Leather Maiden

20

They had come by car, and it was on the other side of the hill. We all walked up the hill and through the woods, the same way they had come, then down the other side to a little dirt road where their car was parked. It wasn’t much of a car and looked like the last time it had been washed someone had rubbed it down with sand and waxed it with a hammer.

We made them get in the front seat, the guy behind the wheel. Jimmy and I slid into the back seat and Jimmy waved the gun around a little too much.

“What are we doing?” the guy asked, and he was so scared his voice vibrated.

“Going for a ride,” I said. “We want you to take us to your place, where you got the computer that copied the DVD.”

“We made copies,” the girl said, “but we found the DVD.”

I tucked that bit of information away. I said, “What about Caroline Allison?”

“I knew her,” the guy said. “She was in the history department with me. I knew her and that’s how I came up with this idea.”

“Stupid idea,” the girl said. She had grown pouty, like a child whose birthday party had been ruined by bullies.

“It was stupid,” Jimmy said.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “Stupid. But Tabitha needed the money for school.”

“Jesus,” Jimmy said. “Whatever happened to a student loan?”

“I couldn’t get one,” she said. “I failed too many classes goofing off.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “You needed tuition money, so what better way to get it than to kill some girl and take her DVD of her and the kindly professor here doing the bop and blackmail him with it? That sure beats a student loan, or heaven forbid, working for the money.”

“We didn’t kill anyone,” the guy said. “You know we didn’t kill anyone.”

He said that like he thought we really did know he didn’t do it. And I was pretty sure they hadn’t, even if I wasn’t sure they were telling the total truth. In fact, I was more than certain they weren’t.

“What’s your name?” I asked the guy.

“Ernie Smith.”

“And you, kid,” I said to the girl. “You’re Tabitha? Tabitha what?”

“Patrick,” she said. “Tabitha Patrick. We’re in big trouble, aren’t we?”

“What do you think?” I said. “Start up the car and let’s go.”

Their place was near the hill where Jimmy and I were camped. It was a gray rental house by the railroad tracks with an outside light that didn’t work. It was an ugly location and an ugly house. The neighboring houses were a little brighter and better looking, but there was nothing you could do about that location.

Inside, the place was long and narrow like a boxcar and smelled like cat piss, and when Ernie turned on the light, roaches darted for cover but no cats made an appearance. In the front room there was a couch that looked as if it had taken on a few land mines. It was partially draped over with a blanket that had more holes in it than a dartboard. There were a couple of folding chairs, a desk with a computer on it, and the only good chair in the place was the chair at the desk. Tabitha sat on the couch, and after a few minutes so did Ernie. We told Ernie we would be taking the computer.

“I got all my lessons on it,” he said. “All my history work.”

“You should have thought of that before blackmailing me,” Jimmy said.

“You can’t go to the police,” Ernie said, “not with those DVDs around. That’ll nail your ass.”

“You’re going to give them to us,” I said.

“And if we don’t?” Ernie said. “What then? There’s nothing you can do to us.”

“Except put a bullet in your heads,” Jimmy said.

Ernie went quiet and put his hands between his legs.

Jimmy was starting to pull at the computer, like he was going to run off with it. I said to him, “Hold on. We’re not going anywhere yet.”

He stopped pulling, looked at me. I had taken one of the folding chairs and was sitting in it. Jimmy took one of the others and sat down. He still had the girl’s revolver and he laid it on his knee.

“Don’t hurt us,” Tabitha said. “You can take the computer. We just thought it would be fun. And I needed the money. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Sure,” Jimmy said.

“How did you come by the DVD?” I asked. “You said you found it, but I’m thinking you didn’t go out in the yard and it rained down on you like manna from heaven.”

“We’re urban explorers,” Ernie said. “That’s how we found it.”

“You’re what?” Jimmy asked.

“We like to prowl at night. Get into places that are locked up, preferably without anyone knowing we did it. We go in and take pictures. Used to be several of us. You learn locks, and you watch places to learn where all the ways of getting in are. It’s a big game.”

“What happened to the other explorers?” I asked.

“They graduated, moved off.”

“The original ones,” Tabitha said.

There was something in that, but I let it go for the moment.

“I see,” I said. “Only thing throws me is, around here, we’re sort of short on urban.”

“Technically that’s right,” Ernie said. “But there are plenty of places you don’t think about. That’s how we came up with the DVD. All the DVDs. We found them.”

“All the DVDs?” I said. “You just found them?”

Ernie nodded.

“Where?” Jimmy said.

Before Ernie could answer, Tabitha looked at Jimmy, said, “You killed her, didn’t you?”

“What?” Jimmy said.

“Caroline. You killed her.”

“Shut up,” Ernie said.

“You’re out of your mind,” Jimmy said. “You killed her.”

“No they didn’t,” I said.

Jimmy looked at me.

I said, “Trust me, they’re too stupid to have killed her and set all this up. They’re stumblers, and they stumbled on what they thought was good.”

“That’s right,” Ernie said, liking the fact that I seemed to be taking his side; stupidity had its merits.

“If you didn’t kill her,” Tabitha said, looking at Jimmy as if truly surprised, “who did?”

“I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “I still like you two for it.”

Tabitha became bold. “Well, I think you did it. I think you maybe planned it all along. Maybe you and your brother did it. You look like someone who would be mean to girls. You hit me with that stick.”

“Asp,” Jimmy said.

“It hurt.”

“Hush, Tabitha,” Ernie said.

Tabitha stopped talking. I said, “If we did do it, murdered Caroline, you’d be smarter not to let on you think we did. You consider that, Tabitha? You’ve been quiet most of this time, and now you’re talking, and you’re not thinking. You were smarter quiet. We were the murderers, you’d be next. You and him. We’d kill your asses right here. Do you really want to die on that filthy couch?”

I could see fear move across her face, and it made me feel small.

“We aren’t the murderers,” I said. “Listen up. We won’t turn you in because that just brings up the DVD, and that hurts my brother. You’re right about that part. But you’d be better off not to do anything either. We maybe got all the copies when we take this hard drive, but we don’t, you’d be better off just letting us be. You don’t want to stir us up.”

“That’s right,” Jimmy said. “We’re not for stirring.”

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, thought: We’re not for stirring. What kind of comment was that?

“We got you two on audiotape and film,” I said. “Someone shows up with a copy we don’t know about, it’ll cost them. And when I say someone, I mean you two mental giants. Blackmail, that’s no small crime. And, kids, it’s going to look more like you did Caroline in than Jimmy. Jimmy here, he gets in the deep end for wetting his willie, but you two…I don’t think you’d like how it turns out. You might be finishing out your education online in prison. They have that now. So you got that going for you.”

Ernie and Tabitha looked at each other. “We didn’t mean any harm,” Ernie said.

“Sure you did,” I said. “And you’re not off the hook on Caroline’s murder yet.”

“We haven’t really said anything that matters,” Tabitha said. “There’s nothing you taped that hurts us.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “There’s a device in my brother’s pocket, and it’s on, and I’ve got the receiver and everything you’ve said since we started dealing with you is recorded.”

“Everything you’ve said too,” Tabitha said.

“Yeah, but we’re saying things to trick you. We say what we need to say. And besides, we get in trouble, so do you. It’ll be a big cluster fuck.”

“I don’t know,” Ernie said. “You keep saying it, but I don’t know you have squat.”

I took the recorder and the receiver out of my pocket and put it on my knee. I let him look at it. Jimmy took his part of it out of his pocket. “Surprise, motherfuckers,” he said.

“By the way,” I said, “I need to change cassettes.”

Jimmy grinned at me.

I slipped another cassette in the recorder. I said, “And, we have you on film.”

“We had on ski masks,” Tabitha said.

“You sure did,” I said. “But you weren’t skiing. Won’t help you a bit. We got too much on you.”

I wasn’t really sure about that, but I tried to sound confident. “Okay. How well did you know Caroline?”

“We didn’t know her well at all,” Ernie said.

“Bullshit,” Jimmy said. “You already said you knew her.”

“We saw her around,” Ernie said.

“I’m going to call bullshit again,” Jimmy said. “Bullshit.”

Ernie looked at Tabitha. She nodded.

“That’s better,” I said.

I put the recorder on the floor by my chair. I said, “It’s very sensitive, but it would still be nice if you didn’t whisper. Tell us everything, and make it snappy. I’m starting to crave breakfast and a good cup of coffee.”