Deception (A Miranda Murphy Thriller) (15 page)

What was the death from the botulinum toxin like? Not pleasant at all. It took the toxin 24-72 hours to manifest itself. In many cases, one first had trouble controlling one’s eyes and facial muscles, which was followed by paralysis of arms and legs. Then breathing became difficult. There might be nausea and vomiting as a bonus. And then a person died, if untreated for botulism.

How big were those coffee pots? At least ten cups each, which meant that forty people might have gotten poisoned today, assuming the Clostridium botulinum bacteria had grown in her canned beans. Yeah, this would be a fun weekend for many of them. Of course, not all of those coffee drinkers would die. Chances were, most of them would survive. Did George drink coffee? Yep. Did he drink from the pots in the kitchen? Most likely, never. His secretary brewed him coffee in the coffeemaker in the reception room. Well, it appeared Leslie would have to break a sweat and take care of George after she neutralized Kathy.

Leslie’s brain had barely finished this thought when the world around her turned black.

#

#

When Leslie regained consciousness, she could not recognize the place. They were in some rundown empty warehouse—at least it appeared to be a warehouse to her—and it was not Kathy, but Leslie who was duct-taped to a chair now. Two fluorescent lanterns on the floor were the only sources of light. Kathy was standing several feet away from Leslie with a compact digital camcorder, apparently viewing a recording.

Damn. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Leslie tried to move her legs only to find out that they indeed were fastened to the chair just like her arms. She could see her wristwatch, which was not buried under the layers of duct tape. It was a quarter to midnight. Judging by the fact that she did not feel particularly hungry, Leslie concluded it was still Friday and she had been unconscious for about four hours.

How the hell did she remove the duct tape? Did she chew through it? This fucking old rat.

“How are you doing?” said Kathy, shutting the camcorder screen.

“What does this all mean?” Leslie nodded towards the walls.

“We’re not in Long Beach anymore.” 

“I can see that. What the fuck is going on?” Leslie was feverishly attempting to recall the events right before she had fallen asleep.

“There was something in those cigarettes, right?” she asked.

“Yes. A sedative, to knock you out.”

“Do you even smoke?”

Kathy shook her head.

“So you kept them for me, huh?” Leslie heaved a defeated sigh. “Is that what you put in my coffee that day?”

“It was a sedative, but a different kind.”

“So I was right about you. And you lied to my face. You shamelessly lied to my face.”

She was out for four hours. How far were they from Long Beach? They could have been in some industrial ghetto in Los Angeles. Or a dozen other places in the county featuring abandoned properties.

That boy must have lived in Redondo Beach. Kathy used to live in Redondo Beach, too. Leslie was about to connect the dots. Too bad the revelation came twenty minutes late, after she had begun smoking that cigarette.

“What do you want from me?” asked Leslie.

She did not hit that boy on purpose. True, she was a little buzzed that morning. Maybe a wee bit more than buzzed; the party in Manhattan Beach had gone on all night. She was headed to Rick’s place in Torrance. You see, she did a responsible thing back then: instead of driving thirty four miles to her own condo, she chose to go to Rick’s, just minutes away.

“You don’t remember the last two hours?” asked Kathy.

Accidents happen all the time. And they are not anyone’s fault. That’s why they are called accidents.

“I remember you asking questions.”

One moment she was looking at her cell phone to see if there were any new text messages, the other moment she was hurling that boy’s body down the street. It was like he had appeared out of thin air. She hit the brakes, stopped the car. When she saw that boy lying on the asphalt, she immediately realized he was dead. She had to make a decision in a space of seconds. She had alcohol in her system. Her career, her freedom, her reputation were on the line. She wanted to get away. And she did exactly that.

Fortunately, there was no blood on her Land Cruiser, but she still washed it at a self-service car wash within an hour of the accident, just in case. The car body damage was minor and your regular mechanic would have never told that someone had been killed by that vehicle, but she still deliberately totaled it two weeks later and bought the Lexus.

“I got what I wanted,” said Kathy.

Leslie noticed a small walkie-talkie in a black clip-on case attached to Kathy’s belt. It seemed to be a cheap, unsophisticated model, probably purchased at Walmart. Who had the other half of the walkie-talkie pair? Kathy’s accomplice? Her daughter? 

“What did you want?”

“You can take a look.” Kathy flipped open the camcorder, positioned its screen in front of Leslie’s eyes, and pressed the play button.

Leslie felt a bad heart pang when she saw herself on the screen: her hair was a disaster, mascara was smudged all over her face, her lifeless eyes reminded those of a junkie tripping on heroin, and the terrible lighting exacerbated the situation.

“You drugged me, didn’t you?” she asked quietly, in order not to miss the essential parts of the video recording, which appeared to be Kathy’s interrogation of her.

“Yes.”

“What was it? Is it going to kill me?”

“I gave you a shot of sodium pentothal, the truth serum. I wanted to hear it from you.” 

“Hear what?”

A few moments later, she heard her own slightly slurred voice from the camcorder speakers: “Yes, I was driving that car. I hit your son. I did it. And I’m sorry.”

“How did you find me?” asked Leslie.

“I was there when you killed Leo. I saw your license plate.”

So that’s what that boy’s name was. Leo.

But what was she supposed to do? Go to jail? Who would that have helped, huh? The boy would still have been dead, whether she had gone to jail or not.

“Why didn’t you go to police then?”

“I wanted to handle it my way.”

A weak smile touched Leslie’s lips. They had at least one thing in common.

Was Kathy afraid that her son’s killer would have weaseled out with a suspended sentence with the help of some expensive hotshot lawyer?

“So you tracked me down?”

“Yes, I did. After months of hesitation.” Kathy paused. “My son was only eleven when you killed him.”

“Kathy, I am very sorry. I didn’t mean to do it.” Tears quickly swelled up in Leslie’s eyes and now were trickling down her cheeks. “I am not a bad person. It was an accident, Kathy. Please believe me. I was unfamiliar with that street. I did not see your son.”

“Did you drink that morning or the night before?”

“Kathy…” Leslie took a deep breath, swallowed the thick lumpy mucus that had collected in her throat. “Whatever I could tell you won’t bring Leo back. I can try and give you some closure, but nothing will bring him back. Please, Kathy.”

“You were drunk when you ran him over, weren’t you?”

“I was a little buzzed, that’s all. It was probably below the limit. I don’t know.”

“They told me that Leo had died almost immediately after you’d hit him with your car. That he hadn’t suffered much. It was a quick, almost painless death.” Kathy pulled a Kleenex tissue from the box sitting on a dilapidated crate and pressed it against her tearful eyes. “Right after my son’s death, I thought about what I would do when I met his killer. I thought I would cause a lot of pain to that person. A lot of pain. For a long period of time.”

“Kathy, please, I’m begging you.” Leslie was terrified by now. Her voice was shaking. “You don’t have to kill me. Back there, in the basement, it was all for show. I was only trying to scare you, I swear.”

“I still have those thoughts,” Kathy went on. “But at the same time, I understand that, if I realize my fantasies, I’ll cross a line that I don’t want to cross. That I will turn into a monster that is no better than you.”

“I’m very very sorry you lost your son. If I could turn back time and just stay home that weekend, I would do it; but we both know it’s impossible.”

“Did it ever occur to you to confess? Even once?”

Frankly, Leslie could not figure out if Kathy was playing with her or seriously considering giving her a second chance. If the latter was true, Leslie was ready to give a performance of a lifetime. She could hear the exalted beating of her heart.

“I thought about it,” she said. “But I was too scared to tell anyone about the accident. I was confused and stupid. That accident was a mistake, Kathy. One damn mistake! If you want, I’ll go to police tomorrow and confess to running over your son. I’ll do that for sure. Just don’t kill me, that’s all I’m asking for.”

“You will do it? You will turn yourself in?”

Leslie could discern the traces of both skepticism and hope in Kathy’s voice.

“Yes, I will, I promise,” she said firmly. “And remember, you have recorded my confession on camera. You can use it if I’m lying to you, right?”

“That’s true.” Kathy nodded.

“You see. You have my confession. Let the system punish me. Let it put me in jail for a long, long time. Let the justice prevail. Tomorrow morning, I will go to police, confess, and then plead guilty. There will be no trial. I want this to be over as soon as possible.”

A few seconds of silence followed, which were interrupted by the quiet ringing of Kathy’s cell phone. Kathy took the cell out of her jeans pocket, pressed the answer button, and said to the caller:

“I’ll be out in five minutes, Jenny.”

Yes, it must be her daughter, mommy’s little helper. Two fucking bitches. They will both pay if this whore is foolish enough to let her go.

“If I killed you now, I’d be as bad as you. And I would hate that,” Kathy said, piercing Leslie with her eyes. “Your car is outside the warehouse. Call me from the police station tomorrow. Do you have my cell number?”

“Yes, I do.”

Leslie could not believe her ears. This dumb whore had bought it!

There will be no phone call from the police station tomorrow, you fucking menopausal bitch! You and your daughter will be dead by the sunrise.

“I’ll be waiting for your call.”

Kathy produced Leslie’s Glock, which had been stuck in her jeans back pocket, ejected the magazine from its handle, tossed the gun on the floor, away from Leslie, and methodically pushed the bullets with her thumb out of the magazine onto her left palm. She definitely enjoyed every second of this dramatic scene. When all bullets found themselves in her hand, Kathy slipped them in her jeans pocket, and dropped the magazine on the floor.

“Don’t break my trust, okay?” With a small kitchen knife, Kathy cut through the duct tape that fixed Leslie’s right arm to the chair. Then she placed the knife in Leslie’s lap, letting her cut the rest of the tape herself.

Was she going to leave the gun here? Jesus Christ, Kathy was even dumber than Leslie had thought. You see, there was a spare box of ammo in the glove compartment of her Lexus, which meant that Kathy and her daughter would be dead in a mere hour or two, assuming they were headed to their apartment in Cypress.

“I won’t break your trust, Kathy. I promise.”

#

#

Squeezing tightly the steering wheel, Leslie looked at the clock. According to her estimate, Kathy had a head start of ten minutes: that was how long it had taken Leslie to set herself free, pick up the magazine and the gun, find her car, load eight bullets into the clip, collect her thoughts, start the car, and get moving. The GPS indicated that Kathy’s home was a twenty two mile drive away from the warehouse, which turned out to be located in South Gate. She had already covered roughly a third of the distance.

She was elated, full of energy, and ready to take on the world.

“Hello, Leslie!”

She was startled by this loud call, which was coming from under the front passenger seat. She recognized Kathy’s voice.

“Leslie, pick up. Pick up!”

The quality of the sound was subpar. The image of the walkie talkie hanging on Kathy’s belt immediately flashed in her memory.

“Can you pull over and pick it up?”

Leslie switched on her right blinker, cautiously pulled to the side of the freeway, and grabbed the walkie talkie, wondering why the hell she had not noticed it before.

How does this thing work, by the way?

“Push the green button on the top if you want to talk,” prompted Kathy, as if having heard Leslie’s thoughts.

Leslie followed her instructions and uttered into the walkie talkie:

“I’m here.”

“Did you pull over?”

“Yes, I did.” She instinctively glanced left, then right, evidently expecting to see Kathy, sitting in her Honda and peeping at Leslie through binoculars.

Now that was paranoid. It would have been too hard to tail her in the middle of the night.