Chapter 16 #3
“I heard it,” Reese said on the phone. “I’m working on it right now. Hold tight.”
Kate heard Reese punching away on her keyboard, as Kate returned her attention to Oscar. “Where else?”
“I don’t know anywhere else.… I can’t believe that she would even go there.”
“Why?”
“Because she doesn’t like fighting,” Oscar said in confusion. “She’s told me time and time again that she doesn’t want any more fighting.”
“Are you sure about that? Or has she told you time and time again that if women were allowed to fight , it would be a different story?”
The color drained from his face as he stared at her.
Kate nodded. “I couldn’t understand what was going on, unless this was about somebody either handicapped, or in really bad shape or something, but the fact that the killer is a woman?… That makes it a whole lot clearer.”
“Makes what clearer?” Oscar asked, still in total denial.
“We have multiple beating victims,” she snapped at him.
“Beaten to death and dumped into the water. Maybe a couple of them drowned rather than being beaten to death. Most had massive head trauma,” she shared, “but we couldn’t understand why.
Like what was the purpose of fighting these people when they clearly weren’t in any shape to fight?
These were all just businessmen, heading off on trips around the world for their companies. ”
He stared at her, speechless.
Kate nodded. “It’s all falling into place for you now, isn’t it?”
“I hope not,” he whispered, his tone revealing his agony.
“I really hope not. She idolized her stepfather. The minute she found out about all the fighting, that was the only thing on her mind. It was something she could do, and she could do it better than anybody. We kept telling her that there was a market for women’s fighting, but it wasn’t quite the same as for men.
Times have changed now, but she’s past it in a way. ”
“Past it in a way, why?” Kate asked.
“Well,… she’s that much older. The fighting is geared for the younger people.”
“But did she accept that?”
“Yes, she did. She took…” He gasped.
“Out with it, Oscar.”
“She took a really severe beating because she challenged somebody publicly and humiliated him. So he took her out in the back alleyway and beat the crap out of her. Honestly, almost all the guys were on his side because she’d been such a shit to him.
The fact that he did it in the alleyway meant that he already knew what he was doing was 100 percent wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself, apparently,” Oscar said.
“Right, he couldn’t stop himself?” She scoffed at that, adding an eye roll. “And how was she afterward?”
“Fine,” he automatically replied, but then he winced. “At least somewhat fine. Fine,… but not fine.”
“Make up your damn mind.”
“It’s not that easy,” he roared. “This is my family.”
“Yeah, and what about all the men who are dead because of Tamzen?” Kate snapped, glaring at him. “What about their families?”
“She wouldn’t kill anybody,” he muttered, with a headshake.
“No way. She went back and forth over the fighting after that. Sometimes she would think it was beneficial and a great sport. Then other times she would be all kinds of against it all. Probably depending on how she felt that day,” he added, looking at Kate oddly.
“Sure,” she snapped. “I get that. One day it’s good. One day it’s bad. And how much of that is about Tamzen’s medical condition?”
“That’s the problem,” Oscar shared. “Not just her brother is having the decline. Tamzen was in a severe coma for a long time after that beating. When she came out, it was all about setting up her own gym and doing all this stuff. But the damage was already there, was already done, but it’s like she’s forgotten.
Even now sometimes, she forgets things. One time she even asked me about where Oliver was, and he’s been out of it for a decade now. ”
“What’s her relationship like with Tambo?” Kate asked.
“They need each other,” Oscar stated. “Without that kinship, I don’t know where either of them will be.”
“Prison for one of them,” Kate declared, her mind suddenly clicking with possible answers. “Do you think that, if she gave Tambo a good-enough reason, would he have helped her kill these men, dispose of these men?”
“Absolutely,” Oscar muttered. “I don’t know what that good reason would be, but he would absolutely help her. If she told her brother that some guy jumped her and tried to attack her, Tambo would have suggested dumping him in a heartbeat.” Then he stopped and swore.
“What? Come on, Oscar. Tell me.”
“Tambo has dumped somebody in the river before.” Oscar held his face in his hands. “Oh my God,” he muttered.
“Where was that?”
“It wasn’t all that far from here, just down at the harbor. He used to go there to swim, and somebody gave him a hard time one day. Tambo lost it. Anyway he jumped the guy, then dumped him in the river and walked away.”
“What happened then?”
“He lived. Otherwise… Tambo probably would have been in trouble.”
She faced him straight on. “Do you know for a fact this guy lived?”
He frowned at her and shrugged. “No, but that’s what they told me.”
“And would that have been the truth?”
He paled visibly. “I hope so.… They’re both subject to uncomfortable rages every once in a while. But it’s been much better with the medication.”
She nodded. “Has Tamzen felt more empowered lately? Has she felt more stable?”
“ Empowered , that’s a good word for it,” he said, with a smile. “She’s been taking classes to help build up her confidence again, and she’s,… as you can tell, she’s really, really balanced now.”
“ Balanced ?” Kate snapped. “How about a teakettle ready to blow? A cork ready to pop? Choose whatever analogy you want, but I don’t think stable or balanced is the right word.”
“Do you really think she’s done something to hurt these people?” he asked, with a quiver in his tone.
“ Hurt ? How about murdered? Yes, I do,” Kate snapped, “and I know for a fact that she called me to boast how she has my partner.” When Oscar just slumped against the door and stared at her, she asked, “And what about you? Did you ever have anything to do with this street fighting?”
“Early on, but it wasn’t my thing,” he said. “I told you that already. I didn’t like getting the crap beaten out of me. I didn’t like dealing with any of that.”
“Okay, so how did they all get back into it? I thought you mentioned they were Oliver’s stepkids?”
“They were technically his stepkids, but he was with them for a long time, so… that relationship was meaningful. I also think my brother had even offered to put up the money for the gym. However, after his divorce, he was in rough shape, physically, monetarily, mentally. I don’t know what happened with that offer to start the gym.
Tamzen never really told me about that.”
“So maybe she feels as if she owes him.”
“I don’t know about that. I do know that they were close,” he replied.
“Close?” she asked, looking at him.
“Yeah, close,” he repeated. “It’s not unusual. Not all stepfathers and stepdaughters have bad relationships.”
“That’s true,” she acknowledged. “My colleagues are looking into details on that one boxing location,” she muttered, looking down at her phone, knowing they would be taping it on the other end. “I’ll head there now.”
“I’ll come with you,” he offered.
“That’s fine, but you’ll go in your own vehicle,” she stated, facing him. “I’ll meet you down there, but you have to stay out of whatever is going on.”
“I could talk to her though,” he suggested, pleading with Kate. “Tamzen will listen to me.”
“No, she won’t,” Kate argued, staring at him. “I think the talking point has well and truly passed.”
“I can’t believe she would have done anything to hurt these men.… It’s not possible. How would she have even found them?”
“That’s one of the questions we’ll have to answer. She could easily have used your deliveries to find out-of-shape businessmen to take her anger out on. You lied to me, Oscar. You told me that you were the only one who ran the delivery business.”
“That’s because I didn’t have any insurance on the vehicle for another driver,” he muttered in frustration. “I can’t take the chance of losing my job or my van.” She snorted and stared at him. “It will kill my job now, won’t it?” he cried out, looking at her in horror.
“I have no idea,” she admitted, “but I know of a gym that needs to be managed because I don’t see either Tamzen nor your nephew being able to do it. Are you sure their biological father is dead, or did he just escape from family life?”
“He’s dead and gone,” Oscar confirmed, “for many a year. He was also in the fighting world. There’s a long history of it in our families.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Maybe it’s time for the family to come up with a new line of work.”
He looked at her and hung his head. “After those two go the way of my brother,… no one in my family is left,” he muttered helplessly. “They are all the family I have.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, “because, right about now, things are not looking very good for them.” And with that she turned and raced to her vehicle. “Reese, you’ve got directions for me?”
“Texting you now.”
With that, Kate tore off, heading for her destination.
*
Simon was already down at the warehouse, checking to confirm it was completely empty.
He didn’t know why this old warehouse building still had such a hard draw on him, but maybe it was literally because of the bodies that had been here for decades.
He couldn’t even imagine what it would have been like for Elsie, when she had owned it, desperately trying to keep her father’s secrets safe.
In Simon’s case, he would have just done whatever he could, turning the letter over to the authorities, especially considering Elsie’s father was already dead.
But she cared more about keeping the family name unblemished, keeping her father’s secrets, than anything else, and, for that, Simon found it hard to forgive her.
She wasn’t dead and gone, but she wasn’t far from it.
He still hadn’t received a copy of her father’s confession letter, and Simon needed it.
He knew Kate could force their hand on it, but the chance of the letter disappearing without anybody ever producing the actual provable copy was something Simon didn’t want to risk.
Those victims’ families needed closure, even after all these years, especially after all these years.
They needed to know that something had been done to find their family members.
Simon thought about the world as it was when the old man had run roughshod over everyone.
Callously dropping them six feet under, or shooting them and leaving them in the back of a utility room in some basement.
How many times had he opened that hidden door to drop in yet another body, only to close it off again? Simon just couldn’t imagine it.
That the burial spot was down by the furnaces but hidden away would have kept the bodies dry and hard, more or less safe, even from people who had to work down there.
It still just sucked. But now, the fact that Rodney was in this very situation that had shown up in Simon’s dreams was something else Simon didn’t want to contemplate.
He also didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d also seen himself in one of those related dreams.
He wasn’t sure that he would be any better off against a boxer than Rodney was, but, maybe against a female boxer, Simon and Rodney would be okay.
Then he swore at that because that bias was just what put Tamzen into this murderous mind-set to begin with.
The simple fact was, she wasn’t born male, thus wasn’t thought of as strong—or not as strong as those males in the world.
Simon certainly didn’t want to get caught up in the whole stigma about which sex was better, male or female, because that wasn’t the world he lived in. As far as he was concerned, there was room for everybody, but apparently Tamzen didn’t see it from that same perspective.
Realizing that the warehouse was empty, he felt a sense of relief but then panic. He sent Kate a message. The warehouse is empty. Where are you? When he got no answer, he phoned Lilliana. “Where’s Kate?” he asked.
She hesitated.
“I know shit’s going down right now,” Simon snapped, “but I just checked the warehouse, and nothing’s here, so this isn’t the location.”
“Do you have anything else?” she asked.
Almost immediately his mind was filled with dripping water, and, in the background, he heard horrific shouting. Fight, fight, fight . He cried out as the pain slammed into his head.
“Are you okay? Simon,… what’s going on?” Lilliana cried out.
“Nothing good,” he muttered. “In my head,… I just got slammed hard.”
“Are you being attacked?”
“No, no, it’s not me.”
“Shit,” she muttered. “It’s Rodney, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Rodney needs help, and he needs it now.”
“You got any idea where?”
“I don’t know, but my feet are moving,” he said.
She asked, “You’re walking?”
“Yes, I’m walking toward them.”
“Where are you?” she yelled.
He quickly gave her the street and the cross-street, looking around and added, “I think it’s just around the corner.”
“Everything down there is just around the corner,” Lilliana snapped. “Is a wharf close by?”
“We’re not far from water, no matter which way I go,” he noted. “This is one of the old districts. I’ve got the harbor all around.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Okay, we’re on the way.”
“Yeah, but you need an address. Shit.” He was dropped to his knees as another vision of a blow rattled his brain.
“What’s happening?” she yelled.
“Rodney’s taking a beating,” Simon muttered, trying hard to stay conscious and to separate himself from Rodney’s vision.
“And they’re focusing on his head.… I’ve got to get there.
” He ended the call and started to run, not having a clue where he was going.
He stopped in front of a building and was just about to enter, when something slammed into the back of his head, and he dropped to the ground.