Pool Of Lies Part 19

Deidre rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Up till last week I thought Danny sent him."

"Danny?"

"My ex...I mean my husband. But it was Kevin, my own son."

"Your son with Danny?"

Deidre shook her head, brushed hair from her eyes. "Danny and I don't' have any kids together."

"Where's Kevin's father?"

"Best guess? Jail. I haven't seen him since Kevin was a baby."

Deidre stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray Wehr pushed toward her across the table.

"I've got this talent for hooking up with the wrong men. They're either control freaks like my grandfather or losers like Kevin's dad and...and..."

Yes?"

Deidre looked straight into the camera's eye. "I thought Danny was different, that I'd broken the pattern."

"What happened?"

"He bailed on me. That's what I thought." Deidre's face contorted. She wiped at something in her eye, then removed another cigarette from the pack and lit it.

"What happened to make you think Danny didn't send the drug dealer?"

"Kevin. He just acted different toward me--disrespectful. And he had his own stash. I checked out his cell phone and found texts from JJ. My own kid was too wasted most of the time to think to erase 'em."

"Are you sure your son didn't meet JJ through your initial connection?"

Deidre made a strange choking noise. "I'm sure," she said. "By the time I found out it wasn't Danny, he'd left me. I was too far gone, wasted. I didn't care. I guess I'm the loser any way you cut it."

A gray whorl of smoke circled her head like some demonic halo.

"Mind if I walk around while we do this?"

"If that would make you feel more comfortable. We're here to help you, to prosecute the man who raped you and extorted money from you."

Deidre stood up and paced the narrow confines of the room. She looked like a walking skeleton.

"He says you can't touch him."

"He?"

"JJ. He'll find me and rape me again. Dangle c.o.ke under my nose, then take it away. Until I do what he wants."

"Then you get money for him from your trustee?"

"Yeah. He takes what he needs, then gives me what I need. And for a while he leaves me alone."

Deidre shuddered, pulling her blue cardigan sweater around her.

"Are you cold?"

"I don't feel much of anything right now," she whispered. Her eyes took on a glazed look. "I'm dying. Every time he touches me, I die a little. Smoking doesn't cut it. Every time I shoot up, more of me slips away."

Five seconds of silence punctuated by Deidre's audible breathing, like sobs from some inner place that still had feelings, brought tears to Rae's eyes. She couldn't look at Veronica for fear the dam would burst.

"I know they're going to kill me soon," Deidre continued, resignation in her voice.

"They?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? This last time at the Aztec, JJ brought his brother with him."

"OhmiG.o.d!" Rae couldn't hold back.

"Hush," whispered Veronica, riveted to the screen.

"His name?" asked Wehr.

"No idea. He didn't introduce us. The big guy called him 'little brother'." Deidre dropped the cigarette she was holding, picked it up and stubbed it out in the tray. Her shaking grew more violent.

"They took turns."

"Raping you?"

"No, holding my hand." Deidre wiped invisible tears from beneath her eyes, deepening the cavernous bags that sagged below them.

"Did either man use a condom?"

"What does my rape kit say?"

"Can't get results that fast."

"I don't remember JJ ever using a condom. I asked him to once. He just laughed at me."

"How about the brother?"

Deidre stopped pacing and sank back into the chair. She crossed her arms, like she was trying to hug herself, fingers tearing at the blue sweater, rigid body rocking back and forth.

"I told them not to. Please not to, because it was my period. They didn't care." Deidre began to cry openly now.

Wehr handed her a Kleenex which she immediately wadded up, then shredded. Wehr handed her another.

Deidre wiped her eyes, took a shuddering breath and continued in a voice barely above a whisper. "The brother used other things. The last being a set of jumper cables. He swore he'd take me out in the alley and hook the other end up to his truck if--"

"No more!" Rae's hand flew out to the stop b.u.t.ton. Deidre's face froze in mid-frame as the sound shut down.

"There's a lot more," said Veronica, her face showing deep furrows of emotion.

"Not now." Rae headed for the door, barely able to breathe.

Veronica followed her, placing a hand on Rae's shoulder. "Cops listen to this stuff every day."

"I'm not a cop. Never was. Never will be."

Rae was half way out the door, but Veronica's voice was unrelenting. "Please come back and sit down, Rae. And for G.o.d's sake, lower your voice."

She hadn't been aware of yelling until she looked around and saw people in the outer office staring at her. Rae eased back into Veronica's office, drawing the door closed behind her.

"You can tell me what I need to know about the rest of the tape. I don't need to see any more."

"You have to bear in mind that addicts aren't the most reliable sources of information."

"You think she was lying?"

"Maybe embellis.h.i.+ng."

"What kind of mind would make up stuff like that?"

"The kind of mind that allows a person to shoot poison into their own veins."

Rae looked at Veronica as if seeing her for the first time. "So that makes it okay to sacrifice her for the likes of JJ Camacho? A disposable woman? Is that what I'm hearing from you?"

"Hold it. Not me! It wouldn't have been my call to sc.r.a.p the La.s.siter case for Camacho's contribution to a drug bust."

"Apparently this Sergeant Wehr was of a different mindset. I hope you're going after her. She has no business in law enforcement."

As Rae watched Veronica's face harden, she wondered how they'd ever be able to work together. They'd just put aside one obstacle only to face another.

"Don't be so quick to judge until you've walked in her shoes," Veronica said.

Rae came right back at her. "Sorry, I don't buy that. She didn't have second thoughts about what she'd done until Reggie put the fear into her. Those shoes of hers have big holes in them."

"How do you know what she thought?"

Rae edged toward the door again. "I might've known you cops would all stick together."

As she watched Veronica's eyes turn to black ice, Rae regretted the words.

"How do you think Anthony would feel to hear you say that?"

Betrayed, that's how Anthony would feel. Suddenly ashamed, Rae could no longer avoid Veronica's eyes.

"Who do you think got the d.a.m.n case reopened? If I didn't care, do you think I'd have gone to the trouble? n.o.body listened to me at first," Veronica said.

Rae sank back into the chair. A fly was buzzing in her brain again, forcing her back a few sentences to something else Veronica had said. How did she know there was a lot left on the tape? Suddenly, a clarity she didn't want: Veronica had already seen the tape in its entirety. Rae's presence at this particular time was to establish their joint first viewing.

"Okay." Rae tried to produce a reasonable explanation. None came to mind. Maybe the rest of the tape did warrant her viewing.

"Okay, what?" That ticked expression was creeping back into Veronica's eyes.

"Okay, I won't wimp out again. Roll the d.a.m.n tape."

But Veronica's phone buzzed again. "Veronica Sanchez here."

The conversation was punctuated on Veronica's end by short responses to what appeared an interrogation. "I have no idea. No. I gave your man instructions. Why would I? That's not for me to say."

Veronica hung up. Rae guessed the conversation had been terminated by the calling party.

"Trouble?"

"You could say that."

"The La.s.siter case?"

"Okay, the La.s.siter tape-the copy Wheat Ridge's detective made-it didn't end up with Wehr's boss. It somehow ended up with his chief and the Bayfield lawyers. Internal Affairs is breathing down his neck and he wants my hide."

"Why?"

"He thinks I somehow detoured the tape around him."

"Did you?"

Rae knew she'd gone too far the minute the words left her lips. Veronica's expression shut down.

"Rae, we'll have to continue this tomorrow. I need to take care of some damage control with my boss. Seven-thirty?"

Rae nodded and ventured, "Looks like the lid's coming off the JJ cover-up. Shouldn't you be glad? What if you did go around somebody?"

"I didn't." Veronica stood at the door of her office, holding it open.

Then, what did you do? Keep your mouth shut, Rae, before she fires you. "See you in the morning."

In the parking lot, getting into her car, Rae still had the sense of hearing only one shoe drop.

Rae dropped the gray pinstripe on the floor of her closet, exchanged it for coveralls, and didn't look back. Except to pitch the new shoes and pantyhose in the corner of the bathroom.

On the service porch she stepped into her muck shoes, then was out the door.

Her left foot hurt like h.e.l.l. Halfway to the barn she stopped and dumped a small rock out of her shoe. That didn't help the other hurt-the one that wouldn't go away.

Until today, Deidre La.s.siter had been just a name. Danny's dead wife. d.a.m.n shame her death had been written off. What Rae had felt at the coroner's office had been more for Danny. Seeing his grief up close had been a revelation: dopers bleed just like real people. No blinders on you, Rae. You, with your pristine grief. MiG.o.d, the man had a heart attack, he was so stressed.

But seeing Deidre, hearing the despair in her voice, had punched a hole in that sh.e.l.l Rae had crawled into the day Anthony died.

It hadn't been a new sh.e.l.l, but a rather old one Rae thought she'd shed. Grandma's voice again: You're like a snail, Rae. One poke and you draw inside. She'd always been that way--pulling away from emotional pokes. But she could never hide from Grandma.