The Sam Prichard Series - Books 9-12 (Sam Prichard Boxed Set 3)

by David Archer

  Lemmons showed up in less than twelve minutes, told the hostess he was meeting someone, and was shown back to Sam’s booth in the far corner of the back room. Sam didn’t bother to rise as he approached and slid into the opposite side.

  “I just love Denny’s coffee, don’t you?” he asked, smiling at Sam.

  “It’s okay,” Sam said. He watched the hostess as she left the room, then turned his gaze directly onto Lemmons. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I’ve seen the video, and I know what you did. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out you got Tracy stashed somewhere, so I’m here to negotiate for her release.”

  The smile never wavered. “What video you talking about? I’m afraid you’ve lost me, Sam.”

  “You, Driscoll, Slocum and Forsyth,” Sam said, “plus another cop I didn’t recognize. Three dead kids. Sound familiar now?”

  Lemmons shrugged. “I’ve heard a rumor about something like this, but if such a video exists, I’ve yet to see it. I’m afraid that makes me wonder if you’ve actually seen it, or if you’re just hearing the same rumors I’ve heard.”

  Sam shook his head. “Don’t try to play me, Jerry. We both know exactly what I’m talking about, and we both know what will happen if I take it to the right people. Now, my client only wants her mother back, she doesn’t give a royal flying you-know-what about you or anybody else. I’ve not only seen the video, I’ve got it, the only existing copy. You give me Tracy, I’ll give it to you and this whole thing fades into history.”

  The detective leaned his elbows on the table and looked Sam in the eye. “Assuming for the sake of argument that what you’re saying actually makes any sense, would you really expect me to believe that none of these people would talk about what they saw on this imaginary video? I mean, it might be hard to prove, but it still wouldn’t be good for my career, now would it?”

  “They’ll stay quiet,” Sam said. “While talking about it might be bad for your career, I think they understand it would be a lot worse for them and their loved ones, wouldn’t you think? Let’s face it, they know just what you’re capable of.”

  Lemmons stared at Sam for a moment, then shrugged. “And what about you? Would you be content to just let it go?”

  Sam grinned at him, but it was made of ice. “There was a time when Tracy was very important to me,” he said. “I’ve moved on since then, but I still don’t want any harm to come to her. You give me Tracy, unharmed, along with your word that none of us will ever be bothered about this again, and I give you the video. That’s the deal, take it or leave it. If we leave this table without an agreement, then I’ll do what I have to do. I think we understand each other.”

  Lemmons sat in silence for a moment, his own smile slowly fading from his face. “I think we do,” he said. “The trouble is, Sam, I don’t think you can hold up your end of the bargain. See, the thing about a video is that it’s just too easy to make copies. Anybody in the position you seem to think you have me in would be stupid to give up whatever leverage he has, at least without being certain that no other copies were going to turn up in the future. Any idea how you could reassure someone about that?”

  “There aren’t any other copies,” Sam said, “just one on a tablet. Marty said he was afraid to make copies, so he put it on the tablet and encrypted it so that it can’t even be copied or emailed to anybody. It’s the only one, and I have it put away safe. I’ll hand it over in return for Tracy and your assurance that none of you will ever bother any of us again.”

  Lemmons’s phone rang, and he held up a finger to tell Sam to wait a moment, then took out the phone and answered it. “Detective Lemmons,” he said. “Yes? Well, that’s excellent news. All right, thanks for letting me know.” He ended the call and slipped his phone back into its case on his belt, then looked at Sam.

  “Sam,” he said, “that call was from one of the men in a special unit that I run. It seems you and I might have something to talk about after all.”

  Sam’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Really? And what might that be?”

  Lemmons smiled broadly. “Well, it seems that Marty Fletcher was just found. Unfortunately, he’s dead, and since his body was found near a cabin that happens to belong to you, I’m afraid I’m going to have to place you under arrest for his murder.”

  10

  Sam’s blood went cold as his mind began racing. He cocked his head to one side and stared Lemmons in the eye. “You son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “What did you do, follow us there and wait for me to leave?”

  “Nah, nothing so dramatic. It turns out Marty bought that van from one of those ‘buy here, pay here,’ used-car dealers. They put GPS trackers into every vehicle they sell, so they can find it if you decide not to pay and take off with it. We got the code for his tracker last week, and we’ve been keeping an eye on him ever since. When he suddenly moved off to the middle of nowhere, I sent one of my officers out to check on him. Imagine his surprise when he found Marty lying on the floor of your hunting cabin, his head all smashed in. Is that how you got the video from him? Beat on him until he gave it up?” He waggled the barrel of his gun. “Now, very carefully, take out your pistol and pass it to me, butt first. You try anything else, I’ll blow you away right here.”

  Sam silently cursed himself for choosing a booth, leaving him trapped in between the table and the wall behind him. He carefully removed his Glock from its holster and handed it over. “We both know I didn’t kill him,” he said, “though I’m sure you’re going to do your best to make it look that way. Of course, if you take me in, then I’ll have more than an ample opportunity to turn that video over to the right people. Sure you want to take that chance?”

  Lemmons’s smile was back and as bright as ever. “Well, let’s see,” he said. “You said you got the only remaining copy of the video, but you stashed it somewhere safe. Knowing you, I bet there’s no one else in the world who knows where it is right now. That means the chances of it turning up are pretty slim, right? All I’ve got to do is make sure you don’t get the chance to tell anyone where you hid it.” He moved quickly, and suddenly had his service automatic in his hand. “Slide out of your seat, Sam, and stand up slowly. Keep your hands up where I can see them and turn your back to me.”

  Sam nodded. “Sure,” he said, “so you can let everybody here see you arresting me? Then, let me guess, somewhere between here and the jail, I’m going to try to escape, right? You had no choice but to shoot me, right?”

  The detective nodded back. “You see, I knew you were smart. In fact, you’re smart enough to figure out that if you don’t cooperate with me now, there’s a good possibility that some of the innocent parties between us and the door might be hurt, too. I’m pretty sure you won’t want that to happen, so let’s just play this out by my rules. You get up, let me cuff you and take your gun, and then we go out to my car. But instead of me shooting you when you try to escape, how about you just take me right to that video? Once I’ve got that, you’re no longer a threat to me or anyone else.”

  “And what about the murder charge? Does that go away?”

  Lemmons shrugged at him. “I could probably see my way clear to saying I checked out your alibi and it was good. Sam, all I want is that video. You hand it over now, and I can let you walk. As long as you and I never cross paths on this again, you got nothing to worry about.”

  Sam sighed and began sliding toward the end of the seat. “And what about Tracy? Let me have her in the deal, and I’ll go for it. That’s all I really wanted anyway.”

  “Do you really think you can keep her mouth shut? That’s all that matters to me, and you know it.”

  Sam stood, his hands held out to his sides and slightly raised. “Of course I can. She’s got a kid, she’d know how easily you could hurt her daughter if she ever talked. Believe me, she won’t say a word.”

  Lemmons motioned with the gun for Sam to turn around. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to put my gun away, and you and I are going to walk out of h
ere like two old friends. Hell, I’ll even pay for the coffee, how about that? When we get outside, you just climb into the car with me and we’ll go get the video, then we’ll go pick up Tracy. I’ll drop the two of you off back here at your car, and that’ll be the end of it. That work for you?”

  Sam turned his head and looked back over his shoulder. “Sure,” he said. “At this point, you’ve got all the cards. We’ll do it your way.”

  “Okay, but just remember,” Lemmons said. “You make one wrong move, you try anything, and some of these innocent folks are going to get hurt. Play it cool and everything will be over pretty quick.”

  Lemmons slipped his gun back into the holster under his jacket, and he and Sam started toward the front of the restaurant. When they stepped through into the main dining room, they almost ran into the hostess who was on her way back to them with a fresh pot of coffee.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said. “I thought you guys might be ready for a refill.”

  “No, thanks,” Lemmons said. “We got some things to go take care of, but we appreciate you letting us have the space back there.” They followed her back to the register, and Lemmons took out his wallet. “How much we owe you, sweetie?”

  The girl picked up a ticket. “That’ll be three fifty-seven, altogether.”

  Lemmons reached into his wallet and took out a ten-dollar bill, handed it to the girl and told her to keep the change. She smiled and thanked him, and then he followed Sam out the front door. “That’s my car,” he said, pointing at an unmarked Dodge. Sam started toward it, then leaned hard on his cane as his hip appeared to falter on him.

  Lemmons stopped and looked at him, but Sam motioned that he was okay. Lemmons stepped past him, and that’s when Sam yanked the cane up off the ground and grasped it by the lower shaft. He swung it like a baseball bat, and the heavy metal handle caught Lemmons on his left ear.

  Lemmons let out a squeal of pain, and fell to the ground. Sam’s pistol fell out of where he’d tucked it into his belt, and Sam snatched it up and aimed it at the detective’s head.

  “We could have done this the easy way, Jerry, but you had to be the tough guy. Very carefully, I want you to take your pistol out and lay it on the ground. You even look like you’re going to try anything, I’ll blow your head off.”

  “Shit,” Lemmons yelled. “You really think you can get away with shooting a cop in cold blood? People are staring through the windows, you idiot, they see you pointing a gun at an unarmed man. You shoot me, you go down for murdering a cop.”

  “Not likely,” Sam said. “Remember that video? I’m pretty sure that’s all I need to convince a jury I was acting in good faith and self-defense. Now, put your gun on the ground, and I mean right now.”

  Lemmons glared at him, but then he carefully inserted two fingers into his jacket and pulled the pistol out. He gave it a slight toss and it clattered on the ground near Sam’s feet.

  Sam reached down and picked it up, shoving it into the waistband of his pants. “All right, now, get up slowly and put your hands on the hood of the car.”

  Lemmons took his hand off his ear and glanced at it, scowling when he saw blood. “Geez, you split my freaking ear.”

  “Shut up and spread ’em,” Sam said. “Hands on the hood, like I told you. Come on, you know the drill.”

  Lemmons got slowly to his feet and put his hands on the car, scooting his feet backward and spreading them wide. Sam used one of his own to kick them a little further apart, then began patting the detective down, looking for other weapons he might have hidden on his body. All he found was a pocketknife and the keys to the Dodge.

  He took the handcuffs that were in a case on the back of the detective’s belt. “Left hand, put it behind your back,” he said.

  Lemmons suddenly thrust himself backward and Sam instinctively raised the barrel of the gun toward the sky, taking it off the detective’s head. Lemmons spun and grabbed at it; he missed, but he had thrown Sam off balance, and the bad hip screamed at being twisted in a direction it wasn’t meant to go. Sam fell back into a bush in front of the restaurant, and Lemmons took off running. By the time Sam got back on his feet, the man had raced around the end of the building. Sam hurried over the best he could, but Lemmons was completely out of sight.

  Within seconds, Sam knew, Lemmons would be on the phone and doing everything he could to turn Sam Prichard into a target. It wasn’t even just the dirty cops Sam needed to worry about. Once the notion that Sam had killed Marty and then attacked a police detective started spreading around the department, just about any cop would consider him dangerous enough to want to shoot first and ask the questions later.

  Sam hurried to the Corvette, but he glanced at the windows of the restaurant to see a dozen people staring at him. There would be squad cars on the way there any second, and the stories these witnesses would tell would not look good. His carefully laid-out plan in shambles, Sam decided the best thing he could do was simply get out of sight.

  He got into the car and backed out of his parking space, then drove quickly out onto Federal Boulevard. Common sense told him to get off the main streets as quickly as possible, so he took a quick right onto Sixteenth Street and followed it a couple of miles, until he got to Meade. Another right turn took him up to Eighteenth, where he turned left toward West Lakeshore Drive. Lakeshore was more of a park road that simply followed the eastern edge of Sloan’s Lake, and didn’t get a lot of traffic. He pulled to the side of the street and parked beside a stand of trees.

  After some of Sam’s previous cases had gotten a lot of press, there were probably very few cops in the entire Metro area who didn’t know who he was, or would fail to spot his flashy, candy-apple-red Corvette. There weren’t many ’Vettes like his in the area, anyway, but the custom paint job he had painstakingly applied made it almost a one-of-a-kind. There was no doubt the first squad car that spotted it would turn and give chase.

  First things first, then, he thought, time to ditch the car. He knew it would be impounded as soon as it was found, which meant it would be safe for a while, so he climbed out and started walking away from the lake. Keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of police, he made his way back to Eighteenth and turned left. There was an RTD bus stop just a couple of blocks in that direction, and public transportation sounded like the best way to put distance between him and the car.

  He made it to the bus stop with only minutes to spare, and climbed on as soon as it arrived. Sam still kept a valid bus pass, a habit he’d gotten into after his forced retirement. His motorcycle had broken down on him twice, leaving him stranded miles from home; the second time, he decided keeping a bus pass in his wallet would be a smart move.

  He made his way down the aisle and plopped into a seat toward the rear of the bus. There was, of course, the risk he might be recognized; between the high-profile cases he’d solved that got his picture in the newspaper and his current moderate fame as a singer, there were plenty of people in the city who might know him on-sight, but buses are like elevators. Most people try not to notice who else is riding with them, and he was counting on that little tidbit of human nature to help him out at the moment.

  Apparently, he still had some luck on his side. There were only a handful of people on the bus and all of them were busy reading or looking out the window. Sitting where he was toward the rear, there was a greatly reduced chance of anyone noticing him.

  He took out his phone and started scanning local news stories. None of them seemed to pertain to him, or to Marty, so he assumed no announcement had yet been made concerning his being a murder suspect. Considering what he knew about normal police procedure, he figured the first public announcement would come with the noon news updates. That meant he had at least a couple of hours before everything hit the fan.

  Sam leaned back in the seat and tried to think. If Lemmons was telling the truth, and Marty was dead, then it was likely the video on the Internet would never be seen again. That meant the copy on the tablet really was the only
one, now. No matter what else happened, Sam had to see to it that it got to someone who would take the appropriate action against Lemmons and his dirty cops.

  Sam Prichard trusted very few people in this world, and something this big made that list even smaller. He toyed with the idea of calling his old friend Harry Winslow, but Harry was a big shot with Homeland Security in DC, nowadays. Sam was certain he’d do whatever it took to help, but some residual loyalty to the Denver PD, where Sam had spent ten years of his life, made him want to keep this matter local. That left him with only one possibility: Karen Parks.

  11

  Karen was a homicide detective, but she had once been Sam’s partner in the juvenile division. Since his retirement and entry into the world of private investigations, they had worked together on several cases and Sam felt he could trust her completely.

  He glanced down at his hand and realized he was still holding his phone, so he scrolled through his contacts and punched her name with his thumb. It rang twice before she answered.

  “Detective Parks,” she said. “I saw the caller ID, so I know who this is. You want to tell me what in the Sam Hill is going on?”

  She realized who was calling, but was carefully not using his name. That told him that Lemmons was already spreading the word that Sam was wanted for murder. He whispered a prayer of thanks that Karen knew him well enough to want to hear his side of the story before she accepted it as truth.

  “You bet I do,” Sam said, “but you’re not gonna believe it. I just need to know something. Do you honestly believe I could do what I’m accused of?”

  Sam heard her sigh. “If it was anybody but you on this phone, I’d lie and say what they wanted to hear. Since it’s you, though, I can be honest. Hell, no, I don’t believe it.”