Absolute Liability

by Jennifer Becton

  When I unlocked my front door, tranquility washed over me. It was over. I was free. But I was also exhausted, so I dragged myself into the kitchen, put down the laptop and files I’d been lugging around with me, and sat for a while.

  I shed my jacket and took off my shoes. Once my feet were free, I wiggled my toes and listened to the silence. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths.

  My eyes snapped open.

  It was too quiet.

  Something was missing.

  Maxwell.

  I’d totally forgotten him over at Mrs. Helstrom’s.

  I jumped up and zipped out of the house in my bare feet. The asphalt was hot and sticky, and in an attempt to cool the burn, I decided to use Mrs. Helstrom’s yard instead of her cement walkway.

  By the time I rang her doorbell, my feet no longer felt like they were going to sizzle off, but I was already dreading crossing back with Maxwell and his paraphernalia in my arms. There would certainly be no dashing. Maxwell didn’t like to be jiggled around. I guess I could understand that.

  Mrs. Helstrom opened the door. “Oh no! Are you back for Maxwell already? He was keeping me company while I worked on my pet-sitting website. I put his picture on the satisfied client page, by the way.”

  I could just imagine Maxwell snoring away beside her as she typed on her computer.

  “I’m glad he’s been a good boy, but I figured I’d take him off your hands.”

  “Does that mean they caught that young woman’s murderer?”

  I stared at her. I had only told her I’d be away for a while. I’d thought she’d suspected me of sneaking off for a romantic rendezvous. I hadn’t said anything about the crime.

  “I watch the news.” She gave me a quick hug. “I’m glad everything’s over.”

  “Me too.”

  “Well, come on in. I’ll go get Maxwell.”

  I glanced down at my bare feet. “I should probably stay outside. My feet are dirty.”

  Mrs. Helstrom shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  She closed the door, and I was left in the sweltering heat for a few moments while she rustled up Maxwell. She returned in short order with the carrier, and I peeked inside. Maxwell was squashed up in the very back, and he looked just about as happy as a cat ever is in a carrier. Which is to say, not happy at all. His ears were angled backward to prevent being pressed on the ceiling, and he looked like he might explode into some kind of Tasmanian devil move if provoked in the least.

  I did not plan to provoke him. No sir.

  I thanked Mrs. Helstrom and walked with ginger steps back across the street as quickly as I could without jostling Maxwell.

  As soon as I got inside, I set down the carrier and opened the door, and he came slowly out of the shadowy box and into the light, creeping with his legs bent, ready to flee, as if making sure there were no larger predators nearby.

  I admired his caution, but I didn’t have all day to wait for him to acclimate. I left him to slink around the living room and went to the kitchen, refilled his food and water bowls, and then headed upstairs with all my work paraphernalia, which I promptly dumped on the bed.

  After the day I’d had and then running across the asphalt, I was ready for a long bath. I stripped off my clothes, got in the tub, and let the warm water soothe me. I let my mind go blank.

  It was nice to know my life was back to normal. I was no longer a target.

  After I was clean, I put on my favorite polka dot pajamas, even though it was still early. I didn’t even bother glancing in the mirror once I was dressed because it didn’t matter how I looked. I was officially taking tomorrow off and lounging around the house.

  I spent the next few hours getting a good head start on my planned lounging. After a week and a half of stress and fear, I reveled in the cool calmness of my home.

  At 9 PM, my phone chirped at me, and I considered letting it go to voicemail. A ringing phone does nothing for the contemplative spirit.

  I glanced at the screen. Vincent.

  I sighed and answered.

  His voice, loud and sharp, was like a strike to the face. “Julia, everything okay?”

  His intensity momentarily struck me mute, and I shook my head. “What?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”

  “As you know, while we were at the scene today, we found the bullet lodged in the side of the car, in the metal post between the front and back passenger doors.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “The crime scene techs finally dug it out.”

  “That was quick.” Usually things moved a bit slower with forensics.

  “Yeah, well, there was some pressure.”

  I wondered if Vincent had supplied that pressure.

  He continued, “They found a tiny shard of clear plastic embedded in it.”

  “Plastic?” I asked as I tried to puzzle out what that could signify. “How would clear plastic have gotten there?”

  “That’s what we were wondering too.” He paused. “Techs seem to think the bullet was shot through a piece of clear plastic.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he kill himself by shooting through a piece of plastic? And if he did, for some reason, where is the plastic now?”

  “There’s something else,” Vincent said. “It looks like someone was in the car with him when he was shot.”

  I didn’t like where this was going. I didn’t like hearing the phrase “when he was shot” as opposed to “when he shot himself.”

  “How could they tell that?”

  “Blood spatter patterns on the passenger seat. We didn’t notice it at first because of the dark fabric. The point-blank gunshot caused some back spatter, a mist of blood back toward the gun. The techs found a suspiciously clean area on the passenger seatback.”

  “Any prints?”

  “They pulled some from the door handle, but it’ll take a while to match them.”

  “So we’re looking for someone else. Someone who knew about my investigations, who knew I had information that could connect him to James.” I sat bolt upright. We had assumed that Sam Dwight, the deceased inspector, had been on the take and had been James’s partner in the fraud. But if Sam was dead, who had shot James Gerwalt? I took a deep breath and spoke my conclusion out loud: “Someone within Southeastern set this up.”

  “Yeah, we’re looking for someone else. An accomplice.” He paused. “Potentially someone who committed two homicides.”

  “You don’t think James killed Amber?”

  I hoped James killed Amber because that would mean I was still safe.

  “Don’t know yet, but we’re running ballistics on the gun now and comparing them to the bullets from both shootings.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I hate to say it, but at this point, we need to assume that you are still in danger.”

  Shit, I thought.

  “Shit,” I said and hung up.

  All peace and serenity fled from my body, and I felt like a quivering mass of fear, but my brain was working fast and furious and, I hoped, accurately.

  I headed to the bedroom where all my work stuff was piled on the bed. I flipped open the laptop.

  Okay, what did we know?

  We knew that James Gerwalt had written a liability policy for a water treatment facility that did not meet company safety regulations. We knew that Sam Dwight had inspected the facility and given his approval for the policy. But Sam Dwight was dead. That was awfully convenient.

  I decided to review the policies in which both Gerwalt and Dwight had been involved anyway. The computer beeped and whirred to life, and I checked the DOI database for any related complaints. I checked police records. Nothing appeared fraudulent or illegal.

  So I began considering the possibility that someone else in Southeastern had known about the Mercer Water Reclamation fraud and was keeping it quiet.

  Maybe James Gerwalt had been the weak link. Maybe he had become desperate enough to come after me and got Amber instead.

  Maybe James
’s rash action and subsequent mistake had somehow pulled his Southeastern connection back into the game.

  That was a heck of a lot of maybes.

  What I knew for sure was that I had to discover the accomplice’s identity, and I had to do it fast. That meant another look through all my files.

  I took everything out of my work bag and began sorting through the papers I’d looked at a dozen times. This was getting me nowhere.

  When I’d become so familiar with a file, I tried to look at it in a different way. If I’d gotten used to looking at printouts, I’d look at the digital files. Or vice versa. Sometimes I’d zoom in or zoom out on a PDF just to try to give myself a fresh perspective.

  So I pulled out the data CD and shoved it into the drive, and when I opened the PDF of the original wastewater facility policy, I zoomed in 200 percent. I panned around the document. Something was wrong with the way it was moving.

  I picked it up and moved it again, and it seemed to take longer to repopulate in some parts than others.

  That was odd.

  I searched around, looking for some kind of photo or PDF editing software. Fortunately, someone had loaded one such program onto the old beast. I used it to open the file, and what I found there had my heart racing.

  This was supposed to be a scan of the original document, but it wasn’t. It was an edited version. And it had been edited by someone who did not complete the task correctly. It had not been merged back into a single layer.

  I turned off the top layer, which was the edited version. Underneath, I could now see the original document.

  Only one line had been changed: the inspector’s name and signature.

  Sam Dwight had not inspected the water reclamation facility.

  It had been Ron Raleigh.

  Rubik’s Ron had committed fraud.

  He was Gerwalt’s connection to Southeastern.

  Ron had covered his tracks well. He’d probably scanned and altered the original file and then destroyed it. I had requested PDFs, which he’d supplied, but did he know about his mistake?

  It seemed unlikely that he did.

  Forgetting to merge the layers was a beginner’s mistake. He probably wouldn’t know to look for it.

  No, he wouldn’t know that we were on to him. If I called Vincent and Tripp now, they could have this wrapped up by morning. It would be quick and easy.

  But what didn’t make sense was Amber’s abduction. If Ron had been involved in the plot to kidnap and murder me, he would have known what I looked like, would have made sure the right person was taken. Was James just that much of an idiot that he would take the wrong person?

  Perhaps.

  And if Ron had seen James taking the wrong person, why did he identify the victim as me?

  Maybe he had seen James Gerwalt abducting Amber but assumed it was me being taken because that’s what he had expected to see. Sandra had said that Amber’s face was obscured by the abductor, and they had been five stories away. Besides, the mind could easily play tricks on people when they panicked.

  Or maybe Sandra had first identified the victim as me and Ron had been forced to agree.

  Right now, what mattered most was that James Gerwalt and Ron Raleigh had committed fraud, and in an attempt to cover it up, these two had ended up perpetrating far worse crimes: abduction and murder.

  I almost injured myself in an attempt to grab my cell phone. I managed to knock it and all my files onto the floor and ended up hanging off the edge of the bed, groping for it.

  When I finally pulled myself upright, phone in hand, my vision had gotten blurry, and it took me two tries to find Vincent’s name in the contacts list.

  When Vincent answered, I said, “It’s Ron.”

  “What?”

  “James Gerwalt’s contact at Southeastern.”

  “Evidence?”

  “I found the original, unaltered inspection report. Signed by Ron Raleigh. I’m emailing it to you now.”

  We both fell silent as I put together the email and hit send.

  A second later, Vincent said, “Got it.”

  Another few moments, and I heard Vincent grunt. I assumed that meant he’d finished looking at the new evidence.

  “You’ll bring him in? Ron, I mean,” I said, suddenly and illogically worried that he might be lurking outside with Roger McKade’s hunting revolver. I went to the window and checked to make sure Ron wasn’t standing in my backyard.

  No Ron.

  I shut the curtains.

  “It’ll take some time to get a warrant.”

  Vincent paused, and I knew he was debating with himself. I saved him the trouble. “Look, my part in this is done. You and Tripp go get him. I’m fine here. I don’t think he even knows about the problem with the file.”

  I could imagine him thinking and nodding reluctantly. “Secure the house,” he said. “I’ll call when it’s done.”

  Vincent thought I still might be in danger, but I wasn’t so sure. Ron most likely thought himself to be in the clear. He was probably at home in bed.

  Even so, I got up and systematically checked the upstairs windows and then went downstairs to see to those windows and doors. I closed all the blinds and curtains so that my movements couldn’t be tracked. Everything was secured. Or as secure as I could make it.

  I glanced at the clock on my microwave. Securing the house had taken all of seven minutes. The warrant could take hours.

  I forced myself to make a pot of steel-cut oatmeal because it took forever to prepare and would kill time. Plus, it was bland enough for my nervous stomach to handle without revolting.

  When the oatmeal was ready, I added brown sugar and cinnamon and padded into the living room. I turned on the TV and kept the volume low. I decided to watch some show about people who build motorcycles and then a show about people with weird obsessions. When the obsession show ended, my phone rang.

  I almost jumped out of my skin but managed to rein in my heart rate and answer the phone on the fourth ring.

  Vincent said, “We have the arrest warrant. We’re going to pick him up.”

  I sighed with relief.

  “I’ll call when it’s done,” he assured me.

  We hung up, and I tossed my sticky bowl and pot into the sink and went upstairs to bed. It wasn’t late, but I was mentally exhausted.

  I gathered up Maxwell, who had finally relaxed enough to come out of hiding, and we went to the bedroom, where I placed him on the mattress. Then I collected the papers and files I’d left there and dropped them on the floor. Maxwell curled up by my side.

  I unlocked the gun safe. Just being cautious, I told myself. I stroked Maxwell’s soft black fur until his contented purr filled the room. I was glad to have him with me. As I lay down, I could feel the warmth of his body and his heartbeat against my leg.

  I took deep breaths, but I was still unsettled. Maxwell’s presence helped, but I actually found myself wishing I was at Vincent’s house, sleeping on his couch. With Vincent just down the hall.

  But that was ridiculous.

  I would be perfectly safe in my own home.

  Ron Raleigh was watching from the backyard when the lights finally went out upstairs. It was still fairly early. He was glad. He didn’t want to have to sit out there all night.

  All he had to do was wait until she was asleep to gain entrance.

  It was a risk, he knew, to try to get the file while she was still in the house, but he had to make the attempt.

  He’d heard on the radio about a body found at Mercer City Park. It would only be a matter of time before they identified James Gerwalt and then, well, he couldn’t guess what might happen next.

  It could be that they believed James had committed suicide. Maybe no one would ever look at that PDF again.

  Or the file could be used in some kind of follow-up investigation or lawsuit in the wastewater treatment facility fraud.

  Or it could be used to implicate him in fraud, abduction, and now murder. He simply could n
ot leave a piece of evidence out there to expose him one day.

  The possibility of being connected with Gerwalt’s death would haunt him his whole life.

  Now that the lights were off, he felt more comfortable searching the yard for hidden keys. He tried under the flowerpots and rocks. He looked under the back porch and felt around the foundation pillars. He even stuck his hand inside a bird house.

  There was no key.

  Dammit.

  The bitch wouldn’t make this easy on him.

  He’d just have to break a window.

  He’d come prepared for that, just in case.

  He pulled the glass cutter from his bag. He’d already selected the window he’d use. It was around the side of the house at ground level, obscured from the road by bushes. It should be far enough from the upstairs bedroom to prevent the investigator from hearing any noise. Plus, through a crack in the blinds, he been able to tell it opened into her office. It was likely that he’d find the file there. He could be in and out in no time.

  He just had to wait for the proper moment.

  He sat in the bushes for a half hour. He’d intended to give her a full hour to fall into a deep sleep, but he was getting antsy, so he decided to go ahead and start.

  He removed the screen, leaning it against the house as he studied the window one last time.

  Yes, his plan would do just fine. He’d be in quickly and quietly if the tool worked as advertised.

  As it turned out, cutting the glass was easier than he’d expected. He cut a large X from corner to corner of one pane and then used his gloved hand to press a piece until it gave a bit. Slowly, he worked it until it wiggled just enough for him to get his fingers on an edge. Then he lifted it out. He repeated the process with each section, and soon the whole pane was gone.

  He reached in carefully—he didn’t want to cut himself on any small pieces of glass and leave his DNA—and flipped the lock on the window.