In hindsight, the lobby of my hotel may not have been the best place for me to meet Sandra and Paula, but it served a purpose I needed it to serve. Armed with the news Paula was responsible for shooting her the night her parents died, Sandra dove from her chair and went straight for the jugular, turning the hotel lobby into a boxing arena featuring one seriously furious, and possibly high, middle-aged chick. Sandra tackled Paula to the ground, knocking over Paula’s chair with Paula still in it, then straddling her on the floor. Hands gripped around Paula’s neck, Sandra made good use of every foul word in her extensive arsenal.
A curious crowd gathered, eyes wide, more interested in watching the girl-on-girl display than breaking it up. As Paula gasped for the smallest pocket of air, her face reddened to various shades. Finch reached down, grabbed a fistful of the back of Sandra’s shirt. He yanked her off Paula, pushing her back into a chair. He commanded she stay there.
For the moment, she listened.
“Catch your breath, and get a grip,” Finch said. “But your ass stays in that chair.” He turned to the growing crowd. “This is private business. Get lost.”
I gazed across the mass of people still unwilling to separate, studying their faces before kneeling next to Paula. She was half-coughing, half-gagging, and one-hundred-percent struggling to breathe. Her neck was swollen and red with visible imprints of where Sandra’s fingers had just been. I did my best to calm her down, settle her breathing. When she’d swallowed enough air to form words again, she turned her head toward Sandra, and yelled, “I said I was sorry!”
Sandra rolled her eyes. “Sorry? Sorry doesn’t cut it. You shot me! I could have died!”
“You should have died, but you didn’t. Elias plugged the bullet hole in your chest. That’s why you’re still alive.”
Sandra shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember? He took his mask off, and you looked at him right before you passed out.”
“When I came to, it was all a blur. I remember seeing his hands when they cuffed him. They were red and bloody, and I didn’t know why.”
“Now you know. He saved your life. A life you’ve wasted.”
“What do you know about my life?”
“A lot more than you think. One of my friends is a friend of yours. I hear things. Even when I don’t want to, and believe me, I don’t.”
“What about my parents?” Sandra asked. “Did you shoot them too? Leave Elias to take the blame for two murders that weren’t his?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with your mother and your stepdad. He killed them. And you know why he did it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Sure you do. Your mother knew your stepdad was sexually abusing you, and she did nothing to stop it.”
Sandra’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”
“After I shot you, he told me.”
The conversation had taken a personal turn, with both women speaking to each other like they’d forgotten they were in a public place. The way Sandra dressed, the way she talked, fast and loose—it all made sense now.
“Elias didn’t even know me,” Sandra said. “Not really. Why would he risk everything for me? I don’t get it.”
“He knew your story.”
“How? I never even met the guy.”
“You did. You just didn’t know it. Elias saw you out one night. He overheard you telling a friend all about your situation at home. You were crying to her, admitting what your stepdad had done. Your friend told you to tell your mom and you said you had. Your mom didn’t believe you. She chose to ignore your accusations and pretend it wasn’t happening.”
“It still doesn’t explain why you shot me,” Sandra said.
“We were going to run away and get married, and then he saw you. Sad, considering you never noticed him. Once he knew your story, he obsessed over you. I became nothing to him. I was jealous. I’m not a mean-spirited person.”
Sandra snorted a laugh. “Yeah, uhh, right.”
“I mean it. I’m really not. I was just young and stupid and in love with the wrong guy.”
Sandra laughed. “Save it. I don’t need your excuses. I don’t care.”
“If you don’t care, why choke me?”
“You deserved it.” Sandra pulled her tank top down, exposing a faded scar on the front of her chest. “Every day for the last twenty-five years, I get out of the shower, see this scar, and am reminded of that night.”
I crossed my arms in front of me, stepped forward. “You both have cleared up a lot of past history, but it still doesn’t solve Alexandra’s and Barbara’s murders.”
“I already told you, I didn’t do it,” Paula said.
Sandra looked at Finch like she didn’t dare make a move without his permission. “Same. Can we go now?”
“Soon,” Finch said.
“Alexandra was going to include a chapter about Elias in her memoir and, more than likely, expose both of your secrets,” I said. “Paula, my guess is Alexandra found out you shot Sandra somehow. What I don’t understand is why wouldn’t Alexandra put it in the original book she wrote about him then?”
None of us had a good answer for this, and with Elias and Alexandra dead, odds were it wouldn’t change. “Paula, when did Alexandra tell you she knew you shot Sandra?”
“A couple months back. She said she wanted to give me a chance to tell my side of the story. I refused. She was upset I didn’t give her what she wanted, and she left.”
“And you didn’t have any contact with her again?”
“Not until Elias’s mother showed up with the old letter Elias had written. I knew then I had a way to stop her. I knew her kid wasn’t her husband’s. I called Alexandra, threatened to expose her if she exposed me.”
“She came to my house too,” Sandra said. “She told me she knew about my situation with my stepdad. I didn’t have the trump card Paula had. My letter from Elias was a simple apology. He was proud he’d killed my parents. He thought I’d be happy. Free. When I cried over them the night they were killed, he didn’t understand why. Were they bad parents? Maybe. But they were my only family.”
Hearing her story, Paula’s eyes welled with tears.
“Don’t get all weepy on me,” Sandra said. “I just tried to take you out.”
“You were right though. I deserved it.”
Paula stuck a hand out toward Sandra. “Truce?”
Sandra smacked it away. “Get your truce the hell away from me. We’re not friends. We’ll never be friends.”
“I asked both of you to bring the letters tonight,” I said. “I’d like to see them.”
“What are you planning to do with them?” Paula asked.
“I don’t know yet. For now, I’d just like to read them.”
The letters were handed over. I read them, handed them to Finch to read too. I had a gift for forgetting things. Anything he read was committed to memory.
The letters were just as Sandra and Paula said. Nothing more. I handed them back. “If you can agree not to attack each other, I have one final question for you, Paula, and then we’re done. What did you do with the leverage you had about Alexandra’s daughter?”
“Nothing. I threatened her, said if she published the information about me, I’d destroy her life. And by destroy, I don’t mean kill. I’d tell everyone about the child she had with Elias, but first, I’d tell her daughter myself. Part of me thought I’d tell her anyway. The girl deserves to know the truth.”
“How did she respond?” I asked.
“Not in the way I expected. The only thing she said was, ‘You’ll never get anywhere near my daughter, and even if you do, by then it will be too late.’”