House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  “You really have the guts to pull that trigger? You told me shooting wasn’t your thing.”

  “I will do anything I have to do. You should know that by now.”

  “If that’s the case, then you certainly could have pulled the trigger on Frank Bascomb. To order the job. And to have Wes and Morgan killed, too.” Kate pauses again. “And me.”

  “I’m not a murderer,” Miranda insists. “This is self-defense.”

  “Self-defense my ass.” She takes a step forward.

  “Don’t,” Miranda warns her, holding the gun steady. “No closer. I keep this loaded, and I know how to use it. I may not be a crack shot like my daughter, but I can hit a target at this distance.”

  “Shooting a target’s not the same as shooting a real live human being.”

  “I don’t doubt that—but I can and will shoot you.” Her voice is climbing, slightly out of control. “You forced your way in here. You didn’t give me an option.”

  “I guess the cops would buy that,” Kate admits, thinking it over. “You’ve got them in your hip pocket anyway.” She pauses. “You’ve done a lot of ugly things, and you’ve hurt a lot of people; but if you’re not a murderer, then you’re not going to be able to pull that trigger.”

  “I told you. This is different.”

  “Murder is murder. There is no difference.” She takes another step closer. “Only the victims change.”

  “Don’t! I will do this.”

  “Give me the gun.” Her voice is low, soothing.

  She’s back in that house in Oakland again with that crazy man, Losario, and his wife and daughter, and her partner, Ray. And she isn’t doing the right thing.

  She isn’t imposing her will on him.

  That’s the way it has to be. The only way to be in control, to come out alive and bring your prisoners with you. Because, she realizes with a terrifying clarity, she had never been Losario’s prisoner at all. It had been the other way around. He had wanted her to take control. And she hadn’t done her job.

  In his perverse sickness, Eric had been right. But only about that one thing, nothing else.

  Losario, in his own paranoia, had brutalized her. Eric had also brutalized her, directly, in her face. And those men up there in her secret place, those disgusting animals, they had brutalized her, too.

  She wasn’t going to let it happen again. No matter the outcome, she wasn’t going to be the victim anymore.

  Her will is so strong. As if it’s the most natural thing in the world, she reaches for Miranda’s gun with a slow, deliberate movement.

  And the weapon slides out of Miranda’s hand, into her own.

  Like the wall of a dam bursting, the tension that’s been gripping them both pours out of the room.

  Kate cracks the cylinder of Miranda’s revolver, empties the bullets into her palm, drops them into her jacket pocket.

  “You aren’t a killer after all,” she says, feeling the weight of the world fall from her shoulders as she realizes the enormity of what she’s done.

  She feels good about that. God, does she feel good about that!

  “At least I told the truth about something,” Miranda offers in her defense. She looks at Kate. “That offer I made you—about sharing the spoils—you weren’t serious, were you? About taking it.”

  “About as serious as you were in giving it.”

  “I’m glad about that.”

  “Oh?”

  “That you’re honest. I thought you were—I would have been disappointed if I really could have bought you.”

  Kate nods. “You already tried that, remember? It didn’t work then, either.”

  There’s nothing more to say. Kate takes her own weapon out of her pocket and points it at Miranda, motioning with her arms towards the door.

  “You had a gun, all this time?” Miranda exclaims, disbelieving. “Why didn’t you use it from the beginning?”

  “Because it’s not my style.” She blows out her cheeks. “But now you’ve left me no choice—I can’t take any more chances.”

  Miranda nods in mute acknowledgment.

  “Let’s go,” Kate commands; but not harshly. She’s back in control now—she doesn’t have to be a tough guy anymore. She starts to pick up her day pack; again, she stops. “One more thing.” She fishes a piece of paper out of her pack. “The night Frank Bascomb was arrested,” she informs Miranda, “he made one phone call. To his patron, obviously, to get him out of there as quickly as possible. It’s a local number: 555-5599.” With a self-congratulatory smile, which she’s earned (in spades), she asks the obvious question. “That’s your unlisted number, isn’t it?”

  Miranda’s face goes white as she stares at Kate—then past her with a look of unbelievable shock.

  “No. That number belongs to me.”

  Behind her. A woman’s voice. Then two loud click-clicks: the distinctive and terrifying sound of a shotgun being cocked—both hammers.

  “Put your gun on the desk,” the voice commands. “Right now.”

  Kate hesitates for a moment. This can’t be happening, she thinks. Not now, when she’s finally figured it out—both the byzantine labyrinth of this case and, more importantly, how to take control of her life.

  “Do it or I’ll cut you in half,” she hears. “Unlike my daughter-in-law,” Dorothy Sparks tells her, “whose eloquence can charm the birds out of the trees, I prefer to let my actions speak for me.” Forcefully: “The gun. Uncock it, put the safety on, and put it down. Both hands, where I can see them.”

  Slowly, carefully, Kate uncocks her gun, slides the safety up, and places the automatic on the center of the desk.

  “Turn around,” Dorothy commands her.

  Kate turns and faces Dorothy. The old woman is dressed for the ranch, jeans over boots. She’s holding an old Parker 20 gauge side-by-side, the long double barrel pointed right at Kate’s gut.

  You dumb bitch! Kate screams to herself: at herself. You rank fucking amateur!

  The signs had been there from the beginning: the unknown dope-deal financier; Wes’s bail; the building in San Francisco. The old building guard had said “Mrs. Sparks.” He’d known her before Miranda had ever come into the picture—she’s the one he’d dealt with, not Miranda. The signs had been there, right in her face. Why hadn’t she seen them?

  Because: she’d been so hell-bent on going in one direction that she hadn’t bothered to read the map, to look for another road to her destination. She’d wanted to nail Miranda, and had closed her eyes and her mind to anyone else. “Get to know the family,” Carl had told her, his first piece of advice on this case. She sees it all now, with the clarity of twenty-twenty hindsight.

  She hadn’t done a thorough enough job. Now she was going to pay for it.

  Think!

  Her mind starts working madly, trying to figure a way out. If there is one. Start talking. See if that distracts her. “You paid for the shipment of marijuana, didn’t you?” she says.

  Dorothy stares at her, her eyes unblinking. Looking at her as penetratingly as Kate looked at Miranda a few minutes ago.

  “And it was your money that paid Wes Gillroy’s bail.”

  Dorothy keeps staring. Her hands are rock-steady, holding the shotgun on Kate. Behind the desk, using it almost as a shield, Miranda watches with morbid fascination.

  “And you paid off whoever killed them all. Including the men in the jail cell who murdered Frank Bascomb—and tried to murder me.”

  The faintest movement behind Dorothy’s eyes. Then: “Yes.”

  “Why?” The cry is of pain, true despair.

  Kate jerks her head towards Miranda, who’s staring at Dorothy in anguish and bewilderment.

  “Why?” Miranda cries again.

  “For the money,” Dorothy answers her daughter-in-law, in a tone Kate imagines she would use on a five-year-old. “We’re broke.” Then her voice hardens, revealing the steel beneath the civility she presents to the world.

  “For twenty years you and
that weak, pathetic son of mine have run our fortune into the ground. You and your grandiose schemes, him and his gambling. And I’ve sat back and kept quiet, because I’d turned the company over to you and the lawyers told me I was powerless to act. You had me in a bind. But I had to face facts. In a few years we would have lost everything. I had to do something.”

  “The building in San Francisco, where the office of the fictitious Bay Area Holding Company is, you used that for collateral to bail Wes Gillroy out,” Kate says—to make sure, for herself. Not that the knowledge is going to help anything now. “You owned that yourself, outside the family’s trust.”

  Dorothy nods. “I kept a few holdings separate, for my own protection. It’s a good thing I did, as you can see.”

  “I didn’t know about that,” Miranda says, dumbstruck.

  “What you don’t know about me—and what I do know about your life and Frederick’s—would fill several volumes,” Dorothy states, relishing Miranda’s surprise. “I’ve been turning a blind eye to your sexual flagrances for years, Miranda, because above all else I wanted to avoid scandal. For Frederick and Laura,” she says venomously, “not for you. As for my few remaining properties, that I’ve held onto, you would have lost them along with all the rest, if I hadn’t kept them from you,” Dorothy continues. “Those were my annuities. Selling some harmless drugs—that would have sweetened the pot, given me a little more insurance. God knows I needed it.”

  “But we’re about to make millions!” Miranda screams. “The deal with Rainier would have made us back everything we’ve ever lost, and more, while that stupid drug scheme of yours could have fucked the whole thing up—and for what? A couple million, maybe? We’ll be making more than that every month, once the oil royalties start coming in!”

  “We don’t need oil developers raping our land,” Dorothy says in a voice that is preternaturally calm. “That’s evil, wrong. We’ve been fighting them for years; we shouldn’t become their partners now. It’s totally against everything I’ve stood for, all my life.”

  “But dealing drugs and killing people is okay?” Kate asks. This woman is crazy, she realizes. Another Losario—even worse.

  “The killings were unfortunate,” Dorothy answers, without a trace of remorse in her voice. “It would have been preferable not to. But once you’re into something like that, you do what you have to do.”

  She turns to Miranda, making sure she keeps Kate in her sight. “I didn’t know you were cooking up this scheme with Rainier. You’ve cut me out of all the decision making for years—which was a mistake, I hope you see that now.”

  Miranda stares at her in total disbelief.

  “I knew I had to do something,” Dorothy goes on. “And when Frank came along with his proposal, I thought it was a pretty good idea.”

  “What we have here,” Kate interjects, “is a failure to communicate. Big-time.”

  “Well taken,” Dorothy says. Then she abruptly shifts gears. “This is so unfortunate. This detective”—she indicates Kate with a head nod—“has become obsessed with her work, and despondent over having her pretty little face so mangled, it’s haunted her for months. She finally got so desperate she lured you here and then, at gunpoint, threatened to blackmail you if you wouldn’t pay her off. Luckily, I found out about it, and confronted her. She tried to shoot me, but I was able to beat her to the draw.”

  Kate and Miranda both stare at Dorothy in horror.

  “You’ll never get away with this,” Kate tells her. She’s having a hard time getting any words out, let alone speak and think rationally.

  “I already have, haven’t I?” Dorothy’s smile is almost serene. Why not? Kate thinks. The woman is in charge; and she’s crazy, gone totally round the bend.

  “No. Friends know I was coming out here, and there are copies of all these documents. If anything happens to me this all goes right to the law.”

  “You’re lying,” Dorothy states.

  “You don’t want to find out, do you?”

  “I’ll take my chances. They’re much better than letting you go.” She motions with the shotgun. “Move over there. Away from your gun.”

  Kate takes one step to her left. Swiftly, Dorothy grabs the automatic off the desk and sticks it in her waistband.

  “What about Miranda here?” Kate asks. “Do you think she’s going to sit on this for the rest of her life?”

  “She’s not going to have to.”

  Miranda stares at her in shock. “What are you …?” she gasps.

  “Before I could kill your blackmailer,” Dorothy explains to her, “she shot you.”

  “You had Frank killed,” Kate says. Keep talking—keep buying time. “And you got away with it. You had Wes and Morgan killed, and you got away with that, too. And you almost had me killed, which you would have gotten away with as well—because someone else was doing it. Of course, your granddaughter might have been killed in the crossfire, but that’s the price you have to pay, right? Since it wasn’t your hand that was actually on the trigger you would have been clean.”

  She’s hit a primary nerve.

  “They wouldn’t have killed Laura!” Dorothy erupts, her voice filling the room. Her hand is shaking, holding the shotgun. “They knew who they were after—they had their instructions!”

  “That’s a good one,” Kate answers. “Trained professional killers, that bunch. Calm, cool, and collected. Lady,” she says, taking a step forward, “you listen to me. They could’ve wasted Laura and they wouldn’t have blinked an eye.”

  “No,” Dorothy answers, her voice trembling. “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m right. And you know it.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she sees Miranda taking all of this in: the horror, the madness, the total lack of humanity. She looks back at Dorothy. The woman has regained her self-control—the eyes are dead again.

  Dorothy motions with her shotgun. “Outside. Both of you. This time I’ll do it myself,” she says to Kate. “So that it gets done right—finally.”

  Here or out there—what’s the difference? Kate watches Miranda come out from behind the desk, then slowly walk through the living room towards the front door.

  “Move,” Dorothy commands.

  She follows Miranda out. They stand on the porch, in shadow.

  “Down there.” Dorothy points into the yard. “Spread out.”

  They trudge down the steps. Miranda, then Kate, then Dorothy, a safe distance behind, but close enough that the shot from her gun won’t disperse much if one of them tries to run and she has to pull the trigger.

  It’s late morning now, the pale yellow sun sitting high above their heads. The sky is almost colorless, as if the life has been squeezed out of it.

  “I’m not doing this because I want to,” Dorothy says. “I’m doing it because I have to.”

  “Those are comforting last words to hear,” Kate states bitterly. “I guess that means your conscience is clear.”

  “Completely,” the old woman replies. She raises the shotgun to her shoulder and takes careful aim at Kate, both barrels.

  Kate dives for the gun.

  The explosion is deafening.

  Before Dorothy hits the ground her eyes widen with the amazed look of a woman who painstakingly prepared for everything, and still got it wrong.

  Kate’s head snaps around.

  Laura stands fifty yards away on the hill above them, in the shadow of an oak tree. The rifle, barrel smoking visibly, hangs limp in her hand. As she starts walking towards them it drops with a thud.

  Three women stand on the hard dirt ground, apart from each other, the sun so directly overhead that there seem to be no shadows. The fourth woman, the dead one, lies facedown in the center of the triangle, the back of her shirt rapidly spreading crimson.

  Time is frozen.

  Then it comes back to life as Miranda races to her daughter and takes her in her arms. Laura stands motionless, eyes cast down.

  Kate walks slowly to them, as if m
oving through a quagmire. Her legs feel like they have no bones left in them.

  “How did you …?” Kate asks. She feels like she’s going to puke her guts out and have a heart attack at the same time.

  “I followed her,” the girl says simply. She starts trembling, suddenly losing control over her body, feeling the reality of what she’s done. “She’d been acting weird lately,” she states in a low monotone, “and when you called me earlier I told her. I know you warned me not to, but I always tell her everything—things I don’t even tell you, Mom,” she says, looking at Miranda, who looks away, her face flushing painfully.

  Laura looks at Kate again. “She was the only person who knew from the beginning that I’d hired you, which must be why she knew everything that was happening as things progressed. Like up at your private place,” she adds shamefaced. “This morning I told her about your call and she freaked, it was like she’d seen a ghost. That set something off in my head, how crazed she was, so when she took off in her car I followed her. I lost her coming over the pass, but by then I knew where she was heading.” She reaches out and lays a hand on Kate’s arm. “You saved my life. I couldn’t let her take yours.”

  Kate’s voice is choked. “Thank you.”

  “You put your life on the line for me,” Laura says. “I had no choice.”

  “It’s going to be all right,” Miranda consoles her daughter, trying to pull her close.

  Laura shakes her head, withdrawing from her mother’s arms. “No, Mom. Nothing’s ever going to be all right again.”

  Kate comes back to life, starting to take stock of their situation. Without wasting another second she kneels down and picks up the rifle that is lying at Laura’s feet. With her other hand she grabs Dorothy’s shotgun, and takes her own gun from Dorothy’s belt, shoving it back into her pocket. Looking at the two women standing, and the dead one on the ground, lying in a pool of her own spreading blood, she feels sick; they never understood, she thinks, that in the end, the world does not revolve around them.

  Now they’ll have to.

  Enough sentiment. Those feelings are dangerous, there’s no time for feelings. She has business to finish.

  “It may be all right,” she says, repeating Miranda’s plea. “What happened here. Or it could blow up in your faces. You’re going to have to do as I tell you—exactly as I tell you.”