Vengeance Is Mine (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  Goddamned Jehovah’s Witnesses. Had to be. He didn’t recognize either of them. Salesmen knew better than to harass people living in this neck of the woods, and the old guy was too old to be a cop or any kind of agent.

  Probably some kind of father-son dog and pony act: two clowns come to proselytize.

  He glanced at the SUV. Midrange, domestic. New, but not brand new. Expensive, but nothing to get worked up about.

  Middleclass clowns, then. Maybe upper middleclass, with enough money to think they were his peers.

  He watched the clowns walk up to the front door with the same vaguely curious, vaguely respectful slowness to their step the sheriff had used earlier. He heard the doorbell ring.

  Sean made no move to answer the door. He had no time and no patience for weirdos. They could leave their tracts and be on their way.

  He couldn’t see the front door from his vantage. But he could see the path leading up to it. He waited for the clowns to make their way back to their vehicle.

  They didn’t. Instead, the bell rang again. Again, he ignored it and waited.

  They stayed out of sight, at the door. Then the bell sounded a third time. Sean gritted his teeth and headed to the front door. He’d planned to toss their pamphlets and think no more of it. Now, they’d get an earful.

  He flung the door open, scowling at the pair as he did so. Nothing too ferocious. He’d been in politics long enough to expect everyone to have a camera, always. But the look sufficed. It caught both men off guard.

  The young one blinked and the old one stared.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, as brusquely as possible without crossing that line. “This is private property.”

  “Mr. Abbot?”

  “I’m not interested in your church, guys. This is private property. Please leave.”

  “We’re not with a church,” the young one said.

  “Temple, then, or whatever you call it.”

  The old one frowned. The young one said, “We’re not with any church or temple. We’re here to talk to Mr. Abbot.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Are you Mr. Abbot? My name’s Owen Day. I’m here about the murder of Judge Wynder.”

  His heart skipped another beat. “I’m sorry, who did you say you were?”

  “Owen Day.”

  “And you’re – some kind of cop? Do you have some ID?”

  “No sir. I’m looking into the case is all.”

  “So you’re a private investigator?”

  The old guy spoke now. “We are investigating privately, yes.”

  Sean frowned at him, then turned back to Owen. “And he is?”

  “Tanney,” Owen said.

  “His partner,” the old guy put in.

  He almost laughed out loud. For the briefest moment, he’d been worried. But a dumbass and a geriatric playing at being detectives? He shrugged. “Okay. And what can I do for you?”

  “Could we ask you some questions?” Owen said.

  He was hinting to come inside. That was clear from the glances he kept throwing over Sean’s shoulder, to the interior. But Sean Abbot ignored those hints. “You have been,” he said. “But you said you were looking into Rick’s death. Aren’t the police doing that already?”

  “Yes sir, of course. We’re looking into a separate angle.”

  “Well, good luck to you. But I know nothing about it, except what I’ve read in the papers.” He started to close the door. “So I won’t be of any help.”

  Owen started to say something, something about his other angle. Tanney blurted out, “Reed Hill.”

  And it was that name that froze Abbot to the spot. He peered up from behind the half-closed door. “What?”

  “Reed Hill,” the old man said again. “We’re looking into Wynder’s connection to Reed Hill.”

  “We were hoping you’d be able to tell us something about your investigation into Mr. Wynder,” Owen added.

  Sean considered for half a moment. “You didn’t tell me who hired you.”

  “We’re not on anyone’s payroll. We’re just investigating.”

  “Out of the goodness of your hearts?” He let a little of the skepticism he was feeling seep into his tone. It flustered Owen.

  But not the old guy. “Look, Mr. Abbot, we think your friend was murdered because of his connection to Reed Hill. Call it a hunch. But the police aren’t looking back that far. So – if there’s a connection – they might miss it.”

  “I doubt it very much, Mr. Tanner.”

  “Tanney.”

  Sean brushed this aside, like an irrelevance. “Whatever. Whoever killed Rick didn’t kill him because of any kind of corruption with Reed Hill.”

  “You seem awfully sure of that.”

  “I should be. I wasted months investigating Rick for any kind of link at all. I can tell you definitively that – whyever he was killed – it wasn’t because of a connection to Reed Hill. Because there was no connection.”

  The two men both spoke at that. Owen wanted to ask more questions. Tanney wanted details about the investigation. He held up a hand to silence them both. “Listen, guys, I’ve tried to be a good sport. Whoever you are, whoever’s paying you, I appreciate anyone trying to get to the bottom of who killed Rick.

  “But it’s cold; I know nothing about it; and this really isn’t a job for amateurs. I’m going to shut the door now. And I advise you two to go back to whatever it is you do normally, and leave the policework to the police.”

  They went on talking, but he shut the door in their faces. He’d gathered what he needed. They didn’t know anything. They weren’t cops, and they weren’t any kind of licensed private investigators, either. Not that he would have needed to talk to them if they were licensed either.

  But the old guy had made a point to say they were investigating privately rather than private investigators.

  Which meant – what? Journalists? Another son-of-a-bitch like Covington, maybe, come to stir up trouble. Or bloggers or vloggers or TikTokers or whatever they called themselves these days?

  He turned it over in his head. Someone pressed the bell again. This time, he didn’t open the door. He pulled out his phone instead and thought about dialing 9-1-1.

  The sheriff wouldn’t hesitate to come out if Sean Abbot called saying there were weirdos harassing him at his home, trespassing on his private property. And he was ninety-nine percent sure they didn’t know anything.

  But what if he was wrong? What if he called the cops, and opened a whole new can of worms for himself?

  He waited and retreated to his prior vantage. They didn’t ring the bell again. Instead, he saw the pair of them head back to their vehicle, shoulders a little slumped, looking a little deflated. Not quite the stamina of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, these two.

  But a lot more problematic.

  He waited until the SUV disappeared down the drive. Then he started dialing – not 9-1-1. A number in Missouri. A number he hoped he’d never have to call again.

  It picked up after four rings. He didn’t wait for a response. He said, “We’ve got a problem, Roy.”

  The voice on the other paused half a beat. “I told you: it’s under control.”

  “Not Halverson. This is a new problem.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Four guys in a different dark, nondescript SUV were traveling down the interstate. They were going a mile above the speed limit. Normally, it would have been five or six, maybe eight miles per hour. That would have seemed the natural speed – not fast enough to rankle a prickly cop, but not slow enough to attract unwanted attention.

  But after a snowstorm like last night’s, they let the flow of traffic determine their speed. They were going one mile over the speed limit because that’s what the rest of the drivers seemed to decide on, as if through some kind of telepathic consensus.

  Whatever. They’d get there soon enough. And with a rear full of weapons and tools? Well, they didn’t want unnecessary attention.

/>   It wasn’t illegal to own guns, or to travel with them. But with duct tape and shovels and tarps too? Well, a cop might get the wrong idea. Or the right one.

  Either way, it spelled trouble. Better, then, to avoid attention.

  They’d been on the road for five hours. They had two left, give or take thirty minutes. That would depend on traffic and road conditions.

  The driver didn’t mind. His legs felt a little stiff, but the seats were comfortable, and he didn’t have anywhere better to be.

  And the job wasn’t going to be a hard one. That was for damned sure. Their mission was to locate and eliminate a guy called Halverson: some Podunk sheriff who didn’t know when to butt out. Easy money.

  Then the driver’s phone rang, a loud, electronic trill that echoed through the vehicle’s audio system. The car informed him in a robotic voice, “Incoming call from Roy.”

  He accepted the call. “Boss?”

  “How far out are you?”

  “A hundred miles, give or take.”

  “Good. There’s been complications. I’m going to need you to make a detour.”

  * * *

  “Well,” Owen said. “You were right.” They were back on the road, nearing the county road that would take them to Yellow River County again.

  “Not my favorite phrase in the English language, but in the top ten,” Tanney said. “But about what in particular?”

  “Abbot: it was a waste of time.”

  Tanney laughed softly. “I’ve been telling you that since you got here. Not that it makes any difference. You don’t listen to me.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But it wasn’t a complete bust.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  Owen shook his head. “You saw his face when you mentioned Reed Hill, didn’t you?”

  “Sure. What about it?”

  “He looked scared.”

  “Scared?” Tanney considered. “I don’t know. I thought he looked pissed off more than anything.”

  “That too. Which is telling in its own right, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?”

  “Why would he be pissed off to see us?”

  “Gee, I don’t know. Why would anyone be pissed off to have complete strangers interrupt their Friday afternoon to bother them with questions about a job they retired from years ago?”

  He had a point, at least when he put it like that. But Owen couldn’t shake what he’d seen. “Okay, maybe that explains the anger. But what about the fear?”

  “I didn’t see fear.”

  “I did.”

  “Okay. Supposing you read his expression correctly – and, not to put too fine a point on it, Owen, but you went there looking for something. It’s possible your brain supplied it when he didn’t.”

  Owen started to argue, but Tanney ignored him.

  “I said supposing you saw right, there could be a hundred reasons. Two guys show up when he’s home alone to ask him about some prison scandal that got a lot of people pissed off. His friend just died. Maybe he’s putting two and two together, and thinking he’s next.”

  “Exactly: because he covered for Rick.”

  Tanney shook his head. “See what I mean? You let your imagination run away with you. You ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”

  “Of course. ‘Entities should not be multiplied without necessity.’”

  “In plain English, don’t go making up wild ass theories when there are obvious ones staring you in the face.”

  “What obvious ones?”

  Tanney sighed, like Owen’s obtuseness annoyed him. “You said this was a big thing, right? The whole investigation and scandal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. It was in all the papers and on TV and everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you think everyone who read those papers or watched those reports heard that Abbot’s investigation cleared Wynder?”

  “Most of them, yeah.”

  “Most, not all. And even among those who heard, you think they all believe it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Of course not. There’s people out there – people including your killer, if you’re right – who saw those reports and think Wynder took money for putting people away. Right?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Okay. So someone offs Wynder. And then you – looking all serious – show up asking about Wynder’s murder. And then we throw out Reed Hill. Probably damned near gave the guy a heart attack.”

  “That was you,” Owen pointed out, “who mentioned Reed Hill.”

  Tanney nodded. “That’s true. But I didn’t have much choice, did I? He was going to shut the door on us.”

  Owen ceded the point, and then revised his earlier assessment. “Okay. I guess it was a complete waste of time.”

  “True. But hey, it beat sitting in that damned hotel lobby waiting for the sheriff, didn’t it?”

  They drove in silence for a spell after that. It was about two thirty in the afternoon. They’d accomplished nothing, and Owen was regretting his impulsiveness. He could have headed out that afternoon. He’d be back home now, instead of heading back to Yellow River County with Tanney.

  So he barely noticed the dark SUV that pulled onto the county road from the direction of the highway. It passed him, and he saw two men in the front seats. Then it was gone, and he didn’t think anything else of it.

  * * *

  The men didn’t notice him, either. They were following their GPS to a house on a lake. They’d left the expressway and diverted to a county road. It was a little out of their way, but not much.

  Now, they were following that county road to a backwoods road, which would take them to a long driveway and a huge house.

  Their target was a man called Abbot. A rich man, by the sounds of it – which complicated matters. A lot of rich guys had security systems with good cameras. They’d need to take more precautions than usual.

  Not that they were sloppy. They were some of the best money could buy, in this state anyway. But they’d swapped plates shortly after they left the expressway, and they’d don masks before they reached the driveway to the lake house.

  * * *

  A county away, Trey Halverson was putting ice on a rapidly forming bruise on his cheek. Not that it had been his idea. No, that was all Karen’s doing.

  Not that he was complaining – he didn’t dare. She’d been about to call an ambulance. The icepack was her compromise. So he kept it on the bruise while she fussed.

  Not that he hated fussing, exactly. He didn’t really have anyone in his life to fuss over him, not anymore. It annoyed him, but not more than it gratified. So he made a little show of protesting, and then gave in.

  “They’re absolute animals, those kids,” she was saying. “They took after that Donna, that’s for sure.”

  He murmured something noncommittal.

  “Are you sure you don’t want aspirin, Trey? That looks so awful.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You look awful.”

  “You know how to flatter a man.”

  She snorted. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you got in a hit of your own. That Joshua isn’t so smug anymore. Not with a broken nose.”

  He didn’t bother to explain that Joshua’s injuries came from Robert Cassidy, or that his own had come from Elizabeth Wynder. The injustice of that would have only infuriated Karen.

  No, much better that she thought he’d got even than anything else.

  “Well,” she said, “I suppose I’ll leave you. You’ll let me know if you need anything?”

  He promised he would, and she threatened to check in on him soon. He waited for her to leave and smiled. Then, catching himself, he shook his head. Karen reminded him of his ex-wife.

  And that way, trouble lies.

  Not that he had any objection to women like her. No, it was the other way around. If it had been up to him, his marria
ge never would have ended. But women like Karen – women in general, he figured – tended to get tired of guys like him.

  He wasn’t exactly Mr. Excitement. He was the guy who missed most Christmases, because it always seemed to storm at Christmas; and storms meant travelers in the ditch, and people at risk of freezing to death.

  He was the guy who spent most Independence Days chasing drunk drivers or responding to calls about people blowing off digits because they mixed alcohol and fireworks. He was the guy who had to drop everything and respond to the emergency calls, any time of day or night.

  And being tied to that was no kind of life for a woman. So he pushed thoughts of Karen Acker out of his head.

  He set the icepack aside and brought out his phone. He’d been reading an article about Arthur Covington before the fiasco at the lawyer’s office. But he hadn’t been able to finish it.

  The page reloaded as he opened the browser. He skimmed the first paragraphs.

  “Investigative reporter…Reed Hill case…killed over the weekend…robbery gone wrong…one-man crusade against the private prison industry.”

  He read through the same summary of Covington’s other work. He saw that he was survived by a mother and brother. But the article told him nothing more.

  He moved to his computer now and searched for information on Arthur Covington’s death. There were more articles with the same details, most of them from upstate New York, where the crime had happened.

  There were two later pieces, mentioning that the case was now considered a cold case. One dated a year and a half after the crime. The other was from last year, and mentioned the Covington killing in passing, as one of many unsolved crimes in the state.

  Halverson wasn’t a big hunches kind of guy, with the kind of intuition that delivered up a solution. He wasn’t a Sherlock Holmes type either, with the almost mythical deductive reasoning powers that could solve a crime at a glance. He couldn’t tell the last time someone fought with their wife, or how many pets they owned, or what their career might be by looking at them.

  But he had solid instincts. And right now, his instincts were telling him there was no chance in hell that Arthur Covington, the man who had made taking down a billion-dollar industry his personal crusade, ended up dead in a remote plot in the middle of nowhere.