The Bequest

by Nancy Boyarsky

  When she was more fully awake, she realized it was just Sargosian. In his sleep, his head had dropped onto her shoulder, intruding into her nightmare. She pushed him away.

  He jerked awake with a loud, “Huh?’

  “What’s going on back there?” Earl said. He slowed and pulled the car to a stop at the side of the road. She looked around. The night sky had lightened enough for her to make out the desolate landscape surrounding them. They seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by untilled fields and what looked like mountains up ahead, or they might have been clouds. It was hard to tell.

  Earl got out of the car and opened the door on Sargosian’s side. “You drive for a while,” Earl said. “I need to catch some shuteye.”

  Earl got into the backseat, leaned against the door, and promptly fell asleep. Nicole closed her eyes again. Her heart was still pounding from the nightmare, and her mind was abuzz with everything that had happened since she’d locked herself in Robert’s safe room.

  At least they hadn’t tied her up. Earl had favored it, but Rick had argued that she’d never get away. It was two against one. “Look at her,” he’d said. “What’s she weigh? Not much more than a hundred pounds, and she’s not armed. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of her.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Earl had said, “Have it your way.” But when they’d started out, with him in the driver’s seat, he’d announced that he was setting the locks on the rear doors so they couldn’t be opened from the inside.

  There was nothing she could do until they stopped the car and got her out. She’d have to pretend to cooperate in hope they’d let down their guard. She must have fallen asleep again, because when she opened her eyes, the car had pulled to a stop, and the sun was out. She glanced at her watch. It was 8:00 a.m. They’d been driving five hours, and she felt as if her bladder was about to burst.

  Through the car window, the scenery was lovely, lush with wild grass and fir trees. There were also a good number of liquid amber, cottonwood, and aspen, now almost bare of leaves. They were in the foothills somewhere, probably the Sierras. Sargosian came around from the driver’s side and let Earl out. Through the open door she could see a cabin, a familiar cream-colored A-frame with red trim. It was the same cabin she’d seen in the photo from Robert’s envelope. They’d brought her to his place in the Owens Valley.

  After looking through the envelope—containing the key and directions to the cabin—the two men must have decided to bring her here. It occurred to her that these isolated foothills would make the perfect place to bury a body.

  Once Earl was out of the car, he reached in, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out. He wasn’t gentle about it. Outside it was windy and incredibly cold, as if it might be about to snow. Nicole, whose only outer layer was a windbreaker, had started to shiver. The two men herded her toward Robert’s cabin. Sargosian unlocked the door, and the three of them stepped inside, where it was even colder.

  Nicole told them she had to use the bathroom. Earl gave Sargosian a look, and Rick said, “OK. I’ll keep an eye on her.” He made her leave the door open a bit and stood outside until she was done. Then he delivered her back to Earl and went to use the bathroom himself.

  “Sit!’ Earl told her, pointing to the couch. They were in the living-room area of the one-room structure. In the center of the room was a pot-bellied stove. The bathroom, just a toilet, sink, and shower, was the only room walled off from the open floor plan. Nicole was now actually shaking from the cold, her teeth chattering. Spotting a blanket draped across the back of the couch, she pulled it off and wrapped it around herself, but it wasn’t much help.

  Before long, Sargosian was back. “I saw some logs stacked outside,” he said. “I’ll get some, and we can start the stove. This place is freezing.”

  He went outside while Earl searched the cupboards in the kitchen area. Next to the refrigerator was what looked like a closet door, secured with a sliding lock. Earl unlocked it and disappeared inside. By now, Sargosian was back, carrying a couple of logs. He opened the door in the belly of the stove and shoved them inside.

  Earl emerged from the closet and hurried over. “God’s sake,” he said with some disgust. “Don’t you know how to do anything? You gotta put paper and kindling in first so you can get a fire going. Here, let me.” He was already pulling the logs out of the stove. He took some sheets of newspaper from a nearby stack and wadded them up. Then he looked around. “No kindling. This will have to do.” He put the logs on top of the paper, then took a lighter out of his pocket and lit the paper.

  He adjusted a handle on a pipe leading from the top of the stove to the peaked ceiling in the center of the cabin. Then he opened a drawer at the bottom of the stove. The fire was already crackling, flames leaping up over the logs. He closed the door in the belly of the stove.

  Earl stood up and gestured toward the kitchen. “Blair kept his food supplies locked up in that closet,” he said. “Probably to keep stuff safe in case a bear broke in. But there isn’t much to eat—and there’s no booze. We passed a store a while back. I’ll go get some provisions.” He pulled some long strips of black plastic out of his pocket. “I’m going to cuff her so she can’t pull anything while I’m gone.”

  “For God’s sake,” Sargosian said. “We’ve already been over this. Cuffing her is a bad idea. I’ll watch her. Besides, if she escaped, where would she go? You’re taking the car. The two of us are stranded here.”

  “I can’t figure out why you keep trying to protect her,” Earl said.

  “I’m not protecting her,” Sargosian said. “I’m protecting us. Technically, we haven’t actually kidnapped her. We didn’t threaten her or point a weapon at her. We could argue that she came with us willingly, that we brought her here to protect her from someone who’s trying to kill her. OK? The minute we tie her up that changes everything. We’re using force to hold her. Then it becomes kidnapping. If that plastic cuff bruises her or cuts her wrist, a prosecutor could make it kidnapping with bodily harm. That violates the Little Lindbergh Law, a federal offense. You get it?”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding?” Earl said with great sarcasm. “Of course we kidnapped her. I’m a cop, remember? You’re already in the soup, and you know it. That’s why we have to get rid of her.”

  “It won’t be me,” Sargosian said. “I won’t be party to murder. In fact, I’m going to talk to Rice and make sure he knows there is a hit out on her. I can’t believe he’ll go along with it.”

  “So call him!” Earl snapped back. “Nobody’s stopping you!”

  Sargosian got his phone out of his pocket and turned it on. Then, after looking at it a moment, he headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” said Earl.

  “There’s no reception in here. I’m going to see if I can pick up a signal outside.”

  A few minutes later, he was back. “Well?” said Earl.

  “He wasn’t there. I had to leave a message.”

  “Fine,” said Earl, putting out his hand. “Now give me the car keys. I’m going to the store.” Sargosian handed them over. After Earl left, Nicole and Sargosian sat on the couch in front of the stove, which was slowly warming the room. She was exhausted, and so apparently was he.

  Finally, she said, “Listen, Rick. Why don’t you let me go? I can make a run for it. Tell him you fell asleep, and when you woke up, I was gone.”

  “It’s no use,” Sargosian said. “You’ll never get away. We passed a few cabins on the road here, but they were all boarded up for the winter. Who knows which way you’d have to go to find the nearest year-round resident. The store Earl is headed for is fifteen miles away. I’m sorry about this, Nicole. I’ve done my best to protect you. But I’m not running the show; there’s only so much I can do.”

  Nicole looked at him, feeling sick. She thought about her sister, then Josh. Would she ever see them again? They’d both be worried by now, afraid something had happened to her. She hadn’t told anyone where she w
as going or what she was planning to do. If Stephanie tried to reach her on her disposable phone—now in her backpack in the trunk of Earl’s car—she wouldn’t get an answer. As for Josh, she’d promised him she’d be gone only a day or two. This was day three. And Sue, her lawyer, what about her? Nicole hadn’t been sure of her loyalty. But if Sue knew nothing of the firm’s criminal involvement, then she, like Stephanie, might report her missing.

  She thought, suddenly, of Reinhardt. If he was still alive, would he ever find out what had become of her? Had the British tabloids picked up the story?

  With nothing to do, the two of them sat without talking, deep in thought. As the room grew warmer, Sargosian took off his jacket and got up to hang it on a hook in the cabin’s sleeping area. It held a bed, a single, neatly made up with military corners. He went into the bathroom for a few minutes and came back to sit next to her. He’d washed his face, and his hair was wet and slicked back. His beard, unshaven, was now a two-day stubble, and his clothes were wrinkled and dirty. Aside from the grooming issue, he looked exhausted and upset. She could see that he was in over his head and almost as terrified as she was.

  He’d just dropped off to sleep when she thought of Sue’s gun. She tried to remember what Sargosian had done with it when he’d taken it from her. She thought she’d seen him drop it into a pocket. Was it in his jacket? She rose as quietly as she could and started to tiptoe toward the wall where the jacket hung. She was half way across the room when she heard him stir. She hurried back to the couch.

  After a few minutes, he relaxed back into sleep. She was thinking of making another try for his jacket when she heard a key turn in the lock. Sargosian was immediately awake and on his feet. Earl opened the door and came in, toting a couple of large grocery bags, some newspapers, and two six-packs of beer. He put them on the table, then went back to the car and brought in two more six-packs.

  The men each opened a beer and—ignoring Nicole—sat down at the kitchen table to read the papers. Rick paled when he saw the front page of the Times. From where she was sitting, she could make out the three-column headline, “Woman in Murdered Ex-Cop Case Missing.” She got up to join the men at the table, hoping to look over Rick’s shoulder and see what the papers had to say.

  “Sit down,” Earl said, pointing to the couch. “You get your turn when we’re done.” He got up and helped himself to a second beer.

  The men finished the papers. While Earl opened yet another beer and began drinking it, Rick brought the papers over to Nicole. She thought it odd that there was no discussion between them about the stories, no speculation about what the news meant or whether they thought law enforcement outside of L.A. might be on their trail. As she understood it, this was a real possibility since her disappearance wasn’t just a missing person’s case; it was related to a murder.

  As she started reading the Times, Earl turned to Sargosian. “Come on outside, pretty boy,” he said. “I want to have a little chat with you.” Sargosian followed him out and closed the door.

  Nicole considered getting up and making another try for Sargosian’s jacket but vetoed the idea. The men might walk back in at any time. She could hear them arguing out there. Earl, having downed three beers by now, made no effort to keep his voice down.

  “You lied to me,” Earl fairly shouted. “On my way back from the store, I called Rice. He said you did reach him. He told you they were sending somebody up here to help me get rid of her.”

  Rick murmured a reply, his voice too low for her to hear.

  “He said you’re supposed to take this dude’s car and head back to L.A.,” Earl ranted. “You’re related to one of those lawyers, aren’t you? Guess they don’t want you getting your hands dirty.” His voice was bitter. “But they don’t give a crap about me—after all I’ve done for them. For all I know, this guy is going to off me, too.”

  Rick’s response was low, placating. Nicole figured he’d lied about the phone call because he knew his own free pass would rile up Earl. And it had. Now that Earl knew what was coming, he was scared, and that was making him all the more volatile.

  Half listening to the continuing argument, she gave the newspaper a closer look. The article under the main headline of the Times reported that her sister, as well as her attorney, Sue Price, had filed missing persons reports the evening before. It quoted a police spokesman who said they were working on some leads but that they “refused to speculate on an open, ongoing case.”

  Sue told the paper that she’d last seen Nicole when she dropped her off at the Hertz lot. “Nicole was worried about her safety and wanted to go somewhere to turn off her phone and ‘get off the grid.’ She gave me a disposable phone with her number, but she hasn’t answered in the last twenty-four hours. I’m very concerned.”

  The paper described Stephanie as being in an “emotional state.” She, too, was quoted. “I haven’t any idea where she might be or what happened to her. That’s all I can tell you. We’re worried sick.” The story went on to repeat the circumstances of Robert’s murder and that he’d left everything to Nicole.

  The Owens Valley’s local paper had a brief item about her disappearance then went into a few of the more lurid details of Robert’s murder, describing it as “a gangland-style assassination.”

  At that moment, the two men walked back in, and Earl announced he was going to make lunch. It was 11:00 a.m., and none of them had eaten since the day before. While puttering around the kitchen, Earl guzzled yet another beer: his fourth. Nicole had been counting, wondering how much it would take to incapacitate him. So far, except for shouting at Sargosian, he showed no signs of intoxication.

  She and Sargosian were sitting at the table when Earl brought over the platter of food, as well as his fifth beer. The presentation was less than appealing—three blackened steaks and three microwaved potatoes. Nicole cut into her steak. It was pretty much inedible, burnt on the outside, raw inside. The potatoes were undercooked.

  Nicole picked up her plate and stood up. “Where do you think you’re going?” Earl said. “This steak’s raw,” she said. “I was just—”

  “Sit the fuck down,” Earl said.

  “Earl,” Rick said. “I like my steak medium rare. This needs more cooking.”

  “Then you do it,” Earl said. “I’m not going to sit here with her at the stove. No telling what she could do with a hot pan.” Nicole looked at him. What a good idea, she thought, and it hadn’t even occurred to her. She was too scared, too tired, too depleted to think.

  Rick got up with his plate, took Nicole’s, and went to the stove to put the steaks back on. He located a bottle of ketchup and a can of baked beans in the closet. He found a pan for heating the beans and, after a few minutes, returned to the table with their plates. Nicole, imagining what was going to happen next, couldn’t eat. She pushed the beans around on the plate a bit then put down her fork.

  Earl, starting his sixth beer, was pretty much into his own head, smoking a small, very smelly cigar between sips. Rick, himself, had put away three beers. At no point had they offered any to Nicole. Not that she would have accepted it. She didn’t even like beer.

  When they were done eating, they left the dishes on the table. At that point, both men complained how tired they were from their long night breaking into the safe room and driving to the cabin. Soon they were arguing about what to do with Nicole while they napped.

  Earl wanted to cuff her to a kitchen chair, but Rick wouldn’t hear of it. Earl was finally showing signs of the alcohol he’d consumed and could hardly keep his eyes open. Rick suggested each take a turn watching Nicole while the other one napped. “I’ll take the first watch,” he told Earl.

  Earl found this agreeable. “Good man,” he slurred. The beer had not only made him sleepy, but also seemed to have mellowed him.

  Nicole returned to the couch, but she found it impossible to sit there with nothing to do, alone with her terrible thoughts. She noticed a jigsaw puzzle on a nearby bookcase—a kitschy English village
scene that looked like a painting by Thomas Kinkaid. She retrieved it, dumped it out on the coffee table, and began to assemble it. Rick was seated across from her in a recliner chair. He’d lowered it until he was almost horizontal while he kept tabs on her. On the other side of the room, Earl had begun to snore.

  She focused on the puzzle, glancing up at Rick every once in a while. After about fifteen minutes, he was fast asleep. She got up from the couch and tiptoed across the room toward where he’d hung his jacket. It was just a few feet from the bed where Earl was sleeping. When she got to Rick’s jacket, she reached into the right-hand pocket. The gun wasn’t there. She took out her hand, and the jacket fell to the floor with a clunk. Nicole froze. Earl had stopped snoring. She looked around, holding her breath. Earl turned over and was now facing away from her. Rick was still in the recliner. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t moved.

  Quietly, she picked up the fallen jacket, reached into the other pocket, and pulled out—not the gun—but Rick’s cell phone. She carefully hung the jacket back on the hook and tiptoed into the bathroom. She turned on the phone and was disappointed to see the tiny words “no service” in the top left corner of the screen. She waved it in different directions, but there was no reception.

  As she left the bathroom, she noticed Earl’s jacket draped over the back of a chair near the bed. She lifted it to search the pockets. That was when she saw what was under the jacket; it was a holster containing his service weapon. Silently, she pulled it out. It was twice the size of the one Sue had given her and much heavier. If Earl noticed it was gone, he’d go crazy. She had to be ready.

  She went back to the couch and, after checking to make sure both men were still asleep, put Rick’s phone on the table next to where he was lying. Once she was seated again, she examined the gun more closely. It was a Glock, like the one Reinhardt had given her, and she vaguely remembered his instructions. She located the safety lock and disabled it. Then she carefully placed the gun next to her, nestled between the cushions of the couch.