Stephen White - Cold Case

Until that moment I hadn't known what the stakes were for Raymond Welle. But suddenly I did.

My murder would not be the first one Ray Welle had planned at the Silky Road Ranch.

Ray's eyes stared past me. I was tempted to look over my shoulder to see what he was focusing on. He said, "You can't prove anything." He had started breathing through his mouth, the long exhalations coming from deep in his gut.

My feelings about the gun pointing at me were flip-flopping as much as the politician who was pointing it at me. One moment I felt totally intimidated by the threat, the next moment I felt totally liberated by the certainty of my death. During one of the liberated moments, I said, "That argument alone tells me I don't have to prove anything at all. It's as good as a confession."

He straightened his shoulders, trying to look congressional and imperious. The gun and the pajamas detracted from the image. He scoffed, "And what good does it do you? Now that you know-so what? You get to die a righteous man? Does that feel good? You fool! I'm so glad for you. Will that make your widow happy? Now stand up!"

I did stand. I needed to keep Ray talking and was rethinking whether or not to call for Kimber's help.

"Why did Brian do it for you, Ray? I don't get that part. Was it the transference? Was he that crazy?"

Ray took a step back from me. First one foot, then the other. He was gripping the pistol so tightly his knuckles were turning white.

"No, he wasn't crazy. He was the most suicidal son of a bitch I saw in my whole career. But he wasn't crazy. Not at all. Brian Sample had not only decided that he wanted to die, he'd also decided that he wanted to die a righteous man.

That's why he did what he did."

"And killing Gloria made him righteous?"

"Are you kidding? Brian knew that killing Gloria for me was only the price of admission." His mouth widened into a tight smile.

"You don't really know what all happened that day, do you? You only have bits and pieces."

"No," I admitted.

"I don't know what happened."

He tsked.

"I'm surprised at you. Phil eventually figured it out, every last bit of it.

He's not that bright a guy, so that surprised me some. But he was here that day so he had an advantage. But you? I've been guessing that you had it all."

"Phil knew?"

"Yeah, he knew I arranged to have Brian kill Gloria. And me? I'd suspected all along that he had something to do with those two girls dying back in 1988. Left the two of us in a kind of a standoff. Remember the cold war? Our nuclear policy with the Russians? The tacticians called it 'mutual assured destruction." MAD.

If they tried to blow us up we would blow them up. And vice-versa. It was a perfect stalemate. That's what Phil and I had, our own little mutual destruction pact. MAD right here on Mad Creek. When I got elected to the House, we decided to reduce the tension a little and become allies. It turned out all right, I think, for both of us. But now Phils dead. The rules are going to be different, I suppose. I should enjoy a little more freedom now that Ray has unilaterally disarmed."

"He killed Dorothy Levin for you."

Ray Welle raised an eyebrow.

"For us. He killed Dorothy for us. She comes here for one weekend and manages to puzzle out way too much of what had happened to Gloria. So Phil eliminated her. He did it for both of us-let's just say that over time our interests had converged."

I was shocked at the motive.

"Dorothy wasn't killed because of the campaign-contributions story?"

"That? No. What she had on me? Its all smoke. House Ethics Committee might have slapped my wrist. But that was no mortal sin. No, she was getting close to figuring out what happened with Gloria. She had the insurance angle down and was asking way too many questions about me and my practice. Kind of like you are, except she was a little smarter."._Ray had lowered the barrel of the gun so far that it was pointing near my feet. I scoured my memory for details of the floor plan of the house, trying to imagine a route for an escape attempt. I doubted that Ray Welle was a skilled marksman.

The more distance I could quickly put between us, the better my odds would be that he would miss when he fired at me.

His next words stunned me from my reverie like a slap across the face. He asked, "Do you know the hardest thing about getting away with murder?" I said, "Excuse me? What?"

"The hardest part of this whole experience-the whole thing with having Gloria killed?" He could tell that I didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

"I mean killing someone and not even being considered a suspect? I mean never suspected at all-ever. You know what the hardest part is?"

I was flustered. He seemed to want an answer so I took a stab at it.

"I don't know, the guilt?"

Ray Welle laughed at me.

"Bad guess. I figured you for being a little more intuitive than that, Alan.

But, no, I'm not prone much to that particular reflection. Remorse isn't one of my things. So let me tell you just so you'll know. The hardest part about getting away with murder- I'm not talking about the details, mind you, I'm discussing my personal feelings here-the hardest part is not being able to talk about it.

"Me? I'm a talker. Everybody says that about me. They couldn't shut me up when I was on the radio. The Speaker couldn't shut me up when I was on the floor of the House. I was out of order more than a deck of cards. Truth be told, I even yakked too much when I did psychotherapy. But I haven't been able to talk to anybody about this. Not even Phil. We talked about lots of things over the years, but we never talked about getting away with murder. Neither of us. There was a time I needed to talk about it so badly I thought about going into therapy. You know, just to have a chance to spill the beans to someone and leave him sitting there with his mouth hanging open. But that impulse always passed.

The result? There hasn't been a word spoken in all these years, until here today, with you."

What was I supposed to say, that I was honored? The more he told me, the more certain I was that he was planning to seal my lips permanently.

On the other hand, as long as I could hear him talking, I was still alive.

There was that.

"Why, Ray?"

"Why did I have her killed? Is that what you mean? She was bailing out on me, on my dreams. She was going to pull the plug on the money I needed for the ninety-two congressional campaign. I couldn't raise the money without her name and her influence. And even that wasn't enough for a decent campaign. I needed her personal contributions-as my spouse she could spend as much as she wanted.

And soon enough, I figured, she was going to start making noise about a divorce.

When she left me I would have been sitting with my half-assed practice in Steamboat, my quirky little local radio show, and almost no money. Gloria had to die. It was the only way I could see to guarantee my future. Although I couldn't touch her trust, the rest of the assets would be mine. I hoped that would be enough."

"And what was in it for Brian?"

"I promised to convince the coroner that he was no longer suicidal the day that Phil's boys shot him dead on the ranch. That way his family would get enough life insurance money to start their life over again. Without my intervention with the coroner the insurance company wasn't about to pay on his policy. No way. Brian understood that. Basically, he killed Gloria for me and I agreed to make sure his family was taken care of."

"Your idea or his?"

He lifted the gun so it aimed at my gut. I could feel my bowels pucker.

"Brian wasn't the brightest bulb in the scoreboard, if you know what I mean. He didn't have what it would take to come up with this."