Deception (A Miranda Murphy Thriller)

by Tim Kizer

  “Did you tell her it was for me?”

  “Yes. I asked her if she would be back soon and let her know the coffee was for you.”

  “Really?” Two deep wrinkles appeared on Leslie’s forehead. “That’s very interesting.”

  Very interesting, indeed.

  “I know you still think I put poison in your coffee. And you probably don’t believe a word I say. It’s up to you, Leslie. I am telling you the truth. Whatever was in your coffee that day, you should ask Kathy about it.”

  #

  #

  Leslie sat in her car in the hospital parking lot for half an hour, mulling over the new information.

  So it was Kathy Edwards, that timid, quiet woman in the accounting department, three doors down the corridor. If Leslie remembered correctly, she had started working there two or three months ago when Claudia had gone on maternity leave. How old was Kathy? Thirty five—forty? She must have been at least five years older than Leslie.

  What in the world could Kathy’s beef be against her? Was it possible that Helen had lied and Kathy had nothing to do with the poison? Sure. But it was also possible that she was telling the truth and Kathy had indeed poisoned the coffee.

  Leslie tried to recall if she had actually used the phrase she had prepared in her mind on the way to Helen’s hospital room: “I’ll shoot your fucking mother’s brains out if you don’t talk.” It was a juicy phrase and could have been the magic catalyst of Helen’s honesty.

  Fortunately, she had learned from mistakes she had made with Helen and this time she would act differently. There would be no pussyfooting around. It would be mind blowing.

  #

  #

  “Leslie, I’ve seen so much weird, hardcore stuff in my thirty year career, that I have no problem believing your suspicions,” said David Lopez, the private investigator Leslie had found in classified ads. He was a tall and husky man in his fifties, with a moderate hair loss.

  “I like you more and more, David,” Leslie said with a happy grin. “You have a great attitude. You’re probably the most reasonable and rational person I’ve met in the last three months. Maybe even years.”

  Her words were sincere. The PI understood her like no one else. And he did not agree with her just because she was a paying customer, no siree!

  “Thanks, Leslie.”

  “And I hope I can count on you being very discreet.”

  “Sure, absolute discreetness is guaranteed. Every detail of this case stays between us.” David made a pause. “So what kind of info are you interested in?”

  “Whatever I can get in three days for three hundred dollars. That’s how much I am willing to spend at this time. In particular, I want to know whether she has a rap sheet, what she studied in college, and where she worked and lived in the last five years.”

  “You said you suspect this woman of an attempted murder,” David asked, while writing down her requests in a small notepad on his desk. “Can you tell me what she did?”

  “She tried to poison someone I know.”

  “Poison? In this case, you would want to know if she has any knowledge or experience in this area, right?”

  “You’ve read my mind, David. That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

  “I’ll do my best, Leslie. Three hundred bucks is a bit on the low end of what I usually charge, but that’s okay. Good guys gotta help each other, don’t they?”

  “They sure do.”

  “What is her motive?”

  “No clue. What do you think her motive could be?”

  David shrugged his shoulders and said:

  “Personal animosity, inheritance, jealousy, and the list goes on. If I had to bet, I would say it had to do with some personal issues, not money. But I may be wrong. It could be about money after all. Is your friend wealthy? The one she tried to poison?”

  “No, my friend’s not rich. I’ll be honest with you, David. As a matter of fact, she tried to poison me.” She paused to assess the PI’s reaction and was pleased to see that his facial expression had not changed one bit. “You see, nobody wanted to connect the dots, like I did. They just mocked me. And that’s unfair.”

  “I hear you, Leslie. The best advice I can give you is, don’t let them change you. It’s your life at stake, not theirs. And when it comes to getting poisoned, you can’t be too careful. Poison is a very sneaky way to kill. Sometimes all it takes is just a little drop on your skin.”

  Since it was Friday, David warned Leslie that she might have to wait till Tuesday for all the information she had requested. She was okay with that.

  #

  #

  It was day 18 since Kathy poisoned her coffee. Leslie was still alive and ready to fight.

  She looked around the half empty garage level from behind the support column for the fifth time, making sure there were no witnesses, galloped the dozen feet between her and Kathy, who was within arm’s reach from her car, and in a swift, almost savage movement pressed the chloroform-soaked napkin to the woman’s face. A few seconds later, when Kathy fell asleep and it became clear that this part of the mission was a success, Leslie let out a quiet giddy squeal and immediately started trudging towards her car, with her arms firmly wrapped around Kathy’s slumped body, right under the breasts. Leslie praised herself for having deliberately parked not too far from Kathy’s Honda. She had unlocked the doors of her Lexus in advance and now only had to lift their handles to open them. She rapidly shoved Kathy in the back, slipped in behind the steering wheel, started the car.

  She was doing it! She had crossed the Rubicon. She did not just fantasize about interrogating this bitch hardcore style; she actually acted on her idea. Amazing idea, by the way. David Lopez kept his word and passed the required information to Leslie on Tuesday. She spent the next two days planning the attack. On Friday, she struck.

  Halfway to the garage exit, Leslie remembered she still had a ski face mask hat on. She pulled the mask off her head and tossed it on the floor under the front passenger seat. Her destination was one of Rick’s father’s properties, which was not rented at the moment and whose features included a nice cozy basement. Last night, Rick again proved to be a great friend and gave her the keys to the house for a few days. Leslie promised him not to break anything inside it.

  #

  #

  Kathy woke up forty minutes after Leslie had duct-taped her to a metal chair she had found in the basement. By then, Leslie was beginning to worry if she had given Kathy too much chloroform: she had made a stop on the drive to Rick’s dad’s house to let the woman inhale some more of that substance, just in case.

  “Hello there,” Leslie said with a devious smile. “Surprised to see me?”

  The disoriented look on Kathy’s face amused her. A dim basement in Long Beach must have been the last place on earth she had expected to find herself in after work tonight.

  “What’s going on?” Kathy asked.

  “Let’s skip the charade and get to the truth, okay?”

  “Where are we?” Now fear started creeping into Kathy’s green eyes. Great!

  “I have a lot of information on you, Kathy.” Leslie stood in front of Kathy, gripping the Glock with her right hand. “I found out that you had studied chemistry at University of Michigan. That you had worked at some chemical lab in Los Angeles up until three months ago. And I bet you know your way around poisons.”

  “I don’t understand what you are talking about.”

  “Isn’t it weird: a chemist takes a temp job in our accounting department? Why did you do it? What is your game, Kathy? What the fuck is your game?”

  “I was laid off. A few of us were. I needed a job.” Terror had made ever wrinkle on her face all the more pronounced.

  Leslie thrust the gun barrel in Kathy’s stomach.

  “You see this?” she pointed at the large plastic sheet spread on the floor under Kathy’s chair. “This is for your blood, to keep the basement clean. If you don’t talk, I’m going to use this.”
Leslie brandished the pistol in front of Kathy’s pale face. For some reason, she was not ready to say the word “shoot.” She thought it would make her sound too lowlife.

  “You don’t have to kill me, Leslie,” said Kathy in a trembling voice. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

  “Good.” Leslie eased into a slightly shabby wooden chair she had picked for herself and crossed her legs. Her intuition told her that was going to be a long night.

  #

  #

  Leslie’s gaze fell upon the napkin, which might still have retained some chloroform. She could not take her eyes off of it for what seemed like several minutes. She was having a short time-out after explaining to Kathy that Helen had ratted her out and demanding answers to the following two questions: who had hired Kathy to poison her and why.

  Leslie suddenly realized something important. She had had a breakthrough, yes siree!

  Was it possible that the substance placed in her coffee had been supposed not to kill or cripple her, but simply knock her out, just the way the chloroform had disabled Kathy hours ago? Someone wanted to immobilize her, drag her to a dark smelly dungeon, and do bad, evil things to her.

  What kind of things?

  Things like an interrogation? That was what she was doing to Kathy right now, right? If you were making a list of possibilities, you could definitely put this one on the top. Somebody, maybe even Kathy, wanted to ask her a few questions.

  Questions about what? And what was that person, or persons, going to do after she answered those questions? Kill her?

  Damn, so much food for thought! She might have inched closer to uncovering these people’s motives.

  “Did you know that Helen died yesterday?” Leslie asked dreamily. The gun lay in her lap.

  “No, I didn’t.” Kathy shook her head.

  “Take a guess how she died.”

  “No idea.” The exhaustion made Kathy’s face look visibly aged, especially now that her makeup was all messed up. “But I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “She died from poison.”

  “That’s horrible. I swear I have nothing to do with it.”

  “I know.” Leslie nodded. At this moment, her full attention was occupied by a receipt from a Home Depot store in Santa Ana. She discovered it in her jeans back pocket a few minutes ago, when her hands were searching for something to do, and out of strange curiosity decided to examine it instead of throwing it away. The receipt was for a box of rat poison that had set her back $23.99 plus tax; the purchase had occurred at 7:23pm the day Helen had drunk coffee in her office.

  Yes, Leslie had a hunch that Kathy had not poisoned Helen. In fact, she knew exactly who had done it. Leslie just remembered she had intended to discard that receipt right after buying the poison. One more detail: she had paid cash to avoid a credit card trail. She also remembered the dream she had had a week or so ago. She saw herself leaving her condo at one o’clock in the morning, dressed in black jeans, a black sweatshirt, and a black jacket. Getting in her car. Entering Helen’s address into the GPS. Driving to Westminster. Not speeding, because she did not want to get pulled over by traffic cops. Parking on the side of the street, about a hundred feet from her destination. Looking for Helen’s apartment. She remembered having second thoughts about her plan. A lot of luck was required for the plan to be a success. And boy was she lucky! There was an open window in Helen’s apartment, a window to the living room, which was empty and was directly connected to the kitchen. Helen had no security system—dumb bitch!--and no dog. No one was awake in the whole place. Leslie remembered the weight of her Glock 19 in the right jacket pocket; she had brought it just in case something went wrong.

  But of course, it was not a dream. It was a recollection. And if you tested the coffee in the cup which Leslie had put away in the safe in her office the other day, you would learn that there was no poison in it. Leslie had to be in charge of the situation if she were to survive. Helen had drunk that coffee and now was supposed to die of poisoning. Leslie refused to be embarrassed by that whore. Things just needed a little push, that’s all. And she provided that push in the form of rat poison in the can of Folgers coffee on the countertop in Helen’s kitchen.

  Was it cheating, though? No, it’s not cheating if you don’t remember that you did it.

  What else could she have forgotten? Was she sure she had not killed anyone else? How about George? Was he still alive? When was the last time she talked to him?

  “Leslie?”

  She heard Kathy’s voice as if from distance. That cocksucker must have been amused by Leslie’s sudden fall into a stupor. Leslie ignored her call.

  Nah, George was still alive; she would have remembered killing him, for sure.

  Did she want to kill him?

  Good question. A couple of days ago, Rick told her about a Wiccan woman in the state of New York who was fired by the Transportation Safety Administration because her female coworker believed that she was a witch and had cast a spell on her. Funny thing, Rick did not make that story up, Leslie checked it later online. The woman was fired because someone told her boss she was a witch--how do you like that, huh? And what did George do after hearing that Helen was trying to poison her? He practically laughed in her face. He did not even want to investigate her allegations. Moron. Fucking jerk.

  “I’ll be back,” Leslie said absentmindedly and stood up. She needed to get out of the basement for a couple of minutes to freshen up.

  #

  #

  Leslie turned off the faucet and began blotting her face gently with a towel. Her reflection was staring at her from the mirror hanging above the bathroom sink. For some reason, she could not help thinking about Redondo Beach, the city Kathy had resided in before she moved to her current apartment in Cypress. She had no desire to dwell on this city since its name still gave her chills, but the thought kept sneaking back into her mind. That boy probably lived in Redondo Beach, too. She never found out his name, by the way. She could have dug it up by going through local news in papers or online, but the very recollection of that day instilled animal, paralyzing fear in her and she had never gotten around to doing it.

  Actually, that boy was the reason why she couldn’t shake off these thoughts about Redondo Beach. Yes, she was sure of it right now. As a matter of fact, she just realized that boy had been lodged in her subconsciousness the entire past year.

  She had to focus on the task at hand, on making Kathy talk.

  Focus, Leslie. Don’t let your mind unravel.

  A minute later, Leslie was back in the basement. As she stepped to her chair, her glance fell on the open pack of Parliament Light 100s she had found in Kathy’s jacket pocket. It sat next to the wallet, cell phone, car keys, cheap plastic lighter, some grocery coupon, and three quarters, which Leslie had extracted from Kathy’s jeans pockets. By the way, she made sure to remove the battery from the phone. Switching the cell phone off was not enough since, as she had heard on TV, the police would still be able to triangulate its location.

  “You smoke them too?” Leslie said and picked up the pack. “I’ve been smoking more ever since this nightmare started, you know.” She pulled out a cigarette, lit it with Kathy’s lighter, and took two quick puffs.

  “Do you have children, Kathy?” she asked monotonously.

  “Yes, I have a daughter.”

  “How old is she?” Leslie breathed in with her nose the sweet smell of the cigarette smoke.

  “Seventeen.”

  “Is she your only child?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Kathy shrugged her shoulders and said:

  “Hanging out with her friends?”

  Leslie nodded silently.

  “Did you drink coffee today?” she asked after a brief hesitation.

  “No, I didn’t. I prefer tea.”

  “Okay.” She took a generous puff from her cigarette.

  Have you ever heard of fake bombs plante
d by government agencies in airports to test their security? Leslie did something similar earlier today when she was alone in the kitchen at work. Remember that pressure canner she bought after George had dismissed her suspicions? She used it to make canned beans. And these canned beans were very very special. She put a handful of soil from the Mile Square Park in each of the five cans to try and cook some botulinum toxin, about which she had read on the internet. There was no guarantee that the soil contained the bacterium, which produced the toxin, but she decided to give it a shot anyway.

  This morning, wearing latex gloves, Leslie opened the cans and carefully collected with a syringe two milliliters of liquid substance from every one of them. She mixed all the extracted substance in a small jar, twisted the lid on tight, and took the jar to the office. Three hours before lunch, Leslie released some of this potentially deadly cocktail into the four coffee pots in the kitchen. You see, she had warned George that a terrorist could have poisoned the pots and he had done nothing. If there was botulinum toxin in her canned beans, this tragedy would serve as a wake-up call for every work place in America.

  What was the death from the botulinum toxin like? Not pleasant at all. It took the toxin 24-72 hours to manifest itself. In many cases, one first had trouble controlling one’s eyes and facial muscles, which was followed by paralysis of arms and legs. Then breathing became difficult. There might be nausea and vomiting as a bonus. And then a person died, if untreated for botulism.

  How big were those coffee pots? At least ten cups each, which meant that forty people might have gotten poisoned today, assuming the Clostridium botulinum bacteria had grown in her canned beans. Yeah, this would be a fun weekend for many of them. Of course, not all of those coffee drinkers would die. Chances were, most of them would survive. Did George drink coffee? Yep. Did he drink from the pots in the kitchen? Most likely, never. His secretary brewed him coffee in the coffeemaker in the reception room. Well, it appeared Leslie would have to break a sweat and take care of George after she neutralized Kathy.

  Leslie’s brain had barely finished this thought when the world around her turned black.

  #

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