by E. C. Bell
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
I stopped, and considered the question before carrying on.
“It’s because of what he did to you. He can’t buy me off after what he did to you.” The rain of flowers resumed.
“That’s nice,” Farley said. “I mean, thank you and all that, but . . .”
“But what?” I reached for the next vase—nope, not a vase this time, but a basket. It wasn’t going to shatter when I dropped it—and began taking it apart, flower by flower.
“This isn’t really helping. Is it?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Probably not.”
“Then why don’t you stop?”
“Because, Farley, I’m not done yet.” I grabbed the last arrangement, threw the whole thing at the far wall, and watched with some satisfaction as it smashed into a thousand pieces. “Now I’ll stop.” Then I burst into tears.
“He blew up the Palais, and he was the reason you killed yourself, Farley. And he threatened my mother. He thinks I can be bought—I was almost bought . . . “
“Yeah,” he said. “But you weren’t.”
I took a deep hitching breath and blew it out in small puffs as I tried to get myself under control. “Yeah. I wasn’t.”
“Let’s figure out how to get him,” Farley said.
So, we sat down in Jasmine’s living room, littered with the remains of the most expensive bouquets I’d ever seen, and we planned our revenge.
The plan we came up with was pretty simple, which was good, and legal, which was better. I would send the cheque back to Carruthers, and then go to Sergeant Worth and tell her how he’d tried to bribe me, and how he’d implied that my mother was going to be in danger if I didn’t comply. Neither of us were sure what would happen after that, but it felt like the right place to start.
First I had to find the cheque. After some digging it popped into view, worse for wear but still legible. I stuffed it into an envelope and scribbled down the address from the business card he’d given me. There was a mailbox at the far end of Jasmine’s street, and I gimped my way to it, feeling much better when it was out of my sight. Then I started to clean up the mess.
“Don’t you think you should rest a minute or something?” Farley asked.
“Actually,” I said, and smiled at him, “I feel pretty good. And I have to clean this up. Jasmine won’t like this mess one bit.”
James called to see how I was doing as I stuffed the last of those stupid flowers in the stupid garbage bags. I thought he felt like a jerk for not being the hero and coming in with me, but I was wrong. He told me he had news from Helen Latterson and suggested we have a quick meal so he could tell me about it, if I felt up to it. I said yes, I’d be happy to.
All right, so maybe I was missing him a bit.
He was smart and didn’t say a darned thing about a date, which could have set me off, if I hadn’t been in such a good mood. He suggested Thai food, which sounded great, and said he’d pick me up at sevenish. Which, if I knew that man at all, meant seven on the dot, but it was okay. It was all right. Everything felt all right.
I was so glad that cheque was out of my sight and on its way back its rightful owner that I sang as I scrubbed the last of the green marks off Jasmine’s living room rug, thanking whatever interior decorating Gods there were that she’d gone with something with actual flecks of green in it so I didn’t have to try that hard. The money would have been a Godsend, especially for a person in my situation, no doubt about it. It was a lot easier, now that the cheque was not in my hands.
“What time does your friend come home from work?” Farley asked. I glanced up from a particularly stubborn patch of something I’d thought was plant goo until I figured out it was Play Doh, and frowned.
“I don’t know. Maybe four-thirty, or five-ish?”
“Well, it’s three thirty-ish now.” He pointed to the small clock adorning the top of Jasmine’s fake fireplace. “Isn’t it?”
“Good grief!” I looked around at the six bags of plant remains, and for a moment it felt like the scene of a crime. Which, to plant lovers, it probably was. “I have to get these out of here!”
Luckily they weren’t heavy, and it didn’t take me long to get them to the back yard, by her garbage bins. However, I felt light headed by the time I got back into the house.
“I need to lie down for a minute,” I said, wiping a sheen of sweat that had gathered on my brow. It felt cold and clammy, and suddenly things got dark.
“Sit down, now!” Farley barked, and I did so gratefully. My eyesight came back immediately, thank goodness, but I had obviously overdone.
“Go have a nap,” Farley said. “You can call Sergeant Worth after you’ve rested.”
I nodded my head, and groped my way down the back hallway to Jasmine’s room. The bed was soft and I’d nearly fallen asleep when Farley came into the room a few moments later. His soft glow made everything seem pretty, though Jasmine likes Sopranos style furniture, which is not to my taste in the bedroom. Or anywhere for that matter.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said, staring down at me. “How proud I am of you.”
“For what?” I asked, trying, barely, to pull myself back from the brink of sleep.
“For doing the right thing.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, and in that instant before I fell asleep, I felt proud of me too.
Farley forgot to wake me up. In fact, no-one woke me up. I was shocked when I opened my eyes and it was nearly six o’clock. I moved one arm, and the pain of my bruised muscles brought me fully awake.
“God,” I muttered, waving my appendages pathetically, like a turtle on its back. “I feel like crap.”
“She’s awake!” one of Jasmine’s kids bellowed, outside the now opened bedroom door. I was pretty sure it was Billy. “Can we turn on the TV now?”
“All right.” That was Jasmine, but she didn’t sound like herself. As I swung my feet over the edge of her bed, gingerly, she walked into the room, and I noticed she was moving gingerly too. We both jumped when the TV blared on.
“Turn it down!” she yelled, then turned back to me. “How do you feel?”
“Not bad.” I was lying, and didn’t try to hide it. “How do I look?”
“You look like absolute crap.” She breathed out the words as though awed by my bruises. I glanced at the mirror, and was momentarily awed myself.
“Wow, you’re not kidding. I look terrible.” I tried to laugh, and almost pulled it off. “I have to go out tonight. I don’t think there’s enough make up in the world to hide this.”
“You and I have to talk, Marie.”
I could tell by the look on her face, and the fact that she hadn’t jumped at the mention of me going out that something had happened. Something not good.
“What’s wrong?” I couldn’t read her face past “not good”, and it made me afraid.
“I found something, when I got home.” She frowned, and shook her head. “What’s going on, Marie?”
I thought she’d found the flowers. I honestly thought that’s what she’d found. I knew it wasn’t Farley, wherever he was. She was good with the living, but had no clue about the dead.
“What do you mean?”
“There was a message left on my answering machine.” She frowned again, ferociously this time. “My kids listened to it. What’s going on, Marie?”
“What message?” I asked, my mouth drying with fear. If it was Carruthers—and I kicked myself for not thinking about the fact he knew I was there. What had he said? Had he threatened the children?
“I think you better hear it,” she said. “Can you get up?”
“Yes.” Now, I was very afraid. If I’d brought that man down on her and her family, I would never forgive myself. I pushed myself to standing, and hobbled over to the bedroom door.
“The police just got here,” she said. “I called them when I heard it. They want to talk to you.”
“The police?” It was as bad as I th
ought. “We need the police?”
She nodded.
Well, at least I didn’t have to make the trip to the police station the way Farley and I had planned. They’d come to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.” She walked ahead of me, down the hallway and to the living room.
The police officers were both sitting on the plastic covered couch, untouched coffees in front of them on the mock antique coffee table, acting supremely uncomfortable. Farley was on the floor between Amber and Billy, two of Jasmine’s kids, appearing happier than I’d ever seen him. He didn’t look up when I came into the room, so I decided to ignore him, and focus on the police.
“What’s going on?” I asked, trying for breezy, but sounding like a crotchety old woman. I took a tottering step into the living room, and grabbed for the wall to steady myself. “Is there a problem here, officers?”
Jasmine didn’t crack a smile. “This is Officer Landsdown and Officer Regal,” she said. Then she walked into the kitchen.
“Come here!” she called. “All of you!”
We all jumped to, the police acting embarrassed that Jasmine’s mother voice had pulled them to attention. Officer Landsdown obviously decided to assert his authority by the time we were all assembled around the phone.
“What can you tell us about this voicemail message?” he asked, pointing to the machine as if I could tell him purely by osmosis.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I looked to Jasmine for help. She merely stared at the machine as though she wished it was no longer in her house.
“I don’t want you turning that thing on when my kids can hear it,” she said, grabbing Landsdown’s sleeve as he reached for the button that would start the message. “Please.”
I’d never heard that pleading tone in Jasmine’s voice before.
“What’s on there?” I asked, fear trickling down my spine like ice water.
“It’s nasty. Really nasty.” Farley had snuck up on me, and I jumped about a foot and a half. “You won’t want to hear it,” he continued, and I groped for a chair, to sit down.
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” Farley said.
Not Carruthers, then.
“We would like you to listen to it and tell us,” Officer Landsdown said, then looked at Jasmine. “Please send your children to their rooms. She has to hear this.”
“Fine.” Jasmine’s voice was cold, and she did not look at me as she went into the other room and herded her complaining children into one room, and slammed the door. She stayed with them. For a minute, I wanted to join them. But I couldn’t. I had to identify the voice on that tape.
Farley glanced at me sympathetically, then went down to the room where the children and Jasmine were hiding. He gave me one more look that I couldn’t read, then disappeared through the door. I was alone with the police.
“How bad is this?” I asked, hearing the quake of fear in my voice, and unable, unwilling to stop it.
“Bad enough,” Landsdown replied. “You ready?”
“Okay.”
He pressed the button, and the voice started. I knew who it was, of course. After the first three words. After that sing-songy “I see you!” I knew exactly who it was. Jerk Arnie. My ex-boyfriend. Unfortunately, it sounded like he’d made the quantum leap from stalkery jerk to full-fledged psycho.
“I know who it is,” I whispered, my mouth so dry I could barely speak. Landsdown made a move to shut off the voice, but I stopped him. I had to hear the whole thing. After all, he’d left it for me.
Jasmine had an old fashioned machine, one that didn’t stop after a few minutes. This one ran and ran and ran—and Arnie had used the whole thing to tell me in great detail exactly what he’d do to me if I didn’t come back to him. Not only what he’d do to me, but to anyone who helped me. I closed my eyes through that bit, thinking about Jasmine hiding in the other room, with her kids. What had I brought down on them?
After the voice finally stopped, Landsdown turned to me. “Who is that, Miss Jenner?”
“It’s Arnie Stillwell. We used to date, up in McMurray.”
“Have you had any contact with him lately?”
“I haven’t spoken to him since I got the restraining order,” I whispered. “But two days ago, he sent me flowers at the hospital.”
The officer’s eyebrow quirked. “Why were you in the hospital?”
“I was in that explosion. The Palais.”
“Hmm.” He jotted something down. “You’ve had a busy week.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I replied. I ran my fingers through my hair, wishing I could have a shower. I suddenly felt filthy, as though his words were all over my skin.
“He found me twice after I came to Edmonton. The last time, I got the restraining order. I thought he understood.”
“Understood what?”
“That I don’t want to see him again.”
Landsdown snorted. “Doesn’t sound like he got it,” he said.
Understatement of the year.
“So what do I do now?”
“We’d like you to come down to headquarters with us and answer a few more questions.”
I was about to say all right when the front door rang, and I jumped about a foot and a half straight up instead. As the other officer went to answer the door, I shakily glanced at the clock hanging on the wall above Jasmine’s fridge. It was seven o’clock. On the dot.
“That’s James Lavall,” I said. Landsdown stared at me. “We work together. We’re supposed to be going out for dinner.”
“You’re not going,” Landsdown replied.
I turned my head and watched James handle having a big, pissed off cop glower at him through the suddenly opened door. He did well, all things considered.
Marie:
Bringing James Up to Speed, Sort Of
“What is going on here?” James asked.
“Nothing,” I replied.
I don’t think he believed me. We were in the kitchen, where I’d dragged him after the police had finally decided to believe that he was, in actuality, James Lavall.
“Tell me right now,” he said, and grabbed both my hands in his. I knew without looking at him that the other James was back. The hard-eyed James who got things done.
You wouldn’t believe how much I wanted to tell him everything and let him look after me. So, of course, I acted like an ass.
“I’m not telling you anything, James. This has nothing to do with you.” I slapped his hands away from mine, and turned.
Jasmine was standing at the kitchen door, staring at us.
“Another of your men, Marie?” she asked. Her tone sounded sour, and I didn’t blame her. “Am I safe?”
“This is James Lavall,” I said. “You remember, I told you about him.”
“Oh.” Jasmine’s voice warmed appreciably. “So, this is James.” She held out her hand to him. “So nice to finally meet you. I was beginning to think she’d never take the plunge.”
James took her hand, and shook it. “The plunge?”
Before Jasmine could speak, or I could clap my hands over her mouth to keep her from speaking, he frowned. “What did you mean ‘am I safe’? What happened here?”
And then Jasmine spilled the beans.
“Please don’t,” I whispered.
“He needs to know this,” Jasmine said. “Why would you keep it a secret?”
Because it made me look like the biggest victim in the world, that’s why.
She wouldn’t stop, and James didn’t even look at me again as she told him everything she knew about Arnie Stillwell. Which was pretty much everything.
“I tried to get her to take one of those self-defence classes after the last time he messed with her, but she wouldn’t, would you?” she said. She looked at me and smiled brightly.
All I could do was stare at her, because I didn’t want to look at James. And for sure, I didn’t want to look
at Farley. He’d wandered in halfway through Jasmine’s explanation of my absolutely dismal love life, and had leaned against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed and a bemused expression on his face.
He was going to be an ass about this. I could just tell.
“And then he called here,” Jasmine said. “He was very threatening, wasn’t he, Marie?”
I grunted something close to affirmative. Why wouldn’t this stop?
Because Jasmine wasn’t finished. That’s why.
“So we called the police, didn’t we, Marie?”
I grunted again, wishing with all my might that all of this was over and I could go crawl in a hole in the back yard and become a hermit, or something.
“Now we’re going to give the little bastard what for, aren’t we, Marie?”
“Your kids are in the house,” I said weakly. Jasmine didn’t allow swearing in the house, even if the kids were not there. All she did was laugh.
“They’re still in my bedroom,” she replied. “And sometimes, it is important to use the proper word, even if it is a little bit naughty. Isn’t that right?”
“Fuckin’ eh,” Farley said, sourly. Though I desperately wanted to glare him into the ground, I couldn’t. No one was standing close to him, and I didn’t want either Jasmine or James to think I’d suddenly lost my mind on top of everything else, so I did the only thing I could do and I ignored the heck out of him.
“Because he is a bastard for what he’s done to you,” Jasmine continued, her smile disappearing. “This can’t continue. Something must be done.”
“Well, the police are here now,” I said, still sounding weak and victimy, but not knowing how to stop. “They’ll look after everything, so let’s just let it all go. Okay?”
“Nope,” James said. “That’s just not going to happen.”
Fantastic. Now he was going into knight in shining armour mode. I desperately tried to think of something—anything—I could say that would calm him down, but came up with nothing.