Chapter 8

It was almost six in the evening by the time I finally arrived in Austin, thanks to the fact that there was barely any traffic, though my excitement may have caused me to drive a little faster than allowed. The Mercedes App showed Dick’s car parked in central, near the Hilton Garden Inn. My obvious conclusion was that, since the man lived in this city, the only reason for him to stay at a hotel was to spend some time with his former mistress and future girlfriend, without risking being too obvious. If I made it there in time, I could follow them as they left the hotel. So, I planned to simply drop off Mom at home and then turn towards the I-10 to Columbus without even getting out of the car. Mom, however, had a different idea.

First, she insisted I come into the apartment with her before she rushed into the bedroom and packed a small travel bag for me. I actually had to halt my laughter when I saw her pack spare underwear and socks before adding a few water bottles from the fridge. Then, with well-practiced proficiency, she quickly made two sandwiches, stored them in a Tupperware container, and stuffed it with the rest into my travel bag. Finally, after handing me the bag, she placed her hands on either side of my face and forced me to lock eyes with her.

“Promise you’ll stay safe!” she said with a surprisingly demanding tone that I had not expected to ever hear from her again.

“I ... yes. I promise,” I stammered, still stunned by her insistent behavior.

“Drive carefully. Don’t take any risks. I’ll be here when you come back and have dinner ready.”

And with that, she released the hold she had on my face to quickly kiss my cheek before taking a step back and folding her hands in front of her. Honestly, it made me smile. Everything she had done in the preceding half hour had reminded me of a day when I was still in grade school, and she had sent me off on a two-day class trip. Before Dad died and she replaced him with Dick.

I nodded and turned towards the door. When I grabbed the doorknob and opened it, though, I suddenly heard her call after me.

“I love you, Paulie.”

I stopped, blinking at the door for a moment before turning towards her. She looked seriously worried.

“I ... uh ... love you too, Mom.”

Fucking hell! I realized, at that moment, just how long it had been since I said those words. To anyone, really. I had only heard those words once since moving out of that house, and that was an in-the-middle-of-sex kind of “I love you”. Not an actual “I love you”. So, the last time someone spoke those words in my general direction must have been ... seven years ago. The last time Dick had sent me to the hospital, and Mom kept apologizing while nursing me back to health. Though, I guess she must have noticed how my resentment towards her had grown that day, as she had stopped saying it after that incident.

Was that what her worried look was about? Whether or not I would say it back? And, when I did say it back ... did I say it because it was the expected response or because I really felt that way?

I honestly couldn’t tell.

I pondered those thoughts during my drive west, and it scared me a little that I could not find a definitive answer. She meant a lot to me, yes. I enjoyed having her around. But how much of that was thanks to her new role as my personal free-use sex doll before also trying to reestablish herself as my mother?

I had to stop thinking about all that when I neared my first target of the day. I decided to pay a visit to the address listed on Perfect Edge Consulting’s website and now found myself in front of a rather unremarkable concrete block. The consulting firm was housed in the left half of the second floor, while the right half housed an advertising agency. I could see a sea of green through the windows of the second floor, which gave me an idea.

I stopped at a flower shop two streets over and bought a four-foot-tall Benjamin’s fig with such thick leaves that the plant’s trunk was barely visible, as well as a pot that was a few sizes too big for the root ball, leaving some space for other things. Like the two motorbike batteries and the mobile DV recorder I had in my car’s trunk. The batteries, if put in parallel, delivered fourteen ampere-hours at twelve volts. The mini camera I attached to the plant so it would be well hidden by the leaves if you stood more than two feet away from it, and the DVR, merely required a combined 200 mAh, so it could take a picture per second for the next seventy hours without running out of power.

It took me roughly twenty minutes to put the thing together. Getting it back into my car was more of a hassle than building it, which I was kinda proud of. I drove back to the consulting firm, grabbed the plant, and entered the building.

“Can I help you?” asked a young woman who seemed to work the reception of that building, throwing me off. I had not expected someone to attentively watch the entrance before I even made it to either of the firms sitting in the building’s upper floors.

“Yeah, sorry, I have a delivery for the agency on the second floor?” I said in a plaintive voice, making sure to overplay how much of a struggle it was to carry that monster of a plant around.

The young lady regarded me with a knowing look. Obviously, she, too, knew about that indoor garden these people had created. Without another word, she just got out of her seat and called the elevator for me.

“I’m supposed to send you to the delivery entrance in the back. This elevator is for the tenants and their clients only. But I guess I can make an exception, seeing how heavy that thing must be. Did they water it before handing it to you, to make it extra heavy?” she said with a chuckle.

“That obvious, huh?” I grinned in embarrassment over my seeming lack of strength as the elevator doors parted and I stepped inside. “Thanks!”

She gave me a curt nod before turning back to her desk and walking away, allowing me to take a relieved breath.

After stepping out of the elevator on the second floor, I placed the plant in the midst of its brethren so the camera pointed directly at the entrance of the consulting firm. I couldn’t check it yet, but I had a good feeling the pictures should even contain the sign showing “Perfect Edge Consulting”. I would just have to come back in three day’s time and retrieve the camera while hoping nobody would question my actions. Then, after spending a few hours reviewing all the pictures, I should be able to hand the DA’s office a few pictures to work with.

Once I was happy with the tree’s position, I booked it just as quickly as I got in and started my drive to Dick’s car.

Looking at my surroundings while approaching the location the tiny map of the tracking app showed, I saw quite a few tall buildings containing more apartments or businesses of all different kinds. I loved working in an environment like this. If your target lives in suburbia, it’s basically impossible to not be approached by a nosy or suspecting neighbor ... if they don’t simply call the cops on your ass. Here, however, where two or three dozen tenants lived in one building, I could just as well park my car right in front of an apartment complex. City anonymity at its finest! Nobody would give a rat’s ass about me sitting there for hours watching an entryway. No chance for any of these people to identify me as an ‘outsider’ of their commune.

However, as I got closer to that position pin shown on my phone’s screen, the map started zooming in and I suddenly realized that Dick’s car stood not quite a mile further east. In the middle of fucking budget suburbia! Lots of green gardens in front of the detached and generously spaced homes. The one saving grace in all of this was that I couldn’t find any swing sets or discarded toys in any of these gardens, so the probability of being reported by an overly cautious parent was low.

After I turned into the street, I found the right house rather quickly without needing the help of the app to identify it. Don’t get me wrong, the house looked nice. All white, three stories tall, and a sizable garden area in front of it. All in all, the lot looked to be about two thousand square feet, which was bigger than all the neighboring homes. But it wasn’t quite finished yet. The home itself was done, but the garden was still a brown dirt plot and, despite the late hour, two bricklayers had just started to erect a stonewall to separate it from the sidewalk. The most ridiculous thing about what I saw, though, was the new-looking BMW Z3 convertible parked right next to Dick’s S Class in this driveway. No doubt a present from the senator, who seemed to favor German cars for some reason, to his newest conquest.

I let the enthusiasm after my investigation had progressed so smoothly get to me and decided to take the risk. I parked my car a few houses down the road, got out, and walked calmly up to that white monstrosity.

“Hey, you happen to know if Richard’s already here?” I said to one of the bricklayers after arriving at the lot, but the guy just looked at me questioningly. “The dude who owns that Mercedes.”

“Oh, that guy,” the guy said with barely hidden disdain for Dick, which I could instantly relate to. “Yes, Senior. Ms. William and her boyfriend are both inside.”

Well, wasn’t that just awesome? I didn’t even have to walk up to the door and check the nameplate to get her name! I still walked up to the point where the sidewalk connected with the driveway before stopping and acting like I just noticed something in my pocket missing. Then I made my way back to my car to not raise any suspicions with the workers I just asked about Dick.

I got back into the driver’s seat and pulled out my phone, starting a Google search for “Senator Anderson + William”. What I found was as enlightening as it was cliché. The woman was Dick’s personal assistant, working in his office. The photo I found in a news article also matched the description we had gotten from Mom during our first meeting in Tim’s office.

After I made sure the guys in her garden no longer paid any attention to me, I started the car and parked it out of sight around the corner. Now I just waited for Dick to come out, so I kept an eye on the tracker app on the second phone. I sat there for little over an hour before I heard the notification sound indicating movement of “my” Mercedes. I had been worried Dick would leave by himself, but, even though I couldn’t get a clear view of whoever sat on his passenger seat, I could see the long brown hair of whoever accompanied him.

Following them inconspicuously turned out to be quite the task, though, as he drove that damn car like a maniac. The problem wasn’t just that Dick seemed to make an effort to consistently stay at least fifteen miles per hour above the speed limit. While my car, from the outside, might have looked like a regular, anthracite gray 2019 Chevy Malibu, the engine, suspension, and brakes have been heavily tuned up, so I could easily keep up with a Ferrari. No, the problem was that whichever car dealer sold Dick that car must have told him it had a built-in right of way while claiming that turning signals wouldn’t be necessary at all.

Consequently, despite my best efforts, I had to rely on the tracking app after losing sight of him multiple times. Even the most aloof person in Texas would have noticed me following them after hearing my tires screech whenever I would have been forced to make rapid turns to stay on his tail. At least, with the way Dick drove, it was less likely that he had time to look in the rearview mirror and notice my recurring car whenever I couldn’t keep two car lengths distance from him.

After almost half an hour of driving time, which placed us a few minutes before eight p.m., Dick and his “girlfriend”, as the bricklayer called it, arrived at an Asian restaurant that looked more like an amusement park than anything else. The building itself looked like someone tried to copy one of those Japanese temples, with an entrance gate that was not only easily fifteen feet high but also framed by two man-sized dragon statues. Leading up to said entrance was a huge-ass Koi pond that needed to be traversed by using a wide wooden bridge.

I chose to park my car as far away as possible to not arouse his suspicion before I quickly readied my camera equipment. And, just as I had managed to focus my telephoto lens on their car, Dick opened the passenger door for his new woman, who giggled while dropping a courtesy, before laughing while wrapping her arms around Dicks shoulders and planting a kiss on him.

My intention when pointing my camera at them was, obviously, to take a few photos. But instead ... I just sat there and stared at the man through the seeker. This was the first time I saw that man in the flesh since leaving his house four years prior. During those four years, I had consciously avoided keeping tabs on the guy.

And now, being so close to him again, I felt rage bubble up from my stomach.

As soon as I saw him, in the flesh, happily holding out his hand for the woman, I wanted to pay him back for every punch, for every kick, for every strike with his belt. I wanted to get out of the car, walk over there, and beat the shit out of him. I wanted to grab his head and hold it down as I smashed his skull with the car door until his eyes popped out. I wanted him to look me in the eye, so I could see the panic in his as he realized who exactly was about to end him! I wanted to hear him scream! I wanted him DEAD! I wanted him FUCKING...

My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t keep the seeker focused anymore. I dropped the camera into my lap and dropped my head into my now empty palms. I forced myself to take a few deep breaths, forcefully suppressing the spasming contraptions of my diaphragm. And then I just stayed like this until I stopped feeling my heartbeat up in my throat and could breathe properly again. It took another two minutes before my hands weren’t shaking uncontrollably anymore.

“I would go to jail without ever exonerating Mom,” I said out loud, reminding myself of all the reasons to stay collected. “That’s why I’m in this parking lot. That’s why I followed him. I need more evidence to use against him.”

I repeated those words like a mantra for a good five minutes before I felt like I had convinced myself. I still had to make a conscious effort to relax my muscles and take a few deep breaths. I would destroy the fucker, but NOT by assaulting him. As much as he deserved it. As much as I wanted to.

And then I grinned.

I would take everything from him! He would lose his fortune. He would lose his position. He would lose his esteem. I would take his pride. And he would know that it was me who brought him down! And I would visit him every year, on the anniversary of his conviction, and just. Fucking. Laugh!

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? I wanted to do this alone. I wanted to be the one to take him down. And, because of that, I drove here all by myself instead of asking someone to come along who I could now send in there and record their conversations. I valued my friends’ and colleagues’ help when it came to their expertise ... But beyond that? If Bill hadn’t had the foresight to make Micheal keep an eye on me, I would have been alone in that convenience store. If Tim hadn’t had the foresight to call Bill when they broke into my apartment, I would have had to deal with that officer, who was probably on Dick’s payroll, all by myself.

My need to prove myself better than Dick was ruining my chances of actually achieving that goal.

After calming down and carefully thinking everything over, I reached the conclusion that he wouldn’t recognize me, given how much I had changed in those four years we were apart. I mean, hell, even my own mother didn’t recognize me on the day we picked her up from County Jail, while she stood right in front of me, until Breston pointed out who I was. I still reached behind my seat and picked up a base cap, so I could hide my face at least to a degree if he were to look directly at me. Then I reached into the glove compartment, pulled out a tourist map of Austin that I had picked up at a gas station on the drive from Houston, and carried it together with a camcorder as I made my way to the restaurant entrance, hoping to look like a tourist.

This restaurant wasn’t at all what I expected from Dick when taking a woman out on a dinner date. I would have expected him to demand fine dining or some crap. But, maybe, this was just more of his public persona. After all, nobody who wasn’t close to the guy and knew him intimately would have expected him to beat his wife either. So, this was probably just one of those publicity stunts where politicians want to show off how close to society they are.

Well, it suited me just fine, as it was a lot easier to blend in under these circumstances!

Once I stepped into the dining area, the situation couldn’t have been any more in my favor. The table right behind Dick and his date was free. So, I waltzed over there while keeping my face turned away. I didn’t want to look in their direction and alarm them, causing them to keep an eye on me, or make them feel like I had any interest in them. Instead, I glanced at their reflections in the high windows.

Once I took my seat with my back to them, I unfolded the map as if to study it and placed the camcorder on it, facing them. For situations just like these, Tim made it a habit to disable the little red LEDs that indicate when the camera is recording.

All things considered, their meal wasn’t exactly interesting. Since they sat opposite each other, there wasn’t much more than them holding hands for the camera to document. That changed, however, when they had finished their meals and moved on to the part where they would enjoy a delightful conversation while drinking their wine. Until I hit the jackpot when the woman sighed, gave Dick a compassionate look, and opened her mouth.

“Forgive me, Richard, but I’m glad your w ... ex-wife is in jail. It hurt to hide for so long. I don’t know if I could have sneaked around her for much longer,” she said. Strangely, there was not even a hint of spitefulness or glee in her voice. After what they did to Mom the night Dick sent her off to sleep with Carver, I would have expected her to get off on the whole shitshow. “I’m so glad we can show ourselves in public. And I’m so glad we don’t have to use hotels any longer.”

“You don’t have to apologize for that, my Love. I have to admit, I, too, reached the end of my rope. Deceiving my wife ... the woman I had vowed to honor...” Dick shook his head. I noted how utterly fake his display of remorse sounded, though maybe that was just my bias.

He now reached out to hold the woman’s hand, who immediately interlaced her fingers with his and gave him a loving smile.

“Stop justifying your actions, already. I know all that, Richard. You keep telling me since the day we first got together, but I know you’re not that type of man!” she said insistently, causing him to relax and nod. “Even when we confronted her with our relationship to make her see how much she hurt you, she still didn’t understand.”

What the hell did she mean by confronting Mom? Did that broad somehow think that fucking a husband, while his wife was made to stand in front of the door and listen, was some kind of attempt at fixing a marriage!? Either that woman was a bonafide sociopath or delusional. But this was proof that they had been fucking since before Dick got the photos of Mom and Carver, so I swallowed the groan fighting to escape my throat.

“It was her own fault for neglecting her husband for so long,” she continued. “I’m telling you, Richard, her behavior made a lot more sense after we found out that she also had an affair of her own. You had to look for love somewhere else. Especially since her affair came as such a surprise to us. Just think how well she hid it. I’m glad you found proof so you can let go of your guilt.”

“Oh, I wasn’t involved in that process. After I asked my contact in our consulting firm to look into her activities, they took it all off my hands. All they asked for was a copy of her personal organizer and a copy of her phone bill. That was enough to find all that devastating proof in no time.” So, that was his cover story for how he got his hands on the pictures of Mom’s supposed affair. And he claimed ignorance about the whole process that landed Mom in jail. “It’s just ... thinking she would stoop that low. I had no idea she would want to hurt me so much and try to sell my bank secrets. At least my lawyers are very optimistic that this will not hurt me in any way. Quite the opposite, my Love. I guess everyone will get what they deserve.”

Needless to say, I was inwardly seething at this point. But, yes, I had to agree. Everyone would get what they deserve! I now had them on tape as they admitted to having an affair even before he received those photos of Mom in Carver’s bed. And I had him on tape admitting to hiring the consulting firm that Carver worked for, and that owned the car of those weird roofers. Sure, he claimed that he merely hired them before leaving it all to them. But, even if I only found proof of that consulting firm framing Mom, he’d still have to explain how those documents vanished from his personal safe, which stood in his locked home office, if he wasn’t involved.

After that, their conversation devolved into the usual assurances of all the fun they would have after their dinner date was over. No more usable revelations for my camcorder to capture until they left the restaurant hand in hand.

To me, it was clear that this consulting firm hired Carver to seduce Mom and produce the photos that would justify Dick divorcing her. But could I prove that?

I could prove Dick’s affair had been going strong even before he hired his consulting firm to get those photos of her and Carver. That part of the camcorder recording would help Breston contest the divorce decree, which would mean that Mom was now eligible for a sizable chunk of Dick’s net worth, and I could deal a serious blow to his reputation.

But how could I get definitive confirmation of Carver working for Perfect Edge Consulting? And, even if I got proof, the consulting firm could just claim that they discovered one of their employees just happened to be Mom’s lover. I needed to prove that Carver was hired by that firm just when they got Dick’s assignment to find proof of Mom’s affair. Maybe Carver’s theater group could help me with that.

I unlocked my phone again and took another look at the group’s website, where I found their leader’s mobile number.

“Garcia?” I heard him answer my call after a few rings.

“Yes, this is Paul White. We met a few days ago at the theatre to speak about ... Steven,” I said, catching myself from calling him ‘Carver’ with the usual disdain I felt for the dead guy.

“Oh! Yes. Did you ... did you find anything?” He sounded like he was not sure whether he really wanted an answer to that question. I guess I made a rather lasting impression on the guy when I insinuated that Dick had him killed for screwing his wife. I could work with that.

“I’m afraid we have,” I sighed into the phone. “It really looks like Steven was screwed over big time on this. Is there any way we could meet real quick?”

There were a few seconds of silence before he spoke again.

“Yes. Meet us in the theater.”

And with that, the line went dead. I pondered why he said “meet us”, but if it meant what I hoped, it would be beneficial for me. Another thirty minutes later, I stepped out of my car and found my hopes granted. Garcia stood there in the company of four other members of their group.

“Mr. White,” the cute-looking girl greeted me first. “Is it really true?”

“Look, I can’t go into too much detail right now. But I can tell you that I had a meeting with the DA’s office this afternoon, and the FBI is getting involved,” I informed them, hoping it would have the desired effect, and heard her gasp as the others looked at me surprised. “The whole thing is blowing up right now. I think I can prove what happened to Steven, but I need your help in finding out who did it to him.”

They exchanged worried glances with each other before looking at me questioningly.

“Look ... That new job Steven got as a supposed product tester?” I waited until they nodded. “I think they set him up. I uncovered ... connections between his employer and the senator. But I need to confirm that this consulting firm Steven worked for was actually the consulting firm the senator hired to take care of his cheating wife.”

“So ... you need our testimonies?” Gracia asked, looking reluctant.

“Not necessarily,” I mused before turning to the girl who seemed sadder about Carver’s death than her friends. “Last time we spoke, you said something about all of you handing your résumés to Steven, so he would ask that consulting firm if you could also get one of those tester jobs.”

“Mhm, I remember.”

“Did those résumés happen to include the name of the company you wanted to work for?”

Suddenly, most of their eyes lit up as, in an almost choreographed move, all of them pulled out their phones and started scrolling on their screens. The college student seemed to be the fastest in his search, as he suddenly called out.

“Yes! ‘Perfect Edge Consulting’,” he nodded before holding up his phone in my general direction. Shortly after that, one by one, the others confirmed his statement. I felt my elation rise.

“You have that on your phone?” They all nodded.

“We sent them by email to Steven.”

“Could you forward them to me? Ideally in a way that I could see when you originally sent them to Steven?”

I handed each of them my card with my contact information. Without even bothering to answer me, they tapped a few times on their phones and I felt my own buzz in my pocket. After a quick check, I saw five newly forwarded email exchanges with their résumés attached. I looked each one over, and the original emails they sent to Carver even mentioned that ‘fine paying new job’ of his, or something similar along the lines.

“Thank you!” I said with genuine gratitude in my voice. “Now, I’m not gonna lie to you. Once the FBI gets involved, which could happen very soon, it’s possible you’ll be contacted to confirm that I got these from you and answer a few questions about the timeline. But you don’t have to worry about any of this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

They still looked uncomfortable when seeing themselves confronted with the possibility of having to deal with law enforcement, but their desire to get justice for their friend seemingly outweighed it. I felt a little bad about lying to them. If they do all this for Steven, and then learn how the guy was actually not a victim but one of the bad guys ... But what else was I supposed to do? I needed that piece of the puzzle. There was still an innocent person being charged and waiting for justice, only that it wasn’t Carver. Though, there was an angle I could try that wouldn’t involve a lie.

“Listen ... I can see that most of you aren’t happy with this. But I promise you, I will get the people who are responsible for Steven’s death!”

That had the desired effect. I didn’t outright claim that he was murdered, but they should know now that he was killed instead of succumbing to an accidental house fire. And they would probably put two and two together and stay the hell away from Perfect Edge Consulting.

I saw them nod solemnly before I bid my farewell and stepped into my car. However, I only drove a few blocks before I stopped at a self-serving gas station to fill my tank for the drive home and started pondering yet again. This time, though, I did not reach any great revelations or a new level of self-awareness. All I knew was that Mom was waiting for me at home, and I was somehow eager to not let her wait too long.

I sat back in the car, transferred the SD card from the camcorder to my phone, and uploaded the video to our company server before transferring the empty card back into the camcorder. Before I could start the car, though, there was a knock at my window. Turning my head, what I saw was a brunette who was probably in her early twenties. I would have described her face as rather pretty, but the way too short dress she wore, accompanied by a tiny jacket and stilettos, made her look like the cliché image of a sex worker.

“Excuse me,” she said with a thick, Russian-sounding accent while leaning down to the window, which allowed me a clear look down her large cleavage as she smiled sweetly at me. “My car does not start anymore. My phone does not work either. Could I borrow yours, to call mechanic?”

When she finished, she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and pointed at a car parked a few feet off the gas station’s main entrance. As she turned back to me, she somehow wiggled her shoulders, causing her breasts to swing in kind and follow the motion. I wasn’t sure what exactly the woman was hoping to achieve with this.

“Why don’t you ask the cashier in the shop for help? I’m sure they have a landline, and I’m not even sure where we are,” I tried.