Simply Lies, page 16
“I saw the John Deere tractor in his backyard. It looks like it needs a lot of work.”
The woman smiled. “I guess it’s ‘do as I say, not as I do’ with old Daryl. He makes all our stuff run good and doesn’t lift a finger for his own.”
Clarisse had frozen for a moment on the woman’s first words. The same tagline in the secret room where Harry Langhorne had died.
“If he’s an introvert he might not want to open the door to a stranger.”
“You said you had an appointment with him?” the woman asked.
“Yes, but he doesn’t know what I look like. I called out and said who I was and why I was here, but no one responded.”
“Now that is strange.”
“Maybe if you . . .”
The woman stepped out, and Clarisse followed her over to Oxblood’s. The woman knocked hard on the door. “Daryl, it’s Barbara. You okay? There’s a lady here you have an appointment with. Daryl!”
No sound came from within. Barbara looked at her. “Okay, now I’m getting a little worried.”
“What should we do?”
“I think we’re justified in going in and seeing if he’s okay.”
“Maybe we should call the police.”
“Hell, the county sheriff’s department’s the law around here and they got a lot of ground to cover. So by the time they showed up we could have taken Daryl to the hospital, if he’s fallen and hurt himself.”
“Okay, but how do we get in?”
Barbara scooted back to her house and came back waving a key. “He has one for my place if something happens to me, too. Way it is out here.”
“I’m sure.”
Barbara unlocked the door, and they walked into a house that was filled with junk and clutter.
“He really let the place go after his ma died. He makes decent money, but Daryl has never been much of a housekeeper. Hell, neither am I.”
“I’m sure,” Clarisse said, her gaze roaming around the small space. “Maybe upstairs?”
There were ten steps up, and on the fifth one Clarisse reached into her bag and gripped the pepper spray. On the ninth step her hearing was as concentrated as was possible.
When they reached the second floor Barbara turned right.
“He’s usually up here reading comic books and such. His ma used to complain.”
“And his father?”
“Never knew him. He died before they moved here.”
“How long have the Oxbloods lived here?”
“Nearly twenty years. I’m born and bred.”
Barbara knocked on the door and got no answer. “Daryl, if you’re in there, say something or we’re coming in.” She looked back at Clarisse and shrugged. “He’s overweight and has diabetes and he’s not good about taking his insulin. He’s not that old, around forty, but maybe a heart attack?”
“One way to find out.”
Barbara gripped the doorknob as Clarisse got ready to deploy her pepper spray. She didn’t expect to find her adversary inside, but stranger things had happened to her.
The door opened and Barbara stepped through.
“Oh my God,” she cried out.
Clarisse pushed past her and looked at the bed.
The dried, congealed blood was everywhere, and the assailant long gone.
She made a sweep of the room and then stepped closer to the corpse on the bed, avoiding the spots of blood on the wooden planks.
“Is this Daryl?” she asked.
Barbara hung back by the door. “Y-yes. All that blood. What the hell happened? Did he have some sort of accident?”
She looked at the cut that ran from one earlobe to the other.
“I think you should call the sheriff’s department.”
“And tell them what?”
“That a man has been murdered.”
“Murdered! Here?”
Clarisse turned back to look at Barbara. “Go do it now,” she said in a strained voice.
Barbara turned and clattered back down the stairs. She could hear the older woman bouncing off the walls in her haste.
She bent down and scrutinized the dead man’s face and then recoiled in horror.
No way. It cannot be. Please.
She stepped back and glanced at the man’s arm. She edged the sleeve up to the elbow and then slowly turned the arm toward her so she could see the inside of the forearm.
She saw what she needed to see and pulled the sleeve down and put the arm back.
It was a tat of Superman’s insignia.
Shit.
Unfortunately for Clarisse, she had chosen burgundy gloves to wear today. And thus she didn’t notice the small bit of congealed blood that had leached onto one of her fingertips.
Clarisse stepped away and looked at the shelves lining one wall. They were filled with comic books. She rushed over and then stopped and stared at the one on top of a large pile. It was, she knew, a copy of a special edition Superman comic. But was it that one? She opened the cover and looked on the first page.
The initials BD and RE housed inside a drawn-in heart.
She thrust the comic back, her panic rising. Now she had something else to look for, and she needed to do it quickly.
She rushed across to the opposite room she had noticed when they had reached the second floor. Clarisse pushed the door open using her gloved hand. It was a small room that was obviously used for storage. Boxes and old bed frames and the clutter and castoffs of seemingly several lifetimes were piled in here.
Her sweeping gaze stopped at the far wall. And there it was. She lifted her iPad and took a picture of what was written on the wall in black Magic Marker.
DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO.
She didn’t want this found. She pulled a pen out of her bag and had started to mark through the words when she heard Barbara on the stairs. She quickly put her pen away as Barbara appeared in the doorway.
“They’re on their way.” She looked at the message on the wall. “Oh my God, what does that mean?”
“I don’t know. The police will have to figure it out. And I have to be going.”
“What! Aren’t you going to wait for the cops?”
“Look, I came out here because it was part of my job. I don’t know anyone here. I certainly didn’t know Daryl Oxblood. You’ll be able to tell the police a lot more than I ever could. And while I don’t want to sound heartless, I have twenty more people to survey before the day is out, and they live all over.”
Barbara glanced at the message and shrugged. “Well, all right, I guess. But I’m not staying in the house alone.”
“You can wait for them outside.”
They walked down the steps and out into the yard.
“Oh, what’s your name, in case the police ask?” said Barbara.
“Julia Frazier. Good luck. And I’m very sorry about what happened to your friend.”
“Well, we were more neighbors than friends. His mother was my friend, though. I bet it’s drugs. That opioid stuff. Maybe he owed money or something and they came and did that to him when he couldn’t pay. Bastards.”
“You’re probably right.”
Barbara went back over to her house while Clarisse hustled to her car. She reached the main road and turned left. A few seconds later she saw two sheriff’s cruisers in her rearview mirror. Sirens blaring and lights swirling, they turned down the road where there was a dead man waiting and disappeared from sight.
A few moments later, so did Clarisse.
CLARISSE SAT IN THE AIRLINE’S first-class lounge at Dulles. She had had a return ticket to her previous location but had opted to take a flight to New York instead. She had changed her appearance in the bathroom stall. Clarisse was a redhead now and her clothes were far more businesslike. Her delicately applied makeup had softened her previous harder edges. The lipstick was muted, the eyeliner the same. She could be going to close a big deal or coming back from doing so. And in a way she was.
Do as I say, not as I do. She had seen that phrase twice now. They had anticipated her drilling down to the theft of Daryl Oxblood’s identity to rent the car and get the credit card. But the truth was they did not have to kill him. They didn’t have to do anything to him. The fact that they had brutally murdered a man for no reason at all had changed the equation of all of this for her.
But there was a reason. I know who Daryl Oxblood was. And they know who Oxblood was. He was the BD in the heart drawn in the Superman comic book, a comic book that he had proudly shown me over twenty years ago.
They had found him, used his identity to rent the car, and killed him in the process, apparently just for the hell of it.
She sat back in her comfortable chair, not feeling comfortable at all. She sipped on flavored seltzer water and munched on a sesame seed cracker topped with Gruyère cheese.
She gazed around the room where well-to-do people lounged while waiting for their flights.
So many marks, so little time.
But that would have to wait. And truth be known, her heart was no longer in it. At least not right now.
They had killed before, she knew that: Daniel Pottinger aka Harry Langhorne. They had used a nasty poison and watched him croak. But there had been a good reason for killing him, at least to her mind. But Daryl Oxblood, not so much.
Which means things have changed and so have they.
She boarded the flight to New York and an hour later looked down upon the delicate spires of the city right before they landed at LaGuardia. She deplaned and took a cab to her hotel. She had made her reservation online from the airline lounge at Dulles. During the drive she scoured her phone for news of the very recent murder in rural Virginia, but found nothing yet. It might take a while out there, she assumed.
She got to her hotel, a chic boutique in SoHo that charged more than it should, but she liked it because no one looked you in the eye, except for the front desk people and they only did so once. It was an organization that understood privacy and boundaries, and right now she was feeling exposed and thus welcomed both.
She took a hot shower, then lay wrapped in a luxurious towel on her immensely comfortable four-poster bed staring at the ceiling, which was done in a quiet gray silk damask. In the very center was a three-bulbed chandelier that looked so modern that it, counterintuitively, seemed rooted in a distant past.
Three bulbs, three players in this little drama, if I don’t count Mickey Gibson, but I probably should. She’s more than a pawn. She’s at a rook or knight level now, and maturing fast. Hopefully. Because when I beat her I want to beat her at the woman’s absolute best.
She dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, ordered room service, and sat down to eat thirty minutes later. She had indulged with some steak and potatoes and a glass of cabernet, when she usually didn’t eat meat or many carbs and she kept her alcoholic intake to a minimum, mostly because of the example of Mommy. And she had never put a cigarette in her mouth or voluntarily done drugs for the very same reason. Mommy was a poster child for the consequences of shitty life choices.
After her meal was done she slid out her computer, set her notebook next to that, pulled out her burner phone, and placed it on the other side of the computer. Then Clarisse drew a long breath while complicated thoughts flooded her mind.
Focus! This is no way to play for real and for keeps. We’re not kids, not now.
She flushed her brain, took a sip of the red wine, and hit the number.
“I assume the kids are in bed,” she said when the other person answered.
Gibson said, “They are. For now.”
“What do you have to report?”
“I spoke with Sam Trask.”
“Did you now? Congratulations.”
“You can keep the snark to yourself, Clarisse. I’m not in the mood.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Basically that his son is capable of all the things I told him were going on with Pottinger/Langhorne.”
“Let’s just call him Harry for simplicity and consistency,” interjected Clarisse.
“All right,” said Gibson. “Nathan Trask is involved in all sorts of illegal things, but the cops can’t prove them. He’s had people killed, including maybe Harry, but again there’s no proof of that. And why would he write ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ on the wall of the room where he was found?”
“Did you ask Trask about that?”
“Did you want me to?”
“I wanted you to go with your gut. So what did your gut tell you to do?”
“My gut told me not to ask him because I don’t think Nathan Trask was involved in Harry’s death.”
“Based solely on your gut?”
“Not solely, no.”
“What then?”
“I did some research on Trask. Even though they couldn’t make anything stick he was clearly old-school when it came to snuffing out people he wanted snuffed out. Two shots to the head. But Langhorne was killed by poisoning, Botulinum type A, which takes a while and is incredibly painful. Things could happen in the interim, all of them bad, for Trask.”
“Maybe he wanted him to feel the pain. Two head shots wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe. But Harry was already terminal with brain cancer, for which he was on morphine.”
“Really?” said a stunned Clarisse.
“Yes. The post on his body revealed that. And the writing on the wall? It was done by two people, so how does that make sense in the context of Nathan Trask? There’s no way he personally offed Harry. He would never have been near the place. So why would he have his execution team write that?”
“How do you know two people wrote the message?”
“Among other things, I used to analyze handwriting for a living when I was a forensics tech. And I do it today working for ProEye.”
“Did you tell the cops that?”
“So what if I did?”
“So you’re ruling Trask out, just like that?”
“I think Trask was busywork for me for some reason,” said Gibson.
“Meaning I gave you an assignment that I knew was pointless?”
“I don’t know—did you?”
She’s gaining confidence, which is good and bad.
Clarisse said, “I don’t really see the point of that, do you? How did you leave it with Sam Trask?”
“He gave me a secure email to communicate with him. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if his son had paid off people at The Feathers to keep watch over him.”
“What does Sam hope to achieve?”
“He’s still working, as you alluded to. I don’t mean for a company. I mean, he’s working the case against his son by himself. He showed me some of the research and leads he’d run down, all from his little retirement room. He even hired a cab to drive him by his son’s fortress in Virginia Beach. He wanted to see it for himself. As added incentive to nail this guy.”
“Did he ask you to help him?”
“Let’s just say we talked about mutually beneficial action we could take.”
“Did you tell him about me?”
“No. But I did tell him about the situation. He remembered Harry. Has no idea what happened to him or his family after WITSEC. He was intrigued about a possible connection between Harry and his son. He’s a formidable guy, even with an oxygen tank. We agreed to keep each other informed.”
“You took a big risk going to see him. His son probably knows all about you by now.”
“You basically told me I had to go see him.”
“Do you really do everything you’re told, Mickey?” she said condescendingly.
Shit, why did you say that?
All Clarisse heard now was . . . nothing.
Do not lose your control. You own this. Now really own it by doing what any decent human being would do. So pretend you are a decent person for once in your life.
“I’m sorry, Mickey. This is on me. I had a preconceived notion that Trask was involved. The other guys on that list, you’re right, they were white noise. Why I did that, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m too clever for my own good. Now, Trask was the only player who could do all the dances with Harry and also have a motive to take him out. But I agree with you—if the writing on the wall was done by two people, it does not make sense that Trask was involved. And the poison instead of the bullets? Same thing. Okay? So again, I’m sorry if I was pulling your chain a bit. I really do want to get through this intact, and want the same for you.”
You’re rambling, and rambling is always weak, so shut up.
She caught herself breathing fast. Clarisse put herself on mute as she waited for Gibson to answer.
Come on, come on, come on . . . Just say something so I can spin it.
Only Mickey Gibson didn’t answer. She ended the call.
GIBSON POCKETED HER PHONE AND walked out of her home office. She headed to her kids’ room, where she opened the door and peered in.
Dead asleep. Both of them.
No, don’t use that phrase, ever. Not with them.
She used her phone to take a picture of the pair that she would no doubt look at when she was an elderly woman and wanted to relive the good old days.
Gibson went downstairs and made herself a cup of tea. She drank it while staring out the picture window at her scraggly front yard. She’d planned to redo the flower beds and fill up some pots with colorful plants for the porch.
Yeah. Until she came into my life. Do I do everything someone tells me to do? You don’t know a fucking thing about me, even though you think you know everything.
The picture window seemed a nice viewpoint to run the frames of her life—past, present, and whatever future was hanging out there for her, bleak or shiny.
And my kids’ future, because they are the biggest factor in all of this.
And then she saw the darkness out there that seemed more than just what it was supposed to be. There was a solid shape to it. She ducked out of sight and then came back over to the window and peered out. Just across the street, behind a parked car. There was someone there. Someone staring at her house.
She looked down when her phone buzzed. Her father had just texted her with a name and phone number.
Art Collin is going to call you right now. Answer it. Dad
