Silenced by the Yams - By Karen Cantwell Page 0,49

intersections. I could hear sirens, but that’s not an uncommon sound in the District, so I could only hope they were looking for me.

“What’s your plan, Randolph?” I asked, careening through a red light and blaring my horn.

“I don’t know.”

Truthfully, that didn’t surprise me.

“Well, here’s the thing.” I flipped a fast right and realized that if I kept going straight, I’d hit Constitution Avenue. “You need a plan.”

Meanwhile, I was mentally calculating my own.

“Yeah, I need a plan.” He leaned back in the seat, and I saw his grip on the gun relax. “I just didn’t want to lose my job is all.”

“And so you kidnapped someone? You think this is really a good career move?” Without thinking, I stopped at a red light. Good habits run deep, what can I say? But Randolph didn’t notice. He was obviously having second thoughts.

“I panicked when I heard the gunshots. I knew Jorge was in over his head with Juarez. I took the gun he hides in his desk and snuck out the side door. Then I saw him on the ground.” Randolph started to cry and it seemed deeply sincere. I have to admit, I felt kind of bad for the guy. If only his hair plugs didn’t look ten times more disgusting up close than from a distance.

The sirens we heard suddenly sounded much closer and I was pretty sure they’d more than doubled in number. Randolph snapped out of his mourning and shoved the gun back tight against my ribs. “Keep moving! I need to think.”

The light had turned green so I did as ordered, watching my rearview mirror for signs of blue and red flashing lights. One more block and I’d be turning onto Constitution Avenue. From there, I’d be just a heartbeat away from exiting onto I66, a relatively straight freeway heading toward my stomping grounds in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

“Andy Baugh says Jorge knew that vomiting would kill Kurt and that he framed Frankie with the poisons. Were you two conspiring to kill him?”

He shook his head just as the wheels screamed taking the fast turn onto Constitution. “No. It was just a prank. I swear.”

I kind of believed him. “As far as you knew, anyway.”

He nodded. “As far as I knew.”

“Was Jorge capable of murder?”

No answer. Randolph stared out the window. On the floor at his feet, I spotted something that gave me hope. The car owner’s cell phone. I kept talking. “What do you know about Jorge’s involvement with Juarez and the voter fraud?”

“Enough.”

We flew over the Roosevelt Bridge with SUVs, police squad cars and a helicopter now visibly in pursuit. I had an idea brewing. “Tell me again,” I said, “why you kidnapped me. There has to be more to it than you just panicked. Not if you were completely innocent, Randolph.”

As we tore down I66 at nearly 80 miles per hour, it was obvious that the law enforcement machinery was at work. Police had cleared the freeway of vehicles to allow us free and easy passage. “Are you completely innocent?”

His answer was slow in coming, and not adamant enough for me to believe him. “I am.”

“But?”

He sighed and released the gun altogether, letting it drop between the seats. He buried his head in his hands. “The morning after Kurt died, I caught Jorge lifting a fingerprint from a water glass with tape, and planting it on the bottle of ipecac. He said it was to protect us by framing Frankie Romano for the prank.”

Suddenly it was all clear. Randolph did know Jorge was a murderer, and he knew it when news broke later that day that Frankie was arrested for poisoning Kurt Baugh.

“If you knew that Jorge poisoned those yams, then why did you call Guy Mertz? He said you were freaking because you thought someone had tried to poison you.”

“I was freaking because my lover and best friend was a murderer and I helped him do it. Guy is a true crime reporter, I was desperate to know what he was hearing through his connections. To know if we were safe from suspicion.”

While piecing the puzzle together, it suddenly occurred to me that Guy had told Randolph about our meeting near the White House. My stomach flip-flopped. To irritate Randolph, Guy said he had lied to Randolph and told him we were meeting to discuss an investigation of the murder. If Randolph passed that information on to Jorge, then that drive-by shooting near the White House could have been meant for