STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2) (11 page)

“Healthy enough for what?” Virgil
said as he looked at the syringes on the table.

“There are two ways to deal with this
kind of thing,” Bell said. “Three if you’re one of those twelve-steppers.”

“I don’t need a twelve-step
program,” Virgil said.

“All right then. Two ways. First,
you wean yourself from the medication little by little over the course of a
month or two, gradually reducing your dosage and frequency until you’re off the
meds completely. Quite a lot of people have had success with that particular
method, though I’d be the first to admit, it often doesn’t work. It’s too easy
to cheat.

Virgil looked at Sandy who was
already shaking her head. Bell noticed too. “All right then, the other is what
we are going to do here, starting right now, tonight.”

“Which is what, exactly?” asked
Murton.

“We are going to bring him off all
at once. I believe you are healthy enough and still young enough that you can
handle it, Virgil. But I have to emphasize, it
is
a strain on your
system. Your heart most of all.”

“My heart is fine,” Virgil said.

Delroy huffed a little. Bell didn’t
notice, or if he did, he didn’t let on. “There are three things I want to give
you. The first is a massive dose of vitamins. The second is a non-narcotic
anti-anxiety medication that will help take the edge off.”

“And the third?”

“The third is the one you’ll thank
me for,” Bell said. “It’ll knock you out cold as soon as I give you the shot. It’s
similar to Jackson juice, but safer. You’ll sleep for at least the next
twenty-four to thirty-six hours, which should get you through the worst of the
withdrawal and anxiety. But make no mistake, you’re in for a rough couple of
days.”

Virgil looked at Sandy. “I can do
it.”

“I know you can, baby.”

Bell seemed to take note of
everyone in the room for the first time. He looked at Delroy and Robert. “I
don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, gentlemen. I’m Doctor Robert Bell.”

Robert sort of sniffed. “Good name,
you.”

Delroy just smiled.

__________

Sandy, Bell, and
Virgil,
left Murton, Delroy, and Robert in the kitchen. They went into
the bedroom and Bell pulled some paperwork from his bag and attached it to a
clipboard. “I’d like to go ahead and give you the vitamin and anti-anxiety
shots now. Do I have your permission to do that?”

Virgil nodded at him.

“I have to hear you say yes,
Virgil.”

“Yes, yes. Let’s get on with it.”

Bell raised his eyebrows. “Maybe
we’ll start with the anti-anxiety shot.”

“Sorry,” Virgil said. He sat
quietly as Bell gave him the shots, though he didn’t know in what order they
were administered. “If I’m asleep, why do I need the anxiety meds?”

“Because without them you won’t
sleep for long and when you wake, you’ll want to unzip your skin and leave it
behind like a snake in the grass.” Then, “Relax, Jonesy. It sucks, but you can
do it. The trick is to get in front of it. That’s what we’re doing here.” He
finished with the first two shots, then handed Virgil the clipboard with the
paperwork. “Read this and then sign at the bottom. Don’t forget to date it as
well.”

“What is it?”

“Standard medical release. Informed
consent and all that. Gives me permission to treat you and take any and all
necessary measures to ensure your health and well-being while under my care or
the care of those I designate, who, having been properly trained in the
administration of, etcetera, etcetera and so on and so forth. Just sign and
date at the bottom.”

Bell handed him a pen. Virgil
thought there was a considerable amount of fine print. In addition, Bell kept
speaking, which made any concentration difficult.

“I want you to eat nothing but
fruit and raw or steamed vegetables during the day. You can have any different combination
of vegetables that you’d like for dinner, but try to stay away from any type of
starch and nothing except fruit after eight p.m. Also, no sugar or salt of any
kind except what you find naturally in your fruits and vegetables. No other
artificial sweeteners, either. And I know you’re going to think this is odd,
but no water and I mean none at all for at least a week.”

“No water?” Sandy said. “How can
that be?”

Virgil chimed in as well. “Look,
Bell, I trust you and all, but what the hell am I supposed to drink if I don’t
have water?”

“I’ve got a brand new juicer for
you. Just bought it. Top of the line, too. Don’t thank me because I’m adding it
to your bill. When you’re up and around you’re going to drink thirteen glasses
of fresh juice a day—a combination of both fruit and vegetable—for
at least a week.”

 Virgil could tell that the
anti-anxiety medication was starting to take hold because he was having trouble
concentrating on what Bell was saying. He finally gave up on reading the form,
signed and dated it, then handed it back to the doctor.

“Okay Jonesy, off with your
clothes, then lie down in your bed here. You can leave your skivvies on if you
like.”

Virgil got undressed and laid down
on his back. Bell uncapped the final syringe and injected the medication into
his arm.

“I’ll give the rest of the
instructions to Sandy. You won’t remember them.”

Virgil thought Bell might have said
‘sleep well,’ or something to that effect, but either way, he was out before
Bell was finished with the shot.

14

__________

A
bigail
Monroe just had one of the most stressful days at her job that she could
recall. She’d spent most of the day with the programmers, listening to them
drone on and on about how difficult it had been to sort through the code to
ensure that Nicholas Pope hadn’t buried anything in the system. Every time one
of them would come into her office and say they were ready, they had to take
the entire system off-line to run the diagnostics. That involved notification
of all retail outlets, a nightmare in and of itself. And they couldn’t take the
system off-line without her approval, so she was stuck in her office for the entire
day. The programmers ended up going through the entire process nine times
before they were sure they’d covered everything.

In the end though, they assured her
there was nothing. If pressed, however, Abigail thought they didn’t sound
completely sure. Maybe ninety-five percent, but not one hundred. They said they
were positive, but they didn’t
sound
positive. That was troublesome. For
now though, the system was functioning perfectly, the security measures were in
place and everything seemed normal enough. It was the ‘seemed’ that bothered
her. When you were the executive director in charge of oversight on an entity
that brought in and gave out hundreds of millions of dollars,
seemed
just didn’t cut it.

Plus, she’d had to sell her own
story to the programmers about how she knew—
suspected
was the word
she’d used with them—that there was a real possibility that something
might be amiss in the system. Everyone knew Pope had been killed after all. And
not just killed, it looked like he’d been tortured to death. It was the ‘who’
and the ‘why’ that had Abigail stressed. Maybe someone had tried to extract
some information from Pope as a way to gain access to the system. Had anyone
thought of that? Or perhaps he’d been involved with someone and together they
were going to try to cheat the security measures that the lottery had in place.
Either way, something was going on. “Get in there and find it,” she’d told
them.

She thought her performance was
acceptable. Maybe not Oscar-worthy, but good enough to fool a few office nerds
that did nothing but sit at their consoles and stare at computer code all day.
She’d certainly dressed for the occasion, wearing a tight, mid-length black
skirt that looked like body paint, open-toe heels that showed off her
feet—she’d been told by more than a handful of men that she had great
feet—and a sheer white blouse with a skimpy lace bra. In the end, it
worked. The programmers were drooling like lap dogs by the time they left her
office and it seemed like almost every one of them came back in at fifteen
minute intervals with this question or that. If she’d taken a poll, she thought
not a single one of them could have told her the color of her eyes.

Still, the stress. And she’d
brought it on herself. She’d made a mistake and a massive one at that. My God,
what had she been thinking?
Well, greedy bitch, you knew exactly what you’d
been thinking. You’d been thinking wouldn’t it be great to be sitting on the
beach, sipping an umbrella drink and calculating the interest.
Looking back
though, it was one of the stupidest things she’d ever done, getting into bed
with Nicky Pope. And what was it that Bradley had told her the other night?
They needed to manage this thing on their end? Something like that. Well,
that’s exactly what she was doing now, wasn’t she? And what about Bradley? Had
he been the one who killed her Nicky? He found out they had been dating and he
was pissed, but murder? Abigail didn’t think he had it in him. Still…Nicky…gone.

Nicky told her they were going to
be rich.
Stupid rich
was the way he’d put it. Except now that he’d been
murdered—Abigail shuddered at that thought—she was right back where
she’d started.

Abby kicked off her heels, walked
into her kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine. She took a long
swallow, refilled the glass, then picked up her iPad and walked into her study.
That’s when the doorbell rang.

She tucked the iPad under her arm,
walked down the hall and opened the door with her free hand. When she saw the
man standing there, the thought that inflated inside her brain was:
Cop.

__________

The lottery office was
located in a nondescript, brown-bricked,
three-story building on Meridian Street about a mile north of the city’s
center. A small sign hung above the door—a banner, really—that said
Lottery Office. Other than that, the building looked like an office supply
store or maybe an H & R Block tax center. Ron Miles had driven by the
building or through the area about a thousand times over his career, but he’d
never been inside. There was no real reason to drive by it now except for the
fact that it was on the way to his destination, the home of the executive
director of the state’s lottery, Abigail Monroe.

It would have been more convenient
to conduct the interview at her office, but Miles knew that if he did that,
she’d have the upper hand. Home turf and all. It might not be important with
Monroe—she wasn’t a suspect after all—but she had been Nicholas
Pope’s boss, so there was some amount of hope that an informal chat in her home
would create a more comfortable environment for her, one where she might be a
bit more forthcoming with any information that could help with the
investigation.

Miles rang the bell and when Monroe
answered the door she was still dressed in her work clothes, minus her shoes.
It was the first thing Ron noticed. Her feet, specifically her toenails, were
perfect. She held a glass of red wine in her hand and had an iPad tucked under
her arm. When he looked up from her feet, Miles got the impression that he’d
startled her. Caught her off guard or…something. He could see it behind her
eyes.

“Hello. May I help you?”

“I’m Detective Ron Miles,
Indianapolis Metro Homicide. Are you Abigail Monroe?”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Monroe, our office has been
charged with the investigation into the death of Nicholas Pope. I understand he
worked for you?”

“Yes, he was one of our
programmers.”

“I have a few questions I’d like to
ask you. May I come in?”

Miles got the impression that she had
to contemplate her answer, but after a brief pause she said, “Of course” and
opened the door for him to enter.

“I was just about to go sit out on
the veranda and relax. I allow myself an evening cocktail. Would you care for
something?”

“No, thank you,” Ron said as he
followed her through the living room and then the sliding glass door that gave
way to her back porch.

“No drinking on the job, I
suppose?”

“That’s right.” Miles made a show
of reaching for his pen and notebook. He kept a dummy set of keys in his pocket
and he pulled those out and then set them on the table. Once they were seated:
“Would you tell me what you know about Mr. Pope?”

“Well,” Abigail began, “I’m almost
embarrassed to say that I don’t know very much at all.”

“And why is that?”

“Nicky was one of many programmers
that we employ. As you might imagine given what we do, it takes quite a few
people to maintain our type of system. And, we have different
levels—they’re actually separate departments, so maybe I shouldn’t say
levels—anyway, different levels of programmers for different functions.
Some handle basic functions like ongoing system maintenance, some take care of
security, while others are responsible for writing new code for different types
of games.”

“And what level, or department did
Mr. Pope work in?”

Monroe crossed her legs, then
reached down and massaged her left foot. “Let’s see, Nicky was, um, security I
believe. Yes, security. I’m sure that’s correct. To tell you the truth,
Detective, the programmers? They all sort of blend together in my mind. We have
quite a few of them and frankly, they’re all a little peculiar. They work odd
hours, they’re about the least sociable people you’d ever want to meet and
well, there’s no diplomatic way to put this I suppose, other than to just say
it. They sort of look down on everyone else in the organization, like they’re
better than the rest of us.”

“I see. So if I understand you
correctly, you personally did not know Mr. Pope any better than the rest of the
programmers who work for the lottery, is that correct?”

“Detective, uh, Niles, is it?”

“Miles.”

“Yes, of course. Detective Miles,
my title is Executive Director of the Lottery. I report to the lottery’s board
of directors. While I’m sure there are other organizations whose directors take
a more hands-on approach with their employees, that simply isn’t my style. Not
only that, but my position is one of development as opposed to straight
managerial.”

“Development?”

“I am the face of the lottery, I
guess you could say.”

“I see. But you still didn’t answer
my question, Ms. Monroe. Did you know Mr. Pope any better than the rest of the
programmers who work for the lottery?”

Abigail took a long deliberate sip
of her wine. “I’m not sure I understand the nature of your question,
Detective.”

I think you do,
Ron thought
.
“Would you give me the names of your programmers please?”

Monroe blinked at him. “All of
them?”

“Yes, please.” Miles had his pen
and notebook ready.

Monroe set her wine glass down on
the table with great care. Ron thought it looked like a practiced maneuver.
“That would have to come from our Human Resources department. I’m afraid I
don’t know. I mean, I know a few of their first names, but…”

“But Mr. Pope, Nicky, as you called
him. No trouble remembering him?”

“What exactly are you implying,
Detective?”

Time to dial it back
. “I’m
sorry Ms. Monroe. I think sometimes I’ve been doing this type of work too long.
I need to practice my people skills or something. No implication whatsoever.
Boy oh boy, if you knew the type of people I have to interview day in and day
out…they way they lie right to my face.”

“I can only imagine.”

Miles made a show of checking his
watch. “You know what? I think just this once I might go ahead and bend the
rules a bit. I’m supposed to be off the clock right now as it is anyway. If
your offer of that glass of wine is still good…”

__________

Never talk to the
cops.
Ever
.
That’s what Abigail’s husband,
Lee, had always told her. Once you open your mouth and start down that road,
they’ll back you into a corner sure as shit. And that’s exactly what she’d
done. She opened the door, invited him in and now after only a few questions
she felt like he knew she was lying. Had to get him out of the house. Had to
think. She’d offered him a glass of wine, for fuck’s sake. What were they, on a
date?

“Yes, of course. In fact, why don’t
we go back inside? These chairs are wonderful to look at, but they’re hell on
my back.”

They went inside and Ron followed
her into the kitchen. “Forgive me, Detective. Where are my manners? Please,
have a seat out on the sofa and I’ll bring you a glass of wine.”

“Oh I’m fine right here, Ms.
Monroe. In fact, I’m sort of a kitchen kind of guy.”

Great.
Plan A was to tell
him she was out of wine. Now what? Plan B, that’s what. Abigail pulled the cork
from the bottle and when she made a show of reaching for another glass, she
knocked the bottle to the floor and it shattered at their feet. “Oh, damn.”

The glass was everywhere and the
white tiled floor was now covered with red wine. Miles jumped back, the glass
crunching under his feet, but the wine still managed to splatter across his
pants. “Whoa. Don’t move Ms. Monroe. Are you cut? Is that wine or blood on your
leg there?”

Abigail looked down. “No, no, I
don’t think so. It’s just the wine.”

“Where are your shoes? I’ll get
them for you. If you take a step you’ll slice your feet up.”

“Uh, right there by the front door,
I think.

“Okay, stay right there.” Miles
went and got her shoes and brought them into the kitchen. Monroe slipped them
on and together they crunched their way past the glass and naturally, right back
to the front door.

“Detective, I’m wondering…well…to
tell you the truth, I’ve had a particularly stressful day at work today. Could
we finish another time? Perhaps tomorrow at my office? I can make sure the HR
people are there. Most of the programmers should be present as well. I just
think it might be more productive that way.”

Miles never hesitated. “Yes, of
course. I’d be happy to help you clean up the mess in the kitchen though. I
feel like it was my fault.”

“That’s quite all right, Detective.
I’m sure I can manage and I’m equally sure that’s not in your job description.”
Monroe opened the front door.

Miles started to step through the
door, then stopped. “Just out of curiosity, Ms. Monroe, how long have you been
with the lottery?”

__________

She clearly wants me out
of the house,
Ron thought. Knocking the
wine bottle off the counter couldn’t have been more obvious. But why? And why
was she lying?

“Almost two years exactly. I took
over for my dear husband Lee after his unfortunate automobile accident.” Monroe
glanced back toward the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Detective, but that wine…I’m
afraid it will stain the tiles if I don’t get it cleaned up.”

“You bet. How about nine tomorrow
then, at your office?”