Stealing Flowers (43 page)
“You think that my family and I have a
merchant mentality,” I said with disdain. “You think that because
we do business according to the rules that we’re afraid to seek
justice on our own? That the Tappets’ kind of lawful behavior is a
sign of weakness.” I saw that he was plenty nervous. That I’d been
disguised and showed myself now scared the color from his face.
“Let me tell you something,” I continued, “personally, I don’t
think I can win an appeal in the courts. I came here to kill you
and then leave the country. I always thought that you recognized
that you were blessed by one of the best families in the world.
They used their influence to save you from the streets when you
asked for their help, they employed you, moved you up in the
company, you slept with their beautiful daughter, ate at their
table, I mean, just what does it take to win you over? You’re just
a lousy common criminal who can beat a polygraph.”
“I didn’t beat the polygraph,” he said
heatedly. “I’d nothing to do with your sister’s death. I liked her
much, more than–”
I slapped his face with all my might and
took the Thompson, juggling it from hand to hand in front of him as
though I was nervous, which I was. “You’re a pathological liar and
this led to your less-than-brilliant career as a murderer.”
Suddenly, the door was swung open. This was planned.
“We’ve got to go,” Josh called in a
disguised voice but without showing himself to Lloyd.
“I’m not finished,” I said, pretending to be
angered.
“Shoot him,” Josh said, “that’s what you
came here to do. I don’t like this waiting around. Let’s go!”
I walked back and forth for a minute more.
“I’ve never shot a person before. It’s harder than I thought, but
for you, I think I can manage it.” I pushed the gun into his face
and released the safety. It wasn’t loaded. “In the beginning,” I
said, “when you first discovered Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts
stealing from my parents, why didn’t you speak up.”
Lloyd swallowed and tears abruptly came to
his eyes. “They’d been embezzling a whole decade before their
deaths,” he whispered.
“How much?” I asked.
“Maybe as much as two hundred million, I
don’t know exactly.”
“Who else knew?”
“Besides me, Cheryl, Graham, and
Massaki.”
“You killed Massaki Fakato as well?”
“He died of natural causes as far as I
know.”
“You killed Hiroyuki Nakamura so you could
be interim president.”
“It looks like that, but I’d nothing to do
with it. I liked the old man. You know that.”
“How many in Tappets knew about The
Zortichii Group?”
“Three besides Graham and Susan.” This truly
shocked me. “Kyoto Takeshi, Gordon Whitley and Donna Wader.”
Brad Burlington had sincerely believed in
the conspiracy theory. I thought it far-fetched, but there it was.
“Who are the leaders in The Zortichii Group?”
“I thought they were originally from Icon
Electronics run by Al Wu. He’s the president of Icon Corporation,
Barry Town Investments, you know, money from the three largest
religious cults goes into these corporations. They also help
finance the Zortichii Group, and others like it, to cannibalize
other industries. I didn’t know it, but Zortichii controlled them,
not the other way around.”
I looked up at Josh who was surprised but
also indicated to move it along.
“The Zortichii Group planned to buy Tappets
as cheap as possible with me as Tappets’ front man,” Lloyd
continued. “They were going to put me in charge, but I rued that
day.”
“They approved Sally’s death?”
“You’re off base. They had nothing to do
with Sally’s death. That was probably The Family of Truth. I’d
absolutely nothing to do with it.” I felt the blood rushing to my
cheeks as revulsion rose in my stomach. I pointed the gun at him.
He appeared confused, as though wounded by every part of his own
confession. His features had been replaced by stress and fear.
Whatever hope he had been holding back, seemed to be gone and his
unreadable face had become one of surrender. “There may be killers
in The Zortichii Group,” he said, “but I’d never have let anybody
hurt Sally, not even for complete control of Tappets. I passed the
polygraph because I told the truth.”
I looked over at Josh who shrugged, and then
returned my attention to Lloyd. “Name Cheryl Garland and Graham
Roberts’ killers.”
“Why do I have to stay here any longer?
Kwong Katigbaki. I’d no idea where it would lead, and if I had, I’d
have stopped it. When Sally was killed, though as surprised as you,
I seized the opportunity at Tappets and didn’t come to your
defense.”
“You produced the poem about me and Sally
for the prosecution?”
“I’d kill her murderers if I could,” he
said, not denying the charge about the poem. “There’s no need to
kill me for your sister’s sake. I’d nothing to do with it, and if
her killer is Graham, he’s dead.”
“You met with one of her killers last
Saturday,” I whispered into his ear. Lloyd’s face lost all of its
remaining color. “The man you talked to on the bench in front of
The Tanner Place after your meeting with Kwong Katigbaki.”
“He works with The Zortichii Group,” Lloyd
said. “His name is Tim Daniel.”
I knew that Tim Daniel was Swift
Retribution, the former Thought Jacob, the blond lean Head-Elder at
Denver with a sparse beard, although he looked different now. The
interrogation ended and I untied Lloyd and let him stumble out of
the building at a half run. Ashe and Josh stayed out of sight the
entire time. When he had gone, Josh came into the room with
Ashe.
“He didn’t know after all,” he whispered
disappointed.
“At least he’ll never report us,” Ashe said.
“I’m glad that’s over. If Dad ever found out, he would kill
us.”
“On the contrary,” Josh interjected. “I’m
going to tell him.”
“I’ll bet good coin that tomorrow Lloyd will
resign at Tappets starting tomorrow,” I ventured.
“You felt the same way as me,” Josh added,
looking over with a broad smile. “When you were done with him, you
knew he wasn’t Sally’s killer.”
I nodded. It looked like Lloyd hadn’t
anything to do with Sally’s death. If so, he’d have known that Tim
Daniel was with The Family of Truth. However, during the
interrogation, I had really felt like pulling the trigger, I mean
if there had really been bullets in it, and now was slightly
ashamed, but these feelings, I kept to myself.
The next day, Josh and Ashe told Peter what
we had done. None of us expected him to be calm about it, but he
was exactly that. On Sunday, July 3 at around four o’clock in the
afternoon, Peter, Josh, and Ashe, came for dinner at Una’s
invitation. It was extremely hot outside and the air-conditioning
was on full. I met them at the door with Susan by my side. She was
staying over with me. Una had been happy all weekend and I could
tell she was elated about the break from the courtroom proceedings.
She’d bought a gigantic palm tree with actual ripe coconuts for the
foyer and when Stan had first seen it, he sat in the chair by the
door and had a belly laugh. It was the first time I had seen him
laugh like that since Sally had died. I felt relaxed, but tense as
well. The whole affair wasn’t out of my mind for even a minute.
Ashe looked very spunky today, maybe even close to the edge of over
the top. Her body was a classic in her red summer dress, skimpy
enough and tight. Josh looked great too. I was growing fond of them
both, besides Andy, they were becoming my first true close
friends.
“Una and I are preparing supper,” Susan said
at the door, “we’re doing ham and chicken-breast-Dijon, with sweet
potatoes, skillet squash, and snow-cap tomatoes with a dessert of
strawberry-laced chiffon crumple. Doesn’t that sound good? Una’s a
wizard and I’m trying hard not to wreck anything.”
“Oh good, you’ve brought your swimming
wear.” Mary said when she saw Ashe’s apparel.
We all laughed, and to my great relief, so
did Mary. This was a sign that she was slowly recovering. “Later
we’ll have a drink on the patio,” she said, “and Bert and his two
boys will drop by. It will be fun.”
“We’ve brought wine,” Peter said.
Josh and Ashe dutifully retrieved their
bottles and Mary put the wine on the large living room wine rack.
“Stan is expecting you in the game room,” she said to Peter, Josh,
and me. “Ashe, come and visit with Una. She’s doing a one of a kind
act in her kitchen.”
I saw that Ashe was okay with this
arrangement, and it told me she had perhaps come here to see Una in
the first place. “Excuse us then,” I said and headed to the parlor
with Josh and Peter. The glossy pine floors had been recently
polished and were partially covered with new East Indian hand-woven
carpets. Josh pointed to a small picture of Ronald Reagan. “You
like the Teflon man?”
“It was a gift from Rick Edward’s wife to us
after he was killed,” I said.
“From Rick Edwards? Damn, tell me more.”
“Rick was a great fan of Reagan,” I said and
told them what I knew about it.
In the parlor, two large slate-billiard
tables sat at opposite ends. A fire place on the west wall was
offset by a state of the art music-video-television station with CD
players, a computer, and other electronic appliances. The
television screen took up half the wall. A shuffle board, an area
to play darts, a bar, several couches and sofa-chairs took up the
rest of the large room. I put on Moonlight Sonata by Tchaikovsky
and then served drinks. Peter stepped up to a collection of CD
stand-up columns which housed hundreds of discs and immediately
began turning them. “I guess you’ve made up your mind that these
are going to succeed,” he said to Stan.
“Mary says so, and so does Una.”
I came over with mugs of ice-cold beer for
everyone and we sat before the unlit fireplace around a marble
coffee table surrounded by four sofa-chairs. In the middle of the
table stood a matching vase filled with a fresh arrangement of
brightly colored carnations. “What do you think?” Dad asked. “Are
we making a mistake letting Lloyd walk?”
“It wasn’t him,” Josh returned
resignedly.
“I agree,” Stan said, “Mary and I think he
loved Sally. At the funeral, he was completely broken down.”
“We’ll start looking elsewhere,” Peter
said.
Una came into the room. “Stan,” she said,
“supper is three hours away. Will I serve a fresh vegetable tray up
here?”
“We’ll come down,” he said.
Peter rose and hugged her. “What do you
think we should do next?” he asked.
“Josh and Ashe did well with Lloyd,” she
said. “Even Susan Zucker believes the rapists of Sally’s are the
same as her murderers, and she said so to me just last week. You
should just round them up and question them. Rick Edwards used to
say that they’re operating illegally, but are protected under the
laws of religious freedom. He’d the right idea all along. I liked
that man, so decent and courageous. They killed him too, and we
might get confessions, just like Christian did with Lloyd.”
“These guys got lucky,” Peter said, “but it
wouldn’t have been admissible in any court, and besides, it was
three against one.”
“If you had the police and enough witnesses
with you, their testimonies could get into a court room,” Una
countered. “Susan Zucker seems to think that it depends on how you
do it. If one or all of the four murderers described how they got
the fingerprint on the gun or the blood on Christian’s suit-jacket,
this too would help.”
Josh whistled. “We’re all going to
prison.”
We laughed. “Una, what did she say about the
police?” Peter asked further.
“Susan said that your friend, what’s his
name? John Ruben. He might go along and then say nothing if it all
came to nought.”
“I don’t know,” Peter said.
“Rick did it on a full-time basis,” Una
returned.
“You mean break the law?”
“Ashe is on my side with this,” Una said.
“So is your wife, as you will see when she arrives.”
This was classic Una. That was why she ran
things without ever running things. “Pitting a daughter against her
father, Una,” Peter said, “do you have no shame?”
“These are basic human right violations by
non-family members,” Josh said, “not like the deprogramming thing
at all. What we did last week was probably stupid.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to get John Ruben’s
opinion,” Peter said.
“Ashe says Ezekiel Observance is traveling
in California under his birth name, George Roger,” Una added,
“maybe he’s left the cult.”
Ezekiel Observance had been the rake-thin
assistant to Moses Truth, one of the five rapists, and had, at one
time, become the Over-Elder in America. Peter’s eyes widened in
surprise. “By God, Una,” he said. “Where did they put you
together?”
“Same place as you,” she said.
“Don’t kid yourself, Peter,” Stan quipped.
“Heaven may have put her together in Jamaica, but she was refined
in hell.”
Peter laughed. “I swear, Una, I don’t
believe it.”
“Heaven and hell are the same places to Mr.
Tappet,” she said, “that’s why he wants to be cremated when he’s
gone, to get used to where he’s going.”
We laughed and began to move out of the
family room. “I visited hell one time, Una,” Peter said, “on
Ashbury Farms.”
That night in bed with Susan, I felt my
power returning. We stayed up most of the night making love.
Getting Lloyd had helped me, but I didn’t tell her that. As soon as
I got out of this nightmare, I was going to ask her to marry me. A
week and a half later, I found myself in Los Angeles, California at
LA International. The chase was on and I was excited. Although I
was with Peter, this time I wasn’t disguised. I noticed that my
hand was tapping rapidly against my thigh all morning. I was
preoccupied. Some question of my parole had come up from Denzil
Burch’s office. We feared they had heard that we were quickly
getting to the bottom of the matter and would interfere, but
nonetheless, this is how I’d always dreamt it should be.
