The Cyclops Conspiracy (32 page)

From Victory Boulevard, Jason turned south onto Big Bethel Road at the fire station. Commuters and housewives were still in their beds. But early risers were beginning their days. Morning was a time of renewal. The worst evils were dampened, tempered by the sun’s rays. This morning, though, foreboding filled the air. While everyone around him went about their daily routines, Jason’s life was disintegrating. Sheila, even after their breakup, was still harassing him, and she seemed to know where he was going to be almost as quickly as he did. Every part of his life was splayed open like exposed organs
after a Y-incision. His new career was a disaster—a deadly venture not bargained for. Two men were dead, and two more were in danger. He feared for his own life and that of his son, his brother, and the woman he’d loved many years ago.

What the hell was happening? Everything was spinning out of control.

Before going to Christine’s, he’d woken Jenny with a phone call. He tried to keep his voice steady. But the urgency seeped into his words. Perhaps that was best. Jenny, Michael’s mother, reluctantly met him on the front steps of the home she shared with her new husband.

He knew he sounded like a crazy man as he explained to her that she needed to get Michael to safety. He couldn’t explain, he told her. “Just trust me, Jenny!” he pleaded. They argued until Jenny’s husband, the architect, appeared. Jason made her promise to get Michael out of town before he departed. He would check to make sure they were gone. Jenny knew how much Jason loved his son and that he wasn’t prone to melodrama. It took less than thirty minutes to convince her to take Michael on a short vacation. After a shower and a change of clothes, he would go back and talk some sense into Christine.

Jason pulled into the driveway, parked the Saturn, and alighted from it. He stepped to the keypad mounted on the garage’s doorframe and punched in the code. The door ascended slowly. Behind him, headlights arced into the driveway. Two men in suits emerged from either side of the car, advancing cautiously toward him.

Confused, Jason walked toward the rear of the car. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Jason Rodgers?” asked the driver.

“Yes.”

The driver flipped open a leather wallet, revealing a badge. “I’m Investigator Calvin Baxter. This is Investigator Clyde Stevens. We’re with the York County Sheriff’s Office.”

“What’s going on?”

Stevens had wide shoulders and a thick torso, none of it soft. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Now? It’s two in the morning.”

Baxter was black and six four, wider, more menacing than his tough-looking partner. “We’re investigating a crime. Do you own a gun, Mr. Rodgers?”

“Yes, I do. Why do you want to know?”

“Where is the gun now?” asked Stevens.

“It’s upstairs in its case. Why?”

“Can you please go get it, sir? We’d like to see it.”

“Why?”

“There’s been a homicide tonight, sir.”

“And you think my gun was involved?”

“Please get the weapon, sir.”

Jason’s eyes seesawed back and forth between the two cops. His gut began a slow twist into pretzel-like knots. “I’ll be right back,” he said weakly.

He climbed the stairs two at a time. Jogging into the bedroom, he pushed open the closet door. It crashed into the wall. Falling to his knees, Jason pushed several shoe boxes and a carton of photographs to the side. The gun case slid out. Immediately, he realized something was wrong. It was too light. He fumbled at the combination lock, which was not engaged. He opened the case and stared down at the empty gun-shaped depression. Bile welled in his throat. “Son of a bitch!”

Jason returned with the empty case. The officers had their hands on their holstered weapons.

Jason stammered, holding the case up for inspection. “It—it must have been stolen.”

“I see,” said Baxter. “We have your weapon, Mr. Rodgers. It was found at a crime scene this evening.”

“How long has your gun been missing?” Stevens added.

“I have no idea. I haven’t used it in a couple of weeks.”

Baxter nodded knowingly. Stevens moved behind Jason toward the garage, taking great interest in its contents. Baxter said, “You haven’t been home all night. We’ve tried to ring the bell several times. There was no answer. What have you been doing tonight, sir?”

I was trying to figure out why my boss is trying to kill two men.
“I had dinner with a friend.”

“What time was that?”

“About seven.”

“What time did dinner end?”

“Maybe eight o’clock.”

Stevens moved back into Jason’s field of vision.

“As you said, it’s after two in the morning. What did you do between eight and two?”

“Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Do you know a Sheila Boquist, Mr. Rodgers?”

“We dated for a while. Why?”

“Because she was murdered tonight.”

Jason’s knees buckled. He staggered but caught himself on the trunk of the Saturn. “What?” The white cop grabbed Jason by the arm.

“Your weapon was found at the scene. Where were you this evening after dinner?”

Jason looked at the two deputies as if he was trying to convince himself they were real and he wasn’t having a nightmare. “Are you suggesting I killed her?”

“Did you?” Baxter asked.

Jason roughly rubbed his head with both hands. “No!”

“Then please tell us where you were,” Baxter persisted.

Not sure how much he should reveal, Jason said, “I had dinner with a friend. Her name’s Christine. Then I was with my brother and another friend, Walter Waterhouse. I met up with Christine again and then I drove home.” Jason prayed it would be enough to satisfy them.

“What were you, your brother, and Waterhouse doing?”

“It’s complicated.”

Stevens chimed in, “Mr. Rodgers, we’d like you to come to the sheriff’s office and answer some questions so we can verify your story.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Then we should be able to clear this up fairly quickly,” said Stevens.

“Can’t it wait until morning?”

“No, we’d like you to come with us now.”

Jason clasped the chair arms in a white-knuckle grip.

The six-by-fifteen-foot interview room in the sheriff’s office was smaller than a jail cell. The furniture consisted of three chairs and a rectangular table topped with a fake-wood veneer. Jason’s wooden chair had a green back and two long, flat, wooden armrests. Add a few leather straps and some current, and it would pass for a homemade electric chair.

The walls were white and naked. The inch-thick glass of the lone window did not invite escape. A framed certificate hung from the skinny wall beside the window. It proclaimed the expertise of some guy named Richardson in the art of polygraph examination. A camera encased in a white cylinder sat mounted high in the corner, pointing down in judgment. The space was designed for extracting confessions from lowlife scumbags. Jason didn’t belong here anymore than did a pimple on Mona Lisa’s nose.

He had no idea how much time had passed. Ten, fifteen minutes. What was taking so long? The door was open an inch. A
deputy, looking stern and militant, stood outside, making sure Jason Rodgers, the dangerous pharmacist, didn’t try stabbing anyone with his counting spatula.

Though he knew he’d done nothing wrong, frightening thoughts materialized and accelerated in his imagination.

Confident of his innocence, he’d allowed fingerprints to be taken. The investigator asked if they could swab his cheek to obtain a sample of his DNA. One of them had even asked if he would provide a key to allow a search of his house. Even the most incompetent of lawyers would have been apoplectic at the thought. Jason knew he should protest just on principle. But he had done nothing wrong. He still couldn’t believe Sheila was dead. The woman was a mercurial, selfish bitch. And though at times, in fits of irrational rage, he’d prayed for her demise, he’d never want anyone, even her, to suffer such a horrific fate.

Should he ask for an attorney? He’d watched enough television to know that if he did, the police were required to cease all questioning. Would they arrest him if he invoked this right?
What the hell are you thinking? You haven’t done anything. Tell them the truth and get the hell out of here!

But he couldn’t tell them the whole truth. His activities
had
been illegal. Skulking around spying on people wouldn’t make the cops think he was the innocent type. He’d implicate himself in other crimes. If these cops got wind of his brush with the Secret Service, they’d look at him even closer.

Hopefully, Waterhouse had made copies of the conversation they’d risked their lives to record and e-mailed a copy to Detective Palmer in Newport News. The compact disc Waterhouse had given Jason was still in Christine’s laptop.

Shouldn’t he just tell these investigators that he was collecting evidence against Lily Zanns? That was, of course, his alibi. Peter and Waterhouse would back up his story. The recording would tell them everything they needed to know.

Five more minutes passed. Twenty altogether.

Before he could organize his thoughts, the tall, black man returned followed by another investigator. The second man wasn’t Stevens, the man from the driveway. This one was bookish in appearance, with glasses and a legal pad.

Jason got a better look at the lead investigator in the stark light of the interview room. His shoulders, wide and rigid, spawned two arms that looked like the trunks of small trees. Baxter had played some sort of contact sport, probably football, in his past. The rolled-up sleeves of his shirt were stretched tight by muscles rippling like steel cords. The man’s eyes pierced Jason. Despite his innocence, Baxter’s countenance alone made Jason want to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness.

Cal Baxter dropped a manila folder on the table with a loud crack. The second man seated himself and placed the yellow legal pad on the table, pen at the ready. Baxter unloaded his two hundred and fifty pounds into the puny, standard-issue chair.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Jason said quickly, before Baxter even opened his mouth.

“May I call you Jason?” Baxter’s voice was deep and friendly, as if he were Jason’s only friend on the earth. Nonetheless, a latent desire to inflict pain seemed to surround him.

Jason nodded stiffly.

“How about something to drink? Coke, coffee?”

Jason declined. The back of his throat was a sun-baked, gritty desert, but accepting any kind of graciousness would be letting his guard down. He needed to stay as sharp as possible. The fatigue and fear, though propped up by adrenaline, were growing heavier.

Baxter began matter-of-factly. “Your weapon was found at the murder scene. We traced the serial number through our databases with NCIC and ATF. It’s yours, Jason. There’s no doubt about it.”

“I just found out it was stolen. I don’t know how it got over there.”

“You said that before.”

“Did you see Sheila Boquist tonight?”

“No,” he lied. No sense giving them any more reason to suspect him.

“She was your girlfriend, correct?”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Jason corrected.

“Ex-girlfriend, right.”

The notetaker, a small, wiry man with rimless glasses, scribbled some notes.

“When did you stop dating?”

“A couple of weeks ago.” Jason glanced up at the video camera mounted at ceiling level in the corner of the room. He wondered how his words would sound when played back in court.

“Did you two get along?”

“For the most part,” he lied again.

“Did you see her tonight?”

“No,” he persisted.

“You sure?”

“I just said I didn’t.”

A knock came at the door, and a deputy stuck his head in. “Cal, you got a minute?”

“Jason, we’ll be right back.”

Both men walked out. The uniformed deputy took up his place outside the room once more.

When Baxter returned, he asked, “What time did you see Sheila tonight?”

“I told you I didn’t see her—”

“Did you have dinner tonight at Maggie’s Tavern?”

Jason felt his eyes widen. How did Baxter know that? “Yeah…I did.”

“Did you invite Sheila to meet you there?”

He looked at Baxter like the cop had sprouted a third arm. “No! What the hell makes you think that?”

Baxter removed a plastic bag from his folder. In it was the small, typewritten note card. Jason grabbed the corner between a thumb and forefinger as he read.

“I didn’t write this.”

“So you didn’t invite Sheila to meet you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“But you said you did have dinner at Maggie’s Tavern?”

“Uh…yeah.”

“So who did you meet there?”

“Christine Pettigrew.”

“How do you spell that?”

Jason spelled her name. Baxter asked for her address, home, and cell phone numbers. Jason recited them.

“How long did dinner last?”

“An hour, maybe.”

“Where did you go after your dinner date?”

Jason looked at him like the words were spoken in Mandarin.

“Jason, where did you go after dinner with your friend—” Baxter checked his notepad in front of him. “Christine?”

“I—was with my brother, Peter, and Walter Waterhouse.”

More scribbling. “What were you doing?”

We were hunting down a group of assassins!
“We were…investigating.”

“Investigating what?”

“There’s been some unusual activity at the pharmacy I work at. First, it was an insurance scam…but it turned into something else, something worse. We know two people are going to be killed,” Jason said. “We have evidence, a recording.”

“So you and your brother and this guy, Walter, are trying to stop two murders?”

Jason nodded intently.

“Who’s going to be killed?”

“We don’t know their names.”

“Who’s going to do the killing, Jason?”

Jason lowered his head. His words sounded ridiculous, like those of a man trying to save his own skin. But they had proof now. It was time to let the experts handle it. “Her name is Lily Zanns. She owns
the Colonial Pharmacy in Newport News. She and two other people are planning it. Walter should be e-mailing a copy of the recording to Detective John Palmer in Newport News.”