by Polly Iyer
The gun trembled in Carl’s hand. Reece watched the barrel point at him, then move to the side and back. Always shaking.
Carl sat. “Karen was a whore.” He spat out the words as if bees were stinging the inside of his mouth. “She came on to me one day when you were at work. I put her off. After all, she was my brother’s girlfriend. But she didn’t like being put off.” He leaned back in his chair, the hinges squeaking with the motion. “I figured after Marcy and I were married, I wouldn’t have any more chances. And Karen was hot. Everyone thought that. I wanted to see what she was like. Not to take her from you. Besides, I thought with her coming on to me, she wasn’t worth you. But you know how it is—she stuck it in my face.”
“Actually,” Reece said, “I don’t know how it is. I never fucked my brother’s girlfriend. I never would have.”
Carl snorted. “You’re so predictable. No, you wouldn’t have. Mr. Perfect, always doing the right thing.”
“Is that what this is about? Getting back at me because I followed the rules?”
“I could never compete with you. I was smart, but you…you had to be the best at whatever you did. The teachers must have been disappointed when Reece Daughtry’s kid brother moved up. I never came close.”
Reece sprang forward and banged his fist on the desk. Carl rolled his chair back to the wall, still pointing a wavering gun in Reece’s face.
“So fucking what?” Reece didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he couldn’t listen to the bullshit spewing from his brother’s mouth. “You had your own strengths. If Karen put out so easily, why would I have wanted her?”
“Don’t you see? I wanted to have what belonged to big brother. To see what his woman was like, just once. That’s all. But then…something happened.” He dropped his arm to his side, the gun slack in his hand. Sweat trickled into his eye, and he swatted it away.
Reece thought of going for him, but the large desk remained a barrier between them.
Carl recovered, brought the gun up again. “But it wasn’t only once. I couldn’t get enough of her. She flaunted herself, teasing, doing sexual things I’d never even dreamed of. It wasn’t love. Karen turned into an obsession, a drug I couldn’t get enough of. I wanted her every waking minute. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was like a bad noir movie.”
Reece had banished Karen from his mind all these years, but Carl brought her back in full color. He remembered the sex. Good sex, but not love sex. Not an obsession either. He cared about her, though he wouldn’t have married her because things were missing in the relationship, even before he knew about the others. Carl’s words filtered through the pictures in his mind.
“She said she wanted to marry me—that you meant nothing to her. Steve and Jordan were looking for volunteers to help with a vaccination clinic that Friday. I didn’t have classes and said I’d help. On the way, they mentioned how Karen had slept with half the guys I knew and that someone should tell you. I sat in the back seat, my stomach doing flips while I listened. I went crazy. I figured Karen would tell you eventually, or when I told her what I knew, she’d tell Marcy. Then Marcy would dump me; you’d hate me. Our business plans would be over, and I’d lose both of you. I wanted to tell you. I did. But I was ashamed.”
The air in the room thickened. Reece couldn’t get enough into his lungs. “And for that you killed her?”
Carl looked away. He sniffed, tears filled his eyes. “I snapped. I couldn’t think straight.”
“Jesus,” Reece raked his fingers through his hair. Ignoring the gun raised in his direction, he willed himself calm. He needed to get the rest of Carl’s confession on the recorder. “How did you drug us? You did drug us, right?”
Carl nodded. “At the clinic, I saw a vial of Ketamine in the cabinet. I remembered Jordan and Steve talking about the anesthetic and its effects on humans. The idea popped into my head, and I couldn’t get it out. She couldn’t make a fool of me if she were dead, and you and Marcy would never know. The cabinet wasn’t locked, so when I had the opportunity, I took it. I doubted I’d go through with it, but the next night at the bar when you overheard Steve say something about Karen to Jordan, the shit hit the fan. Then Karen begged you to go back to our apartment to talk about your relationship. She looked at me with a taunting smile. I knew she planned to tell you.” Carl bit his bottom lip. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Reece couldn’t believe the conversation. It took all his strength to keep the anger inside him from boiling over.
Carl was lost in his story. “At the apartment, I slipped some of the drug into your drink and Karen’s. I put a little in Marcy’s too, enough so she’d get tired and want to go to sleep. When we all left you and Karen to talk, I took Marcy back to her apartment and put her to bed. I told her it was an hour later because I knew I’d need to account for that time. Then I went back to our place. You were both unconscious.”
Reece felt something ugly rise in his throat. Carl had methodically planned Karen’s murder down to the alibi. “And you cold-bloodedly cut off her head. What could have possessed you?”
Carl leaned across the desk, his eyes wide, crazed, his hand still gripping the gun. “That’s the perfect word. Possessed. I didn’t think about you or what I was doing. I picked her up and laid her on the bed, then I dragged you over. She looked so peaceful. I tried to wake her. I wanted her to know how I felt before I killed her. I wanted her to beg for her life. But she wouldn’t wake up. I took the big knife from the kitchen to stab her. Then something happened. I lost it and hacked across her throat. Blood spurted everywhere, all over you.”
Reece saw the vivid picture. Felt the pounding inside his skull. Blood everywhere. Sticky on his hands. Clotted on his cheek. The smell of death. Clothes stained red. And now Carl’s voice making it real all over again. He stepped out of the scene. Breathed deeply.
“I showered and dressed in similar clothes so no one would notice, wiped down the apartment, and threw the bloody clothes down the incinerator chute. On the way to meet the others at the bar I tossed the knife down a sewer drain. I’d been gone less than an hour. The guys said that, but Marcy swore I was with her during that time. We got a little rowdy, and the girls went home. I invited Steve and Mark back to the apartment to carry on the party so I wouldn’t walk alone into what I knew waited.”
As stunned as he was, Reece remembered that had come out at the trial. Jeri tried to break the alibi, causing doubt to the jury any way she could, but Marcy insisted Carl had stayed with her until she fell asleep, citing the time he had planted in her brain. No one saw Carl back at the apartment, and the time frame gelled with Steve and Mark. Even if it had come out that Carl had slept with Karen, what reason would he have had to kill her? But according to the world, Reece had motive and opportunity.
“Was I collateral damage?” Reece asked.
“You didn’t do it. There was no weapon, no evidence. During the trial, when I saw how things were going, I still didn’t believe you’d be convicted.”
“Ha!” Reece scoffed. “We all know how that turned out, don’t we? When the police hauled me away for what could have been the rest of my life, did you ever think of speaking up?”
Carl went into his bottom drawer, still holding the gun, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He managed to unscrew the bottle and pour a shot, emptying half down his throat. “Your lawyer seemed so sure she could get another trial in a different venue because of the prejudicial way the press handled it. I thought she would.”
“So the answer is no—you never thought of coming clean. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?” Reece sprang to his feet. He planted both palms on the desk, arms like support columns. Again, Carl pushed his rolling chair back with a thrust of his feet, but he kept the gun aimed at Reece’s chest.
“Why should you go to prison and be gang-raped by a bunch of Neanderthals? Or come close to dying when some psycho con almost bisects you? Your big brother could handle it, right? Is that what you thought?”
<
br /> “Oh, my God, is that what— Oh, my God.”
“Right. Those were things you didn’t want to know as long as it was happening to me and not you. My own brother. The brother I loved.” Reece slunk into the chair. “And for extra measure, you did it again. You killed another innocent woman to make sure you diverted blame to me. How did you justify that?”
“I saw what prison did to you. I couldn’t survive there. You…you knew the ropes. Your life was already ruined.”
“My—” A shiver ran down Reece’s spine. “My life was already ruined? You got that right. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t call the police when I phoned to meet you?”
Carl looked away. “I did. They were waiting at the nursing home, but I couldn’t convince you to go. I thought it would look less obvious there than at the dog park, and I knew you wouldn’t go to the house or come here. ‘Reece Daughtry captured while visiting his dying father.’ Those were the headlines I pictured.”
Reece’s body went numb; his head verged on exploding. He’d succeeded in recording Carl’s confession. All he had to do was walk out of the office, turn over the recorder to the police, and he’d be free.
But could he walk out? Carl had killed two people to protect himself. What would stop him from shooting Reece now? He had two options. One: go for the gun, which would surely result in his death. Two: walk nonchalantly to the door and hope he made it through. He chose to bet his life Carl couldn’t pull the trigger. He stood and headed for the exit.
Carl bounded from his chair, panicked. “What are you going to do?”
“Turn myself in.”
“You’ll tell?”
Reece turned. “What do you think?”
“They won’t believe you.”
“No. Probably not.”
Carl’s face drained of color. “Don’t, Reece.”
“What are you going to do? Kill me? You said yourself they won’t believe me.”
“They…they might.” Tears ran down Carl’s cheeks; the hand holding the gun shook. “I’m not going to prison.”
The desperation in Carl’s voice told Reece he’d miscalculated once again. A fatal mistake. The gunshot boomed like a cannon in the enclosed space. Reece felt the sting in his chest as the bullet ripped into him. He saw the tortured look on Carl’s face, heard his brother cry out his name as he fell to the floor. Before everything faded away.
Chapter Forty-Six
Too Late
Clarence skidded to a stop as the ambulance shot away from Daughtry Custom Homes, siren wailing. The sick feeling churning in his stomach now blossomed into a full-scale active volcano. He double-parked and bolted from his car to approach the first cop he saw. Identifying himself, he asked what happened.
“You need to talk to the man in charge.” The cop pointed. “Over there. Sergeant Zane.”
Zane stood on the other side of the cordoned-off entrance where a couple of uniforms stood sentry. “I can’t go in there,” Clarence said. “Would you mind getting him for me?”
The cop grimaced, but he sauntered to Zane and spoke a few words, pointing at Clarence. Zane slipped under the crime scene tape and approached. Clarence identified himself again.
“The victim’s your client, Reece Daughtry. His brother shot him in self-defense, what I heard.”
Clarence feared the answer to his next question. “How bad is he hurt?”
“Don’t know. He was unconscious. The paramedics put him on an IV and stabilized him, but you can never tell with chest wounds.”
“Where’d they take him?”
“Mercy,” Zane responded. “I’d hurry if I were you.”
Clarence speed-walked backwards toward his car. “Did Reece have a gun?”
“Don’t know. A detective’s in there now. Better move on before I get my ass chewed for talking to you.”
“Mercy, you say?”
“Yeah, get on Congress—”
Clarence noticed two suits exiting the building, but he wanted to get to the hospital. “I’ll find it.” As he sprinted to his car, Clarence knew one thing. Reece wouldn’t go into Carl’s office with a gun, which meant Carl had one. Did Reece struggle for the gun, or did Carl shoot him in cold blood?
He should have figured this out sooner. Gotten here sooner. Kicking himself wouldn’t get him anywhere. There’d be plenty of time for second-guessing later.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sprung from the Hoosegow
The Lynn police put Dana in an interrogation room. When they took her from the apartment, she heard Frank yell not to say another word and that he’d call someone. He didn’t mention names. Dana knew he’d call Clarence, who would call Jeraldine. The only thing she said while the detective asked her questions about Reece was that she wanted a lawyer. They threatened to arrest her, but they didn’t. She checked her watch. Two hours. An officer came into the room and Dana heard Jeraldine’s voice when the door opened. It had to be one of the sweetest sounds she’d ever heard.
“Your lawyer’s here,” the officer said.
“Mrs. Minette is going to sue you for false arrest,” Dana heard Jeraldine say.
“Don’t get your panties in a wad. We never arrested her.” He motioned Dana to follow. “We just wanted to ask her a couple of questions.” He stepped aside. “Here she is, all nice and pretty.”
“Pretty? F—”
Jeraldine let the F sound fade but Dana saw the struggle. If she weren’t in jail in a strange city, she might find the humor.
The attorney took Dana’s arm. “Come on, honey.” She sniffed at the cop as they passed, then whispered to Dana, “Boy, I wanted to let them have it, but for once I kept my mouth shut. I want to get you out of here.” Jeraldine looked at the cop and spoke so he could hear. “They had no reason to bring you here in the first place.”
The cop sniffed back at her.
They got outside and Jeraldine said, “You stuck up for your rights, honey. Frank told me what you said. You were perfect. Without Reece there, you were a visitor in a friend’s house. End of story.”
“You mean they bought that?”
“They didn’t buy shit, Dana, but they still didn’t have proof to hold you, and they knew it. That sweet-talking runner of Vance’s swore the clothes were his, and they were the right size. Good thing. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Have you heard anything from Reece?”
“No. He must have his phone off because Clarence couldn’t reach him. All I know is he’s on his way to Portland. Probably there by now.” They walked outside to the car and Jeraldine clicked the remote. Dana slid into the passenger side, and they pulled out of the police parking lot and into traffic. “Clarence has eliminated everyone but one person: Reece’s brother.”
Dana thought she heard wrong. “Carl? But why?”
“We don’t know why yet, honey. There must have been some bad blood Reece didn’t sense or didn’t want to sense. Focused people like him miss a lot of what goes on around them, and it wasn’t in him to look for the bad in anybody back then. When his father and friends shunned him after he was arrested, he felt like the whole world had crashed down on top of him.” Jeraldine sighed. “Carl was there, along with his mother, but I guess that was part of Carl’s cover-up.”
“Wouldn’t you be crushed?”
“I’m more jaded,” Jeraldine said. “Not that I look for the bad in people, but my job has conditioned me to think a certain way.”
“So Reece might not have guessed Carl is the killer.”
“That’s possible. He could have gone to Portland to see his father without plans to see Carl at all. Clarence will find out and call me.”
“What’s going to happen to me? Can they put me in jail again?”
“Right now, they can’t prove you had anything to do with Reece leaving Harold County. You drove here in your father’s old pickup to visit Reece’s friend, a dying man. Not logical when you left a nice Jeep at home, but so what. No one saw you and Reece togethe
r, and Frank won’t talk.”
“Not very believable, is it?”
“No, but who’s to say you knew you were wanted or that you watched TV or read the papers? Now if Reece had been there, it’d be another story. I’d say you did some pretty quick thinking.”
“Don’t forget, I write suspense novels, but I doubt I could have thought of any scenario like the one I’m involved in now.”
“And to find out you were having an affair with a black man. And a young stud at that.”
“I know they didn’t buy that.”
“Hell, no. But the idea made me smile.” Jeraldine looked around. “Where the fuck are we? There has to be a restaurant nearby. I need a drink. It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
“After today, I could go for one myself.”
Jeraldine flipped open her phone and called Clarence. “Got her out of the hoosegow, babe.” She listened.
Dana watched Jeraldine’s face, whose expression went from elated to deflated. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, God, no,” Jeraldine said.
Dana edged on her seat. “What? Tell me.”
Jeraldine motioned Dana to wait. “What are they saying?” She listened, then said, “Call me back when you know something.”
“Something bad,” Dana said. “Reece. Is he all right?”
“Carl shot him. He’s being rushed by ambulance to the hospital. Clarence is on his way.”
Dana gasped for breath. The view out the window blurred, sounds echoed. She felt herself sliding sideways as her body went limp. The car swerved and stopped. The sting of Jeraldine’s hand across her face woke her.
“Don’t you go out on me, hear? Don’t do it.” Jeraldine snatched a bottle of water from the console. “Here. Drink, Dana. Hear me?”
Dana turned her head. Jeraldine pushed a bottle to her mouth. She drank without thinking and choked out a cough when it slithered down her throat the wrong way. That brought her back. Breathing took all her concentration.
