The Evil That Men Do

by Steve Rollins

  No, she was sure that Cavanaugh was not a killer. In any case, it was a police matter. The Rock of Rhodesia was what the Vaughan sisters were tasked with recovering, and Joseph Cavanaugh was just a loose end in the case. Ricki would know what to do, when she returned from speaking to Madeline Frome.

  Chapter Nine

  Roberta

  Covered in sweat, Roberta hauled Shenice Connor from the back seat of her pickup truck.

  Connor had led her on a merry chase into the country, trying to escape on a motorbike across country and then on foot when she had crashed the bike into a ditch. It had been an entire morning worth of travel from the crack den she had been crashing at. Unfortunately for Roberta, it seemed that her quarry had been storing extra reserves of coke in her bloodstream, and had put in an Olympic-medal-worthy sprint through an alleyway to reach her bike, zipping out of reach before Roberta could chase her down. Nevertheless, it would be a dark day when Roberta Vaughan was outwitted by a junkie.

  Shenice struggled and spat at her, despite being in handcuffs. The guard at the county jail gate stood and laughed as Roberta walked Shenice in a kind of half nelson hold toward him.

  “Come on Joey, a little help here? She’s bucking like a jackrabbit, and I’ve had enough. Mind if I just take her leg off with my shotgun?” Roberta kicked Shenice in the back of the knee as she tried to wriggle free, ignoring the threat. Joey laughed harder, and unslung his nightstick.

  “Now, Miss Vaughan, you know I can’t allow that, but I suppose I could accidentally throw her in with the violent types, instead of the nice, meek and god-fearing girls in general holdings?”

  Shenice stopped struggling. This was a common occurrence, and a familiar role play between Roberta and the guards at Savannah County Jail. As a woman, many jumpers figured that if they can get their feet on the ground and out of the secured rear seat of Roberta’s pickup they could make a clear run for it, or overpower their captor somehow, despite Roberta already having defeated them once that day already. In such cases, the simple threat of worse consequences from which there was no escape was usually enough to calm them down enough to prevent further humiliation or injury. Shenice went into Joey’s custody with no further complaint, and Roberta waited by her car for him to take her into the jailhouse and return with her receipt.

  “You look like hell, kid. She gave you a real tough chase, huh?” Joey scribbled on his receipt book as he spoke.

  “Had worse, but damn, that girl can run. Keep the gates locked with her now, won’t you? I can do without another cross country run this month.”

  Roberta toweled herself down with a napkin from her glove box. It was soon soiled with her salty sweat and stained with dirt. Her filthy clothes would have to last until she could get showered and changed. Joey handed her the booking in slip for Connor, which would be followed with a check when she went to trial. The flow of money goes on; the flow of people into the judiciary system went on. Roberta said her goodbyes to Joey, and drove away into the setting sun.

  At six o’clock in the evening, Roberta finally returned to the R3 Recovery office, freshly changed, showered and full on leftover ribs. The property was deserted, and locked. Roberta unlocked the door using her key, and opened it into serene darkness. Something felt wrong. Ricki and Riley should surely have returned ahead of her, although Riley could well have been hunting down a car to repossess. Something was stuck to her shoe. An envelope. It was undoubtedly yet another bill from the electric company, or the water company, or whoever. Roberta bent down to pick it up, groaning slightly at the twinge in her knees, screaming their protest at further abuse after their already tortuous day. The envelope was without a name and address.

  “Hey, you would not believe the afternoon I’ve had!”

  Roberta jumped in surprise, dropping the envelope, bashing her head hard on the door handle and cursed loudly at the sudden pain.

  “Wow, are you ok? That looked all kinds of painful,” Riley said, stepping around her crouched sister. Roberta glared at her.

  “Yeah. Where have you been? Where’s Ricki?”

  She rubbed the point where her head had made contact with the brass door handle, and flinched at the secondary wave of pain as tears stung in the corners of her eyes, refracting the star lines that danced and swirled toward the edges of her vision. There would be a bruised lump there in less than an hour for sure. Riley helped her to her feet, and scooped the envelope up from the floor.

  “Oh man, you wouldn’t believe. You have no idea how hard it is to get a taxi in this town! I had to walk most of the way back from Old Man Cavanaugh’s—he’s dead, by the way, and then when I could get a taxi, it took three of them to go past before one stopped. Ricki should have beaten me back here from Madeline Frome’s place; that’s weird.”

  Riley tossed the envelope on the desk at which Ricki usually sat, and slumped in her reclining chair heavily.

  “Wait, back up,” Roberta said, “did you really just say Cavanaugh is dead? How? That’s too weird. He seemed healthy enough, but I guess he was pretty old, right?”

  “Nah, it was a suicide apparently. Hung himself with a belt, pretty messed up, right? Seems like his son is a bit of a sucker too, according to a local, but with his old man dead, it looks like the trail is dead there. Hope Ricki got something out of Frome or we’re going to have to pull round the clock shifts to make Dumont’s money back for him.”

  Riley picked up the envelope. Roberta couldn’t quite believe her ears. Sure, Cavanaugh seemed down on his luck, but was there really no way for him to improve his lot than to end it all? It didn’t bear thinking about, the tightening of the belt around his frail old neck, the kick of the chair. Roberta visualized the belt buckle jammed in the doorway, braced against the wooden door in a run-down house in Savannah.

  “Hey, this envelope has no address on it. It’s not sealed either!” Riley said. “Shouldn’t we open it?”

  Roberta looked at her sister groggily. Best get the next drama over with, see how much more screwed R3 Recovery’s financial accounts were about to become. She took the envelope from her sister, and shook out a small note written on a torn page from a red margined piece of legal paper. The paper itself was a pale yellow. Upon it, in neat, block capital letters written in black ink there was a message:

  RETRIEVE THE ROCK OR YOUR SISTER DIES.

  FROME HAS THE ROCK. TELL NO-ONE.

  YOU HAVE THREE DAYS.

  Roberta dropped the note, letting it tumble onto the desk. Her fingers went numb, and fresh, cold sweat beaded on the back of her neck, her forehead and between her shoulder blades. Riley looked alarmed, but Roberta barely registered a response. Riley picked up the note.

  “Oh my God, Ricki! Roberta, what do we do? I’m calling the cops, no wait, he’ll kill her! Christ, what are we gonna do?” Riley had tears in her eyes.

  Roberta’s mind was torn between multiple possible outcomes. If Frome had the necklace, why did she report it stolen, and who knew about the jewel anyway? If only it had been her who had been taken, she could have handled any punishment she was sure, and Ricki would be smart enough to work out the clues, even from this scant evidence. What could they do with this note, other than obey it and hope to rescue Ricki from the clutches of… who? A murderer? A thief? She guessed it was a fairly straight case of kidnapping, but that’s not what it felt like. It felt more personal. Could it be one of the people that R3 Recovery had returned to jail, or repossessed the property of, or had their sordid affairs investigated?

  Roberta picked up the phone and dialed, ignoring Riley’s confused, grief stricken expression. When the phone was answered, Roberta found her voice choked and cracked.

  “This is Roberta Vaughan, Terry’s girlfriend. I need to speak to him, please.” The operator put her on hold, and after what seemed like an eternity, Terry’s deep voice came on the other end of the line.

  “Hey babe, what’s new?” he said.

  “I need you. I need you right now, and come alone.” Roberta�
�s voice was deadpan, but Terry totally missed the point.

  “Woah, not that I don’t need you too, but I’m still on shift and, well…”

  “Shut up and get here Terry!” Roberta snapped. “I need you as a cop, not my boyfriend. I’ll tell you when you get here. This is really serious.” Terry came to full awareness, and hung up the phone.

  The screeching tires and wailing siren of his cruiser announced the arrival of Terry and his repugnant partner Sergeant Dobbs less than twenty minutes later. Roberta’s heart sank even further into her boots. Hadn’t she specifically said that he should come alone? This would ruin everything, Ricki was surely doomed. Word would get out that the police were investigating, and Ricki would die for Roberta’s stupid mistake. She could not bear it, and as soon as Terry came through the door of R3 Recovery, she went into full attack.

  “What is he doing here, you idiot!” she hissed. “I told you to come alone!” She slammed the door behind Dobbs as he followed Terry inside, and drew the shutters. Not that it would hide the police car outside, but it made Roberta feel marginally better. Dobbs made a bee line for Riley, sat at Ricki’s desk.

  “Hey, there little darling,” he drawled with lust that was barely concealed, “What say you dry those eyes for Sergeant Dobbs, huh?”

  “Drop it, Sarge, please,” said Terry. “This isn’t the time or the place. What’s going on, girls?”

  Roberta threw herself into Terry’s arms. “Look! Look at this! Someone has kidnapped Ricki, and they want us to find a jewel to get her back, and I don’t know what the hell to do!”

  Riley pushed past Dobbs, and brandished the letter at Terry.

  “See! How does this even happen? What did we do?”

  Dobbs took the letter from Riley’s hand.

  “I’m the senior officer here; let me see it.”

  He read the note aloud for Terry’s benefit, who had Roberta in his arms. Roberta felt more tears fall on her cheeks, to be soaked up by Terry’s uniform shirt.

  “Sounds like this guy—or these people, it could be a group after all—doesn’t want your sister at all,” Terry said. “Sarge, you got an evidence bag on you, we should take this in for fingerprints.”

  “Do you think there is any chance that you’ll get anything from it?” Riley said, with hope.

  Terry considered.

  “In all honesty, it would be a long shot, but we can’t rule it out. We’ll need to take prints from both of you, if you’ve handled this note.”

  Roberta released herself from Terry’s embrace.

  “Yeah, we both did. Oh God, that was so stupid. What should we do now? How do we get Ricki back?”

  Dobbs cut in before Terry could reply.

  “You girls do absolutely nothing. Anything you do could be under surveillance and anything you do to comply with their demands will only make our job harder. Leave it to the professionals, you got it?”

  He looked from Roberta to Riley and back again, to ensure his words were heeded. Riley and Roberta nodded.

  “Call me if you get any calls, or any more notes. Try and get some rest tonight, OK? We’ll get to the station and start work. I’ll call you tonight, Bobbie, ok?” Terry said as he kissed Roberta’s tears away.

  Roberta looked into his eyes, and wanted to believe that the police could do something to save Ricki. Terry and Dobbs left, leaving Roberta and Riley alone, in the gathering dark of the Georgian summer evening.

  Chapter Ten

  Ricki

  Ricki came to in darkness.

  There was some kind of covering over her head, a bag that felt like hessian cloth or some other rough fabric which thickened the air with the carbon dioxide the she breathed out, combining with her sweat and the humidity. She gasped desperate lungs of rotten air, and tried to take the sack off her face. There was some kind of stinking fabric gagging her, making her retch. She found that her wrists and ankles were tied to the uncomfortable wooden chair she was sitting on. Confusion set in ahead of a rising panic. First she strained her right arm, and then her left in an attempt to free them, but the bonds were too tight, too well knotted. Her legs told her a similar story; although she could at least lift the chair she was on by putting all her weight forward onto her tiptoes. Perhaps, she thought, she could push herself over to one side or the other, which might break the chair, or more likely her own wrists. Then she realized that with no idea as to where she was, there was also no way to tell if the floor of the space in which she was being held was not covered in broken glass or if there was a sharp table corner on which she would brain herself.

  Blood pounded in her ears and behind her eyes, reddening her vision. The minute exertion of shifting her body weight had sent her cardiovascular system into overdrive, and the throbbing in her head was a clear indication that she had been drugged. The panic took over from confusion, and Ricki fought her body as she began to experience the onset of hyperventilation. She forced herself to slow her breathing despite the poorly oxygenated air that was available: just like her yoga teacher had taught her. It was futile. The sack over her head was heavy, the stinking gag she was wearing choked her and after only half a minute, Ricki was forced to gasp, lungs screaming. Her head swam, and blackness took her once again.

  When Ricki woke up, the sack was gone from her face, but she still could not see. Her eyes were now covered with a too-tight binding of fabric that pinched at her cheeks and eyelids. Someone had clearly been there, wherever that was. A faint sound, that of a shifting foot, told her that her captor was still in the room, and she let out an involuntary whimper through the drool-sodden fabric that had already rubbed away the skin at the corners of her mouth.

  “Hey now, don’t be afraid,” a gruff male voice said. “I’m guessing you are a little confused as to where you are, why you are tied up. I’m sorry. It’s really not how I wanted this to play out, but you—or more accurately, your sisters—have some work to do on my behalf. Once they have done a little job for me, I will let you go. I won’t harm you, and I won’t rape you. Unless… ”

  He trailed off, leaving Ricki under no illusions as to the consequences for the failure of her sisters to comply with this madman. He didn’t sound insane, not at all, but who kidnapped people, except gangs and serial killers? She had to get out of there, somehow. Roberta and Riley surely wouldn’t be foolish enough to go along with this plan, surely by now the entire Savannah police force would be out looking for her.

  Ricki tried to talk, but the gag made it impossible. She flinched at the surprisingly soft touch of the hands that untied the knot at the back of her head. In a moment, her mouth was free, and she was able to painfully move her jaw.

  “Water,” she managed to croak.

  Sure enough, she heard her captor’s movements, footfalls on what sounded like a wooden floor. In a moment, a hand tilted her head back and a plastic bottle was pressed against her cracked lips. Water flowed, but too quickly for her parched throat to process easily. Ricki choked, and the flow of water stopped while she regained her breath. When the water came again, it was slower, more measured. Did she detect a tremble in the man’s hand holding the bottle? Who was this guy?

  “What do you want with us?” she gasped when she was finally able to speak. “We have no money, and the police are going to be looking for me. Whatever it is you want; you can’t get it like this.”

  The man laughed softly, falsely.

  “If your sisters have gone to the police—and I have methods through which I can find out if they have—I’m afraid I might have to break my promise not to kill you. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to, and I guarantee you that no one will ever know that it was me who did it. I do hope your sisters took the words of my letter to them seriously, and are even now following my instructions.”

  Ricki felt no fear at the threat of her own death. She knew that Roberta at least would have the presence of mind to covertly inform the police; but what did it mean that this man would know if she did? Was he a cop, or were
there crooked cops on the force? She managed her thoughts for a moment. Of course there were crooked cops on the force. Brutal, power-mad wielders of authority who pulled over black kids and busted them for drugs that they themselves had planted, and worse. But would any of them be a willing accomplice in kidnap and her own probable murder? It seemed impossible. She thought of Terry, Roberta’s boyfriend. As far as she knew, he was a decent guy. Would Roberta be able to keep him from knowing about this? Her captor evidently noticed the signs of Ricki trying to work things out.

  “Let me give you a hint. Madeline Frome. Remember her?” he said, and Ricki could tell he was smiling.

  “Madeline Frome?” Ricki said. “Can’t say that I can recall her. Is she a relative of mine?”

  The backhand slap caught her hard in the jaw, and Ricki felt the already sore skin at the corner of her mouth split open. The blow stung her cheek and forced the delicate flesh on the inside of her mouth against her teeth. She took satisfaction that she did not cry out. The man’s voice dropped to a whisper, coming close to her ear, close enough that she could feel the vibrating air and the warmth of his breath.

  “Don’t play cute with me, bitch. I know what you’re looking for, and I know that your company has been hired by Frome to find her lost diamond. I know she still has it. The senile old fool thinks that she can hide the diamond and claim on her insurance after showing that you did your very best to find it. Of course, that won’t work as you well know.”

  Ricki did know it well. Without an incident number, any insurance company would refuse to pay out. What was Frome thinking? She must really have lost her marbles. The throbbing in her cheek intensified as her capillaries swelled. The man keeping her captive clearly enjoyed the sound of his own voice, as he went on.