Pool of Lies

by J. M. Zambrano

  “Somebody was texting Kevin. Not Camacho. He had on one of those watches that shows time and date. Apparently it got smashed in the crash. He died the same night as Deidre.”

  “Ohmigod.”

  “Yeah, somebody strapped him snugly into the driver's seat, but forgot to adjust the seat. JJ was a shorty. His feet couldn't have touched the pedals even if he'd been alive.”

  “Do you have any idea…who?”

  “Not yet. I'm really beat. Just wanted you to be among the first to know. Talk to you later.”

  Sometimes justice comes when you least expect it. Rae had a new vision of Morgan in animal form. Only this time she wasn't a wild goose. She was a raging mother bear, ripping the hell out of the man who'd killed her cub.

  *****

  Tori called Rae at noon. “We saw the storm damage on TV. Are you okay, Mom?”

  “Fine. Me and the critters. A few trees didn't make it. And my rose garden was sliced and diced.”

  “We were worried. It looked pretty bad.”

  “I haven't turned on the TV. Guess I was one of the lucky ones.”

  “Hope it's not a sample of what winter's going to be like, 'cause we've got our tickets for Christmas. They've got some really good deals going that might not be available if you wait till spring.”

  “I hear you.”

  When they'd finished talking, Rae turned on her computer, logged onto the internet, typed in O R B I T Z and hit enter. The simple act gave her an immense sense of relief.

  *****

  After she'd eaten dinner, fed the animals and returned Stephen's call that he'd left while she was in the barn, Rae thought of Danny and wondered if Veronica had called him. Her heart had softened toward him. Though a dunce when it came to judgment in financial matters, Danny had, at least on paper if not by monetary contribution, owned half the real estate in Deidre's estate by virtue of being an equal partner in the LLC. Beth was Deidre's only other heir, and she didn't want financially. So what if Danny spent money like a drunken sailor? Didn't he deserve a little peace of mind about his wife's killer? Of course, she wouldn't mention her theory about Morgan evening the score for all of them.

  So many rings made her think that the call would surely go to voicemail. But finally Danny answered. “Rae?”

  “Has Veronica phoned you by any chance?”

  A slight pause. “Nooo. We're not exactly buddies. What's up?” And then he giggled. Rae hoped he wasn't high, that fiscal irresponsibility wasn't just a symptom of another regression.

  “They found JJ.”

  “Oh, so that's what all the ruckus was about.”

  How would he… Ohmigod! She tried to keep her tone even and her words a misconstruction of what she'd heard. “Yeah, all over the news. But I slept through most of it, too. Didn't know till Veronica called me this morning.”

  “How'd they catch him?” Apparently she wasn't the only one who could switch gears after a nasty slipup. And her minute silence had been just that.

  “Uh, not sure. You'll have to ask Veronica.” Did she pause a bit too long again? Did he catch the panic in her voice? “Well, I'm bushed, Danny. Just thought you'd want to know. Talk to you.”

  “You bet.”

  She heard the click as he hung up, and then felt her heart pounding in her ears. Quickly, she entered Veronica's number. Voicemail. What kind of a message to leave? Was she losing her mind? But suddenly her Morgan theory burst like an abscess. She'd forgotten about the text messages sent to Kevin from JJ's cell phone. That shot the hell out of any crime of passion done in retribution for the murder of a child.

  There must have been cops and emergency vehicles all over the place last night. Danny would have had a great view from his new front window. Why on God's earth would Danny have associated her news about JJ to a neighborhood ruckus unless he knew JJ was in the lake? Good God. He may know I know. She called Veronica's cell. Same. Voicemail.

  He can't know I know. Had the isolation of her lifestyle really done a number on her head? Grandma! But there was no answering thought, no wise adage, no advice come from sifting the past for the known. What was left was the unknown. I must have heard him wrong. In her mind, she replayed Danny's words, and her gut told her that there was no other interpretation. For him to associate a ruckus, as he put it, at any location with the apprehension of Camacho was illogical. Considering the proximity of his house to Graystone Lake, what else could she think? What would she have normally done? Jumped all over him with questions about the ruckus he heard…or saw as he came home from wherever. The fact that she instead jumped into a bunch of nonsense about TV coverage of the incident--not quick thinking. Idiocy! Danny knew her--too well. But did he? Really?

  She tried Veronica--both numbers--again, this time leaving a message: Call me. Please. It's urgent. But she could not say more, as some irrational part of her still didn't want it to be true.

  In the kitchen, as she warmed up coffee, she remembered the incident of the staple holes on the cancelled check stub and Veronica's reaction to Rae's idea of a significant piece of evidence. The conversation with Danny in which she gave so much significance to her own small hesitation would seem absurd to Veronica. This was Danny, whom she had known for years--a screw up, maybe, but could she really imagine Danny harming her or anyone for that matter?

  What if he had come upon JJ in the act of murdering Deidre? What if Danny had dispatched his wife's murderer? Rae shuddered. How smooth a liar would Danny have to be to pull off a convincing front? She remembered his apparent shock in Veronica's office over Deidre's sexual assault and his insistence that he didn't know JJ. And how would he know to send fake text messages to Kevin if he wasn't in on the plan? Or could the text messages have been sent by Reggie Navarro? To Rae's knowledge, JJ's cell phone had never been found. A tenuous calm settled upon her as she formed the idea of talking to Danny about his involvement--counseling him, even, if he had in fact killed his wife's murderer. As the phone rang, she realized that her decision in this regard needed to be immediate.

  *****

  An hour later, Rae sat in her darkened living room. Danny should have been here by now. She'd opened a front-facing window a crack in spite of the cold. Few vehicles passed on the road below. She heard only the occasional yip of coyotes in the distance--then a ki-yi-yi as the pack closed in on a hapless critter.

  Somewhere in the house, a board creaked as they often did in old houses. She flinched and looked behind her. Nothing. She got up and slowly walked into the hallway, reminding herself that there was no approach to her house except by the road below that she'd been watching diligently.

  Outside, she knew the roads were slick from yesterday's storm. The sun had been out long enough to melt the snow, but now the falling temperature had turned it to black ice. He could not have hurried in that old truck of his. With all the spending, she wondered why he hadn't bought a new, snazzy car. Maybe a sports car. Or better for this climate, a four-wheel drive.

  In the dining room, she peered through the window as an aircraft's blinking light passed before the moon's skinny crescent. A creak behind her just before he said, “I'm over here, Rae.”

  Even though expected, her heartbeat increased so quickly that she felt faint. A million rabbits hopping in her chest. “Danny.” She flipped on the light. No need for dark now.

  “It was quite a long walk, but not an impossible one since I'm here. By the way, you left your side door unlocked.”

  “How careless of me.”

  She marveled that he looked perfectly calm. A little short of breath, maybe, because he must have hiked at least a mile or two through farmland to the north of her.

  “Why didn't you just come to the front door?”

  For an answer, he shrugged. He was dressed in a warm sheepskin jacket and his hair was boyishly tousled. She looked down at his feet and saw that his boots were encased in plastic.

  “Why, Danny?”

  “Why not?” He giggled, and Rae was pretty sure he was high. “A
s you said, I've made some pretty crappy choices in women. I didn't need you to tell me to correct my errors.” He giggled again. Rae's stomach was doing the queasy thing. She walked into the kitchen for water. Danny followed.

  When she'd filled her glass and drunk about half, she said, “Water, Danny? Or coffee? You want to tell me about it? How you corrected your mistakes?”

  “I'll do that much for you, Rae. I owe you. But first, let's go upstairs.”

  “No. We'll talk here.” Her knees trembled, but thank God her voice remained firm.

  Danny drew a small pistol from his coat pocket. “No, we'll go upstairs.”

  “You're going to shoot me?”

  He laughed an eerie, crazy cackle. “Of course not. Rae, how could you think such a thing?” He walked over and prodded her with the gun. “Now, move slowly up the stairs.”

  She obeyed, holding on to the stair railing for support. “Now where?”

  “Your bedroom.”

  “My bedroom?” Ohmigod, what's he thinking?

  “Oh, no-no-noo. Rae, would I do a thing like that?”

  She flipped on the hall light as they topped the flight of stairs. “I didn't think so. I didn't think that of you, Danny.”

  “I just want to take a look at something in your room.”

  “What would that be?”

  “Anthony's pistol.”

  “How…” Instant replay. She'd told him, that's how. “Why do you think it's in my room?”

  “You said you keep it close by. At night, that's when you'd want it close by. In your bedroom--that's where you're most alone. When you need protection.”

  “How smart you are, Danny.”

  “Not really. Else I never would have made another mess I'd have to clean up. You can't imagine how much I regret the position you've put me in.”

  “I've put you in? You think you have no responsibility here?”

  “Sorry, Rae. I just can't afford to let you screw up my plans.” He pushed open the first bedroom door. “It won't be hard to determine which room is yours.”

  She hung back. “You said you owed me. So tell me how you happened to kill JJ.”

  “Your room first.” He prodded her in the back with the little gun. Up close she'd seen it was real--maybe like the one Markov had used. The little twenty-two that hadn't killed Anthony.

  You can do this.

  I'm not sure.

  Yes, you can.

  She opened the door to her room and entered ahead of Danny and switched on a bedside lamp. Grandma's quilt on her bed--she wanted to draw it around her--handmade in a pattern of Grandma's design--if he shot her, there would be blood on the quilt. She walked to the window, distancing herself from the bed. “You think it'll be any harder to figure out if you use Anthony's gun?”

  “I'm not going to use Anthony's gun.” Another crazy, crack-head giggle. “You are.”

  She turned to look into his eyes, and the Danny she thought she knew wasn't even there. “You've really lost it.”

  “No, Rae. It's you who are unbalanced. Your grief over your husband's death has left you despondent.”

  “Oh, right. So despondent that I just bought a plane ticket to go see my kids.”

  “Thanks for telling me. When we're finished, I'll just go into your computer and cancel it.”

  “You can't do that. You don't even know what airline. Who's to say I didn't call my travel agent?”

  “First, you don't have a travel agent. Second, I've become very proficient at hacking into computers.” He walked to the bedside table, opened its one drawer and removed the heavy flannel from Anthony's pistol. “You said 'close by.' What could be closer?”

  “No one would believe I'd kill myself.”

  “You'd be surprised. Sandy and I have discussed your grief at length.”

  “Sandy's in this with you?”

  “No, Rae. Sandy's the same good old Sandy that you thought he was. We discussed your state of mind the day you hit me in the face. You do remember hitting me? And why do you think I never brought charges? Sympathy for your mental state, Rae.”

  She suddenly felt cold creep down her spine. Her knees trembled. Why had she gotten herself into this? “Tell me about JJ and Deidre. You owe me, Danny.”

  “I do. You stuck by me, helped me get rid of Gil and the pack at RS and E. My removal as P/R is imminent, but you helped me buy some time. One good thing my dad taught me was how to strip properties of their worth. Gil suspected, but you got him so riled up that he resigned instead of following through, which meant I didn't have him breathing down my neck. You and Sandy are much more trusting. Good people are, you know?”

  “You were the JJ connection after all.”

  “Silly Kevin. He was the one that had it mixed up.”

  “Then you killed Deidre--”

  “No, Rae. JJ killed Deidre. He thought he'd do Kevin and Beth next. Not the brightest bulb, JJ. I put to good use all the lessons you gave me on how trusts operate. There had to be one kid left standing to get at the big money--as Beth's guardian, of course.”

  “So, you killed Kevin?”

  “Nooo.”

  “But JJ was already dead.”

  “Actually, I think Morgan killed Kevin and saved me the trouble. I've been waiting for the wheels of justice to bring her down. When they do, I'll step in as Beth's guardian.”

  “I doubt that. Sam--”

  “Sam's an old man, Rae. Things sometimes happen to the elderly.”

  Her anger rose. She could feel heat in her neck. What she wanted to do, she couldn't--not just yet. “But you had JJ give Dee the overdose?”

  “Are you dense, Rae, as well as despondent and suicidal?”

  “Is that a 'yes'?” Say it already.

  “Oh, if it will make you happy. Yes, I killed the bitch, and JJ was my weapon. Then I got rid of the weapon. For the record, raping Dee was not part of our deal. Happy now?”

  “Happy?” She felt the tears burgeoning. It breaks my heart. I loved you like you were my oldest kid. But she stuffed those feelings as she made her voice all business. “You can come in now, Veronica.”

  “That old trick? I turn my back to see and you…what? Jump out the window? See, no one's coming. Why do you think I checked around in back?”

  “They're in the barn, Danny, vehicles and all. I'm wearing a wire.”

  “I don't believe you.”

  “You should,” Veronica said from the doorway. “Drop the gun or you're a dead man.”

  Epilogue

  The psychotherapist reviewed her notes while waiting for the patient to arrive for their weekly session. Going into the second year of treatment, there was still no discernable improvement. On the positive side, there had been no apparent deterioration. The sixteen-year-old maintained passable grades in school and reasonable social interaction with her peers.

  Still the girl continued to be plagued by a recurring nightmare about the tragic deaths of her mother and brother, and she harbored a deep seated fear of most men. A good sign was that two men had earned her trust: her grandfather and her step-brother Josh, whom the grandparents had taken in when his father was imprisoned for the murder of Beth's mother.

  The doctor looked up at the sound of her office door opening. As usual, the girl wore no makeup. Her blond hair was pulled back severely, as if to deflect attention from her prettiness.

  “Good afternoon, Beth.”

  The girl gave her just a wisp of a smile before settling into the upholstered chair across the desk.

  “How has your week been?” the doctor asked.

  Beth shrugged and looked down at her hands. Still avoiding eye contact, she began, “There's more this time.”

  "More to the dream?" The girl's previous accounts had been of hiding in her room at her grandmother's house. She couldn't tell the doctor from what or whom she was hiding.

  “I saw his face,” Beth said.

  “Whose face?”

  “I stayed home from school with really bad cramps. I
didn't tell anybody. They didn't know I was there. I heard him come in and go to Grandma's room, only I still thought she was my aunt. I didn't want to see him, so I stayed in my room and hoped he'd leave soon.”

  “Who?”

  “They left for a while, but then they came back and started yelling at each other in the hallway. I sneaked up to listen, and I heard him say what they were going to do to me.”

  “They? The man and your grandmother?”

  “No. My brother Kevin and JJ, the man who killed my mom. I didn't know what to do.”

  Beth looked up at the doctor, making eye contact. “I know I should have screamed…called nine-one-one…but there wasn't time.”

  “What was your brother doing?”

  “He was going to kill her. I needed to stop him. Then I remembered Grandma's Demerol. She kept it in her bathroom.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Sometimes I helped her with the shots when she was too sick to do it herself.”

  “You got your grandmother's medication?”

  Beth nodded. “When I got back with it, I saw him hit her. They were both so angry they didn't even know I was there. Grandma hit him back, but he was stronger. He knocked her down. When he bent over her, I stuck the needle in him and pressed hard as I could. He swatted the syringe out of my hand. I ran to my room. Dragged a dresser in front of the door. I didn't know I could be so strong. He pounded on the door--yelled what he was going to do to me.” Beth panted, stopping now for breath, her eyes tripping wildly around the room.

  “Wasn't there a phone in your room?”

  Beth shook her head. “I had my cell. I must've left it in Grandma's bathroom when I got the Demerol. I was going to call nine-one-one, but I didn't think there was time.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I heard a thud--like Kevin falling down. But I thought he might be trying to trick me into opening the door, so I waited. I heard somebody moving around--then, nothing. I listened a long time…to the quiet. But I was too scared to open the door.”

  The doctor watched a shudder course through Beth's body.

  “I stayed there till Grandma knocked on my door and told me it was safe to come out.” Beth began to sob. “I only wanted to make him go to sleep till we could get help. I guess I gave him too much. Grandma said it wasn't my fault.”