Judge

++Numbness. She kept numbing the pain. Mary Jane and booze were familiar friends who had always been there when she needed a fix the most. Bad habits came easily. She sat idle. Which seemed an odd idea for a woman who was desperate to find her daughter released. The library at home was her paper cocoon. A half-drunk bottle of Jack Daniel's sat nearby, cap screwed off, lying to the side. She was sorting through papers as the glow of the fire cast a long shadow. Sarah. Why did it have to lead back to her? He decided that I deserved a better taste of bitter poison. Suddenly, through the gloom, she found something interesting. She pulled out her cellphone and speed dialed an associate++

 

“Thomas? I know it’s late and off pay, but do you have access to her birth certificate. I…I think I found something interesting that we had all overlooked.” She casually lit a clove cigarette and waited patiently as Thomas shook the cobwebs loose and became present in the moment.

 

“I do. I had been studying it and the rest of the family. Why? What have you found?” His voice was curious and attentive. She could hear him shuffling pages and getting himself sorted. 

 

“If the date on the birth certificate is right, that means Joe can’t be the Father. He was wrestling stateside. I literally have him in New Mexico doing a six-day job. He was in Arizona the night after. Tommy. Joe isn’t her dad. Emily had a fling. She cheated on him.” She thumped her index finger against the wrestling poster she was reading off of. Her eyes darted between the poster and the birth certificate. She heard Thomas gasp when he heard the discovery. 

 

“How curious. We can work with this. This is good, very good. Now we just need to put all the other pieces in place. God damn your brilliance.”

 

“I need your best on this one. I expect someone heading to Mexico by morning. Time is against us. We need to figure this shit out fast. It could actually harm Drago in some way or at least help us look serious.” Her chest heaved with slow, methodical breaths as the hearing of the word “harm” set of a dopamine hit. She shivered with satisfaction, her skin tingling.

 

“Absolutely, Elizabeth. Only my best. This is big. That is…” His voice trailed off like the fluttering of butterflies. Silent. Elizabeth exhaled, deeply, seemingly devoid of opinion. Then a sharp inhale as she returned to this universal plane. 

 

“That is…a very big secret to take to the fucking grave. I know she didn’t plan to get cancer and leave the mortal plane so quickly, but it seems the universe decided that her secret was so scandalous that it needed to potentially die along with her. This is fucking delicious. It just drips with honey-tasting sweetness. Like absinthe on the more delicate tongue…” The S in absinthe hissed as she finished her sentence. She ashed the clove and took a deep drag. 

 

“Jesus Christ, Lizzy. This treads in some shark-infested waters though. We need to be careful. We are sitting on a time bomb. This could have some very far-reaching effects, so we need to be choosy in who we reach out to for information. We’re going to be paying off some very pricey I.O.Us on this.” His composure quickly returning, he cleared his throat and casually shifted into a more professional tone. He listened to Elizabeth exhale the smoke. 

 

“Agreed. Would you do me a favor and read my Father in on this as well? I can’t be the one. We cannot accidentally tip up pricked ears off and start a war. I have to never be exposed.” Being exposed would have made her a dead sitting duck. It’s easier to eliminate one single witness than say 10. She shook her head, trying to shake the visual away. Her hands were nervous, jerking even as the adrenaline was pumping hard through her veins. She balled a fist with both hands, forgetting her fingers and nails were still healing, so a pain stimulus wasn’t possible. Pressure. Good enough.

 

“I’m going to hang up and start the process going. I’ll update by noon.” His thumb hovered over the end call. Shaking a little. 

 

“Excellent. Talk to you at lunch.” She hung up and set the phone down, exhaling sharply, trying to come down from the high. Grinning ear to ear.

 

“Gotcha.”

 

Jury

“Mrs. O’Rourke, my heart aches for you, but the length of time that transpired before officials were contacted is almost criminal. I’m not blaming you; what you were dealing with is more than understandable. I just don’t understand.” The officer shifted a little. He seemed uncomfortable having to work a case like this. 

 

“Who DID call? Do you know?” She was monotone, sitting in the psych ward, in her room. Two detectives sat across from her, the door open.

 

“Someone named Tabitha. She gave a statement as well. She was a big help. It’s just a shame everyone thought someone else called. By the time we got here…” His voice trailed off. Dust scattered to the wind. Elizabeth was almost catatonic, full of sedatives and antipsychotics. She sat cross-legged on the bed, rocking back and forth gently, stimming to help get this over with. 

 

“I owe her one. Look, gentlemen, I have told you everything I remember. I’m tired.  Believe me when I say I wish I could help more. I want more than anything to help, but I’ve told you all I know. I’m sorry. So very sorry.” She sat flexing her toes in the yellow grippy socks, rubbing the bottom of her feet. Pitiful. 

 

“You’ve been through a lot. If you want, we can come back later in the week, and maybe you’ll be in better shape mentally?” His face softened, a father himself. Elizabeth’s head bowed, shaking it side to side in disgust. She heard him sigh as he got up to leave; he and his partner left quietly. As they started their way down the hall, he interjected.

 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s in on it. Wouldn’t be the first time she pulled some smoke and mirrors bullshit.” He sneered. Closing his notepad and turning to their partner. 

 

“What are you on about?” They checked out at the nurse's desk and made their way to the elevator down the hall. 

 

“That’s old Lizzy Devereaoux. She got away scot-free in the murder of her ex-husband. All the proof was circumstantial. They could never put the gun in her hands or a smoking gun on what she did to make him pull the trigger himself. Old black widow herself.” On the ride down, they exchanged a look. The kind that openly asks for more information. 

 

“So you’re telling me that woman killed her ex-husband? And now her daughter is missing?” His head tilted to the side like an owl, a curious look on his face.

 

“As sure as I am standing here, she’s a black widow. I used to work out that way when I first joined the force. The whole thing went down my last month in the academy. They teach her case in a few of the classes.” He shook his head knowingly. His partner just exhaled hard.

 

“Jesus. She looks pathetic in there. THAT woman got off on murder?” His face contorted. Equal parts confusion and disbelief. 

 

“Time hasn’t been kind to her. Whatever she did, she’s paying for it. Now this. If she’s truly a victim this time, someone seems to have decided she needed the taste of her own medicine. She looks like less than half the woman she used to be. That woman in there is defeated. A shadow of herself.” He sighed, suddenly ashamed her said what he did earlier. He had been a cop long enough to know when the only danger she posed was to herself and only herself. His partner chimed in.

 

“Hey, let’s just hope we’re the only ones who know this cause if it gets out, they will fuck this whole case up. I want to see this missing persons case solved with a happy ending.” His mind immediately went back to a different case, to a recent case that is still unsolved. A shiver went down his spine knowing the time to find that victim alive had recently passed. Now this and due to human error, the same precious time they needed was withheld. As they left the building and reached their car, he looked up to the floor they had just been on and a shudder went down his back.

 

“What rotten luck.”

Executioner

“It was just business.” A light strikes, bringing a modicum of hope to the utterly dark hell. It sits a second, held stationary, then tilts, and the end of a joint sparks to life. The fine edges glow with burning sparks of life as she inhales. She snaps her fingers, and a lightbulb turns on overhead. Low-watt, casting a long shadow. She exhales the Mary Jane, and the smoke trails upwards, gently floating. 

 

“Sometimes business gets messy.” The bulb swayed gently back and forth like an illuminated metronome. She seemed to sway with it once in a while. She sat backwards on a chair, her hands on either side of the corners, rubbing back and forth. 

 

“Know where I am? I imagine you squinting and looking from different angles. You swear you recognize it, but then you need another angle. It’s seeping in, isn’t it?” She traced the line of the chair from corner to corner, her fingertip gently following in a line back and forth.

 

“I’m not going to apologize. My husband can be a crazy son of a bitch at times. It’s one of the things I like about him. I won’t patronize you by pretending I’m sorry. What I will do is say you are welcome to me putting someone in on the situation who knew what to do and when to pull the plug. That young woman is a very prized asset. What my husband did was reprehensible, but I think I know what to do better than you do. Say what you like about my actions. I won’t lose sleep about it.” She brushed off her shoulder, visually adding disrespect to what she said. She took a hit and chuckled to herself. 

 

“The irony isn’t lost on me, though, Steve. You’re right. Everything you said?  Right. I’m at times a disturbing member of society and others? I’m so pitiful that your heartstrings strike a broken hymn. Right now, out of everyone's sympathy, do I least deserve yours? I would never even ask. To do so would bring me shame.” She reaches up and halts the swaying of the bulb. Her hand trembled in the faint light, no longer trying to hide it. 

 

“You can say one thing though, Steve, I made you interesting with my bullshit. Real interesting. I kind of delighted when I saw the booking sheet and saw they decided it was time to revisit what we did to you all in reference to the current situation. I know what they are doing, and I can’t say if I was the booker man I wouldn’t want to do the same. Controversy creates cash, my friend, no matter who you are or what you did. Cheap heat ratings. Let some podcasts point it out. Rehash it all until something better comes along or a juicy update comes down the line.”

 

“Do I deserve this, Steve? Oh yes. A thousand times over, yes. I never said I was a good guy; I have moments, glimmers if you will, of a decent human being. Flashes of being a role model. Then there are the bad habits. The times when I’m everything that’s wrong with humanity. I am the example of a train wreck and white trash. I embarrass myself and then pass it off as nothing. Right here? Where we are? You should be delighting in finally being able to get your hands on me, seeing as I was too high for you to touch before. Now here we are on the same playing field.” 

 

“You can finally get your hands on me, and I expect no measure of pity. The beating you owe me is well earned. I did what I did. I got involved. I knew it was in wrong, but it was a choice I made for love. Now I know THAT is something you and I do have in common: the things we will do for love. If anyone hurt your son, that was on you, Steve. You hurt him first. That wound is always a deep one. As he gets older, what I did will eventually soften, and he will let it go, but what YOU did? Deep.”

 

“By the way, Steve, in case you hadn’t figured it out. I’m in the root cellar. Yes that one. This business between you and I? It’s Dirty. I say we go and fucking fight about it? I’m not sorry. Don’t intend to be sorry anytime in the future. What I do feel is blind rage. There’s no respect between us, so don’t expect any. Expect me to come out swing stiff and buddy? Get your licks in because looking at where I am in the grand scheme of things and looking at you, this may be the only chance you will ever get to settle old debts and Steve I WANT you to settle them. Make me pay. Make it count. Maybe your kid will start to admire you.”

 

“Or at least you’ll finally be interesting enough for a few weeks, right? Ride the wave Steve. Glad to be of service.”