Instead of arguing with Wayne, Emory felt it best to leave him alone. He escorted the still-weak PI from the sheriff’s station.
Once buckled into the car, Jeff reclined in his seat. “Do you mind if I rest my eyes a bit? I’m exhausted.”
“Of course not.” Emory drove the car from the parking lot and onto the main road out of town.
His eyes closed, Jeff smiled. “You took a punch for me.”
“Only because you’re too out of it right now to defend yourself.” Emory grinned and added, “Otherwise, I would’ve let you take it.”
When Jeff didn’t reply, Emory glanced over at him and saw his eyes were closed and mouth open. Jeff didn’t stir again until they got back to Knoxville and pulled up to his place. Emory stared at the office building for Mourning Dove Investigations for a moment before whispering, “We’re here.”
As Jeff opened his eyes and stretched, Emory hopped out of the car and ran to the other side to open his door and help him out. He grabbed the PI’s right arm and placed it over his shoulders, and he helped him walk to the front door. “Do you need me to stay with you?”
Jeff leaned his back against the office door. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to fall into bed and hibernate until spring.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Just to thank you for saving my life.”
“It’s a life worth saving.” Emory walked away, turning back just to say, “Call me when spring comes.”
CHAPTER 46
WHEN EMORY ENTERED the TBI office the next morning, he was wearing his usual suit and tie under his field jacket with his satchel strapped over his shoulder. He was also sporting the shiner from Victor’s punch the night before.
As he walked past the rows of desks in the large room, he could sense tension in the air. The other special agents who noticed him either gave him an apprehensive stare or couldn’t look away fast enough – as if they all knew a secret to which he was not yet privy.
He glanced at Eve Bachman’s office at the back of the room when he saw Wayne leaving it. He could tell that Wayne saw him, but he still refused to look at him as he made his way to his desk. Emory wondered how his partner would treat him today. No matter what, he was determined that they would talk about Wayne’s apparent uneasiness concerning his long-held secret and that this day would see some sort of resolution to the matter. Either Wayne would need to get a grip, or Emory would be forced to request a new partner.
He was about to place his satchel on his chair when he saw Fran Havel working at her desk with a worried look on her face.
Curious, Emory walked up to her. “Good morning, Fran. Is everything okay?”
“Emory…” Fran began before stopping herself. “Bachman wants to see you.”
“Okay. Is something wrong?”
“She really wants to see you.”
Wayne told Bachman about the kiss! Apprehensive about her reaction to the news, Emory tapped two tepid knocks on the nearby door to his boss’ office and creaked it open when she invited him in. The first thing he noticed when he entered wasn’t Bachman’s shrieking red hair. It was something hanging from the wall behind her that he had always tried to ignore before. It was the stone-painted wood in the shape of two Bronze-Age tablets with the Ten Commandments etched in the charred handwriting of god.
“Sit down,” Bachman ordered, and he complied. Her eyes darted up to him and then back down to a small stack of papers on her desk. “I’ve reviewed the injury report you submitted regarding your ‘accidental’ drugging with an ecstasy-like substance.”
“Yes?” Emory asked, wondering about her curious enunciation of the adjective.
“Your statement suggests that the drug was inside a bottle of water you were given by a private investigator named Jeff Woodard.”
“It doesn’t suggest,” Emory told her. “It clearly states that’s what happened. He picked it up from Scot Trousdale’s desk—”
“Enough.” Bachman looked at him with the eyes of an executioner, separating herself from the thing she was obligated to destroy. “And this is the same man you were seen kissing at the scene of one of the crimes?”
Emory froze for a moment as he tried to think of how to respond. “He was hired by the father of the victim to help with the case.”
“I know from experience, as do you, that the clientele for these types of drugs are very often…people like yourself.”
“People like me?” asked Emory.
“You were at the factory where the drug was being infused into bottled water.”
“Yes.” Where is she going with this?
“Of all the times you could’ve come into contact with the drugged water, how do you expect me to believe that it just happened to occur on a Friday night in Knoxville – nearly sixty miles from the factory – when you were in the company of a man who you were obviously…well, doing what you do?”
Emory popped up to his feet. “I did not take that drug by choice!”
Bachman didn’t flinch. “I need your badge and your gun.”
Emory hesitated before muttering, “Wha—”
“Your badge and your gun!”
Emory plopped both onto her desk. She transferred the items to one of her desk drawers and turned her attention to her computer. “I need you to take your personal belongings and leave. Do not sign into your computer. Do not talk to anyone on your way out.”
“You know damn well I didn’t do this. You’re just looking for an excuse to get rid of me.”
Bachman glanced at him once more. “You know, I’ve had a feeling about you from the beginning. Leviticus 18:22. Do yourself a favor, and read it.”
“You can’t fire me for this.”
Bachman let out a stilted laugh. “The Bureau puts away deviants. We don’t employ them.”
In desperation, Emory told her, “I’ll sue to keep my job.”
“State law doesn’t afford you any special privileges. You’d be wasting your time.”
There was no use arguing with her. Emory left her office to find two special agents waiting for him. He could hear Fran crying as he walked with his escorts to his desk, where he found an empty box waiting for him. Wayne was now missing from his desk. Convenient.
No one said a word as he collected his belongings and left the building for the last time.
Emory’s escorts abandoned him to trek to his car alone, in a state of shock. He opened the driver-side door and slipped behind the wheel with the box on his lap. He stared at the building through his windshield but didn’t see it. When at last he moved, he put the box on the passenger seat and grabbed the wheel. Tears began dripping down his face.
CHAPTER 47
STILL WEARING HIS suit and field jacket, Emory Rome sat on the couch in his apartment staring at the only two objects on his coffee table – a bottle of pills and a glass of water. Light from a candle on the kitchen bar and the amber desk lamp strained to reach him, stopping just shy of the bottle’s label. Small ceramic cherubs hanging outside the window kept the silence at bay with gentle taps on the glass.
Emory took a pill from the bottle and swallowed it, chasing it with a swig of water. He tipped the bottle over a second time and emptied its contents into the palm of his hand. This would do it. He stared at the fifty-something powdery white pills.
He heard a faint swoosh and looked toward the front door to see that an envelope had been pushed through the crack underneath. Annoyed yet intrigued, he spilled the pills onto the coffee table and walked to the door. He grabbed the unsealed envelope and pulled from it a postcard with a picture of his thirteen-year-old self at Crescent Lake – before it had disappeared and before the Romes had adopted him. The other side of the card was black with silver writing that read, “Who bears the iniquity of the son?”
“What the hell?”
He opened the door and saw no one there, so he shut it again. He hurried to the window with the hanging cherubs and saw a man in a white ski mask opening the door to a blue sedan pa
rked across the street from his apartment. As if sensing Emory’s gaze, the man looked up at his window, revealing the grotesque red smile stitched onto his mask. Emory ran to the door to try catching the man before he could drive away, but when he swung his apartment door open again, he found Jeff Woodard standing on the other side.
“Is my cologne that strong?” Jeff asked.
“Jeff. What are you doing here?”
The PI was dressed in his usual attire but with a thick woolen scarf coiled around his neck. “I heard what happened to you at the TBI.”
Emory shoved the postcard and envelope into his back pocket. “Can we talk about this later?”
“I’ll be quick.”
Emory held up a finger. “Hang on one second.” Closing the door, he ran to the window, and his shoulders dropped when he saw that the blue sedan was now gone. The pills! He removed his jacket and placed it over the pills before returning to the front door.
Jeff smiled when he noticed that Emory was no longer wearing his jacket. “I see you’ve made yourself more comfortable.”
“What do you want?”
“An invitation inside to begin with.”
“Come in.” Emory waved his hand toward the living room. “How did you know where I live?”
“Jeff Woodard, private investigator. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.” He walked in as he inspected the surroundings. “You have a nice nihilistic Chi going on here. I like it.”
“I’m really busy right now.”
Jeff plopped down on the couch and patted the cushion beside him.
“How are you doing, by the way?” Emory asked as he joined him on the couch.
“My whole body is sore. I slept until noon today. Even then, I could barely get out of bed.” He unwrapped his scarf to reveal the black welts covering his neck. “Oh, and I’ve got like ten dates’ worth of hickeys from Pristine’s damn stun gun.”
“They’ll go away,” Emory assured him.
“I hope so. I don’t think they make turtleneck tank tops.” He touched Emory’s bruised face. “Does it hurt?”
“Not bad.”
“So listen. I have a proposal for you, and before you get excited, it’s not that kind of proposal.”
Emory tried not to, but he ended up laughing. “I appreciate your coming over to check on me, but I’m in no mood to be cheered up right now.”
“Then it’s good that’s not the purpose of my visit. I’ve talked it over with Virginia, and we want to offer you a partnership in the agency.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve convinced Virginia that you would be an asset to the company. I think you’re a good investigator, and under my tutelage, you could be a great one.”
“You think so, huh?”
Jeff’s tone grew serious. “The truth is I…we need you. I’ve had some judgment issues with clients, as you’re aware, and we could use you and your pesky ethics.”
“Look, you can’t hold yourself responsible for what Pristine did. Should you have turned away a gold-digger client looking for a rich husband?” Emory shrugged. “Honestly, yeah. But what she wanted and what you did was not a crime. Even with the best judgment, you can’t know with absolute certainty what your clients’ ultimate motives are.”
“That’s the level-headedness I’m talking about it. We already know what we can accomplish when we work together. So what do you say? Will you join our team?”
Emory didn’t know how to respond. He had never imagined himself as anything but a government law enforcement agent. He stared at his jacket on the coffee table, thinking about what lay beneath it.
He jumped up with his back to Jeff. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Jeff darted in front of him. “You need a job, and I’m offering you one that you’ll love. Plus, you’ll be working with me. There’s no downside.”
Emory walked past him and opened the door. “I’ll think about it.”
Jeff approached him with a mock scowl. “This isn’t an open-ended invitation.”
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Emory insisted with a smile.
Jeff threw his hands up. “Fine. Call me first thing in the morning. First thing.”
“Good night.” Emory closed the door with Jeff on the other side. He returned to the couch and transferred his jacket from the coffee table to the cushion beside him. He stared at the pills for a moment before scooping them up and returning them to the bottle.
CHAPTER 48
IAN OPENED A door in the Algarotti house, holding an empty garbage bag in one hand. Flicking the light switch on, he descended the stairs to the basement and walked to a section of the brick wall behind the furnace. As he pulled a small patch of loose bricks from the wall near the floor, his mind drifted to thoughts of his sister, eliciting an unintentional smile.
When their mother died, the loss only seemed to bring Britt and his father closer together. Ian tried to compete – waiting on his father hand and foot, doing special things for him, like shining his shoes – but nothing garnered more than a muttered, “Thanks.”
Britt had a special connection with their dad that Ian just couldn’t break. She knew it too. She made a sport out of berating Ian whenever her father was in the room, and just to prove she had him on her side, she would give Ian grief until their father could no longer contain his laughter. To his father’s credit, he would look away so Ian couldn’t see his face, but Ian could still see his shoulders bouncing up and down.
In spite of his father’s laughter, Ian worshipped him. During the days before Pristine came into the picture, he would sometimes slip into his father’s bedroom at night and hide under the bed, waiting for him to come in and fall asleep. He would slip out from under the bed as soon as the deep breathing started. His father preferred not to be confined by blankets, so he would always toss those aside and sleep only under a single thin sheet. Ian would pull the sheet up – a little at a time – from his feet and legs and higher and then fold it over to the side. If his father didn’t stir, Ian would pull down his own pajama bottoms, kneel on the floor and satisfy himself while staring at the sleeping man.
Back in the basement, Ian sighed as he removed the last brick. He reached into the wall and pulled out a jar. As he did, he pictured Pristine’s pretty face.
When his dad married that woman, Ian lost yet another piece of him. Nevertheless, Ian hadn’t viewed his new stepmother as an obstacle. Rather, she was an essential means to a Britt-free end.
He was listening outside the parlor when his father told Pristine about the family’s financial situation – after the marriage, of course – and although she acted like it wasn’t important that her husband didn’t have full control of the fortune, Ian watched her twisted emotions and heard her mutter her grave disappointment to the news as soon as his father left the room. The boy knew what she wanted, and he was betting she was ruthless enough to do whatever it took to secure her future.
Thereafter, Ian befriended her, and Pristine played along, whether or not she had any true affection for her new stepson. People seemed to think she was stupid, perhaps because of her looks or the way she mispronounced the occasional word. Perhaps it was her tantrums, but Ian knew she wasn’t stupid. She was, however, pliable – a trait he exploited.
When Ian came up with an experiment for the science fair, he told his stepmother he was nervous about his presentation and asked her to help him with it. He showed her his experiments with calcium carbide numerous times, and each time he explained in great detail its properties and often joked how it would make the perfect murder weapon. He would “let slip” the supposed selfish plans Britt had for her half of the family money once she turned eighteen – a birthday that was fast approaching. Not wanting to be too obvious, he left it up to Pristine to see how Britt’s death would benefit her, leaving only one other heir, who wouldn’t gain control of the money for several years more.
In the basement, Ian placed the jar into the garbage bag and retur
ned the bricks to the wall.
He recalled how enraged he was when Mr. Roberts accused him of cheating and kicked him off the team for the science fair. He almost killed the man himself after that, but he controlled his rage long enough to realize he might be able to convince Pristine to do it for him. He had already laid the groundwork for her to murder Britt, and even though she hadn’t yet acted, he knew in his heart that she would when she worked up her nerve. How could he convince her to kill someone else when it would not profit her in the least?
Of course, one of the most important factors in planning any crime is having a legitimate candidate to blame it on other than the actual perpetrator. He knew in spite of their close relationship, Pristine wouldn’t hesitate to throw him under the bus to get what she wanted, so he played on that character weakness and the fact that he had the most to gain from the two murders – ridding himself of a teacher he hated and blamed for a blemished school record, as well as the sister who would take half his fortune and more than half of his father’s love.
He told everyone how much he wanted Mr. Roberts dead and cried to Pristine on numerous occasions. Ian knew it would make no sense for him to plan a methodical murder for a sister people believed he loved, regardless of how she treated him, instead of the teacher who everyone knew he wanted dead. He hoped that Pristine would realize that too and off them both. He even helped her out by telling her about his plans for the next science fair, an experiment involving potassium permanganate that he had taken from the water factory.
Ian ascended the basement stairs and turned out the light as he walked through the door. He carried the garbage bag to the nearest bathroom and locked the door behind him. Pulling out the jar of strychnine, he poured it down the toilet. He needed a silver bullet that would destroy Pristine’s plans to nail him for the murders. He had read about the snake handlers and their penchant for drinking poison, and that gave him the idea to build up Pristine’s tolerance. He had been dispersing a precise amount in her protein powder ever since. Once he knew all signs for the two murders were pointing to him, he upped the dosage in her powder to ensure she overdosed enough to have to go to the hospital. Of course, he had no way of knowing she would happen to use more protein powder than usual that day – a miscalculation that almost killed her, not to mention Ian’s chances at freedom. He flashed to the memory of packing Pristine’s overnight bag for the hospital and leaving the brush out so he could make sure Emory saw it.
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