House Blood - JD 7

by Mike Lawson

  Looking back on her life, she couldn’t believe how far she’d come—and luck had had very little to do with it. She had been christened Eunice Beatrice West, named after an aunt her parents hoped would leave them money in her will—which she never did. Her childhood was a wide-awake nightmare. Her mother was grossly overweight, superstitious, religious, and incredibly stupid; most of the time she seemed barely aware that Eunice—who became Fiona—even existed. Her father was a pathetic loser, bouncing from one menial job to the next, and he began molesting her when she was twelve. When she was fourteen, her brother, who was two years older than her and crazier than a shithouse rat, began to molest her, too, and that’s when she left home.

  She lived on the streets for a year, panhandling for money, and when she almost froze one night, she moved in with a tattooed mechanic who was twice her age and she traded sex for food and a warm place to live. At sixteen, she could easily pass for eighteen, and she moved out of the mechanic’s house and turned to exotic dancing. She was a horrible dancer but had such a good body that the customers didn’t care, and she made enough in tips to survive. Barely.

  That year, she had an epiphany: she realized she had to take some drastic action to change her life. While she still had her looks, she could continue to dance in strip joints, or even become a prostitute, though she knew she’d commit suicide before she ever became a hooker. But once her looks began to fade, what options would she have? With no education, the best she could hope for was waitressing until she was old enough to collect social security. She thought long and hard about the best way to extract herself from the sinkhole that was her life, and finally decided that religion was the answer—or, to be more specific, that religious do-gooders were the answer.

  She presented herself at a church one Sunday—a church attended by wealthy Christians, not poor Holy Rollers—and proclaimed to the Jesus freaks that she was a wretched sinner and needed the Lord’s help—meaning their help. She told them about her background and said that if her prayers went unanswered, she’d have to go back to living with a man who raped her every night and who would soon become her pimp.

  Her experience that Sunday was what convinced her to become a lawyer. She made a reasoned yet emotional plea, one which wasn’t the least bit unrehearsed, and was successful in convincing a skeptical jury—or in this case, an entire congregation. The result was that a good Christian couple took pity on her. They never formally adopted her but they took her into their home until she graduated from high school, and thanks to their continued support and a few hard-earned scholarships, she was able to get her law degree. And while she was attending college, she pretended to be a dutiful daughter: she called home, baked cookies with her new “mother,” attended mind-numbingly boring family affairs. The day she had her degree in hand, she legally changed her name to Fiona West and stopped speaking to the couple, and she never saw them again.

  She vectored into corporate law because she figured the best way to get rich was to become associated with a company that was already rich. Now, twenty years after taking her clothes off for drunks trying to shove dollar bills into her G-string, she was on top of the world. She would soon have mansions in idyllic spots and servants to wait on her hand and foot. She’d never want for anything again—and she’d never be forced to have sex again. But Orson had a point. What would she do with herself? She couldn’t imagine sitting around all day doing nothing.

  She’d never had any sort of hobby. She wasn’t particularly interested in decorating a fabulous home or attending high-toned cultural events. She certainly had no interest in philanthropic causes. Her life had always been about scheming and plotting to ascend the next step up the ladder.

  So, she asked herself, what could a person like her do that would be fun? A person who was brilliant and knew how to wield power. And then the answer came to her.

  Politics.

  Senator West. Yes, she liked the sound of that.

  46

  “There’s a guard at Wallens Ridge,” Bernie said, “who’s in debt to the tune of three hundred and thirty grand. His wife’s got some weird disease and their insurance won’t cover all her medical expenses and the doctors have just bled this guy dry. He’s got two mortgages on his house and he’s having a hard time meeting the payments since his wife can’t work anymore, and I’d say there’s about an eighty percent chance he’s going to lose his home. And, if that’s not bad enough—this poor bastard has the luck of Job—his daughter was just arrested for using meth and he’s going to need money for a lawyer and a drug treatment center, and drug treatment isn’t covered by his insurance, either.”

  “That all sounds good,” Fiona said—but she had a problem. With Earl Lee dead, she didn’t have anyone to approach the guard and make him an offer.

  “I need you to go see the guard, Bernie,” Fiona said.

  “Why?” Bernie asked.

  Fiona hesitated as she tried to find an indirect way to tell Bernie what she wanted, and when she couldn’t think of one, she said, “I want Nelson dead. I want this guard to talk to some psycho—and Wallens Ridge probably has a couple thousand—and have the psycho take out Nelson.”

  “Are you insane!” Bernie said. “I’m not going to be an accomplice to murder. I’m already worried the FBI’s going to trace that phony kidnapping bulletin on Hobson back to me. I find people, Ms. West. What happens to those people after I find them is something I don’t concern myself with.”

  “Well, you’re gonna have to concern yourself this time, pal. It’s time to get your hands dirty.”

  “No way,” Bernie said. “And this is the last job I’m doing for you. I’ll e-mail you the information I have on the guard.”

  “Half a million, Bernie. Do you think you can man up for half a million?”

  She knew what Bernie was now thinking: half a million tax-free dollars wasn’t a bonus—it was a whole new lifestyle. A second home, a sailboat, whatever his heart desired.

  She heard Bernie inhale sharply. “All right,” he said after a long pause. “And what do I offer the guard?”

  “Hell, you can offer him half a million, too,” Fiona said. “It sounds like he’ll need that much to get out of debt. Money, at this point, is the least of my problems.”

  Bernie had spent his whole career at the CIA in an office, in front of a computer, and he had no idea how he was supposed to approach a guard at a state prison and offer him a bribe to kill a man. CIA operatives—real spies—did that sort of thing. They bribed people to betray their country or to defect or to commit assassinations on the agency’s behalf. They were trained for that sort of thing, or maybe it just came naturally to them.

  Being a party to killing Nelson didn’t bother Bernie; he could live with that. What bothered him was the possibility of being sent to jail for trying to bribe the guard; he could end up in the same prison as Nelson.

  Then he thought again about what he could do with half a million dollars.

  Man up, Bernie, he told himself.

  The guard’s name was Albert Morehouse, and Bernie figured the safest thing would be to contact him by phone. If he met with the man, the guard might slap cuffs on his wrists and call the cops. He knew from his research that Morehouse worked the day shift at the prison, so he waited until six P.M. before he called Morehouse’s home phone. A young girl answered—Morehouse’s meth-addicted daughter, he assumed.

  “Is Mr. Morehouse available?” Bernie said.

  “He’s takin’ a nap. He was up all last night with my mother.”

  “This is very important,” Bernie said.

  “Well, okay, but he’s gonna be pissed.”

  Great, Bernie thought, but the fact that Morehouse had been up all night taking care of his sick, uninsurable wife could be a good thing.

  “Who is this?” Morehouse said when he came to the phone. He had a voice like a guy who’d
sing bass in a barbershop quartet.

  “My name isn’t important,” Bernie said, “but I happen to know that you’re over three hundred thousand dollars in debt and—”

  “Is this one of those debt consolidation companies? And how the fuck did you get this number? This number’s unlisted.”

  “I’m not from a debt—”

  “Don’t you ever call my house again, you bloodsucking son of a bitch,” Albert Morehouse shouted, and slammed down the phone.

  That didn’t go so well, Bernie said to himself. Now what?

  He decided to write Morehouse a letter. Yes, that was the way to approach him. He’d lay out his offer in writing and that way Morehouse would never see him and couldn’t hang up on him while he made his pitch.

  Bernie went to a public library to type the letter, because he didn’t want there to be any evidence on his computer. In the letter, he said he knew that Morehouse was over three hundred thousand dollars in debt because of his wife’s medical expenses, that his daughter needed drug treatment and a lawyer, and that Morehouse was about to lose his house. He said if Morehouse was willing to do him a favor that involved an inmate at Wallens Ridge, Bernie would pay him half a million dollars, half the money up front and the remainder upon satisfactory completion of the job.

  Now had it been his money, Bernie would have been worried that Morehouse might take the two hundred and fifty grand and then do nothing further. But since it was Fiona’s money, Bernie wasn’t too concerned about that.

  The last sentence of Bernie’s letter said that if Morehouse was interested, he should call him at _____. He left the space for the number blank and printed off his letter, then purchased a prepaid cell phone and filled the phone number in by hand. He wiped the letter down with a Kleenex to remove his fingerprints, put on latex gloves, and stuck the letter in a self-sticking envelope so he wouldn’t leave DNA. Next he went to a FedEx place, put the envelope into a FedEx envelope, and addressed it to Morehouse, printing out the address in block letters and using his left hand instead of his right. Morehouse would receive the letter the following day.

  Bernie figured his tradecraft was excellent, about as good as any real spy could have done.

  Morehouse called him the next day. “How do I know this isn’t some kind of sting operation?” Morehouse said.

  “Well, I guess you don’t,” Bernie said. “But think about it. Would the cops put up half a million dollars to set up a prison guard? I don’t think so. Maybe five or ten thousand, but not half a million. I mean, it’s not like you’re a major drug dealer or something.”

  “If it wasn’t for my wife, I wouldn’t even be talking to you,” Morehouse said.

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Bernie said.

  “And how did you even know about my wife and daughter?”

  “Mr. Morehouse, we don’t have time to get into all that. Are you interested?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want a prisoner killed.”

  “I’m not going to kill anyone.”

  “I don’t expect you to. But I suspect you know inmates inside the prison who would be willing to kill other inmates.”

  Morehouse didn’t say anything for a moment. “Maybe,” he said. “Who do you want taken care of?”

  “A man named Nelson.”

  “What’s his first name?”

  “He’s the new inmate in a wheelchair.”

  “Oh, him. And you’re going to send me half the money?”

  “Yes. I’ll FedEx you two hundred and fifty thousand as soon as you tell me you know a way to get the job done.”

  “I already know a way. But what makes you think I won’t take the money and not do anything?”

  “Mr. Morehouse, my problem is killing somebody inside Wallens Ridge. Killing someone who works there isn’t really a problem.”

  47

  Although he had no desire to do so, DeMarco drove to Hazelton, West Virginia, to talk to Brian Kincaid. He didn’t want to see Kincaid because he didn’t have good news for him, but he figured the decent thing to do was let him know where things stood.

  When Kincaid entered the conference room, accompanied by a guard, DeMarco was shocked by his appearance. The first time ­DeMarco saw him, Kincaid had looked tired and defeated, but other­wise okay; the man who entered the conference room today didn’t look okay. He had a black eye that was almost swollen shut, a yellow-purple bruise on his left cheek, more bruises on his throat, and he moved like there was something wrong with his back.

  DeMarco waited until the guard left the room, then asked, “What happened to you, Brian? Who beat you up?”

  Kincaid didn’t look at DeMarco. He pulled out a cigarette and tried to light it, but his hands were shaking so badly DeMarco finally took the matches and lit the cigarette for him.

  “Brian, tell me what’s going on,” DeMarco said.

  Kincaid took a puff on the cigarette, exhaled, then finally focused his eyes on DeMarco. “I’d heard all those stories about guys getting raped in prison, and when I first got here I was terrified that—”

  “Aw, Jesus. Did someone rape you?” DeMarco asked.

  “No. I’m just saying that’s what scared me. But it never happened. And the whole time I’ve been here, I’ve gone out of my way not to make enemies. I get along with everyone. I write letters for illiterate guys. I look up shit for them in law books. But two weeks ago, I’m having lunch with four, five guys and this one guy starts talking about how his mother used to make spaghetti and he says something about his mother dumping the spaghetti into a calendar and rinsing it off. Well, without thinking about it, I said, ‘You mean a colander.’ The guy gives me this funny look and I’m thinking maybe he doesn’t understand, so I say, ‘The strainer thing you rinse the spaghetti in is called a colander, not a calendar.’ No big deal. Right? Wrong. That’s the kind of shit that gets you killed in this place.”

  “What?” DeMarco said.

  “The guy walks up to me a couple hours after lunch, hits me in the gut, and tells me I embarrassed him in front of his friends. So I apologize, of course, but it doesn’t matter. A few days later, he catches me alone and beats the shit out of me. Two days after that, he comes up behind me and chokes me until I almost pass out. I figure he’s going to kill me eventually, so I tell the guards and they put him in isolation for a couple days, and when he gets out, he says, ‘Now I’m gonna kill you.’”

  Kincaid laughed at the irony of his situation and said, “Anyway, I hope you’ve got good news for me, DeMarco, because I’m gonna die in here pretty soon because I was dumb enough to tell some psycho he mispronounced a word.”

  DeMarco told him he did have some good news, and then went on to explain everything they’d learned about Mulray Pharma. He concluded by saying, “So you were right, Brian. They framed you for Downing’s death.”

  “Thank God,” Kincaid said. “So when can I get out of here?”

  “It’s not gonna be that easy,” DeMarco said. “I mean, I know all these things but I can’t prove anything.”

  “But—”

  DeMarco held up a hand to silence him. “Brian, tomorrow I’m going to see one of the guys who helped kill Downing. He’s in prison right now, and I’m gonna offer him a deal to testify against Mulray Pharma and admit what he did.”

  DeMarco didn’t tell Kincaid that he’d already offered Nelson this deal, but he was hoping that with Kelly dead, Nelson might change his mind.

  “What if he won’t take the deal?” Kincaid asked.

  DeMarco wanted to say: Then you’re screwed. But he didn’t. Instead he said, “He’s going to, Brian; he doesn’t have any other options. So just hang in here a little longer. And I’m going to talk to the warden about this guy who’s bothering you. What’s his name?”

  Before DeMarco left the pr
ison, he pulled out his congressional ID badge and forced the warden to meet with him. He told the warden that Brian Kincaid was a friend of the ex–Speaker of the House and that if anything happened to him the warden should start looking for a new job. Maybe he shouldn’t have said ex-Speaker. If the warden was intimidated, he didn’t act like it.

  It occurred to DeMarco afterward that he could have broken the news about Kelly’s death to Nelson in a more compassionate manner.

  A guard held the door to the meeting room open, and Nelson wheeled himself in. The wheelchair he was using was a lightweight model, like the type wheelchair athletes use. There was a small table and two chairs in the room, and the normal procedure was for the prisoner to sit in one of the chairs and the guard to handcuff him to an eyebolt in the table so he’d be restrained. However, to follow the normal procedure, Nelson would have to be transferred from his wheelchair to the prisoner’s chair, which was a minor hassle, so the guard decided to let Nelson remain seated in his wheelchair. How much of a threat could a guy in a wheelchair be?

  As soon as the guard left the room, DeMarco scooted his chair around the table so he could sit closer to Nelson and face him. Nelson looked good, DeMarco thought, and he looked strong. Other than being partially paralyzed, he appeared to have fully recovered from being shot and his upper body seemed even bigger than the last time DeMarco had seen him. It was apparent he’d been working out to stay in shape.

  Before DeMarco could say anything, Nelson said, “Why are you here? I’ve already told you I’m not going to testify against anybody.”

  “Kelly came to see me,” DeMarco said.

  “Bullshit,” Nelson said.

  “He told me everything. He told me how the two of you killed Phil Downing and framed Brian Kincaid, and how you killed a bunch of old people to test Mulray Pharma’s new drug. He said he was the one who did all the killing and you didn’t kill anyone. I figure he was probably lying about that, but at this point it doesn’t matter. He also said a woman named Fiona West was the one who gave the orders.”