by Jonas Saul
At the side door of the apartment building, the trio entered and made their way up to Parkman’s apartment. He pulled his keys, then stopped. The door had marks and scratches and was slightly dented inward.
“Oh shit,” he whispered. “Someone’s been here since I left.” He stepped back and pointed at the door so Joffrey and Aaron could see. “That’s new. Look how the door is dented in a bit here, and here.”
Joffrey put a finger to his lips for silence. He tried the door handle. The latch wasn’t engaged. The door slid open on its own.
All three of them stepped back behind the wall for cover.
Joffrey motioned that he would enter first as he withdrew his sidearm. He held up three fingers and lowered them one at a time. When the last one dropped, he faced the door and kicked it all the way open.
“Police!” he shouted. “We’re coming in.”
Parkman followed as Joffrey cleared the kitchen, Aaron close behind, his hands up, fingers flexing.
“Oh shit,” Joffrey said at the far end of the kitchen.
“What?” Parkman asked.
Joffrey ran back through the kitchen. On his way by Parkman, he said, “Let’s make sure the place is clear first.”
He moved down the hall toward the bedrooms.
Parkman, followed by Aaron, stepped through the kitchen and turned to look at what Joffrey had seen.
“Oh, shit is right,” Aaron said.
Three men were sprawled out on the carpeted floor. One was wide-eyed with a dead stare, blood caking the side of his neck from what looked like a bullet hole. The other one was just as skinny and also just as dead. Part of his lower jaw was broken and his neck seemed the wrong shape and size for normal breathing.
The third guy was still alive, breathing, chest rising and falling slowly. His head was bloody on both sides. Maybe his jaw was broken, too.
“That third guy is going to need medics right away,” Aaron said.
“Clear,” Joffrey shouted from down the hall.
He entered the living room and stopped beside Parkman.
“What the hell happened here?” Joffrey asked.
“No idea,” Parkman said in a daze.
“Recognize any of them?”
“Yeah. The guy who is still breathing. His name’s Derek. Don’t have a last name. Works for Violeta. This may be where they’ve been dumping bodies so the police come calling on me.”
“Let’s call this in right away. You’ve been in Toronto and with me. Perfect alibi.” Joffrey patted Parkman on the back. “Nothing to worry about.”
Parkman pulled out his cell phone. “Yeah, but I’m gonna have to move now. Can’t live here after this shit—”
“Freeze!” someone shouted from behind them.
Parkman recoiled as if slapped. His cell phone went airborne as he pulled it from his pocket. The phone hit the couch, bounced and landed beside Derek’s inert form.
Joffrey lifted his arms and tried to turn around.
“I said, freeze. Santa Rosa Police. Don’t move.”
They came through the kitchen behind Joffrey, Parkman and Aaron. Without looking back, Parkman counted two, possibly three officers.
“We were told there would be three men here harassing a girl and look what we find when we walk in. Three men who appear to be ready to leave.”
The officers were right behind them now, but Parkman was sure they hadn’t seen the bodies yet.
“I’m a police officer,” Joffrey said. “From Toronto. We were just about to call you guys.”
“Bullshit. Keep your hands up.”
Parkman’s left wrist was pulled down, then his right. Ties were clipped on his wrists. They did the same to Aaron, then Joffrey.
The cop behind Parkman pulled him back which opened a line of sight to the bodies on the living room floor.
There were three Santa Rosa officers standing in Parkman’s dining room. Their jaws dropped at the same time. The youngest one’s face drained of blood.
“Oh, man, are you three in for a long night. Better call homicide.”
Chapter 34
Violeta waited patiently as Martin pulled to the curb three houses down from the Roberts’ residence. It was full dark now, no sign of the day’s sun on the horizon. Only its heat remained. Would she see another sunrise from her bedroom or the back deck? Or would it be from inside a jail cell?
Violeta set her purse on the floor of the car and leaned forward.
“This is something I have to do on my own, Martin. It won’t be dangerous. At least I don’t think so. That’s why I want you to leave and come back after an hour. Go get something to eat, have dinner. But before you depart, I want your gun just in case.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me waiting out here?”
“No. It won’t be dangerous. But if someone gets hostile, I would like a little protection. If I leave the premises earlier than an hour, I’ll call you. But for now, I want your gun and I want you clear of this place.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He reached inside his jacket and then handed back his piece, grip first.
“I’m leaving my purse in the back. Keep the car locked.”
“Of course.”
She slid along the seat, slipped the gun into the pocket of her small jacket, grabbed her walking cane, and opened the door.
As soon as she closed the door, Martin drove off. She knew he would be back in an hour. She could count on him.
Two cars whooshed by, the wind cooling her. She needed fresh air, a breeze. In the back of the car, the more she thought about what Tam had done, the sicker her insides got. But Violeta was smart. She would play this out and, as an upstanding member of the community, she would lobby this fiasco until it disappeared. The public, a jury of her peers, if it ever came to that, would take her side. She could overcome this and she was up to the challenge.
Violeta had been the one trampled on. Her husband walked out on her. She was trying to raise a daughter on her own. No one could prove she told Tam to kill anyone. Certainly not her bodyguards who wouldn’t dare testify against her. They’d be complicit in a hundred different ways.
Another car whooshed by. It made her smile with delight. Everything would work out for the better. Tam was a seventeen-year-old sniveling, whining child. And when everything had calmed down, that child would be disciplined. Even if it took years, discipline wasn’t dictated by age. A twenty-five-year old Tam Rood could still be raped and beaten over and over. And who would come to the hospital room to save her and pay her medical bills? Her mother, because that’s what moms do. They take care of their babies. Violeta would exact her revenge and torture her daughter and come out looking like the hero by saving her decrepit ass every time.
“Oh, Tam, am I ever going to take care of you for this,” she whispered to the wind.
She took a step forward, then another, until the Roberts’ house was on her left.
She was in charge. This was her gig. Even if things seemed off kilter, she was the one who could even it up. Only her. No one else had her tenacity, her ability to hold even the most tenuous piece of wool together in the crazy world she wove.
And it was people like Sarah’s parents who needed a little reminder of what discipline was. Sarah had hurt the cause. Sarah had disrupted the order of things. With the police heading to Parkman’s apartment to find dead bodies, it would be Sarah who got arrested for murder, not Violeta. That part was easy to understand. How could Violeta control what two ex-cons did with their life? Actually, Violeta was suddenly sure she didn’t even know any ex-cons. What could Tam possibly be talking about? The only reason she knew a man named Parkman was because he worked for her once. He had done a wonderful job in finding her lost husband, Oliver. Concerning her involvement, the rest is all filled with doubt. Reasonable doubt. The kind a jury would have difficulty with.
That meant Violeta was free and would remain free regardless of people like Sarah Roberts and Tam Rood, two enemies who would get theirs in
short order.
Violeta headed up the driveway of Caleb and Amelia Roberts’ house, the knife in the tip of her cane securely hidden, the gun with at least six bullets in it, ready and willing.
Did it ever feel good to be in control again.
She couldn’t wait to see the look in Sarah’s parents’ eyes when she told them why she was there and why she had to hurt them so bad.
“This is going to be delightful.”
She rang the doorbell.
Chapter 35
Out on the street, which the Santa Rosa Police Department had blocked off with vehicles, Parkman and Joffrey stood with one of the officers in charge who had introduced himself as Gibbons. Aaron sat in a police cruiser two cars over watching through the side window.
“Okay, you already explained how you came upon the bodies.” Gibbons had a nasty cleft palate. Someone had done a hack job on his upper lip and it seems he never went back to the plastic surgeon. The top of his mouth stayed open in the shape of the top part a small tent, exposing yellow teeth stained years ago by a bad smoking habit. As he had taken notes, he held a half-used cigarette between two fingers, the heater end extinguished. Parkman had asked about the cancer stick, and he was told the best way to quit was to suck on a dead cigarette. It made Parkman yearn for a toothpick.
“Tell me again what you think happened here,” Gibbons said.
“Your officers mentioned there was a woman who was supposed to be in my apartment?” Parkman asked.
“What if they did? I can’t tell you what they think they know or don’t know.”
Frustrated, Parkman said, “This is the work of a woman trying to defend herself.”
“Now you’re saying some woman did this?”
“Yes, Sarah Roberts. She would’ve come here looking for me.”
Gibbons guffawed, then calmed to a chuckle. “You think a woman killed two men and then smashed that big guy’s face in the front door, and then just walked away.”
“Absolutely. Sarah is quite capable.”
“Whoa, I’d like to meet this woman.”
“Look,” Joffrey stepped closer. “This is serious.”
The look on Gibbons’ face changed. He clenched his jaws so tight the muscles on his cheeks stuck out. “You think I don’t take my job seriously?”
“Right now, I don’t.” Joffrey stood his ground. “I’m with the Toronto Police Department and—”
“Long way from home,” Gibbons cut in.
“There was an incident where Sarah was shot earlier this week. She was admitted to a hospital and we think she’s been taken here, to Santa Rosa, by Violeta Payne.”
“This Sarah Roberts. Is that the same woman you spoke of a moment ago? You think she did all that,” he gestured with his arm toward the building, “in your apartment with a gunshot wound after leaving an emergency room in a hospital on the other side of the country under suspicious circumstances?”
“You don’t know Sarah,” Parkman said, gritting his teeth.
“Okay, say you’re right, after I take you three to separate holding cells for the night, or at least until I can sort this all out, what’s her next play? Where’s more bodies going to be piling up?”
“Two places need to be checked out,” Parkman said. “Violeta Payne’s home and the home of Sarah’s parents on Olivet Road. She may have gone home to assure her parents she’s okay.”
“Hey boss.” One of the three officers who had originally entered Parkman’s apartment held up a cell phone. “You’re going to want to take this.”
Gibbons looked over his shoulder, then back at Parkman and Joffrey.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
He walked over and took the phone. From where Parkman was, he couldn’t hear him well enough to listen in.
Oh Sarah, where are you?
This was a royal cluster fuck. He didn’t know for sure if Sarah was even in Santa Rosa. Violeta could have wanted rid of those ex-cons and left them in his apartment for him to deal with. It was Aaron who had felt that it was Sarah’s handiwork.
An ambulance pulled away with Derek, the lone survivor of the apartment carnage, its red lights blinding Parkman momentarily.
Ambulance.
He looked down at Joffrey’s car parked on the side of the road and then followed the line of cars behind it.
The modified ambulance was gone.
“Joffrey, remember that large truck ambulance thing we passed coming in?”
Joffrey turned that way, his eyes searching. “Yeah.”
“It’s gone.”
“So.” He looked back at Parkman.
“That was Sarah. She would’ve stolen an ambulance and left the Toronto hospital. She hates hospitals. I told her about Violeta and Santa Rosa before she got shot. She would’ve had enough time to drive here from Toronto.”
“Crossing the border in a stolen ambulance?”
“Look, I haven’t got it all figured out. But that was Sarah. I’m so sure I’m right, I can smell it.”
Gibbons walked back over. “Okay, that phone call was a little game changer.”
“What happened?” Parkman leaned in, eager to hear if it was about Sarah.
“Officer,” Gibbons motioned for a cop standing a few feet away. “Release their wrist ties.”
The cop stepped behind them and cut them off.
“That was Oliver Payne at the Reed Clinic where he has been waiting for his wife, Violeta Payne for over an hour. They were the ones who alerted us that those guys,” he pointed up at the building again, “who we found in your apartment, were there to work a girl over. He understood the girl’s name is Sarah Roberts.”
Parkman gasped and rubbed his face. He could sure use a toothpick.
“Oliver’s daughter explained some of what her mother, Violeta, has been up to and he thinks they’re all heading over to Sarah’s parents’. At least that’s where his daughter is headed. Two of my officers just confirmed that they were waiting for Violeta with Oliver as his ex-wife is a suspect in another crime.”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you,” Joffrey said.
“Okay, give me five minutes. I’ll round up a couple of officers and we’ll all go over and make sure everything is okay. When we’re done there, we’ll go downtown because I want a written statement from all of you.”
“Agreed,” Joffrey said.
“But hurry,” Parkman added.
While he waited, Parkman leaned on a cruiser and thought about what Sarah had told him when they met in Toronto. He thought about all that life had thrown her way. All the violence, all the killing, and he realized that maybe she was right. Maybe she should quit. After this, if they all made it through the night, he would offer his blessing. He would tell her he thought she should stop what she was doing and go live a peaceful life with Aaron.
Part of the reason was selfish.
He couldn’t take much more of the pain Sarah had to go through with the life she had chosen.
He loved her too much.
Chapter 36
“Coming,” a man yelled from inside the house.
Violeta forced a pleasant smile. The door opened, and an attractive American male specimen stood under the inside light of the front foyer. The smell of something delicious cooking wafted out, reminding Violeta that she hadn’t eaten since that morning.
“Good evening,” she said. “Wow, does that ever smell good. What are you cooking up this evening?”
“Can I help you?” Caleb asked.
Straight to business. She liked that in a man. Maybe Sarah got her balls from this guy. Violeta reminded herself to watch him. If anyone tried any hero stuff, it would be a man like Caleb. That meant he needed to be hurt first. Or killed first if necessary.
“I’m sorry, I should’ve introduced myself. Sarah told me to pop by anytime when she was in town. I just thought—”
“You know Sarah? How do you know my daughter?”
Interrupting her only added to his eventual tortu
re. Play nice, die fast. Disrespect her and death becomes an excruciating agony where the only release is … death.
“Yes, Sarah and I go back to a year ago. She helped me with a little matter and I told her I wanted to repay her in some way.”
“Let me guess. She wouldn’t take any form of repayment?” Caleb asked.
