Malice Masterpieces 2

by K'Anne Meinel

  Alice controlled her breathing. She wanted to kill; she felt a compelling need to kill. She also knew that needless bloodshed would cost her in the long run. Now that she was aware that there was competition of some sort she needed to re-evaluate the situation. She would out wait him. She had the patience of…well the patience of a cat.

  It was another hour before the man was satisfied with whatever information he had been sent to gather. During all that time Alice had observed him and the compound, never revealing her presence to him in any way. He on the other hand, despite what he had thought was absolute stillness, fidgeted, and from what Alice observed was in desperate need of an oral fix, perhaps a cigarette. Her observations of humankind told her a hell of a lot more than his did. She watched as he slowly arose from his position and began to make his way quietly through the brush surrounding this ‘hidden’ valley, never aware that Alice followed him. Her own night vision binoculars were in their case, replaced with goggles on her head so she could follow hands free and avoid making noise by having her clothing brush against branches, or her feet step on dry twigs and reveal her presence to him. Her stocking clad feet with the leather soles could almost ‘feel’ what was beneath them as she followed him back to a Hummer two miles from where they had been laying. She suspected he had been laying there when she wormed her way into the vicinity. She cursed herself mentally for her carelessness and wondered who he was. He brushed his clothing when he was nearly a mile from the ridge and only then made noise that anyone could have heard had they been listening.

  Alice watched as he got in the Hummer and turned on the overhead light. He wrote for a while in a tablet that looked like a journal. Alice suspected he was a fed, but which one? She memorized his license plate but knew that would only minimally help her. His face too she could see clearly in the light from the SUV. Details that would be lost on the average citizen were now clearly in her head. He drove away twenty minutes later and she let him go before heading back into the brush and to her own Jeep.

  Alice flew down to Honduras and took a second chartered flight to her little island. The children who greeted her enthusiastically were brown and healthy looking, no fear on their faces, no hidden thoughts or feelings, just joy for the vacation they had had on their mother’s island the carefully supervised freedom that had been theirs. Even Mrs. Fernandez and Nan looked brown and healthy and very relaxed. The fruit and vegetables had agreed with them and the trip had done them all good. It had been a little longer than they all wished Alice included, but she knew she had gotten a lot of work and preparation done, she was ready to enact revenge, she was about to return… After two days on the island and hearing from all the children, seeing a few places that she had already known about but let the children show her and just enjoying them she let them know they must return. The plane would be there in the morning to take them to the jet. They were sad to go. She was sorry they couldn’t stay but she knew they needed to be home to show a ‘normal’ family, to provide her with an alibi. To make whoever was ‘watching’ her home relax that when they returned and resumed their ‘normal’ lives.

  It was simply a matter of reversing their previous trip back to Los Angeles and as the taxi dropped them off at their house the three adults with the three children and the dog now nearly full grown gratefully made themselves at home and opened it up from their long absence. It didn’t take long for Kit to call all her friends and tell them about their ‘exotic’ vacation on an island in the Caribbean. She had no idea that it wasn’t really in the Caribbean and Alice wasn’t about to correct her with semantics. Kit had bitched and moaned about having no cell service and the land line barely worked and was not available for her to call her friends so they welcomed her back and word soon spread that the Weavers were home.

  Bruno Mitchell had no reason to expect favors. He was a habitual criminal and didn’t mind going back to prison; he was comfortable there as he had been there long enough to feel at home, repeatedly. He was big, he was all brawn, and he was dying. This was his third term and it was to be his last. He knew the cancer eating him up was from bad living but he had lived life on his own terms. Theft and a murder or two were alleged to be his fault but not provable and since his theft crimes were relatively minor he had only been in for a few years at a time. This time though he had been warned, three strikes and you’re out, and any more offences would put him away permanently. He didn’t care. His sentence from God almighty was permanent anyway. The cancer eating at him had been confirmed by a doctor before his last offence. Only someone dying of pancreatic cancer can know the pain this type of cancer causes and that only being numb from the brain up can alieve some of it, only death would eliminate it. He had committed the robbery for some quick cash for his family but he had stupidly left DNA evidence at the scene and was soon back on his way to prison, no hope of getting out in time to leave his family something, anything. The prison doctors hadn’t looked too closely at his medical records, his physical appearance was intimidating, he looked healthy; he acted healthy, so they had no real reason to probe too deeply into his health. The cancer eating at him hadn’t left the telltale signs of emaciation on its victim, at least not yet, the pain though was already there and Bruno was angry about being able to do nothing about it. Bruno had made a deal though, he wanted his wife, his daughters, and his mother taken care of since he could not. None of his buddies would step up and care for them in his absence and he certainly didn’t want any of those deadbeats bonking his old lady after his death. He knew they would stay away while he lived but after he died she was fair game. He knew he was dying, he knew he didn’t have any options, he was approached before he even went back into prison, from jail to prison was only a bus ride away, it was quick and left no time to think as the guards watched closely, he agreed without a seconds hesitation. The skin colored bandage he wore hid a plastic vial so fine that it fit in a wrinkle of skin in plain sight on his neck, no metal to set off the detectors. His payment for the service he would provide would ensure that his family was relocated and taken care of immediately following his ‘job.’ Pancreatic cancer is a terrible disease and Bruno had no illusions about how much time he had left. Instead all he could do was insure that his family was taken care of. The sophistication of the vial told him that whoever his benefactor was they would take care of business for him.

  Bruno plead guilty to the charges against him to make the whole process quick and easy and was remanded to the custody of the Oregon State Penitentiary System. A few well-greased hands made sure he was assigned to one Eli Watson’s wing, putting him in the same cell had proven too difficult and would have been too obvious for investigators. Instead Bruno had to wait for an opportunity where the two of them were alone for only a moment, he worried that the skin colored bandage would show, that the vial might break before he had an opportunity. He watched for his opportunity walking in the prison yard and heading back in, it took only two days until he found out who Eli Watson was and where he was. He was one slick son-of-a-bitch, he had his followers, and he had a system and lived relatively comfortably within the prison walls. Bruno wondered what he had done to have someone pay him to take care of him, it didn’t really matter, Eli Watson and his life didn’t mean a hill of beans to him. Following him proved easy and as they came in from the exercise yard a few days after Bruno’s arrival Eli was momentarily blinded from the bright and uncharacteristically sunny outside coming into the prison wing he was assigned found himself accosted by a big brute of a man who plunged a plastic needle into his neck. Immediately he began to feel the effects of the poison as the vial broke immediately and as he struggled to pull it out. Bruno instead pulled it out and thrust again with the broken piece using his fingertips he pulled it out once more before plunging it into his own neck hoping all the poison or whatever it was would work on his own pained wracked body.

  Sara Mitchell was shocked at the well-dressed men who knocked on her door the next evening after the police had come to inform her of Brun
o’s death. “Sara Mitchell?” they confirmed and at her nod the taller of the two said, “Ma’am we have come about Bruno’s final wishes is there somewhere we can go to talk?” His eyes flickered to the messy living room with two little girls playing and the older woman watching Wheel of Fortune avidly on the overly loud black and white television.

  Sara nodded but looked at them warily, trust didn’t come easily in this neighborhood of poor and uneducated people, they barely made due with the little they had and with Bruno gone the vultures would soon be circling to pick at their bones. She closed the door behind her and indicated the front porch which was hidden in shadows in the evening, they would not really be visible to the neighbors unless they had watched the men arrive and Sara would tell anyone who asked they were police officers.

  “Bruno made certain arrangements in the event of his death,” the taller one began and Sara looked at him startled.

  Bruno had never made arrangements in their entire time together. One failed scam after the other had landed him in jail. Even the fates had been against him and if it hadn’t been for the fight in prison this time the cancer would have eaten him up. Sara had no illusions about Bruno making arrangements. She was getting desperate and didn’t know how she was going to feed her little girls. She had thought these men were friends of Bruno’s who had heard of his death when she heard the knock on the door, she had thought of not answering but when it was repeated a little more forcefully she had no choice but to bravely answer the door.

  The shorter of the two well-dressed men was looking around to make sure that they weren’t overheard or that there was anyone of note nearby. The taller one continued, “Ma’am, if you could live anywhere, where would it be?”

  Sara blinked in surprise at the question. “Why?” she asked suspiciously.

  The man smiled to try and calm her disbelieving nature. He understood she wasn’t used to anyone giving her anything, her life hadn’t been easy but he had a job to do and he had to have her cooperation or it would prove that much more difficult than they had planned. “Because your husband took out a life insurance policy to provide you and your family including your mother-in-law with enough to start over, anywhere you choose.”

  “Oh yeah? Where’s the money?” she said in a doubtful voice not trusting these two out of place men.

  “It’s not like that, you are not handed a check,” he said smoothly. “Choose where you wish to go and we will arrange it for you.”

  “That don’t sound like any insurance policy I ever heard of,” she squinted at him in the near darkness.

  He sighed; she wasn’t going to make this easy. He had a thought and went with it. “It’s not like Bruno could take out a regular insurance policy ma’am. This one had certain stipulations to it. Now, would you like to stay here and argue or would you like to move to anywhere in the country that you choose and start over?”

  “I don’t get to think about it?” she asked unsure if the offer was bonafide.

  He shook his head and glanced around at a noise down the way, the homes built after WWII all had the same style of design and the porches on other homes could be hiding listeners so he kept his voice low, “No ma’am, you tell me where you want to move to and go pack bags for your family, we take you there now, tonight. Your,” he hesitated here, “Things can come later if you want or not.”

  She looked at him incredulously. She knew his demeanor and nice suit intimidated her but he was talking to her respectfully. She knew she couldn’t stay here but this was so quick, so unexpected. Should she risk it or should she stay and…no she couldn’t do that, the vultures would bring drugs or worse into her home and her daughters were all she had. In a few years they would be old enough for them to be noticed and she wanted better for them than that. A new start in the city of her choice…where could she go?

  “Florida,” she said as though it were a foreign country and to her it was, after living in a poor section of rainy Portland all her life it was a magical place, maybe she could live near Disneyworld!

  The man smiled and said, “Florida it is, go pack the clothes you will need.”

  She shook her head, “I ain’t got no,” she stopped herself, “I don’t have any suitcases,” she finished almost embarrassed at telling him.

  He sighed silently, “Do you have a couple of boxes or bags, even garbage bags or duffels?”

  She nodded and the deal was struck. Within an hour they were on their way quietly. Leaving the messy house that in the morning would be stripped of all its furnishings. Leaving with a protesting mother-in-law about missing Jeopardy and two wide eyed little girls and a wide eyed mother who strangely felt safe with these two well-dressed men who had never introduced themselves, they were off. Florida, the magical sunshine state…maybe they could have their own orange tree.

  As her head shattered the mirror she reached up with her hand as though to push her face off the shards of glass and grasped one in her gloved hand, as the man turned what he assumed was a stunned victim she allowed herself to be spun and her hand at face level plunged the shard of glass into his neck hitting the artery which sprayed. Alice blinked to clear the blood from her eyes, her own blood dripping down into her clothes from the blow to the head and the glass, his spraying against her face at such close quarters. She watched dispassionately as he stepped back in horror and his life sprayed, gurgled, and leached out of him rapidly with the blood, he sank to his knees clawing at his neck ineffectuality with his fingers and then fell to the floor. She leaned over him and quickly searched his pockets for things she might have need of. Taking up his white handkerchief she looked into the many fragments of the mirror to wipe her face carefully realizing that the reflection from many broken pieces all showed a very damaged face. Gently she cleared the blood from the painful cuts and abrasions before deliberately going to the fireplace and throwing it on the flames. She watched briefly as her DNA burned up in the fire.

  “The 911 call came in about 2am and there was no one on the line. The operator can be heard asking ‘is anyone there’ repeatedly. The scene, once authorities responded to was horrific, four dead bodies around the perimeter and another four inside, all men, six women in cages and chains were found in the various bedrooms and basement of the retreat. At this time authorities are keeping the names from the public until they can piece together the information of what happened at the compound.” The news commentator continued to drone on with titillating bits of news that he knew would be picked up by the affiliates. Something this big was sensational, it was something everyone would want to hear, and Alice knew he lied or had been misinformed. She watched as he made his report from in front of the yellow taped police line keeping everyone back so they could do their jobs. There was a brief flash of a tarp covered body as the police then blocked the view. As Alice washed the blood, grime, and sweat away from her battered and bruised body she had to wonder how much time she actually had. Carefully she used super glue on a couple of the deeper cuts to stop the flow of blood. She was exhausted, she couldn’t remember ever being this exhausted, this nights work was more than she could have imagined and she wasn’t done yet. Leaving Kathy there had nearly killed her but she had to have plausible deniability. This trip had not been to rescue Kathy but rather to split the whole operation wide open and to exact retribution. Alice wasn’t sure yet but she thought she had taken care of it very well, her exhaustion though had her thinking befuddled and she knew she would have to hurry if she didn’t want her body collapsing before she was ready.

  She pulled off the wig she had worn in the shower and threw it in her duffel with a few other items she had been wearing. She looked around the room, besides one night’s sleep and showers it was basically clean. She used luminol spray to check and see if any blood was visible in the room and found she had wiped her own and that on her clearly away. She sprayed an aerosol that would destroy any DNA she may have missed and left the room carrying her duffle and holding her breath from the noxious fumes that would slow
ly dissipate and dissolve anything she hadn’t been able to hide that was organic. Unlocking her Jeep she got in and drove rapidly away from the non-descript motel she had found using one of her many passports to rent the room. She drove towards Portland. It took a while and she knew now was not the time to let her body relax, not yet anyway, she couldn’t afford to be seen, she couldn’t afford to even get a traffic ticket. She drove to the 24-hour storage where she kept the sedan she had purchased and put the Jeep in the garage, taking the duffel and locking the Jeep. Again, she sprayed her aerosol in and outside of the Jeep closing the garage door and locking it. Driving the sedan away she re-activated the lights and cameras at the storage unit with a device on her dash and made her way to the freeway south, for them it would just show a temporary glitch in the system, a temporary power outage and of no concern, for Alice it was a chance to come and go and not be seen by electronic gadgetry. Grabbing a can of Red Bull she downed first one and then a little while later another to keep herself charged and awake, her stomach protested at the liquid sloshing around in it but sent the caffeine into her system, keeping her awake and functioning, at least giving her adrenaline to keep going despite her exhausted and battered body. Thinking over the night and mistakes that she perceived she had made kept her charged as well. Some of the things she had seen still bothered her but nothing she had actually done twinged her conscience, if she had one, at all.