“I found us a way out of this mess. That’s what I’m telling you. Just listen to me. Trust me. I have a plan.
“Well, you better have,” Jeff said. “Because otherwise we’re screwed.”
He listened as she went over it— she would become Jade, her look-a-like, and Jeff would become anonymous. After a minute, Jeff signed, then said, “So you want me to come down there, kill them both. Just like that.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s our only hope.”
The trip down had been uneventful until Jeff found the tracking device. After Pittsburgh, there had been long stretches especially in the rolling hills of West Virginia, without any cars on the road, either in front of him or behind, making him feel confident that he wasn’t being tailed. But there was something too easy about it that kept nagging at him. Then the idea struck him while leaving a rest area that someone could easily have attached one of those GPS tracking devices to his car. Jeff stopped at the very next exit, pulled into a gas station, and quickly found the device attached under the passenger side front wheel well.
“Bastards,” Jeff said to himself as he pulled the tiny, inconspicuous thing off and tossed it far into a field behind the gas station. He quickly got in his car and took off.
During the whole ride down, Jeff had rehearsed killing Jerry and his girl by various methods. He decided that the best way to do so was for him to hide in the bathroom of Holly’s cheap motel room and surprise Jerry upon his inevitable arrival to visit Holly. He’d brought a thick steel wire and read up on the Internet how to quickly use it to strangle someone, like those Mafia guys do. After killing Jerry, he’d drive over to Jade’s place and strangle her the same way. Disposing of the bodies would be the next trick. He’d have to quickly find a decent swamp out in the boonies and dump the bodies.
No one would be looking for Jeff, and as for Jade, Holly had said they looked like twins and she could easily take her place, become Jade. She’d driven off with Jerry, an anonymous man, intent to serve his as a front. And Jerry had told Holly that Jade had no family. Except for him, she was essentially alone in the world. Thus, their situation played perfectly into their hands.
But thinking all that made him sour and sick. His murder toll would be up to three. And though each of his victims had major flaws, so did he. Killing the body guy had not really bothered him. He had lost no sleep, had no nightmares. Still, it worried him every now and then that someday he’d pay for what he had done. Hell or whatever. Then again, maybe not.
Chapter Forty-Six
Before Jerry went to talk to Holly, he took a nap to clear his head. When he awoke, he yawned for a time on the edge of the bed, stretched his arms out before finally ambling out of the bedroom into the living room. He was surprised that it was daylight. He had slept all night, about ten hours or so. But no wonder. It had been a long last couple of days.
Jade was out on the pool deck having a cup of coffee and reading the Orlando Sentinel on her lounge chair. Jerry watched her for a time through the sliding glass doors leading from the living room to the pool deck as she squinted at whatever article she was reading, so interested and involved in it. Jade was certainly no dummy.
Jade looked up from the paper and saw Jerry standing in the living room staring at her. Jade quickly came inside and went to him.
“You’re finally up, sleepy head,” she said as she kissed his neck. “Want some breakfast?”
He took a deep breath and held her close. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m starved. What time is it?” “After eight,” she said.
She fixed him scrambled eggs, bacon and toast and brewed a cup of coffee. He ate next to her at the kitchen table.
“Why so quiet?” she asked.
Jerry put down his fork and told Jade he still intended to see Holly.
Jade sat back and seemed drained of all resolve, hopeless.
“You won’t come back,” she said. “You’ll see her and you’ll change your mind.”
He reached over and clutched her hand.
“No,” he told her with certainty in his voice. “Well, go then,” she said. “Get it over with.”
“I’m coming back.”
She nodded briefly then asked him where she was, what hotel.
“Why?”
“I just want to know,” she said. “So in case you don’t come back, I got a starting point where I can come look for you. Because if you betray me again, don’t think I won’t come after you, take my revenge.”
He almost laughed at that but held it inside. It thrilled him that she said that, proving again that she truly loved him.
Jerry told her the place and she said, “That shithole.”
“Well, what did you expect?” he asked. “Gaylord Palms?” Then, he said, “Give me an hour, If I’m not back by then, you can come after me, ring my neck.”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
Jade got up and took her plate and his over to the sink and started washing them.
“One hour,” she repeated.
Jerry felt he had made a big mistake telling Jade the name of the hotel where Holly was at.
“You stay away from there,” he warned. “I’ll give her the money to rent a car and back she goes up to Buffalo. It’s either that, or I blow her into the police. I tell her it just wasn’t going to work out. I tell her, I love you. She can make up a story about needing to get away, tell them doesn’t the fact that she came back show them good faith. Then she testifies against Jeff in a month, and they both go to jail. Out of our hair. Forever.”
“I hope,” Jade said. “I never met that bitch, but I don’t trust her, and you shouldn’t either.”
“Look,” he said, pulling Jade into his arms. “I can handle this. I can handle her.”
Jade nodded sheepishly and broke free of him. “Go then,” she said. “Get it over with.”
He left the house and drove the twenty-minute ride to Holly’s room. She opened the door with a wide smile.
“I didn’t think you were ever coming back,” she said with a hug and pulled him into the room. The door shut out the bright glare from the afternoon and for the moment, Jerry was blind. The next thing Jerry knew, Holly had him in her arms and was kissing him.
“Geez, Holly,” he said, in between kisses. “Let me catch my breath.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, Jerry saw something, a blur. There was someone else in the room, a presence. He strained to look that way, toward it, but Holly had turned him around and kept holding and kissing him. And then someone was on him, wrapping a string, a wire, around his neck. The sharp wire hurt as it sliced into his skin and a narrow line of blood oozed out.
Holly let go of Jerry and stumbled away. “Do it,” she said to whoever was behind him.
Jerry stumbled forward, but as the wire tightened, he fell backward with it boring into him. Panicking, Jerry jumped backward and the force somehow pushed him and the figure using the wire onto the edge of the bed. They almost fell off together onto the floor, but Jerry pushed harder and was on top of the guy. Under him, the figure grunted and huffed, and now Jerry knew it was Jeff.
Jade had left the house not five minutes after Jerry and had driven over to Holly’s motel. She had taken the pistol with her that Jerry had bought a few months back from her cousin as protection for them. “We need a gun,” he had told her. “Just in case.” Best thing was it was untraceable. “It’s just like me,” Jerry added. “Anonymous.” And despite her initial skepticism and fear of the thing, Jade had taken some shooting lessons with Jerry. Now, she traveled everywhere with that pistol.
It was Jade’s intention to find a spot in the lot near Holly’s room and watch, see how long Jerry took to tell Holly what was what. If he lingered too long, she’d confront the situation head on. She’d go in and meet Holly if for no other reason than to slap the heartless bitch across her face.
Jade saw the Corolla parked in a space in the small lot in front of the motel and pulled into a spot next to it and waited. After a few
minutes, she couldn’t wait any longer. Something told her that she needed to get to that room and look Holly, and Jerry for that matter, straight in the eyes.
Stepping out of the car, she immediately heard some muffled sounds of distress, an altercation or something, voices and grunts, coming from somewhere on the ground floor of the motel. Holly was in Room 117, facing the parking lot about half-way along the side façade of the motel. Jade squinted momentarily then hurried her gait after finally realizing that the commotion, a struggle of some kind, might indeed be coming from Holly’s room. Reaching the door, she listened for a moment. There was a gurgling noise and a woman’s voice saying, “Finish him.”
“Hold him down,” said a man’s voice. It wasn’t Jerry.
Jade knew Jerry was in bad trouble. She took the pistol out of her handbag, stepped back, and pointed it toward the card-lock mechanism on the door. Jade had no idea what would happen when she shot, but there seemed nothing else she could do. So she shot. The bullet ripped into the lock and exploded, miraculously destroying it. She raised her foot and kicked open the door. It swung wide revealing a bizarre scene inside. Jerry was face up on the bed being strangled by a guy beneath him. A woman who looked incredibly like herself— Holly, no doubt—was standing at the corner of the bed, her face red, enraged. The guy under Jerry, squeezing piano wire around his neck, had to be the famous Jeff Flaherty.
Jade pointed the pistol at Flaherty as the gurgling emanating from somewhere deep in Jerry’s throat had reached the ultimate panic stage.
“Take your fucking hands off him.”
By now, a Puerto Rican housekeeper had stepped out of a laundry room next to the lobby and was squinting in the general direction of the commotion. No doubt in this place she had seen quite a lot of weird shit, but gunfire was gunfire.
“Do it, motherfucker,” Jade shouted. “Take your motherfucking hands off him.”
His eyes wide, bulging, Jeff eased off the piano wire a bit and looked over at Jade with a dumbfounded expression.
“Now, motherfucker!” Jade shrieked. “You got three more seconds.”
Jeff released the wire and Jerry fell sideways onto the floor next to him, gasping for air.
“Get your ass away from him,” Jade barked at Jeff. “Go over by that skank. And you make one move toward me, I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
Jerry was coughing on the bed, crumpled over. There was blood oozing out of the string marks on his neck.
“Go, mother fucker,” Jade shouted.
Finally, Jeff rolled off the bed and stood next to Holly. “Get back against the wall,” she said. “Now.”
They stepped slowly back. “Jerry,” Jade called.
She got worried when he just laid there, spitting blood, and she thought for a moment to just shoot Holly and Jeff and carry him out of there and make a run for it. A couple more housekeepers had stepped gingerly toward the open door where the commotion had been and were milling about ten yards from the lobby door peering down the way toward Room 117. A guest joined them and asked what all the noise was. Had a gun gone off?
“Jerry!”
Jerry finally stirred. He rolled off the bed and wobbling, came over to Jade. Now Jade saw that his neck was bleeding bad where the wire had cut in. Somehow, he found the strength to hobble over to where Jeff was standing and throw a wild haymaker that cut across the left side of his face. Jeff fell to the floor landing on his ass. Jerry then walked over to Holly.
“Mother-fucking bitch!” he said in a hoarse, barely audible voice. Then he reached back and slugged her straight in the nose. She fell backward with a groan and with her lying there before him, he kicked her in the stomach.
“Let’s go, Jerry,” Jade said with a measure of urgency. “We gotta go.”
Jerry looked down at Holly’s bloody face and smiled. Next to her, Jeff lay still. He could be faking it but Jerry’s hand hurt bad.
“C’mon, Jerry,” Jade pleaded.
Jerry looked at her in the doorway, nodded, then stumbled toward her. Arm in arm they trotted over to Jerry's car.
“Your keys,” she ordered, looking back over a shoulder. “What about your car? We can't leave it.”
“It's registered to that LLC, Anonymity. I'll come back to get it later.”
He nodded and fell into her. She held him up and got him around to the passenger side, opened the door and slid him in. Making her way over to the other side, she saw blood on her shirt from Jerry’s neck wound.
Now the housekeepers, a clerk from inside the motel and a couple guests edged forward toward the scene. Jade found that she was still holding the pistol. She lifted and pointed it at them as they approached.
“Look the other way, mother-fuckers,” she yelled. The lead guy among them stopped in his tracks and looked down at the ground.
She got in and started the car.
“C'mon Jerry, stay with me,” she pleaded.
“I’ll be okay,” Jerry said, his voice hoarse, a forced whisper.
Then, he looked up at her. “I’m so sorry.”
“I love you, Jerry.”
She drove out of the parking lot, hoping that no Joe Citizen had been sharp enough to have caught the license plate number.
By then sirens were screaming from somewhere, moving toward the motel. Jade prayed that fugitive warrants had been issued out of New York for Holly and Jeff.
She looked over at Jerry, who had finally passed out. She considered momentarily taking him to an emergency room but knew that would result in a host of problems. She had learned some things surviving alone on the road and cleaning out bad wounds was one of them. She’d clean it out and bandage it and make sure he settled down and didn’t end up going into shock. Luckily, the ride back to their house should only take fifteen, twenty minutes. “Well, looks like you’ll get your revenge after all,” she said to Jerry as she drove as fast as she could back to their house.
Jerry stirred and moaned as if he heard that.
Chapter Forty-Seven
“I still don’t get it,” Chief Reynolds said. He put Fox’s report down on his desk. “I just don’t get it.”
“They were caught down in Florida,” Fox said. “In Kissimmee. Flaherty went down to meet up with her. Then, a drug deal or something went bad, and there was a fight or something in her room.” Fox sighed. “I think it has something to do with that other guy, the one who lied to me that his name was Alan Gordon.”
“Jesus Christ, Jack,” said the Chief. “Nothing fits in this case.”
“Yeah, I know,” Fox said. “I don’t get it either.” He shook his head. “And do you know what Flaherty told the cops? That the insured, Jerry Shaw, isn’t really dead. That they faked the murder to collect the insurance money.”
“You don’t think he’s telling the truth, do you? That Jerry Shaw— that maybe that Alan Gordon imposter was really–”
“Jerry Shaw?” Fox sighed. “Yeah, I thought of that. But when I looked up some photos of Shaw, this guy looked nothing like him. Shaw was fat, jowly. This mysterious Gordon guy, or whatever his name is, was thin, built. A few years younger, I think, than Shaw.
“And Inspector Miller said the DA’s not buying the story anyway. Holly Shaw isn’t backing him up. Despite what she did, becoming a fugitive and all, she’s still getting her plea. But for sure she’s going away for at least seven years. And anyway, no way they’re gonna change a murder charge to insurance fraud and grand larceny. Miller says they think Flaherty is reaching for straws because it’s the only way to beat the rap. There’s no way to independently prove what he says. The body they burned has turned to dust. No way to extract DNA from it.”
After a moment, Chief Reynolds eyes lit up.
“What about all that blood that was in the room?” he asked. “The motel room? The cops said there was a lot of blood. And didn’t Flaherty say he had cut Jerry Shaw in the fight he had with him in there before Shaw knocked him out and broke Holly’s nose?”
Fox shook his head.
“No one suspected anything like that back then,” he said. “So after they took Flaherty and Shaw in, housekeeping cleaned up the room. Washed everything they could, threw the rest out.”
“Shit,” said the Chief, shaking his head, thinking of another way to confirm Flaherty’s claim.
“What about the Flaherty’s story, though— about where they got the body. From the medical school.”
“They never reported a missing cadaver,” he told Chief Reynolds. “Miller checked that, first thing. Every last body the students cut up in the last ten years has been accounted for.” Fox sighed. “But there was one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“One of the school’s anatomical preparators–”
“Their what?”
“Well,” laughed Fox, “let’s just call him a body guy. You know, the guy whose job it is to take care of the cadavers donated for dissection— one of those guys was murdered a few weeks after Jerry Shaw’s death. Name was Willie Robinson. Stabbed not a couple blocks from his home, in well, a kind of dangerous neighborhood.”
“What’s that got to do–?”
“I know,” said Fox. “Nothing. Just another odd quirk is all.” Chief Reynolds nodded, looked away.
“Well, that’s it then,” he said. “They try Flaherty for murder, and with Holly Shaw’s help, it looks like a lock. Flaherty will be spending the rest of his life in jail. And Global’s money? That Shaw woman still claim she doesn’t know where it is?”
“Yeah,” said Fox, “unfortunately, she’s sticking to that. And like I said, the DA doesn’t seem to care much about pursuing that issue, or make it a condition of the plea.”
They fell silent for a time, both trying to fathom what the facts showed. Because something bothered each of them about this case.
“So you don’t believe him?” Chief Reynolds asked from out of nowhere.
“Who?”
“Flaherty. That Jerry Shaw is still alive.”
“Only one way to prove that,” said Fox.
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