Deception (A Miranda Murphy Thriller) (12 page)

“Did I look overdosed when I came here? Don’t waste time, go to my car and get the adrenaline. Please. I’ll be fine.”

Rick turned out right. He was breathing when she came back with two adrenaline syringes. His eyes were shut, there was not a flicker of movement in his entire body, but he was definitely alive: her makeup mirror misted when Leslie held it over Rick’s nostrils.

#

#

Rick slept like a baby for the next three hours. He might have easily slept for another five if Leslie had not woken him up, having gotten bored of sitting in the office. Out of concern for his health--or, most likely, out of pity--Leslie drove Rick to her place and allowed him to stay the night. He was one of those people who, due to his own very questionable life choices, had never judged her and it would have been pretty sad to lose Rick only because there was no one to watch over him tonight. She poured herself half a glass of tequila and told Rick that she would break the bottle on his head if he tried to have some of it too.

“I don’t know what was in that coffee, but whatever it was, alcohol will make things worse,” she said. Suspicions began to accumulate in her mind on the way home and once Leslie verbalized a small portion of them, she realized that it all made sense.

With the brim of the glass pressed against her lower lip, Leslie confessed to herself that she believed Helen had put poison in her coffee. Why? She had not figured that out yet, but she would soon. She had not even made the first sip and now alcohol had found itself on the back burner of her consciousness.

They say poison is women’s weapon of choice. Was it reasonable to assume that a woman—Helen—had poisoned her coffee? You could call her dumb, but she would do just that. This saying was a result of centuries of human experiences and who was she to argue with it?

The most terrifying thing was it was so damn easy to put poison in her coffee! Anybody’s coffee in their office, for that matter.

Then she thought about Rick. It was rather bitchy of her to have criticized him, even if she had never said it out loud, for mooching money from his dad. You bet she would do the same if her parents were loaded, which they were not: her father was an engineer and her mother worked for a medium size public accounting firm, your regular middle-middle class types, you know.

Having forgotten about the glass in her hand, Leslie looked at the bottle of tequila standing lonely on the table. Or maybe the bottle was staring at her, disapprovingly, wondering why the hell she had all of a sudden stopped indulging in all that sweet, sweet firewater a year ago. Was it possible that her current moodiness was the result of losing that reliable source of fun and joy that booze represented? But you see, she had to quit after that little incident in Redondo Beach. The wake-up call was too loud to ignore. However, she still permitted herself to have a tequila shot or two from time to time—drink socially as they put it on dating websites.

They did not have sex that night: Rick was fatigued and Leslie was preoccupied with devising a plan of action. 

That night, her descent into insanity began.

#

#

“We need to test your blood, Rick,” Leslie said in a deliberately prosaic voice before breakfast the next morning. She had hoped that the more ordinary her request sounded, the more agreeable Rick would be to it. Last night she did a great deal of research on the internet and the nearest blood testing labs were one of the items she looked into. And she had already emailed George Colmes, the president of the company and her immediate boss, that she might be late today.

“What for?” asked Rick with disinterest.

“It has to be checked for poison. And we have to do it now before the poison leaves your system.”

Rick turned his face to Leslie.

“Are you serious?” he asked with a dumb smile.

“Of course, I am serious. You do realize there was poison in that coffee.” Leslie followed Rick as he walked to the kitchen.

“Come on, Leslie,” he said, opening the refrigerator. “You don’t actually believe in that. It sounds kind of paranoid.”

“I am not asking if you agree with me, or not, Richard. I just need your help to gather some evidence.”

“Well, it’s my blood. I think I do have some say here.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell your father about coke or whatever shit you are using nowadays. And I’m taking you to a private lab, not the police, okay? I will also pay for the test myself.”

“Alright, alright,” replied Rick with an overdramatic hand gesture, as if he had just succumbed to several days of nagging. “Let’s do it. Just stay away from the cops, okay?”

Rick had nothing to worry about: Leslie was not going to involve the police in solving her problems. She had harbored secret antipathy toward the law enforcement ever since the highway patrolman had given her a cell phone ticket on interstate I-5 on a Saturday afternoon about two years ago. The cop was wrong. While she would occasionally take a call when driving and did not consider it a big deal, she was not using the cell phone in any fashion in that particular instance. However, the patrolman dismissed her protests and handed her the damn ticket. The most devious thing about this ordeal was the outrageous discrepancy between the amount of the fine the patrolman gave her (“It’s something like twenty bucks, Miss Lorne,” he said) and the number printed on the letter from Orange County Supreme Court—146 American dollars. The fine was twenty dollars all right, but they also slapped you with several fees and surcharges, which amounted to well over a hundred bucks. The final insult was the judge taking the cop’s side (yes, she actually ended up going to court to prove her innocence) and giving her a lousy fifteen dollar discount on the amount of the fine.

This grave injustice had taught her an important lesson: cops were no friends to regular folks. Even after the lab test, when she had the scientific proof of poison in her coffee, Leslie was not planning to bother police with her suspicions. She was confident she could handle this little issue on her own.

“I never thought you were so paranoid, Leslie,” Rick said, reflectively lighting a Marlboro cigarette. “It reminds of that guy I know, that meth head from Torrance, maybe I told you about him. He thinks his neighbors hate him and are out to get him. And I would understand them if they actually hate him. He’s a dumbass. He still owes me a hundred bucks.”

“If you call me paranoid one more time, I’ll kick you in the balls,” promised Leslie coldly. She must have sounded very convincing since Rick never uttered this word in her presence again.

#

#

The blood test was quite disappointing. They found no traces of any poison. They did detect the cocaine and Zolpidem Tartrate from the sleeping pill Rick had taken before going to bed.

“We should have done that yesterday,” said Leslie, remaining perfectly composed. She did not regret wasting half a day on a useless blood test. On the drive to the lab, she had told herself that no matter what the test would reveal, she would stay the course and make Helen talk.

A negative result was still a result. Importantly, she was a woman with a plan.

#

#

“So you want me to fire Helen?” George settled back comfortably in his expensive leather armchair, his friendly eyes fixed on Leslie, his manicured fingers caressing the armrests.

“Yes, it is my recommendation.” A faint undertone in his voice, which could only be detected by a trained ear, rang an alarm bell in Leslie’s mind. She had known George long enough to recognize signs of reluctance. “The quality of her work has become inadequate.”

“Inadequate.” George emitted a quiet hum. “She’s been working here how long? Three years, right?”

“Yes, three years. And now it’s time to let her go. A monkey can do her job, George. I explained it all in my email to you. Have you read it?”

“I have read it.” George nodded. “Can I ask you a question, Leslie?”

You just did, she wanted to say, but opted to keep snarky remarks to herself.

“Sure, George,” she replied instead.

“And please don’t take it personally, ok? You know that I care about you.”

Now there were several alarm bells ringing in her mind. When someone asked you not to take things personally, chances were it would be a very personal jab.

“Of course, I know that.” Leslie smiled.

“Is it true that someone tried to poison you?”

There was a short period of silence, during which Leslie scrambled to find the pitch-perfect expression for her face. Should she look surprised? Shocked? Indignant? Or maybe calm?

“Certain events took place, George. I don’t know why you would bring them up right now.”

“So it is true? Someone wants to poison you?”

“I doubt it is relevant to Helen’s firing.”

“I believe it’s absolutely relevant here.” George kept the same soothing, amicable tone with which he had started this meeting. “I was told that you suspect Helen of poisoning you.”

Leslie drew an inconspicuous deep breath, while making sure she retained her composure. She did not expect that this slutty whiner Helen would run to the big boss to complain. Leslie only asked her why she had put poison in her coffee and what the fuck her problem was. Looks like this bitch had the guts to kill an innocent person but could not take a few simple questions from her supervisor. She did not remember being overly aggressive with Helen. She forgot if she had used any curse words or had only said them in her mind. Come to think of it, she recalled Helen’s eyes turning red as though she was about to start crying when they were done talking.

The bottom line of their little conversation? Just like Leslie had foreseen, Helen shamelessly lied to her face: she denied poisoning her coffee and pretended to be shocked and hurt by Leslie’s accusations.

Did Helen complain about mean Leslie before or after she sucked George’s dick? Why else would he even listen to this bitch? No doubt, this twenty five year old whore could give nice blowjobs.

“You can go ahead, George, and call me paranoid,” she said. “That’s fine, I won’t take it personally.”

George flashed another fake smile—Leslie knew it was fake; you can’t essentially diss a person and still have a sincere smile—and leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desk.

“I’m not calling you paranoid,” he objected. “Absolutely not. I’m only trying to establish facts, that’s all.”

“You are polite enough not to call me paranoid to my face, I understand that, but if you are telling me that my suspicions are somehow ludicrous, I’d rather you called me paranoid out loud.”

“Well, I’d be glad to hear your suspicions, Leslie. You can be totally open with me. Let’s discuss that, let’s find a solution together.”

At this moment, Leslie wished she were able to slap George in the face for his fake open-mindedness.

“Fine. I’ll answer your question. Yes, it is true that I have reasons to believe that Helen put something in my coffee. I was lucky my friend drank it. He almost died. He drank that coffee and almost died. Why do I suspect Helen? Very simple: she was the one who brought the coffee to me. These are facts, George. Cold hard facts.”

“You sent her to the kitchen to get coffee?”

“Yes, I did. I’m sure she told you that already. She had access to that cup. Is it unreasonable to consider her a prime suspect, George?” Leslie cast a scrutinizing look at her boss. “Now tell me I am paranoid.”

“What, in your opinion, is her motive to kill you?”

“I can only guess. Maybe she wants my job. Or she got pissed off at me for criticizing her work; we now both know how sensitive she is. Anyway, I can’t read her mind, George.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Think about it, George. There are four unguarded, unmonitored coffee pots in the kitchen, which are open to any sort of tampering. Anyone—a terrorist--can go into that room and poison those coffee pots. Then people will drink that coffee and die. And all because you, George, were too shortsighted to see a bigger picture.”

Leslie cast a furtive look at her phone to check on her condo: while at the testing lab with Rick, she called her security company and ordered them to install cameras in her condo. Was it an overkill? Surely not. The night Rick was recovering at her place, she went on a white pages website and typed in her name and the city she lived in. The query result was astonishing: the search did produce her actual address and home phone number. To say that it didn’t give her creeps would be a lie. Leslie did not expect it to be so easy to locate her residence, especially in a city as big as Fountain Valley. 

In order to achieve maximum coverage, the security company guys installed five cameras: by the entrance door, in the living room, kitchen, and both bedrooms. The video feed was recorded on DVR and broadcast live through the internet so that you could watch it from anywhere on your computer or cell phone. Having the ability to monitor her apartment any time from any place made Leslie feel empowered and regular exercising this ability had quickly become a habit. In a move to mislead Helen or her accomplice and give them false comfort, Leslie took the security company stickers off her door and windows.

Was there any evidence of Helen having an accomplice? Not at the moment. Nevertheless, she could not rule out that Helen had an assistant, or assistants. George would surely call her paranoid, but she’d rather be called crazy than find poison in her milk one morning.