BLACK in the Box (28 page)

Sylvia checked her watch and wondered how long after takeoff they’d start serving drinks. Ordinarily limiting her intake to wine, she decided that she’d try something hard with breakfast to make the sleep come. She didn’t particularly care what any of the other passengers thought of her, not that they appeared to care. Everyone was wrapped up in their own dramas, their niggling concerns and plans, far too much so to be sitting in judgment of an anonymous woman in a window seat.

She sat back and closed her eyes, willing the world to go away. Her hope was that her seatmate wouldn’t be three hundred pounds of garrulous tourist, and she resolved to keep her eyes screwed shut until takeoff to avoid interaction.

Her plan was a sound one, and would have worked had she not heard a familiar voice speaking with someone else in the aisle – negotiating a seat swap. Her heart rate rocketed and she opened her eyes as Black sat beside her, offering a wave at the businessman he’d supplanted.

She stared at him with an open mouth. He leaned into her and kissed her cheek lightly.

“Looks like we’re going to Switzerland, huh?” he murmured.

“Wha-what are you doing here?”

“I would think it’s obvious.” The pilot came over the speakers and announced that they were closing the doors, and warned everyone to take their seats so they could back away from the gate.

She made to rise and he gently gripped her arm and shook his head.

She glared at him. “You’re insane.”

“Crazy about you.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“Maybe, but I have to try. I don’t want to lose you, Sylvia. I know I’ve been a selfish shit, and I intend to change. Starting right now.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Going to be a long trip.” Black sat back and fastened his seat belt. “I had to kill someone this morning,” he said, almost in passing. “A kid. Twenty-four. I need a vacation. And a stiff drink.”

She turned to him. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. If they don’t have bourbon on this thing, I’m going air rage on their asses.”

“No, about having to kill a kid.”

“Yeah. It hasn’t been a great night. I earned my pay this time around.”

“Oh, Black. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’ll get over it.”

The plane began moving, and Black closed his eyes. Sylvia studied his profile, the scruffy growth on his face, his hair still wet from a fast shower, and her heart melted.

After an internal struggle that was invisible to anyone, she slid her hand to his and took it, and then the plane was lifting into the sky, carrying them into a future neither had envisioned only minutes before.

Chapter 55

McCarthy stalked into the interrogation room, his patience at an end, the long hours having burned away any subtlety or patience he possessed. Trout followed, and they took seats across from Nancy, whose expression was something between belligerent and annoyed. McCarthy cleared his throat and sat forward with his hands on the table.

“You’re here because you lied to us about being with Brent. That alibi’s as phony as a three-dollar bill, Nancy, and I intend to hang you with it. Perjury, aiding and abetting in the commission of a homicide…and those are just for starters.”

“I want to speak with an attorney,” she said, crossing her arms defiantly across her chest.

“Sure thing. But when you make the call, you can tell him the arresting officer said no deal, no plea, that he’s going to take you to the mat and make an example of you. Give him my name. If he knows the system, he’ll know I’m serious as a heart attack. You read me?”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Your boyfriend tried to shoot Black, for starters. He’s dead. That only leaves you to hang the murder on. You have no alibi now, Nancy. There’s no way for you to prove that you didn’t kill Alec – it would certainly explain how you appeared so quickly after Bethany went in. I’m thinking it’s because you were just finished burying the hatchet in Alec. Brent’s vouching for you is out the window. It’s a joke. A jury will immediately see that you were in this together. So you want to play hardball? This is the World Series. Call your attorney, and better pray that he’s got a lot of murder trial experience.”

Her face twisted into an ugly mask. “I didn’t kill Alec. That’s idiocy.”

“So you say.”

“It’s true.”

“Right. Because you were so in love you were waiting to break the news to your long-dead parents. See, I know everything, Nancy. I have enough to bury you.”

Her lower lip trembled, and McCarthy knew he’d gotten through. The fight drained from her posture and she shifted on her chair.

“I was scared of Alec. But I didn’t want to marry him.”

“Why not?”

“He changed while I was with him.”

“So you conspired to murder him with Brent?”

“I didn’t do that!” Nancy insisted.

McCarthy frowned. “We pulled your cell phone records – and Brent’s. What do you think they show?”

Her shoulders fell. “Okay. Here’s the truth. I was seeing Brent. He and I…Alec didn’t know. That’s why I was going to call off the wedding and I didn’t announce it to anyone.”

McCarthy nodded. “Go on.”

“Alec could get real violent. He was high-strung. I was afraid he’d go berserk if he found out about me and Brent.”

“Fascinating, but it doesn’t explain why you gave him a fake alibi.”

“He told me that he was over by the registers, but that he was afraid you’d make him a suspect if he told you, because nobody was around.”

“Worked out nicely for you, too, because it took the heat off so you could pretend to be the grieving fiancée.”

“I’m not proud of what I did. But that’s the explanation.”

McCarthy shook his head. “I don’t think so. What were you and Brent into with Alec? This is your one chance to tell me the truth, Nancy. We’ll find out eventually. People don’t murder each other because they’re scared of breaking the news they’re two-timing someone. But they do for a lot of other reasons I can think of. Usually money or drugs.”

They sat staring at each other as seconds dragged by. Nancy started crying, but McCarthy didn’t offer her a tissue. He’d seen the easy tears she’d shed the night before, and he wasn’t about to extend a moment’s pity for a practiced liar like her.

“It wasn’t drugs. I swear. But I know who’s dealing in the store,” she said, a flash of slyness lighting her swollen eyes.

“I couldn’t give a shit, Nancy. You may think you’ve got a bargaining chip there, but you’re mistaken. You don’t. The only thing that will work is the truth – and it seems like that’s as foreign to you as Swahili.”

“It’s Henry Heung. He was selling meth to Alec. Brent was helping him deal.”

“Brent sounds like a real charmer. So you’re saying this is all about drugs? How much weight are we talking? Was Alec dealing?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. He was using, not selling.”

“The violent dope fiend gives you a ring, you’re afraid to say no, and so your boyfriend kills him. Is that how it went down? One less problem?”

She stared off into space and then shook her head slowly. “No. You’ve got it all wrong. Alec was skimming credit cards, had a deal where Bethany sold them and they split the money. He spent his on meth.”

“Bethany, huh?” McCarthy made a note.

“Yes, and that’s why I thought she might have killed him. But I must have been wrong. There’s no other reason Brent would freak like he did and start shooting. He must have killed Alec.”

“Because of your little love triangle?”

“No.” She sighed and wiped away a tear. “To understand it, you need to go back to the war. You need to go to Iraq.”

“Iraq?” McCarthy blurted, surprised.

“He was stationed outside of Bagdad. While he was there, he became friends with one of the covert ops guys who stumbled upon a bunch of hidden Iraqi gold from Saddam’s time. Like fifty million dollars’ worth. But he got killed on the final day he was going to remove it.”

McCarthy and Trout looked at each other in disbelief.

“Anyway, Alec was going to go back and find it. But it would cost a ton of money. Fifty grand. He didn’t have that kind of cash, so he approached Brent, Henry, and Mary, as well as me. We each agreed to do whatever it would take to come up with ten grand apiece.”

“To go to Iraq,” McCarthy said.

“Exactly. He needed to pay off some of the locals so he could mount an expedition and get the gold out without being attacked. And that would cost.”

“So this is all about Iraqi gold. And Alec needed money, so he enlisted a who’s who of small-time chiselers.”

“I’m not a chiseler.”

“No, you’re the fiancée who didn’t tell him you were banging another guy because you were afraid it would queer your gold deal. Is that a little closer to the truth?” McCarthy asked.

“Think whatever you want. I told you – he scared me. He was nuts.”

“Right. But it also must have occurred to you that if you told him the truth, rejected his proposal, he’d have cut you out.”

“Maybe there was some of that.”

“Why is the messenger bag important?”

“Alec was like a total security freak. Paranoid like nothing you can imagine. He had all kinds of special encryption on his files, and he kept the key to them in his bag.”

“So you and Brent decided to cut Alec out.”

“No. If Brent did that, it was all on him. I never said to kill anyone.”

“Uh-huh. Where did Brent come up with ten grand? Or you, for that matter?”

“We borrowed it from Henry. He always had a ton of cash.”

The questioning continued for another hour, and when McCarthy and Trout left the room, the younger man stopped in the hall.

“What do you think? Is she even close to telling the truth, or is it all BS?”

“Hard to tell. She’s cold-blooded and lies like a Hanoi streetwalker. On the other hand, she’s not smart enough to make all this up.” McCarthy shrugged. “Let’s give her a few minutes to wonder whether she’s conned us, and then hit her again. This time you be bad cop. I’ll watch.”

Chapter 56

Bethany started awake on the hard steel prison bench, each beat of her heart sending spikes of pain through her splitting skull. She’d had hangovers before, but this one was of truly epic intensity, and she failed to contain a low moan as she opened her eyes.

The sound that had awakened her came again – the dull clunk of a truncheon against the bars. Bethany swung her gaze to the cell entrance, where two female guards who looked as friendly as gladiators stood eyeing her.

“All right, princess. Rise and shine. Time to get ready for your arraignment,” the larger of the pair said. The two women next to Bethany chuckled, and one let out an “oooh.”

Bethany struggled to stand, her legs momentarily unwilling to obey her. When she finally managed, she felt like she’d been dragged behind a tractor for a mile. She glanced around the cell with relief – Angie had been removed a few minutes after threatening Bethany, which one of the women had whispered was because the cell was bugged. Bethany didn’t know whether she was kidding, and she didn’t care. All that mattered was that the immediate threat of violence had been hauled off kicking and screaming, leaving the cell in relative peace for the rest of the night.

She moved to the entrance and one of the guards instructed her to stand facing the wall, hands behind her. Bethany obeyed and soon was being herded down the corridor.

“I made a call last night. Has anyone come by to see me?” Bethany asked, and hated the way her voice cracked at the end of the question.

“Not yet, baby doll.”

“Where are we going?”

“Over to the courthouse. Today’s your big day.”

A few hours ago she’d been questioned at length by a grumpy, disheveled detective, and she’d confessed that she’d been sleeping with Larry, had gotten drunk at his house, trashed it, and then misguidedly hit the road. Now the entire episode seemed surreal, but at the time she’d been spilling her guts it had seemed important to tell the whole truth. The detective had seemed unimpressed by her story of tainted love, and had filled out a form and instructed the guards to take her back to the drunk tank while she waited for formal charges to be filed.

Bethany had finally placed a call to her last resort and left a lengthy, rambling message on his voice mail. That had been at six a.m.; her watch told her it was now nine. If he hadn’t appeared yet, it was going to get ugly – she wasn’t sure how much sway he’d have once she was in the court system.

They reached the processing area, and her stomach flipped when she saw him across the room, looking hard and official in his dark suit and cheap tie. He was in the middle of a discussion with an older uniformed cop, and when she emerged from the back, they both looked at her, the cop with an expression of disgust and her contact’s face neutral, as always.

“I’ll take it from here, Sergeant,” her contact said, and the officer nodded.

“You gotta sign for her. We have procedures.”

“Of course. But I trust you understand that due to the sensitivity of the matter, you’re to send all copies of the processing paperwork as well as the arrest report to my office. Is that clear?”

The sergeant scowled and glowered at her. “Yes. I understand. I don’t want no beef with the feds. But you should have seen her blood alcohol level. She could have killed someone, or herself. It’s a miracle she didn’t.”

“I got that the first time, Sergeant. Thanks for all your help. Just show me what I need to sign.”

The paperwork shuffle took five minutes. Nobody paid any further attention to Bethany, who was left standing by the cell block entrance while her new custodian signed her out. Once he was done, he approached her and noticed her cuffs. He turned to the sergeant. “Can we get the bracelets off?”

“If you think you can handle her,” the older man said. When Bethany’s savior didn’t respond, the cop neared and unlocked her cuffs. “There you go. I never want to see you here again, you got that? If I do, you’ll regret the day you were born, and nobody, not even he, will be able to save you,” he warned.