The Ironclad Covenant

by Christopher Cartwright

  Virginia opened the door and stepped out.

  In the open, she felt vulnerable. Like a bank robber out of the vault, but not yet in the get-away car, or an escaped prisoner who’d burrowed under the main gate only to find themselves in an open field filled with spotlights. She walked with a brisk, purposeful pace. She felt like a fraud. As though someone would spot the oddity any minute and question her. But there was nothing abnormal about a paramedic moving quickly while carrying two kits full of emergency medical equipment. Even if she was walking back toward the ambulance.

  It didn’t matter what she looked like. She had to keep moving. The general duties police officers might be delayed at another scene, but the detectives could show up unannounced whenever they felt like it.

  She crossed the front lawn, stepping over the clutter of broken toys, and a moment later unlocked the ambulance. She slid open the sliding door, climbed into the back and closed the door behind her. She depressed the lock and let out a deep breath.

  So far so good…

  She didn’t wait to revel in her success. Instead, she transferred the cash into the yellow medical waste bags, hoping that the biohazard symbol, warning of highly infectious diseases, might just be enough to keep anyone from examining it if someone wanted to search the ambulance. It was farfetched and unlikely, but then again, an hour ago she never would have believed she’d have stolen from a dead patient.

  Now with two empty medical kits, she raced back into the apartment. Her eyes darted from street to the various closed windows, where someone might be watching. She felt exposed and helpless, trying and discovering it was impossible to come up with any excuse for why she should be carrying heavy drug kits out to the ambulance and then back again.

  Virginia reached the open room and immediately started the process again. There was no time for planning, only time to move. She quickly shifted the next set of bundled cash into the two empty medical kits.

  She finished transferring the cash.

  The enormity of what she was doing weighed heavily on her as she wrestled with the last of the resus gear, randomly shoving it into the top of the kit bag and trying to drag the overloaded zipper forward. It was stuck, and for a moment it wouldn’t move. She tried to force it, but the zipper only broke free of the toothed running line. She wanted to just force it harder, but experience had taught her that the only solution was to return the zipper to the beginning and start again so the toothed grooves could be fed correctly.

  She sped the zipper all the way back to the beginning, squeezed the equipment down as hard as she could, and then tried again.

  This time, when the zipper reached a small amount of resistance, she stopped. Took a deep breath in and held it. Jiggling the zipper, she eased it forward. It slid past the obstruction, running all the way along its rail and sealing the medical kit.

  She expelled the breath with an audible sigh.

  Virginia stood up, gripping both medical kits. She glanced at the scene once and then felt her stomach churn with fear. A single $10,000 bundle of cash was lying next to the dead drug dealer’s chest. It must have fallen while she was transferring the money from the duffel bag. If it was left there, the detectives would instantly question where it had come from and where the rest of the cash might have gone.

  There was nothing she could do about it. She needed to get rid of the bundle. She dropped the medical kits and raced over to pick up the money.

  Virginia gripped the bundle in her hand, trying to think where she could possibly put it. There wasn’t even anywhere to hide it on the floor. The bed was just a mattress on the floor. Without a base, there was nowhere to hide it. She frantically searched for another place to put it, stepping toward the bathroom.

  The beam of a powerful flashlight lit up the hallway.

  There was a firm knock at the door. “Police.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Virginia held her breath, counted to three, and then said, “I’m down here at the end.”

  She stood up, and watched two uniforms and two suits enter. One of the uniforms shined his flashlight around the room, and said, “Hello? Police.”

  “In the bedroom” Virginia said, walking toward the door.

  The detective glanced at her, with an incredulous smile. “They sent you to this place on your own?”

  “They didn’t have any other crews to cover the job.”

  “And you entered here on your own?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, worse than that I’m on dayshift.”

  He smiled. “You’re a brave woman. I wouldn’t want to do that and I carry a gun. Place like this is dangerous for anyone. I’m surprised your union lets them get away with it.”

  She shrugged. It was an ongoing debate. “Ideally paramedics should never be sent anywhere alone, but when you don’t have the resources to cover emergencies, what are you going to do about it?”

  He made a modest smile, like they’d both had to deal with the same sort of bureaucratic budget restraints. “My name’s Eric Greentree. This is Paul and Doug from the 79th, and this is my partner, Kay Armstrong.”

  “Virginia Beaumont.”

  Greentree ran his eyes across the body. “This one been here long?”

  “A few hours I’d say,” Virginia said, taking off her gloves and hoping the Police wouldn’t notice the rivers of sweat that now dripped off her saturated, wrinkled hands “I got all set up to give it a go, but once I got a better look at him, well, that’s when I realized it had already become more of a job for your agency.”

  “Drug overdose?”

  “There’s injecting stuff on the bedside and he’s got a belt on his arm there, but I’ll leave it up to the coroner to decide. I’ve been wrong before and all that,” Virginia added, as she tried to sound casual and risked eye contact with the lead Detective, a small waxy man who seemed all elbows and hips in a badly fitting suit.

  “Do you think you’re wrong here?” Greentree asked.

  “No. But…”

  “Go on.”

  Virginia smiled. “There were no track marks on the guy’s arm. He did a good job finding the vein with a single needle. If I had to guess, I’d say it was the first time he ever used the stuff… but, as I said before, I’ll leave that up to the coroner – I’ve been wrong before.”

  Greentree nodded and glanced at the bags of meth amphetamines and heroine. “Sure. It’s unlikely the coroner’s going to be interested in the case. Looks to me like you’re right.”

  She started to pack up the remaining medical waste into a yellow biohazard bag. She could feel her heart pumping in her throat. She was close, she just had to get past the natural line of questioning, and she’d be free. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. Drug dealer tries his own merchandize for the first time, and it all goes wrong.”

  Greentree studied her. His brown eyes intense and penetrating, like he was ready for an interrogation. “You don’t look so great.”

  “I know, I’m sweating up a storm here. I think I’m coming down with something.”

  “Are you from the fifty-seventh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can catch up with you later in the week for your statement if you like. You must by dying to get home if you’re dayshift.” The Detective reached for his notebook. Before the policeman could ask, Virginia volunteered her details.

  “I’d appreciate that.” Virginia sidestepped closer to the man and the odor of stale black coffee and cigarettes crept over her. “My name’s Beaumont, I’m in car three-twenty-six. I’m back on dayshift tomorrow and nights after that for two.”

  “Okay, thank you ma’am,” Greentree replied, without writing down any of the details. “Talk to you later, we’ve got it from here.”

  Virginia tucked the first medical kits over her shoulder and then picked up the second kit, followed by the biohazard waste bag.

  Detective Greentree stared at her. “Here, let me carry one of those for you. You look totally wrecked. Maybe you should call in sick tomorrow.�
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  She headed toward the door. “It’s all right, I’m fine. I’m used to it.”

  The detective ignored her and removed the larger of the two kits from her shoulder. “It’s all right. I want to head out to the car and make some calls, anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  Greentree gripped the medical kit. “Wow. It feels like it weighs a ton. I can’t believe they make you carry this stuff into each case. What have you got in this thing?”

  She made a thin-lipped smile as he held the front door open for her. “Yeah. You get used to it. It’s meant to all be for emergencies, but half the stuff we almost never use.”

  Virginia walked down the stairs, across the grass-covered lawn, and out to the ambulance. She felt a slight, uncontrollable tremor in her hand as she felt for the keys and unlocked the ambulance. It beeped twice and she slid the side door open.

  She slipped the medical kit into the side compartment and dropped the biohazard waste bag next to the other two.

  Greentree handed her the last medical kit. His eyes peered into the ambulance. She held her breath. It was an involuntary response, and she hoped he wouldn’t spot it.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Greentree leaned into the ambulance, his eyes raking the pile of biohazard bags. “You’ve had a big day by the looks of things.”

  She smiled. “You have no idea.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Detective Eric Greentree looked around the room of the dead boy and then to his partner, Kay Armstrong. It occurred to him that what she lacked in frame, she made up in attitude. Her mousey hair severely gelled back into a tight bun made the thin-lipped, pencil brow features of her face seem marooned in the center. She impatiently rolled her palm up and eyed the patrolmen for him to see.

  Reading her look loud and clear Eric spoke casually to the uniforms, “Ok thanks gentlemen, we’re pretty good here, we’ll catch up with you later if we need anything. “

  The uniformed officer closest to him raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh yeah, no problem, you guys have a great night, we’ll see you at the next one. We’re gonna be here a while anyway, waiting for the body snatchers. Not much to this one. You guys go, while we finish our paperwork.”

  “All right. Thanks. See you around, Kay.”

  “Bye guys. Thanks,” she replied.

  Detective Greentree waited until the general duties police officers’ car disappeared down the street. He then finished searching the apartment.

  When he was certain they were now alone, he turned to Armstrong. “So, where the hell’s our damned money?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Eric Greentree wanted to hit someone. He was normally a well composed man, who bottled up his rage and only used it out of necessity. It was a part of his job. The men who hired him to fix things expected him to be violent, but it was rare for him to lose control. Right now was one of those times. He let himself go, swearing and wrecking what little furniture was still intact.

  He finished swearing.

  Armstrong stared at him. Her hardened face was set with curiosity. It was one of the things he liked about her. She was tough and didn’t give an inch. He’d known men six feet tall and built like Sherman tanks who’d be frightened of him in his current state. Yet, she simply stared at him, her lips slowly curling upward into a wry smile.

  He shook his head, expelling what was left of his rage. “What?”

  She smiled. She’d worked with him long enough to know his whims. “I bet you the paramedic knows something.”

  “Who?”

  “The paramedic. Maybe she spoke to someone or saw something. Did you see her face and her hands?”

  Greentree stopped. “What about them?”

  Sensing an opportunity to impress her boss, Armstrong eased quickly into her theory. “She looked rattled, like something was threatening her. Her face was dripping with sweat, her eyes were darting everywhere, like a frightened child. You could see she was consciously trying to control her breathing and her hands had a fine tremor.”

  “Maybe something about the job got to her?”

  “No. If she’s responding by herself, she’s not new to the job. And any paramedic in New York will tell you they’ve been to a thousand overdoses. Run of the mill jobs. No way a seasoned paramedic would get rattled by it.”

  Detective Greentree thought about that. “She said that she’d started working on the kid. They normally work in teams. Maybe it was more than she was prepared for. Besides, she said she was coming down with something.”

  “That’s the other thing. Why did she start in the first place?”

  “Why did she attempt to resuscitate the kid?” Greentree smiled. “It’s kind of in their job description.”

  “When it’s possible. But you and I both know this kid was murdered hours ago. The paramedic would have taken one glance at him and realized there was no point starting the resuscitation attempt.”

  That hit an important point inside Greentree’s brain. In an instant, he knew Armstrong was right. “Ah, Christ! I didn’t even get her name. She started telling me, but already I was planning how to cover the whole thing up, so I sent her home. She looked wrecked like she’d just worked sixteen hours straight.”

  Armstrong shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Give the Central Fire Station a call. See if they can tell you who was on duty. The paramedic said she was due back on duty tomorrow morning. We’ll have a chat with her then.”

  “You’re right.”

  Greentree stepped outside, lit a cigarette and made the first of the two calls. A few minutes later he flicked his cigarette on the ground and walked back inside.

  He looked at Armstrong. “I phoned the fire station. The night shift duty manager looked up the roster. He said he wasn’t a hundred percent certain who got called back in, but thinks the surname is Mercia.”

  “That’s something, at least.” Armstrong looked up, having finished taking some photos of the scene. It was an easy case, and there was no reason to involve anyone else.

  Her eyebrow cocked with concern. “Did you make the other call?”

  Greentree lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. He’d been trying to quit, but needed something to calm his nerves and at this rate, lung cancer was the least of his worries. “Of course, I did. I didn’t want to. But you don’t put something like this off, do you?”

  Armstrong’s eyes narrowed. “What did he say?”

  “What do you think he said?”

  Armstrong smiled as she removed her blue nitrile gloves and placed them in a plastic waste bag. “So, he said, take care of it?”

  Greentree stubbed his cigarette out. “That’s right. Close all the loose ends and get him his damned money back.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sam ate dinner alone at an exclusive restaurant overlooking the Hudson River. He was at a table for two, but the second chair was conspicuously empty. It was now late and the restaurant was empty. He was the last patron remaining, and the staff had left him alone.

  His cell phone rang, and he raced for it. Tom’s name appeared on the caller ID. He answered it before it had the chance to ring a second time.

  Sam asked, “Did you and Elise find anything about the Meskwaki Gold Spring or Stanford?”

  “No to the first one, and yes to the second,” came Tom’s immediate reply.

  “Tell me.”

  “As far as Elise can find, the Meskwaki Gold Spring is nothing more than a legend.”

  “What about Stanford?”

  “That’s a different story. It turns out Stanford was a nobody in Minnesota until the sinking of the J.F. Johnson. After which, his entire fortune turned around. He became rich overnight, although there was no record of where his good fortune had come from. Most of his money was being funneled through local businesses, but there was no doubt on the local law enforcement agency’s minds that the money was dirty.”

  “From bootlegging?”

  “The
police never found the connection. They once tried to make a circumstantial conviction, but the evidence just wasn’t there. In the end, Stanford had counter-sued the city of Duluth for harassment and won.”

  Sam asked, “What does Elise think happened?”

  “Her guess is that the Meskwaki Gold Spring never referred to Native American gold. Instead, it was a secret code for where, or how, they were transporting illegal contraband into the country. She asked the question, what if Stanford didn’t just get lucky with the sinking of the J.F. Johnson, but instead he caused it.”

  Sam smiled. “You mean Stanford stole the Meskwaki Gold Spring?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s great. But how is that going to get us any closer to finding the Meskwaki Gold Spring?”

  “I have no idea, but we’re certain the wreckage of the J.F. Johnson’s going to hold the clue.”

  “Why?”

  “Elise has checked satellite surveillance of the region over the past six months.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing for most of it. But guess what ship can be seen slowing to an idle directly above the wreckage every night for the past three weeks, before returning the exact same time the next night?”

  “Let me guess, a luxurious motor yacht built by Beneteau called none other than, Superior Deep?”

  “Bingo.”

  “So they’re storing contraband inside the wreckage. The question is, why? I mean, it’s not like its crossing the border. I know the Superior Deep never crosses the international border, because I already checked. So, what are they doing, going to the trouble of making a difficult dive, just to store something illegally?”

  “I don’t know, Sam. But when you get back here, we’re going to find out.” Tom sighed. “On that subject. Did you find the Senator?”

  “No.”

  “I thought Elise tracked him down?”

  “She tracked down the hotel where he was staying, but that’s where everything ran dry. She hacked into their security system and discovered that the Senator left his cell phone in his room.”