Lying in vengeance, p.19
Lying in Vengeance, page 19
Peter shook his head, confused. “There has to be some kind of mistake.”
“Oh, there were lots of mistakes made,” Tens said, earning another sharp look from Collins. He continued anyway. “Most of them by you and your buddy.”
“I just can’t think of a reason why he’d even go there,” Peter said. “I’d have never found it myself if Kyle hadn’t sent an Uber driver to the airport for me.”
“See, that doesn’t add up for me,” Collins said. “If he kidnapped your girlfriend, as you say, why would he send a cab to bring you there? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Peter said, “but it’s true.”
The two cops exchanged a long look. Finally, Collins rose to his feet. “Sit tight a few minutes,” he said. “I need some coffee.”
Peter could have used some too, and some dinner for that matter, but he knew that wasn’t in the cards. The two cops headed to the door, but Tens waited there after Collins left. “Here’s something else I don’t get, just between us girls,” he said, facing Peter. “That night I came to your girlfriend’s house a week or two ago. You said that was the same guy as the victim. Right?”
Peter nodded. “Yes. Kyle broke in, and—”
Tens interrupted him with a slow wag of his head. “No, sir.”
Peter frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Tens said, a smirk rising on his lips, “the man who broke into Ms. Nielsen’s house that night—if ‘breaking in’ is the term to describe it—was not Kyle Campbell. The prints, the DNA—none of it matches.”
“That’s not possible.”
Tens chuckled. “My friend, it’s more than possible. It’s the God’s-honest-truth. And something tells me that your girlfriend may already know this.” He paused, holding the door open. “That’s something that you might want to find out.” He nodded once and left the room, closing and locking the door behind him.
The click of the lock echoed in Peter’s ears—the sound of freedom slipping slowly away. Meanwhile Christine, with her double-crosses and twisted schemes, remained free, somewhere outside of those thick, concrete walls.
Suddenly the room felt smaller, stuffier and a whole lot warmer.
Chapter Thirty
Christine hummed to herself as she walked toward the setting sun in Portland’s bustling and hip Pearl District. Shoppers ducked in and out of the chic shops selling upscale clothing, artisanal chocolates and locally-produced pinot noirs. Pub-goers stumbled across the narrow, busy cross streets into high-end restaurants. Money flowed like the abundant streams pushing summer rains down West Hill slopes toward the Willamette and the once-mighty Columbia River. Christine drank it all in—the urban excitement, surrounded by natural beauty and the odd, almost beatnik optimism of the locals. She breathed a satisfied sigh. The move to Portland four years before had worked out well for her. And now, with Kyle gone, she no longer would have to live in the constant fear under which she’d labored for the better part of a decade. Finally, amidst all the beauty and abundance, she would enjoy her freedom—if only briefly. It would be a shame to leave it all behind.
First, she needed to change her pattern of bad luck with men. Peter hadn’t worked out quite the way she’d hoped, but she could live with the way that had turned out. Kyle was gone. Not by Peter’s hand, as she’d hoped, but he’d serve as a perfect scapegoat, if she needed one. For now, his idiotic friend Frankie filled that role, and that, too, worked well for her. Frankie had escaped justice for sexual harassment a few months before. If he took the fall for Kyle’s murder, well, call it karma.
She reached her destination, an ATM outside a local bank branch that held her reserve funds under an assumed identity, untraceable back to her. She checked the balance, made a note to engineer the complex series of transactions that would, over the next several days, boost the balance to its targeted level. No rush. She couldn’t go anywhere just yet, anyway. Running too soon would only make the wrong people suspicious.
She turned the corner to navigate the entrance to one of her favorite wine bars, but stopped when a faint ring tone leaked out of her purse. She retrieved it, read the caller ID, cursed, and answered. “This call,” she said, “is a very bad idea.”
“So is making me wait for my money,” the man said.
“Nonsense,” she said. “You’ll be paid exactly when, and in the manner and amount, in which we agreed.”
“I need it now! And I need more. I’ve had expenses.”
“When-and-in-the-amount-agreed!” She spit the words into the phone, tucked low into her shoulder to prevent her voice from projecting into the crowds around her.
“Are you sure this is wise?” he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. “I know things...you don’t want to keep that knowledge hungry. A man could get desperate.”
“That cuts both ways,” she said, slowing her walking pace. She hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings. Not good. “You know, most people don’t even know you exist. Which is how you like it. What a shame it would be if all that were to suddenly change.”
“After what I’ve done for you—”
“You—!” She caught herself and lowered her voice from the loud, high pitch it had quickly reached. “Look. You did well. You’ll be paid well. But the timing is important. If we rush, it will only raise suspicions. This whole thing could unravel. Is that what you want?” She looked around and realized she’d taken a detour down a dark, unfamiliar street, with few people around. More private, but not safe for a woman on her own. She reversed direction back toward the busy, well-lit shopping district—
And nearly crashed head-first into Raul Vasquez.
“I gotta go,” she said into the phone.
“But—”
She hung up. Raul, hands in his back pockets, grinned. “Did I surprise you?”
“What is this, stupid night?” She tossed her phone into her purse. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Following me?”
Raul shrugged. “Following? No, no. By pure coincidence, I saw you at the bank machine, and I thought you must be getting my money. So, for your convenience, I thought I would say hello and maybe save you a trip.”
“Your money?”
Raul spread his hands wide. “Two weeks I have been working for you, but I have not been paid.”
“We agreed on a monthly stipend. That assumes a month’s work. We also agreed not to meet in person—ever. Yet here you are. What were you thinking?”
Raul sighed, dropped his hands to his sides. “I see. So it is to be like this. Well, so be it.”
She started to push past him, then stopped. “What do you mean, ‘So be it’?”
He stepped aside for her. “I guess it means, I must continue to wait. And you, also, must accept the consequences.”
She turned to face him, forced a smile onto her face. “Consequences, Raul? A man with your history has the nerve to talk to me about consequences?”
Raul’s expression darkened. “I must warn you, I do not respond well to threats.”
She laughed and reached for his button-down shirt, holding the seam between loose fingers, tugging him toward her. “Threats? Oh, my. Now why ever would you assume I would threaten you? What information could I possibly have that might put you in jeopardy?”
He batted away her hand. “I was acquitted by a jury of my peers. A jury that included you, I might add!”
She widened her smile and winked at him. “So it did, Raul. So it did. So. Where does that leave us? Right where we started, I think, before you made the unwise choice of following me.” She leaned in close, pressed her hand on his sturdy chest. “If you want things to go well between us, you won’t make that mistake again. Will you, Raul?”
He glared at her, but said nothing.
She smiled sweetly at him, pure saccharine. “Be careful, Raul. Be very careful.”
She stepped around him and resumed walking toward Glisan Street. After taking several steps, she stole a glance behind her. Raul had disappeared.
She sighed in relief and walked toward the bright, busy street.
THE POLICE RELEASED Peter after another agonizing and repetitious hour of questioning, apparently satisfied enough with his alibi to conclude that he couldn’t have done the deed or even witnessed it. “But don’t stray too far,” Tens said when he let him go. “Check in with us before heading out of the area.”
“Am I still under suspicion, after all that?” Peter asked, an edge in his voice.
“Just don’t go buying any airplane tickets in the coming few weeks, okay?”
Peter stomped out of the Justice Center and up three flights of stairs in the nearby parking garage, then slammed his truck door shut behind him. He hadn’t eaten dinner, and it was past nine o’clock. He put the truck in gear and suppressed every urge to burn rubber down the garage’s spiraling exit ramp. He behaved himself in traffic, wary of giving Tennyson Howard any more reason to harass him, and pulled into a short line at a Burgerville drive-up window on the Eastside just as Carlos Santana began playing on his cell phone. He put the call on speaker. “Yeah, what’s up?”
“What’s up? Geez. I’m happy to hear your voice, too, darling.”
“Don’t ‘darling’ me. I told you not to call me.”
“Of course you weren’t serious,” she said in a mocking tone. “A lonely man like you?”
“Damn right I was serious. And I’m in no mood for any more of your crap. I just spent three hours getting grilled by police about Kyle’s death thanks to an ‘anonymous tip.’ Gee, I wonder where that came from?”
“Welcome to the club. I was at the police station all day, starting at ten a.m. I somehow earned the privilege of identifying the body. So much fun for me, huh?”
The line of cars in front of him dwindled to one. He pulled up behind it, contemplating his order. “Well, get this. They’re blaming, not you, but my best friend for this murder. How do you think they got that idea?”
“Peter!” she said, mock aghast. “You didn’t slough the dirty work off to your best friend, now, did you?”
“Of course not! Wait—that’s not—”
“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you did this for me,” she said. “Especially after you left him lying there—”
“I did not do this for you! For God’s sake!” He drove forward, following the car ahead of him, and stopped next to the ordering kiosk.
“Peter,” she said in a soothing voice, “if not for me, then for whom?”
“For nobody! I didn’t do it for anybody. I didn’t do it, period! Jesus!”
“I can take your order anytime you’re ready,” a teenage boy’s high-pitched voice said amid a cacophony of static.
“I see you’re taking yourself out to dinner to celebrate,” she said. “So fancy.”
“I am not celebrating anything!” Peter shook the steering wheel. He would have torn it off if he could.
“Sir?” the teenager said. “I didn’t quite get that.”
“I’m shocked,” Christine said. “I expected to find you someplace fancy. Pazzo’s, maybe, to commemorate our first date. Or, maybe, Florentino’s?” She laughed as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“There is nothing to celebrate,” he said through gritted teeth. “A man is dead, my best friend is accused of killing him, and why I didn’t just turn you in for it, I still don’t know.”
“S-sir?” the disembodied static said.
“We both know why you didn’t do that,” Christine said. “Unless you really do want to talk to the police about Alvin Dark.”
He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the LED lights that, in some universe, formed words on a menu. No luck. “Maybe I should.”
“Peter, you’re being a petulant brat.”
“Yeah, well. Love you too, Killer Queen.”
A sharp intake of breath, followed by several seconds of dead air, let him know that his comment had left its mark. He smiled. If she ever heard her ring tone, she’d have a heart attack.
“Well,” she said after a long pause, “I can see that I’ve misjudged you. I thought you were a man I could count on through the rough patches. A team player. But apparently—”
“We are not a team!” He caught himself yelling again. Static coughed out of the drive-up kiosk’s speaker.
“Sir? Could you repeat your order, please?”
“You’re right, Peter.” All lightness of tone left Christine’s voice. “We’re not a team. We never really were. I thought you might have helped me out with Kyle, but I can see you never really cared about my problem.”
“Of course I cared,” Peter said. “I just didn’t agree with your solution.”
“You lied to me, then.”
He gritted his teeth, exhaled noisily. “You gave me no choice.”
“Well, then. I’m glad I had other options. More reliable men. More...loyal.”
“More lethal, you mean.”
“Apparently, yes. But at least they told me the truth.”
“You’re no one to talk about lying.” His voice grew hoarse with anger. “About being deceitful. How about that night you said Kyle broke into your house, eh? Utter bullshit.”
“You were there. You saw—”
“I saw a man, yes, but it wasn’t Kyle. The police proved it. So, who was it, Christine? One of your ‘other options,’ I take it?”
She made a noise like she’d sucked air in between her teeth. Her voice came back, sharp, accusatory. “So, what are you saying? I staged a break-in at my own house, using a Kyle look-alike?”
“Something like that.” Hearing her say it actually calmed him for some odd reason. “Actually, now that you’ve laid it out so clearly, yes. Exactly like that.”
“Ridiculous.”
The speaker coughed again with growing impatience. “Sir?”
“Give me a minute,” Peter said out the window.
“I’ve given you too many minutes,” Christine said, venom in her voice. “Too many hours, and too many days, and too many fucks. And you know what, Peter? I no longer give a fuck about you or anything that happens to you.”
Silence hung in the air for several seconds, broken up only by the static in the speaker outside his car window. “Sir? Would you like to—”
“Forget it!” Peter put his truck in gear and drove forward, too fast. He jammed on the brake, stopping just in time, inches from the bumper of a car collecting their order from the service window.
“Forgetting it is great advice for you to take,” Christine said. “Forget everything you know about me, and us. Forget it all. Do not let a single word about me pass your lips to anyone—most of all, the police. Do not even think about creating problems for me. Because if you do, Peter, I’ll know. And as you’re now quite well aware, I take care of my problems. And when I do, my solutions are quite final.”
The line went silent, then dead.
CHRISTINE DOWNED THE rest of her drink, vodka with too much fruit juice, in one swallow. The drink boiled in her otherwise empty stomach, much like the blood racing through her veins. Damn that man! How could she have chosen such a useless jerk for this critical mission?
Lesson learned. Leverage, even deadly leverage, was not enough.
Kyle was gone. No thanks to Peter, as it turned out, and in the end, she’d simply replaced one enemy with another. A much less dangerous enemy, to be sure, but even so, a problem.
Still, she knew how to deal with problems. Sometimes dealing with problems like these involved a little bit of pain, and too often, that pain was self-inflicted.
But the pain, too, would pass. And soon, freedom would return.
PETER INSPECTED THE repairs to the front windows and doors at Stark’s and gave an approving nod to the contractor standing next to him. “Great work,” he said. “I couldn’t even see the alarm sensors at first.”
“That’s the goal,” said the graying, short-haired man. His nametag read “Shawn Dekum—Safe Buildings, Inc.” He noted something on his clipboard as he spoke. “If you can’t see them, neither can intruders.”
“I’m confused,” Peter said. “I thought the idea was deterrence. For that, don’t the security measures need to be visible, front and center?”
“We’ve got those,” the security man said, pointing to video cameras mounted on the soffits twenty feet above. “Plus we’ll add lots of signage, additional lighting, and alarms. There’ll be plenty of deterrence.”
Peter nodded. If anything, the system was overkill. “What about the insider aspect? Gregg’s convinced one of our employees had a hand in this.”
“More cameras, plus voice-activated audio recorders, both in every office, hallway, and retail zone,” Dekum said. “Phones are monitored and all calls centrally recorded. Access to the building will require sign-in codes and IDs unique to each employee. If someone on the inside is involved, we’ll know.”
“You’re taping our phone calls? Where do all these recordings go, anyway?”
Dekum smiled, revealing chipped, yellowing teeth. “A secure, offsite data center, connected by a dedicated gigabit data line. We store it all digitally for fast, secure retrieval at our facility. You want to see who said what and when, we’ll have it on demand. We’ll train you on the retrieval software.”
Peter shuddered. “We all love Big Brother, right?”
Dekum gave him a puzzled look. Peter waved him off. Education in the classics, his father had always railed, had gone all to hell.
A dark green Impala with government plates pulled into the parking lot. Peter made eye contact with the driver, a uniformed African-American woman whose head barely cleared the top of the steering wheel. She said something to her passenger, a tall, husky Caucasian with close-cropped gray hair and black horn-rimmed glasses wearing a similar uniform. The driver parked and the two got out, staring straight at him. The man in uniform carried a large, closed, yellow envelope.
