Part 1 (1/2)
POOL OF LIES.
By J.M.Zambrano.
February.
Deidre Bayfield La.s.siter sat in a straight-backed chair, eyes closed, body rigid, her long black hair cascading over her nakedness. JJ's words were dull thuds against the wall she had constructed between her consciousness and her captor. He stood behind her, his hands resting on the ropes that bound her emaciated wrists to the chair arms, his sour breath caressing her cheek as he spoke.
”Here's the deal, Dee, when I cut you loose, you'll take the phone and talk. Make sure he gets it this time.”
She had already done this once. Something had gone wrong. The desired outcome had not materialized. The events were hazy. Had it been yesterday or last week?
”Do you understand, or do we need another lesson? There's always little brother and his jumper cables.” JJ prodded the nape of her neck with a thick forefinger. He was a short, stocky man, built like a Rottweiler. When standing, Deidre towered over him at five-ten. She squeezed her eyes tighter to block out the vision of him, but his image, like his lessons, had seared her brain.
She made herself nod as she whispered, ”Got it,” then felt JJ cut the bonds that held her wrists.
”Take it now.” His voice slapped her rudely. She felt his knife in the spa.r.s.e flesh on the back of her hand--a little blood-letting, a sample of things to come if Sam screwed up again. Deidre opened her eyes to the sight of a cell phone being thrust at her face. Slowly she moved her hands, needing both to steady the phone. JJ had already punched in the number. It was ringing.
”Bayfield Enterprises, Sam Garvin speaking,” a recording announced in the elderly tw.a.n.g of her trustee and family accountant. ”Leave a message.” No frills. Not even the promise of a return call.
JJ prodded her in the leg with the toe of his boot, his small dark eyes flas.h.i.+ng intently.
”It's me, Sam. Deidre.” It seemed a long time since she'd spoken aloud. Maybe a week. The sound hurt her more than the pin-p.r.i.c.k rush of blood back into her hands. ”I need some money. Please don't call the cops this time. It didn't do any--” JJ abruptly cut the connection.
”He'll call back on your cell phone.”
Deidre nodded, looking around as if for the first time. Memory oozed sluggishly. They were in the Aztec Motel on Forty-fourth where JJ had taken her after her release from the Lakewood Police. After her first call for money, Sam had called the cops, and they'd picked her up on a welfare check, s.n.a.t.c.hed her from that big boat of a Lincoln Town Car she'd just inherited. Expired plates. Vehicle possibly stolen. So said the cops as they'd focused on her, separating her from JJ. Meantime JJ had just faded into the background, distancing himself from the scene. She'd watched him from the back of the squad car, a nebulous figure in black making tracks down an alley, seemingly invisible to the cops. But her deliverance had somehow backfired, and he had her again, like she knew he would. It was true when he said the cops couldn't touch him.
”Are you hungry?” JJ asked pleasantly, in the voice he had used when first meeting her.
Deidre shook her head.
”Not even for candy?” Nose candy. Too slow. She smoked rock now. It didn't last. Nothing did. Maybe a shot--a downer to make her sleep a long time. Maybe she didn't even care if he dug her grave with that backhoe he had parked behind his machine shop on Forty-second. She closed her eyes and imagined cool, damp earth falling on her.
”You're free to go now.” His voice came from across the room. She hadn't heard him move. The feel of his breath was still on her neck.
”I'm unlocking the door. Your clothes are on the bed. So is your cell phone.”
She heard the door open and close, then JJ's cowboy boots deliberately loud to her ear in the tiled hallway outside the room. Yet, she didn't move.
The words you're free to go were part of her conditioning. She remembered what had happened before when she'd taken him up on that offer, surprised that the memory still triggered pain in that deep place where she thought there should be no feeling left.
Vaguely aware of someone looking at her from across the room, she opened her eyes and saw the eviscerated face of a dark-haired woman with eyes pale as ice, a woman with a lot of mileage--more than thirty-five years could account for. Flaws in the mirror made pockmarks on her face.
Deidre made one sluggish gesture toward her mirror image, then slumped back down in the chair, burrowing deep within herself. Being plowed under by a backhoe didn't seem so bad after all. Then, from the bed, her cell phone rang.
Longmont, Colorado Rae grabbed Danny's call on the third ring. Seeing his name in the caller ID box didn't do any wonders for her mood. ”Rachel Esposito here,” she hammered out the three words. Staccato. Didn't he know what day this was?
”Hi, Rae. It's me.”
”I can see that, Danny.” She snorted impatiently, reminding herself that she'd been around horses too long.
”I need your help.” His tone danced a hair away from panic.
She vowed to have no mercy. ”It's April fifteenth.”
”I know, but something's happened. It's bad.”
When did he ever call when it was something good? ”Yeah, yeah. Uncle's on your tail again and you need three years' tax returns.”
”You may be right. I move a lot and mail doesn't always find me. But that's not it.” He paused a second. Rae could imagine him taking a drag on a Marlboro. Dumb-a.s.s kid. Didn't he know what happened to the Marlboro Man?
”My wife died,” he squeezed out just as she was about to hang up on him.
”Jolene is dead?” she gasped as guilt seized her.
”Jolene and I divorced three years ago,” he replied. ”I remarried. My wife Deidre is dead.”
”The last I heard from you was when we batch-filed three years' returns for you, to keep you out of jail,” she blurted.
”I'm sorry,” he said.
That was supposed to have been her line, but she remembered that he'd never fully paid that last bill. ”You're always sorry,” she growled. His silence finally pushed the words out of her. ”I'm sorry about your wife. Now, what is it you want from me?”
”Deidre drowned in her hot tub,” he replied.
That wasn't what she'd asked. Rae began nervously tapping her desk with a pencil. But now she was too curious to hang up.
”I'm the personal representative of her estate and there's a bunch of s.h.i.+t going down.”
s.h.i.+t following Danny La.s.siter was not new. Rae kept her silence, accelerating the pencil tapping that she knew Danny couldn't help but hear.
”It's quite a large estate,” he continued. ”Deidre was a trust fund brat, too.”
”Birds of a feather get flocked and plucked.” Rae's lopsided humor sprang from her surroundings. She was the third generation on the small Longmont farm from which she ran her accounting office.
Danny's silence told her he was looking for meaning in something that had none. Rae could churn out an adage that bore little resemblance to its prototype.
”Uh, Rae? I'm dealing with a lot of hostility here.”
”I thought I had it under control.”
”Not you. My wife's family. She left a nineteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old. Then there's the half-sister that makes Cinderella's look like Mother Teresa.”
”Cinderella had two stepsisters,” Rae corrected. She eyed the pile of client files beside her, noting that her computer screen had taken a time-out.
”Rae, gimme a break. I need you. I'm in deep s.h.i.+t and I have a meeting next Monday with a very hostile lawyer. I need somebody on my side with unquestionable moral and professional integrity.”