by J. A. Kerley
Rein heard footsteps grow muted in the distance. The manure in the still trailer was attracting flies and they crawled over her face. The heat was climbing fast and her sweat made the hay stick to her body. She heard grunting in the distance, knew Tommy was raping Treeka.
Ten minutes later they were back, Treeks pulling herself into the trailer. “Come on, woman,” Tommy said to Rein, leaning to loosen her ropes. “Your turn.”
Rein jumped from the trailer, saw it was parked in a depression behind a looming rock formation. She figured she was to be sexually assaulted, but all Tommy did was lead her to an arroyo and stand a dozen feet distant as she pulled down her pants. She glanced at her panties, feeling the signs of her approaching period.
“Do you have to look at me?” Rein said.
Tommy’s face wrinkled in anger. “I’ll look right up your pussy if I want.”
“OK,” Rein said, realizing the phone was a no-go, if it even had power left. “Do what you want.”
“I want to watch you, bitch, I’ll fucking watch you. Shit and git.”
Rein kept the phone rolled in her panties and relieved herself. Tommy hustled her to the truck. He upended the bag he’d brought from the cab, littering the trailer floor with convenience-store sandwiches, beef jerky, packs of chips and cans of soda.
“Git to eating or go hungry.”
Treeka said something muffled, her head turned away. “I didn’t hear you, Treeks,” Tommy said. “Talk up when I ask a question … ’less you feel like giving this dusty ol’ truck another washing.”
“I said thank you for the food, Tommy. I was getting hungry.”
Tommy was so close to Reinetta she could smell his odor: stale sweat, cheap deodorant and one of those acrid, old-time colognes pushed on television by faded sports stars, probably the same stuff his father had used. He looked at Rein and grinned yellow teeth.
“You know what I think, pretty lady?” he said. “I think if you’re gonna break bread with Treeka and me, you should give the holy blessing.”
Rein didn’t think she’d heard correctly. “What?”
He grinned and stood, pushing back his hat, gnawing on a lunchmeat sandwich, half-moons of dirt beneath his fingernails. “You people s’posed to be so spiritual an’ all. Give us one a them nigra prayers to eat to.”
“I just want to eat.”
“Give us a prayer, please, Marla,” Treeka said, turning to Rein. Beneath her breath she said, “Don’t make him mad or he’ll hurt you.”
“You lissen to little Treeks. She wants a prayer. Right, Treeks?”
“Yes, Tommy. We should have a blessing before we eat. Please, Marla?” Treeka’s eyes were imploring.
“Dear heavenly Father,” Rein recited, her voice scarcely past a whisper, “bless this food and thank you for providing it.”
“That ain’t no kind of prayer,” Tommy snarled. “I want a fucking good prayer.”
“I’ll do it, Tommy,” Treeka said. “Let me do the blessing, babe. I ain’t said a prayer in a while.”
“Yeah, you go ahead then.”
Treeka bowed her head. “Bless this food, dear God, and thank you for all the other blessings in my life, like this good and righteous man. Thank you for providing him to me and making him strong and wise and everything I could hope for. I am just a humble woman, dear God, so please help me to see the error of my ways and know that Satan got inside my heart and told me lies. Help me to understand my transgressions and to learn from them and please make me the wife this good man deserves, though he deserves so much more than me. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”
“Ain’t you gonna amen Treeka’s prayer?” Tommy said, staring at Rein.
“Amen,” she said, thinking, Give me a chance to kill you.
“Louder,” he snapped.
Rein was hot and worn and aching and angry. She said, “Leave me alone.”
“Don’t,” Treeka whispered.
Tommy Flood’s fingers curled into a fist. He glared at Rein. “What did you say to me, slut?”
“I said to leave me alone, you pathetic excuse for whatever you’re attempting to be.”
The man’s eyes widened as if slapped. His hand slashed at Rein’s face and knocked her backwards. “I can do what I want, bitch!” Flood screamed. “I’m allowed to do everything but kill you. You got that?”
“What are you talking about?” Rein gasped.
“You ain’t mine,” he said. “But I got permission to hurt you however I need to keep you in line. You got that?”
Rein nodded and went slack in the hay. Tommy slapped the tape back over the women’s mouths, re-set the ropes. “I don’t care about you,” he snarled to Rein before slamming the door. “I got back what’s mine and pretty soon you’ll be where you’re supposed to be, too.”
Chapter 50
Cruz and I were in the motel. It was mixed-feelings time, both relieved Rein wasn’t dead, but knowing it was a matter of time. We knew the women had been held captive for days before being mutilated, then held a bit longer before being killed. Though grim, it was the distant star on which we’d hung our hopes.
My phone rang and Cruz looked up from her reports. I shook my head, the screen said CLAIR.
“Howdy, Clair,” I said. “What’s up?”
“You wanted me to stay in contact with the forensics people in Utah and Denver, try and figure out what the mucilage is on the bellies of our victims?”
We were hoping Clair might find an esoteric polymer used in a specific industry or process, anything to advance our cause.
“You’ve got something?”
“Nothing on the glue,” she said. “It’s a common PSA – pressure-sensitive adhesive.”
Another dead end. “Like you thought, duct tape or similar?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Thanks, Clair. Gotta go –”
“Hang on, Carson. I started reviewing uterine findings for rape or object insertion. I didn’t find anything like that, but I did note an odd commonality among the victims.”
“What’s that, Clair?”
“All three uteri were in the early stages of shedding endometrial lining when the process was stopped. By death, of course.”
“You’re saying that these women were killed …”
“Shortly after their periods started, Carson. Could be coincidence, but I figured you should know.”
The blonde and thirtyish receptionist at Blackwell, Carrington and Associates not only spoke as if afflicted with an interior broomstick, Nautilus thought, she walked that way too: back straight, nose high, long but formless legs scissoring in choppy strokes. Her dress was white and double-breasted and fit very well.
The pair had cooled heels in the wood-and-brass reception area, Nautilus looking out the windows while Hargreaves seemed entranced by portraits of the legal staff, each with a copywriter-quality bio extolling the virtues and specialties of the practitioner.
“You’re very lucky Mr Carrington agreed to see you on such short notice,” the receptionist sniffed as she opened the door to a long corridor.
“Maybe we knew the secret word,” Hargreaves said. “Y’know, like Open Sesame.”
“What does that mean?”
“Never mind.”
Thus aimed toward the corner office, Nautilus and Hargreaves wandered at sightseer’s pace. At corridor’s end a visually resplendent Arnold Carrington appeared, no hand offered, nothing but a flick of a finger to indicate entry into his personal burrow with its Oriental carpet, bronze sculptures of cowboys on horseback, paintings of ships and seascapes in ornate frames. The corner office aimed eastward across the green and blue of the Mobile river delta. Carrington’s desk, the size of a single bed, held nothing save for a green-shaded lamp, a computer monitor, and a leather pad. The lawyer closed the door as Hargreaves and Nautilus walked to the trio of chairs semi-circled before the desk.
“No need to sit,” Carrington announced. “You won’t be here that long.”
Ha
rgreaves sat.
Carrington frowned. “I’m not making myself clear, Detective. My statement is simple: This firm’s relationship with Nathaniel Bromley is over. Severed. There is nothing more to add.”
He turned back to the door and put his hand on the door knob, announcement over.
“How many female lawyers do you have here, Mr Carrington?” Hargreaves said, not moving from the chair.
“Did you see the photographs out front?”
“Indeed I did. Eight out of a legal staff of twenty-seven.”
Carrington nodded. “A bit less than one-third. Not bad, and improving.”
“The average age of your male staff is about, what? Forty-five or thereabouts? I’m not counting the old guard, I’m talking rank and file.”
Carrington narrowed his eyes. “I seem to be missing your point, Detective Hargreaves.”
“Of the female staff, most look to be early thirties. When were the ladies hired, Mr Carrington?”
“What are you getting at, Detective?”
Hargreaves stood and faced the lawyer. “The question is so simple I’m going to supply the answer. The majority of the women were hired recently, most fresh from law school. There a reason you didn’t hire women in the Bromley years, Mr Carrington?”
“That’s ridiculous. We hired several women and –” Carrington froze, realized where he’d been led.
“Where are they today?” Hargreaves asked.
“We’re not here from affirmative action, Mr Carrington,” Nautilus said, seeing where his partner was going. “Women are dying. We need help and that’s why we’re here.”
Carrington absorbed the words slowly and stared between the two detectives.
“Women dying?”
“Not in pretty ways,” Hargreaves said.
“Y-you suspect Nathaniel in these … these crimes?”
“No suspects, only suppositions,” Nautilus said. “You say Bromley’s not associated with this firm. Prove it by telling us why you’ve put the big wall between yourselves and your former star attraction.”
Carrington again looked between the pair, as if gauging their resolve. His shoulders slumped and he sighed, taking his place behind the desk, looking suddenly shrunken.
“This is between us?” he asked.
“I have corpses,” Nautilus said. “I need answers, not pacts.”
Carrington took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for his own words.
“Whenever we’d add an associate, a new hire, Nathaniel always found reasons why women on the short list were wrong for the firm. They were too strident, or too ugly, or too devious.”
“Devious?” Hargreaves asked. “Bromley had some meter to judge, what … deviosity?”
“Nathaniel claimed the ability to sense that trait and vetoed the candidate.”
Hargreaves said, “Judging by the photos, you gave him plenty of latitude.”
“We all had veto power, the partners.”
“But surely now and then you’d hire a woman? Aren’t women a majority of law students?”
“Several times the other partners felt strongly about a female candidate and Nathaniel would give in.”
“They just didn’t last long,” Hargreaves said. “Was that it?”
“Nathaniel seemed to fixate on the women, finding mistakes in their work, haranguing them, spreading rumors they were lesbians. The women eventually left for less-stressful employment options. They always received a generous severance and excellent recommendations.”
“How very thoughtful of you,” Hargreaves said.
“What was the final straw?” Nautilus asked. There was always a final straw.
Carrington walked to the window, stared out across the flat and spreading delta. “The company party at the end of the fiscal year. Spouses and significant others are invited. It’s a grand occasion: bonuses are distributed, champagne flows … Nathaniel arrived with a woman, very pretty but … not overly educated. He was drinking too much, telling people his date was dumb as a rock but she could, uh …” Carrington glanced at Hargreaves, embarrassed.
“Go on, Mr Carrington,” she said. “I’ve heard it all twice.”
“He said she could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. Nathaniel made several remarks in this vein, as if they qualified the woman to be with him.”
“And?” Hargreaves asked.
“The woman heard one of his remarks and took offense. They wandered from the general party, squabbling. A few minutes later I was called to a back office, along with two other partners. Nathaniel and the woman were in a back office and she had a bloody nose and mouth. Her dress was torn and she was crying. I wasn’t the first person in the room, that was Ted Clark. Ted said when he arrived Nathaniel was lifting the woman’s head by the hair and smashing her face into a desk.”
“Jesus,” Nautilus whispered.
“Long story short: the woman was extremely well compensated. Nathaniel Bromley’s relationship with the firm changed inexorably and he was asked to leave.”
“Gone the next day?” Nautilus asked.
“I wish it had been that easy. Nathaniel said we were eunuchs for taking the side of a whore. He threatened legal action, obviously.”
“Your response?”
“Like most firms with similar client lists, we maintain relationships with several security-oriented firms.”
“Private investigators,” Nautilus translated.
“Nathaniel had an emotional response to the dissolution of the partnership. A more rational man might have realized where this would lead. Or maybe it was his monumental ego. We enlisted a team of investigators led by Clarence Trump.”
“I know Trump,” Nautilus said to Hargreaves. “Good and fast. Works out of Birmingham.”
“Fast as you say Mr Trump is, Detective, it took his staff three months to unearth the story. It seems Nathaniel was married years ago, something none of us knew. Nathaniel had so terrorized his young wife that she sought escape. He told her he would destroy her if she left him.”
“She got on the train,” Hargreaves said.
Carrington looked puzzled. “If you mean she used some kind of women’s network to disappear, you’re correct.”
“Where was, is she?” Nautilus asked. “The wife.”
“Somewhere in the Northeast, living a happy life with no wish to ever return.” He paused. “That’s not what we told Nathaniel.”
“You told Bromley she’d come back and tell her story.”
“Nathaniel feared damage to his reputation. He relented and our relationship was over.”
“And in the end, everything was hushed up,” Hargreaves said, doing the dusting-hands motion.
Carrington jutted his considerable chin. “The firm’s reputation should not suffer for the actions of a single member of staff.”
Hargreaves smile was without humor. “And should the women who were let go discover the reason was solely their gender, they could slam this place with a hefty lawsuit. Is that the way it goes, Mr Carrington?”
“I’ve been honest with you. I’m trusting your discretion.”
Nautilus and Hargreaves retreated from Carrington’s office. The plush carpet soaked up their footfalls as they walked the wainscoted hall to the lobby, Hargreaves leaning toward Nautilus.
“Can we stop for that Lysol now, Harry?”
Chapter 51
Liza Krupnik sat in her one-room rental in a local hostel, looking blankly out the window, her cell in her back pocket, turned off. Her room was small but inexpensive, and the other dozen people living in the hostel were intelligent and kind. Most weren’t students but older men and women who cared little about material possessions and lived quiet, often interior lives.
Liza drifted to the common kitchen to make a cup of tea, taking it to the large shared living space, with chairs, couches and a single small television. One of the residents enjoyed caring for plants and had filled the room with ivy and snake plants and philodendron. Liza sat cross-legged in a chai
r in a shadowed corner and sipped tea.
“Liza?”
She looked up and saw Alice Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss was in her sixties, a tall, white-haired woman who had come to Boulder from Massachusetts to visit her daughter, a student at the university. Dreyfuss had fallen instantly and madly in love with the locale and stayed on after her daughter had graduated and moved to Seattle, eight years ago. Alice spent the bulk of her time outdoors, running, biking, hiking and snowshoeing, working at a local food co-op to finance her life. Her single room held a cabinet of simple clothes and a closet of first-rate outdoor gear. Liza thought Alice Dreyfuss one of the best-balanced human beings she’d ever met.
Liza looked up and managed a smile. “Hi, Alice.”
Dreyfuss pulled a wicker chair close and sat. She was wearing a blue sweat suit and crossed long legs ending in pink running shoes.
“Can I ask what’s wrong, Liza?”
“What? Nothing. I’m fine.”
Dreyfuss inched the chair closer. “We’ve known one another for, what? Three years now? I know when you’ve got something troubling you. You’ve got clouds in your eyes, dear. Want to talk?”
Liza shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. “It’s hard to talk about, Alice. But I … I found out something about someone I work with. My boss. I don’t think he’s, he’s …”
Dreyfuss frowned. “He’s what?”
Liza shook her head, unable to find words. “Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m missing something. I accidentally happened across something he had written. Something dark.”
“Accidentally?”
Liza swallowed heavily. “He was in his office late at night acting real odd. Like guilty of something. He, uh, hid some papers in a book – manuscript pages. He didn’t know I was watching.”
“You took a look at the pages, I take it.”
“This man has incredible power in my field, Alice, he’s an institution. If it got out that I’d snooped in his office, read his private writings, I might not only get fired, I might never work in my field. No one would hire me.”
“You’re positive he wrote … whatever this is? There’s no other explanation?”
