Bad Karma

by Dave Zeltserman

  “Where have I not been honest? I have told you everything I know.”

  Daniels gave him a hard stare, then ignored him and signaled for the DA and FBI agents to join him outside, leaving Shannon alone with Paveeth and his lawyer.

  Paveeth sat fidgeting in his chair, scratching himself as if he had fleas. He realized that and folded his hands in his lap. He tried smiling at Shannon. “I-I’m sorry about that woman,” he said, his eyes hopeful as if he were expecting Shannon to say something to let him off the hook for what had happened. When Shannon didn’t respond, Paveeth wilted more in his chair but went on, “There was nothing I could do to help her. Yuri and Dmitry demanded that I videotape what they were doing. I was helpless to go against them. If I did they would have killed me.”

  “That would’ve been a shame. What were Yuri and Dmitry’s last names?”

  Paveeth smiled apologetically. “I don’t know. I was never told that. Taylor found them.”

  Shannon looked hard at Paveeth, then at his lawyer. “Have you had a chance yet to see the videos your client made?” he asked the lawyer.

  “I don’t see how that is being helpful to the current situation,” the lawyer replied, clearing his throat.

  The door opened and Daniels followed the DA and FBI agents into the room. He dropped a thick document on the table and stood shaking his head sadly at Paveeth. The ex-cult leader glanced at the document and watched Daniels with wide eyes.

  “Anil, you’re not cooperating with us as promised.”

  “I am so! How am I not cooperating?”

  Daniels turned to Shannon. “Bill, do you think Anil’s been cooperating with us?”

  “Not if he hasn’t told you about Carver and Gibson.”

  “What about Taylor and Linda?” Paveeth broke in. “I’ve told you all about them!”

  “Calm down, Anil,” his lawyer advised. He patted his client on the alarm. Paveeth was beside himself as he looked from Shannon to Daniels. “What haven’t I told you?” he demanded.

  “Your motive for killing them,” Daniels said.

  “Killing them? What are you talking about? Why would I want to kill Taylor?”

  His lawyer stopped him, then mustered an indignant scowl as he turned on Daniels. “Where the hell’s this coming from? I thought we were here to discuss what happened at True Light!”

  “I thought so too until we found out that your client had a strong motive for killing Taylor Carver.” Daniels picked up Carver’s thesis and opened it to near the end. He pointed out several highlighted passages for Paveeth’s lawyer to read.

  “What the hell am I supposed to be reading?”

  “A blueprint for everything that happened at True Light,” Daniels said.

  “What are they talking about?” Paveeth asked his lawyer. “I never saw that document!”

  The lawyer read the highlighted passages, then thumbed through the rest of the manuscript. “You must be kidding,” he said to Daniels.

  “What is that document?” Paveeth demanded, his skin color paling to a muddled gray.

  “It looks like a book your friend Taylor wrote,” the lawyer said.

  “It explains how he was going to expose you,” Daniels said. “You got your hands on a copy, didn’t you, Anil? Is that why you sent Yuri and Dmitry to Taylor’s apartment?”

  “Th-This is insane!” Paveeth sputtered. “I knew n-nothing about this book! And I never would’ve hurt Taylor. If Yuri and Dmitry went to their apartment, they did it without me knowing about it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” Shannon said. “After all, you like to sit in the corner and watch.”

  Paveeth’s jaw dropped. He turned wildly from Shannon to Daniels to his lawyer. His lawyer held out a hand in a stop gesture to Daniels. “We’re done here,” he said. “We’re not going to give you any more chances to sandbag us.”

  The DA spoke up then. “Among the other charges we’ve already discussed, we’re adding first degree murder charges for the deaths of Taylor Carver, Linda Gibson, Jane Lowenstein, Leslie Bishop and Candace Johnson. And rest assured that we will be seeking the death penalty.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Paveeth’s lawyer argued. “We’re talking about a book, for God sake! And those other women—we’ve already explained how my client had no knowledge–”

  “Save it,” the DA said. “I’ve got more than enough circumstantial evidence to convict on all charges. And if I were you I wouldn’t expect a break from a jury. I doubt one exists that could find your client sympathetic.”

  Daniels opened the door and a couple of uniformed officers came in and had Paveeth stand while they cuffed his hands behind his back. As they took him from the room, he staggered like a fighter who’d been knocked out on his feet and had no clue where he was. His lawyer followed him out.

  The DA stood up, shook Shannon’s undamaged hand and thanked him for what he had done. “I hear you’re the guy who cracked this wide open. I’m going to see if my office can do something for you.” One of the FBI agents nodded to Shannon on his way out, the other stopped to shake his hand also. “I’ve read the Charlie Winters’ case file. Very impressive work, very impressive here also. If you have any thoughts on joining the FBI, give me a call.” The agent handed him his card, and Shannon saw that he was a regional director. He told him he’d give it some thought. After the FBI director walked out, Daniels and Shannon were left alone in the room. Daniels gave Shannon a hard grin. “You’re not actually thinking of joining them?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve gotten used to not wearing a suit the last five years.”

  “As a detective first grade, you could dress as casually as you’d like.”

  “Is that an offer?”

  “Well, no, I can’t make an offer, but I could certainly talk to my boss about you. We could use someone like you in the department.”

  Shannon pointed to his right hand. “Problem is, I’m still disabled.”

  “We could work around it. So what do you say? You want me to talk to my boss?”

  “I’ll tell you what, I’ve got nine to twelve months to think about it. Let me tell you then.”

  “But the answer’s going to turn out no, huh?”

  “I can’t tell you right now. We’ll see.”

  The two men walked quietly through the station and to the adjoining parking lot so that Daniels could drive Shannon back to his apartment. Neither man spoke during the ride, Shannon deep in thought, Daniels suspiciously glancing over at his passenger every few minutes as he drove. By the time he pulled up to Shannon’s apartment building, he had lost all patience.

  “Alright, spill it,” he demanded. “What the hell’s on your mind? You’re going to try to tell me that Paveeth didn’t kill those two students? Is that what the fuck’s going on?”

  Shannon shook his head. “Something just doesn’t add up.”

  “Goddamn it, Bill! We’ve got the sonofabitch dead to rights. The guy’s a manipulator, he can put on a good act and play the innocent victim when he wants to, but he’s the guy behind all this. He didn’t know about Carver’s plans? My ass he didn’t!”

  Shannon waved it away. “This is probably nothing more than the last couple of days catching up to me. You ever have that incense analyzed?”

  “FBI’s doing it now. According to our buddy, Paveeth, he did doctor the incense and add a mild hallucinogenic, along with mixing in his own sweat—I guess for the pheromones. We’ll see if the FBI finds anything else.”

  Shannon left the car and gave Daniels a short nod. Susan was waiting for him in the apartment. Concern showed in her eyes as she asked how his shoulder was. She had him take off his shirt so she could check to see if the wound had started bleeding.

  The apartment was for the most back to where it had been. The landlord had already patched the wall by the closet and repainted the living room, while Daniels had recovered his computer for him from the True Light compound and Susan had placed a small throw rug over Emily’s blood stain.
That night they heard on the news that Les Hasherford had been found dead in a Colorado Springs motel. According to the medical examiner he’d been dead for several days with the cause of death apparently being heart failure. The maid went three days without touching his room because of a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. The story reported how Hasherford had helped police only a few days earlier locate a missing boy who was in critical condition at the time he was found, but had since recovered from a head trauma and been released from the hospital. A police spokesman credited Hasherford with saving the boy’s life

  Shannon could see that the story affected Susan, but she had already cried herself out over the last few days. That night she held him tightly, and at times he could feel her small body sobbing silently and tearlessly.

  The next couple of days dragged by slowly for him. He tried reading the PI novels Maguire had left him, and while he agreed with Maguire’s assessment of them, there was something nagging at the back of his mind that kept him from fully appreciating them. Susan sensed something was bothering him, just as he could sense her sadness over Les Hasherford’s death. They tried to comfort each other, but there was a small hole in both of them that they couldn’t quite fix.

  Eric Wilson called him Thursday afternoon from Wichita to tell him that French officials had spoken with Linda’s younger sister, Gloria, and that Fred Gibson had been arrested earlier that day for child abuse and rape. Wilson seemed relieved when Shannon was able to tell him that an arrest was pending for Linda Gibson’s murder. “Do you think they have the right guy?” Wilson asked. “I hope so,” Shannon said, but his words sounded hollow to him.

  Kathleen Tirroza called him that same night. She’d heard through the FBI grapevine what had happened and wanted to make sure he was okay. “Once again, right in the middle of it. Damn, you’ve got more lives than a cat!” she said, sounding a bit drunk. Her comment brought an involuntary smile to his lips since Kathleen, with her almond-shaped eyes and slender athletic body, always reminded him of a cat. “Yeah, but I think they’re being used up,” he told her. “And I keep leaving little pieces of me behind with each one.” That sobered her up. She asked him to save one of his lives for September 27th so he could drink a toast at her wedding. Before hanging up, she mentioned that she had no luck identifying his Russian. “If his records exist, they’ve been moved to classified files I don’t have access to.”

  Friday morning he met Eli at Juiced Up. His shoulder felt well enough for him to walk the five blocks from his apartment without too much discomfort. When he sat down across from his friend, Eli gave him a quick look and mentioned how it would be understandable if he were suffering from depression after what he had gone through.

  “I’d have to think seeing Susan tied up like that would’ve flashed you back to Charlie Winters. And you were almost killed. That’s got to be a tough thing to come to grips with.” He hesitated, then added, “Bill, even though it was in self-defense, you still killed two men. Maybe you should consider counseling?”

  “About killing those two thugs, I’d feel worse right now if it had been two rats. The world’s better off without them, and I’m fine with what I did. As for Susan, yeah, it affected me seeing her like that, but I can deal with it. I know she’s safe now, and I know that I can get past my anxiety about her being harmed.”

  “What is it then?”

  Shannon shrugged. “It doesn’t add up that Paveeth was involved in killing those two students,” he said. “And I can’t figure out a way to make it add up. He knew about the hidden video camera. He wouldn’t have left that tape behind—not with the chance of it showing one of his cult members performing on it. I can’t imagine him leaving thirteen thousand dollars behind either.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know about the money hidden in the other speaker,” Eli said.

  “He’d know something was hidden in it. No, I just can’t see this. Whoever went to the apartment—him or the Russians, they would’ve cleaned out what was in those two speaker cases.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Paveeth’s going to get the death penalty for those three snuff films regardless of whether he gets convicted of killing Carver and Linda Gibson. I could just let it rest.”

  “You could. But then whoever killed those two students would get a free pass.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t feel that bad about Carver.”

  “But what about the other one?”

  A weariness set in around Shannon’s eyes. He shrugged weakly. “I guess I’m going to have to start over from square one and see what I’ve missed.”

  ***

  Later that afternoon Shannon had a fight with Susan about driving by himself. She was absolutely furious with him.

  “How can you do that, Bill? How are you going to control the wheel with one hand? And what if your stitches rip open? Why don’t you let me drive you?”

  “I can’t. Not where I’m going. Susie, everything’s going to be fine. We’re both on edge right now, that’s all.”

  She stood staring at him, her mouth moving as if she were chewing gum. “Do what you want,” she said at last. “I already had to think once this week about going to your funeral. I can’t deal with that again. If you make me, that’s it, we’re through.”

  She left the room. Shannon stood frozen for several long minutes, then took his car keys and headed out to Loveland.

  ***

  Both Randall Carver and Buttercup were waiting outside the house for him. Buttercup was on her back with her legs in the air while Randall scratched her belly with the toe of his boot. When Shannon pulled up, Buttercup stayed frozen in her position for a few moments, then sniffed in the air, sneezed and flipped herself onto her feet. She stared at Shannon through yellow eyes, but didn’t make a sound. Randall walked over to his car.

  “I don’t know why you want to see me,” he complained.

  “How about getting in the car and I’ll tell you.”

  He eyed Shannon suspiciously and asked him what happened to his shoulder.

  “I was shot. Come on, get in.”

  Randall hesitated for a moment, but got into the passenger seat. “Ma’s furious with you,” he said. “The police came yesterday. She knows you don’t work for no People magazine. So who do you work for, that guy we’re suing?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Your lawsuit’s dead. Why’d you lie to me before, Randall?”

  He stared blankly at Shannon while he made sense of his question, then gave a screw-you look and reached for the passenger door handle. “Fuck this and fuck your questions. I don’t have to answer to you. I’m leaving.”

  “That’s fine. Leave if you want. It means I’ll talk to the police instead. But you did lie to me. About how often you saw Taylor. And about the porn films you made with your brother.”

  He sat back in his seat. “I never made one of those,” he said stubbornly.

  “Come on, Randall, I saw them. The ones you made with Linda and those girls from the cult.”

  There was no reaction. Nothing but confusion in Randall’s face. Shannon sighed. “You’re going to tell me you didn’t know he was filming you with those girls?”

  Randall shook his head slowly. “I didn’t know nothing about it.” He broke into an ugly smile revealing badly receding gums. “You got one of them? It’d be cool to see it.”

  Shannon gave him a hard look and decided he really didn’t know about the films. “Why’d you lie to me about the last time you saw your brother?”

  Carver’s expression turned sullen. “I couldn’t tell you in front of Ma. She’d want to know what I went there for.” When he saw Shannon’s reaction, a light turned on in his dull eyes realizing what Shannon had been fishing for. “Man, that is so lame,” he said. “You thought I killed Taylor ’cause I found out he was filming me? If that’s what they teach you at Private Eye school you got punked. With the nice-looking hoes Taylor got for me, he could’ve filmed me all he wanted. You think I care
?”

  Randall showed Shannon a big toothy smirk, got out of the car and laughed softly as he walked back to his house. Even Buttercup stared at Shannon with a look that could only be described as pity.

  For the next fifteen minutes Shannon thought about giving up. It would be so damn easy. He certainly wouldn’t lose any sleep over Anil Paveeth being wrongly convicted of those murders. But the problem was he kept thinking of Linda Gibson, thinking about everything she had gone through, how she was basically used and disposed of like trash. As much as he wanted to just go home to Susan and give the case up, he knew he couldn’t. Instead he went back to the scene of the crime hoping to find some inspiration there.

  ***

  With everything that had happened on Saturday, he never told the police about buying one of the DVDs, or had a chance to turn it over to them. He had it with him now in the dead students’ apartment. Fortunately, the police still hadn’t released the apartment as a crime scene, otherwise the place would’ve been emptied out by Eunice Carver. He plugged the DVD into the player by the TV, turned up the volume to the level he imagined it was recorded at, then sat down in the same chair Paveeth had most likely used. He closed his eyes and listened to the DVD, hoping to get a better feel for what went on in that apartment when they made those videos. The damn thing was loud with Metallica blaring away. Carver also made a lot of noise when he joined in. Shannon was thirty minutes through the DVD when he heard a banging noise in the background. At first he thought Maguire was banging on the floor above him, but after stopping and restarting the DVD he realized the sound came from the DVD. When the video was originally made, someone had banged a baseball bat or something like that on the floor of Maguire’s apartment and it had gotten picked up. He went back through the DVD to find where the banging first started and timed it. It continued until the DVD ended, lasting twenty-seven minutes.