Widow's Row

by Lala Corriere

  “You come off as such a bad ass, but I always knew you had a soft spot,” she smiled.

  Baird shifted his weight, uncomfortable with the compliment and eager to reclaim his bad boy image. “Let’s go back to our room, hump each other, take a siesta, and later we’ll consume ridiculous amounts of food and alcohol at Tres Moustaches.”

  Kate tried to squelch a giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” Baird barked.

  “Just seems odd, a man with no hair would want to take me to a place called Tres Moustaches.”

  “That’s because you’ve never had their champagne-laced Veronique Baked Alaska. I’ll make reservations for ten o’clock.”

  George Baird’s dutiful secretary was frantic—out of her mind with fear and desperation. She had to get through to him, but her phone calls went directly to voicemail. When she finally got through to the Mexican hotel she was informed they had strict orders not to interrupt their guest in that suite. No matter what, the night manager insisted.

  She wanted to tell him that they’d been calling her, as much as eight—sometimes ten times a day. The Russian accents demanded to see him, until finally she told them he was vacationing with his wife’s family in the Hamptons as they had each August, for so many years.

  She could imagine hearing Baird’s practiced chuckle, assuring her there was no problem.

  But there was a problem. They’d hunted down Baird’s brother-in-law and paid him a visit. They insisted Baird was expecting them. It was important. Baird’s wife finally stormed to her brother’s front door explaining she hadn’t seen her sorry bastard of a husband in weeks.

  They retreated. But only after slaying everyone in that Hampton home, including two exchange students and an au pair. Two nights later, Baird’s Denver office became the target.

  The secretary clutched at her stomach, then at her head, then her stomach again. If only she’d called in Baird’s reservations herself, or used their travel agent. No one would know where he was. But the Internet made it too easy. His hotel room was a click of the mouse away. She had booked his suite right from her computer.

  Her computer was gone. Everything was gone. Computers, files, wooden boxes filled with back-up discs and flash drives.

  She might have agreed with police that it was the work of a burglary ring raiding Denver offices all summer.

  Except for one thing.

  She needed to tell Baird that his walnut liquor cabinet had also been cleaned out. All except for one bottle of Posolskaya Russian vodka prominently displayed front and center. She knew beyond doubt, it had not been there before. It was a calling card. The Russians.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The Catrina

  Kate was frustrated. The sex wasn’t exactly stellar. George could hardly get it up, let alone come.

  Afterward he yelled at her, “What is that goddamn thing staring at us?”

  Kate glanced over at the nightstand. “That’s a Catrina Doll. I bought it for Breecie.”

  “It’s a fucking skeleton in a dress.”

  “We’re in Mexico, George. The Mexicans have great reverence for the deceased. Like their Day of the Dead procession. It’s a way to honor them.”

  “Honor my ass,” Baird said.

  Kate reached over to the doll and gently pushed its hat. The doll’s head started spinning in full circles.

  “Jesus Christ, I’m out of here.” With surprising modesty, Baird rolled off the yellow sheets and reached for the thick hotel robe. Rolls of belly flesh bulged over the tied belt.

  “Are you okay?” Kate watched as beads of perspiration dripped off his already shiny head.

  “Yeah. Just gonna take a dump,” he slapped Kate’s naked bottom. “There’s one more bottle of Dom left in the fridge. Pop it open for us and I’ll be right back.”

  Kate glanced at the nightstand alarm clock. It was only eight. Plenty of time before dinner. She grabbed the other hotel robe, chilled by the air-conditioning George insisted be kept at sixty-five. She carried the Catrina Doll with her as she drifted through to the living room. She’d wrap it back up in the shipping material and box the store gave her to carry it safely back to the States. Apparently George didn’t like it.

  Kate broke into a broad smile when she caught sight of the brightly colored Kahlo painting propped against the sofa. “Makes it even easier to put up with Baird’s crap,” she said aloud. She opened the plastic bag lying on the coffee table and rifled through its contents. She’d picked up the quintessential Mexican souvenirs for Macayla: a trio of silver bangles, an Azteca calendar, and an assortment of clay candleholders. Kate fingered the pair of supple leather booties for the baby. “Just don’t call me Granny,” she whispered to herself, then tossed the gifts back inside the bag and strolled toward the kitchen.

  She struggled to uncork the champagne bottle. When she told Baird she was more of a beer girl he replied she’d get used to the finer things soon enough. Twisting the cork, it exploded out of her hand and rocketed to the ceiling just as the hard rap sounded at the door.

  “Concierge. I have an urgent telegram for Mr. Baird.”

  Kate peered through the peephole as she tightened the belt of her robe. Recognizing the man that hours earlier delivered the painting to their suite, she unbolted the door.

  Baird came reeling out from the bathroom, buck-ass naked and screaming for Kate not to open it.

  Jonathan heard my wailing. Steel pots careened to the tile floor as he ran from the kitchen out to the porch, straight past my dad and knocking over the table between us.

  He crouched at my side, taking his hand to wipe away the wild strands of hair dangling across my face. “What the devil is going on here? Did he hurt you?” His voice was deliberate and strong and lined with a warning for my dad.

  Did he hurt me? I could have laughed at the question if it didn’t hurt so damn bad. Unable to answer, I stared beyond him, focusing my eyes on my father. Dad’s hooded eyes pierced back at mine, but he didn’t speak.

  Jonathan took my hand and squeezed it, studying the silence that stood guard between my father and me.

  Soon enough I would tell Jonathan everything. But for now, Kate’s welfare was all I could think about. “I think Kate might be in danger. And Dad’s going to be the one to get her out of it.”

  Dad’s eyes narrowed as he cleared his throat. His voice was frail. “I know where he is. Mexico City. The Oro Real. He won’t have the room under his name. He’ll be listed under H.G. Wells.”

  “H. G. Wells?” It was ludicrous.

  “He wrote ‘The Invisible Man,” my father spoke in a hoarse whisper.

  “He also wrote ‘The War of the Worlds’,” Jonathan said.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Couldn’t Put Humpty Together Again

  The hotel maid entered the floor for the nightly turn-down service and saw the concierge slumped against the open door. Thinking it was a medical emergency, she ran to his side. She was screaming at the bloody sight of the slit throat just as two hotel security officers stepped off the elevator. They’d received the urgent call from The States that Baird may be in danger, just about the time several hotel guests began complaining about a noise disturbance on their floor.

  Drawing guns, one officer shouted to the maid, “Salga de aqui.” Get out of here.

  The second man was already on his two-way radio, “We have a situation here. Call for an ambulance and backups.”

  Both officers turned to enter the room to find a nude male and an almost nude female, lying in a pool of each other’s blood. After determining the hotel suite was secure from any attacker, they checked the victims. The nude male was dead. His throat had been sliced once, but with such great force, he was one or two nerves short of decapitation. His carved up face looked like a tic-tac-toe board. The female, sprawled out across the man’s legs and in an opened robe now saturated more red than white, bled profusely from her abdomen. She was unconscious with a weak and irregular pulse.

  One securi
ty man looked around the room. Blood had gushed across the floors, soaked the furniture, and splattered the walls, the plastic bag of Mexican souvenirs, the Catrina Doll, and the Frida Kahlo painting. “What the hell do you think went on in here?”

  His partner crouched over the woman, providing constant pressure to the gash wounds raging across her stomach. It looked like Zorro had been practicing his ‘Z’s in her flesh. “Shit, I don’t know, but someone was definitely trying to make a statement.”

  “Do you think she’s gonna make it?”

  “Hell, I doubt it. If she does come out of it, she’s gonna find herself attached to a bag of someone else’s blood. Bunches of bags, by the looks of this place.”

  My first thought was to fly Kate back to Colorado by private air ambulance, but the critical care doctor warned me he’d be signing her death certificate if I attempted to move her anywhere. Arriving at the Benito Juarez International Airport with Jonathan Marasco and Macayla at my side, we taxied directly to ABC Hospital. A police detective agreed to meet us there.

  A rigid looking nurse intercepted us as we approached Kate’s room. In contrast to her harsh appearance, her perfect English words were silken. “You need to speak with a detective before you go in there. And the doctor, too. He’s just finishing up with a patient down the hall.” She nodded toward a small but private conference room, offering us coffees as casually as if we had entered a java shop. The seated man lined his palms against the table, preparatory to rising from his chair.

  He barely introduced himself as the detective assigned to the case when another man appeared with a mountain of files in his hand, along with a dangling stethoscope. He immediately shoved the instrument into his pocket and urged the paperwork onto a far corner table, away from us.

  After introducing ourselves as family, he commenced with his assessment of Kate’s medical condition no one dared discuss with us over the telephone.

  “I admit we doctors were baffled when we first laid eyes on her.”

  “Baffled?” I repeated.

  “How she could have survived the injuries she sustained. It was as if...” the doctor’s voice trailed off.

  “...As if what?” Macayla asked.

  The doctor looked at me, his eyes seeking permission from me to speak freely in front of Macayla, who for once looked like the scared child she was. I nodded.

  “Have you been told anything about the extent of her injuries?”

  We all shook our heads in unison.

  “Her uterus and fallopian tubes have been shredded. We’ve removed what was left of them and patched her up as best we could. Her ovaries have been removed. Taken.”

  Macayla gasped.

  The detective spoke. “I wouldn’t call it a surgeon’s handiwork, but they seemed to know what they were going for. Guess you’d call it a quickie hysterectomy. They butchered her up pretty badly.”

  Macayla lurched forward and began to heave. The detective shoved a nearby trashcan into her reach. With the help of the nurse sitting at the station next to us, she made her way to the bathroom.

  “Did Ms. Vander Ark have some more exotic travel plans coming up?” the detective asked.

  “Not that I know of,” I said. “No. She has a business to run. I was surprised to learn she was taking a whole week off to come down here.”

  The detective shifted his eyes around to the doctor, who leaned back in his chair. He locked eyes with me. “Toxicology reports found what was evidenced at the scene. High blood-alcohol levels, marijuana, and cocaine. But, they also turned up large traces of Lariam in both of them.”

  I shrugged my shoulders in naiveté. Jonathan had an equally blank stare. The doctor rolled up his white coat sleeves and placed his elbows on the table, leaning his face forward to take over the conversation. “Lariam is a drug used to prevent malaria. It’s commonly prescribed several weeks before a person might be exposed to the disease, you know—traveling overseas. It’s also been getting a lot of negative attention these days.”

  Macayla had returned to the room in time to hear the discussion. She addressed the blank look on my face. “It has a lot of bad side-effects, Breecie. Been known to cause depression, psychosis, even a bunch of otherwise normal people suddenly want to go out and commit suicide.”

  “Smart young lady,” the doctor said.

  Drug smart, indeed.

  “I know you’re all eager to see her. I just have one request and a comment,” the doctor continued. “I think it’s best if just one of you go in at a time. Too much stimulation won’t do her any good. The others can stay here and help the detective out with some of his questions. And don’t expect too much. She’s lost a helluva lot of blood so she’s not looking so good. We have her in a drug-induced coma. We’ll bring her out of it, only slowly.”

  Macayla went in first. She could be with her mom as long as she wanted and I would wait. Not ten minutes later, she emerged from Kate’s hospital room sheathed in quiet tears.

  I only half saw Macayla; the other half of me was left to confront my own fears as I entered the room.

  All that was Kate was not there. Nothing that was Kate was present in that room. The determined spirit was broken. Perkiness fell to a pasty translucent skin and brittle hair. Zaniness became lifelessness. The only animation in the room came from the endless sounds and movements of the medical equipment filling the cramped space.

  I pulled a chair up next to the bed and reached for her tiny hand. Her fingernail polish had been hastily removed, probably by someone in the E.R., leaving residual color smudged on her fingers. “I’ll come back tomorrow with some polish remover,” I said, knowing she would not have approved of her current manicure. And knowing she didn’t hear me.

  “Oh Kate, you have to come back to us. You have to know none of this was your fault.”

  I was re-securing the ties on the blue and white hospital gown, sickened to see her abdomen completely bound in gauze, when the doctor walked in.

  “Want to know the truth?” he asked.

  I don’t think I nodded my head, but my eyes begged him ‘yes’.

  “Under those layers of dressing, she’s going to look like your American Herman Munster. I can tell. This was some beautiful woman. It’s not going to matter to her that she almost lost her life.

  “Physically, her hormones are going to be whacked out to hell and back. If she ever comes to grips with what’s happened to her she’s in for one psychiatric trip. And, all she’s going to know is that no plastic surgeon on the planet can put her back together again.”

  “Humpty Dumpty.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Vanished

  Two grueling weeks later Macayla and I transported a fragile Kate to Denver by air ambulance as she drifted in and out of consciousness. I sent a reluctant Jonathan to return to Trinidad.

  God, where had he come from and why was he so important to me? He’d stayed with Macayla and me in an adjoining suite for fourteen days. Had I even thanked him? Told him how much I needed him? How I would have crumbled without him?

  Days later Kate was discharged from our hospital. She was lucid; if she wasn’t weeping, she was rambling off a litany of mournful apologies. I prayed for how I might tell her it was my father’s hand that dealt her the Russians. How he had, in my mind, hand delivered them to Baird’s hotel door on nothing less than the proverbial silver platter. Her doctors warned me not to say too much but to wait until Kate’s memory could catch up with the reckoning of the gashes across her belly.

  I was glad for the time. Words wouldn’t come easily.

  It was dear transgender and former guest, Jennie, that offered—demanded to return to The Lost Cat. She wanted to help care for Kate, just as Kate had done for her during her convalescence between surgeries. Of course, we both knew Kate wasn’t much of a caregiver. Jennie would make a far better nurse.

  I welcomed Jennie’s demand, assured that between her and Macayla someone would always be around
Kate. I had my own inventory of issues commanding my attention, like bitter truisms of a demonic past streaming like toilet paper from my family tree.

  So far, my father had refused to answer the calls I placed to both his home and his cell. When he offered no response to my incessant e-mails, I finally decided to hold my trump card. He wouldn’t know we were back in Trinidad until I arrived on his doorstep.

  I didn’t want to give him a heads-up. There was nothing to stop me from confronting the bastard. Driving the nail into his suffocating coffin while he still breathed and needed that next breath. This became my goal.