Dead on Arrival

by R. J. Patterson

  “That’s funny,” she said. “I came by earlier this afternoon and didn’t see either one of you around.”

  “You came by, Mrs. Neuberger?”

  “Yes, I wanted to bring you some cookies, my special sympathy cookies.”

  “What kind were they?” Cal asked, doing his best to act interested.

  “I call them the Bronx Bombers.”

  Cal winked at her. “I forgot you’re from New York.”

  “That’s right, Cal. My Yankees are going all the way this year.”

  “So, you really just came around to rub it in, didn’t you?”

  She grinned and patted Cal on the shoulder. “You didn’t really think the Mariners were going to beat New York, did you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “It might’ve been a better series had Chase Dollinger not up and died. That was such a shame. So young and so much talent.”

  Cal nodded knowingly.

  “A tragedy like that can really do a number on the team, too.” She gave a jerk on Fifi’s leash as the little pup tried to get away. “I’ve been reading all your stories,” Mrs. Neuberger said. “Is there more to it that you’re going to be writing about in the coming days?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not sure, but let’s just say I’m still looking into it.”

  Cal suppressed a smile, confident that the little piece of information he fed Mrs. Neuberger would satiate her hunger for gossip.

  “I’m sure my bridge club would be interested in hearing about that,” she said.

  Cal put his index finger to his lips. “Mum’s the word, Mrs. Neuberger. We wouldn’t want to harm newspaper sales, would we?”

  “Of course not, dear,” she said.

  He turned to leave, but she apparently wasn’t ready to continue her walk, despite Fifi tugging her owner onward.

  “There was something else I wanted to ask you,” she said, tapping her finger against her temple. “If I could just remember what it was­—”

  Cal glanced over his shoulder and then down the street. Everything appeared quiet. He wondered how Kelly was handling the two agents who had knocked on her door. If their absence was any indication, she was doing a stellar job of stalling them, if not redirecting them altogether.

  “Well, maybe you’ll think of it and ask me the next time I see you out walking Fifi.”

  “No, it was important,” she said, furrowing her brow. “Really important.”

  “I—I hate to do this to you, Mrs. Neuberger, but I really have to run.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going in such a hurry at this time of night?”

  “Maybe to meet a source to talk about Chase Dollinger. These types of people aren’t exactly the ones who like to meet in the middle of a day in a coffee shop.”

  “Ah, I see,” she said as she winked at him.

  “We’ll talk more later.”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond, spinning around in the opposite direction and walking quickly toward the corner.

  “See you soon, Mr. Murphy,” she called out.

  Cal resisted the urge to look back, focusing on getting to The Oracle as soon as possible. He reached the corner and crossed the street, hustling along the route. Once he was sure Mrs. Neuberger couldn’t see him any longer, he broke into a dead sprint.

  For the next block, he pumped his arms as he ran, refusing to slow down for even a second. His lungs burned as did his quad muscles, but he ignored the pain and stayed focused on the goal.

  Once he reached the corner, he spotted the taxicab parked just outside.

  Old Faithful.

  The sign on the other side of the street forbid him to cross over, the giant orange hand serving as an intimidating signal. Cal glanced in both directions and noticed the possibility of an opening. Uninterested in waiting around for the more inviting image of a glowing white stick figure, Cal prepared to time his dash across the road. He hunched over in a position to explode and waited for the next car to pass by.

  However, his plan was interrupted when a man tapped him on the shoulder.

  Cal spun around to see the same pair of FBI agents who he’d seen approaching his house standing behind him.

  “Mr. Murphy?” the male agent said.

  “Yes?”

  “We need to talk.”

  CHAPTER 17

  CAL DRUMMED HIS FINGERS on the table in front of him and stared out the window. The Abraham Lincoln Building on the corner of Third Avenue and Spring Street in downtown Seattle housed the FBI’s offices there. Holed up in an interview room on the tenth floor, Cal looked down at the city’s winking lights and wondered how many people walking aimlessly past another high rise structure knew they were next to the FBI. There weren’t many clues that the building had any ties to the U.S. government other than the flag that flew atop the roof.

  Nearly a half hour had elapsed since a pair of FBI agents ushered Cal into their car and drove him downtown for questioning. They insisted it was simply an interview, but Cal suspected otherwise, refusing to discuss anything until his lawyer was present.

  Moments later, a knock at the door preceded the entry of Kyle Edgefield into the room. Edgefield was a recent acquaintance of Cal’s as the two men first met at a Mariners game on the club level while Cal was reporting. Though Cal generally avoided lawyers, he sensed Edgefield was different. He came across as sharp, kind, and compassionate yet dogged in the way he fought for his clients. Cal had hoped he would never have to hire Edgefield, but here he was, briefcase in hand standing just a few feet away.

  “Have a seat,” Cal said, gesturing to the empty chair in front of him. “Apparently, I’m not going anywhere for a while.”

  “I’m going to get you out of this,” Edgefield said. “I know you couldn’t possibly be guilty of anything, except being an awesome sports writer.”

  Cal rubbed his face with both hands and sighed. “I don’t need platitudes right now,” Cal said. “I need an advocate.”

  Edgefield nodded. “What have they accused you of doing?”

  “Nothing yet, but I’m not taking my chances with the federal government without some form of legal counsel and representation. I’ve watched how this sort of thing goes before, and I want to get out in front of it.”

  Another knock cut their conversation short. The two agents who had wrangled Cal for questioning entered the room.

  “I’m Lana Linderman,” the woman said, “and this is my partner Matt Preston. And we need to discuss a few things with you, Mr. Murphy.”

  Edgefield stepped forward and offered his hand. “Kyle Edgefield,” he said. “I’ll be serving as counsel for my client.”

  Linderman and Preston exchanged a glance before sauntering over to the table.

  “Let’s have a seat and begin,” Linderman said.

  Everyone sat down, and then Linderman produced a file folder from her briefcase. She opened it and grabbed a pen before scribbling a few notes down.

  “Will you please tell me the nature of this interview?” Cal asked.

  “I think you know why we’re here, Mr. Murphy,” Linderman said.

  One by one, Linderman questioned Cal about all the people he had spoken with while gathering information for his story on the death of Chase Dollinger. The first inquiry pertained to Sid Gambino, the New York coroner. That was followed by questions about Phil White Bull and then Ray Jackson.

  Linderman lined up three large photos of the men—all shots from what appeared to be their driver’s licenses—and pushed them to the center of the table.

  “Mr. Murphy, can you tell me what all three of these men have in common?”

  “They all had some sort of contact with Chase Dollinger, either directly or indirectly, in the time leading up to and not long after his death.”

  “Anything else?”

  Cal furrowed his brow. “Nothing’s coming to mind.”

  Linderman glared at him. “What about the fact that you spoke with all three of them—and now they’
re all dead?”

  Cal stared blankly at her but didn’t say a word.

  “Your look says it all,” she said. “You didn’t even flinch when I told you that. And of course, it’s because you already knew.”

  “I knew because I was accosted yesterday by a man who showed me pictures of all their dead bodies,” Cal fired back.

  “And who was this man?”

  Cal shrugged. “Some guy knocked me out and then threatened me. I tried to report this incident to the Seattle Police Department tonight, but I got a little distracted.”

  Linderman leaned forward on the table. “Don’t play games with me, Mr. Murphy. I know all about you. We have a full dossier worked up on you from your time overseas last summer when you were working with Russia mafia members.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Cal said slowly. “I’m afraid you have some—”

  “The only person here who needs to be afraid is you,” Linderman snapped. “We have you at the scene of three murders all around the time of death.”

  “Why is the FBI even involved in all this?” Cal asked. “You don’t typically run around investigating murders.”

  “We do when they happen on a Native American reservation. Then we started tracking your movements, and here we are.”

  “This isn’t exactly an interview, Agent Linderman,” Cal said.

  “You’re right,” she said. “This is more like an arrest.”

  Preston pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket and slapped them on Cal.

  “Cal Murphy, you’re under arrest for the murders of Sid Gambino, Phil White Bull, and Ray Jackson.”

  “This is absurd,” Cal said.

  “You have the right to remain silent and—”

  “What evidence do you have?” Cal demanded.

  Edgefield put his hand on Cal’s arm and squeezed.

  “That’s enough, Cal,” Edgefield said. “I’ll handle this from here.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “WE BREAK THE NEWS, not make the news,” Frank Buckman muttered under his breath. He drummed that line into all his reporters, especially the young ones. The mantra underscored what Buckman felt was becoming a lost code in the new age of journalism. Social media gave reporters the opportunity to become the story as much as the one they reported—and a generation of young people raised on social media were inept at restraining themselves.

  But this phrase was nuanced differently when applied to Cal Murphy. Buckman’s star reporter had simply been following up in an attempt to unravel the conspiracy that shrouded the death of Chase Dollinger. Apparently, Cal had tugged on the wrong thread, one belonging to powerful people hell-bent on keeping their secret buried—and maybe even Cal with it.

  Cal’s forthcoming story revealing that Chase Dollinger’s death was likely murder than some freakish natural cause would’ve sent tremors through the sports world. Instead, it was the world of sports journalism that was rocked by Cal’s arrest.

  Buckman fought with the paper’s managing editor against the placement of the story about Cal. But there it was, stripped down one column above the fold on the front page with the triple deck headline:

  Times’ Reporter

  Arrested for Trio

  of Murders

  Nestled inside the article was a head shot of Cal, his smile betraying the seriousness of the accusation. Buckman couldn’t stand to look at it any longer and swept the paper off his desk.

  Social media was even more painful to look at. Buckman went through his normal morning routine of checking Twitter to see if there were any conversations among his peers that warranted a story or at least asking one of his reporters to look into. But most of the chatter centered around Cal, nicknamed “The Serial Killer Scribe.”

  Buckman knew all of it was a lie. The looming challenge now was to prove it.

  As he leaned back in his chair, Buckman tossed an old souvenir-sized Seattle Supersonics basketball up in the air. He mulled over all the facts that he knew as well as the one’s Cal had shared. The what and the when seemed firmly established, but the elements necessary for a solid story—the who and the how—all remained a big mystery. However, Buckman would’ve settled for just one of the latter. Yet with Cal being arrested on a murder charge, the likelihood of getting answers anytime soon seemed like a pipe dream.

  Buckman’s phone rang, and he stopped his tossing to check the caller ID. It was Kelly Murphy. He took a deep breath before answering.

  “I’m so sorry about what happened to Cal,” Buckman said.

  “Thank you for saying that, but you sure didn’t need to plaster it all over the front page this morning,” she said.

  “Look, I know. I tried to stop it, but at the end of the day, I’ve only got so much sway with front page editorial.”

  “Never mind about all that. You and I both know that Cal is innocent, right?”

  “Of course,” Buckman said with conviction.

  “Well, we have to prove it—and fast. The people behind this have an immense amount of power. And I’m not sure I fully understood that until I started digging around trying to help Cal.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I guess Cal didn’t tell you this yet, but all the security feeds from the bus, starting with the moment Dollinger set foot on board, are gone. Every angle, every second—completely wiped out.”

  Buckman sighed. “How did you find this out?”

  “That’s not important. Probably the less you know, the better in regard to how I obtained that information.”

  “What do you think we should do about it?”

  “Cal’s lawyer told me he wasn’t sure they were going to give him bail at the arraignment on Monday.”

  “So, he’s stuck in FBI custody through the weekend?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But that doesn’t mean we have to sit around and do nothing.”

  “I would love to get involved with this, but right now I’m up to my eyeballs in plenty of other stories, and I’m short-staffed. If I had another available reporter—”

  “Why don’t you pick up the investigation on Cal’s behalf? Who cares if you’re a little rusty. I know you’ve got the skills to pull it off.”

  “Kelly, it’s not that I don’t want to help. It’s just that—”

  “It’s just what? You know Cal would do the same for you if you were in his situation. Don’t abandon him now when he needs you the most.”

  “I’m not abandoning Cal, but this story is far more complicated. I need to know the full story before I go poking around in it. If you’ve already run across the kind of interference that has resulted in deleted security camera footage, I’m not sure I’d be able to make any meaningful progress anyway.”

  “Whatever,” Kelly said. “I’ll do it myself.”

  She hung up.

  Buckman picked up his Sonics basketball and started tossing it upward again, mulling over how he could start investigating some of Cal’s claims. But Buckman just couldn’t see it happening, at least not with everything he had going on, including pressure from his managing editor to do more with less when it came to the Times’ sports coverage.

  Then Buckman had a thought.

  Maybe there is something I can do.

  CHAPTER 19

  KELLY PACED AROUND her kitchen, contemplating her next move. With Buckman unable to help clear Cal’s name immediately, she considered how she might reveal the conspiracy mounting against her husband. She needed indisputable facts, video evidence, witnesses corroborating what she and Cal knew to be true. However, with a powerful benefactor obviously pulling the strings to cast Cal in a poor light, she knew the task wouldn’t be easy.

  With Maddie safe and out of danger, Kelly was free to move forward without fear of any costly reprisals by the person responsible for framing Cal. There were dozens of story threads to tug on, but she decided to follow up with the person closest to the initial victim in an attempt to determine why Chase Dollinger was targeted.

  The ride out
to the Dollinger ranch passed quickly for Kelly on a Saturday morning. She tuned in to a local hip-hop station, her attempt to connect with Cal. His relatively unknown love for hip-hop, particularly 80s rap, was one of the things she loved about him. Cal couldn’t dance, but he often surprised others with not only his grasp of the lyrics but also his style. It wasn’t that Cal just rapped because he thought it was a cool exercise—he told Kelly that he often felt the words in his soul. Jay-Z’s “Change the Game” came on the radio.

  Seems like a fitting anthem to me.

  As Kelly left the Seattle metropolis, everything seemed to slow down. It wasn’t just physically, although the traffic did seem to move closer to the speed limit than ten to fifteen miles per hour over it. For the first time in a week, she felt like her mind slowed down. She could think, ponder, deduce.

  She rolled the window down. The fresh air was good for her soul and her sanity.

  As Kelly rumbled up the long dirt road leading to Hugh Dollinger’s ranch, she felt a twinge of guilt. Part of her motivation centered around her desire to get Cal exonerated—but she hadn’t fully considered how insensitive that might seem to a man whose son would never return.

  This is about justice, not some Hail Mary effort to keep Cal out of prison.

  Kelly decided to frame her reason for visiting Hugh in such a light. It was necessary if she intended on getting his help.

  When she eased through the Dollinger gates, she noticed Hugh tossing bales of hay into the feed trough for his horses. She stared in amazement for a few moments, marveling at how strong of a man Hugh was. He’d likely been hurling those bales for years now, dating back to the time when he was just a kid and his father owned the ranch. But that didn’t make it any less impressive to Kelly.

  “Kelly Murphy,” Hugh said as he stopped and gave her an admiring glance.

  “Hi, Mr. Dollinger,” she said.

  “Please, call me Hugh.”

  “Okay, Hugh. How are things going out here?”

  “Same ole, same ole. Horses need to be fed, crops need to be fertilized. It’s almost the same rhythms I’ve been dancing to since I was a young’un. What about you? Did Cal send you out here to do his dirty work for him?”