by F J messina
“What can I get you, sweetheart?” The woman’s voice was as pleasant as her smile, though clearly rasped by years of smoking.
“Jose Cuervo, please.” Her eyes settled on the mirror behind the bartender.
“Chilled?” A smile accompanied the question.
“No, gracias.”
The bartender tipped her head, inquisitive. “Salt? Lime?”
“Neat.” No explanation followed.
The bartender must have sensed the quiet power the woman possessed because she poured the single shot extra heavy, then stepped back as if she planned to stand and watch her down the shot.
The woman engaged the bartender’s eyes. She lifted the glass and smelled deeply without averting her gaze. Tipping her head back just slightly, she tossed the shot down almost motionlessly then placed the glass back on the bar very gently. “Again.” Her voice was almost a whisper, but not without intensity.
The bartender repeated her routine. This time, however, the woman lifted the glass and smelled it but returned it to the bar’s wooden surface without taking a sip. The bartender tipped her head as if to ask, “something wrong?” The woman, her forearms now resting on the bar, waved one wrist and finger without moving her arm at all. Her gaze remained focused on the mirror behind the bar. The bartender seemed perplexed as she backed away. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
Minutes ticked by. Journey gave way to Bon Jovi, then Queen. Of the two men residing at the bar, one seemed lost in thought. In his mid-forties, paunchy, wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans, a black leather vest, and a wallet chained to his belt loop, his phone sat on the bar in front of him. It appeared to hold no interest for the man. The other resident, much younger, perhaps early thirties, also dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, though more hippy than gothic, dared a surreptitious glance at the woman. It was rebuffed by a sharp pulling together of her dark eyebrows. He turned his attention immediately back to the near-empty glass in front of him.
The woman continued to search the mirror, her eyes darting between the reflections of the call liquors that sat on the shelf in front of it—Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker Red and Black, James Bennington, others. From her vantage point, she could see each of the two tables that were currently occupied by other patrons. The one on her left held a couple, mid-forties, early fifties. She sported red hair, teased to within an inch of its life, a blue and white top with stripes that failed in their mission to de-emphasize her girth, and a full week’s worth of Mary Kay’s best. She’d applied it in a manner that would have made Sherwin Williams proud. Her partner gave nearly the opposite impression. Thin to the point of looking sickly, the only hair on his head was the overly long fringe low around his ears. His skin looked sallow and yellowish, even in the smoke and darkness of the lounge.
The woman’s eyes spent little time on the couple. It was the solitary figure sitting at the table on her right that held her interest. She watched as he sat motionless at times, that stasis interrupted only occasionally by his lifting a rocks glass filled with amber liquid, taking an almost imperceptible sip.
The woman called the bartender over with the subtle move of a single finger. Leaning forward, she spoke softly as she nodded to her right. “He come here often?”
The bartender looked down at the cooler just below the bar, wiping it aimlessly with a bar towel as she spoke. “Every night the past week or so.” It was obvious to the woman that the bartender wanted to ask something. She was glad she didn’t.
Spinning on her stool, the woman left the bar and turned toward the tables. As she did, the boys in AC/DC reminded her that they were Back in Black. She walked over to the single soul, slowly, feeling every eye in the room follow her, even the four attached to the couple that sat intertwined with each other. When she reached his table, she stood silently before it, waiting.
He was slow to lift his gaze. Eventually, however, he looked up at her, a slight squint in his eyes. His skin had a darkish hue as if he had worked in coal mines all his life and the fine black dust could no longer be completely removed from its pores. His face showed clearly his sixty-plus years, though his hair was still mostly black and the impression was more rugged and worn than old. His body was lean. “Can I help you, ma’am?” The voice was soft, flat, deep.
“You have room at the table for one more?”
“You got a name?”
She gave him a tiny smile, but only out of one side of her mouth. “Gabriela.” She paused for a moment. “You have a name?”
He stirred in his seat. “Zeke. Folks call me Zeke.” He nodded to his right. “Have a seat.”
Gabriela sat, turning the simple action into a long, slow, sexy process. She took a small sip of her tequila. “You are alone tonight?”
“Alone every night.” They danced a slow, dramatic tango with their words.
AC/DC gave way to Van Halen. “Do you mind me sitting here?”
Zeke ran his index finger along his upper lip and reached for a cigarette from the pack of Marlboros that sat on the table in front of him. “Up to you.”
Gabriella slowly moved her gaze around the walls and windows behind Zeke’s seat, the flickering red lights of a beer sign reflecting in the room. As she did, she could feel his eyes drinking her in. She knew he was being drawn to her. Eventually, she reached out and took another sip of her golden liquid. Waiting.
Finally, he lit the cigarette then spoke. “You know I can’t afford what you’re selling.”
A tiny smile in the corner of her mouth, her eyebrows raised. “Now, is that any way to start a new friendship?”
He paused, clearly thrown a bit off stride. “Then what do you want from me?”
Gabriela let her eyes travel from his, downward, along his chest, toward his waist. “A woman can want lots of things.”
He waited in silence for more. It didn’t come. Finally, “Like?”
She reached out and lifted her glass to her lips again. She spoke before drinking. “It would depend.”
He didn’t wait to respond. “On what?”
“On whether what was available was worth the effort.”
He took a sip of his drink. “I reckon it would be worth the effort.”
She smiled and tipped her head, innocent. “What would?”
“Whatever you’ve got in mind, ma’am.”
Gabriela took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. She looked around the room, as far as her position at the table allowed, taking her time. Van Halen faded away, Survivor took over. Slowly, she finished her drink. “Not here.”
Zeke sat up taller. He nodded. “Not here.” He waved to the sandy-haired bartender. Somehow, she knew to bring the tab for both of them rather than another round. As soon as she turned and left, Zeke stood, threw a wad of cash on the table, and started walking. “Come on.”
Gabriela followed Zeke through the smokey room and outside into the warm night. As they walked, he made a feeble effort to put an arm around her waist. He wasn’t surprised when his move was rebuffed, though he never realized that what she was protecting was the sweet little Diamondback 9mm pocket gun tucked inside the tiny purse that hung over her shoulder.
Even at the late hour, the Embers’ location on a main drag assured there would be plenty of traffic noise, lights, energy. The fact that a liquor store sat in the parking lot directly next to the motel accounted for the young men standing outside, next to their cars, holding brown paper bags that concealed the shapes of tall bottles. Gabriela was just barely aware of it all.
They walked across the lot to the motel proper, down the side of the long building, until they reached his room. Using the large key, attached to a reddish-brown piece of plastic in the shape used for motel room keys for the last fifty years, he opened the door to the room’s darkness. Stepping in behind him, watching him turn on the dim light, Gabriela could smell the muskiness of an old air conditioner and bedding used way beyond its functional limit.
He walked directly over to a worn, six-drawer dr
esser with a full mirror in which the silver reflective material had been eroded by moisture and time. Looking at her in the mirror as he poured bourbon into a partially clean water glass, he asked, “Want some?”
She moved toward the broken-down chair sitting in the corner of the room, next to the long heating/air conditioning unit. Its moan quietly filled the room with ambient sound. “Sure.” She took a seat, crossing her long legs as she sank into the worn-out cushion.
He poured a second glass, then walked over to her, his arm extended. With no other options, he sat on the edge of the bed, two feet or so away from her. “So, what’s your story?”
Gabriela took a sip of the bourbon. “Do you really need to know?” She waited, then gave him the biggest smile of the night, her eyes lighting up. “I don’t think so. Just think of me as some sort of gift the gods have sent you in your time of troubles.”
His head and shoulder rocked back. “My troubles. What do you know about my troubles?”
She put her drink down on the tiny, scratched and stained wooden table that sat next to her chair and stood. She moved across those two feet until she was standing right in front of him, between his legs. His eyes had nowhere else to look but at the red satin blouse and its downward trajectory. She waited as he sat silently, his breath deepening, though he was probably unaware. Finally, she reached down and lifted his chin, forcing his eyes to hers. “Not enough.”
His forehead furrowed. “Not enough what?”
She smiled, a gentle smile, knowing the man was totally under her spell. “Your troubles. I don’t know enough about your troubles.” She reached out and put her hands on either side of his head. She ran her fingers through his oily hair. “And I can’t help you if I don’t know what your troubles are.”
He pulled back, almost angry. “You here to help me? Is that it?”
She responded immediately, pulling away from him, turning toward the door. “Not if you don’t want me to.”
She took a step, but he reached out and grabbed her arm. She spun on him, fire in her eyes. “You don’t touch me until I say you can.” She didn’t need to hit him.
“Sorry, sorry.” His voice fell away as his hands withdrew. He shook his head. “Sure, sure. I guess I can tell you. Hell, I ain’t told nobody else, ‘cept my brother.”
She stepped back between his legs, fully aware that her fragrance was filling his nostrils. She put his hands on the sides of her blouse but in a way that made it very clear that they should go no further until invited to do so. She lifted his chin again. “Now, you tell Gabriela what has given you so much trouble that you sit here every night, alone, angry.”
It took Zeke a solid five minutes to tell her the story of losing his coal business to progress and a collapsing economy and his bourbon business to a man who cheated him in a card game. The whole time he spoke, Gabriela stood patiently, feeling his breath on the bare skin between her breasts, tolerating the invasion of her personal space for the sake of the mission. Finally, she asked. “And why do you sit here night after night. What are you waiting for?”
Zeke looked at her and took a deep breath. “Vengeance, woman, vengeance.”
Day Five
37
Sonia woke early, five thirty in the morning. She rolled over and was awake again at six ten. By six thirty she knew why she couldn’t sleep. It was Day Five.
She dragged herself out of bed by six forty and decided she needed one of her three-mile runs to get the day going. She did some of her best thinking while she ran. This time, however, she’d have to work hard to push aside the sound of the clock ticking in her mind.
Sonia had checked in with Jet and Tee when she and Brad had gotten back to town. She had been disappointed when Jet told her that she hadn’t found anything definitive about who might or might not have had access to the Horatio Blevins property at night. There were surveillance cameras on the site, but Jet’s trained eye found several paths by which a person with knowledge of the property could avoid being caught on them.
Sonia had been even more disturbed when she heard that Johnny had been a no-show for his assignment with Tee. She worried about him, but when she’d followed up with a phone call, he hadn’t responded. At least Tee and Jet had picked up the slack and continued working on the list of Rasmussen clients.
As Sonia turned into her third mile, she continued to struggle with the day’s time-crunch and the fact that she was caught between two theories. On the one hand, what she and Brad had learned in Hindman made it quite clear that Ezekiel Bartley had a solid motive for murdering Victor Rasmussen and a lengthy absence from home which created opportunity. Since she couldn’t examine the body, she wasn’t certain if his pistol met the benchmark for means, but it wasn’t hard to imagine it fit the bill one way or the other. Motive, opportunity, and almost means. An almost perfect case against Ezekiel Bartley as a murder suspect.
On the other hand, Missy Charles met a few of those benchmarks herself. With Carl Rasmussen on the verge of dying and her believing she could run the company better than Victor or his son, Davey, Missy had plenty of motive for eliminating Victor. If Victor was out of the picture before Carl died, she would have every opportunity to convince the old man that she was the one who should take over the company, not the young man who was currently out living the high life in Dubai, searching for a new racehorse for his daddy. As for opportunity, no one knew more about Victor’s patterns and whereabouts than Missy Charles. Maybe this whole story of him “gallivanting around Europe” and communicating by email was pure bull, made up to cover her tracks for a long time. And, unfortunately, Missy had never opened the bogus email that Sonia had sent her—not unusual for a busy executive, but it meant that the virus Sonia had embedded had not yet had a chance to do its work.
Now, as for means, Sonia wasn’t quite sure, but there might well be something on Carl’s computer that not only locked down her motive but gave a hint or two as to how she had planned to accomplish the dirty deed. Maybe there would even be information that would shed some light on how the murderer had gotten access to the Horatio Blevins facility. She just had to get to that computer and find out what it was that Missy and her co-conspirator had erased.
When Sonia got back from her run, she jumped immediately into the shower then dressed as quickly as possible. Finishing her makeup, she looked at her watch. Almost nine o’clock. Not too early to visit Frieda Schiessl. She hated to admit it, but she hoped Carl was still in the hospital. If he was, she might be able to get another shot at that computer, a shot that might expose the very thing she needed to close this case.
She finished her coffee and stepped into her living room. “Tee, Tee. Wake up, sleepy head. It’s Day Five and I’ve got something I need you to do with Jet.”
Tee looked at her sleepy-eyed. “Yeah, what?”
“Listen, I’m going out to Carl’s house to see if I can get into that computer again. But we’re running out of time and maybe, just maybe, Missy Charles will do something today that proves she’s the one. I need you and Jet to team up and follow her around today. See where she goes, what she’s up to.”
Tee sat up on the couch. “Why both of us? Can’t I do it alone?”
“Right. Well, here’s the thing. It’s hard enough to follow someone for a little while without getting noticed, but to do it all day, that’s really tough. I’d like you and Jet to switch off. One follows for a while, then the other. That way, she’s much less likely to figure out she’s being tailed. Okay?”
Tee rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “Yes, ma’am, boss lady.” She stood and stretched. “I’ll give Jet a call then grab a quick breakfast. We’ll be on her like white on rice.”
Sonia chuckled. “Whatever. Thanks. I’m out of here. Check in with me during the day, okay?”
Tee nodded, still stretching, then gave her sister a silent wave goodbye.
Sonia moved quickly down the steps of her apartment and headed for her car. Sliding into her old Subaru, she could only hope t
hat somehow the clock would move exceedingly slow on this last day of the investigation. No such luck. She could feel each minute of it slipping through her hands.
Sonia drove down New Circle Road to Tates Creek Road, then another mile to Carl Rasmussen’s community. Using her smile, her big brown eyes, and her knowledge of Rasmussen’s housekeeper’s name, she was able to get through the security gate and drive directly to his home. She walked up to the front door and rang the bell, practicing her speech about needing one more chance to look at Carl’s computer because the last two-some that had come had failed to extract the proper file. As she waited for Frieda to answer the door, she put a frustrated pout on her face. It got easier when she had to try and then try again to get Frieda to respond.
It finally hit her. Frieda was not there. Sonia hoped, for his sake, that her absence didn’t mean that Carl had passed away. Taking a deep breath, she realized that whether it did or not, she still needed to get inside that house and find out what was on his computer.
As she looked around, hoping that no one was paying any attention to her as she stood at the front door, Sonia knew that there were now two things she always kept with her when she was working. The first was the .38 she had strapped to her ankle, something that had seemed cumbersome at first, but to which she had become quite accustomed. And since the episode the other night, something she would never be without. “Sending a message,” or not, when someone shoots in your direction, you want to have something more to respond with than your stapler.
The other thing, actually two things, she always had with her were the binoculars and lock picks that Brad had given her when they had first agreed to work together in a loose partnership. Professional level tools, all of them, she kept the binoculars in her car. They were too cumbersome to carry and were rarely needed. The lock picks, on the other hand, were in a neat little leather case, not much more to deal with than a cellphone.
