by Harry Kraus
He returned a smirk. “Can I help it if another blonde was sleeping in her bed?”
I gasped.
Jesse left us alone, and Linda moved her wheelchair to position herself between the bed and the door.
“What’s going on? Did he kill Yolanda? What business does my husband have here?”
Linda rolled her eyes and kept her voice just above a whisper. “You are naïve, aren’t you?”
I whispered back. “I don’t understand.”
“Listen,” she said as a pounding on the front door commenced. She pointed the gun at my face. “Lie down. Face down. And not another sound.”
I tried to hear the conversation between Jesse and Henry, but only heard muffled voices. Two minutes later, I heard Henry’s Triumph fire to life again. He was leaving me!
“Get up,” Linda hissed.
I sat, rubbing the back of my head and fighting a wave of nausea. “Jesse told me you were pretty.” She seemed to be staring at my face. “Girl, you’re flat gorgeous.”
I wasn’t sure it was a compliment. “How would Jesse have known anything about me? I’d never met him before today.”
“You’d never met him,” she said. “But he knows all about you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She smirked. “You wouldn’t. He told me you were self-absorbed.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I decided if I was going to get any helpful information, I might as well plunge straight ahead. “Is my husband helping your husband get drugs?”
“Maybe you’re not as naïve as you seem.”
“Is your husband blackmailing Henry? Henry wouldn’t do something like this on his own.”
The corner of her mouth teased upward. “And why not?”
I shrugged. “It’s wrong. Henry wouldn’t do it.”
“It’s wrong?” She forced a laugh. “As if you would know about that.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re in no position to judge my Jesse. He’s only looking out for me.”
“By selling drugs? Do you know how many lives he’s ruining?”
“Shut up,” she said. “You’re no better. In fact, you’re worse.”
“I’m not dealing drugs.”
“OK, so that’s not your particular sin. What about adultery?”
My mouth dropped open. “You know nothing about me.”
She cursed me. “I know all about Jack, Wendi,” she said, emphasizing my name.
What? Now I was completely baffled.
It must have shown on my expression, because Linda started to laugh. “I know you have a piano lesson every week and go sit at Starbucks for an hour together before Jack goes to his next lesson. You giggle,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You allow your hand to rest on his. You’re teasing him, aren’t you?” Her expression hardened. “Your daddy’s a preacher. You disgust me.”
I forced my mouth to close. “How do you know these things?”
“Jesse,” she said. “He’s observant.”
“He’s been following me?” I squinted at my captor. “Why?”
She offered a plastic smile. “He feels guilty.”
“I don’t get it.”
She glanced over her shoulder towards the door. “Jesse was driving drunk the night he wrapped our car around a telephone pole. He got out with bruises. I ended up paralyzed from the waist down.” She paused. “He blames your husband, ’cause he didn’t pick up the fracture and no one protected my spinal cord when I had a fractured back.”
“Sounds more like anger than guilt.”
“You don’t know my Jesse. He feels responsible for putting me in this chair. But he can’t admit it. His guilt just bubbles out as anger.” She paused. “And your husband just happens to be the natural target.”
“So why does he know so much about me?”
“Because he dreams of getting even, of making your husband suffer the same loss as he has had.” She shrugged as if it was a natural way to do business. “I suffered because of your husband. So he wants you to suffer.”
“He killed Yolanda Pate.”
“Was that the blonde in your bed? You’re quick.”
“He tried to kill me to get back at my husband?”
“Guilt makes you do all sorts of strange things.”
My mind tried to close around this new information.
Jesse tried to kill me?
If he knew all about my routine with Jack, and his truck was the one that was involved in the hit-and-run, did Jesse intentionally run into Jack’s car because he thought I would be with him? The way I’ d been every week for the last two months?
A growing dread gripped my gut. It’s really true, then. Jack’s accident was my fault.
The door opened. Jesse held a small box in his hand and a broad grin on his face. “Looks like Dr. Stratford and I are back on speaking terms.”
“What’s that?” Linda asked.
Jesse lifted a small clear vial from the box. “Something new. A narcotic about ten times the potency of morphine.”
I studied Linda for a moment. When I saw needle tracks in her arm, I began to understand her smile.
He opened the top drawer and removed a syringe.
“What are you doing?” Linda asked.
“Hey,” he said, “You don’t expect me to unleash this on UVa’s campus without trying it myself, do you?”
“Not yet. What about her?” She pointed the gun at me.
“Let her go. She won’t talk. We’ve got too much on her husband.”
“You’re insane,” Linda said. “She’ll sacrifice you, me, and Dr. Stratford without a second thought.”
He shook his head. “I promised Dr. Stratford that I would keep my hands off of her.”
“You told him she was here?”
“No!” Jesse stared at me. “It was when I visited him at his girlfriend’s place,” he said. He smiled, revealing a missing tooth right next to his front two top incisors. “He begged me to leave you alone. He said he wouldn’t cooperate unless I promised.” He laughed. “So I promised.”
“It’s too late for that,” she said. “Kill her. He’ll never know.”
Linda looked out the window again. “How’d you get here? Where’s your car?”
“Down the hill. Parked in the Exxon’s parking lot.”
“Give Jesse the keys.” She kept the pistol leveled at my chest.
Jesse began to protest, but Linda shook her head. “Just go get her car.”
“But Stratford will cut me off if he thinks we — ”
“So make it look like an accident.”
Jesse set down the little box of narcotics and nodded. He disappeared from the door only to return with a pair of handcuffs. “Hold out your hand!”
He forced my obedience and snapped the cuff around my right wrist and the other end around the metal bed frame.
With that, Jesse left the room and Linda followed. The door shut. I strained against the cuff and stared at its polished surface. It looked just like the ones that Chris Black carried. My mind raced ahead, and I wondered if the Anderses had friends within the PD that helped him do business.
I lay on the bed with my right hand above my head. If Henry is helping this jerk get narcotics, how does it work? How does Anders end up with prescriptions that Henry writes for other people?
Was this why the pill bottle was next to Yolanda Pate’s body — Jesse was sending Henry a message?
In the other room, I could hear Linda giving Jesse instructions. “Wear gloves. Don’t leave any prints in her car. You can drug her, and run her car into the reservoir up above Rebert’s Dam.”
God, help me. I stopped, my conscience assaulting me. God, do you really care enough to help me? Do you really love messed up people like me?
I sniffed, feeling helpless and afraid.
Yes, I felt like a hypocrite, but the urge to pray persisted. And that’s when I realized that I did believe. I believed God was there. I did believe, at least I wa
nted to believe, that he loved me. And just then, thinking I was going to die, I understood that I needed him in my life.
It’s not that I don’t believe in you, God. I do believe. It’s that I know I’m a disappointment to you. I know I’ve been a fake.
It was wrong of me to want to run away from you. What I really want is to stop feeling so guilty.
I thought about Jesse Anders. Has he destroyed his life because of guilt?
It’s ironic, huh, God? Both Jesse and I feel the same kind of guilt. He put his wife in a wheelchair driving drunk. I feel responsible for my mother’s condition.
Guilt had allowed Jesse to be manipulated by a bitter wife. Guilt had driven me into a plastic life that I hated.
Help me, God. I sniffed. Help me to believe.
I spent the next ten minutes alone, wondering if this was going to be my last hour. And that terrified me. I’d listened to enough of my father’s sermons to know that death was only the beginning, and I knew I wasn’t ready to meet God face to face. I had fences to mend. With Mom. With Dad. With Henry.
My prayers got shorter and more desperate. Please, God, I’m not ready!
When Jesse returned, I strained to hear their conversation through the closed door. It sounded as if I was going to get my first taste of illicit narcotic use, and not the good stuff that Henry had just delivered.
A minute later, Jesse appeared with what appeared to be a giant syringe. He emptied the entire thing into my thigh, right through my jeans, but not before I gave him a good kick in the chest and he dropped right down on top of me with his full body weight. I felt a sharp sting, then the sensation that my right leg was on fire.
Within a minute, my forehead started buzzing. My vision blurred. My eyelids felt as if they’d suddenly tripled in size. I felt warm. Euphoric.
Hey, this isn’t so bad.
I felt tired. So tired, like I hadn’t slept in a week and I just couldn’t resist. Goodbye, Henry. There’sss ssso much I would do differently ifff I only had. . .
By the time Henry got home, Rene had tried Wendi’s cell phone a dozen times. Rene was sitting at the kitchen table with her phone in her hand when Henry walked in.
“Is Wendi in the bedroom?” he asked.
“She’s not here. She’s been gone most of the day. Have you talked with her?”
“Only briefly. She came by the operating theatre.” He shook his head. “Can you believe she took my Triumph out?”
“I’m afraid for her, Henry. It’s like she’s on a mission to prove her innocence or something.”
“What?” Henry placed his helmet on the table and sat down. He seemed to be studying his hands or something.
Rene found herself wondering just where Henry’s hands had been that day. Inside a few bodies, most likely, she thought.
When he looked up, she could see fear in his eyes. “The police left messages at my office. They are looking for her. They wanted to know where she was.”
“What do we do?”
“Wendi will figure everything out. She always does,” he said. He stood and retrieved an imported beer from the refrigerator. “What’s for supper?”
Rene stood up and held up her hands in frustration. She put down her phone. “Have you been listening to me? Wendi has been missing all day. She isn’t answering her phone. She’s wanted by the police.”
“Have you called them? Maybe they have her.” He casually sipped from the green bottle.
“Aren’t you worried?”
He shook his head. “No.” He walked towards the back deck. “Wendi’s not guilty of anything,” he said, “except trusting me.”
Rene followed him onto the deck. “Henry, what’s going on? Talk to me.”
He sipped his beer and looked out over the wooded hill leading down to Route 29. He didn’t look at Rene when he answered. “Wendi is the best thing that ever happened to me. She rescued me when I was bound for a boring academic life.”
Rene touched his arm. “Henry, you should tell her. I think she’s forgotten how wonderful she is.”
He turned to face his sister-in-law. “The funny thing is, she’s so good at putting on a happy face, that she’s forgotten how beautiful she is without it.”
Henry tilted his head back and drained the bottle before heaving it off the deck into the woods.
Rene stepped back. “Henry!”
Henry walked back into the house, pausing as he passed her to rest his hand on her shoulder. “I’m off on an errand.”
Rene stood on the deck, confused by his demeanor, and equally concerned about his apparent lack of distress over Wendi’s disappearance.
He stopped at the front closet and put on his leather jacket. Then he left, helmet in hand, and whistling the theme to Rocky.
My first conscious thought was that I was already dead. I was in my casket. But it was cold, and there wasn’t any padding. My head hurt, and I had the vague sensation that I was floating. For a few moments, I collected my wits and lifted my hand into the darkness above me. I rubbed my wrists. The cuffs were gone. I was in a small area covered by stiff carpeting. The trunk of Henry’s Mercedes.
I listened to the road noise, aware of how much louder the ride was from the trunk. In another moment, I started repeating my desperation prayers. Please, God. I don’t want to die.
It occurred to me that Jesse Anders must be taking me to stage my own suicide. I’d heard his wife giving him instructions. If anyone is going to believe I drove into the reservoir, he’s going to have to take me out of the trunk. And that will be my chance to escape.
I felt the car turning and listened to the sound of gravel beneath the tires. He’s turned onto Reservoir Road. He’s heading up towards Rebert’s Dam.
We drove for another five minutes before Jesse slowed. Then I heard the crunch of gravel and felt the lurch of the car as it crawled forward over some sort of low barrier. A curb? Is there a curb bordering the water?
Then everything became still. The engine was still running. In a moment, I heard the clink of the electronic trunk release. I was just thinking that I should run when I heard Jesse’s voice and I froze, feigning unconsciousness.
“OK, Wendi. Time for you to drive.”
He pulled me into his arms and over his shoulder. My limbs felt clumsy and uncoordinated, so staying limp in his arms came naturally. He dropped me in the front seat and buckled my seatbelt. He didn’t bother to position my hands on the wheel. He merely threw the car into drive and slammed the door.
I opened my eyes to experience the last light of day. I had little time to react. I wanted to grab the wheel and try to steer back up the bank, but the water’s edge was rapidly approaching and the bank was too steep. The Mercedes picked up speed and rushed down the grassy slope, bouncing as the incline steepened. I flailed for the window control and tried one last prayer. Help!
I lunged forward as the front end of the Mercedes plunged into the water. Momentarily stunned, I realized the airbag had deployed. The car bobbed. We were floating! Water started pouring into my window. Cold water.
And then the car tilted, tipping forward. I took a deep breath and hoped Jesse Anders wouldn’t wait around long after the car disappeared. With my lungs full, I braced myself against the cold and felt my head slipping under the water.
CHAPTER 28
I squirmed through the open window into the cool water, swimming beneath the surface with strong kicks back towards the shore, but on a diagonal trajectory. I wanted the cover of the marsh grass, which grew just to the right of where the Mercedes had entered. When I thought my lungs would burst, I made two more strokes and closed my fist around wet cattails. I allowed my head to surface just so my eyes and nose were exposed. My breathing seemed to me a siren, so I tilted my head to allow my mouth above the surface, gulping air with abandon. Night was fast approaching, with the sun nestled well below the tall pines that rimmed the reservoir to the west. The air seemed to hang cool and close to my face, delivering a marshy fragrance that reminded
me of mold. I silently peered back to the location where the Mercedes had disappeared, swallowed by the murky water. A circle of light highlighted the appearance of a stream of bubbles. I stared back at the source of the light and saw only a bright spot that scanned from side to side, Jesse Anders, no doubt, scanning the surface to document my departure.
I sunk deeper into the reeds to hide from view. Anders watched from shore until the bubbling stopped, and then, apparently satisfied that I had drowned, turned his flashlight beam away and moved on.
It was only after Anders had moved on that I began to feel cold. Bone-chilling cold. But I was determined to stay hidden for a few minutes before exiting the water and figuring out my next step.
Inwardly, I felt strangely invigorated. Alive. Grateful. I had called out to God and he had answered me. “Thank you, Father,” I whispered. “Thank you.”
Henry downshifted the Triumph and leaned low through a sweeping left turn, before rolling on the throttle and watching his headlight dance across the guardrail posts. A right turn followed. He rolled with the cycle, enjoying a new sense of freedom. Careful, he chided himself, everything has to go according to the plan.
Just a few more miles.
Henry lifted his left hand and felt in the pocket of his leather jacket, closing his hand around a small pocket watch. “Wendi,” he whispered into his full-face helmet, “I love you.”
He slowed and loosened the helmet strap.
He passed a yellow sign bearing a black U-shaped arrow, a warning to slow down.
Henry took a deep breath and twisted the throttle, rocketing the cycle onward into the night.
Jesse Anders waved his flashlight towards the oncoming headlights of his wife’s van. The vehicle pulled to a stop beside him as the driver’s window lowered. His wife wasn’t smiling. “Get in,” she said.
“It’s done,” he said. “What took you so long?”
“Shut up,” she said. “I knew you’d feel like celebrating, so I prepared a sample of Dr. Stratford’s newest.” She tossed a small paper bag towards her husband as he climbed into the captain’s chair beside her.