Shades of Deception

by Charlie Hudson

  Crystal didn’t know how fast she could get the insurance check and she wanted to put the trailer up for sale immediately after. Mr. Cunningham had dealt with the medical examiner’s office and explained the fucking death certificate wouldn’t be released until the results of the toxicology tests came back. He’d assured her it was routine and she wasn’t worried. Even with finding extra pain reliever in her mother’s system, that fit with the idea of accidental overdose. There was no reason for them to consider it as suicide. She’d made damn sure there was no hint of that. She didn’t want the insurance company to have any excuse for not paying.

  Crystal took the bottle of gin from the cabinet, poured a single shot over ice, added a splash of diet tonic water and a twist of lime. She carried it to the table where her laptop was set up and took a tiny sip. She was developing a taste for the more sophisticated drink and would work her way up to the classic dry gin martini. One drink a night was adequate for her — learning to manage booze was another tool she had to approach with discipline. She clicked onto the website of the appraiser in Tampa she’d found. She didn’t want to risk shipping the print to anyone and it would be an inexpensive trip to make. If the damn thing turned out to be worthless, she wouldn’t be out much more than the appraiser’s fee.

  She smiled at the screen and thought about how flawless her plan had been. Yes, just as with Deena and Matt, there was an element of luck, but not much. She’d paid cash to purchase the strongest available over-the-counter pain patches, and carefully read the small print of the various warnings. If there was a danger in applying the patch and then elevating body temperature, it was logical to think a few extra tablets of what her mother usually used and booze would enhance the effect. Timing of when to set the plan into motion was what she couldn’t control and the pieces she needed to come together hadn’t occurred for several days. On the nights her mother would come home early from the bar, it would be because her legs or back were bothering her. She would also be practically falling asleep from the minute she came in.

  Crystal started preparations as soon as she had the pain patches. Instead of her mother grabbing a sandwich when she came home, Crystal started back to making sure she had a nice dinner every night waiting for her. It wasn’t difficult to do with the slow cooker and she picked dishes with plenty of flavors. She couldn’t risk mixing pain relief tablets in the food since she didn’t know which night the timing would be right for the correct sequence of events. With more intense flavor in the meals though, her mother would want Morgan and Coke and she could dissolve the tablets in the drinks. She took six tablets from the bottle in her mother’s medicine cabinet and stashed them in a plastic sandwich bag in a drawer in the kitchen her mother wasn’t likely to open. The tablets would be within reach when the time came. She also called Josh every evening right at seven o’clock to see if he was in for the night. He was such a stoner he wouldn’t remember her frequent calls and his apartment was the only place she could use to ensure she wasn’t home when the body was found.

  Crystal had made hearty beef stew with extra carrots and onions the night her mother dragged in not long before nine o’clock. The aroma of the stew hung in the kitchen and as soon as she heard the car pull up, she’d mixed the first Morgan and Coke, pouring the spiced rum a little heavier than usual.

  She sat with her mother, sympathizing with how tired she must be and, maybe after dinner, she ought to take a nice hot shower and get the heating pad out for her back. She jumped up and mixed her a second drink and snapped her fingers as she sat down.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Have you heard about those patches they have that are like super-aspirin or something? All you do is put one on your skin and it works like twice as fast?”

  Her mother, her mouth full, had shaken her head wearily.

  “A woman I work with was swearing it was the best thing she’s ever bought. It’s the same with her. She’s on her feet a lot and her back gets tightened up. She said she’d tried lots of different stuff and now she’s using the patch, it’s the best. I picked up a box for you the other day. You want to give it a try?”

  Her mother had barely stifled a yawn. “How does it work?”

  “I read the package and it sounds really simple. You can put it on your hip or thigh or shoulder or boob. It just has to be on smooth skin and not anywhere hairy. Tell you what. I’ll clean this up while you’re in the shower and get the heating pad and the patch for you.”

  “Thanks, Honey, that does sound nice.” Her voice was thick with fatigue.

  “I’ll get you one more drink,” Crystal said, taking the glass. She needed to give her a fresh glass with no trace of anything other than Morgan and Coke.

  “Pour it short,” her mother said and pushed away from the table.

  “You go ahead. I’ll bring this to you,” Crystal said. With her mother in the other room, she had time to wash the glass instead of swapping out. She would wrap a napkin around the bottom to block her fingerprints. She heard the shower running and hoped it would be quick. She was tired of the act and wanted to get everything over with. There was still the possibility it wouldn’t work. If not, and her mother answered the phone when she called the next morning, she wouldn’t know anything had happened. Hell, her back would probably feel better though and Crystal would have to think of a new plan.

  She put that idea out of her head and went to her room for the box of patches. She stuffed all but one into her jeans’ pocket. Having the single patch and empty box ought to make it look like her mother used them regularly. It would be reasonable to conclude she had taken a couple of pills, decided they weren’t helping and used the patch as well as the heating pad. It was a believable mistake.

  Only a few steps to this phase remained. Crystal put the glass on the nightstand, retrieved the heating pad from the bottom dresser drawer, laid it on the bed and set it on Medium. Her mother never used the higher setting.

  She was in her big Marlin tee shirt when she came out of the bathroom, smelling of lavender soap. Crystal held the patch out and nodded to the night stand. “There’s your drink. I read the instructions again and I think high up on your thigh is a good spot. You want me to open it?”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said and climbed onto the bed. She took a long drink from the glass and lifted the shirt as Crystal passed the patch. Her mother pressed it firmly to her skin, then ran her finger across it to make sure it was sticking. She yawned, stretched out, readjusted the position of the heating pad and drew the sheet up. “Switch the lamp off, will you?”

  “Let me toss this,” Crystal said and moved into the bathroom to dispose of the box and wrapper. “I’ll be real quiet so you can get right to sleep.” She turned the lamp off and backed from the room, closing the door softly.

  She’d had no idea how much time the supposedly deadly combination of pain patch, heat, and booze took if it was going to trigger a heart attack. If she was right about all this, her mother would literally go to sleep and not wake up. If she opened the door to check on her, it might be at the worse possible moment — a moment when her body was fighting to survive. If she was struggling and did pull through, there was no way for Crystal to explain why she didn’t help.

  She’d kept herself busy for almost twenty minutes, then put her ear to the bedroom door, holding her breath to listen for any sound. She’s never realized the fucking AC made so damn much noise. Damnit, she had a schedule to keep to get to Josh’s apartment. If the whole fucking thing fell apart and her mother was alive the next morning, she’d buy Crystal’s bullshit story that her friend, Carol, had texted her late and was upset and needed her to come over.

  She’d parked her bike behind the trailer that afternoon and as she noiselessly left through the back door, she paused again. The silence of the darkened trailer park was her ally. Not a single interior light was on in their row. Making her way into Josh’s without being seen was where luck came in. Some fucking
patrol car might see her riding alone this late and stop to see if she needed help. She’d pedaled as rapidly as she ever had and set a record pace.

  Josh had been high when she arrived, cocooned in his messy apartment, not surprised at her request to stay over and hadn’t the faintest idea what time it was. By 1:00 a.m., he was passed out in the recliner. Their friendship was an odd one, born of incidences in school when he was a senior and she a sophomore. Neither had been a joiner and definitely not part of the “in crowd.” Despite the few years between their ages, Crystal’s ease with math had been useful to Josh and he had two benefits Crystal enjoyed. The youngest of two sons, his parents had the opportunity to accept killer-paying jobs in Hong Kong for three years and neither of the sons wanted to relocate. They’d received such a good offer on their house, they made the decision to sell that and lease an apartment in his older brother’s name for their two sons to live in. The older son was a charter boat captain who was rarely in town. The first time Josh invited her to his place to work on an assignment, she’d seen potential. She crafted the story about how her mother would bring home drunken boyfriends sometimes and it would be nice for her to have a refuge. That gave her an outlet for when she couldn’t tolerate being around her mother who thought it was a fictional friend, Carol, she was staying with. Josh was socially awkward, slouchy, and didn’t have a single attractive feature. However, he was not for some reason, raging with hormones like every other dick-centered teenage boy. Maybe he’d always wanted a sister because that was how he treated her.

  She’d curled up on his couch, a faded Broncos stadium blanket wrapped around her, the television turned low to a music channel. She had drifted in and out of sleep, shaking herself alert at 5:57 a.m. to make the call to her mother and set everything into motion. God, it had been perfect.

  Crystal took another sip of the gin and wondered how long all three murders would play in her mind as vividly as if she’d recorded them. The precision of what she’d done and in each case not actually knowing if she’d been successful when she was forced to wait for the outcome had been a manageable level of anxiety. There had been no other solution if each death was to be ruled an accident. In her mother’s case, it was critical she leave the trailer to arrive at Josh’s before midnight. She couldn’t risk having to call him late to let her in. Just as she’d been doing for several nights in a row, she’d called him a few minutes before seven o’clock to make sure he would be home and that had to be the last record of them talking. She didn’t think the police would check that, but she didn’t want to take a chance on it.

  A text coming in yanked her from remembering all the steps she’d planned out and she almost laughed in seeing it was Josh. She couldn’t ignore him — she might still need him for something. With her own place now, she could even invite him over. She declined his invitation for companionship in the same way she had Mrs. Plummer. This grief deal was convenient — no one doubted her and she could play it either way. I’m so exhausted, sleep is the best thing for me right now. The other choice was — I’m feeling terribly alone. Do you mind if I come over? So far she’d opted more often to be alone. Being around these idiots was becoming tiresome.

  None of it would matter soon. The minute she had the insurance check, she would make an appointment with the appraiser. Having an undiscovered Audubon print wasn’t as good as some big lottery win, but it was a start. There was practically nothing else of value to take and as much as she would like to replace the Honda with something newer, the mechanic had sworn it was good for nearly another 100,000 miles. She wasn’t going to spend a dollar more than necessary as she set herself up in a new place.

  Her claim she simply couldn’t bear to stay in the same trailer any longer would be accepted with sympathetic nods and, hell, maybe it was worth more than she thought. Allowing selected neighbors to take what they wanted was something else she’d let Mrs. Plummer do for her. Anything left over could be tossed or given to one of those charities that picked shit up from people. Jacksonville was far enough away to begin with and she’d already looked to see there were multiple colleges there with all sorts of programs starting at different times. Settling her mother’s affairs should take her right up to high school graduation and she’d say whatever she wanted to about going off to college.

  In fact, that was probably the best idea. Nothing wrong with a community college as a start while she recreated herself. It didn’t make sense to pay out-of-state tuition to some college when all she wanted was to find a path to wealthy people. She’d heard enough talk to know Palm Beach had a hell of a lot of money and she was going to concentrate her research there. She thought about another drink and decisively put the bottle in the cabinet. Discipline was important in everything she did. It wasn’t as if she was some out-of-control serial killer who murdered for perverse pleasure. Ironically, getting rid of Deena turned out to be completely unnecessary, considering what happened with Matt, but she didn’t know that at the time. Although killing him might have been a little self-indulgent, maybe she’d saved other women from the kind of careless treatment he’d shown her. It was different with her mother. This was the only way she could have the life she deserved. There was so much she had to learn and be free to do it. Her mother would never have been anything but an obstacle. Her death was essentially Crystal’s rebirth. After all, women used to die in childbirth all the time. This wasn’t really so much different if you looked at it from the proper point of view.

  Bev thought it had been close to a year since she’d seen Nina Gustafson and they were nothing more than friendly acquaintances. Although their height and build were similar, blonde hair leaning to platinum and blue eyes to complete the Nordic look almost always guaranteed Nina was noticed and usually remembered. Not to mention there wouldn’t be many people in the Macaw at this hour, so it wasn’t as if she had to pick her out from a crowd.

  Nina had called a little before noon and asked if they could meet away from the station. She said she was staying with friends or she’d invite Bev to her place. She wanted to talk to her about Matt Raney’s death and when Bev explained the investigation was closed, her remark of, “Maybe it shouldn’t have been,” was intriguing.

  Nina, the single occupant, stood up from the table in the back left. A few other tables were being cleared and four men were at the bar, focused on a baseball game.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said, reaching out her hand. Whatever she’d been doing for the past year, it hadn’t been office work. Her lean body was tanned, her grip steady, nails clipped short, no polish. Her red mid-thigh shorts were paired with a white tank top and unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt festooned with different colored parrots. Her curly hair was in an easy to manage short style. Had it been that way before? Bev had remembered a braid.

  She motioned to the chair and lifted her almost empty mug. “I’m going for a fresh one. You?”

  “Diet Coke for now,” Bev said and took the chair to the left. It gave her a view of the room with her back close to the wall, as she preferred when given the choice. A bowl of snack mix was mostly full and several grains of salt hadn’t been picked up by whoever wiped down the table.

  Nina returned quickly with the drinks, her face neutral. “How the hell have you been and you want to skip the small talk?”

  Bev did remember she could be direct. “Things are good and I can go either way.”

  “Oh, before I seem rude, I did hear about you and Kyle getting married. Congratulations.” She had one of the amber drafts and made a toasting gesture.

  “Thanks, and you’ve been where?”

  “Bouncing around Costa Rico and Panama and way down into French West Indies, — off-the-grid a lot. That’s why I didn’t find out about Matt until a few days ago. I hopped a ride with a friend coming in from Martinique and planned to get in touch with him. You did the investigation?”

  “Yeah, from everything we saw, it was pretty straightforward. Who did
you go to for the story?” As a seasoned boat captain, Nina knew most of the charter businesses in town and circulated in the dive community.

  She made a motion in the direction of the office “Steve. He’s less prone to exaggeration, plus I know he’s pretty tight with you and Kyle. I imagine he has as accurate information as anyone unofficial. He’s not here right now, by the way,” she said smoothing a cocktail napkin with her fingertips. “You’re absolutely convinced it was an accident?”

  Bev didn’t think Nina was playing with her. “What is it I don’t know to make you ask the question?”

  Nina looked directly into Bev’s eyes. “Was the actual report, death by drowning, reason for drowning unknown? Unknown as in no discernable underlying cause such as heart attack, embolism, or whatever, for him to have lost consciousness?”

  “Which tracks with other recorded similar diving fatalities. Not being able to pinpoint an underlying medical problem is the exception.”

  Nina nodded thoughtfully and paused for a sip of beer. “Look, I’ve spent a hell of a lot of time on different islands and deep in the jungles. Do you know I have a degree in anthropology?”

  Bev thought she knew where this was going. “Can’t say I did.”

  “I’m originally from Tennessee and fell in love with the ocean when I was a kid and we went to Myrtle Beach for vacation. One of my mother’s cousins and his wife were missionaries to Honduras and they would give presentations at the church about their work. I wasn’t inclined to their calling by any stretch of the imagination, but listening to how they were entwined in a foreign culture is what led me to a degree in anthropology. There are a lot of island and coastal places in the world to explore, so the idea of combining a career and being around the ocean seemed like a great fit. You ever been to Papua New Guinea?”