by Jo Goodman
He turned the bottle with his fingertips and said nothing.
Ramsey cursed under her breath. “You were playing with someone else’s money. That’s it, isn’t it? Whose money, Jay?”
“It was better when you weren’t curious. Remember how it was in our early days together? You didn’t ask so many questions. You were content to leave things be. To leave me be. Ignorance really was bliss, don’t you think?”
“Whose money?” she asked again.
“Leave it.”
“If you want money from me, then—”
“Leave it!”
Ramsey felt as if he’d pushed her back in her chair. The suddenness of his raised voice startled her. It was as if he’d pulled a trigger. She was suddenly in their kitchen, standing up to him, confronting him about what she’d learned, and the flat of his hand was a blur that she never saw coming. She blinked, gripped the seat of her chair to ground herself in the present. She made herself feel the wooden slats at her back and the curve of wood under her fingertips.
Jay got up from the table and went to the refrigerator. He returned with a bottle of water and set it in front of her. “You look like death. Drink.” When she simply stared at the bottle, he opened it for her, and set it down harder than before. “Drink.”
Ramsey marveled at the steadiness of her hands as she reached for the bottle. She gripped it in both to keep them that way. Raising the bottle, she took a long swallow. It hardly mattered that she drank. When she returned the bottle to the table, her mouth was dry and her throat was still parched. She may as well have been drinking sand.
Jay sat, looked her over, and gestured to her to drink again. He nodded, satisfied, when she did. “Better?”
“Yes.” With some difficulty, she managed to get the single word out.
“Good. You had me worried. You need to relax, Liz. You’re wound way too tight.” He sat down and leaned back, regarding her with a slim smile on his face. “So,” he said. “Tell me about Dudley.”
Ramsey was slow to switch conversational gears. Her mind was foggy. “What?”
“Dudley. The guy who left his jacket. What’s his story?”
“No story,” she said after a moment. “He’s a friend.”
“I knew you’d say that. How good a friend?”
“A friend. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Not your business, Jay.”
“So you are.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. Was it his house where you spent the night? I know you didn’t come here.”
“What are you doing? Following me? That’s crazy, Jay.”
“Not as crazy as you trying to avoid me. This town just isn’t that big, Liz. I can pretty much find you anywhere.”
Ramsey managed to suppress a shiver. “You’re going to get yourself shot if you keep trespassing on private property. Neighbors look out for each other around here.”
Amused, Jay laughed lightly. “So that was your car I located last night. I had a look around, but I guess you know that. Someone came out of one of the houses to chase me away, I suppose. Was that Dudley?”
Ramsey had no intention of answering that. “If I give you the money you need, how do I know you won’t come back again? And again?”
“You give me the money, I give you my word.”
“My money is worth half a million dollars. You word is worth exactly nothing.”
“That’s harsh, Liz.”
“Do you have collateral?”
“If I did, do you think I’d be here?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. This is easy. Getting a legitimate loan to get you out of your difficulty is hard.”
“My future earnings are my collateral. My life is my collateral.”
“Your future earnings mean nothing if you continue to gamble.” She saw he was about to speak and she put up a finger to stop him. “Don’t. Don’t tell me you’re done gambling. I wouldn’t believe you. Tell me instead about how your life is collateral.”
He was quiet for several long seconds and he never looked away. His blue-eyed stare glinted, razor blade sharp. “You know.”
“No. I don’t.” Ramsey vowed she would not put words in his mouth. If his life was in danger, he had to say so without her suggesting as much. She would not put it past him to leap on the idea to gain her pity and her cooperation.
“My reputation,” he said, and it was as if the words were yanked from his throat. “It will be the end of me.”
Ramsey was not moved, though she suspected he thought she should be. “I appreciate that your reputation means everything to you, but I don’t understand how it becomes the end of you.”
“I’ll go to prison, Liz.”
A vertical crease appeared between her dark eyebrows. “I don’t get it. That high stakes poker game you were in, were the other players cops?”
Jay slapped the table. Hard.
It seemed to Ramsey that the force and suddenness of Jay’s blow lifted her right out of her chair, but as she was still holding onto the edge of her seat, she realized she’d only flinched. On the inside, every nerve was jangling and it was difficult to breathe. She managed a deep sip of air, held it, and then released it slowly. Jay was speaking and she tried to listen, but it was as if her head were underwater. His voice sounded thick, the words distorted. She only caught the end.
“Not funny,” Jay was saying. “Not funny at all.”
Because it was the wiser course, not because she meant it, Ramsey said, “I’m sorry.”
Jay grunted softly and took a long pull of beer. When he set the bottle down, he said, “So you’ll help me.”
“I didn’t say that, Jay.”
“Jesus, Liz. Is it some kind of new female empowerment that makes you want to bust my balls? I need the money.”
“So you can avoid prison,” she said carefully. “What if that’s exactly the consequence you need to give up gambling?”
“Are you serious? Did you really just say that? A little self-righteous, don’t you think? Maybe that’s a consequence of twenty-three million.”
Ramsey chose to ignore that. “Explain to me how giving you money keeps you from going to jail.”
“You want your pound of flesh? All right. I paid off that gambling debt I told you about. I had to. Some of the men I was playing with, well, you don’t screw them over. They play to win, to keep. They enforce their code of honor and even debt as small as mine is not forgiven. It’s a matter of pride with them. You understand?”
“I think so,” she said after a moment. “Though not the part about your debt being small. Half a million seems awfully large to me.”
Jay shrugged.
“Who do you owe now, Jay? You got the money from someone to pay off the gambling debt. You told me that when we had breakfast together. I want to know who owns you now?”
“Not who. What.”
Ramsey frowned. She was absurdly reminded of a classic Abbot and Costello comedy routine that she’d seen on YouTube. “Who’s on first,” she said under her breath.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing. An odd thought. Tell me about the what, Jay.” But before he could respond, the answer came to her. She sat back in her chair; her eyes widened. “Willow Garden. That’s it, isn’t it? The what. You were playing with money you embezzled from Willow Garden.” When he said nothing, she knew she was at least on the right track. Her short chuckle was humorless. “It probably isn’t even the first time you’ve done it.” Again, the silence was telling. “Oh, Jay. You really stepped into it, didn’t you?”
Jay idly turned the beer bottle with his fingertips. “Borrowed,” he said finally. “I borrowed the funds.”
“It’s only borrowed if you asked for it and agreed to pay it back.”
“Too late to ask, but I can repay it.”
“If I give you the money.”
“Is there still a question in your mind that you’re going to?”
Ramsey bristled at the nuance of arrogance in his voice, the hint of smug in his slim smile. “You know what, Jay?”
“What’s that?”
“Go to hell.”
37
Paul Shippensmith looked up from the surveillance monitors when he saw Ramsey had come to stand in the open doorway of his office. He sat back in his chair and gave her the once over. “You feeling okay? You look like hell.”
“Good to know. I’m going there directly.”
He frowned but didn’t ask her to clarify. “What’s up?”
“I need the afternoon off. Personal business. I would have put in for it, but it came up quickly.”
“When do you need to leave?”
“One. I get off at three today, so I’m asking for two hours.”
“Yeah. All right. I’ll see if Jerry can come in a little early and cover for you.”
Jerry Bowser couldn’t cover a bed if he were a blanket, Ramsey almost said, but she needed the time off so she stayed quiet. “Thank you.”
“Sure thing.” He returned his attention to the monitors. “Did you call in a report?” he asked as Ramsey started to go.
She backed up, looked over her shoulder. “No. Why?”
“Just saw that cop you’re friendly with come in. Sullivan Day. He’s in uniform. You know anything about that? I don’t like it when they shop here in uniform. Makes the customers nervous.”
Ramsey thought it was more likely it set Paul’s teeth on edge. “You want me to find out why he’s here?”
Paul’s response was casual. “Couldn’t hurt. You’ll let me know if it’s anything?”
“Absolutely.” Then she was gone.
Paul picked her up on the camera outside the interview room and followed her progress on the monitors as she moved through the store. It was interesting to him that she seemed to know the precise direction to take. She hadn’t asked where Officer Day was headed, but she met up with him in Aisle Fourteen without a single wrong turn or pausing to look up and down adjacent aisles. Maybe they were a lot friendlier than he thought. That was worth a trip to the deli to ask the gossips in meat and cheese what they knew about it.
“Paul asked me to find out why you’re here,” Ramsey said when she sidled up to Sullivan. “More specifically, why you’re here in uniform.”
“Light bulb emergency,” he said gravely. “The men’s restroom has gone dark.”
“And none of you thought to move a working bulb, say, from the women’s restroom to the men’s?”
“Sure. Everyone thought of it. No one wanted to do it. The chief is ordering a case of bulbs as we speak, but we need one now. I was voluntold to go out and get one.”
“Tough assignment. Does it come with hazard pay?”
“Do you think Paul is watching us?”
“Might be. Hard to tell. Why?”
“Because I want to kiss your sassy mouth.”
Because Ramsey knew where the camera was and that her face was turned away from it, she gave him a sassy smile. Or at least she attempted. The indicators that she had missed the mark were Sullivan’s frown and narrow-eyed stare. She tried to wave his concern away, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“What’s wrong? And don’t tell me it’s nothing. We’re way past that, remember? I should have seen it right off.”
“Keep looking at the lightbulbs,” she said. “Not at me. Just in case.”
Sullivan made a three-quarter turn and pretended to look over the selection. “Go on.”
“Jay visited me after you left. He wouldn’t have gotten in except I was so sure you just realized you’d forgotten your jacket that I disarmed the alarm and opened the door without looking first.”
“You said you would call.”
“My phone was in the kitchen. He got to it before I did and kept it until he was walking out the door. I know I could have called you, but it didn’t matter by then because I’d already decided what I was going to do.”
“And?”
“I have an appointment to speak to my financial advisor by phone this afternoon. I’m going to give Jay what he’s asked for.” She looked sideways, studied his profile. “I know you said it had to be my decision, but I can tell you’re disappointed.”
“Sorry. You weren’t supposed to see that. Still working on a better poker face.”
“It’s all right. I’m disappointed too. I told him to go to hell, and I was sure I meant it, then he showed me the ace up his sleeve and I folded.”
Sullivan picked up a four pack of LED bulbs and turned them over in his hand, feigning interest. “Too cryptic. I’m figuring his ace is some kind of blackmail. Are you going to tell me about it?”
“The short of it is that he’s been gambling with other people’s money, and now it’s time to pay the piper.”
“Other people’s money? That doesn’t make sense. Who would give him cash to play?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ramsey was staring at the ground and shifting her weight from one foot to the other. The movement was subtle, barely perceptible, but to him it was as if she were trying to maintain her balance on the head of a pin. “Wait. Does this have something to do with his work?”
Ramsey pressed her lips together and continued to stare at her feet. There was a wad of green chewing gum near the toe of her right shoe that the cleaning crew had failed to scrape off the floor. She wondered how long it had been there. Sullivan’s voice cut into her musing.
“Is it company money he’s been using to support his addiction or money from the people Willow Garden Health insures?”
She was a long time answering. Quietly, she said, “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know and he didn’t offer to tell me.”
Sullivan pressed. “But if you had to guess, which do you think he’s doing?”
Ramsey offered her answer reluctantly. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, it was hard to admit aloud that her ex-husband had the moral center of pond scum. “I believe he’s skimming money from the customers. A little here. A little there. Pennies and nickels. It adds up. I told him I bet he’s been doing it for a long time, but he didn’t say one way or the other. I suspect he’s always been able to hide his activity before. In and out of programs that he designed using back doors. You don’t have to be a genius hacker if you develop the program.”
“Then what’s the problem now? Why come to you for money?”
“Something about a new accounting firm and a geek hot for seven cents.”
“How’s that again?”
“Willow Garden hired a new firm to go over the books. There’s a potential merger in the works so everything has to be just so. Apparently, there is some wizard working for them who’s got a powerful thirst for a seven-cent anomaly. I pieced that together from the little that Jay gave up. I could have it all wrong. Whatever the truth is, I suspect he believes the wizard could expose him.”
Ramsey closed her eyes briefly and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. Her head felt as if it were in a vise. “Or maybe he wants the money to make a run for it and what he said about making good on what he stole is just another lie.”
“What’s his ace?”
Dropping her hand to her side, she turned to look at Sullivan. “His ace?”
“You said he showed you the ace up his sleeve and you folded. What was it?”
“Oh, that. He told me that if I didn’t give him the money, he’d make sure my lottery win became public.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. I can tell you think I’m being selfish. Maybe even think I’m being stupid and short-sighted.”
“Did you hear me say any of that?”
“No.”
“Well, then, don’t suppose you know what I’m thinking before I think it. And definitely not before I say it.” Sullivan returned the package of bulbs to the shelf and chose another at random, mostly to give himself something to do with his hands. “Jay admitted to you that he committed a crime.”
Ramsey nodded s
hortly. “I know that.”
“By threatening to reveal information about you that you prefer to keep private, he’s blackmailing you. Another crime.”
She nodded again, more faintly this time.
“If Jay uses the money you give him to flee, then you’ve aided him in avoiding prosecution. That’s obstruction.”
“Crime,” she said.
“That’s right. If he uses the money you give him to hide his illegal activity, it’s conspiracy.”
“Crime,” she repeated.
Sullivan nodded. “Now you’re getting it.”
She sniffed. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you anything.”
“I didn’t exactly use thumbscrews.”
“I know. I can’t help myself around you. It’s like you have Wonder Woman’s lasso of truth.”
“Huh. There’s a picture.”
“Just the lasso, Sullivan. You’d look lousy in her corset and boots.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He searched her face. Her eyes were bright but no longer glassy with tears. “You all right?” When she nodded, he asked, “Does Jay know about me?”
“What about you?”
“Does he know I’m a cop?”
“I never told him.”
“My name?”
She hesitated. “Well…”
“Right. You said he took your phone. Did he see my text about the jacket?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have my name in your contacts?”
“Kind of.”
“What does that mean?”
“He thinks you’re Dudley.” She was prepared for almost any reaction except for the one she got. His shout of laughter rocked her back on her heels.
“Let me see,” he said when he could talk.
She fished her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, brought up last night’s text, and held it up for him to see.
“I’ll be darned.” His slanted smile filled the lower half of his face. “Sometimes it’s good to be a blockhead.”
“You’re not—” She stopped because he put up a hand.
“It’s all right, Ramsey. You don’t have to explain. I googled him and watched a video. I even understand why you thought of him when you met me, and I suppose why you think of him still. Hard not to when I was just reminding you that fraud and fleeing, obstruction and conspiracy are all crimes.”
