Pool of Lies

by J. M. Zambrano

  “You think she was lying?”

  “Maybe embellishing.”

  “What kind of mind would make up stuff like that?”

  “The kind of mind that allows a person to shoot poison into their own veins.”

  Rae looked at Veronica as if seeing her for the first time. “So that makes it okay to sacrifice her for the likes of JJ Camacho? A disposable woman? Is that what I’m hearing from you?”

  “Hold it. Not me! It wouldn’t have been my call to scrap the Lassiter case for Camacho’s contribution to a drug bust.”

  “Apparently this Sergeant Wehr was of a different mindset. I hope you’re going after her. She has no business in law enforcement.”

  As Rae watched Veronica’s face harden, she wondered how they’d ever be able to work together. They’d just put aside one obstacle only to face another.

  “Don’t be so quick to judge until you’ve walked in her shoes,” Veronica said.

  Rae came right back at her. “Sorry, I don’t buy that. She didn’t have second thoughts about what she’d done until Reggie put the fear into her. Those shoes of hers have big holes in them.”

  “How do you know what she thought?”

  Rae edged toward the door again. “I might’ve known you cops would all stick together.”

  As she watched Veronica’s eyes turn to black ice, Rae regretted the words.

  “How do you think Anthony would feel to hear you say that?”

  Betrayed, that’s how Anthony would feel. Suddenly ashamed, Rae could no longer avoid Veronica’s eyes.

  “Who do you think got the damn case reopened? If I didn’t care, do you think I’d have gone to the trouble? Nobody listened to me at first,” Veronica said.

  Rae sank back into the chair. A fly was buzzing in her brain again, forcing her back a few sentences to something else Veronica had said. How did she know there was a lot left on the tape? Suddenly, a clarity she didn’t want: Veronica had already seen the tape in its entirety. Rae’s presence at this particular time was to establish their joint first viewing.

  “Okay.” Rae tried to produce a reasonable explanation. None came to mind. Maybe the rest of the tape did warrant her viewing.

  “Okay, what?” That ticked expression was creeping back into Veronica’s eyes.

  “Okay, I won’t wimp out again. Roll the damn tape.”

  But Veronica’s phone buzzed again. “Veronica Sanchez here.”

  The conversation was punctuated on Veronica’s end by short responses to what appeared an interrogation. “I have no idea. No. I gave your man instructions. Why would I? That’s not for me to say.”

  Veronica hung up. Rae guessed the conversation had been terminated by the calling party.

  “Trouble?”

  “You could say that.”

  “The Lassiter case?”

  “Okay, the Lassiter tape—the copy Wheat Ridge’s detective made—it didn’t end up with Wehr’s boss. It somehow ended up with his chief and the Bayfield lawyers. Internal Affairs is breathing down his neck and he wants my hide.”

  “Why?”

  “He thinks I somehow detoured the tape around him.”

  “Did you?”

  Rae knew she’d gone too far the minute the words left her lips. Veronica’s expression shut down.

  “Rae, we’ll have to continue this tomorrow. I need to take care of some damage control with my boss. Seven-thirty?”

  Rae nodded and ventured, “Looks like the lid’s coming off the JJ cover-up. Shouldn’t you be glad? What if you did go around somebody?”

  “I didn’t.” Veronica stood at the door of her office, holding it open.

  Then, what did you do? Keep your mouth shut, Rae, before she fires you. “See you in the morning.”

  In the parking lot, getting into her car, Rae still had the sense of hearing only one shoe drop.

  Rae dropped the gray pinstripe on the floor of her closet, exchanged it for coveralls, and didn’t look back. Except to pitch the new shoes and pantyhose in the corner of the bathroom.

  On the service porch she stepped into her muck shoes, then was out the door.

  Her left foot hurt like hell. Halfway to the barn she stopped and dumped a small rock out of her shoe. That didn’t help the other hurt—the one that wouldn’t go away.

  Until today, Deidre Lassiter had been just a name. Danny’s dead wife. Damn shame her death had been written off. What Rae had felt at the coroner’s office had been more for Danny. Seeing his grief up close had been a revelation: dopers bleed just like real people. No blinders on you, Rae. You, with your pristine grief. Migod, the man had a heart attack, he was so stressed.

  But seeing Deidre, hearing the despair in her voice, had punched a hole in that shell Rae had crawled into the day Anthony died.

  It hadn’t been a new shell, but a rather old one Rae thought she’d shed. Grandma’s voice again: You’re like a snail, Rae. One poke and you draw inside. She’d always been that way--pulling away from emotional pokes. But she could never hide from Grandma.

  Inside the barn, Rae grabbed a manure fork and wheelbarrow. How could Danny have left his wife in that condition? Rae opened a stall door and began scooping manure into the wheelbarrow. After a couple of scoops, she broke a sweat. The air in the barn was heavy with the odor of animal waste.

  The picture of the rape—no, multiple rapes—kept intruding on her mind’s eye as she scooped out stall bedding soggy with horse urine. Sweat ran down her brow, though a breeze now wafted through the barn’s west door.

  How could another woman watch what I watched—no, worse, be right there with her, and then sit on that tape? Rae thought of Emily Wehr whom she’d never met and savagely stabbed at a pile of horse manure, sending it flying through the air rather than into the wheelbarrow.

  Well, one good thing. Reggie Navarro was right where he should be: on a morgue slab. Rae’s eyes burned from the horse urine in the shavings she used for stall bedding. Sweat ran down her underarms and soaked her T-shirt.

  Maybe now they’d get off their butts and find the Camacho monster. Looks like he double-crossed his cop buddies, including his own brother.

  The chemical action of the urine on the pine shavings turned them red on the bottom layers. Rae scooped and dug. She’d missed cleaning for three days this week and now paid the price: her eyes watered from the released ammonia.

  She walked out the east door of the barn into afternoon shade.

  How would killing three people benefit Camacho? Deidre’s death, maybe. He and his brother still had her son Kevin to squeeze money out of. What did Camacho do? Kill Kevin for the $100,000.00 and then find out he couldn’t cash the check? Kill his own brother to avoid splitting the spoils they didn’t get? Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

  But if Deidre’s family was involved, why would Nate Farris practically shove that rental application in her face? Nate Farris wanted to direct attention to the JJ/Reggie connection. Maybe to direct it away from his wife Morgan?

  Where did Veronica fit into this picture? Straight-arrow Veronica Sanchez maybe had a bit of a warp to her? She definitely saw the tape before this afternoon. You don’t know that, Rae, she argued with herself. One dead Reggie was bobbing around in a fence hole in her brain. Could you blame her if she’d seen the tape, knew he was the brother, then…was presented with the opportunity?

  And, why wasn’t Veronica whooping it up for joy or justice at the news that Wheat Ridge’s Chief of Police was about to render up the ass of one Commander Marsh for the Camacho cover-up? No answer to that one—not one Rae was willing to acknowledge—yet.

  She pushed the full wheelbarrow to the manure pile and dumped. Again, she saw Deidre’s face. Throw-away woman. Disposable. Dispensable. Sacrifice for the greater good. One doper down the drain, so they could corral the big fish? Not going to happen.

  Not on my watch. Anthony’s words came through as clearly as if he were standing beside her. And, in a sense, Rae knew he was.

  Th
e sun was a molten yellow ball on the eastern horizon as Rae went out the back door to feed the livestock. She’d overslept. Something that never happened—only it just did. Andy and the mares were banging on their stalls. Feed me. Feed me.

  “Bunch of spoiled brats. Harvey Stallbangers,” Rae muttered. The barn cats skittered after a dead mouse that one of them had tossed in the air.

  She raced through her chores. Barn, chicken house, loafing shed. “I can’t believe I did this,” she said to no one. In response, an Araucana rooster crowed.

  Back inside her house, three messages waited on her voicemail. She’d return the client calls later. The one from her daughter Tori stuck in her heart.

  “Mom, have you worked out something for next spring? We’re counting on you.”

  She hadn’t, but Tori’s next words really piqued her curiosity: “Uh, have you talked to Steve lately? He, uh, I guess I better let him tell you.”

  What was that supposed to mean? Rae’s son Stephen was a senior at Florida State University. Things had been tense between them since Steve had announced he was pursuing a career in criminal justice. What now? He’d already told Rae that he intended to go for his masters and had his sights set on the FBI. A FEEB, damn it. After what happened to your father?

  After high school, Stephen had gone into construction work for a year. Rae wished he’d stayed in that field.

  But what was she supposed to say to him now if he asked, “And what are you working on these days, Mom?”

  Nothing much. Just a little rape, extortion, and murder. Nothing really dangerous.

  Rae held the phone for a moment, looking at the instrument as if it might give her some revelation. Not even a Grandma adage popped into her head. She’d deal with the kids later. Besides, what would she tell Tori about next spring?

  *****

  In the car after a record-time shower followed by no breakfast, Rae returned Veronica’s call on her cell, saying she was on her way. She sipped coffee as she battled Wadsworth traffic and wondered if it had been no accident—her oversleeping. She so didn’t want to see the rest of Deidre Lassiter’s tape.

  “What was it you found at Bayfield’s that was so important?” Veronica wanted to know.

  “I told you, it’s probably nothing.”

  “If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “I’ll let you know…when it becomes something. See you in a few.”

  Rae cut the connection. The out-of-sequence check had shrunk in significance in light of Deidre’s tape. She would feel foolish mentioning it. The specter of the dead woman seemed to perch on her shoulder for the duration of the drive.

  *****

  Veronica’s perfunctory greeting directed Rae into a chair. Then she wordlessly closed the door of her office.

  “How’d the damage control go?” Rae asked against her own better judgment. You know what curiosity did to the cat? She tuned out Grandma and focused on Veronica’s expression.

  “Not too bad.” Veronica’s tone was almost friendly.

  “And?” Rae pushed her luck.

  “I guess it’ll come out sooner or later. I mean, it’s not exactly a secret. Stan Eisley’s son and Chief Peterson’s are fraternity brothers. The Chief now has a personal stake in getting justice for the Bayfield family.”

  “What took them so long?” Rae wanted to know. “Deidre Lassiter’s been dead going on five months.”

  “Good question.” But Veronica didn’t offer up an answer.

  Veronica’s hand paused as she was about to shove the tape into the VCR. “They’ll be damn lucky to get it whenever—justice, that is.”

  “It shouldn’t depend on who you know.” Go ahead, fire me! Then I won’t have to watch the rest of the tape.

  Veronica looked at her squarely. “I know. You’re right. But, Rae, they’re not monsters just because they’re rich and have friends in high places. Stan Eisley seems a pretty decent sort, still practicing law full-time at an age when he could easily be retired.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “He was present when I interviewed Mrs. Bayfield-Farris.”

  “I thought she was too ill to be interviewed.”

  “She’s better now. I met with them at her home a couple of days ago. I thought I told you.”

  Veronica shoved the tape into the VCR, pushed play and fast-forwarded. Deidre’s face swept through the frames as she smoked a five-second cigarette, then slumped back in her chair as Veronica hit stop, then play.

  “You people are useless. But I’ve got an idea. A way to get them off me.”

  “What do you mean?” Wehr’s voice.

  Deidre squirmed in her chair, withdrew another cigarette from the pack Wehr had given her and lit up. She inhaled deeply, then blew a smoke ring. A whisper, barely discernable. “Mom.”

  Rae strained to hear. “Did she say ‘Mom’?”

  “Hush,” Veronica reprimanded.

  On the video, Wehr was asking a similar question. “I thought your mother was deceased.”

  “That person wasn’t really my mother.” Bitterness rattled in Deidre’s throat. “Not my biological mother.”

  “You were adopted?”

  A gurgle of something—surely not laughter—came from deep within Deidre. “Not exactly. That would imply I was chosen…by someone…some couple. No. I found out why I was always referred to…in whispers behind my back, when they didn’t think I was old enough to understand…as ‘the shame.’”

  “What did you find out?” Wehr’s tone was even, business-like. Devoid of emotion.

  Cold bitch, thought Rae.

  “My sister, Morgan, wasn’t my sister. She was my mother. I was her shame. But she was the cause of the shame, not me.” Deidre rose up from the chair. “So, why was I ‘the shame’? It was her shame, not mine.”

  The cigarette went flying from her hands, burning her as she tried to catch it. She didn’t even wince.

  “Let her take my place. Let her feel what real shame is. Her, with her prissy little gloves and all the matching accessories. So proper. Dragging her feet over a few lousy—she wouldn’t pay!” Deidre’s anger spewed unchecked. Her thin hands clutched air, then her own temples as she threw back the long, black hair from her high forehead.

  A splinter pricked Rae’s brain. What was it about the hairline?

  “Sam said he’d get the money, but instead he called you cops, and here I am,” Deidre ranted on. “I know it was her idea. A lot of fucking good it’s going to do. Just make it worse for me.”

  “Please sit down, Mrs. Lassiter.”

  Wehr’s entreaty went ignored. “Mother dearest wouldn’t say fuck to save her own life.”

  “Mrs. Lassiter--”

  A break in the tape. A dark patch, as if something had been edited out.

  Then a calmer Deidre, seated once again, hands folded in front of her. “I’m telling my son to take his pals and go play with his grandma.”

  “By ‘his grandma’ you mean--”

  “What did I just tell you? The bitch would give up her whole inheritance before she’d let on she’d had a little…slip.” Deidre’s hands began to shake again as she made them into fists, clenching, unclenching. “Let’s see what she’s willing to do to keep her dirty little secret.”

  Deidre paused. An almost grin tugged at one side of her face. That face…where…

  “That’s me, you know? Only I won’t keep her secret. That’s our ticket out. It should satisfy them.”

  “You said ‘our’?” Wehr’s voice, detached.

  Rae twitched in her chair, wanting to punch somebody, glancing at Veronica. Nothing coming from those eyes except a slow burn. She has seen this before.

  “Me and my daughter,” continued Deidre.

  “Have these men threatened your daughter?”

  Deidre shook her head. “They didn't have to. When they're finished with me, she'll be the next target. Unless I give them a better one.”

  “When did you find out…
about your parentage?”

  Deidre shrugged. “I can’t remember.”

  “What about your biological father?”

  “No idea.” Deidre sank inside herself again, slumped, clawing at her sweater. “Unless…” A whisper escaped her lips. “My grandpa. I mean, my great-grandpa…Jerome, the tight leash he kept on all of us.”

  “Did he ever touch you inappropriately?”

  “Is a slap in the face inappropriate? Never mind. Not sexually. I don’t think I was his type.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Grandpa…see what habit does? Jerome liked blondes. All-American types. Like my daughter, Beth. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Something seemed to shut down in Deidre’s face. She stood and once more drew the sweater tightly around her thin body.

  “I have to go. Unless you’re going to arrest me for something.”

  “We could put you and your daughter in a safe house.”

  Deidre laughed, like dry twigs rubbing together. “There is no such thing. No house that’s safe.”

  “Do you really think you can protect your daughter without help?”

  “Not really. I may have to die for her. She’s a good kid. You know what they say about roses from shit…”

  Chair scraping. Rasping smoker’s cough. Deidre’s body, up close to the camera, then nothing. End of sound and picture. Like Deidre’s life—cut short.

  Wehr’s voice recorded the time, repeating the date of the interview.

  Veronica’s hand pressed stop, rewind.

  Rae listened to the sound of her own breathing, swallowed repeatedly, glad she’d eaten no breakfast.

  “How long have you had this tape?” Rae asked Veronica, her morning coffee burning a hole in her empty stomach.

  “Yesterday. I told you when I went in for it.” A frown creased Veronica’s brow.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Say you’re correct, what do you intend to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. What would you do, if you were me?”

  “I told Mrs. Bayfield-Farris I’d give her a heads-up.”

  “A heads-up? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “She knew a report existed, but she didn’t give it much thought until Kevin came to collect on her secret. She had our report, but not Wheat Ridge’s. She asked me to tell her what was on the tape…so she’d have some time to prepare before it became public domain.”