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

by David Archer

  “That doesn’t change the fact he threatened my wife and daughter,” Sam said. “Harry, if we don’t find him, we’ll be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. I can’t handle that, and neither can my family.”

  “I agree, Sam, boy, we’ve got to take him down. This tells me, however, that he’s still in the area. He wouldn’t be trying to bully you into backing down if he was already gone. That means we’ve got a little time.”

  “Maybe a little,” Sam said, “but remember that he’s probably listening to every single thing we say. He knew what Indie had told me on the phone earlier, about playing poker. I’ll call you back, I need to get hold of Lawton as soon as possible.”

  He ended the call and immediately dialed Lawton’s cell phone number. It rang seven times before going to voicemail, so he ended the call and dialed the police station instead.

  “Clearwater Police Department,” said the receptionist. “How may I direct your call?”

  “I need to speak with Detective Lawton, please,” Sam said. “It’s urgent.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation on the line, and then the receptionist said, “One moment.”

  A man’s voice came on a moment later, but it wasn’t Lawton. “You’re looking for Detective Lawton?”

  “Yes, and it’s very important I speak with him immediately. My name is Sam Prichard, I’m a private investigator. I was in to see him earlier, and…”

  “What is your business with Detective Lawton?” the man on the line asked.

  “That’s between me and him,” Sam said. “Is he available?”

  There was another slight hesitation. “Look, Mr. Prichard,” the man said. “I actually know who you are, but I needed to be sure it was really you. Detective Lawton is currently on his way to the hospital for surgery. He was shot in our parking lot about ten minutes ago.”

  “Shot?” Sam almost shouted. “By who? Did you get the shooter?”

  “We’re not releasing any information at this time,” the man said. “You can understand that, right? I’m Detective Embry, and I’m heading the investigation into the shooting. As I said a moment ago, I know who you are, that you’re working for DHS at the moment; you said you were in to see Lawton today?”

  “Yes, just a few hours ago. We were talking about the Michael Reed murder.”

  “Yes,” Embry said, “I’ve been going through his notes on it. Maybe you can enlighten me about something. One of the last things he scribbled down is a puzzler. It looks like he wrote RIP, then drew several lines through it, like he was trying to scratch it out. Any idea what that would be about?”

  Sam started to answer, and then suddenly froze. If Lawton had been shot, there was no doubt in his mind that Michael had done the shooting, but that would only make sense if Michael somehow knew that Sam had told him the body couldn’t be his. He held his phone away from his ear for a moment, then pulled it back. “I’m afraid not,” he said as calmly as he could. “That wouldn’t make any sense to me, either.”

  “Well, I thought I’d ask while I had you on the phone. I understand you were appointed by DHS because the suspect in that case is a former agent of theirs?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. I do some work for them occasionally, and they called me in on this because Mr. Winslow is also a close personal friend of mine..”

  “Yeah, I caught that. Listen, I may need to talk to you again. Is this your cell number?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Sorry to hear about Lawton, and call me if you need anything from me, or hear anything I might need to know.”

  Sam hung up without saying anymore, and looked at the phone in his hand. There were, he knew, numerous ways to use your own cell phone against you. There were even ways to turn it on from a distance, so that you weren’t aware someone was listening in to what was happening around you.

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket and headed into the bathroom to freshen up, then grabbed his gun and jacket and headed down to the elevator. When he got to the ground floor, he walked straight out of the building and to the Challenger, got into it and drove quickly out of the parking lot. There was always the possibility that Michael had discovered it and put a tracker on it, but he wasn’t as worried about Michael knowing where he was as about who he was talking to and what was being said. He tossed the cell phone onto the console and kept his eyes peeled for an electronics or cell phone store.

  Thirty minutes later, Sam had bought a cheap throwaway phone and activated it using a credit card number that Harry had once given him. He hadn’t even been sure it would work, but it did, and meant that there was almost no way anyone could find out about the purchase or activation. He carried it out of the store and stood some distance from the car as he used it to call Harry.

  The call went to voicemail. Sam used his best impression of Harry’s southern drawl to leave a message.

  “Harry, old son? This is Walter Sweeney, an old friend of Beau’s. Just wondering how you been, old buddy. Give me a call when you get this.” He knew the number of the burner phone would show up on the caller ID, so he ended the call and hung up.

  He stood in the same spot for almost 15 minutes, but then the phone finally rang. As cheap as it was, it had caller ID but Sam didn’t recognize the number that came up on the display. He answered it in the hope that Harry had gotten the message, and was rewarded when he heard the old man’s voice.

  “Since you took the trouble to call me on a burner,” Harry said, “I have to assume that you heard about Detective Lawton.”

  “Yeah, I did,” Sam said. “The fact that he was shot at this time is too big a coincidence. It tells me that Michael is almost certainly able to listen in through my phone, even when I’m not actually on it.”

  “Indeed he can. There’s actually a pretty simple way to do it, remind me to teach it to you one of these days. In the meantime, however, we have bigger problems. I’m currently using a cell phone I liberated from the purse of a lady walking down the street, so we need to speak quickly. Are we still on for dinner?”

  “Yes, but let’s change the location. If he’s been tailing me or tracking the Buick, he’d probably know where Kathy and I had lunch. Let’s try somewhere else.” He looked around for a moment and spotted a billboard. “Clear Sky Café, on Mandalay Avenue in Clearwater Beach. We’ll meet up there.”

  “All right,” Harry said. “See you there at six. No, wait—let’s make it 8:30, and you can bring along your friend. We won’t starve if we wait a couple extra hours. And, incidentally, Kathy and I have both removed the batteries from our cell phones. We’ll put them back in periodically, just to check for messages, but we thought it a good idea not to give Michael an ear on what we’re doing.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Sam said. “I’ll see you then.”

  Sam hung up from that call and immediately dialed the number of the burner phone Indie always kept in her purse. It rang six times before she answered, and she sounded out of breath when she finally did.

  “Sam?”

  “It’s me, Babe,” Sam said. “Keep this number, it should be good for a little while.”

  “Okay, good,” Indie said. “Now, can you tell me what on earth is going on? Harry sent some people down to grab us up, and we’re on our way to a safe house somewhere. George was with them and said we should leave our regular phones at home, so we did.”

  “I know,” Sam said. “Harry told me, but not until after he’d done it. We are dealing with a pretty bad situation down here, and we both wanted to be sure it couldn’t get to you.” Sam took a deep breath. “Okay, here’s what’s going on. After we met with Michael yesterday, a witness saw someone fitting Harry’s description going into his house just a few minutes before gunshots were heard. When the police arrived, they found a body on the floor with its face blown away. Fingerprints identify the body as Michael Reed, but while we were face-to-face with him, I happened to notice that he recently had his fingernails neatly trimmed. This morning I got to look a
t the crime scene photos of the body, and the nails were long and un-manicured, so it can’t be Michael. It was a hell of a job, though, because Kathleen had to go down this morning and identify the body. Without knowing any different, she confirmed it was Michael based on a tattoo that he wears and a couple of scars, which seemed to be perfect. I told the police detective what I suspected, and now he’s been shot. I think Michael has been tapping my cell phone, even listening in when I’m not using it. That’s about the only way I can imagine he could have known for sure that I shared my theory with the detective.”

  “Oh my God, Sam,” Indie said. “I’m getting scared, Babe.”

  “Well, I’ve got some help coming. Remember Kenneth Long? One of Harry’s friends knew that we’d been involved with him in the past, and found out he was in the Bahamas. He gave him a call, and Ken is flying in tonight to help me with this.”

  “Okay, well, that will make me feel a little bit better. At least I know he’s probably just as bad as Michael when it comes to all the intelligence stuff. Or maybe I should say he’s just as good.”

  Sam chuckled. “I think you could get away with saying it either way. Anyway, I know for sure that Michael is alive, because he called me a while ago. Of course, there’s no way to prove it, but he tried to make me back off by threatening all of you again. By the time I called Harry, he had already anticipated it and made the arrangements you were talking about. When Ken gets here, we are all going to go and sit down and talk this over.”

  “I’m going to text you a link,” Indie said, “to an app that will automatically record every phone call you get. Put it on your phone in case he calls again.”

  “Good idea, but I wish we’d thought of it sooner. Probably too late, now, though. Odds-on, Michael is reading my text messages as well. If he sees a link to an app like that, he probably won’t call me again.”

  “True. Okay. So, I take it you lost another hand? That’s why the detective was killed?”

  “I assume so, but the last I knew he wasn’t dead. They said he was going into surgery, so hopefully he has a chance. I’ll try to find out more in a while, but I just wanted to touch base with you on a secure line.”

  “I’m glad you did, I was getting worried. Sam, this means you’ve got only two hands left. Hey, real quick, did you know a local PI named Frank Hornsby?”

  “Hornsby? Yeah, he’s a sleaze ball. Why?”

  “Probably nothing, really, but I heard on the radio a while ago that he was found dead this morning. I guess the mailman saw him laying on the floor and called police. His neck was broken, so they are calling it a homicide.”

  “I can’t say that’s going to be any great loss,” Sam said, “and he probably had plenty of people who wanted him dead, so I doubt there’s any connection to this case. Just let me know if you hear anything else, though, okay?”

  “I will. Did you ever figure out what was your ace in the hole?”

  “Not for sure,” Sam said. “We’re thinking maybe it’s Harry himself. As far as I can tell, he’s the only thing I’ve got going for me right now. The police aren’t going to believe that Michael is alive, not as long as those fingerprints keep saying he’s dead, and I’m not sure how I can draw him out to catch him. I’m not even sure I would know him if I saw him; he’s undoubtedly capable of disguising himself beyond my meager ability to recognize him.”

  “Well, you talk to Ken and Harry, maybe the three of you can come up with something. I’ll be somewhere safe with Kenzie and our moms, and I’ve got my computer with me if you need anything.”

  Sam’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Your computer! Michael said he had managed to hack into it, and could track it anywhere. You need to hide it someplace, Babe, till this is over.”

  “He said what?” Indie said incredulously. “Don’t worry, as long as I don’t let it get online, it can’t be traced. If he put any kind of a tracking bug in it, Herman can find it and root it out. I won’t chance going online until I know I’ve cleaned it up.”

  Sam sighed. “Okay, Babe, you’re the expert on computers. Just be careful, all right? I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you, to any of you. And if Beauregard has anything more to say, call me on this number immediately.”

  “Really? You’re willing to accept his advice now?”

  “Let’s just say Harry had a talk with me, and made some good points. As many times as Beauregard has saved my ass, maybe I need to give him a little more respect. Whatever he is, everyone of us owes our lives to him at least once. Even Harry, in a way.”

  “We-ell, since you said that, I should probably tell you that Beauregard just a few minutes ago said the final bet in the game will come when you have to choose the exact right moment to squeeze your trigger, and that you shouldn’t be afraid to bluff.”

  Sam blew a breath out in a rush. “Harry said that too,” he said, “about not being afraid to bluff. Damn. That means it’s going to come down to him or me. Babe, do me a big favor. When Kenzie says her prayers tonight, make sure you both say one for me.”

  “Sam,” Indie said, “we always do. And this time, I can promise you we are going to say some extra ones. You have to come home, Sam, you have to come home safely.”

  Sam’s eyebrows lowered half an inch. “Indie? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  She hesitated just long enough for Sam to be certain she was lying, but he decided to trust her and didn’t push. “No, no, of course not. It’s just that I love you, Sam, we both do, and we need you to come home safely. Promise me you will?”

  Sam smiled into the phone so that she could hear it. “Of course I will,” he said. “Just ask Beauregard.”

  29

  Sam got back into the Challenger and just cruised around for a while. A glance at the clock on the stereo told him it was only 5:30, so he had two more hours to go before picking up Long at the airport. He cruised around the city, just taking in the sights.

  After an hour of that, he picked up his regular phone and called the police department again. Detective Embry, the receptionist said, was out on a call but she would relay the message and ask him to give Sam a call when he got a chance. His phone rang again in less than ten minutes, and he answered it to find Embry on the line.

  “Thanks for calling,” Sam said. “I just wanted to check on how Lawton is doing.”

  “He’s out of surgery,” Embry replied, “but he’s in the ICU. This is all off the record, of course, so keep it to yourself. He was hit three times, twice in the chest and once in the head. The head wound may have done some brain damage, they’re not sure yet. The one that almost killed him was the one that nicked his aorta. The doctors said it was a miracle he didn’t bleed out internally before they got him into surgery.”

  “Is there any prognosis?”

  “Well, they think he’s going to survive, but a lot depends on the brain damage. The bullet apparently caught him as he was falling, and basically just took a small chunk out of the top of his skull, but it did some damage to the top of his brain, too. The doctors say it’s possible he won’t even notice the bits they had to take out, but we won’t know for sure until he’s awake and actually starting to recover. They say that won’t be for a day or two, at least.”

  “Man, I’ll be saying my prayers for him. Does he have a family?”

  “Jerry? Yeah. A wife and three kids. His youngest is only four.”

  “Damn. All right, thanks for letting me know. Any further developments?”

  “Nothing concrete. A witness popped up who claims to have seen the shooter, but we don’t know if it’s legitimate or not. According to the witness, the shooter was around fifty, about five foot ten and 160 pounds, and fired the shot from a pickup truck across the street.”

  “Just curious, but why do you have doubts? That sounds like the kind of thing a shooter might do if he was going after a cop.”

  “Because the witness also said the shooter had pale white skin and pink eyes, like an albino. I’m having troub
le believing that there could be an albino cop killer, considering that almost every albino is so nearsighted they’re essentially blind. If the shooter was parked across the street, we’re talking about 100 meters. That may not be much, but it would at least require some reasonable eyesight.”

  “Yeah, I guess I see your point. Still, it would’ve probably been a disguise. Maybe the albino part was a mask, something that could be snatched off in a hurry.”

  “We’re considering that,” Embry said. “I’ll let you know if there’s any news—oh, wait a minute. I got the autopsy report back on Reed a little bit ago. The guy would have been dead within a month, even if he hadn’t been shot. Seems his insides were eaten up with cancer. Medical examiner says he would have been terminal.”

  Sam’s eyes went wide. “Well, go figure,” he said. “Any sign of that in his medical records?”

  “Just got the order from the judge to get them. I’ll let you know, but it probably won’t be before tomorrow.”

  Sam thanked him and said goodbye, then hung up the phone and stuffed it into the box the disposable had come in, wrapped it up in the bag and shoved it into the glove box. He should still have been able to hear it if it rang, but that should have been enough soundproofing to keep Michael from being able to listen in on it when it was inactive.

  He was letting his mind wander as he drove around the city, and it finally came around to Beauregard’s latest utterance.

  The final bet in the game is when I have to choose the right moment to take the shot. That sounds to me like a face-to-face confrontation, with each of us aiming at the other. If I choose the right moment, I get my man and still manage to live through it. If not… Sam let that thought trail off.

  He said I shouldn’t be afraid to bluff. What in the world could that mean? What kind of bluff can I pull that would draw him out into the open?

  He rolled a dozen different scenarios around in his head, but nothing seemed to fit the concept of a bluff, at least not to the point that he believed Michael would expose himself over it. He decided to discuss it with Ken and hope the old assassin could come up with a viable idea.