The Usual Suspects

Chapter 9

Wanting to change both the subject and her conversation partner, Liz looked around at those assembled and asked. "So which one of you was in the backseat of the car?"

Without waiting for an answer, she suggested. "Dembe?"

"Baz came too." Dembe told her.

Still working on the final piece of the much contested pie, Liz turned and pointed her fork in Mr. Kaplan's direction. "So you stopped your car and flagged down two police officers with those two upstanding citizens crouched down in the backseat of your car? That didn't seem a little risky to you?"

"Please!" Reddington scoffed. "I've seen Mr. Kaplan offer to open her trunk for the police with half a dozen dead bodies and two live ones in the trunk."

Mr. Kaplan denied his claim. "Don't listen to him. He's making that up."

"I was one of the live ones." Reddington insisted. "Right before she closed the trunk on us, she told us that if the police looked inside we should just claim we were trying to sneak into the drive-in without paying."

"The drive-in?" Liz raised an eyebrow. "When was this?"

Mr. Kaplan was dismissive. "That never happened."

Liz looked between the two of them not sure who to believe, but Reddington had another story to top that one. "Mr. Kaplan has shaken hands with a U.S. Marshall while wearing a man's hand like it was a glove so she could leave fingerprints at a fresh crime scene to prove the hand's original owner was still alive. Spoiler alert – he was not."

Mr. Kaplan didn't dispute that accusation, but she did qualify it. "I didn't shake with the hand wearing the hand."

Liz made a face. "I don't know if I want to hear that story."

But then immediately found herself admitting. "Oh who am I trying to kid? I have to hear that story."

"It's not much of a story. I needed to prove that someone wasn't dead. So I took his hand and I left his fingerprints in various places."

"By wearing it?"

Liz had once seen a coroner attempt to get fingerprints by rehydrating the finger of a deceased burn victim, removing the bone and slipping the layers of skin over his own gloved finger to print the finger … but never a whole hand.

"It was a lot less conspicuous than walking around the courthouse with the hand in my hand."

"That's messed up." Glen informed her in case she didn't already know.

"You had to wear it? You couldn't have just put it in your bag?" Liz suggested before turning to Reddington and narrowing her eyes. "What did you do that necessitated her doing that?"

"Oh no, no, no!" Reddington wasn't having any of that. "That was not done on my behalf. I draw the line somewhere and that somewhere is pretty far before asking anyone to walk around in a suit made out of other people. It was for the brother of the woman Kate was seeing."

"Do I even want to know what he did?"

Liz wasn't sure if Mr. Kaplan's mild look of exasperation as she answered was directed at her for asking or at the brother of the woman she had been seeing. "He killed an associate in front of an undercover FBI agent. It was also caught on a wire, but because the FBI didn't have the body -"

Liz couldn't help but interrupt. "- Clearly not if you were able to get the guy's hand."

Unphased, Mr. Kaplan kept going. "- it was a bit of a he said he said situation. I discredited the FBI agent's testimony and called into question the authenticity of all of the FBI's wire tapes by putting the supposed victim's prints in the courthouse during the grand jury proceedings."

Thinking it likely that the apple didn't fall far from the other apple, Liz had to ask ... "I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Vanessa isn't your first girlfriend who was a homicidal maniac?"

Mr. Kaplan took issue with part of Liz's statement. "Vanessa isn't my girlfriend."

Reddington answered for her. "No, Vanessa is not the first."

Finished with the pie, finding herself with a unique opportunity, Liz again looked around at the people at the table. She settled on Brimley as – or at least as she thought – the oldest. "So … how did you meet Reddington?"

Picking up his freshly dealt cards, Brimley tipped his head in Mr. Kaplan's direction.

"Okay ..." Liz asked a follow up question. "How did you meet Mr. Kaplan?"

Throwing away his hand, Brimley answered. "One day my no good cousin and I set out to go rob an armored truck. It was our first time and we weren't sure of the truck's route so we were sitting there outside this bank waiting for the truck to show up. Our plan was pretty simple. My cousin, he owned a revolver and I borrowed my father's old luger from the war. We were just going to wait for the truck to arrive, follow it, shoot out the tires somewhere a little more deserted before its next stop, kill the two guards and take the money.

"While we were waiting, we were checking out these two girls chatting in another car. Couldn't hear what they were saying but it looked intense. The older one looked worried.

"The little one gets out of the car and goes inside the bank right before the armored car we were waiting for pulls up.

"Now this bank didn't have an armed guard, but the older one of the girls, the one who was still in the car, she sees one of the fellows get out of the truck with a gun. She gets out of her car.

"Now when I tell you this gal was a knockout – and in more ways than one - you better believe it. Gorgeous red hair. Alabaster skin. These long, long legs. She wasn't chubby by any means, but she wasn't one of those skinny minnies either. She had -"

"- A little cushion for the pushin'!" Glen gave his seal of approval.

Reddington put him in his place before Mr. Kaplan, who had an elbow on the table and was resting her chin on the open palm of her hand as she looked down at her cards, could so much as turn her head. "Honest to God, Glen, one more word out of you -"

"- What?" Glen feigned ignorance. "I'm not into preggos -" Glen's look of revulsion as he glanced Liz's way was completely mutual. "- but I have been known to chubby chase."

"Glen ..." Reddington sounded menacing.

Brimley gave Glen side eye as he continued with his story. "I just told you – she wasn't chubby. She was buxom. She had a set of -"

"- Really? You're as bad as Glen! Is that absolutelynecessary to the story?" Reddington asked.

"It's relevant!" Brimley protested.

Without looking, Mr. Kaplan halfheartedly defended Brimley. "It actually is relevant to the story."

"Thank you. Now as I was saying ..." Mr. Brimley persisted. "… tugging on her necklace, looking real nervous, she heads towards the bank hurrying to try to get there before the fellow from the truck. That fellow, he had to get his little dolly out of the back of the truck so she had time.

"Right before she gets to the door her necklace breaks. These little beads go rolling everywhere. It was one of those multiple row pearl necklaces so there were a lot of them. She starts trying to pick them up. She's pretty so of course the armed guard heading towards the bank stops to help her.

"She's real pretty so of course my cousin and I go help."

Listening, Liz's eyebrows started to lift.

"She's so pretty that all the fellows passing on the street stop to help."

Her eyebrows went higher.

"Even the armored truck driver gets out to help."

And higher.

"The knockout's little friend comes out of the bank. She takes one look at what is going on and she don't miss a beat. She bumps into the driver as she passes by. She says something by way of apology, but he doesn't pay her no mind.

"Next thing we all know, the truck's driving away. No fuss. No muss."

Impressed, Liz turned to Mr. Kaplan. "You stole an armored truck full of money by doing a bump and grab?!"

Mr. Kaplan didn't respond. Game play had stalled, but she was still staring at her cards.

Brimley went on. "We're all standing around in disbelief – me, my no good cousin, the two fellows from the truck, the bank manager who came outside not a minute after the girl and even the knockout.

"Now the knockout, she had such a look of shock – just like the rest of us – that none of the others thought anything of her being there. She left. She got back into her car and started to drive off.

"My cousin and I, we'd been there for a while watching, waiting for the truck, so we knew that the two girls, they were there together. So while everyone else was all up in arms … we follow the knockout.

"She was so upset that she didn't pay no mind to us tailing her. She led us right to where the armored car was just sitting waiting. My cousin and I went around from behind and we snuck up on them. The knockout was all upset because the little one left her, but the little one couldn't understand why she's upset because according to her, the plan they went over in the car was always for them to leave separately and meet up where they were now."

"The little one does have a name." Reddington pointed out.

Brimley threw up a hand in a mea culpa before going on. "Mr. Kaplan was still trying to settle down the knockout when she noticed us standing there watching them.

"Now like I said earlier, my cousin and I, we had guns. The ladies, they didn't. My cousin – he was kind of a not very nice fellow – he decides that since the girls didn't have any guns, him and I should just take the loot and since there were two of us and two of them, we should each get a girl."

Brimley said it like it was no big thing. Liz glanced towards Mr. Kaplan looking for a reaction, but she wasn't offering one.

"Now I was okay with killing the fellows from the armored car, but I already had a girl – too many as a matter of fact. That's why I was there to rob the truck.

"I had a girl and I wanted to marry her. Problem was the late Mrs. Brimley's father said no way, no how. He didn't think I could afford to support a family on account of I was still paying alimony to the first Mrs. Brimley.

"I needed to show him I had the money to take care of his daughter. Problem was, I didn't."

"So you decided to rob an armored car to get the money." Liz suggested.

"Exactly." Brimley agreed. "My cousin tells me he's taking the redhead and if I don't want the other girl I should just be done with it and go ahead and kill her right then. I didn't think that was necessary. I told him I didn't see why we couldn't just take the money and leave the girls. What were they going to do - call the cops on us for stealing the money they stole?

"The two of us are arguing back and forth because I didn't sign up to kill no girls.

"Because we have guns and they don't and because they're girls – truthfully, mostly because they're girls –" Brimley admitted with a sheepish shrug. "- we're not paying too much attention to them as we argue – especially not once my cousin asks what's to stop him from shooting all three of us and taking all of the loot for himself.

"As things start to get real heated between the two of us, the knockout picks up a little tree branch that was just laying there on the ground. She breaks out with what would later come to be known as her signature move. She bashed my cousin in the head with it.

"Then, she passes out on account of she can't take the sight of all the blood that came out."

"What?!" Liz asked almost laughing.

"You heard me." Mr. Brimley told her.

"Mr. Kaplan and me, we talk it out. We agree that I'll take care of my cousin and get rid of the truck. In exchange, we split the loot three ways."

"How did your cousin take it when he woke up?" Liz asked.

"Oh, he didn't wake up. He was deader than a doornail. Kate's missus didn't mess around when she hit people in the head. You are looking at one of the very few to ever survive it."

Liz was confused. "I thought she passed out after hitting your cousin?"

"She did." Brimley agreed. He lifted up the little tube that constantly supplied him with oxygen. "This is a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother time."

Liz blinked.

Brimley shrugged. "I'll be honest – my cousin wasn't much of a loss. And I liked Mr. Kaplan's style a lot better than my cousin's. No muss, no fuss. I told her to keep in touch and if she wanted to do it again ..."

Liz again glanced towards Mr. Kaplan who had been quiet for the most part throughout the story. Her eyes were still on her cards, but Liz wouldn't say that her focus was there. She looked too contemplative for that.

"I kind of don't want to wait. Can I get the other story now?" Liz asked nicely.

Playing with his glass of by now just mostly melted ice, Reddington, who was usually quite the storyteller, wryly gave a quick and less than engaging 3 line rendition. "Mr. Kaplan's girlfriend caught Teddy adjusting the rear view mirror so he could peek at Mr. Kaplan while she was in the backseat getting changed into a police woman's uniform. She grabbed the billy club that was part of the uniform and started hitting him with it. She felt quite strongly that Mr. Kaplan's tatas were reserved for her viewing pleasure only."

"Tatas?" Marvin raised an eyebrow. "Now who's starting to sound like Glen?"

"You people don't have to say it like it's a bad thing." Glen grumbled.

"I had it coming." Brimley admitted. "My behavior, it was disrespectful both to Mr. Kaplan and to her missus. She trusted me to look out for Kate and I violated that trust. I took advantage of her."

At least to Liz's ear, the first part sounded sincere. The second part, on the other hand, sounded like a lecture that had been beaten into him – from the sounds of it quite literally.

"Maybe you had it coming," Reddington argued, "but not the rest of the people in the car you were driving."

"Wait?" Liz realized she maybe should have picked up on that at the mention of adjusting the rear view mirror. "She started hitting you while you were driving?"

No, clearly, Vanessa was not Mr. Kaplan's first homicidal girlfriend.

"She may have been nice to look at, but she was hardly what I would have called her generation's best or brightest."

Mr. Kaplan didn't contradict Reddington, but his words did at last manage to get her to turn away from her cards to fix him with a look of disappointment.

Liz suggested a reason for Reddington's obvious disregard for Mr. Kaplan's former girlfriend. "Were you in the car too or did she try to hit you on the head some other time?"

An irritated Reddington answered simply. "Neither."

Liz wondered if this was the same girlfriend from the hand story or a different one. Before she could ask, Mr. Kaplan's phone started ringing.

tbc

A/N Reviews are greatly appreciated.