by Dan Alatorre
“I did, twice.” He put down the remote and picked up the legal pad. “How many times do I need to go over them? It’s all ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ ‘speak with enthusiasm,’ ‘be energetic.’” He glared at the closed door. “I’m not trying out for the cheer squad, am I?”
“In a sense, yes. Have you ever done a job interview?”
“I had one a decade or so ago when I joined the force.” His gaze went back to the TV screen. “Does that still count?”
“Depends. Do you want your job back?”
Raising his eyebrows, Sergio chewed his lip. “Yes.”
“Then study.” The bedroom door opened. “Nothing else matters tonight,” Abbie said. “You need to give everyone there a positive and enthusiastic message. Stay focused on that task.”
He tossed the legal pad onto the table, glancing toward the bedroom as he lifted the can of Coke to his lips—and stopped.
Fidgeting with an earring, Abbie stepped out of the bedroom.
She was dressed in a long, shimmering blue sequin gown, her hair pulled up and piled high, showing off her slender neck. A wide, gold-colored choker graced the base of her collarbone. The dress had bare shoulders, allowing her arms to fall away elegantly to her sides. The azure gown hugged her curves in a revealing and flattering way that looked almost like something from a beauty pageant, but also could have adorned the cover of any socialite magazine.
Sergio set his drink down and stood up, his jaw hanging open. “Good grief, Abbie. You’re . . . you’re beautiful.”
“Yeah?” She pushed up on the back of her hair and came toward him. Her full lips were ruby red, her high cheekbones carried a hint of pastel rose. Her eyes were every bit as stunning as any Hollywood movie star. The fragrant scent of Chanel Number Five filled the room. Abbie finished primping her hair and let her arms fall to her sides. “Was I not before?”
Sergio nodded. “Yes, but . . . this is more.”
“You’re attending this party as my plus one,” Abbie said. “The better I look, the better you look. As I mingle with the top brass of the Tampa Police tonight, I will be actively putting out my endorsement of you to your bosses and the powers that be. Can’t be a bad thing to have the mayor speak on your behalf, can it?”
“No.”
“No.” She turned, pacing in front of the window. His eyes stayed on her. “So,” she said, “we will put on a show, without ever letting on—but understand, this is a show and an interview and a high wire act, all in one. Express how you’ve learned your lesson. You’ve been humbled and you want your job back. Everyone needs to know that message by the time you leave. And by the way, you clean up pretty well yourself.” She winked at him. “Now, let’s go.”
* * * * *
As Bree and Addleson exited the Thunder and walked to her car, he took her hand. “Thank you for coming, Bree,” he said. “I really enjoyed it.”
The wonderful, warm feeling swept over her again. She smiled, swinging their hands with every step. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do that again, so I can truly say having lunch with you was a once in a lifetime thrill.” She stopped and pulled Addleson close. “You know, when we get back to the office, I won’t be able to say goodbye properly—there will be others around. So, I’d better do it here.”
She stood on her tiptoes, embracing him in a long, slow kiss.
Addleson sighed, holding her. “I hope I get to enjoy that more often than when we say goodbye, because I don’t want to say goodbye very often.”
“You don’t, huh?” Stroking the hair on the side of his head, she whispered. “What did you have in mind?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He strolled toward the car, still holding her hand. “How long have we known each other, Bree?”
“With the hours we put in on the campaign, it seems like ten years. But it’s about one. Eleven months, somewhere in there.”
“Eleven months? Wow. Seems like much longer.”
“Hey.” She pretended to pout.
“No, I mean that in a good way,” Addleson said. “You—you’ve been my right arm. I’m very comfortable with you, professionally, personally . . . romantically. Without you, Mayor doesn’t happen. I believe that.”
She stopped at her car. “We haven’t won it yet.”
“Yes, we have.” Addleson moved around to the passenger door. “Blumenthal was the only real competition. We needed to win the primary, and we’ve essentially done it. In the general election, the other side is running such a clown—a real lightweight—he has no chance. It was always going to be Blumenthal or me.”
Bree unlocked the doors and climbed inside.
Addleson lowered his head and got in. “No, we’ve got Blumenthal on the ropes. And that means we’re home free—thanks to you.”
They kissed again and she started the car.
He’s going to ask you to move in. Or maybe not, but whatever it is, it’s the next step for him.
Driving out of the yacht club, Bree turned the car north and headed toward the office. Her mind raced.
The plan is coming together so well. Yes, locking Rossi in the trunk was a mistake . . . I need to get back there. It could be a mess. But the lunch was worth the gamble. We’ve made a huge step forward.
The Mayor of Tampa and his first lady. Quite a few Tampa Mayors have gone on to become Governor. And quite a few Florida Governors have gone on to become a U.S. Senator.
She smiled, the warmth filling her. Daydreams of Tampa became daydreams of Tallahassee and then turned to Washington D.C.
Go home, deal with the Rossi situation, and then get on to the Tampa PD reception. The telethon at campaign headquarters after that, and we are back on track.
A few glitches aside, everything is falling into place.
The plan is working, so stick to the plan.
“What’s that?” Addleson said.
Bree snapped upright. “Huh?”
Oh, no. Was I mumbling? What did I say?
Her abdomen tightened.
“You said something. Mumbled it.” He looked at her. “The plan? The plane?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah—plane.” She nodded. “I’m just . . . I’ve got a lot on my mind. I was trying to schedule something—a flight—with, uh . . . the Governor. It’s a surprise.”
“The Governor! Wow, that’d be something. You’re really on top of things.”
She gripped the wheel. “I try to be.”
Glancing at his watch, Addleson stretched. “I know we have a lot going on today, but maybe we can spend some time together this afternoon. There’s a gap in the schedule before the Police event.”
No, no, no. I have to get back to Rossi or there’ll be two corpses in my garage. And I need Rossi alive right now.
Think. Get out of it. Stall.
But it might be another step . . .
Doesn’t matter. You need to deal with Rossi. Now.
She took a breath, forcing herself to relax. “That—that—that, yes, spending some more time together today would really be amazing—if only I didn’t have a campaign to run.” Oh, I sound like an idiot. I’m rambling. Grab his hand and smile. She took his hand, smiling. “I’ll see you at the police thing and the phone rally telethon after. That may have to do for today.”
He winked. “Got a rendezvous with another guy?”
“It’s more of a rotating list of important things I need to take care of,” Bree said. “Things that won’t take care of themselves.”
Chapter 38
Bree wrapped the head of the hammer in a dish towel and held it to Turley’s cheek. The plastic yard waste bag over his head had prevented any more blood from seeping into her carpet than was absolutely necessary, but now it would serve a slightly different purpose—splatter shield.
The fat man’s corpse stared vacantly outward, his jaw hanging open as he lay in the trunk of the Buick.
She glanced at Rossi, still asleep, now propped up against the wall of her garage. The story she told him would depend o
n what he remembered.
She had managed to get him out of the car and untied without him returning to consciousness—more chloroform had seen to that. Now it was time for the smelling salts, but there were none at the house. Those were at the condo, and there wasn’t time for a trip at the moment.
We were working and you passed out, Rossi.
If she assured him he’d lost consciousness before, then got him distracted, it might work.
Even if it didn’t, what are his options? Right now, he thinks he killed his boss, a member of the local mafia.
Rossi’s head rocked back and forth. “Oh . . . what happened?”
Looking up from the corpse, she peered at Rossi and set down the hammer. “You coming back to me, baby?”
He opened his eyes. “Marla? What . . . what happened?”
“You passed out—again.” She shook her head, frowning, and stepped away from the car. “You’re getting worse, baby. When we get your boss taken care of, we need to get you to a doctor.”
“No!” He pushed himself backwards, pressing against the wall. “No doctors.”
“Okay, okay. Take it easy, baby. If you don’t want a doctor, we won’t get you one. What do you remember?”
“I don’t know,” Rossi said. “Turley was in the tub. We put him in the trunk. That’s it. That’s all I can remember.”
She shrugged. “That’s most of it. I guess the strain of lifting this fat tub of lard overdid it. You haven’t been eating. Your blood sugar is low and you lost consciousness.”
“I guess so.” He massaged his head. “How long was I out?”
“Not long. But it’s happened a few times, so watch yourself.” Bree walked back to the car. “Anyway, we have work to do. Help me with the body, like how we did in Atlanta.”
He stood, staggering over to her.
“You don’t remember, do you?” she said.
“Remember what?”
“Oh, boy. You showed this to me. Good thing one of us remembers. What you told me to do in Atlanta was this.” She moved the hammer outward, gripping it tight with one hand and holding the far side of Turley’s head with the other. Pressing her lips together, she swung the hammer into the corpse’s cheek.
The impact filled the garage with a clop sound, like a hollow coconut hitting the sidewalk. Turley’s molars flew out of his blood-soaked mouth and onto the inside of the clear plastic bag over his face.
Bree panted hard, the ants crawling under her skin and up her spine. The up close and personal nature of the act sent ripples of ecstasy through her.
“Hoo!” She shuddered, staring at her work. Thickened, clotted blood seeped from the empty tooth sockets inside Turley’s fractured jaw. Her heart raced. “Wow, did you hear that?” She grinned at her partner. “You gonna help me with this or what?”
Rossi flinched, turning away.
She turned her attention back to the corpse. “I guess I have my answer.” Holding the hammer to his front teeth, she lined up her next shot. “Hold him for me.” She glanced at Rossi. “Come on.”
“Why is this necessary?” Rossi put his hands on the sides of Turley’s head.
“They can ID him from dental records, baby.” Bree rotated the hammer the way a tennis player spins their racket. The steel mallet facing the other way, she drew the tool across her body and delivered a swift backhand into Turley’s other cheek.
Clop!
The fat man’s jaw launched sideways as more teeth sailed across his mouth. Thick, dark chunks of red covered the inside of the plastic bag.
Bree wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist. “Before the contractor gig at the army psych office, I worked in a dentist’s office. Creepy little guy. I’d always turn around and catch him looking at me funny, you know? No wonder the loser couldn’t keep a good assistant. I thought maybe he had something on the ball, because my starting pay was a lot more than other places were offering. I said yes when he asked me to marry him, but he wasn’t a keeper. Not a long-range program.” She grabbed Turley’s hair through the plastic, adjusting the head for the next blow. “Anyway, one day we got a request from the cops, looking for images of some missing girl’s teeth—x-rays and stuff. Without the teeth, the cops have very little to go on.” She leaned forward, tapping the lower bicuspids out.
“What . . .” Rossi cringed as a tooth rolled down Turley’s chin. “What about DNA?”
“If the cops don’t have someone’s DNA on file already, they can’t match it up in the system. But if fat boy here ever went to a dentist, they can find that. Once he’s in the lake for a few days, the decomposition of the body is quick, but teeth are forever.”
She lofted the hammer again, bringing it crashing into the front of Turley’s face. The blow met the jaw bone, sending a jolt up her arm and only pushing Turley’s front teeth sideways. Lining up her next shot, she swung hard, the thrill of impact coursing through her like electricity.
“Hoo. Oh yeah, yeah.” She closed her eyes and threw her glistening head back, allowing a massive, deep muscle shudder to go through her.
Elated, she raised herself up from the corpse and wiped her brow. “Be a doll, would you?” She handed the blood-stained hammer to Rossi. “Fish his teeth out of his throat for me. I need a cold drink before I start on the fingers.”
* * * * *
As Bree slid Turley’s thick, calloused index finger between the blades of the pruning shears, her insides tingled. “The key here is, a clean cut. Most people would assume you’d need quick force, applied at the knuckle, so it goes through. But anvil shears like these are made for thick sticks. Hardened stalks of, say, hibiscus, or small tree limbs.” She wrapped both hands around the shears. “You can line them up with the weakest part of a thin bone like a finger—so, the centermost spot—and then . . .” She gritted her teeth. “Apply the force firmly and evenly.”
Rossi stayed slumped against the wall, his eyes lowered, head turned away from Bree.
The snips went through the finger with a crunch, dropping it onto the fat man’s chest. It rolled down his belly and came to rest on the trunk’s carpet.
Very little blood oozed from the severed stump. Satisfied, Bree lined up the next digit.
“Turley’s middle finger has been broken a few times. You can see that from the odd angle it grows at—well, grew—and from the thickness. It’s much fatter than the other fingers. He probably broke it beating up on people who couldn’t pay their bets.”
Another hard crunch. The second finger fell into the trunk.
Bree held it up. “These, we can flush down the toilet—one at a time, so they don’t clog. No cop is gonna search twenty miles of disgusting sewage pipes looking for some severed fingers they don’t even know are there.” She snipped off the remaining fingers and gathered them into the dish towel. “The hands, we’ll take and dump in some nearby ponds with alligators. They’ll either get waterlogged or get eaten, but a hand with no fingers doesn’t look like a hand to some soccer mom out walking her dog. No one will recognize it if one floats up.”
Standing, Bree wiped the blood onto the towel. “Okay, your turn. Grab the tree saw and hack off his head and hands. We need to dump this stuff, then I gotta go to a party.”
Chapter 39
Carly stared at a stack of files, holding her phone to her cheek. “Mom, thanks for watching the kids again tonight.” She spun around in the desk chair and looked at the computer. “I’m really sorry about this.”
“Grandmothers can never see enough of their grandkids.”
“Aw, you are so sweet.”
That’s why you always drop them off early and head to spin class.
A uniformed officer placed another stack of files on the desk.
“Okay,” her mother said. “I’m in your closet. Where to now?”
Carly looked at the wall, holding her hand up. “The dress should be right near the front. It’s black on the bottom and white on the top, with white lace sleeves. And just grab any shoes that match—black
, if possible. I have some in the rack that—”
“No, I’m not seeing it, honey. I see men’s suits.”
She winced, closing her eyes. “Other side of the closet. My dresses are near the front.”
“Here we go. Black, you said? I see green . . . this red one’s nice.”
“Mother, please. Red? I’ll look like Santa. Or an elf. No. The black one should be—”
A uniformed officer placed another stack of files on the desk. Carly covered the phone and whispered. “Thank you.”
“Oh, here we go,” her mother said. “Black bottom, white top, lace sleeve. This is pretty. Why don’t you wear it more often?”
“Uh, because I’m always at work?” Carly rolled her eyes. “And again, thanks for watching the boys.”
“I’m used to it.”
Taking a sip of coffee, Carly scanned the data inputs Homeland Security had just put up. “Yeah, but lately they’re spending more time with you than they are with me.”
“Honey, you just do your job and get the bad guys. We’ve got things under control over here.”
“Yeah, well, if I had a husband who was making an effort, I wouldn’t be in this situation.” Putting her hand to her head, Carly looked down. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair.”
“It is and it isn’t,” her mother said. “It takes two to tango. Do you need underwear?”
“Oh, please, yes.” Carly leaned back in the chair. “Just grab the whole drawer and bring it. At the rate we’re going, I don’t know when I’ll get out of here. Could be New Year’s.”
* * * * *
Sergio pulled up to police headquarters. “Do you want to get out here and I’ll go park?”
“I’ll ride with you to the parking garage,” Abbie said. “I want us to walk in together.”
“Can you actually walk in those shoes?”
“I’ll manage. Go park.”
He drove to a nearby parking garage and found a spot. The air was chilly as they exited the vehicle and walked toward the station.
Abbie put her phone in her purse and snapped it shut. “Now, remember what we discussed.”
“I got it, I got it.” Sergio shoved his hands into his pockets.