by Bill Alive
Jivanta flinched. Up to now, she’d been burning with righteous anger, but now her face twisted with shame. She ducked her head. Then she forced herself to face him.
“Sir,” she said quietly. “I am very, very sorry.”
“Sorry?” Mackenzie leaned at her over his chair, gripping the back with straining ancient knuckles. “She was getting a divorce, you bitch! Her life was already a disaster—”
“Mr. Ramsey,” Gwen said quietly. “Let’s let Mr. Samson finish.”
Mackenzie’s face was still contorting, but he clenched his mouth shut and managed to get settled again.
Fidelio heaved a breath. “Lindsay didn’t go for me,” said. “She was too smart. So I tried Sibyl.”
Mackenzie flared up again. “And when her allowance wasn’t enough for you parasites, you killed Lindsay to get the big payout!”
“No I did not! We were never going to kill anyone.”
“Oh no. Not you. Just marry a drug addict and steal her cash to feather your love nest.”
Fidelio hung his head. “You’re right, okay? You’re absolutely right. It was terrible, and much, much worse than I thought it would be.” He raised his head toward Jivanta. “But the worst was when you thought I’d started killing people.”
She twisted away from him, looking at the wall.
He stepped slowly toward her down the row of folding chairs, awkwardly nudging them with little squeaks. “If I would kill for money, I would never give it up, right?” he pleaded. “I know I’m a con man, but this is the real deal. If you’re going to make me choose between you and a couple million bucks … it’s done, okay? It’s a done deal. Would you just fricking look at me?”
He touched her shoulder, very gently.
She didn’t turn. “I’ll probably lose my license,” she said. “But not the debt, of course.” Her voice was shaking. “I deserve it.”
“We deserve it,” Fidelio said. “But that’s still pretty cheap if I don’t lose you.”
She flipped back her hair and faced him, eyes glistening.
I decided I would totally trade millions for a woman like her to give me a look like that.
Beside me, Mark grunted, “I felt that.”
Gwen’s firm voice completed the moment’s pulverization.
“Well, Mr. Falcon? If Mr. Samson didn’t kill the two sisters (which is still up for serious debate), then who did? Mackenzie? He apparently gets all that money after all, or what’s left of it. And he is on record as obsessing over winning back his fortune.”
Mackenzie protested, but Mark cut him off. “I don’t think it was him. I would have felt it.”
Gwen rolled her eyes.
“Thank you, son,” Mackenzie said. “I think.”
“So who was it?” I said.
Mark mopped his forehead again. Why was he getting more nervous? We’d already scored one solid confession; even if he muffed the rest, there was no way Gwen could totally shut us down. What else was going on here?
In a slightly too-steady voice, Mark said, “We know Sibyl was deep into drugs. And that Numb is moving into this territory. And that Numb’s been known to extend credit to certain clients with collateral. Sibyl was expecting a large inheritance.”
Mackenzie was looking even more pale, but this time, he didn’t interrupt.
“When the inheritance finally came,” Mark said, “Sibyl might have balked at having to pay up. Especially if Numb decided to add a few extra ‘fees’. If she did refuse, Numb might have decided to make her an example. And his hit man could have traced her last call to me and Pete and come after us to clean up.”
“That’s a lot of mights, Mr. Falcon,” Gwen said. “We’ve already been working this angle. What about your proof?”
“Well, unless you happened to invite Numb to our little get-together—”
“Oh, I see. All I had to do was apprehend a master criminal whose identity and location have been unknown for decades. Then you’d take care of the hard part.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Mark said. “Murder’s not always super exciting. Sometimes it’s just drugs.”
“So that’s it?” Gwen said. “Both sisters were involved with drugs, so Numb had them executed?”
Mark frowned, and looked troubled. “Just Sibyl,” he said. “Not Lindsay.”
The room grew quiet. You could hear that everyone was listening hard.
Mark said, “We don’t have firm evidence that Lindsay was into the drug scene at all, either as a user or a borrower. And there wasn’t really a drug racket at the airport. That whole story was concocted by Hollister to cover his murder and the bankruptcy.”
“But didn’t Lynch think ‘Numb’ when he first saw us?” I said.
“I’ve seen things before,” Lynch said, with a sidelong glance at Fidelio. “Our students ain’t always totally clean, and I thought you two might be trouble.”
“Or easy money,” Fidelio grumbled.
Lynch slid Gwen a glance and tried to look virtuous. No wonder Mark had vibed all that Lynch guilt back in the hangar … Lynch must have been weighing whether to tell the cops what he knew or to milk Hollister for life. I guess even serial blackmailers sometimes feel icky.
Fidelio raised his voice. “Mark’s right about Lindsay,” he said. “She always seemed pretty clean.”
Given Vincent’s accusations, I flinched a little at that word choice.
But Gwen said, “Fine. In that case, Mr. Falcon, what’s your vague and unprovable theory about her killer?”
Fresh sweat was trickling down Mark’s neck. He took a deep breath.
“Right from the start, there’s always been one big problem about Lindsay. For awhile, it seemed like the inheritance would solve it, but as it turned out, it didn’t.”
“What problem?” I said.
“Motive.”
He looked right at Vincent.
The kid wilted.
Chapter 40
Outside, the overcast sky exploded into a dark fall storm. Rain lashed against the glass door of the exit. Inside the room, we were dead silent.
Everyone might not know what the kid had told us about Lindsay, but they could sense who Mark was accusing.
The kid’s eyes were wide and terrified. His mouth hung open, and he was breathing in fast pants.
Mark was wincing, clenching his teeth and trying to keep his face calm. Everyone was staring at him.
I whispered, “You okay? You need me to shield?”
“I got this,” he whispered back. He raised his voice and tried to keep talking normally. “There’s been another problem, too. How was Lindsay actually killed? How do you make someone crash a plane? The glider showed no signs of tampering. She could have been poisoned, but the autopsy came back clean. Of course, she did have epilepsy. But her medication had kept her seizure-free for years, and she had every reason to be religious about her medication.”
“She was,” said Jivanta. “She never missed a pill.”
“And we counted the pills left in the bottle,” Gwen added. “They matched her expected dosage. She hadn’t missed one.”
“No, she hadn’t,” Mark said. “She didn’t have to. The pills weren’t poisoned, they were switched. For placebos.”
Everyone started talking at once.
Mark waved them down. “All she had to do,” he bellowed, and the hubbub died down, “was take one or two lookalike sugar pills instead, and she’d go into seizure. The warnings are all over the bottle.
“Anyone who had access to the pills could time the switch so that she’d be most likely to get the attack while either driving to the airport or, even better, in the air.
“It wasn’t a hundred percent foolproof. She might have had the seizure in some safe location. But she’d been on the meds for so long that the withdrawal seizure might be severe enough to kill her, or at least cause serious injury.
“Whatever happened, the killer could swap in the real pills again at their leisure, carefully counted. There’d be no
evidence of the switch, and if she died, the autopsy wouldn’t show a thing. It’s the perfect crime. No one would know … except her, right at the end …
“And anyone could do it. Anyone with access.”
Silence.
Mark hesitated. Then he fixed his gaze steadily on the kid. “One last thing I couldn’t understand, Vincent,” he said, his voice low and grinding. “Why were you so alienated from your mother? But I promise you … I get it.”
The kid crumpled into silent tears.
His father demanded in outrage, “What are you trying to say?”
Mark’s face sunk deeper into sadness. “Did he really not tell you?”
“It’s a lie!” Mackenzie yelled.
“Vincent, tell him,” Mark said.
But the kid was shuddering with sobs.
His father drew away and went still. “Oh my God.”
“I’m sorry,” Mark said.
There was a terrible pause. The father seemed to turn to stone.
“I don’t think any jury would convict him,” Mark said. “There were … photos.”
The father stiffened.
“They didn’t get out,” Mark assured him. “We think Sibyl may have gotten into Lindsay’s photo account, but—”
“Oh my God,” the father said. “Oh my God.”
“If you can remember any details … any evidence … I’m sure it’ll help his case,” Mark said.
The kid wailed, “I didn’t … I didn’t…”
His father covered his face and rubbed, hard. “I have no idea,” he groaned, through thick fingers. “Can we just…”
“Sorry,” Mark said. “Of course.”
The father rocked in his chair, the metal creaking with absurd indifferent squeaks. No one could bear to look at him, or interrupt his shame.
At last he sighed. “My God,” he said, his voice cold. “If we’d only known she was a vicious child molester.”
Grandma Crowley growled, “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
But Mark frowned.
Then he pulled out his phone and started typing like crazy.
Around the room, people perked up and eyed him with distaste, even contempt.
I squirmed. “Are you texting?” I whispered.
“Nope,” he said.
“Then what are you—”
“Sorry, everyone,” he said at full volume. “Just thought of something.”
The kid was still weeping, his cries almost obscene in the sterile classroom. His father glared at Mark with barely contained rage. I couldn’t blame him.
“You want to share what’s so important?” he demanded.
“One sec,” Mark said.
Then he gasped.
He recoiled from his screen, his face clenching with disgust and horror.
I grabbed his phone.
At first I saw just what I feared — the kid in bed, pajamas pulled down, except with his underwear (thank God) in place.
Then I felt confused. I wasn’t sure why, but something was wrong.
The legs. In the harsh alien light of the flash, the legs were all wrong. They were purpled and blotchy, as if his thighs had been plastered in strips of raw bacon.
Welts. The kid’s legs were covered in welts.
A chair scraped and crashed and Gwen barked “STOP!” and I snapped up—
The father had his kid in a headlock, and a knife against his neck.
Chapter 41
“Get back! Get back!” the father shouted. His glittering eyes bulged. “I will absolutely cut this child’s throat. Drop your gun!” he barked at Gwen. “You want to risk a shot? Drop it!”
He pressed the blade edge against the kid’s neck. The kid whimpered, and a red line seeped from his skin.
Gwen threw down her gun and raised her hands, her face like steel. “Mr. Crowley—” she said calmly.
“On the floor! Now!” he barked. “I want your arms spread and your face on the floor, bitch!”
Gwen’s jaw clenched. But she couldn’t lunge across the twenty feet between them, not in time. Slowly she sank to her knees, then stretched out her arms and lay crucified face down on the tile.
Seeing Gwen helpless was like seeing the Pentagon burn. My chest imploded with panic.
The father yanked the kid by the neck, using him as a human shield as he backed toward the outside door. “Stay back! All of you!” he roared. “This is my son, you hear me? He will submit to my discipline!” He was panting, dragging the white-faced kid so fast that the kid was tripping to keep up.
The ex-suspects all cringed in their seats, staring and frozen. Grandma Crowley looked as terrified as the kid.
The father’s voice sank to cold contempt. “My bitch wife could have had her mother’s money and done whatever the hell she wanted, her way, but she had to try to take away my son. I swear I’ll kill him before I let you all ruin him, you feminazi bitches.”
From the floor, Gwen said, “Mr. Crowley, please—”
“Shut up!” He squeezed the kid’s neck and the kid tried to stifle a whimper. They were at the door now. He put his shoulder to the glass, and his darting eyes flashed at Mark and I. “And you, you fucking faggots,” he spat. “You call yourselves men—”
He winced.
His eyes popped wide with shock, then terror. He stared at me, past me, his red face contorting with fear and pain.
Behind me, Mark had locked his gaze.
Mark was staring at him, staring with total focus and gripping the podium and gulping great gasps of breath. His face wracked, like he was straining to shove an SUV out of a ditch. His entire bald head was flaming crimson red.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
The father gasped. “What … the … fuck …”
“Get … down …” Mark choked.
His scalp sweat blood.
The pores spurted red, the drops streaking with his sweat and sliding slick into his eyebrows, rounding his bloodshot eyes, staining his mustache.
He was shaking, throbbing.
But he held.
The father screamed. He clutched his own head with both hands, clawing at his skull.
Gwen sprang up across the room and tackled him.
Mark collapsed.
Everyone lunged up from their chairs, shouting. The kid babbled. The father thrashed in Gwen’s grip, howling like he’d gone insane.
I crashed down to Mark on the floor. Blood had smeared his entire head, but his skin had gone pale, and his eyeballs rolled up white in their sockets. He looked dead.
“He’s not breathing!” I called.
Gwen got cuffs on the father, then snatched her walkie-talkie or whatever and bellowed for backup. When Oxley finally rushed in, she shoved the father at him and rushed over to Mark.
“Shit,” she breathed. “What was it? A seizure?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “What do we do?”
She fumbled open the top buttons of his tight shirt, which was bloodied beyond saving. He still wasn’t breathing.
“Come on, you bastard,” she barked. “Come on!” She practically punched his bare chest.
He coughed, and his eyes fluttered open. His eyes went soft as he took her in, bending over him, her normally tight braids disheveled into hair that hung like a willow.
He smiled weakly. “No mouth-to-mouth?”
Gwen rolled her eyes, but to my serious surprise, her face smoothed with relief. The short space between them seemed to bloom into a gravitational vortex.
Then she sat back on her heels. The vortex vaporized. “What the hell was that?” she demanded.
Mark shrugged, which is not easy to do while lying on cold tile. “Your standard suspect party wrap-up. Nothing special.” He cocked his head. “So. Do I get that truce? Or do you need something really spectacular?”
Gwen harrumphed.
At the door, Oxley was struggling to tell Crowley his Miranda rights over his torrent of abuse. Just then, Crowley twisted toward us and shouted, “I’ll k
ill you, Falcon!”
“You already tried, jackass.” Mark creaked to his feet, then sauntered slowly toward Crowley. “That’s the worst with you abusers, you’re so damn stupid. If you’re going to beat your kid and keep it secret, you can at least try to teach him to talk like a normal human child. ‘Vicious child molester’? Who the hell talks like that?”
Crowley roared and lunged at him. But he was cuffed, and Oxley yanked him back hard.
Mark lunged right back. He shoved his bloody nose in Crowley’s face, spattering red sweat on the man’s cheeks.
“And now your wife’s dad is going to raise your precious son,” Mark said, his eyes gleaming. “While you’re some thug’s bitch in prison … far, far away. Wonder what he’ll think of you when he’s eighteen.”
Crowley swore and tried to head butt Mark’s face.
But Mark had already dodged. Before he moved.
Whoa. I made a mental note that Mark should really get into martial arts … empath karate, that could be amazing …
Oxley shoved between them and told them both to cool it. Mark just leaned around him, opening his mouth to shout more abuse at the convulsing Crowley.
Then Gwen caught his eye.
A look passed between them … as if she could share his righteous rage, for sure, but she’d also learned that the world held far too much worth hating for anyone to try it and survive.
Mark looked unconvinced.
But he turned away from the abuser and walked out into the rain.
Chapter 42
“Shut up, I want to see this,” said Mackenzie.
Mark, Gwen, Ceci and I held our breath as the bearded Jonas Lynch led Vincent out onto the runway towards a sparkling two-seater plane.
Lynch was smiling and he looked almost not-malevolent, but the kid’s face was grim and without expression. Even though he was about to get his very first flying lesson, he looked like he might never smile again in his life. Ever.
We were all waiting for that smile, waiting like nurses crowded around an EKG that had flatlined.
At least the kid had ditched his khakis. It was a hot October morning, and he was finally wearing shorts. The welts on his legs had begun to heal.
