by Dianne Emley
Vining saw the familial relationship in their facial shape, jawline, and deep-set eyes. Their noses were identical. His face was chubby and hers was lean, but there was no doubt. Betsy Gilroy had given birth to this monster.
A flurry of possibilities flew through Vining’s mind. Gilroy found out that her son had murdered Cookie. She framed the slow-witted caretaker Axel, saving her son from prison and herself embarrassment and loss of status in the community and police department. She had sent an innocent man to death row to protect her own ambitions. But if Gilroy had rescued Tanner Persons’s sorry behind, what was she doing here?
Gilroy hadn’t taken her eyes off Vining’s. Vining was sure the chief had guessed what she was thinking. Vining, though, couldn’t read Gilroy’s thoughts. There was fear, certainly, but there was something else. Shame?
“Yep. This is my dear old ma.” Persons clasped Gilroy’s head between both hands and gave it a playful side-to-side shake.
The vertical creases on Gilroy’s forehead deepened.
Persons was delighted. “You know what they say. You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.” He laughed uproariously making a ridiculous high-pitched hiccupping noise.
While Persons was standing behind her, touching her, Gilroy winked at Vining.
Vining understood. As much as she found Gilroy despicable, they had to work together to bring him down.
“And you, Mother, already know Officer Vining. The Pasadena P.D.’s little worker bee. Into everything. No stone unturned. Kudos to you, Officer Vining. Because of your inability to stop picking the scab, you’ve made this little reunion possible. I’d longed for such a day, but didn’t know how to pull it off. When Officer Vining visited the sweet hamlet of Colina Vista, a plan took shape for me. What I had thought would never happen now seemed possible.”
Vining realized that she indeed had been the catalyst for this. Again, she had orchestrated her own destruction.
Still standing behind Gilroy, Persons ran his hands over her hair and neck. The gestures moved beyond friendly and playful into suggestive as his caresses turned intense. His face became serious, his breathing shallow, and his voice raspy. “This is a dream come true. Mother, I’ve dreamed of this moment.”
Gilroy looked down with what looked to Vining like pure sadness.
He stepped away from Gilroy, slowly drawing his fingers across her neck, savoring the sensation of skin against skin until the final touch.
Vining realized she was holding her breath.
He put his hand on his pants and adjusted himself. Making a small sound of pleasure, he almost skipped to the kitchen island.
Vining exhaled. She saw Gilroy’s shoulders relax as she also exhaled, free of her son’s fearsome yet cloying touch. Vining met her eyes and arched an eyebrow, as if to say, Now what?
Gilroy arched an eyebrow in response and narrowed her eyes.
Vining nodded, but who were they kidding? It was ballsy posturing on their part, an effort to keep up their fighting spirits. If he chose to dispatch them while they were tied to chairs and handcuffed, they didn’t have a chance. He had to cut at least one of them loose if they were to have a prayer of fighting back. Vining knew he loved the cat-and-mouse game. He’d played it with her in this same kitchen. Such risk excited him, but this time, was there too much at stake for him to take that chance, as delicious as he might find it?
Persons unzipped his duffel bag.
Vining checked out her surroundings. The honeycomb shades over the kitchen windows were closed. A few decorative items had been set around by the realtor to make the house look inviting: a crystal vase with a fading bouquet of seasonal flowers, a large, brightly painted ceramic rooster, and a wire basket full of lemons. On the island stood a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne and four crystal flute glasses. On the floor beside the island was a five-gallon, red plastic jug of gasoline, perhaps the one that had been in the Crown Vic’s trunk.
“I’m sure you have many questions, Officer Vining. My mother has the answers, but she’s a little tied up right now.” He laughed at his lame joke, sounding a drumroll with his fingers against the island’s granite countertop. “Yes, Mother’s tied up right now,” he repeated, enjoying saying it.
He methodically began taking items from the duffel, holding each one up, making sure the two women saw them, before setting them on the island. First out was the roll of duct tape followed by a tied length of cord.
He began a monologue. “I found out a lot about Betsy Gilroy and my birth father. The man who contributed a single orgasm that delivered the single sperm that combined with a single egg inside my mother’s womb to create the miracle of life.” His words dripped sarcasm.
He removed the Taser from its holster on his belt. He’d already ejected the spent cartridge he’d used to subdue Vining when she’d run down the driveway. He opened the Velcro case on his belt, took out a cartridge, reloaded the Taser, and returned it to the holster.
“See, Officer Vining, my mother gave me up for adoption. Once I was out of her womb, she couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Mother, did you even bother to look at your bouncing baby boy?”
Gilroy sat immobile.
He pulled a Glock .40 from the duffel and held it up while he waited for Gilroy’s response. Vining thought the Glock might be her own service revolver.
“Mother …” He ejected the magazine, checked the remaining bullets, and reloaded the gun. “Answer me and don’t lie. I have a finely tuned bullshit monitor. I probably got that from you. That’s a good asset for a cop.” He leveled the Glock at Gilroy. “Mother, did you look at your bouncing baby boy?”
She almost imperceptibly shook her head.
“No. Of course you didn’t want to see me.” Persons set the Glock on the island. “I was living proof of the biggest mistake you’d ever made. You probably promised yourself that you would never again be so stupid, right? Falling for the seductive words of a handsome, rich, sweet-talking doctor who’d promised the world to little Betsy Gilroy from the wrong side of the tracks who’d had to bust her behind for every crumb she’d ever had.”
Vining saw how he was savoring this, a sumptuous meal that would never be repeated. He was holding court at his banquet; standing at the head of the table he’d lovingly set with his best tableware, the courses chosen with care to provoke the precise oohs and aahhs from his guests. He was the host with the most.
“The private detective I hired to find my birth parents pointed me in the right direction. I did a lot of research on my own to fill in the blanks. Just so you know, Mother, if you’ve ever had the tiniest bit of guilt, I was adopted by a very nice couple. The Personses loved me as much as they could. They tried to do the right thing. It wasn’t easy for them, let me tell ya.”
He seemed wistful as he looked up toward the drawn shades over the kitchen windows. “When I was ten, they told me I was adopted. They were afraid of how I would react, but actually, I was relieved. My life finally made sense, because I always knew I didn’t belong to them. I never felt … connected. As much as I’ve learned about you, Mother, and Dr. Daddy, I still have unanswered questions. Tonight, at last, all will be revealed.”
He took out a small pistol, a Walther PPK. Vining recognized her much-beloved backup weapon. She cringed as he played with it, aiming it TV-cop-style between both hands, then gangbanger-style, one arm out, hand turned sideways.
He set the Walther on the island and took a rag from the duffel bag. He walked around to the jug of gasoline, unscrewed the top, and tipped the jug to moisten the rag. He used it to wipe down the Walther and the Glock. Holding the guns with the rag, he set them on the island.
Vining knew he was removing fingerprints. Whose was he concerned with? His?
“Officer Vining, here’s what I know about the story of Betsy Gilroy and Dr. John Nickerson. Betsy was a young police officer with the Pasadena Police Department. She was an up-and-comer, landing key assignments, making friends and making lots of enemies. Then
Betsy met Dr. Daddy, who was a fancy heart surgeon in Pasadena. How did you meet him, Mother?”
Gilroy had been staring at the floor. She looked up.
Walking over to her, he grabbed the edge of the duct tape and yanked it off.
Gilroy grimaced with the pain.
“How did you meet him?” Persons repeated.
Gilroy stared straight ahead, not looking at him or Vining. “He’d reported a burglary in his office. Some drugs were stolen. I took the report.”
“And you started fucking him.”
“It wasn’t so sudden.”
“No, of course not. There had to be seduction involved. Romance. Nickerson was married. He and his wife ran with the Pasadena social set. Tell me how he seduced you.”
Gilroy swallowed. “Can I have some water, please?”
He took one of the champagne flutes, washed out the dust at the sink inside the island, and filled it with water. He held it to her lips as she drank, wiping the dribble from her chin.
“Thank you,” she said obsequiously. “I later saw him at a city event. He asked me to coffee, saying he wanted to ask my advice about something, and … one thing led to another.”
“One thing led to another.” Persons gave her a closed-lipped smile. “That covers a lot of ground, Mother. Where was the first time you and the good doctor had sex?”
She asked with annoyance, “Why does this matter?”
“Because it does,” he yelled. “Because I need to know the story of my life. Every kid wants to know where he came from. It’s human nature. Yet you denied me this simple request, forcing me to take these extreme measures. Mother, the time has come for you to tell me everything.”
She looked at him. In that moment, Vining could see her change her strategy. The longer he wanted her to talk, the longer she’d stay alive. “Dr. Nickerson and I had relations in his office, after hours.”
Persons sagely nodded, as if all was clear. “How long did your affair last?”
“A couple of months.”
“Did he buy you pretty things?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you loved them. You who came from nothing. He got a charge out of his blue-collar, tough lover who carried a gun and a badge. Who was so different from his society wife. And you saw a different path for yourself.”
“I was young and naïve,” Gilroy conceded.
“Did he say he was going to leave his wife for you?”
“He said they were unhappy.”
“Is that why you got pregnant? To force his hand?”
“The pregnancy was an accident.”
“An accident, you say. Bull, I say. You knew exactly what you were doing. You were naïve, all right. Naïve to think he’d leave his socially prominent wife and her old Pasadena money for you, a street cop. Nickerson didn’t care that you were a rising star in the police department. He was more concerned about being shunned by his social set. He worried that no one would sit with him over lunch at the Valley Hunt Club. How did he react to the news that you were pregnant? I’m sure you couldn’t wait to tell him.”
“After the shock wore off, he was happy. His wife wasn’t able to have children. They’d tried everything. He thought that maybe they’d adopt you.”
“Was he going to pay you?”
“He had talked about a price.”
“How much was I worth?”
Gilroy shrugged. “They’d spent a lot of money on fertility treatments. They really wanted a baby.”
He put his hand inside the duffel bag and held it there. “But that didn’t happen. You took a leave of absence from the police department. Near as I can find out, no one there knew you were pregnant.”
Persons pulled out a narrow, rectangular wooden box from the duffel.
Vining had been focused on Gilroy, but the box drew her attention. It looked jarringly familiar.
He opened the box and held it up to reveal a set of knives with polished horn handles, nestled in old and fragile royal-blue satin. The cutlery ranged in size from an eight-inch chef’s knife to a three-inch paring knife. It included a honing steel, also with a horn handle.
Vining gaped at the knives. Her grandmother had a set just like it. Granny had received it as a wedding present and had used them at every holiday gathering. Could these be Granny’s knives?
When he turned the box, she saw an “S” carved on the bottom. This was Granny’s set. Her sister Stephanie had carved her initial there one Thanksgiving years ago on a dare from Vining. She felt a wave of panic. Had he harmed her grandmother?
Persons gave Vining a smug look, guessing precisely where her mind had gone. He didn’t explain the cutlery, but took out the smallest of the set, the paring knife. He tested the blade with his thumb.
“Dull,” he pronounced. “Your grandmother should take better care of such a fine set of knives.”
“Grandmother?” Gilroy said with alarm.
“Shut up!” he shouted, thrusting the blade in her direction. “You will speak only when spoken to.”
Achieving silence, he took the hone from the box and ran the blade against it, methodically drawing it down one side and up the other.
The metal-on-metal noise further unnerved Vining. He might have been honing the knife against her spine.
Persons again tested the blade of the paring knife against his thumb. “Why did you give birth to me in secrecy, Mother? Why did you change your mind about letting the Nickersons take me?”
Gilroy said, “I just did.”
Persons pouted. “I never got to meet my father. By the time I tracked him down, he’d been dead for years. I have gotten to know Dr. Daddy’s and his skeleton wife’s spawn— my half brother Robert. We both have Daddy’s unusual blue eyes. Bob tells me he also inherited Daddy’s tendency to be … for lack of a better word, high-strung. The little fucker was okay as long as he stayed on his meds. But then he decided he didn’t like experiencing life in soft-focus. Wanted a little postgraduate education after art school. That didn’t last too long at my house.”
While Persons drew his thumb across the knife blade, his gaze grew dreamy as he indulged in a recollection. He was chasing his brother Bob through the mobile home. He cornered him. Bob cowered on the ground as Persons got closer. “You’ve been a bad boy, Bob …”
Vining had been barely listening to Persons’s soliloquy, sick with worry about her grandmother, but this last part drew her in. He had a blue-eyed, disturbed half brother who had gone to art school? He must be speaking of the nutcase she knew as Nitro.
“It sounds like a good family adopted you,” Gilroy said. “Money isn’t everything.”
“Maybe not, but it would have been nice to be like Bob and have the option of saying, ‘I’m sick of living in this big house in this ritzy neighborhood. I want to live on the edge.’” He continued to draw his thumb across the knife blade. He smiled, still transfixed by the blade. “I showed Bob the edge all right.”
He looked at Gilroy. “But Mother, the point is, while I didn’t want for material goods with the Persons, if Nickerson and his wife had raised me, I would have been with my own flesh and blood. I would have felt like I belonged somewhere. You took all that from me.”
“I thought it was best for you.”
“That is such tripe. Tell me the truth.”
“I did it to get back at him, for all his empty promises.”
“Maybe that’s part of it, Mother, but that’s not the whole story. I think revenge was the smallest part of your decision not to let my father keep me. Tell me the real reason you hid your pregnancy, gave birth to me in secret, and gave me away.”
“That is the real reason. You were better off raised by a married couple, but not John Nickerson and his wife. He was a manic-depressive drunk and an adulterer who possibly killed himself. His boat was found drifting off Marina Del Rey His death was reported as an accidental drowning. I think it was suicide, staged to look like an accident. Cleaner and better in terms of the insurance. His w
ife was a shallow woman who was addicted to prescription pills.”
Persons listened thoughtfully, nodding, pressing the corners of his lips down as if it all made sense. He stepped quickly toward Gilroy, the paring knife clutched in his fist, and shouted, “Wrong!”
She was doing a good job at keeping her composure, but she reared back when he came at her with the knife.
He kneeled beside her and pressed the tip of the knife into her cheek.
She angled her eyes at the knife, her forehead furrowed.
“Why are you doing this, Tanner? Don’t do this!”
He shouted into her face. “Don’t you dare say my name.” He picked up the piece of duct tape from the ground and pressed it over her mouth. Without hesitation, he again raised the knife and drew the blade down her cheek, making a long cut.
Gilroy let out a muffled scream behind the duct tape. She began panting, furiously seizing air through her nose. Her eyes were wild.
Persons hypnotically watched the blood beading along the wound before flowing, dripping down her chin and onto her white blouse. His breaths grew short. A pink flush bloomed on his cheeks. He licked the fresh blood from the blade.
FIFTY-ONE
VINING’S STOMACH CHURNED. BEHIND HER HORROR, SHE STILL wondered what her role was in this drama. Had he brought her to be a witness?
“Here’s the truth, Mother,” he panted, again holding the knife against her bleeding face. “You decided to have the baby. Maybe you thought you’d keep it and make Dr. Daddy pay for everything. You’d have the satisfaction of knowing how the tongues in his social set would wag. But then, something wonderful happened. Your long-sought-after promotion to corporal was finally coming through. You’d tried to get promoted before, but your reputation as a hell-raiser kept you back. Finally, all your hard work and sacrifice was paying off. You thought they’d rescind the promotion if your secret came out. They’d have second thoughts because of the bad judgment and lack of character you’d shown by getting knocked up by the well-respected husband of one of Pasadena’s most prominent women. Of course, the brass would never say that to you. You’d just be shunted to the side for the rest of your career. You have so much invested in that insignia on your uniform and how people see you, throwing it away would be like throwing yourself away.
