by John Mathews
Tom took a big breath. “So you played her like a fiddle? That’s perfect. The bitch deserved it. When she came to me and told me about the plot to kill Stephen, I wasn’t about to help her get most of the money while I do all of the dirty work. But what would have happened if she died in this trap that you left for her?”
“Then I woulda made it look like she killed Stephen and Maria and got caught snooping around the cabin, in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Tom nodded. “Go on.”
“So I kept her on edge, thinking that Stephen was trying to kill her. But then I had to make sure that the daughter thought that it was her stepmother doing everything. So I put some clues around for her to find as well. I killed an owl with Tammy’s nail file. Then I wrote a message with her lipstick in the wine cellar. I made sure that the little girl was scared of her and thought that everything Tammy said about Stephen was a lie. The key to everything was to pit them against each other.”
“So how did you get them to all go down in the basement?”
“I’m gettin’ there. I was keeping Stephen tied up down in one of the basement rooms. I told him about Tammy’s plan in detail. He didn’t want to believe me at first, so I told him all about how she persuaded you to take part with everything. He was pretty shocked that you could turn on him like that, so I told him that Tammy manipulated you the way the she’d been manipulating him. We had some long chats and I made everything really clear to him. I said that I simply couldn’t let him go anywhere since that could incriminate me. He believed that we were just trying to trap Tammy with what she was doin’.”
Tom was wide-eyed. “You told him all about my involvement? Shit, I didn’t want him to know about that. I would have preferred that he left this world considering me his very best friend. It was also quite the risk to take. What if something….”
Darnell wagged his finger back and forth. “He couldn’t possibly contact anyone and under no circumstance was he leaving that basement alive. I needed him to go along with me for a while. So he agreed to write out the letter to his daughter. I slipped it inside her room. That really incriminated Tammy, and got the daughter completely against her. I had a bomb ready in the cellar. If the girl got Tammy down there, that would’ve been fine. But I figured she was too clever to fall for it.”
Tom rubbed his chin. “But if she was killed in the explosion, the police wouldn’t find her guilty of killing Stephen and Maria, right?”
“They surely would’ve still found Tammy guilty of killing Stephen. It was a calculated risk. I would’ve had Maria die from poisonous snake bites. I had plenty of rattlers in a big metal cage out in the woods. I was a trapper for years and handling reptiles is kind of a hobby. So there were always contingency plans.”
“So I still don’t know how you got them all to go down into those tunnels?”
“It was simple. I’d paid a visit to Tammy and got her convinced that she needed to get down there to find Stephen. Once they found the trap door, the situation between Tammy and Maria became life or death. Tammy wasn’t about to spend another night in the cabin in fear that Stephen would come inside again. I thought that she was gonna kill Maria and come down to find Stephen alone. But unfortunately, Maria came down there first. I was waiting and took care of her. I had her tied up with a noose around her neck, and let Tammy finish her off. A psychotic person like that is always gonna try and get even before doing something more rational.”
“That was a clever assessment. And so what did you do with Stephen?”
“Well, I had to kill the poor bastard myself. I didn’t wanna leave him alive when Tammy found him and take an unnecessary risk. So I used some of the good ole torture things that were already down there, after I chloroformed him of course. I promised you I wouldn’t make him suffer. But I did cut and burn him up pretty bad, in the way that a psychotic person would. I wanted his murder to look like Tammy did it in cold blood. Then I left him waiting for Tammy to find him. That’s when I released the rattlers.”
Tom sat back in his chair. It was a lot to take in, but he was mostly feeling secure in what Darnell had told him. “Tammy said that she saw a hunter living out in the woods. What if he saw something and the police found him?”
“Unfortunately for him, he wandered a little too close to my rattle snake cage when everybody was home, if you catch my drift. Nobody even knows he ever existed.”
Tom smiled. “And so you covered up all of your tracks? You didn’t leave fingerprints?”
“I did better than that. The big snow boots I had on left big, strange prints that I completely covered up later. I also had Stephen put on a matching pair. I went over every place where I’d been, or where my truck had driven, and covered up the tracks. I wore gloves and handled things very carefully. I slept at night in the hotel parking lot, back away from the other vehicles. And considering how bad the snowstorm was outside, nobody was gonna even check who was parked out there.There is no evidence that I was ever there.”
“Great. And what about her prepaid cell phone? Did you be sure to get rid of that so it can never end up in the hands of the police?”
“I did – in fact, I took that with me. I’m gonna just hang on to it – let’s call it my insurance plan. Nobody will ever know it existed, but heaven forbid if you ever turned on me, I want that in my possession. I don’t want to ever be questioned by authorities or linked to any crimes. I’ve never even been fingerprinted and need to stay completely out of the system.”
“Got it. So I think we’re all set. Now I just need to pay you your two hundred grand. Let’s say we double that.”
Darnell grinned.
Tom set a briefcase on his desk. “These are all non-sequential twenty dollar bills, in stacks of two hundred. There are a hundred stacks. It’s all there, you can count it here if you would like.”
“No problem, dude, I trust you.”
“So I guess we’re finished. It was a pleasure doing business with you. If I ever need you again for anything, I’ll be sure to…”
Darnell shook his head. “Don’t count on it, man. Anonymity is kind of my calling card. I’ll be gone without a trace.”
Tom nodded. “I understand. So you are able to stay hidden and don’t ever worry about being traced via the internet for what you do?”
“Nah. I use Deep Web private browsers with untraceable IP addresses. No one knows anything about me and I’m gonna keep it that way.”
Darnell shook Tom’s hand, took the briefcase, and let himself out of the office.
***
Reginald Williams wrote five big personal checks to his money market account. Then he used money market checks to move more than five million dollars to an offshore account in Indonesia. He would close his personal money market account before heading out of the country for an extended stay in Bali. He was done using the alias “Darnell” for good, had cut off all contact with Tom, and decided to put all of his dirty hitman work behind him.
Reginald was liquidating the 50-pound gold bars from the mid-1800’s a few at a time. He found that it was relatively easy, and he even received a good collector’s premium above the market value of the gold. The rest of the gold bars were safely kept in storage, and he could sell them at any point in the future. When all is said and done, he will have made more than 25 million dollars from the collective sales.
Doing research and finding out about the buried treasure was one thing, but using Tammy to find it for him was beyond Reginald’s wildest imagination. He knew that she was clever, desperate, and greedy – the perfect combination to help him. He was laughing inside at what he had pulled off. I can’t believe that she found all the gold for me. To think that bastard Tom only gave me four hundred grand for eliminating all three of them and a cop. He’s gonna get 20 million. Why are them damn white people so damn greedy?
Reginald grinned. I always did love money that is tax free, and playing the game of chess. Thank you Stephen, Tammy, Maria, and Tom. Before I met you guys, I was d
oing petty jobs and risking my life. Now I’m gonna be living the life that Tammy dreamed of for herself. That’s the thing about chess. Even though white makes the first move, the best strategy is to bet on black to win, each and every time.
THE END
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Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
