“Howie said you were screwing him. Was this true?”
“Well, yes. I’ve been fucking Morris Fox for years. That asshole Ratledge knew all about it. But he was smart enough to stay out of my business. Otherwise he would be lying there on the floor too.” She then chuckled and shook her head. “You’re just full of questions, aren’t you John?”
“Well, I figure I need to know.
Nicole laughed. “I don’t plan on killing you, John. I’m not that heartless. I’m just going to use you. You will have a fair shot to get out of here.”
“Why? What does that mean?”
“I guess I have to explain everything don’t I?” She looked at him. “First of all, I’m going to die.”
Parminter was perplexed.
“No, not really die. I’m going to fake my death. You’re going to either be blamed for it and go to jail for it or be burned to death. Or both. It doesn’t really matter. Oh yeah, you’re also going to be blamed for Morris Fox’s death too.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. Why would...?” But then he grasped it.
“Here’s the thing. I was going to blame everything on that asshole, Charles Abercrombie because you have to admit that it would be the most obvious way to go.”
Parminter listened, growing more and more angry as she told him the details.
“There was a problem with using him though. In addition to being too rich and too well-connected for anything to stick to him, he absolutely hates me. There’s no way that I would even be able to get close enough to set him up.”
“But then I came along.”
“Exactly. It was perfect and now you’re a known stalker, John. You’ve even had a restraining order out against you. And you had a public altercation with Morris. If you do survive, no one will believe you. When they look at the fact that you were obviously obsessed with me in college and followed me here, the jail door can’t help but swing behind you.”
She had covered every angle, Parminter. She had used every single connection they had to her advantage. “But what about the body? You’ll be gone. There won’t be one.”
“Oh, she’s in there.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember that pretty waitress at the Manse?”
Parminter remembered. “Perfect teeth,” he said bitterly. He was truly realizing what a sociopath that Nicole was.
“You remembered! Just like mine.” She smiled for effect. “Flossing does pay off. Never had a cavity in my life.”
“But what about DNA?”
“Oh that’ll burn. And if it doesn’t, I’ll be long gone before they figure out it’s not me.”
Parminter decided to make one last attempt to stop her. “But I thought we had something. I thought we were in love.”
She turned towards him almost tenderly. “John, I did develop feelings for you and you’re a great guy, but do you really think we can come back from this?”
Parminter didn’t say anything.
“Besides, I loved Raoul too, at first, but I got over it.” She paused for a second. “You see, John, I’ve always had a plan. I had a plan to get out of that shitty little town. I had a plan to get rid of my annoying roommate and I had a plan to marry a rich man. This one is no different except this time; I’ve really thought it through and refined the process. Thank God this time, it won’t have to look like an accident.”
With that, Nicole walked back into the condo, leaving Parminter standing on the terrace. She made a point of comically holding her nose as she walked through the fume filled apartment.
She walked to the door and lit a match.
* * * * *
Parminter dashed across the room. Fortunately for him the match failed to ignite and Nicole fumbled for another one. At that moment, the elevator dinged in the hallway outside the door. A look of panic passed by Nicole’s face for a second but then the door burst open behind her.
“Hands up! Nobody move!” It was Robin and three other officers. She looked at Parminter. “I got your message about you possibly needing help with Howie. When the doorman called into the station and reported that you were intruding I knew that something was up.”
“I am so happy to see you.”
Nicole started to speak but Robin took a look at Fox’s dead body and stopped her. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
Parminter wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a slight smile on Robin’s face. He was sure that her eyes were also saying, “I told you so.”
41
Parminter got another beer and went over where Robin and Freddy were sitting. It was the weekend and they were having a barbeque. The girls had insisted that they invite him. He was glad. After all he had gone through with Nicole and the Raoul Goldman situation, it was nice to not have anything to do.
“Hitting it hard, aren’t you, John?” Freddy said, pointing at Parminter’s bottle.
“Not especially, Freddy. Why do you ask?”
“I know,” Freddy laughed nervously. “I was just trying to make a joke.”
Parminter smiled back at him and tried to make him feel better. Freddy really need to stop feeling badly over stealing Robin from him. She was a good catch, but Parminter had found that she really wasn’t his type years ago. Sure, sometimes he missed her. But he got to see her whenever he went to see the kids. This was usually enough. Even so, this didn’t change the fact that he was eternally grateful that she had shown up when she had.
After the waitress from the Manse had come to from her drugged haze, she had confirmed that the last thing she remembered was talking to Nicole. Then everything had gone black for her. It didn’t take too much of a leap from there to tie Nicole to Fox’s murder as well as Goldman’s. She had counted on the fire destroying most of the evidence. When it hadn’t actually happened, everything was there out in the open. She couldn’t recover from that. The fact of the matter was that Ramos had already uncovered all of that so it was just a matter of time before everything came out.
It had turned out that everything Nicole had said about Goldman was true. His whole fortune and financial success was based on a Ponzi scheme. Clement Boatman had been a casualty but he had been the one who had started the ship sinking. Parminter had been unaware of it at the time, but what Garrity hadn’t known that in addition to his suicide note, Boatman had also left very detailed information about what he thought Raoul had been up to. The feds would have seized everything in due time. Had Nicole been able to pull her plan off and abscond with the money before they could do this, then she would have been one rich woman. It was a good thing she hadn’t; otherwise Parminter would have probably been in jail now.
It was a very humbling, he realized. It also reminded him of the very precarious nature of his as well as everyone’s existence. He just wished that Robin would stop telling him how clear the whole situation had been.
“But why didn’t you say anything back then?”
“It was so obvious, it didn’t make sense,” Robin said.
He didn’t believe her. If she had known, she would have done something about it. She had believed the fire wasn’t suspicious just like everyone else. If anyone had been a suspect at all, it would have been Abercrombie. However, he had just turned out to be a guy who was angry that his house was no longer the largest in his development.
Parminter walked over and got a hamburger. His daughters were playing badminton. He understood that there was one thing that really bothered him. It was the fact that if Ratledge hadn’t been such an undermining and secretive son of a bitch, none of it would have happened. While Ratledge hadn’t known that Nicole was a sociopath, he did know that they were planning on screwing Howie out of his part of the estate. He could have done something. He could have told someone something and a lot of this could have been avoided. Morris Fox would be in jail instead of dead. That would have been something. However he hadn’t. Howie was supposed to be his friend, but he let the fact that he was going to make a dollar with Morris Fox clou
d his judgement. Parminter remembered when he had seen Ratledge at McDonald’s and he had alluded to some sort of big deal. Well, no one but Ratledge or Fox would ever know what that was about and Fox was dead. Parminter knew that he was probably just stringing him along and preying on his greed so he would keep his mouth shut.
Howie had been right about what they were doing to him. And he had been vindicated. He was a complete asshole but it was no wonder that he was acting as crazily as he was. Unfortunately for him though, it looked like there would be nothing for him to claim after the investigation was over. If there was anything left, it would probably be years before he could get it. Parminter hadn’t told anything about it, but he thought this was a bit funny. He hadn’t known anything about Ratledge and he had no intention in telling him. And of course, Norton at the newspaper had spun the whole thing so that no one, outside of a very select few, knew what had really happened.
“Do you want a hot dog, John?” Robin asked and brought him one already knowing the answer.
“Sure thing,” he said.
At that moment, they heard a car door slam.
“Who’s that?” Parminter asked.
“I don’t know,” Robin asked. Freddy craned his head and looked around.
“Hello, everybody,” Ratledge said walking through the gate into the back yard. “I saw the smoke and I thought it would be a good time to stop in.”
“Hi, Ken,” Robin said. “How do you like the neighborhood?” While she didn’t like Ratledge, she didn’t have the same aversion to him that Parminter did. His very presence was making Parminter ill, though. Especially after all he knew about he had or hadn’t done, rather.
“Love it,” he said. He looked over at Parminter. “Too bad about Morris Fox.”
“Right,” Parminter said.
He then looked over at Parminter. “That’s two great daughters you’ve got there.”
“Thanks,” Robin said.
He then looked around uneasily as though he was having a hard time saying something. Finally, he cleared his throat.
Sensing what he was getting at, Robin went ahead and cut to the chase.
“Would you like a beer, Ken?”
Ratledge immediately brightened up. “Sure, if it’s not really any trouble.”
Parminter took a look at Ratledge’s fat greedy face and got angry. A man was dead because of this man’s negligence and his own life had been put in jeopardy all because he wanted to make a buck. He took a look at him and became aware that not only was he going to have to continue to deal with him because he lived in the neighborhood, he was also going to have to watch him eat.
“Could I have a hotdog and a hamburger, too?” Ratledge asked, his mouth visibly beginning to water.
“Well, that fucking figures,” Parminter said and walked off and got another beer.
There Will Be Fire Page 16