Mean Woman Blues (33 page)

But within five minutes, she saw it was hopeless; the FBI guys were returning to the McLean house where, Skip was certain, Karen wasn’t going.

* * *

Karen had no idea it was possible to have so much fury in her, boiling, coursing, like a toxin blasting through her veins. How dare David treat her like a child? How was it possible for an adult human being to think his wife was as dumb as she’d have to be to buy that crap on the phone?

Her uncle had a gun; every Texan had a gun. All she had to do was to find it.

And how in the name of the baby she’d lost had she for one minute entered into his puerile little fantasy about being president?
President,
for God’s sake. Talk about folie à deux! How the hell had he done it to her?

The gun would be in the bedroom, she thought. People always thought a burglar was going to surprise them in bed, and they’d just surprise the burglar first. Her own father kept a gun in the drawer of his bedside table.

And the damn escape plan! It was ingenious, something he’d taken a long time to think out, something he’d worked out long before today. “
I’ve got an idea
,” hell! He probably had a trunkful of ideas.

First, she did exactly as her husband had told her: called a town car to pick her up at a particular time, at exactly the place he told her. A car with tinted windows.

Then she tackled the bedroom. Her uncle’s nightstand, she figured, would be the one without the hand lotion on top. Gingerly, she opened the drawer, hoping she didn’t find sex toys.

There were two pairs of spectacles in there and a box of tissues. No gun.

Where else then? She checked under the pillow, feeling like a burglar herself, and then under the mattress. Her fingers closed on something hard and cold.
Please, God, don’t let it be a dildo.

She lifted up the mattress to take a look. There it was, the obligatory Texas firearm. She wondered if it was loaded and if she could fire it.

It felt way too light. She checked under the mattress again and found what must be a clip for it, meaning it must be an automatic. Good. Those were said to be easier. She loaded both items into a tote she’d brought from home.

Now to lose the damned FBI and get to her office.

She drove to the club, called the car service on her cell phone, verified that the car was in place, and went in, walking slowly, exactly as David had told her. Once she was in, she moved fast.

She moved swiftly through the lobby, into the ballroom (which was currently bare), and turned right at the rear, vaguely aware of motion behind her. The damned feds were probably following. She tried to keep calm. She belonged here; no one cared about her speed. But two men chasing her would be noticed.

She turned right at the far side of the ballroom, proceeded down the hall, and then downstairs to the restaurant. Here, there were two choices: You could turn right and go out the side entrance, or you could go through a door at the rear of the restaurant. Karen chose the rear entrance, which opened onto a short breezeway.

Quickly, she loped through the breezeway, opened a door at the far side, and stepped into a small dining room, the sort where private lunches are held. At the rear of that she opened another unmarked door and entered the ladies’ locker room. It was ladies’ golf day, and the place was full. She hurried through, and just as she was turning right again, to enter the golf shop, she heard the screams.

Ha! Home free. The feds— or at least one of them— had followed her. They’d have no choice except to apologize, leave the locker room, and retrace their steps. So now they were on the opposite side of the club; absolutely no way in hell they could catch her. She strode casually through the golf shop, saying her “hellos” as she exited, and slid into the waiting town car, already pointed toward the entrance opposite the main one at Mockingbird Lane.

She had to hand it to David; that was one carefully thought-out plan. She asked the driver to take her to an intersection near the Quadrangle and told him to hurry.

She kept watch out the back, but there was no sign of the FBI car.

She got out at the intersection, paid the driver, watched the town car disappear, and strolled to the building that housed her office. The first thing she noticed was that the security guard wasn’t in his usual place. Gone on rounds, maybe. A half-smoked cigarette had gone out in the ashtray on his desk. She frowned and thought,
Who leaves a cigarette burning in the ashtray?
The answer was obvious. Someone who had to leave in a hurry. She wondered if he’d gotten to her husband first.
No need to worry
, she thought. He wasn’t armed. He was just an old guy paid to take people’s names when they came in. She hoped her husband wasn’t holding him hostage or something. That would complicate things.

The building was a small stand-alone box across from a park, not more than four stories, with a parking lot in back and nice landscaping. The offices on the street— including hers, had wonderful glass fronts that opened onto little balconies. The building didn’t get a whole lot of foot traffic, but there were people working in the offices. They’d be bound to hear the shot. She thought about that, and let a closed smile play at her lips. Who cared? By then he’d be dead.

* * *

Skip could have cried with frustration. She couldn’t believe that it was this simple, that Karen had actually managed to shake two feds and one cop. And yet logic told her she was defeated. Karen Wright could be headed toward her death at this moment, and there wasn’t a damn thing Skip could do about it.

Okay,
she told herself.
Accept it. You can’t do anything except what you can do
. Was there anything left? Where to start?

Start. That was it. Start. Okay, where would Karen go? Where would Mr. Wright tell his wife to meet him? Maybe a favorite restaurant, a street corner, but Skip couldn’t find a place she didn’t know about. That left what she did know: Karen’s home, her parents’ house, the McLeans’ house, the television station, her office, maybe a church. It would be unlike Errol Jacomine not to belong to one, if only to compare himself to the preacher. But Karen hadn’t mentioned a church. She called Karen’s parents’ house; got no answer. Rang Senator McLean again.

She tried to sound calm. “Hi. Had a nice talk with your niece.”

“How is she?”

“Can I be honest with you? I’m a little worried she might try to meet her husband.”

“Oh, no, Karen’s much too smart for that. Besides, isn’t the FBI out front? They’re supposed to be.”

“She left the house, Senator.”

“Well? Didn’t they follow?”

“Oh, yes, they followed. And they lost her.”

He laughed. “She probably went to a mall or something. They wouldn’t be the first people she’s left behind in a mall.”

“Senator, with all due respect, she could be in danger.”

His voice turned hard. “What do you want me to do?”

“Tell me any place she and her husband went together. Some place private she might try to meet him.”

“To be honest, I barely know the man.”

Skip didn’t give him time to elaborate. “How about a church. Do they go to church?”

“I don’t know. They don’t go to ours.”

“Her office then. How about that?”

“Her office? She doesn’t work, that I know of.”

“She runs a foundation.”

“I’m sorry, detective. I don’t know a thing about that.”

Now there was a stopper. “Okay, thanks for your help.”

The feds didn’t know about the office; neither did Karen’s own uncle. What the hell was the name of that foundation?

Rosemarie woke up while the car was in motion. She could tell she was in a car, but she couldn’t figure out why it was pitch black in there. Her head hurt and she couldn’t move. She could hardly breathe. And her mouth— something was keeping her from opening her mouth.

She sucked air through her nose and smelled fumes— and the newness of the car. Her hands were bound behind her, her ankles stuck tightly together. She was on her side, curled up in a fetal position. She was sweating.

Gradually, she took in the sensations, fighting rising panic. And then she remembered. Remembered going into the garage ahead of Earl, worrying that he’d do something like this, wondering how to prevent it, trying to be cool. He must have knocked her out and stolen her car. He must have loaded her in the trunk.

Okay, if he’d do that, he’d kill her. If she didn’t smother first. She tried to remember if you could smother in the trunk of a car.
Maybe
, she thought,
if it was hot enough
. And it was. It was a hot May day, boiling hot. She’d certainly smother if he tried to drive to Mexico.

The only thing to do was breathe, breathe and try to survive as long as she could. She’d taken yoga on and off for years; she knew how to breathe, knew it would calm her. And that it was the only thing she could do. So she breathed, focusing on each breath, trying not to think, just to stay alive.

And, finally, the car stopped. She heard Earl get out, slam the door, and walk away. Fleetingly, it occurred to her to make throat noises to attract his attention, but she knew it was a bad idea. Better he should think she was still unconscious— or dead.

Coming out of the breathing-trance was like waking up a second time; only this time she wasn’t panicked. She was furious.

I’ve got to kill the bastard
, she realized, and wondered why she hadn’t already done it, done it when it would have been easy. In those months when she was supporting him instead, with that stupid job at her little cable station. But, hell, that was hindsight.

Now she was going to do it. All she had to do was get out of here. She started kicking and felt a large metal object. It dawned on her that it was Todd’s gas can. She was in Todd’s car! It was the gas he kept for his stupid boat. This was good; the car had an escape button, in case you got locked in the trunk. Earl must have realized that. He was a maniac for details. He must have thought she couldn’t get to the button with her wrists bound. And she probably couldn’t. She didn’t even know where it was, needed her fingers to poke around for it. So she’d have to get the tape off. It
was
tape, wasn’t it? It seemed to her that it was; wire or rope wouldn’t be so wide or so tight against her skin. She’d have more wiggle room.

It was a nice big trunk she was in. They’d gotten the car so Todd could haul stuff. She could maneuver in it, find the jack or something, get to a taillight maybe, break it…

Wait a minute. She was wearing her watch. Perhaps she could break the crystal, use it to saw through the tape. She slammed her hands against the floor of the trunk.

No. The angle was wrong. She couldn’t even feel the watch, couldn’t know if she’d cracked the glass.

She started moving, slowly, her limbs hurting from the confinement. Her feet hit something. Could you die of gas fumes? Or, maybe, with all that heat, could you burn up from spontaneous combustion? Maybe she’d be barbecued in her own little oven. The panic started rising again.

Again, she breathed, moving her head, trying to straighten out. And she felt something else. But what? She’d have to use the top of her head like fingers, depend on it to tell her what she was feeling.

She rocked her head back and forth on the object, like a kid playing some stupid game with a pillow, finally easing her neck on top of the object. That was better. Her neck could differentiate textures.

It felt like some kind of rope, something coiled up. But harder than rope, something with less give. She kept moving until she felt metal— a long finger of metal— finger-long but fist-wide.

She understood what the object was. It was a set of jumper cables. She tried to remember how they worked. You held them in your hand and opened them and locked them onto screws or something on the battery. And they held. She tried picturing them. Yes! They had teeth.

Her heartbeat sped up. This could be it. But how to get them in position? Kick them there, maybe. Could she turn her whole body around? She starting working on it.

Gradually, painfully, she flipped herself, like an embryo in a womb, using her feet for leverage, then for kicking, kicking the cables back behind her, sitting up a little, raising her head till it hit the roof and set off new waves of pain.

She took a few moments for a few more breaths, but the air was poisonous with gas fumes. She abandoned the effort and just kicked, kicked, kicked some more. She couldn’t gauge how well she was doing; her feet were nearly numb. But she could feel the cables with her feet, feel the length of them inching up her back, feel the grip digging into her.

She kept at it till she could feel the grip with her elbow; she pushed down on it, and to her surprise, felt it open. She needed to get her wrist into the metal jaws, but she couldn’t do it from this angle. She kept working.

Finally she had the grip in her fingers. She opened it, tried to work her wrist in, but she couldn’t hold it. She tried again. And again. And a third time.

Sweat poured off her. Fumes engulfed her. And finally, on the sixth try, she felt the excruciating bite of the grip. She worked it between her wrists, whimpering from the effort. And when she had it in position, she pulled her wrists apart. The fabric gave, a little. But she could do it. She knew now that she could do it.

She kept working, wondering where they were, what Earl was doing in there, how long he’d be, whether she was going to make it. And finally, with a mighty tug, she did. Her elbows hit the padded sides of the trunk, and she brought her hands around to her front, rubbing them together to restore circulation. And then she sent those fingers out to work, not even bothering to tear the tape off her mouth.

The button would be near the front
, she thought,
near the lock.
In a moment, she found it. The trunk flew up, and she breathed real air, not moving for a moment, except to free her mouth. Then she tore at the tape on her ankles, using a combination of the cable grips and her own fingers, nails torn and ragged, to rip it off. Still, she couldn’t walk. Her feet had no feeling at all.