Hour Game by David Baldacci
“I think it was her, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. If it was, she drove off in a convertible Mercedes-Benz—you know, one of the older styles, like an antique. I couldn’t get the license plate, and I couldn’t make out the color for sure, but it was dark, maybe a green or dark blue. So if that was her, I guess she wasn’t one of the dancers. If so, she would have just stayed at the club.”
“We should still be able to trace the car.”
“What should I do about Kyle?”
“Seems like it’s a police matter. You have the proof and you were a witness.”
“Do you think I should confront him with it?”
“No! There’s no telling what he might do. I’ll speak with Todd tomorrow and see what he thinks. But you better start thinking about finding a new assistant.”
She slowly nodded. “I guess I should have seen this coming. Kyle was always cutting things close. I caught him on the computer in the admin office the other day, and he gave me a B.S. story about buying supplies. He was probably fudging the pharmacy inventory while I was standing right there.”
“He’s obviously good at lying, and while he seems like the nonviolent type, those are just the ones you have to be careful about. I’ll handle it first thing in the morning.”
She smiled at him. “It’s nice to be taken care of for a change.”
He returned the smile and looked around. “They have an excellent wine cellar here. Mind if I order something extraordinary?”
“Like I said, it’s nice to be taken care of.”
“If memory serves me correctly, they have a 1982 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou.”
“Ducru-Beaucaillou? My French is a little rusty.”
“It means ‘beautiful pebble,’ ” he said, staring at her eyes. “Seems appropriate.”
The next two hours went very quickly, and the conversation moved away from Kyle to more personal issues.
“George and I used to come here every year for our anniversary,” said Sylvia as she stared out the window at the full moon hovering over them.
“Nice place to celebrate,” commented King. “I actually brought Michelle here when we started our agency.”
“I was laid up in the hospital so drugged up I didn’t even know he’d been killed until a couple of days later.”
“What were you in the hospital for?”
“Ruptured diverticulum of the colon. George performed the surgery on me. It became a little more involved once he got in there, and I had a reaction to the anesthesia and my blood pressure bottomed out. Not really a dinner topic, sorry.”
“Must be stressful for a doctor to perform surgery on his wife.”
“That sort of surgery was his specialty. I think he instinctively knew it might be a little more complicated than the tests showed, and he was right. George was far and away the best surgeon in the area; nationally ranked, in fact. I was in the best possible hands.” She suddenly dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.
King reached over and took her hand. “I know that was all very painful for you, Sylvia. I’m really sorry you had to go through that.”
She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “You’d think I’d get over it at some point. I keep telling myself it’s part of life. In fact, whenever I autopsy a murder victim, I try to tell myself that. Death, sometimes violent, unfair death, is part of life. Without that outlook I don’t think I could do my job.”
He raised his glass to her. “A job you do extraordinarily well.”
“Thank you, it’s nice to be appreciated.”
She looked at him shyly.
“What?” he said.
“I was just wondering why we stopped seeing each other.”
“I was starting to wonder the same thing.”
She lightly touched his hand. “Maybe we should work on that.”
“Maybe we should,” said King.
CHAPTER
55
KYLE WAS FURIOUS. HE’D
arrived at the motel room right on time, knocked, and no one had answered. He waited outside for another thirty minutes to see if she showed. She didn’t. Then he decided to try knocking again. Maybe she’d fallen asleep. Maybe she was drugged out. He tried the knob. It was locked! He looked around. There were only two other cars parked in the lot, and they were far away from this section of the motel. As he was getting into his Jeep, a car pulled into the parking lot. Kyle watched as a large flabby man and a petite woman in a tiny skirt and wobbling unsteadily on four-inch heels got out and went into one of the rooms without looking at him. Kyle shook his head. Well, at least one guy was getting some tonight. He drove off.
All the way back to his apartment he thought of various ways to track down the woman and cruelly punish her for this latest sleight. Most of all he was upset about missing the five-thousand-dollar payday.
He pulled into his parking lot, slammed the door on his Jeep and hurried up the steps. It was after one o’clock in the morning, and he had nothing to show for the lost sleep. But he’d get even. He had what she wanted, more drugs. He would turn the tables on her. He’d go to the Aphrodisiac. If she worked there, he’d find out who she was. And if not, he’d go to the room, confront her, feign retreat and then wait for her to leave the club. He’d follow her home and find out her identity. With that information in hand he’d put the squeeze on her. If she could afford a thousand bucks for fifty dollars’ worth of drugs, she could afford to pay a little quiet money.
By the time he opened the door to his apartment, he had most of the plan worked out. He’d commence execution of it tomorrow.
He went to his bedroom and turned on the light. Only it didn’t come on. Damn bulb again. Then he noticed the movement by the bed. It was her! Here at his apartment. She was lying on his bed, only a sheet over her. Even in the darkness he could make out the scarf and the glasses she always wore.
“What the hell are you doing here? I waited at the motel for almost an hour.” It didn’t occur to him to ask how she knew where he lived.
In answer she sat up, let the sheet fall slightly off her shoulders, which were bare. This got his blood going and all his anger quickly dissipated. Then she seductively pulled the sheet far up her thighs, which were also bare. Kyle felt himself growing aroused as she motioned for him to join her on the bed.
“No guns this time, okay?” he managed to stammer.
She nodded her head and then pointed to the bureau against the wall. Kyle went over and saw the money spread out there.
When he looked back at her, she’d risen and was standing in front of him, the sheet barely covering her. She motioned with a flick of her hand for him to go over to the bed.
He did so smiling. She circled behind him. He turned to face her, his back to the bed.
The sheet dropped.
Her hand came up and Kyle froze. It looked like a gun that she was holding. When she fired, he put up his hands, as though to ward off the bullet.
The air-propelled twin darts attached by fifteen feet of wire to the Taser gun shot out and pierced his thin shirt. With one terrible jolt fifty thousand volts hit him dead in the chest, easily enough to drop a three-hundred-pound NFL lineman much less a scrawny morgue tech. The surge instantly overrode his central nervous system, and he fell backward onto the bed, where he curled into a fetal position as his muscles contracted.
Even though he’d be incapacitated for some time, the woman rushed forward to the bed and pulled the darts free. She put the Taser gun into her bag, which was lying on the floor, and slipped on a pair of gloves. She next pulled out a syringe.
Kyle looked on fearfully as she turned over his paralyzed arm, pulled up his sleeve, put a rubber tourniquet around his forearm to pop up his veins, found a good one and plunged the syringe contents into it. She quickly undid the strap and placed it and the syringe on the nightstand next to the bed.
As Kyle lay twitching on the bed, she stared down at him. What she’d shot into him was already taking effect. He was starting to convulse
Despite appearing to be naked, she was actually wearing panties and a bra. She pulled a sweat suit from her bag, donned it quickly, grabbed the money, searched Kyle’s pockets and found the note she’d written to him. She stuffed the note and the bedsheet she’d wrapped around her into the bag. She made sure she’d left nothing behind other than the syringe and rubber tourniquet and left the building.
As she sped away from the dead man’s apartment, she took comfort in the fact that she now had one less problem to deal with.
CHAPTER
56
KING AND MICHELLE
drove over to see Remmy the next morning.
King filled in Michelle on his conversation with Sylvia. “I spoke with Todd earlier this morning. He’s going to pick Kyle up today.”
“Any idea who the mystery woman is?”
“I guess the easiest thing to do is go to the club and ask. If she’s a regular there, or works there, someone has to know about it.”
In turn, Michelle filled in King on the reenactment. “It was amazing, hundreds of people with so much going on all the time. I mean, it was utter chaos, like watching a real battle. Eddie thinks they may show some of the film they took on the local PBS station,” she said.
“I’ve actually been to a couple of those. A woman I used to date when I was in the Service had a brother who was big into them. Had a whole museum of memorabilia and stuff from the Civil War. Muskets, uniforms, swords, even an amputation kit.”
“Eddie did a great job. The man has amazing skills and yet his self-esteem is rock-bottom.”
“Well, his father’s a hard act to follow.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like he hasn’t accomplished anything in his life. And as physical as he is, you should have seen him when he was talking about his twin brother. In fact in some ways he may very well be the most exceptional Battle of them all.”
King stared at her with a questioning expression. “And you said he drove you home? Just the two of you?”
“Will you stop with the insinuations? Nothing happened, and nothing is going to happen, between us.”
“That’s good to hear because the last thing we need is Dorothea or, God forbid, Remmy Battle gunning for us,” King shot back.
Eddie met them at the front door of the mansion.
“I’ve spent the last hour trying to get her to tell me what was in that secret drawer, and getting absolutely nowhere,” he reported.
“Well, if she won’t tell you, I don’t think we’re going to crack her,” said King.
“Maybe I softened her up some. She’s on the rear terrace and expecting you. The coffee’s hot; Mason just brought it out along with some ham biscuits.”
Eddie walked out to the terrace with them. Remmy closed what looked like a diary that she was writing in. It was an old-fashioned kind with a clasp and lock across it. Remmy placed the journal inside the pocket of her jacket.
As King was greeting Remmy, Eddie motioned Michelle toward him and whispered, “When you’re done here, come on by my studio; it’s right behind the carriage house. I’ve got something to show you.”
He walked off, and Michelle turned to see Remmy’s keen gaze on her.
“I understand you watched Eddie playing soldier,” she said slowly.
Michelle joined them at the table. King poured out coffees.
“He’s certainly good at it,” remarked Michelle. “I had no idea it was so involved.”
“Eddie got into it because his father was interested in it. I don’t think he really cares for it all that much.”
“Well, he certainly looked like he loved it to me.”
“Well, looks certainly can be deceiving, can’t they?”
The two women gazed at each other for an uncomfortably long time.
King finally broke in. “You’re a miracle worker, Remmy.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
“Meaning the conversion of Lulu from enemy to friend.”
Remmy waved her hand dismissively. “I was wrong and I acknowledged it. Don’t make it out to be some grand gesture of benevolence.”
“So what made you conclude you were wrong?” asked Michelle as she reached for a biscuit and coffee.
Remmy raised her cup and took a drink before answering. “I made Junior an offer he couldn’t refuse. But he did refuse it. And then he got murdered. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure there’s a lot more to it than I thought.”
“But Junior might still have been involved. He might have been killed because of it, in fact,” said King.
Remmy settled her stern gaze on him. “Didn’t you try your best to convince me he was innocent? Or am I thinking of another Sean King?”
“Just playing devil’s advocate.”
“I forgot, you’re a lawyer. Reminds me why I can’t stand the breed.”
“I’m glad I took down my shingle, then. I wouldn’t want you for an enemy.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she said bluntly.
“I understand you’re quite anxious to get back some property other than your jewelry and cash.”
“Eddie’s already been here trying, Sean,” Remmy said. “And if I won’t tell him, I sure as hell am not telling you.”
“Is it that bad?” asked King in a very serious tone. “So bad you’d risk more people being murdered?”
“I have my reasons.”
“I hope they’re damn good ones, but I think you’re not only being selfish but shortsighted.”
“I’m unaccustomed to being spoken to that way,” she snapped.
“I tend to lose my manners during a murder investigation. I trust I have my priorities right,” he replied firmly.
“What was in my closet can have nothing to do with anybody getting killed.”
“Your husband and Junior may have been killed by the same person. If so, the only connection I see between them is the burglary.”
“It can’t be, it can’t,” said Remmy stubbornly.
“And you won’t let us be the judge of that?”
“No, I won’t,” she said steadfastly.
“All right, let’s get back to why we’re here. Eddie says that people are talking about you maybe having Bobby and Junior killed. He says it’s ruining your life.”
“Eddie talks too much. I thought I taught him that reserve and stoicism are two of the greatest attributes a person can have.”
“But not greater than love,” said Michelle. “And he does love you.”
“I know that!” snapped Remmy.
“If he’s worried about you, there must be a reason,” Michelle persisted.
“Eddie worries too much about the wrong things.”
“Remmy, we can’t help you if you won’t confide in us,” said King.
“I never said I needed your help.”
“Okay, fine. By the way, where were you when Junior was killed?”
“No one has yet told me exactly when he was killed.”
After King told her the time parameters, she thought for a bit. “I was here actually, in my room reading.”
“Anybody here to verify that?”
“I can.”
Mason was standing in the doorway. “I was in the house until ten o’clock that night. Mrs. Battle never came out of her room during that time.”
King looked at him for a long moment. “Thanks, Mason.” He looked back at Remmy as Mason walked off. “It’s nice to have such good, loyal help, isn’t it? Last question: why was your wedding ring in the drawer and not on your finger?”
Remmy didn’t answer right away. King stared at her, waiting for a response. Finally, she said, “A ring is a symbol of love and commitment.”
“Yes,” said King expectantly.