Blood in the Water

by Michael Prescott

  Having stopped off at her office to retrieve the bootleg copy of Maguire’s file, she could easily look up the contact details for Mr. Samuelson, gun store proprietor in Buckington, Ohio, the witness who was scheduled to be deposed today about the little blond girl he’d encountered in his parking lot thirteen years ago.

  What she wanted was his cell number. Happily, one was provided. She called, using one of the untraceable throwaway phones that still remained in the floor trap.

  After six rings a grumpy voice answered. “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Samuelson?”

  “Who the hell is this? Why are you calling me so fucking early?”

  “I’m sending you a video, Mr. Samuelson. It’ll show up on your phone in a second. You need to look at it.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “It’s about what happens to people who make trouble for little blond girls.”

  She forwarded the video, ended the call, and destroyed the phone.

  He would watch. Anybody would. What he would see was forty seconds of black-and-white infrared footage, handheld but not too unsteady. It began as the camera tracked from one gunshot victim to another, three in all, scattered on bloody concrete. Two of the men were dead, and the third died on camera with a bullet fired into his brain.

  The camera blurred across yards of empty flooring, through a doorway, into a confined space that might have been an office or store room. There was a break in the video, and when it started up again, something was happening in that room, something bad. It took the camera a moment to zero in on the action and hold focus. Then all was clear.

  A man lay sprawled in the corner with a steel cage jammed over his face, wedged in place like a catcher’s mask. He writhed and thrashed, and with one hand he stabbed furiously at the cage with a knife, slashing at the thing inside, sometimes cutting his own face when his aim was off. His other hand was a ruined thing, no more useful than a club; he batted it blindly against the bars, fighting to dislodge the cage from his head. He was screaming.

  And inside the cage, a rat was squeaking and clawing and biting, driven to frenzy by the smell of blood and the bite of the knife.

  No one could identify the man from the video alone. What could be seen of his face was a horror show of torn flesh and eyeless sockets and a tongueless mouth gargling blood. To those whose minds ran in such a direction, he might have appeared reminiscent of Santa Muerte, the skeleton saint with the face of a leering skull.

  The camera held this image in close-up for several long seconds as the screams went on and on. Then the video ended.

  Bonnie hoped Mr. Samuelson would enjoy the show.

  It was possible, of course, that sending him the video would backfire. Instead of being properly intimidated, he could choose defiance. He could turn it over to the authorities, implicating her in the warehouse action, which the newsreaders on the radio were already calling the Jersey City Massacre.

  But he wouldn’t do that. She knew people. She remembered the fear on his face when she’d pointed the gun at him. He had been afraid of her then, and he would be afraid of her now.

  Next came cleanup. She dumped the photocopied file into a metal wastebasket and ignited it with her cigarette lighter, then watched the papers curl and crinkle and burn. She erased the video from her phone, her hard drive, and the camera’s digital tape. Finally, she shed her clothes and took a long shower. The hot water gave out after the first two minutes, but she didn’t care. She stood under the icy spray and let the dust and blood of the warehouse wash away.

  After that, there was just one more job she had to do, but it might be the hardest one of all.

  She toweled off, dressed, and went to visit Des.

  CHAPTER 43

  Dan Maguire slammed down the phone and stared moodily at the litter of papers on his desk.

  He’d arrived at his office just ten minutes ago, getting an early start because everyone was pulling twelve-hour shifts during the emergency. He’d been in high spirits. Today was a big day for him—the day he would forge the first link in the chain that he would eventually wrap around Bonnie Parker’s neck.

  When his desk phone rang, he assumed it was yet another resident call complaining about the power outage or the flooded streets—as if he could do a damn thing about any of that.

  But it wasn’t a resident. It was Hector Samuelson, and he had bad news.

  “I’m not talking to the police,” he said with an odd hitch in his voice. “The whole thing’s off. Just forget it.”

  Dan’s jaw snapped shut with an audible clack. “What you mean, forget it?”

  “I was wrong about what I said. I don’t remember the girl. I don’t know what she looked like. It was a long time ago.”

  “You picked her photo out of a six-pack.”

  “I don’t recall doing that. I was ailing that day. I was all hopped up on cold medicine. The stuff made me loopy. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

  Red heat rose in Dan’s face, and his head started to pound. “That’s bullshit.”

  “I’m sorry, Chief. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “She got to you, didn’t she? What did she say?”

  “I gotta go.”

  “What did she say?”

  A dial tone hummed in reply.

  So that was that. Somehow Parker had wriggled out of the trap.

  Maguire stood up slowly. He looked around like a man in a daze. On impulse he grabbed the nearest object he could find, a plastic wastebasket, and flung it against the wall. It bounced off and lay on the floor, dented, trash dribbling out.

  He kicked his chair. He kicked it again.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “Son of a motherless goddamn bitch.”

  But none of it helped. There was a level of anger and frustration so deep you couldn’t kick or scream or beat your way clear of it. You could only ride it down into darkness.

  The darkness took him, and he found himself once again seated at his desk, his head cradled in his hands, his mind a giant bruise slowly turning black and blue.

  He didn’t see how it was possible. How could she have known about Samuelson? Sure, he might have mentioned something about her parents the other night, but could she have used that tiny, meaningless hint to guess the details of his investigation?

  He didn’t believe it. She would have to be one of those TV psychics, the ones who were always solving crimes for the police.

  All right, so maybe she was psychic. A goddamn witch or something. A sorceress practicing black magic. At this point he wouldn’t put anything past her.

  “Chief?”

  He lifted his head from his hands and saw Bradley Walsh in the doorway.

  “You okay?” Walsh asked.

  Maguire studied him. He felt a cold finger of suspicion poke him in the gut.

  “My investigation into Parker just hit a brick wall,” he said carefully.

  “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

  Was he? Was he really?

  “You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?” Maguire asked.

  “Me?”

  “You know Parker. You’re friendly with her.”

  “I wouldn’t say friendly.”

  “Right.”

  Maguire kept staring at him. The kid gazed back, his eyes unblinking and ingenuous.

  In his mind he heard Bernice say, Oh, pish posh, Dan. You’re just being paranoid.

  She could be right. His wife was a smart gal.

  More to the point, Bradley Walsh wasn’t so smart. He was a naïve kid barely out of diapers. No way he could put one over on Dan Maguire.

  There had to be some other explanation.

  Dan shifted in his seat, breaking eye contact. “Okay, Walsh. Sorry if I got on your case. I know it wasn’t you. I’m a little overworked, is all.”

  “Understood, Chief. We’re all pretty worn out.”

  Walsh moved on, leaving Dan alone. And just like that, it was back, pressing down on him—the full weight
of his failure. He’d been hours away from getting Samuelson on the record, and now he was back to square one.

  And somewhere Parker was laughing at him.

  Laughing as she walked away scot-free.

  Again.

  CHAPTER 44

  On her way to 113 Chestnut Avenue, Bonnie took a detour to the beach. In the rising sun she surveyed the line of support beams and concrete trestles where the boardwalk had been, and the eroded dunes, and the battered hulk of the pavilion where she’d shot it out with Pascal only a few weeks earlier.

  A lot of damage, but it could all be repaired. The damage she was about to deal with was a different story.

  When the sun was a thumb’s width over the horizon, she decided she couldn’t put it off any longer. She got back in her Jeep and navigated the maze of drivable streets. One house was hung with the blasted remnants of ghosts and ghouls, reminding her that today was Halloween. It seemed appropriate—a day for wearing masks.

  Des was not a morning person. She rapped on his front door until he opened up, a terrycloth robe hastily thrown on.

  “Jeez, you’re up early,” he said as he wheeled himself backward to let her in. “Or didn’t you even get to bed?”

  He said it with a smile, but then he saw her face and his smile faded.

  “We need to talk,” Bonnie told him.

  She stepped into the living room, where they’d sat by the fire eating steak on plastic plates on the night of the hurricane. He rolled his chair after her.

  “Sounds serious.” He gestured to the couch. “Sit.”

  She didn’t. “Yesterday I was in Alec Dante’s cottage on Devil’s Hook. He’s the man I shot on Monday. I killed him in his basement. Two bullets to the heart.”

  Des watched her, his expression unreadable. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “In the cottage there’s a painting over his bed. A painting of a wolf. Wolves, actually—there’s a bunch more in the background. I recognized the style right off. Didn’t even need to check the signature. It’s one of yours.”

  “You killed a fan? Shame on you. I don’t have that many.”

  She slammed her palm down on the coffee table. “Don’t fucking joke about it.”

  “Christ, why are you so worked up?”

  “It’s a small world, Des. But it ain’t that small. When I saw the painting, I knew. I figured it out, right then and there.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “That you had some kind of relationship with Alec Dante. And after that, a lot of things started to make sense. Like how you were so sure the guy deserved it, even before I gave you the details. And why you were in the mood to celebrate—you said so yourself, remember? Maybe it even explains why you were so hot to trot that night. It’s kind of a rush, isn’t it? Getting somebody killed?”

  “Whoa, whoa. You’re way off base, Parker. I may have sold Dante a painting, but that doesn’t mean I had anything to do with Aaron Walling—”

  He stopped. Too late.

  “And how’d you know that name?” Bonnie asked quietly.

  “You told me.”

  “I never identify my clients, Des. I’m real fucking discreet that way.” She leaned on the back of the sofa, her arms crossed. “Still wanna play innocent?”

  He looked away. “I never meant …” His voice trailed off.

  “Oh, you meant, buddy. You meant it all. The only thing I don’t know is why. What’d Alec Dante ever do to you?”

  His fingers drummed the wheelchair’s armrests. His mouth was a bloodless line.

  “He put me in this chair,” Des answered.

  “How?”

  “You know how I always used to drive too fast? Yeah, well, Alec—he was the same way. You told me he had reckless driving convictions on his record.”

  “So?”

  “Sometimes he would come by the gallery in the summer. He liked my stuff. One night we met up, I had too much to drink, we started bragging about who was better behind the wheel. To find out, we ended up racing out on Nighthorse Road. I took a bad curve too fast. That’s when I flipped my car and plowed into a power pole.”

  “You never told me there was anyone else involved.”

  “I never told anybody. Dante booked. I kept quiet about it. There was no percentage in admitting to street racing on top of everything else.”

  “Okay. So you did something stupid, and you paid for it big-time. It wasn’t Dante’s fault.”

  “I think it was. Because when I sobered up, I realized I’d done nearly all the drinking. He’d barely touched his glass. He got me liquored up and then talked me into racing. He played with my head, did a number on me. For kicks. As a joke.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “I know he didn’t hang around after I crashed. He fled the scene and left me there. Never came to the hospital, never called.”

  “That still doesn’t prove—”

  “Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t. But then there’s this. Last year I ran into him in the lobby of his condo building in Jersey City. He looks at me in my chair, and he says, ‘Man, you seen better days.’ And he laughs.” Des lowered his head. His hands had tightened into fists. “He goddamn laughed. And when I got angry, he said, ‘What are you gonna do about it, gimp?’”

  Bonnie took a breath. It would be easy for a story like that to get to her. But she wouldn’t let it. She was on a fact-finding mission, and she would not be deterred.

  “Let me guess,” she said. “You were at the condo building because you were visiting the Wallings.”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re your friends.”

  “Aaron is. I know him from way back.”

  “Rachel Walling really was assaulted on a PATH train, wasn’t she? The story she and Aaron told the police was true.”

  “Yes. It was true.”

  “Dante never had anything to do with it.”

  “No.”

  “How’d you find out about it?”

  “When it happened, Aaron was so freaked—he needed someone to talk to. He called me. That was last month.”

  “So for a whole year there’d been nothing you could do about Dante except stew in your own juice. Then I leveled with you about what I do. That planted the seed. And not long after, your pal’s wife—Dante’s neighbor—gets raped on a train. You just put two and two together.”

  “I guess I did.” He was almost sullen.

  “Just like that, the master plan. I suppose you were springing for it, too?”

  “Aaron and I were going to split the cost. I, uh, I guess I owe you half.”

  “Keep your money. What I want to know is, how’d you get Walling to go along? Friendship has its limits, and I’d think becoming an accessory to homicide is a bit much.”

  “Aaron wanted something done about Dante anyway. He wasn’t exactly the perfect neighbor.”

  “Oh, terrific. What’d he do, play his stereo too loud?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Dante didn’t have much of a social life. He would sit home and get high and crank up the volume all night long. Sometimes he’d have call girls come over and they’d party till dawn. When the Wallings complained to the condo board, Dante went ballistic. He wasn’t exactly accustomed to being told what to do. He didn’t take it well. He started hassling Aaron and Rachel. Cursing them out in the elevator, making faces at them in the lobby.”

  “Faces. Well, that changes everything. If he was making faces, obviously he deserved to be shot in the fucking heart.”

  “You don’t understand. This was a bad situation. He was crazy, and they couldn’t touch him. He threatened them. Once, he showed up at their door, high on something, and told them if they ever made trouble again, his relatives would see they paid the price.”

  “So they were scared.”

  “Terrified. Aaron even talked about getting a gun. He didn’t go through with it, but you have to understand, this is a guy who’d never even fired a gun or held one in his hand. A
total pacifist. That’s how worked up he was—he and his wife, the two of them.”

  “They could’ve moved.”

  “They wanted to. Really wanted to. After Rachel was attacked on the train, they were desperate to get out of Jersey City. But they couldn’t find a buyer for the unit. Couldn’t even rent it out, what with the noise situation. They were trapped. It all came down to Dante. He was making their lives hell, and there was no way out.”

  “Except my way.” Bonnie spread her hands. “Look, Des, Alec Dante was a piece of garbage. No one’s disputing that. But he didn’t rape Rachel Walling and he didn’t need to be killed just so the Wallings could get a good price on their condo.”

  “If we had told you the truth—the whole truth, including the part about me and the crash—would you have done the job?”

  “No, Des. I wouldn’t.”

  “Because you have standards.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, that’s why Aaron had to say what he said.”

  “What you coached him to say. You, the mastermind.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Me, the mastermind, with the master plan. I came up with it, and I talked Aaron into it—”

  “And now Aaron’s dead.”

  “Don’t go laying that on me.”

  “Chum, I’m laying it all on you.”

  “It never should have gone sideways like that.”

  “These things can always go sideways. That’s why it’s a last resort, just like it says on my office door.”

  “You know what Dante did to me, and what was going on with the Wallings, and you’re still not sure he needed to be put down?”

  She flashed on Alec Dante’s face in a moment before he fell. His eyes wide, mouth agape. Killed for some reason he didn’t even understand. “You got it, Des.”

  “Then I don’t know what more I can say. It was pretty clear to me. Aaron wanted to get rid of Dante. So did I. I saw a way to do it. So I set him up.”