Justice

by Dustin Stevens

  Any uncertainty as to how the two parties felt was cemented by Billie in the backseat, pacing incessantly, not sure what to make of the twisted physiology occurring in the front seat.

  Not that Reed was doing much better.

  “What makes you so certain this Gerard guy is the killer?” he asked, glancing over to his right before turning back to face forward.

  Outside, any remaining daylight had slipped away, nightfall still coming early this time of year. With it came a precipitous drop in temperature, the front vents pushing out stale air, pulling in heat from the engine block.

  Street lights dotted the road in uneven intervals, some yellow, others orange, more still completely blacked out, the various differences the results of years of vandalism and exposure to the elements.

  “I’m not,” Rye replied. “In fact, I’m near positive he didn’t do it.”

  Again flicking his gaze to the side, Reed said, “But I thought you just said-“

  “Ever had a green papaya salad?” Rye asked, cutting him off. Jerking her head to the side, she stared at Reed a moment before looking away, her features an unreadable mask.

  “A what?” Reed asked, making no effort to hide his confusion.

  “Green papaya salad,” she repeated.

  “Can’t say that I have,” Reed said, not sure where the comment was going, if she was attempting to ask him to dinner. “Are you hungry?”

  Beside him, Rye only smirked in response, her head rocking back a half inch. “You need to get out of Ohio more.”

  Knowing she wasn’t wrong, but not about to let himself get pulled into that conversation, Reed prompted, “So, green papaya salad?”

  Beside him, the faint sound of muttering could just be heard, too indistinct to make out.

  Though Reed could easily surmise what she was getting at.

  “Green papaya salad is a Thai dish,” she said. “Uses fish sauce, a little Sambal, some onion.”

  Having no clue where this was going, knowing only that their time together in the car was already preciously thin and closing fast, Reed said, “Oh-kay?”

  Moving on, seemingly oblivious to his tone, Rye said, “The way it’s made is, you hold a papaya on end and you take a serrated peeler to it, tearing away thin strips of the flesh.”

  Turning to look at him full, her face flashing in his periphery, she said, “That’s what I did to Gerard’s son.”

  For a moment, there was no denying the reaction that came to Reed’s face, his eyes widening, his jaw sagging just slightly.

  “Damn.

  “Alice Hartong – a name that was given to her later, which I hate, by the way – was Nora Heatherington. She came on our radar a little over two years ago. A country girl from Stratford, she arrived in the city, all fresh faced and beautiful, to teach school.”

  The comment Mary Lazenby had made about Hartong’s accent flashed across Reed’s mind, the statement making little impact when first uttered, but now resonating in a much deeper manner.

  Nodding slightly, finally beginning to make sense of what Rye was telling him, Reed said, “As easy a mark as ever existed.”

  “Easier,” Rye agreed. “Didn’t take long for the sharks to come around, none more so than Gerard’s son - a real bastard named Vincent. From there, you can connect the dots.”

  And Reed could, the narrative pretty true to what he’d seen many times before. Vincent probably began with heavy flattery, the unsuspecting woman eating it up. Little by little it would have shifted, unexpected outbursts, hints of jealousy, even some mild violence.

  By the time she realized who she was really with, it was too late, the monster having complete control over her.

  A bit cliched perhaps, but not the sort of thing that didn’t happen with alarming frequency.

  “So she called you.”

  “No,” Rye said. “That girl was so thin and delicate, I don’t think it ever would have occurred to her to seek help. I just happened to be out one night, saw them walk past, him pissed off, her crying with the telltale red welts across her face.

  “Slipped outside behind them just in time to see Round Two go down. After that...”

  Again nodding, Reed finished, “Your biggest obstacle was convincing her to go through with it.”

  Flashing another look in his direction, Rye raised her eyebrows slightly, seemingly a bit surprised he’d had some interaction with such matters.

  “Pretty much. First attempt, she refused to leave the country, didn’t want to be away from her parents. Didn’t take long for him to sniff that out, put her in intensive care.”

  As she spoke, bits of anger drifted into her voice. For the first time, Reed could pick out hints of an accent beneath the practiced monotone, faint whiffs of the northeast becoming audible.

  Boston, or maybe New York.

  “Which is when you went to work on him,” Reed said, a statement, connecting the next progression point in the story. “Bet that went over well.”

  “Yes and no,” Rye said. “Was enough to finally get her out of the country, though it definitely put me in the Gerard family crosshairs.”

  Having already heard about Gerard and his head of security at the office, Reed bypassed needing to go through that part of the story again. Just blocks away from where Rye had said she was parked, he needed to spur things along, to get some understanding of how things were going to work moving forward.

  “Which got you out of the country as well,” Reed said.

  Again, Rye smirked, this one completely void of humor. “Not quite, the two just happened to coincide.”

  It was clear the statement was meant to carry some finality to it, the woman skipping over how Hartong had come to be in Columbus, how Gerard found her there, how she had known to show up just hours later. Things that would be germane to an investigation, would help him tremendously as he continued to work the case.

  Things that he was also quite certain he wouldn’t be getting from her anytime soon.

  Raising a finger, she tapped it against the passenger window, the pad of it leaving a smudge on the glass.

  “I’m parked right over there.”

  Picking out the lone vehicle that didn’t belong, a shiny SUV sitting in a line of vehicles that looked like they were manufactured in the eighties, last driven in the nineties.

  “Brave woman,” Reed said, leaving it at that, trusting Rye would pick up on the insinuation.

  “Yeah, well, I was a little preoccupied at the time.”

  Snorting faintly, Reed eased up alongside the car, his headlights flashing against the shiny paint job.

  “So, how’s this going to work?” he asked. “I know you must have some working plan for this investigation, otherwise you never would have suggested it back at the station.”

  He didn’t bother adding that he hoped it went beyond just getting free of them, trusting it was implicit.

  For the second time, Rye regarded him for a moment, one corner of her mouth flickering just slightly. Appearing as if she were debating something, she simply stared, her face twitching imperceptibly, before saying, “I was thinking we come at this from different angles.

  “Since I’m in the field, you’ve got some access that I don’t, local records and such. Why don’t you go start on Gerard?”

  Having expected as much – at the very least a clear division of labor – Reed pressed, “So, investigate separately.”

  “Unless you have a better idea,” Rye responded. “I mean, I’m guessing based on the welcoming party I got at the station and your captain’s decision to at least try a collaboration, you guys are under the gun here.”

  Raising a hand to the door handle, she shifted her body, about to exit.

  “And you?” Reed asked, giving her pause.

  Considering the question for a moment, she turned and looked at him, a flash of something crossing behind her eyes, the look bordering on primal, the sort of thing he had seen in Billie a time or two before.

  “I now kno
w Koob’s on my ass, probably watching us as we speak. It’s time I used that to my advantage.”

  Without another word, she was up and out.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Sydney Rye knew that at least two people were watching her as she stood by the front corner of her SUV. Making no effort to hide, or to step inside, she waited until the brake lights of Reed Mattox faded into the distance, simply standing and staring as he departed.

  On the whole, the detective had surprised her, his working with a K-9 partner and seeming to have pretty good instincts – especially on a case such as the one with Nora – both being points in his favor.

  Conversely, he was still a working cop from a small Midwest city, the American equivalent of what Nora Heatherington had once been.

  And it was no coincidence what had eventually happened to her as a result.

  Waiting a full minute after he was gone, making sure that he wasn’t returning for a second pass, didn’t just pull around the corner to sit and observe, Rye pinched her thumb and index finger into a ring. Raising them to her lips, she blew hard, letting a shrill whistle erupt from between them.

  Extracting her fingers, she waited a moment, listening intently, waiting as a telltale sound drifted toward her.

  Unable to hide the smile that crossed her features, she pushed her fingers in and blew a second time, the response growing stronger.

  She knew when she’d told Blue to run that he would retreat back to within sight of the car and wait for her. Cunning and self-reliant in a way she could only hope to one day be, not once had she feared for his safety.

  No matter how long she would be gone, he would be okay. If he needed food, he would find it. A place to sleep, he would seek that out as well.

  And he would be there waiting the moment she returned.

  It took just twenty seconds from the time of her first whistle to the moment he came into view, bounding down from the opposite end of the street. Ignoring any existing traffic, almost daring anybody to try and stop him, he put his gaze on the center line and tore forward.

  With enormous leaps, his body coiled and unfurled in smooth measure, propelling him forward, pushing him in her direction.

  Stepping away from the side of the SUV, Rye made no effort to slow the great beast, no admonishment for him to ease up.

  Instead, she waited as he pounced straight at her, his enormous weight slamming into her, knocking her back half a dozen steps.

  Once before, she had been foolish enough to try and use the side of the car as a brace, the weight of the dog pinning her against it, almost crushing her spine in the process.

  This time she knew to let his momentum knock her back, allowing him to swipe his giant tongue along the side of her face, his full height on his back legs almost matching her own.

  Putting a smile on her face, Rye swatted at Blue’s head, ruffling his ears and the tangle of fur nested between them.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said, the two of them balanced on wobbly legs in the street. “Did you miss me?”

  In his own form of response, Blue continued working at the exposed skin of her neck and face, swiping away the dried blood she knew was still there, both of them staying locked in the embrace until Rye could no longer support his weight. Letting him drop to the ground, she moved over and swung open the back door, motioning for him to climb inside.

  “Come.”

  In one smooth movement, the dog was up and inside, the SUV rocking beneath his weight.

  Closing the door behind him, Rye made a point of looking at the ground, of keeping the grin on her face as she walked around to the driver’s side.

  Not until she was behind the wheel did she let it fall away.

  The other person she knew had been watching was Clarence Koob, the display with Blue a show, a visual to give the appearance of her own obliviousness and to let her observer know that the animal was still around.

  That he should take at least some caution in how he approached them.

  For most of the evening, Rye had sat in the police station, left to her own thoughts, formulating how things would go. Now that she was free, that she had made an alliance she had only nominal interest in maintaining, it was time to put things in motion.

  If the earlier encounter in the streets was any indicator, her enemy was close, armed, and not afraid to open fire, regardless of the situation.

  With her Beretta and knife both confiscated, it was time for her to get into a similar position.

  Dropping the car into gear, she eased away from the curb, looking to Blue in the backseat.

  “I think it’s time we shake the tree, see what falls out. What do you think, boy?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The sight of Rye and her overgrown beast frolicking in the street like a couple of schoolchildren rested at the front of Clarence Koob’s mind. Working his mouth up and down, he tried to push it aside, but like a bad taste that refused to subside, there was to be no removing it.

  The display had blatantly been aimed at him, a show put on because she knew he would be nearby and she wanted him to know she was out and that her guard dog was by her side.

  The move of having her leave the police station with the detective that arrested her was a curious one, for sure, flying directly in the face of what Koob suspected of her. His every thought prior to that was that she would have extricated herself as quickly as possible, refusing to stoop to the level of working with the locals.

  Especially in a matter he knew was as grating to her as it was to him.

  Koob would have given anything to have been present inside that station, to hear the story she must have spun, the promises she had to have made.

  It’s not every day someone can kill a person in the middle of the street and have the officer that nabbed them return them to their vehicle that very evening.

  Realizing that, Koob had left Hirsch on guard detail, letting the fleeting image of Rye and her pet play across his mind as he pushed beyond the edge of town, a fresh update in hand.

  Working his way through the side streets, he watched as local bank branches and fast food establishments faded by the wayside, the same for gas stations a bit beyond that. Without the neon glow of their assorted signage, the world seemed much darker, a starless sky providing zero illumination as he drove.

  Precisely the type of evening he liked, the kind that made it easier for someone in his line of work to operate.

  Eighteen minutes after leaving his post down the street from Rye’s vehicle, Koob pulled up before a wooden gate, a head-high brick wall pushing in tight from either direction. Using the automated clicker in the middle console, he aimed it at the front, waiting as the carved design parted in the middle, revealing a sprawling home on the opposite side.

  The estate was the height of opulence, the very definition of unnecessary, the sort of thing that Koob had grown up hating, still harbored a healthy disdain for.

  With just one man living inside, there was no call for the extreme accommodations, Gerard much more concerned with the appearance than the functionality.

  Much the way he insisted on coming over and renting the place, on being present when the woman that had mutilated and killed his son was finally put down.

  If the man had any sense, he would have sent Koob alone, would have given him ample resources and told him to call when it was completed.

  Instead, he was working under tight strictures, none more so than the fact that multiple times a day he had to step away to brief the old man in person.

  A practice that went well past paranoia, had grown more than tiresome in just a few short days.

  Swinging his ride along the curved driveway out front, Koob left the keys in the ignition as he stepped out, his boots clicking against the brick drive underfoot. Stepping around behind the car, he hopped up the short flight of steps to the front and entered, the door unlocked, not a soul to be seen moving about.

  Stepping into a hallway spread wide to either side, the walls whit
e, various paintings hung in even intervals, their gold frames glinting beneath the overhead chandeliers, Koob kept his strides long, his pace quick.

  Moving through the open space, he walked to the back of the home, directly up to the enormous wooden doors that always stood closed. Balling his hand into a fist, he pounded twice before pausing, completing the unnecessary ritual his boss had come up with, had even convinced himself was an extension of Koob’s military days, and striking it a third time.

  On cue, a voice could be heard on the other side, beckoning him in.

  The air inside the room was a touch cooler than usual, though otherwise the place was exactly as always, with the thin curtain blowing in the breeze, as if Gerard was a villain in a John Woo movie.

  With his hands behind his waist, Koob kept his face neutral, walking straight up to the desk and pausing, his lips pressed tight.

  “Good evening,” Gerard said from behind his desk, a fresh coat of self-tanner giving him an especially distorted color against his white dress shirt. “Please, be seated.”

  Sliding forward, Koob lowered himself into the seat, only his bottom touching before he launched forward.

  “Rye has been released by the police.”

  Raising his eyebrows slightly – as much as his tightened skin would allow – Gerard asked, “They just let her go? After what happened with Neville?”

  “Yes,” Koob said, “the arresting officer even drove her back to her car.”

  There he stopped, hoping his boss would be able to infer the rest without having to go into minute conversation about it.

  Even if he already knew better.

  Shifting his focus to the side, Gerard took a moment to chew on the information, his chin lifted toward the ceiling.

  “Which must mean she cut a deal to work with them.”

  “Yes,” Koob agreed, offering nothing more.

  Nodding slightly, Gerard processed for another moment before turning to look at Koob.

  “Is this a problem?”

  “No,” Koob replied, his tone firm. “This won’t go long enough for the addition of a few coppers to make any difference.”