STATE OF ANGER: A Virgil Jones Mystery Series (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 1) (17 page)

His body hung limp now, his head
low on his chest, its weight more than he could manage. His eyes watered
without shame and in his quest for air Virgil had swallowed part of the rag and
it now blocked his airway completely.

The tall man took another picture
then ripped the tape from Virgil’s mouth and pulled out the rag. A mixture of
blood and drool ran down his chin and dripped across the flat of his stomach
before it hit the floor and Virgil knew he was bleeding on the inside. The pain
was unbearable, but with the rag out of his mouth he was able to get enough air
to remain conscious. Virgil looked at the tall man once again and when he did
he saw something behind him that gave him hope, not just for himself, but for
all the things he thought he might never experience.

__________

He gathered what little remaining
strength he possessed and lifted his head to speak. “Murton Wheeler is going to
square this.”

“I doubt it. Undercover Fed’s have
a way of falling off the map sometimes. We’re going to take care of him just
like you. Your time is up here bubba. Like I said, nothing personal, but you
went and rattled the wrong cage.”

Virgil felt his chest getting
heavy and knew he was drowning in his own blood. He spit more blood from his
mouth and lifted his head for what he was sure would be the last time. “I know
where he is. Wheeler.”

The short man had moved over to
where the tall man stood and they were now standing side by side, no more than
a foot away. “Okay, I’ll bite, tough guy. It’ll save us the trouble of finding
him. Where is he?”

“Right behind you,” Murton said. He
then raised his arms in front of him, and Virgil saw he held two chrome plated
semi-automatic thumb busters, one in each hand. The light reflected off the
.45’s polished finishes and danced around the enclosure like shards from a
broken mirror. He pulled the triggers on both guns at the same time, his arms
flying high with the recoil of the massive weapons. The two men flew backwards
as if they had been tied to a catapult and yanked from the room. Murton ran past
and Virgil saw his lips move but the gunshots had temporarily deafened him so
he couldn’t hear what he said. But he did hear two more shots behind him, one
right after the other and when Murton walked back around in front of him, Virgil
eventually heard him, though his words seemed slow and sluggish, like someone
had pulled the power cord to an old LP record player, the music of his voice
getting slower and deeper as the record spun to a stop.

“Don’t you die on me, Jonesy. I’m going
to get you out of here. Just like before, remember? Hang in there man. Jonesy? God
damn it, Jonesy, don’t you die, you hear me? Jonesy?”

In the distance Virgil thought he
heard a siren, but he didn’t know if it was real or imaginary. When Murton cut
the ties that held him against the steel beam and lowered him to the floor,
Virgil was sure he saw his mother. She stood behind them, her face radiant, the
room somehow brighter with her presence. She shadowed Murton’s efforts, her
hands over the top of his as she directed his movements and though he tried to
reach out to them both, Virgil was too weak to move his arms and once again he
slipped away, uncertain of his fate, his body warm in the hands of his past.

22

__________

J
enny
Anderson needed something. Trouble was, she just didn’t know what it might be. She
was bored. Not in the moment I’ve-got-nothing-to-do-right-now kind of bored,
but bored with her life. She had no children to care for, her and her husband
Bob found out long ago they would never conceive a child—her anatomy, not
his—but it never bothered them enough to look at radical methods of child
bearing like having someone carry a child for them. That just didn’t seem
right. “Might as well adopt a kid,” Bob had said one evening about ten years
ago. So they talked about that—twenty minutes all told—before they decided
they didn’t want the fuss and bother of the paperwork, not to mention the
expense.

She didn’t work. No, Jenny was not
a worker. She was a stay at home wife. Yawn. Had nothing against work, really. Work
was a tool. You used it to earn income to provide for yourself and your family.
The problem with work was, if it wasn’t a career, a real love-what-you-do kind
of thing, like a doctor, or lawyer, or in her husband Bob’s case, Air Traffic
Controller, what was the point? It’s not like they needed the money. The
economy sucked anyway. Let someone else trade their time for cash minus taxes, thank
you.

Friends? Sure, there were a few,
but nobody she’d take a bullet for. The truth of the matter was, Jenny was sort
of stuck between good ol’ Mr. Rock and Sir Hard Place. She liked her solitude,
but it sometimes bored her right out of her goddamned gourd.

And why in the world had she just
knighted Hard Place?

Jenny walked outside to the pool
with only one thing on her mind, the one thing that kept her from losing her
mind.

Sex.

Yes sir, if there was one thing
that got Jenny through her days it was good old-fashioned sex. She’d knock one
off with Bob before he left to play his video games at the airport, and usually
hit him up at night before bed, but Bob was, what? Worn out? No, that wasn’t
it. Fact was, it wasn’t about big Bob at all. It was about her. She just
couldn’t get enough. She’d had a few guys on the side from time to
time—one had even been a co-worker of Bob’s—but that had fizzled
like all the rest when they found out how insatiable her desires were. So most
days she did what she liked best. Herself. Then, not long ago, she discovered
something that killed her boredom like a big ol can of Bore-B-Gone.

An audience.

She stuck her big toe in the water
of their built-in pool, more of a ritual than a gage of temperature. The gas
heater kept the water at a perfect eighty-five degrees throughout the season. A
glance at her wristwatch told her the time, and a slow, almost wicked smile
tugged at the corners of her mouth. She undid the tie that held her robe closed
and let it fall open, the front of her naked body exposed to the expanse of the
back yard and the tree line beyond. When she was sure he was out
there—she’d caught just a hint of movement at the corner of the tree
line, she let the robe fall to the ground and stood nude, her body his to
admire.

As K.C. and the boys would say,
Jenny was puttin’ on her boogie shoes.

__________

The Sids were in place and ready, Junior
with the rifle at the edge of the tree line, Senior back near the van, covering
the road in case anyone from the cell company showed up. It was unlikely, but
it paid to be thorough. When the woman came out to sunbathe, Junior would take
care of business and they’d be out of there.

Nothing to it.

__________

Jimmy Hamilton had a situation. One
of those you’ve-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me situations. His house—okay,
his parent’s house—sat on the other side of the access road from the
Anderson’s. A tree line, much thinner than the one on the Anderson’s side
separated his yard from the narrow gravel road. You could cross the road in two
quick steps, nothing to it. He’d done it twice a day for the last month since
school let out. Sometimes three. Both his parents worked, so he was alone
during the days. Weekends sucked because Mr. Anderson was home, as were his own
parents. But the weekdays were his. His and Mrs. Anderson’s.

Jenny.

Jimmy was naked from the ankles up;
the only clothing that covered anything at all on his body of sixteen years was
a pair of New Balance sneakers. He had his back and butt pressed tight against
the chain link fence that bordered the cell tower’s base and it was starting to
hurt. He cursed himself for the foolish, even perverted bravado he had
displayed. His shorts were on the other side of the road, his side, where he’d
left them before crossing over and into the thicker trees. He should have kept
them with him, but over the last month he’d grown more and more daring as he
looked for ways to increase his level of excitement.

The first time he’d seen her
laying nude by the pool he was just out exploring the area, looking for a nice
quiet place to spark a doob. He crossed the access road and ventured into the
tree line, sat on a log and lit up. When he heard the music he walked a little
deeper into the trees and that’s when he saw her. She was completely naked,
just floating around in the pool on a couple of those foam snakes, one under
her arms and one under her knees. Jimmy dropped his doobie, then his shorts. It
didn’t take much, six or seven tugs before he came and when he did, he let out
a moan that caused Mrs. Anderson to raise her head and look at the tree line.

Jimmy froze, an honest to God deer
in the headlights freeze. He didn’t know if he should run or not. But then
something happened, something that made Jimmy hard again almost immediately. Mrs.
Anderson got out of the pool, looked toward the trees, right where he was
standing with his Johnson in his hand, and waved at him.

Jimmy had to hold onto a tree with
his free hand to keep from falling over.

Over the next few weeks he watched
Jenny swim, he watched her exercise, he watched her lie in the sun, he watched
her masturbate, and once he watched her blow her husband when he came home early
from work. That had been the best.

This was only the third time he
had ventured over nude. The last two times he had actually stepped out from the
tree line and into her backyard and when he did she immediately started
pounding away at herself. When he took a few steps forward toward the pool
though, she held up her hand, palm out indicating she wanted him to stop. He
guessed it was because of his age.

He guessed right. The next time he
showed up there was a hand written note stuck in the branches of the tree he
always leaned on. It wasn’t addressed to him, but it was for him. It simply
said: You’re too young. I can’t allow anything more. But please keep visiting
me. I love to watch and be watched.

Jimmy couldn’t believe it. Sure,
he was disappointed that he couldn’t have her; she was hot, hot, hot. Fucking-A
perfect, in fact. But the please keep visiting me part? He’d take that in a
heartbeat. For now anyway. If he could keep her going for another two years,
really only a year and a half, he would be old enough to cross the backyard and
go all the way.

But right now, today, he had a
problem. A genuine OMFG, shriveled up nut sack sort of problem. He had no
sooner begun to cross the road, naked as a Jaybird as his grandma would have
said, when he saw the white van creeping along through the turn. He just
managed to duck behind the cell tower’s shack—there wasn’t enough time to
turn around and dart to his side—as the van came around the bend in the
road and made a U-turn right in front of the tower’s perimeter fence. He
couldn’t go back and he couldn’t go forward. For the moment, he was trapped.

Naked.

With a boner.

__________

Junior was close enough she could
hear the naked bitch moaning someone’s name. Johnny, or Joey, or something. Couldn’t
quite make it out. Not that it mattered. Jesus, she thought as she watched the
woman masturbate. What was it with people these days? Every last one of them
nuttier than a squirrel turd. She thought about parking one right in her
biscuit.

Needed a death shot, though.

Took it, too.

__________

Jimmy couldn’t take it anymore. He
was just about to say fuck it and make a run for his side of the fence when he
heard a rustle in the trees to his left. He saw someone moving through, just a
shape in the shadows. Then, when she came out of the trees, he peaked around
the corner of the fencing and saw her. A woman. A good-looking woman at that,
and an older man. Not real old though. His dad’s age, maybe. Fiftyish. The
woman was carrying a rifle. When they got in the van and drove away, Jimmy
realized he’d been holding his breath. He memorized the plate on the back of
the van and wondered why the woman held a rifle? Was it hunting season? Jimmy
didn’t know anything about hunting laws, but surely no one would hunt in the
suburbs, even ones as secluded as this.

What Jimmy did know about was
nature’s law. With his boner still long and strong, Jimmy headed for the edge
of the Anderson’s property line. And why not? The van was gone.

Plus, he hadn’t heard a shot, so
what was the problemo? Jimmy thought he’d spray some DNA and be on his way. He
was aching for it.

The problemo was, when Jimmy saw
Jenny’s dead body and the puddle of blood that leaked from the hole in her head
and into the pool, Jimmy sprayed some DNA all right, just not the kind he had
hoped. He vomited all over his New Balance sneakers, which coincidentally, did
not live up to their name. He fell to the ground  and tried to convince himself
what he saw wasn’t real. When he finally managed to stand, covered in puke and
leaves and dirt, he started toward his own house. He walked at first, and then
he started to run. Kept repeating the plate number of the van over and over in
his head.

__________

Sid, Sr. drove them out of the
suburbs and into town. Junior looked out the window and thought about her
lover, Amanda. They had one more shot to take…this was the big one, and then it
would be over. Her and Amanda could be together at last. They already had their
place picked out down in the Keys. With the money Amanda had siphoned off over
the last few years, they’d be able to live comfortably, though not
extravagantly. But that was all right. Anything to be together and out of
fucking Indiana.

“Are you listening to me?” Senior
said. “How are we doing on time?”

The governor was holding a press
conference to announce his intentions to run for reelection. The media would be
there and the entire thing would be captured on television.

“We’re doing good,” Junior said.

“Keep your fucking head in the
game. We’re almost through.”

“Interesting choice of words,”
Junior said.

“Don’t get all mystical on me now.
This is it. After we pop fly boy we’re outta here.”

“You never did tell me where
you’re going.”

Senior laughed a wicked little
laugh. “I’m going to hell, darling. But I’ll be going via Mexico. You and that
crazy cunt still going to the Keys?”

Junior wished she’d never told him
where they were going, but she had, so… “Yeah. Leaving tonight. And don’t call
her that. We’re in love.”

“That right? Well, that was
something about Sermon Sam, though, huh?”

No shit, Junior thought. “Fuck
Sermon Sam. Pedophile motherfucker.” Then a minute or so later. “Maybe you’ll
see him there. In hell.”

“No maybe about it,” Senior said.
“No maybe at all.”

__________

The press conference was being
held at the USS Indianapolis Memorial, near downtown, on the east side of the
canal walk. The Sid’s parked their van at the back of the lot just north of a
medical education building that gave them a clear shot of the podium where the
governor would give his speech. The plan was simple. Take the shot, burn the
van, then walk away. They had a getaway car parked in the lot, and Senior had
the keys in his pocket. They turned into the lot and drove to the back.

They were right on time.

__________

Indianapolis Metro Patrol Officer
Jonathon Cauliffer drove along Roanoke Street and turned his cruiser onto West
North Street and then hung a left on Walnut. He was in the area where the governor
was going to give his speech and if he took Walnut to the end, right where it
met Ellsworth, he could sit in his squad car, eat his sandwich and watch the big
guy give his speech. Another day on the job.

Except the traffic was heavy, and
there was no real place to park, so Cauliffer turned around and hooked a left
and went back north toward the parking lot adjacent to the education building.
He’d be able to see just as well. Either way, he’d have his lunch.

__________

Senior had the van backed in at
the rear of the lot that gave him a clear view of the Memorial and the area
where the governor was going to speak. He moved to the back and slid the rear
window of the van open just enough to allow the barrel of the rifle to slip
through. The lot was virtually empty. They were good to go.

__________

Cauliffer turned into the mostly
empty lot and parked right next to the building. He unwrapped his sandwich,
took a quick bite, and then set it down on the passenger seat. He unbuckled his
seatbelt, turned the volume on his radio down, lowered the window on his squad
car and settled in. He was on the last day of his tour before his three days
off. Four hours to go. He couldn’t wait.