jacket was going to be ruined.

  “Your first homicide?”

  “Yeah.” My sooty hands were shaking. I stared at them, willing them to stop. But they just kept right on shaking, so I tucked them in the space behind my knees.

  “It’s harder when it’s someone you know.”

  I looked at Vincent. He was staring straight ahead, emotionless.

  I let my head fall against my knees.

  “It was supposed to be me,” I said, even though I didn’t want to face the fact that I’d been singled out, marked for death.

  And Amber had paid the ultimate price.

  “Yeah.” His agreement was both calming and startling. He wasn’t trying to placate me. He was speaking the truth.

  I forced my head up and looked at Vincent. “You don’t look particularly shaken up.” And he didn’t. I don’t think his facial expression had changed from the moment we’d arrived that morning. He was all business. If anything, now he was more businesslike.

  “Yeah, well, appearances can deceive.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that statement, but he was looking at me now with a steady, intense gaze that almost implored me to understand something. Too bad I didn’t know what.

  And I really didn’t want to think about it at the moment. I cleared my throat. “I couldn’t tell…the exact cause of death.” I hadn’t been able to force myself to look long enough to make the assessment.

  We both turned at the sound of Tripp’s voice. “Likely blood loss. She was shot twice in the chest and once in the shoulder. None were placed well enough to produce instantaneous death.”