DONE GONE WRONG

by Cathy Pickens

  I kept hearing the larger-than-life voice of the ex-FBI guy who had taught me self-defense: never leave the first crime scene. Never let the perp take you to the second crime scene. Chances are, you’re dead if you do.

  The FBI guy’s other advice—run, scream, fall down in a faint, fight back—didn’t seem workable in this case. Demarcos wasn’t going to run away in search of an easier victim. There was nothing random about this.

  “Though you probably won’t find my company as entertaining as your houseguest last night—” He stopped to look both ways before crossing the narrow street.

  No cars appeared on the little-used side street at this early hour, but Demarcos clutched my arm and froze, staring down the sidewalk. A shabby group of men emerged from an alleyway twenty feet to our right. Four guys shambled toward us, surprisingly regimented considering the early hour and their apparent state of uncoordination.

  “Good morning, fair lady.” The self-appointed leader doffed his horn of plenty hat. The scavenger I’d met behind the hospital a few days ago.

  The one immediately behind him, dressed in grimy green fatigues and a beret, didn’t hear the unspoken command to halt and he marched vigorously into the leader’s bent-over backside. Curses, stumbling, and a few smacks with the horn-of -plenty and the beret were exchanged before everyone righted themselves and order was restored.

  “Good morning,” I said. Demarcos dented my ribs with the gun muzzle.

  “And to you, sir,” the ever polite troop leader nodded curtly. His eyes, a startling crystal blue, seemed to see through whatever he looked at.

  “Come on.” Demarcos spoke low and close to my ear.

  I turned to the peculiar crowd on the sidewalk as Demarcos strong-armed me into the street. I held Horn of Plenty’s gaze and mouthed the words Help me, please help me, as plainly as I could. I didn’t dare break and run. Demarcos was scared and unpredictable, and I didn’t know how these four would respond or how much help they would be facing a gun.

  Horn-hat man drew himself up straight, but he didn’t make a move. The swaying threesome behind him didn’t seem to notice. Demarcos and I disappeared behind the shrub-covered wall that surrounded the back path to one of the Barnard hospital buildings.

  Demarcos held me tighter than any lover would in a street embrace. The smell of stale coffee on his breath and the acrid odor of his fear made me queasy.

  The alleyway, overgrown with shrubbery, ran between two brick walls. Except for distant traffic sounds, we easily could have been miles from town.

  The crumbling back entrance of the building—which building, I didn’t know—had suffered the ravages of an ivy coating. Beside die door knob, a red light smaller than the end of my finger blinked at us. Demarcos fumbled for the card that unlocked the door and pulled it shut behind us.

  I knew better than to hope someone waiting inside could help me. I wasn’t sure how panicked I should be. A gun was serious. But, after all, not too much had been said so far, nothing irretrievably confessed.

  Demarcos led me down a dim hall filled with pungent Charleston basement smells. The hallway dead-ended in a brightly lit corridor that echoed with the throb of engines or air compressors.

  Demarcos, by firmly placing his hand in the small of my back, indicated that I should enter the door in front of us. That gentlemanly, proprietary gesture I’d always enjoyed from men would never be the same again.

  The room held an office furniture graveyard—a scarred metal desk, one wooden chair, a rusty metal folding chair, and a dented, green filing cabinet with one drawer sprung out about two inches.

  “Do you mind telling me what all that show was about?” I aimed for a blend of righteous indignation and playfulness. “What’s this about some guy from Atlanta following me? Just let me in on the joke so we can both laugh.”

  If I hadn’t been watching him closely, I doubt I would’ve noticed. But, on close inspection, he seemed to vibrate from some unseen current, as if pulled into the engine noises echoing through the building.

  “If this is some prank over me wanting to see Tunisia’s record, okay. Just let me in on it. Now that her body’s been discovered, her family is probably satisfied. They’re not the kind of people who will ask a lot of questions or think about suing. The whole thing’s moot.”

  “Sit down and shut up.”

  The gun pointed. His hand trembled.

  “Dr. Demarcos, I really don’t understand. But I’ll be leaving now. Maybe we can talk more later, after you’ve—”

  “Sit down, dammit.” He shoved me into the wooden desk chair so hard it rolled backward. My head smacked into the wall.

  “I don’t understand.” He mimicked me with a high-pitched, prissy tone. “Dammit Do you think I’m stupid? Mark Tilman might have been stupid. I can assure you, I am not”

  His voice got louder and more agitated. The mental ward lockdown upstairs held saner people.

  “Tunisia Johnson was nothing but a two-bit street whore. If we hadn’t cleaned her up, helped her off the street, she would have been dead a lot sooner. You’re going to tell me I should turn over a fortune, what I’ve worked my entire professional life for, because some whore has high blood pressure? I don’t think so.” He clipped those last words.

  I’d seen the need to confess compel stupid confessions. Despite my attempts to offer him a graceful exit, he would tell me all about it whether I wanted to know or not.

  “Everything’s going just fine. The study results are moving as we expected. Then that bitch shows up with her damned headaches. We were so close to a deal, and Hilliard had to screw it up. If he’d done something more when she first came in. But no, he missed it, then tried to keep it quiet.”

  Demarcos rubbed his forehead and leaned against the desk, facing me. In a room this small, our knees almost touched.

  “I thought Hilliard had taken care of it. Dropped her from the study. By the time I saw her, she was too far along. Can you believe it? I’m in my office, talking to Pendleton Rabb’s damned lawyer, negotiating with that son of a bitch.

  “Rabb’s lawyer is playing hardball—wants to delay the agreement until he checks a few more things,” he mimicked mincingly. “And what happens? Hilliard comes into my office looking like Mount St. Helens just erupted in the parking lot. The bitch died. Right in his office. Can you believe it?”

  Demarcos gesticulated with both his gun and his empty hand.

  “She came into his office for an appointment and died. Right there. While I’m negotiating a deal that’ll fix me and Howard for life, she dies. Right there in his office.” He shook his head, still unable to believe the unfairness of life.

  “So what were we to do? I ask you. We can’t have this go on any official record and queer the deal. We’re talking a lot at stake here.”

  His voice trailed off. Was he trying to convince himself or me?

  “When the first glitches showed up, we knew it was something we could correct. More to do with the population we must resort to using here than anything else. We could have corrected the problem in our protocols for later trials. But the big fish had already bitten and we didn’t have much time to reel him in. Pendleton Rabb wanted a new contraceptive so bad he could taste it. He needed it. Something that would be successful, profitable. Something his dad and granddad hadn’t developed, that was just his, to make his mark. He was ripe.”

  Demarcos pinched his fingers across his upper Up, then wiped his hand down his pants leg. I sat quietly and let him rant.

  “We only had to patch things together until Rabb signed on the dotted line. Of course, the FDA would be another hurdle, but we could fix that. Then she dies. Right there in Hilliard’s office. How, I ask you, can somebody have such luck?

  “Hilliard went apeshit. He comes squawking into my office, asking if we should call the police. Can you imagine?”

  He quit talking. The rest of the story must be too awkward to repeat aloud.

  I gently prompted him. “What did you do?”
/>
  He kept staring at the wall, as if I wasn’t there. “Stored her in the morgue. She only had to chill for a few days, until everything finalized and Rabb signed. Just a few days.

  “We got a call a week later. Rabb agreed to our terms and would fax us the signed contract. We decided to move that night. We couldn’t keep her hidden in the morgue icebox forever. So we moved her, figuring her history would ensure that no one asked too many questions or got too many answers.

  “We moved her into this very room, waited until the coast was clear, then rolled her out to the parking lot and into a borrowed wagon. With the college kids and their stunts, we figured no one would pay much attention.

  “Then, wouldn’t you know. Those assholes call the very next morning to change their tune. No faxed contract Rather than a lump-sum payment and royalties, they pick that day to start talking about an equity position, stock options. Hell. I’m a doctor. I’m not even supposed to know what an equity position is, much less be offered one, part ownership in a drug that should be worth millions.”

  He sighed deeply. “It was too late to do anything about the body. All we could do was wait and hope it wasn’t discovered too quickly. I’ve been sick since we got that phone call. A lump sum would’ve been better, don’t you think? I can’t help but think if this thing blows up, stock options won’t be worth much. What’s the use of sharing profits on something no one’s going to be able to buy?”

  “I don’t know, Demarcos. Things don’t look all that bad. After all, what have you really done? It’s not as though you killed her.” You sorry son of a bitch. “You weren’t covering up a murder or anything. Any malpractice claim would be a civil case, not a criminal one. Your malpractice carrier would take care of that, and your premiums won’t even go up.

  “The prosecutor in Charleston has better sense than to take on a couple of Barnard Medical’s golden-haired boys over some silly misdemeanor offense for moving the body. So what’s your problem? Nothing a good lawyer can’t get you out of.”

  I tried my best salacious shark grin, but it lost most of its effect when Langley Hilliard burst through the door.

  29

  THURSDAY MORNING

  Langley Hilliard insinuated himself between me and De-marcos, crowding the small room even more.

  “Good gawd almighty, I’d hoped it was some sort of juvenile prank. Have you lost your mind?” Langley Hilliard raved. “You call me at the crack of dawn, saying you’ve got a lawyer to dispose of? Have you lost it, you little asshole?”

  In the small room, Demarcos and I couldn’t do much except turn away from the random spittle drops that flew from his lips.

  “Dr. Hilliard.” I tried to put that schoolmarm bark in my voice, the one my mother uses so adeptly. He shut up. “I was just telling Dr. Demarcos that your investment doesn’t look as much at risk as you might have thought. With some quick work, we can probably put together a good defensive position—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” He whirled on me, sputtering. His pupils dilated and I could feel the heat his skin radiated. “Defensive position? What the hell, a defensive position? What kind of defensive position do you suggest for murder?”

  “Langley.” Demarcos cautioned. “Langley. We’ve just been talking about Tunisia, about—”

  “That whore. I suppose you know they’ve found her. She’s only been there two days. Nowhere near long enough. They’ll be asking questions.”

  “Langley—”

  “—just like that little asshole resident.”

  For a moment, the room fell silent, as if we had sucked all the air out of the room and left nothing to carry sound.

  “Langley. Shut the hell up.”

  The sharpness of his tone took some of the wind out of Hilliard but didn’t shut him up. He turned to me, his back still to the door.

  “He just asked too many questions.”

  Mark Tilman. The shiny petulance in Hilliard’s voice, their self-absorbed focus on their inconvenience over Tunisia’s death made the bile boil up the back of my throat.

  Demarcos and I had politely avoided mentioning Mark until Hilliard uncorked the bottle. Now none of us could neutralize it.

  “If he’d just known his place. Imagine, a resident with such impertinent questions. We simply had no choice. Perhaps, though,” he ran a hand over his silver hair, smoothing the strands that had shaken loose, “if those men you hired had done their job more competently, the questions would have ended there. As they should have.”

  “You supercilious fart,” Demarcos exploded. “How dare you?”

  Hilliard’s expression was one of a schoolmaster who’d just been hit in the eye with a spitball.

  “Hilliard, you’ve screwed this deal every which way. About the time I get one of your screwups under control, you stick your wrinkled prick into another one. Don’t look at me like that, you pathetic old fool. The only reason I had you anywhere near this project was your name, your connections. Connections. Ha.”

  Demarcos’s derision was bitter and humorless. “The only thing you’ve connected us with is the gas chamber. Or is it the electric chair in this unenlightened, backwater state?”

  Howard pushed against my knees as he tried to get away from the venom in Demarcos’s face, forcing my chair a little tighter into the comer. Demarcos pinned him against the filing cabinet.

  “You killed that whore by ignoring an impending stroke. Good gahdamighty. How stupid. Then your shifty-eyed evasions when Tilman came asking questions just made him ask more questions. I handled that the only way I could. Now you still can’t keep your damned mouth shut. How can anybody—”

  “Don’t yell at me, young man. You called me this morning, said somebody was asking too many questions, for me to get over here. How am I the one to blame for not keeping quiet? I guess now you plan to call those same two ne’er-do-wells you had ‘take care’ of the Tilman problem. They burned an entire house down to get rid of a stupid notebook. They certainly didn’t prove effective with her the last time,” he gestured at me, “or we wouldn’t be here now, would we?”

  The stuffy little room grew very cold.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Blaine. Just what makes you think you can trust those two hoodlums? I have a sneaky suspicion that, about the time we think things are settled, those two will be back to haunt us.”

  “Shut up, you senile old bastard. I’m not the one who screws up everything he touches. They can be trusted. Money doesn’t satisfy someone nearly as much as keeping them alive does.” Demarcos looked pleased with himself. “You’re the one who’d be stupid enough to pay somebody, expecting that would keep him quiet. No, I offered him his sister’s life. And his own death, if he ever breathed a word. Reward and punishment. Life and death. Most beings, even those of limited intelligence, respond to that.”

  Like the Blaine Demarcos I’d met at the hospital a few days ago, he was smooth, in control.

  “But you’re right. We can’t risk another botch-up. Hilliard, go check down at the end of the hall. Make sure everything’s clear.”

  Surprisingly, Hilliard complied. He peeked into the hall before slipping out, the door clicking shut behind him.

  After Howard left, Demarcos’s smile made me more nervous than his gun. He’d settled on something since Howard had arrived. That smile, his relaxed sureness, said I wasn’t going to like whatever he’d decided. He studied me closely. And smiled.

  “Hemp’s sister, the one who raised him, is by my good graces enrolled in a promising new breast cancer study. I have his picture, taken with Tunisia Johnson’s body all trussed up in the abandoned building where she was discovered. And,” his grin broadened, “he thinks my name is Langley Hilliard.”

  On cue, Hilliard opened the door and joined us again.

  “Langley, we’ll need to take care of this one ourselves. I called you so you could stay with her while I make arrangements. Use this if you have to, Langley. Remember, your life depends on it.”

&nb
sp; Demarcos could have been guiding a med student through a routine procedure, for all the emotion in his voice as he handed Hilliard the pistol. The short, fourinch barrel would provide plenty of accuracy in this small space, even with Hilliard’s shaky reluctance.

  Demarcos favored me with another smile. He was betting I couldn’t convince Hilliard that he was being set up. Another of his games, to prove he was smarter than the rest of us.

  The door closed behind him.

  Did I have time to persuade Hilliard? Or only enough time to make him happy to help Demarcos off me.

  “Hilliard, he’s setting you up. He—”

  The door burst open and slammed against the wall, knocking Hilliard aside. The sound that followed seared through my head. A gunshot. The pain pulsed so intensely that, for a second, I thought I’d been shot through both ears.

  Hilliard, disconcerted by the strange sight at the door, didn’t seem to realize he’d accidentally fired his own gun.

  “There you are, dear lady. In the future, if you seek assistance, it would be wise to make sure that assistance can find you.” His horn of plenty at a rakish angle, the crystal-eyed leader of the scavengers posed in the doorway.

  Behind him, Blaine Demarcos looked more startled than anyone. A strapping fellow in smelly fatigues held him immobilized in a deadlock while the guy with the beard grasped his arm with one hand and a hypodermic syringe with the other. Demarcos’s eyes bulged and he made slurping sounds at the back of his throat.

  I slipped the pistol easily from Howard’s shell-shocked grasp.

  “By the time we had a plan of attack, you’d disappeared into a locked building. Next time, just a wee bit of assistance from you—more specifically, leaving the door unlocked—would expedite the mission.

  “We followed your trigger-happy captor there in. He obliged us by being much less careful with the door. Stephen here grabbed it quick. Good work, my man.” He patted Stephen expansively on the shoulder. Stephen’s beard, a full, luxurious thatch of wiry red, quivered proudly.