Authors: William Bernhardt
52
W
as he still bleeding? Loving wondered, as his eyes lolled around in their sockets. Was he awake? He was fairly certain he was awake, because not in his worst nightmare had he ever felt like this, as if a huge gushing hole had been opened in his stomach, a hole punctured by a very hot, very sharp stick. Because it was true.
But still bleeding? He wasn’t sure. He liked to think that the heat had cauterized the wound. But he was still tied to the chair. How long had it been now? Hours? Days? It seemed like days, but he knew time moved slowly when you were being tortured. One of those great truths of life, he supposed. One he had never hoped to experience.
He knew he had blacked out at some point, and that made establishing a timeline all the more difficult. He had no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious. For all that Renny talked about wanting to kill him, he sure as hell wasn’t in any hurry about it. Even after he came back around, Loving kept his eyes closed. After a while, Wilhelm threw down the hot iron in disgust. Renny had tried to comfort him, saying that Loving would wake up soon and Wilhelm could start his fun up all over again. Such a loving father! You could see why the bond between them was so strong. The family that plays together, stays together…
The iron rod was lying on the floor, just a few feet to Loving’s left. It was still glowing hot. That meant he couldn’t have been out too long. Presumably, any moment the Torture Twins would return and resume their activities. And there was nothing Loving could do about it, not as long as he was tied to this chair. He was helpless, pinned down like a butterfly in a collection, barely able to move.
His attention returned to the glowing iron. Still hot. Not far away from him…
Could he do it? His brain was so addled that making any kind of coherent plan was difficult. He certainly couldn’t be assured he would fall where he needed to fall, and if he missed, it would be over. Renny would find him lying on the floor and he would be enraged. Loving wouldn’t get a second chance.
On the other hand, this storage closet was very narrow. It wouldn’t be possible to go too far wrong. Even if he hit the wall, he could ricochet back into place. In fact, it might be best if he hit the wall…
There were times in a man’s life when careful planning was advisable, Loving mused. And there were other times when the best damn thing a person could do was just go for it. Too much thinking would make it all the less likely it would ever happen.
Loving turned to the left, which predictably twisted his insides into a knot and made his perforated stomach burn as if it were on fire. He’d have to overcome that if he was going to get anywhere. He clenched his teeth, took his mind to a better, kinder place where he wouldn’t feel the incredible pain he was about to experience, and threw himself down, chair and all.
He flew off to the left of the storage closet, clattering against some rickety metal shelving. Something sharp punctured his arm, but it was nothing compared to the agony he was already experiencing. He slammed down on the hard concrete floor, hoping the noise hadn’t been heard by anyone outside.
The fall knocked the breath out of him. He inhaled deeply, quickly, trying to regulate his breathing and gather some strength.
Loving fell facing away from the wall, so he couldn’t see the hot iron. But he could feel heat emanating against his bound hands. Thrusting with all his might, he moved himself and the chair ever so subtly backward until the iron was within reach. Then he placed the rope that tied his wrists together directly on the iron.
The problem with having a red-hot iron between your bound wrists was that, no matter how effective it might be at burning the rope, there was no way to prevent it from also searing the flesh on those same wrists. He could feel his skin melting, peeling away. Flesh burned so much easier than rope. By the time his wrists were free, there might be nothing left of them.
Loving squeezed his eyelids tight. Tears crept out of them. The pain was excruciating, but that had been the case for a long time. And that would be the case again, if he didn’t get free.
In the end, he couldn’t wait until the iron had severed the ropes completely, but he got them weakened sufficiently that he could pull them apart. Good enough. Once he had his hands back, the rest was duck soup. He still hurt like hell. But he was free.
Of course, that was just the start. Now he had to get out of there, which would be a challenge, since he had only the vaguest notion of where “there” was. If he could get to a phone, he could call Lieutenant Albertson. Boy, did he have some information to share with the man now! Or he could call Ben. Or both. Get some help and get the word out. He already had a pretty good idea of what had happened, why Victoria had gone to the press conference, what Ben needed to know to clear Thaddeus Roush and his partner once and for all.
Slowly, carefully, Loving pushed the closet door open. The hallway outside was dark, but he could hear the thumping sound of dance music not far away. He was somewhere in Renny’s club. Someplace even more private than the room he’d had to arm wrestle his way into. If he wandered around long enough, he was sure to find one of the public areas. And from there, it would be just a short walk to the—
He froze. There was noise in the corridor. The sound of swishing. The swishing of corduroy slacks. And the only person he knew who had been wearing cords…
“It seems I have arrived just in time.”
Pretty Boy. Wilhelm. Whatever you wanted to call him, he wasn’t a welcome sight.
Loving knew that the space of a second could be critical. He raced forward, hoping to clock the creep before he had a chance to respond.
Wilhelm pulled a gun. And it wasn’t a taser.
“This is a shame. I had hoped to prolong the amusement for ever so much longer.”
Loving felt his throat clutch. Pretty Boy’s father might be a delusional sadist, but at least he was sane. Wilhelm, he was not so sure about.
“Your daddy doesn’t want me dead.”
“You are mistaken. He sent me back here for that very purpose. As much as we have enjoyed our little fun with you, he has determined that you are too dangerous to remain breathing.”
“You’ll regret this.”
“The only thing I regret is that I won’t have any more fun with the iron. But all good things must come to an end. I doubt that I could get you tied up again without the taser.” He sighed heavily. “So I will just have to kill you and be done with it. Pleasant dreams, Mr. Loving.”
He raised the gun and pointed it directly at Loving’s face.
53
“R
ay was absolutely right,” Roush explained to Ben. “I was bottom-feeding. Trawling the seamy side of the street. Looking for Ms. Goodbar in all the wrong places. I hadn’t come to grips with my sexuality yet—wouldn’t let myself admit it. So I dated women, or tried. Even slept with them. But I always made sure it was someone utterly inappropriate. Someone I would never be tempted to marry. Someone who would never be tempted to marry me.” He laughed bitterly. “I’m not sure some of them even liked me.”
Ben cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Are we talking about…prostitutes here?”
“Oh no, no, no. I never paid for it. Nothing like that. We’re just talking, um, what’s a polite term?”
“Women of low repute?”
“Very good, Ben. What a way you have with words! English major?”
“Music.”
“Close enough. Anyway, yes, in my spare time, which was never that extensive, I was cavorting with trailer trash and barflies, and on at least one notable occasion, a thief.”
Ben frowned. “You mean, like, a shoplifter?”
“Please. Give me some credit. I had better taste than that. I’m talking about an art thief.”
“Oh,” Ben said, arching an eyebrow. “Well, that
is
better.”
“Nothing but the best for young Thaddeus Roush. Okay, maybe she actually stole art only once, but I like to think the job improved her entire résumé.” He closed his eyes and continued his story. “I met Vickie, short for Victoria, at a bar in Georgetown. On the outside she seemed eminently trashy—exactly the sort of woman I was drawn to at the time. Ripped-up jeans, tight T-shirt. Fourteen different tattoos, some of them in places that are…unmentionable. She was a piece of work, no doubt about it. But the more time I spent with her, the more I realized that she was, well, not as dumb as you might’ve guessed. The outward appearance was more show than tell.”
“Like maybe she was slumming, too.”
“Exactly. Of course, that made her all the more intriguing. A little frightening, too. And she was tough, very tough. Exactly how I didn’t feel, at the time.”
“So I assume this led to a relationship between the two of you. And that eventually this relationship led to the two of you becoming sexually involved.”
“I think we became sexually involved the first night I escorted her out of that bar. In time we developed something that you might be able to call a relationship.”
“And this tryst eventually produced a pregnancy?”
“Not at first. We were on again, off again. I had my world, she had hers. And the more I knew about hers, the more I realized it could have nothing to do with my judicial work. We hooked up when we could, when we wanted. Sex, that is. When we wanted sex.”
“And that was…?”
“At first, ridiculously often, particularly given my confused sexuality. I wonder if she didn’t get that, at least a hint of it. Some of the things she did, some of the ways she…humored me.” He took a deep breath. “In retrospect, it’s almost as if she knew before I did.”
“How long did this relationship last?”
“In the first phase, about three months. Till Jerry showed up.”
“Ah. A rival?”
“Oh, no. A business partner. Partner-in-crime, I guess you’d say.”
“Had they worked together in the past?”
“No. Jerry was new. And very different from Vickie.”
“How so?”
Roush held up his hands. “In about every way you could imagine. He was much less adept at disguising his patrician roots. He had a pronounced Southern accent and it was clear he was used to money, if not at present then certainly at some point in his past. It didn’t matter how ragged his T-shirt looked; you always sensed he’d be more comfortable in a Polo. Drove a Maserati, for Pete’s sake—said he’d won it in a lottery. He wasn’t fooling anyone. Could’ve been a Vanderbilt for all he belonged in those dive bars.”
“Then what was he doing there?”
“Said he had a big score, a chance to make some easy bread—he actually used that word,
bread.
He just needed someone with a little experience in the conning and cat burglary department to bring it off.”
“And that was where Vickie came in.”
“You got it.”
“So what was it he wanted to rip off—his daddy’s summer cottage on Cape Cod?”
“It was actually more ambitious than that. He’d scoped out a small but affluent museum in Boston. Somehow acquired a lot of information about it: interior schematics, the strength and schedule of the security force, that sort of thing. And he wanted Vickie to partner up with him.”
“Did she do it?”
“Oh, yeah. The robbery was in all the papers at the time. For a place with such a valuable collection, it was pathetically under-protected. But somehow or other, it all went bad.”
“They got caught?”
“No. No one ever got caught. But Vickie showed up on my doorstep the next day bleeding from about a hundred places. She was practically dead.”
“Why didn’t she go to the emergency room?”
Roush gave Ben a long look.
“Oh. Right. Thief.”
“Yeah. Thief very much being sought by the police. Fortunately, I know a little first aid, at least enough to get by. Most of the wounds were superficial, all but a bad stab wound near the clavicle. Her left arm was in horrible shape—she had quite literally wrenched it out of its socket. Fixing that was no pleasure, I can assure you. I poured bourbon down her throat, but I know it still hurt like hell.”
“Where was Jerry?”
“That was the million-dollar question. I kept asking. She wouldn’t answer. Finally, one night, when I think she was too weak and too drunk to resist, she told me what happened to her partner.”
“Did he go on the job with her?”
“Oh, yeah. She couldn’t do it alone.”
“So, he was hurt even worse than she was?”
Roush let his eyelids flutter closed. “She killed him.”
Ben’s lips parted. He hoped his jaw wasn’t drooping, but it was impossible to be sure.
“Said she had no choice, of course, but that didn’t make it any better. Falling-out amongst thieves, something like that.”
Ben leaned forward. “So what did you do?”
“What else could I do? I’m a judge! I told her she had to turn herself in.”
“I’m guessing that idea didn’t appeal to her much.”
“You guess correctly. She screamed and shouted, threatened. Told me that if the cops knew about her I’d be implicated, too. And she was right, of course. But it didn’t matter. I mean, cavorting with a thief was one thing. But this was murder!”
“I have a feeling this story isn’t headed for a happy ending.”
“Your instincts are impeccable. I waited until she was stronger. The police still hadn’t made the slightest break in the case. With my connections, I was able to monitor their progress, or lack thereof, pretty closely. They didn’t have a clue. Finally, I told Vickie she had to turn herself in. And I told her that if she didn’t, I would.”
“How did she respond?”
“Two simple words: ‘I’m pregnant.’ ”
Ben fell back into his chair. Now, at last, it was all beginning to make sense.
Roush rose, glancing toward the imposing bookshelf behind his chair, as if selecting something to read to help pass the time. “What was I going to do? Turning in your lover and implicating yourself was one thing. Turning in the mother of your child—that was quite another. We argued for days, back and forth. Mind you, she didn’t want that child; it was just a blackmail device for her. I’ve always hated the idea of abortion—still do. But what business did I have raising a child? Me, an unmarried man preoccupied with sleazy women, a man increasingly realizing he was not entirely heterosexual. Was I going to raise a child with this woman? Was I going to raise a child without this woman?” He leaned his head against the leather-bound books. “It was an insoluble problem.”
“So you reached a compromise.”
Ben could only see the back of the man’s head nod. “She got an abortion. I paid for it. And then she got the hell out of my life and never bothered me again.” His eyes turned toward the ceiling, catching a glint from the fluorescent lighting. “I was appointed to the D.C. Circuit. I bought a beautiful house. I met Ray.” A smile briefly flickered across his face, then faded. “Life was good. For a while.”
“She didn’t stay gone, did she? She came back. The day of the press conference.”
“She, like everyone else in America, had seen all the publicity the day before announcing my nomination and my voluntary outing.”
“Did you talk to her?”
Another nod. “My housekeeper let her in, though she fibbed about it later to protect me. I didn’t recognize Vickie at first. She’d totally changed her look—and I don’t just mean a new hairdo. I’m talking plastic surgery. Major changes.”
“Nose job? Breast augmentation?”
“More like total reconstruction of the facial features. Seems the heat was on her pretty hard after the robbery. Jerry’s body was discovered, and some rich relatives called out the dogs. There was a concerted effort to find his killer, financed by not only law enforcement but some major-league big bucks. Somehow they figured out she was involved. She had to disappear, totally disappear. So she changed her name, got some fake ID, redid her face. Even altered her fingerprints, apparently. That’s why she’s been so difficult for the police to identify. She’s not only no longer Vickie—she’s a person who doesn’t really exist. Victoria. No past. No records of any kind. A phantom figure. Not even the IRS had anything on her. And that’s saying quite a bit.”
“What did she want?”
“Three guesses.”
“Money.”
“Got it in one.” Roush sighed. “Once a thief, always a thief. Tried to shake me down. Figured a potential Supreme Court nominee with a dark secret was good for something. Figured it wouldn’t help my chances if the world knew I’d paid for an abortion. Threatened to expose me unless I came across with a million bucks. Said she’d already given all the proof to a third party. It was pay up or kiss the Supreme Court good-bye.”
Ben swallowed. “So you—”
“I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t have opened that door during the press conference if I’d had any idea she was there. But I knew better than to blow her off. She wasn’t bluffing when she said she’d expose me. So I told her I couldn’t deal with this at the moment, with reporters and a zillion other people running around the estate. It wasn’t like I kept a million bucks lying around the house. Told her to hide out behind the arbor gate till everyone was gone and we’d talk about it. I went back to my business and, well, you know the rest. Next time I saw her, she was dead.”
Ben batted a finger against his lips. “Dead, and positioned in a place where her body was bound to be found during the press conference.” He looked up suddenly. “And Ray—”
“I’m certain he had nothing to do with it. I’m certain.”
“He was near the body.”
“I don’t care.”
“Disguised or not, he knew who she was. And what she could do to you.”
“I’m telling you, Ben—it wasn’t him.”
“He had a motive.”
“Hell,
I
had a motive!” Roush’s voice shattered the stillness of the room. “But I didn’t kill the woman. And I don’t know who did. But it wasn’t Ray!”
Ben rose slowly out of his chair, one hand pressed against his aching forehead. “
That’s it.
That’s what this is all about!”
“I don’t follow you.”
“The murder. The way it was done. It was about giving you a motive.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’ve been framed, Tad. You and Ray. Intentionally. By someone who knew who that woman was. And that proof Vickie gave to a third party—when her confederate heard she was dead, he or she must’ve forwarded it to a right-wing political interest group that leaked it as soon as you got out of committee.”
“But who would kill that woman just to get at me?”
“I don’t know—yet. That’s what we have to figure out. As soon as possible. It’s the only thing that can save you now.”
“How are we going to do that? The police don’t have a clue.”
“I don’t know. But if we can tell your story, if we can show that you’ve been framed, that this is part of some conspiracy to keep you off the Court—” A light shined in his eyes. “Dear God, I wish you’d told me all this before. This changes everything.”
“I don’t see what you’re so excited about.”
“Finally, this game is being played on my home turf.” He batted a finger against his lips. “We expose the true murderer, show that you’re the victim of a frame-up, and the rest of these objections to your nomination will seem trivial by comparison. Political puffery. Part of the scam.”
“I’m still not following you.”
Ben leaned across Roush’s desk. “Since this whole thing began, people have been dragging me along, trying to get me to do things I don’t know anything about. Representing you at the hearing, which I was pathetically unsuited to do. Dealing with politics, which I don’t even begin to understand. My performance has been pitiful. But clearing an innocent man who has been intentionally framed…” Ben’s eyes met Roush’s, a determined expression on his face. “That’s what I
do.
”