by S. C. King
Sam Thomson’s widow was home, however, and willing to talk. She was a middle aged woman, with a kind smile and a lot of children to keep her occupied. The death of her husband had been a shock, but she was strong enough to overcome anything.
Wood cleared his throat. “Mrs. Thomson, I’m Sergeant Wood from Stronghill,” he said, flipping his badge open and closed. “I have a few questions about your husband’s death.”
The woman stepped back from the door and silently let him in. Mrs. Thomson’s home was pastel-colored paint, dark wood moldings and furniture, and full of photographs. She sat in front of a large picture window in the living room, silhouetted by the white late afternoon light. Her hands were clenched together on her narrow lap, her face drawn, her eyes red-rimmed.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Wood said gently. The woman closed her eyes and her face broke open. She cried into her fist, quietly, and then spoke to him, “This shouldn’t have happened.”
The sergeant frowned. “What do you mean, Mrs. Thomson?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this,” she explained, her voice thin.
Wood looked at the beautiful room, the old pictures, porcelain plates and teacups inside the screen. A knotted rag rug in brown tones covered the shiny wood floor. No, he didn’t imagine her life with her husband was supposed to end like this.
“Do you have some new information about the drug trial your husband took part in?” Wood asked.
“I’ve been over this with the police,” she answered. “I talked to them for hours.”
“I know, but after the death of Rick Lowson, we had to revisit the case.”
“I don’t know anything new,” the woman finally admitted. “It is all too painful for me, you know.”
“I understand,” the sergeant agreed.
She frowned a little, then nodded. “I don’t know what happened,” she said, and choked up a little on the last word.
Wood nodded again sympathetically. “If you remember something or if something new comes up, please contact us.”
Wood noticed that her hands were shaking and remembered that she had been very much in love with her husband. He closed his note pad. “I really am sorry for your loss, Mrs. Thomson.”
“What did you get?” Wood asked Davis over the phone. It was a few minutes after five.
“Nothing,” Davis said bitterly, and Wood almost sighed. “Don’t worry, we will find him.”
As if in response to their desires, Stone was arrested at the local train station, the moment he was walking into the train. Davis was glad to see him back in the police department, but doubted if he would be able to make him admit guilt.
Chapter 16
“Mr. Stone, I think it is time for you to stop pretending and look at things logically,” Davis spoke to the man, once they were seated alone in the interrogation room. “You tried to escape the police, and that is already a sign that you know we are coming closer to the truth.”
“Is that so?” the man asked sarcastically. “I was going on a short vacation, that is all.”
“I believe, we asked you to not leave the city,” the detective shot back.
“Arrest me then! Oh, but you already did that.”
“Mr. Stone, your situation is not good at all. We already have solid proof that you knew about the danger posed by the trials conducted by your company, and all the same ordered to continue with them. We also know that it was youwho ordered the murder of Rick Lowson. We are already following the money you paid the killer with.”
Jack Stone took his time answering, but Davis could see that he was giving in. There was something new in his behavior, something that told the detective that Stone had reconciled with his fate. “Okay,” he finally spoke. “I am the one responsible for all those deaths, and I killed Rick Lowson.”
“I believe you, you did, but there was someone else helping you.” Davis insisted.
“No, I did it all alone.” Stone stood his ground.
“Can you describe for me how you did it, then?”
“I bought the snake from North Dakota, where I knew there is an illegal business with exotic animals. Then I paid a homeless guy to go to the delivery office and pay for the package with the snake to be delivered to George Lowson’s house early in the morning. I already knew that he would be out for the day, so there was more than enough time for me to do it.”
“How did you enter the house?” Davis interrupted him.
“I paid and was given the code of the alarm system. The rest was easy – Rick was in the shower, when I went inside the house, found the package with the snake, and prepared the drug. When he came out, I easily overpower him, drugged him, placed him in bed and let the snake free.” Stone smiled at the detective and raised his hands up. “That is the whole story.”
“Except, it wasn’t you who did it. You paid someone to do the job for you,” Davis stated calmly. “I believe you, when you say that it was you behind the whole plan, the novel and everything, but it wasn’t you, who did the actual murder.”
“Sorry, detective, but there is nothing else I can add to my story. If you want to believe that there is someone else, fine, but that is not what I will be saying in court.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“He told me about the tape after my last appearance in court. I got mad, and afraid that he would use it, so I did the only possible thing,” Jack Stone explained.
“You tried to bribe him first, didn’t you?”
“I might, but you have to admit, if he had accepted now Rick Lowson would have been alive.”
“What about the trials, why did you persist, even though you knew they were deadly?”
“We invested so much money in them, we needed them to work. I was sure that the scientists would manage to adjust the dosage and find the problem before too many people managed to die.”
“What is according to you the appropriate number of people which should die during a drug trial?” Davis asked, scandalized by his way of thinking.
“Don’t get me wrong, detective, it was just business,” Stone dismissed the question.
“I am asking you for the last time, who is your accomplice?” The policeman said firmly. “It is a crime to lie to the police.”
“No one, I worked alone.”
“I hope he is worth it.” Davis said before leaving him alone.
Chapter 17
I hope he is worth it.
“Believe me, he is...” Jack murmured to himself, once he was alone in the room. Ross had been the only light in his dark life, and Jack wasn’t going to ruin him because of his own foolishness. It was all on him for bringing Ross in and making him kill the lawyer. Now, it was Jack’s turn to take responsibility, and he was going to do it for Ross.
One day ago...
The candles were all doused out, and Jack was lying on his stomach on their makeshift bed, reading the famous novel by George Lowson by the light of the fire. There was a gap between the tight shirt and the tight sweat pants, showing a strip of smooth skin, and Ross simply couldn’t take his eyes away from it.
"You'll ruin your eyes," Ross said, kicking off his boots and taking off his jeans to hang them over a chair.
"Hmm," Jack said, clearly back to not listening again.
"Dude," he said. "Can't you let that go?"
After a moment, Jack looked up. "What? I just thought of something I wanted to check."
Ross put his arms behind his head, and stared at the ceiling for several seconds before turning his head towards Jack again. "You're acting kind of obsessed. It's over, we can move on."
Jack gave a crack of incredulous laughter and propped himself higher to stare at Ross. He even brushed the hair out of his eyes so he could do it better. "I'm acting obsessed? You're the one who's tied up in knots about it."
"Oh, sure," Ross said. "You're not hung up on this at all."
"I'm not upset," Jack said, starting to sound kind of upset, and Ross raised an eyebrow at
him. "You're the one who keeps acting like it was a big deal. I just want to prove that we did our best."
"Yeah, well." Ross tried to stare at something other than Jack's mouth. "We killed a man, sorry if it takes me a while to get over it."
"Okay." Jack used his calm, reasonable, convincing voice, and Ross had to make an effort not to thump him. "I get it. I even agree, which is why I've been doing this research so it doesn't happen to us again. I'm just saying we're okay, everything worked out, and it wasn't the end of the world."
Ross took a deep breath. "Sure," he said. "Fine. Not the end of the world. Can we go to sleep now?"
"Nobody's stopping you," Jack said, turning another page in a pointed manner.
"Are you going to keep that up all night?"
"Ross!" Jack didn't even look up. "You're the one who needs to let this go. It's not a big deal, okay?"
"Yeah? Well, when you talk about murder, as if it is nothing, it makes me wonder what goes on in your head." Ross stared at Jack's profile, eyes returning again and again to Jack's mouth. He had some thoughts about what was going on inside his own head, too.
Jack sighed and closed his book, turning towards Ross. "I can't believe how much you're freaking out over this," he said. "If you don't want to talk about it, then stop talking about it."
"No, I'm fine," Ross said. "Obviously you're right and it was nothing." He rolled over and pressed his mouth swiftly against Jack's. The kiss landed kind of crooked, mostly on Jack's upper lip. "See? Nothing. Like you said, not the end of the world." Ross lay back and felt his heart beat reckless.
"But that's not what it was like," Jack said, and now he was using a voice that Ross had never, ever heard before. He would have remembered. Jack rolled up on one side and cupped his big hand around the side of Ross's face, giving him plenty of time to get away before he leaned in and pressed his mouth against Ross's, not fast and hard but slow and thorough. “I made a mistake,” he finally admitted.
At the same time, this was completely different. When he thought back on those two hours they'd spent in the front seat of the car, they were a bit dreamlike and unclear. Everything was vivid now, and he was aware of himself, of them, or their surroundings: the crackle of the fire, the way the sheet was bunched up under his knee. The way Jack was his best friend, his lover, the only person in the world who understood and loved him for who he was.
"Hey," Ross said, thumping Jack's shoulder with the flat of his hand.
"Mm," Jack said.
"You've made your point. Feel free to stop." Ross tried not to suck his breath in too loud at the thought of how his words could be interpreted.
"No," Jack said from the vicinity of Ross's collarbone. He looked up at Ross through tangled, too-long hair. "Not unless you say it like you mean it, Ross. I've been," he licked along the collar of Ross's t-shirt, "thinking about this since that day."
"Because of the murder," Ross said, trying for his own brand of annoyingly reasonable. He had a feeling it would have worked better if he hadn't kissed Jack back, before. "We should talk about it."
"Not now," Jack said, and paused to frown and look amused at the same time. Ross had to grin, too, because it did kind of sound like they were arguing about soft drinks. "Didn't you hear what they said? That was the perfect crime, if they hadn’t connect it to my case, we would have been free to go."
"So unless there's something you're not telling me." Jack put a hand on Ross's face and gave him that earnest, wide-eyed look that only worked on other people. "They will catch us, right?"
Apparently it wasn't just other people, because Ross found himself nodding. "Yeah," he said, telling the plain truth as if he'd been born to it. "Yeah. They will."
He didn't know how that look had suddenly started working on him, too, but he did know that it wasn't good for Jack to have things all his own way too much, so he shoved Jack down and braced himself over him, looking down at Jack's face, at his wide mouth and tousled hair, thinking that he might never have this again.
Jack put both hands on Ross's shoulders and pulled him down, and they kissed again. They shifted around a bit, and Ross ended up outside the blankets again, but he wasn't cold. Not at all.
"You know," Jack said, leaning back on his elbows. Firelight danced over his face and arms, and his hair was a mess, and his mouth was red. "You know, we could stop now, we don't have to do anything more. Or."
Ross trailed a finger slowly down the inside of Jack's arm, elbow to wrist, feeling the soft skin and the hectic beat of Jack's pulse. "Or?"
Jack's voice was both matter of fact and as intimate as a caress. "Or we could run away together."
"Oh... but what about my kid?" Ross asked. He didn't care if it made him a pervert or a degenerate freak or anything else that anyone cared to name. They'd come this far, he might as well admit that the idea made his blood fizz.
Jack grinned brightly at him as if Ross had given him a present. “We would take care of your family, I promise.”
Chapter 18
It took them a lot of time, but Davis and Wood re-examined all the information about the case from the moment they learned about the murder to Jack Stone’s confession. The man had been right about everything, so there was no doubt that he was behind the plan, but there was something else, something that was managing to stay hidden from them.
Who could that man be? They had gone through all Stone’s associates, friends, family, employees... no one seemed to be fitting the profile. Whoever had helped him should be easy to control and all the same be able to think alone and act appropriately. He must be the perfect partner to a cold and calculating man like Jack Stone.
“We are missing something,” Davis said again.
“Maybe he hired a contract killer,” Wood suggested.
“Why then hide him? No, whoever he is, he is special to him. It will not work any other way.”
The ringing of Wood’s phone interrupted them, and Davis watched him answering and taking notes. “The evidence they took from the motel room,” Wood said after closing his phone. “On the bed there was sperm, left by two different men.”
“Oh, God!” Davis exclaimed. “Now it all makes sense.”
Without another word, the detective walked outside the room and into the main hall, where most of the detectives and inspectors of the precinct were working. “I need Inspector Stevens,” he said loudly. “Can you tell me where he is right now?”
The police officers looked around them, and Wood could hear them wonder why Stevens hadn’t shown at work today. “Maybe he is still working on some lead on the case?” one of them suggested.
“He was supposed to come with me to the courthouse, we had to testify in an old case, but he didn’t show.”
“Good, if someone sees him, please sent him my way,” Davis asked and turned around. “I need to speak to Stone again.”
Wood was confused, but he could tell that Davis had reached a conclusion and solved the case. He still couldn’t understand how inspector Stevens was involved, but he believed in Davis’ instinct and knew that he would not keep him in the dark for long.
For the second time that day, Davis entered the room, where Stone was sitting and sat on the chair in front of him. “We have Ross Stevens,” he said firmly. “He confessed to be the one hired by you to kill Rick Lowson.”
The moment Davis said the name of Stevens, Stone changed completely. His face became pale and sweat started running from every pore of his body. They handcuffed him to the table and started trembling and everything in him seemed to be dying. “You are lying.” was all he could say.
“Only about half of it,” Davis said easily. “For the moment, I don’t have Stevens in custody, but I know that he is the one who helped you.”
“He didn’t do it for the money...”
“I know,” Davis felt almost sorry for the other man. “He was your lover. Probably your only male lover. You manipulated him to commit the crime, and now you destroyed not only yours, but also his life.�
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“It was never like that,” Stone shook his head, looking completely defeated. “Ross didn’t know that the drugs would make Lowson immobile and that the snake would bite him to death. I told him that it was a joke between friends.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
“More than anything in my life...”
“Then help me to get him in, so that no one gets hurt again.”
“He would never commit a crime again. You can stop looking for him, I used all my money to buy him safe passage. You have me to blame for everything.”
“He killed a man...” Davis insisted.
“No, I killed Rick Lowson.”
Thank You
I hope you enjoyed ‘MYSTERY: Killed (A Suspense Thriller Mystery novella)’ and would love to know what you thought about it. If you have a moment to spare, I would appreciate it if you could leave a review of this book at Amazon. Your opinion goes a long way in helping others decide if a book is for them.
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S. C. King
Author of ‘MYSTERY: Killed (A Suspense Thriller Mystery novella)’
Booklist
A list of other mystery suspense thriller books published by S. C. King:
1. http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Angles-Demons-Suspense-Thriller-ebook/dp/B00WAJZ2G6/ref=sr_1_24?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1429805149&sr=1-24&keywords=mystery
2. http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Betrayal-Dunmore-Thriller-Suspense-ebook/dp/B00W40KRTS/ref=sr_1_25?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1429805192&sr=1-25&keywords=mystery