by Dianne Emley
Iris moaned.
Stan looked at his watch. “Okay. All right.” He shoved the gun in his waistband. He bent over Iris and grabbed her legs. Blood from his cheek dripped onto her skirt. He felt lightheaded, but got a good hold. He started to drag her to the supply room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Iris awoke to the smell of mint.
She looked up at steel shelves lining the walls, neatly stacked with reams of paper. She was on her stomach. She had never seen the supply room from this angle before. She heard twine being pulled from a roll. Scissors snapped. Her ankles were held together. They were being bound. The twine felt coarse against her skin. Must be the jute Alley used to wrap packages. Her wrists felt like her ankles. They were tied, too.
She saw the butt of the gun protruding over the edge of Alley’s desk. There was mint again. Stan leaned over her. He was chewing one of Alley’s Certs.
Iris tried to sit up. Pain turned everything white. She stayed on her belly, level with dropped paper clips and rubber bands and lonely staples.
“Iris, I’m sorry if this hurts.” Stan had cleaned his face and bandaged the pencil wound.
Her ears roared. “Don’t act like you care about people,” she yelled down a wind tunnel.
Stan sat back on his heels. “I care.”
“You just care about yourself more.”
“That’s life, isn’t it?”
“Why, Stan?”
“Because that’s how it is.”
“C’mon. You needed the cash that bad?”
The twine whizzed off the roll. Scissors snapped. Her legs jiggled.
“Grudge against Joe? His dad?” she asked.
“It’s not what you think.” Stan sat on his heels and drummed his fingers against his lips. “Please be quiet. I have to think.”
“Alley caught on,” she said. “You had him killed.”
He pulled another length of twine from the roll and snipped.
“John Somers said he threw money around Mexico. The Mexican police were going to arrest him on his next trip down.”
Stan wrapped one end of twine around his left hand, the other around his right, and pulled it—snap—taut between them. “Arrest him?”
“Untie me. I’ll tell you about it.”
He studied how the twine cut his hands.
“Somers knows I’m here. He’s expecting me back. When I don’t show up…” She rolled over on her back. She saw what he was doing.
“It’s painless, Iris. Read that somewhere.”
“You won’t get away with it.”
“I will.”
She scooted backward and sat up.
He straddled her, grabbed her shoulders, and pushed her down. “I will get away with it.”
She jackknifed her legs. They thumped against his back and he almost lost his balance.
He grabbed her and harshly turned her over to face the floor. “Don’t look at me.” He walked to Alley’s desk.
She twisted around and sat up again.
He dug through Alley’s desk drawer, finding and putting on a pair of white cotton, ink-stained gloves—the gloves Alley wore to change printer ribbons. He again wrapped the twine around his hands and pulled tight. Snap.
“It’s about money, isn’t it, Stan? You’re overextended, building that house and everything, the kids and the private school tuitions, Susan’s liposuction and tummy tuck. Your bonus was cut.”
“Jaynie told you.”
“Yeah, she told me.”
“I’m going to have to talk to her about these confidentiality issues.”
“She’s dead, Stan. She was murdered by two geeks who probably work for Joe’s dad. They thought she was me.”
He gaped at her, rearing back, blinking. “What?” His gloved hands dropped by his sides. He averted his eyes, avoiding hers.
“It’s getting screwed up, isn’t, Stan?”
He shook his head. “Could have been unrelated.”
“It wasn’t, Stan.”
He rewrapped the twine around his hands. “You came to the office late at night. You’ve done it before.”
“Nothing’s turned out as planned, Stan. Everything’s been screwed up, right?”
“Vagrant wandered in. Attacked you. Security in this building… Could easily happen.” He walked toward her.
She scooted backward.
He grabbed her shoulders.
“Your face, Stan. Explain that.”
“Accident… at home. Glad you didn’t scratch me. Fingernail marks would be hard to explain.”
She wrenched her shoulders back and forth. He put his knee on her chest and forced her down. She gasped, the wind knocked out of her.
Stan blathered as he struggled to flip her over onto her stomach, “No one saw me. Didn’t sign in. Took my wife’s car. She knows I’m here. So what? She wouldn’t…”
Iris desperately writhed, trying to break free. She tried to bite him. He straddled her on his knees. She pummeled his back with her bent legs. He sat on her thighs, pinning her legs and cutting off her blood flow.
“It’s ugly, Stan. Can you do it?”
She kept writhing, trying to knock him off but couldn’t. The twine around her wrists and ankles cut into her flesh.
“Shut up, Iris.”
“You have to finish it, Stan.”
“Shut up.”
“It won’t be easy. Do you have the guts to finish it?”
He started to make a pass over her head with the twine then stopped.
“Do you, Stan? Think about covering your tracks. Nothing can go wrong. It has to work like clockwork. Can you guarantee that, Stan? Murphy’s law.”
He wrapped the twine around his hands again.
She lay her cheek against the carpet, thinking she should reserve her strength. “This is not fitting for a refined man like you.”
He stopped. He looked at his hands. He looked at her. He looked at the blood in her hair where he had hit her.
“Wasting time,” he said.
The twine went over her head. It easily slipped around her neck. He pulled it tight.
She coughed. She twisted her body with all her might and struggled to breathe.
He pulled harder.
Then, there was no air. The carpet nap was rough against her chin. It was an ant’s forest. Dust in the corners. Under the desk. Talk to Jaynie. Has to speak to the cleaning crew. Iris lay facedown in the sun. Facedown on her hill. She’d been box sliding. The dog panted nearby. She was eye level with the dirt world. It roared and clicked and whirred in her ears. A different world. She was tired. She’d nap. She let her eyelids drop. The edges turned black. But she wasn’t resting. She was dying. There was the toe of a shoe. A polished oxblood loafer toe. No white light. Figures. She saw shoes.
“Stan!” The authoritative baritone resonated in the small room. “Stop.”
The twine released. Iris inhaled. The air siphoned in slowly through her constricted windpipe. Her back was free. She curled up. Fetus. The black edges turned to spots. Her breathing was labored. She was sick.
“Joey, help her.”
Her head was lifted. Someone wiped her mouth with a rough cotton handkerchief. Someone stroked her head. Her head was in a soft place. She looked up at Joe Campbell’s face. He held her head in his hands.
“What… why…what are you guys doing here?” Stan said, angry and dizzy.
The folds in Vito Camelletti’s face deepened. He looked at the gun, the ink-stained gloves, the twine, Stan’s bloodstained collar, his bandaged cheek, and the magenta line circling Iris’s throat. He stroked the bulb of his nose.
“This isn’t what you think, Vito” Stan said.
Vito took the scissors from Alley’s desk and handed them to Joe. “Cut her loose.”
“It isn’t how it looks,” Stan said.
Iris tried to sit up. She listed to starboard.
Joe pulled her near a row of shelving and leaned her against it.
“Joey, Vito.
She tried to kill me! Look.” Stan peeled the bandage from his cheek. “She shot at me. I had to fight her for that gun. She had it stuck in her skirt.” He stepped toward Alley’s desk.
Joe snatched the gun.
Vito silently watched.
“He’s lying,” Iris croaked.
“Bullshit!” Stan yelled.
There were fast, muffled footsteps on the thick carpet outside the door.
Sally Lamb peeked his head inside the supply room. “Aww, man… Jimmy, look who’s here.”
Jimmy Easter sauntered into the room and gave Iris an antagonistic once-over. He took the toothpick he was chewing out of his mouth, pointed it at Iris, and laughed. “Lucky it wasn’t me. I would have finished it.”
“Mr. Money,” Iris said.
“You got your triple-X underwear on under that, Nasty?” Jimmy asked.
“Nasty?” Iris said. “It’s spelled N-A-S-T-Y, idiot.”
“I told you, Jimmy,” Sally said. “Just like I told you about that other chick.” Sally reached into his back pocket, took out a snapshot, and compared the photo with Iris. “Here, see. It’s easy close up.”
Joe stepped over Iris and grabbed the photo. “Where did you get this?”
Sally shrugged and glanced sheepishly at Vito.
Joe wheeled around and pointed the gun at his father. “From you?”
“I had to find out about my money, Joey.”
“Who gave you this snapshot, Dad?”
Stan chewed his lower lip. He forehead was damp. “Joey…”
Joe spun and aimed the gun at Stan. “You! Why?”
“To divert attention from himself,” Iris said.
“She’s a liar,” Stan blurted. “She has a quarter million of Vito’s money. Go look at my desk, Vito.”
Vito jerked his head toward the end of the suite. Sally and Jimmy headed off down the hall.
“I was just trying to do right by you, Joey,” Stan said. “You and your family. I just wanted to help.” He reached his hand toward Joe’s shoulder.
Joe stepped back, avoiding Stan’s touch. “Do right by my family? All they do is wrong.”
“Joey,” Vito said. “Give me the gun. Relax.”
“Iris tried to kill me, Joey.” Stan raised his hands. “You have to believe me.”
“She was tied up,” Joe said.
Sally ran back into the supply room holding the blotter from Stan’s desk between his hands, the money piled high on top of it. The crepe sole of his shoe caught on the thick carpet. The bundles flew across the floor.
Stan picked one up and waved it like a street-corner evangelist with a Bible. “Look! Alley gave this to her. Vito, it’s your money.”
“Stan had Alley bring it up from Mexico,” Iris said. “Probably wired it there from the Caribbean. After he was finished with Alley, he had him killed.”
“Alley was killed by a street gang,” Stan said, “The police—”
“Stop it.” Joe dropped his hand with the gun to his side and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Iris continued. “Stan set up EquiMex, transferred money from Worldco into it, and put Alley’s name on everything.”
“You saw how she was with Alley,” Stan pleaded. “She was sleeping with him.”
“Stop it,” Joe said again. He lowered his eyes to look at Stan and slowly aimed the gun at him. “You were the only one I told about Worldco.”
“Joey,” Vito said. “C’mere. Give me the gun.”
“Alley found out!” Stan wailed. “He snooped around. Iris put him up to it.”
“Stan took the Worldco documentation from his own filing cabinet,” Iris said. “He set you up, Joe. He used you like he used everyone else.”
“We were friends,” Joe said. “I trusted you. It meant nothing to you.”
Stan dropped to his knees. “Joey, Joey. I’m sorry. I have most of the money. I’ll give it back. We’ll be square. Joey, Vito.” Tears and mucus streamed down his face.
Vito stepped over Iris and reached for Joe’s hand. He stopped in midstep. “What are you saying, Stan?”
“It was working great, but Alley told Iris and gave her four million.” Stan rolled back on his heels and looked up at Joe. “Until Alley screwed up, it was going beautifully. The money went to EquiMex, then to a bank in Mexico City, then Alley brought it up—in a gym bag, can you believe it?” He wiped his face with both hands. “After the last of it came up, Alley was killed, just like the plan.” He turned to Iris. “It was best. You could see at the funeral, his suffering was over.”
“He wasn’t suffering, you narrow-minded, bigoted son of a bitch.” Iris raged at him. “He respected you. He obeyed people in authority, and you took advantage of it.”
“But he didn’t obey me at the end. I went to the safe-deposit box—a different box than the one Alley sent you to, Iris—where Alley was supposed to have dropped the money, but it wasn’t there, and it was too late to stop his… disposal.”
Iris said, “Then the cops got wise and you decided to offer me up. Now Jaynie’s dead because of it.”
“Jaynie’s dead?” Joe asked.
Jimmy and Sally nervously shifted their feet.
“Vito,” Jimmy said. “It just kinda happened. We saw we got the wrong girl. She was freaking out and… I don’t know… I guess I…” He shrugged.
“Jaynie’s dead, Alley’s dead, because of you, Stan,” Joe said.
“Joey, give me the gun,” Vito said.
John Somers pivoted around the doorway, where he had been listening, into the room, holding his gun out front. “Nobody move. Drop the gun, Joe.”
“Joey, give me the gun,” Vito said.
Joe held the gun loosely in both hands in front of him, pointed toward the ground.
Somers took a step toward Joe. “Just bend down slowly, and put the gun on the ground in front of you.”
Vito said, “Joey, give me the gun. This is business. Family business.”
“That’s right!” Stan said. “It was just business, Joey. Just family business.”
“It’s my business.” Joe raised the gun and shot Stan in the chest.
Iris screamed.
The geeks went for their weapons.
“Oh shit!” Somers screamed. “Freeze! Freeze! Show me your hands. Up against those cabinets.”
Sally and Jimmy turned to the wall and put their hands against the stacks of paper.
“Oh, Joey,” Vito said.
Joe put the gun on Alley’s desk. Somers grabbed it. Joe leaned against a wall of shelving, folded his arms across his chest, and watched Stan bleed. Then Joe collapsed, dropping beside the desk and putting his head in his hands.
Blood oozed brilliantly across the champagne carpet.
Stan’s breathing grew rough. He blew blood bubbles. He babbled. “Told them to close the door. I love them anyway, my boys, my Susan… tell my boys… the best laid plans… cramming tonight… see you later… after midnight… I’ll plan to… my plan…”
Then Stan stopped talking.
Vito patted Joe’s hair. Joe circled his arms around his father’s legs and stared off, his expression stony.
“That’s all she wrote,” Sally said.
“Beginner’s luck,” Jimmy said.
Somers gestured to Joe. “Get him up.”
“You’re safe, officer,” Vito said.
Somers looked into Vito’s eyes and slid his gun inside his holster. He picked up the phone on Alley’s desk and punched in 911. “Get everyone down here.” He knelt beside Iris. Her knees were pulled up to her chin and she was rocking on the floor. Somers looked at her neck and let air out through pursed lips.
“You’ll be okay,” he softly told her.
Joe got to his feet. He raked his hands through his hair and tucked in his shirt. He was ready.
“You saw it was self-defense, officer,” Vito said. “We came in and Stan was strangling Miss Thorne. He threatened us with that gun. My son struggled with him. It’s a shame.”
Iris sat at Jaynie’s desk with Jaynie’s plush Garfield cat in her lap. It held a little flag that said: IS IT FRIDAY YET? All the fluorescent lights in the suite were on. Outside Jaynie’s office, Iris heard the steady baritone murmur of men’s voices.
The police measured, photographed, and collected. A busy beehive.
Someone set Iris’s backpack in front of her on the desk.
Iris looked at her tank top. It was covered with blood and vomit. She wanted to change. The only thing she could find to put on was the blue shop coat Alley wore to keep from getting dirty when he did the mail. The thought didn’t appeal to her.
She thought about the deaths. The course of lives were changed. She didn’t know the significance for her. For Somers, all it meant was more work, she guessed. More work.
The paramedics had checked her out and left. They’d wanted to take her to the emergency room. She’d refused.
“… turned himself in an hour ago, looking like someone stole his puppy.” Paul Lewin was outside the door. “He walked the last two blocks. His Beemer finally died. The piece that Easter used to kill Jaynie is in the lab.”
John Somers was with him. “Strange. The mob doesn’t go for offing women.”
“Looks like the geeks acted on their own. They were after Iris, got Jaynie instead, and that psycho, Easter, went off on her.”
“Trace the weapon back to the big man?”
“Camelletti? Forget it. It’s one more time he’ll come out smelling like a rose. What about this self-defense thing?”
Somers shrugged. “Iris was on the floor. Stan was standing in front of her, so she didn’t see anything. Plus she was out of it, barely conscious. There was a struggle for the gun.”
“And Camelletti says that you didn’t get there until it was all over.” Lewin studied him.
“That’s right.”
The detectives stared at each other.
“Trial’s over,” Lewin said.
“But we’re back where we started, Shamus. We still don’t know who killed Alley.”
“What brought you down to McKinney?”
“Susan Raab. I called Raab’s house and she said her husband went to the office. And sushi.”
