Terminal Secret

by Mark Gilleo

“Once again, I don’t think I understand.”

  “I think a person clever enough to orchestrate multiple murders was clever enough to keep his name off a list that could identify him or her. I think they deleted their name from your employee and volunteer list.”

  “I see,” Pepper Hines replied.

  “Take your time. Read the list from the H2O trial. It’s in alphabetical order. Let me know if anyone rings a bell.”

  Dan watched intently as Pepper Hines methodically read the names on the paper. Halfway through the second column of names, Dan could see Pepper’s eyes pause.

  “Do you see someone you recognize?”

  “I do. Richard Porter.”

  “Is he an employee or a volunteer?”

  “He was a volunteer in the past,” Pepper said, sighing loudly. “But currently Mr. Richard Porter is a patient.”

  “A patient?”

  “Yes. He’s receiving home care. In fact, I believe he’s on the schedule for a visit from our staff this evening. It’s my understanding his health has deteriorated rapidly.”

  Chapter 54

  The phone rang in Tobias’s basement and the mad computer programmer touched the earpiece in his right ear to activate the call.

  “Tobias, it’s Dan.”

  “I know. I recognize the number. Back for another query?”

  “Same case, different query. I found the connection between the congressman’s wife, the waitress, the Army vet and the EPA lawyer. They all served on the same jury.”

  “An anonymous jury.”

  “That’s right. You came to that conclusion awfully quick.”

  “It was the only conclusion to reach. I checked everywhere for a connection. It had to be something offline.”

  “It was. They all served on an anonymous jury that let a killer walk free. The case involved a shootout at Club H2O on the Waterfront. Six people were killed.”

  “What do you need?”

  “A complete profile on an individual. Phone numbers. Emails. Bank records. Anything you can get as soon as you can get it.”

  “As if I didn’t have other things to do?”

  “Are you downstairs in your office?”

  “I am.”

  “Is your girlfriend in the house?”

  “She’s out.”

  “You probably have a Dr. Pepper somewhere on the desk, and a bottle of twelve-year-old scotch not too far away.”

  “I might.”

  “Then you have time. And I’m not looking for a freebie. Charge me your hourly rate. I’ll pass it on to my client as an expense.”

  “Dan, I’m not doing hourly work anymore. I’m a salaried employee for a legitimate firm.”

  “And who got you the interview for your new gig?”

  Tobias ran both hands through his hair. “You got me there, Dan. You got me there. What’s the name?”

  “Richard Porter.”

  “What did poor Dick do?”

  “Dick is the father of one of the girls killed at Club H2O. I think he paid to have the jurors from the H2O trial murdered.”

  “Not a very nice man.”

  “I haven’t met him yet, but on paper, killing a dozen people usually doesn’t get you on Santa’s nice list.”

  “What do you want on him first? Phone records are easy. Bank records will take time. Credit cards I can get fairly quickly, particularly if they send their monthly bills to an email account.”

  “Let’s start with everything.”

  “Of course.”

  “I want to know who he’s been talking to. Anyone and everyone. I’m looking for his accomplice.”

  “And you don’t have a name for the accomplice.”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Let me see what I can find out. Are you going to be by your phone?”

  “I will be.”

  “Give me a couple of hours.”

  *

  Dan checked the number on the mailbox and turned down the short tree-lined driveway. As the car reached the edge of the front yard, the one-story home popped into view. In a neighborhood with heated pools and guesthouses, the rambler was the least impressive home on the street.

  From the small circular driveway, Dan could see lights through the windows across the front of the house. Dan concluded his assessment of the home and his eyes focused on the white van parked in the driveway. Lettering for Capital Community Hospice arched across the side of the vehicle.

  “Pepper Hines may be the last honest man in town,” Dan whispered to himself.

  Dan exited his vehicle and moments later pushed his finger against the doorbell. A short woman with a dark complexion, whom Dan surmised to be in her mid-fifties, answered the door. A dishtowel rested on her left shoulder. An apron was folded in half and tied neatly around her waist.

  “Good evening. My name is Dan Lord. I’m here to see Mr. Porter.”

  “Mr. Porter is not available. The nurses are here. He is receiving medical care.”

  “It’s important.”

  “He’s not well.”

  “Is he awake?”

  “Yes. But he’s resting.”

  “May I speak with the nurses?”

  The woman looked pained by the question and her eyebrows furrowed.

  “Please,” Dan added. And this is the last time I’m going to ask nicely.

  “Just a moment,” the woman replied before she vanished into the home.

  Dan listened to a distant, muffled conversation and the woman returned with a large man at her side. Dan noted the man’s attire, physique, and serious demeanor. A white coat draped over the man’s broad shoulders. Purple scrubs ran from the bottom of the coat to the top of the man’s shoes. A nametag identifying the man as Peyton Felton, Nurse, was clipped to the lapel of his white coat.

  “Good evening. My name is Dan Lord and I’m here to see Richard Porter.”

  “I received a call from Mr. Hines. I was told you would be visiting.”

  “Is Mr. Porter incapacitated?”

  “No. He’s conscious, though he is on pain medication.”

  “What kind of cancer does he have?”

  “I can’t divulge that information.”

  “Does it really matter at this point?” Dan asked.

  The nurse looked down at the short housekeeper next to him and she responded to Dan’s question.

  “Mr. Porter had a brain bleed several days ago. He was doing okay until then.”

  “So he has brain cancer?”

  “No,” the housekeeper responded. “He has colon cancer. It has moved to the brain. Now it is bleeding.”

  Dan glanced at the nurse, looking for confirmation of what he had just heard. Nurse Felton nodded his head slightly as if to indicate the housekeeper’s rudimentary explanation was accurate.

  “I would like to speak with him,” Dan said.

  “If you want to speak with Mr. Porter, you should take it up with his lawyer, in the morning. At a more reasonable hour.”

  Dan smiled. “Oh, I assure you this is a reasonable hour. And believe me when I say I’m the most reasonable person who is going to visit Mr. Porter any time soon. An unreasonable visitor would point out the penalty for aiding and abetting a criminal.”

  The nurse again looked down at the housekeeper and then back at Dan. “I don’t think my presence is needed for this conversation,” nurse Peyton replied before disappearing back into the house.

  The housekeeper, left alone at the door with Dan, appeared to become visibly nervous. “I’m not aware that Mr. Porter is a criminal.”

  “He is a suspect in multiple murders, and we believe he was involved in the shooting of a DC police officer earlier this evening.”

  “Mr. Porter has not left the house in several days,” the housekeeper exclaimed. “He hasn’t even been out of bed this evening.”

  “That doesn’t mean he isn’t involved. And now that you’ve been informed he is the suspect in multiple felonies, it’s time for you to make a decision.”

&n
bsp; The housekeeper shed a tear in silence.

  “You can either let me in, or let the legal chips fall where they may,” Dan added.

  *

  Dan stood to the side as the housekeeper held the front door open. Nurse Peyton and another member of the home care division of the hospice ambled outside.

  “We will be back in the morning,” nurse Peyton said to the housekeeper before heading in the direction of the van parked near the garage.

  The housekeeper nodded. “Mr. Porter is waiting for you,” she said to Dan, open door still in her hand. “He is resting comfortably.”

  Not for long, Dan thought as he followed the housekeeper to the threshold of the living room and turned right. At the end of the hall, the housekeeper stopped at the doorway.

  “Please,” she said, motioning towards the open door. Dan stepped into the bedroom and the housekeeper disappeared from view.

  The size of the hospital bed in the room caught Dan momentarily off guard. Richard Porter was in the middle of the large mattress, the incline at forty-five degrees. A large water bottle with a flexible a straw was resting against the railing of the bed. A remote control poked out from the sheet near the man’s left hand. An IV stand was at the side of the bed. A tube from the IV trailed downward, turned at the railing on the bed, and found its way into the veins on the back of the man’s hand. A bedside table was pushed into the corner. A cell phone and a smattering of prescription medication filled most of the available tabletop.

  Richard Porter looked towards the entranceway as Dan’s presence cast a shadow on the wall near the bedroom door.

  “Take off your clothes,” Richard commanded from his position on the bed. Porter’s voice had a slight slur, though Dan had no point of reference to determine whether it was a recent affliction.

  “I’m sorry?” Dan asked, his eyebrows rising. In the hall to his left, the housekeeper reappeared as if by magic and produced a woven laundry basket. Her expression never changed.

  “I don’t think so,” Dan responded.

  “If you want to talk, you will lose your clothes, your phone, your keys, wallet. Your weapon too, if you’re carrying. Everything. Otherwise, you are free to leave,” Richard Porter said calmly and deliberately, one hand inching towards the television remote control on the bed.

  Dan exchanged glances with the man in the bed and the housekeeper in the hall.

  “Fuck it,” he said out loud, reaching for the top button on his shirt. A minute later Dan was down to his underwear. The housekeeper folded each piece of clothing and neatly stacked them in the laundry basket.

  “Underwear, too,” Richard Porter said from the bed and Dan’s mind flashed back to the infamous scene in the movie Deliverance. The housekeeper handed Dan a pair of sweatpants and Dan turned slightly away to exchange his underwear for the athletic wear. Finished changing, Dan raised his hands and twirled. “Satisfied?” Dan asked.

  “It is not about satisfaction,” Richard Porter responded. The man on the bed nodded towards the open door and the housekeeper pulled the knob shut.

  “I was going to apologize for intruding,” Dan said.

  “Well, then I’m glad you weren’t forced to lie. And if it’s all the same to you, we can discard the niceties. In the interest of time, if you will. As you are probably aware, time is something I’m running short of at this juncture…”

  “My name is Dan Lord and…”

  “You are an attorney. And a private detective. I didn’t ask who you were. I want to know why you’re here, standing in my bedroom, threatening my housekeeper.”

  “I think we both know why I’m here.”

  “Humor me. My memory isn’t what it used to be. The cancer has finally reached my brain. It has run the full circuit. From colon to cranium… if you can believe the scans.”

  “Do you?”

  “I didn’t always. I do now.”

  “What’s the prognosis?”

  Richard Porter smiled. “Not good.”

  Dan tried to judge the man’s face, to assess his emotion. He eyed the IV bag and the drip.

  “Pain killer?”

  “Morphine. The good stuff. The headaches have become unbearable.”

  “I was given morphine once. Years ago. It works.”

  “Indeed it does. Now, to the point. How did you find me?” Richard Porter asked, his voice steady but weak. His slur never wavered.

  “It wasn’t easy.”

  “I tried to make it impossible. I obviously didn’t try hard enough.”

  “You didn’t really think you could kill a dozen people without someone eventually taking notice.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “No, you didn’t. You hired someone.”

  “What’s wrong with hiring competent workers? You don’t think Henry Ford built the Model T himself, do you?”

  “I’m not here to discuss automotive history.”

  “What would you like to discuss?”

  “I’m looking for answers to a few questions, and then you’re going to tell me how I can locate the man in the baseball cap and sunglasses.”

  “Don’t waste your energy. I don’t even know his real name.”

  “You may not know his real name, but I’m quite sure you can reach him.”

  Richard Porter succumbed to a coughing fit that sent him rolling onto his side. When he rolled back over, Dan was next to the bed. Richard Porter’s eyes widened as Dan unclipped the morphine line from the IV bag and moved the stand in the direction of the wall.

  “Let’s see how a few moments of clarity can help your mental faculties.”

  “Is it my turn to be threatened?”

  “Not at all. If there’s one thing I’ve learned recently, it’s that the terminally ill don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us. Threats and rewards don’t have the same value.”

  “You have learned the secret of the ill.”

  “And you should know. In more ways than one, you are sick. Very sick. Healthy people don’t murder a dozen innocent people.”

  “The only innocent people in this world are children. That’s it. The rest of us, well, we are all guilty of something.”

  “Not something worth killing over.”

  “Do you have any children, Mr. Lord?”

  “I do not.”

  “Then you don’t know a thing about what’s worth killing over.”

  Dan’s mind turned to the recollection of a New York mobster and a used garrote he no longer owned. “I may not have children, but I know a few things about killing someone who deserves it.”

  Richard Porter moved his head to the side as if to refocus his vision on Dan. “The only way to understand complete loss is to lose your own flesh and blood. Someone you raised from an infant. A person you took care of and worried about every day they were on this earth. Once you understand the depth of that relationship, then you can understand the anger parents feel when the person responsible for that loss walks away without retribution. And for those who allowed the guilty to walk free to continue on with their lives, enriched. Experience those circumstances and then tell me how you feel.”

  Dan nodded and reminded himself… When someone is willing to talk, let them talk…

  “Seven years ago I lost my life. Today, what you see in this bed is just the final inconsequential moments of my lungs taking breath and my heart beating. Life ceased seven years ago in a club on the Waterfront in DC. My daughter went to go dancing with her friends and never came home.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “The losses were many. First, I lost my daughter. Then I lost a year of my life. The year after her death. Twelve months of nothing more than a grainy black-and-white film of my daughter on a constant loop. The sun rose. The sun set. Neither penetrated the walls of this house. I didn’t sleep without medication. When I did sleep with the help of meds, I would dream about my daughter. Her favorite blanket. Her first tennis racket. Her high school prom.”

  Dan sw
allowed hard. “It still doesn’t make it right to kill the innocent.”

  “Don’t interrupt. I’m not finished. If you want to judge me, you’re going to listen.”

  Dan motioned with his hands as if to encourage Richard Porter to continue. As he gestured, he looked down at his own naked torso and the pair of ill-fitting sweatpants.

  “Do you know what percentage of marriages survive the loss of a child?” Richard asked.

  “Ten percent,” Dan guessed.

  “Something in that neighborhood. My wife and I weren’t lucky enough to make the ten percent. By the time the trial began, my wife and I were living apart. My wife moved out. I stayed here. For better or for worse. This is the only house my daughter knew. I didn’t want to leave. I still don’t. But with the death of my daughter, the glue that held us together as a couple was in the ground, riddled with bullet holes. I started drinking. My wife started drinking. The dark year, I call it. And the dark year ended with Tyrone Biggs walking out of the courtroom into the sunshine, free as a bird.”

  “He got what was coming to him.”

  “Eventually someone paid him back. But it was too late for my family and me. A couple of nights after the conclusion of the H2O trial, at the bottom of a particularly expensive bottle of wine, my wife stopped by the house. This house. She wanted to visit her daughter’s room, which we had left untouched. Hell, a toothpaste tube in my daughter’s bedroom was still on the sink. So when my wife wanted in, I let her in. And while I was in the kitchen making more drinks, my wife blew the back of her skull across my daughter’s room.”

  Dan shook his head in silence.

  “It was then I decided everyone would pay. They were all guilty. Tyrone may have killed my daughter, but the jury killed my wife.”

  “So you say.”

  “So I know.”

  “What do you think happened with the jury?” Dan asked. “They had convincing testimony and video evidence as to what occurred in Club H2O.”

  “I know exactly what happened with the jury. They were paid off.”

  “What would make you say that?” Dan asked.

  “Because I paid them off.”

  Chapter 55

  Dan couldn’t conceal the surprise on his face and Richard Porter immediately recognized it.