Comeuppance Pt. 02

There was a full pot waiting when Donnie and Elias showed up at eight the next morning with the two women. They walked toward the front door; he tapped on the window to catch Donnie's attention, gestured through the dining room window for them to come in the kitchen door, and added a fourth cup to the three sitting on the counter. As soon as they entered, he gestured toward the coffee pot.

They acknowledged one another with nods, but no one spoke. His uninvited guests looked nervous and a bit sheepish, while he maintained a neutral expression.

They took turns pouring and adding until each had the mix they wanted. He added a fifth chair to the kitchen table, took a seat, took a sip, and waited impassively.

"So you expected us?" Donnie asked after everyone was seated.

"I knew they would run to you, fill your head full of noise, and get you to intervene. I didn't expect the trooper, but I made fresh coffee because I figured you'd be here by eight. As usual, you're right on time."

"They did come see me after they left here yesterday, Jack. I called Elias, he came over, and they told us their stories. We believe you need to hear from them in person," Donnie said with conviction; Elias nodded firmly in agreement.

Jack picked up the briefcase beside his chair, opened it, and pulled out a large manila envelope. He unclasped it and laid a stack of 8x10 photos face down on the table. He turned the envelope upside down and two USB drives fell into his hand; he laid them on the table beside the photos.

Looking directly at Elias, then Donnie, he gestured toward the stack and said, "I have photos, video, and audio; I don't know how much more I care to know about their exploits."

"Don't you care WHY?" Donnie asked with feeling. "Okay, you know WHAT they did, but I would think the biggest question in your mind now would be, 'WHY did they do what they did?'

"In the law, motivation is a huge part of the evidence gathering and decision making process; it can damn the suspect or provide exculpatory evidence that exonerates, or partially exonerates, the suspect's actions!"

Jack looked around the table before settling his eyes back on Donnie. "Do you mean being drugged during the recruitment process, being blackmailed with the videos of the following debauchery, and having loved ones threatened with bodily harm if they didn't do as told? Yeah, I know about all that.

"The problem is, Donnie, from day one they've both shown a complete lack of respect for me. In spite of innumerable opportunities AFTER the initial events you reference, neither party bothered to tell me what was going on. They weren't drugged up, or being intimidated by someone every hour of every day from then until now, but not one call was made! Hell, not even one response to any of MY calls, emails, and texts!

"So, given their subsequent actions, how are the initial events exculpatory? If you drive a getaway car after a bank robbery while your child is being threatened with a gun in the back seat... sure, your motivation may be exculpatory. But when you willingly drive the same car for various and sundry bank robbers time after time, no child involved, and exclaim to the robbers that this is the most fun you've ever had, do you remain innocent?

"At what point does the initial coercion stop being exculpatory, Donny, if you willing keep committing the crime over and over again?"

April emotionally interjected, "We were trying to keep you safe! They showed us videos and described in detail what happened when other men tried to intervene! We only degraded ourselves to keep you safe! Those pictures are of us being selfless, not slutty!"

"Really? Let's insert this USB drive in the port on my laptop right here, and listen to you being selfless, shall we?"

"You don't understand!" his sister cried. "We were beaten at the slightest provocation, or sometimes just out of meanness, or for entertainment! We were given drugs, told what to say, how to act, what to do! They were very bad men - we were doing what we did to protect you!"

"Bad men, huh? Where are those 'bad men' today? Did you not believe I could and would protect the women in my life?"

"Okay, they were assassinated by terrorists, but that has nothing to do with what would have happened to you if we had told you..."

Janice's voice trailed off and puzzlement covered her face. She looked at Donnie, then Elias, and then at April, who was staring at her husband with wide-eyed disbelief.

"You?" she asked simply.

Jack looked at Donnie, then Elias, and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not sure what you're asking, but if you're asking if I killed those men - I've been questioned by local law enforcement, by state law enforcement, by the FBI, and by the Secret Service. My alibi has been checked and rechecked, it's airtight, and I've been eliminated as a suspect by every law enforcement agency involved."

A bit of a smile played around Donnie's mouth, and Elias turned his head away. April saw both, and a barely discernable hint of smugness on her husband's face. Janice continued staring at him, mouth open.

"Jack..." April began, "I... We... Well, fuck! How did you...?"

"What I know is what I heard on TV, and from local law enforcement, like this guy," he said, pointing to Elias. "The leaders of 'The Ring' were lured to deer blinds at The Reserve, down south of town. A woodsman stalked and killed them, and then disappeared into thin air, leaving no clues.

"As I said, I have an airtight alibi, substantiated by a half-dozen people, so don't try to pin their fate on me."

His words were spoken without undue emotion, but there was a smugness that the women who knew him best recognized. They stared at him in astonishment, and then turned to one another.

"We were fools," April said to Janice. "We should have known! We should have believed in him!"

"Brother, she's right! We were fools! Can you ever forgive us? I swear we were doing what we did to protect you! I don't care what you see and hear on the tape; we were only doing what we had to do!"

"Shall we cue it up, then? If that was all acting, April fakes cumming better than Meg Ryan in a restaurant," he replied without expression. "Makes me question whether I ever gave my own wife an orgasm."

Donnie quickly intervened. "Jack, can you give them thirty minutes each to tell their stories in their own ways, without asking questions or commenting? That's only an hour out of the rest of your life, and I don't believe that's too much to ask!"

"Tell you what, buddy. Let me play the tapes, we'll all watch and listen, and then we can decide among us just what them 'telling their stories' will accomplish. Sound fair?"

The women looked at one another, and stood as one. "What you hear and see is not what was really happening," April declared, "but I can tell you've made up your mind, so we'll go! Where I don't know, but we'll go!"

"What I hear and see on the tapes and videos is not what was really happening?" Jack interrupted indignantly. "Hearing you squeal and tell your lovers they fuck you so much better than your husband ever did, beg them to fuck your ass, and then suck their filthy cocks! That wasn't what was really happening, April?

"Having one in your mouth, another in your cunt, and another balls-deep in your ass wasn't really happening?

"Man, you're claiming a more elaborate deep-fake than the 1969 moon landing deniers claim, wouldn't you say?

"Know what I say? I say Bull-Fuckin-Shit!"

Janice screamed, "Damn it! We had no choice!"

"The fuck you didn't! You had choices from the minute you found out why you got hired! You could have snuck out and flown home! We'd of called the law and made a plan to protect you!

"Did you really think the city slickers on their payroll could come out here to the ranch and kill me if I knew they were coming?

"Think the sheriff, Elias, Donnie, and all our other friends would have meekly stood by and let them kill me, you, and April? You damn sure knew better than that!

"No, ex-sister-mine, you CHOSE to stay and become a whore for reasons I'll never understand!

"But that's not the reason I hate you! I hate you because you set April up, you piece of shit! YOU are responsible for MY WIFE becoming a whore, just like you!

"Don't fuckin' tell me you had no choice! All you had to do was warn her, or call me and tell me to bring her home, or both of you fly home on her credit card!

"Instead, you lured her into their clutches, helped them drug, fuck, and film her so she could lie on the bed beside you and wallow around with those nasty swine! THAT'S why I hate you!"

Jack paused, took a deep breath, lowered his voice, and harshly added, "As to the rest of the horse shit you two are peddling, I have hours of audio and video that prove both of you were willing partakers of the party drugs, and the sex that followed, and those are taken direct from the servers of The Ring! Shit, you ASKED for the drugs, before enthusiastically entertaining your Johns and/or your government pimps!"

Janice started to reply, but her brother talked right over her. "You and all that high-minded bullshit you espoused and spouted endlessly, Janice, about how wonderful those brilliant, powerful men are, and how devoted to the service and welfare of the country our amazing 'public servants' are!"

He snorted. "Still a true believer, Janice?"

His sister began crying even harder, but his wife was now irate.

"You have no right to say things like that! You have no idea what she went through! What I went through!

"I'll bet your tapes don't include all the time we spent crying and holding each other, or how broken we were when they told us you had been killed by a truck, and it was our fault because we weren't properly entertaining the clients they assigned us to!"

April broke down again, weeping with head in hands. Jack slapped his hand on the table and yelled, "And with me dead, the only thing keeping you in their service was gone, so you went to the FBI, or NYPD, or someone, anyone, and reported them, right April?"

With an anguished cry, she responded, "You know we didn't! We were broken! We just did what they told us to do after that."

He shook his head and turned away from her. "Donnie, did either of them call you to see about my funeral arrangements? Did they show up at the graveside services? No?" He snorted derisively. "But they loved me more than anything, right?"

"There's a saying - 'She who lies with swine only gets dirty.' Well, I've seen you lying with swine in living color, and I'll never feel anything but disgust for either of you!

"If you want to start over, do it somewhere upstate, or go back to DC and New York! I'm sure there are plenty more of those great and powerful wizards who will be happy to employ you in your old jobs!"

He grinned evilly. "Maybe there aren't as many as there used to be, but still plenty for two whores to make a good living!

"As to you two," he told Elias and Donnie, "if you want to help 'em, or fuck 'em, or whatever, just do it - I'm done with 'em! But the first thing you need to do is witness me serving these divorce papers to April, and the second is get them off my property!"

****

Jack rarely drank, and he never drank whiskey, but that night he did - Old Crow, straight from the bottle he kept unopened in the refrigerator ever since he got the first PI report. He hated his sister, he hated his wife, he hated their abusers, and he hated himself, so he tried to drink the hatred into oblivion.

The next morning he hated his weakness for getting drunk, his splitting headache, his nauseous stomach, and his hollowed-out soul.

The boiling rage that had driven him through the planning, execution, and aftermath of his mission had slowly morphed into a white-hot knot in his chest. That knot kept him focused through the endless questioning he endured as a suspect, and helped him suffer through those first confrontations with April and Janice.

Last night's whiskey hadn't put it out, but it reconfigured the knot enough that he only felt numb and dumb all day.

The knot, however, grew exponentially larger when April returned with Elias and Deputy Danny Ramirez at three that afternoon. She tried to act apologetic, but he could see the hint of a smirk when she handed him a temporary restraining order. The TRO allowed her onto HIS property and into HIS house, both of which he inherited long before he married the closet nymphomaniac!

It wasn't community property in the first place, and she had abandoned him long ago to go whore - what kind of judge would order her back in?

That reconfigured hatred encompassed Elias too, after Jack was snidely told his choices were, "You can obey the court order and be civil to April, you can leave, or you can be arrested for violation of the court order. What's it gonna be?"

Ramirez had the decency to look embarrassed, but Elias looked smug.

Jack realized that leaving or being arrested would mean April, and probably his former sister, could go through the house and loot it, or worse. He no longer trusted either, but allowing April to stay here overnight was preferable to being in jail. He could simply ignore her - surely that wouldn't be construed as being uncivil!

He would contact his attorney in San Antonio to get the temporary order lifted and maybe get her and Janice banned instead, but for tonight...

"Well, I guess with that court order I have to let her stay here, officers, but I do have a few questions," he stated in a cool voice. "First, since the land and home were willed to me by my GRANDPARENT'S, and are therefore not a part of our community property, what right does she have to be here?"

Elias aggressively answered, "Because a judge determined it was your domicile as a married couple, and so it remains until your divorce petition is heard."

"Okay, I think that's a crock, but, you need to know that I gave all her clothing, shoes, and supplies to the Salvation Army. She doesn't have a suitcase, so I assume she will be wearing these clothes until she leaves or they fall off."

This time the deputy answered, "The order states you have to give her access to her car; the BMW she always drove. She can go to town and buy more."

"Nope, that car was in my name, and I gave it to the Salvation Army too." Ramos and Ramirez looked pissed, but Jack just shrugged.

"Then you'll have to give her access to another vehicle," Elias stated firmly.

"Well, let's see; she could drive my diesel pickup or the dual-axle ranch truck, but both are 5-speed standards and she can't drive a standard. So she can walk, or maybe one or both of you boys can barter with her for a ride in return for a ride," he suggested with a bitter chuckle.

"I'm off tomorrow, April; I'll come get you and take you shopping. And there won't be any bartering!" Elias said with a sneer toward Jack.

They told her goodbye and turned to leave, but turned back when Jack asked, "Officer Ramos, Officer Ramirez, I'm curious. Can you explain how your duties include serving this order? Shouldn't it be a constable, rather than a State Trooper and a Deputy Sheriff? I'm sure my lawyer will want to know."

They both started to speak, but Jack interrupted in a stone-cold voice. "Don't bother; I can see how this is going to play out. So let me advise you: all the gates to this ranch will be locked from now on, and the next time you, or anyone else wearing a badge, proceeds past the NO TRESPASSING signs posted on the purple fence posts, you damn well better have a legitimate warrant, or there will be hell to pay!

"Am I clear, Officers? I wouldn't want there to be any misunderstandings between us, and someone get hurt."

Elias bowed up, but the deputy quickly replied, "Yes, Sir; we respect your right to privacy and your private property rights. However, if your wife calls and says you harmed her, we'll come through your fence, and we'll be loaded for bear!"

"She won't," Jack replied, "but if you do come through the fence, remember that I have all kind of traps laid for the drug runners that come through here. That warning is posted too. Amazing what you can learn to build on the internet!"

Elias grabbed him by the arm and tugged. "Let's go! Fuck this pendejo!"

April also had her huff on, but she was wise enough to keep her distance. The man she married was a sweetheart who would never hurt her, but the man who killed seven people and got away scot-free was in the same house with her now.

Her actions and those of his sister had seemingly sucked the soul out of him, and she didn't doubt his words of yesterday - she meant nothing more to him now than the senators and the other powerful and well-connected scum who had used her and his sister.

She also knew if anyone drove past his locked gates or through his fences, there would be a hellacious battle, no matter how many lawmen came. He was mortally pissed, and when he was this angry, he was remorseless and relentless!

Jack had always been an I O guy; she knew that as well as anyone. You did what you should do, or you didn't. If you didn't, he simply stopped associating with you, whether in business or socially. He wasn't interested in explanations or reasons.

In his eyes, she and Janice had not done what they should have. That they did what they did out of love for him and fear for his life was not, and would not become, a factor for further consideration.

"Excuses" she had heard him proclaim too many times when people tried to explain an improper action.

And so, while he talked on his phone on the porch, she moved around quietly noting all the changes that had been made to the house, including new windows, doors, and walls. All the rooms except the guest room she was staying in and the master suite were locked; she snuck in what had been their bedroom and discovered that her things really were gone!

There was no sign of her presence in the house: no clothes, no pictures, no furniture she had a hand in choosing - even the dishes and dinnerware were different! She had been effectively eliminated from the house and from his life. She leaned on a wall, and wept.

When she stopped crying, she realized just how badly she needed a bath. She found a beach towel to wrap around herself while she washed the well-traveled and lived-in jeans, blouse, and underthings, hoping she would feel better when she couldn't smell herself so strongly.

They should have brought some of the clothes they had worn in Washington, but neither could stand the idea of bringing their 'escort' clothes back home to Jack. Tomorrow she would get Elias to take her and Janice to the Laredo mall to buy decent clothes. The new clothes, though, would have to be bought with their whore earnings because Jack had removed her from their accounts.

She heard Jack's happy laughter as she made her way to the bathroom and hoped that meant his rage had subsided. Maybe, just maybe, being in the same house would...

NO, she couldn't let herself hope! She had lived without hope for so long, trying to protect herself - she couldn't get weak now - Jack was not going to relent!

When she finally got out of the bathtub, she dried off and wrapped herself in the big towel, and then moved her wet clothes to the washer. Along the hallway to the laundry room she noticed that the inside of the exterior walls of the old concrete-block house had been covered in something smooth, and then painted. The walls seemed thicker, especially near the floor, and the new windows seemed more deeply recessed.

The window glass was lightly tinted, and the late afternoon sun created prisms in the glass, unlike anything she'd seen. 'What would cause that?' she asked herself. Now alerted to the changes, she made another round and inspected the open rooms and hallways more carefully.