Sin And Vengeance

by West, CJ

  “I’m used to it Mom, really.”

  “Staying out late with Randy doesn’t seem to be agreeing with you.”

  “I haven’t been.”

  “Good.” Elizabeth saw the tension in Deirdre, too. She wondered if something had already happened between them.

  “I opened some windows. You might want to let the fresh air circulate before you stay in there too long.” Charlie took a few steps onto the lawn, strange that he was headed home rather than to work at this hour.

  “What about the gift shop?”

  Charlie shrugged.

  “Where’s Sebastian?”

  “He was here earlier, but his car’s been gone a few hours.”

  “Why don’t you call and make sure he’s all right.”

  “He’s a big boy. He doesn’t need me checking up on him.”

  Elizabeth prodded with her eyes and Charlie succumbed.

  “Ok. I’ll give him a call.”

  “And join us for dinner, won’t you?”

  Charlie turned his eyes to Deirdre, giving her a one-second chance to create an excuse. She smiled neutrally as any prospective daughter-in-law would.

  Elizabeth confirmed dinner for seven o’clock and walked in among the cream bed sheets draped over the furniture. She set to work lifting them off and carrying them to the deck where she snapped the dust free onto the breeze. The house wouldn’t be clean by seven. Dinner would be outside tonight.

  She opened the refrigerator to begin a list for dinner. She stopped, startled by the empty space that faced her. There wasn’t a single item on the cold shelves. The freezer was empty, too. They had been gone several months, but Elizabeth was sure she hadn’t emptied the freezer. She opened the cabinets one after another to find them completely empty. No cereal, no peanut butter, not even a can of mushroom soup. Even her spices were gone.

  Stealing their food seemed an odd prank.

  The final cabinet she opened held dinner plates, coffee cups, and a stack of soup bowls. There was a note taped to the middle shelf addressed simply: Elizabeth.

  The blackmail notes had been addressed from Westport, but she never believed the blackmailer had been there. Knowing he’d stood in the very spot she occupied now had her feeling unnerved and vulnerable. She slinked away to the back porch where Charlie could hear her if she called for help. She sat on the picnic bench, unfolded the note, and read.

  Dearest Elizabeth,

  So nice to have you in Westport again, but I fear you would have been safer in Piolenc. You’re such an elegant lady. It’s unfortunate you got wrapped up in all this, but your husband’s actions are unforgivable and I shall not be deterred. He will pay dearly for what he has done.

  I don’t understand how you made such a poor choice, but you will soon be free from your matrimonial bonds.

  Stay safe.

  Your friend,

  O.

  The writer was friendly, businesslike, apologetic almost. His words left her with a dreadful gloom. Her heart knew the outcome as certainly as if he was already dead. Every movement felt heavy and forced as she descended to the lawn. She numbly circled the house, afraid to confront the note’s author inside. The windows and doors all appeared to be intact. She wondered how he’d gotten in; how he’d emptied the kitchen and left the note without being seen.

  He’d known she was coming; known she’d be first to the dishes. He could have guessed. He could have left the note yesterday or last week, but she’d been closer to him than that. He wasn’t guessing. He was watching. He could come and go without a trace and she couldn’t help thinking he was still lurking somewhere nearby waiting for her to come back inside.

  Elizabeth found herself facing the closed garage doors from the driveway. She wished she could get in her car and drive away. The front door was open and it was just a short walk down the hall to the garage, but she couldn’t bring herself to go back inside.

  Trembling, she folded the note and went to find Charlie and ask for a ride to the market.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The discarded security computer lay buried under a pile of rubble at the scrap yard waiting to be melted down and recycled into a stove or a dishwasher. TJ had removed the disk and tossed it under the electromagnet that hoisted cars fifteen feet in the air. When the disk hopped up to meet the powerful magnet, all the data was garbled, but just in case, TJ had them drop it in the crusher and press it deep inside a rectangle of scrap. The mangled disk would be nearly impossible to find, the data unrecoverable. No one was downloading those pictures.

  Free of any link to Randy Black, TJ walked up through the dunes and skirted the backyard of the burned-out house. The cameras across the street were clearly visible on that cloudy afternoon, as he would be when he crossed the expansive lawn and the wide subdivision street. He adopted a casual stroll alongside the row of arborvitaes, ready to explain himself as a lost beachgoer in search of a telephone.

  He slipped into Randy’s yard unnoticed and descended the bulkhead steps more cautiously this time. The miniature camera mounted on the fourth floor joist looked like the head of a sixteen-penny nail. He stopped to admire it, knowing he’d have missed it again if he hadn’t known just where to look. Beyond the camera, an odd slope in the ceiling caught his attention, something hidden perhaps.

  With plenty of time to spare before Randy returned, he detoured to the far end of the house and walked into a tiny cement-walled room that jutted off the back corner of the house. The narrow dimensions and the blank walls concealed the room so well that TJ hadn’t noticed it on his first visit. Stepping inside, he was stunned by what he found there. A thick steel plate angled down from the ceiling and disappeared into coarse dry sand. It was a backstop for an indoor shooting range. Thousands of shots had been fired here and judging by the tight patterns marred into the steel, Randy was an excellent shot. TJ picked up a deformed slug from the sand and put it in his pocket for luck.

  Turning his back to the target range, he crossed the empty basement, screwing the silencer to the muzzle of his .45 as he went. The stairs creaked as he rose, but TJ wasn’t concerned. Randy was never home during the daytime. After a week watching the house, TJ knew the routine. Randy whipped through the tight turns of the subdivision some time between eleven and two with music blaring from the windows of his Mercedes. He’d be half deaf when he walked into the house and more than a little drunk, a tall wobbling target too dazed to defend himself. This was the easiest seventy-five thousand dollars TJ would ever earn. He’d get to his ambush point in the kitchen and wait, until eleven at least. The hardest part would be staying alert until he heard the garage door. After seeing the practice area in the basement, TJ wanted to take him before he had a chance to arm himself.

  He told himself again it was a simple job; two quick shots and it would be over. TJ would leave him slumped on the floor and hustle back to the beach. He’d blend in with the lovers walking along the beach and the kids drinking beer around a fire. He’d transform himself into a forlorn, love-lost man, walking the beach to ease his heartbreak. He’d chosen the shorts and windbreaker to portray exactly that image. He’d checked the sandy parking lot three times in the last week and each time there were cars parked there long after midnight. Everything was set.

  A deep breath pushed the tension lower into his gut and brought his eyes into keen focus, ready to acquire their target. The .45 instinctively rose to the crack in the door as he eased it open, the muzzle leading the way into the hall toward the kitchen. Music vibrated somewhere upstairs. TJ’s feet stopped, his eyes darting everywhere. A glass with one inch of milk stood on the island. Next to it lay a scattering of crumbs. Randy was home! The island was a death trap.

  TJ considered turning around, but the hard part was over. The alarm was dismantled and he was inside undetected. He eased down the hall and slipped through the open door into the study. The music was louder here, coming from one of the rooms directly above. Wheeling around for a hiding place, he noticed the computer st
orage cabinet was open. Randy had come home and discovered his computer missing. He’d know someone had broken in yesterday. When TJ found him, he’d be armed and alert.

  Something else in the room was different, but it took TJ a moment to realize what it was. Two new corkboards were added on the wall behind the monitors. The three of them together covered most of the study wall. Each had two columns of glossy photographs with scattered documents taking up the space in between.

  TJ looked back and forth from the photos to the door, careful not to get too engrossed and be taken by surprise. He was drawn to a photo in the center. A naked woman hunched forward, her arms fastened to a low bedpost. She was turned slightly from the camera, but the haircut and the hint of her profile was enough for him to recognize his client.

  The justification for the job was muddier now, but that wasn’t TJ’s concern. Planning was over. It was time to execute. He unpinned the photo and backed himself into the corner behind the desk. He’d wait for dark when Randy was asleep, unless of course, he visited the study before then.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  On his first trip to the United States, Laroche felt like a naked fool as he walked down the jetway with no gun and no support from his captain, which meant zero cooperation from the American police. He was glad to escape the swarm of Judicial Police drawn in by Monique Deudon’s murder. He’d held them off so far by clinging to his story of an anonymous tip, but they instantly linked Monique’s killing to Henri’s death in the fire and began to investigate. Soon they’d discover the plane and the surveillance team Laroche quietly assembled. It would add up to a murder investigation Laroche had no authority to run. Botching it assured his demise.

  Laroche’s hope for redemption lay in the case folder tucked in his carry-on. His superiors still hadn’t seen it, so they were unaware of his blunder, but, like the Judicial Police, they’d know the truth soon enough.

  He wondered how the local authorities would react to the pictures. They might hold Marston and help Laroche lay the groundwork for extradition, but he wasn’t optimistic. He was completely at their mercy and if he failed to bring Marston back, his mistake would be inexcusable. The lapse in judgment would cost him his job. He’d be lucky to stay out of prison.

  Laroche considered the long-haired man with Marston the morning after the fire. Marston admitted they were both at the farmhouse that night and it was clear now that Randy was the photographer. He’d stopped and taken a business card knowing he’d send the pictures later. Laroche cursed himself for not seeing the division between them when they were standing before him. If he’d gotten the pictures while they were both in France, the case would have been solved.

  How nervous Marston was, how odd for him to stop, and yet he let him go.

  If only he’d brought them in to headquarters and interrogated them with prison bars looming down the corridor. The captain would have taken over. He’d have made a few angry threats and sly fabrications that would have driven the men apart. Laroche had seen the Judicial Police do it a dozen times. The captain would have gotten the truth in an hour. Laroche reddened as he recalled his meeting at the chateau, executed with the congeniality of high tea.

  What he needed now was twenty minutes alone with Randy to redeem himself, but he doubted he’d get the chance. The only address he had was Charlie’s. If Randy was e-mailing incriminating pictures, Charlie’s house was the last place he’d be. Laroche would have to make his decision based on the photos and whatever Marston said in his own defense.

  An image of Deirdre Deudon flashed to mind as he tucked his bag under the seat. He guessed he’d find her with Marston, but he couldn’t imagine changing his mind based on anything she said. She’d lied to him already and she was probably sleeping with the Marston boy after all. Maybe she’d paid him to do it. Maybe escaping the mundane life on the farm was motivation enough to have her husband killed. Laroche hadn’t searched for a will. Questioning her about her inheritance seemed indelicate at the time, but if this case belonged to the Judicial Police, they’d have read the will and evaluated her as a suspect. Laroche had done neither.

  He resigned himself to take the pictures to the locals and pray for luck.

  He took his seat and slipped out the folder with two photos clipped inside the cover. He’d studied every detail for hours, but they still beckoned him. The first showed Henri Deudon lying in a pile of American dollars, looking quite dead, his eyes bulging toward the ceiling. Laroche was sure the money had something to do with the airplane, running drugs perhaps.

  The money argued strongly against Marston’s illicit-sex-gone-awry story. That much money didn’t just appear. And surely they didn’t burn it. A seizure that big would be the highlight of his career, but Laroche had no clue where it had come from or where it had gone. The money was his first question for Marston. Was it the motive to kill Henri Deudon? Or was this just a Marston Vineyards sideline uncovered in the scuffle?

  The more evidence he considered, the more tangled the events became. Marston had proclaimed his innocence convincingly and he sounded genuine on the surveillance tapes as he phoned to warn Deirdre. Laroche didn’t believe Charlie could have known about the wire-tap and even if he did, he couldn’t act so thoroughly terrified. This was the most bizarre case Laroche had worked. Each man convinced him that the other was guilty. Laroche’s opinion swayed each time he talked to Charlie or received a picture from Randy.

  Befuddled, he moved on to the second picture.

  If money was the most common motive to kill, this photo showed the runner-up. Deirdre Deudon was strapped naked to the bed with the money and her dead husband in the background. The scene agreed somewhat with Marston’s story. Henri found his wife with two men, went crazy, and died at the hands of the adulterers. Young Charles Marston had motive and opportunity, that made him the likely killer, but Laroche’s instinct whispered that it was untrue.

  Was it sex or smuggling that drove them to murder?

  Laroche closed his eyes and wondered why the two men had turned against each other. It wasn’t pressure from his office. The investigation had been stalled until he received the first picture. They could be fighting over the girl or the money. Or maybe their guilt had gotten the best of them.

  Chapter Forty

  Deirdre collapsed into the recliner glad to be done with the two-hour ordeal that was an Elizabeth Marston grocery shopping trip. For seven years she’d made the twenty-minute trek from the farm to the market in Piolenc, but that hadn’t prepared her for the excursion with Elizabeth to the bakery for fresh bread, then the butcher across town, and finally the supermarket for essentials. Charlie explained that she’d grown accustomed to Rosalie’s extravagant meals. He never once complained about chauffeuring her around town or enduring her ten-minute chats with old friends. She enjoyed showing off her son so much Deirdre worried she wouldn’t leave until the stores closed. Charlie had known what to expect, though he hadn’t warned Deirdre.

  When they finally arrived home at five, Elizabeth announced she’d start cooking as soon as the beef was properly marinated. Deirdre’s empty stomach threatened to cave in when she heard dinner wouldn’t be ready until seven. Deirdre scarcely spent twenty minutes preparing a meal and to her the whole routine seemed overblown. She helped stock the groceries without complaint even when Elizabeth reorganized the items she’d placed in the cabinets. When they finished, Deirdre wandered to the living room where Charles stared into oblivion. Rather than face his sarcasm again, Deirdre excused herself and retreated to Charlie’s house for a snack to fill the void left by skipping lunch.

  Deirdre sprawled back in Charlie’s recliner and clicked on the news. She devoured a piece of peanut butter toast from the side table and followed it with one of Charlie’s favorites, coffee milk, something she’d never had in Syracuse or Piolenc. The meteorologist warned that a warm air mass over New England was set to collide with cooler air from Canada triggering heavy rains and severe thunder storms throughout the area. Next, the
anchorwoman suggested unique gifts for Mother’s Day, a story that pricked a bit of sadness since Deirdre would never earn that title. She continued to watch, hoping the next image would be Randy’s twisted remains being pulled from a car wreck or a seedy apartment building. There were car crashes, but no fatalities; there was a quick shot of an assault victim being loaded into an ambulance, but he was blond and much too short.

  Deirdre cursed as the news clip ended. Her heart had been racing at word of the shooting in New Bedford. She would have been overjoyed to witness the result of TJ’s work and the letdown was palpable. A fleeting twinge of embarrassment reared as her heartbeat slowed. How morbid of her to want to see; not just to know he was dead, but to pull back the sheet and see the gruesome disfigurement of Randy’s bloody flesh. She imagined Henri was appalled. Her morbid excitement even sent her own conscience fleeing. No one was going to stop this now, not her conscience, Henri, or anyone else. Randy deserved what he was going to get.

  As she sat barraged by thirty-second commercials, something in the room around her began to stir. Little bursts of activity sounded beneath the couch, under the television, and she even thought she heard something behind her on the kitchen floor. The noises were too faint for footsteps. Randy wouldn’t dare come here with Charlie next door and TJ hunting him. By now he was probably running scared. Soon he’d meet a man who enjoyed inflicting pain as much as he did. She forced her attention back to the television, hoping the next story would prove TJ had earned his money. When it was done, the story would be hard to miss.

  …

  In the house next door, Charlie collected plastic shopping bags and stuffed them in the recycling bin. As he stood in the hall, he saw his father staring out the front window with a pale, defeated look he didn’t recognize. Charles looked afraid of something out there. Charlie stepped in, but his father didn’t react to his presence in the doorway. He just sat hypnotically focused on the lawn and the trees.