STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2) (4 page)

BOOK: STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2)
7.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

 

 

 

5

__________

 

V
irgil
left Cora and Bradley and carried his broken fishing pole and medical supplies
back up to the house. When he walked inside he heard Sandy as she moved about between
the bedroom and the bathroom. He set the pole on the countertop that separated
the kitchen from the living room then placed the medical supplies into the
refrigerator. When Sandy came around the corner her blonde hair was still wet
from the shower, slicked back across her head. She walked over and got up on
her toes and kissed Virgil.

“I was getting ready to come out
and sit with you, but then I saw Cora and Pearson pull in. What did they want?”

Sandy was employed by the Indiana
Law Enforcement Academy as their Director of Training. Prior to that she worked
for Virgil as a field investigator for the MCU. She transferred to her current
position after Cora discovered they were dating. She would have taken the job
anyway, but the way it was handled still rubbed Virgil wrong when he thought
about it. He pulled out two stools from under the counter and sat down. “Can we
talk for a minute?”

“Sure. Don’t want to be late for
your appointment, though.”

“We’ll be okay.”

Sandy sat down next to him. “What
is it? What did Cora have to say?”

“Plenty.”

“What do you mean?”

Virgil removed his hat, set it on
the counter and ran his fingers through his hair. “Cora came for my badge,
Sandy. She brought Pearson as her witness.”

Virgil watched Sandy’s lips start
to move, but she didn’t speak. Her face turned red and after a few seconds she
stood and looked out the front window toward the drive. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sandy, wait. Don’t do anything.
There’s more I need to tell—”

But she had already stopped
listening. She cinched her robe tight and walked barefoot out the front door.
By the time Virgil made it to the porch she was halfway down the front drive
waving her arms at Cora and Pearson as they backed out toward the road. They
were far enough down the drive that Virgil couldn’t make out what she was saying,
but he didn’t need to. Sandy was bent forward from her waist and was leaning almost
all the way into the car, her finger pointed directly at Cora. The glare at the
top of the windshield prevented Virgil from seeing the look on Cora’s face, but
he could see her hands on the steering wheel and it looked like if she gripped
it any tighter it might snap in half with the same ease as the cane pole after
Pearson’s misstep. After a few seconds Sandy stepped back from the car, pointed
to the road, then stood with her hands on her hips until Cora backed the rest
of the way out and drove away.

When she stepped up onto the front
porch the bathrobe slipped open just enough to expose the swell of her breasts
and the light sprinkle of freckles across her chest. They went back inside and all
Virgil really wanted to do was take her to the bedroom and make love to her…to
tell her of his conversation with his dead father…to ask her to help pull
himself up from the depths of a place in which he sank a little lower with the
passage of every waking hour. But none of that happened. “I wish you hadn’t
done that,” he said.

“What? Why on earth not?”

Before he could answer, Sandy
noticed the cane pole in pieces on the counter. “Oh, Virgil. What happened?”

“Pearson broke it. It was an
accident, I’m sure. You’re the best, baby. You know that, don’t you?”

He’d hoped to make her smile, to
somehow lighten the load he had managed to put them under, but it didn’t work. “What
are we going to do, Virgil?”

Good question
. “About what?”
Virgil said with a feigned indifference. Even as he said it, he knew his
cavalier, drug–induced attitude had broken the moment. He watched the hurt,
frustration and embarrassment as it played across Sandy’s face. Then, without
saying a word she walked into the bedroom and closed the door, leaving him alone
in the kitchen with a bottle of pills, a busted fishing pole, and a ruined
career.

 

__________

 

 

An hour later, they
rode
to
the hospital in complete silence. When they pulled to a stop in the parking
lot, Virgil shut the engine off and turned toward Sandy. She wore a lightweight
dress that matched her blue eyes along with square-toed, short-heeled cowboy
boots. The dress hung above her knees, the fabric tight across her breasts and
loose around her hips. It was a perfected look and it had a tendency to turn a
few heads. Virgil wore jeans with a hole in one knee, a cartoon T-shirt and
flip-flops. That turned a few heads as well, though for entirely different
reasons. “What did you say to Cora?”

“Nothing that she didn’t already
know,” Sandy said.

“I’m not sure I know what that
means.”

Sandy huffed. “It means you think
she walks on water but I’ve always thought she’s just another administrator who
watches out for herself above all others. Look what happened when she found out
we were dating.”

“It seems to have all worked out.”

Sandy shook her head. “Has it? I
changed jobs, a change that I’d be the first to admit was something I’d been
thinking about anyway, but it ended up being something I was forced into so you
and I could get on with our lives. Except you were almost killed and now you’re
hooked on pain medicine. How is that ‘working out,’ exactly?”

Virgil ignored her remark about the
pills. “You still haven’t answered me. What did you say to her?”

“When I was venting or trying to
communicate?”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“No. They’re not. When I was
venting I’m pretty sure I referenced the size of her ass.”

“I see. And after that?”

“I told her that she’d just lost
the best thing that’s ever happened to her.”

Virgil reached over and took hold
of Sandy’s hand. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you or cause you
any embarrassment.”

She pulled her hand away and waved
it in the air. “It’s not that. That’s not what upsets me. God, Jonesy, where is
your head?”

“Then what is it?”

She turned and looked out the
passenger window as she spoke. “It’s what she said back to me. I told her she’d
just lost the best thing that’s ever happened to her and she looks me straight
in the eye and says if I don’t get you off those pills then she and I will have
more in common than either of us wants. I’m scared, Virgil. I’ve never been
this scared in my entire life.”

 

 

__________

 

 

Virgil thought it odd
that
the doctor
had ordered the removal of the PICC line at the hospital instead of the office
until he discovered that the doctor would not be the one removing the line. They
had been waiting for almost half an hour when a nurse came into the room. She
wore plain green scrubs with white tennis shoes, had a stethoscope around her
neck and her hospital I.D. badge clipped low on a side pocket. Virgil guessed
her age to be about twenty years younger than he was which would put her somewhere
in her early twenties. Her hair was short and choppy and looked like she spent
a considerable amount of time in an effort to make it look like she’d just
rolled out of bed. Her eyes were clear and brown and her teeth were perfect. When
she saw Virgil sitting on the hospital bed she stopped in her tracks and when
she did, her shoes made a little double squeak on the floor. The sum total of
her greeting went like this: “You’re supposed to be wearing a gown.” She
sounded bored; her voice dull and flat like a butter knife at the back of the
drawer…if a butter knife could sound dull and flat, that is.

When Virgil didn’t immediately
reply, she shrugged her shoulders and pulled a gown from the cabinet next to
the bed. “Slip into this. I’ll be back in a minute.” She looked at Sandy, pointed
an index finger her way and said, “No funny business.”

After she left the room Sandy said,
“Maybe she was here last time we were.”

Virgil smiled at her and then changed
into the gown after the nurse left…then they waited another half hour. When the
nurse came back in Virgil made the mistake of asking her if a doctor might be
available to handle the removal of the line. She rolled her eyes, put her hands
on her hips and spent the next five minutes explaining her qualifications and
training. When she finished, she looked at him and said, “So, okay if I pull
the line now?”

Virgil may have been half stoned on
morphine, but he wasn’t an idiot. “Absolutely,” he said.

The nurse pulled the tape from the
entry point—a little harder than necessary—then cleaned the area
with rubbing alcohol. She told him to hold still even though he wasn’t moving and
slowly began to extract the line. It was an unusual sensation. Not painful, but
he could feel the line snake away from his heart and through his chest. The
tube was longer than he thought it would be. She pulled it out with one slow
and steady motion and by the time it was all the way out her arm was almost
fully extended.

After she cleaned the entry point
again, the nurse put a bandage over the area and told him to keep it dry for a
couple of days. Virgil said he would, then asked, “Is that it then? Can we go?”

“Not yet,” the nurse said. “I’ve
got to do the paper. Just a couple of questions. Are you currently on any
medication?”

Virgil kept his head still, but his
eyes slid over toward Sandy. “Yeah, I’m on some pain medication.”

“Still hurts, huh?”

“You could say that.”

“I know
I
could say that,”
the nurse said, “but what would
you
say? Where do you rate your pain on
a scale of one to ten?”

“I thought we were just going to
pull the line and then I could go.”

She stared at him without
answering. Sandy stood from her chair and said, “I’m going to wait outside. Can
I have the keys to the truck?”

“Sure,” Virgil said. “They’re in
the pocket of my jeans. I think we’re almost done here though. Why don’t you
wait for me?”

Sandy pulled the keys from the
pocket of his pants as if she hadn’t heard him, then said, “See you outside.”

The nurse looked at Virgil. “So, as
I was saying, on a scale of one to ten…”

 

__________

 

 

Sandy was waiting for
him
in the parking lot. They got in the truck and as Virgil was about to
start the engine, she reached over and took hold of his hand. He let the keys
dangle in the ignition and looked at her. “What?”

She dropped her head a little and
looked over the top of her sunglasses. “You’re going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s something that
you’re not telling me.”

Virgil gave her his best
‘everything is all right’ smile, but it had no effect. “Okay. Here it is.
You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I had an interesting conversation this
morning.”

“You mean with Pearson and Cora?”

“Not exactly. It was just before
they showed up.”

“Someone else came over?”

“You could say that.” He took a
deep breath and let it out. “I spoke with my dad today, Sandy. He was standing
under the willow tree. I looked over and he was just…there.”


What?

“Just hear me out, will you? Jesus,
I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’ve got this buzzing in my head…I don’t know
how to explain it. I was just sitting there. I had a line in the pond and I was
letting the Vanco run through me and when I looked over at the willow tree, he
was standing there. He was sort of hidden behind a few of the branches and when
he saw me, or when he noticed that I saw him, he moved just enough so I could
see him clearly. He was
there
. I don’t know what it means, but the
buzzing in my head was gone while we spoke to each other.”

Sandy leaned forward, her elbows on
her thighs and put her face in her hands. After a few seconds she raised her
head and looked at Virgil like he was a stranger. “I can’t do this, Virgil.
You’ve got to stop. Do you hear me? You have to stop. I just can’t do it.”

 

__________

 

 

If the ride to the hospital
was one of strained
silence—and it was—the ride back was like a vacuum. When they
pulled into the drive and up toward the house, Sandy looked at him and said,
“What are you going to do?”

Before Mason died, he and Virgil owned
a downtown tavern called Jonesy’s. It is Jamaican themed and one of the most
popular bars in the city, if not the state. When Virgil spoke, he did so with
little care or forethought. “I’ve got to go down to the bar.”

Sandy gave him a deliberate look.
“That’s not what I meant. And you know what else? I think you know it.” She
hung her head and let it sway back and forth. “What I meant, Virgil, is what
are you going to do about
you
? God, Jonesy, where are you? Where is the
man I fell in love with? I’ll tell you something…he’s not here right now. In
fact, I haven’t seen him for weeks.”

“Hey, Sandy, come on now. That’s
not exactly fair. I’m right—”

Sandy opened her door and got out
of the truck. When she turned back her face was red and the wind blew her hair
across the corners of her mouth. “Don’t you say it. Don’t you dare try to tell
me you’re right here, because you’re not. Your body is here, but your mind?
Your spirit and your soul? They’re someplace else. I think they’re living in
that pill bottle you carry round in your pocket. I don’t fit in a bottle,
Virgil. I never thought you did, either.” She slammed the door of the truck and
started to walk away, but just as quick she turned around and yanked the door
back open. “I’ll never leave you, Virgil. Never. Not after what we’ve been
through. But let me ask you something. How do you think it feels to know that
right now, right this very minute, of the two of us, I’m the only one who can honestly
say that?”

BOOK: STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2)
7.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Montana Wild by Hall, Roni
Thief by Mark Sullivan
Earthquake by Kathleen Duey
Tell Tale by Mark Sennen
Winter and Night by S.J. Rozan
Intentional Dissonance by pleasefindthis, Thomas, Iain S.
Cuba 15 by Nancy Osa
Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville