The Real Mrs. Price

by J. D. Mason

  “What would happen if we didn’t give the money back?” she said quickly.

  “Lucy!” Roman said.

  “We could split the money four ways,” she anxiously explained. “That’s almost twelve million each.” The blue in her eyes deepened as she became more animated.

  “We said we wouldn’t!” Roman shouted.

  Lucy turned to him. “We shouldn’t,” she said. “But this is … this is it, Roman. This is that point of no return. We could do this and never look back and build new lives for ourselves.”

  He emphatically shook his head. “No. How long do you think you could live on that money, Lucy?”

  “On twelve million dollars?” she nearly screeched. “A long-ass time.”

  “How long do you think people like him would let you live?” He motioned to Plato.

  Lucy’s wide eyes glazed over. “Would they send someone else?” she asked, turning to Plato.

  The silliness of it all was amusing at first, but now it was starting to grate on him. “Give me the account numbers, Lucy,” he said calmly.

  That brave and pretty woman defiantly shook her head. “No.”

  “Dammit, Lucy,” Roman muttered, pulling her back by the arm and stepping between her and Plato. “You can’t, man,” he said with a pleading look on his face. “You can’t. She doesn’t understand.”

  “But you do,” Plato said with a nod.

  Roman turned to Lucy. “Give him the numbers, Lucy.”

  “No.”

  “He will take them from you,” he explained with the heavy weight of warning in his tone.

  That’s it, Medlock. Talk to her.

  “I don’t have them on me,” she said shakily.

  Liar. Liar.

  “He’ll make you tell him where they are,” Roman continued.

  Lucy glanced nervously over Roman’s shoulder at Plato and swallowed. “You’re going to turn them in to the police. Aren’t you?”

  An abrupt knock at the door interrupted this soirée.

  It was Marlowe.

  Roman let her inside. Marlowe glanced between the trio, searching their faces for answers to the host of questions she likely had. Finally, she rested those beautiful, amber-colored eyes of hers on Plato.

  “Do you have them?”

  He looked at Lucy. “I’m working on it.” Plato glanced over to the desk and then turned to Roman, pulled a small laptop from the bag he’d carried into the place, and motioned for Roman to sit down. “Fire it up.”

  Roman stared quizzically at him but reluctantly sat down and did what he was told.

  “Open up an e-mail,” Plato told him, waiting until he had. He took a step toward Lucy. “I need those numbers,” he said calmly. “Right now, Mrs. Price.”

  She paused and turned to Marlowe first and then back to Plato. Lucy reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out her cell phone. “They’re on here,” she sheepishly admitted, tapping the screen a few times until she opened the document.

  Plato took her phone and stood over Roman. “You type while I talk,” he instructed him.

  Plato began reciting each digit while Roman typed them into the body of that e-mail until the two of them had finished.

  Next, Plato pulled the flash drive from his pocket and plugged it into the USB port on the laptop. “Attach this file to that e-mail.”

  Marlowe stood back, watching this whole thing unfold like she was watching a play at the theater. Plato made it a point not to look at her. In another time, another place, another dimension, he’d have walked on hot rocks for that woman. He’d have imprinted himself on her in such a way that no mother fucker in his right mind would have the courage to even look at her. He’d have marked her like an animal, branded his fingerprints onto her skin, and carved his initials into her ass. But alliances are funny things. And men who did what he did had no place for them.

  “Enter this e-mail address,” Plato instructed Roman. He read the address from his phone and checked it for accuracy after Roman had typed it.

  “Who’re you sending it to?” Marlowe asked from someplace behind him. “Plato? Are you sending it to the police?”

  Lucy looked helplessly at Marlowe.

  “We should send this to the police, Wells,” Roman interjected.

  “You’re not sending it to the police?” Marlowe asked, panic rising in her voice. She’d closed the distance between him and her. He could feel it without even turning to look. “We’re supposed to send it to Quentin. We can take it to them. We can drive there!”

  “Send,” Plato said, staring at Roman.

  Roman stared up at him, shaking his head. “No, man! She needs for me to send it to the police! I’m not doing this!” he said, starting to get up. Plato grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shoved him across the room, sat down in front of that laptop, and pressed the magic button.

  A hush fell across the room when he did.

  “What did you do?” Marlowe asked, coming over to him, taking control of the mouse and searching for that e-mail. She looked at him. “What the hell did you just do, Plato?” Her voice cracked. Tears filled her eyes.

  He finally looked at her. “My job, Marlowe,” he said coldly.

  That look of disbelief in her eyes cut into him. Marlowe stepped away from him, but only for a moment.

  “Oh no,” Lucy said, covering her mouth and shaking her head.

  Plato closed his laptop and stood up to leave.

  “Tell me you … you wouldn’t do that to me,” Marlowe said tearfully. “I know you wouldn’t. We can still send the information to Quentin, baby. Let’s just go. Let’s get in the car and go there.”

  Baby. Oh, how he loved it when she called him baby.

  “Put it down on the table,” she said, pushing him to try to turn him away from the door.

  Plato could almost hear the panicked beating of her heart. He could smell the odor of her fear, but he couldn’t let it matter. He couldn’t let it mean something to him, and he couldn’t come to her rescue.

  “Move, Marlowe,” he told her. She was blocking his way to the door.

  “No. No, just … just sit down and open that e-mail and send it to the police, or we can go there together,” she said, searching for any sign of hope in him. “We can go together and take it to them, Plato.”

  She had to move. He moved her, pushing her aside, clearing the path for him to leave.

  “You sonofabitch!” Marlowe yelled, hitting him on the back and shoulders with her fists. “You fucking sonofabitch!” she cried. She sobbed. She wailed, realizing that he had just betrayed her in the worst way. “How could you do this! How could you…” her voice trailed off, tears streamed down her face, and Roman held on to her as Plato made his way downstairs to his car. He hadn’t come for her. How many times had he told her that?

  Keeps Me Awake

  QUENTIN WAS ALL SET to follow this Wells character until he saw Marlowe go into that hotel room. He waited in the parking lot and watched Wells drive away, but he stayed and waited for her to come out. Fifteen minutes later, she did. Marlowe looked upset even from where he was sitting. She got into her car and sat there for several moments before finally pulling out of the lot. Quentin followed her back to her house and waited for a few moments, expecting Wells to return, but after an hour, he still hadn’t shown up.

  Osiris Wells was a character. Quentin had done some research on him, if you could call it that. Sure, Wells had taught for a semester at the University of Illinois’s math department, but there was no physical address for the man. Quentin had managed to track down several post office box numbers, but other than that and his driving record, which was absolutely flawless, there was nothing on the man. He couldn’t even be sure if the man was a citizen of this country. Wells was a random blip on the radar, and that was it.

  Marlowe had to have an accomplice and Wells was it. She had to have had some way of controlling Price to keep him from hurting her, and she had to have had a way to leave the crime sc
ene. She could’ve walked to Nelson, but then what? How the hell did she get home? Marlowe had had help, and Wells had been sticking to her like glue since he’d come to town.

  Quentin started his car, turned on the headlights, and was just getting ready to drive off when he thought he saw something move on one side of Marlowe’s house. She’d turned off all the lights and had likely gone to bed. He got out of his car, drew his gun and stayed low, crept around to the side of her house, and stared across her backyard that opened up to a sea of high grasses. It couldn’t have been Wells. He’d walked in and out of that house like he owned the damn place.

  Quentin turned to leave and caught a glimpse of whoever or whatever it was out of the corner of his eye, snaking through the grass away from Marlowe’s. It was definitely a man.

  “Stop!” he shouted. Without thinking, Quentin took off after the man, forgetting all about the dangers of snakes hidden in those weeds. He stopped when he stepped on one and nearly fell on his ass.

  He wasn’t equipped to trek through these grasses. Quentin turned and hurried back until he was safely in Marlowe’s yard. All the commotion had gotten her out of bed.

  “What—who’s that?” she asked, coming outside in her bathrobe and pointing a pistol at him.

  “It’s me, Marlowe,” he said, out of breath. “It’s Quentin.”

  Marlowe lowered her gun. “What the hell’s going on, Quentin?” she asked frantically.

  “Who attacked you, Marlowe?” he demanded to know, marching toward her. “Who was that man who ran across that field?”

  Marlowe looked at him like he was speaking Greek.

  “Who the hell was it?”

  “If I told you that it was Eddie,” she said dismally, “would you believe me?”

  Quentin took a deep breath, swallowed, and shook his head. “No. I probably would not.”

  She was delusional. She was lying. She was digging a deeper hole for herself with each passing conversation between the two of them.

  “Where’s Wells, Marlowe?”

  “I don’t know,” she muttered dismally.

  “Who is he?”

  Marlowe shrugged and hesitated before finally responding, “I don’t know.”

  “It’s coming together,” he said. “I might end up with nothing but circumstantial evidence, but that’s better than nothing. You had help. I believe that he was that help.”

  He expected her to argue or dispute what he was saying, but she didn’t.

  “I’ve got to move forward with this,” he finally said. “A man’s been dead for well over a month, with no arrest made but with all the fingers pointed at you.”

  “I told you what happened.”

  “You told me bullshit! You’ve been lying to me since the beginning of this thing, and I’m fucking tired of it.”

  “I didn’t kill him!” she yelled. “You just chased Eddie out of my backyard, Quentin,” she said, her voice straining. “He’s not dead!”

  “Then who is?”

  Marlowe shook her head and opened her mouth to speak but didn’t utter a word.

  It was late. Quentin was tired. And he was fed up. He pulled his handcuffs from his duty belt. “Marlowe Price, I’m arresting you for the murder of Edward Price. You have the right to remain silent…”

  Marlowe whimpered like a small child as he put those handcuffs on her. It pained him to do this. He didn’t even feel right doing it, but it had to be done, if for no other reason than to scare the shit out of her to get her to finally tell him the truth about everything.

  “Don’t do this, Quentin,” she pleaded as he marched her to his car, pushed her head down, and shoved her in the backseat.

  “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you…”

  I Never Learned

  MARLOWE WALKED THROUGH THE WORLD like she wasn’t a part of it. She saw herself riding in the back of Quentin’s squad car like she was watching a movie. Saw him pull her out of it and take her inside that police station. Heard him tell someone her name. She watched as one of the officers pressed the tips of her fingers against that black ink pad and transferred her fingerprints to that paper. She saw herself being photographed, stripped down naked, searched, and given other clothes to wear. Marlowe watched them lead her down a long, sterile corridor, carrying blankets, sheets, and a pillow, and then opening the prison door for her to step inside. She didn’t see them closing that door behind her, but she heard it. The finality of that sound of metal clanking against metal brought her back to her senses and drove her to her knees in tears.

  * * *

  Marlowe couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t breathe. She’d been in jail for less than twelve hours and could already feel herself starting to die inside.

  Quentin showed up at her cell late the next day. “You’ll get your bond hearing day after tomorrow,” he told her. “You got a lawyer?”

  She just looked at him.

  “We’ll assign one to you.”

  Marlowe had never prayed asking to be spared this injustice because she’d never wanted to give it credence. When you commit energy to a thing, it feeds off it and grows. Last night was the breaking point. The scales tipped against her, leaving Marlowe truly and utterly alone in a fight that she couldn’t win. Lucille Price had feigned a kinship with Marlowe, citing Eddie as that bond between them. He was their burden. He was their ignorance. He was their enemy and the thing they feared most. But she was never Marlowe’s friend. Lucy had her own agenda from the start. Marlowe was just a pawn she’d used to get it.

  Plato was the one who’d sickened her the most. Once again, Marlowe had ignored all the warning signs to see those things she only wanted to see. His big, black, bald, and beautiful ass was exactly what those bones had warned her about. And he was charming. He knew what to say to her and how to say it. Plato, the master manipulator, the father of all lies, had played the hell out of Marlowe, and she’d let him fuck her to boot.

  “Come on, Mrs. Price,” the young officer said, opening her cell door. “You get to make your one call.”

  Shou Shou answered on the first ring. “You all over the news,” she said dismally.

  “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “I know.”

  Marlowe thought about all the things that she could say to her aunt in this one call, but nothing important came to mind, so she talked about unimportant things.

  “Can you have Belle take my herb garden to her house? I’d hate for them to die.”

  “I will.”

  Tears stung her eyes.

  “Can you put some flowers on Marjorie’s grave for me on Saturday? I forgot to do it last time, and I don’t want her mad at me.”

  “She still like tulips?”

  “She does. Pink ones.”

  “They say somebody broke into your house. Vandalized the place. Painted ugly words on the front of it.”

  Marlowe nodded introspectively. “I’m not surprised.”

  “We working on getting those locks fixed.”

  “Thank you, Auntie.”

  “You’re welcome to stay with me when you get out. They said you could get out on bail.”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t want to bring this mess to your house. My house, on the other hand, is already messy,” Marlowe joked.

  “Once we find out how much we need, me and Belle will come up with the money.”

  She was touched by the offer.

  “I’ve got to go, Auntie,” she said sadly.

  “I’ll see you soon, baby.”

  Marlowe hung up without saying good-bye.

  * * *

  Lucy had been riveted to the television all morning watching the news unfold of Marlowe’s arrest. Roman sat across from her, just as shocked by this whole turn of events that seemed to come out of nowhere.

  “They don’t have any proof that she killed Ed,” she said in disbelief. “How can they arrest her on that crap they call evidence?” She looked at Roman.

&nbs
p; Reporters talked about Marlowe’s possible motives, her lack of alibi, and repeated lies she’d told to the police as grounds for her arrest. And they suggested that she may have had an accomplice, a person of interest that police weren’t naming but were thoroughly investigating.

  “We did this to her,” Lucy said shamefully. “I can’t believe what I was thinking.”

  “There’s nothing else for us to do here, Lucy,” he told her. “We need to go home.”

  He was right, of course. But still, Lucy couldn’t help hoping that she could at least do something to try to help.

  “We could tell them about that money, Roman. We could tell them what Ed was doing before he disappeared.”

  “We’ve got no proof.”

  Lucy bit down on her lower lip. “I have those numbers written down at my house.”

  “We’ve got no PINs.”

  “But maybe they can find some way to recover them, Roman. They have people who can do that.”

  “Based on what? Our word?”

  “Our word carries more weight than hers right now.”

  He thought about it. “I just don’t see what good it would do.”

  Lucy turned her focus back to the news. “She must feel like we all just turned our backs on her.”

  “Didn’t we?”

  If he wanted to guilt her any more than she had already guilted herself, he was wasting his time.

  “Why’d you change your mind?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “I knew that once he got his hands on those account numbers, we’d lose it all. I just went crazy.” She looked at him. “Like Ed. Like maybe Tom Hilliard. Am I bad person?”

  “No worse than the rest of us in this crew,” he said soberly.

  “I guess we should go home.”

  He nodded. “It’s over. Might as well.”

  “What are you going to do when you get back?”

  He sighed. “Try and land some more work. I’ve got tons of medical bills that need to be paid. Remember?”

  “I’m selling the house,” she admitted. “And I’m thinking of moving out of state at the end of the semester. There’s a teaching opportunity in Washington State that I’m going to look into.”