VENGEANCE IS MINE

VENGEANCE IS MINE: THE FOLSOM CASE

Gay Toltl Kinman

GayToltl Kinman is a three-time Agatha Award Nominee (strange to see one of those in The Back Alley!), an Eppie Award Winner and a Derringer Award Nominee. She has published short stories in HandHeld Crime, Shots, Detective Mystery Stories, Futures, Crime and Suspense, and Mysterical-E. She has a Masters in Library Science, and a Juris Doctor, which makes her one mean lawyer in the stacks!

How's your hand?" Lara Chisolm asked.

"Hurts like hell. How can two fingers that are missing still hurt this much?" said Angie Shay. "Never mind, that's a rhetorical question."

Her blond hair swung around her ears as she shook her head.

"You said you had some wine chilling?" Lara opened the refrigerator.

"White zinfandel," Angie said as Lara pulled the wine out. "Opener's in that drawer,"

Angie pointed with her left hand, her bandaged right still rested on her kitchen table.

"Get the good glasses. They're in the dining room cabinet. The pink ones. To match the wine. They were my grandmother's."

Lara set the opened bottle on the table, then returned with two long-stemmed, antique crystal glasses.

"These are beauts," she said, holding one up to the light, turning it and looking through the rosebud pink glass. Then she set them on the table. She held one by the base and gently flicked a finger on it. It rang musically.

"Real crystal," she said as she poured the wine.

They clinked glasses.

"Good thing I'm a lefty, " Angie said looking at the wine glass she held with her good hand. "Now what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I've got an idea," Lara said. "I want us to open a P. I. Agency and call it Vengeance is Mine."

"As in, "sayeth the Lord?"

Lara touched her glass again to Angie's, "You got it, partner."

"We have to have some rules, this could go over the edge."

"Just happened to have paper here." Lara reached down into her briefcase, past her gun and her LAPD badge and pulled out the yellow pad. She brushed dark brown curly bangs that made her forehead itch in the July heat. She felt them instantly spring back.

"You're serious," Angie said, leaning back in her chair.

"Dead. Serious."

"What happened today? You were testifying in court, weren't you? Don't tell me. That slimeball got off."

"You got it in one." Lara drained her glass and poured another. "The scuzzy walked. I won't even tell you the details. I'm thinking of walking, too."

"Why, Lara? You've got ten years on."

"So do you."

Angie waved her bandaged hand, then flinched and set it gently back on the table. "I can't be a cop if I'm missing two fingers. I mean, not a real cop. Doesn't matter that I got shot in the line of duty."

"Thank God, you're a lefty because that's one scuzzy off the streets permanently."

"Amen to that."

"I didn't hear that they were making you pull the pin," Lara said.

"Might just as well. The Chief said I could have any desk job in the Department that I wanted. Even in his office."

"Ah, I get it. The operative words are desk job."

"Lara, I don't want to sit behind a desk. It would break my heart. Reading reports of what everyone out in the field is doing. I'm not going to catch any bad guys sitting at a desk. I'm ready, willing and able to hop back into our plain jane car at this very minute. I'm a street cop, and an Investigator. I'm not a desk jockey."

"Okay, okay, I get it."

"But you're still an Investigator. No one's making you take a desk job so why do you want to leave?"

"Think I lost something when you lost your two fingers, and especially now that I've lost you as my partner," Lara said.

Angie finished her wine. "You'll get another partner. A good one."

"Maybe," Lara filled Angie's glass.

"Let's do this," Angie said, "Work our first case or two, then you can decide if you still want to quit."

Lara played with the pen on the yellow pad. "I'll made a deal with you. If you stay, so will I. You can be a desk jock for LAPD, and an Investigator for V.I.M."

Angie laughed. Lara felt a weight off her chest that her friend and partner found a moment of merriment in her pain-filled week

"Clue me in about the business you've got in mind. I can tell you've been thinking about this a lot."

Lara nodded. "Basically what we're doing, only we work one case at a time not a file drawer full. I want us to be the resort for lost cases. I want us to balance the scales of justice when the police and courts aren't able to."

"Can't say a few people wouldn't welcome it," said Angie.

"Clem, Don and Racine said they'd come in with us. Part-time. They don't want to give up their day job."

"Whoa. You've already talked to them about this?"

"Been talking to them ever since you got hit. How to get the scuzzies off the street. They started telling me about all the cases where the victims' families wanted justice. And had no place to go. That's what gave me the idea."

"I see," said Angie. She poured the wine this time, emptying the bottle. "We've got to think this out, make strict rules, otherwise you're talking vigilantism."

"I want us to offer a thorough investigation, so we're sure we've got the right culprit. One hundred percent sure. If we're not, we walk away, give the client back the money. But we've got to charge a high fee. I'm talking really high. Our investigations will be more thorough than any police agency has time for."

"I like it," said Angie. "You're making me feel better already. Let's start writing up the rules."

Lara nodded. She looked at the empty wine bottle, picked it up and dumped it in the trash. "Thought I saw another one in there," she said as she opened the refrigerator again. "Ah, there you are, you can't escape."

"We'd better make those rules fast before we finish the second bottle."

So they did.

Toward midnight, Vengeance is Mine was born.

* * * * *

"You understand our rules, Mr. Folsom," said Lara.

"I know the rules," he said.

"Here is our contract and if you agree to the terms, then please sign."

Lara looked at the man as he wrote his name, his head was bent and she could see that his hair was thinning on top. Strike that. Thinned. The bones of his skull were hardly contained by the skin. When he faced her, there was a basset-hound look around his eyes. Justifiably so.

"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." Mr. Folsom read aloud from the sign on the wall as he pushed the contract and check toward her.

Lara nodded. "Someone has to help Him out."

Mr. Folsom pulled files from his briefcase. "Here are the police report, our statements, and my notes per your sheet of instructions. You already have the file boxes from the trial."

They shook hands. He hesitated for a moment as though he wanted to say something else. Then he left.

Lara went over the documents.

His daughter, Jeannie Folsom had a boyfriend, Kith Malpassant, who took her out to the desert, hacked her arms off with an axe and left her to die. She'd survived long enough to be rescued and to ID him.

Court trial, good lawyer, bad prosecutor, and he was out on the streets.

Lara guessed that Folsom's story would check out every which way and that the defendant was the real culprit. Still, they would do a thorough investigation to be sure he was.

The next item of business was to find Kith Malpassant. No surprise that he didn't conveniently leave a forwarding address when he was released from jail. But Angie would find him.

Jeannie Folsom had been a nice girl, cheerleader, and candy-striper who had just graduated from high school. Kith had been a year ahead of her in the same school.

* * * * *

"Okay, where are you with the arm hacker?" said Lara. They were seated at the small conference table in their office; the surface piled high with files and papers.

"His M.O. helped, not that he's done this to anyone else, but the pattern of his violence escalated with Jeannie Folsom. He's mixing illegal drugs and alcohol. I mean every illegal drug you know of."

"A volatile combo."

"None of this came out at the trial, suppressed as being too prejudicial. No shit."

"You found him?" Lara asked.

"You can read this guy like a map. He moved from Lancaster to Bakersfield, two desert towns. He's singing and playing the guitar in a Country-Western bar there, same as he did in Lancaster. No day job. He's got gals eating out of his hand, probably even giving him money, too. No wonder, he's got talent, nice looking, good pecs, never guess he's got sadism for brains. Yeah, I found him."

"Give me your personal take on him," Lara said.

"If I was seventeen and lived a sheltered life like Jeannie Folsom and liked country western music, yeah, I buy she went for him. Sexy guy. All veneer, as far as I can see."

"Your report says that he didn't follow the traditional pattern of the bad boy cycle of bed wetting, lighting fires, and torturing small animals.

"He's sure in that league, but he doesn't fit any of those known categories."

"His parents were older when they adopted him. Any sense that they were desperate to have a child or--"

"Got an interview here. A neighbor." Angie fingered through the file folders in her briefcase. "Yes, they were desperate to have a child, very religious, and adopted him when his parents, who belonged to their church, died in an accident. By the way, we can't blame that on him. I checked that out thoroughly. What's interesting is that Mom and Dad must have got over their desperation. He ran away at sixteen, and they didn't even file a missing person's report."

Lara laughed. "As though he'd be found. Guess they don't know the statistics on finding runaways."

"And they didn't offer to pay for his defense, let him go with a public defender."

"But they were in the courtroom," said Lara.

Angie shrugged. "Maybe they were hoping he'd be locked up for good. Got another neighbor who says he comes around occasionally. She thinks he hits them up for money."

"Were you able to interview them? There's not much in the court trial file."

"They're about as tight-lipped as you can get. They talked to me but didn't say anything. They might be worried about retaliation but my sense is they can't stand him, realized they made a big mistake in adopting him, and maybe list him as one of their sins in not being able to raise him Christian-like. What do you have?"

"Don, Clem and Racine's interviews and investigation pretty much tally up to the same thing. Even though his juvenile records are sealed, neighbors, schoolmates, storekeepers and a myriad of other people they've interviewed vented their feelings when asked about Kith Malpassant. They've even got one guy calling him King Sociopath. "

"Why should we be surprised," said Angie. "Look at what he did to Jeannie Folsom."

"With all the other investigation we've done, looks like this case is wrapping up nicely. I'll plan a V.I.M., set a date and let the guys know." Lara made notes in the case file.

"We've got two more cases?" said Angie.

Lara filled her in. "The Monroe case. Miss Ella Monroe claims her father was killed by his new wife. It's the old story, her father had money and his wife, Ella's mother had just died, so he was ripe for the pickings, she says. How did the new wife killed him? She doesn't know. Just that the new Mrs. Monroe did somehow, she is sure."

"So we'd be starting from scratch on that one? If there's been a murder committed, then whatever we find out we turn over to the D.A. for her to file charges. Give the culprit their day in court."

Lara nodded. "The second one is the Chu case. Mrs. Chu's daughter was killed by her abusive husband. He was acquitted in a criminal trial but skewered in a civil trial."

Lara saw the grim look in Angie's eyes. Angie had firsthand knowledge of an abusive husband, one of the reasons she became a police officer.

"Let's wrap up the Folsom case first, then we'll do the Monroe and the Chu cases. I don't want to spread us too thin." Lara said.

"Is that all we have on our plates right now?"

"I've got two more referrals. One from a sheriff and one from an attorney. I've scheduled appointments for the victims' families.

"What I'd love to do," she told Angie, "is to put the arm hacker, the murderer of the father / husband, and the batterer into one room and give them the "survivor" test. The person who comes out alive is the winner."

"Nope," Angie said. "We've got to follow the rules. The ones we made out originally. It's all about choices. The choices people make in life. One instant the guy is keeping the laws, then the next instant he makes a choice and he's on the other side of the law. That's what we discussed when we came up with the rules. Too easy for us to cross over the line, be law breakers, no better than the culprit we're investigating. I don't want that. That's not what you had in mind. The culprit has to make the choices. After all, he's the one who sets the whole chain reaction in motion, the case that we're were hired into."

She paused and reached for a file. "That brings me to another question. Are you ready to do this?"

Lara looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"This is our first case and we weren't going to do any vigilantism."

"You're the one who talked about choices. Aren't we giving him choices?"

"Not the choices he wants."

"You mean, one of his choices means he isn't going to be able to continue to hack other girls' arms off? He didn't give Jeannie Folsom the choices she wanted."

"Just want to make sure you're in 100%. This wasn't your idea of justice when you conceived V.I.M."

"Nor yours," said Lara. "I'm in." She held her hand up for a high five. Her left hand for Angie's left.

* * * * *

Kith Malpassant had just come back from a gig.

He went in and turned on a light. They followed.

"What! Who are you?" He backed toward the sofa.

There were five of them. She and Angie and their three colleagues, Clem, Don and Racine. They'd all put on leather and tattoos. Literally. And rode up on motorcycles. Just your friendly bikers making a neighborly visit.

He dived for the sofa and pulled out a rifle. He aimed at them and pulled the trigger. And kept pulling. They all listened to the clicks.

Then he came at them waving the butt end of the rifle, yelling, but five trained people were able to bring him down, slip plastic handcuffs on, and get him seated on the sofa within a few minutes.

Lara thought about the rifle aimed at her and how close she could have been to death if they hadn't searched the place first and took the rounds out of the rifle and the handgun in the bedroom.

Now they were standing in a half circle in front of him in the quiet and privacy of the living room of the not-so-cozy house Kith rented.

Lara had to write the report but she wasn't planning on adding any descriptors like the pile of pizza boxes and other fast food detritus littered everywhere, the smell of stale beer, rotting food, and other things she didn't even want to guess at. They should have worn gas masks.

"Who the hell are you and what do you mean by breaking in here?"

"We're private investigators," said Angie. "You're the last person we're going to interview for a case we're working on. The Folsom case."

"Hey, man, I was acquitted. you can't try me again." He waved his handcuffed fists at her.

"Actually we can. We're the court of last resort. So I need you to answer a few questions. Why did you do it?"

"I don't have to talk to you or anybody."

"In your deposition you said she kept clinging to you, wouldn't let you go. You took her for a ride and ended up in the desert. You wanted to convince her to leave you alone."

"She was stalking me. Everywhere I went she'd be there She came to the nightclub all the time. Told everyone we were engaged. It was worse than being in prison. I couldn't get away from her. She chased all the chicks away."

"According to her parents, she was home almost every night and only went to see you with her girlfriends a few times. I have those dates."

"Yeah, well, it was a lot more than a few." He glanced away and didn't look Angie in the eye anymore. He squirmed on the sofa like he had an uncomfortable seat belt on.

"But you do admit you hacked her arms off?"

"Man, she asked for it, always clinging to me. Her arms around me all the time. Always touching me. She didn't give me no choice."

"No choice," said Angie in a musing tone. "Which brings me to the reason we are here. You have three choices. That's three more than you gave Jeannie Folsom."

He sat on the maroon frayed sofa glaring at them.

"First choice is we take you out to the desert--the same spot--and hack your arms off like you did to Jeannie Folsom."

He looked at them, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.

"I don't like that one." He laughed. "What are the other choices?"

Angie dropped the rubber tubing onto the stained sofa beside him. "Second choice is pure H. You can shoot up. Be a happy camper when you go out."

Next she dropped a filled syringe in a baggie.

Don tipped the coffee table so that everything slid to the floor blending with the dirty clothes and other junk there. A cockroach scampered under the sofa.

Lara took out a bottle of Kith Malpassant's favorite liquor and poured a glass, setting them both on the table. She thought that drinking out of a glass in this house was probably a first for him.

"Your third choice is to take yourself out anyway you want," said Angie. "Now."

"You guys are all crazy," he said. "What are you anyhow?"

They said nothing.

"I guess I'll have a shot of tequila. You all oughta have some, improve your disposition, especially you chicks."

He laughed again, but there was no merriment in it. He put his hands around the neck of the bottle and offered it to Angie.

They still didn't respond.

"I don't like any of the choices. But what I want is you." He waved his glass in both hands at Angie. "Get rid of the others, and we'll party."

He inclined his head twice toward the back of the house.

No question Angie was drop dead gorgeous. Handling come-ons for her was a way of life. A little anomaly here as Lara knew he always went to the abode of his girlfriend du jour, never to his. In searching the house, Lara had seen the state of his bed. The mattress was as stained and oozing stuffing as the sofa, and just as rank on the sniff scale. He was probably hoping they hadn't found the gun.

"You have one minute to decide." Angie made a show of watching the time on her large-faced watch.

He threw the tequila back in one gulp, still eyeing Angie and grinning.

Lara thought she wouldn't be surprised if Angie pulled out her ankle gun and make him eat it--his fourth choice. But she knew Angie wouldn't do that.

He poured another tequila and downed it.

Lara placed a colored Polaroid of the bloodied and armless candy-striper Jeannie Folsom on the sticky table. She wondered how many lives of other girls they were saving.

Every ten seconds Lara put down another picture adding to the row on the table. The last one was a blowup of Jeannie in the morgue, color-enhanced. Vivid enough to make even Lara feel a little queasy.

"Your minute is up," said Angie.

Clem plugged in the chain saw and turned it on.

If Kith had any blood left in his face, it was now gone., and so was the smirk.

Lara noted that at first, he had looked like Mr. Macho, then his eyes went through the spectrum ending up like a mouse facing a cobra. He didn't care what he had done, Lara discerned, but realization that he wasn't going to get away with it did. Duh! He hit himself mentally on the forehead. Lara could see it in his eyes. He had to make a choice. He couldn't not do nothing. He couldn't sweet talk his way out of this one. His eyes darted as though trying not to look at the chain saw or them, now knowing there was no joke going on.

And Lara could also tell as his eyes cased his options that one of them was not the chain saw.

The whirr of the chain saw was definitely more menacing than an axe.

"It's all about choices and consequences. You made a choice then." Angie placed down the last picture of Jeannie, her high school graduation one. "And now you get to make another choice."

Clem revved the motor of the chain saw and advanced as though ready to do the first arm.

Kith snatched the bottle and gulped the tequila. He looked up at Clem.

Clem took another step forward.

Then Kith grabbed the tubing, and tied it with the flourish of an expert holding one end with his teeth. Then he reached for the syringe, tore it out of the baggie, and drove the plunger into the popped vein.

His eyes widened as the heroin gave him the first rush, and in a few moments his eyes closed. He went comatose. Pure H will do that.

Angie scooped up the pictures. Lara picked up the bottle and the glass. Clem unplugged the motor. Don took off the handcuffs, and picked up the baggie. The only prints on the syringe and tubing were Kith's. They were all wearing gloves.

Twenty-eight minutes later they left.

Racine, the last one through the door, turned out the lights.

The Folsom case was closed.

The End