David Liss - The Ethical Assassin

Then he placed the voice: Laurel Vieland. Shit, he hadn’t spoken to her for five or six years, probably. Not since she went and moved to Tallahassee. But her daughter. Now, that was something else. Karen had been fine a few years back, before the crank. And if she hadn’t wanted to give it up back then, she sure had no problems nowadays. No inhibitions at all.

Laurel and Karen were the only mother-daughter team that Doe had ever fucked. Not at the same time- and now he sure as shit wouldn’t want to. Still, it was something. And Karen had that daughter. The girl lived with her father up north somewhere, and he knew that the father didn’t even let her see Karen, not since Karen went crazy with the crank a couple years back. But there’d be a family reunion one day. Girl would come on home to Meadowbrook Grove, thirteen or fourteen, and Doe would work his magic on her. Then he would have fucked three generations of one family. He didn’t know anyone who could say he’d done that.

“ Laurel, is that you, honey?”

More sobbing. “Jim. They’re dead.” It came out like a ghost’s whisper. “Bastard and Karen. They’re dead.”

“Christ,” he said. “Where’s the accident?”

“Not that,” she said. More crying. Crying, crying, crying. Jesus fucking hell, just spit it out. Of course you couldn’t say things like that, because people took offense, even if it was what they needed to hear. Even if they secretly wanted you to say it, you still couldn’t.

Doe was already thinking about the money. Maybe Karen a little, too, but mostly the money. Bastard had been over there again. He still couldn’t believe that Bastard was stepping in on Karen. He knew, knew, Doe had been fucking her, and he’d moved in anyhow. Doe had seen it for himself tonight. And he’d seen Karen see him, too. Just like he planned. Let her know she was in trouble. That stupid encyclopedia kid went in there, and he figured she’d kept him inside, as if that would keep Doe from trying anything.

None of that mattered as much as the fact that Bastard had just come back from doing his collections, and he ought to have damn close to $40,000 to hand over. That was a lot of cash, and if Bastard was dead, would Doe be able to find the money? What if it had been in the car and was scattered to the winds? What if he’d hid it somewhere and now they’d never find it?

Doe told himself to slow down. Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe he was only dying. Fucking stupid Laurel. No one was dead, he was willing to bet. Dying, maybe, but not dead. Doe could get there on time, kneel down while Bastard raised up one bloodied hand to his shoulder, pulling him close so he could whisper his dying whisper: “It’s in the toolshed.” Or something. Not the toolshed. Bastard didn’t have a toolshed.

He rubbed his uneven teeth back and forth like a pair of opposing hacksaws. “Where’s the accident, Laurel? I’ll come on over.” He sucked down the rest of his drink.

Sobbing. Endless sobbing punctuated by a kind of heaving and then a bit of a groan. And then more sobbing. The phone stretched far enough that he could make it to the little refrigerator/freezer unit and grab a fresh bottle of Yoo-hoo. He swallowed enough to make some room in the bottle, then, cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder, he funneled in about four shots’ worth of Yell. He got back in his chair and put his feet up.

Finally: “Not an accident,” she said. “In Karen’s trailer. They’ve been shot.”

Doe swung out of his chair. Sudden movement turned out to be a terrible mistake. A stab of electric pain shot out. “You there now?”

“Yuh-yuh-yuh,” she said.

“Stay there and don’t call anyone.” He slammed down his phone and knocked over the Yoo-hoo bottle. It gushed brown all over his desk, all over his pants. Now he’d have to change into his uniform- stress out his balls again. This was turning out to be one fucking disaster of a week.

The cruiser crunched onto Karen’s driveway, its headlights illuminating Laurel, who stood puffy-eyed with her hands over her mouth. Doe shut off the lights instantly. He normally loved to flash his police lights, let the world know who made the rules, but this time something told him to keep it quiet and low-key. Bastard was dead and $40,000 was missing.

Only a couple of steps in toward Laurel, and she lunged forward and threw her arms around him. She was heaving like she’d been doing on the phone, only now he had to feel her wet tears streaming down his neck, and he felt obligated to put his arm along her back, which was all jutting bone and flesh, like wet clay wrapped in a cloth. He’d fucked her when she’d been an exciting older woman. Now she was just old, probably fifty-five, and she still dressed like a whore, even though everyone could see her tits were shaped like salamis hanging above a deli counter.

“C’mon, baby,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

He knew he was in for it, so her heaves and sobs didn’t piss him off too much. She finally pulled it together enough to speak.

“My casserole dish. I lent her my casserole dish last Thanksgiving. And I have company this weekend.”

Doe had seen this before, and he couldn’t stand it. The blubbering, the talking nonsense.

“I called her this morning. I asked if I could come by and she said I could and I wanted to come by earlier but I had to get my hair done and that took longer than I thought.”

“Uh-huh.” Doe tapped the tip of his shoe against a small rock.

“I said I would come by earlier, but I came by a little later. I was just going to slip in and get it, not bother her. I didn’t think it would matter, but when I went into the trailer-”

What happened in the trailer he’d have to find out for himself, since all he got from her was a long wail, then more sobbing and heaving. What a mess.

“My baby,” Laurel was saying. “My only baby.”

Baby my ass. Karen was a grown-up whore. And it wasn’t like she and Laurel were best friends or anything. Half the time they couldn’t stand each other. A few months back, he’d heard they’d gotten into a fistfight when Laurel caught Karen taking money out of her purse. Now she was going off with this “my baby” garbage.

The trailer’s door hung open, so Doe pushed himself away from the lamenting whore and walked up the steps. It was all gray darkness inside but one step was all he needed.

There they were, deader’n shit. Bastard the fuck. Dead. Karen the slut. Dead. What a mess. More than a mess, because Doe didn’t know who had done it, which made him uncomfortable. The whole point of their business was that things like this didn’t happen.

He stepped outside, where Laurel held a cigarette in one palsied hand. Her eyes widened, waiting for his professional diagnosis. Maybe she thought that somehow he could make it all disappear. As a law enforcement officer, he’d be able to tell her that they weren’t really dead at all. Those were dummies. Actors. A trick of the light.

Fat chance. Doe wasn’t going to make it better for her. He knew pretty clearly what was going to happen, even if he hadn’t thought it through. There wasn’t time for thinking it through, just for doing it.

“You call anyone else?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

“No one else knows?”

She shook her head again.

“How long was Bastard seeing Karen?”

Laurel stared at him. She didn’t answer.

“How long?” he said again, raising his voice.

“Was there something between you and Karen, Jim?” she asked softly.

Jesus fucking Christ. She was about to make this personal. “ Laurel, this is police work. I need to know. How long were they seeing each other?”

Laurel shrugged. “Two or three months, I guess. This time. But they been together before.”