STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2) (14 page)

“If you don’t mind my asking,
Nichole,” Virgil said, “how did you happen to choose us?”

“It was Detective Miles. I had a very
frank and honest discussion with him just this morning during which I let him
know that I was not at all satisfied with his results. He suggested that I
contact you.” Nichole seemed to think about what she’d just said for a few
seconds, then added, “Actually his suggestion was to contact Murton. He did say
that he thought the two of you might end up working together.”

Virgil shot Murton a look. Murton
pretended not to notice. “What do you do for a living, Nichole?”

“Is that relevant to your
investigation?”

“I’ve been in law enforcement my
entire adult life. If I’ve learned anything, it’s this: Everything is
relevant.”

She looked around the room and then
adjusted herself in the chair. “I’m a collector, of sorts. I acquire things
that people want and I get paid well for what I do. Money is not an object. I
can afford your fee, I assure you.”

Virgil looked at Murton and said,
“What is our fee, by the way?”

“So, I guess you guys are sort of
new to this?” Nichole said.

“Only to the business. Not the
work,” Murton said.

Delroy walked over to our table
with a tray that held three tall glasses of fresh juice. He set them down
without speaking, but there was no mistaking the look on his face. It was time
to drink up.

“You guys are juicing?”

“I am,” Virgil said. “And if Delroy
is right—Delroy here is our bar manager—I think you referred to him
as ‘that nice Jamaican man.’ Anyway, if he’s right, half the city will be in
here wanting his juice.”

Nichole looked up at Delroy. “I’ll
bet you’re right. I love fresh organic juice.” Then she turned her attention
back to Virgil and Murton. “Say, have you guys ever heard of the Gerson
Therapy?”

__________

Virgil sidestepped the
Gerson
question by asking Nichole
to tell them everything there was to know about her brother. She spent the next
twenty minutes bringing them up to speed with her brother’s life and
background. It was his place of employment that caught their attention. “That
seems like it must have been an interesting job, being a programmer for the
lottery,” Murton said.

“Boy, you wouldn’t want to let
Nicky hear you call him a programmer. It was sort of a sore spot with him.”

“Why is that?”

“Hmm, pride I think. Nicky was a
code guy. Real coders—I’m talking about the guys that go forty-eight
hours or more at a keyboard—that was Nicky. When he got going on
something, he wouldn’t let up.”

“Like what?” Virgil asked.

“I don’t know…work stuff. He could
go into work at the lottery on a Monday morning and sometimes I wouldn’t see
him until Wednesday night. He’d be wired up on Red Bull, smelled like one
too—a bull—but he’d be done for the week with ten hours of overtime
coming on his next check.”

“So, dedicated,” Virgil said.

“Obsessed, is more like it.”

“Did he have any enemies?”

“Nicky? God, no.” She reached into
her purse and pulled out a picture of her brother. “I mean, look at him. He
looks like a younger version of Brad Pitt. He was smart as a whip, kind to
everyone he met and when he told one of his jokes people would literally wet
themselves with laughter. That’s not an exaggeration. I’ve seen it happen.
Everybody loved him. People wanted to
be
him.”

Murton took the photograph of Nicholas
Pope. “But still,” he said, “everybody usually has somebody in their life
that…”

Nichole was insistent. “Not Nicky
and you know what? Not me either. I think what you have to understand, guys, is
this…the kind of life Nicky and I had? After what we saw happen to our father,
then losing our mother and being on our own? We learned to keep our heads down
and our mouths shut. We went along to get along, if you know what I mean. It
became a way of life for us. We lived it. We breathed it. Everyone loved him.
No one would hurt my Nicky. We had plans. We were going to make it.”

“I’m sure you would have,” Murton
said.

Virgil noticed that Nichole was consistently
referring to her brother in the past tense. A small step toward acceptance, but
still a ways to go. “You’ll forgive me for saying so, Nichole, but you’re
wrong. Somebody wanted your brother dead.” The words landed on her as if Virgil
had just slapped her in the face.

Murton reached across the table and
took her hand, but he looked at Virgil when he spoke. “I think losing someone
to violence is one of the most difficult things anyone has to endure. Most of
the time there are no easy answers. Sometimes there are no answers at all.
Ever.”

Virgil watched as Nichole squeezed
Murton’s hand tight. She sort of bounced it on the table as she spoke. “But
you’ll try, won’t you? You’ll help bring justice to my family?” Then she sat
back in her chair. “Listen to me…justice to my family. I don’t have any
family.”

“You can count on us,” Murton said.
“Leave your contact information. Jonesy is close to the lead investigator
handling your brother’s murder. Let us talk with him and we’ll see what we can
find out.”

Virgil thought about how the last
few days had gone so far, in particular his trips to the MCU headquarters and
the conversations he’d had with Ron Miles and Bradley Pearson. “Well, maybe
close isn’t exactly the right word.”

Murton shot him a look.

“You might not be entirely correct
with your last statement, Jonesy,” Nichole said as she dug through her purse. “I
don’t have anything to write on…wait never mind, I’ll use this.” She pulled out
her rental car contract and wrote her name and cell number on the back, ripped
it off and set it on the table. “I want justice,” she said, hissing it through
her teeth. Then she got up and walked out of the bar.

A few seconds later Murton stood
from the table. “Where are you going?” Virgil asked.

“I have to go find a bigger stick,”
he said.

__________

After Nichole left,
Virgil thought about
what she’d said about her brother and his position at the lottery, wondering if
his death was somehow connected to his employment, but there was also something
else that he remembered. He went upstairs and sat down at the ancient computer
Murton had on his desk and typed PTEK into the Google search box. After paging through
a number of results he eventually found what the information he wanted. Not
long ago, a company called PTEK had been hired to assume day-to-day
administration of the state’s lottery operations. The move by the state was one
that in effect privatized the lottery and was highly criticized by left leaning
politicians and the media alike, but in the end, the passage of the bill was inevitable,
mainly because PTEK promised the state close to two billion dollars in revenue
over the first five years of their contract. Proponents of the bill noted that
the lottery only took in an average of two hundred million per year and that
PTEK would essentially be doubling that amount for a small percentage of sales
as their fee.

Detractors voiced concerns that
lottery earnings were supposed to go toward state funded programs—chief
among them, education—and anything that PTEK took would be coming out of
those funds.

The proponents argued right back
that any fee due to PTEK would be minuscule and, over and above what the
lottery was currently earning. And so it went, on and on for weeks…

But two billion dollars is two
billion dollars and the individuals on the committee charged with putting the
deal together assured the Governor that it was doable, so the bill was passed,
the Governor signed and the deal was done. But the most interesting aspect was
something not widely known. The individual that chaired the committee and
pushed the bill through the state’s legislative body was none other than
Bradley Pearson.

Virgil also discovered that PTEK
was a subsidiary of a holding company called API. A search on API turned up a
number of different companies that used those initials; the American Petroleum
Institute, American Professional Institute and oddly enough, a now defunct
Indiana company by the name of American Pet Insurance that had once sold
veterinary medical insurance to pet owners. Virgil was about to abandon his search,
but when he clicked on the next page of the results found a listing near the
bottom that identified a company with the API initials. When he clicked on the
link he wasn’t sure if he wanted to congratulate himself or pound his head on
the desk.

He took out his phone and called
Becky, the researcher over at the Major Crimes Unit. “How would you like to
have dinner at the most popular bar in the city tonight on my tab?”

“I don’t think you can call it your
tab if you own the bar. How’s it going, Jonesy?”

“It’s going well.”

“How are you, uh, feeling?”

“I’m off the meds, if that’s what
you’re asking, and I feel great. Listen, I’m serious about dinner.”

“Uh huh. What do you need?”

“Something that probably only you
can give me.”

“Jonesy…I thought you were happily
involved with Small.”

“I am. That’s not what I meant. Are
you done yanking my chain now?”

“Almost. What about Murton? Will he
be there? He’s yummy.”

Murton
? “Listen, Becky…”

“Okay, okay. What are you after? I
might be able to help. The key word in that last sentence was
might
.”

“I need everything you can get me
on a company called API and its owner, a guy by the name of—”

“I already have it, Jonesy. API
stands for Augustus Pate International. Ron had me look that up a couple of
days ago.”

“Can you send it to me?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are no longer an
employee of the state and that would be a breach of protocol which would go
entirely against my personal moral code of ethics and sense of civic
responsibility.”

“Huh.”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me. That only works
with civilians. I’d like to send it to you, but I can’t. There’d be a record of
the transmission. I don’t think you’d want that.”

“No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

“How about a printed copy?”

“Even better.”

“Won’t be until tomorrow, if that’s
okay.”

“That’s fine. Bring it by the bar. I
might not be here, but Murton will.”

“Mmm, Murton. Excellent.”

__________

Ron Miles walked down
the hall, turned the
corner and stepped into Becky’s office. She was on the phone, but had just hung
up as he walked in. He heard her say, ‘excellent.’ He sat down and pulled one
of the crime scene photos from a manila folder. “How are you with puzzles,
Becky?”

“Hmm, not too good, really. Why?”

“I thought that was sort of your
thing.”

She rolled her eyes without trying
to hide it. “I’m a researcher, Ron, not a mystery solver. That’s more of your
job, unless of course, you’re trying to offer me a promotion. Are you?”

“Afraid not.” He handed her the
photo—the one with the series of numbers written in blood from Pope’s
apartment—and let her look at it a moment. “What you’re holding is a copy
of a photo from the crime scene. It looks like the victim was trying to tell
somebody something. It’s Pope’s blood.”

Becky looked at the photo for a few
more seconds and shrugged before she held it back out to Ron.

“Keep it. I want you to spend some
time with it. See if you can figure out what it means.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know. Research it, I
guess.”

Becky thought about that for a minute.
“You’re positive that it’s the victim’s blood?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I don’t know. Just seems like a
logical question. Here’s something, though. If you don’t have a body, how do
you know that the victim was the one who wrote the message?”

“If you look closely at the photo,
you can see that in a number of places in the message the victim’s fingerprints
are visible. We matched them to his other prints in the apartment. It’s his
blood and he was the one who wrote the message. But that’s a good question,
Becky. Maybe we
should
promote you.”

“Could I just have a raise
instead?”

“No, but I don’t have anything else
for you, so you could take off early. Work on the code tomorrow.”

“Excellent.”

17

__________

T
he
next morning Virgil slept late and by the time he was up, Sandy had left
already left for work. He felt good. The drugs were out of his system, the
buzzing in his head was gone, his leg didn’t hurt and his
friends—including his girl—had once again overlooked his
inadequacies and placed their love and affection for him over the hurt he had managed
to inflict on everyone.

He made himself a glass of juice and
then walked down the slope of the backyard and over to the pond. He sat in one
of the chairs near the edge of the water and tried without success to focus on
things other than the Pope family and how, like it or not, he had remained
connected to their grief beyond the boundaries of casual circumstance. It had
been just over twenty years since he’d shot and killed James Pope and no matter
how often he thought back on that day, Virgil was always surprised at his own lack
of recollection regarding the specifics of the only man he’d ever killed in the
line of duty as a police officer. He could not remember what James Pope looked like,
how tall he was, or even the color of his hair or eyes. While Virgil knew the
basic facts of that day, he didn’t know what kind of man Pope was, what his
childhood may have been like, or what events he may have endured in life that
ultimately led to his death by Virgil’s own hand.

The limitations regarding matters
of recollection of that day were not due to age or simple forgetfulness. They
were due to a lack of concentration. Virgil had positioned his chair with
purpose, near the water’s edge, his back to the willow tree. The sky had turned
cloudy and dark with the possibility of a summer rain shower and the longer he
sat by the pond, his mood began to darken along with the sky. He refused to
look at the willow tree, not out of mulishness, but fear. He was afraid that
the visions he’d experienced of his father and the conversations between them
had not been real…nothing more than a product of his chemically altered
imagination. He’d told Sandy that his fear of being free of the medication meant
facing the possibility that he would never again see or speak with his father.
The sagacity of her answer was something Virgil wasn’t ready to address.
Regardless, he had to ask himself, was she right? If he never saw or spoke to
his dad again, did that mean he had never really been there at all? Or did it
mean that he had always been there and the medication had somehow enabled him
to communicate with his father outside the boundaries that define the laws of science
and mortality? Neither answer seemed acceptable.

Virgil also had to consider that regardless
of the answers he sought surrounding his father, he had participated in a tradeoff
of sorts. Thanks to Dr. Bell and his treatment plan, the physical ill-effects
and withdrawal symptoms normally associated with the complete and total
cessation of some of the most powerful narcotics known to man were negligible.
Virgil was not anxious or depressed or physically sick in any way. But he was
disheartened. Was the disheartenment that he now carried going to be his cross
to bear? He’d done what everyone—even his dead father—had asked. He
was off the fucking pills, but it seemed as though that decision had come with
a hefty price tag, one steeped with regret. Was this what addiction looked like?

No matter the questions or lack of
any reasonable answers, Virgil ultimately decided that pretending like the
willow tree was not behind him was a childish and disrespectful way to behave.
The people he love had planted the tree with his father’s bloodied shirt at the
bottom of the hole, not just for Virgil, but for Mason as well. Did the fact
that Virgil could no longer communicate with him detract from any of that?
Answer: No.

Virgil stood from his chair and moved
over to the willow tree. He walked a complete circle around it, then stepped under
the branches and wrapped his hands around the trunk. Delroy had told him that
the blood of his father would flow through the tree just like it did his own
heart. Perhaps that was the answer. Maybe he hadn’t been speaking with his
father at all, but in a very real way, he’d been speaking with himself.

Yesterday Nichole Pope had said
something that in the moment Virgil hadn’t given much thought. She said that
she was the sum of two parts that did not fit together. When she asked him if
he knew what that was like, Virgil truthfully told her he did not. He was the
sum of two parts that
had
fit well together…the sum of two people who
had loved him more than anything. And even though they were both gone now, they
still lived on because of his existence. Did he need a talking tree as a
monument to their legacy? Virgil thought not, but he also realized that there
was nothing wrong with it either, so long as he did not put too much stock in
its meaning and managed to keep his priorities straight.

The struggle that he had forced
Sandy to endure was almost unforgivable and something he wasn’t proud of. He
had an idea though, one that he thought might make up for everything he’d done
wrong and prove once and for all that they were meant to be together forever.

Virgil still had his hands wrapped
around the trunk of the tree. He leaned his forehead against the smooth green
bark and closed his eyes. “Are you there?” he said, his voice soft and quiet. When
the response didn’t come, he walked away from the tree, got in his truck and
drove downtown…but not to the bar.

__________

Late in the day he
turned
back into the drive. The
ring he’d picked out was elegant and tasteful, at least he thought so. It
certainly had an elegant price tag. It was a one-and-a-half carat diamond solitaire,
set in white gold. He had also stopped and bought a small box of Sandy’s
favorite chocolates from the Fannie May store. He asked the clerk if she would gift-wrap
his purchase, but before she did, Virgil removed a few pieces of candy and put
the ring front and center inside the box. When the clerk saw what was going on
she shouted to the other employees who all gathered round to help and fuss and
make sure that the box looked its absolute best. They also peppered him with
questions to the point where it felt like he was under interrogation. By the
time they were finished Virgil had received three wishes of luck, two rather
stern warnings about how easy it is to break a woman’s heart and—interestingly
enough—one offer of ‘If she says no…’

Sandy’s car was parked by the
garage, so Virgil knew she was home. He had no real discernable plan of action,
thinking it best to simply let the evening unfold naturally. He had the woman
of his dreams alone with him in his house, an engagement ring hidden in a box
of chocolates and the most important question in the world on his mind. What
could possibly go wrong?

As it turned out…plenty.

__________

He found Sandy in the
bedroom
packing a suitcase. He set the box of chocolates on the dresser
next to the bedroom door. “Hey. What’s going on?”

“Hi, baby. Guess what?”

Virgil looked at the suitcase.
“You’ve decided to update your status on Facebook?”

She laughed. “Fat chance, Mister.
I’m going to Chicago.”

“Chicago? What for?”

“The director of the academy was
supposed to go up there with the governor. They’re both giving speeches at the
national law enforcement conference…well, they both were going to, anyway. My
boss had some sort of family emergency and I got tapped to take his place. The
governor is flying up on the state plane so I get to ride along. Pretty cool,
huh?”

“Yeah,” Virgil said, his voice
dripping with sarcasm. “You and the guy who fired me flying to Chicago together.
The epitome of cool.”

“Virgil…”

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

Sandy walked over and kissed him. “You
miss me already, don’t you?”

“I do. Listen, are you sure you’re
up to it? The travel? I know you haven’t been feeling too well.”

“I’ve just been a little run down
lately and I haven’t been sleeping very well either, but I’ll be okay. Besides,
I’m not going on a world tour. I’m fine.”

“You are fine,” he said and then kissed
her back. “How long are you going to be gone?”

“Just a few days. I’ll be back
Sunday night. You could come with us, you know.”

Virgil laughed. “No thanks. Don’t
think I’d be very welcome on the plane.”

“We could always drive up together
instead. Three hours from now we’d have a hotel room to ourselves and our
imaginations to keep us busy.”

“I don’t need my imagination when
I’m with you.”

She smiled at him. “You’re sweet.
Hey, speaking of sweet, did you get me a box of candy?” She started to move
toward the dresser but Virgil cut her off. He grabbed the box and held it
behind his back.

“Yes, I did, but now I’m going to
make you wait to eat them until you get back.”

“Hey, that’s not fair.”

“That’s the breaks.”

“Come on, Virgil, come with me to
Chicago. We can eat the chocolate in bed together.” She gave him an eyebrow
wiggle.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea, Virgil
thought. A couple of days in a different city and a marriage proposal in a
hotel room. He bounced the idea back and forth for a second, but in the end
went with his gut.

“I really can’t. Murton’s got me
working on something with him. As a matter of fact, it looks like we’re going
to be working together.”

“You mean besides the bar, don’t
you?”

“Yeah.” He tried Murton’s line on
her. “Wheeler and Jones Investigations. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you
think?” Virgil thought he might have unintentionally overemphasized the word
ring
.

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I’d like to keep my hand in it…the
work. It’s interesting to me. It always has been. I love the bar, but day in
and day out I think it’d drive me crazy.”

“Your dad seemed happy doing it.”

“He was. But he’d also put his time
in as a cop. When we bought the bar he was ready for a change. I’m not sure I
am. At least not yet. I just don’t feel like I should be done yet.”

“What’s the matter Virgil?”

“Ah, nothing. Just feeling sort of
sorry for myself, I guess. I was hoping for a nice romantic evening with you.”

“How about a nice romantic ride to
the airport?”

“You bet. When do you have to go?”

Sandy zipped the suitcase closed.
“Now would be good.”

Virgil set the box of chocolate
back on the dresser. Sandy eyed it for a moment, but didn’t say anything. “Hey
maybe we should have a party Sunday afternoon when you get back. Have everybody
over. How does that sound?”

“Sure,” Sandy said. “Would you
carry my suitcase for me?” She walked out of the bedroom and never gave the box
of chocolates a second look.

_________

Virgil started the
truck and
they
were about halfway
down the drive when Sandy said, “Oops. Back up. I almost forgot my purse.”

He hit the brakes. “Wow. That
wouldn’t have been good.” He backed up to the door and Sandy ran inside. When
she came back out, she had her purse over her shoulder. She dropped it on the
floor by her feet, buckled her belt and said, “Okay. Let’s roll.”

“You know, when you get back, I
feel like maybe we should talk some stuff through.”

“Like what?”

Virgil spent the rest of the ride
to the airport telling her what happened by his father’s willow tree earlier in
the day and more importantly, how he felt about it.

“I think what Delroy said is true,
Virgil. It’s not your leg that hurts. It’s your heart. People die. I know how
much you loved your father and based on all the stories you’ve told me, I know
you feel the same way about your mom and your grandfather. Physically, they’re
gone, but like you said, they do live on through you. You should be proud of that.”

He turned the truck into the
parking lot of the FBO. “I am. I just miss them. Sometimes I think I miss them
too much. Like it’s not healthy or something…like I have trouble letting things
go. I’ve been having conversations with my dead father and I’ll tell you
something, I still don’t know if it was real or not.”

“Maybe you should talk to Bell
about it.”

Virgil barked out a laugh. “Now
there’s an idea. He’d probably prescribe an extra week of coffee enemas. No
thanks.” A tall chain-link fence separated the parking lot from the tarmac, the
state plane sitting on the ramp. One of the pilots stood next to the air-stair
door as the other followed the governor out to the aircraft.

“We’ll talk about it, Virgil. We
will. But I think you’re fine. Sometimes you worry too much. If you’re feeling
sad about your dad, go ahead and let yourself feel it. Keep it bottled up though
and you’ll never get past it.” She picked up her purse and slung it over her
shoulder. Virgil started to get out with her, but she pulled him over and
kissed him long and hard. “I can get the bag. I think the pilots have to escort
me out to the plane anyway. I love you, Virgil Jones. See you on Sunday.”

Virgil thought about what was going
to happen when Sandy came home, how they were going to take the first step of
so many that were in front of them now. “I love you too, Small.”

_________

After Sandy went inside the Fixed
Base Operations building that gave access to the tarmac, Virgil turned the
truck off and walked over toward the fence so he could wave good-bye to her. The
state’s plane was a small twin-engine jet of an undetermined make and model, parked
about forty yards away. The captain had already started the right side engine,
the noise a little louder than Virgil expected. The copilot walked Sandy over
to the aircraft and then stood next to the steps, her bag in his hand as she
climbed the stairs. What happened next was something so shocking Virgil was
momentarily frozen in place and unable to respond.