Colton Banyon Mysteries 1-3: Colton Banyon Mysteries (Colton Banyon Mystery Book 20)

by Gerald J Kubicki

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Loni booked them into a hotel on Bay Meadows Road near the expressway and about ten miles from Hal Jones’s property. It was well after five o’clock when they finally checked in and Colt complained of hunger. They decided to have dinner before heading for the house. Loni wanted to make sure they were not followed and asked to drive. She wore a skirt that evening and hiked it up for better leg movement. She gave Colt a sideways smile as she caught him looking at her legs. She drove recklessly through several parking lots and doubled-back by crossing a divider in the middle of a road. She could not detect a shadow. She then followed his directions to the restaurant.

  Colt ordered shrimp for dinner, with lots of garlic. Loni made a face which told him she didn’t approve of all the garlic. When she saw he wasn’t going to change his order, she shrugged and ordered fish with garlic sauce. They topped off the garlic orgy with a Caesar salad. The restaurant was busy and of the aroma of cooked fish permeated the dining room. The atmosphere was very romantic.

  Colt marveled at the beautiful Asian woman across from him. She had an uncanny ability to captivate him and remain demure and shy at the same time. She was dark and mysterious and yet said exactly what was on her mind. She was both very smart and very vulnerable. Sometimes she was ultraconservative and at times, she was unpredictable. The light from the small candle on their table made her hair look silky and shiny. She had been eating with her head down, but now studied him through her dark hair.

  In a voice that was barely above a whisper, she said, “You look like you need some sex. Can I help?”

  “Check please,” Colt called out.

  Colt decided to drive back to the hotel. He knew the way and could get there faster than Loni could. She positioned herself against the passenger-side door with her skirt raised. Her leg snaked over to his lap.

  “Loni, what has gotten into you?” a highly excited Colt implored.

  “You looked at my legs when I was driving,” she replied in a husky voice that intimated many things.

  “But I’ve seen your legs before,” he said as his mind became focused.

  “Colton, know this. Whenever you look at me like a sex object, whenever you check me out, it gets me horny. It has always been that way with you. I could never do anything about it before, but I can now. You have no idea how much I crave the touch of your body.”

  They tried not to be too obvious as they half-ran to the elevator and groped their way to their room. Their lovemaking was filled with lust this time. She was very demanding and tried to force Colt to comply. They wrestled and fought for dominance. Later, as they lay spent on the sweaty sheets, they talked.

  “I think I am going to wear sunglasses around you,” Colt joked.

  “You had better not,” she warned.

  “It’s a tragedy about Sofia,” Colt said. “I just wish I could have seen it coming. I knew the Yakuza was there for a reason. I was too worried about us to understand.”

  “She would want us to go on and protect the recipe, Colt. She didn’t have long to live, anyway. She told me she had advanced lung cancer.”

  “Well, she should have been allowed to die in dignity, not at the hands of some money-hungry thug.”

  “So, you think the Yakuza killed her for money?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the recipe. That means it has something to do with the book,” he said.

  “But the book is in Japan and Dr. Thorne has the waiver which donates it to the museum, so why murder Sofia?”

  “Unless, maybe he thought a waiver didn’t matter?” Colt ventured.

  “I agree,” Loni said. “I don’t think he knew what we were doing. I think someone has been feeding him information and telling him what to do. He showed up in China and in Mobile and could have been in Chicago, too.”

  “Yeah, and no one knew our schedule, not even the FBI.”

  Their discussions were interrupted by a cell phone call. Colt rolled out of bed and made his way over to his phone. He glanced at his watch and was shocked to find out that it was already eight o’clock at night. He realized the caller was probably Agent Kriss.

  He was correct. The agent had just landed and was headed for the car rental counter. Colt gave him directions to Hal Jones’s house. He told Agent Kriss that they would meet him there. Colt had lived in Jacksonville many years ago and knew his way around town. He told Agent Kriss it would take him an hour to get there.

  Chapter Ninety

  Loni understood that Colt wanted to get to the house before the FBI did. Once they found the dead man, the FBI would lock down the house and Loni and Colt would be kicked out. Colt turned to tell her to get dressed and found that she was ready to go in shorts and a pullover top. He threw on a shirt and shorts and they were out the door.

  Fifteen minutes later, they found the dirt driveway into the estate. Loni noticed a sign that said “Keep Out” on the dilapidated fence which surrounded the property. He followed the long driveway to a big circle directly in front of an old, three-story house. It was dark now and the headlights shone on wood siding that looked like it hadn’t been painted in many years. Moss covered parts of the roof and the eaves. Antebellum columns supported the roof over an old Southern porch. Outside the cone of the headlights, it was pitch dark. Colt turned the car off but left the headlights on. He exited the car and headed for the porch.

  “I wish I had a flashlight,” Banyon said.

  “Hey,” Loni called and tossed him a flashlight. She had one, too.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “Bought them,” she said, evading the real question.

  “Let’s try the front door,” he said, reaching out to turn the knob. Her small hand slapped his away.

  “Don’t,” Loni commanded. “It might be booby-trapped.”

  “This isn’t Vietnam,” he retorted, but held back anyway.

  Loni inspected the doorknob. She quickly assessed that it was unlocked, but did not open it.

  “Give me a boost,” she said. “I want to look through that transom. She pointed to the small window above the door.

  Colt cupped his hands and steadied himself to support her weight. With the skill of a cheerleader, she put her hands on his shoulders and shot straight up on one leg. Her second leg planted on his shoulder, she continued to rise until she straddled his body. She then probed the inside of the house with the flashlight.

  “Am I too heavy?” she idly asked as she scanned the dark hallway that ran deep inside the old house.

  “I’m more worried about how you are going to get down,” he replied. “Do you see anything?”

  “I was right,” she flaunted. “There is a shotgun tied to a string. If you had opened the door, the gun would have fired.”

  “Then we had better look for another way in. We don’t have much time before Agent Kriss gets here.”

  “It’s not my fault we’re running late. You started it,” Loni complained. She then squatted, grabbed the back of his head with both hands, pushed away from his shoulders, and slid down his body. She landed facing him and kissed him on the lips. I’ve never had so much fun breaking into a house, he thought.

  He decided to let her do the search and followed her around the side of the big house. The night was spooky. The jungle around the house had encroached on the uncut lawn. As Loni shined her light back and forth, she saw several sets of red, predatory eyes watching them from the tangled undergrowth. She stopped at a window and peered in.

  “There he is,” she exclaimed. “Looks like a battle took place in there and he didn’t win.”

  Colt shined his light into the room and saw the old man lying face down on a rug, with a shotgun about a foot from his outstretched hand. He could see a broken chair and tangled ropes not far away. It looked like he had been crawling when he died. She tried to open the window but it was locked, so they continued around the house. They found the back door wide open and cautiously entered.

  The ki
tchen was a mess. Colt could see the shotgun positioned towards the backdoor and there were spots of blood on the floor. Broken glass and dishes were everywhere. The table and chairs had been knocked over.

  “Somebody took a hit from the shotgun,” he commented.

  “It was only rock salt. It wasn’t meant to kill, only maim. My guess is that the perpetrator recovered enough to overpower Jones,” Loni said. “He was very old and—”

  Suddenly, they heard a noise. They froze. The kitchen pantry door was opening.

  A raccoon the size of a big dog sauntered out of the pantry as if he owned the place. He looked at the two intruders and scowled. Loni moved quickly, grabbing a dish and throwing it against the wall behind the animal. The raccoon scurried out the door. Colt slammed the door shut as soon as the animal had exited.

  “I hope there aren’t any more of them in here,” Banyon said as he tried to regain his courage.

  “Let’s go check on the old man,” she said grimly.

  The odor in the parlor was almost overwhelming. Loni went to Jones and checked for a pulse.

  “He’s dead, alright. Been dead for several days, it looks like.” She could see several types of bugs crawling around his body and attempting to dismantle their prey.

  “Leave him alone for now,” Colt said. “We need to find the codes. They would be upstairs in his bedroom.” He headed for the stairs.

  “How’d you know that,” Loni asked?

  “Most men would keep a snuff box in their bureau,” he replied as he scurried up the stairs.

  They searched the second floor and found a room filled with newspapers and clippings. Colt read a few of the clippings and realized Jones had collected anything that was newsworthy about WWII. He was particularly interested in news from South America about Nazis. The small desk was cluttered with information about banks. One pile was devoted to the white supremacist movement in the United States. He had underlined names and places. He had circled a photo of Billy Bond in the third article in the stack. The caption under the picture said, “The New Leader?”

  “Well, I guess we now know the connection to Bond,” Colt said.

  “This guy must have been living in the past,” Loni replied as she took in all the papers and notes strewn about the room.

  “On the contrary, he was searching for information about the money. He knew the locations of the stash, but not the passwords and account numbers. I bet he watched all the banks, hoping that someone would make a big withdrawal.”

  “So all the banks are probably here in these piles,” Loni reasoned. “But it could take weeks just to look at all these documents.”

  “We don’t have the time,” Colt noted. “Let’s keep looking.”

  They found his bedroom on the third floor. It was a large suite that took up most of the floor. It was located in the front of the house. Five windows formed a semi-circle across the east wall. Light from the headlights of their car filtered dully through the windows. Colt told Loni to search the left side of the room. He would search the right. After a few minutes, Loni called him. “Colt, come and look at this.”

  He hustled over and trained his flashlight on the wall where she pointed. It illuminated a black-and-white picture of five men wearing college sweaters that said, “Harvard, class of ’39.” A caption was written in ink at the bottom of the page. It said, “All for one and one for all. Best friends forever.”

  “Why is this here?” Loni asked.

  “Look closely,” he replied. “It looks like our Mr. Jones went to Harvard. These men must be friends of his.”

  “I’m taking this picture. I want to see if I can find out more about this group of young men. But this doesn’t make sense. I thought you told me that Hal Jones came over in 1942 on a submarine.”

  “Loni, Hitler started making plans for his empire in the early twenties. It is entirely possible that he sent all these men to school in the United States. Then he could have sent them back as spies.”

  She began to take the frame apart as Colt returned to his side of the room.

  “I’m going to look for a closet. Sometimes people hide things in there,” she said.

  Soon, Loni found a closet door and disappeared inside. He could hear her moving things around.

  “I found a ladder that leads down to the first floor,” she called. “It was hidden under some trunks. Do you want me to go down and investigate?” There was excitement in her voice. Loni loved mysteries.

  “It’s probably an escape hatch. Remember, this guy was a Nazi. He probably built it sixty years ago. Come on, we have to find the snuff box.”

  Banyon soon found a bureau and rummaged through it. The snuffbox was in the top drawer.

  “Got it,” he yelled with excitement in his voice. Wolf had told him that “Agent X” had carried a snuffbox during the voyage many years ago.

  The snuffbox was small and made of silver. It was about two inches long and shaped in an oval. Colt knew that snuff was still a common item in the South, even today. A snuffbox would not have attracted any attention in the forties, but Wolf had noticed that it was a lucky charm for Jones. Colt found the latch and slowly opened it as Loni skidded to his side. He dumped the tobacco onto the floor and shined a light into the box. He didn’t see anything. Being a man, he immediately began banging it in the palm of his hand. All he got was a sore palm.

  Loni grabbed it from him and looked inside. Using the flashlight, she examined the sides, and then the bottom. She then used one of her long, painted fingernails to scrape the bottom walls and soon lifted out a flat, oval cover. She turned the box over and a piece of old paper floated into her hand.

  “He used wax to seal the bottom,” she said as she admired her cutting job. She then unfolded the paper and clearly saw nine addresses written in German. She showed the paper to Colt.

  He looked at the paper and decided that his high school German was not adequate to translate the addresses. He refolded the paper and placed it back into the box. He slipped the box into his pocket.

  “Let’s look around some more, at least until Agent Kriss gets here,” he said. “Maybe we can find something else of interest.” He turned to leave. “Uh, oh,” he said as he pointed to the windows.

  “What is it Colt?” Loni asked, alarmed.

  “Look,” he said as he continued to stab his finger at the windows. The windows were dark.

  “Someone has turned off the headlights from our car.”

  Chapter Ninety-One

  “Turn off your flashlight,” she ordered. “They want to see what room we are in.”

  Almost immediately, something crashed through one of the front windows and rolled along the floor.

  “Closet,” she commanded. He was there before she was. She slammed the heavy door closed mere seconds before a huge flash of light and a loud boom assaulted their senses. The door held and took most of the blow. But when Loni turned on her flashlight, she saw Colt sprawled on the floor.

  She fell to her knees and turned him over while cradling his head. She felt blood on her hand. “Oh, God no,” she wailed. She felt for a pulse and was relieved to find he was alive. He had a nasty cut on his forehead just past the hairline and he had been knocked out cold. She crushed him to her chest. Before she could thank the big man, she heard someone running up the stairs. She had no weapons and was trapped in a closet with her unconscious lover. Whoever had thrown the flash grenade was coming to finish them off. Her only consolation was that at least she was with Colt in the end.

  She heard a click followed by the sound of automatic gunfire. Bullet holes suddenly appeared in the door. She bent over and tried to cover his body with her own. The shooter was spraying the room with fire. Glass shattered as the windows exploded and then there was an eerie silence. She heard a clip eject and the unmistakable slam of another clip being rammed home. The shooting started again.

  After the shooter had emptied the second clip, she heard him retreat. He never checked to see if he had killed them. That
meant he didn’t have a flashlight or that he planned additional assaults, she thought. She got her answer a few minutes later. It was fire.

  The smell of smoke suddenly filled her nose. The shooter was setting fire to the house. Loni shook Colt and pleaded with him to wake up, but he was still out cold. She was getting desperate.

  “I don’t want us to die here. I just found you Colt, you son-of-a-bitch,” she screamed.

  Her frustration began to a boil over. She snapped and became enraged with the person who had put them in this deadly mess. She had to stop the shooter and give Colt time to wake up, or they would both die.

  She kissed him quickly on the lips and grabbed her flashlight. She opened the trap door in the corner of the closet. She hurried down the ladder into the unknown. When she reached the first floor, she looked for a way out of the wall. The flashlight found a latch and a handle. She opened the door slowly and found herself in the downstairs hallway by the front door. The booby-trap shotgun was only a few feet away. It was hers now. The shooter was still on the second floor and she could hear him coming down the stairs. She saw the torch before she saw him as he entered the hallway and headed toward the back of the house.

  “Hey, asshole,” she called.

  He started to turn and bring up his gun when she fired both barrels. She hit him square in the chest and his gun and the torch went flying. She grabbed the gun like a club and made her way over to him. He was a very big man. He wore nothing but a bathing suit that she could see. He landed on his stomach and Loni shuddered as she recognized the large tattoo which covered his entire back. As she bent down to frisk him for more weapons, he grabbed her leg. He was very strong. He turned his head and grinned at her. His face was deep red and covered in blood.

  “Got you now, bitch,” he rasped.

  “Never gonna happen,” she spit out as she swung the heavy rifle at the side of his head. The rifle butt produced a satisfying thud and he let go. His eyes rolled back into his head and he lost unconsciousness. She kicked him hard in the ribs for good measure.