by David Archer
Sam opened the door, and George shook his hand with a smile.
“Sam, it's good to see you again,” George said. “Harry gave me a quick rundown on what's happening, and told me to introduce you to this lady, Jennifer Ragan. Jennifer is one of Harry's top security people, now, and the guys in the van work for her. Between them all, you just about got the equivalent of Seal Team Six watching over your family.”
Sam shook hands with Jennifer, and invited them inside. “Indie will be out in just a moment, she's just packing the last of her things.”
“We're not in a hurry,” Jennifer said with a smile. “This will be one of the best assignments we've had in a long time. Did Harry tell you where he's sending us?”
Sam shook his head. “No, he didn't. He just told me to tell our little girl that it was going to be fun.”
Jennifer smiled. “I'll say,” she said. She looked around to make sure Kenzie wasn't in earshot, then leaned close to Sam and whispered, “We're going to Disney World! Harry's got a plane waiting for us at the airport, right now, with all the smoke and mirrors so that no one will know where we've gotten off to.”
Sam's eyes went wide. “Are you serious? Well, that just sucks, I wish I could go.”
“Yeah, well, Harry kinda figured you'd feel that way. He said we can stay down there as long as necessary, so if you get done in a hurry with whatever you're doing, hop a plane and come on down. Trust me, none of us will mind spending an extra couple of days so you can enjoy the fun with your family.”
Indie came out of the bedroom just then, and Sam introduced her to Jennifer. The two women seemed to click, but Sam wasn't surprised. Harry would have chosen someone he knew Indie would like. There were hurried whispers to explain to Indie where they were headed, and then Sam called their daughter from the kitchen, where she had been playing with Samson.
Kenzie looked up at him solemnly. “Daddy, don't forget to feed Samson,” she said.
“Is Samson your kitty cat?” Jennifer asked, and Kenzie nodded. “Well, aren't you bringing him along with us? Uncle Harry said it was okay.”
There was another ten-minute delay, as Samson's pet carrier was located and extra cat food was tossed into a bag. Kenzie was delighted that her little friend would get to go along, and Sam was relieved. One of the reasons he had never had a pet before was because he would always forget that it was waiting at home to be fed. Samson would probably live longer, or at least better, since he was going along on the vacation.
There were hugs and kisses, and then George and Jennifer hustled Indie and Kenzie and Samson into the car. Sam met John, Tom and Matt, the three ex-military special forces security guys, and told them how much he appreciated what they were doing.
“No, we should be thanking you,” John said. “If we didn't get a break from Harry pretty soon, I think we were all going to go insane and shoot ourselves.”
Sam laughed. “Knowing Harry as well as I do, I think I understand what you're saying. Just let me tell you this, though. When it comes down to wanting someone at your back, there is nobody alive I trust more than Harry Winslow.”
John and the others grinned. “You think we don't know that? Any one of us could make three times the money we get now, working as consultants with one of those big security outfits overseas, but you couldn't take us away from Harry permanently with anything less than a nuclear bomb. That old man has saved each of our asses, at one time or another. Believe me, we know exactly what you mean.”
A minute later, Sam stood there leaning against his Corvette as his family was driven away. They would be safe, he knew, because anyone Harry trusted, Sam trusted. He waved once more as the limousine turned the corner, then looked up at the sky.
Sam locked up the house and got back into his car, then drove directly to Karen's office. He hadn't bothered to call ahead and she was out when he arrived, so he called her cell phone and arranged to meet her for lunch. “Anywhere you want,” he said. “My treat.”
“Your treat? Cool, then let's go to Applebee's.”
Sam was a couple of minutes later getting to the restaurant than she was, so she already had a booth by the time he got inside. She waved to get his attention, and he pointed her out to the hostess, then went to join her.
“Thanks for coming, Karen,” Sam said. “I've got a couple things I wanted to talk to you about, and it might be better to do it here rather than your office, anyway.”
“I'm all ears,” Karen said. “Especially since you said you're buying. What can I do for you, Sam?”
“I've been digging into Carlos McAlester a bit,” he said. “Are you aware that he has a substantial amount of money in the bank, money that can't be accounted for by his employment?”
Karen nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that this morning. From what I can tell, there's no indication of anything illegal, unless maybe the IRS wants to raise a fuss about it. I don't know whether he filed taxes on that money or not, and that's way out of my jurisdiction. If there is an issue, it would have to be with the feds.”
“I don't care about that,” Sam said. “My problem is that, from the things I'm hearing this morning, that money is his earnings from being paid muscle for somebody around here. According to people who claim to know, Carlos got paid big bucks to convince people to do something other than what they wanted to do, including keep their mouths shut and decline to testify against somebody. What I'm wondering is if you know of cases where a witness suddenly changed his mind. If I can get a lead on who Carlos might have helped out, it's possible I can follow it all the way back to whoever was paying him.”
“Hell, I know of several such cases off the top of my head. We had one just a week or so ago, a witness in a manslaughter case who suddenly got amnesia.” She thought for a moment. “I don't know, Sam, as far as I can tell none of those cases were connected to each other. I can't see how that might help.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Come on, Karen, think! A guy like Carlos makes hundreds of thousands of dollars as an intimidator, that has to mean that somebody was brokering his services. Somebody is getting in touch with people who get into trouble and offering to make those troubles disappear. That somebody charges an arm and a leg for the service, then pays a wrist and a hand to Carlos, or someone like him. It's an old game, been around forever.”
The waitress approached, and they put off their conversation while they placed their orders. As soon as she walked away, Karen looked Sam in the eye.
“So, you're saying somebody around here is running a Thug-for-Hire operation? As much as I hate to admit it, that would make a sick kind of sense. We probably had two-dozen cases go sour on us in the last year or so, when the witness decides he can't remember what it was he saw, after all. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know somebody's fiddling with us, but we haven't gotten anything solid enough to do any good, not yet anyway. You don't have any idea who might be behind it all?”
“No, not yet,” Sam said, shaking his head. “That's why I wanted to talk to you. If I could get a few of those amnesiac witnesses to talk to me, maybe I can find out.”
Karen looked at him for a moment. “Sam, this isn't just about your friend in jail anymore, is it? Something else is bothering you, now. What is it?”
Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph of Kenzie with the crosshairs over her face. He passed it to Karen, and watched her eyes go wide in shock at first, and then narrow in rage. She looked back up at his face.
“Is this what it looks like? Somebody's putting pressure on you?”
“Yeah, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? Now, ask yourself this question: why would anyone want me to drop this investigation, unless Candy is telling the truth and they're afraid I'm going to find out who really killed Carlos?”
Karen looked down at the photo again. “Okay, I'm convinced, but that's because I know you wouldn't rig something like this up yourself. If I go to the prosecutor with it, they’re just going to claim that you or someone close to your client did it to c
ast doubt on her guilt.” She raised her eyes back to Sam. “I'll get you the names of a few of those witnesses, but you have to keep my name out of it, for now. Okay?”
“No problem,” Sam said. “Now, there's one other thing. I need to talk to Candy's son, Charlie, but his grandparents won't let me near him. Is there any way you can help me out on this?”
Karen thought about it for a couple of seconds. “I can have them bring him in for an interview, and I can ask him the questions you want answers to. You can watch through the window. Will that help?”
Sam sighed. “If it's what I can get, then it will have to do. Can I put a bug in your ear?”
“About what?”
“No, I mean, can I put an ear plug in your ear, so I can talk to you, feed you questions as I think of them?”
“Sure, that's no problem. I'll call his grandparents when I get back to my office and set it up, and let you know when. Any particular time that would be better for you than other times?”
“No, you set it up whenever you can get it, and I'll be there. I've got a feeling that kid may hold more answers than he realizes.”
With that settled, they talked about other things for a while. Sam bragged about Indie and Kenzie, and even Samson, and Karen told Sam how proud she was of her own teenagers. Her husband, Ralph, had also been a police detective, but he’d been killed in the line of duty six years earlier while attempting to arrest a suspect in a murder case. It had actually been Sam who had finally caught the shooter, another reason that Karen was always ready to help him when she could.
They finished their lunch, and Karen went back to her office while Sam went back to the lumberyard to speak with Leon. Unfortunately, Leon was out on deliveries when he arrived, apparently taking over Carlos's role as the driver, and wasn't expected back before they closed. Sam decided he would return in the morning, and headed for Aurora. He knew where the police station was there from having participated in joint investigations, and it only took him a few minutes to track down former detective John Shockley.
“John's in the evidence room, now,” the desk sergeant said. “You know where that is?”
“Yep, no problem,” Sam said. A moment later, he was walking down a back hallway that led to some of the administrative offices and the evidence room.
Shockley glanced up when he heard the door open, and broke into a big smile. “Holy cow, would you look at this,” he said. “I do believe I'm looking at the next big country superstar. Saw you at Travis Bittner's show the other night, you sounded great.” He laughed. “Sam Prichard, how long has it been?”
Sam smiled and accepted the hand that Shockley extended to him. “It's been a while, that's for sure. Last time I saw you, John, you had a gold shield. What happened?”
Shockley grimaced and shrugged. “Had a bad arrest a couple years ago,” he said. “I brought in a guy on a strong-arm charge, and he was positively identified as the guy who shut down one of the convenience stores out on the loop, but the next day I get a call from the witness who says he was mistaken. I went out to talk to the witness, and the next thing I know I've got IA claiming that I tried to bully the witness into lying. Came down to either taking a demotion or getting shit-canned, so I gave up the shield. You know how it is, Sam, I got a wife and kids. I tried to fight it, but when push came to shove, I couldn't afford to give up the paycheck and benefits.”
Sam nodded. “Carlos McAlester, right?”
Shockley raised his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he said. “You knew about that?”
“I heard something about it recently,” Sam said. “Did you hear that he was killed Sunday morning?”
“Yeah,” Shockley said, nodding his head. “News says his ex did it. You working that case?”
“His ex is the bass player in my band, so I dusted off my PI license to see what I can find out.”
Shockley's face became cold, all the friendliness drained away. “Sam, are you looking at me as a suspect? I can save you a lot of time, I was working here Sunday morning.”
Sam smiled. “Oh, good grief, John, no,” Sam said. “I just wanted to know more about your run in with him. Seems Carlos worked as a leg breaker for someone around here, and one of his specialties is to make witnesses change their minds. Did you ever find any indication that he may have been the one to intimidate your witness?”
Shockley frowned, but he had relaxed considerably. “No. In fact, I couldn't ever get him to talk at all. I did hear that it was someone else who got to him, threatened his wife, but I couldn't prove it.” He waved a hand to indicate the room around him. “That's why I'm here.”
“John, did you ever get anything on who was behind it? Any clue at all? I'm hoping that if I can find that out, I might find out who really killed him.”
“Nothing, not even a hint. If he was doing muscle work, then I'd guess it was whoever pulled his strings. Must have wanted him to stay out on the street.”
The two men talked for a few more minutes, but Shockley didn't have anything more to offer, so, with nothing else to do, Sam decided to head for home. It wasn't a long drive, but he had just gotten back into the house and dug a root beer out of the refrigerator when his phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID to see that it was Karen Parks calling.
“Hello,” he said.
“Sam, it's Karen. Listen, I called out to the McAlesters' place to arrange that interview, but the grandmother just called me back. She went to find Charlie to tell him they'd be coming down to the station in the morning, and found a note in his bedroom. He's run away, Sam, and the note said he was going to try to find a way to save his mom. They checked all his friends, and nobody knows where he is. Under the circumstances, we're opening a file on it now, and we've got an APB out on him already. I'll let you know if we find anything.”
Sam's eyes widened in shock. “Holy cow,” he said. “Does it strike you as odd that he would say his mother killed his father, but he wants to save her?”
“Sam, I'm beginning to think odd doesn't come close to describing this case.”
9
Sam's phone rang again about twenty minutes later, and he answered it to hear the familiar recording.
“This call is from,” said the recorded voice, and then he heard Candy's voice giving her name before it went on, “an inmate at the Denver County Jail. To accept this call, dial five. To block all future calls from this inmate, dial nine.”
Sam punched the five, and heard Candy crying. “Candy, it's Sam,” he said.
“Oh, Sam, they just told me that Charlie has disappeared. Sam, please see if you can find him, please? He's all I've got, Sam, and I'm scared to death. What if Carlos is mixed up with bad people, and they've got Charlie now?”
It took Sam several minutes to get her calmed down at all, but he promised to do everything he could to help the police find her son. He had also worried that Charlie might have actually been taken, used as a pawn or some sort of collateral to try to make sure no one got any closer to the truth. So far, there'd been no indication that this was the case, but that didn't keep Sam from worrying.
When he finally got off the phone, Sam tried calling Indie, but her phone went straight to voicemail. He left a message for her to call when she could, just to let him know she was okay, and then sat down in the living room and turned on the TV. At that moment, all he wanted was something to take his mind off of the case he had gotten entangled in.
Sometimes, though, fate has other plans. He had just finished watching an old rerun of Supernatural when he heard a car pull up in his driveway. He pushed himself up out of his recliner and went to the door just as someone knocked. He opened the door to find his mother-in-law, Kim, standing there, and she brushed past him into the house.
“Now, Sam, I know you're going to get upset about this,” Kim began, “and I promise you I wouldn't bother you if it wasn't important, but…”
“Beauregard?” Sam asked. Beauregard was the name Kim claimed for her “spirit guide,” which she insisted was the ghost of
a Civil War soldier. Sam wasn't exactly a believer in Beauregard, but he couldn't deny the fact that the warnings Kim gave him from what Sam figured was her own alter ego had helped in his investigations and even saved his life more than once. When Beauregard spoke, Sam had learned that it was usually a good idea to listen.
Kim looked at him for a moment with her lips pressed tightly together. “Yes. He told me to get over here and talk to you right now. Sam, I don't know what you're doing, but Beauregard says you've got to stop worrying about anything except the little boy. He won't tell me any details, but he says the little boy has the answer you need.”
Sam shook his head, an exasperated look on his face. “Well, that's just wonderful, Kim, except for the fact that the little boy has run away from home and nobody knows where he is. Can Beauregard help me with that?”
Kim stared at him for a moment, then closed her eyes. He could see her lips moving. A moment passed, and then she opened her eyes and looked at him again. “Beauregard says the little boy will come to you. He doesn't know when, but sometime in the next couple of days you're going to hear from him. When you do, it will be up to you to keep him safe.” She looked around the room, and then said, “Where are Kenzie and Indiana?”
Sam groaned. “Um, they went to Disney World. They got a free trip, and had to go today. I'm surprised Indie didn't call you.”
Kim stood there for just a moment, then closed her eyes again. When she opened them this time, they were filled with fire. “Sam Prichard! How dare you lie to me! Why didn't someone call and tell me she'd been threatened?”
“What? Indie hasn't been threatened…”
“No, you idiot, not Indie, I'm talking about McKenzie! Beauregard says you got some kind of a message threatening her if you don't stop investigating whatever you're working on!”
Sam put a hand over his eyes. “Do me a favor, will you, Kim? Tell Beauregard that sooner or later I'm going to find a way to kill him! Look, yes, I got a message like that, and I did exactly what needed to be done. I called Harry Winslow, and he arranged this trip to Disney World. They've got a top security team with them, and they're perfectly safe, now.”