Absolute Liability

by Jennifer Becton

  Justin turned his attention back to the TV, and I peeked out the blinds behind the couch. The sun was already high in the sky, and light shimmered off the surface of the lake, making the lake water, which in Lake Montclair is always a dull greenish-brown, appear magically beautiful. Vincent’s yard was shaded by several tall oak trees, and directly in front of the house stood a dock with a boathouse that sheltered a small rowboat. A Canada goose was pooping on Vincent’s dock.

  I stretched and smiled.

  It was a beautiful day.

  I got up, grabbed my bag, and headed to the bathroom.

  I encountered Vincent on the way. He was wearing a wrinkled pair of shorts and was slipping a t-shirt over his head. His chest was neither hairless nor boyish.

  Even though I had experienced a new sense of camaraderie with him last night, it was awkward to see him in his state of undress. I may have looked immediately at the floor, but I forced myself to say something and not pass him by like I was mute.

  “I met Justin.”

  “Yeah?”

  We worked our way past each other in the narrow hallway, somehow managing not to make physical contact.

  “He’s a bit older than I expected.” I said this to his back as he continued into the house’s main living area.

  As he turned the corner toward the kitchen, I heard him mumble something like, “Kids grow up fast.”

  I rolled my eyes and went into the bathroom, where I indulged in a long shower and took my time dressing. When I came out to the kitchen, Justin was gone and the TV was off. Vincent sat at the table with a newspaper in his hand, but he was looking out the window with an expression that caused me more discomfort than seeing him shirtless in the hallway. I wanted to turn and pretend I hadn’t seen him at all, but I just stood there looking at him.

  His blue eyes were wide, almost wistful, but there was a crease to his brow, and the firm, flat set of his lips spoke more eloquently of his pain and longing than words ever could.

  I followed his eye line, curious what had caused such naked vulnerability.

  At first, I saw nothing outside, and I began to think he might be reacting to some thought, some mistake or sorrow from his past, but then I saw Justin. He was adjusting cane poles in hooks mounted on cement blocks. He was still shirtless and his light brown hair looked almost blond in the bright sun. He looked young and innocent. He looked like a boy.

  No, I’d been wrong earlier. Vincent was not a deadbeat dad. His expression said that he was quite the opposite. I longed to sit down and coax the story from him, but I knew it would never happen.

  And I knew he wouldn’t like me observing him in such an unguarded moment, so I spoke as if I’d just entered. “Something smells heavenly.” My tone was too bright, and I practically fell over myself getting to the counter to find the plate of eggs, sausage, and pancakes that had been left for me.

  “Where’s Justin?” I asked as if I hadn’t known, hadn’t seen anything in his face.

  As he turned to look at me, his face went from painfully expressive to completely blank. “Fishing.”

  “Oh.” I glanced out the window at the dock and then went back to the food. I poured a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar. Then I searched for a fork, although I was so hungry I’d use my fingers if necessary.

  “Second drawer to the right of the sink,” Vincent said from behind the paper.

  “Thanks.”

  I sat and began wolfing down my breakfast in a most unladylike way.

  “Justin and I are still getting to know each other,” Vincent said, lowering the newspaper.

  I stopped eating and blinked at him. I hadn’t expected him to be much on morning conversation, and I really hadn’t expected him to lead off with something so personal.

  I tried a nonchalant response. “Yeah? He said something like that.”

  Vincent waited a beat, and I hoped he’d continue, but I wasn’t going to press him.

  “He probably made me sound like negligent father of the year.”

  “Well, maybe first runner-up.”

  “He seem angry?”

  “Not my place to say.” I didn’t want to get in the middle of things, but it would be a lie to say that I wasn’t dying of curiosity.

  We ate in silence for a while. I was working on the last of my coffee when Vincent put the newspaper on the table and spoke again. I hoped he would tell me whatever had happened in his past to cause him to look at Justin with such regret and pain, but he had turned to business instead.

  “We’ll leave for the station as soon as you’re done there.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t be disappointed with Vincent’s decision not to explain himself. Though some sort of understanding was building between us, we were not lifelong friends. And besides, there was plenty I didn’t want to share about my past either.

  They met at Middle Mercer Park, a softball complex on the edge of the city. At this time of the day in the summer, it was filled with children toting bats and gloves, and the parking lot was packed. But there were plenty of places where a clandestine meeting could occur unobserved.

  Even in his business casual attire, with his baseball cap he fit in with all the other dads as he walked to the designated spot. Of course, he was not here for pleasure.

  He was here to complete the last segment of his plan.

  He had to retrieve the gun from his partner and put it back where he’d found it, and he didn’t have much time before the police showed up with warrants.

  His instructions had been explicit: Wipe down the murder weapon, put it in a plastic bag, and bring it to the lower parking lot at Middle Mercer Park behind the special event building. Nothing was going on there for a week, so that part of the lot would be empty.

  They could make the hand off there.

  It would have been better to have his partner return it straight to the house, but he had already shown such a penchant for screwing up that he didn’t trust him to get this part right.

  He’d actually been amazed that his partner had managed to pull off the murder at the right time and location. He’d also kept the girl hidden for almost a full week.

  Maybe he’d been too hard on him, not given him enough credit.

  Sure, his partner had made some big mistakes, but he got it right when it counted.

  He’d tell him he’d done a good job when he arrived with the gun and the transfer had been made.

  He put down his newspaper and watched as his partner drove toward him. The car moved with agonizing slowness, and he wished he would speed the hell up. With victory so near, he was anxious to have the whole task completed.

  Still, he forced himself to walk slowly to the lowered car window.

  “Hey,” he said casually, as if meeting a buddy for a game.

  “Hey,” his partner returned. “I’ve got it.”

  “Good. Why don’t you pull over there.” He gestured to any empty spot on the fringes of the lot, near a large copse of trees. “It’ll look more casual if you park.”

  His partner did as instructed, and he went to the passenger side to get in. It would be more private in the car.

  His partner rolled the window back up to keep the air conditioning in and then turned to him. “I’m not sure this is a good idea. Meeting like this.” He sounded as if he needed reassurance.

  “Nonsense. It had to be done. We’ve got to carry out the rest of the plan,” he said. His partner looked a bit shakier than he’d expected, so he decided to comfort him now. Best to keep morale up. “You did a real good job. You did everything just right.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.” He paused. “But I’m grateful for your trying to help me out of this mess—”

  “No need to thank me. We aren’t going to jail and that’s the important thing.”

  “Yeah, no jail. But didn’t we just create a bigger mess?”

  “No, no, that’s panic talking. Stick to the plan. All I’ve got to do is drop off the gun, and then we just keep quiet.�
�

  “You’re sure our documentation will trick the DOI inspector?”

  “Yeah, the...uh…corrections I made to the policy are foolproof. No one will be able to tell a thing.” He was proud of himself for his cunning. It’s not everybody who can successfully frame one guy for murder and another for fraud. He was going to get away with everything, and so was his partner, despite his mistakes and misgivings.

  He’d been worried that his partner might talk, but his partner was the one who’d committed the murder. He was the one with more to lose. Georgia was a death penalty state. And that assured his silence.

  Nice and tidy.

  He folded the newspaper he’d been carrying, ready to conceal the gun within it. “Okay, hand it to me.”

  His partner opened the lid on the center console and removed the gun. He’d done it right. The weapon was sealed up in a large freezer bag. He placed the bag on top of the newspaper, and that’s when he got his first good look at what was in it.

  And he absolutely panicked.

  “What the hell is this?” he demanded.

  His partner looked at him, confused. “The murder weapon,” he whispered.

  He looked at the gun again. No, it wasn’t the hunting revolver; it was some kind of cowboy-looking revolver.

  “What do you mean, the murder weapon?”

  His partner looked confused and frustrated. “It’s the gun I killed her with. I got the other one too, if that’s the one you wanted.” He gestured to the console.

  Panic gave way to eerie calm, and he said, “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened. Why didn’t you use the gun I told you specifically to use?”

  “Well, it wasn’t my fault. I had this one with me too. It’s the one I used to abduct her, and it was still in the car.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Didn’t you bring the one I told you to use?”

  “Course I did. It was with me the whole time.”

  “Well, why didn’t you use it?”

  “Here’s what happened. I drove to the back of the warehouse and dragged the girl to the stoop. I thought she was unconscious, so I untied her before I went back to the car for the gun.”

  “Why’d you untie her?”

  “I thought it was the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “You’d stuffed her in a trunk and kept her tied up all week. Why would it even matter?”

  “I don’t know, but it mattered for some reason,” he squeaked. “She wasn’t knocked out. She got up and tried to run. She got a few steps away and I yelled at her to stop. She turned and I pulled the gun out of the car and shot her. I didn’t realize ’til after that I’d grabbed my revolver and not the one you’d told me to use.”

  He’d screwed it up. The perfect frame-up was ruined.

  “What do you expect me to do with this thing?” he demanded, pointing at the gun.

  “You said you were going to use it in the frame. You could still put it in the guy’s house, right? It doesn’t matter that it didn’t belong to him.”

  “You idiot.” He could feel his control beginning to slip. This guy was a walking disaster. “Can’t you do anything right?”

  “You just said I did a good job.”

  “That was before I knew you used the wrong gun. Now there’s a connection between you and the girl. This gun.” He brandished the bagged gun at his partner, enjoying the way his eyes widened at the threat.

  “Careful. That thing’s still loaded.” Then his partner’s face fell. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore anyway if there’s a connection to me or not.”

  “What do you mean?” His voice was calm, but his body was starting to prickle with dread.

  “My mother figured it out.”

  “You told her about the abduction?”

  “Hell, no. I’m not stupid. She figured out the fraud. On her own. After those investigators came to question her, she started looking at our computer files more closely. She knows everything.”

  He could not speak. He only looked at his partner with a newfound hatred. His fingers tightened around the stock of the gun.

  “Don’t worry. You’re safe,” his partner said with panic in his voice. “There was nothing about you in those documents she found. Honest. Plus, there’s nothing there to tie me to the girl. They’ll just know I wrote the bad policy. Lots of bad policies. They’ll still think McKade is the murderer, right?”

  He could not answer. If he spoke again, he knew his calm would certainly vanish. He could not afford for that to happen.

  “Right?” his partner squeaked. “You can fix this, right?”

  That’s when his eerie calm snapped.

  “You goddamned idiot.”

  We were on the way to the station, so I didn’t have long to dwell in the past—either mine or Vincent’s—and it was probably a good thing. Now was not the time to get emotional. My situation called for calm, collected, rational thought. I sure hoped I was capable of being calm, collected, and rational because we were due at the station to make our formal statements about the discovery of Amber’s body.

  “So what do we do after the station?”

  Vincent raised an eyebrow at me.

  “I’d like to keep investigating,” I pressed.

  “Yeah, but we keep a lower profile. No more parading you around. There’s got to be something in those files that will help us.”

  I looked at him. “No,” I said flatly. “I want to run this investigation just as we have been. I’m not going to hide.”

  “Finding Amber’s body at the site of one of your fraud cases is a clear message to you. You’re next.”

  “Yeah, and that’s why I can’t hide. It’s what the killer wants. He wants me to disappear.”

  “Permanently.”

  “Well, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be in that killer’s face every time he turns around.” I spoke as if we knew who it was, as if I could deliberately position myself to agitate him, but it didn’t really matter. I’d just keep investigating, and I’d end up crossing paths with him eventually. He’d know his message had been received, but his premise had been rejected.

  When we arrived at the station, we were escorted to separate rooms to deliver our statements. I was sent to Tripp’s office.

  He looked like crap on a stick.

  And, believe me, that’s pretty bad.

  It was painfully obvious that he hadn’t slept, showered, or changed clothes since the previous day. He had dark bags under his eyes, and their usual sparkle was somewhat dimmed. And good Lord, he smelled like an old lady who’d neglected to bathe and then compensated by misting on too much perfume. He had probably doused himself in aftershave to get the smell of death out of his nostrils.

  A sobering thought.

  “Hey, Jules.” He stood up and circled around the desk to give me a quick hug. I tried not to breathe too much. “Sit down,” he said as he made his way back to his seat. “Are you okay? Is everything okay with you staying at the DOI guy’s place?”

  “Sure, Tripp. It was fine. I’ll be safe until the killer is caught.” I glanced at him. He was slumped down and sort of sprawled in the chair across from me. “How are you?” I asked, even though it was obvious exactly how he was.

  “Tired, and we’re not making too much headway with this murder. We spent the night talking to all your suspects and topped it off with a chat with the state arson investigator. We let her and the dog walk around the warehouse this morning, and she’s confirming arson. Obviously, McKade looks suspicious, but we can’t make an arrest yet. Waiting on a warrant.”

  I sighed. “Well, let’s get the statement over with.”

  And that’s what we did. I answered and reanswered questions. I didn’t enjoy having to go back to that warehouse, even in my mind. Somehow, it didn’t feel like a mental journey. I was there, seeing, smelling.

  It might even have been worse now because I’d had some time to process the meaning behind Amber’s death. It was like I was suddenly carrying the weight o
f her unrealized life as well as the weight of my own. Not to mention my sister’s, which I’d carried for seventeen years. I was suddenly trying to live for three, and that was a challenge, especially since I hardly knew how to live for myself.

  And add to that the terrible feeling of relief I experienced because it wasn’t me who died.

  Good God, what kind of person was I to feel relieved?

  Well, I guess it was fairly normal to be happy not to be dead, but still, it was an awful feeling to experience.

  I blinked a few times to try to refocus on Tripp. I cleared my throat and tried to redirect my mind to important matters: finding justice for someone who couldn’t find it for herself. “So what do you know so far?”

  Tripp began to recite, and I took comfort in the impersonality of his words. “The victim was killed by three .357 Magnum hollow points. One was lodged in her left shoulder and two in her right lung. The gun has not been recovered, and no casings were present at the scene.”

  “So we’re looking for a revolver.”

  The .357 Magnum was exclusively a revolver cartridge, and unless the killer had been a real idiot and dumped them out of the cylinder, no casings would have been found at the scene.

  Something niggled at my memory, but Tripp had begun to talk again, so I pushed the thought away. I’d get back to it later.

  “The victim was shot at the warehouse, and when the body was discovered, she’d been dead approximately twenty-four hours, which puts the time of death sometime Sunday morning or later. We’ve canvassed the district, but it’s dead—pardon the expression—there on weekends. No one heard or saw anything. McKade looks guilty.”

  “Yeah, he stood to gain a substantial amount on the policy, but he won’t see a dime of it.” That niggling at my memory grew stronger. Then it hit me. “Taurus Tracker,” I said.

  Tripp looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Huh?”

  “When Vincent and I interviewed McKade last week, he bragged about his new Taurus Tracker .357 Magnum revolver. Said it would knock me on my ass.” I didn’t mention the part about him calling my ass cute. Or the part about him and Vincent studying it.