The Poisoned Pen

by E. Joan Sims

  O’Neil came back on the intercom less than two minutes before the deadline.

  “Jacob? Are you there?” he asked in a carefully controlled voice.

  “Yes, I’m here, you shithead! Did you get everything I wanted?”

  “Yes, Jake.”

  “Fifty thousand….?”

  “Fifty thousand dollars in small bills and two changes of men’s clothing—size 32 waist—shoes size 10. All in a soft-sided zippered suitcase in the trunk of a black 1998 Chevy Camero with no plates—just like you ordered.”

  “And the television cameras?”

  “Out front. All three national channels are represented by the local stations in Weiuca City, and CNN even sent a crew to cover the breaking news.”

  “And they’ve already broadcast the story at least twice over the local radio and television stations?”

  “Some of them have stayed on with coverage since the story broke, Jake. Everybody is anxious to see you get blown away in living color.”

  “Shut up, you bastard! Shut up!” Jake grabbed me and pulled me over to the intercom. He shoved the receiver in my face and slapped me viciously. I cried out against my will. The blow was painful, but the surprise of the attack was what undid me.

  “You hear that, O’Neil?” screamed Jake. “That’s who’s going to get blown away—and maybe a whole lot worse if you screw with me.”

  He slammed down the intercom and sagged against the desk with his head in his hands. At that moment, I saw the terrified little boy who had gotten into a situation that was way over his head and I almost felt sorry for him.

  “Give it up, Jake,” I said softly. “This is a game you can’t win.”

  “I’ve got no choice, Cousin,” he insisted, his voice husky with stress. I have to go through with this. And that means you do, too. Better get ready. We’ll be taking off in a minute.”

  I listened desperately for Leonard’s voice. Where was the wisecracking, sharp-minded detective when I needed him? All I could think of was a foolish rhyme I had learned as a little girl: “When in danger—when in doubt—run in circles—scream and shout!”

  Jake watched the big wall clock above the desk. At six o’clock on the dot he pulled the gun out and pointed it at my head. His hand was steady and his voice calm. He appeared to have conquered his demons.

  “We’re going to do this, Cousin. “Just you and me,” he chuckled, “and baby makes three.”

  Jake opened the door carefully and pushed me outside with the muzzle of Roy’s gun resting against my left earlobe.

  “See anybody?” he whispered.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t believe it. The ugly hallway was as empty as when I had first seen it. Where was Superman when you needed him?

  Jake stepped out in back of me and pulled my body close to his—the gun still against my head.

  “My, but you do feel good, Cousin,” he murmured, his breath hot and moist against my other ear. “Maybe I’d better revise my plans.”

  “Wha…what plans? What are you really going to do with me, Jake?”

  He pushed me hard in the small of the back and jabbed the gun painfully against my temple. “Shut up!” he snapped. “You’ll find out when it’s time. Now move!”

  I bade a prayerful farewell to everyone I had ever loved as we made our way slowly down the hallway to the big front doors of the prison. I had plenty of time and nothing else to distract me. It was a long hallway and we did not pass a single, solitary soul. The guards had obeyed Jake’s orders to the letter and stayed completely out of sight.

  Jake made me open the door and peek outside. I saw nothing but blinding white lights.

  “Tell them to turn down the lights. Now!”

  The crowd of was hushed and quiet—somber, as though waiting for an execution. When the lights dimmed I squeezed through a crack in the doors with Jake stuck to me like a barnacle.

  “Easy does it,” he said. “Don’t go down the stairs, yet.” He turned to the reporters, “Got your cameras on, fellows?” he shouted. “I got something to say.”

  “Go ahead, Jake,” called out one. “We’ve been live for two hours. We’re ready anytime you are.”

  Another female reporter spoke quickly and earnestly into the camera before she also turned and signaled that she was set. “Go, Jake,” screamed her overwrought producer.

  “I got a message,” Jake shouted into the three microphones held out towards him. “A message for my Baby, “ He ignored the curious murmur in the crowd and continued. “I love you, Baby! I need you! Meet me at our favorite spot as soon as you can! Okay?” He nodded curtly at the reporters, “That’s all folks,” he snarled. “Get those damn things out of my face!”

  The crowd was no longer hushed. Reporters and newsmen turned and spoke rapidly into cameras or microphones, filling the audience in on their interpretations of Jake’s cryptic message.

  “What’s going on, Jake?” I whispered urgently.

  “Jealous, honey?”

  “Don’t be stupid! Have you changed any of the plans we made without telling me?”

  “You’ll know soon enough. Meanwhile, I’ll give you a clue: we’re not going anywhere in that stupid red-neck car.”

  “What the hell?” I gasped. “Why not? How else are you planning to get out of here?”

  “Answer to the first question,” he sneered. “That fancy little vehicle probably has at least five transmitters hidden inside. The cops would know every move I made. They could take their own sweet time setting up roadblocks and grab me whenever they felt like it. The suitcase is probably hot, too—and the shoes. The clothes are probably okay,” he added thoughtfully. “Be hard to hide one of those gizmos inside a pair of pants or a tee shirt.”

  “Okay!” I hissed impatiently. “So what are you going to do? Swim your way out of here?”

  He laughed softly in my ear. “Bingo!” he whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I struggled against Jake’s grip, trying desperately to squirm out of his arms. His words terrified me more than anything else that had happened. Running for my life in a souped-up hillbilly mobile with a crazy-as-a-loon sociopathic killer seemed like a picnic in the park compared to sticking my big toe in that rampaging river.

  “No!” I cried. “No, please!”

  Lights flashed as cameras turned their attention back to me. If Gran or Cassie were watching the newscast, they would hardly recognize the pale and anguished face of the terror-stricken woman on the prison steps. With my wild and tangled hair, my wrinkled and disheveled clothes—I looked like a redheaded Irish banshee in the monitors I glimpsed as I passed by the camera crews.

  Jake held me tightly against his body—the gun bruising my temple.

  “Hold still, bitch! You got no choice. You either die right now on these steps with a bullet through your brain, or you help me and maybe you live. Which is it?”

  He gave my ribs a painful squeeze, robbing me of breath and a voice. All I could do was nod.

  “Okay! That’s more like it. Now, listen up. We’re going to make our way slowly to the car—just like we’re really planning to leave that way. We take the money out of the trunk like we’re counting it, only we stuff it in our pockets instead. You get a shirt and a pair of pants out of the suitcase and tie them around your waist. It’ll be something for me to hold on to when we’re in the water.”

  “Jake, no! You’re…that’s crazy,” I whispered hopelessly. “We can’t possibly survive out there…and in the dark?”

  His answer was another shove as we started slowly down the long flight of steps. We moved awkwardly, like conjoined twins—each with a different destination in mind.

  I searched the crowd for Cassie but didn’t see her sweet face anywhere. And the only car in the riverfront lot where I had left her was the Camaro. I was glad Cassie wasn’t there. I didn’t want her to see how scared I was. But most of all, I didn’t want her to see me die.

  Like the Red Sea, the crowd parted in front of us as
we made our way slowly through the tangle of reporters and television cameras. Jake never let up his cruel hold on me. My breath was coming in ragged gasps, and I knew if I lived until tomorrow my ribs would be covered with bruises.

  When we got to the car, Jake motioned for everyone to stay well away from us. He pulled me around to the back and looked inside the trunk.

  “This is it, Cousin! Fifty thousand big ones—not too much and not too little. Just enough so they won’t go crazy trying to find it, and yet enough for a new start. And best of all, they didn’t have time to get sequential numbers. We’ll be home free!”

  “Then why not use the car?” I begged. “We can get a few miles away and ditch the damn thing in the woods. We can hitch a ride—be miles away before they find it. Please, Jake!”

  “Shut up! I’ve made up my mind! They only way to win is to play by my own rules. The car is their game piece. I got my own way out of here. Now, take off your jacket and stuff these bills in your pockets. Pull on this tee shirt and tie the pants around your waist.”

  “But how can I swim….?”

  “There’s no swimming in that river,” he hissed. “The current will take us where we want to go. Think of the money in your pockets as insurance that I won’t let you drown.”

  Jake released his hold on me for the first time. I sagged against the car for a moment to catch my breath. The night was cool and clear, the air fresh and sweet. I breathed deeply, thinking that each breath might be the last before my lungs filled with the dirty brown waters of the Cumberland River.

  “Move it!” ordered Jake. “We haven’t got all night. I want to be in the water and away from here before they get the helicopter up in the air.”

  “Helicopter?” I asked hopefully. Helicopters, I knew, could hover over the water and rescue drowning swimmers.

  “Yes, stupid! This isn’t the first time somebody has tried to break out of this hellhole. I know the drill. When they close off the road, they swoop down out of the blue with a big searchlight and that’s all she wrote. Lots of guys have tried to get out of here, but I’m the first one who going to make it!”

  “And don’t get any ideas about being rescued, Cousin,” he sneered as he correctly guessed my thoughts. “With any luck at all, we’ll be long gone before they get that whirly-bird in the air.”

  Jake took the money out of the suitcase and divided it between us. I stuffed as much as I could in my pant’s pockets and put the rest inside my blouse before I pulled on the tee shirt and tied the pant’s legs around my waist. Jake tugged on the knot and grinned.

  “Good Job, Cousin! Now listen up. We’re going to walk around this side of the car like I’m a real gentleman who’s helping you get in. When I open the car door, that’s the signal.”

  Tears slid unbidden down my cheeks. Leonard had deserted me. There was nothing left but a frightened woman—a mother and a daughter who wanted nothing more than to tell her own mother and daughter how much she loved them.

  “Signal for…?”

  Jake grabbed my upper arms and held me in a cruel embrace.

  “Don’t you screw this up, bitch!” he snarled. “When I say ‘jump,’ you jump! Got that?”

  I was numb—resigned. The truth was there was no other choice, and I thought, who knows but what the crazy son-of-bitch was right. Maybe we could get out of this alive. And then I remembered the river as Cassie and I had seen it that afternoon—the rolling, boiling waters that raced swiftly past—holding that frail little tree in it’s deadly embrace—and I knew there was only a very slim chance of us lasting even a few seconds.

  As I followed Jake around the car, I formulated a tiny plan—something that just might work if the timing was right. When he gave the signal, I could turn and run toward the river with him, but instead of jumping, I would fall back and let him jump in and be swept away. Then I would be free—the nightmare would be over. I clung to that thought as he opened the car door and bent down, pulling me with him.

  “Ready, Cuz?” he asked, his voice trembling with nervous excitement.

  “Yes.”

  “Then, GO!” he shouted and pulled me with him toward the river. We ran across the ten feet of gravel that separated the parking lot from the river’s bank—a thin, narrow strip of red mud that sucked at our shoes and slowed us down.

  “Hurry!” Jake screamed. “Hurry!”

  He almost pulled my right arm out of its socket as I struggled to pull my shoes out of the mire.

  “Lose the shoes, stupid!” he shouted. “I can hear the helicopter!”

  I pulled my bare feet out of the mud and we raced side by side toward the river. When we got to the edge I pulled back with all of my strength, trying desperately to escape his grasp, but he was too strong. He grabbed my waist, wrapped his arms tightly in the pant’s legs I had tied around me and threw us headfirst into the dirty waters of the Cumberland.

  I don’t remember much about that time in the water except in my nightmares—the ones that wake me with a pounding heart and sweaty sheets. I do recall, however the massive, bone-chilling cold, the taste of dirt and grit in my mouth, and the feeling of utter helplessness in the grip of a mighty power.

  We twisted and turned, sometimes under the water, sometimes on top. Once I saw two moons, and I realized one must be the helicopter searching for us in the dark. I called out—screamed for help and got a mouthful of water instead. I choked and coughed, and went under again. It was quiet underneath the waves—another world—a world of silence and darkness where I was dying.

  At some point I must have passed out because I woke up in the shallows, my knees scraping painfully against the rocky bottom. Jake struggled to his feet and pulled me to the shore where I lay gasping like a beached whale.

  “I…we, we made it,” I whispered. “I can’t believe it. We’re alive.”

  Jake laughed, a triumphant shout of exhilaration. “Damn right, we’re alive!” he whooped. He coughed and spat dirty water on the beach. “But we can’t stay here. They’ll start searching the shore after a while—for our dead bodies,” he snickered. “Fools!”

  “Where are we going?” I looked around in the dark and saw nothing but the vast stretch of water in front of us. “Where is there to go?”

  “Up there,” he said pointing in the darkness.

  I followed his finger with my eyes, my head falling back on my wet shoulders as I looked up at the sheer cliff behind us.

  “Oh, no!” I gasped.

  “Oh, yes!” he laughed. “We’re almost home, Cousin. And we have to hurry. Baby’s waiting.”

  “But that…there’s no place to put your feet or hands.”

  “Around the other side,” he explained impatiently. “We can climb over those boulders and grab onto the scrub growing out of the base. There’s plenty of handholds. Baby told me.”

  “Who the hell is this baby you keep talking about?” I asked impatiently. “Are you just making this ‘baby told me’ stuff up so I’ll do what you say?”

  Jake laughed and pulled me to my feet. His eyes glittered in the dark like a cat’s.

  “I always gave you a choice, Cuz.”

  “Yeah, “ I agreed sarcastically. “Your way, or the highway.”

  “Or worse,” he said pulling the gun out of his shirt.

  “Will that thing fire after it’s been in the river?” I asked skeptically.

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

  I stumbled after Jake as he climbed over the boulders to the base of the bluff that rose some fifty feet above us. My clothes hung wet and heavy against my cold and clammy skin and made the going difficult. I longed to tear away the extra layers but I was afraid to stop—afraid that Jake would decide he didn’t really need me any more.

  He pulled me up on top of the last big boulder and pointed to the vines and scrub that grew out of the side of the rocky cliff.

  “You can hold on there,” he said, squinting against the dark. “And there, and then further up you’ll see whe
re to go. I’ll be right behind you. And so will this.” He patted the gun in his pocket and grinned. “Now let’s go meet Baby.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Inch by inch, I fought my way slowly up the rocky face of the bluff—clinging like a tree frog with all the strength in my fingers and toes. Once I even held onto a small branch with my teeth while I tried to get find a handhold in the friable sandstone.

  My shoulders ached, my legs trembled with fatigue, and my hair and face were covered with dirt from the scree that showered back on my head as I crawled up the cliff.

  Each time I paused to get my breath I said a little prayer—a petition for the strength to hang on for just a another inch or two, and then another and another. I was almost at the top when I gave out completely. No matter how hard I tried I could not move another muscle. I clung to side of the cliff, afraid to breathe—afraid the slightest movement would cause me to slip and fall to the rocks below.

  “Move, it on up!” shouted Jake from somewhere beneath me. “I said, move it, bitch!” he shouted again, giving me a shove.

  My right foot slipped as the dirt crumbled beneath my toes. I dug my hands and fingers into the sandstone and held on for dear life to my precarious hold.

  “No, please,” I whimpered. “I…I can’t.”

  Jake response was loud, angry and obscene. He reached up and found purchase over and above me. For a few dreadful moments I was afraid he had abandoned me to what would surely be my death. I was losing hope when I felt his hand close over mine.

  “Come on, Cousin,” he said, gritting his teeth with the effort. “Help me out here. I won’t let you fall, but you’ve got to keep moving.”

  Somehow I managed to climb the rest of the way to the low stone wall at the top of the cliff where Jake was braced as he hauled me up. I fell over the wall and lay gasping and panting, tears of exhaustion and relief streaming down my face.

  I looked around in the moonlight, astonished to see that I was in the clearing where Horatio and I had ended up after our wild ride around the lake. We were on top of the bluff overlooking the river and the prison.