House Rivals

by Mike Lawson

  Marjorie told Christie what she needed: “I want you to meet a guy named DeMarco in a bar and pick him up. You know, seduce him.”

  “What?” Christie said. Christie had hair the color of a raven’s wings but she acted so clueless that Marjorie always thought she should have been blond.

  “I need for there to be witnesses that you left the bar with him.”

  “I don’t understand,” Christie said.

  Ignoring her confusion, Marjorie continued. “Then you’re going to take him back here and screw him—he’s a good-looking guy, that part should be fun—then after he leaves, you rip your dress, punch your thighs a few times to make some bruises, maybe slap yourself in the face really hard—a cut lip would be good—then call the cops and say he raped you.”

  “Are you insane?” Christie said.

  “No. This guy is causing me problems and I want him arrested. And you’ll make five grand. I mean, I’d use a prostitute if I could, but I need somebody credible.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Christie, it’s not like you’re a virgin and you couldn’t possibly have thought that I was willing to give you five thousand dollars to give me a tip on the next big rollback at Walmart. The other thing is, I might have some more work for you after this guy’s out of my hair.”

  Marjorie was being sincere about that. She actually had considered using Christie before when there was a politician they’d wanted to catch fooling around with someone other than his wife. Christie was shaking her head, but Marjorie could see the gears slowly turning inside the bimbo’s not-so-big brain.

  “But I’d have to commit perjury, or whatever it’s called,” Christie said. “Then I could go to jail.”

  “Nah, you won’t have to commit perjury. They’ll arrest the guy and then I’ll go see him and tell him that if he leaves town, you’ll retract your statement.”

  “I don’t know,” Christie said.

  “Listen to me, Christie,” Marjorie said. It took her fifteen more minutes to convince Christie that the risks were small in comparison to the reward, and that other than spending a night or two in jail, nothing too bad would happen to DeMarco—not that Marjorie cared what happened to DeMarco. Marjorie eventually had to raise the price to eight grand, but in the end Christie agreed. It really helped that Christie couldn’t pay this month’s rent.

  Marjorie left saying, “For the next couple of nights you get all dressed up and be ready to go when my guy calls you. He’s a private detective named Heckler. I’m going to have him follow DeMarco and as soon as he lands someplace appropriate—you know, a bar or a restaurant—you get your ass over there and make him fall in love with you.”

  When Marjorie got back into the car with Dick and the boys, they were all mad at her for making them wait so long. They just had no appreciation for the sacrifices she made for them.

  It was nine p.m. by the time Bill finished working for the day. All the paperwork had taken longer than he’d expected and one lawyer wasn’t immediately available, and didn’t call back until after seven. But now he was finished, and it was time for a drink and some dinner. He felt like being around people—particularly female people—so he’d go someplace that was lively and had a decent crowd, maybe a country western bar that served a good steak. There was nothing better than riding a cowgirl.

  He powered down his laptop, put it inside the top drawer of his desk, and locked the desk. There wasn’t anything incriminating on the laptop, he just didn’t want to make it too easy for some loser who lived off food stamps to steal the thing. He put on his sport coat, checked to make sure he had his car keys and started to leave, but then stopped because he could hear it was still raining hard outside. He looked around to see if Marjorie had left an umbrella in the office; she hadn’t. Oh, well, it was just a short distance to his car. He turned off the lights, opened the door, ready to dash to his car—and there was the guy, a black ski mask on his face, pointing a gun at him.

  “Wait!” Bill yelled.

  The man didn’t wait. He pulled the trigger and blew out a chunk of the door frame above Bill’s head. When the shot was fired Bill fell backward into the office and the guy fired again, and this time the bullet hit the wall behind him.

  “Son of a bitch,” Bill screamed.

  Bill was now on his ass and the shooter was in a Weaver stance—legs spread, holding the pistol with two hands—still pointing the gun at Bill’s head. So Bill did the only thing he could: he reached out with his right foot and swung the door shut, then scrambled to his knees and threw the deadbolt in the lock. He was terrified the man was going to shoot right through the door and hit him. The next thought he had was the guy might kick open the door—that’s what they always did in the movies—and he needed a weapon. There wasn’t a gun in the office and the only thing he could think to use for a weapon was the wooden coatrack next to the door. He picked up the coatrack and stood to one side of the door. If the shooter kicked it open, Bill might be able to hit him in the head with the coatrack as soon as he came through the door. Now he just hoped the guy didn’t shoot through the wall next to the door.

  Bill stood next to the door listening. He didn’t hear anything outside—the rain didn’t help—but he figured at least a couple of minutes had passed since the last shot. Maybe the guy had decided to leave. Or maybe he was still outside waiting for Bill to come out.

  The office had one window, but the blinds were closed. He and Marjorie always kept them closed as they didn’t want people to see them inside the office and bother them. If he pushed back the blinds he’d be able to see if the shooter was still there, but he was afraid to push on the blinds as the shooter might see them move and shoot him through the window.

  So Bill did the only thing he could think to do: he called the cops. He dialed 911, whispered his name and address, and told the dispatcher he was hiding in the office.

  As he waited for the cops, he thought about what had happened. He hadn’t actually seen the guy. All he’d seen was the ski mask and the gun, and the hole in the muzzle of the gun had been enormous; it had looked like the entrance to a big black tunnel. But he hadn’t noticed anything about the shooter: he couldn’t say how tall he was, if he was fat or skinny, or how he was dressed. He just saw the ski mask and the gun. As for the gun, all he knew was that it was incredibly loud and fired a huge fucking bullet. The hole in the wall where the second bullet had hit was the size of a quarter. If one of those bullets had hit him in the head, it would have blown his brains through the back of his skull.

  He didn’t know how long ago he’d called the cops but it seemed like an eternity. They should have arrived by now. A long five minutes later, someone rapped hard on the door and said, “You inside the office, this is the Bismarck Police. If you’re armed, put down your weapon before you open the door.”

  Bill wasn’t going to just open the door. For all he knew, it could be the killer pretending to be a cop. He crawled over to the window, pulled down the slats on the blinds, and looked outside: flashing blue-and-red lights. Thank God.

  Bill wasted the next hour at the police station, being questioned by two detectives. When they asked him if he could describe the shooter, he told the truth: No. All he’d seen was a black mask and a gun. Plus, it had been dark outside and raining so hard that visibility wasn’t good.

  “How did the shooter know you’d be in your office at nine thirty at night?”

  “That’s easy,” Bill said. “I’m pretty sure I don’t own the only Porsche in Bismarck but I’ve never seen a red Boxster like mine. The guy may have been following me or maybe he just saw my car sitting in front of the office and decided to wait until I stepped outside.”

  “Do you have any enemies?” one of the detectives asked.

  “I can’t think of anybody who hates me enough to kill me,” Bill said. That was a lie. He knew who had tried to kill him.

  Bu
t the other detective, who knew Bill from the Elks, said, “Come on, Bill. You got a reputation for screwing anything in a skirt. Have you been diddling some married woman and maybe her husband decided to blow your pecker off?”

  “The guy wasn’t aiming at my pecker,” Bill said. He was being serious, but the detectives laughed. He thought about the detective’s question, however. The last married woman he’d slept with was six months ago up in Minot. He doubted the woman’s husband knew that his wife had committed adultery, and if he had known, it seemed pretty unlikely that he’d stew about the situation for six months before deciding to drive to Bismarck to kill him.

  The detectives finally ran out of questions, which was a relief to Bill. He wanted to get out of Bismarck. He needed to get out of Bismarck. Then the detective he knew from the Elks said, “Bill, do you want a couple of guys to escort you home and make sure nobody is waiting for you inside your house?”

  “Yeah,” Bill said. “I’d really appreciate that.”

  Two uniformed cops followed him to his house and made Bill wait outside for ten minutes while they searched the place. As soon as the cops left, Bill rushed to his bedroom and packed a duffel bag with enough clothes to last a week. He tossed the duffel bag onto the backseat of his Chevy Tahoe, and backed out of the garage. He sure as hell wasn’t taking the Porsche; the Porsche was like a mobile red sign that said: Here I am. Come kill me.

  Bill was gong to hide out in a cabin on the Knife River, about an hour and a half from Bismarck. The cabin belonged to a married woman named Rachel Collins who he’d had an affair with seven years ago and he knew she still owned the cabin. Rachel had an extraordinary body and a sense of humor to boot, and the affair had lasted five months—which was a long time for Bill. They had gone to her cabin a couple of times when they were seeing each other and Bill knew where she hid the spare key.

  Bill was almost positive that Rachel and her family wouldn’t be at the cabin because Rachel’s son would still be in school this time of year. In fact, her getting pregnant with her son was the reason they’d stopped seeing each other. Bill never knew if he was the child’s father but he was confident Rachel would never claim that he was. She broke off their affair because with a child on the way, she said she didn’t want to jeopardize her marriage; her husband was a good provider and—unlike Bill—she knew he wouldn’t cheat or abandon her. Bill didn’t disagree, but his feelings had actually been hurt when she told him that.

  As he was driving to the cabin all he could think about was why did Curtis decide to kill him? He knew the shooter had to have been Murdock and that Curtis had sent him, but he had no idea why. Did Curtis believe that he was going to give him up to the feds? Or, another thought, did Marjorie convince Curtis that Bill was somebody they couldn’t trust to keep his mouth shut?

  Bill didn’t have any answers. All he knew was that he had to go someplace where Murdock couldn’t find him and figure out what he was going to do next.

  He arrived at the cabin about two in the morning. He took a flashlight from the glove compartment of the Tahoe and found the spare key in the well house. He didn’t turn on the lights in the cabin. He dropped his duffel bag by the front door and used the flashlight to guide him to the bedroom. Without undressing, he fell onto the bed but had a hard time falling asleep. It’s hard to sleep when you know somebody wants you dead.

  26

  DeMarco called Westerberg. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m still in Minnesota. I’m—”

  “Well, you need to get out of bed and—”

  “I’m not in bed, goddamnit. I’m at the office and I’m . . .”

  “Somebody tried to kill Bill Logan last night.”

  “What? How do you know this?”

  “Because it was on the local news this morning. Somebody went to his office last night and took a shot at him. You need to call the Bismarck cops and find out what they know. According to the news, they don’t know anything. But the main thing is, we need to find Logan. He seems to have disappeared.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I went to his home and his office after I heard the news, and he’s not in either place.” Before Westerberg could ask another question, he said, “This could be our chance, Agent. If somebody tried to kill Logan, it has to be related to Sarah’s murder or Logan’s arrest. What I’m saying is, maybe Curtis ordered him killed because he’s afraid Logan will talk. I think Logan’s running scared and he’s hiding someplace, and if you offer him protection maybe we can turn him against Curtis and find out who killed Sarah.”

  Westerberg didn’t respond immediately, like she was mulling over what he’d just told her—or like she was wondering if he was telling her the truth. Westerberg wasn’t the trusting type. Finally she said, “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay, I’ll contact the Bismarck cops.”

  “Are you coming back to Bismarck?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be there as soon as I can. In the meantime, don’t do anything, DeMarco. You need to keep in mind that you don’t have a badge. And if somebody is running around shooting at people, you need to be careful.”

  DeMarco was touched that Westerberg would be concerned for him.

  Bill Logan woke up at eight feeling like he hadn’t slept a wink. He was exhausted. He was also hungry. There wasn’t anything in the refrigerator that wasn’t frozen so he pawed through the cupboards but all he could find were a couple cans of chili. He didn’t feel like chili for breakfast. There was a small restaurant a few miles from the cabin and also a general store and a gas station. He’d go get breakfast and then pick up some food so he’d have something other than chili to eat. And some booze.

  He hadn’t been to the cabin on the Knife River in over six years, and when he used to come with Rachel, they hardly left the narrow bed in the cabin. So he wasn’t worried about anyone local knowing or recognizing him. Nonetheless, he found a blue Nike baseball cap in a closet and he wore it and sunglasses to the restaurant.

  After breakfast, he decided to call Marjorie. He started to punch their office number into his cell phone when he remembered Marjorie being concerned about the FBI tapping their phones. He still thought it pretty unlikely the FBI could obtain a warrant to tap their phones, but figured why take the chance. There was a pay phone by the general store adjacent to the restaurant. He walked over to it, called the office, and Marjorie answered.

  “It’s me,” Bill said.

  “My, God! Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “Never mind where I am. Go to the pay phone we use, you know the one I mean, and I’ll call you there in three minutes.”

  There was a pay phone next to the Subway shop in the strip mall by their office. He and Marjorie used it occasionally when they made calls they didn’t want traced to them. Bill had used it often enough that he knew the number. He waited three minutes, called Marjorie at the Subway pay phone, and she answered immediately, saying again, “Where are you?”

  “I’m not going to tell you. Why did Curtis send Murdock to kill me?”

  “What are you talking about? Curtis didn’t send anybody.”

  “Then who tried to blow my head off?”

  “I don’t know but it wasn’t Murdock. Maybe it was some woman’s husband. I mean, considering the way you—”

  “It was Murdock.”

  “Bill, you need to get your head on straight. According to the cops—I talked to a guy I know—he said the shooter took two shots at you from a distance of five or six feet and both shots went high. Can you imagine a professional killer missing you from five feet away?”

  “I yelled before he fired the first shot and that might have thrown off his aim. And then I fell back into the office when he was firing the second shot. The guy just missed.”

  “Bill, Murdock wouldn’t have missed. And I talked to Curtis—”

&nb
sp; “Yeah, I know you did.”

  “What the hell does that mean? Do you think I told Curtis to have you killed? That’s not only paranoid, it’s stupid. I explained to Curtis that you weren’t going to have a problem with the assault charge and this whole thing was going to blow over in a couple of months. When I left his office, he was satisfied. I swear.”

  Bill didn’t respond. He didn’t trust Marjorie.

  “Bill, I don’t know what happened last night, but I’m telling you that Curtis didn’t try to have you killed and you need to calm down. Now tell me where you are.”

  “Fuck you,” Bill said and disconnected the call.

  Marjorie walked back to the office, but instead of going inside she fired up a Marlboro. She spent so much time outside smoking these days, she ought to just move a chair out by the door. As she smoked, she glanced up at the door frame, which was all splintered and had a big hole in it—the bullet hole made larger when the cops dug the slug out. The good news was the door still shut and locked okay, but she’d have to call somebody to replace the chunk of wood at the top of the frame. They didn’t get many visitors but it wouldn’t do to have an office that looked like the scene of a drive-by shooting.

  So who tried to kill Bill? It was possible, as she’d told him, that an irate husband had tried, but the timing made that unlikely. That is, at any other time an irate husband would have been the most logical suspect, but the attempt on Bill’s life was so close to Bill’s arrest that such a coincidence would be extraordinary.

  Marjorie could only think of three people with a motive for killing Bill, the first of those being Leonard Curtis—even though she’d told Bill otherwise. Curtis had told Marjorie that he wasn’t too sure about the size of Bill’s balls. He knew Bill had the assault charge hanging over his head and that the FBI was digging into Johnson’s death—so maybe Curtis was worried that Bill would buckle under the pressure and start talking to the feds about all the things they’d done for him over the years.