by David Archer
Sam knew them both to be extremely intelligent and resourceful, and he’d been known to drop by and say hello once in a while. They always welcomed him, and often asked if he might need their help someday.
It seemed to Sam that day had finally arrived. When they got off the interstate, Sam directed Karen toward the old building. She parked in front of its only door a few minutes later, and Sam turned to look at Forsyth.
“My buddy Harry runs this place,” he said, “and I left the tablet with one of his employees. All I’m going to do is get out of the car and knock on the door. I’ll tell them I need it, and they’ll get it for me. Soon as they do, I’ll come straight back.”
Forsyth nodded. “Be sure you do,” he said, “because Karen is going to stay here and keep me company. I’m sure you don’t want anything to happen to her, now do you?”
“Like I said,” Sam said, “I’ll get it and come right back. You can watch me the whole time, I won’t even step inside.”
Forsyth nodded again, and Sam stepped out of the car. He walked up to the battered old door and knocked three times, then twice more.
A thin young man who was already losing his hair opened the door and smiled at him. Sam winked once, and saw Ron Thomas throw a split-second glance at the car.
“Hey, Sam,” Ron said.
“Hey, Ron. Listen, remember that tablet I dropped off a while ago? Sorry to be a pain in the butt, but I need it back. Can you grab it for me?” Sam hadn’t dropped off anything, of course, so the ruse instantly told Ron that Sam was in trouble.
Ron grinned. “Sure, no problem. I put it on my workbench, give me just a minute.” He turned around, leaving the door open, and disappeared from view. He was gone about a minute, then returned and handed Sam an iPad. “Here you go,” he said. “Anything else I can do for you?”
Sam glanced over Ron’s shoulder and saw Jeff Donaldson and another man he didn’t recognize. Both of them were holding submachine guns. “Nope,” Sam said. “I think that’s it. Thanks a lot, and I’ll see you later.”
Sam turned and started to step toward the car, but Ron leaned out. “Hey, is that your wife? Tell her I said hi.” He waved and gave a silly grin toward Karen, who smiled and waved back.
Sam laughed and continued toward the car. He opened the door and slid inside, noticing that Ron was still standing in the open doorway. He waved back at the young man, then turned and handed the tablet to Forsyth.
It came off like precision clockwork. Forsyth lowered his eyes for only a couple of seconds to look at the tablet, as Ron jerked back inside the door out of the way. Donaldson and the other man exploded out the door, their guns pointed directly at Forsyth as they both started yelling at him to drop his weapons and raise his hands.
Forsyth had put down the pistol in his right hand when he took the tablet from Sam, but the other one was still pressed against the back of Karen’s seat. He looked up in shocked surprise at the two men aiming machine guns at him, and Sam twisted suddenly and grabbed Karen, dragging her across the seat and onto himself.
Forsyth squeezed the trigger in reflex, and the bullet passed through the seat, creasing Karen’s left buttock before lodging in the dashboard. He stared at the machine guns that were pointed at his face, then quickly dropped the gun and raised both hands.
Ron stepped out calmly and walked over to open the back door of the car. “Would you mind stepping out of the vehicle, sir? We get really upset when people point guns at our friends.”
16
With a pair of wicked-looking automatic rifles pointed at him, Forsyth carefully got out of the car. Sam retrieved his Glock and passed Karen’s gun back to her, then gave her Forsyth’s pistol, as well. Karen was sitting on her right cheek, pressing a sanitary napkin to the gouge in her butt.
“Damn, Sam,” she said shrilly, “this freaking hurts!”
Ron and Sam each took one of her arms and helped her walk into the building, while Jeff and the other man, whose name was Mike, escorted Forsyth. They marched him into a room that was set up as a holding cell and locked him inside, then Jeff brought a first aid kit into the break room, where Karen was now seated on the couch.
“If you think I’m dropping my pants with you guys in here,” Karen yelled, “you can all think again. Give me the damn first aid kit and get out!”
They got. The four men stepped out into the hallway, and Mike unlocked the holding cell door and opened it. Sam stood in the doorway and looked at Forsyth, who was sitting on a bunk mounted to the wall and simply staring at the floor. A glance over his shoulder told him Karen had left the day room door partly open, and could hear everything clearly.
He turned to Forsyth again. “It’s all over for you, Dave,” Sam said. “There are only two ways you can help yourself, right now. One is to roll over and turn state’s evidence against the others, and the second is to help me find Tracy Jensen.”
Forsyth looked up at him. “I told you,” he said, “I have no idea who she is or where she is. If Lemmons did something with her, I never heard about it.”
Sam stood there in silence for a few seconds, then shook his head. “Then you’d better hope we find her alive some other way, or you’re going to be looking at yet another murder charge. If she dies, I’ll see to it that all of you are charged. Understand me?”
Forsyth spread his arms wide. “Look, Sam, this whole thing got out of control, I admit it. You want me to roll on the others? I will, no problem. But when I tell you I don’t know who this woman is, I’m telling you the truth. Believe me, right now I wish I did know where she was. Helping you find her might give me a shot at staying out of prison.”
“Then think, man. Where would Lemmons put someone he wanted to keep on ice, but keep alive? I still think she might be okay, because Lemmons was talking about letting her go. Can you come up with any idea where I might look?”
Forsyth looked at the floor again, but after a moment he shook his head. “I wasn’t close to Lemmons,” he said, “not like Driscoll. They were tight, really tight. Driscoll and his partner were the regular muscle Jerry used. Hell, they were into a lot of things you don’t even know about. Drug shakedowns, robbing dealers—after that mess with those kids, Wright and I got brought into it, and it wasn't like we were given a choice. I even heard Driscoll say once that they had a fantastic place to get rid of bodies, but I never asked where it was.”
Sam stared at him for another minute, thinking. “What about your partner? Was he involved in these things?”
Forsyth shook his head. “No way,” he said, “up until this, he and I were both pretty clean. Hell, we weren’t even supposed to be there that night. We were driving by and saw something going on, and just stopped out of curiosity.” He looked up at Sam and grinned. “Purvis, she told me to take you two out and kill you, but I couldn’t have done it. When Mark killed that boy, it was all I could do not to start crying. I wanted to run, I wanted to stop it somehow, but I—I was scared. If I hadn’t gone along with it all, I think they would’ve killed me.” He lowered his eyes again. “I couldn’t have killed you guys. I really was gonna let you go.”
Sam thought about what he’d seen on the video. Other than watching, Forsyth had not actively participated in the murders, and it was possible he was telling the truth. Unfortunately, when a wrongful death occurs during the commission of a criminal act, everyone involved is considered to be liable for murder. Good intentions would not be enough to save him.
Appropriate actions, on the other hand, could potentially mitigate the punishment he would receive.
“Dave, the way I see it, you got two choices. You can try to throw yourself on the mercy of the court and hope for the best, or you can work with me and Karen to bring the truly guilty ones to justice. Are you willing to do that?”
Forsyth raised his eyes to Sam’s face. “What have you got in mind?”
“I want to bring these children’s murderers to justice, and that includes Monica Purvis. In addition, I want to find Tracy Jensen and
bring her home safely. There’s at least a chance that Slocum or Driscoll might know where she is. If you’re willing to help us accomplish that, I think Karen and I could say that you approached us for help. You’d have to claim that you were keeping quiet while you tried to gather evidence against Lemmons and the others, but came to us when Purvis told you about the video. It Karen and I back up that story, you could conceivably get immunity. You might even get to remain a cop.”
Forsyth stared at him for a long moment, and then Sam saw tears brim over his eyes and start down his cheeks. “You just tell me what you want me to do, Sam,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
“Wait here a minute,” Sam said. He closed the door and turned to Ron. “Could you…”
Ron held up a finger to shush him and motioned for him to follow. They went into another room, with Jeff and Mike trailing along.
“I think I’ve got a hunch where you’re about to go,” Ron said, “but I thought we ought to discuss it where he couldn’t hear us. You really think you can trust that guy?”
“I’ve seen people in bad situations before,” Sam said. “Sometimes, it’s really hard to decide what’s the right thing to do, but if you give them a little direction most people will jump at the chance to do the right thing. I saw the video we were talking about, and Dave is right. It was pretty obvious he never meant to be there or in that situation.”
“Okay, I can see that, I guess. Still, at the moment you’ve got at least two murder charges hanging over your head. If I’m understanding what you’re planning, you’re going to have to turn this guy loose for a while. What happens if he turns on you?”
Sam’s eyes narrowed, just as Karen hobbled into the room. “Actually, I was planning to let Karen take him in. Since he can confirm that an assistant DA is involved and tried to send him to kill us, she’s not going to have any trouble walking him straight into the head lady’s office. Between him and the video, I’m pretty sure we can close the case.”
“Yeah, maybe, but you’ve still got five loose ends at the moment. There’s the other three cops, the assistant DA and the missing woman. If any of the first four twig to what you’re doing, you’ll never find them, and even if you do, there’s no guarantee any of them knows where the lady is or that you’ll get to her in time.”
Sam cocked his head to one side, glancing quickly at Karen before giving his attention back to Ron. “Okay, you’ve obviously got something in mind. What is it?”
Ron grinned. “Why don’t the two of you play dead? We can fix it up in seconds, and then your boy in there can show pictures of your dead bodies. I can make a copy of the video on a tablet so he’s got everything he’s supposed to have, and we’ve got everything we need here to wire him up. With him talking about how he knocked you guys off and even showing proof, the others will think they’re in the clear and talk about it. We can get clear, perfect recordings of their conversation, and if we play it right, we might even get the location on the woman who’s missing. At least one of them should know where she is, right? The other guy couldn’t have done it all alone.”
Sam looked at Karen. “What do you think?”
She shrugged. “I heard the deal you offered him, and I agree that he didn’t look like he really wanted to be involved. I can go along with your story, but I do want some insurance of some kind. If he wears a wire and can convince them he’s all theirs, we can nail all three of the dirty cops and Monica. I’m just not sure he’s going to be able to find Tracy for you.”
“That’s because you’re not as devious as we are,” Ron said. “What we do here is devise ways to get the information we want. All he’s got to do is say that you were going on and on about this Tracy, that you were sure Lemmons had her put away somewhere, and that she’s another loose end that has to be tied up. If they know where she is, one or two of them is going to head out to take care of that problem. All we’ve got to do is follow.”
“I don’t know,” Sam said, “if they spot a tail…”
“They won’t. Mikey over there is our resident drone man. He’s got some of the neatest little toys you ever saw, little gizmos that can fly along out of sight and follow any target they’re given. You and Ms. Karen can ride along with us in the van as we keep track of the drone, and we won’t be more than a minute behind it at any time. When they stop, we’ll know where she is and can move in.”
Sam looked at Karen again, and she shrugged. He crossed his arms and turned back to Ron. “Okay,” he said, “let’s do it. We just need to move quick.”
Ron smiled and turned to look at Jeff. “Jeff! Two fatal head wounds, right now.”
The next ten minutes were extremely busy, as Jeff and Ron hurriedly had Sam and Karen climb into the trunk of her car and took pictures, then hurried inside and loaded them into a computer. When it was done, the photos showed gaping wounds in their chests and faces, with blood everywhere. The work was so well done that, even though the pictures were taken from two different angles, the wounds and bloodstains matched perfectly.
Meanwhile, Mike and Sam got Forsyth wired with a highly sensitive microphone and transmitter. Every spoken word within twelve feet would be picked up clearly, though background noises would be eliminated. The signal would be transmitted to a receiver in the van they would be using to follow the drone, so Sam and Karen could hear it all even as it was being recorded.
“We put the pictures onto Karen’s phone,” Sam told him. “Once they see those, they should be ready to trust you completely. You should tell them it made you sick, since they know you never killed anyone before. If you seem too calm about it, it may look suspicious.”
Forsyth nodded. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said, “they’ll be able to tell I’m upset, because I really am. Those damn pictures made me feel sick, even though I know they aren’t real. I think I can pull this off.”
“Then all we have to do,” Sam said, “is get you together with all of the others. We’re going to take you down the street to a convenience store, and you can call for a ride from there. If anyone asks where the bodies are, just say you ditched the car in a parking lot behind one of the apartment complexes. There are a lot of them, so it’s believable.”
Forsyth agreed, and climbed into a car with Ron. They drove only a few blocks to a convenience store, and Ron let him out. He immediately took his phone from its pouch on his belt and called his partner, Wright.
“I’m all done,” he said. “I’m out in Northglenn, the Pick-N-Go at Huron and 116th.”
“Nobody saw you?”
“No. I did it out on some farm road out east. Nobody around, nobody saw nothing. Left the car in some parking lot, way back in the back. I don’t think anyone will pay attention to it 'til it starts to smell.”
Wright was quiet for a moment. “You okay, Dave?”
Forsyth hesitated, his genuine anxiety making him breathe hard into the phone. “I’m okay,” he said. “Gotta do what we gotta do, right?”
“Okay. Be there as fast as I can.”
Ron had circled the block and parked his car on the street, then climbed into the van with the others. High overhead, one of Mike’s drones was hovering, its camera trained on Forsyth. He’d been instructed to remain in plain sight, so he was leaning against a light pole near the corner of the lot.
It took almost 30 minutes for his partner to arrive, and he slid into the car as soon as it pulled up beside him. Mike focused the camera on the top of the car so that it would follow the vehicle, and then they turned their attention to the receiver.
17
“I wasn’t sure you had it in you,” Wright said. “You’re sure it’s done, right?”
Forsyth held up Karen’s phone and brought up the photo gallery. He tapped on the first photo, showing Sam and Karen lying obviously dead in the trunk of the car, and handed it to his partner. “I hated it,” he said, “but I don’t want to go to prison, either. I told them I was just going to lock them in the trunk and leave them for someone to find, so they got in.” He sw
allowed hard. “Then I shot ‘em.”
Wright looked over at him. “Guess you’re a little tougher than I thought,” he said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Dave, it had to be done.”
“Yeah, but can we stop talking about it? This whole thing makes me kind of sick.”
“What about the videos?” Wright asked.
“One’s on that phone, and the other is on this iPad.” He held up the tablet Ron had given him. “There aren’t any more.”
“Okay,” Wright said. “That means it’s all over, then. Why don’t you call Purvis and let her know?”
Forsyth nodded and took out his own phone. He found Monica’s number and hit redial.
“District Attorney’s Office,” the receptionist said. “How may I direct your call?”
“Monica Purvis, please,” Forsyth said. The girl put him on hold for a moment, and then Monica answered. “This is Dave Forsyth,” he said. “It’s all over. We took care of everything, and I’ve got both the videos.”
He could hear her sigh of relief. “That’s excellent,” she said. “The lawyer is out of the way, too, so I think that wraps it up.”
“Okay. Just wanted to let you know.” He hung up the phone without even saying goodbye, and then turned to his partner. “We need to meet up with the other two. Prichard kept going on and on about some woman, said Lemmons had her hidden away somewhere. If one of them knows where she is, we need to take care of her, too. That’s the last loose end, and we need to make sure there aren’t any others.”
Right nodded. “Call Driscoll,” he said. “Tell him to meet us in the parking lot at Torchy’s.” Torchy’s was a popular Mexican restaurant in downtown Denver.
Forsyth made the call and Driscoll and Slocum agreed to meet them twenty minutes later. High overhead, the little drone flew along with its camera focused on the roof of the car, while the van followed from half a mile behind. When the squad car pulled in at the taco place, Jeff parked the van at a burger joint a block away.