Favors and Lies (28 page)

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The ski mask with closed eyeholes that was pulled over Dan's face was as unsettling as the end of the handgun barrel bumping into his ribs from the left rear. Dan's head throbbed and his body ached, but being vertical and moving under his own power was infinitely more advantageous than being unconscious on his back with no muscle control.

He could feel his hands were tied at the wrist in front of his body with zip ties. He tugged on the restraints to gauge their strength and felt the gun stab him in the ribs. He imagined the gun was racked, a finger on the trigger guard. The hand grasping Dan's arm tightened and pulled him to the left. Dan felt the ground beneath his feet change from a hard surface to soft and back to hard. A few steps later he felt gravel under his feet and then was steered back to another hard surface. Dan's mind sifted through the options.
A stone pathway. An old driveway. A garden walkway.

The next surface was noticeably more slippery and Dan narrowed his likely location to a few blocks of Georgetown or Old Town Alexandria. Nothing had the same feeling as old wet cobblestone.

He strained to listen through the ski mask as he was led up two short stairs. A brief pause. A turning doorknob. He concentrated on the sound of the door hinges as they protested. He registered the modest increase in temperature as he stepped inside. The sounds of the outside world—the faint hum of cars, the rain falling steadily—all vanished. The floor squeaked under his feet as he was pushed forward. He again noted the difference in his footing as he changed from hardwood floors to carpet and back to hardwood.

“Stairs down,” Clyde Parkson said, pulling on Dan's arm briefly. Dan paused, wondering if he were about to be thrown into some unseen abyss. Never to be seen again.

He stepped forward and down, not taking the weight off his back foot until his front foot found firm footing on what he assumed to be the first of many stairs. He continued the measured gait downward and the man behind him moved the gun from his back to the side of his head. A few steps later Dan was on flat ground. He inhaled deeply through the ski mask and vaguely registered musty, cooler air.

He heard other voices as he was steered across another floor. The surface beneath his feet was neither stone nor wood, somewhere between rough and smooth. Then Dan realized where he was. His momentary elation was squelched with a firm shove into an old wooden chair. Dan felt the seat rock and then settle onto the chair's four legs. Each of Dan's ankles were quickly strapped to the front legs of the chair, another zip tie restraint around the top of each calf, just below the knee. The zip ties on his hands were cut and his hands were moved behind him and restrained again.

With an upward tug of the ski mask, light blasted Dan's eyes and the charade ended.

Dan squinted at the two incandescent bulbs hanging from separate wooden support beams in the ceiling. His eyes moved around his environment, immediately conducting an inventory of a room he knew well. An early 1800s cellar with an earth floor in the main residence of the Stonewall Jackson House. Within fifty yards of his very own bed. Another hundred yards from his office.

His eyes focused on the two men standing at an old wooden table on the right hand side of the room.
Ebony and Ivory
, he thought. Dan's heart rate involuntarily quickened at the assortment of needles, guns, knives, and zip-tie restraints on the table.

The man Dan knew as Clyde Parkson threw an empty syringe on the table with the other tools of torment. He pulled Dan's cell phone from his pocket and opened the screen before snapping it shut again. He turned off the ringer and tossed it in the mix. Dan noted the thick rope on the far end of the table, still coiled in its packaging. A red gasoline can rested on the ground at the foot of the table.

Think quick
, Dan told himself. His eyes darted more rapidly. In the far corner of the room, nearest the house and the stairs he had just come down, was the old coal closet, the earthen floor at the threshold of the door still stained black from decades of use in a previous life. In the nearer corner on the right was the old well. The dank scent of mold and mildew still wafted through the wood cover. The small brick wall around the base of the well showed moss near the seams in the centuries-old mortar.

Dan's mind raced through potential weapons. On his last visit to the cellar there had been a shovel in the coal bin, a prop to show tour guests and history buffs the utilitarian functionality and strength requirements of the old heating system. Dan moved his eyes upward and looked at the thick beams that ran in parallel across the ceiling. He scanned for loose boards, exposed nails, dangling wires, committing each possibility to memory and prioritizing which ones he could reach most easily.

Dan cranked his neck all the way to the left and he grimaced. Sue was seated slightly behind him, restrained in her own chair. There was blood on her lip. Her right eye was swollen shut. The reddish-purple flesh gruesomely on display. A thick strip of duct tape ran around her head horizontally. The thick gray adhesive matted her hair to her ears and ran completely across her mouth. Her hands were bound in front of her, on her lap. In turn, the zip ties that held her wrists were affixed around the belt on her jeans, like a prisoner in transport. She turned her neck towards Dan and mumbled something unintelligible through the tape across her mouth.

Dan looked up as the man he knew as Clyde Parkson smiled down at him.

“You like beating up on women?” Dan asked.

“I don't. But Major here has an infatuation with it. Ridge, on the other hand, has no emotional attachment or ideological affiliation. He simply does things for money. Doesn't talk much. Follows orders. A perfect soldier.”

“There is no need to use names, even nicknames,” Major replied.

“Oh, I don't see the harm in it,” Clyde Parkson responded slowly. “It provides a level of conviction that you won't let Dan here walk out the door with that knowledge.”

“So we have Ridge and Major,” Dan echoed. “Ebony and Ivory. And what is your name? I think we all know it is not Clyde Parkson.”

“For the next couple of hours, you can call me Reed Temple. By the end of the evening, I will jettison that identity for another.”

“I liked you more when you were an attorney. And I typically hate lawyers.”

“Oh, I think you are going to like me even less in a few minutes.”

“I must say you were pretty convincing as an attorney. You obviously rehearsed. I see your teeth were real. I assumed the hair was fake. Wasn't sure about the faint southern accent.”

“Nice place you have here,” Reed Temple said, looking around, ignoring the assessment of his previous disguise. “Of course when most people buy a house like this, they tend to live in it.”

“The carriage house is smaller. Less upkeep. And there are tax advantages to the historical residence.” Dan flicked his head in the direction of Sue who was fully conscious and listening. “Why the girl? She has nothing to do with this.”

Sue shook her head and grunted.

“She was my insurance policy. At first, I thought I would simply use her to get to your attention. Now, well, I have other plans. A murder-suicide.”

“You mean a murder-murder. I don't think either of us is going the suicide route.”

“Semantics. Murder-suicide. Murder-murder.”

“It does explain the choice of location. People are far more likely to commit suicide in a familiar location. So for my part in the murder-suicide fantasy you have in mind, this location would make sense. Not so much for a murder-murder, though.”

Reed Temple nodded. “That's right. No one is going to question a man who kills himself in his own home. Especially one who is mourning the death of his last living immediate family members. But regardless of semantics, when we are done here, authorities will have a hard time proving anything definitively.”

Dan tried to stall and changed the subject. “Temple, was it? Let me ask you a few questions while I have your attention. After all, you will be moving on with a new identity in short order.”

Reed Temple pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket and checked the time. “I have a few moments. What can I help you understand?”

“Did you kill my nephew?”

“Your nephew was already dying. I simply changed the direction of his death.”

“Did you shoot him full of heroin? Drag him under an underpass? Leave him to die?”

“Your nephew was a group effort. As you know, he had unique capabilities that made subduing him potentially difficult. Took all three of us to do it without causing undue injury. But yes, the injection, the overdose, I delivered it.”

“Manly of you. I guess you have a thing for needles.”

“It is simply my job.”

Dan choked back a sudden flood of emotions, his mind returning to his nephew. His last moments, alone, enduring the horror of physical restraint. Physical violation. Helplessness. Dan shook his head, hoping the welling tears would not break the confines of his eyes. “Which one of you killed the police detective?”

Reed Temple nodded perceptibly in the direction of Major. Major's posture straightened and he stepped forward to speak. “Based on ballistics and fingerprints, you killed him, Mr. Lord.”

“That was a good effort,” Dan replied. “But you couldn't shake my alibi. Good thing I needed a drink that night.”

“Forgive us for our failure,” Reed Temple added.

“Do we have any bomb makers in the room?” Dan asked. Major pointed to his own chest. “Right here. I made the bomb. I set the charge. Ridge here was the trigger.”

Reed interjected again. “We are still not sure how you managed to escape the blast.”

“I had help from a canine friend.”

Major locked eyes with Reed Temple who shrugged his shoulders unknowingly.

“Which one of you strung my sister-in-law up in the closet?”

Neither Reed Temple nor Major moved. Dan's eye's bounced off each man's face before landing on Ridge, who stood still, half-standing, backside resting on the old wooden table.

Dan focused his eyes on Ridge's, squinting to see the large man's pupils. “It would probably take someone your size to pull that off. Getting a belt around someone's neck and lifting them off the ground without wounds to both the victim and perpetrator would not be easy. Hell, even you probably needed help.”

Ridge refused to respond.

“OK. No one manly enough to answer that question. I can understand that. After all, there is nothing manly about killing a defenseless woman in her own bedroom. I don't think I would confess to that, either. Anyone want to confess to killing Haley Falls?”

Reed Temple approached Dan with a slow gait. He took one lap around Sue and Dan, running his hands over their shoulders as he passed. Dan shifted his weight in the chair and felt the old frame rock in response. He pulled on his wrists without success.

Reed Temple checked his phone again and cleared his throat. “Q and A is over. But in the interest of being fair, yes, I killed that whore friend of yours. Did you a favor if you ask me. You should know better than to be hanging out with trash. Women like that will give you a bad reputation.”

“I'm sure she would have said the same about you.”

“But she can't now, can she?”

“Asshole,” Dan said pulling on his wrists until the restraints cut his skin.

“You know, Dan, I was under orders to let you be. Not to intrude. To let sleeping dogs lie, as it were. But you just kept digging. Kept poking around. Kept sticking your nose into places you shouldn't have.”

“I do have that problem.”

“Yes, you do, and this time it killed innocent people. And it is going to kill you and your intern here.”

“Actually, she is not my intern,” Dan said, glancing over at Sue whose eyes opened wide in a look of betrayal. “I'm not sure who she is,” Dan added, focusing on Reed Temple's face to measure any reaction to Dan's admission.

Dan watched intently as Temple reached into his suit pants pocket and pulled out the car keys to Dan's security-laden Mercedes SUV. Temple jingled the keys slightly as he stepped forward. Dan strained to listen as Temple leaned into Sue and whispered directly into her ear. “I know exactly who you are. But it will be less messy if I pretend I don't.” Sue thrashed and yelled something unintelligible into the duct tape over her mouth.

“Are we keeping secrets, now? I thought we were having a forthright conversation,” Dan said.

Reed Temple checked the time again and then wrung his hands. “You will have to excuse me. I have a business meeting to attend. I will be taking your car, Dan. Those diplomatic tags can be a godsend when it comes to parking . . . So without further ado . . .”

“What's the rush, Temple? Not man enough to shoot me yourself?”

“Outsourcing is the American way.”

“Pussy. Go ahead. I'll take care of these guys and meet up with you later.”

“I appreciate your spunk. But you are in an earthen cellar with no windows, in a very big house, on a very large lot. It is also raining outside. Sound will not travel far.” Reed Temple walked to the table and moved his hand across the tools and weapons. “Scream if you must. But make it a good one. I now leave you in the very capable hands of Major and Ridge here. Enjoy.” He blew a kiss in the direction of Dan and Sue before heading towards the stairs. “Call me when you are done with them,” he yelled down as he reached the top of the staircase.

Dan listened and looked upward as the floorboards above creaked with the weight of Reed's steps. He felt both relief and failure as Reed Temple pulled the front door shut with a resounding thud.

Major let the echo of the door run its course before coming to animated life. He walked deliberately across the room and pulled the duct tape off of Sue's mouth, uprooting a wad of hair in the procedure. Sue spit and tried to swallow. She coughed, gagged, and then finally spoke through raspy vocal chords. “You're an asshole,” she said.