Breaking Karma

by Charity Ferrell

  I locked the doors before he had the chance to try and make a run for it. Holding a state official captive in your car. I was sure there was a charge for that, and I honestly didn’t give a flying fuck.

  ***

  I followed John through his front door and down the long hallway of his house.

  “Edith?” he called out. We found her in the bedroom. Two suitcases were sprawled out on the bed, both of them almost full. “What the hell is going on here?”

  She slowly turned around to look at him. I didn’t miss the look of disgust she sent his way. “I think it’s a good idea if me and the kids leave for awhile. This is too much on them,” she answered, pointing a finger at him. I noticed the absence of her wedding ring. “You caused this. You’re hurting our children. I can’t even stand to look at you.”

  Damn, this woman deserved an Oscar.

  She maneuvered around John’s still body, heading towards the dresser, but froze when she noticed me standing in the doorway.

  “I don’t care why you’re here, but you need to leave this house before I call the police,” she told me.

  I sent her a sinister smile. “Go ahead, call them. Are you going to ask for Officer Finch? You know, I’m sure he’ll do whatever you want for a couple more thousand dollars.”

  She stumbled back a step, her hand going to her chest. “What in the world are you talking about?”

  I opened my mouth to call her out on her bullshit, but John beat me to it. “He’s talking about the six hundred grand you sent him!” he yelled. “For some reason, you keep sending money to people that are trying to ruin my life.”

  She scoffed and gave me a dirty look. “You might want to reconsider your sources. I haven’t paid anyone anything.” She threw some more shit in her suitcase, her shaking fingers trying their best to zip it up. “If this is some sort of setup to void our pre-nup, just stop. Desperation never suited you, dear husband.”

  Fuck, the woman was brutal, and in that moment, I realized Edith Gentry thought she was untouchable. She thought she was indestructible because of her family name and the money they had.

  I studied John, and for the first time ever, I felt sorry for the man. His face was blank, void of any expression, and his hands fell slack at his sides. I could hear his breathing from across the room.

  I leaned against the wall and briefly wondered if that’s what my life would’ve been like if I married someone I wasn’t in love with to make other people happy. Thank God, I’d gotten my head out of my ass.

  “What happened to you?” he whispered to her.

  “Love. Love happened to me,” she answered, unable to meet his eyes.

  “Love? If you love me, why are you leaving? Why are you lying to me? Why are you involved in something that’s trying to get me pinned for Ivy’s murder.”

  She shook her head and snorted. “John, the love isn’t for you. I haven’t loved you in years, and I honestly don’t blame you for cheating. I’m actually glad you did. It definitely worked out in my favor.”

  And with that, she whipped around and scurried to the bathroom. The door slammed shut, the lock clicking in the silence.

  Was Edith in love with Harold?

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  There was no way.

  “Whatever you do, make sure that hen doesn’t leave the country,” I told John, pointing to the bathroom door.

  ***

  “You got any scoop for me?” Gabby asked. Her voice was chipper, but I could see the worry in her eyes. What happened at the baby shower had scared the shit out of her.

  I leaned forward in the patio chair outside her favorite frozen yogurt place. “You ready for this?”

  She blew out a breath. “On a scale from whiskey to beer, how bad?”

  “Whiskey. The whole damn bottle and add a few shots of vodka.”

  She let out a whistle and ran her hand over her hair, controlling the flyaways. “Jesus, I’m not sure if I even want to know.”

  “We managed to get our hands on Harold’s computer hard drive, and let’s say, he was hiding some good stuff in there.”

  “And how did you manage to get your hands on it?” she drew out.

  My lips spread into a cocky smile. “Now babe, I can’t tell you all of my secrets.”

  She let out a grunt and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I probably don’t even want to know. So what did you find?”

  “He had all of his passwords and account information saved. I logged into one bank account and noticed he had a substantial amount of money in there. Way more than what a city cop could even dream about saving.”

  “So someone sent him money?” I nodded. “How much?”

  “Six hundred thousand.”

  She dropped her spoon in her bowl. “I’m going to take a wild guess and assume that someone’s account under the name Celine Dion is where he got his money?”

  “Winner, winner, chicken dinner.”

  “That woman … I knew she had something to do with it.” Her face fell before turning serious. “I want you to make her pay, you hear me? If she had Ivy killed, she needs to go down for it.”

  “Don’t worry babe. We’re on it and getting closer and closer to the finish line.”

  “Do you think she killed her and then paid Harold to cover it up?”

  “I’m not sure. Murphy got into Harold’s phone records. Unless he talked to Edith on a burner phone, we have no record of them talking to one another. But we do have record of him talking to Malcolm Gentry.”

  “And let’s add another vodka shot. So what are you going to do? I mean, the only evidence you have is something I’m sure you illegally got your hands on.” I nodded in agreement. “You need to figure out why Harold is protecting Edith. I think you find that out and stuff might come together.”

  “She paid him six hundred thousand dollars. That’s why he’s protecting her.”

  “Do you think he’s the one who killed Ivy?” She snorted. “How damn perfect is that? You can’t find the killer when the dude investigating the crime is the one who committed it, or at least was involved. There’s no way he was going to release anything that he didn’t want exposed. It’s messed up, but I’ve learned to expect the unexpected.”

  ***

  I grabbed my phone as soon as I dropped Gabby off to meet up with Cora at the movies. Cora was getting ready to leave for college, so Gabby wanted to spend time with her.

  “You busy?” I asked Murphy.

  “Perfect timing. I was about to call you,” he answered. “I have some bad news for you. Edith booked her father’s private jet to leave tonight, and my guess is that she’s headed off to a different country, which makes the woman look guiltier than a mother fucker.”

  “I knew she had something more to do with this. Anything else?”

  “No. I’ve been looking everywhere. We obviously know they all had something do with her death, but I’m not sure who had what role. And I don’t think we’ll ever find out unless someone spills, which I doubt will happen.”

  “I have an idea.”

  ***

  I walked straight into the apartment, Murphy strolling behind me, and headed down the hallway.

  “Oh, David, David, David,” Murphy called out. I swung the door opened and waited for the surprise.

  “What the hell?” David yelled, looking up at us from his bed. The dude was still in bed at two in the afternoon? His eyes were sleepy, and he blinked a few times, like maybe he was imagining us.

  I guess we made breaking into cops’ homes our new hobby.

  “We only want to talk,” I said, walking into the room. I looked at Murphy and tilted my head towards the nightstand. He nodded in understanding.

  All of the blood rushed from David’s face. “You broke into my apartment!” he yelled.

  “The door was unlocked,” I lied, with a shrug. “You should probably have someone look at that. Maybe it’s broken.”

  “You can’t just walk into my apartment.” He reached
for his phone on the nightstand, but I beat him to it and snatched it up. “Are you an idiot?” He scoffed. “I’m the police. They’ll have your ass for this.”

  “Eh … I have a feeling you might not be the police for much longer,” Murphy chimed in. He pointed to the nightstand. “Cocaine. Are cops allowed to do that now?” He pulled out his phone, turned on the camera, and directed it towards David. “Say hi to the camera!” He moved the phone to the nightstand. “Oh, say hello blow!” The camera moved to the police uniform folded on the dresser. “Oh, hello cop uniform.”

  “You’re going to answer our questions,” I told him. “And maybe we won’t tell the world what a scumbag liar and addict you are.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David stuttered out. “Those drugs, they’re not mine. I don’t know how they got there.”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, I know the drugs are yours.” I honestly didn’t give a shit about the drugs. That wasn’t why I was there. “Now what I want to know is why they would put a rookie like you on a homicide case?” I was bluffing. I honestly had no idea what his ranking or responsibilities were. “We know you’re working with Harold to cover up the evidence of Ivy’s murder. Now spill, or Murphy will post that video on YouTube.”

  “I’m not telling you shit.” His eyes widened when I pulled out the Taser from my pocket. Did I plan on actually using it? Possibly. I’d already broken one law, might as well go on a full streak. “Seriously? You’re going to threaten me with a Taser?”

  I raised a brow. “Would you prefer waterboarding?” He stared at me, speechless. “Now get up. The faster we get this over with, the faster we leave here.” I turned around to leave the room, but stopped. “And I can promise you that you’ll want to talk because we already have enough evidence against you to make your life a living hell.”

  He flipped the covers off him. “Fucking asshole.”

  “I think this is going to be the longest day of my life,” I muttered, sitting down in his living room.

  ***

  “Your wife has charted daddy’s jet and is planning on fleeing the country,” I told John, when he got into my car. “I’ve got Murphy working on a way to delay that.”

  He shook his head before resting it in his hands. “I think you know by now that I can’t control anything that woman does.” He let out a deep breath before removing his hands and looking at me. “Shit, you knew about her leaving before I did.”

  I had a list of things to get done. I had to get sufficient evidence to take to Lonnie that all four of them were involved. I then needed to make sure Edith didn’t get on that plane and a story was sent to the media exposing them.

  I didn’t want to break the news to him about what David told us yet. I was waiting until the perfect moment.

  “You still own the place that Ivy was staying in, right?” I asked him. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of that earlier? Probably because Harold had gotten that surveillance video of Gabby and me, and I figured they’d already had their hands on everything.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  “Why … is that where we’re going?”

  “We sure are. You’re going to march in there, tell them you are the owner of a unit, and demand to see the security footage.”

  His dark eyes widened. “The police already have the footage. That’s why you and I were brought in.”

  I parked in front of the apartment building and looked over at him. “That doesn’t mean shit, John. Right now, we can’t trust the cops, so don’t say a damn word to them, you hear me?”

  “You’re really starting to make demands, Douglas.”

  I threw my arm out. “If you don’t like it, I can walk away from this, and you can figure it out yourself?”

  He pushed open the door without answering me, and I followed him into the lobby. He demanded to talk to someone in security immediately. As soon as he showed his ID, we were escorted to a small room where a young guy, Heath, was waiting for us.

  “What do you need?” he asked, sitting behind a row of computer screens with his legs crossed while security footage played out in front of him.

  I looked over at John. “When did you get her the place?” I asked. He looked over at me in confusion. I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “John. Think!”

  “Uh … about a year ago, I think,” he stuttered out.

  I dug into my pocket and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. “I want to see all of the footage in the past year.”

  Heath hesitated for a moment, contemplating whether or not to risk his job for the extra cash. “I can give you everything up to the end of March. The detective took all of the footage from April to July.”

  I grinned. Harold’s stupidity kept working in my favor. He’d been too lazy to get all of the footage.

  We stayed in that stuffy room for five hours watching footage until we found exactly what I was looking for.

  “I need a copy of this,” I told Heath.

  He shook his head. “I can’t do that, man. It’ll be my ass.” I pulled out two more hundreds. He snatched them from my hand. “Just don’t say you got anything from me. I need this job.”

  ***

  “I’m telling you that we’re wasting our time doing this,” John said. “Sure, we don’t get along at times, but there’s no way he’s involved in Ivy’s murder. He didn’t even know her.”

  Oh yes he did.

  John needed to wake the fuck up.

  We were back in my car and on to our next destination. I felt like I was playing a game of cat and mouse.

  “You saw the evidence with your own two eyes. You asked me to trust you,” I said. “Now it’s time you do the same with me. You told me you wanted me on this job, to figure out who was trying to set us up, and I’m getting closer and closer. Your problem is that you trust people too much. I don’t think you realize that people you love, people that are close to you, can hurt you.”

  Ivy had turned on him. His wife had turned on him. His own political party had turned on him. And now his own blood was. Sometimes the only people you could trust were the people you barely knew at all.

  “You need to wake up, John,” I went on. “Your brother and Harold were involved in Ivy’s murder, along with Edith, and for some reason, they were trying to make you take the fall for it.”

  John shook his head violently and refused to look at me. “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong,” I argued. "You were with me in that room watching him go into Ivy’s apartment. Why would he be there? To visit you? To ask for sugar?”

  I couldn’t hold back my excitement when I saw that Malcolm had visited Ivy on multiple occasions. He fit the maid’s description and somewhat had a motive. Everything was coming together.

  “Uh … it could’ve been …” John stuttered, obviously having nothing to argue.

  “Exactly. You have no idea. That’s why we’re going to him for answers.”

  John didn’t say another word during the short drive to Malcolm’s house.

  Murphy tracked Malcolm’s cell location and confirmed he was home, so I walked straight into his house, John on my trail, without even bothering to knock. All I cared about was getting this done, and I was edging closer and closer to the finish line.

  I found Malcolm in his office with a drink in one hand and his phone in the other. He was bitching at someone on the other line, calling them a mindless whore, before he noticed me walk into the room.

  “I’ll fucking call you back,” he shouted, and then ended the call. He looked past my shoulder, straight at John, and grinned wildly. “My older brother. What a surprise.” His attention went back to me. “And the Douglas boy. Are you two a team now or something?”

  “You should really think more about the people you plan a murder with. David told us everything, Malcolm,” I said, cutting straight to the chase. “So cut the shit.”

  He lifted his chin and rolled up his sleeves. The man was probably twenty po
unds lighter than I was, lanky and lean, but he thought he made up for his size with confidence. He reminded me of my father.

  He took a sip of his drink, not letting one emotion show, before replying. “I don’t know anyone named David.” He shrugged. “You have the wrong person. Sorry.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and played the recording of David telling us the details of their deal. His fingers flexed around his drink while he listened.

  David had developed a drug addiction, which Harold decided to use to his advantage. He offered David the opportunity to work on a big case that would further his career, as well as extra cash to maintain his addiction. He wanted him to bullshit the Ivy case and pin everything on us. David was also positive that Malcolm paid Harold to kill Ivy, which didn’t exactly coincide with our story of Edith paying him.

  “I told Harold we couldn’t trust that junkie,” Malcolm muttered, downing the rest of his drink. He saluted us with it, placed it on his desk, and then clapped his hands. “But good luck trying to prove it. The little evidence the so-called police has points straight to you. Harold, nor David, is going to even let that little recording get used as evidence.” He pointed to John. “You need to start being smarter.”

  “Why?” John asked, stepping forward. “Why would you want to do this to me? We’re brothers. We’re family.”

  Malcolm let out a menacing laugh. “You’re a blind fool,” he said. “You always have been. You thought you were sneaky, but you weren’t. I found out about your little mistress, fucked her a few times, bribed her with some cash, and she gave me every little detail about you. It was a nice little arrangement until she started getting money hungry and threatened me like she did you. But unlike you, I took care of the problem. I took matters into my own hands and started screwing your wife. I convinced your sweet Edith that we were in love so she’d pay off Ivy. Then I kept screwing her in order to convince her to pay Harold to off that dumbass girl. There was no way I was letting my name come out of her mouth. I threw in a little cash bonus to Harold to make sure all fingers pointed straight to you.” He let out a sarcastic snort. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.” He shrugged. “I win. Mom and dad can’t get you out of this one.”