'Yeah, well, nothing's going wrong,' Derrick retorted, clicking the
safety off his gun and pointing it at me. 'You're the one who leaves
people alive who are supposed to be dead, not me.'
'Stop! It's not supposed to happen till after eight!' Frank yelled.
Hearing they'd apparently penciled in my death for a specific time made
me dizzy. Luckily, I seemed to have found an ally in Frank. He fished
a dollar out of the front pocket of his jeans and asked if that would
work for both of them.
'Derrick, do you accept my representation?' I asked.
'Sure, what the fuck? Three times I went down, I wanted to kill my
lawyers. Guess I can fulfill my wish.'
I always wondered what it would be like to go into private practice.
This wasn't what I pictured, but I offered my advice anyway.
'Frank's got a free ride on anything that happened with Kendra Martin.
The trial started, so double jeopardy protects him. And there's no
physical evidence to link you to anything, Derrick. Not that I'm
saying you did anything, because I don't know that you did, of course.
And, on Zimmerman, two people have already been convicted, so that
pretty much creates reasonable doubt for anyone else the State tries to
charge down the line.'
He was thinking about it, I could tell. What I couldn't tell was
whether his brain was big enough to comprehend it all.
'Nice try,' he said, 'but you left out my fucking eyewitness over
here.'
'Your brother?' I asked. 'Frank's not going to turn you in, are you,
Frank?'
This pissed Derrick off for some reason. He said, 'I told you she was
full of shit, Frank. Don't pretend like you don't know what's going
on, bitch. My first mistake was letting Master Crime Fighter here live
when it turned out he was a DA and not some salesman from Idaho like he
said. Dumb and Dumber here meet each other in a chat room. So one day
Frankie tells me he knows a furniture salesman from Idaho who's willing
to pay big for a gang bang on a young' un We set him up with Jamie,
and next thing you know the girl's dead and, lo and behold, the
salesman's a DA. Should have killed you then, O'Donnell.'
'Frank's the one who killed her, Derrick, not me,' O'Donnell said.
'He's the one who got out of control. Luckiest thing that ever
happened to you was me being on call when her body was found. I got
you guys out of that jam, and I've been getting you out of this one.'
O'Donnell was getting Derrick riled up again. 'That's bullshit, man!
You helped yourself out on that first one, but now you've been screwing
us.'
'Tim, you were involved in this and then told Landry what to say?' I
asked, trying to follow the conversation between the two of them.
'That's how she knew everything about Jamie?'
'I don't know how she knew, Sam, I always assumed it was Forbes. But I
ran with it and got the convictions, didn't I, Derrick? And, even
though we were supposed to be even after that, I've been trying to help
Frank out ever since. When he got popped in Clackamas County, it was
me who told him to argue consent instead of that stupid alibi. And it
got him a damn good plea deal, didn't it? I've been trying to get him
out of this one, too. I used information from confidential police
databases to write those Long Hauler letters. Even tonight, I've done
everything you asked. You wanted me to leave a message for Sam, I did
it. I got you the alarm code. I've helped you.'
Tim obviously didn't care anymore about lying to me; he was doing
whatever he could to save himself before the Derringers killed me. His
pleas hadn't seemed to work.
'And now I'm under fucking indictment,' Derrick said. 'So it's time to
put this thing to rest.'
'What message? I didn't get any message.' I was frantically stalling
for time before they could implement whatever plan they had in mind.
'Yes, you did, and the police will find it with your bodies,' Derrick
said.
Frank went into the kitchen and pushed a button on my answering machine
with his knuckle. I heard Tim's voice say, 'Sam, it's Tim O'Donnell. I
just wanted to make sure we're still on for tonight to talk about the
case. If I don't hear from you, I'll be at your house around eight.
See ya.'
Frank came back in, looking very proud of himself. 'See,
Tim tells us that the FBI's waiting for the Long Hauler to make a big
splash. So he's going to come here tonight to kill you both.'
Derrick laughed. 'Yeah, Tim. Thanks for the imaginary friend. It was
brilliant. He'll take care of the two of you, and down the road we'll
take care of Haley and the Martin girl after we've turned them out for
a few more months. They'll just be a couple of dead prostitutes.'
