A Taste of Honey

by Tom Benson

  ‘Phutt’ The bullet tore through Morgan’s inner right thigh and burned as it destroyed muscle and tissue. Blood oozed out over the heavy white cushion of the bench seat and dripped onto the shiny wooden floor. Morgan clenched his teeth and his eyes narrowed as he tried hard not to scream out with the pain.

  “They’re in my fucking coat,” he said gripping his wounded leg with both hands. It was only then that something struck him. She had put on latex gloves since coming down into the cabin.

  Honey stepped to the side and placed the knife on the wooden worktop. She kept an eye on her quarry as she shook his coat to locate the handcuffs. She pulled them out and threw them at Morgan so that they landed on the bench between his legs.

  She said, “Now loop the cuffs over that rail above your head and cuff both wrists.”

  “I’ll fucking bleed to death,” he groaned as he tried to deal with the pain.

  “You won’t,” she said, “because I’m going to call you an ambulance.”

  “Why-,” Morgan started but was silenced when the woman aimed the pistol at his groin. He gritted his teeth again and attached the cuffs to one wrist before looping them over the safety rail above his head. As he clipped his other wrist into the cuffs, the pistol was raised out of the aim and the woman stepped back. Morgan shook his head and grimaced.

  He said, “If you don’t kill me, you had better know how to fucking hide.”

  “You’re not getting off that easily you lowlife asshole,” she said and lifted her large shoulder bag from the floor onto the nearby counter.

  Morgan was still trying to get his head around his present circumstances when the woman asked a question that threw him.

  Honey said, “Who shot Bill Forest?”

  “What the fu-,” he stopped when she moved forward and pressed the suppressor of the pistol against his left cheek.

  “If you don’t give me the name of Bill Forest’s killer, I’ll remove or damage a lot of your teeth and your tongue, but you’ll live.” She stared into his eyes as she forced the suppressor hard into the hollow of his cheek.

  “Perkins,” he said and stared up into her eyes. “It was fucking Detective Investigator Frank Perkins.”

  “Why would he do that to a fellow officer?”

  “Bill Forest found out about Perkins being on the take from the drug dealers. Forest told Perkins he had two days to give himself up, or he would report him. Perkins tried to save his skin by telling Forest about what Sorrenson and I were up to, so there were too many people with their livelihoods on the line.” He paused in thought.

  He grimaced from the pain in his leg. “There were five of us on the job that night.”

  Honey said, “My father was the only honest cop out of five, so that night he got shot by his colleagues?”

  “We offered a cut of the proceeds to keep quiet,” Morgan said. “If your mother didn’t play detective she might have lived longer too-,” He realized he’d gone too far.

  “Explain,” she said and lowered the end of the suppressor towards Morgan’s groin.

  He said, “I’d been after her for years, and I finally got to marry her when she stopped grieving.” He shook his head. “Somehow she found out about how Bill had been killed-.” He stopped to suck air in through clenched teeth. His thigh was burning with the intensity of the pain.

  “Go on,” Honey said, “or you’ll have another hole to worry about.”

  “She confronted me one night at home and told me she was going to the station with her suspicions if I didn’t fill in the blanks for her.” He shook his head, and his eyes blinked rapidly. “I couldn’t allow that. There was too much at stake.”

  “Are you saying that she didn’t die in an accident?”

  “The reports said she’d driven onto an intersection, but her car had been shunted forward.” He looked down, suddenly for the first time looking remorseful. He had loved Linda Forest, but she was going to put his liberty at stake, and that couldn’t happen. It was too late for remorse. “You can shoot me now-,”

  “Who shunted the car onto the intersection?” she said and met his gaze when he looked up. “I want a name.”

  “Fuck off and work it out for your-,”

  ‘Phutt’ The hole in Morgan’s left thigh was made high up on the inner flesh, exactly opposite the wound in the other leg. Morgan’s head slammed back against the wooden wall panels, and his scream became muffled by the suppressor being rammed straight into his opening mouth.

  Honey said, “I want to know who killed my mother.”

  His breathing was loud and labored as he tried to deal with the pain in his legs. Morgan’s lips closed around the long black cylinder of the suppressor, and he mentally prepared to meet his maker. He tried to look down to his right side as the woman lifted a large cushion and rammed it between his thighs.

  She said, “Press your legs together.” He obeyed instantly, and the blood flow was stemmed a little by the pressure pad, although the pain was just as extreme. “Who caused that my mother’s death?” She pulled the suppressor roughly from between his teeth.

  He said, “It was the other member of the five-man team,” he said, “a new guy-,”

  Honey stared into his tear-filled eyes. “I want the name. Who shunted that car onto the fucking intersection? If you don’t think this can get worse, you better trust me; it can. Your dick is next.” She saw him gasping and gritting his teeth to bear the pain of his wound.

  “Fredericks,” he said. “It was fucking Sonny Fredericks. He was the other one on the team that night when your father got shot.”

  “So I suppose you all took a vow to kill somebody to prevent any of you giving up the others?”

  Morgan screwed up his eyes and nodded. “I’m not going to prison, so just fucking kill me-,” The words were ended when the butt of the pistol smashed into the side of his face. He spat out two loosened teeth and a mouthful of blood. He ran the tip of his tongue around his damaged and bleeding lip.

  Honey removed her baseball cap and turned to place it on a nearby counter. Her hair fell to her shoulders when she turned to face her captive and looked him in the eyes. Morgan’s bleeding jaw dropped and his eyes widened as he recognized how much Honey resembled her sister. Morgan was trying to think what to say, but he ran out of time.

  He had engineered the death of Bill Forest, but unknown to the others that night, Morgan had an ulterior motive; he had for years wanted a chance to get his hands on Bill Forest’s wife. He had helped the woman during her period of mourning, all the while planning to have her as his own. Morgan had been subtle and patient.

  Even after charming his way into her bed he wasn’t satisfied, he’d lusted after her younger daughter Harriet. When Linda gave him the opportunity to come clean about the circumstances of her husband’s death, she had signed her death warrant.

  As Morgan made the call that night to have the woman erased, he was considering how he could enjoy young Harriet. All of these memories were still running through his mind as he glanced up at the blonde in front of him. He was not in a good position to negotiate.

  Honey lifted a roll of duct tape from the large purse she’d set on a chair. She tore a length of tape and looked into Morgan’s questioning eyes as she spread the tape over his gaping, bleeding mouth. Blood oozed out underneath, but the tape stuck fast to his cheeks. The broad adhesive strip moved in and out as he tried to breathe through his nostrils.

  Morgan’s heightened senses caused him to inhale deeply on the aroma of the adhesive of the tape. He watched with eyes squinting as his surviving stepdaughter lifted a small plastic pack from her bag. She opened one end of the pack and then rapidly emptied the contents and pulled them into shape. It was only two minutes later, when she was standing dressed in a one piece plastic overall that Morgan’s heart rate increased to an alarming rate.

  He watched as Honey used a single long zipper to close the front of her overall right up to her neck and then she pulled up the hood to contain her hair. She p
roduced a pair of slip-on shoe covers, and it was at the point that Morgan worked out why his captor was donning a forensic outfit. There was to be more blood-letting.

  The merciless woman turned and opened the refrigerator unit. There were two trays of cubes in the icebox. She took both trays out and broke them loose into a bowl. While the injured man watched in morbid fascination, his captor was going through the cupboards.

  She located a shelf full of hand towels. A thin towel was selected and soaked in cold water before the bowl of ice cubes got emptied into it. She rolled the cubes and towel into a bundle. Once again, she looked into her captive’s eyes as she laid the damp and freezing bundle on the bench beside him. The man’s eyes widened as he looked from the towel to the woman and back again.

  Honey lifted Morgan’s cell from the nearby table and dialed 911.

  “Hi,” she said as she looked into Morgan’s eyes. “I have somebody out at Berth 16 on the Blue Marina, who needs a team of paramedics, but I’ve got a question.” She paused to check her watch and then continued to look into Morgan’s eyes dispassionately. “How quickly do they have to get to a guy to save his dick if it gets severed?” There was a question from the other end. “Yeah severed,” she said. “Cut off, but real close to the balls.”

  ***

  Chapter 16

  Parting Company

  .

  Having made the call for paramedics, Honey approached her now distraught victim, staring all the while into his eyes. He tried kicking out wildly with his injured legs, at least until the woman stood close enough to place her toecaps on top of his toes.

  Morgan was losing blood and didn’t have the strength to resist. He could taste the iron flavor in his mouth; his left ear ached from being hit with the pistol, and there was a quiet threatening tone in everything the woman said.

  Against his wishes, tears were pouring from the corners of Morgan’s eyes when the crazy woman in the blue forensic overall turned away. She reached out and placed her pistol into her large shoulder bag which was nearby. She stood in front of the man, looking down at him with no hint of emotion.

  The prisoner watched in disbelief as Honey reached out with her left hand to lift the hunting knife from where she’d left it on the worktop. Unreal as it seemed to him, Morgan’s nightmare was about to get worse.

  He glanced at the woman’s face and then at the glistening, slightly curved point of the heavy, razor-sharp blade. There was something sinister about the appearance of such a weapon. It could be used to torture or kill a victim. It still had a trickle of his blood on the point. Morgan swallowed hard, and he heard the blood bubble in his mouth.

  The man had committed and assisted with heinous sexual crimes against several young women, including rape and torture. He had ordered the death of an innocent woman. He had betrayed one of his stepdaughters and put her through hell, and now the surviving member of the family was in control, intent on exacting a terrible vengeance.

  Morgan looked from the knife to the woman and back again. It wasn’t intentional, but he was shaking his head and mumbling through the duct tape gag; pleading for forgiveness. Honey stooped forward and with her left hand took hold of something that had shrunk behind the blood-soaked cushion. It was something small and soft.

  “This is the last time anybody will ever hold your dick,” Honey said. She gripped and pulled the shriveled organ forward. With a steady right hand, Honey placed the sharp, pointed tip of the broad, heavy knife on top of the deviant’s manhood; close to the base.

  She looked him straight in the eyes; her face an impassive mask. It was then that Morgan realized this was no idle threat, and his head shook violently from side to side. The beads of perspiration increased on his forehead and temples until there were rivulets of sweat pouring down his face.

  All notion of defiance disappeared as the once fearless sexual predator cried and sobbed so that his body rocked. His wrists jerked violently against the cuffs over his head, and his hard, fearsome eyes oozed tears. From behind the tape, his lips tried to work; to plead for mercy. He prayed for the first time in his life as he experienced terror first hand.

  Morgan felt the pressure and sharpness of the knifepoint and looked from his tormentor down to a trickle of blood oozing from the stinging wound. Urine dribbled through the fingers of his tormentor’s latex glove and was soaked up by the bloody cushion jammed between Morgan’s thighs.

  There was no anesthetic in use, so when pressure was increased on the knife, perspiration oozed from every pore and dripped down Morgan’s face and neck. His T-shirt became saturated with sweat.

  Now, the victim for once, Morgan’s head and body went into an unnatural spasm. His eyes twitched, and his features contorted. Somewhere not so deep in his memory, he thought back once again to what he had helped others to do to innocent young women. Regret loomed largely as acute pain seared through his lower regions. He was losing touch with reality.

  Honey said, “This is for Harriet and the other innocent girls; you vile bastard. It’s justice, but you can think of it as a taste of Honey.” She squeezed and pulled harder with her left hand before she drove the tip and broad blade of the heavy knife straight down. Part of the blade embedded in the leather seat cushion under him. Morgan’s writhing ceased, and he blacked out.

  *

  Honey dropped the small bloody symbolic piece of Morgan onto the seat beside him. In quick succession: she pulled the knife out of the seat cushion, plucked the blood-soaked cushion from between the man’s legs and replaced it with the improvised icepack. She thrust the soaking, ice-filled towel hard against the gushing open groin wound.

  A quick glance at her watch told Honey she had less than ten minutes to finish. Before anything else, she wiped both her bloodied, hands on Morgan’s T-shirt until there was very little blood on her latex gloves. She then rinsed her knife under running hot water and wiped the blade on Morgan’s shirt.

  Honey taped his legs tight together at the knees with duct tape. The wounds in Morgan’s thighs were both intentionally on the inner flesh, so it meant that they too pressed against the ice pack in between his legs. His face was pale due to the trauma and loss of body fluids, but he would live; if only just.

  It took less than five minutes before the avenging angel stepped out of the cabin and looked around. She appeared once again, just as she was when she’d joined Morgan. The one-time-use overalls and shoe covers all crushed into a plastic carrier bag and stuffed into her large shoulder bag. She looked casual in a baseball cap, shirt, Daisy Dukes, and sneakers.

  Honey had removed the body harness from under her shirt. The knife and accessories were all packed into her bag. Her silenced pistol got tucked into the waistband of her shorts under the front of her shirt; just in case. There was nobody nearby as she stepped up onto the wooden jetty.

  The woman left the boat with a severed lump of flesh wrapped in a piece of tissue. As she walked along the pier and passed Morgan’s boat, she threw the small package onto the deck. Blood sprayed out as the contents touched a series of unseen wires.

  Lying in a small pool of blood on the Dark Lady was the closest Morgan’s sexual equipment would ever get to another woman.

  *

  There had been two elderly couples sauntering along the footpath as Honey left the scene, so she nodded to them, but didn’t speak. When there was nobody around, she pulled out Morgan’s cell as she walked, and called 911 again.

  “There’s a boat in the Blue Marina called Dark Lady and somebody has rigged it with explosives. The boat is at Berth 14.” She ended the call, looked over her shoulder and threw the cell into the lake. It was only ten minutes since she’d made the first 911 call.

  She peeled off the latex gloves she had kept on for her final delivery and phone call. They were removed inside-out and they joined everything else in the plastic carrier bag.

  Honey walked as far as the residential street where she’d parked her car. She lifted her knife, gun, and a bag of bloody materials from h
er bag and placed them in the trunk. She slipped her field glasses into her shoulder bag. From there, she walked to a small grassy hill that overlooked the main waterway and the piers. On the way, she could already hear the faint sound of approaching sirens.

  Even as she made her way up the steep stone steps to the top of the viewpoint, she could hear the sirens become much louder. She sat on a wooden bench overlooking, but at a respectful distance from the mooring point, and then she observed the general area with her field glasses as any tourist might.

  The local police were impressive in their response. They received their call a few minutes after the ambulance crew but arrived at almost the same time. All the uniformed personnel ran along the length of the narrow footpath that bordered the jetties, feeling fortunate that the caller had told them which marina and pier to attend.

  Seeing those people rushing to their duty was the only thing that affected Honey. It annoyed her that her single action was going to create so much work for police officers and paramedic crew, but then she rationalized things.

  How many people had been called to the aid of Morgan’s victims? No one had been called to the rescue of the girls. Sure, there had been hundreds of police hours spent, trying to work out why some of those girls had disappeared, but nobody had found them. Nobody had saved them.

  As she watched, Honey saw two police officers looking down onto the deck of the Dark Lady; at the shriveled remnant that had once destroyed young lives and their hopes. There were drips of blood on microscopically thin wires which crisscrossed the small deck. The wire would be invisible if the blood weren't there. One of the officers pointed to two or three places near the deck and then made a call.

  The paramedics had raced ahead and arrived at the other boat quickly. The man and woman in white climbed into the red and white boat. Honey listened with grim satisfaction to the sound that followed. It was a human scream of such intensity that it was almost animal-like. Morgan must have woken up from his faint. He was now waking up the bay.