by Madyson Grey
“Yes,” Lena whispered.
Victoria was just about to dial 911, when a police officer was ushered into Lena’s room. He was the same one who had been at the house. She quickly told him what Lena had just told her, and he called in the report and had someone go to the Rivera Holdings Building, formerly Thornton Building. Then he took a brief statement from Lena. He could tell that she was not in a good condition to talk extensively, but he got the basics from her. Before he left, he told Victoria that he would let her know whatever he found out.
It took about thirty minutes before a couple of orderlies came to take Lena to a regular hospital room. Victoria went with her and stayed for a few minutes. But she needed to go, and she could see that Lena needed to rest. A nurse came and gave her some medication for her pain, which was making her drowsy. Victoria leaned over the bed and kissed Lena on the cheek and told her she would be back to see her in the morning.
Victoria left the hospital parking lot and headed for her dad’s former office building. She still thought of it as belonging to her dad, even though she knew it was now Rafael’s. It had been her dad’s building all her life, so it was just hard to think of it in any other way. She was sad that it no longer belonged to her dad or his family, but she couldn’t resent Rafael for now being the owner.
When she neared the building, she could see several police cars parked in front of the building. She pulled around through the alley into the parking lot beside of the building and jumped out of the car. She hurried toward the front door, but was halted by a police officer who told her that she couldn’t go inside. She told him who she was and asked if it was her mother inside that was causing the problem.
“I can’t say, ma’am,” he told her. “You’ll have to talk with the command officer. That’s him right over there at the curb. I’ll take you to him.”
The officer walked Victoria over to the command officer and told him who she was.
“Is that my mother in there?” Victoria repeated her question to this man.
“All we know at this point is that there is a woman in there who has a gun and has taken Mr. Rivera’s secretary hostage. She seems to be demanding that Mr. Rivera give her the building or she will kill the secretary. At least that’s the reports that I am getting from the officers who are inside.”
Victoria’s shoulders sagged as the seriousness of the situation hit her. Her mother was insane.
“You see, sir,” Victoria began, “this building and business was my father’s until just a few weeks ago when he sold it to Rafael Rivera. Then my father committed suicide, apparently. Since his death, my mother has been hounding me to go out with Mr. Rivera in order to find out something about him that she thinks she can use to take the company away from him. But I have looked at the sale transaction documents, and I see nothing that is out of order. Nothing that indicates that Mr. Rivera took the company away from my father illegally.”
The officer held up his hand for her to stop talking while he listened to someone talking on his radio. He said something back into the radio, got a response, and then turned back to Victoria.
“The woman is becoming even more hysterical, they say. Since you are her daughter, do you think if you went in there, you could talk her down?” the officer asked.
“I would in a heartbeat if I could. But she went off on me both last night and this morning to the point I had to call the paramedics to calm her down. They gave her a sedative that knocked her out, so I left to go talk to her doctor about having her admitted to a psych ward for help. When we came back to the house, our housekeeper was unconscious on the floor and my mother was gone. I just came from the hospital and from being with the housekeeper. She said my mother had a gun and was going to go make Rafael Rivera pay.”
“Have you reported the assault on your housekeeper?” the officer asked.
“Oh, yes, two officers came to the house and took my statement, and then they came to the hospital and talked to Lena—that’s the housekeeper—after she regained consciousness and got a statement from her also.”
“Do you know the names of the officers?”
“The one I talked to the most was Marcado. That’s what his nametag said. Uhmm, Jerry Marcado.”
“OK, I’ll get with him later and put his report in with the report that is generated from this incident. Thank you, Miss Thornton. You have my deepest sympathies at the unfortunate situation you are in. But I have to tell you that your mother will be arrested. How this stand-off ends is up to her, and will determine the charges brought against her.”
“I understand, sir, I really do,” Victoria said, close to tears. “I know that she has gone off the deep end and has to be stopped. I just hope she doesn’t do any more harm to anyone else.”
She stopped talking again while another officer came to speak to the scene commander. She toyed with the idea of telling this officer of her suspicions regarding her father’s death, but wasn’t sure that this was a good time or place. She had already been dismissed once, but now that this officer could see her mother’s insanity, maybe he would listen to her and perhaps order a complete investigation into her father’s death. She wasn’t sure of anything, but the inconsistencies that she had encountered were making her lean far more towards murder than suicide.
When the officer was free again, she screwed up her courage and told him that as soon as he had time to listen to her full story, she would like to talk to him about the possibility that her father’s death was very suspicious to her. That she didn’t believe he committed suicide. He looked at her with renewed interest and said that as soon as this standoff was resolved that she should come to his office and tell him everything that gave her cause for suspicion.
Time seemed to drag on while the negotiators inside tried to diffuse the situation peaceably. But Marian Thornton was adamant. Either Rafael Rivera sign over the building and the business to her or the secretary dies first and then Rivera. Every time that anyone tried to move closer to her, she tightened her hold on the terrified secretary and repeated her threats.
Finally the scene commander gave the order to attempt to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart. That way, if she moved and they hit the secretary, it wouldn’t be a tragic fatality. It took several minutes again to set the stage and get her into the position they wanted for maximum effect and safety.
“Ma’am,” the negotiator said, “if Mr. Rivera signs over the business to you, will you let his secretary go?”
Rafael’s eyes widened, but then he caught the knowing look in the eyes of the officer.
“Well, of course,” Marian said. “Isn’t it what this is all about? I don’t want to hurt anybody. Anybody except Rafael, that is. But if he will sign the papers back over to me, he can go free, too.”
The officer indicated that Rafael should go ahead with the papers, so he moved toward the file cabinet. Marian jerked around to see what he was doing, pointing the gun at him.
“Marian, I have to get the paperwork out of the file cabinet,” Rafael said calmly. “If you want me to sign the company over to you, I have to get papers out of the drawer.”
“All right, but no funny stuff,” she said.
Just as Rafael distracted her in that manner, one of the officers was able to get a clean shot at her neck with the tranquilizer dart. It only took a few seconds and her eyes glazed over and she began to slump. Two of the officers rushed forward. One grabbed the gun out of her hand and the other lowered her to the floor. The secretary, free of Marian’s grasp, scooted away from her as quickly as she could. Rafael heaved a huge sigh of relief, and gave his secretary a hug. She dissolved in tears and leaned on his shoulder for support. In all her fifty years of life, this was the scariest experience she had ever had.
One of the officers radioed down to the command chief that the situation was diffused and under control without injury. He relayed that message to Victoria, who also gave a sigh of relief, and released the tears she had been holding back. A couple of EMTs took a gurney
in to bring Marian out. A few minutes later, they wheeled her out and towards the ambulance. The command chief allowed Victoria to go over and see her mother before she was loaded into the ambulance.
“How could you do this, Mother?” she said softly. “How could you jeopardize people’s lives like this? And your own?”
She looked at the pathetic woman who lay on the gurney, hair askew, mascara smeared, clothes rumpled. She had never seen her mother look so … so un-put together. It was plain to her that her mother had lost her mind. She wondered what would happen to her. She pictured her mother living out her days in a strait jacket locked in a padded room. The saddest part about it was that she had no feelings for her mother at this moment, except a deep sadness at what should have been.
After Marian was loaded into the ambulance, she asked the command chief what would happen to her mother now.
“She’ll be taken to a psychiatric ward under arrest. She will have a twenty-four-hour guard, and will undergo psychiatric evaluation. Depending on whether she is found to be competent to stand trial or not, will determine what happens next. If she stands trial, she will be charged with assault on your housekeeper, and with armed kidnapping here. If she is deemed unfit to stand trial, she will be confined to a state hospital.”
“Oh,” was all Victoria could manage to say.
“Do you still want to come down to the station and talk about your father’s death?” he asked her.
“Yes, I do,” she said decisively.
Just then Rafael saw Victoria standing there on the sidewalk talking to the command chief. He hurried over to her. When she saw him, she excused herself from the officer for a moment while she talked with Rafael.
“Are you all right?” she asked him, her voice full of concern.
“Yes, I’m all right—now,” he said. “It was touch and go there for a while, I’ll admit. She came in brandishing that pistol, demanding that I sign over the company to her. I tried to reason with her, but just as Karen, my secretary, walked by, your mother grabbed her and threatened to kill her if I didn’t sign the papers. Just what papers I was supposed to sign, I don’t know. But at the end, when the negotiator told your mother that I would sign the papers in order to distract her so they could tranquilize her, I hoped that she would fall for it. Fortunately, it worked.”
“But you … how are you? How long have you been here?” Rafael asked.
“I’m all right. I am deeply ashamed of my mother’s actions and I am angry with her for all she has put everyone through today. She knocked Lena out at home before she came here and Lena is in the hospital with a cracked skull.”
“Oh, no!” Rafael exclaimed. “Is she going to be all right?”
“Well, Dr. Stevens thinks she will be. I had gone to visit him because Mother went off on Lena and me this morning to the point where Lena had to call 911. EMTs came and sedated her. She was supposed to be out for at least three to four hours, so I left to go back to the police station to discuss my dad’s death scene photos and some other anomalies I have found. Then I went to talk to Dr. Stevens. He was very concerned and called the psych ward in a hospital that he works with and made arrangements to take Mother there. But by the time we got back to the house, Lena was on the floor unconscious, and Mother was nowhere to be found.
“I went to the hospital with Lena and stayed with her until she was admitted as a patient and moved to a regular room, then I came over here to see if Mother had been here. Lena told me that she had a gun.”
“That she did. Wow! You have had a day of it, haven’t you?” Rafael exclaimed with sympathy.
“I sure have,” Victoria agreed.
“How about if I wrap things up here and take you out for dinner?”
“That would be wonderful, Rafael, but first I am going to the police station with this officer here and he is going to listen to my concerns about Daddy’s death. You may come with me, if you want to,” Victoria said.
“I’d like that,” he said. “But I’ve got to go back up to my office and lock up. I’ve already told Karen she can go home. She’s had enough excitement for one day, too.”
“I’d say!”
Victoria stepped over to the command chief and waited until he recognized her.
“How long will it be before you are ready for me to go to your station?”
“Just another ten minutes or so, while we finish up here. Does that work for you?”
“Yes, that’s fine. I would also like for Rafael Rivera to come with me. Is that all right with you?”
“Certainly, if you want him to come.”
“Yes. I need to know where your station is.”
The scene commander gave her the address and directions to the police station that he was from. She told him that she and Rafael would meet him there shortly.
When Rafael was ready to leave, they took his car to the police station. He told Victoria that they could return for her car later. They went inside and told the receptionist that they were there to see Lieutenant Mobry. The receptionist asked their names. Checking notes on his desk, he okayed them to go into the lieutenant’s office. The lieutenant welcomed them into his office and offered them coffee, which they both gratefully accepted.
It took the better part of an hour for Victoria to go over all the inconsistencies that she had found surrounding her father’s death, starting with his seemingly happy demeanor during their video chats even after he allegedly lost his company to Rafael, and ending with the stain on his desk and the empty bottle of pills in the master bathroom medicine chest. She included the cash withdrawals, the stories that her mother told her of her father’s depressed behavior in the weeks leading up to his death, and the way Marian had screamed that she was glad that her father had died, that he got what was coming to him.
Rafael added parts of the story that he was involved in, namely his relationship with David Thornton, and the events that led up to the sale of the company, and afterwards.
Lieutenant Mobry sat leaning back in his chair, quietly listening to her story, now and then jotting down notes, and occasionally asked a question to clarify a point. When Victoria finally finished, he sat up straight, put his arms on his desk with hands clasped.
“Miss Thornton, Victoria, I believe you have just cause to wonder about these inconsistencies surrounding your father’s death. These are details than none of the attending officers would have been privy to. From the reports I have read, the scene presented itself as a simple suicide, so that is how it was treated. I’ll admit, along with you, that the suicide note is the only piece of the puzzle that can’t be explained away, at least not yet. Tell you what, with your permission, I will come to your house personally tomorrow morning and bring a detective with me. We will look over the papers you have talked about and go over the death scene again to see if we can find some of the missing puzzle pieces.”
“Oh, please do,” Victoria urged. “I will be most happy to have you come.”
She and Rafael stood to leave. They both thanked the lieutenant for his time and interest, and then took their leave. Victoria felt totally drained after the highly emotional day she had just lived. She asked Rafael if he minded if she just went home.
“Can we just go to my place and order something in? Or pick up something on the way to take home and eat? I’m not sure I’m up to sitting in a restaurant now.”
“Of course we can,” Rafael said. “I certainly understand that you are wiped out. I’m still a bit shaky myself. What kind of food would you like? Mexican? Chinese? Pizza? Burgers?
“I dunno. I’m too far gone to choose. You pick whatever you want and I’ll eat it. I’m not sure I’ll even taste it tonight,” Victoria said, resting her head back on the car’s headrest.
“Listen, I’m going to swing by the building and ask Beverly, the receptionist to drive your car home for you, and then I’ll get her a cab home. She always rides the bus to work rather than drive.”
“She can drive, can’t she?” Victoria wante
d to know.
“Of course, she can. She just chooses to take the bus to work. Sometimes she drives, but I’m pretty sure she rode the bus this morning.”
“That’s fine. I’m almost too tired to want to drive anyway,” Victoria said.
But, by the time they got back to the building, Beverly had just left a few minutes before. There was no one else there whom Rafael trusted enough to drive Victoria’s car home. So Victoria said she’d make it home, if Rafael would stop somewhere and pick up some take-out. Then they would meet at her place.
Her place. It really was her place now. Her father was dead. Her mother would be put away for a good many years, it sounded like. And if Marian were found to have murdered her husband, she would never see freedom again. How life changes in just a moment. Just one event, the death of her father, and her whole life was turned upside down. She had a lot of decisions to make. But they could wait.
Chapter 2
Rafael was only about fifteen minutes behind Victoria. He brought in Thai food. He hoped that the food from the Thai place he had stopped at would be somewhere nearly as good as that little place on the beach that he had taken her to on their first date. He hoped it would serve as comfort food for Victoria, and help to soothe her wounded soul. He had also stopped at Dairy Queen and ordered two large chocolate blizzards. If he knew anything about women, it was that they needed chocolate when they were down. And if the chocolate came in the form of ice cream, so much the better.
Victoria had kicked her shoes off as soon as she entered the house. There was still blood on the floor where she had found Lena. Lena’s blood. Her thoughts turned to her dear friend lying in the hospital and wondered how she was by now. After she had cleaned up the blood with paper toweling and spray disinfectant, she called Lena’s hospital room. After several rings, Lena answered. Her voice still sounded weak and groggy.
“It’s Victoria, Lena,” she said. “How are you feeling this evening?”