by T. R. Ragan
“You got a peek inside, didn’t you?” She knew how Geezer worked. His scanner usually garnered him early access. He kept disposable gloves and shoe covers in his car just in case.
“I might have.”
“Come on,” she said. “Tell me. What did you see?”
“The usual—toppled furniture, a jacket tossed over a chair, and a dead guy.”
Sawyer nodded.
“Not so usual,” Geezer added, “I didn’t see any blood, and the dead guy was wearing one shoe.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. The shoe and sock had been tossed beneath the dining room table.”
“Was there blood on his foot?”
“None that I could see. I was ushered out of there pretty quickly.” He scratched his neck. “They won’t let me inside, so I’m going to take a few more shots and head off.”
“Thanks for the call. I appreciate your help.”
“You’re going to need it,” Geezer said. “The newspaper business is a dog-eat-dog world, and without Sean Palmer there to watch over you, you’re going to need eyes in the back of your head.”
Sean Palmer was her boss and mentor who was on sick leave, recovering at home after a recent injury. “A little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Let’s hope so for your sake.”
Sawyer wasn’t worried about Geezer’s comment. She already knew that she had to work longer and harder than most if she wanted to get anywhere at the newspaper. After Geezer walked away, she headed up the stone path leading to the porch and leaned into the yellow crime scene tape.
There was an officer standing guard. He looked bored. She flashed him her badge. “Any chance I can take a peek inside?”
Arms crossed over his chest, he shook his head. “You need to move back to the street.”
She did as he said. Standing beneath the shade of a giant red maple tree, she used her phone to do a quick search on Nick Calderon.
“Oh, my God, it’s true.”
The high-pitched voice came from behind Sawyer, prompting her to spin around. The woman looked harried, as if she’d jumped straight out of bed before coming. She wore denim jeans. Her cotton shirt was wrinkled and had a stain on the collar. Her face was pale, and sweat glistened across her forehead.
“Was Nick really murdered?” the woman asked. “I mean, is he really dead?”
Sawyer nodded. “I was told it happened last night.” Before Sawyer could say more, two attendants rolled a body bag atop a gurney out of the house. The officer standing guard lifted the tape so they could get through. After they passed by, Sawyer looked at the woman and offered a hand. “I’m Sawyer Brooks, crime reporter with the Sacramento Independent.”
They shook hands.
“Linda,” she said. “Nick Calderon’s ex-wife.” She shook her head and said, “Nick could be an ass, but I never wished him dead.”
“Are you okay?” Sawyer asked.
“Surprised . . . shocked,” she said. “But I’ll be fine.” The woman looked closely at Sawyer. “Are you doing a story about Nick?”
“Sort of,” Sawyer said. “Do you have time to talk?”
“There’s a coffee shop not too far from here.” Linda gestured at a black Toyota Camry parked down the road. “If you want to follow me there, I’ll let you buy me an iced latte and ask all the questions you want.”
Caught off guard by her ready agreement, Sawyer said, “Maybe you should talk to the investigator first.”
“To hell with them. After hearing from a friend that something happened to Nick, I made half a dozen calls. They wouldn’t tell me anything. Every one of them took my name and number, but nobody bothered to call me back. They know where to find me. Let’s go.”
Ten minutes later, they were sitting at a square, wobbly table on the sidewalk outside the coffee shop. Linda dropped at least ten cubes of sugar into her latte and stirred while Sawyer took a sip of her iced mocha. It hit the spot.
“So tell me what you know,” Linda said.
Sawyer related what she’d heard about the person seen coming and going.
Linda’s eyes grew round. “A wig? Really?”
“Have you read about the Black Wigs?”
Linda sucked her latte through a straw, then said, “Is that the same group of women who cut off that guy’s one-eyed rattlesnake?”
Sawyer nodded as she struggled not to laugh at the woman’s phrasing.
Linda smiled. “Yes. I’ve heard of them. You think they went after Nick?”
“I don’t know enough yet to come to any conclusions, but it might be helpful if you could tell me a little bit about him.”
“Like his childhood and stuff?”
“Yes,” Sawyer said. “That would be a great place to start.”
“Well, jeez. It’s a sad story, and it all began when a newborn baby was found in a dumpster.”
Sawyer’s chest tightened. Every state had a safe haven law, which meant any person could safely relinquish their baby without risk of prosecution.
“Nick only talked about his past when he was drunk, which was often enough, I guess. I always got the feeling that he regretted being a bully. He said it was the only way he knew how to survive. I didn’t really understand why he felt such anger until later when I caught him having an affair.”
“Is that why you divorced?”
“That’s part of it,” Linda said. “I never should have married him. He beat me, gave me so many black eyes it’s a miracle I can still see.”
“That’s horrible.”
“I always thought his anger was due to his traumatic upbringing, being abandoned and all that, but that wasn’t the whole story.”
Sawyer waited.
“Our marriage ended after I returned home early from work and found two naked, sweaty bodies in my bed! That’s when everything started to make sense. My husband, a proud and outspoken homophobe, was gay. The hypocrisy.” She shook her head. “If only he had told me. Maybe I could have helped him.”
“You had no idea?”
“No.”
“How do you think you could have helped him?” Sawyer asked.
“I think his anger stemmed from his own inner conflict with same-sex attraction. Nick and I hadn’t been intimate in years. If he’d tried to talk to me, maybe I could have helped him see that the world was changing and that it wasn’t too late for him to live his best life by being who he wanted to be.”
“Any ideas on who might have wanted your ex-husband dead?”
Linda appeared to ponder the question before shaking her head. “Sorry. No.”
“What about family and friends?” Sawyer asked.
“No family, of course.” Linda sighed. “No friends either. I never even learned the name of the man I found in my bed.”
“Where did your ex-husband grow up?”
“In Sacramento. At a home for troubled children. He despised almost everyone—the other kids, the staff—and yet . . .” Her eyes widened, and she wagged a finger at Sawyer. “He did stay in contact with a couple of the boys from the home.”
“Do you remember their names?”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ve never been good with names.”
“You said Nick was a bully. Any idea who he might have bullied?”
“Sorry. No idea. I’m not any help at all.” She glanced at her watch. “I should go.”
They exchanged phone numbers in case Sawyer had more questions or Linda thought of anything else she might have forgotten.
As Sawyer watched Linda Calderon walk off, her intuition sounded an alarm, telling her that the Black Wigs had nothing to do with his death.
CHAPTER THREE
Sixteen-year-old Tara Alcozar and three of her closest friends—Rachel, Laura, and Mandy—sat cross-legged on the white shag rug in her bedroom. In the center of their human circle was a plastic bin filled with black wigs and eye masks.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Rachel said.
La
ura rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a weasel. We’re not going to hurt him. We’re just going to scare him, show him what it feels like to be powerless.”
Tara nodded. “He deserves it after what he did to Pamela.”
“Pamela has had a crush on Kyle since the beginning of time,” Rachel said. “I saw her coming on to him at the party. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.”
The party had taken place two months ago at Trey Matthews’s house, the most popular guy at Rocklin High School. All five of them had told their parents they were sleeping at Pamela’s house. Since she was their designated driver, Mandy had stayed away from the spiked punch while Tara, Rachel, Pamela, and Laura had gotten wasted and spent most of the night dancing and flirting with the upperclassmen.
“Pamela just wanted to make out with Kyle, not screw him,” Tara explained to Rachel. “But he took her upstairs into an empty room and locked the door. They kissed. When he slipped his hand under her shirt, she told him to stop. But that only made him more aggressive, and he wouldn’t let her go. He held her down while he pulled up her skirt. She said she became numb and it was horrible, and that when he was finished, he zipped up his pants and walked away.”
Everyone was quiet while they finished putting on their wigs and masks. When they were done, Tara made a few adjustments. She tucked in loose strands of hair peeking out of Rachel’s wig, then handed the red lipstick to Mandy and told her to put some on.
Although Tara was nervous about tonight, she was glad Kyle was going to be taught a lesson. The moment Pamela said she wanted to make Kyle pay for what he did to her, Tara had gotten an idea. They’d started brainstorming and come up with a plan. Tara’s parents would be staying overnight in San Francisco. When the time came, Pamela would tell Kyle that she’d decided to forgive him and even had a surprise for him. If everything went well, they would be arriving here at Tara’s house in the next ten minutes.
Tara pushed herself to her feet and went to the computer sitting on her built-in desk. She clicked on the tab and opened the YouTube video she’d saved that showed a group of girls, mostly in their twenties, who called themselves The Slayers. They mimicked the Black Wigs by getting revenge against college men accused of date rape. Every few weeks The Slayers uploaded a new video. The room they used looked like a dark cave with a bed in it. Once their target was tied to the wooden slatted headboard, they would make a show of sharpening their knives while explaining to their viewers what was going to happen. The guy would either beg to be let go, curse them out, or scream until his voice gave out. The Slayers never hurt anyone physically. All their targets were released, but not one guy had come forward.
Tara readied the camera on the tripod and then looked through the lens. She could see her full-size white canopy bed with its fluffy pink duvet and matching shams perfectly. “Where are the zip ties?” she asked.
“Right here.” Mandy held up a fistful of plastic ties that Tara had found in the garage.
Tara checked the battery in the camera. It was full. The bin had one more mask and wig for Pamela, but for now the bin would have to go into the walk-in closet, way in the back, so they would have room to hide.
“Here they come,” Laura said from the window. “Everybody grab a zip tie and hide!”
Tara had left the main door to the house unlocked. Pamela would ring the bell and then make her way inside. Once Pamela brought Kyle upstairs to the bedroom, she would tell him that they had the house to themselves.
When the doorbell rang, they all giggled like ten-year-olds at a pajama party and ran into the closet. Tara quietly shut the door. Her heart was racing. It wasn’t long before they heard the front door open and close and then the sound of Pamela’s and Kyle’s voices as they walked up the stairs.
This was really happening.
“Where’s Tara?” Kyle asked when they entered the bedroom.
“Tomorrow is a Staff Development Day. No school. She’s spending the night at Laura’s.”
“What about her parents?”
“Gone for the night.”
“So it’s just me and you?”
“Surprised?”
“Yeah, I am. I thought you were mad at me after what happened between us.”
“I was, but I’ve had a change of heart. I thought maybe we could start over.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” she said. “But this time I want to be in charge. Take your shirt off and lie on the bed.”
“Whoa. What’s the hurry?”
“What do you mean?” Pamela asked. “I thought you liked it fast and furious.”
“Yeah, sure, I guess. But hold on. What’s the camera for?”
“Tara makes videos to post on social media. You’ve seen her videos.”
“I saw one. It was stupid.”
“Well, if you’re not going to do what I ask, then you might as well take me home.”
“Okay. Okay.”
Tara could hear him climbing onto the bed.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now I get to tie your hands to the bedposts.”
“Getting kinky, huh?”
“You could say that again,” Pamela almost purred.
Silence, and then Pamela said, “Okay, girls. You can come out now.”
All four of them poured out of the closet. Tara and Laura rushed to fasten his ankles to the bedposts. They were so quick, he didn’t have time to fight them off.
“What are you doing?” Kyle asked.
His face and neck are as red as the roses growing in my backyard, Tara thought.
“Let me go!” Kyle said. “This isn’t funny.”
Tara ran into the closet to get Pamela a mask and a wig.
She tucked her blonde hair into the wig first, then stretched the elastic band over her head.
Kyle struggled to get free. “I want out of here. Now!”
Rachel turned as white as the shag carpet and ran from the room.
Laura ripped off a piece of duct tape and covered his mouth. It took another two pieces of tape to shut him up.
Tara hurried over to the camera and hit record. She then retrieved two pairs of scissors from her desk drawer and handed a pair to Pamela. They both worked on cutting his jeans from his body. Tara looked at Kyle with narrowed eyes. “You never should have raped my friend,” she growled. “We’re going to make sure you never do it again.”
Kyle squirmed, pulling on his restraints, trying to get free.
Mandy ran out the door. A few seconds later, she ushered Rachel back into the room just as Pamela cut off Kyle’s underwear.
For a moment, they all stared at his junk.
Rachel looked disgusted.
“Haven’t you ever seen a penis before?” Laura asked her.
Rachel shook her head. “It’s ugly.”
They all burst out laughing.
Tara had almost forgotten the curling iron! She ran to the bathroom, then brought it to the bedside table and plugged it in. Holding it up in view of the camera, she opened and closed the clamp for fun. Just the idea of using a hot curling iron on Kyle’s most vulnerable parts would make for good tension on YouTube.
When Tara noticed Rachel still staring at Kyle’s dick, she found a pen and then leaned over the side of the bed and used the pen to lift up his penis. “See that! Those are his ball sacks.”
Laura laughed. “Also known as testicles.”
Pamela reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a carving knife and a honing steel. As practiced, she made a big show in front of the camera of scraping the knife against steel, sharpening the blade.
“It’s time to make Kyle squeal,” Pamela said in a matter-of-fact tone that caused chills to crawl up Tara’s spine.
That line hadn’t been part of their plan, but Tara liked the effect, since she knew they weren’t going to harm him.
Kyle’s eyes widened. Snot dripped from his nostrils. His words were muffled beneath the tape, making it impossible to understand what he was saying.<
br />
Pamela set the sharpener down before climbing on top of the bed. Positioning herself at Kyle’s side, she made sure she wasn’t blocking the camera’s view before she picked up the knife.
Kyle struggled to get loose until Pamela slid the long, sharp blade of the carver’s knife beneath the stem of his penis. Then he froze.
The angry, determined look on Pamela’s face worried Tara.
“Are you sorry for what you did to me?” Pamela asked Kyle.
His head bobbed up and down like one of those bobblehead dolls, while his body remained stiff; he was most likely afraid of making any sudden moves.
“When I told you to stop, you shoved your tongue down my throat,” Pamela told him. “I could hardly breathe. I was suffocating, but you didn’t care. You were determined to do whatever you wanted to. I begged you to stop. When I reached for my phone, you grabbed it from me and tossed it aside. Your slobbering tongue and your hands were all over me. I kicked my legs, but every time I tried to scream, you covered my mouth with yours. I almost got away.” She exhaled. “But you caught up to me, didn’t you? You threw me to the floor, ripped off my shirt, pushed up my skirt, and climbed on top of me.”
Pamela’s head fell forward, her chin nearly resting on her chest as she sobbed.
Tara wanted to go to her, but she could tell by the way her friend was trying hard to collect herself that Pamela had more to say, so she stayed where she was and remained silent.
Pamela lifted her head and said through her tears, “I’ve hardly slept since that night. I keep my bedroom door locked at all times, and I jump at every little sound. Night after night, I relive what you did to me.” She used her left forearm to wipe at the tears. “I tried to forget what happened, but I can’t. You had no right to do what you did.” She swallowed. “I brought you here because I wanted you to know what it feels like to be completely powerless to stop someone from hurting you. Do you like feeling powerless, Kyle?”
He shook his head, his bloodshot eyes rapidly blinking.
“You’ll be glad to know I was too scared to go to the police or the hospital, and I was too ashamed to tell my parents.”
Tears rolled down both sides of her face and onto the pink duvet, leaving a trail of wet spots. Her hands began to tremble. “I’ve never hated anyone like I hate you.”