Cliff Roberts Thriller Box Set

by Cliff Roberts

  “You have a very convincing case, and so what else can I do?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Beals and Williams stopped by April Jennings’ apartment first and found she was less than friendly. They were given Ms. Hunter’s phone number and told to contact her if they wanted to talk with her.

  On their way out of April’s, neither Beals nor Williams noticed the old Ford parked across the parking lot. The police surveillance wasn’t expected to start until later that day, so they weren’t expecting anyone to be watching them.

  Carpelli waited until they had driven away before pulling across the lot and parking outside of April’s building. When he knocked on April’s door he was expecting she would be unfriendly, but when she failed to open the door and simply screamed ‘go away’ through the door, he took it personally. So, based upon her attitude, he decided to change his entire approach.

  Carpelli stepped back a couple of steps from the door and then kicked the door in. He charged into the living room where April was sitting.

  “Shit! Who are you?” April screamed without realizing she had seen this man before. “I’m calling the police!” she yelled as she ran for the bedroom. Carpelli cut her off and pinned her against the wall. It was then she finally recognized him. “What are you doing here?” she inquired.

  “We’ve got some things to talk about,” Carpelli stated as he grabbed her arm and flung her onto the couch.

  “What do you want? I told you everything,” April blurted out as she jumped up looking to run for the kitchen, but Carpelli cut her off yet again.

  “Maybe I’ll tell you something this time and maybe you’ll be smart enough to understand it.”

  “I don’t have to talk with you any more than I have to talk to those assholes from the police department,” April spat and Carpelli slapped April hard across the face.

  April cried out in anguish as she was knocked sideways onto the sofa. Tears immediately began running down her face and a small amount of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

  “Are you ready to pay attention?” Carpelli asked and April nodded though she continued to cry. Carpelli tossed her the box of tissues off the end table and sat down across from her in a recliner.

  “That was a pretty smooth move by your attorney the other day in court. She managed to get the whole case thrown out, but it doesn’t end there. Oh no. You haven’t a clue as to what is happening outside your little world.”

  “Like what?” April asked through her tears. “I mean what can be worse than my sister being killed and someone framing me? You did that didn’t you?”

  “No, April, I didn’t frame you. I didn’t touch the crime scenes. But someone else did. I think it was your brother-in-law, but I haven’t any proof, yet. It is important you know the knife wasn’t tampered with. It appears you did kill Danny Conners.”

  “No, I killed Tyler. It was Tyler who was trying to kill us.”

  “I don’t doubt you, but somehow in your drug-induced hallucination you came across Danny and you killed him thinking he was Tyler. It’s the only thing that makes sense, based on the evidence.”

  “My attorney says none of that evidence can be used against me.”

  “She’s right. It can’t be used against you in a court of law, but the man who hired me doesn’t prosecute people in the courts. He has them killed based on what he considers close enough evidence. If you appear to be involved in whatever has him pissed off at the moment, then you’re dead. That is where you are right now.”

  “What? Why?” April sniveled.

  “You killed his boy. I work for Danny Conners’ father, Anthony Conners, in a roundabout way. He has put a hit out on you through his attorney. So, now is the time you have to make a choice.”

  “A choice? What kind of choice?”

  “Let me repeat what your situation is, one more time. Anthony Conners, a mobster, has deemed that you, Tyler Stone and I are liabilities. He doesn’t like anything or anyone who might possibly connect him to anything that causes the police to look at him too closely. In fact, he doesn’t like what he considers incompetence, even if it is just his imagination.”

  “Were you incompetent?”

  “The fact your attorney used me as the excuse to get you off makes him think so. The only mistake I made, though, was to tell you I thought the apartments looked staged. If I hadn’t said that, you’d be locked away for the next twenty-five to thirty years and I’d have gotten a bonus for finding you so fast. But instead, we are now both in the same boat.”

  “What are we going to do? We can’t go to the police. I don’t want to go to jail. I thought I was killing Tyler. He’s the reason all this is happening. Why aren’t you talking to him?”

  “’Cause you need to get your shit together before I do. Now pay attention. I want you to confess to the charge of murder.”

  “What? No fucking way, I didn’t kill Danny!” April shrieked.

  “April, we already covered that and, yes, you did kill Danny, but there are extenuating circumstances.”

  “What? What does that mean?” April replied.

  “It means you were drugged out of your mind by, you believe, Tyler Stone. Plus, the fact Danny had accidentally left a bunch of papers out on the dining room table dealing with a very large drug shipment his father was having him oversee.

  “In fact, it wasn’t the first time Danny had bragged about being a drug lord and how he was in control of all the drugs coming into this town. When you pressed him about working for his dad, Danny bragged about stealing a million dollars from him, through bogus drug deals. Danny used to joke about how he was safe only as long as his dad didn’t find his secret books—the books where he kept the real records of the deals he did,” Carpelli explained.

  “But I don’t know anything about any real books or fake ones for that matter.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll provide them tomorrow or the next day.”

  “I can’t testify. Wouldn’t Danny’s dad kill me?” April lamented.

  “Believe me,” Carpelli interjected, “you won’t be the only one testifying to the fact Danny was a big time drug dealer and he had been stealing from his father.”

  “But won’t this make Danny’s dad want to kill me even more?”

  “Yes, but he won’t be able to get to you, because you are to instruct your attorney you want witness protection before you’ll actually tell them what you know and where to find the books.”

  “But the police searched my place.”

  “They did and they didn’t. They mostly gave a cursory once over of the living room and kitchen because there was nothing out place in either room. Their focus was the bedroom and all the evidence in there. You’ll claim the papers were in the living room mixed in with…” John looked around the room and was surprised to see a magazine rack, “the magazines in the rack.”

  “Will they believe that?” April asked.

  “The police? No way, but the prosecutor will suck it up, like kittens lapping up milk from a saucer. The city’s DA has grand political plans that’ll override his caution, much as the ADA did with the knife that was used to kill Danny. You can even tell her why you want protection, just don’t mention my name. I’ll be seeing the police on my own soon enough.”

  “So, when do I do this?” April asked.

  “Call your attorney right away. Tell her you had just received a call from some unidentified person who told you all about the death threats. Let her know I will be calling to arrange for the incriminating evidence to be dropped off at her office.”

  “But what if the DA isn’t interested in getting Danny’s father?” April asked.

  “Believe me, the DA wants Danny’s dad in a big way. If he can convict Danny’s dad, it’s all over. He’ll be the next governor, which is what he wants.”

  “But what’s going to stop the people Danny’s dad is sending from killing me?” April asked.

  “They won’t stop, not as long as you’re alive. But you’
ll have a new name, a new city to live in and a job that pays real well. Nothing that was April Jennings will be traceable back to you in your new life. The government has several thousand people all over the country in the program. They are just fine as long as they don’t try and go back to their old lives.”

  “I don’t know if I can do this. I like my life,” April whimpered.

  “Okay, then don’t do what I told you to. I won’t attend the funeral. I hope you understand why,” Carpelli stated, stood and walked out of the apartment. “Better call your attorney first and the police second. Then call your super to come and fix this door,” Carpelli yelled over his shoulder as he headed down the hallway to the stairs.

  April called her attorney as instructed and told her the whole story of how the man she knew as Harcorte had broken down her door. She also told her the whole story Harcorte had laid out, and how she didn’t have a choice but to go along or she was dead. Ms. Hunter told April to wait ten minutes and then call the police to report a home invasion. April was to wait until she arrived to speak with the police about anything and she’d take it from there.

  The surveillance team arrived as an old Ford and two other cars left the complex. Neither officer took down any license plates or paid too much attention to them. They had just decided on a parking space and got settled in nicely when over the radio they heard a radio call go out about an attempted10-15 at the Elmhurst Apartments and gave the surveillance subject’s address.

  They quickly called dispatch and double checked the address explaining they were at the scene and there didn’t appear to be anything happening. But after checking it out, they found her door kicked in and April sitting on the couch holding an ice cube wrapped in a wash rag to her mouth.

  April refused to tell the officers who responded anything other than a guy kicked in her door and slapped her. She wouldn’t say if the man said anything or threatened her, nothing. She was waiting for her attorney to arrive. She’d only share with her attorney what she was told by the man, if anything.

  Beals and Williams raced back across town from staking out Tyler Stones’ workplace. They had intended to follow him home, where they would question him some more in an effort to discover if he was as innocent as he seemed. They hoped, under pressure, he would accidentally screw up and tell them a different story.

  The assault on April took precedence over the stakeout though. So they abandoned the stakeout and went to April’s. This was good news to Carpelli, because he was looking to do the same thing as Beals and Williams, only he wasn’t going to be verbally abusive. He intended to beat the crap out of Stone until he talked.

  When Beals and Williams arrived at April’s apartment, they found the two officers who were there as the surveillance detail, plus April and her attorney, Ms. Hunter.

  “Are you surprised to see Ms. Hunter? I’m not surprised,” Williams stated as he and Beals entered the apartment. “Oh wait, don’t tell me, Danny Connors’ real murderer broke in and tried to kill you?”

  “Yes, my client was attacked but not by Danny Conners’ killer. He was one of his father’s henchmen,” Ms. Hunter stated.

  “How does Miss Jennings know he worked for Anthony Conners?” Detective Beals asked.

  “He as much as told her so,” Ms. Hunter stated.

  “What did he do, give her hints and she guessed? What did he say?” Detective Williams curtly inquired.

  “Save your breath and the sarcasm, Detectives. We’ll only talk to the DA, Darrell Thompson,” Ms. Hunter replied.

  Beals and Williams exchanged pained looks and Williams ushered the other two officers out of the apartment, sending them back to their surveillance car. When he stepped back into the living area, Beals started in on Ms. Hunter.

  “Counselor, I just can’t call the DA and tell him to check his schedule, you want him to meet with you. I have to be able to give him some reason why,” he stated.

  “My client wasn’t completely forthcoming when she was under arrest. She held back information at my instruction that was in her best interest not to reveal. If you had asked, we may have shared what we knew but you never asked,” Ms. Hunter stated.

  “Asked about what? Danny and his old man?” Williams shouted.

  “To start with, yes. That is one area you gentlemen failed to investigate. Didn’t it seem strange to you that Anthony Conners wasn’t all that concerned about what happened to his son?” Ms. Hunter asked.

  “So now you’re going to say Anthony Conners had his son whacked?” Beals asked.

  “We aren’t saying anything of the sort. That will be your jobs to discover. But our information has something to do with Anthony Conners and his relationship with his missing son,” Ms. Hunter replied.

  “I don’t understand how this relates to the charges against your client,” Beals stated.

  “Perhaps, if you ask nicely, the DA will let you listen in,” Ms. Hunter stated.

  “So, when would you like to meet with the DA?” Beals asked.

  “Tell him we would like to meet with him the day after tomorrow at two o’clock p.m. at his office. Until then, Miss Jennings and I will be going into hiding. So, if your surveillance team should happen to follow us, make sure they are heavily armed and ready for anything.”

  John Carpelli watched from a distance as Counselor Hunter and April Jennings drove off in the Counselor’s car with the police surveillance team turned protection detail following close behind. Carpelli trailed Detectives Beals and Williams back to the station making sure they were calling it a day, which he was sure was probably their first night off since they caught the call regarding Jennings’ accident. Carpelli then drove to Tyler Stone’s house. He parked his car at the 7-Eleven and walked the rest of the way.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Arriving at the house, he looked around the yard and the house’s exterior for anything out of place. He was impressed by the condition of the yard. There wasn’t a blade of grass out of place. The garden, though, was starting to show it was being neglected. He stood looking at it for several minutes amazed at how well the flowers were doing despite the weeds that were beginning to creep in from all sides. He had to admit it looked quite good, despite no one having attended to it in months.

  He paid the soil in the garden special attention, but couldn’t see any difference between one part of the garden and another, either in its color or the number of weeds. In fact, it was perfectly the same all over, too perfect in his mind.

  He seriously doubted Mrs. Stone had been back to work on the garden since she left the house and she certainly hadn’t been back in the last month or so, leaving him to conclude that it had been used as a burial plot for Mrs. Stone and her lover.

  He next tried the side door to the garage and discovered it was open. Stepping inside he found the majority of the space filled up by an old Chevy Nova. Its body looked in rough shape. The workbench caught his attention because it was so tidy with all the tools hung neatly on peg boards—one on each side of the window overlooking the garden—or tucked away in one of several drawers. He took several minutes to check out the drawers and look over the gardening tools. The tools appeared to be well maintained, though they looked used which would be expected with a garden like the one outside. Nothing jumped out at him from Mr. Stone’s work bench, the work bench drawers or the gardening tools. It was a neat and tidy garage, exactly what you’d expect from a man like Mr. Stone, highly educated and in a white collar job.

  As he turned to leave, he noticed there was something tucked in the space between two, two-by-fours at the edge of the work bench. It looked like the edge of a couple pieces of paper. He stopped and worked them out of the space so as not to rip them, then gently unfolded them. They turned out to be pictures of the garden. The quality was quite good for being the type of picture you printed off someone’s computer.

  All together there were four photos, one from a distance and three from different angles. The soil in the pictures wasn’t as well tilled as it wa
s today, but there were far fewer weeds. He went outside and compared them to the real garden, they matched perfectly. Everything was in exactly the same place as in the pictures.

  His old police gut was telling him the garden was a factor in this disappearance case. He stuck the photos in his pocket, checked his watch and headed for the house. It was strange how, now that his wife was gone, Tyler Stone wasn’t working quite as many hours as he had been. Lately he’d been arriving home by seven p.m. and it was currently ten minutes to.

  Carpelli jimmied the locked on the back door and once inside relocked it. He then found his way to Tyler’s computer in the master bedroom on the second floor and started looking for pictures of the garden. It was strange that the police hadn’t taken the computer to allow the techs to go over it with a fine tooth comb. Perhaps, since it wasn’t password protected or encrypted in any way, they had sampled the programs, checked the hard drive for the wiped programs and decide it wasn’t of any crucial interest. He found the same photos as the ones in the garage quite easily.

  With a little more snooping around, he found the time and date stamp. Then it all came together for him. They were dated the day before Mrs. Stone and Danny Conners’ disappeared. The time information indicated they were taken at eight thirty in the morning.

  Carpelli’s gut was telling him Tyler Stone killed his wife and tried to kill April Jennings. April only received a minute amount of the poison and had accidentally killed Danny while suffering from a drug-induced hallucination. Tyler then buried the two bodies in the garden. He had taken pictures of the garden beforehand to be sure it went back in place exactly as it had been before.

  But how had he known April would kill Danny Conners? Had he meant to kill April, too, and somehow missed the mark? Had all three of them come here to get Mrs. Stone’s things? That had to be it. Tyler, seeing he had no choice but to let her get her stuff and tear out his heart, planned to kill them. How long had he known they were coming to get her stuff? A day or two?