by PM Weldon
She laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "Devan, I didn't kill Chad. Chad's death was a hit, and it was his own father who called in that one, though you'll never prove it."
I stumbled. "Chad's father… Senator Padeaus?"
"High places call for high stakes. The kid saw something he shouldn't have. And your niece saw something she shouldn't have. She ever tell you she was standing beside Chad when he was shot, Devan? No…I guess she didn't because she wasn't supposed to be out that night. She was so torn up inside. It took me a few months to figure out who she was. The shooter knew, but they wouldn't tell me, either. Now, what you're going to do for me is gather up the photos you took of the warehouse and bring them to me. I need to see them."
"And if I don't, you hurt Pink."
"And then I hurt Julie, and if you push me anymore, I hurt Susan. I'm tired of your games, Devan. You should have taken me when I offered. You just tell your friends you're tired and you're going to bed. Bring your laptop and delete every picture out of your cloud."
"I don't have the password to do that."
"Then I can take it from Pink—"
"Okay. Fine. Where at?"
"Where else? The warehouse. Oh and the phone's on airport mode so it can't be tracked. Ciao." She disconnected.
Deb was still on the phone. "Deb—"
"Where did you go? Don't you see how terrible this is!"
I counted to five. "Sis, just calm down. I'm going to start looking tonight, okay? But stay off the phone in case she calls."
I slipped the phone in my pants pocket and grabbed my laptop case I'd left by the door earlier. Julie noticed me and asked what was up.
"I'm tired. I want to go to bed and maybe look at the pictures. Is that okay?"
They all wished me good goodnight and I headed upstairs.
Twenty Four
I didn't go upstairs, but around the back to the downstairs bedroom. The window opened up onto the deck over an alley where residents parked their cars. Mine was still at the precinct, so I figured I would take MARTA. But once I was on the ground, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie, a BMW's lights came on, blinding me in the middle of the alley. It had been parked to the side where I hadn't noticed it.
It cruised toward me and I stepped out of the way. The driver's side window lowered and a man I'd never seen before, wearing dark shades, said, "Get in."
The driver's side back door opened and I peered inside. What I didn't expect to see was Senator Brian Padeaus. He patted the seat next to him. "Come on in, son. We have to talk."
I slid in and shut the door. The driver pulled onto the highway.
"I don't think any introductions are in order. You know who I am, and certainly know who you are." He beamed at me, his smile a DayGlo white. The backseat was illuminated from a tiny overhead light, and I noticed a tinted glass separator closed us off from the front.
"May I ask what it is you wanted to talk about? I was on my way to—"
"To see Llse; yes, I know. I'm taking you there. But what I wanted to talk about on the way was your interesting little talent."
"My pictures?"
"Yes. I was quite intrigued with what I saw on the TV …and Llse was more than angry that you took pictures of the old building where you were shot." He arched his eyebrows in question. "Did anything show up in those shots?"
"I can show you if you want to see."
"Oh, yes, yes please."
I wasn't blind to the obvious fact this guy was playing me. He was trying to see what I knew so that he would know how the evening would end. But I already had that answer. He and Llse wanted me dead. I should have died that night, but what I didn't know was…what for? I pulled my laptop from the bag and opened it up. I still had access to the copied cloud on my desktop, so I opened up a few of the shots showing Ferrell and Jim.
He looked at them with interest. "What exactly am I looking at?"
"That's Mason Ferrell there, and over here is Jimmy Herndon."
"That was your partner."
"Yes."
"And what do you hope to do with these pictures?"
I frowned at him. "Nothing…except to understand what happened that night. I have a different memory of the events than what Llse testified to. So when the images at The Alley Haunt showed up, I wanted to see if it would work there."
"How come you don't show up in the pictures?"
"Because I wasn't dead. Apparently it just reveals dead people."
He took in a deep breath and sighed as he gestured for me to shut the laptop. "And she dragged that poor girl into this for ghost pictures. Damn." He rubbed at his eyes. "I am sorry, Mr. McNally. I know your surviving the gunshot was considered a miracle, but sometimes, through no fault of our own, miracles come to an end."
I did not like the sound of that. "Why?"
"The whys never really matter, do they?"
"They do to the ones who die for them."
He looked directly at me, then nodded. "You're right. But the reasons for you still aren't going to make any sense. But for me, they were devastating. You know Mason was my aide."
I nodded. "And he was your lover."
"I see you're brighter than I thought. Is this what you suspected when you were investigating the shooting?"
"Yes."
"Well…you were right. And then one day my son walked in on us. It upset him to see his father with a man the same age as himself and he became hysterical. I knew he was meeting someone in the park some nights, so I always assumed it was another man. That we weren't so different. But apparently I was wrong." He leaned in close to me. "He was meeting a girl."
"My niece."
"Yes. They met during a protest rally months before. So I suspected he was going to tell her or someone else what he'd seen, and I couldn't allow that."
I shook my head. "So it's true…you put a hit out on your son."
"It was for all the right reasons, Mr. McNally. I have a great works to do. And Chad…didn't."
"And Mason Ferrell?"
"He found out what happened to Chad and threatened to go to the police. So Llse, bless her little black heart, volunteered to fix things. Next thing I know, Ferrell's arrested, believed to have murdered my son." He clapped his hands together. "And it should have ended there. But Llse developed a crush on you, did you know that?"
I stared at him.
"She did. But you refused her. So she went after your best friend to get dirt on you. But you were obviously in love with your wife and she didn't stand a chance. Then the whole case with Ferrell started to fall apart when he struck a deal to testify that I hired a hit man to kill my son." Padeaus's jaw clenched in the shadows cast by the tiny light. "Again, Llse handled it. Only…you survived. So she stuck around to see if you remembered anything when you woke up. And imagine to our delight that you didn't. It was perfect, except for finding the girl Chad had been seeing. It took us nearly two years to track her down, but we finally found her. And we found you and your naughty talent."
Ever have the feeling you're sitting with the reincarnation of a madman? Well, I had Himmler to my right, and I wanted nothing better than to jump out of the car and run screaming away from him. The man killed his own son and somehow…didn't feel a bit of remorse. I think they call these people sociopaths.
The senator hit a button and the partition between us and the driver lowered. The driver handed him a pair of handcuffs, and the senator handed them to me. "Give me the laptop and the bag and put these on. We're almost there."
I weighed my options, but there really weren't any. I folded the laptop up and almost hit him in the face with it, but then I'd have the driver to deal with. Just as I slid the computer back in the bag, I saw a gun in the senator's hand. We were at the office park and pulling up to the door when I snapped a cuff on my left wrist. I started to put my hands behind me but the senator grabbed the open cuff and fastened it to my right wrist. There were serious advantages to being cuffed in front.
Did he know thi
s?
The driver got out and opened my door. He had a gun now, too, and I slid out of the seat. He got behind me and poked my back so I would move forward to the door, which opened almost immediately.
Llse was there, wearing jeans and a sweater. Her hair was up and she was looking very…smug. "You get the laptop?"
The senator held it up. "Right here. Now…exactly what is it you're planning?"
"We have to get rid of the girl." She reached out and took the cuffs and pulled me to her. "But I could keep him as a pet for a while."
"A pet where?"
"Doesn't that lobbyist of yours…Harmon or something like that… have that dungeon under his house? I don't think it's occupied anymore after that last boy got away."
I pulled back from her, but she laughed. "Don't worry, McNally. You're not his type. So, want to see your niece? She's in my old room." She pulled me through the office and down the hallway to the back room. Pink was inside, handcuffed as well, her ankle chained to an iron cot.
"Uncle Devan!"
"Hey, Pink," I said as I winked at her. "Sorry I didn't come like the cavalry."
She looked at my handcuffs. "No, more like the prisoner. So why are you here?"
"Why didn't you tell me you were seeing the senator's son?"
"I didn't know!"
"Just shut up." Llse turned her head to get something and it finally struck me that the gesture looked very familiar. In fact, I'd just seen someone tilt their head the same way, after she shoved a bar of soap in my mouth. "Llse…is your name Poulin?"
I had never seen her react like that. She whirled at me and pushed me against the side wall. My back connected painfully with the edge of a shelf filled with quarter gallon paint cans. She a death grip on the collar of my shirt. "Where did you get that name?"
Wow. Nerve, meet button. "It was the name of a woman who tried to kill me earlier this evening. Only her name was Elspeth Poulin. She said she put her mother, Elizabeth Poulin, into a wall."
I wasn't expecting her to hit me but she did. I blinked a few times as stars mingled with blood. Then she did it again. And again.
"Stop it!" Pink said.
"Llse…please…" Senator Padeaus said. "No need to beat the poor lad to death. Otherwise we're not going to be able to get him out of the state as easily."
I was still recovering from the blows to my head so I wasn't sure what that meant. "Out of…state?" I pulled away from her when her grip lessoned and turned my upper body away. My left shoulder screamed at me like a dull throb in my ears. I reached out with my cuffed hands and pulled one of the paint cans to me. It felt about half-full.
"I'm getting rid of you in a way where there won't be a body," Llse said. "I wasn't kidding about you being a pet—just not my pet. There are a lot of very rich people out there willing to own a tall, handsome man. Especially the kind believed dead. And once we've gotten rid of all the evidence you think you have on me, your niece will be on the next plane out of the country. She'll make a nice little sex toy in Europe somewhere."
There are few things that anger me more than someone threatening my family. And doing it in front of me, and in such a vulgar manner, at least to me, punches all my ass-hole buttons. I moved before I thought about it and smashed my forehead down on hers. She staggered back, and I ducked as the senator tried to shoot me. The bullet splintered the door frame and I noticed Pink getting under her bed. Good girl.
My aim was a little off because of the cuffs as I threw the can of paint at the Senator. It bounced off the side of his head as I lunged forward and tackled Llse. She wasn't very big, so my weight on top of her was enough as I started hitting her with my handcuffed fists. After the third strike, a gunshot somewhere stopped me.
I jumped off and looked at myself. No blood. No pain. I looked at Llse, who had a pretty banged-up face now. Nothing. The senator was still standing, though he didn't have his gun anymore and he was bleeding from the side of his head.
Who fired—
I saw the shadow moving on the concrete first, and then the form came from the darkness of the office. The lights there were off and I stood in surprise to see the dark-clad, golden-masked angel from before. I'd been half on my back before and he'd seemed too large. But he really wasn't, and a split second before he moved, I realized he was a she.
The first strike from the masked woman crushed the senator's windpipe. He put his hands to his neck as he tried to breathe. But I knew that look. He barely had seconds. Llse went for the gun, but the golden-masked woman stomped on her hand.
My stomach lurched when Llse spoke in a voice like a tiny child. "Why, Mama? He messed everything up."
"No, he didn't." The voice was muffled behind the mask but it was definitely female. I stood to the side, too curious to move. "You did. You and this asshole's stupidity. I thought I taught you better than this." She looked at me. "It is good to see you again, Devan McNally."
I blinked, not sure what to say.
Llse tried to stand but the woman—Mama?—kicked her in the head. Llse began crying as she tried to move out the door of the room, and the woman kicked her again, in the gut. Llse did make it past the door frame and got up on her feet. She started running into the darkness of the warehouse when another shot rang out. I turned to see the smoking barrel of a gun inches from me.
Then the barrel pointed to me. "Get in the room, McNally."
I did, and made sure to put myself between her and Pink. "Just let her go, okay? She's got nothing to do with this."
"I do not kill children, Mr. McNally." She turned to the bed. "Child, please come out and lie on the bed."
Pink did what she asked, and I still tried to stay between the two. But the woman shoved me hard into the chair beside the bed, reached out with some kind of silver cylinder and pressed it against Pink's neck. Within seconds Pink was still.
"What did you do—"
"I think silence is golden, Mr. McNally. I will only say this once." She turned to face me.
To my surprise, she reached up and removed the mask.
It was Mary Smith, or a much older version of her. And it was Llse as well. An interesting mix of the two of them. "My name's Elizabeth Poulin. The women you knew as Mary Smith and Llse Wallace were my daughters."
"And you killed both of them…"
"Was that such a hard choice, Mr. McNally?" Her voice softened when she said my name. "They both kill people, same as me. Only they do it indiscriminately and without purpose."
"There is a purpose to killing?"
"To weed out the bad. And sometimes, the good." She pointed at the now dead senator. "He hired me to kill his own son. I didn't know your niece was nearby when I took his life. I believed it was another boy. The senator wanted her killed as well. But it took a long time to find her. So I waited and watched my own children, and came to a decision." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a long chain and a lock. She patted the bed beside Pink and I sat down as she threaded the chain around my handcuffs and then through the bed frame. She locked the ends together with a padlock. "To ensure my retreat only."
I jerked on the chain.
"My daughter tried to kill me the night she realized I was pregnant with Llse. The father was our neighbor, George Granger. She beat on me until I was unconscious, and when I came to, she had chained me inside of the wall and was replacing the brick. I begged her not to do that, for the child's sake. But she did it anyway.
"George heard my cries and tore down his side of the wall. After I told him what she did, he wanted to kill her himself, but we let her be and I remained there in their house. It wasn't long before I started showing and his wife, Patsy, suspected the child was his. But you see, George wasn't a normal man. He was the kind of man the government likes to find. A man with…special skills. And he taught those skills to me. And when it came time to leave and have our baby somewhere safe, Patsy was my first target."
I sat listening in rapt attention, trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together. "
So you boarded her up in the tomb your daughter made for you."
"Yes. I always knew where she was. George taught me how to do that. And I worked for the government for a while. But eventually George was killed and it was my turn to carry on his legacy, the one he'd built up on the side when the government didn't want him anymore."
"Black Angel."
"Yes. I have more recruits that I teach, and train, and then send to the government. I had hoped Llse would be one of those, but she loved to kill too much. And Mary…" She shook her head. "Mary was already dead inside, her guilt eating her up."
"You knew she was freaking out."
"Yes. I followed her to your house to stop her. I was a little delayed by the police, but she won't hurt you anymore. Neither will Llse."
"But…what's to stop me from telling them about you?"
"You won't." She reached into her pocket and pulled out another one of the silver cylinders. I tried to pull away as she pressed it against my neck. "I hope we never meet again, McNally. Because if we do, it's because someone wants you dead."
She depressed the needle.
And all was calm.
Twenty Five
Pink blew out all seventeen of her birthday candles on the first try.
I took pictures as Deb and Julie handed out pieces of cake to everyone. We were in O'Charley's, Pink's favorite restaurant. Myself, Gerald, Pink, two of her friends who couldn't stop talking to me, Julie, and Susan, every one of us still in our wedding finery from the Chief Of Detective's daughter's wedding earlier that day.
Once everyone had cake, I sat down hard and finally got back to my coffee.
Susan put her hand on my back. "How you doing? Feeling okay?"
"I'm good. Still sore, and my nose still hurts." Llse Wallace could give one hell of a right and left cross.
"Eh…makes you look distinguished."
Debbie snorted. "Makes him look like a hooligan."