The Contract: Kill Jessica White

by Remington Kane

  Unfortunately, for Styles, he would never have the time.

  Tanner planned to kill him.

  ***

  Jessica spent her second day in Ohio visiting the scenes of the “accidents” with her husband and Chief Rodgers.

  Although late in the fall, the area was having temperate weather, and the lake where Mike Simms had fallen through the ice was dotted with men and woman fishing in boats, or casting lines from the shore.

  “Was Mr. Simms an avid ice fisher, Chief?” Jessica’s husband asked.

  “No sir, but he did tend to come out here to visit a friend who is one, and it was the friend’s shack where we found him.”

  “Did they have plans to meet that day?” Jessica asked.

  “No, the friend was off visiting family, but Simms’ wife said he was coming here to see the man. I think Brad Greyson somehow tricked Simms out here, and then pushed him into that frigid water. It’s actually a miracle that Mike Simms ever crawled out of that hole, the way the cold can lock up your muscles.”

  Jessica pointed at the lake.

  “Is this the same lake where Sean Green died?”

  “Yes, but we found him down at the other end, down there where the lake sort of hooks to the left. It was early, so the boy must have walked out here at sunrise.”

  “How far away is Sean’s house?”

  “About three miles,” the chief said.

  “That’s a long way for a boy of ten to walk, did someone drive him here?”

  “No, Doctor, I checked, his mother was still asleep... she ah, has a drinking problem, and as you can guess, the loss of her son hasn’t helped.”

  “I can imagine,” Jessica said.

  ***

  Their next stop was Myrtle Greyson’s home, which now belonged to Brad Greyson. It was in a neighborhood that sat atop a hill.

  They couldn’t get inside the home, but Jessica could look through the garage window and see the car in which Myrtle Greyson had died. It was a newer model Cadillac that had originally been her late husband’s car.

  Jessica pointed something out to her husband and the chief.

  “From up here, you can see a section of the lake off in the distance. How bizarre, given that it’s the location of two of the other deaths.”

  “I find it strange that Brad is keeping the car,” the chief said. “If my granny had died in it, I would have had the damn thing cubed by a car crusher.”

  “That crash involving Keith Washington, is that location near the lake?” Jessica asked.

  The Chief shook her head.

  “No, there’s nothing in that area but a rocky hillside.”

  ***

  From the house, they traveled to the narrow one-way road where Keith Washington had crashed his car and gone down a steep embankment.

  The chief stated that the area didn’t see much traffic on a good day and that it was snowing on the day Keith Washington died.

  “There’s a woman who lives over on the other side of the chasm that swears she heard Keith slam on his brakes right before he went into the slide. She also says that when she looked out her kitchen window there was another vehicle driving away.”

  Jessica gazed around.

  “This is a rather sharp curve. If someone had parked or broken down, then Mr. Washington would have had to run into them or attempt to avoid them. Did you ever locate the other vehicle?”

  “No, and the woman was unable to give a description. It was snowing hard that day and she was a good distance away.”

  There was a shiny new section of guardrail where the crash had occurred, but after her husband pointed it out, Jessica saw that although older, the original sections of guardrail were just as sturdy as the new piece.

  “How fast was Mr. Washington going when he hit the old guardrail?” Jessica asked.

  “The State Police investigated the crash and said that he probably slammed into it while going about thirty miles an hour, and the speed limit on this road is forty.”

  Jessica laid her hand atop the new section of guardrail.

  “I wouldn’t think a crash at that speed could send a car through something as tough as this.”

  “And you’d be right, unfortunately, the same section that Keith Washington went through had been damaged already; somebody driving a yellow vehicle had given it quite a whack the day before the accident, but that’s another investigation.”

  “Why wasn’t it fixed that day?” Jessica asked.

  “Normally it would have been, but we had a snowstorm and the road department was busy with that. At the time, I just thought it was bad luck and a freak accident, that is, until I started looking at Brad Greyson.”

  As if the voicing of his name had summoned him, Brad Greyson pulled up behind the chief’s car in a red pickup truck. It was a large truck, and in the winter, it was used to plow out the parking lot of Greyson’s store.

  “Chief, I’ve heard that you’ve been going around town telling people that I’m a killer. If you don’t cut it out I’ll sue your ass for slandering my name.”

  The chief looked at Greyson with obvious distaste showing in her gaze.

  “I haven’t been slandering you, but yes, I do suspect you of murder.”

  “I haven’t so much as jaywalked. I’m a solid citizen and a business owner.”

  “Don’t give me that crap,” the chief said. “I may be fairly new here, but the old chief told me all about you. You were no good as a kid and you haven’t changed.”

  “I didn’t kill my grandmother.”

  “The woman was old as dirt, Brad. I’m sure she would have died at any time on her own, why did you have to hurt her?”

  “I didn’t. I loved my grandmother,” Greyson said, and then he smirked at the chief. “In fact, I loved that old lady to death.”

  The chief’s face turned crimson with anger.

  “You’ve always thought that you were smarter than everyone else, and what better way to prove it than by getting away with multiple murders. You killed Mike Simms, Keith Washington, Sean Green, and your own grandmother, and I promise you Brad, I will arrest you for it someday.”

  Greyson pointed a finger at the chief.

  “There! That was slander, and I’ve got two witnesses.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Mr. White said.

  Greyson shot him a dirty look, and then moved up close to Jessica.

  “What about you, hot stuff, you heard the chief, didn’t you?”

  Jessica stepped back from Greyson as her husband stepped forward. Brad put his hands up in surrender and turned to walk towards his truck.

  “I know when I’m not wanted.”

  Greyson took off in a squeal of tires, as something heavy in the bed of the truck slid around and banged against the sides.

  Jessica stared after him.

  “He’s up to something, and whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

  CHAPTER 10 – Let’s make a deal

  Jessica and her husband were having dinner with the chief at a restaurant in town, when Brad Greyson came over to their table and leered down at Jessica.

  He had entered the restaurant and sat at the bar when they were halfway through their meal, and Jessica’s husband had remarked that he was staring at her.

  Jessica told her husband to ignore him, and that’s when Greyson decided he wouldn’t be ignored. Also, judging by the odor coming off him, he was drunk.

  “Hello hot stuff, why don’t you lose this husband of yours and come home with me?”

  “Get lost, Brad,” the chief said. “The woman has no interest in you.”

  The chief was seated on the same side of the booth as Jessica, but sat on the aisle side, while Jessica was near the window.

  Greyson reached past the chief and took Jessica by the arm.

  “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  Jessica broke Greyson’s grip at the same instant her husband had locked onto Greyson’s wrist.

  Greyson let out a yelp as his wrist
was being crushed, and with his free hand, he attempted to hit Mr. White in the face.

  The attempt failed, as the doctor’s husband blocked the punch easily, and then sent a fist at Greyson. Greyson’s head rocked back, his knees went weak, and he fell into the aisle between the rows of booths, where he lay sprawled on his back.

  “That’s it!” the chief said as she slid out of the booth.

  Twenty minutes later, Brad Greyson had been booked on a public intoxication charge and was sitting in a jail cell.

  When no one was looking, Greyson smiled.

  ***

  Earlier, in Colorado, Styles and his girl had left the shooting range and went out for lunch at a chain restaurant.

  That was where Tanner overheard Styles telling his girl that he had to go on a business trip.

  “Where to?” the girl asked.

  When Styles answered, Tanner realized that he was planning to travel to where Jessica White lived. It looked like the hit was on.

  ***

  Jim Horrigan saw the police vehicles and ambulance in front of his ex-wife’s trailer and asked God to please let his daughter be all right.

  He was kept back for a few moments, but when Beth pointed at him and told the female police officer watching her that Horrigan was her father, he was let past the barricades.

  Horrigan picked up his daughter as he tried to comfort her, and while tears fell from her eyes, Beth told him what had happened.

  Apparently, Beth’s mom, Susan, had been seeing one of the gangbangers who lived in the trailer park at the same time she’d been dating Horrigan.

  Horrigan had hoped that Susan had been seeing him so that they could get back together and give Beth a better home life, but he now saw that she had been with him only because he gave her money whenever he had any to give.

  Beth called the man, Uncle Devon, and it seemed that Uncle Devon had another girlfriend named LaShonda. When LaShonda confronted Susan outside the trailer, things became serious, and after the two women struggled over a gun, LaShonda was shot dead by Susan.

  All of this happened in front of Beth, who was watching from a window in the trailer.

  ***

  The cops took the statements of the people who had witnessed the shooting. Eyewitness accounts conflicted, but it appeared that Susan was the one who had the weapon first, although, she denied it.

  Horrigan knew that Susan had kept a gun in a shoebox on a top shelf inside a closet. He also learned that she was high on something at the time of the shooting, which meant that she had been deceiving him in other ways as well.

  Still, Susan was the mother of his only child and he didn’t want to see her go to prison.

  After Susan was booked for murder at the police station, Horrigan asked to see the homicide detectives in charge of the case.

  They ignored him at first, but when he told them that he could help with their case, they led him to an interview room and sat across from him.

  The lead detective was a beefy man with a bushy mustache and cold eyes. He stared at Horrigan for a moment as if he were sizing him up, and then he asked a question.

  “Are you willing to give us a statement saying that you know the gun belonged to your ex-wife? It would be best, you know, you don’t want a woman like that raising your kid.”

  “I know something about a hit that’s going down soon, and I’m willing to give you the guys who ordered the hit along with the hitter.”

  The two detectives stared at Horrigan a moment before sharing a look between themselves.

  When the lead detective turned back to Horrigan, there was a glint of keen interest in his eyes.

  “Let’s say that you actually know something. What is it you want?”

  “You drop the murder charge on Susan and say it was self-defense. I don’t want my little girl’s mother going to prison.”

  “We took a look at your file before coming in here, Horrigan. You’ve got a sketchy past, which is the only reason that I think you may not be bullshitting us, but we need more before we go to the DA with this.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Well, for starters, who’s the target?”

  Horrigan thought that over, and saw that there was no harm in giving them the name.

  “Her name is Dr. Jessica White, and if we don’t make a deal soon, she’ll be dead.”

  CHAPTER 11 – Ice ice baby

  Tanner followed Styles and the man’s teenage girlfriend back to Boulder, where the two of them went to a house where a party was going on.

  At twenty or so, Styles was likely the oldest one present, and Tanner gave up the idea of going in after the young hitter. Tanner was only thirty-five, but the kids inside might think he was someone’s dad who had come there to drag their kid home. In any event, he would stick out, and the last thing he wanted was to be memorable while making a hit.

  A neighbor must have complained about the noise of the party, because a patrol car drove up around midnight and the volume of the pounding music dropped to a normal level. It was pumped back up less than a minute after the cop left.

  When two a.m. came and went, Tanner sighed. He thought the three hours of sleep he caught the day before were few, but it was beginning to look like he might not get any at all.

  He had no idea when Styles might leave for the airport, and he had to keep him in sight until he could catch him alone and kill him.

  It was just bad luck that the kid turned out to be a party animal.

  Tanner stifled a yawn and kept his eyes on the house, as the steady beat of music flowed out into the night.

  ***

  JAMESBURG, OHIO, 6:52 a.m.

  Jessica and her husband were escorted by Chief Rodgers to the sight of the town’s latest freak “accident.”

  An old tractor-trailer cab weighing over nine tons rolled down a hill and smashed into the rear bedroom of a small home. The truck went through the outer wall and crushed the bed and its matching dresser to splinters.

  This occurred shortly before three a.m. and woke half the neighborhood that lived below the hill. Several of the residents near the home that suffered the crash ventured out their front doors in their robes and slippers.

  After looking around in puzzlement when they saw nothing amiss, they soon concluded that whatever it was, it must have happened on a different block, and they all went back to bed.

  The mystery was solved a few hours later, when a pair of bicyclists on mountain bikes were out for an early morning ride and saw the carnage that had occurred.

  One of them called the station and Chief Rodgers was roused from sleep, as any call between midnight and seven a.m. went straight to her phone. It was part of the joy of being a small-town chief with a miniscule budget for personnel.

  ***

  Jessica opened her mouth in surprise as she took in the level of destruction.

  “How did the homeowner survive? That bedroom is destroyed.”

  Chief Rodgers grinned.

  “Mr. Gage Aldridge is seventy-six and suffers from an over-active bladder. He got up to pee and when he stepped back in the room to lay down again, he heard a rumbling sound coming from beyond the window. When he looked up, he saw that truck coming at him.”

  “But if he made it back out of the room, then why didn’t he report what happened?”

  “That’s just it; Mr. Aldridge never made it out of the room. He had just enough time to dive into his open closet before the truck came barreling in through the wall. After that, he was trapped inside by the debris. The fire department cut a hole through the back wall of the closet and now he’s being checked out at the hospital, but he appears to be fine.”

  Mr. White asked a question.

  “Where was Greyson while all this was going on?”

  “He’s still in a jail cell. So he couldn’t have caused this. This may be a legitimate accident, but I still like him for the other four.”

  “A smart lawyer could use this incident to place doubt in the mind of a jury,”
White said.

  “Yes, how fortunate for Greyson that he was in jail,” Jessica said, and then she pointed up the hill, where one of the chief’s deputies was roping off the area with crime scene tape.

  There was a decorative wooden fence up there. The waist-high fence had a gap where the truck had crashed through, before it headed down the hill.

  “Chief, is that where the truck was parked?”

  “Yes, and the man it belongs to is a long haul trucker. This is his old truck. He had it up for sale. He was out there on the road somewhere last night; we’re trying to reach him.”

  “Why did the truck roll, was the parking brake off?”

  “It was, and it looks like pure negligence.”

  “I want to take a look at things from up there,” Jessica said.

  ***

  Minutes later, they were up on the hill and looking down from behind the taped off area. There was a small patio nearby with a concrete floor and a gas grill.

  “Mr. Aldridge is very lucky to be alive,” Jessica said. “Does he have any connection to Brad Greyson?”

  “He said that he didn’t recognize the name when I asked him about it, and he hasn’t shopped at The Greyson Market for years.”

  Jessica studied the scene, as once more she tried to find a common denominator between all the accident sites. When the deputy walked over to them, Jessica saw that he was leaving behind wet footprints. Although it hadn’t rained in days during the unseasonal heat, there was a touch of morning dew; however, the deputy’s shoes were wetter than they should have been.

  Jessica smiled as a light dawned in her mind.

  “Chief?”

  “Yes, doctor?”

  “I think I’ve found the common denominator, now all we have to do is prove it.”

  ***

  They returned to the station in the early afternoon to find that Greyson had hired a lawyer.

  The man’s name was Leo Beck, and Beck was not happy that his client was still locked up. Beck, who was newly divorced and in his thirties, liked Chief Rodgers. He had plans to ask her out soon, but he was all business when it came to defending a client.