Black Widow (8 page)

Now my phone was ringing, too. Not yet 5 a.m. and someone was calling? Not Tomlinson. If he was coherent, he was aboard
No Más
, watching for me to signal him with the flashlight. I ignored the phone as Vance Varigono sat on the floor, sobbing non sequiturs that begged for understanding but not the police. Now he was a victim of circumstances filled with remorse — another act.

I knelt, pocketed the derringer, and did a quick pat down. Wallet, cell phone, keys. I pocketed the cell phone, too, before I put my lips near his ear and began to whisper. It surprised him, and his eyes widened. I mentioned his wife. I referred to Shay. The last thing I said was, “Vance, I want the subject to disappear. If it doesn’t?
You will
.”

It jolted him. He nodded, not risking eye contact. The man was getting to his feet as I hurried next door to the lab.

It wasn’t too bad. Varigono had riffled my desk, emptied a file case, but the aquariums were untouched, and the sea life within looked healthy. The power hadn’t been off long enough to do damage. Aquarium aerators create ozone, and I took several big breaths, letting good air dilute the adrenal burn. Then I swung the office chair around and dumped my body into it, exhausted.

I had a pounding headache. With eyes closed, a schematic of the back of my brain strobed with each beat of my heart. I sat, taking slow, deep breaths. The pain eased as tension faded.

It didn’t last.

The VHF radio was still on, and a familiar voice came over, hailing me. It was Jeth Nicholes, Dinkin’s Bay fishing guide and a close friend. He’d tried telephoning me, he said. So had my cousin, Ransom. Using the illegal base station in his garage was a last resort before driving to the marina.

“There’s been an accident, Da-da-Doc. Nothing too serious, but you mind calling me on the land line?”

It
was
serious, though, I knew. These days, Jeth seldom stutters.

Shay Money was in the emergency room, Jeth told me, maybe already in surgery. Around 3 a.m., she’d skidded off the road and hit a tree, racing to keep up with the ambulance that was taking her friend Corey Varigono to the hospital.

Corey was in critical condition, he said. Drug overdose.

Shay’s condition was unknown.

SHAY USED HER FINGER to signal me closer, and whispered in a voice hoarse from sleep, “The black hole’s trying to drag me back — you believe me now? It won’t let me be something I’m not.”

I touched my lips to a part of her temple not covered by surgical bandage and replied, “You’re giving up so easy? Now you’re even acting like a rich girl. You’ve got the curse thing backward, sister.”

She smiled . . . winced at the pain, then pointed to her water. It was next to the hospital bed beneath monitors. I held the glass while she used the flexible straw, only a curtain separating us from the woman asleep in the next bed. Just us, but we kept our voices low.

Michael and his mother had exited as I entered, like changing shift. Shay’s future mother-in-law . . .
maybe
. As we passed, the fiancé stared through me, not a nod, but the mother locked eyes and scowled. Heavy, rectangular brow. Her son had inherited the elongated earlobes. No way to know if she scowled for a reason, or if she was one of those angry people whose face had devolved into a warning to the world.

But Shay dismissed them quickly, whispering, “Understand now why Mrs. Jonquil drives me bonkers?” before demanding a report on Corey. As I answered, Shay’s eyes were intense, alert for lies. Reassuring. Even after slamming her convertible into a palm tree, her brain was sharp.

“Doctors haven’t downgraded Corey’s condition, so she’s hanging in there,” I said.

“That’s all you know?”

“That’s all.”

“How’s her family doing?”

“I’ve never met them, so I can’t say. The waiting room’s full. Your friend Beryl’s here. Liz, too.”

“Did they . . . say anything to you?”

I caught the hesitation. “I don’t think they saw me.”

“What about Vance?”

I replied, “Vance,” in a flat tone, not ready to tell her we’d met.

“Corey’s husband. That jerk. When I found her, the side of her face was all swollen, and her eye was turning black. I told the EMTs and the cops about him. That son of a bitch.”

I put my hand on her wrist. “The nurse said I’d have to leave if you get upset.”

“Okay, okay. But I show up at three a.m., his truck’s gone, and she’s nearly dead. I’ll bet right now he’s out making sure he has an alibi so he can pretend like nothing happened.”

A girl who knew how small-time criminals operated. Yes, her brain was functioning fine after a very close call.

Along with scalp lacerations and facial bruises, Shay had a closed head injury — medicalspeak for an injury that could be minor or could make her a vegetable. She’d been unconscious for at least a couple of minutes, so there were more tests to be done. But there were no obvious signs of brain trauma.

So I made her sip some water and calm down before telling me what had happened.

Around 2:30 a.m., Shay had checked her cell and found a hysterical message from Corey. After trying Corey’s phone, she drove to the Varigono home, where she’d discovered her friend unconscious on the couch. EMT response was fast, but Corey stopped breathing just before the ambulance arrived.

No wonder the mood was grim in the ICU waiting room.

“I took CPR, but, Christ, I couldn’t tell if I was helping her or not.

She vomited a couple of times. It was awful! Doc?” Shay turned her head slightly — painful. “We promised we’d be straight with each other, so you’ve got to tell me. Is Corey dead?”

Her face was swollen, raw in spots from the air bag. Skin around her eyes was pale purple, edged with magenta. Not too bad. “Raccoon eyes” is another medical term, but the girl was going to be okay.

I replied, “Corey’s alive. That’s the truth. You did everything you could to help her. That’s all a friend can do.”

“I did something else.” Shay touched a finger to her lips, whispering.

“Corey left a note, and I took it. It’s in my purse. No one’s read it but me. Take a look.”

It was to her parents.

Papi and Mami
I am so tired and afraid all the time and I’ve done something I know will never go away. You were wonderful and I never wanted to make you ashamed. I am so sorry and tired of being afraid. Forgive me . . .

It was written on paper torn from a spiral notebook. Written in a rush by a woman desperate for relief.

In the world’s most dissimilar languages, pet words for mother and father are touchingly similar. The Chinese say
baba
and
mama
. In Arabic, they are
ami
and
omi
. When conquistadors invaded, Aztec children ran screaming for
apå
and
amå
.

The first two words we learn as infants echo humanity’s first words. They are the sound of primal bleating; a child’s plea for help. Those two words are hardwired in the womb, and we carry them with us to the grave. It is known, from voice recorders recovered at crash sites, that
mama
is often the last word a pilot speaks.

Corey had called for help, but silently, as proud people sometimes do.

I folded the note as Shay said, “Was I wrong to take it? A suicide attempt . . . all I could think about was how bad it would look on her record. She’s given up on the acting thing, but the design department loves her at Chico’s. Without the note, they can’t prove it wasn’t accidental, can they?”

I said, “You did the right thing,” as I returned the note to her purse. “She needs help and protection but, yeah, I think Corey will thank you—” Then I said, “Hey,” watching her yawn. “Enough for now. I’ll come back this afternoon.”

“But I don’t want you to go. I’m not sleepy.”

Yes, she was. The nurse had also told me she’d been given a painkiller. But the girl reached and took my hand, something else on her mind.

“I’ve been a good friend to everyone but you, Doc. I needed to say that. And apologize.”

“I’ve got no complaints.”

“But I haven’t been straight. Even now. The real reason I missed Corey’s call was because I was at the computer. There was an e-mail waiting when I got home. He wants more money. The full quarter million. He knows my wedding’s a week from Sunday. If he doesn’t get the money by Friday, he’ll . . . he’ll ...” The girl closed her eyes and touched fingers to her head. “He’s going to put the video on the Internet. That’s what Corey meant, the part about her parents being ashamed.”

“I see.” I gave it some time, as if surprised by the news, then said, “But maybe he did us a favor.”

Her expression read,
You got to be kidding
.

“Think about it. At least he showed his hand — better now than later. And he gave us time, seven days. We have space to deal with it.”

“But I don’t have the money, Doc. And . . . there’s something else. My bridesmaids got the same e-mail. They knew from the beginning. The four of us chipped in to pay the hundred and nine thousand.”

I sat back in mock disbelief. “Dex didn’t leave a fat insurance policy?”

“All that man left me was a couple of guns, a junker Cadillac, and some real bad memories. Dumb, I knew you didn’t believe me. But it was the only thing I could think of.” She squeezed my fingers, her grip childlike. “I lied to you, pal.”

I smiled. “So what? Compartmentalization — the smart way to handle it. I would’ve done the same.”

Again, she squeezed.

“If I was smart, I wouldn’t be in this mess — I think Michael knows.

Vance stole Corey’s password and read the e-mail before she did. Michael hasn’t mentioned it, but Vance told him something. I can feel it, the way he looks at me now. There’s not going to be a wedding.”

“Did he tell you it’s off?”

“While I’m in a hospital bed? No, he’ll wait.”

“What about his mother? Would he have told her?”

“Uh-uh. If he had, the only reason she’d come to the hospital is to spit on me. Mrs. Jonquil’s French, not Swiss,
and
a serious Catholic. The woman wouldn’t be here if she knew.”

“Were there files attached to the e-mail?”

She moved her eyes.
No
.

“How was it worded?”

“What I just told you. He wants the rest of the money.”

“Can you remember specifics?”

“I should, I read the damn thing a dozen times before I trashed it. It was kinda like the first one, the way he tried to be clever. It went, ‘Some vacation memories are priceless, so your vacation video is a bargain. Either pay the rest of the money, or ...’ No, that’s not right.” She thought for a moment. “No, he said, ‘Pay the
balance
or you’ll be sinning with your new boyfriends on the Internet — ’ It went like that.”

I said, “Sinning. That’s a strange way to put it.”

“Yeah, he’s nasty clever. Called me a slut — that was in the subject line. And he said ‘porn sites,’ not Internet. But he didn’t attach any more video files.”

Like before — it wasn’t just about the money. The blackmailer got a charge out of humiliating victims.

“Is there a chance Michael or his pals can retrieve the earlier files if they go hunting through your computers?”

“No. We trashed everything. Then I found a special software that we all used to make sure it stays gone.”

“That includes his latest e-mail?”

She nodded.

“What about the other girls?”

“They got rid of it while we were still talking on the phone. But poor Corey, she didn’t know that Vance had already snooped.”

I said, “In that case, Michael doesn’t really
know
anything.”

“Of course he does . . . or soon will. He’ll find out the girls and I are being blackmailed about something bad enough we already paid a chunk of the quarter million. That and whatever else Vance slapped out of Corey before she OD’d. He’ll know about the video. There’s no getting around it.”

I looked into her eyes for a long second before saying, “Video? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What video?”

Shay stared back, her expression blank.
Huh
?

I said it again, deadpan. "
What
video?”

She continued to stare. “You’re serious.”

“Very.”

She tried to sit, but I placed my hands on her shoulders until she was lying back.

“But they’ll
know
.”

“They don’t know anything. Michael and his fraternity pals never saw what’s on that cassette. Neither did you. Neither did your bridesmaids. I have it. No one’s going to get it. So, as of now, it doesn’t exist.”

“But Vance read the e-mail—”

“An e-mail doesn’t prove anything. Some freak in the Caribbean is hounding you about a film he doesn’t have, and about a night that never happened.”

The girl took a deep breath and settled back, thinking about it. “My God, I’d give anything if it was true. But . . . but how do I explain why we paid all that money? Michael can check my bank—” She stopped, her voice turning inward. Her expression changed. “Wait . . . we have separate accounts. Same with Beryl, Liz, and their guys. We all chipped in, so we didn’t have to dig into our wedding accounts. They
can’t
check. But what about Vance and Corey—”

“Vance is a loser and liar. They had a fight last night. I’m sure it wasn’t their first. He’s jealous, pathological, so he made up a bunch of crap as an excuse for hitting his wife. You got involved after hearing Corey’s phone message.”

“Doc . . . I don’t know. Will it work?”

I leaned and kissed the same bare space on her temple. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it’ll buy us some time — as long as nothing else happened on Saint Arc. Something worse.”

“What the hell could be worse?”

“You tell me. An accident? If someone got hurt, and the camera caught it?”

“No. What we did was bad enough.”

I looked at her, letting her know this was serious. “Is that the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Then that’s the way we’ll play it. There is no video. Got it? The party, the swimming pool, the three locals, it never happened. Keep telling yourself that. I’ll send Beryl and Liz in so you can tell them—”