Queen of Spades

by Kristi Belcamino

Eva looked at her watch.

  “Detective Collins.”

  Seventy seconds.

  “I need your help.”

  “If you come in, we can talk.”

  “That’s not what I mean. I don’t have time for that nonsense,” Eva said. “I didn’t kill my family. I can explain. But I need your help finding the killer.”

  He was quiet for a second and then said, “Go on.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “The evidence doesn’t support what you’re saying. The video. There’s also the insurance policy. Shall I go on?”

  “What insurance policy?”

  He paused.

  Eva swore softly. She had no idea. God damn it, Matthew. I told you not to do that! I told you we’d take care of ourselves.

  She was filled with fury that her husband’s act of generosity and love was now considered a solid motive for murder.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  “There are a lot of factors that don’t support your innocence,” he said.

  “There’s no time stamp on the video. Is that normal? Ask the security company about that? And the killer only shoots out the cameras afterward. If I were the killer, why wouldn’t I have disabled the cameras immediately? Why would I wait and let it film the murders? The killer disabled the video then so it wouldn’t show me coming home from the school and finding my family.” Eva paused. “And there’s more. She’s baiting me.”

  “She?”

  “The killer. The woman who looks like me and murdered my family. The woman who sent the man to kill Krystal Diamond.”

  “What?” He sounded interested now. She heard him whispering to someone else.

  “That’s sloppy,” she said.

  “Huh?” He was taken off guard.

  “You should know better. You won’t be able to trace this call.”

  He gave a small laugh. “We’ve been tracing it from the second you called.”

  He was still trying to keep her on the line.

  “I can tell you right now that when you trace this call it will first take you to a location far away—let’s say Helsinki and then maybe bounce to some island maybe, Mauritius. And then maybe it will hit a few European cities before careering over to let’s say, Alaska, and maybe down to Winnipeg and finally landing at 47890 Malibu Colony Road.”

  “That’s your address.”

  “Very astute.”

  “Are you at your house?”

  “No,” she sighed. “I can see now that I’ll have to prove to you I’m not lying.”

  She could hear him scribbling on a piece of paper.

  “Go ahead and send your team to the house in Malibu. I hope that there’s a squad nearby, so we can get all this over with.”

  “All what over with?”

  “You not believing me.”

  She heard muffled voices as if his palm were over the phone.

  “Okay, back at you,” he said.

  “You still don’t believe me when I say you’re wasting your time going to my house.”

  “Listen, I don’t know you from Adam. You could be as loony as they come. Right now, all I know is that there is a video of a woman with your spitting image killing your entire family. And you stand to gain quite a substantial sum of money from your husband’s death. What would you think if you were in my shoes?”

  A hot, dry wind had kicked up and was blowing her hair in front of her eyes. The Santa Ana winds. They were an L.A. legend. They’d been known to drive the most mild-mannered person into a frenzy—sometimes even into a murderous rage. Joan Didion had written about it best. When Eva came to California, she’d devoured everything Didion had published about the Golden State. For a second she forgot about the detective on the other end of the line and blinked to fight back tears remembering her first days with Matthew in California.

  “What do you suggest?” His voice startled her.

  “That you believe me. That you realize the killer is baiting me, taunting me, trying to draw me out. She wanted me to go to Krystal’s house. She left me a clue. On the news. That’s why I was able to get there in time to save Krystal.”

  “Back up. You went there to save Krystal?”

  “Yes.”

  “But here’s the part where your story falls apart. While you were there, you killed a man.”

  “Well, yeah,” Eva said. “What did you want me to do? Let him slice her throat?”

  That shut him up. She stared out at the Los Angeles basin, her blood starting to boil with anger and frustration.

  “Please, Mrs. White, do us both a favor and turn yourself in. Come in and we can discuss all this in person. You can tell me everything. I promise you will be safe.”

  “Turn myself in while the woman who killed my family roams free? Forget it,” she said. “Go waste your time at my Malibu beach house. If you want to listen to me you can call this number back. It’s untraceable. Good day, detective.”

  She hung up and glared at the phone. The wind was whipping and howling in the canyon, sending a chill through her body. Something about it was foreboding. She didn’t know why. It didn’t make sense that wind, on a brilliant, golden day, would be ominous. But it was. It was as if the wind was warning her. Leave. Run away. Forget about vengeance. Run for your life.

  No. Her life was without meaning if she didn’t avenge her family. It was the only thing left worth living for.

  Seventeen

  1990s

  Los Angeles

  The burner phone she’d used to call Detective Collins woke her early the next morning. A number with an L.A. area code appeared on the screen. The detective was the only one who had this number. She held it up to her ear without speaking.

  “I wanted you to have my personal number,” Collins said. “This is my cell phone. You know…in case you change your mind and want to turn yourself in.”

  “Did you go to the house and see I was telling the truth?”

  He sighed loudly.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Eva said, sitting up in bed and running a hand through her tangled hair to get it off her face. “Do you believe me now? Can we quit all these bullshit games and work together to find the monster who killed my family?”

  “I just can’t get past that video footage.”

  “So, you still think I’m lying,” Eva said, standing and wrapping a blanket around her as she made her way into the kitchen.

  “No.”

  “Okay then, so you think I’m crazy, delusional?”

  He gave a short bark of a laugh.

  “You might think this is funny, but this is my fucking life.”

  He was silent for a second and then said, “My apologies. I was laughing because I don’t think you’re crazy or delusional. In fact, I think just the opposite. I would have to say I’ve never spoken to a saner-sounding, intelligent, witty, and interesting murder suspect in my life.”

  Eva’s mouth dropped open.

  “You have my number if you want to arrange to turn yourself in.”

  “Wait. Don’t you dare hang up.” Eva said. She was fuming with anger. “Why should I turn myself in? So you can grill me until I offer a false confession? I’ve heard what you guys do.”

  The detective gave a long sigh and then said, “Turn on the news.”

  She did.

  With horror, she watched the news station anchor announce that an arrest warrant had been issued for Eva White in connection with the homicide at Krystal Diamond’s house.

  “Mrs. White,” he said. “Even you don’t deny that you killed that man in Mrs. Diamond’s house. That makes you a murder suspect. My job is to arrest you. Once I do, we can talk and figure out if maybe there were extenuating circumstances. There are all sorts of options. A plea deal? Self-defense? Who knows. But by not turning yourself in, you’ve given me no choice but to issue that arrest warrant.”

  Her anger flared. Why was she wasting her time talking to a detective who was playing with her, leading her on, trying to get her
to slip and confess to a murder she didn’t commit?

  “Good luck finding the woman who killed my family,” Eva said. “But know this, and be warned—I’m going to find her first, and my justice won’t be quite as lenient as yours.”

  She hung up and then chucked the phone across the room where it landed on the bed and skidded off onto the floor. She was shaking and furious. She had good instincts about people and thought the detective had believed her and might possibly even help her. She was wrong. Obviously, she was on her own. The detective could go fuck himself. She’d find the killer first and make her pay. Game on, Detective Collins.

  Meanwhile, she’d wait for another clue. If the detective really thought she was full of shit and was the killer, he wouldn’t be paying attention enough to see it himself. At the very least, the clue, like the playing card, might not mean anything to him. That was her advantage, and she intended to make the most of it.

  Staring at the TV, she realized she needed to start taping the newscasts so she could replay them and look for clues. She set up her laptop to do so and then scrolled through the major L.A. TV station’s websites. They each had news of her arrest warrant. For some reason, news about her—even in a city with as many murders as L.A. had—was a top-read story.

  Murders happened every day in Southern California. But because the victims were rich and white and lived in Malibu, her family’s slayings were front and center.

  Her own skin was olive. Not alabaster, but not super dark, either. And yet, she knew that once upon a time in America, Italians were not considered white. And there were definitely some pockets of society who still felt that way.

  Her son Lorenzo had inherited her darker skin and black eyes and black hair, but Alessandra was like her father, fair of skin and hair. No pictures of her family had been on the news yet. Eva thought she might not be able to bear seeing their little faces on a TV screen for the world to gawk at.

  Listening to the news stories was painful, but she knew she needed to watch them, scan them for another clue. But there was nothing.

  She turned the TV off. Time to work out. She had to keep up her strength. After making herself a green smoothie with protein powder, Eva spent the next four hours exercising and doing her Gladiatura Moderna martial-arts routine, feeling the cold metal of her daggers become an extension of her body, just like when she’d been in top form in Sicily so many years ago. It was coming back to her, and soon the movements would be automatic. That’s where she needed to be—where it was all muscle memory and didn’t require any conscious thought.

  Afterward, she showered and pulled a stool up to the bar and nibbled on almonds and drank another thirty-two ounces of water. She grabbed her laptop and opened a file and dictated what would become her daily routine. When she came face-to-face with the killer, she wanted to be in prime form. She didn’t want there to be any chance of the woman escaping injured but with her life.

  Eva laid out a diet, exercise, and sleep schedule.

  Her training meant eating for strength and energy. Working out for four to six hours a day. Sleeping ten hours. It would make the days pass until she got the clue she knew the killer would plant for her.

  She figured it would take her at least ten days to condition herself to optimal strength, speed and agility in defense and attack.

  But the clue came the next morning.

  It was the cute Latina reporter from the first news story at the school. Eva liked her, mainly because she’d seemed exasperated with Krystal during that first interview.

  And the killer must have liked her, as well, because the clue was sent directly to her.

  The Latina was at the newsroom reporting from a desk.

  “We received a letter today that is purportedly from Eva White.”

  Eva froze, the remote control extended in front of her, still pointing at the TV as she stood there.

  “We reported this information to the police department,” she said. “They asked us not to share it publicly, but the writer, who claims to be Eva White asked us to, saying that more people would die if we didn’t do as she asked. We met with our station executives and attorneys and decided that it was in the public’s best interest for us to follow the instructions left for us in the note.”

  Eva was outraged. The killer claimed the note was from her?

  “Eva White asked us to share the note in its entirety, so we’ve decided to do that. Please be advised this is not appropriate for children.”

  The news reporter read the note at the same time it appeared on the screen. It was a printout with typed words.

  “I cannot continue to live a life of privilege in my extravagant Malibu home, a life of lies, knowing the sins of which I am guilty. I was an assassin in my former life. My family did not know. I am willing to sacrifice more innocent lives in order to make the details of my many sins publicly known. There is so much blood on my hands already—another life or two won’t make a difference to me. While the police are busy holding press conferences I will be out here tying up loose ends before I atone for my sins and accept the punishment that is my due.”

  “Bullshit!” Eva said to the screen. She tried not to let her fury cloud her thoughts. Stay calm, Santella. Where was the clue? What was it?

  A male reporter gave an exaggerated sigh. “It sure looks like a confession, doesn’t it Belinda?”

  She gave him a rueful look, as if she were on Eva’s side. “Unfortunately, it does look that way.” She straightened the papers on her desk. “We’ve asked the police department for comment but they informed us the note will be addressed at the press conference they already had scheduled for this afternoon.”

  “The police had this conference scheduled before the note was received, what do you think they are going to announce?” he asked.

  Belinda shook her head. “At this point, I really can’t say, but I would not be surprised if another arrest warrant is issued for Ms. White and they plead for her to follow through and turn herself in. What I find really interesting is that she admits to being an assassin. There’s no other way to interpret that besides assuming she is a serial killer, which is very disturbing.”

  Eva clicked the TV off and logged onto the station’s website. Good. They’d posted the note. What a bunch of idiots. Assassin. Maybe.

  In Sicily, she was a mob boss who killed to maintain order. Some might call her an assassin. But she didn’t do it for hire. She did it to protect the poor and innocent from greedy, evil men taking advantage of the helpless. And she’d never killed a woman. Or a child.

  She re-read the note.

  She examined each word. Each word meant something. The note was crafted as a clue. She just had to figure it out. After re-reading it a dozen times, Eva came to a few conclusions:

  The killer was from Sicily. Her family was murdered because she’d killed—or ordered the death of—somebody in particular when she was a mob boss. That was a major clue. She made a list of all her victims and then put lines around them leading to all family, friends, lovers, and business acquaintances that she could remember. By the time she was done, she had more than seventy-five names. And those were just the people she remembered or knew. Maybe some man she’d killed had a sister or niece or child she hadn’t known about who had found her in America and sought to avenge his death?

  The next part Eva thought was interesting was that there was only one location named. For some reason, the person had avoided referencing Italy or Sicily. But the note clearly mentioned one place: Her Malibu home.

  It was so obvious that at first she doubted it—the note was a direct invitation for her to go to the beach house.

  During the press conference. It was suddenly crystal clear.

  It was sooner than she expected, but she was ready.

  She dressed in tight black pants, knee-high black boots with a thick tread, and a tight black top, and pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail. A halter that fit across her back would hold the two long dueling swords she’d put in h
er duffel bag. She strapped a dagger to the inside of her right boot and the pistol was strapped into a custom-made holster inside of her other boot. She had a small shoulder holster for her other gun. For good measure, she grabbed her burner phone—the one that contained Detective Collins’s number—before she stepped into the garage.

  Several miles down the road, she pulled onto a sleepy road and parked the stolen minivan under a leafy tree. She slipped into a burgundy SUV nearby and, within minutes, drove away with that one. She waited until she was at a hotel near LAX before she swapped out the SUV for a Suburban in a hotel parking garage. Then at LAX long-term parking she found a nondescript sedan and drove that to her Malibu neighborhood.

  Instead of parking on her street, she pulled into a public parking lot connected to a beach swim area. Too late, she realized she’d missed an important aspect of her planning—maintaining a low-profile while walking down the beach to her old home. Dressed as she was—like a warrior about to go into battle—she’d stand out among the surf and beach crowd. She sat in the driver’s seat staring at the beachgoers before she came up with the solution.

  Waiting until the parking lot was empty and everyone had walked down to the beach, she stripped to her black underwear. She stuck her clothes and weapons into the duffel bag.

  Then, in her black underwear and black bra, she grabbed a ratty towel out of the back seat of the car and wrapped it in a sarong, pulled her dark sunglasses down, and slung the duffel bag over her shoulder. Just another sun worshipper looking for a spot to camp out on the beach for the day.

  She passed by all the other beachgoers without too much notice, if you didn’t count the men ogling her body. She gave them a small upturn of her lips. All they would remember was a woman with curves walking on the beach in her bikini who had smiled at them.

  When she got within two houses of her own, she turned up the beach and stepped through a small gate. Her neighbors two houses down, the Camdens, were gone for the season. They only stayed in their Malibu house in the winter. As soon as March hit, they headed to the French Riviera. Eva broke into their house and changed, tucking her long swords in their halter and the dagger and gun in their holsters. Before leaving, she grabbed a pair of binoculars on the ledge that the couple used for whale watching.