Free Promissory Payback by Laurel Dewey

good solider in your vengeful army.
    â€œBut then, there’s another soldier in your party. A real soldier. I’m not sure when or how Charley P. Hall showed up to the execution, but it was fairly soon after you two did. Oh, he really wanted to be there. He’d lain in bed too many nights in that trailer trash dump of his daughter’s, dreaming of ways to eviscerate Carolyn Handel. But, he couldn’t show up with you. That much I presumed. He hates Carolyn more than he hates the Vietcong, and you needed to get Carolyn whacked out on Demerol first so she wouldn’t fight him or call the cops.”
    Jane shifted in her chair. Laura’s attention was still remote, drifting and detached. Jane eyed Joe. “You and Charley carried Carolyn upstairs, followed by Laura, and went about the job at hand. I’m sure the hog-tying was Charley’s idea. He loved that figure-eight knot, and he’d probably been fantasizing about ways to incorporate it into this event. Everybody wore gloves, expect for you, Laura. I mean, why bother, right? You’re there all the time doing Carolyn’s bidding. Watering plants . . . picking up her mail . . . dusting ... It made sense that your prints would be all over the place. I’m not certain, though, whose idea it was to stuff her mouth with shredded promissory notes and tape it shut—”
    â€œMine,” Laura said, suddenly reconnecting with the conversation. “That was my idea.”
    Joe looked at Laura aghast. “Laura? What are you doing?”
    She patted his hand in a reassuring manner. “It’s all right, Joe. I was prepared for this to happen.” Laura looked at Jane. “I stuffed her mouth. I taped it shut.” Her voice was cool and casual, as if she were ordering take-out.
“And then I saw the lipstick and I just couldn’t resist.” She shrugged her shoulders and smiled like a little pixie—a twisted pixie, but a pixie nonetheless. “Karma is a bitch,” Laura stated. “And so was Carolyn.” She sighed with relief. “It feels good to get this off my shoulders. I forgot to take the lipstick container when I left. Silly me.”
    â€œAnd when you left, neither Joe or Charley were there,” Jane added. “At least Joe wasn’t there. He had to get to DIA to make his eight o’clock flight on Colorado Mountain Airlines.” Beads of sweat formed on Joe’s brow. “It’s that damn video again, Joe. As much as you tried to obscure yourself, I still picked you out of the short line boarding that eight o’clock flight. Not to mention, a clear view of you speeding through the security checkpoint at 7:35.”
    â€œI’m the one who killed Carolyn, Detective,” Laura declared with a proud cadence. “I’m the one who pulled up that chair and watched her die. I made her look at me. Right in the eye.”
    Jane recalled sitting in that same chair just days before, strangely feeling a close, yet intangible connection to the posterior of the person who watched Carolyn suffer. Back at Carolyn’s house, Jane felt like whoever committed the crime was still watching Handel suffer the anguish they’d dealt. And Jane was right. Because, at that time, Laura Abernathy was seated behind her wearing her pretty pink dress with the matching purse and flirting with the nice policeman, while sneaking glances at her murderous handiwork on the bed.
    â€œWaiting.” Jane added. “How long did you wait?”
    â€œHour and a half,” Laura recalled. “Maybe a little longer. She’d go in and out of consciousness in the beginning.
Oh, it wasn’t like we didn’t talk during that time. Well, I was doing the talking. She was doing the grunting.”
    â€œWhat did you talk about?” Jane asked.
    â€œI told her that she was going to die and that she just had to accept it. I told her that those people she stole money from needed