Dead Line

by JJ Gould

  “Don’t worry about it, Don. You are one heck of a salesman.” To prove it, Stan fished another contract out and scanned it. “What does ‘studio sponsor’ mean?”

  “It’s genius is what it is. I’ve got a cousin that’s in charge of promotions for a minor league baseball club in Ohio. He’s got more ways to sell stuff than you can imagine. Some of them can work for us. Have you heard of the C, M, and G Railroad?”

  Stan shook his head.

  “Neither has anyone else. Stands for Canadian, Mississippi, and Gulf Railroad—a new rail line bringing down grain from the north and oil from the gulf, all the cities on the route getting schmoozed… promising a good deal for everyone. A lobbying firm is trying to get all the states on board—Feds, railroad commission, all that stuff.”

  “And…?”

  “And it’s too early by far to drop in ads for a railroad that doesn’t exist, I mean what would you say? A bill hasn’t even been introduced yet. Heck the company logo hasn’t been vetted yet, but the news can be broadcast from the ‘C, M, and G Railroad studios.’ Lets the idea of a railroad seep into the minds of the population, maybe helps come lobbying time. And it doesn’t count in the inventory. No clutter, free money.”

  “How much?” Stan asked, and Dan told him. Stan shook his head with a wry smile. “All right. I’ll mention it at the next staff meeting.”

  Chapter 48 - Lester LaFave

  Lester LaFave was in his usual seat at the bar. By that point, he was somewhat of a fixture. The bartender knew him by drink and gave him the space to conduct his business, along with a certain cagey respect. LaFave nurtured this by giving the barkeep an aloof nod and a hefty tip. That’s right, asshole, I’m Lester LaFave.

  This LaFavian act had gotten a little more intricate with the arrival of Dr. Harrison Hall. LaFave gauged him carefully in the mirror over the bar as he walked in, trying to guess if Hall knew LaFave was shtupping the missus. The nervous way he sidled up to the stool next to him made him think not.

  LaFave stirred the drink in front of him with a ringed pinky and took a sip. Then after a bored pause, he looked at the mirror behind the bar. “Yeah?”

  Hall lifted a hand to the bartender, trying to match LaFave’s cool demeanor. “I have another problem.”

  LaFave cocked his head and took another sip. “Another problem?”

  Flustered, Hall spilled a little of the drink in front of him and made a little show of mopping it up with a spare napkin. “This one isn’t as permanent.” Hall tried to look confident. “There’s a person saying some disturbing things about important people and needs to be taught a lesson.”

  LaFave savored the moment. “So, lemme get something straight. I’m taking care of a woman for you, and now you want me to take care of a man too?” he said, forcing Hall to spell it out.

  “Shh!” The sound came out almost involuntarily. “No, I mean the first person, that’s the same. That can happen next week when I’m in Florida. The second person is not a permanent answer, just you getting a message across in a…” Hall searched for a word. ”Painful way. Let him know the risks of insulting the wrong people.”

  “This second guy got a name?”

  “Yes, but I want the punishment to be more than just physical.” Hall touched an envelope in his pocket. “He has a wife and a kid.”

  “A kid?” LaFave decided he didn’t really care if it was a kid, a grandma, or a golden retriever, but knew he could probably get some leverage on the price if it seemed like it bothered him.

  He drank a sip and turned slowly to face Hall. He’d heard that movies stars in a close-up looked at just one eye of the other actor. That way, their eyes wouldn’t flick back and forth. He tried it, like in a movie he’d seen Robert Mitchum in, staring at Hall's right eye for the long slow count of ten.

  “We better talk about this someplace else.”

  Chapter 49 - Matt Bradley

  Matt Bradley was plodding out to his car—another day of making the rounds, looking for something that statistically should be there but could not be found. Stan hadn’t said anything about the lack of progress. Rather, he’d been encouraging, saying, “It’ll come. Just keep your eyes open.”

  Yeah, yeah, sure. Eyes open. He was preoccupied enough that he almost ran into the guy with the card outside the station.

  “Uh, excuse me. I’m from out of town. I was told there was an independent radio station that handled investigative news?” Young, tan, the guy looked like a gym teacher or a golf pro.

  Matt nodded glumly. “Yeah, this is it.”

  The golf pro looked both relieved and concerned. Matt assumed he was glad he’d finally found the place but taken aback by the actual studios.

  Matt caught the vibe and felt a little defensive. “It’s a radio station. Nobody cares what it looks like as long as it sounds good.”

  “Yeah, sure, I get it.” The guy shrugged and smiled. “Back in the day, I did a little DJ work in college.”

  Matt sighed deeply. “Yeah.” Then again with great effort, he said, “So there’s application forms at the front desk…”

  “No, no.” Golf Pro laughed sheepishly. “No, I just am looking for… well, it’s about my aunt. I’ve been trying to get her some help, trying to find some answers, but I keep getting the runaround. I told my Uncle Earl I’d try to help, but no matter who I talk to, it seems like I’m being stonewalled.”

  Matt resisted the temptation to look at his watch. This guy was holding him up, but there didn’t seem any option outside of just walking away. He tried a half turn toward his car, a hint that the conversation was over.

  The guy pressed on. “I’m not really the kind of person to go to the press, and I’m certain there’s a good reason, but I just don’t have time to keep driving back and forth from my practice…”

  Practice. Matt slowly turned and looked. “Practice?”

  The guy gave him his card: William C. Sanderson, MD. Doctor of Orthopedic Surgery ABOS/AAOS/AANA

  “And you think you’re getting stonewalled?”

  The guy started backpedaling. “Well, medicine is not an exact science, and there are many, many reasons why a surgery would not have the optimum outcomes.”

  Matt was leaning over the golf-pro doctor with a predatory eagerness. “But you’re a surgeon. You aren’t just an ordinary person. If you have doubts or questions about a surgery, you must have some reason for it.”

  “Yes, I do, but I also don’t want to ruin the reputation of a fine hospital through blind accusations—”

  Matt was giving him the Yeah, yeah, get to the point motion with his hands as he cut him off. “Name the doctor. Name the hospital.”

  Taken aback, Dr. Sanderson opened and shut his mouth twice before saying, “Hall-Hauptman. And the doctor is named Benjamin Hall. I’m told he’s related to the founder.”

  Matt closed his eyes and smiled. Bingo.

  Chapter 50 - Harrison Hall IV

  Doctor Benjamin Harrison Hall IV fumbled with the keys to the carriage house, running on the edge of sanity. Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT! This whole thing was one big shit show, and he felt like he was on the very edge of falling into the shit himself, pulling the entire Hall legacy down with him. It was like skiing two feet in front of an avalanche, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He pressed his forehead against the cold stone wall of the renovated carriage house that at one time held horses and carriages and tack and hay but now held two Mercedes and a Lamborghini.

  Deep breaths. Willing himself to calm down, Hall focused on what he could control, forgetting about things that couldn’t be undone.

  At least he had Deidre taken care of. He shuddered at the cool and calm way the psychopath LaFave was ready to handle her and the reporter from KCAH. He didn’t want Stan Martin killed, just shaken up a little, but the way LaFave had shrugged about beating up a woman and her toddler made Hall's blood run cold. Hopefully, he would take care of both problems quickly and leave town. A guy like that was bad for the reputa
tion of Sioux Falls.

  Hall checked the date on his watch. Ten days, tops, then it will be over. By then he would be well south of the snow and ice-cold weather. He shivered involuntarily. The detached carriage house was a nice idea in the summer but a pain in the ass in the winter. He plugged his key into the doorway and activated the door opener, a relic from the thirties that was mostly a nuisance. Come spring he’d have the whole thing torn down and replaced. Piece of crap.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Hall?”

  “Shit!” He jumped and wheeled.

  He hadn’t seen the nurse in the winter coat until she was right up on him. He frowned. He did not like low-level doctors approaching him, much less nurses, much less nurses on his property.

  “What are you doing here? How did you get in here?” True, the building he called home was technically hospital property, and true, Hall-Hauptmann personnel could have access if needed, but this kind of sneaking around was unacceptable. He would see what he could do to have her fired.

  The nurse stepped closer. She looked vaguely familiar in a way that set an alarm off inside his head. She was obviously a nurse. Underneath her blue down coat, he could see the blue scrubs. Her hair was pulled up, and she wore cushioned white athletic shoes and too much makeup around her eyes.

  She motioned back over her shoulder. “I took the bus. I didn’t want to park in front and, you know, cause a scene.” She stepped forward knowingly. “My name’s Janet Brecht. I was on the surgical team with your son. The one Mr. Meyer the lawyer wanted to talk to us about?”

  He leaned back away from her frosty breath. “Yes?”

  “Well, it’s just that I’ve had some concerns, stuff that’s been bothering me. And I want to talk to some people about it, but it doesn’t seem like it would be right to talk to the police or to a reporter… I think it would be best if maybe… just you and I could talk about it. Come to an agreement.”

  The words came out like a well-rehearsed script—the look, the smile, the nod. Perhaps it was the fact that she seemed so certain of herself, or maybe it was his fear—or maybe her rudeness—that made him a little bit crazy.

  “And you came here to my house?” He almost shouted the words, outraged that this… nurse would have the gall to approach him at his home.

  Alarmed, the nurse suddenly stepped back. And slipped.

  Ice and snow were a continuous part of winters in South Dakota, and most people slipped and fell at least once each winter. The rustic cobbled walk that led from the home to the carriage house collected melted snow from its gabled roof, a season-long menace. The nurse slipped on that ice patch, which was slick as a skating rink, and went down in an inglorious pratfall, both feet splaying out with tremendous force.

  Reeling her hands back to catch her balance, she fell. Kloch. With a noise that ironically sounded like a horse shoe striking pavement, the back of her head hit squarely on the corner of the hitching post—a square pillar of purple quartzite—just above where the spinal column entered the skull base.

  Open-mouthed, Hall watched her convulse on the ground, thrashing about with spasmodic jerks, eyes wide open in shock, mouth open in a soundless scream. A complete accident.

  Hall looked up toward the house. It was empty, of course. No one was home. Trees shielded the walkway from the neighbors, and the carriage house shielded the view from the street.

  No car. No, she said she took the bus. No witnesses.

  The cold air was silent, with just the sound of her limbs and body thrashing, thrashing. He thought about calling an ambulance or the police or both then thought about the questions that might come up. He watched her convulsions through a series of emotions—horror, alarm, worry, fear—then finally had no emotions at all, just thought.

  He checked her pulse at the neck. Not dead. He waited a little longer. Then she was dead. He sighed with surprising relief. For once, the worst thing that could happen did not happen. For once, luck was on his side.

  He closed the door to the carriage house for privacy then went inside to get some garbage bags.

  Chapter 51 - Marvin Carlson

  What Marvin liked about his job at Hall-Hauptmann was the hours and the autonomy. No one bothered him as he cleaned the building, and no one told him how to do it, either. He was a vet, saw some action, and was admittedly a little screwed up after it. He did not like crowds or people or sudden movements or loud noises.

  Being a nighttime janitor at the hospital was fine with him. Every night was like clockwork, same chores at the same times, steady, steady, steady. His mother had thought he was too good for the night work, thought he would get bored with it, and maybe over time, he would. But for the past eleven years, the soothing monotony had been a balm for his soul.

  At 1:35 a.m., with the floors swept and scrubbed, Marvin jangled his keys as he walked to the incinerator. The hospital produced a varying amount of medical waste each day, and 1:35 to 2:45 was when Marvin would toss the bright-red biohazard bags into the hopper and hit the switch. Woom! There’d be a soft explosion of gas igniting and the warmth of the gas jets doing their job, consuming the waste into powdery fragments. Then he would hit the processor button, and the fragments would be evenly ground into Grape-Nuts-sized granules, then poured into a gray plastic sack and sent off to the dumpster by three in the morning, like clockwork.

  So it was extremely upsetting to have his routine upset by some nervous jerk with a clipboard and some heavy boxes.

  “Who’re you?” Marvin was blunt. No one was supposed to bother him.

  “I’m Dr. Hall.”

  The guy said it like it was supposed to mean something. Marvin just stared.

  “Look. Didn’t you hear from your supervisor when you reported in?” The intruder puffed out his cheeks in frustration. “We have boxes and boxes of documents to be shredded, and the shredder is down for service work. We decided to use the incinerator.”

  “Okay.” It was not okay, but Marvin shrugged and waited for the guy to leave.

  “It’s sensitive material. I have to be the one to incinerate it. Lots of protected documents and patient files.” The doctor said it in a hurry, like Marvin was the one who was breaking his routine. Asshole.

  “I’ll be done in about half an hour.” He gave a shushing movement with his hands like he was trying to sweep Marvin out into the hall without touching him.

  Marvin sighed. Brass was brass, military or civilian. He wasn’t happy about it, but what could he do, anyway? These asshole pricks pushed people around like they were the be-all and end-all, like they knew everything and other people knew nothing.

  He shuffled out into the hall, shaking his head. Jerk. Everyone knew to be careful about the plastic. If there was too much, it would jack around with the smoke particulates, and here this asshole was, burning up a bunch of papers—not in cardboard boxes, which would make sense, but in plastic tubs, sealed and unwieldy, looked like they weighed about sixty to eighty pounds apiece. The jerk doctor was heaving them up onto the table and shoving them into the incinerator like he was trying to set a record.

  Marvin thought about helping him just as a way to get him the hell out of there faster, but he decided not to. Jerk.

  About forty minutes later, just after two o’clock, the second thing happened that bothered Marvin. He knew for a fact that the cafeteria staff did not show up until after three, but there in the hallway was the unmistakable smell of cooking meat. Marvin stopped and sniffed suspiciously then shook his head. Probably some kind of breakfast meeting they have to prepare for.

  Chapter 52 - Claire

  Claire was at the house project, where things had turned the corner. The house had been stripped of lath and plaster and moved to the new foundation. There had been a delay on the electricity hookup while she waited for the inspector, but now the wiring was approved, the plumbing hooked up, and the drywall in place. Dust was not an issue, so John was in a carrier on her back while she did a walk-through, admiring the progress and planning the next stages, while J
ohn Returns From Hunt was out picking up some drywall compound. Alone in the house, upstairs she heard the squeak of the front stairs. John must have made the trip in record time.

  “Pretty fast, hey, kiddo?” She reached back to chuck little John on the chin.

  But the man who entered the room was not John but some guy in dark-gray coveralls, new leather work gloves, and the kind of soft-soled work boots that made little noise. He had a medium-sized crowbar in his hand.

  “Who are you?”

  The guy said nothing, just moved to her left a little to block the exit to the stairs.

  Claire felt her hackles rise. She wheeled around and sprinted through the back doorway to the rear of the house. The house she was renovating was typical of the style and period of the time and had two stairways, one in front for the family and a smaller one in the back for the servants. The latter was the staircase she headed for, making the top of the stairs about three steps ahead of the stranger with the crowbar. She hit the second floor, landing where a hallway to the bedrooms on the second floor split off.

  Keep going down the stairs, or head to the front of the house? The trip to the front of the house was longer but could be seen from the street. If she took the stairs, the pickup was in back, a possible escape.

  She headed down the hallway, arms pumping, feet driving, Little John jouncing. Suddenly, she heard an enormous crash intermingled with a bellow of fury. Turning, she could see John Returns From Hunt staring angrily down the staircase at something she couldn’t see. “John? You okay?”

  He turned and slowly deflated slowly down into his normal self. Claire walked quickly back and looked down the staircase. At the bottom was a huge dent in the drywall, the two-by-fours broken. Carefully, Claire went down the stairway to examine the damage. A bloody piece of scalp and hair was stuck in a broken two-by-four, a small dot of blood and the crowbar off to the side.