“Billy’s death might, too. I don’t know. I didn’t get a sense that they were close buddies, though. I think they only met recently. But String’s shot, the one that killed Billy, it went right past Ollie’s head. It shook him up.”
“Good. I mean, that’s helpful.” Gonzales left again, was gone a few minutes and then entered the interrogation room with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Okay, Ollie, where were we?” He stirred the coffee with one of those little wooden sticks and blew on the surface of the hot liquid. “Oh, yeah. Death penalty. Well, I’ll tell you right now that we easily have enough evidence to put Stringer and Mohler away, and it’s either going to be a life sentence or the death penalty. That’s pretty much a sure thing.”
He watched Ollie over the top of his cup as he took a sip.
“You and Billy Hatchett are equally culpable—that’s means responsible—under the law because you were there. Just taking part in a crime where someone dies makes everyone guilty. Just in case you hadn’t already learned from watching a lot of TV.”
He took another slow sip, wasted another minute by staring into the cup, stirring it again with the little stick, blowing on the coffee. By this time Ollie was shifting in his seat like he was about to wet his pants.
“Only thing I need now is to get my hands on those other two. That’s it.” Gonzales sipped again. “We know they’re back in the city. It’s only a matter of time before they screw up and we catch ’em. And you know what—it’ll be something stupid like the way we got you. Some dumb break-in for a few bucks.”
Ollie’s fingers drummed on the table now.
“See, the thing is—I’d really hate to see another innocent person get hurt when that happens. Because then it’s the death penalty for sure. And I’m not so sure that we couldn’t get your name tacked onto the list for that same sentence. Just depends on how good a lawyer you can afford.” He chuckled. “Oh, I forgot. You didn’t even have a quarter to your name. That’s why you thought you had to knock over a laundry.”
“I didn’t do none of that shit,” Ollie cried out. “I didn’t go to that bank, I didn’t shoot nobody, I didn’t even get a share of the money.” His voice cracked.
Gonzales let the words hang in the air for a minute. “Really? None of the bad stuff?” Another pause. “Well, then it’s really a pisser that your name’s going on that indictment. Well . . . unless . . .”
Ollie went for the bait. “Unless what? Maybe I can get some kind of a deal?”
“Well, I don’t know. Like I said, we already got all the evidence we really need.”
“You need to find them though,” Ollie said. “I can help you.”
Gonzales was as cool as I’d ever seen. He rubbed at his chin, while Ollie repeated the offer twice more.
“How’re you going to do that?”
“I got to thinking,” Ollie said, his voice as animated as one of the Little Rascals when they set out to make plans. “There’s this house String owns. He doesn’t always stay there. It’s more like a safe house. Yeah, I think that’s what he called it. His safe house.”
“And you think he would go there now?”
“Yeah, sure. Makes sense, doesn’t it? He said even his mother don’t know about it.”
“But you do. You know where it is.”
“There was this one night when we was hiding out, at this farmhouse somewhere in Colorado . . . And String starts drinking and we’s all playing cards and stuff. Right after he had the idea that the movie star lady would be worth a whole bunch of money. And Mole’s asking him about how that would work, how we’d get the money and divvy it up.”
Gonzales was writing notes on a yellow pad now.
“And String says that he’d meet the guy who’s bringing the money and then we’d all meet up at String’s house in Bernalillo and he’d give us each our share.”
“But you were all headed to California together,” Gonzales said. “So why come back to New Mexico to divide the money?”
“Oh, well String said it would be safer that way.”
I sputtered out loud. How absolutely dumb could this guy be?
“Where in Bernalillo?” Gonzales asked.
“Huh?”
“Where is the house?”
I had to admire his ability to separate out the bullshit parts of the kid’s story and stay with what he needed to know—where to find String now.
“He told Mole you take the main road into town, heading north. Two streets past this one Chevron station, fourth house on the left.”
Gonzales asked a few more details but I lost track.
I, too, remembered something String said about having a safe house in Bernalillo. He’d hinted that the house was full of contraband.
Was Ollie setting us up?
Chapter 39
Gonzales came back into the observation room with me, while another officer cuffed Ollie and took him away.
“Finally,” he said. “Looks like we might have a solid lead on a place to look. I’ll get out there and check out that house.”
“Dave, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said.
He gave me a quizzical look.
“When Ollie mentioned the house—well, I remembered a comment String made.”
“And you didn’t think to mention—”
“I know. I’m sorry. It just—”
“Tell me.”
“As Ollie said, there was one night at the farmhouse when the men were drinking and playing cards. I had duct tape around my wrists and ankles and I was sitting in a corner of the kitchen, dozing about half the time, trying to plan a way out . . . Well, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the men. String tended to brag a lot—”
He twirled his hand in the air to make me hurry up.
“I think the house may be filled with weapons and explosives.”
“What!”
“String did kind of mention a safe house. It came up while the guys were talking about the guns they’d used in the robbery, Mole admired one of the pistols . . . String said he had a place where he kept a whole lot more than those. Made it sound almost like an armory or something. Then he went off into bragging about how during his time in the Army he worked with C4 and a lot of explosives.”
“Hmm . . . he might have. We do show that he did an Army stint in the mid-80s. I can check further on that.”
“What I’m saying is that he’s a really unbalanced dude. You can’t believe the crazy—I’m talking insane—look he gets in his eyes. Dave, what if he was willing to blow the whole place up if your men cornered him there?”
“It could be a Waco-like scene, except that this place isn’t out in the middle of nowhere. There are other houses all around.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He gripped the coffee cup that he’d carried in with him and stared at a spot in the middle of space.
“Okay, thanks. We’ll have to figure out our best approach.” He opened the door and held it for me.
“Wait. I have an idea,” I said.
He paused, eyebrows raised.
“Let me be the bait and bring him out into the open, somewhere far away from his own turf.”
“Absolutely not. No way. Forget it.”
He was sounding a little too much like my husband now.
“Think about it, Dave. String has been sending me these notes, demanding money. The media said the robbers got away with fifty thousand dollars and he thinks I have it. I know, it’s crazy. There was nowhere near that much and a lot of it was ruined by the dye . . . but he’s got this idea that I can deliver a bunch of cash to him. What if we just played along with that?”
“I can’t put a civilian at risk like this.” He walked out into the corridor, headed toward the squad room.
I tagged along. “So, what . . . you’d tell him to meet up with a police officer and trust String to show up, just because he’s fixated on the money? That’s not exactly going to work.”
Gonzales flopped into t
he chair at his desk, looking like he’d give anything to come up with a better idea so he could send me home.
“I’m not going to meet the guy in some dark alley. We’d choose a place that’s nice and open. You’d set your men up in advance to grab them. I’ll wear a vest and carry a weapon.”
“No. More civilians get hurt when they brandish a weapon at a criminal than you’d like to believe.”
I had a feeling this might become our sticking point, so I just kept my mouth shut.
He tapped a pen against the yellow pad that contained his notes from the interview with Ollie. I could see his wheels turning.
“Let’s say that I did agree with this plan. And let’s say that we could find a good spot to do it, where we control the action. How would we contact Stringer and Mohler and get them to come?”
I sat in the visitor chair beside the desk. I hadn’t gotten quite this far in the plan.
“I would have to talk to him.”
“I don’t like it.”
Truthfully, I didn’t like it much either once I thought about it. I tapped a fingernail on the desktop as I considered what to do.
“Okay, how about this? He found my office and confronted me there once. Then he left two notes. He’ll come back.” I outlined the rest of the steps, basically, as I thought them up.
Chapter 40
From the bay window in my darkened office I scoped out the street below. Streetlamps illuminated the pre-dawn neighborhood where nothing had moved since I arrived thirty minutes ago. The two government vehicles had not been back since yesterday, although their earlier presence had not exactly deterred String from approaching the building with his most recent note.
“Clear in the back,” Ron called out. “We better get moving.”
I grabbed up the note I’d written earlier, telling String that I had the money and wanted to meet. We made our way down the stairs, leaving the normal daytime lights on throughout the offices. Ron peeked through the curtains at the back window, re-checking the parking area, before giving me the go-ahead. We locked the door and stuck the note in the jamb, then hurried to his car. I ducked into the back seat and stayed low, while he pulled out. My Jeep stayed behind.
Everything about the place was meant to look as if I were working here alone. Now all I had to do was stay somewhere out of sight until String found the note and called the phone number I’d written there. It went to a cell phone that APD gave me, one they could easily monitor.
Ron drove through the semi-residential neighborhood of our office at his normal pace and then told me I could raise up once we got to the busier streets beyond. Within fifteen minutes he’d delivered me to my uptown hotel, where Drake and Freckles had just come in from her morning walk.
“Did you leave the note on the door at home?” I asked.
“Yep, as ordered.” Drake pulled me into his arms but I found it hard to relax into the embrace as I normally love to do.
“I feel jumpy as a cat,” I said. “Until we hear something . . . no, make that until those two are locked away.”
“I know,” he said. “We’ll all be relieved when this is over.”
Poor thing. He’s put up with a lot of drama in my life. I would have to think of a suitable thank-you that I could offer for his tolerance of the whole situation. From the way his hands were wandering I got the idea that he already had a reward in mind. Of course, his wandering hands led me to think of places to put my own hands . . .
And then the special cell phone rang.
We jumped apart as if we’d been hit by a jolt of electricity. My hands shook as I flipped it open and pressed the Talk button.
“Don’t worry, it’s just me,” said Detective Gonzales. “Everything in place?”
Yeah, except my stomach. I willed it to stop doing flips and assured him that the first part of the plan had gone perfectly. We went over the instructions I was to give to String when he called. I’d even written them down in case I was too fuzzled to remember them exactly when the phone call came.
“Now we wait,” Gonzales said before he hung up.
Yes, waiting was the only choice. Unfortunately, the romantic mood had vanished now that I had some time with nothing to do. Drake suggested a big room-service breakfast and I left him to make the choices and place the call while I took a shower.
Passing time before an unpleasant event has never been a strong suit of mine. I would always rather anticipate Christmas morning than a trip to the dentist, for instance. We’d agreed that we would both stay inside the room, mainly to avoid the complications that would happen if one of us were away when the call came. Drake still didn’t want me taking the risk of running into String accidentally either. Another kidnapping was off our to-do list for a good long time now.
Drake spent part of the morning on his own phone, touching base with clients and making plans for some upcoming jobs with the helicopter. I attempted to read a book but actually read one sentence about three hundred times before I finally gave up and began pacing the floor.
It was nearly four o’clock when the special cell phone rang again. This time I recognized the number on the readout as Dave Gonzales’s.
“No word yet?” he asked. “We’ve had men watching the house in Bernalillo since last night. No sign of Stringer or Mohler all day.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t give him any good news.
“Remember, when you hear from them, to allow at least an hour before the meeting. My men will try to track them but it won’t be a sure thing. We may not know how close they are at the time they call you.”
I had just ended the call when a knock at our hotel room door sent the dog into a barking frenzy and my heart rate into the stratosphere. Drake pulled his pistol and approached the door quietly, checking through the peephole before relaxing and admitting Ron.
“Hey,” my brother said. “I’m done with other stuff for the day. Any word?”
I filled him in on the late-breaking news.
The next hour went by, as Elsa would say, slower than molasses in January. I alternated between wishing the crooks would just hurry up and call and hoping they’d forgotten all about the money. I didn’t get lucky on either version of the wish.
The red numerals on the clock had just clicked to 6:00 when the call came. The readout only said “unknown.” My voice seemed very tentative when I said hello.
“Hello, Charlie.” String’s oily voice brought back all the horror. “So you did get the money for me.”
“I’ve got it right here.” I eyed the large black duffle on the floor. It contained a layer of banded bills, on top of a thick stack of blank paper. If it had all been the real thing that would have provided another tempting reason for me to abandon this whole crazy scheme and take off for Barbados. But I wouldn’t have done that. They have an extradition agreement.
“Bring it to—”
“No, String. This time I’m saying how it goes. You need this bag more than I need anything at all from you.”
Tough talk that I could not possibly enforce.
He growled something about not being so sure about that.
“Seven-thirty. The parking lot of the shopping center at Juan Tabo and Montgomery. I’ll drive up in a silver pickup truck. I want to see both you and Mole.”
“I’m coming by myself.”
This was the one contingency that none of us could guarantee and Gonzales had left it up to me to make a convincing argument why both men should be there.
“Hunh-uh. No way am I going to let him sneak up behind me while I’m talking face-to-face with you. You two drive up together and I better not see a weapon on either of you. Once I see you both, I’ll set the money bag on the ground and then get in my vehicle and leave.” I clicked off the call before he had a chance to respond.
It was chancy, I knew, but better than getting into a discussion and giving him the chance to make an alternate suggestion. This whole deal had to be on my terms.
Chapter 41
Imm
ediately, I called Gonzales and let him know that we were leaving. Drake helped me get rigged up with the wire that Gonzales had insisted I wear. He clipped the battery pack to the waistband of my shorts, ran the microphone wire under my cotton shirt and handed me the receiver piece which I plugged into my ear. At the time, I’d scoffed at the idea, but now I was glad for the contact.
From our uptown hotel I was less than fifteen minutes to the drop site. If String and Mole were still down in the valley, anywhere near my office, they were at least thirty or forty-five minutes away. If they’d somehow divined that they would be going to the far northeast heights, well, that might be a problem. They could get there ahead of me.
At least they wouldn’t get there ahead of the police.
We put Freckles into her crate and stocked her up with a few treats, which she gobbled before I’d hardly closed the door. Drake would ride with Ron in his car and I took the keys to Drake’s pickup truck. They stayed a few car lengths behind me as we headed northeast through the city. I approached the chosen intersection and pulled in, taking in the neat tan stucco buildings with their green trim and awnings.
Gonzales had assured me that his people were in place but I sure didn’t spot them. The small center contained a number of neighborhood businesses plus a good-sized bookstore. People were moving about, although I hoped the fact that the meeting was taking place at the dinner hour would mean that the place wouldn’t be crowded. If things got ugly . . . well, it didn’t bear thinking about at this point. We were committed.
I pulled into a parking slot at the corner of the lot farthest from all the businesses. Ron found a spot about three rows away, facing his car toward me. Reassuring to see both of their faces watching me. Scary that I was about to be facing down the two men who’d killed three other people in their lust for this money.
The sun was blasting in through the west-facing side of the truck, low in the sky. It would be down soon and I hoped that the whole business of catching the crooks would be over with before dark. I felt apprehensive and yet buoyed at the prospect of an end to this whole thing.
Stardom Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mystery #12 Page 20