She laughed. “Oh, I don’t think you really need me. You just need to fix something, and I’m here for the fixing.”
In a way she was right, but he still thought he loved her. No way was he going to tell her that and scare her off. She’d already left him once, and Uncle Tucker helped her do it. He didn’t know what he and Kim had, Jake told himself, so he couldn’t blame him. He could only fix what had been put in motion.
“Just tell Gwilly the truth, and tell the truth from here on out, and it’s all going to get better.”
She leaned against Jake’s shoulder. “I have to tell the story all over again?”
“Just tell him what you told me. He’s a good cop, and he’s good at reading character.” Jake leaned against her now, wondering, and hoping she’d tell the same story.
“I like this.” She turned, stretched up and kissed Jake on the cheek.
Jake turned and kissed her on the lips. They were sweet and soft, and exactly as he imagined when they were kids sitting on the dock. It wasn’t like the mad, passionate kissing earlier in the day. He felt the heat, sure, but he felt something else this time. Compassion. Love. Maybe she loved him, too. No, he couldn’t go there yet.
Lying on the dock, with Kim on top of him, kissing, but still fully clothed, Jake saw headlights in the driveway.
Kim sprang up. “That’s the cops.”
He sat up. “Probably. Don't fret, I’ll be here for you. Just like I said, tell him the truth.”
When the headlights dimmed, Jake saw Gwilly walk around to the back door of the lake house. He must have seen them on the dock and called out. “Underwood?”
“Sergeant, we’re headed back up to the house. Just give us a sec.” Jake leaned down and kissed Kim on the lips, then tucked his dick down in his pants, hoping Gwilly wouldn’t see his erection, or what was left of it. “It’s all going to work out just fine. I know it.”
Jake could only see shadows on her face, but thought she smiled.
They walked back to the deck holding hands, but then Jake thought better of it and dropped her hand before Gwilly could see.
“Kim.” Gwilly’s demeanor standoffish. “Underwood. You want to talk out here?”
A string of white lights illuminated the deck, and it was late enough in the season that the mosquitos weren’t hovering, so Jake sat in the Adirondack chair, and Kim and Gwilly sat at the picnic table. Jake lifted his hip and pulled the recorder from his pocket.
“Here.” He tossed the recorder to Gwilly. “This has Kim’s story. You can give a listen, so she doesn’t have to go over it all again.”
“Tell you what, Underwood, I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ll handle this my way.” He placed the recorder on the table. To Kim he said, “This shit has to stop.”
Kim’s good mood dropped off her face. “What shit?”
“The half-truths and lies. You came into the station this morning, begging for a plea deal, and offering up information in return. Then we find out the people you’d just ratted out couldn’t care less that you snitched, because they’re fucking dead.”
Kim picked at her fingernails. “I was afraid if I told you about the murders, you’d think I did it. I was in the house, and my fingerprints were everywhere.”
“Again, half-truths and lies. I want only the truth. If you can’t do that, then we’re done here.” Gwilly stood.
Kim jumped up. “Wait. Look, I know I should have come clean, but I was scared. The only people who ever believed in me, or had my back, were dead. I was still in shock when I went to the police station. And I knew I had to give up something in order to stay out of jail. You don’t understand, Geo has contacts on the inside and outside, and I was going to die before I ever got to trial.”
Gwilly sat back down. “Geo Newton? Who does he have on the inside?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know names, but I do know he’s threatened us before. If we ratted him out for a lesser sentence, he said he’d know, and we’d be dead. Inside or outside, we’d be dead.”
“You think maybe he was just blowing smoke up your ass to scare you?”
She continued picking at her fingernails, then put her right hand up to her mouth and chewed on the tips of her nails. Jake wanted to pull her hand out of her mouth. “Maybe.”
“How are you feeling? Are you still clean, or did you shoot up last night when you went back to the house?”
She shivered and put her hand back on the table. “I didn’t shoot up.”
“Why do I even bother with you, Kim? You’re your own worst enemy.” He stood and pulled handcuffs from his belt. “Let’s go.”
Jake jumped up. “Wait,” he said to Gwilly. To Kim, he said, “Remember what we talked about? Stop covering, lying, stepping around the truth. It’s not going to work anymore. These people are smarter than you and your manipulation.”
Kim looked as if he slapped her in the face.
“I snorted a line of meth.” She dropped her head on the table and wrapped her arms over the back of her neck.
Jake wanted to strangle her with his bare hands. She told him and Tucker she wanted to change, and yet she went right back to that life and did drugs that night. Now he really knew she didn’t want help.
“Was that so hard?” Gwilly said without feeling.
“But you’re going to arrest me now,” she said to the wood of the table.
“I’m not. If you keep telling me the truth, help us get Geo and whoever his supplier is, I’ll keep my promise, and on Monday, I’ll stand up with the D.A. and plead your case to the judge. But you can’t do any more drugs, and you can’t hold back.”
“She has to take a piss test in the morning,” Jake said.
Gwilly glared at him. “That’s not a problem right now, unless you make it one.”
She sat up straight, and told her story again. Only this time she added more detail.
“After I saw Andy in the kitchen, I knew I didn’t have the strength to say no for long. I went upstairs and looked out the window in the hallway. I thought I saw someone creeping around the house.” She looked at Jake.
“Did you recognize the person?” Gwilly took notes on his phone.
“I couldn’t be sure who it was. But it was a guy. He wore all dark clothing and a hoodie. I couldn’t see his face.”
“How do you know it was a guy?” Gwilly asked.
Jake wanted to ask the same question, but bit his tongue.
“You know, guys move different from girls.” She looked at Gwilly, then back at Jake. “He disappeared, and then I saw someone get into a car and sit for several minutes. Then the person started the car and drove away.”
“What kind of car?”
“I’m not much into cars, so I can only tell you it had two doors, and it was a dark color. I tried to read the license plate, because I was sure it was one of Geo’s men, but I couldn’t see straight. I needed a fix kinda bad. The only reason I stayed at the window so long was because I was scared.”
“Really scared, or drug induced paranoia?” Gwilly stared at her.
“A little of both maybe?” She said it as a question more than a statement.
“What next?”
She picked absently at her skin. “I had to pee, so I went into the bathroom. Leon, or someone, had left a meth baggie on the counter, and I took the blade out of the razor in the medicine cabinet and scraped the edges of the baggie, trying to salvage the dust. Then I snorted it. The relief was overwhelming. But the amount was so minimal, I knew the high wouldn’t last long.”
“How long were you home when you saw the man and the car?”
“I don’t know. Like I told Jake, I don’t wear a watch. Maybe an hour.” She wrapped her bony fingers around her wrist and rubbed.
“You said you saw Leon upstairs in bed, and soon after you heard the gunshots.”
“I think so.” She rubbed hard at her wrist. “I mean, yes, that’s how it happened. I wanted to pack a bag just in case, you know?”
“In case of what? Were you preparing to run?” Gwilly stopped tapping in notes with his stylus, and looked at her.
Jake looked at her. His instincts were right; she was going to run.
“Andy said we might need to move quickly.” Her leg bounced. “I told him I didn’t want to run. And he got pissed at me.”
She’d failed to share this detail with Jake. After everything, all of the promises, she was going back to Andy, back to the gutter.
“That’s when he told me we needed to save ourselves. Narc out Geo, and then once the cops cut us loose, we’d blow this shitty little town.” She gave a weak smile.
Nothing she told him was the whole truth. Or was she embellishing for Gwilly? How was he supposed to know? He could have kicked himself for his stupidity.
“Even though you had a court date on Monday, you were going to run?” Gwilly’s voice went low.
“No, we were going to ask for a deal on Monday. That’s how I got the idea to come in and talk to Officer Darby.” She grinned with her teeth showing this time, like she was offering a morsel. “Andy and Leon were dead. I didn’t have any other friends. I didn’t know what to do.”
Her words stabbed at Jake’s heart. Didn’t she think he was her friend? Hell, no, he was just convenient. This wasn’t the same Kim he’d known as a kid. He had to stop fooling himself.
“Kim, you need better friends. Andy and Leon were going to get you killed. Not only that, they both laid the entire drug operation at your feet. Said you were Geo’s girlfriend, and that you were there that night because you were setting up the next major shipment.”
Kim froze.
Jake couldn’t keep quiet. “Well, Kim?”
She turned swiftly to look at him. “What the hell? No. I mean…”
“Why do you think Leon and Andy were out of jail when you went to the house?”
“I didn’t think to ask. I mean, I was out, wasn’t I?” She looked like a deer in the headlights.
“And you think you weren’t being watched? You think, after all of the work I’ve done, I was just going to let the system turn you loose?”
“Was it your guy who I saw sneaking around the house?” She was visibly shaking now.
Jake cursed himself. Why hadn’t they told him they’d been watching Kim and the house? Why would they tell him? He should have suspected they wouldn’t just let her walk away.
Gwilly looked at Jake. “Still think your bitch can be saved?”
Jake wanted to leap out of the chair and beat the shit out of his boss. Instead, he gripped the armrests of the chair until the wood dug into his skin. He didn’t answer.
“So, who were you fucking, Kim? Andy or Geo? Or both?” Gwilly asked, not really caring.
“Fuck you,” she responded without much energy.
Chapter 17
“Let’s start again. And this time you can tell me the story, knowing that I know the truth.” Gwilly relaxed his posture to a friendlier position.
“Fine, Geo and I were lovers, but only because he gave me drugs for free. And he gave me money to keep an eye on his operations.” She gripped the picnic bench as if it were a lifeline. “But I wanted out. I even told Andy I wanted out. I think that’s what Andy told Geo last night that got him killed.”
“I thought you said Geo was mad because he thought they ratted him out?”
“That, too. It’s such a mess. And when Geo found me in the closet, he made me promise to go to the cops and tell them all about the drug deal going down. Tell it like Andy and Leon were still alive. He trusted that I’d do it for him. And he said the only reason I wasn’t dead was because he needed me to buy him some time.”
Feeling the bile rise in his throat, Jake wanted to wrap his fingers around Kim’s throat and choke the life out of her. She’d played him hard.
“You know your story doesn't really add up?”
“Like I said, I was high. It’s all sort of a jumble. I just know that Geo killed Andy and Leon, and he told me to walk to the police station and tell them I wanted to plead ‘no contest’ to the charges, and ask about the S.A.F.E. program to show that I was sincere. Then I was to tell you and the D.A. about a couple of drug deals going down next week. They were deals he knew about, and he figured it’d be at least that long before you found the bodies. Who the hell knew someone would call the cops so soon?”
“So why are you ratting out Geo now?” Jake asked. The fire in his words burning his throat.
She looked at Jake, her eyes melting into tears. “Because I want out. I did everything everyone asked me to do, and nothing went as planned. Geo said he’d come and get me Monday, after the judge granted me into the program, and we’d be gone. Either way, with Andy or with Geo, I was outta here.”
“So, let’s say we hadn’t found the bodies right away. What would have happened when we arrived at the location of the drug buy?” Gwilly’s words friendlier now, coaxing.
“Geo set up one of his rivals. You’d have walked in on a drug buy. A fucking huge deal going down at the warehouse. His rival would be gone, and he’d lay low for a while, then we’d be back in business.” She wiped her tears away with the back of her forearm.
“I thought you were blowing this town?”
“That’s what he promised, but then I realized he’d never leave. Not unless the cops got too close. He didn’t want to start all over in a new place, learn the ways of the cops, and build a new clientele. That’s when I knew I was on my own. My life is over as I know it. And when Tucker offered me a job, I gladly took it. If I get into the S.A.F.E program, I’m going to work it like my life depends on it, because it does.”
The contradictions in her statements were overwhelming. Jake wasn’t even sure she knew what the truth was.
“You’d be required to participate in a twelve-step program, too. You need new friends, and I don’t think Jake can do this by himself.” Gwilly grabbed the recorder from the table and put it in his pocket. Then he pulled out a brown evidence bag, unfolded it, and put it on the table. “Jake, I need the shirt she was wearing last night when she left the house. I want to do a GSR test on it.”
Jake tried to remember what she was wearing. So much had happened that night, and his mind was a jumble.
“It was your shirt, Jake. I had on the shirt and sweat pants you gave me.”
No, it wasn’t. She’d changed back into her own clothes. Her lie jogged his memory. He didn’t think the shirt was still in the house. Without responding, Jake went into his bedroom and dug through her duffel bag. He found the clothes she’d put in the washer and put them in the evidence bag. He wasn’t going to say anything, but then he didn’t want to stoop to her level. He’d already stooped low enough.
When Jake handed the bag to Gwilly, he said, “She had actually changed clothes. She and my uncle were sitting at the kitchen table, and I remember she had changed back into the clothes she’d been wearing when she got out of jail. She’d washed them. Later, she put them back on when she thought I was asleep.”
Kim looked at Jake as if he were the devil.
“I’m not lying for you, Kim, not when I know the truth. That’s not how relationships and friendships work.”
He saw the will blow out of her with one breath. “Fine, you’re right.” She looked at Gwilly. “My mistake. Not a lie, just a mistake.”
Gwilly stood. “Stand up,” he said to Kim.
Kim looked at Jake, then at Gwilly. “Why?”
“Kim, nothing you told the D.A. is true. There’s no drug deal going down. You readily admitted to doing meth while you were at the house. Stand up and turn around.”
Jake didn’t even have time to blink before Kim bolted.
He leapt forward and reached out, catching the end of her ponytail, wrenching her back.
“Motherfucker,” she screamed.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jake said. He helped her off the grass, never letting go of her ponytail.
Gwilly stepped up. “Kim, you’re under arrest…”
Chapter 18
Bryce Trident loved his job, especially when he worked with Dr. Ogelsby. But Ogelsby was gone, and he had to train a new forensic pathologist to his ways. Yes, he would train this new doctor. Dr. O had taught him well, but he’d also been a student of Bryce’s. Bryce learned to train doctors when he was in graduate school for nursing. He got tired of being pushed around and unappreciated, so he started his own school, in his mind, and it didn’t take long before the doctors called for him specifically.
“What do you see here?” Dr. Glen McClaren, his new student, asked.
“I see a dead body.”
“Cut the crap, Bryce, tell me.”
Bryce had looked the body over before Dr. McC came in. In fact, he’d prepared the body for the young doctor. And by young, Bryce thought he was in his early forties. Dr. O had been nine-hundred years old, plus or minus a decade.
“Based on the toxicology reports, and the weird bruising at the top of his head, I think this guy either died, or would have died of a drug overdose, had someone not pulled him to a standing position by the hair on the top of his head, and shot him through the base of his skull.”
Dr. McClaren frowned, looked closer at the top of the victim’s skull, then said, “That very well could be. I agree with the assessment of the overdose. This guy was dead one way or the other. The bullet made a point somehow. Made it final, just in case the drugs didn’t.”
Bryce knew his job well. He’d been prepping and examining victims for more than a decade. More often than not, the victim proved to be a drain on society. Yes, innocent people died too, and he had a harder time with those bodies. After his first year in the forensic lab, he chose to see the bodies as peanut shells. The soul could still hover, but it no longer resided inside the peanut shell. He had no issues tearing apart a peanut shell. And the best part of the job: no attitude, well, except from a few cops and the doctor. He didn’t have enough time with the cops to get them trained, but Dr. McC was coming along nicely.
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