“It hasn’t gone away, Kate. It’s a weight that’s still crushing her.”
“Again, I feel really bad that I haven’t done something before.”
We all go silent for a few seconds.
“I’m going to crack this, Kate. I just need some help.”
“Well, Tallie should be easy to find. She keeps a low profile these days, but she’s still around the eventing circuit somewhere.”
“Who?” My insides freeze at the name.
“Tallie. Maggie Talmadge. That’s what she went by in college, but after she graduated, she started introducing herself as Maggie.”
Anna is googling on her phone. “Hi, Kate. This is Anna, Lauren’s assistant. Do you know her full name?”
“Margaret S. Talmadge. I don’t know what the S stands for. She’d never tell us. I used to tease her by calling her Shirley because she was always saying”—Kate changes her voice into a perfect imitation of Tallie’s—“‘surely you don’t mean that, Katie Parker.’”
“You were friends?”
“We ran in the same crowd in college, but we were never friends. She was always causing trouble and telling lies about other people. I steered clear of her mostly.”
“I think I have her,” Anna says. “Looks like she married a month before the horse was killed. Margaret Talmadge Bouling. Is this her?” She holds her phone out for Victoria and me to see.
“That’s Maggie,” Victoria says.
I want to throw up. It’s the woman I know as Tallie. I’ve been set up and used. She pretended to be my friend, then fucked the woman I’ve fallen in love with. My shame turns to rage. “That fucking bitch. I’m going to drag her out of her house and through the mud.” I meant that figuratively, of course, and I know these women in our conversation group will recognize the Southern expression.
“I guess she’s also the woman you know as Tallie?” Anna’s question is rhetorical, but I give a curt nod.
“If anybody has a photo of the security guard, can’t you use some fancy facial-recognition software to check for an alias? That’s what they do on CSI,” Victoria says.
Normally, I’d dismiss anything from a television show, but facial-recognition software isn’t a bad idea.
“We do!” Anna says. “I gave the guard’s name to my girlfriend, Alisha. She’s a research librarian and has access to several court and criminal databases. She found several police mug shots of him.”
“We have a friend who has a friend in the FAA,” Kate says. “I can ask if she’ll run his picture through their database. If it won’t get her in trouble, of course.”
“Alisha turned up four different mug shots. He has a beard in one, and his hair has the tips bleached in another. They all look very different.” Anna readies her pen and paper. “Give me an email address, and I’ll send you all of them.”
Finally. The dead end I’ve been looking at is opening up to several possibilities. “I’ll leave tracking down the security guard to you guys. I’m going after Tallie-slash-Maggie. I’ve got a very personal bone to pick with her.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The bar in Cancun is a dive, a far cry from the fancy hotels and white beaches where tourists hang out. He’s slouched in a straight-back chair at a small table in a dark corner. The FAA friend came through, and we’ve traced his alias to here. I immediately recognize him from the mug shot I’ve mentally labeled scruffy stubble.
“Robert Michael Swearington?”
He tenses and peers up at Skyler and me. “You got the wrong guy.”
“No. We don’t.” I hold out my phone that displays the scruffy-stubble mug shot. “We’re not cops. We just want to talk to you.”
A tired-looking woman comes to our table. “Get you drink?” she asks in English, but I hold out my credit card and reply in Spanish.
“Two of your best local beers, unopened bottles, please. A bottle of the very best tequila you have, and a hundred-dollar tip for yourself.”
Her face brightens, and with a nod, she heads back to the bar.
“Mind if we sit down?” It’s clear Skyler intends to sit no matter how he answers.
He shrugs. “Not if you’re going to share that tequila she just ordered.” His bottle is empty, and the glass in front of him holds only a finger of liquor.
We sit. He stares at us, and we stare at him. Finally, he breaks the silence.
“You shouldn’t have given her your credit card. Even with the hundred-dollar tip, her old man who owns this dive will steal the information from it.”
“I’ve traveled extensively, Mr. Swearington, so I know the tricks. That’s why I requested unopened bottles. I want nothing but beer in my bottle. And the card I gave her is preloaded. If she runs the number again, the most she can get is a couple hundred dollars. And judging from this place, she could use the money.”
The woman reappears with two unopened bottles of beer and a bottle opener, then scurries back to the bar, where an older man is unlocking a cabinet built under the shelves that hold his liquor selection. While he digs around for the top-shelf tequila, she polishes two shot glasses with a clean cloth.
“So. What do you want to talk to Robert Swearington about?” He carefully avoids confirming his identity.
I want to smile. His impatience tells me that all those Law & Order episodes I binged while I was in my cups over Marsh’s rejection are paying off. The detectives always let the suspect stew until he gets nervous and starts talking.
The woman appears again, placing the shot glasses before Skyler and me, then a bottle of Patrón Extra Añejo between the glasses. Robert straightens in his chair, his eyes never leaving the bottle as Skyler fills both shot glasses.
I activate my iPod-sized recorder and slide it to the middle of the table. “You can rot in this bar for all we care, but we want to know who killed that horse four years ago so we can finally clear our friend Marsh.”
Skyler downs her shot of Patrón and plunks the glass back on table. She licks her lips. “Damn, that’s smooth.”
When Robert unconsciously licks his lips, Skyler moves my shot halfway toward him. He reaches for it, but she pulls it back an inch or two. “Not yet.”
I prod him. “I want to know what happened the night Kate Parker’s horse, Jakobi, was killed.”
“How should I know? I was a temporary security guard, not a police detective.”
Skyler slides the shot glass back toward us. “Try again.”
His hand trembles as he withdraws it. “Ask that Talmadge bitch. She can give you all the details, including why her twisted mind thought it up.”
Skyler slides the shot glass all the way to him this time. He snatches it and closes his eyes as he swallows. He hums, then shoves the glass back to Skyler. She refills it but doesn’t push it back to him. “We want the details from you before we corner her.”
Both his hands are trembling so bad, he hides them in his lap, under the table.
“I can’t. She’s got me by the balls.” His eyes flick to me. “Sorry, ma’am.”
I want to laugh. Skyler is about four inches taller than my five-nine, with broad shoulders. She’s very slim but not as fine-boned as I am. Obviously, he’s decided that she’s my muscle for this interrogation. I decide to play a little good cop-bad cop. Or, I prefer, mafia boss and enforcer. I have to get out of my head, or I’ll burst out laughing and blow the scene we’ve set.
“We don’t want to hurt you, Robert. We want her. If she’s blackmailing you, we can help protect you.”
He looks from me to Skyler, then to the Patrón. I nod to Skyler, and she pushes the full shot glass to him. He downs it and pushes it back for her to refill.
“Tell us what happened that night, Robert. Help us clear Marsh. Let us help you. We need evidence to take the Talmadge bitch down.” I keep my voice soft, and he leans forward in his chair,
like a snake charmed by my words.
He closes his eyes briefly, then begins.
“She’s a dominatrix, and I was one of her students. I’m not really into that stuff, but she’s an expert. She singles out a teen, sometimes younger, and it doesn’t seem to matter if they’re male or female. She looks for a kid who either has no family or one with great ambition but no resources. That was me. I knew about Marsh because Maggie—she made me call her mistress when we weren’t in public—would whip me if I couldn’t get the horse to do what she wanted. And while she was whipping me, she’d tell me how good Marsh was. Marsh could ride any horse, she’d say. Marsh never misses a jump. Marsh is perfect at dressage and fearless on the cross-country route. So much better than me.”
His hands are shaking again, so Skyler shoves a full shot to him, and he knocks it back. When he places it on the table, she refills it. He holds it with his fingertips but doesn’t drink yet.
“I never actually met Marsh, though. Maggie has farms in the States and an estate in Germany. I think she married young and inherited that when her old geezer of a husband died. Hell, she probably figured out a way to kill him and get away with it.”
He’s drifting off course, so I pull him back in.
“What happened that night, Robert?”
He downs the shot in his hand. “She married Bouling. He isn’t old but has the same kink she does. She wanted me to let him fuck me. That’s when I left. I had nothing but a few thousand in cash and the phone number of another guy who escaped her. He’d gotten a job with a stable in South Carolina and sent a secret message to me. He said he could get me a job with the polo people down there.” He raised his eyes to me. “I just wanted to be around horses, you know. They are beautiful and honest, not like people.”
Skyler refills his glass again, and he drinks it. “How could you kill Jakobi, if you love horses so much?”
He shakes his head vigorously. “I didn’t kill him. She wanted me to, but I couldn’t do it, so she did.”
Skyler fills his glass one more time. “Lay it out for us, Robert. What was her plan?”
He stares at the shot of Patrón but doesn’t drink it. His tolerance for alcohol tells me he’s a heavy drinker because he shows few signs of being drunk.
“I made it as far as North Carolina, and my truck broke down. I called my friend, and he said he could come pick me up in a few days when he was off work. In the meantime, he told me about the big international show near Southern Pines. Go there, he said, and you can probably pick up some work cleaning stalls or something to get some cash. So, I left my truck with a mechanic and hitched my way down there. They had an opening for two guards to keep an eye on the premium barns at night. All we had to do was watch the monitors and walk through to check on the horses every hour. If somebody came around who wasn’t listed on our clipboard, we were told to turn them away and call the police if they gave us any trouble. The pay was good, and there was a really cheap hotel close by, where the other guard was staying. He said there were two beds in his room, and we could share if I would give him half the cost when they paid us off at the end of the show.”
My beer is empty, and the bar is stifling. Our hostess returns with two fresh, cold beers. I tuck twenty dollars in her hand and point to Robert, but he shakes his head.
“Can’t stand beer,” he says.
“That night?” I prompt him again.
“Guess who I literally run into on my way to check out the barns? Maggie. She saw the ID badge they gave me clipped to my shirt and offered to take me to lunch. I’d been eating fast food for weeks, and I knew she wouldn’t eat at any restaurant that has a drive-through. She was being all nice and begged me to forgive her for the Bouling thing. I knew better, but she’d had me under her thumb since I was fifteen, almost ten years. It was so easy to fall back under her sway. Maggie fed me, fucked me in her hotel room, and put two thousand in cash in my pocket. It was more than enough to hitch a ride back to the garage that had my truck and pay off the bill. But everything comes with a price.”
He downs the shot in his hand and runs a shaky hand over his buzz cut. “Maggie said Marsh would check on Jakobi, because she always checks the legs of any horse the night before she rides them. Maggie told me to wait until Marsh came by, then she gave me a bag of rat shit…you know, the little pellets, and a small knife. She told me to make small cuts in the cable going to the security camera, like a rat chewed it, and sprinkle the turds around it. I knew she was up to something, but I didn’t know what.”
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
“Marsh came by. We talked a bit while she checked Jakobi over good. She was really nice to me, but I didn’t tell her I knew Maggie because they were still involved. So, I disabled the camera and texted Maggie like she said. She showed up minutes later with latex gloves on. She gave me the syringe and told me to inject Jakobi, but I wouldn’t do it. I knew it must be something to hurt him. He was so beautiful.”
Robert’s eyes fill with tears. Maybe it’s the Patrón opening him up, but he doesn’t even try to hide them when they trickle down his cheek into his stubble.
“She snatched the syringe from me and injected it right into his vein. I was frozen for a few minutes. I couldn’t believe she did it. Jakobi stumbled in his stall. I grabbed my phone to call the emergency-vet number they gave us if anything went wrong, like a horse going down with colic during the night, but she slapped it out of my hand. I told her I was going to call the police, but she said the only fingerprints on the syringe were mine because she was wearing gloves, so I better shut up and play it cool.”
His shoulders shake with silent sobs now. “She told me what to say and made me repeat it back several times while she waited to make sure he’d die.” Robert clamps his hands over his ears. “I could hear him struggling to stand up and grunting with pain.”
Skyler pours him another shot and downs one herself while he drinks it. She pours again, and they drink.
“I don’t know what was in that syringe, but I wished I had another one to stick her with. Then I wished for another one so I could stick it in my own vein. When she was sure he was dead, she told me to wait an hour and call the vet. I don’t know how I handled the police. They wrote off my muddled account of what happened because I obviously was in shock.”
I give him a minute to collect himself a little, but I have more questions. “How did you end up down here, Robert?”
“Maggie always kept several fake passports for me. I found out why when she put one in my hand and bought me a ticket on a plane to here. She told me to lay low for a while and paid for a small apartment on the better side of town that first year. She kept money in an account for me to live on. She’d fly down every month or so and fuck my brains out for a few days, then leave. But that night haunted me. I had nightmares and started to drink. I was drunk the last time I saw her. She said I was disgusting and told me to straighten up, or I’d be sorry. We had a huge fight. A couple of days later, I woke up in a hospital ward. They said I’d overdosed and that a woman brought me in, paid my bill, and left me. I think she drugged me but took me to the hospital knowing they’d save me. It was a warning. The next time she’d leave me to die.”
I shudder. This is the same woman who befriended me, sucked me right in. She had to be a psychopath. Has my life been in danger? Will it be in danger if I can prove what Robert has told us?
“I’d been stashing the money she’d been sending me, so I walked away with my clothes and rented a crappy room on this side of town. She’s probably already tracked down where I am, though. I figure I’m a dead man if I ever try to go back to the States, but I’m ready to risk it. I’m drinking myself to death here.”
“I’ve recorded what you said, but if we get a lawyer here to transcribe it as an affidavit, will you come to his office and sign it?” I leave out that he’ll need to be sober and cleaned up to do that.
<
br /> He looks at us. His eyes and nose are red from crying, but I see a new spark in his eyes. “I can do better than that. If you’ll take me back to my place, I’ll put hard evidence in your hands.”
Chapter Twenty-three
My heart leaps when I see her. Her new stallion, Crescendo, is in the crossties and her back to me as she feels along his front legs for any signs of soreness or heat indicating inflammation.
“Hello, Marsh.” It’s been nearly a month since I walked in on Marsh with Maggie-Tallie, and in the past two weeks, we’ve managed to put the final pieces of the sordid puzzle together. I’ve practiced what to say over and over during the past twenty-four hours but can’t remember any of it now.
She stands slowly and turns around. I see something new in her eyes—longing, sadness, resignation. I smile and hold her gaze, hoping to convey all the love I have for this woman. For the young teen who was expertly wooed and manipulated by a psychopath. For the scarred adult who has survived but carries the weight of her past on her shoulders. She turns away and kneels again, but her hands rest on the stallion’s legs without resuming the examination.
“You shouldn’t be here, Lauren.”
“I’m exactly where I should be, Marsh. I was wrong not to tell you that I was writing a fictional account loosely based on your unsolved mystery. I am so sorry for that.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I love you, and I’m here to fight for you.”
Clapping sounds from the open door of the tack room, and Maggie steps out. “That’s so touching. Isn’t it, Marsh, dear?”
“Shut up, Maggie.” Marsh stands again and glares at her. Then she unhooks Crescendo from the crossties and secures him in his stall. “I’ve warned you about going after Lauren. If you harm one hair on her head, I’ll go to prison gladly after I break your neck.”
My heart soars, and I step up to grab Marsh’s hand in mine.
Unbridled Page 21
