Simply Lies

Chapter 7

Gibson put the phone down after having talked to Zeb Brown. He confirmed everything that Sullivan had told her. There was no Arlene Robinson. There was no assignment from ProEye.

Brown hadn’t been at all sympathetic with Gibson. On the contrary, he’d clearly been pissed that she hadn’t confirmed the assignment with him and saved the company and her a lot of trouble and egg on their faces.

“We do have a reputation to uphold,” he had told her in a scolding tone. “So if there is a next time, just call me, okay? Then maybe we can avoid being part of a freaking police investigation. And maybe you should bag going out tonight to celebrate the Larkin matter and get your head on straight.” He’d clicked off before she could reply.

She slowly set the phone down. Okay, he thinks I’m either an idiot or I’m involved in a crime, and I’m not sure which is worse, because I cannot lose this job.

Later, she fed her kids, played with them, bathed them, and put them to bed. She still had on her mother’s pantsuit. The waist actually felt a bit looser, and she realized she hadn’t had anything to eat other than the almond oatmeal cookie.

She went down to the kitchen, and pan-cooked her special and amazing Kraft Mac & Cheese and ate it standing up with a glass of cheap merlot to kill the taste.

Gibson looked out the window and saw nothing but darkness in the chilly springtime evening.

Darkness out there, darkness in here.

Darkness between my ears.

And then her phone buzzed. Her business phone. She looked at the screen. It was a text.

Can you talk? AR

She almost dropped her wine and then looked quickly around to see if she was being watched somehow.

She texted back: Okay. And waited.

The phone buzzed. She answered. The same woman’s voice came on the line.

“Can I explain?” she said.

“What a great idea,” snapped Gibson. “Maybe your real name might be the best place to start.”

“They found the body, correct?”

“I found the body. Daniel Pottinger. Murdered. How’d you kill him?”

“I need you to go to your front door.”

“Why?” said Gibson in a tense voice. She automatically looked up, to where her kids were sleeping.

The woman said, “You’ll find a phone there in a box. I’ll call it in thirty seconds.” She clicked off.

Gibson rushed to the gun safe, unlocked it, slid out her Beretta, and slapped in a mag.

She hurried to the front door and looked out one of the side lights. She lived in a working-class, cookie-cutter neighborhood of 1,500-square-foot homes with carports or one-car garages, built mostly in the eighties. There were lights on in some of the houses, and cars were parked up and down the street. She saw no one out and about. A dog barked from somewhere, making her jump. She slowly opened the door and saw the small box on the porch. Gibson gently opened it just as the phone inside started to ring. She stepped back into her home and locked the door.

And then Mickey Gibson decided to lose her shit.

“What is this load of crap?” she yelled into the phone. “I don’t appreciate getting sucked into whatever stupid game it is you’re playing.”

“It’s not a game, but I’d feel the same if I were in your shoes.”

“Easy to say since you’re not in my shoes. You almost cost me my job and you still might.”

“I’m sorry, but please let me explain.”

Gibson bit back her anger and turned to cop mode, which meant, above all, listening. And this might be the only way to eventually get to the truth. Plus, she was curious as hell as to what was really going on. Not that she expected this woman to tell her anything except lies. But Gibson was really good at tracking stuff down. She just needed a lead, one tiny morsel.

“Okay, go ahead,” she said in a calmer voice.

“I didn’t kill him and I don’t know who did. All I know is that I found his body and didn’t know what else to do.”

Incensed once more, Gibson barked, “How about calling the fucking police, that one ever occur to you?”

“I couldn’t call them.”

“You just had to hit 911 with your index finger, you didn’t have to give your name or just use a fake one, like you did with me.”

“I didn’t want to do it that way. I had my reasons. Good ones.”

“Then why involve me in your mess?”

“Because I had heard of you.”

“Heard of me from where?” demanded Gibson.

“When you were a cop.”

“That was back in Jersey. So you tracked me to Williamsburg?”

“I felt like I could trust you. I hope I still can?”

“Well, I don’t trust you, seeing that the police now think I’m a suspect for a murder I knew nothing about until today.” She drew a long, calming breath. This aggressive posture was going to get her nowhere. “Did you know Pottinger?”

“Yes.”

“How?” Gibson said.

“He was very well-known in Miami. I was surprised that he moved to such an isolated place in Virginia.”

So was she from Miami? “Why were you there?”

“He asked me to come to see him.”

“Why?” asked Gibson.

“I can’t get into that.”

“You’re going to have to get into everything if you really want me to trust you.”

“He was someone I knew from way back. He said he was in trouble. I went to Stormfield to help. The door was unlocked. I went in. The wall in the library was open. That’s how I found him.”

“Was there anyone around when you got there?” asked Gibson.

“No, which surprised me. The place is huge. He must have had servants or some kind of help. But if they had been there they would have found the body.”

“How did he die?” asked Gibson.

“Didn’t the police tell you?”

“No, they don’t tell people like me things like that.”

“I don’t know how he died.”

“You’re lying,” retorted Gibson.

“I’m not. I saw no obvious wounds.”

Okay, she might be telling the truth because I didn’t see any, either. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone while you were there? Or hear anything?”

“No. The place was empty. Except for him.”

“Did you put the fan in there and then leave the wall partially open and place the vase on the shelf?”

“Yes, I wanted you to find the body.”

“Exactly who are you? And how did you know all that stuff you mentioned on the phone? You tapped my lines? Or ProEye’s?”

“I did what I had to do to convince you to help me,” she replied evasively.

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“I thought that was obvious. Find out who killed Dan.”

“Why?” asked Gibson.

“I told you. He was my friend.”

“From Miami?”

“Yes.”

“How exactly did you know him? Business? You don’t sound all that old. He was at least seventy, if not older. It was hard to tell with him dissolving right in front of me.”

“We were friends who did business together. My age was never an issue.”

“What sort of business?” asked Gibson.

“I feel like I’m being interrogated,” she countered.

“Good, because you are.”

“Maybe I made a mistake with you.”

Gibson said, “You made a mistake the minute you put me in this situation. And trust runs both ways. I need to feel some from you.”

“I told you what I could.”

“I need more than that.”

“Has motherhood robbed you of your detective skills?” asked the woman.

“I don’t like that you know so much about me. And if you so much as come near me or my kids—”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You dropped this phone off on my porch,” retorted Gibson.

“No, I didn’t. I had someone do that for me.”

“Same thing. You’ve encroached on my territory, lady.”

The line went dead.

Gibson went to a drawer in the kitchen and took out a small toolbox. She spent five minutes taking the phone apart to see if it contained a listening or tracking device. It held neither. She put it back together again and checked her front door camera using her phone app.

At nine thirteen a hooded figure had come around one side of her house, placed the box on the front porch, and hurried off. She calculated the person’s height at five eight and weight at maybe 120, but that was iffy because of the bulky hoodie. Could have been a tall woman, or a small man.

She sat down at her kitchen table and stared at the reassembled phone before looking down at the butcher block table she’d bought from Wayfair with a signing bonus from ProEye.

Her life as a divorced woman with two young children had, up until today, been predictable and... safe. Her old job as a cop had been none of those things. For her kids’ sake she’d wanted to leave that old life, and she had. Then her new life had become... tedious. Now today had come along to deliver her kicking and screaming right back to her old life.

She rose and made sure every window and door was secure and then Gibson set the alarm system. She locked her gun away, grabbed the baseball bat that she’d used on the girls’ softball team in high school, and slept on the floor between her two kids. But she didn’t really sleep, because every sound in the house made her open her eyes and check for would-be murderers.

This is getting downright creepy. Should I tell Wilson Sullivan about this?

But if the police took over, she would be cut out of the investigation completely. And Sullivan might not believe her, even if she showed him the phone and the camera footage. If someone was going to threaten her family, she wanted to be in the loop and have an opportunity to do something about it. For all those reasons, Gibson decided to keep quiet for now.

She awoke with a start the next morning when she felt something on her face. She gripped the bat and was about to—

Tommy was stroking her cheek. “I hungry, Mommy.”

She blinked up at him, and looked around to see Darby staring at her from behind the side rail of her bed.

“Me too, Mommy,” Darby said. “Hu-un-gry.” She rubbed her belly.

Gibson eyed her watch. It was six thirty. She rose off the floor and took a moment to hold both her kids as tightly as she could.

If anything happened to them...

Tommy put his small hands squarely on his mother’s quivering cheeks and held her gaze. “Okay, Mommy?”

“Sure, honey, Mommy’s okay. Everything’s awesome.”

She changed Darby’s diaper, helped Tommy do his business with the toilet, cleaned them both up, and got them dressed. They filed downstairs, where she made them cereal and buttered toast, and poured out glasses of milk.

She watched them eat every bite, while she rubbed at her tired eyes and yawned and sucked down a cup of coffee like it was a shot of tequila. She had a babysitter come three days a week during the day to give her a break and allow her to work uninterrupted. Thankfully, this was one of those days.

The kids really liked Carol Silva. She was in her late twenties, tall and lean with thick dark hair and a toothy, perpetual smile, and she brought games and puzzles and other fun things for the kids to do. She was not really in Gibson’s budget, but the woman was worth every penny.

And when she arrived and took charge at eight o’clock, Gibson ran upstairs, showered in two minutes, and hit her computer. No delinquent billionaires today. Today was all about the dead Dan Pottinger.

And the anonymous woman on the phone.