"Assyrian. Of noble blood."
"Asshole, with rubbing alcohol in his veins."
"Jerry took the gun from its hiding spot and chased away the kayakers--"
"You're talking about the night of the murders?"
"Of course."
"Then you forgot about the door."
"The door?"
"The bashed-in back door."
"Oh. They had a fight. Moria locked out Jerry because he had taken the gun. He stole Howie Nottoway's sledgehammer and broke back in."
"And that happened..."
"Around 5:30."
"Leaving six hours unaccounted for."
"Moria swept up the kitchen. Or perhaps Jerry did. And while Jerry went upstairs to console the boys, who were terrified, Moria called you."
Karen said nothing.
"A woman in that situation needs to talk to someone reliable. The men in her life were worthless, including Carrington, who allowed the Kayak Express to operate even while he knew it was destroying his daughter. Tina Press was unreliable. Heather Massington had allowed her husband to abuse her for years. Which left you, her old cheerleader friend, now a Deputy U.S. Marshal."
"I..."
"Of course, you offered soothing words. You were probably even ready to come out to Beach Court. But then Moria told you that Carrington was her father. You were...how does that song go? 'Confused, perplexed, bewildered'? Because you were his lover, and this news hit you like a thunderbolt."
"Now wait--"
"You have a better idea of what happened in those six hours than I do. I could have used that information, incidentally, but it's of no consequence now. Things seemed to calm down. But soon after eleven that night--I believe the Express was running early that night--they heard the rockets over the island. Moria was supposed to tell them to go away and never come back. Jerry did not trust her and came out with a gun to emphasize the point. Moria packed him back to the house and told the kayakers to come back a little later.
"Moria pretended to go to bed. Jerry, wanting to make sure the Express was gone for good, turned the easy chair around in the living room and watched the river.
"Moria was sitting up in bed when she heard a sound from Joshua's bedroom. She went in and found him holding William against his chest. They had both taken cocaine. She was horrified by what Jerry's reaction would be. She did what she could to slow William's heart rate, bringing in a damp cloth and her prescription of Valium. To no avail. William died in Joshua's arms.
"Moria slipped quietly downstairs. Perhaps she was going to tell Jerry. Perhaps she was going to run away. She discovered that he had dozed off. Fearful that he would shoot her once he had found out what had happened to William, she slipped the gun out of his hand and shot him. A case might be made for self-defense....
"But as she reasoned over what she had done, what had happened, what a shambles her life had become, she decided to end everything then and there. She went upstairs, carried William into his room, then returned and shot Joshua. A mother's love.
"She sat on her bed, watching the river out the window. She fully intended to kill herself. But she was afraid.
"An anonymous call had gone into Crimestoppers about a disturbance here. Crimestoppers notified the police and Carrington picked up on the call."
Ari was talking fast, sensing he would soon be unable to articulate a coherent thought, let alone a long string of them. Which did not prevent him from pouring more whiskey.
"When he arrived, he found a slaughterhouse. And there, upstairs, was his daughter--responsible for it all. I believe she knew he was going to kill her. She understood he had a family of his own. If she went to trial and details came out about Carrington's involvement with the Express, let alone his extramarital affair with you--Moria knew about that, didn't she?--his life would be destroyed. And having just murdered her son, she understood that peculiar form of paternal love. I wonder what they said to each other? He probably told her how much he loved her just before he took up her gun and pulled the trigger. That was the shot the kayakers heard when they returned. They didn't hear the second shot, when Carrington fired a round into William's head, because they had fled." Ari thought for a moment. "As an experienced policeman, Carrington would have known he could not hide William's cause of death. The toxicology report would show the drug in the boy's system. Perhaps it was an emotional reaction, as though he was accepting part of the blame.
"He ran downstairs. He was going to throw the gun into the river. But then he saw the lights from a patrol car in the road. Officers Mangioni and Jackson had arrived. Desperately, he sought out a hiding place, and chose the central air duct, where the gun could remain hidden for years, if not forever. But the two policeman saw him at the air vent.
"I have no idea how Carrington made them keep their silence. They probably had connections to the Express, too, and he threatened to take them down with him if they spoke up.
"Thus the crime was covered up. There were a few other conspirators involved. Carrington, a very persuasive man, managed to have the coroner's report filed away without comment. Drug abuse and suicide within one of the city's favorite families did not sit well with anyone, although the news people would have relished a story like that. The only person with serious doubts was you.
"You knew Carrington's investigation was badly flawed. Why? You're a stickler for detail, Miss Sandra, and Moria was your friend. But you have more faith in the truth. I believe that's why you wanted to join the Army. Nothing is more 'true' than combat. Or so it's said. You suspected your lover was covering up the truth out of a mistaken sense of propriety. When I dropped into your lap, you decided to egg him on. Thus, went your thinking, you had two investigators for the price of one. A dubious Iraqi cop and your own beloved. You even went to the trouble to tell him of my presence. When your LoJack alerted you that I was in Shockhoe Bottom, you took the chance that I was going to the Firefox Gallery to see Jerry's paintings. You called Carrington and told him where you were going, and that there would be a certain person of interest there. What you didn't know was that he used that opportunity to call Howie Nottoway and have him search the Riggins house again for the drug cache he knew was hidden there. The 'mother' of the Kayak Express had told him about it. Moria had taken a huge amount on credit, with the promise that she would re-sell at a large profit. 'Mother' was eager to get that product back, and was threatening Carrington with exposure if he didn't find it for her. Poor Howie was terrified of the detective and did as he was told. Carrington had given him the key to the back door.
“Incidentally, while Howie was inside of my house, the one individual who knows the entire truth from beginning to end sneaked in. I finally managed to have a talk with him."
Karen finally lifted her head, but Ari waved off her curiosity.
"In the meantime, I was meeting you and Carrington in the gallery. Later, I wondered about the coincidence. But it was no coincidence. Carrington had succumbed to your bait, and showed up soon after you arrived.
"There were other hints about your grand design. Leaving the memory disk in that pouch for me to find was particularly egregious. Is that the right word? But even you were struck by the pictures of the battered door. The first ones showed a floor that had been free of debris. It was highly unlikely the killer had swept up after himself, so it might be thought the police had cleared a path. But the last pictures showed a floor covered with broken wood, as though someone had gone into the garbage and thrown it all back down. You thought this might be a bit too compromising, or confusing, so you tried to delete them from the disk. Instead, you accidentally made copies.”
“Why would…”
“Carrington had to put the mess back to support the theory that it was an outsider who had killed the Riggins family very soon after breaking inside. He couldn’t leave evidence that some time had passed between the break-in and the murders. Enough time to have allowed a kind of peace to come over the house, giving someone the opportunity to perform a spo
t of housekeeping.
"I don't think you believed Carrington was involved in anything more than a misguided cover-up, but when I told him all of this, he assumed you knew the truth, and that his mistress had betrayed him. He had, of course, access to the phone records that showed Moria’s call to you. It was the last straw for him."
Karen jolted up. "You lousy fuck."
"Don't you want to know where the murder weapon is? Or the cocaine?"
"You lousy fuck."
"But I did what you put me here to do."
"You think I wanted you to drive him to suicide?"
"I didn't think it would come to that," Ari said, looking abashed. "I thought he was made of sterner stuff."
"He was. That's why he killed himself, to save his family...and me."
Ari lowered his head.
Karen reached into her pocket and pulled out a USB flash drive. "Here. I was told to deliver this. I don't know what's on it, but I can guess. Just a little reminder of the old country, and how sick you people really are."
She tossed it on the table. Ari stared at it.
"All that you've just told me is cockamamie bullshit," Karen continued, picking up her wig and fake glasses. "Not one word is true. You got that?"
Ari nodded contritely.
Karen drew away to the kitchen entrance. She looked back. "You lousy fuck." Then she was gone.
Fred was still at the open front door, waiting to lend assistance, if needed.
"We're leaving," Karen said curtly before slamming the front door shut. Ari rose and walked unsteadily to the window over the kitchen sink. Leaning forward, he could just make out Karen pounding up Beach Court Lane before she disappeared beyond the trees separating his property from Howie Nottoway's. Her wig was askew. Fred was struggling to keep up.
Ari sniffed disparagingly at the flash drive and staggered upstairs to the bathroom. He peed, then leaned over the sink, trying to determine if he was going to throw up. He raised his head to the mirror.
"Cockamamie. Cock-a-mamie." He grinned. Working his way to the studio, he collapsed onto his mattress and turned over on his side.
Done. All done. Deputy Sylvester aka Miss Sandra had been worried that Ari Ciminon aka Abu Karim Ghaith Ibrahim would turn up dirt about her old friend Moria Riggins nee Massington. His allegations could top off a landfill. How much of it was true? Enough to serve his purpose.
He began picking away at his own reasoning to see how well it held up. Grain by grain, until it formed a mound, then a beach, then an island.
It was Pig Island. The sluggish Tigris flowed past, weary with the centuries. Ghaith's mother had gone shopping with his aunt at Al-Mansour. Baba and Ghaith's uncle used the opportunity to rent a boat and go out on the river. They brought along snacks of pistachio nuts and pomegranate seeds, as well as some liquid refreshment.
There was a strange, limpid ache in the air. The sky was too beautiful to be true. Baba landed the boat on the island and took up a spot with his brother on the sand. Meanwhile, Ghaith and his cousin, Hussam, stared daggers. They each had it in for the other, although neither could remember the original source of their enmity. They disappeared in the crowd and came to a spit. And then, spontaneously, they were at each others' throats, rolling in the sand, kicking and swearing.
They did not hear the powerboat coming up, or the shouts. Nor, in their ferocious struggle, did they notice the sudden, awed hush.
They did, however, hear the laughter. A broad, rich laugh that called attention to itself and caused them to stop and look up. And then they, too, fell into stupefied silence.
"Mr. Deputy!" Ghaith's father and uncle ran up, deeply mortified. They pulled the boys further apart, although they had already stopped fighting. "Mr. Deputy...I deeply regret--"
Saddam Hussein waved away Baba's contrition. "Boys fight. It's natural. They'll make good soldiers." Mr. Deputy (they all knew he would be president one day) glanced over at the blanket Baba and his brother had thrown down on the sand. "What's that you're drinking?"
"Uh..."
"Is that Jack Daniels?" Hussein snapped his fingers and two of his bodyguards ran back to the boat. While they waited for them to return, Hussein strode over and tousled the boys' hair. "You both looked like fighting tigers as I came up. You don't often see boys tear into each other like that."
Ghaith raised his eyes and ventured an embarrassed grin. Saddam Hussein grinned back at him, his bright teeth matching the sun glinting off the palace across the river.
Everyone has their one great beatific moment in life, and this was Ghaith's. The man before him was a living monument, something to be worshipped and adored.
The bodyguards came back with a crate of Jack Daniels. They placed it between Baba and his brother.
"This should last you awhile," said Hussein.
Everyone was amazed. Ghaith's father did not know what to say. "Mr. Deputy..."
"Please, don't mention it. A little token to show my appreciation to my people." He spread his arms, as though encompassing everyone on the island. "I love my people!"
Love. There was nothing surer.
Ghaith would never forget that moment. It was burned into him as powerfully as first love. Through the years to come, as the truth of the man became known, that love remained, a painful reminder of what could have been. Good and evil had become inextricably mixed. Saddam Hussein, mass murderer, torturer, war criminal. Yet that moment remained, a strange cold warmth that refused to go away, that suffused his mind, his chest, his legs...his knees?
Ari opened his eyes. Something warm had inserted itself behind his bent knees. The cat had slipped into the house while Fred stood guard at the open door.
"Ah...Sphinx," Ghaith said drowsily. "You're the only one who knows the truth. And you'll never tell."
The 56th Man Page 35
